(Leipsic, 1903) pp. 106 _sq._ The authority quoted for the sacrifice
is Tiede, _Merkwürdigkeiten Schlesiens_ (1804), pp. 123 _sq._ It is
not expressly said, but we may assume, that the sacrifice was offered
on St. George’s Day.
Footnote 1086:
A. Birlinger, _Aus Schwaben_ (Wiesbaden, 1874), ii. 166. Compare
_id._, _Volksthümliches aus Schwaben_, ii. 21 n. 1.
Footnote 1087:
E. H. Meyer, _Badisches Volksleben im neunzehnten Jahrhundert_
(Strasburg, 1900), pp. 219, 408.
Footnote 1088:
J. Haltrich, _Zur Volkskunde der Siebenbürger Sachsen_ (Vienna, 1885),
p. 281.
Footnote 1089:
W. Schmidt, _Das Jahr und seine Tage in Meinung und Brauch der Romänen
Siebenbürgens_ (Hermannstadt, 1866), pp. 9, 11. Compare R. F. Kaindl,
“Zur Volkskunde der Rumänen in der Bukowina,” _Globus_, xcii. (1907)
p. 284. It does not appear whether the shepherd’s pouch
(“_Hirtentaschen_”) in question is the real pouch or the plant of that
name.
Footnote 1090:
A. und A. Schott, _Walachische Maehrchen_ (Stuttgart and Tübingen,
1845), pp. 299 _sq._
Footnote 1091:
A. Strausz, _Die Bulgaren_ (Leipsic, 1898), p. 287.
Footnote 1092:
A. Strausz, _op. cit._ p. 337.
Footnote 1093:
W. R. S. Ralston, _Songs of the Russian People_, p. 230.
Footnote 1094:
Above, pp. 126 _sq._
Footnote 1095:
F. S. Krauss, _Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der Südslaven_, pp.
125-127; _id._, _Kroatien und Slavonien_ (Vienna, 1889), pp. 105 _sq._
Footnote 1096:
W. J. A. Tettau und J. D. H. Temme, _Die Volkssagen Ostpreussens,
Litthauens und Westpreussens_ (Berlin, 1837), p. 263.
Footnote 1097:
L. Lloyd, _Peasant Life in Sweden_, pp. 246-251; A. Kuhn, _Herabkunft
des Feuers_, 2nd Ed., pp. 163 _sq._
Footnote 1098:
See above, pp. 75 _sq._
Footnote 1099:
W. R. S. Ralston, _Russian Folk-tales_, p. 345.
Footnote 1100:
Marie Andree-Eysn, _Volkskundliches aus dem bayrisch-österreichischen
Alpengebiet_ (Brunswick, 1910), pp. 180-182.
Footnote 1101:
E. H. Meyer, _Badisches Volksleben im neunzehnten Jahrhundert_
(Strasburg, 1900), p. 423; K. Freiherr von Leoprechting, _Aus dem
Lechrain_ (Munich, 1855), p. 168.
Footnote 1102:
See above, pp. 56 _sq._
Footnote 1103:
A. Strausz, _Die Bulgaren_, pp. 337, 385 _sq._ There seems to be a
special connexion between St. George and serpents. In Bohemia and
Moravia it is thought that up to the twenty-third of April serpents
are innocuous, and only get their poison on the saint’s day. See J. V.
Grohmann, _Aberglauben und Gebräuche aus Böhmen und Mähren_, §§ 326,
580, pp. 51, 81; W. Müller, _Beiträge zur Volkskunde der Deutschen in
Mähren_, p. 323. Various other charms are effected by means of
serpents on this day. Thus if you tear out the tongue of a live snake
on St. George’s Day, put it in a ball of wax, and lay the ball under
your tongue, you will be able to talk down anybody. See J. V.
Grohmann, _op. cit._, §§ 576, 1169, pp. 81, 166.
Footnote 1104:
J. V. Grohmann, _op. cit._ § 1463, p. 210.
Footnote 1105:
F. S. Krauss, _Sitte und Brauch der Südslaven_, p. 175.
Footnote 1106:
F. S. Krauss, _op. cit._ pp. 175 _sq._
Footnote 1107:
Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalender aus Böhmen_, pp. 194 _sq._; J.
V. Grohmann, _op. cit._, § 554, p. 77.
Footnote 1108:
S. J. Curtiss, _Primitive Semitic Religion To-day_, pp. 83 _sq._, 118
_sq._
Footnote 1109:
S. Baring-Gould, _Curious Myths of the Middle Ages_, pp. 278 _sqq._
The authority for this identification is the nominal translator, but
real author, of the work called _The Agriculture of the Nabataeans_.
See D. A. Chwolson, _Über Tammuz und die Menschenverehrung bei den
alten Babyloniern_ (St. Petersburg, 1860), pp. 56 _sq._ Although _The
Agriculture of the Nabataeans_ appears to be a forgery (see above, p.
100, note 2), the identification of the oriental St. George with
Tammuz may nevertheless be correct.
Footnote 1110:
J. Maeletius (Menecius), “De sacrificiis et idolatria veterum
Borussorum Livonum aliarumque vicinarum gentium,” _Mitteilungen der
Litterarischen Gesellschaft Masovia_, Heft 8 (Lötzen, 1902), pp. 185,
187, 200 _sq._; _id._ in _Scriptores rerum Livonicarum_, ii. (Riga and
Leipsic, 1848), pp. 389, 390; J. Lasicius, “De diis Samagitarum
caeterorumque Sarmatarum,” ed. W. Mannhardt, in _Magazin herausgegeben
von der Lettisch-literärischen Gesellschaft_, xiv. (1868) pp. 95 _sq._
The first form of the prayer to Pergrubius is from the Latin, the
second from the German, version of Maeletius’s (Jan Malecki’s) work.
The description of Pergrubius as “he who makes leaves and grass to
grow” (“_der lest wachssen laub unnd gras_”) is also from the German.
According to M. Praetorius, Pergrubius was a god of husbandry
(_Deliciae Prussicae_, Berlin, 1871, p. 25).
CHAPTER XX
THE WORSHIP OF THE OAK
§ 1. The Diffusion of the Oak in Europe
[Sidenote: The Latin kings represented Jupiter, the god of the oak, the
sky, the thunder, and the rain.] In a preceding chapter some reasons
were given for thinking that the early Latin kings posed as living
representatives of Jupiter, the god of the oak, the sky, the rain, and
the thunder, and that in this capacity they attempted to exercise the
fertilising functions which were ascribed to the god. The probability of
this view will be strengthened if it can be proved that the same god was
worshipped under other names by other branches of the Aryan stock in
Europe, and that the Latin kings were not alone in arrogating to
themselves his powers and attributes. In this chapter I propose briefly
to put together a few of the principal facts which point to this
conclusion.
[Sidenote: Why should the god of the oak be also the god of the sky, the
thunder, and the rain?] But at the outset a difficulty presents itself.
To us the oak, the sky, the rain, and the thunder appear things totally
distinct from each other. How did our forefathers come to group them
together and imagine them as attributes of one and the same god? A
connexion may be seen between the sky, the rain, and the thunder; but
what has any of them to do with the oak? Yet one of these apparently
disparate elements was probably the original nucleus round which in time
the others gathered and crystallised into the composite conception of
Jupiter. Accordingly we must ask, Which of them was the original centre
of attraction? If men started with the idea of an oak-god, how came they
to enlarge his kingdom by annexing to it the province of the sky, the
rain, and the thunder? If, on the other hand, they set out with the
notion of a god of the sky, the rain, and the thunder, or any one of
them, why should they have added the oak to his attributes? The oak is
terrestrial; the sky, the thunder, and the rain are celestial or aerial.
What is the bridge between the two?
[Sidenote: In the composite character of Jupiter the oak is probably
primary, the sky, the rain, and the thunder secondary and derivative.]
In the sequel I shall endeavour to shew that on the principle of
primitive thought the evolution of a sky-god from an oak-god is more
easily conceivable than the converse; and if I succeed, it becomes
probable that in the composite character of Jupiter the oak is primary
and original, the sky, the rain, and the thunder secondary and
derivative.
[Sidenote: Europe covered with vast oak forests in prehistoric times.]
We have seen that long before the dawn of history Europe was covered
with vast primaeval woods, which must have exercised a profound
influence on the thought as well as on the life of our rude ancestors
who dwelt dispersed under the gloomy shadow or in the open glades and
clearings of the forest.[1111] Now, of all the trees which composed
these woods the oak appears to have been both the commonest and the most
useful. The proof of this is drawn partly from the statements of
classical writers, partly from the remains of ancient villages built on
piles in lakes and marshes, and partly from the oak forests which have
been found embedded in peat-bogs.
[Sidenote: Remains of oak forests found in peat-bogs.] These bogs, which
attain their greatest development in Northern Europe, but are met with
also in the central and southern parts of the Continent, have preserved
as in a museum the trees and plants which sprang up and flourished after
the end of the glacial epoch. Thus in Scotland the peat, which occupies
wide areas both in the highlands and lowlands, almost everywhere covers
the remains of forests, among which the commoner trees are pine, oak,
and birch. The oaks are of great size, and are found at heights above
the sea such as the tree would not now naturally attain to. Equally
remarkable for their size are the pines, but though they also had a
wider distribution than at present, they appear not to have formed any
extensive forests at the lowest levels of the country. Still, remains of
them have been dug up in many lowland peat-mosses, where the bulk of the
buried timber is oak.[1112] When Hatfield Moss in Yorkshire was drained,
there were found in it trunks of oak a hundred feet long and as black as
ebony. One giant actually measured a hundred and twenty feet in length,
with a diameter of twelve feet at the root and six feet at the top. No
such tree now exists in Europe.[1113] Sunken forests and peat occur at
many places on the coasts of England, especially on low shelving shores
where the land falls away with a gentle slope to the sea. These
submerged areas were once mud flats which, as the sea retreated from
them, gradually became clothed with dense forests, chiefly of oak and
Scotch fir, though ash, yew, alder, and other trees sooner or later
mingled with them.[1114] The great peat-bogs of Ireland shew that there
was a time when vast woods of oak and yew covered the country, the oak
growing on the hills up to a height of four hundred feet or thereabout
above the sea, while at higher levels deal was the prevailing timber.
Human relics have often been discovered in these Irish bogs, and ancient
roadways made of oak have also come to light.[1115] In the peat-bog near
Abbeville, in the valley of the Somme, trunks of oak have been dug up
fourteen feet thick, a diameter rarely met with outside the tropics in
the old Continent.[1116]
[Sidenote: Former oak woods of Denmark and Scandinavia.] At present the
woods of Denmark consist for the most part of magnificent beeches, which
flourish here as luxuriantly as anywhere in the world. Oaks are much
rarer and appear to be on the decline. Yet the evidence of the peat-bogs
proves that before the advent of the beech the country was overspread
with dense forests of tall and stately oaks. It was during the
ascendency of the oak in the woods that bronze seems to have become
known in Denmark; for swords and shields of that metal, now in the
museum of Copenhagen, have been taken out of peat in which oaks abound.
Yet at a still earlier period the oak had been preceded by the pine or
Scotch fir in the Danish forests; and the discovery of neolithic
implements in the peat-bogs shews that savages of the Stone Age had
their homes in these old pine woods as well as in the later forests of
oak. Some antiquaries are of opinion that the Iron Age in Denmark began
with the coming of the beech, but of this there is no evidence; for
aught we know to the contrary the beautiful beech forests may date back
to the Age of Bronze.[1117] The peat-bogs of Norway abound in buried
timber; and in many of them the trees occur in two distinct layers. The
lower of these layers consists chiefly of oak, hazel, ash, and other
deciduous trees; the upper is composed of Scotch firs and birches. In
the bogs of Sweden also the oak forests underlie the pine forests.[1118]
However, it appears to be doubtful whether Scandinavia was inhabited in
the age of the oak woods. Neolithic tools have indeed been found in the
peat, but generally not deeper down than two feet or so; hence one
antiquary infers that in these bogs not more than two feet of peat has
formed within historical times.[1119] But negative evidence on such a
point goes for little, as only a small portion of the bogs can have been
explored.
[Sidenote: The ancient lake dwellings of Europe were built to a great
extent on oaken piles.] Unequivocal proof of the prevalence of the oak
and its usefulness to man in early times is furnished by the remains of
the pile villages which have been discovered in many of the lakes of
Europe. In the British Islands the piles and the platforms on which
these crannogs or lake dwellings rested appear to have been generally of
oak, though fir, birch, and other trees were sometimes used in their
construction. Speaking of the Irish and Scotch crannogs a learned
antiquary remarks: “Every variety of structure observed in the one
country is to be found in the other, from the purely artificial island,
framed of oak-beams, mortised together, to the natural island,
artificially fortified or enlarged by girdles of oak-piles or ramparts
of loose stones.”[1120] Canoes hollowed out of trunks of oak have been
found both in the Scotch and in the Irish crannogs.[1121] In the lake
dwellings of Switzerland and Central Europe the piles are very often of
oak, but by no means as uniformly so as in the British Islands; fir,
birch, alder, ash, elm, and other timber were also employed for the
purpose.[1122] That the inhabitants of these villages subsisted partly
on the produce [Sidenote: The inhabitants of the lake dwellings
subsisted partly on acorns.] of the oak, even after they had adopted
agriculture, is proved by the acorns which have been found in their
dwellings along with wheat, barley, and millet, as well as beech-nuts,
hazel-nuts, and the remains of chestnuts and cherries.[1123] In the
valley of the Po the framework of logs and planks which supports the
prehistoric villages is most commonly of elm wood, but evergreen oak and
chestnut were also used; and the abundance of oaks is attested by the
great quantities of acorns which were dug up in these settlements. As
the acorns were sometimes found stored in earthenware vessels, it
appears that they were eaten by the people as well as by their
pigs.[1124]
[Sidenote: Evidence of classical writers as to the oak forests of
Europe.] The evidence of classical writers proves that great oak forests
still existed down to their time in various parts of Europe. Thus the
Veneti on the Atlantic coast of Brittany made their flat-bottomed boats
out of oak timber, of which, we are told, there was abundance in their
country.[1125] Pliny informs us that, while the whole of Germany was
covered with cool and shady woods, the loftiest trees were to be seen
not far from the country of the Chauci, who inhabited the coast of the
North Sea. Among these giants of the forest he speaks especially of the
oaks which grew on the banks of two lakes. When the waves had undermined
their roots, the oaks are said to have torn away great portions of the
bank and floated like islands on the lakes.[1126] The same [Sidenote:
The oak woods of Germany.] writer speaks of the vast Hercynian wood of
Germany as an oak forest, old as the world, untouched for ages, and
passing wonderful in its immortality. So huge were the trees, he says,
that when their roots met they were forced up above ground in the shape
of arches, through which a troop of horse could ride as through an open
gate.[1127] His testimony as to the kind of trees which composed this
famous forest is confirmed by its name, which seems to mean no more than
“oak wood.”[1128] In the second century before our era oak forests were
still so common in the valley of the Po that the herds of swine which
browsed on the acorns sufficed to [Sidenote: The oak woods of ancient
Italy and Greece.] supply the greater part of the demand for pork
throughout Italy, although nowhere in the world, according to Polybius,
were more pigs butchered to feed the gods, the people, and the
army.[1129] Elsewhere the same historian describes the immense herds of
swine which roamed the Italian oak forests, especially on the coasts of
Tuscany and Lombardy. In order to sort out the different droves when
they mingled with each other in the woods, each swineherd carried a
horn, and when he wound a blast on it all his own pigs came trooping to
him with such vehemence that nothing could stop them; for all the herds
knew the note of their own horn. In the oak forests of Greece this
device was unknown, and the swineherds there had harder work to come by
their own when the beasts had strayed far in the woods, as they were apt
to do in autumn while the acorns were falling.[1130] Down to the
beginning of our era oak woods were interspersed among the olive groves
and vineyards of the Sabine country in central Italy.[1131] Among the
beautiful woods which clothed the Heraean mountains in Sicily the oaks
were particularly remarked for their stately growth and the great size
of their acorns.[1132] In the second century after Christ the oak
forests of Arcadia still harboured wild boars, bears, and huge tortoises
in their dark recesses.[1133]
[Sidenote: The oak still the chief forest tree of Europe.] Even now the
predominance of the oak as the principal forest tree of Europe has
hardly passed away. Thus we are told that among the leaf-bearing trees
of Greece, as opposed to the conifers, the oak still plays by far the
most important part in regard both to the number of the individuals and
the number of the species.[1134] And the British oak in particular
(_Quercus robur_) is yet the prevailing tree in most of the woods of
France, Germany, and southern Russia, while in England the coppice and
the few fragments of natural forest still left are mainly composed of
this species.[1135]
[Sidenote: In Europe acorns have been used as human food both in ancient
and modern times.] Thus the old classical tradition that men lived upon
acorns before they learned to till the ground[1136] may very well be
founded on fact. Indeed acorns were still an article of diet in some
parts of southern Europe within historical times. Speaking of the
prosperity of the righteous, Hesiod declares that for them the earth
bears much substance, and the oak on the mountains puts forth
acorns.[1137] The Arcadians in their oak-forests were proverbial for
eating acorns,[1138] but not the acorns of all oaks, only those of a
particular sort.[1139] Pliny tells us that in his day acorns still
constituted the wealth of many nations, and that in time of dearth they
were ground and baked into bread.[1140] According to Strabo, the
mountaineers of Spain subsisted on acorn bread for two-thirds of the
year;[1141] and in that country acorns were served up as a second course
even at the meals of the well-to-do.[1142] In the same regions the same
practice [Sidenote: Acorns as food in modern Europe.] has survived to
modern times. The commonest and finest oak of modern Greece is the
_Quercus Aegilops_, with a beautiful crown of leaves, and the peasants
eat its acorns both roasted and raw.[1143] The sweeter acorns of the
_Quercus Ballota_ also serve them as food, especially in Arcadia.[1144]
In Spain people eat the acorns of the evergreen oak (_Quercus Ilex_),
which are known as _bellotas_, and are said to be much larger and more
succulent than the produce of the British oak. The duchess in _Don
Quixote_ writes to Sancho’s wife to send her some of them. But oaks are
now few and far between in La Mancha.[1145] Even in England and France
acorns have been boiled and eaten by the poor as a substitute for bread
in time of dearth.[1146] And naturally the use of acorns as food for
swine has also lasted into modern times. It is on acorns that those hogs
are fattened in Estremadura which make the famous Montanches hams.[1147]
Large herds of swine in all the great oak woods of Germany depend on
acorns for their autumn subsistence; and in the remaining royal forests
of England the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages still claim
their ancient right of _pannage_, turning their hogs into the woods in
October and November.[1148]
§ 2. The Aryan God of the Oak and the Thunder[1149]
[Sidenote: The many benefits received by the ancient Aryans from the oak
naturally led them to worship the tree.] Thus we may conclude that the
primitive Aryans of Europe lived among oak woods, used oak sticks for
the lighting of their fires, and oak timber for the construction of
their villages, their roads, their canoes, fed their swine on acorns,
and themselves subsisted in part on the same simple diet. No wonder,
then, if the tree from which they received so many benefits should play
an important part in their religion, and should be invested with a
sacred character. We have seen that the worship of trees has been
world-wide, and that, beginning with a simple reverence and dread of the
tree as itself animated by a powerful spirit, it has [Sidenote: The
worship of the tree itself gradually grew into a worship of the god of
the tree, but no sharp line of distinction can be drawn between the
two.] gradually grown into a cult of tree gods and tree goddesses, who
with the advance of thought become more and more detached from their old
home in the trees, and assume the character of sylvan deities and powers
of fertility in general, to whom the husbandman looks not merely for the
prosperity of his crops, but for the fecundity of his cattle and his
women. Where this evolution has taken place it has necessarily been slow
and long. Though it is convenient to distinguish in theory between the
worship of trees and the worship of gods of the trees, it is impossible
to draw a hard and fast line between them in practice, and to say, “Here
the one begins and the other ends.” Such distinctions, however useful
they may be as heads of classification to the student, evade in general
the duller wit of the tree worshipper. We cannot therefore hope to lay
our finger on that precise point in the history of the Aryans when they
ceased to worship the oak for its own sake, and began to worship a god
of the oak. That point, if it were ideally possible to mark it, had
doubtless been left far behind them by the more intelligent, at least,
of our forefathers before they emerged into the light of history. We
must be content for the most part to find among them gods of whom the
oak was an attribute or sacred adjunct rather than the essence. If we
wish to find the original worship of the tree itself we must go for it
to the ignorant peasantry of to-day, not to the enlightened writers of
antiquity. Further, it is to be borne in mind that while all oaks were
probably the object of superstitious awe, so that the felling of any of
them for timber or firewood would be attended with ceremonies designed
to appease the injured spirit of the tree,[1150] only certain particular
groves or individual oaks would in general receive that measure of
homage which we should term worship. The reasons which led men to
venerate some trees more than others might be various. Amongst them the
venerable age and imposing size of a giant oak would naturally count for
much. And any other striking peculiarity which marked a tree off from
its fellows would be apt to attract the attention, and to concentrate on
itself the vague superstitious awe of the savage. We know, for example,
that with the Druids the growth of mistletoe on an oak was a sign that
the tree was especially sacred; and the rarity of this feature—for
mistletoe does not commonly grow on oaks—would enhance the sanctity and
mystery of the tree. For it is the strange, the wonderful, the rare, not
the familiar and commonplace, which excites the religious emotions of
mankind.
[Sidenote: The worship of the oak tree or of the oak god seems to have
been common to all the Aryans of Europe.] The worship of the oak tree or
of the oak god appears to have been shared by all the branches of the
Aryan stock in Europe. Both Greeks and Italians associated the tree
[Sidenote: Worship of the oak in Greece; its association with Zeus.]
with their highest god, Zeus or Jupiter, the divinity of the sky, the
rain, and the thunder.[1151] Perhaps the oldest and certainly one of the
most famous sanctuaries in Greece was that of Dodona, where Zeus was
revered in the oracular oak.[1152] The thunder-storms which are said to
rage at Dodona more frequently than anywhere else in Europe,[1153] would
render the spot a fitting home for the god whose voice was heard alike
in the rustling of the oak leaves and in the crash of thunder. Perhaps
the bronze gongs which kept up a humming in the wind round the
sanctuary[1154] were meant to mimick the thunder that might so often be
heard rolling and rumbling in the coombs of the stern and barren
mountains which shut in the gloomy valley.[1155] In Boeotia, as we have
seen, the sacred marriage of Zeus and Hera, the oak god and the oak
goddess, was celebrated with much pomp by a religious federation of
states.[1156] And on Mount Lycaeus in Arcadia the character of Zeus as
god both of the oak and of the rain comes out clearly in the rain charm
practised by the priest of Zeus, who dipped an oak branch in a sacred
spring.[1157]
[Sidenote: Zeus as the rain god of the Greeks.] In his latter capacity
Zeus was the god to whom the Greeks regularly prayed for rain. Nothing
could be more natural; for often, though not always, he had his seat on
the mountains where the clouds gather and the oaks grow. On the
acropolis at Athens there was an image of Earth praying to Zeus for
rain.[1158] And in time of drought the Athenians themselves prayed,
“Rain, rain, O dear Zeus, on the cornland of the Athenians and on the
plains.”[1159] The mountains which lay round their city, and to which
they looked through the clear Attic air for signs of the weather, were
associated by them with the worship of the weather-god Zeus. It was a
sign of rain when, away to sea, a cloud rested on the sharp peak of
Aegina, which cuts the sky-line like a blue horn.[1160] On this far-seen
peak Panhellenian Zeus was worshipped,[1161] and legend ran that once,
when all Greece was parched with drought, envoys assembled in Aegina
from every quarter and entreated Aeacus, the king of the island, that he
would intercede with his father Zeus for rain. The king complied with
the request, and by sacrifices and prayers wrung the needed showers from
his sire the sky-god.[1162]
[Sidenote: Zeus as the god of fertility.] Again, it was a sign of rain
at Athens when clouds in summer lay on the top or the sides of
Hymettus,[1163] the chain of barren mountains which bounds the Attic
plain on the east, facing the westering sun and catching from his last
beams a solemn glow of purple light. If during a storm a long bank of
clouds was seen lowering on the mountain, it meant that the storm would
increase in fury.[1164] Hence an altar of Showery Zeus stood on
Hymettus.[1165] Again, omens of weather were drawn when lightning
flashed or clouds hung on the top of Mount Parnes to the north of
Athens;[1166] and there accordingly an altar was set up to sign-giving
Zeus.[1167] The climate of eastern Argolis is dry, and the rugged
mountains are little better than a stony waterless wilderness. On one of
them, named Mount Arachnaeus, or the Spider Mountain, stood altars of
Zeus and Hera, and when rain was wanted the people sacrificed there to
the god and goddess.[1168] On the ridge of Mount Tmolus, near Sardes,
there was a spot called the Birthplace of Rainy Zeus,[1169] probably
because clouds resting on it were observed to presage rain. The members
of a religious society in the island of Cos used to go in procession and
offer sacrifices on an altar of Rainy Zeus, when the thirsty land stood
in need of refreshing showers.[1170] Thus conceived as the source of
fertility, it was not unnatural that Zeus should receive the title of
the Fruitful One,[1171] and that at Athens he should be worshipped under
the surname of the Husbandman.[1172]
[Sidenote: Zeus as the god of thunder and lightning.] Again, Zeus
wielded the thunder and lightning as well as the rain.[1173] At Olympia
and elsewhere he was worshipped under the surname of Thunderbolt;[1174]
and at Athens there was a sacrificial hearth of Lightning Zeus on the
city wall, where some priestly officials watched for lightning over
Mount Parnes at certain seasons of the year.[1175] Further, spots which
had been struck by lightning were regularly fenced in by the Greeks and
consecrated to Zeus the Descender, that is, to the god who came down in
the flash from heaven. Altars were set up within these enclosures and
sacrifices offered on them. Several such places are known from
inscriptions to have existed in Athens.[1176]
[Sidenote: The Greek kings personified Zeus, as the Italian kings
personified Jupiter.] Thus when ancient Greek kings claimed to be
descended from Zeus, and even to bear his name,[1177] we may reasonably
suppose that they also attempted to exercise his divine functions by
making thunder and rain for the good of their people or the terror and
confusion of their foes. In this respect the legend of Salmoneus[1178]
probably reflects the pretensions of a whole class of petty sovereigns
who reigned of old, each over his little canton, in the oak-clad
highlands of Greece. Like their kinsmen the Irish kings, they were
expected to be a source of fertility to the land and of fecundity to the
cattle;[1179] and how could they fulfil these expectations better than
by acting the part of their kinsman Zeus, the great god of the oak, the
thunder, and the rain? They personified him, apparently, just as the
Italian kings personified Jupiter.[1180]
[Sidenote: Jupiter in Italy as the god of the oak, the thunder, and the
rain.] In ancient Italy every oak was sacred to Jupiter, the Italian
counterpart of Zeus;[1181] and on the Capitol at Rome the god was
worshipped as the deity not merely of the oak, but of the rain and the
thunder.[1182] Contrasting the piety of the good old times with the
scepticism of an age when nobody thought that heaven was heaven, or
cared a fig for Jupiter, a Roman writer tells us that in former days
noble matrons used to go with bare feet, streaming hair, and pure minds,
up the long Capitoline slope, praying to Jupiter for rain. And
straightway, he goes on, it rained bucketsful, then or never, and
everybody returned dripping like drowned rats. “But nowadays,” says he,
“we are no longer religious, so the fields lie baking.”[1183] And as
Jupiter conjured up the clouds and caused them to discharge their genial
burden on the earth, so he drove them away and brought the bright
Italian sky back once more. Hence he was worshipped under the titles of
the Serene, he who restores serenity.[1184] Lastly, as god of the
fertilising showers [Sidenote: Jupiter as the god of fertility.] he made
the earth to bring forth; so people called him the Fruitful One.[1185]
[Sidenote: The god of the oak and the thunder among the northern
Aryans.] When we pass from southern to central Europe we still meet with
the great god of the oak and the thunder among the barbarous Aryans who
dwelt in the vast primaeval forests.[1186] Thus among the Celts of Gaul
the Druids esteemed nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and the oak
on which it grew; they chose groves of oaks for the scene of their
solemn service, and they performed none of their rites without oak
leaves.[1187] “The Celts,” says a Greek writer, “worship [Sidenote:
Celtic worship of the oak.] Zeus, and the Celtic image of Zeus is a tall
oak.”[1188] The Celtic conquerors who settled in Asia in the third
century before our era appear to have carried the worship of the oak
with them to their new home; for in the heart of Asia Minor the Galatian
senate met in a place which bore the pure Celtic name of Drynemetum,
“the sacred oak grove” or “the temple of the oak.”[1189] Indeed the very
name of Druids is believed by good authorities to mean no more than “oak
men.”[1190] When Christianity displaced Druidism in Ireland, the
churches and monasteries were sometimes built in oak groves or under
solitary oaks,[1191] the choice of the site [Sidenote: Traces of sacred
oaks in Ireland.] being perhaps determined by the immemorial sanctity of
the trees, which might predispose the minds of the converts to receive
with less reluctance the teaching of the new faith.[1192] But there is
no positive evidence that the Irish Druids performed their rites, like
their Gallic brethren, in oak groves,[1193] so that the inference from
the churches of Kildare, Derry, and the rest is merely a conjecture
based on analogy.
In the religion of the ancient Germans the veneration for sacred groves
seems to have held the foremost place,[1194] and according to Grimm the
chief of their holy trees was the oak.[1195] It appears to have been
especially dedicated to the [Sidenote: The Teutonic god of the oak and
the thunder.] god of thunder, Donar or Thunar, the equivalent of the
Norse Thor; for a sacred oak near Geismar, in Hesse, which Boniface cut
down in the eighth century, went among the heathen by the name of
Jupiter’s oak (_robur Jovis_), which in old German would be _Donares
eih_, “the oak of Donar.”[1196] That the Teutonic thunder god Donar,
Thunar, Thor was identified with the Italian thunder god Jupiter appears
from our word Thursday, Thunar’s day, which is merely a rendering of the
Latin _dies Jovis_.[1197] Thus among the ancient Teutons, as among the
Greeks and Italians, the god of the oak was also the god of the thunder.
Moreover, he was regarded as the great fertilising power, who sent rain
and caused the earth to bear fruit; for Adam of Bremen tells us that
“Thor presides in the air; he it is who rules thunder and lightning,
wind and rains, fine weather and crops.”[1198] In these respects,
therefore, the Teutonic thunder god again resembled his southern
counterparts Zeus and Jupiter. And like them Thor appears to have been
the chief god of the pantheon; for in the great temple at Upsala his
image [Sidenote: The worship of Thor at Upsala.] occupied the middle
place between the images of Odin and Frey,[1199] and in oaths by this or
other Norse trinities he was always the principal deity invoked.[1200]
Beside the temple at Upsala there was a sacred grove, but the kinds of
trees which grew in it are not known. Only of one tree are we told that
it was of mighty size, with great spreading branches, and that it
remained green winter and summer alike. Here too was a spring where
sacrifices were offered. They used to plunge a living man into the
water, and if he disappeared they drew a favourable omen. Every nine
years, at the spring equinox, a great festival was held at Upsala in
honour of Thor, the god of thunder, Odin, the god of war, and Frey, the
god of peace and pleasure. The ceremonies lasted nine days. Nine male
animals of every sort were sacrificed, that their blood might appease
the gods. Each day six victims were slaughtered, of whom one was a man.
Their bodies were fastened to the trees of the grove, where dogs and
horses might be seen hanging beside men.[1201]
[Sidenote: Perun, the god of the oak and the thunder among the Slavs.]
Amongst the Slavs also the oak appears to have been the sacred tree of
the thunder god Perun, the counterpart of Zeus and Jupiter.[1202] It is
said that at Novgorod there used to stand an image of Perun in the
likeness of a man with a thunder-stone in his hand. A fire of oak wood
burned day and night in his honour; and if ever it went out the
attendants paid for their negligence with their lives.[1203] Perun
seems, like Zeus and Jupiter, to have been the chief god of his people;
for Procopius tells us that the Slavs “believe that one god, the maker
of lightning, is alone lord of all things, and they sacrifice to him
oxen and every victim.”[1204]
[Sidenote: Perkunas, the chief Lithuanian god.] The chief deity of the
Lithuanians was Perkunas or Perkuns, the god of thunder and lightning,
whose resemblance to Zeus and Jupiter has often been pointed out.[1205]
Oaks were sacred to him, and when they were cut down by the Christian
missionaries, the people loudly complained that their sylvan deities
were destroyed.[1206] Perpetual fires, kindled with the wood of certain
oak-trees, were kept up in honour of Perkunas; if such a fire went out,
it was lighted again by friction of the sacred wood.[1207] Men
sacrificed to oak-trees for good crops, while women did the same to
lime-trees; from which we may infer that they regarded oaks as male and
lime-trees as female.[1208] And in time of drought, when they wanted
rain, they used to sacrifice a black heifer, a black he-goat, and a
black cock to the thunder-god in the depths of the woods. On such
occasions the people assembled in great numbers from the country round
about, ate and drank, and called upon Perkunas. They carried a bowl of
beer thrice round the fire, then poured the liquor on the flames, while
they prayed to the god to send showers.[1209] Thus the chief Lithuanian
deity presents a close resemblance to Zeus and Jupiter, since he was the
god of the oak, the thunder, and the rain.[1210]
[Sidenote: The god of the oak and the thunder among the Esthonians.]
Wedged in between the Lithuanians and the Slavs are the Esthonians, a
people who do not belong to the Aryan family. But they also shared the
reverence for the oak, and associated the tree with their thunder-god
Taara, the deity of their pantheon, whom they called “Old Father,” or
“Father of Heaven.”[1211] It is said that down to the beginning of the
nineteenth century Esthonians used to smear the holy oaks, lime-trees,
and ash-trees with the fresh blood of animals at least once a
year.[1212] The following prayer to thunder is instructive, because it
shews how easily thunder, through its association with rain, may appear
to the rustic mind in the character of a beneficent and fertilising
power. It was taken down from the lips of an Esthonian peasant
[Sidenote: Esthonian prayer to thunder.] in the seventeenth century.
“Dear Thunder,” he prayed, “we sacrifice to thee an ox, which has two
horns and four claws, and we would beseech thee for the sake of our
ploughing and sowing, that our straw may be red as copper, and our corn
yellow as gold. Drive somewhere else all black, thick clouds over great
marshes, high woods, and wide wastes. But to us ploughmen and sowers
give a fruitful time and sweet rain. Holy Thunder, guard our fields,
that they may bear good straw below, good ears above, and good grain
within.”[1213] Sometimes in time of great drought an Esthonian farmer
would carry beer thrice round a sacrificial fire, then pour it on the
flames with a prayer that the thunder-god would be pleased to send
rain.[1214]
[Sidenote: Parjanya, the old Indian god of thunder, rain, and
fertility.] In like manner, Parjanya, the old Indian god of thunder and
rain, whose name is by some scholars identified with the Lithuanian
Perkunas,[1215] was conceived as a deity of fertility, who not only made
plants to germinate, but caused cows, mares, and women to conceive. As
the power who impregnated all things, he was compared to a bull, an
animal which to the primitive herdsman is the most natural type of the
procreative energies. Thus in a hymn of the Rigveda it is said of him:—
“_The Bull, loud roaring, swift to send his bounty, lays in the
plants the seed for germination.
He smites the trees apart, he slays the demons: all life fears him
who wields the mighty weapon.
From him exceeding strong flees e’en the guiltless when thundering
Parjanya smites the wicked._
“_Like a car-driver whipping on his horses, he makes the messengers
of rain spring forward.
Far off resounds the roaring of the lion what time Parjanya fills
the sky with rain-cloud.
Forth burst the winds, down come the lightning-flashes: the plants
shoot up, the realm of light is streaming.
Food springs abundant for all living creatures what time Parjanya
quickens earth with moisture._”[1216]
In another hymn Parjanya is spoken of as “giver of growth to plants, the
god who ruleth over the waters and all moving creatures,” and it is said
that “in him all living creatures have their being.” Then the poet goes
on:—
“_May this my song to sovran lord Parjanya come near unto his heart
and give him pleasure.
May we attain the showers that bring enjoyment, and god-protected
plants with goodly fruitage.
He is the Bull of all, and their impregner: he holds the life of all
things fixed and moving._”[1217]
And in yet another hymn we read:—
“_Sing forth and laud Parjanya, son of Heaven, who sends the gift of
rain:
May he provide our pasturage.
Parjanya is the god who forms in kine, in mares, in plants of earth
And womanhood, the germ of life._”[1218]
In short, “Parjanya is a god who presides over the lightning, the
thunder, the rain, and the procreation of plants and living creatures.
But it is by no means clear whether he is originally a god of the rain,
or a god of the thunder. For, as both phenomena are always associated in
India, either of the two opinions is admissible, if no deciding evidence
comes from another quarter.”[1219] On this point something will be said
presently. Here it is enough to have indicated the ease with which the
notion of the thunder-god passes into, or is combined with, the idea of
a god of fertility in general.
[Sidenote: God of thunder, rain, and fertility among the Iroquois.] The
same combination meets us in Heno, the thunder-spirit of the Iroquois.
His office was not only to hurl his bolts at evil-doers, but to cool and
refresh the ground with showers, to ripen the harvest, and to mature the
fruits of the earth. In spring, when they committed the seeds to the
soil, the Indians prayed to him that he would water them and foster
their growth: and at the harvest festival they thanked him for his gift
of rain.[1220] The Hos [Sidenote: Goddess of lightning, rain, and
fertility among the Hos.] of Togoland in West Africa distinguish two
deities of the lightning, a god Sogble and a goddess Sodza, who are
husband and wife and talk with each other in the sound of thunder. The
goddess has epithets applied to her which seem to shew that she is
believed to send the rain and to cause the plants to grow. She is
addressed as “Mother of men and beasts, ship full of yams, ship full of
the most varied fullness.” Further, it is said to be she who blesses the
tilled land. Moreover, like the Hindoo thunder-god Parjanya, who slays
demons, the Ho thunder-goddess drives away evil spirits and witches from
people’s houses; under her protection children multiply and the inmates
of the house remain healthy.[1221] The Indians of the Andes, about
[Sidenote: Gods of thunder, rain, and fertility among the Indians of the
Andes and the Abchases of the Caucasus.] Lake Titicaca, believe in a
thunder-god named Con or Cun, whom they call the “lord” or “father” of
the mountains (_Ccollo-auqui_). He is regarded as a powerful being, but
irritable and difficult of access, who dwells on the high mountains
above the line of perpetual snow. Yet he gives great gifts to those who
win his favour; and when the crops are languishing for lack of rain, the
Indians try to rouse the god from his torpor by pouring a small libation
of brandy into a tarn below the snow-line; for they dare not set foot on
the snow lest they should meet the dreadful thunder-god face to face.
His bird is the condor as the eagle was the bird of the Greek
thunder-god Zeus.[1222] Similarly in time of drought the Abchases of the
Caucasus sacrifice an ox to Ap-hi, the god of thunder and lightning, and
an old man prays him to send rain, thunder, and lightning, telling him
that the crops are parched, the grass burnt up, and the cattle
starving.[1223] These examples shew how readily a thunder-god may come
to be viewed as a power of fertility; the connecting link is furnished
by the fertilising rain which usually accompanies a thunder-storm.
[Sidenote: Traces of the worship of the oak in modern Europe.] As might
have been expected, the ancient worship of the oak in Europe has left
its print in popular custom and superstition down to modern times. Thus
in the French department of Maine it is said that solitary oak-trees in
the fields are still worshipped, though the priests have sought to give
the worship a Christian colour by hanging images of saints on the
trees.[1224] In various parts of Lower Saxony and Westphalia, as late as
the first half of the nineteenth century, traces survived of the
sanctity of certain oaks, to which the people paid a half-heathenish,
half-Christian worship. In the principality of Minden young people of
both sexes used to dance round an old oak on Easter Saturday with loud
shouts of joy. And not far from the village of Wormeln, in the
neighbourhood of Paderborn, there stood a holy oak in the forest, to
which the inhabitants of Wormeln and Calenberg went every year in solemn
procession.[1225] Another vestige of superstitious reverence for the oak
in Germany is the custom of passing sick people and animals through a
natural or artificial opening in the trunk of an oak for the purpose of
healing them of their infirmities.[1226] At a village near Ragnit in
East Prussia there was an oak which, down to the seventeenth century,
the villagers regarded as sacred, firmly believing that any person who
harmed it would be visited with misfortune, especially with some bodily
ailment.[1227] About the middle of the nineteenth century the
Lithuanians still laid offerings for spirits under ancient oaks;[1228]
and old-fashioned people among them preferred to cook the viands for
funeral banquets on a fire of oak-wood, or at least under an
oak-tree.[1229] On the rivulet Micksy, between the governments of Pskov
and Livonia in Russia, there stood a stunted, [Sidenote: Worship of the
oak in modern Russia.] withered, but holy oak, which received the homage
of the neighbouring peasantry down at least to 1874. An eye-witness has
described the ceremonies. He found a great crowd of people, chiefly
Esthonians of the Greek Church, assembled with their families about the
tree, all dressed in gala costume. Some of them had brought wax candles
and were fastening them about the trunk and in the branches. Soon a
priest arrived, and, having donned his sacred robes, proceeded to sing a
canticle, such as is usually sung in the Orthodox Church in honour of
saints. But instead of saying as usual, “Holy saint, pray the Lord for
us,” he said, “Holy Oak Hallelujah, pray for us.” Then he incensed the
tree all round. During the service the tapers on the oak were lighted,
and the people, throwing themselves on the ground, adored the holy tree.
When the pastor had retired, his flock remained till late at night,
feasting, drinking, dancing, and lighting fresh tapers on the oak, till
everybody was drunk and the proceedings ended in an orgy.[1230]
[Sidenote: Ceremonial fires kindled by the friction of oak-wood.]
Another relic of the ancient sanctity of the oak has survived to modern
times in the practice of kindling ceremonial fires by means of the
friction of oak-wood. This has been done, either at stated seasons of
the year or on occasions of distress, by Slavs, Germans, and
Celts.[1231] Taken together with the perpetual sacred fires of oak-wood
which we have found among the Slavs, the Lithuanians, and the ancient
Romans,[1232] the wide prevalence of the practice seems clearly to point
back to a time when the forefathers of the Aryans in Europe dwelt in
forests of oak, fed their fires with oak-wood, and rekindled them, when
they chanced to go out, by rubbing two oaken sticks against each other.
[Sidenote: In the great European god of the oak, the thunder, and the
rain, the original element seems to have been the oak.] From the
foregoing survey of the facts it appears that a god of the oak, the
thunder, and the rain was worshipped of old by all the main branches of
the Aryan stock in Europe, and was indeed the chief deity of their
pantheon.[1233] It was natural enough that the oak should loom large in
the religion of people who lived in oak forests, used oak timber for
building, oak sticks for fuel, and oak acorns for food and fodder; but
we have still to explain how they were led to associate the thunder and
the rain with the oak in their conception of this great divinity. From
the nature of the case our solution of the problem must be conjectural;
we can only guess at the [Sidenote: The clue to the development of a
lightning-god out of an oak-god may have been the notion that the
heavenly fire or lightning was made, like the earthly fire, by the
friction of oak-wood.] train of thought which prompted our forefathers
to link together things which to us seem so very different. Thunder and
rain may indeed naturally be regarded as akin since the two so often
occur together; but the difficulty is to understand why the oak should
be joined with them. Which of the three elements was the original
nucleus about which the others afterwards clustered? In our ignorance of
the facts, this question amounts to asking whether, on the principles of
savage thought, it is easier to suppose that an original god of thunder
and rain should afterwards add the oak-tree to his attributes, or that,
on the contrary, an old god of the oak should annex to himself the
thunder and the rain? In favour of the first of these suppositions it
may be said that a god of thunder and rain might in time be regarded as
a god of the oak, because thunder and rain come from the sky, and the
oak reaches skyward and is often struck by lightning.[1234] But this
train of thought is hardly likely to carry conviction even to the mind
of a savage. On the other hand, it is not difficult to imagine how early
man in Europe might suppose the thunder, or rather the lightning, to be
derived from the oak. Seeing that fire on earth was regularly kindled by
the rubbing of oaken sticks together, he might readily infer that fire
in heaven was produced in like manner; in other words, that the flash of
lightning was the spark elicited by some one who was lighting his fire
in the usual fashion up aloft; for the savage commonly explains natural
phenomena by ideas drawn from the circle of his own daily life.
Similarly, people who are accustomed to make fire by means of flints
sometimes suppose that lightning is produced in the same way. This is
reported of the Armenians,[1235] and it may be inferred of the many
peoples who believe that the flint implements of prehistoric races are
thunder-bolts.[1236]
[Sidenote: When an oak-god had once grown into a lightning-god, he would
easily develop into a god of the rain and the sky.] Thus it is easy to
conceive how a god of the oak, viewed as the source of earthly fire,
should come to be regarded as a god of the lightning, and hence, by an
easy extension of ideas, as a god of thunder and rain. Accordingly we
may provisionally assume that the great Aryan gods who combine these
various functions have been evolved in this fashion. A further step in
their promotion would be taken when the whole sky was assigned to their
dominion. The Greeks and Italians certainly advanced their Zeus and
Jupiter to this lofty position;[1237] but there seems to be no evidence
that the Aryans of the north ever raised their corresponding deities to
the rank of sky-gods in general. It is commonly indeed assumed that the
sky was the original province of all these deities, or rather of the
single Aryan god from which they are descended. But on this theory it is
hard to see why the god of the sky should have taken up with the oak,
and not only that, but should have clung to it even after he had, in
some places at least, begun to sit very loose to his old home, the vault
of heaven. Surely his fidelity to the oak from the earliest to the
latest times among all the different families of his European
worshippers is a strong argument for regarding the tree as the primary,
not a secondary, element in his composite nature.
Footnote 1111:
See above, pp. 7 _sq._
Footnote 1112:
J. Geikie, _Prehistoric Europe_ (Edinburgh, 1881), pp. 420 _sq._, 482
_sqq._, 495.
Footnote 1113:
R. Munro, _Ancient Scottish Lake Dwellings or Crannogs_ (Edinburgh,
1882), p. 266, quoting Alton’s _Treatise on the Origin, Qualities, and
Cultivation of Moss Earth_.
Footnote 1114:
J. Geikie, _op. cit._ pp. 432-436.
Footnote 1115:
J. Geikie, _op. cit._ pp. 461-463.
Footnote 1116:
A. von Humboldt, _Kosmos_, i. (Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1845) p. 298.
The passage is mistranslated in the English version edited by E.
Sabine.
Footnote 1117:
Sir Charles Lyell, _The Geological Evidence of the Antiquity of Man_
4th ed., (London, 1873), pp. 8, 17, 415 _sq._; Sir John Lubbock (Lord
Avebury), _Prehistoric Times_ 5th Ed., (London, 1890), pp. 251, 387;
J. Geikie, _op. cit._ pp. 485-487.
Footnote 1118:
J. Geikie, _op. cit._ pp. 487 _sq._
Footnote 1119:
J. Geikie, _op. cit._ p. 489.
Footnote 1120:
R. Munro, _Ancient Scottish Lake Dwellings_, p. 20, quoting the
article “Crannoges” in _Chambers’s Encyclopædia_.
Footnote 1121:
R. Munro, _op. cit._ p. 23. For more evidence of the use of oak in
British crannogs, see _id._, _op. cit._ pp. 6-8, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31,
32, 33 _sq._, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 51 _sq._, 53, 61, 62, 97, 122, 208,
262, 291-299; _id._ _The Lake Dwellings of Europe_ (London, Paris, and
Melbourne, 1890), pp. 350, 364, 372, 377.
Footnote 1122:
F. Keller, _The Lake Dwellings of Switzerland and other Parts of
Europe_ 2nd Ed., (London, 1878), i. 37, 48, 65, 87, 93, 105, 110, 129,
156, 186, 194, 201, 214, 264, 268, 289, 300, 320, 375, 382, 434, 438,
440, 444, 446, 465, 639.
Footnote 1123:
F. Keller, _op. cit._ i. 332, 334, 375, 586.
Footnote 1124:
W. Helbig, _Die Italiker in der Poebene_ (Leipsic, 1879), pp. 12, 16
_sq._, 26. The bones of cattle, pigs, goats, and sheep prove that
these animals were bred by the people of the Italian pile villages.
See W. Helbig, _op. cit._ p. 14.
Footnote 1125:
Strabo, v. 4. 1, p. 195.
Footnote 1126:
Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xvi. 5.
Footnote 1127:
Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xvi. 6 “_Hercyniae silvae roborum vastitas ...
glandiferi maxime generis omnes, quibus honos apud Romanos
perpetuus._”
Footnote 1128:
H. Hirt, “Die Urheimat der Indogermanen,” _Indogermanische
Forschungen_, i. (1892), p. 480; P. Kretschmer, _Einleitung in die
Geschichte der griechischen Sprache_ (Göttingen, 1896), p. 81; O.
Schrader, _Reallexikon der Indogermanischen Altertumskunde_, _s.v._
“Eiche,” p. 164. This etymology assumes that _Hercynia_ represents an
original _Perkunia_, and is connected with the Latin _quercus_.
However, the derivation is not undisputed. See O. Schrader, _op. cit._
pp. 1015 _sq._
Footnote 1129:
Polybius, ii. 15. Compare Strabo, v. 1. 12, p. 218.
Footnote 1130:
Polybius, xii. 4.
Footnote 1131:
Strabo, v. 3. 1, p. 228.
Footnote 1132:
Diodorus Siculus, iv. 84.
Footnote 1133:
Pausanias, viii. 23. 8 _sq._ For notices of forests and groves of oak
in Arcadia and other parts of Greece, see _id._ ii. 11. 4, iii. 10. 6,
vii. 26. 10, viii. 11. 1, viii. 25. 1, viii. 42. 12, viii. 54. 5, ix.
3. 4, ix. 24. 5. The oaks in the Arcadian forests were of various
species (_id._ viii. 12. 1).
Footnote 1134:
C. Neumann und J. Partsch, _Physikalische Geographie von Griechenland_
(Breslau, 1885), p. 378.
Footnote 1135:
_Encyclopædia Britannica_, 9th Ed., xvii. 690.
Footnote 1136:
Virgil, _Georg._, i. 7 _sq._, 147-149; Lucretius, v. 939 _sq._, 965;
Tibullus, ii. 1. 37 _sq._, ii. 3. 69; Ovid, _Metam._ i. 106; _id._,
_Fasti_, i. 675 _sq._, iv. 399-402; Juvenal, xiv. 182-184; Aulus
Gellius, v. 6. 12; Dionysius Halicarnas. _Ars rhetorica_, i. 6, vol.
v. p. 230, ed. Reiske; Pollux, i. 234; Poryphry, _De abstinentia_, ii.
5.
Footnote 1137:
Hesiod, _Works and Days_, 232 _sq._
Footnote 1138:
Herodotus, i. 66.
Footnote 1139:
Pausanias, viii. 1, 6. According to Pausanias it was only the acorns
of the _phegos_ oak which the Arcadians ate.
Footnote 1140:
Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xvi. 15.
Footnote 1141:
Strabo, iii. 3. 7, p. 155.
Footnote 1142:
Pliny, _l.c._
Footnote 1143:
C. Neumann und J. Partsch, _Physikalische Geographie von
Griechenland_, p. 379.
Footnote 1144:
C. Neumann and J. Partsch, _op. cit._, p. 382, note.
Footnote 1145:
Cervantes, _Don Quixote_, part ii. ch. 50, vol. iv. p. 133 of H. E.
Watts’s translation, with the translator’s note (new edition, London,
1895); Neumann und Partsch, _op. cit._ p. 380; P. Wagler, _Die Eiche
in alter und neuer Zeit_, i. (Wurzen, 1891) p. 35. The passage in _Don
Quixote_ was pointed out to me by my friend Mr. W. Wyse.
Footnote 1146:
_Encyclopædia Britannica_, 9th. Ed., xvii. 692.
Footnote 1147:
H. E. Watts, _loc. cit._
Footnote 1148:
_Encyclopædia Britannica_, _l.c._
Footnote 1149:
To avoid misapprehension, I desire to point out that I am not here
concerned with the evolution of Aryan religion in general, but only
with that of a small, though important part of it, to wit, the worship
of a particular kind of tree. To write a general history of Aryan
religion in all its many aspects as a worship of nature, of the dead,
and so forth, would be a task equally beyond my powers and my
ambition. Still less should I dream of writing a universal history of
religion. The “general work” referred to in the preface to the first
edition of _The Golden Bough_ is a book of far humbler scope.
Footnote 1150:
For examples of such ceremonies, see above, pp. 18-20, 34-38.
Footnote 1151:
For evidence of these aspects of Zeus and Jupiter, see L. Preller,
_Griechische Mythologie_, i. 4th ed., 115 _sqq._; _id._, _Römische
Mythologie_, 3rd Ed., i. 184 _sqq._ In former editions of this book I
was disposed to set aside much too summarily what may be called the
meteorological side of Zeus and Jupiter.
Footnote 1152:
See my note on Pausanias, ii. 17. 5; P. Wagler, _Die Eiche in alter
und neuer Zeit_, ii. (Berlin, 1891), pp. 2 _sqq._; A. B. Cook, “Zeus,
Jupiter, and the Oak,” _Classical Review_, xvii. (1903) pp. 178 _sqq._
Footnote 1153:
Aug. Mommsen, _Delphika_ (Leipsic, 1878), pp. 4 _sq._
Footnote 1154:
Strabo, Frag. vii. 3; Stephanus Byzantius, _s.v._ Δωδώνη; Suidas,
_s.vv._ Δωδωναῖον χαλκεῖον and Δωδώνη; Apostolius, _Cent._ vi. 43;
Zenobius, _Cent._ vi. 5; Nonnus Abbas, _Ad S. Gregorii orat. ii.
contra Julianum_, 19 (Migne’s _Patrologia Graeca_, xxxvi. 1045). The
evidence on this subject has been collected and discussed by Mr. A. B.
Cook (“The Gong at Dodona,” _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, xxii.
(1902) pp. 5-28). The theory in the text is obviously consistent, both
with the statement that the sound of the gongs was consulted as
oracular, and with the view, advocated by Mr. Cook, that it was
supposed to avert evil influences from the sanctuary. If I am right,
the bronze statuette which, according to some accounts, produced the
sound by striking the gong with a clapper would represent Zeus himself
making his thunder.
Footnote 1155:
On the natural surroundings of Dodona, see C. Carapanos, _Dodone et
ses ruines_ (Paris, 1878), pp. 7-10.
Footnote 1156:
Above, pp. 140 _sq._
Footnote 1157:
Above, vol. i. p. 309. On the oak as the tree of Zeus, see Dionysius
Halicarn. _Ars rhetorica_, i. 6, vol. v. p. 230 ed. Reiske; Schol. on
Aristophanes, _Birds_, 480. On this subject much evidence, both
literary and monumental, has been collected by Mr. A. B. Cook in his
articles “Zeus, Jupiter, and the Oak,” _Classical Review_, xvii.
(1903) pp. 174 _sqq._, 268 _sqq._, 403 _sqq._, xviii. (1904) pp. 75
_sqq._, 327 _sq._
Footnote 1158:
Pausanias, i. 24. 3.
Footnote 1159:
Marcus Antoninus, v. 7.
Footnote 1160:
Theophrastus, _De signis tempestatum_, i. 24.
Footnote 1161:
Pausanias, i. 30. 4.
Footnote 1162:
Pausanias, ii. 29. 7 _sq._; Isocrates, _Evagoras_, 14; Apollodorus,
iii. 12. 6. Aeacus was said to be the son of Zeus by Aegina, daughter
of Asopus (Apollodorus, _l.c._). Isocrates says that his relationship
to the god marked Aeacus out as the man to procure rain.
Footnote 1163:
Theophrastus, _De signis tempestatum_, i. 20, compare 24.
Footnote 1164:
Theophrastus, _op. cit._ iii. 43.
Footnote 1165:
Pausanias, i. 32. 2.
Footnote 1166:
Theophrastus, _op. cit._ iii. 43 and 47. Compare Aristophanes,
_Clouds_, 324 _sq._; Photius, _Lexicon_, _s.v._ Πάρνης.
Footnote 1167:
Pausanias, i. 32. 2.
Footnote 1168:
Pausanias, ii. 25. 10. As to the climate and scenery of these barren
mountains, see A. Philippson, _Der Peloponnes_ (Berlin, 1891), pp. 43
_sq._, 65.
Footnote 1169:
Joannes Lydus, _De mensibus_, iv. 48.
Footnote 1170:
Paton and Hicks, _The Inscriptions of Cos_ (Oxford, 1891), No. 382;
Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum_, 2nd Ed., No. 735.
There were altars of Rainy Zeus also at Argos and Lebadea. See
Pausanias, ii. 19. 8, ix. 39. 4.
Footnote 1171:
Ἐπικάρπιος μὲν ἀπὸ τῶν καρπῶν, Aristotle, _De mundo_, 7, p. 401 a, ed.
Bekker; Plutarch, _De Stoicorum repugnantiis_, xxx. 8.
Footnote 1172:
_Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum_, iii. No. 77; E. S. Roberts,
_Introduction to Greek Epigraphy_, ii. No. 142, p. 387; Ch. Michel,
_Recueil d’inscriptions grecques_, No. 692; L. R. Farnell, _Cults of
the Greek States_, i. 66 and 172.
Footnote 1173:
Hesiod, _Theogony_, 71 _sq._; L. Preller, _Griechische Mythologie_,
4th ed., i. 119.
Footnote 1174:
Pausanias, v. 14. 7; H. Roehl, _Inscriptiones Graecae antiquissimae_
(Berlin, 1882), No. 101; Fränkel, _Inschriften von Pergamon_, i. No.
232; Joannes Malalas, _Chronographia_, viii. p. 199, ed. L. Dindorf.
Footnote 1175:
Strabo, ix. 2. 11, p. 404.
Footnote 1176:
Pollux, ix. 41; Hesychius, _s.v._ ἠλύσιον; _Etymologicum Magnum_, p.
341. 8 _sqq._; Artemidorus, _Onirocrit._ 11. 9; Pausanias, v. 14. 10;
Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum_, 2nd Ed., No. 577,
with Dittenberger’s note.
Footnote 1177:
See above, p. 177.
Footnote 1178:
See above, vol. i. p. 310.
Footnote 1179:
See above, vol. i. p. 366.
Footnote 1180:
For more evidence that the old Greek kings regularly personified Zeus,
see Mr. A. B. Cook, “The European Sky-god,” _Folk-lore_, xv. (1904)
pp. 299 _sqq._
Footnote 1181:
Virgil. _Georg._ iii. 332, with Servius’s note; Pliny, _Nat. Hist._
xii. 3.
Footnote 1182:
As to the oak of Jupiter on the Capitol and the god’s oak crown, see
above, p. 176. With regard to the Capitoline worship of Thundering
Jupiter, see Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ ii. 21, xxxiv. 10 and 79, xxxvi. 50.
He was worshipped in many places besides Rome as the god of thunder
and lightning. See Festus, p. 229, ed. C. O. Müller; Apuleius, _De
mundo_, xxxvii. 371; H. Dessau, _Inscriptones Latinae selectae_, Nos.
3044-3053.
Footnote 1183:
Petronius, _Sat._ 44. That the slope mentioned by Petronius was the
Capitoline one is made highly probable by a passage of Tertullian
(_Apologeticus_ 40: “_Aquilicia Jovi immolatis, nudipedalia populo
denuntiatis, coelum apud Capitolium quaeritis, nubila de laquearibus
exspectatis_”). The church father’s scorn for the ceremony contrasts
with the respect, perhaps the mock respect, testified for it by the
man in Petronius. The epithets Rainy and Showery are occasionally
applied to Jupiter. See Tibullus, i. 7. 26; Apuleius, _De mundo_,
xxxvii. 371; H. Dessau, _Inscriptiones Latinae selectae_, No. 3043.
Footnote 1184:
H. Dessau, _op. cit._ No. 3042; Apuleius, _l.c._
Footnote 1185:
Apuleius, _l.c._, “_Plures eum Frugiferum vocant_”; H. Dessau, _op.
cit._ No. 3017.
Footnote 1186:
On this subject see H. Munro Chadwick, “The Oak and the Thunder-god,”
_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxx. (1900) pp. 22-42.
Footnote 1187:
Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xvi. 249.
Footnote 1188:
Maximus Tyrius, _Dissert._ viii. 8. H. D’Arbois de Jubainville
supposed that by Celts the writer here meant Germans (_Cours de la
littérature celtique_, i. 121 _sqq._). This was not the view of J.
Grimm, to whose authority D’Arbois de Jubainville appealed. Grimm says
that what Maximus Tyrius affirms of the Celts might be applied to the
Germans (_Deutsche Mythologie_, 4th ed., i. 55), which is quite a
different thing.
Footnote 1189:
Strabo, xii. 5. 1, p. 567. As to the meaning of the name see (Sir) J.
Rhys, _Celtic Heathendom_, p. 221; H. F. Tozer, _Selections from
Strabo_, p. 284. On the Galatian language see above, p. 126, note 2.
Footnote 1190:
G. Curtius, _Griech. Etymologie_, 5th Ed., pp. 238 _sq._; J. Rhys,
_op. cit._ pp. 221 _sq._; P. Kretschmer, _Einleitung in die
Geschichte der griech. Sprache_, p. 81. Compare A. Vanicek,
_Griechisch-lateinisch. etymologisches Wörterbuch_, pp. 368-370.
Oak in old Irish is _daur_, in modern Irish _dair_, _darach_, in
Gaelic _darach_. See G. Curtius, _l.c._; A. Macbain, _Etymological
Dictionary of the Gaelic Language_ (Inverness, 1896), _s.v._
“Darach.” On this view Pliny was substantially right (_Nat. Hist._
xvi. 249) in connecting Druid with the Greek _drus_, “oak,” though
the name was not derived from the Greek. However, this derivation
of Druid has been doubted or rejected by some scholars. See H.
D’Arbois de Jubainville, _Cours de la littérature celtique_, i.
(Paris, 1883), pp. 117 _sqq._; O. Schrader, _Reallexikon der
indogermanischen Altertumskunde_, pp. 638 _sq._
Footnote 1191:
See above, p. 242.
Footnote 1192:
The Gael’s “faith in druidism was never suddenly undermined; for in
the saints he only saw more powerful druids than those he had
previously known, and Christ took the position in his eyes of the
druid κατ’ ἐξοχήν. Irish druidism absorbed a certain amount of
Christianity; and it would be a problem of considerable difficulty to
fix on the point where it ceased to be druidism, and from which
onwards it could be said to be Christianity in any restricted sense of
that term” (J. Rhys, _Celtic Heathendom_, p. 224).
Footnote 1193:
P. W. Joyce, _Social History of Ancient Ireland_, i. 236.
Footnote 1194:
J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_, 4th ed., i. 55 _sq._ Tacitus often
mentions the sacred groves of the Germans, but never specifies the
kinds of trees of which they were composed. See _Annals_, ii. 12, iv.
73; _Histor._ iv. 14; _Germania_, 7, 9, 39, 40, 43.
Footnote 1195:
J. Grimm, _op. cit._ ii. 542.
Footnote 1196:
Willibald’s _Life of S. Boniface_, in Pertz’s _Monumenta Germaniae
historica_, ii. 343 _sq._; J. Grimm, _op. cit._ i. pp. 58, 142.
Footnote 1197:
J. Grimm, _op. cit._ i. 157. Prof. E. Maass supposes that the
identification of Donar or Thunar with Jupiter was first made in Upper
Germany between the Vosges mountains and the Black Forest. See his
work _Die Tagesgötter_ (Berlin, 1902), p. 280.
Footnote 1198:
Adam of Bremen, _Descriptio insularum Aquilonis_, 26 (Migne’s
_Patrologia Latina_, cxlvi. col. 643).
Footnote 1199:
Adam of Bremen, _l.c._
Footnote 1200:
E. H. Meyer, _Mythologie des Germanen_ (Strasburg, 1903), p. 290.
Footnote 1201:
Adam of Bremen, _op. cit._ 26, 27, with the Scholia (Migne’s
_Patrologia Latina_, cxlvi. coll. 642-644).
Footnote 1202:
J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_, 4th ed., i. 142 _sq._; L. Leger, _La
Mythologie slave_ (Paris, 1901), pp. 54-76.
Footnote 1203:
L. Leger, _op. cit._ pp. 57 _sq._, translating Guagnini’s _Sarmatiae
Europaeae descriptio_ (1578). The passage is quoted in the original by
Chr. Hartknoch (_Alt- und neues Preussen_, Frankfort and Leipsic,
1684, p. 132), who rightly assigns the work to Strykowski, not
Guagnini. See W. Mannhardt, in _Magazin herausgegeben von der
Lettisch-Literarischen Gesellschaft_, xiv. (1868) pp. 105 _sq._
Footnote 1204:
Procopius, _De bello Gothico_, iii. 14 (vol. ii. p. 357, ed. J.
Haury).
Footnote 1205:
Matthias Michov, “De Sarmatia Asiana atque Europea,” in Simon
Grynaeus’s _Novus Orbis regionum ac insularum veteribus incognitarum_
(Paris, 1532), p. 457; _id._, in J. Pistorius’s _Polonicae historiae
corpus_ (Bâle, 1582), i. 144; Martin Cromer, _De origine et rebus
gestis Polonorum_ (Bâle, 1568), p. 241; J. Maeletius (Menecius, Ian
Malecki), “De sacrificiis et idolatria veterum Borussorum, Livonum,
aliarumque vicinarum gentium,” _Scriptores rerum Livonicarum_, ii.
(Riga and Leipsic, 1848) p. 390; _id._, in _Mitteilungen der
Litterarischen Gesellschaft Masovia_, Heft 8 (Lötzen, 1902), p. 187;
Chr. Hartknoch, _Alt- und neues Preussen_ (Frankfort and Leipsic,
1684), pp. 131 _sqq._; S. Rostowski, quoted by A. Brückner, _Archiv
für slavische Philologie_, ix. (1886) pp. 32, 35; M. Töppen,
_Geschichte der preussischen Historiographie_ (Berlin, 1853), p. 190
(“_Perkunos ist in allen andern Ueberlieferungen so gross und hehr,
wie nur immer der griechische und römische Donnergott, und kein
anderer der Götter darf sich ihm gleich stellen. Er ist der Hauptgott,
wie nach andern Berichten in Preussen, so auch in Litthauen und
Livland_”); Schleicher, “Lituanica,” _Sitzungsberichte der
philosoph.-histor. Classe d. kais. Akademie d. Wissen._ (Vienna), xi.
(1853 pub. 1854) p. 96; H. Usener, _Götternamen_ (Bonn, 1896), p. 97.
Footnote 1206:
M. Praetorius, _Deliciae Prussicae_ (Berlin, 1871), pp. 19 _sq._; S.
Rostowski, _op. cit._ pp. 34, 35. On the sacred oaks of the
Lithuanians see Chr. Hartknoch, _op. cit._ pp. 117 _sqq._; Tettau und
Temme, _Volkssagen Ostpreussens, Litthauens und Westpreussens_, pp.
19-22, 35-38.
Footnote 1207:
M. Praetorius, _l.c._; S. Grunau, _Preussische Chronik_, ed. M.
Perlbach, i. (Leipsic, 1876) p. 78 (ii. tract. cap. v. § 2). The
chronicler, Simon Grunau, lived as an itinerant Dominican friar at the
beginning of the sixteenth century in the part of Prussia which had
been ceded to Poland. He brought his history, composed in somewhat
rustic German, down to 1529. His familiar intercourse with the lowest
classes of the people enabled him to learn much as to their old
heathen customs and superstitions; but his good faith has been doubted
or denied. In particular, his description of the images of the three
gods in the great oak at Romove has been regarded with suspicion or
denounced as a figment. See Chr. Hartknoch, _op. cit._ pp. 127 _sqq._;
M. Toeppen, _op. cit._ pp. 122 _sqq._, 190 _sqq._; M. Perlbach’s
preface to his edition of Grunau; H. Usener, _Götternamen_, p. 83. But
his account of the sanctity of the oak, and of the perpetual sacred
fire of oak-wood, may be accepted, since it is confirmed by other
authorities. Thus, according to Malecki, a perpetual fire was kept up
by a priest in honour of Perkunas (Pargnus) on the top of a mountain,
which stood beside the river Neuuassa (Niewiaza, a tributary of the
Niemen). See Malecki (Maeletius, Menecius), _op. cit._, _Scriptores
rerum Livonicarum_, ii. 391; _id._, _Mitteilungen der Litterarischen
Gesellschaft Masovia_, Heft 8 (Lötzen, 1902), p. 187. Again, the
Jesuit S. Rostowski says that the Lithuanians maintained a perpetual
sacred fire in honour of Perkunas in the woods (quoted by A. Brückner,
_Archiv für slavische Philologie_, ix. (1886) p. 33). Malecki and
Rostowski do not mention that the fire was kindled with oak-wood, but
this is expressly stated by M. Praetorius, and is, besides,
intrinsically probable, since the oak was sacred to Perkunas.
Moreover, the early historian, Peter of Dusburg, who dedicated his
chronicle of Prussia to the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights in
1326, informs us that the high-priest of the nation, whom the
Prussians revered as a pope, kept up a perpetual fire at Romow, which
is doubtless the same with the Romowo or Romewo of Grunau
(_Preussische Chronik_, pp. 80, 81, compare p. 62, ed. M. Perlbach).
See P. de Dusburg, _Chronicon Prussiae_, ed. Chr. Hartknoch (Frankfort
and Leipsic, 1679), p. 79. Martin Cromer says that the Lithuanians
“worshipped fire as a god, and kept it perpetually burning in the more
frequented places and towns” (_De origine et rebus gestis Polonorum_,
Bâle, 1568, p. 241). Romow or Romowo is more commonly known as Romove.
Its site is very uncertain. See Chr. Hartknoch, _Alt- und neues
Preussen_, pp. 122 _sqq._ Grunau’s account of Romove and its sacred
oak, with the images of the three gods in it and the fire of oak-wood
burning before it, is substantially repeated by Alex. Guagnini. See J.
Pistorius, _Polonicae historiae corpus_ (Bâle, 1582), i. 52;
_Respublica sive status regni Poloniae, Lituaniae, Prussiae,
Livoniae_, etc. (Leyden, 1627), pp. 321 _sq._ I do not know whether
the chronicler, Simon Grunau, is the same with Simon Grynaeus, editor
of the _Novus Orbis regionum ac insularum veteribus incognitarum_,
which was published at Paris in 1532.
Footnote 1208:
S. Rostowski, _op. cit._ p. 35.
Footnote 1209:
D. Fabricius, “De cultu, religione et moribus incolarum Livoniae,”
_Scriptores rerum Livonicarum_, ii. 441. Malecki (Maeletius) also says
that Perkunas was prayed to for rain. See _Mitteilungen der
Litterarischen Gesellschaft Masovia_, Heft 8 (Lötzen, 1902), p. 201.
Footnote 1210:
According to Prof. H. Hirt, the name Perkunas means “the oak-god,”
being derived from the same root _querq_, which appears in the Latin
_quercus_ “oak,” the _Hercynian_ forest, the Norse god and goddess
_Fjörygn_, and the Indian _Parjanya_, the Vedic god of thunder and
rain. See H. Hirt, “Die Urheimat der Indogermanen,” _Indogermanische
Forschungen_, i. (1892) pp. 479 _sqq._; _id._, _Die Indogermanen_
(Strasburg, 1905-1907), ii. 507; P. Kretschmer, _Einleitung in die
Geschichte der griechischen Sprache_, pp. 81 _sq._ The identity of the
names Perkunas and Parjanya had been maintained long before by G.
Bühler, though he did not connect the words with _quercus_. See his
article, “On the Hindu god Parjanya,” _Transactions of the (London)
Philological Society_, 1859, pp. 154-168. As to Parjanya, see below,
pp. 368 _sq._
Footnote 1211:
Fr. Kreutzwald und H. Neus, _Mythische und magische Lieder der Ehsten_
(St. Petersburg, 1854), pp. 16, 26, 27, 56, 57, 104; F. J. Wiedemann,
_Aus dem inneren und äusseren Leben der Ehsten_, pp. 427, 438.
Sometimes, however, a special thunder-god Kou, Koo, Piker or Pikne is
distinguished from Taara (Tar). See F. J. Wiedemann, _op. cit._ p.
427; Kreutzwald und Neus, _op. cit._ pp. 12 _sq._
Footnote 1212:
Boecler-Kreutzwald, _Der Ehsten abergläubische Gebräuche, Weisen und
Gewohnheiten_ (St. Petersburg, 1854), p. 2.
Footnote 1213:
J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_, 4th ed., i. 146.
Footnote 1214:
F. J. Wiedemann, _op. cit._ p. 427.
Footnote 1215:
See above, p. 367, note 3.
Footnote 1216:
_Rigveda_, Book v. Hymn 83, R. T. H. Griffith’s translation (Benares,
1889-1892), vol. ii. pp. 299 _sq._
Footnote 1217:
_Rigveda_, Book vii. Hymn 101, Griffith’s translation (vol. iii. pp.
123 _sq._).
Footnote 1218:
_Rigveda_, Book vii. Hymn 102, Griffith’s translation (vol. iii. p.
124). On Parjanya see further G. Bühler, “On the Hindu god
_Parjanya_,” _Transactions of the (London) Philological Society_,
1859, pp. 154-168; _id._ in _Orient und Occident_, i. (1862) pp.
214-229; J. Muir, _Original Sanscrit Texts_, v. 140-142; H. Oldenberg,
_Die Religion des Veda_, p. 226; A. Macdonnell, _Vedic Mythology_, pp.
83-85.
Footnote 1219:
G. Bühler, _op. cit._ p. 161.
Footnote 1220:
L. H. Morgan, _League of the Iroquois_ (Rochester, 1851), pp. 157
_sq._
Footnote 1221:
J. Spieth, _Die Ewe-Stämme_ (Berlin, 1906), pp. 424-427.
Footnote 1222:
E. J. Payne, _History of the New World called America_, i. (Oxford,
1892) pp. 407 _sq._
Footnote 1223:
N. Seidlitz, “Die Abchasen,” _Globus_, lxvi. (1894) p. 73.
Footnote 1224:
P. Wagler, _Die Eiche in alter und neuer Zeit_, ii. (Berlin, 1891) p.
37.
Footnote 1225:
J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_, 4th ed., i. 59.
Footnote 1226:
P. Wagler, _Die Eiche in alter und neuer Zeit_, i. (Wurzen, 1891) pp.
21-23. For many more survivals of oak-worship in Germany see P.
Wagler, _op. cit._ ii. 40 _sqq._
Footnote 1227:
M. Praetorius, _Deliciae Prussicae_ (Berlin, 1871), p. 16.
Footnote 1228:
J. G. Kohl, _Die deutsch-russischen Ostseeprovinzen_ (Dresden and
Leipsic, 1841), ii. 31; compare 33.
Footnote 1229:
Schleicher, “Lituanica,” _Sitzungsberichte der philos.-histor. Classe
der kais. Akademie der Wissenschaften_, xi. (1853, pub. 1854) p. 100.
Footnote 1230:
James Piggul, steward of the estate of Panikovitz, in a report to
Baron de Bogouschefsky, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
iii. (1874) pp. 274 _sq._
Footnote 1231:
The evidence will be given later on, when we come to deal with the
fire-festivals of Europe. Meantime I may refer the reader to _The
Golden Bough_, Second Edition, iii. 347 _sqq._, where, however, the
statement as to the universal use of oak-wood in kindling the
need-fire is too absolute, exceptions having since come to my
knowledge. These will be noticed in the third edition of that part of
_The Golden Bough_.
Footnote 1232:
See above, pp. 186, 365, 366.
Footnote 1233:
The only positive evidence, so far as I know, that the Celtic oak-god
was also a deity of thunder and rain is his identification with Zeus
(see above, p. 362). But the analogy of the Greeks, Italians, Teutons,
Slavs, and Lithuanians may be allowed to supply the lack of more
definite testimony.
Footnote 1234:
It is said to have been observed that lightning strikes an oak twenty
times for once that it strikes a beech (J. Grimm, _Deutsche
Mythologie_, 4th ed., iii. 64). But even if this observation were
correct, we could not estimate its worth unless we knew the
comparative frequency of oaks and beeches in the country where it was
made. The Greeks observed that a certain species of oak, which they
called _haliphloios_, or sea-bark, was often struck by lightning
though it did not grow to a great height; but far from regarding it as
thereby marked out for the service of the god they abstained from
using its wood in the sacrificial rites. See Theophrastus, _Histor.
plant._ iii. 8. 5; Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xvi. 24.
Footnote 1235:
M. Abeghian, _Der armenische Volksglaube_, p. 90.
Footnote 1236:
E. B. Tylor, _Early History of Mankind_, 3rd Ed., pp. 223-227. For
more evidence of this wide-spread belief see M. Baudrouin et L.
Bonnemère, “Les Haches polies dans l’histoire jusqu’au XIXe siècle,”
_Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d’Anthropologie de Paris_, Ve
Série, v. (1904) pp. 496-548; Lieut. Boyd Alexander, “From the Niger,
by Lake Chad, to the Nile,” _The Geographical Journal_, xxx. (1907)
pp. 144 _sq._; A. B. Ellis, _Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast_,
pp. 37 _sq._; H. Seidel, “Der Yew’e Dienst im Togolande,” _Zeitschrift
für afrikanische und oceanischen Sprachen_, iii. (1897) p. 161; H.
Klose, _Togo unter deutscher Flagge_, pp. 197 _sq._; L. Conradt, “Die
Ngumbu in Südkamerun,” _Globus_, lxxxi. (1902) p. 353; Guerlach,
“Mœurs et superstitions des sauvages Ba-hnars,” _Missions
Catholiques_, xix. (1887) pp. 442, 454; J. A. Jacobsen, _Reisen in die
Inselwelt des Banda-Meeres_ (Berlin, 1896), pp. 49 _sq._, 232; C.
Ribbe, “Die Aru-Inseln,” _Festschrift des Vereins für Erdkunde zu
Dresden_ (Dresden, 1888), p. 165; E. Thurston, _Ethnographic Notes in
Southern India_, p. 351; Rev. P. O. Bodding, “Ancient Stone Implements
in the Santal Parganas,” _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_,
lxx. Part iii. (1901) pp. 17-20; E. M. Gordon, _Indian Folk-tales_
(London, 1908), p. 75; _County Folk-lore, III. Orkney and Shetland
Islands_, collected by G. F. Black (London, 1903), p. 153; P. Hermann,
_Nordische Mythologie_, pp. 339 _sq._, 352; M. Toeppen, _Aberglauben
aus Masuren_ 2nd Ed., (Danzig, 1867), pp. 42 _sq._ Dr. E. B. Tylor has
pointed out how natural to the primitive mind is the association of
spark-producing stones with lightning (_Primitive Culture_, 2nd Ed.,
ii. 262).
Footnote 1237:
L. Preller, _Griechische Mythologie_, 4th ed., i. 116 _sq._; _id._,
_Römische Mythologie_, 3rd Ed., i. 184 _sqq._ As to Jupiter see in
particular Augustine, _De civitate Dei_, vii. 19, “_Coelum enim esse
Jovem innumerabiliter et diligenter affirmant_”; and Ennius, quoted by
Cicero, _De natura deorum_, ii. 25, 65, “_Aspice hoc sublimen candens,
quem invocant omnes Jovem_.”
CHAPTER XXI
DIANUS AND DIANA
[Sidenote: Recapitulation.] In this chapter I propose to recapitulate
the conclusions to which the enquiry has thus far led us, and drawing
together the scattered rays of light, to turn them on the dark figure of
the priest of Nemi.
[Sidenote: Rise of sacred kings, who are supposed to be endowed with
magical or divine powers.] We have found that at an early stage of
society men, ignorant of the secret processes of Nature and of the
narrow limits within which it is in our power to control and direct
them, have commonly arrogated to themselves functions which in the
present state of knowledge we should deem superhuman or divine. The
illusion has been fostered and maintained by the same causes which begot
it, namely, the marvellous order and uniformity with which Nature
conducts her operations, the wheels of her great machine revolving with
a smoothness and precision which enable the patient observer to
anticipate in general the season, if not the very hour, when they will
bring round the fulfilment of his hopes or the accomplishment of his
fears. The regularly recurring events of this great cycle, or rather
series of cycles, soon stamp themselves even on the dull mind of the
savage. He foresees them, and foreseeing them mistakes the desired
recurrence for an effect of his own will, and the dreaded recurrence for
an effect of the will of his enemies. Thus the springs which set the
vast machine in motion, though they lie far beyond our ken, shrouded in
a mystery which we can never hope to penetrate, appear to ignorant man
to lie within his reach: he fancies he can touch them and so work by
magic art all manner of good to himself and evil to his foes. In time
the fallacy of this belief becomes apparent to him: he discovers that
there are things he cannot do, pleasures which he is unable of himself
to procure, pains which even the most potent magician is powerless to
avoid. The unattainable good, the inevitable ill, are now ascribed by
him to the action of invisible powers, whose favour is joy and life,
whose anger is misery and death. Thus magic tends to be displaced by
[Sidenote: Transition from magic to religion.] religion, and the
sorcerer by the priest. At this stage of thought the ultimate causes of
things are conceived to be personal beings, many in number and often
discordant in character, who partake of the nature and even of the
frailty of man, though their might is greater than his, and their life
far exceeds the span of his ephemeral existence. Their sharply-marked
individualities, their clear-cut outlines have not yet begun, under the
powerful solvent of philosophy, to melt and coalesce into that single
unknown substratum of phenomena which, according to the qualities with
which our imagination invests it, goes by one or other of the
high-sounding names which the wit of man has devised to hide his
ignorance. Accordingly, so long as men look on their gods as beings akin
to themselves and not raised to an unapproachable height above them,
they believe it to be possible for those of their own number who surpass
their fellows to attain to the divine rank after death or even in life.
Incarnate human deities of this latter sort may be said [Sidenote:
Incarnate human deities.] to halt midway between the age of magic and
the age of religion. If they bear the names and display the pomp of
deities, the powers which they are supposed to wield are commonly those
of their predecessor the magician. Like him, they are expected to guard
their people against hostile enchantments, to heal them in sickness, to
bless them with offspring, and to provide them with an abundant supply
of food by regulating the weather and performing the other ceremonies
which are deemed necessary to ensure the fertility of the earth and the
multiplication of animals. Men who are credited with powers so lofty and
far-reaching naturally hold the highest place in the land, and while the
rift between the spiritual and the temporal spheres has not yet widened
too far, they are supreme in civil as well as religious matters: in a
word, they are kings as well as gods. Thus the divinity which hedges a
king has its roots deep down in human history, and long ages pass before
these are sapped by a profounder view of nature and man.
[Sidenote: The King of the Wood at Nemi seems to have been one of these
divine kings and to have mated with the divine Queen of the Wood,
Diana.] In the classical period of Greek and Latin antiquity the reign
of kings was for the most part a thing of the past; yet the stories of
their lineage, titles, and pretensions suffice to prove that they too
claimed to rule by divine right and to exercise superhuman powers. Hence
we may without undue temerity assume that the King of the Wood at Nemi,
though shorn in later times of his glory and fallen on evil days,
represented a long line of sacred kings who had once received not only
the homage but the adoration of their subjects in return for the
manifold blessings which they were supposed to dispense. What little we
know of the functions of Diana in the Arician grove seems to prove that
she was here conceived as a goddess of fertility, and particularly as a
divinity of childbirth.[1238] It is reasonable, therefore, to suppose
that in the discharge of these important duties she was assisted by her
priest, the two figuring as King and Queen of the Wood in a solemn
marriage, which was intended to make the earth gay with the blossoms of
spring and the fruits of autumn, and to gladden the hearts of men and
women with healthful offspring.
[Sidenote: Virbius, whom the King of the Wood represented, was probably
a form of Jupiter regarded as god of the greenwood, and especially of
the oak.] If the priest of Nemi posed not merely as a king, but as a god
of the grove, we have still to ask, What deity in particular did he
personate? The answer of antiquity is that he represented Virbius, the
consort or lover of Diana.[1239] But this does not help us much, for of
Virbius we know little more than the name. A clue to the mystery is
perhaps supplied by the Vestal fire which burned in the grove.[1240] For
the perpetual holy fires of the Aryans in Europe appear to have been
commonly kindled and fed with oak-wood,[1241] and we have seen that in
Rome itself, not many miles from Nemi, the fuel of the Vestal fire
consisted of oaken sticks or logs, which in early days the holy maidens
doubtless gathered or cut in the coppices of oak that once covered the
Seven Hills.[1242] But the ritual of the various Latin towns seems to
have been marked by great uniformity;[1243] hence it is reasonable to
conclude that wherever in Latium a Vestal fire was maintained, it was
fed, as at Rome, with wood of the sacred oak. If this was so at Nemi, it
becomes probable that the hallowed grove there consisted of a natural
oak-wood, and that therefore the tree which the King of the Wood had to
guard at the peril of his life was itself an oak; indeed it was from an
evergreen oak, according to Virgil, that Aeneas plucked the Golden
Bough.[1244] Now the oak was the sacred tree of Jupiter, the supreme god
of the Latins. Hence it follows that the King of the Wood, whose life
was bound up in a fashion with an oak, personated no less a deity than
Jupiter himself. At least the evidence, slight as it is, seems to point
to this conclusion. The old Alban dynasty of the Silvii or Woods, with
their crown of oak leaves, apparently aped the style and emulated the
powers of Latian Jupiter, who dwelt on the top of the Alban Mount.[1245]
It is not impossible that the King of the Wood, who guarded the sacred
oak a little lower down the mountain, was the lawful successor and
representative of this ancient line of the Silvii or Woods.[1246] At all
events, if I am right in supposing that he passed for a human Jupiter,
it would appear that Virbius, with whom legend identified him, was
nothing but a local form of Jupiter, considered perhaps in his original
aspect as a god of the greenwood.[1247]
[Sidenote: Diana and the oak.] The hypothesis that in later times at all
events the King of the Wood played the part of the oak god Jupiter, is
confirmed by an examination of his divine partner Diana. [Sidenote:
Diana, the divine partner of the King of the Wood at Nemi, seems to have
been especially associated with the oak.] For two distinct lines of
argument converge to shew that if Diana was a queen of the woods in
general, she was at Nemi a goddess of the oak in particular. In the
first place, she bore the title of Vesta, and as such presided over a
perpetual fire, which we have seen reason to believe was fed with oak
wood.[1248] But a goddess of fire is not far removed from a goddess of
the fuel which burns in the fire; primitive thought perhaps drew no
sharp line of distinction between the blaze and the wood that blazes. In
the second place, the nymph Egeria at Nemi appears to have been merely a
form of Diana, and Egeria is definitely said to have been a Dryad, a
nymph of the oak.[1249] Elsewhere in Italy the goddess had her home on
oak-clad mountains. Thus Mount Algidus, a spur of the Alban hills, was
covered in antiquity with dark forests of oak, both of the evergreen and
the deciduous sort. In winter the snow lay long on these cold hills, and
their gloomy oak-woods were believed to be a favourite haunt of Diana,
as they have been of brigands in modern times.[1250] Again, Mount
Tifata, the long abrupt ridge of the Apennines which looks down on the
Campanian plain behind Capua, was wooded of old with evergreen oaks,
among which Diana had a temple. Here Sulla thanked the goddess for his
victory over the Marians in the plain below, attesting his gratitude by
inscriptions which were long afterwards to be seen in the temple.[1251]
On the whole, then, we conclude that at Nemi the King of the Wood
personated the oak-god Jupiter and mated with the oak-goddess Diana in
the sacred grove. An echo of their mystic union has come down to us in
the legend of the loves of Numa and Egeria, who according to some had
their trysting-place in these holy woods.[1252]
[Sidenote: In nature and in name Dianus (Janus) and Diana seem to be
only dialectically different forms of Jupiter and Juno.] To this theory
it may naturally be objected that the divine consort of Jupiter was not
Diana but Juno, and that if Diana had a mate at all he might be expected
to bear the name not of Jupiter, but of Dianus or Janus, the latter of
these forms being merely a corruption of the former. All this is true,
but the objection may be parried by observing that the two pairs of
deities, Jupiter and Juno on the one side, and Dianus and Diana, or
Janus and Jana, on the other side, are merely duplicates of each other,
their names and their functions being in substance and origin identical.
With regard to their names, all four of them come from the same Aryan
root _DI_, meaning “bright,” which occurs in the names of the
corresponding Greek deities, Zeus and his old female consort
Dione.[1253] In regard to their functions, Juno and Diana were both
goddesses of fecundity and childbirth, and both were sooner or later
identified with the moon.[1254] As to the true nature and functions of
Janus the ancients themselves were puzzled;[1255] and where they
hesitated, it is not for us confidently to decide. But the view
mentioned by Varro that Janus was the god of the sky[1256] is supported
not only by the etymological identity of his name with that of the
sky-god Jupiter, but also by the relation in which he appears to have
stood to Jupiter’s two mates, Juno and Juturna. For the epithet Junonian
bestowed on Janus[1257] points to a marriage union between the two
deities; and according to one account Janus was the husband of the
water-nymph Juturna,[1258] who according to others was beloved by
Jupiter.[1259] Moreover, Janus, like Jove, was regularly invoked, and
commonly spoken of, under the title of Father.[1260] Indeed, he was
identified with Jupiter not merely by the logic of a Christian
doctor,[1261] but by the piety of a pagan worshipper who dedicated an
offering to Jupiter Dianus.[1262] A trace of his relation to the oak may
be found in the oak-woods of the Janiculum, the hill on the right bank
of the Tiber, where Janus is said to have reigned as a king in the
remotest ages of Italian history.[1263]
[Sidenote: Zeus and Dione, Jupiter and Juno, Dianus (Janus) and Diana
represent a single original pair of Aryan deities, which through purely
dialectical differences of nomenclature gradually diverged from each
other and came to be regarded as separate pairs of deities.] Thus, if I
am right, the same ancient pair of deities was variously known among the
Greek and Italian peoples as Zeus and Dione, Jupiter and Juno, or Dianus
(Janus) and Diana (Jana), the names of the divinities being identical in
substance, though varying in form with the dialect of the particular
tribe which worshipped them. At first, when the peoples dwelt near each
other, the difference between the deities would be hardly more than one
of name; in other words, it would be almost purely dialectical. But the
gradual dispersion of the tribes, and their consequent isolation from
each other, would favour the growth of divergent modes of conceiving and
worshipping the gods whom they had carried with them from their old
home, so that in time discrepancies of myth and ritual would tend to
spring up and thereby to convert a nominal into a real distinction
between the divinities. Accordingly when, with the slow progress of
culture, the long period of barbarism and separation was passing away,
and the rising political power of a single strong community had begun to
draw or hammer its weaker neighbours into a nation, the confluent
peoples would throw their gods, like their dialects, into a common
stock; and thus it might come about that the same ancient deities, which
their forefathers had worshipped together before the dispersion, would
now be so disguised by the accumulated effect of dialectical and
religious divergencies that their original identity might fail to be
recognised, and they would take their places side by side as independent
divinities in the national pantheon.[1264]
[Sidenote: This explanation of Janus as equivalent to Jupiter is more
probable than the view that Janus was originally nothing but the god of
the door (_janua_); for the door (_janua_) seems rather to have been
named after Janus than he after it.] This duplication of deities, the
result of the final fusion of kindred tribes who had long lived apart,
would account for the appearance of Janus beside Jupiter, and of Diana
or Jana beside Juno in the Roman religion.[1265] At least this appears
to be a more probable theory than the opinion, which has found favour
with some modern scholars, that Janus was originally nothing but the god
of doors.[1266] That a deity of his dignity and importance, whom the
Romans revered as a god of gods[1267] and the father of his people,
should have started in life as a humble, though doubtless respectable,
doorkeeper appears to me, I confess, very unlikely. So lofty an end
hardly consorts with so lowly a beginning. It is more probable that the
door (_janua_) got its name from Janus than that he got his name from
it. This view is strengthened by a consideration of the word _janua_
itself. The regular word for door is the same in all the languages of
the Aryan family from India to Ireland. It is _dur_ in Sanscrit, _thura_
in Greek, _Tür_ in German, _door_ in English, _dorus_ in old Irish, and
_foris_ in Latin.[1268] Yet besides this ordinary name for door, which
the Latins shared with all their Aryan brethren, they had also the name
_janua_, to which there is no corresponding term in any Indo-European
speech. The word has the appearance of being an adjectival form derived
from the noun _Janus_. I conjecture that it may have been customary to
set up an image or symbol of Janus at the principal door of the house in
order to place the entrance under the protection of the great god. A
door thus guarded might be known as a _janua foris_, that is, a Januan
door, and the phrase might in time be abridged into _janua_, the noun
_foris_ being understood but not expressed. From this to the use of
_janua_ to designate a door in general, whether guarded by an image of
Janus or not, would be an easy and natural transition.[1269]
[Sidenote: The double-headed figure of Janus may have originated in a
custom of placing his image as guardian of doorways so as to face both
ways, outwards and inwards, at the same time.] If there is any truth in
this conjecture, it may explain very simply the origin of the double
head of Janus, which has so long exercised the ingenuity of
mythologists. When it had become customary to guard the entrance of
houses and towns by an image of Janus, it might well be deemed necessary
to make the sentinel god look both ways, before and behind, at the same
time, in order that nothing should escape his vigilant eye. For if the
divine watchman always faced in one direction, it is easy to imagine
what mischief might have been wrought with impunity behind his back.
[Sidenote: This explanation is confirmed by the double-headed idols
which the Bush negroes of Surinam set to guard the entrances of their
villages.] This explanation of the double-headed Janus at Rome is
confirmed by the double-headed idol which the Bush negroes in the
interior of Surinam regularly set up as a guardian at the entrance of a
village. The idol consists of a block of wood with a human face rudely
carved on each side; it stands under a gateway composed of two uprights
and a cross-bar. Beside the idol generally lies a white rag intended to
keep off the devil; and sometimes there is also a stick which seems to
represent a bludgeon or weapon of some sort. Further, from the cross-bar
hangs a small log which serves the useful purpose of knocking on the
head any evil spirit who might attempt to pass through the
gateway.[1270] Clearly this double-headed fetish at the gateway of the
negro villages in Surinam bears a close resemblance to the double-headed
images of Janus which, grasping a stick in one hand and a key in the
other, stood sentinel at Roman gates and doorways;[1271] and we can
hardly doubt that in both cases the heads facing two ways are to be
similarly explained as expressive of the vigilance of the guardian god,
who kept his eye on spiritual foes behind and before, and stood ready to
bludgeon them on the spot. We may, therefore, dispense with the tedious
and unsatisfactory explanations which the wily Janus himself fobbed off
an anxious Roman enquirer.[1272] In the interior of Borneo the Kenyahs
generally place before the main entrance of their houses the wooden
image of Balli Atap, that is, the Spirit or God (_Balli_) of the Roof,
who protects the household from harm of all kinds.[1273] But it does not
appear that this divine watchman is provided with more than one face.
[Sidenote: Thus the King of the Wood at Nemi seems to have personated
the great Aryan god of the oak, Jupiter or Janus, and to have mated with
the oak-goddess Diana.] To apply these conclusions to the priest of
Nemi, we may suppose that as the mate of Diana he represented originally
Dianus or Janus rather than Jupiter, but that the difference between
these deities was of old merely superficial, going little deeper than
the names, and leaving practically unaffected the essential functions of
the god as a power of the sky, the thunder, and the oak. If my analysis
of this great divinity is correct, the original element in his composite
nature was the oak. It was fitting, therefore, that his human
representative at Nemi should dwell, as we have seen reason to believe
he did, in an oak grove. His title of King of the Wood clearly indicates
the sylvan character of the deity whom he served; and since he could
only be assailed by him who had plucked the bough of a certain tree in
the grove, his own life might be said to be bound up with that of the
sacred tree. Thus he not only served but embodied the great Aryan god of
the oak; and as an oak-god he would mate with the oak-goddess, whether
she went by the name of Egeria or Diana. Their union, however
consummated, would be deemed essential to the fertility of the earth and
the fecundity of man and beast. Further, as the oak-god had grown into a
god of the sky, the thunder, and the rain, so his human representative
would be required, like many other divine kings, to cause the clouds to
gather, the thunder to peal, and the rain to descend in due season, that
the fields and orchards might bear fruit and the pastures be covered
with luxuriant herbage. The reputed possessor of powers so exalted must
have been a very important personage; and the remains of buildings and
of votive offerings which have been found on the site of the sanctuary
combine with the testimony of classical writers to prove that in later
times it was one of the greatest and most popular shrines in Italy. Even
in the old days when the champaign country around was still parcelled
out among the petty tribes who composed the Latin League, the sacred
grove is known to have been an object of their common reverence and
care. And just as the kings of Cambodia used to send offerings to the
mystic kings of Fire and Water far in the dim depths of the tropical
forest, so, we may well believe, from all sides of the broad Latian
plain the eyes and footsteps of Italian pilgrims turned to the quarter
where, standing sharply out against the faint blue line of the Apennines
or the deeper blue of the distant sea, the Alban Mountain rose before
them, the home of the mysterious priest of Nemi, the King of the Wood.
There, among the green woods and beside the still waters of the lonely
hills the ancient Aryan worship of the god of the oak, the thunder, and
the dripping sky lingered in its early, almost Druidical form, long
after a great political and intellectual revolution had shifted the
capital of Latin religion from the forest to the city, from Nemi to
Rome.
Footnote 1238:
Above, vol. i. pp. 6 _sq._, 12; vol. ii. pp. 124 _sq._, 128 _sq._, 171
_sqq._
Footnote 1239:
Above, vol. i. pp. 19 _sqq._, 40 _sq._
Footnote 1240:
Above, vol. i. pp. 12 _sq._
Footnote 1241:
Above, pp. 365, 366, 372.
Footnote 1242:
Above, p. 186.
Footnote 1243:
Above, vol. i. pp. 13 _sq._, vol. ii. pp. 184, 266.
Footnote 1244:
Virgil, _Aen._ vi. 205 _sqq._
Footnote 1245:
See above, pp. 178 _sqq._
Footnote 1246:
This suggestion is due to Mr. A. B. Cook. See his articles, “Zeus,
Jupiter, and the Oak,” _Classical Review_, xviii. (1904) pp. 363
_sq._; and “The European Sky-God,” _Folk-lore_, xvi. (1905) pp. 277
_sq._ On the other hand see above, pp. 1 _sq._
Footnote 1247:
Virbius may perhaps be etymologically connected with _viridis_,
“green,” and _verbena_, “a sacred bough.” If this were so, Virbius
would be “the Green One.” We are reminded of those popular
personifications of the spring, Green George and Jack in the Green.
See above, pp. 75 _sq._, 82 _sq._ As to the proposed derivation from a
root meaning “green” Professor R. S. Conway writes to me (10th January
1903): “From this meaning of the root a derivative in _-bus_ would not
strike me as so strange; _vir-bho_ might conceivably mean ‘growing
green.’” In my _Lectures on the Early History of the Kingship_ (pp.
282 _sq._) I followed Mr. A. B. Cook in interpreting a passage of
Plautus (_Casina_, ii. 5. 23-29) as a reference to the priests of Nemi
in the character of mortal Jupiters. But a simpler and more probable
explanation of the passage has been given by Dr. L. R. Farnell. See A.
B. Cook, “The European Sky-god,” _Folk-lore_, xvi. (1905) pp. 322
_sqq._; L. R. Farnell, in _The Hibbert Journal_, iv. (1906) p. 932.
Footnote 1248:
See above, vol. i. p. 13, vol. ii. pp. 378 _sq._
Footnote 1249:
Above, pp. 171 _sq._
Footnote 1250:
Horace, _Odes_, i. 21. 5 _sq._, iii. 23. 9 _sq._, iv. 4. 5 _sq._,
_Carmen Saeculare_, 69; Livy, iii. 25. 6-8; E. H. Bunbury, in Smith’s
_Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography_, _s.v._ “Algidus.”
Footnote 1251:
Festus, _s.v._ “Tifata,” p. 366, ed. C. O. Müller; Velleius
Paterculus, ii. 25. 4; E. H. Bunbury, _op. cit._ _s.v._ “Tifata.” For
more evidence of the association of Diana with the oak, see Mr. A. B.
Cook, “Zeus, Jupiter, and the Oak,” _Classical Review_, xviii. (1904)
pp. 369 _sq._
Footnote 1252:
Above, vol. i. pp. 17 _sq._, vol. ii pp. 172 _sq._
Footnote 1253:
The original root appears plainly in _Diovis_ and _Diespiter_, the
older forms of _Jupiter_ (Varro, _De lingua Latina_, v. 66; Aulus
Gellius, v. 12). The form Dianus is attested by an inscription found
at Aquileia (_Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_, v. 783), and the form
Jana by Varro (_Rerum rusticarum_, i. 37. 3) and Macrobius (_Saturn._
i. 9. 8). In _Zeus_, _Dione_, _Jupiter_, and _Juno_ the old root _DI_
appears in the expanded form _DIV_. As to the etymology of these
names, see Ch. Ploix, “Les Dieux qui proviennent de la racine _DIV_,”
_Mémoires de la Société de Linguistique de Paris_, i. (1868) pp.
213-222; G. Curtius, _Grundzüge der griechischen Etymologie_, 5th Ed.,
pp. 236 _sq._, 616 _sq._; A. Vanicek, _Griechisch-lateinisches
etymologisches Wörterbuch_, i. 353 _sqq._; W. H. Roscher, _Lexikon der
griech. u. röm. Mythologie_, ii. 45 _sq._, 578 _sq._, 619; S. Linde,
_De Jano summo Romanorumdeo_ (Lund, 1891), pp. 7 _sq._; J. S. Speijer,
“Le Dieu romain Janus,” _Revue de l’Histoire des Religions_, xxvi.
(1892) pp. 37-41; H. Usener, _Götternamen_, pp. 16, 35 _sq._, 326; P.
Kretschmer, _Einleitung in die Geschichte der griechischen Sprache_,
pp. 78 _sqq._, 91, 161 _sq._ Messrs. Speijer and Kretschmer reject the
derivation of Janus from the root _DI_.
Footnote 1254:
As to Juno in these aspects, see L. Preller, _Römische Mythologie_,
3rd Ed., i. 271 _sqq._; G. Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus der Römer_,
pp. 117 _sqq._; W. H. Roscher, _Lexikon der griech. u. röm.
Mythologie_, ii. 578 _sqq._ As to Diana, see above, vol. i. p. 12,
vol. ii. pp. 124, 128 _sq._
Footnote 1255:
Ovid, _Fasti_, i. 89 _sqq._; Macrobius, _Sat._ i. 9; Servius, on
Virgil, _Aen._ vii. 610; Joannes Lydus, _De mensibus_, iv. 1 _sq._
Footnote 1256:
Varro, quoted by Augustine, _De civitate Dei_, vii. 28; Joannes Lydus,
_De mensibus_, iv. 2. Compare Macrobius, _Sat._ i. 9. 11. See R.
Agahd, _M. Terentii Varronis rerum divinarum libri I. XIV. XV. XVI._
(Leipsic, 1898) pp. 117 _sqq._, 203 _sq._
Footnote 1257:
Macrobius, _Sat._ i. 9. 15, i. 15. 19; Servius, on Virgil, _Aen._ vii.
610; Joannes Lydus, _De mensibus_, iv. 1. Prof. G. Wissowa thinks that
sacrifices were offered to Janus as well as to Juno on the first of
every month (_Religion und Kultus der Römer_, pp. 91 _sq._); but this
view does not seem to me to be supported by the evidence of Macrobius
(_Sat._ i. 9. 16, i. 15. 18 _sq._), to which he refers. Macrobius does
not say that the first of every month was sacred to Janus.
Footnote 1258:
Arnobius, _Adversus nationes_, iii. 29.
Footnote 1259:
Virgil, _Aen._ xii. 138 _sqq._; Ovid, _Fasti_, ii. 585 _sqq._
Footnote 1260:
Cato, _De agri cultura_, 134; Virgil, _Aen._ viii. 357; Horace,
_Epist._ i. 16. 59, compare _Sat._ ii. 6. 20; Pliny, _Nat. Hist._
xxxvi. 28; Juvenal, vi. 394; Martial, x. 28. 6 _sq._; Aulus Gellius,
v. 12. 5; Arnobius, _Adversus nationes_, iii. 29; H. Dessau,
_Inscriptiones Latinae selectae_, Nos. 3320, 3322, 3323, 3324, 3325,
5047; G. Henzen, _Acta fratrum Arvalium_, p. 144; Athenaeus, xv. 46,
p. 692 D, E.
Footnote 1261:
Augustine, _De civitate Dei_, vii. 9 _sq._
Footnote 1262:
_Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_, v. No. 783.
Footnote 1263:
Macrobius, _Sat._ i. 7. 19; Servius, on Virgil, _Aen._ viii. 319 and
357; Arnobius, _Adversus nationes_, iii. 29; Athenaeus, xv. 46, p. 692
D. As to the oak-woods of the Janiculum, see above, p. 186.
Footnote 1264:
As dialectal differences in the ancient Italian languages seem to have
created a multiplicity of deities, so in the Malay language they
appear to have created a multiplicity of fabulous animals. See R. J.
Wilkinson, _Malay Beliefs_ (London and Leyden, 1906), p. 56: “The
wealth of Malay nomenclature in the province of natural history is in
itself a fruitful source of error. The identity of different dialectic
names for the same animal is not always recognized: the local name is
taken to represent the real animal, the foreign name is assumed to
represent a rare or fabulous variety of the same genus.” In these
cases mythology might fairly enough be described as a disease of
language. But such cases cover only a small part of the vast mythical
field.
Footnote 1265:
Mr. A. B. Cook, who accepts in substance my theory of the original
identity of Jupiter and Janus, Juno and Diana, has suggested that
Janus and Diana were the deities of the aborigines of Rome, Jupiter
and Juno the deities of their conquerors. See his article, “Zeus,
Jupiter, and the Oak,” _Classical Review_, xviii. (1904) pp. 367 _sq._
Footnote 1266:
This is the opinion of Dr. W. H. Roscher (_Lexikon der griech. u. röm.
Mythologie_, ii. 47), Mr. W. Warde Fowler (_Roman Festivals of the
Period of the Republic_, pp. 282 _sqq._), and Prof. G. Wissowa
(_Religion und Kultus der Römer_, p. 96). It is rejected for the
reasons given in the text by Ph. Buttmann (_Mythologus_, ii. pp. 72,
79) and S. Linde (_De Jano summo Romanorum deo_, pp. 50 _sqq._).
Footnote 1267:
He was so saluted in the ancient hymns of the Salii. See Macrobius,
_Sat._ i. 9. 14; compare Varro, _De lingua Latina_, vii. 26 _sq._
Footnote 1268:
G. Curtius, _Grundzüge der griechischen Etymologie_, 5th Ed.,, p. 258;
O. Schrader, _Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde_, p.
866.
Footnote 1269:
This theory of the derivation of _janua_ from _Janus_ was suggested,
though not accepted, by Ph. Butmann (_Mythologus_, ii. 79 _sqq._). It
occurred to me independently. Mr. A. B. Cook also derives _janua_ from
_Janus_, but he would explain the derivation in a different way by
supposing that the lintel and two side-posts of a door represented a
triple Janus. See his article “Zeus, Jupiter, and the Oak,” _Classical
Review_, xviii. (1904) p. 369.
Footnote 1270:
K. Martin, “Bericht über eine Reise ins Gebiet des Oberen-Surinam,”
_Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië_,
xxxv. (1886) pp. 28 _sq._ I am indebted to Mr. A. van Gennep for
pointing out this confirmation of my theory as to the meaning of the
double-headed Janus. See his article “Janus Bifrons,” _Revue des
traditions populaires_, xxii. (1907) pp. 97 _sq._
Footnote 1271:
Macrobius, _Saturn._ i. 9. 7, “_Sed apud nos Janum omnibus praeesse
januis nomen ostendit, quod est simile_ θυραίῳ. _Nam et cum clavi ac
virga figuratur, quasi omnium et portarum custos et rector viarum_”;
Ovid, _Fasti_, i. 95, 99, “_Sacer ancipiti mirandus imagine Janus ...
tenens dextra baculum clavemque sinistra_.”
Footnote 1272:
Ovid, _Fasti_, i. 89 _sqq._
Footnote 1273:
C. Hose and W. McDougall, “The Relations between Men and Animals in
Sarawak,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxi. (1901) p.
175.
INDEX
Abbas Effendi, i. 402
Abchases of the Caucasus, the, ii. 370
Abolition of the kingship at Rome, ii. 289 _sqq._
Abraham and Sarah, ii. 114
Acacia-tree worshipped, ii. 16
Achelous and Dejanira, ii. 161 _sq._
Achilles, ii. 278
Acorns as food, ii. 353, 355 _sq._;
as fodder for swine, 354, 356
Adam of Bremen, ii. 364
Adonis at Byblus, i. 30
—— and Venus (Aphrodite), i. 21, 25, 40, 41
—— or Tammuz, ii. 346
Adoption, pretence of birth at, i. 74 _sq._
Adultery supposed to blight the fruits of the earth, ii. 107 _sq._, 114
Aeacus, ii. 278, 359
Aegira, priestess of Earth at, i. 381 _sq._
Aegisthus, ii. 281
Aeneas and the Golden Bough, i. 11, ii. 379;
his disappearance in a thunderstorm, 181
Aeolus, i. 326
Aeschines, spurious epistles of, ii. 162 _n._ 2
Aesculapius brings Hippolytus to life, i. 20;
at Cos, ii. 10
Africa, rise of magicians, especially rain-makers, to chieftainship and
kingship in, i. 342 _sqq._, 352;
human gods in, 392 _sqq._
—— North, magical images in, i. 65 _sq._
Afterbirth (placenta), contagious magic of, i. 182-201;
placed in tree, 182, 187, 190, 191, 194, 199;
part of child’s spirit in, 184;
regarded as brother or sister of child, 189, 191, 192, 193;
regarded as a second child, 195;
seat of external soul, 200 _sq._
Agamemnon, ii. 279;
sceptre of, i. 365
Agni, the fire-god, ii. 249
_Agnihotris_, Brahman fire-priests, ii. 247 _sqq._
_Agriculture of the Nabataeans_, ii. 100
Ainos, i. 60
Akamba, the, ii. 317
Akikuyu, the, ii. 44, 150, 316, 317;
pretence of new birth among the, i. 75 _sq._, 96 _sq._
Alba Longa, the kings of, ii. 178 _sqq._, 268 _sq._
Alban Hills, i. 2
—— Mountain, the, ii. 187 _sq._, 202
Albigenses, the, i. 407
_Alcheringa_, legendary time, i. 98
Alfai, priesthood of the, ii. 3
Algidus, Mount, ii. 187, 380
Algonquins, the, ii. 147
Amata, “Beloved,” title of Vestals, ii. 197;
Amata, wife of King Latinus, 197
Amboyna, ii. 28
Amenophis III., birth of, ii. 131 _sqq._
American Indians, power of medicine-men among the, i. 355 _sqq._
Amethyst, i. 165
Ammon, the god, married to the Queen of Egypt, ii. 130 _sqq._;
human wives of the god, 130 _sqq._;
costume of the god, 133;
King of Egypt masqueraded as, 133;
at Thebes, high priests of, 134
Ammonite, black fossil, ii. 26, 27 _n._ 2
Amphictyon, ii. 277
Amulius Sylvius, ii. 180
Anaitis, Oriental goddess, i. 16 _sq._, 37 _n._ 2
_Anatomie of Abuses_, ii. 66
Anazarbus, the olives of, ii. 107
Ancestor-worship among the Bantu peoples, ii. 221;
in relation to fire-worship, 221
Ancestors, prayers to, i. 285, 287, 345, 352;
sacrifices to, 339;
souls of, in trees, ii. 30, 31, 32;
dead, regarded as mischievous beings, 221;
represented by sacred fire-sticks, 222 _sqq._;
souls of, in the fire on the hearth, 232
Ancestral spirits worshipped at the hearth, ii. 221 _sq._
Ancestral tree, fire kindled from, ii. 221, 233 _sq._
Ancus Martius, his death, ii. 320
Andaman Islanders, ii. 253
Andania, ii. 122
Anderida, forest of, ii. 7
Andromeda and Perseus, ii. 163
Animals, homoeopathic magic of, i. 150 _sqq._;
rain-making by means of, 287 _sqq._
Animism passing into polytheism, ii. 45
_Anitos_, spirits of ancestors, ii. 30
Anjea, mythical being, who causes conception in women, i. 100, 184
Annals of Tigernach and Ulster, ii. 286
Annandale, Nelson, ii. 237 _n._