"I am the family Lar
Of this house whence you see me coming out.
'Tis many years now that I keep and guard
This family; both father and grandsire
Of him that has it now, I aye protected."
Beneath the threshold of the Assyrian palaces at Nineveh were found
images of a foul and ugly appearance (_teraphim_), some having a lynx's
head and human body, others a lion's body and human head. Sentences were
also inscribed on the threshold, and the winged bulls and figures were
placed on each side of the portal. The intention was, doubtless, the
prevention of the entrance of evil deities, and the protection of the
household.[24]
The Chinese, Hindoos, and natives of Ashanti, believe in the existence
of similar deities. The Bhûtas of Hindostan are a species of malevolent
spirit, which are worshipped as tutelary deities. Every house and each
family has its particular Bhûta, which is often represented by a
shapeless stone. Daily sacrifices are offered to it, in order to
propitiate its evil disposition, and incline it to defend the house from
the machinations of neighbouring Bhûtas. The native of Ashanti offers
also daily sacrifices to his tutelary deity, which, under the form of a
stone painted red, is placed upon a platform within his hut.
There are several remnants of this ancient superstition still in vogue
in England. The common practice of nailing a horse-shoe behind the door,
to terrify witches and prevent the entrance of evil spirits, is familiar
to most persons. Formerly it was the custom to nail the horse-shoe to
the threshold. Aubrey writes, in his _Miscellanies_: "Most houses of the
west end of London have the horse-shoe on the threshold." In Monmouth
Street, in 1797, many horse-shoes were to be seen fastened to the
threshold. In 1813, Sir Henry Ellis counted seventeen horse-shoes in
this position in that street, but in 1841 the number had diminished to
five or six.
In some parts of England, naturally perforated stones are suspended
behind the doors, with the same intention;[25] in others, jugs, of
singular and often frightful form, are built into the walls of the
cottages--an interesting approximation to the Assyrian teraphim; and in
Glamorganshire the walls of the houses are whitewashed, in order to
terrify wandering spirits,--a mode of prevention which we should like to
see more generally adopted, as it would doubtless prove of some effect
in impeding the access of those roaming spirits of evil with which we
have to contend most at the present day--cholera and fever.
According to Durandus, the dedication-crosses of the Roman Catholic
churches were adopted under the influence of a feeling in every respect
analogous to this ancient superstition. He writes that the crosses were
used, "first, as a terror to evil spirits, that they, having been
driven forth thence, may be terrified when they see the sign of the
cross, and may not presume to enter therein again. Secondly, as a mark
of triumph, for crosses be the banners of Christ, and the signs of his
triumph.... Thirdly, that such as look on them may call to mind the
passion of Christ, by which He hath consecrated his church; and their
belief in his passion."[26]
But the influence of mythology on Christianity did not terminate with
the mere natural results of previous education, habits, &c. The church,
under and subsequent to the reign of Constantine, reposing in the
protection of the civil power, and not content with the natural
veneration due to those early Christians who had struggled for the
cross, and fallen martyrs or distinguished themselves by their long and
protracted sufferings, insensibly, perhaps, at the first, and influenced
by the same amiable feelings which led the pagan to deify his
benefactors, indulged a degree of reverence to the memory of those holy
men, which soon ripened into superstitious observances, and ultimately
to their canonization and invocation. The Fathers of that
period--Athanasius, Nazianzen, Chrysostom, &c.--encouraged the belief;
and a rage was developed for the search of the remains and
resting-places of the holy dead, to whom prayers were offered; and, in
its encouragement of invocation of the dead, visions, miracles,
prophetic dreams, relics, &c., the Roman church at this time rivalled
the omens, divinations, oracles, and hero-worship of one of the later
phases of mythology.
The church even sought to promote the spread of Christianity by the
adoption of certain pagan rites and ceremonies. No more remarkable and
interesting example of this is to be found than in the annals of our own
country. In the year of our Lord 601, in a letter "sent to the Abbot
Mellitus, then going into Britain," Pope Gregory wrote as follows:--
"I have, upon mature deliberation on the affairs of the English,
determined ... that the temples of the idols of that nation ought not to
be destroyed; but let the idols that are in them be destroyed, let holy
water be made and sprinkled in the said temples, let altars be erected,
and relics placed. For if those temples be well built, it is requisite
that they be converted from the worship of devils to the service of the
true God; that the nation, seeing that the temples are not destroyed,
may remove error from their hearts, and knowing and adoring the true
God, may the more familiarly resort to the places to which they have
been accustomed. And because they have been used to slaughter many oxen
in the sacrifices to devils, some solemnity must be exchanged for these
on this account, as that on the day of dedication, or the nativities of
the holy martyrs whose relics are there deposited, they may build
themselves huts of the boughs of trees about those churches which have
been turned to that use from temples, and no more offer beasts to the
devil, but kill cattle to the praise of God in their eating, and return
thanks to the Giver of all things for their sustenance; to the end that,
whilst some gratifications are outwardly permitted them, they may the
more easily consent to the inward consolations of the grace of God."[27]
In A.D. 726, Pope Gregory II expressed his approval of image-worship,
and because the Greek emperor refused to accede to this form of
idolatry, he caused the tribute paid to him by Rome to be suspended, and
even went to the extent of excommunicating him; and in 789, the second
Nicene council re-established and confirmed the adoration of images.
Examples of the influence of these doctrines in the Roman and other
churches may be multiplied.
The censers and lustration vessels of the priesthood are copied from the
sacrificial vessels which were used in the pagan temples; the woollen
fillet was transformed into the priest's amice; and the _lituus_, or
curved staff of the soothsayer, became the crozier of the bishop.
The sacred fountains of antiquity were perpetuated in a Christian form
by dedication to a saint. Examples of this are afforded by the wells of
St. Elian, in Denbighshire; St. Winifred, in Flintshire, &c.
In no respect, however, has the Romish church so closely followed the
example of pagan nations, and borrowed from mythology, as in the
deification of men, and the adoption of tutelary divinities.
As the mythology of ancient Rome and Greece had its gods who presided
over countries, cities, towns, and the numerous actions and duties of
man in his civil and religious life, to each of whom worship was offered
and altars erected, so also the Romish church encouraged the belief in
guardian saints, and in this respect its calendar rivals the Pantheon.
As fully did this church adopt the principle of the deification
(_canonization_) of men--one of the most prominent of the
characteristics of idolatry.
Thus the Romish calendar contains guardian saints of countries: St.
George is the tutelary saint of England; St. Andrew, of Scotland; St.
Patrick, of Ireland; St. Denis, of France; and St. Peter, of Flanders.
Austria possesses two guardian saints, St. Colman and St. Leopold;
Germany has _three_, St. Martin, St. Boniface, and St. George
Cataphrastus; and so on of all the countries of Europe.
There are also guardian saints of cities. St. Egidius presides over
Edinburgh, St. Nicholas, Aberdeen; St. Peter succeeded Mars at Rome; St.
Frideswide, Oxford; St. Genevieve, Paris; St. Thomas Aquinas and St.
Januarius, Naples, &c.
Of the general body of tutelary saints the following list will afford an
illustration:--
St. Agatha presides over nurses; St. Catherine and St. Gregory over
studious persons; St. Christopher, St. Hermus, and St. Nicholas, over
mariners; St. Cecilia, over musicians; St. Cosmos and Damian, over
physicians, surgeons, and philosophers; St. Dismas and St. Nicholas,
over thieves; St. Eustace and St. Hubert, over hunters; St. Felicitas,
over young children; St. Julian, over pilgrims; St. Leonard and St.
Barbara, over captives; St. Luke, painters; St. Martin and St. Urban
over ale-knights, to prevent them falling in the kennel; St. Æthelbert
and Ælian are invoked against thieves, &c.
St. Agatha presides over valleys; St. Anne, riches; St. Barbara, hills;
St. Florian, fire; St. Sylvester, woods, &c.
St. Thomas presides over divines; St. Thomas à-Becket, blind men; St.
Valentine, lovers; St. Winifred, virgins; St. Joseph, carpenters; St.
Anthony, swineherds and grocers; St. Arnhold, millers; St. Blaise,
wool-combers; St. Catherine, spinners; St. Clement, tanners; St. Cloud,
nailsmiths; St. Dunstan, goldsmiths; St. Elry, blacksmiths, farriers,
&c.; St. Florian, mercers; St. Francis, butchers; St. George, clothiers;
St. Goodman and St. Ann, tailors; St. Gore, potters; St. Hilary,
coopers; St. Leodager, drapers; St. Crispin, shoemakers, &c.
St. Anthony protects hogs; St. Ferriol, geese; St. Gertrude, mice and
eggs; St. Hubert, dogs; St. Joy, horses, &c.
Numerous saints were invoked against diseases: _e.g._, St. Clara against
sore eyes; St. Genow, gout; St. Marus, palsies and convulsions; St.
Sigismund, fevers, &c.
"There be many miracles assigned to saints," writes Barnaby Rich, in
1619, "that they say are good for all diseases: they can give sight to
the blind, make the deafe to hear; they can restore limbs that be
crippled, and make the lame go upright; they be good for horse, swine,
and many other beasts. And women, also, have shee-saints.... They have
saints to pray to when they be grieved with a third-day ague, when they
be pained with toothache, or when they would be revenged on their angry
husbands.
"They have saints that be good amongst poultry when they have the pip,
for geese when they do sit, to have a happy success in goslings; and, to
be short, there is no disease, no sickness, no griefe, either amongst
men or beasts, that hath not his physician among the saints."[28]
The Romish church also adopted the pagan belief in apparitions, and as
the latter had supported the argument in favour of the existence of the
gods by the fiction of their occasional manifestations in a visible
form, so the former endeavoured to sustain its dogmas by fables of the
apparition, from time to time, of its saints.
It is needless to dwell upon the manner in which this church pandered to
the credulity of the people in this respect, for an example is before
the world even at the present time in the apparition of the Blessed
Virgin near La Salette, a village about four miles from Corps, a small
town situated on the road between Grenoble and Gap.
The story is as follows:--On the 19th September, 1846, the Blessed
Virgin appeared to two children, the one a boy aged 11, and the other a
girl aged 14 years, who were watching cows near a fountain, in the
hollow of a ravine in the mountains, about four miles from the church
of La Salette. When first seen, she was in a sitting position, the head
resting upon the hands, and she "had on white shoes, with roses about
her shoes. The roses were of all colours. Her socks were yellow, her
apron yellow, and her gown white, with pearls all over it. She had a
white neckerchief, with roses round it; a high cap, a little bent in
front; a crown round her cap with roses. She had a very small chain, to
which was attached a crucifix; on the right were some pincers, on the
left a hammer; at the extremities of the cross was another huge chain,
which fell, like the roses, round her handkerchief. Her face was white
and long."
Addressing the children, tears coursing down her cheeks, she spoke to
them on the wickedness of the peasantry, particularly their neglect of
the Sabbath and of the duties of Lent, when they "go like dogs to the
butchers' stalls." Then she foretold that if the men would not be
converted, there should be no potatoes at Christmas, all the corn should
be eaten up by animals, or if any did grow up, it should fall to dust
when thrashed. There should be a great famine, preceding which "children
below seven years of age should have convulsions, and die in the arms of
those who held them; and the rest should do penance by hunger. Nuts and
grapes also should perish. But if men were converted, then the rocks and
stones shall be changed into heaps of corn, and potatoes shall be sown
all over the land." "The lady," in addition, confided to each of the
children a secret which was not to be told to the other, but which they
confided to the Pope in 1851. Then, after a little gossiping
conversation, "the lady" vanished.
Soon after this apparition had been noised abroad, it was discovered
that the waters of the fountain were possessed of marvellous healing
properties, and many miraculous cures were effected by its use. Pilgrims
flocked to the scene of the vision, and it is affirmed that in one day
60,000 of the faithful ascended the mountain.
Among others, the present Bishop of Orleans made a pilgrimage to the
"holy mountain," and he was so impressed by the solemn feelings excited
by treading on such holy ground, that he often ejaculated, "It cannot be
but that the finger of God is here." Other ecclesiastics of rank also
visited the spot, and the whole affair was officially sanctioned.
Nor did the matter rest here, for churches are being built, and
dedicated to "Our Lady of Salette," in different countries; and a
society has been established in England bearing her name.
We have already alluded to the sacred fountains of heathen nations, and
in the holy fountain of Salette we witness the modern development of a
similar superstition. So also in the apparition of the Virgin the same
credulity is traced which prompted the ancients to believe in the
occasional appearance of their deities.
It is related that Castor and Pollux, the sons of Jupiter, by Leda the
wife of Tyndarus, were seen fighting at the battle of Regillus; and
that, subsequently, mounted on white horses, they appeared to P.
Vatienus, as he journeyed by night to Rome, from his government of
Reate, and told him that King Perses had that day been taken prisoner.
On these legends Cicero remarks; "Do you believe that the Tyndaridæ, as
you called them, that is, men sprung from men, and buried in Lacedemon,
as we learn from Homer, who lived in the next age,--do you believe, I
say, that they appeared to Vatienus on the road, mounted on white
horses, without any servant to attend them, to tell the victory of the
Romans to a country fellow rather than to M. Cato, who was that time the
chief person of the senate? Do you take that print of a horse's hoof,
which is now to be seen on a stone at Regillus, to be made by Castor's
horse? Should you not believe, what is probable, that the souls of
eminent men, such as the Tyndaridæ, are divine and immortal, rather than
that those bodies, which had been reduced to ashes, should mount on
horses and fight in an army? If you say that was possible, you ought to
show how it is so, and not amuse us with fabulous stories."
"Do you take these for fabulous stories?" says Balbus. "Is not the
temple built by Posthumius in honour of Castor and Pollux, to be seen in
the Forum? Is not the decree of the senate concerning Vatienus still
subsisting?... Ought not such authorities to move you?"
"You oppose me," replies Cotta, "with stories, but I ask reasons of
you."[29]
It would seem then that the parallelism is perfect, even to the building
of temples, and the official recognition of the truth of the event.
Of the individual personages of ancient mythology very few traces remain
in England, and these principally belong to the fairy belief. This
superstition, of which the analogue is found in the Nymphs, Oreads,
Dryads, Naiads, Lemoniads, and Nerieds, of ancient Greece and Rome, is
still prevalent in certain districts of this country; and the extinction
of the general belief, among the lower orders, of one of the most noted
of the personages which are met with in fairy lore, the _hobgoblin_, is
comparatively of recent date. The name is, however, still familiar, and
in use for certain vague manifestations of the supernatural, although
the actual signification of the term is, to a great extent, lost sight
of.
The hobgoblin is worthy of notice not only for its intrinsic interest,
but also for the illustration which it affords of the intimate
relationship which is often found to exist between the superstitions of
different and even far distant nations.
This spirit, in his palmy days, was that fairy which attached itself to
houses, and the neighbourhood of dwellings and churches (for even sacred
edifices were not exempted from its influence). In disposition it was
mischievous and sportive, although it often deigned, during the night,
to perform many menial offices, and whatsoever building it attached
itself to prospered. It was apt to take offence, particularly if, as a
reward, money or clothes were placed for it in that part of the house it
most frequented; but it was partial to cream, or some delicately
prepared eatable, and any housewife who was careful to conciliate the
spirit by administering to this taste, was certain to be well rewarded.
As might be anticipated, it was a favourite character with poets, and
descriptions of its propensities and actions abound. Thus, in the
"Midsummer Night's Dream" (Act II, Sc. 1), one of the Fairies is
represented as addressing this spirit, and saying:--
"Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
Called Robin Goodfellow. Are you not he
That frights the maidens of the villagery,
Skims milk, and labours in the quern,
And bootless makes the breathless housewife churn;
And sometimes makes the drink to bear no barm;
Misleads night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck,
You do their work and they shall have good luck,
Are not you he?
_Puck._ Thou speakest aright,
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly-foal;
And sometimes lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab,
And when she drinks against her lips I bob,
And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And _tailor_ cries, and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips and loffe,
And waxen in their mirth, and reeze, and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there."