SHES. FIRE 
 
 & FLOWERS. 
 

 
 
 
 ton 
 
 151- 
 
 .F 
 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE 
 WORSHIP. 
 
]f isbes, Jf lowers, & five 
 
 AS iiSi i 
 
 ELEMENTS AND DE.T.ES 
 
 IN THE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Ancient Religions 
 
 OP 
 
 Wveece> $altt)Um, $U»m«, gjtnMa, &c< 
 
 WITH 
 
 Illustrative Myths and Legends 
 
 PRIVATELY PRINTED. 
 
 A. Reader, Orange Street, Red Lion Square, London. 
 1890. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 *T^HE volume now in the readers hands forms the 
 
 fifth, and, for the present, the concluding portion 
 
 of the "Phallic Series" it was found necessary to issue 
 
 in further explication of certain matters set forth in 
 
 the first book on this peculiar subject. 
 
 Having dealt with Sex Worship generally, Ophio- 
 latrceia, the Mound Towers and Holed Stones, Trees, 
 Fishes, Flowers, and Fire, the ground has been pretty 
 well covered, and with the exception of an Appendix, 
 which future demands may possibly call forth, the subject 
 is now complete. It is confidently expected that the 
 present volume will be found equally interesting with 
 those which have preceded it; it opens up entirely new 
 matter, and contains a number of curious traditions not 
 before alluded to. 
 
Vlll. 
 
 Contexts. 
 
 Chapter V. (Fire) 43 
 
 Story of the Fire-god and his Secret — Growth of Fire Worship 
 — Fire an essential in Hindoo Worship — The Chaldeans— The 
 Persians — The Hebrews— Fire in Hindu Ceremonies — Duties of 
 Hindu Life— The Serpent and Fire — Phallo-Pythic Solar Shrines 
 — Fire and Phallic Worship — Leaping through fire — Fire-treading 
 in Scotland — Fire-leaping in Russia — The Medes as Fire Wor- 
 shippers — The Sabines — Fire and the Ancient Christians — The 
 Roman Church and Fire — The Jews— Temple of Vesta— Fire 
 Worship in Ireland — Phallo-fire-worship of the Greeks and 
 Romans. 
 
 Chapter VI. (Fire) 60 
 
 Fire Worship in the States of the Mediterranean — Special 
 sacredness of the Public City-fire of Greece and Rome — The 
 Sacred Fire of Tlachtga — Ceylon Fire Worship — The Parsees — 
 Persian Monuments — Impiety of Cambyses — Cingalese Terms, 
 Sanscrit, Welsh, &c. — The Yule Log— Fire Worship in England — 
 Fire of Beltane— Druidical Fires — May-day Fires — November 
 Fires in Ireland — Between two Fires — Scotland— The Summer 
 Solstice-fire Ceremonies — Worship of Baal in Ireland — St. John's 
 Day — Bonfires — Decree of Council of Constantinople. 
 
 Chapter VII. (Fire) 75 
 
 Paradise Lost and Moloch— The God of the Ammonites— The 
 slaughter of Children by Fire, notices in the Scriptures — Fire 
 Ceremonies and Moloch — Sacred Fire of the Phoenicians— The 
 Carthnginians — Custom of Oziese — Sardinian Customs and 
 Moloch— The Cuthites — Persian Fire Worship — House-fires of 
 Greece and Rome— Sacred Books of the East — Laws of Manu — 
 The Rig Veda and Hymns to Agni, the God of Fire — Vesta, 
 Worship of — The Magi — Zoroaster. 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Frequent occurrence of the Fish Symbol — Fish Heraldry — 
 Earliest Devices — Fish Devices in churches and other public 
 buildings — The Catacombs — Ichthus — Fish Devices in Glaston- 
 bury Abbey, (Sec. — The Book Fish — Glasgow Fish Arms — The 
 Fish and Ring Story of Scotland — Solomon and the Fish and 
 Ring — The Hermit's Fish Pond of St. Neot's — The Sacred 
 Perch — The Dolphin — Neptune. 
 
 FEW, if any, symbols are of such frequent occurrence 
 among the relics of bygone ages as that of the fish. 
 Whether we look upon the monuments of Babylon and Nineveh, 
 upon the walls of the Roman Catacombs where the early 
 Christians sought a refuge from the fury of their Pagan 
 persecutors, or amongst the heraldic devices adopted by our 
 ancestors as coats of arms in comparatively modern times, 
 the fish is ever prominent. With regard to the latter, it is 
 certainly remarkable to what an extent it prevails, and 
 several writers on Heraldry (particularly Moule) have given 
 us very full accounts and graphic illustrations of its use. 
 Nor is it one kind of fish only we find thus employed, which 
 might perhaps be associated with some special myth or 
 tradition — the dolphin, the herring, the salmon, the trout, the 
 pike, the barbel, the roach, the sole, the turbot, the flounder, 
 the haddock, the cod, the hake, the ling, the whiting, the 
 mullet, the grayling and others have all been pressed into 
 the same service, and even the different modes of taking fish 
 by the spear, the net, or the hook, are found in the 
 armorial ensigns of the lords of manors deriving revenue from 
 the produce of the fishery. "The boats," says Moule, "em- 
 ployed in the same service, which were at the command of 
 the sovereign in time of war, and formed the original navy 
 of Britain, distinguish the ensigns of the maritime lords, and 
 the corporate bodies to whom the jurisdiction of the ports 
 was entrusted." b 
 
O FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 It is not unlikely that the vast numbers of fishes and 
 their great variety may have had much to do with their 
 employment in this connection ; some years ago the British 
 Museum contained fifteen hundred different species, while the 
 museum in Paris — one unusually rich in specimens of this 
 part of the animal kingdom — possessed as many as five 
 thousand, a number which has steadily gone on increasing. 
 "As the symbol of a name, almost all fish have been used 
 in Heraldry ; and in many instances fish have been assumed 
 in arms in reference to the produce of the estate, giving 
 to the quaint device a twofold interest. They are borne 
 upright and extended, and when feeding are termed devouring; 
 Allume, when their eyes are bright, and Parne when their 
 mouths are open." * 
 
 "The earliest known device of fish, the zodiacal sign, 
 is emblematical of the fishery of the Nile, commencing in 
 the month of February, about the time when the sun 
 enters Pisces, which is the best season for fishing, accord- 
 ing to Pliny. Modern travellers relate that the walls of the 
 temple of Denderah are literally covered with magnificent 
 sculpture and painting. The figures representing the Zodiac 
 are on the ceiling of the portico, and are engraved in 
 the great work on Egypt published by order of the French 
 Government. The signs of the Zodiac were frequently 
 sculptured on the exterior of ancient churches, presenting 
 a sort of rural calendar for the labours of the field each 
 month in the year, which was of practical use. 
 
 1 When in the Zodiac the fish wheel round, 
 They loose the floods and irrigate the ground.' 
 
 " In his directions to the husbandman for the month 
 of February, old Tusser says : 
 
 • To the coast, man, ride, Lent stuff provide ; ' 
 with another couplet in encouragement of the fisherman, 
 
 ' The land doth will, the sea doth wish, 
 Spare sometimes flesh, and feed off fish.' 
 
 " The Zodiacal signs also appear as an ornament on 
 antique vases, coins, pavements, etc., and are painted in 
 bright colours on the inside of several mummy cases now 
 in the British Museum. A manuscript in the Cottonian 
 Library shows the Bign Pisces having a connecting line from 
 the tail of each fish." * 
 
 * Monle's Heraldry. 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 3 
 
 On many churches and other buildings both in England 
 and on the continent the same device is found. The porch 
 of the Virgin at Notre Dame at Paris has a number of 
 compartments representing the zodiacal signs and the labours 
 of the different months. The doorway of the church of St. 
 Margaret, York, is similarly adorned, as is one of the porches 
 of Merton College, Oxford. The western doorway of Iffley 
 Church, said to be one of the most beautiful specimens of 
 Anglo-Norman architecture in England, bears the sign of 
 the fishes. 
 
 In Canterbury Cathedral also is a pavement of large 
 stones, somewhat rudely inlaid, bearing figures of the zodiacal 
 signs in circular compartments. The fishes are attached by 
 a line passing from mouth to mouth. 
 
 In the Roman Catacombs the fish is frequently found 
 amongst the countless inscriptions with which the walls are 
 crowded. Maitland describes it as there found as a symbol 
 expressive of the name of Christ, and remarkable as afford- 
 ing a combination of everything desirable in a tessera, or 
 mystic sign. The Greek for fish, ixOvs, contains the initials 
 of Iv/o-ovs, XpLcrTos ®eov Ylos ^MTTjp : Jesus Christ, Son of 
 God, the Saviour • a sentence which had been adopted from 
 the sibylline verses. Moreover the phonetic sign of this 
 word, the actual fish, was an emblem whose meaning was 
 entirely concealed from the uninitiated : an important point 
 with those who were surrounded by foes ready to ridicule 
 and blaspheme whatever of Christianity they could detect. 
 Nor did the appropriateness of the symbol stop here. " The 
 fish," observed Tertullian, "seems a fit emblem of Him 
 whose spiritual children are, like the offspring of fishes, born 
 in the water of baptism."* 
 
 " On walls, as well as tombstones, we find the Fish, 
 Phoenix, Anchor, Ship, Olive and Palm, all of which are 
 sacred to the God of Fertility or the procreative energies. 
 The fish, we are told, was adopted by those Christians 
 because of the alphabetical rebus — the Greek word I. K. Th. U. S. 
 containing the initial letters of the words forming this title 
 in Greek, 'Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour;' but Ik thus 
 was a holy name in Egypt and the East, long ere Greece 
 had adopted her varied faiths, and long before the good 
 
 * Maitland's Church in the Catacombs. 
 
4 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 Nazarene had preached his holy gospel in the wilds of 
 Judea. The Hebrew for fish is Dg, Dag or De-ag, which 
 some think may have sprung from the Sanscrit De-Dev, and 
 A" or Ab, and be allied to the solar Ak, and Aqua, 
 water. Dagan was the fish-god (Alheim) of the Philistines, 
 and spelling Dag backwards as was so common and natural, 
 seeing some peoples read from right to left, and others from 
 left to right, we get Gad, the good one, that is God or 
 Goddess of Day, as in Isa. lxv. 11, where, in connection 
 with Meni the moon, we read : 'Ye are they that prepare 
 a table for Gad, and that furnish the offering unto Meni ; ' 
 which Bagster's Comprehensive Bible admits to be stars or 
 such objects. Dag, says Calmet, signifies Preserver, and so 
 Saviour, which has many ancient connections with fish and 
 water, as we see in the case of Dagon. St. Augustine said 
 of Christ : ' He is the great Fish that lives in the midst 
 of the waters ; ' so no wonder that Ichthus, a fish, should 
 become a holy term, and applied to Christ's representative, 
 who in token wears a Poitrine as his higher officers wear 
 what is called a mitre or turban like a fish's mouth. 
 Christ, being a Hebrew, of course received the title Ikthus 
 from his Greek followers, just as he got I.H.S. — the mono- 
 gram of Bacchus — from those who forsook that god to 
 follow Christianity. There is nothing sacred about such 
 matters. Ich or Ik, or Ak = Ab, at once Our Father and 
 water ; and in India the fish is the god of the water, and 
 so we have Dev-ab, from which may come Deg-an or Dagon. 
 The Greeks, of course, used Thus or theus, and so Ik-theus 
 or God-Ik ; at any rate Christians have made Ik-thus a 
 veritable God, and water its element a very holy thing. 
 The most ancient Keltic tongues seem to identify the two, 
 for water in Gaelic is Uisye, the water of life being 
 Wisge (whiskey), and a fish Iasg, or in old Irish, Iska or 
 [scha, which is an Eastern term for Jesus. If V or F — 
 the digamma — is here admissible, then we arrive very near 
 our own word Fish. Perhaps Vishnoo, Vicnu or Fislmoo, 
 is responsible here, for he is the first who rises out of 
 tli.' water, and from a fish; and from his first incarnation 
 to his last, lie is always connected with both." * 
 
 " Fish " says Moule, " have often been made the vehicle 
 
 * Forl<>ng. 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 5 
 
 of religious instruction, and for this purpose all the fine arts 
 have been put in requisition. Amongst many pictures by the 
 first masters in which the finny tribe are introduced, that 
 of Saint Anthony, of Padua, preaching to the fish, may be 
 mentioned. This fine picture, by Salvator Rosa, is in the 
 collection at ^lthorp House, in Northamptonshire; the sermon 
 itself is given in Addison's Travels in Italy. 
 
 "On the conventual seal of Glastonbury Abbey are 
 represented the figures of Saint Dunstan between Saint 
 Patrick and Saint Benignus ; each has his emblem beneath 
 his feet ; the last has a party of fish : perhaps, adds the 
 historian of the abbey, he also preached to them, as Saint 
 Anthony did. 
 
 "A fish furnishing the University of Cambridge with a 
 religious feast was the occasion of a tract, entitled 'Vox 
 Piscis ; or, the Book-fish;' containing three treatises which 
 were found inside a cod fish in Cambridge market, on 
 Midsummer Eve, 1676. This fish is said to have been taken 
 in Lynn deeps, and after finding a book within it, the fish 
 was carried by the bedel to the vice-chancellor ; and coming 
 as it did at the commencement, the very time when good 
 learning and good cheer were most expected, it was quaintly 
 remarked, that this sea guest had brought his book and his 
 carcass to furnish both. 
 
 " In the arms of the city of Glasgow, and in those 
 of the ancient see, a salmon with a ring in its mouth is 
 said to record a miracle of St. Kentigern, the founder 
 of the see and the first bishop of Glasgow. On the reverse 
 of Bishop Wishart's seal in the reign of Edward II., this 
 supposed allusion to the legendary story of St. Kentigern 
 appears for the first time. 
 
 Some of the early bishops of Glasgow displayed the 
 figure of a salmon, either on the sides of or below the 
 shield of arms on their seals, a circumstance which may be 
 accounted for, without reference to a miracle, as depicting 
 the produce of the Clyde. The revenue of the church of 
 Glasgow at the Reformation included one hundred and 
 sixty-eight salmon arising from the franchise or fishing in 
 that river. 
 
 James Cameron, Lord Privy Seal to King James I. of 
 Scotland and bishop of Glasgow in 1462, bore on his 
 episcopal seal the figure of St. Kentigern in a tabernacle, 
 
6 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 below which are his paternal arms, three bars, having a 
 salmon with a ring in its mouth on either side of the shield, 
 which is surmounted by the mitre. The ring is, perhaps, 
 a type of the annular money, then current among the 
 Britons. 
 
 11 It is curious to note how the emblem of the same 
 fish has continued to enter into the composition of the 
 Glasgow arms and those of the ecclesiastical establishment. 
 
 " The diocese of Glasgow was erected into an arch- 
 bishopric in 1491, with Galloway, Argyll and the Isles as 
 suffragans. James Beaton, archbishop of Glasgow and 
 abbot of Dumfermline, the uncle of Cardinal Beaton, died 
 primate of Scotland in 1539. Many munificent marks of 
 his public spirit and piety long resisted time, and remained 
 after the cathedral ceremonies had been deserted for the 
 plain offices of the kirk of Scotland. 
 
 " On the walls of the Episcopal Palace or Castle of 
 Glasgow were sculptured the arms of Beaton — azure, a fess 
 between three mascles, or, quartered with Balfour, argent, 
 on a chevron sable and otter's head erased of the first, 
 and below the shield, a salmon with a ring in its mouth, 
 as represented on the seals of his predecessors. 
 
 " Another Archbishop Beaton re-founded the Scotch 
 College at Paris in 1603, where, as a monument to his 
 memory, are his arms, surmounted by the episcopal hat, 
 and beneath the shield the fish and ring, the emblem of 
 the see of Glasgow. In more recent times Archbishop 
 Cairncross, in 1684, bore the arms of the see impaled with 
 his paternal coat. 
 
 " The arms of the city of Glasgow are those of the 
 former see, argent, on a mount a tree with a bird on a 
 branch to the dexter, and a bell pendent on the sinister 
 side, the stem of a tree surmounted by a salmon in fess 
 having in its mouth a gold ring." * 
 
 Dr. Dibdin says, "The legend of the 'Fish and the 
 Ring,' is extant in well nigh every chap-book in Scotland ; 
 old Spotswood is among the earliest historians who garnished 
 up the dish from the Latin monastic legends, and Messrs. 
 Smith, Mc.Lellan and Cleland, have not failed to quote his 
 words. They report of St. Kentigern, that a lady of good 
 
 * Moule's Heraldry. 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. ' 
 
 place in the country having lost her ring as she crossed 
 the river Clyde, and her husband waxing jealous, as if she 
 had bestowed the same on one of her lovers, she did mean 
 herself unto Kentigern, entreating his help for the safety ot 
 her honour ; and that he, going to the river after he had 
 used his devotion, willed one who was making to fish, to 
 bring the first that he caught, which was done. _ In the 
 mouth of this fish he found the ring, and sending it to the 
 lady she was thereby freed of her husband's suspicion. The 
 credit of this I believe upon the reporters ; but however it 
 be, the see and city of Glasgow do both of them bear in 
 their arms a fish with a ring in its mouth even to this 
 
 day." * 
 
 Moule remarks that "the classical tale of Polycrates 
 related by Herodotus a thousand years before the time of 
 St. Kentigern, is perhaps the earliest version of the fish 
 and ring, which has often been repeated with variations 
 The ring, Herodotus says was an emerald set in gold and 
 beautifully engraved, the work of Theodorus the Samian ; 
 and this very ring, Pliny relates, was preserved m the 
 Temple of Concord at Rome, to which it was given by the 
 Emperor Augustus. The device of the fish is engraved in 
 M. Claude Paradin's " Hervical Devices" as an emblem of 
 uninterrupted prosperity." 
 
 " If we turn to chapter xxxviii. of Mahomet's Koran, we 
 find the story of the fish and the ring in another form. 
 The note upon the words— ' We placed on his throne a 
 counterfeit body,' says: 'The most received exposition of 
 this passage is taken from the following Talmudic fable : 
 Solomon, having taken Sidon, and slain the king of that 
 city, brought away his daughter Jerada, who became his 
 favourite; and because she ceased not to lament her father's 
 loss, he ordered the devils to make an image of him for 
 her consolation : which being done, and placed ^ in her 
 chamber, she and her maids worshipped it morning and 
 evening, according to their custom. At length Solomon 
 being informed of this idolatry, which was practised under 
 his roof by his vizier, Asaf, he broke the image, and 
 having chastised the woman went out into the desert, where 
 he wept and made supplications to God; who did not think fit, 
 
 * Northern Tour. 
 
S FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIR1S WORSHIP. 
 
 however, to let his negligence pass without some correction. 
 It was Solomon's custom, while he washed himself, to 
 entrust his signet, on which his kingdom depended, with 
 a concubine of his named Amina : one day, therefore, when 
 she had the ring in her custody, a devil named Sakhar 
 came to her in the shape of Solomon, and received the 
 ring from her ; by virtue of which he became possessed of 
 the kingdom, and sat on the throne in the shape which 
 he had borrowed, making what alterations in the law he 
 pleased. Solomon, in the mean time, being changed in 
 his outward appearance and known to none of his subjects, 
 was obliged to wander about and beg alms for his sub- 
 sistence ; till at length, after the space of forty days, which 
 was the time the image had been worshipped in his house, 
 the devil flew away and threw the signet into the sea; the 
 signet was immediately swallowed by a fish, which being 
 taken and given to Solomon, he found the ring in its 
 belly, and having by this means recovered the kingdom, 
 took Sakhar, and, tying a great stone to his neck, threw 
 him into the lake of Tiberias." 
 
 One of the windows of St. Neot's Church, Cornwall, 
 contains the history of that saint known as the pious sacristan 
 of Glastonbury Abbey, "perhaps," says Moule "the only 
 instance of the legend of a local saint so represented, and 
 one of the most splendid specimens of stained glass in the 
 kingdom. The hermit's fish-pond, now remaining in the valley 
 near his cell, afforded materials for one of the legendary 
 tales now represented in the window. In this pool there 
 were three fishes, of which Neot had divine permission 
 to take one every day, with an assurance that the supply 
 should never be diminished. Being afflicted with a severe 
 indisposition, his disciple Barius one day caught two fishes, 
 and having boiled one and broiled the other, placed them 
 before him: 'What hast thou done?' exclaimed Neot; ' lo. 
 the favour of God deserts us : go instantly and restore these 
 fishes to the water.' While Barius was absent Neot pros- 
 trated himself in earnest prayer, till lie returned with the 
 intelligence that the fishes were disporting in the pool. Barius 
 again went and took only one fish, of which Neot had no 
 sooner tasted than he was restored to perfect health."* 
 
 * Gorham. Hist. S. Neots. 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. U 
 
 A species of perch, common in the Mediterranean, is 
 of a brilliant scarlet colour, but with a very strong spinal 
 fin, and, from the resemblance of this spine to a razor, it 
 is named le barbie?'. This fish is held sacred among the 
 divers for marine productions, and when caught by a hook, 
 it is instantly relieved by the rest of the shoal cutting the 
 line of the angler with their sharp spines. 
 
 "The dolphin, as a most peculiarly sacred fish, was called 
 Philanthropist by the ancients, and said to delight in music. 
 It saved the great bard Arion when he threw himself into 
 the Mediterranean on his way to Corinth, which event is 
 said to have happened in the seventh century B.C., or about 
 the time the story of Jonah arose. The Greeks placed the 
 dolphin in their Zodiac. Burckhardt says in his travels in 
 Nubia, that no one is permitted to throw a lance at or 
 injure a dolphin in the Red Sea ; and the same rule is 
 enforced among most of the Greek islands. 
 
 "Neptune, the male sea-god of Rome, was identical with 
 Poseidon of Greece, and his temples and festivals were in 
 the Campus Martius. Poseidon was a brother of Jupiter 
 and Pluto, and a mighty representative god-man of the 
 waters, and of what the sea symbolised ; his was the teeming 
 womb of fertility, and therefore woman. His hosts are 
 dolphins and innumerable sea-nymphs and monsters. His 
 chariots are yoked with horses, which he is said to have 
 created and taught men to manage. His symbol is the 
 phallic trident, or rather the Trisool, or ' giver of life ' of 
 Siva, which can cleave rocks, produce water, and shake 
 heaven and earth. The Nephthus of Egypt was the goddess 
 of the coasts of the Red Sea and the wife of the wicked 
 serpent deity Typhon. The Dolphin as a highly emblematic 
 fish often stands for Neptune himself, although it probably 
 first rose in importance from a mere punning on the words 
 delphis a dolphin, and delphus the womb, and occasionally 
 the pudenda. Delphax was also a young pig which was 
 occasionally offered to Juno ; Delphi was goddess Earth : 
 symbolic chasm, and Delphinius was her Apollo, and from 
 dolphin springs the name Delphin or Dauphin, the eldest 
 son of the King of France." * 
 
 # Rivers of Life. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Ancient Sacred Fish — Fish Diet audits supposed Effects — 
 Fish and the Jews — The god Krodo — Oanes — Dagon — The Fish- 
 god at Nimroud—Khorsabad — Fish Worship in Syria — Temple 
 of Dagon at Azotus — The Dagon of the Bible — Adramelech — 
 Absti?ience from Fish Food — Ancient Character of Fish Worship 
 
 Paradise Lost — Ths Irish demi-god Phin — The Fish as a 
 
 Christian Symbol — Idea involved in Fish Worship — Holy Fish 
 Ponds — Ancient Caledonian Objections to Fish — Other anti-fish- 
 eating Nations — Ishtar. 
 
 INMAN remarks that "the fish selected for honour amongst 
 the ancients was neither flat, globular, nor cylindrical ; 
 it was more or less oval, and terminated in a forked tail. 
 In shape it was like the almond, or the 'concha' with the 
 'nates.' Its open mouth resembles the ' os uteri,' still called 
 'os tinea?,' or tench's mouth. Ancient priests are represented 
 as clothed with a fish, the head being the mitre. The fish's 
 head as a mitre still adorns the heads of Romish bishops. 
 The fish was sacred to Venus, and was a favourite esculent 
 among the luxurious Romans. The fish was an emblem of 
 fecundity. The word nun, however, in the Hebrew, signifies 
 to sprout, to put forth, as well as fish ; and thus the fish 
 symbolises the male principle in an active state. The 
 creature had a very strong symbolic connection with the 
 worship of Aphrodite, and the Romanists still eat it on 
 that day of the week called Dies Veneris, Venus' Day." 
 
 "At the present time there are certain fish which are 
 supposed to give greatly increased virile power to those who 
 eat them. I have (proceeds Inman) indistinct recollection 
 of a similar fact having been recorded in Athemeus, who 
 quotes Theophrastus ;is his authority. The passage is to the 
 effect, that a diet on a certain fish enabled an Indian 
 prince to show one hundred proofs of his manhood in a 
 Bingle day. The same writer mentions goat's flesh as having 
 Bomething of the same effect. The Assyrian Oannes was- 
 represented as a man-fish, and the Capricorn or goat with 
 fish tail, in the Zodiac, is said to have been an emblem 
 of him. 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 11 
 
 "The fish was also associated with Isis, who, like Venus, 
 represented the female element in creation. It was likewise 
 a sacred emblem amongst the Buddhists. 
 
 "Since writing the above, I have ascertained that eating 
 fish for supper, on Friday night, is a Jewish custom or 
 institution. As amongst that nation fecundity is a blessing 
 specially promised by the Omnipotent, so it is thought proper 
 to use human means for ensuring the blessing on the day 
 set apart by the Almighty. The Jewish Sabbath begins at 
 sunset on Friday, and three meals are to be taken during 
 the day, which are supposed to have a powerful aphrodisiac 
 operation. The ingredients are meat and fish, garlic and 
 pepper ; and the particular fish selected, so far as I can 
 learn, is the skate — that which in the Isle of Man is still 
 supposed to be a powerful satyrion. The meal is repeated 
 twice on a Saturday. Mons. Lajard bears testimony to the 
 extent of this custom in the following passage, though he 
 does not directly associate it with the fish, except that the 
 latter are often seen on coins, with the other attributes of 
 Venus. After speaking of the probable origin of the cult, 
 he says — ' In our days, indeed, the Druses of Lebanon, in 
 their secret vespers, offer a true worship to the sexual parts 
 of the female, and pay their devotions every Friday night — 
 that is to say, the day which is consecrated to Venus; the 
 day in which, on his side, the Mussulman finds in the code 
 of Mahomet, the double obligation to go to the mosque and 
 to perform the conjugal duty.'"* 
 
 "In 1492, Bede mentions that 'a God Krodo is wor- 
 shipped in the Hartz, having his feet on a fish, a wheel in 
 one hand and a pail of water in the other — clearly a Vishnoo 
 or Fishnoo solar deity carrying the solar or lunar disk, and 
 the ark or womb of fertility. These fish-gods, as Mr. 
 Baring Gould states in the case of the American Kox-Kox 
 or Teokipaktli, i.e., fish-god, much resemble the Old Testa- 
 ment Noah, for Kox, encountered a flood and rescued him- 
 self in a cypress trunk (a true phallic symbol), and peopled 
 the world with wise and intelligent beings.' His full title 
 mixes him up with the ' flesh-god ' idea of Hebrews and 
 others. North American Indians relate that they too followed 
 
 * Ancient Faiths, vol. i. 
 
]0 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 a fish-man or demi-god from Asia ; he was only a man 
 from the breasts upward, below he was a fish, or, indeed, 
 two fish, for each leg was a separate fish."* 
 
 "It is said Oanes was a man-headed fish, and the 
 earliest Hermes or Messenger of God to Kaldia. Berosus 
 Bays he ate not, yet taught all the arts of geometry, and 
 the harvesting and storing of fruits and seeds. Every night 
 he retired to the sea (the Female and Holy Spirit), and 
 after him came Messiahs. Helladius called him Oes, but 
 says he had the feet of a man, and sprang from a mundane 
 egg. He had a fish's skin, and Higgins says he first taught 
 astrology in Kaldia. The mother of Oanes was worshipped 
 as Venus Atergates, 'the good spirit,' and Oanes himself 
 possibly signifies the 'first-born of the Yoni,' the Protogonos 
 of Sankuniathon. The Japanese represent their Messiah 
 emerging like Vishnoo from a fish, and as such call him 
 Kan-On or Can-on, and his temple, Onius, and make his 
 spirit repose on twelve cushions, just as they do in the 
 case of Fo or Boodha, showing clearly the solar significance 
 of the whole. So we see a close connection between the 
 Kaldian O-AN or Oanes the Hebrew AON, which in Koptic 
 is the ' Enlightener,' and the Egyptian ON. In Armorik, 
 Oan and Oanic, and in Irish, UAN is a lamb, and in 
 Hebrew Jonas signifies the gentle one, a ' Revealer ' or 
 word from God, and a dove, so that the sum of the whole 
 points to the Sanscrit Yoni. 
 
 "Pan, Jove's senior brother, used to be called 'a whale- 
 like fish,' and he entangled Typhon in his nets and caught 
 him, and yet who so unlike a fish in character as the 
 goat-footed god. 
 
 " So Boodha is called Day-Po or Fishpo ; Vishnoo appears 
 in the first Avatar as a fish, for he is Vicpo, Fic^oo or 
 Fish-oo, as Christ is Ischa in Ireland, which is the Welsh 
 Fischa. Tn all lands, fish have proved the saviours of many 
 men, and among the fish, the dolphin, as the delphus or 
 womb. She who has dedicated her life to her God we call 
 a nun, and this with Hebrews is a fish, and the Yoni. 
 Fish and birds were called in Asyrian Nanu-Itsurn, yet a 
 fish spoken of in opposition to a bird was Kha and a bird 
 Khu. Isis was a brooding bird, yet is generally seen with 
 
 * Rivers of Life. 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 13 
 
 a fish on her head. The fish was the first to swallow up 
 the genitals of Osiris, when Typhon caused him to be cut 
 up into pieces and thrown away. 
 
 " Eating fish was considered to induce venery even more 
 than beef or garlic, and Shemitic races recommended or 
 ordered such repasts on Frig's Day, or night — their Sabbath 
 or Sabbath Eve. Among the Druses of Syria, Layard assures 
 us such matters are still carefully attended to on Venus' 
 or Frig's Eve, adding that 'in secret vespers' these pious 
 persons 'offer a true worship to the sexual parts of the 
 female.' " * 
 
 " Oannes and Dag-on (the fish On) are identical. Ac- 
 cording to an ancient fable preserved by Berosus, a creature 
 half man and half fish came out of that part of the 
 Erythraean Sea, which borders upon Babylonia, where he 
 taught men the arts of life, to construct cities, to found 
 temples, to compile laws, and, in short, instructed them in 
 all things that tend to soften manners and humanize their 
 lives ; and, he adds, that a representative of this animal 
 Oannes was preserved in his day. A figure of him sporting 
 in the waves, and apparently blessing a fleet of vessels, was 
 discovered in a marine piece of sculpture by M. Botta, in 
 the excavations of Khorsabad. 
 
 "At Nimroud, a gigantic image was found by Mr. 
 Layard, representing him with the fish's head as a cap and 
 the body of the fish depending over his shoulders, his legs 
 those of a man, his left hand holding a richly decorated 
 bag, and his right hand upraised as if in the act of 
 presenting the mystic Assyrian fir-cone." (Baring Gould's 
 Myths of the Middle Ages.) 
 
 Mr. Layard, in his interesting work "Nineveh and its 
 Remains," thus alludes to this— "I must not omit to allude 
 to the tradition preserved by Berosus, which appears to 
 attribute to a foreign nation, arriving by sea, the introduction 
 at some remote period of civilization and certain arts into 
 Babylonia. According to the historian, there appeared out 
 of the Erythraean or Persian Gulf, an animal endowed with 
 reason, called Oannes. Its body was like that of a fish ■ 
 but under the head of the fish was that of a man, and 
 added to its tail were women's feet. Its voice, too, was 
 
 # Riv. Life, Forlong. 
 
14 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 human, and it spoke an articulate language. During the 
 day it instructed the Chaldseans in letters and in all arts 
 and sciences, teaching them to build temples; but at night 
 it plunged again into the sea. Five such monsters appeared 
 at different epochs in Babylonia, and were called 'Annedoti' 
 (coming out of, or proceeding from). The first was named 
 the Musarus Oannes, and the last Odacon. Their images, 
 he adds, were preserved in Chaldsea even to this day. 
 (This fragment of Berosus is preserved by Apollodorus. See 
 Cory's Fragments.) 
 
 < In a bas-relief from Korsabad representing a naval 
 engagement, or the seige of a city on the sea coast, we 
 have* the god nearly as described by Berosus. To the body 
 of a man as far as the waist, is joined the tail of a fish. 
 The three-horned cap, surmounted by the flower in the form 
 of a fleur-de-lis, as worn by the winged figures of the bas- 
 reliefs, marks the sacred character. The right hand is raised 
 as in the representations of the winged deity in the circle. 
 This figure is in the sea amongst fish and marine animals. 
 On Assyrian cylinders and germs the same symbolical 
 figure is very frequently found, even more closely resembling 
 in its form the description of Berosus, numerous instances 
 of which are given in Lajard's large work on the Worship 
 of Venus. 
 
 "This Fish Worship extended to Syria, and appears to 
 have been more prevalent in that country than in Assyria. 
 The Dagon of the Philistines of Ashdad evidently resembled 
 the figure on the Assyrian sculptures and cylinders. When 
 it felf before, the ark, the head and both the palms of 
 his hands were cut oft' upon the threshold ; only the fishy 
 part of Dagon was left to him. (I. Samuel, v. 4 ; see the 
 marginal reading.) The same idol is mentioned in Judges 
 xvi. The meaning of the word in Hebrew is 'a fish." 
 Although the image, like that of the Assyrians, appears to 
 have been originally male ; at a later period, it became 
 female in Syria, as we learn from Lucian (de Dea Syria), 
 and Diodorus Siculus, who describes the idol at Ascalon 
 with the face of a woman and body of a fish. (Lib. ii.) 
 An icthyolatry, connected with Derceto or Atergates, was 
 perhaps confounded with the worship of Dagon." * 
 
 * Nineveh, &o. 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 15 
 
 "In Azotus, or Asdotus, a renowned city of the Philistines, 
 there was a celebrated temple of Dagon in which the in- 
 habitants kept the ark of the covenant, in presence of the 
 idols. And when they arose early in the morning, behold 
 Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark 
 of the Lord, and the head of Dagon and both the palms 
 of his hands were cut off upon the threshold ; and rah 
 dagon nischar aghlaju, that is, as R. D. Cimchi explains 
 it, only the form of a fish was left to him. (I. Samuel, 
 v. 4.) For Dag and Dagah are words interpreted to mean 
 fish, whence he was called Dagon. The sacred scriptures, 
 in Hebrews, bestow on him the masculine gender, and so do 
 the authors of the Greek version. Philo Biblius says of 
 Dagon, that he is a fruiterer and the son of Ccelus, and 
 thus thinks he should be called, because he first discovered 
 fruit. For Dagon in Hebrew is translated by the Greek 
 word Siton, which means fruit. He is also said to be the 
 inventor of the plough, therefore was named Zeus the 
 plougher, as if he were Jupiter, the president of agriculture. 
 
 " Ptolemus says that Ceres was called Sito among 
 the Syracusans, from the same Greek word Sito. But he 
 is mistaken ; for, while he derives it from Dagon (which 
 means fruit), he should have deduced it from Dag (which 
 means a fish). There is the most ancient testimony outside 
 of the Bible in regard to this god of Asia in what Berosus, 
 Apollodorus, and Polyhistor write concerning Oannes. Por 
 Oannes is mentioned as a two-headed animal ; that feet like 
 those of human beings grew from his tail, and that the rest 
 of him is a fish. His voice was likewise human, and they 
 say that, emerging from the Red Sea, he came to Babylon, 
 but that he returned to the sea at sunset. He did this 
 every day as if he were an amphibious animal, Prom him 
 men learned all the various arts, letters, agriculture, the con- 
 secration of temples, architecture, political government, and 
 whatever could possibly pertain to civilised life, and the 
 most wonderful history of Belus and Omorea. His image 
 was preserved down to the time of Berosus, that is, to the 
 beginning of the Grecian monarchy. This marine god can 
 be no other than Dagon, whose history is found in Samuel. 
 He was worshipped not only by the Philistines, but by the 
 Babylonians also. Apollodorus, from the same Berosus, 
 narrates more extensively of four Oannes, called Annedotos, 
 
1G FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 who likewise in the lapse of ages appeared out of the Red 
 Sea, every one of whom was half man and half fish. But 
 in the time of iEdoracus, king of the Chaldeans, who 
 preceded the deluge a few ages, another similar figure 
 appeared, who was called Odakon. Dagon is undoubtedly 
 intended and referred to in this fable of Odakon. Abydenos 
 speaks of a second Annedotos, and bestows on him the 
 form of a semi-demon. Helladius Besantinus speaks of a 
 certain man of the name of Oleus arising out of the Red 
 Sea, whose head, hands and feet were human, but that the 
 other members of the body were those of a fish and that 
 he taught letters, and the science of astronomy. As all 
 these references are so applicable to the Oannes of Besorus, 
 it is more than probable that the librarian made the mistake 
 in the name of abbreviation in the copy. 
 
 " What has been extracted from the Scriptures and what 
 has been said from the writings of the ancients will con- 
 vince any one that the figure of Dagon was a mixture of 
 the human and marine form. His body was marine, and 
 his face, hands, and feet were human. 
 
 " The Scriptures say expressly that his hands and feet 
 were cut off, or broken, when he fell before the ark of the 
 Testament. These ancients wrote that his feet grew to his 
 tail. The Scriptures make him a masculine god, but what 
 has been said elsewhere of the common sex of the gods 
 should be here considered, for this very Dagon was changed 
 into the goddess Adirclaga, that is, Atergatis, Adargatis, 
 Derceto, and those other names mispronounced by the 
 Europeans. It is certain that the Phoenician and Babylon 
 goddess is the very same figure as Dagon, if you will change 
 the sex. Lucianus describes briefly the image of Derceto as 
 seen by him in Phoenicia, and it answers to that of Dagon. 
 But also among other great writers the goddess of Hierapolis 
 is called Derceto, or Atergatis. 
 
 ki Macrobius contends that, with the figures of Atergatis, 
 she is Astarte, that very mother of gods, and he does not 
 speak of her as any other than that goddess of Hierapolis. 
 
 11 Unless she had been half fish, she would by no means 
 have been called Derceto. But Atergatis, Adergatis, Atargata, 
 Derceto, Derce, Adargidis, Atargatis, all of which are names 
 of this goddess, are corrupt words, and from Adardaga, 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 17 
 
 which in Hebrew means a magnificent or potent fish. This 
 name was surely most suitable for Oannes, who is said to 
 have conferred so many benefits on mankind. 
 
 " In the same way the Sepharvites called their god 
 Adramelech, which means a magnificent king. In the fables 
 there is generally no other reason for the figure than that 
 because formerly Dirce, the daughter of Venus, having fallen 
 into the sea, was by fish preserved from all injuries of the 
 waters, or on account of the metamorphosis of Venus into 
 a fish, when she was running away terrified at the horrible 
 advances of the monstre Typhon. 
 
 " Manilius, in his Astronomicon, book fourth, says : — 
 
 ' When Heaven grew weak and a successful fight, 
 The gaints raised and gods were saved by flight, 
 From snaky Typhon's arms, a fish's shape 
 Saved Venus and secured her from a rape. 
 Euphrates hid her, and from thence his streams 
 Owe all obedience to the fish's beams.' 
 
 " Or because a fish carried from the Euphrates an egg 
 of wonderful size, which a dove kept warm, and hatched 
 the Syrian goddess ; hence it was that they abstained from 
 the eating of fish. They feared that if they ate those 
 animals the vengeance of the goddess would be aroused : that 
 the limbs of their body would swell ; that they would be 
 covered by ulcers, and consumed by wasting disease. Plutarch 
 says of the Pythagoreans, that of sea creatures they especially 
 abstained from eating the fish called mullet and urtic. 
 They abstained from eating any kind of fish in order to 
 instruct men and accustom themselves to acts of justice, for 
 they say that fish neither do nor are capable of doing us 
 harm. Others abstained from fish, the same author says, 
 because man arose from a liquid substance, and therefore 
 they worship fish as of the same production and breeding 
 with themselves. 
 
 " Anaximander says that men were first produced in 
 fish, and when they were grown up and able to help them- 
 selves were thrown out, and so lived upon the land. So 
 he contends that fishes were our common parents. 
 
 " Xenophon, in his Anabasis, speaking of the river 
 Chalos, says it was filled with large and gentle fish, which 
 the Syrians worshipped as gods. Neither would they permit 
 them to be injured. 
 
 c 
 
18 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 " These stories about fish are by no means the growth 
 of the more ancient ages, for about the time of the return 
 of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, the Tyrians were 
 in the habit of taking fish to Jerusalem for sale. In 
 Nehemiah xiii., v. 16 the words are as follows: 'There dwell 
 men of Tyre also therein, which brought tish, and all manner 
 of ware and sold on the sabbath, unto the children of Judah, 
 and in Jerusalem.' At this time the Jews were not free 
 from the profane rites of their neighbours, particularly such 
 as had taken their wives from among the Philistines, who 
 especially worshipped Dagon. To eat fish or to sell them 
 on the public market-place was surely a great indignity to 
 the god. There were certain fish sacred among other nations, 
 as Pompilius among the Grecians, Anguilla among the 
 Egyptians, and others among the Pythagoreans. In the same 
 way as fish, so were also doves held in great honour out 
 of favour to this god. It is, however, well known that 
 doves were sacred to Venus, and she is Derceto. 
 
 " The temple of Dagon is called Beth-Dagon, which is 
 pure Hebrew. (See I. Maccabeus x., 23.) ' The horsemen 
 also being scattered in the field, fled to Azotus and went 
 into Beth-Dagon, their idol's temple, for safety.' Venus of 
 the Ascalonites — that is Derceto — has the very same name 
 with Herodotus, as Mylitta, Alitta, and the mother of the 
 gods, and about the temple of the goddess of Hierapolis 
 fish and doves were received as sacred, and in her honour, 
 no less than where Derceto was worshipped. 
 
 "'Paradise Lost' has the following of this deity: — 
 
 ' Next came one 
 Who mourned in earnest, when the captive ark 
 Maimed his brute image, heads and hands lopped off 
 In his own temple ou the grunsel edge, 
 Where he fell flat, and shamed his worshippers ; 
 Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man 
 And downward fish : yet had his temple high 
 Reared in Azotus, dreaded through the coast 
 Of Palestine, in Gath and Ascalon, 
 And Accaron and Gaza's frontier bounds." * 
 
 " Phin. — The old Irish demi-god Pin or Fin seems to 
 have been a form of Pineus, and, like him, was a son of 
 Hermes, sharing, with the Budh or Da-Beoc, the exalted 
 
 * Selden's Syrian Deities. 
 
FISHES, FLOAVERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 19 
 
 title of Bar-en-di, Son of the One God. It was Fin who 
 conquered the dragon or put down serpent worship and 
 established all the holy rites connected with Crones or 
 Lingarns, and, strangely enough, Phins or Feni, as Dr. 
 P. W. Joyce calls them, showed like Eastern Boodhists, a 
 great liking for both charms, which are but small phali, 
 suitable for carrying or wearing on the person. They are 
 exactly like the little Lingas worn on the arms, or secreted 
 on the head or chest of Indian Sivaites. Irish history 
 relates that Christian Feni diligently searched out and 
 revered the teeth of St. Patrick. 
 
 " In the Brehon Laws of the Senchus Mor, the Feni 
 or Fiannas, or champions, are described as a real historical 
 people and the lawgivers of Irene. What Arthur and his 
 knights were to Brythonick, British, or ' Little Briton ' Kelts, 
 Fin and his Fenians were in the two Skotias or among 
 the Skoti. 
 
 " Before the Pagan Phin was converted, he is described 
 as presiding over the Tara assembly 'as a Druid in strangely 
 flowered garments ' (note the likeness to Indra and Herakles), 
 and with a double-pointed head-dress, and bearing in his 
 hand a book, like Brahma, Matthew, Vislmoo, and the fishy 
 deities of Assyria, and of the Clonfest Cathedral, County 
 Galway, pictures of which are given by Keane. 
 
 " The two-headed mitre of fishy form, the upright rod, 
 spotted or chequered garment, and basket in hand, dis- 
 tinctly mark the Eastern idea of a great Phalik chief, whilst 
 in the mermaid with open book and jaunty arm akimbo, 
 who allows not even the waters to obscure her sexual 
 capacities, we see the Irish idea of Atargatis or Derketis, 
 or ' Divine Ketis,' that form of Venus which Juno assumed 
 at Kupros, in the old Kelto-Pelasgian temple of Kupreuses. 
 There, says Bryant, she was worshipped by the Pigalia, 
 Pialia or Pials, that is, the worshippers of the Oracle or 
 Pi, who may be called the Pi-i, Phin-i, Pi-ni or Pini, a 
 word which is possibly the base of the Latin and French 
 terms for the Phallus, and which is otherwise of unknown 
 but significant derivation. Macrobius calls Der-Ketis ' the 
 mother of the gods,' and Syrians, ' the receptacle of the 
 gods,' that is, an Erk or Ark, which the fish represented. 
 If we were fully cognisant of the origin of Der-Ketis, it 
 might turn out to be, like the Indian names, a dual or 
 
20 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 Linga-in Yoni. Thus Brahma, sitting on the lotus, is called 
 Jhalima-Yoni, and if Der be the Jovine tree or Oak, Der- 
 Ketis would be simply the bi-sexual name of a supreme 
 god. The mythical Semiramis was a daughter of Der-ketis, 
 who was changed into a dove, and her mother into a fish, 
 showing the close intertwining of all these figures by 
 phallists." * 
 
 " Christians were very partial to the fish, but indeed, 
 may be said to have carried on freely all the ancient ideas, 
 as which faith has not after its first attempt at purification? 
 On Christian tombs especially do fish abound, commonly 
 crossed, which reminds us that crossed serpents denote their 
 act of intercourse, and in this symbolism the fish would be 
 very natural and usual, because denoting new life in death. 
 Derceto, the half-fish and half-woman of the temple of the 
 Dea Syria at Hira, was, says Lucian, the perfection of 
 woman ; she was the mystic Oanes, Athor, and Venus, whom 
 Egyptians have handed clown to us embalmed. 
 
 "So the Fathers of the Church have called their flocks 
 Pisciculi, and their high-priest a fisherman ; and have given 
 to all cardinals and bishops the fish-head of Dagon. 
 
 "The fish is universally worshipped in all lands as the 
 most fecundative of all creatures ; and where most valued, 
 the superstitious have offered it in sacrifice to their gods 
 refusing to eat it. Many a time have I travelled through 
 a poor and barren country where it was all mankind could 
 do to live, and seen rivers and lakes teeming with fine fish 
 which I dared not touch, or only so by stealth as night 
 came on, much to the annoyance of my followers and 
 myself, and the detriment of the people. 
 
 "We find Phoenicians, Kelts and Syrians specially 
 mentioned as holding the fish in the greatest reverence, and 
 at different periods of their history not eating it. The hill- 
 tribes towards the sources of the Indus have the same ideas. 
 The Phoenicians picture Dagon and Dorketa the gods of 
 Gaza and As-Kal-on, as Fish Gods, or perhaps we should 
 say a fish god and goddess, for we know they were also 
 Astartian Deities. Kuthera and Kupros (Cypress) as shrines 
 of Aphrodite, vied in the worship of this fruitful Kubele, 
 and Syria held the great northern shrine of Hieropolis most 
 
 * Forlonpr. 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 21 
 
 holy to Venus as the Fish Goddess. Cadiz, Kodes, or 
 Gadir-Gades, had Herkales on one side of her coins, and a 
 fish or Lunette on the other ; whilst Syracuse, or rather 
 Soora-Koos. and Soosa alike held their finny multitudes 
 sacred to Fertility. In these days we can imagine what a 
 curse these faiths here were to the poor, and, indeed, to 
 humanity." * 
 
 "The high round hill of Tabor, known to Christians 
 as the ' Mount of Transfiguration,' is called by the Falahin 
 the umbilicus of their great earth mother Terra — that womb 
 of nature in which we are transfigured. To her also they 
 had sacred temples at Askalon and Akcho with suitable 
 holy waters ; and still at Tripolis, her very ancient city, 
 do we find her pond of holy fish, which are said to ' fight 
 against infidels,' and to which multitudes still make long 
 pilgrimages, and worship with offerings and sacrifices. We 
 have often come across similar holy ponds and lakes in 
 India, and been warned off with our unholy rod and line. 
 The Venus of Tripolis was Kadishah or Atergatis ; indeed 
 the city is called Kadishah, a name expressive of coarse 
 phallic vices." * 
 
 " Dion Cassius says the Caledonians never taste fish, 
 although their lakes and rivers furnish an inexhaustible 
 supply. Two ' holie fishes ' in the seventeenth century 
 occupied a well near the church of Kilmore in Argyleshire. 
 They were black — never changed colour — neither increased 
 in number nor in size in the memory of the most aged. 
 The people believed that no others existed anywhere. 
 Mr. Martin, in his 'Western Isles,' describes the ceremonies 
 practised by invalids who came to be cured by the waters 
 of a well at Loch Saint, in the Isle of Skye. They drank 
 the water and then moved round the well deasil (sunwise), 
 and before departing left an offering on the stone. Martin 
 adds that no one would venture to kill any of the fish in 
 Loch Saint, or to cut as much as a twig from an adjacent 
 copse. These customs practised in the end of the seventeenth 
 century, have apparently reference to the worship of the 
 sun, the fountain, the fish, and the oak. 
 
 " The absence of any allusion to the art of catching 
 fish has been used as an argument in support of the 
 
 # Rivers of Life. 
 
22 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 authenticity of the poem of Ossian, as well as being 
 corroborative of the statement of Dion Cassius. Fish-eaters 
 was one of the contemptuous epithets which the Scottish 
 Celt applied to the Saxon and other races that settled in 
 the Lowlands of Scotland, and the remains of the super- 
 stitious veneration of fish, or rather abstaining from fish as 
 an article of food, is registered by the author of 'Caledonia' 
 as influencing the more purely Celtic portions of the British 
 population in the early part of the present century. 
 
 " Ancient nations that did not eat but worshipped the 
 fish were the Syrians, Phoenicians, and Celts. But in 
 Caufiristaun, in the remote parts of the Hindu-Cosh, the 
 Caufirs will not eat fish, although it is not said that they 
 worship it. They believe in one great god, but have 
 numerous idols that represent those who were once men and 
 women. A plain stone, about four feet high, represents 
 God, whose shape they say they do not know. One of 
 their tribes call God Dagon. The fish-god and goddess of 
 the Phoenicians were called Dago and Derceto ; the worship 
 of Dagon being more particularly celebrated at Gaza and 
 Ashclod ; that of Derceto at Ascalon." * 
 
 "The old sculptures and gems of Babylon and Assyria 
 furnish sufficient proof of the worship of Fertility, but 
 writers and readers have alike lost the key, or purposely 
 skipped the subject, and this we have a prominent example 
 of in the case of the beautiful Assyrian cylinder, exhibiting 
 the worship of the Fish God, which Mr. Rawlinson gives 
 us without a comment. There we see the mitred man-god 
 with rod and basket adoring the solar Fructifier, hovering 
 over the fruitful tree from which spring thirteen full buds, 
 whilst behind him stands another adoring winged deity 
 backed by a star, a dove, and a yoni. On the opposite 
 side of the Tree of Life is fire, and another man in the 
 act of adoration, probably the Priest of God, pleading with 
 both hands open, that the requests of the other two figures 
 may be granted." f 
 
 "I may state that all that the author of Anc. Mons. 
 writes in regard to these old faiths thoroughly supports 
 what I urge, though he is far from looking at their features 
 as I do, for he clearly knows very little of Eastern Phallic 
 
 # Leslie's Early Races of Scotland, 
 f Rivers of Life. 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 23 
 
 faiths and their interpretation. Ashtoreth is Ishtar or 
 woman, the Star in more senses than one ; the Phoenicians 
 call her Astarte, but the 'present Mendean form is Ashtar,' 
 and the plural Ashtaroth. Bunsen derives this representative 
 name from the very coarse, but I fear perfectly correct 
 source, ' the seat of the cow — Has and toreth; } for this is true 
 to the idea of all Hindoos, and shows us that the terms 
 1 male ' and ' female ' originally meant the organs pur et 
 simple, which indeed the writer of Gen. i. 27 expresses in 
 the words Zakar and Nekabah. In all African and Arabian 
 dialects, Nana and not Ishtar is the commonest term for 
 Mother, the usual initial being Ma, Ya, Ye, Ni, and rarely 
 Om and On ; see the long list of over one hundred names 
 given by Sir John Lubbock as those of the ' non-Aryan 
 nations of Europe and Asia ' and of ' East Africa.' There 
 we see Ma and even Ama occasionally used for Father, 
 perhaps because among some tribes the strange custom 
 existed of his going to bed to protect and warm the infant 
 as soon as born. The almost universal initial sounds for 
 the male ancestor are Pa, Fa, Ba, and in a few instances 
 Da and Ad, and once Od and Ta. In Asia Baba, Aba, 
 Apa, and sometimes Ama occur ; now what we want to 
 know is the origin of these sounds, but here philology is 
 silent with seemingly no power to advance. This is not the 
 case, however, in regard to the objective roots of religion ; 
 here we work with reasoning creatures, and can see that the 
 child continues, and that all mankind have ever continued 
 to mate, whether in their own kind, or in their gods, the 
 same A's, P's, F's, D's, to males, and M's. N's Om's, Y's 
 to females, and we therefore conclude that those were 
 man's earliest symbols and names for the organs of sex, 
 the Omphe or Mamma of the mother, which man had first 
 cognisance of, and the A, Ab or Pa which he noticed as 
 the characteristic of the opposite sex. The Assyrian often 
 represented Ishtar as the upright fish, probably because of 
 the fecundative powers of the fish, and as the creature par 
 excellence of water. The great mythic queen Semiramis, wife 
 of Ninus, the founder of Nineveh or Ninus, was said to 
 have sprung from a fish some twenty-three centuries B.C., 
 and to be representative woman, Eva or Mary. 
 
 " The mythic genealogy of Semiramis begins with a fish 
 and ends with Ninyas. Her mother was Dorketo the Fish 
 
24: FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 Goddess of Askalon, in Syria, where she was worshipped as 
 Astarte or Aphrodite. She was famed down to the days of 
 Augustus for her beauty, voluptuousness, virtues and vices. 
 There seems no douht but that there was some ruler called 
 Semiramis, who conquered most of Western Asia, Egypt 
 and part of Ethiopia, and who attempted India. Her fish 
 origin is simply due to her being a woman and to her 
 marrying On or Ones, or probably Oanes or Ho-Anes, the 
 Serpent Fish, or recognised God of Passion, both on the 
 lower Euphrates and the lower Nile. Her conquests may 
 merely signify that the race who had faith in her conquered, 
 or that certain conquerors embraced the worship of the Sun 
 Goddess. When Kaldia fell to Assyria, she was very 
 naturally made to marry Ninus, or the strong Bull-Uan 
 which this name signifies; she was preserved by doves, for 
 these birds were sacred to Aphrodite. Mr. Rawlinson believes 
 that the origin of the myth lies in Ivaloosh's Queen of the 
 eighth century B.C., who was possibly a Babylonian, and 
 shared in the Government with her Lord, but there is little 
 doubt that there was such a queen or goddess. Her name, 
 if embracing Sun and fertilizing energies, would naturally 
 be Sivamy or Sami (God), Rames, Rami, or Ramesi — the 
 Goddess of the Sun, in fact Ishtar, which Wilford calls 
 her, saying these names mean Isis. The Assyrian story is, 
 that she sprang from a dove or Yoni, which Capotesi 
 would signify, and this is the Indian manifestation." * 
 
 * Forlong:, Riv. Life. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Universal Love of Flowers — Indifference to Flowers — Excessive 
 Love of Flowers leading to Adoration — Myths and Legends 
 connected with Flowers, the Flos Adonis, Narcissus, Myrtle, 
 Silene inflata, Clover — The Hundred-leaved Rose — The Worship 
 of the Lily Species — Signification of the Lotos — Hermaj^hroditic 
 Character of the Lotos — The Indian Mutiny of 1857, part 
 played by the Lotos during its Instigation. 
 
 "TTTHY?" asked a writer some years ago, "why is it that 
 VV every eye kindles with delight at the sight of beautiful 
 flowers? that in all lands, and amidst all nations, the love 
 of flowers appears to prevail to so great an extent, that 
 no home is considered complete without them — no festival 
 duly honoured unless they decorate the place where it is 
 observed? They are strewn in the path of the bride; they 
 are laid on the bier of the dead; the merry-maker selects 
 from the floral tribes the emblem of his joy; and the mourner 
 the insignia of his grief. Everywhere and under all circum- 
 stances, flowers are eagerly sought after and affectionately 
 cherished; and when the living and growing are not to be 
 obtained, then is their place "filled by some substitute or 
 other, according to the circumstances or taste of the wearer; 
 but whether that substitute be a wreath of gorgeous gems 
 for the brow of royalty, or a bunch of coloured cambric 
 for the adornment of a servant girl, it is usually wrought 
 into the form of flowers. 
 
 "This taste depends not on wealth or on education, but 
 is given, if not to all individuals, yet to some of every 
 class. From the infant's first gleam of intelligence, a flower 
 will suffice to still its cries; and even in old age the mind 
 which has not been perverted from its natural instincts, can 
 find a calm and soothing pleasure in the contemplation of 
 these gems of creation." 
 
 A man, reputed wise, was once asked in a garden : 
 "do you like flowers?" "No," said he; I seldom find time 
 to descend to the little things." "This man," said an 
 American writer, "betrayed a descent, in his speech, to the 
 pithole of ignorance. Flowers, sweet flowers ! he that loves 
 
26 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 them not should be classed with the man that hath not 
 music in his soul, as a dangerous member of the community." 
 
 Instead of not liking or not caring, leaving out, not 
 loving flowers, the general tendency with humanity has been 
 to run to an opposite extreme and render them not merely 
 estimation, care or love, but veneration and worship. 
 
 The adoration of flowers is one of the most ancient 
 systems of worship with which we are acquainted. It can 
 be traced back for ages amongst the Hindus, who believing 
 that the human soul is a spark or emanation from the Great 
 Supreme, held that this essence can only be renovated in 
 man by a communion with his works ; it is found amongst 
 the Chinese, it occupied a most important position in the 
 mysteries of Egyptain idolatry, it figures prominently on the 
 past and present monuments of Mexico, and to some extent 
 prevailed in Europe. Naturally enough, it arose in the 
 warmer regions of the earth, where the vegetable productions 
 of the tropics are so much more gorgeous in their colouring 
 and noble in their growth, and in those regions it still 
 lingers, after having been swept away in other lands before 
 the advance of education and a more intellectual religion. 
 
 It would be interesting did space allow to enumerate 
 some of the myths and legends connected with flowers, but 
 as we have another object in view these must be allowed 
 to pass with a mere cursory allusion. There is the Flos 
 Adonis which perpetuates the memory of Venus's favourite, 
 Adonis, the son of Myrrha, who was herself said to be 
 turned into a tree called myrrh. Adonis had often been 
 warned by Venus not to hunt wild beasts; but disregarding 
 her advice, he was at last killed by a wild boar and was 
 then changed by his mistress into this flower. There was 
 Narcissus, too, destroying himself in trying to grasp his 
 form when reflected in the water by whose margin he was 
 reclining. Then we have Myrtillus and the Myrtle. The 
 father of Hippodamia declared that no one should marry 
 his daughter who could not conquer him in a chariot race ; 
 and one of the lovers of the young lady bribed Myrtillus, 
 who was an attendant of (Enomaus, to take out the linch- 
 pin from his master's chariot, by which means the master 
 was killed ; and Myrtillus, repenting when he saw him dead, 
 cast himself into the sea, and was afterwards changed by 
 Mercury into the myrtle. 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 27 
 
 A bladder campion (Silene inflata) is another curiosity. 
 Ancient writers say that it was formerly a youth named 
 Campion, whom Minerva employed to catch Hies for her 
 owls to eat during the day, when their eyes did not serve 
 them to catch food for themselves j but Campion indulging 
 himself with a nap when he ought to have been busy at 
 his task, the angry goddess changed him into this flower, 
 which still retains in its form the bladders in which 
 Campion kept his flies, and droops its head at night when 
 owls fly abroad and have their eyes about them. 
 
 The common clover which was much used in ancient 
 Greek festivals, was regarded by the Germans as sacred, 
 chiefly in its four leaved variety. There is indeed, in the 
 vicinity of Altenburg, a superstition that if a farmer takes 
 home with him a handful of clover taken from each of the 
 four corners of his neighbour's field it will go well with 
 his cattle during the whole year ; but the normal belief is 
 that the four-leaved clover, on account of its cross form, is 
 endowed with magical virtues. The general form of the 
 superstition is that one who carries it about with him will 
 be successful at play, and will be able to detect the 
 proximity of evil spirits. In Bohemia it is said that if 
 the maiden manages to put it into the shoe of her lover 
 without knowledge when he is going on any journey, he will 
 be sure to return to her faithfully and safely. In the Tyrol 
 the lover puts it under the pillow to dream of the beloved. 
 On Christmas Eve, especially, one who has it may see witches. 
 Plucked with a gloved hand and taken into the house of 
 a lunatic without anyone else perceiving it, it is said to 
 cure madness. In Ireland also it is deemed sacred and has 
 been immortalized in Lover's beautiful song as a safeguard 
 against every imaginable kind of sorrow and misfortune. 
 
 It was a belief among the Jews, according to Zoroaster 
 says Howitt, that every flower is appropriated to a par- 
 ticular angel, and that the hundred-leaved rose is consecrated 
 to an archangel of the highest order. The same author 
 relates that the Persian fire- worshippers believe that Abra- 
 ham was thrown into a furnace by Nimrod, and the flames 
 forthwith turned into a bed of roses. 
 
 In contradistinction to this in sentiment is the belief 
 of the Turk, who holds that this lovely flower springs from 
 
28 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 the perspiration of Mohammed, and, in accordance with this 
 creed, they never tread upon it or suffer one to lie upon 
 the ground. 
 
 " Of shrub or flower worship, the most important in 
 the east and south has been that of the lily species. The 
 lily of October — the saffron — was very sacred to the Karnean, 
 or horned Apollo—that is, the sun — for horns usually stand 
 for rays of glory, as in the case of the horned Moses of 
 our poets, artists and ecclesiastics, who make him like an 
 Apis of Egypt, because of the text which says, 'his face 
 shone' when he came down from the mountain. All lilies 
 have more or less to do with the female or fecundating 
 energies, and so even in Europe we have many stories of 
 the crocus species, because it is said 'of their irradiating 
 light, having peculiar looking bells, three-headed and crested 
 capillaments, three cells, and reddish seeds,' &c. 
 
 "The Lotus is the seat of most deities, but notably 
 so of the creator Brahma, who, thus enthroned, is called 
 the Kamtd-a-yoni, or the great androgynous god. The lotus 
 is the womb of all creation. It is said to originate from 
 the great fertiliser, water, alone; and dropping its great 
 leaves on this fertiliser as on a bed, it springs upwards 
 with a slender, elegant stalk, and spreads forth in a lovely 
 flower. Even the grave and mighty Vishnoo delights in the 
 lotus, which is one of the four emblems he holds in his 
 fourfold arms. It is Venus' sacred flower. 
 
 " The flower is shaped like a boat, is a representation 
 of divinity, and is shown as springing from the navel of 
 the great god resting on his milky sea. It always signifies 
 fecundation. Inman, under the head Nabhi, navel, says — 
 ' The germ is " Meroo " (the highest pinnacle of the earth), 
 the petals and filaments are the mountains which encircle 
 Meroo, a type of the Yoni,' and Sanscrit for mons veneris. 
 Amongst fourteen kinds of fruit and flowers which must be 
 presented to 'Ananta' (Sanskrit, eternity), the lotus is the 
 only indispensable one, as he (Ananta) is then worshipped 
 in the form of a mighty serpent with seven heads. 
 
 "Hindoo and other writers often tell us that the lotus 
 originated the idea of the triangle, which is 'the first of 
 perfect figures, for two lines are an imperfection,' and the 
 lotus also gives us a circle on a triangle which is full of 
 cells and seed, and so is more perfect still. Siva is, as 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 29 
 
 Orientals know, 'the god of the triangle] and hence, in his 
 palace in Kailasa we are told the most precious object 'on 
 his table of nine precious stones is the padma (lotus), 
 carrying in its bosom the triangle, as origin and source of 
 all things;' and that from 'this triangle issues the Lingam 
 the eternal god who makes in it his eternal dwelling;' 
 which, however, is not quite correct on the part of M. 
 Guigniant, whom Mr. Barlow quotes. The lotus is an 
 inverted triangle, and is therefore the female sign ; the 
 pyramid or triangle on base is Siva, or the Ray of Lights 
 the sun-god. 
 
 "Another reason why the lotus is in all lands so sacred 
 in its androgynous or hermaphrodite character, a feature 
 imperative in the case of all the great gods of man, though 
 this is not very clear if we dive deeply below the surface, 
 either • in the case of the Jewish Elohim or the lotus. 
 Brahma, the creator, whilst sitting on the lotus, as all great 
 gods do, desired, says the 'Hindoo Inspired Word,' to create 
 the universe, and for this purpose, became androgynous, or 
 a breathing-spirit (Ruach2) — prakriti or nature; when creation 
 at once commenced and progressed, much as we have it in 
 the genesis of most faiths. The details of this mystic plant 
 have much exercised all Asiatic and Egyptian minds. In 
 its circular stamina it shows two equilateral triangles placed 
 across each other, which Sanskritists call the shristi-chakra, 
 also sixteen petals called the shoodasa ; and this, it is held, 
 is a revelation from the deity as to the proper age for the 
 representative woman or prakriti, in the Sakti ceremonies. 
 These triangles, with apex upwards and downwards, are the 
 chapel or magic diagram which the pious are told to ponder 
 over, for it has many significations and possesses numerous 
 spells ; and hence we see it venerated in all early ages, and 
 still an important article of Freemasonry. The spells go 
 by the name of the devi-chakrams, or goclesses of circles, no 
 doubt having a solar signification. 
 
 "The Padma and Kamalata or Granter-of Desires, or 
 'Consummator-of-our-Wishes,' are all terms applied to the 
 lotus. It is the symbol of Venus or Lakshmi, or of her 
 incarnation — Krishna's wife, Padha, who is commonly a nude 
 Venus or Sakti. It is also called 'love's creeper,' the throne 
 and ark of the gods, and the water-born one. One author 
 writes, that from far Thibet to Ceylon, and over every 
 
30 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 eastern land and islet, the holy Padma is only a little less 
 sacred than the Queen of Heaven— Juno (I Oni) herself. 
 It is as mysterious as the Yoni — is, like it, the flower of 
 concealment, of night and of silence, and that mysterious- 
 ness of generation and reproduction ; it is described as a 
 sort of incomprehensible dualism which veils the Almighty 
 One and his mysteries from our minds. Linnams tells us 
 it is the Nelumbo, but R. Payne Knight is clearer when 
 he writes to this effect. The flowers of the lotus contain a 
 seed vessel shaped like an inverted cone or bell, which are 
 very holy symbols with all peoples, and representative male 
 and female. This inverted bell is punctuated on the top 
 with little cavities or cells in which the seeds grow as in 
 a matrix fed by the parent plant till they arrive at such 
 a size as to break open 'the ark boat of life.' They then 
 emerge and float away, taking root wherever they find 
 ground, and throwing down long tentacles or tendrills in 
 quest of it. The idea is expressed by Brahma in his address 
 to the angels, as given in the Linga-Pooran, beginning : 
 1 When I sprang into existence, I beheld the mighty Nara- 
 yana reposing on the abyss of waters;' which reminds us 
 of the Jewish Elohim-god who it is said generated all things 
 ' by brooding o'er the deep.' " * 
 
 Those who remember the Indian mutiny of the year 
 1867 and the long tale of horrors which overwhelmed the 
 British dominions with grief, dismay and indignation, will 
 be interested by the information that the conspiracy was 
 first manifested by the circulation of symbols in the forms 
 of cakes and lotus flowers. Commenting upon this, a writer 
 in "Household Words," of September, 1857, said, after he had 
 given a description and historical account of the flower : I 
 fear I may have indulged in too long an excursion into 
 the realms of botany to suit the reader, who merely wishes 
 to know why the Indian rebels choose lotus flowers as 
 symbols of cospiracy. I am sure I am as innocent of the 
 knowledge as of the rebellion, but I will try to help my 
 readers to a guess. Four-fifths of the human species wor- 
 ship a God-woman ; and the vestiges of this worship are 
 found in the most ancient monuments, documents and 
 traditions, stretching backwards into the past eternity from 
 
 # Rivers of Life. 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 31 
 
 millenium to millenium, towards an epoch beyond the 
 records of the Deluge, and almost coeval with the loss of 
 Eden. The Tentyrian planisphere of the ancient Egyptians 
 represents the virgin and child rising out of a lotus flower. 
 The Egyptian hieroglyphics depict the goddess Asteria, or 
 Justice, issuing out of a lotus, and seating herself upon 
 the centre of the beam of Libra, or the Scales. Pictorial 
 delineations of the judgment of the dead, represent Osiris 
 as Ameuti, swathed in the white garments of the ^rave, 
 girt with a red girdle, and seated upon a chequered throne 
 of white and black spots, or good and evil. Before him 
 are the vase of nectar, the table of ambrosia, the great 
 serpent, and the lotus of knowledge— the emblems of Paradise. 
 There are Egyptian altar-pieces upon which the lotus tigures 
 as the tree of life. The Hindu priests say that the lotus 
 rising out of the lakes is the type of the world issuing 
 out of the ocean of time. 
 
 Travellers who have observed the worship of the Hindus 
 and Parsees, tell us that they give religous honours to the 
 lotus. The Buclhist priests cultivate it in precious vases, 
 and place it in their temples. The Chinese poets celebrate the 
 sacred bean of India, out of which their god Amida and 
 her child arose, in the middle of a lake. We can be at 
 no loss to imagine the appearance of the Buclhist pagodas, 
 for our Gothic cathedrals are just those pagodas imitated 
 in stone. Their pillars copy the trunks of the palm-trees 
 and the effects of the creeping plants of the pagodas ; 
 their heaven piercing spires are the golden spathes of palm 
 flowers, and the stained glass reproduces, feebly, the many 
 brilliances of the tropical skies. Every pious Bucldist, oivino- 
 himself up to devout meditations, repeats as often as he 
 can, the words " On ma ni bat mo Klom." When many 
 worshippers are kneeling and repeating the sound, the effect 
 is like counter-bass or the humming of bees ; and profound 
 sighs mingle with the repetitions. The Mongolian priests say 
 these words are endowed with mysterious and supernatural 
 powers ; they increase the virtues of the faithful ; they 
 bring them nearer to divine protection, and they exempt 
 them from the pains of the future life. When the priests 
 are asked to expain the words, they say volumes would be 
 required to tell all their meanings. Klaproth, however, says 
 that the formula is nothing but a corruption of four Hindu 
 
32 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 words, " Om man'i padma bourn," signifying " Oh ! precious 
 lotus ! " Without pretending that the volume of the Hindu 
 fakirs on the signification of the lotus, might not throw 
 more light upon the use of it as a symbol of conspiracy, 
 there are hints enough in the facts I have stated to 
 warrant the conclusion that it serves as a sign of a great 
 and general rising on behalf of Budhism. The flower was 
 circulated to rally the votaries of the goddess of the lotus. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Importance of the Lotos — Varieties of Lotos — Statements by 
 Herodotus, Homer, Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny, Athenceus 
 and others — The Aborescent Lotos — The Sacred Lotos of the 
 Nile — The Indian Lotos — Nepaulese Adoration of the Lotos — 
 Shing-moo, the Chinese Holy Mother — Lakshmi — The Queens 
 of Beauty — The Loves of Krishna and Radha. 
 
 THE Lotos is a flower of such importance and prominence 
 in the subject before us, and especially in connection 
 with the ancient worship of the East — notably of that of a 
 'phallic character, that we naturally look carefully about us 
 for the best descriptive information we can find respecting 
 it. A writer (M. C. Cooke, M.A.) in the "Popular Science 
 Review" for July, 1871, says: — "The history of sacred 
 plants is always an interesting and instructive study; more 
 so when it extends into a remote antiquity, and is associated 
 with such great and advanced nations as those of Egypt 
 and India. Much has been written and speculated concerning 
 the Lotos of old authors ; and great confusion has existed 
 in many minds on account of the desire to make all allusions 
 and descriptions to harmonise with one ideal plant — the 
 classic Lotos. We must clearly intimate that it is impossible 
 to combine all the fragments of history and description 
 applied to some plant or plants, known by the name of 
 Lotos — and met with in the pages of Herodotus, Homer, 
 Theophrastus, and others — into one harmonising whole, and 
 apply them to a single mythical plant. It is manifest, from 
 the authors themselves, that more than one Lotos is spoken 
 of, and it was never intended to convey the notion that, 
 like immortal Jove, the Lotos was one and indivisible. 
 Starting, then, with the conviction that the one name has 
 been applied to more than one or two very distinct and 
 different plants, we shall have less difficulty than were we 
 to attempt the futile task of reconciling all remarks about 
 the Lotos to a single plant." 
 
 "In the first instance, it is perfectly clear that the 
 Lotos of Homer, which Ulysses discovered, and which is 
 alluded to in the ninth book of the ' Odyssey,' is quite 
 
 D 
 
34 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 distinct from any of the rest. It is the fruit of this tree 
 to which interest attaches, and not to the flower as in some 
 others — this is the arborescent Lotos. 
 
 "The second Lotos may be designated as the Sacred 
 Lotos, or Lotos of the Nile. It is the one which figures 
 so conspicuously on the monuments, enters so largely into 
 the decoration, and seems to have been interwoven with 
 the religious faith of the Ancient Egyptians. This Lotos 
 is mentioned by Herodotus, Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny, 
 and Athenseus as an herbaceous plant of aquatic habits, and 
 from their combined description, it seems evident that some 
 kind of water-lily is intended. Herodotus says : — ' When the 
 river is full, and the plains are inundated, there grow in 
 the water numbers of lilies which the Egyptians call Lotos.' 
 Theophrastus says : — ' The Lotos, so called, grows chiefly in 
 the plains when the country is inundated. The flower is 
 white, the petals are narrow, as those of the lily, and 
 numerous, as of a very double flower. When the sun sets 
 they cover the seed-vessel, and as soon as the sun rises 
 the flowers open, and appear above the water ; and this is 
 repeated until the seed-vessel is ripe and the petals fall off. 
 It is said that in the Euphrates both the seed-vessel and 
 the petals sink down into the water from the evening until 
 midnight to a great depth, so that the hand cannot reach 
 them ; at daybreak they emerge, and as day comes on they 
 rise above the water; at sunrise the flowers open, and when 
 fully expanded they rise up still higher, and present the 
 appearance of a very double flower.' Dioscorides says : — 
 ' The Lotos which grows in Egypt, in the water of the 
 inundated plains, has a stem like that of the Egyptian 
 bean. The flower is small and white like the lily, which 
 is said to expand at sunrise, and to close at sunset. It 
 is also said that the seed-vessel is then entirely hid in the 
 water, and that at sunrise it emerges again.' Athenseus 
 states that they grow in the lakes in the neighbourhood of 
 Alexandria, and blossom in the heat of summer. He also 
 mentions a rose-coloured and a blue variety. 'I know that 
 in that fine city they have a crown called Antinoean, 
 made of the plant which is there named Lotos, which plant 
 grows in the lakes in the heat of summer, and there are 
 two colours of it ; one of them is the colour of a rose, of 
 which the Antinoean crown is made ; the other is called 
 Lotinos, and has a blue flower.' " 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 35 
 
 After quoting a number of other descriptions from these 
 authors, the writer proceeds: — "From these descriptions it is 
 evident that the Sacred Lotos of the Nile, the Egyptian 
 Lotos of the ancients, was a species of Nymphoea, common 
 in the waters of that river. Plants, and animals also, submit 
 so much to external circumstances, that the lapse of centuries 
 may eradicate them from spots on which they were at one 
 time common. It by no means follows that the same plants 
 will be found flourishing in the Nile now, that were common 
 under the Pharaohs; but, when the French invaded Egypt 
 in 1798, Savigny brought home from the Delta a blue 
 Nymphcea, which was figured in the 'Annales du Museum,' 
 corresponding very closely in habit to the conventional Lotos 
 so common on the Egyptian monuments. 
 
 " It seems to be very probable that the Lotos-flower in 
 the hands of the guests at Egyptian banquets, and those 
 presented as offerings to the deities, were fragrant. The 
 manner in which they are held strengthens this probability, 
 as there is no other reason why they should be brought 
 into such close proximity with the nose. 
 
 "There is still a third Lotos mentioned by Dioscorides, 
 Theocritus, and Homer, which may be some species of 
 Medicago or of the modern genus Lotos. It is herbaceous, 
 sometimes wild, and sometimes cultivated; but always written 
 about as though constituting herbage, and is on one occasion 
 cropt by the horses of Achilles. We shall not pause to 
 identify this plant, but proceed at once to the last plant 
 it is our design to deal with. 
 
 "The Kyamos, or Indian Lotos. This can scarcely 
 claim to be one of the kinds of Lotos mentioned by the 
 ancients, since it is distinctly alluded to by them as the 
 Egyptian bean, or Kyamos. This plant among the Hindus 
 has a sacred character, equal to that of the Lotus among 
 the Egyptians. It was doubtless Asiatic in its origin, but 
 at one time was plentiful in Egypt, whence it has now 
 totally vanished. It is represented on the Egyptian monu- 
 ments, but far less common than the Sacred Lotos. Some 
 authors declare this to be the veritable ' Sacred Lotos of 
 Egypt,' a title to which it has no claim. Herodotus, after 
 describing the Lotos, adds — 'There are likewise other lilies, 
 like roses (and these, too, grew in the Nile) whose 
 fructification is produced in a separate seed-vessel, springing 
 
36 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 like a sucker from the root, in appearance exactly resembling 
 a wasp's nest and containing a number of esculent seeds, 
 about the size of olive-berries. These are also eaten when 
 tender and dry. 
 
 " Theophrastus describing this plant, says : — ' It is pro- 
 duced in marshes and in stagnant waters; the length of 
 the stem, at the longest, four cubits, and the thickness of 
 a finger, like the smooth jointless reed. The inner texture 
 of the stem is perforated throughout like a honey-comb, and 
 upon the top of it is a poppy-like seed-vessel, in circumference 
 and appearance like a wasp's nest. In each of the cells 
 there is a bean projecting a little above the surface of the 
 seed-vessel, which usually contains about thirty of these beans 
 or seeds. The flower is twice the size of a poppy, of the 
 colour of a full-blown rose, and elevated above the water ; 
 about each flower are produced large leaves of the size of 
 a Thessalian hat, having the same kind of stem as the 
 flower-stem. In each bean when broken may be seen the 
 embryo plant, out of which the leaf grows. So much for 
 the fruit. The root is thicker than the thickest reed, and 
 cellular like the stem ; and those who live about the 
 marshes eat it as food, either raw, or boiled, or roasted. 
 These plants are produced spontaneously, but they are 
 cultivated in beds. To make these bean-beds, the beans are 
 sown in the mud, being previously mixed up carefully with 
 chaff, so that they may remain without injury till they take 
 root, after which the plant is safe. The root is strong, and 
 not unlike that of the reed; the stem is also similar, 
 except that it is full of prickles, and therefore the crocodiles, 
 which do not see very well, avoid the plant, for fear of 
 running the prickles into their eyes." 
 
 Major Drury observes that the mode of sowing the 
 seeds, is by first enclosing them in balls of clay, and then 
 throwing them into the water. Sir James Smith says that 
 in process of time the receptacle separates from the stalk, 
 and, laden with ripe oval nuts, floats down the water. 
 The nuts vegetating, it becomes a cornucopceia of young 
 sprouting plants, which at length break loose from their 
 confinement, and take root in the mud. 
 
 After comparing these and other accounts, the author 
 of the paper urges that there is no room for doubt that 
 this is the plant which was known to the ancients as the 
 Kyamos or Egyptian bean, the Tamara of modern India. 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 37 
 
 "The beans and flower stalks of this plant abound in 
 spiral tubes, which are extracted with great care by gently 
 breaking the stems and drawing apart the ends ; with these 
 filaments are prepared those wicks which are burnt by the 
 Hindoos in the lamps placed before the shrines of their 
 gods. In India, as well as in China and Ceylon, the flowers 
 are held to be specially sacred." 
 
 Sir Wiliiam Jones says: — "The Thibetans embellish their 
 temples and altars with it, and a native of Nepaul made 
 prostration before it on entering my study, where the fine 
 plant and beautiful flowers lay for examination." 
 
 " Thunberg aflirms that the Japanese regard the plant 
 as pleasing to the gods, the images of their idols being often 
 represented sitting on its large leaves. In China, the Shing- 
 moo or Holy Mother is generally represented with a flower 
 of it in her hand, and few temples are without some 
 representation of the plant. 
 
 "According to Chinese mythology, Shing-moo bore a 
 son, while she was a virgin, by eating the seeds of this 
 plant, which lay upon her clothes on the bank of a river 
 where she was bathing. In the course of time she returned 
 to the same place, and was there delivered of a boy. The 
 infant was afterwards found and educated by a poor fisher- 
 man, and in process of time became a great man and 
 performed miracles. When Shing-moo is represented standing, 
 she generally holds a flower in her hand ; when she is 
 sitting, she is usually placed upon one of its leaves." * 
 
 The Lotos (Lotus) is held in the highest veneration in 
 India, inclusive of Thibet and Nepaul. Amongst the 
 Brahmans and enthusiastic Hindoos, no object in nature is 
 looked on with more superstition ; and their books abound 
 in mystical allusions to this lovely aquatic. Being esteemed 
 the most beautiful of vegetables, it not unappropriated 
 furnishes a name for the Hindoo queen of beauty, and 
 Kamal or Kamala is a name of Lakshmi : as is Padma or 
 Pedma, another Sanscrit appellation for both. Under the 
 form of Kamala, Lakshmi is usually represented with a 
 Lotos in her hand, and in most pictures and statues of her 
 consort Vishnu, he is furnished with the Pedma, or Lotus 
 
 *See Pop. Science Rev., vol. x. 
 
38 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 bud, in one of his four bands, as a distinguishing attribute. 
 Accordingly, as it is represented in different stages of 
 efflorescence, it varies, in the eyes of mystics, its emblematical 
 allusions. As an aquatic, the Lotos is a symbol also of 
 Vishnu, he being a personification of water or humidity, 
 and he is often represented seated on it. Brahma the 
 creative power, is also sometimes seated on the Lotos, and 
 is borne on its calyx in the whimsical representation of 
 the renovation of the world, when this mystical plant issued 
 out of the navel of Vishnu from the bottom of the sea 
 where he was reposing on the serpent Lesha. 
 
 Lakshmi, as we have just noticed, is the sakti or con- 
 sort of Vishnu, the preservative power of the deity. The 
 extensive sect of Vaishnava, or worshippers of Vishnu, 
 esteem Lakshmi as mother of the world, and then call her 
 Ada Maya ; and such Vaishnavas as are saktas, that is, 
 adorers of the supremacy of the female energy, worship her 
 extensively as the type of the Eternal Being, and endow 
 her with suitable attributes. She is represented by the 
 poets and painters as of perfect beauty. Hindoo females 
 are commonly named after her : and there are few in the 
 long catalogue of their deities whose various names and 
 functions are so frequently alluded to in conversation and 
 writing, either on theogony, mythology, poetry or philosophy. 
 Her terrestrial manifestations have been frequent, and her 
 origin various. As Rhemba, the sea born goddess, she arose 
 out of the fourteen gems from the ocean when churned by 
 the good and evil beings for the amrita or beverage of 
 immortality. She then assumes the character of Venus 
 Marina, or Aphrodites of the Greeks, who, as Hesiod and 
 Homer sing, arose from the sea, ascended to Olympus, and 
 captivated all the gods. The production of Rhemba, Sri, or 
 Lakshmi is thus described in the thirty-sixth section of the 
 first book of Ramayana. "The gods, the asuras and the 
 gandharvas, again agitating the sea, after a long time 
 appeared the great goddess, inhabiting the lotus ; clothed 
 with superlative beauty, in the first bloom of youth, covered 
 with ornaments, and bearing every auspicious sign ; adorned 
 with a crown, with bracelets on her arms, her jetty locks 
 flowing in ringlets, and her body — which resembled burnished 
 gold — adorned with ornaments of pearl. Thus was produced 
 the goddess Paclma or Sri, adored by the whole universe, 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 39 
 
 Padma by name. She took up her abode in the bosom of 
 Padma-nabha, even of Heri," that is, of Vishnu, of whom 
 these are names. Sri, as this deity is often called, dis- 
 tinguished her more particularly as the goddess of fortune, 
 the word meaning prosperity ; but it is not given exclusively 
 to Lakshmi. Other of her names are derived from the 
 lotus, which is the emblem of female beauty, and especially 
 applicable to this goddess. In images and pictures of her, 
 which are very common in India, Lakshmi is generally 
 represented as a mere woman ; sometimes, however, four- 
 armed ; often holding a kamal or lotus, in an easy and 
 elegant attitude, and always very handsome. With her lord, 
 Vishnu, she is frequently seen on the serpent Sesha ; he 
 reposing, she in respectful attendance, while a lotus spring- 
 ing from Vishnu's navel to the surface of the sea (for this 
 scene is subaqueous) bears in its expanded calyx, Brahma, 
 the creator of the world, about to perform the work of 
 renovation. Sometimes she is seated with her lord on 
 Garuda, or Superva, clearing the air, of which Vishnu is 
 a personification. In Vishnu's most splendid avatara, or 
 incarnation of Krishna, she became manifested as Rukmein, 
 or Radha, the most adored of the amorous deities, and 
 mother of the god of love ; here again corresponding with 
 our popular Venus, the mother of Cupid. In the avatara 
 of Rama, Lakshmi was his faithful spouse, in the form of 
 Sita ; in that of Narsingha she was Narsinhi, or Nrisinhi ; 
 when Varaha, Varahi ; and as the Sakti of Narayana she 
 is by her own sectaries called Narayni ; and in most of 
 the many incarnations of Vishnu she appears to have 
 descended with him, frequently under his own celestial name: 
 as his consort generally she is called Vaishnavi. 
 
 Lakshmi and Bhavani are both considered queens of 
 beauty, and their characters are said to " melt into each 
 other." Lakshmi being commonly seen with a Kamal or 
 Lotos, the emblem of female beauty, in her hand, she is 
 called Kamala : the word is by some — by Sir W. Jones, 
 indeed, in his earlier lucubrations on Hindu mythology, 
 spelled Kernel. In his profound and spirited hymn to 
 Narayana, which every inquirer into its subject would do 
 well to consult with attention, that deity, a personification 
 of the Spirit of Brahme, as "he heavenly pensive on the 
 Lotus lay," said to Brahma, "Go; bid all the worlds exist!" 
 and the Lotus is thus apostrophised : — 
 
40 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 " Hail, primal blossom ! hail, empyreal gem ! 
 Kernel, or Pedma, or whate'er high name 
 Delight thee ; say, what four-formed Godhead came, 
 With graceful stole, and bearing diadem, 
 Forth from thy verdant stem ? — 
 Full-gifted Brahma." * 
 
 The following extract from the " Loves of Krishna and 
 Radha" shews the deep poetic sentiment associated with 
 flowers, and especially with the Lotos. Krishna, afflicted by 
 the jealous anger of Radha, exclaims — 
 
 "Grant me but a sight of thee, O lovely Radhica ! 
 for my passion torments me. I am not the terrible Mahesa : 
 a garland of water-lilies, with subtile threads, decks my 
 shoulders — not serpents with twisted folds : the blue petals 
 of the Lotos glitter on my neck — not the azure gleam of 
 poison : powdered sandal wood is sprinkled on my limbs — not 
 pale ashes. O god of love ! mistake me not for Mahadeva ; 
 wound me not again ; approach me not in anger ; hold not 
 in thy hand the shaft barbed with an amra flower. My 
 heart is already pierced by arrows from Radha's eyes, black 
 and keen as those of an antelope ; yet mine eyes are not 
 gratified by her presence. Her's are full of shafts ; her 
 eyebrows are bows, and the tips of her ears - are silken 
 strings : thus armed by Ananga, the god of desire, she 
 marches, herself a goddess, to ensure his triumph over the 
 vanquished remorse. I meditate on her delightful embrace : 
 on the vanishing glances darted from the fragant Lotos of 
 her mouth : on her nectar-dropping speech ; on her lips, ruddy 
 as the berries of the Bimba." 
 
 Radha, half pacified, thus tenderly reproaches him — 
 
 "Alas! alas! Go, Madhava — depart, Kesavi ; speak not 
 the language of guile : follow her, O Lotus-eyed god — follow 
 her, who dispels thy care. Look at his eyes, half-opened, 
 red with waking through the pleasurable night — yet smiling 
 still with affection for my rival. Thy teeth, O cerulean 
 youth ! are as azure as thy complexion, from the kisses 
 which thou hast imprinted on the beautiful eyes of thy 
 darling, graced with dark blue powder; and thy limbs, 
 marked with punctures in love's warfare, exhibit a letter of 
 conquest, written in polished sapphire with liquid gold. 
 
 # Hindu Pantheon. 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 41 
 
 That broad bosom, stained by the bright Lotos of her foot, 
 displays a vesture of ruddy leaves over the tree of thy 
 heart, which trembles within it. The pressure of her lips 
 on thine wound me to the soul. Ah ! how canst thou 
 assert that we are one, since our sensations differ thus 
 widely ? — Thy soul, O dark-limbed god ! shows its blackness 
 externally; even thy childish heart was malignant, and thou 
 gavest death to the nurse who would have given thee milk." 
 
 Krishna is thus farther described in the same poem — 
 
 " His azure breast glittered with pearls of unblemished 
 lustre, like the full bed of the cerulean Yamuna, interspersed 
 with curls of white foam. From his graceful waist flowed 
 a pale yellow robe, which resembled the golden dust of the 
 water-lily scattered over its blue petals. His passion was 
 inflamed by the glances of her eyes, which played like a 
 pair of water birds with azure plumage, that sport near 
 a full-blown Lotos on a pool, in a season of dew. ^ Bright 
 earrings, like two suns, displayed, in full expansion, the 
 flowers of his cheeks and lips, which glistened with the 
 liquid radiance of smiles. His locks, interwoven with 
 blossoms, were like a cloud variegated with moonbeams, and 
 on his forehead shone a circle of odorous oils, extracted 
 from the sandal of Malaya— like the moon just appearing 
 on the dusky horizon, while his whole body seemed in a 
 flame from the blaze of unnumbered gems." 
 
 With respect to the mention above of the blue Lotos, 
 Moor notes : — " Written in the north of India ; the Lotos in 
 the southern parts, Bengal and the Dekhan, having only 
 white and red flowers. Hence the Hindu poets feign that 
 the Lotus was dyed red by the blood ^of Siva, that flowed 
 from the wound made by the arrow of Kama." 
 
 And with respect to the expression, "the bright Lotos 
 of her foot," he says :— " Hindustani women dye the soles 
 of their feet, and nails, of a bright red. Redha, in her 
 frenzied jealousy, fancies she sees a print of her rival's foot 
 on Krishna's breast; observing, perhaps, the indelible im- 
 pression of the foot of Brighu, received on his breast by 
 Vishnu." . 
 
 "The Indians commonly represent the mystery of their 
 physiological religion by the emblem of a Nymphcea, or Lotos, 
 floating like a boat on the boundless ocean ; where the 
 
42 FISHES, FLOWKKS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 whole plant signifies both the earth and the two principles 
 of its fecundation : the germ is both MSru and the Linga ; 
 the petals and filaments are the mountains which encircle 
 IVleru, and are also a type of the Yoni; the leaves of the 
 calyx are the four vast regions to the cardinal points of 
 Meru, and the leaves of the plant are the dwipas or isles 
 round the land of Jambu. Another of their emblems is 
 called Argha, which means a cup or dish, or any other 
 vessel, in which fruit and flowers are offered to the deities, 
 and which ought always to be shaped like a boat, though 
 we now see arghas of many different forms, oval, circular 
 or square ; and hence it is that Iswara has the title of 
 Arghanatha, or the lord of the boat-shaped vessel : a rim 
 round the argha represents the mysterious Yoni, and the 
 navel of Vishnu is commonly denoted by a convexity in 
 the centre, while the contents of the vessel are symbols of 
 the linga. This argha, as a type of the adhara-sacti, or 
 power of conception, excited and vivitied by the linga, or 
 Phallus, we cannot but suppose to be one and the same 
 with the ship Argo, which was built, according to Orpheus, 
 by Juno and Pallas, and according to Appolonius, by 
 Pallas and Argus at the instance of Juno : the Yoni, as 
 it is usually pronounced, nearly resembles the name of the 
 principal Hetruscan goddess, and the Sanscrit phrase Arghan- 
 atha Iswara seems accurately rendered by Plutarch, when 
 he asserts Osiris was commander of the Argo. We cannot 
 yet affirm that the words phala, or fruit, and phulla, or a 
 flower, have ever the sense of Phallus ; but fruit and 
 flowers are the chief oblations in the argha, and triphala is 
 a name sometimes given, especially in the West of India, 
 to the trifula, or trident of Mahacleva. It can be shown 
 that the Jupiter Triphylius of the Pauchcean Islands was 
 no other than Siva holding a triphala, who is represented 
 also with three eyes to denote a triple energy, as Vishnu 
 and Prithivi are severally typitied by an equilateral triangle, 
 (which likewise gives an idea of capacity) and conjointly, 
 when their powers are supposed to be combined, by two 
 such equal triangles intersecting each other."* 
 
 * See Asiat. Res., vol. iii. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Story of the Fire-God and his secret — Growth of Fire-Worship 
 — Fire an essential in Hindu Worship — The Chaldeans — The 
 Persians — The Hebrews — Fire in Hindu Ceremonies — Duties 
 of Hindu Life — The Serpent and Fire — Phallo-Pythic Solar 
 Shrines — Fire and Phallic Worship — Leaping through Fire — 
 Fire-treading in Scotland — Fire-leaping in Russia — The Medes 
 as Fire Worshippers — The Sabines — Fire and the Ancient 
 Christians — The Roman Church and Fire — The Jews — Temple 
 of Vesta — Fire Worship in Ireland — Phallo-Fire Worship of 
 Greeks and Romans. 
 
 THE Rev. W. Gill in his "Myths and Songs from the 
 South Pacific " supplies us with a story particularly 
 suitable for notice here, called the "Fire God's Secret." The 
 story tells us that originally fire was unknown to the 
 inhabitants of the world, who of necessity ate raw food. 
 That in the nether-world (Avaiki) lived four mighty ones : 
 Manike, god of fire ; the Sun-god Ra ; Ru, supporter of 
 the heavens ; and lastly, his wife Buataranga, guardian of 
 the road to the invisible world. To Ru Buataranga was 
 born a famous son Mani. At an early age Mani was 
 appointed one of the guardians of this upper world where 
 mortals live. Like the rest of the inhabitants of the 
 world, he subsisted on uncooked food. The mother 
 Buataranga, occasionally visited her son ; but always ate 
 her food apart, out of a basket brought with her from 
 nether-land. One day, when she was asleep, Mani peeped 
 into her basket and discovered cooked food. Upon tasting 
 it he was decidedly of opinion that it was a great im- 
 provement upon the raw diet to which he was accustomed. 
 This food came from nether-world ; it was evident that the 
 secret of fire was there. To nether-world, the home of his 
 parents he would descend to gain this knowledge, so that 
 ever after he might enjoy the luxury of cooked food. 
 
 The story goes on to say that when Buataranga set 
 out, next day, on her journey to nether-world, Mani followed 
 her, unbeknown to her. He then saw his mother standing 
 
44 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 opposite a black rock which she addressed in these words: 
 " Buataranga, descend thou bodily through this chasm. The 
 rainbow-like must be obeyed. As two dark clouds parting 
 at dawn, Open, open up my road to nether-world, ye 
 fierce ones ! " 
 
 At these words the rock divided, and Buataranga des- 
 cended. Mani carefully treasured up these words ; and 
 started off to see the god Tane, the owner of some wonder- 
 ful pigeons. He begged Tane to lend him one, but as the 
 one Tane lent him did not please him, he returned it, as 
 he did also another and a better one. The only bird that 
 would content him was a certain red pigeon, which was 
 specially prized by its owner and was made a great pet 
 of. Tane at first objected to part with the bird and only 
 did so upon Mani's faithfully promising to restore it un- 
 injured. Off went Mani with the bird to the place where 
 his mother had descended. Pronouncing the magic words, 
 the rock opened, and Mani descended. The guardian demons 
 of the chasm, enraged at finding themselves imposed upon 
 by a stranger, tried to seize the pigeon, intending to 
 devour it. They only succeeded in getting possession of the 
 tail, which the pigeon went on without. (They say that 
 Mani had transformed himself into a small dragon-fly and 
 was perched upon the pigeon's back.) 
 
 Arrived at nether-land, Mani sought for the home of 
 his mother, which was the first house he saw. The pigeon 
 alighted on an oven -house opposite to an open shed where 
 Buataranga was beating out cloth. She stopped her work 
 to gaze at the bird, which she guessed to be a visitor 
 from the upper world as none of the pigeons in the shades 
 were red. She said to the bird: — "Are you not come from 
 daylight?" The pigeon nodded assent; "Are you not my 
 son Mani?" Again the pigeon nodded. At this Buataranga 
 entered her dwelling and the bird flew to a bread-fruit tree. 
 Mani resumed his proper form, and went to embrace his 
 mother, who inquired how he had descended to nether-world 
 and the object of his visit. Mani answered that he had 
 come to learn the secret of fire. Buataranga said, "This 
 secret rests with the fire-god Manike. When I wish to cook 
 I ask your father Ru to beg a lighted stick from Manike." 
 Mani inquired where the fire-god lived. His mother pointed 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 45 
 
 out the direction, and said it was called Are-ava, liouse-qf- 
 banyan-sticks. She warned her son to be careful, "for" she 
 said, "the fire is a terrible fellow, and of a very irritable 
 temper." 
 
 Mani walked up boldly towards the house of the fire-o-od. 
 Manike, who happened to be busy cooking an oven of food, 
 stopped at his work and demanded what the stranger wanted. 
 Mani replied, "A fire brand." The fire brand was given. 
 Mani carried it to a stream running past the bread fruit tree 
 and there extinguished it. He now returned to Manike and 
 obtained a second fire brand, which he also extinguished in 
 the stream. The third time a lighted stick was demanded of 
 the fire-god he was beside himself with rage. Raking the 
 ashes of the oven, he gave the daring Mani some of them on 
 a piece of dry wood. These live coals were thrown into the 
 stream as the former lighted sticks had been. 
 
 Mani correctly thought that a fire brand would be of 
 little use unless he could obtain the secret of fire. The 
 brand would eventually go out; but how to reproduce the firel 
 His object therefore was to pick a quarrel with the fire-god, 
 and compel him by sheer violence to yield up the invaluable 
 secret, as yet known to none but himself. On the other 
 hand, the fire-god, confident in his own prodigious strength, 
 resolved to destroy this insolent intruder into his secret. Mani 
 for the fourth time demanded fire of the enraged god. 
 Manike ordered him away, under pain of being tossed into 
 the air ; for Mani was small of stature. But the visitor said 
 he should enjoy nothing better than a trial of strength with 
 the fire-god. Manike entered his dwelling to put on his war- 
 girdle ; but on returning found that Mani had swelled himself 
 to an enormous size. Nothing daunted at this, Manike boldly 
 seized him with both hands and hurled him to the height 
 of a cocoa-nut tree. Mani contrived in falling to make him- 
 self so light that he was in no degree hurt by his adventure. 
 Manike, maddened that his adversary should yet breathe, 
 excited his full strength, and next time hurled him far higher 
 than the highest cocoa-nut tree that ever grew. Yet Mani 
 was uninjured by his fall, whilst the fire-god lay panting for 
 breath. 
 
 It was now Mani's turn. Seizing the fire-god he threw 
 him up to a dizzy height and caught him again like a ball 
 with his hands. Without allowing Manike to touch the 
 
46 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 around, he threw him a second time into the air, and caught 
 him in his hands. Assured that this was but a preparation 
 for a final toss which would seal his fate, the panting and 
 thoroughly exhausted Manike entreated Mani to stop and to 
 spare his life. Whatever he desired should be his. 
 
 The fire-god, now in miserable plight, was allowed to 
 breathe awhile. Mani said, "Only on one condition will I 
 spare you — tell me the secret of fire. Where is it hidden ? 
 How is it produced ? Manike gladly promised to tell him all 
 he knew, and led him inside his wonderful dwelling. In one 
 corner there was a quantity of fine cocoa-nut fibre; in another, 
 bundles of lire-yielding sticks— the au, the oronga, the 
 tauinu, and particularly the aoa or banyan tree. These sticks 
 were all dry and ready for use. In the middle of the room 
 were two smaller sticks by themselves. One of these the 
 fire-god gave to Mani, desiring him to hold it firmly, while 
 he himself plied the other most vigorously. And thus runs 
 the Fire-god's Song : — 
 
 " Grant, oh grant me thy hidden fire, 
 
 Thou banyan tree ! 
 Perform an incantation; 
 Utter a prayer to (the spirit of) 
 
 The banyan tree ! 
 Kindle a fire for Manike 
 Of the dust of the banyan tree." 
 
 By the time the song was completed, Mani, to his great 
 joy, perceived a faint smoke arising out of the fine dust 
 produced by the friction of one stick upon another. As 
 they persevered in their work the smoke increased; and, 
 favoured with the fire-god's breath, a slight flame arose, when 
 the fine cocoa-nut fibre was called into requisition to^ catch 
 and increase the flame. Manike now called to his aid the 
 different bundles of sticks and speedily got up a blazing fire, 
 to the astonishment of Mani. 
 
 The grand secret of fire was secured. The story tells us 
 that the victor then in order to be revenged for his trouble 
 and his tossing into the air, set fire to his adversary's abode, 
 that in a short time all the nether-world was in flames, which 
 consumed the fire-god and all he possessed. 
 
 Mani then picked up the two fire-sticks and hastened to 
 the bread-fruit tree, where the red pigeon awaited his return. 
 His first care was to restore the tail of the bird so as to 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 47 
 
 avoid the anger of Tane. There was no time to be lost, for 
 the flames were rapidly spreading. "He re-entered the pigeon, 
 which carried his fire-stalks one in each claw, and flew to the 
 lower entrance of the chasm. Once more pronouncing the 
 words he learnt from Buataranga, the rocks parted, and he 
 safely got back to this upper world. Mani now resumed his 
 original human form, and hastened to carry back the pet 
 bird of Tane. Passing through the main valley of Keia, he 
 found that the flames had preceded him, and had found an 
 aperture at Teava, since closed up. The king's Rangi and 
 Mokoiro trembled for their land ; for it seemed as if every- 
 thing would be destroyed by the devouring flames. To save 
 Mangaia from utter destruction, they excited themselves to 
 the utmost, and finally succeeded in putting out the fire. 
 Rangi thenceforth adopted the new name of Matamea, or 
 Watery-eyes, to commemorate his sufferings; and Mokoiro was 
 ever after called Anai, or Smoke." 
 
 " The inhabitants of Mangaia availed themselves of the 
 conflagration to get fire and to cook food. But after a time 
 the fire went out, and as they were not in possession of the 
 secret, they could not get new fire. 
 
 "But Mani was never without tire in his dwelling; a 
 circumstance that excited the surprise of all. Many were the 
 inquiries as to the cause. At length he took compassion on 
 the inhabitants of the world, and told them the wonderful 
 secre t — that fire lies hidden in the hibiscus, the urtica argenta, 
 the ' tauinu ' and the banyan. This hidden fire might be 
 elicited by the use of fire sticks which he produced. Finally, 
 he desired them to chant the fire-god's song, to give efficacy 
 to the use of the fire-sticks." 
 
 " From that memorable day all the dwellers in this upper 
 world used fire-sticks with success, and enjoyed the luxuries 
 of light and cooked food. 
 
 " To the present time this primitive method of obtaining 
 fire is still in vogue; cotton, however, being substituted for 
 fine cocoa-nut fibre as tinder. It was formerly supposed that 
 only the four kinds of wood found in the fire-god's dwelling 
 would yield fire. 
 
 "'Aoa' means banyan-tree; for intensity and rhythm the 
 word is lengthed into ' aoaoaoa.' The banyan was sacred to 
 the fire-god. 
 
 "The spot where the flames are said to have burst 
 
48 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 through, named Te-oao or the banyan-tree, was sacred till 
 Christianity induced the owner to convert the waste land into 
 a couple of taro patches." * 
 
 " Light, then tire, the sun, and the ' whole host of 
 heaven' & seem successively, and at last collectively, to have 
 become objects of worship to the Arian race; but first of 
 all light, which was to them pre-eminently the object of 
 adoration in Northern India previous to the period of the 
 collection or composition of the hymns of the earliest Hindu 
 Veda, or, in round numbers, thirty-five centuries ago. 
 
 "According to Herodotus, the Persians venerated fire as 
 a divinity, and Pliny explains that the magic of Persia 
 might apparently have been learned from the practices of 
 the Britons. There is abundant evidence to show that 
 our heathen ancestors worshipped the sun and moon. It 
 might, therefore, reasonably be inferred that in Britain, as in 
 other 'countries, fire would be substituted as typical of the great 
 luminary— of its light and its heat— and became an object 
 of adoration, when the sun was obscured or invisible in 
 seasons set apart for celebrating the religious rites of a 
 Sabian worship. But we are not dependent on inference, 
 however rational, for a knowledge of the fact that fire was 
 an object of adoration to our heathen ancestors, even so late 
 as the eleventh century; for in the laws of Cnut fire appears 
 as one of the objects the worship of which is forbidden." 
 
 "Fire seems to have always had the firmest hold upon the 
 wonderment and then the adoration of the infant mind. To 
 the present moment it is an essential part of all Hindoo 
 worship and ceremonies. From his cradle to his grave, when 
 the Hindoo is folded in the god's embrace, the ancient races 
 around me seek for it, use it, offer sacrifices to it, and 
 
 adore it." # 
 
 The Chaldeans had a high veneration for fire, which 
 they accounted a divinity; and in the province of Babylon 
 there was a city consecrated to this usage, which was called 
 the city of Ur, or of Fire. 
 
 The Persians also adored God under the image or 
 representation of fire, because it is fire that gives motion to 
 everything in nature. They had temples which they called 
 
 * For a somewhat longer account of this and other Myths, see 
 Rev. W. Gill's Book. 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 49 
 
 11 Pyrsea," fire temples set apart solely for the preservation of 
 the sacred fire. They are said to have in that empire fires 
 still subsisting which have burnt many thousand years. 
 
 The worship of the goddess Vesta and of fire, was 
 brought into Italy by -/Eneas and the other Trojans who 
 landed there ; but the Phrygians themselves had received it 
 from the eastern nations. Fire was held in religious veneration 
 among the Gauls ; and similar sentiments and practices have 
 prevailed in several countries of America. 
 
 .The Hebrews kept up the holy fire in the temple. This 
 holy fire descended from heaven, first upon the altar in the 
 tabernacle at the consecration of Aaron and his sons to the 
 priesthood, and afterwards it descended anew on the altar in 
 the temple of Solomon, at the consecration of that temple. 
 And there it was constantly maintained by the priest day 
 and night, without suffering it ever to go out ; and with 
 this all the sacrifices were offered that required fire. This 
 fire, according to some of the Jewish writers, was extinguished 
 in the days of Manasseh ; but the more general opinion 
 among them is, that it continued till the destruction of the 
 temple by the Chaldeans ; after that it was never more 
 restored; but instead of it, they had only common fire in 
 the second temple. 
 
 The part played by fire in the life of a Hindoo is a 
 remarkable one, and shews the immense extent to which this 
 form of worship has prevailed and still prevails in some 
 countries. In the man's earliest days — in his childhood — at 
 the ceremony called the investiture of the thread, fire ^ is 
 kindled from the droppings of the sacred cow, sprinkled with 
 holy water and blessed. Then are brought to it various 
 offerings of grain, butter, &c, by the worshippers who are 
 supplicating blessings, the officiating priest all _ the while 
 reading passages from the sacred books. The. child's father 
 and mother pray to Agni (Fire) that its past sins may be 
 forgiven, having been done in ignoraDce; then they declare 
 him to be of an age to know good and evil — he is between 
 seven and nine. The sacred thread is then, after being duly 
 washed and held over the fire, placed around the child's neck, 
 constituting him a Brahrn Achari— one sworn to practise the 
 laws and behests of Brahrn or Almighty God. Dubois, in 
 Mceurs des Indes, says— "A pious father will then say 
 
50 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 privately to his child, ' Remember, my son, there is but one 
 God, the Sovereign Master and Principle of all things, and 
 every Brahman is bound to worship him in secret.'" 
 
 A fortnight afterwards, a kind of confirmation ceremony 
 takes place, again before the tire, in which the parents 
 promise that they will see that he gets married and leads a 
 good life. 
 
 Marriage is the principal feature in a Hindoo's life, and 
 this, as most people know, takes place very early and is 
 attended with many important ceremonies. 
 
 Here, again, fire is conspicuous as an object of worship, 
 the ceremony before it — the God Agni — being the last and 
 most serious of all. With clothes tied together, bride and 
 bridegroom parade round about the deity casting to him their 
 offerings which now "symbolise," says Forlong, "the sacrifice 
 of all their virgin modesty to the god, as the emblem of 
 sexual fire." The final oath of mutual love and faith is then 
 taken in an address to the fire, and the pair, who are mere 
 boy and girl, are duly married. 
 
 A little further on when the period arrives for cohabitation, 
 the fourth ceremony is then gone through, fire again being 
 adored and sacrifice offered. 
 
 In the final scene, when death has taken possession of 
 the body, fire is again called into requisition ; it is carried 
 before the corpse by the nearest relatives, and ultimately 
 reduces the inanimate form to its original dust and ashes. 
 
 Forlong says — "Fire enters into every duty of a Hin- 
 doo's life. Before partaking of his morning meal he utters 
 incantations to Agni, offers to him portions of that meal ; 
 and in like manner, before he wears a new cloth or garment, 
 he must take some threads or parts of it and offer these to 
 the same deity." 
 
 "It is from the rubbing together of the wood of trees, 
 notably of the three Banian figs — Peepal, Bar, and Gooler, 
 the favourite woods for Phallic images, that holy fire is 
 drawn from heaven, and before all these species do women 
 crave their desires from God." 
 
 " Cave and fire rites are not yet extirpated from JTfirn- - 
 salem, nor, indeed, from any nation of the earth. Christians 
 still rush for sacred fire to the holy cave at the birth of 
 Sol, and men and women strive, in secret nooks, to pass 
 naked through holy fire." 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 51 
 
 " Syrians, as well as all other nations, connected the 
 Serpent with Fire. Thus the Jews had their fire altars, on 
 which the holy flame must be ever burning and never go out; 
 and they carried about a serpent on a pole as their healer. 
 So also the writer of the Acts of the Apostles speaks of the 
 Christian Holy Ghost as having serpent-like 'cloven tongues 
 of fire,' which the margin of orthodox Bibles very properly 
 connects with Isaiah's Seraphim." 
 
 Forlong says: — "I began my study of British ruins 
 about eight years ago (from 1882), during a two-year-furlough, 
 attracted to it at first by my friend the late Sir James 
 Simpson— President of the Society of Antiquaries, Edinburgh 
 — at that time writing and debating much on these matters ; 
 and. I came then to the same conclusion as I hold to-day ; 
 viz.: that the ruins of Armorika, those of Stonehenge, Abury, 
 and various others, known popularly as ' Druid Circles,' are, 
 or originally were, Phallo-Pythic — Solar shrines, or places 
 where all the first five elemental faiths more or less flourished ; 
 the first (Tree) very little, and the last (Sun) very abun- 
 dantly ; and if so, then we see the cause why European 
 writers so pugnaciously hold out, some for Sun, some for 
 Eire ; one that they are mere places for sacrifices or burial, 
 or for assembly of rulers, clans, &c.j whilst a few outlying 
 writers hint that the large stones are Lingams, or mere 
 groups of such stones as that of Kerloaz — the Newton stone, 
 &c. Colonel Forbes Leslie, in his 'Ancient Races of Scotland,' 
 has very nearly told us the truth, his long residence and 
 travels in Asia having enabled him almost to pierce the 
 cloud, though he seems at first not to have fully appreciated 
 the ever very close connection between Sun, Fire, Serpent 
 and Lingam faiths, which I believe he does now." 
 
 "The European mind having once lost the old ideas of 
 what these words meant, and from having still such objects 
 as Sun, Fire, and Serpent before them, is always thinking 
 of these visible objects, which I might almost say a true 
 Sivaite never recognises per se ; for in fire the true Phallic 
 worshipper sees no flame, and in the sun no far-out 
 resplendent orb as we know, standing apart, as it were, in 
 space, and to which we all gravitate; he sees simply a 
 source of fertility, without which the Serpent has no power 
 or passion, and in whose absence the animal and vegetable 
 world must cease to exist. The fire here, then, is not that 
 
52 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 which the real Sivaite sees or cooks by, but Hot or Holy 
 Fire, or the ' Holy Spirit,' or the fire of passion, which to 
 a certain small extent, and in certain symbolic forms and 
 positions, he recognises in flame, as when raised on a tower, 
 coming out of an obelisk, or rising in a column or pillar 
 over an ark, or smouldering in the secret adytum ; for the 
 first impresses him with the Arkite, the second with the 
 Phallic and Arkite, and the third with the purely feminine 
 idea ; in all, he merely sees representative male and female 
 energies which are excited and fructified by the Sun, Apollo, 
 or the Sun-Serpent, as in his old coin, where fertility fed by 
 fire feeds the shell. In a column, be it wood, stone, or fire, 
 he sees the Sun-stone, such as the Mudros of Phoenicia, the 
 Mindir of Ireland, and obelisk of Egypt; and in the cist, 
 shell, or Akros, the womb, Yoni, or sUn-box ; in all, the 
 column or Palas, and its Caput-oline." 
 
 " Leaping or walking through the fire, so frequently 
 mentioned in Jewish writings in connection with Molek, is 
 still quite common in the less civilised parts of India, being 
 usually done in fulfilment of a vow for blessings desired, or 
 believed to have been conferred by the deity upon the 
 Nazarite or Vower. I have known of it being gone through 
 for recovery from a severe illness, and for success in an 
 expedition or project which the Nazarite had much at heart.'' 
 
 Some say fire should be trod because Drupadi, the 
 mythical wife of the Pandoos, did this, after defilement 
 tli rough the touch of Kichaka, and because Sita proved her 
 purity by fire. Where the British Government can prevent 
 this rite, flowers are thrown into the fire-pit, which seems as 
 if the fire were looked upon as a female energy. Fire-treading 
 is commonly accomplished by digging a deepish narrow pit, 
 and filling it with firewood, and then when the flames are 
 scorching hot, leaping over it ; usually the rite begins by first 
 walking closely round the fire, slowly at first, then faster 
 and faster, with occasional leaps into and out of it in the 
 wildest excitement. Mr. Stokes, of the Madras Civil Service, 
 thus describes the rite as it came officially to notice in 
 April, 1873. 
 
 In a level place before the village deity, who was 
 Drupadi Ama (Mother D.), a fire-pit, in size 27 by 1\ feet 
 by 9 inches deep, was excavated east and west, and the 
 goddess set up at the west end. Six Babool or Acacia trees 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 53 
 
 (this being a fiercely burning wood) were cut and thrown in ; 
 thirteen persons trod this fire, and one died from the effects. 
 They followed each other, some with tabors, others ringing 
 a bell, and each, after passing through the fire, went into a 
 pit filled with water, called the "milk pit." All merely 
 wore a waist cloth, and had their bodies daubed over with 
 sandal. The one who died, fell into the fire, and had to be 
 pulled out. The fire was lit at noon, and "walking it" took 
 place at two p.m., when it had become very bright and hot. 
 The Poojore, or priest of the temple, said it was his duty 
 to walk annually through the fire, and that he had done so 
 for seven or eight years. It was the mother of the dead 
 man who had vowed that if her son recovered from an attack 
 of jaundice she would tread the fire, but the old woman 
 being blind, her son fulfilled the vow. Some said that the 
 dead man himself had vowed thus to the Goddess Drupadi : 
 "Mother, if I recover, I shall tread on your fire." Death 
 is rarely the result of this practice, but Mr. Stokes adds that 
 a few years ago, a mother and her infant died from the 
 effects. 
 
 "On the 29th of June, men, and even babes, had to be 
 passed through the fire. 'On this night,' says Dr. Moresin, 
 ' did the Highlanders run about on the mountains and high 
 grounds with lighted torches, like the Cicilian women of old, 
 in search of Proserpine,' and Scotch farmers then used to go 
 round their corn-fields with blazing torches, as was the custom 
 at the Cerealia. The ancient Roman Kalenclar states, among 
 other matter, that fires are made on the 23rd ; ' Boys dress 
 in girls' clothes ; waters are swum in during the night. 
 Water is fetched in vessels and hung up for purposes of 
 divination; fern is esteemed by the vulgar because of the 
 seed . . . .; girls gather thistles, and place a hundred crosses 
 by the same ; ' for has not the thistle a cap like the lotus, 
 and is it not a trefoil? 
 
 " In the ' Englishwoman in Russia,' p. 223, a writer 
 says that 'on midsummer eve a custom still (1855) exists in 
 Russia, among the lower classes, that could only be derived 
 from a very remote antiquity, and is perhaps a remnant of 
 the worship of Baal. A party of peasant women and girls 
 assemble in some retired unfrequented spot, and light a large 
 fire, over which they leap in succession. If by chance one 
 of the other sex should be found near the place, or should 
 
54 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 have seen them in the act of performing the rite, it is at 
 the imminent hazard of his life, for the women would not 
 scruple to sacrifice him for his temerity.' The writer was 
 assured that such instances had often been known. Thus 
 this ' Fire-dance ' is a very serious matter, and one which 
 under the circumstances, we can learn very little about : 
 from its secret practice here by women it is clearly connected 
 with Agni, the Procreator or Fertiliser. Our ancestors were 
 inveterate fire- worshippers, especially at the four great solar 
 festivals. They thought no cattle safe unless passed through 
 the May Day and Midsummer Beltine fires, and no person 
 would suffer a fire within their parish which had not been 
 then kindled afresh from the Tin-Egin, or sacred fire pro- 
 duced by friction." 
 
 The Medes were undoubtedly worshippers of Fire, "as the 
 most subtle, ethereal, incomprehensible, and powerful agent. 
 They were averse to all temples or personification of the 
 material things, or of Ormazd. Like our Parsee fellow- 
 subjects, they never allowed their hearth-fires to be extinguished, 
 nor would they even blow out any ordinary fire or candle; 
 in the Magian days, he who did so forfeited his life." 
 
 "We still see the remains — some very perfect — of the 
 lone Fire-towers, which Greeks called Puraitheia, amidst the 
 lofty hills of Armenia, Azerbijan, Koordistan and Looristan, 
 some of which were Dakmas, or 'Towers of Silence,' having 
 gratings for roofs, through which the bones fell when the 
 body was destroyed. The Fire-God was called At-Ar." 
 
 The Sabines were, perhaps, more nearly related to our 
 ancestors than is generally thought ; at least we may believe 
 so from the Sabine and Gselic languages having more affinity 
 even than the Welsh and Irish, and from other evidence. 
 Dr. Leatham, in his work on Descriptive Ethnology, says 
 that 'much of the blood of the Romans was Keltic, and so 
 is much of the Latin language,' and a study of the move- 
 ments of ancient peoples will show how this is so. Like the 
 Skyths, these old Sabines were devoted to all the worship of 
 Sivaites, and particularly of Mars' symbol, the Quiris or 
 Spear, after which we still call their greatest fete Quirinalia, 
 and their Mount Zion, the Quirinal. The worship of the 
 Quiris has not yet ceased in high Asia, nor, I believe, in 
 America. It was prominent on the summits of all the 
 Skythian bonfire piles and mounds at which these Aryan 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 55 
 
 fathers worshipped, and is connected with most rites. We 
 also see it on numerous sculpturings which have been un- 
 earthed from the ruins of the Skuti, or Kelts of Ireland 
 and Scotland — much to the perplexity of local antiquaries. 
 Hue, in his ' Travels in Tartary,' gives us these Phalli as 
 existing all over the immense extent of country he traversed, 
 including Northern China, Mongolia, Thibet. Spears are, 
 however, too valuable to be left sticking in ' these ObosJ as 
 he calls them, and therefore ' dried branches of trees ' are 
 substituted in very good imitation of spears." 
 
 " We have abundant proof that Fire was never neglected 
 by ancient Christians, either on tomb or altar. In a letter 
 from Rome, we find that in front of the Cubiculum, or 
 square tomb of Cornelius the martyr, is a short pillar 
 supporting an ever-burning lamp of oil ; and when this 
 custom of never-dying flame — alike common to all faiths — 
 was revived in the third century A.C., we read that the 
 Popes used to send to kings and queens a few drops of the 
 oil from this lamp of the tomb of Cornelius. (See Cor. — 
 111. Lon. News, 3-72.) Nor need we be astonished at this, 
 seeing that Yesta's shrine still flourished and received Papal 
 attention, and that in every corner of the world Fire-faith 
 existed. To this day none may neglect the rites of this faith 
 in Syria — cradle of the God, as the poor Turkish Bey of 
 Antioch and his son found to their cost, when, after the 
 earthquake of April 3rd, 1872, they and their officers kindly, 
 reverently and wisely buried the Christian dead, but without 
 the fire-symbols and bell-ringing (which they failed to under- 
 stand), thereby greatly offending a powerful sect of Antioch, 
 called the Dusars, who, still clearly worshipping Baal and 
 Astaroth, rose upon the poor Turks and smote them hip and 
 thigh." 
 
 "In the county of Kildare, Ireland, 'everlasting fire' 
 was preserved by ' holy virgins — called Ingheaw Andagha, or 
 daughters of fire,' down to the time of the Reformation. 
 These were often the first ladies of the land, and never other 
 than those of gentle birth." 
 
 "No blessing can be asked or granted from the altar of 
 any Catholic Church until the candles are lighted. If a 
 woman when pregnant desires to be blessed by the Christian 
 Church, she is instructed 'to wait on her knees, at the door 
 of the church, with a lighted taper in her hand,' nor can 
 
56 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 any cross be blessed until three tapers are lighted by the 
 'man of God,' had placed at its base. See Picart n., 117, 
 where he gives some graphic plates of Christian Phallo- 
 solar-fire rites. 
 
 " In Goodwin's Civil and Ecclesiastical Bites, under the 
 head of Feasts of the Expiation, which we have reason to 
 believe was at one time a period of human sacrifice, we 
 have the great Winter-Christmas Saturnalia, or Juvenalia 
 Festival of Lights and Fires described, when not only the 
 temples of Jews and Christians, but every house had to be 
 carefully lighted. Jews taught that the lights must be held 
 in the left hand, and the holder must 'walk between two 
 commandments,' which seems to denote the climatic or solar 
 turn of the year. This old writer tells us that it was 
 1 woman's peculiar province to light their lamps j ' and that 
 ' there are certain prayers appropriated to this festival, and 
 among the rest one in praise of God, who hath ordained 
 the lighting up of lamps upon Solemn Days.' Here we see 
 a close resemblance between the faith of the Jew and the 
 Islami, whose wives are enjoined personally to see to the 
 lighting of the household lamps on Venus' Eve. Jerusalem, 
 we know, acknowledges the God of Agni to the present 
 hour, by annually giving out that holy Fire descends from 
 heaven at a stated season into the dark Adyta of the 
 Sacred Shrine; all old fires must be extinguished at this 
 the season of Sol's renewed vigour, so when the priest 
 emerges from the adytum with the new fire in his hand 
 (and Christian priests have often done this, if they do not 
 do so still), crowds of every hue and creed rush towards 
 him, light their tapers, and bear away the new fire to their 
 homes." 
 
 Referring to the Temple of Vesta mentioned by Davies, 
 Forlong says — "Now, what was this Temple of Vesta? In 
 its rites and surroundings, its duties social and political, 
 it was one with the temples still existing in Asia devoted 
 to Phallic and Fire-worship combined, or perhaps I should 
 say a temple to Phallic worship only, but the cult in the 
 dawn of brighter faiths was somewhat hid away by the 
 priests in the darkest recesses of their temples, and not 
 well-known by many of the worshippers, and scarcely at all 
 by European writers even of the middle ages. Any student 
 of Delphic lore and of Eastern travel, however, will recognise 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 57 
 
 at once in Delphi's Oracle and Yesta's Temple, 'The Old 
 Faith' and its priestess worshippers, although the writer in 
 Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities does not appear to do so. 
 He describes Vesta's as merely a Fire-temple, and says that 
 there were six Vestales or Virgin Priestesses to watch the 
 eternal Fire which blazed everlastingly on the altar of the 
 goddess. On the Pope has descended the name of their 
 superior as ' Pontifex Maximus.' If by any negligence or 
 misfortune the Fire went out, the Pontifex Maximus scourged 
 the erring vestal virgin, for had not she — a woman — per- 
 mitted the procreative energy of the god to forsake mankind?" 
 "Dr. George Petrie, who in 1845 still combatted, but 
 without force, the pre-Christian idea of Irish Towers, 
 acknowledges signs of a very strong and all-prevailing Fire 
 Worship in Ireland. This he sees in Bel or Bil-tene — 
 'the goodly fire,' in which Bel, the sun in Ireland, as of 
 old in Babylon, was the great purifier. The Druids, he 
 says, used to worship in presence of two fires, and make 
 cattle walk between them to keep off evil. Even in Dublin 
 we have still May-fires, and those of St. John's Eve ; and 
 an old manuscript of Trinity College tells us that ' Bel 
 was the name of an idol at whose festival (Bel-tine) a 
 couple of all cattle were exhibited as in his possession,' 
 which I conclude means — fixed by his rays. The name of 
 this feast in Scotland was Egin-Tin, in which we can 
 recognise Agin, Ag, or Agni-fire, and the fire-god of all 
 Asia. In the island of Skye — says Dr. Martin, quoted by 
 Petrie, page xxxviii. — the Tin Egin was a forced fire or fire 
 of necessity which cured the plague and murrain amongst 
 cattle. All the fires in the parish were extinguished, and 
 eighty-one married men (a multiple of the mystic number 
 nine) being thought the necessary number for effecting this 
 design* took two great planks of wood, and nine of them 
 were employed by turns, who, by their repeated efforts, 
 rubbed one of the planks against the other until the heat 
 thereof produced fire, and from this forced fire each family 
 is supplied with new fire. 
 
 "This is the true 'tire which falls from heaven,' and it 
 must still be so produced at the temples of all tire-worship- 
 ping races, and at the hearths of the Guebre or Parsees, 
 as it was in this remote Isle of Skye. 
 
 " I must now make a few general observations upon 
 
58 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 the marked Phallo-Fire Worship of the Greeks and Romans, 
 too commonly called 'Fire and Ancestor Worship,' it not 
 being perceived that the ancestor came to be honoured and 
 worshipped only as the Generator, and so also the Serpent, 
 as his symbol. 
 
 " The ' Signs ' or Nishans of the generating parents, 
 that is the Lares and Penates, were placed in the family 
 niches close to the holy flame— that 'hot air,' 'holy spirit/ 
 or "breath'— the active force of the Hebrew BRA, and 
 the Egyptian P'ta — the engenderer of the heavens and earth, 
 before which ignorant and superstitious races prayed and 
 prostrated themselves, just as they do to-day before very 
 similar symbols. 
 
 "The Greeks and Romans watched over their fires as 
 do our Paraees or Zoroastrians. The males of the family 
 had to see that the holy flame never went out, but in the 
 absence of the head, and practically at all times, this sacred 
 duty devolved on the matron of the house. Every evening 
 the sacred fire was carefully covered with ashes so that it 
 might not go out by oversight, but quietly smoulder on ; 
 and in the early morning the ashes were removed, when it 
 was brightened up and worshipped. In March or early 
 spring it was allowed to die out, but not before the New 
 Year's Fire had been kindled from Sol's rays and placed 
 in the sanctuary. No unclean object was allowed to come 
 near Agni ; none durst even warm themselves near him ; 
 nor could any blameworthy action take place in his presence. 
 He was only approached for adoration or prayer; not as 
 fire, which he was not, but as sexual flame or life. Prayers 
 were offered to him similar to those Christians use ; and 
 with most he held just such a mediatorial office as Christ 
 does. The Almighty was addressed through him, and he 
 was asked for health, happiness wisdom and foresight ; 
 guidance in prosperity and comfort in adversity, long life, 
 off-spring, and all manly and womanly qualifications. ^ His 
 followers were taught that it was the most heinous sin to 
 approach him with unclean hearts or hands, and were en- 
 couraged to come to him at all times for repentance and 
 sanctifi cation. 
 
 "Before leaving the house, prayer had to be made to 
 the sacred fire ; and on returning, the father must do so 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 59 
 
 even before embracing his wife and children. Thus Agamem- 
 non acted, we are told, on his return from Troy. Sacrifices, 
 libations, wine, oil and victims were regularly offered to the 
 Fire, and as the god brightened up under the oils, all 
 exulted and fell down before him. They believed that he 
 ate and drank, and with more reason than the Jew said 
 this of his Jehovah and El-Shadai. Above all, it was 
 necessary to offer food and wine to him ; to ask a blessing 
 before every meal, and return thanks when it was over. 
 From Ovid and Horace we see it was thought pious and 
 proper to sup in presence of the sacred flame, and to make 
 oblations to it. There was no difference between Romans, 
 Greeks, and Hindoos in these respects, except that Soma 
 wine in India took the place of the grape of cooler lands. 
 All alike besought Agni by fervent prayers for increase of 
 flocks and families, for happy lives and serene old age, for 
 wisdom and pardon of sin. We see the great antiquity of 
 this faith in the well-known fact, that even when the early 
 Greeks were sacrificing to Zeus and Athene at Olympia, 
 they always first invoked Agni, precisely as had been ordered 
 in the Vedas some 2,000 years B.C., and probably as he 
 had been invoked many thousands of years before the art 
 of writing was known." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Fire-worship in the Stales of the Mediterranean — Special 
 Sacredness of the public City-fire of Greece and Rome — The 
 sacred Fire of Tlachtga — Ceylon Fire-worship — The Par sees — 
 Persian Monuments — Impiety of Cambyses — Cingalese Terms, 
 Sanscrit, Welsh, <fcc. — The Yule-log — Fire-worship in England 
 — The Fire of Beltane — Druidical Fires — May-day Fires — 
 November Fires in Ireland — Between Two Fires — -Scotland — 
 The Summer Solstice and Fire Ceremonies — Worship of Baal 
 in Ireland — St. John's Day — Bonfires — Decree of Council of 
 Constantinople. 
 
 " A LL the states of the Mediterranean and Persia had, 
 I\ like India, baptismal forms connected with Fire. 
 With the Greeks and Romans the baptismal ceremony took 
 place between the ninth and twelfth days of birth, and 
 generally commenced by women seizing the infant and running 
 round, or dashing through the fire with it. So also at 
 marriages, fire was the active and ' covenant god.' No 
 account was taken of a bride s faith ; to marry was to em- 
 brace the husband's religion, to be to him in filial loco, and 
 to break entirely with her own family ; nay, marriage was 
 for long entered into with a show of violence, as if to 
 demonstrate the separation. It certainly reminds one of early 
 times when men thus obtained their wives. The principal 
 part of the marriage ceremony was to bring the bride before 
 her husband's hearth, anoint her with holy water, and make 
 her touch the sacred fire ; after which she broke bread or 
 ate a cake with him. Fire was also the God who witnessed 
 the separation of husband and wife, which, if there were 
 offspring, was a rare and difficult act ; but if the couple 
 were childless, divorce was an easy matter." 
 
 " No stranger dared appear before the city-fire either 
 in Greece or Rome, indeed the mere look of a person foreign 
 to the worship would profane a sacred act, and disturb the 
 auspices. The very name of strangers was hostis, or enemy 
 to the gods. When the Roman Pontiff had to sacrifice 
 out-of-doors, he veiled his face so that the chance sight of 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 61 
 
 strangers might be thus atoned for to the gods, who were 
 supposed to dislike foreigners so much, that the most labo- 
 rious ceremonies were undertaken if any of these passed 
 near, not to say handled any holy object. Every sacred fire 
 had to be re-lit if a stranger entered a temple ; and so in 
 India, every sacred place must be carefully purified if a 
 foreigner (ruler and highly respected though he may be) 
 pass too close to a Hindoo shrine. I have seen Government 
 servants under me, and Sepoys, who meant no disrespect, 
 throw away the whole of a day's food, and dig up the little 
 fire-places they had prepared before cooking and eating, 
 because, by accident or oversight, my shadow had passed 
 over it ; though sometimes, if there were no onlookers, this 
 extreme measure was not carried out, partly out of regard 
 for me." 
 
 Dr. Keating, in his "History of Ireland," speaks of 
 the royal seat of Tlachtga, where the Fire Tlachtga was 
 ordained to be kindled. He says : — The use of this sacred 
 fire was to summon the Priests, the Augurs, and Druids of 
 Ireland to repair thither and assemble upon the Eve of 
 All Saints, in order to consume the sacrifices that were 
 offered to their Pagan Gods ; and it was established under 
 the penalty of a great fine, that no other fire should be 
 kindled upon that night throughout the kingdom ; so that 
 the fire that was to be used in the country, was to be 
 derived from this holy fire ; for which privilege the people 
 were to pay a Scraball, which amounts to threepence every 
 year as an acknowledgment to the King of Munster, 
 because the palace of Tlachtga, where this fire burned, was 
 the proportion taken from the province of Munster, and 
 added to the country of Meath. 
 
 The second royal palace that was erected was in the 
 proportion taken from the province of Conacht, and here 
 was a general convocation assembled of all the inhabitants 
 of the kingdom that were able to appear, which was 
 called the Convocation of Visneach, and kept upon the first 
 day of May, where they offered sacrifices to the principal 
 deity in the island, whom they adored under the name of 
 Beul. Upon this occasion they were used to kindle two 
 fires in every territory in the kingdom, in honour of this 
 pagan god. It was a solemn ceremony at this time to 
 drive a number of cattle of every kind between these fires ; 
 
62 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 this was conceived to be an antidote and a preservation 
 against the murrain, or any other pestilential distemper 
 among cattle for the year following j and from these fires 
 that were made in worship of the god Beul, the day upon 
 which the Christian festival of St. Philip and St. James is 
 observed, is called in the Irish language Beul-tinne. The 
 derivation of the word is thus : La in Irish signifies a day, 
 Beul is the name of the pagan deity, and Teinne is the 
 same with fire in the English, which words, when they are 
 pronounced together, sound La Beultinne." 
 
 Leslie in his " Early Races of Scotland," says : " From 
 Dondera Head in Ceylon to the Himalaya Mountains, and 
 from the borders of China to the extremities of Western 
 Europe and its islands, we find clear evidence of the 
 former prevalence of the earliest form of false worship, viz., 
 the adoration of light, the sun, and ' the whole host of 
 heaven.' In the Rajpoot state of Marwar, in its capital 
 Udayayoor, ' The City of the Rising Sun ! ' the precedence 
 of Surya, the sun god, is still maintained. The sacred 
 standard of the country bears his image, and the Raja, 
 claiming to be his descendant, appears as his representative." 
 
 "In a complicated form the Parsees of British India 
 still retain that worship of light, symbolised in the sun 
 and fire, for which they became exiles when their faith was 
 proscribed in the land of their ancestors." 
 
 Leslie quotes various authors and travellers who had 
 personally witnessed the remains of many of these altars. 
 " Chardin," he says, " in his travels in Media in the end 
 of the seventeenth century describes circles of large stones 
 that must have been brought a distance of six leagues to 
 the place where he observed them. The tradition regarding 
 these circles was, that councils were there held, each mem- 
 ber of the assembly being seated on a separate stone." * 
 
 In the Persian province of Ears, Sir William Ouseley 
 observed a monolith ten or twelve feet high, surrounded by 
 a fence of stones. This rude column had a cavity on the 
 top. Similiar instances — viz., of monoliths having a cavity 
 in the top — existed among the primitive monuments of 
 Scotland. (In Kincardineshire, at Auchincorthie, there were 
 
 * Chardin' s Voyages, vol. ii. 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 63 
 
 five circles of stones. On the top of one of the stones 
 which stood on the east side of the largest circle, there 
 was a hollow three inches deep, along the bottom of which, 
 and down the side of the stone, a channel was cut. Another 
 of the stones in this group had a similar cavity and 
 channel. Other examples of such artificial cavities in ancient 
 British monuments could be pointed out. — (Gibson's Camden, 
 vol. ii., p. 291.) The same traveller remarked a few old 
 trees which grew near this column, and these he supposed 
 to be the remains of a consecrated grove. One of the trees 
 was thickly hung with rags, the native offerings of the in- 
 habitants of the country. Trees with such garniture may 
 commonly be observed in the Dekhan and other parts of 
 India, and not long since might be seen in many places in 
 Britain. The Monolith thus described, and adjacent to the 
 grove, was called by an expression equivalent to " Stone of 
 the Fire Temple." We know from Herodotus that the 
 ancient Persians, like their expatriated descendants the 
 Parsees, were worshippers of the sun and fire, and the 
 mysterious rites of the heathen inhabitants of Britain must 
 have closely resembled those of the Persians, when the 
 similarity induced Pliny to remark that Britain cultivates 
 magic with ceremonial so august that it might be supposed 
 that the art was first communicated from them to the 
 people of Persia. 
 
 Turning to Herodotus as here suggested, speaking of 
 the order given by Cambyses to burn the corpse of Amasis, 
 after his people had failed to tear it apart, owing to its 
 having been embalmed, the historian says : — " This was truly 
 an impious command to give, for the Persians hold fire to 
 be a god, and never by any chance burn their dead. Indeed 
 this practice is unlawful, both with them and with the 
 Egyptians — with them for the reason above mentioned, since 
 they deem it wrong to give the corpse if a man to a god ; 
 and with the Egyptians, because they believe fire to be a 
 live animal, which eats whatever it can seize, and then 
 glutted with the food, dies with the matter it feeds upon." * 
 
 Leslie says "it is important, as a prelude to the descrip- 
 tion of rites in a worship common to the early inhabitants 
 of the Indian Peninsula and to the Celtic population of Gaul 
 
 * Thalia, 16, Kawlinson. 
 
64 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 and Britain, to refer to the cognate expressions which they 
 employed for the object of their adoration. In Cingalese, Ja, 
 Jwala, signifies light, lustre, name ; Jwalana, light ; also Agni, 
 or personified and deified fire. Eliya is also Cingalese for 
 light ; in Welsh, Lleuer and Lleuad, the moon ; in Gaelic, 
 Eibhle, anything on fire. In Sanscrit, Jwala signifies light, 
 flame ; in Cornish, Gwawl ; in Welsh, Goleu ; in Armorican, 
 Goleu. In Gaelic, Geal and Eallaidhe is white ; Soillse, light, 
 sunlight ; Suil, the eye. In Cingalese, Haili and Hel, and 
 in Sanscrit, Heli or Helis is the sun. In Welsh it is Haul, 
 pronounced Hail ; in Armorican, Haul and Heol ; in Cornish, 
 Houl and Heul. The great festival of heathen Britain — viz, 
 Yeul — was celebrated at that period of the year when the 
 sun having obtained the greatest distance from the earth, 
 commenced his return to restore warmth and to revivify 
 nature. Although Christmas superseded the heathen festival, 
 not only the ancient name of Yeul, but many of the customs, 
 evidently connected with the heathen rites, are not yet obso- 
 lete in South Britain ; and in Scotland, at least in the more 
 remote parts, and in agricultural districts, Yeul is still the 
 word in general use for Christmas Day." 
 
 Hone, in his " Every-day Book" vol. I. p. 204, says: 
 " The Yeul feast and Yeul log can be clearly traced to 
 their original source. Tho blaze of lights, and the kindling 
 of the great Yule log on Christmas Eve by a portion of 
 the Yule brand of the former year, is as clearly a heathen 
 ceremony, and for the same object of worship, as the fires 
 on Midsummer Eve. As to the feast, in times compar- 
 atively recent, the Greenlanders held a sun-feast at the winter 
 solstice, to rejoice in the conmencement of returning light 
 and warmth." 
 
 "From Teinidh and Tein, Irish and Gaelic for fire, is 
 probably derived the obsolete English word 'to teend.' 
 Herrich, speaking of the Christmas brand, says part must 
 be kept wherewith to teend the Christmas by next year." 
 
 Evidence of some sort of fire-worship in England at 
 various times is to be found in the Confessional of Ecgbert, 
 Archbishop of York (8th century) and" the Penitential of 
 Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury (7th century), and that 
 this included the adoration of the light of the sun and moon 
 seems probable from the prohibition of the practice of passing 
 children through fire extending to that of exposing them on 
 the house-tops for the benefit of their health. 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 65 
 
 Leslie remarks that it is curious to compare these 
 restrictions and penalties to be enforced by English eccle- 
 siastical authorites with the denunciation of the same heathen 
 practices by the prophet Zephaniah, (Chap. I., 4, 5.) "I 
 will cut off' the remnant of Baal, and them that worship 
 the host of heaven upon the house-tops." 
 
 The allusion to the Midsummer Eve Fire in Hone, 
 reminds us of the " Fire of Bel " or Beltane of Scotland, 
 a festival generally celebrated on May-day old style. Leslie 
 says, in other Celtic countries of Western Europe the same 
 expression, with slight variations in sound, was also used for 
 the great heathen festival which was held about the beginning 
 of the month of May. He further says :— " Beltane is also 
 used to express the fires that were kindled in honour of 
 Bel on that and on other clays connected with his worship, 
 as on Midsummer Eve, afterwards called the vigil of St. 
 John, on All-Hallowe'en, and on Yeule, which is now 
 Christmas. Of the ceremonies practised at Beltane, and 
 continued almost to our own times, the most remarkable 
 and general were the fires lighted in honour of Bel." 
 
 "Kindling fires at Beltane, on the hills and conspicuous 
 places in level districts, was so universal in Scotland — also 
 in Ireland and Cornwall — that it is unnecessary to refer to 
 records for proof of events which may still be witnessed in 
 this year 1865. 
 
 "Conjoined with Apollo in the inscription on a Roman 
 altar found at Inveresk is an epithet bearing a considerable 
 resemblance to the name of the sun in Gaelic. Apollini- 
 Granno is the commencement of the inscription. Grian or 
 Greine is the sun in Gaelic, and Grianach is 'the sunny.' 
 This resemblance it is as well to notice, for epithets not 
 similar in sound but identical in meaning are used for 
 Apollo or the sun by classic authors and the Scottish Celts, 
 as Gruagach, the fair-haired. Enclosures called Grianan or 
 Greinham, 'the house of the sun,' where the people wor- 
 shipped the sun, are to be met with everywhere. On the 
 Gruagach stones libations of milk were poured. A clergyman 
 of the Western Isles says that about a century ago (this 
 was in 1774), Gruagach got credit for being the father of 
 a child at Shulista, near Duntulme, the seat of M'Donald. 
 Gruagach, the sun, was represented by certain rude stones 
 of large size. On the island of Bernera, in the parish of 
 
 F 
 
66 ' FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 Harris, a circle, defined by long sharp pointed stones, has 
 in the centre a stone in the form of an inverted pyramid, 
 called Clach-na-Greine, 'the stone of the sun.'" 
 
 Toland, in his " History of Druids," gathers together a 
 good deal of important information relative to Fire Customs in 
 various parts of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and 
 the adjacent islands. He speaks of the earns (cairns) or 
 heaps of stones which are found on mountain tops and 
 other eminencies in different localities, and after alluding to 
 the uses they served in course of time as beacons, being 
 conveniently situated for such a purpose, says — "They were 
 originally designed for fires of another nature. The fact 
 stood thus. On May-eve the Druids made prodigious fires 
 on those earns, which being every one in sight, could not 
 but afford a glorious show over a whole nation. These fires 
 were in honour of Beal or Bealan, latinised by the Roman 
 authors into Belenus, by which name the Gauls and their 
 colonies understood the sun : and, therefore, to this hour 
 the first day of May is by the aboriginal Irish called La 
 Bealteine, or the day of Belen's fire." 
 
 "May-day is likewise called La Bealteine by the High- 
 landers of Scotland, who are no contemptible part of the 
 Celtic offspring. So it is in the Isle of Man ; and in 
 Armoric a priest is still called Belec, or the Servant of Bel, 
 and priesthood Belegieth. Two such fires as we have men- 
 tioned were kindled by one another on May-eve in every 
 village of the nation (as well throughout all Gaul, as in 
 Britain, Ireland, and the adjoining lesser islands), between 
 which fires the men and the beasts to be sacrificed were to 
 pass ; from whence came the proverb, Between Bel's two fires, 
 meaning one in a great strait, not knowing how to extricate 
 himself. One of the fires was on the earn, another on the 
 ground. On the eve of the first day of November there were 
 also such fires kindled, accompanied (as they constantly were) 
 with sacrifices and feasting. These November fires were in 
 Ireland called Tine tlach'd gha, from tlach'd-gha, a place 
 hence so called in Meath where the Archdruid of the realm 
 had his fire on the said eve; and for which piece of ground, 
 because originally belonging to Munster, but appointed by 
 the supreme monarch for this use, there was an annual 
 acknowledgement (called sgreaboll) paid to the king of that 
 province. 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 67 
 
 " On the aforesaid eve all the people of the country, 
 out of a religious persuasion instilled into them by the Druids, 
 extinguished their tires as entirely as the Jews are wont to 
 sweep their houses the night before the feast of unleavened 
 bread. Then every master of a family was religiously obliged 
 to take a portion of the consecrated tire home, and to kindle 
 the fire anew in his house, which for the ensuing year was 
 to be lucky and prosperous. He was to pay, however, for 
 his future happiness whether the event proved answerable or 
 not ; and though his house should be afterwards burnt, yet 
 he must deem it the punishment of some new sin, or ascribe 
 it to anything rather than to want of virtue in the con- 
 secration of the fire, or of validity in the benediction of the 
 Druid, who, from officiating at the earns, was likewise called 
 Cairnech, a name that continued to signify priest even in 
 Christian times. But if any man had not cleared with the 
 Druids for the last year's dues, he was neither to have a 
 spark of this holy fire from the earns, nor durst any of his 
 neighbours let him take the benefit of theirs under pain of 
 excommunication, which, as managed by the Druids, was 
 worse than death. If he would brew, therefore, or bake, or 
 roast, or boil, or warm himself and family ; in a word, if 
 he would live the winter out, the Druid's dues must be paid 
 by the last of October, so that this trick alone was more 
 effectual than are all the Acts of Parliament made for 
 securing our present clergy's dues. 
 
 " As to the fire-worship which (by the way) prevailed 
 over all the world, the Celtic nations kindled other fires on 
 Midsummer-eve, which are still continued by the Roman 
 Catholics of Ireland ; making them in all their grounds, and 
 carrying flaming brands about their corn-fields. This they 
 do likewise all over France and in some of the Scottish 
 Isles. These midsummer fires and sacrifices were to obtain 
 a blessing on the fruits of the earth, now becoming ready 
 for gathering j as those of the first of May, that they might 
 prosperously grow j and those of the last of October were a 
 thanksgiving for finishing their harvest. But in all of them 
 regard was also had to the several degrees of increase and 
 decrease in the heat of the sun's rays." 
 
 With regard to the proverb "Between Bel's two fires,'' 
 Mr. Huddleston in his new edition of Toland (1814) adds 
 a note in which he says : — " As Mr. Toland in his note on 
 
68 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 this passage, informs us the Irish phrase is Ittir dha theine 
 Bheil ; Dr. Smith has also given us the Scottish phrase, 
 Gabha Bheil, i.e., the jeopardy of Bel. Both agree that 
 these expressions denote one in the most imminent danger. 
 Mr. Toland says the men and beasts to be sacrificed passed 
 between two fires, and that hence the proverb originated. 
 Dr. Smith, on the contrary, imagines that this was one of 
 the Druidical ordeals whereby criminals were tried ; and 
 instead of making them pass betwixt the fires, makes them 
 march directly across them. Indeed, he supposed the Druids 
 were kind enough to anoint the feet of the criminals, and 
 render them invulnerable to the flames. If so there could 
 have been neither danger nor trial. It may also be remarked, 
 that had the doctor's hypothesis been well founded, there 
 was no occasion for two fires, whereas by the phrase, between 
 Bel's two fires, we know that two were used. Doctor Smith 
 has evidently confounded the Gabha Bheil with a feat 
 practised by the Hirpins on Mount Soracte." 
 
 It seems that the expression used by the Scotch ex- 
 pressive of a man in difficulties, "He is between the two 
 fires of Bel," was common enough to attract the attention of 
 other writers than those we have cited, and of most travellers 
 in the Highlands. Martin mentions it in his " Western 
 Isles," as also Shaw and the Rev. D. M'Queen. The latter 
 is cited by Leslie as a Gaelic scholar of the last century, 
 who in regard to the expression, " He is betwixt two Beltein 
 fires," gives as an explanation that the Celtic tribes in their 
 sacred enclosures offered sacrifices, commonly horses, that were 
 burnt between two large fires, and Leslie adds, "On this 
 it may be remarked that horses were sacrificed to the sun 
 by the Arian race from the earliest times; and this con- 
 tinued to be practised by Hindus, Persians, and other nations. 
 In Britain it is probable that our heathen ancestors sacrificed 
 horses, and it is certain that they ate them." 
 
 Jamieson's splendid " Etymological Dictionary of the 
 Scottish Language," supplies us with valuable information on 
 the point we are discussing, drawn from a variety of reliable 
 authorities. Under "BELTANE, Beltein, the name of a sort 
 of festival observed on the first day of May, O.S.;" we 
 have : — "A town in Perthshire, on the borders of the High- 
 lands, is called Tillie- (or Tullie) beltane, i.e. the eminence 
 or rising ground of the fire of Baal. In the neighbourhood 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 69 
 
 is a druidical temple of eight upright stones, where it is 
 supposed the fire was kindled. At some distance from this 
 is another temple of the same kind, but smaller, and near 
 it a well still held in great veneration. On Beltane morning 
 superstitious people go to this well, and drink of it; then 
 they make a procession round it, as I am informed, nine 
 times. After this, they in like manner go round the temple. 
 So deep rooted is this heathenish superstition in the minds 
 of many who reckon themselves good Protestants, that they 
 will not neglect these rites, even when Beltane falls on 
 Sabbath." 
 
 Quoting from P. Loudon, Statist. Ace. iii., 105, the 
 writer proceeds : — " The custom still remains [in the West 
 of Scotland] among the herds and young people to kindle 
 fires in the high grounds, in honour of Beltan. Beltan, 
 which in Gaelic signifies Baal or Bel's jir<i, was anciently 
 the time of this solemnity. It is now kept on St. Peter's 
 Day." 
 
 Just here we may turn to Mr. Pennant's "Tour in 
 Scotland," for the following interesting particulars. "On the 
 first of May, the herdsmen of every village hold their 
 Beltein, a rural sacrifice. They cut a square trench on the 
 ground, leaving the turf in the middle; on that they make 
 a fire of wood, on which they dress a large caudle of eggs, 
 butter, oatmeal, and milk ; and bring, besides the ingredients 
 of the caudle, plenty of beer and whisky ; for each of the 
 company must contribute something. The rites begin with 
 spilling some of the caudle on the ground by way of 
 libation : on that every one takes a cake of oatmeal, upon 
 which are raised nine square knobs, each dedicated to some 
 particular being, the supposed preserver of their flocks and 
 herds, or to some particular animal, the real destroyer of 
 them : each person then turns his face to the fire, breaks 
 off a knob, and flinging it over his shoulder, says — This I 
 give to thee, preserve thou my horses; this to thee, preserve 
 thou my sheep; and so on. After that they use the same 
 ceremony to the noxious animals; This I give to thee, 
 Fox ! spare thou my lambs ; this to thee, hooded Crow ! 
 this to thee, Eagle!"* 
 
 Further on the same traveller writes : — " The Beltein, or 
 
 * Pennant, vol. I., p. 111. 
 
70 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 the rural sacrifice on the first of May, O.S., has been 
 mentioned before. Hallow-eve is also kept sacred : as soon 
 as it is dark, a person sets fire to a bush of broom fastened 
 round a pole, and attended with a crowd, runs round the 
 village. He then flings it down, keeps a great quantity of 
 combustible matters in it, and makes a great bonfire. A 
 whole tract is thus illuminated at the same time, and makes 
 a fine appearance. The carrying of the fiery pole appears 
 to be a relic of Drudism."* 
 
 The " Statistical Account of Scotland, Parish of Callander, 
 Perths," supplies several important and interesting facts re- 
 lating to this. " The people of this district have two customs 
 which are fast wearing out, not only here, but all over the 
 Highlands, and therefore ought to be taken notice of while 
 they remain. Upon the first day of May, which is called 
 Beltau or Baltein Day, all the boys in a township or hamlet 
 meet in the moors. They cut a table in the green sod, of a 
 round figure, by casting a trench in the ground of such cir- 
 cumference as to hold the whole company. They kindle a 
 fire, and dress a repast of eggs and milk in the consistence 
 of a custard. They knead a cake of oatmeal, which is 
 toasted at the embers against a stone. After the custard is 
 eaten up, they divide the cake into so many portions, as 
 similar as possible to one another in size and shape, as there 
 are persons in the company. They daub one of these portions 
 all over with charcoal, until it be perfectly black. They 
 put all the bits of cake into a bonnet. Every one, blind- 
 fold, draws out a portion. He who holds the bonnet is 
 entitled to the last bit. Whoever draws the black bit is 
 the devoted person who is to be sacrificed to Baal, whose 
 favour they mean to implore, in rendering the year productive 
 of the sustenance of man and beast. There is little doubt 
 of these inhuman sacrifices having been once offered in this 
 country, as well as in the east, although they now pass from 
 the act of sacrificing, and only compel the devoted person 
 to leap three times through the flames ; with which the 
 ceremonies of this festival are closed." 
 
 Again referring to Jamieson, he says : — " The respect 
 paid by the ancient Britons to Belus, or Belinus, is evident 
 from the names of some of their kings. As the Babylonians 
 
 # Pennant, vol. in. 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 71 
 
 had their Beletis or Belibus, Rige-Belus, Merodoch-Baladan 
 and Belshazzar ; the Tyrians their Ich-baals and Balator, the 
 Britons had their Cassi-beliyi, and their Cuno-belin. 
 
 The Gael and Ir. word Beal-tine or Beil-teine signifies 
 Belus' Fire ; as composed of Baal or Belis, one of the names 
 of the sun in Gaul, and tein signifying fire. Even in Angus 
 a spark of fire is called a tein or teind." 
 
 Martin's Western Islands bears similar testimony, thus : — 
 " Another god of the Britons was Belus or Belinus, which 
 seems to have been the Assyrian god Bel, or Belus ; and 
 probably from this Pagan deity comes the Scots' term of 
 Beltin — having its first rise from the custom practised by 
 the Druids in the isles, of extinguishing all the fires in the 
 parish until the tythes were paid ; and upon payment of 
 them, the fires were kindled in each family, and never till 
 then. In those days malefactors were burnt between two 
 fires ; hence when they would express a man in a great 
 strait, they say, He is between two fires of Bel, which in 
 their language they express thus, Edir cla hin Veaul or Bel." 
 
 It has been remarked that the Pagan rites of the 
 festival of Midsummer Eve, the Summer Solstice may be 
 considered as a counterpart of those used at the Winter 
 Solstice of Yule-tide. "There is one thing," says Brand, 
 "that seems to prove this beyond the possibility of a doubt. 
 In the old Runic Fasti, a wheel was used to denote the 
 festival of Christmas. Thus Durandus, when speaking of 
 the Rites of the Feast of St. John Baptist, informs us 
 of this curious circumstance, that in some places they roll 
 a wheel about to signify that the Sun, then occupying the 
 highest place in the Zodiac, is beginning to descend ; and 
 in the amplified account given by Naogeorgus, we read that 
 this wheel was taken up to the top of a mountain and 
 rolled down from thence ; and that, as it had been previously 
 covered with straw, twisted about it and set on fire, it 
 appeared at a distance as if the sun had been falling from 
 the sky. And he further observes, that the people imagine 
 that all their ill-luck rolls away from them together with 
 this wheel." 
 
 "Leaping over the fires is mentioned among the super- 
 stitious rites used at the Palilia in Ovid's Fasti. The 
 Palilia were feasts instituted in honour of Pales, the goddess 
 of shepherds (though Varro makes Pales masculine), on the 
 
72 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 calends of May. In order to drive away wolves from the 
 folds, and distempers from the cattle, the shepherds on this 
 day kindled several heaps of straw in their fields, which they 
 leaped over." 
 
 " Bourne tells us that it was the custom in his time, 
 in the North of England, chiefly in country villages, for old 
 and young people to meet together and be merry over a 
 large fire, which was made for that purpose in the open 
 street. This, of whatever materials it consisted, was called 
 a Bone-fire. Over and about this fire they frequently leap, 
 and play at various games such as running, wrestling, 
 dancing, &c; this, however, is generally confined to the 
 younger sort; for the old ones, for the most part, sit by 
 as spectators only, and enjoy themselves over their bottle, 
 which they do not quit till midnight, and sometimes till 
 cock-crow the next morning." 
 
 A correspondent of the Gentleman's Magazine for Feb- 
 ruary, 1795, writing from Skye, gives us: — "Curious fact 
 relating to the worship of Baal in Ireland. The Irish have 
 ever been worshippers of fire, and of Baal, and are so to 
 this day. The chief festival in honour of the sun and fire, 
 is upon the twenty-first of June, when the sun arrives at 
 the Summer Solstice, or rather begins its retrograde move- 
 ment. I was so fortunate, in the summer of 1782, as to 
 have my curiosity gratified by a sight of this ceremony over 
 a very great extent of country. At the house where I was 
 entertained, it was told me that we should see at midnight 
 the most singular sight in Ireland, which was the lighting 
 of Fires in honour of the Sun. Accordingly, exactly at 
 midnight, the Fires began to appear ; and taking the ad- 
 vantage of going up to the leads of the house, which had 
 a widely-extended view, I saw on a radius of thirty miles, 
 all around, the Fires burning on every eminence which the 
 country afforded. I had a farther satisfaction, in learning 
 from undoubted authority, that the people danced round the 
 Fires, and at the close went through these Fires, and made 
 their sons and daughters, together with their cattle, pass 
 through the Fire ; and the whole was conducted with 
 religious solemnity. This account is exceedingly curious, and 
 though I forbear the mention of names, I can venture to 
 assure you that it is authentic." 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 73 
 
 The remarks of Borlase in his "Antiquities of Cornwall," 
 come in here very suitably. He says — " Of the fires we 
 kindle in many parts of England, at some stated time of the 
 year, we know not certainly the rise, reason or occasion, but 
 they may probably be reckoned among the relicks of the 
 Druid superstitious fires. In Cornwall, the festival fires 
 called Bonfires, are kindled on the Eve of St. John the 
 Baptist and St. Peter's Day ; and Midsummer is thence, in 
 the Cornish tongue, called ' Golnan,' which signifies both light 
 and rejoicing. At these fires the Cornish attend with lighted 
 torches, tarred and pitched at the end, and make their 
 perambulations round their fires, and go from village to 
 village carrying their torches before them, and this is cer- 
 tainly the remains of the Druid superstition, for ' faces 
 prseferre,' to carry lighted torches, was reckoned a kind of 
 Gentilism, and as such particularly prohibited by the Gallick 
 Councils. They were in the eye of the law ' accensores 
 facularum,' and thought to sacrifice to the devil, and to 
 deserve capital punishment." 
 
 Brand mentions a few additional particulars which we 
 here transcribe. 
 
 " Torreblanca, in his ' Demonology,' has a passage in 
 which he tells us how the ancients were accustomed to pass 
 their children of both sexes through the fire for the sake 
 of securing them a prosperous and fortunate lot, and he adds 
 that the Germans imitated this profane usage in their 
 Midsummer pyres in honour of the anniversary of St. John's 
 Day. 
 
 "Moresin appears to have been of opinion that the cus- 
 tom of leaping over these fires is a vestige of the ordeal, 
 where to be able to pass through fires with safety was held 
 to be an indication of innocence. To strengthen the proba- 
 bility of this conjecture, we may observe that not only the 
 young and vigorous, but even those of grave characters 
 used to leap over them, and there was an interdiction of 
 ecclesiastical authority to deter clergymen from this super- 
 stitious instance of agility. A note at the foot of the page 
 says that Mr. Brand saw in the possession of Douce, a 
 French print, entitled ' L'este le Feu de la St. Jean,' from 
 the hand of Mariette. In the centre was the fire made of 
 wood piled up very regularly, and having a tree stuck up 
 in the midst of it. Young men and women were represented 
 
74 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 dancing round it hand in hand. Herbs were stuck in their 
 hats and caps, and garlands of the same surrounded their 
 waists or were slung across their shoulders. 
 
 "In the 'Traite des Superstitions,' we read 'Whoever 
 desires to know the colour of his future wife's hair, has 
 only to walk three times round the fire of St. John, and 
 when the fire is half extinguished he must take a brand, 
 let it go out, and then put it under his pillow, and the 
 next morning he will find encircling it threads of hair of 
 the desired colour.' But this must be done with the eyes 
 shut. We are further told, where there is a widow or a 
 marriageable girl in a house, it is necessary to be very 
 careful not to remove the brands, as this drives away lovers. 
 
 "The third Council of Constantinople, A.D. 680, in its 
 sixty-fifth canon, enacted the following interdiction :— ' Those 
 Bonefires that are kindled by certaine people on New Moones 
 before their shops and houses, over which also they do 
 foolishly leape, by a certaine ancient custome, we command 
 them from henceforth to cease. Whoever, therefore, shall doe 
 any such thing ; if he be a clergyman, let him be deposed ; 
 if a layman, let him be excommunicated. For, in the 
 Fourth Book of the Kings it is 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 passe through 
 the Fire, &c.' Prynne observes upon this : ' Bonefires, there- 
 fore, had their originall from this idolatrous custome, as 
 this Generall Councell hath defined; therefore all Christians 
 should avoid them.' And the Synodus Francica under Pope 
 Zachary, A.D. 742, inhibits 'those sacrilegious Fires which 
 they call Nedfri (or Bonefires), and all other observations 
 of the Pagans whatsoever.' " 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Paradise Lost and Moloch — The God of the Ammonites — The 
 slaughter of Children by Fire, notices in the Scriptures — 
 Fire Ceremonies and Moloch — Sacred Fires or' the Phoenicians 
 — The Carthaginians — Custom of the Oziese — Sardinian 
 Customs and Moloch — The Cuthites — Persian Fire Worship — 
 The House-Fires of Greece and Rome — Sacred Books of the 
 East — Laws of Manu — The Rig Veda and Hymns to Ac/ni, 
 the God of Fire — Vesta, ivorship of — The Magi — Zoroaster. 
 
 IN Milton's " Paradise Lost " we read : — 
 " First, Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood 
 Of hnman sacrifice, and parents' tears ; 
 Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud. 
 Their children's cries unheard, that passed through fire, 
 To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite 
 Worshipped in Eabba and her watery plain, 
 In Argob and in Basan, to the stream 
 Of utmost Arnon : nor content with such 
 Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart 
 Of Solomon he led by fraud to build 
 His temple right against the temple of God, 
 On that opprobrious hill, and made his grove 
 The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence 
 And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell." 
 
 "Moloch was the god of the Ammonites. In the worship 
 and sacrifices in his honour they burnt their sons and 
 daughters, with the accustomed forms and ceremonies." In 
 Leviticus xviii. 21 we find a prohibition of passing the 
 children through the fire and in chapter xx. the punishment 
 of death by stoning is awarded to any who gave their seed 
 to Moloch. 
 
 " However," says Selden, " many of the Hebrews write 
 that the children were neither burnt nor slain, but that two 
 funeral pyres were constructed by the priests of Moloch, and 
 that they led the children only between the pyres, as if in 
 this way to purify them. Moses Ben Maimon says that in 
 -those days the servitors of the fires made men believe that 
 their sons and daughters would die unless they were thus 
 
7G FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 led, and on this account and the love of their children they 
 hastened to do that which was so easy, and there was no 
 other way of saving the children from the fire. There are 
 some who say that the father in due form delivered the 
 child to the priests to be given back, and that he led it 
 through, carrying it on his shoulders. It is nevertheless 
 true that the children were not only led between the fires, 
 but were also burnt in the sacrifices of the idols. See 
 Psalm cvi. 37 and 38, and read, "Yea, they sacrificed their 
 sons and their daughters unto devils, and shed innocent 
 blood, even the blood of their sons and their daughters, 
 whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan, and the land 
 was polluted with the blood." 
 
 Philastrius says "that they placed an altar in the valley 
 of the children of Hinnom, and so called after the name of 
 a certain Tophet, and in that place the Jews sacrificed their 
 sons and daughters to demons." There are other places 
 which sufficiently indicate immolation of children in those 
 regions of Syria where Moloch was adored. Thus, see Wisdom 
 of Solomon, xii. 5, "And also those merciless murders of 
 children and clevourers of men's flesh, the feasts of blood ; " 
 and xiv. 23, " For whilst they slew their children in 
 sacrifices"; and Jeremiah vii. 31, says "And they have built 
 the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the 
 son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in 
 the fire." See also nineteenth chapter, verse 5 ; Ezekiel xvi. 
 20, 21, and xxiii, 37 and 39. From this affair perhaps 
 arose the delusion of the Greeks and Hebrews that, by 
 another ancient rite, they who took an oath were accustomed 
 to pass through fire, as if by escaping from injury their 
 words would be proved true. The learned Paul Fagius, in 
 speaking of him, says, "The statue of Moloch was such that 
 it had seven hollow chambers. One was open for meal 
 offerings, another for turtle doves, the third for sheep, the 
 fourth for the ram, the fifth for the calf, the sixth for the 
 bull, and a seventh was open for him who wished to offer 
 his child." The face of the idol was the same as that of 
 the calf, and the hands were evidently disposed and arranged 
 conveniently to receive from the bystanders all that was 
 offered. While the child was burning in the blazing fire, 
 they danced about and beat drums to drown the horrible 
 cries and lamentations, There is a question whether the 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 7< 
 
 author of these seven hollow chambers did not learn it 
 from the sacred rites of the Persian Mithra, for he also had 
 seven sacred doors, which referred to the number of the 
 planets, and men, women and children were likewise sacrificed 
 to him. 
 
 It was necessary to such as were initiated to this god 
 to pass through eighty kinds of sufferings, that is, through 
 fire and cold and most serious dangers of every kind, before 
 they could be received as epoptas, or regularly initiated. 
 It is proper to add that neither elsewhere than in Moloch 
 will be found Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of 
 Sepharvaim. See II. Kings xviii. 31 : "And they burnt 
 their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the 
 gods of Sepharvaim." His priests, who were also frequently 
 the priests of other gods, were called Cemerin. This word 
 in the Chaldee dialect Comeraja, is everywhere in the Targum 
 substituted for priests of idolatry. In II. Kings xxiii. 10, 
 it reads, " And he (Josiah) defiled Topheth, which is in the 
 valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make 
 his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Moloch." 
 The valley of the children of Hinnom, which in Hebrew is 
 gi ber Hinnom, was a field near the city, and is so called 
 from the groans or lamentations of the children while they 
 were burning. Hinnom is from the Hebrew word nahmen, 
 and means that he groans or gnashed his teeth from intense 
 pain. That place is watered by the streams of Siloe, and in 
 the time of St. Jerome was beautiful, and ornamented with 
 shady groves and delightful gardens. And there he remarks 
 " that it was a custom among other nations to select the 
 head of streams and groves for sacred rites." But the word 
 Tophet is from the Hebrew Toph, that is, "they ask for a 
 drum," which was beaten and loudly sounded in the vicinity 
 to prevent the parents hearing the most doleful lamentations 
 and wailings of their children while the sacred rites were 
 performing. 
 
 Moloch is also called Baal. See Jeremiah xix. 5., "They 
 have built also the high places of Baal to bnrn their sons 
 with fire." He is also called Milcolm in Kings xi. 5., "For 
 Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, 
 and after Milcolm the abominations of the Ammonites." And 
 Luke, in Acts viii. 43., says, "Yea, ye took up the tabernacle 
 of Molech." The Syrians and Arabians call it Melcom. In 
 
78 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 many oriental languages Melech, means king, Milcom means 
 their king, and Malcecem, our king, and both words in sacred 
 scripture designate Moloch. To him reference is had in 
 Zephaniah i. 5., "And them that worship and swear by the 
 Lord, and that swear by Melcham," because Moloch was 
 especially worshipped under the name of king. As thus Baal 
 means Lord, and as Melech or Molech or Moloch means king, 
 they denote this god of the Ammonites ; and it is perhaps, 
 he himself who, in the most ancient theology of the Phoenicians, 
 was often called by the singular title of king of gods. He 
 was also called Adodus, and was worshipped by the Syrians 
 not only as Adad-Hadad and Benhadad (and which could 
 readily pass into Adodus), but the very name Adad was 
 propagated continually for ten generations in their royal 
 families. These names, and Bedad, Hedar Mesahab, and 
 Ahab, will be found in Genesis xxxvi. and I Kings xx 
 Macrobius, speaking of the Syrians and this god Adodus and 
 king of gods, says, "They gave to the god whom they 
 venerate as the highest and the greatest the name Adad, 
 and which means unus or one. Hada or Chada is a god 
 of the female sex, and agrees with Adardaga or Atergatis, 
 and was worshipped in that name in the neighourhood of 
 Syria. Heseychius says that Hada was the goddess of Juno, 
 and Adad a god and the sun. But Hadad very well denotes 
 the clamour or loud noise of persons exhorting; neither is it 
 altogether unlike the lamentations of children in the sacritices 
 to Moloch. And ancient writers say that the effigies of both 
 Adad and Moloch were the same, and fashioned for ex- 
 pressing the sun. 
 
 Theophylactus says "that the bright shining stone in the 
 image of Phosphorus he understands to be the sun." All 
 these are very proper for the sun, the king of gods or stars, 
 and which he also thought who made the first mention of 
 the seven hollow chambers in the statue of Moloch. In the 
 s.ame number is ascribed to Mithra, who by the unanimous 
 consent of antiquity, and especially of the ancient inscriptions, 
 is regarded as being the same as the sun, shines with many 
 colours. But Mithri, Mithir or Mether, in Persian, signifies 
 dynasty or lord, and this is also one of the titles of Moloch. 
 
 Saturn among the Latins, and Chronos among the Greeks, 
 is oft-times considered to be Moch. Infants or children were 
 victims common to both, and that nefarious sacred rite 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 79 
 
 would seem to have migrated from Syria into Europe and 
 Africa. Pescennius Festus says "that the Carthaginians 
 were accustomed to offer human victims to Saturn, and 
 when they were overcome in battle by Agathocles, king of 
 the Siculi, he (Uie king) believed that his god was angry 
 with him, and, therefore, that he might diligently make 
 the necessary expiation, he immolated to this god two 
 hundred children of the nobility. Those who had no children 
 were forced to buy them from the poor." 
 
 Tertullian writes : — -" That impious custom continued in 
 Africa down to the times of Tiberias." These sacred rites 
 of the Phoenicians proceeded from those of the Syrians, as 
 the solemn use of fifes and drums among them will prove. 
 For the lamentations of the children or parents among those 
 about to be sacrificed is held to be an atonement. It is 
 almost certain that by the name of Moloch this God was 
 worshipped in like manner among the Carthaginians. 
 
 The Carthaginians worshipped Amilear, and that name 
 comes from the same source as Molech. Both words are 
 pure Hebrew or Punic, if you regard their etymology, and 
 they mean king, or perhaps Ameliar may be queen, that is, 
 may mean Basilia, queen of the Atlantians, and which may 
 refer to Celestis, queen of the Carthaginians. For as among 
 them Bel or Uranus is a god, and Ccelestis a goddess, so 
 Uranus and Basilia may be a god and goddess among them. 
 And from the same source we must look for the name of 
 Milieus, the father-in-law of Hannibal, and of his daughter 
 Imilcis, which is queen, and of Iinilco, a Carthaginian general. 
 Melech means king, and Malcha queen, which they pronounce 
 Molicus and Imilcis. Strabo says "that Hercules, worshipped 
 among the Tyrians, was called Melcartos or Melcarthos. 
 But he was the son of Jove Demaruns, and he is the same 
 as the Phoenician and Carthaginian Hercules, who was 
 appeased by human victims as Moloch was. The first part 
 of his name was evidently derived from Melech of the 
 Hebrews, for almost by the same word Hercules was known 
 among the Amathusians. Amathus was a city of Phoenicia, 
 and an island of the Phoenician sea adjoins Cyprus, and in 
 it there is also a city called Amathus. The latter had 
 sacred rites in common with the former. What the words 
 Artos or Arthos in the name mean is not clear. Traces ot 
 it, however, are seen in the Punic names Bomilcar and 
 
80 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP 
 
 Hamilcar. In Bceotia, which retains many names which 
 Cadmus brought with him from Phoenicia, there is a river 
 and a city called Haliartus, named after the builder and 
 discoverer. In Scolus there is likewise an image of Mega- 
 lartus held in great esteem. Some think it is the image of 
 the Megalartian Ceres, and derive it from the Greek word 
 artos, which means bread, because she was the goddess of 
 corn." 
 
 " But whatever the god was, his Phoenician origin is 
 evident, for Cadmus, Ismenus, and Thebes were all Phoenician 
 names, and perhaps the Hebrew word Aritz in artes passed 
 into Melicartes, which some read Melicatus. Aritz means 
 very strong, and thus Melicaritz signifies a strong king or 
 tyrant, and the word could readily pass into Melicartos. 
 Thence perhaps in the Persian language Artaioi is heroes, 
 or those who in the olden periods made themselves par- 
 ticularly illustrious, and the word with this idea is present 
 in the names Artoxerxis and Artabasis. Hence in Persian, 
 Artas meant great or illustrious, and Artana kingdoms, and 
 Herodotus says that Artoxerxis means a great warrior. 
 
 "Among the ancieiit Persians and Syrians in customs 
 and languages many things were common to both. The 
 Persians are accounted among our Syrians now and then 
 by European writers, and Babylon is called a Persian city. 
 
 " As to the horrid sacrifice, the slaying of children, its 
 origin does not lie concealed if there is any truth in 
 Phoenician annals. There is a tradition among them that 
 Saturn, one of the most ancient kings of Phoenicia, and 
 whom they called Israel in order that he might deliver his 
 kingdom from the greatest peril of an impending war, to 
 render the gods propitious, immolated an only begotten son 
 of himself and wife Anobreta. He was first ornamented 
 with the royal fillets, and then led to the altar built for 
 that purpose, and a wicked posterity, not understanding the 
 case or the circumstances, continued to follow his example."* 
 
 Among the many usages derived by the Sardes from 
 their Phoenician ancestors, one of a singular character is still 
 practised by the Oziese, of which Father Bresciani gives the 
 following account : — " Towards the end of March, or the 
 beginning of April, it is the custom for young men and 
 
 # Seidell's Syrian Deities. Ilauser's Translation. 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 81 
 
 women to agree together to fill the relation of godfathers 
 and godmothers of St. John, compare e comare — such is the 
 phrase — for the ensuing year. At the end of May the pro- 
 posed comare, having procured a segment of the bark of a 
 cork tree, fashions it in the shape of a vase, and fills it 
 with rich light mould in which are planted some grains of 
 barley or wheat. The vase being placed in the sunshine, 
 well watered and carefully tended, the seed soon germinates, 
 blades spring up, and, making a rapid growth, in the course 
 of twenty-one days — that is, before the eve of St. John — 
 the vase is filled by a spreading and vigorous plant of 
 young corn. It then receives the name of Hermes, or, more 
 commonly, of Su JVennere, from a Sarde word, which possibly 
 has the same signification as the Phoenician name of garden ; 
 similar vases being called, in ancient times, the gardens of 
 Adonis." 
 
 Forester in his " Rambles in Corsica and Sardinia," 
 quoting the above and remarking upon it says : — " On the 
 eve of St. John, the cereal vase, ornamented with ribbons, 
 is exposed on a balcony, decorated with garlands and flags. 
 Formerly, also a little image in female attire, or phallic 
 emblems moulded in clay, such as were exhibited in the 
 feasts of Hermes, were placed among the blades of corn ; 
 but these representations have been so severely denounced 
 by the Church, that they are fallen into disuse. The young 
 men flock in crowds to witness the spectacle and attend the 
 maidens who come out to grace the feast. A great fire is 
 lit on the piazza, round which they leap and gambol, the 
 couple who have agreed to be St. John's compare completing 
 the ceremony in this manner : — The man is placed on one 
 side of the fire, the woman on the other, each holding 
 opposite ends of a stick extended over the burning embers, 
 which they pass rapidly backwards and forwards. This is 
 repeated three times, so that the hand of each party passes 
 thrice through the flames. The union being thus sealed, 
 the comparatico or spiritual alliance is considered perfect. 
 After that, the music strikes up, and the festival is con- 
 cluded by dances, prolonged to a late hour of the night." 
 
 " Father Bresciani, La Marmora, and other writers, 
 justly consider the Nennere as one of the many relics of 
 the Phoenician colonisation of Sardinia. Every one knows 
 that the sun and moon, under various names such as Isis 
 
 G 
 
82 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 and Osiris, Adonis and Astarte, were the principal objects of 
 worship in the east from the earliest times ; the sun being 
 considered as the vivifying power of universal nature, 
 the moon represented as a female, deriving her light from 
 the sun, as the passive principle of production. The abstruse 
 doctrines on the origin of things, thus shadowed out by the 
 ancient seers, generated the grossest ideas, expressed in the 
 phallic emblems, the lewdness and obscenities mixed up in 
 the popular worship of the deified principles of all existence. 
 Of the prevalence in Sardinia of the Egypto-Phcenician 
 mythology, in times the most remote, no one who has 
 examined the large collection of relics in the Royal Museum 
 at Cagliari, or who consults the plates attached to La 
 Marmora's work, can entertain any doubt. But it is sur- 
 prising to find, among the usages of the Sardes at the 
 present day, a very exact representation of the rites of a 
 primitive religion, introduced into the island nearly thirty- 
 five years ago, though it now partakes more of the character 
 of a popular festival than a religious ceremony. 
 
 " One of the principal incidents in the Sarde Nennere 
 consists in the consecration of the spiritual relation between 
 the compare and comare, by their thrice crossing hands over 
 the fire in the ceremonies of St. John's Day. A still more 
 extraordinary vestige of the idolatrous rite of passing through 
 the fire, is said to be still subsisting among the customs of 
 the people of Logudoro, in the neighbourhood of Ozieri, and 
 in other parts of Sardinia. 
 
 " Of the worship of Moloch— par excellence the Syrian and 
 Phoenician god of fire — by the ancient Sardes, there is un- 
 doubted proof. We find among the prodigious quantity of 
 such relics, collected from all parts of the island, in the 
 Royal Museum at Cagliari, a statuette of this idol, supposed 
 to have been a household god. Its features are appalling : 
 great goggle eyes leer fiercely from their hollow sockets ; 
 the broad nostrils seem ready to sniff the fumes of the 
 horrid sacrifice ; a wide gaping mouth grins with rabid fury 
 at the supposed victim ; dark plumes spring from the fore- 
 head, like horns, and expanded wings from each shoulder 
 and knee. The image brandishes a sword with the left hand, 
 holding in the right a small grate, formed of metal bars. It 
 would appear that, this being heated, the wretched victim 
 was placed on it, and then, scorched so that the fumes of 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 83 
 
 the disgusting incense savoured in the nostrils of the rabid 
 idol, it fell upon a brazier of burning coals beneath, where 
 it was consumed. There is another idol in this collection 
 with the same truculent cast of features, but horned, and 
 clasping a bunch of snakes in the right hand, a trident in 
 the left, with serpents twined round its legs. This image 
 has a large orifice in the belly, and flames are issuing 
 between the ribs, so that it would appear that when the 
 brazen image of the idol was thoroughly heated, the unhappy 
 children intended for sacrifice were thrust into the mouth 
 in the navel, and there grilled — savoury morsels, on which 
 the idol seems, from its features, rabidly gloating, while the 
 priests, we are told, endeavoured to drown the cries of the 
 sufferers by shouts and the noise of drums and timbrels — ■ 
 
 ' horrid king, besmeared with blood 
 
 Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears ; 
 Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud, 
 Their children's cries unheard, that passed through fire 
 To his grim idol.' — Par. Lost, i. 392. 
 
 "This cruel child-sacrifice was probably the giving of his 
 seed to Moloch, for which any Israelite or stranger that so- 
 journed in Israel guilty of the crime was, according to 
 the Mosaic law, to be stoned to death. We are informed 
 in the Sacred Records that no sucli denunciations of the 
 idolatries of the surrounding nations, no revelations of the 
 attributes or teachings of the pure worship of Jehovah, re- 
 strained the Israelites from the practice of the foul and 
 cruel rites of their heathen neighbours ; and we find in the 
 latter days of the Jewish Commonwealth the prophet 
 Jeremiah predicting the desolation of the people for this sin 
 among others, that they had estranged themselves from the 
 worship of Jehovah, and burned incense to strange gods, 
 and filled the holy place with the blood of innocents, and 
 burned their sons and their daughters with fire for burnt- 
 offerings unto Baal. 
 
 "There appear to have been two modes in which the 
 ancient idolaters devoted their children to Moloch. In one 
 they were sacrificed and consumed in the manner already 
 descibed, a burnt offering to the idol for the expiation of the 
 sins of their parents or their people. In the other they 
 were only made to pass through the fire, in honour of the 
 deity, and as a sort of initiation into his mysteries, and 
 consecration to his service. 
 
84 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 "Thus Ahaz, King of Judab, is said to have made his 
 son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations 
 of the heathen. And it is reckoned in the catalogue of the 
 sins of Judah, which drew on them the vengeance of God, 
 that they 'built the high places of Baal, to cause their sons 
 and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Moloch.' * 
 
 "In the case of infants, it is supposed that this initiation, 
 this ' baptism by fire ' was performed either by placing them 
 on a sort of grate suspended by chains from the vault of 
 the temple, and passed rapidly over the sacred fire, or by 
 the priests taking the infants in their arms and swaying 
 them to and fro over or across the fire, chanting mean- 
 while certain prayers or incantations. With respect to 
 children of older growth, they were made to leap naked 
 through the fire before the idol, so that their whole bodies 
 might be touched by the sacred flames, and purified, as it 
 were, by contact with the divinity. 
 
 " The Sardes, we are informed by Father Bresciani, still 
 preserve a custom representing this initiation by fire, but as 
 in other Phoenician rites and practices, without the slightest 
 idea of their profane origin. In the first days of spring, 
 from one end of the island to the other, the villagers 
 assemble and light great fires in the piazza and at the cross 
 roads. The flames beginning to ascend, the children leap 
 through them at a bound, so rapidly and with such dexterity 
 that when the flames are highest it is seldom that their 
 clothes or a hair of their head are singed. They continue 
 this practice till the fuel is reduced to embers, the musicians 
 meanwhile playing on the lionedda tunes adapted to a 
 Phyrric dance. This, says the learned father, is a repre- 
 sentation of the initiation through fire into the mysteries of 
 Moloch." f 
 
 "Nergal, which is a Hebrew word, was, perhaps, a 
 perpetual fire most religiously preserved in their Sefta, or 
 sacred places. The Cuthites were so called from Cuthus, 
 which was both the name of a river and region in Persia, 
 and from which they were carried into Samaria in very 
 large numbers. Strabo confirms the existence of the sacred 
 fire in Persia in book fifteen. He says ' that in the temples 
 
 # Jeremiah xxxii. 35. 
 f See Bresciani and Forrester's Sardinia. 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 85 
 
 of the worshippers of Anaitis and in anus, or Amanus, 
 Persian gods among the Cappadocians, the care of the 
 perpetual fire was committed to magi, who were called 
 Pyrethri, or fire worshippers.' He further says, ' In that 
 country there is a great multitude of them, and likewise 
 many temples of the Persian gods ; that they do not slay 
 the victims with a knife, but with a certain kind of club, 
 as pounding them to death with a pestle; that there were 
 also certain chapels in which these fires were kept worthy 
 of being remembered ; that the altar was in the centre of 
 the chapel, and upon which there were many cinders, and 
 there the priests watched the inextinguishable fires ; that 
 they entered there daily, and sang or chanted for the space 
 of almost an hour, at the same time holding a bundle of 
 rods before the fire ; that they were veiled in a woollen 
 tiara, which, fitting well on all sides, covered their lips and 
 jaws. These, which were built in their shrines, and which 
 were called Pyratheia, were the eternal fires of the magi. 
 That which they chanted was the theogony, or primeval 
 history of the gods.' 
 
 "The Persians believed that every song was not equally 
 efficacious in sacred rites. The rods seem to have been of 
 tamarisk, and without a magus no kind of sacrifices were 
 performed. In the other sacred rites it was an annual 
 custom for the magi to hold the tamarisk while they chanted 
 the theogony, as it was the habit of the ancient poets while 
 singing to carry laurel in their hands. For this reason 
 some believed that they were called rhapsodists, from the 
 Greek word rhabdos, which means a rod. While chanting 
 they stirred the fires with their rods and increased the 
 flames. That which the ancients write is true regarding 
 the institutions of the Persians, that any one who was about 
 to become a king should be initiated into the magic rites, and 
 that Ninus could not be more a king than a magus from 
 that custom. The Persians received these sacred rites from 
 the most ancient Chaldeans, and the latter called them 
 Nergal, from two Hebrew words, nir and gal, which may 
 mean either the fountain of fire or light, or fire or versatile 
 light, and especially that inextinguishable fire which they 
 watched in their holy places as the symbol of the sun. 
 And although there were many gods in Persia, yet fire was 
 worshipped by them before and above all other gods, and 
 
86 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 in every sacrifice they especially invoked him as the Romans 
 did Janus. And hence, bound by religion, they did not 
 dare to pollute fire destined for daily uses with any un- 
 cleanliness. The Pyratheia, or fires, were called Pyreia by 
 others. Suidas says that Heraclius destroyed the Persian 
 cities and overthrew their Pyreia. But so ancient do the 
 Hebrews make the worship of fire among the Chaldeans, 
 that Ur of the Chaldeans, mentioned in Genesis XI., they 
 took for their fire god. Neither do the writings of the 
 ancients quoted by Maimonides prove anything else than 
 that fire was held in so much honour because it was a 
 symbol of the sun. In regard to this most ancient worship 
 in Chaldeea he thus discourses in ' More Nebochim,' book 
 three, chapter thirty : — ' It is known that Abraham was 
 born among a people who served fire, and who, in their 
 credulity, believed there was no other god except the stars, 
 and I will in this chapter make you acquainted with their 
 books, which are not found with us translated in the 
 Arabic language. In their narrations and ancient contentions 
 you will know their reasons and opinions. Their credulity 
 is proved to you in their worship of the stars which they 
 believed to be gods, and that the sun is the greater among 
 the gods. And they said that the other planets are gods, 
 but that the sun and moon are the greatest of their gods. 
 You will find what they undoubtedly say, that the sun 
 governs the upper and lower world. All this you will find 
 in their books ; and they speak of the condition of Abra- 
 ham, and they declare further that Abraham was born and 
 educated in the land of fire worshippers. He there con- 
 tradicted their opinions, saying that there was another 
 operator besides the sun. And they offered their reasons 
 opposed to his, and among which they mentioned the 
 operations of the sun, which are manifest and which appear 
 to be seen throughout the universe.' But Abraham was cast 
 into chains because he refused to adore their sun, and after 
 that he was robbed of his goods, and by the king banished 
 into Canaan. They believed that the sun ruled the world, 
 that there was no god superior to him, and they adored 
 fire. Therefore, what else was fire than the sign or symbol 
 of the sun, and very consonant to his nature? And here, 
 I think, is seen the god of Nahor, son of Terah, referred 
 to in Genesis xxxi., 53 : — ' The god of Abraham, the God 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 87 
 
 of Nahor, the god of their father, judge betwixt us.' Here, 
 likewise, you have the foreign gods, which the ancients 
 served in the time of Abraham, as the Sacred Scriptures 
 testify, in Joshua xxiv., 2:— 'And Joshua said unto all the 
 people, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, your fathers 
 dwelt on the other side of the flood in the olden time, 
 even Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor : 
 and they served other gods.' Certainly before the Babylonian 
 captivity also, and in the kingdom of Juclea, those Pyratlieia 
 and the worship of fire existed, if Joseph Scaliger conjectures 
 correctly in Catullus, when, in the sacred language, or that 
 of the prophets, he says that the Pyratheia are called 
 Chamanim. 
 
 "In II. Chronicles, xxxiv., 4, we find as follows in 
 regard to Josiah, the king : — ' And they broke down the 
 altars of Baalim in his presence, and he broke into pieces 
 the images that were sacred to him.' The images here in 
 Hebrew are called Chamanim, and the Rabbins understand 
 them to be effigies of the sun. For the sun and heat were 
 called Chamha, thence Chamanim was used for the images, 
 chapels, or Pyrathean consecrated to the sun. In Leviticus 
 xxvi., 30, the words are as follows : — ' I will destroy your 
 high places, and cut down Chamanicem, that is, your images,' 
 &c. The Hebrews understand that their idols were dedicated 
 in honour of the sun. In that place in Leviticus and 
 elsewhere Chamanim and other sacred rites borrowed from 
 the Persians are reproved, and among these ' high places,' 
 called Bamoth in Hebrew. It was a custom of the Persians 
 to perform their sacred rites in the most high and elevated 
 places, and in this way they offered sacrifice to heaven or 
 Jove. Herodotus, in Clio, says 'it was their custom to 
 ascend the most lofty summits of the mountains, and there 
 immolate their victims to Jove, and calling by the name of 
 Jove every circle of the heavens.' But it was a custom 
 both of the Europeans and Asiatics to ascend the summits 
 of mountains to worship Jove. Hence he was called Epa- 
 krios, or the Lofty. 
 
 "That Jupiter, with Herodotus, is Belus and Assyrius, 
 for in that name he was called Jove in the most ancient 
 theology of the Persians, as Berosus, Athenocles, and Sima- 
 chus write. It is a question for the learned whether in 
 the god Omanus, or Amanus, whom Strabo mentions, reference 
 
88 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 may be had to Chamanim, or Hamanim. Scaliger thinks in 
 the affirmative, and he thence deduces Achsemenis and 
 Achremeniss, who denote Persian extraction. Am anus was 
 indeed the sun, as Anaitis was the moon, and who were 
 called Diana and Venus. No one, however, is ignorant that 
 the Persians worshipped fire as a symbol of the sun, and 
 that is the reason why Datis, the captain of a ship under 
 Xerxes, left the island of Delos unharmed, inasmuch as it 
 was sacred to the sun, or Apollo. As to the other kind 
 of Chamanim, or effigy reduced to powder by King Josiah, 
 the following will be found in II. Kings, xxiii., 11, 'And 
 in process of time he removed the horses which the King 
 of Judah had given to the sun, in the entrance of the 
 temple of the Lord, near the tabernacle of Nathan-melech 
 the eunuch, who was a prince in the suburbs, and he burnt 
 the chariots of the sun in fire.' These also, perhaps, should 
 be called Chamanim, as Cimchi, Solomon Jarchi, and Levi 
 Ben Gershon explain that place concerning the horses and 
 chariot, that, while adoring the rising sun, they led them 
 in solemn pomp from the entrance of the temple to the 
 tabernacle of Nathan-melech. This more probably means the 
 molten images of the horses and chariots consecrated to the 
 sun, for, among the Persians, the horse was sacred to the 
 sun, and accustomed to be sacrificed to it. The same custom 
 was transplanted among the Grecians. In ancient times the 
 chariots were also dedicated to the same, as the swiftest of 
 swift gods. But their place was at the door of the True 
 God. The Jews worshipped the sun towards the east within 
 the vestibule of the door. Thus in Ezekiel viii., 14, And 
 behold, near the temple of the Lord, between the vestibule 
 and the altar, there were as if twenty-five men, whose backs 
 were towards the temple of the Lord, and their faces towards 
 the east, and they adored the sun in the east.' " * 
 
 Prom most of the classic authors, such as Homer, 
 Tibullus, Horace, Ovid, Euripides, Aristophanes, Virgil, etc., 
 we gather that every Greek and Roman house had its altar 
 on which fire was ever burning. At night it was covered 
 up with ashes so as to reserve some of the wood for the 
 morrow and keep it gently and slowly smouldering. Day 
 by day, the first thing in the morning, the master of the 
 
 * Selden's Syrian Deities, Hausser's Translation. 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AXD FIRE WORSHIP. 89 
 
 house applied himself to the rousing up or rekindling of the 
 fire, in order that it might be ready for the coming 
 ceremonies and worship ; in his absence from home this 
 duty devolved upon his wife as his nearest relation. Writers 
 tell us that the fire did not cease to burn until the family 
 had altogether perished, and an extinguished hearth in early 
 days meant the same thing as an extinguished family. 
 
 Nor was the keeping up of this fire a mere matter of 
 unmeaning form, a simple custom to which no signification 
 of any particular importance was attached ; it was essentially 
 connected with the people's most ancient and cherished 
 religious beliefs. So serious a matter was it that even the 
 particular kind of wood was specified. Virgil and Plutarch 
 distinctly state that only certain trees ought to be used for 
 such a purpose, and these were kept sacred and forbidden 
 for other uses. The fire, according to Euripides and Ovid, 
 must be kept pure — no polluted object might be cast into 
 it, no offensive action might be performed in its presence. 
 
 As we remark in another place, there was one day in 
 the year (March 1st in Rome) when all fires and lights were 
 put out — but immediately renewed with the observation of 
 many rites. The strictest rules had to be attended to on 
 these occasions ; it was forbidden to renew the fire from 
 any remaining spark of the old — indeed it was essential to 
 thoroughly extinguish every spark of the previous flame — 
 neither might a spark be struck from flint and steel ; only 
 by the sun's rays or by rubbing two pieces of wood together 
 might the new fire be started into being, for the fire was 
 regarded as the representative of the sun — the greatest of 
 lights and fires, and as such was adored. Well it was not 
 unreasonable or to be wondered at, that men, for want of 
 better knowledge, should render divine honours to that from 
 which they received such benefits ; they saw the light and 
 heat of the sun pouring down upon the earth and in con- 
 junction with the rain and dew, softening its crust, swelling 
 and fructifying its seed and bringing forth from it food and 
 nourishment for man and beast. And so they prayed as we 
 read in the Orphic hymns : " Render us always flourishing, 
 always happy, O fire : thou who art eternal, beautiful, ever 
 young ; thou who nourishest, thou who art rich, receive 
 favourably these our offerings, and in return give us happiness 
 and sweet health." 
 
90 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 The fire seems to have been perpetually invoked ; hardly 
 a monument was made, hardly a household or business duty 
 performed or engagement fulfilled, without a prayer to it ; if 
 a man left his home for a brief while, he worshipped the 
 tire ; when he returned, before he saluted his nearest relatives, 
 the same duty was observed. .ZEschylus tells of Agamemnon 
 returning from Troy, and instead of going to the temple and 
 returning thanks to Jupiter, offering thanksgiving before the 
 fire in his own house. Euripides, also, represents the dying 
 Alcestis speaking to the fire : " Mistress, I go beneath the 
 earth, and for the last time fall before thee, and address thee. 
 Protect my infant children ; give to my boy a tender wife, 
 and to my daughter a noble husband. Let them not die, 
 like their mother, before the time, but may they lead a long 
 and happy life in their fatherland." 
 
 De Coulanges says " the sacred fire was a sort of 
 providence in the family. Sacrifices were offered to it, and 
 not merely was the flame supplied with wood, but upon the 
 altar were poured wine, oil, incense and the fat of victims. 
 The god graciously received these offerings and devoured 
 them. Ptadiant with satisfaction, he rose above the altar, 
 and lit up the worshipper with his brightness. Then was 
 the moment for the suppliant humbly to invoke him and 
 give heartfelt utterance to his prayer." 
 
 Corresponding with the "grace" of modern times, recited 
 before and after meals, was the tribute of prayer and praise 
 uttered by the ancient before his fire when he was about to 
 partake of food and when he had satisfied his hunger. He 
 went even further than the modern does, for before a particle 
 of food was eaten a due proportion of meat and drink had 
 to be poured out upon the altar and presented to the god. 
 And when the flame rose up, they regarded it as the deity 
 rearing himself in their midst and consuming what had been 
 presented. 
 
 If we turn to the Sacred Books of the East we shall 
 find how strong a hold, this Fire Worship has upon the 
 Hindoo mind, and the importance attached to a due obser- 
 vance of all points of ritual connected with it. In the 
 " Laws of Manu " we find directions for his guidance extend- 
 ing to the most ordinary domestic necessities and some of 
 which we cannot very well repeat in these pages. Some of 
 his private necessities must not be satisfied in view of the 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 91 
 
 fire but he must retire either into darkness or out of sight of 
 it. "Let him not blow a fire with his mouth — Let him not 
 throw any impure substance into the fire, let him not warm 
 his feet at it — Let him not place fire under a bed or the 
 like ; nor step over it, nor place it when he sleeps at the 
 footend of his bed — Let him keep his right arm uncovered 
 in a place where a sacred fire is kept — A Brahmana who is 
 impure most not touch with his hand a cow, a Brahmana, 
 or fire ; nor, being in good health, let him look at the 
 luminaries in the sky while he is impure." Then again, " A 
 Brahmana shall offer of the cooked food destined for the 
 Vaisvadeva in the sacred domestic fire to the following 
 deities : First to Agni, and next to Soma, then to both 
 these gods conjointly, further to all the gods, and then to 
 Dhanvautari, further to Kuhu (the goddess of the new moon 
 day), to Anumati (the goddess of the full moon day), to 
 Pragapati (the lord of creatures), to heaven and earth con- 
 jointly, and finally to Agni Svishtakrit (the fire which 
 performs the sacrifice well)." And so on in many other 
 places, in one of which the king is to behave like fire. 
 " Let the king emulate the energetic action of Indra, of the 
 sun, of the wind, of Yama, of Varuna, of the moon, of the 
 fire, and of the earth. If he is ardent in wrath against 
 criminals and endowed with brilliant energy, and destroys 
 wicked vassals, then his character is said to resemble that 
 of fire." 
 
 Turning to the Rig Veda we find " Hymns to Agni 
 (the god of fire) and the Maruts (the storm gods)." 
 
 " 1. Thou art called forth to this fair sacrifice for a 
 draught of milk ; with the Maruts come hither, O Agni ! " 
 
 " 2. No god, indeed, no mortal, is beyond the might 
 of thee, the mighty one ; with the Maruts come hither, O 
 Agni ? " 
 
 "3. Those who know of the great sky, the Visne Devas 
 without guile ; with those Maruts come hither, O Agni ! " 
 
 " 4. The wild ones who sing their song, unconquerable 
 by force ; with the Maruts come hither, Agni ! " 
 
 " 5. Those who are brilliant, of awful shape, powerful, 
 and devourers of foes ; with the Maruts come hither, O 
 Agni ! " 
 
 " 6. They who in heaven are enthroned as gods, in the 
 light of the firmament ; with the Maruts come hither, 
 Agni ! " 
 
92 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 " 7. They who shoot with their darts across the sea 
 with might ; with the Maruts come hither, O Agni ! " 
 
 11 9. I pour out to thee for the early draught the sweet 
 juice of Soma ; with the Maruts come hither, O Agni ! " 
 
 Another one says : — " O Agni, thou art the life, thou 
 art the patron of man. In return for our prayers, bestow 
 glory and riches on the father of a family who now addresses 
 thee. Agni, thou art a wise protector and a father ; to 
 thee we owe life, we are of thy household." 
 
 De Coulanges says : — " So the hearth-god was, as in 
 Greece, a tutelary deity. Men asked of him abundance, and 
 that the earth might be productive. He was prayed to for 
 health, and that a man might long enjoy the light and arrive 
 at old age like the sun at his setting. Even wisdom is 
 demanded, and pardon for sin. For as in Greece the fire- 
 god was essentially pure, so not only was the Brahmin 
 forbidden to throw anything filthy into his fire, but he 
 might not even warm his feet at it. The guilty man, also, 
 as in Greece, might not approach his own hearth before he 
 was purified from the stain he had contracted. 
 
 Assuredly the Greeks did not borrow this religion from 
 the Hindoos, nor the Hindoos from the Greeks ; but Greeks, 
 Italians, and Hindoos, belonged to one and the same race, 
 and their ancestors at a very early period had lived to- 
 gether in Central Asia. There they had learnt this creed, 
 and established their rites. When the tribes gradually moved 
 further away from one another, they transported this religion 
 with them, the one to the banks of the Ganges, and the 
 others to the Mediterranean. Afterwards, some learnt to 
 worship Brahma, others Zeus, and others again Janus ; but 
 all had preserved as a legacy the earlier religion which they 
 had practised at the common cradle of the race. 
 
 It is remarkable that in all sacrifices, even in those 
 offered to Zeus or to Athene, it was always to the fire that 
 the first invocation was made. At Olympia assembled Greece 
 offered her first sacrifice to the hearth-fire, and the second to 
 Zeus. Similarly at Rome, the first to be adored was always 
 Vesta, who was nothing else but the fire. And so we read 
 in the hymns of the Yeda : " Before all gods, Agni must 
 be invoked. We will pronounce thy holy name before that 
 of all the other immortals. O Agni, whatever be the god 
 we honour by our sacrifice, to thee is the holocaust offered." 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 93 
 
 It was not that Jupiter and Brahma had not acquired a 
 much greater importance in the minds of men, but it was 
 remembered that the fire was much older than the gods. 
 
 When the populations of Greece and Italy had learnt 
 to represent their Cods as persons, and had given each a 
 proper name and a human shape, the old worship of the 
 fire was similarly modified. The sacred fire was called Vesta. 
 The common noun was made a proper name, and a legend 
 by degrees attached to it. They even went so far as to 
 represent the fire in statues under the features of a woman, 
 the gender of the noun having determined the sex of the 
 deity. 
 
 Yesta, in mythology, was one of the principal deities of 
 the Pagans. Those who have diligently investigated the 
 religion of the Pythagorean philosophers pretend that by 
 Vesta they meant the universe, to which they ascribed a 
 soul, and which they worshipped as the sole divinity some- 
 time under the name of to mav, the whole, and sometimes 
 under the appellation of fxovos, unity. However, fabulous 
 history records two goddesses under the name of Vesta ; 
 one the mother of Saturn, and wife of Caelum, and the 
 other the daughter of Saturn, by his wife Rhea. The first 
 was Terra, or the Earth, called also Cybele, and derived her 
 name Vesta, according to some, from clothing, because the 
 earth is clothed, vestitur, with plants and fruits, or, accord- 
 ing to Ovid, from the stability of the earth because stat vi 
 terra sua, or it supports itself. Hence the first oblations 
 in all sacrifices were offered to her, because whatsoever is 
 sacrificed springs from the earth ; and the Greeks both 
 began and concluded their sacrifices with Vesta, because 
 they esteemed her the mother of all gods. 
 
 The second was Fire, and Vesta whose power was 
 exercised about altars and houses, derives her name, accord- 
 ing to Cicero, from fire or hearth. Accordingly the poets 
 frequently use Vesta for fire or flame ; as they do Jupiter 
 for air, Ceres for corn, &c. An image of Vesta, to which 
 they sacrificed every day, was placed before the doors of 
 the houses at Rome ; and the places where these statues 
 were erected were called vestibula, from Vesta. This goddess 
 was a virgin, and so great an admirer of virginity, that 
 when Jupiter her brother gave her leave to ask what she 
 would, she besought that she might always be a virgin, 
 and have the first oblations in all sacrifices. 
 
94 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 This goddess is called by Horace ceterna Vesta, and it 
 was in honour of her that Nuraa erected a temple at Rome, 
 and dedicated virgins to keep a perpetual fire upon her 
 altars. One way of representing this goddess, it is said, 
 was in the habit of a matron, holding in her right hand a 
 flambeau or lamp, and sometimes a Palladium or small 
 Victory. 
 
 The worship of Vesta and of fire was brought from 
 Phrygia into Italy by .^Eneas and the other Trojans who 
 resorted thither. To this purpose Virgil observes that .ZEneas, 
 before he left the palace of his father, had taken away the 
 fire from the sacred hearth. The name Vesta was 
 synonymous with the Chaldean and Persian Avesta and hence 
 Zoroaster gave to his book on the worship of fire, the name 
 of Avesta or Abesta, i.e., the custody of fire. 
 
 The Vestals were the virgins in Ancient Rome, con- 
 secrated to the service of the goddess Vesta, whose worship, 
 we have said, was brought into Italy by ^Eneas, and one of 
 their special duties was the watching of the sacred fire, the 
 going out of which was visited upon them with such severe 
 whipping. This fire, which they had to watch so jealously 
 and carefully, was neither on an altar nor on a hearth, 
 but in little earthen vessels with two handles, called cape- 
 duncula. It was held a pledge of the empire of the world. 
 If it went out, it was judged a very unlucky prognostic, 
 and was to be expiated with infinite ceremonies. Among 
 the Romans, Festus tells us, it was only to be rekindled 
 by rubbing a kind of wood proper for the purpose. But 
 among the Greeks, Plutarch, in his life of Numa, observes, 
 it was to be rekindled by exposing some inflammable 
 matter in the centre of a concave vessel held to the sun. 
 It is to be noted, the Romans were not the only people 
 who kept the perpetual fire of Vesta, in imitation of the 
 celestial fires ; but the Greeks were possessed with the same 
 superstition ; particularly the Delphians, Athenians, Tene- 
 dians, Argives, Rhodians, Cyzicenians, Milesians, Ephesians, (fee. 
 
 Magi, or Magians, was the title which the ancient 
 Persians gave to their wise men and philosophers. Whatever 
 may be the origin of the svord, and upon this great diversity 
 of opinion seems to have prevailed, it corresponds with the 
 o-o<j>oL among the Greeks; sapientes among the Latins; 
 Druids among the Gauls; Gynosophists among the Indians; 
 and prophets, priests among the Egyptians. 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 95 
 
 Plato, Apuleius, Laertius, and others agree that the 
 philosophy of the Magi related principally to the worship of 
 the gods ; they were the persons who were to offer prayers, 
 supplications and sacrifices, as if the gods would be heard 
 by them alone. 
 
 They teach their doctrine concerning the nature and 
 origin of the gods, says Laertius, whom they think to be 
 fire, earth, and water; they reject the use of pictures and 
 images, and reprobate the opinion that the gods are male 
 and female; they discourse to the people concerning justice; 
 they think it impious to consume dead bodies with fire; 
 they all practise divination and prophecy, pretending that 
 the gods appear to them ; they forbid the use of ornaments 
 in dress ; they clothe themselves in a white robe ; they 
 make use of the ground as their bed, of herbs, cheese and 
 bread for food, and of a reed for their staff. Strabo also 
 relates, that there were in Cappadocia a great number of 
 Magi, who were called "Pyrethi," or worshippers of fire, 
 and many temples of the Persian gods, in the midst of 
 which were altars attended by priests, who daily renewed 
 the sacred fire, accompanying the ceremony with music. 
 
 The chief doctrine of the Magi was, that there were 
 two principles, one of which was the cause of all good, and 
 the other the cause of all evil. The former was represented 
 by light, and the latter by darkness, as their truest symbols ; 
 and of the composition of these two they supposed that all 
 things in the world were made. The good god they always 
 worshipped before fire, as being the cause of light, and 
 especially before the sun, as being in their opinion the most 
 perfect fire, and causing the most perfect light; and for 
 this reason they had in all their temples fire constantly 
 burning on altars erected in them for that purpose. Before 
 these sacred fires, they performed all their public acts of 
 p'wotion, as they likewise practised their private devotions 
 cio' •" their private fires in their own houses. Such were 
 before/ 5116 ts °f this sect when Smerdis, who was the principal 
 leader of it, having usurped the crown after the death of 
 Cambyses, was slain by seven princes of Persia ; and many 
 of the Magians, who adhered to him, shared likewise the 
 same fate. In consequence of this event, those who adopted 
 the sentiments of this sect were called, by way of derision, 
 Magians, from mige-gush, which signified, in the language of 
 
96 FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 
 
 the country then in use, one that had his ears cropped. 
 The whole sect of the Magians would soon have sunk into 
 utter extinction if it had not, in a few years after this 
 period, been revived and reformed by Zoroaster. Tins cele- 
 brated philosopher, called by the Persians Zerdusht or 
 Zaratusht, began about the thirty-sixth year of the reign of 
 Darius to restore and reform the Magian system of religion. 
 He was not only excellently skilled in all the learning of 
 the East that prevailed in his time, but likewise thoroughly 
 versed in the Jewish religion, and in all the sacred writings 
 of the Old Testament that w T ere then extant, whence some 
 have inferred that he was a native Jew both by birth and 
 profession; and that he had been servant to one of the 
 prophets, probably Ezekiel or Daniel. He made his first 
 appearance in Media, in the city of Xiz, afterwards called 
 Aderbijan, as some say; or according to others, in Ecbatana, 
 afterwards Tauris. Instead of admitting the existence of two 
 first causes with the Magians, he introduced a principle 
 superior to them both— one supreme God, who created both 
 these, and out of these two produced, according to his 
 sovereign pleasure, everything else. 
 
 Zoroaster caused fire temples to be erected wherever he 
 came : for having feigned that he was taken up into heaven, 
 and there instructed in the doctrines he taught by God 
 himself, out of the midst of a great and most bright flame 
 of fire, he taught his followers that fire was the truest 
 shekinah of the divine presence; that the sun being the 
 most perfect fire, God had there the throne of his glory, 
 and the residence of his divine presence in a peculiar man- 
 ner ; and next to this in our elementary fire; and, therefore, 
 he ordered them to direct all their worship to God, first 
 towards the sun, which they called Mithra, and next towards 
 their sacred fires; and when they came before these fires 
 to worship, they always approached them on the west side, 
 that having their faces towards them, and also towards. lie \ 
 rising sun at the same time, they might direct their worship 
 towards both. And in this posture they always performed 
 every act of their worship. Zoroaster also pretended that he 
 brought some of the heavenly fire with him on his return 
 and & placed it on the altar of the first fire temple, which 
 he erected at Xiz, in Media, whence it was propagated to 
 all the rest ; and on this account their priests carefully 
 watched it and never suffered it to be extinguished. 
 
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP. 97 
 
 Zoroaster, having assumed the character of a divine 
 prophet and reformer of religion, retired into a cave, devotino- 
 himself to prayer and meditation, where he composed the 
 book called the Zend, in which his pretended revelations 
 were contained. From Media he removed into Bactria ; and 
 he went also into India among the Brachmans, and ha vino- 
 acquired all their knowledge in mathematics, philosophy and 
 astronomy, returned and communicated the knowledge to his 
 Magians ; and thus they became famous for their skill in 
 these sciences ; so that a learned man and a Magian were 
 equivalent terms. The vulgar conceived of them as persons 
 actuated and inspired by supernatural powers ; and hence 
 those who pretended to wicked and diabolical acts, assumed 
 the name of Magians ; and the term Magician acquired its 
 evil meaning. However, this distinguished knowledge was 
 confined to those who were by way of eminence, the Magi, 
 or the priests ; who, like those of the Jews, being of the 
 same tribe, appropriated their learning to their own families. 
 These priests were distributed into three orders, viz. : the 
 inferior priests, who conducted the ordinary ceremonies of 
 religion ; the superintendents who governed them and presided 
 over the sacred lire ; and the archimagus, or high-priest, 
 who possessed supreme authority over the whole order ; and 
 their churches or temples were also of three sorts, parochial 
 or oratories, in which the people performed their devotions, 
 and where the sacred fire was kept only in lamps ; fire- 
 temples, in which fire was kept continually burning on a 
 sacred altar, where the higher order of the Magi directed 
 the public devotions, and the people assembled to perform 
 magical incantations, hear interpretations of dreams, and 
 practise other superstitions ; and lastly, the fire-temple in 
 which the archimagus resided, which was visited by the 
 people at certain seasons with peculiar solemnity, and to 
 which it was deemed an indispensable duty for every one 
 to repair at least once in his life. Zoroaster at length 
 carried his religious system to the royal court at Susa, and 
 made Darius a proselyte, together with most of the great 
 men of the kingdom. 
 
 The End. 
 
PHALLIC SERIES 
 
 Cr. 8vo, Vellum, 7/6 Each. 
 Only a very limited number, privately printed. 
 
 PHALLICISM. — A Description of the Worship of 
 Lingam-Yoni in various parts of the World, and 
 in different Ages, with an Account of Ancient and 
 Modern Crosses, particularly of the Crux Ansata 
 (or Handled Cross) and other Symbols connected with 
 the Mysteries of Sex Worship. 
 
 Only a few copies to be sold with sets at 7 JO, or 
 separately, 10/6. 
 
 OPH IOLATR El A. — An Account of the Rites and 
 Mysteries connected with the Origin, Rise, and De- 
 velopment of Serpent Worship in various parts 
 of the World, enriched with Interesting Traditions, 
 and a full description of the celebrated Serpent Mounds 
 and Temples, the whole forming an exposition of one 
 
 of the phases of Phallic, or Sex Worship. 
 
 PHALLIC OBJECTS, Monuments and Remains; 
 Illustrations of the Rise and Development of the 
 Phallic Idea (Sex Worship), and its embodiment in 
 Works of Nature and Art. Etched Frontispiece. 
 
 CULT US A R BO RUM. — A Descriptive Account of 
 Phallic Tree Worship, with illustrative Legends, 
 Superstitious Usages, &c; exhibiting its Origin and 
 Development amongst the Eastern and Western Nations 
 of the World, from the earliest to modern times. 
 
Date Due 
 
 nft 9 k t? 
 
 
 
 
 "■** * o hi 
 
 
 
 
 hi ! 
 
 # 
 
 
 
 -milium' 
 
 
 
 
 ' ■;■ ^.f&8B&Hl 
 
 Iftr 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 $ 
 
 PRINTED 
 
 IN U. S. A. 
 
 
i 
 
BL460.F53 
 
 Fishes, flowers, & fire as elements and 
 
 Princeton Theological Semmary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1012 00009 4229