CHAPTER I.

DEMONOLOGY AND DEVIL-LORE

By

MONCURE DANIEL CONWAY, M.A.

B. D. of Divinity College, Harvard University

Member of the Anthropological Institute, London

With numerous illustrations

New York

Henry Holt and Company

1879

PREFACE.

Three Friars, says a legend, hid themselves near the Witch Sabbath

orgies that they might count the devils; but the Chief of these,

discovering the friars, said--'Reverend Brothers, our army is such

that if all the Alps, their rocks and glaciers, were equally divided

among us, none would have a pound's weight.' This was in one Alpine

valley. Any one who has caught but a glimpse of the world's Walpurgis

Night, as revealed in Mythology and Folklore, must agree that this

courteous devil did not overstate the case. Any attempt to catalogue

the evil spectres which have haunted mankind were like trying to count

the shadows cast upon the earth by the rising sun. This conviction

has grown upon the author of this work at every step in his studies

of the subject.

In 1859 I contributed, as one of the American 'Tracts for the Times,'

a pamphlet entitled 'The Natural History of the Devil.' Probably

the chief value of that essay was to myself, and this in that

its preparation had revealed to me how pregnant with interest and

importance was the subject selected. Subsequent researches in the

same direction, after I had come to reside in Europe, revealed how

slight had been my conception of the vastness of the domain upon which

that early venture was made. In 1872, while preparing a series of

lectures for the Royal Institution on Demonology, it appeared to me

that the best I could do was to print those lectures with some notes

and additions; but after they were delivered there still remained with

me unused the greater part of materials collected in many countries,

and the phantasmal creatures which I had evoked would not permit me

to rest from my labours until I had dealt with them more thoroughly.

The fable of Thor's attempt to drink up a small spring, and his

failure because it was fed by the ocean, seems aimed at such efforts

as mine. But there is another aspect of the case which has yielded

me more encouragement. These phantom hosts, however unmanageable as

to number, when closely examined, present comparatively few types;

they coalesce by hundreds; from being at first overwhelmed by their

multiplicity, the classifier finds himself at length beating bushes to

start a new variety. Around some single form--the physiognomy, it may

be, of Hunger or Disease, of Lust or Cruelty--ignorant imagination

has broken up nature into innumerable bits which, like mirrors of

various surface, reflect the same in endless sizes and distortions;

but they vanish if that central fact be withdrawn.

In trying to conquer, as it were, these imaginary monsters, they

have sometimes swarmed and gibbered around me in a mad comedy

which travestied their tragic sway over those who believed in their

reality. Gargoyles extended their grin over the finest architecture,

cornices coiled to serpents, the very words of speakers started out of

their conventional sense into images that tripped my attention. Only

as what I believed right solutions were given to their problems were

my sphinxes laid; but through this psychological experience it appeared

that when one was so laid his or her legion disappeared also. Long ago

such phantasms ceased to haunt my nerves, because I discovered their

unreality; I am now venturing to believe that their mythologic forms

cease to haunt my studies, because I have found out their reality.

Why slay the slain? Such may be the question that will arise in the

minds of many who see this book. A Scotch song says, 'The Devil is

dead, and buried at Kirkcaldy;' if so, he did not die until he had

created a world in his image. The natural world is overlaid by an

unnatural religion, breeding bitterness around simplest thoughts,

obstructions to science, estrangements not more reasonable than if

they resulted from varying notions of lunar figures,--all derived from

the Devil-bequeathed dogma that certain beliefs and disbeliefs are of

infernal instigation. Dogmas moulded in a fossil demonology make the

foundation of institutions which divert wealth, learning, enterprise,

to fictitious ends. It has not, therefore, been mere intellectual

curiosity which has kept me working at this subject these many years,

but an increasing conviction that the sequelæ of such superstitions are

exercising a still formidable influence. When Father Delaporte lately

published his book on the Devil, his Bishop wrote--'Reverend Father, if

every one busied himself with the Devil as you do, the kingdom of God

would gain by it.' Identifying the kingdom here spoken of as that of

Truth, it has been with a certain concurrence in the Bishop's sentiment

that I have busied myself with the work now given to the public.

CONTENTS

Part I.

Chapter I.

Dualism.

Origin of Deism--Evolution from the far to the near--Illustrations

from Witchcraft--The primitive Pantheism--The dawn of Dualism

Chapter II.

The Genesis of Demons.

Their good names euphemistic--Their mixed character--Illustrations:

Beelzebub, Loki--Demon-germs--The knowledge of good and

evil--Distinction between Demon and Devil

Chapter III.

Degradation.

The degradation of Deities--Indicated in names--Legends of

their fall--Incidental signs of the divine origin of Demons and

Devils

Chapter IV.

The Abgott.

The ex-god--Deities demonised by conquest--Theological animosity--

Illustration from the Avesta--Devil-worship an arrested Deism--

Sheik Adi--Why Demons were painted ugly--Survivals of their beauty

Chapter V.

Classification.

The obstructions of man--The twelve chief classes--Modifications of

particular forms for various functions--Theological Demons

Part II.

Chapter I.

Hunger.

Hunger-demons--Kephn--Miru--Kagura--Ráhu the Hindu sun-devourer--

The earth monster at Pelsall--A Franconian custom--Sheitan as

moon-devourer--Hindu offerings to the dead--Ghoul--Goblin--

Vampyres--Leanness of demons--Old Scotch custom--The origin of

sacrifices

Chapter II.

Heat.

Demons of fire--Agni--Asmodeus--Prometheus--Feast of fire--Moloch

--Tophet--Genii of the lamp--Bel-fires--Hallowe'en--Negro

superstitions--Chinese fire-god--Volcanic and incendiary demons--

Mangaian fire-demon--Demons' fear of water

Chapter III.

Cold.

Descent of Ishtar into Hades--Bardism--Baldur--Herakles--Christ--

Survivals of the Frost Giant in Slavonic and other countries--

The Clavie--The Frozen Hell--The Northern abode of Demons--North

side of churches

Chapter IV.

Elements.

A Scottish Munasa--Rudra--Siva's lightning eye--The flaming

sword--Limping Demons--Demons of the storm--Helios, Elias,

Perun--Thor arrows--The Bob-tailed Dragon--Whirlwind--Japanese

Thunder God--Christian survivals--Jinni--Inundations--Noah--Nik,

Nicholas, Old Nick--Nixies--Hydras--Demons of the Danube--Tides

--Survivals in Russia and England

Chapter V.

Animals.

Animal demons distinguished--Trivial sources of Mythology--

Hedgehog--Fox--Transmigrations in Japan--Horses bewitched--

Rats--Lions--Cats--The Dog--Goethe's horror of dogs--Superstitions

of the Parsees, people of Travancore, and American Negroes, Red

Indians, &c.--Cynocephaloi--The Wolf--Traditions of the Nez Perces

--Fenris--Fables--The Boar--The Bear--Serpent--Every animal power

to harm demonised--Horns

Chapter VI.

Enemies.

Aryas, Dasyus,

Nagas--Yakkhos--Lycians--Ethiopians--Hirpini--Polites--Sosipolis--

Were-wolves--Goths and Scythians--Giants and Dwarfs--Berserkers--

Britons--Iceland--Mimacs--Gog and Magog

Chapter VII.

Barrenness.

Indian Famine and Sun-spots--Sun-worship--Demon of the Desert--The

Sphinx--Egyptian Plagues described by Lepsius: Locusts, Hurricane,

Flood, Mice, Flies--The Sheikh's ride--Abaddon--Set--Typhon--The

Cain wind--Seth--Mirage--The Desert Eden--Azazel--Tawiscara and

the Wild-rose

Chapter VIII.

Obstacles.

Mephistopheles on crags--Emerson on Monadnoc--Ruskin on Alpine

peasants--Holy and unholy mountains--The Devil's Pulpit--

Montagnards--Tarns--Tenjo--T'ai-shan--Apocatequil--Tyrolese

legends--Rock ordeal--Scylla and Charybdis--Scottish giants--

Pontifex--Devil's bridges--Le géant Yéous

Chapter IX.

Illusion.

Maya--Natural Treacheries--Misleaders--Glamour--Lorelei--Chinese

Mermaid--Transformations--Swan Maidens--Pigeon Maidens--The

Seal-skin--Nudity--Teufelsee--Gohlitsee--Japanese Siren--Dropping

Cave--Venusberg--Godiva--Will-o'-Wisp--Holy Fräulein--The Forsaken

Merman--The Water-Man--Sea Phantom--Sunken Treasures--Suicide

Chapter X.

Darkness.

Shadows--Night Deities--Kobolds--Walpurgisnacht--Night as

Abettor of Evil-doers--Nightmare--Dreams--Invisible Foes--Jacob

and his Phantom--Nott--The Prince of Darkness--The Brood of

Midnight--Second-Sight--Spectres of Souter Fell--The Moonshine

Vampyre--Glamour--Glam and Grettir--A-Story of Dartmoor

Chapter XI.

Disease.

The Plague Phantom--Devil-dances--Destroying Angels--Ahriman in

Astrology--Saturn--Satan and Job--Set--The Fatal Seven--Yakseyo--

The Singhalese Pretraya--Reeri--Maha Sohon--Morotoo--Luther on

Disease-demons--Gopolu--Madan--Cattle-demon in Russia--Bihlweisen

--The Plough

Chapter XII.

Death.

The Vendetta of Death--Teoyaomiqui--Demon of Serpents--Death on

the Pale Horse--Kali--War-gods--Satan as Death--Death-beds--

Thanatos--Yama--Yimi--Towers of Silence--Alcestis--Herakles,

Christ, and Death--Hell--Salt--Azraël--Death and the Cobbler--

Dance of Death--Death as Foe and as Friend

Part III.

Chapter I.

Decline of Demons.

The Holy Tree of Travancore--The growth of Demons in India,

and their decline--The Nepaul Iconoclast--Moral Man and unmoral

Nature--Man's physical and mental migrations--Heine's 'Gods in

Exile'--The Goban Saor--Master Smith--A Greek caricature of

the Gods--The Carpenter v. Deity and Devil--Extermination of

the Were-wolf--Refuges of Demons--The Giants reduced to Little

People--Deities and Demons returning to nature

Chapter II.

Generalisation of Demons.

The Demons' bequest to their

conquerors--Nondescripts--Exaggerations of Tradition--Saurian

Theory of Dragons--The Dragon not primitive in Mythology--Monsters

of Egyptian, Iranian, Vedic, and Jewish Mythologies--Turner's

Dragon--Della Bella--The Conventional Dragon

Chapter III.

The Serpent.

The beauty of the Serpent--Emerson on ideal forms--Michelet's

thoughts on the viper's head--Unique characters of the

Serpent--The Monkey's horror of Snakes--The Serpent protected

by superstition--Human defencelessness against its subtle

powers--Dubufe's picture of the Fall of Man

Chapter IV.

The Worm.

An African Serpent-drama in America--The Veiled Serpent--The

Ark of the Covenant--Aaron's Rod--The Worm--An Episode on the Dii

Involuti--The Serapes--The Bambino at Rome--Serpent-transformations

Chapter V.

Apophis.

The Naturalistic Theory of Apophis--The Serpent of Time--Epic of

the Worm--The Asp of Melite--Vanquishers of Time--Nachash-Beriach

--The Serpent-Spy--Treading on Serpents

Chapter VI.

The Serpent in India.

The Kankato na--The Vedic Serpents not worshipful--Ananta and

Sesha--The Healing Serpent--The guardian of treasures--Miss

Buckland's theory--Primitive rationalism--Underworld

plutocracy--Rain and lightning--Vritra--History of the word

'Ahi'--The Adder--Zohak--A Teutonic Laokoon

Chapter VII.

The Basilisk.

The Serpent's gem--The Basilisk's eye--Basiliscus

mitratus--House-snakes in Russia and Germany--King-snakes--Heraldic

Dragon--Henry III.--Melusina--The Laidley Worm--Victorious

Dragons--Pendragon--Merlin and Vortigern--Medicinal dragons

361

Chapter VIII.

The Dragon's Eye.

The Eye of Evil--Turner's Dragons--Cloud-phantoms--Paradise and

the Snake--Prometheus and Jove--Art and Nature--Dragon forms:

Anglo-Saxon, Italian, Egyptian, Greek, German--The modern

conventional Dragon

Chapter IX.

The Combat.

The pre-Munchausenite world--The Colonial Dragon--Io's

journey--Medusa--British Dragons--The Communal Dragon--Savage

Saviours--A Mimac helper--The Brutal Dragon--Woman protected--The

Saint of the Mikados

Chapter X.

The Dragon-slayer.

Demi-gods--Alcestis--Herakles--The Ghilghit Fiend--Incarnate

deliverer of Ghilghit--A Dardistan Madonna--The religion

of Atheism--Resuscitation of Dragons--St. George and his

Dragon--Emerson and Ruskin on George--Saintly allies of the

Dragon

Chapter XI.

The Dragon's Breath.

Medusa--Phenomena of recurrence--The Brood of Echidna and their

survival--Behemoth and Leviathan--The Mouth of Hell--The Lambton

Worm--Ragnar--The Lambton Doom--The Worm's Orthodoxy--The Serpent,

Superstition, and Science

Chapter XII.

Fate.

Doré's 'Love and Fate'--Moira and Moiræ--The 'Fates'

of Æschylus--Divine absolutism surrendered--Jove

and Typhon--Commutation of the Demon's share--Popular

fatalism--Theological fatalism--Fate and Necessity--Deification

of Will--Metaphysics, past and present

Part IV.

Chapter I.

Diabolism.

Dragon and Devil distinguished--Dragons' wings--War in Heaven--

Expulsion of Serpents--Dissolution of the Dragon--Theological

origin of the Devil--Ideal and Actual--Devil Dogma--Debasement

of ideal persons--Transmigration of phantoms

Chapter II.

The Second Best.

Respect for the Devil--Primitive Atheism--Idealisation--Birth of

new gods--New gods diabolised--Compromise between new gods and

old--Foreign deities degraded--Their utilisation

Chapter III.

Ahriman, the Divine Devil.

Mr. Irving's impersonation of Superstition--Revolution against

pious privilege--Doctrine of 'Merits'--Saintly immorality in

India--A Pantheon turned Inferno--Zendavesta on Good and Evil--

Parsî Mythology--The Combat of Ahriman with Ormuzd--Optimism--

Parsî Eschatology--Final Restoration of Ahriman

Chapter IV.

Viswámitra, the Theocratic Devil.

Priestcraft and Pessimism--An Aryan Tetzel and his Luther--Brahman

Frogs--Evolution of the Sacerdotal Saint--Viswámitra the Accuser

of Virtue--The Tamil Passion-Play 'Harischandra'--Ordeal of

Goblins--The Martyr of Truth--Virtue triumphant over ceremonial

'Merits'--Harischandra and Job

Chapter V.

Elohim and Jehovah.

Deified power--Giants and Jehovah--Jehovah's manifesto--The various

Elohim--Two Jehovahs and two Tables--Contradictions--Detachment

of the Elohim from Jehovah

Chapter VI.

The Consuming Fire.

The Shekinah--Jewish idols--Attributes of the fiery and

cruel Elohim compared with those of the Devil--The powers of

evil combined under a head--Continuity--The consuming fire

spiritualised

Chapter VII.

Paradise and the Serpent.

Herakles and Athena in a holy picture--Human significance of

Eden--The legend in Genesis puzzling--Silence of later books

concerning it--Its Vedic elements--Its explanation--Episode of

the Mahábhárata--Scandinavian variant--The name of Adam--The

story re-read--Rabbinical interpretations

Chapter VIII.

Eve.

The Fall of Man--Fall of gods--Giants--Prajápati and Ráhu--Woman

and Star-Serpent in Persia--Meschia and Meschiane--Bráhman

legends of the creation of Man--The strength of Woman--Elohist

and Jehovist creations of Man--The Forbidden Fruit--Eve reappears

as Sara--Abraham surrenders his wife to Jehovah--The idea not

sensual--Abraham's circumcision--The evil name of Woman--Noah's

wife--The temptation of Abraham--Rabbinical legends concerning

Eve--Pandora--Sentiment of the Myth of Eve

Chapter IX.

Lilith.

Madonnas--Adam's first wife--Her flight and doom--Creation of

Devils--Lilith marries Samaël--Tree of Life--Lilith's part

in the Temptation--Her locks--Lamia--Bodeima--Meschia and

Meschiane--Amazons--Maternity--Rib-theory of Woman--Káli and

Durga--Captivity of Woman

Chapter X.

War in Heaven.

The 'Other'--Tiamat, Bohu, 'the Deep'--Ra and Apophis--Hathors

--Bel's combat--Revolt in Heaven--Lilith--Myth of the Devil at

the creation of Light

Chapter XI.

War on Earth.

The Abode of Devils--Ketef--Disorder--Talmudic legends--The

restless Spirit--The Fall of Lucifer--Asteria, Hecate, Lilith--The

Dragon's triumph--A Gipsy legend--Cædmon's Poem of the Rebellious

Angels--Milton's version--The Puritans and Prince Rupert--Bel

as ally of the Dragon--A 'Mystery' in Marionettes--European

Hells

Chapter XII.

Strife.

Hebrew God of War--Samaël--The father's blessing and curse--

Esau--Edom--Jacob and the Phantom--The planet Mars--Tradesman

and Huntsman--'The Devil's Dream'

Chapter XIII.

Barbaric Aristocracy.

Jacob, the 'Impostor'--The Barterer--Esau, the 'Warrior'--Barbarian

Dukes--Trade and War--Reconciliation of Jacob and Esau--Their

Ghosts--Legend of Iblis--Pagan Warriors of Europe--Russian

Hierarchy of Hell

Chapter XIV.

Job and the Divider.

Hebrew Polytheism--Problem of Evil--Job's disbelief in a

future life--The Divider's realm--Salted sacrifices--Theory

of Orthodoxy--Job's reasoning--His humour--Impartiality of

Fortune between the evil and good--Agnosticism of Job--Elihu's

Eclecticism--Jehovah of the Whirlwind--Heresies of Job--Rabbinical

legend of Job--Universality of the legend

Chapter XV.

Satan.

Public Prosecutors--Satan as Accuser--English Devil-Worshipper

--Conversion by Terror--Satan in the Old Testament--The trial of

Joshua--Sender of Plagues--Satan and Serpent--Portrait of Satan

--Scapegoat of Christendom--Catholic 'Sight of Hell'--The ally

of Priesthoods

Chapter XVI.

Religious Despotism.

Pharaoh and Herod--Zoroaster's mother--Ahriman's emissaries--Kansa

and Krishna--Emissaries of Kansa--Astyages and Cyrus--Zohák--Bel

and the Christian

Chapter XVII.

The Prince of this World.

Temptations--Birth of Buddha--Mara--Temptation of Power--Asceticism

and Luxury--Mara's menaces--Appearance of the Buddha's

Vindicator--Ahriman tempts Zoroaster--Satan and Christ--Criticism

of Strauss--Jewish traditions--Hunger--Variants

Chapter XVIII.

Trial of the Great.

A 'Morality' at Tours--The 'St. Anthony' of Spagnoletto--Bunyan's

Pilgrim--Milton on Christ's Temptation--An Edinburgh saint and

Unitarian fiend--A haunted Jewess--Conversion by fever--Limit of

courage--Woman and sorcery--Luther and the Devil--The ink-spot at

Wartburg--Carlyle's interpretation--The cowled Devil--Carlyle's

trial--In Rue St. Thomas d'Enfer--The Everlasting No--Devil of

Vauvert--The latter-day conflict--New conditions--The Victory of

Man--The Scholar and the World

Chapter XIX.

The Man of Sin.

Hindu myth--Gnostic theories--Ophite scheme of redemption--

Rabbinical traditions of Primitive Man--Pauline Pessimism--Law

of death--Satan's ownership of Man--Redemption of the Elect--

Contemporary statements--Baptism--Exorcism--The 'new man's'

food--Eucharist--Herbert Spencer's explanation--Primitive

ideas--Legends of Adam and Seth--Adamites--A Mormon 'Mystery'

of initiation

Chapter XX.

The Holy Ghost.

A Hanover relic--Mr. Atkinson on the Dove--The Dove in the Old

Testament--Ecclesiastical symbol--Judicial symbol--A vision of

St. Dunstan's--The witness of chastity--Dove and Serpent--The

unpardonable sin--Inexpiable sin among the Jews--Destructive

power of Jehovah--Potency of the breath--Third persons of

Trinities--Pentecost--Christian superstitions--Mr. Moody on the sin

against the Holy Ghost--Mysterious fear--Idols of the cave

Chapter XXI.

Antichrist.

The Kali Age--Satan sifting Simon--Satan as Angel of Light--

Epithets of Antichrist--The Cæsars--Nero--Sacraments imitated

by Pagans--Satanic signs and wonders--Jerome on Antichrist--

Armillus--Al Dajjail--Luther on Mohammed--'Mawmet'--Satan

'God's ape'--Mediæval notions--Witches' Sabbath--An Infernal

Trinity--Serpent of Sins--Antichrist Popes--Luther as Antichrist

--Modern notions of Antichrist

Chapter XXII.

The Pride of Life.

The curse of Iblis--Samaël as Democrat--His vindication by

Christ and Paul--Asmodäus--History of the name--Aschmedai of the

Jews--Book of Tobit--Doré's 'Triumph of Christianity'--Aucassin

and Nicolette--Asmodeus in the convent--The Asmodeus of Le

Sage--Mephistopheles--Blake's 'Marriage of Heaven and Hell'--The

Devil and the artists--Sádi's Vision of Satan--Arts of the

Devil--Suspicion of beauty--Earthly and heavenly mansions--Deacon

versus Devil

Chapter XXIII.

The Curse on Knowledge.

A Bishop on intellect--The Bible on learning--The Serpent and

Seth--A Hebrew Renaissance--Spells--Shelley at Oxford--

Book-burning--Japanese ink-devil--Book of Cyprianus--Devil's

Bible--Red Letters--Dread of Science--Roger Bacon--Luther's

Devil--Lutherans and Science

Chapter XXIV.

Witchcraft.

Minor gods--Saint and Satyr--Tutelaries--Spells--Early Christianity

and the poor--Its doctrine as to pagan deities--Mediæval

Devils--Devils on the stage--An Abbot's revelations--The fairer

deities--Oriental dreams and spirits--Calls for Nemesis--Lilith

and her children--Neoplatonicism--Astrology and Alchemy--Devil's

College--Shem-hammphorásch--Apollonius of Tyana--Faustus--Black Art

Schools--Compacts with the Devil--Blood covenant--Spirit-seances in

old times--The Fairfax delusion--Origin of its devil--Witch, goat,

and cat--Confessions of Witches--Witchcraft in New England--Witch

trials--Salem demonology--Testing witches--Witch trials in

Sweden--Witch Sabbath--Mythological elements--Carriers--Scotch

Witches--The cauldron--Vervain--Rue--Invocation of Hecaté--Factors

of Witch persecution--Three centuries of massacre--Würzburg

horrors--Last victims--Modern Spiritualism

Chapter XXV.

Faust and Mephistopheles.

Mephisto and Mephitis--The Raven Book--Papal sorcery--Magic

seals--Mephistopheles as dog--George Sabellicus alias Faustus--The

Faust myth--Marlowe's 'Faust'--Good and evil angels--'El Magico

Prodigioso'--Cyprian and Justina--Klinger's 'Faust'--Satan's

sermon--Goethe's Mephistopheles--His German characters--Moral

scepticism--Devil's gifts--Helena--Redemption through Art--Defeat

of Mephistopheles

Chapter XXVI.

The Wild Huntsman.

The Wild Hunt--Euphemisms--Schimmelreiter--Odinwald--Pied Piper

--Lyeshy--Waldemar's Hunt--Palne Hunter--King Abel's Hunt--Lords

of Glorup--Le Grand Veneur--Robert le Diable--Arthur--Hugo--Herne

--Tregeagle--Der Freischütz--Elijah's chariot--Mahan Bali--Déhak

--Nimrod--Nimrod's defiance of Jehovah--His Tower--Robber Knights

--The Devil in Leipzig--Olaf hunting pagans--Hunting-horns--Raven

--Boar--Hounds--Horse--Dapplegrimm--Sleipnir--Horse-flesh--The

mare Chetiya--Stags--St. Hubert--The White Lady--Myths of Mother

Rose--Wodan hunting St. Walpurga--Friar Eckhardt

Chapter XXVII.

Le Bon Diable.

The Devil repainted--Satan a divine agent--St. Orain's

heresy--Primitive universalism--Father Sinistrari--Salvation of

demons--Mediæval sects--Aquinas--His prayer for Satan--Popular

antipathies--The Devil's gratitude--Devil defending

innocence--Devil against idle lords--The wicked ale-wife--Pious

offenders punished--Anachronistic Devils--Devils turn to

poems--Devil's good advice--Devil sticks to his word--His love

of justice--Charlemagne and the Serpent--Merlin--His prison of

Air--Mephistopheles in Heaven

Chapter XXVIII.

Animalism.

Celsus on Satan--Ferocities of inward nature--The Devil

of Lust--Celibacy--Blue Beards--Shudendozi--A lady in

distress--Bahirawa--The Black Prince--Madana Yaksenyo--Fair

fascinators--Devil of Jealousy--Eve's jealousy--Noah's wife--How

Satan entered the Ark--Shipwright's Dirge--The Second Fall--The

Drunken curse--Solomon's Fall--Cellar Devils--Gluttony--The Vatican

haunted--Avarice--Animalised Devils--Man-shaped Animals

Chapter XXIX.

Thoughts and Interpretations 421

PART I.

DEMONOLATRY.

CHAPTER I.

DUALISM.

Origin of Deism--Evolution from the far to the near--Illustrations

from witchcraft--The primitive Pantheism--The dawn of Dualism.

A college in the State of Ohio has adopted for its motto the words

'Orient thyself.' This significant admonition to Western youth

represents one condition of attaining truth in the science of

mythology. Through neglect of it the glowing personifications and

metaphors of the East have too generally migrated to the West only to

find it a Medusa turning them to stone. Our prosaic literalism changes

their ideals to idols. The time has come when we must learn rather to

see ourselves in them: out of an age and civilisation where we live in

habitual recognition of natural forces we may transport ourselves to a

period and region where no sophisticated eye looks upon nature. The sun

is a chariot drawn by shining steeds and driven by a refulgent deity;

the stars ascend and move by arbitrary power or command; the tree is

the bower of a spirit; the fountain leaps from the urn of a naiad. In

such gay costumes did the laws of nature hold their carnival until

Science struck the hour for unmasking. The costumes and masks have

with us become materials for studying the history of the human mind,

but to know them we must translate our senses back into that phase

of our own early existence, so far as is consistent with carrying

our culture with us.

Without conceding too much to Solar mythology, it may be pronounced

tolerably clear that the earliest emotion of worship was born out

of the wonder with which man looked up to the heavens above him. The

splendours of the morning and evening; the azure vault, painted with

frescoes of cloud or blackened by the storm; the night, crowned with

constellations: these awakened imagination, inspired awe, kindled

admiration, and at length adoration, in the being who had reached

intervals in which his eye was lifted above the earth. Amid the rapture

of Vedic hymns to these sublimities we meet sharp questionings whether

there be any such gods as the priests say, and suspicion is sometimes

cast on sacrifices. The forms that peopled the celestial spaces may

have been those of ancestors, kings, and great men, but anterior to

all forms was the poetic enthusiasm which built heavenly mansions for

them; and the crude cosmogonies of primitive science were probably

caught up by this spirit, and consecrated as slowly as scientific

generalisations now are.

Our modern ideas of evolution might suggest the reverse of this--that

human worship began with things low and gradually ascended to high

objects; that from rude ages, in which adoration was directed to

stock and stone, tree and reptile, the human mind climbed by degrees

to the contemplation and reverence of celestial grandeurs. But the

accord of this view with our ideas of evolution is apparent only. The

real progress seems here to have been from the far to the near, from

the great to the small. It is, indeed, probably inexact to speak of

the worship of stock and stone, weed and wort, insect and reptile,

as primitive. There are many indications that such things were by no

race considered intrinsically sacred, nor were they really worshipped

until the origin of their sanctity was lost; and even now, ages

after their oracular or symbolical character has been forgotten, the

superstitions that have survived in connection with such insignificant

objects point to an original association with the phenomena of the

heavens. No religions could, at first glance, seem wider apart than

the worship of the serpent and that of the glorious sun; yet many

ancient temples are covered with symbols combining sun and snake,

and no form is more familiar in Egypt than the solar serpent standing

erect upon its tail, with rays around its head.

Nor is this high relationship of the adored reptile found only in

regions where it might have been raised up by ethnical combinations as

the mere survival of a savage symbol. William Craft, an African who

resided for some time in the kingdom of Dahomey, informed me of the

following incident which he had witnessed there. The sacred serpents

are kept in a grand house, which they sometimes leave to crawl in

their neighbouring grounds. One day a negro from some distant region

encountered one of these animals and killed it. The people learning

that one of their gods had been slain, seized the stranger, and having

surrounded him with a circle of brushwood, set it on fire. The poor

wretch broke through the circle of fire and ran, pursued by the crowd,

who struck him with heavy sticks. Smarting from the flames and blows,

he rushed into a river; but no sooner had he entered there than the

pursuit ceased, and he was told that, having gone through fire and

water, he was purified, and might emerge with safety. Thus, even in

that distant and savage region, serpent-worship was associated with

fire-worship and river-worship, which have a wide representation in

both Aryan and Semitic symbolism. To this day the orthodox Israelites

set beside their dead, before burial, the lighted candle and a basin

of pure water. These have been associated in rabbinical mythology with

the angels Michael (genius of Water) and Gabriel (genius of Fire);

but they refer both to the phenomenal glories and the purifying

effects of the two elements as reverenced by the Africans in one

direction and the Parsees in another.

Not less significant are the facts which were attested at the

witch-trials. It was shown that for their pretended divinations they

used plants--as rue and vervain--well known in the ancient Northern

religions, and often recognised as examples of tree-worship; but it

also appeared that around the cauldron a mock zodiacal circle was

drawn, and that every herb employed was alleged to have derived its

potency from having been gathered at a certain hour of the night or

day, a particular quarter of the moon, or from some spot where sun or

moon did or did not shine upon it. Ancient planet-worship is, indeed,

still reflected in the habit of village herbalists, who gather their

simples at certain phases of the moon, or at certain of those holy

periods of the year which conform more or less to the pre-christian

festivals.

These are a few out of many indications that the small and senseless

things which have become almost or quite fetishes were by no means such

at first, but were mystically connected with the heavenly elements

and splendours, like the animal forms in the zodiac. In one of the

earliest hymns of the Rig-Veda it is said--'This earth belongs to

Varuna (Ouranos) the king, and the wide sky: he is contained also in

this drop of water.' As the sky was seen reflected in the shining curve

of a dew-drop, even so in the shape or colour of a leaf or flower,

the transformation of a chrysalis, or the burial and resurrection

of a scarabæus' egg, some sign could be detected making it answer in

place of the typical image which could not yet be painted or carved.

The necessities of expression would, of course, operate to invest

the primitive conceptions and interpretations of celestial phenomena

with those pictorial images drawn from earthly objects of which the

early languages are chiefly composed. In many cases that are met

in the most ancient hymns, the designations of exalted objects are

so little descriptive of them, that we may refer them to a period

anterior to the formation of that refined and complex symbolism by

which primitive religions have acquired a representation in definite

characters. The Vedic comparisons of the various colours of the dawn

to horses, or the rain-clouds to cows, denotes a much less mature

development of thought than the fine observation implied in the

connection of the forked lightning with the forked serpent-tongue and

forked mistletoe, or symbolisation of the universe in the concentric

folds of an onion. It is the presence of these more mystical and

complex ideas in religions which indicate a progress of the human

mind from the large and obvious to the more delicate and occult, and

the growth of the higher vision which can see small things in their

large relationships. Although the exaltation in the Vedas of Varuna

as king of heaven, and as contained also in a drop of water, is in

one verse, we may well recognise an immense distance in time between

the two ideas there embodied. The first represents that primitive

pantheism which is the counterpart of ignorance. An unclassified

outward universe is the reflection of a mind without form and void:

it is while all within is as yet undiscriminating wonder that the

religious vesture of nature will be this undefined pantheism. The

fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil has not yet been

tasted. In some of the earlier hymns of the Rig-Veda, the Maruts,

the storm-deities, are praised along with Indra, the sun; Yama,

king of Death, is equally adored with the goddess of Dawn. 'No real

foe of yours is known in heaven, nor in earth.' 'The storms are thy

allies.' Such is the high optimism of sentences found even in sacred

books which elsewhere mask the dawn of the Dualism which ultimately

superseded the harmony of the elemental Powers. 'I create light

and I create darkness, I create good and I create evil.' 'Look unto

Yezdan, who causeth the shadow to fall.' But it is easy to see what

must be the result when this happy family of sun-god and storm-god

and fire-god, and their innumerable co-ordinate divinities, shall

be divided by discord. When each shall have become associated with

some earthly object or fact, he or she will appear as friend or foe,

and their connection with the sources of human pleasure and pain will

be reflected in collisions and wars in the heavens. The rebel clouds

will be transformed to Titans and Dragons. The adored Maruts will be

no longer storm-heroes with unsheathed swords of lightning, marching

as the retinue of Indra, but fire-breathing monsters--Vritras and

Ahis,--and the morning and evening shadows from faithful watch-dogs

become the treacherous hell-hounds, like Orthros and Cerberus. The

vehement antagonisms between animals and men and of tribe against

tribe, will be expressed in the conception of struggles among gods,

who will thus be classified as good or evil deities.

This was precisely what did occur. The primitive pantheism was broken

up: in its place the later ages beheld the universe as the arena of

a tremendous conflict between good and evil Powers, who severally,

in the process of time, marshalled each and everything, from a world

to a worm, under their flaming banners.

CHAPTER II.

THE GENESIS OF DEMONS.

Their good names euphemistic--Their mixed character--Illustrations:

Beelzebub, Loki--Demon-germs--The knowledge of good and

evil--Distinction between Demon and Devil.

The first pantheon of each race was built of intellectual

speculations. In a moral sense, each form in it might be described

as more or less demonic; and, indeed, it may almost be affirmed that

religion, considered as a service rendered to superhuman beings,

began with the propitiation of demons, albeit they might be called

gods. Man found that in the earth good things came with difficulty,

while thorns and weeds sprang up everywhere. The evil powers seemed to

be the strongest. The best deity had a touch of the demon in him. The

sun is the most beneficent, yet he bears the sunstroke along with

the sunbeam, and withers the blooms he calls forth. The splendour,

the might, the majesty, the menace, the grandeur and wrath of the

heavens and the elements were blended in these personifications,

and reflected in the trembling adoration paid to them. The flattering

names given to these powers by their worshippers must be interpreted

by the costly sacrifices with which men sought to propitiate them. No

sacrifice would have been offered originally to a purely benevolent

power. The Furies were called the Eumenides, 'the well-meaning,'

and there arises a temptation to regard the name as preserving the

primitive meaning of the Sanskrit original of Erinyes, namely, Saranyu,

which signifies the morning light stealing over the sky. But the

descriptions of the Erinyes by the Greek poets--especially of Æschylus,

who pictures them as black, serpent-locked, with eyes dropping blood,

and calls them hounds--show that Saranyu as morning light, and thus

the revealer of deeds of darkness, had gradually been degraded into

a personification of the Curse. And yet, while recognising the name

Eumenides as euphemistic, we may admire none the less the growth of

that rationalism which ultimately found in the epithet a suggestion of

the soul of good in things evil, and almost restored the beneficent

sense of Saranyu. 'I have settled in this place,' says Athene in the

'Eumenides' of Æschylus, 'these mighty deities, hard to be appeased;

they have obtained by lot to administer all things concerning men. But

he who has not found them gentle knows not whence come the ills of

life.' But before the dread Erinyes of Homer's age had become the

'venerable goddesses' (semnai theai) of popular phrase in Athens,

or the Eumenides of the later poet's high insight, piercing their

Gorgon form as portrayed by himself, they had passed through all the

phases of human terror. Cowering generations had tried to soothe the

remorseless avengers by complimentary phrases. The worship of the

serpent, originating in the same fear, similarly raised that animal

into the region where poets could invest it with many profound and

beautiful significances. But these more distinctly terrible deities

are found in the shadowy border-land of mythology, from which we may

look back into ages when the fear in which worship is born had not yet

been separated into its elements of awe and admiration, nor the heaven

of supreme forces divided into ranks of benevolent and malevolent

beings; and, on the other hand, we may look forward to the ages in

which the moral consciousness of man begins to form the distinctions

between good and evil, right and wrong, which changes cosmogony into

religion, and impresses every deity of the mind's creation to do his

or her part in reflecting the physical and moral struggles of mankind.

The intermediate processes by which the good and evil were detached,

and advanced to separate personification, cannot always be traced, but

the indications of their work are in most cases sufficiently clear. The

relationship, for instance, between Baal and Baal-zebub cannot be

doubted. The one represents the Sun in his glory as quickener of

Nature and painter of its beauty, the other the insect-breeding power

of the Sun. Baal-zebub is the Fly-god. Only at a comparatively recent

period did the deity of the Philistines, whose oracle was consulted

by Ahaziah (2 Kings i.), suffer under the reputation of being 'the

Prince of Devils,' his name being changed by a mere pun to Beelzebul

(dung-god). It is not impossible that the modern Egyptian mother's

hesitation to disturb flies settling on her sleeping child, and the

sanctity attributed to various insects, originated in the awe felt

for him. The title Fly-god is parallelled by the reverent epithet

apomuios, applied to Zeus as worshipped at Elis, [1] the Myiagrus

deus of the Romans, [2] and the Myiodes mentioned by Pliny. [3] Our

picture is probably from a protecting charm, and evidently by the god's

believers. There is a story of a peasant woman in a French church who

was found kneeling before a marble group, and was warned by a priest

that she was worshipping the wrong figure--namely, Beelzebub. 'Never

mind,' she replied, 'it is well enough to have friends on both

sides.' The story, though now only ben trovato, would represent the

actual state of mind in many a Babylonian invoking the protection of

the Fly-god against formidable swarms of his venomous subjects.

Not less clear is the illustration supplied by Scandinavian

mythology. In Sæmund's Edda the evil-minded Loki says:--

Odin! dost thou remember

When we in early days

Blended our blood together?

The two became detached very slowly; for their separation implied

the crumbling away of a great religion, and its distribution into

new forms; and a religion requires, relatively, as long to decay

as it does to grow, as we who live under a crumbling religion have

good reason to know. Protap Chunder Mozoomdar, of the Brahmo-Somaj,

in an address in London, said, 'The Indian Pantheon has many millions

of deities, and no space is left for the Devil.' He might have added

that these deities have distributed between them all the work that

the Devil could perform if he were admitted. His remark recalled to

me the Eddaic story of Loki's entrance into the assembly of gods in

the halls of Oegir. Loki--destined in a later age to be identified

with Satan--is angrily received by the deities, but he goes round

and mentions incidents in the life of each one which show them to be

little if any better than himself. The gods and goddesses, unable to

reply, confirm the cynic's criticisms in theologic fashion by tying

him up with a serpent for cord.

The late Theodore Parker is said to have replied to a Calvinist who

sought to convert him--'The difference between us is simple: your god

is my devil.' There can be little question that the Hebrews, from whom

the Calvinist inherited his deity, had no devil in their mythology,

because the jealous and vindictive Jehovah was quite equal to any

work of that kind,--as the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, bringing

plagues upon the land, or deceiving a prophet and then destroying him

for his false prophecies. [4] The same accommodating relation of the

primitive deities to all natural phenomena will account for the absence

of distinct representatives of evil of the most primitive religions.

The earliest exceptions to this primeval harmony of the gods,

implying moral chaos in man, were trifling enough: the occasional

monster seems worthy of mention only to display the valour of the god

who slew him. But such were demon-germs, born out of the structural

action of the human mind so soon as it began to form some philosophy

concerning a universe upon which it had at first looked with simple

wonder, and destined to an evolution of vast import when the work of

moralising upon them should follow.

Let us take our stand beside our barbarian, but no longer savage,

ancestor in the far past. We have watched the rosy morning as it

waxed to a blazing noon: then swiftly the sun is blotted out, the

tempest rages, it is a sudden night lit only by the forked lightning

that strikes tree, house, man, with angry thunder-peal. From an

instructed age man can look upon the storm blackening the sky not as

an enemy of the sun, but one of its own superlative effects; but some

thousands of years ago, when we were all living in Eastern barbarism,

we could not conceive that a luminary whose very business it was to

give light, could be a party to his own obscuration. We then looked

with pity upon the ignorance of our ancestors, who had sung hymns to

the storm-dragons, hoping to flatter them into quietness; and we came

by irresistible logic to that Dualism which long divided the visible,

and still divides the moral, universe into two hostile camps.

This is the mother-principle out of which demons (in the ordinary

sense of the term) proceeded. At first few, as distinguished from the

host of deities by exceptional harmfulness, they were multiplied with

man's growth in the classification of his world. Their principle of

existence is capable of indefinite expansion, until it shall include

all the realms of darkness, fear, and pain. In the names of demons,

and in the fables concerning them, the struggles of man in his ages of

weakness with peril, want, and death, are recorded more fully than in

any inscriptions on stone. Dualism is a creed which all superficial

appearances attest. Side by side the desert and the fruitful land,

the sunshine and the frost, sorrow and joy, life and death, sit

weaving around every life its vesture of bright and sombre threads,

and Science alone can detect how each of these casts the shuttle

to the other. Enemies to each other they will appear in every realm

which knowledge has not mastered. There is a refrain, gathered from

many ages, in William Blake's apostrophe to the tiger:--

Tiger! tiger! burning bright

In the forests of the night;

What immortal hand or eye

Framed thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burned that fire within thine eyes?

On what wings dared he aspire?

What the hand dared seize the fire?

When the stars threw down their spears

And water heaven with their tears,

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the lamb make thee?

That which one of the devoutest men of genius whom England has produced

thus asked was silently answered in India by the serpent-worshipper

kneeling with his tongue held in his hand; in Egypt, by Osiris seated

on a throne of chequer. [5]

It is necessary to distinguish clearly between the Demon and the Devil,

though, for some purposes, they must be mentioned together. The world

was haunted with demons for many ages before there was any embodiment

of their spirit in any central form, much less any conception of

a Principle of Evil in the universe. The early demons had no moral

character, not any more than the man-eating tiger. There is no outburst

of moral indignation mingling with the shout of victory when Indra

slays Vritra, and Apollo's face is serene when his dart pierces the

Python. It required a much higher development of the moral sentiment

to give rise to the conception of a devil. Only that intensest light

could cast so black a shadow athwart the world as the belief in a

purely malignant spirit. To such a conception--love of evil for its

own sake--the word Devil is limited in this work; Demon is applied to

beings whose harmfulness is not gratuitous, but incidental to their

own satisfactions.

Deity and Demon are from words once interchangeable, and the latter has

simply suffered degradation by the conventional use of it to designate

the less beneficent powers and qualities, which originally inhered

in every deity, after they were detached from these and separately

personified. Every bright god had his shadow, so to say; and under

the influence of Dualism this shadow attained a distinct existence

and personality in the popular imagination. The principle having

once been established, that what seemed beneficent and what seemed

the reverse must be ascribed to different powers, it is obvious that

the evolution of demons must be continuous, and their distribution

co-extensive with the ills that flesh is heir to.

CHAPTER III.

DEGRADATION.

The degradation of deities--Indicated in names--Legends of their

fall--Incidental signs of the divine origin of demons and devils.

The atmospheric conditions having been prepared in the human mind for

the production of demons, the particular shapes or names they would

assume would be determined by a variety of circumstances, ethnical,

climatic, political, or even accidental. They would, indeed, be rarely

accidental; but Professor Max Müller, in his notes to the Rig-Veda,

has called attention to a remarkable instance in which the formation of

an imposing mythological figure of this kind had its name determined

by what, in all probability, was an accident. There appears in the

earliest Vedic hymns the name of Aditi, as the holy Mother of many

gods, and thrice there is mentioned the female name Diti. But there

is reason to believe that Diti is a mere reflex of Aditi, the a being

dropped originally by a reciter's license. The later reciters, however,

regarding every letter in so sacred a book, or even the omission of a

letter, as of eternal significance, Diti--this decapitated Aditi--was

evolved into a separate and powerful being, and, every niche of

beneficence being occupied by its god or goddess, the new form was at

once relegated to the newly-defined realm of evil, where she remained

as the mother of the enemies of the gods, the Daityas. Unhappily this

accident followed the ancient tendency by which the Furies and Vices

have, with scandalous constancy, been described in the feminine gender.

The close resemblance between these two names of Hindu mythology,

severally representing the best and the worst, may be thus accidental,

and only serve to show how the demon-forming tendency, after it began,

was able to press even the most trivial incidents into its service. But

generally the names of demons, and for whole races of demons, report

far more than this; and in no inquiry more than that before us is it

necessary to remember that names are things. The philological facts

supply a remarkable confirmation of the statements already made

as to the original identity of demon and deity. The word 'demon'

itself, as we have said, originally bore a good instead of an evil

meaning. The Sanskrit deva, 'the shining one,' Zend daêva, correspond

with the Greek theos, Latin deus, Anglo-Saxon Tiw; and remain in

'deity,' 'deuce' (probably; it exists in Armorican, teuz, a phantom),

'devel' (the gipsy name for God), and Persian div, demon. The Demon

of Socrates represents the personification of a being still good, but

no doubt on the path of decline from pure divinity. Plato declares

that good men when they die become 'demons,' and he says 'demons

are reporters and carriers between gods and men.' Our familiar word

bogey, a sort of nickname for an evil spirit, comes from the Slavonic

word for God--bog. Appearing here in the West as bogey (Welsh bwg,

a goblin), this word bog began, probably, as the 'Baga' of cuneiform

inscriptions, a name of the Supreme Being, or possibly the Hindu

'Bhaga,' Lord of Life. In the 'Bishop's Bible' the passage occurs,

'Thou shalt not be afraid of any bugs by night:' the word has been

altered to 'terror.' When we come to the particular names of demons,

we find many of them bearing traces of the splendours from which they

have declined. 'Siva,' the Hindu god of destruction, has a meaning

('auspicious') derived from Svi, 'thrive'--thus related ideally to

Pluto, 'wealth'--and, indeed, in later ages, appears to have gained

the greatest elevation. In a story of the Persian poem Masnavi,

Ahriman is mentioned with Bahman as a fire-fiend, of which class are

the Magian demons and the Jinns generally; which, the sanctity of

fire being considered, is an evidence of their high origin. Avicenna

says that the genii are ethereal animals. Lucifer--light-bearing--is

the fallen angel of the morning star. Loki--the nearest to an evil

power of the Scandinavian personifications--is the German leucht,

or light. Azazel--a word inaccurately rendered 'scape-goat' in the

Bible--appears to have been originally a deity, as the Israelites

were originally required to offer up one goat to Jehovah and

another to Azazel, a name which appears to signify the 'strength

of God.' Gesenius and Ewald regard Azazel as a demon belonging

to the pre-Mosaic religion, but it can hardly be doubted that the

four arch-demons mentioned by the Rabbins--Samaël, Azazel, Asaël,

and Maccathiel--are personifications of the elements as energies

of the deity. Samaël would appear to mean the 'left hand of God;'

Azazel, his strength; Asaël, his reproductive force; and Maccathiel,

his retributive power, but the origin of these names is doubtful..

Although Azazel is now one of the Mussulman names for a devil,

it would appear to be nearly related to Al Uzza of the Koran,

one of the goddesses of whom the significant tradition exists,

that once when Mohammed had read, from the Sura called 'The Star,'

the question, 'What think ye of Allat, Al Uzza, and Manah, that

other third goddess?' he himself added, 'These are the most high

and beauteous damsels, whose intercession is to be hoped for,' the

response being afterwards attributed to a suggestion of Satan. [6]

Belial is merely a word for godlessness; it has become personified

through the misunderstanding of the phrase in the Old Testament by

the translators of the Septuagint, and thus passed into christian

use, as in 2 Cor. vi. 15, 'What concord hath Christ with Belial?' The

word is not used as a proper name in the Old Testament, and the late

creation of a demon out of it may be set down to accident.

Even where the names of demons and devils bear no such traces of

their degradation from the state of deities, there are apt to be

characteristics attributed to them, or myths connected with them,

which point in the direction indicated. Such is the case with Satan,

of whom much must be said hereafter, whose Hebrew name signifies

the adversary, but who, in the Book of Job, appears among the sons

of God. The name given to the devil in the Koran--Eblis--is almost

certainly diabolos Arabicised; and while this Greek word is found

in Pindar [7] (5th century B.C.), meaning a slanderer, the fables

in the Koran concerning Eblis describe him as a fallen angel of the

highest rank.

One of the most striking indications of the fall of demons from heaven

is the wide-spread belief that they are lame. Mr. Tylor has pointed

out the curious persistence of this idea in various ethnical lines of

development. [8] Hephaistos was lamed by his fall when hurled by Zeus

from Olympos; and it is not a little singular that in the English

travesty of limping Vulcan, represented in Wayland the Smith, [9]

there should appear the suggestion, remarked by Mr. Cox, of the name

'Vala' (coverer), one of the designations of the dragon destroyed by

Indra. 'In Sir Walter Scott's romance,' says Mr. Cox, 'Wayland is a

mere impostor, who avails himself of a popular superstition to keep

up an air of mystery about himself and his work, but the character to

which he makes pretence belongs to the genuine Teutonic legend.' [10]

The Persian demon Aeshma--the Asmodeus of the Book of Tobit--appears

with the same characteristic of lameness in the 'Diable Boiteux'

of Le Sage. The christian devil's clubbed or cloven foot is notorious.

Even the horns popularly attributed to the devil may possibly have

originated with the aureole which indicates the glory of his 'first

estate.' Satan is depicted in various relics of early art wearing the

aureole, as in a miniature of the tenth century (from Bible No. 6,

Bib. Roy.), given by M. Didron. [11] The same author has shown that

Pan and the Satyrs, who had so much to do with the shaping of our

horned and hoofed devil, originally got their horns from the same

high source as Moses in the old Bibles, [12] and in the great statue

of him at Rome by Michel Angelo.

It is through this mythologic history that the most powerful

demons have been associated in the popular imagination with stars,

planets,--Ketu in India, Saturn and Mercury the 'Infortunes,'--comets,

and other celestial phenomena. The examples of this are so numerous

that it is impossible to deal with them here, where I can only hope

to offer a few illustrations of the principles affirmed; and in this

case it is of less importance for the English reader, because of the

interesting volume in which the subject has been specially dealt

with. [13] Incidentally, too, the astrological demons and devils

must recur from time to time in the process of our inquiry. But it

will probably be within the knowledge of some of my readers that the

dread of comets and of meteoric showers yet lingers in many parts

of Christendom, and that fear of unlucky stars has not passed away

with astrologers. There is a Scottish legend told by Hugh Miller

of an avenging meteoric demon. A shipmaster who had moored his

vessel near Morial's Den, amused himself by watching the lights

of the scattered farmhouses. After all the rest had gone out one

light lingered for some time. When that light too had disappeared,

the shipmaster beheld a large meteor, which, with a hissing noise,

moved towards the cottage. A dog howled, an owl whooped; but when

the fire-ball had almost reached the roof, a cock crew from within

the cottage, and the meteor rose again. Thrice this was repeated,

the meteor at the third cock-crow ascending among the stars. On the

following day the shipmaster went on shore, purchased the cock, and

took it away with him. Returned from his voyage, he looked for the

cottage, and found nothing but a few blackened stones. Nearly sixty

years ago a human skeleton was found near the spot, doubled up as

if the body had been huddled into a hole: this revived the legend,

and probably added some of those traits which make it a true bit of

mosaic in the mythology of Astræa. [14]

The fabled 'fall of Lucifer' really signifies a process similar to

that which has been noticed in the case of Saranyu. The morning star,

like the morning light, as revealer of the deeds of darkness, becomes

an avenger, and by evolution an instigator of the evil it originally

disclosed and punished. It may be remarked also that though we have

inherited the phrase 'Demons of Darkness,' it was an ancient rabbinical

belief that the demons went abroad in darkness not only because it

facilitated their attacks on man, but because being of luminous forms,

they could recognise each other better with a background of darkness.

CHAPTER IV.

THE ABGOTT.

The ex-god--Deities demonised by conquest--Theological animosity

--Illustration from the Avesta--Devil-worship an arrested Deism--

Sheik Adi--Why demons were painted ugly--Survivals of their beauty.

The phenomena of the transformation of deities into demons meet the

student of Demonology at every step. We shall have to consider many

examples of a kind similar to those which have been mentioned in the

preceding chapter; but it is necessary to present at this stage of our

inquiry a sufficient number of examples to establish the fact that in

every country forces have been at work to degrade the primitive gods

into types of evil, as preliminary to a consideration of the nature

of those forces.

We find the history of the phenomena suggested in the German word for

idol, Abgott--ex-god. Then we have 'pagan,' villager, and 'heathen,' of

the heath, denoting those who stood by their old gods after others had

transferred their faith to the new. These words bring us to consider

the influence upon religious conceptions of the struggles which have

occurred between races and nations, and consequently between their

religions. It must be borne in mind that by the time any tribes had

gathered to the consistency of a nation, one of the strongest forces of

its coherence would be its priesthood. So soon as it became a general

belief that there were in the universe good and evil Powers, there

must arise a popular demand for the means of obtaining their favour;

and this demand has never failed to obtain a supply of priesthoods

claiming to bind or influence the præternatural beings. These

priesthoods represent the strongest motives and fears of a people,

and they were gradually intrenched in great institutions involving

powerful interests. Every invasion or collision or mingling of races

thus brought their respective religions into contact and rivalry;

and as no priesthood has been known to consent peaceably to its own

downfall and the degradation of its own deities, we need not wonder

that there have been perpetual wars for religious ascendency. It

is not unusual to hear sects among ourselves accusing each other

of idolatry. In earlier times the rule was for each religion to

denounce its opponent's gods as devils. Gregory the Great wrote

to his missionary in Britain, the Abbot Mellitus, second Bishop of

Canterbury, that 'whereas the people were accustomed to sacrifice

many oxen in honour of demons, let them celebrate a religious and

solemn festival, and not slay the animals to the devil (diabolo),

but to be eaten by themselves to the glory of God.' Thus the devotion

of meats to those deities of our ancestors which the Pope pronounces

demons, which took place chiefly at Yule-tide, has survived in our

more comfortable Christmas banquets. This was the fate of all the

deities which Christianity undertook to suppress. But it had been the

habit of religions for many ages before. They never denied the actual

existence of the deities they were engaged in suppressing. That would

have been too great an outrage upon popular beliefs, and might have

caused a reaction; and, besides, each new religion had an interest

of its own in preserving the basis of belief in these invisible

beings. Disbelief in the very existence of the old gods might be

followed by a sceptical spirit that might endanger the new. So the

propagandists maintained the existence of native gods, but called

them devils. Sometimes wars or intercourse between tribes led to their

fusion; the battle between opposing religions was drawn, in which case

there would be a compromise by which several deities of different

origin might continue together in the same race and receive equal

homage. The differing degrees of importance ascribed to the separate

persons of the Hindu triad in various localities of India, suggest

it as quite probable that Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva signalled in their

union the political unity of certain districts in that country. [15]

The blending of the names of Confucius and Buddha, in many Chinese

and Japanese temples, may show us an analogous process now going on,

and, indeed, the various ethnical ideas combined in the christian

Trinity render the fact stated one of easy interpretation. But the

religious difficulty was sometimes not susceptible of compromise. The

most powerful priesthood carried the day, and they used every ingenuity

to degrade the gods of their opponents. Agathodemons were turned into

kakodemons. The serpent, worshipped in many lands, might be adopted

as the support of sleeping Vishnu in India, might be associated with

the rainbow ('the heavenly serpent') in Persia, but elsewhere was

cursed as the very genius of evil.

The operation of this force in the degradation of deities, is

particularly revealed in the Sacred Books of Persia. In that country

the great religions of the East would appear to have contended

against each other with especial fury, and their struggles were

probably instrumental in causing one or more of the early migrations

into Western Europe. The great celestial war between Ormuzd and

Ahriman--Light and Darkness--corresponded with a violent theological

conflict, one result of which is that the word deva, meaning 'deity'

to Brahmans, means 'devil' to Parsees. The following extract from

the Zend-Avesta will serve as an example of the spirit in which the

war was waged:--

'All your devas are only manifold children of the Evil Mind--and the

great one who worships the Saoma of lies and deceits; besides the

treacherous acts for which you are notorious throughout the seven

regions of the earth.

'You have invented all the evil which men speak and do, which is

indeed pleasant to the Devas, but is devoid of all goodness, and

therefore perishes before the insight of the truth of the wise.

'Thus you defraud men of their good minds and of their immortality

by your evil minds--as well through those of the Devas as that of the

Evil Spirit--through evil deeds and evil words, whereby the power of

liars grows.' [16]

That is to say--Ours is the true god: your god is a devil.

The Zoroastrian conversion of deva (deus) into devil does not

alone represent the work of this odium theologicum. In the early

hymns of India the appellation asuras is given to the gods. Asura

means a spirit. But in the process of time asura, like dæmon, came

to have a sinister meaning: the gods were called suras, the demons

asuras, and these were said to contend together. But in Persia the

asuras--demonised in India--retained their divinity, and gave the name

ahura to the supreme deity, Ormuzd (Ahura-mazda). On the other hand,

as Mr. Muir supposes, Varenya, applied to evil spirits of darkness in

the Zendavesta, is cognate with Varuna (Heaven); and the Vedic Indra,

king of the gods--the Sun--is named in the Zoroastrian religion as

one of the chief councillors of that Prince of Darkness.

But in every country conquered by a new religion, there will always be

found some, as we have seen, who will hold on to the old deity under

all his changed fortunes. These will be called 'bigots,' but still they

will adhere to the ancient belief and practise the old rites. Sometimes

even after they have had to yield to the popular terminology, and call

the old god a devil, they will find some reason for continuing the

transmitted forms. It is probable that to this cause was originally

due the religions which have been developed into what is now termed

Devil-worship. The distinct and avowed worship of the evil Power in

preference to the good is a rather startling phenomenon when presented

baldly; as, for example, in a prayer of the Madagascans to Nyang,

author of evil, quoted by Dr. Réville:--'O Zamhor! to thee we offer no

prayers. The good god needs no asking. But we must pray to Nyang. Nyang

must be appeased. O Nyang, bad and strong spirit, let not the thunder

roar over our heads! Tell the sea to keep within its bounds! Spare,

O Nyang, the ripening fruit, and dry not up the blossoming rice! Let

not our women bring forth children on the accursed days. Thou reignest,

and this thou knowest, over the wicked; and great is their number,

O Nyang. Torment not, then, any longer the good folk!' [17]

This is natural, and suggestive of the criminal under sentence of

death, who, when asked if he was not afraid to meet his God, replied,

'Not in the least; it's that other party I'm afraid of.' Yet it

is hardly doubtful that the worship of Nyang began in an era when

he was by no means considered morally baser than Zamhor. How the

theory of Dualism, when attained, might produce the phenomenon

called Devil-worship, is illustrated in the case of the Yezedis, now

so notorious for that species of religion. Their theory is usually

supposed to be entirely represented by the expression uttered by one

of them, 'Will not Satan, then, reward the poor Izedis, who alone have

never spoken ill of him, and have suffered so much for him?' [18]

But these words are significant, no doubt, of the underlying fact:

they 'have never spoken ill of' the Satan they worship. The Mussulman

calls the Yezedi a Satan-worshipper only as the early Zoroastrian held

the worshipper of a deva to be the same. The chief object of worship

among the Yezedis is the figure of the bird Taous, a half-mythical

peacock. Professor King of Cambridge traces the Taous of this Assyrian

sect to the "sacred bird called a phoenix," whose picture, as seen

by Herodotus (ii. 73) in Egypt, is described by him as 'very like an

eagle in outline and in size, but with plumage partly gold-coloured,

partly crimson,' and which was said to return to Heliopolis every

five hundred years, there to burn itself on the altar of the Sun,

that another might rise from its ashes. [19] Now the name Yezedis

is simply Izeds, genii; and we are thus pointed to Arabia, where we

find the belief in genii is strongest, and also associated with the

mythical bird Rokh of its folklore. There we find Mohammed rebuking

the popular belief in a certain bird called Hamâh, which was said to

take form from the blood near the brain of a dead person and fly away,

to return, however, at the end of every hundred years to visit that

person's sepulchre. But this is by no means Devil-worship, nor can we

find any trace of that in the most sacred scripture of the Yezedis,

the 'Eulogy of Sheikh Adi.' This Sheikh inherited from his father,

Moosafir, the sanctity of an incarnation of the divine essence,

of which he (Adi) speaks as 'the All-merciful.'

By his light he hath lighted the lamp of the morning.

I am he that placed Adam in my Paradise.

I am he that made Nimrod a hot burning fire.

I am he that guided Ahmet mine elect,

I gifted him with my way and guidance.

Mine are all existences together,

They are my gift and under my direction.

I am he that possesseth all majesty,

And beneficence and charity are from my grace,

I am he that entereth the heart in my zeal;

And I shine through the power of my awfulness and majesty.

I am he to whom the lion of the desert came:

I rebuked him and he became like stone.

I am he to whom the serpent came,

And by my will I made him like dust.

I am he that shook the rock and made it tremble,

And sweet water flowed therefrom from every side. [20]

The reverence shown in these sacred sentences for Hebrew names and

traditions--as of Adam in Paradise, Marah, and the smitten rock--and

for Ahmet (Mohammed), appears to have had its only requital in the

odious designation of the worshippers of Taous as Devil-worshippers,

a label which the Yezedis perhaps accepted as the Wesleyans and

Friends accepted such names as 'Methodist' and 'Quaker.'

Mohammed has expiated the many deities he degraded to devils by being

himself turned to an idol (mawmet), a term of contempt all the more

popular for its resemblance to 'mummery.' Despite his denunciations

of idolatry, it is certain that this earlier religion represented

by the Yezedis has never been entirely suppressed even among his own

followers. In Dr. Leitner's interesting collection there is a lamp,

which he obtained from a mosque, made in the shape of a peacock,

and this is but one of many similar relics of primitive or alien

symbolism found among the Mussulman tribes.

The evolution of demons and devils out of deities was made real to

the popular imagination in every country where the new religion found

art existing, and by alliance with it was enabled to shape the ideas

of the people. The theoretical degradation of deities of previously

fair association could only be completed where they were presented to

the eye in repulsive forms. It will readily occur to every one that a

rationally conceived demon or devil would not be repulsive. If it were

a demon that man wished to represent, mere euphemism would prevent its

being rendered odious. The main characteristic of a demon--that which

distinguishes it from a devil--is, as we have seen, that it has a real

and human-like motive for whatever evil it causes. If it afflict or

consume man, it is not from mere malignancy, but because impelled by

the pangs of hunger, lust, or other suffering, like the famished wolf

or shark. And if sacrifices of food were offered to satisfy its need,

equally we might expect that no unnecessary insult would be offered in

the attempt to portray it. But if it were a devil--a being actuated

by simple malevolence--one of its essential functions, temptation,

would be destroyed by hideousness. For the work of seduction we might

expect a devil to wear the form of an angel of light, but by no means

to approach his intended victim in any horrible shape, such as would

repel every mortal. The great representations of evil, whether imagined

by the speculative or the religious sense, have never been, originally,

ugly. The gods might be described as falling swiftly like lightning

out of heaven, but in the popular imagination they retained for a long

time much of their splendour. The very ingenuity with which they were

afterwards invested with ugliness in religious art, attests that there

were certain popular sentiments about them which had to be distinctly

reversed. It was because they were thought beautiful that they must be

painted ugly; it was because they were--even among converts to the new

religion--still secretly believed to be kind and helpful, that there

was employed such elaboration of hideous designs to deform them. The

pictorial representations of demons and devils will come under a more

detailed examination hereafter: it is for the present sufficient to

point out that the traditional blackness or ugliness of demons and

devils, as now thought of, by no means militates against the fact

that they were once the popular deities. The contrast, for instance,

between the horrible physiognomy given to Satan in ordinary christian

art, and the theological representation of him as the Tempter, is

obvious. Had the design of Art been to represent the theological

theory, Satan would have been portrayed in a fascinating form. But

the design was not that; it was to arouse horror and antipathy for

the native deities to which the ignorant clung tenaciously. It was

to train children to think of the still secretly-worshipped idols

as frightful and bestial beings. It is important, therefore, that we

should guard against confusing the speculative or moral attempts of

mankind to personify pain and evil with the ugly and brutal demons and

devils of artificial superstition, oftenest pictured on church walls.

Sometimes they are set to support water-spouts, often the brackets

that hold their foes, the saints. It is a very ancient device. Our

figure 2 is from the handle of a chalice in possession of Sir James

Hooker, meant probably to hold the holy water of Ganges. These are

not genuine demons or devils, but carefully caricatured deities. Who

that looks upon the grinning bestial forms carved about the roof of any

old church--as those on Melrose Abbey and York Cathedral [21]--which,

there is reason to believe, represent the primitive deities driven from

the interior by potency of holy water, and chained to the uncongenial

service of supporting the roof-gutter--can see in these gargoyles

(Fr. gargouille, dragon), anything but carved imprecations? Was it

to such ugly beings, guardians of their streams, hills, and forests,

that our ancestors consecrated the holly and mistletoe, or with such

that they associated their flowers, fruits, and homes? They were

caricatures inspired by missionaries, made to repel and disgust, as

the images of saints beside them were carved in beauty to attract. If

the pagans had been the artists, the good looks would have been on

the other side. And indeed there was an art of which those pagans

were the unconscious possessors, through which the true characters of

the imaginary beings they adored have been transmitted to us. In the

fables of their folklore we find the Fairies that represent the spirit

of the gods and goddesses to which they are easily traceable. That

goddess who in christian times was pictured as a hag riding on a

broom-stick was Frigga, the Earth-mother, associated with the first

sacred affections clustering around the hearth; or Freya, whose very

name was consecrated in frau, woman and wife. The mantle of Bertha did

not cover more tenderness when it fell to the shoulders of Mary. The

German child's name for the pre-christian Madonna was Mother Rose:

distaff in hand, she watched over the industrious at their household

work: she hovered near the cottage, perhaps to find there some weeping

Cinderella and give her beauty for ashes.

CHAPTER V.

CLASSIFICATION.

The obstructions of man--The twelve chief classes--Modifications

of particular forms for various functions--Theological demons.

The statements made concerning the fair names of the chief demons

and devils which have haunted the imagination of mankind, heighten

the contrast between their celestial origin and the functions

attributed to them in their degraded forms. The theory of Dualism,

representing a necessary stage in the mental development of every

race, called for a supply of demons, and the supply came from the

innumerable dethroned, outlawed, and fallen deities and angels which

had followed the subjugation of races and their religions. But though

their celestial origin might linger around them in some slight legend

or characteristic as well as in their names, the evil phenomenon to

which each was attached as an explanation assigned the real form and

work with which he or she was associated in popular superstition. We

therefore find in the demons in which men have believed a complete

catalogue of the obstacles with which they have had to contend in the

long struggle for existence. In the devils we discover equally the

history of the moral and religious struggles through which priesthoods

and churches have had to pass. And the relative extent of this or

that particular class of demons or devils, and the intensity of

belief in any class as shown in the number of survivals from it,

will be found to reflect pretty faithfully the degree to which the

special evil represented by it afflicted primitive man, as attested

by other branches of pre-historic investigation.

As to function, the demons we shall have to consider are those

representing--1. Hunger; 2. Excessive Heat; 3. Excessive Cold;

4. Destructive elements and physical convulsions; 5. Destructive

animals; 6. Human enemies; 7. The Barrenness of the Earth, as rock and

desert; 8. Obstacles, as the river or mountain; 9. Illusion, seductive,

invisible, and mysterious agents, causing delusions; 10. Darkness

(especially when unusual), Dreams, Nightmare; 11. Disease; 12. Death.

These classes are selected, in obedience to necessary limitations,

as representing the twelve chief labours of man which have given

shape to the majority of his haunting demons, as distinguished from

his devils. Of course all classifications of this character must be

understood as made for convenience, and the divisions are not to be

too sharply taken. What Plotinus said of the gods, that each contained

all the rest, is equally true of both demons and devils. The demons

of Hunger are closely related to the demons of Fire: Agni devoured

his parents (two sticks consumed by the flame they produce); and

from them we pass easily to elemental demons, like the lightning,

or demons of fever. And similarly we find a relationship between

other destructive forces. Nevertheless, the distinctions drawn are

not fanciful, but exist in clear and unmistakable beliefs as to the

special dispositions and employments of demons; and as we are not

engaged in dealing with natural phenomena, but with superstitions

concerning them, the only necessity of this classification is that

it shall not be arbitrary, but shall really simplify the immense mass

of facts which the student of Demonology has to encounter.

But there are several points which require especial attention as

preliminary to a consideration of these various classes of demons.

First, it is to be borne in mind that a single demonic form will often

appear in various functions, and that these must not be confused. The

serpent may represent the lightning, or the coil of the whirlwind, or

fatal venom; the earthquake may represent a swallowing Hunger-demon,

or the rage of a chained giant. The separate functions must not be

lost sight of because sometimes traceable to a single form, nor their

practical character suffer disguise through their fair euphemistic

or mythological names.

Secondly, the same form appears repeatedly in a diabolic as well as

a demonic function, and here a clear distinction must be maintained

in the reader's mind. The distinction already taken between a demon

and a devil is not arbitrary: the word demon is related to deity;

the word devil, though sometimes connected with the Sanskrit deva,

has really no relation to it, but has a bad sense as 'calumniator:'

but even if there were no such etymological identity and difference,

it would be necessary to distinguish such widely separate offices as

those representing the afflictive forces of nature where attributed

to humanly appreciable motives on the one hand, and evils ascribed to

pure malignancy or a principle of evil on the other. The Devil may,

indeed, represent a further evolution in the line on which the Demon

has appeared; Ahriman the Bad in conflict with Ormuzd the Good may

be a spiritualisation of the conflict between Light and Darkness, Sun

and Cloud, as represented in the Vedic Indra and Vritra; but the two

phases represent different classes of ideas, indeed different worlds,

and the apprehension of both requires that they shall be carefully

distinguished even when associated with the same forms and names.

Thirdly, there is an important class of demons which the reader

may expect to find fully treated of in the part of my work more

particularly devoted to Demonology, which must be deferred, or further

traced in that portion relating to the Devil; they are forms which in

their original conception were largely beneficent, and have become of

evil repute mainly through the anathema of theology. The chequer-board

on which Osiris sat had its development in hosts of primitive shapes of

light opposing shapes of darkness. The evil of some of these is ideal;

others are morally amphibious: Teraphim, Lares, genii, were ancestors

of the guardian angels and patron saints of the present day; they were

oftenest in the shapes of dogs and cats and aged human ancestors,

supposed to keep watch and ward about the house, like the friendly

Domovoi respected in Russia; the evil disposition and harmfulness

ascribed to them are partly natural but partly also theological,

and due to the difficulty of superseding them with patron saints and

angels. The degradation of beneficent beings, already described in

relation to large demonic and diabolic forms, must be understood as

constantly acting in the smallest details of household superstition,

with what strange reaction and momentous result will appear when we

come to consider the phenomena of Witchcraft.

Finally, it must be remarked that the nature of our inquiry renders

the consideration of the origin of myths--whether 'solar' or other--of

secondary importance. Such origin it will be necessary to point out

and discuss incidentally, but our main point will always be the forms

in which the myths have become incarnate, and their modifications

in various places and times, these being the result of those actual

experiences with which Demonology is chiefly concerned. A myth, as

many able writers have pointed out, is, in its origin, an explanation

by the uncivilised mind of some natural phenomenon--not an allegory,

not an esoteric conceit. For this reason it possesses fluidity, and

takes on manifold shapes. The apparent sleep of the sun in winter

may be represented in a vast range of myths, from the Seven Sleepers

to the Man in the Moon of our nursery rhyme; but the variations all

have relation to facts and circumstances. Comparative Mythology is

mainly concerned with the one thread running through them, and binding

them all to the original myth; the task of Demonology is rather to

discover the agencies which have given their several shapes. If it be

shown that Orthros and Cerberus were primarily the morning and evening

twilight or howling winds, either interpretation is here secondary to

their personification as dogs. Demonology would ask, Why dogs? why

not bulls? Its answer in each case detaches from the anterior myth

its mode, and shows this as the determining force of further myths.

PART II.

THE DEMON.

CHAPTER I.

HUNGER.

Hunger-demons--Kephn--Miru--Kagura--Ráhu the Hindu

sun-devourer--The earth monster at Pelsall--A Franconian

custom--Sheitan as moon-devourer--Hindu offerings to the

dead--Ghoul--Goblin--Vampyres--Leanness of demons--Old Scotch

custom.--The origin of sacrifices.

In every part of the earth man's first struggle was for his daily

food. With only a rude implement of stone or bone he had to get fish

from the sea, bird from the air, beast from the forest. For ages,

with such poor equipment, he had to wring a precarious livelihood from

nature. He saw, too, every living form around him similarly trying to

satisfy its hunger. There seemed to be a Spirit of Hunger abroad. And,

at the same time, there was such a resistance to man's satisfaction

of his need--the bird and fish so hard to get, the stingy earth so

ready to give him a stone when he asked for bread--that he came to the

conclusion that there must be invisible voracious beings who wanted all

good things for themselves. So the ancient world was haunted by a vast

brood of Hunger-demons. There is an African tribe, the Karens, whose

representation of the Devil (Kephn) is a huge stomach floating through

the air; and this repulsive image may be regarded as the type of nearly

half the demons which have haunted the human imagination. This, too,

is the terrible Miru, with her daughters and slave, haunting the South

Sea Islander. 'The esoteric doctrine of the priests was, that souls

leave the body ere breath has quite gone, and travel to the edge of

a cliff facing the setting sun (Ra). A large wave now approaches the

base of the cliff, and a gigantic bua tree, covered with fragrant

blossoms, springs up from Avaiki (nether world) to receive on its

far-reaching branches human spirits, who are mysteriously impelled to

cluster on its limbs. When at length the mystic tree is covered with

human spirits, it goes down with its living freight to the nether

world. Akaanga, the slave of fearful Miru, mistress of the invisible

world, infallibly catches all these unhappy spirits in his net and

laves them to and fro in a lake. In these waters the captive ghosts

exhaust themselves by wriggling about like fishes, in the vain hope of

escape. The net is pulled up, and the half-drowned spirits enter into

the presence of dread Miru, who is ugliness personified. The secret

of Miru's power over her intended victims is the 'kava' root (Piper

mythisticum). A bowl of this drink is prepared for each visitor to the

shades by her four lovely daughters. Stupefied with the draught, the

unresisting victims are borne off to a mighty oven and cooked. Miru,

her peerless daughters, her dance-loving son, and the attendants,

subsist exclusively on human spirits decoyed to the nether world

and then cooked. The drinking-cups of Miru are the skulls of her

victims. She is called in song 'Miru-the-ruddy,' because her cheeks

ever glow with the heat of the oven where her captives are cooked. As

the surest way to Miru's oven is to die a natural death, one need not

marvel that the Rev. Mr. Gill, who made these statements before the

Anthropological Institute in London (February 8, 1876), had heard

'many anecdotes of aged warriors, scarcely able to hold a spear,

insisting on being led to the field of battle in the hope of gaining

the house of the brave.' As the South Sea paradise seems to consist

in an eternal war-dance, or, in one island, in an eternal chewing

of sugar-cane, it is not unlikely that the aged seek violent death

chiefly to avoid the oven. We have here a remarkable illustration of

the distinguishing characteristic of the demon. Fearful as Miru is,

it may be noted that there is not one gratuitous element of cruelty

in her procedure. On the contrary, she even provides her victims

with an anæsthetic draught. Her prey is simply netted, washed, and

cooked, as for man are his animal inferiors. In one of the islands

(Aitutaki), Miru is believed to resort to a device which is certainly

terrible--namely, the contrivance that each soul entering the nether

world shall drink a bowl of living centipedes; but this is simply

with the one end in view of appeasing her own pangs of hunger, for

the object and effect of the draught is to cause the souls to drown

themselves, it being apparently only after entire death that they

can be cooked and devoured by Miru and her household.

Fortunately for the islanders, Miru is limited in her tortures to

a transmundane sphere, and room is left for many a slip between

her dreadful cup and the human lip. The floating stomach Kephn is,

however, not other-worldly. We see, however, a softened form of him

in some other tribes. The Greenlanders, Finns, Laps, conceived the

idea that there is a large paunch-demon which people could invoke to

go and suck the cows or consume the herds of their enemies; and the

Icelanders have a superstition that some people can construct such a

demon out of bones and skins, and send him forth to transmute the milk

or flesh of cattle into a supply of flesh and blood. A form of this

kind is represented in the Japanese Kagura (figure 3), the favourite

mask of January dancers and drum-beaters seeking money. The Kagura

is in precise contrast with the Pretas (Siam), which, though twelve

miles in height, are too thin to be seen, their mouths being so small

as to render it impossible to satisfy their fearful hunger.

The pot-bellies given to demons in Travancore and other districts

of India, and the blood-sacrifices by which the natives propitiate

them--concerning which a missionary naively remarks, that even these

heathen recognise, though in corrupted form, 'the great truth that

without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins' [22]--refer

to the Hunger-demon. They are the brood of Kali, girt round with

human skulls.

The expedition which went out to India to observe the last solar

eclipse was incidentally the means of calling attention to a

remarkable survival of the Hunger-demon in connection with astronomic

phenomena. While the English observers were arranging their apparatus,

the natives prepared a pile of brushwood, and, so soon as the eclipse

began, they set fire to this pile and began to shout and yell as they

danced around it. Not less significant were the popular observances

generally. There was a semi-holiday in honour of the eclipse. The

ghauts were crowded with pious worshippers. No Hindu, it is thought,

ought to do any work whatever during an eclipse, and there was a

general tendency to prolong the holiday a little beyond the exact

time when the shadow disappears, and indeed to prolong it throughout

the day. All earthenware vessels used for cooking were broken, and all

cooked food in the houses at the time of the eclipse was thrown out. It

is regarded as a time of peculiar blessings if taken in the right way,

and of dread consequences to persons inclined to heterodoxy or neglect

of the proper observances. Between nine and ten in the evening two

shocks of an earthquake occurred, the latter a rather unpleasant one,

shaking the tables and doors in an uncomfortable fashion for several

seconds. To the natives it was no surprise--they believe firmly in

the connection of eclipses and earthquakes. [23]

Especially notable is the breaking of their culinary utensils by

the Hindus during an eclipse. In Copenhagen there is a collection

of the votive weapons of ancient Norsemen, every one broken as it

was offered up to the god of their victory in token of good faith,

lest they should be suspected of any intention to use again what they

had given away. For the same reason the cup was offered--broken--with

the libation. The Northman felt himself in the presence of the Jötunn

(giants), whose name Grimm identifies as the Eaters. For the Hindu of

to-day the ceremonies appropriate at an eclipse, however important,

have probably as little rational meaning as the occasional Belfire

that lights up certain dark corners of Europe has for those who build

it. But the traditional observances have come up from the childhood

of the world, when the eclipse represented a demon devouring the sun,

who was to have his attention called by outcries and prayers to the

fact that if it was fire he needed there was plenty on earth; and if

food, he might have all in their houses, provided he would consent

to satisfy his appetite with articles of food less important than

the luminaries of heaven.

Such is the shape now taken in India of the ancient myth of the

eclipse. When at the churning of the ocean to find the nectar of

immortality, a demon with dragon-tail was tasting that nectar, the sun

and moon told on him, but not until his head had become immortal; and

it is this head of Ráhu which seeks now to devour the informers--the

Sun and Moon. [24] Mythologically, too, this Ráhu has been divided;

for we shall hereafter trace the dragon-tail of him to the garden of

Eden and in the christian devil, whereas in India he has been improved

from a vindictive to a merely voracious demon.

The fires kindled by the Hindus to frighten Ráhu on his latest

appearance might have defeated the purpose of the expedition by the

smoke it was sending up, had not two officers leaped upon the fire

and scattered its fuel; but just about the time when these courageous

gentlemen were trampling out the fires of superstition whose smoke

would obscure the vision of science, an event occurred in England

which must be traced to the same ancient belief--the belief, namely,

that when anything is apparently swallowed up, as the sun and moon

by an eclipse, or a village by earthquake or flood, it is the work

of a hungry dragon, earthworm, or other monster. The Pelsall mine

was flooded, and a large number of miners drowned. When the accident

became known in the village, the women went out with the families of

the unfortunate men, and sat beside the mouth of the flooded pit,

at the bottom of which the dead bodies yet remained. These women

then yelled down the pit with voices very different from ordinary

lamentation. They also refused unanimously to taste food of any kind,

saying, when pressed to do so, that so long as they could refrain from

eating, their husbands might still be spared to them. When, finally,

one poor woman, driven by the pangs of hunger, was observed to eat a

crust of bread, the cries ceased, and the women, renouncing all hope,

proceeded in silent procession to their homes in Pelsall.

The Hindu people casting their food out of the window during

an eclipse, the Pelsall wives refusing to eat when the mine is

flooded, are acting by force of immemorial tradition, and so are

doing unconsciously what the African woman does consciously when she

surrounds the bed of her sick husband with rice and meat, and beseeches

the demon to devour them instead of the man. To the same class of

notions belong the old custom of trying to discover the body of one

drowned by means of a loaf of bread with a candle stuck in it, which

it was said would pause above the body, and the body might be made to

appear by firing a gun over it--that is, the demon holding it would be

frightened off. A variant, too, is the Persian custom of protecting a

woman in parturition by spreading a table, with a lamp at each corner,

with seven kinds of fruits and seven different aromatic seeds upon it.

In 1769, when Pennant made his 'Scottish Tour,' he found fully

observed in the Highlands the ceremony of making the Beltane Cake on

the first of May, and dedicating its distributed fragments to birds

and beasts of prey, with invocation to the dread being of whom they

were the supposed agents to spare the herds. Demons especially love

milk: the Lambton Worm required nine cows' milk daily; and Jerome

mentions a diabolical baby which exhausted six nurses.

The Devil nominally inherits, among the peasantry of Christendom, the

attributes of the demons which preceded him; but it must be understood

that in every case where mere voracity is ascribed to the Devil, a

primitive demon is meant, and of this fact the superstitious peasant

is dimly conscious. In Franconia, when a baker is about to put dough

biscuits into an oven to be baked, he will first throw half-a-dozen of

them into the fire, saying, 'There, poor devil! those are for you.' If

pressed for an explanation, he will admit his fear that but for this

offering his biscuits are in danger of coming out burnt; but that the

'poor devil' is not bad-hearted, only driven by his hunger to make

mischief. The being he fears is, therefore, clearly not the Devil at

all--whose distinction is a love of wickedness for its own sake--but

the half-starved gobbling ghosts of whom, in Christian countries,

'Devil' has become the generic name. Of their sacrifices, Grace before

meat is a remnant. In Moslem countries, however, 'Sheitan' combines the

demonic and the malignant voracities. During the late lunar eclipse,

the inhabitants of Pera and Constantinople fired guns over their houses

to drive 'Sheitan' (Satan) away from the moon, for, whoever the foe,

the Turk trusts in gunpowder. But superstitions representing Satan

as a devourer are becoming rare. In the church of Nôtre Dame at Hal,

Belgium, the lectern shows a dragon attempting to swallow the Bible,

which is supported on the back of an eagle.

There is another and much more formidable form in which the

Hunger-demon appears in Demonology. The fondness for blood, so

characteristic of supreme gods, was distributed as a special thirst

through a large class of demons. In the legend of Ishtar descending

to Hades [25] to seek some beloved one, she threatens if the door be

not opened--

I will raise the dead to be devourers of the living!

Upon the living shall the dead prey!

This menace shows that the Chaldæan and Babylonian belief in the

vampyre, called Akhkharu in Assyrian, was fully developed at a very

early date. Although the Hunger-demon was very fully developed in

India, it does not appear to have been at any time so cannibalistic,

possibly because the natives were not great flesh-eaters. In some

cases, indeed, we meet with the vampyre superstition; as in the story

of Vikram and the Vampyre, and in the Tamil drama of Harichándra,

where the frenzied Sandramáti says to the king, 'I belong to the

race of elves, and I have killed thy child in order that I might

feed on its delicate flesh.' Such expressions are rare enough to

warrant suspicion of their being importations. The Vetala's appetite

is chiefly for corpses. The poor hungry demons of India--such as the

Bhút, a dismal, ravenous ghost, dreaded at the moon-wane of the month

Katik (Oct.-Nov.)--was not supposed to devour man, but only man's

food. The Hindu demons of this class may be explained by reference

to the sráddha, or oblation to ancestors, concerning which we read

directions in the Manu Code. 'The ancestors of men are satisfied a

whole month with tila, rice, &c.; two months with fish, &c. The Manes

say, Oh, may that man be born in our line who may give us milky food,

with honey and pure butter, both on the thirteenth of the moon and

when the shadow of an elephant falls to the east!' The bloodthirsty

demons of India have pretty generally been caught up like Kali into

a higher symbolism, and their voracity systematised and satisfied in

sacrificial commutations. The popular belief in the southern part of

that country is indicated by Professor Monier Williams, in a letter

written from Southern India, wherein he remarks that the devils alone

require propitiation. It is generally a simple procedure, performed

by offerings of food or other articles supposed to be acceptable

to disembodied beings. For example, when a certain European, once a

terror to the district in which he lived, died in the South of India,

the natives were in the constant habit of depositing brandy and cigars

on his tomb to propitiate his spirit, supposed to roam about the

neighbourhood in a restless manner, and with evil proclivities. The

very same was done to secure the good offices of the philanthropic

spirit of a great European sportsman, who, when he was alive, delivered

his district from the ravages of tigers. Indeed all evil spirits

are thought to be opposed by good ones, who, if duly propitiated,

make it their business to guard the inhabitants of particular places

from demonic intruders. Each district, and even every village, has

its guardian genius, often called its Mother. [26]

Such ideas as these are represented in Europe in some varieties of

the Kobold and the Goblin (Gk. kobalos). Though the goblin must,

according to folk-philosophy, be fed with nice food, it is not

a deadly being; on the contrary, it is said the Gobelin tapestry

derives its name because the secret of its colours was gained from

these ghosts. Though St. Taurin expelled one from Evreux, he found

it so polite that he would not send it to hell, and it still haunts

the credulous there and at Caen, without being thought very formidable.

The demon that 'lurks in graveyards' is universal, and may have

suggested cremation. In the East it is represented mainly by such forms

as the repulsive ghoul, which preys on dead bodies; but it has been

developed in some strange way to the Slavonic phantom called Vampyre,

whose peculiar fearfulness is that it represents the form in which

any deceased person may reappear, not ghoul-like to batten on the

dead, but to suck the blood of the living. This is perhaps the most

formidable survival of demonic superstition now existing in the world.

A people who still have in their dictionary such a word as 'miscreant'

(misbeliever) can hardly wonder that the priests of the Eastern

Church fostered the popular belief that heretics at death changed

into drinkers of the blood of the living. The Slavonic vampyres have

declined in England and America to be the 'Ogres,' who 'smell the blood

of an Englishman,' but are rarely supposed to enjoy it; but it exposes

the real ugliness of the pious superstitions sometimes deemed pretty,

that, in proportion to the intensity of belief in supernaturalism,

the people live in terror of the demons that go about seeking whom

they may devour. In Russia the watcher beside a corpse is armed with

holy charms against attack from it at midnight. A vampyre may be the

soul of any outcast from the Church, or one over whose corpse, before

burial, a cat has leaped or a bird flown. It may be discovered in a

graveyard by leading a black colt through; the animal will refuse to

tread on the vampyre's grave, and the body is taken out and a stake

driven through it, always by a single blow. A related class of demons

are the 'heart-devourers.' They touch their victim with an aspen or

other magical twig; the heart falls out, and is, perhaps, replaced

by some baser one. Mr. Ralston mentions a Mazovian story in which a

hero awakes with the heart of a hare, and remains a coward ever after;

[27] and in another case a quiet peasant received a cock's heart and

was always crowing. The Werewolf, in some respects closely related

to the vampyre, also pursues his ravages among the priest-ridden

peasantry of the South and East.

In Germany, though the more horrible forms of the superstition are

rare, the 'Nachzehrer' is much dreaded. Even in various Protestant

regions it is thought safest that a cross should be set beside every

grave to impede any demonic propensities that may take possession

of the person interred; and where food is not still buried with the

corpse to assuage any pangs of hunger that may arise, a few grains

of corn or rice are scattered upon it in reminiscence of the old

custom. In Diesdorf it is believed that if money is not placed in the

dead person's mouth at burial, or his name not cut from his shirt, he

is likely to become a Nachzehrer, and that the ghost will come forth

in the form of a pig. It is considered a sure preventative of such

a result to break the neck of the dead body. On one occasion, it is

there related, several persons of one family having died, the suspected

corpse was exhumed, and found to have eaten up its own grave-clothes.

Dr. Dyer, an eminent physician of Chicago, Illinois, told me (1875)

that a case occurred in that city within his personal knowledge,

where the body of a woman who had died of consumption was taken out of

the grave and the lungs burned, under a belief that she was drawing

after her into the grave some of her surviving relatives. In 1874,

according to the Providence Journal, in the village of Peacedale, Rhode

Island, U.S., Mr. William Rose dug up the body of his own daughter,

and burned her heart, under the belief that she was wasting away the

lives of other members of his family.

The characteristics of modern 'Spiritualism' appear to indicate

that the superstitious have outgrown this ancient fear of ghostly

malevolence where surrounded by civilisation. It is very rare in the

ancient world or in barbarous regions to find any invocations for the

return of the spirits of the dead. Mr. Tylor has quoted a beautiful

dirge used by the Ho tribe of India, beginning--

We never scolded you, never wronged you;

Come to us back!

But generally funereal customs are very significant of the fear that

spirits may return, and their dirges more in the vein of the Bodo

of North-East India: 'Take and eat: heretofore you have eaten and

drunk with us, you can do so no more: you were one of us, you can be

so no longer: we come no more to you, come you not to us.' 'Even,'

says Mr. Tylor, 'in the lowest culture we find flesh holding its own

against spirit, and at higher stages the householder rids himself with

little scruple of an unwelcome inmate. The Greenlanders would carry

the dead out by the window, not by the door, while an old woman,

waving a firebrand behind, cried 'Piklerrukpok!' i.e., 'There is

nothing more to be had here!' the Hottentots removed the dead from the

hut by an opening broken out on purpose, to prevent him from finding

the way back; the Siamese, with the same intention, break an opening

through the house wall to carry the coffin through, and then hurry it

at full speed thrice round the house; the Siberian Chuwashes fling a

red-hot stone after the corpse is carried out, for an obstacle to bar

the soul from coming back; so Brandenburg peasants pour out a pail of

water at the door after the coffin to prevent the ghost from walking;

and Pomeranian mourners returning from the churchyard leave behind

the straw from the hearse, that the wandering soul may rest there,

and not come back so far as home.' [28]

It may be remarked, in this connection, that in nearly all the pictures

of demons and devils, they are represented as very lean. The exceptions

will be found generally in certain Southern and tropical demons which

represent cloud or storm--Typhon, for instance--and present a swollen

or bloated appearance. No Northern devil is fat. Shakespeare ascribes

to Cæsar a suspicion of leanness--

Yond' Cassius hath a lean and hungry look:

He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

When Antony defends Cassius, Cæsar only replies, 'Would he were

fatter!' This mistrust of leanness is a reflection from all the

Hunger-demons; it interprets the old sayings that a devil, however

fair in front, may be detected by hollowness of the back, and that

he is usually so thin as to cast no shadow. [29]

Illustrations of the Hunger-demon and its survivals might be greatly

multiplied, were it necessary. It need only, however, be mentioned that

it is to this early and most universal conception of præternatural

danger that the idea of sacrifice as well as of fasting must be

ascribed. It is, indeed, too obvious to require extended demonstration

that the notion of offering fruits and meat to an invisible being

could only have originated in the belief that such being was hungry,

however much the spiritualisation of such offerings may have attended

their continuance among enlightened peoples. In the evolution of

purer deities, Fire--'the devouring element'--was substituted for a

coarser method of accepting sacrifices, and it became a sign of baser

beings--such as the Assyrian Akhkharu, and the later Lamia--to consume

dead bodies with their teeth; and this fire was the spiritual element

in the idolatries whose objects were visible. But the original accent

of sacrifice never left it. The Levitical Law says: 'The two kidneys,

and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul

above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away. And the

priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering

made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat is the Lord's. It shall be

a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings,

that ye eat neither fat nor blood.' [30] We find the Hunger-demon

shown as well in the wrath of Jehovah against the sons of Eli for

eating the choice parts of the meats offered on his altar, as in that

offering of tender infants to Moloch which his priests denounced,

or in Saturn devouring his children, whom Aryan faith dethroned;

and they all reappear as phantoms thinly veiled above the spotless

Lamb offered up on Calvary, the sacrificed Macaria ('Blessed'), the

pierced heart of Mary. The beautiful boy Menoeceus must be sacrificed

to save Thebes; the gods will not have aged and tough Creon, though a

king, in his place. Iphigenia, though herself saved from the refined

palate of Artemis, through the huntress's fondness for kid's blood,

becomes the priestess of human sacrifices. The human offering deemed

half-divine could alone at last satisfy the Deity, gathered in his

side this sheaf of sacrificial knives, whetted in many lands and

ages, and in his self-sacrifice the Hunger-demon himself was made

the victim. Theologians have been glad to rescue the First Person

of their Trinity from association with the bloodthirsty demons of

barbarous ages by describing the sacrifice of Jesus as God himself

becoming the victim of an eternal law. But, whatever may be said of

this complex device, it is sufficient evidence that man's primitive

demon which personified his hunger has ended with being consumed on

his own altar. For though fasting is a survival of the same savage

notion that man may secure benefits from invisible beings by leaving

them the food, it is a practice which survives rather through the

desire of imitating ascetic saints than because of any understood

principle. The strange yet natural consummation adds depth of meaning

to the legend of Odin being himself sacrificed in his disguise on

the Holy Tree at Upsala, where human victims were hung as offerings

to him; and to his rune in the Havamal--

I know that I hung

On a wind-rocked tree

Nine whole nights,

With a spear wounded,

And to Odin offered

Myself to myself.

CHAPTER II.

HEAT.

Demons of Fire--Agni--Asmodeus--Prometheus--Feast of fire--Moloch

--Tophet--Genii of the lamp--Bel-fires--Hallowe'en--Negro

superstitions--Chinese fire-god--Volcanic and incendiary demons--

Mangaian fire-demon--Demons' fear of water.

Fire was of old the element of fiends. No doubt this was in part due to

the fact that it also was a devouring element. Sacrifices were burnt;

the demon visibly consumed them. But the great flame-demons represent

chiefly the destructive and painful action of intense heat. They

originate in regions of burning desert, of sunstroke, and drouth.

Agni, the Hindu god of fire, was adored in Vedic hymns as the twin

of Indra.

'Thy appearance is fair to behold, thou bright-faced Agni, when like

gold thou shinest at hand; thy brightness comes like the lightning

of heaven; thou showest splendour like the splendour of the bright sun.

'Adorable and excellent Agni, emit the moving and graceful smoke.

'The flames of Agni are luminous, powerful, fearful, and not to

be trusted.

'I extol the greatness of that showerer of rain, whom men celebrate

as the slayer of Vritra: the Agni, Vaiswanara, slew the stealer of

the waters.'

The slaying of Vritra, the monster, being the chief exploit of Indra,

Agni could only share in it as being the flame that darted with

Indra's weapon, the disc (of the sun).

'Thou (Agni) art laid hold off with difficulty, like the young of

tortuously twining snakes, thou who art a consumer of many forests

as a beast is of fodder.'

Petrifaction awaits all these glowing metaphors of early time. Verbal

inspiration will make Agni a literally tortuous serpent and consuming

fire. His smoke, called Kali (black), is now the name of Siva's

terrible bride.

Much is said in Vedic hymns of the method of producing the sacred

flame symbolising Agni; namely, the rubbing together of two sticks. 'He

it is whom the two sticks have engendered, like a new-born babe.' It

is a curious coincidence that a similar phrase should describe 'the

devil on two sticks,' who has come by way of Persia into European

romance. Asmodeus was a lame demon, and his 'two sticks' as 'Diable

Boiteux' are crutches; but his lameness may be referable to the

attenuated extremities suggested by spires of flame--'tortuously

twining snakes,'--rather than to the rabbinical myth that he broke

his leg on his way to meet Solomon. Benfey identified Asmodeus as

Zend Aêshma-daêva, demon of lust. His goat-feet and fire-coal eyes

are described by Le Sage, and the demon says he was lamed by falling

from the air, like Vulcan, when contending with Pillardoc. It is not

difficult to imagine how flame engendered by the rubbing of sticks

might have attained personification as sensual passion, especially

among Zoroastrians, who would detach from the adorable Fire all

associations of evil. It would harmonise well with the Persian

tendency to diabolise Indian gods, that they should note the lustful

character occasionally ascribed to Agni in the Vedas. 'Him alone,

the ever-youthful Agni, men groom like a horse in the evening and

at dawn; they bed him as a stranger in his couch; the light of Agni,

the worshipped male, is lighted.' Agni was the Indian 'Brulefer' or

love-charmer, and patron of marriage; the fire-god Hephaistos was the

husband of Aphrodite; the day of the Norse thunder-and-lightning god

Thor (Thursday), is in Scandinavian regions considered the luckiest

for marriages.

The process of obtaining fire by friction is represented by a nobler

class of myths than that referred to. In the Mahábhárata the gods

and demons together churn the ocean for the nectar of immortality;

and they use for their churning-stick the mountain Manthara. This word

appears in pramantha, which means a fire-drill, and from it comes the

great name of Prometheus, who stole fire from heaven, and conferred

on mankind a boon which rendered them so powerful that the jealousy

and wrath of Zeus were excited. This fable is generally read in its

highly rationalised and mystical form, and on this account belongs to

another part of our general subject; but it may be remarked here that

the Titan so terribly tortured by Zeus could hardly have been regarded,

originally, as the friend of man. At the time when Zeus was a god

genuinely worshipped--when he first stood forth as the supplanter of

the malign devourer Saturn--it could have been no friend of man who

was seen chained on the rock for ever to be the vulture's prey. It

was fire in some destructive form which must have been then associated

with Prometheus, and not that power by which later myths represented

his animating with a divine spark the man of clay. The Hindu myth

of churning the ocean for the immortal draught, even if it be proved

that the ocean is heaven and the draught lightning, does not help us

much. The traditional association of Prometheus with the Arts might

almost lead one to imagine that the early use of fire by some primitive

inventor had brought upon him the wrath of his mates, and that Zeus'

thunderbolts represented some early 'strike' against machinery.

It is not quite certain that it may not have been through some

euphemistic process that Fire-worship arose in Persia. Not only does

fire occupy a prominent place in the tortures inflicted by Ahriman

in the primitive Parsee Inferno, but it was one of the weapons by

which he attempted to destroy the heavenly child Zoroaster. The evil

magicians kindled a fire in the desert and threw the child on it;

but his mother, Dogdo, found him sleeping tranquilly on the flames,

which were as a pleasant bath, and his face shining like Zohore and

Moschteri (Jupiter and Mercury). [31] The Zoroastrians also held

that the earth would ultimately be destroyed by fire; its metals and

minerals, ignited by a comet, would form streams which all souls would

have to pass through: they would be pleasant to the righteous, but

terrible to the sinful,--who, however, would come through, purified,

into paradise, the last to arrive being Ahriman himself.

The combustible nature of many minerals under the surface of the

earth,--which was all the realm of Hades (invisible),--would assist

the notion of a fiery abode for the infernal gods. Our phrase 'plutonic

rock' would then have a very prosaic sense. Pliny says that in his time

sulphur was used to keep off evil spirits, and it is not impossible

that it first came to be used as a medicine by this route. [32]

Fire-festivals still exist in India, where the ancient raiment of Agni

has been divided up and distributed among many deities. At the popular

annual festival in honour of Dharma Rajah, called the Feast of Fire,

the devotees walk barefoot over a glowing fire extending forty feet. It

lasts eighteen days, during which time those that make a vow to keep

it must fast, abstain from women, lie on the bare ground, and walk

on a brisk fire. The eighteenth day they assemble on the sound of

instruments, their heads crowned with flowers, their bodies daubed

with saffron, and follow the figures of Dharma Rajah and Draupadi

his wife in procession. When they come to the fire, they stir it

to animate its activity, and take a little of the ashes, with which

they rub their foreheads; and when the gods have been carried three

times round it they walk over a hot fire, about forty feet. Some

carry their children in their arms, and others lances, sabres, and

standards. After the ceremony the people press to collect the ashes

to rub their foreheads with, and obtain from devotees the flowers

with which they were adorned, and which they carefully preserve. [33]

The passion of Agni reappears in Draupadi purified by fire for

her five husbands, and especially her union with Dharma Rajah,

son of Yama, is celebrated in this unorthodox passion-feast. It has

been so much the fashion for travellers to look upon all 'idolatry'

with biblical eyes, that we cannot feel certain with Sonnerat that

there was anything more significant in the carrying of children by

the devotees, than the supposition that what was good for the parent

was equally beneficial to the child. But the identification of Moloch

with an Aryan deity is not important; the Indian Feast of Fire and

the rites of Moloch are derived by a very simple mental process

from the most obvious aspects of the Sun as the quickening and the

consuming power in nature. The child offered to Moloch was offered

to the god by whom he was generated, and as the most precious of all

the fruits of the earth for which his genial aid was implored and his

destructive intensity deprecated. Moloch, a word that means 'king,'

was a name almost synonymous with human sacrifice. It was in all

probability at first only a local (Ammonite) personification growing

out of an ancient shrine of Baal. The Midianite Baal accompanied the

Israelites into the wilderness, and that worship was never thoroughly

eradicated. In the Egyptian Confession of Faith, which the initiated

took even into their graves inscribed upon a scroll, the name of

God is not mentioned, but is expressed only by the words Nuk pu Nuk,

'I am he who I am.' [34] The flames of the burning bush, from which

these same words came to Moses, were kindled from Baal, the Sun;

and we need not wonder that while the more enlightened chiefs of

Israel preserved the higher ideas and symbols of the countries they

abandoned, the ignorant would still cling to Apis (the Golden Calf),

to Ashtaroth, and to Moloch. Amos (v. 26), and after him Stephen the

martyr (Acts vii. 43), reproach the Hebrews with having carried into

the wilderness the tabernacle of their god Moloch. And though the

passing of children through the fire to Moloch was, by the Mosaic Law,

made a capital crime, the superstition and the corresponding practice

retained such strength that we find Solomon building a temple to Moloch

on the Mount of Olives (1 Kings xi. 7), and, long after, Manasseh

making his son pass through the fire in honour of the same god.

It is certain from the denunciations of the prophets [35] that the

destruction of children in these flames was actual. From Jeremiah

xix. 6, as well as other sources, we know that the burnings took

place in the Valley of Tophet or Hinnom (Gehenna). The idol Moloch

was of brass, and its throne of brass; its head was that of a calf,

and wore a royal crown; its stomach was a furnace, and when the

children were placed in its arms they were consumed by the fierce

heat,--their cries being drowned by the beating of drums; from which,

toph meaning a 'drum,' the place was also called Tophet. In the fierce

war waged against alien superstitions by Josiah, he defiled Gehenna,

filling it with ordure and dead men's bones to make it odious, 'that

no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire

to Moloch' (2 Kings xxiii. 10), and a perpetual fire was kept there

to consume the filth of Jerusalem.

From this horrible Gehenna, with its perpetual fire, its loathsome

worm, its cruelties, has been derived the picture of a never-ending

Hell prepared for the majority of human beings by One who, while they

live on earth, sends the rain and sunshine alike on the evil and the

good. Wo Chang, a Chinaman in London, has written to a journal [36]

his surprise that our religious teachers should be seized with such

concern for the victims of Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria, while

they are so calm in view of the millions burning, and destined to

burn endlessly, in the flames of hell. Our Oriental brothers will

learn a great deal from our missionaries; among other things, that

the theological god of Christendom is still Moloch.

The Ammonites, of whom Moloch was the special demon, appear to have

gradually blended with the Arabians. These received from many sources

their mongrel superstitions, but among them were always prominent

the planet-gods and fire-gods, whom their growing monotheism (to use

the word still in a loose sense) transformed to powerful angels and

genii. The genii of Arabia are slaves of the lamp; they are evoked

by burning tufts of hair; they ascend as clouds of smoke. Though, as

subordinate agents of the Fire-fiend, they may be consumed by flames,

yet those who so fight them are apt to suffer a like fate, as in the

case of the Lady of Beauty in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. Many

stories of this kind preceded the declarations of the Old Testament,

that Jehovah breathes fire and brimstone, his breath kindling Tophet;

and also the passages of the Koran, and of the New Testament describing

Satan as a fiery fiend.

Various superstitions connecting infernal powers with fire survive

among the Jews of some remote districts of Europe. The Passover

is kept a week by the Jewish inhabitants in the villages on the

Vosges mountains and on the banks of the Rhine. The time of omer is

the interval between the Passover and Pentecost, the seven weeks

elapsing from the departure from Egypt and the giving of the law,

marked in former days by the offering of an omer of barley daily at

the temple. It is considered a fearful time, during which every Jew is

particularly exposed to the evil influence of evil spirits. There is

something dangerous and fatal in the air; every one should be on the

watch, and not tempt the schedim (demons) in any way. Have a strict

eye upon your cattle, say the Jews, for the sorceress will get into

your stables, mount your cows and goats, bring diseases upon them,

and turn their milk sour. In the latter case, try to lay your hand

upon the suspected person; shut her up in a room with a basin of sour

milk, and beat the milk with a hazel-wand, pronouncing God's name

three times. Whilst you are doing this, the sorceress will make great

lamentation, for the blows are falling upon her. Only stop when you see

blue flames dancing on the surface of the milk, for then the charm is

broken. If at nightfall a beggar comes to ask for a little charcoal to

light his fire, be very careful not to give it, and do not let him go

without drawing him three times by his coat-tail; and without losing

time, throw some large handfuls of salt on the fire. In all of which

we may trace traditions of parched wildernesses and fiery serpents,

as well as of Abraham's long warfare with the Fire-worshippers, until,

according to the tradition, he was thrown into the flames he refused

to worship.

It is probable that in all the popular superstitions which now

connect devils and future punishments with fire are blended both the

apotheosis and the degradation of demons. The first and most universal

of deities being the Sun, whose earthly representative is fire, the

student of Comparative Mythology has to pick his way very carefully

in tracing by any ethnological path the innumerable superstitions of

European folklore in which Fire-worship is apparently reflected. The

collection of facts and records contained in a work so accessible to

all who care to pursue the subject as that of Brand and his editors,

[37] renders it unnecessary that I should go into the curious facts

to any great extent here. The uniformity of the traditions by which

the midsummer fires of Northern Europe have been called Baal-fires or

Bel-fires warrant the belief that they are actually descended from

the ancient rites of Baal, even apart from the notorious fact that

they have so generally been accompanied by the superstition that

it is a benefit to children to leap over or be passed through such

fires. That this practice still survives in out-of-the way places of

the British Empire appears from such communications as the following

(from the Times), which are occasionally addressed to the London

journals:--'Lerwick (Shetland), July 7, 1871.--Sir,--It may interest

some of your readers to know that last night (being St. John's Eve,

old style) I observed, within a mile or so of this town, seven bonfires

blazing, in accordance with the immemorial custom of celebrating the

Midsummer solstice. These fires were kindled on various heights around

the ancient hamlet of Sound, and the children leaped over them, and

'passed through the fire to Moloch,' just as their ancestors would

have done a thousand years ago on the same heights, and their still

remoter progenitors in Eastern lands many thousand years ago. This

persistent adherence to mystic rites in this scientific epoch seems

to me worth taking note of.--A. J.'

To this may be added the following recent extract from a Scotch

journal:--

'Hallowe'en was celebrated at Balmoral Castle with unusual ceremony,

in the presence of her Majesty, the Princess Beatrice, the ladies

and gentlemen of the royal household, and a large gathering of the

tenantry. The leading features of the celebration were a torchlight

procession, the lighting of large bonfires, and the burning in effigy

of witches and warlocks. Upwards of 150 torch-bearers assembled at

the castle as dark set in, and separated into two parties, one band

proceeding to Invergelder, and the other remaining at Balmoral. The

torches were lighted at a quarter before six o'clock, and shortly

after the Queen and Princess Beatrice drove to Invergelder, followed

by the Balmoral party of torchbearers. The two parties then united

and returned in procession to the front of Balmoral Castle, where

refreshments were served to all, and dancing was engaged in round a

huge bonfire. Suddenly there appeared from the rear of the Castle a

grotesque apparition representing a witch with a train of followers

dressed like sprites, who danced and gesticulated in all fashions. Then

followed a warlock of demoniac shape, who was succeeded by another

warlock drawing a car, on which was seated the figure of a witch,

surrounded by other figures in the garb of demons. The unearthly

visitors having marched several times round the burning pile,

the principal figure was taken from the car and tossed into the

flames amid the burning of blue lights and a display of crackers

and fireworks. The health of her Majesty the Queen was then pledged,

and drunk with Highland honours by the assembled hundreds. Dancing

was then resumed, and was carried on till a late hour at night.'

The Sixth Council of Constantinople (an. 680), by its sixty-fifth

canon, forbids these fires in the following terms:--'Those bonefires

that are kindled by certain people before their shops and houses,

over which also they use ridiculously to leap, by a certain ancient

custom, we command them from henceforth to cease. Whoever, therefore,

shall do any such thing, if he be a clergyman, let him be deposed;

if he be a layman, let him be excommunicated. For in the Fourth Book

of the Kings it is thus written: And Manasseh built an altar to all

the host of heaven, in the two courts of the Lord's house, and made

his children to pass through the fire.' There is a charming naïveté

in this denunciation. It is no longer doubtful that this 'bonefire'

over which people leaped came from the same source as that Gehenna

from which the Church derived the orthodox theory of hell, as we have

already seen. When Shakespeare speaks (Macbeth) of 'the primrose way

to the everlasting bonfire,' [38] he is, with his wonted felicity,

assigning the flames of hell and the fires of Moloch and Baal their

right archæological relation.

In my boyhood I have often leaped over a bonfire in a part of the

State of Virginia mainly settled by Scotch families, with whom

probably the custom migrated thither. In the superstitions of the

negroes of that and other Southern States fire plays a large part,

but it is hardly possible now to determine whether they have drifted

there from Africa or England. Sometimes there are queer coincidences

between their notions and some of the early legends of Britain. Thus,

the tradition of the shepherd guided by a distant fire to the entrance

of King Arthur's subterranean hall, where a flame fed by no fuel

coming through the floor reveals the slumbering monarch and his court,

resembles somewhat stories I have heard from negroes of their being led

by distant fires to lucky--others say unlucky--or at any rate enchanted

spots. A negro belonging to my father told me that once, as he was

walking on a country road, he saw a great fire in the distance; he

supposed it must be a house on fire, and hastened towards it, meantime

much puzzled, since he knew of no house in that direction. As he went

on his way he turned into a small wood near which the fire seemed to

be, but when he emerged, all he found was a single fire-coal burning

in the path. There were no other traces whatever of fire, but just

then a large dog leaped past him with a loud bark and disappeared.

In a letter on 'Voudouism in Virginia,' which appeared in the New

York Tribune, dated Richmond, September 17, 1875, occurs an account

of a class of superstitions generally kept close from the whites,

as I have always believed because of their purely African origin. As

will be seen, fire represents an important element in the superstitious

practices.

'If an ignorant negro is smitten with a disease which he cannot

comprehend, he often imagines himself the victim of witchcraft,

and having no faith in 'white folks' physic' for such ailments,

must apply to one of these quacks. A physician residing near this

city was invited by such a one to witness his mode of procedure

with a dropsical patient for whom the physician in question had

occasionally charitably prescribed. Curiosity led him to attend the

seance, having previously informed the quack that since the case was

in such hands he relinquished all connection with it. On the coverlet

of the bed on which the sick man lay was spread a quantity of bones,

feathers, and other trash. The charlatan went through with a series of

so-called conjurations, burned feathers, hair, and tiny fragments of

wood in a charcoal furnace, and mumbled gibberish past the physician's

comprehension. He then proceeded to rip open the pillows and bolsters,

and took from them some queer conglomerations of feathers. These he

said had caused all the trouble. Sprinkling a whitish powder over them,

he burnt them in his furnace. A black offensive smoke was produced,

and he announced triumphantly that the evil influence was destroyed

and that the patient would surely get well. He died not many days

later, believing, in common with all his friends and relatives, that

the conjurations of the 'trick doctor' had failed to save him only

because resorted to too late.'

The following account of a spell from which his wife was rescued,

was given me by a negro in Virginia:--

'The wizard,' to quote the exact words of my informant, 'threw a stick

on a chest; the stick bounded like a trapball three times; then he

opened the chest, took out something looking like dust or clay, and

put it into a cup with water over a fire; then he poured it over a

board (after chopping it three times), which he then put up beneath

the shingles of the house. Returning to the chest he took a piece of

old chain, near the length of my hand, took a hoe and buried the chain

near the sill of the door of my wife's house where she would pass;

then he went away. I saw my wife coming and called to her not to pass,

and to go for a hoe and dig up the place. She did this, and I took

up the chain, which burned the ends of all my fingers clean off. The

same night the conjuror came back: my wife took two half dollars and

a quarter in silver and threw them on the ground before him. The man

seemed as if he was shocked, and then offered her his hand, which

she refused to take, as I had bid her not to let him touch her. He

left and never came to the house again. The spell was broken.'

I am convinced that this is a pure Voudou procedure, and it is

interesting in several regards. The introduction of the chain may have

been the result of the excitement of the time, for it was during the

war when negroes were breaking their chains. The fire and water show

how wide-spread in Africa is that double ordeal which, as we have

seen, is well known in the kingdom of Dahomey. [39] But the mingling

of 'something like dust' with the water held in a cup over the fire,

is strongly suggestive of the Jewish method of preparing holy water,

'the water of separation.' 'For an unclean person they shall take of

the dust of the burnt heifer of purification for sin, and running

water shall be put thereto in a vessel.' [40] The fiery element

of the mixture was in this case imported with the ashes of the red

heifer. As for this sacrifice of the red heifer itself [41] it was

plainly the propitiation of a fiery demon. In Egypt red hair and red

animals of all kinds were considered infernal, and all the details

of this sacrifice show that the colour of this selected heifer was

typical. The heifer was not a usual sacrifice: a red one was obviously

by its colour marked for the genii of fire--the terrible Seven--and

not to be denied them. Its blood was sprinkled seven times before the

tabernacle, and the rest was utterly consumed--including the hide,

which is particularly mentioned--and the ashes taken to make the

'water of separation.' Calmet notes, in this connection, that the

Apis of India was red-coloured.

The following interesting story of the Chinese Fire-god was supplied

to Mr. Dennys [42] by Mr. Playfair of H.M. Consulate, to whom it was

related in Peking:--

'The temples of the God of Fire are numerous in Peking, as is natural

in a city built for the most part of very combustible materials. The

idols representing the god are, with one exception, decked with red

beards, typifying by their colour the element under his control. The

exceptional god has a white beard, and 'thereby hangs a tale.'

'A hundred years ago the Chinese imperial revenue was in much

better case than it is now. At that time they had not yet come into

collision with Western Powers, and the word 'indemnity' had not,

so far, found a place in their vocabulary; internal rebellions were

checked as soon as they broke out, and, in one word, Kien Lung was in

less embarrassed circumstances than Kwang Hsu; he had more money to

spend, and did lay out a good deal in the way of palaces. His favourite

building, and one on which no expense had been spared, was the 'Hall of

Contemplation.' This hall was of very large dimensions; the rafters and

the pillars which supported the roof were of a size such as no trees

in China furnish now-a-days. They were not improbably originally sent

as an offering by the tributary monarch of some tropical country, such

as Burmah or Siam. Two men could barely join hands round the pillars;

they were cased in lustrous jet-black lacquer, which, while adding to

the beauty of their appearance, was also supposed to make them less

liable to combustion. Indeed, every care was taken that no fire should

approach the building; no lighted lamp was allowed in the precincts,

and to have smoked a pipe inside those walls would have been punished

with death. The floor of the hall was of different-coloured marbles,

in a mosaic of flowers and mystic Chinese characters, always kept

polished like a mirror. The sides of the room were lined with rare

books and precious manuscripts. It was, in short, the finest palace

in the imperial city, and it was the pride of Kien Lung.

'Alas for the vanity of human wishes! In spite of every precaution,

one night a fire broke out, and the Hall of Contemplation was in

danger. The Chinese of a century ago were not without fire-engines,

and though miserably inefficient as compared with those of our London

fire brigade, they were better than nothing, and a hundred of them

were soon working round the burning building. The Emperor himself

came out to superintend their efforts and encourage them to renewed

exertions. But the hall was doomed; a more than earthly power was

directing the flames, and mortal efforts were of no avail. For on

one of the burning rafters Kien Lung saw the figure of a little old

man, with a long white beard, standing in a triumphant attitude. 'It

is the God of Fire,' said the Emperor, 'we can do nothing;' so the

building was allowed to blaze in peace. Next day Kien Lung appointed a

commission to go the round of the Peking temples in order to discover

in which of them there was a Fire-god with a white beard, that he

might worship him, and appease the offended deity. The search was

fruitless; all the Fire-gods had red beards. But the commission had

done its work badly; being highly respectable mandarins of genteel

families, they had confined their search to such temples as were

in good repair and of creditable exterior. Outside the north gate

of the imperial city was one old, dilapidated, disreputable shrine

which they had overlooked. It had been crumbling away for years, and

even the dread figure of the God of Fire, which sat above the altar,

had not escaped desecration. 'Time had thinned his flowing locks,'

and the beard had fallen away altogether. One day some water-carriers

who frequented the locality thought, either in charity or by way

of a joke, that the face would look the better for a new beard. So

they unravelled some cord, and with the frayed-out hemp adorned the

beardless chin. An official passing the temple one day peeped in out

of curiosity, and saw the hempen beard. 'Just the thing the Emperor

was inquiring about,' said he to himself, and he took the news to

the palace without delay. Next day there was a state visit to the

dilapidated temple, and Kien Lung made obeisance and vowed a vow.

'O Fire-god,' said he, 'thou hast been wroth with me in that I have

built me palaces, and left thy shrine unhonoured and in ruins. Here do

I vow to build thee a temple surpassed by none other of the Fire-gods

in Peking; but I shall expect thee in future not to meddle with

my palaces.'

'The Emperor was as good as his word. The new temple is on the site of

the old one, and the Fire-god has a flowing beard of fine white hair.'

In the San Francisco Bulletin, I recently read a description of the

celebration by the Chinese in that city of their Feast for the Dead,

in which there are some significant features. The chief attention

was paid, says the reporter, to a figure 'representing what answers

in their theology to our devil, and whom they evidently think it

necessary to propitiate before proceeding with their worship over

individual graves.' This figure is on the west side of their temple;

before and around it candles and joss-sticks were kept burning. On

the east side was the better-looking figure, to which they paid

comparatively little attention.

It was of course but natural that the demons of fire should

gradually be dispelled from that element in its normal aspects, as

its uses became more important through human invention, and its evil

possibilities were mastered. Such demons became gradually located in

the region of especially dangerous fires, as volcanoes and boiling

springs. The Titan whom the ancients believed struggling beneath

Ætna remained there as the Devil in the christian age. St. Agatha

is said to have prevented his vomiting fire for a century by her

prayers. St. Philip ascended the same mountain, and with book and

candle pronounced a prayer of exorcism, at which three devils came

out like fiery flying stones, crying, 'Woe is us! we are still hunted

by Peter through Philip the Elder!' The volcanoes originated the

belief that hell is at the earth's centre, and their busy Vulcans of

classic ages have been easily transformed into sulphurous lords of

the christian Hell. Such is the mediæval Haborym, demon of arson,

with his three heads--man, cat, and serpent--who rides through the

air mounted on a serpent, and bears in his hand a flaming torch. The

astrologers assigned him command of twenty-six legions of demons in

hell, and the superstitious often saw him laughing on the roofs of

burning houses. [43] But still more dignified is Raum, who commands

thirty legions, and who destroys villages; hence, also, concerned in

the destructions of war, he became the demon who awards dignities;

and although this made his usual form of apparition on the right bank

of the Rhine that of the Odinistic raven, on the left bank he may be

detected in the little red man who was reported as the familiar of

Napoleon I. during his career.

Among Mr. Gill's South Pacific myths is one of a Prometheus, Maui, who

by assistance of a red pigeon gets from the subterranean fire-demon

the secret of producing fire (by rubbing sticks), the demon (Mauike)

being then consumed with his realm, and fire being brought to the

upper world to remain the friend of man. In Vedic legend, when the

world was enveloped in darkness, the gods prayed to Agni, who suddenly

burst out as Tvashtri--pure fire, the Vedic Vulcan--to the dismay of

the universe. In Eddaic sagas, Loki was deemed the most voracious of

beings until defeated in an eating match with Logi (devouring fire).

Survivals of belief in the fiery nature of demons are very

numerous. Thus it is a very common belief that the Devil cannot touch

or cross water, and may therefore be escaped by leaping a stream. This

has sometimes been supposed to have something to do with the purifying

character of water; but there are many instances in Christian folklore

where the Devil is shown quite independent of even holy water if it

is not sprinkled on him or does not wet his feet. Thus in the Norfolk

legend concerning St. Godric, the Devil is said to have thrown the

vessel with its holy water at the saint's head out of anger at his

singing a canticle which the Virgin taught him. But when the Devil

attacked him in various ferocious animal shapes, St. Godric escaped

by running into the Wear, where he sometimes stood all night in water

up to his neck.

The Kobolds get the red jackets they are said to wear from their fiery

nature. Originally the lar familiaris of Germany, the Kobold became

of many varieties; but in one line he has been developed from the

house-spirit, whose good or evil temper was recognised in the comforts

or dangers of fire, to a special Stone-demon. The hell-dog in Faust's

room takes refuge from the spell of 'Solomon's Key' behind the stone,

and is there transformed to human shape. The German maidens read many

pretty oracles in the behaviour of the fire, and the like in that of

its fellow Wahrsager the house-dog. It is indeed a widespread notion

that imps and witches lurk about the fireside, obviously in cat and

dog, and ride through the air on implements that usually stand about

the fire,--shovel, tongs, or broom. In Paris it was formerly the

custom to throw twenty-four cats into the fire on St. John's night,

the animals being, according to M. De Plancy, emblems of the devil. So

was replaced the holocaust of human witches, until at last civilisation

rang out its curfew for all such fires as that.

CHAPTER III.

COLD.

Descent of Ishtar into Hades--Bardism--Baldur--Hercules--Christ

--Survivals of the Frost Giant in Slavonic and other countries--

The Clavie--The Frozen Hell--The Northern abode of demons--North

side of churches.

Even across immemorial generations it is impossible to read without

emotion the legend of the Descent of Ishtar into Hades. [44] Through

seven gates the goddess of Love passes in search of her beloved,

and at each some of her ornaments and clothing are removed by the

dread guardian. Ishtar enters naked into the presence of the Queen

of Death. But gods, men, and herds languish in her absence, and the

wonder-working Hea, the Saviour, so charms the Infernal Queen, that

she bids the Judge of her realm, Annunak, absolve Ishtar from his

golden throne.

'He poured out for Ishtar the waters of life and let her go.

Then the first gate let her forth, and restored to her the first

garment of her body.

The second gate let her forth, and restored to her the diamonds of

her hands and feet.

The third gate let her forth, and restored to her the central girdle

of her waist.

The fourth gate let her forth, and restored to her the small lovely

gems of her forehead.

The fifth gate let her forth, and restored to her the precious stones

of her head.

The sixth gate let her forth, and restored to her the earrings of

her ears.

The seventh gate let her forth, and restored to her the great crown

on her head.'

This old miracle-play of Nature--the return of summer flower by

flower--is deciphered from an ancient Assyrian tablet in a town

within only a few hours of another, where a circle of worshippers

repeat the same at every solstice! Myfyr Morganwg, the Arch-Druid,

adores still Hea by name as his Saviour, and at the winter solstice

assembles his brethren to celebrate his coming to bruise the head

of the Serpent of Hades (Annwn, nearly the same as in the tablet),

that seedtime and harvest shall not fail. [45]

Is this a survival? No doubt; but there is no cult in the world which,

if 'scratched,' as the proverb says, will not reveal beneath it the

same conception. However it may be spiritualised, every 'plan of

salvation' is cast in the mould of Winter conquered by the Sun, the

Descent of Love to the Under World, the delivery of the imprisoned

germs of Life.

It is very instructive to compare with the myth of Ishtar that of

Hermödr, seeking the release of Baldur the Beautiful from Helheim.

The deadly powers of Winter are represented in the Eddaic account

of the death of Baldur, soft summer Light, the Norse Baal. His blind

brother Hödr is Darkness; the demon who directed his arrow is Loki,

subterranean fire; the arrow itself is of mistletoe, which, fostered by

Winter, owes no duty to Baldur; and the realm to which he is borne is

that of Hel, the frozen zone. Hermödr, having arrived, assured Hel that

the gods were in despair for the loss of Baldur. The Queen replied that

it should now be tried whether Baldur was so beloved. 'If, therefore,

all things in the world, both living and lifeless, weep for him, he

shall return to the Æsir.' In the end all wept but the old hag Thokk

(Darkness), who from her cavern sang--

Thokk will wail

With dry eyes

Baldur's bale-fire.

Nought quick or dead

For Carl's son care I.

Let Hel hold her own.

So Baldur remained in Helheim. The myth very closely resembles that

of Ishtar's Descent. In similar accent the messenger of the Southern

gods weeps and lacerates himself as he relates the grief of the

upper world, and all men and animals 'since the time that mother

Ishtar descended into Hades.' But in the latter the messenger is

successful, in the North he is unsuccessful. In the corresponding

myths of warm and sunny climes the effort at release is more or

less successful, in proportion to the extent of winter. In Adonis

released from Hades for four months every year, and another four if

he chose to abandon Persephone for Aphrodite, we have a reflection of

a variable year. That, and the similar myth of Persephone, varied in

the time specified for their passing in the upper and under worlds,

probably in accordance with the climatic averages of the regions in

which they were told. But in the tropics it was easy to believe the

release complete, as in the myth of Ishtar. In Mangaian myths the hero,

Maui, escapes from a nether world of fire, aided by a red pigeon.

When this contest between Winter's Death and Spring's Life became

humanised, it was as Hercules vanquishing Death and completely

releasing Alcestis. When it became spiritualised it was as Christ

conquering Death and Hell, and releasing the spirits from prison. The

wintry desolation had to be artificially imitated in a forty days' fast

and Lent, closing with a thrust from the spear (the mistletoe arrow)

amid darkness (blind Hödr). But the myth of a swift resurrection

had to be artificially preserved in the far North. The legend of a

full triumph over Death and Hell could never have originated among

our Norse ancestors. Their only story resembling it, that of Iduna,

related how her recovery from the Giants brought back health to the

gods, not men. But it was from the South that men had to hear tidings

of a rescue for the earth and man.

We cannot realise now what glad tidings were they which told this new

gospel to peoples sitting in regions of ice and gloom, after it had

been imposed on them against their reluctant fears. In manifold forms

the old combat was renewed in their festivals, and peoples who had

long been prostrate and helpless before the terrible powers of nature

were never weary of the Southern fables of heroic triumphs over them,

long interpreted in the simple physical sense.

The great Demon of the Northern World is still Winter, and the

hereditary hatred of him is such that he is still cursed, scourged,

killed, and buried or drowned under various names and disguises. In

every Slavonic country, says Mr. Ralston, there are to be found,

about carnival time, traces of ancient rites, intended to typify the

death of Winter and the birth of Spring or Summer. In Poland a puppet

made of hemp or straw is flung into a pond or swamp with the words,

'The Devil take thee!' Then the participators in the deed scamper home,

and if one of them stumbles and falls it is believed he will die within

the year. In Upper Lausatia a similar figure is fastened on a pole to

be pelted, then taken to the village boundary and thrown across it or

cast into the water, its bearers returning with green boughs. Sometimes

the figure is shrouded in white, representing snow, and bears in its

hands a broom (the sweeping storm) and a sickle (the fatal reaper). In

Russia the 'Straw Mujik' is burned, and also in Bulgaria; in the latter

the bonfire is accompanied by the firing of guns, and by dances and

songs to Lado, goddess of Spring. This reminiscence of Leto, on whose

account Apollo slew the Python, is rendered yet more striking by the

week of archery which accompanies it, recalling the sunbeam darts of

the god. In Spain and Italy the demon puppet is scourged under the name

of Judas, as indeed is the case in the annual Good Friday performance

of Portuguese sailors in the London Docks. Mr. Tylor found in Mexico a

similar custom, the Judas being a regular horned and hoofed devil. In

Scotland the pre-christian accessories of a corresponding custom are

more pronounced both in the time selected (the last day of the year,

old style) and the place. 'The Clavie,' as the custom of burning the

puppet of Winter is mysteriously called, occurred on January 12 of

this year (1878) at Burghead, a fishing village near Forres, where

stands an old Roman altar locally named the 'Douro.' A tar-barrel

was set on fire and carried by a fisherman round the town, while the

people shouted and hallooed. (If the man who carries the barrel falls

it is an evil omen.) The lighted barrel, having gone round the town,

was carried to the top of the hill and placed on the Douro. More fuel

was added. The sparks as they fly upwards are supposed to be witches

and evil spirits leaving the town; the people therefore shout at and

curse them as they disappear in vacancy. When the burning tar-barrel

falls in pieces, the fishwomen rush in and endeavour to get a lighted

bit of wood from its remains; with this light the fire on the cottage

hearth is at once kindled, and it is considered lucky to keep this

flame alive all the rest of the year. The charcoal of the Clavie is

collected and put in bits up the chimney to prevent the witches and

evil spirits coming into the house. The Douro is covered with a thick

layer of tar from the fires that are annually lighted upon it. Close

to it is a very ancient Roman well.

It is an instance of the irony of etymology that the word 'Hell'

means a place of fireless darkness. Nor is the fact that the name of

the Scandinavian demoness Hel, phonetically corresponding with Kali,

'the Black One' (Goth. Halja), whose abode was an icy hole, has her

name preserved as a place of fiery torment, without significance. In

regions where cold was known to an uncomfortable extent as well

as heat, we usually find it represented in the ideas of future

punishment. The realm called Hades, meaning just the same as Hell,

suggests cold. Tertullian and Jerome say that Christ's own phrases

'outer darkness' and the 'gnashing (chattering) of teeth' suggest a

place of extreme cold alternating with the excessive heat. Traces of

similar speculations are found with the Rabbins. Thus Rabbi Joseph

says Gehenna had both water and fire. Noah saw the angel of death

approaching and hid from him twelve months. Why twelve? Because

(explains Rabbi Jehuda) such is the trial of sinners,--six in water,

six in fire. Dante (following Virgil) has frigid as well as burning

hells; and the idea was refined by some scholiasts to a statement

which would seem to make the alternations of future punishment amount

to a severe ague and fever. Milton (Paradise Lost, ii.) has blended

the rabbinical notions with those of Virgil (Æn. vi.) in his terrible

picture of the frozen continent, where

The parching air

Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of fire:

Thither by harpy-footed Furies haled

At certain revolutions all the damn'd

Are brought; and feel by turns the bitter change

Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce,

From beds of raging fire to starve in ice

Their soft etherial warmth, and there to pine

Immovable, infix'd, and frozen round.

With which may be compared Shakespeare's lines in 'Measure for

Measure'--

The de-lighted spirit

To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside

In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice.

In Thibet hell is believed to have sixteen circles, eight burning,

eight frozen, which M. Delepierre attributes to the rapid changes of

their climate between the extremes of heat and cold. [46] Plutarch,

relating the vision of Thespesius in Hades, speaks of the frozen region

there. Denys le Chartreux (De Poenis Inferni) says the severest of

infernal torments is freezing. In the 'Kalendar of Shepherds' (1506)

a legend runs:--'Lazarus sayde, 'I sawe a flode of frosone yce in

the whiche envyous men and women were plonged unto the navyll, and

then sodynly came a colde wynde ryght great that blewe and dyd depe

downe all the envyous into the colde water that nothynge was seen of

them.' Such, too, is Persian Ardá Viráf's vision.

The Demon of Cold has a habitat, naturally, in every

Northern region. He is the Ke-mung of China, who--man-shaped,

dragon-headed--haunts the Chang river, and causes rain-storms. [47] In

Greenland it is Erleursortok, who suffers perpetual agues, and leaps

on souls at death to satisfy his hunger. The Chenoos (demons) of the

Mimacs of Nova Scotia present certain features of the race-demons,

but are fearfully cold. The Chenoo weapon is a dragon's horn, his

yell is fatal to the hearer, his heart is a block of ice. This heart

must be destroyed if the demon is to be slain, but it can only be

done by melting in the fire: the chief precaution required is that

one is not drowned in the flood so caused. The icy demon survived

long in Scotland. Sir James Melville, in his 'Memoirs,' says 'the

spirit or devil that helped the Scottish witches to raise a storm

in the sea of Norway was cold as ice and his body hard as iron;

his face was terrible, his nose like the beak of an eagle, great

burning eyes, his hands and legs hairy, with claws on his nails like

a griffin.' Dr. Fian was burnt for raising this demon to oppose James

I. on his stormy passage from Denmark.

This type of demon haunted people's minds in Scandinavia, where,

though traditions of a flame demon (Loki) and the end of the world

by fire were imported, the popular belief seems to have been mainly

occupied with Frost giants, and the formidable Oegir, god of the

bleak sea east winds, preserved in our word awe (Anglo-Saxon ege),

and more directly in the name of our familiar demon, the Ogre,

so often slain in the child's Gladsheim. Loki (fire) was, indeed,

speedily relegated by the Æsir (gods) to a hidden subterraneous

realm, where his existence could only be known by the earthquakes,

geysers, and Hecla eruptions which he occasioned. Yet he was to come

forth at Ragnarök, the Twilight of the Gods. We can see a singular

blending of tropical and frigid zones--the one traditional, the other

native--in the Prose Edda. Thus:--'What will remain,' said Gangler,

'after heaven and earth and the whole universe shall be consumed,

and after all the gods and the homes of Valhalla and all mankind

shall have perished?' 'There will be many abodes,' replied Thridi,

'some good, some bad. The best place of all to be in will be Gimil,

in heaven; and all who delight in quaffing good drink will find a

great store in the hall called Brimir, which is also in heaven in the

region Okolni. There is also a fair hall of ruddy gold, (for) Sindri,

which stands on the mountains of Nida. In those halls righteous and

well-minded men shall abide. In Ná-strönd there is a vast and direful

structure with doors that face the north. It is formed entirely of the

backs of serpents, wattled together like wicker-work. But the serpents'

heads are turned towards the inside of the hall, and continually vomit

forth floods of venom, in which wade all those who commit murder or

who forswear themselves. As it is said in the Völuspá:--

She saw a hall

Far from the sun

In Náströnd standing,

Northward the doors look,

And venom-drops

Fall in through loopholes.

Formed is that hall

Of wreathed serpents.

There saw she wade

Through heavy streams

Men forsworn

And murderers.

These names for the heavenly regions and their occupants indicate

sunshine and fire. Gimil means fire (gímr): Brimir (brími, flame),

the giant, and Sindri (cinder), the dwarf, jeweller of the gods,

are raised to halls of gold. Nothing is said of a garden, or walking

therein 'in the cool of the day.' On the other hand, Ná-strönd means

Strand of the Dead, in that region whose 'doors face the north, far

from the sun,' we behold an inferno of extreme cold. Christianity

has not availed to give the Icelanders any demonic name suggestive of

fire. They speak of 'Skratti' (the roarer, perhaps our Old Scratch),

and 'Kolski' (the coal black one), but promise nothing so luminous

and comfortable as fire or fire-fiend to the evil-doer.

In the great Epic of the Nibelungen Lied we have probably the shape

in which the Northman's dream of Paradise finally cohered,--a

Rose-garden in the South, guarded by a huge Worm (water-snake,

or glittering glacial sea intervening), whose glowing charms, with

Beauty (Chriemhild) for their queen, could be won only by a brave

dragon-slaying Siegfried. In passing by the pretty lakeside home of

Richard Wagner, on my way to witness the Ammergau version of another

dragon-binding and paradise-regaining legend, I noted that the

old name of the (Starnberg) lake was Wurmsee, from the dragon that

once haunted it, while from the composer's window might be seen its

'Isle of Roses,' which the dragon guarded. Since then the myth of

many forms has had its musical apotheosis at Bayreuth under his wand.

England, partly perhaps on account of its harsh climate, once had the

reputation of being the chief abode of demons. A demoness leaving her

lover on the Continent says, 'My mother is calling me in England.' [48]

But England assigned them still higher latitudes; in christianising

Ireland, Iona, and other islands far north, it was preliminary to

expel the demons. 'The Clavie,' the 'Deis-iuil' of Lewis and other

Hebrides islands--fire carried round cattle to defend them from demons,

and around mothers not yet churched, to keep the babes from being

'changed'--show that the expulsion still goes on, though in such

regions Norse and christian notions have become so jumbled that it is

'fighting the devil with fire.' So in the Havamal men are warned to

invoke 'fire for distempers;' and Gudrun sings--

Raise, ye Jarls, an oaken pile;

Let it under heaven the lightest be.

May it burn a breast full of woes!

The fire round my heart its sorrows melt.

The last line is in contrast with the Hindu saying, 'the flame of

her husband's pyre cools the widow's breast.'

The characters of the Northern Heaven and Hell survive in the English

custom of burying the dead on the southern side of a church. How widely

this usage prevailed in Brand's time may be seen by reference to his

chapter on churchyards. The north side of the graveyard was set apart

for unbaptized infants and executed criminals, and it was permitted

the people to dance or play tennis in that part. Dr. Lee says that in

the churchyard at Morwenstow the southern portion only contains graves,

the north part being untenanted; as the Cornish believe (following old

traditions) that the north is the region of demons. In some parishes

of Cornwall when a baptism occurs the north door of the nave opposite

the font is thrown open, so that the devil cast out may retire to his

own region, the north. [49] This accords with the saying in Martin's

'Month's Mind'--ab aquilone omne malum.

Indeed, it is not improbable that the fact noted by White, in his

'History of Selborne,' that 'the usual approach to most country

churches is by the south,' indicated a belief that the sacred edifice

should turn its back on the region of demons. It is a singular instance

of survival which has brought about the fact that people who listen

devoutly to sermons describing the fiery character of Satan and his

abode should surround the very churches in which those sermons are

heard with evidences of their lingering faith that the devil belongs to

the region of ice, and that their dead must be buried in the direction

of the happy abodes of Brimir and Sindri,--Fire and Cinders!

M. François Lenormant has written an extremely instructive chapter

in comparison of the Accadian and the Finnish mythologies. He there

shows that they are as one and the same tree, adapted to antagonistic

climates. [50] With similar triad, runes, charms, and even names in

some cases, their regard for the fire worshipped by both varies in a

way that seems at first glance somewhat anomalous. The Accadians in

their fire-worship exhausted the resources of praise in ascription of

glory and power to the flames; the Finns in their cold home celebrated

the fire festival at the winter solstice, uttered invocations over

the fire, and the mother of the family, with her domestic libation,

said: 'Always rise so high, O my flame, but burn not larger nor more

ardent!' This diminution of enthusiasm in the Northern fire-worshipper,

as compared with the Southern, may only be the result of euphemism in

the latter; or perhaps while the formidable character of the fire-god

among the primitive Assyrians is indicated in the utter prostration

before him characteristic of their litanies and invocations, in the

case of the Finns the perpetual presence of the more potent cold

led to the less excessive adoration. These ventured to recognise the

faults of fire.

The true nature of this anomaly becomes visible when we consider

that the great demon, dreaded by the two countries drawing their

cult from a common source, represented the excess of the power most

dreaded. The demon in each case was a wind; among the Finns the north

wind, among the Accadians the south-west (the most fiery) wind. The

Finnish demon was Hiisi, speeding on his pale horse through the air,

with a terrible train of monster dogs, cats, furies, scattering pain,

disease, and death. [51] The Accadian demon, of which the bronze image

is in the Louvre, is the body of a dog, erect on eagle's feet, its arms

pointed with lion's paws; it has the tail of a scorpion and the head of

a skeleton, half stripped of flesh, preserving the eyes, and mounted

with the horns of a goat. It has four outspread wings. On the back

of this ingeniously horrible image is an inscription in the Accadian

language, apprising us that it is the demon of the south-west wind,

made to be placed at the door or window, to avert its hostile action.

As we observe such figures as these on the one hand, and on the other

the fair beings imagined to be antagonistic to them; as we note in

runes and incantations how intensely the ancients felt themselves to

be surrounded by these good and evil powers, and, reading nature so,

learned to see in the seasons successively conquering and conquered

by each other, and alternation of longer days and longer nights, the

changing fortunes of a never-ending battle; we may better realise

the meaning of solstitial festivals, the customs that gathered

around Yuletide and New Year, and the manifold survivals from them

which annually masquerade in Christian costume and names. To our

sun-worshipping ancestor the new year meant the first faint advantage

of the warmer time over winter, as nearly as he could fix it. The

hovering of day between superiority of light and darkness is now named

after doubting Thomas. At Yuletide the dawning victory of the sun is

seen as a holy infant in a manger amid beasts of the stall. The old

nature-worship has bequeathed to christian belief a close-fitting

mantle. But the old idea of a war between the wintry and the warm

powers still haunts the period of the New Year; and the twelve days

and nights, once believed to be the period of a fiercely-contested

battle between good and evil demons, are still regarded by many

as a period for especial watchfulness and prayer. New Year's Eve,

in the north of England still 'Hogmanay,'--probably O. N. höku-nött,

midwinter-night, when the sacrifices of Thor were prepared,--formerly

had many observances which reflected the belief that good and evil

ghosts were contending for every man and woman: the air was believed

to be swarming with them, and watch must be kept to see that the

protecting fire did not go out in any household; that no strange man,

woman, or animal approached,--possibly a demon in disguise. Sacred

plants were set in doors and windows to prevent the entrance of any

malevolent being from the multitudes filling the air. John Wesley,

whose noble heart was allied with a mind strangely open to stories

of hobgoblins, led the way of churches and sects back into this

ancient atmosphere. Nevertheless, the rationalism of the age has

influenced St. Wesley's Feast--Watchnight. It can hardly recognise

its brother in the Boar's Head Banquet of Queen's College, Oxford,

which celebrated victory over tusky winter, the decapitated demon

whose bristles were once icicles fallen beneath the sylvan spirits

of holly and rosemary. Yet what the Watchnight really signifies in

the antiquarian sense is just that old culminating combat between the

powers of fire and frost, once believed to determine human fates. In

White Russia, on New Year's Day, when the annual elemental battle has

been decided, the killed and wounded on one hand, and the fortunate

on the other, are told by carrying from house to house the rich and

the poor Kolyadas. These are two children, one dressed in fine attire,

and crowned with a wreath of full ears of grain, the other ragged, and

wearing a wreath of threshed straw. These having been closely covered,

each householder is called in, and chooses one. If his choice chances

upon the 'poor Kolyada,' the attending chorus chant a mournful strain,

in which he is warned to expect a bad harvest, poverty, and perhaps

death; if he selects the 'rich Kolyada,' a cheerful song is sung

promising him harvest, health, and wealth.

The natives of certain districts of Dardistan assign political and

social significance to their Feast of Fire, which is celebrated in the

month preceding winter, at new moon, just after their meat provision

for the season is laid in to dry. Their legend is, that it was then

their national hero slew their ancient tyrant and introduced good

government. This legend, related elsewhere, is of a tyrant slain

through the discovery that his heart was made of snow. He was slain

by the warmth of torches. In the celebrations all the men of the

villages go forth with torches, which they swing round their heads,

and throw in the direction of Ghilgit, where the snow-hearted tyrant

so long held his castle. When the husbands return home from their

torch-throwing a little drama is rehearsed. The wives refuse them

entrance till they have entreated, recounting the benefits they have

brought them; after admission the husband affects sulkiness, and must

be brought round with caresses to join in the banquet. The wife leads

him forward with this song:--'Thou hast made me glad, thou favourite

of the Rajah! Thou hast rejoiced me, oh bold horseman! I am pleased

with thee who so well usest the gun and sword! Thou hast delighted

me, oh thou invested with a mantle of honours! Oh great happiness,

I will buy it by giving pleasure's price! Oh thou nourishment to us,

heap of corn, store of ghee--delighted will I buy it all by giving

pleasure's price!'

CHAPTER IV.

ELEMENTS.

A Scottish Munasa--Rudra--Siva's lightning eye--The flaming

sword--Limping demons--Demons of the storm--Helios, Elias,

Perun--Thor arrows--The Bob-tailed Dragon--Whirlwind--Japanese

thunder god--Christian survivals--Jinni--Inundations--Noah--Nik,

Nicholas, Old Nick--Nixies--Hydras--Demons of the

Danube--Tides--Survivals in Russia and England.

During some recent years curious advertisements have appeared in a

journal of Edinburgh, calling for pious persons to occupy certain

hours of the night with holy exercises. It would appear that they

refer to a band of prayerful persons who provide that there shall

be an unbroken round of prayers during every moment of the day and

night. Their theory is, that it is the usual cessation of christian

prayers at night which causes so many disasters. The devils being then

less restrained, raise storms and all elemental perils. The praying

circle, which hopes to bind these demons by an uninterrupted chain of

prayers, originated, as I am informed, in the pious enthusiasm of a

lady whose kindly solicitude in some pre-existent sister was no doubt

personified in the Hindu Munasa, who, while all gods slept, sat in the

shape of a serpent on a branch of Euphorbia to preserve mankind from

the venom of snakes. It is to be feared, however, that it is hardly

the wisdom of the serpent which is on prayerful watch at Edinburgh,

but rather a vigilance of that perilous kind which was exercised by

'Meggie o' the Shore,' anno 1785, as related by Hugh Miller. [52]

On a boisterous night, when two young girls had taken refuge in her

cottage, they all heard about midnight cries of distress mingling

with the roar of the sea, 'Raise the window curtain and look out,'

said Meggie. The terrified girls did so, and said, 'There is a bright

light in the middle of the Bay of Udall. It hangs over the water about

the height of a ship's mast, and we can see something below it like

a boat riding at anchor, with the white sea raging around her.' 'Now

drop the curtain,' said Meggie; 'I am no stranger, my lasses, to

sights and noises like these--sights and noises of another world;

but I have been taught that God is nearer to me than any spirit can

be; and so have learned not to be afraid.' Afterwards it is not

wonderful that a Cromarty yawl was discovered to have foundered,

and all on board to have been drowned; though Meggie's neighbours

seemed to have preserved the legend after her faith, and made the

scene described a premonition of what actually occurred. It was in

a region where mariners when becalmed invoke the wind by whistling;

and both the whistling and the praying, though their prospects in

the future may be slender, have had a long career in the past.

In the 'Rig-Veda' there is a remarkable hymn to Rudra (the Roarer),

which may be properly quoted here:--

1. Sire of the storm gods, let thy favour extend to us; shut us not

out from the sight of the sun; may our hero be successful in the

onslaught. O Rudra, may we wax mighty in our offspring.

2. Through the assuaging remedies conferred by thee, O Rudra, may

we reach a hundred winters; drive away far from us hatred, distress,

and all-pervading diseases.

3. Thou, O Rudra, art the most excellent of beings in glory, the

strongest of the strong, O wielder of the bolt; bear us safely through

evil to the further shore; ward off all the assaults of sin.

4. May we not provoke thee to anger, O Rudra, by our adorations,

neither through faultiness in praises, nor through wantonness in

invocations; lift up our heroes by thy remedies; thou art, I hear,

the chief physician among physicians.

5. May I propitiate with hymns this Rudra who is worshipped with

invocations and oblations; may the tender-hearted, easily-entreated,

tawny-haired, beautiful-chinned god not deliver us up to the plotter

of evil [literally, to the mind meditating 'I kill'].

6. The bounteous giver, escorted by the storm-gods, hath gladdened

me, his suppliant, with most invigorating food; as one distressed by

heat seeketh the shade, may I, free from harm, find shelter in the

good-will of Rudra.

7. Where, O Rudra, is that gracious hand of thine, which is healing

and comforting? Do thou, removing the evil which cometh from the gods,

O bounteous giver, have mercy upon me.

8. To the tawny, the fair-complexioned dispenser of bounties, I send

forth a great and beautiful song of praise; adore the radiant god

with prostrations; we hymn the illustrious name of Rudra.

9. Sturdy-limbed, many-shaped, fierce, tawny, he hath decked himself

with brilliant ornaments of gold; truly strength is inseparable from

Rudra, the sovereign of this vast world.

10. Worthy of worship, thou bearest the arrows and the bow; worthy of

worship, thou wearest a resplendent necklace of many forms; worthy

of worship, thou rulest over this immense universe; there is none,

O Rudra, mightier than thou.

11. Celebrate the renowned and ever-youthful god who is seated on a

chariot, who is, like a wild beast, terrible, fierce, and destructive;

have mercy upon the singer, O Rudra, when thou art praised; may thy

hosts strike down another than us.

12. As a boy saluteth his father who approacheth and speaketh to him,

so, O Rudra, I greet thee, the giver of much, the lord of the good;

grant us remedies when thou art praised.

13. Your remedies, O storm-gods, which are pure and helping, O

bounteous givers, which are joy-conferring, which our father Manu

chose, these and the blessing and succour of Rudra I crave.

14. May the dart of Rudra be turned aside from us, may the great

malevolence of the flaming-god be averted; unbend thy strong bow

from those who are liberal with their wealth; O generous god, have

mercy upon our offspring and our posterity (i.e., our children and

children's children).

15. Thus, O tawny Rudra, wise giver of gifts, listen to our cry,

give heed to us here, that thou mayest not be angry with us, O god,

nor slay us; may we, rich in heroic sons, utter great praise at the

sacrifice. [53]

In other hymns the malevolent character of Rudra is made still more

prominent:--

7. Slay not our strong man nor our little child, neither him who

is growing nor him who is grown, neither our father nor our mother;

hurt not, O Rudra, our dear selves.

8. Harm us not in our children and children's children, nor in our men,

nor in our kine, nor in our horses. Smite not our heroes in thy wrath;

we wait upon thee perpetually with offerings. [54]

In this hymn (verse 1) Rudra is described as 'having braided hair;'

and in the 'Yajur-veda' and the 'Atharva-veda' other attributes

of Siva are ascribed to him, such as the epithet nîla-grîva, or

blue-necked. In the 'Rig-veda' Siva occurs frequently as an epithet,

and means auspicious. It was used as a euphemistic epithet to appease

Rudra, the lord of tempests; and finally, the epithet developed into

a distinct god.

The parentage of Siva is further indicated in the legends that

his glance destroyed the head of the youthful deity Ganesa,

who now wears the elephant head, with which it was replaced; and

that the gods persuaded him to keep his eyes perpetually winking

(like sheet-lightning), lest his concentrated look (the thunderbolt)

should reduce the universe to ashes. With the latter legend the gaze

of the evil eye in India might naturally be associated, though in

the majority of countries this was rather associated with the malign

influences ascribed to certain planets, especially Saturn; the charms

against the evil eye being marked over with zodiacal signs. The very

myth of Siva's eye survives in the Russian demon Magarko ('Winker')

and the Servian Vii, whose glance is said to have power to reduce men,

and even cities, to ashes.

The terrible Rudra is represented in a vast number of beliefs, some

of them perhaps survivals; in the rough sea and east-wind demon Oegir

of the northern world, and Typhon in the south; and in Luther's faith

that 'devils do house in the dense black clouds, and send storms,

hail, thunder and lightning, and poison the air with their infernal

stench,' a doctrine which Burton, the Anatomist of Melancholy, too,

maintained against the meteorologists of his time.

Among the ancient Aryans lightning seems to have been the supreme type

of divine destructiveness. Rudra's dart, Siva's eye, reappear with

the Singhalese prince of demons Wessamonny, described as wielding a

golden sword, which, when he is angry, flies out of his hand, to which

it spontaneously returns, after cutting off a thousand heads. [55]

A wonderful spear was borne by Odin, and was possibly the original

Excalibur. The four-faced Sviatevit of Russia, whose mantle has fallen

to St. George, whose statue was found at Zbrucz in 1851, bore a horn

of wine (rain) and a sword (lightning).

In Greece similar swords were wielded by Zeus, and also by the

god of war. Through Zeus and Ares, the original wielders of the

lightning--Indra and Siva--became types of many gods and semi-divine

heroes. The evil eye of Siva glared from the forehead of the Cyclopes,

forgers of thunderbolts; and the saving disc of Indra flashed in the

swords and arrows of famous dragon-slayers--Perseus, Pegasus, Hercules,

and St. George. The same sword defended the Tree of Life in Eden,

and was borne in the hand of Death on the Pale Horse (a white horse

was sacrificed to Sviatevit in Russia within christian times). And,

finally, we have the wonderful sword which obeys the command 'Heads

off!' delighting all nurseries by the service it does to the King of

the Golden Mountain.

'I beheld Satan as lightning falling out of heaven.' To the Greeks

this falling of rebellious deities out of heaven accounted, as we

have seen explained, for their lameness. But a universal phenomenon

can alone account for the many demons with crooked or crippled legs

(like 'Diable Boiteux') [56] all around the world. The Namaquas of

South Africa have a 'deity' whose occupation it is to cause pain

and death; his name is Tsui'knap, that is 'wounded knee.' [57]

Livingstone says of the Bakwains, another people of South Africa,

'It is curious that in all their pretended dreams or visions of

their god he has always a crooked leg, like the Egyptian Thau.' [58]

In Mainas, South America, they believe in a treacherous demon,

Uchuella-chaqui, or Lame-foot, who in dark forests puts on a friendly

shape to lure Indians to destruction; but the huntsmen say they can

never be deceived if they examine this demon's foot-track, because

of the unequal size of the two feet. [59] The native Australians

believed in a demon named Biam; he is black and deformed in his lower

extremities; they attributed to him many of their songs and dances,

but also a sort of small-pox to which they were liable. [60] We have

no evidence that these superstitions migrated from a common centre;

and there can be little doubt that many of these crooked legs are

traceable to the crooked lightning. [61] At the same time this is by

no means inconsistent with what has been already said of the fall of

Titans and angels from heaven as often accounting for their lameness

in popular myths. But in such details it is hard to reach certainty,

since so many of the facts bear a suspicious resemblance to each

other. A wild boar with 'distorted legs' attacked St. Godric, and

the temptation is strong to generalise on the story, but the legs

probably mean only to certify that it was the devil.

Dr. Schliemann has unearthed among his other treasures the remarkable

fact that a temple of Helios (the sun) once stood near the site of

the present Church of Elias, at Mycenæ, which has from time immemorial

been the place to which people repair to pray for rain. [62] When the

storm-breeding Sun was succeeded by the Prophet whose prayer evoked

the cloud, even the name of the latter did not need to be changed. The

discovery is the more interesting because it has always been a part

of the christian folklore of that region that, when a storm with

lightning occurs, it is 'Elias in his chariot of fire.' A similar

phrase is used in some part of every Aryan country, with variation

of the name: it is Woden, or King Waldemar, or the Grand Veneur,

or sometimes God, who is said to be going forth in his chariot.

These storm-demons in their chariots have their forerunner in Vata

or Vayu, the subject of one of the most beautiful Vedic hymns. 'I

celebrate the glory of Vata's chariot; its noise comes rending and

resounding. Touching the sky he moves onward, making all things ruddy;

and he comes propelling the dust of the earth.

'Soul of the gods, source of the universe, this deity moves as he

lists. His sounds have been heard, but his form is not seen; this

Vata let us worship with an oblation.' [63]

This last verse, as Mr. Muir has pointed out, bears a startling

resemblance to the passage in John, 'The Wind bloweth where it listeth,

and thou canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth; so is

every one that is born of the Wind.' [64]

But an equally striking development of the Vedic idea is represented

in the Siamese legend of Buddha, and in this case the Vedic Wind-god

Vayu reappears by name for the Angels of Tempests, or Loka Phayu. The

first portent which preceded the descent of Buddha from the Tushita

heavens was 'when the Angels of the Tempest, clothed in red garments,

and with streaming hair, travel among the abodes of mankind crying,

'Attend all ye who are near to death; repent and be not heedless! The

end of the world approaches, but one hundred thousand years more

and it will be destroyed. Exert yourselves, then, exert yourselves

to acquire merit. Above all things be charitable; abstain from doing

evil; meditate with love to all beings, and listen to the teachings of

holiness. For we are all in the mouth of the king of death. Strive then

earnestly for meritorious fruits, and seek that which is good.' [65]

Not less remarkable is the Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel to 1 Kings

xix., where around Elias on the mountain gather 'a host of angels of

the wind, cleaving the mountain and breaking the rocks before the

Lord;' and after these, 'angels of commotion,' and next 'of fire,'

and, finally, 'voices singing in silence' preceded the descent of

Jehovah. It can hardly be wondered that a prophet of whom this story

was told, and that of the storm evoked from a small cloud, should

be caught up into that chariot of the Vedic Vayu which has rolled on

through all the ages of mythology.

Mythologic streams seem to keep their channels almost as steadfastly

as rivers, but as even these change at last or blend, so do the old

traditions. Thus we find that while Thor and Odin remain as separate

in survivals as Vayu and Parjanya in India, in Russia Elias has

inherited not the mantle of the wind-god or storm-breeding sun,

but of the Slavonic Thunderer Perun. There is little doubt that

this is Parjanya, described in the 'Rig-Veda' as 'the thunderer,

the showerer, the bountiful,' [66] who 'strikes down trees' and 'the

wicked.' 'The people of Novgorod,' says Herberstein, 'formerly offered

their chief worship and adoration to a certain idol named Perun. When

subsequently they received baptism they removed it from its place,

and threw it into the river Volchov; and the story goes that it swam

against the stream, and that near the bridge a voice was heard saying,

'This for you, O inhabitants of Novgorod, in memory of me;' and at

the same time a certain rope was thrown upon the bridge. Even now

it happens from time to time on certain days of the year that this

voice of Perun may be heard, and on these occasions the citizens run

together and lash each other with ropes, and such a tumult arises

therefrom that all the efforts of the governor can scarcely assuage

it.' [67] The statue of Perun in Kief, says Mr. Ralston, had a trunk

of wood, while the head was of silver, with moustaches of gold, and

among its weapons was a mace. Afanasief states that in White-Russian

traditions Perun is tall and well-shaped, with black hair and a long

golden beard. This beard relates him to Barbarossa, and, perhaps,

though distantly, with the wood-demon Barbatos, the Wild Archer,

who divined by the songs of birds. [68] Perun also has a bow which is

'sometimes identified with the rainbow, an idea which is known also to

the Finns. From it, according to the White Russians, are shot burning

arrows, which set on fire all things that they touch. In many parts of

Russia (as well as of Germany) it is supposed that these bolts sink

deep into the soil, but that at the end of three or seven years they

return to the surface in the shape of longish stones of a black or dark

grey colour--probably belemnites, or masses of fused sand--which are

called thunderbolts, and considered as excellent preservations against

lightning and conflagrations. The Finns call them Ukonkiwi--the stone

of thunder-god Ukko, and in Courland their name is Perkuhnsteine, which

explains itself. In some cases the flaming dart of Perun became, in the

imagination of the people, a golden key. With it he unlocked the earth,

and brought to light its concealed treasures, its restrained waters,

its captive founts of light. With it also he locked away in safety

fugitives who wished to be put out of the power of malignant conjurors,

and performed various other good offices. Appeals to him to exercise

these functions still exist in the spells used by the peasants,

but his name has given way to that of some christian personage. In

one of them, for instance, the Archangel Michael is called upon to

secure the invoker behind an iron door fastened by twenty-seven locks,

the keys of which are given to the angels to be carried to heaven. In

another, John the Baptist is represented as standing upon a stone in

the Holy Sea [i.e., in heaven], resting upon an iron crook or staff,

and is called upon to stay the flow of blood from a wound, locking

the invoker's veins 'with his heavenly key.' In this case the myth has

passed into a rite. In order to stay a violent bleeding from the nose,

a locked padlock is brought, and the blood is allowed to drop through

its aperture, or the sufferer grasps a key in each hand, either plan

being expected to prove efficacious. As far as the key is concerned,

the belief seems to be still maintained among ourselves.' [69]

The Key has a holy sense in various religions, and consequently an

infernal key is its natural counterpart. The Vedic hymns, which say

so much about the shutting and opening, imprisoning and releasing,

of heavenly rains and earthly fruits by demons and deities, interpret

many phenomena of nature, and the same ideas have arisen in many

lands. We cannot be certain, therefore, that Calmet is right in

assigning an Indian origin to the subjoined Figure 5, an ancient

Persian medal. The signs of the zodiac on its body show it to be one

of those celestial demons believed able to bind the beneficent or

loose the formidable powers of nature. The Key is of especial import

in Hebrew faith. It was the high-priest Eliakim's symbol of office,

as being also prefect in the king's house. 'The key of the house of

David will I lay upon his shoulder: he shall open and none shall shut;

he shall shut and none shall open.' [70] The Rabbins had a saying

that God reserves to himself four keys, which he will intrust not

even to the angels: the key of rain, the key of the grave, the key of

fruitfulness, and the key of barrenness. It was the sign of one set

above angels when Christ was seen with the keys of Hell and Death,

or when he delivered the keys of heaven to Peter, [71]--still thrust

down the backs of protestant children to cure nose-bleed.

The ubiquitous superstition which attributes the flint arrows of

pre-historic races to gods, shot by them as lightning, and, as some

said, from a rainbow, is too childlike a theory to call for elaborate

treatment. We need not, ethnographically, connect our 'Thor arrows'

and 'Elf shots' with the stones hurled at mortals by the Thunder-Duke

(Lui-tsz) of China. The ancient Parthians, who used to reply to the

thunderstorm by shooting arrows at it, and the Turks, who attack an

eclipse with guns, fairly represent the infancy of the human race,

though perhaps with more than its average pluck. Dr. Macgowan relates,

concerning the Lei-chau (Thunder District) of China, various myths

which resemble those which surround the world. After thunderstorms,

black stones, it is believed, may be found which emit light and

peculiar sounds on being struck. In a temple consecrated to the

Thunder Duke the people annually place a drum for that stormy demon

to beat. The drum was formerly left on a mountain-top with a little

boy as a sacrifice. [72] Mr. Dennys [73] speaks of the belief in the

same country that violent winds and typhoons are caused by the passage

through the air of the 'Bob-tailed Dragon,' and also of the rain-god

Yü-Shüh. A storm-god connected with the 'Eagre,' or bore of the river

Tsien-tang, presents a coincidence of name with the Scandinavian

Oegir, which would be hardly noticeable were it not for the very close

resemblance between the folklore concerning the 'Bob-tailed Dragon'

and the storm-dragons of several Aryan races. Generally, in both

China and Japan the Dragon is regarded with a veneration equal to

the horror with which the serpent is visited. Of this phenomenon and

its analogies in Britain I shall have an explanation to submit when

we come to consider Dragon-myths more particularly. To this general

rule the 'Bob-tailed Dragon' of China is a partial exception. His

fidelity as a friend led to the ill return of an attack by which his

tail was amputated, and ever since his soured temper has shown itself

in raising storms. When a violent tempest arises the Cantonese say,

'The Bob-tailed Dragon is passing,' in the same proverbial way as the

Aryan peasantries attribute the same phenomenon to their storm-gods.

The notion is widely prevalent in some districts of France that

all whirlwinds, however slight, are caused by wizards or witches,

who are in them, careering through the air; and it is stated by the

Melusine that in the department of the Orne storms are attributed

to the clergy, who are supposed to be circling in them. The same

excellent journal states that some years ago, in that department, a

parishioner who saw his crops threatened by a hail-storm fired into

the cloud. The next day he heard that the parish priest had broken

his leg by a fall for which he could not account.

The following examples are given by Kuhn. Near Stangenhagen is a

treasure hid in a mountain which Lord von Thümen tried to seek,

but was caught up with his horse by a whirlwind and deposited at

home again. The Devil is believed to be seated at the centre of

every whirlwind. At Biesenthal it is said a noble lady became the

Wind's bride. She was in her time a famous rider and huntress, who

rode recklessly over farmers' fields and gardens; now she is herself

hunted by snakes and dragons, and may be heard howling in every storm.

I suspect that the bristling hair so frequently portrayed in the

Japanese Oni, Devils, refers to their frequent residence at the

centre of a gale of wind. Their demon of the storm is generally

pictured throned upon a flower of flames, his upraised and extended

fingers emitting the most terrific lightnings, which fall upon his

victims and envelop them in flames. Sometimes, however, the Japanese

artists poke fun at their thunder-god, and show him sprawling on the

ground from the recoil of his own lightnings. The following extract

from The Christian Herald (London, April 12, 1877) will show how

far the dread of this Japanese Oni extends: 'A pious father writes,

'A few days ago there was a severe thunderstorm, which seemed to

gather very heavily in the direction where my son lived; and I had

a feeling that I must go and pray that he might be protected, and

not be killed by the lightning. The impression seemed to say, 'There

is no time to be lost.' I obeyed, and went and knelt down and prayed

that the Lord would spare his life. I believe he heard my prayer. My

son called on me afterwards, and, speaking of the shower, said,

'The lightning came downwards and struck the very hoe in my hands,

and numbed me.' I said, 'Perhaps you would have been killed if some

one had not been praying for you.' Since then he has been converted,

and, I trust, will be saved in God's everlasting kingdom.''

Such paragraphs may now strike even many christians as 'survivals.' But

it is not so very long since some eminent clergymen looked upon

Benjamin Franklin as the heaven-defying Ajax of Christendom, because

he undertook to show people how they might divert the lightnings

from their habitations. In those days Franklin personally visited a

church at Streatham, whose steeple had been struck by lightning, and,

after observing the region, gave an opinion that if the steeple were

again erected without a lightning-rod, it would again be struck. The

audacious man who 'snatched sceptres from tyrants and lightnings

from heaven,' as the proverb ran, was not listened to: the steeple

was rebuilt, and again demolished by lightning.

The supreme god of the Quichuas (American), Viracocha ('sea foam'),

rises out of Lake Titicaca, and journeys with lightnings for

all opposers, to disappear in the Western Ocean. The Quichua is

mentally brother of the Arab camel-driver. 'The sea,' it is said

in the 'Arabian Nights,'--'the sea became troubled before them, and

there arose from it a black pillar, ascending towards the sky, and

approaching the meadow,' and 'behold it was a Jinn [74] of gigantic

stature.' The Jinn is sometimes helpful as it is formidable; it repays

the fisherman who unseals it from the casket fished up from the sea,

as fruitfulness comes out of the cloud no larger than a man's hand

evoked by Elijah. The perilous Jinn described in the above extract is

the waterspout. Waterspouts are attributed in China to the battles

of dragons in the air, and the same country recognises a demon of

high tides. The newest goddess in China is a canonised protectress

against the shipwrecking storm-demons of the coast, an exaltation

recently proclaimed by the Government of the empire in obedience,

as the edict stated, to the belief prevailing among sailors. In this

the Chinese are a long way behind the mariners and fishermen of the

French coast, who have for centuries, by a pious philology, connected

'Maria' with 'La Marée' and 'La Mer;' and whenever they have been

saved from storms, bring their votive offerings to sea-side shrines

of the Star of the Sea.

The old Jewish theology, in its eagerness to claim for Jehovah the

absolutism which would make him 'Lord of lords,' instituted his

responsibility for many doubtful performances, the burthen of which

is now escaped by the device of saying that he 'permitted' them. In

this way the Elohim who brought on the Deluge have been identified

with Jehovah. None the less must we see in the biblical account

of the Flood the action of tempestuous water-demons. What power a

christian would recognise in such an event were it related in the

sacred books of another religion may be seen in the vision of the

Apocalypse--'The Serpent cast out of his mouth a flood of water after

the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away with the flood;

and the earth helped the woman and opened its mouth and swallowed up

the flood.' This Demon of Inundation meets the explorer of Egyptian

and Accadian inscriptions at every turn. The terrible Seven, whom

even the God of Fire cannot control, 'break down the banks of the

Abyss of Waters.' [75] The God of the Tigris, Tourtak (Tartak of the

Bible), is 'the great destroyer.' [76] Leviathan 'maketh the deep to

boil like a pot:' 'when he raises up himself the mighty are afraid;

by reason of breakings they purify themselves.' [77]

In the Astronomical Tablets, which Professor Sayce dates about

B.C. 1600, we have the continual association of eclipse and flood:

'On the fifteenth day an eclipse takes place. The king dies; and rains

in the heaven, floods in the channels are.' 'In the month of Elul

(August), the fourteenth day, an eclipse takes place.... Northward

... its shadow is seen; and to the King of Mullias a crown is

given. To the king the crown is an omen; and over the king the eclipse

passes. Rains in heaven, floods in the channels flow. A famine is

in the country. Men their sons for silver sell.' 'After a year the

Air-god inundates.' [78]

In the Chaldæo-Babylonian cosmogony the three zones of the universe

were ruled over by a Triad as follows: the Heaven by Anu; the surface

of the earth, including the atmosphere, by Bel; the under-world by

Nouah. [79] This same Nouah is the Assyrian Hea or Saviour; and it

is Noah of the Bible. The name means a rest or residence,--the place

where man may dwell. When Tiamat the Dragon, or the Leviathan, opens

'the fountains of the great deep,' and Anu 'the windows of Heaven,'

it is Hea or Noah who saves the life of man. M. François Lenormant

has shown this to be the probable sense of one of the most ancient

Accadian fragments in the British Museum. In it allusion is made

to 'the serpent of seven heads ... that beats the sea.' [80] Hea,

however, appears to be more clearly indicated in a fragment which

Professor Sayce appends to this:--

Below in the abyss the forceful multitudes may they sacrifice.

The overwhelming fear of Anu in the midst of Heaven encircles his path.

The spirits of earth, the mighty gods, withstand him not.

The king like a lightning-flash opened.

Adar, the striker of the fortresses of the rebel band, opened.

Like the streams in the circle of heaven I besprinkled the seed of men.

His marching in the fealty of Bel to the temple I directed,

(He is) the hero of the gods, the protector of mankind, far (and)

near....

O my lord, life of Nebo (breathe thy inspiration), incline thine ear.

O Adar, hero, crown of light, (breathe) thy inspiration, (incline)

thine ear.

The overwhelming fear of thee may the sea know....

Thy setting (is) the herald of his rest from marching,

In thy marching Merodach (is) at rest [81]....

Thy father on his throne thou dost not smite.

Bel on his throne thou dost not smite.

The spirits of earth on their throne may he consume.

May thy father into the hands of thy valour cause (them) to go forth.

May Bel into the hands of thy valour cause (them) to go forth.

(The king, the proclaimed) of Anu, the firstborn of the gods.

He that stands before Bel, the heart of the life of the House of the

Beloved. [82]

The hero of the mountain (for those that) die in multitudes.... the

one god, he will not urge. [83]

In this primitive fragment we find the hero of the mountain (Noah),

invoking both Bel and Nebo, aerial and infernal Intelligences, and Adar

the Chaldæan Hercules, for their 'inspiration'--that breath which, in

the biblical story, goes forth in the form of the Dove ('the herald

of his rest' in the Accadian fragment), and in the 'wind' by which

the waters were assuaged (in the fragment 'the spirits of the earth'

which are given into the hand of the violent 'hero of the mountain,'

whom alone the gods 'will not urge').

The Hydra may be taken as a type of the destructive water-demon in a

double sense, for its heads remain in many mythical forms. The Syrian

Dagon and Atergatis, fish-deities, have bequeathed but their element

to our Undines of romance. Some nymphs have so long been detached

from aqueous associations as to have made their names puzzling, and

their place in demonology more so. To the Nixy (nêchô) of Germany,

now merely mischievous like the British Pixy, many philologists trace

the common phrase for the Devil,--'Old Nick.' I believe, however,

that this phrase owes its popularity to St. Nicholas rather than to

the Norse water-god whose place he was assigned after the christian

accession. This saintly Poseidon, who, from being the patron of

fishermen, gradually became associated with that demon whom, Sir

Walter Scott said, 'the British sailor feared when he feared nothing

else,' was also of old the patron of pirates; and robbers were called

'St. Nicholas' clerks.' [84] In Norway and the Netherlands the ancient

belief in the demon Nikke was strong; he was a kind of Wild Huntsman

of the Sea, and has left many legends, of which 'The Flying Dutchman'

is one. But my belief is that, through his legendary relation to boys,

St. Nicholas gave the name Old Nick its modern moral accent. Because

of his reputation for having restored to life three murdered children

St. Nicholas was made their patron, and on his day, December 6, it

was the old custom to consecrate a Boy-Bishop, who held office until

the 28th of the month. By this means he became the moral appendage

of the old Wodan god of the Germanic races, who was believed in

winter time to find shelter in and shower benefits from evergreens,

especially firs, on his favourite children who happened to wander

beneath them. 'Bartel,' 'Klaubauf,' or whatever he might be called, was

reduced to be the servant of St. Nicholas, whose name is now jumbled

into 'Santaclaus.' According to the old custom he appeared attended

by his Knecht Klaubauf--personated by those who knew all about the

children--bringing a sort of doomsday. The gifts having been bestowed

on the good children, St. Nicholas then ordered Klaubauf to put the

naughty ones into his pannier and carry them off for punishment. The

terror and shrieks thus caused have created vast misery among children,

and in Munich and some other places the authorities have very properly

made such tragedies illegal. But for many centuries it was the custom

of nurses and mothers to threaten refractory children with being

carried off at the end of the year by Nicholas; and in this way

each year closed, in the young apprehension, with a Judgment Day,

a Weighing of Souls, and a Devil or Old Nick as agent of retribution.

Nick has long since lost his aquatic character, and we find his name in

the Far West (America) turning up as 'The Nick of the Woods,'--the wild

legend of a settler who, following a vow of vengeance for his wrongs,

used to kill the red men while they slept, and was supposed to be a

demon. The Japanese have a water-dragon--Kappa--of a retributive and

moral kind, whose office it is to swallow bad boys who go to swim

in disobedience to their parents' commands, or at improper times

and places. It is not improbable that such dangers to the young

originated some of the water-demons,--probably such as are thought

of as diminutive and mischievous,--e.g., Nixies. The Nixa was for a

long time on the Baltic coast the female 'Old Nick,' and much feared

by fishermen. Her malign disposition is represented in the Kelpie

of Scotland,--a water-horse, believed to carry away the unwary by

sudden floods to devour them. In Germany there was a river-goddess

whose temple stood at Magdeburg, whence its name. A legend exists of

her having appeared in the market there in christian costume, but she

was detected by a continual dripping of water from the corner of her

apron. In Germany the Nixies generally played the part of the naiads

of ancient times. [85] In Russia similar beings, called Rusalkas,

are much more formidable.

In many regions of Christendom it is related that these demons,

relatives of the Swan-maidens, considered in another chapter, have

been converted into friendly or even pious creatures, and baptized

into saintly names. Sometimes there are legends which reveal this

transition. Thus it is related that in the year 1440, the dikes of

Holland being broken down by a violent tempest, the sea overflowed

the meadows; and some maidens of the town of Edam, in West Friesland,

going in a boat to milk their cows, espied a mermaid embarrassed in

the mud, the waters being very shallow. They took it into their boat

and brought it to Edam, and dressed it in women's apparel, and taught

it to spin. It ate as they did, but could not be brought to speak. It

was carried to Haarlem, where it lived for some years, though showing

an inclination to water. Parival, who tells the story, relates that

they had conveyed to it some notions of the existence of a deity,

and it made its reverences devoutly whenever it passed a crucifix.

Another creature of the same species was in the year 1531 caught in

the Baltic, and sent as a present to Sigismund, King of Poland. It

was seen by all the persons about the court, but only lived three days.

The Hydra--the torrent which, cut off in one direction, makes many

headways in others--has its survivals in the many diabolical names

assigned to boiling springs and to torrents that become dangerously

swollen. In California the boiling springs called 'Devil's Tea-kettle'

and 'Devil's Mush-pot' repeat the 'Devil's Punch-bowls' of Europe,

and the innumerable Devil's Dikes and Ditches. St. Gerard's Hill,

near Pesth, on which the saint suffered martyrdom, is believed to be

crowded with devils whenever an inundation threatens the city; they

indulge in fiendish laughter, and play with the telescopes of the

observatory, so that they who look through them afterwards see only

devils' and witches' dances! [86] At Buda, across the river from Pesth,

is the famous 'Devil's Ditch,' which the inhabitants use as a sewer

while it is dry, making it a Gehenna to poison them with stenches,

but which often becomes a devastating torrent when thaw comes on the

Blocksberg. In 1874 the inhabitants vaulted it over to keep away the

normal stench, but the Hydra-head so lopped off grew again, and in

July 1875 swallowed up a hundred people. [87]

The once perilous Strudel and Wirbel of the Danube are haunted by

diabolical legends. From Dr. William Beattie's admirable work on

'The Danube' I quote the following passages:--'After descending the

Greinerschwall, or rapids of Grein above mentioned, the river rolls

on for a considerable space, in a deep and almost tranquil volume,

which, by contrast with the approaching turmoil, gives increased

effect to its wild, stormy, and romantic features. At first a hollow,

subdued roar, like that of distant thunder, strikes the ear and

rouses the traveller's attention. This increases every second, and

the stir and activity which now prevail among the hands on board show

that additional force, vigilance, and caution are to be employed

in the use of the helm and oars. The water is now changed in its

colour--chafed into foam, and agitated like a seething cauldron. In

front, and in the centre of the channel, rises an abrupt, isolated,

and colossal rock, fringed with wood, and crested with a mouldering

tower, on the summit of which is planted a lofty cross, to which in

the moment of danger the ancient boatmen were wont to address their

prayers for deliverance. The first sight of this used to create

no little excitement and apprehension on board; the master ordered

strict silence to be observed, the steersman grasped the helm with a

firmer hand, the passengers moved aside, so as to leave free space

for the boatmen, while the women and children were hurried into

the cabin, there to await, with feelings of no little anxiety, the

result of the enterprise. Every boatman, with his head uncovered,

muttered a prayer to his patron saint; and away dashed the barge

through the tumbling breakers, that seemed as if hurrying it on

to inevitable destruction. All these preparations, joined by the

wildness of the adjacent scenery, the terrific aspect of the rocks,

and the tempestuous state of the water, were sufficient to produce a

powerful sensation on the minds even of those who had been all their

lives familiar with dangers; while the shadowy phantoms with which

superstition had peopled it threw a deeper gloom over the whole scene.'

Concerning the whirlpool called Wirbel, and the surrounding ruins,

the same author writes: 'Each of these mouldering fortresses was

the subject of some miraculous tradition, which circulated at every

hearth. The sombre and mysterious aspect of the place, its wild

scenery, and the frequent accidents which occurred in the passage,

invested it with awe and terror; but above all, the superstitions

of the time, a belief in the marvellous, and the credulity of the

boatmen, made the navigation of the Strudel and the Wirbel a theme of

the wildest romance. At night, sounds that were heard far above the

roar of the Danube issued from every ruin. Magical lights flashed

through their loopholes and casements, festivals were held in the

long-deserted halls, maskers glided from room to room, the waltzers

maddened to the strains of an infernal orchestra, armed sentinels

paraded the battlements, while at intervals the clash of arms, the

neighing of steeds, and the shrieks of unearthly combatants smote

fitfully on the boatmen's ear. But the tower on which these scenes

were most fearfully enacted was that on the Longstone, commonly

called the 'Devil's Tower,' as it well deserved to be--for here,

in close communion with his master, resided the 'Black Monk,' whose

office it was to exhibit false lights and landmarks along the gulf,

so as to decoy the vessels into the whirlpool, or dash them against

the rocks. He was considerably annoyed in his quarters, however,

on the arrival of the great Soliman in these regions; for to repel

the turbaned host, or at least to check their triumphant progress to

the Upper Danube, the inhabitants were summoned to join the national

standard, and each to defend his own hearth. Fortifications were

suddenly thrown up, even churches and other religious edifices were

placed in a state of military defence; women and children, the aged

and the sick, as already mentioned in our notice of Schaumburg,

were lodged in fortresses, and thus secured from the violence of

the approaching Moslem. Among the other points at which the greatest

efforts were made to check the enemy, the passage of the Strudel and

Wirbel was rendered as impregnable as the time and circumstances of

the case would allow. To supply materials for the work, patriotism

for a time got the better of superstition, and the said Devil's Tower

was demolished and converted into a strong breastwork. Thus forcibly

dislodged, the Black Monk is said to have pronounced a malediction

on the intruders, and to have chosen a new haunt among the recesses

of the Harz mountains.'

When the glaciers send down their torrents and flood the Rhone,

it is the immemorial belief that the Devil may be sometimes seen

swimming in it, with a sword in one hand and a golden globe in the

other. Since it is contrary to all orthodox folklore that the Devil

should be so friendly with water, the name must be regarded as a

modern substitute for the earlier Rhone demon. We probably get closer

to the original form of the superstition in the Swiss Oberland, which

interprets the noises of the Furka Glacier, which feeds the Rhone,

as the groans of wicked souls condemned for ever to labour there

in directing the river's course; their mistress being a demoness

who sometimes appears just before the floods, floating on a raft,

and ordering the river to rise.

There is a tidal demonolatry also. The author of 'Rambles in

Northumberland' gives a tradition concerning the river Wansbeck:

'This river discharges itself into the sea at a place called Cambois,

about nine miles to the eastward, and the tide flows to within five

miles of Morpeth. Tradition reports that Michael Scott, whose fame as a

wizard is not confined to Scotland, would have brought the tide to the

town had not the courage of the person failed upon whom the execution

of this project depended. This agent of Michael, after his principal

had performed certain spells, was to run from the neighbourhood of

Cambois to Morpeth without looking behind, and the tide would follow

him. After having advanced a certain distance he became alarmed at

the roaring of the waters behind him, and forgetting the injunction,

gave a glance over his shoulder to see if the danger was imminent,

when the advancing tide immediately stopped, and the burgesses of

Morpeth thus lost the chance of having the Wansbeck navigable between

their town and the sea. It is also said that Michael intended to

confer a similar favour on the inhabitants of Durham, by making the

Wear navigable to their city; but his good intentions, which were to

be carried into effect in the same manner, were also frustrated by

the cowardice of the person who had to guide the tide.'

The gentle and just king Æolus, who taught his islanders navigation, in

his mythologic transfiguration had to share the wayward dispositions of

the winds he was said to rule; but though he wrecked the Trojan fleet

and many a ship, his old human heart remained to be trusted on the

appearance of Halcyon. His unhappy daughter of that name cast herself

into the sea after the shipwreck of her husband (Ceyx), and the two

were changed into birds. It was believed that for seven days before and

seven after the shortest day of the year, when the halcyon is breeding,

Æolus restrains his winds, and the sea is calm. The accent of this

fable has been transmitted to some variants of the folklore of swans.

In Russia the Tsar Morskoi or Water Demon's beautiful daughters (swans)

may naturally be supposed to influence the tides which the fair bathers

of our time are reduced to obey. In various regions the tides are

believed to have some relation to swans, and to respect them. I have

met with a notion of this kind in England. On the day of Livingstone's

funeral there was an extraordinary tide in the Thames, which had been

predicted and provided for. The crowds which had gathered at the Abbey

on that occasion repaired after the funeral to Westminster Bridge to

observe the tide, and among them was a venerable disbeliever in

science, who announced to a group that there would be no high tide,

'because the swans were nesting.' This sceptic was speedily put to

confusion by the result, and perhaps one superstition the less remained

in the circle that seemed to regard him as an oracle.

The Russian peasantry live in much fear of the Rusalkas and Vodyanuie,

water-spirits who, of course, have for their chief the surly Neptune

Tsar Morskoi. In deprecation of this tribe, the peasant is careful

not to bathe without a cross round the neck, nor to ford a stream

on horseback without signing a cross on the water with a scythe

or knife. In the Ukrain these water-demons are supposed to be the

transformed souls of Pharaoh and his host when they were drowned,

and they are increased by people who drown themselves. In Bohemia

fishermen are known sometimes to refuse aid to one drowning, for

fear the Vodyany will be offended and prevent the fish, over which

he holds rule, from entering their nets. The wrath of such beings is

indicated by the upheavals of water and foam; and they are supposed

especially mischievous in the spring, when torrents and floods are

pouring from melted snow. Those undefined monsters which Beowulf slew,

Grendel and his mother, are interpreted by Simrock as personifications

of the untamed sea and stormy floods invading the low flat shores,

whose devastations so filled Faust with horror (II. iv.), and in

combating which his own hitherto desolating powers found their task.

The Sea sweeps on in thousand quarters flowing,

Itself unfruitful, barrenness bestowing;

It breaks, and swells, and rolls, and overwhelms

The desert stretch of desolated realms....

Let that high joy be mine for evermore,

To shut the lordly Ocean from the shore,

The watery waste to limit and to bar,

And push it back upon itself afar!

In such brave work Faust had many forerunners, whose art and courage

have their monument in the fairer fables of all these elemental powers

in which fear saw demons. Pavana, in India, messenger of the gods,

rides upon the winds, and in his forty-nine forms, corresponding with

the points of the Hindu compass, guards the earth. Solomon, too,

journeyed on a magic carpet woven of the winds, which still serves

the purposes of the Wise. From the churned ocean rose Lakshmí (after

the solar origin was lost to the myth), Hindu goddess of prosperity;

and from the sea-foam rose Aphrodite, Beauty. These fair forms had

their true worshipper in the Northman, who left on mastered wind and

wave his song as Emerson found it--

The gale that wrecked you on the sand,

It helped my rowers to row;

The storm is my best galley hand,

And drives me where I go.

CHAPTER V.

ANIMALS.

Animal demons distinguished--Trivial sources of

Mythology--Hedgehog--Fox--Transmigrations in Japan--Horses

bewitched--Rats--Lions--Cats--The Dog--Goethe's horror of

dogs--Superstitions of the Parsees, people of Travancore,

and American Negroes, Red Indians, &c.--Cynocephaloi--The

Wolf--Traditions of the Nez Perces--Fenris--Fables--The Boar--The

Bear--Serpent--Every animal power to harm demonised--Horns.

The animal demons--those whose evil repute is the result of

something in their nature which may be inimical to man--should

be distinguished from the forms which have been diabolised by

association with mythological personages or ideas. The lion, tiger,

and wolf are examples of the one class; the stag, horse, owl, and

raven of the other. But there are circumstances which render it very

difficult to observe this distinction. The line has to be drawn, if

at all, between the measureless forces of degradation on the one side,

discovering some evil in animals which, but for their bad associations,

would not have been much thought of; and of euphemism on the other,

transforming harmful beasts to benignant agents by dwelling upon some

minor characteristic.

There are a few obviously dangerous animals, such as the serpent,

where it is easy to pick our way; we can recognise the fear that

flatters it to an agathodemon and the diminished fear that pronounces

it accurst. [88] But what shall be said of the Goat? Was there really

anything in its smell or in its flesh when first eaten, its butting,

or injury to plants, which originally classed it among the unclean

animals? or was it merely demonised because of its uncanny and

shaggy appearance? What explanation can be given of the evil repute

of our household friend the Cat? Is it derived by inheritance from

its fierce ancestors of the jungle? Was it first suggested by its

horrible human-like sleep-murdering caterwaulings at night? or has it

simply suffered from a theological curse on the cats said to draw the

chariots of the goddesses of Beauty? The demonic Dog is, if anything,

a still more complex subject. The student of mythology and folklore

speedily becomes familiar with the trivial sources from which vast

streams of superstition often issue. The cock's challenge to the

all-detecting sun no doubt originated his ominous career from the

Code of Manu to the cock-headed devils frescoed in the cathedrals of

Russia. The fleshy, forked roots of a soporific plant issued in that

vast Mandrake Mythology which has been the subject of many volumes,

without being even yet fully explored. The Italians have a saying that

'One knavery of the hedgehog is worth more than many of the fox;' yet

the nocturnal and hibernating habits and general quaintness of the

humble hedgehog, rather than his furtive propensity to prey on eggs

and chickens, must have raised him to the honours of demonhood. In

various popular fables this little animal proves more than a match

for the wolf and the serpent. It was in the form of a hedgehog that

the Devil is said to have made the attempt to let in the sea through

the Brighton Downs, which was prevented by a light being brought,

though the seriousness of the scheme is still attested in the Devil's

Dyke. There is an ancient tradition that when the Devil had smuggled

himself into Noah's Ark, he tried to sink it by boring a hole; but

this scheme was defeated, and the human race saved, by the hedgehog

stuffing himself into the hole. In the Brighton story the Devil would

appear to have remembered his former failure in drowning people,

and to have appropriated the form which defeated him.

The Fox, as incarnation of cunning, holds in the primitive belief of

the Japanese almost the same position as the Serpent in the nations

that have worshipped, until bold enough to curse it. In many of

the early pictures of Japanese demons one may generally detect amid

their human, wolfish, or other characters some traits of the kitsune

(fox). He is always the soul of the three-eyed demon of Japan

(fig. 7). He is the sagacious 'Vizier,' as the Persian Desatir

calls him, and is practically the Japanese scape-goat. If a fox

has appeared in any neighbourhood, the next trouble is attributed

to his visit; and on such occasions the sufferers and their friends

repair to some ancient gnarled tree in which the fox is theoretically

resident and propitiate him, just as would be done to a serpent in

other regions. In Japan the fox is not regarded as always harmful,

but generally so. He is not to be killed on any account. Being thus

spared through superstition, the foxes increase sufficiently to supply

abundant material for the continuance of its demonic character. 'Take

us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines,' [89] is an

admonition reversed in Japan. The correspondence between the cunning

respected in this animal and that of the serpent, reverenced elsewhere,

is confirmed by Mr. Fitz Cunliffe Owen, who observed, as he informs

me, that the Japanese will not kill even the poisonous snakes which

crawl freely amid the decaying Buddhist temples of Nikko, one of the

most sacred places in Japan, where once as many as eight thousand

monastic Buddhists were harboured. It is the red fox that abounds

in Japan, and its human-like cry at night near human habitations is

such as might easily encourage these superstitions. But, furthermore,

mythology supplies many illustrations of a creditable tendency among

rude tribes to mark out for special veneration or fear any force in

nature finer than mere strength. Emerson says, 'Foxes are so cunning

because they are not strong.' In our Japanese demon, whose three

eyes alone connect it with the præternatural vision ascribed by that

race to the fox, the harelip is very pronounced. That little animal,

the Hare, is associated with a large mythology, perhaps because

out of its weakness proceeds its main forces of survival--timidity,

vigilance, and swiftness. The superstition concerning the hare is found

in Africa. The same animal is the much-venerated good genius of the

Calmucs, who call him Sákya-muni (Buddha), and say that on earth he

submitted himself to be eaten by a starving man, for which gracious

deed he was raised to dominion over the moon, where they profess to

see him. The legend is probably traceable back to the Sanskrit word

sasin, moon, which means literally 'the hare-marked.' Sasa means

'hare.' Pausanias relates the story of the moon-goddess instructing

exiles to build their city where they shall see a hare take refuge in

a myrtle-grove. [90] In the demonic fauna of Japan another cunning

animal figures--the Weasel. The name of this demon is 'the sickle

weasel,' and it also seems to occupy the position of a scape-goat. In

the language of a Japanese report, 'When a person's clogs slip from

under his feet, and he falls and cuts his face on the gravel, or when

a person, who is out at night when he ought to have been at home,

presents himself to his family with a freshly-scarred face, the wound

is referred to the agency of the malignant invisible weasel and his

sharp sickle.' In an aboriginal legend of America, also, two sister

demons commonly take the form of weasels.

The popular feeling which underlay much of the animal-worship in

ancient times was probably that which is reflected in the Japanese

notions of to-day, as told in the subjoined sketch from an amusing

book.

'One of these visitors was an old man, who himself was at the time a

victim of a popular superstition that the departed revisit the scenes

of their life in this world in shapes of different animals. We noticed

that he was not in his usual spirits, and pressed him to unburden his

mind to us. He said he had lost his little son Chiosin, but that was

not so much the cause of his grief as the absurd way in which his

wife, backed up by a whole conclave of old women who had taken up

their abode in his house to comfort her, was going on. 'What do they

all do?' we asked sympathetically. 'Why,' he replied, 'every beastly

animal that comes to my house, there is a cry amongst them all,

'Chiosin, Chiosin has come back!' and the whole house swarms with

cats and dogs and bats--for they say they are not quite sure which

is Chiosin, and that they had better be kind to the lot than run the

chance of treating him badly; the consequence is, all these brutes are

fed on my rice and meat, and now I am driven out of doors and called

an unnatural parent because I killed a mosquito which bit me!' [91]

The strange and inexplicable behaviour of animals in cases of fear,

panic, or pain has been generally attributed by ignorant races to

their possession by demons. Of this nature is the story of the devil

entering the herd of swine and carrying them into the sea, related

in the New Testament. It is said that even yet in some parts of

Scotland the milkmaid carries a switch of the magical rowan to expel

the demon that sometimes enters the cow. Professor Monier Williams

writes from Southern India--'When my fellow-travellers and myself

were nearly dashed to pieces over a precipice the other day by some

restive horses on a ghat near Poona, we were told that the road at

this particular point was haunted by devils who often caused similar

accidents, and we were given to understand that we should have done

well to conciliate Ganesa, son of the god Siva, and all his troops

of evil spirits, before starting.' The same writer also tells us

that the guardian spirits or 'mothers' who haunt most regions of

the Peninsula are believed to ride about on horses, and if they are

angry, scatter blight and disease. Hence the traveller just arrived

from Europe is startled and puzzled by apparitions of rudely-formed

terra-cotta horses, often as large as life, placed by the peasantry

round shrines in the middle of fields as acceptable propitiatory

offerings, or in the fulfilment of vows in periods of sickness. [92]

This was the belief of the Corinthians in the Taraxippos, or shade

of Glaucus, who, having been torn in pieces by the horses with which

he had been racing, and which he had fed on human flesh to make more

spirited, remained to haunt the Isthmus and frighten horses during

the races.

There is a modern legend in the Far West (America) of a horse called

'The White Devil,' which, in revenge for some harm to its comrades,

slew men by biting and trampling them, and was itself slain after

defying many attempts at its capture; but among the many ancient

legends of demon-horses there are few which suggest anything about

that animal hostile to man. His occasional evil character is simply

derived from his association with man, and is therefore postponed. For

a similar reason the Goat also must be dealt with hereafter, and

as a symbolical animal. A few myths are met with which relate to

its unpleasant characteristics. In South Guinea the odour of goats

is accounted for by the Saga that their ancestor having had the

presumption to ask a goddess for her aromatic ointment, she angrily

rubbed him with ointment of a reverse kind. It has also been said that

it was regarded as a demon by the worshippers of Bacchus, because

it cropped the vines; and that it thus originated the Trageluphoi,

or goat-stag monsters mentioned by Plato, [93] and gave us also the

word tragedy. [94] But such traits of the Goat can have very little

to do with its important relations to Mythology and Demonology. To

the list of animals demonised by association must also be added the

Stag. No doubt the anxious mothers, wives, or sweethearts of rash

young huntsmen utilised the old fables of beautiful hinds which

in the deep forests changed to demons and devoured their pursuers,

[95] for admonition; but the fact that such stags had to transform

themselves for evil work is a sufficient certificate of character to

prevent their being included among the animal demons proper, that is,

such as have in whole or part supplied in their disposition to harm

man the basis of a demonic representation.

It will not be deemed wonderful that Rats bear a venerable rank in

Demonology. The shudder which some nervous persons feel at sight

of even a harmless mouse is a survival from the time when it was

believed that in this form unshriven souls or unbaptized children

haunted their former homes; and probably it would be difficult to

estimate the number of ghost-stories which have originated in their

nocturnal scamperings. Many legends report the departure of unhallowed

souls from human mouths in the shape of a Mouse. During the earlier

Napoleonic wars mice were used in Southern Germany as diviners,

by being set with inked feet on the map of Europe to show where the

fatal Frenchmen would march. They gained this sanctity by a series of

associations with force stretching back to the Hindu fable of a mouse

delivering the elephant and the lion by gnawing the cords that bound

them. The battle of the Frogs and Mice is ascribed to Homer. Mice are

said to have foretold the first civil war in Rome by gnawing the gold

in the temple. Rats appear in various legends as avengers. The uncles

of King Popelus II., murdered by him and his wife and thrown into a

lake, reappear as rats and gnaw the king and queen to death. The same

fate overtakes Miskilaus of Poland, through the transformed widows and

orphans he had wronged. Mouse Tower, standing in the middle of the

Rhine, is the haunted monument of cruel Archbishop Hatto, of Mainz,

who (anno 970) bade the famine-stricken people repair to his barn,

wherein he shut them fast and burned them. But next morning an army

of rats, having eaten all the corn in his granaries, darkened the

roads to the palace. The prelate sought refuge from them in the Tower,

but they swam after, gnawed through the walls and devoured him. [96]

St. Gertrude, wearing the funereal mantle of Holda, commands an army

of mice. In this respect she succeeds to the Pied Piper of Hamelin,

who also leads off children; and my ingenious friend Mr. John

Fiske suggests that this may be the reason why Irish servant-maids

often show such frantic terror at sight of a mouse. [97] The care

of children is often intrusted to them, and the appearance of mice

prognosticated of old the appearance of the præternatural rat-catcher

and psychopomp. Pliny says that in his time it was considered

fortunate to meet a white rat. The people of Bassorah always bow to

these revered animals when seen, no doubt to propitiate them.

The Lion is a symbol of majesty and of the sun in his glory (reached

in the zodiacal Leo), though here and there his original demonic

character appears,--as in the combats of Indra, Samson, and Herakles

with terrible lions. Euphemism, in one sense, fulfils the conditions

of Samson's riddle--Sweetness coming out of the Strong--and has

brought honey out of the Lion. His cruel character has subtly fallen

to Sirius the Dog-star, to whom are ascribed the drought and malaria

of 'dog-days' (when the sun is in Leo); but the primitive fact is

intimated in several fables like that of Aristæus, who, born after

his mother had been rescued from the Lybian lion, was worshipped in

Ceos as a saviour from both droughts and lions. The Lion couching at

the feet of beautiful Doorga in India, reappears drawing the chariot

of Aphrodite, and typifies the potency of beauty rather than, as

Emerson interprets, that beauty depends on strength. The chariot

of the Norse Venus, Freyja, was drawn by Cats, diminished forms of

her Southern sister's steeds. It was partly by these routes the Cat

came to play the sometimes beneficent rôle in Russian, and to some

extent in German, French, and English folklore,--e.g., Puss in Boots,

Whittington and his Cat, and Madame D'Aulnoy's La Chatte Blanche. The

demonic characteristics of the destructive cats have been inherited

by the black,--or, as in Macbeth, the brindled,--cat. In Germany the

approach of a cat to a sick-bed announces death; to dream of one is

an evil omen. In Hungary it is said every black cat becomes a witch

at the age of seven. It is the witch's favourite riding-horse, but

may sometimes be saved from such servitude by incision of the sign of

the cross. A scratch from a black cat is thought to be the beginning

of a fatal spell.

De Gubernatis [98] has a very curious speculation concerning the origin

of our familiar fable the Kilkenny Cats, which he traces to the German

superstition which dreads the combat between cats as presaging death to

one who witnesses it; and this belief he finds reflected in the Tuscan

child's 'game of souls,' in which the devil and angel are supposed

to contend for the soul. The author thinks this may be one outcome

of the contest between Night and Twilight in Mythology; but, if the

connection can be traced, it would probably prove to be derived from

the struggle between the two angels of Death, one variation of which

is associated with the legend of the strife for the body of Moses. The

Book of Enoch says that Gabriel was sent, before the Flood, to excite

the man-devouring giants to destroy one another. In an ancient Persian

picture in my possession, animal monsters are shown devouring each

other, while their proffered victim, like Daniel, is unharmed. The

idea is a natural one, and hardly requires comparative tracing.

Dr. Dennys tells us that in China there exists precisely the same

superstition as in Scotland as to the evil omen of a cat (or dog)

passing over a corpse. Brand and Pennant both mention this, the

latter stating that the cat or dog that has so done is killed without

mercy. This fact would seem to show that the fear is for the living,

lest the soul of the deceased should enter the animal and become one

of the innumerable werewolf or vampyre class of demons. But the origin

of the superstition is no doubt told in the Slavonic belief that if

a cat leap over a corpse the deceased person will become a vampyre.

In Russia the cat enjoys a somewhat better reputation than it does

in most other countries. Several peasants in the neighbourhood of

Moscow assured me that while they would never be willing to remain in

a church where a dog had entered, they would esteem it a good sign if

a cat came to church. One aged woman near Moscow told me that when the

Devil once tried to creep into Paradise he took the form of a mouse:

the Dog and Cat were on guard at the gates, and the Dog allowed the

evil one to pass, but the Cat pounced on him, and so defeated another

treacherous attempt against human felicity.

The Cat superstition has always been strong in Great Britain. It is,

indeed, in one sense true, as old Howell wrote (1647)--'We need not

cross the sea for examples of this kind, we have too many (God wot)

at home: King James a great while was loath to believe there were

witches; but that which happened to my Lord Francis of Rutland's

children convinced him, who were bewitched by an old woman that was

a servant of Belvoir Castle, but, being displeased, she contracted

with the Devil, who conversed with her in the form of a Cat, whom she

called Rutterkin, to make away those children out of mere malignity

and thirst of revenge.' It is to be feared that many a poor woman

has been burned as a witch against whom her cherished cat was the

chief witness. It would be a curious psychological study to trace how

far the superstition owns a survival in even scientific minds,--as

in Buffon's vituperation of the cat, and in the astonishing story,

told by Mr. Wood, of a cat which saw a ghost (anno 1877)!

The Dog, so long the faithful friend of man, and even, possibly,

because of the degree to which he has caught his master's manners,

has a large demonic history. In the Semitic stories there are many

that indicate the path by which 'dog' became the Mussulman synonym

of infidel; and the one dog Katmir who in Arabic legend was admitted

to Paradise for his faithful watching three hundred and nine years

before the cave of the Seven Sleepers, [99] must have drifted among

the Moslems from India as the Ephesian Sleepers did from the christian

world. In the beautiful episode of the 'Mahábhárata,' Yudhisthira

having journeyed to the door of heaven, refuses to enter into that

happy abode unless his faithful dog is admitted also. He is told

by Indra, 'My heaven hath no place for dogs; they steal away our

offerings on earth;' and again, 'If a dog but behold a sacrifice,

men esteem it unholy and void.' This difficulty was solved by the

Dog--Yama in disguise--revealing himself and praising his friend's

fidelity. It is tolerably clear that it is to his connection with Yama,

god of Death, and under the evolution of that dualism which divided the

universe into upper and nether, that the Dog was degraded among our

Aryan ancestors; at the same time his sometimes wolfish disposition

and some other natural characters supplied the basis of his demonic

character. He was at once a dangerous and a corruptible guard.

In the early Vedic Mythology it is the abode of the gods that is

guarded by the two dogs, identified by solar mythologists as the

morning and evening twilight: a later phase shows them in the

service of Yama, and they reappear in the guardian of the Greek

Hades, Cerberus, and Orthros. The first of these has been traced

to the Vedic Sarvara, the latter to the monster Vritra. 'Orthros'

is the phonetical equivalent of Vritra. The bitch Sarama, mother

of the two Vedic dogs, proved a treacherous guard, and was slain by

Indra. Hence the Russian peasant comes fairly by another version of

how the Dog, while on guard, admitted the Devil into heaven on being

thrown a bone. But the two watch-dogs of the Hindu myth do not seem to

bear an evil character. In a funeral hymn of the 'Rig-Veda' (x. 14),

addressed to Yama, King of Death, we read:--'By an auspicious path

do thou hasten past the two four-eyed brindled dogs, the offspring

of Sarama; then approach the beautiful Pitris who rejoice together

with Yama. Intrust him, O Yama, to thy two watch-dogs, four-eyed,

road-guarding, and man-observing. The two brown messengers of Yama,

broad of nostril and insatiable, wander about among men; may they give

us again to-day the auspicious breath of life that we may see the sun!'

And now thousands of years after this was said we find the Dog still

regarded as the seer of ghosts, and watcher at the gates of death, of

whose opening his howl forewarns. The howling of a dog on the night of

December 9, 1871, at Sandringham, where the Prince of Wales lay ill,

was thought important enough for newspapers to report to a shuddering

country. I read lately of a dog in a German village which was supposed

to have announced so many deaths that he became an object of general

terror, and was put to death. In that country belief in the demonic

character of the dog seems to have been strong enough to transmit an

influence even to the powerful brain of Goethe.

In Goethe's poem, it was when Faust was walking with the student

Wagner that the black Dog appeared, rushing around them in spiral

curves--spreading, as Faust said, 'a magic coil as a snare around

them;' [100] that after this dog had followed Faust into his study,

it assumed a monstrous shape, until changed to a mist, from which

Mephistopheles steps forth--'the kernel of the brute'--in guise of a

travelling scholar. This is in notable coincidence with the archaic

symbolism of the Dog as the most frequent form of the 'Lares' (fig. 9),

or household genii, originally because of its vigilance. The form here

presented is nearly identical with the Cynocephalus, whom the learned

author of 'Mankind: their Origin and Destiny,' identifies as the Adamic

being set as a watch and instructor in Eden (Gen. xvi. 15), an example

of which, holding pen and tablet (as described by Horapollo), is given

in that work from Philæ. Chrysippus says that these were afterwards

represented as young men clothed with dog-skins. Remnants of the

tutelary character of the dog are scattered through German folklore:

he is regarded as oracle, ghost-seer, and gifted with second sight;

in Bohemia he is sometimes made to lick an infant's face that it may

see well.

The passage in 'Faust' has been traced to Goethe's antipathy to

dogs, as expressed in his conversation with Falk at the time of

Wieland's death. 'Annihilation is utterly out of the question; but

the possibility of being caught on the way by some more powerful

and yet baser monas, and subordinated to it; this is unquestionably

a very serious consideration; and I, for my part, have never been

able entirely to divest myself of the fear of it, in the way of a

mere observation of nature.' At this moment, says Falk, a dog was

heard repeatedly barking in the street. Goethe, sprang hastily to the

window and called to it: 'Take what form you will, vile larva, you

shall not subjugate me!' After some pause, he resumed with the remark:

'This rabble of creation is extremely offensive. It is a perfect pack

of monades with which we are thrown together in this planetary nook;

their company will do us little honour with the inhabitants of other

planets, if they happen to hear anything about them.'

In visiting the house where Goethe once resided in Weimar, I

was startled to find as the chief ornament of the hall a large

bronze dog, of full size, and very dark, looking proudly forth,

as if he possessed the Goethean monas after all. However, it is not

probable that the poet's real dislike of dogs arose solely from that

speculation about monades. It is more probable that in observing the

old wall-picture in Auerbach's cellar, wherein a dog stands beside

Mephistopheles, Goethe was led to consider carefully the causes of

that intimacy. Unfortunately, and notwithstanding the fables and

the sentiment which invest that animal, there are some very repulsive

things about him, such as his tendency to madness and the infliction on

man of a frightful death. The Greek Mania's 'fleet hounds' (Bacchæ 977)

have spread terrors far and wide.

Those who carefully peruse the account given by Mr. Lewes of the

quarrel between Karl August and Goethe, on account of the opposition

of the latter to the introduction of a performing dog on the Weimar

stage--an incident which led to his resignation of his position of

intendant of the theatre--may detect this aversion mingling with

his disgust as an artist; and it may be also suspected that it was

not the mere noise which caused the tortures he described himself as

having once endured at Göttingen from the barking of dogs.

It is, however, not improbable that in the wild notion of Goethe,

joined with his cynophobia, we find a survival of the belief of the

Parsees of Surat, who venerate the Dog above all other animals,

and who, when one is dying, place a dog's muzzle near his mouth,

and make it bark twice, so that it may catch the departing soul,

and bear it to the waiting angel.

The devil-worshippers of Travancore to this day declare that the

evil power approaches them in the form of a Dog, as Mephistopheles

approached Faust. But before the superstition reached Goethe's poem

it had undergone many modifications; and especially its keen scent

had influenced the Norse imagination to ascribe to it præternatural

wisdom. Thus we read in the Saga of Hakon the Good, that when Eystein

the Bad had conquered Drontheim, he offered the people choice of

his slave Thorer or his dog Sauer to be their king. They chose the

Dog. 'Now the dog was by witchcraft gifted with three men's wisdom;

and when he barked he spoke one word and barked two.' This Dog wore

a collar of gold, and sat on a throne, but, for all his wisdom and

power, seems to have been a dog still; for when some wolves invaded

the cattle, he attacked and was torn to pieces by them.

Among the negroes of the Southern States in America I have found the

belief that the most frequent form of a diabolical apparition is that

of a large Dog with fiery eyes, which may be among them an original

superstition attributable to their horror of the bloodhound, by which,

in some regions, they were pursued when attempting to escape. Among

the whites of the same region I have never been able to find any

instance of the same belief, though belief in the presage of the

howling dog is frequent; and it is possible that this is a survival

from some region in Africa, where the Dog has an evil name of the

same kind as the scape-goat. Among some tribes in Fazogl there is

an annual carnival at which every one does as he likes. The king

is then seated in the open air, a dog tied to the leg of his chair,

and the animal is then stoned to death.

Mark Twain [101] records the folklore of a village of Missouri,

where we find lads quaking with fear at the howling of a 'stray dog'

in the night, but indifferent to the howling of a dog they recognise,

which may be a form of the common English belief that it is unlucky

to be followed by a 'strange' dog. From the same book it appears

also that the dog will always have his head in the direction of the

person whose doom is signified: the lads are entirely relieved when

they find the howling animal has his back turned to them.

It is remarkable that these fragments of European superstition should

meet in the Far West a plentiful crop of their like which has sprung up

among the aborigines, as the following extract from Mr. Brinton's work,

'Myths of the New World,' will show: 'Dogs were supposed to stand

in some peculiar relation to the moon, probably because they howl

at it and run at night, uncanny practices which have cost them dear

in reputation. The custom prevailed among tribes so widely asunder

as Peruvians, Tupis, Creeks, Iroquois, Algonquins, and Greenland

Eskimos to thrash the curs most soundly during an eclipse. The Creeks

explained this by saying that the big Dog was swallowing the sun, and

that by whipping the little ones they could make him desist. What

the big Dog was they were not prepared to say. We know. It was

the night goddess, represented by the Dog, who was thus shrouding

the world at mid-day. In a better sense, they represented the more

agreeable characteristics of the lunar goddess. Xochiquetzal, most

fecund of Aztec divinities, patroness of love, of sexual pleasure,

and of child-birth, was likewise called Itzcuinan, which, literally

translated, is 'bitch-mother.' This strange and to us so repugnant

title for a goddess was not without parallel elsewhere. When in his

wars the Inca Pachacutec carried his arms into the province of Huanca,

he found its inhabitants had installed in their temples the figure of

a Dog as their highest deity.... This canine canonisation explains why

in some parts of Peru a priest was called, by way of honour, allco,

Dog!... Many tribes on the Pacific coast united in the adoration of

a wild species, the coyote, the Canis latrans of naturalists.' Of

the Dog-demon Chantico the legend of the Nahuas was, 'that he made a

sacrifice to the gods without observing a preparatory fast, for which

he was punished by being changed into a Dog. He then invoked the god

of death to deliver him, which attempt to evade a just punishment so

enraged the divinities that they immersed the world in water.'

The common phrase 'hell-hounds' has come to us by various routes. Diana

being degraded to Hecate, the dogs of Hades, Orthros and Cerberus,

multiplied into a pack of hounds for her chase, were degraded with her

into infernal howlers and hunters. A like degradation of Odin's hunt

took place at a later date. The Wild Huntsman, being a diabolical

character, is considered elsewhere. Concerning the Dog, it may be

further said here, that there are probably various characteristics

of that animal reflected in his demonic character. His liability

to become rabid, and to afflict human beings with hydrophobia,

appears to have had some part in it. Spinoza alludes to the custom

in his time of destroying persons suffering from this canine rabies

by suffocation; and his English biographer and editor, Dr. Willis,

tells me that in his boyhood in Scotland he always heard this spoken

of as the old custom. That such treatment could have prevailed can

hardly be ascribed to anything but a belief in the demonic character

of the rabid dog, cognate with the unconscious superstition which

still causes rural magistrates to order a dog which has bitten any

one to be slain. The notion is, that if the dog goes mad thereafter,

the man will also. Of course it would be rational to preserve the

dog's life carefully, in order that, if it continues healthy, the

bitten may feel reassured, as he cannot be if it be dead.

But the degradation of the dog had a cause even in his fidelity

as a watch. For this, as we have just seen, made him a common form

among Lares or domestic demons. The teraphim also were often in this

shape. Christianity had therefore a special reason for ascribing an

infernal character to these little idols, which interfered with the

popular dependence on the saints. It will thus be seen that there

were many causes operating to create that formidable class of demons

which were called in the Middle Ages Cynocephaloi. The ancient holy

pictures of Russia especially abound in these dog-headed devils; in

the sixteenth century they were frequently represented rending souls

in hell; and sometimes the dragon of the Apocalypse is represented

with seven horrible canine heads.

M. Toussenel, in his transcendental interpretations, has identified

the Wolf as the bandit and outlaw. [102] The proverbial mediæval

phrase for an outlaw--one who wears a teste loeve, caput lupinum,

wulfesheofod, which the ingenious author perhaps remembered--is

of good antiquity. The wolf is called robber in the 'Rig-Veda,'

and he is there also demonised, since we find him fleeing before a

devotee. (In the Zend 'Vendidad' the souls of the pious fear to meet

the wolf on the way to heaven.) The god Pushan is invoked against the

evil wolf, the malignant spirit. [103] Cardano says that to dream of

a wolf announces a robber. There is in the wolf, at the same time,

that always attractive love of liberty which, in the well-known fable,

makes him prefer leanness to the comfort of the collar-wearing dog,

which makes him among demonic animals sometimes the same as the mighty

huntsmen Nimrod and shaggy Esau among humanised demons. One is not

surprised to find occasionally good stories about the wolf. Thus the

Nez Perces tribe in America trace the origin of the human race to a

wolf. They say that originally, when there were nothing but animals,

there was a huge monster which devoured them whole and alive. This

monster swallowed a wolf, who, when he entered its belly, found

the animals therein snarling at and biting one another as they had

done on the earth outside. The wolf exhorted them that their common

sufferings should teach them friendliness, and finally he induced them

to a system of co-operation by which they made their way out through

the side of the monster, which instantly perished. The animals so

released were at once transformed to men, how and why the advocates

of co-operation will readily understand, and founded the Nez Perces

Indians. The myths of Asia and Europe are unhappily antipodal to this

in spirit and form, telling of human beings transformed to wolves. In

the Norse Mythology, however, there stands a demon wolf whose story

bears a touch of feeling, though perhaps it was originally the mere

expression for physical law. This is the wolf Fenris, which, from being

at first the pet of the gods and lapdog of the goddesses, became so

huge and formidable that Asgard itself was endangered. All the skill

and power of the gods could not forge chains which might chain him;

he snapped them like straws and toppled over the mountains to which

he was fastened. But the little Elves working underground made that

chain so fine that none could see or feel it,--fashioned it out of

the beards of women, the breath of fish, noise of the cat's footfall,

spittle of birds, sinews of bears, roots of stones,--by which are meant

things non-existent. This held him. Fenris is chained till the final

destruction, when he shall break loose and devour Odin. The fine chain

that binds ferocity,--is it the love that can tame all creatures? Is

it the sunbeam that defines to the strongest creature its habitat?

The two monsters formed when Ráhu was cloven in twain, in Hindu

Mythology, reappear in Eddaic fable as the wolves Sköll and Hati,

who pursue the sun and moon. As it is said in the Völuspá:--

Eastward in the Iron-wood

The old one sitteth,

And there bringeth forth

Fenrir's fell kindred.

Of these one, the mightiest,

The moon's devourer,

In form most fiend-like,

And filled with the life-blood

Of the dead and the dying,

Reddens with ruddy gore

The seats of the high gods.

Euphemism attending propitiation of such monsters may partly explain

the many good things told of wolves in popular legend. The stories of

the she-wolf nourishing children, as Romulus and Remus, are found in

many lands. They must, indeed, have had some prestige, to have been

so largely adopted in saintly tradition. Like the bears that Elisha

called to devour the children, the wolves do not lose their natural

ferocity by becoming pious. They devour heretics and sacrilegious

people. One guarded the head of St. Edmund the Martyr of England;

another escorted St. Oddo, Abbot of Cluny, as his ancestors did the

priests of Cluny. The skin of the wolf appears in folklore as a charm

against hydrophobia; its teeth are best for cutting children's gums,

and its bite, if survived, is an assurance against any future wound

or pain.

The tragedy which is so foolishly sprung upon the nerves of children,

Little Red Riding-Hood, shows the wolf as a crafty animal. There are

many legends of a like character which have made it a favourite figure

in which to represent pious impostors. In our figure 10, the wolf

appears as the 'dangerous confessor;' it was intended, as Mr. Wright

thought, for Mary of Modena, Queen of James II., and Father Petre. At

the top of the original are the words 'Converte Angliam' and beneath,

'It is a foolish sheep that makes the wolf her confessor.' The craft

of the wolf is represented in a partly political partly social turn

given by an American fabulist to one of Æsop's fables. The wolf

having accused the lamb he means to devour of fouling the stream, and

receiving answer that the lamb was drinking farther down the current,

alters the charge and says, 'You opposed my candidature at the caucus

two years ago.' 'I was not then born,' replies the lamb. The wolf then

says, 'Any one hearing my accusations would testify that I am insane

and not responsible for my actions,' and thereupon devours the lamb

with full faith in a jury of his countrymen. M. Toussenel says the wolf

is a terrible strategist, albeit the less observant have found little

in his character to warrant this attribute of craft, his physiognomy

and habits showing him a rather transparent highwayman. It is probable

that the fables of this character have derived that trait from his

association with demons and devils supposed to take on his shape.

In a beautiful hymn to the Earth in the 'Atharva Veda' it is said, 'The

Earth, which endureth the burden of the oppressor, beareth up the abode

of the lofty and of the lowly, suffereth the hog, and giveth entrance

to the wild boar.' Boar-hounds in Brittany and some other regions

are still kept at Government expense. There are many indications of

this kind that in early times men had to defend themselves vigorously

against the ravages of the wild boar, and, as De Gubernatis remarks,

[104] its character is generally demoniacal. The contests of Hercules

with the Erymanthian, and of Meleager with the Calydonian, Boar,

are enough to show that it was through its dangerous character that

he became sacred to the gods of war, Mars and Odin. But it is also

to be remembered that the third incarnation of Vishnu was as a Wild

Boar; and as the fearless exterminator of snakes the pig merited

this association with the Preserver. Provided with a thick coat of

fat, no venom can harm him unless it be on the lip. It may be this

ability to defy the snake-ordeal which, after its uncleanliness had

excepted the hog from human voracity in some regions, assigned it a

diabolical character. In rabbinical fable the hog and rat were created

by Noah to clear the Ark of filth; but the rats becoming a nuisance,

he evoked a cat from the lion's nose.

It is clear that our Asiatic and Norse ancestors never had such a

ferocious beast to encounter as the Grisly Bear (Ursus horribilis)

of America, else the appearances of this animal in Demonology could

never have been so respectable. The comparatively timid Asiatic

Bear (U. labiatus), the small and almost harmless Thibetan species

(U. Thibetanus), would appear to have preponderated over the fiercer

but rarer Bears of the North in giving us the Indo-Germanic fables,

in which this animal is, on the whole, a favourite. Emerson finds in

the fondness of the English for their national legend of 'Beauty and

the Beast' a sign of the Englishman's own nature. 'He is a bear with

a soft place in his heart; he says No, and helps you.' The old legend

found place in the heart of a particularly representative American

also--Theodore Parker, who loved to call his dearest friend 'Bear,' and

who, on arriving in Europe, went to Berne to see his favourites, from

which its name is derived. The fondness of the Bear for honey--whence

its Russian name, medv-jed, 'honey-eater'--had probably something to do

with its dainty taste for roses and its admiration for female beauty,

as told in many myths. In his comparative treatment of the mythology

of the Bear, De Gubernatis [105] mentions the transformation of King

Trisankus into a bear, and connects this with the constellation of the

Great Bear; but it may with equal probability be related to the many

fables of princes who remain under the form of a bear until the spell

is broken by the kiss of some maiden. It is worthy of note that in the

Russian legends the Bear is by no means so amiable as in those of our

Western folklore. In one, the Bear-prince lurking in his fountain holds

by the beard the king who, while hunting, tries to quench his thirst,

and releases him only after a promise to deliver up whatever he has

at home without his knowledge; the twins, Ivan and Maria, born during

his absence, are thus doomed--are concealed, but discovered by the

bear, who carries them away. They are saved by help of the bull. When

escaping the bear Ivan throws down a comb, which becomes a tangled

forest, which, however, the bear penetrates; but the spread-out

towel which becomes a lake of fire sends the bear back. [106] It

is thus the ferocious Arctic Bear which gives the story its sombre

character. Such also is the Russian tale of the Bear with iron hairs,

which devastates the kingdom, devouring the inhabitants until Ivan

and Helena alone remain; after the two in various ways try to escape,

their success is secured by the Bull, which, more kindly than Elisha,

blinds the Bear with his horns. [107] (The Bear retires in winter.) In

Norwegian story the Bear becomes milder,--a beautiful youth by night,

whose wife loses him because she wishes to see him by lamplight: her

place is taken by a long-nosed princess, until, by aid of the golden

apple and the rose, she recovers her husband. In the Pentameron,

[108] Pretiosa, to escape the persecutions of her father, goes into

the forest disguised as a she-bear; she nurses and cures the prince,

who is enamoured of her, and at his kiss becomes a beautiful maid. The

Bear thus has a twofold development in folklore. He used to be killed

(13th century) at the end of the Carnival in Rome, as the Devil. [109]

The Siberians, if they have killed a bear, hang his skin on a tree and

apologise humbly to it, declaring that they did not forge the metal

that pierced it, and they meant the arrow for a bird; from which it

is plain that they rely more on its stupidity than its good heart. In

Canada, when the hunters kill a bear, one of them approaches it and

places between his teeth the stem of his pipe, breathes in the bowl,

and thus, filling with smoke the animal's mouth, conjures its soul not

to be offended at his death. As the bear's ghost makes no reply, the

huntsman, in order to know if his prayer is granted, cuts the thread

under the bear's tongue, and keeps it until the end of the hunt, when

a large fire is kindled, and all the band solemnly throw in it what

threads of this kind they have; if these sparkle and vanish, as is

natural, it is a sign that the bears are appeased. [110] In Greenland

the great demon, at once feared and invoked, especially by fishermen,

is Torngarsuk, a huge Bear with a human arm. He is invisible to all

except his priests, the Anguekkoks, who are the only physicians of

that people.

The extreme point of demonic power has always been held by the

Serpent. So much, however, will have to be said of the destructiveness

and other characteristics of this animal when we come to consider

at length its unique position in Mythology, that I content myself

here with a pictorial representation of the Singhalese Demon of

Serpents. If any one find himself shuddering at sight of a snake,

even in a country where they are few and comparatively harmless,

perhaps this figure (11) may suggest the final cause of the shudder.

In conclusion, it may be said that not only every animal ferocity,

but every force which can be exerted injuriously, has had its

demonic representations. Every claw, fang, sting, hoof, horn,

has been as certain to be catalogued and labelled in demonology

as in physical science. It is remarkable also how superstition

rationalises. Thus the horn in the animal world, though sometimes

dangerous to man, was more dangerous to animals, which, as foes of

the horned animals, were foes to man's interests. The early herdsman

knew the value of the horn as a defence against dog and wolf, besides

its other utilities. Consequently, although it was necessary that the

horn-principle, so to say, in nature must be regarded as one of its

retractile and cruel features, man never demonised the animals whose

butt was most dangerous, but for such purpose transferred the horns

to the head of some nondescript creature. The horn has thus become

a natural weapon of man-demons. The same evolution has taken place

in America; for, although among its aboriginal legends we may meet

with an occasional demon-buffalo, such are rare and of apocryphal

antiquity. The accompanying American figure (12) is from a photograph

sent me by the President of Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, who

found it in an old mound (Red Indian) in the State of Georgia. It is

probably as ancient as any example of a human head with horns in the

world; and as it could not have been influenced by European notions,

it supplies striking evidence that the demonisation of the forces and

dangers of nature belongs to the structural action of the human mind.

CHAPTER VI.

ENEMIES.

Aryas, Dasyus, Nagas--Yakkhos--Lycians--Ethiopians--Hirpini--

Polites--Sosipolis--Were-wolves--Goths and Scythians--Giants and

Dwarfs--Berserkers--Britons--Iceland--Mimacs--Gog and Magog.

We paint the Devil black, says George Herbert. On the other hand the

negro paints him white, with reason enough. The name of the Devil

at Mozambique is Muzungu Maya, or Wicked White Man. Of this demon

they make little images of extreme hideousness, which are kept by

people on the coast, and occasionally displayed, in the belief that

if the White Devil is lurking near them he will vanish out of sheer

disgust with a glimpse of his own ugliness. The hereditary horror of

the kidnapper displayed in this droll superstition may possibly have

been assisted by the familiarity with all things infernal represented

in the language of the white sailors visiting the coast. Captain

Basil Hall, on visiting Mozambique about fifty years ago, found

that the native dignitaries had appropriated the titles of English

noblemen, and a dumpy little Duke of Devonshire met him with his whole

vocabulary of English,--'How do you do, sir. Very glad see you. Damn

your eyes. Johanna man like English very much. God damn. That very

good? Eh? Devilish hot, sir. What news? Hope your ship stay too long

while very. Damn my eye. Very fine day.'

In most parts of India Siva also is painted white, which would indicate

that there too was found reason to associate diabolism with the white

face. It is said the Thugs spared Englishmen because their white faces

suggested relationship to Siva. In some of the ancient Indian books

the monster whom Indra slew, Vritra, is called Dasyu (enemy), a name

which in the Vedas designates the Aborigines as contrasted with the

Aryans of the North. 'In the old Sanskrit, in the hymns of the Veda,

ârya occurs frequently as a national name and as a name of honour,

comprising the worshippers of the gods of the Brahmans, as opposed to

their enemies, who are called in the Veda Dasyus. Thus one of the gods,

Indra, who in some respects answers to the Greek Zeus, is invoked

in the following words (Rigveda, i. 57, 8):--'Know thou the Aryas,

O Indra, and those who are Dasyus; punish the lawless, and deliver

them unto thy servant! Be thou the mighty helper of the worshippers,

and I will praise all these thy deeds at the festivals.' [111]

Naglok (snakeland) was at an early period a Hindu name for hell. But

the Nagas were not real snakes,--in that case they might have fared

better,--but an aboriginal tribe in Ceylon, believed by the Hindus to

be of serpent origin,--'naga' being an epithet for 'native.' [112] The

Singhalese, on the other hand, have adapted the popular name for demons

in India, 'Rakshasa,' in their Rakseyo, a tribe of invisible cannibals

without supernatural powers (except invisibility), who no doubt merely

embody the traditions of some early race. The dreaded powers were

from another tribe designated Yakkhos (demons), and believed to have

the power of rendering themselves invisible. Buddha's victories over

these demonic beings are related in the 'Mahawanso.' 'It was known

(by inspiration) by the vanquishers that in Lanka, filled by yakkhos,

... would be the place where his religion would be glorified. In

like manner, knowing that in the centre of Lanka, on the delightful

bank of a river, ... in the agreeable Mahanaga garden, ... there

was a great assembly of the principal yakkhos, ... the deity of

happy advent, approaching that great congregation, ... immediately

over their heads hovering in the air, ... struck terror into them

by rains, tempests, and darkness. The yakkhos, overwhelmed with awe,

supplicated of the vanquisher to be released from their terror.... The

consoling vanquisher thus replied: 'I will release ye yakkhos from

this your terror and affliction: give ye unto me here by unanimous

consent a place for me to alight on.' All these yakkhos replied:

'Lord, we confer on thee the whole of Lanka, grant thou comfort

to us.' The vanquisher thereupon dispelling their terror and cold

shivering, and spreading his carpet of skin on the spot bestowed on

him, he there seated himself. He then caused the aforesaid carpet,

refulgent with a fringe of flames, to extend itself on all sides:

they, scorched by the flames, (receding) stood around on the shores

(of the island) terrified. The Saviour then caused the delightful isle

of Giri to approach for them. As soon as they transferred themselves

thereto (to escape the conflagration), he restored it to its former

position.' [113]

This legend, which reminds one irresistibly of the expulsion of

reptiles by saints from Ireland, and other Western regions, is

the more interesting if it be considered that these Yakkhos are the

Sanskrit Yakshas, attendants on Kuvera, the god of wealth, employed in

the care of his garden and treasures. They are regarded as generally

inoffensive. The transfer by English authorities of the Tasmanians from

their native island to another, with the result of their extermination,

may suggest the possible origin of the story of Giri.

Buddha's dealings with the serpent-men or nagas is related as follows

in the same volume:--

'The vanquisher (i.e., of the five deadly sins), ... in the fifth

year of his buddhahood, while residing at the garden of (the prince)

Jeto, observing that, on account of a disputed claim for a gem-set

throne between the naga Mahodaro and a similar Chalodaro, a maternal

uncle and nephew, a conflict was at hand, ... taking with him his

sacred dish and robes, out of compassion to the nagas, visited

Nagadipo.... These mountain nagas were, moreover, gifted with

supernatural powers.... The Saviour and dispeller of the darkness

of sin, poising himself in the air over the centre of the assembly,

caused a terrifying darkness to these nagas. Attending to the prayer

of the dismayed nagas, he again called forth the light of day. They,

overjoyed at having seen the deity of felicitous advent, bowed down

at the feet of the divine teacher. To them the vanquisher preached

a sermon of reconciliation. Both parties rejoicing thereat, made an

offering of the gem-throne to the divine sage. The divine teacher,

alighting on the earth, seated himself on the throne, and was served

by the naga kings with celestial food and beverage. The lord of the

universe procured for eighty kotis of nagas, dwelling on land and in

the waters, the salvation of the faith and the state of piety.'

At every step in the conversion of the native Singhalese,--the demons

and serpent-men,--Buddha and his apostles are represented as being

attended by the devas,--the deities of India,--who are spoken of as

if glad to become menials of the new religion. But we find Zoroaster

using this term in a demonic sense, and describing alien worshippers

as children of the Devas (a Semite would say, Sons of Belial). And

in the conventional Persian pictures of the Last Judgment (moslem),

the archfiend has the Hindu complexion. A similar phenomenon may

be observed in various regions. In the mediæval frescoes of Moscow,

representing infernal tortures, it is not very difficult to pick out

devils representing the physical characteristics of most of the races

with which the Muscovite has struggled in early times. There are also

black Ethiopians among them, which may be a result of devils being

considered the brood of Tchernibog, god of Darkness; but may also, not

impossibly, have come of such apocryphal narratives as that ascribed

to St. Augustine. 'I was already Bishop of Hippo when I went into

Ethiopia with some servants of Christ, there to preach the gospel. In

this country we saw many men and women without heads, who had two

great eyes in their breasts; and in countries still more southerly

we saw a people who had but one eye in their foreheads.' [114]

In considering animal demons, the primitive demonisation of the Wolf

has been discussed. But it is mainly as a transformation of man and

a type of savage foes that this animal has been a prominent figure

in Mythology.

Professor Max Müller has made it tolerably clear that Bellerophon

means Slayer of the Hairy; and that Belleros is the transliteration

of Sanskrit varvara, a term applied to the dark Aborigines by their

Aryan invaders, equivalent to barbarians. [115] This points us for the

origin of the title rather to Bellerophon's conquest of the Lycians,

or Wolf-men, than to his victory over the Chimæra. The story of

Lycaon and his sons--barbarians defying the gods and devouring human

flesh--turned into wolves by Zeus, connects itself with the Lycians

(hairy, wolfish barbarians), whom Bellerophon conquered.

It was not always, however, the deity that conquered in such

encounters. In the myth of Soracte, the Wolf is seen able to hold

his own against the gods. Soranus, worshipped on Mount Soracte,

was at Rome the god of Light, and is identified with Apollo by

Virgil. [116] A legend states that he became associated with the

infernal gods, though called Diespiter, because of the sulphurous

exhalations from the side of Mount Soracte. It is said that once when

some shepherds were performing a sacrifice, some wolves seized the

flesh; the shepherds, following them, were killed by the poisonous

vapours of the mountain to which the wolves retreated. An oracle gave

out that this was a punishment for their pursuing the sacred animals;

and a general pestilence also having followed, it was declared that it

could only cease if the people were all changed to wolves and lived by

prey. Hence the Hirpini, from the Sabine 'hirpus,' a wolf. The story

is a variant of that of the Hirpinian Samnites, who were said to have

received their name from their ancestors having followed a sacred wolf

when seeking their new home. The Wolf ceremonies were, like the Roman

Lupercalia, for purposes of purification. The worshippers ran naked

through blazing fires. The annual festival, which Strabo describes

as occurring in the grove of Feronia, goddess of Nature, became at

last a sort of fair. Its history, however, is very significant of

the formidable character of the Hirpini, or Wolf-tribe, which could

alone have given rise to such euphemistic celebrations of the wolf.

It is interesting to note that in some regions this wolf of

superstition was domesticated into a dog. Pierius says there was a

temple of Vulcan in Mount Ætna, in whose grove were dogs that fawned

on the pious, but rent the polluted worshippers. It will be seen by

the left form of Fig. 13 that the wolf had a diminution, in pictorial

representation similar to that which the canine Lares underwent

(p. 135). This picture is referred by John Beaumont [117] to Cartarius'

work on 'The Images of the Gods of the Ancients;' the form wearing

a wolf's skin and head is that of the demon Polites, who infested

Temesa in Italy, according to a story related by Pausanias. Ulysses,

in his wanderings, having come to this town, one of his companions

was stoned to death for having ravished a virgin; after which his

ghost appeared in form of this demon, which had to be appeased, by

the direction of the oracle of Apollo, by the annual sacrifice to

him of the most beautiful virgin in the place. Euthymus, enamoured

of a virgin about to be so offered, gave battle to this demon, and,

having expelled him from the country, married the virgin. However,

since the infernal powers cannot be deprived of their rights without

substitution, this saviour of Temesa disappeared in the river Cæcinus.

The form on the right in Fig. 13 represents the genius of the

city of Rome, and is found on some of Hadrian's coins; he holds

the cornucopia and the sacrificial dish. The child and the serpent

in the same picture represent the origin of the demonic character

attributed to the Eleans by the Arcadians. This child-and-serpent

symbol, which bears resemblance to certain variants of Bel and the

Dragon, no doubt was brought to Elea, or Velia in Italy, by the

Phocæans, when they abandoned their Ionian homes rather than submit

to Cyrus, and founded that town, B.C. 544. The two forms were jointly

worshipped with annual sacrifices in the temple of Lucina, under the

name Sosipolis. The legend of this title is related by Pausanias. When

the Arcadians invaded the Eleans, a woman came to the Elean commander

with an infant at her breast, and said that she had been admonished

in a dream to place her child in front of the army. This was done;

as the Arcadians approached the child was changed to a serpent, and,

astounded at the prodigy, they fled without giving battle. The child

was represented by the Eleans decorated with stars, and holding the

cornucopia; by the Arcadians, no doubt, in a less celestial way. It

is not uncommon in Mythology to find the most dangerous demons

represented under some guise of weakness, as, for instance, among

the South Africans, some of whom recently informed English officers

that the Galeikas were led against them by a terrible sorcerer in

the form of a hare. The most fearful traditional demon ever slain

by hero in Japan was Shuden Dozi--the Child-faced Drinker. In Ceylon

the apparition of a demon is said to be frequently under the form of

a woman with a child in her arms.

Many animal demons are mere fables for the ferocity of human

tribes. The Were-wolf superstition, which exists still in Russia, where

the transformed monster is called volkodlák (volk, a wolf, and dlak,

hair), might even have originated in the costume of Norse barbarians

and huntsmen. The belief was always more or less rationalised,

resembling that held by Verstegan three hundred years ago, and which

may be regarded as prevalent among both the English and Flemish people

of his day. 'These Were-wolves,' he says, 'are certain sorcerers,

who, having anointed their bodies with an ointment they make by the

instinct of the devil, and putting on a certain enchanted girdle,

do not only unto the view of others seem as wolves, but to their own

thinking have both the nature and shape of wolves so long as they

wear the said girdle; and they do dispose themselves as very wolves,

in worrying and killing, and waste of human creatures.' During the

Franco-German war of 1870-71, a family of ladies on the German side

of the Rhine, sitting up all night in apprehension, related to me

such stories of the 'Turcos' that I have since found no difficulty

in understanding the belief in weird and præternatural wolves which

once filled Europe with horror. The facility with which the old Lycian

wolf-girdle, so to say, was caught up and worn in so many countries

where race-wars were chronic for many ages, renders it nearly certain

that this superstition (Lycanthropy), however it may have originated,

was continued through the custom of ascribing demonic characteristics

to hostile and fierce races. It has been, indeed, a general opinion

that the theoretical belief originated in the Pythagorean doctrine

of metempsychosis. Thus Shakspere:--

Thou almost makest me waver in my faith,

To hold opinion with Pythagoras,

That souls of animals infuse themselves

Into the trunks of men: thy currish spirit

Governed a wolf, who, hanged for human slaughter,

Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,

And whilst thou layest in thy unhallowed dam

Infused itself in thee; for thy desires

Are wolfish, bloody, starved, and ravenous.

But the superstition is much older than Pythagoras, who, no doubt,

tried to turn it into a moral theory of retributions,--as indeed did

Plato in his story of the Vision of Er the Armenian.

Professor Weber and others have adduced evidence indicating that

although belief in the transformation of men into beasts was not

developed in the Vedic age of India, the matrix of it was there. But

of our main fact--the association of demonic characters with certain

tribes--India has presented many examples. In the mountains of

Travancore there are tribes which are still generally believed to

be on terms of especial familiarity with the devils of that region;

and the dwellers on the plains relate that on these mountains gigantic

demons, sixteen or seventeen feet high, may sometimes be seen hurling

firebrands at each other.

Professor Monier Williams contributes an interesting note concerning

this general phase of South-Indian demonology. 'Furthermore, it

must not be forgotten that although a belief in devils and homage

to bhutas, or spirits, of all kinds is common all over India, yet

what is called devil-worship is far more systematically practised

in the South of India and Ceylon than in the North. And the reason

may be that as the invading Aryans advanced towards Southern India,

they found portions of it peopled by wild aboriginal savages, whose

behaviour and aspect appeared to them to resemble that of devils. The

Aryan mind, therefore, naturally pictured to itself the regions of the

South as the chief resort and stronghold of the demon race, and the

dread of demonical agency became more deeply rooted in Southern India

than in the North. Curiously enough, too, it is commonly believed in

Southern India that every wicked man contributes by his death to swell

the ever-increasing ranks of devil legions. His evil passions do not

die with him; they are intensified, concentrated, and perpetuated in

the form of a malignant and mischievous spirit.' [118]

It is obvious that this principle may be extended from individuals

to entire tribes. The Cimmerians were regarded as dwelling in a land

allied with hell. In the legend of the Alhambra, as told by Washington

Irving, the astrologer warns the Moorish king that the beautiful

damsel is no doubt one of those Gothic sorceresses of whom they have

heard so much. Although, as we have seen, England was regarded on the

Continent as an island of demons because of its northern latitude,

probably some of its tribes were of a character dangerous enough to

prolong the superstition. The nightmare elves were believed to come

from England, and to hurry away through the keyholes at daybreak,

saying 'The bells are calling in England.' [119] Visigoth probably

left us our word bigot; and 'Goths and Vandals' sometimes designate

English roughs, as 'Turks' those of Constantinople. Herodotus says

the Scythians of the Black Sea regarded the Neurians as wizards,

who transformed themselves into wolves for a few days annually; but

the Scythians themselves are said by Herodotus to have sprung from a

monster, half-woman half-serpent; and possibly the association of the

Scotch with the Scythians by the Germans, who called them both Scutten,

had something to do with the uncanny character ascribed to the British

Isles. Sir Walter Raleigh described the Red Men of America as gigantic

monsters. 'Red Devils' is still the pioneer's epithet for them in the

Far West. The hairy Dukes of Esau were connected with the goat, and

demonised as Edom; and Ishmael was not believed much better by the

more peaceful Semitic tribes. Such notions are akin to those which

many now have of the Thugs and Bashi-Bazouks, and are too uniform

and natural to tax much the ingenuity of Comparative Mythology.

Underlying many of the legends of giants and dwarfs may be found a

similar demonologic formation. A principle of natural selection would

explain the existence of tribes, which, though of small stature,

are able to hold their own against the larger and more powerful by

their superior cunning. That such equalisation of apparently unequal

forces has been known in pre-historic ages may be gathered from many

fables. Before Bali, the monarch already mentioned, whose power alarmed

the gods themselves, Vishnu appeared as a dwarf, asking only so much

land as he could measure with three steps; the apparently ridiculous

request granted, the god strode over the whole earth with two steps

and brought his third on the head of Bali. In Scandinavian fable

we have the young giantess coming to her mother with the plough and

ploughman in her apron, which she had picked up in the field. To her

child's inquiry, 'What sort of beetle is this I found wriggling in

the sand?' the giantess replies, 'Go put it back in the place where

thou hast found it. We must be gone out of this land, for these

little people will dwell in it.'

The Sagas contain many stories which, while written in glorification

of the 'giant' race, relate the destruction of their chiefs by

the magical powers of the dwarfs. I must limit myself to a few

notes on the Ynglinga Saga. 'In Swithiod,' we are told, 'are many

great domains, and many wonderful races of men, and many kinds of

languages. There are giants, and there are dwarfs, and there are also

blue men. There are wild beasts, and dreadfully large dragons.' We

learn that in Asaland was a great chief, Odin, who went out to conquer

Vanaland. The Vanalanders are declared to have magic arts,--such as

are ascribed to Finns and Lapps to this day by the more ignorant of

their neighbours. But that the people of Asaland learned their magic

charms. 'Odin was the cleverest of them all, and from him all the

others learned their magic arts.' 'Odin could make his enemies in

battle blind, or deaf, or terror-struck, and their weapons so blunt

that they could no more cut than a willow twig; on the other hand, his

men rushed forward without armour, were as mad as dogs or wolves, bit

their shields, and were as strong as bears or wild bulls, and killed

people at a blow, and neither fire nor iron told upon them. These

were called Berserkers.' (From ber, bear, and serkr, sark or coat;

the word being probably, as Maurer says, a survival of an earlier

belief in the transformation of men into bears.) But the successors of

Odin did not preserve his occult power. Svegdir, for instance, saw a

large stone and a dwarf at the door entering in it. The dwarf called

him to come in and he should see Odin. 'Swedger ran into the stone,

which instantly closed behind him, and Swedger never came back.' The

witchcraft of the Finn people is said to have led Vanlandi (Svegdir's

son) to his death by Mara (night-mare). Vanlandi's son too, Visbur,

fell a victim to sorcery. Such legends as these, and many others which

may be found in Sturleson's Heimskringla, have influenced our popular

stories whose interest turns on the skill with which some little Jack

or Thumbling overcomes his adversary by superior cunning.

Superstitions concerning dwarf-powers are especially rife in

Northumberland, where they used to be called Duergar, and they were

thought to abound on the hills between Rothbury and Elsdon. They

mislead with torches. One story relates that a traveller, beguiled at

night into a hut where a dwarf prepared a comfortable fire for him,

found himself when daylight returned sitting upon the edge of a deep

rugged precipice, where the slightest movement had caused him to be

dashed to pieces. [120] The Northumbrian stories generally, however,

do not bear the emphasis of having grown out of aboriginal conditions,

or even of having been borrowed for such. The legends of Scotland,

and of the South-West of England, appear to me much more suggestive of

original struggles between large races and small. They are recalled by

the superstitions which still linger in Norway concerning the Lapps,

who are said to carry on unholy dealings with gnomes.

In the last century the 'Brownie' was commonly spoken of in Scotland

as appearing in shape of 'a tall man,' and the name seems to refer

to the brown complexion of that bogey, and its long brown hair,

hardly Scottish. [121] It is generally the case that Second Sight,

which once attained the dignity of being called 'Deuteroscopia,'

sees a doomed man or woman shrink to the size of a dwarf. The 'tall

man' is not far off in such cases. 'In some age of the world more

remote than even that of Alypos,' says Hugh Miller, 'the whole of

Britain was peopled by giants--a fact amply supported by early English

historians and the traditions of the North of Scotland. Diocletian,

king of Syria, say the historians, had thirty-three daughters, who,

like the daughters of Danaus, killed their husbands on their wedding

night. The king, their father, in abhorrence of the crime, crowded

them all into a ship, which he abandoned to the mercy of the waves,

and which was drifted by tides and winds till it arrived on the coast

of Britain, then an uninhabited island. There they lived solitary,

subsisting on roots and berries, the natural produce of the soil,

until an order of demons, becoming enamoured of them, took them for

their wives; and a tribe of giants, who must be regarded as the true

aborigines of the country, if indeed the demons have not a prior claim,

were the fruit of these marriages. Less fortunate, however, than even

their prototypes the Cyclops, the whole tribe was extirpated a few ages

after by Brutus the parricide, who, with a valour to which mere bulk

could offer no effectual resistance, overthrew Gog-Magog and Termagol,

and a whole host of others with names equally terrible. Tradition

is less explicit than the historians in what relates to the origin

and extinction of the race, but its narratives of their prowess are

more minute. There is a large and ponderous stone in the parish

of Edderston which a giantess of the tribe is said to have flung

from the point of a spindle across the Dornoch Firth; and another,

within a few miles of Dingwall, still larger and more ponderous,

which was thrown by a person of the same family, and which still

bears the marks of a gigantic finger and thumb.' [122]

Perhaps we may find the mythological descendants of these Titans,

and also of the Druids, in the so-called 'Great Men' once dreaded

by Highlanders. The natives of South Uist believed that a valley,

called Glenslyte, situated between two mountains on the east side

of the island, was haunted by these Great Men, and that if any one

entered the valley without formally resigning themselves to the

conduct of those beings, they would infallibly become mad. Martin,

having remonstrated with the people against this superstition, was told

of a woman's having come out of the valley a lunatic because she had

not uttered the spell of three sentences. They also told him of voices

heard in the air. The Brownie ('a tall man with very long brown hair'),

who has cow's milk poured out for him on a hill in the same region,

probably of this giant tribe, might easily have been demonised at

the time when the Druids were giving St. Columba so much trouble,

and trying to retain their influence over the people by professing

supernatural powers. [123]

The man of the smaller stature, making up for his inferiority by

invention, perhaps first forged the sword, the coat of mail, and the

shield, and so confronted the giant with success. The god with the

Hammer might thus supersede the god of the Flint Spear. Magic art

seemed to have rendered invulnerable the man from whom the arrow

rebounded.

It would appear from King Olaf Tryggvason's Saga that nine hundred

years ago the Icelanders and the Danes reciprocally regarded each

other as giants and dwarfs. The Icelanders indited lampoons against

the Danes which allude to their diminutive size:--

The gallant Harald in the field

Between his legs lets drop his shield,

Into a pony he was changed, &c.

On the other hand, the Danes had by no means a contemptuous idea of

their Icelandic enemies, as the following narrative from Heimskringla

proves. 'King Harald told a warlock to hie to Iceland in some altered

shape, and to try what he could learn there to tell him: and he set

out in the shape of a whale. And when he came near to the land he

went to the west side of Iceland, north around the land, when he

saw all the mountains and hills full of land-serpents, some great,

some small. When he came to Vapnafiord he went in towards the land,

intending to go on shore; but a huge dragon rushed down the dale

against him, with a train of serpents, paddocks, and toads, that blew

poison towards him. Then he turned to go westward around the land as

far as Eyafiord, and he went into the fiord. Then a bird flew against

him, which was so great that its wings stretched over the mountains

on either side of the fiord, and many birds, great and small, with

it. Then he swam further west, and then south into Breidafiord. When

he came into the fiord a large grey bull ran against him, wading into

the sea, and bellowing fearfully, and he was followed by a crowd of

land-serpents. From thence he went round by Reikaness and wanted to

land at Vikarsted, but there came down a hill-giant against him with

an iron staff in his hands. He was a head higher than the mountains,

and many other giants followed him.' The most seductive Hesperian

gardens of the South and East do not appear to have been so thoroughly

guarded or defended as Iceland, and one can hardly call it cowardice

when (after the wizard-whale brought back the log of its voyage)

it is recorded: 'Then the Danish king turned about with his fleet

and sailed back to Denmark.'

It is a sufficiently curious fact that the Mimacs, aborigines of

Nova Scotia, [124] were found with a whale-story, already referred to

(p. 46), so much like this. They also have the legend of an ancient

warrior named Booin, who possessed the præternatural powers especially

ascribed to Odin, those of raising storms, causing excessive cold,

increasing or diminishing his size, and assuming any shape. Besides

the fearful race of gigantic ice-demons dreaded by this tribe, as

elsewhere stated (p. 84), they dread also a yellow-horned dragon called

Cheepichealm, (whose form the great Booin sometimes assumes). They

make offerings to the new moon. They believe in pixies, calling them

Wigguladum-moochkik, 'very little people.' They anciently believed in

two great spirits, good and evil, both called Manitoos; since their

contact with christians only the evil one has been so called.

The entire motif of the Mimac Demonology is, to my mind, that of

early conflicts with some formidable races. It is to be hoped that

travellers will pay more attention to this unique race before it

has ceased to exist. The Chinese theory of genii is almost exactly

that of the Mimacs. The Chinese genii are now small as a moth, now

fill the world; can assume any form; they command demons; they never

die, but, at the end of some centuries, ride to heaven on a dragon's

back. [125] Ordinarily the Chinese genii use the yellow heron as an

aerial courser. The Mimacs believe in a large præternatural water-bird,

Culloo, which devours ordinary people, but bears on its back those

who can tame it by magic.

Mr. Mayers, in his 'Chinese Reader's Manual,' suggests that the

designation of Formosa as 'Isles of the Genii' (San Shén Shan) by the

Chinese, has some reference to their early attempts at colonisation

in Japan. Su Fuh, a necromancer, who lived B.C. 219, is said to have

announced their discovery, and at the head of a troop of young men

and maidens, voyaged with an expedition towards them, but, when within

sight of the magic islands, were driven back by contrary winds.

Gog and Magog stand in London Guildhall, though much diminished

in stature, to suit the English muscles that had to bear them in

processions, monuments of the præternatural size attributed to

the enemies which the Aryan race encountered in its great westward

migrations. Even to-day, when the progress of civilisation is harassed

by untamed Scythian hordes, how strangely fall upon our ears the

ancient legends and prophecies concerning them!

Thus saith the Lord Jehovah:

Behold I am against thee, O Gog,

Prince of Rosh, of Meshech, and of Tubul:

And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee;

And I will cause thee to come up from the north parts,

And will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:

And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand,

And will cause thine arrows to fall from thy right hand.

Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel,

Thou and all thy bands. [126]

In the Koran it is related of Dhulkarnein:--'He journeyed from south to

north until he came between the two mountains, beneath which he found

a people who could scarce understand what was said. And they said, O

Dhulkarnein, verily Gog and Magog waste the land; shall we, therefore,

pay thee tribute, on condition that thou build a rampart between us

and them? He answered, The power wherewith my Lord hath strengthened

me is better than your tribute; but assist me strenuously and I will

set a strong wall between you and them.... Wherefore when this wall

was finished, Gog and Magog could not scale it, neither could they

dig through it. And Dhulkarnein said, This is a mercy from my Lord;

but when the prediction of my Lord shall come to be fulfilled, he

will reduce the wall to dust.'

The terror inspired by these barbarians is reflected in the prophecies

of their certain irruption from their supernaturally-built fastnesses;

as in Ezekiel:--

Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm,

Thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land,

Thou and all thy bands,

And many people with thee;

and in the Koran, 'Gog and Magog shall have a passage open for them,

and they shall hasten from every high hill;' and in the Apocalypse,

'Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive

the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog,

to gather them in battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the

sea.' Five centuries ago Sir John Maundeville was telling in England

the legend he had heard in the East. 'In that same regioun ben the

mountaynes of Caspye, that men clepen Uber in the contree. Betwene the

mountaynes the Jews of 10 lynages ben enclosed, that men clepen Gothe

and Magothe: and they mowe not gon out on no syde. There weren enclosed

22 kynges, with hire peple, that dwelleden betwene the mountayns

of Sythe. There King Alisandre chacede hem betwene the mountaynes,

and there he thought for to enclose hem thorghe work of his men. But

when he saughe that he might not doon it, ne bringe it to an ende,

he preyed to God of Nature, that he wolde performe that that he had

begoune. And all were it so, that he was a Payneme, and not worthi to

ben herd, zit God of his grace closed the mountaynes to gydre: so that

thei dwellen there, all fast ylokked and enclosed with highe mountaynes

all aboute, saf only on o syde; and on that syde is the See of Caspye.'

CHAPTER VII.

BARRENNESS.

Indian famine and Sun-spots--Sun-worship--Demon of the Desert--The

Sphinx--Egyptian plagues described by Lepsius: Locusts, Hurricane,

Flood, Mice, Flies--The Sheikh's ride--Abaddon--Set--Typhon--The

Cain wind--Seth--Mirage--The Desert Eden--Azazel--Tawiscara and

the Wild Rose.

In their adoration of rain-giving Indra as also a solar majesty,

the ancient Hindus seem to have been fully aware of his inconsistent

habits. 'Thy inebriety is most intense,' exclaims the eulogist,

and soothingly adds, 'Thou desirest that both thy inebriety and thy

beneficence should be the means of destroying enemies and distributing

riches.' [127] Against famine is invoked the thunderbolt of Indra,

and it is likened to the terrible Tvashtri, in whose fearful shape

(pure fire) Agni once appeared to the terror of gods and men. [128]

This Tvashtri was not an evil being himself, but, as we have seen, an

artificer for the gods similar to Vulcan; he was, however, father of a

three-headed monster who has been identified with Vritra. Though these

early worshippers recognised that their chief trouble was connected

with 'glaring heat' (which Tvashtri seems to mean in the passage just

referred to), Indra's celebrants beheld him superseding his father

Dyaus, and reigning in the day's splendour as well as in the cloud's

bounty. This monopolist of parts in their theogony anticipated Jupiter

Pluvius. Vedic mythology is pervaded with stories of the demons that

arrested the rain and stole the cloud-cows of Indra--shutting them

away in caves,--and the god is endlessly praised for dealing death

to such. He slays Vritra, the 'rain-arresting,' and Dribhika, Bala,

Urana, Arbuda, 'devouring Swasna,' 'unabsorbable Súshna,' Pipru,

Namuchi, Rudhikrá, Varchin and his hundred thousand descendants; [129]

the deadly strangling serpent Ahi, especial type of Drouth as it dries

up rivers; and through all these combats with the alleged authors of

the recurring Barrenness and Famine, as most of these monsters were,

the seat of the evil was the Sun-god's adorable self!

Almost pathetic does the long and vast history appear just now,

when competent men of science are giving us good reason to believe

that right knowledge of the sun, and the relation of its spots to

the rainfall, might have covered India with ways and means which

would have adapted the entire realm to its environment, and wrested

from Indra his hostile thunderbolt--the sunstroke of famine. The

Hindus have covered their lands with temples raised to propitiate and

deprecate the demons, and to invoke the deities against such sources

of drouth and famine. Had they concluded that famine was the result of

inexactly quartered sun-dials, the land would have been covered with

perfect sun-dials; but the famine would have been more destructive,

because of the increasing withdrawal of mind and energy from the

true cause, and its implied answer. Even so were conflagrations in

London attributed to inexact city clocks; the clocks would become

perfect, the conflagrations more numerous, through misdirection

of vigilance. But how much wiser are we of Christendom than the

Hindus? They have adapted their country perfectly for propitiation of

famine-demons that do not exist, at a cost which would long ago have

rendered them secure from the famine-forces that do exist. We have

similarly covered Christendom with a complete system of securities

against hells and devils and wrathful deities that do not exist, while

around our churches, chapels, cathedrals, are the actually-existent

seething hells of pauperism, shame, and crime.

'Nothing can advance art in any district of this accursed

machine-and-devil-driven England until she changes her mind in many

things.' So wrote John Ruskin recently. Of course, so long as the

machine toils and earns wealth and other power which still goes to

support and further social and ecclesiastical forms, constituted with

reference to salvation from a devil or demons no longer believed in,

the phrase 'machine-and-devil-driven' is true. Until the invention

and enterprise of the nation are administered in the interest of right

ideas, we may still sigh, like John Sterling, for 'a dozen men to stand

up for ideas as Cobden and his friends do for machinery.' But it still

remains as true that all the machinery and wealth of England devoted

to man might make its every home happy, and educate every inhabitant,

as that every idolatrous temple in India might be commuted into a

shield against famine.

Our astronomers and economists have enabled us to see clearly how

the case is with the country whose temples offer no obstruction

to christian vision. The facts point to the conclusion that the

sun-spots reach their maximum and minimum of intensity at intervals of

eleven years, and that their high activity is attended with frequent

fluctuations of the magnetic needle, and increased rainfall. In 1811,

and since then, famines in India have, with one exception, followed

years of minimum sun-spots. [130] These facts are sufficiently well

attested to warrant the belief that English science and skill will

be able to realise in India the provision which Joseph is said to

have made for the seven lean years of which Pharaoh dreamed.

Until that happy era shall arrive, the poor Hindus will only go

on alternately adoring and propitiating the sun, as its benign or

its cruel influences shall fall upon them. The artist Turner said,

'The sun is God.' The superb effects of light in Turner's pictures

could hardly have come from any but a sun-worshipper dwelling amid

fogs. Unfamiliarity often breeds reverence. There are few countries

in which the sun, when it does shine, is so likely to be greeted with

enthusiasm, and observed in all its variations of splendour, as one

in which its appearance is rare. Yet the superstition inherited from

regions where the sun is equally a desolation was strong enough to

blot out its glory in the mind of a writer famous in his time, Tobias

Swinden, M.A., who wrote a work to prove the sun to be the abode of

the damned. [131] The speculation may now appear only curious, but,

probably, it is no more curious than a hundred years from now will

seem to all the vulgar notion of future fiery torments for mankind,

the scriptural necessity of which led the fanciful rector to his

grotesque conclusion. These two extremes--the Sun-worship of Turner,

the Sun-horror of Swinden,--survivals in England, represent the two

antagonistic aspects of the sun, which were of overwhelming import

to those who dwelt beneath its greatest potency. His ill-humour, or

his hunger and thirst, in any year transformed the earth to a desert,

and dealt death to thousands.

In countries where drouth, barrenness, and consequent famine were

occasional, as in India, it would be an inevitable result that

they would represent the varying moods of a powerful will, and

in such regions we naturally find the most extensive appliances

for propitiation. The preponderant number of fat years would

tell powerfully on the popular imagination in favour of priestly

intercession, and the advantage of sacrifices to the great Hunger-demon

who sometimes consumed the seeds of the earth. But in countries

where barrenness was an ever-present, visible, unvarying fact,

the Demon of the Desert would represent Necessity, a power not to

be coaxed or changed. People dwelling in distant lands might invent

theoretical myths to account for the desert. It might be an accident

resulting from the Sun-god having given up his chariot one day to an

inexperienced driver who came too close to the earth. But to those

who lived beside the desert it could only seem an infernal realm,

quite irrecoverable. The ancient civilisation of Egypt, so full of

grandeur, might, in good part, have been due to the lesson taught

them by the desert, that they could not change the conditions around

them by any entreaties, but must make the best of what was left. If

such, indeed, was the force that built the ancient civilisation

whose monuments remain so magnificent in their ruins, its decay

might be equally accounted for when that primitive faith passed into

a theological phase. For as Necessity is the mother of invention,

Fate is fatal to the same. Belief in facts, and laws fixed in the

organic nature of things, stimulates man to study them and constitute

his life with reference to them; but belief that things are fixed by

the arbitrary decree of an individual power is the final sentence

of enterprise. Fate might thus steadily bring to ruin the grandest

achievements of Necessity.

Had we only the true history of the Sphinx--the Binder--we

might find it a landmark between the rise and decline of Egyptian

civilisation. When the great Limitation surrounding the powers of man

was first personified with that mystical grandeur, it would stand

in the desert not as the riddle but its solution. No such monument

was ever raised by Doubt. But once personified and outwardly shaped,

the external Binder must bind thought as well; nay, will throttle

thought if it cannot pierce through the stone and discover the

meaning of it. 'How true is that old fable of the Sphinx who sat by

the wayside propounding her riddle to the passengers, which if they

could not answer she destroyed them! Such a Sphinx is this Life of

ours to all men and societies of men. Nature, like the Sphinx, is of

womanly celestial loveliness and tenderness; the face and bosom of

a goddess, but ending in claws and the body of a lioness. There is

in her a celestial beauty,--which means celestial order, pliancy

to wisdom; but there is also a darkness, a ferocity, fatality,

which are infernal. She is a goddess, but one not yet disimprisoned;

one still half-imprisoned,--the articulate, lovely still encased in

the inarticulate, chaotic. How true! And does she not propound her

riddles to us? Of each man she asks daily, in mild voice, yet with

a terrible significance, 'Knowest thou the meaning of this Day? What

thou canst do To-day, wisely attempt to do.' Nature, Universe, Destiny,

Existence, howsoever we name this grand unnameable Fact, in the midst

of which we live and struggle, is as a heavenly bride and conquest to

the wise and brave, to them who can discern her behests and do them; a

destroying fiend to them who cannot. Answer her riddle, it is well with

thee. Answer it not, pass on regarding it not, it will answer itself;

the solution for thee is a thing of teeth and claws; Nature to thee

is a dumb lioness, deaf to thy pleadings, fiercely devouring. Thou

art not now her victorious bridegroom; thou art her mangled victim,

scattered on the precipices, as a slave found treacherous, recreant,

ought to be, and must.' [132]

On the verge of the Desert, Prime Minister to the Necropolis at

whose gateway it stands, the Sphinx reposes amid the silence of

science and the centuries. Who built it? None can answer, so far as

the human artist, or the king under whom he worked, is concerned. But

the ideas and natural forces which built the Sphinx surround even now

the archæologist who tries to discover its history and chronology. As

fittest appendage to Carlyle's interpretation, let us read some

passages from Lepsius.

'The Oedipus for this king of the Sphinxes is yet wanting. Whoever

would drain the immeasurable sand-flood which buries the tombs

themselves, and lay open the base of the Sphinx, the ancient

temple-path, and the surrounding hills, could easily decide it. But

with the enigmas of history there are joined many riddles and wonders

of nature, which I must not leave quite unnoticed. The newest of all,

at least, I must describe.

'I had descended with Abeken into a mummy-pit, to open some

newly discovered sarcophagi, and was not a little astonished, upon

descending, to find myself in a regular snow-drift of locusts, which,

almost darkening the heavens, flew over our heads from the south-west

from the desert in hundreds of thousands to the valley. I took it

for a single flight, and called my companions from the tombs, where

they were busy, that they might see this Egyptian wonder ere it was

over. But the flight continued; indeed the work-people said it had

begun an hour before. Then we first observed that the whole region,

near and far, was covered with locusts. I sent an attendant into the

desert to discover the breadth of the flock. He ran for the distance

of a quarter of an hour, then returned and told us that, as far as

he could see, there was no end to them. I rode home in the midst of

the locust shower. At the edge of the fruitful plain they fell down

in showers; and so it went on the whole day until the evening, and

so the next day from morning till evening, and the third; in short to

the sixth day, indeed in weaker flights much longer. Yesterday it did

seem that a storm of rain in the desert had knocked down and destroyed

the last of them. The Arabs are now lighting great smoke-fires in the

fields, and clattering and making loud noises all day long to preserve

their crops from the unexpected invasion. It will, however, do little

good. Like a new animated vegetation, these millions of winged spoilers

cover even the neighbouring sand-hills, so that scarcely anything

is to be seen of the ground; and when they rise from one place they

immediately fall down somewhere in the neighbourhood; they are tired

with their long journey, and seem to have lost all fear of their

natural enemies, men, animals, smoke, and noise, in their furious

wish to fill their stomachs, and in the feeding of their immense

number. The most wonderful thing, in my estimation, is their flight

over the naked wilderness, and the instinct which has guided them from

some oasis over the inhospitable desert to the fat soil of the Nile

vale. Fourteen years ago, it seems, this Egyptian plague last visited

Egypt with the same force. The popular idea is that they are sent by

the comet which we have observed for twelve days in the South-west,

and which, as it is now no longer obscured by the rays of the moon,

stretches forth its stately tail across the heavens in the hours

of the night. The Zodiacal light, too, so seldom seen in the north,

has lately been visible for several nights in succession.'

Other plagues of Egypt are described by Lepsius:--

'Suddenly the storm grew to a tremendous hurricane, such as I have

never seen in Europe, and hail fell upon us in such masses as almost

to turn day into night.... Our tents lie in a valley, whither the

plateau of the pyramids inclines, and are sheltered from the worst

winds from the north and west. Presently I saw a dashing mountain

flood hurrying down upon our prostrate and sand-covered tents, like

a giant serpent upon its certain prey. The principal stream rolled

on to the great tent; another arm threatened mine without reaching

it. But everything that had been washed from our tents by the shower

was torn away by the two streams, which joined behind the tents, and

carried into a pool behind the Sphinx, where a great lake immediately

formed, which fortunately had no outlet. Just picture this scene

to yourself! Our tents, dashed down by the storm and heavy rain,

lying between two mountain torrents, thrusting themselves in several

places to the depth of six feet in the sand, and depositing our books,

drawings, sketches, shirts, and instruments--yes, even our levers and

iron crow-bars; in short, everything they could seize, in the dark

foaming mud-ocean. Besides this, ourselves wet to the skin, without

hats, fastening up the weightier things, rushing after the lighter

ones, wading into the lake to the waist to fish out what the sand had

not yet swallowed; and all this was the work of a quarter of an hour,

at the end of which the sun shone radiantly again, and announced the

end of this flood by a bright and glorious rainbow.

'Now comes the plague of mice, with which we were not formerly

acquainted; in my tent they grow, play, and whistle, as if they

had been at home here all their lives, and quite regardless of my

presence. At night they have already run across my bed and face,

and yesterday I started terrified from my slumbers, as I suddenly

felt the sharp tooth of such a daring guest at my foot.

'Above me a canopy of gauze is spread, in order to keep off the flies,

these most shameless of the plagues of Egypt, during the day, and the

mosquitos at night.... Scorpions and serpents have not bitten us yet,

but there are very malicious wasps, which have often stung us.

'The dale (in the Desert) was wild and monotonous, nothing but

sandstone rock, the surfaces of which were burned as black as coals,

but turned into burning golden yellow at every crack, and every ravine,

whence a number of sand-rivulets, like fire-streams from black dross,

ran and filled the valleys. No tree, no tuft of grass had we yet seen,

also no animals, except a few vultures and crows feeding on the carcase

of the latest fallen camel.... Over a wild and broken path, and cutting

stones, we came deeper and deeper into the gorge. The first wide

basins were empty, we therefore left the camels and donkeys behind,

climbed up the smooth granite wall, and thus proceeded amidst these

grand rocks from one basin to another; they were all empty. Behind

there, in the farthest ravine, the guide said there must be water,

for it was never empty; but there proved to be not a single drop. We

were obliged to return dry.... We saw the most beautiful mirages very

early in the day; they most minutely resemble seas and lakes, in which

mountains, rocks, and everything in their vicinity, are reflected

as in the clearest water. They form a remarkable contrast with the

staring dry desert, and have probably deceived many a poor wanderer,

as the legend goes. If one be not aware that no water is there, it is

quite impossible to distinguish the appearance from the reality. A

few days ago I felt quite sure that I perceived an overflowing of

the Nile, or a branch near El Mechêref, and rode towards it, but only

found Bahr Sheitan, Satan's water, as the Arabs call it.' [133]

Amid such scenery the Sphinx arose. Egypt was able to recognise the

problem of blended barrenness and beauty--alternation of Nature's

flowing breast and leonine claw--but could she return the right

answer? The primitive Egyptian answer may, indeed, as I have guessed,

be the great monuments of her civilisation, but her historic solution

has been another world. This world a desert, with here and there a

momentary oasis, where man may dance and feast a little, stimulated

by the corpse borne round the banquet, ere he passes to paradise. So

thought they and were deceived; from generation to generation have

they been destroyed, even unto this day. How destroyed, Lepsius may

again be our witness.

'The Sheîkh of the Saadîch-derwishes rides to the chief Sheîkh of all

the derwishes of Egypt, El Bekri. On the way thither, a great number

of these holy folk, and others, too, who fancy themselves not a whit

behind-hand in piety, throw themselves flat on the ground, with their

faces downward, and so that the feet of one lie close to the head of

the next; over this living carpet the sheîkh rides on his horse, which

is led on each side by an attendant, in order to compel the animal to

the unnatural march. Each body receives two treads of the horse; most

of them jump up again without hurt, but whoever suffers serious, or as

it occasionally happens, mortal injury, has the additional ignominy

to bear of not having pronounced, or not being able to pronounce,

the proper prayers and magical charms that alone could save him.'

'What a fearful barbarous worship' (the Sikr, in which the derwishes

dance until exhausted, howling 'No God but Allah') 'which the astounded

multitude, great and small, gentle and simple, gaze upon seriously,

and with stupid respect, and in which it not unfrequently takes a

part! The invoked deity is manifestly much less an object of reverence

than the fanatic saints who invoke him; for mad, idiotic, or other

psychologically-diseased persons are very generally looked upon as

holy by the Mohammedans, and treated with great respect. It is the

demoniacal, incomprehensibly-acting, and therefore fearfully-observed,

power of nature that the natural man always reveres when he perceives

it, because he is sensible of some connection between it and his

intellectual power, without being able to command it; first in the

mighty elements, then in the wondrous but obscure law-governed

instincts of animals, and at last in the yet more overpowering

ecstatical or generally abnormal mental condition of his own race.'

The right answer to the enigma of the Sphinx is Man. But this creature

prostrating himself under the Sheîkh's horse, or under the invisible

Sheîkh called Allah, and ascribing sanctity to the half-witted, is not

Man at all. Those hard-worked slaves who escaped into the wilderness,

and set up for worship an anthropomorphic Supreme Will, and sought

their promised milk and honey in this world alone, carried with them

the only force that could rightly answer the Sphinx. Their Allah or

Elohim they heard say,--'Why howlest thou to me? Go forward.' Somewhat

more significant than his usual jests was that cartoon of Punch which

represented the Sphinx with relaxed face smiling recognition on the

most eminent of contemporary Israelites returning to the land of his

race's ancient bondage, to buy the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal half

answers the Sphinx; when man has subdued the Great Desert to a sea,

the solution will be complete, and the Sphinx may cast herself into it.

Far and wide through the Southern world have swarmed the

locusts described by Lepsius, and with them have migrated many

superstitions. The writer of this well remembers the visit of the

so-called 'Seventeen-year locusts,' to the region of Virginia where he

was born, and across many years can hear the terrible never-ceasing

roar coming up from the woods, uttering, as all agreed, the ominous

word 'Pharaoh.' On each wing every eye could see the letter W,

signifying War. With that modern bit of ancient Egypt in my memory,

I find the old Locust-mythology sufficiently impressive.

By an old tradition the Egyptians, as described by Lepsius, connected

the locusts with the comet. In the Apocalypse (ix.) a falling star

is the token of the descent of the Locust-demon to unlock the pit

that his swarms may issue forth for their work of destruction. Their

king Abaddon, in Greek Apollyon,--Destroyer,--has had an evolution

from being the angel of the two (rabbinical) divisions of Hades to the

successive Chiefs of Saracenic hordes. It is interesting to compare the

graphic description of a locust-storm in Joel, with its adaptation to

an army of human destroyers in the Apocalypse. And again the curious

description of these hosts of Abaddon in the latter book, partly repeat

the strange notions of the Bedouins concerning the locust,--one of

whom, says Niebuhr, 'compared the head of the locust to that of the

horse; its breast to that of a lion; its feet to those of a camel;

its body to that of the serpent; its tail to that of the scorpion;

its horns (antennæ) to the locks of hair of a virgin.' The present

generation has little reason to deny the appropriateness of the

biblical descriptions of Scythian hordes as locusts. 'The land is as

the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness.'

The ancient seeming contest between apparent Good and Evil in Egypt,

was represented in the wars of Ra and Set. It is said (Gen. iv. 26),

'And to Seth, to him also was born a son; and he called his name

Enos; then began men to call upon the name of the Lord.' Aquila

reads this--'Then Seth began to be called by the name of the

Lord.' Mr. Baring-Gould remarks on this that Seth was at first regarded

by the Egyptians as the deity of light and civilisation, but that

they afterwards identified as Typhon, because he was the chief god of

the Hyksos or shepherd kings; and in their hatred of these oppressors

the name of Seth was everywhere obliterated from their monuments, and

he was represented as an ass, or with an ass's head. [134] But the

earliest date assigned to the Hyksos dominion in Egypt, B.C. 2000,

coincides with that of the Egyptian planisphere in Kircher, [135]

where Seth is found identified with Sirius, or the dog-headed Mercury,

in Capricorn. This is the Sothiac Period, or Cycle of the Dog-star. He

was thus associated with the goat and the winter solstice, to which

(B.C. 2000) Capricorn was adjacent. That Seth or Set became the

name for the demon of disorder and violence among the Egyptians is,

indeed, probably due to his being a chief god, among some tribes

Baal himself, among the Asiatics, before the time of the Hyksos. It

was already an old story to put their neighbours' Light for their own

Darkness. The Ass's ears they gave him referred not to his stupidity,

but to his hearing everything, as in the case of the Ass of Apuleius,

and the ass Nicon of Plutarch, or, indeed, the many examples of the

same kind which preceeded the appearance of this much misunderstood

animal as the steed of Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem. In

Egyptian symbolism those long ears were as much dreaded as devils'

horns. From the eyes of Ra all beneficent things, from the eyes of Set

all noxious things, were produced. Amen-Ra, as the former was called,

slew the son of Set, the great serpent Naka, which in one hymn is

perhaps tauntingly said to have 'saved his feet.' Amen-Ra becomes

Horus and Set becomes Typhon. The Typhonian myth is very complex,

and includes the conflict between the Nile and all its enemies--the

crocodiles that lurk in it, the sea that swallows it, the drouth that

dries it, the burning heat that brings malaria from it, the floods

that render it destructive--and Set was through it evolved to a point

where he became identified with Saturn, Sheitan, or Satan. Plutarch,

identifying Set with Typho, says that those powers of the universal

Soul, which are subject to the influences of passions, and in the

material system whatever is noxious, as bad air, irregular seasons,

eclipses of the sun and moon, are ascribed to Typho. The name Set,

according to him, means 'violent' and 'hostile;' and he was described

as 'double-headed,' 'he who has two countenances,' and 'the Lord of

the World.' Not the least significant fact, in a moral sense, is that

Set or Typho is represented as the brother of Osiris whom he slew.

Without here going into the question of relationship between Typhaon

and Typhoeus, we may feel tolerably certain that the fire-breathing

hurricane-monster Typhaon of Homer, and the hundred-headed,

fierce-eyed roarer Typhoeus--son of Tartarus, father of Winds and

Harpies--represent the same ferocities of Nature. No fitter place

was ever assigned him than the African desert, and the story of

the gods and goddesses fleeing before Typhon into Egypt, and there

transforming themselves into animals, from terror, is a transparent

tribute to the dominion over the wilderness of sand exercised by the

typhoon in its many moods. The vulture-harpy tearing the dead is his

child. He is many-headed; now hot, stifling, tainted; now tempestuous;

here sciroc, there hurricane, and often tornado. It may be indeed that

as at once coiled in the whirlwind and blistering, he is the fiery

serpent to appease whom Moses lifted the brasen serpent for the worship

of Israel. I have often seen snakes hung up by negroes in Virginia,

to bring rain in time of drouth. Typhon, as may easily be seen by the

accompanying figure (14), is a hungry and thirsty demon. His tongue is

lolling out with thirst. [136] His later connection with the underworld

is shown in various myths, one of which seems to suggest a popular

belief that Typhon is not pleased with the mummies withheld from him,

and that he can enjoy his human viands only through burials of the

dead. In Egypt, after the Coptic Easter Monday--called Shemmen-Nesseem

(smelling the zephyr)--come the fifty-days' hot wind, called Khamseen

or Cain wind. After slaying Abel, Cain wandered amid such a wind,

tortured with fever and thirst. Then he saw two birds fight in the

air; one having killed the other scratched a hole in the desert sand

and buried it. Cain then did the like by his brother's body, when a

zephyr sprang up and cooled his fever. But still, say the Alexandrians,

the fifty-days' hot Cain wind return annually.

In pictures of the mirage, or in cloud-shapes faintly illumined by

the afterglow, the dwellers beside the plains of sand saw, as in

phantasmagoria, the gorgeous palaces, the air-castles, and mysterious

cities, which make the romance of the desert. Unwilling to believe

that such realms of barrenness had ever been created by any good god,

they beheld in dreams, which answer to nature's own mirage-dreaming,

visions of dynasties passed away, of magnificent palaces and monarchs

on whose pomp and heaven-defying pride the fatal sand-storm had fallen,

and buried their glories in the dust for ever. The desert became the

emblem of immeasurable all-devouring Time. In many of these legends

there are intimations of a belief that Eden itself lay where now all is

unbroken desert. In the beautiful legend in the Midrash of Solomon's

voyage on the Wind, the monarch alighted near a lofty palace of gold,

'and the scent there was like the scent of the garden of Eden.' The

dust had so surrounded this palace that Solomon and his companions only

learned that there had been an entrance from an eagle in it thirteen

centuries old, which had heard from its father the tradition of an

entrance on the western side. The obedient Wind having cleared away

the sand, a door was found on whose lock was written, 'Be it known to

you, ye sons of men, that we dwelt in this palace in prosperity and

delight many years. When the famine came upon us we ground pearls

in the mill instead of wheat, but it profited us nothing.' Amid

marvellous splendours, from chamber to chamber garnished with ruby,

topaz, emerald, Solomon passed to a mansion on whose three gates

were written admonitions of the transitory nature of all things

but--Death. 'Let not fortune deceive thee.' 'The world is given from

one to another.' On the third gate was written, 'Take provision for

thy journey, and make ready food for thyself while it is yet day;

for thou shalt not be left on the earth, and thou knowest not the day

of thy Death.' This gate Solomon opened and saw within a life-like

image seated: as the monarch approached, this image cried with a

loud voice, 'Come hither, ye children of Satan; see! King Solomon is

come to destroy you.' Then fire and smoke issued from the nostrils of

the image; and there were loud and bitter cries, with earthquake and

thunder. But Solomon uttered against them the Ineffable Name, and all

the images fell on their faces, and the sons of Satan fled and cast

themselves into the sea, that they might not fall into the hands of

Solomon. The king then took from the neck of the image a silver tablet,

with an inscription which he could not read, until the Almighty sent

a youth to assist him. It said:--'I, Sheddad, son of Ad, reigned over

a thousand thousand provinces, and rode on a thousand thousand horses;

a thousand thousand kings were subject to me, and a thousand thousand

warriors I slew. Yet in the hour that the Angel of Death came against

me, I could not withstand him. Whoso shall read this writing let him

not trouble himself greatly about this world, for the end of all men

is to die, and nothing remains to man but a good name.' [137]

Azazel--'of doubtful meaning'--is the biblical name of the Demon of the

Desert (Lev. xvi.). 'Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats: one lot

for Jehovah, and the other for Azazel. And Aaron shall bring the goat

upon which the lot for Jehovah fell, and offer him for a sin-offering:

But the goat, on which the lot for Azazel fell, shall be presented

alive before Jehovah, to make an atonement with him, to let him go to

Azazel in the wilderness.... And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon

the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of

the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins,

putting them upon the head of the goat, and send him away by the hand

of a fit man into the desert. And the goat shall bear upon him all

their iniquities unto a land not inhabited; and he shall let go the

goat in the desert.' Of the moral elements here involved much will

have to be said hereafter. This demon ultimately turned to a devil;

and persisting through both forms is the familiar principle that it

is 'well enough to have friends on both sides' so plainly at work in

the levitical custom; but it is particularly interesting to observe

that the same animal should be used as offerings to the antagonistic

deities. In Egyptian Mythology we find that the goat had precisely

this two-fold consecration. It was sacred to Chem, the Egyptian Pan,

god of orchards and of all fruitful lands; and it became also sacred

to Mendes, the 'Destroyer,' or 'Avenging Power' of Ra. It will thus

be seen that the same principle which from the sun detached the

fructifying from the desert-making power, and made Typhon and Osiris

hostile brothers, prevailed to send the same animal to Azazel in the

Desert and Jehovah of the milk and honey land. Originally the goat was

supreme. The Samaritan Pentateuch, according to Aben Ezra (Preface to

Esther), opens, 'In the beginning Ashima created the heaven and the

earth.' In the Hebrew culture-myth of Cain and Abel, also brothers,

there may be represented, as Goldziher supposes, the victory of the

agriculturist over the nomad or shepherd; but there is also traceable

in it the supremacy of the Goat, Mendez or Azima. 'Abel brought the

firstling of the goats.'

Very striking is the American (Iroquois) myth of the conflict between

Joskeha and Tawiscara,--the White One and the Dark One. They were

twins, born of a virgin who died in giving them life. Their grandmother

was the moon (Ataensic, she who bathes). These brothers fought, Joskeha

using as weapon the horns of a stag, Tawiscara the wild-rose. The

latter fled sorely wounded, and the blood gushing from him turned to

flint-stones. The victor, who used the stag-horns (the same weapon

that Frey uses against Beli, in the Prose Edda, and denoting perhaps a

primitive bone-age art), destroyed a monster frog which swallowed all

the waters, and guided the torrents into smooth streams and lakes. He

stocked the woods with game, invented fire, watched and watered crops,

and without him, says the old missionary Brebeuf, 'they think they

could not boil a pot.' The use by the desert-demon Tawiscara of a

wild rose as his weapon is a beautiful touch in this myth. So much

loveliness grew even amid the hard flints. One is reminded of the

closing scene in the second part of Goethe's Faust. There, when Faust

has realised the perfect hour to which he can say, 'Stay, thou art

fair!' by causing by his labour a wilderness to blossom as a rose,

he lies down in happy death; and when the demons come for his soul,

angels pelt them with roses, which sting them like flames. Not wild

roses were these, such as gave the Dark One such poor succour. The

defence of Faust is the roses he has evoked from briars.

CHAPTER VIII.

OBSTACLES.

Mephistopheles on Crags--Emerson on Monadnoc--Ruskin on

Alpine peasants--Holy and Unholy Mountains--The Devil's

Pulpit--Montagnards--Tarns--Tenjo--T'ai-shan--Apocatequil--Tyrolese

Legends--Rock Ordeal--Scylla and Charybdis--Scottish

Giants--Pontifex--Devil's Bridges--Le géant Yéous.

Related to the demons of Barrenness, and to the hostile human demons,

but still possessing characteristics of their own, are the demons

supposed to haunt gorges, mountain ranges, ridges of rocks, streams

which cannot be forded and are yet unbridged, rocks that wreck the

raft or boat. Each and every obstruction that stood in the way of man's

plough, or of his first frail ship, or his migration, has been assigned

its demon. The reader of Goethe's page has only to turn to the opening

lines of Walpurgisnacht in Faust to behold the real pandemonium of

the Northern man, as in Milton he may find that of the dweller amid

fiery deserts and volcanoes. That labyrinth of vales, crossed with

wild crag and furious torrent, is the natural scenery to surround

the orgies of the phantoms which flit from the uncultured brain to

uncultured nature. Elsewhere in Goethe's great poem, Mephistopheles

pits against the philosophers the popular theory of the rugged remnants

of chaos in nature, and the obstacles before which man is powerless.

FAUST. For me this mountain mass rests nobly dumb;

I ask not whence it is, nor why 'tis come?

Herself when Nature in herself did found

This globe of earth, she then did purely round;

The summit and abyss her pleasure made,

Mountain to mountain, rock to rock she laid;

The hillocks down she neatly fashion'd then,

To valleys soften'd them with gentle train.

Then all grew green and bloom'd, and in her joy

She needs no foolish spoutings to employ.

MEPHISTOPHELES. So say ye! It seems clear as noon to ye,

Yet he knows who was there the contrary.

I was hard by below, when seething flame

Swelled the abyss, and streaming fire forth came;

When Moloch's hammer forging rock to rock,

Far flew the fragment-cliffs beneath the shock:

Of masses strange and huge the land was full;

Who clears away such piles of hurl'd misrule?

Philosophers the reason cannot see;

There lies the rock, and they must let it be.

We have reflected till ashamed we've grown;

The common folk can thus conceive alone,

And in conception no disturbance know,

Their wisdom ripen'd has long while ago:

A miracle it is, they Satan honour show.

My wanderer on faith's crutches hobbles on

Towards the devil's bridge and devil's stone. [138]

The great American poet made his pilgrimage to the mountain so

beautiful in the distance, thinking to find there the men of equal

elevation. Did not Milton describe Freedom as 'a mountain nymph?'

To myself I oft recount

The tale of many a famous mount,--

Wales, Scotland, Uri, Hungary's dells;

Roys, and Scanderbergs, and Tells.

Here Nature shall condense her powers,

Her music, and her meteors,

And lifting man to the blue deep

Where stars their perfect courses keep,

Like wise preceptor, lure his eye.

To sound the science of the sky.

But instead of finding there the man using those crags as a fastness

to fight pollution of the mind, he

searched the region round

And in low hut my monarch found:

He was no eagle, and no earl;--

Alas! my foundling was a churl,

With heart of cat and eyes of bug,

Dull victim of his pipe and mug. [139]

Ruskin has the same gloomy report to make of the mountaineers of

Europe. 'The wild goats that leap along those rocks have as much

passion of joy in all that fair work of God as the men that toil

among them. Perhaps more.' 'Is it not strange to reflect that hardly

an evening passes in London or Paris but one of those cottages is

painted for the better amusement of the fair and idle, and shaded

with pasteboard pines by the scene-shifter; and that good and kind

people,--poetically minded,--delight themselves in imagining the

happy life led by peasants who dwell by Alpine fountains, and kneel

to crosses upon peaks of rock? that nightly we lay down our gold to

fashion forth simulacra of peasants, in gay ribbons and white bodices,

singing sweet songs and bowing gracefully to the picturesque crosses;

and all the while the veritable peasants are kneeling, songlessly, to

veritable crosses in another temper than the kind and fair audiences

dream of, and assuredly with another kind of answer than is got out

of the opera catastrophe.' [140]

The writer remembers well the emphasis with which a poor woman at whose

cottage he asked the path to the Natural Bridge in Virginia said,

'I don't know why so many people come to these rocks; for my part,

give me a level country.' Many ages lay between that aged crone and

Emerson or Ruskin, and they were ages of heavy war with the fortresses

of nature. The fabled ordeals of water and fire through which the human

race passed were associated with Ararat and Sinai, because to migrating

or farming man the mountain was always an ordeal, irrespective even of

its torrents or its occasional lava-streams. A terrible vista is opened

by the cry of Lot, 'I cannot escape to the mountain lest some evil take

me!' Not even the fire consuming Sodom in the plains could nerve him

to dare cope with the demons of the steep places. As time went on,

devotees proved to the awe-stricken peasantries their sanctity and

authority by combating those mountain demons, and erecting their altars

in the 'high places.' So many summits became sacred. But this very

sanctity was the means of bringing on successive demoniac hordes to

haunt them; for every new religion saw in those altars in 'high places'

not victories over demons, but demon-shrines. And thus mountains became

the very battlefields between rival deities, each demon to his or her

rival; and the conflict lasts from the cursing of the 'high places'

by the priests of Israel [141] to the Devil's Pulpits of the Alps

and Apennines. Among the beautiful frescoes at Baden is that of the

Angel's and the Devil's Pulpit, by Götzenberger. Near Gernsbach,

appropriately at the point where the cultivable valley meets the

unconquerable crests of rock, stand the two pulpits from which Satan

and an Angel contended, when the first Christian missionaries had

failed to convert the rude foresters. When, by the Angel's eloquence,

all were won from the Devil's side except a few witches and usurers,

the fiend tore up great masses of rock and built the 'Devil's Mill'

on the mountain-top; and he was hurled down by the Almighty on the

rocks near 'Lord's Meadow,' where the marks of his claws may still

be seen, and where, by a diminishing number of undiminished ears,

his groans are still heard when a storm rages through the valley.

Such conflicts as these have been in some degree associated with every

mountain of holy or unholy fame. Each was in its time a prosaic Hill

Difficulty, with lions by no means chained, to affright the hearts

of Mistrust and Timorous, till Dervish or Christian impressed there

his holy footprint, visible from Adam's Peak to Olivet, or built

there his convents, discernible from Meru and Olympus to Pontyprydd

and St. Catharine's Hill. By necessary truces the demons and deities

repair gradually to their respective summits,--Seir and Sinai hold

each their own. But the Holy Hills have never equalled the number of

Dark Mountains [142] dreaded by man. These obstructive demons made

the mountains Moul-ge and Nin-ge, names for the King and Queen of

the Accadian Hell; they made the Finnish Mount Kippumaki the abode

of all Pests. They have identified their name (Elf) with the Alps,

given nearly every tarn an evil fame, and indeed created a special

class of demons, 'Montagnards,' much dreaded by mediæval miners,

whose faces they sometimes twisted so that they must look backward

physically, as they were much in the habit of doing mentally, for ever

afterward. Gervais of Tilbury, in his Chronicle, declares that on the

top of Mount Canigon in France, which has a very inaccessible summit,

there is a black lake of unknown depth, at whose bottom the demons

have a palace, and that if any one drops a stone into that water,

the wrath of the mountain demons is shown in sudden and frightful

tempests. From a like tarn in Cornwall, as Cornish Folklore claims,

on an accessible but very tedious hill, came up the hand which received

the brand Escalibore when its master could wield it no more,--as told

in the Morte D'Arthur, with, however, clear reference to the sea.

I cannot forbear enlivening my page with the following sketch of a

visit of English officers to the realm of Ten-jo, the long-nosed

Mountain-demon of Japan, which is very suggestive of the mental

atmosphere amid which such spectres exist. The mountains and forests

of Japan are, say these writers, inhabited as thickly by good and

evil spirits as the Hartz and Black Forest, and chief among them,

in horrible sanctity, is O-yama,--the word echoes the Hindu Yama,

Japanese Amma, kings of Hades,--whose demon is Ten-jo. 'Abdul and

Mulney once started, on three days' leave, with the intention of

climbing to the summit--not of Ten-jo's nose, but of the mountain;

their principal reason for so doing being simply that they were told

by every one that they had better not. They first tried the ascent on

the most accessible side, but fierce two-sworded yakomins jealously

guarded it; and they were obliged to make the attempt on the other,

which was almost inaccessible, and was Ten-jo's region. The villagers

at the base of the mountain begged them to give up the project; and

one old man, a species of patriarch, reasoned with them. 'What are

you going to do when you get to the top?' he asked. Our two friends

were forced to admit that their course, then, would be very similar

to that of the king of France and his men--come down again.

The old man laughed pityingly, and said, 'Well, go if you like; but,

take my word for it, Ten-jo will do you an injury.'

They asked who Ten-jo was.

'Why Ten-jo,' said the old man, 'is an evil spirit, with a long nose,

who will dislocate your limbs if you persist in going up the mountain

on this side.'

'How do you know he has got a long nose?' they asked, 'Have you ever

seen him?'

'Because all evil spirits have long noses'--here Mulney hung his

head,--'and,' continued the old man, not noticing how dreadfully

personal he was becoming to one of the party, 'Ten-jo has the longest

of the lot. Did you ever know a man with a long nose who was good?'

'Come on,' said Mulney hurriedly to Abdul, 'or the old fool will make

me out an evil spirit.'

'Syonara,' said the old man as they walked away, 'but look out for

Ten-jo!'

After climbing hard for some hours, and not meeting a single human

being,--not even the wood-cutter could be tempted by the fine timber

to encroach on Ten-jo's precincts,--they reached the top, and enjoyed

a magnificent view. After a rest they started on their descent,

the worst part of which they had accomplished, when, as they were

walking quietly along a good path, Abdul's ankle turned under him,

and he went down as if he had been shot, with his leg broken in two

places. With difficulty Mulney managed to get him to the village

they had started from, and the news ran like wild-fire that Ten-jo

had broken the leg of one of the adventurous tojins.

'I told you how it would be,' exclaimed the old man, 'but you would

go. Ah, Ten-jo is a dreadful fellow!'

All the villagers, clustering round, took up the cry, and shook

their heads. Ten-jo's reputation had increased wonderfully by this

accident. Poor Abdul was on his back for eleven weeks, and numbers of

Japanese--for he was a general favourite amongst them--went to see him,

and to express their regret and horror at Ten-jo's behaviour. [143]

It is obvious that to a demon dwelling in a high mountain a

long nose would be variously useful to poke into the affairs of

people dwelling in the plains, and also to enjoy the scent of

their sacrifices offered at a respectful distance. That feature

of the face which Napoleon I. regarded as of martial importance,

and which is prominent in the warriors marked on the Mycenæ pottery,

has generally been a physiognomical characteristic of European ogres,

who are blood-smellers. That the significance of Ten-jo's long nose

is this, appears probable when we compare him with the Calmuck

demon Erlik, whose long nose is for smelling out the dying. The

Cossacks believed that the protector of the earth was a many-headed

elephant. The snouted demon (figure 15) is from a picture of Christ

delivering Adam and Eve from hell, by Lucas Van Leyden, 1521.

The Chinese Mountains also have their demons. The demon of the mountain

T'ai-shan, in Shantung, is believed to regulate the punishments

of men in this world and the next. Four other demon princes rule

over the principal mountain chains of the Empire. Mr. Dennys remarks

that mountainous localities are so regularly the homes of fairies in

Chinese superstition that some connection between the fact and the

relation of 'Elf' to 'Alp' in Europe is suggested. [144] But this

coincidence is by no means so remarkable as the appearance among

these Chinese mountain sprites of the magical 'Sesame,' so familiar

to us in Arabian legend. The celebrated mountain Ku'en Lun (usually

identified with the Hindoo Kush) is said to be peopled with fairies,

who cultivate upon its terraces the 'fields of sesamum and gardens

of coriander seeds,' which are eaten as ordinary food by those who

possess the gift of longevity.

In the superstitions of the American Aborigines we find gigantic demons

who with their hands piled up mountain-chains as their castles, from

whose peak-towers they hurled stones on their enemies in the plains,

and slung them to the four corners of the earth. [145] Such was the

terrible Apocatequil, whose statue was erected on the mountains, with

that of his mother on the one hand and his brother on the other. He

was Prince of Evil and the chief god of the Peruvians. From Quito

to Cuzco every Indian would give all he possessed to conciliate

him. Five priests, two stewards, and a crowd of slaves served his

image. His principal temple was surrounded by a considerable village,

whose inhabitants had no other occupation than to wait on him. [146]

The plaudits which welcomed the first railway train that sped beneath

the Alps, echoing amid their crags and gorges, struck with death

the old phantasms which had so long held sway in the imagination of

the Southern peasantry. The great tunnel was hewn straight through

the stony hearts of giants whom Christianity had tried to slay, and,

failing that, baptised and adopted. It is in the Tyrol that we find

the clearest survivals of the old demons of obstruction, the mountain

monarchs. Such is Jordan the Giant of Kohlhütte chasm, near Ungarkopf,

whose story, along with others, is so prettily told by the Countess Von

Gunther. This giant is something of a Ten-jo as to nose, for he smells

'human meat' where his pursued victims are hidden, and his snort makes

things tremble as before a tempest; but he has not the intelligence

ascribed to large noses, for the boys ultimately persuade him that

the way to cross a stream is to tie a stone around his neck, and he

is drowned. One of the giants of Albach could carry a rock weighing

10,000 pounds, and his comrades, while carrying others of 700 pounds,

could leap from stone to stone across rivers, and stoop to catch

the trout with their hands as they leaped. The ferocious Orco, the

mountain-ghost who never ages, fulfils the tradition of his classic

name by often appearing as a monstrous black dog, from whose side

stones rebound, and fills the air with a bad smell (like Mephisto). His

employment is hurling wayfarers down precipices. In her story of the

'Unholdenhof'--or 'monster farm' in the Stubeithal--the Countess Von

Gunther describes the natural character of the mountain demons.

'It was on this self-same spot that the forester and his son took up

their abode, and they became the dread and abomination of the whole

surrounding country, for they practised, partly openly and partly in

secret, the most manifold iniquities, so that their nature and bearing

grew into something demoniacal. As quarrellers very strong, and as

enemies dreadfully revengeful, they showed their diabolical nature by

the most inhuman deeds, which brought down injury not only on those

against whom their wrath was directed, but also upon their families for

centuries. In the heights of the mountains they turned the beds of the

torrents, and devastated by this means the most flourishing tracts of

land; on other places the Unholde set on fire whole mountain forests,

to allow free room for the avalanches to rush down and overwhelm the

farms. Through certain means they cut holes and fissures in the rocks,

in which, during the summer, quantities of water collected, which froze

in the winter, and then in the spring the thawing ice split the rocks,

which then rolled down into the valleys, destroying everything before

them.... But at last Heaven's vengeance reached them. An earthquake

threw the forester's house into ruins, wild torrents tore over it,

and thunderbolts set all around it in a blaze; and by fire and water,

with which they had sinned, father and son perished, and were condemned

to everlasting torments. Up to the present day they are to be seen

at nightfall on the mountain in the form of two fiery boars.' [147]

Some of these giants, as has been intimated, were converted. Such was

the case with Heimo, who owned and devastated a vast tract of country

on the river Inn, which, however, he bridged--whence Innsbruck--when

he became a christian and a monk. This conversion was a terrible

disappointment to the devil, who sent a huge dragon to stop the

building of the monastery; but Heimo attacked the dragon, killed him,

and cut out his tongue. With this tongue, a yard and a half long, in

his hand, he is represented in his statue, and the tongue is still

preserved in the cloister. Heimo became a monk at Wilten, lived

a pious life, and on his death was buried near the monastery. The

stone coffin in which the gigantic bones repose is shown there,

and measures over twenty-eight feet.

Of nearly the same character as the Mountain Demons, and possessing

even more features of the Demons of Barrenness, are the monsters

guarding rocky passes. They are distributed through land, sea,

and rivers. The famous rocks between Italy and Sicily bore the

names of dangerous monsters, Scylla and Charybdis, which have now

become proverbial expressions for alternative perils besetting any

enterprise. According to Homer, Scylla was a kind of canine monster

with six long necks, the mouths paved each with three rows of sharp

teeth; while Charybdis, sitting under her fig-tree, daily swallowed

the waters and vomited them up again. [148] Distantly related to these

fabulous monsters, probably, are many of the old notions of ordeals

undergone between rocks standing close together, or sometimes through

holes in rocks, of which examples are found in Great Britain. An

ordeal of this kind exists at Pera, where the holy well is reached

through a narrow slit. Visitors going there recently on New Year's

Day were warned by the dervish in charge--'Look through it at the

water if you please, but do not essay to enter unless your consciences

are completely free from sin, for as sure as you try to pass through

with a taint upon your soul, you will be gripped by the rock and held

there for ever.' [149] The 'Bocca della Verità'--a great stone face

like a huge millstone--stands in the portico of the church S. Maria

in Cosmedin at Rome, and its legend is that a suspected person was

required to place his hand through the open mouth; if he swore falsely

it would bite off the hand--the explanation now given being that a

swordsman was concealed behind to make good the judicial shrewdness

of the stone in case the oath were displeasing to the authorities.

The myth of Scylla, which relates that she was a beautiful maiden,

beloved by Glaucus, whom Circe through jealousy transformed to a

monster by throwing magic herbs into the well where she was wont to

bathe, is recalled by various European legends. In Thuringia, on the

road to Oberhof, stands the Red Stone, with its rosebush, and a stream

issuing from beneath it, where a beautiful maid is imprisoned. Every

seven years she may be seen bathing in the stream. On one occasion

a peasant passing by heard a sneeze in the rock, and called out,

'God help thee!' The sneeze and the benediction were repeated,

until at the seventh time the man cried, 'Oh, thou cursed witch,

deceive not honest people!' As he then walked off, a wailing voice

came out of the stone, 'Oh, hadst thou but only wished the last time

that God would help me. He would have helped me, and thou wouldst

have delivered me; now I must tarry till the Day of Judgment!' The

voice once cried out to a wedding procession passing by the stone,

'To-day wed, next year dead;' and the bride having died a year after,

wedding processions dread the spot.

The legends of giants and giantesses, so numerous in Great Britain,

are equally associated with rocky mountain-passes, or the boulders

they were supposed to have tossed thence when sportively stoning each

other. They are the Tor of the South and Ben of the North. The hills of

Ross-shire in Scotland are mythological monuments of Cailliachmore,

great woman, who, while carrying a pannier filled with earth and

stones on her back, paused for a moment on a level spot, now the site

of Ben-Vaishard, when the bottom of the pannier gave way, forming the

hills. The recurrence of the names Gog and Magog in Scotland suggests

that in mountainous regions the demons were especially derived from the

hordes of robbers and savages, among whom, in their uncultivable hills,

the ploughshare could never conquer the spear and club. Richard Doyle

enriched the first Exhibition of the Grosvenor Gallery in London, 1877,

with many beautiful pictures inspired by European Folklore. They were

a pretty garniture for the cemetery of dead religions. The witch once

seen on her broom departing from the high crags of Cuhillan, cheered

by her faithful dwarf, is no longer unlovely as in the days when she

was burned by proxy in some poor human hag; obedient to art--a more

potent wand than her own--she reascends to the clouds from which she

was borne, and is hardly distinguishable from them. Slowly man came

to learn with the poet--

It was the mountain streams that fed

The fair green plain's amenities. [150]

Then the giants became fairies, and not a few of these wore at last

the mantles of saints. A similar process has been undergone by another

subject, which finds its pretty epitaph in the artist's treatment. We

saw in two pictures the Dame Blanche of Normandy, lurking in the ravine

beside a stream under the dusk, awaiting yon rustic wood-cutter who is

presently horizontal in the air in that mad dance, after which he will

be found exhausted. As her mountain-sister is faintly shaped out of

the clouds that cap Cuhillan, this one is an imaginative outgrowth of

the twilight shadows, the silvery glintings of moving clouds mirrored

in pools, and her tresses are long luxuriant grasses. She is of a

sisterhood which passes by hardly perceptible gradations into others,

elsewhere described--the creations of Illusion and Night. She is not

altogether one of these, however, but a type of more direct danger--the

peril of fords, torrents, thickets, marshes, and treacherous pools,

which may seem shallow, but are deep.

The water-demons have been already described in their obvious aspects,

but it is necessary to mention here the simple obstructive river-demons

haunting fords and burns, and hating bridges. Many tragedies, and

many personifications of the forces which caused them, preceded the

sanctity of the title Pontifex. The torrent that roared across man's

path seemed the vomit of a demon: the sacred power was he who could

bridge it. In one of the most beautiful celebrations of Indra it is

said: 'He tranquillised this great river so that it might be crossed;

he conveyed across it in safety the sages who had been unable to pass

over it, and who, having crossed, proceeded to realise the wealth

they sought; in the exhilaration of the soma, Indra has done these

deeds.' [151] In Ceylon, the demon Tota still casts malignant spells

about fords and ferries.

Many are the legends of the opposition offered by demons to

bridge-building, and of the sacrifices which had to be made to them

before such works could be accomplished. A few specimens must suffice

us. Mr. Dennys relates a very interesting one of the 'Loh-family

bridge' at Shanghai. Difficulty having been found in laying the

foundations, the builder vowed to Heaven two thousand children if the

stones could be placed properly. The goddess addressed said she would

not require their lives, but that the number named would be attacked by

small-pox, which took place, and half the number died. A Chinese author

says, 'If bridges are not placed in proper positions, such as the

laws of geomancy indicate, they may endanger the lives of thousands,

by bringing about a visitation of small-pox or sore eyes.' At Hang-Chow

a tea-merchant cast himself into the river Tsien-tang as a sacrifice

to the Spirit of the dikes, which were constantly being washed away.

The 'Devil's Bridges,' to which Mephistopheles alludes so proudly, are

frequent in Germany, and most of them, whether natural or artificial,

have diabolical associations. The oldest structures often have legends

in which are reflected the conditions exacted by evil powers, of

those who spanned the fords in which men had often been drowned. Of

this class is the Montafon Bridge in the Tyrol, and another is the

bridge at Ratisbon. The legend of the latter is a fair specimen of

those which generally haunt these ancient structures. Its architect

was apprentice to a master who was building the cathedral, and laid

a wager that he would bridge the Danube before the other laid the

coping-stone of the sacred edifice. But the work of bridging the river

was hard, and after repeated failures the apprentice began to swear,

and wished the devil had charge of the business! Whereupon he of the

cloven foot appeared in guise of a friar, and agreed to build the

fifteen arches--for a consideration. The fee was to be the first three

that crossed the bridge. The cunning apprentice contrived that these

three should not be human, but a dog, a cock, and a hen. The devil,

in wrath at the fraud, tore the animals to pieces and disappeared;

a procession of monks passed over the bridge and made it safe;

and thereon are carved figures of the three animals. In most of the

stories it is a goat which is sent over and mangled, that poor animal

having preserved its character as scape-goat in a great deal of the

Folklore of Christendom. The Danube was of old regarded as under the

special guardianship of the Prince of Darkness, who used to make great

efforts to obstruct the Crusaders voyaging down it to rescue the Holy

Land from pagans. On one occasion, near the confluence of the Vilz

and Danube, he began hurling huge rocks into the river-bed from the

cliffs; the holy warriors resisted successfully by signing the cross

and singing an anthem, but the huge stone first thrown caused a whirl

and swell in that part of the river, which were very dangerous until

it was removed by engineers.

It is obvious, especially to the English, who have so long found a

defensive advantage in the silver streak of sea that separates them

from the Continent, that an obstacle, whether of mountain-range

or sea, would, at a certain point in the formation of a nation,

become as valuable as at another it might be obstructive. Euphemism

is credited with having given the friendly name 'Euxine' to the

rough 'Axine' Sea,--'terrible to foreigners.' But this is not so

certain. Many a tribe has found the Black Sea a protection and a

friend. In the case of mountains, their protective advantages would

account at once for Milton's celebration of Freedom as a mountain

nymph, and for the stupidity of the people that dwell amid them,

so often remarked; the very means of their independence would also

be the cause of their insulation and barbarity. It is for those who

go to and fro that knowledge is increased. The curious and inquiring

are most apt to migrate; the enterprising will not submit to be shut

away behind rocks and mountains; by their departure there would be

instituted, behind the barriers of rock and hill, a survival of the

stupidest. These might ultimately come to worship their chains and

cover their craggy prison-walls with convents and crosses. The demons

of aliens would be their gods. The climbing Hannibals would be their

devils. It might have been expected, after the passages quoted from

Mr. Ruskin concerning the bovine condition of Alpine peasantries,

that he would salute the tunnel through Mont Cenis. The peasantries

who would see in the sub-alpine engine a demon are extinct. Admiration

of the genii of obstruction, and horror of the demons that vanquished

them, are discoverable only in folk-tales distant enough to be pretty,

such as the interesting Serbian story of 'Satan's jugglings and God's

might,' in which fairies hiding in successively opened nuts vainly

try to oppose with fire and flood a she-demon pursuing a prince and

his bride, to whose aid at last comes a flash of lightning which

strikes the fiend dead.

One of the beautiful 'Contes d'une Grand'mère,' by George Sand,

Le géant Yéous, has in it the sense of many fables born of man's

struggle with obstructive nature. With her wonted felicity she

places the scene of this true human drama near the mountain Yéous,

in the Pyrenees, whose name is a far-off echo of Zeus. The summit

bore an enormous rock which, seen from a distance, appeared somewhat

like a statue. The peasant Miquelon, who had his little farm at the

mountain's base, whenever he passed made the sign of the cross and

taught his little son Miquel to do the same, telling him that the

great form was that of a pagan god, an enemy of the human race. An

avalanche fell upon the home and garden of Miquelon; the poor man

himself was disabled for life, his house and farm turned in a moment

into a wild mass of stones. Miquel looked up to the summit of Yéous;

the giant had disappeared; henceforth it was the mighty form of an

organic monster which the boy saw stretched over what had once been

their happy home and smiling acres. The family went about begging,

Miquelon repeating his strange appeal, 'Le géant s'est couché sur

moi.' But when at last the old man dies, the son resolves to fulfil the

silent dream of his life; he will encounter the giant Yéous still in

possession of his paternal acres. With eyes of the young world this

boy sees starting up here and there amid the vast debris, the head

of the demon he wishes to crush. He hurls stones hither and thither

where some fearful feature or limb appears. He is filled with rage;

his dreams are filled with attacks on the giant, in which the colossal

head tumbles only to reappear on the shoulders; every broken limb has

the self-repairing power. There is no progress. But as the boy grows,

and the contest grows, and need comes, there gathers in Miquel a

desire to clear the ground. When he begins to think, it is no longer

the passion to avenge his father on the stony giant which possesses

him, but to recover their lost garden. Thus, indeed, the giant himself

could alone be conquered. The huge rocks are split by gunpowder, some

fragments are made into fences, others into a comfortable mansion

for Miquel's mother and sisters. When the garden smiles again, and

all are happy the demon form is no longer discoverable. [152]

This little tale interprets with fine insight the demonology of

barrenness and obstruction. The boy's wrath against the unconscious

cause of his troubles is the rage often observed in children

who retaliate upon the table or chair on which they have been

bruised, and it repeats embryologically the rage of the world's

boyhood inspired by ascription of personal motives to inanimate

obstructions. Possibly such wrath might have added something to

the force with which man entered upon his combat with nature; but

George Sand's tale reminds us that whatever was gained in force was

lost in its misdirection. Success came in the proportion that fury

was replaced by the youth's growing recognition that he was dealing

with facts that could not be raged out of existence. It is crowned

when he makes friends with the unconquerable remnant of the giant,

and sees that he is not altogether evil.

It is at this stage that the higher Art, conversant with Beauty, enters

to relieve man of many moral wounds received in the struggle. Clothed

with moss and clematis, Yéous appears not so hideous after all. Further

invested by the genius of a Turner, he would be beautiful. Yéous is

a fair giant after all, only he needed finish. He is a type of nature.

The boyhood of the world has not passed away with Miquel. We find a

fictitious dualism cherished by the lovers of nature in their belief or

feeling that nature exerts upon man some spiritual influence. Ruskin

has said that in looking from the Campanile at Venice to the circle

of snow which crowns the Adriatic, and then to the buildings which

contain the works of Titian and Tintoret, he has felt unable to

answer the question of his own heart, By which of these--the nature

or the manhood--has God given mightier evidence of Himself? So nature

may teach the already taught. While Ruskin looks from the Campanile,

the peasant is fighting the mountain and calling its rocky grandeurs

by the devil's name; before the pictures he kneels. Untaught by art

and science, the mind can derive no elevation from nature, can find no

sympathy in it. It is a false notion that there is any compensation for

the ignorant, denied access to art-galleries, in ability to pass their

Sundays amid natural scenery. Health that may bring them, but mentally

they are still inside the prison-walls from which look the stony eyes

of Fates and Furies. Natural sublimities cannot refine minds crude

as themselves; they must pass through thought before they can feed

thought; it is nature transfigured in art that changes the snow-clad

mountain from a heartless giant to a saviour in snow-pure raiment.

CHAPTER IX.

ILLUSION.

Maya--Natural Treacheries--Misleaders--Glamour--Lorelei--Chinese

Mermaid--Transformations--Swan Maidens--Pigeon Maidens--The

Seal-skin--Nudity--Teufelsee--Gohlitsee--Japanese Siren--Dropping

Cave--Venusberg--Godiva--Will-o'-Wisp--Holy Fräulein--The Forsaken

Merman--The Water-Man--Sea Phantom--Sunken Treasures--Suicide.

Most beautiful of all the goddesses of India is Maya, Illusion. In

Hindu iconography she is portrayed in drapery of beautiful colours,

with decoration of richest gems and broidery of flowers. From above

her crown falls a veil which, curving above her knees, returns on

the other side, making, as it were, also an apron in which are held

fair animal forms--prototypes of the creation over which she has

dominion. The youthful yet serious beauty of her face and head is

surrounded with a semi-aureole, fringed with soft lightning, striated

with luminous sparks; and these are background for a cruciform nimbus

made of three clusters of rays. Maya presses her full breasts, from

which flow fountains of milk which fall in graceful streams to mingle

with the sea on which she stands.

So to our Aryan ancestors appeared the spirit that paints the universe,

flushing with tints so strangely impartial fruits forbidden and

unforbidden for man and beast. Mankind are slandered by the priest's

creed, Populus vult decipi; they are justly vindicated in Plato's

aphorism, 'Unwillingly is the soul deprived of truth;' but still

they are deceived. Large numbers are truly described by Swedenborg,

who found hells whose occupants believed themselves in heaven and

sang praises therefor. Such praises we may hear in the loud laughter

proceeding from dens where paradise has been gained by the cheap charm

of a glass of gin or a prostitute's caress. Serpent finds its ideal

in serpent. In heaven, says Swedenborg, we shall see things as they

are. But it is the adage of those who have lost their paradise, and

eat still the dry dust of reality not raised by science; the general

world has not felt that divine curse, or it has been wiped away so that

the most sensual fool may rejoice in feeling himself God's darling,

and pities the paganism of Plato. Man and beast are certain that they

do see things as they are. Maya's milk is tinctured from the poppies

of her robe; untold millions of misgivings have been put to sleep by

her tender bounty; the waters that sustain her are those of Lethe.

But beneath every illusive heaven Nature stretches also an illusive

hell. The poppies lose their force at last, and under the scourge

of necessity man wakes to find all his paradise of roses turned to

briars. Maya's breast-fountains pass deeper than the surface--from

one flows soft Lethe, the other issues at last in Phlegethon. Fear is

even a more potent painter than Hope, and out of the manifold menaces

of Nature can at last overlay the fairest illusions. It is a pathetic

fact, that so soon as man begins to think his first theory infers a

will at work wherever he sees no cause; his second, to suppose that

it will harm him!

Harriet Martineau's account of her childish terror caused by seeing

some prismatic colours dancing on the wall of a vacant room she was

entering--'imps' that had no worse origin than a tremulous candelabrum,

but which haunted her nerves through life--is an experience which may

be traced in the haunted childhood of every nation. There are other

phenomena besides these prismatic colours, which have had an evil name

in popular superstition, despite their beauty. Strange it might seem to

a Buddhist that yon exquisite tree with its blood-red buds should be

called the Judas-tree, as to us that the graceful swan which might be

the natural emblem of purity should be associated with witchcraft! But

the student of mythology will at every moment be impressed by the fact

that myths oftener represent a primitive science than mere fancies

and conceits. The sinuous neck of the swan, its passionate jealousy,

and the uncanny whistle, or else dumbness, found where, from so snowy

an outside, melody might have been looked for, may have made this

animal the type of a double nature. The treacherous brilliants of

the serpent, or honey protected by stings, or the bright blossoms of

poisons, would have trained the instinct which apprehends evil under

the apparition of beauty. This, as we shall have occasion to see,

has had a controlling influence upon the ethical constitution of our

nature. But it is at present necessary to observe that the primitive

science generally reversed the induction of our later philosophy; for

where an evil or pain was discovered in anything, it concluded that

such was its raison d'être, and its attractive qualities were simply

a demon's treacherous bait. However, here are the first stimulants

to self-control in the lessons that taught distrust of appearances.

Because many a pilgrim perished through a confidence in the

lake-pictures of the mirage which led to carelessness about economising

his skin of water, the mirage gained its present name--Bahr Sheitan,

or Devil's Water. The 'Will o' wisp,' which appeared to promise the

night-wanderer warmth or guidance, but led him into a bog, had its

excellent directions as to the place to avoid perverted by an unhappy

misunderstanding into a wilful falsehood, and has been branded ignis

fatuus. Most of the mimicries in nature gradually became as suspicious

to the primitive observer as aliases to a magistrate. The thing

that seemed to be fire, or water, but was not; the insect or animal

which took its hue or form from some other, from the leaf-spotted

or stem-striped cats to that innocent insect whose vegetal disguise

has gained for it the familiar name of 'Devil's Walking-stick;'

the humanlike hiss, laugh, or cry of animals; the vibratory sound or

movement which so often is felt as if near when it really is far; the

sand which seems hard but sinks; the sward which proves a bog;--all

these have their representation in the demonology of delusion. The

Coroados of Brazil says that the Evil One 'sometimes transforms

(himself) into a swamp, &c., leads him astray, vexes him, brings him

into danger, and even kills him.' [153] It is like an echo of Burton's

account. 'Terrestrial devils are those lares, genii, faunes, satyrs,

wood-nymphs, foliots, fairies, Robin Good-fellows, trulli, &c., which,

as they are most conversant with men, so they do them most harm. These

are they that dance on heaths and greens, as Lavater thinks with

Trithemius, and, as Olaus Magnus adds, leave that green circle which

we commonly find in plain fields. They are sometimes seen by old women

and children. Hieron. Pauli, in his description of the city of Bercino,

Spain, relates how they have been familiarly seen near that town, about

fountains and hills. 'Sometimes,' saith Trithemius, 'they lead simple

people into the recesses of mountains and show them wonderful sights,'

&c. Giraldus Cambrensis gives an instance of a monk of Wales that was

so deluded. Paracelsus reckons up many places in Germany where they

do usually walk about in little coats, some two feet long. [154] Real

dangers beset the woods and mountain passes, the swamp and quicksand;

in such forms did they haunt the untamed jungles of imagination!

Over that sea on which Maya stands extends the silvery wand of

Glamour. It descended to the immortal Old Man of the Sea, favourite

of the nymphs, oracle of the coasts, patron of fishermen, friend of

Proteus, who could see through all the sea's depths and assume all

shapes. How many witcheries could proceed from the many-tinted sea to

affect the eyes and enable them to see Triton with his wreathed horn,

and mermaids combing their hair, and marine monsters, and Aphrodite

poised on the white foam! Glaucoma it may be to the physicians;

but Glaucus it is in the scheme of Maya, who has never left land

or sea without her witness. Beside the Polar Sea a Samoyed sailor,

asked by Castrén 'where is Num' (i.e., Jumala, his god), pointed to

the dark distant sea, and said, He is there.

To the ancients there were two seas,--the azure above, and that

beneath. The imaginative child in its development passes all those

dreamy coasts; sees in clouds mountains of snow on the horizon, and in

the sunset luminous seas laving golden isles. When as yet to the young

world the shining sun was Berchta, the white fleecy clouds were her

swans. When she descended to the sea, as a thousand stories related,

it was to repeat the course of the sun for all tribes looking on a

westward sea. No one who has read that charming little book, 'The

Gods in Exile,' [155] will wonder at the happy instinct of learning

shown in Heine's little poem, 'Sonnenuntergang,' [156] wherein we

see shining solar Beauty compelled to become the spinning housewife,

or reluctant spouse of Poseidon:--

A lovely dame whom the old ocean-god

For convenience once had married;

And in the day-time she wanders gaily

Through the high heaven, purple-arrayed,

And all in diamonds gleaming,

And all beloved, and all amazing

To every worldly being,

And every worldly being rejoicing

With warmth and splendour from her glances.

Alas! at evening, sad and unwilling,

Back must she bend her slow steps

To the dripping house, to the barren embrace

Of grisly old age.

This of course is Heinesque, and has no relation to any legend of

Bertha, but is a fair specimen of mythology in the making, and is

quite in the spirit of many of the myths that have flitted around

sunset on the sea. Whatever the explanation of their descent, the

Shining One and her fleecy retinue were transformed. When to sea or

lake came Berchta (or Perchta), it was as Bertha of the Large Foot

(i.e., webbed), or of the Long Nose (beak), and her troop were

Swan-maidens. Their celestial character was changed with that of

their mistress. They became familiars of sorcerers and sorceresses. To

'wear yellow slippers' became the designation of a witch.

How did these fleecy white cloud-phantoms become demonised? What

connection is there between them and the enticing Lorelei and the

dangerous Rhine-daughters watching over golden treasures, once,

perhaps, metaphors of moonlight ripples? They who have listened to

the wild laughter of these in Wagner's opera, Das Rheingold, and

their weird 'Heiayaheia!' can hardly fail to suspect that they became

associated with the real human nymphs whom the summer sun still finds

freely sporting in the bright streams of Russia, Hungary, Austria,

and East Germany, naked and not ashamed. Many a warning voice against

these careless Phrynes, who may have left tattered raiment on the shore

to be transfigured in the silvery waves, must have gone forth from

priests and anxious mothers. Nor would there be wanting traditions

enough to impress such warnings. Few regions have been without such

stories as those which the traveller Hiouen-Thsang (7th century)

found in Buddhist chronicles of the Rakshasis of Ceylon. 'They waylay

the merchants who land in the isle, and, changing themselves to women

of great beauty, come before them with fragrant flowers and music;

attracting them with kind words to the town of Iron, they offer them

a feast, and give themselves up to pleasure with them; then shut them

in an iron prison, and eat them one after the other.'

There is a strong accent of human nature in the usual plot of the

Swan-maiden legend, her garments stolen while she bathes, and her

willingness to pay wondrous prices for them--since they are her

feathers and her swanhood, without which she must remain for ever

captive of the thief. The stories are told in regions so widely

sundered, and their minor details are so different, that we may at

any rate be certain that they are not all traceable solely to fleecy

clouds. Sometimes the garments of the demoness--and these beings

are always feminine--are not feathery, as in the German stories, but

seal-skins, or of nondescript red tissue. Thus, the Envoy Li Ting-yuan

(1801) records a Chinese legend of a man named Ming-ling-tzu, a poor

and worthy farmer without family, who, on going to draw water from

a spring near his house, saw a woman bathing in it. She had hung

her clothes on a pine tree, and, in punishment for her 'shameless

ways' and for her fouling the well, he carried off the dress. The

clothing was unlike the familiar Lewchewan in style, and 'of a ruddy

sunset colour.' The woman, having finished her bath, cried out in

great anger, 'What thief has been here in broad day? Bring back my

clothes, quick.' She then perceived Ming-ling-tzu, and threw herself

on the ground before him. He began to scold her, and asked why she

came and fouled his water; to which she replied that both the pine

tree and the well were made by the Creator for the use of all. The

farmer entered into conversation with her, and pointed out that fate

evidently intended her to be his wife, as he absolutely refused to

give up her clothes, while without them she could not get away. The

result was that they were married. She lived with him for ten years,

and bore him a son and a daughter. At the end of that time her fate

was fulfilled: she ascended a tree during the absence of her husband,

and having bidden his children farewell, glided off on a cloud and

disappeared. [157]

In South Africa a parallel myth, in its demonological aspect, bears

no trace of a cloud origin. In this case a Hottentot, travelling with

a Bushwoman and her child, met a troop of wild horses. They were all

hungry; and the woman, taking off a petticoat made of human skin,

was instantly changed into a lioness. She struck down a horse, and

lapped its blood; then, at the request of the Hottentot, who in his

terror had climbed a tree, she resumed her petticoat and womanhood, and

the friends, after a meal of horseflesh, resumed their journey. [158]

Among the Minussinian Tartars these demons partake of the nature of

the Greek Harpies; they are bloodthirsty vampyre-demons who drink

the blood of men slain in battle, darken the air in their flight,

and house themselves in one great black fiend. [159] As we go East

the portrait of the Swan-maiden becomes less dark, and she is not

associated with the sea or the under-world. Such is one among the

Malays, related by Mr. Tylor. In the island of Celebes it is said

that seven nymphs came down from the sky to bathe, and were seen by

Kasimbaha, who at first thought them white doves, but in the bath

perceived they were women. He stole the robe of one of them, Utahagi,

and as she could not fly without it, she became his wife and bare him

a son. She was called Utahagi because of a single magic white hair

she had; this her husband pulled out, when immediately a storm arose,

and she flew to heaven. The child was in great grief, and the husband

cast about how he should follow her up into the sky.

The Swan-maiden appears somewhat in the character of a Nemesis in

a Siberian myth told by Mr. Baring-Gould. A certain Samoyed who had

stolen a Swan-maiden's robe, refused to return it unless she secured

for him the heart of seven demon robbers, one of whom had killed

the Samoyed's mother. The robbers were in the habit of hanging

up their hearts on pegs in their tent. The Swan-maiden procured

them. The Samoyed smashed six of the hearts; made the seventh robber

resuscitate his mother, whose soul, kept in a purse, had only to be

shaken over the old woman's grave for that feat to be accomplished,

and the Swan-maiden got back her plumage and flew away rejoicing. [160]

In Slavonic Folklore the Swan-maiden is generally of a dangerous

character, and if a swan is killed they are careful not to show it to

children for fear they will die. When they appear as ducks, geese,

and other water-fowl, they are apt to be more mischievous than when

they come as pigeons; and it is deemed perilous to kill a pigeon,

as among sailors it was once held to kill an albatross. Afanasief

relates a legend which shows that, even when associated with the

water-king, the Tsar Morskoi or Slavonic Neptune, the pigeon preserves

its beneficent character. A king out hunting lies down to drink from

a lake (as in the story related on p. 146), when Tsar Morskoi seizes

him by the beard, and will not release him until he agrees to give

him his infant son. The infant prince, deserted on the edge of the

fatal lake, by advice of a sorceress hides in some bushes, whence he

presently sees twelve pigeons arrive, which, having thrown off their

feathers, disport themselves in the lake. At length a thirteenth,

more beautiful than the rest, arrives, and her sorochka (shift) Ivan

seizes. To recover it she agrees to be his wife, and, having told

him he will find her beneath the waters, resumes her pigeon-shape and

flies away. Beneath the lake he finds a beautiful realm, and though

the Tsar Morskoi treats him roughly and imposes heavy tasks on him,

the pigeon-maiden (Vassilissa) assists him, and they dwell together

happily. [161]

In Norse Mythology the vesture of the uncanny maid is oftenest a

seal-skin, and a vein of pathos enters the legends. Of the many

legends of this kind, still believed in Sweden and Norway, one has

been pleasantly versified by Miss Eliza Keary. A fisherman having

found a pretty white seal-skin, took it home with him. At night there

was a wailing at his door; the maid enters, becomes his wife, and

bears him three children. But after seven years she finds the skin,

and with it ran to the shore. The eldest child tells the story to

the father on his return home.

Then we three, Daddy,

Ran after, crying, 'Take us to the sea!

Wait for us, Mammy, we are coming too!

Here's Alice, Willie can't keep up with you!

Mammy, stop--just for a minute or two!'

At last we came to where the hill

Slopes straight down to the beach,

And there we stood all breathless, still

Fast clinging each to each.

We saw her sitting upon a stone,

Putting the little seal-skin on.

O Mammy! Mammy!

She never said goodbye, Daddy,

She didn't kiss us three;

She just put the little seal-skin on

And slipt into the sea!

Some of the legends of this character are nearly as realistic as

Mr. Swinburne's 'Morality' of David and Bathsheba. To imagine

the scarcity of wives in regions to which the primitive Aryan

race migrated, we have only to remember the ben trovato story of

Californians holding a ball in honour of a bonnet, in the days before

women had followed them in migration. To steal Bathsheba's clothes,

and so capture her, might at one period have been sufficiently common

in Europe to require all the terrors contained in the armoury of

tradition concerning the demonesses that might so be taken in, and

might so tempt men to take them in. In the end they might disappear,

carrying off treasures in the most prosaic fashion, or perhaps they

might bring to one's doors a small Trojan war. It is probable that

the sentiment of modesty, so far as it is represented in the shame

of nudity, was the result of prudential agencies. Though the dread

of nudity has become in some regions a superstition in the female

mind strong enough to have its martyrs--as was seen at the sinking

of the Northfleet and the burning hotel in St. Louis--it is one

that has been fostered by men in distrust of their own animalism. In

barbarous regions, where civilisation introduces clothes, the women

are generally the last to adopt them; and though Mr. Herbert Spencer

attributes this to female conservatism, it appears more probable

that it is because the men are the first to lose their innocence and

the women last to receive anything expensive. It is noticeable how

generally the Swan-maidens are said in the myths to be captured by

violence or stratagem. At the same time the most unconscious temptress

might be the means of breaking up homes and misleading workmen, and

thus become invested with all the wild legends told of the illusory

phenomena of nature in popular mythology.

It is marvellous to observe how all the insinuations of the bane were

followed by equal dexterities in the antedote. The fair tempters might

disguise their intent in an appeal to the wayfarer's humanity; and,

behold, there were a thousand well-attested narratives ready for the

lips of wife and mother showing the demoness appealing for succour

to be fatalest of all!

There is a stone on the Müggelsberger, in Altmark, which is said to

cover a treasure; this stone is sometimes called 'Devil's Altar,'

and sometimes it is said a fire is seen there which disappears when

approached. It lies on the verge of Teufelsee,--a lake dark and small,

and believed to be fathomless. Where the stone lies a castle once

stood which sank into the ground with its fair princess. But from the

underground castle there is a subterranean avenue to a neighbouring

hill, and from this hill of an evening sometimes comes an old woman,

bent over her staff. Next day there will be seen a most beautiful lady

combing her long golden hair. To all who pass she makes her entreaties

that they will set her free, her pathetic appeals being backed by offer

of a jewelled casket which she holds. The only means of liberating her

is, she announces, that some one shall bear her on his shoulders three

times round Teufelsee church without looking back. The experiment

has several times been made. One villager at his first round saw a

large hay-waggon drawn past him by four mice, and following it with

his eyes received blows on the ears. Another saw a waggon drawn by

four coal-black fire-breathing horses coming straight against him,

started back, and all disappeared with the cry 'Lost again for ever!' A

third tried and almost got through. He was found senseless, and on

recovering related that when he took the princess on his shoulders

she was light as a feather, but she grew heavier and heavier as he

bore her round. Snakes, toads, and all horrible animals with fiery

eyes surrounded him; dwarfs hurled blocks of wood and stones at him;

yet he did not look back, and had nearly completed the third round,

when he saw his village burst into flames; then he looked behind--a

blow felled him--and he seems to have only lived long enough to tell

this story. The youth of Köpernick are warned to steel their hearts

against any fair maid combing her hair near Teufelsee. But the folklore

of the same neighbourhood admits that it is by no means so dangerous

for dames to listen to appeals of this kind. In the Gohlitzsee, for

example, a midwife was induced to plunge in response to a call for aid;

having aided a little Merwoman in travail, she was given an apronful of

dust, which appeared odd until on shore it proved to be many thalers.

In countries where the popular imagination, instead of being

scientific, is trained to be religiously retrospective, it relapses

at the slightest touch into the infantine speculations of the human

race. Not long ago, standing at a shop-window in Ostend where a

'Japanese Siren' was on view, the clever imposture interested me

less than the comments of the passing and pausing observers. The

most frequent wonders seriously expressed were, whether she sang,

or combed her hair, or was under a doom, or had a soul to be

saved. Every question related to Circe, Ulysses and the Sirens, and

other conceptions of antiquity. The Japanese artists rightly concluded

they could float their Siren in any intellectual waters where Jonah

in his whale could pass, or a fish appear with its penny. Nay, even

in their primitive form the Sirens find their kith and kin still

haunting all the coasts of northern Europe. A type of the Irish and

Scottish Siren may be found in the very complete legend of one seen

by John Reid, shipmaster of Cromarty. With long flowing yellow hair

she sat half on a rock, half in water, nude and beautiful, half woman

half fish, and John managed to catch and hold her tight till she had

promised to fulfil three wishes; then, released, she sprang into the

sea. The wishes were all fulfilled, and to one of them (though John

would never reveal it) the good-luck of the Reids was for a century

after ascribed. [162]

The scene of this legend is the 'Dropping Cave,' and significantly

near the Lover's Leap. One of John's wishes included the success of

his courtship. These Caves run parallel with that of Venusberg, where

the minstrel Tannhäuser is tempted by Venus and her nymphs. Heine

finishes off his description of this Frau Venus by saying he fancied

he met her one day in the Place Bréda. 'What do you take this lady

to be?' asked he of Balzac, who was with him. 'She is a mistress,'

replied Balzac. 'A duchess rather,' returned Heine. But the friends

found on further explanation that they were both quite right. Venus'

doves, soiled for a time, were spiritualised at last and made white,

while the snowy swan grew darker. An old German word for swan,

elbiz, originally denoting its whiteness (albus), furthered its

connection with all 'elfish' beings--elf being from the same word,

meaning white; but, as in Goethe's 'Erl König,' often disguising a

dark character. The Swan and the Pigeon meet (with some modifications)

as symbols of the Good and Evil powers in the legend of Lohengrin. The

witch transforms the boy into a Swan, which, however, draws to save his

sister, falsely accused of his murder, the Knight of the Sangreal, who,

when the mystery of his holy name is inquired into by his too curious

bride, is borne away by white doves. These legends all bear in them,

however faintly, the accent of the early conflict of religion with

the wild passions of mankind. Their religious bearings bring us to

inquiries which must be considered at a later phase of our work. But

apart from purely moral considerations, it is evident that there must

have been practical dangers surrounding the early social chaos amid

which the first immigrants in Europe found themselves.

Although the legend of Lady Godiva includes elements of another origin,

it is probable that in the fate of Peeping Tom there is a distant

reflection of the punishment sometimes said to overtake those who

gazed too curiously upon the Swan-maiden without her feathers. The

devotion of the nude lady of Coventry would not be out of keeping

with one class of these mermaiden myths. There is a superstition, now

particularly strong in Iceland, that all fairies are children of Eve,

whom she hid away on an occasion when the Lord came to visit her,

because they were not washed and presentable. So he condemned them

to be for ever invisible. This superstition seems to be related to

an old debate whether these præternatural beings are the children of

Adam and Eve or not. A Scotch story bears against that conclusion. A

beautiful nymph, with a slight robe of green, came from the sea and

approached a fisherman while he was reading his Bible. She asked him if

it contained any promise of mercy for her. He replied that it contained

an offer of salvation to 'all the children of Adam;' whereupon with a

loud shriek she dashed into the sea again. Euphemism would co-operate

with natural compassion in saying a good word for 'the good little

people,' whether hiding in earth or sea. In Altmark, 'Will-o'-wisps'

are believed to be the souls of unbaptized children--sometimes of

lunatics--unable to rest in their graves; they are called 'Light-men,'

and it is said that though they may sometimes mislead they often guide

rightly, especially if a small coin be thrown them,--this being also

an African plan of breaking a sorcerer's spell. Christianity long

after its advent in Germany had to contend seriously with customs and

beliefs found in some lakeside villages where the fishermen regarded

themselves as in friendly relations with the præternatural guardians

of the waters, and unto this day speak of their presiding sea-maiden

as a Holy Fräulein. They hear her bells chiming up from the depths in

holy seasons to mingle with those whose sounds are wafted from church

towers; and it seems to have required many fables, told by prints of

fishermen found sitting lifeless on their boats while listening to

them, to gradually transfer reverence to the new christian fairy.

It may be they heard some such melody as that which has found its

finest expression in Mr. Matthew Arnold's 'Forsaken Merman:'--

Children dear, was it yesterday

(Call yet once) that she went away?

Once she sate with you and me,

On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,

And the youngest sate on her knee.

She comb'd its bright hair, and she tended it well,

When down swung the sound of the far-off bell.

She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea;

She said: 'I must go, for my kinsfolk pray

In the little grey church on the shore to-day.

'Twill be Easter-time in the world--ah me!

And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee.'

I said, 'Go up, dear heart, through the waves,

Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves.'

She smil'd, she went up through the surf in the bay.

Children dear, was it yesterday?

Perhaps we should find the antecedents of this Merman's lost Margaret,

whom he called back in vain, in the Danish ballad of 'The Merman and

the Marstig's Daughter,' who, in Goethe's version, sought the winsome

May in church, thither riding as a gay knight on

horse of the water clear,

The saddle and bridle of sea-sand were.

They went from the church with the bridal train,

They danced in glee, and they danced full fain;

They danced them down to the salt-sea strand,

And they left them standing there, hand in hand.

'Now wait thee, love, with my steed so free,

And the bonniest bark I'll bring for thee.'

And when they passed to the white, white sand,

The ships came sailing on to the land;

But when they were out in the midst of the sound,

Down went they all in the deep profound!

Long, long on the shore, when the winds were high,

They heard from the waters the maiden's cry.

I rede ye, damsels, as best I can--

Tread not the dance with the Water-Man!

According to other legends, however, the realm under-sea was not a

place for weeping. Child-eyes beheld all that the Erl-king promised,

in Goethe's ballad--

Wilt thou go, bonny boy? wilt thou go with me?

My daughters shall wait on thee daintily;

My daughters around thee in dance shall sweep,

And rock thee and kiss thee, and sing thee to sleep!

Or perhaps child-eyes, lingering in the burning glow of manhood's

passion, might see in the peaceful sea some picture of lost love like

that so sweetly described in Heine's 'Sea Phantom:'--

But I still leaned o'er the side of the vessel,

Gazing with sad-dreaming glances

Down at the water, clear as a mirror,

Looking yet deeper and deeper,--

Till far in the sea's abysses,

At first like dim wavering vapours,

Then slowly--slowly--deeper in colour,

Domes of churches and towers seemed rising,

And then, as clear as day, a city grand....

Infinite longing, wondrous sorrow,

Steal through my heart,--

My heart as yet scarce healed;

It seems as though its wounds, forgotten,

By loving lips again were kissed,

And once again were bleeding

Drops of burning crimson,

Which long and slowly trickle down

Upon an ancient house below there

In the deep, deep sea-town,

On an ancient, high-roofed, curious house,

Where, lone and melancholy,

Below by the window a maiden sits,

Her head on her arm reclined,--

Like a poor and uncared-for child;

And I know thee, thou poor and long-sorrowing child!

... I meanwhile, my spirit all grief,

Over the whole broad world have sought thee,

And ever have sought thee,

Thou dearly beloved,

Thou long, long lost one,

Thou finally found one,--

At last I have found thee, and now am gazing

Upon thy sweet face,

With earnest, faithful glances,

Still sweetly smiling;

And never will I again on earth leave thee.

I am coming adown to thee,

And with longing, wide-reaching embraces,

Love, I leap down to thy heart!

The temptations of fishermen to secure objects seen at the bottom of

transparent lakes, sometimes appearing like boxes or lumps of gold,

and even more reflections of objects in the upper world or air, must

have been sources of danger; there are many tales of their being so

beguiled to destruction. These things were believed treasures of the

little folk who live under water, and would not part with them except

on payment. In Blumenthal lake, 'tis said, there is an iron-bound

yellow coffer which fishermen often have tried to raise, but their

cords are cut as it nears the surface. At the bottom of the same

lake valuable clothing is seen, and a woman who once tried to secure

it was so nearly drowned that it is thought safer to leave it. The

legends of sunken towns (as in Lake Paarsteinchen and Lough Neagh),

and bells (whose chimes may be heard on certain sacred days), are

probably variants of this class of delusions. They are often said to

have been sunk by some final vindictive stroke of a magician or witch

resolved to destroy the city no longer trusting them. Landslides,

engulfing seaside homes, might originate legends like that of King

Gradlon's daughter Dahut, whom the Breton peasant sees in rough weather

on rocks around Poul-Dahut, where she unlocked the sluice-gates on

the city Is in obedience to her fiend-lover.

If it be remembered that less than fifty years ago Dr. Belon [163]

thought it desirable to anatomise gold fishes, and prove in various

ways that it is a fallacy to suppose they feed on pure gold (as

many a peasant near Lyons declares of the laurets sold daily in the

market), it will hardly be thought wonderful that perilous visions of

precious things were seen by early fishermen in pellucid depths, and

that these should at last be regarded as seductive arts of Lorelei,

who have given many lakes and rivers the reputation of requiring one

or more annual victims.

Possibly it was through accumulation of many dreams about beautiful

realms beneath the sea or above the clouds that suicide became among

the Norse folk so common. It was a proverb that the worst end was to

die in bed, and to die by suicide was to be like Egil, and Omund, and

King Hake, like nearly all the heroes who so passed to Valhalla. The

Northman had no doubt concerning the paradise to which he was going,

and did not wish to reach it enfeebled by age. But the time would come

when the earth and human affection must assert their claims, and the

watery tribes be pictured as cruel devourers of the living. Even so

would the wood-nymphs and mountain-nymphs be degraded, and fearful

legends of those lost and wandering in dark forests be repeated to

shuddering childhood. The actual dangers would mask themselves in

the endless disguises of illusion, the wold and wave be peopled with

cruel and treacherous seducers. Thus suicide might gradually lose

its charms, and a dismal underworld of heartless gnomes replace the

grottoes and fairies.

We may close this chapter with a Scottish legend relating to the

'Shi'ichs,' or Men of Peace, in which there is a strange intimation

of a human mind dreaming that it dreams, and so far on its way to

waking. A woman was carried away by these shadowy beings in order that

she might suckle her child which they had previously stolen. During her

retention she once observed the Shi'ichs anointing their eyes from a

caldron, and seizing an opportunity, she managed to anoint one of her

own eyes with the ointment. With that one eye she now saw the secret

abode and all in it 'as they really were.' The deceptive splendour

had vanished. The gaudy ornaments of a fairy grot had become the

naked walls of a gloomy cavern. When this woman had returned to live

among human beings again, her anointed eye saw much that others saw

not; among other things she once saw a 'man of peace,' invisible to

others, and asked him about her child. Astonished at being recognised,

he demanded how she had been able to discover him; and when she had

confessed, he spit in her eye and extinguished it for ever.

CHAPTER X.

DARKNESS.

Shadows--Night Deities--Kobolds--Walpurgisnacht--Night as

Abettor of Evil-doers--Nightmare--Dreams--Invisible Foes--Jacob

and his Phantom--Nott--The Prince of Darkness--The Brood of

Midnight--Second-Sight--Spectres of Souter Fell--The Moonshine

Vampyre--Glamour--Glam and Grettir--A Story of Dartmoor.

From the little night which clings to man even by day--his own

shadow--to the world's great shade of darkness, innumerable are the

coverts from which have emerged the black procession of phantoms which

have haunted the slumbers of the world, and betrayed the enterprise

of man.

How strange to the first man seemed that shadow walking beside him,

from the time when he saw it as a ghost tracking its steps and giving

him his name for a ghost, on to the period in which it seemed the

emanation of an occult power, as to them who brought their sick into

the streets to be healed by the passing shadow of Peter; and still

on to the day when Beaumont wrote--

Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,

Our fatal shadows that walk by us still;

or that in which Goethe found therein the mystical symbol of the

inward arrest of our moral development, and said 'No man can jump

off of his shadow.' And then from the culture of Europe we pass to

the Feejee-Islanders, and find them believing that every man has

two spirits. One is his shadow, which goes to Hades; the other is

his image as reflected in water, and it is supposed to stay near the

place where the man dies. [164] But, like the giants of the Brocken,

these demons of the Shadow are trembled at long after they are known

to be the tremblers themselves mirrored on air. Have we not priests

in England still fostering the belief that the baptized child goes

attended by a white spirit, the unbaptized by a dark one? Why then

need we apologise for the Fijians?

But little need be said here of demons of the Dark, for they are

closely related to the phantasms of Delusion, of Winter, and others

already described. Yet have they distinctive characters. As many as

were the sunbeams were the shadows; every goddess of the Dawn (Ushas)

cast her shadow; every Day was swallowed up by Night. This is the

cavern where hide the treacherous Panis (fog) in Vedic mythology,

they who steal and hide Indra's cows; this is the realm of Hades (the

invisible); this is the cavern of the hag Thökk (dark) in Scandinavian

mythology,--she who alone of all in the universe refused to weep

for Baldur when he was shut up in Helheim, where he had been sent

by the dart of his blind brother Hödr (darkness). In the cavern of

Night sleep the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, and Barbarossa, and all

slumbering phantoms whose genius is the night-winged raven. Thorr,

the Norse Hercules, once tried to lift a cat--as it seemed to him--from

the ground; but it was the great mid-earth serpent which encircles the

whole earth. Impossible feat as it was for Thorr--who got only one paw

of the seeming cat off the ground--in that glassless and gasless era,

invention has accomplished much in that direction; but the black Cat

is still domiciled securely among idols of the mental cave.

There is an Anglo-Saxon word, cof-godas (lit. cove-gods), employed as

the equivalent of the Latin lares (the Penates, too, are interpreted as

cof-godu, cofa signifying the inner recess of a house, penetrale). The

word in German corresponding to this cofa, is koben; and from this

Hildebrand conjectures kob-old to be derived. The latter part of

the word he supposes to be walt (one who 'presides over,' e.g.,

Walter); so that the original form would be kob-walt. [165] Here,

then, in the recesses of the household, among the least enlightened

of its members--the menials, who still often neutralise the efforts

of rational people to dispel the delusions of their children--the

discredited deities and demons of the past found refuge, and through

a little baptismal change of names are familiars of millions unto

this day. In the words of the ancient Hebrew, 'they lay in their

own houses prisoners of darkness, fettered with the bonds of a long

night.' 'No power of the fire might give them light, neither could

the bright flames of the stars lighten that horrible night.' [166]

Well is it added, 'Fear is nothing else but a betraying of the succours

which reason offereth,' a truth which finds ample illustration in the

Kobolds. These imaginary beings were naturally associated with the dark

recesses of mines. There they gave the name to our metal Cobalt. The

value of Cobalt was not understood until the 17th century, and the

metal was first obtained by the Swedish chemist Brandt in 1733. The

miners had believed that the silver was stolen away by Kobolds, and

these 'worthless' ores left in its place. Nickel had the like history,

and is named after Old Nick. So long did those Beauties slumber in

the cavern of Ignorance till Science kissed them with its sunbeam,

and led them forth to decorate the world!

How passed this (mental) cave-dweller even amid the upper splendours

and vastnesses of his unlit world? A Faust guided by his Mephistopheles

only amid interminable Hartz labyrinths.

How sadly rises, incomplete and ruddy,

The moon's lone disk, with its belated glow,

And lights so dimly, that, as one advances,

At every step one strikes a rock or tree!

Let us then use a Jack-o'-lantern's glances:

I see one yonder, burning merrily.

Ho, there! my friend! I'll levy thine attendance:

Why waste so vainly thy resplendence?

Be kind enough to light us up the steep!

Tell me, if we still are standing,

Or if further we're ascending?

All is turning, whirling, blending,

Trees and rocks with grinning faces,

Wandering lights that spin in mazes,

Still increasing and expanding. [167]

It could only have been at a comparatively late period of social

development that Sancho's benediction on the inventor of sleep could

have found general response. The Red Indian found its helplessness

fatal when the 'Nick of the Woods' was abroad; the Scotch sailor found

in it a demon's opiate when the 'Nigg of the Sea' was gathering his

storms above the sleeping watchman. It was among the problems of Job,

the coöperation of darkness with evil-doers.

The eye of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight;

He saith, No eye will see me,

And putteth a mask upon his face.

In the dark men break into houses;

In the day-time they shut themselves up;

They are strangers to the light.

The morning to them is the shadow of death;

They are familiar with the dark terrors of midnight.

Besides this fact that the night befriends and masks every treacherous

foe, it is also to be remembered that man is weakest at night. Not

only is he weaker than by day in the veil drawn over his senses,

but physiologically also. When the body is wearied out by the toils

or combats of the day, and the mind haunted by dreams of danger,

there are present all the terrors which Byron portrays around the

restless pillow of Sardanapalus. The war-horse of the day becomes

a night-mare in the darkness. In the Heimskringla it is recorded:

'Vanland, Svegdir's son, succeeded his father and ruled over the

Upsal domain. He was a great warrior, and went far around in different

lands. Once he took up his winter abode in Finland with Snio the Old,

and got his daughter Drisa in marriage; but in spring he set out

leaving Drisa behind, and although he had promised to return within

three years he did not come back for ten. Then Drisa sent a message to

the witch Hulda; and sent Visbur, her son by Vanland, to Sweden. Drisa

bribed the witch-wife Hulda, either that she should bewitch Vanland

to return to Finland or kill him. When this witch-work was going

on Vanland was at Upsal, and a great desire came over him to go to

Finland, but his friends and counsellors advised him against it, and

said the witchcraft of the Fin people showed itself in this desire of

his to go there. He then became very drowsy, and laid himself down to

sleep; but when he had slept but a little while he cried out, saying,

'Mara was treading on him.' His men hastened to help him; but when they

took hold of his head she trod on his legs, and when they laid hold

of his legs she pressed upon his head; and it was his death.' [168]

This witch is, no doubt, Hildur, a Walkyr of the Edda, leading heroes

to Walhalla. Indeed, in Westphalia, nightmare is called Walriderske. It

is a curious fact that 'Mara' should be preserved in the French

word for nightmare, Cauche-mar, 'cauche' being from Latin calcare,

to tread. Through Teutonic folklore this Night-demon of many names,

having floated from England in a sieve paddled with cow-ribs, rides to

the distress of an increasingly unheroic part of the population. Nearly

always still the 'Mahrt' is said to be a pretty woman,--sometimes,

indeed, a sweetheart is involuntarily transformed to one,--every

rustic settlement abounding with tales of how the demoness has been

captured by stopping the keyhole, calling the ridden sleeper by his

baptismal name, and making the sign of the cross; by such process the

wicked beauty appears in human form, and is apt to marry the sleeper,

with usually evil results. The fondness of cats for getting on the

breasts of sleepers, or near their breath, for warmth, has made that

animal a common form of the 'Mahrt.' Sometimes it is a black fly with

red ring around its neck. This demoness is believed to suffer more

pain than it inflicts, and vainly endeavours to destroy herself.

In savage and nomadic times sound sleep being an element of danger, the

security which required men to sleep on their arms demanded also that

they should sleep as it were with one eye open. Thus there might have

arisen both the intense vividness which demons acquired by blending

subjective and objective impressions, and the curious inability, so

frequent among barbarians and not unknown among the men civilised, to

distinguish dream from fact. The habit of day-dreaming seems, indeed,

more general than is usually supposed. Dreams haunt all the region of

our intellectual twilight,--the borderland of mystery, where rise the

sources of the occult and the mystical which environ our lives. The

daily terrors of barbarous life avail to haunt the nerves of civilised

people, now many generations after they have passed away, with special

and irrational shudders at certain objects or noises: how then must

they have haunted the dreams of humanity when, like the daughter of

Nathan the Wise, rescued from flames, it passed the intervals of strife

With nerves unstrung through fear,

And fire and flame in all she sees or fancies;

Her soul awake in sleep, asleep when wide awake?

Among the sources of demoniac beliefs few indeed are more prolific than

Dreams. 'The witchcraft of sleep,' says Emerson, 'divides with truth

the empire of our lives. This soft enchantress visits two children

lying locked in each other's arms, and carries them asunder by wide

spans of land and sea, wide intervals of time. 'Tis superfluous to

think of the dreams of multitudes; the astonishment remains that

one should dream; that we should resign so quietly this deifying

reason and become the theatre of delusions, shows, wherein time,

space, persons, cities, animals, should dance before us in merry and

mad confusion, a delicate creation outdoing the prime and flower of

actual nature, antic comedy alternating with horrid spectres. Or we

seem busied for hours and days in peregrinations over seas and lands,

in earnest dialogues, strenuous actions for nothings and absurdities,

cheated by spectral jokes, and waking suddenly with ghostly laughter,

to be rebuked by the cold lonely silent midnight, and to rake with

confusion in memory among the gibbering nonsense to find the motive

of this contemptible cachinnation.' [169]

It has always been the worst of periods of religious excitement that

they shape the dreams of old and young, and find there a fearful

and distorted, but vivid and realistic, embodiment of their feverish

experiences. In the days of witchcraft thousands visited the Witches'

Sabbaths, as they believed and danced in the Walpurgis orgies,

borne (by hereditary orthodox canon) on their own brooms up their own

chimneys; and to-day, by the same morbid imaginations, the victims are

able to see themselves or others elongated, levitated, floating through

the air. If people only knew how few are ever really wide-awake,

these spiritual nightmares would soon reach their termination. The

natural terrors before which helpless man once cowered, have been

prolonged past all his real victories over his demons by a succession

of such nightmares, so that the vulgar religion might be portrayed

somewhat as Richard Wagner described his first tragedy, in which,

having killed off forty-two of his characters, he had to bring them

back as ghosts to carry on the fifth act!

The perils of darkness, as ambush of foes human and animal,

concealer of pitfalls, misguider of footsteps, misdirector of aims,

were more real than men can well imagine in an age of gaslight plus

the policeman. The myth of Joshua commanding the sun to stand still;

the cry of Ajax when darkness fell on the combat, 'Grant me but to

see!' refer us to the region from which come all childish shudders

at going into the dark. The limit of human courage is reached where

its foe is beyond the reach of its force. Fighting in the dark may

even be suicidal. A German fable of blindfold zeal--the awakened

sleeper demolishing his furniture and knocking out his own teeth in

the attempt to punish cats--has its tragical illustrations also. But

none of these actual dangers have been of more real evil to man than

the demonisation of them. This rendered his very skill a blunder, his

energy weakness. If it was bad to retreat in the dusk from an innocent

bush into an unrecognised well, it was worse to meet the ghost with

rune or crucifix and find it an assassin. When man fights with his

shadow, he instantly makes it the demon he fears; ghoul-like it preys

upon his paralysed strength, vampyre-like it sucks his blood, and he is

consigned disarmed to the evil that is no shadow. The Scottish Sinclair

marching through Norway, in the 16th century, owes his monument at

Wiblungen rather to the magpie believed to precede him as a spy,

with night and day upon its wings, than to his own prowess or power.

In a sense all demons, whatever their shapes, are the ancient

brood of night. Mental darkness, even more moral darkness within,

supply the phantasmagoria in which unknown things shape themselves as

demons. Esau is already reconciled, but guilty Jacob must still wrestle

with him as a phantom of Fear till daybreak. A work has already been

written on 'The Night-side of Nature,' but it would require many

volumes to tell the story of what monsters have been conjured out

of the kind protecting darkness. How great is the darkness which

man makes for himself out of the imagination which should be his

light and vision! Much of the so-called 'religion' of our time is

but elaborate demoniculture and artificial preservation of mental

Walpurgis-nights. Nott (Night) says the Edda rides first on her horse

called Hrimfaxi (frost-maned), which every morning as he ends his

course bedews the earth with the foam that falls from his bit. Though

the horse of Day--Skinfaxi, or Shining-mane--follows hard after her,

yet the foam is by no means drunk up by his fires. Foam of the old

phantasms still lingers in our mediæval liturgies, and even falls

afresh where the daylight is shut out that altar-candles may burn,

or for other dark seances are prepared the conditions necessary for

whatsoever loves not the light.

What we call the Dark Ages were indeed spiritually a perpetual seance

with lights lowered. Nay, human superstition was able to turn the

very moon and stars into mere bluish night-tapers, giving just light

enough to make the darkness visible in fantastic shapes fluttering

around the Prince of Darkness,--or Non-existence in Chief! How much

of the theosophic speculation of our time is the mere artificial

conservation of that darkness? How much that still flits bat-winged

from universities, will, in the future, be read with the same wonder

as that with which even the more respectable bats can now read account

of the midnight brood which now for the most part sleep tranquilly in

such books as Burton's 'Anatomy of Melancholy'? 'There are,' he says,

'certain spirits which Miraldus calls Ambulones, that walk about

midnight on great heaths and desert places, which (saith Lavater)

draw men out of their way, and lead them all night by a byway, or

quite bar them of their way. These have several names in several

places. We commonly call them Pucks. In the deserts of Lop, in Asia,

such illusions of walking spirits are often perceived, as you may read

in M. Paulus, the Venetian, his travels. If one lose his company by

chance, these devils will call him by his name, and counterfeit voices

of his companions to seduce him. Lavater and Cicogna have a variety of

examples of spirits and walking devils in this kind. Sometimes they

sit by the wayside to give men falls, and make their horses stumble

and start as they ride (according to the narration of that holy man

Ketellus in Nubrigensis, that had an especial grace to see devils);

and if a man curse and spur his horse for stumbling, they do heartily

rejoice at it.'

While observing a spirited and imaginative picture by Macallum of

the Siege of Jerusalem, it much interested me to observe the greater

or less ease with which other visitors discovered the portents in

the air which, following the narrative of Josephus, the artist had

vaguely portrayed. The chariots and horsemen said to have been seen

before that event were here faintly blent with indefinite outlines

of clouds; and while some of the artist's friends saw them with a

distinctness greater, perhaps, than that with which they impressed

the eye of the artist himself, others could hardly be made to see

anything except shapeless vapour, though of course they all agreed

that they were there and remarkably fine.

It would seem that thus, in a London studio, there were present all

the mental pigments for frescoing the air and sky with those visions

of aërial armies or huntsmen which have become so normal in history

as to be, in a subjective sense, natural. In the year 1763, an author,

styling himself Theophilus Insulanus, published at Edinburgh a book on

Second-Sight, in which he related more than a hundred instances of the

power he believed to exist of seeing events before they had occurred,

and whilst, of course, they did not exist. It is not difficult in

reading them to see that they are all substantially one and the

same story, and that the sight in operation was indeed second; for

man or woman, at once imaginative and illiterate, have a second and

supernumerary pair of eyes inherited from the traditional superstitions

and ghost stories which fill all the air they breathe from the cradle

to the grave. While the mind is in this condition, that same nature

whose apparitions and illusions originally evoked and fostered the

glamoury, still moves on with her minglings of light and shade, cloud

and mirage, giving no word of explanation. There are never wanting the

shadowy forms without that cast their shuttles to the dark idols of the

mental cave, together weaving subtle spells round the half-waking mind.

In the year 1743 all the North of England and Scotland was in alarm

on account of some spectres which were seen on the mountain of Souter

Fell in Cumberland. The mountain is about half-a-mile high. On a summer

evening a farmer and his servant, looking from Wilton Hall, half a

mile off, saw the figures of a man and a dog pursuing some horses

along the mountain-side, which is very steep; and on the following

morning they repaired to the place, expecting to find dead bodies, but

finding none. About one year later a troop of horsemen were seen riding

along the same mountain-side by one of the same persons, the servant,

who then called others who also saw the aërial troopers. After a year

had elapsed the above vision was attested before a magistrate by two

of those who saw it. The event occurred on the eve of the Rebellion,

when horsemen were exercising, and when also the popular mind along

the Border may be supposed to have been in a highly excited condition.

What was seen on this strongly-authenticated occasion? Was anything

seen? None can tell. It is open to us to believe that there may have

been some play of mirage. As there are purely aërial echoes, so are

there aërial reflectors for the eye. On the other hand, the vision so

nearly resembles the spectral processions which have passed through

the mythology of the world, that we can never be sure that it was

not the troop of King Arthur, emerging from Avallon to announce

the approaching strife. A few fleecy, strangely-shaped clouds,

chasing each other along the hillside in the evening's dusk would

have amply sufficed to create the latter vision, and the danger of

the time would easily have supplied all the Second-Sight required to

reveal it to considerable numbers. In questions of this kind a very

small circumstance--a phrase, a name, perhaps--may turn the balance

of probabilities. Thus it may be noted that, in the instance just

related, the vision was seen on the steep side of Souter Fell. Fell

means a hill or a steep rock, as in Drachenfels. But as to Souter,

although, as Mr. Robert Ferguson says, the word may originally

have meant sheep, [170] it is found in Scotland used as 'shoemaker'

in connection with the fabulous giants of that region. Sir Thomas

Urquhart, in the seventeenth century, relates it as the tradition

of the two promontories of Cromarty, called 'Soutars,' that they

were the work-stools of two giants who supplied their comrades with

shoes and buskins. Possessing but one set of implements, they used

to fling these to each other across the opening of the firth, where

the promontories are only two miles apart. In process of time the name

Soutar, shoemaker, was bequeathed by the craftsmen to their stools. It

is not improbable that the name gradually connected itself with other

places bearing traditions connecting them with the fabulous race,

and that in this way the Souter Fell, from meaning in early times

much the same as Giants' Hill, preserved even in 1743-44 enough of the

earlier uncanny associations to awaken the awe of Borderers in a time

of rebellion. The vision may therefore have been seen by light which

had journeyed all the way from the mythologic heavens of ancient India:

substantially subjective--such stuff as dreams and dreamers are made

of--no doubt there were outer clouds, shapes and afterglows enough,

even in the absence of any fata morgana to supply canvas and pigment

to the cunning artist that hides in the eye.

In an old tale, the often-slain Vampyre-bat only requests, with

pathos, that his body may be laid where no sunlight, but only the

moonlight, will fall on it--only that! But it is under the moonshine

that it always gains new life. No demon requires absolute darkness,

but half-darkness, in which to live: enough light to disclose a

Somewhat, but not enough to define and reveal its nature, is just

what has been required for the bat-eyes of fable and phantasy, which

can make vampyre of a sparrow or giant out of a windmill.

Glamour! A marvellous history has this word of the artists and

poets,--sometimes meaning the charm with which the eye invests any

object; or, in Wordsworth's phrase, 'the light that never was on

land or sea.' But no artist or poet ever rose to the full height

of the simple term itself, which well illustrates Emerson's saying,

'Words are fossil poetry.' Professor Cowell of Cambridge says: 'Glám,

or in the nominative Glámr, is also a poetical name for the Moon. It

does not actually occur in the ancient literature, but it is given in

the glossary in the Prose Edda in the list of the very old words for

the Moon.' Vigfusson in his dictionary says, 'The word is interesting

on account of its identity with Scot. Glamour, which shows that the

tale of Glam was common to Scotland and Iceland, and this much older

than Grettir (in the year 1014).' The Ghost or Goblin Glam seems

evidently to have arisen from a personification of the delusive and

treacherous effects of moonlight on the benighted traveller,

Quale per incertam lunam sub luce malignâ,

Est iter in sylvis.

Now, there is a curious old Sanskrit word, glau or gláv, which is

explained in all the old native lexicons as meaning 'the moon.' It

might either be taken as 'waning,' or in a casual sense 'obscuring.'

The following lines from an early mediæval poet, Bhása (seventh

century), will illustrate the deceptive character of moonlight from

a Hindu point of view. The strong and wild Norse imagination delights

in what is terrible and gloomy: the Hindu loves to dwell on the milder

and quieter aspects of human life.

'The cat laps the moonbeams in the bowl of water, thinking them to

be milk: the elephant thinks that the moonbeams, threaded through

the intervals of the trees, are the fibres of the lotus-stalk. The

woman snatches at the moonbeams as they lie on the bed, taking them

for her muslin garment: oh, how the moon, intoxicated with radiance,

bewilders all the world!'

A similar passage, no doubt imitated from this, is also quoted:

'The bewildered herdsmen place the pails under the cows, thinking

that the milk is flowing; the maidens also put the blue lotus blossom

in their ears, thinking that it is the white; the mountaineer's wife

snatches up the jujube fruit, avaricious for pearls. Whose mind is

not led astray by the thickly clustering moonbeams?' [171]

In the Icelandic legend of the struggle between the hero Grettir,

translated by Magnússen and Morris (London, 1869), the saga

supplies a scenery as archæological as if the philologists had been

consulted. 'Bright moonlight was there without, and the drift was

broken, now drawn over the moon, now driven off from her; and even as

Glam fell, a cloud was driven from the moon, and Glam glared up against

her.' When the hero beheld these glaring eyes of the giant Ghost, he

felt some fiendish craft in them, and could not draw his short sword,

and 'lay well nigh 'twixt home and hell.' This half-light of the moon,

which robs the Strong of half his power, is repeated in Glam's curse:

'Exceedingly eager hast thou sought to meet me, Grettir, but no

wonder will it be deemed, though thou gettest no good hap of me;

and this I must tell thee, that thou now hast got half the strength

and manhood which was thy lot if thou hadst not met me: now I may

not take from thee the strength which thou hast got before this;

but that may I rule, that thou shalt never be mightier than now thou

art ... therefore this weird I lay on thee, ever in those days to

see these eyes with thine eyes, and thou wilt find it hard to be

alone--and that shalt drag thee unto death.'

The Moon-demon's power is limited to the spell of illusion he can

cast. Presently he is laid low; the 'short sword' of a sunbeam pales,

decapitates him. But after Glam is burned to cold coals, and his

ashes buried in skin of a beast 'where sheep-pastures were fewest,

or the ways of men,' the spell lay upon the hero's eyes. 'Grettir

said that his temper had been nowise bettered by this, that he was

worse to quiet than before, and that he deemed all trouble worse than

it was; but that herein he found the greatest change, in that he was

become so fearsome a man in the dark, that he durst go nowhither alone

after nightfall, for then he seemed to see all kinds of horrors. And

that has fallen since into a proverb, that Glam lends eyes, or gives

Glamsight to those who see things nowise as they are.'

In reading which one may wonder how this world would look if for

a little moment one's eyes could be purged of glamour. Even at the

moon's self one tries vainly to look: where Hindu and Zulu see a hare,

the Arab sees coils of a serpent, and the Englishman sees a man; and

the most intelligent of these several races will find it hard to see in

the moon aught save what their primitive ancestors saw. And this small

hint of the degree to which the wisest, like Merlin, are bound fast

in an air-prison by a Vivien whose spells are spun from themselves,

would carry us far could we only venture to follow it out. 'The Moon,'

observed Dr. Johnson unconsciously, 'has great influence in vulgar

philosophy.' How much lunar theology have we around us, so that

many from the cradle to the grave get no clear sight of nature or of

themselves! Very closely did Carlyle come to the fable of Glam when

speaking of Coleridge's 'prophetic moonshine,' and its effect on poor

John Sterling. 'If the bottled moonshine beactually substance? Ah,

could one but believe in a church while finding it incredible!... The

bereaved young lady has taken the veil then!... To such lengths can

transcendental moonshine, cast by some morbidly radiating Coleridge

into the chaos of a fermenting life, act magically there, and produce

divulsions and convulsions and diseased developments.' One can almost

fancy Carlyle had ringing in his memory the old Scottish ballad of

the Rev. Robert Kirk, translator of the Psalms into Gaelic, who,

while walking in his night-gown at Aberfoyle, was 'snatched away to

the joyless Elfin bower.'

It was between the night and day

When the fairy-king has power.

The item of the night-gown might have already prepared us for the

couplet; and it has perhaps even a mystical connection with the

vestment of the 'black dragoon' which Sterling once saw patrolling

in every parish, to whom, however, he surrendered at last.

A story is told of a man wandering on a dark night over Dartmoor,

whose feet slipped over the edge of a pit. He caught the branch of

a tree suspended over the terrible chasm, but unable to regain the

ground, shrieked for help. None came, though he cried out till his

voice was gone; and there he remained dangling in agony until the grey

light revealed that his feet were only a few inches from the solid

ground. Such are the chief demons that bind man till cockcrow. Such are

the apprehensions that waste also the moral and intellectual strength

of man, and murder his peace as he regards the necessary science of his

time to be cutting some frail tenure sustaining him over a bottomless

pit, instead of a release from real terror to the solid ground.

CHAPTER XI.

DISEASE.

The Plague Phantom--Devil-dances--Destroying Angels--Ahriman in

Astrology---Saturn--Satan and Job--Set--The Fatal Seven--Yakseyo

--The Singhalese Pretraya--Reeri--Maha Sohon--Morotoo--Luther on

Disease-demons--Gopolu--Madan--Cattle-demon in Russia--Bihlweisen

--The Plough.

A familiar fable in the East tells of one who met a fearful phantom,

which in reply to his questioning answered--'I am Plague: I have come

from yon city where ten thousand lie dead: one thousand were slain by

me, the rest by Fear.' Perhaps even this story does not fully report

the alliance between the plague and fear; for it is hardly doubtful

that epidemics retain their power in the East largely because they have

gained personification through fear as demons whose fatal power man

can neither prevent nor cure, before which he can only cower and pray.

In the missionary school at Canterbury the young men prepare themselves

to help the 'heathen' medically, and so they go forth with materia

medica in one hand, and in the other an infallible revelation from

heaven reporting plagues as the inflictions of Jehovah, or the

destroying angel, or Satan, and the healing of disease the jealously

reserved monopoly of God. [172]

The demonisation of diseases is not wonderful. To thoughtful

minds not even science has dispelled the mystery which surrounds

many of the ailments that afflict mankind, especially the normal

diseases besetting children, hereditary complaints, and the strange

liabilities to infection and contagion. A genuine, however partial,

observation would suggest to primitive man some connection between

the symptoms of many diseases and the mysterious universe of which he

could not yet recognise himself an epitome. There were indications

that certain troubles of this kind were related to the seasons,

consequently to the celestial rulers of the seasons,--to the sun

that smote by day, and the moon at night. Professor Monier Williams,

describing the Devil-dances of Southern India, says that there seems

to be an idea among them that when pestilences are rife exceptional

measures must be taken to draw off the malignant spirits, supposed

to cause them, by tempting them to enter into these wild dancers,

and so become dissipated. He witnessed in Ceylon a dance performed by

three men who personated the forms and phases of typhus fever. [173]

These dances probably belong to the same class of ideas as those of

the dervishes in Persia, whose manifold contortions are supposed

to repeat the movements of planets. They are invocations of the

souls of good stars, and propitiations of such as are evil. Belief

in such stellar and planetary influences has pervaded every part of

the world, and gave rise to astrological dances. 'Gebelin says that

the minuet was the danse oblique of the ancient priests of Apollo,

performed in their temples. The diagonal line and the two parallels

described in this dance were intended to be symbolical of the zodiac,

and the twelve steps of which it is composed were meant for the twelve

signs and the months of the year. The dance round the Maypole and the

Cotillon has the same origin. Diodorus tells us that Apollo was adored

with dances, and in the island of Iona the god danced all night. The

Christians of St. Thomas till a very late day celebrated their worship

with dances and songs. Calmet says there were dancing-girls in the

temple at Jerusalem.' [174]

The influence of the Moon upon tides, the sleeplessness it causes,

the restlessness of the insane under its occasional light, and such

treacheries of moonshine as we have already considered, have populated

our uninhabited satellite with demons. Lunar legends have decorated

some well-founded suspicions of moonlight. The mother draws the

curtain between the moonshine and her little Endymion, though not

because she sees in the waning moon a pining Selene whose kiss may

waste away the beauty of youth. A mere survival is the 'bowing to

the new moon:' a euphonism traceable to many myths about 'lunacy,'

among them, as I think, to Delilah ('languishing'), in whose lap

the solar Samson is shorn of his locks, leaving him only the blind

destructive strength of the 'moonstruck.'

In the purely Semitic theories of the Jews we find diseases ascribed

to the wrath of Jehovah, and their cure to his merciful mood. 'Jehovah

will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed; ... he

will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt whereof thou wast

afraid.' [175] The emerods which smote the worshippers of Dagon were

ascribed directly to the hand of Jehovah. [176] In that vague degree

of natural dualistic development which preceded the full Iranian

influence upon the Jews, the infliction of diseases was delegated to

an angel of Jehovah, as in the narratives of smiting the firstborn

of Egypt, wasting the army of Sennacherib, and the pestilence sent

upon Israel for David's sin. In the progress of this angel to be

a demon of disease we find a phase of ambiguity, as shown in the

hypochondria of Saul. 'The spirit of Jehovah departed from Saul,

and an evil spirit from Jehovah troubled him.' [177]

All such ambiguities disappeared under the influence of Iranian

dualism. In the Book of Job we find the infliction of diseases and

plagues completely transferred to a powerful spirit, a fully formed

opposing potentate. The 'sons of God,' who in the first chapter

of Job are said to have presented themselves before Jehovah, may

be identified in the thirty-eighth as the stars which shouted for

joy at the creation. Satan is the wandering or malign planet which

leads in the Ahrimanic side of the Persian planisphere. In the

cosmographical theology of that country Ormuzd was to reign for

six thousand years, and then Ahriman was to reign for a similar

period. The moral associations of this speculation are discussed

elsewhere; it is necessary here only to point out the bearing of the

planispheric conception upon the ills that flesh is heir to. Ahriman

is the 'star-serpent' of the Zendavasta. 'When the pâris rendered

this world desolate, and overran the universe; when the star-serpent

made a path for himself between heaven and earth,' &c.; 'when Ahriman

rambles on the earth, let him who takes the form of a serpent glide

on the earth; let him who takes the form of the wolf run on the earth,

and let the violent north wind bring weakness.' [178]

The dawn of Ormuzd corresponds with April. The sun returns from

winter's death by sign of the lamb (our Aries), and thenceforth

every month corresponds with a thousand years of the reign of the

Beneficent. September is denoted by the Virgin and Child. To the dark

domain of Ahriman the prefecture of the universe passes by Libra,--the

same balances which appear in the hand of Satan. The star-serpent

prevails over the Virgin and Child. Then follow the months of the

scorpion, the centaur, goat, &c., every month corresponding to a

thousand years of the reign of Ahriman.

While this scheme corresponds in one direction with the demons of

cold, and in another with the entrance and reign of moral evil in

the world, beginnings of disease on earth were also ascribed to this

seventh thousand of years when the Golden Age had passed. The depth of

winter is reached in domicile of the goat, or of Sirius, Seth, Saturn,

Satan--according to the many variants. And these, under their several

names, make the great 'infortune' of astrology, wherein old Culpepper

amply instructed our fathers. 'In the general, consider that Saturn

is an old worn-out planet, weary, and of little estimation in this

world; he causeth long and tedious sicknesses, abundance of sadness,

and a Cartload of doubts and fears; his nature is cold, and dry,

and melancholy. And take special notice of this, that when Saturn is

Lord of an Eclipse (as he is one of the Lords of this), he governs all

the rest of the planets, but none can govern him. Melancholy is made

of all the humors in the body of man, but no humor of melancholy. He

is envious, and keeps his anger long, and speaks but few words, but

when he speaks he speaks to purpose. A man of deep cogitations; he

will plot mischief when men are asleep; he hath an admirable memory,

and remembers to this day how William the Bastard abused him; he

cannot endure to be a slave; he is poor with the poor, fearful with

the fearful; he plots mischief against the Superiours, with them that

plot mischief against them; have a care of him, Kings and Magistrates

of Europe; he will show you what he can do in the effects of this

Eclipse; he is old, and therefore hath large experience, and will

give perilous counsel; he moves but slowly, and therefore doth the

more mischief; all the planets contribute their natures and strength

to him, and when he sets on doing mischief he will do it to purpose;

he doth not regard the company of the rest of the Planets, neither

do any of the rest of the Planets regard his; he is a barren Planet,

and therefore delights not in women; he brings the Pestilence; he is

destructive to the fruits of the earth; he receives his light from

the Sun, and yet he hates the Sun that gives it him.' [179]

Many ages anterior to this began in India the dread of Ketu,

astronomically the ninth planet, mythologically the tail of the

demon Rahu, cut in twain as already told (p. 46), supposed to be

the prolific source of comets, meteors, and falling stars, also of

diseases. From this Ketu or dragon's tail were born the Arunah Ketavah

(Red Ketus or apparitions), and Ketu has become almost another word

for disease. [180]

Strongly influenced as were the Jews by the exact division of the

duodecimal period between Good and Evil, affirmed by the Persians,

they never lost sight of the ultimate supremacy of Jehovah. Though

Satan had gradually become a voluntary genius of evil, he still had

to receive permission to afflict, as in the case of Job, and during

the lifetime of Paul appears to have been still denied that 'power of

death' which is first asserted by the unknown author of the Epistle

to the Hebrews. [181] Satan's especial office was regarded as the

infliction of disease. Paul delivers the incestuous Corinthian to

Satan 'for the destruction of the flesh,' and he also attributed the

sickness and death of many to their communicating unworthily. [182]

He also recognises his own 'thorn in the flesh' as 'an angel from

Satan,' though meant for his moral advantage. [183]

A penitential Psalm (Assyrian) reads as follows:--

O my Lord! my sins are many, my trespasses are great; and the wrath

of the gods has plagued me with disease, and with sickness and sorrow.

I fainted, but no one stretched forth his hand!

I groaned, but no one drew nigh!

I cried aloud, but no one heard!

O Lord, do not abandon thy servant!

In the waters of the great storm seize his hand!

The sins which he has committed turn them to righteousness. [184]

This Psalm would hardly be out of place in the English burial-service,

which deplores death as a visitation of divine wrath. Wherever such

an idea prevails, the natural outcome of it is a belief in demons of

disease. In ancient Egypt--following the belief in Ra the Sun, from

whose eyes all pleasing things proceeded, and Set, from whose eyes came

all noxious things,--from the baleful light of Set's eyes were born the

Seven Hathors, or Fates, whose names are recorded in the Book of the

Dead. Mr. Fox Talbot has translated 'the Song of the Seven Spirits:'--

They are seven! they are seven!

In the depths of ocean they are seven!

In the heights of heaven they are seven!

In the ocean-stream in a palace they were born!

Male they are not: female they are not!

Wives they have not: children are not born to them!

Rule they have not: government they know not!

Prayers they hear not!

They are seven! they are seven! twice over they are seven! [185]

These demons have a way of herding together; the Assyrian tablets

abundantly show that their occupation was manifested by diseases,

physical and mental. One prescription runs thus:--

The god (...) shall stand by his bedside:

Those seven evil spirits he shall root out, and shall expel them

from his body:

And those seven shall never return to the sick man again!

It is hardly doubtful that these were the seven said to have been

cast out of Mary Magdalen; for their father Set is Shedîm (devils)

of Deut. xxxii. 17, and Shaddai (God) of Gen. xvi. 1. But the fatal

Seven turn to the seven fruits that charm away evil influences at

parturition in Persia, also the Seven Wise Women of the same country

traditionally present on holy occasions. When Ardá Viráf was sent

to Paradise by a sacred narcotic to obtain intelligence of the true

faith, seven fires were kept burning for seven days around him,

and the seven wise women chanted hymns of the Avesta. [186]

The entrance of the seven evil powers into a dwelling was believed by

the Assyrians to be preventible by setting in the doorway small images,

such as those of the sun-god (Hea) and the moon-goddess, but especially

of Marduk, corresponding to Serapis the Egyptian Esculapius. These

powers were reinforced by writing holy texts over and on each side

of the threshold. 'In the night time bind around the sick man's head

a sentence taken from a good book.' The phylacteries of the Jews were

originally worn for the same purpose. They were called Tefila, and were

related to teraphim, the little idols [187] used by the Jews to keep

out demons--such as those of Laban, which his daughter Rachel stole.

The resemblance of teraphim to the Tarasca (connected by some with

G. teras, a monster) of Spain may be noted,--the serpent figures

carried about in Corpus Christi processions. The latter word is

known in the south of France also, and gave its name to the town

Tarascon. The legend is that an amphibious monster haunted the Rhone,

preventing navigation and committing terrible ravages, until sixteen

of the boldest inhabitants of the district resolved to encounter

it. Eight lost their lives, but the others, having destroyed the

monster, founded the town of Tarascon, where the 'Fête de la tarasque'

is still kept up. [188] Calmet, Sedley, and others, however, believe

that teraphim is merely a modification of seraphim, and the Tefila,

or phylacteries, of the same origin.

The phylactery was tied into a knot. Justin Martyr says that the

Jewish exorcists used 'magic ties or knots.' The origin of this

custom among the Jews and Babylonians may be found in the Assyrian

Talismans preserved in the British Museum, of which the following

has been translated by Mr. Fox Talbot:--

Hea says: Go, my son!

Take a woman's kerchief,

Bind it round thy right hand, loose it from the left hand!

Knot it with seven knots: do so twice:

Sprinkle it with bright wine:

Bind it round the head of the sick man:

Bind it round his hands and feet, like manacles and fetters.

Sit down on his bed:

Sprinkle holy water over him.

He shall hear the voice of Hea,

Darkness shall protect him!

And Marduk, eldest son of Heaven, shall find him a happy

habitation. [189]

The number seven holds an equally high degree of potency in Singhalese

demonolatry, which is mainly occupied with diseases. The Capuas or

conjurors of that island enumerate 240,000 magic spells, of which all

except one are for evil, which implies a tolerably large preponderance

of the emergencies in which their countervailing efforts are required

by their neighbours. That of course can be easily appreciated by

those who have been taught that all human beings are included under a

primal curse. The words of Micah, 'Thou wilt cast all their sins into

the depths of the sea,' [190] are recalled by the legend of these

evil spells of Ceylon. The king of Oude came to marry one of seven

princesses, all possessing præternatural powers, and questioned each

as to her art. Each declared her skill in doing harm, except one who

asserted her power to heal all ills which the others could inflict. The

king having chosen this one as his bride, the rest were angry, and

for revenge collected all the charms in the world, enclosed them in a

pumpkin--the only thing that can contain spells without being reduced

to ashes--and sent this infernal machine to their sister. It would

consume everything for sixteen hundred miles round; but the messenger

dropped it in the sea. A god picked it up and presented it to the King

of Ceylon, and these, with the healing charm known to his own Queen,

make the 240,000 spells known to the Capuas of that island, who have

no doubt deified the rescuer of the spells on the same principle that

inspires some seaside populations to worship Providence more devoutly

on the Sunday after a valuable wreck in their neighbourhood.

The astrological origin of the evils ascribed to the Yakseyo (Demons)

of Ceylon, and the horoscope which is a necessary preliminary to

any dealing with their influences; the constant recurrence of the

number seven, denoting origin with races holding the seven-planet

theories of the universe; and the fact that all demons are said, on

every Saturday evening, to attend an assemblage called Yaksa Sabawa

(Witches' Sabbath), are facts that may well engage the attention

of Comparative Mythologists. [191] In Dardistan the evil spirits are

called Yatsh; they dwell 'in the regions of snow,' and the overthrow of

their reign over the country is celebrated at the new moon of Daykio,

the month preceding winter.

The largest proportion of the Disease Demons of Ceylon are descended

from its Hunger Demons. The Preta there is much the same phantom

as in Siam, only they are not quite so tall. [192] They range from

two to four hundred feet in height, and are so numerous that a Pali

Buddhist book exhorts people not to throw stones, lest they should

harm one of these harmless starveling ghosts, who die many times

of hunger, and revive to suffer on in expiation of their sins in a

previous existence. They are harmless in one sense, but filthy; and

bad smells are personified in them. The great mass of demons resemble

the Pretraya, in that their king (Wessamony) has forbidden them to

satisfy themselves directly upon their victims, but by inflicting

diseases they are supposed to receive an imaginative satisfaction

somewhat like that of eating people.

Reeri is the Demon of Blood-disease. His form is that of a man with

face of a monkey; he is fiery red, rides on a red bull, and all

hemorrhages and diseases of the blood are attributed to him. Reeri

has eighteen different disguises or avatars. One of these recalls his

earlier position as a demon of death, before Vishnu revealed to Capuas

the means of binding him: he is now supposed to be present at every

death-bed in the form of a delighted pigmy, one span and six inches

high. On such occasions he bears a cock in one hand, a club in the

other, and in his mouth a corpse. In the same country Maha Sohon is the

'great graveyard demon.' He resides in a hill where he is supposed to

surround himself with carcases. He is 122 feet high, has four hands

and three eyes, and a red skin. He has the head of a bear; the legend

being that while quarrelling with another giant his head was knocked

off, and the god Senasura was gracious enough to tear off the head

of a bear and clap it on the decapitated giant. His capua threatens

him with a repetition of this catastrophe if he does not spare any

threatened victim who has called in his priestly aid. Except for this

timidity about his head, Maha is formidable, being chief of 30,000

demons. But curiously enough he is said to choose for his steeds the

more innocent animals,--goat, deer, horse, elephant, and hog.

One of the demons most dreaded in Ceylon is the 'Foreign Demon'

Morotoo, said to have come from the coast of Malabar, and from

his residence in a tree disseminated diseases which could not be

cured until, the queen being afflicted, one capua was found able

to master him. Seven-eighths of the charms used in restraining the

disease-demons of Ceylon, of which I have mentioned but a few, are

in the Tamil tongue. In various parts of India are found very nearly

the same systematic demonolatry and 'devil-dancing;' for example in

Travancore, to whose superstitions of this character the Rev. Samuel

Mateer has devoted two chapters in his work 'The Land of Charity.'

The great demon of diseases in Ceylon is entitled Maha Cola Sanni

Yakseya. His father, a king, ordered his queen to be put to death in

the belief that she had been faithless to him. Her body was to be cut

in two pieces, one of which was to be hung upon a tree (Ukberiya),

the other to be thrown at its foot to the dogs. The queen before

her execution said, 'If this charge be false, may the child in my

womb be born this instant a demon, and may that demon destroy the

whole of this city and its unjust king.' So soon as the executioners

had finished their work, the two severed parts of the queen's body

reunited, a child was born who completely devoured his mother,

and then repaired to the graveyard (Sohon), where for a time he

fattened on corpses. Then he proceeded to inflict mortal diseases

upon the city, and had nearly depopulated it when the gods Iswara

and Sekkra interfered, descending to subdue him in the disguise of

mendicants. Possibly the great Maha Sohon mentioned above, and the

Sohon (graveyard) from which Sanni dealt out deadliness, may be best

understood by the statement of the learned writer from whom these facts

are quoted, that, 'excepting the Buddhist priests, and the aristocrats

of the land, whose bodies were burnt in regular funeral-piles after

death, the corpses of the rest of the people were neither burned nor

buried, but thrown into a place called Sohona, which was an open piece

of ground in the jungle, generally a hollow among the hills, at the

distance of three or four miles from any inhabited place, where they

were left in the open air to be decomposed or devoured by dogs and

wild beasts.' [193] There would appear to be even more ground for

the dread of the Great Graveyard Demon in many parts of Christendom,

where, through desire to preserve corpses for a happy resurrection,

they are made to steal through the water-veins of the earth, and find

their resurrection as fell diseases. Iswara and Sekkra were probably

two reformers who persuaded the citizens to bury the poor deep in

the earth; had they been wise enough to place the dead where nature

would give them speedy resurrection and life in grass and flowers,

it would not have been further recorded that 'they ordered him (the

demon) to abstain from eating men, but gave him Wurrun or permission

to inflict disease on mankind, and to obtain offerings.' This is very

much the same as the privilege given our Western funeral agencies and

cemeteries also; and when the Modliar adds that Sanni 'has eighteen

principal attendants,' one can hardly help thinking of the mummers,

gravediggers, chaplains, all engaged unconsciously in the work of

making the earth less habitable.

The first of the attendants of this formidable avenger of his mother's

wrongs is named Bhoota Sanni Yakseya, Demon of Madness. The whole

demonolatry and devil-dancing of that island are so insane that one is

not surprised that this Bhoota had but little special development. It

is amid clear senses we might naturally look for full horror of

madness, and there indeed do we find it. One of the most horrible

forms of the disease-demon was the personification of madness among

the Greeks, as Mania. [194] In the Hercules Furens of Euripides,

where Madness, 'the unwedded daughter of black Night,' and sprung of

'the blood of Coelus,' is evoked from Tartarus for the express purpose

of imbreeding in Hercules 'child-slaying disturbances of reason,'

there is a suggestion of the hereditary nature of insanity. Obedient

to the vindictive order of Juno, 'in her chariot hath gone forth the

marble-visaged, all-mournful Madness, the Gorgon of Night, and with

the hissing of hundred heads of snakes, she gives the goad to her

chariot, on mischief bent.' We may plainly see that the religion

which embodied such a form was itself ending in madness. Already

ancient were the words mantikê (prophecy) and manikê (madness) when

Plato cited their identity to prove one kind of madness the special

gift of Heaven: [195] the notion lingers in Dryden's line, 'Great

wits to madness sure are near allied;' and survive in regions where

deference is paid to lunatics and idiots. Other diseases preserve in

their names indications of similar association: e.g., Nympholepsy,

St. Vitus's Dance, St. Anthony's Fire. Wesley attributes still epilepsy

to 'possession.' This was in pursuance of ancient beliefs. Typhus, a

name anciently given to every malady accompanied with stupor (typhos),

seemed the breath of feverish Typhon. Max Müller connects the word

quinsy with Sanskrit amh, 'to throttle,' and Ahi the throttling

serpent, its medium being angina; and this again is kynanchê,

dog-throttling, the Greek for quinsy. [196]

The genius of William Blake, steeped in Hebraism, never showed

greater power than in his picture of Plague. A gigantic hideous form,

pale-green, with the slime of stagnant pools, reeking with vegetable

decays and gangrene, the face livid with the motley tints of pallor

and putrescence, strides onward with extended arms like a sower sowing

his seeds, only in this case the germs of his horrible harvest are not

cast from the hands, but emanate from the fingers as being of their

essence. Such, to the savage mind, was the embodiment of malaria,

sultriness, rottenness, the putrid Pretraya, invisible, but smelt

and felt. Such, to the ignorant imagination, is the Destroying Angel

to which rationalistic artists and poets have tried to add wings

and majesty; but which in the popular mind was no doubt pictured

more like this form found at Ostia (fig. 16), and now passing in

the Vatican for a Satan,--probably a demon of the Pontine Marshes,

and of the fever that still has victims of its fatal cup (p. 291). In

these fearful forms the poor savage believed with such an intensity

that he was able to shape the brain of man to his phantasy; bringing

about the anomaly that the great reformer, Luther, should affirm,

even while fighting superstition, that a Christian ought to know

that he lives in the midst of devils, and that the devil is nearer

to him than his coat or his shirt. The devils, he tells us, are

all around us, and are at every moment seeking to ensnare our lives,

salvation, and happiness. There are many of them in the woods, waters,

deserts, and in damp muddy places, for the purpose of doing folk a

mischief. They also house in the dense black clouds, and send storms,

hail, thunder and lightning, and poison the air with their infernal

stench. In one place, Luther tells us that the devil has more vessels

and boxes full of poison, with which he kills people, than all the

apothecaries in the whole world. He sends all plagues and diseases

among men. We may be sure that when any one dies of the pestilence,

is drowned, or drops suddenly dead, the devil does it.

Knowing nothing of Zoology, the primitive man easily falls into the

belief that his cattle--the means of life--may be the subjects of

sorcery. Jesus sending devils into a herd of swine may have become

by artificial process a divine benefactor in the eye of Christendom,

but the myth makes Him bear an exact resemblance to the dangerous

sorcerer that fills the savage mind with dread. It is probable that the

covetous eye denounced in the decalogue means the evil eye, which was

supposed to blight an object intensely desired but not to be obtained.

Gopolu, already referred to (p. 136) as the Singhalese demon of

hydrophobia, bears the general name of the 'Cattle Demon.' He

is said to have been the twin of the demigod Mangara by a queen

on the Coromandel coast. The mother died, and a cow suckled the

twins, but afterwards they quarrelled, and Gopolu being slain was

transformed into a demon. He repaired to Arangodde, and fixed his

abode in a Banyan where there is a large bee-hive, whence proceed

many evils. The population around this Banyan for many miles being

prostrated by diseases, the demigod Mangara and Pattini (goddess of

chastity) admonished the villagers to sacrifice a cow regularly,

and thus they were all resuscitated. Gopolu now sends all cattle

diseases. India is full of the like superstitions. The people of

Travancore especially dread the demon Madan, 'he who is like a cow,'

believed to strike oxen with sudden illness,--sometimes men also.

In Russia we find superstition sometimes modified by common

sense. Though the peasant hopes that Zegory (St. George) will defend

his cattle, he begins to see the chief foes of his cattle. As in

the folk-song--

We have gone around the field,

We have called Zegory....

O thou, our brave Zegory,

Save our cattle,

In the field and beyond the field,

In the forest and beyond the forest,

Under the bright moon,

Under the red sun,

From the rapacious wolf,

From the cruel bear,

From the cunning beast. [197]

Nevertheless when a cattle plague occurs many villages relapse into a

normally extinct state of mind. Thus, a few years ago, in a village

near Moscow, all the women, having warned the men away, stripped

themselves entirely naked and drew a plough so as to make a furrow

entirely around the village. At the point of juncture in this circle

they buried alive a cock, a cat, and a dog. Then they filled the

air with lamentations, crying--'Cattle Plague! Cattle Plague! spare

our cattle! Behold, we offer thee cock, cat, and dog!' The dog is

a demonic character in Russia, while the cat is sacred; for once

when the devil tried to get into Paradise in the form of a mouse,

the dog allowed him to pass, but the cat pounced on him--the two

animals being set on guard at the door. The offering of both seems to

represent a desire to conciliate both sides. The nudity of the women

may have been to represent to the hungry gods their utter poverty,

and inability to give more; but it was told me in Moscow, where I

happened to be staying at the time, that it would be dangerous for

any man to draw near during the performance.

In Altmark [198] the demons who bewitch cattle are called 'Bihlweisen,'

and are believed to bury certain diabolical charms under thresholds

over which the animals are to pass, causing them to wither away, the

milk to cease, etc. The prevention is to wash the cattle with a lotion

of sea cabbage boiled with infusion of wine. In the same province it

is related that once there appeared in a harvest-field at one time

fifteen, at another twelve men (apparently), the latter headless.

They all laboured with scythes, but though the rustling could be

heard no grain fell. When questioned they said nothing, and when

the people tried to seize them they ran away, cutting fruitlessly as

they ran. The priests found in this a presage of the coming cattle

plague. The Russian superstition of the plough, above mentioned, is

found in fragmentary survivals in Altmark. Thus, it is said that to

plough around a village and then sit under the plough (placed upright),

will enable any one to see the witches; and in some villages, some

bit of a plough is hung up over a doorway through which cattle pass,

as no devil can then approach them. The demons have a natural horror

of honest work, and especially the culture of the earth. Goethe,

as we have seen, notes their fear of roses: perhaps he remembered

the legend of Aspasia, who, being disfigured by a tumour on the chin,

was warned by a dove-maiden to dismiss her physicians and try a rose

from the garland of Venus; so she recovered health and beauty.

CHAPTER XII.

DEATH.

The Vendetta of Death--Teoyaomiqui--Demon of Serpents--Death on

the Pale Horse--Kali--War-gods--Satan as Death--Death-beds--

Thanatos--Yama--Yimi--Towers of Silence--Alcestis--Hercules,

Christ, and Death--Hel--Salt--Azraël--Death and the Cobbler--

Dance of Death--Death as Foe, and as Friend.

Savage races believe that no man dies except by sorcery. Therefore

every death must be avenged. The Actas of the Philippines regard the

'Indians' as the cause of the deaths among them; and when one of them

loses a relative, he lurks and watches until he has spied an 'Indian'

and killed him. [199] It is a progress from this when primitive man

advances to the belief that the fatal sorcerer is an invisible man--a

demon. When this doctrine is taught in the form of a belief that death

entered the world through the machinations of Satan, and was not in the

original scheme of creation, it is civilised; but when it is inculcated

under a set of African or other non-christian names, it is barbarian.

The following sketch, by Mr. Gideon Lang, will show the intensity of

this conviction among the natives of New South Wales:--

'While at Nanima I constantly saw one of these, named Jemmy, a

remarkably fine man, about twenty-eight years of age, who was the

'model Christian' of the missionaries, and who had been over and

over again described in their reports as a living proof that, taken

in infancy, the natives were as capable of being truly christianised

as a people who had had eighteen centuries of civilisation. I confess

that I strongly doubted, but still there was no disputing the apparent

facts. Jemmy was not only familiar with the Bible, which he could

read remarkably well, but he was even better acquainted with the more

abstruse tenets of christianity; and so far as the whites could see,

his behaviour was in accordance with his religious acquirements. One

Sunday morning I walked down to the black fellows' camp, to have

a talk with Jemmy, as usual. I found him sitting in his gunyah,

overlooking a valley of the Macquarrie, whose waters glanced brightly

in the sunshine of the delicious spring morning. He was sitting in a

state of nudity, excepting his waistcloth, very earnestly reading the

Bible, which indeed was his constant practice; and I could see that

he was perusing the Sermon on the Mount. I seated myself, and waited

till he concluded the chapter, when he laid down the Bible, folded

his hands, and sat with his eyes fixed abstractedly on his fire. I

bade him 'good morning,' which he acknowledged without looking up. I

then said, 'Jemmy, what is the meaning of your spears being stuck

in a circle round you?' He looked me steadily in the eyes, and said

solemnly and with suppressed fierceness, 'Mother's dead!' I said that

I was very sorry to hear it; 'but what had her death to do with the

spears being stuck around so?' 'Bogan black-fellow killed her!' was

the fierce and gloomy reply. 'Killed by a Bogan black!' I exclaimed:

'why, your mother has been dying a fortnight, and Dr. Curtis did not

expect her to outlive last night, which you know as well as I do.' His

only reply was a dogged repetition of the words: 'A Bogan black-fellow

killed her!' I appealed to him as a Christian--to the Sermon on the

Mount, that he had just been reading; but he absolutely refused to

promise that he would not avenge his mother's death. In the afternoon

of that day we were startled by a yell which can never be mistaken by

any person who has once heard the wild war-whoop of the blacks when

in battle array. On marching out we saw all the black fellows of the

neighbourhood formed into a line, and following Jemmy in an imaginary

attack upon an enemy. Jemmy himself disappeared that evening. On the

following Wednesday morning I found him sitting complacently in his

gunyah, plaiting a rope of human hair, which I at once knew to be that

of his victim. Neither of us spoke; I stood for some time watching him

as he worked with a look of mocking defiance of the anger he knew I

felt. I pointed to a hole in the middle of his fire, and said, 'Jemmy,

the proper place for your Bible is there.' He looked up with his eyes

flashing as I turned away, and I never saw him again. I afterwards

learned that he had gone to the district of the Bogan tribe, where

the first black he met happened to be an old friend and companion of

his own. This man had just made the first cut in the bark of a tree,

which he was about to climb for an opossum; but on hearing footsteps

he leaped down and faced round, as all blacks do, and whites also,

when blacks are in question. Seeing that it was only Jemmy, however,

he resumed his occupation, but had no sooner set to work than Jemmy

sent a spear through his back and nailed him to the tree. [200]

Perhaps if Jemmy could have been cross-examined by the non-missionary

mind, he might have replied with some effect to Mr. Lang's suggestion

that he ought to part with his Bible. Surely he must have found

in that volume a sufficient number of instances to justify his

faith in the power of demons over human health and life. Might he

not have pondered the command, 'thou shalt not suffer a witch to

live,' and imagined that he was impaling another Manasseh, who 'used

enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit,

and with wizards (and) wrought much evil in the sight of the Lord to

provoke Him to anger.' [201] Those who hope that the Bible may carry

light into the dark places of superstition and habitations of cruelty

might, one would say, reflect upon the long contest which European

science had with bibliolators in trying to relieve the popular mind

from the terrors of witchcraft, whose genuineness it was (justly)

declared contrary to the Scriptures to deny. There are districts in

Great Britain and America, and many more on the continent of Europe,

where the spells that waste and destroy are still believed in; where

effigies of wax or even onions are labelled with some hated name,

and stuck over with pins, and set near fires to be melted or dried

up, in full belief that some subject of the charm will be consumed by

disease along with the object used. Under every roof where such coarse

superstitions dwell the Bible dwells beside them, and experience proves

that the infallibility of all such talismans diminishes pari passu.

What the savage is really trying to slay when he goes forth to avenge

his relative's death on the first alien he finds may be seen in the

accompanying figure (17), which represents the Mexican goddess of

death--Teoyaomiqui. The image is nine feet high, and is kept in

a museum in the city of Mexico. Mr. Edward B. Tylor, from whose

excellent book of travels in that country the figure is copied,

says of it:--'The stone known as the statue of the war-goddess is a

huge block of basalt covered with sculptures. The antiquaries think

that the figures on it stand for different personages, and that it is

three gods--Huitzilopochtli, the god of war; Teoyaomiqui, his wife; and

Mictlanteuctli, the god of hell. It has necklaces of alternate hearts

and dead men's hands, with death's heads for a central ornament. At the

bottom of the block is a strange sprawling figure, which one cannot

see now, for it is the base which rests on the ground; but there are

two shoulders projecting from the idol, which show plainly that it

did not stand on the ground, but was supported aloft on the tops of

two pillars. The figure carved upon the bottom represents a monster

holding a skull in each hand, while others hang from his knees and

elbows. His mouth is a mere oval ring, a common feature of Mexican

idols, and four tusks project just above it. The new moon laid down

like a bridge forms his forehead, and a star is placed on each side

of it. This is thought to have been the conventional representation

of Mictlanteuctli (Lord of the Land of the Dead), the god of hell,

which was a place of utter and eternal darkness. Probably each victim

as he was led to the altar could look up between the two pillars and

see the hideous god of hell staring down upon him from above. There is

little doubt that this is the famous war-idol which stood on the great

teocalli of Mexico, and before which so many thousands of human beings

were sacrificed. It lay undisturbed under ground in the great square,

close to the very site of the teocalli, until sixty years ago. For

many years after that it was kept buried, lest the sight of one of

their old deities might be too exciting for the Indians, who, as I

have mentioned before, had certainly not forgotten it, and secretly

ornamented it with garlands of flowers while it remained above ground.'

If my reader will now turn to the (fig. 11) portrait of the Demon

of Serpents, he will find a conception fundamentally similar to

the Mexican demoness of death or slaughter, but one that is not

shut up in a museum of antiquities; it still haunts and terrifies a

vast number of the people born in Ceylon. He is the principal demon

invoked in Ceylon by the malignant sorcerers in performing the 84,000

different charms that afflict evils (Hooniyan). His general title is

Oddy Cumara Hooniyan Dewatawa; but he has a special name for each of

his six several apparitions, the chief of these being Cali Oddisey,

or demon of incurable diseases, therefore of death, and Naga Oddisey,

demon of serpents--deadliest of animals. Beneath him is the Pale Horse

which has had its career so long and far,--even to the White Mare on

which, in some regions, Christ is believed to revisit the earth every

Christmas; and also the White Mare of Yorkshire Folklore which bore

its rider from Whitestone Cliff to hell. This Singhalese form also,

albeit now associated by Capuas with fatal disease, was probably at

first, like the Mexican, a war goddess and god combined, as is shown

by the uplifted sword, and reeking hand uplifted in triumph. Equally

a god of war is our 'Death on the Pale Horse,' which christian art,

following the so-called Apocalypse, has made so familiar. 'I looked,

and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and

Hell followed with him. And power was given to him over the fourth

part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death,

and with the beasts of the earth.' This is but a travesty of the Greek

Ares, the Roman Mars, or god of War. In the original Greek-form Ares

was not solely the god of war, but of destruction generally. In the

OEdipus Tyrannus of Sophocles we have the popular conception of him

as one to whom the deadly plague is ascribed. He is named as the

'god unhonoured among gods,' and it is said:--'The city is wildly

tossing, and no more can lift up her head from the waves of death;

withering the ripening grain in the husks, withering the kine in their

pastures; blighted are the babes through the failing labours of women;

the fire-bearing god, horrid Pestilence, having darted down, ravages

the city; by him the house of Cadmus is empty, and dark Hades enriched

with groans and lamentations.'

Mother of the deadliest 'Calas' of Singhalese demonolatry, sister of

the Scandinavian Hel in name and nature, is Kali. Although the Hindu

writers repudiate the idea that there is any devil among their three

hundred and thirty millions of deities, it is difficult to deny Kali

that distinction. Her wild dance of delight over bodies of the slain

would indicate pleasure taken in destruction for its own sake, so

fulfilling the definition of a devil; but, on the other hand, there

is a Deccan legend that reports her as devouring the dead, and this

would make her a hunger-demon. We may give her the benefit of the

doubt, and class her among the demons--or beings whose evil is not

gratuitous--all the more because the mysteriously protruding tongue,

as in the figure of Typhon (p. 185), probably suggests thirst. Hindu

legend does, indeed, give another interpretation, and say that when she

was dancing for joy at having slain a hundred-headed giant demigod, the

shaking of the earth was so formidable that Siva threw himself among

the slain, whom she was crushing at every step, hoping to induce her

to pause; but when, unheeding, she trod upon the body of her husband,

she paused and thrust out her tongue from surprise and shame. The

Vedic description of Agni as an ugra (ogre), with 'tongue of flame,'

may better interpret Kali's tongue. It is said Kali is pleased for

a hundred years by the blood of a tiger; for a thousand by that of

a man; for a hundred thousand by the blood of three men.

How are we to understand this dance of Death, and the further legend

of her tossing dead bodies into the air for amusement? Such a figure

found among a people who shudder at taking life even from the lowest

animals is hardly to be explained by the destructiveness of nature

personified in her spouse Siva. Her looks and legends alike represent

slaughter by human violence. May it not be that Kali represents some

period when the abhorrence of taking life among a vegetarian people--a

people, too, believing in transmigration--might have become a public

danger? When Krishna appeared it was, according to the Bhágavat Gita,

as charioteer inciting Arjoon to war. There must have been various

periods when a peaceful people must fall victims to more savage

neighbours unless they could be stimulated to enter on the work of

destruction with a light heart. There may have been periods when the

human Kalis of India might stimulate their husbands and sons to war

with such songs as the women of Dardistan sing at the Feast of Fire

(p. 91). The amour of the Greek goddess of Beauty with the god of War,

leaving her lawful spouse the Smith, is full of meaning. The Assyrian

Venus, Istar, appeared in a vision, with wings and halo, bearing a bow

and arrow for Assurbanipal. The Thug appears to have taken some such

view of Kali, regarding her as patroness of their plan for reducing

population. They are said to have claimed that Kali left them one of

her teeth for a pickaxe, her rib for a knife, her garment's hem for

a noose, and wholesale murder for a religion. The uplifted right

hand of the demoness has been interpreted as intimating a divine

purpose in the havoc around her, and it is possible that some such

euphemism attached to the attitude before the Thug accepted it as his

own benediction from this highly decorated personage of human cruelty.

The ancient reverence for Kali has gradually passed to her mitigated

form--Durgá. Around her too are visible the symbols of destruction;

but she is supposed to be satisfied with pumpkin-animals, and the

weapons in her ten hands are believed to be directed against the

enemies of the gods, especially against the giant king Muheshu. She

is mother of the beautiful boy Kartik, and of the elephant-headed

inspirer of knowledge Ganesa. She is reverenced now as female energy,

the bestower of beauty and fruitfulness on women.

The identity of war-gods and death-demons, in the most frightful

conceptions which have haunted the human imagination, is of profound

significance. These forms do not represent peaceful and natural death,

not death by old age,--of which, alas, those who cowered before them

knew but little,--but death amid cruelty and agony, and the cutting

down of men in the vigour of life. That indeed was terrible,--even

more than these rude images could describe.

But there are other details in these hideous forms. The priest has

added to the horse and sword of war the adored serpent, and hideous

symbols of the 'Land of the Dead.' For it is not by terror of death,

but of what he can persuade men lies beyond, that the priest has

reigned over mankind. When Isabel (in 'Measure for Measure') is

trying to persuade her brother that the sense of death lies most in

apprehension, the sentenced youth still finds death 'a fearful thing.'

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;

To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;

This sensible warm motion to become

A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit

To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside

In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;

To be imprisoned in the viewless winds,

And blown with violence round about

The pendent world; or to be worse than worst

Of these, that lawless and incertain thoughts

Imagine howling!--'tis too horrible!

The weariest and most loathed worldly life

That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment

Can lay on nature, is a paradise

To what we fear of death.

In all these apprehensions of Claudio there is no thought of

annihilation. What if he had seen death as an eternal sleep? Let

Hamlet answer:--

To die,--to sleep;--

No more;--and, by a sleep, to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to,--'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished.

The greater part of the human race still belong to religions which,

in their origin, promised eternal repose as the supreme final

bliss. Had death in itself possessed horrors for the human mind,

the priest need not have conjured up beyond it those tortures that

haunted Hamlet with the dreams of possible evils beyond which make

even the wretched rather bear the ills they have than fly to others

they know not of. It would have been sufficient sanction to promise

immortality only to the pious. But as in Claudio's shuddering lines

every hell is reflected--whether of ice, fire, or brutalisation--so

are the same mixed with the very blood and brain of mankind, even

where literally outgrown. Christianity superadded to the horrors by

importing the idea that death came by human sin, and so by gradual

development ascribing to Satan the power of death; thereby forming a

new devil who bore in him the power to make death a punishment. How

the matter stood in the mediæval belief may be seen in figure 19,

copied from a Russian Bible of the (early) seventeenth century. Lazarus

smiles to see the nondescript soul of Dives torn from him by a devil

with a hook, while another drowns the groans with a drum. Satan

squirts an infernal baptism on the departing soul, and the earnest

co-operation of the archangel justifies the satisfaction of Lazarus

and Abraham. This degraded belief is still found in the almost gleeful

pulpit-picturings of physical agonies as especially attending the

death-beds of 'infidels,'--as Voltaire and Paine,--and its fearful

result is found in the degree to which priesthoods are still able

to paralyse the common sense and heart of the masses by the barbaric

ceremonials with which they are permitted to surround death, and the

arrogant line drawn between unorthodox goats and credulous sheep by

'consecrated' ground.

Mr. Keary, in his interesting volume on 'The Dawn of History,' [202]

says that it has been suggested that the youthful winged figure

on the drum of a column from the temple of Diana at Ephesus to the

British Museum, may be a representation of Thanatos, Death. It would

be agreeable to believe that the only important representation of Death

left by Greek art is that exquisite figure, whose high tribute is that

it was at first thought to be Love! The figure is somewhat like the

tender Eros of preraphaelite art, and with the same look of gentle

melancholy. Such a sweet and simple form of Death would be worthy of

the race which, amid all the fiery or cold rivers of the underworld

which had gathered about their religion, still saw running there the

soft-flowing stream of forgetfulness. Let one study this Ephesian

Thanatos reverently--no engraving or photograph can do it even partial

justice--and then in its light read those myths of Death which seem to

bear us back beyond the savagery of war and the artifices of priests

to the simpler conceptions of humanity. In its serene light we may

especially read both Vedic and Iranian hymns and legends of Yama.

The first man to die became the powerful Yama of the Hindus, the

monarch of the dead; and he became invested with metaphors of the sun

that had set. [203] In a solemn and pathetic hymn of the Vedas he is

said to have crossed the rapid waters, to have shown the way to many,

to have first known the path on which our fathers crossed over. [204]

But in the splendours of sunset human hope found its prophetic pictures

of a heaven beyond. The Vedic Yama is ever the friend. It is one of

the most picturesque facts of mythology that, after Yama had become

in India another name for Death, the same name reappeared in Persia,

and in the Avesta, as a type at once of the Golden Age in the past

and of paradise in the future.

Such was the Iranian Yima. He was that 'flos regum' whose reign

represented 'the ideal of human happiness, when there was neither

illness nor death, neither heat nor cold,' and who has never

died. 'According to the earlier traditions of the Avesta,' says

Spiegel, 'Jima does not die, but when evil and misery began to prevail

on earth, retires to a smaller space, a kind of garden or Eden, where

he continues his happy life with those who remained true to him.' Such

have been the antecedents of our many beautiful myths which ascribe

even an earthly immortality to the great,--to Barbarossa, Arthur,

and even to the heroes of humbler races as Hiawatha and Glooscap

of North American tribes,--who are or were long believed to have

'sailed into the fiery sunset,' or sought some fair island, or to

slumber in a hidden grotto, until the world shall have grown up to

their stature and requires their return.

In Japan the (Sintoo) god of Hell is now named Amma, and one may

suspect that it is some imitation of Yama by reason of the majesty he

still retains in the popular conception. He is pictured as a grave

man, wearing a judicial cap, and no cruelties seem to be attributed

to him personally, but only to the oni or demons of whom he is lord.

The kindly characteristics of the Hindu Yama seem in Persia to have

been replaced by the bitterness of Ahriman, or Anra-mainyu, the

genius of evil. Haug interprets Anra-mainyu as 'Death-darting.' The

word is the counterpart of Speñta-mainyu, and means originally the

'throttling spirit;' being thus from anh, philologically the root of

all evil, as we shall see when we consider its dragon brood. Professor

Whitney translates the name 'Malevolent.' But, whatever may be the

meaning of the word, there is little doubt that the Twins of Vedic

Mythology--Yama and Yami--parted into genii of Day and Night, and

were ultimately spiritualised in the Spirit of Light and Spirit of

Darkness which have made the basis of all popular theology from the

time of Zoroaster until this day.

Nothing can be more remarkable than the extreme difference between

the ancient Hindu and the Persian view of death. As to the former it

was the happy introduction to Yama, to the latter it was the visible

seal of Ahriman's equality with Ormuzd. They held it in absolute

horror. The Towers of Silence stand in India to-day as monuments of

this darkest phase of the Parsî belief. The dead body belonged to

Ahriman, and was left to be devoured by wild creatures; and although

the raising of towers for the exposure of the corpse, so limiting its

consumption to birds, has probably resulted from a gradual rationalism

which has from time to time suggested that by such means souls of the

good may wing their way to Ormuzd, yet the Parsî horror of death is

strong enough to give rise to such terrible suspicions, even if they

were unfounded, as those which surrounded the Tower (Khao's Dokhma)

in June 1877. The strange behaviour of the corpse-bearers in leaving

one tower, going to another, and afterwards (as was said) secretly

repairing to the first, excited the belief that a man had been found

alive in the first and was afterwards murdered. The story seems to have

begun with certain young Parsîs themselves, and, whether it be true

or not, they have undoubtedly interpreted rightly the ancient feeling

of that sect with regard to all that had been within the kingdom of

the King of Terrors. 'As sickness and death,' says Professor Whitney,

'were supposed to be the work of the malignant powers, the dead body

itself was regarded with superstitious horror. It had been gotten by

the demons into their own peculiar possession, and became a chief

medium through which they exercised their defiling action upon the

living. Everything that came into its neighbourhood was unclean, and to

a certain extent exposed to the influences of the malevolent spirits,

until purified by the ceremonies which the law prescribed.' [205]

It is to be feared this notion has crept in among the Brahmans;

the Indian Mirror (May 26, 1878) states that a Chandernagore lady,

thrown into the Ganges, but afterwards found to be alive, was believed

to be possessed by Dano (an evil spirit), and but for interference

would have found a watery grave. The Jews also were influenced by

this belief, and to this day it is forbidden a Cohen, or descendant

of the priesthood, to touch a dead body.

The audience at the Crystal Palace which recently witnessed the

performance of Euripides' Alcestis could hardly, it is to be feared,

have realised the relation of the drama to their own religion. Apollo

induces the Fates to consent that Admetus shall not die provided he

can find a substitute for him. The pure Alcestis steps forward and

devotes herself to death to save her husband. Apollo tries to persuade

Death to give back Alcestis, but Death declares her fate demanded

by justice. While Alcestis is dying, Admetus bids her entreat the

gods for pity; but Alcestis says it is a god who has brought on the

necessity, and adds, 'Be it so!' She sees the hall of the dead, with

'the winged Pluto staring from beneath his black eyebrows.' She reminds

her husband of the palace and regal sway she might have enjoyed in

Thessaly had she not left it for him. Bitterly does Pheres reproach

Admetus for accepting life through the vicarious suffering and death

of another. Then comes Hercules; he vanquishes Death; he leads forth

Alcestis from 'beneath into the light.' With her he comes into the

presence of Admetus, who is still in grief. Admetus cannot recognise

her; but when he recognises her with joy, Hercules warns him that it

is not lawful for Alcestis to address him 'until she is unbound from

her consecration to the gods beneath, and the third day come.'

It only requires a change of names to make Alcestis a Passion-play. The

unappeasable Justice which is as a Fate binding the deity, though it

may be satisfied vicariously; 'the last enemy, Death;' the atonement

by sacrifice of a saintly human being, who from a father's palace is

brought by love freely to submit to death; the son of a god (Zeus) by a

human mother (Alcmene),--the god-man Herakles,--commissioned to destroy

earthly evils by twelve great labours,--descending to conquer Death and

deliver one of the 'spirits in prison,' the risen spirit not recognised

at first, as Jesus was not by Mary; still bearing the consecration

of the grave until the third day, which forbade intercourse with the

living ('Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father'),--all

these enable us to recognise in the theologic edifices around us the

fragments of a crumbled superstition as they lay around Euripides.

From the old pictures of Christ's triumphal pilgrimage on earth

parallels for the chief Labours of Herakles may be found; he is shown

treading on the lion, asp, dragon, and Satan; but the myths converge

in the Descent into Hades and the conquest of Death. It is remarkable

that in the old pictures of Christ delivering souls from Hades he is

generally represented closely followed by Eve, whose form so emerging

would once have been to the greater part of Europe already familiar as

that of either Alcestis, Eurydice, or Persephone. One of the earliest

examples of the familiar subject, Christ conquering Death, is that in

the ancient (tenth century) Missal of Worms,--that city whose very name

preserves the record of the same combat under the guise of Siegfried

and the Worm, or Dragon. The cross is now the sword thrust near the

monster's mouth. The picture illustrates the chant of Holy Week:

'De manu Mortis liberabo eos, de Morte redimam eos. Ero Mors tua,

O Mors; morsus tuus ero, inferne.' From the pierced mouth of Death

are vomited flames, which remind us of his ethnical origin; but it

is not likely that to the christianised pagans of Worms the picture

could ever have conveyed an impression so weirdly horrible as that

of their own goddess of Death, Hel. 'Her hall is called Elvidnir,

realm of the cold storm: Hunger is her table; Starvation, her knife;

Delay, her man; Slowness, her maid; Precipice, her threshold; Care,

her bed; burning Anguish, the hangings of her apartments. One half

of her body is livid, the other half the colour of human flesh.'

With the Scandinavian picture of the Abode of Death may be compared the

description of the Abode of Nin-ki-gal, the Assyrian Queen of Death,

from a tablet in the British Museum, translated by Mr. Fox Talbot:

[206]--

To the House men enter--but cannot depart from:

To the Road men go--but cannot return.

The abode of darkness and famine

Where Earth is their food: their nourishment Clay:

Light is not seen; in darkness they dwell:

Ghosts, like birds, flutter their wings there;

On the door and the gate-posts the dust lies undisturbed.

The Semitic tribes, undisturbed, like the importers of their theology

into the age of science, by the strata in which so many perished animal

kingdoms are entombed, attributed all death, even that of animals,

to the forbidden fruit. The Rabbins say that not only Adam and Eve,

but the animals in Eden, partook of that fruit, and came under the

power of Sammaël the Violent, and of his agent Azraël, the demon of

Death. The Phoenix, having refused this food, preserved the power of

renovating itself.

It is an example of the completeness and consistency with which a

theory may organise its myth, that the fatal demons are generally

represented as abhorring salt--the preserving agent and foe of

decay. The 'Covenant of Salt' among the ancient Jews probably had

this significance, and the care with which Job salted his sacrifice

is considered elsewhere. Aubrey says, 'Toads (Saturnine animals) are

killed by putting salt upon them. I have seen the experiment.' The

devil, as heir of death-demons, appears in all European folklore

as a hater of salt. A legend, told by Heine, relates that a knight,

wandering in a wood in Italy, came upon a ruin, and in it a wondrous

statue of the goddess of Beauty. Completely fascinated, the knight

haunted the spot day after day, until one evening he was met by a

servant who invited him to enter a villa which he had not before

remarked. What was his surprise to be ushered into the presence of

the living image of his adored statue! Amid splendour and flowers

the enraptured knight is presently seated with his charmer at

a banquet. Every luxury of the world is there; but there is no

salt! When he hints this want a cloud passes over the face of his

Beauty. Presently he asks the servant to bring the salt; the servant

does so, shuddering; the knight helps himself to it. The next sip of

wine he takes elicits a cry from him: it is liquid fire. Madness seizes

upon him; caresses, burning kisses follow, until he falls asleep on the

bosom of his goddess. But what visions! Now he sees her as a wrinkled

crone, next a great bat bearing a torch as it flutters around him,

and again as a frightful monster, whose head he cuts off in an agony

of terror. When the knight awakes it is in his own villa. He hastens

to his ruin, and to the beloved statue; he finds her fallen from the

pedestal, and the beautiful head cut from the neck lying at her feet.

The Semitic Angel of Death is a figure very different from any that

we have considered. He is known in theology only in the degradation

which he suffered at the hands of the Rabbins, but originally was an

awful but by no means evil genius. The Persians probably imported him,

under the name of Asuman, for we do not find him mentioned in their

earlier books, and the name has a resemblance to the Hebrew shamad,

to exterminate, which would connect it with the biblical 'destroyer'

Abaddon. This is rendered more probable because the Zoroastrians

believed in an earlier demon, Vízaresha, who carried souls after death

to the region of Deva-worshippers (India). The Chaldaic Angel of Death,

Malk-ad Mousa, may have derived his name from the legend of his having

approached Moses with the object of forcing his soul out of his body,

but, being struck by the glory of Moses' face, and by virtue of the

divine name on his rod, was compelled to retire. The legend is not

so ancient as the name, and was possibly a Saga suggested by the

name; it is obviously the origin of the tradition of the struggle

between Michael and Satan for the body of Moses (Jude 9.). This

personification had thus declined among the Jews into being evil enough

to be identified with Samaël,--who, in the Book of the Assumption of

Moses, is named as his assailant,--and subsequently with Satan himself,

named in connection with the New Testament version. It was on account

of this degradation of a being described in the earlier books of the

Bible as the commissioner of Jehovah that there was gradually developed

among the Jews two Angels of Death, one (Samaël, or his agent Azraël)

for those who died out of the land of Israel, and the other (Gabriel)

for those who had the happier lot of dying in their own country.

This relegation of Samaël to the wandering Jews--who if they died

abroad were not supposed to reach Paradise with facility, if at

all--is significant. For Samaël is pretty certainly a conception

borrowed from outlying Semitic tribes. What that conception was we

find in Job xviii. 18, where he is 'the king of Terrors,' and still

more in the Arabic Azraël. The legend of this typical Angel of Death

is that he was promoted to his high office for special service. When

Allah was about to create man he sent the angels Gabriel, Michael,

and Israfil to the earth to bring clay of different colours for that

purpose; but the Earth warned them that the being about to be formed

would rebel against his creator and draw down a curse upon her (the

Earth), and they returned without bringing the clay. Then Azraël was

sent by Allah, and he executed his commission without fear; and for

this he was appointed the angel to separate souls from bodies. Azraël

had subordinate angels under him, and these are alluded to in the

opening lines of the Sura 79 of the Koran:

By the angels who tear forth the souls of some with violence;

And by those who draw forth the souls of others with gentleness.

The souls of the righteous are drawn forth with gentleness, those

of the wicked torn from them in the way shown in the Russian picture

(Fig. 19), which is indeed an illustration of the same mythology.

These terrible tasks were indeed such as were only too likely to

bring Azraël into the evil repute of an executioner in the course

of time; but no degradation of him seems to have been developed

among the Moslems. He seems to have been associated in their minds

with Fate, and similar stories were told of him. Thus it is related

that once when Azraël was passing by Solomon he gazed intently upon

a man with whom Solomon was conversing. Solomon told his companion

that it was the Angel of Death who was looking at him, and the man

replied, 'He seems to want me: order the wind to carry me from hence

into India;' when this was done Azraël approached Solomon and said,

'I looked earnestly at that man from wonder, for I was commanded to

take his soul in India.' [207]

Azraël was often represented as presenting to the lips a cup of

poison. It is probable that this image arose from the ancient ordeal

by poison, whereby draughts, however manipulated beforehand with

reference to the results, were popularly held to be divinely mingled

for retributive or beneficent effects. 'Cup' thus became among Semitic

tribes a symbol of Fate. The 'cup of consolation,' 'cup of wrath,'

'cup of trembling,' which we read of in the Old Testament; the 'cup

of blessing,' and 'cup of devils,' spoken of by Paul, have this

significance. The cup of Nestor, ornamented with the dove (Iliad,

xi. 632), was probably a 'cup of blessing,' and Mr. Schliemann has

found several of the same kind at Mycenæ. The symbol was repeatedly

used by Christ,--'Let this cup pass from me,' 'The cup that my Father

hath given me to drink shall I not drink it,' 'Are ye able to drink

of the cup that I drink of,'--and the familiar association of Azraël's

cup is expressed in the phrase 'taste of death.'

One of the most pleasing modifications of the belief in the Angel of

Death is that found by Lepsius [208] among the Mohammedan negroes of

Kordofan. Osraîn (Azraël), it is said, receives the souls of the dead,

and leads the good to their reward, the bad to punishment. 'He lives

in a tree, el segerat mohana (the tree of fulfilling), which has as

many leaves as there are inhabitants in the world. On each leaf is

a name, and when a child is born a new one grows. If any one becomes

ill his leaf fades, and should he be destined to die, Osraîn breaks

it off. Formerly he used to come visibly to those whom he was going

to carry away, and thus put them in great terror. Since the prophet's

time, however, he has become invisible; for when he came to fetch

Mohammed's soul he told him that it was not good that by his visible

appearance he should frighten mankind. They might then easily die of

terror, before praying; for he himself, although a courageous and

spirited man, was somewhat perturbed at his appearance. Therefore

the prophet begged God to make Osraîn invisible, which prayer was

granted.' Mr. Mackenzie adds on this that, among the Moravian Jews,

at new moon a branch is held in its light, and the name of a person

pronounced: his face will appear between the horns of the moon,

and should he be destined to die the leaves will fade.

Mr. John Ruskin has been very severe upon the Italians for the humour

with which they introduce Death as a person of their masque. 'When I

was in Venice in 1850,' he says, 'the most popular piece of the comic

opera was "Death and the Cobbler," in which the point of the plot was

the success of a village cobbler as a physician, in consequence of

the appearance of Death to him beside the bed of every patient who

was not to recover; and the most applauded scene in it was one in

which the physician, insolent in success, and swollen with luxury,

was himself taken down into the abode of Death, and thrown into an

agony of terror by being shown lives of men, under the form of wasting

lamps, and his own ready to expire.' On which he expresses the opinion

that 'this endurance of fearful images is partly associated with

indecency, partly with general fatuity and weakness of mind.' [209]

But may it not rather be the healthy reaction from morbid images of

terror, with which a purely natural and inevitable event has so long

been invested by priests, and portrayed in such popular pictures as

'The Dance of Death?' The mocking laughter with which the skeletons

beset the knight in our picture (Fig. 20), from the wall of La Chaise

Dieu, Auvergne, marks the priestly terrorism, which could not fail

to be vulgarised even more by the frivolous. In 1424 there was a

masquerade of the Dance of Death in the Cemetery of the Innocents

at Paris, attended by the Duke of Bedford and the Duke of Burgundy,

just returned from battle. It may have been the last outcome in

the west of Kali's dance over the slain; but it is fortunate when

Fanaticism has no worse outcome than Folly. The Skeleton Death has

the advantage over earlier forms of suggesting the naturalness of

death. It is more scientific. The gradual discovery by the people

that death is not caused by sin has largely dissipated its horrors

in regions where the ignorance and impostures of priestcraft are of

daily observation; and although the reaction may not be expressed with

good taste, there would seem to be in it a certain vigour of nature,

reasserting itself in simplicity.

In the northern world we are all too sombre in the matter. It is the

ages of superstition which have moulded our brains, and too generally

given to our natural love of life the unnatural counterpart of a

terror of death. What has been artificially bred into us can be

cultivated out of us. There are indeed deaths corresponding to the

two Angels--the death that comes by lingering disease and pain, and

that which comes by old age. There are indeed Azraëls in our cities

who poison the food and drink of the people, and mingle death in the

cup of water; and of them there should be increasing horror until the

gentler angel abides with us, and death by old age becomes normal. The

departure from life being a natural condition of entering upon it,

it is melancholy indeed that it should be ideally confused with the

pains and sorrows often attending it. It is fabled that Menippus

the Cynic, travelling through Hades, knew which were the kings there

by their howling louder than the rest. They howled loudest because

they had parted from most pleasures on earth. But all the happy and

young have more reason to lament untimely death than kings. The only

tragedy of Death is the ruin of living Love. Mr. Watts, in his great

picture of Love and Death (Grosvenor Gallery, 1877), revealed the

real horror. Not that skeleton which has its right time and place,

not the winged demon (called angel), who has no right time or place,

is here, but a huge, hard, heartless form, as of man half-blocked out

of marble; a terrible emblem of the remorseless force that embodies

the incompleteness and ignorance of mankind--a force that steadily

crushes hearts where intellects are devoting their energies to alien

worlds. Poor Love has little enough science; his puny arm stretched

out to resist the colossal form is weak as the prayers of agonised

parents and lovers directed against never-swerving laws; he is almost

exhausted; his lustrous wings are broken and torn in the struggle;

the dove at his feet crouches mateless; the rose that climbed on his

door is prostrate; over his shoulder the beam-like arm has set the

stony hand against the door where the rose of joy must fall.

The aged when they die do but follow the treasures that have gone

before. One by one the old friends have left them, the sweet ties

parted, and the powers to enjoy and help become feeble. When of the

garden that once bloomed around them memory alone is left, friendly

is death to scatter also the leaves of that last rose where the loved

ones are sleeping. This is the real office of death. Nay, even when

it comes to the young and happy it is not Death but Disease that is

the real enemy; in disease there is almost no compensation at all but

learning its art of war; but Death is Nature's pity for helpless pain;