OF THE 
 
 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 COSMIC AND COSMOGONIC MYTHOLOGY 
 • ■ ^ AND SYMBOLISM 
 
 By JOHN O'NEILL 
 
 NVi s^xxk M\\<fH xeec<|>XTOC 
 
THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 ENDOWED BY THE 
 
 DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC 
 
 SOCIETtES 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
 ENDOWED BY THE 
 
 DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC 
 
 SOCIETIES 
 
 BL313 
 .0 6 
 
 V. 1 
 
/ ,1 10000478163 . q^ 
 
 The Night of the Gods 
 
 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 COSMIC AND COSMOGONIC MYTHOLOGY 
 AND SYMBOLISM 
 
 Bv JOHN O'NEILL 
 
 NYX MXXX MM<f H xeed^xTOC 
 
 Volume I 
 
 London 
 Printed by Harrison & Sons Saint-Martin's Lane 
 
 and 
 
 Published by Bernard Quaritch 1 5 Piccadilly 
 1893 
 
Quod si non hie taiitus fructns ostendcrctiir, et si 
 ex his s/iidiis delectatio sola peteretur ; tameii, lit 
 opinor, hatte aiiiiiii reiiiissioiieiii, huinaiiissiinain ae 
 liberalissimam jiidiearetis. A t hccc studia adoleseen- 
 tiatii agiiiit, sencctutetn obleetaiit ; deleetant doiui, non 
 iinpediuiit foris ; penioetant nohiscuni, peregyinantur, 
 rnstieai/tiir ; adi'crsis perfiigiuiii ae solatiiuii prccbeut. 
 — Cicero Pro A. Liei/iio Arehia poeta, \\\. 
 
Contents. 
 
 Now entertain conjecture of a Time 
 
 when creeping murmur and the poring Dark 
 
 fills the wide vessel of the Universe. {Hen. V. \v, i, i. 
 
 — Disputatio Circularis 
 
 Axis Myths. 
 
 1. The Axis as Spear, Pike, or Pal . 
 
 2. The God Picus 
 
 3. Divine names in Pal- 
 
 4. The Rod and Rhabdomancy 
 
 5. The Fleur-de-Lis at the Axis poin 
 
 6. The Trident ... 
 
 7. The Adpii and "Xpirrj of Kronos . 
 
 8. Divine names in Harp- and Dor- . 
 
 The Stone 
 
 9. Natural Magnets ; Meteorites; Beth-Els... 
 
 (Loadstone 96. — Beth-Ek III.) 
 
 10. The Loadstone Mountain. — Crete (138) ... 
 
 (Rocking-Stones 141.) 
 
 11. M.d'yvr)<i, Medea, and Maia. — Touchstone (150) ... 
 
 (Melusine 149. — Og's Bed 151.) 
 
 12. The CEdipus myths ... 
 
 13. The Cardinal Points (The Number Eight 166.— Sixteen 182, 
 
 — Twelve 173. — the AmphiKtiones 179.) 
 
 .14. The Four Living Creatures 
 
 The Pillar. 
 
 15. The Axis as Pillar (The Obelisk 19S) 
 
 16. Divine names in Lat- ... ... ... ... 
 
 17. The Tat ff of Ptah. — The Tee and Umbrella (220) 
 
 (The Single Leg 215.) 
 
 iS. The Heavens-Palace and its Pillar (The Gr.iii 231) ... 
 
 19. The Colophon 
 
 20. The Dual Pillars. — Pillar Wind-gods (242) 
 
 21. The Dokana or Gate of Heaven ... 
 
 A 2 
 
 31 
 
 40 
 
 43 
 52 
 62 
 70 
 80 
 
 94 
 129 
 142 
 
 IS3 
 157 
 
 184 
 
 1 89 
 209 
 
 213 
 
 224 
 
 ^35 
 24s 
 
 ■X' 
 
 I/. I 
 
 85C851 
 
Contents. 
 
 The Pillar-Axis as Tower. 
 
 22. The Round Towers of Ireland. — Pillar-stones (269) ... 260 
 
 23. Some other Towers ... ... ... ... ... ... 282 
 
 [The Tomoye.] (This section is omitted for the present.) 
 
 The Axis and the Universe-Tree. 
 
 24. The Tree-trunk ... ... ... ... 289 
 
 (The Beanstalk 294. —the Barber's Pole 301. — the Maypole 302. — the 
 Reed 30^. — Osiris 306. — Tree-Worship 314. — the Rowan-tree 320. — 
 Tree and Well 322. — the Thorn 323. — the Mistletoe 325. — .Swinging 
 326. — from Post to Pillar 330.) 
 
 25. The Christmas-tree ... ... ... ... ... ... 334 
 
 26. The m)'ths of Daphne, and of AgLauros (344) ... ... 341 
 
 27. The Gods of the Druids 350 
 
 'The Axis as a Bridge 
 The Dogs at the Chinvadh Bridge 
 The Boat 
 The Ladder ... 
 
 (These sections are 
 omitted for the 
 present.) 
 
 Polar Myths. 
 
 1. The Navels. — Na\el Hearthfire (362). — Sanctuary (367) 359 
 
 2. The Rock of Ages. — The God Terminus (387) ... ... 381 
 
 3. The Arcana (Robbing the Treasury 396.— the Cista Mystica 406.— the 394 
 
 Ark of Bulrushes 410. —the Chest of Cypselus 413. — the Christmas- 
 Box 423.) 
 
 4. The North (The Graha 427.— the Augur's Templum 430. — Northern 425 
 
 Burial 448. —the HyperBoreans 451. — the A'orth contra 457. — North 
 and South 460. ) 
 
 5. The Eye of Heaven (The CyclOpes 470. —the LaiStrygones 472.— 464 
 
 the ArimAspoi 475. — the Evil Eye 477.) 
 
 6. The Polestar (The Most High 4S6.— the Judge of Heaven 490.— 485 
 
 Polestar-Worship 500. — Sirius 504. — Polestar- Worship in China 513. — 
 Tai-Vih 5i7.-Tai-Ki 51S.— Shang-Ti 521.— Triads 525.— Tao and 
 Taoism 527. — Lao-Tsze 531. — Polestar-^^■orship in Japan 535.) 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 a. Additions and Subtractions ... ... ... ... 545 
 
 /3. Skeleton of the Argument ... ... ... ... 569 
 
 7. Lapses and Relapses ... ... ... .. ... 5 So 
 
The Night of the Gods. 
 
 Disputatio Circularis. 
 
 All //lings tliaf move between the quiet Poles, 
 
 (Marlowe's Faiistiis i, i, 54.) 
 
 ^LMOST beyond belief is the endless number of human 
 / \ sacred ideas founded in a supreme reverence for the revo- 
 jL \_ lution of the Universe round the Axis of the Earth, and 
 for the almighty Power that accomplishes that stupendous All- 
 containing motion. 
 
 Many of these ideas are still extant as concrete and ineradic- 
 able expressions in the languages, liturgies, and sciences of men. 
 The Heavens \ Every text-book on astronomy is written in the ter- 
 areteihng. J minology, and the Society that is named Royal talks 
 the idiom. Words and phrases and theories begotten of those 
 ideas have become compacted into the constitution of our minds ; 
 and they are all of them — it is a mightiest satire upon the insane 
 pride of the intellect — all of them founded upon a universal Fact 
 which is a Lie. 
 
 Let any reader who here hesitates at the very threshold, try 
 and put that most simple and useful of untruths " the sun rises " 
 into words that accurately convey the facts of the case ; or explain 
 the origin of the word ' heaven ' ; or get to the Ding an Sich of 
 the Atlas myth on any other than the Axis theory favoured in 
 this Inquiry. 
 
 It is hard luck that a book like this, which aims at some sort 
 of scientific system, should thus have to start from, and base its 
 investigations on, a falsity ; that its author should have to reverse 
 In endless \ the " E pur si muove " ; to constantly maintain (but 
 error hurled. J Quly \\\ Myth) that the heavens do move round ; to 
 make that supposititious motion the primum mobile of his theories ; 
 and to argue and re-argue from positions that are untrue in 
 
The Night of the Cods. 
 
 Nature ; although all the learned to a man believed in them not 
 so very long ago, and the huge majority of human beings do so 
 believe invincibly at this moment. 
 
 It is here maintained that the everlasting, stupendous, unfailing 
 rotation of the Heavens round the Earth — which was an ever and 
 everywhere present overpowering universe-fact — must, from the 
 earliest times when human intelligence had grown-up to the notice 
 of it, have exercised an enormous and fascinating and abiding 
 influence upon the observant and reflective, upon the devout 
 portion of mankind ; and must have provided the supreme initial 
 origin of the greater Cosmic Myths which concern themselves with 
 the genesis and mechanism of the Universe. 
 
 The earliest and simplest leading conclusion formulated as to 
 this rotation, by the inhabitants of our hemisphere, must have been 
 The foint ) that it was accomplished around a fixed point, the 
 quiescent, j North Polc ; and the next deduction was that in 
 that point, that pivot, there terminated a fixed and rigid Axis, 
 about which the rotation was effected. " The Nature of Man," 
 wrote Bacon when treating of Logic, " doth extremely covet to 
 have somewhat in his Understanding fixed and immoveable, and 
 as a rest and supjiort of the mind. And therefore, as Aristotle 
 ^ endeavoureth to prove that in all Motion there is 
 some point quiescent ; and as he elegantl}- expoundeth 
 the ancient fable of AtLas (that stood fixed and bare up the 
 heaven from falling) to be meant of the Poles or Axle-tree of 
 heaven, whereupon the conversion is accomplished, — so, assuredh", 
 men have a desire to have an AtLas or Axle-tree within, to keep 
 them from fluctuation," and so forth. 
 
 It is thus that, seizing the typical instance of the first motion 
 
 imparted by the Japanese creator-gods, this Inquiry starts from the 
 
 ■i churning of the universe-ocean with the Spear-axis ; 
 
 Creation-myth, i . , , . ^ , , _-^ 
 
 ' and so endeavours to brmg forth the Ueus ex 
 machina, and to evolve system out of the chaotic empuddlement 
 of myths with which it has to deal. 
 
 Thus, too, is here posited as it \\'ere a division of Cjxletic or 
 
 Cvcietic ■) Helissal or Kinetic Alythology, a m\'thology of 
 
 Mythology. ^ cosmic Machincr}'-in-motion, which ma\' disclose to 
 
 us even archaic glimmerings in China of palpitating nebula, and in 
 
 Phoenicia of meteoric clashings in space. 
 
 Niri'ana. c 
 
Disputatio Circ7ilaris. 
 
 The next step of admiring, if not awe-struck and adoring, human 
 minds would have been to seek for the Power that was compelling 
 the rotation ; and it will perhaps be conceded as natural that the 
 Director, the Swayer of the Whole should be placed in imagination 
 ■I at its sole and highest point quiescent, its pivot, its 
 ■* cheville ouvriere, the Northern Pole. 
 Anyhow, that was what was done ; and one of the main objects 
 of this Inquiry is to identify the Polar Deity with the oldest, the 
 ■> supremest, of the cosmic gods of all early Northern 
 "''-• religions; with the Ptah of the Egyptians, the 
 Kronos of the Greeks, the Shang-Ti of the Taoists and the Tai-Ki 
 and Tai-Yi of the philosophic Chinese, with the Ame no miNaka- 
 Nushi of archaic Japan. This is attempted in the chapters con- 
 cerned with the Polestar and the mythic sacredness of the North ; 
 where also the Eye of Heaven and the Omphalos myths find their 
 local habitation. There too — at the end of the Axis — are placed 
 those Triune emblems, the fleur-de-lis and the trident ; while the 
 Axis itself becomes the Spear, Lance, or Dart of so many classif 
 myths, the hopv of Kronos, the trident-handle of Poseidon, the 
 typical Rod of rhabdomancy (which is also a branch of the Universe- 
 Tree). 
 
 The Magnetic Pole further gives occasion for the connexion 
 
 of the North with the natural Magnet, and thence with all sacred 
 
 1 animated Stones : with meteorites, the touchstone 
 
 The Magnet, c 1 1 * 1 -1^1 t 1 • t ■ 1 • 
 
 ■' and beth-Els; and thus is stone-worship centered m 
 the Polar Deity. 
 
 Closely connected with the pole, and more closely with a 
 
 former Polestar, by their position and their revolutions, the Seven 
 
 stars of Ursa Major are shown to have been the originators of the 
 
 The Number \ liolincss of the inevitable Number Seven. And to 
 
 sci'en. j jj^jg J have been driven, almost against my will, to 
 
 conjoin a somewhat full discussion of the Cabiric gods. 
 
 All the Atlas-myths, endless and worldwide, are referred to the 
 Axis ; which is also made the Pillar of the heavens, and the type 
 and original of all the sacred pillars of the world. From the Pillar 
 Irish Round \ the Inquiry naturally proceeds to the Tower; and 
 Towers. J claims all obelisks, towers, and steeples as having 
 been initially sacred worship-symbols of the great tower of Kronos, 
 of the mainstay of the Universe. 
 
 Other chapters pursue the symbolism of the Axis in the trunk 
 
The Xiglit of the Gods 
 
 of the Universe-Tree, and in the Bridge to the other world ; which 
 are two of the commonest and most wide-spread "properties" in 
 the world-myths. The Tree in combination with the Seven stars 
 is made to give us the Seven-branched Candlestick ; and the Bridge 
 is also treated-of as the Ladder. 
 
 The revolution of the heavens is more directh' figured forth 
 in the Winged Sphere, \\\\\q\\ it is here maintained is the true 
 significance of what has been viewed, by a greatly too limited 
 The-j-nngcd \ interpretation, as mereh- a winged "disk," in the 
 ''duk." J EgA'ptian, Assyrian, and other m\-thologies. \Mth 
 the Winged Sphere too are connected all the divine birds and man- 
 birds, and the winged scarab, and all the divine feathers worn by 
 Egyptian deities. To this categor\-, and also to that of the triple 
 emblems, belongs the Prince of \A'aIes's plume. The Universe- 
 Egg can scarcely be separated from the consideration of the divine 
 Bird. 
 
 The Dance of the Stars is another figure for the revolution of 
 
 ^he heavens ; and that leads to the discussion of religious and 
 
 -I " round " Dancing, which is found among all races of 
 
 Round Dances. V , . , . , , . , ... , 
 
 -' men, together with circular worship by walking round 
 Trees, Shrines, and other objects ; all of which, it is maintained, 
 are ritualistic practices in the archaic worship of the revolving 
 heavens and their god. With this subject the chapters on the 
 Salii and the Dact}"li also connect themselves. 
 
 The transition to the sacred s\-mbolism of the rotating (but 
 
 not the rolling) \\'heel is here eas\- ; and I do m}- best to convince 
 
 Theivhida/^ m}' rcadcrs that the Wheel-god of Assyrian and other 
 
 tJieLaw. J s}-mbolism is the Compeller of the Universe, and 
 
 that the turning of the " Pra\-ing"-wheel is a de\-out practice in 
 
 his worship. The Fire-wheel then leads to an important conclusion 
 
 as to the production of Fire in religious ceremonies ; and the wheel 
 
 of Fortune is identified with the revolution of Time which brings in 
 
 his revenges. The Buddhist wheel of the Law is also referred to 
 
 the revolution of the heavens, while the Law is that of the universe 
 
 the}- enclose. And so the Suastika becomes a skeleton s\-mbol 
 
 of the wheel or the whirligig, and is connected also with the 
 
 riu: Romaunt 1 Lab}Tinth. Attention must also be directed to the 
 
 o/TheRcsc. ) j^Q^y Romaunt of the Rose, -which seeks to identify 
 
 that famous s\-mbol also with the ^^'heel. 
 
 The conception of re\-ol\-ing Time leads to a somewhat full 
 
DispiUatio Circitlaris. 
 
 discussion of the archaic gods who personified Endless Time and its 
 circular symbols. The Old Man of the Mountain belongs to this 
 section. 
 
 I'hat very common mythic figure for the heavens-vault — a 
 supremely holy Mountain — is treated at some length ; and leads 
 us to the Cone in religious symbolism. 
 
 The starry heavens are also sought to be identified with white 
 Argos and with the White Wall of Memphis as well as with the 
 (mythic) city of Grecian Thebes. They are also the Veil of the 
 universe, to which the chapter headed Weaving is devoted. The 
 quadripartite division of the Chinese sphere is made to accord 
 with the Four Living Creatures of Hebrew mysticism ; and the 
 heavens-River is demonstrated in the Milky Way and in the 
 perennial circulation of the atmospheric and terrestrial waters. 
 
 It is impossible to do more in this place than briefly catalogue 
 
 the other subjects treated-of. Such are, under the heading of the 
 
 Ethocgcnus ^ Hcavcns-mountain, the Parsi Dakhmas ; the heavens- 
 
 omite. J Boat of Egyptian and other mythologies, with which 
 are grouped all Arks and the good ship Argo ; the stone-weapons 
 of the gods, the Hindu Chakra, and the Flaming Sword ; the 
 Cherubim of the Hebrews and Assyrians ; the Tat of Ptah, 
 as an axis-symbol of stability ; the Round Towers of Ireland. 
 The Seven Churches, the Seven Sleepers, and the Week 
 are dwelt-on under the heading of the Number Seven. The 
 heavenly Dogs of the passage to the next world are sought to be 
 connected with the Egyptian 'jackals', and other sacred dogs. 
 The significance of Right and Left in worship, and the Hindu 
 Conchshell, complete this list. 
 
 But it still remains to direct the attention of the reader more 
 especially to the pages which deal with the names and myths of 
 PalLas, AtLas, Latinus, Magnes, CEdipus, and Battos ; of Sisj-phus 
 and TanTalos ; of the god Picus ; of Daphne, AgLauros and 
 Danae ; of Numa Pompilius, of the Bees, of the Arcana, and of the 
 Labyrinth. The genesis of Rhodes from the Rose(wheel), with 
 the Colossus and the Colophon, also claim perusal ; as do the 
 sections on Buddha's and all the other F"ootprints ; on the Gods 
 of the Druids ; on the Dokana, which is brought down to the 
 Lychgate ; and on the Omphalos and the Rock of Ages. 
 
 But I must cease fretting the reader with this mere table of 
 contents. 
 
The Night of the Gods. 
 
 COMPARATIVE mythology," wliich already calls itself a 
 science, is as yet very much like the mythic young Bears 
 Comparative \ with whicli it has in this Inquiry (under the heading 
 viythoiogy. J Qf 'Y\\c Number Seven and elsewhere) a good deal 
 to do : it is amorphous. And even all its more shapely works 
 must somehow resemble the patchwork quilts — ' crazy quilts ' they 
 call them still in Ole Virginny — which were the Penelope's webs of 
 our great-grandmothers. It is a science of shreds and patches, 
 which all lie in a sort of gigantic lucky-bag, out of which everyone 
 pulls very much what comes next to hand. The patches used to 
 The tailor \ get sortcd (by our grandmothers) according to colour, 
 patched. J Qj. gj^e, or texture, or chance ; and so sartor was 
 resartus, the tailor was patched, perhaps over and over again. 
 
 The scraps of mythological fact have also been sorted in various 
 ways. There are the racial and the lingual classifications ; and 
 the migratory system, which purports to be an advance on these. 
 There is the divine or personal classification (not neglected here) 
 which concentrates on the lay-figure of some one deity all the 
 home and foreign drapery that seems to belong to him and to his 
 analogues ; and there is the sorting of the myth-scraps according 
 to their obvious identities : at times very much regardless of the 
 individual divine entities they now purport to clothe. 
 
 This last is the method chiefl\' followed here ; and it originally 
 suggested itself doubtless because of the evidentl}- heterogeneous 
 -(_ mass of rags (borrowed, stolen, and honestly come 
 •• b}') which e\-en the oldest and most respectable gods 
 had managed in the course of ages to darn and work up into their 
 harlequin suits. This particular method endeavours to pick-over 
 the rags and, if not ever to reconstitute the first new coat, at least 
 to predicate the loom or factory and the trade-mark of the fabric 
 to which the scrap belongs. 
 
 To do this on a large scale would require an expenditure of 
 time and other resources which it would take several ' golden 
 dustmen ' to command ; and consequently, and also for the urgent 
 reason that life is short, the present Inquiry is sadly defective in 
 every direction. 
 
Disputatio Circnlaris. 
 
 All is fish that comes to this net. On fait fleche de tout bois. 
 The etymologist, the dreamist and nightmarist, the tiuwrltt, are 
 all welcome here, to meet Euhemerus ; who may even worship his 
 ancestors, and be frightened of their ghosts, in his moments pcrdus. 
 Nor, in an Inquiry into matter which is mainly the product of the 
 human fancy, can the theorist who draws upon his own imagination 
 be excluded. But there is no rule v/ithout an exception, and one 
 The \ exclusion alone is made : the geographer — so to call 
 migrationht. / j^jj^ — -who regards every myth as a migration, finds 
 little or no admittance, even on business. The world is wide, 
 though not so wide as it was ; there is still room for all ; and no 
 cosmic myth is asked whence it came on the map of the world, but 
 only on the chart of the imagination of the human race. 
 
 Given a small planet, and an evolution of life and living things 
 thereon ; and of men who, wherever they be on that planet, see the 
 same heavens, and the same phases of those heavens — not, may 
 be, at the same precise hour of the twenty-four, nor on the same 
 exact day of the 360 and odd, nor even in the same year of the 
 cycle — given these men and their (within planet limits) same 
 mode of evolution, propagation, cerebral organisation, and 
 nutriment ; with the sameness of their non-planetary objects of 
 sense and thought ; and there would seem to be no reason why 
 they should not every where — as naturally as any one where — 
 evolve the same or very similar theories, mythological or otherwise, 
 of their cosmic surroundings. " The human mind," writes Sir M. 
 Monier-Williams about the religious thought of India, " like the 
 body, goes through similar phases everywhere, develops similar 
 proclivities, and is liable to similar diseases." 
 
 By "planet limits" of course the accidents of latitude and of 
 climate are chiefly meant ; and if a man will place himself in 
 imagination at such a distance in space as will reduce this earth to 
 the apparent size, say, of the moon, he will see at once that all 
 these " limits " are, roughly speaking, mere accidents in so far as 
 the relations of the planet to the heavens are concerned. 
 
 Or take a metaphysical illustration, and let earthly man identify 
 himself with his planet as tJic Subject ; and then all the rest of the 
 visible (and invisible) universe becomes for him the Objective, the 
 same objective which every other subject on the planet has to 
 represent to himself What wonder is it then that all these (by 
 the hypothesis) identical subjects should take similar views of the 
 
The Nio-ht of the God;. 
 
 same objective. Nay, one might carry it farther, and, presuming 
 similar conditions — that is, (as may be seen in the course of the 
 Inquiry) presuming a Hke inclination of the planetary axis, one 
 might say that there is no reason why possible " men " on some 
 other solar planet should not have evolved the self-same theories 
 or cosmic m3-ths (more or less) of the same objective heavens. 
 
 The greatest objection that can be urged against the "geo- 
 grapher " or migrationist — and it is a fatal one — is that his theories 
 Tiic \ are forcedly exclusi\'e. One migrationist says all 
 migratio,iist. j astrognosy and myth arose in Eg)-pt, and went to 
 Ciialdea ; another sa}-s Chaldean lore came from far Catha)- ; yet 
 another saj-s the Greek gods came from India, or the reverse — for 
 it isn't twopence matter. Each of these wants the field, or the 
 shield, for himself; and may hold it for a time ; but one fine day 
 some latent old scintilla of fact is discovered and blown-upon, 
 blazes up anew, and explodes him and his theory in a jiffy. It is 
 just the old Nurser}' Rh)-me over again : 
 
 The Lion and the Unicorn fighting for the Crown ; 
 Up jumps the Uttle Dog, and knocks 'em both down. 
 
 Nor can I see how it gets us any more forward even to prove 
 indubitably that the Cosmic m}'ths of country A did come from 
 place B. Very well. Granted. Glad to hear it, even. And what 
 of it ? What then ? It makes in reality no more approach upon 
 the kernel of the question, upon the Ding an Sich that the mj-th 
 enholds, than if you indubitably proved exactly the reverse. As 
 ) Lobeck' remarked about the origin-spot of the cosmic 
 ^' ^ Egg, quaerere ludicrum est ; for the conception is 
 one of the earliest theories that would occur to the rudest imagina- 
 tion. Such a quest is like asking : \\'hich side of an egg is first 
 feathered? — a cryptic way of putting another universal sphinx- 
 riddle : \^'hich came first, the hen or the ^'g'g'^ 
 
 Prove to me, indeed, that the celestial m\-ths of this Earth 
 came from outside the planet, and }-ou excite an interest far 
 other than dilettante ; and that is the origin that ever}- heavens- 
 myth of the whole human world and of all human prehistorj- 
 has been alwa}"s trying, and is still tr}-ing, and will perhaps for 
 ever try to prove, till the last s)-llable of recorded time. 
 
 ' A^iaoj^/'mfntis, i, 473. 
 
D I sp n ta tio Circ it/arts. 
 
 It has been said that the Imagination shall not here be 
 denied its help. Much mythology has grown doubtless, 
 Vain \ as much language grows, by some guess innate 
 Imagination. J power of growiog and grafting and tangling ; but 
 the great mass of mythological stuff has been projected by the 
 human imagination. Why then should the imagination be 
 ecartee in its analysis ? The mind of starkly scientific mould is 
 not the best outfitted for poetical explorations ; and mythology 
 and poetry have always been irredeemably intermingled. Who 
 would give much value to the word Science in such a phrase 
 as "the science of Comparative Poetry"; and the only justifi- 
 cation of a science of comparative mythology lies in the fact 
 that there must be method even in the fine frenzy of the poet, 
 if he would charm the imaginations even of the most poetical 
 minds. 
 
 It is written above that the etymologist v/as received with 
 open arms in these speculations ; but this free admission has 
 
 The \ unhappily to be clogged with one important re- 
 Etymologist, j gtriction. Philologia had to come rather as a 
 handmaiden than as a mistress to Mythologia. 
 
 It will be seen indeed throughout that the skeleton of a 
 myth is employed as the masterkey of a verbal lock much 
 oftener than any reverse operation is attempted. For it is now 
 at last dawning upon a good 'ie.vt that the linguistic fetters — 
 Sanskrit or other — in which divine Mj'thology has been, for 
 a many recent years, forced to caper for our amazement, might 
 well be hung-up with other old traps of torture, to edify the 
 generations. 
 
 Words are emphatically not the prime authors of t/wiip-fits. 
 The name of a god cannot — you may swear it by the god — 
 be the maker of the god himself This would be, in mytho- 
 logical jargon, to have the Deity proceed from his own 
 Word ; to subordinate the cerebrating power to the organs of 
 speech. That there is a subsequent reflex action of the formed 
 word upon the thinking brain that produced it is another matter 
 altogether — just so does every other product of the brain react 
 upon it ; just so does everything else in Nature act, switchback, 
 upon the brain : as (may be) the brain does in its turn upon the Will 
 that evolved it. But to say, and to found a cardinal theory 
 
 // 
 
14 The Night of the Gods. 
 
 upon the saying, that a certain concatenation of sounds in one 
 human speech naturally and habitually produced or reproduced a 
 divine ideal in the brains of men of the same or of aiiotlier speech, 
 is to heap-up impalpable sand, and build a card-house city on it. 
 
 Llost god-names, like all their titles, are adjectival, descriptive. 
 Tiu:,ta,mof \ Thus these names and titles irrefragably have, quite 
 
 God. f naturally, their analogues, their coevals, perhaps 
 their predecessors, in the ordinary words of the language in which 
 they arose. By taking a whole class of resemblant divine and 
 sacred words — first in one, and then in two or more tongues — and 
 running them down backwards into their myths and meanings and 
 roots, it is often found that a marvellous, an electric, light is 
 diffused over the whole class. 
 
 As examples of such a mode of treatment, the reader must 
 mercilessly be requested to follow, step by critical step, the pages 
 which deal with words in via-, me- and mag- ; in the- ; in pat-, 
 dor- and tat- ; in 7nel-, in dm- ; in tab- ; in ag-, ak- and arc-. 
 
 It is in fact contended here that the functions of a cosmic 
 Xature-god and his consequent name and titles had an immense 
 and far-reaching influence on (often) a whole class of other deities 
 and their names, and upon the words of the ritual and the 
 ' properties,' and the names of the properties, of his and their 
 worship. This broadly defines the chief purpose for which 
 Etymology is summoned as a witness in this Imjuiry where the 
 nature, that is the function, of the god is made to account for his 
 etymon, instead of the reverse process — his name educing his 
 nature — being imposed upon the student. 
 
 Poetry ever clings fast to old words, long long after they have 
 dropped out of the workaday tongue. " If we take a piece of Old- 
 English prose, say the Tales translated b}' Alfred, or yElfric's 
 Hoinities, or a chapter of the Bibte, we shall find that we keep to 
 this day three out of four of all the nouns, adverbs, and verbs 
 employed by the old writer. But of the nouns, adverbs, and 
 \'erbs used in an\' poem from the Beoz^'it If to the Song on Edward 
 the Confessor's death, about half have dropped for ever."' That 
 is to say that only 25 words in the xoo of prose were then old, while 
 50 (or twice as many) were archaic in poetry. 
 
 The same is true of myth and fairy-tale and, in an infinitely 
 greater degree, of religious nomenclature. In no division of speech 
 
 ' T. L. Kinglon Oliphant's Old and Middle English, 1S7S, p. 4S9. 
 
Dispnla 1 10 Ciratlaris. 
 
 is the conservative spirit so strong ; and it is in divine names and 
 sacred terms that we must seek for some of the earHest, the most 
 gnarled, and the doziest old roots of every tongue. This to a great 
 extent explains why our philological canons exclude such proper 
 names from consideration. If the Gods were not — like the Rex 
 Ronianus — above grammar, they are at least older than philology.' 
 
 It is quite possible that those big conjuring-words Esoteric and 
 Esoteric Mid \ Exoteric, with which comparative religionites and 
 Exoteric. J mythologians are wont to frighten each other, may 
 not be nearly so big as we think they look and sound. A great 
 deal of the ambitious theory about the elaborate invention — as if 
 anything greatly religious was ever invented ! — the elaborate 
 invention of two sacred beliefs : " one to face the world with, one to 
 show" to the initiated, must perhaps be exploded. I would 
 especially indicate chapters 8 and 9 of the 5th Book of Clement 
 of Alexandria's Stroiiiata as a first-rate instance of the glib and 
 transparent bonimeiits pattered to us from all time about these 
 Esoteric and Exoteric peas and thimbles. 
 
 There are at least three (or more) possible sources for this 
 The c-Miutims y doublc vicw of any myth, (i) A sacred fact being 
 o_/7„yth. J stated, defined, as an extremely naked thing in very 
 naked words by those who completely (TC'wprehend it and all its 
 analogues. (2) This statement's expounding, amplification (in 
 order that it may be uiiders'l-a.n'd.fid. of those who do not comprehend), 
 by an analogy ; by one or many analogies or allegories ; or by 
 paraphrases of the naked words; or by parables. (3) By the 
 true sense of the naked definition (or the true drift of the analogy 
 or the allegory or the parable) getting lost in the process of time, 
 or in the ebb and flow of the generations and revolutions of men 
 and of nations. 
 
 Now in case (i), the more recondite any matter defined, and 
 the more naked any definition is, the more difficult is it also to be 
 completely understood without study of its context, or viva voce 
 exposition of its full meaning. Here is one fruitful cause of the 
 esoteric and exoteric bifurcation. As to case (2), here we have 
 
 ' " It. may be observed that the proper names of the mythological and heroic times 
 contain elements of the Greek language which sometimes -cannot be traced elsewhere — 
 cf. Zeus, Seirios, etc." (Preface of October 1S82 to 7th ed. 18S3 of Liddell a)id Scott's 
 Lexicon.) But as to Seirios, see now pp. 24, 453, 5S4 infra. 
 
1 6 The Nig Jit of the Go as. 
 
 ample room and verge enough for all the mythological fables and 
 legends ever handed down : if we besides give their full scope to 
 the secretive dog-and-jackdaw faculty of the human brain, which 
 delights in making caches and in cultivating covertness ; and also 
 to the innate unlimited power and bent of the same organ for 
 uttering and receiving the thing which is not : for ' telling stories,' 
 in point of fact ; and listening to them. 
 
 This it is, too, that explains why, as one fire or one nail, so 
 nothing but one god or one mystery drives out another. 
 
 As to case (3), we need seek no further for the origin of that 
 ^ adorable bugbear of the pietistic and ritualistic mind 
 ■* in all and every race, in all and every creed, the 
 ' mystery of revealed religion ' ; which is never any more than a 
 sphinx-riddle, and generally some mere archaic devinaille. But 
 even that last word enholds the divine as well as the divining ; 
 for there was an early time in all breeds of men when, in the 
 matter of divines and diviners, six of one were half-a-dozen of the 
 other, for their pious frequenters.' 
 
 Does it not seem that these are sufficient waj-s of accounting 
 for the Esoteric and Exoteric pieces of business .' And then, if we 
 add on Euhemerism (which flourished long before Fiv>]/j,€po<;) and 
 its reverse, and Platonic abstraction and idealizing, we get an 
 immeasurable distance on the way towards a comprehension of the 
 divagation, superfcetation, and overgrowth, of the Mythic Universe.- 
 
 Lobeck'^ speaks of the " absurd symbolism " of the Platonists. 
 
 At all events, if they proved nothing else, they were convincing as 
 
 piatonian \ to tlic marvcllous inventiveness of their speculative 
 
 ■wds. J powers, and their unlimited spider-faculty for emitting 
 
 the tenuous cobweb. And myths are perhaps more maniable by us 
 
 than in Plato's time. We are at least emancipating, if we can never 
 
 ' To the mystery of revealed religion belongs Tiboo, which might be defined as a 
 silencing of the brain by the feelings — that is by the Will. It is a not-speaking-of, a not- 
 thinking-of, a not-enquiring-into the thing felt. So is intense and helpless reverence for 
 the uttermost absurdities fostered ; so does it grow up and remain. 
 
 - In Miss J. E. Harrison's Mythology of Ancient Athens (iSgo) p. iii, the ac- 
 complished writer says : "In many, even in the large majority of cases, ritual practice 
 misunderstood explains the elaboration of myth. " But this theory will not e.xpl.ain the 
 elaboration of the ritual practice. 
 
 ■' Aglaopha/ntts, pi. 550. 
 
Disputatio Circiilaris. 17 
 
 wholly set free, our tremulous little minds from the theological dreads 
 and trammels which enveloped him. That isaveryconsoling passage 
 in Mr. Lang's most valuable Myth, Ritual and Religion (ii, 202) where 
 .le, competent over many, boldly declares that " in fact the classical 
 writers knew rather less than we do about the origin of many of their 
 religious peculiarities." But from another point of view — that of 
 the extreme difficulty of the subject — we must still agree with that 
 subtle and powerful brain of Plato's' that it required a man of 
 great zeal and industry, and without any sanguine hope of good 
 fortune, to undertake the task of its investigation. On this K. O. 
 Midler^ (too highly apprizing the total gratitude of men) said that 
 the more difficult this task, and the less clear gain it promises, the 
 more ought wc to thank those who undertake it. 
 
 In all mythologies, the complications, the overlappings, the 
 
 reticulations, which reflect back the secular and multiple com- 
 
 Thc ■> plexitics of Life, and of the Universe with its mani- 
 
 Mytiwhgicai , fQ^ machinery, are ultra-infinite, infra-infinitesimal. 
 
 Lahy) intlt. j , , . . ^ . , , 
 
 And yet a mythologist is called upon unfaihngly to 
 expound the whole of the one, of the Reflection (or be for ever 
 silent) ; while who is expected to explain the other, the Reality 
 — Life and the Universe .■■ 
 
 The pursuit of a clear idea through the tangled mass is too 
 often all but impossible. When the chase is at its hottest, one is 
 continually thrown out, as though whole barrels of red herrings 
 were scattered across the track ; and then again, when after many 
 a bootless cast the scent once more is breast-high, all at once there 
 comes a grand frost, and it all vanishes into thinnest air. 
 
 It was a saying of Jacob Grimm's : " I explain what I can ; I 
 cannot explain everything." Mr. Andrew Lang says merrily of 
 one of his admirable books : " this is not a Key to all Mytholo- 
 gies " ; and I shall, over and above that, even venture to hold that 
 the key we arc in quest of is a whole bunch. 
 
 K valuable remark of the late accomplished Vicomte Emmanuel 
 
 de Rouge finds its place here. Of course it applies equally to every 
 
 Egyptian \ Other land under the heavens, as well as to Egj'pt ; 
 
 myths. j ^j-jij ;|. jg unfortunatcly almost ignored by students 
 of myth, instead of being constantly kept in the very forefront of 
 
 1 Phacd. 229, - Mylhol. cli. .\. 
 
tS The Night of the Gods. 
 
 their work : " The Egyptian religion was a reunion of local cults. 
 We consequentl)- find in it a repetition of the same ideas under 
 different types, and \\\\.\\ important variants." It should be added 
 to this that apparentl)' incongruous qualities and functions are, for 
 the same reason, foisted on to individual types. 
 
 There is no m}-th or legend into which scraps of others have 
 not strayed ; and there is perhaps none in which there are not 
 details which seem to clash with its general central idea, its back- 
 bone, its axis. With these apparent " faults " — to talk geology — 
 there is no pretension here otherwise to deal ; but what is 
 attempted is to co-ordinate the similar incidents and characteristics 
 common to a vast and widespread number of myths, dissimilar it 
 ma}' be in their apparent general drift ; and thence to educe, to 
 build up — or rather to re-edif}- — a system (of Heavens-worship) 
 which has long either fallen to ruin, or been defaced, blocked in, 
 overbuilt, by a long series of subsequent mj^thical, theological, and 
 religious constructions. 
 
 The anatomical truth — learnt onl\' from comparative stud}" — that 
 no organ e\-er remains (that is, continues to sur\-ive) uncmplo}-ed, is 
 true also of mythology and theology. The disused, neglected, 
 pla}'ed-out personage or rite decays, becomes decadent, and 
 disappears. The altar to " an Unknown God " could not have 
 been the shrine of an undiscovered deity. He was a fallen god, 
 whose very name had been forgotten. And that is why the 
 reconstruction of a vanished cult is like the building up of the form 
 of an extinct organism. Fortunately, the comparative method of 
 treatment planes the way, taking now a fact from one and now 
 a hint from another of the innumerable species and varieties of 
 myths and creeds ; and even, again, finding some almost whole 
 and sound — and now therefore startling — survival to illustrate the 
 
 roiestar 1 general theory. Such is, in the case of the Polestar- 
 
 ■worskip. i -worship theor}', the extremely interesting subsistence 
 of the Mandoyo, Mendaite, or Subban community ; a still contem- 
 porary continuation of the old Sabseans, far more striking than the 
 romantic fables .ibout the secluded persistence amid the recesses 
 of the Lebanon of the attaching idolatry of ancient Greece. Here, 
 in these Rlandoyo, we strike not the coarse ore of the South-Sea 
 savage, but a genuine old \ein of solid metal ; worn indeed and 
 /,v,ir ) long-worked, but still unmistakeable in the 
 
 vm);j/;</. ) cruclblc of thc comparative student. Such again 
 
Disputatio Circiilaris. 19 
 
 are the startling survivals of the worship of the Great Bear 
 in China and elsewhere, pointed oat in the section on the Number 
 Seven. 
 
 } 
 
 Some mythological Axioms might be usefully sketched out in 
 a book which concerns itself so much with Axial 
 mythological facts : 
 (i) There is such a thing as mythological Time; and it is a 
 very long time. 
 
 (2) Old gods, like the Roman Empire and most other terres- 
 trial things, have had their Rise, as well as their Decline and 
 Fall. 
 
 (3) The leading myths of these three periods of a divine 
 existence in mythological Time may generally be separated, and 
 should be carefully kept separate. 
 
 (4) An infernal god has generally been a supernal deity ; and 
 thus every " devil " is possibly a fallen god. Victa jacit Pietas ! 
 
 (5) The tendency is for the young generation to oust the old, 
 whether among animals, men, or gods. 
 
 (6) The genealogies of the gods are therefore important. 
 
 (7) It is generally the rising generation that makes the 
 warin \ succcssful ''War in heaven," and sends the oldsters to 
 iieavcn. ) J.^Jg jj-j [iq[\_ Sometimes however the rebel is not a 
 
 family relation, and is defeated. It was the merest sycophancy in 
 the poets to say that the gods know all, but have suffered nothing. 
 (On this subject the Inquiry is necessarily busied here and 
 there throughout ; but there is a section on Fallen Gods in the 
 chapter headed " Kronos and Ptah." ) 
 
 As to the paternal relation of the gods — the idea of the " father 
 of gods and of men," to whom human sacrifice was made, who ate 
 LePirc \ his own children — it is needless to seek any origin 
 Eternei. j fgj. J)- other than the natural human love, reverence, 
 and real fear, if not hate, felt in turn for the producing, protecting 
 and walloping, the often killing, and the once eating, parent. 
 Matriarchy would have given worship of the Great Mother. 
 
 " Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be 
 long in the land " was the beginning of " the fear of the Lord " ; 
 and that honour and that fear were hammered into human children 
 
 B 2 
 
The Night of the Gods. 
 
 from the beginning — from the beginning of the race as well as of 
 the individual child — until the feelings have, so far as we can 
 eliminate them for analysis, become that for which we have formed 
 the word Instinct. 
 
 Ancestor-worship is a mere extension of father and mother 
 reverence ; at need only an inherited father and mother worship. 
 Ancestor \ I havc sceu my father and mother revering their 
 worship. } f^tj-jgr ^i-,^ mother from my tenderest years ; and 
 so I have learned to revere them too. There are accessory 
 causes (as there are in everything) but it is practically needless 
 to pother about them here, as we are only discussing the parental 
 idea. 
 
 The head of the tribe being the father of his people, — which he 
 was at first in the actual phj'sical sense, — and the divine right of 
 kings, are easy natural stepping-stones of the firmest kind to the 
 terms used in honouring the gods. To this day the Mikado of 
 Japan is regarded, in Chinese phrase, as " the father and mother 
 ^ of his people." Thus, too, the gods got their genealo- 
 
 Pedigrccs. r . . . - 
 
 ' gies, and these dovetail mto the genealogies ot men ; 
 for actual generative communion and procreation between gods 
 and women, goddesses and men, is superabundant in all mj-tholo- 
 gies. Man — perhaps it was woman ? — made gods in his own image 
 and likeness. 
 
 Refinements upon the gross conceptions of genealogy began to 
 arise later ; as when Phanes " appears," or Unkulunkulu " came to 
 be." The first god of all is then without parents ; he is the great 
 " I am " merel)-. But tiiese were, by the nature of the considerant, 
 mere unfilling figments of the brain. The human understanding is 
 still incapable, and may always remain incapable, of conceiving a 
 beginning out of Nothing, except as a form of words. 
 
 So the Egyptians said that Ra was born but not engendered, 
 or again that he engendered himself. The Phoenician Riia'h 
 becomes enamoured of his own principle, and calls the mystic 
 coalescence Hipesh. Or again, in order to reconcile the belief in 
 divine immortality with the practice of human generation, the 
 Egyptian tied his mind into a knot, and said that Amen was 
 the fecundator of his own mother. Aditi (Space) the Deva-matr, 
 Che mother of the gods, is said to be at once the mother and the 
 daughter of Daksha. Daksha sprang from Aditi and Aditi from 
 Daksha, who is the Right, the Lawgiver, the trident-bearing creator. 
 
Disputatio Circular. 
 
 IS. 
 
 The "common form " in Irish mythology of the reappearance of 
 an ancestor-god in the person of his divine descendant' is the same 
 idea differently expressed. (The subject of god-genesis is pursued 
 under the heading of " The Three Kabeiroi.") 
 
 MANY a reader will have already detected that the 
 Revolving-Heavens, the Axis, the Polestar, and the Great 
 , Bear theories very considerably neglect the Sun ; 
 suii-'om-shij'. y ^j^j j^^y have been wondering why the Sun has as 
 yet been scarcely mentioned. The fact is that the present student 
 is not a Sun-worshipper, in so far as Cosmic and Cosmogonic 
 mainspring myths are radically concerned ; and it was the manifest 
 insufficiency of the solar theories to account for such myths that 
 first prompted the elaboration of this Inquiry. 
 
 The most recent and valuable resume of this subject that I am 
 aware of is in the chapter on Aryan mj-ths in Dr. Isaac Tajlor's 
 Origin of the Aryans. In my section on " Polar versus Solar 
 Worship" this subject is also touched upon ; and a great deal of 
 further matter upon the point is even kept out ; for it is really 
 beyond the present scope of this Inquiry. But it may here be 
 noted that it is now a good long while since Eusebius in the 
 Pi'ceparatio Evangclica ridiculed, with a good deal of humour, 
 the old theories which resolved so many m}'thical heroes into 
 the Sun. He remarked that while one school was contented 
 to regard Zeus as mere fire and air, another school recognised 
 him as the higher Reason ; while Herakles, Dionusos, Aoollo 
 and Asklepios (father and child) were all indifferently the 
 Sun. Mr. Lang has seized upon this in his Ulyt/i, Ritual, and 
 Religion (i, 17). 
 
 Professor Rhys in his Hibbert Lectures on Celtic Heathendom 
 (of which I venture to predict that the more they are studied the 
 
 ' Prof. Rhys's ///WwY Zt-rf^/v.f, 431. 
 
The Night of tJie Gods. 
 
 greater will their value appear) says (p. 435) that the divine hero 
 "Cuchulainn is the Sun, but the sun as a person about whom a 
 mass of stories have gathered, some of which probably never had 
 any reference to the sun. So it is in vain to search for a solar key 
 to all the literature about him." This is true not alone of 
 Cuchulainn but of every so-called Solar hero and god in the 
 pantheon. 
 
 Professor Rhys has some further natural and cogent observa- 
 tions (pp. 379, 466) about the group of mj-thic beings loosely 
 called dawn-goddesses ; and suggests that at least some of them 
 would be as correctly named dusk-goddesses. He even goes so 
 far as to say that Dcrborgaill behaves in the same way as " a 
 goddess of dawn and dusk." 
 
 The da\\n-m3-th is a sweetly poetical and entrancing fantasy ; 
 but it has been done to death. Athene springing from the 
 ■) forehead of Zeus was " the light of dawn flashing out 
 -• With sudden splendour (which it doesn t) "at the 
 edge of the Eastern sky"; and Hephaistos splitting open that 
 forehead \\\t\\ his axe personified the unrisen Sun. Romulus was 
 the dawn and Remus was the twilight. Saoshyant the Zoroastrian 
 Messiah is to come from the region of the Dawn. The same might 
 be maintained of most of the stars in the hca\-cns : they too rise 
 " from the region of the Dawn " ! Astarte (Ashtoreth and 
 Ishtarit) the queen of heaven, was the goddess of the Dawn. 
 Melusine and Raimond de Toulouse were the dawn and the sun. 
 Hermes was a dawn-god or the son of the dawn, or else twilight. 
 Prokris and Kephalos were the dawn and the sun. Erinnys was 
 the dawn, and so was Daphne. Cinderella " grey and dark and 
 dull," was "Aurora the Da\\-n with the fairy Prince who is the 
 morning Sun ever pursuing her to claim her for his bride." Sarama, 
 the Dog of Indra, and the mother of dogs, was (like Ushas and 
 Aruna ! ) the dawn. Penelope was the dawn ; and her fortune was 
 the golden clouds of dawn ; and she was also the twilight ; and 
 her Web was the dawn also, which is perhaps the reductio of the 
 whole thing ad absurdum. The Web (as here viewed in the 
 chapter headed "Weaving") is the gorgeous \'eil of the Universe- 
 god : 
 
 So schaff' ich am sausenden Webstuhl der Zeit, 
 Und wirke der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid. 
 
 1 hus the dawn- maidens and the sun-lieroes are now farther to 
 
Dispiitatio Circular is. 
 
 seek than ever ; and (contrary to what was once beheved, as 
 above) Aphrodite's identification with Istar has, says Dr. Isaac 
 Taylor, put an end to her appearance in the part of the Dawn ; 
 while Athene, instead of being the same dawn "creeping over 
 the sky," is now " thought to be " the lightning. In the case of 
 all these dawn and solar explanations of the supremest deities, it 
 always seems to be forgotten that the day, the period of the 
 heavens-revolution, not alone included the night, but began with 
 it. That the dawn, the clouds, twilight, and so forth, which 
 are mere transient though striking phases of the Sphere, should 
 (in the firm belief of modern scientists) have not alone masked 
 but blotted out the Eternal reality of the Heavens from the 
 great body of human worshippers in ages long vanished, and so 
 have got the upper hand in myth-ravelling, may well give us 
 pause. 
 
 However, one must be cautious not to swing-back with the 
 pendulum too far in the other direction ; but to admit the Sun to 
 its full share (and no more) of original and sj-ncrcted and 
 assimilated mythic significance and symbolism. 
 
 Dr. Isaac Taylor, in one of his masterly resunies in the 
 Origin of the Aryans, says that of all the Sanskrit analogies, 
 that of Ouranos and Varuna has alone survived. But before 
 sounding the Hallali ! over even this, we might humbly trust 
 that it may be given to us to see why there was a Zeus Ovptoi; ; 
 why ovpo'i was a socket and ovpa a tail ; why ovpof was a term 
 or boundary as well as a mountain ; why ovpov was a boundar)' 
 as well as space; and why (Ursa Major and Minor being 
 roundabout the Pole) ursus^, ursa, ours (French) and ors 
 (Provencal) are so close to ovpo(; ; and why Kvro^Ovpa, Dog- 
 Tail, was a name for the Little Bear and the Polar star. Why 
 should not Ovpai'of and Ovpavia be the dual deity of the 
 Extreme of the heavens, like the Chinese Grcat-E.xtrcmc, Tai-Ki 
 the Polar deity? This would make plain all these points, and 
 also explain (as is shown in the course of this Inquiry') the 
 name of XTaXtVOvpo?. Ovpav6<; would thus have been the deity 
 of the highest polar extreme heavens, before his name came 
 to signify b}' extension the whole sky. Dr. O. Schrador 
 
 ' Ursiis is now, I believe, consideicd to be certainly identified witli the Greek, lipkroi, 
 see p. 46. 
 
24. The Night of the Gods. 
 
 says that "an Indo-European' form for Greek Oi)/jaz'os' = Sanskrit 
 Varuna has not yet been found. "" 
 
 The farbackest instance now extant of this idea of the Tail of 
 the heavens is perhaps to be found in the explanation of the 
 stellar universe preserved to us in the Vislinu-purana, where it has 
 the shape of a porpoise, Sisumara, at the heart of which is Vishnu, 
 while Dhruva the Polestar-god is in its tail. " As Dhruva turns 
 he causes the sun moon and other planets to revolve also ; and 
 the lunar asterisms follow in his circular course, for all the 
 celestial lights are in fact bound to the Polestar by airy 
 cords. "^ Thus — not to be irreverent — it was the tail that wagged 
 the dog. 
 
 ' It is proposed in this Iii/jiiiiy to employ Mr. E. R. Wh.irton's convenient and 
 logical term Celtindic instead of Indo-Celtic, Indo-Gernianic, Indo-European or Ar)-an. 
 Under the heading of " The White Wall " it is also suggested that the genuine original 
 signification of the Aiyans was the pright, Ti'ltitc, shining star-gods of the heavens ; and 
 that the adjectival name was taken by priests and people from their gods, from whom, by 
 a universal human bent, they claimed and traced their descent. 
 
 - Jevons's Prchist. Aryan Antiq. 412. See also the note at p. 46. 
 
 •> ,See what is said elsewhere as to Seirios (.Sirius). 
 
Disputatio Circularis. 25 
 
 THE practical labour in composing this Book has been to 
 collect and focus on the several salient points of the general 
 The Method. \ subjcct some of the endless traces of the Divinities of 
 (again) j )-]^g Universc-machinc, its Axis, and its Poles, which 
 are to be found scattered and lost or in the curious condition of 
 the open secret in myth, legend, etymon, sacred literature, or 
 common idioms. That this task is a practically endless one has 
 been often forced in upon the writer ; but the best that could be 
 done in a limited number of years has been done ; and now that 
 the snowball has once been set rolling it may perhaps more 
 rapidly accrete. One-man-power is a sadly insufficient force (sadly 
 inefficient too, as the writer keenl)' feels) to apply to such a mass 
 of matter. 
 
 The divine Plato and the marvellous Kant (wrote Schopen- 
 hauer)^ unite their mighty voices in recommending a rule to serve 
 as the method of all philosophising, as well as of all other science 
 Two laws, they tell us : the law of homogeneity and the law 02 
 specification, should be equally observed, neither to the disadvantage 
 of the other. The first law directs us to collect things together into 
 kinds, by observing their resemblances and correspondences ; tc- 
 collect kinds again into species, species into genera, and so on, till 
 at last we come to the highest all-comprehensive conception. As 
 for the law of specification, it requires that we should clearlj 
 distinguish one from another the different genera collected under 
 one comprehensive conception ; likewise that we should not 
 confound the higher and lower species comprised in each genus ; 
 that we should be careful not to overleap any — and so forth. 
 
 The first of these rules (which, Plato answers for it, were flung 
 down from the seat of the gods with the Promethean fire) is, it is 
 trusted, fairly well observed in this Inquiry ; but as for the second 
 — well, the gigantic Octopus of mythology will not rule out as 
 straight as the avenues of a brand-new American city. It is 
 impossible even to arrange the chapters and sub-sections in an 
 
 ' Two Essays by Arthur Schopenhauer. (Bohns .Series, 18S9. ) An admirable 
 anonymous translation. 
 
26 The A'io/ii of the Gods. 
 
 ascending order of relative importance, or to prevent every chapter 
 and sub-section from tangling its tentaculae into every other. 
 
 It is feared also that the constant struggle towards such a 
 logical arrangement, and the endless cross-references indispensable 
 to the student that wrote and the students that read, have ruined 
 all literary effect, and so ensured the fatigue of the most willing 
 reader. For this, the indulgence of his second thoughts is craved. 
 However strong the original desire may have been to make this 
 Book light reading, it was very soon found out in the practical 
 composition of it that the desire was to be another of the myriads 
 that remain unsatisfied. However, by condemning the driest of 
 the stuff to a smaller type, I often venture to invite the reader to 
 that blessed pastime of skipping, which has so much to do with the 
 flourishing of circulating libraries ; and even — it is sad to think — 
 with the popularity of " our best authors." 
 
 To provide an antidote, in the absence of a preventive of all this 
 faultiness, a very full Index is offered. And thus, to those who 
 I find the book dislocated and discursi\'e, and therefore 
 •* obscure, I shall not have the assurance to say, as 
 Stephenson did of the Drinkwater Canal, " Puddle it again ! " ; but 
 shall in all humility ask them to read-up any puzzling point by the 
 Index, which (E. and O. E.) is as good as I could make it. 
 
 A tentative and suggestive rather than a demonstrative 
 treatment of the verj^ complicated and treacherous subjects dealt- 
 with has generally proved imperative. This may convey a 
 sensation of lack of definiteness ; but even that reproach is in such 
 speculations preferable to an accusation of cocksuredness and 
 dogmatism. It has been the constant desire, too, to invite the 
 Reader to draw his own conclusions, rather than to hammer away 
 at him with perpetual and perhaps superfluous pointing of the 
 moral. Every student of mythology must still say, as Sheffield 
 said of his writings : dubius, scd non improbus — full of doubt, but 
 open to proof. And, of course, it goes without telling that the 
 term " Disputatio " is here used in its mildest classic sense of 
 examination, consideration. 
 
 While everywhere " making for " accuracy, endeavours have 
 been also made to avoid iotacismus. As the late and justh- 
 honoured Francois Lenormant wrote' of one of his books : Sans 
 aucun doute on relevera dans ce livrc des fautes, des erreurs. Elles 
 
 ' Oris,Juci lie Ihistoire (iSSo) i, xxi. 
 
Dispiitatio Circularis. 27 
 
 etaient inevitables dans une recherche aussi etendue, sur dcs 
 matieres aussi difficiles. Mais du moins, ce que devront je crois 
 reconnaitre les censeurs meme les plus severes, c'est que I'etude a 
 et6 poursuivie consciencieusement . . . J'ai pu me tromper, 
 mais c'a ete toujours avec une entiere bonne foi, et en me defendant 
 de mon mieux contre I'esprit de systeme. Hume justly admired 
 Rousseau's lament that half a man's nfe was too short a time for 
 writing a book ; while the other half was too brief for correcting it. 
 
 I shall feel very grateful to every one who has the patience to 
 go through this Book in a critical and enquiring frame of mind, 
 Rcadmcamibe\ especially if he will be so good as to communicate 
 natiantk. j ^q j^g (either privately or publicly) the errors and 
 difficulties which must infallibly be detected. The more searching 
 and unsparing the criticisms are, the better will they be for the 
 final result of the Iiiquiiy which is their object. One leading 
 reason for two heads with four eyes being better than one head 
 with two, is that they enjoy the faculty, now generally denied to 
 Sir Boyle Roche's notorious bird, of being in two places at once ; 
 and thus possibly getting independent views of any one object. 
 
 It must be in great part an author's indivestible prejudice for 
 his own production ; but I cannot help thinking that there is 
 something that will remain even after the most destructive 
 criticism of the theories here advocated. One eclatante proof of 
 their likelihood is the universal encounter, the endless ramifications 
 and persistent up-cropping throughout mythology, of the evidences 
 on which they are based. It is hardly credible, either, that false 
 unfounded suppositions should be so coherent in their numerous 
 phases. 
 
 Should any of these theories survive the ordeal to which they 
 are now surrendered, it is hoped that it may be even possible for 
 some few wide readers of critical and willing minds to come 
 together and help in indicating and collecting further evidences of 
 Heavens and Polestar Worship, either in the directions here 
 inadequately sketched out, or in others. 
 
 JOHN O'NEILL. 
 
 Trafalc.ar House, Selling, 
 
 BY Faversham, 
 \2th FtPiiiaiy 1S91. 
 
28 The Night of the Gods. 
 
 \ SHORT series of brief articles on a few of the theories here urged 
 appeared in print some three years ago' ; and I trust I do not con.mit 
 too great a breach of etiquette in here thanking so eminent a publ'cist as mv 
 kind friend Mr. Frederick Greenwood for the space which he afforded them. 
 
 That one writer on any subject human or divine should borrow from others 
 has, at this stage of the literature of the world become inevitable ; and a 
 comparative study like the present necessarily borrows its materials from 
 innumerable quarters ; but nothing has been wittingly taken or set down 
 without acknowledgment (in so far as reasonable space would admit). The 
 crime has been committed from time to time, in matters not of primary 
 importance, of copying references in trustworthy books without actually 
 running them down in the original authorities. And it would have been an 
 endless and fruitless work of repetition to have given individual references to 
 the mere mythological-dictionar)- matter throughout. 
 
 This Inquiry owes much to many friends and to many other writers ; 
 though they are in no way answerable for the present deductions from their 
 facts, and would perhaps hasten to repudiate my theories. There is as yet, 
 thank Heavens, no such thing as orthodoxy in Mythology- ; its field is one vast 
 prairie or rolling veldt, where every man may '" put out '' and trek and lager 
 for himself. 
 
 Some names have already been mentioned, and to these must be added 
 Dr. W. F. Warren, the able and versatile president of Boston University Mass.', 
 whose books on Cosmology are a mass of erudition and suggestion," although 
 many may regret they cannot go all the way with him in some of his conclusions. 
 His active readiness to assist students is well known, and I have often 
 acknowledged my separate obligations throughout this Inquiry 
 
 It was subsequently to an examination of the late Lazarus Geiger's 
 Dn'elopment of the Human Rac^ and M. Henri Gaidoz's Le Dieu Gaulois du 
 Soldi et le svmbolisme de la Roue,'' that the ^^'heel and Winged Sphere theories 
 here advocated took their final shape. The name of the latter distinguished 
 mythologist and Celtic scholar is frequently invoked ; and his criticisms have 
 been highly valued. 
 
 To Professor Sayce of Oxford and Professor Gustav Schlegel of Leiden I 
 am indebted for kmd encouragement, interest in my labours, and suggestions. 
 To the latter's wonderful Uranogtaphie Chinoise most of the matter on the 
 Chinese Sphere is due: and with great generosity he has read my proof-sheets. 
 
 My manuscript was indexed before reading Professor Robertson Smith's 
 
 ' "Northern Lights,"' in the St. James's Ga:ett£, December 1SS7. 
 
 - E.g. The true Key to ancient Cosmo/o^' and ^lythieal Geography, and Para^iise 
 Found : The cradle of the human race at the North Pole. 
 
 ^ Lectztrcs atid Dissertations. Translation of Dr. David Asher : TriiLncr s iSSo. 
 "* Paris, Leroiix, 1SS6. 
 
Disputatio Ciiru/aris. 29 
 
 Religion of Ihc Semites (vol. i). The valuable corroborative references to 
 that very able book have therefore been inserted after this Book was practically 
 complete. I owe him besides my thanks for his personal encouragement and 
 criticism. 
 
 Some of Sir G. Birdwood's work upon symbol questions was still, he 
 regrets to confess, unstudied by the writer when the MS. was ready for the 
 press ; still, several references (notably as to the deduction of the number 
 Seven from Ursa Major) have, even so been inserted ; and the writer has 
 besides to express his indebtedness to that authority upon Indian symbolism 
 for excellent suggestions and much too indulgent criticism. 
 
 Mr. Herbert D. Darbishire of St. John's College, Cambridge, an expert in 
 classical etymology, has been good enough to go through some of the work, 
 and to point out the most erratic of my views. Of course he is in no way 
 answerable for any of my aberrations. 
 
 Japanese mythology has been taken as the starting-point of the Inquiry, 
 partly because of a slender acquaintance of some years' standing with 
 Japanese,' and chiefly because of its aptness to the matter in hand, and its 
 general neglect. In this I have to acknowledge the greatest obligations to my 
 old friends Mr. E. M. Satow and Mr. \Y. G. Aston, the authorities on the 
 subject, whose patience in bearing with me is far beyond the return of ordinary 
 gratitude. Attention is also frequently drawn to Professor B. H. Chamberlain's 
 labours, especially his great translation of the Kojiki, so profitable to the 
 student. 
 
 It is hoped that the Chinese characters and Egyptian hieroglyphs scattered 
 through the book will not frighten people away. They are often inserted only 
 to save certain students the trouble of referring to other books. The writer's 
 acquaintance with either language is limited in the extreme, and he has here to 
 express his obligations to his old friend Professor R. K. Douglas and Mr. 
 E. A. Wallis Budge of the British Museum for their very kind correction of his 
 blunders in these matters. 
 
 All the facts relating to the Dervishes have been submitted to the excellent 
 Sheikh of the Mevlevi Tekke of Cyprus, the devout and kindly Esseid Mustafa 
 Safvet Dede, to whom I am indebted for many facts, and for the stones of the 
 Dervishes which are here figured. 
 
 The lowest deep of ingratitude would be reached by anyone who works 
 steadily at myth, symbol, and religion if he did not again and again declare the 
 fruit he has at every handsturn gathered from Professor F. Max Midler's 
 valiant undertaking and great achievement, The Sacred Books of the East. The 
 valuable work especially of M. James Darmesteter, Dr. Legge, and Mr. E. W. 
 West in the volumes of that series has been perpetually used and referred-to 
 throughout. And in this connection should again be mentioned another most 
 important Japanese sacred book (which is not in the Series) Mr. B. H. 
 Chamberlain's Kojiki.- 
 
 ' Nishi-Higashi Kotoba no Yenishi ; A first Japanese Book for English students, 
 by John O'Neill ; London, Harrison & Sons, 1S74. 
 - Trans. As. Soc. Japan, vol. x. 
 
3° 
 
 The sNight of the Gods. 
 
 f n n 1 1 
 
 T 
 
 T 1 ? f 
 
 ' \ \ \ l\ 
 
 f 4^ n i T -1- 
 
 t I t 1 i 1 
 
Axis Myths. 
 
 I The Axis as Spear, Pike, or Pal. 
 
 2. The God Picus. 
 
 3. Divine names in Pal-. 
 
 4 The Rod and Rhabdomancy. 
 
 5. The Fleur-de-Lis at the Axis-point. 
 
 6. The Trident. 
 
 7. The Aopv and'ApTr;; of Kronos. 
 
 8. Divine Karnes in Harp- and Dor-. 
 
 I. — The Spear, Pike, or Pal. 
 
 IN the cosmogony which the Japanese fondly beheve to be 
 purely native, all the heavenly gods, the Kami, designate two 
 of their number, Izanagi and Izanami, male and female, 
 brother and sister, to " make, consolidate, and give birth " to the 
 land of Japan. For this purpose they are provided with a 
 heavenly spear made of "a jewel." The pair stood on the " floating 
 Bridge of Heaven," and stirred round the ocean with the spear' 
 until the brine was churned into the foam which has given their 
 German name to Meerschaum pipes. As the spear was withdrawn, 
 some of this coagulated matter, or curdled foam, dropped from its 
 point, and was heaped-up until it became an island, the name of 
 which means self-curdled, Onogoro. 
 
 This Island has long been our property in Greek myth. Delos 
 was the centre or hub of the Cyclades, which were so called " from 
 a wheel," utto kvk\ov, and were situated Trepl avTi-jv T?}y AyXov, 
 around this very Delos ; and Ar;Xo9 (Sc'eXo?) also meaning manifest, 
 it was said that the island was so called because it became manifest, 
 suddenly emerged from the sea. This seems a truly extraordinaiy 
 parallel to Onogoro the " self-formed " (or curdled) island ; and as 
 for its churning there is the similar operation, the " cycling" of the 
 
 ' Mr. B. H. Chamberlain's Koiihi, pp. iS, 19. 
 
32 The Night of the Gods. {Axis 
 
 Cyclades, of which Dcloswas the nucleus, the centre. One account 
 of its origin said Poseidon with one blow of his trident made it 
 surge from the bottom of the ocean, a still further amazing 
 coincidence with the Japanese legend, for it gives us the spear of 
 Izanagi. Delos floated at first, but became fixed when Lato had 
 brought forth, at the (Universe) Olive-tree there, or else when her 
 son Apollo fixed it. The coming of Lato to the island, if the name 
 be understood of a stone-pillar, an al-Lat, is a reproduction of the 
 pillar of the Japanese island. 
 
 [The Reader must get at least as far as " Divine names in Lat-" before 
 giving its full weight to this.] 
 
 The orders to the Japanese pair were "to malce, consolidate, and 
 give birth to this drifting land."^ Hatori Nakatsune, a celebrated 
 native commentator, said that Onogoro was originally at the North 
 Pole but was subsequently moved to its present position." 
 
 Another name of Dclos, ^Oprv^/ia, may have nothing to do with 
 the opTv^ or quail, as an old construing would have it. It may be, 
 I suggest, from opco to stir- up, to rise (we have exactly what we 
 want in the Latin ortus, from orior) and 7); or 'yea or lyala, the 
 Earth (although I believe that under the philological rules of letter- 
 changes as they stand there is no way in which either '■^/ala or 7)} 
 could become -7(0). If however opTvyta and oprv^ are to be 
 referred to a same origin, we should have to take the sense of 
 "dancing "or twirling: Latin verto, Lithuanian wersti turn, Welsh 
 gwerthyd spindle, Sanskrit \-art turn, vartakas quail ; which would 
 make it the turned land ; and would entail a meaning absolutely 
 similar to that of all the Varshas of Hindu mj'thic cosmogony. It 
 would thus be the churned, or the up-risen land. Yet another 
 Delos origin-myth is this : Asterie was the daughter of Polos (the 
 polar deity?) and mother of Hcrakles ; or (?//;v she was daughter 
 of the Titan Koios — the hollower (of the heavens) ?, and sister of 
 Lato. Zeus cast her into the Cosmic Ocean — the fate of 
 innumerable deities — and where she fell arose the island of Asteria 
 or Ortugia or Delos. Asterie was also changed into a quail, which 
 is a variant of the muddle already mentioned, and really means 
 that Asterie and Ortugia were one and the same. 
 
 Again we have the churning idea in the Strophadcs, the turning- 
 islands, of the Argo-voyage. They were also called Plotes, the 
 Floaters. "And so it is that men call those isles the isles of 
 
 ' Kojiki, p. iS. - Mr. E. M. Satow's Ftirc Shinto, 5S. 
 
Myths7\ The Spear Pike or Pal. 33 
 
 turning, though aforetime they called them the floating isles. "^ 
 The change of name was connected with the descent of the 
 bird-gods, the harpies. 
 
 Rhodes, spun on the golden spindle of Lachesis at the prayer 
 of Helios, is I venture to suggest a similar myth (see " The 
 Romaunt of the Rose," later on) ; and so is Corcyra (Corfu) whose 
 name K-opKvpa comes from KepKL^, a spindle. EupuTruXo? son of 
 Poseidon, or a Triton, gave a c/oci of earth to EiJ(|);;/A09, another son 
 of Poseidon, and an Argo-sailor, light in the course, skilful in 
 chariot-driving. This clod fell into the Ocean, or was thrown into 
 it by Euphemos on the counsel of Jason (Icson) ; and on the 
 instant became the island Kalliste. Here, though we have no 
 spear, we have a i'/v'dent-god, the T'r/ton. 
 
 In the ArgoHautikon (iv, 1552, 1562) Triton, in the guise of a 
 youth, takes up the clod, and Euphemos (The Good Word.') accepts 
 it, and has a very strange vision about it (1734 etc.) which recalls 
 the union of heavens and earth. The clod speaks as a woman, 
 says she is the daughter of Triton, and asks to be given back to the 
 deep nigh unto the Isle of Appearing, 'Avdipij, " and I will come 
 back to the sunlight." He flings the clod, the /3&)\o9, into the deep 
 (1756), and therefrom arose the island Kalliste (that is the most 
 beauteous, simply) also called Theres or Thera ; which is one of 
 our Divine names in The-. Theras son of Autesion (Self-made ?) 
 brought men there, after the time of Euphemos. This brings the 
 voyage of the Argo (in th.&_ Argonatitikon) somewhat abruptly to an 
 end. But the event and the ending may be thought perfectly 
 appropriate, if it be looked upon as a legend of the creation of the 
 Earth by the divine Word. The previous voyage of the Argo 
 would thus be a pre-terrestrian series of celestial cosmic legends ; 
 and if this view be novel, it is not devoid of supports. 
 
 [See too what is said of Crete under the head of the Loadstone mountain.] 
 
 I think no other interpretation of any of these " islands " will 
 suffice, except that which views them all as allegories of the Earth 
 itself. And I now (upon the completion of the MS. of this 
 Ltquiiy) add the deliberate conclusion that this churning of the 
 Island is a leading and world-%vide Creation-myth, of which the real 
 significance is the spinning, stirring-round, or churning of the Earth 
 {figured-forth as insiilatcd in the Universe) by Deity, out of the 
 Cosmic Ocean of the Waters, the Chaos of other cosmogonies. The 
 
 ' Ar^onmitikon, ii, 296. 
 
 C 
 
34 The Night of t/ic Gods. \A. 
 
 xis 
 
 Hindu Bharata (or Churned?) Varsha may be another example of 
 the myth. 
 
 Another island, which must reluctantly be left for future investigation is 
 " the isle of Elektra daughter of Atlas " where the Argo was beached in order 
 that her crew might be initiated.' This island is explained as SamoThrake, the 
 mysteries being those of the Kabeiroi, patrons of mariners. But it was also 
 nigh to the heavens-river Eridanos," was sacred, and was the chiefest of isles. 
 The Argonauts also visited the island of Kirke, and in describing their visit to 
 Korkura (Corcyra) Apollonius' gave us its oldest name of Drepane, and the 
 legend of the origin of that name, which was that beneath it lay the drepane or 
 sickle with which Kronos mutilated his sire, alias the harpe in fact. This 
 sickle was also said to be the " harpe " of A>;a) Xfioyia, that is the Earth-goddess 
 DeJNIeter ; for Deo once lived in that land, and taught the Titans to reap the 
 corn-crop for her love of Makris (which is too cryptic and perhaps corrupt to 
 arrest us). Makris was also a name of the island, and so was Scherie or 
 Scheria (Order ? Law, Tao). However much these incidents and names have 
 got muddled, they indicate the Earth, as an island in the Universe-Ocean. Its 
 inhabitants the Phaiekcs were of the blood of Ouranos. 
 
 We have the island turning up later in Japano-Buddhic myth 
 when an Apsaras appears in the clouds over the spot inhabited 
 by a dragon. An island suddenly rises up out of the sea, she 
 descends upon it and there espouses the dragon who is thus 
 becalmed.* 
 
 "According to Babylonian thought, the Earth came forth from 
 the waters, and rested on the waters."^ 
 
 The island Hawaiki, the only land then known, perhaps, is clearly put for 
 the Earth in a New Zealand h)-mn which says '" the sky that floats abo%'e dwelt 
 with Hawaiki and produced " certain other islands. Hawaiki here is for Papa 
 the Earth-goddess, and the sky for Rangi the heavens-god.'' 
 
 There is another curious parallel to part of the Japanese 
 creation-legend, in the Hindu allegory in which the gods and the 
 demons, standing opposite to each other, use the great serpent 
 Vasuki as a rope, and the mountain Meru or Mandara as a pivot 
 and a churning-rod — the "properties" have got mixed — and churn 
 the milky ocean of the universe violently until fourteen inestimable 
 typical objects emerge.' One of these is the Universe-Tree 
 Parijati, bearing all the objects of desire. 
 
 Plate 49 in Moor's Hindu Panilicon clearly makes the mountain a central 
 
 ' Afgon., i, 916. " Argon., iv, 505. ^ Argon., iv, 990. 
 
 ■* Satow and Hawes's Handbook. 
 " Dr. E. G. YJm^s, Akkadian Genesis (iSSS), p. 32. 
 ^ Taylor : Nezu Zealand, p. 1 10. 
 
 " Guignaut's Creuzer's Relig. de rAntiij., i, 1S4. Sir Monier Williams : IJindiii-sni, 
 10^ ; Kcl. Tliougfit and Life in India, i, 108, 34:]. 
 
Mj'i/is.~\ The Spear Pike or Pal. 33 
 
 conical axial peak. It rests on the Tortoise (Vishnu in the Kurmavatara), and 
 Vishnu in youthful human form is seated on the summit of Mandara. Vishnu 
 is also seen among the gods who, pull-devil-pull-baker fashion, haul the serpent 
 Vasuki against the horned Asuras. 
 
 The modern Japanese commentator Hirata Atsutane (1776-1843) said that 
 the stirring round with the spear was the origin of the revolution of the earth.' 
 Sir Edward Reed" repeated this theory of the spear being the Axis from Hatori 
 Nakatsune ; and Dr. Warren^ cites Sir E. Reed. It would be extremely 
 interesting if we could consider this to be an indigenous idea ; but it must not 
 be forgotten that there was one important modern source of information as to 
 Western Ptolemaic Astronomy which was doubtless open to Hirata, in the 
 treatises written in Chinese by the Jesuit Missionaries to China, by Sabatin de 
 Ursis in 161 1 and Emmanuel Diaz in 1614, and by others later.^ Hirata too 
 may have acquired at Nagasaki soine further tincture of Western learning. 
 
 Another case of creation by the spear is the achievement of 
 Athene when she struck the ground and brought forth the Ohve. 
 Here we get the two axis-symbols of the tree and spear together ; 
 and the spear-axis not merely produces the Earth but the whole 
 Universe, which the tree figures forth. And was not the aged 
 stump of this fallen miracle shown in the temple of Erechtheus 
 on the Acropolis of Athens,'^ as the original of all the olive-trees in 
 the world ? 
 
 There is yet another strange parallel to the Japanese spear- 
 myth in Garcilasso de la Vega.'' The Inca told him that Our 
 Father (the Sun) sent down from heaven two of his children, son 
 and daughter, near the Marsh (Japanese i'\shihara) of Titicaca ; 
 and when they desired to rest anywhere, they were to stick into 
 the ground a golden rod, two fingers thick and half-an-ell long, 
 which he expressly gave them as an infallible sign of his will that 
 wherever it would enter the earth at one push, there he desired 
 that they should halt, establish themselves, and hold their court. 
 After several fruitless efforts, the golden rod pierced the ground at 
 the site of Cuzco, and embedded itself so completely that they 
 never saw it more. We shall see that Cuzco was an omphalos. 
 
 Hatori's and Hirata's gloss that Onogoro, when formed, lay under the Pivot 
 of the vault of heaven, the North Pole, although it has since moved to the 
 present latitude of Japan — may (or may not) conceal a recognition of the revolu- 
 tion of the equatorial round the equinoctial pole, which revolution is completed 
 n about 25,868 j-ears. Of course this causes no change of the terrestrial pole. 
 
 ^ Pure Shinto^ 68. '^ Japan ^ i, 31. ^ Paradise Found, 141. 
 
 ■* Wylie : Notes on Chinese Literature, 87. * Botticher : BaumcuU, 107, 423. 
 
 ' Baudoin's French edition, Aniste dam 1704, i, 63, 66. 
 
 C 2 
 
3'' The A'iglit of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 It is at least curious that the churning legend could also be fitted to 
 the theory of the evolution of solar systems from revolving nebulous matter, 
 to which attention will again be directed farther on as regards a Chinese 
 speculation. 
 
 [Professor Oliver Lodge,' in adopting Sir Wm. Thomson's theory of vortex 
 atoms, has suggested a universal substance in space, some portions of which 
 are either at rest, or in simple irrotational rnotion, while others are in rotational 
 motion — in vortices, that is. These whirling portions constitute what we call 
 matter ; their motion gives them rigidity. This is a modern view of Ether and 
 its functions. — Nature i Feb. 1883, p. 330.] 
 
 This mythic Spear may be recognised again in the shadowless 
 lance- which in the Alexander legends the hero plucks either out 
 of Atlas or out of the topmost peak of the Taurus mountains ; and 
 in the golden blade with which the Iranian Jemshid pierced the 
 bosom of the earth. ^ 
 
 The Nagelring sword of Nithathr and of Hotherus in Saxo Grammaticus 
 {Hist. Dan. p. no) belongs to the same armour)'.' It is made by Volund (that 
 is Weyland the smith, Hephaistos) and is of untold value ; getting possession 
 of it puts the Asa-gods to flight ; it is in the remote regions of the direst frost ; 
 in a subterranean cave (that is, plunged in the Earth) ; Nithathr surprises 
 Volund and takes the sword ; its companion is a mar\-elIous Ring, which 
 becomes an arm-ring in the myths, and is called Draupnir, from which eight 
 rings (making nine) drop every ninth night. V'olund's smithy (the heavens) is 
 therefore full of rings. 
 
 The hasta set up in the ground during the judicial debates of 
 the centumvires is another re-appearance of the Axis, at the point 
 of which sits the world-judge. (Hasta posita pro rede Jovis 
 Statoris. Cicero, Phil, ii, 26, 64) and the Sheriff's javelin-men 
 doubtless give us a relict of the Roman curis, of the spear of the 
 judge of heaven. 
 
 The pair of Japanese Kami immediately took possession of 
 their island — which, as above, we must by extension, understand 
 as the Earth — and having firmly planted their spear therein, made 
 a heavens-Pillar of it.'' Heaven and earth were then very close to 
 each other, we are told, and so, when this divine couple sent their 
 daughter, Amaterasu, or Heaven-shine, to rule as goddess of the 
 Sun the lofty expanse of heaven, she went up the Pillar or 
 
 ^ Lecture cit London Institution, December 1SS2, - Paradise Found, 135. 
 
 ^ Guignaut's Creuzer's Retig. de VAnt,, i, 335, 375. 
 
 '■ Rydberg's Tent. Mylli., 1SS9, p. 430. ' Chamberlain's k'oiiki, 19, 3:2. 
 
Myths^ The Spear Pike or Pal. 37 
 
 Hashira.^ The name Amaterasu has as strong a likeness as can 
 well be expected to Pasi-phae (see Index) ; note, too, that the 
 Japanese legend recognises her existing before she was made sun- 
 goddess. Heaven-shine is thus her name ; the Greek being 
 " to-All-shine." It is notable that in the SatapatJia-Brahmana" it 
 is said that " in the beginning, yonder sun was verily here on 
 earth." 
 
 The thesis favoured throughout this Inquiry will be that tJtis 
 spear and pillar are but symbols of the Earth-axis ami its prolongation, 
 that is of the Universe-axis itself as it seemed [and still seems) to be 
 ivhen the Earth zvas quite naturally taken to be the centre of the 
 cosmos ivhich perpetually revolved round that axis. It must be 
 remembered that this supreme, sublime, motion of the megacosm 
 was patent only at night, and that its majestic progress could be 
 noted only by the stars. The Axis upon which the stupendous 
 machine turned itself thus became an all-important origin of 
 endless symbols in, as is here suggested, a heavens-worship of the 
 very remotest and most faded antiquity, a worship which culminates 
 in the adoration of the Polar deity's self 
 
 Eventually when Ninigi, the first divine ruler of Japan, had 
 been duly appointed, and had descended, Heaven and Earth drew 
 apart, and actual connection between them ceased.' " The 
 separation of Heavens and Earth" is the Japanese phrase 
 which answers to our " beginning of the world."'' The Chinesy 
 preface to the Kozhiki makes an exposition of this cosmical 
 philosophy as follows : " I Yasumaro' say : Now when Chaos 
 had begun to condense, but force and form were not yet manifest, 
 and there was naught named, naught done ; who could know its 
 shape .' Nevertheless Heavens and Earth first parted, and the 
 Three Kami" performed the commencement of creation. The 
 Passive and Active essences then developed, and the Two Spirits 
 became the ancestors of all things." The passive and active 
 
 ' Trans. As. Soc. Jap., vii, 419. " Eggeling's, ii, 309. ^ rurc Sliiiito, 51. 
 
 ■* Mr. Chamberlain's A'ojiki, pp. xxi, 4, 15. 
 
 ^ Futo no Yasumaro, a pure Japanese imbued with Chinese culture, and editing the 
 Kozhild, here writes. His death is recorded on 30th August A. D. 723. 
 
 ^ This triad is the Lord of the awful Mid-heavens Ame no Minaka-Nushi, the Lofty- 
 Dread-Producer Taka Mi-Musubi, and the Divine-Producer Kami-Musubi. "These 
 three Kami were all alone-born Kami, and hid their beings." 
 
38 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 powers are here the Chinese Yin and Yang ; and the two Spirits 
 with whom Yasumaro identified them were Izanami and Izanagi. 
 
 In a New Zealand myth, Rangi and Papa, Heavens and Earth 
 the universal parents, were once closely joined (see Index) but 
 were at length separated by one of their children, the god of 
 forests' ; a reminder of Goethe's saying : Order has been taken 
 that the trees shall not grow through the sky. 
 
 [It is odd that in archaic Japanese the modern haha (mother) is supposed 
 to ha\c h&tn papa, which word is remarkable, says Mr. B. H. Chamberlain ; 
 " for most languages possessing it or a similar one, use it not to denote mother 
 but father. "= Ukko and Akka are the names which were gi\en among the 
 Finns to father heavens and mother earth.'] 
 
 The idea of the former union and later separation of heaven 
 and earth is also to be found in the Aitareya-brd/iinana^ ; and it i.s, 
 of course, ever present in Chinese cosmical philosophy. Another 
 form or off-shoot of the myth is the union of Kronos with Rhea, 
 who in Phrygia and generally in Asia Minor was the goddess of 
 forests and mountains.'' 
 
 Photius (citing Eutychius Proclus of Sicca) said the Greek epic 
 cycle began with the fabled union of heaven and earth." The 
 conceit is still too the common property of the poets as part of 
 the ubiquitous idea of a Fall : 
 
 In the Morning of the World, 
 
 when Earth was nigher Heaven than now. — (Pippa Passes.) 
 
 We still uphold in our " Mother-Earth " half the idea which is 
 completed by the Sanskrit d}aus-Pita, the Greek Zeus-Pater and the 
 Latin Ju-Piter=P'ather-Sky (or Heavens). The Finnish Mother- 
 Earth, Maa-emae or Maan-emo is consort of Ukka,' as Jordh is of 
 Odin, Papa of Rangi, or Ge of Ouranos. 
 
 [The subject of the Spear, Lance, pal, curis, spike, pike, and sword, runs 
 through the whole Inquiry like a file through its leaves ; and the Reader is 
 recjuested to refer to the pages treating on Ares and the Curetes ; and above al 
 to the Inde.\, to which patient attention cannot too often be invited.] 
 
 [The chain of gold fastened from heaven, by which Zeus boasts in the Iliad 
 (viii) that he could hang gods and earth and sea to a pinnacle of Olympus, may 
 be a variant of the Universe-axis myth. 
 
 ' Lang's Custom a>td Mytli, 4S ; Tylor's Prim. Ciilliirc, i, 290. 
 
 ^ Trans. As. Soc. [apan, xvi, 262. 
 
 •' Castren : FinniscJie JiJytiiologie, pp. 32, S6. 
 
 ■' Muir's Saiisl;rit Texts, v, 23. * Tide : Kronos, \> 26. 
 
 " Bibl. Didot ; Cycli cpici rcliqiiiii, p. 5S1. 
 
 ' Crawford's Kaltvala (1SS9), p. x.\. 
 
Myths:\ The Spear Pike or Pal. 39 
 
 A chain or thread of gold was part of the head-gear of Great Maine, the 
 mythic ancestor of the HyMany, and the son of Niall of the Nine hostages, who 
 appears in so many Irish pedigrees, but must be equated with the equally 
 mythic Welsh Neol. Maine, Mane or Mani, again, is identical with the Welsh 
 Menyw of Arthur's Court.'] 
 
 ' Prof. Rhys's Hibbert Lectures, 374, 375. 
 
4° 
 
 Tlic Nig/ti of the Gods. 
 
 \Axis 
 
 2. — The God Picu.s. 
 
 PICUS the father of Faunus ( = Pan?) seems to be a Pike, 
 Spear, or Axis god. He was the son of Saturnus ( = Kro- 
 nos). Faunus was also said to be the son of Mars, which equates 
 Picus the pike-god and ]\Iars the spear-god. He was also father 
 of Fauna the Bona Dea, (whose true name was taboo) an alias of 
 C\'bele. 
 
 Fauna also meant good, and thus of course, being connected with fauere 
 to be propitious, implied good fortune, which gives me a desired connection 
 with the central lucky emblems. Faunus it was said became a serpent in his 
 relations with Fauna,' which gives us a connection with the Egyptian Axa 
 serpent. 
 
 The changing of Picus into a picus-^'/Vv/, a pie, is a muddling 
 of words, favoured by the archaic conditions -which have brought 
 peck and beak from the same root a.s pike. It is odd that there is a 
 similar contact — not to call it confusion — in the case of apirri (see 
 later) w hich means both a weapon and a bird. 
 
 Dr. O. Schrader makes the picus (OHG specht) into the woodpecker. 
 I\Ir. E. R. Wharton says OHG speh magpie goes rather with specio ; but he 
 too makes picus a woodpecker. 
 
 The following is a philological table of the matter as regards 
 Ficus : 
 
 Latin . 
 
 
 
 Picus . 
 picea . 
 
 . The Pike-god. 
 . piniis silvestris. 
 
 French 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 pic 
 bee . 
 
 . peak. 
 . beak. 
 
 Celtic. 
 
 Irish 
 
 11 
 
 
 pice . 
 picidh . 
 
 . pike,/(7r/t. 
 
 . pike, long spear. 
 
 
 Gaelic 
 
 
 pic . 
 
 . pike, weapon. 
 
 
 Welsh 
 11 
 11 
 
 
 picell . 
 
 pig ■ 
 pigo . 
 
 . javelin. 
 
 . pike, beak. 
 
 . to pick, peck, prick. 
 
 
 Cornish 
 
 piga . 
 
 . to prick. 
 
 
 Breton 
 
 pik 
 
 . a pick. 
 
 English 
 
 
 pike . 
 
 . pointed staff. 
 
 „ 
 
 
 peak . 
 
 . variant of pike. 
 
 i' 
 
 
 to peck 
 
 . variant of /<i pick. 
 
 11 
 
 
 beak . 
 
 . variant of pike. 
 
 
 .Mid-English 
 
 pic 
 
 . spike. 
 
 
 ' TrcU 
 
 er : R 
 
 "'in. M)lhi:)l. , iip. 
 
 340, 112 : .ind Gerh.ird. 
 
Myths^ The God Pic us. 41 
 
 Pitchfork or pikforke thus compares with the Trident and Bident. [It is 
 needless here to run down spike, spica &c., which are ahiiost certainly connected, 
 as there was a moveable prefix, s.] 
 
 Picus was king of the Ab-on'gines, that is he was a First-Man. 
 He was besought by all the nymphs of the land (an incident which 
 needs no commentary) but gave his choice to the sweet-voiced 
 Canente (singing), clearly a heavens-harmony goddess, the 
 daughter of lanus and Venilia (ocean-nymph of the Venus class ; 
 also consort of Neptune, and otherwise called Salacia). When the 
 enchantress Circe changed Picus into a picus, Canente faded away 
 in grief, and became (what she always was) vox et prseterea 
 nihil. The fact that she and Picus take their places among the 
 Indigetes, whose real names were taboo, " dii quorum nomina 
 vulgari non licet " [Fcstiis) proves their archaically lofty rank. 
 
 Were the Indigetes indicated by mudras, by a sort of sacred talking on the 
 fingers .' Were they thus \\orshipped as Hindu gods are at this day ? This 
 would make mudras of the indigitamenta. The verb was indlgito and indigeto. 
 
 Circe struck Picus with her Wand to metamorphose him, in 
 revenge for his insensibility. Here we have two figures of the 
 Universe-Axis in actual contact. Picus was, according to Virgil 
 {Ain. vii, 189), a horsey god, a horse-lover, which is a central 
 centaural note of a heavens-deity. 
 
 The province of Picenum took its name from Picus (sabini . . . 
 in vexillo eorum picus consederit — Festus ; where picus must be a 
 pike). In the most extended, that is the mythic, sense, Picenum 
 was the northernmost seat of the Picentes (that is to say the 
 Ab-origines) the Sabines, the Pelasgi and the Umbri, who were 
 all comprised under this general designation.' With Picus must 
 be catalogued the brothers Picumnus and Pilumnus, the companions 
 of Mars (with whom we have above equated Picus). According to 
 Varro and Nonius and every one else they were conjugal gods, 
 beds being set-up for them in the temples ; and they were sons of 
 Jupiter. When a child was born it was stood on the ground with 
 a recommendation to these Axis-gods (stat\XQh^X\\x in terra, ut 
 auspicaretur rcc/its esse — J'^arro). Picuinnus was an Etruscan god. 
 His partner Pilumnus invented the grinding or pounding of corn, 
 whence he is seen to be a pestle-god (and as such has his double in 
 Japan-), and was thus the patron-saint of millers, and said by 
 
 ' Fieund und Theil. 
 
 - The Eastern pestle for pounding rice is about five feet long, and is of wood tipped 
 with iron. It is found in every house, and is connected with many superstitions and 
 
42 The N'ight of the Gods. \Axis 
 
 insufficient m)-thologists to be an actual personification of the 
 pilum. while Picumnus was made a personification of the picus- 
 bird, the pie, quod est absurdum. Pil-umnus deserves contrasting 
 with Col-umnus. The pilum of course was both a javelin and a 
 pestle, whence confusion in sacred words ; Pilumnoe poploe in the 
 hymns of the Salii [Festus) is a good instance of this ; 
 and Mount Pilatus and the superstitions connected with it must 
 be put in the same category. 
 
 Piliat-chuchi seems to be a supreme heavens-god of the Kamschatkans, and 
 FicoUus an ancient Prussian divinity. 
 
 I place here on record, without satisfying myself on the subject, the 
 picataphorus or Eighth house of the astrologer's heavens. It is also the 
 "upper gate," the "idle place," and the "house of death " ; terms which apply to 
 the northern heavens-omphalos. Predictions touching deaths and inheritances 
 are made from it {Nod). To this is appended the Picati whose feet are 
 sphinx-formed (?) : Picati appellantur quidam quorum pedes fonnati sunt in 
 speciem Sphingum : quod eas Dori/zVaj vocant (/s^.y/z^). This " Dori " gives 
 us a connection with the So'pu-spear of Kronos (see later). 
 
 As to the bird pica and picus it must however be borne in 
 mind that it was augural, and was also a sort of fabulous griffin 
 or gryphon, which was called ypiiyjr (an eagle-winged lion, which 
 is one of the four heavens-beasts, see Index). Pici divitiis qui 
 aureos montes (that is the heavens) colunt.^ 
 
 ceremonies. (Hardy: Maiuial of Buddhism, 154.) The Japanese name for it 
 sarikogi. 
 
 ' Nonius, 152, 7. 
 
Myths] Divine A^aines in Pal-. 43 
 
 3. — Divine Names in Pal-. 
 
 f '\ALLAS, I think, must be explained alongside oi TrdWeiv 
 
 B — X.O brandish (a spear), to hurl, wield, drive, cast lots, 
 
 JL vibrate, palpitate. The Pal- must be that preserved to us 
 
 in the French pal a stake or pole, and our own word pale : Latin 
 
 palus and palus. [See Pallas again, lower down.] 
 
 Palace. It is strange, in view of the myths here set out as to 
 the spear or pal forming the tent-pal or pole, the palace-pillar, that 
 a derivation of pal-ace from pal is impregnable. The Pal^^^^x^m, 
 'YVaXivTiov, HaXXai/Ttoy, was said to be the first hill built-on in 
 Rome,^ and ought to be connected with palatum the vault of the 
 heavens, upheld by the pal, which must be considered as the real 
 significance of the word. Palsito (or Palanto or Palanta or Palatia) 
 daughter of Hyperboreus (that is, of the Extreme-North where 
 the axis-pal is), and consort of Latinus, lived there; and there was 
 Pallas buried (Festus), which is clearly a doublet of the same legend ; 
 which was also perpetuated in the worship of the tutelary goddess 
 of the hill, /"tf/atua, with the palatual or palatuar sacrifices. Her 
 priest had the same title as her sacrifices. It is all old, old as the 
 hills. 
 
 If pal alone will not do for pal-atium and pal-atinus ; pal + latium and 
 pal + latinus would ; if we could only get rid of the important difficulty of the 
 single / and the double //, with which Mr. Herbert D. Darbishire here blocks my 
 unorthodox way. All I can urge in extenuation is that we are here engaged 
 upon extremely ancient compound proper names ; which, as Mr. E. R. Wharton 
 states,'' " all writers of etymological dictionaries have agreed to exclude " ; 
 on ne sait pas trop pourquoi. (See also words in lat-, which have to be treated 
 separately). 
 
 On to the Pal-Latinus hill were the divine twins Romulus and 
 Remus (who are thus doublets of the Pahcx twins) brought by 
 Faustulus. Thence Romulus saw the Twelve Vultures; that is, 
 saw the zodiacal signs from the centre of the heavens. (Remus 
 seeing only six vultures from the AveVi\\v\& Bird-hill requires pur- 
 suit). An old theory, revived by Prof F. M. Mtiller,^ brought 
 palatinus from the goddess Pales ; but that is a mere half-way-house, 
 a stage on the journey, just like Palato or Pallas. There was a 
 Palatina laurus before the palace of the Caesars (Ovid. Fast, iv, 
 
 ' Varro, L.L. v, 8, 53. - Etyiiia Latina (1890) p. vi. ■' Lccts. on Laif^., ii, 276. 
 
44 The Night of the Gods. [y4j 
 
 xis 
 
 593), which would Iia\'c represented the universc-laurel-tree (see 
 "AgLauros"). An inscription found in Provence called C}'bcle the 
 great Palatina of Ida. The Salii were called palatini, and this was 
 not from the hill ; both had their names from the same source, and 
 the Salii carried spears, or pals. 
 
 XiaXa'iyiwv son of Athamas and Ino (or of Hephaistos or of 
 Hcraklcs) was an argonaut, and was at first called Melikertes, a 
 Bee-god. His mother was precipitated with him into the Cosmic 
 Ocean, which gives us his and her Fall. Children were sacrificed 
 to him in Tenedos. At Corinth Pausanias recorded an under- 
 ground chapel of his, to which the descent was by a secret stair. 
 He hid there (being thus like many Axis-gods within the Earth), 
 and punished perjury instanter, which makes a central Truth-god 
 of him. The Etruscan Po/Vunus (wrongly Portumnus) clearly a 
 heavens-gate god, was called Palaemon also in Rome. The name 
 divides either as trdX-ai^uiv or TruXai-fj.Qiv ; the latter however is 
 the easier of the two, and would mean the Old-One. He is also 
 called Palaimonios {Apollonius). 
 
 PrtZ-aeno was a Danai'd (Hyginus, Fab. 170). 
 
 /"rt/aMedes is a doublet of Kadmos, in so far as the invention of 
 either four or six letters goes. This he did observing the flight of 
 cranes, which is strangely like the Chinese Fuh-hi discovering the 
 six classes of trigrams or written characters on the back of a 
 heavenly dragon-horse (see Index). 
 
 Fran(;ois Lenormant, upon a careful analysis of all the legends, pronounced 
 for the four letters of PalaMedes being, upon the balance of evidence : a, *, X 
 and I'. Note that the first is the character for the heavens-ocean or river in 
 both Chinese and Egyptian ; that the last is the trident or fleur-de-lis ; that 
 X is the cardinal cross slewed round 45- ; and that * is the universe pierced 
 by its axis. 
 
 There was a saying about losing the birds of PalaMedes, which 
 Martial (xiii, 75) put into a cryptic verse : 
 
 Turbabis versus nee litera tota volabit, 
 unam perdideris si Palamedis avem. 
 Besides, he invented numbers, weights and measures, and the regu- 
 lation of time. He thus still more resembles the Chinese mj-thic 
 ruler \\hom I have suggested to be a central primaeval god, and 
 the same suggestion is also now made as to Palamedes, whose 
 poems were even said by Suidas to have been suppressed by 
 Homer. He was a descendant of Bel, and it is all in the part 
 that a treasure should be foimd in liis tent, and that he should 
 
Myths7\ Divine Names in Pal-. 45 
 
 have his fall, his doom of the gods, by being precipitated into the 
 Cosmic Ocean. The name is probably 7raXa(.-M?;Sj;?, the Old- 
 Central-God. (See Me-Deus). 
 
 Palai(o)polis in the island of Andros had a magic fountain whose water 
 became wine for seven days at the beginning of the year, in January. It was 
 a temple-miracle this ; and the wine re-became water if taken out of the sacred 
 precincts. So was the suspicious inspector then dished by the wily. Palai 
 here is clearly " old." Paleia was also a name of the town Aii^i; or DynicE, a 
 very archaic word, which seems to have survived otherwise only in compounds 
 of ivm, ddfii, to go under, sink, set (the sun). 
 
 Palaistinos (or -us ?) precipitated himself into the waters (river Canosus or 
 Palaestinus or Strymon). 
 
 The Palici form one of the endless celestial pairs of twins. 
 Sons of Jupiter and Thalia or ^tna, their mother, pregnant of 
 them, was at her own prayer swallowed-up by the Earth, whence 
 the twins came forth at the proper time. It is a clear dual-axis- 
 pillar myth. They were also gods of the breakless oath. Macro- 
 bius {Sat. V, 19) and Servius gave this account from a Sicilian poet; 
 and the derivation of the name from TraXiv-'liceo is amusing. Hesy- 
 chius called them sons of Adramus or Adranus (said to be an 
 indigenous Sicilian god) ; but yEschylus made them sons of Zeus. 
 The boiling lake of sulphurous water, near which their temple was 
 placed, was always full but never overflowed, like the fountain of 
 the Peri Banu. The temple was also a sanctuary for maltreated 
 slaves, which reminds of Orestes taking refuge at the Omphalos. 
 There were oracles also given, and human sacrifices made — always 
 a note of supreme central gods. The Palici seem to be a doublet 
 of Romulus and Remus. 
 
 Paliliciicm sidus. This star was said to be the constellation of the Hyades, 
 because clearly seen on the feast of the Palilia (21 April). Could any reason 
 well be more insufficient (Pliny xviii, 26, 66, § 247). 
 
 Palilia or Parilia, the feast of the foundation of Rome, at the 
 beginning of Spring (that is, for both reasons, the creation of the 
 world). Perfumes mixed with horse-blood (which would give a 
 central horse-god connection), and ashes from a whole-burnt un- 
 born calf obtained Ceesar-ways, and from burnt beanstalks, were 
 used for purification at this spring-feast. 
 
 [The ashes still survive in the pagan ritual of Ash-Wednesday, for which 
 the ashes should be obtained from the palms of the previous palm-Sunday. ' 
 The Jews purified with ashes of the burnt red-Cow {Numbers, xix). The Parsis 
 still use ashes from the Bahram fire mixed with bull's urine (gomez).] 
 The worshippers also jumped through the flamma Palilis — no 
 
46 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 doubt of the fire from which these ashes were obtained ; and straw 
 and hay were also burnt for the purpose of this flame (Ovid, Fast. 
 iv, 798). The shepherd's crook, the pedum, which is just the same 
 as the augur's lituus (see Index), must have helped to make the 
 pa/iUa. a shepherd's feast also. 
 
 palea, straw. I think pal was a reed before palea was a straw, 
 and that that is the true explanation of the worldwide ritualistic 
 use of straw, which has been an object of my searches for many 
 years. Instances are the ancient feudal oath by a straw (France) ; 
 the yule {i.e., wheel) straw (Scotland and N. of Ireland) ; the rice- 
 straw roping of sacred trees, shrines and private houses (Japan) 
 and so forth. The great Reed (as in Japan and elsewhere, see 
 Index) represented the Spear (for which it no doubt served in 
 archaic times) that is the axis-pal. And the straw and rush came 
 later to replace or suffice in ritual for the reed, especially in reedless 
 countries. Japan is the Ashi-hara no naka tsu Kuni, the mid-Land 
 of the Reed-expanse, that is the Earth on the axis of the Universe. 
 
 Tra\Lovpo<; the thorn-tree, paliurus, Christ's-thorn. I was near 
 omitting this word, which must be analysed, it is suggested, into 
 ■jrdX and ovpo<; the extremity. 
 
 IlaXlvovpo';. It is strange that this sky-pilot also fell into the 
 Ocean, like so many other gods in Pal-. Martial's shocking pun 
 (iii, 78) ought to be a warning to audacious etymologists : 
 Minxisti currente semel, Paulline, carina : 
 meiere vis iterum, jam Palinurus eris. 
 Natheless will I suggest that ovpot; is the heavens-mountain, and 
 that iraXiv, " again," might have actually taken its fullest signifi- 
 cance from repetitions of the turning of the Universe round its /a/. 
 And I here especially draw attention to the connection between 
 ovpo<;, groove or socket (compare what is said about the axis- 
 socket elsewhere) ; ovpo<;, mountain ; oupof, term, boundary ; ovpa, 
 tail ; ovpov, space, boundary ; Zeus Oupto?'/ Oupia'i (Heb. UriYah 
 = fire of Yah, a companion name to UriEl ; ur = fire, light. Recol- 
 lect urim and thummim = lights and truths) ; ovpo<;, Oi'peu? a 
 watcher ; Oupavo?- the heavens, the heavens-god. The cape of 
 Palinurus would thus be the Xorth pole. 
 
 ' The French ours (Latin ursus, Provcn9al ors) is now, it would seem, identified with 
 apKTOS ; Sanskrit rkshas, Irish art, Welsh arth. 
 
 - Mr. E. R. Wharton (in Etyma Giizca and Latino) puts together Sanskrit var sea, 
 and varis water, Zend vairis, Old Norse ver, Anglosaxon var sea, Latin urina, with ovpov 
 water, ovpavui (rainy) sky, and ovpavq pot. The now favoured explanation of ovpavi\t 
 
MythsT^ Divine Navies in Pal-. 47 
 
 Pdlion, it is well to remember, was an alias of Mount Pelioii. 
 
 iraXia, the wedding morrow-morn. The sancta simphcitas of the old derivation 
 of this " from jraXiv Uvm, because they then returned to the feast," feit rire 
 comme ung tas de mousches au soleil. It must be connected with 7raX-Xd|, a 
 youth just fit to use his pal ; TroX-Xn, TraX-Xa/t?), TraX-Xay/xa, and so forth. And 
 here there must be a connection with c^uX-Xos-. The maiden idea is here 
 secondary ; and one is sorry to think that K. O. Miiller seems quite put out 
 of court with his " rraKKas simply meaning virgin., just as Persephone 
 was called the Eleusinian Kopa, virj^in."'^ But there are no two ways about it ; 
 noKkeiv is to wheel, to wield, a spear ; and there is perhaps some small modicum 
 of compensating comfort in thinking of the giant that made Rosalind as a 
 Pallas. 
 
 Apollonios of Rhodes names iv^jiiklr^s $<iX?/pos- as one'of the argonauts." 
 This is rendered " Phaleros of the stout ashen spear," or it may be " expert with 
 the ashen spear." We cannot (according to the system followed in this 
 Inquiry) consider his name without all the other divine words in </)aX- for 
 which there is now neither time nor space ; ce sera pour une autre fois. This 
 brings us to 
 
 Palla an amazon killed by Herakles ; and the superlatively famous 
 
 palladiiun. The -naXKahiov fell from heaven in the reign of 'IXo? 
 (that is tl or El = Kronos) the son of Tpcii? { = Tpei<;, three?) the 
 namer of Tpot'a, which would thus be a Trinidad. Tpm-l\o<i unites 
 the two god-names, and in that resembles El-i-Yah. The palladion 
 was an upright image of Pallas Athene uplifting a pal or pike in 
 the right hand. ApoUodorus said it was an automaton, like the 
 more modern winking pictures. By another legend it was given 
 to Dard-anos, an obvious dart or spear-god, by his mother 'HXexTpa, 
 daughter of Atlas, and one of The Seven. By yet other accounts 
 Asios (a surname of Zeus) gave it to Dardanos or to Tros. 
 
 j^neas (Aineias), it must be remembered, was a Dardanian prince ; 
 Anchises having been the King of the Dardanians. 'Ay;(icr?;s and Ancus 
 (Martins) may be connected. /Eneas fought with the Dardanians at the war- 
 in-heaven of the siege of Troy, and was clearly the Achilles of the Trojan 
 side. 
 
 Dardanos made a copy of the Zeus-given palladium, "and the 
 same with intent to deceive," like the counterfeit bucklers of the 
 Salii ; but this doubling of the palladium must contain a dual pillar 
 conception. The Romans were also said to have made several 
 
 as rainy, because of ovpia to sprinkle, does not seem to fill the mind. Might it not be 
 urged that the expounding of ovpov (urina) as tail-water is possible and useful ? Consider 
 the Indian and Iranian still over-mastering superstitions as to the gomez of the celeslial 
 cow, and the fact that the heavens-river comes from the supreme, the terminal, quarter ol 
 the heavens on which we are engaged. 
 
 ' Mytlwl. ch. xii. "■ Argon, i, 96. 
 
48 The Night of the Gods. \Axis 
 
 counterfeits of the palladium which ^^neas brought from Troy, the 
 original being hid in a place unknown (''except to the priests" is 
 another touch of the hoax) ; and this had its rise in the elusive 
 nature of the Axis, often referred to in this Inquiry. Man}- towns 
 contested the possession of the palladium, just as there were ever- 
 so-many navels. The allegory by which the palladium was made of 
 the bones (? the spine) of Pelops is significant, for the white shoulder 
 of Pelops was the white heavens ; the rapt of the palladium by 
 Dio-Medes, clearly a central god-name, has also genuine meaning. 
 
 " The Palladion (called Diopetes, that is heaven-dropped; which Diomedes 
 and Odusseus (Ulysses) carried off from Troy to Demophoon was made of the 
 bones of Pelops, as Olympian Zeus of the bones of the Indian wild beast."' 
 This last may point to images of bone or ivor\-. 
 
 Palladia arx; the citadel protected by Pallas (Propertius, iii, 7, 42), is 
 primarily the arx (see Index) of the highest heavens, which is thus again 
 identified with the celestial counterpart of terrestrial Troy. Palladia Alba is 
 thus also the white (see Index) heavens. Palladia pinus, too, is not Argo navis, 
 as is falsely said, but its mast (\'al. Flacc. i, 475) or its keel. Note that 
 palladia lotos (Martial viii, 51) was a lotus-flute. Invita Pallade, "in spite of 
 Pallas," was a profane oath the reverse of the pious " Xot without Theseus." 
 
 Pallas (again). Weigh well the fact that no other line of expla- 
 nation than that I am now hainmering-at will expound for us the 
 number Seven being called pallas. The endeavour to explain it as 
 the virgin number, quia nullum ex se parit numerum duplicatus, 
 qui intra denarium coarctetur, (Macrobius, Scmn. Scip. i, 6 ; Martins 
 Capella, vii, 241 ) seems childish. The reason is, it is suggested, 
 because the Sevens of the two Bears (especially of Ursa Major, 
 of course) are at the top of the pal which is the Universe-axis. 
 This alone also fully explains the name and import of the giant. 
 
 Pallas, son by Eurubia of the Titan Krios (Crius) (who also 
 wedded Styx daughter of Okeanos — a mj-th which may refer to 
 the axis passing down through the infernal waters) ; or (Apollo- 
 doros- gave the choice) otherwise Pallas was one of the fifty sons 
 of Lukaon. Or again, he was one of the four sons of FanDion. 
 And here " I do now let loose my opinion, hold it no longer :" this 
 giant's name comes from ttoX a pal (in fact) and Xa^ a stone or 
 stone-pillar. 
 
 Coupling such words as pal + Xaf here, and pal+ Lat-inus before, is perhaps 
 committing the philological crime of compounding roots. But in arrest of 
 judgment it might be pleaded that the premises of the present arguments are 
 
 ' Clem. Alex. E.xho'iu. to the HiUcncs {z\i\ns^ the Cy<:k (part 5) of Dionysius). 
 - Apoll. BibL, i, 2, 2 ; iii, S, i ; iii, 15, 5. 
 
Myi/is.'] Divine Names in Pal-. 49 
 
 taken from a period of the world's pre-history much older than that which any 
 philological canons propose to embrace. Reference is requested to what is said 
 later on as to PolLux being perhaps also a compound ; and the existence of 
 the divine name DoruLas (which see) as a straight verbal parallel to PalLas, 
 seems sufficiently striking. 
 
 The 50 sons of Pallas who warred with Theseus must take 
 their place, as chronologicals, with all the other " fifties " of Greek 
 Mythology (see Index). The slaying and flaying of Pallas^ the 
 Titan by Pallas the goddess, who donned his skin, would connect 
 itself perhaps with the Indian lingam incidents (see Meru) ; and 
 the male and female deities called Pallas would be originally a 
 dual axis-god. Cicero gives a legend which is another form of 
 this ; making Minerva the daughter of Pallas, whom she kills on 
 his offering her sexual violence. Pallcncos was (the same or 
 another?) an Attic giant, killed by Athene. ApoUodoros- gave a 
 legend which clearly makes Athene and Pallas two goddesses ; 
 Pallas being daughter of Triton and killed by Athene, who then 
 makes a counterfeit image of her, which image, flung down to the 
 Iliadan land, (et? t7)v 'IXtaSa yjiipav — tXu? = mud) was the Palla- 
 dion which Ilos there enshrined. All the gods called Pallas are, 
 it is suggested, clearly due to one monster type ; one legend makes 
 Pallas the son of Lycaon, another, the son of Pan-Dion ; another, 
 the son of Herakles the axis-god and i^vva daughter of Euandros. 
 Virgil makes Pallas son of Evander or Evandrus, whom some 
 mythologists have equated with Saturn or Kronos. (Recollect 
 that Evan or Euai/ was a surname of Bacchus). Nor must we 
 forget that Zeus was called Pallantios. 
 
 Pallene in Ovid is a northern land wherein is a marsh called 
 7>2ton, in which bathing nine times gives feathers and " the right 
 to fly." A vagary upon the Trinity-House of the Northern Cosmic 
 Ocean, and souls becoming birds in the same quarter. The idea 
 of the " marsh " may come from a confusion of palus pali a stake, 
 the axis, with palijs paludis a marsh or pond ; but palus also was 
 a reed or rush (see p. 46), and that may even have been the earlier 
 signification. (Recollect the Japanese ashihara, reed-expanse). 
 The mythic palus Maeotis (Mowwrf?) may thus meet with its 
 elucidation. ApoUodoros'^ said that, according to some, the 
 Gigantes, sons of Ouranos and Ge, dwelt in Pallene. 
 
 Pallor. This goddess was a companion of Mars ; a dog and a 
 
 ' Apoll. Bibl, i, 6, 2. = Bihl, iii, 12, 3. ^ Bib!., i, 6, I. 
 
 D 
 
5° The Night of the Gods. {Axis 
 
 sheep were her sacrifice, and she had lier pallorian priests, the 
 Salii, Pallor is always said to be pallor personified ; but that 
 pallor is not the paleness of the face ; that is not how gods are 
 made. In view of all that is here to be urged as to white being an 
 adjectival term for the heavens, I shall suggest that it was from 
 the whiteness of the celestial displays that Pallor took her first 
 colour-signification. Plautus has a pun {Men. iv, 2, 46) which 
 serves slightly here : palla pallorem incutit ; where palla is actually 
 a cloak, but may have sub-intended a weapon. Pallor was used of 
 the shades of Hades, and pallor amantium was especially common ; 
 so that the paleness of fright was not a primary meaning of pallor, 
 and the companioning of Pallor with Mars would have been not 
 because she turned the runaway pale, but because, like the male 
 and female Greek Pallas, they were both spear deities ; the 
 connection with the Salii seems conclusive. She was an ancient 
 goddess in Pal-. Palleo meant am pale (in the facej from any 
 cause — age, sickness, superexcitement, or passion. 
 
 Paloiiiantia, the divination which resembled rhabdomancy, used 
 to be explained in the dictionaries as coming from irdWeiv to shake. 
 Of course the source of both, and of TraXo? a lot, is pal a rod or 
 spear. 
 
 IlfiXni, the adverb which means long ago, of yore, erst, aforetime, may 
 perhaps have had a connection with the Old One whose position in so many 
 mythologies is at the end of the universe-pal ; 7raXaio/j7JT-a)p:=ancient Mother ; 
 and see Palaimon and PalaMedes above. The affectionate expression "old 
 pal " which superior persons are now pleased to dub as slang, and which is said 
 to be Rommany,' might claim descent from the same great origin. 
 
 Palcestra, iraXalarpa. I believe the connection between pal 
 a pole, and ■waXi] wrestling, might be attempted by means of the 
 locality WaXaiarpa where, in the time of Pausanias, tradition still 
 had it that the struggle between Theseus, tJie god, and Kerkuon 
 took place. Kerkuon obviously, like Korkura (Corcyra), belongs 
 to KepKU a spindle. He was a central revolving universe-god, and 
 his wrestling with Theseus would have taken place at the pal or 
 axis. Plato made Kerkuon one of the inventors of AArestling. 
 The bending down of the tops of the trees which is attributed to 
 him, would again make him central, as referring to the overarching 
 
 1 /i)/ a plank. Grellman's 7/isf. des Bohiiniois (French ed.). Paris iSlO, p. 296. 
 pala lord prince ; palam my lord ; pale straw ; pali lady princess ; palim madam ; palifo 
 magnificent ; palo post prop. {Vaillant's Lajigue Rovimane^ Paris 1861, p. 120). But 
 there is nothing analogous in Paspati [Tchinghianis de Fempire Ottoman, Constantinople, 
 1870, p. 401) who only gives /a// behind. 
 
Myths.'] Divine Names in- Pal-. S^ 
 
 and pendulous heavens-branches of the Universe-tree. Add that 
 he was son of AgaMedes, the central Impeller-God, and there is 
 but little question left. If Sinis, who was also killed by Theseus, 
 and to whom is credited the same tree^trick, be indeed as is thought 
 the same as Kerkuon, we should by joining the two names have 
 the sinistzx idea of turning to the left, or endeavouring to reverse 
 the motion of the heavens (which claims so much attention in this 
 Inquiry). Theseus, the heavens-god, thus fought " for the right," 
 for the Law and Order of the Universe, and won. Kerkios the 
 charioteer of Castor and Pollux has obviously a similar etymo- 
 logical signification, from his driving circularly round the heavens. 
 And it is hoped that no one's feelings will be over-shocked by 
 explaining the name of the great enchantress-goddess Circe KipKT) 
 in the same way. It falls almost too patly into my theory (later 
 on) about turning the wheel of Fortune. Her skill, so supreme as 
 to bring down the stars from heaven, is then prosaically explained 
 away as their bringing low, as they set when she has turned the 
 heavens round to that extent. That explains her connection with 
 Picus the axis-god, and her wand, The remaining a year with 
 Circe (as Ulysses did) then merely refers to the revolution of the 
 annus of the year. This subject might be pursued indefinitely, but 
 not now. 
 
 Etymologists have invented no root that will afford us straight- 
 away this indubitably radical and ubiquitous word pal, a stake. 
 This is a fact which may well give us pause. They however say 
 that pale is a doublet of pole ; and bring pole from a " root I'ar, 
 later kal, to go, to drive " ;' a derivation as to which it may be 
 safe to suspend final judgment until further orders, as r and / can 
 scarcely be permitted to interchange in philological roots. 
 
 ' Skeat's Etym. Diet, (ist ed.), p. 454. 
 
 B 2 
 
52 
 
 The Kio-ht of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 4. — The Rod and Rhabdomancy. 
 
 FOR some future occasion must be reserved the wide-branching 
 subject of the divining-rod and rhabdomancy. It would 
 seem, however, that the magic rod or wand must be connected 
 with the symboHsm of the Universe-Axis. Prof. Robertson Smith 
 says that " No doubt the divining-rod, in which a spirit or Hfe is 
 supposed to reside, so that it moves and gives indications apart 
 from the will of the man who holds it, is a superstition cognate to 
 the belief in sacred trees."^ Philo-Sanconiathon says rods as well 
 as pillars were worshipped at an annual Phcenician feast.- If the 
 rod, pole, and pillar were identical emblems of the Universe-Axis, 
 it would account for the Romans worshipping peeled posts as gods,'' 
 and would throw a flood of light on Jacob's peeling white strakes 
 in rods of fresh stora.x, almond, and plane trees (Gen. x.xx, 37). 
 The rod of Aaron (mountain) that grew, bloomed, and fruited, 
 must clearl}' be connected with the marvellous Tree, the ^lountain, 
 and the Axis. 
 
 The middle-age writers on the Occult* put the divining-rod in 
 the same categor)' with the rod of Moses, with which he struck 
 the rock and brought forth water ; with the golden sceptre of 
 Ahasuerus, of which Esther no sooner touched the tip than she 
 obtained all her desires ; and even -with the line in Psalm xxiii : 
 " th)' rod and staff, they comfort me." It was also the rod or 
 wand of Pallas Athene with which she metamorphosed Od\'sseus in 
 the 13th and i6th — it is golden in the i6th — books of the Odyssey. 
 In Ezekicl xxi, 21 the king of Babylon "stood at the parting 
 of the way, at the head of the two ways " [at the fork of the roads] 
 " to use divination. He shook the arrows to and fro." Cicero 
 {Dc off. i, 44., 158J in writing to his son used the expression of 
 providing for one's wants as if by the divining-rod : quasi Virgula 
 divina, ut aiunt. Varro is said (Nonius 550, 12) to have written a 
 satire called Virgula Divina. Tacitus described the Germans^ as 
 cutting into several pieces a rod (virga) from a fruit-bearing tree, 
 
 ' /Heli^: of Semites, 179. = Eusebius : Prap. Ev. i, 10, 11. 
 
 ' Festus, s. V. (i-/«(ir»;«. ■■ A^\3X\<imoxA\ Physigite occulte, 1696, p. 10. 
 
 ^ De lilor. Gem;. \. 
 
Myths.'] The Rod and Rhabdoiuaiicy. 53 
 
 marking the pieces different ways, and casting them pell-mell and 
 at hazard on a white garment. The priest or the father of the 
 family then drew conclusions from the lie of the sticks. Ammianus 
 Marcellinus (/. 31) described a similar practice of the women 
 among the Alans who foretold the future by very straight rods, 
 cut with secret enchantments at certain times and marked very 
 carefully. 
 
 The divining-rod, which in France 200 years ago was generally 
 such a young sapling of the coudrier or nut as sprang naturally 
 forked from near the ground, was to be cut with a single sweep of 
 the knife on Mercury's day (Wednesday) at the planetary hour of 
 Mercury. It was inscribed with certain characters and enchanted 
 with a prayer, now lost to us. Pierre Belon of Mans called it the 
 caducee which in Latin is named virga divina, and which the 
 Germans use in spying out veins of ore.' Matthias VVillenus wrote 
 on the divining-rod a tractate which he called De vera Virgitlce 
 Merciirialis relatione (Jena, 1672?]. This use of the divining-rod for 
 the discovery of mines must have been of extremely ancient date. 
 The German Benedictine Basilius Valentinus gave seven chapters 
 to it in his Testamentum (circa 1490), stating that it was in very 
 common use among the miners of Germany. Georgius Agricola 
 in his De re inetallicd, 1550, also treated of it as an ordinary 
 appliance of the German miners.^ 
 
 Were Hermes, as the emissary of the gods, a messenger who 
 went up and down the Universe-Axis between heavens and earth, 
 it would accord with many points about him : as, his winged wand 
 of gold,''' which would be the symbol of the Axis itself; his phallic 
 symbolism, which also belongs to the y\.xis ; his musical accom- 
 plishments, for we have numerous Axis-gods who are musical ; his 
 dispensing of good luck, for Fortune's wheel (of the Universe) 
 turns upon his wand, three-leafed and golden ; his head-dress, for 
 as Paul de Saint-Victor says^ : " two light wings quiver on his 
 rounded cap, the vault of heaven in little" (see also "The Winged 
 Sphere "). 
 
 A remark of Festus here aids me. He said the Greeks used 
 herma, epfxa, pro firmamento, and one of its significations clearly was 
 a prop or support. This seems to me to be referable to the axis. 
 Festus (as garbled) went on to say that the name of Mercurius — 
 
 ' Observations, (1553) i, 50, 16. - de Vallemont's Fhysiqiic occultc, 1696, p. 10. 
 
 ' Odyssey, .\xiv, 2. -■ I.cs deux masques (in Myth, Kit. and Re!., ii, 259). 
 
54 The Night of the Gods. \_Axis 
 
 he must have meant 'Epfj-S-jf — came from this ep/xa ; and this in 
 my view would make Hermes an axis-, an Atlas-god. 
 
 Indeed I think there can be little doubt that the winged 
 caduceus is the winged Axis which turns, or upon which turns, the 
 whole gigantic machine. Perrot and Chipiez fiv, fig. 353) give a 
 
 "liittite" caduceus of the Phcenician type 9 where the round 
 
 part is a sphere in relief, the sphere on the a.xis in point of fact. 
 A similar instance is pointed out by M. Goblet d'Alviella" in De 
 Witte and Lenormant's Moniivients Ccrauwgraphiqiies . The wings 
 of the Rod-axis must be allowed the same import as those of the 
 Winged Sphere (see that section) and of Kronos, that is to say the 
 impelling-round, the flying-round, of the Universal Sphere upon its 
 
 axis. On the (Phoenician colonial) coins of Carthage the 9 inter- 
 changes with the winged sphere fe'*^ >?^ above the horse."' On 
 stelae of similar origin, the same "caduceus" permutes with the 
 ring (or wheel-tire ?) at either side of the cone* (or triangle ?). 
 The possibility and significance of this mutation explains itself 
 tout scul on the Universe-rotation theory — and on no other. 
 
 M. Ph. Berger connects the Phcenician 9 with the Hebrew 
 
 asherah,^ that is of course (as here abundantly shown) with the 
 
 Universe-Tree whose trunk is the axis. That the 9 was used as 
 
 a war-standard and as a battle-axe — a god's celestial weapon — is 
 clear from M. Goblet's" book above quoted, pp. 288 to 291. Like 
 the ^3l^^, the dokana (which see), and many other supreme 
 symbols, it was sacred and ritualistic, and was also taken to the 
 
 ' As to this symbol, see "The Trident." 
 
 ' Migration des Symbolcs (1S91) 286. 
 
 ' Ibid. 289 (citing Hunter, table xv, 14 ; and Lajard pi. xlv, 5). 
 
 ^ Ibid, (citing Corp. inscrip. Semitic, tab. liv, 36S). 
 
 * G<7Q. .-ircheol. 18S0, 127. 
 
 '' I have to thank M. Henri Gaidoz for drawing my attention to this just-published 
 book (Paris, Leroux, 1S91) on the occasion of a visit to Paris (iSth April 1S91) when 
 this first volume of this Inquiry was partly in print. I have much pleasure in directing 
 the attention of students to its numerous well-winnowed, w^ell-grouped, and clearly- 
 presented fads and illustrations. Even setting aside its migration theories altogether (as 
 to which liberavi animam meam in the Disputatio Circulaiis), it is a most able and 
 useful publication. Here and there I kept on fancying as I read on, that M. Goblet 
 d Alviella was Hearing some of the theories of this Inquiry ; but no : he passed by on the 
 other side. 
 
Myths^ The Rod and Rhabdomancy. 55 
 
 battle as a talisman, a representative of the great god (of war). 
 Here in this double function, religious and warlike, we have the 
 whole genesis of the inviolability of- insignia of authority : the 
 standard, le drapeau, the flag, the ensign, the rod of empire, the 
 regalia, the sceptre, the mace, the wand, the staff of office, le baton 
 de Marechal, le verge du Sergent, and even the truncheon truncated 
 of its emblems. In spite of all that. Mercury favouring, the 
 
 winged 9 (save for the persistent attachment of ^ to the planet 
 
 Mercury, and of y to Taurus, in the almanacks) has now sunk down 
 to a mere dummy stereo or cliche in engravings of Industry and 
 Commerce. 
 
 Of course it is the merest puerility to derive Mercurius from 
 merx merchandise, as Festus did. The word is doubtless mer + 
 curius ; and curius comes from curis, an Osk word, the Sabine spear 
 (see Index). Merus means pure and, as also meaning "central 
 essential," is put by Mr. E. R. Wharton^ with the Old Irish medon, 
 and is so compared with Latin medius, as follows : 
 
 " yJ/^^z^i- unadulterated : 'central, essential,' ^ * medics MEUH- Me^to^jj a 
 town, Olr. medon fiiirov, cf. MEDH-J- medius." 
 
 " lieaaos middle : *fi.e6-jos, Lat medius, Olr. medon, Got. midjis Eng., 
 OSlav. mezdinu." 
 Now here we are at once taken to the MeDea class of words 
 (which see), and MerCurius becomes the central-Speargod. There 
 is an old recognition of the first syllable mer- meaning middle in 
 Arnobius (iii, ii8)": Mercurius etiam quasi quidam medi-currius 
 dictus. That is middle-runner (medius + curro). 
 
 Mer- is to be found in the names of many other divinities. 
 M-^/309 Meros Merus was the Indian Mt. Meru, which the classic 
 ancients considered sacred to Jupiter and Mercury. 
 
 A friend has here favoured me with the following note, which seems to 
 run counter to my speculations : " Latin medius (Greek /xeVos-, Sanskrit madhyas) 
 contains original d/i which never becomes ;' in Latin, d it is true sometimes 
 becomes r in Latin, but in that case no Greek or Indian word would show the 
 r (as in Mijpos- and IVIeru)." 
 
 Merops Mepoi/r the putative father of (S?ae6cov the Brilliant (who 
 was really the son of Helios) may perhaps be put in the category 
 of gods in Mer-, as must Merope daughter of Atlas (or one of the 
 Pleiades, or the daughter of Sol and sister of Phaethon). 
 
 ' Etyina Latina and Grcrca. 
 
 ' See also S. Augustine Civ. Dei, vii, 14, and Isid. Orig, viii, II. 
 
56 The Night of the Gods. \Axi. 
 
 xis 
 
 fiipo^j/ bee-eater, and fiepimcs men, are here very puzzling. (A god of the 
 West would be a bee-eater, a star-eater, as the constellations set.) 
 So must Mermeros the Centaur. Here it is impossible to avoid 
 reference to all that is said elsewhere as to Marmar (see Index). 
 
 Yama (= restrainer?) the first man is titled Dandi or Danda- 
 dhara, the Rod-bearer. The celestial Dandaka forest lies between 
 the heavens-rivers Godavari and Xarmada. 
 
 The lituus of the sheep- shepherd was called a pedum (seizer ?j. 
 It is found in the hands of Pan, the Fauni, Acteon, Ganymede, 
 Attis, Paris, and so forth. But the lituus with which the Roman 
 augur traced his divination templum was the distinctive ensign of 
 an augur, and had been in use time immemorial, as the fact that 
 lituus is an Etruscan word and the preservation of the lituus " of 
 Romulus" in the curia of the Salii' might attest. A drawing of it 
 will be found farther on. 
 
 The nio-i (Chinese ju-i) is a short cun,"ed wand commonly 
 ending in a kind of trefoil. It is used in Japan chiefly by the 
 Buddhist high priests of the Zen sect, and it is generally carved 
 from jade or some other precious stuff." 
 
 The Eg)-ptian rod or wand was some five feet in length, and 
 
 held thus TO It ended in a flower or a knob, and was a token of 
 
 command and distinction.^ The god Nefer-Atmu (Ptah's son) 
 rests upon his shoulder the magic wand which looks like a horned 
 serpent =^-=— , and would thus give a pregnant gloss upon the bible- 
 storj' of the rods of Aaron and the other magicians. However, 
 
 the head is said to be a ram's, and its name is ur hekau ^^^ X i— '• 
 
 It replaced the instrument r''^ — . in the ceremon}- of opening the 
 mumm\''s mouth.* The lituus which was the Roman augur's 
 
 crooked "crozier-"wand \ is found upon the di\'ine headdress 
 
 W net or ^'^ which connects an Eg\-ptian deity with the North, 
 
 and also upon that W " ^ se;^et which implies power over 
 
 both North and South (see Sesennu) ; but no! upon that which 
 
 indicates gods of the south alone, the nefcr A This seems an 
 
 important series of facts, as connecting the lituus speciall)- with 
 
 * Cicero, Difiii. i, 17. 
 
 - Anderson's (most vahuilile) Ca/. of Jap. paintings in Brit. .Vus.. pp. 32, 66. 
 
 ^ Pierrct : Diet. iT.-inli. E,^ypt. 112, 213. * I'ierrct : W-iab. HI, 3S0. 
 
Myths?\ 
 
 The Rod and Rhabdoinancy. 
 
 57 
 
 the North and, as I should be disposed to maintain, with the 
 Northern end of the Univ^erse-Axis ; while the pristine type of all 
 magic rods would be the axis itself The Egyptian rods were also 
 standards (with or without flags ?) in the priest's hands in sacred 
 processions and ceremonies ; and they were then topped with a 
 god's hat, a sacred animal, a naos, a lotus-flower, a sacred barque, 
 and so forth.' The uas \ or sceptre borne by some gods is clearly a 
 
 variety of the wand. The "greyhound's" head with ears laid-back 
 which tops it may refer to the dog at the North end of the Axis ? 
 As to these ears, however, Mr. Flinders Petrie's remarkable 
 
 exhibition of 1890 contained a lintel from the temple 
 
 of Tehutimes III at Gurob which seemed to me so 
 
 forcibly to suggest an ass's head on the uas that I 
 
 ventured to take a ■ 
 
 rough sketch of it. 
 
 (Portion of the A^^imu 
 
 have the uas ears.) It 
 
 is strange enough that 
 
 in Ovid's {Met. xi, 85) 
 legend of Pan's companion Midas 
 we have both the ass's ears and 
 the wand (under the alias of the 
 reeds that whisper). There is also 
 a horse-eared or ass-eared Irish 
 Lynch. Mr. Flinders Petrie has 
 also in the kindest way lent me 
 for engraving the two examples of animal 
 staff-heads which here follow, of the full size. 
 They were probably held in the hands of 
 statuettes of gods or kings. The face of the 
 smaller, which is of bronze, looks like some 
 antelope, and when contrasted with the 
 ass-head drawing seems to add point to 
 W. Pleyte's somewhat vague statement that 
 "provisionally we might theorise the symbolic 
 head of the god Set to be composed of the 
 oryx or the ass, with the two feathers of Set- 
 Nehes."- The monstrous conventional ears 
 
 ' Pierret, Diet. 112, 213. 
 
 - Lcttre d Th. Deviria, Leide, 1863, p. 53. 
 
58 The Night of the Gods. \Axis 
 
 which form the top of the other (a woodenj staff-head, do seem 
 almost to differentiate off into the two feathers of head-dresses. 
 In this case the face is unmistakeably like a greyhound ; and no 
 one can possibly say that all the three types were taken from any 
 one animal, The connection of Set with this staff or sceptre is of 
 course a moot point, and more may perhaps be said about it under 
 the heading " Set." 
 
 The heq | or pedum is e\'en more like a bishop's crazier than 
 
 the lituus. It was a sign of authority (joined to the scourge) in 
 the hands of Osiris and the Pharaohs ; and tieq meant to govern, 
 
 direct, conduct ; and also prince, regent. The uat' sceptre |, with 
 
 the lotus-flower, is peculiar to goddesses, and is rendered aKrjTTTpov 
 in the Decree of Canopus. The word also meant pillar, prop, and 
 
 adoration. The Sceptre | of King Semempses ( ll 1 of the 
 
 first d\'nasty sometimes differs from the uas at the wrong end of 
 the stick, the South. Mr. Petrie remarks that this figure of 
 Semempses is the regulation Ptah. 
 
 But M. Pierret says {Did. 496) "there was no royal sceptre properly so- 
 called.'' De Rouge said {Notice Sommaire, 86) "the recun'ed stick has the 
 simple form of the royal sceptre." 
 
 This " sceptre " 1 is still now often carried as a " stick "' by the 
 
 Bedawin of the Sinai peninsula ;^ and Mr. Petrie says it is evidently 
 a natural branch with the thick stem-part carved into a head. If 
 there be anything in my conjectures about Set (see also Index), 
 this may be important. 
 
 M. Pierret^ remarks that the use of the head of the stick in the 
 Egyptian oath, to which Chabas drew attention in the Abbott 
 pap}-rus, remains to be explained. I shall just note down the 
 following coincidences for future examination : 
 
 iJ^--^^^ apt, stick, measuring-rod, plank. 
 
 (J^i'r-i apt or Apet, the goddess Thoueris. 
 
 IJ ^s. ^ ,-. ams, stick or ensign. 
 
 d ^X s— —■ f^ Amseth, " funeral genius." 
 Will it turn-out that there is any connection between the Eg>-ptian name 
 of (the Greek) Osiris, and this luis sceptre ? Deveria gave Osiris as Uasri 
 ' Baedeker : Lower £^'//, 46S. ■ Vocai. 405. 
 
Myths.] The Rod and Rhabdomancy. 59 
 
 ■j^ I " [1(1 ^, and it is also given' as As-ra, r|'^_ Is the god's name 
 compounded of Uas and Ra ? As itself J] rx is Isis, and as was also a dwelling 
 
 rj ; but she was also called Hes fi |-^ ^^ which was too the name of 
 
 the sacred heifer adored from the most ancient times of the Egyptian empire ; 
 hes was also a vase. 
 
 Uas as the sceptre I was written Ap ) ^, I 
 Uash, to invoke Ap ) 
 
 Uas, a greyhound, r O (see also Index). 
 
 M 
 
 Uat, Thebes, ^ ' 
 . Pierret says was not always read as uas, and gives as examples I j 
 
 uab and ^^^ smu. Dr. Birch gives uab and us for r and I. 
 The following transcriptions of Osiris are from Dr. Birch's Egyptian Texts.- 
 Asar (twice) n <h>- .... 4th dynasty. 
 
 Asar (once) and Hesar (thrice) 25i • '8th „ 
 
 . 18th „ 
 
 . 1 8th 
 
 Hesar ij 
 
 Asar (four times) [j .<ss>- ^ 
 
 Asar (four times) rj S\ 
 Asar rl"^ 
 
 Asar^ 
 
 . 1 2th, 20th, and 26th dynasty. 
 . 1 8th dynasty. 
 . 28th „ 
 
 The god Ans-Ra (1 y JH occurs in the Per-em-Aru, i.e., "The Book 
 
 of Coming Forth by day " (Book of the Dead) xlii, 2 f Wiedemann' gives 
 (among other readings) Heseri for Osiris ; Auser has also been proposed (as 
 well as Auset for Isis) ; and the latest and nearest reading for Osiris is 
 
 Mr. Budge's Ausares ij S I _^_ JJ .' 
 
 To these magic wands belong the Staff of Solomon given to 
 King Bahram Guhr in the Persian tale by the lord of one of the 
 four cardinal Kaf-mountains of the Universe. It caused any door 
 to fly open, no matter how strong it might be, and even if guarded 
 
 ' I'ierret's Fucai. 48, 109. ^ Bagster and Sons, k. d. ' Pierret, I'oaz/'. 37. 
 
 ■* Wiedemann, Acgyptisches Geschkhtc, p. loS. 
 
 ^ Brit. Mus. Papyrus 10,188, Col. xxviii. 1. 21. Ed. Budge, Oh the Hieratic Papyrus 
 of Nesi-Amsii^ in Arcliaeologia^ vol. lii. p. 166. 
 
6o The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 by talismans and enchantments. In the Katha Sarit Sagara what- 
 ever is written on the staff of the (male) Asura Maya comes true. 
 In Stanislas Julien's Indian tales from the Chinese the enemies of 
 the Two (demon) Pisashas yield humbly to their staves. In the 
 Tamil Madaua Kdinardja Kadai, one cudgel can belabour enemies 
 if aimed at them, and another can put a vast army to death in the 
 twinkling of an eye. In a Norse tale the North-Wind gives the 
 Lad a stick which lays-on when told-to. 
 
 It might be asked whether the sortes Virgihanae, the consulting of Vergilius 
 in preference to other authors for omens, may not have been due to a connection 
 of his name with virga which, though a common word, was applied to the 
 caducous of Mercury. This would be one way of accounting for his reputation 
 as a diviner. De Quincey suggested that his necromancing character grew out 
 of the fact that his mother's father was called Mag'us.' But Homer was resorted 
 to for the same purpose. 
 
 A strange revival of the rhabdomantic craze is just now in progress ; and 
 \\\e. Fortniglitly Review for August 1890 furnished some interesting information 
 about it. The advancers of this kind of thing are by no means to be set down 
 as "dotty in the crumpet" (as they say in East Kent) : very very far from it 
 indeed, one would guess. " A patient who is not put to sleep, or in any way 
 placed under hypnotism, places his hands on those of a ' subject ' who is 
 hypnotised, while an assistant moves a big magnetised rod with three branches 
 for a minute or two in front of the arms of the patient and subject. ... If 
 the ' subject ' is a woman and the patient a man, she becomes convinced that 
 she is a man, and talks about her whiskers" [risum teneatis, amici 1] "With the 
 aid of a dynamometer you can measure the exact amount of power transferred 
 from the subject to the patient "(I) Remark however the trident reappearing 
 at the end of the Rod. 
 
 And, after all, multitudes of very worthy folk still piously and literally 
 believe that the Egyptian magicians " cast down every man his Rod, and they 
 became serpents"; while the greater magician" Aaron's Rod swallowed up their 
 Rods "." Readers of this Inquiry should carefully note that Aaron equals 
 Mountain or The High, and that the Universe Mountain-Rod is in all legends 
 the unique Atlas-Axis ; several axis-deities are also seen to be swallowed up by 
 the Earth in the course of the Inquiry. The connection of the Serpent and the 
 Rod is also a universal myth, and no instance of it is unimportant. 
 
 The blossoming rod is paralleled b\- the brazen club of 
 Herakles, which (apud Lampridium) sweated at Minucia. 
 Another of his cudgels was of wild-olive, and he dedicated it to 
 Hermes after the war with the giants. It took root, and became 
 a monster tree. Euripides called the club of Theseus EpiDaurian 
 because he won it from the giant Pcrii'hetes whom he killed in 
 
 ' One traditional distortion of his name is the Irish hedge-schoolboy's reading of 
 P. Vergilii Maronis as Paddy Virgil the Mariner. 
 - Exodus, vii, 12. 
 
Myths^ The Rod and Rliabdomancy. 6i 
 
 EpiDauros. And Dauros of course is cognate with hopv, the spear 
 ot Kronos. 
 
 The riding of witches on sticks, if one reflects upon it, seems 
 groundless nonsense until connected with the axis conception of 
 the Rod. Of the two omentum-spits (vapashrapanis) for roast- 
 ing the navel-fat at the sacrifices in the S atapatlia-bralunana^ one 
 was quite straight, the other bifurcate on the top, which is like the 
 rod used for water-finding and the uas sceptre. 
 
 The beating of bounds (or of boys round bounds) with rods 
 must not be forgotten. At the annual festival of Demeter at 
 Pheneos in Arcadia the priest hid his face with the round cover of 
 the petroma ( — the custom of looking in the hat is still kept up in 
 English churches — ) and beat with rods the worshippers who filed 
 before him.^ But this beating is also to be connected with some 
 prior human sacrifice — perhaps beating to death with clubs. 
 
 Ascension- 77;';/rjday is the date for bounds-beating with long 
 willow wands peeled or not ; and the three days before it are 
 rogation or asking days. The week is called the gang- (gangan, 
 to go) or procession-week, a name as archaic as these pagan 
 perambulations, which halted for worship at holy trees and wells. 
 The connection of these processions with the ascension or re- 
 ascension of a heaven-descended deity must again claim attention 
 under the heading of " The Dokana." 
 
 ' J. Eggeling's, ii, 194. - Pans, viii, 15, I. 
 
62 The Night of the Gods. \_A 
 
 xis 
 
 5. — The Flcur-dc-Lis at the point of the 
 
 SURMOUNTED by the fleur-dc-Lis, the earth-Axis is 
 depicted pointing to the North on almost every map of every 
 country ; and the same symbol of the fleur-de-Lis is found 
 universally on the needles of the most ancient mariner's compasses. 
 " This Mariners Compasse," said Henry Peacham in his Coiiipleat 
 Gentleman (1627) "hath the needle in manner of a Flowre-deluce 
 which pointeth still to the North" (p. 65 j. With this must be 
 bracketed the three-leafed wand of Hermes. Passing by for the 
 moment its by no means inconsistent significance as the masculine 
 emblem of fecundity, the most ancient Egyptian, Assyrian, 
 Persian, Arabic, Armenian, Byzantine, and European examples ; 
 whether on sceptres, crowns, helmets, coins, seals, or monuments ; 
 whether in mosques or in tombs ; in art, in heraldry, in industry, 
 or on playing-cards, show the fleur-de-Lis to be no lily-flower but 
 a triple unison, the emblem of a triad. Its French renown is a 
 mere modern vulgarisation, an adoption during the crusades and 
 dating from Louis VH, about A.D, 1137. It is amusing to find 
 that it was popularly believed that the directors of the Musee du 
 Louvre had added the fleur-de-Lis to the first arrival of Nineveh 
 antiquities as a base flattery of Louis XVIII. It is, I suggest, 
 briefly the emblem of the Chinese Tai-Ki, the origin of all things, 
 with the dual co-principles yin and yang, into which that origin 
 opened or divided. 
 
 Tai-ki, the Yin, and the Yang— in Japan the In-yo — form the 
 triad represented by Hatori and Hirata in their cosmic diagrams. 
 The primitive mode chosen b}' these Japanese commentators for 
 the representation of the triad consists in three black spots shown 
 at the upper portion of a large circle which figures the heavens. 
 The pole-star is the upper part of the heavens, said _Hirata,' and 
 must therefore have been the habitation of the three primeval kami 
 or gods, who are (i) Ame no Minaka-Nushi,Lord ofthe Awful-centre 
 of Heaven (not simply " of the middle," or " in the verj- centre," as it 
 has been rendered), (2) Taka ]\Iimusubi, and (3) Kamu Mimusubi,or 
 
 ' Mr. Sntmv's Pure Slnnto, 60. 61. 
 
Myiks.'\ The Fleur-de-Lis. 63 
 
 the ineffably-begotten Taka and Kamu.who can have no connection 
 with the Sun, as has been surmised, but correspond to the Chinese 
 yin and yang, while Tai-Ki is represented by the Japanese Centre- 
 Lord. The true root-signification of Kamu is to be sought in kauii 
 upper, whence god, and Taka is no more than taka height ; but 
 both words are obviously adjectival names, and not empty 
 honorifics, as the Japanese Shintoists now seem to think. 
 
 It would be impossible fully to develop the remoteness and 
 universality of the fleur-de- Lis emblem without reproducing a 
 great portion of M. Adalbert de Beaumont's Essay on the subject, 
 and some of its 438 well-chosen designs.^ Suffice it to say that 
 the emblem is here traced farther even than he has followed it, for 
 preoccupied by the flower idea he — in common with the late 
 Franqois Lenormant — makes it the hom or haoma, the sacred 
 plant, the tree of life of Mazdeism. As the haoma or world-Tree 
 myth is in this Inquiry identified with that of the Universe-Axis, 
 the conclusion reached by a totally independent path is, I find not 
 without satisfaction, practically the same as that of M. de 
 Beaumont, whose captivating Essay I did not read until this 
 chapter was far advanced. If previous speculations be consulted^ 
 it will probably be concluded that we have here too the long- 
 sought origin of the Prince of Wales's Plume (as to which see also 
 the heading of " Feathers"). 
 
 The Irish emblem too, as well as the French, still retains its 
 triune significance ; and thus, though it now grows underfoot, the 
 Shamrock — the word is also in Persian — is to be carried back to 
 the same supernal, universal origin. Wherever the white-skinned 
 yellow-haired Welsh Olwen trod there sprang up four white 
 trefoils.^ Here we have the shamrock and the footprint 
 together. The symbolism of the four-leaved shamrock 
 would refer to the cardinal points (see " The Four Living 
 Creatures"). It may be seen in the palms and 
 (more conventionally) on the breast of " the Buddha 
 of Bengal, as a Brahminical avatar," in Moor's 
 Hindil Pantheon (plate 75). hands 
 
 [It should be noted that the Egyptian hieroglyph for East is % which 
 might be thought to be the needle-point. This point is not clear to me.] 
 
 ' Rechcrches sur Vorigine du Blason ; et en particidier siu- la Fkur de Lis. Paris, 
 Leleux, 1853. 
 
 ^ See, for instance, Frasei's Magazine for l88r. ■'' Rliys's Hib. Lects. 490. 
 
64 
 
 The Night of the Gods. 
 
 \Axi: 
 
 xts 
 
 The following emblems, analogous to or identical with the fleur- 
 de-Lis are taken irom Moor's Hindu Pantheon. 
 
 I. pendant lotus-blossom held by four-handed 
 Vishnu (plate 75) 
 
 "€0 
 
 ^^ 
 
 lotus-blossoms, chaliced flowers 
 that lie, on the surface of 
 the waters whereon floats 
 Narayana the Supreme Spirit 
 "moving on the waters''' 
 (plate 20) .... 
 
 3. held in left hand of Devi (goddess) consort of 
 
 Shiva (plate 41) 
 
 4. these appear right and left of the head of the 
 
 man-bird-god Garuda (plate 40) 
 
 5. three of the numerous sect-marks of 
 
 Vishnu-worshippers (plate 2) 
 
 6. held by four-handed Devi-Bhavani . 
 
 7. on head-dress of Shiva-Bhairava (plate 95). 
 
 Compare helmet from Nineveh, p. 64. . . r|6Tnj'^ 
 
 8. held by four-handed Vyaghra Yayi (plate 40) 
 
 In the Rev. Dr. Wm. Wright's Empire of the Hittites, are 
 drawings of several of the triple emblems resembling the fleur-de-Lis 
 and the shamrock which are found among the Khetan (" Hittite ") 
 sculptured characters of Asia Minor: 
 
 ' Sir Monier Williams, Hiiidi'iisni, loi ; Mann, i, 10. 
 
Myths?^ 
 
 The Fletir-de-Lis. 
 
 65 
 
 e^ 
 
 There is another distinct type of flower-and-leaf " Hittite " emblems 
 which may also have a triple significance, as well as a connection 
 with the haoma or soma plant of eternal life : 
 
 [Capt. Conder^ suggests that the first group (of three) mean life, 
 and the second group (of three) signify male. The fourth of the 
 third group he considers an Aaron's rod or sceptre ; and the fourth 
 group mean grozvth he believes, or to live.l 
 
 The fleur-de-Lis is shown clearly on the helmet-top of one of the 
 colossal figures at an entrance of Kuyunjik, as engraved by 
 Layard^ and now in the British Museum. See also No. 7 just 
 below. Capt Conder notes the fleur-de-Lis as a frequent mason's- 
 mark in Syria." A few ancient examples of the fleur-de-Lis are 
 here added from De Beaumont : 
 
 No. I is from a tomb at Teheran ; 
 
 2, from a Maroccan MS. of the Koran, xiith century ; 
 
 3, from a Kufic MS of the viiith century ; 
 
 ' Altaic Hierogfyp/is, 65, 57, 102. ■ Nineveli and Babylon, 462. ^ Heth and Afoab, 56 
 
66 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 No. 4, Egyptian gold collar ornament ; 
 
 5, handle of an Egyptian wooden spoon ; 
 
 6, on crown of a sphinx ; 
 
 7, Royal helmet, Nineveh ; 
 
 8, Arab coin (from Marsden) ; 
 
 9, crown of King David — Saxon MS. of xith century, Brit. Mus. (from 
 
 Twining's Symbols of Christian Art, 1885). 
 
 The North and South emblems for Lower 'W and Upper "ff Egypt 
 are triple (and tri-triple) like the fleur-de-Lis, and deserve notice.^ 
 What is called by the art-experts a "lily" on a 
 bishop's mitre of the xiiith century given by Du 
 Sommerard in Lcs Arts dii Moyen Age, is clearly a 
 fleur-de-Lis. 
 
 An Arabic name for the star Arcturus (Somech- 
 haramach) is properly Al-siniak al-ramih, " the prop 
 that carries a spear "-head. Rumh" means the spear- 
 head itself, and I think we thus have the clue to the 
 true origin of the rhumbs of the compass, which has been such 
 a fruitful source of discussions. 
 
 The transfer of the word in treatises on navigation from the radius (spear) 
 of the compass to the corresponding line steered on the globe by a ship seems 
 to have been the origin of much of the confusion. Hues says (p. 127) that 
 " those lines which a ship, following the direction of the magnetical needle, 
 describeth on the surface of the sea, Petrus Nonius (Pedro Nunez, 1567) 
 calleth in the Latin Rumbos, borrowing the appellation of his countrjTnen the 
 Portugals ; which word, since it is now (1594-1638) generally received by 
 learned writers to express them by, we also will use the same." And again 
 (p. 130) "when a ship saileth according to one and the same rumbe (except it 
 be one of the four principal and cardinal rumbes) it is a crooked and spiral line" 
 she describes on the globe. 
 
 Another similarly named star is Spica, the corrupt Arabic name 
 for which, Hazimath al-hacel, is for Al-simak-al-a'zal, the unarmed 
 prop. 
 
 The Egyptian Ptah was the embodiment of organising motive power, the 
 symbol of the ever-active fashioning generative energy developed from 
 moisture, and M. de Beaumont easily identifies the fleur-de-Lis as the s^Tnbol 
 of humidity, fecundity, strength, and kingly power. This accessory significance 
 is attendant upon and concordant with the world-Axis conception. At times 
 the two run parallel, and again they converge and coalesce. Thus while the 
 Japanese savant Hirata, commenting on the collection of Ancient Matters 
 called the Koski, represents the spear of Izanagi and Izanami as the earth-Axis, 
 he also gives it the form of the lingam.^ A leading incident in this myth is 
 ' Pierret : Diet. 199. - Hues's Tractatus <U Globis (Hakluyt Sue. 18S9), p. 209. 
 
 ' Pure Shinto, 67. 
 
Myths?\ The Fleur-de-Lis. 67 
 
 the bad form of the goddess Izanami in " proposing " to the god Izanagi. 
 There is a straight parallel in the remarkable Vedic dialogue-hymn in which 
 Yami urges cohabitation upon her twin-brother Yama. 
 
 In the Nihongi (Japan-Chronicle) the smith Ama tsu Mara forges a spear 
 in the reign of the second mythical Mikado Suizei. In the Koahiki (Ancient- 
 AfFairs-Chronicle), however, this smith is called in to the aid of the eighty or 
 eight hundred myriads of deities met in divine assembly in the bed of the 
 tranquil Heavens-river. The straight translation of the smith's name (which, as 
 Mr. B. H. Chamberlain has pointed out,' is slurred over by every native 
 commentator) is phallus of heaven. Mr. Chamberlain also connects this 
 Mara deity of heaven with the deity One-Eye of heaven (Ama no Ma-hitotsu) ; 
 and we shall see elsewhere that the Eye of heaven is at the end of the spear- 
 axis. Again Hirata Atsutane in his Koshi Den (Ancient-Affairs Commentary) 
 supposing the spear, Nu-hoko, to have been of iron in the form of the lingam 
 (as above), interprets the syllable nu to mean lama, which signifies both jewel 
 and ball ; the rest of the compound word being hoko, a kind of lance or spear. 
 Hephaistos too was a heavenly smith, and made the Zodiac-shield of Achilles 
 and the palace all of brass and sprinkled with brilliant stars which is clearly the 
 firmament ; and in his character as the male principle was the mate of 
 Aphrodite herself. On this subject Creuzer made the following observation ; 
 without, of course, any knowledge of the Japanese facts : 
 
 " Hermes is the divine minister par excellence. He is a mediator-god who 
 puts heaven and earth in communication, and thus conduces to the finishing of 
 the work of universal creation. Such ought to have been the hidden meaning 
 of the mysterious phallos in the religions of Samothrace."^ 
 
 The Universe-axis is also the connector of heaven and earth. 
 
 M. de Beaumont pointed out that the fleur-de-Lis crowns 
 
 Osiris and Isis as being engendered from the Primeval Ptah, S 
 
 the most ancient of the Egyptian gods, the Lord of Heaven, the king 
 of the world. It might be added that it is also, in sceptre 
 form, in the glyphic of Ptah himself, the head of the gods, 
 the greatest of them ; whose black Apis bull bore a white 
 triangle on its forehead. 
 
 Just as the Chinese Ti (see Index) has been detected 
 in the Scythian Tivus, so M. de Beaumont would see in 
 the fleur-de-//s the Chinese It, a governor. I transcribe his 
 remarks : 
 
 Li en Celtique signifie ?'oi, soiiverain (page 83, ii' vol. du Dictiottnaij-e 
 Celtique). Li en Chinois signifie goi/verneiir, et a du signifier aussi soiiverain, 
 puisque lie signifie loi imperiale (page 83, id.). Llys en Celtique veut dire salle, 
 cour, palais ; Gwer-Lys, homme de cour. En Chinois /iz/Z K, cour, demeure 
 du souverain (voy. le meme Dictionnaire). Faisons remarquer que la manifere 
 
 ' Ko-ji-ki, or Records of Ancient Matters, p. 55. 
 " Guignaut's Creuzer, ii, 298. 
 
 E 2 
 
6S The NigJit of the Gods. {Axis 
 
 dont on prononce le mot fleur ae lis, sans faire sentir Vs est parfaitement 
 d'accord avec rorthographie Celtique f-p. 105 . 
 
 As to this question of French pronunciation the dropping of 
 the s niay be only an archaism, and such is '\l. Henr}- Gaidoz's 
 opinion.^ The English version " flowre-deluce," as above (p. 62) 
 seems to show that the s \vas pronounced. Altogether, we must 
 not lay more stress than they will bear on these speculations of 
 M. de Beaumont's. It might however be added that the two Rivers 
 (the only rivers then in the Universe) which Bran's ships sailed 
 over, wer€ called the Lli and the Archan." If we choose to make 
 these the heavens-ri\-ers, we have a water-lily, a lotus (see drawing 
 on p. 64; for the fleur-de-Lli. But this is still much too vague for 
 anj'thing but a mere indication. The Irish " Lochlann like the 
 Welsh Llychlyn denoted a mysterious countrj- in the lochs or the 
 sea,"^ which I should interpret as the Universe-Ocean, the Waters. 
 The name Llian or Lliaws occurs in the Welsh Triads i* and the 
 bursting of the Llyn Llion or Llivon's Lake caused the Welsh 
 deluge. " One of the tarns on Snowdon, several of which ha\-e 
 verj' uncanny associations, is called Llyn Llydaw or the Lake of 
 Llydaw. What can the meaning of the name have been?" asks 
 Prof. Rhys.'' Llyr is also a nanie in the Triads'^- and so is Lieu, 
 whose eagle-avatar would make him a central heavens-bird-god 
 
 We seem to detect the transition of the sceptral form of the fleur-de-lis 
 into the trident-weapon in the following instances taken from Moors Hindu 
 Pantheon : — 
 
 I, held b)' the four-handed goddess Palyanga Bhavani (U yj 
 
 (plate 40) V---S 
 
 2, held by four-handed Rudrani (plate 40) 
 
 3, held by four-handed Devi 'goddess* consort of Shiva 
 i.plate 3S) 
 
 ' Letter of 21 Janvier 18SS. - Rhys's Hihbert Ijclures. 96. 
 
 ^ Ibid. 355. ■ •• n>id. iSo, 463, 583. 
 
 * Ibid. 16S. ' Ibiii. 249. 425, 405. 
 
Myths ^^ 
 
 The Fleur-de-Lis. 
 
 69 
 
 4, held in the uppermost right one of the eight hands of 
 Durga (plate 35) 
 
 5, these three are held in the hands 
 of " very ancient brass casts " of 
 unidentified deities (plate 99) 
 
 6, held, right and left, in two of the four hands of 
 Devi (plate 37) 
 
 7, held by six-handed Durga "killing" (?) 
 Mahishasura (plate 37). [Moor does not 
 seem to have fully apprehended this group, 
 which may be phallic] . . 
 
70 The Night of the Gods. \Axis 
 
 6. — The Trident. 
 
 " I ^HE trisLila or trident emblem which crowns the gateways 
 J_ of the tope at Sanchi may be, and I am inclined to believe 
 does," wrote Fergusson,^ " represent Buddha himself." This is a 
 recognition of the supremacy of the emblem certainly ; but it 
 cannot be admitted that a triple emblem means but one, unless 
 that one be a three-in-one ; and Fergusson put himself a little 
 straighter where he (p. 102) recognised the Buddhist trinity of 
 Buddha Dharma and Sanga, which would parallel the Chinese 
 Tai-Ki Yin and Yang. 
 
 Here is a typical outline of the top of the " Buddhist " trisula. 
 This particular example (from which the 
 minute ornamentation is here omitted") 
 occurs in the sculptures of Amravati. It 
 is of course ab initio one of the emblems 
 of a triune supreme heavens-god. Si\'a 
 is commonly represented " holding in his hand a trisula or trident 
 called Pinaka."" Colebrook' pointed out that Trisula was a 
 surname of the 24th Tirthankara of the Jainas ; and they figured 
 the tree-of-knowledge or Kalpavriksha as a three-branched stem 
 on the mitres of the Tirthankaras carved in the Gwalior caves.'' 
 This connects the trisula with the Universe-tree. 
 
 In his Migration des Symboles,^ M. Goblet d'.-\lviella unluckily adopts the 
 misapprehension which lumps together under the name of trisula the trisula 
 or trident itself and the winged wheel (see his pages 294 to 324) ; and his 
 conclusion is (p. 323) that " la signification propre du trisula reste done k I'etat 
 conjectural." He admits however one of my contentions in these words — " the 
 trisula might as well figure in the hands of Hades or Poseidon," as among the 
 attributes of Siva. Of course the straight and only strict meaning of tri-sMa 
 is threepointed-pal or spear. He points out how it appears on sword- 
 scabbards [which would be symbolic of a divine weapon] ; on banner poles 
 [see my remarks on battle-standards at p. 55] ; on the back of the elephant ; 
 above the throne of Buddha at Barhut; on Buddha's footprint [over the winged 
 wheel] ; on an altar where it is worshipped ; on a pillar enclosed in a stupa ; 
 and as crowning staircases [which must be connected with the heavens- 
 
 ' Itid. Arch. p. 97. " Dowson's Diet. 299. ^ As, Researches (1809) vii, 306. 
 
 ^ A. Rivelt-Carnac in Proceeclxs. As. Soc. Bengal xliv. 
 * Paris, Leroux, 1S91. 
 
Myths:] 
 
 The Trident. 
 
 71 
 
 ladder]. It also opens and closes cave-inscriptions, and forms earrings and 
 neck-pendants [which are simply amulets]. 
 
 That the compound symbol consists of the trident and wheel was recognised 
 by M. E. S^nart in his Essai sur la Ugende du Bouddha,'^ and the rational 
 simplicity of this explanation is partly admitted by M. Goblet (pp. 300, 301), 
 who'klso points to Eug. Burnoufs^ description of Buddha's head of hair as a 
 ball topped in Ceylon by a sort of trident, while in Java' the trident sunnounts 
 the " rosette " [which I endeavour to identify with the wheel]. Mr. E. Thomas' 
 also has detected in the compound symbol [misnamed after the trisiila which is 
 only one of its components] the emblem of Dharma the Law ; and Mr. Pincott 
 saw in it the Dharma-chakra or wheeI-of-the-Law.= But this compound symbol 
 is, as I have stated above, the winged sphere or wheel applied on to the 
 trident or trisula proper, the stem of which is even represented as a pillar or 
 post fixed in its pediment. This is completely accordant with the theories 
 urged in this Inquiry, which equate the spear-handle with the cosmic pillar. 
 But we are now anticipating portion of the section on " The Winged 
 Sphere," and it shall therefore only be added here that Brugsch has pointed 
 out in the text of an Edfu inscription that Horus, when transformed into the 
 winged sphere to combat the armies of Set, has a three-pointed spear for his 
 weapon.'' The trisfila is seen above the ring (or wheel-tire ? but certainly not 
 " the sun ") on a carving at Budh Gaya' and, what is stranger still, on an archaic 
 Grecian amphora,^ where it seems to usurp the place of the biform caduceus. 
 These latter references are also taken from M. Goblet's new and valuable book, 
 which is hereby again recommended to students in symbology. 
 
 m 
 
 [The ancient trident-weapons of India the pindka or trisula are in great 
 
 numbers and of different forms. Mr. Rajendralala Mitra gives the three 
 
 following forms in his Indo-Aryans (i, 313). 
 
 It is impossible to blink the likeness to 
 
 the fleur-de-Lis in two out of the three ; 
 
 and my theory, in accordance with what 
 
 has already been said about that emblem, 
 
 would be that if they really were weapons, 
 
 they were also insignia of command. " One, 
 
 of a short mace-like form mounted with three 
 
 prongs and a small axe-blade, is peculiar." 
 
 The sceptre-like appear- 
 ance of this "weapon," andthepresenceot the 
 fleur-de-Lis, are alike for me unmistakeable. 
 
 ^ Journal Asiatique 1875, p. 184. ^ Lotus de la Bonne Loi, 539. 
 
 ^ Boro-Boedoer op hei eiland Java, Leiden, 1873, plate cclxxx, fig. 100, 
 
 ■* Nuviismat. Cliron. iv (new series) 282. 
 
 ^ The Tri-ratna in Jour. R.A.S. xix (new series) 242. 
 
 ^ Migration des Syntholes, 314. ^ Numisniat, Chron. xx (new series) pi. ii, fig. 37. 
 
 ^ Elite des Mon. Ceramogr. (186S), iii, pi, 91, 
 
72 The Alight of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 Hue' saw at Angti, near the Chinese frontier of Tibet, soldiers carrj'ing 
 tridents for weapons. Tridents, pikes, matchlocks and old carbines form the 
 arms of the Chinese "braves" in South Yunnan ; to these are added at times 
 huge horse-pistols and a kind of hammer or axe.-] 
 
 In connection with the subject of the trident may be men- 
 tioned the Sanko, or Three-Ancient.s (?) which is a small brass 
 instrument with three prongs at each end, held when praying 
 by the priests of I know not which particular Japanese Buddhist 
 sect.^ Mr. \V. G. Aston informs me there are specimens of the 
 sanko in the British Museum, but I have missed examining them. 
 It is manifestly like what M. Goblet d'Alviella* calls the dordj 
 of the " lamas and bonzes," and it is found in the Sanchi 
 sculptures. This also recalls the Parsi baresma. It is well- 
 known also that the Indian temples of Siva are marked by a 
 trisula. 
 
 In fact the mind should be thoroughly cleared of the fixed 
 idea that the trident is the exclusive personal property of either 
 Neptune or Poseidon. 
 
 " We passed a temple," writes Mr. Consul Bourne,' " containing a horrid 
 image seated on a white ox, with a sash composed of human heads round its 
 breast, and armed with a trident and bell. It had six arms covered with 
 snakes, and three faces, with the usual scar in the middle of the forehead 
 replaced by an Eye. An intelligent native told us it was the local god.'' 
 I draw attention here not only to the trident but to the bell, 
 and also to the Eye and to the three faces and six arms which 
 denote a triad of deities in one. All these points are dwelt on 
 again and again in the present Inquhy ; and here we find them all 
 combined on the image of a " local " god in an out-of-the-way 
 corner of South West China, at Ssu-mao-T'ing, among the Pai-i 
 Shans, on gth January 1886. I cannot help thinking this a little 
 extraordinary. 
 
 The trident survives otherwise in the same locality among the Chinese 
 braves. To an adverse criticism of the arm they carried (writes Mr. Bourne) — 
 the ch'a or trident, a 3-pronged fork stuck on the end of a 6-foot pole — one of 
 them objected emphatically ; and continued much as follows : " Those old 
 barbarians [the Shans and Lolos] are very tough ; sword wo'n't cut nor bullet 
 pierce them ; what you do is to tie the man up ; then you lay his back on a flat 
 stone, and run this trident into him. If one man can't get it through him, two 
 
 ' Tiavels (Hazlitt's translation) ii, 2S6. 
 
 - A. R. Colquhoun's Across Chryse, li, 53, 57, 
 
 ^ Hephum's Dktioiiary^ sub voce. 
 
 ^ Aligr. des Symboles, 126. 
 
 '" Journey in South West China. Parly. Paper C. 5371 (18SS), p. 19. 
 
Myths.'] The Trident. 73 
 
 or three can ; therefore the old barbarians fear the trident, and it is indispen- 
 sable to us who guard the frontier" (p. 21). If one were to allow one's imagina- 
 tion to run away, here is a parallel naturalistic to grotesqueness of the 
 treatment meted out with his apnr] by Kronos to Ouranos. 
 
 A curious trident, with one prong turned back, is figured in the modern 
 imperial Chinese edition 
 of the Chow Li, the cere- 
 
 monial repertory of the <ZX 
 Chow dynasty 3,000 years 
 
 ago. The prong called the blade is knife-edged on the outer side, and is 
 three-fourths of a (Chinese) foot long ; the stabber is longer and thicker, and 
 the recurved prong is the strongest of the three.' (See also " The Weapons 
 of the Gods.") 
 
 On p. 68 have been given some transitional examples con- 
 necting the fleur-de-lis sceptre with the trident. The following, 
 which complete the series and the connection, seem more decidedly 
 tridential. They are all from Moor's HmdA Pantheon. I trust 
 that I am not out-tiring the reader ; but I know not of any better 
 aid to the comparative study of symbolism than the grouping of 
 its forms in this manner : 
 
 I. held by four-handed Kandeh Rao {i.e. the great- 
 god Mahadeva) plate 23 . 
 
 2. held by four-handed Bhairava, the destroying 
 Shiva (plate 24) ...... 
 
 3. held by ten-handed ape-headed Hanuman, the 
 Ape-man-god (plate 93) ..... 
 
 4. held by a four-armed Shiva (plate 13) 
 
 ' Biot : Le Tcheou-Li, 1851, ii, 495. 
 
74 
 
 The Night of the Gods. 
 
 \Axis 
 
 held by four-armed five-faced Mahadeva- 
 Panchamukhi (plate 15). One of these five 
 heads is placed above the other four which 
 face the cardinal points, thus giving us the 
 Chinese view of the five quarters (see Index). 
 
 held by four-handed elephant-headed Ganesa 
 (plate 45). It is also found in two of the four 
 hands of Indra seated as Mahut on the three- 
 trunked elephant of the Universe. The re- 
 curving shows it to be the ankus goad of the 
 Mahut which, used as a shepherd's crook over 
 the setting-on of the elephant's ear, makes him 
 lie down. pi 
 
 7. held in left hand of Devi (goddess) 
 
 consort of Shiva (plate 41). This form 
 seems highly archaic .... 
 
 8. sort of flesh-fork held downwards by 
 
 Durga slaying Mahishagura (plate 34). 
 
 ¥ 
 
 These three tridential forehead sect- 
 marks of Vishnu-worshippers are also 
 from Moor (plate 2). 
 
 It is impossible to quit the trident-symbols without any mention 
 of the bident, which we must intimately connect with the dual 
 conception of the supreme deity. Here \ ( "% f 
 are four other sect-marks of Vishnu- \_) \J) 
 worshippers (Moor, plate 2), of which two seem to indicate 
 the transition to the triune sect-marks just given. A bident 
 sceptre or weapon as held by Vishnu (plate 10) is added. 
 The bident (Si/ceXXa, bidens) and the horn of plenty were 
 attributes of Plouton or Plouteus, the source of riches.' 
 
 ' F. Lenorniant in Saglio, Dui. des Aiitiq. i, 632. 
 
 11/ 
 
 
Myths^, The Trident. 75 
 
 Mr. Aston informs me he has seen the trident carried before a 
 Korean ambassador in Japan ; and he ratlier thinks the trident was 
 formerly not uncommon in Japan itself. 
 
 The Gai-Bolga or barbed weapon of the Irish Cuchulainn, 
 which he wields from below or from above, and with his feet or 
 with his hands,^ seems to be an Axis-Trident ; probably that 
 double trident, North and South, ^^ which archeologists call 
 " the thunderbolt." 
 
 When the Satyr attempts violence upon Amumdne, daughter 
 of Danaiis and Elephantis, Poseidon throws his trident at him, and, 
 missing the Satyr, implants the weapon in a neighbouring rock 
 whence issue three water-jets (a Moses-miracle) that become the 
 Lernian fountain.^ 
 
 The (Phoenician colonial) "caduceus " of Carthage V isabident 
 
 on the sphere (see " The Rod ") ; or rather, taking in the stem, a 
 dvi=,\A2. (to manufacture a word for comparison with trisula) 
 compounded with a sphere. Remember sula = spear or pal ; the 
 dvisvXz. is thus a twy-pointed spear. There can be no doubt 
 whatever, from the monuments, that the resemblance of the 
 trisula to this " dvisula " or caduceus is (as this Inquiry seeks to 
 expound matters) due to the one being a symbol of divine duality, 
 the other of a divine triad. M. Goblet d'Alviella, in contrasting the 
 two, adds on in each case' the O which seems to me to indicate 
 the sphere, orb, or wheel ; and in the case of two trisulas he adds 
 on the sidcwings of the wheel or ring ; but he also duly records^ 
 how M. Ch. Lenormant and the baron de Witte recognised 
 the idea of sexual duality, of an HermAphrodite in a single 
 divine entity, as being conveyed by the caduceus. For me, 
 the duality, sexual or other, is indicated in the simplest way by 
 the dual termination of the stem, just as the triple end indicates 
 a triad. 
 
 Caduceum was a herald's staff, but its conjectural formation 
 " quasi from caducus, stick oi fallen wood,"* is most unsatisfying. 
 Caduceus being (like the Greek KT^pvKeioi;) adjectival, baculus or 
 baculum was supposed to be understood. Bac-ulum is compared 
 with ^aK-rpov staff and ^aK-TTj'i strong, which are both (by an 
 unconvincing etymology) brought from /Saivco I walk. It seems to 
 
 ' Rhys's i///». La-/s. 441, 481. - Hygin. Fai. 169. 
 
 '' Aligr. des Symlwks, 304, 316. ' Wharton's Etyina Latinn. 
 
76 The Night of tJie Goas. [Axis 
 
 me that we must not here wilfully shut our eyes to the obvious 
 BoK-^o?, nor to the fact that Bactria holds the same relation to 
 /SaKTpov and ^aKTrjpia (staff of office, prop) that Doria does to 
 hopv shaft. We thus Unfold an important connection between the 
 great, the supreme, god Bacchus and the stability of the axis-Shaft, 
 in which he accords with Ptah and the tat. 
 
 "Odinndied in his bed in Sweden," says the Inglinga saga, 
 " and when he was near his death he made himself be marked with 
 the point of a spear, and said he was going to Godheim." 
 
 [The twelve godcs or diar or drotnar of Odinn were obviously cognate to our 
 god, as the name of a deity. They (or the priests who represented them) 
 directed sacrifices and judged the people, and all the people sensed and 
 obeyed them.] 
 
 "Niord died on the bed of sickness, and before he died made 
 himself be marked for Odinn with the spear-point."^ 
 
 There is a useful illustration of Athenaia and Poseidon (from a vase in the 
 Bibliotheque Nationale) given in Harrison and Verrall's manual on the 
 Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens.^ The spear and trident are 
 there unmistakeably important. 
 
 The Finnish Hephaistos, Ilmarinen, forges for his brother 
 Wainamoinen, in the 46th rune of the Kalevala, a spear of 
 wondrous beauty out of magic metals, and a triple pointed lancet 
 with a copper handle, for fighting the great bear Otso of the North- 
 land.^ This is a clear trident. 
 
 It would however be satisfactory if, while upon this subject, 
 the trident of Neptune could in any sufficient way be accounted for 
 as being connected with that of Assur and that of Saturn, and 
 therefore, as I venture to maintain, with the Polar deity. The most 
 ancient Cretan coins show the Phoenician god Tan (translated 
 Poseidon by Philo of Byblos) with a fish-tail, that is as a fish-god, 
 and holding a Neptune's trident. The name of this god is found, 
 too, in composition in the Cretan Itanos, from i-tan, isle of Tan. 
 Now Tan was son of Yam, son of Ba'al, son of II (or Kronos)."* 
 Did the trident thus descend from Kronos or Saturn to the sea- 
 god Poseidon or Neptune? That Kronos was prominent in the 
 worship of Crete is abundantly clear from the fact of human 
 sacrifices having been there, as in Rhodes, offered to him.^ 
 
 ' Heimskrin^la (Laing and Anderson) 1SS9, i, pp. 2S1, 2S2, 267, 270. 
 
 - Macmillan, 1S90, p. .\xvii. 
 
 ^ Crawford's Kalez^ala, pp. 66 r, 662. 
 
 ^ F. Lenormant : Orig. de V Hist, ii, 544, 545. 
 
 '" Porphyry: Di Abst. ii, 197, 202. 
 
Mythsi] The Trident. 77 
 
 Again, in the Saiapaiha-brdhmana a fish appears to Manu, is adored by 
 him, and tows Manu's ship during the deluge over the Mountain of the North, 
 Manu came down as the waters receded, and that is what is called the descent 
 of Manu on the Mountain of the North.' This fish-god becomes Brahmi in 
 the Mahabharata, and Vishnu in the Piirdnas (Matsyavatara). 
 But in the Chaldean account of the deluge, the fish's part is 
 taken by the god Ea (also qualified as Shalman, that is Saver) who 
 is essentially the Assyrio-Babylonian icthyomorphic god.^ Now, 
 that Ea and Kronos are parallels admits of little doubt,^ for the 
 Greeks translated Ea by Kronos, as they did Bel by Zeus. And 
 not alone is Ea spoken of on the Chaldean tablets as the " Lord 
 with the clear-seeing Eye," but also as " the motionless Lord "^ 
 — which seem to me to be epithets peculiar to the polar divinity. 
 
 Furthermore, Ea is the male of one of the primitive pairs that issue from 
 the primordial humidity which affords the farthest-back connection possible in 
 mythological time with an Ocean parentage and habitat. 
 
 It is not likely now that anything can ever be safely based upon the lost 
 Black Stone of Susa, but that clearly, in General Monteith's drawing,' 
 exhibits a trident in a prominent position. 
 
 Poseidon says in the Iliad (.w) : three brethren are we and sons of Kronos, 
 whom Rhea bare : Zeus and myself, and Hades is the third, the ruler of the 
 folk in the underworld. [This seems to give Poseidon the earth ; Zeus keeping 
 the heavens.] 
 
 Poseidon in the Orphic hymn to Equity is called the marine Zeus : 
 TTovTios elvoKeos Zeis ; and in the explanation of his trident given by Olympiodorus 
 (on the Gorgias), Zeus is called celestial, Plouton terrestrial, and Poseidon of a 
 nature between these. This in fact gives us what Proclus (in Theol. Plat, 367) 
 also says upon the subject. Zeus holds a sceptre because of his ruling judicial 
 powers; and Poseidon has a trident because of his middle situation.'' If this 
 means anything at all it must mean that he is the middle prong of the trident 
 representing a three-fold Zeus, a triad of supreme gods, and that that is why 
 he holds the emblem. 
 
 Homer (//. xiv) makes Hera say to Aphrodite : " I am going 
 to the limits of the earth, and Okeanos father of the gods, and 
 mother Tethys who reared me duly and nurtured me in their halls, 
 when far-seeing Zeus imprisoned Kronos beneath the earth and 
 the unvintaged sea." Here are recognitions of the springing 
 even of the gods from moisture, and of the infernal position of the 
 fallen Kronos. 
 
 Miinter^ recognised a relation between Poseidon and Ogenos, 
 
 ' Prof. Max Miiller : Skt. Lit. p. 425. Muir : Slzt. Texts, ii, 324. 
 
 - Orig. de [•Hist, i, 422 ; 387, 564 ; 505, 393. 
 
 ^ Walpole's Travels in Turkey, ii, 426. 
 
 ■• Taylor's Pans, iii, 254, 268, 269 (notes). * Relig. der Karthager, p. 57. 
 
78 The Night of the Gods. {A 
 
 xis 
 
 the archaic god-name (indicated by Suidas) from which Okeanos 
 seems to have come. Poseidon, says K. O. Miiller, seems clearly 
 connected with pontes pontics potos potamos, used for sea rivers 
 and waters generally. The radical weakness of all the theories of 
 Neptunus (Poseidon) and his trident seems to lie in the total 
 ignoring in this connection of the Universe-ocean, and the limiting 
 of the mythologist's purview to some earthly pond like the 
 MediTerranean sea. 
 
 The horses of Poseidon cannot be disconnected from the legend 
 in the Iliad (xxiii, 346) of his changing into ahorse, while Demeter 
 became a mare. In those forms they begat the horse Arion. 
 Poseidon's position as a supreme central deity of the first rank is 
 here evident in his being mated with Demeter. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone in his Homerology,^ points out that 
 " Poseidon is the god who may specially be called the god of horses in 
 Homer ; and the relation is one which it is quite idle to refer to the metaphorical 
 relation between the foam of waves and the mane of the animal, or between the 
 ship and his [the horse's] uses on land." 
 
 This seems to me to be one more element in the proof of 
 Poseidon's being originally a central supernal god, the deity of the 
 Universe-ocean — not merely of terrestrial seas — the god of mois- 
 ture, the ruler of Water, the earliest co-productor (with heat) of 
 life, the deity of the Watery Sphere surrounding the Universe, 
 which was borne along in the general revolution by the horses of 
 Poseidon. Virgil calls Neptunus " Saturnius domitor maris " {^Ain. 
 V. 799). 
 
 If the word napdt, water, does indeed turn out to be of kin 
 with Neptwwxs, as some German scholars theorise, it would be a 
 help to my arguments, when the central idea of Apam-napat is 
 kept in mind. And again, if the Oldlrish triatli sea "helps to 
 explain the Greek Triton, the Sanskrit irita, and the Zend tlu-ita"'- 
 I think we must go a little farther and attach the whole of these, 
 as well as the trident, to the central triad conception. 
 
 Dr. Schrader says that Sanskrit ndpat, niptar = i, grandson ; 2, son ; 3, 
 descendant in general. Avestan napat = grandson. \'edic apam napat = off- 
 spring of water, cannot =: Neptunus, for napat has nought to do with water ;" 
 unless indeed (as I shall add) Neptunus ^ simply "son of" (god). Does 
 -Unus in Nept-unus, Port-unus, and so on, mean simply One? 
 
 ' Contcmf. Rev. xxvii. Six (1S76). 
 
 ^ Dr. I. Taylor's Orig. of the Aryans, p. 306 ; Rel. Thought and Life in India, i, 346. 
 
 * Jevons's Schrader's Prehist. Antiij. oj Aryans (1S90), pp. 374, 412 
 
Myths.'] The Trident. 79 
 
 This ordinary term of apam napat appears as aptya (also son of the waters) 
 in Trita iptya' or Traitana, the Firegod, which gives some sort of a connection 
 of nap^t with Neptunus through Triton. 
 
 Thebes is called Tritonian in the Argonautikon (iv, 260). There 
 is also the Tritonian river of seven streams (iv, 269). When 
 Athene sprang in bright armour from her father's head she was 
 washed at the waters of Triton (iv, 131 1). From a rock near the 
 lake Tritonis (iv, 1444), when kicked by a giant, instantly gushes 
 forth a spring (another Moses-miracle). Triton (iv, 1552) bestows 
 the clod of earth which makes the island Kalliste (alias the Earth). 
 Triton is here unmistakeably a water-god, and his name indicates 
 the trident which Poseidon carries. 
 
 And have not the place and functions of Poseidon at long last descended 
 to the Eastern St. Nicholas, many of whose churches replace the former 
 sanctuaries of the Greek god ; the Greek sailors praying to the Saint in tempests 
 or for a fair wind, just as their progenitors did to the sea-deity. 
 
 Darniesteter's Zend Avesla, i, Ixiii. 
 
8o 
 
 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 7. — The Adpu and "ApTrr) of Kronos. 
 
 WITH Izanagi'sspear when combined with the triple emblem 
 must, I would further suggest, be classed also the Sopv and 
 the "ApiTT] of Kronos. According to Hesiod, the weapon of 
 Kronos was a scythe of astonishing size, made of a shining 
 diamond ; and it was made for the god by his mother Trj the 
 Earth. Sanchoniathon said that Kronos caused to be made a apTrrj 
 and a Bopv of iron. It is well-known that the Greek word for 
 diamond ahdixa<; really means adamant, that which is indestructible ; 
 and such I suggest — and not diamond — maybe its real significance 
 as the material of the weapon of Kronos. 
 
 The first mention of abafias is said to be in Hesiod' ; and then and thence- 
 forward, in the sense of ^n everlasting substance which was a trade secret with 
 the gods, it remained confined to theological poetry. Of it were made the 
 helmet of Herakles,' the apivr) of Kronos," the chains of Prometheus,^ and the 
 plough of Aietes.'' There is no doubt that the term was applied to the 
 natural magnet, although Pliny^ gave the adamas an antimagnetic virtue. 
 I do not desire to press too hard the other meaning, loadstone ; 
 though it is tempting and (especially in connection with the iron, 
 aihripo^, which Philo-Sanchoniathon reported as the material) would 
 come to the support of the theory mentioned farther on as to 
 natural magnets. It must be added that the original meaning 
 of the Japanese word for the spear material, which is rendered 
 "jewel," is also doubtful. 
 
 The apirr) of Kronos, generally rendered scythe or sickle, 
 whether in translations or in works of art representing the god, 
 has often been presumed to have given the astronomical sign of 
 the planet Saturn, J^ . 
 
 The apTTT] is I think susceptible of another very archaic 
 interpretation. Our Jiarpoon comes from the same root, and the 
 meaning of an agricultural instrument may be comparatively 
 modern : it would not suit a nomad people for example. This line 
 of thought might give us something resembling the trident which 
 is found as the emblem of Saturn on Roman medals, and thus the 
 epithet sharp-toothed Kapx^pohov;, which describes the object in 
 
 ' Scutum Here. 137. - Id. Thcogon. 161, iSS. •■* -Eschylus, Pmji. 6 
 
 ' I'ind.ir, Pylh. iv, 397 ; Argonaut, iii, 12S5, 1325. * Hut. Nat. xxxvii, 5l. 
 
]\Tyths?\ The Ao'pu and "XpTrr] of Kroiios. 8i 
 
 Hesiod, would present no difficulty. What I suggest is that the 
 apir-q must have been the head of the Sopu or spear, and that the 
 triple point of the head would thus connect it with the " fleur-de- 
 Lis," the emblem of the triad, at the Northern point of the Universe- 
 Axis. 
 
 Pausanias (vii, 23) gives us the scythe or sickle idea in the legend about 
 Kronos throwing the instrument with which he mutilated Ouranos into the 
 sea from a promontory named Drepanon near the mouth of the river 
 Bolinaios. But this legend seems to contain a mere nominis umbra. 
 
 The ithyphallic statues of gardens had a wooden scythe or reapinghook 
 which Columella joked at as a scarethief — " prajdoni falce minetur."' It is 
 also mentioned in the Priapcia, xxix — " falce minax ; " and there was also a 
 long overtopping pole behind the figure, which was used to hang a scare- 
 crow on, apparently ; for Horace says : 
 
 Ast importunas volucres in vertice arundo 
 Terret fixa {^Sat. viii, 6). 
 
 Hermes beheaded Argos with a harpe, which is shown as a 
 sickle on a gem of green jasper.- According to one account, 
 Hermes first put Argos to sleep with the sound of his flute, and 
 then cut off his head with the harpe f by another report he simply 
 killed him with a blow of a stone. Hermes also gave 1 erseus an 
 adamantine harpe to kill Medousa.'' 
 
 Dr. O. Schrader equates the " sickle-shaped knife " for cutting corn, 
 apTT/;, with the Old-Slavonic srupii ; and Mr. Wharton adds Old- Latin sarpo 
 to prune, and OHG sarf sharp. 
 
 Apollodorus preserved a myth which makes the serpent Typhon 
 despoil Zeus of his thunder, and also of the harpe which had been 
 before him the weapon of his father Kronos' ; another myth makes 
 Zeus fight and lop Typhon with the harpe. The Thracian 
 gladiators used a harpe in the public games. 
 
 The hopv spear or dart is constant in the myth of Prokris and 
 Kephalos (to which we must not turn aside), and the custom of 
 planting a spear in the grave at a funeral {lirevk'^Keiv Sopv) is even 
 connected with this myth. " Some say that it was EreChtheus 
 who made the spear be driven into the grave."" But we can 
 afford a smile at these conjectures, when we find the similar 
 custom, with poles, among the Tartars (see Index). 
 
 The Thracians, wrote Clemens Ale.xandrinus', first invented 
 what is called a apirrj — it is a curved sword. 
 
 ' De cultu hortorum, X. " Tassie-Raspe, Catalogue of gems, 11S2. 
 
 " Ovid, Met. i, 671, 721. < ApoU. Bihl. ii, 3, 2 ; ii, 4, 2, S. 
 
 ' Bihl. i, 6, 3, 8. 
 
 * Istros, Frag. 19 (Didot i, 420). ' Slromata, i, ch. 16. 
 
 F 
 
82 I'hc Night of the Gods. {Axis 
 
 Here are given illustrations of: 
 
 " The mutilation harpe of Kronos or of Saturn," from 
 Winckelmann, Piey'res gravees de Stosc/i, p. 24, No. 5 ; 
 SchlichteKroU, ibid. xv. 
 
 " The harpe of an antique form (ensis falcatus) and the globe ; " from 
 
 ^1^ an Etruscan scarabeus. Tassie, Catahi^i/e, pi. .\iv, No. 758 : Bottiger, 
 
 O KuitstmythoIogii\ i, tab. i, 4. This is the sign of the planet Saturn ? 
 
 Harpe in a bas-relief of the quondam Mus^e royale 
 
 of Paris. Millin, Montim. Anfiq. iiiedit. i, pi. 23. It 
 
 looks somewhat like the Egyptian reaping-hook, the 
 
 which we now know (thanks to Mr. Flinders 
 
 Petrie) to have been originally a sickle made of the jawbone of an animal, 
 with the teeth left in. 
 
 One of the leading myths which we have not hitherto been able 
 to explain to ourselves is the sowing of the serpent's teeth by 
 Kadmos son of AgEnor. Apollonios of Rhodes said' that there- 
 after he " founded a race of earthborn 'yanqyevel'i men from the 
 remnant left after the harvesting of Ares' spear ; "- which is not 
 self-explanatory. Can it refer to teeth having been archaically 
 used for spearheads (for we are certain that they were used in the.se 
 Egyptian reaping-hooks); and also to the flint weapon-points being 
 found everywhere as if sown broadcast? And would this throw 
 any new light on Samson's (reaping .') exploit with the "new jaw- 
 bone-of-an-ass ? "^ (Compare the beaks, claws and horns, p. 91.) 
 
 On correcting the proof of the foregoing sentence, I find in 
 Seyffert's Mythological Dictionary' that " the invention of the saw, 
 which he copied from the chinbone of a snake," is ascribed to 
 Talos, the nephew of DaiDalos. Now when Kadmos, helped by 
 Athene'07/ca, killed the monstrous python-serpent of Ares — for 
 this drakon was depicted as a great boa in ancient art — either the 
 goddess or he (by her advice) sowed its teeth," which produced the 
 armed Theban giants called Spartoi, whose name was brought, by 
 what I suggest was a punning shot, from atreipa), sow. 
 
 The root is spar, but another view may be held, that the real origin of 
 Spartoi, and also of a-irdpros esparto-grass, still exists in the obvious English 
 
 ' Argon, iii, 1 187. 
 
 • Mr. E. P. Coleridge's version, p. 13S. ^Judges xv, 15. 
 
 * English ed. (1S91) by Nettleship and .Sandys, p. 171. (No authority cited.) 
 ' Eurip. Phoen. 667, 670 ; Apoll. Bibl. iii, 4, i, 4. 
 
lilyths?^ The Aopu and "Xpirrj of Ki-onos. S3 
 
 words spar (a bar, pole, yard), spear, spur, " Aryan " spara a dart. Nor does 
 the original sense of crweipa, crTralpm, to beget, to shake, seem to ha\ e been 
 merely the scattering of vegetable seeds with the hand. The words may ha\-e 
 existed before agriculture was dreamt of. 
 
 The idea I throw out is that what were fabled to have been 
 sown were the flint weapons, the dartheads and spearheads, that 
 were found in the soil as if they had been sown broadcast. 
 Anna antiqua manus ungues dentesque fuerunt, 
 et lapides et item silvarum fragmina rami. 
 
 (Lucretius v, 1282.) 
 (This, in one aspect, is a doublet of Deukalion and Pyrrha's creation 
 of mankind by throwing stones.) The next step in my theory is that 
 these flints were mixed up with those put into jawbone-sickles 
 (and saws) to replace the natural teeth, and that something like 
 this is the rationale of the myth. And we must not forget that 
 Demeter, as the universal mother, ttuptcov fii^rtjp,^ irafijjLu^rwp,'^ 
 '7ra/j,/j,7]Teipa,^ produced the first men, ya.-^atyevel'i avOpanrot} 
 
 The sowing of the Roman Campus iVIartius by Tarquinius Superbus (the 
 High Turner of the heavens) is an obvious mythic doublet of this story of 
 Kadmos. 
 
 If there be anything in this speculating, then we may perhaps 
 flash another light on the above " harvesting " in the Argonauti- 
 ka. A legend of Corcyra (see p. 33) anciently Drepane, related 
 by Aristotle, said that Demeter there taught the Titans to harvest 
 with a Speirdvi) or sickle that she had begged of Poseidon, which 
 drepane she then buried, and so gave its name to the island. 
 
 In the following century however, Timaios" (260 B.C.) said that the name 
 came from the drepane with which Kronos maimed Ouranos, or Zeus cut 
 Kronos. 
 
 A similar story was told of Cape Drepanon in Sicily ; and we 
 here may clearly have what was wanting, the putting into the 
 ground of the teeth or flint-teeth in the jaw-sickle. The drepane, 
 plucker, from Spe-rrai pluck, must have been a very primitive article, 
 its name belonging to a previous hand-plucking of the ears. 
 
 If we are to see a celestial meaning in the Titan's harvest, it was perhaps a 
 doublet of the shearing or skinning idea, of the golden fleece, and was thus a 
 figure for the golden grain of the starry heavens. 
 
 I must not omit to note that the helper of Kadmos was pro- 
 bably not Athene at all, but some local goddess who became 
 absorbed in Athene ; for the name "OjKa is the obvious feminine 
 
 ' Hesiod 0/>. et D. 565. ^ ,^Jsch. Prom. 90. ' Homer Hymn x.wiii, I. 
 
 "" Hesiod Theog. S79 ; Homer Hyinnin Co: 352. 
 ' Frag. 54 (in Didot, i, 203). 
 
 F 2 
 
84 The Night of the Gods. [AxL 
 
 IS 
 
 of "Oy/co?, who was similarly made a son of Apollo. Now one 
 sense of oyKo^ was a barb — modern Greek a^jKadi thorn (compare 
 uKavda), a^/KiaTpi liook. W'c still say " toothed " for barbed, w hich 
 in modern Greek is ohovraro^;. 
 
 There still survive such strange human weapons that I think it may be 
 said that he who would identify the apTri; with a sickle, and a sickle only, 
 must be a bold man indeed. Mr. Consul F. S. A. Bourne' describes one 
 weapon as being very common all over the Yijnnan pro\ince : It is a rod of 
 iron about 3 feet long, with a sword-handle at one end, and at the other a 
 bar at right angles to the rod about 5 inches long, pointed, and sharpened on 
 the inner edge. Asked what it was for and how used, one man replied : 
 for men or wild beasts ; it would give a stab by striking or a cut by pulling 
 This weapon is called kou-lien (hook). 
 
 The thyrsus of Bacchus was frequently considered as hiding a 
 spear-head under its foliage.- A bas-relief in the Vatican shows 
 the point coming through, and the correct term seems then to 
 have been dvpaoXo^xP^ (Diod. Sic. iv, 4). This blade became a 
 lanceolate leaf Note (see p. 92) the connexion here between 
 Ba/c-^09 and /BuK-TpoT. 
 
 Professor Tiele duly rejects the " crescent " interpretation of 
 the weapon of Kronos, though Arjuna uses a crescent-tipped 
 arrow in killing Kama ; and it is scarcely necessary to allude to 
 the theories which make the harpe either the rainbow or the Milky 
 Way. It has also been rendered scimitar, which would bring us 
 round to the supreme god of the ancient Scythians, Ti\us, the 
 Brilliant, the Heavens, who was also, like the supreme deity of 
 the Jews, their god-of-battles, and was represented by a dart or a 
 lance fi.xed on the mound of assembly and sacrifice," whence Tivus 
 had also the names of Dart (Scyth., Kaizus ; Goth., Gaisus"') and 
 Lance (Kaztus and Gazds). Herodotus (iv, 62) however made 
 the Scythian god's emblem a very ancient sword-blade, w^hich was 
 actually worshipped ; and this opens out a wide field for com- 
 parisotis with the divine swords of Japan. 
 
 Apart from the well-worn old Western cliche about the turning 
 of the sword into the ploughshare, we have the mythic sword of the 
 god Susa no Wo the Impetuous-Male of Japan, which sword is 
 called the grass-cutter (kusanagi no tsurugi o>' tachi), and in it we 
 must see the sickle into which the di\'ine harpe also dwindles. It 
 
 ' Journey in S. W. China. Parly. Paper C. 5371 (iSSS) p. 9. 
 ^ Macrob. Sat. i, 19; Diod. Sic. iii, 65; Lucian, Bacch. 3. 
 ' Bergmann's Gylfa Ginning, p. 270. 
 * See also Mr. Wharton's Ely ma Latina, s. v. gaesum 
 
Myths.'] The Aopu and "Kp-rr-q of Kronos. 85 
 
 reappears as the heavenly sword sent down to Yamato-Take, and 
 is one of the three treasures (with the mirror and the stone) of the 
 regalia of Japan. 
 
 The File deity in Japan has for one of his names the Kagu-hammer of Fire, 
 Hi no Kagu-tsuchi (as to which see Index) ; he was the son of Izanagi and 
 Izanami, and his father cut off his head with a ten-handed sword (to-tsuka 
 tsurugi) which was called both the Wohabari of the heavens and the strong cr 
 sacred Wohabari (Ame no Wohabari and Itsu no Wohabari). Wo-ha-bari is 
 dimly explained as Point-blade-extended,' which would suit the Axis-spear. 
 This sword is deified afterwards as a Kami who dwells in the Rock-Palace (ihaya) 
 by the source of the heavens-river.^ He also blocks up and turns back the 
 heavens-river, and blocks up the road to his abode, so that no other god can 
 get to him. Here is a reminder of the Flaming Sword of the Hebrews. 
 
 The Egyptian royal blade called ;^epesh | was compared 
 by Chainpollion to the harpe. The word ^^jepesh also means 
 the ox's foreleg, shoulder, r'<C^, of which it is said to have the form 
 (though this is not explained). It is royal, and thus perhaps an 
 executioner's as well as a sacrificial knife. The god Mentu holds 
 it (as war-god ?). According to the ancient Amhurst Papyrus " the 
 august mummy of the king" (in a record of the opening of a 
 royal tomb) was " found near the divine p^epesh." This T^;epesh 
 knife (or leg-of-beef) is also mentioned in the funereal rituals as a 
 northern constellation ; and the leg-of-beef n'CZi " has given its 
 name to the constellation of the Great Bear " says Pierret.^ There 
 may thus not be much danger in suggesting that this hieroglyph 
 <Ai3 may have originally meant the Great Bear, the form of which 
 it resembles. Have we not here too a supreme connexion with 
 that most widespread custom of divination b)- the sacred sacrificial 
 shoulder-blade-bonc ? We have 
 
 ® n T^ep, thigh. ®^^D j^^^^ ;;^epesh, shoulder (fore-thigh). 
 
 ma, shoulder, '^i. ma, to immolate. 
 
 ^ Xepesh, Ursa Major. 
 D I and ^%=5^ ^epesh, royal blade. 
 
 p D f^^„ T^epcsh, power, strength. 
 
 The Beiosus account of the production of Heavens and Earth is old and 
 strange, but quite on the lines of the theories I here advance ; and it was con- 
 firmed by one of the Chaldean tablets discovered by the late Mr. George Smith. 
 The demi-urgos Bclos or Bel-I\Iaruduk struggles with the goddess Tiamat, one of 
 tl.e personifications of primordial humidity, darkness, and mist, and cuts her in 
 ' A'ojiki, pp. 34, 31, 29. - IhiJ. lOO. ' Diet. p. 165; I'ocali. p. 237. 
 
86 
 
 "^he Night of the Gods. {Axis 
 
 two ; making of the lower half the Earth, and of the upper the Heavens. The 
 tablet says " he made aJso the scimitar (sapara) to pierce the body of 
 Tiamat," and "the Lord also drew his scimitar, he struck her ; he brought to 
 the front the cutting weapon ; he broke her stomach, her inside he cut, he split 
 her heart."' This has a strong resemblance to the weapon of Kronos, and also 
 to the Egg and the egg-opening ideas. 
 
 The Scythian dart or lance, too, at once recalls the magic lance 
 of Alexander at p. 36 ; and according to the guide-book of Pau- 
 sanias (i, i & 2) an Athenian statue of Poseidon represented him 
 hurling a spear at the giant PoluBotes. In the temple of Athene 
 at the Piraeus too, he adds, the statue of the goddess held a spear 
 (as did the Trojan Palladium). 
 
 The Chaironeans, further wrote Pausanias (ix, 40), venerate 
 above all tlie gods the sceptre which Homer {Itiad, ii) says 
 Hephaistos made for Zeus. This sceptre Hermes received from 
 Zeus and gave to Pelops, Pelops left it to Atreus, Atreus to 
 Thyestes, and from Thyestes it came to Agamemnon. This 
 sceptre, too, they call Tfie Spear (Sopv) ; and indeed that it contains 
 something of a nature more divine than usual is evident from 
 hence, that a certain splendour is seen proceeding from_ it. The 
 Chaironeans say tliat this sceptre was found in the borders of the 
 Panopcans (Tldp, Ops ?) in Phocis. There is not any temple 
 publicly raised for this sceptre ; but every year the person to whose 
 care tliis sacred sceptre is committed, places it in a building destined 
 to this purpose ; and the people sacrifice to it every day, and place 
 near it a table full of all kinds of flesh and sweetmeats. 
 
 There is a passage in Justinus (xliii, 3) which clearly refers to 
 this. At the origin of things, he says, the men of old adored lances 
 as immortal gods ; in memory of which worship, lances are added 
 to the statues of the gods to this day. ("Ab origine rerum, pro 
 diis immortalibus veteres hastas coluere ; cujus religionis ob 
 memoriam adhuc deorum simulacris hastae adduntur.) 
 
 The horse-god Aswatthaman, son of Droiia the son of Bharad- 
 waja, threatened Phalguna (Arjuna) with the spear of Brahma ; 
 but Phalguna " opposed the spear of Brahma to the spear of 
 Brahma."" This spear of the son of Drona is pointed with red-hot 
 iron and directed against Uttara (goddess of the North ?) ; it seems 
 to become five spears ; but Bhagavat opposes to it his own spear 
 Sudarsana 
 
 ' F. Lenormant's fr/j,""- '''' I' Hist, i, 124, 506, 50S, 511, 512. 
 '^ BhAg.-purAna, i, 7, 29 ; S, S, &c. ; S, 24 ; 12, i ; 15, 12. 
 
Myiks.'] The Aopw and "Xp-rrrj of Kronos. 87 
 
 (which is also the name of the chakra of Krishna, which is also called Vajra- 
 Nabha == the Navel-Vajra ; the vajra being a circular weapon with a central 
 hole. It was given to Krishna by Agni). 
 
 The spear of Brahma is called Brahmasiras, and is appeased on en- 
 countering the splendour of Vishnu (Bhagavat). Hari is praised for 
 saving from the spear of the son of Drona. The burning spear 
 Brahmasiras, thrown by Aswatthaman, burns and kills the child 
 Parikshit that Uttara was bearing in her womb, but the child was 
 recalled to life by Bhagavat (Krishna).^ Siva (or Indra) gave his 
 spear to Suta, " the charioteer " (Kama), in exchange for his divine 
 cuirass. But all this conception of the spear (while in the divine 
 names used a connection with the North and the heavens-omphalos 
 are made certain; dovetails inseparably into those of the divine 
 chakra-weapon, and the trident ; as is excellently illustrated in the 
 last passage here taken from the Blidgnvata : 
 
 Like one who wants to cast a curse at a Brahman, Hiranyaksha [golden-eye, 
 the chief of the Diityas : demon-giants who are scarcely to be distinguished 
 from the Dinavas] seized his spear armed with three points, resplendent, 
 insatiable as fire, and directed it against Yajna [sacrifice, who had taken a 
 visible form ; victim i"] This weapon, launched with vigour by the great hero of 
 the Daityas, and shining in the mid-heavens with a splendour that was immense, 
 the god severed with the keen edge of his Chakra (iii, 19, 13). 
 
 The Phoenician heavens-god Baal-shamayim by II ; Osiris by Typhon 
 (Tebh ?); Typhon and Set by Horus ; Ouranos by Kronos ; Kronos and Typhon 
 by Zeus ; Dionusos by the two other Kabeiroi ;- Adonis and Odin by boars ; 
 Attis and Odin and feshmun and Ra' by themselves or others ; the Hemi- 
 Aphroditean daemon Agdistis by all the gods,* were each and all similarly 
 mutilated. The disablement was common towards captives in all ages, and was 
 probably enforced against the older males by the younger in the days of 
 pristine innocence. The usual mystic explanation of this typical mutilation of 
 the god now current is the fall of the year, the winter fall of the sun. But 
 another is easily possible. 
 
 The Samoan heavens at first fell down and lay upon the Earth until the 
 arrowroot and another plant, or the god Ti-iti-i, pushed the heavens up.* The 
 Mangaian sky was in a similar position until the sky-supporting god Ru set to 
 work.'' In New Zealand, says Mr. Lang," the heavens and earth were regarded 
 as a real pair, Rangi and Papa, of bodily parts and passions, united in a secular 
 embrace. Dr. Wallis Budge here suggests to me the apposite and happy 
 
 ' Bh&g.-punlna, i, i8, i ; iii, 3, 17. - Clem, of Alex. 
 
 ^ Pcreiiihnt, ch. 17. Th. Deveria : Cat. Jes MSS. 42. 
 
 ■* Pausanias, vii, 18. There is a curious parallel to the myth of Attis and his bride 
 in a Japanese myth of Amaterasu and Susanowo (Chamberlain's Kojiki, p. 54) which 
 would bear investigation. * Turner's Samoa, p. 19S. 
 
 ' Gill's Myths and Songs, p. 59. ? Myth. Kit. and Kel. i, 253, 302. 
 
S8 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 parallel of "the Egyptian idea that the (feminine) heavens came down and lay 
 upon the Earth all night until Sliu (the sunlight ?) lifted her up each morning. 
 Sky was Nut ; Earth, Seb." [The incorrigible gardener's connexion of the 
 moon with the sowing of seeds comes in here too.] The Heavens and Earth 
 are in the Veda, says Dr. Muir, constantly styled the parents not only of men 
 but of the gods. Mr. Lang applies the same explanation to Kronos and Gaia ; 
 and cites the Maori's god Tane-Mahuta sundering the heavens and the earth 
 by cruelly severing the sinews that united them. This view of the mutilation 
 of Kronos fits in admirably with the phallic \iew of the pillar that represents 
 the .A.xis which joins heavens and earth ; and the mutilation of the heavens-god 
 would then be " another account " of the separation of heavens and earth ; 
 both accounts being fused into one perfect account in the Maori myth and also 
 in Hesiod {Theog. 175-185) where Ouranos approaches Gaia _/;'o/« a distance, 
 and Kronos then commits the mutilation. This seems to me to be of first-rate 
 importance in expounding these myths ; and I owe the idea to Mr. Lang, who, 
 however, does not carry it into the axis-myths. The myth of Attis and Kubele 
 would then be only a variant, and the eunuch-priests of the Earth-goddess 
 would explain themsehes. 
 
 See also p. 38 an/e, to which the following addition may here be made. 
 The Earth was adored in China, says De Groot', under the name of Ti K'i 
 Jlil fK' foi' which he selects the equi\alent Earth-goddess, because j^ after a 
 proper name is a female determinative. Another name for the Earth was Heou 
 T'ou J^ j^ Empress-Earth. In combination with the heavens-deity, the ex^ 
 pression " Emperor-heavens and Empress-Earth," was used, ^ ^ J^ -f- . 
 
 Fetci ifEmotd, i, 147. 
 
Myths.'] Divine Names in Harp- and Dor-. 89 
 
 8. — Divine Names in Harp- and Dor-. 
 
 r y ARPA was the spouse of Kleinis, who sacrificed asses in the temple 
 f '1 of Apollo among the Hyperboreans (that is at the farthest north, the 
 -'■ -'• pole). This Apollo forbad — showing how ancient the accusations 
 about ass-worship are — but two of the children of Kleinis continued the 
 sacrifices, while two others — Ortugios and Artemiche or -cha — became converts. 
 Apollo raged, and father and children were (all equity has been muddled out of 
 the myth) changed into birds; Ortugios not into an ortux or quail as one would 
 have e.xpected (which supports the derivation of Ortygia as a name of Delos 
 which has been given on p. 32, above) but into an aigithalos (titmouse) a bird 
 hostile to Bees, and Artemiche into a piphinx (lark). [Note that these bird- 
 names were foreign to Greece, and that the nymph Kleis and her sisters 
 brought up Bacchus in Naxos, and that Kleia was a daughter of Atlas ; 
 also that kleidomantia was divination by a key or keys. Can all such names, 
 and the terminal syllable of so many god-names, -kXjjs, have to do with key 
 in the sense of the key of the arch {kKtjk, bar, key; Old-Iiish cliii nails; 
 English slot bolt) ? I return to this in the section on " The Arcana.'] 
 Harpasos was another son of Kleinis. 
 
 Harpagos (or is it Har-pagos .■') was a horse of the Dioscures. 
 Harpalc (or Har-pale ?) and Harpiaia (?) were a dog and bitch of Aktaion's. 
 Harpalukos and Harpaluke must be a pair. The first taught HeraKles, 
 so that he was an ancient of the ancients. Of Pelasgos and Meliboia (the 
 heavens Bee-goddess ? — daughter of Okeanos), or else of Pelasgos and the 
 nymph Kullene, was born Lukaon, king of the Arcadians, who had by many 
 wives fifty boys that in pride and impiety surpassed all mortals. Among them 
 were PalLas, Harpaleiis, Harpalukos^ Titanas, Kleitor, and Orchomenos." 
 One myth makes Harpalukos father of Harpaluke, who lived on mare's milk 
 and was an amazon. She was otherwise the most beauteous daughter of 
 Klumenos, king of Argos the heavens, or of Arkadia the polar heavens. 
 Pherecydes- said Klumenos was one of the numerous sons of HeraKles and 
 Megara. He was thus one of the Idaian Heraklides. ApoUodoros^ made 
 Klumenos son of Oineus (king of Kaludon) and Althaia (daughter of Thestios). 
 Other genealogies are numerous. He was king of Orchomenos and son of 
 Presbon {i.e., The Old One), and was killed by a Theban with a stone ; or the 
 son of Phor6neus(= the hidden?), father of mortals, and Chthonia daughter of 
 Kolontas, or by other accounts the sister of Klumenos). He was also king of 
 Elis, driven therefrom by Endymion. Or again, Klumenos was the son of 
 Helios and father of Phaithon by Merope (or Phaithon was the son of Helios 
 by Klumene the wife of Merops). Klumenos was also a companion of Phineus 
 and killed by Odites (a centaur) at the wedding of Perseus. These must all be 
 differing accounts of the same divine personage, and the genealogical ine>;- 
 tricability is typical of his earliness. It gives me great satisfaction to be 
 
 ' Apoll. Bibl. ii, I, 7 ; iii, S, I. - Frag, ii, 30. ^ £•,/,/. i^ s. 
 
9° The Night of the Gods. {A. 
 
 xis 
 
 here able to quote F. Lenormant's endorsement of both K. O. Miiller and 
 Prellcr : " II ne faut pas, conime Font tros bien vu Ottfried Miiller et Preller, 
 attacher plus d'importance qu'elles ne meritent h. ces variations de ffcndalogies." 
 (He is dealing with ErusiChthon's parentage.)' Plouton was also called 
 Klumenos ; but Pausanias (ii, 35, 3 to 7) described a field of Klumenos as 
 well as a field of Plouton behind the temple of Demeter at Hermione of the 
 ApioTref . F. Lenormant^ interpreted KXvfiims as " heard not seen " (which 
 would be The Word, the wind ?). The divine n^mes in k\v- badly want a 
 threshing-out. 
 
 Harpaluke (who was espoused to Alastur)' was possessed by Klumenos her 
 father, but she killed her son (also her brother) and served him up to her (and 
 his) father in a Pelops, sacrificial-cannibalism, myth. Or again, she was the 
 daughter of (the heavens-) Law-bearer Luko-urgos (Lycurgus). She became a 
 bird. There was a girl's song called harpaluke which was perhaps comparable 
 to the men's song hannodios mentioned elsewhere. 
 
 Harpaleiis — see Harpalukos. 
 
 Ha7-paHon (or Har-palion?) son of Pulaimenes king of the Paphlagonians 
 (compare Paphos). 
 
 Harpe, one of the amazons who helped Aietes king of Colchis. 
 
 hai'pc iapirrj) the weapon of Kronos, Hermes, and Perseus ; the 
 sword curved at an obtuse angle of the Thracian gladiators. 
 Hermes was called harpedophoros. Also a kite or falco gcntilis. 
 
 Iiaipax (ap7ra|) drawing to itself, a thief ; but 
 
 harpacticon, sulphur (Pliny xxxv, 25, 50) possessed the virtue of drawing 
 fhings to itself 
 
 Hatpcs was one of the Cyclops (sons of Ouranos and Ge, or of Koilos and 
 Titaia. 
 
 Haipiiina, daughter of Asopos and spouse of Ares. 
 
 Harpies (^Apirvtat, Harpyiae). Hag-visaged vulture-bodied 
 monsters with hooked beak and claws and pendant dugs. (See 
 more of them under the head of " Divine Birds.'') Harrison and 
 Verrall's Ancient Athens (p. Ixxx) says : 
 
 "they are called Arepuiai in early art;" but may there not here have 
 been some confusion with the feather-shooting birds of Ares in the Argonautiica 
 (ii, 1033, 10S3) ? Apollodoros^ made the two Harpuiai begotten by Thaumas 
 (son of Pontos and Ge) out of Elektra. He also named them Aello (storm ?) 
 
 ' Saglio's Did. i, 1039. 
 
 ^ Art. on Ceres, in Saglio's Dkt. i, 1025. 
 
 ^ Mr. E. R. Wharton gives " aXdo-rcop avenger, accursed : nXi; *aXafa), 'making or 
 made to wander ' " [Etyina Gnrca). The Alastores were inimical genii. We seem to 
 have here a straight parallel to the Avestan notion of the evil-working pairikas, the 
 wandering planets. Alastor would thus be a 'Vagabond (planet). lie was also a horse- 
 god (of Plouton's). His brothers, by Neleus out of Chloris, were Asterios, Radios, the 
 protean PmA'/u/ncnos, and eight more (a Twelve in all) with a sister nr;pm, who has a 
 strange resemlilance to [)eri = pairika. 
 
 ^ Bil'l. i, 2, 6 ; i, 9, 21. 
 
Myihs.'] Divine Names in Harp- and Dor-. 91 
 
 and Okupete (swift-flight), alias Okuthoe (swift-swift) or, according to Hesiod, 
 Okupode (swift-footed). 
 
 The connexion between the artificial weapon harpe and the 
 natural weapons of the prey-birds is what strikes me most in these 
 words. We have it in the totally independent myths of the Harpies 
 and of Harpa, Harpasos. The identical same thing in another 
 form of words is seen in the close connexion and confusion of 
 Picus the pike-god with picus the pie-bird. Is the conclusion to 
 be that the beaks and claws of birds were some of the first, as the 
 most ready, of the spear-points used by primeval men? (See 
 also what is said a little lower down as to the horn of the hip^ 
 tipping the hopv spear, and as to teeth on p. 82.) 
 
 The flight of the Harpies and their swooping and snatching of 
 their food, and their defouling habits as they fly, must be taken 
 from the great predaceous night fruit-bats ; as anj'one who has 
 lived among these last may testify. The chasing of the Harpies by 
 the prodromoi (the precursors of day?) also proves them night- 
 hags. The bird-vampire idea of the Striges among the Roaians' 
 may have had a similar origin (strix screechowl ; striga witch). 
 
 [Harpocrates or Harpocras is omitted, being a Greek misconception of 
 Egyptian mytholog)'.] 
 
 hopv. Let us first take Sovpa<;, Sopa?, Sopv, a spear, lance, 
 pole, beam, timber ; and {Sovpou) Sovpa, timber, poles, spears. 
 Here is a resemblance to the Latin axis, which meant plank as well 
 as axle. It is worth noting that SopiVaXTo?, a brandishing of the 
 spear, is a duplication containing both Sopv and ttuX and thus 
 showing — what is in fact evident — that these two terms for the 
 spear came from different languages or tribes. /\6pv is matched 
 by the Avestan daura which meant timber also (see " The Gods 
 of the Druids "). 
 
 S6p^ a. gazelle, antelope, wild-goat, would be so-called from the horns, 
 which may also have tipped the spear. This word also appears as bopKrj dopKos 
 bopKmv and SopKas (Latin dorca and dorcas) which last gives 
 
 AopKas (Hebrew, Tabitha) a woman's name. This we must connect with 
 the worship of Ashtoreth and Artemis. Wild-goats were sacred to the Arab 
 unmarried goddess at whose shrine women, whom the Arabs compare to ante- 
 lopes, prostituted themselves ; and the bo\ine antelope bohtha was in -South Arabia 
 connected with the worship of Athtar, the male counterpart of Ashtoreth. On 
 Phuinician gems the gazelle is a sjTnbol of Ashtoreth. There were golden gazellcii 
 
 ' Ovid, /-'as/, vi. loi, etc. 
 
92 The Night of the Gods. \Axis 
 
 at the Zem-Zem well of Mecca.' This explains why the prostitute's quarter 
 was called, as in Rhodes, Keratohori, horned-village ; and also the depositing 
 o f horns (cornua) against the doors of the Roman meretrices as late as the 
 15th and 1 6th centuries;^ and further the whole grotesque symbolism in the 
 laughing to scorn of the horn, the horn, the lusty horn,^ which thus primarily 
 luded to the wife, and only by a ricochet to the husband. [I am of course 
 here abandoning the gladness of the soft black eye, and the derivation of fidp| 
 k.tX. from SfpKw to see ; Old-Irish derc eye, Sanskrit darg see.] 
 
 hopKivi was a dog of Aktaion's. Was it a deer-hound ? 
 
 AopKfi's was also a son of Hippokoon, and named a fountain in .Sparta. 
 
 AopAioi/ a phallic deity to whom, said Athena;us (citing Plato's Pktrdo), 
 women made offerings. 
 
 Doris daughter of Okeanos, sister and wife of Nereus, and mother of the 
 fifty Nereides or Dorides. (She was mother of Suma or Sume, mother of 
 Chthonios.) 
 
 Ampu'is. the Dorians, claimed descent from Dorus the son of Hellen, son 
 of Deukalion. The Three Eyes that were the guides of the Dorians, and the 
 Triopon promontory-, are notable. The Rhodians spoke Doric. There was the 
 Dorian nox and the Dorian ignes. Note here the insuppressible relation of 
 the Dorian tribe-name to the bafiv shaft or spear, which closely belongs to the 
 connexion (p. 84) of the Bactrians with {iaKvpov jiaKT-qpla a staff or prop. 
 
 Dotioti was a Danaid. 
 
 Dorippe was mother of Spermo (query related to spear, spar a pole, sparus) 
 OiVo (^vine?) and Elais or Elaia (= olive-tree). The father of these three 
 nymphs, who all changed to doves, was Anius king and high-priest of Delos. 
 (Anius must be connected with the Semitic An, Anu ?) This myth is extremely 
 like that of the Hesperides. 
 
 Doritidc was a name of the Gnidians for Aphrodite. 
 
 Do?peia, the first day, the feast-day, of the mysterious Apatouroi ; a com- 
 mentary on which here would interrupt the connexion. 
 
 dorsum or dorsus, the spine. This word is said by the et)Tnologists to be 
 related to Sfipdr, beipi], dfpi) a mountain ridge ;' but surely Supv is the ne.xt-of-kin.' 
 Mr. Wharton compares the Old-Irish druim with both dorsum back and fieipij 
 as neck' — the word that means neck ought to be a subordinate word to that 
 which implies back (bone) and neck. 
 
 /?«-;'A'/&, one of the numerous "heroes " in -klcs. DoriKlosson ofPriamos 
 (Priam) was killed by Ajax. 
 
 DoriiKleus was the son of Hippokoon, and both father and son were killed 
 by HeraKles (Apoll. Bibl. iii, 10, 5). 
 
 £\opv-\aiov the Phr\-gian place-name seems to be compounded 
 of spear -1- stone, Xa^. And so does the name which was perhaps 
 its origin, that of 
 
 ' Prof. Robertson Smith. KinsJiip and Marriage, 194, 195, 29S. 
 
 - Statuta urbis Roiim, etc. 155S, lilj. iv, cap. 23. 
 
 ^ As You Like It, iv, 2. 
 
 ■• Curtius i, 291 ; Fick i, 616 — cited by Prof. Skeat. 
 
 ^ Etyma Gnrca and Laliiia. 
 
Myiks.'] Divine Names in Harp- and Dor-. 93 
 
 Doru-las, the companion of Perseus and Peirithoos — the latter 
 the son of Ixion, the king of the Lapithai, and the consort of 
 Hippodamia. DoruLas was a centaur, killed by Theseus or by 
 Alkuone (also changed to a bird). Compare DoruLas with Pal- 
 Las, ante. 
 
 8opvrf>6pos, the spear-bearer, was a famous statue by PoluklC'tes. 
 
94 The Night of the Gods. \AxL 
 
 IS 
 
 9. — Natural Magnets ; Meteorites ; Beth-Els. 
 
 7\ TATURAL MAGNETS. The existence of the so-called 
 / \ fleur-de-Lis on the northern point of the magnetic needle, as 
 here explained, may point to a far-back time, long before that needle 
 was thought of, when natural magnets of magnetic oxyde of iron — 
 so common a mineral in Northern Europe — were sacrosanct s\'m- 
 bols, holy stones, dedicated to the worship and instinct with the 
 divinity of Tai-Ki, Tai-Yi, or Shang-Ti, the Great Supreme, the 
 Great First, the Uppermost, the Polar centre of the Universe, 
 during long ages before it dawned upon men to turn their mys- 
 terious properties, all so gradually ascertained, to the traveller's and 
 to the mariner's use. These magnets would have been first devoted 
 to acts of worship, and to the definition of the sacrificial worshipping 
 pDsition ; and the periods of their deflections to west or to east may, 
 it is scarcely fanciful to reflect, have boded calamities or the 
 reverse, while their direct pointing to the Polar Star would have 
 been of happiest augury. 
 
 Let us adventure such a supposition as that the production of 
 sound in a piece of iron when suddenly magnetised or demagnetised 
 — which TlV have now for some time known to be a scientific fact — 
 could have been demonstrated to the deeply reverent generations 
 of far-back men who " invented beth-Els, manufacturing animated 
 stones." \^'hat an irrefragable confirmation it might have been to 
 them of the faith that was in them. Add this to the fact that 
 magnetism disappears at a high temperature (say in the sacrificial 
 fire), and ■we should have — if we could permit ourselves to think it 
 — not alone El entering the beth, the god entering the stone, 
 but leaving it, and re-ascending into heaven, with the smoke and 
 savour of the burnt ottering. 
 
 F. Lenormant identified the god El Gabal (whose name was 
 taken by the frantic fanatic Heliogabalus, as high-priest of the sacred 
 stone) «-itli the old Chaldean god of cosmic fire, Gibil, who was 
 also called the god of the black stone. The Semitic word gabal 
 too means lofty, and is used in Aramean and S}'rian place-names 
 to imply heights.^ (See also p. 116). Here the central fire of the 
 
 ' Reville, ReHi;. sons /cs SJzii-es, 242. 
 
Myths^ Natural Magnets ; Meteorites ; Bcth-Els. 9S 
 
 Universe-wheel (which I have to defer till later on), the black 
 stone, and the height of heaven, are all brought togetlier. 
 
 The extremely early religious relation which is here sought 
 to be established between, let us say, ironstone and fire would 
 naturally have led to the presence of both stone and fire at in or on 
 the sacrificial altar where victims were first burnt to the supreme 
 cosmic Northern ruler and Swayer of the Universe. And we do 
 actually find in archaic China " a precious stone " and the victim 
 ordered to be both placed upon the p3're for the " smoking sacri- 
 fice."' The Chinese cyclopedia called the Wti tsa tsti (end of i6th 
 century) mentioned that " if the magnet-stone be heated, its fluid 
 evaporates, and it is no longer sensitive."^ And this theory of 
 mine may even point to the manner of the first smelting of an iron 
 ore as an accident in the sacrificial fire. 
 
 Meteorites. I would not here be misunderstood as controverting, 
 in favour of the natural magnet, the other and the hitherto favourite 
 meteoric origin of sacred stones, meteors containing as much as 
 90 per cent, of iron. The two origins would have been independent, 
 it is true, but not antagonistic. They are not alone compatible, 
 but would have been mutually-supporting tenets, facts, of primeval 
 stone-worship. One class of stones came from heaven; the other 
 pointed there. " So shakes the Needle, and so stands the Pole."^ 
 
 " A diamond-bearing meteorite recently fell in Siberia ; while 
 in the Deesa meteorite we have a splinter from a vein of iron 
 injected, it would appear, into a previously existing rock on some 
 unknown planetary globe."'' 
 
 Hunter's well-known dissertation on bethels and heaven-fallen stones did 
 not suggest the magnetic theory of " animation " which I have here started. 
 He points out how they were, both great and small, preserved in temples for 
 worship ; and how the smaller, as being less potent, served as domestic talis- 
 mans or as charms and gri-gris of the diviners and astrologers. Creuzer quoted 
 Mone's authority for the suspension of many aerolites in our day in the German 
 churches." 
 
 The fall of aerolites, generally accompanied by the visible lumi- 
 nousness of the meteor and an explosion, was confounded in past 
 times with thunder," and the popular belief still is that the thunder- 
 
 ' G. Schlegel : Uraiiog, Chinoise, 277. - Klaproth, La Boiissole, 97. 
 
 ' Donjtian, i, 196. ■* The System of the Stars, by Agnes M. Gierke, 1890, p. 87. 
 
 ° Guignaut's Creuzer, i, 90, 555. 
 
 " Th. H. Martin: Lafoudreetc. che: les ancient, 175, i 78, 195, 206. 
 
96 The Ni^/ii of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 bolt is a stone. Bottiger' and F. Lenormant considered that the 
 Cretan legend of the Kronos-swallowed divine Zeus-stone arose in 
 an serolitic baitulos there adored as an image of Zeus or as Zeus 
 himself. The stone adored on Ida appears to have had the same 
 origin.- At Pessinonte a stone fallen from the heavens was adored as 
 the image of Cybele;'' being afterwards removed to Rome by order of 
 Attalus of Pergamos.^ It later formed the face of her statue and 
 was silvered over.^ It was small, dark, with projecting angles, and of 
 irregular shape ; an aerolite, doubtless. Pindar, seeing a stone fall 
 with flames and noise, devoted it to the Mother of the Gods.*' " I 
 have seen the baitulia flying in the heavens," wrote Damascius ; 
 and it was even believed that the stones retained after their fall the 
 divine power of again at times flying through the air in the midst 
 of a globe of fire. A very strange (and questionable) instance is 
 the colossal emerald of the temple of Melqarth at Tyre (Herod, ii, 
 44) which (according to F. Lenormant) was described in the San- 
 choniathon fragments as- a star which fell from heaven — aepoireT)] 
 acTTepa — and was picked up by Astarte. But Herodotus speaks 
 of two columns, the one of gold, the other of "smaragd which 
 shines by night mightil}-."'' 
 
 [The Brontes, Ceraunia;, and Ombriae of the Greeks and Romans 
 are dealt with later on.] 
 
 The Loadstone. Abel Remusat, in the Mcmoircs which he 
 published in 1S24, said that the polarity of the loadstone had been 
 discovered and put into operation from the remotest antiquity 
 in China, and this the Abbe Hue endorsed.^ But the earliest use 
 of the magnetic needle in China is not, as it seems to me, to be 
 sought for in a mariner's compass, but in the geomantic instru- 
 ment used in the Feng-Shui hocus-pocus which still exercises a 
 supreme hold over the whole nation. This consists of the 8 
 glyphs or graphs or grams or changes of the Y-Kiug, from ^^^Ziz: 
 
 (S. or N.W.) to (N. or S.\\'.), ranged round a circle, with 
 
 inner compartments indicating planetarj', elementary, stellar and 
 animalistic lucky or disastrous influences. The whole 64 (8 x 
 
 ' IJeeii ziir Kumtniyth. ii, 17. * Claudian, De raft. Proicrp., i, 201. 
 
 ' Appian. vii, 56. Herodian i, II. Amm. Marcell., xxii, 22. 
 
 ^ Li\-)', xxix, 2 ; 10, 4 ; II, 5, 8. ' Arnob. vii, 49 ; Prudentius. 
 
 ' Saglio, Diet, dcs Antiq. i, 643, 644. 
 
 '' .See also Pliny Hist. Nat. xxxvii. 5. 19 ; Movers Phoeit. i. 345, 80. 
 
 * Hue's Travels, i. 244. 
 
Myths.'] Natural Magnets ; Meteorite:,; Beth-Els. 97 
 
 8) of the doubled or reinforced signs are sometimes displayed ; 
 and in their centre pivots the magnetic needle/ which thus has 
 (and may from an untold antiquity have had) no connexion what- 
 ever with navigation, but only with Earth {and Heavens) worship. 
 Does not this view considerably change the venue as to the 
 " invention " of the mariner's compass, or rather move (for the 
 first time ?) a previous question ? 
 
 Klaproth (as I now find on this iSth of May 1891) had 
 approximated to this in 1834,^ but without formulating a conclu- 
 sion of the leading sacred importance that I am inclined to lend to 
 my own theory. 
 
 The more modern employment of the loadstone in China, he says, was ot 
 make compasses with needles that, either floating on water or suitably pivoted, 
 turned in every direction. The more ancient usage was to employ loadstones 
 and magnetised iron in the south- 
 pointing cars, che nan k'ii (or ch'e) 
 ia jfl $1 on the axle or front of 
 which pivoted a small upright figure 
 carved in jade or wood, whose right 
 arm extended in front always pointed 
 south, by means of course of a mag- 
 net concealed in that limb. Such a 
 wagon always preceded the chariot 
 of the Emperor, said the Tsin cJii 
 
 ' Eitel's Feng Shui, pp. 35 to 43. 
 
 2 Lettre a A. von Humboldt sur la Bousso e, p. yr. 
 
98 The Night of thn Gods. {Axis 
 
 (? shu), and the How chow liih (by Ts'ui Paou) says they were given as 
 Emperors presents to the great dignitaries of the kingdom (319 to 351 A.D.). 
 These carts or wagons were also used in journeys, and indeed it stands to reason 
 that the land-traveller's use of the magnet may well have been older than the 
 mariner's. Here are figured after Klaproth these little mannequins, one C the 
 Chinese in Jade (16 inches high), from Wang K'e's cyclopedia the Santsai 
 fu-hwjiy (1609) ; the other J the Japanese, from the great Japanese Encyclo- 
 pedia (vol. 33), but doubtless there copied from a Chinese print. 
 
 These figures were also used for laying out temples, as the 
 Chinese cyclopedia (v. loj says : "In the years Yanyow (1314 to 
 1320 A.D.) it was desired to fix the aspect of the monastery of 
 Yao-mu-ngan, and it was used for determining its position." 
 Here, I think, fengshui, of which Klaproth knew nothing, must also 
 come in. Biot^ added that the cars were kept in the imperial palace, 
 which was always regularly aspected in all its parts. 
 
 We seem to have an exact parallel to this Chinese usage, by 
 which diviners work the astrological compass for laying out 
 buildings, in the notorious fact that the Roman land-surve}^ors 
 plotted out their ground exactly in the same way as the augurs did 
 their templum ; and it is pointed out under the head of " The 
 North" how we even still owe the cross-walks of our kitchen- 
 gardens to that very practice. 
 
 But Klaproth also named the Chinese "astrological compass," which shows 
 the eight famous Kwa round the needle, and which I here figure after him. 
 It is called, he says, lo king M j^ or 'M, the regulated directions ; or lo 
 king M |g the regulating mirror ; and also fung kian gj^ ^ winds-mirror. 
 Lo king is also used of the nautical compass. Biot (p. S27) mentioned the 
 Lo-king Kiai, a description of this lo king published in 161S, which Stanislas 
 Julien brought to his notice. 
 
 According to the " Grand Mirror of the INIanchu and Chinese Tongues," 
 it was used by the diviners in constructing a house, to determine whether its 
 situation was happily chosen.- But the figure I give is simple compared with 
 the greater compass given also by Klaproth. Its elaborate complication 
 forbids reproduction hei-e at present. It consists, outside the needle, of 15 
 concentric circles each separated by radii into from S to 360 divisions, making 
 136S divisions iu all. Of these 168 are blank, leaving 1200 with astro-nomical and 
 -logical characters. Klaproth (p. 1 16) said he knew nothing whatever of the use 
 of this instrument. 
 
 These land geomantic or fengshui compasses must be what are 
 called in Annam and Tonkin d'ia ban, earth-plates, \^ ^, Chinese 
 tifan? 
 
 ' P. S25 of his Note. - Klaproth, tit siif. 109. 
 
 ^ Klaproth, ibid. 36. 
 
Afyths.'\ Natural Magnets ; Meteorites ; Beth- Els. 99 
 
 Ed. Biot, who verified every fact here compulse by me 
 from Klaproth,' added some important facts of his own seeking on 
 this subject. The Yuli-Iia'i, a cyclopedia of tlie early 1 2th century 
 (first printed edition 1351), is one of the best works of its class, 
 
 (Next the needle are the S kwa,- then come the 12 cyclic signs or double-hours, then 
 their animaN, then the animals' names, then the 8 chief rhumbs. ) 
 
 ' See Biot's Note in the Coinptes i-endits of the Academie des Sciences (1S44), xix, 
 822 sq. 
 
 ^ It will be seen that the positions here of the four which correspond to the four on 
 the Corean flag in the section on " The Tomoye," are not identical with the positions of 
 these last. This is because there was a posterior recasting of all the eight in China by 
 Wen Wang, which is the arrangement given in this compass. (See both in Mayers's 
 Manual, p. 3S5.) The character JL in the ring outside the kwa is shaky. 
 
 G 2 
 
i°o The Night of the Gods. {Axis 
 
 said VVylie,' though requiring to be read with discrimination. This 
 Ynli-liar quoted from Han Fei (who hved in the 3rd century B.C. 
 said Wyhe p. 74; who was a Taoist philosopher of the middle 
 of the 4th century B.C. said Biot p. 824) the following passage : 
 " The ancient sovereigns established sse-nan (point-south) to 
 distinguish the morning-side from the evening-side " ; and a com- 
 mentator adds in the Yuli-Jiai : " the sse-nan is the che-nan-ch'e " 
 (point-south-car). [On this Biot remarked that sse-nan and che- 
 nan are still employed without the word needle (chin) as names for 
 the compass.] 
 
 Blot's conclusion distinctly stated (p. 824) was that the know- 
 ledge of the magnetised needle in China from at least the first 
 centuries of our era is denoted by their books ; and it is not 
 easy to overestimate the value of Ed. Blot's opinion on Chinese 
 matters. 
 
 But the complications of the Chinese points or rhumbs are 
 even still greater than above shown, and the inevitable con- 
 viction which a sustained study of them brings home is the 
 illimitable stretch of time during which they must have been 
 slowly developing. And this unavoidable and overwhelming fact, 
 to which there is nothing else of the kind at all comparable, gives 
 in itself an antiquity of irreversible title to the compass that no 
 other nation whatever on the face of the globe can now contest with 
 China. ^ For example here follows a tabulation of four separate 
 lists of separate designations of the points ; which are in addition to 
 the ordinary 
 
 E Tung (or chang, upper). This must be teff. 
 
 S Nan (or tsian, front). 
 
 W Si (or hia, lower). This must be riglit. 
 
 N Peh (or how, bade). 
 These second names show that the fixture of the points was 
 supposed to be made in looking //vw the N. 
 
 ' Notes on Chi. Lit. 1S67, p. 14S. 
 
 - In the section on Cars, article Sse-nan-ch'e. 
 
 ^ There is one other analogous monument of archaic cosmic divination in the tarot 
 cards, of which it may be possible some d.iy to treat. Meanwhile I throw out the 
 suggestion that they may have partly had their Italian origin from the Chaldaei (as they 
 called themselves) who " worked the oracle " with the teachings of Bercsus and of his 
 XaXSaiKa. 
 
Myths?\ Natural Magnets ; Meteorites ; Beth- Els. 
 
 The 8 kwa of 
 Fu-Hi. 
 
 The 1 6 horizons 
 
 geographical and 
 
 hydrographical. 
 
 The 24 nautical 
 Chow. 
 
 The 12 animal signs. 
 
 E. 
 
 Chin 
 
 Mao 
 
 Mao 
 
 Mao — hare. 
 
 ESE. 
 
 
 mao-shln . . 
 
 i S. . . . i 
 ■5 S. . . . shin 
 
 Shin — dragon. 
 
 S.E. 
 
 Sun 
 
 shin-szu 
 
 Sun 
 
 
 SSE. 
 
 
 szu-u .... 
 
 f S. . . . szu 
 i S. . . . ping 
 
 Szu — serpent. 
 
 S. 
 
 Li 
 
 U 
 
 u 
 
 U — horse. 
 
 SSW. 
 
 
 
 u-wei. . . 
 
 i W. . . ting 
 i W. . . wei 
 
 Wei — sheep. 
 
 S.W. 
 
 Khuen 
 
 wei-shin 4 
 
 Khuen 
 
 
 wsw. 
 
 
 1= 
 shin-yow . 3. 
 
 1 W. . . shin 
 t W. . . keng 
 
 Shin — ape. 
 
 w. 
 
 Tui 
 
 Yow o 
 
 Yow 
 
 Yow — ^ cock. 
 
 WNW 
 
 
 yow-siu. . ? 
 
 1 N. . . .sin 
 i N. . . . siu 
 
 Siu — dog. 
 
 N.W. 
 
 Khian 
 
 siu-hai ^^ 
 
 Khian 
 
 
 NNW. 
 
 
 c 
 hai-tsu . . o 
 
 B 
 
 IN.. . . hai 
 S N. . . . jin 
 
 Hai — pig. 
 
 
 
 N. 
 
 Khan 
 
 Tsu 8 
 
 Tsu 
 
 Tsu — rat. 
 
 NNE. 
 
 . . ^ . . 
 
 tsu-chow , tf, 
 
 OJ 
 
 i E. . . . kuei 
 1 E. . , . chow 
 
 Chow — ox. 
 
 N.E. 
 
 Ken 
 
 chow-in " 
 
 Ken 
 
 
 ENE. 
 
 
 in-mao . . 
 
 § E. , . .in 
 4 E. . . .kia 
 
 In — tiger. 
 
 These have also 
 
 Same as the Malay 
 
 These begin at the 
 
 These begin at the 
 
 North 
 (used also in Japan). 
 
 another 
 
 arrangement, 
 
 rhumbs. 
 
 South. 
 
 Klaproth says (p. 71) that many Chinese authors have con- 
 founded the magnetic-car and the compass, being followed in 
 this error by Dr. R, Morrison's Dictionary, which rendered che 
 nan ch'e as " a compass." 
 
 So vast must be the antiquity of the che-nan-ch'e that its 
 invention is attributed to Hwang-Ti,' the fabulous Emperor whom 
 
 ^ In the Great Annals, T^u>ig Kien Kang Aht/i. The A'okinchu gives an almost 
 identical account. 
 
T02 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 I maintain to have been a universe-god. He used the invention 
 against the rebel rival power Ch'ih Yco, a sort of Satan or Typhon, 
 and also the chief of 8i beast-bodied /;v;/-bro\ved man-voiced 
 dust-eating brothers. Note the good god using the magnet against 
 the evil iron, which is quite an Egyptian conception. He pursued 
 his enemy and seized him. This is of course all celestial myth ; 
 and there is a further curious parallel to the Egyptian allegory 
 in the legend that the corpse of Ch'ih Yeo was cut up (like that 
 of Osiris) and its limbs sent to various places.' 
 
 The invention of the cars was also credited to Chow Kung to serve in 
 guiding back to their country the envoys who came B.C. mo to offer homage 
 from regions which were, perhaps, those now known as Tonquin. This is 
 treated in Dr. Legge's S/ioo King, ii, 245, as a fable devised long after 
 date. But Prof. G. Schlegel informs me that the annals of Annam corroborate 
 the Chinese record as to this or a similar incident.- Of course we need 
 not credit Chow Kung with the actual invention, but with the employment 
 of the chariots on this occasion. It is stated in Chu-Hi's compilation noted 
 below that the assertion was made about Chow Kung in the She Ki 
 (Historical Records) of Sze-ma Ts'ien (B.C. 163 to 85 ?) but Klaproth (p. 82) 
 could not find it there. There seems to have been another attribution of new 
 cars to a Chang Heng the astronomer under the later Hans' (from A. D. 220), 
 and also of a re-in\ention to iMa-Kun a mechanician of the 3rd centur)' A.D. 
 Kiai-fei and Yao-hing are also said in the Treatise on Ceremonies in the Book 
 of Sung, Sung-shu, to have made such carts circa A.D. 340.* So did one Tsu 
 chung chi in the period 479 to 510 A.D. 
 
 Biot stated (p. 824) that " in the middle of the 3rd century of our era (3rd 
 year of ts'ing-lung, .A.D. 235) the annals of Wei mention the cars indicators of 
 the South, nrade after the model of the preceding dynasty, that of the Han. 
 These cars are cited in the official histor\- of the Tsin dynasty which reigned 
 from 265 to 419 of our era ; in that of the Tartar prince Shi-hu who occupied 
 the North of China from 335 to 349 ; and finally in the official history of the 
 first Sung dynasty, which reigned in the South from 420 to 477. The cars are 
 described anew, said Biot continuing, in the reigns of the Emperors Hien Tsung 
 (S06 to 820 ,\.D.) and Jen Tsung, under the dates 1027 and 5053. 
 
 So m.uch as to the land-compass-wagon that may have preceded 
 the ship-compass. But there is in K'ang Hi's modern Dictionar}', 
 atid in many other Chinese dictionaries, a quotation from the 
 earliest dictionary (by radicals) called the SIiil'o ivan (by Hiu 
 Shin, A.D. 100) which under the character Tsze ^ defines the word 
 as " the name of a stone with which the needle is directed," ^ ^ Pf 
 
 ' T'ung K'ci! Kang Miih (superintended by Chu Hi himselO. 
 - Cmii-s if/iistoiri: Aimaiiiite ^ar V. ]. B. Tiuong-Vinh-K)', .S.xigon, 1875,!, II. 
 * Ts'ui-Pao's Ko-Kiii-Chu (.■\ncient and Modern Commentary, 4th century a.d.. 
 authenticity doubtful). 
 ■* Klaproth, S5, ga 
 
Myths?^ Natural Magnets ; Meteorites ; Beth-Els. 103 
 
 ^ ?l l^ji-^ '^^'^ ^'■''^ ""-^'^'^ y^'^ f"' ('7^0' ^"^^ most extensive 
 lexicon ever published (no thick volumes) says there were during 
 the Tsin dynasty (265 to 419 A.D.) ships indicating the south.^ 
 
 Gaubil'' pointed out a passage in the Miing kH peili tan, a 
 firstrate book of the nth century, which Biot (p. 825) gave in full : 
 " Diviners rub a needle with the loadstone ; then it can mark the 
 South. Still it constantly declines a little to the East ; it does not 
 indicate the exact South. When this needle floats on water it is 
 much shaken ; it is better to hang it. They take a new cotton 
 thread and with a little wax fix it to the exact middle of the needle, 
 and hang it where there is no wind ; then the needle continuously 
 shows the South. Among these needles are some which bein_g 
 rubbed mark the North." [This statement shows that the compiler 
 had no practical technical knowledge, for it is absurd in itself. 
 " Our diviners have some which mark the South, and others which 
 mark the North," or, may this have been part of the patter 
 of these jugglers ?] '' Of this property which the loadstone 
 possesses for showing the South (as the cypress sho\\s the West) 
 no one has been able to give the origin." (Bk. 24, Tsa-shi.) 
 
 Klaproth (p. 67) gave the first sentence of the above but took it at second- 
 hand from the. Pei wdn yujtfu already mentioned. Part of the remainder he 
 quoted from the Puji ts'aou yan z, a medical natural -history by Kow tsung shi* 
 dating from A.D. 1 1 1 1 or 1 1 17. In the C/iinla{=^ Cambodia) /z/«^ fu ki, a des- 
 cription of Cambodia and a voyage thereto by Chow Takwan in A.D. 1295, 
 the ship's course is always indicated l^y the chin or rhumbs ^4- of the compass 
 as shown in column 3 on p, loi. 
 
 The great superiority of the Chinese mariner's compass to any then known 
 in Europe was pointed out by Sir John Barrow in 1797* ; the manner in which 
 the needle was hung quite defeating the vertical dip, and the pivotingarrangement 
 being both complex and perfect. These were not water-compasses, but they too 
 must have been ancient in China, and had clearly gone out of use in the end of 
 the 1 6th century, when the IVu /sa tsii cyclopedia said that the compass was 
 generally used, but that diviners still worked with chin pan or plates, the needle 
 of which rested on water." 
 
 The Sinico-Japanese name for the magnet is the Chinese xS' '^ tsu-shih 
 love-stone, which in Japan is pronounced ji-shaku ; the loadstone itself they even 
 call jishaku-seki, where seki is a re-duplication, for it = shaku = stone. Klaproth 
 
 ^ I here revise Klaproth by Ed. Biot, and add that the Japanese dictionary Shiii-id 
 Ji/iiii gives for ^ the meaning tsugu-nan ji = tell-south time. 
 
 ^ Klaproth, 66, 67 ; Biot, S24. ^ Astrononiie Chiuoise, p. 100. < Klaproth, 68, 95. 
 * Embassy to Emperor of China, by .Sir G. Staunton, i, 441." ^ Klaproth, 97. 
 
 ' This is the character in the Shin-so jibiki and in Hepburn's Diet. Prof. I )oiiglas points 
 out that it ought to be (in Chinese) ]^, and that is tlie cliaracter Klaproth used (p. 21). 
 
104 The A'ight of the Gods. {Axis 
 
 gave a pure Japanese name for the loadstone, hari-suri ishi (he mis-wrote it fari 
 soufi issi) = needle-rubbing stone, which I do not find elsewhere. Shi nan, 
 which he gave (as si nan; for the Chinese che nan i& jfe point-south, is not a 
 Japanese word for the compass, so far as I know : that is merely how a Japanese 
 would read those Chinese words ; and in fact the Sinico-Japanese word shinan, 
 written with those characters, means oshiye, that is teaching or instruction. The 
 same mast be said for Klaproth's kaku ban (he printed kak ban) as represent- 
 ing the Chinese keh fan %^ ^ ; for rakiyo as representing lo king ; and for 
 ji shin (Klaproth's zi sin) as representing tsu chin = love-needle. And Klaproth 
 in giving zi siak-no fari as a translation of this tsu chin did not know that it was 
 really ji-shaku no hari the needle of the tsu-^/////, of the love-stone, as above. 
 I also find tetsu-sui ishi (iron-sucking stone) for ji-shaku in the Japanese 
 Dictionarj' called Shin-so jibiki . I have also pointed out, under the heading of 
 "The Number Eight," the archaic mythic place-name Idzn-shi, magic-stone, 
 as being possibly intended for the magnet. The vulgar name of tokei, given by 
 the Japanese fFaX-a/z 6'(T?zJ(22' tfcz^jv for the compass, ineans really a watch or 
 clock, and the reason of the confusion is obvious to anyone who compares 
 their dial-plates with their compass-rhumbs. Hobari, directions-needle -jj ^, 
 is the common term for the compass ; and rashim ban ?S $f ^ (where 
 shim = shin ^ hari, needle) is a scientific term for a mariners or "field 
 compass.'" Rashin = magnetic needle.' 
 
 The Japanese statements about the guide-carts, shrrube-kuruma, which 
 Klaproth quoted from the I'Fizy/j-;^/' (Japanese Things origin) of 1696, which 
 again quoted from the Xihongi (japan-Chronicle, A.D. 720), are unimportant 
 and look like borrowings from Chinese records. The first is under the date of 
 .A..D. 658 (4th year of the Mikado Saimei) and says that Chi Yu, a shaman or 
 Buddhist priest,5made ^ jg j§ "^ (which are the Chinese characters for che 
 nan k'ii or ch'e, point-south-cart). Under the year 666 (5th year of Tenji) it is 
 again stated that the Chinese shamon Chi Yu offered a simitar cart. The 
 Japanese translation of che nan k'ti here is given as shirube fairuma ^ show- 
 way cart (and shirube in Japan is written ^ ^). It is the name Chi \\± 
 however that suggests or betrays the source. In the first case it is written 
 &■ J«>, and in the second ^ ^ (.'source of wisdom), but it sounds like a 
 garbling of the Chinese Ch'ih Yeo, ^ -fr, whose myth we have had before, 
 and into whose name the character for mountain l]j enters. 
 
 No Uterary record of the use of the mariner's compass \rt Europe goes 
 farther back than the end of the 12th century. In the satirical poem called 
 La Bible, by Guyot de Provins (circa 1190), the magnet is mentioned as "une 
 pierre laideet bruniere, oil li fers volontiers se joint," (with which iron readily 
 unites). He describes (for a comparison) how a needle, when touched with the 
 loadstone and fixed in a straw or chip (festu) floating on the water, turns its 
 point right against (toute contre) The Star ; that is the polestar. He mentions 
 the lighting up of the ship's needle also (after dark). But this describes nr» 
 Ln \ntion, but is a mere ordinary allusion in a poem to a well-known fact. 
 
 - Hepburn, 4th ed. iSSS. 
 
Myths.'\ Natural Magnets ; Meteorites ; Beth-Els i°S 
 
 Jacques de Vitry in his Description de la Palestine (1218 ?) also made a passing 
 reference to the adamas as touching a pointed iron which turned to the north 
 star, whence it was very necessary to navigators on sea,' Again, towards 1260 
 the grammarian Brunetto Latini, Dante's teacher, wrote his Tresor in French ; 
 and therein mentioned a needle d'yamant, which is calamite, that turns its ends 
 north and south, adding that mariners must carefully note these ends lest they 
 be deceived. Brunetto was in England, and seems to have been shown his 
 first magnet and magnetised needle by Roger Bacon at Oxford. This was 
 before he wrote his Tresor, and he described it in a letter which was published 
 in the Moii/kly Magazine for June 1S02 ; but the words of his description are 
 a close prose equivalent of the passage in La Bible. No one seems to have 
 detected this, but either Brunetto drew on La Bible or else (which is perhaps 
 equally probable) he and Guyot drew on some previous identical source. As 
 this is of some import, and as I shall want them again for the section on "The 
 Polestar " I give the two passages in full. 
 
 " De nostre Pfere I'Apostoile- ] vousisse qu'il semblast I'Estoile | qui ne se 
 meut ; mout bien la voient | li marinier qui si navoient^ [ Par cele Estoile vont 
 et viennent, | et lor sens et lor voie tienent. | 11 I'appellent la Tresniontaigne.* | 
 Celle est atachie et certaine ; | toutes les autres se removent, | et lor leus=' eschan- 
 gent et muevent, | mais cele estoile ne se meut. I 
 
 Un art font qui mentir ne puet, | par la vertu de la maniere.'^ \ Une pieJ're 
 laide et bniniere, \ ou li fers volontiers se joint, \ ont ; si esgardent le droit 
 point. I Puis c'une aguile i ont touchie, | et eri un fesiu Pontjichie, \ en Fesve la 
 inettent sanz plus, | et li festus la tient destisj \ puis se tome la pointe toute \ 
 contre P Estoile, si sanz doute^ | que ja nus hom n'en doutera, | ne ja por rien 
 ne faussera. | Quant la mer est obscure et brune, \ c'on ne voit estoile ne liine, \ 
 dont font a I'aiguille alumer ; | puis n'ont il garde d'esgarer. 
 
 Contre I'Estoile va la pointe ; | por ce sont // marinier cointe | de la droite 
 voie tenir \ ] c'est un ars qui ne pent fallir. | Molt est I'Estoile et bele et clere ; | 
 tjex devroit estre nostre Pere." \La Bible, by Guyot de Provins, circa A.D. 
 1 190. M(5on, Fabliaux, ii, 328.] 
 
 " II [Roger Bacon] me montra la magnete, pierre laide et noire, ob ele fer 
 volontiers se joint. L'on louche ob une aiguillet, et en festue Voti Jiche; puig 
 fon met e?! Faigue, et se tient dcssus, et la pointe se tourne contre I'Estoile. 
 Quant la nuitfut teiiibrous, et Fan ne voie estoille ni lu?te, poet // marinier tenir 
 droite voie." [Brunetto Latini's letter, before a.d. 126a] 
 
 This "ugly and black " description may come down from the fifth Idyll of 
 Claudianus (circa 400 A.D.), where the stone is mentioned in these words : 
 " Lapis est cognomine Magnes, decolor, obscurus, vilis." Claudianus also 
 versified the ancient theory that the magnet lived on iron, which renewed its 
 strength. 
 
 To these I add the passage from the Bishop of Acre, Jacques de Vitry 
 
 * Historiae Hierosolimitanae, cap. 89. ^ The Pope. ^ ainsi naviguent. 
 
 ^ In another MS. " la tres-montaine ;" and he also calls it tresmontaine at line 827. 
 I fear I shall not have the important 13th century Dit de la Tresmontaigne in my hands 
 in time to extend this note. 
 
 ■' lieiLX. ' In another MS. " la manete." M. Paulin Paris made it I'amaniere, 
 
 ? so undoubtedly. 
 
io6 Tlie N^iglit of the Gods. \_Axis 
 
 (i 180-1240?) : Adamas in India reperitur . . . ferrum occulta quadam natura 
 ad se trahit. Acus ferrea postquam adamantem contigerit, ad Stellam Septen- 
 trionalem (quae velut axis firmamenti, aliis vergentibus, non movetur) semper 
 convertitur ; unde valde necessarius est navigantibus in mari \Historiae Hieroso- 
 limitanae, cap. 89, circa A.D. 121S]. 
 
 Tiraboschi's "Italian Literature" (iv, 171), had full)- established in Hallam's 
 opinion that the polarity of the Magnet was well-known in the 13th century; 
 and a poet of that period, Guido Guinizzelli, had the following lines : 
 
 In quelle parti sotto Tramontana 
 
 sono li monti della Calamita,' 
 
 che dan virtute all' aere 
 
 di trarre il ferro ; ma perche lontana 
 
 vole di simil pietra aver aita, 
 
 a far la adoperare, 
 
 e dirizzar lo ago in ver la Stella.- 
 Klaproth^ was con\inced that the aquatic compass w-as written of as early as 
 1242 among the Arabs as a thing generally known ; and he quoted The Mer- 
 chant's Treasure of Stonelore, by Bailak of Kibjak (a.D. 1282), who de visu 
 described the needle of the Syrian pilots as " facing by its two points the South 
 and the North." Bailak had also heard of a hollow iron fish used for the same 
 purpose by the ship-captains of the Indian seas. We have already had a 
 mention of the aquatic compass in China in 11 17, which is the earliest by some 
 So years of all modern dates about the subject. 
 
 Nala a monkey-god has in the RAiiiiiyana the power of making stones float 
 in water. A too vivid imagination might here pretend to see a natural-magnet 
 floated (on timber ?) so as to admit of its northing. 
 
 " Meckel arrives quite empirically and impartially at the conclusion that 
 vegetative existence in animals, the first growth of the embrj'o, the assimilation 
 of nourishment, and plant-life, ought all properly to be considered as manifes- 
 tations of the Will ; nay that everi the inclinations of the magnetic needle seem 
 to be something of the same kind."'' I take that passage from Schopenhauer's 
 Will in Xaturej" where Schopenhauer says it is just possible the general idea 
 of ^Meckel may have been taken from him, Schopenhauer. 1 should rather 
 believe that, as to the natural magnet, it first arose as an idea of a deus 
 absconditus in pre-historic times. 
 
 One of my important facts here is the extreme hohness of the 
 natural magnet, that is of magnetic iron-ore in Egj-pt. It was 
 supposed to come from Horus. 
 
 Dr. Birch gave baa-n-pet J 4 ^ P ^j (Coptic, benipi, penipe) as 
 
 ' See p. 129 infra. 
 
 - Guinguene, ffis/. Litter, de C Ilalie, i, 413. See also Hist. Lift, de la France, par 
 les Benedictins, xviii, 813. 
 
 3 Ut suf. pp. 57, 64. ■• Anhiv.fir die rhysiolo,!iie ('i'&l^], v, 195-19S. 
 
 Tnd Sons (1SS9), p. 24S. 
 
Myths.'] Naht.ral Magnets ; Meteorites ; Bcth-E Is. 107 
 
 ferrum ;' but Devdria said it was "aimant, pierre d'aimant, fer aimant^e."^ 
 
 Does the determinative for heaven \, g also embrace here the meteoric 
 
 hea\'en-fallen idea ; or only, with "X^, imply the northern heavens ? Deveria 
 and Chabas said baa J \ ^ "f^ jy| was iron. 
 
 A result of this reverence was the evil reputation of non- 
 magnetic iron which, although known in Egypt from the highest 
 antiquity, had always been rare. It belonged to the evil god Set, 
 and was therefore employed in some liturgies, which must have 
 been those of black magic, for it could not be used in common life 
 without contempt for sacred things, and thus with great repug- 
 nance.^ It must be concluded from this that the possibility of 
 magnetising iron was unknown when these fancies took their deep 
 roots. 
 
 Iron, says Maspero,^ was pure or impure according to circum- 
 stances. Some traditions made it evil, and the " bones of Typhon ;" 
 others said it was the very substance of the canopy of heaven, 
 baa-n-pet = celestial metal. But Theodule Deveria gave the 
 obvious explanation of this last when he said baa-n-pet, iron of 
 heaven, must be meteoric ironstone. W. Maspero thinks the rare 
 finding of iron objects in Egypt is due not to its ancient absence 
 but because it has got oxidised away in the lapse of time. But 
 this is not a sufficing reason. Manethon'^ called the magnet 
 (a-tSr]piTi<; X[do<;) the bone of Horus, and iron (al^ripo^) the bone of 
 Typhon. 
 
 Mr. King figured 17 " Gnostic gems " cut on loadstones (haematite .'') in his 
 The Gnostics (1864). 
 
 In order to show how the superstitions about the loadstone 
 stood among the savants of 250 years ago, I condense from Van 
 Boot's Le Parfaict loaillier (Lyons, 1644, pp. 564, &c.) as follows : — 
 
 By reason of the admirable nature, by •which it appears animated, and by 
 which it knows the regions of the hea\-ens . . . the aimant [the French term is 
 purposely retained] ought with justice and reason to be preferred to all other 
 precious stones. The part of the aimant which repulses and throws off iron was 
 called theainedes'' by the ancients and ein Bleser in Gennany. There was 
 believed to be a male and a female aimant [which is not so very far off our 
 
 [ Other forms are J ^ \ ^ ^^^ and J fl \ ^ °. (Wallis-Budge). 
 " I'ierret, Vocab. 119, 120. ^ Th. Deveria: Lc fcr et V aimant. 
 
 ^ Eg)'pt. Arcli. (Edwards), lOI. * Didot's Frag. Hist. Gnrc. ii, 613. 
 
 ° See what is said later on as to sacred words in t/ic- (consult Index) ; and tlie 
 Egyptian beliefs as to magnet and iron, jiwt above. Theamedes was supposcl also to be 
 Ife tourmaline ; and see I'liny, xxxvi, 16, 25. 
 
'o8 7^/ie Night of the Gods.' {Axis 
 
 modern terms of positive and negative electricity.]. The aimant showed the 
 quarters (plages) of the world, and attracted iron, or else the iron's better part, 
 which is steel. Many thought that it sought the iron because it fed upon it, 
 and so was conserved, and even increased its force : which was proved true by 
 e.xperiment ; for when buried in iron filings the aimant became more lively and 
 efficient, the filings changing little by little to rust. It knew and felt the diver- 
 sity of parts and directions. Van Boot said also : " I doubt, for my part, 
 whether the aimant tends to the Pole or to the A.\is ; and it seems more like 
 the truth that it tends to the Axis, because of its divers declinations." 
 
 Paracelsus used it in surgical plasters, because of its power of drawing 
 iron ; and it cured in a very short time all sword-wounds whether of edge or 
 point. But this plaster was a complex one, consisting of beeswax, resin, olive- 
 oil and chelidoine ; oak-leaf juice, alchimille juice, and veronica juice ; ammo- 
 niac, galbanum, and opopanax ; colophonia, amber, mastic, myrrh, incense, and 
 sarcocolle ; saffron of Mars, saffron of Venus, prepared thutia, and calaminary 
 stone ; vitriol and powdered loadstone. 
 
 Aristotle indeed, added Van Boot's commentator, Andrew Toll, was not 
 ignorant that the loadstone possessed the faculty of attracting iron, but he was 
 wholly ignorant that it was proper for na\igation. [This comes from an Arabic 
 pseudo-Aristotle.] 
 
 We do not seem to have advanced much since then. The following is an 
 extract from the address of the President of the Institution of Electrical Engi- 
 neers, Dr. J. Hopkinson, on 9th January, iSgo : 
 
 The President, in his inaugural address, which was on the subject of 
 " Magnetism," discussed Poisson's hypothesis that each molecule of a magnet 
 contained two magnetic fluids which are separated from each other under the 
 influence of magnetic force. But this theory gives no hint that there is a limit 
 to the magnetisation of iron — a point of saturation ; none of hysteresis ; no 
 hint of any connexion between the magnetism of iron and any other property 
 of that substance ; no hint why magnetism disappears at a high temperature. 
 It does however give more than a hint that the permeability of iron cannot 
 exceed a limit much less than its actual value ; and that it must be constant 
 for the material, and independent of the force applied. 
 
 Weber's theory, which was a very distinct advance on Poisson's, thoroughly 
 explains the limiting value of magnetisation, since nothing more could be done 
 than to direct all the molecular axes in the same direction. But Weber's theory 
 does not touch the root of the matter by connecting the magnetic property with 
 any other property of iron, nor does it give any hint as to why the moment of 
 the moleculi disappears so rapidly at a certain temperature. 
 
 Ampfere's theory might be said to be a development of Weber's ; but so far 
 as he (the President) knew, nothing that has ever been proposed even attempts 
 to explain the fundamental anomaly, " Why do iron, nickel, and cobalt possess 
 a property which we have found no\Nhere else in Nature ?" It might be that 
 at a lower temperature other metals would be magnetic, but of this we have at 
 present no indication. For the present the magnetic properties of iron, nickel, 
 and cobalt stand exceptional as a breach of that continuity which we are in the 
 habit of regarding as a well-proved law of Nature. — {.Morning Post, 10/1,90.) 
 
Myths?\ Nahiral Magnets ; Meteorites ; Bctli-Els. 109 
 
 The late Mr. Croll' quoted quite recently from Sir Henry Roscoe the theory 
 that internal " masses of metallic iron may go far to explain the well-known 
 magnetic condition of our planet." This may account for the Earth's being 
 a possible magnet ; but of course not one little bit for a magnet (Earth or other) 
 being magnetic. 
 
 Mesmer expounded that his subtle fluid, the general agent of all changes 
 in the Cosmos, in its properties much resembled the loadstone. He therefore 
 called his bodily effluvium or influence " Animal Magnetism." The Jesuit 
 astronomical professor Maximinius Hell, the Hungarian (1720-1792), vaunted his 
 cures by the agency of magnetised iron. 
 
 \'[i \he. Quarterly Review (oi aW. ■pXz.cn'i in the world) for July 1890 is the 
 following : " There is nothing inherently absurd in supposing that living 
 creatures possess a property analogous to magnetism, by virtue of which they 
 may act and react on each other ; and there is not a little in the most recent 
 experiments, particularly those with magnets, which go some way towards 
 proving it." 
 
 But listen to the boniment now pattered by the hypnotic mystifiers who 
 ensleep others while resting very wide-awake themselves. " If the hypnotised 
 subject in a state of lethargy grasps the North pole of a magnet, he is filled 
 with intense joy, and sees beautiful" (!) "flames issuing from the end of the 
 magnet. If, however, he is connected with the South pole he is profoundly 
 miserable, and usually flings the magnet away in horror."- 
 
 Do I sleep, do I dream, or is Visions about ? 
 
 We know very well that Borrow is not a witness that can safely be called 
 to prove very much more than his own breezy and inventive genius, but he said 
 that "if the Gitdnos in general be addicted to any one superstition, it is 
 certainly with respect to la bar lachi, the loadstone, to which they attribute 
 all kinds of miraculous powers."' Elsewhere he says they looked on the 
 book of his "Gypsy Luke" in the light of a charm ; every woman "wished to 
 have one in her pocket, especially in thieving e.xpeditions. Some even went so 
 far as to say that it was as efficacious as the bar lachi, which they are in general 
 so desirous of possessing." Vaillant'' calls it bar i lashi, in the " langue 
 Rommane des Sigans," bar meaning stone, but he does not translate the rest, 
 unless ilashi, like ileski, means " of the heart, cordial." 
 
 Borrow goes on to say that the Spanish Gypsy-smugglers and horsecopers 
 are particularly anxious for a loadstone, which they carry on them in their 
 ventures. It causes clouds of dust to rise and conceal them from the pursuing 
 police or gaugers. They always succeed when they have this precious stone 
 about them. They also lend it occult erotic virtues, and Gypsy women will do 
 anything to get such stones in their natural state, which is difficult. Borrow 
 stated that many attempts had — he wrote about 1839 — been made by them to 
 steal a large piece of American loadstone from the Madrid museum. Their 
 
 ' Stellar Evolution, by James Croll, LL.D., F.R.S., iSSg, p. 12. 
 ^ Fortnightly Kevieiv, August 1S90, 
 
 ' The Zincali (1888), pp. 185, 199. "Brother," said a Spanish Gypsy-woman to 
 Borrow, "you tell us strange things, though perhaps you do not lie" (ibid., 131). 
 ■• Grammaire, Paris 1861, 97. 
 
no The Alight of tJie Gods. \Axis 
 
 loadstone philter is, he said, its powder swallowed in ardent spirits at bedtime, 
 while a magic rhj-me is repeated about three black kids, three carts, three black 
 cheeses, and the loadstone. 
 
 The gypsy name seems to be parallel perhaps to the Malayan batu barani 
 or brani = courage-stone.' 
 
 There is a curious passage in the fragments of Xanthos- which says that the 
 Magnates {i.e. that people) regarded Magncs (or the magnet ?) as evil, because 
 he inspired the Magnesian women with love. 
 
 I think the myth of Mahomet's coffin must undoubtedly be not 
 only magnetic but cosmic, that is some very archaic s}-mbolic 
 allegory of the suspension of the Earth (in which Mahomet was 
 buried at Medina) in space, between the N. and S. celestial 
 magnetic poles. The pious Moslem belief that the coffin is upheld 
 by 4 angels tells for this cosmic theory (see " The Cardinal 
 Points "). 
 
 Though I have never met with this cosmic suggestion, the idea 
 about the manner of the suspension of the coffin by magnetic force 
 is by no means novel. It will be found in van Boot's (= Anselmi 
 Boetii) Historia gciniiiariiiii ct lapidiiin:' And Pliny^ in A.D. "JJ 
 told a tale that Dinocrates, the famous architect and engineer of 
 Alexander and of Alexandria, circa 280 B.C., had projected building 
 of loadstone the vault of the temple of Arsinoe (" Venus 
 Zephyritis," daughter of Lysimachus, and first wife of Ptolemy 
 Pliiladelphus) so as thus to support in mid-air the iron statue of 
 Egypt's deified queen. Two other resemblant (Chinese) legends 
 are told of the tombs of Confucius and Chu-Ko Liang. 
 
 In nearer times, Tsong-Kaba, the reformer of the Thibetan Lamas, became 
 Buddha in 1419 ; and his coffin, in the Lamaserv' of Khaldan, remains un- 
 supported, save by perennial miracle, a little way above the g^round.^ 
 
 ' Kbproth's Boiissole, p. 22. - Xo. 19, p. 40 of Didoi's Frag. Hist. Grac. vol. i. 
 ^ 159S (?) ii, cap. 254. ■* Nat. liist. xx.xiv, 14. » Hazlilt's Hue, ii, 50. 
 
Myths.'\ Natural Magnets; Meteorites ; Bctli-Eis. m 
 
 D^TH-^LS. The fragments of Sanchoniathon (as translated 
 '^^^by Philo) say that Ouranos the father of Kronos also had a son 
 named BstuXo?, which Francois Lenormant put back into Phoeni- 
 cian as Beth-til ; and again it is said that Ouranos " invented 
 BotTuXia, manufacturing animated stones. The mj'ths of Aat'AaXo? 
 (divided-stone? and will that explain Ba[-fi(ov, Sai-fiovo^ as a dual- 
 one?) and Pygmalion making animated statues are parallel. 
 
 M. Maspero says of the Egyptian sacred statues that "they were animated 
 and, in addition to their bodies of stone metal or wood, had each a soul magic- 
 ally derived from the soul of the divinity they represented. They spoke moved 
 acted, not metaphorically but actually."' 
 
 It is not always easy to decide, writes Dr. J. J. M de Groot,^ whether a 
 Chinaman views the tablets of his ancestors(Ke-Shin-pai, family-soul-plank) as the 
 dwelling of one of the three souls (compare the Egj-ptian ba, ka, and khu) which 
 they give to ever)' human being, or only as a visible souvenir of the dead. But 
 certain ceremonies after a death evidently have the object of inviting the soul of 
 the dead to come and inhabit the tablet. The son in a loud voice invites 
 eth soul of the dead father to come out from the tomb j|g ^ and pass into the 
 tablet. (See Manalis lapis, p. iiS.) 
 
 These statements of Sanchoniathon cannot be kept separate 
 from the Cretan myth, first found in Hesiod, that Rhea deceived 
 Kronos with a stone wrapped in swaddling-clothes (Pausanias viii, 
 8) when he was about to devour the "lou of Philo- Sanchoniathon, 
 the Jove of later times. 
 
 In the temple of Here at Plataea of Boiotia was a statue of 
 Rhea presenting Kronos v/ith the stone wrapped in swaddling- 
 clothes, and near Delphos'' was the stone itself, afterwards vomited 
 by Kronos, which was anointed with oil every clay, and covered 
 with new-shorn wool on every festival. 
 
 According to Hesiod, when Zeus was grown up, he, by some 
 means suggested by Gaia — Apollodoros (i, 2) says Metis supplied 
 a drug — compelled Kronos to disgorge all his children (Demeter, 
 Hera, Hades, Poseidon and the foisted stone), "and he vomited out 
 the stone first, as he had swallowed it last."* Zeus fixed the stone 
 at Pytho (Delphi) where Pausanias (x, 245) saw it, and where (says 
 
 ' ^Sypi- Ai'<:h- (Kdwards), 106. 
 " FHes <VE7noui, i, 20. ' P.ius. ix, 2 ; x, 24. ■' Theog. 498. 
 
112 The Night of the Gods. {Axis 
 
 Mr. Andrew Lang' with witty irreverence), as it did not tempt 
 the cupidity of barbarous invaders, it probably still exists. 
 
 Zeus (apud Hcsiod and ApoUodoros') subsequently swallowed 
 his pregnant spouse Metis, child and all. The name Metis (counsel) 
 requires investigation. Her lights were superior to those of all the 
 other gods and of men ; which makx-s the feat of Zeus a reminder 
 of Mirabeau humant toutes les formules ; and this meal of Zeus 
 resulted in his producing Athene. 
 
 The Mongolian account of the origin of the Chinese gives us a striking 
 version of the stone of Kronos. A poor Bande meets two men quarrelling over 
 a precious stone as big as a sheep's eye. He swallows the stone and it causes 
 him to disappear, and also to spit gold. A daughter of the Khan has him bound 
 with a horse-girth, dosed with salt-water, and flogged with a whip ; when out 
 flies the stone from his stomach. The Bande becomes a Thibetan Buddhist 
 Lama. The Khan's daughter next swallows the stone, and so becomes pregnant ; 
 and with her maids goes out to play at the White Tree. She gives birth to boy- 
 twins, one good the other evil ; the following generations likewise are all twins. 
 (Here we have a new view of the Chinese mythical duality.) They are all rich, 
 and from them come the Chinese.' (Note the white Uni\erse Haoma Tree, and 
 compare the myth of Latona.) 
 
 The holiest of Oaths among the Romans — swearing by Jupiter 
 with a stone — must be connected with these early legends ; and 
 this oath was actually sworn on a flint hatchet (lapis sile.xj preserved 
 with the sceptre of the god in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius.^ 
 This stone was the god his very self, Jupiter Lapis. '^ Those who 
 had to swear by Jove, said Festus," held a flint : lapidem silicem 
 tenebant juratori per Jovem. But he goes on at once, in giving the 
 formula of the oath, to disclose that they really swore not by lu 
 (lou, love) nor by luPiter, but by DisPiter : " tum me Dispiter " etc. 
 
 In Keuchen's Cornelius Nepos (Hannibal) is a note stating that 
 a Phoenician took a most solemn oath holding a lamb with the left 
 hand and a silex knife with the other. He prayed his gods to 
 strike him dead even as he killed the victim with the knife, should 
 he violate his oath.'' In the Saga of Gudrun they swore by the 
 holy white stone, " at enom hvita helga steini."' At Pheneos in 
 Arcadia oaths were taken by the petroma of Demeter which con- 
 
 ' Myth. Rit.aiid Rel i, 303. - Bib!, i, 3, 6. ' Folkhre Journal, iv, 23. 
 
 ^ Preller : Rbin. Myth, iii, 2, b, 220 etc. Yeaius, feretrius. 
 
 ^ ALiieid, xii, 200; Cicero, Ad. fam. vii, 12. 
 
 ^ In voce Lapidem silicem. 
 
 ^ Sven Nilsson's A'^e de la Picire, 31- J ed. 1S6S, p. 130. 
 
 ' Edda Saemiindar Hinns Froda, Stockholm 1S18, p. 237 (in Goblet d'Alviella's 
 Mi^. des Symboles 1891, p. 135). 
 
Myths^^ Na(ural Magnets; Meteorites ; Beth-Els. 113 
 
 sisted of two large stones exactly laid one to the other, inside 
 which the mystic books of Demeter were inscribed/ and the stones 
 were thus a parallel to the Hebrew Tables of the Law. At the 
 annual festival the stones were turned on a pivot so as to show the 
 writing ; and when closed they were covered with a round cap 
 bearing a mask of Demeter Kidaria (? Kuhapi^ Persian tiara). 
 
 The myth of Attius Navius cutting a flint, cos, with a sharp 
 knife, novacula,- has its fuller doublet in the Praenestine, that is 
 Latin, myth of Numerius Suffucius cutting or splitting a silex- 
 stone in two and finding therein decrees of fate, sortes, engraved in 
 pristine letters on oak. This again is as like as may be to the 
 petroma of Demeter. These divination sortes or lots were, on 
 discovery, put for safety in an ark made out of an olivetree which 
 at the same time and place began to flow with honey. And there 
 was the temple founded in the town of Praeneste, where the dual 
 infants Jove and Juno were represented as suckled at the breasts 
 of Fortuna.^ In the adjectival name Suffucius (or Suffisium) we 
 must see the supreme Judge (Sufes, suffes, a Punic word), and 
 Numerius must be congeneric with Numa. The Alban Metius 
 Fufetius'' killed by Tullus Hostilius (= Tcllus Hastilius) would give 
 us a Central-Judge and a war-in-heavcn, if we read fufetius. 
 
 But let me take up once again the fragmentary record that 
 Ouranos " invented /SaiTvXia, manufacturing animated stones." 
 ("Ert Se, cj)r]alp, eirevor^cre 6eo<; Ovpavo<i /SaiTiiXta, XiOow; efj.i\rv-^ov^ 
 IJLr]')(avr]adixevo(;.f Here the epithet " animated," efj.^jrvxo'i, inspirited, 
 alive, would be applied by early man with startling truthfulness to 
 the mineral natural magnet, ever turning towards the Polar seat of 
 supreme power. And it thus seems to me that we have in the 
 natural magnets the Beth-Hls which Professor W. Robertson Smith 
 has called baetylia or god-boxes ;" sacred stones instinct with 
 divinity, in which the god was supposed to reside, and which are 
 found almost all over the world. " The living stone which is in- 
 habited by a divine soul meets us wherever we turn in studying the 
 Asiatic mythologies of a period when ' all our fathers worshipped 
 stocks and stones,' " writes Capt. Conder.'' 
 
 ' Pausanias viii, 14, 8 ; 15, I. 
 
 ^ Is this not really, as nova-acula (where acula is a diminutive of acus) a new-poinled 
 stone tool ? The reference, I consider, muat really be to the then long lost art of the 
 cleavage of flints in weapon-making. '' Cicero De Div. i, 17 ; ii, 42. •* Livy i, 23, 4. 
 
 * Eusebius Prep. Ev. i, 10. ^ Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, p. 50. 
 
 ' Heth and Moab, p. 197. 
 
114 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 The Greek derh'ation oi ^an-vXia or {ialrvKoi from Saira or i3aiTrj, a sheepskin 
 coat, because Kronos was tricked into swallou-ing the stone — Priscian's abadir 
 — wrapped up in a ,3aiT7;, instead of making a meal of Zeus himself, is of the 
 amusing and amazing style of philolog)-. The Phoenician beih-iil is doubtless 
 the origin. 
 
 The name Abadir' clearly proves the Semitic origin of this particular stone- 
 m)-th ; for abadir means •" great (or glorious or venerable) father," and is thus 
 at once an alias of Zeus or Jupiter and the title of the holy stone or betylus. It 
 also shows that we should read into the myth, as the earliest names we can now 
 find, those Phoenician ones of Amma, 11, Ba'al, and P)eth-ul, instead of Rhea, 
 
 r SaTumus, Jupiter, l^^^ Betvlus. This is confirmed for us by St. Angustin 
 I Kronos, Zeus, J 
 
 (Ep. 17) who mentions the African Abbadires as di\-init)es that were bairulia, 
 and explains their name as '" powerful fathers.'' Their priests were called 
 Encaddires. 
 
 Pity that the passage about Baet}-ls in Damascius's life of 
 Isidorus, to -which Professor \V. Robertson Smith has kindly given 
 me a reference, is so scant and indefinite. Many of them v.'ere 
 seen by Asclepiades, and by Isidorus, on the Lebanon near 
 Heliopolis — kcli ISilv ttoWo. twi' Xeyofxevcoj' /SatTvXiwv rj jSairvXcov, 
 Trepl o)v fivpia TeparoXoyel d^ia y\coacn]>; dcre/3ovarj^. W estermann's 
 version of this is : et (ait Asclepiades) vidisse multa bsetylia vel 
 ba;t)'la, de quibus multa impio ore digna jactat. (Didot's Classics, 
 vol. X, 1S62, pp. 129, 130.) 
 
 One regrets not having particulars of what some of the fivpia 
 d^ia were ; but I am inclined to add here (as commentary) that 
 the ^aWr}Tv^ or Tvirai of the Eleusinian mysteries was a mock- 
 fight with stones in honour of Demophoon." " It would be verj' 
 difficult to attempt now to penetrate the meaning of this," said 
 F. Lenormant ; but I venture to suggest that it was in pious 
 imitation of the war-in-heaven of the Gods who heaved rocks and 
 flung celts at each other. (See the section on '' \^'eapons of the 
 Gods.") Just in the same way, the assault on and killing of the rex 
 nemorensis, the sacrificing-priest (rex) of Diana in th£ Nemus near 
 Aricia (now Riccia), by his challenger and successor, may have 
 been a sacred simulacrum of the victories of Jupiter over SaTumus, 
 Kronos o\'er Ouranos, and Zeus in turn over Kronos. The 
 rex-priests had been originally rex-kings, and this particular 
 master-butcher and prizefighter had alwaj-s to be armed to guard 
 his post and his life. There was also a lithobolia or stone-fight' at 
 
 ' Priscianus, Z. Z. p. 647 (Putsch.) and F. Lenormant. 
 
 * Hesychius. Guignaut's Creuzer, iii, 610, 1109. ' Paus. ii, 32, 3. 
 
Myths^^ Natural Magnets ; Meteorites; Beth- Els. nS 
 
 the festival of Damia and Auxesia at Troizen. From blows they 
 got to words ; and in the similar festival of the same goddesses at 
 Aigina the stones were replaced by offensive and jocular words' — • 
 coarse chaff in point of fact. Similar schools of abuse were the 
 gephurismoi at the return from the Eleusinian celebrations, and the 
 stenia of the Attic Thesmophoria, and that (comic and satirical) 
 betvyeen men and women at the women's seven-day feast of 
 Demeter Musia at Pellene.- Does this extract any fresh light out 
 of the passage in Damascius ? 
 
 I take the following from The Times of 8th September 1891 : 
 The Corean correspondent of a Japan paper gives an account of a curious 
 popular practice in Corea. Kite-flying, which is universal in that country, 
 ceases suddenly on the 1 5th of the first Corean month ; and the next day Stone- 
 Fights take its place as the chief public pastime. The first stone-fight of the 
 present season at Seoul, the capital, was rather more disastrous than usual ; it 
 is reported that six men were killed. 
 
 If we regard these fights as ritualistic, coming as they do 
 with the regularity of the ecclesiastical seasons of Western 
 calendars, so must we regard the flying of kites in the form of 
 hawks as ritualistic too. And then this would seem to lend a real 
 significance to the coming in and going out of season of others of 
 our own (possibly Cosmic) boys' games, such as trundling the hoop, 
 spinning the top, hop-Scotch, and so forth. 
 
 Beth-El must, it would seem, be simply taken and treated as £l-dwelling, 
 El-holder, It is the only neutral, scientific, way to ecarter all controversial 
 theories and their embarrassments. It is a word all the same as beth-Dagon 
 or beth-Peor ; only that the Hebrews and their Christian issue favoured El, and 
 made devils of the other gods. Thus the stone that was Jacob's pillow, and 
 that he set up and oiled {Gen. xxviii, 18), and called an El-container, is the same 
 of which the messenger of the Elohim in Gen. xxxi, 13, says to him : " I am the 
 god of the beth-f;i that you consecrated with oiling." 
 
 Beth-fel was, as by its name it ought to have been, the chief sanctuary of 
 Israel in the North.' In the earlier name, Luz (almond-tree), of the place of 
 Jacob's Beth-El {Gen. xxviii, 19; xxxv, 6; xlviii, 3; fudges '\, 23) we have the 
 very ordinary junction of tree-worship and stone-worship on the same spot. 
 We have even bull-worship (golden calf) added " in Beth-el " in i Kings xii, 29, 
 and ii Kings x, 29. 
 
 Nothing can be more direct than the declaration of this stone-deity to 
 Jacob : " I am the El of beth-£l" {Gen. xxxi, 13) ; but it gives occasion for 
 
 1 Herod, v, 82. 
 
 " Hesych. and Phot. (<rr?Jj/ia). Pans, vii, 27, 4. 
 
 ^ Kelig. of Semites, 229 
 
 H 2 
 
ii<5 The Night of the Goih^ [Axis 
 
 lamenting the timidity of the Revised Version of the Bible, which here 
 renders the first £l as " God." Throughout the Book (except in defer- 
 ence to ancient caprice, in some very few instances) the Hebrew god-names 
 Adonai, £^1, I;i-£li6n, fel-Shaddai, Eloah, Elohim, " Jah," "Jehovah," and so 
 forth, are all concealed from our attention under the uniformity of this 
 Teutonic and unrelated word God, assisted by the words Lord and Almighty. 
 The American Revisers made a partial and ineffectual protest against this, 
 as may be seen from their first remark in the Appendix to the English 
 Revised Version. The Right Rev. Dr. Hellmuth has stated that ^'^ 
 El (God), with or without an additional adjective or a term designating the deity 
 (as for instance ^Itl) Shaddni, Almighty) occurs 225 times ; and the poetical 
 [and therefore perhaps older] form HT^S Eloah, 57 times.' 
 
 Some other passages where the word " god " is especially unfortunate are : 
 And God- said to Jacob 'Arise, go up to Beth-el, and dwell there' {Gen. xxxv, i). 
 Samuel says to Saul (i Sam. x, 3) ' Thou shalt come to the oak (or "terebinth"; 
 of Tabor [^ a hill], and there thou shalt meet with three men going up to God 
 to Beth-el .... after that thou shalt come to the hill of God^ 
 
 Herodian (v. 5) thus described the stone of Emesa called 
 Elagabalus : '' In the teinple there is seen a great stone, round at 
 the base, pointed above, conical in form, and black in colour, which 
 they say fell from heaven ; " F. Lenonnant, citing authorities,^ 
 explained the word as "elah-gabal (see also p. 94), the god of the 
 mountain or le dieu montagne." Would it not be more satisfactory 
 and direct to render it the ^lountain-El or Eloah? 
 
 The singular Asherah, for the divine post or pole, has in the Hebrew sacred 
 books its plural Asherim (as in Exodus xxxiv, 13 : "breakdown their altars, 
 dash in pieces their obelisks, and cut down their Asherim"). And Eloah in like 
 manner has its plural Elohim. May I suggest that Asherim and Elohim are 
 
 parallel words ; and that, bearing in mind the beth-£".l, the Elohim □"'P' - 1!^ 
 were stone-gods, just as the Asherim were tree-gods .'' This is firmly sup- 
 ported by /JtVi-Ztw/ztJOTr -xxxii, 15 : "Jeshurun forsook Eloah which made him, 
 and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation." Eloah is here " the Rock ; " 
 and to substitute for it the word " god " is to part with the meaning. Asherah 
 seems to be formed from Asshur, as Eloah from £l, though the roots of the 
 two last are held to differ. (See also p. 196 infra.) 
 
 Dr. E. G. King, D.D., shows "that God was worshipped by the Israelites 
 under the name of An or On up to the days of the captivity." In Hosea he 
 renders as follows : iv, 15, "neither go up to beth-An " (Septuagint : t6v oIkov 
 'Ok) ; V. 8, " sound an alarm in beth-An {iv rm oiVm'Qv) ; x, 5, " unto the calves 
 of beth-An the Samarians (come with) fear ; " x, 8, " the high-places of An " 
 (/3w/ioi 'fii/) ; xii, 5, for beth-El read in Septuagint house of An. " I suggest," he 
 
 ' Biblical Thcsaunis (1SS4), p. 2. See also the notes to the Revised ^'ersi^'n pp. 
 2 and 10, as to the e.xpedient of capit.-il letters ; and the statements at pp. vi and 6S1. 
 " The Hebrew here is Elohim = the Els or the Eloahs. 
 ^ Herodian v, 3, 10 ; Pliny Hist. Nat. xxxvi, S. 
 
3fyi/is.'] ATatural Magnets ; Meteoj'ites ; Bctli-Els. n? 
 
 writes "that the Septuagint has here preserved the right reading, and thatbeth- 
 On was the ancient name of Bethel." He also suggests that Amos (v. 5 and 
 elsewhere) " only knew beth-El under the name beth-An, and that where\er 
 the former name occurs in his writings it is due to later correction .... The 
 modern name of Bethel is Beitin, which thus preserves the original form of the 
 name." The Akkadian An (= heavens, god) had its Semitic form in Anu, as 
 in Anammelech (read Anu-malik) ■=■ Anu-is-prince ; and the female counterpart 
 of Anu was Anath. Thus we have the city beth-Anath twice (Josh, xix, 38; 
 Judg. i, ziV 
 
 "The stone of the Sakrah which Allah (be he exalted and 
 glorified) commanded Moses to institute as the Kiblah" of Jeru- 
 salem, or direction to be faced at prayer, had the Aksa mosque, 
 built round about it by Solomon — -this is the Kubbat as Sakhrah 
 or famous Dome of the Rock — Mahomet likewise at first recognised 
 this Rock as his kiblah, but was afterwards commanded to substi- 
 tute the Kaabah stone at Mecca.- This stone-worship lasts 
 supreme to this day. 
 
 The great mosque round the kaaba at Mecca is still called the 
 Beit-Ullah, Allah-house ; and the black stone is a pebble of 
 basalt (.') set in a silver plate, and encrusted in one of the angles of 
 the kaaba ; which is a quadrangular tower 1 1 metres 10 high, and 
 covered-over with the well-known black stuff pall called the tob- 
 el-kaaba, or shirt of the kaaba.^ 
 
 The fKnJTraj/xa or impression of Aphrodite, which Byzantine writers pointed 
 out on this Black Stone of Mecca,* may be a similarity to the KT-fif over-distinctly 
 shown on the conical stone of Elagabalus upon a celebrated (aureus) coin of 
 the Emperor Uranius Antoninus.' This is significant as affording a very 
 ancient link with the yoni-worship of India. 
 
 " Svegder made a solemn vow to seek Godheim " (the home of 
 the godes) " and Odinn the Old. He went with twelve " (zodiacal) 
 " men through the world, and came to Tyrkland " (Troy was its 
 chief town). " He came to a mansion called Stein, where there 
 was " (? which was) " a stone as big as a large house. Svegder 
 cast his eye on the stone, and saw a dwarf standing in the door, 
 who called to him and told him to come in and he should see 
 Odinn. Svegder ran into the stone, which instantly closed behind 
 him, and he never came back."" Here is a clear turning to stone, 
 
 * Akkadian Genesis (iSSS), pp. I, 2, 3. 
 
 ^ Nasiri-Khusrau's y«/;«ty'. Pal. Pilgrims' Text Soc. (iSSS), pp. 27, 2S, 43, 45. 
 Sale's Koran, ch. ii, note/. ; ch. iii, note r. 
 
 ^ Perrot and Chipiez, Art dans VAnt. iii, 316. 
 ■* F. Lenoniiant, Z<;?/r«i Assyriol, ii, 126. 
 
 * Saglio, Diet, des aniiq. i, 644. ^ IleimsKringla (1SS9), vol. i, p. 285. 
 
iiS The Night of tJie Gods. {Axis 
 
 or an enclosing in stone, like Osiris in the tree ; and also a beth-EI, 
 a stone Odinn-housc. 
 
 When Halfdan the Black was drowned he was quartered ; the head being 
 laid in a mound at Stein (stone), and the other parts in other mounds which 
 have since been called Halfdan's mounds.' This is a reminder of the cutting-up 
 of Osiris. And if we here add on the Cymric legend of the head of Bran, the 
 son of Llyr, being buried in a hill at LUmdein,- we possibly get at the rationale 
 of the " London stone." 
 
 I detect a curious sur\-ival of the animated stone in a Portuguese legend.^ A 
 farmer was in the habit of weighting his harrow with a heavy squared stone, all 
 unwitting that it was a Moorish woman compelled by magic to assume that 
 shape. One day when driving the harrow, a voice in the air bade him break off 
 a piece of the stone, carry it home, and then throw the rest into a deep pool in 
 the river Sabor. This he did, and the fragment turned to a lump of pure gold 
 in his house. 
 
 F. Lenormant considered that the Semitic notions of the "bcith- 
 el," the /3atTuA,o9, reached the Greeks in Crete from the Phoenicians. 
 In the "certainly Cretan " legend of Rhea making Kronos swallow 
 the stone, he saw a form of the Phoenician myth in which El (or II), 
 the god assimilated to Kronos, immolated his son. 
 
 [The full references to the most exact authorities about this are impor- 
 tant. Lenormant gives them : Orelli's Sanchon. 36 ; Euseb. PrcFp. evang. i, 
 10, p. 40; iv, 16, p. 157 ; Euseb. Thcophan. ii, 54 and 59 ; Porphyr. De abst. 
 Car/!, ii, 56 ; F. Lenormant, Lettres Assyriol. ii, 209 to 21S. I add Lenormant's 
 translation of Eusebius's report of Philo's translation of Sanchoniathon : La 
 famine et la mortality etant survenues, Kronos sacrifia a son pire Ouranos son 
 fils unique ; il se circoncit luimeme, et il ordonne k tous les soldats de son 
 armde de faire la mcme chose. According to the same version of Sanchoniathon 
 Betulos (==Beth-ul or beith-El) was the brother of Kronos.] 
 He also considered that this legend of the infancy of Zeus is the 
 sole example of the introduction of the Semitic baitulos into the 
 general Greek mythology, although baitulia are to be traced in 
 particular local cults. 
 
 I think the Roman inaimlis hcpis veritabl}- meant the anima-ted, 
 the mancs-having stone. It was thought to be the stone-gate of 
 Orcus b)' which the animae below, who are called manes, ascended 
 {FcsiusX It was near the temple of Mars outside the Capena gate, 
 and was drawn through the city in droughts, in order to bring rain, 
 (They do the same with a statue of the Virgin among the Cypriot 
 Greeks of Nikosia at this day.) This may have been from the 
 
 ' HciiiisKHugla (18S9), vol. i, p. 341. 
 
 - J. Loth, Les IMahinogion (1SS9), i, 90. 
 
 ' Round the Calendar in Porliis^al, by Oswald Crawfurd, 1S90. 
 
Myi/is.] Natural Magnets ; Meteorites ; Beth- Els. uQ 
 
 fancied connexion of manalis with mano, flow, which also induced 
 Festus and Varro to explain a manalis fons as an ever-flowing foun- 
 tain, which is dull nonsense. All Eastern wells hold jinn, as every 
 boy who has ever read The Thousand and One knows. [May I 
 here throw in my bracketing of m.anes with maneo, because of their 
 perw^(3:.^ence .?] As to Orcus, Verrius said that this god's name 
 among the ancients was Urgus, because he urges us most, maxime 
 nos urgeat {Festiis). He was in fact, as my theories maintain, the 
 urger of the universe, the god of the machine. And I now employ 
 him to urge that theory, and to aid in explaining A?7yu,tO 11^709 or 
 Aa/jbiOvpjo'i or Arj/x.oOepyo'; (Bi^/j.o'i ~ earth). Orcus was a god of 
 Truth, like all the polar gods ; he guaranteed oaths and avenged 
 perjury. LukoUrgos or LukOurgos is a cognate word. 
 
 Recalling to the Reader's attention what I have said as to Xaa^; 
 under the heading of " Divine names in pal- " (p. 48), and taking up 
 the myth of DeuKalion's creation of men out of stones, I even go 
 so far as to suggest that \a6<i means people because of \da<; being 
 a stone-god ; peoples everywhere calling themselves after their 
 gods. And this I theorise to be (when coupled with the idea of the 
 " animated stones ") the Ding an Sich of the stones, cast by Deu- 
 Kalion and Purra overhead, turning into men and women. In 
 fact this derivation of Aao? has been staring us in the face at least 
 ever since Apollodoros' wrote : o6ev koX \aol /j,eTa<popLKCi)'i a)Po/j,da- 
 Grjaav airo rod Xaa?, o Xt^o?. 
 
 MeneLas or MeneLaos must it is presumed be treated in the 
 same way. The old explanation of his name (from //.ei'to remain, 
 and Xao9 people) as ' support of the people ' is insufficient. I 
 suggest Lasting-stone, ' rock of ages ' in fact. His 'brother' was 
 a divine person, a force if you will, in Ag-, AgaMemnon, where the 
 same idea of permanence is given in /jLe/j-va) remain. AgaMemnon 
 (it was a title of Zeus) = Eternal-urger ? Their uncle Atreus 
 {d-rpeio) — Immoveable, unshakeable (inebranlable). The father 
 Pleisthenes should mean (TrXeto?, aOevo^) complete-strength ; but 
 ifKrjfivt^ — nave of wheel. He was son of Pelops ; and Tantalos 
 was a near relation. As to crTv-\o<;, see the heading " Magnes," 
 where (under MeDousa, p. 144) I make it standing-stone ; X09 
 being = Xa?, Xaot, Xaa<;, stone. There was also a Plistenus who 
 shared with his brother Faustulus the rearing of Romulus and 
 Remus. See also TaLaos, p. 134, and AtLas under the heading of 
 
 ' £il>/. i, 7, 2, 6. 
 
'20 The Night of the Gods. ■ [Axis 
 
 " The Mountain," in vol. 2. There is also, of course, a long list 
 of such stone-gods in Lao-, for which the reader has only to turn 
 to a mythological index. Such are Lao-Dike, Dokos, Goras, 
 Gore, Nutos, Phonte, Thoe, Thoes, and so on. 
 
 It is impossible to be satisfied with the explanation of Apollo 
 'Ayvievi! or 'AyviuTT]^ as "the protector of the streets," a sort of 
 watchman or policeman. We must go farther back to get at the 
 supernal origin which, as I conceive, is indicated with sufficiency 
 in the word ay-via. Here, I suggest, we have the Latin ta'a a 
 wa}- ; and the particular way meant is the great Way of the Gods, 
 the Shin-T6 or Kami no ]\Iichi of Japan. It may also point to the 
 Via Lactea. In ayvia we have besides the sj-llable Ag- which 
 denotes the impelling of the universe, and about which so much is 
 said in this Inquiry. It was from this Way that Apollo descended 
 into the streets, and the very name of the stones put up to this 
 ' K.yviamrj<i at the house-doors, the street-doors, apyol \l6ol, clearly 
 denotes, for an}-one who follows me in making Argos the bright 
 heavens (see Index), the celestial nature of these stone-s}-mbols, 
 which v/ere a round or a square pillar, diminishing towards the top.^ 
 On these, sweet-smelling oils were poured, just as sacred stones 
 were smeared in Arabia. This pillar was the altar or/3a)/Li09 ayvtev^ 
 mentioned often by ancient authors. 
 
 Other argoi lithoi were the sacred stones of implacabihty {apaiheias) and of 
 injur)' (ivSpfwr), of Avhich the remains are still traced — so it is thought — on the 
 platform of the areopagus at Athens. On the first the accuser, on the other the 
 accused, placed his foot ; a sort of swearing by Jupiter Avith a stone to the truth 
 of their case. The judges also voted with stones which they dropped in the 
 ballot-ums. 
 
 E. Saglio's derivation of 'Apyoi Xldoc from a + ep7o;,unworked 
 stones,- as contrasted with the agalmata, cannot now be accepted 
 for one moment. They are simply stones from Argos, from the 
 heavens ; meteors, aerolites. Ta Be en iraXaiorepa Ka\ roll,- iraaiv 
 "EjWrjcn Ti/xai; Oeoiv avrl dyaXpdrcov eiy^ov Wpyol AlOot fPaus. vii, 
 22,4). Pausanias (iii, 22, i) also calls an Argos lithos the stone 
 called Zeus Kappotas (or Katapautes, the Appeaser) at Gythium 
 (Guthion) in Laconia, on which Orestes sat to be cured of his mad- 
 ness. He also (x, 24, 6) indicated the stone at Delphi which 
 Kronos had swallowed for Zeus. It was oiled and swaddled. 
 Rome also claimed to have this same stone (which Rhea had 
 
 ' Bekker, Anccd. p. 331. - Dui. des antiq. i, 413. 
 
Myths^ Natural Magnets ; Mcteo7-itcs ; Bcth-Els. 121 
 
 given to Saturn) in the shapeless stone of Jupiter Terminus which 
 stood on the capitol.^ The catalogue of the other holy stones seen 
 by Pausanias is : HeraKles, in his temple at Hyettos in Boiotia — 
 the stone represented the god ; three stones, fallen from heaven, 
 adored in the temple of the Charites or Graces at Orchomenos in 
 Boiotia ; at Thespiai (Argos was born there, and the Muses were 
 called Thespian) or Thespeia or Thespeiai (which give us a parallel 
 name to Thebes ? ) a stone was the most ancient and revered image 
 of Eros ; at Pharai or Pherai in Achaia Pausanias further recorded 
 the Thirty (compare the tri-decades of Hindu gods) squared stones 
 which were the symbols of thirty gods ; at Tegea (Atalanta was 
 called Tegeatis) ; in Arcadia Zeus Teleios was represented by a 
 squared stone^ ; and Pausanias gave others, which are mentioned 
 here under the heads of the Pillar and the Pyramid. At Cyzicum 
 (Kuzikos) was a triangular block " the work of a primitive age," 
 which was a gift of Athene.^ 
 
 Actaeon (Aktaion) when weary of the chase, slept on a stone 
 near a fountain not far from Megara in Boiotia.'' They say, wrote 
 Clemens of Alexandria,' that at Delphi a stone was shown beside 
 the Oracle, on which it is said the first Sibyl sat, who came from 
 Helicon. 
 
 Apollonius Rhodius mentions the setting up of a stone as holy 
 (as was right) in the temple of Athene who was with leson (lason)." 
 He also describes how the altar of Ares stands outside the roofless 
 temple built of small stones (andcop). Within is a black stone 
 planted, the holystone to which the Amazons prayed (ii, 1171). 
 This recalls the Phoenician Giganteja at Malta. 
 
 At Palaio-kastro (Oldcastle) on the south slopes of the earthly Mount Pelion 
 is a place still called Mavri-Petrais (Black-stones) where M. Alfred M^zieres 
 found nothing but shapeless stones (des pierres informes).' 
 
 Ephesos could still be described in the time of Saint Paul as "a 
 worshipper of the great goddess," that is the great Mother-goddess 
 Cybele. There, and at Pessinus in Phrygia, she was adored under 
 the form of a black and rugged meteoric stone which had fallen 
 from heaven." 
 
 One of the chief gods of the Aramean peoples was Qaciou (so 
 
 ^ Lactantius, Dh'. Inst, i, 20. 
 
 2 Paus. ix, 24, 3 ; 38, I ; 27, I ; vii, 22, 4 ; viii, 48, 4. ' Aiifh. pal. vi, 342. 
 
 * Paus. ix, 2, 24. '" Stro?iiata, i, ch. xv. 
 
 ' Argon, i, 960. '• Le Pelion et P Ossa, Paris (1S53), p. 17. 
 
 ^ Prof. Sayce, Hittites, p. 113. 
 
122 7Vie Night of the Gods. {Axis 
 
 F. Lenormant wrote it) the jerolite god, as his name indicates ; 
 and he was adored in many places as a mountain-god. The 
 Greeks turned him into a Zeus Kasios. At Selucia in S}-ria he 
 was a heavens fallen conical stone, and he was thus also confused 
 with Zeus Keraunios. Mount Casius near Antioch was one of the 
 seats of Oaciou, and was regarded by the people as the god himself. 
 On the summit was a sacred enclosure and his open-air altar with- 
 out a temple. There Hadrian sacrificed. He was also worshipped 
 at another Mount Casius at Pelusium (frontiers of Egypt and 
 Palestine) where his idol was a young man holding a pomegranate, 
 the symbol of the god Rimmon.^ 
 
 Sir A. H. Layard in Ninevelt and Babylon fp. 539) engraves a 
 British Museum Babylonian C}'linder which shows 
 " a priest wearing the sacrificial dress standing at a 
 table, before an altar bearing a crescent and a smaller 
 altar on which stands a cock." I reproduce the 
 " table," as accurately as I can ; and ask if we are 
 to see in it a beth-El, and whether it is not placed on a pillar 
 standing on a mountain. 
 
 F. Lenormant (referring to the notes of Villoison on Cornutus 
 Dc natiir. dcor. (Osann.) pp. 245, 280) said that the Greeks assigned 
 cubic stones to Cybele and parallelopipeds to Hermes. Thus did 
 the cube-shaped temple even come to be regarded itself as the 
 divine image f a true beth-El or El-house indeed ; which connects 
 us with today's kaaba (see p. 117). The Semites, he said, gave 
 rectangular stones (Fetra and elsewhere in Nabatene) to the god 
 Dusares and to the goddess Alath or Allat. These last were 
 multiplied numerously among the Arabs, as Herodotus, Max- 
 imus of Tyre and Clemens of Alexandria recorded. They were 
 called ansab, and Musulman authors related that whilst they were 
 divine images, victims were sometimes killed on them or they were 
 at least daubed with their blood, which Herodotus and Porph\Ty 
 also told. In the 6th century of our era Antoninus Martyr {Itin. 
 38) saw the neighbouring Saracens adore a stone on Mount Horeb, 
 as the simulacrum of a lunar deity. 
 
 Among other famous stones were the lapides qui divi dicuntur 
 at Seleucia ; the seven black stones at Uruk which typified the 
 seven chief gods, the mystic /ca/Se/pot or Great Ones ; ^ and it may 
 
 ' F. Lenormant in SagUo's Dkt. i, 935. 
 
 - F. Lenormant, Lcttres Assyricil. ii, 306. ■' Conder's Hcth and Moab, pp. 210, 209. 
 
Myths?^ Natural Magnets ; Meteorites; Beth- Els. 123 
 
 turn out that all such black sacred stones were natural magnets or 
 aerolites. Jacob's memorial stone or beth-Ll was made a metzebah 
 or massebah, which is rendered pillar in the English.' 
 
 Others were, among- the Israelites, the witness pillar of Mizpeh ; the 
 memorial pillar over Rachel's grave ; Joshua's pillar under the oak at Shechem, 
 in memory of the oath taken to serve Jehovah ; the stones of Bethshemesh, 
 Ezel, and Ebenezer. Saul and Absalom erected each a hand or memorial 
 cippus, and Josiah found such pillars at Bethel. The pillars or cippi erected 
 by the Canaanites, and connected with the worship of Baal, were destroyed by the 
 reforming kings Hezekiah and Josiah. " Standing images," " images of stone,''= 
 ■ are forbidden in Leviticus (xxvi, i). The sacred character of the pillar among 
 Israelites and Canaanites alike is sufficiently illustrated. The Nabatheans 
 at Petra worshipped a black stone about four feet high and two square, 
 called Dhu Shera, Lord of Desire.^ The Ansab or Menhirs are specially con- 
 demned in the Koran (Sura v, 92). " Smeared stones " — that is anointed — are 
 often found in Syria. One Menhir group of about 1 50 dolmens is called el 
 Mareighat, the smeared.^ 
 
 "A perforated stone to which the Jews come every year and anoint it " is 
 mentioned at Jerusalem by the Bordeaux pilgrim* (333 A.D. ?) and by no one 
 else. "The 12 stones which the children of Israel brought out of Jordan" are 
 mentioned at the site of Jericho by the same pilgrim.* Arculfus in A.D. 670 
 " saw six of them lying on the right of the church in Galgal, and an equal 
 number on the north side."^ Outside the walls of Csesarea, the Citez de 
 Jlierusalem (11S7 A.D.) described "a very fair stone of marble, great and long, 
 which is called the Table of Jesus Christ ; and there are two little stones which 
 are round, large below and pointed above, which are called the Candlesticks of 
 our Lord."' 
 
 Theophrastus {Char. 16) depicted the superstitious who were 
 scrupulous to pour oil on the stones of the cross-roads and to bend 
 the knee to them ; and Socrates' talked of the ultra devout who 
 adored all the stones, all the stocks, and all the animals they met. 
 Lucian also {Pscudom. 30) exhibits a man who bows and prays 
 to the stones he sees oiled and hung with wreaths. " What was 
 not my blindness!" confesses the christened Arnobius,^ "when 
 I perceived a stone running with oil of olives, I invoked it, I 
 addressed it praise and prayers, I adored it as a divinity! " 
 
 Finn Magniissen said'" that in parts of the Norwegian Alps the 
 peasants until the end of the iSth century enshrined and 
 
 ' Conder's Heth and Aloab, pp. 210, 2og. 
 
 '^ In the Revised Version, "pillar" or obelisk, and "figured stone." 
 
 ■^ Conder's Heth and Aloab, pp. 211, 255, 258. 
 
 ■• Pal. Pilgrims' Text Soc. (1SS7), pp. 22, 26. 
 
 * Ibid. pp. 22, 26. « Ibid. (18S9), p. 36. 
 
 ^ Ibid. (iSSS), p. 32. ^ Xenophon, Meiiwr. i, I, 14. 
 
 ' Advers. naiiones, i, 39. '" Annakr for Nordisk Oldkyndigited (liT,&-()), p. 133. 
 
124 The Night of the Cods. [Axis 
 
 worshipped round stones. Everj' Thc/rsday evening they washed 
 them, anointed them at the fire with butter, and placed them in 
 fresh straw in the seat of honour at the head of the table. At 
 times the}- washed them in whey, and at the winter solstice in 
 beer. 
 
 At the consecration of the holy oils in the Roman Pontifical, there must be 
 a bishop, 12 priests fully vested, 7 deacons, 7 subdeacons, and many other 
 assistants. This is " a vestige of the ancient discipline; and ancient usages 
 usually maintain themselves without much change in the great ceremonies.''' 
 All breathe thrice on tJie oils. This ceremony was certainly in use as early as 
 the 6th centur\' : and " we know not of its commencement " — the memory 
 and tradition of the Church run not to the contrary. In the blessing of a bell 
 7 unctions are made with the Oil on the outside, and 4 ^^^th Chrism on the inside 
 as the sound should be heard to the 4 quarters. 
 
 " Since a long time ago the Church forbids the offering of the 
 holy Sacrifice [of the Mass] elsewhere than on an altar of stone."- 
 Portable stone altars for Alass are first found mentioned by Bede 
 {/fist. V. II) in the 7th centur}-. Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, 
 writes of them in the 9th centur\-. Do we find a reminiscence of 
 the origin in the Lavabo of the ]\Iass, where we read : " c/;r//wdabo 
 altare tuum, Domine .... Domine, dilexi doinus tuae, et 
 locum //i7/'//ir7/'/(?«w gloriae tuae?"" Domus and habitatio domini 
 are straight equivalents of Beth-El. The priest kisses the altar at 
 least thrice during the Alass. 
 
 The canons say that an altar should be of stone ; altare debet esse lapideum. 
 If the altar is not wholly of stone, but of wood for example, it sufiiices that there 
 be an altarlet (altariolus) of stone or a lapis sacratus, holy stone, in it. This the 
 Roman Ordo calls a tabula itineraria, or a viaticum, or an antimensium. It is 
 in fact a portable stone altar, without which no priest can celebrate unless by 
 Papal dispensation, which, for example, is accorded to missionaries in cases of 
 absolute necessity.'' 
 
 In the Galilean ritual (which was in use certainly as far back 
 as the Sth century) the bishop, at the consecration of a new church, 
 makes with holy-water, in which some chrism has been dropped, 
 the mortar for cementing or sealing-up the altar-stone.^ Under 
 the stone are first placed the relics of the saint, and the stone is 
 then thrice over anointed in the middle and at the four corners.*' 
 This insertion of the relics, to actually represent a canonised 
 saint-in-heaven, was, I suggest, at first a substitution for the pagan 
 
 ' MontJ'eUicr Catcchisine (1 751), iii, 255 to 266. " IHd. iii, 129. 
 
 •'' Psalm XXV (English xx\i ; habitatio = tabernacle in R.V. ). 
 
 ^ Hif.rok.%icon (Roma 1677), pp. 25, 26. 
 
 '" Duchesne: Orig. du Cii.'tc Chntieti (1SS9), p. 391. "^ Hid. JQ2. 397, 46S. 
 
Myths^^ Natural Magnets; Afeteorites ; Beth-Els. 12S 
 
 god (id est Christian devil) who was believed to reside in, to 
 animate, the stone ( — and may even have been to oust, to eject, to 
 cast out that devil). And so the altar-stone is still viewed as 
 the tombstone of the saint.^ It is a sort of lesser or " little beth- 
 LI " in point of fact. 
 
 In the Syriac version of the Theophaiiia (ii, 62) attributed to Eusebius,= it is 
 stated that " the Uumatians (Doumatioi) of Arabia sacrificed a boy annually. 
 Him they buried beneath the altar, and this they used as an Idol." 
 
 The Galilean bishop in the lustration of the new altar makes 
 crosses at the four angles with holy lustral water, and then walks 
 seven times round the altar, sprinkling it from a bunch of hyssop 
 with the same water.'' It seems very important for my arguments 
 that an antiphon sung during the ceremony of the anointing is : 
 " Erexit Jacob lapidem in titulum, fundens oleum desuper," etc. ;* 
 and that during the unctions a priest continually walks round the 
 altar fumigating it with incense.^ (But my reader will not be able 
 to give its full weight to this until the section on " Circular Wor- 
 ship " is reached.) The bishop finally places ignited burning 
 incense on the altar in the shape of a cross, which is an obvious 
 perpetuation, and celebration once-for-all, of the burnt offerings on 
 pre-Christian altars.'' In the Byzantine ritual the altar-stone is 
 sometimes cemented on to supporting pillars by the bishop, some- 
 times on to a solid base ; and it is washed first with baptismal 
 water and then with wine, and then anointed with chrism, fjLvpov.^ 
 
 The bruxas are the evil-spirits or witches of Portugal. Some people always 
 wear as a protection against them a little bag which hangs round the neck by a 
 string and contains a chip of stone from an altar, a bayleaf, a leaf of rue and of 
 the olive, and a sprig of the Herva da Injeva." 
 
 The legend of the adjective " Venerabilis " in Bede's name — which has just 
 been cited as an excellent authority — deserves recording in this section on 
 animated stones. Two stories are told. In the first, Bede is blind and is taken 
 by some scoffer in bad faith into a certain valley to preach, where there was 
 nothing to preach to but the stones around. When he ended his sermon with 
 the words per omnia SEecuIa sasculorum, the stones reverberated " Amen, 
 Venerabilis Pater." Others added that the angels said over and above " Bene 
 di.xisti Venerabilis Pater." The other tale is that after Bede's holy death a 
 certain cleric, having to cut his epitaph on a stone, began thus : Hac sunt in 
 fossa. But he could think of no other words to add than Bedse ossa, which 
 would not make a scanning verse ; and there he stuck. Tired with cudgelling 
 
 ' Duchesne: Oii^\ dii Ciilte Chnticn (1SS9), p. 392. 
 
 " Dr. S. Lee's translation, 1843, p. 122. ' Duchesne, 396. 
 
 ■* See Genesis .\xxv, 15. ^ Ducliesne, 397. " Ibid. 39S. 
 
 ' Ibid, 401. ^ O. Crawfurd's Koiiiui tlie Calendar in Portugal, p. 91, 
 
126 \ The Night of the Gods. \Axis 
 
 his brains he fell asleep, and when he awoke he found the stone cut by angels 
 
 with : 
 
 Hac sunt in fossa Bedas Venerabilis ossa.' 
 We have talking stones also in the Arabian Night's tale of the Peri Banu. 
 They have been men, which is a reversion of the Deukaliun myth. Numbers of 
 Greek deities are changed to stone (see Index). 
 
 There are a black lake, a black precipice, and a Black Stone of the .Swarthy 
 • — Llyn Dur, Clogwyn Dur, and Maen Dur Arddu — near Lower Llanberris ;° 
 and I have come across the (fallen) worship of the Black Stone in an out-of-the- 
 way place. In Kilian's Flemish-Latin etymological dictionar)-, 1574, under the 
 word Alve, is given from some nameless rhymester a long catalogue of all the 
 terms for demons known to the writer. Among these figures " zwarte Piet," 
 black Pete. But it is obvious that Peter has naught to do here except, as in 
 saltpetre (sal petrje), in the sense of rock, stone. " Zwarte piet " is thus simply 
 the Black Stone of ancient stone-worship. Oddly enough this leads me to an 
 explanation of the word Pet in the " Petau Diable"ofthe octave Ixxviii of Villon's 
 Gj-and Testiuneni. There was a tower of the Pet au Diable in the enclosure of 
 Philippe-Auguste in Paris ; but the clever and learned Villonist M. Marcel 
 Schwob has actually discovered proof of a stone of that name, and has kindly 
 communicated to me the following particulars on the subject. 
 
 In 1453 some 30 or 40 students were arrested in Paris for an unusual out- 
 burst. In the criminal registers of the parliament of Paris le Lieutenant 
 Criminel deposes, on 9th JVIay, 1453, que plusieurs escoliers ont fait plusieurs 
 grans exces ; comme .... ont arrachd ictie pierre appelee Pct-aii-Diahle 
 de I'ostel d'une damoiselle de ceste ville qui faisoit bourne ; et [font] portde au 
 Mont Saint-Hilaire . . . Derechief ont este querir en I'ostel de ladite 
 damoiselle icne autre pierre qu'elle avoit fait mettre . , . ont atachid 
 . . . la dite gj'osse pierre ovi Mont Sainte-Geneviefve ; et toutes les nuyts y 
 ont fait danses k fleutes et a bedons .... ^\. d la grosse pierre o\A\>3A\i\i 
 ung chapeau tous les dimanches et autres festes. Et quant le Prevost et lui 
 [le Lieutenant Criminel] y alerent pour I'axoir, [la pierre] a\oit ung chapeau de 
 romarin. 
 
 It seems to me most likely that the original fundamental meaning of this 
 Prf-au-Diable vi'as the Devil's Stoi2e ; and that the students' racket was asur\-ival 
 of some older saturnalia in stone-worship. 
 
 Students also played high jinks at a " Druidical stone " near Poitiers ; a 
 fact which Rabelais (ii, 5) dressed up thus : De fait vint [Pantagruel] a Poictiers 
 pour estudier, et y profita beaucoup. Auquel lieu voyant cjue les escoliers estoient 
 aucunes fois de loisir, et ne savoient k quoy passer temps, il en eut compassion. 
 Et un jour prit, d'un grand rochier qu'on nomme Passelourdin, une grosse roche 
 ayant environ de douze toises en carre, et d'epaisseur quatorze pans, et la mit sur 
 quatre pilliers au milieu d'un champ, bien h. son aise; afin que lesdits escoliers, 
 quand ilz ne sauroient autre chose faire, passassent temps k monter sur ladite 
 
 ' Hicrolcxkoii (Roma 1677), p. 649. .See also p. 141 infra. 
 • Prof. Rhys in XlXth Century, Oct. 1891, p. 56S. 
 
Myths7\ Natural Magnets; Meteorites ; Beth-Els. 127 
 
 pierre, et Ik banqueter k force flaccons jambons et pastes, et escrire leurs noms 
 dessus avec un cousteau ; et de present I'appelle-on la Pierre Lev^e. Et en 
 memoire de ce, n'est aujourd'huy passe aucun en la matricule de ladite universite 
 de Poictiers sinon qu'il ait beu en la Fontaine caballine' de Croustelles, pass^ 
 k Passelourdin,- et mont^ sur la Pierre Lev^e.^ 
 
 In Brinton's Annals of the Cakchiquels of Central America there is an 
 important, mysterious, primeval and animated obsidian stone. The Mexican 
 goddess Citlalicue gave birth to a flint-knife which was flung down from heaven 
 and became i,6oo gods. 
 
 Mr. J. P. Brown in his book on Tlic Dervishes (Trtibner, i868) 
 gave the following information (in the larger type) : The Rufai 
 dervishes (and also the kadiri of Cyprus), our " howling dervishes," 
 wear a " stone of contentment " kana'at tashi, in the middle of 
 their belts. 
 
 It is thus at the Omphalos, and deserves especial notice in reference to my 
 theories about the © symbol. It is either a round or a twelve-cornered stone ; 
 and the girdle in which it is worn is called the taibend, not the kamberieh. 
 This stone seems to be also called a pelenk. 
 
 In the girdle of the Bektashi is a seven-pointed stone, the 
 pelenk. 
 
 So Mr. Brown, p. 145 ; but on the most careful examination and cross-examina- 
 tion of Mevlevi and Bektashi dervishes in Cyprus, with the kind help of the 
 Island Treasurer, Mr. Frank G. Glossop, no trace whatever of a seven-angled 
 stone can be obtained ; although I have secured specimens of every stone worn, 
 through the agency of a Turkish gentleman who got them for me with great 
 difficulty in Stambul. 
 
 And there is another round or oblong crystal stone, the nejef, which 
 is worn by any dervish, but the Bektashi are more particular in 
 wearing it. 
 
 This storie is either an egg' or pear shaped agate (the pelenk kamberieh) or an 
 elongated crystal octahedron (the nejef kamberieh). I have a specimen of 
 each, mounted in silver, and hung by strong silken cords. 
 Nejef is the name of the mine or quarry whence the stone so- 
 called comes, and it is held to contain a sign of the hair of Hussein. 
 It is tied round the waist with the three-knotted cord called kam- 
 berieh, which denotes a follower of Ali. The stone, say these 
 dervishes, which Moses wore he called dervish-dervishan, and it had 
 
 ' A horse-fountain, like Hippokrene, at Croustelles near Poitiers. 
 
 ^ Belleforest also mentions this in his Bandello's 32nd Tale: "passe sur le roc 
 Passe-Lourdin i Poictiers pour se bien former la cervelle. " 
 
 ^ Engraved in the Magasin piltorcsqiic for January 1S45, from Georges Braun's 
 Theatnijn urbluni^ as seen at the close of the l5th century. Several students are seen 
 on the stone. 
 
The Night of (he Gods 
 
 [A. 
 
 xis 
 
 twelve holes [compare the breast-plate of Aaron. I. O'N.]. The 
 
 Bektasht have yet another stone, worn round the neck, the teslim 
 
 tashi or stone of submission to the twelve Imams. The cord which 
 
 passes through the teslim tashi is connected by passing the nejef 
 
 through its ends, and then fastening round the waist to the kam- 
 
 berich. 
 
 These stones are also twelve-angled— everything in the order, says a Bektashi, 
 
 is twelve. The larger stone is the teshm tashi balim ; the smaller is called the 
 
 teslim tashi simply. I give full-sized superposed half-outlines of these, and of 
 
 the kana'at tashi ; with their weights. 
 
 The stone of the Bektashi's convent-hall is eight-angled, and 
 
 has a candle in its centre or Eye. Upon it the postulant is received 
 
 into the Path. 
 
 As to this I have no corroboration. 
 
 I. 
 
 Crystal. Teslim tashi of the Bektashi dervishes. Weight as mounted 
 67 grammes. The dotted lines a show the tubular transverse hole of 
 suspension. 
 
 2. Greenish agate. Teslim tashi balim of the Bektashi. Weight as mounted 
 
 196 grammes. Dotted lines b as No. i. 
 
 3. Whitish agate, with round suspension hole through the middle, c. (This 
 
 hole, as drawn, only belongs to this biggest stone). There is no 
 transverse piercing. Weight unmounted 394 grammes. 
 [Average thickness of Nos. i and 2 is 10 decimetres. Of No. 3, 12 deci- 
 metres.] 
 
 C 
 
Myths^^ The Loadstone Jifouniain. 129 
 
 10. — The Loadstone Mountain. 
 
 THERE is a curious Orissa legend about the temple of Kanarak 
 (Black-pagoda). In front of the gate stands an octagonal 
 pillar of black stone, fiity gaz (yards) high. The numerous ship- 
 wrecks on the coast of the Bay of Bengal near Kanarak were 
 assigned by the legend to a " huge lodestone, kumbha-pathar, on 
 the summit of the tower," which drew the vessels on the sands 
 until " a musalman crew scaled the temple " [i.e. the tower of the 
 temple ?] and carried off the magnet.' This is a variant of the 
 loadstone mountain in Sindbad's voyages, and in the legend of 
 Oger le Danois.^ Another is the Monte Calamitico, the mediaeval 
 magnetic Northern mountain in the Ocean, told of by Olaus 
 Magnus' and referred to in Humboldt's Cosmos (ii, 659 ; v, 55). 
 
 Monte Calamitico {see also p. io6 supfo) must mean Calamitous Mountain, 
 unless it means Calamus or Reed Mountain, which is not impossible. Calamita 
 is still the name for the magnet in Italian, and Littr^ says that was because the 
 magnetic needle was put in a reed to float on the water. KaXajmiVa in modem 
 Greek may be lingua Franca, but Kakay.os was equally a reed in ancient Greek. 
 
 I l>eUcve li^^'^^n khallamish means a hard stone or rock, and that ntfl^^T'P 
 kalammitah, which is found for the magnet in ancient Jewish prayers, may be 
 European.' As for pursuing the calaiiiiiuus interpretation, it is not easy, and 
 honestly I give it up. 
 
 The myth was widespread. Innocent IV's envoy brought back 
 in 1246 a tale that the Caspian mountains were of adamantine 
 stone, and drew unto them the iron arrows and weapons of the 
 invading host of Jinghis Khan." Now all these seem to be natural- 
 magnet and not meteoric myths. 
 
 The Post Angel, or tJie Atheniayi Mercury, an old magazine published in 
 1701, in its "Answers to Correspondents" had the following : " Q. Why does 
 the needle in the sea-compass always turn to the North 'i A. The most received 
 opinion is that there is under our North pole a huge black Rock, from under 
 which the Ocean issueth in 4 currents answerable to the 4 comers of the 
 Earth or 4 winds ; which rock is thought to be all of a Loadstone, so that by 
 a kind of affinity it draweth all such like stones or other metals touched by them 
 towards it." Here we have also the heavens-rivers, and the Four Points. 
 
 ' Hunter's Orissa, pp. 289, seq. - Keary : Outlines of Prim. Beliefs, 453. 
 
 ^ I. B. della Porta, Magia Xaiuralis, 1651, p. 2S8. 
 
 '' Klaproth, La Boussole, 15, 24. 
 
 ' Hakluyt : Voy. of J. de Piano Carpini, ch. xii. 
 
13° The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 Klaproth quoted the following from the Nan-clnian i-iveli clii, 
 "Notes on Southern Marvels," (of our nth centur}', or before): 
 "At the capes and headlands of the chang hai (sea) the waters are 
 shoal and there are many loadstones, so that if the great foreign 
 ships which are clad with iron plates approach them, thej' are 
 arrested, and none of them can pass by these places, which are said 
 to be very numerous in the South sea." 
 
 Note the ignorance here. The narrator of this North-polar fable clearly 
 knew not that the South end of the magnet is repellent of iron ; and was 
 following merely the Chinese name for the compass : " the wheel that shows 
 the Soiiih." He is thus wrong toto coelo in fact. 
 
 It is strange that Ptolemy' (first century?) related almost the 
 same thing of the same seas. His source must have been also that 
 of the Chinese tale. " They relate," he says, " that at the Manioles 
 islands ships with iron bolts are arrested, and that for that reason 
 they build ships with wooden pegs, so that the Heraklean stone 
 which there grows may not attract them." 
 
 In the De Moribus Brachi/ianoniin,- attributed to St. Ambrose 
 (4th century), " the stone called Magnes is found at the 
 Mammoles-' islands. They say it attracts by its strength the 
 nature of iron. Consequently if a ship which has iron nails draw 
 near, it is there held, and can no more depart for other where, by I 
 know not what hidden hinderment of this stone. For this reason 
 they employ none but wooden pegs in the building of ships." 
 These old lies must have partly arisen in a bad shot at the reason 
 for the timber nails. 
 
 In the Arabic Geography of Sherif Edrisi,-"- " El Mandeb is a 
 mountain surrounded on all sides by the sea, and highest on the 
 Southern side [that is the side which looks South, as the Polar deity 
 was bound to do]. A mountain which extends transversely on the 
 South they call Murukcin, and it is a continuous mass of rocks. 
 The author of the Book of Wonders [odd reminder of the Chinese 
 treatise] relates that no vessel furnished with iron nails can pass 
 near this mountain without being drawn and retained by it, 
 insomuch that the ship can never again escape therefrom." 
 Elsewhere this Abu Abdallah Mohammed al Edrisi describes a 
 
 ' Geog. vii, 2. 
 
 ^ Palladius, S. Ambrosius (et cretera) ; editio Eissasus. Londini, 1665, p. 59. 
 ' See what is said p. 146 of Lydius as a name for the loadstone. Lyde, \vhr), was 
 great-breasted (Juvenal ii, 140). I.ydiL^ tumentes occurs in the Silvia of Statius i, 6, 70. 
 * Written 1153. Arabic, Rome 1592. French (Amedee Jauhert) 1836. 
 
Myt/is?^ The Loadstone JlJouiifain, 131 
 
 great gulf extending towards the South, and a high mountain which 
 forces voyagers out of their straight course. The mountain is 
 called Adjerad [which may be for al jerid, the palm-stick, t/ie Spcar- 
 mountain of the Universe], " whose flanks are furrowed on all 
 sides by waters which fall with a terrific noise " [which might be a 
 straight description of the descent of the rivers of the Northern 
 heavens-mountain]. " This mountain draws unto it the vessels 
 that come near, and so mariners have a care to give it a wide 
 berth." 
 
 In the Arabic treatise on Stones which pretended to be by 
 Aristotle, "there is in the sea a mountain formed of this stone. If 
 ships approach it they lose their nails and their ironwork, which 
 separate of themselves and fly like birds towards the mountain, 
 without the force of their cohesion [in the timbers] being able to 
 retain them. That is why they do not bolt-together with iron 
 nails the ships that sail this sea, but employ for binding their parts 
 ropes made of cocoatree fibres, which are then fastened with 
 pegs of a soft wood that swells-up in the water." Another instance 
 of the snapshot conjecture. This is found again in Vincent de 
 Beauvais, who curiously quoted for it another apocryphal Book on 
 Stones which he attributed to Galen. ^ 
 
 In the French story of the Chevalier Berinus and his son 
 Champion Aigres de I'Aimant, ships are drawn towards the huge 
 Rock of Aimant, and adhere to it. An inscription on the rock 
 says that if one man consents to remain behind, and then throws 
 the Ring which is on the rock into the sea, the ships will be freed. 
 The lot falls on Aigres, who subsequently escapes (on finding a 
 substitute in another fleet of doom), and carries off a horse, a 
 sword, and armour.^ 
 
 The mountain in the sixth vo)age of Sindbad is a mass of 
 treasure. All the stones that lie about are rock-crystal, rubies, 
 emeralds and so forth. And a great river of soft-water runs from 
 the sea into a dark grotto in the mountain, whose opening is 
 extremely lo'fty and wide. In the Third Kalender's story the 
 Black Mountain is an aimant-mine which attracts the fleet of ships, 
 because of their nails and ironworks, for two days before the 
 catastrophe ; which ensues upon the drawing-out and flight to the 
 mountain of all the bolts that hold the keels together. All these 
 irons strike the rock with a horrible noise and stick on to its 
 
 ' Klaproth, La Boussole, 1834, 123. " Clouston's Pop. Tales, i, 104. 
 
 I 2 
 
1.32 Tlic Niglit of the (?ods. \Axis 
 
 surface. The ships then fall to pieces, and their contents sink to 
 the bottom of the plumbless deep. The whole seaside of the 
 mountain is thus a mass of nails which preserve and augment its 
 virtue. The mountain is very steep, and on its summit is a dome 
 of bronze upheld by columns of bronze. On the top of the dome 
 again, is a bronze horse bearing a rider who has a leaden plate on 
 his breast covered with talismanic characters. This statue is the 
 cause of the magnetism. 
 
 [Must we not here detect some survival of a lost knowledge as to the 
 electric action of pairs of metals ?] 
 
 The stairway to the mountain-top is so narrow, steep, and difficult 
 as to be all but impracticable by the one man who finds salvation, 
 Ajib, the Kalender, son of Kassib. He, advised by a venerable 
 Old Man in a dream, digs for a bronze bow and three arrows of 
 lead made under certain constellations. These arrows he fires at 
 the statue, and at the third bolt the horseman falls into the sea, 
 the horse tumbles-dov/n, and is buried by order in the hole where 
 the bow-and-arrows came from. The sea then rises to the top of 
 the mountain, a man of bronze rows-up in a boat and saves Ajib, 
 under the condition (announced by the Old Man) that he utter 
 not the name of Allah. On the ninth daj' he does however 
 say " Allah be blessed and praised," and the boat sinks under 
 him.' 
 
 Mere we clearl\- have (as the Reader will prove in the course of 
 the Inquiry) the northern jewelled heavens-mountain and dome ; 
 thi heavens-river ; the pillars of the heavens ; the central centaur- 
 gods fallen from their high estate (because inimical to Allah) ; the 
 Old Man of the Mountain ; the heavens-ladder or stairs ; and the 
 heavens-boat — all subjects here necessarily treated-of before this 
 Tale «as here analysed. The bow and the ring, too, are of the 
 commonest figures for the heavens. 
 
 It is well known that there exist on the shores of the globe natural facts 
 which furnish a commonplace foundation for this Loadstone-mountain legend. 
 H.M.S. "Serpent" was totally wrecked in November 1890 off the Spanish 
 coast near Camarinas, on a reef called Laja del Buey or Bullock's Ledge ; and 
 an experienced officer of the Spanish admiralty, who knew the spot of the 
 wreck well, said that the Serpent's compasses may have been disturbed by the 
 vast masses of iron on the coast. She went down a few moments after she 
 struck on th? rocks, and only three sailors were cast ashore alive.^ Great 
 numbers of wrecks attributable to this cause take place on the North West 
 
 ' Gallan>l's /.on/ A'/^'/t, Paris, 1S06. - Morning Post, 14 Nov. 1S90. 
 
Myths.^ T/ie Loadstone Mountain. 133 
 
 Spanish coasts; and it is very noteworthy what an influence- the enormous 
 quantities of iron in some of the Galician mountains exercise on the needles of 
 ships' compasses ; necessarily at a very considerable distance too. 
 
 The earliest oriy,in for tliis Metal Man on the Mountain that I 
 have found is in the Argonautika of ApoUonios of Rhodes 
 (iv, 1638 etc.). Brazen Talos prevents the Argo from mooring at 
 the Diktaion haven by breaking-off rocks to hurl down from the 
 hard cliff He was a demigod of the brazen stock of men sprung 
 from ash-trees {iieXiriyevicov). The son of Kronos gave him to 
 Europa to be warden of Crete (K/sj^'t?;) where he roamed with 
 brazen feet. (A Magnes incident which also clearly brackets him 
 with CEdipus.) He was of brass unbreakable ; only at the ankle 
 was a thinskinned vein of blood where lay the issues of life and 
 death (an Achilles incident). "^ Medeia however bewitched the 
 sight of brazen Talos with her evil eye ; and he scratched his ankle 
 against the rock. Forth gushed the stream of life like molten lead ; 
 and like some towering pine the mighty giant stood awhile upright 
 on his tireless (iv, 1687) feet, then fell at last with weighty crash. 
 
 [Here again we have the pair of metals ; and I think it is worthy of all 
 notice that they were brass and lead, xoKKoi and /xdAi^Sot, while Volta made his 
 pile of copper and zinc] 
 
 In another myth of Talos, his uncle and master DaiDalos, the supreme 
 architect (d/)x'-7"e'Ki"<i»' ("pio-ros ) and first inventor of statues, jealous of his rivalry 
 (a clear war-in-heaven) cast him down from the Acropolis," or heavens-palace ; 
 by fraud said Hellanikos (frag, 82). 
 
 Here we clearly have the Creator of the Universe making man, as is shown 
 here under the heading of " The Tree." DaiDalos also invented the drill which 
 is worked by revolution (the centrebit), and Talos the potter's wheel and the 
 turning lathe. These three rotating machines complete a connexion of both 
 these divine powers with the inventor of the rotating machine of the Universe. 
 
 I think we must inevitably take TaA,(u? to be identical with 
 TaXao?, and that the origin of both stares us in the face in the 
 second, which is TA-Aao? — stretched-stone, that is tall-stone. 
 Prof Skeat having said in his Dictionary (to which I am through- 
 out this Inquiry so deeply and widely indebted) that " further light 
 is desired as to this difficult word, tall," I suggest that we have it 
 here and in the Welsh and Cornish tal = high, tal cam = high 
 rock, as well as in the Irish tor/ach a hillock. The French talus, 
 too, still retains the sense of a steep. If there be anything in all 
 this, it may afford us the true clue to talisma.n, as originally a holy 
 stone. The genealogy of DaiDalos and Talos was as follows : 
 
 ' See also Apnll. Bih/. i, g, 26, 4. " Apoll. Bihl. iii, 15, 8, 10, etc. 
 
3 34 
 
 The Night of the Gods. 
 
 [A XL 
 
 IS 
 
 Fan Dion /-pZeuxippe 
 
 ErechTheus -p PraxiThea 
 
 Metion t= Alkippe 
 
 Eupalanios = ? 
 
 {or Metion ^ Iphinoe) 
 
 I 
 Peidix== ? 
 
 { ? )nrDaiDalos 
 Ikaros 
 
 mis 
 
 MetiaDousa =^ Kekrops II 
 
 (Kekrops I was 
 autochthonous) 
 
 PanDi&n //^ Pelia, dau, of Pulas 
 
 1 I \ i 
 
 Talos MeDeia ^ Aigeus. PalLas Nisos Lukos 
 (see pp. 48, 49) 
 (The Pandionidae) 
 
 (line dies out) 
 
 MeDos 
 
 [Of course the pair named PanDion and the pair named Kekrops must be 
 taken as different accounts and differing genealogies of the same primitive 
 powers. Ikaros and Ikarios have been taken by many ancients to be the 
 same.] 
 
 Atlas was a mountain as well as a personal god, and Talos was 
 on a mountain, and it was standing-stones that were placed on 
 mountain-tops as gods, or as their symbols; as symbols (I main- 
 tain) of the a.xis-god. This completes the connection between 
 uncle and nephew, between DaiDalos and Talos as stone-deities ; 
 and TaLos-TaLaos is thus an axis-god, an AtLas ; being thus also 
 an Upbearer, a Supporter, which sense we find in the analogous word 
 ToXdoo ; and the idea of the necessary firmness of his base, of his 
 brazen feet, we find again in the Latin talus, " the ankle, the lower 
 part of the foot, the heel " — that is, clearly and broadly, the foot 
 itself 
 
 The connection with toXovtov, a balance, must thus be by the standard of 
 the balance. Talea was also a small stake, a picket : and here must be left for 
 future exposition, or not, the cr\' ("as old as Romulus') of Talassio ! or 
 Talassius I at nuptial ceremonies, It represented the 'V/iiji/, h ifiivme of the 
 Greeks, and Martial (xii, 96, 5) rendered it by copulatio. I think he wasn't far 
 wrong. The "man named Talassius '' in Festus was also on the spot. 
 
 The adjective tireless, a/ca'/Ltaroy, gives us another significance of 
 the brazen feet in the m}-th — that is the walking or running, 
 instead of the wheeling, round of the Universe ; and may indicate 
 a devout theor\- antecedent to the disco\-er}- of the wheel. French 
 still retains "la marche des astres," and in ornate English we have 
 
Myt/is^ The Loadstone Mountain. 135 
 
 not yet done with "the majestic progress of the spheres." This 
 indeed may be the true clue to the now hidden meaning of all the 
 footprint legends which are so fully treated .of under the heading 
 " Buddha's Footprint." 
 
 Thus we should have the Talos myth englobing (as the 
 majority of myths do) a confusion of conceptions — of the firmly 
 planted feet of the heavens-axis god, and of the tireless feet of the 
 running-heavens god. The " tireless " idea we come upon again in 
 the derivation (by the scholiast on Euripides) of Atlas from 
 a-iXdv un-fatiguable, which is dealt-with under " Atlas." The 
 connection of Talos or Talaos with Atlas and EphiAltes seems 
 inevitable. 
 
 TanTalos seems to me to be a form of Talos, where rav belongs to Tavvm 
 and means outstretched, or else is tov, Sir ; like Dan Sol, for example. In the 
 first case, we should have TAN-TA-Aaos-, where the first two root-syllables would 
 be a reduplication ; for TA is now taken as ^ TAN, stretched. 
 
 Mighty, /i€7a9, Talaos and Areios (an Ares-name) came forth 
 from Argos (the heavens) and were the sons of Bias.^ Talaos was 
 father of six sons (and a daughter who married AmphiAraos) 
 among whom were Mekisteus (the longest or tallest, perhaps an 
 Axis-name),^ AristoMachos (best-mechanism) and Adrastos.' 
 HippoMedon (a central horse-god) was also, as others said,'' a son 
 of Talaos. The Iliad (xxiii, 6']']') makes Mekisteus come to 
 Thebes after the burial of OidiPous (with whom I have already 
 bracketed Talos) and overcome all the sons of Kadmos. Melam- 
 Pous (blackfoot) was brother of Bias'' (and uncle of Talaos), so 
 that the feet were, as we should expect, in the family ; and note, in 
 reference to what I advance elsewhere as to Aiguptos being a 
 celestial spot, that it was_previously called the place (■^mpa) of 
 MelamPous." 
 
 Hesychius mentions Greek games in honour of Zeus Talaios. 
 AmphiAraos, who killed Talaos (MelamPous also killed him), and 
 so usurped the rule of Argos, has the Spear and Universe-tree in 
 his myth. An eagle swoops down upon the lance, carries it off, and 
 where it lets it fall again it sticks-in and becomes a laurel. The 
 Earth opens and receives AmphiAraos with his chariot and his 
 horses — a note, as I believe, of an axis-god. Talos was a partisan 
 of Turnus, and was killed by ^neas. Here the connection with 
 
 ' Argon, i, Ii8 ; ii, 63. ' Might also = ^i-q (mid) + kiWt) (see " The Arcana "). 
 
 ' ApoU. BiM. i, 9, 13. * Ibid, iii, 6, 3. ' Pherecydes/zw^. 75. 
 
 ^ ApoU. Bi'H. ii, I, 4, 5. 
 
136 
 
 The Niglit of tlie Gods. 
 
 [Axis 
 
 Turnus (a turning-heavens god, as I maintain) again points to 
 Talos as an axis or socket god. 
 
 The name crops-up again in Dionysius of Halicaniassus (bk. ii) where the 
 Sabine TaXXor rupavos is mentioned as an ally of Tatius ; which confirms me in 
 my connection of Tatius with the axis ; for this name is merely an adjectival 
 form of the above root-word TA, outstretched, tall. Festus also said Talus was 
 a Sabine prename. Spenser revived Talus as an iron man in the Faery Queen 
 
 (v, i). 
 
 The connection of Talaos with the island of Krete and thus with Talos may 
 be made another way by his descent from KreTheus, as follows : 
 
 Ouranos 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 lapetos 
 
 I 
 
 Kronos 
 
 I 
 Rhea 
 
 PromeTheus Atlas 
 
 I 
 Deukalion ^ Purra 
 
 'Hellen ^ Orseis 
 
 Aison 
 
 Plieres 
 
 I 
 
 lUos 
 
 \ 
 Doros 
 
 Aiolos (the 
 windgod of 
 Magnesia) ^ Enarete 
 
 I 
 Sisuphos 
 
 Alhamas Magnes PeriE: 
 
 PeriMede 
 
 -p Salinoneus (2nd wife Sidero) 
 
 KreTheus -p Turo -p Poseidon 
 (EarthGod ?) I | 
 
 i ^ I 
 
 Pheres Amuthaon =^ Eidomenc 
 
 I i 
 
 I 
 Pelias 
 
 Neleus 
 
 lason AdMetos 
 J 
 
 Lukourgos 
 
 Perii) z= Bias 
 
 MclamPous 
 
 Mermeros 
 ( = Marmor ?) 
 
 l^alaos -r- Lusimache 
 
 HippoMedon Adrastos Mekisteus k.jX. 
 
 [It will be obser\-ed that Doros a spear-axis-god, Aiolos the Ether-god of 
 "Magnesia, Magnes, Turo (a tower-axis-goddess ?), Poseidon, and lason, are all 
 in this most respectable family. SalMoneus (? the salt one) may be a mere 
 
 ' Hellen was also son '' of Zeus " ( = Pio^). 
 
AIyt/is.'\ The Loadstone Mountain. 137 
 
 alias of Poseidon ; and Tuio's being the consort both of Poseidon and KreTheus 
 (Earth-god ?) could be interpreted as the axis extending from Earth to Cosmic 
 Ocean.] 
 
 There is one of the islands of Mailduin's voyage that seems to present us 
 with some Cosmic allusions to the revolutions of the several spheres, and also 
 to the myth of Talos. The island has a wall (the firmament ?) round it. An 
 animal of vast size, with thick rough skin, runs round the island with the 
 swiftness of the wind, and then betakes himself to a large flat stone on a high 
 point, where he daily turns himself completely round and round within his skin 
 which remains at rest. Next he turns his skin continually round his body, down 
 one side and up on the other like a mill-wheel, but the body itself moves not 
 Again, he whirls the skin of his upper half round and round like a flat-lying 
 mill-stone, while the skin of the lower half remains without motion. When 
 Mailduin and his companions, in terror of him, take to flight, he flings round 
 stones at them,' like the Kuklops at Odusseus. 
 
 (See the section on " The River" for the loadstone at the bottom of the 
 river Llinon, which makes it impossible to cross over in a keel.) 
 
 ' Dr. Jo)ce's Celiic Romances, 127, 128, 
 
138 Tlie Night of the Gods. {Axis 
 
 /^ RETE. Plato in his explanation, or rather in his explaining- 
 
 away of the Talos myth, gave the additional incident that 
 Talos had to make the round of the island of Crete three times to 
 engrave on brass the Law of Minos. Apollodoros' said Tales ran 
 thrice daily round the island, watching it. Here we have the 
 tireless feet again, and this brass is thus the brazen heavens, and 
 the Law is the Tao, the Order, of the Universe ; and Krctc iiiiist be, 
 like all the other simitar mythic islands, a fgiire of the EartJi (see 
 p. ^^^j). If we admit this interpretation, it sheds a flood of light on 
 the grand total of all the Cretan most archaic myths and worship. 
 Note too that Crete was called Chthonia insula. 
 
 And then where are we to search for the meaning of the word 
 Krete ? The etymology ought also to give us that of the Latin 
 creta chalk, which is at present a philologist's blind alley ; and 
 I think the true sense is still to be tracked in our own word accrete ; 
 for creta as a portion of the verb crescere to appear, surge-up, 
 sprout, receive existence, be born (earliest meanings, which are 
 confined to the poets), is just what we want. And we are thus not 
 so very far off our own English create (as a past participle) and the 
 Latin creata ; the root of all which is said to be kar to make ; but 
 that sense does not embrace the appearing, surging-up, ideas. 
 
 The Oldlrishcre clay does not seem to stand in the way here, but rather to 
 help me out. Mr. E). R. Wharton alleges crctus, the participle of cerno I 
 separate ; but must we not see in this cretus and in cretus from cresco the 
 identically same word ? 
 
 Crete is thus the uprisen island, and the name of the island-god 
 Crete-born " Zeus," 'Lav Kpijrayivtji;, takes a new and supreme 
 significance. More than 2,000 years ago Herodotus (iii, 122) 
 remarked that the Cretan Law-gi\'er Minos of Knossos (where 
 we must see gnosis and knowledge) was anterior to the generations 
 of men. This fully accords with Hesiod's saying that the King of 
 Crete (Minos) was " the mightiest king of all mortals," and ruled 
 with the sceptre of Zeus. The facts that his consort was PasiPhae 
 (= to-all-shine, the heavens), and that she was the daughter of 
 Helios (not the sun ?) and Perseis, also place him in a \-cry high 
 di\'ine position. 
 
 Asklepiadcs gave Minos for consort Krete the daughter of .•Vsterios, which 
 is also Cosmic and therefore genuine.'-' Krete was otherwise the daughter of 
 
 ' BM. i. 9, 26, 5. - .\poll. Bi7'/. iii. i, 2, 6. 
 
Myths.'] The Loadstone Motmtain. 139 
 
 Deukalion.' Note too that a place in Rhodes was called Kretenia after her.^ 
 This gives us a connection between two of the Cosmic typical island-symbols of 
 the Earth, Krete and Rodos (see " The Romaunt of the Rose " later on). 
 
 The mythic Dorians (that is, as I theorise, the spear- axis gods) 
 possessed the island of Crete (the Eartli) in times later than those 
 of Minos (Herod, i, 173). If 'VahaWavQv^ (-Oof or -da) his brother 
 could be made into 'VoSaMavOv^, we should have the Wheel-Seer 
 or magician (from fxavOavw, fxdi'Ti,^), and a connection with the 
 wheel-island of Rhodes. It is thus quite natural to learn that 
 the equally mythic LukoUrgos long dwelt in Crete, and adopted 
 its Law.'' Manthos then too becomes a parallel to the fraternal 
 Knossos. Plato'' tells us that the laws of Crete, being inspired by 
 Deity, could not be discussed by the immature. The fact that the 
 ten chief magistrates were called kosmoi and their president 
 the protokosmos is important, though we need not to lay too much 
 stress on it. The kosmoi all belonged to one farnily the Aithalei, 
 which name seems to indicate a fire-god's priesthood. Aithalides, 
 the famous son of Hermes and Eupolemeia was the swift (flame ? 
 flash ?) herald of the Argonauts' who transmigrated into Pytha- 
 goras. 
 
 [Are not the isle of Aithalie in the Argonautika (iv, 654), 
 which seems to have escaped the scholiasts and cornmentators, and 
 the puzzling passage about it, to be referred to Crete ?] 
 
 But we must push on farther, and hope to fare no worse. 
 Kp?;?, Y^prjcraa, Cretan and Cretaness, contain the first syllable 
 of crescere ; so does the adjective Kpi^aio'i, which was applied to 
 the Bacchus of Argos. 'Kpi'-jq the son of Zan reigned in Crete, 
 and according to one legend gave his name to the island, 
 which is not too very far off my etymolog)-, which would lend 
 somewhat of a new intensity to the epithet of Jupiter Crescens. 
 There was a nymph Kreseis. Pasiphae, sister of Kirke (the 
 spindle), spouse of Minos, and mother of AndroGeos (Man- 
 Earth ?), was called Cressa bos." And may not this etymolog)', 
 too, unveil for us the true hidden meaning of the inexhaustible 
 riches of Croesus, Kroisos, the Universe-King? And we must take 
 into this family of words Kpeovo-a, the spouse of leson, and her 
 father Kpewv, King of Koptvdos. And can creta chalk, the Cretan 
 earth, have thus ever been the protoplast of the speculations of 
 
 ' ApoU. Bidl. iii, 3, i. " J/iiJ. iii, 2, i. ^ Plutarch, Lycurg. 4. 
 
 ' Leges I. D. 270, 31. * Argonautikdn, i, 54, 641, 649 ; iii, 174. 
 
 *• Piopertius Iv, 7, 57. 
 
14° The Night of the Gods. {Axis 
 
 " the ancients ? " j\Iarl (marga, margila) was also so called. The 
 use of creta in medicine had most probably a ritualistic origin. 
 
 There are passages in the Argonaittika (iv, 1577) which I read 
 as a possible relict of the Earth-myth of Crete : " Yonder sea, that 
 has naught but air around {vTT'qepiov) reaches above Crete to the 
 divine land of Pelops."^ The realm of Pelops, as is often pointed 
 out here, is the heavens; and the "sea" here is the Universe- 
 ocean. Again (iv, 1636) : " Crete stands out above all other isles 
 upon the sea." Again : "As they were hasting o'er the wide gulf 
 of Crete " [the Universe-ocean, as above] " night scared them, that 
 night men call the shroud of gloom ... It was black chaos 
 come from heaven, or haply thick gloom rising from the nethermost 
 abyss."- This is the night-voyage of the darkest sky. 
 
 [ISLAND. It oug-ht to have been stated under the heading of "The Spear" 
 that Irish myth affords a parallel to Japan's change of position (p. 32). The 
 one-eyed or evil-eyed Northern giant-power Balar commands his Fomorian 
 giants to " put cables round the island of Erin, which gives us so much trouble, 
 and tie it at the stern of your ships ; then sail home, bringing the island with 
 you, and place it on the North side of Lochlann."' The island of Fianchaire 
 (Fincara = white-rock ?), too, lies not on the surface, but down deep in the 
 waters, for it was sunk beneath the wa\es by a spell in times long past. 
 
 I should also have stated at p. 33 that in the voyage of Mailduin — which 
 is in the nature of a Cosmic Argo voyage, as all the iinraina seem to be — the 
 island of Birds which are human souls is met with ; and the .'\ged Man of the 
 island is covered all over with long white hair, and his account of the 
 origin of the island is that he brought from Erin as ballast for his boat some 
 sods of green turf, and then, " under the g"uidance of God I arrived at this spot ; 
 and he fixed the sods in the sea for me, so that they formed a little island," 
 which grew bigger and bigger every year, and in which the Lord caused a 
 single tree to spring up.^ This is a parallel to the island Kalliste (p. 33). 
 
 " Then we came to the isle Aiolian where dwelt Aiolos son of HippoTas in 
 a floating island. And all about it is a wall of bronze unbroken, and the cliff 
 runs up sheer from the sea. His 12 children too abide there in his mansions, 6 
 daughters and 6 lusty sons ; and behold he gave his daughters to his sons to 
 wife." (^Odyss. x, i.) This is clearly Cosmic ; the floating air\- island being the 
 Earth, and the rest being of the finnament, celestial or zodiacal. 
 
 The island of Cephalonia in the myth of Kephalos and Prokris also 
 deserves attention here. 
 
 The island P"ung-Lai, ^ ^ was brought one day, in all its mass, by the 
 
 ' Ki'wQ h vTrrj^pioi^ S€LJ]i' Ile\o7n]ida yaiav \ ^laavi^sL Tre'Xayo? UpTjTrjs vTvep. 
 ' iv, 1694. Jlr. Coleridge's version. 
 
 ' Dr. Joyce's Ce-A/c Romance^, 41, 87. A deceased Sir Andrew .-^gnew ihvs appears 
 In have lietn a plagiarist. ■• //'/./. 144. 
 
Myths.~\ The Loadstone Mountain. 141 
 
 Ngao 1* or Cosmic Tortoise of Chinese myth.' As the Earth is also supported 
 by the Tortoise, we here have in P'ung-Lai, I fancy, a clear figure for the Earth 
 just as in so many islands of Greek mythology.] 
 
 \Rocking-Stones. It has occurred to me to try and explain the 
 
 puzzHng Rocking-Stones as another archaic conception of the idea 
 
 of " animated stones ; " the vibration of the gigantic mass, which 
 
 still astonishes ourselves, being employed to awe tlie other masses 
 
 into adoration. I cannot find any record of the "lie" of such 
 
 stones, as regards the points of the compass.^ A Buddhist legend, 
 
 which is a household word in Japan, chimes-in with this theory. 
 
 The monk Daita, ascending a hill, and collecting stones, placed 
 
 them upon the ground around him, and began to preach to them 
 
 of the secret precepts of Buddha ; and so miraculous was the 
 
 effect of the m\'sterious truths he told, that even the stones bowed 
 
 in reverent assent. Thereupon the saint consecrated them as the 
 
 Nodding-Stones.' To this day, Japanese gardens consisting almost 
 
 entirely of stones — our own rockeries suggest themselves — are 
 
 arranged in a small enclosure to represent this legend, which 
 
 resembles that of the Venerable Bede, p. 125.] 
 
 ^ De Groot, Fetes (rEnioi/i, i, 174. 
 
 ^ Since the above Avas in type, I find that Dr. T. A. Wise says in his History of 
 Paganism in Caledonia (1884, p. 92), apparently from his own personal observation — 
 which is my reason for quoting the book — that the 3-ton 5 ft. 6 x 4 ft. 8 rocking-stone at 
 Strathardle, Perthshire, moves only when pushed in the direction of N. and S. When 
 it has been worked-up to its full swing, the end of the stone vibrates through some 
 4 inches, and it then make? (say) 27 balancings before it returns to rest. 
 
 ^ Chamberlain's Things Japanese, 131. 
 
142 The Night of the Gods. {Axis 
 
 II. — ^\a.yvr)%. Meclea, and Maia — Touchstone. 
 
 ASPIORT time may not here be thro^vn away in a hunt after 
 m}"th and etymon. 
 
 Ma"/!'?/? was a "servant" of Mi^'Seia, changed by tliat goddess 
 and sorceress into a stone, the magnet. He it is who in this myth 
 divinely " animates" this stone. Another myth given b}- Xicander 
 makes him walk in shepherding upon natural-magnetic rocks, to 
 which he became fixed by the nails in his shoes' ; where we 
 obviously have a variant not alone of Sindbad's loadstone clift'- 
 mountain but of the shoes of IphiKratos (see " The I\Iyth of Daphne" 
 infra) and the brazen feet of Talos, and perhaps of the footprint 
 legends generalh". The black precious-stone called Medea nigra 
 which Pliny (xxxvi, lo, 6i) said was not otherwise known than b\' its 
 name, must thus have been the loadstone, and also perhaps the 
 first black image of a great goddess now traceable in the Uni\-erse. 
 
 I suggest that Etie'/ios^ the son of ^fagTies must mean stone 'French pierre}, 
 and that thus Pieria the seat of the Muses' was equivalent to Petraia, stony— of 
 course in a celestial god-stone sense : and further that the nine daughters of 
 Pieros were simply a doublet of the Muses. Pieros was also father of Hya- 
 kinthos (also a precious-stone; by Kleio (our Clio , whom I should call one of 
 the A't-i'stone goddesses. 
 
 The identity of the names Athamas and .A.damas must be strongly suspected. 
 The name of his Black son Melanion, the spouse of .Atalanta ;^ his children by 
 Ino being dressed black, and those by Themisto in white, or z'ice versa ; and his 
 
 ' Pliny xxxvi, i6. citing Xicander. Isidorus (Ori^ima/i, xvi, 4) also followed 
 Nicander, but put the myth in India. Vincent de Beauvais reproduced it (Specuium 
 N'aturak, ii, 9, 19) saying Claris crepidarum, bacuUqui cusf-idi haerens. This is also 
 in J. B. della Porta's Magia Xaturalis, 1651, p. 2SS. Here we have the staff or /a/, 
 as well as the shoes. Dioscorides, the first-century Greek botanist, said that the plant 
 which is called in Latin Liinaria major, drew the shoes off the feet of any horse that 
 trod thereon (de \'aUemont's Physique occulte, 1696, p. 3). 
 
 2 ApoU. Bibl. i, 3, 3. ^ Hesiod, Theog. v, 53: '-'eV Uiepljj KpoviSji" 
 
 * Ovid, Ars amor, ii, 1S5. In ApoUodoros {Bibl. iii, 9, 2) he is Mcilanion, and the 
 son of Amphi-damas, where either damas is adamas or gives ns a clue to adamas. Are 
 damas and adamas the two poles of the magnet, and does amphi-damas mean the whole 
 magnet? AmphiDaraas is brother to lasos, and £on of LukoUrgos. Aa/zi'ar was said 
 by Pliny (xxxiv, S, ig) to have been a (mythic ?) sculptor of KXfiVmp in Arcadia, which I 
 would make the polar AVj'stone of the heavens-vault. The name LaoDamas, of the 
 king of Thebes, seems absoluteh" to be composed of the words Xaor, stone, and 
 aSa/ias. There is also the name AlkiDamas {oXktj, strength), and doubtless many others 
 (besides IphiDamas. J<pi almighty) wh'ch do not come to the memory at the moment. 
 
MytJis^ 'SidyvY)';, Medea, and Jl/aia. 143 
 
 important central position as King of Thessaly in the myths that concern him 
 must be worked out some other time. Adamas, again, u-as said by F. Lenor- 
 mant to be identical with AdMetus,' and the name was at times given to 
 Plouton. He also said that the 'aS;i/x of the Philosophuinena was an abbre\'iation 
 of Adamas or Adamastos, an epithet of Hades ; and that this Adam of Samo- 
 thrace equalled the Attis or Pappas {i.e. Father) of Phrygia. This line, if fought 
 out, would give us a stone-man in Adam's creation as well as in Deukalion's. 
 Elsewhere Magnes is a son of Aiolos the nimble winds-god : that 
 is, magnetic stones fall from the air, are a;rolites. Again he is, 
 because these stones drop from the heavens, a son of Argos the 
 shining heavens (see Index). Clemens Alexandrinus,- quoting 
 Didymus the grammarian, made Magnes the father of Apollo. 
 
 There is a fragment of Xanthos, the Lydian and writer of 
 Lydian history about 496 B.C., which has its value because the 
 legends must have been local, and to which I must refer without 
 reproduction.^ It may be interpreted, perhaps, that Gyges Fvyt;? 
 King of the L3'dians had Magnes for his familiar, that is was aided 
 by or wielded the magnet's mysterious power. See also p. 146. 
 
 Vvyr]i can of course be looked upon as no more than riyur, giant ; but 
 Gyges had the famous magic ring which rendered invisible, and as one of the three 
 primeval fifty-headed and hundred-handed sons of Ouranos and Ge, he is called 
 by ApoUodoros (Bibl. i, i) Vvrjs (Briareos, Gues and Kottos). This suggests 
 •yor;f, enchanter ; but Clitodemus (Kleidemos), in naming this triad the Trito- 
 Patores,^ calls him Vvyrfi. 
 
 That Medea was of the first rank among celestial powers is 
 clearly shown by her pairing with Ares ; and her connection with 
 lason, 7"/i!t'seus, and Thehes place her among the ^e'oi (all 
 which see). She was the mother by lason of Mi;8o9 ; and it seems 
 to be possible to theorise that both names, give us a central, middle, 
 Universe god and goddess— just the same idea that we have in the 
 Norse name Midgardr for the abode of such gods, and in the Mith- 
 Odinus (Mid-Odinn .') of Saxo Grammaticus. And now, having 
 been given this ell, let me take another inch, and say boldly 
 thatMeDus (the central-god, the son of MeDea, who gave his name 
 to the Medes, that is, like the Chinese, the inhabitants of the Middle 
 (Kingdom) and Magnes, the Great-One, the servant of Medea, are 
 
 But it would seem that we must pair such names as LaoDanias and LaoDameia, 
 AstuDamas and AstuDameia. It is impossible now to turn aside to Damia as a name of 
 Bona Dea, damium her victim and damiatrix her priestess, all which E. Saglio {Diet, i, 
 725) seeks to connect with DeMeter. 
 
 ' Saglio, Diet, des Anliq. i, 687, 763. - Exhort, to Hellenes, ch. 2. 
 
 ■' No. 19, p. ip oi Frag. Hist . Gnee. Didot, 1S74, vol. i. 
 
 ■' Frag. 19, p. 340, tit sup. 
 
144 The Night of the Gods. [_Axi. 
 
 IS 
 
 identical. Does not this throw quite a new light upon Ovid's 
 " Medio tutissimus ibis," and upon the god MeDius Fidius (which 
 see) who is perhaps also to be identified with Medus ? 
 
 lileDteii/ius (alias Mezentius) rex, that is ruler-god, of Etrurian Caere 
 (? caele = caelum), helped the turning-heavens god Turnus (brother of lu- 
 Tuma) rex of the RiituXx (? 1vhcel-^goAs, or red fire-gods) at Ardea, the central 
 fire. All the dramatis personae are here central or rota'ors. MeDientius also 
 fought Latinus, q. v. ; and his name seems to be merely an adjectival form of 
 MeDius. Miiller said Mezentius was perhaps an Osk «ord.' 
 
 Me'Swf is the KTJpv^ or herald of Ithaca in the Oiiyssey (iv, 677 and passim). 
 If his name has the central meaning I would give it, it is a strengthening of the 
 central meaning I have suggested at p. 55 for Mercurius. (See other gods in 
 Medon lower down.) 
 
 Medea cured Herakles of madness by secrets learned from her 
 mother Hecate ; but others of her myths also show her to have 
 become a fallen deity. The number of the Phaiakian handmaids 
 given to Medea by Arete queen of Kerkura (Corcyra), which was 
 the zodiacal twelve, is another note of a supreme (central) 
 heavens-goddess. The}' are called rfKiKe^, " of the same age," in 
 the Argoiiautika (iii, S40) ; but eXiKe^, as rotators, like 'EXikij the 
 great Bear, would suit them perhaps better. 
 
 i(^i-Mf Seia is clearh' another form of the goddess's name, for l(f>L as a prefix to 
 proper names can only be regarded as expressive of di\'ine power, and thus equals 
 almighty. In 'E<^i-"AXt-7;s-, son of IphiMedeia, the first part of the word is probably 
 j(^i and not fVi ; and the word then would mean "the Most High Almighty." 
 
 AtidroMeda. In pursuance of one of the general rules kept in view in this 
 Inquiry, we must also include here this MtSa, who was the spouse of Perseus, 
 and was chained to the heavens-rock. PeriMedc, daughter of Aiolos, falls in 
 here too, I suppose. 
 
 Me'Aoucra, M«Ao(o-a or MeDusa must also be understood as a central 
 goddess. MeDusa is one of a sacred triad. Poseidon becomes a bird to 
 mate with her. Her hair becomes serpents, which is like the serpent head- 
 dresses of Egyptian deities. The glance of her e\ il eye turned to stone near 
 the Tritonian lake all whom it reached. Perseus in his attack on her uses 
 the shield or the mirror of Athene (and of the Japanese goddess AmaTerasu) 
 and the casque or cap-of-invisibility of Plouton. With her severed head 
 Perseus changes AtLas into a mountain. She is the mother of Pegasos, the 
 central winged horse-god. Pege being a fountain, he is also the hippopotamus 
 par excellence, the horse, that is, of the central heavens-spring. Perseus was 
 also called EuruJ/tv/('«. With MeDousa must go the name MetiaDousa 
 (wife of Kekrops) which again by its first half hangs on to Mction her father's 
 name. Also AutoMcDousa wife of IphiKlos, and AstuMeDousa" wife of Oidi- 
 
 ' Einiskeri, 115, 36S. 
 
 * W(TTv ( = city) is in a great variety of names, and may perhaps be classed with trTiXnf 
 pillar (sianding-stone), o-Ti'Trof stock, stem (standing-foot ; the French st'll has un pitd 
 
AIyt/is.'\ Mdyv7)<;, Medea, and Maia. Ha 
 
 pous, and HippoMeDousa and IphJMeDousa, daughters of Danaos. And Pala- 
 Medes and AgaMedes must also be mentioned here ; being more fully dealt 
 with under " Divine Names in pal-." Nor should DioMeDes be forgotten. 
 AutoMedon, LaoMedon, and IphiMedon, also require noting. See also 
 Meddi.\tuticus and Meditulhus under the heading of " The Navel " ; and Mezen- 
 tius (more anciently MeDientius) who helped Turnus the turning-heavens god, 
 must of course be added. (All the divine words in Me- badly want systema- 
 tising, but there is no time just now.) 
 
 Athene was titled 
 
 Magnesia. Magnes, with or without lapis, meant a magnet ; and 
 doubtless named the land of Magnesia and Athene too, instead of 
 Magnesia naming the stone, as continues to be repeated by " the 
 authorities." Klaproth^ said that the loadstone was vulgarly called 
 p,d'yvrj'i ; but if that be so, all I can say is, vox populi vox dei ; a 
 qualification which applies to a vast quantity of other folklore. 
 Nothing can well be more mythic than the geography and position 
 of the ancient terresiricd Magnesia. Strabo (ix, 429) seems to put 
 it in South-East Thessaly, where were also Mounts Pelion and 
 Ossa ; Homer gave no precise information. Its inhabitants were 
 vaguely the Magnetes ;- and the sole town that Magnes himself is 
 fabled to have founded he called Meliboia after his consort.^ 
 There seems to be very little danger in opining that this last name 
 discloses a Bee-goddess of the starry heavens, and her abode. 
 Magnesia, in fact, remains in nubibus ; where, as I maintain, the 
 voyage of the Argo placed it. " In the distance,", wrote Apollonios"* 
 who, of course was only re-working up old material, "were seen the 
 Peiresian headlands and the headland {aKprj) of Magnesia, calm 
 a.nd clear upon the mainland {inrevOio^ rjireipoLo aicTrj) and the 
 cairn (riifj,/3o';) of Dolops."" I should here give Peiresiai its real 
 value of transpiercing, or else make it mean terminal, as irelpap and 
 7repa<; mean end, just as uvpo'i and ovpov mean boundary, which 
 furnishes a notable enough coincidence. Akre I would render by 
 summit or extremity, and for mainland, I would read '' the immen- 
 sity ;" while Dolops, if interpreted as Wily-Eye or countenance, 
 
 de celeri, and so on), aroa pillar (stand), and (rrvoi erigo. Thus the (ttv in ci-arv is the 
 Latin sto stand ; and the true meaning of a-stu thus is not-permanent, not-fixed ; whicli 
 exactly answers to the 22-centuries-old explanation of Philochoros in our 4th fragment of 
 him (Didot's J^ra§: Hist. Gi-ax, i, 384) that it was originally a nomadic encampment. 
 This etymology is of the nature of the unexpected, and perhaps is new. 
 
 ^ La Boussolc^ p. ir. 
 
 - Scylax ; Skymnos of Chios, v, 605 ; Diod. Sic. xii, 51 ; xvi, 29. 
 
 3 Eustath. on Iliad, ii, 717. ' ArgoJiautika, i, 5S3. 
 
 • Mr. E. P. Coleridge's version, p. 24. 
 
 K 
 
146 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 gives us the wiliness of Kronos and the all-seeing' Eye on which I 
 have here often to lay such stress. [Pelops would thus be the 
 Black-visagcd night-heavens? Although his forehead and his 
 shoulder are made white in myth-fragments.] All this is of the 
 North Polar heavens, and Magnesia becomes the mythic loadstone 
 mountain of all the myths and legends. 
 
 The powdered magnet was a favourite remedy in the middle ages, and the 
 name of our drug magnesia, the oxide of magnesium, has ver>' probably an 
 equally superstitious sacred origin, just as the use of creta, chalk, in medicine 
 may have had (see p. 140). 
 
 A strange name for the magnet is that in Hesychius, Xvhia or AuSik^ Xidos, 
 the Lydian stone ; because it came from Lydia (see pp. 130, 143). Doctors seem 
 to differ about this, for Pliny (xxxiii, 8, 43) said that the Lydius lapis was a 
 name of the touchstone, because at one time it only came from Mount T/jwAos- or 
 TjTuolus (which I presume must be regarded as the diTidcd mountain ; or else 
 as tumulus, simply). But Tmolos was son of Ares, a giant, and a king of Lydia. 
 His mother was TheoGene, godbom. He violated Arriphe (basket-bearer?), a 
 companion of Artemis at the altar of the goddess. Tmolos was tossed by 
 a mad bull on to stakes on which he was im/(7/ed, and he was buried in the 
 mountain that bears his name. The Paktolos (peaceful T) flowed down this 
 mountain, and it was also called Lydius aurifer amtns (which does not sound 
 peacefiir). Omphale was called Lydia nurus and puella, being the queen of the 
 place,' having been left it by King Tmolos who was her husband. Another 
 name of Lydia was Maionia. Here we have doubtless mythic celestial supreme 
 regions. The magnet was also called Xt^of 'YipaKktia after Herakles,- or 
 else after the town of Herakleia, at the foot of Mount Sipulos in Lydia (see p. 
 130, and what is said later about this under " The Arcana "). Now Tmolos was 
 said by Eustathius to be son of Sipulos and Eptonia (? a corruption, and from 
 kiTTa seven). Sipulos was the first of the seven sons of Niobe, and Tantalos 
 was another (she was also daughter of Tantalos). Niobe was also called the 
 stone of Sipulos, because she was there at her own prayer changed to stone by 
 Zeus.^ 
 
 Ulagnalia meant " wonders " in ecclesiastical Latin (Tertull : 
 ad Uxor, ii, 7), and was also used for grand actions, great things. 
 This again brings us to Mayo?, magus and maga, a magician ; 
 magus, magical, enchanting; and the Persian magi (Greek ^d'yoi), 
 regarding which word Professor Skeat sa}-s : "the original sense 
 was probably great, from the Zend maz, great (Pick i, 16S) 
 cognate with Greek fieyas, Latin magnus, great. Root, viagli, to 
 have power." Thus magic is simply and initially the exercise of 
 the mag or power of the great central deit}- ; and natural uiagxc 
 
 Pheiecycles/;-^o. 34; Apoll. Bibl. ii, 6, 3. 
 - Pliny has Hemcleus lapis, xxxiii, S, 43 ; xxxvi, 16, 25. 
 ' Apoll. Bibl. iii, 5, 6, 6. 
 
Myths.'\ Mayvy]<i, Medea, and iMaia. i47 
 
 and natural ;«<?^netism are thus brought together in the Night of 
 the Gods. 
 
 Is not this central, middle, highest conception the true key also 
 to the origin and significance of Asura Mi-dha. and its analogue 
 Ahura Masdko} 
 
 From the same root come 
 
 Magister, the supreme, the director, conductor, ordinator, watcher, over- 
 see-r, chief, master. Magister sacrorum was the high priest, the king of the 
 sacrifices ; and the " colleges " of the Augurs, the Arvalii, Salii, and Lares 
 Augusti had each its magister. 
 
 Magicae linguae means hieroglyphics in Lucan, ii, 222. But we must cany 
 the words in mag- a good deal further. 
 
 Magada was the name of the Venus goddess in Lower Saxony whose 
 temple was uprooted by Charlemagne (Noel) ; the 
 
 Magodes were mimes who, we may make pretty sure, originally took parts 
 in religious mystery-plays, the I\Lagodia. 
 
 Magarsis was (as well as Magnesia, already mentioned) a title of Athene (?) 
 at Magarsus of Cilicia. 
 
 Ma7SaXa, the place-name, is glossed in the older lexicons {e.g. 
 Schrevelius) as meaning in Hebrew " a tower " ; and Wa<yZa\rfvr), 
 the woman's name (which is of course simply of " Magdala ") as 
 in Syriac meaning " magnificent " : there certainly is a mag- in 
 both. Magdalum, ^Id'^ZusKov or Ma7SoXoi' may be the Migdol of 
 Jeremiah xliv, i ; xlvi, 14. But the word magdalia, or magdalides, 
 oblong cylinders, is a strange one. It seems to have been even in 
 Roman times relegated to the pharmacy (Pliny). And it passed 
 into French as magdaleon (from fiaySaXid, which Littrc explains 
 as pate petrie simply, from fidacrco, efiayov ; but this is clearly off 
 the spot, for how about the " oblong cylinder " ?). It seems as if we 
 must discern in all these words the two components mag- and -dala. 
 How would it be then, if mag-dala meant simply a great, that is a 
 long, stone ; then a pillar, and then a tower? One naturally thinks 
 of the French dalle, but Littre again fails us at the pinch, saying 
 " origine inconnue ; " but giving us the extra forms dail daille. 
 Now it seems to me that we may have the clue we want (under the 
 heading of "The Round Towers") in the Irish diminutive dallan, 
 the name for the pillar-stones of Munster. If this be indeed so, 
 it clears up somewhat, and serves the theories here advocated. I 
 can only submit it to the judgement of philologists. DaiDalos (see 
 p. 134) would seem to fall into the same category. There was 
 
 ' Darmesteter's Zend Av. i, Iviii (citing Benfey). 
 
148 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 Magdala in Gaulonitis (Peraea) near the lake of Gennesaret, 
 Magdala in Languedoc ; and I may not omit 'Sld^/hcoKov or 
 yidyhoXov in Egypt, which is perhaps the Migdol o{ JeveuiiaJi. 
 
 JMaginottuin (said to be for mag/mentum) was a sacrificial offering (said, 
 indeed, to be a supplemental offering", but that does not satisfy). Varro said it 
 came from magis because "ad religionem magis pertinet " (Z. L. v, § 112), 
 which, old as Varro though it be, sends us empty away. 
 
 Magusanus (? Mag«usanus) is the name of a god in an inscription found in 
 Zealand. Olaus Rudbeck rendered it Valens, god of strength. The god holds 
 a great fork (which rests on the earth) in one hand, and in the other a dolphin. 
 This resembles a Poseidon. A large veil (which reminds of Kronos) covers 
 the head and reaches to the shoulders. " The name Magusanus is also found 
 on the coins of Posthumus " (Noel). 
 
 The reader may think that we have taken a long time in getting 
 to Magnus itself ; but there were reasons of convenience for the 
 course. 
 
 lllaguiis. Major being the comparative of magnus gives us a 
 still surviving link of magnus to its other form majus, great, and 
 enables us to join the magnet class of words to another, the Maia 
 class ; and this is of the very highest moment as to the contentions 
 here urged. For ^Id^vrjs is thus obviously nothing but the personal- 
 name form of the adjective magnus great, and thus magnet reveals 
 itself as the Great-Stone, Kare^o-^riv. 
 
 Majlis, an old word for magnus, great, is found in Deus Majus, 
 that is Jupiter ;^ and Dea Maia was usual. Let us next take 'Wala, 
 Majja, Maja, who was the daughter of Atlas and the mother (by 
 Zeus) of Hermes, which at once puts her, where she is wanted for 
 the present purposes, with the Axis-gods. And this is confirmed 
 by the passage in the yEneid (viii, 139) : Mercurius quern Candida 
 Maia Cyllenae gelido conceptum vertice fudit, for Candida here 
 belongs (like the endless similar terms throughout this Inquiry) to 
 the white heavens-deities, and the gelidus vertex of Cyllena 
 (KkXXi;!^?;) is the Northern icy summit of the hollow heavens- 
 mountain (/cotX.0?, cjelum, kvXi^ ; but caelo = to ornament, to chase). 
 
 Maja genitum demittit ab alto, sent down her son from on high 
 {Aincid i, 297) ; and thence was Mercury called Majades and 
 Majugena (Maja and gigno). She was also sanctissima ]\Iaja 
 
 ' Sunt qui hunc mensem (Maium) ad nostros fastos a Tusculanis transisse com- 
 memorent, apud quos nunc quoque vocatur deus Maius, qui est Jupiter, a magnitudine 
 scilicet ac majestate dictus (Macrobius, Saturnal. i, 12). Tacitus constantly uses majus 
 (as the neuter of maior) as, " cuncta in majus atlollens " (Ann. xv, 30. See also Ann. 
 xiii, 8 ; Hist, iii, S ; i, iS ; iv, 50). 
 
A/yt/is.^ Md-yv7]<;, Medea, and Maia. 149 
 
 (Cicero, Arat. 270 — where she is said to be one of the Pleiades). 
 Maia also brought up 'Ap/ca?, regarding whom the reader is 
 especially requested to refer to the Index. Cybele was with 
 propriety called Maja, and so was Tellus. Macrobius {Saturn, i, 
 12) even said that some considered her to be Medea: quidam 
 Medeam putant, which is giving a certain age to this new theory 
 of mine. [Of course the connection with the Indian Maya and 
 with the Sanskrit maha, great, is unavoidable, but would take us 
 too far ; but see what is said in this Inquiry about the Indian 
 Manws and the Irish Alaix\\l\ Maia was also paired with Vulcan, 
 one of the greatest of the gods ; and Vulcan's flamen, as Macrobius 
 has preserved for us, sacrificed to her on the first day of May ; and 
 the Majuma was the great popular water-festival in Maj' upon the 
 Tiber. The divine name AlkMaion {iiXkt] strength), of the son of 
 AmphiAraos, must fall into this great category, and mean great- 
 almighty ? 
 
 Majus, the name of the month of May, came, said Ovid, from 
 the name of the goddess Maja ; and so also said Ausonius. May, 
 our English month (and may, our English verb, too) thus springs 
 from the root, mag or magh or inak, to be powerful. And that too 
 of course gave 
 
 Majus in low-Latin, which was a tree, that is " a may," cut and 
 planted as a sign of honour and worship. Majanus hortus is found 
 in Pliny, xxv, 8, 33 ; and in an inscription (apud Grut. 589 : 3 and 
 602 : 3). So that this low-Latin sense of majus was doubtless 
 also very high Latin indeed. 
 
 And so, as it is humbly submitted to more competent judgements, 
 have we come by one linked chain from the magnet to the maypole, 
 without ever once quitting the central sacrosanct region round which 
 the Universe revolves. 
 
 MELUSINE. The name Melusine deserves some attention here. Littrd 
 brings it from the bas-Breton 7nelus, melodious, GalUc melusine, songstress. 
 She was the banshee of the Lusignans, and appeared and screamed when 
 misfortunes were at hand, which makes her a goddess of evil fortune. There 
 are many other notes of a central goddess in her myth. She was the daughter 
 of is/enas King of ^//aaia (which may denote the white heavens). She became 
 a serpent every seventh day to expiate the murder of her father. Heraldry 
 makes a sort of mermaid of her (half serpent half woman), with the mirror and 
 toii>b, and bathing. She was one of a triad of sisters, and their mother Pressina 
 took them on to a high mountain-top whence she showed them Albania, where 
 
ISO The Night of the Gods. ^Axis 
 
 they would have reigned had not their father, Hke a peeping Tom, prj'ed upon 
 her (Pressina)' at their bringing-forth. All this has analogies in the Japanese 
 myths of Amaterasu. The three weird sisters shut-up their father Elenas in the 
 mountain of Brundclois which is marvellously like the word brontia, and ought 
 to be the thunder-mountain of the heavens. It may also indicate a parallel 
 to El-gebel, "the mountain." Melusine has eight sons who are all wondrous ; 
 the fifth had but one eye, with which he could see (3x7=) 21 leagues ; 
 the sixth was Geoffroy with the great tooth ; the eighth had three eyes, one of 
 which was in the middle of the forehead.^ 
 
 I am sorry to say this is one of the countless mjths of which I have had no 
 time to read up the literature ; but the likeness of many Me/usine incidents to 
 those of the great Me^/usa myth may be jotted down here. Medusa was one of 
 three sisters, the Gorgons ; her hair became serpents ; a mirror given by 
 Athene to Perseus aids in slaving IMedusa ; the drops of blood from the severed 
 head of Medusa also produce serpents ; ApoUodoros' said that one Gorgon 
 triad (the Graiai or Hags) had but one eye and one tooth between the three, 
 each using these properties by turns ; they were also white-haired. The other 
 triad (of whom Medusa) had scaly serpents for hair, and great boar-tusks for 
 teeth {ohovTa^ hi ^x^yaKov^ ws (Tviov). 
 
 The One Tooth is I think to be traced back to !Monodus (Moi'dSous?) son of 
 Prousias (King of Bythinia?) who had but a single bone in place of teeth : qui 
 unum OS habuit dentium loco. P)Trhus King of the Epirotes had the same 
 {Festits). Are we not to diagnose a corresponding myth under the name of 
 Tuscus, which gives us an unregistered connection with tusk. In Irish myth, 
 Finn's tooth of knowledge is famous, and Balar of the Evil Eye's queen is 
 Kathleen (Ceithleann) of the Crooked Teeth. ^ In the RigVeda the Rakshas 
 and Panis and fiends are a/n'n, tusked. So are the Asuras in the Mahabharata. 
 The Rishi Atri, the first of the Bright Race, the Chandra-vansa, was a star in 
 the Great Bear. 
 
 TOUCHSTONE. The Old Man Eattos, son of PoluMncstos 
 of the divine island of Thers. (Corcyra, the Earth), traced his descent 
 from EuPhemos the herald of the Argonauts. Battos stammered 
 to hide his designs ; he was therefore wily, like Kronos ; and his real 
 name was AristoTeles (? best-extreme. Compare Ares). He 
 founded and was adored at ^vprivrj,' Cyrene. 
 
 Compare Kvpr; = Ceres, and Kvpiji'i] daughter of 'Yylrevs The High, King of 
 the Lapithai, that is the heavens-stone god. She was the mother by Apollo 
 of Aristaios (father of Aktaion by Autonoe) the first Bee-master and (olive) 
 tree-planter, also said to be son of Ouranos and Gaia, who established himself 
 on Mt. Aifios and disappeared. (His Samson-myth desen'es study.) Kurene 
 
 ' Prisni, the heavens, is in the RigVelathe mother of the stormg.jds, the .Maruts. 
 
 " Jean d'Arras. Couldrette. Bullet, Disseft. sh>- la myth, fraiuaise. 
 
 ^ Bibl. ii, 4, 2. See also Pherecyd. frag. 26. 
 
 ■* Dr. Joyce's Celtic Roinaiues, 41, 414. 
 
 ° Callim. Ill Apoll. 65, etc. ; I'ind. Pyth. v, 71, etc. 
 
Myths.^ Touchstone. 151 
 
 was also the mother, by Apollo, of .4///(mchos and of Idmon (the knowing) an 
 Argonaut, a diviner of Argos, and a Danaid ; and she also had DioMedes 
 (central-god) by Ares. [There are other accounts of the parentage of Idmon 
 and DioMedes.] 
 
 The " Stammering " must really have meant that Battos was 
 dumb, for his terror at a Uon's attack made him shout articulately. 
 The idol of Battos was at Delphi on a chariot driven by Kurene. 
 By another legend Battos was turned by Hermes into a ^aaavo<i 
 or touchstone, which clearly shows him to have been a stone-god 
 (? compare battuo beat) and a fit companion for Mayi?;?. Besides, 
 Battos and Basanos (? from /SatVco) are both connected ; and have 
 not basanos' and basileus a connection ? This might give Og the 
 King of Bashan a very important position (see Note on his Bed, 
 infra) ; and the basilii were priests of SaTurnus who sacrificed to 
 him on the Mons Saturnius in the month of Mars. Battos was one 
 of the numerous disclosers of the secrets of the gods — in this case 
 the secret theft by Hermes of the flocks (stars ?) of Apollo. It is 
 said, wrote Clemens Alexandrinus,- that Battos the Kurenian 
 composed what is called the Divination of Mopsos. 
 
 The Latin for basanos was Index," and Ovid changes Battus 
 into that stone : in durem silicem qui nunc quoque dicitur Index 
 (^Met. ii, 706J. But Hercules was also called Index, which must 
 have been in his heavens-pointing Axis-god character ; and 
 K. O. Miiller* took Ovid to call the stone-y%;//6' of Battus the 
 Index ; adding that a figure like that of an Old Man on a hill-top 
 in Messinia was called the Watch-Tower of Battu:;, 
 
 Og's Bed. The " bedstead of iron " of Og the King of Bashan^ 
 puzzles those who dread or disdain the comparative method. A. 
 Dillman considers WS^, (ars) to be sarcophagus and not bed, and 
 t'TIS. (brzl) to be ironstone {i.e. basalt or dolerite)." M. J. Halevy 
 
 says it cannot be sarcophagus but must be throne or portable bed, 
 nor will he admit basalt, but harks back to the biblical old view 
 that it was an actual iron bedstead (out of a shop .''), or even a 
 cradle." Still he points out that the bed of Bel at Babylon in one 
 
 ' Bekker [.-iiiecd. 225) cites another form, (iaaai'iTrjs. 
 ^ Stroniata, i, 21. 
 
 ^ And indeed I may say that its Inde.x is the touchstone of this Inquiry. 
 ■* Mythol. Appx. on Grotto of Hermes at Pylus. 
 ' Dciitcr. iii, II, i> Kcv. dis Etudes fiiivcs, xxi, 21S, 222. 
 
152 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 of the late G. Smith's texts' had exacth- the same dimensions as 
 Og's, 9 cubits by 4. 
 
 I think wc must take Dillman to be right about tlie ironstone, 
 though \\c may reject basalt or dolerite, and that we must also 
 take these beds of Bel and Og to be just the same sort of beds as 
 are so common in Irish m\'th and present-day nomenclature. 
 Large stones such as St. Colomb's bed in Donegal," and the beds 
 of Diarmait and Grainne in many parts of the country, are still 
 called by the name bed, leaba, leabaidh (pron. labba, labbyj. The 
 same term is applied to a cromleac (sloping-stone .■'), a word unused 
 by the Irish ; and the beds of the Feni and of Oscur are still 
 shown. Thus bed, leaba, does also mean grave or sepulchre, the 
 bed of the last sleep, and is well exemplified in the questionable 
 wish of the unrequited beggar-woman : " Musha thin, the heavens 
 be yer bed this night ! " 
 
 labba, labb)', leaba or leabaidh, bed. Oldlrish lebaid, Manx Ihiabbee. 
 
 Labby, tOAvnland in Londonderry. 
 
 Labbyeslin, tomb of Eslin, Leitrim. 
 
 Labba-Iscur, Oscur's bed (grave). 
 
 Lal:)a5heeda, Sioda's grave, Clare. 
 
 Lalibamolaga, St. Molaga's grave, church and townland Co. Cork. 
 
 Labbadermody, Diannait's bed, a townland Co. Cork. 
 
 Leaba-Dhiannada-agusrGrainne, bed of Dermot and Grainne (" cromlechs "). 
 One was built after every da/s flight, and legend has 366 of them in 
 Ireland. The idea here is not that of a grave. 
 
 Leabthacha-na-bhFeinne (labbaha-na-veana) monuments of the Feni. 
 
 I-eaba-caillighe (labbacallee} hag's-bed, sometimes a name for a " cromlech."^ 
 
 ' Atlicinnim, 12 Feb. 1S76. 
 
 ■'' Atheiuvutn 20 Sept. 1890, p. 393. 
 
 ' Dr. loyce, Irish Names, 1st serief, 4th ed. 340, I j2, 
 
Myths?\ The CEdipus Myths. i53 
 
 12. — The CEdipus Myths. 
 
 OIDIPOUS, Swellfoot/ King of Thebes (that is of the 
 heavens), must rank himself as an Axis-god with Magnes and 
 IphiKratos and even with Talos. 
 
 The name was also called OiSiTrdSr;?, as is shown by OiSiTrdSao in the Odyssey, 
 xi, 271 ; Iliad, xxiii, 679 ; Hesiod's Op. et di. 163. See also Pindar Pyth. iv, 
 163. In Irish myth there is a Fomorian giant (of Tory, that is tower, island, 
 and of Lochlann in the North) called Sotal of the big heels (salmhor).- 
 
 The vast roots or feet of the Universe-tree (to which Oidipous 
 was hanged by the feet — the legend getting muddled) depend from 
 it. He lived and died where the profane put not their foot, at the 
 Universe-pillar, at Colone, KoXtui'?; ( = hill) and KoXaji't?, which we 
 shall take the liberty of connecting with KoXoaao^, columen, and 
 columna ; and was notably called OlSIttov^ eVt KoXoovai and CEdipus 
 Coloneus. His end takes place, like that of so many other axis- 
 deities, by his being swallowed up by the Earth, while sitting on a 
 stone-throne (the Japanese rock-seat of heaven), where the way 
 parts into many roads (that is, at the centre of the universe, which 
 is also Japanese) ; and at the sound of a thunderclap. 
 
 T/h'seus (a supremest divinity) alone knows where CEdipus is 
 engulphed or buried. Of course there is a fountain called after 
 him, the CEdipodia. He is the son of Laios, the Stone-deity, and 
 'loKdarrj ; is exposed as an infant on Mount Ki0atpm/,^ which we 
 may read as the harp {klOupk) mountain, the musical sphere of 
 the heavens ; when he travels he goes by (and with) the stars. 
 Later in the myth he puts out his e}'es, becomes blind, like Teiresias 
 and so many of his high-placed fellows. He murders his father 
 like the great gods of Phoenicia, Greece, and Rome ; and, like 
 every Babylonian and Egyptian god of eminence, is the consort of 
 his own mother, who casts herself from the summit of the (heavens-) 
 palace, with which we meet so often in this Inquiry, into the Hells. 
 Some versions add a cord, and make her hang herself from the 
 roof, which parallels Hera's suspension from heaven by a chain. 
 OidiPous joins his loKaste (whom Pherecydes made his daughte: ) 
 in Tartaros, for they arc then fallen deities. 
 
 ' Apoll. /)'//'/. iii, 5. 7, - Dr. Joyce's Celtic Romances, .\\. 
 
15-1 
 
 The Night of the Gods. 
 
 \_Axis 
 
 A less fuliginous myth makes CEdipus marry Euruganc (Wide- 
 shining?).^ 
 
 The large number of names in Eury- Eipv- may be referred to the spacious 
 (dpvs) heavens ; but the (iron ?) " washer" of an axle was also fipaX (plural). 
 
 The four children of CEdipus give a doublet of the four which 
 comprise Castor and Pollux (iloXvAevKT]';) ; for EteoKles (true- 
 Keystone .'') and Ilo\v^€LKr)'; were to reign alternately in the 
 heavens (Thebes), and their division was so complete that even the 
 flames of their funereal pile, and of the joint-sacrifices to them, rose 
 apart. The war in heaven of which these brothers were the cause is 
 famous. It set Argos against Thebes, that is heaven against 
 itself; and it was right that Statius should give it the zodiacal 
 number of twelve cantos. 
 
 As regards the guessing of the Sphinx's Universe-riddle by 
 OiStVoy?, it perhaps points rather to another possible signification of 
 his name as (Witfoot) the Root-of-Knowledge ; bringing it from 
 0,8(0 (present olSa k.t.\.) The riddle and the labyrinth (with the 
 revolving columns) and perhaps the Indian nandyavarta (see "The 
 Suastika ") must all be put into the same bag of tricks. 
 
 The scholiast on the Qidipus Colonms noted a legend that 
 
 Belos 
 
 Poseidon -p Libue 
 
 I 
 
 AgEnor -p Telephassa 
 
 I Ares == Aphrodite 
 
 Kadmos -r Harmonia 
 
 Semele ^ Zeus Ino -p Athamas Autonoe -j- Arisiaios 
 
 I I.I 
 
 Dionusos MeliKertes (alias Palaimon) Aktaion 
 
 I I 
 
 Agave =p Echion PoluDoros -p XuKteis 
 
 PenThcus Labdakos =^ 
 
 PeriPhas — Aktaia i 
 
 I 
 
 loKasLt -p Laios 
 
 OidiPous —r- loKaste or EuruGane 
 
 Phrastor 
 
 PolulS'eikes 
 
 I 
 EteoKles 
 
 I 
 Ismene 
 
 LaoXutos 
 
 loka.tc 
 
 I 
 Antigone 
 
Myths:] The (Edipus Myths. iS5 
 
 Qidipus died at Thebes, i.e. in the heavens, and the Thebans 
 refused him burial there because of the previous calamities. He 
 was then buried by his friends at Keos in Boiotia. Fresh calami- 
 ties ensued, and he was carried to Eteonos and there buried by 
 night, not knowing in the dark where the exact spot was, within 
 the sanctuary of Demeter.^ (Here we have clearly heavens and 
 Earth, Thebes and Demeter's sanctuary, and perhaps the Well 
 of Truth, ereo?). " To the Thebans he was a curse, to the 
 Athenians a blessing ;"- that is, he was both god and devil ; a 
 fallen supernal power. 
 
 The connection of Kolouos with horsey names is simplified and 
 explained only by the theory that the Centaurs were central horse- 
 gods. Thus Hippios Kolonos was the first point of Attic land 
 reached by OEdipus," and tliere there was an altar to Poseidon 
 Hippios and Athena Hippia, and monuments to Theseus and 
 Peirithoos (End-Swift), and to CEdipus and Adrastos. In the 
 Qidipus Coloneus (668), (ZEdipus is addressed as a " stranger here 
 in a Horsemen's land, in White Kolonos the music-haunted." 
 Here we clearly have the \vhite heavens and the music of the 
 spheres. Harpokration (s.v. Kolonetas) gives Kolonos Agoraios, 
 which is generally interpretetl " of the market-place."* But this 
 " won't wash." There was an Elian temple to Artemis Agoraia in 
 Olympia ; Athene Agoraia was venerated in Sparta ; Zeus was 
 Agoraios, and so was Hermes, not " because they had temples in 
 the public places of certain towns," as the mythological dictionaries 
 record in parrot-fashion, but because the root ag-, to drive, urge, 
 conduct (the Universe) is in the word. The market-place sense of 
 the consecrated Agora is an accreted sense, because the market 
 " came " there. The sellers and buyers, especially of sacrificial 
 offerings — " those that sold oxep and sheep and doves " — always 
 naturally came to the temple. It was so among the Phoenicians.'' 
 The explanation in fact is " the other way up." And the market 
 vyas at the •' place," at the "cross-roads" (see Index), because it 
 was the city spot symbolic of the heavenly spot, the Agora, from 
 
 ' Lysimachus Alex. y)77^, 6. 
 
 ' Harrison and Verrall's Aiuunt Athens, 6o2. 
 
 ^ Pans, i, 30, 4; Androtion, /™^. 31. 
 
 '■ Harrison and Verrall's ^K«>«/ ^i'/5«!j, iiS. 
 
 ' Rev. aes Bluacs fiiivcs, iii, igS, 199 (The inscription of Citium, Larnaka). 
 
156 The Night of the Gods. ^Axis 
 
 whicli the Universe was urged -round. That is why Kolonos was 
 Agoraios, because it was the Axis-Column on which the whole 
 machine turned. 
 
 And I submit that it explains the dulaitations of the scholiast on Aristo- 
 phanes {Birds 997, where the 99th fragment of Philochoros just quoted was 
 given) to say that the typical Kolonos of the Agora was the Universe-Colurnn 
 (or its spot) of the celestial Agora. The tradition too which the scholiast gave 
 that the astronomical instrument of Meton was dedicated in Kolonos thus 
 immediately becomes an Axis-Column Myth, and, as one has often suspected, 
 the name Melon (meto, measure) may be viewed as a possible myth also. 
 
 The Agora was the celestial place of assembly of the gods, 
 whence the word of God proceeded, before it became the earthly 
 meeting-place of men where their debates took place. 
 
 The archaic Agora, like the Roman forum, was the very centre and heart 
 of the city. It was rectangular, in the form of a plinthos or brick. The odd 
 name of the assembly-enclosure therein, the ttvv^, requires elucidation. (See, 
 for example, the 99th fragment of Philochoros, which showed the doubts of his 
 time.)' The vojioi. or magistrates of the Agora at Athens were ten ; but in Sparta 
 they were seven — the Seven Wise Men again — under the presidency of (an 
 eighth ?) a Presbus. The Cretan chief magistrates were also ten, and were 
 called Kosmoi, a title which can be connected with the Cosmos, the ordered 
 Universe. 
 
 I here record a curious fact which it seems to me can only be explained by 
 the theories here urged. It, naturally, puzzled M. Alfred M^zieres. Below 
 Khorto-Kastro, on the south slopes of the earthly Mount Pelion, the peasants 
 still dig and find wall-foundations which they call xoXcWnif. " I thought at first 
 that real columns were in question, but I had occasion in the sequel to remark," 
 wrote M. Mezieres, " that the peasants of Magnesia meant by this somewhat 
 pretentious temi mere stones of great dimensions."- Here we have the great 
 stone — pillar-stone or other — called, no doubt from most archaic times, a 
 column. 
 
 [See also " The Colophon."] 
 
 ' Diilot's Fra^. Hist. Cncc. i, 400. - Lc IV'ioii ct rOssa, Paris, 1853, p. 22. 
 
Myths:\ 
 
 The Cardinal Points. 
 
 '57 
 
 13. — The Cardinal Points. 
 
 [I am here forced to anticipate some of the Pillar section, in order to get 
 together the facts about the numbers Four and Eight. And of course the 
 cardinal points belong strictly to the Heavens-myths, rather than to the Axis- 
 myths.] 
 
 CLEMENT of Alexandria, writing of the Hebrew Tabernacle 
 and its furniture,' says : " Four pillars there are, the sign of 
 the sacred Tetrad of the ancient covenants." 
 Perhaps we may see these 
 grouped together in the clusters 
 of 4 round columns in the ruined 
 temple of the Chaldean god Nin 
 Girsu at Tello, of which HeUzey 
 gives a plan.^ 
 
 a shows (say) the lowest course of 
 bricks — 8 radiating from a central 
 round ; b shows the course overlying 
 it — 8 bricks radiating from a central 
 point into a rim ; c and d show both 
 courses ; the lower being partly stripped, 
 partly covered by the upper. The 
 number 4 being here cardinal, 8 (4 x 2) 
 is clearly half-cardinal ; and the mimicry 
 of the wheel in both courses — one with a hub, the other with a tire — is patent. 
 
 In the very archaic rituals for Hindu cow-sacrifices, the sacri- 
 ficial post is ordered to be either square or octagonal.^ The 
 earliest Egyptian pillars (of buildings) were square, without base 
 or abacus. In the iSth dynasty the square pillar still survived 
 among the more elaborate forms, and these rude square forms 
 support statues of the mummiform Osiris. In the 12th dynasty 
 the square pillar had become 8 (= 4 x 2) or 16 (= 8 x 2) 
 sided.^ 
 
 Gerhard" ingeniously sought to connect the quadrangular Pillar 
 surmounted by a head (which forms a sacred symbolic representa- 
 
 ' Stromata, v, 6. ' Un palais Clialdcen, pp. 37-5S. 
 
 * Rajendralila Mitra's Indo-Aiyans i, 369. 
 ■• Pierret's Diet. ePArcli. E^ypl. 60, 139. 
 
 ^ De relig. Hermaruin (Berlin, 1S45). Pausanias (x, 12) mentioned a square stone 
 Hermes near the sepulchre of the sibyl Herophile at Delphi. 
 
ijS The Night of the Cods. '\jAxis 
 
 tion of a class of gods that includes Hermes) with the Cabiric 
 divinities of Samothrace and of the Pelasgians in general. With- 
 out trespassing on the details of the section that will here deal 
 with such gods, it may be said now that its main thesis is that 
 the Semitic Kabirim and the Greek Ka/Setpot, the Strong, the 
 Powerful, are neither more nor less than the gods of the chief great 
 Forces of the Cosmic Machinery. 
 
 The Egyptian farthest limits, according to Brugsch,i were the 
 4 props, the " Stutzen." of the heavens. On the stela of Tehutimes 
 III (circa 1600 B.C.?) in the Boulaq Museum, the god Ra says to 
 the king : " It is I that make th>- terror extend to the Four 
 
 Supports of the heavens" ^r=> B ^ ^ -S- yyH '"^T ^^ ' 
 
 And the inscription of Ramses II on the Thames-Embankment 
 obelisk says : He has conquered even unto the 4 pillars of the 
 
 earth.' Each of these 4 props is a khi "^00'^'^ (the last hiero- 
 glyph manifesting the labour of Atlas, the Egyptian Shu). Khi also 
 means the heavens, the height above all, when written '"' III ^ 
 (the last glyph being the determinant for the heavens; or 
 WST^ ("-'^^ ^^^^ glyph being the protecting heavens-goddess 
 Nut). Khi o[lllF=q or O (1 1 also means roof and protection. 
 Tlies ^^ 1 ^jjjj' the raised or upheld, is also a name for the 
 
 hea\-ens, and tlics ^~^ 1 is a support. 
 
 On the Denderah celestial chart, erroneously called a zodiac, 
 4 erect female figures, the goddesses of the N. S. E. and W., hold 
 up the heavens, assisted by 8 haivk-headed figures. Here we have 
 12 made up of 4 -\- 8, or rather 4(1 -H 2). See further as to 
 the number 12 at p. 173 infra. 
 
 A " magical " text, as translated by the late distinguished 
 Dr. S. Birch, finds an evident explanation here : 
 
 " There are 4 mansions of life [that is, as I should venture to expound, 4 
 astrological " houses "] Osiris is master thereof. The 4 houses are [named 
 after] Isis, Nephthys, .Seb, and Nu. Isis is placed in one, Xephthys in another, 
 Horus in one, Tahuti in another, at the 4 ayigles ; Seb is above, Xu is below. 
 The 4 outer walls are of stone. It has 2 stories, its foundation is sand, its 
 
 ^ Geog}'. Inschr. ii, '^'t^. " Mariette, A'arnak, pi. II, 11. 3. 4. 
 
 ^ D. Mosconas, Obilisques, Alexnndria 1S77, pp. 5, 7. 
 
MythsJ] The Cardinal Points. 159 
 
 exterior is jasper, one is placed to the South, another to the North, another to 
 
 the West, another to the East."' 
 
 This seems to me to throw the true astrological light upon the 
 
 names of Nephthys = Nebt-hetTT House-Lady, and Hathor = het- 
 
 Heru ^, Horus-house. 
 
 The urns g called Canopic are grouped in fours in the Egyptian 
 
 tombs. The 4 "genii " or rather gods of these urns were Amseth 
 
 or Mestha [j ^\ JL~^ or ^^ | (1 (w^w-headed), Oebhsenut 
 
 n \ H^ll ('''''^^"'^-headed), Tuaumutef ic \\ :^.=_ ("/crir^;?/ "-headed), 
 and Hapi (a/^-headed). The 4 were children of Osiris, and they 
 are ordinarily represented in mummy form ; and the 4 urns held 
 each a separate portion of the intestines of the mummy in whose 
 tomb they were placed : for instance Tuaumutef's held the heart. 
 [These I bracket later on, p. 185, with the Four Living Creatures.] 
 These urn-gods were also painted in coffins near the head of 
 the mummy (second coffin of Shutemcs, Louvre).- They accom- 
 pany the central symbol, the tat U (first coffin of Shutemes, where 
 
 De Rouge called them funereal genii). 
 
 In a funereal ritual of the iSth dynasty the "basin of [hell] fire" is guarded 
 by "4 cynocephalous apes" who were, said De Rouge, "the genii charged to 
 efface the soils of iniquity from the soul of the just, and complete his purifi- 
 cation." Again he said (of one face of the base of the Luxor obelisk) that 
 " 4 apes of the species called cynocephalous stand with their anris raised. 
 They represent the spirits of the East in adoration before the rising sun." 
 If he had added W. N. and S., and left out the sun, he would have been nearer 
 the truth. Dr. Wallis Budge now informs me that it is accepted that they are 
 the cardinal points. 
 
 One of the ceremonies of the great heb or paneguris of Amen 
 was to call 4 (wild ?) geese by the names of the 4 funereal genii, 
 and then to let them fly towards the 4 points of the horizon.' 
 This is an important proof in the argument I am here developing. 
 
 These 4 urn-gods, again, may be the "4 Lares-gods revered by the 
 Egyptians : Anachis, Dj-mon, Tychis, and Heros," who used to puzzle the 
 savants of the past.' 
 Besides these 4 gods, the 4 urns also had female protectors in 
 
 Isis, Nephthys, Neith, and Selk' P"^3|P^- These goddesses 
 
 ' Records of the Past, vi, 113. 
 
 " E. de Rou£[e, Notice Somniah-e {\%']^), pp. 107, 106, loi, 54. 
 ^ Pierret, Diet. 3SS. ■" Noel, Diet, de la Fable, 1S03, i, S7. 
 
 ° Pierret, Diet. 115. 
 
i6o The Niglit of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 ("or three of them) are of the first rank ; why not albO the urn-gods 
 with the strange names ? And would not these (4 + 4 = ) S be one 
 version of the 8 pj^emennu (seep. 166) ? 
 
 Some of these urns, of an enormous size,i seem to have been 
 used in the Hapi-buU tombs. They were at times made of wood, 
 finely painted. Nut the heavens-goddess sometimes replaced 
 Neith as a guardian. If, as it seems to me they must, the 4 guards 
 (or dual guards) clearly refer to the 4 cardinal points, we have 
 still a curious survival with us in the phrase " scattering his dust 
 to the 4 winds of heaven." 
 
 I think we can detect a verj.' similar conception among the 
 Subbas or Mandoyo of Mesopotamia, who say that the four 
 Shambube are buried at the four cardinal points, and guarded by 
 four angels. These shambube are the principles of the winds, and 
 if they escaped the world would be overturned.- This burial 
 must also be connected with the archaic sacrificial burial-alive of 
 human beings under the foundations of bridges, fortresses, and so on. 
 
 Perhaps few will contest the conclusion I am about to draw : 
 that in these Cardinal entrails-deities we have the explanation of 
 the hitherto most puzzling fact in Latin mythologj^ that the 
 essentially popular goddess Cardea, Carda, or Dea Cardinis was 
 pra)-ed-to, sacrificed and feasted-to, in order to obtain immunity 
 from internal complaints the whole \-ear through. She was asked 
 to fortify the heart, the kidnej^s, and all the viscera. 
 
 (Xo doubt there was also here too a connection of the carnal and the 
 Cosmic omphalos, which we shall see more fully in the section on " The 
 Navel.") 
 
 Seyffert's recent Dictionary sa}-s "' it is doubtful whether she is 
 to be identified with the goddess Carna," but no foundation is 
 stated for this doubt. Carna's first temple was founded on the 
 Mons CeeHus, in m}-thic times of course ; and this mountain is, in 
 myth, the heavens-mountain. The annual sacrifice was on the 1st 
 of June, and of a sow, the flesh of which was eaten with beans, 
 which (in passing) gives us our bean-feasts. (See also Cardo, under 
 " The North.") 
 
 It is odd that the above urn-god Hapi and Ptah's Hapi, the Bull, seem to 
 have a hierogh-phic connection : 
 
 Hapi, one of the Cardinal deities, = IJlJwI- 
 
 ' De Rouge, Kot. Soin. 59, 67, 104. 
 
 ^ SioufE, Relig. des Soubbas ou SaiSens, 61. See also what is said about the pillar- 
 windgods, under the head of " The Dual Pillars." 
 
Mytlis.~\ The Cardinal Points. i^i 
 
 Hap (Apis) I g ^ and ^ 
 
 Hap, Hapi (Nile) fi a A~v^AA and X B \\ I — I and 
 The ^ in the cardinal Hapi's and bull Hap's names clearly refers to the 
 [j— ' in the title of these four genii, " lords of the kebs (or angles) of heaven." 
 "^ j [P (Pierret : Vocab. 615). 
 
 Here, I suggest, we have a most archaic origin for the Free- 
 mason's square,! and these four corners exactly concord with the 
 Chinese absolute conception of a square Earth and a square altar 
 of Earth, while that of the Heavens is round. Wen-tzii (4th cent. 
 B.C.) said " Earth is square but unlimited, so that no man can see 
 its portals." Hwai Nan-tzQ wrote "the goddess NU-Kua bears on 
 her back the square Earth, embracing with her arms the circle of 
 the sky" — a curious inversion of the Egyptian Nut bending over 
 Earth-Seb (see pp. 87, 158). The marriage of heavens and earth, 
 that is of O and □ produced all things (which brings us again to 
 the Yin and the Yang). The Chinese cash, the round coin with the 
 
 ©square hole thus becomes supremely symbolic, and denotes 
 also a perfect man.^ This is not, of course, as Prof. Schlegel 
 reminds me, the origin of the form of the cash. 
 
 In the Avesta the battle between Thraetaona the son of the 
 Waters, the Firegod, and Azhi Dahaka the fiendish snake, takes 
 place in cathrugaosho Vareno (4-cornered Varena).^ In the Vedas 
 Traitana wages the corresponding battle in catur-ashrir Varuno* 
 (4-pointed Varuna). This of course is the cardinally divided 
 heavens, and is too a connexion of Varuna Varena with Ovpav6<;, 
 as meaning the whole vault. [These points become horns in 
 RigVeda iv, 58, 3 : "four are his horns."] 
 
 We have now, I think, overwhelming evidence of the identity 
 of these four Egyptian Lords of the four Angles of the heavens 
 with the four cardinal celestial Beings dealt with at p. 184. 
 
 It seems to me, too, that this gives us the origin of the confusion 
 about the term " Canopic," which may be unravelled as follows : — • 
 
 I. Keb, angle, is as above <il J [p^. Angle is also kenb ,J^^j\s^ apd 
 [r^ alone. Here clearly we have to do with the right angle, one of the four 
 angles of a true square. Keb or Kenb also appears as Kali ^ ^ fir in such 
 
 ' Compare hept, a square, 4 rectangle f\ ° and [p-'^^i. 
 
 - H. A. Giles : Histoiu China, 385. ' D.armesteter's Z. A. i, Ixii ; ii, 298. 
 
 < RigV. i, 152, 2. 
 
 L 
 
I&Z 
 
 The Night of the Gods. 
 
 \_Axis 
 
 a phrase as " the estabUshing of his four Kah hke the pillars of the heavens."' 
 It would appear that Keb, Kenb and Kah are merely dialect differences ; for 
 
 the word for arm, Keb /d U ^ and '^p* D (which perhaps means the arm 
 
 as bent at the elbow) appears also as Kah. 
 
 2. Keb a\ =0= is also a vase, and Kebh a\ ? jv is a sacred libation- 
 vase ; Khebkheb %\ ® J ^ is also a vase. Another obvious reason of the 
 confusion with the vase-idea was, of course, the putting of the entrails into the 
 four urns. "An Egyptian god with a human head covered with the atef 
 
 and whose body has the form of a vase ^ '^ supposed to be 
 
 Canopus," says I^I. Pierret {Diet. 115,1. 
 
 3. Now return to the " lords of the angles " (or four comers) ; neb v ' and 
 
 V I and nebi a-^^^ J ■\\ J] mean lord, in the supreme sense we are in want of 
 
 And neb v y also means the All. If there could have been the word Kah-neb 
 
 for these cardinal deities, the confounding with Kdj/a),3of or KoyiBTrof and 
 Canopus would be put out of all practical doubt. The Eg\-ptian name of Koi'mn-os 
 (in the Decree of that ilk) is Pekuathet § -f^ (j ©■ It seems too that there 
 subsists a Coptic name for the place, Kahen-nub := golden soil.- Brugsch and- 
 IMariette^ point out a Kanup fi ^ © in the 7th nome, as an Egyptian transcrip- 
 tion of the Greek Kai-m^or . 
 
 It might be added in passing that this view of these four 
 
 Powers may throw the required Hght on the mysterious glyph 
 
 which has been read yemennu, eight {Zcitschrifi 
 
 *"'"*Ny^-'^ 1S65, 26). The crossing curves of this gh'ph are 
 
 <f^/\. y-f Strangely like the divisions of the sphere in a 12th 
 
 century (Spanish) ^Manuscript Latin commentarj' 
 
 on the Apocalypse in the British Museum (Anonymi Com- 
 
 mentarius in Apocalj'psin, Add. 11, 695), which gives the four 
 
 beasts winged and "full of eyes," perched 
 upon wheels which are also full of eyes ; 
 but the " wheels " bear a verj' striking 
 resemblance to celestial globes. I ap- 
 pend a rough sketch of one of these 
 " globes " ; and it seems worthy of 
 remark that the 4-armed circle so fre- 
 quent on Dr. Schliemann's Hissarlik 
 whorls (see "The Chakra" and ''The 
 Suastika " later on) occurs on them 
 
 ' FomlUs d Abydcs, 50: 
 ' Guignaut's Creuzer, ii, 
 ' Dcndirah. iv, 75, 10. 
 
 15 (I'ierret's I'ocah. 613). 
 
 V^ K^-2., Ki.2,1 = terra. 
 
Myths?\ The Cardinal Points. 163 
 
 This emblem seems to me to be indicative of tlie revolving wheel 
 or sphere — a sort of compound suastika — and not to be a " cuttle- 
 fish," as has been conjectured by some. The resemblance of the 
 main curves to a double (and crossing) yin-yang division (see " The 
 Tomoye ") is also very strange. Or, again, are they 4 wings ? 
 
 As to Tuau-Mut-ef (on p. 159) >*< ^ '^-=^ ^, it must first be 
 noted that -jk is the determinative (when used as such) of " a star, a 
 constellation, a god.'" Then the syllabic value of -j^^ is tua. The 
 likeness to the modern French dieu (Picardy diu ; Franche-Comte 
 due ; Catalan deu ; OldFrench deu) may be not alone assonant 
 but radical. If so, we get a straight and immediate connexion of 
 deus, Si09, dyo, with a star. To follow this up : 
 
 tuau = to praise, glorify, adore -k -h ) *^^ V\ =^ 
 
 tuau = adorer '^ 5^ J") 
 
 neter tuau n Amen =: adort'.r^ of Amen 1 ^ Q ' ' ' ' the priestess cf 
 
 Amen. An hereditary title going-back tq the Theban kings, and 
 appearing to be attached to their legitimate family. (J. de Rougfi 
 /^ev. Arch. 1865, ii, 323.) 
 
 neter tuau = di\inely to honour ] ^ ^ 
 
 pa tuau = consecration-chapel of the kings (literally house of god) '-^ 
 tuau = unction-oil Pj V\ i r 
 Then we have 
 
 Tuau-t := the under hemisphere -k. ^^ pS, and ® r— -n 
 
 tuauti = dweller in under hemisphere -jc ^ ^ ^ and ^^ [|l| b==b 
 These last will astonish no one who follows what is said in this Inquiry (see 
 Index) as to fallen gods, and the Egyptian conception of the nether world rf 
 the dead. We have, too, an analogue in our own tongue, where Deus has 
 become the deuce, a very devil.'- We have also 
 
 tua, duau = Time, the hour, morning, r^=^ -D J and i<. ^ ^ O and 
 ^9 ^ 
 
 Tua >k I ] ^ is also said (Pierret's Vocab. 703) to be the " God of the 
 Morning^'' but it is not explained why he is especially made the god 
 of the morning alone; he ought at least to be Time, or the Heavens- 
 god, generally. 
 (It must not be omitted that the star sj( was also read seb, a star, and had 
 ' Dr. Birch's Egyptian Texts, p. qS, 
 
 ' C/. alsoSyriac QaJ > (Qj> Sans- "^y^ fifoj. Dcus, Pers. ^..-^ (Dr. Wallis Budge). 
 
 L 2 
 
1 64 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 the letter and syllable values of s and St-d. Tu ^^ also meant mountain, and 
 r~^ the determinative for mountain, spelt tu as well as i< did.) 
 
 Tua n A is a pillar. 
 
 Tefi ? 44 a "^^'^'^5 self-motion, and it seems to me that the primary 
 
 £^ 
 self-motion was that of the heavens. This would make the goddess Tefnut i ^~ 
 
 D ci 
 simply the revolving Nut P ^ and P "^ p, and as we have Shu and Tefnut 
 
 as children of Ra, and as Shu is most probably an Atlas, we should thus have 
 the Axis-god and the Heavens-goddess that revolves around it brother and 
 sister, which is good mythology. Tef ^^ or y^^jj^ is father, and tefneter 
 "1 j^^ is divine-father, which seems a direct parallel to DiesPiter. Tef, father, 
 is also atef j^^ which gives atef-neter T ij j^^ [Note the serpent in 
 all these.] Now the very composite divine head-dress atef ^ ^^ must be 
 intimately connected with all this. There is also a tree atef ^^^ i!^_ °'' 
 and a blade (sacrificial, or the heavens-sword ?) atef "p^ j^^ 
 
 To return from this excursus about the Egyptian cardinal gods 
 to the Four Cardinal Points, we find that in the extremely archaic 
 Chinese Shi-King (Odes-book), which is supposed to be all pre- 
 Confucian though collected by or in the name of that sage, the 
 Emperor SiJan (827 B.C.) praying for rain says he has never failed 
 to make offerings to the Cardinal points and the Earth-gods.^ 
 
 The south temple of T'ien, the heavens, at Peking is approached 
 by 4 separate sets of stairs at the cardinal points ; while the North 
 temple has 8, in relation with the Pa-kwa, 8 diagrams,- or directions. 
 In the centre of a ceiling in the Shinto temple of Sengen at 
 Shidzuoka in Japan, is carved a " dragon of the four quarters, 
 shiho no rio " ; and on Ne\v-}-ear's morning the worship of the 
 Four Quarters is an important ceremony in the Mikado's palace.' 
 The Chinese expression " to the four sides" is used in the Japanese 
 7th century Kojiki^ to mean in e\ery direction, just like our own 
 " to the four quarters." 
 
 An important passage of the RigVeda (iv, 58, 3) says : " May 
 the 4-horned (chatuh-sringah) Brahma listen .... 4 are his 
 horns, 3 are his feet, his heads are 2, his hands are 7. The 
 triple-bound showerer roars aloud, the mighty deity has entered 
 amongst men." Among the interminable illustrations of this 
 by the Hindu commentators, one can pick out the 4 horns as the 
 
 ' Shi- King, iii, 3, 4. ' ^ixtK^iorCi, Meetiit^ the Sun, 179, 183. 
 
 ^ Satow and Ilawes, Haitalwok, 68, 352. Chamberlain's, p. 175. 
 
MytJis.'\ The Cardinal Poiiiis. 165 
 
 4 cardinal points ; the 2 heads as day and night (?) ; and the 7 
 hands as the 7 rays (stars ?). But the 2 heads may rather refer to 
 the north and south poles, and to the general principle of duality ; 
 and the 3 feet doubtless (like the 3-legged symbol still extant in 
 the Isle of Man) refer to the 3 footsteps on heaven, earth and hell. 
 Brahma is otherwise called chatur-anana or chatur-mukha, four- 
 faced ; and the four kumaras are his sons. The expression of "the 
 four-armed god" indicates Bhagavat (Vishnu) in the Bhagavata- 
 pjirana (i, 7, 52). In Chinese Buddhism are the four maharajas who 
 guard the world against the attacks of the Asuras, says Mr. H. A. 
 Giles ■} but I fancy these are rather the four devarajahs or t'ien wang 
 5^ ]£ who guard the four slopes of Mount Meru, and protect Budd- 
 hist sanctuaries.- These are also the Siamese Buddhist's four 
 guardians of the world : Thatarot = Skt. Dhritarashtra (E), Wiru- 
 lahok, Virudhaka (S), Wirupak, Virupaksha (W) and Wetsuwan, 
 Vaigravana (N). Their palaces are in the Yukonthon annular 
 range of mountains which surrounds central Meru,'' and must thus 
 be horizonal. One may theorise perhaps that the Freemasonic 
 " Ouatuor Coronati " are not undescended from all these great 
 quartettes. There is a church of the Ouatuor Coronati in Rome. 
 And that huge four-poster the Universe has its analogue even in our chil- 
 dren's " little beds," and in the nursery prajer : 
 
 Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 
 
 Bless the bed that I lay on. 
 The Bombay Gazette Budget of 31st Jan., 1891, informs us that "An Ameri- 
 can novelty is the Ritualist's bed, very handsome in brass, fitted with niches 
 for saints, statues, holy-water fonts, and a candlestick at each of the four 
 corners. It is expected that it will specially attract the Spanish Catholics, who 
 have leanings towards the devotional in their bed-rooms ' (see p. 238 infra). 
 
 The King of Hungary on his coronation rides to an eminence^ 
 and there brandishes his sword towards the four quarters. In Irish 
 myth, Finn sat on the highest point of a hill (Collkilla or Knoc- 
 kainy) viewing the four points of the sky. One of Mailduin's 
 islands is divided into four parts by four walls — of gold, silver, 
 copper, and crystal — meeting in the centre. There were four tribes 
 of Lochlann the Northern Kingdom of the De Dananns. The 
 Fianna (Fenians) were divided into four battalions. And we seem 
 to detect the Chinese five in the five provinces of Erin, and the 
 statement that Grania bore Diarmait four sons and one daughter.* 
 
 ' Historic China, 280. " Mayers, Manual, p. 310. ' Alabaster's Wheel of the Law, 178, 
 ■* Dr. Joyce's Old Celtic Romances, 139, 178, 220, 227, 349, 333. 
 
1 66 The Nig Jit of the Gods. \_Axis 
 
 THE NUMBER EIGHT. The sacredness of the Number 
 Eight seems chiefly if not wholly to follow from that of the 
 number Four, as being formed by the addition of the 4 half- 
 cardinal to the 4 cardinal points. 
 
 The Eight "elementary" gods of Egypt, the (;^emennu) 
 
 Mil D S ci^ ^""^ really four twos, four male and female or dual 
 pairs. Their names often vary. An inscription of Edfu (Deb, 
 Apollonopoiis Magna) called them " the most great of the fir.^t 
 time ; the august who were before the gods ; children of Ptah 
 issued forth of him, engendered to take the North and the South 
 [that is the Universe], to create in Thebes and in Memphis ; the 
 creators of all creation. Sesun or p^emennu l||l ^ (s or 5 — q (s 
 as the name of Hermopolis, relates to these 8 gods who assisted 
 Thoth in his office of orderer of the creation.^ See also the mention 
 of these ;\;emennu at pp. 160, 162, and the 8 hawk-headed celestial 
 figures at Denderah, p. 15 8. 
 
 " The Akhimous seem to have been the astra planomena and the aplane 
 astra of the Egyptians, who deified them and confided to them the towing of 
 the barque in which the sun traverses the heavens. See the Book of the Dead, 
 XV, 2 ; xxii, 2 ; xcviii, 3 ; cii, I ; Ixxviii, 28." So said M. Pierret's Diction7mire. 
 M. Gr^baut, reporting on the great subterranean discoveries of sarcophagi at 
 Thebes (Deir el Bahari) this year, writes- that " the Akhimou that some thought 
 were stars are quadrupeds which draw the solar barque. There are 8 of them, 
 4 white and 4 black. Each group of 4 contains 2 white and 2 black. They 
 are not jackals. Those of one group have the ears of the uas sceptre " (see 
 supra, p. 57). These must be zodiacal powers ; and I suggest that the barque 
 was (if at all) not originally that of the sun, but the Heavens-boat, or ship. 
 (As to the black and white, see " The Arcana.") Does the word a^im belong 
 
 '° ^X f!-^ ^n ^° raise up, support, suspend ; which also, with the deter- 
 minative for wing ^^^, meant to fly, to hover. 
 
 I must not here omit to mention the Eight Vasus, forms of fire 
 or light, protectors and regulators of the 8 regions of the world, 
 who figure in Hindu mythology next to Brahma, and have Indra 
 for chiefs The Gayatri or forepart of the ancient Hindu sacrifice 
 consisted of 8 sjdlables.^ 
 
 The 8-cornered sacrificial post or stake of the same sacrifice, and the 
 8-sided silver pillar of Mailduin's Voyage are dealt-with (as Axis-sjTnbols) 
 under the head of " The Pillar " ; and we have just seen at p. 1 57 the 8 bricks 
 in each of the 4 pillars at Tello. See also the evolution of the typical 
 
 ' I'ierrel: Diet. 200, 25S. - Academy, 7th March, 1S91, p. 240. 
 
 ^ Sir Monier Williams, Hinduism, 167. ■• Eggeling's Sat. BrAhm. 313. 
 
Myths.^ 
 
 The Cardinal Points. 
 
 167 
 
 Egyptian octagonal pillar from the squared post, same page. Other similar 
 facts may be found by the Index. As to the 8-angled stone of the Bektashi 
 dervishes' convent-hall, see p. 128. See also the 8 sets of stairs to the North 
 temple of the heavens at Peking, p. 164 ; the famous octagonal tower of 
 the Winds at Athens under the heading of " The Tower," the octagonal temple 
 at Nara, p. 171 ; and the 8-pointed star-minars of India under the head of "The 
 Pillar." 
 
 The Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem is an octagonal building, 
 which never had more than 4 piers in its inner and 8 in its outer 
 circle of columns. Between each of the inner 4 piers are 3 
 columns, and between each of the outer 8 are 2 columns ; that is 
 16 compass-points are marked in the inner and 24 in the outer.^ 
 
 About half-an-hour to the S. W. of Baalbek, on the road to 
 Shtora, is the village of Dijris, with the " Kubbet Duris," which I 
 here figure from a photograph bought by me from M. Dumas at 
 Beyrout. Baedeker's description of it is unsufificing and too 
 
 > Pal. Pilgrims' Text Soc. 18S8, p. 46. 
 
1 68 The Night of the Gods. \_Axis 
 
 depreciative. He calls it "a ruin," though it looks complete 
 enough, and says 
 
 It is a modern wely [that is, a Moslem saint's tomb], built of ancient materials, 
 and adorned with 8 fine columns of granite, over which the builder has ignorantly 
 placed an architrave. A sarcophagus standing on end was used as a recess for 
 prayer, (^Palestine and Syria, 1876, p. 501). 
 
 I venture to object to the words ' adorned ' and ' ignorantly,' 
 and to the explanation of the 'sarcophagus.' Dr. Wallis Budge 
 saw the "little building" last year (1890), he informs me. The 
 symbolism of the 8 pillars, and the octagonal form, are, for me, 
 unmistakeable ; and although I am unable to be precise as to the 
 aspect of the sarcophagus, the structure is so typical and suggestive 
 that I have no hesitation in illustrating it now for further attention. 
 
 Ya, eight, in Japanese mythology and ancient linguistic usage 
 means also many or numerous ; and the controversies on this 
 subject are easily allayed by taking the universe-al sense of the 
 8 points of the compass, of the heavens — the Chinese A ^ 8 
 fang — to be the governing initial sense in the attribution of the 
 meaning ' many ' to j-a. 
 
 Thus " the 8-forking road of the heavens "' seems to be the 
 centre where the cardinal and half-cardinal lines cross ; for " tliere 
 was a kami whose refulgence reached upwards to the Plain of the 
 high-heavens (tak'ama no Hara), and downwards to the centre- 
 land of the reed-Plain (ashiHara-no-naka tsu kuni ; that is Japan, 
 which I maintain to be here a figure of the Earth). Japan is also 
 the great 8-islands country, oho ya-shima kuni, which is of course 
 a figurative expression answering to the 7 dwipas or " insular-con- 
 tinents " of the Hindus. 
 
 The 8-brcadths--crow, ya-ta-garasu^ {Kojiki, 136), as a heavens- 
 bird is a black-night foil to the ya-hiro (8-breadth-) white Chi-bird 
 into which {ibid. 221) Yamato-dake changes.^ White, as I so often 
 
 • Chamberlain's Kojiki, p. 107. 
 
 ' Ta or te, hand, and, as with us, a measure ; hence here breadth. Hiro, broad, 
 the breadth of the outstretched arms and hands, a fathom. Mr. Aston considers Ya-hiro 
 to mean " of enormous size ; " ta to be span, and hii-o fathom. ' Many ' is for him the 
 original, and * eight ' the secondary, sense of ya. 
 
 ^ Mr. Aston is dealing with this bird in his forthcoming translation of the Aihongi, 
 which will be a book of the greatest importance in Japanese mythology. 
 
 ■* In Greek myth Kuknos ( = Cycnus) by one account turns into a swan when he has 
 been killed by Achilles. In another legend Kuknos has his white hairs changed to 
 feathers in old age, and he becomes a swan. In another story Cycnus plunges into the 
 sea and becomes a swan. On the general belief that souls become birds, see the section 
 on '* Divine Birds." 
 
Myths.^ The Cardinal Points. 169 
 
 shall have here to make good, is one of the great mythic colours of 
 the heavens. The Chinese say that the 8 fang are on the back of 
 the divine Tortoise^ ; and these of course correspond again to the 
 8 trigrams of the map on the back of the horse sent forth by the 
 Ho (Yellow) River; and to the 8 pairs of elephants that uphold 
 the Hindu Earth. 
 
 There are carved in the centre of a ceiling at the Shinto temple 
 of Sengen at Shidzuoka a " dragon of the eight quarters, happ6 no 
 rio " and another of the four quarters, shiho no rio.^ Ya-hiro 
 wani, the 8-breadth crocodile into which the princess Toyo-tama 
 (plenty-jewels?) changes {Kojiki, 127) and the " 8-forked serpent, 
 ya-mata orochi, of Koshi," who has only one body with 8 heads 
 and 8 tails, whose length extends over 8 valleys and 8 hills, and 
 on whom grow forests {ibid. 61), belongs clearly to the same 
 imagery, though perhaps to the infernal half of it. 
 
 In that case, Koshi, a word which has puzzled the commentators, may be 
 equivalent to yomi (darkness) which Motowori said was an underworld, and of 
 which yaso kumade, 80 road-windings, is another alias. If Koshi = yomi, 
 then the first syllable may be the archaic "ko, dark-coloured, thick." In other 
 passages of the Kojiki (343, 76, 103) " the land of Koshi " is put in apposition 
 to "the land of 8-islands." (Mr. Aston thinks Koshi = "the beyonds ;" and 
 the verb koshi, being "to cross-over," may here indicate a Buddhist sense, such 
 as our " the other shore." Sanskrit gata, cross-over, is mimicked in Chinese 
 Buddhism as kitai, and in Japanese as giyate.) 
 
 The "8 gates" {ibid. 62,64, in) would be embraced in the 
 same supernal explanation ; and so would the " 8-fold heavens- 
 clouds " and the " 8 clouds and 8-quarters (or 8-sided) fence, ya 
 kumo and ya-he-gaki ; " the fence being the firmament. 
 I here insert a suggested word-for-word rendering of the much-tried verse at 
 p. 64 of Mr. Chamberlain's Kojiki : 
 
 Va kumo tatsu, Eight clouds rise up, 
 
 idzii-mo ya-he-gaki. the eight-sided holy-quarters fence. 
 Tsu7na-gomi 7ii As a bourn-enclosure 
 
 ya-he-gaki tsukuru, the eight-sided fence is made, 
 sono ya-he-gaki -wo. that eight-sided fence, O. 
 
 {Idzu holy ; mo face, direction ; the idzu mo are the eight points ; tsmiia, 
 edge, border, the horizon-boundary. It has hitherto been considered that isuiiia 
 must be understood as meaning wife. Komi to shut-in ; he ^ be =zi side, 
 direction, quarter.) 
 
 This verse is introduced by these prefatoiy words : " So thereupon [Take-] 
 Haya-Susa no Wo no Mikoto sought in the region of Idzu-mo for a place where 
 he might build a palace. Then he arrived at the place of Suga .... and 
 
 ' G. Schlegel, Uranog. Clii. 61, citing the Shih I Ke. 
 ^ Satow and Hawes, Haihlbooh, 2nd ed. 68. 
 
1 7° The Ni^ht of the Ciods. [Axis 
 
 in that place he built a palace to dwell in. So that place is now called Suga. 
 When this great deity first began to build the Suga-palace, clouds rose up 
 thence. Then he made a sacred hymn. That hymn said : " (here follows the 
 above verse). 
 
 The real derivation of Suga is unknown, says Mr. Chamberlain. But I suggest 
 that it here simply bears its ordinary meaning of a rush, and is a parallel to the 
 Ashi or reed which gives its name to Japan (that is the Earth) as the ashi-hara 
 or reed-plain. The Suga-palace, rush-palace, is thus the heavens, which the 
 deity is making, and suga and ashi, rush and reed, are both symbols of the 
 Axis. This deity's name means High-Swift-hnpetuous, which 1 suggest is a 
 (revolving) heavens-god's name (see also p. 224 infra). 
 
 A similar symbolism must (see "The Arcana") be suggested 
 for the 8-meshed basket of the Idzu-shi (holy or magic stone) river- 
 island.^ " She took a one-jointed bamboo from the river-island of 
 the river Idzu-shi, and made a basket of S meshes." In the one- 
 jointed bamboo {take = mountain, and high, as well as bamboo) I 
 see an axis-symbol like the ashi and the suga. 
 
 Again in the chapter of Mr. Chamberlain's Kojiki which tells 
 of the " abdication " of the great Earth-]\Taster Oho Kuni-nushi, 
 who " disappears in the fence of green branches " (that is, in the 
 Universe-tree as I suggest), we have a kami who has been a great 
 riddle, the Master of the 8-quarters (or S-sided) Shiro (area, 
 enclosure, castle) ya-he-koto Shiro nushi, which on my theorj' 
 would be a name of the heavens-god. The " 8-breadth (hiro) hall 
 without doors " {ibid. 1 18) seems to be an octagonal heavens-palace 
 figure of speech. The occasional prefi.K Tsumi-ba to Shiro-nushi's 
 name, may then mean "heaped-up things "-= the material universe 
 {ibid. lOi, 82) ; and Kushi-ya-tama becomes an alias of his, as 
 being \Vondrous-8-jewel (or ball). Kushi ya tama is the grandson 
 of a Japanese Poseidon, the kami of the Water-gates, Minato 
 {ibid. 104). The "8-saka curved jewel" {ibid. 108, 55,46) seems 
 also a figure of the hollow heavens ; and this ya-saka no maga 
 tama may also be interpreted " 8-mountained curved sphere." The 
 kami Tama no ya {ibid. 55) seems to be merely another form of 
 Ya-tama. Futo-tama (if futo behere = great, sacred) would appear 
 to be another alias (//'/(/. 56, 108). The ya ta kagami then 
 becomes, as Motowori said, an octangular mirror {i.e. the heavens) 
 and Moribe's exposition also holds good about the mirror having 
 an 8-fold pattern round its border {ibid. 56)." I think too that the 
 
 ' Kojiki, 263. ■ Or beginning and end, tsuma-ha ? 
 
 ^ Mr. Aston says on this that a passage in the Niliongi (reign of Jingo) speaks of a 
 ^ ^ mirror, that is a mirror with seven little ones. Where the older Japanese legends 
 
Myths.~\ The Carcfinal Points. i?' 
 
 ya hiro hoko {Kojiki, 210) should be rendered 8-breadth i.e. octagonal 
 spear, and that it may mean the Axis. 
 
 The yatsu-fuji, or 8-fold wistaria of the hereditary high-priests, 
 then easily follows ; and so does ya hata, eight standards, as a title 
 of the war-god Hachiman; and the octagonal mountain Fudaraku 
 (Potala ?) the favourite resort of Kwannon, and her octagonal 
 temple at Nara, with her statue on the North side.^ All these last 
 are Buddhist assimilations. 
 
 The Eight Japanese gods of heavens-mountains {ibid. 33, 31) 
 then disclose themselves as cardinal and half-cardinal gods of the 
 heavens-mountain ; and the number of the " eight gods who were 
 supposed to be in a special sense the protectors of the Mikado " 
 thus seems to be explained.^ And we also have {ibid. 261) the 
 
 8 kamis or the 8-fold kami of Idzushi (= magic-stone ; query the 
 magnet .'). Of course the 8 gods (shen) /\ jji(^ are also Chinese, 
 and there are the 8 Immortals, sien j[lj, of the Taoists. 
 
 All this seems fully to illustrate the manner in which the 
 cosmic (but artificial) eight came to represent the Cosmos, and 
 thus to show why ya got to mean " many, numerous, all." But 
 this can be proved much more thoroughly. 
 
 Just as the Roman plotting-out and mensuration of land was 
 taken (see " The North ") from their augural delimitation of the 
 holy templum, so the Chinese carried their sacred cosmic divisions 
 into their Land Acts and the divinations of their fengshui. The 
 cultivated land was in squares of 900 man (136 
 acres) called a tzing, which was subdivided into 
 
 9 parts thus : 
 
 The 8 exterior squares of 100 man (15 
 acres) each were cultivated by the holders for 
 their own behoof, but the central plot was Shang 
 Ti's, that is "God's-acre " ; and its produce went 
 in sacrifices to the Supreme Ruler Shang Ti, although it was 
 
 have 'eight,' the modern stories have sometimes ' seven. ' I deal with 7 + I = 8 under 
 Eshmun in " The Kabeiroi." 
 
 ' On the North side of the Buddhist Nan-yen-do (south-round-hall) at Nara in Japan 
 is a colossal sitting Kwannon, the Amogha-pasa Avalokiteshvara. This " round " hall 
 is really octagonal, in imitation of the fabulous mountain Fudaraku (Potala) the favourite 
 resort of Kwannon. On the South side is a colossal thousand-handed Kwannon. At 
 Koya-san is an octagonal building, the Bones-hall, Kctsu-do, which rises over a deep pit 
 into which the teeth and "Adam's apple" of the cremated are thrown {Handbook of 
 Japan, 3S9, 415), " Trans. A. S. J. vii, 123 (IMr. Satow). 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
172 The Ni(;ht of the Gods. \^Ax. 
 
 IS 
 
 generally called the Emperor's field. It was cultivated by the 
 whole community of the holders of the 8 squares.' Now here we 
 have the 8 fang lying round the centre, where the Universe-god 
 abides, and we see at once how (8 + i =) 9 ^ (kiu) came to 
 mean a " collection, many, all " in Chinese. And as everj-thing 
 earthly has its celestial counterpart, the heavens are similarly 
 divided into the 9 heavens, kiu T'ien, -jl^ ^, or 9 fields (of the 
 heavens), kiu \-eh -^ ff, of which Hwainan-tsze speaks; the 
 central space being called kiin T'ien |t) ^, and the diagram being 
 circular instead of square." 
 
 But to go back to the first verse, as it were, of the Chinese 
 philosophical Genesis in the Yi King : "The Great E.xtreme (Tai 
 Ki) engenders the two I (laws) Yin and Yang ; these two principles 
 engender the four siang (forms) ; the four forms produce the 8 kwa 
 ^"^ which shows that the number Eight embraces everything 
 except the One, Shang Ti (or Tai Ki). And thus pa, eight, in 
 Chinese means the whole ; the 8 grains are all kinds of grain, 
 the 8 sounds are all the possible notes of music. And the Chinese 
 pa is the Japanese ya. 
 
 Mr. Aston informs me that there is a similar correspondence in Corean 
 between yiil ten and yard many. And this leads me to mention one of the 
 most puzzling connexions between ten and nine that I have ever met with. It 
 is in an old Irish charm given in one of Lady Wilde's delightful books :' 
 " Catch a crowing hen and kill her ; and take ten straws and throw the tenth 
 away, and stir her blood with the rest," that is with the remaining nine. I leave 
 this to the pondering of many readers ; but it suggests tithes, somehow — ^just 
 the idea we have above in the central square of the Chinese terrier, .^.nd it is 
 quite opposed to the notion of nine's holiness coming from three threes. 
 
 The King of Siam at his coronation sits on an octagonal 
 throne, and changing his seat 8 times, to face the 8 points of the 
 compass, repeats each time the form.ula called the coronation oath ; 
 8 stones are sanctified and placed at the same points round the 
 holy of holies of a Siamese Buddhist temple.^ 
 
 In the Persian Raiizat-us-Safa,^ Xuh and his followers amount to So souls 
 when they enter the .-Vrk. When they come out, they " build a village at the 
 foot of the mountain," and call it the " Forum-of-So." Other accounts say 8, 
 but 80 is the most correct opinion. This is an indication of the cosmic 
 figurativeness of this .A.rk, which is still further confirmed by another passage 
 
 ' Legge's Lt Ki, i, 22S, 255, 210. - Mayers, Manual, p. 346. 
 
 ^ G. Schlegel, Urano^. Chi. 246. All this will be fully expounded later on. 
 ■* Ancient Cures, Charms, and Usages of Ireland, 1S90, p. 151. 
 5 .\labasters Wheel of the Lav.'. = Pp. S3, S5, S9, iSi. 
 
Myihs.'] The Cardinal Points. i73 
 
 saying- that " the Almighty fixed two luminous discs, one like the sun and the 
 other like the moon, on the luall of the Ark (read the fiiTnament of the heavens) 
 and thus the hours of the day and night, and of prayers, were ascertained. 
 Ebrahim was circumcised with a (stone) hatchet when he was So years old. 
 (Remember the 8th day of this ritual). 
 
 The jewel Syamantaka, which Vishnu wears on his wrist, daily produces 
 8 loads of gold,' which gives us a doublet of the Norse Draupnir ring. The 
 fabulous Sarabha animal, which abides in the Himalayas, and is also called the 
 Utpadaka and the Kunjararati, has 8 legs, and in that pairs off with Sleipnir 
 the 8-legged horse of Odinn. (Refer back to the Japanese octuple or octagonal 
 animals above, p. 169.) 
 
 Clemens of Alexandria gave the 8 "great demons" as Apollo, 
 Artemis, Leto, Demeter, Kore, Plout6n, Herakles, and Zeus 
 himself.^ 
 
 THE NUMBER TWELVE. We may also trace the pro- 
 gress from 8 to the zodiacal 12, as thus. The dancing-hall 
 (sima-khana) of the Mevlevi dervishes is circular, and ought to 
 contain 8 wooden columns. This, says the sheikh of Nikosia, 
 is not always the case ; but see what is said elsewhere of their 
 " annexing " the octagonal tower of the winds at Athens. The 
 Rufai dervishes have 8 " gores " or triangles (terks) in their white 
 cloth taj (dome) or cap. The sheikh's taj has (8 + 4 =) 12 terks, 
 which represent the 12 tarigat or Paths. 4 of these 12 terks are 
 called doors, kapu. 
 
 In the square halls of the Bektashi dervishes is a stone with 8 
 angles, called the maidan tashi, in which at ceremonies stands a 
 lighted candle. All round are (8 + 4 =) 12 seaXs, posts or postakis, 
 of white sheep-skin. The founder Haji Bektash called the candle- 
 socket the Eye. The number 12 is in remembrance of the 12 
 imams, say the Bektashi and the Rufai, whence it is obvious that 
 the imams must have to do with the 4 plus 8 points of the heavens. 
 This would explain the mystic significance of the number 12 
 among the Bektashi, who swear by it, and even " pay money in 
 twelves," whatever that may precisely mean. Perhaps it means 
 counting by dozens. Their ordinal of initiation mentions the 12 
 who know the 4 columns and the 4 doors. (As to 12-angled stones 
 of dervishes, see p. 128.) Of course all the imams have human 
 names, but the twelfth is Mehdi, who mysteriously disappeared at 
 Semara (Sami was the heavens-goddess) and will there reappear 
 
 ' \Yilson's I'ishau Purana, p. 425 ; Dowson's Diet. - Exlioti. to liclUitcs, ch. 2, 
 
174 
 
 The Night of the Gods. 
 
 [A 
 
 xis 
 
 from a cave, and become the saviour of mankind — a central 
 supernal legend which has given so many false " ]\Iahdis " to the 
 Moslem world. All the 12 are sons (or descendants) of Ali — that 
 is to say, of Allah, El or ll — whose 2 sons Hasan and Husen are 
 the Two Eyes/ There are reckoned 12 original orders of Dervishes. 
 
 A local Srahmantin (= tall-spirit) on the Gold Coast has 12 
 heads.- All the Tshi-speaking tribes of this coast are descended 
 from 12 totem-families, 4 of which (Leopard, Civet-cat, Buffalo, and 
 Dog) are the oldest stock, from which the other 8 are off-shoots. 
 Compare the 4 Living Creatures itifra. 
 
 There were 12 peoples, populi, of Etruscans.' The 12 Tables 
 were the reverend source of the Roman Law ; but it is worthy of 
 note that the Athenian ' A.Tr oar 6\ei^ were only 10 in number.'' 
 
 The Rev. Dr. E. G. King, D.D.,* shows that the 12 sons of 
 Jacob alias IsraEl, who fathered the 12 tribes, are = 4 -f- 8 in 
 each of the three lists, as follows : 
 
 Gen. xxxv. 
 
 Gen. xxi.v and xxx. 
 
 Gen. xlix. 
 
 Reuben 
 
 Reuben 
 
 Reuben 
 
 Simeon 
 
 Simeon 
 
 Simeon 
 
 Levi 
 
 Levi 
 
 Levi 
 
 Judah 
 
 Judah 
 
 Judah 
 
 Issachar 
 
 "Dan 
 
 Zebulun 
 
 Zebulun 
 
 Naphtali 
 
 Issachar 
 
 Joseph 
 
 ' Gad 
 
 Dan 
 Gad 
 
 '^ Asher 
 
 Benjamin 
 
 Asher 
 
 'Dan 
 
 Issachar 
 
 Naphtali 
 
 Zebulun 
 
 Naphtali 
 
 Gad 
 
 Dinah 
 
 Joseph 
 
 ^ Asher 
 
 Joseph 
 
 Benjamin. 
 
 " The first 4 names are the same in each list, and belong to a Jehovist record. 
 The children of the concubines form a second group of 4." Dr. King further 
 says that Genesis xxxii, 28 should be rendered as follows : " Thy name shall be 
 no more Jacob but IsraEl, for thou hast had power {sa>-\\ha.) with the Elohim (i.e. 
 with the angel-host ; Akkadian sar), and with men thou shalt prevail." That 
 Elohim here denotes the angel-host is evident from Hosea xii, 4, 5 : " he had 
 power (sarz) with Elohim ; yea, he had power (ya.f«r) over the angel, and 
 prevailed." Dr. King concludes that Jacob wrestled with the Babylonian SarLl, 
 a personification of the legions or hosts of heaven ; and having conquered him, 
 takes the name of his opponent, whose strength thus then passes into him. 
 Thus does Jacob become E-sar-El. 
 
 ' Mr. J. P. Brown's TIic Dervishes (passim. Revised for me by the INIevlevi sheikh 
 of Nikosia). - Major Ellis's Tsiii-speaking Peoples, 22, 207. 
 
 •' Festus, s. V. Tages. ■* Bekker, Aiieai. i, 203. °- Akkadian Genesis (188S) p. 13. 
 
Myths?\ The Cardinal Points. 175 
 
 Joseph's dream {Genesis xxxvii, 9), which is also in the Persian legends,' 
 does actually identify his 1 1 brothers with 1 1 stars. This is also in the Koran 
 (ch. xii). They also, as Jacob-IsraEl commands, enter into the city by different 
 gates," which, unless a celest'al zodiacal allusion, is apparently meaningless 
 They sit, with Joseph, 2 at each table, which indicates the 6X2 = 12 which 
 we so often meet with.= They are also lodged 2 and 2 in a house.' 
 
 The Jews, and the Persian Moslem legends also, say that when Moses 
 struck the sea with his rod, it divided into 12 lanes, according to the number of 
 the tribes, "having between them walls of water standing out in the air like 12 
 vaults. On account of the transparency of the partitions, the tribes were able to 
 see each other."* This also is senseless unless when understood of the 
 Universe-ocean and the zodiacal divisions, and the paths to those 12 gates of 
 heaven. The 12 large brooks that issue from the rock struck by Moses, one for 
 each tribe, are also heavens-rivers. 
 
 IshmaEl has also 12 prince-sons {Gen. xvii, 20) as well as IsraEl, and the 
 Hebrew Intelligences of the 12 zodiacal signs are nothing whatever but 12 
 Els. Beginning with Aries these are : 
 
 1. MalchidaEl 5. VerchiEl 9. AduachiEl 
 
 2. AsmodiEl 6. HamaliEl 10. HanaEl 
 
 3. AmbriEl 7. ZuriEl 11. GambiEl 
 
 4. MuriEl 8. ZarachiEl 12. BarchiEl. 
 
 I now again direct the reader's attention to the theory that the Eloah was the 
 stone idol of the El the stone-god (pp. 116, 196). Each of the 28 houses of the 
 moon has also its El ; but these do not concern us here, except as accentuating 
 the general conclusion that the whole Hebrew angelic and arch-angelic host of 
 the heavens are Els, every one of them. 
 We have besides, among other twelves : 
 12 princes of IsraEl {Num. i, 44). 
 12 years' service of the king of £'/am {Gen. xiv, 4). 
 12 wells (and 70 palmtrees) at ETwa {Ex. xv, 27). 
 
 12 pillars (and an altar) for 12 tribes. (Manifestly celestial, for there is El 
 standing on work of bright sapphire, as it were the clear heavens. 
 Ex. xxiv, 4, 10.) 
 12 stones taken by 12 men for 12 tribes, out of middle of Yardain (Jordan, 
 
 the heavens-river. Joshua iv). 
 12 stones to make an altar (i Kings .xviii, 31). 
 
 12 (4 X 3) precious stones for 12 tribes {Ex. xxviii, 21 ; xxxix, 14). 
 12 (2 X 6) cakes, as offerings to Jehovah {Lev. xxiv, 5). 
 12 (6 X 2) oxen, one for each prince {Num. vii, 3). 
 
 12 silver chargers, 12 bowls, 12 spoons, 12 bullocks, rams, lambs, and goats ; 
 2 X 12 bullocks, 5 X 12 rams, goats, and lambs (for dedication of 
 altar, Num. vii, 84, xxix, 17). 
 12 rods for the princes of IsraiT/and their fathers' houses {Num. xvii, 2). 
 12 brazen bulls and 2 pillars in the house of Jehovah {Jer. lii). 
 12 cubits by 12, size of altar-hearth {Ezek. xliv, 16). 
 
 ' Rauzat-us-Safa, 200. ■ Konhi ch. xii, R-iis-S, 264, 265. 
 
 ' Sale's A'oiAn, p. 195. « R-its-S, 337, 369 ; .Sale, p. 259. 
 
1 76 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 12 thrones of 12 judges {Matt, xix, 28 ; Lii. xxii, 30). 
 
 12 stars, crown of, on prey^nant heavens-goddess {Rev. xii, 2). 
 
 12 (4 X 3) gates made of 12 pearls, and having 12 angels (of heavens- 
 city, which has 12 foundations. Rev. xxi, 12, 21). 
 
 12 crops or kinds of fruit on Universe-tree of life {Rev. xxii, 2). 
 The zodiacal heavenly significance of all this, when it is taken 
 together, seems indisputable. There does seem to be an actual 
 mention of the "12 signs" in ii Kings xxiii, 5 (Revised Version) 
 where the kings of Judah appointed Chemarim to burn incense to 
 them (or to the planets). The Athenian altar to the 12 gods was 
 in the Agora^ (see p. 155). The 12 peers of Charlemagne and of 
 France were 1 2 equals of the Round Table. 
 
 Sir George Birdwood,- citing Josephus,' makes the breast-plate of Aaron 
 {E.vod. xxviii) a square zodiacal palladium, and compares it to the Hindu and 
 Buddhist talismanic amulet called the nava-ratna or nao-ratan (nine-gems). 
 The breast-plate had 12 zodiacal precious stones ; and the shoulder-ouches 
 which held it bore the 12 zodiacal names of the 12 children of IsraEl. 
 
 Before the consecration of a church 12 crosses are, in the 
 Galilean ritual, painted round the new building, on the pillars or, 
 at equal distances, on the walls ; and opposite these the bishop, 
 when he arrives, causes 12 wax candles to be lit. These are still 
 expounded as signifying the 12 foundations of the walls of the 
 heavens-Jerusalem, on which walls were the 12 names of the 12 
 apostles of the lamb {Rev. xxi, 14).^ There could scarcely be a 
 clearer reference to the firmament of the heavens and its 12 
 zodiacal constellations. Of course the 12 (?) apostles afford a new 
 point of departure. 
 
 One of Goethe's far-reaching remarks was that as a subject for 
 art The Twelve Apostles all look too much like each other.' That 
 fits them, at all events, for the no-one-knows-how-old Apostle- 
 spoons, and is a result of their ranked duties round the zodiac. 
 The number 12, like 7, is still everywhere in the East talismanic, 
 says Sir G. Birdwood,'' and always refers to the signs of the zodiac, 
 which are the 12 fruits of the Universe Tree of Life. And 
 Stukeley (see " The Winged Sphere " in \'ol. 2) pointed out long 
 ago that Joshua pitched his 12 stones at Gilgal, that is in the 
 round form of a wheel, which gilgal means (or else rotating. In 
 either case the indication is Cosmic). We shall also see the 12 
 
 ^ Thucyd. vi, 54. "■ Soc. of Arts Journal, 18 Mar. 1SS7. 
 
 ' Antiq. of Jews, iii, vii, 5, 6, 7. ■* Montpellier Catechisme, iii, 263, 271. 
 
 ^ Conversations with Kckennann, 16 Mnr. 1S30. ^ Ut supra. 
 
Afyths^^ TJie Cardinal Points, i77 
 
 nidanas of the Buddhist " Wheel of the Law " in the section on 
 that subject ; and the twice 12 tirthankaras of the Jains. 
 
 We have already seen that the gayatri Hindu archaic hymn 
 was of 8 syllables or verses. It "was brought up to 12 by repeti- 
 tions of the first and last verses."^ Another, an Egyptian, instance 
 of the formation of 12 from 8 has been given above, at p. 158. 
 
 There are 8 sons of Aditi (Space, the mother of the gods ?) who were 
 born from her body. With Seven she went to the gods, but Marttanda she 
 cast off.'- These 7 were the Adityas, who " in early Vedic times were but 
 six, or more frequently 7,"' of whom Varuna was chief, and consequently the 
 Aditya. The other five (of the six) were Mitra, Aryaman, Bhaga, Ansa and 
 Daksha. The last is frequently excluded, and Indra, Savitri and Dhatri are 
 added, which makes up 7. " They are neither sun nor moon nor stars nor 
 dawn, but the eternal sustainers of this luminous life, which exists as it were 
 behind all these phenomena " (Prof. Roth). In later times the number was 
 increased to (the zodiacal) tu<elve. There were three kinds of gods, says the 
 Satapatlui-Brahinana,'' the Vasus, the Rudras, and the Aditjas. 
 
 The following notes on celestial numbers in the Odyssey come 
 in conveniently here : — 
 
 Scylla had 12 feet all dangling down, and 6 necks exceeding long, and on 
 each neck a hideous head, wherein were 3 rows of teeth {Odyss. xii, 89). 12 
 choice bulls are a sacrifice to Poseidon (xiii, 180). Telemachos takes 12 jars of 
 wane with him — a dozen in short (ii, 353). Odusseus has 12 stj-es with 50 pigs 
 in each = 360, as is actually calculated out {Odyss. xiv, 20), and they are 
 guarded by 4 dogs. The puzzling axes of Odusseus {Odyss. xix, 580 and else- 
 where) are 12, and he shoots his arrow through them all. 12 women work at 
 his handmills (xx, 108) ; and 12 out of his 50 women-servants are unfaithful with 
 the wooers of Penelope (xxii, 426); Odusseus meets IphiTos (Strong-One ?) who 
 is in search of his 12 brood mares each with a mule-foal (xxi, 22) ; 12 cloaks of 
 single fold, 12 coverlets, 12 mantles and doublets, and 4 women skilled in work 
 are gifts in Odyss. xxiv, 276. 
 
 The sevens are comparatively few (so far as I have detected them) in the 
 Odyssey, fielios, 'HeXios-, has 7 herds of kine and 7 of sheep, and 50 in each 
 flock (xii, 129). Maron son of EuanThes gives Odusseus 7 gold talents and a 
 bowl of pure silver, and 12 jars of wine, each cup of which took 20 measures of 
 water (and as it was red and honey-sweet, we may take it that's the classic way 
 to drink Commanderia). The same or a similar gift is mentioned at xxiv, 274 
 as 7 talents, a silver bowl (with the 12 cloaks &c. as just above). If the bowl 
 be the heavens, the 7 talents ought to be, originally, Ursa Major. But in view 
 of the paucity of sevens, and the glut of other chronological numbers (108, 52, 
 50, 24, 20, 12, 10, 6, 4), it would seem that Odusseus was a zodiacal rather than 
 a polar power. (There are some puzzling 7tines too.) 
 
 And still it is odd that both SisuPhos the real and Laertes the putative 
 father of Odusseus are Stone-gods. SisuPhos rolls one eternally, and Aaef ^= 
 
 ' Eggeling's Satap. Br&lim. 313, 400, 402, 131. - RigV. x, 72, 8. 
 
 ^ Dowson's Diet. The sentence is inexDianatoiy. ■• Eggeling's, ii, 350. 
 
 M 
 
178 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 stones. The mother of Odusseus too was AntiKleia, which indicates a keystone- 
 of-heaven goddess. One version made her daughter of DioKles (one of the Four 
 of DeMeter) ; another said she was daughter to AutoLukos, a wolf-god (or hght- 
 god ?), who had a magic helmet, was an argonaut and a great athlete, and taught 
 HeraKles (AtLas's understudy) to drive the chariot (of the universe). Auto- 
 Lukos was also a Proteus (or First-god) in his form-changing, and the fooi- 
 prints of cattle figure greatly in his myths. He was either son of Hermes (or 
 of Phrixos) and Chalkiope. 
 
 We shall have the zodiacal 12 bucklers of the Roman Salii later on, and 
 also the buckler of Abas 12th tyrant of Argos ; and the 12 Chinese bells of 
 Hwang-Ti (in "The Number Seven "). Under " The Labyrinth " we shall have 
 its 12 halls and the 12 compartments of the Egyptian underworld compared 
 with the 12 southern Chaldean constellations of the dead. 
 
 Ptolemy said the alternate zodiacal signs Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, 
 Sagittarius and Aquarius were masculine, and the remainder feminine, " as the 
 day is followed by the night, and as the male is coupled with the female." Here 
 we have duality, and an indication that 12 here ^6x2. 
 
 The Shu-king' makes the primeval fabulous divine emperor Shun sacrifice 
 to Shang-Ti in the usual forms, and respectfully and purely to the Six honoured- 
 ones 7^ ^ the Liu-Tsung, and to mountains, rivers, and spirits. 6 is half 12, 
 and this is the earliest form, perhaps, of the 12 zodiacal signs. The Chinese 
 hour is double ours, so that day and night have each but 6 hours. This 
 seems to have been Roman too, see the section on "Numa Pompilius" in \o\. 2. 
 All the native and Western inconsistent endeavours to identify these Six Tsung 
 are shots, and misses at that. It seems to me that they must be the same as the 
 Liu Ho /> '^ or 6 directions, a term which also applies to the 6 pairs of the 
 12 cyclical signs.- This term Liu Ho also means the Universe, that is Heavens- 
 and-Earth, being the 6 great points of (i) Above and (6) Below, with (2) North, 
 (3) South, (4) East, and (5) West. In these I should be inclined to see the N. 
 and S. poles and 4 points of the year's-round, marked by the longest and shortest 
 days, and the equal day and night. These 6 directions are elaborately wor- 
 shipped in Buddhism also." 
 
 We have precisely the same idea as above and on p. 184 (of 
 taking the North pole as the stand-point for the plotting-out of 
 the 4 directions), although somewhat confused, in the Ethiopian 
 Book of Enoch .-"^ "Thence did I advance on towards the North, 
 to the extremities of the Earth ; and there I saw a great and 
 glorious wonder at the extremities of the whole Earth. I saw 
 there heavenly gates opening into the heavens : 3 of them dis- 
 tincth' separated. Thence went I to the extremities of the world 
 Westwards, where I perceived 3 gates open, as I had seen in the 
 North. Then I proceeded" and so forth (killing valueless time, in 
 
 ' Legge, ii, I, 4. - Mayers, Manual, pp. 322, 329, 351. 
 
 ' See the Sigalowada sutra and Rhys Davids's Buddhism, pp. 143 to 147. 
 ^ Laurence's translation, xx.\iii to x.\xv, Ixxiv, Ixxv. 
 
Myths.'] The Cardinal Points, 179 
 
 Eastern fashion, by endless repetitions) to the South and East 
 where the same number of gates are found ; and the total 
 (4 X 3 = 12) is of course zodiacal. Plato called the 12 signs the 
 gates of heaven. 
 
 It is ver)' strange that in Eg^-pt also there were "The Six," the hieroglyphic 
 of which ■ ■ is identical with that one of the 8 Chinese kwa which 
 
 belongs to the North (see p. 96). In the 5th dynasty Asesra was " master of the 
 secret (her sesheta) of the mystic words of the grand abode of the Six." In the 
 6th dynasty Ouna boasts of having the entree to " the abode of the Si.x." In the 
 13th, Einieri was " chief of the grand abode of the Six of Neverkara." There 
 was a feast of the Six, which was on the sixth day of the month. No one 
 seems to know anything more as to who these six were.' The unidentified 
 
 town I I I Hebensas ? seems to be connected with this worship. (See the 
 
 six-staged pyramid under " The North.") 
 
 The Twelve AviphiKtiwncs (or -Ktiones), who represented 12 
 tribes of the Greeks, give us a notable parallel to the Jewish 12. 
 Their name may mean, as it is generally taken to do, merely 
 "dwellers around," in which case it would sufficiently apply to the 
 zodiacal constellations ; or might it not mean "dual-supporters," 
 possessors or holders (/creo) ; Kxi^yo? beast of burden — still in use 
 in Cyprus) ; amphi indicating duality as well as the round about 
 idea. 
 
 The extremely remote antiquity of the Greek religious sanhedrims so-called 
 places them in a similar category to the equally zodiacal Salii or the Ai"valian 
 Brothers of Rome (see both those headings). There was one such a-weSpiov at 
 Delos (as to which typical cosmic island, see p. 31) said to have been founded 
 by //le god Theseus ; from the most ancient times tlie lonians of the Cyclades 
 (Kuklades) — the cycling or turning islands — assembled there to celebrate the 
 feast of Apollo. The similar sacred colleges of Argos and Delphoi met in 
 the temples of Apollo ; those of Onchestos, Kalauria and Samikon met in the 
 temples of Poseidon ; that of Amarj'nthos in the temple of Artemis ; and the 
 college of ThermoPylje near the sanctuary of DeMeter, who was also called 
 Amphi Ktuonis. 
 
 This last assembly became of course the most notorious, and 
 its 12 tribes are, as is well known, almost as difficult though not so 
 mythical as the 12 tribes of IsraEl. (See also the 12 sons of 
 Neleus, under "The Dokana.") The double votes in this assembly 
 (like the qualifier amphi-) speak to me here of divine duality. 
 
 Its members were of two categories : the hieromnemones or sacred- 
 remembrancers, and the pulagorai, formed of ttuXt; a gate (which piusi be the 
 ' Pierret, Did. 515 ; Vaai. 545, 593, 464. 
 
 M 2 
 
I So The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 same as plla pillar and pilum shaft) with dyopa, a term fully dealt-with elsewhere. 
 These last were also called agora-troi, which may mean no more than the three 
 of the agora, as three pulagoroi (among whom, in his time, yEschines the orator,' 
 circa 350 B.C.)'were sent from Athens. The secretary of the Amphiktiones was 
 called the hierolcerux or sacred herald. 
 
 The money .struck by them had the omphalos of Delphoi on 
 one side, with the serpent coiled round it, and Apollo seated 
 thereon, holdint;- in his left a laurel-bough. It will be seen that all 
 the symbolism and nomination here is centro-cosmic. 
 
 The duties of the Amphiktions were purely pontifical, though 
 not apparently sacerdotal. They made the ritual for the festivals 
 of Apollo, and for sacrifices ; they proclaimed " the truce of God " 
 — still piously believed to have been (as the treuga Dei) of Christian 
 and papal inception. I suppose their founding of the Pythian 
 sports because of the killing of the Python, mentioned in the 
 Aristotle fragments,- must here find a place, whether as genuine 
 myth or as a scrap of history. Their authority was supreme over 
 the sanctuary of Delphoi, and they kept Apollo's field or plain of 
 Kirrha uncultivated. They also exercised precisely the functions 
 of the Turkish Evkaf in administering all properties dedicated to 
 benevolent uses. They guarded their boundaries (opoi, see Inde.x) 
 and thereon inscribed the talismanic symbol of Apollo's tripod'^ or, 
 as we may now irreverently call it, his 3-legged stool, to mark his 
 property. And this affords me a highly respectable origin for the 
 famous Broad Arrow ^ of our English Ordnance.* 
 Wharton's Law Lexicon registers the loose suggestion that this was " the ^ or 
 a, ' the broad a' of the Druids " — which carries a smile rather than conviction 
 with it. Others have pointed out a barbed dart-head in the arms of Lord 
 Sydney (afterwards Earl of Romney) Master-General of the Ordnance 1693- 
 1702. But there was a Alaster-General from 1604, and Masters of the Ordnance 
 from Richard the Third's time (see Mr. Denhain Robinson's JVar Office List). 
 
 AmphiKtuon, son of Deukalion and Pyrrha, and father of 
 Itonos,^ cannot — no matter what the commentators have said — be 
 
 ' -Esch. Agst. KthiphSn, 117. ^ Didot's />aj-. Hist. Grac. ii, 189. 
 
 ^ Wescber, AlctJi. ties savants etraugers prcscntes ci t.-icad. des Inscnp. tome viii. 
 
 ' I point to this with no little pleasure, as I began my working life — under the kindly 
 sway of Lord Emly — where the sounding motto of the good old Ordnance Office, sua tela 
 tonanti (granted by royal warrant of 19th July l8o5, as Mr. C. H. Athill, the Richmond 
 Herald, kindly informs me) still remains in letters of iron. I think I can support my 
 theory from the Laws of the Msigoihs, viii, 6 (i) and x, 3 (3) which direct boundaries 
 to be marked by blazing trees with three divisions or cuts (decurias) : " faciat tres 
 decurias" — " in arboribus notas quas decurias vocant, convenit observari." 
 
 ^ Theopompos, frag. 80; Apoll. Bibl. i, 7, 2, 7. Simonides of Keos (556 to 
 514 B.C.) made Itonos the father of the sisters Athena and loDama ; the second being 
 
Myihs.~\ The Cardinal Points. i8i 
 
 put out of this myth. By another account he was autochthonous/ 
 which would sort well with my cosmic requirements. EriChThonios 
 (see " The Arcana ") expelled AmphiKtuon after a tivelve years' 
 reign. ^ AmphiKtuon put up an altar to Orthos Dionusos in the 
 temple of the Hours (Horai).^ This upright (orthos) supreme 
 power I shall take leave to consider an axis-god ; and the temple 
 of the hours then at once becomes the heavens of the i2-divisioned 
 zodiac of the Amphiktuones. 
 
 The legend about Dionusos commanding this AmphiKtuon to make a law or 
 canon that water was to be put in the (sacrificial ?) wine, after the wine had 
 been first tasted in its purity, is strange enough, and merits pursuit. The 
 ancients brought it in here (see Philochoros iti loc. cit.). 
 AmphiKtuon's brother was named Hellen.* AmphiKtuone, 
 daughter of Phthios, consort of Asterios, and mother by him of 
 Dotis,** must also be placed among the stars of this celestial myth. 
 Upon all these evidences, then, I think that it is scarcely wise, or 
 possible, to discard the ancient belief that the amphiktiones or 
 ktuones took their name from this very superior personality among 
 the gods." Or if I put it this way : that the name in both cases 
 must have had an identical cosmic divine origin, perhaps there will be 
 few objectors. But we must not lose sight of the 12 sons of Neleus. 
 I think this receives strengthening from the related names (for di here = amphi) 
 of the Centaur DiKtus and of the Cretan DiKtaion opos- (mountain), also called 
 DiKte, while Zeus, or rather Zan, was DiKtaios. The name that survives for the 
 mountain nowadays is Lasthi, where one would wish to discern \a.i a stone, and 
 theos. The Cretan DiKtunnaion oros is connected with the goddess DiKte or 
 DiKtunna (which was a surname of Artemis), who in avoiding Minos threw 
 herself ei? di-KTva (Strabo, x), which I want to read as ' from the dual-support ' (:= 
 double pillar) of the heavens (see the section on this, later). Thus, recollecting 
 that Crete is in cosmic myth the Earth (see p. 138 supra), its di-ktaion, its 
 dual-pillared mountain is the heavens-mountain ; and that also satisfactorily 
 
 killed by the first in an assault of arms which ended in a fight (Didot's Frag. Hist. Grj^c. 
 ii, 42). This seems a clear doublet of Athene killirg PalLas (the goddess) at p. 49 
 supra, as related by Apollodoros some 400 years later {Bibi. iii, 12, 3) ; and it absolutely 
 makes AmphiKtuon the grandsire of Athena. How is that for high ? It also gives the 
 equation lo -I- Dama = Pal -t- Las, in which Dama (see p. 142 sitpra) must = Las. 
 Then lo ought to = Pal ; and so it does ! for tor, arrow, dart, missile weapon, is only 
 another word for pal, the spear. And now I venture the supposition that 'lo>, the cow- 
 goddess of the heavens, was so named from her horns and not from her " wandering," as 
 Seyffert's Dictionary sayF. Nor does all this seem to hurt my derivation of PalLas on 
 p. 48 supra (see also p. 212 infra). 
 
 ' Bibl. iii, 14, 6. ^ Bibl. iii, 14, 6, 2. ^ Philochoros, y?-a^. 18, 
 
 ■* ApoU. Bihl. i, 7, 2, 7. ' Pherecydes, /rrt^. 8, and others. 
 
 " Theopompos, /rir^'. 80; Androti6n,//-iif. ^t,. 
 
iS2 The N'ight of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 supports my celestial location of the DiKtaion haven (pp. 133, 140). The old 
 connection of DiKtunna with a net, diktuon, is by no means embarrassing, for 
 the omphalos-stone is constantly seen in ancient Greek art to be covered with a 
 net (see "The Navel"). That DiKtus was one of the two sons of Magnes is 
 another proof that I am here keeping the right track ; and his brother 
 PoluDeKtes, who brought up the great god Perseus ; who by force espoused 
 Danae (mother of Perseus and daughter of Akrisios the king-god of the akre of 
 Argos, of the Extremity of the heavens) ; and who with all his subjects was 
 turned to stone, is again consonant, for he and they are all star-stone heavens- 
 gods. 
 
 Albrecht Weber' has made the ingenious and interesting suggestion that 
 the twelve hallowed nights which make their appearance in Vedic antiquity, and 
 which are found in the West, especially among the Teutons (our own " twelve 
 da)S of Christmas " and " Twelfth Night ") are to be regarded as an attempt to 
 make the year up to 365J days ; because the lunar month multiphed by neither 
 12 nor 13 will hit off this number. Thus 354 + 12 would = 366. But 366 
 won't do either, of course ; and Weber rightly throws doubt on his own con- 
 jecture in the Indische Siudien xvii, 224. 
 
 The Number Sixteen can also be considered as a further sub- 
 division of the Eight. See, for instances, the evolution of the 
 16-sided Egyptian typical column from the squared post and the 
 octagonal pillar p. 157, and the 16 columns of the Dome of the 
 Rock, p. 167. 
 
 The shodhashin or 16-fold chant of archaic Hinduism meant 
 Indra.- When Bhagavat (Vishnu) took the human form of 
 Purusha, he was composed of 16 parts.'' In his palace were 16,000 
 pavilions for his 16,000 consorts. Daksha (Right) marries the 
 daughter, Prasiiti, of the First Manu, and has 16 fine-ej-ed 
 daughters by her. 
 
 In Irish myth, Sinsar the monarch of the World has under him 
 16 warlike princes. The great horse of the Giolla Deacair bears 
 away 16 of the Fianna on his back, and Finn starts with 15 others 
 (-f- I = 16) in pursuit. Not alone so, but the horse is compelled 
 by Conan Mael (the Bald, a Greek note of the heavens-god) to 
 make a return journey through the same seas and dense woods, 
 and over tiie same islands rocks and dark glens, with the Giolla 
 and 15(4 1 = 16) other denizens of the celestial Land of Promise.'' 
 
 ^ Zwei z'edisi'hc Tcxte iiber Oifiina itnd Portoita, p. 3SS. 
 ^ Eggeling's Satap. Br&hm. 313, 400, 402, 131. 
 ^ Bhii'^av.-pirr. i. 3, i ; 11, 215 ; 14, 37. iv, I, 47. 
 ■* Dr. Joyce's Ccllic Jxomaiues, 104, 23S, 243, 271, 272. 
 
Myths-I The Cardinal Points. 183 
 
 All this seems unmistakeably zodiacal, or connected with the 
 celestial points of the compass. 
 
 The pageant of Chester at the summer solstice as late as 1564 
 included four giants and sixteen naked boys.i 
 
 "To THE Editor of t-r^ DAILY GRAPHIC. Sir— It mayinterest some 
 of your readers to know that a genuine old English song serves for the street 
 cry of the lavender-seller. It may be heard almost any day in Bloomsbury. 
 
 
 you buy my blooming !a - ven - der ? Six-teen good branches a pen - ny. 
 
 The refrain is the same each time — 'Sixteen good branches a penny' ; but 
 there are six Hnes, or verses, thus : 
 
 Will you buy my blooming lavender ? 
 
 Sixteen good branches a penny. 
 If you buy it once you'll buy it twice ; 
 
 Sixteen good branches a penny. 
 For it makes your clothes smell so very nice ; 
 Sixteen good branches a penny. 
 
 Now's the time to scent your handkerchiefs ; 
 
 Sixteen good branches a penny. 
 With my sweet blooming lavender ; 
 
 Sixteen good branches a penny. 
 For it's all in full blossom ; 
 
 Sixteen good branches a penny. 
 I took this song do\vn, with the air, from a young woman who comes round 
 regularly once or twice a week, and she told me her mother taught it to her, 
 ' and she learned it off her mother, what kept a lavender garden out at 
 Uxbridge.' It appears to be the custom to sell lavender '■ si.vteen branches a 
 penny,' for 1 have since heard others offering it on those terms, but I have not 
 been able to discover why sixteen should be the accepted number. My lavender 
 girl never offers any other flowers for sale, and her father and mother are in the 
 same trade — while lavender is in season — and though they get their stock-in- 
 trade wholesale at ' Common Garden,' they still live at U.xbridge, like the 
 mother's mother ' what kept a lavender garden.' — Yours obediently. Upper 
 Bedford Place, i Sept., 1890." 
 
 Do not forget here that the lavender-j^//^^' is a blossoming reed 
 or rod. 
 
 ' .Stiutl (Hone's ed. ) p. .\liii. 
 
iS4 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 14. — The Four Living Creatures. 
 
 IT results from any full study of the myths, symbolism, and 
 nomenclature of the Four Quarters that those directions were 
 viewed in the strict orthodoxy of heavens-mythology not as 
 the N. S. E. and W. of e\'ery earthly spot whatever, but as four 
 heavens-divisions spread out around the Pole. Thus for example 
 the siv Chinese Ho -^ or Ki ^jig, the limits of space — the zenith, 
 nadir, and the four cardinal points — must initially and astrono- 
 mically be referred to the N. and S. poles and the four quarters of 
 the sphere around (in which view of the four quarters, be it remarked, 
 our conventional N. S. E. and \V. completely disappear). This is 
 borne out too in the four Ki, of which the N. point is the spot 
 over which the Polestar stands.^ And the same idea explains the 
 Ji2'£ fang ifj , which are N. S. E. \V. and Centre. 
 
 It is from this astrognostical point of view that we must now 
 proceed to consider the four most archaic great divisions of the 
 Chinese celestial sphere, which will be found to illustrate for us 
 the Four Living Creatures of the Hebrew Sacred Books. 
 
 In dealing with the Number Seven, I shall have occasion to 
 make important mention of the Book of Revelations. The number 
 of astrological passages in that Apocal}-pse is truly remarkable. 
 Sir G. Birdwood' fully recognises the astrological character of the Apocalypse 
 which (xxi) takes the heavenly Jerusalem from Chaldean astrology and also 
 from the Book of Tobit (xiii) ; which last is a well-constructed Tale of 
 Nineveh, 
 
 For instance, there need now be ver}' little doubt that, whether in 
 Ezekiel, Daniel, or the Apocalypse,^ the " four great beasts " or 
 "four living creatures" who come in a whirlwind out of the North, 
 who are "full of eyes roundabout and within," have a similar 
 origin to the four great primar)' animal divisions of the Chinese 
 celestial sphere ; and that the eyes of which "they are full" are 
 nothing but their subordinate constellations in " the glassy sea, like 
 unto crystal," (that is in the Heavens) " round about the throne," 
 
 ' Mayers, Mainial, pp. 306, 312, 322. 
 " Soc. o( Arls/oi/ma/, iS Mar. 18S7. 
 ^ E:ii: i, 10, which is not too clear ; Van. vii, 4 to 7 : /\i-: iv, 7. 
 
Myths:\ 
 
 The Four Living Creatures. 
 
 i8S 
 
 which I suggest was originally the seat of the Polar deity. These 
 4 great celestial divisions agree in position with the " 4 winds, held 
 by the 4 angels at the 4 corners of the Earth " {Rev. vii).^ 
 
 We clearly had these cardinal animals also above (p. 161) in 
 the 4 lords of the corners of the heavens in Egyptian mythology, 
 who are man, hawk, " jackal," and ape. I accordingly add them 
 to the following table, which I believe to be new, and which shows 
 where the authorities above cited agree. The Chinese animals 
 will be found fully discussed in Professor Gustave Schlegel's very 
 important work Uranograpliie Cliinoise? 
 
 Chinese. 
 
 Ezekiel. 
 
 Revelations. 
 
 Daniel. 
 
 Egyptian, 
 see p. 159. 
 
 Dark Warrior 
 
 Man 
 
 Man 
 
 Leopard 
 
 Man 
 
 }Vlnte Tiger 
 Vermilion Bird ... 
 
 Lion 
 Eagle 
 
 Lion 
 Eagle 
 
 Lion (Eagle's 
 
 wings) 
 Nondescript 
 
 "Jackal" 
 Hawk 
 
 Azure Dragon 
 
 Ox 
 
 Calf 
 
 Bear 
 
 Ape 
 
 It will be observed that, in three out of the four, Ezekiel and 
 \}as. Apocalypse 'io\\o\vt\\& Chinese Astrolog}-, and that Daniel shovis 
 the greatest divergence, only agreeing in one, the Lion (or White 
 Tiger).' The writer of Daniel may have followed some other 
 nomenclature of the zodiacal divisions, or may have been looser 
 in his knowledge ; although F. Lenormant said that Book, in spite 
 of its relatively recent date, contains much excellent information 
 on the Babylon of Nabuchodonossor.^ Of course, they all coincide 
 as to the number of the animals.^ These facts seem to throw 
 some light on the method of literary workmanship pursued in 
 composing their popular " Visions " by these three writers, who 
 might be classed with the priest-astrologers. 
 
 In the Sepher Yesirah, the winged ox of the Hebrews was 
 given to the North, the winged lion to the South, the eagle to the 
 East, and the winged man to the West. These have also, of course, 
 
 ' The Chinese "4 corners of the Earth" are N. E., S. E., N. W., and S. W. 
 (Mayers, Chinese Reader's Manual, p. 311). 
 
 ^ Sing Shin Kao Yuen. The Hague, 1S75, pp, 49 to 72. 
 
 ' Mr. Aston tells me of a Corean version of a tale from the Reineke Fuchs cycle, 
 in which a white tiger does duty for our lion. 
 
 '' Magic der Chaldder, pp. 525 to 571. 
 
 " See also the four tribal animals of the Gold Coast, p. 174 supra. 
 
1 86 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 descended to the 4 evangelists as a sort of " intestate legacy." I 
 must not forget to particularize that the 4-\vinged cherubim of 
 Ezekiel (x, 14) have everyone 4 faces, a man's, a bull's (cherub's 
 in the Revised Version), a lion's and an eagle's. These faces, 
 said the late Francois Lenormant, unite in these cherubs the 
 4 types of celestial, luminous, protecting genii represented on 
 Chaldeo-Assyrian monuments. Ezekiel's cherubs, too, are covered 
 with eyes on all their bodies and their wings (x, 12).' Bishop 
 Hcllmuth- says the Chay-yoth (beasts) of Ezekiel's ist chapter 
 arc the sanie as the " K'roobcem " of the 9th and lOth chapters. 
 
 I may be expected to say something more about the 4 Beasts as connected 
 with the 4 evangeUsts. As a matter of fact this connection is by no means 
 exactly ascertained. St. Jerome bracketed Matthew with the I\Ian, Mark with 
 the Lion, Luke with the Calf, and John with the Eagle ; all the patristic 
 authorities seem agreed about Luke and John, but St. Augustine maintained 
 that the Lion was Matthew's, and the Man, or rather Angel, Mark's. The 
 earliest known example — a 5th or 6th century terra-cotta bas-relief in the 
 catacombs — only gives a winged Angel and a winged Ox, each having a book. 
 The whole 4 are never found together in the catacombs. In the early Italian 
 basilicas and churches these Beasts are on the ceiling (the sky), their heads and 
 wings only being shown issuing from clouds : a clear connection with their 
 position in the celestial sphere, as I have here endeavoured to expound it, and 
 a reminder of the Japanese-Chinese Dragon of the four quarters (p. 169). A 
 Mosaic of the 5th century in Mrs. Jameson's Legendary Art gives the winged 
 ox surrounded by stars ; and Ciampini's Vetera Monunienta gives another 
 5th century Mosaic from the church of S. Nazario e Celso, at Ravenna ; where 
 the 4 Beasts issue from clouds at the 4 corners of a starry ground. They are 
 also to be seen in the 21st card of the French tarot pack, which represents the 
 luiiverse, le monde. 
 
 Professor G. Schlegel gives the following list of the four great 
 Chinese constellation-groups : " At each of the 4 fang 3^ ( = square), 
 that is the 4 cardinal points, are 7 houses ^ or groups of stars 
 \\hich each form a figure. Those of the E. form the figure of a 
 Dragon, and those of the W. form the figure of a Tiger. (The 
 head of these figures is to the S. and their tail to the N.) 
 Those of the S. form the figure of a Bird, and those of the 
 N. the figure of a Tortoise. (The head of these figures is to 
 the W. and the tail to the E.)" The E. part of the heavens 
 
 ' Oi'ig. de tHist. i, 123. See also what is said further as to the cherubim, under 
 the heading of " The Flaming Sword." 
 " Bibliial Thesaurus, 1SS4, p. 359. 
 
MythsP\ The Four Living Creatures. 187 
 
 was called the house of the blue Dragon, t'sang lung- ; the N. 
 that of the black Warrior, hiuen \vu ; the W. that of the white 
 Tiger, pe hu ; and the S. the house of the red Bird, chu niao.i 
 This also seems to me to be the simplest authentic form of the 
 imputartion of animal and human forms and names to divisions of 
 the skies. 
 
 It is noteworthy too that the 4 animals reappear in Chinese 
 myth as the 4 Ling, JJ " supernaturally or spiritually endowed 
 creatures,^ which are (i) the Tortoise (the more ancient title of the 
 Dark Warrior constellation) ; (2) the Lin, which is more familiarly 
 known to us as the K'i-lin, and has the body of a deer, the tail of 
 an ox, and a single horn ; (3) the Feng, generally translated phoenix, 
 which has a pheasant's head, a swallow's beak, a tortoise's neck, 
 and yet the outward semblance of a dragon with the tail of a fish ; 
 and (4) the fourth creature is the Dragon itself, as before. 
 
 A Chinese collective name for the 4 celestial animals is the 
 4 Kung ^ quadrants, or divisions into sevens (as above) of their 
 28 great astronomic constellations. The Kung are each ruled by 
 one of the 4 Tsing ^ or stellar influences.^ (The introduction of 
 the 4 Ling into the same category, though almost obvious, must 
 I believe be charged to my account.) 
 
 The Four Sleepers, who are Ts'ai Lwan (or Wen Siao), Han 
 Shan, Shih-te, and Feng-Kan* must be another nomenclature of 
 these Chinese cosmic powers ; and here we seem to be again in touch 
 with the Egyptian Urn-gods and the Subban Shambube (p. 160). 
 The first of the 4 Sleepers is mounted on a Tiger, and the word 
 Feng, which occurs in the name of another, is the name of one of 
 the 4 Ling. 
 
 The Tiger on the Korean flag was a winged tiger rampant, spitting fire, and 
 grasping horned lightnings in his uplifted forepaws.'^ 
 
 The 4 sea-calves in Odyssey iv (435, &c.) seem to give us 
 similar ideas. The Ancient One, 'O Vepuiv, is fallen-on and killed 
 by the Four, who are really men disguised in phoca-skins. But he 
 changes into a Lion, a Dragon, a Pard and a Boar ; and I do not 
 think we need want to get much closer than this to the chief 
 heavens-god and the Four Living Creatures, who are his forms. 
 We also have here the magic arts or wiles of Kronos (460). He 
 
 ' G. .Schlegel, Uraiiog. Chi. p. I, citing a Chinese work on the Urh Ya. 
 ° Jfayers, Manual, p. 307. ^ IlnJ. pp. 358, 307, 311. 
 
 ■■ Anderson's Catal. pigs. Brit. Miis. 52. * Griffis's Corca, p. 320. 
 
1 88 The Night of the Gods. 
 
 is the mighty First, Wpankv^ l(f)Oifj,o';, he is the deathless Egj'ptian 
 First, the unerring Ancient of the Universe Ocean, Tepcov aXio<; 
 i'r]/jL€pTr]^ aOdvaro^ Ylpcorev^ AlyvTrrioti [see what is said elsewhere 
 as to celestial Egypt] {Odj'ss. iv, 365, 384). 
 
 Four again (besides Odusseus as a fifth) turn the bar about in the eye of 
 the Cyclops {Odyss. ix, 335). Four dogs watch the swine of Odusseus ("xiv, 20). 
 
 The primaeval entity, intelligence, or JEon called Phanes, the 
 offspring of Ether and of Night, was described by Hieronymus 
 "as a serpent with bull's and lion's heads, with a human face in 
 the middle, and wings on the shoulders."' This would make this 
 Phanes merely a syncrasis of the 4 beasts, and therefore the 
 manifest {tpaivco, appear) heavens. 
 
 I find that the Rev. Dr. E. G. King, D.D.,- has been in front of 
 me in publishing an astronomical conjecture about the 4 beasts ; 
 and I rejoice to hail the support although the view is not precisely 
 mine. He says : 
 
 " The Chaldeans paid special regard to 4 points in the circle, viz. the equinoxes 
 and the tropics. These 4 points gave rise to the 4 Chaioth or Living Creatures 
 which Ezekiel adopted from Babylonia." 
 
 This conjecture as to the astronomical positions may not be 
 irreconcilable with the indubitable archaic facts set forth scientifi- 
 cally in Chinese treatises, as above explained. 
 
 It is of course impossible to debate here any migrational 
 question as to how or when these Chinese divisions travelled 
 Westward or Eastward, if they ever did either. Nor does it seem, 
 as stated in the Disputatio Circularis (p. 12), that such a question 
 is of any verj- great radical import as regards the origin of these 
 astronomical concepts. But an antiquity in China so great as to 
 seem fabulous, and even give a shock to all our scientific nerves, is 
 claimed for these primary' divisions, upon apparently trustworthy 
 calculations of backward astronomical time. The curious must 
 only be referred to Professor G. Schlegel's very able and extra- 
 ordinary work, Uranograpliie Cliinoise,^ to which I have such 
 frequent occasion to be indebted throughout this Inquiry. 
 
 ' Lang's Myth. Rit. and Re!, i, 317. " Akkadian Genesis (1SS8), p. 21. 
 
 ^ The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1S75. 
 
iSg 
 
 The Pillar. 
 
 15. The Axis as Pillar. 
 
 16. Divine Names in Lat- 
 
 17. The Tat ff of Ptah. — The Tee and Umbrella. 
 
 18. The Heavens-Palace and its Pillar. 
 
 19. The Colophon. 
 
 20. The Dual Pillars. 
 
 21. The Dokana or " Gate of Heaven." 
 
 15. — The Axis as Pillar. 
 
 WE have seen (p. ^6) that the dual Japanese Kami firmly 
 planted the Spear in the Earth, and made a heavens-Pillar 
 of it. 
 
 There was also an Ame hitotsu-bashira, Heaven's One-Pillar, which was an 
 archaic name of the island of Iki.' And there was a god of the awful pillar of 
 heaven, Ame no Mi-Hashira no kami ;° and an awful Earth-Pillar, kuni no 
 Mi-Hashira. 
 
 This conversion of the nu-hoko or Spear into the heavens-pillar is, 
 Mr. W. G. Aston informs me,^ taken from the Kiizhiki, a book 
 which professes to give an original account of the age of the gods 
 and of early history down to Suiko Tenno (A.D. 593-628). 
 
 Its authorship is attributed to Shotoku Taishi and Soga no Umako ; and 
 its preface, which purports to be by the latter of these joint authors, states that 
 the book was completed in the year 622. It thus gives itself out to be the book 
 actually mentioned in the Nihongi^ which says that in the year 620 (2Sth of the 
 feminine Suiko Tenno) Shotoku Taishi and Soga no Umako [began to ?] 
 compile by their joint efforts a Record of the MiKado, of the country, of the Omi, 
 Muraji, Tomo no miyatsuko, and Kuni no miyatsuko, of the chiefs of the 
 Mikado's followers, and of the people. This, in the Nihongi, is the first mention 
 
 ^ Chamberlain's Kojiki^ pp. 23, 25. 
 
 2 Pure Shinto 74, 75; Trans. As. Soc. Tap. vii, 417. These are some of Mr. E. 
 M. Salow's masterly Essays on Archaic Japanese mythology and language. In common 
 with all who recognise the growing importance of the subject, and the excellence of the 
 Essays, I venture to express a hope that Mr. Satow will ere long publish them in a col- 
 lected form. 
 
 3 Letter of 29th March 18S9. 
 
19° TJie Night of tlie Gods. [Axis 
 
 of any records of the court The A'ihongi aXso says that in 6Si Temmu Tenno 
 commanded prince KawaShima (river-island) and eleven others Cwhich makes a 
 suspiciouslyzodiacal and chronological dozen 'to compileahistorv'of the MiKados 
 and an account of ancient matters. The work of these twelve is not considered 
 to have been preserved ; that is, as the statements about it may be interpreted, 
 their work (if they ever worked) is not extant as specifically theirs. But it might 
 be theorised that we may have the result of the labours of the named chroni- 
 clers, including Yasumaro and Hiyeda no Are, in the Kozhiki, Kuzhiki, and 
 Nihongi (tOA of which titles, by-the-way, are Chinese, not Japanese). 
 
 The remarkable modern scholar and critic Alotoori Xorinaga (1730-1801) 
 condemns the Kuzhiki as a forger)-, compiled at a much later date than it 
 pretends-to, and chiefly made-up from the Kozhiki and Xilwngi. The truth 
 may very well be that all the three are equally entitled to genuine respect, 
 and Mr. Aston says that if the Kuzhiki " is genuine, which I think is quite 
 possible, it is older than any of them,"' by its own profession. The Kuzhiki 
 contains passages which are also in the Kogo-Shiu-i (composed in S07), and 
 mentions Saga Tenno (810-823). But this is not enough to destroy its 
 character ; and " parts of it," writes Mr. Satow,= " seem to be based upon other 
 sources than those abovementioned, and are of considerable value." Mr. 
 Chamberlain says' that Motowori's condemnation of the Kuzhiki " has been 
 considered rash by later scholars." 
 
 It is but natural that we should still find in Japan other 
 reminiscences of the Pillar idea. There is a curious copper pillar, 
 the Sorinto, at Nikko. which is said to be one of six in various parts 
 of Japan. The present pillar was put-up in 1643, and isacj-linder 
 42 feet high.* Its Japanese pedigree seems to be Buddhist ; and 
 the .syllable to, IMr. Aston says,' is mereh' the Indian word tope ; 
 which also appears in Korean and in some Chinese dialects as taf, 
 and in Siam as sathup. The term To is not confined to large 
 pagodas or pillars ; small structures consisting of thirteen single 
 stones piled one on another are not infrequent in Japan, and are 
 known by the same name. 
 
 The material of the fine shinto temples of the Ge-kii at Ise, 
 which are most elaborate works of art, is wood alone, and they are 
 rebuilt " ever)' 20 years," say the accounts ; but this period will 
 perhaps prove to be in origin the astronomical c\"cle of 19 years; 
 indeed it is added '' the construction of the new temple is commenced 
 towards the end of the period." The rebuildings are worked by 
 ha\ing two adjacent sites, and the spot for the central Pillar is at 
 all times protected, on the unoccupied plot, by a small cage or 
 
 ' Letter of 29th March 1SS9. 
 
 - Revival of Pure Siiiiito, 23. ' Kojiki,\. 
 
 * Satow and Hawes, p. 445. » Letter of 9 March 1SS9. 
 
Myths?\ The Axis as Pillar. 191 
 
 shrine.^ Shinto temples have, as a rule, a chapel for the emblem 
 of the Kami ; but in one at Kami-no-Suwa there is no chapel, the 
 special seat of the god being a hole in the ground surrounded 
 by four solid pillars of different woods, which are renewed every 
 7 years. 
 
 As to this twentieth year, Odusseus comes home in the 20th year {Odyss. 
 ii, 176, xvii, 327) ; Telemachos makes his journey in a swift ship with 20 men 
 (ibid, ii, 212) ; 20 geese are in the house of Penelope, and the eagle breaks all 
 their necks (xix, 537). 
 
 This Pillar idea is of course by no means the exclusive property 
 of Japan. Chinese legend has its world-Pillar of fabulous length 
 which sustains the Earth. As related in a Taoist work of 1640, in 
 60 volumes, the Shin-seen-f ung-kcen^ a king once upon a time tried 
 to swarm up it into heaven, but it is so smooth that he slipped down 
 again ;- a tale of the Jack-and-the-Beanstalk order, which cannot, 
 on the (now) burlesque side, be unrelated to the popular custom of 
 our own " greasy pole," alias mat de Cocagne. 
 
 It demands no stretch of the imagination to place in the same 
 category the long Egyptian column of the Harris papyrus " which 
 commences in the upper and in the lower heavens,"^ and that too 
 which the Pcrcmhru (Book of the Dead) calls "the spine of the 
 Earth." The Tlinkeet Indians on the N. W. coast of America 
 say the Earth rests on a Pillar.* The above Chinese pillar has its 
 pendant in the Talmudic Pillar joining the upper and the lower 
 paradises, up and down which the righteous climb and slide on 
 sabbaths and festivals.*^ In Plato's and Cicero's'' story of Er the 
 Pamphylian, who rose from the dead, the bright Column which 
 extends through all heavens and earth is used by the earth-visiting 
 spirits ; and both these last are variants of Jacob's Ladder. Then 
 there is Pindar's' Tower of Kronos, whose pillars we have later 
 on. 
 
 A passage in the Odyssey (i, 127) has struck me as possessing a hidden 
 significance. Tt;Xe'Ma;(of bears the spear of Pallas Athene and sets it in the 
 spear-stand against a great pillar, Trpos- Kiova ixaKpfjv. This I think (and it has 
 
 ' Trans. As. Soc. Jap. vii, 401 (Mr. Satow) ; Satow and Hawes, Handbook, 175, 
 207, 474. 
 
 ^ Chi. Repository vn, 519. ' Records of Pas/, x, 152. 
 
 ' Mr. J. G. Fraser (citing Holmberg) Folklore, i, 150. 
 * Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Jndenthum ii, 318 (cited by Dr. Warren). 
 ' Reptib. vi, 3, 3 ; 6, 6 and 7, 7. ' Olymf. ii, 56 f. 
 
'92 The Nig Jit of the Gods. \Axis 
 
 engaged many commentators) may be a myth-fragment recognising the identity 
 or the double emploi of the Spear and Pillar as Axis-symbols. 
 Atlas, when the Odyssey describes him (vii, 244, 255) as the 
 father of Kalupso, is called the pillar of the heavens ; and the 
 island Ogugia where Kalupso dwells is called the navel of the sea. 
 
 At the opposite side of the world, there was in the Aztec temple 
 at Mexico a richly ornamented Pillar of peculiar sanctity ; and in 
 the centre of the central temple of the Incas at Cuzco there was a 
 pillar at the centre of a circle traversed by a diameter from East to 
 West.i 
 
 In a Shinto temple at Kashima in Japan there is the celebrated 
 Pivot-stone, the kaname ishi, a Pillar whose foundation is at the 
 centre of the earth, and which was sanctified by the local god 
 sitting on it when he came down from heaven.- It restrains the 
 gigantic catfish which causes earthquakes ; and it is but a type of a 
 numerous class. There are, as Mr. W. G. Aston informs me,'' two 
 of them within five minutes' walk of the British Legation at Tokio. 
 One of these is covered with salt by the devout and ailing, who 
 afterwards rub the salt on the suffering portions of their bodies. 
 
 Near the temple of Hecate at Megara, said Pausanias, was a stone called 
 the Memorial {ava-KK^Tpa) on which the goddess had sat down to rest from the 
 fatigues of looking for her daughter Persephone. Above Delphi, he men- 
 tioned another elevated stone wherefrom the sibyl Herophile sang forth her 
 oracles (x, 1 2). 
 
 The idea of the rock-seat or stone throne is to be met with 
 everywhere. The dukes of Carinthia were installed on a stone 
 near the ruins of an ancient town in a valley, and seated thereon 
 swore with naked sword to govern with justice.* Near Upsal is 
 the similar stone of the kings of Sweden, and it is surrounded 
 by 12 lesser stones. The king is crowned and takes the oath 
 seated on the stone.'' 
 
 Conn the Hundred-fighter trod on a stone which screamed all 
 o\'er the land. This \\as the lia Fail, or (throne) stone of Fal. 
 At Tara it screamed under every king whom it acknowledged, and 
 carried the sovereignty (for the Goidels of Milesian descent) with 
 it. The tradition that this Tara stone went to Scone, the capital 
 of the kingdom of Alban, and thence, "favoured by" Edward I, 
 to Westminster Abbey is much doubted." Fal is the same god 
 
 ' Paradise Found, p. 247. - S tow and Hawes : Handbook, 475. 
 
 ' Letter of 9th March 1SS9. ^ Joan. Boemius : De morilms ^e7itium, iii. 244. 
 
 * Olaus Misgnus : De ritti gentiitin septent. i, iS ; viii, i. 
 
 '■' Rhys's Hill. LcUs. 206, 576. 
 
Myths:\ 
 
 The Axis as Pillar. 
 
 193 
 
 we have in Inis Fail, tlie island of Fal, a name of Ireland ; and 
 the Japanese Rock-seat of heaven, Ame no Iha-kura, is straightly 
 identical with this throne-stone. The lia Fail was properly the 
 temair ( = Tara) of Fal, and temair must therefore mean hill, 
 height, acropolis. The stone was also called in Fal mor = The 
 Great Fal, which makes a god of it, at once. 
 
 (This perhaps ought to have gone under the heading " Beth-Els," but it is 
 also wanted under " The Rock of Ages " and " The Navel.") There is also the 
 stone at Kingston-on-Thames. 
 
 In Mailduin's voyage he comes to a colossal silver eight-sided 
 pillar standing in the sea, out of which it rises without any land or 
 earth" about it : nothing but the boundless ocean. Its base, deep 
 down in the water, was invisible, and so was its top, on account of its 
 immense height. They heard some one speaking on the top of 
 the pillar in a loud clear glad voice, but knew not what he said, 
 nor in what tongue he spoke.' This is doubtless too the ancient 
 lofty boreal column of the Greek geographers, in the land of the 
 Celts, and the significance of the octagonal form has been shown 
 in "The Number Eight." See also the octagonal Japanese spear 
 at p. 171 supra. 
 
 Wei-kan, writes Mr. A. R. Colquhoun,- is the name given in 
 S.W. China to wooden or stone pillars erected to the " tutelary 
 genius " as votive offerings. The same term is applied to the masts 
 or poles raised at the doors of all official residences. At Kwan-yii 
 in W. Yunnan an old deserted )-amen or govern- 
 ment office has two stone wei-kan in front, carved 
 in solid sandstone. 
 
 In this neighbourhood there are "a curiously great 
 number of temples, wei-kan, cemeteries, and paifang." 
 (The pai-fang is the pai-loo or sacred portal, as to which 
 much is said here under the head of " The Dokana.") All 
 the wei-kan are similar in design and structure, and are 
 about 15 to 20 feet high, and six inches scjuare " often 
 bevelled at the edges." This, and the superposed squares 
 at the base of the drawing, show that the pillars are octagonal 
 (which Mr. Colquhoun took for mere corner-bevelling) '< 1^ " =• 
 
 giving us the Chinese (and Egyptian) sacred number of the «ivW"'*>V * V**- • 
 Eight half-cardinal points. " A small cap is usually fi.xed on the top," and abcut 
 mid-height the pillar transfixes the inverted truncated pyramid shown. Mr. 
 Colquhoun considers them " symbols of Nature worship," but does not define 
 
 Dr. Joyce's Celtic Romames^ 150. 
 Across Chrysc, i, .\xx ; ii, 130, 138, 162. 
 
194 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 the meaning he here gives the word Nature. There are also timber wei-kan. 
 Some 5 days later, near Mau-kai, " the number of pai-fang, 
 wei-kan, and temples was remarkable." Several primitive 
 types of wei-kan were seen. (The reader is requested to 
 refer to the remarks about the Mahomedan towers in the 
 same locality, infra.) 
 
 The ancient perron or peron of Western 
 Belgium, of which the finest example is still in 
 the Liege market-place, is a pillar surmounting 
 a four-sided flight of three steps (five at Liege). 
 On top of the pillar is a (conventional) fir-cone. 
 In 1303 the peron was the arms of Liege. On coins of the 12th 
 century a ball was on the pillar. Oaths were taken on the peron,^ 
 a word which simply means stone, that is the upright stone which 
 was the pillar ; and it was the justice and judgement-seat of old 
 time. I suppose the name connects itself with the god Perun, see 
 p. 198. 
 
 Mr. Consul F. S. A. Bourne, in his valuable Journey in South- 
 western China^ mentions " on the road from Na-chi Hsien square 
 pillars of stone, carved at the top to represent the head of Amita 
 Buddha. At a distance they look just like Roman terminal 
 statues, and are loaded with votive offerings." There can be no 
 doubt that Amita the Immeasurable is chief of all Buddhas. His 
 heaven is the Pure Land, Sukhavati (in Japanese Buddhism, 
 Jo-do) ; and he is invoked in Japan oftener than any other 
 Buddhic power, in the well-known formula corrupted in the 
 common mouth into Ndviu ami ddbicts. I suggest that the position 
 of Amita Buddha's head on the top of the pillar indicates him as a 
 Northern supernal deity at the point of the Earth-axis ; and in 
 this I am not forgetting that in later Northern Buddhism his 
 paradise has been transferred to the West. (See also "The Foot- 
 print" in Vol. II.) 
 
 The planting of a post in the middle of the JNIarae (village-green, Greek 
 agora, see p. 155) is the Maori custom of demand for satisfaction for blood 
 shed by the people of the village. The party demanding or challenging by 
 the erection of the post is a near relation of the murdered. If the party so 
 challenged does not make compensation by parting with all or the greater 
 proportion of his goods and valuables, the post-planter seizes one of the people 
 of the challenged village, who nowadays is forced, if a man to marrj" a \ioman, 
 if a woman to marr)- a man of the injured tribe. 
 
 In the case of a wife-murder at Piranui, up the Waitotara river, in June 
 ' M. Gohlet d'Alviella's Mig. dcs Syiiil'oles, p. 130. 
 2 Tally. Paper C. 5371 (18SS), pp. 3, 4- 
 
Myths^ The Axis as Pillar. 195 
 
 1S90, a post was two days afterwards planted in the centre of the pah, and the 
 murdering husband gave away a double-barrelled gun, a large piece of green- 
 stone (Jade) and 52 acres of land.' 
 
 The Law and the later Hebrew prophets, says Prof. Robertson 
 Smith, look on the ritualistic use of sacred pillars as idolatrous.^ 
 [They were thus, it seems to me, combating a superstitio from an 
 earlier fallen or falling creed.] Hosea (iii, 4) speaks of the 
 massebhah or pillar, as an indispensable feature of the sanctuaries 
 in Northern Israel — Shechem, Bethel, Gilgal, and others. 
 "For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king, and without 
 prince, and without sacrifice, and without pillar (or obelisk), and without ephod 
 or teraphim" (Hosea, iii, 4). "According to the goodness of his land they 
 have made goodly pillars, or obelisks" — {Ibid, x, i). Then follows " He shall 
 smite their altars, he shall spoil their pillars," which indicates a muddled te.xt. 
 Prof Smith says the massebhah was worshipped like the Arabian 
 nosb or upright stone, and cites the pillars of Usous which I 
 elsewhere mention, and the blood of beasts of the chase spilt 
 to them. He goes on to suggest that the pillar, as a visible 
 embodiment of the deity, in process of time came to be fashioned 
 into a statue of stone, as the sacred tree or post developed into 
 an image of wood,^ but I want also, and on a more direct line, to 
 develop the pillar into the tower, the minaret, the steeple. 
 In the Corpus Inscr. Setiiit., tab. viii, 44 (says Dr. Wallis 
 Budge hereon) is a copy of a ri2!iO in the British Museum. 
 The inscription speaks of " this ri21J72 " ; its shape is : 
 
 Deuteronomy contains two furious injunctions (vii, 5 ; xii, 3; 
 to dash in pieces the pillars or obelisks, and burn the Asherim, of 
 other nations ; but the divine order being also to smite, and 
 sacrifice, and show no mercy to, the people of those nations, we 
 see that the fury is not against sacred pillars as such, but only 
 as being the gods (that is the devils) of the enemy. One of the 
 commandments in Leviticus (xxvi, i. Deut. xvi, 22) is " ye shall 
 not rear up a pillar (or an obelisk), nor shall ye place any figured 
 stone in your land, to bow down to it." The Vulgate here has 
 titulos and insignein lapidcin. There is the utmost contradiction in 
 the various texts, indicating obviously (for me), as stated above, 
 the proscribing of a superstitio that was dying very hard. 
 
 It is not without its bearing upon all this that M. Hali^vy pointed out at the 
 Societe Asiatiqiie (12 Oct. 18S3) that EI, the Semitic god-name, has for its 
 primitive sense " a column." He also recognised the connexion between the 
 
 ' The Lam-ct, 1 8/ 1 0/90, p. 84S. 
 
 - Rclig. of Semites, 1S6, 1S7. This point is also dealt-with under " The Tree " infra, 
 
 N 2 
 
196 The Night of the Gods. \^Axis 
 
 column, the cone, and the mountain. (This portion of our pillar subject is closely 
 connected with the Beth-Els, to which the reader is requested to refer back.) 
 
 Movers pointed out how the main deity of Assyria, Babylon, Syria, and 
 Phcenicia (with Carthage), dwelt in the highest heaven, and also on mountains, 
 on the high places of the earth ; and was represented in preference by one or 
 many columns, pyramids, or obelisks in the temples or before them. He was 
 called El or Elion, the Most High ; Bel or Ba'al, the Master ; and he also had 
 the epithets of Adon, lord ; Moloch, king ; Adod or Adad, king of gods.' 
 Baal-Peor and Baal-Hermon were the gods of those sacred mountains. (Baal- 
 Peor ^ Belphegor = lord of the opening, slit, or mountain-pass.) 
 
 Supplementing what is stated at p. 116, I shall here add that Smith's 
 Dictionary of /he Bible {\i6o) rcco^mscs that Elohim is the plural of Eloah ; 
 stating that the singular, with few exceptions, occurs only in poetrj'. That is, 
 in accordance with the custom of all well-known languages (as borne in view in 
 this /?iqi/iry), that the use of Eloah had been long going out, in favour of 
 Elohim. The prose exceptions in which Eloah occurs are Nehemiah ix, 17 : 
 " thou art an Eloah of forgiveness, gracious and full of compassion, slow to 
 anger, and plenteous in mercy," (the English version here has " a God "), and 
 ii Chron. x.xxii, i 5. 
 
 " It will be found," says the Dictionary^ " upon examination of the passages 
 in which Elohim occurs, that it is chiefly in places where God is exhibited only 
 in the plenitude of his Power." Rabbi Yehudha Hallevi (12th century) said 
 " idolaters call each personified Power eloah, and all collectively Elohim." 
 [Just so ; and that is what the Jews did too.] " He interpreted Elohim as the 
 most general name of the deity, distinguishing him as manifested in the 
 exhibition of his Power." Abarbanel said " Elohim conveys the idea of the 
 impression made by his Power." It will be noted here that Smith's Dic- 
 tionary's opinion is but a repetition of that of these Jewish Rabbis ; and also 
 that the plural term Elohim, as meaning all the Eloahs, would be thus a 
 straight equivalent of Khabirim, as meaning all the Powers, all the mo\ing 
 activating Forces, all the Gods, of the Universe-Machine. 
 
 " Doubtless," goes on Smith, " Elohmi is used in many cases of the gods 
 of the heathen, who included in the same title the god of the Hebrews." The 
 Philistines say in i Saiitiiel'w, 8 ; " who shall deliver us out of the hand of these 
 mighty Elohim " [of Israel] ? " These are the Elohim that smote the Egyptians 
 with all manner of smiting. The English here has " gods " in the plural, with 
 a small g. Why the small g, one wonders? In i Sam. xxx, 15 the "young 
 man of Egypt " says to David : " Swear unto me by the Elohim that thou wilt 
 not kill me." Here the English is " God." Again one wonders why the singular, 
 and the big G ? The Syrians said " Jehovah is an Eloah of the hills, but he 
 is not an Eloah of the valleys" (i Kings xx, 28). Here again we have "god" 
 with a small g. King Abimelech remarks to Abraham {Gen. xxi, 23) that the 
 Elohim are with him, Abraham, in all that he does, and therefore requires him 
 to take his oath by the Elohim. The Midianites say that the Elohim delivered 
 Midian into the hands of Gideon [Judges vii, 14) ; and in a strangest passage the 
 sons of Heth call Abraham a prince or exalted-one of the Elohim {Geu. x.xiii, 6). 
 
 ' Giiif;naurs Crcu/er, ii, S72, S75, SS2. 
 
Myilis?\ The Axis as Pil/ar. 197 
 
 Joseph tells Pharaoh {Ge?i. xli, i6) that the Elohim will give him, Pharaoh, 
 a reassuring answer. He also tells his own brothers (xlii, iS) that he fears the 
 Elohim. David (i Sam. xxii, 3) speaks to the king of Moab of what the 
 Elohim will do for him, David. All these cases are referred to in Smith's 
 Dictionary, which goes on to state : " That Jehovah is identical with Elohim, 
 and not a separate being, is indicated by the joint use of Jehovah-Elohim." 
 The obvious way of clarifying this statement is to say that Jehovah was the 
 proper name of one of the, of the chief one of the, many Eloahs who were 
 comprised in the plural Elohim. And note that Jehovah ends like Eloah or 
 AshSrah or Massebhah. 
 
 Capt. Conder mentions a solitary pillar in the middle of a plain 
 near Beyrout which is called 'Amud el-Bcnat, column of the girls. 
 He suggests it is due to one of the followers of Simeon Stylites, for 
 " it is difficult to see with what other object solitary pillars are 
 likely to have been erected so far from any main road or ruined 
 tovvn."^ If the views put forward in this Inquiry should find an 
 echo, there will be little difficulty in accounting for solitary pillars. 
 
 The Stylitae of our fifth century find their analogue in the yogi 
 of Allahabad who was said in 1 869 to have then sat for some fifty 
 years on a raised stone pedestal. It is true he climbed down daily 
 to stretch his legs and bathe in the Ganges." 
 
 As to orij-Xor, see the heading " Magnes," where (under the name MeDousa) 
 I make it standing-stone ; Xos being = \as, Xaoi, Xaas, stone. (See the Stulos 
 again under " The Tree " infra.) 
 
 A Russian fairy-king hides his children in or upon a pillar to 
 remove them from the attacks of a devouring Bear whose fur is of 
 iron.^ This is obviously North-polar. 
 
 The earliest written account of St. George known to have been 
 circulated in Britain, before in point of fact, his " Merry England " 
 was as yet well made, is in the Pilgrimage of Arculfus to the Holy 
 Land circa 670. It contains the Pillar, Spear, divine Horse, Print 
 in a stone, and so forth : 
 
 There stands in a house in DiosPolis a marble pillar to which George was 
 bound and scourged, and on which his likeness impressed itself A wicked 
 man rides up to it and strikes his lance against the picture, and the iron lance- 
 head enters the pillar as though it were snow, and cannot be withdrawn ; 
 while the handle breaks off. The horse also falls dead, and the man in his 
 tumble catching at the pillar, his ten fingers enter it as though it were clay, 
 and there stick fast. On prayer and repentance he is however released, but the 
 finger-marks "appear down to the present day up to the roots in the marble 
 pillar, and the sainted Arculf put into their place his own ten fingers " ; and the 
 
 ' Heth and Moab, p. 6. " Himalayas and Indian Plains, p. SS. 
 
 ^ Ralston's i?2Mj. Folli-Tales, 134. 
 
198 The Night of the Gods. \_Axis 
 
 "horse's blood remains indelible on the pavement down to our times." "The 
 sainted Arculf told us another narrative, as to which there is no doubt, about 
 the same George''; to whose pillar a horseman rode up, commending himself 
 and his horse to George's protection, vowing the horse to George ; and the 
 horse became rooted to the ground at the foot of the pillar.' 
 Here \vc clearly have a lost loadstone legend (see p. 142), and 
 reminiscences of horse-sacrifice also ; and compare it further with 
 Vishnu issuing from the Pillar (p. 203 infra). DiosPolis was 
 Lydda ; and see what is said about Lydia and the Magnet (p. 
 146). It is needless to repeat what Gibbon said about George (of 
 Cappadocia) ; but there need be little doubt that this George is 
 the Jirjis who Moslems say was the Al-Khedr or Khizr of the 
 Koran (ch. xviii), and who was a transmigration of Elias or ElYah. 
 See the famous apologue acted by Al-Khedr in the chapter men- 
 tioned, and so well used by Voltaire. Allah sent Moses to find 
 Al-Khedr at a Rock where two seas met, and where a fish took to 
 the water. The station of Elias or George, Makam Iliyas (or Khidr) 
 is marked on the Ordnance Map of the Aksa mosque at Jerusalem. 
 There are numerous Russian legends which seem to separate the pair Ilya 
 and Georgy, Yury, or Vegory the Brave.^ Ilya (Elijah) has in these his flaming 
 chariot, succeeds to the Slavonian thunder-god Perun (see p. 194), and destroys 
 devils with his stone-arrows as he clatters across the sky. Georgy destroys 
 snakes and dragons, and the wolf is his Dog. On his day (in spring) there 
 is a Green Yegory among the Slovenes, like our Jack-in-the-Green. 
 Of course we have (on another side) a supreme antique origin for St. 
 George's Day in the Athenian pagan calendar which put the feast of Zeus 
 Georgos in the month of JMemakterion (Nov.-Dec). A Scythian tribe called 
 themselves Georgoi ; and so on. 
 
 In Welsh legend the naine of the Spearsman Peredur Pa/adyr Hir (of the 
 long pal or spear), an unmistakeable Spear-axis god, is often associated with 
 his brother Gwrgi ;' and both are sons of iTZ/ffer (more anciently iT/euther son 
 of Gwrgwst) with the great following, one of the 13 princes of the North. 
 Peredur is one of 7 brothers, and Corvann the horse of the sons of Eliller 
 bears only Gwrgi and Peredur, who thus resemble a sort of Castor and Pollux, 
 and both became Christian Welsh saints. (Some of the Welsh mythic names 
 in El may disclose to us more than we expect.) 
 
 THE OBELISK. If the Menhir be, as Capt. Conder con- 
 siders,^ the ancestor of the obelisk, we should at once claim all such 
 " long stones " or rather talt stones (menhirs), as symbols of the 
 Universe-axis. 
 
 1 Pal. Pilgrims' Text Poc. 1SS9, p. 57. 
 
 2 Ralston'.s Riiss. Folk-Tales (an inv.iluable book) 337, 344. 
 
 2 J. Loth, Les Mabini^i;ion (1SS9) ii, 45, 46, 320. ■• Helh and Moab, p. 197. 
 
ATyt/isI] The Axis as Pillar. 199 
 
 At Sicyon a pyramidal stone was adored under the name of 
 Zeus Meilichios (Paus. ii, 9, 6). Apollo and Artemis had in many 
 places no other image than a shorter or longer stone in the form of 
 a pyramid or of a pillar. Such were those of Artemis Patroa, also 
 at Sicyon, and of Apollo Karinos in the g)'mnasium of Megara 
 {ibid, i, 44, 2). 
 
 The obelisk, te;;^en ^^^^^^ I and the pyramid seem to have had 
 
 an original connexion in symbolism, if we may judge from 
 the inscriptions of the 5th dynasty cited by E. de Rouge, which 
 frequently mention sacred monuments of this figure : which I 
 manifestly combines the two. I would here remind the reader J^ 
 that the obelisk terminates in a pyramid, which termination or 
 point was called the beiiben in Egyptian, having the same 
 signification as pyramidion in Greek. The benben was venerated 
 
 in a temple of On (properly An | ) with a devotion similar to 
 
 that paid to the Omphalos in the temple of Delphi. The 
 Ethiopian royal conqueror Piankhi ascended alone to the benben 
 chamber, and sealed it up after his visit.^ This recalls the phalli 
 at Hierapolis and the pointed cap and top windows of the Irish 
 round-towers. 
 
 Maspero" gives a funereal text which says to the deceased : 
 Thou penetratest in het-Benben for ever during the feast (.') ; thou 
 penetratest in the chapel during the happy days, for thou art 
 the "phcenix" (bennu), form of Ra. This temple het-Benben 
 
 BJ J ,_^ or J J fl LTZD or ly I was thus connected 
 with the legend of the bennu' and seems also to have been called 
 het-Bennu J ^^ (see also " Divine Birds"). 
 
 Although the most ancient existing obelisk, that of An, 
 refers itself to the 12th dynasty, the inscriptions which E. de 
 Rouge cited seem to leave no doubt that they were extant at a 
 much earlier period. The obelisks that we know were in pairs at 
 the entrance to the temples (like as the Indian pillars were) in 
 front of the first pylon, the Indian toran (see "The Dokana"). 
 Mariette Bey* says this ancient city of An was the On 1t^ of 
 Genesis (see also p. 116), the Aven of Ezekiel, and the Beth- 
 Shemesh of Jeremiah : it is the ILlft of the Copts ; and its Greek 
 
 ' Brugsch : Hist, of Egj'pt 1S79, i, 129. ^ Fap. du Louvre, p. 50. 
 
 ^ J. de Rouge : Geog. Aiic. 1891, 81, 84. * Outlines {by Brodrick) 1S90, p. 17. 
 
The Night of the Gods. [_A. 
 
 VIS 
 
 name Heliopolis may have been a translation of Pa-Ra, House of Ra 
 '-^® Jr. Its obelisk was put up by ;;^eper-ka-Ra-Usertsen I. of 
 
 the I2th dynasty (3064 B.C.?). The name An, which we still con- 
 tinue to hide from each other under this Greek word Heliopolis, 
 means simply Pillar;' and Mr. Flinders Petrie states- that the very 
 early sculptures at Medum teach us that the d/i was then (not an 
 obelisk but) an octagonal fluted column with a square tenon on 
 the top. 
 
 Maspero says the true place of all obelisks was in front of the 
 Colossi on each side of the main entrance of the temple ; but Mr. 
 Flinders Petrie says that at Tanis there seems to have been a close 
 succession of obelisks and statues along the main avenue leading to 
 the temple, without the usual corresponding pylons. They were 
 ranged in pairs : two obelisks, two statues ; then two more obelisks 
 and two shrines ; then again two obelisks.^ " In sober truth," writes 
 M. Maspero,"* " the obelisks are a more shapely form of the standing 
 stone or menhir." This is in accordance with the views here urged, 
 though of course the general theory of the Liqniry may be said to 
 prime this (to me indubitable) analogy. 
 
 Small obelisks about 3 feet high are found in tombs as early as 
 the 4th d)'nasty, placed right and left of the stela, that is on either 
 side of the door into the dwelling of the dead.* 
 
 The primitive Shanars of Tinevelly put up round graves or shrines a 
 number of small obelisks on which they believe the soul or divinity perches, for 
 it disdains the level ground.^ This is a novel view of the obelisk, and seems a 
 reminiscence of the deity at the summit of the Universe-a.xis. 
 
 From the 22nd dynasty the obelisk |j was employed as the ideoglyph of 
 
 the word men, stability, and is used for that syllable in the name of the great 
 god Amen," which throws doubt upon his name meaning hidden, mystic.* 
 [Note, in passing, this men and «/t'«hir.] 
 
 The following words seem to ask for comparison, and their analogy seems 
 to point in the same direction as the theories here urged as to the pillar and 
 the heavens-mountain (Pierret, Vocab. 183, 207, 208) : 
 
 man D ^ 1 obelisk (Brugsch). 
 
 man J' O 1 obelisk, archaic form (E. de Rouge). 
 
 ' Pierret's Vocah. pp. t,i, 34, 73, etc. - Academy 24 Jan. 1S91, p. 95. 
 
 ^ Maspero's Egypt. Arch. (Edwards) loi ; Petrie's Tanis, i. 
 
 ' Maspero, ibid. loi, 103. 
 
 ' " Demonolatry," in Conlcmp. Rev. xxvii, 373 (1S75). 
 
 « Pienet, Diet. 3S3, 35. 
 
Myths^ The Axis as Pillar. 
 
 men ^ " " " ' J or ' " ' ft o"^ ft °i' — to last, to rest in place. 
 
 '^"'^ U "'^'^ -!i .!]/ ii 
 
 men 
 
 
 the heavens. 
 
 
 men 
 
 
 o, r^ ^ [^ 
 
 p-^ mountain. 
 
 an 
 
 
 or -J..^-^ or 
 
 Q mountain 
 
 
 ■ 1 1 
 
 cm^ 
 
 valley, mountainous 
 
 region. 
 Obelisks were actually adored. At Karnak (Thebes) pious 
 foundations existed in honour of four obelisks to which loaves 
 (conical, no doubt ?) and libations were offered. On some scarabs 
 a man adoring an obelisk is found engraved in a ran or cartouche : 
 " a circumstance," said de Rouge with great justice, 
 "which has not been sufficiently noticed."' It 
 becomes a leading fact for me, in my contentions for the central 
 supremacy of the Axis, and its representation in the poles, pillars, 
 obelisks, towers, and steeples of the world (see also p. 237 infra). 
 
 Another view (which is here also always kept in view as parallel if not 
 coalescent) was favoured by de Rougd, who pointed out that " a comparative 
 study of these little monuments proves that the obelisk was revered because it 
 was the symbol of Amen the generator. If the series of scarabs displaying this 
 scene be compared, it will be seen that the obelisk passes insensibly from its 
 ordinary form to that of the phallus. "= M. Pierret adds to this that a box shaped 
 like an obelisk (Louvre) contains a mummied phallus.' 
 
 A curious use of the obelisk is the following : "figures of Osiris in gilt wood 
 have their backs against a little hollow obelisk in which are found the remains 
 of a small embalmed Saurian."' 
 
 ■ There is at present in the temple of Ammon at Thebes, wrote 
 Pausanias (ix, 16) a hymn composed by Pindar inscribed on a 
 triangular pillar near the altar which Ptolemy the son of Lagos 
 dedicated to Ammon. 
 
 The single or the double column appears continually in the 
 scenes depicted on the ancient " monuments of Etruria." For 
 example when PoluDeukes kills Amukos in a prizefight,* an Etrus- 
 can mirror shows Poloces, accoutred for fisticuffs, standing in front 
 of the naked Amuces similarly armed, and seated on a stone near 
 a column. Losna (Diana ?) stands by, leaning on a spear. Other 
 mirrors, with Casutru, Pulutuke, and a third Cabirean god (Chalu- 
 
 ' Pierret : Diet. 384. - Etiule des nwntitucnts de Karnak. 
 
 ^ De Rouge, Notice Soininairc, p. 116. ^ Apoll. Bilil. i, 20. 
 
202 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 chasu) in a group, show sometimes a column, sometimes a house 
 (the heavens-palace) or again horizontal bars like rungs of the 
 Ladder, in the background/ An amphora of Canosa shows behind 
 Castor and Pollux a pair of columns, supporting each a tripod.^ 
 An amphora of Vulci shows the pair with their mother Leda 
 between two columns/ Yet another amphora gives the twins with 
 a single column.^ 
 
 All these, as it seems to me, serve to illustrate also, and perhaps account for, 
 the oppressive column (with its drapery, which may have once indicated the 
 Veil) which was not so very long ago an inevitable item of the " properties " in 
 our national school of portrait-daubing. And this gives occasion for a remark 
 as to the present great boom in " mythology from the monuments." The value 
 of this line of illustration is of course indubitable ; but it has its weakness and 
 its dangers. In building theories upon these scenes from tombs, utensils, and 
 art-objects, it should never be forgotten that we are going for theology to 
 craftsmen ; and besides, that a great portion of the objects belong to periods 
 long past the ages of faith, when the myths were getting worn out, were mori- 
 bund. Look, for a modern example, at the vile and fortuitous agglomerations 
 that our own " monumental and mortuary masons " used to copy and re-copy 
 in the near past, on the tops of the tombstones. 
 
 It would be hard to meet with a more distinct reference to 
 a pillar-god than that passage of the RigVeda which in striking 
 terms asks the question : " Who has beheld Him who, as the col- 
 lective Pillar of heaven, sustains the sky.'' " This question forms the 
 closing refrain of two successive hymns (Wilson iii, 143, 144), and 
 there should be coupled with it another fine passage, where Mitra 
 and Varuna are addressed as " you two who are sovereigns, and 
 uphold together a mansion of a thousand columns. The substance 
 is of gold ; its pillars are of iron ; and it shines in the firmament 
 like lightning" (iii, 348). "Royal Mitra and Varuna, you uphold 
 by your energies earth and heaven " (347). 
 
 The only thing suggested to Wilson the translator of the Rig\'eda and 
 his scholiast Sayana on these passages, was to convert the mansion into a 
 "strong chariot of the deities, supported by innumerable columns," and to add 
 the trifling reflection that " the expression is noticeable as indicating the 
 existence of stately edifices." Of course the mansion is the heavens-palace 
 which so often occupies us here. 
 
 ' M. Maurice Albert, Castor el Pollux^ 1S83, pp. 5, i j2, 135. See also .Saglio's 
 Diet, i, 771, where the two columns are engraved. 
 
 - Castor et Pollux, 82, 127. ^ Brit. Mus. Catalogue, Nos. 555, 562. 
 
 * Castellani Collection, No. 160. 
 
Myths7\ The Axis as Pillar. 203 
 
 Wc must also discern the Universe-pillar in the fourth avatar 
 of Vishnu, when he suddenly issued forth from the centre of a 
 Pillar (see also p. 237 infra) in the form of the NaraSinha or Man- 
 lion — a being neither god nor man nor animal, but partaking of all 
 three — and tore in pieces the demon-tyrant Hiranya-Kasipu' 
 (golden-robe ?) king of the Daityas, who had blasphemed by asking 
 if Vishnu was present in a stone-pillar of the Hall, at the same 
 time striking it, the pillar-axis of the universe, with impious violence. 
 This affords a parallel to Osiris in the tree-trunk, and the 
 resemblance to the legend of George, p. 197 supra, is sufficiently 
 amusing. 
 
 Sir W. W. Hunter, speaking of Abul Fazl's pillar in front of 
 the Lion gate of Jagannath at Puri, mentions another outside a 
 temple at Kendrapara, and a third, sacred to Vishnu, at Jajpur 
 Half-a-century ago, he adds, such pillars were common enough 
 throughout Orissa. " They resemble the Buddhist LatsT The 
 Chinese pilgrim-traveller Hiouen Thsang saw at Tamluk a pillar 
 which was said to have been put up by king Asoka.^ 
 
 The Thaqif Arabs girded their loins of obedience to the idol 
 Lat,' and Sale said* that the idol Allat had a temple at Nakhlah 
 where it was destroyed by Al-Mogheirah under Mahomet's orders 
 in the 9th year of the Hijra. One of the greater signs of the 
 Resurrection will be the reversion of the Arabs to the worship of 
 AlLat and Al Uzza.'' When the conquering Moslems got to India, 
 they found at Sumenat " an idol called Lat or al Lat," which was 
 broken with his own hands by Mahmud ibn Sebecteghin. It 
 was of a single stone, 50 fathoms high, and stood in the centre 
 of a temple supported by 56 pillars of massive gold.'^ This 
 Sumenat is of course Somnath Pattan on the coast of Guzerat, 
 the temple gates of which were taken to Ghazni by the said 
 Mahmud on his destruction of the temple in 1025. The gates 
 which we (per General Nott, 6th September 1842) took at Ghazni 
 were modern frauds. 
 
 Professor W. Robertson Smith says that al-Lat, in Mahomet's 
 time a daughter of the suprem.e god, was earlier the mother of the 
 gods (which is what is here observed upon continually as to the 
 
 ^ Sir M. Williams, Kel. Thought and Life in India^ i, 109. 
 ^ Orissa, 129, 266, 2S9, 309. ^ Mirkhond's Rauzat-iis-Safa 1S91, 1S9. 
 
 * Kordn, pp. xiii, Iviii. 
 
 ^ Persian commentary on Kordn, cli. 71 ; Sale's Kordn, p. xiv ; Hyde's Ret, Vet. 
 Pers. p. 133. 
 
20_| 
 
 The Nii^/il of the Gods. 
 
 [Ax. 
 
 ?jr 
 
 risintj divine generation ousting the older — sa/us est adolescentulis). 
 Her image at Taif was a 4-square white rock which was still 
 pointed-out in Mahometan times below the mosque ; and there is 
 now a mass of white granite, shattered by gunpowder and shape- 
 less, lying beyond the walls below the great mosque to the S.W. 
 The names al-Lat and al-Ozza still survive for this rock and for 
 the summit of the more southerly of two eminences inside the 
 town. At Salkhat De Vogud found a square stele dedicated to 
 al-Lat.' We have here of course also the Alitta of Herodotus 
 (i, 131). See also Mylitta. 
 
 Allat is called the Lady of the Spear in the Babylonian 
 records.^ This is a strange and unlooked-for confirmation of my 
 theories, as it brings together the lat and the spear, both of 
 
 which aie here taken to be axis-symbols. 
 Saragossa can still boast of the famous 
 Our Lady of the Pilar. 
 
 " If any one wished to select one feature of 
 Indian Architecture which would illustrate its rise 
 and progress, as well as its perfection and weak- 
 ness, there are probably no objects more suited 
 for this purpose than the Stambhas or free-stand- 
 ing pillars. They are found of all ages, from the 
 simple and monolithic Lats [see infra^ ' Divine 
 names in Lat-'] which Asoka set up to bear in- 
 scriptions or emblems some 250 years B.C , down 
 to the 17th or perhaps even iSth century of our 
 era. During these 2,000 years they were erected 
 first by the Buddhists, then by the Jains, and 
 occasionally by the other sects in all parts of 
 India ; and notwithstanding their inherent frailty, 
 some 50, it may be 100, are known to be still 
 standing. After the first and most simple, erected 
 by Asoka, it may be safely asserted that no two 
 are alike ; though all bear strongly the impress of 
 the age in which they were erected."^ 
 
 This passage from P^ergusson is of impor- 
 tance for my contentions in this Inquiry, 
 illustrating as it does the very ancient 
 widespread and independent nature of 
 Pillar-\-eneration. We must decline, how- 
 ever, for one moment to admit that " they 
 
 ' Kinship and Marriage, p. 292 etc 
 
 " Dr. K. G. King's Akkadian Gaiesis (iSSS), p. 29. 
 
 ■' Fergusson's Ind. Arcli. p. 277. 
 
 
 £/-ut--^'^-V' 
 
Myiks.'] The Axis as Pillar. 205 
 
 were erected fii'st by the Buddhists." All-assimilating Buddhism 
 may have adopted the Pillar, as I endeavour to show in Vol. II 
 that it adopted the Wheel. 
 
 And Fergusson was not consistent when he (p. 497) developed 
 an antagonistic theory about the Ghazni "Saracenic Minars." 
 " They are, indeed, pillars of victory or Jaya stambhas, like those 
 at Chittore" [which, obiter, is a vast nine-storied tower] "and 
 elsewhere in India, and are such as we might expect to find in a 
 country so long Buddhist." [I confess I cannot follow up a con- 
 nected line of thought here.] " One of them was erected by 
 Mahmiid himself (AD. 977- 1 030) " [the destroyer of the Lat ! ] ; 
 " the other was built or at least finished by Masud, one of his 
 immediate successors" (/c^an As. Soc. Bengal, 1843). The lower 
 part of these towers is an eight--^o\n\.&A star (see " The Number 
 Eight " supra), the upper circular. They are of brickwork, about 
 140 feet high, and faced with terra-cotta ornaments of extreme 
 elaboration and beauty. 
 
 " Several other minars are found further West, even as far as 
 the roots of the Caucasus, which like these were pillars of victory 
 erected by conquerors on their battlefields." 
 
 Here a far-reaching theory is taken for granted in one clause of a sentence, 
 and, as if to answer himself before another could speak, Fergusson elsewhere 
 (p. 56) says of the Surkh Minarand Minar Chakri in Cabul : " these are ascribed 
 by tradition to .A.le.xander the Great, though they are evidently Buddhist monu- 
 ments, meant to mark some sacred spot, or to co)nmemo>-ate some event, the 
 memory of which has passed away." 
 
 That pillars, standing-stones, pierres levees, were erected on 
 battle-fields to the god of battles (by the victors) is a statement 
 that goes of itself, without telling. But the manifest and primary 
 reason of this was because the god of battles was the supreme god, 
 whose proper monument — battle or no battle — such a pillar was. 
 Take for a late example the two enormous stones planted in 862 
 not far from Arras, near the sources of the Scarpe, by Batidoin 
 Bras-de-Fer, first Count of Flanders, in memory of his victory over 
 Charles the Bald. The French are even now putting up a similar 
 thing to their Francs-Tireurs of 1870 near Dijon.' 
 The trophies of a battle lost and won were (see "The Arcana") 
 hung-up on the field on an upright perch or a pole or a tree- 
 trunk ; doubtless as offerings, upon his symbol, to this supreme 
 god of battles ; or a standing-stone on the battle-field was called 
 
 ' Li Tempi, I2lh Nov. 1S91. 
 
2o6 
 
 The Night of the Gods. 
 
 \Axis 
 
 a troph}-. The Greek victors usej even to lop the branches ofT 
 a convenient growing tree, in order to get their (axis; trunk, or 
 pole. 
 
 There is in the Indian Museum at South-Kensington a beau- 
 teous model of the Kutb Minar, at Delhi, in cedar and ivor}-, 95 
 inches high ; which gives the height of the original as 242 feet, 
 its base-diameter at 49 feet 8 inches, and its top-breadth at 13 
 feet. It is the most beautiful example known to exist anywhere. 
 According to the inscription [which might have been put on at any 
 time after the building] this minar was 
 built by Kutub-ud-din' between A. D. 1196 «=^^ 
 
 and 1235. This no doubt was one — the 
 latest — date connected with the Kutb ^^^1^ 
 
 Minar, but such a date is quite valueless 
 when v/e turn to the 22-foot Iron Pillar 
 standing (or l)-ing ?J near it. 
 
 ^u/mii, VYufAis^' . 
 
 
 See also " The North " infra. 
 
Myths:\ 
 
 The Axis as Pillar. 
 
 207 
 
 This last was assigned by Prinsep (again according to its, 
 undated, inscription) to our 3rd or 4th century ; and by Bhan 
 Daji, on the same evidence, to the 5th or 6th century. 
 The diameter of this pillar at the base is i6'4 in., and at the capital 12'05 in. 
 This bar of pure malleable iron without alloy must, at the inside, have been 
 forged 15 centuries ago (Fergusson, pp. 55, 120). 
 
 As the inscription informs us, this iron pillar was dedicated to Vishnu, 
 which is, of course, destructive /«' se of Fergusson's Buddhist origin 
 theory. " There is little doubt," Fergusson goes on (p. 509), "that 
 
 it originally supported a figure of Garuda" 
 
 " but the real 
 
 object of its erection was as a pillar of victory to record the ' defeat 
 of the Balhikas, near the seven mouths of the Sindhu' or Indus." 
 This " real object " need not blind us to the sacred idea of the heavens-bird 
 at the summit of the Universe- Axis (see " Divine Birds"). We also find that 
 "the Balhikas" are a " riddle." This being so, and taking into account the 
 " Seven mouths," we shall perhaps not be far wrong in theorising a supernal 
 heavens-river origin for this "victory" of a war-in-heaven. 
 The Brahmans say this iron pillar goes so deep that it pierces 
 the head of the serpent-god who supports the Earth.' In reality 
 it is only 20 inches below the surface ; but the legend is a 
 Universe-axis one, and parallels that of the Japanese Kaname-ishi 
 p. 192 supra. I also give an outline of the Surkh Minar. 
 
 It will not have escaped notice that 
 these minars are rather towers than pillars 
 — a sort of steeples, in fact — and, I must 
 now refer to one more instance in Fer- 
 gusson (p. 550) which he says "looks 
 more like an Irish round-tower than any 
 other example known, though it is most 
 improbable that there should be any 
 connexion between the two forms." I 
 should not look for connexion other than 
 a relationship in the sense of the Hebrew 
 saying : " We are all of Adam and of 
 Noah." " The native tradition is that a 
 saint Peer Asa lived like Simeon Stylites 
 on its summit." It has been ascribed (on .. 
 a doubtful inscription) to A. D. 1300, «';-rrt. 
 This will claim notice again in the section 
 on Round Towers. 
 
 
 Himalayas and Indian Plains, p. 225. 
 
2o8 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 In Miss Gordon-Cumming's Himalayas and Indian Plains (to 
 which graphic and clear-seeing book I am indebted for some 
 descriptions) arc excellent engravings' of the above mentioned 
 Kutb Minar at Delhi. Miss Gordon-Cumming says it " resembles 
 a Cyclopean red telescope," calls it the most gigantic minaret in the 
 world, and says the Hindus assert it to be much older than the date 
 of the Moslem inscription ; the carving not being Moslem but 
 Brahmanic. The ^oox faces the North, too, like the doors of Hindu 
 temples, while those of Indian mosques always face East, in order 
 that the worshippers may look West to Mecca. As to the name 
 Kutb Minar, of course the root in mi««ret is ndr, fire, from niir to 
 shine ; and Kutub means pole or axis (see " The North " and p. 
 229 iifra). 
 
 In Dr. Schuchhardt's recent book on the late Dr. Schliemann's 
 excavations,- it is stated that the meaning of the celebrated Colum.n 
 between the two rampant lion " supporters " over the Northern gate 
 (it looks N.W.) of Mycenae "is not }'et satisfactorily explained." 
 In Phrygia, Prof Ramsay has found seven similar groups of two 
 lions and a Column"' ; one, at least, over the door of a rock tomb. 
 In an eighth Phrygian group the lions place their fore paws against 
 the figure of a goddess, said to be C}"bele. On a carved ivory 
 handle from Menidi has been found what might be a close copy of 
 the group over the Mycenae gate. There is thus nothing exclu- 
 sively Mycenaean about the .symbolism, and of course my suggestion 
 here about the Column must be that it was a symbol of the Axis. 
 I shall just add that the two Eg)-ptian gods called the Rehehui,"' 
 <=> II ^ W ^ ^ are also called " Two Lions " ~^ '^ ^^ and Shu 
 (Atlas the axis-god) and Tefnut (his consort? seep. 164) are so 
 represented also. 
 
 I beg the Reader to bear in mind the connexion perpetually 
 d\velt-on in these pages between the Pal, the Pole, and the Pillar. 
 
 ' Himalayas and Indian Plains, pp. 221, 222, 227. 
 
 ■^ "Translated by Eugenie Sellers," 1S91, p. 142. 
 
 ' four. Hell. Scic. iii, iS, 242, 256. 
 
 ■• Pienet's Diet. s.v. 
 
Mylhs?^ Divine N^ames in Lat-. 209 
 
 16. — Divine Names in Lat-. 
 
 IT seems natural to start with Lal-iiim and Lat-inns, which 
 seem to be adjectival forms from lat, which I suggest in limine 
 is the Greek 'Xaa'^ Xa? and the Indian lat, a stone-pillar. 
 
 Latiiiin, " etymology unknown." Saturn fled there for 
 sanctuary from his son Jupiter, which is like Orestes flying for 
 refuge to the Omphalos, and is quite consistent with the sacred 
 stone explanation. " Latiai'is or Z«/ialis Sancte Juppiter" (Lucan, 
 i, 198) was sacrificed-to with one annual man on Mons Alba (the 
 white heavens-mountain), his feast was called /«/iar or feriae 
 Latinx. Laf\a.\e caput, was the head of a statue of Jupiter 
 (Lucan, i, 535). This ought really to have been a nnere upright 
 stone with a human head on the top (see lu/ra under " The 
 Tree," as to the stulos). The latiar was invented by Tarquinus 
 Superbus, the Supreme Turner (of the heavens) and was there- 
 fore naturally common to the Latins, Romans, Hernici, and 
 Volscians. 
 
 Lafmus the king, that is the god of Latium was, according to 
 Virgil, son of Faunus (which see) and Marica. Servius confounded 
 her with Venus, as a sea-nymph or goddess ; and Lactantius 
 (i, 21), who perhaps found her name inconvenient, said she was 
 Circe, deified after death ! ^neas (in his own country Alveaq and 
 Alveiat) cut-out Turnus, and so married LaN-inia the daughter of 
 Latinus. Turnus was king of the Rutuli, and we must read that 
 as a revolving-heavens god (tornus T6pvo<; a lathe, a turner's wheel) 
 chief of the wheel-deities (?). Turnus cast an enormous terminal 
 stone (axis-pillar) at .-Eneas before he was killed by the Trojan's 
 sword ; and he had previously killed PalLas the axis-stone giant. 
 Another version (in Photius) makes Hercules kill Turnus. We are 
 therefore right in the very middle of a War-in-heaven. Yet 
 another legend made Latinus wed Roma, found Rome, and become 
 the father of Romulus and Remus. Again he was son of Circe 
 and Ulysses, married Reme and begat the same twins. All these 
 have bits of the true myth in them. 
 See the curious statement made by Festus' that the rex Latinus, 
 
 ' S. V. OscillaiUes. " .... nusqueim apparuerjt, jiidicitusque s'n J''piter factus 
 Latiaris, " 
 
2IO The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 in his fight with IMeDientius rex of Caere (see p. 144 supra), 
 the contemner of the gods, disappeared, and was considered to 
 have become Jupiter Latiaris. (Compare with the other fighting 
 rex on p. 114.) Here is a most obviously clear case, as I should 
 contend, for the recognition by the Romans themselves that this 
 Z<7«;Y«tian rex was a Lat-god. And here too we get the (laurel) 
 Tree and the Pillar together in the archaic sacred names. The 
 mythic Roman rex was (I say) a ruling-god, and the rex-priests 
 were the priests of the rex-god, and retained his title. But 
 
 Latngns seems to be a doublet of Latinus. He was crushed 
 
 under a vast stone ("none but himself can be his" ) by the 
 
 same MeDientius the contcmptor Divum ; which fate seems to be 
 only " another account" of that of Latinus. See also Lateragus 
 lower down. Lopping off the adjectival ending, we should then 
 ha\-e Latin, LatAg and LaterAg, which I must leave so, for the 
 present. 
 
 LatMos, the famous rendezvous of the moon and Endymion, 
 thus becomes the Lat-I\Iountain, simply (//o? = mons). 
 
 latoraus and Xaro^o^ meant a stone-cutter, which helps us som.e- 
 what on the wa}-. 
 
 Latona. (ancient form Latonas). It is to be obsen,-ed that 
 Latinus had no Latina to complete his duality ; and we are there- 
 fore to conclude, it would seem, that Latona takes that place in the 
 nomenclature. She was mother of Apollo and Diana. The Greek 
 Aarcb or AaTcbv or XrjTOi was (in Hesiod) daughter to Phoibe and 
 the Titan Koto? (who is both Ceus and Cceus in the Latin) son of 
 Ouranos and Ge.^ 
 
 Lato's mother was (i>ot0r] sister of Koios, and clearly a dual- 
 goddess with $o?/3o9 ; and Lato had a sister named Asteria or 
 Asterie (one of the mothers of Herakles) who is otherwise the 
 daughter of Polos and Phoibe, which equates Lato's father Koios 
 with Polos the polar deity. Koios is of course the hollow 
 heavens. Where j\sterie fell in the Ocean, there arose an island, 
 called Delos (or Asterie or Ortugia, see p. 32}. But Homer made 
 Kronos the father of Lato — it is all in the family. Zeus having 
 taken too much notice of Lato, Hera created the P\"thon serpent 
 to torment her. This ma\- have an important bearing on the 
 -erpent curled-on round the axis-rod of Hermes. She took refuge 
 
 ' Apoll. j5;7'.'. i, I, 3. 
 
Myt/is?\ Divine N'anics in Lat-. 211 
 
 in the island Delos ; and there, at the Olive-tree of the Universe, 
 gave birth to Artemis and Apollo. 
 
 lalices (latex). The sacred term Palladii latices, for oil, becomes clear 
 only when we recollect and conjoin the ritualistic smearing of lats or stones. 
 A similar explanation may be suggested for 
 
 latace, the magic herb which made abundance where it grew (Pliny xxvi, 
 
 4,9)- 
 
 latco. I know not whether it is to consider too curiously to surmise that 
 lateo, to lie hid, to be secret, unknown, may have something to do with the 
 latent god, the deus absconditus of the animated divine stone, the beth-Ll, the 
 lat. 
 
 Latobius, "the name of an almost unknown divinity" {Inscrip. 
 Orcll. No. 2019) will perhaps now be less foreign to us. These 
 few brief particulars must not leave unmentioned 
 
 later, a brick and 
 
 Lateranus, the hearth-god, also Lateragus (very like Latagus ?) 
 and Laterculus ; whence eventually the Lateran habitation of the 
 Pope. 
 
 The connexion between later and Lar is here indubitable ; and, when we 
 recall Xar = stone, it is made even more significant by the form Lases for Lares 
 in the Arvalian hymns. Can this Las t>i; Xds, a stone ; and Lar be = later, a 
 brick ? The images of the Lares would thus be " terra-cotta," as it wQre ; and 
 perhaps the sacred forerunners of our fire-dogs or chenets ? Ovid in the Fasti 
 gave the dog as an adjunct of the Lares, and said they were covered with dog- 
 skins. Plautus said they were anciently represented ip the shape of dogs. 
 The eldest male of an Etruscan family was called the Lar or Lars, and the 
 second Aruns (Etruscan, aruth ; Greek, app<ov or dppovvs). The youngest son 
 of Tarquinus Superbus (the Supreme Twister of the heavens) was called Aruns, 
 and Aruns was a diviner (a rhabdomancer .?). It must belong to arundo or 
 harundo, a reed rod flute, and apprjv male. 
 
 PoluPhemos, son of EiLatos or IL-Latos, was the youngest of the 
 Lapithoi who armed against the Centaurs, and came from Zrtrissa.^ 
 He was an Argonaut. Elates was son of Arkas and Proso-peleia 
 (or Chruso-peleia or Lea-ncira or Mcga-neira).^ From Elatos and 
 his brother Apheidas came the Arkadians. 
 
 The Indian locality La/a is also called Lar, and is the AapiKij of Ptolemy 
 (Dowson's Hindu Mythology, 2nd ed. p. 177). But this is not the place to turn 
 aside to the Lares. 
 
 lat. The lats of India and the goddess al-Lat have been 
 already dealt-with (p. 203). 
 
 [See also Pa/ii/ia, patoinus, pa/<i/ium, Pa/rz/o, PaAz/ua, under " Divine 
 Names in Pal-" ; and DoruLas and DoruLaion under "Divine Names-in Dor-." 
 AtLas too, which will be fully discussed under "The Heavens-Mountain," I 
 
 ' ArgonauMa, i, 41. " Charon, y?-ff^. 13 ; Apoll. Bibl. iii, 9, i. 
 
 O 2 
 
212 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 regard as farthest-stone, because of the Sanskrit a/ further. This makes AlLas 
 a doubtlet of TaLaos, p. 133, and gives us at once the tall-stone on the heavens- 
 mountain summit, the pillar-stone that AtLas was at the limits of the Universe 
 he upheld.' 
 
 As to the material of the Palladiuin, a word formed from PalLas, 
 I must emphasize what was stated on p. 48 as to the " bones of 
 Pelops."^ And the true clue to the material is, it now seems to me, 
 to be found (not in " images of bone or ivor)-," but) at p. 107 supra 
 in the natural-magnet or the star-stone, aih-qplrK; Xido<;, the actual 
 substance which Plutarch'^ reported Manethon to have said was 
 called the bones of Horus, an expression which must here be 
 equated with the bones of Pelops. The Palladium fell from the 
 heavens, and was thus a star-stone ; and the syllable Xa? in its 
 name (see p. 48) thus exhibits its accord with Xt^o? ; and thus too 
 this "bones" myth upholds my assertion that PalLas contains the 
 word Xa?, a stone. Note once more too (referring en passant to 
 PalLas = loDama, p. iSi) that the Palladiiini actually held a 
 spear or pal {hopv) ; and add-on that Phylarchos said there were 
 many other palladia flung-down in the cosmic war of the Giants : 
 KCLi 7(av KaTevr]ve<yfieva)v ev Ttj TiyavToop /j.d'^^r}.^ And of course these 
 were therefore the rocks or meteorites heaved at each other by the 
 said giants and the gods. 
 
 It is odd that this about the ' bones of Pelops " is the only 
 stateinent as to the material (which the word itself would there- 
 fore have once sufficient!)- conveyed to the ear?). In Apollodoros' 
 the palladiuiii is an idol, Tuia. Pherecydes (repeated by 
 Phylarchos) called it a marvel, ayaXfia (conventionally, image).'' 
 Dionj-sius of Halicarnassus,'' citing Kallistratos, called it a eSo?. 
 seat or see of a god {i.e. stone-statue, a sort of beth-El ?) and also an 
 eiKcov or image ; but never another word from any of these to hint 
 at the material, which material I now diagnose as having been 
 star-stone (as above), that is an aerolite. 
 
 ' Odyssey i, 52. 
 
 2 Id addition to the authorities quoted on p. 4S, see .Scholiast on Iliad iv, 92 ; 
 Tzetzes ad Lye. 53, 911, I'osthom. 575 ; Pausanias v, 13. 5 ; Welcker, Cycl. p. 79. 
 
 3 De Is. ei Os. c. 62. ■• Didot's Fra^. Hist. Gmc. i, 356. 
 
 ' Bibl. iii, 12, 3. ^ Didot, tit sup, i, 95, 356. ' Ibid, ii, 355, 356. 
 
Myths:\ 
 
 The Tat of Ptah. 
 
 17.— The Tat of Ptah.— The Tee and Umbrella. 
 
 THE supreme central Egyptian god Ptah » ^ ^ about whom 
 so much will be said in the course of this Inquiry, is repre- 
 sented as a mummy grasping the ankh ■¥" 
 which is viewed as the "symbol of life," 
 the uas sceptre 1 and the tat jT or " symbol 
 of stability," which I would identify with 
 the Pillar of the Universe. 
 
 This tat is the habitual ensign of Ptah, 
 and was hung as an amulet round the necks 
 of the gods, divine animals, and devout 
 human beings. It is found with that 
 
 mysterious talisman the thai m, whose name 
 
 is written ll ■ , in the hands of large funereal 
 
 statuettes. 
 
 The tat is sometimes seen two-armed, and extending its two 
 outspread arm-wings as a sign of protection, as in the bottom 
 of a coffin of Shutenies the Librarian. "^ Here we seem to have 
 the winged axis as a form of the winged oak of Zeus, that is the 
 Universe-tree. On the same coffin, the ta^ again appears accom- 
 panied by the " 4 funereal genii who presided at the preservation of 
 the intestines." It is more to the point to call them here the genii 
 or gods of the 4 cardinal directions, as they were (see p. i 59 supra). 
 Their position round the central tat-axis is then only natural. 
 
 Ptah was imaged as a pillar beginning in the lowest and 
 ending in the highest heaven. On a post, on which is graven a 
 human countenance, stands the Tat-pillar, the symbol of durability 
 and immutability, made up of a kind of superimposed capitals. 
 On the top are the ram's-horns, the sun [which is here considered 
 as the Sphere], the urseus-adders [that is the araret], the double- 
 feather; all emblems of light and of sovereignty, which in Prof. 
 
 ' De Rouge : lYotice somnmire, 105, 106, 68. 
 
214 
 
 The Night of the Gods. 
 
 \Axis 
 
 Tide's judgement must have been intended to represent the highest 
 heavens.^ 
 
 In the hieroglyphs, said De Rougi^, the tat "designates stability 
 by the summit (faite) and probably the pleroma, that is to say the 
 final and perfect end to which the soul ought to attain by the 
 imitation of Osiris." This is noteworthy if compared with what 
 will be said later on of the omphalos and nirvana. I think the 
 column, whole or broken, which is still reproduced by stonecutters 
 for our graveyards, and which was common on Belgo-Roman 
 tombs,- must range itself in the tat symbology. 
 
 The tat serves, in paintings of mummies, as a pillar to chapels 
 holding images of the gods, and even seems to afford support to 
 the divine statues behind which it is shown. ^ It supports the rcn 
 or cartouche of Ramses VIII. Some little porcelain monuments 
 show the god Nefer-Atmu (Ptah's son) by the side of his mother 
 Se;i^et, both with their backs to a pillar. 
 
 [The reader is requested to refer to what is said later regarding the pillar- 
 statues of Terminus, and Dulaure's overturned tlieory of boundar)- pillars.] 
 
 It was the Rosetta-stone'' that first gave us, on the Greek side, 
 
 the sense of stability and lastingness (Siafievov(Tr]<; 
 
 Q. 
 
 tettet tu) 
 
 for the ||. The Hindu priests anciently made a circle round the 
 udambara sacrificial post, and touched it 
 muttering the mantra : " Here is stability, 
 here is our own stability."^ (See also p. 219 
 //i/m.) 
 
 In the Pcrenilini ("Book of the Dead") the 
 tat is constantly mentioned in connexion with 
 Osiris. Ptah-Osiris as "dweller in Amenti" 
 is hatted, in the second and third figures I 
 here give (pp. 214 and 217) with the summit, 
 with the 4 stages, of the tat, which are again 
 surmounted b}' the 2-fcathcred sphere (sec 
 the section on " P'eathers "). The god him- 
 self thus permutes with the lower, the pillar, 
 portion of the tat, which for me indicates a 
 pillar-axis god, an Atlas. Note too the 
 
 1 Tiele's Hist, of Egypt. Rel. 46, 47. 
 
 - \'anderkindere, Hist. Belg. an moyin age, 1S90, p. 99. 
 
 ^ Pierret's Diet. p. 53S. 
 
 ' line 5 (36) again in line g, without Greek. 
 
 ° Eggeling's Sata/atlia-BrAhmana. ii, 454. 
 
Myths:\ The Tat of Ptali. 
 
 identification, the coalescence of the uas sceptre and the tat, and 
 their upright position in the first figure, and then refer back to the 
 section on " The Rod," p. 57. 
 
 A funereal MS. whose contents "belong to no known composition" 
 (Louvre V, 46, 3279) makes the defunct claim to be equal with Ptah : " I am 
 that which bears the heavens with Ptah." This is said in addition to the 
 common tombstone-boast for the dead " I have become an (that is, one \\ ithj 
 Osiris."' 
 
 I also direct particular attention to the Single Leg in both 
 these figures, which has been explained as being the two limbs of 
 a mummy enwrapped together in the cerement. This is a con- 
 jecture, however, which is unsatisfying, and does not accord with 
 the Facing-both-ways attitude of the figure on p. 214. (Note, by 
 the way, that if he be in the South looking North, his toe points 
 West.) 
 
 In the wanderings of the Welsh Owein, he comes to a large 
 open clearing with a mound in the middle. On the mound is a 
 black giant with only one foot, and only one eye in the middle of 
 his forehead.- In the Kulhwch legend one of Arthur's courtiers 
 stands all day on one foot,- which Professor Rh5's seems to deride 
 as an idle item ; but I hope to show here that it is not altogether 
 a laughing matter. 
 
 Pausanias (vi, 25) thus mentioned the brazen statue of a god in 
 the city of Elis : " one of its feet is enfolded with the other, and it 
 leans with both its hands on a spear . . . They say that this 
 is a statue of Poseidon . . . they call it, however, Satrapes 
 and not Poseidon ; and Satrapes is a name of Korubas (Corybas)." 
 There may be here a possible connexion of this statue of a 
 forgotten god, of a deus ignotus (see p. 18), with the central 
 heavens-deity, as depicted in Ptah. 
 
 De Groot'' gives a full account of the festival and pilgrimages 
 at Amoy to Keh-sing-ong = Kwoh sing wang #15 ^ i, a 
 deity with one hanging leg, who was found dead on a tree on the 
 top of a mountain. Another legend says he was ascending, seated 
 crosslegged, into the heavens, when his mother, catching him by 
 one foot, "pulled his leg," which therefore remained pendant. He 
 also appears as a white-eyed white horseman, with a white flag, 
 
 ' Deveria : Catalogue (iSSi), pp. 162, 163. 
 
 - Prof. Rhys ; Arthurian LegenJ {iSgi) 92, 5 ; Loth's Mabinogion (1SS9) ii, 8, 10. 
 
 ■' FStes cTEinoiii, 1SS6, 51S, 523, 524. 
 
21 6 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 on a white horse. This is celestial. His legend (like Ptah's too, 
 curiously enough ; and compare FitzGerald's Otuai' Kliayyam, 
 1879, P- 21 etc.) also contains a potter, and the kneading of human 
 figures out of clay — a practice still continued in his worship, with 
 figurines. There is also an enchanted spirtning-whecl that makes 
 a river overflow, and the same potter stops the inundation. All 
 this is cosmic. 
 
 The Chinese shan-sao or mountain-elves have but one leg. The fabulous 
 one-legged bird siongiong presages rain in the Kca Yu or Familiar Talks of 
 Confucius (chap. 2), where a boy dancing on one leg as a charm to bring rain is 
 also mentioned. A one- but long-legged, small-headed, paper-bird is now- 
 paraded on the point of a stick about Amoy in processions for rain.' 
 
 But the chief parallel here — as useful for my purposes as if it 
 had been invented to order — is in the B/idgavata-ptn-ana, where 
 Dliruva, the Polestar deity, meditating on Brahma, stood on a 
 single foot, motionless as a post ; and while he did so, half the 
 earth, wounded by his great toe, bent-over under his weight, like a 
 boat which, bearing a vigoroiis elephant, leans at each step he 
 makes, to the left or to the right. ^ 
 
 Is this a confused explanation of the inclination of the a.\is .' See also p. 35, 
 supra. It is passing strange that one corner of Keh-Sing's temple is always in 
 decay (De Groot, p. 525). 
 
 A manifest doublet of this is another legend that the rishi Atri ( = 
 Tusk, Tooth, compare p. 150) stood for a hundred years on one 
 foot living on the air.^ 
 
 In Russian myth the evil Verlioka is only found, said Mr. 
 Ralston,^ in one solitary story. He is of vast stature, ohe-eyed, 
 crook-nosed, bristly-headed, with tangled beard, and moustaches 
 half an ell long, and with a wooden boot on his one foot ; support- 
 ing himself on a crutch, and giving vent to a terrible laughter. 
 
 See also what is stated infra, at p. 230, as to the Jerusalem 
 Jews now- praying standing on one leg on their housetops. On one 
 of the cards of the French tarot-pack, called Le Pendu, a man hangs 
 head-downw-ards by his left leg. (But this position would indicate 
 antipodean infernality ?) 
 
 I thus identify the One Leg of all these Egj-ptian, Chinese, 
 Welsh, Greek, Indian, Russian, and Jewish gods and godlings with 
 the One Foot on which the Japanese heavens-palace is raised, and 
 the Irish island is supported (p. 225 infra), that is with the Universe- 
 
 ' Fetes cTEiiwiii, 1SS6, 70, 51S. - Bvimoufs Bhag.-pur. iv, 1, 19 ; S, 76 and 79. 
 
 ' Rt(ss. Folk-Talcs, 162. 
 
3fyi/is.] 
 
 The Tat of Ptah. 
 
 217 
 
 Axis which is also symbolised by the tat. And " now who laughs 
 at sugar ? " 
 
 I must draw attention also to another figure 
 of Ptah-Osiris (?) which, while giving the attri- 
 butes of the stiff Egyptian style also exhibits to 
 \\ i a more primitive Ethiopian (?) character in the 
 face and dress. The robe seems to be in strips,' 
 and would thus, in religious dancing. '' balloon-" 
 out like the petticoats of the Mevlevi dervishes. 
 
 I think too that the Spear (as well as the 
 uas sceptre, p. 57) may be connected with 
 I'tah's symbol of stability in this way : 
 M. Li^on Heuzey" remarks on four Assyrian statuettes 
 in the Louvre, that they are e.xamples of a personage 
 resembling the colossus carved between the doors of 
 the Khorsabad palace ; but instead of strangling a 
 lion, this terra-cotta figurette leans its open hands 
 against the staff of a stout weapon — pike, lance, 
 or spear — which stands erect in front. One of these 
 examples gives the iron (?) head of the weapon. The 
 same deity in the self-same attitude is to be seen in low 
 relief in the British Museum where "the open hands do but touch the lance, 
 which seems planted in the ground or upheld and balanced by some super- 
 natural force. We may surmise a gesture of adoration before a sacred weapon, 
 or a legendary incident referable to a marvellous lance." These are M. Heuzey's 
 comments, and they seem to me to point to the Universe-Axis as the tat of 
 Ptah, the shadowless lance of Ale.xander, and the hopv of Kronos as herein- 
 before and now expounded. 
 
 The Welsh Peredur /-"a/adyr Hir, the Spearsman of the long 
 Pal, stands and remains plunged in deepest meditation leaning 
 against the pal of his spear.^ 
 
 The town that the Greeks called Mendes was called by the Egyp- 
 tians paBa-neb-Tat "y^ i^^j^ ^^^ ft " abode of the Soul (or Ram) lord 
 of T at."* Without the pa (which also means town) it is also written 
 ^5? ft ff © • Mendes also had another name which is differently 
 
 ' Shall I be travelling out of the way here, if I direct attention to the Roman robes 
 bearing the stripe (clavus, latiis or angustiis) which seems to be the forerunner of the 
 ecclesiastical stola? See illustrations in Saglio's Diet, i, 1244 etc. 
 
 ^ Cat. des figurines (1882) p. 21. Bolta et Flandin : Ninive, ii, 154. A. de 
 l.ongperier : Notice des Ant. Assyr. Nos. 263 to 267. 
 
 ^ Loth's Mahino^^ion, ii, 71, 73. ■* ^ierre^, Diet. 333, 53S ; J'oeab. 122. 
 
The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 written Tat Tatu {i.e. the Tats) ]| S or \\V. m^. The syllable 
 
 Men- may also mean stability (see p. 200). And the name of 
 Mendes is now, by Brugsch and J. de Rouge/ given as paBa-neb- 
 
 Tatu, abode of the Ram, lord of the Tats: '^'fe^^r— 7uu^ or 
 
 • • • ' ;s* iiii© 
 
 ?\?7^^^^S©3 or ^^^"^§5"^©. Thus we have 
 both Ram and Bull connected with the tat, and the animal sym- 
 bolism must be the same in each case. 
 
 The prename of the extremely early 5th dynasty Monarch Assa 'JIM "'as 
 TatkaRa O ^ LJ, the Tar^fp'?? of Manetho. Shabataka an Ethiopian king 
 successor of Shabaka, appears by inscriptions at Kamak to have worshipped 
 Amen ; but, like Pianxi, he must also have been devout to Ptah, for the tat is 
 
 in his prename O W \ j \ j \ j, TatkauRa. Tat is also given in Pierret's 
 
 Vocabulaire in the following words (pp. 722, 167, 723): 
 
 tat ]T IT stable, stability, establish, confirm, z' g nH <3- - 
 
 peset TT m shine, be resplendent. 
 
 I ^:±tz 
 
 u 
 
 Taff-Ra O Itff ^^ 'h^ successor of Khufu, ivth dynasty. / ^ 
 ■ • 1-1 Li O ' 
 
 TatxeruRa O ^ J ^ king in the xiiith dynasty. 
 Tat kamaRa O f U ^^ "^ king of Ae ixth dynasty. 
 Tatsetu f {]j]|] A, king. 
 
 Tetun ^^S^ '^^' or tnt ^■^^^^. Also given as Dudun (Pierret, 
 Di'c'f. 544), and said to be a Nubian form of Khnum. 
 Ptah-tat-as 2 I Hl ji P ©~^" unknown locality (Brugsch Gco^. iii, 42). 
 [Following the analogy of Tarxtpj/f, I suggest that where Ra and tat come 
 
 together, the syllable tat has the priority.] In the tat and horns \]r/ ^'■'^ may 
 discern the later cross and horns of the St. Hubert legend. 
 
 A relic of Osiris thus written Tj p was venerated at Busiris in 
 the abode of silence, Neb-seker or Pa-seker. Bergmann con- 
 jectured it to be the backbone, but it may have been the phallus, 
 for both these were preserved together at Tebehu.- Diimichen^ 
 has read the name of a deity of Sebcnnj-tus (Tebneter) as " Titit 
 
 daughter of Ra " H M ^ 5^']' that is Hathor. 
 
 ' Gcv^. Anc. 1S91, pp. loS, III. 
 = Ibid. pp. 59, 113. 
 2 Gcogr. liisihr. i, 99. 
 
Myths^^ The Tat of Ptali. 219 
 
 In the hieratic papyrus of Nesi-Amsu, as transcribed and trans- 
 lated by Dr. E. A. Wallis Budge, Osiris is addressed as follows: 
 "Thou art established, established' in thy name of 'established 
 
 one'" (tettet sep sen em ren-k Tet) H H ® II ^. ^^ W^'^^^ HI^j). 
 
 " Thou comest in peace to Tattu." " Hail, thou art established in 
 
 the heavenly Tattu" (a tettet"^ em Tettet hert) ^^fllj^^f 
 
 "^ ^ " Hail, thy name is established in the heavenly Tettu ! 
 
 Hail, thou sweet-smelling one in the heavenly Tettu ! " (a tettet 
 ren em Tettet hert ; a ne'temi sti em Tettet hert). " Hail, the lord 
 of the heavenly Tettu cometh " (a 1 en nebt Tettet hert). Of course 
 this dual stablishment in the heavens must be interpreted here 
 as the eternal firmness of the dual axis-pillars, and as if to make 
 this view certain, we also have in the same papyrus, the further 
 ascriptions of praise: "Thy father Tatenen supports the heaven 
 (u^es pet) that thou mayest walk over its four quarters " (ftu's 
 
 ^^ III! ') " Hail, stablisher (smen) of the Earth upon its founda- 
 tions ; hail, opener of the mouth of the Four great gods " (ftu 
 neteru aa 1 1 1 1 j ^ 1 -^ 1 )." Compare this with what is said above 
 
 under "The Cardinal Points," p. 161, and I think no one will care 
 to dispute the definite cosmic significance of all this, and the axis- 
 symbolism of the ]T. 
 
 Although I am not in a position to press the theory of a 
 connexion of the word tat with the root ta and the name Tatius, 
 as dealt with at pp. 134, 136 supra, I still venture again to direct 
 attention to the point ; and the Estonian taht (see Index) might 
 also be mentioned here. 
 
 The tat, as a hieroglyph, was long taken for "a nilometer." M. 
 Pierret seems to conclude for its being a sculptor's ladder (selle), 
 citing plate 49 of Rosellini's Monui/icuts. E. de Rouge, who said it 
 was a four-stepped altar, seems to me to have been on the right 
 road, for I theorise that the stages are symbols of the several astral 
 heavens, one above the other, like the Eastern T or tee and the 
 many-storied sacred Umbrellas. (See also the connexion made 
 between the Omphalos and the Altar under the heading " The 
 Navel.") 
 
 ' This double ta, double establishment, spsaks to me of the dual pillar. 
 ^ Archaologia (2nd series) ii, 4S7, 4SS, 498, 499, 494. 
 
The Night of the Gods. 
 
 VA. 
 
 X1S 
 
 THE TEE AND UMBRELLA. In this com- 
 plex representation of a two-armed tat (see p. 214) 
 the upper portion, which supports the holy winged 
 scarab, which in turn supports the Sphere, has in 
 common with the examples already given, an extra- 
 ordinary resemblance to what is called a T or tee on 
 the central summit of the dome of " Buddhist " topes 
 and temples. Some outlines of such Tees are there- 
 fore here added for comparison and consideration by 
 fellow-students. Note too the celestial hieroglyph 
 upon which the supporting man-god kneels. 
 
 The relic-casket found in the 
 tope at Manikyala^ seems to ex- 
 hibit clearly the same succession 
 of stories as the 
 tat. Here too 
 we seem to have 
 a combination 
 of the Tee and 
 Umbrella ideas 
 very clearly con- 
 veyed. A clear- 
 I cut instance of 
 the Tee is that 
 
 
 Manikvala. 
 
 on a dagoba cut from the solid rock at Ajunta. The dome in both 
 these cases may represent the vault of the heavens, while the Tee 
 may be the heavens-palace on the supreme Northern summit of 
 that vault, showing in or above its roof, too, the successive layers 
 of the several heavens. It may also thus be in fact the god-house 
 or beth-El ; and the relic-casket thus would become a straight 
 parallel to the treasure-house, ark, or cista m}'stica of the section 
 on " The Arcana," to which reference is here 
 especially desirable. 
 
 In the Karli cave, as in the Manikj-ala casket, we 
 see the Tee and Umbrella ideas expressed separately 
 but combined together in the same upper and upper- 
 most positions. This Karli flat " umbrella " is of 
 wood much decayed and warped by the extremity 
 ^ of age. 
 
 ' Fergusson's Indian Arch. 1876, p. So. 
 
Myths^ 
 
 The Tat of Ptah. 
 
 The Tee is not confined to the top of the heavens-vault (as I 
 call it) but is also found constantly as a capital in India to the 
 great octagonal pillars, which I have already claimed (p. 193) for 
 axis-symbols. Of course the reader sees at once that the position 
 is in both cases cosmically identical, on the theories of this Inquiry. 
 Such are a pair of columns — 
 there is now only one — before the 
 rock-cut cave at Karli, and another 
 pair in front of the rock-cut cave of 
 Bedsa. The pillars, 15 on each 
 side, which separate the Karli 
 aisles from the nave, also have the 
 Tee for capital. The Tee pillars are 
 also found in the Nassick caves.' 
 Here I point out another mystic 
 origin for a type of pillar-capital, 
 in addition to that formed from 
 the fleur-de-Lis in the Corinthian 
 variety (see " The Colophon " 
 p. 232). "^ztU, 
 
 The temple of T'ien, the heavens, at Peking is close to the 
 
 Southern wall of the city, in 
 a square enclosure measur- 
 ing about a mile each way. 
 The temple itself is a low 
 cylinder with three broad 
 projecting roofs which repre- 
 sent, it maybe supposed, the 
 heavens. The altar stands 
 in the centre immediately 
 below the peak of the roof 
 
 Lillie^ holds that the 
 Umbrella in mythological art 
 symbolises the heaven of the 
 gods. The Sanskrit stiipa 
 means properly a heap, 
 mound, hillock ; and has be- 
 come the tope of India and the tupa of Cej-lon. In the Snddlianna 
 
 Fergusson, p. 150. 
 
 -Buddha and Ear/y Buddhism, pp. 2, 19. 
 
222 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 Pundarika sutra a stupa of 7 precious metals and stones, 500 
 yojanas high, uprises from the South in front of Bhagavat. It 
 remains suspended in the heavens, and the stories of umbrellas 
 which surmount it reach to the dwellings of the gods.' 
 
 As to this subject of the sacred Tec and Umbrella and their 
 supreme significance and ritualism in the East, I cannot do better 
 than refer the reader for the fullest information to the able and 
 finely-illustrated papers by Miss C. F. Gordon-Cumming in the 
 English Illustrated Magazine for June and July 18SS. Specially 
 to be noted there are the dagoba in the rock-cut temple at 
 Karli (above-mentioned), the three umbrellas over Buddha 
 sculptured in the caves of Ellora, " in which the emblematic Wheel 
 is shown beneath the Throne " of Buddha" ; the " Umbrella over- 
 shadowing the sacred XMieel," sculptured on a panel of the Eastern 
 gateway of the Sanchi Tope (Bhopal, Central India) where the 
 wheel is adored by men and women and by male and female 
 winged and feather-hatted deities ; the adoration of the umbrella 
 on a tall maypole by the Santhal hill-tribe near Calcutta at their 
 annual spring festival, paralleled by IVIiss Gordon-Cumming from 
 Fiji. In Ceylon the early traveller Percival said the umbrella was 
 only shared by the monarch with the Buddhist priests. In 
 Assyrian and Babylonian bas-reliefs the umbrella is confined 
 to the king. There was a sacred umbrella held over the Mexican 
 emperors in their sacred functions. In Burmah the white 
 umbrella was reserved for the king, while the Buddhist priests 
 carry gilt umbrellas. The state umbrella taken from King KwoflS 
 of Ashanti by Sir Garnet Wolscley (as he then was) in 1S74 was 
 on all state occasions, and on the march, carried open, and con- 
 stantly tii'irled round and round ; and the King of Dahomey's 
 insignia consist in an enormous and gorgeous Jlat umbrella on a 
 high pole. Miss Gordon-Cumming duly accentuates the leading 
 fact that these umbrellas or chattas have nothing ■v\-hatever to do 
 with warding off sun-rays or rain-drops ; but so completely is the 
 sacred supreme signification of the emblem now misconceived, 
 that Mr. Colquhoun, in his Aci-oss Cltryse (i, 412), notes with 
 admiration that, at Chee-kai in Yunnan in 1SS2, " a red umbrella 
 was held over our heads, quite irrespective of the fact that the sun 
 had long set ! " Of course it had naught to do with the sun. 
 The Pu-lung Chong-kia aboriginal (?) tribe of the same part of 
 
 ' Burnoufs Lotus, 145. " It will be noted that the "umbrellas" there are stick-less. 
 
Myths.'] 
 
 The Tat of Ptah. 
 
 223 
 
 China put up an umbrella over the grave of the newly buried 
 {Across Chrysi ii, 36S). 
 
 In the Higashi Hon-gwan-ji temple at Nagoya (Japan) is a 
 group showing the Umbrella miraculously flying back through the 
 air to the Buddhist saint Sho-ichi.^ The coins of the Emperor- 
 priest Elagabalus sometimes show four umbrellas held over his 
 sacred black stone f and the stone (locally called manapsa) of 
 Artemis on the coins'" of Perga in Pamphylia seems to be 
 hidden in a reliquary which resembles as much as need 
 be the Indian dagoba with the Tee thereon. The 
 purely Chinese yellow-dragon umbrella is triple, like the 
 imported Buddha's chatta.* 
 
 ' Satow and Hawes's Handbook, 2nd ed. p. 76. 
 - J. Reville : Relig. sous ks Sevires, 249. 
 ^ Waddington, Voyage en Asie Mineure, 94. 
 '' W. Simpson : Meeting the Sun, 160. 
 
Z24 The Night of the Gods. \_Axis 
 
 1 8. — The Heavens-Palace and its Pillar. 
 
 THE Japanese creators Izanagi and Izanami built an octagonal 
 Palace' round their Pillar (pp, 36 and 189 supra) taking it for 
 the central post which was to support the roof.- The palace raised 
 on One Foot or pillar, built for two later gods in ii, 44 of the 
 Kozhiki^' seems a variant of this m}-th. 
 
 The Kozhiki calls this second palace : aslii (J£,; hitotsu agari no miya j 
 where ashi means foot ; but the XiJiongi has hasliira fj pillar, instead oi ashi. 
 The native commentators seem to agree that the single pillar supported the 
 whole weight of this miya = temple or palace ; but I do not find that any one 
 has seen that we have here a mere doublet of Izanagi's palace. The word used 
 for Izanagi's too, tono, is (now) an inferior word to miya, for miya is properly 
 the temple of a Shinto kami, or the imperial palace of the Mikado alone ; while 
 tono means any seigneurial mansion. Of course, if it were not for the Chinese 
 character, ashi might just as well here mean reed ^ a.ifoot. 
 Perhaps ashi means both reed and foot ; for the Suga-palace (that 
 is miya) built by the god Take-ha\-a-Susa (or Sosa), generally 
 called Susanowo, in i, 19 of the Kozliiki* is also for me a manifest 
 creation of the firmament, of the heavens-palace, Suga here 
 seems to mean a rush, and is thus a parallel to ashi, a reed, as an 
 Axis-symbol. 
 
 •' When this great kami began to build the Suga-palace, clouds (kumo) rose up 
 thence. Then he made a divine hymn. That hymn said : ' Eight clouds rise 
 up ; the S-sided fence of the holy quarters. As a bourn-enclosure the S-sided 
 fence is made.' " This has already been dealt with at p. 169. " Then he called 
 the kami Father Reed-stroker (Ashi-nadzu Chi) and said 'I appoint thee Great 
 Man (Obito, First Man ? an Adam) of my palace ' '' (mi ya, divine house). 
 The 8 holy quarters are the cardinal and half-cardinal points, as 
 
 ' Ya-hiro dotio J\ =J HJ, eight-breadlh palace (tono). I here give ya and hiro the 
 same meaning as at p. l6S. Tlie octagon thus gives me the 8 cardinal and half-cardinal 
 points, and the palace becomes more clearly cosmic. Mr. Aston has kindly given me 
 the following note: Arai Hakusiki, the well-known scholar of the early 17th century 
 mentions (with disapproval) an ancient opinion that the Va-hiro dono was an octagonal 
 building, each side being one hiro of 8 feet : " Kiu setsu ni, ' hiro ' to wa hasrshaku nari ; 
 ippo ni has-shaku dzutsu hak-kaku ni tsukureru 'tone nari." (The only way out of 
 the puzzlement is the cosmic way of making these hak-kaku, that is ' 8 comers,' the 8 
 points, as I propose. I.O'N.) 
 
 - Mr. Satow's Furc Shinto, 67 ; Mr. Chamberlain's A'ojiii, 19. 
 
 "* Mr. Chamberlain's, p. 130. 
 
 * Mr. Chamberlain's, p. 63. 
 
Jlfyihs.'] The Hcavens-Palacc and its Pillar. 225 
 
 shown at p. 166 ; the fence is the firmament ; and the octagon is 
 innumerable times reproduced in towers, pillars, and mountains 
 (see Index). Take-haya means High-swift, and susa is said to be 
 " impetuous ; " titles not discordant with a rotating-heavens god. 
 
 The Chinese palace standing like a man on tip-toe, with 5,000 
 cubits of walls and lofty pillars, in the most archaic Slii King, may 
 very well be a similar symbol or allegory." 
 
 This " palace raised on One Foot," island and all, also turns up 
 in a sufficiently astonishing manner in Irish legend ; and I venture 
 to think that the several marvellous coincidences between Japanese 
 and Irish cosmic myths and symbols set out in this /«^;//;j, furnish 
 the migrationists with nuts as hard to crack as could well be 
 desired by any one arguing away from them. In Mailduin's 
 Voyage he came to an island called Aenchoss, that is One-foot, so 
 called because it was supported by a single pillar in the middle. 
 At the foot of the pillar, deep down in the water, they saw a door 
 securely closed and locked, and they judged that this was the way 
 into the island.- (The reader is also requested to refer back to 
 what is said about gods with one foot or leg, p. 215.) 
 
 A curious Russian form of the palace on one foot is given by 
 Mr. Ralston.' Four heroes who are wandering about the world 
 come to a dense forest in which an izba or hut is twirling round on 
 a fowl's leg. The youngest, prince Ivan (our Jack) makes it revolve 
 with the magic word Izbushka. This supplies the idea of cosmic 
 rotation which is absent in the Japanese myth. When this Russian 
 prince Ivan is hunting the Norka, that mysterious otter-beast flies 
 to a great white stone, tilts it up, and escapes into the other world.* 
 Ivan builds a palace over the stone. In another tale the Norka 
 sleeps on a stone in the middle of the blue sea. In another 
 dwelling, a hut on One Leg, a stone is suddenly lifted and a Baba 
 Yaga or female demon issues forth to Ivan. 
 
 Another Russian heavens-palace is the shrine of princess Helena 
 the Fair, built on 12 columns, and with 12 rows of beams. Therein 
 she sits upon a high throne f and up to her lips prince Ivan has to 
 jump (on the back of the Enchanted Horse). 
 
 One Indian princess lives in a glass palace surrounded by a wide river ; 
 another in a house circled by 7 hedges of spears and 7 great ditches ; yet 
 
 ' Legge's Shi King, 1S71, p. 305. " Dr. Joyce's Cellii Roinaiucs, 151. 
 
 ' Russ. FoUi-Talis, 144, 13S. ■• Ralston, 74, 75, 144, 76. 
 
 » //'/(/. 256, 262. 
 
 P 
 
226 The Night of the Gods. [A. 
 
 XI s 
 
 another in a garden hedged round with 7 hedges of bayonets.' In all these 
 cases also the hero has to /en/} to the princess's anns. 
 
 This leap is clearly another way of getting to heaven, besides 
 the bridge, the pillar, the beanstalk, and so on. 
 
 In the Persian Rai/ant-iis-Safa- the gods of the people of A'ad 
 were Samud and Samad ; and they made pillars of stone as high as 
 their own bodies, and built upon them tall buildings. 
 
 This pillar function of the Axis can also be explained from 
 Chinese astrology, which contains a sort of emblematic freemasonry 
 illustrative of this. The chief upright of a roof, the kingpost, is the 
 1^ /it7/io, and is also ;f|i ^^ tung-chu, the house-top prop ; and the 
 top of the Hang is called the ^ Ki, which was primitively a nomad's 
 tentpole.'' 
 
 The Latin term was cardo masculus ; its point was the tenon. The beam 
 into which it was fixed was the cardo feniina, in which the mortise was made.' 
 Now in Chinese philosophical cosmogony the ^ ||i Tai-Ki, the 
 Great Ki (or Summity), is the origin of all things, having 
 engendered the dual male and female co-principles )-in anci yang — 
 in Japanese In-y6 — whence in turn everything has arisen.'' 
 
 Behind the Tai-Ki speculation does not venture ; that is the 
 Chinese " first great cause, least understood," the foundation of all 
 their cosmogony, which we shall constantly meet with also as both 
 Tai-Yi and Shang-Ti. The great northern constellation '^ Wei 
 rules the perpetual annual development of the yin and j'aiig ; and 
 wei, rooftop, is synonymous with ki, the kingpost-point," the Pole 
 of heaven and earth, to which we shall presently return. 
 
 The Arabic name for the pole-star, Al-rucaba, is quite in this direction, for 
 al-rekab, which is supposed to be the correct form, has also given in Spanish 
 arrocaba, the kingpost of a roof. The Chinese call the pole-star (a of Ursa 
 IVIinor) T'ien chung-kung, the central-palace of the heavens ^ 'i' S , says 
 the TUen-kiuan shu, as cited by Prof. G. Schlegel.* This is confirmed by the 
 ^ Ic {ICaoic Yad). 
 
 But it must be noted here that one Chinese term for the dual 
 principles — of which Izanagi and Izanami are clearly a Japanese 
 embodiment — is ^ ^ Liang-I, where liang, as above, is the Axis 
 (although it is also Ti<:o, as its Chinese character ^ shows), and I 
 the Law of Nature. 
 
 Freemasonry and its "Grand Lodge above" seem to come in here when 
 
 ' Miss Frere's Ol^i Dcccan Days, 31, 73, 95, 135. 
 
 - Orient. -Trans. Fund, 1891, p. 99. ' \'itriivius, ix, 6. 
 
 ■■ Prof. G. Schlegel's Urano.g. Clii. 251, 246. 
 
 ' Ibid. 246, 252 (citing the Nu'dn- T'icn -can c/ic). ' Ilud. 524. 
 
Mythsi\ The Heavens-Palace and its Pillar. 227 
 
 the Chinese builder to this day attaches a design of the 8 kwa (see p. 99) to 
 the ki of a new house ; for the dual principles first produced the 4 l:ang, which 
 in turn evoh'ed the 8 kwa or natural phenomena' with which we have already 
 had to deal more than once. This little scrap of actual fact flashes light upon 
 the widespread Western builder's custom of decorating the completed roof-frame 
 of new buildings. In Korea money called silng ji is placed with ceremony on 
 the roof-tree of every new house." In housebuilding, the Japanese put the roof 
 together first ; then, having marked the pieces, they take it asunder, and keep 
 it so, until the walls are ready for it.' 
 
 With this too may be connected the allegorical meaning of the 69,384 rafters in 
 the roof of the famous temple of Amida, the Immeasurable Buddha, at Zenkoji 
 in Japan. This number is the same as the number of Chinese characters in the 
 Ho-Ke Mo or Saddharina-piindarika si^itra ; saddharma pundarika, or the 
 good-law lotus, being the mystic name for this cosmos, that is, as we might say, 
 for "the present dispensation."* 
 
 The Palace-pillar indubitably appears in a very important form 
 in the Odyssey (xxiii, 190 etc.) where Odusseus describes his own 
 great handicraft. He boasts that none but a god can move his Bed,^ 
 for a great marvel was wrought in its fashioning by himself alone. 
 There was growing a bush of Olive, long of leaf and most goodly of growth, 
 witliin tlie inner court; and the stem as large as a Pillar. Roundabout this I 
 built the chamber till I had finished it, with stones close set ; and I roofed it 
 over well, and added thereto compacted doors fitting well. Next I sheared off all 
 the light wood of the long-leaved Olive, and rough-hewed the Trunk upwards 
 from the root, and smoothed it around with the adze well and skilfully, and 
 made straight the line thereto, and so fashioned it into the bedpost ; and I 
 bored it all with the auger. Beginning from this headpost., I wrought at the 
 bedstead till I had finished it, and made it fair with inlaid work of gold and of 
 silver and of ivory. Then I made fast therein a bright purple band of ox-hide.'' 
 Here we have Pillar, Universetree-Trunk, the Heavens and their 
 stars (with perhaps the rainbow ?) ; and we also get the thalamos 
 of "The Arcana," infra. 
 
 The udumbara-post of the Satapatlta-braliniana stood in tlie 
 centre of the sacrifice-shed (Sadas) ; it was touched in the ritual 
 (which reminds us of the children's game Tig-tQuch^wood), " The 
 Udambara-tree is strength ; they sit touching the qdambara-post." 
 "They form a circle round the udambara-post, and touch it, 
 muttering the mantra : ' Here is stability, here is joy.'"' When a 
 child touches wood it is safe from catching. 
 
 Ennius called the vault of heaven the palace : " But while he 
 
 ^ Uraiiog. Chi. 246, 252 (citing the H-.vaii-T^ ieii ccaii c]u\. 
 
 "• .'Mien's Korean Tales, 1889, p. 109. ' Chan-(berlain's Tilings fapanese, 355. 
 
 * Handbook offapan (Satow and Hawes), 290. * As to divine beds, see p. 152 supra. 
 
 * Butcher and Lang's words, p. 3S2. ' Dr. Eggeling's Sat.-brali, ii, 141, 454. 
 
 P 2 
 
2 28 The Night of the Gods. {Axis 
 
 judges of what is best b\- his palate, he looks not above to the 
 palace (as Ennius calls it) of the heavens : corli /(z/atum, ut ait 
 Ennius"' (see p. 43 supra). 
 
 This Palace is the AkroPolis fapex-cit\-) the AkroKorinthos ; 
 where both jroXt? and kcrinthos would admit of considerable com- 
 mentar}-. It is " the hall brighter than the sun, shingled with gold, 
 standing on Gem-Lea " prophesied b}" the third and last sib\'l of 
 the \'oluspa.- This is the Brugh, brug, or brud, the fairj- Palace of 
 the Boinne (Bo}-ne) at the North of tlie Broad-Boinne Bridge. 
 And Aengus, Aonghus, Oengus, Oingus or Oinguss, the ]\Iac Oc, 
 the great magician- of this Palace, must be the Polar deity. 
 Aengus is son of Great Dagda and Boann (the goddess of the 
 Boinne, or heavens-river) ; he is also Oengus mac ind Oc, the son 
 of the (two) Young-Ones, and In Mac Oc, the Young-Son. Prof 
 Rhys leans to m.aking Aengus a Zeus, while Dagda becomes a 
 Kronos. I3agda is " disinherited " by his Young-Son Aengus, as 
 Kronos is by his youngest son Zeus. Aengus was also wily, crafty, 
 and Prof. Rhys makes iNIyrdhin (Merlin) his counterpart. Aengus 
 has a cloak of invisibility, and is also Aengus of the Poisoned 
 Spear, which equates with the U'eish Yspydhaden's poisoned 
 javelin, and is a link with Kronos and his harpe, and with all the 
 spear-gods of this Inquiry. Dun Aengus, the fort of Aengus, is 
 clearly another name for the heavens-palace. The crystal bower 
 of Aengus is like the Glass-House in the Ocean, into which ]\Ierlin 
 disappears with his Xine Bards and his Thii'teen treasures ; it is 
 the heavens-vault. 
 
 Bishamon Ten or Tamon Ten, one of the Seven Japanese gods 
 of good fortune fwhose personalities have been overlaid with 
 Buddhism) grasps a long spear in one hand :^although he is in no 
 other sense warlike, and holds a miniature pagoda on the palm of 
 the other. He can confer on his devotees the Seven precious 
 treasures. He is equated with the Hindu Kuvera alias Vaish- 
 ravana, ^\•hose garden is on ^Mount ^landara. He is the regent of 
 the North, has the Three Legs o' ^lan, S teeth, and the 9 Nidhi or 
 mysterious treasures of the Irish Niall. He also got from Brahma 
 the great self-moving aerial car Pushpaka, which seems a parallel 
 
 ' CKcsxo De nat. Deer, ii, iS. - Rliys's /T/;'. Lat. 534, 613. 
 
 •" Il'id. 14S, 251, 507. 144 tu 146, 151, 667, 150, 155, 493. Dr. Joyce's Ci.V/V 
 KciiUin-\'Sy 402. 
 
Myths^ The Heavtns-Palace and its Pillar. 229 
 
 to Argo and all the other heavens-boats, as well as to all the celes- 
 tial chariots. 
 
 In what a new aspect, too, all this presents the incense-burning 
 and libations to all the host of the heavens in the high-places and 
 upon the flat Eastern house-tops in Jeremiah (xix, 13), Zephaniah 
 (i, 5), and the second book of Kings (xxiii, 5) ; and also upon the 
 altar on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz (ii Kings xxiii, 12). 
 With these texts we might compare the Vedic : " Agiii who has his 
 abode on high places."' A high place bama, and an altar mizbeah, 
 were at one time distinguished in the Old Testament ; but ulti- 
 mately bama was the term applied to any idolatrous shrine or 
 altar.- 
 
 The chief of all the sahib i tesarruf (owners of possession) of 
 the Moslena dervishes is called the Kutb, or Kutub ; a word which, 
 according to Lane and Devic, signifies primarily a pole or axis, 
 and then a chief; it also means a centre ; and is here = sahib. 
 Devic instances the old astronomical al-chitot, the axis of the sphere, the pole 
 of the world, as a corruption from al-Kutb, the axle, the pole, the polestar ; 
 so that Kiitb-ud-Din, whose inscription is on the Kutub-Minar (p. 208 supra), 
 would mean the Polestar (or chief) of the faith, the head of the church, in 
 point of fact. This is \ery significant indeed. 
 
 The Kutub's ordinary station is on the roof of the Ka'bah at 
 Mecca, where he is always invisible — je le crois bien^-though often 
 audible. 
 
 He is unique of his kind. On his right and left are the 2 Umena (plural of 
 emin, faithful). When the one in the middle dies, the left succeeds Ivim, and 
 the right takes the left's place. The right place is then filled by one of the 4 
 E\tad (plural of veted, tentpeg, cardinal points). There are also 5 Envar 
 (plural of nur, light) who succeed the Evtad. Again, there are 7 Akhyar 
 (plural of khair, good) who succeed the Envar. There are also 8 nnkeba, or 
 deputies (of the 4?) These with other 40 are the unseen, the rijal i ghaib, who 
 every morn attend at the Ka'ba of Mecca, on the summit of which the T/itre 
 stand, never quitting it. Besides these i -(- 2 + 4 -|- 5 (-I-7) -|- 8 -|- 40 = 60 
 -f- 7 there are other 70 Eudela (plural of abdal, servant of Allah)." Lane said 
 as to Egypf' that many of the muslims say that iT/ijah or El\a.s was the Kutub 
 of his time, and that he in\'ests the successive Kutubs, having never died, 
 because he drank of the fountain of life. The Mevlevi sheikh of Nikosia says 
 Elias is the kutub over the Sea, and Husin the kutub over the Land. 
 A Turkish MS. mentions a Kadiri dervish, Ali el Vahidi who 
 was the Axis of the Loid, the Centre of the Ka'bah of the 
 
 ' Wilson's RigVeda, ii, 25. - Reiig. of Semites, 1S89, p. 471. 
 
 ■^ Jno. P. Bvowii : The Deiinshes, pp. 82, 163, as revised by the late Dr. Redhouse. 
 
 ■I MoJern Egyptians, chap. 3, 
 
230 The Nioiit of ihe Gods. [Axis 
 
 glorious Eternal. The sheikh Ismail er Rumi was also the Axis 
 of the Lord.' 
 
 Mr. Brown (p. 28) says Ka'ba — which is transliterated in many differing 
 ways — means simply ci/icj but it is also possible to refer it (in Spite of the 
 shape of the Meccan Ku'bah, which has suggested atic) to the root iu which 
 also gives us caelum. (See p. 148 supra, and Skeat's Diet.: cube, cubit and 
 cup, and root ku, p. 732.) 
 
 The subjects chosen to be graven on the ceilings of Egyptian 
 temples had a direct relation to celestial phenomena ; - and let us 
 remind ourselves here that the common word "ceiling" itself 
 comes from French ciel, Latin caelum, the heavens, a vault. 
 
 On the 28th day of the moon the Thibetan Buddhist Lamas all 
 ascend robed and in their yellow mitres to the flat roofs of their 
 houses, where they sit and chant slow hymns by the light of red 
 lanterns on poles. The service ends with a thrice repeated blare 
 from trumpets, conch-shells, drums and bells ; after which the 
 Lamas (4,000 of them at Kimbiim) scream and }-cll like wild 
 beasts, and then come down to the ground.'' 
 
 Capt. Conder saw on a house-top in Jerusalem the Jewish 
 ceremony of sanctification of the moon, prescribed in cabalistic 
 writings. It is, he considers, a survival of moon-worship; and 
 may be compared with the Ma or Moon Yasht of the Vendidad.* 
 The prayers are said standing on one leg, an attitude also common 
 to Moslem dervishes and Hindu hermits, and I have at p. 216 
 supra connected it with Ptah and the Universe-a.xis. 
 
 The Namnites (who named Nantes.'') of the Loire worshipped 
 in a roofed temple ; but it was unroofed by the priestesses once a 
 year, and had to be roofed (thatched ?) again before sunset.^ 
 
 It is at least curious that so many of the leading Northern 
 emblems are lucky house- and roof-marks. The 7-branch candle- 
 stick, the tomoye, the suastika, and the wheel. It might be added 
 that the Pamir plateau of Central Asia was not called the Bam-i- 
 Dunia, Roof of the World, for nothing ; and the Ridge of Heaven, 
 divah sanu, occurs several times in the Rig]^cda (i, 166, 5 ; v, 59, 7 ; 
 60, 3). 
 
 Under the heading of " The Lab)-rinth," I endeavour con- 
 clusively to prove that the Egyptian hieroglyphs (i) for a temple- 
 
 ' J. P. Brown's Tlu- DenisJics, 89, 91. The Mevlevi sheikh says there is here 
 ' probably ' a connexion with the North celestial pole. 
 
 ^ Pierret : Diet. 540. ■'' Hue's Travels (W. Hazlitt's translation) ii, 70. 
 
 * Hetli and Moab, p. 275. '- Rhys's Hib. Lecls. 197. 
 
Myi/is.^ The Heavens-Palace and i/s Pillar. 
 
 231 
 
 enclosure or hall of columns, use^^t \^% (2) the h rn, and (3) the 
 
 mer in, have their origin in the heavens-palace or Universe- 
 labyrinth ; and that the Greek meander, the Indian nandya-varta, 
 the heraldic fylfot, the Japanese manji, the Chinese character "Jn, 
 and the universal suastika are all resemblant or similar exponents 
 of the same supernal (and infernal) idea. 
 
 This Inquiry was finished, and the earlier portion of the MS. was with the 
 printer, when I received to-day (12th March 1891) the able first part of Dr. M. 
 Caster's study of the Legend of the Grail.' He compares it with the Iter ad 
 Paradisum in the Alexander Legends, of which he uses the Greek version by 
 the pseudo Callisthenes (iii, 28), and the Latin of Julius Valerius. The Grail 
 or Graal was one of the endless important subjects that had to be here left 
 unattacked, and it was therefore with all the greater satisfaction I found that 
 almost all of the "properties" of these legends had been already expounded, 
 tant bien que mal, from other sources, in this Inquiry. 
 
 Here are tabulated those cosmic symbols, as hastily condensed from 
 Dr. Gaster : 
 
 Iter ad Paradisutn . 
 
 Veiled deity. (See "Kronos.") 
 
 throne, or couch. (See p. 192 and 
 Index. ) 
 
 mountain, high. (See "The Moun- 
 tain.") 
 
 palace (or round temple) on top of 
 mountain. 
 
 towers (twelve) — Altar in centre. 
 
 pillars (seven) and seven steps. 
 
 chain, golden, hangs from middle of 
 temple. (See Index.) 
 
 wreath, transparent, or trophceum or 
 stropjeum of gold, hung by the 
 chain. (See " The Wheel.") 
 
 sphere in the form of "vertiginis 
 coslitis " (the rotating heavens) hangs 
 again from the trophseum. (See 
 "The Sphere," and "The Arcana.") 
 
 chariot (at top of altar). 
 
 lamp. 
 
 tree (seven-branched golden wild 
 
 vine), 
 tree full of lights. (See "The Tree.") 
 
 Graal. 
 
 g. bridge, which draws up by enchant- 
 ment. (See " The Bridge.") 
 //. rock, stone, or jewel. 
 
 /. branched candlestick (ten branches). 
 (See " The Number Seven.") 
 
 d'oll^-Lorc, ii, 50. 
 
232 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 n. bird (human-voiced golden dove) on ' n. bird (dove). (See " Divine Birds.") 
 the sphere, 
 bird (Eagle with wings out-spread 
 " over the whole sideboard ''). 
 
 0. sword (breakless, save in one mj'sterious 
 peril) (A.xi5). 
 spear, dropping blood. 
 p. three drops of blood. (See "The 
 Heavens-River. ") 
 (See also what is said of the Graal and Graha under "The North.') 
 
 19. — The Colophon. 
 
 I THINK the printer's colophon must be traced back to a ver\- 
 important and lofty origin. Festus said "colophon dixerunt, 
 qiium aliquid fiiiitiim significaretur." And that is why colophon 
 and finis fill analogous parts in the practice of the printer's art. 
 Ko\o(^a)i' is the roof, top, summit, pinnacle, extremity, end ; in fact it 
 can refer to both ends of the stick ; KoXot^wva eTriOe'irat and imriOevai 
 and colophonem addere meant to make a finish, "to put- on the 
 colophon," or rather " to put the colophon on-to " something else.' 
 Kolophonia" was the daughter of ErechTheus and was thus sister 
 of ChTIwnia (could we, in ErechTheus, see the same idea as we get 
 in erectus, set-up?). Kolophomos the Giant was son of Tartaros 
 and ChThonia : we want no fitter origin for the Universe-column 
 that issues from tartarus and the earth to reach the heavens. 
 ErechTheus was also earth-born, auto-chthonous (note that 
 ChThonia would thus be his mother as well as his daughter), and 
 is one of the many gods swallowed-up alive by the Earth, which is 
 ill this case pierced for the purpose by the trident of Poseidon. 
 
 ' Passow, s. f. - Hyginus, Fab. 23S. 
 
Myths^ The Colophon. 233 
 
 Here we clearly have a double image of the Universe-axis 
 traversing this globe. ErechTheus had very suitably a temple in 
 the Acropolis (see Index) of Athens ; and, as if to clinch the 
 argument for his position as a central Universe god, he divided his 
 subjects into 4 classes, an obvious reference to the 4 cardinal parts 
 of his universe. ErechTheus was also an adjectival title of 
 Poseidon, the god of the (erect ?) trident. One of the daughters 
 of ErechTheus was called ErechThis ; another was Kpeovaa (see 
 "Crete "p. 138 supra) consort of Apollon. Their famous infant Ion 
 is, like EriChThonios Creusa's ancestor, one of the plentiful Moses 
 type (see " The Arcana "). Creusa is killed by Medea ; and an 
 enchanted garment, a golden chain, and a crown (all well-known 
 old properties of the great stage of the Universe tliCdXre) are 
 mixed-up in the fables of her death — for all the mythological 
 Creusas must be fused into one. 
 
 To return to Colophon. Herodotus (i, 14) makes Gyges 
 (Fu-y;;?), the hundred-armed owner of the Ring of invisibility, 
 take the town of Kolophon, which was in L)-dia (see p. 146) 
 where dwelt the divine Jack-of-all-trades PoluTechnos. Of course 
 this heavens-ring is another allegory of the god-hiding Universe- 
 veil, and Guges and 0-Guges must be put together. Again 
 Herodotus (ii, 16) makes Aluattes take the town of Smyrna, built 
 by Kolophon. (A Smyrna was also built by TanTalos.) Besides, 
 Kolophon was otherwise founded by Mopsos the great diviner and 
 Argonaut, grandson of Teiresias (which see), and one of the 
 Lapithai (which see); also captain of the Argives, that is of the 
 heavens-gods. In this last quality he also leads a colony to the 
 mountains of Kolophonia, where he founds the free three-gated 
 town of Phaselis — another phase of the self-same city. With 
 which cit)' too may be connected ^dcr?;A.o? the bean and the boat 
 — in fact they said this boat, of clay and reeds, was invented in 
 this town. Here we get this most primitive coracle (as a type 
 perhaps of the archaically conceived heavens-boat) closely con- 
 nected with the tabooed bean, which is here perhaps the Beanstalk 
 of the nursery-tale — tale now of our children's nurseries, then of 
 the Nursery of the human race. 
 
 AmphiMakos (great Dual ?) was king of Kolophon, its inhabi- 
 tants were famous horse-men, or rather central horse-gods, an 
 ever-victorious cavalry that decided the fate of battles (Strabo xiv, 
 
 643 TO LTTiriKOV TWV Ko\o</)&)I'tCO!^). 
 
The Night oj 
 
 the Gods. 
 
 \_Axis 
 
 All this makes for Colophon being the central heavens-palace 
 or city at the point of the Universe-axis. [See also " The 
 CEdipus Myths."] 
 
 In continuation of what has been stated above, p. 62, as to the 
 fleur-de-Lis at the point of the Axis, I here desire to signalise it 
 as a colophon on the top of the Pillar. And not 
 alone so, but I suggest that such was the simple 
 original of the Corinthian capital. This example is 
 given in Donaldson's Arcltcotogia Niimisiiiatica (No. 
 27/ where others may be seen also, from temples at 
 Emcssus and Antioch. It is the fashion I know to 
 say that the architecture on such coins was "conventional ;" but I 
 maintain, on the contrary, that it was most archaically simple and 
 real and conservative. 
 
 Dom Rivet, in that great undertaking VHistoire litte'raii-c dc la France, by 
 the Benedictines of Saint-Maur (ix, 199), spoke of the compass as an invention of 
 the 1 2th century, and due to France; as, said he, with sanctam simpHcitatem, 
 " all the nations of the universe attest by the fieur de lys which they put on the 
 wheel (sur la rose) at the North point." This forms a sparkling little pendant 
 to what is stated about the Nineveh antiquities at p. 62 supra. A Benedictine 
 too ! 
 
 ' See also Saglio's Diet, i, 911 — a great work \vhich we all wish to see completed. 
 
Myths?^ The Dual Pillars. 235 
 
 20. — The Dual Pillars. 
 
 ANOTHER development of the Cosmic Japanese Pillar is that 
 to the divine Pillar of the heavens, ame no mi-Hashira/ is 
 added the divine Pillar of Earth, kuni no mi-Hashira ; that is the 
 single pillar becomes a duality, which is also a pair of deities, male 
 (heavens) and female (Earth). Though a pair they continue to be 
 One, a duality in unity," which is a conception long familiar to us 
 in Hindu and other mythologies, and is besides quite in accord 
 with the yin-)'ang Chinese philosophical and cosmic theory, so 
 fully dealt-with here under " The Tomoye " and elsewhere. 
 
 Thus we have either a dual-pillar or two pillars, and it or they 
 arc combined with a sexual dual deity or pair of deities. Let us 
 now try and pursue these conceptions through other mythologies ; 
 and we shall eventually find that there is even yet another concep- 
 tion of the two pillars ; that they form a gateway, through which 
 entrance is obtained " into heaven." (I fancy they can even be 
 detected in another acceptation as being the N. and S. pro- 
 longations of the Earth-axis.) 
 
 I have already mentioned (p. 220) the pair of pillars in front 
 of the rock-cut caves at Karli and Bedsa, which Fergusson** called 
 stambhas. I am not certain whether the stambha or monolithic 
 lat does not properly stand alone (see p. 204 supra), but a pair of 
 stambhas would be an apparent parallel to the dual-pillar we are 
 here considering. There are another such pair at Dhumnar. 
 " On either side of the detaclied p07-ch of the Kylas* at EUora are two square 
 pillars called deepdans or lamp-posts, the ornainent at the top of which 
 possibly represents a flame. In the south of India among the Jains and in 
 Canara such pillars are very common, standing either singly or in pairs in front 
 of the gopuras " [gate-pyramids, practically torans loaded with an ornamented 
 pyramid] "and always apparently intended to carry lamps for festivals." [This 
 would make them a sort of fire-pillar or "pillar of fire" — Agni at the top of 
 the Universe-axis?] "They generally consist of a single block of granite, 
 square at base, changing to an octagon, and again to a figure of i6 sides (see 
 p. 182 supra), with a capital of very elegant shape. Some however are circular, 
 and indeed their variety is infinite." " It has been suggested that there may 
 
 ^ Kozhiki, i, ^. Mr. Chamberlain's version, p. 19. 
 
 ^ Mr. E. M. Satow in Trans. As. Soc. Jap. vii, 417, and Pure Shinto, S6. 
 
 ' Ind. Arch. 113, 52, 117, 131, 336, 276. 
 
 ■* Is not Kylas connected with kocXos- and caelum ? 
 
236 The Night of the Gods. [A 
 
 xis 
 
 be some connexion between these stambhas and the obelisks of the Egyptians 
 . . . they were certainly erected for similar purposes, and occupied the 
 same position relatively to the temples.' 
 
 Vishnu in his fourth a\atara as Narasinha the man-h'on-god 
 (see also p. 203 supra), may be seen depicted as bursting forth from 
 a spHtting pillar, that is a pillar dividing itself into two, to avenge 
 the blasphemy of Hiranya-kasipu who had pointed to a Pillar and 
 derisively asked : " Is then the god here?" This strikes one as a 
 very important record of the reality of the archaic faith. It is also, 
 it seems to me a doublet of the tree-myth of Osiris. 
 
 The Egyptian always put up a pair of obelisks before the 
 portico of his temples (see p. 200 si-pra). Among all that are 
 now known, whether at Rome, Constantinople, Velleri, Benevento, 
 Florence, Catania, Aries, Paris, London, Luxor, Karnak, On or An 
 (Heliopolis) or Alexandria, there is no instance of a single obelisk. 
 This might be supposed to tell against the Universe-axis sym- 
 bolism of the obelisk, had we not the Japanese dedoublement to 
 enlighten us ; and the pair of obelisks therefore must also have a 
 dual signification. 
 
 There was an An of the North (Heliopolis) .rii, ^aYP"^ and 
 
 ill ® a © 
 
 there was also an An of the South (Hermonthis) m , -1^'^ (which 
 
 appear to impl}' the X. and S. prolongation of the Axis). An 
 means column or mountain. Hermonthis was also called /\nment 
 
 il'ZM "^' 1211 M- All these hieroglyphs clearly denote 
 pillars, obelisks, pyramids, and the like (see p. 199 supra). 
 
 The dual world-pillar must also be discerned in the columns 
 of HeraKles, and " the end of the world " where they were 
 situated must be taken to be the axial extremity. The function 
 of HeraKles relieving Atlas in supporting the heavens clearly 
 belongs to the same dual conception. The legends also say that 
 HeraKles separated two mountains to form the columns ; and we 
 shall see in Vol. II how the Pillar and the Mountain aft'ord 
 variants of one and the same cosmic image. Charax of Pergamos 
 said the pillars of Kronos (see p. 191 supra) were afterwards 
 called the columns crrfjXai of Briareos, and then trul}- of Hera- 
 Kles.- Then there arc Homer's tall pillars which have about 
 them Earth and heavens. 
 
 ' .';/./. .-lir/i. 113, 52, 117, 131. 336, 276. - Didot's Fm^. Hist. Gi\ri. iii, 640. 
 
Myths ^ The Dual Pillars. 237 
 
 HeraKles (in the Argonautika, i, 1305) kills, in sea-girt Tenos, 
 the two sons of Thracian Boreas (Threikios Borees) as they return 
 from the funeral-games of Pclias (Pelies) ; "and he piled the 
 earth about them, and set up two pillars (aTijXrj) above them, 
 whereof the one, an exceeding marvel for men to see, is stirred by 
 the breath of the noisy north-wind^ " (klvvtch, rj-)(i^evro<; vtto Trvoifi 
 Bopeao). The last phrase (i, 1 308) is meaningless as rendered. 
 Does it not refer to Boreas blowing round the sphere upon its 
 axis ? Below (p. 243) are given other instances of wind-gods 
 filling such mythic functions. Elsewhere (iii, 160) Apollonios says 
 that there is a path down from heaven at the heavenly gates of 
 Olympus where "the world's two poles, the highest points on 
 earth, uphold ste;ep mountain-tops " (Sotw Se iroXot ave-xpvcn Kapriva 
 ovpecav rp^i/SaTCOv, Kopvc^al •)(6ovo<i). 
 
 We have a dual pillar, I fancy, in Pausanias (ix, 8, 3 ; i, 34) 
 where, on the road from Potniae to Thebes there was a small 
 enclosure ivitk pillars met, where the Earth opened for Ariiphi Araos, 
 whose name indicates a Dual-Ares. " Men say, to this day, that 
 neither do birds perch upon the pillars, nor do animals tame or 
 wild feed on the grass." 
 
 Melqarth was worshipped at Tyre in the form of two pillars,' 
 and Captain Conder describes a double-pillar of red granite which 
 he calls a " twin-shaft and also a " magnificent monolith 27 feet 
 long," of which " each half-column " is 42 inches in diameter, on 
 the site of that god's temple there." 
 
 F. Lenormant* said that the two stelae mentioned in the Sanchoniathon frag- 
 ments as having been set up on distant shores by Ouso (Usoos or Usoiis) to Fire 
 and Wind ("see p. 244 infra) and which are sho«n so often on the coins of 
 Tyre, were two submarine natural conical rocks called Trerpai d/n/Spoo-iai. This 
 last is startling ; and he quotes Nonnus {Dionys xl, 467 to 476). 
 " Two pillars also stood before the temples of Paphos (see p. 254 
 infra) and Hierapolis, and Solomon set up two brazen pillars 
 before his temple at Jerusalem. He named the right one the 
 Stablisher, and the left Strength.''' They were doubtless s)'mbols 
 of Jehovah."" " Whether the two ghari at Hira and Faid belong to 
 a pair of gods, or are a double image of one deity, cannot be 
 decided."" As already stated, we may perhaps incline to the dual- 
 
 ^ Mr. C. P. Coleridge's version, p. 48. ■" Herod, ii, 44. 
 
 ? Heth and Aloah, p. 90. 
 
 "• .Saglio, Diet, des Anfi,/. i, 642. Didot's Frag. Hist. Gnic. ii, 556. 
 
 ■' i Kings vii, 21 ; ii Chioii. iii, 17. ^ Rclig. of Semites. 191, 19.^. 
 
2,38 The Night of the Gods. \^.4xis 
 
 deity conception every\v?iere, thus coinciding too with another 
 remark of Prof. Robertson Smith's : " A god and a goddess were 
 often worshipped together, and then each would have a pillar."' 
 
 It seems possible from what I am about to state, that in the 
 case of these "symbols of Jehovah" one pillar may have indicated 
 the Shekinah of the Talmud and the Rabbis, and the old 
 interpretation of these pillars need not be wholly forgotten: the 
 right was called Jachin or Jehovah's strength, the left Booz, that is 
 Beauty. 
 
 (I shall just mention here the statement of Mr. Demetrius Mosconas" that 
 these words Booz and Jachin read backwards have, oddly enough, a male and 
 female meaning in the " Egypto-Chaldean " words zoob and nichaj.j 
 
 By kabbalistic combination, the ineffable name nlH^ Jehovah expresses 
 a duality in the godhead, a he and a she, Hu (that is lie; and his Schechinah. 
 "The divine husband and wife" is mentioned in the Jewish liturg\-for Pente- 
 cost, and also in the daily formula : " In the name of the union of the holy and 
 blessed Hu and his Schechinah, the hidden and concealed Hii, blessed be 
 Jehovah for ever." The name Hu, and the familiar name Yah are of masculine 
 and feminine gender respectively ; and the union of the two forms the name of 
 "ini^ Pfipi^ One Jehovah ; one, but of a bise.xual nature, according to 
 kabbalists. Hu and Yah in separate form used to be invoked in the second 
 Temple on the seventh day of the Feast of Tabernacles ; an imitation of which, 
 attended with all the ancient ceremonials now possible, may annually be 
 witnessed in the orthodox sjTiagogues to this day.' 
 
 Ashtoreth was the ^Meleket-has-shamayim, the queen of the heavens ''va. Jeremiah 
 vii, 1 8 ; xliv, 17 to 19, 25) who must have been the dual goddess of Baal- 
 shamayim, the Lord of the heavens.* In the Sanchoniathon fragments, Shama 
 (Ouranos) weds his sister .Adamath (Ge).^ 
 
 Pious Jews on retiring to rest repeat three times in Hebrew : " In the name of 
 Yeya "'^ the god of Israel. On my right-hand is MichaEI, and on my left 
 
 GabriEl before me is AriEl and behind me RaphaEl ; over my head is the 
 Schechinah of god."' An obvious predecessor of our " Matthew, Mark, Luke 
 and John, Pray bless the bed that I lay on,"' and a support to what has been 
 already argued above, p. 165. 
 
 Alexander Polyhistor said that an idol in the temple of Belos 
 at Babylon was bi -sexual and two-headed."^ 
 
 In the Life of Laurence Oliphant.' it is stated that '" the Swedenborgian 
 theory replaces the trinity by a father and mother god, a twofold instead of a 
 threefold unity — the godhead made up of a father and mother, the masculine 
 
 ' Rdis;. of Semites, 191. 193. - Ohclisijius J E^^'ttc. Alexandria, iS";, p. 2. 
 
 ' Rabbinical comment, on Genesis, by P. I. Hershon, 1SS5, p. 13S, 302. 
 
 * Perrot and Chipiez, V Art dans tant. iii, 6S. * F. Lenormant, 0-rig. i. 5.^2. 
 
 * The reference for this is lost. At p. 212 of Didot's Fra^. Hist. (7;-.rr. vol. ii, 
 Alex. P. says Belos was vulgarly called Kronos. 
 
 " By Mrs. M. O. W. Oliphant, ii, 4, 199, 
 
Jllytks.'] The Dual Pillars. 239 
 
 and the feminine in one person." This would, of course, be a mere perpetuation 
 of previous similar beliefs, but IVIr. J. J. G. Wilkinson' by no means accords 
 with this, for Swedenborg held " a trinity (not of persons, but) of person in the 
 godhead." It is certainly further said that " the sexual distinction is founded 
 upon the two radical attributes of God, his love and his wisdom, whereof the 
 former is feminine, and the latter masculine." And then again we hear that 
 Jacob Bohme's " doctrine of the bi-sexual Adam establishes between him and 
 Swedenborg a gulf not to be overpassed." Small is the matter of it, and small 
 the blame to them all for not being too crystal-clear about it. 
 
 The same idea that we have above in the two Jerusalem pillars 
 was of course carried out also in Indian religion where (in the 
 sculptures of the caves of Elephanta) the god Siva is to the right 
 and his wife Parvati to the left. (In Japan the moon-god was 
 born from the right eye of Izanagi, and the sun-goddess from his 
 left eye.) 
 
 The Russian Abbot Daniel, who did his pilgrimage to the holy land in 
 1 106, said that " a verst or half a verst from Sigor, towards the S. on an eleva- 
 tion, there is a stone column which is Lot's wife. I have seen this with my own 
 eyes."- (This ought to indicate that Lot might ^ lat ?) Lot, in the Persian 
 Moslem legends, slept on a stone, in which he left the impression of his blessed 
 body, and his name is brought from the " Arabic root lldt."^ He is also given 
 12 daughters, which is a zodiacal token. His wife too is killed by a turning 
 rock, striking her head. We have a Greek divine pair PanDareos and 
 HeiTnoThea both turned to stone as a punishment. But immense numbers of 
 deities are stones or are seen turned to stones in the course of this Inquiry j 
 nor have 1, doubtless, attained mention of half of them. 
 
 Francois Lenormant, writing of Bacchus in Saglio's Dictioiinaire 
 (i, 6i6) said that the symbolism of all the peoples of antiquity 
 established an intimate relation between the Iniinid principle and 
 the. female principle in Nature ; water being feminine, while fire is 
 masculine. (This, again, of course accords with the Chinese yin- 
 }'ang philosophy.) He adds that Bacchus, as representing warm- 
 humidity, was for that reason essentially a god of undecided sex 
 and physique ; a half-man -ijrevSdvcop ; effeminate, at the same time 
 masculine and feminine apa-evodrfKv^, yvvvi<;, 6ifX,v^pu>v, the male 
 personification, as it were, of the female principle.'' Agdistis was 
 of both sexes, that is was a dual nature-god, and seems to ha\e 
 divided, in the myths, into Attis and Cybele ( = Agdistis).-^ 
 
 ' Emanuel S-cUedenhorg {2nA ei.), l836, pp. 135, 177, 230. 
 = Pal. Pilgrims' Text Soc. 18SS, p. 47. 
 ■' Mirkhond's Rausat-us-Safa, 1891, pp. 156, 154. 
 
 ■• Lucian, Dialog, dear. 23. Suidas, -^(vhavap. Orphic liyran xliv, 4. Arnobius 
 vi, 12. 
 
 ■' M. P. Dechanne in .Saglio's Diet, i, 1681. 
 
24° The AUght of Ihc Gods. [Axis 
 
 It seems quite possible that AmphiOn simply means the 
 dual-being. Sec also what is said as to Kekrops under the 
 heading " AgLauros." The Japanese gods of A'letal, according to 
 Hirata Atsutane, are a male and female pair viewed as a single 
 deity.^ The subject of the dual-scxed divinity would admit of 
 endless development ; and the same conception — so correct and 
 familiar in vegetable nature — was also of course current about 
 humanity. 
 
 Genesis v. 2 reads (in ihe " Elohistic " portion) : " male and female Elohim 
 created them, and blessed them, and named them of their name Adam." Jewish 
 traditional legends in the Targumim and the Talmud, as well as the learned 
 philosopher Moses Maimonides, say that Adam was thus created bi-sexual, 
 having two faces turned different ways ; and what occurred during the deep 
 sleep was the separation of 'Havah the feminine half. Eusebius of Cas?area= 
 accepted this, and thought Plato's account in the Banquet (where Aristophanes 
 is made to relate the similar legend about early humanity) entirely agreeable 
 to the Hebrew Scriptures. Other theologians have upheld and developed this ; 
 for exainple St. Augustin, de Gubbio (theologian to Pope Paul III at the 
 council of Trent, and prefect of the Vatican library), and the minor friar 
 Francesco Giorgi (1522;.^ Berosus also in his Phoenician cosmogony speaks of 
 two-headed bi-sexual human beings born in the bosom of Chaos at the origin.' 
 The first Zoroastrian couple was a two-faced androgyn, split-up later by Ahura 
 Mazda. In the RigVeda, Yama is the first man, yama means twin, and yam 
 to hold. The same physiological theory is in the Sata-patlia-hyahiiiana ; and we 
 find it also in a Vedic legend where^ SasiyasS's husband Taranta Rajah is 
 called "the man her half (neinah)." In the Smriti it is said that a wife is the 
 half of the body (arddham sarirasya bharya), which still survives in the playful 
 "your better half" of colloquial English ; and the dual yin-yang idea brc^.ks 
 forth in modern colloquial Japanese, where the word ' sex ' is expressed by the 
 (Chinese) compound nan-niyo = man-woinan. (See also the twin-duality under 
 " The Dokana.") 
 
 As to the starting-point of the dual divine and human nature, which may 
 have founded the dual number in languages, we need to seek no further than 
 the two sexes in nature. The theory that refers this duality to the two halves 
 of the brain — the two brains, as lately developed by Dr. C. E. Erown-Sequard* 
 — seems to me completely off the spot. Were the initial idea of duality to be thus 
 referred to our own internal consciousness, then the prototype would necessarily 
 be the Wille and the Intellect, as represented by the spinal system and the 
 brain. 
 
 In Haeckel's views of evolution, as now professed b)' M. Alfred 
 Giard at the Sorbonne, " the point of departure is the Egg, which 
 
 ' Mr. Satow's Pure Shinto, p. 86. - /';«-/. Evmi^. xii, 535. 
 
 ^ F. Lenormant ; Oi i:;. i, 55. * Didot's Frag. Hist. Gric. ii. 497. 
 
 '" KigV. iii, 345 (WilsMnV). * Fonun, August iSgo. 
 
Myths:] The Dual Pillars, 241 
 
 is one simple cell. After fecundation, this cell-egg splits into two 
 identically-like cells, then each of these divides again into two 
 others, and so on ; the phenomenon being known as ' segmenta- 
 tion.'" This may implant the idea of duality in the very marrow 
 of our existence, in the protoplasm of our thoughts. 
 
 It is worth bearing in mind that the Egyptian hieroglyph which indicated 
 the plural was the number 3, 111 or |. Its pronunciation was u ^. Or the 
 plural was formed by tripling the hieroglyph of the singular noun. Thus 
 duality was not plurality ; and this is a radical fact to remember in mythologies 
 where single gods split into a duality ; which again has its reaction earlier on 
 speech and later on grammar, as just above theorised. 
 
 The pomegranates and lilies (fleur-de-lis or lotus ? ) on Solomon's pillars 
 are of course generative emblems, and the decoration of the capitals was in 7 
 compartments. The phallic significance of the Axis has been already touched 
 upon (p. 66), and the polar consecration of the number Seven will follow later. 
 
 The praying priests who yearly ascended to the top of the pillars or phalli, 
 which Bacchus returning from India placed at Hierapolis, must have been a 
 sort of steeple-Jack-priests ; for they made themselves crow's-nests, and pulled 
 up their provisions by a rope ; they also beat a brass instrument, when praying 
 for the blessing of the gods upon Syria, and so stayed-up for 7 days and 7 nights 
 f^De Dea Syra). " Lucian " here goes on to say that everyone who puts up a 
 phallus to Bacchus puts a wooden man on its summit, for a reason he would 
 not tell (" for the best reason in the world," perhaps, in his own case) ; but it 
 appeared to him that the men ascended the phalli at Hierapolis to represent this 
 wooden man. It has occurred to me that the original imagery was not phallic 
 at all, but indicated the supreme deity at the summit of the Universe-axis. 
 
 In the time of Vitruvius, round towers which had an egg-shaped point were 
 called phala; ; and the defence-towers of camps and towns in the middle ages 
 had the same name, says Ducange. But Festus ga.\efala, and said they were 
 so called because of their height, from falando, which with the Etruscans 
 meant the sky (a falando, quod apud Etruscos significat caelum). " Falando," 
 somehow, does not look all right. 
 
 The device of the order of the Golden Fleece (which I always 
 maintain to be the starry heavens) contains two pillars, with the 
 motto Plus ultra ; and we must see the same dual Universe-pillar 
 on the famous pillar -dollars ; which the Arabs however, viewing 
 them horizontally, call " the father of big guns." 
 
 OnZ(Z'/rt;'t'Sunday(4thin Lent.ourSimnel or Mothering Sunday), 
 at Halberstadt, the canons of the cathedral used in the 13th century 
 to fix in the ground before the church two posts six feet high with 
 a wooden cone a foot high on the top of each — a strong reminder of 
 the phals. They then played with sticks and stones at knocking 
 off the cones — just the " three-sticks-a-penny " of our fairs and 
 
242 The Night of the Gods. {Axis 
 
 race-meetings. This was also done at Hildesheim on the following 
 Saturday.^ This was said to be a commemoration of the destruc- 
 tion of the Irminsul by Charlemagne, but the statement is obviously 
 an antiquarian's shot, and is besides needless and unmeaning. 
 
 Lord Tennyson has been struck by the dual-pillar conception as it appeared 
 in Mailduinn's Voyage. 
 
 And we came in an evil time to the Isle of the Double Towers ; 
 One was of smooth-cut stone, one car\"ed all over with flowers. 
 
 (The subject of duality in gods, irrespective of sexuality, will be 
 taken up under the headings of " The Dokana " and " The Two 
 Kabeiroi," as to whose double column see p. 201 supra.) 
 
 It has been theorised (for example by F. G. Bergmann) that " the great 
 perch or pole, or the two tree-trunks, or two oriented masts,"^ w^ere sacred to 
 the Sun ; but I have never met with a confirmation or proof of this. I suppose 
 the idea is that the two posts were erected to give the meridian by their 
 shadows ; but this is my own gloss (so far as I know) ; and I have met with 
 just one factlet to suggest further enquiry into this in the statement in Plato's 
 Republic {-jb-, DE) that the two columns surmounted by gilt eagles on the top 
 of Mount Lukaios, were to the E. of the earthen-mound-altar of Zeus Lukaios. 
 Chambers's Handbook of Astronomy (4th ed. ii, 195) show-s how with one pole 
 and its shadow, and concentric circles, the meridian may be nearly got at Mid- 
 summer : and Ptolemy in the ^/;«ag7?.s'/(iii, 2) described a single pole at Ale.xan- 
 dria, for — with a knowledge of the e.xact N. — getting an appro.ximation to noon. 
 
 " Then Adonai answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said . . . . " 
 — [Job x.x.xviii, I.) 
 
 THE PILLAR WINDGODS. The superfcetation of the Pillar 
 symbolism did not come to an end in Japan when the pillar and its 
 god became dual ; for this dual deity was also worshipped there in 
 archaic times as the male and female gods of Shina or Wind, as 
 the valuable old rituals translated by Mr. E. M. Satow show.'' 
 
 Why the winds should be thus identified with the pillars that 
 support the heavens has long puzzled the commentators. The 
 difficulty seems to lie in not analysing the secondary idea Wind, as 
 here employed ; and we actually find (as Mr. Satow pointed out) 
 that the alternative wind-name for the pillar-gods, Shina, can mean 
 ' long-breathed.' Here we have the idea of the atmosphere, the 
 
 ' Eckart, De rebus Francia, AVurzburg, 1729, p. 221. Meibom, De Irmiiisula 
 Saxonica, p. 20, (in M. Goblet's book p. 142). 
 " Gylja Giiiningy 2nd ed. 223. 
 
 ^ 7'ra«f. As. Soc. Jap. vii, 41S ; Pure Shinto, 82, S3. S6 ; Handlook of Japan, 396. 
 
Myths.'] The Dual Pillars. 243 
 
 motion of which gives wind, and of course we currently talk of a 
 broken-winded horse and of a runner getting his second wind and 
 so on. Thus the notion of representing the heavens to be upheld, 
 and the space between Earth and heavens to be filled, as a bladder 
 is filled, by the resisting air seems neither strained nor far-fetched, 
 although it is a conception of a quite different order from that of 
 the heavens-pillars, and perhaps of a later date than the pillar- 
 myth ; and this theory finds support in Mr. Satow's surmise that 
 " the worship of the Winds at Tatsuta seems to date from after the 
 introduction of Buddhism."^ 
 
 The ancient norito or ritual is for die worship of the kami " to whom is 
 consecrated the Palace built with stout Pillars at TatsuTa no TachiNu in 
 YamaTo." Of course this is for me a symbol of the heavens-palace ; and it is 
 at least odd that tatsu (or tatu) to stand, is as like the tat of Ptah (see p. 2ig 
 supra) as we could desire to have it. Then tachi (or tati) comes from tatsu, 
 ta ^ field, and nu = jewel ; yama is mountains, and to may be gate or place. 
 Thus the name of the site of the palace or temple to these gods is " the upright 
 (or upheld) jewel of the upheld-fields of the mountains-place or -gate." All 
 which is celestial, as will be seen on reference to nu-hoku, p. 67 supra, and 
 the Section on " The Heavens-Mountain" in Vol. II. 
 
 There is another point of contact between the pillar and the 
 wind ideas in the belief that these Japanese wind-gods bear the 
 prayers of men to the supernal powers, and therefore are, in this 
 sense, a means of communication between Earth and heavens. 
 
 But what I have been arguing about the pillar-winds seems 
 now almost superfluous, for, just as this Section is going to the 
 Printers, I find (5th December 1891) that the very same idea of 
 the winds as pillars is in the Ethiopic Book of Enocli •} 
 
 " I then surveyed the receptacles of all the Winds, perceiving that in them 
 were the ornaments of the whole creation, and the foundation of the Earth. 
 I surveyed the Stone, the Corners of the Earth. I also beheld the 4 Winds 
 which bear-up the Earth and the firmament of the heavens. And I beheld the 
 Winds occupying the Height of the heavens ; arising in the middle of the 
 heavens and of Earth, and constituting the Pillars of the heavens. I saw 
 the Winds which turn the sky, which cause the orb (? sphere) of the sun and of 
 all the stars to set ; and over the Earth I saw the Winds which support the 
 clouds." 
 
 This parallel is one of the very numerous happy coincidences 
 that constantly keep turning up for me in the course of this Inquiry, 
 and lead me to believe, as to its main theory, that " there may be 
 something in it." The Book of Enoch too is here quite accordant 
 with what the Subbas say of the four Winds (p. 160 supra). 
 
 ' Murray's Handbook of Japan, p. 70. " Laurence's translation, 1S21, xviii, i to 6, 
 
 Q 2 
 
 N 
 
244 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 That this Book of Enoch was in great part a mystic cosmic rhapsody, of 
 the same school with the grand Apocalypse which has found a restingplace in 
 the Christian New Tesiaiiicnl, must strike even the most casual and careless 
 reader. Bishop Laurence (p. xli) also said the Book copied Daniel. 
 
 In the RigVcda the Maruts, the Wind-gods, and also, as I 
 desire to make them, the Mill-gods (root mar grind, whence mola 
 mahlen mill mortar) " brought-together heavens and Earth, both 
 firmly established " (vi, 66, 6) ; " heavens and Earth were joined 
 together " by the strength of the Maruts (viii, 20, 4). Not alone 
 so, but they " hold heavens and Earth asunder " (viii, 94, 1 1), just 
 as we shall see Indra doing in the Section on " The Wheel " : 
 " powerfully separating two wheels with the a.xle, as it were, Indra 
 fasteneth heavens and Earth"; and Indra was the fellow of the 
 Maruts. Here it seems to me indubitable that we also have 
 the Winds as axis-gods. 
 
 See too the very remarkable Greek connexion of Boreas with 
 the two pillars just given above (p. 237) ; nor should I here omit 
 fresh mention qf the famous Tower of the Winds at Athens. 
 Among the most famous of ancient pillars are the two (already 
 mentioned, p. 237) erected by Usoiis, brother of HypsOuranios 
 (= over-heavens, or beyond-taii .' see pp. 23, 46), to Fire and Wind, 
 whose worship he instituted.' In New Zealand the wind-god of 
 the hurricane dwells near his father Rangi, the heavens-god, in the 
 free air.- 
 
 Hasan ben Sabbah (afterwards better known to his allies the Templars as 
 the Old Man of the Mountain), Omar AlKhayyami the poet-astronomer, and 
 Nizam-ul-Mulk the vizier, were all three sworn schoolboy friends. Hasan, the 
 Assassin, ultimately had Nizam killed after his own fashion, and "when Nizam- 
 ul-Mulk was in the agony he said ' Oh Allah ! I am passing away in the hand 
 of the Wind I ' " Omar seems to have used this ? . _- . 
 
 \\'ith them the seed of wisdom did I sow, 
 ■' And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow j 
 
 And this was all the harvest that I reaped — 
 ' I came like Water, and Ijke Wind I go.' 
 
 [On the subject of the Universe-.-\xis as pillar, column, spine, umbrella- 
 stick, churn-stick, treetrunk, lance, arrow, spear, pole-axe, tower, spindle, 
 ladder : and even as cord and line, I would beg the reader to turn to Dr. 
 Warren's Paradise Found ; tiic Cradle of the Human Race at the Xorth Pole.] 
 
 ' Eiiseb. Prep. Ev. i, 10. Didut's /Vi;j,'. Hist. Grac. iii, 566. 
 
 - Lang's Custom and Mytli. 
 
 ' FitzGerald's Omar Kliaryant, 4lh cd. 1S79. pp. vi, S. 
 
Afyths?^ The " Gate of Heaven^' or Dokana. 245 
 
 21. — The "Gate of Heaven," or Dokana. 
 
 " Have the Gates of Death been revealed unto thee ? or hast thou seen the 
 Cates of the shadow of the dead ?" — (Job xxxviii, 17.) 
 
 [In order to complete the dual-pillar, I am here forced to anticipate some 
 of the Sections on " The Number Seven " and also on "The Two Kabeiroi," in 
 which latter the DiosKouroi will also be dealt with.] 
 
 AVERY strange point about the DiosKouroi is or are their 
 Ao/cava, their most ancient presentment in Lakonia where 
 Welcker put the origin of the symbol ; Bottiger saying Asia, and 
 especially Phoenicia. 
 
 Ad/cai/a from SoKor, a baulk of timber, a word which I suggest embraces the 
 same senses in Greek that axis does in Latin, namely those of axle-tree and 
 beam-of-wood or plahki 
 
 This or these mysterious symbol or symbols consisted of two 
 upright and parallel timbers joined transversely by two others ; 
 and represented the DiosKouroi in their fraternal union ; for at times 
 the twins bore the duplex emblem complete ; at others, when the 
 divine brothere were separate, each carried one half of the hoicava : 
 an exact parallel to the halves of the Roman tablet called tessera 
 hospitalis, or of the common tally, or of a true-lover's token, or of 
 an ancient terra-cotta or other passport, all over the Eastern and 
 modern worlds. 
 
 The tessera hospitalis of the Romans, the crvfifioXov of the Greeks, and the 
 chirs aelychoth, the sherd of guest-friendship, of the Carthaginians, have all 
 been connected by Ihering, Haberland, Leist, and Dr. O. Schrader.' King 
 Hakon of Norway, in the 23rd chapter of his Saga, splits-up a war-arrow, 
 which he sent off in all directions, and by that a number of men were collected 
 in all haste.- 
 
 The word dokana is kept quite out of ken in the etymologies of our own 
 word token, though the resemblance both of the things and of the words is 
 striking. MiddleEnglish token, AngloSaxon t^cen ticn, Dutch teeken, Ice- 
 landic tclkn teikn, Danish tegn, Swedish teeken, German zeichen, Gothic 
 taikns, are all cited by Prof Skeat, who says in^.r is also from the same root : 
 which is dik to shew. But dokana is left out in the cold. 
 
 The DiosKouroi were also War-gods, which shows their supreme 
 rank ; and therefore their emblem the hoKova, or one half of it, 
 
 ' Piehist. Atyati Aiiiiq. (1890) p. 351. - Heimskringla (1S89) ii, 31. 
 
246 The Nig/it of the Gods. {Axis 
 
 accompanied the Spartan kings to battle. The Semites took 
 their gods into battle with them ; the ark was brought into the 
 camp of IsraEl (I Sam. iv, 7), and David looted the Philistine idols 
 at Baal-Perazim (II Sam. v, 21). Lord Crawford points out in his 
 (posthumous) Creed of Japlict (p. 132) that "the legend of the 
 partition of the hoKava, as reported by Herodotus, passed into 
 the early Christian mythology, where we may recognise it in the 
 partition of the two arms of the cross of our Lord, the capture of 
 one of them in battle by the Persians, and the successful crusade 
 of Heraclius for its recovery."' 
 
 The Dokana was also, or became, the well-known sign of the 
 
 constellation Gemini, j~r or J |_ or ) \ ;" and Plutarch in the 
 
 first lines of his writing on Fraternal Friendship mentions (in 
 accordance with what is above shown) that at Sparta the Lace- 
 daemonians honoured Castor and Pollux, their tutelary gods, under 
 the form of the wooden parallels.^ 
 
 In Samoa the mythic female twins Ulu and Na were joined by the backs 
 when born. When grown up, they were startled out of sleep by the throwing of 
 wood on the fire, and in their fright ran with great force at different sides of a 
 housepost, and so were parted.^ In Turner's Samoa (p. 56) is a variant which 
 says that Taema and Titi were the names of two household gods in a Samoan 
 family. They were, like these girls, " Siamese twins," united back to back. In 
 swimming they were struck by a wave which separated them. Members of this 
 family going on a journey were supposed to have tlicse gods witli thcni as their 
 guardian angels. Members of the family could not sit back to back, for it 
 would be a inockery and insult which would incur the displeasure of their gods. 
 Every thing double, such as a double yam and so on, was taboo to them, and 
 not to be used under penalty of death. Here is a supreme sanction of a dual 
 myth as like that of the DiosKouroi plus their dokana as we are likely to get it : 
 and it is humbly submitted to the attentive notice of the migrationists. 
 
 It seems to me that the Sanskrit yamd twin can be explained here from 
 yam to hold ; the twins being considered as held-together. The great typical 
 Twins that belong to this yamd. conception are of course Yamd the first man 
 and his twin-sister Yami. The " reinarkable hymn in the form of a dialogue, 
 in which the female urges their cohabitation for the purpose of perpetuating 
 the species,"* is a straightest parallel to the Japanese legend of the brother 
 and younger sister Izana^/' and Izanawz' (inviting-male and inviting-female) in 
 the 4th chapter of the Kozltiki.'^ They go round The Pillar too, the palace- 
 pillar, like as in the Samoan legend. In Japanese and Sanskrit we thus have 
 
 ' Gibbon, ch. .\lvi. 
 
 " Guignaut's Creuzor, ii, 311, 321, 10S5, noi, iioo. Bailly Astron. Anc. ix, 41 
 
 P- 5M)- 
 
 ^ Plutarch, Defrat. amor, p. 949 Wyttenberg. ■* Rev. G. Pratt, Folk-l.ore, ii, 457. 
 ^ Dowson's Diet. (2ncl ed.) 373. ^ See Mr. Chamberlain's version, p. 20. 
 
Myi/is.~\ The " Gate of Heaven" or Dokana. 
 
 247 
 
 not only the twin duality (as in Samoa, and in Castor and Pollux) but the sexual 
 duality also. This typical myth thus seems to me critical, and of the very first 
 rate. We shall have to discuss the gyrations of Izanagi and Izanami in the 
 Section on " Circular Worship " in Vol. II. It now appears that such anomalies 
 as the Siamese twins, the "two-headed nightingale combination," Milly- 
 Christine, Rosa-Josepha (1891) and so on, are to be explained in embryology 
 by the occasional penetration of two sperniatozoids into the egg. (M. Henri 
 Coupin in Rev. Eitcycl. 1892, 285 ; 1891, 949.) 
 
 But perhaps the oddest thing about this symbol as a sign in 
 the celestial sphere is its presence in the Chinese charts (in our 
 Taurus and Orion) where it is named T'ien-tsieh, or Heaven- 
 tally ; each portion of it closely resembling one 
 half of the hoKava, and also the Chinese radical 
 P , tsieh, a stamp.^ This character and its 
 signification must come from the ancient prac- 
 tice of stamping a knot of bamboo, and then 
 splitting bamboo and stamp down the middle, 
 in order to give one half to an envoy or n\^" 
 traveller, as a token, which verified itself on 
 subsequent comparison with the other half. 
 
 which had been retained. 
 Chinese frontier-barriers. 
 
 I 7/Ct tiyfJU. - S£-a/->ruL/nA^ 
 
 Thus were passports given at the 
 
 There is yet another idea which 
 has presented itself to me about 
 this SoKava. Reference to a 
 celestial globe or star-map makes 
 it apparent that the figures made 
 by the Seven Stars 
 of the Great, and 
 also of the Little, 
 Bear are almost 
 parallel in reversed 
 directions. Further, 
 if lines be drawn 
 from star to star, 
 '■■'as shown in the 
 diagram, similar 
 figures areobtained, 
 not so very unlike 
 
 ' Prof. G. Schlegel's Uranog. Ckinoise p. 374. —b, c, d, it, p, and Tiazzi's 146, are in 
 Taurus ; Piazzi's 214 and the other are in Orion. 
 
34S The Night of thie Gods {Axis 
 
 one half of the coKava. if we imagine it divided Hke this: [_~\ , 
 It may be said at first blush that this is merelj- ingenious ; and 
 indeed the fancy might stop there, were it not that the double 
 constellation of the two Bears was also known as Geminae to 
 Ovid (J/iY. iii, 45), Propertius (ii, 22, 25;, Hyginus (Astron. ii, l), 
 and Cicero, who emplo)-s the Greek form.' 
 
 Virgil also has, twice over, " geminosque Triones,"- twin 
 Triones, a very puzzling Avord, which Varro (vii, 74) and Aulus 
 Gellius said meant labour-oxen ; but it may very well come from 
 rp'ia and o)v, and thus mean the Three Entities, the Triad. It 
 occurs again in SeptemTriones or SeptenTriones, which is always 
 used for the Bears, and thence for the North. This may but 
 half conceal from us the Seven plus the Three supreme central 
 I-Seings. I return to this under " The Arcana " and " The Number 
 Seven." 
 
 (Besides being twins, the Bears Avere of course also male and female, 
 Arkas and Kallisto, see "The Number Seven."^ 
 
 A little more must now be said about the ZoKava from another 
 slightly differing point of view. It is singular that, according to 
 Suidas, the tombs of the Tyndarides (that is, of Kastor and 
 PolyDeukes) in the archaic Spartan town of Therapne, were also 
 called hoKava. The Etyinologiann Magnum goes on to explain that 
 the hoKava presented the appearance of an open tomb. This would 
 be comparable to the Eg\'ptian tomb-door which graduall)" 
 
 developed into the funereal stela!'-' 
 
 ■: — ^1. Thus we should 
 
 ha\'e the hoKava as t/ie entrancc-doorzi'ay from this z,.'orld to ttie 
 next, the Restau ''~7^ ^^ ^^ (see also p. 250) ; and in view of 
 the high northern celestial position of the twin Bears, we might 
 perhaps even view it as TJie Gate of Heaven, the celestial doors 
 from which in the pap\TUs of Amen-em-sauP the defunct prays 
 not to be repulsed. ]May I not press into the service here an 
 
 Eg)'ptian word which has not }'et been phonetically read 1^^^ 
 
 but is explained by Brugsch {Monuments, jo) as " he who opens 
 the doors of heaven ; " presumably the same as the heaven's door 
 
 ' De nat. Dcor. ii, 41. - ^-En. i, 744 ; iii, 516. 
 
 ^ Petrie's Seasjn in Egypt, pp. 6, 21. 22. 
 < Th. Deveria, Catal. MSS. (iSSi) p. 9. 
 
Afvtlis?^ The ''Gate of Heaven^' or Dokana. 249 
 
 porter^ (un) &^ oTuninr c^ _ It is remarkable and important 
 
 ,^„wvs Tmnriiiiinir R=^ 
 
 that the i I are so similar to the Chinese character for mun 
 
 f^ gate, which we shall have directly. 
 
 Now, Professor Max Miiller, in the first of the Sacred Books of 
 the East, for which books we never can be sufficiently grateful, 
 has shown that in all ancient cosmologies the Gate of Heaven 
 is at the North Pole." The wide spread custom of burial to the 
 North lends this a supreme import (see " The North " mfra'). 
 Asgard, the enclosure or garden of the Ases, is in the Northern 
 centre of the world, at the summit of YggDrasill. There is the 
 hlidskialf, the gate-house, Odinn's observatory', which was 
 " perhaps," wrote Bergmann, " a constellation in the zenith of the 
 boreal sky,"* The guess was not a bad one. In the Chinese 
 sphere is found a Northern enclosure made by the Eastern and 
 Western hedges ^ j^ tungfan and |f ^ sifan, formed of 15 
 stars chiefly in Draco and Ursa-Major, bearing the names of the 
 ministers and officers who surround the sovereign ; and an 
 opening in the hedges is called Chang-H6 Mun fS, f^ f^ the 
 Gate of the heavenly home^ ; a very close approach to the Norse 
 train of ideas. Heimdall (Home-stone ? heai-tk-stonn ?) is stationed 
 at the entrance of heaven where Asbru, the bridge of the Ases, 
 abuts on Asgard, and the porter's dwelling, so placed, is called 
 Himinbiorg, heaven-rocks. Here we have cropping-up the ihaya, 
 rock-dwelling of the gods in the Japanese Ame, the heavens ; and 
 also the rock-throne which Ninigi left when he descended through 
 the S-fold clouds to rule Japan, see pp. 37, 169, supra^ 
 
 At Amoy, records De Groot in his excellent Fetes d' Einoui^ 
 they have a feast on the 6th of the 6th month to celebrate the 
 "opening of the gates of heaven, T'ien-boun k'ai ^ P'] tfll-" The 
 Chinese character f^ miin or men a gateway or door (boun at 
 Amoy) has a perceptibly similar form to the dokana s)'nibol, 
 The Shin-gaku (Heart-study) sect of Japanese eclectic Buddhists 
 take also the additional title of the Seki-Mon' or Stone-Gate 
 ^ P^ which must have a symbolic connexion with the celestial 
 gateways or portals we are considering. 
 
 ' Pierret, Vocab. 753, gi. '^ Upaiiishads, p. 36. 
 
 3 Grimm, Myth. 778; Mallet, Northern Anti,]. 406. ■> Gylfa Ginning, 240, zafi. 
 
 " Vranopaphie Chinoise, 50S, 510, 534. * Chamberlain's Kojiki, p. ill. 
 
 "' Shiugakit-Michi no Hafiasiii, Vetlo, 1842. 
 
^5° The AUght of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 (See, again, what is cited (p. 237 supra) from Apollonios of 
 Rhodes as to the " path down from heaven, at the heavenly gates 
 of Olympus, where are the world's two poles, the highest points on 
 earth.") It is passing strange that on Ascension TV^/ri'day the oaken 
 doors of Lincoln's-inn, by an ancient custom, are carefully kept 
 shut. In the Temple the same custom obtains, and in fact it may 
 be said to be general. It is not a full explanation to state that 
 this is done merely to preserve the ' right of way,' the parish 
 bounds being beaten on that Bounds Thursday ; for why should 
 all this be done on the day of a deity's ascent through the gates 
 of heaven ? The colossal Pandarus (that is Pandaros), the com- 
 panion of yEneas, shuts the gates of the Trojan camp against the 
 Rutuli,^ but unfortunately not before he has allowed Turnus their 
 rex-god to pass through ; and Turnus kills him (see also the slaying 
 in the gates p. 253 infra). Here we have a colonial (?) continuance 
 on Italian soil of the original Dardanian myth of Troia the 
 celestial Trinidad, the heavens-seat of the Triad. Turnus is, as I 
 so often point out, the Turner of the heavens, here passing through 
 their Northpolar gates. It is also one of the Sanison-myths. 
 
 The sepulchral gate to the other world, too, would on that 
 side of the theory furnish us with an apt and ample explanation of 
 our own Lych-gates, which have alwaj-s been such antiquarian's 
 puzzles. I suppose we are to see the dokana as lych-gate in the 
 
 Egyptian "gate of the funeral passages," restau 
 
 (see also p. 248 supra) which was a name for the tomb-entrance, as 
 well as the name of a mysterious locus often mentioned in the 
 Pei-enihrit. There were priests devoted to the \\'orship of the gods 
 of Rosta, who remind one of the Roman gods of the porch Limen- 
 
 tinus and Limentina. Diana was called Limenatis. Ro 
 
 and roi <^^r:> \ v\\ ^__^ were names for the vestibule of heaven. - 
 
 And perhaps this explains " the great mj-stic p)-16ns in the Under- 
 world, seb;^etu shetet aa amu tuaut.^ 
 
 As the entrance to the next world this would also be the first 
 threshold or the porch, the limen primum of the ^T^neid (vi, 427) 
 
 ' ALn. ix, 652, etc. ; Portara vi multa converso cardine torquet. 
 
 - Pierret, Diet. 4S6 ; Vocab. 297, 312. ^ Dr. Wallis Budge's Papyrus of Nesi Ainsu, 
 in .■Ink.rolo^ia, lii, 396, 433, 500. 
 
Myt/is.'l The " Gate of Heaven," or Dokana. 25^ 
 
 where the souls of infants wailed : Infantumque animte flentes in 
 Hmine prime. 
 
 (Of course it must be borne in mind — and if I ever seem oblivious of it, 
 the Reader is requested kindly to put the most favourable construction upon 
 the passage — that the Egyptian (later?) belief was that as all celestial bodies 
 rise, are born, in the East, and set, die down, in the West, so therefore 
 the resurgent soul rose from the Southern Underworld in the E., having 
 previously (after death) entered that underworld in the Western (mountain and 
 gate). But all this of E. and W. must by thenecessity of the case be cosmically 
 viewed as secondary to the grander fact that the underworld was S., and to 
 the grandest, the primest, fact of all : that the Cosmos worked on the great N. 
 and S. bearings, of which the N. was the most sacred. (We shall have all 
 this, I much fear ad nauseam, in the Sections on " The North " and " The 
 South.") This gate-of-heaven interpretation is that which I also would apply 
 to the explanation of the title " pharaoh " of the Egyptian monarchs which 
 now " is but a noise," and was written per-aa ^;_^ and ^^^-^ gate or house 
 of the great. The Pharaoh was also called Ruti <^> p ^ F=^ which is also 
 a word for pylon.' The MiKado of Japan is mi, divine, and kado, door or gate. 
 The Sublime Porte follows easily, and so do all the mythic janitors of heaven, 
 down to St. Peter and the pope who now hold the keys. (P-aa = mighty one, 
 
 king, lord I ^.S_, S\ J seems to be a different title.) 
 
 The most splendid examples of this gate of heaven are perhaps 
 
 those of the Egyptian " pylons " or Mahet ^^/ ''-' S and rn ^ 'iJ 
 
 and ^N p-| ^3. This is both the gate of the pylon and of the 
 
 tomb, it would appear.^ But we have also hat ' ^ ^3 as a gate or 
 
 pylon and hait fu lg\ [1[] ^ which from the determinant p=;i 
 
 must it is suggested be the gate of heaven. The similar word 
 
 hata [L](lci[^F=5 has the same meaning. Hauti (?) rD 
 
 seems to be a plural of the same word. This being the 
 
 (2 
 W 
 
 seems to be a plural of the same word. This being; tt 
 I I 
 hat, I suggest that the Ma-hat or Mahet is the True-gate. 
 
 The Mahat is always crowned by the winged Sphere, as in the 
 
 fine example at Karnak, that is Thebes (Apiu or Art or Apt?) 
 
 which forms the frontispiece of this volume. An alley of seshepu 
 
 (sphinxes) generally connected the outer pylon with the temple. 
 
 The temple-gate itself was "a double pylon "^ (" Mariettethus 
 writes of my frontispiece : There (were 4, and still) are 3 of these 
 
 ' Pierret, Vocab. 152, 301. ^ Ibid. 1S3, 320. ^ Du Barry de Merval, Eludes, 227. 
 
252 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 portals at the cardinal points N. S. and E. They were the 
 entrances to the principal precinct of Karnak. The total height 
 of the S. gate is 21 metres. The S. gate, says M. Mariette, is 
 wholly of Ptolemaic construction, showing the cartouches of 
 Ptolemy Euergetes I and his queen Berenice.' 
 
 The Pylon at Edfu (S. end of the temple), which forms the 
 frontispiece to Vol. II, is 35 metres (115 feet) high, describes 
 Mariette,^ being 10 less than the column on the Place Vendome in 
 Paris. The monument of London Fire lifts its tall head 202 feet, 
 and I believe the Duke of York's column to measure 124 feet, just 
 9 more than this pylon. The temple was founded by Ptolemy 
 IV, Philopater, and finished 95 years later under Ptolemy 
 IX (Euergetes II). The decoration is of Ptolemy XIII, Dionysos. 
 The 8 rectangular apertures, and the 4 long basal slots were for 
 fixing what we call Venetian masts ending in banderoUes. 
 Consider what an immense length, or height, these masts would 
 have. Some were as long as 45 metres (147 feet) saj-s I\I. Pierret.^ 
 Their name was da or daft, and da means 'tree.' 
 
 Referring to what is said above (p. 147) as to Ahura Mazda, Mr. Herbert 
 D. Darbishire draws my attention to the fact that mazdos is supposed to be the 
 original form of Latin malus, mast.' Prof Skeat, independently of this, alleged 
 malus and /idx^os a pole, and concluded that the sense had reference to the 
 might or strength of the pole thus employed (root inagh to have power, as 
 above on p. 147). This comes very near to making Ahura Mazda an axis-god, 
 and I claim it all as going to prove that these Egyptian masts may well have 
 been originally axis-s>mibols. 
 
 The puzzling phrase " the Adityas " (that is the Eight unbounded 
 gods) "grew high like akrah," in RigVeda x, jj, 2, here finds its 
 place and its explanation. Grassman makes akra = banner; 
 Ludwigsays ' column.' Prof. F. Max Aluller says " the meaning is 
 utterl)' unknown."* I point to agra 'tree-top," aicpa summit, and 
 support both Grassman and Ludwig. And I shall add a reference 
 to the Japanese (now partly Buddhist) war-god Hachiman, a 
 doublet of his other name Yahata, and both meaning 8-standards. 
 The Japanese legend makes the god Hirohata-}-ahata-AIaro. 
 
 These words hiro and ya are the same as we had supra at p. 16S, and the 
 connexion of this god and his 8 wide hata or standards with the 8 points is 
 thus indubitable I think. As for maro (now marui) it means spherical or 
 
 ' Voyage dam la haute Egyptt\ ii, 13, Sg. 90. 
 
 = Did. Archsol. Egypt. 
 
 ^ F. Kluge in YjeCnn^ Zcitschriftfiir x'Crgleichouie Sprachforsihitug^wx., 313. 
 
 ' I'edic Hymns, 1S91, |i. 414. 
 
Myths.'] The " Gale of Heaven," or Dokana. 253 
 
 round BI or !^, which is a further confirmation of the cosmic sense. The 
 legend further says that these 4 white and 4 red banners (hata, a word which 
 can also mean ' side ') fell from heaven. " No satisfactory explanation seems 
 ever to have been given of the name Ya-hata, eight-banners,"' so that my 
 explanation is novel. 
 
 The pylon of the temple of Khonsu, S. of Karnak, is 105 feet long, 33 
 wide, and 60 high. It has narrow stairs leading to the top of the gate, and 
 thence to the towers. Four long grooves in the fac^ade, reaching up to one- 
 third of the height, correspond to four square openings cut through masonry. 
 Herein were fi.xed four great wooden masts from which floated Iqng streamers 
 of various colours.- These flapping banners were hoisted through these smal} 
 square windows. 
 
 Let me now pick up again what was said on pp. 179, 180 as to 
 irvKt), a gate, being the same as pila pillar and pilum shaft, not 
 forgetting the word ThermoPulai also there mentioned. Of 
 course pulai, gates, mountain-passes, straits ; puhs, small door ; 
 pulos, same as pule ; and pulon, hall, porch, gate, door, are all 
 closely-related words ; and it may be added that the naine IIi'A.ata 
 for the AmphiKtionic council of the \iv\av of ThermoPulai must 
 have taken their name religiously from the Gate, just as the 
 Buddhist sect does on p. 249 supra. This opens up a long vista of 
 other gods of the gates, such as Pulades whose duality with 
 Orestes makes the pair another version of the DiosKouroi, while 
 the name Pulades is a connexion with the dokana. This is why 
 Athene was called tti/Xoti? and Demeter irvKa-la and 'irvXayopa ; 
 it explains flvXc? the son of Ares, and the Pulos founded by 
 Neleus^ and destroyed by HeraKles, notwithstanding the defence 
 of the protean PeriKlumenos, there killed with all the other sons 
 of Neleus save Nestor, who was called Pulios. It must also 
 explain the name Pulaon or Pulai Menes of the brother of Nestor. 
 These brothers were Tu'dve, and therefore probably zodiacal ; and 
 looking to the connexion oi pulai with the AmphiKtions, this 
 may well be the original dozen of that farnous jury (sec p. 181, 
 supra^. 
 
 We have another gate-god in Pulas, whose daughter Pulia PanUiun 
 espoused, and who, by another account,'' was the founder of the town, polls, of 
 Pulos. Note that PalLas, by one genealogy, was son of PanDion and Pulia. 
 Quite a little list of other names invite us : the Trojans Pulachantos and 
 
 ' Satow and Hawes, Handbook of [apan, 2nd ed. 379. 
 
 ' >taspero'* Egypt. Anh. (Edw.irds) 69. ' .Kpoll. Bibl. i, 9, 9. ' Ibid, iii, i^, S- 
 
254 
 
 The Night of the Gods. 
 
 \_AX2S 
 
 Puleos killed by Achilles, Pularcs killed by Aias (Ajax), and Pulon killed by 
 PoluPoitcs ; PulaiMenes the Paphlagonian killed by MeneLaos at Troy (see 
 also Tuinus and Pandaros, p. 2'^osupra) ; the town Pulene of which the citizens 
 went to the siege of Troy ; Pularge-(arge = white) the spouse of Idmon and 
 daughter of Danaos and Pieria (see p. 142) ; and Pulo daughter of ThesPios 
 and mother by HcraKles of HippoTas. 
 
 The pylon or gateway was evidently prominent at the 
 Phoenician temple of Ashtoreth at Paphos, as may be seen from 
 
 the local coins belonging even to 
 
 U€^f| 
 
 the Roman period. It was most 
 archaic in its clumsy rudeness. 
 A coin of Julia Uomna, mother 
 ,^;^_^.^ HliliiyLil of Caracalla, gives this Paphian 
 
 _S^^ -I,, ^5:/_„ temple-gate (with the birds of the 
 
 Japanese tori-i infra?). Another 
 
 Cypriot coin of Vespasian also 
 
 gives the gate without the birds.^ 
 
 (Compare the holy monument 
 
 under the gateway with the 
 
 massebhah at p. 195.) 
 
 Ka-Dingirra-ki, one of the native names of Babylon, is Gate- 
 
 of-God-pIace.- The " god " here is Dingiri or Nana or Anatu, 
 
 the consort of Anu, who was born of Tiamat. 
 
 This gate-of-heaven theory explains the strange custom which 
 still survives of crawling through dolmens, which might be called 
 the rudest of torans (see p. 255), consisting of two great upright 
 flattish stones and a cross-piece, thus 7Y- Dolmens are crept 
 through at Kerlescant in Bretagne, at Rollrich in Oxfordshire, at 
 Ardmore in Watcrford and, by newly-wedded couples at Craig 
 Mady in Stirlingshire. The dolmen in most of these cases is the 
 holy gate leading to paradise, and to pass through it is to attain 
 new life or immortality. At Michaelmas the Irish pilgrims still go 
 to Skellig-Michael, where, said Keating, the druidic pilgrim 
 ascended to a stone called teac an docra, stone of grief, at the 
 summit of the rocky mountain-island, and at the height of about 
 150 feet crept through a narrow opening like a chimney which was 
 
 ' Given from the Cabinet du roi in Miinter's Die hii>i»ilisi/te Gottin zn Paphos, tab. 
 iv, I. See La Chau, Dissert, sur I'enus, 25- Donaldson's ArcJiitectiira Nitfiiistiiatica, 
 and Perrot and Chipiez, U Art, iii, 120, 266, 270. 
 
 2 Dr. Wallis Budge : Bahyl. Life and Hist. 14. 
 
Myths?^ The " Gate of Heaven" or Dokana. 255 
 
 called " the eye of the needle. ' The stone was long ago replaced 
 by a stone cross. ^ 
 
 In Syrian Moab one ancient and many more modern examples 
 of this gate are to be found." In the Aksa Mosque at Jerusalem 
 too, pilgrims have squeezed through two pairs of pillars until they 
 have been worn away by the practice, in order to secure an entry 
 into paradise, which reminded Capt. Conder- of " threading the 
 needle" in Ripon Cathedral. I think that Baal Peor (see p. igo) 
 the Lord of the mountain-pass, slit, or opening, falls into my 
 present category, as a heavens-mountain-gate god. 
 
 A jaunty friend who takes an intermittent interest in these speculations 
 writes me : " As to your dual-pillar arguments, have you considered and 
 accounted for the famous old sign of The Blue Posts?" It should be remem- 
 bered, by the way, that this is not an inn Sign in the ordinary sense of that 
 term, but a pair of actual Posts, between which posts entrance is effected. 
 
 The connexion of the SoKava with the Hindu foj^an or gateway 
 to a tope seems inevitable. Although of stone, the toran is 
 obviously an intentional and slavish copy of a wooden forerunner, 
 as Fergusson pointed out in his T/re and Serpent Worsliip and his 
 Indian Arclntcctiire (p. 87). These original wooden constructions 
 must have been of simple upright beams and crossbeams, much 
 resembling the pailo (honour-arch) of China and the tori-i of Japan. 
 Indeed toran, if viewed as a Buddhist importation, may give us 
 the origin of the puzzling word tori-i, which in Japanese means 
 literally and merely bird-perch. The tablet upon the tori-i is 
 called in Japan a sotoba, which is derived by the Buddhists from 
 the Sanskrit stiapa.' A stiapa however is a tope, and the source 
 of sotoba may be rather the word stambha, as we shall have occasion 
 to see a little farther on. 
 
 The toran or gateway of the Indian tope is, says Fergusson again,< " as 
 the Chinese would call it, a pailoo." " In China and Japan their descen- 
 dants are counted by thousands. The pailoos in the former country 
 and the toris [tori-i I. O'N.] in the latter are copies more or less correct 
 of these Sanchi gateways, and like their Indian prototypes" [the terms 
 " descendants," " copies," and " prototypes " remain unproved. I. O'N.] "are 
 sometimes in stone, sometimes in wood, and frequently compounded of both 
 materials. What is still more curious, a toran with five bars was erected in 
 front of the Temple at Jerusalem, to bear the sacred golden vine, some forty 
 
 ^ Poesies des Bardes by D. O'SuUiv.in, Paris, 1853, p. 93. 
 
 ^ Conder's Heth and Moab, p. 233, 293. ' Murray's Haiulhook of Japan, p. [78], 
 
 * Ind. Arch. p. 87. 
 
256 
 
 Tlie NigJit of the Gods. 
 
 \Axis 
 
 years before these Sanchi examples. It was partly in wood, partly in stone, 
 and was erected to replace one that adorned Solomon's Temple, which was 
 wholly in bronze, and supported by the celebrated pillars Jachin and Boaz "' 
 (p. 99). See p. 237 supra, as to these two pillars. Solomon's temple, as we 
 now know,' was probably built by the Tyrian artizans as a purely Phoenician 
 temple ; and the gate thus connects itself at once with the just mentioned 
 
 Paphos gate. 
 Here is 
 
 rude and little .sketch of a toran leading to the 
 great tope at Sanchi. The pailo in China i.s 
 generally a monument to the specially-honoured 
 dead. It is frequently of wood, and when in 
 stone retains closely, as the toran does in 
 India, all the details of a wooden construction. 
 It consists of two posts and a rail making 
 or more elabo- 
 
 one gateway, 
 rately of four posts and a greater 
 number of crossbeams. Of the 
 latter kind I give a rough out- 
 
 --^^ 
 
 
 Farther on (p. 45 i ) Fergusson 
 mentions " those torans or trium- 
 phal archways, which succeeded 
 the gateways of the Buddhist 
 topes." Again (p. 700) he des- 
 cribes the Chinese "pailoos or 
 triumphal gateways, as they are 
 most improperly called." One' 
 knows not why Fergusson (except that they are also ancestral in 
 China) made this last denial. He calls them triumphal himself 
 elsewhere, and they seem to have an identical origin with what we 
 have been accustomed always to call triumphal arches from at 
 least Roman times. Triumph itself is one of those provoking 
 words which are labelled " root unknown ;" but it is very possible 
 that, like almost all the other \\ords in tri-, it has its origin in a 
 triad, and that in the case of triumph that triad is the supreme 
 one of the three central great gods, and that it was originall)-, as in 
 the Arvalian hymn (see " The Arvalian Brothers" in Vol. 11), a 
 shout of praise in -worship, like hallelu-Jah. I see that General 
 Cheng-ki-Tong in his French no\-el L' Houunc Jainir' renders pailo 
 by arc de triomphe. But he had a French coUaborateur. 
 
 ' Rawlinson's ///.;/. cf Pha-nicia. - Eastern Arch. pp. 701, 6j. 
 
 ' Lc Temp:, jo July iSgo. 
 
Myths?\ The "Gate of Heaven," or Dokaiia. 
 
 257 
 
 hi-dvpatifios hymn to Dionusos, and Bpiaji^os hymn, are now considered 
 both to be foreign words. From the first, we conclude a form Bvpapjios for the 
 second ; and this is borne out by 6pi.a(ai I rage (like a prophet) when compared 
 with dvpa-opmrjs the Bacchanalian frenzy ; and this again must be linked on to 
 6va-(Ta> I shake, and 6vu> I rush rave rage. Hence, as Willamowitz-Moellendorf 
 has suggested, 6plapjios contains the meaning divine, and also indicates a 
 combined hymn and dance of praise and worship. Although the Si- might 
 seem to indicate a " one-two " measure, this line of argument seems to exclude 
 the idea oi three (rpfU) steps or times in the dance and music of the ////-/ambos, 
 which word may then further be pursued into the Latin triumphus and 
 triumpus through hypothetical forms such as dpiopfios, rpiopcfios.^ 
 
 The pailo becomes a paifang in Western Yunnan. (See what 
 is stated as to the weikan of this country at p. 193 supra^ Pai- 
 fangs are there common near almost every hamlet, and are built 
 with wooden posts and beams, and a tiled roof,^ the sides being 
 partly filled in with brickwork. Sometimes 
 the roofs are of thatch (which may have been 
 the most archaic roofing of these gates). 
 The likeness here to our lychgates (see 
 p. 250 supra) is very striking. 
 
 Mr. Colquhoun gives (i, 348) an 
 excellent large engraving of a 
 paifang at Kwangnan in E. Yun- 
 nan, and I venture to outline the 
 smaller sketch of another also 
 there given. It had been put up 
 as a memorial of a widow who 
 died at the age of 80. A sketch 
 of the simplest form of paifang is 
 
 added (from ii, 
 
 «^^^^ 30). Mr. Col- 
 
 \ quhoun says 
 
 ,^, " the paifang 
 
 '•^f^5^SS$^=*^(or toran of 
 India) is erected in honour ofi 
 widowhood, office- holding, and 
 longevity " ; but I must not stop now to argue these points. " A 
 widow who will kill herself for grief at the loss of her husband is 
 sure of an obituary notice in the Peking Gazette, and a commemo- 
 rative arch or pailou will be erected to her."^ 
 
 ' E. R. Wharton's Etyma Latina. 
 
 " Colquhoun's Actoss ChrysL\ ii, 156, 162. 
 
 3 Allen's Book of Chi. Poetry, 1S91. p. 165. 
 K 
 
258 
 
 The Night of the Gods. 
 
 [A: 
 
 X7S 
 
 The Japanese ,% J^ tori-i or " bird-perch," as it superficially 
 can mean, is said to have been for sacred birds (in which there is 
 nothing celestially inconsistent, as readers who persevere with this 
 Inqiii)-}' will see in Vol. 11^. It consists, like the dokana, of two 
 great posts and cross-beams. Here is one from a working drawing 
 
 in the little Shosliokii gzuakiitsiira,^ 
 which also exhibits the central tablet 
 or sotoba. Many others had arrived 
 ^Tzl. \' .. ' i ' ""-^ P—-' ^"^ Fergusson's theory, independently 
 ''^ of Fergusson, in so far as the pailo 
 
 g I 1 and tori-i are concerned ; and I, for 
 
 -21. I I one, would fully agree with him as to 
 
 an identical origin for all three — toran 
 pailo and tori-i — were it not that so 
 leading an authority upon Japanese 
 subjects as Mr. E. M. Satow- throws 
 upon it, admitting at the same time that the explanation 
 bird-perch unfortunately throws no light upon the question of 
 the origin or use of the tori-i. There are endless numbers of 
 these tori-i ; some of stone and some of bronze, but generall}' 
 of wood. The " birds " may be intended for the souls of men 
 passing through and perching in their way on the gate to 
 the next world. We may see perching birds sculptured on the 
 torans which are called kirti stambhas at Worangul in Fergusson." 
 These kirti stambhas are as like tori-i as they well can be. The 
 birds are also found on the Paphos gate (see p. 2i\ supra) which 
 must seem to anyone to be a very strange coincidence. 
 
 As the forms of the wooden tori-i are of importance for my 
 suggestions as to the wooden hoKava, another example from a 
 Japanese (Buddhist .') picture is added. The legend on the little 
 pillar is Hiyakudo ishi, the lOO-times stone, between which and a 
 small adjacent altar, pilgrims walk to and fro as a devout exercise. 
 Here we get the gate, the pillar, and the pilgrimage together. 
 Some other good specimens of tori-i will be found in Humbert's 
 
 Le Japan Illustrc. 
 
 ' A series of sketches for all trades, p. 15. An example very like this maybe seen 
 in Miss Bird's interesting and valuable Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, i, 2S9. Note the 
 wedges or tenons fixing the lower beam in the sketch above. 
 
 - Murray's Ilaniibook of Japan, p. [65] 2nd ed. ■' Ind. Areli. p. 392. 
 
Myths.'\ The " Gate of Heaven, 
 
 or 
 
 Dok 
 
 ana. 
 
 259 
 
 I thus seek to connect the Dokana symbol with the Northern 
 celestial gate, of which I also theorise that the Japanese tori-i, the 
 Chinese pailo and paifang, the Indian toran, the Egyptian mahat 
 or pylon, the Phoenician Paphos gate, the Roman triumphal arch, 
 the Celtic dolmen, and the English lychgate, were each and all 
 symbolic. 
 
 K 2 
 
26r 
 
 The Pillar-Axis as Tower, 
 
 22. The Round Towers of Ireland. 
 
 23. Some other Towers. 
 
 22. — The Round Towers of Ireland. 
 
 THE considerations urged in the foregoing pages in regard to 
 the ubiquitous Pillar as an outcome of the Universe-Axis 
 myths will probably have struck the reader as admitting of wider 
 application. Let us consider from this point of view the Irish 
 Round Towers, which have already furnished matter for intermin- 
 able discussions without leading to any sufficing conclusion. 
 
 In his memorable Essay on the " Origin and Uses of the Round 
 Towers of Ireland," Petrie adduced proofs of the building of such 
 towers as bell-houses, doicthcacJi, by early Irish Christian kings 
 and saints. The peasantry still call such a tower a cloictheach or 
 a clogas (belfry), or use some cognate term. Therefore — so one of 
 Petrie's arguments ran — the towers are Christian belfries ; con- 
 structed nevertheless so as to serve at the same time as keeps or 
 places of refuge, and as church-treasuries, and also as beacons and 
 watch-towers.' This is what is called, b}- a commercial metaphor, 
 in the easy language of to-da\', " a large order ; " but even if all 
 this were admitted, it would not account for the " origin " or source 
 of the pillar-like form of the towers themselves, nor for others of 
 their singularities. 
 
 Another leading argument of Petrie's was that these towers are 
 found only near old churches or their sites. If reversed and put 
 this way : old churches are found near round towers, the true 
 weight of the statement is felt. 
 
 There is no church near the round tower of Antrim ; and the uncorrupted 
 name of the place, Aentreibh or Oentreb ^ One-house, may carr^- some signifi- 
 cance in this matter.^ 
 
 ' Eccles. Arc/lit. 0/ IrclaiiJ CDuhMn, 1S45). ' Lord Dunraven's AWj', ii, 2. 
 
The Round Towers of Ireland. 261 
 
 And it would really be a firmer argument — though not one 
 leading to the same conclusion — to say that the round towers are 
 only found near ancient burying-places. 
 
 For there is no a priori reason why a church should have a burial-ground 
 attached to it ; while it is, on the other hand, almost natural that a burial-ground 
 should come to have a sacred place for the performance of the rites of ancestor- 
 worship. 
 
 Petrie too stated this particular conclusion of his much more 
 dogmatically when he made the bigger assertion^ that the towers 
 " only held the places of accessories to the principal churches in 
 Ireland." I, on the contrary, suggest that it was all " the other 
 way up." Christians may have built, did build, such towers ; but 
 who began building them? It is quite possible that the early "con- 
 verted" Christian-pagan Irish may — nay by all analogy must — 
 have continued prior pagan forms in their religious edifices ; and 
 not alone so, but the early Christian Irish must have appropriated 
 the buildings of previous cults. When one faith is succeeding and 
 supplanting another, the change is not made by an instantaneous 
 right-about-face ; the alteration must be gradual to be successful ; 
 the evolution proceeds slowly ; tliere remains a great deal of super- 
 stitio, much is left standing. The mantle of Elias always descends 
 to some Eliseus, the new gods take up the myths and trappings of 
 the old. The later creed impropriates the rites sites and sacred 
 buildings of the older one ; but at the same time proceeds to dish 
 up everything anew, in its own way. The practical change is, 
 taking a broad view, in great part rifacimento and development. It 
 is humanly impossible to be off with the old god before you're on 
 with the new. 
 
 I shall here quote a weighty remark of Prof Rhys's, cognate to 
 this subject.- 
 
 The Goidel's faith in Druidism was never suddenly undermined ; for in the 
 saints he only saw more powerful Druids than those he had previously known, 
 and Christ took the position in his eyes of the Druid Kar'i^oxriv. Irish Druidism 
 absorbed a certain amount of Christianity ; and it would be a problem of 
 considerable difficulty to fix on the point where it ceased to be Druidism, and 
 from which onwards it could be said to be Christianity in any restricted sense 
 of that term. " The gods or heroes," writes M. J. Loth, " who were not too much 
 compromised in the pagan Olympus, or whom it would have been hopeless or 
 dangerous to blacken in the minds of the Christianized Breton populations, 
 were generally converted ; and in Wales passed over to the ranks of the Saints. 
 
 ' Ut supra, p. 353. " Hibbcrl Lectures, lSS6, p. 224. 
 
262 The Night of the Gods. {Axis 
 
 The list of them is thus, too, interminable."' "The legend of St. Collen, who 
 gave his name to Llan-gollen in Denbighshire, and to Lan-golen near Ouimper 
 in Brittany shows that it was not without labour that the Christian priests 
 succeeded in blackening the ancient god Gwynn son of Nudd in the minds of 
 the Welsh." But his name became at length equivalent to "the devil."= 
 
 St. Patrick "raised the Christian Altar by the side of the Pillar," writes 
 Lady Wilde ;■* "his mode of action was full of tact. He did not overthrow the 
 pagan rites, but converted them to Christian usages." 
 
 Sven Nilsson's view is also straightly to the point : 
 
 "Every religious change amongst a people is properly speaking only an 
 amalgam of diverse religions. The new one, whether introduced by force of 
 persuasion or by fire and sword, cannot at one go tear-up out of the mind 
 of the people all the tenuous and multiple rootlets that the preceding religion 
 had sent forth. It requires generations without number, perchance thousands of 
 years, before that can be completely effected. And that is why the study 
 of popular legends and superstitions is of such importance."' 
 
 Pope Gregory the Great, writing to the Abbot MelHtus, approved 
 of St. Augustine's (circa 600 A.D.) not interfering needlessly with 
 the leanings of his English pagan converts. He was to destroy 
 no old temples, but, if solidly constructed — that is, if they were 
 worth the trouble — to consecrate them as Christian churches ; to 
 permit worship on the old lines, but under new names ; or, if he 
 removed the idols from the heathen altars, he was not to destroy 
 the altars themselves, because the people would be allured to 
 frequent the Christian ceremonies when they found them celebrated 
 in places they had been accustomed to revere. As the pagans 
 practised sacrifices, and afterwards partook, with their priests, of 
 the sacrificial flesh and offerings, Augustine was merely to prevail 
 on them to immolate their \'ictims near the churches, and was there 
 to allow them to hold their festive meals for the love of the good 
 God, and to drink in honour of him who creates and gives all 
 things, in the huts they were accustomed to make round the 
 temple with tree-branches.'^ 
 
 The other St. Augustine (the Father) had also written earlier 
 that temples are not to be destroyed, nor idols smashed, nor sacred 
 groves cut down, but better was to be done by converting them, 
 like their worshippers, from sacrilege and impiety to the uses of 
 the true faith." 
 
 In A.D. 529 the last temple of Apollo remaining in Rome was 
 
 ' Les Mabinog. 1SS9, i, 12. - Ibid. 253. 
 
 ** Ancient Cures, Charms, and Usages of Ireland, 1S90, pp. 86, 88. 
 
 ■' Age dc la Pierre, 3rd ed. Paris, 1S6S, p. 249. ' Bede, i, 30 ; Greg. Episi. i.x, 71. 
 
 * Cum tompla, idola, luci ... in honorem Dei convertuntur ; hoc de illis sic 
 
J\lytlisl\ The Round Towers of Ireland. 263 
 
 turned into a cloister.^ In 389 the Serapeum of Alexandria had 
 been razed, and all the metal statues melted in Egypt for the uses 
 of Christian worship. A portion of the buildings of the East were 
 converted into churches. This policy did not prevent the ancient 
 recourse to augury by Christian Consuls in the 5th century." 
 
 Witness too the conversion of Christian churches and cathedrals 
 into mosques by the Moslem, almost solely by the mere addition 
 of a minaret (see p. 276 infra) — the chief quarrel thus being merely 
 as to the fonn of the tower, and both faiths considering a tower 
 indispensable ; which is an important consideration in favour of 
 my cosmic theory. 
 
 To claim all the strange and almost unique ancient Irish church 
 ornamentation as a pure and sudden early Irish Christian eclosion 
 would be counter to all other religious or architectural evolutions. 
 And besides, all the elaborate and sometimes marvellous decorative 
 stone-carving of the Towers and the churches, when peculiar, has 
 no Christianity in it, as an examination of Petrie's own fine 
 drawings makes obvious. His theory left no room in time for the 
 growth of a so advanced and remarkable type and style ; according 
 to his conclusions, the Round Tower must have issued totus teres 
 atque rotundus^ from the brain of some early Christian builder. 
 
 Isidore, writing in the early 7th century, said Tiirres vocatae quod teretes 
 sint et longae ; teres enim est aliquid rotundum cum proceritate, ut columnae ;* 
 and, one might add, the limbs of Phyllis.^ And Festus, some 500 years before, 
 said teres meant that which is in longitudine rotundatum, as Nature furnishes 
 us asseres, which must here be understood as timber, straight tree-trunks, fir- 
 poles. The meaning given by Festus is most classic ; and the connexion of 
 the tower, the pillar, and the tree is not to be missed here. But teres is always 
 referred to tero (rub, here plane ?), and turris (rvpo-ir) is put with AngloSaxon 
 torr = rock. Tor, says Skeat, is in Devonshire a Celtic- word for a conical hill, 
 andit is so used in Limerick for Tory-Hill (see Tory-Island p. 267). This seems 
 to supply a name-connexion between the axis-tower and the heavens-mountain. 
 
 See too the very curious fact about the earlier pagan and the later 
 
 quod de hominibus, cum ex sacrilegio et impiis in veram religionem convertuntur etc. 
 Ep. ad Public, 47. 
 
 ' Lassaulx, Untergang des Hellenismus, 144, 148. 
 * Salvian, De Gtibcrn. Dei, vi, 2. 
 
 '• Horaliiis : Quisnam igitur liber ? Davits : Sapiens, sibique imperiosus ; 
 quern neque pauperies neque mors neque vincula terrent ; 
 responsare cupidinibus contemnere honores 
 fortis ; et in seipso totus teres atque rotundus ; 
 externi ne quid valeat per leve morari, 
 
 in quern manca ruit semper Forluna. (Hor. Sa/. vii, 2. The imagery is cosmic.) 
 ' Origin es xv, 2. * Hor. Odes, ii, 4. 
 
264 The Night of the Gods. [_Ax^ 
 
 IS 
 
 Christian sacred vessel, the capsa, cista or turris, being in the form of a tower 
 ("The Arcana"). 
 
 Petrie admittedly' chose his conclusions from among those 
 which had already been separately advanced by Alolyneux, 
 Ledwich, Pinkerton, Sir W. Scott, Montmorenci, Brewer, and 
 Otway. Among the theories rejected by Petrie are the following ; 
 that the Irish round towers were astronomical observatories, that 
 they were of Phcenician origin, and that they were used by the 
 Druids to proclaimi festivals. If a pre-Druidical origin be sup- 
 posed for the form of these towers, it is not unlikely that the sun- 
 and tree-worshipping Druids may have annexed them ; or that 
 the towers may have descended to the Druids in the ordinary 
 course of that evolution in which sun-worship at length outshone 
 and extinguished heavens- and Polestar-worship. The stone- 
 worshipping Phoenicians may or may not have been connected 
 with the pillar-towers — see for instance what is said about their 
 temple-columns, pp. 237, 244 supra — and it would not be far wrong 
 perhaps to call the towers star-worshippers' " observatories," in a 
 religio-astrological rather than in the scientific-astronomical accepta- 
 tion. But these points are of course of the very most speculative 
 character, although the}' fit themselves easily into the argument. 
 Then again, as to the '' beacon " and " observatory " uses, it seems 
 conceded that the four top windows just under the conical roof of the 
 Round Tower look N. S. E. and \\'. " There are almost always 
 four placed at opposite sides in the top story," stated Lord 
 Dunraven,- " and generally so as to face the four cardinal points of 
 the compass. There are only two in the top of Temple Finghin, 
 and there are five in the upper story of Kells [four, p. 20], and six 
 in that of Kilkenny." [There are six also at Kilmacduagh, p. 17.] 
 Lingard^ said lights were kept burning during the night in the 
 New Tower at Winchester, which, as we learn from Wolstan, 
 consisted of five stories, in each of which were four windows 
 illuminated every night, looking towards the four cardinal points. 
 I fail however to see the connexion between the illumination of 
 the windows and their cardinal pointing ; the two facts seem to be 
 perfectly independent in effect and in intention. 
 
 As to Petrie's watch-tower hypothesis, it may be noted that Zephath, the 
 
 ' Ut supra, pp. 3, IlS. - Xotis on Irish Arc/i. ii, 151, 2, 17. 
 
 ■^ Aiigh-Saxoii Chun/us, ii, 379, .ind see Petrie ;;;■ sii/ra, 374. 
 
MythsP\ The Round Toiuet's of Ireland. 265 
 
 name of the Canaanite city in Judges, means a watch-tower ; so does Zepho 
 the son of EHphaz (strong El) in Genesis xxxvi ; and the god Baal-Zephon or 
 Tsephon is simply Lord of the North ; just as Baal-Shemain is Lord of 
 Heavens, Baal-Hamon Lord of Hosts, and Baal-Tamar Lord of the (date- 
 palm ?) Tree.' We must clear our minds o the degraded vulgar idea that 
 Baal is the Sun. Baal-Risheph was the ,Sun-god. 
 
 There is another well-known occult theory of the round-towers — the phallic 
 (Petrie, p. 4) which could be shown to be compatible with the main theory 
 which is now here diffidently but advisedly advanced. The accessory signi- 
 ficance of the ever active fashioning generative energy was anciently attendant 
 upon and concordant with the world-axis conception ; at times the two run 
 parallel, and again and again they converge and coalesce. And both are 
 embodied in the rank, attributes, and symbols of the supreme Egyptian Ptah 
 (see p. 66 supra), to whom I lay claim as a Polar deity. Petrie (p. 106) said 
 that this phallic theory "is happily so absurd and so utterly unsupported . . . 
 that I gladly pass it by without further notice." But this obiter dictum did not 
 dispose of the question. (See also pp. 199 and 240 supra.) 
 
 Since Petrie's time, the third Lord Dunraven [has, following up a sort of 
 theory of VioIlet-le-Duc's about the Northmen in France, posited that as the 
 Round Towers "are first mentioned in the annals of Ireland in the loth 
 century, it would seem that they were erected for protection of the churches in 
 consequence of the first attacks made upon the churches in the 9th century." 
 The consideration of this subject is pursued in the "Concluding Essay"- of 
 Lord Dunraven's superb Notes on Irish Architecture, for which every Irishman, 
 antiquarian or not, may well be grateful. The value of the photographs of 
 these departing monuments which the Notes contain cannot be over-rated; 
 and it is to be hoped that they will continue to exhibit promise of pemianence. 
 The arguments for this theory need not detain us ; but the tables of dates, in 
 the loth and previous centuries, are noteworthy. The defensive value, qua the 
 adjacent little churches, of these tapering isolated towers, which have an 
 internal diameter at the base of only from 7 ft. 10 in. to 10 ft. 2 in. must be 
 viewed as extremely dubious. 
 
 By the way there is a low " military round tower " at Aghadoe near a true 
 round tower. It is like "a circular Norman keep of the 13th century," is 21 ft. 
 in diameter inside, and its walls are 6 ft. thick, while those of the true round 
 towers are 3 or 4 ft. There are three more " military " towers known-of in 
 Kilkenny, one in Waterford, and one in Wexford.^ 
 
 Lord Dunraven, although using the terms belfry and "cloicthech " through- 
 out his work, seems to have abandoned the belfry theory, thus: "Viewed as simple 
 belfries and no more, they would appear as poor conceptions and failures in 
 design ;" and he quotes with approval Dr. Lynch's Cainbrensis Eversus {\\, igi) 
 
 ' Rev. W. Wright's Empire of the Hittites, 76. 
 
 - pp. iSl, 182, the map, and passim. ^ Notes, ii, 35, 36. 
 
266 
 
 The Night of the Gods. 
 
 [Axis 
 
 A 
 
 of the time of queen Elizabeth : 
 " In coarse of time the custom 
 was introduced of hanging bells 
 in the top of them, and using 
 them as belfries."' 
 
 Here are tracings from 
 Pctrie (p. 363) of his typi- 
 cal outlines of the Round 
 Tower, for which purpose 
 he chose the examples at 
 Clondalkin and Rosscar- 
 
 cLn-U^iJ^^- bery. 
 
 ftcr^4cajr4f^ 
 
 THE theory which I venture to advance is that the Irish 
 Round Towers, as well in their form as in some other points 
 connected with them, are a survival of an extremely ancient 
 heavens-worship, and a symbol of the mighty axis round which 
 the heavens, the universe, seemed perpetually and stably to 
 revolve ; and at the Northern end, the summit, of which the 
 Most High, the Motionless, the Swaj-er, the Polar deity of the 
 universe had his awful abode. 
 
 And I further hazard the opinion that the Irish pillar-stones 
 were minor analogous sacred emblems. 
 
 Let me then first endeavour to show that it is not difficult to 
 demonstrate the leading importance of a m\-thic Cosmic Tower in 
 Irish legends of the most archaic class. 
 
 Under the headinsr of " The Wheel " will be sjiven an Irish 
 
 ' Notes, ii, 163, 170, 171. 
 
iMytlis^ The Round Towers of Ireland. 267 
 
 Ship and Axis myth. Another form of it is in the Historia 
 Brittaninm of Nennius. Nimeth, sailing with his 30 keels, sees a 
 glass Tower in the centre of the Ocean with men in it who never 
 answer when spoken to. All the boats attack the Tower, and all 
 are wrecked.^ This was otherwise called Tor Conaing or Conaing's 
 Tower, in Tor-y island or TorInis = Tower-island, which was at last 
 demolished by the 30,000 children of Nemed. Tower-island is of 
 course a figure for the Earth on the Tor-axis ; which gives a most 
 respectable lineage to the high old tories. 
 
 Considering that my proposed identification of Crete with the 
 Earth, p. 138, was written after the above suggestion that Tor-inis 
 also = the Earth, I confess I find it somewhat strange to come 
 across the following in D'Arbois de Jubainville : " this island, Tor- 
 inis in the Irish narrative" [of the Tower of Conann] "is Crete 
 in Athenian fable."- And I shall now add further that I think 
 we must trace a Cretan tower-goddess in Turo (see also pp. 
 136 and 285) who is consort both of Poseidon and of Kretheus ; 
 that is the axis extends from Earth to Cosmic ocean (see p. 
 
 137)- 
 
 M. d'Arbois also views the tower of Bregon as a second edition 
 of the tower of Conann ; but as he places it in the land of the 
 dead' (read the inferior hemisphere ?) we must I think see in this 
 doublet a dual tower, like the dual pillars here already treated of 
 The tower of Conann is also reproduced, he considers, in the above 
 tower of glass told of by Nennius, and M, d'Arbois identifies that 
 again with the tower, Tvpai^;, of Kronos,* which I have here (p. 191) 
 claimed as the Earth-axis. 
 
 The wicked sorceress Cluas Haistig lives in an enchanted 
 tower in mid-sea, which keeps ever turning.' Here we even have 
 the cosmic rotation. Up this tower the thief-climber swarms — a 
 clear variant of Jack and the Beanstalk. 
 
 One of the earliest leading events in Irish Myth is the mythic 
 defeat of the divine Fearbolgs by the equally divine Tuatha De 
 Dananns, on the plain of the Fomorian tower, Muigh-tuireth 
 (or Magh-tuircadh=:Moytura) na bh Fomorach. The Fomorians 
 were the ocean-giants of the North, of Lochlann. Now here is a 
 mythic plain of a mythic tower, which I theorise to be but another 
 
 ' Rhys's Hib. Lects. 263, 262, 5S4. " Cycle Myth. Irl. 103, 
 
 '' Cycle Myth. Irl. 230. ■• Pindar Olyiiip. ii, 70. 
 
 ■■ Folk and Hero Tales of Argyllshire, 1S90, 451, 
 
268 ■ The Night of the Gods. [A. 
 
 xis 
 
 of the endless cosmic symbolisings of the plain of the heavens 
 and its tower-axis of the universe. This great battle of the war- 
 in-heaven has, like its parallel of the Seven against Thebes, a 
 doublet in the second battle of Moytura between the same 
 powers, Seven years afterwards. Nuadha Silverhand (airgeat- 
 laimh) and Lugh Longarms (lamh-fada) and Balar Evileye or 
 Mightyblows are of course divine powers ; and the battle takes 
 place on the eve of Samain (Baal-shemain = Lord of heavens) 
 our AU-Hallow'een. The Irish divided the year by Beltane, ist of 
 May, and Samain (also Samhuin, proti. Savin or Sowan) ist 
 November ; which last the Christian church has succeeded in 
 sinking in the feast of All-Saints. Thus the hosts of heaven 
 fought in their war-in-heaven on their festival, which again com- 
 memorated the event. Balar of the Eye (of heaven) is also com- 
 memorated to this day by the high tower-like rock or Tor mor 
 ( = Great Tower) in Tory Island, which is called Balor's Castle. 
 
 A very fine and important Irish legend, which is in brief in 
 the Book of Lecan, and has been translated by O'Curry in the 
 Atlantis and by Dr. Joyce,^ is that of the three sons of Tuireann 
 whose name obviously indicates a Tower, that is as I theorise an 
 Axis, power. The three sons of Tuireann kill Cian, a De Danann 
 the father of Lugh, the Lochlanns invade Erin and are defeated, 
 and a fabulous series of Eric-fines are laid on the triad. They have 
 to fetch the Three Apples of the garden of Hisberna ; the magic 
 Pig's skin of Tuis of Greece ; the Spear with the blazing point 
 a chariot and horses that travel as easily over sea as over land 
 the Seven pigs of Asal (Norse ?) the king of the golden Pillars 
 a hound-whelp called Failinis (Erin is called Inisfail) belonging to 
 the Northern king of loruaidhe (which seems a wheel name); the 
 roasting-spit of the thrice fifty women of Fianchaire (white-rock ?) ; 
 and finally the triad have to shout thrice on the hill of Miodhchaoin 
 (miodh = mid, centre) in the North of Lochlann. During their 
 quest they sail in an enchanted Canoe which is clearlj- a variant of 
 the good ship Argo. 
 
 Now all these are "properties" in celestial Cosmic ]\Iyths, and 
 the whole of the exploits of this Tower, this Axis, triad are of a 
 similar character. The Eric-fines are laid on them, too, in ]Miodh- 
 Chuarta, Mid-court, the central heavens-palace of Tara (also a hill 
 
 OIJ Ciltic Romances, 1879, p. 37. 
 
MyiksJ] The Rotmd Towers of Ireland. 269 
 
 or tower name). Brigit, the mother of this triad is made a goddess 
 by d'Arbois de Jubainville ; and she was daughter of Dagde 
 ( = good god) whom he holds to have been a supreme deity.^ 
 
 In a Gaelic story,- a king promises his daughter and two-thirds 
 of his kingdom to anyone who can get her out of a turret which 
 was aloft, on the top of four carraghan towers. 
 
 I just note here in addition the following passage from the 
 Book of Lismore, apparently about the Saint Bridget, who suc- 
 ceeded the same-named goddess : 
 
 She was one night there after nocturns praying, when appeared to her the 
 churches of all Ireland, and a tower of fire from each church of them unto 
 heaven. The fire that rose from Inis-Cathaig was that which was greatest 
 of them, and was brightest, and was straightest unto heaven.^ 
 
 Here, it is submitted, I have given quite sufficient prima facie 
 evidence of the leading position of the Tower among the radicals 
 of the oldest Irish myths, and an ample suggestion of the 
 symbolic importance of the Tower in pre-historic legendary 
 Ireland. 
 
 C^sar, in a much-used passage,^ identified the chief god of the Gauls with 
 Mercurius. That this was done generally may be deduced from Gallo-Roman 
 inscriptions, and one of these is a dedication Aleirutio Touren [(7].° Bearing in 
 mind my (proposed) identifications of Mercury (p. 53) as an axis-god, and of the 
 tower with the axis, I suggest that we have the name of this Celtic god in the 
 Irish Tuireann just mentioned (see also p. 2S6). 
 
 Having thus dealt with the Irish mythic Cosmic Tower, let us 
 return to the minor though doubtless older symbol of the upright 
 stone, whether in myth, legend or chronicle. 
 
 And first let me refer to Petrie for descriptions of the 
 "obeliscal pillar-stones so numerous in this country."" The word 
 gall was explained in Cormac's tenth-century Glossary as primarily 
 the name of these standing stones, coirthe cloice, or pillar-stones ; 
 and all over Munster, where they are very common, the word 
 dalldn, said to be a corruption of galldti, a diminutive of gall, is 
 still used for them. 
 
 ' Cycle Mythol. Irl. 372. 
 
 - Campbell's West- Highland Tales, iii, 265. 
 
 ^ Mr. B. MacCarthy's translation in Academy, 31 Jan. 1S91, p. 114. 
 
 ■" Debello Gall, vi, 17. 
 
 ° Brambach, Corp. iiisci: Rhenaruni, No. 1830. 
 
 '' Ut supra, p. 8. 
 
2 7° The Night of tlic Gods. {^Axis 
 
 See pp. 147, 134, where an effort is made to connect dallan with the French 
 dalle and the place-name MayAaXa, as well as with DaiDalos. No Celtic 
 scholar seems to connect dall with the first syllable of (/c/men. May it not 
 be doubted that dall is only a "corruption" of gall ? However, I find no 
 place-names in Ireland containing dall or dallJin, unless it be the ancient 
 Northern Dalriada or Dalaradia.' The names Dalgan, Dalgin, and Dalligan 
 are brought from dealg a thorn, which word may however be cognate with 
 ■dall. 
 
 The name Dallan Forgaill is found connected with Finn's name in Irish 
 myth, in the Leber na h'Uidhre. It is said to be the name of a 6th-century 
 disciple of Columba's." HeinK^j// in Norse mythology may mean straightly 
 Home-stone ? (Icelandic, heima home, heimr abode village. Danish hiem, 
 Swedish hem, Gothic haims village.) Of course the home-stone is the central 
 hearth-stone, (see p. 2S0 infra). Compare Svegder seeking God/wim in a 
 stone p. wy supra. The dwelling of the god Heimdallr (home-stone-er r) is 
 actually called HiminBiorg (heavens-rocks) which seems to clench the proof 
 of my case as to heim-dall (see " The Rock of Ages ''). 
 
 The word coirthe (pronounce, corha) is also still well under- 
 stood, but is applied to a larger standing-stone, such as that on 
 Cnoc a Coirthe, the hill of the pillar-stone, in Roscommon.'' 
 
 These words have given names to a great number of places in Ireland, 
 such as Glent-ar, Drumnat(?;vvzy Gallane, Drum_^(;//(;«, \'^3.gaUon, KWguNane ; 
 Cangu/Ha., Ga/la.gh. There is another word for a standing-stone, liagan (pron. 
 leegawn, a diminutive of liag a flagstone) and it has also given such place- 
 names as Leegane, Liggins, Ballylegan, Tooraleagan, and so on.^ 
 
 All tradition of the early significance of the dallan has, like 
 that of the round towers, long since departed, and the enquiries of 
 the enfant terrible now often elicit no more from his Irish nurse 
 than that such stones were put up in the fields for the cows to rub 
 themselves to. Even so long as nine centuries ago. Archbishop 
 Cormac (McCullenan) explained their name gall, which is a rock 
 or stone, as having arisen because the Galli first fixed them in 
 Ireland. I propose to consider them as cognate emblems with 
 the round towers ; relics of the adoration of an axis or Polar deit}", 
 and of the stone-worship from which that cult cannot be disjoined. 
 
 ' Dr. P. W. Joyce the able translator of the delightful Old Celtic Romatices has 
 kindly furnished me with the following note : " Dr. Graves in his Essay on Ogiiam 
 throws out the suggestion that dallan is the original and gallan a corruption — on this 
 ground, that pillar-stones were often set up to mark boundaries, and that they are called 
 aallan from dal a division" (Letter of I2th December 1S91). Of course I say on this 
 that the word dal as a division followed from the sense of dal the holy stone, set up to 
 taboo the boundar)-. 
 
 - Folh a7id Hero Tales from .Arg^'llsiiire, 1S90, 42S. 
 
 ^ Petrie, i(t siif. 19. ■• Joyce's Names, i, 342 (4th ed). 
 
Myths^ The Round Towers of Ireland. zyr 
 
 A passage from the " Leabhar na h-Uidhre " clearly proves that 
 stone-worship was, when that very ancient book was composed, 
 still considered to have prevailed in Ireland in the third century. 
 
 A great king of great judgements assumed the sovereignty of Erin — 
 Cormac, son of Art, son of Conn the Hundred-fighter. Erin was prosperous 
 in his time, because just judgements were distributed throughout it by him ; so 
 that no one durst attempt to wound a man in Erin during the short jubilee 
 oi seven years ; for Cormac had the faith of the one true God according to the 
 Law ; for he said that he would not adore stones or trees, but that he would 
 adore him who had made them (Petrie, p. 98). 
 
 Conn the Hundred-fighter is said to have been hard at work making his 
 " century " circa A.D. 160; his death is put in 190. And C^dcathach means 
 hundred-fighter, antagonist of a hundred, and not " of the hundred fights," 
 as it is generally rendered.' The British Cadwallader (cead-balladoir, hundred- 
 beater) is a synonymous title.- 
 
 In Irish myth, Ecca (Eochaidh = horseman), who appears to be 
 a parallel to the centaurs, departs from Mumha with his brother 
 Rib and ten hundred of his people towards the North, until by 
 the advice of their druids they separate at the Pass of the Two 
 Pillar-stones (see p. 255 supra), whence he goes onwards to the 
 heavens-palace, Brugh-na-Boinne, the home of Angus Maclndoc 
 (see p. 228 supra). One of the three venomous hounds overtakes 
 Diarmait and Grania at Duban's pillar-stone.' In his Pursuit of 
 the Giolla Deacair^ (lazy gillie), a clear horse-god, Diarmait comes 
 to a vast rocky cliff smooth as glass, and towering into the clouds. 
 Having climbed it with the aid of his two long deadly spears, he 
 sees on a vast flowery plain a great tree laden with fruit and 
 surrounded by a circle of pillar-stones, while one tallest stone 
 stands in the centre near the tree ; and by this great stone is a 
 large round spring-well from the centre of which the water bubbles 
 up and flows away over the plain in a slender stream.^ Here is 
 the Axis-pillar close by the Axis-tree, and the heavens-river 
 flowing, as in all mythologies, from the same central supreme spot. 
 We have some of the same properties in the Welsh Owein 
 legends." 
 
 D. O'Sullivan very properly remarked that the Irish holiest 
 
 ' Dr. Joyce's Celtic Romances, 409, 41S. 
 
 - D. O'.Sullivan's Poesies des Bardes, Paris, 1S53. p. 46. 
 
 ^ Dr. Joyce's Celtic Romances, 1879, pp. 98, 310. 
 
 ^ First translated by Dr. Joyce ttt sup. pp. 223, \v. 
 
 ' Ibid, p 247 ; Rhys's Hib. Lects. 1 88, 
 
 •^ Loth's Mabino^^ion. ii, 10, etc. 
 
272 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 wells have near them an old oak, or an upright unhewn stone, 
 round which (here he quotes Charles O'Conor's third letter signed 
 " Columbanus ") the devotees go on their knees three, six, or nine 
 times.' Petrie (p. 1 15), endorsing Dr. O'Conor's view, stated that 
 " to this day the word used for a pilgrimage by the common 
 Irish is ailithre ... a word composed of ail a great upright 
 rock or stone, and itriallam, correctly triallaini, to go round." But 
 surely, on the analogy of the Latin, -ithre is cognate to iter (from 
 ire) a journc}- .' 
 
 Dr. Joyce- says that ail ^ stone, and Mr. E. R. Wharton' puts ail and 
 Lithuanian dla rock with \aai stone. There is also aill(^faill; rock cliff 
 precipice. From ail came aileach a round stone fortress, the name of the 
 stronghold of the Northern HyNeill on a hill four miles from Derry (see 
 Ordnance memoir of Templemore parish). It is still called Greenan-Ely 
 ( = grianan-ailigh, stone-palace), and has three concentric ramparts encircling 
 a round cashel of cyclopean masonrj'. 
 
 Merlin, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth,'' transported by 
 magic the pillar-stones of the choir (coirthe ?) of Giants — chorea 
 gigantum — which stood on the " Killaraus IMons " in Ireland, and 
 set them up in the same order at Stanheng, Stonehenge. Now 
 Giraldus Cambrensis^ says of Meath, the fifth the central province 
 of Ireland, that the Castrum Nasense (of Naas), a mass of pro- 
 digious stones, was called the chorea gigantum, and that the stones 
 had been brought by the giants from the ends of Africa ; and 
 that the Castrum of Kilair*^ was called the stone and umbilicus of 
 Hibernia, as if placed in the midst and middle of the land, medio 
 et meditullio. (To this I return under the head of " The Navel") 
 
 The gorsedh or court under the authority of which an Eisted- 
 hvod is still held takes place in the open air, a circle of stones 
 being formed, with a bigger stone in the middle ; and a druid still 
 presides. 
 
 The Kilair stone above mentioned was very big, and was 
 cursed by St. Patrick.' At Mag Slecht was the chief idol of 
 Ireland, called Cenn Cruaich (Moundchief), covered with gold and 
 silver, and twelve other idols about it covered with brass. St. 
 
 ' Pohies dej Bardes, Paris, 1S53, pp. 91, 92 
 
 ^ Irish Names, 1st series, 4th ed. pp. 292, 409 ; 2nd series, p. 2. ^ Etyma Gmca. 
 
 * Hist, viii, 9 to 12 ; iv, 4. 
 
 * Topog. Hibern. ii, iS; iii, 4. 
 
 ^ San-Marte's Nennius, p. 361, and Camden. Loth's Mahinog. ii, 297. 
 ' Rhys's Hib. Lects. 192, 200, 208. 
 
Myths.'] The Round Towers of Ireland. 273 
 
 Patrick shook his crozier (see Lituus) at them, and the main idol 
 "bowed westwards to turn on its right side, for its face was />-<?;« 
 the South " [that is, to the North ?] " to wit, to Tara." The other 
 twelve were swallowed-up by the earth to their heads. These 
 must also have been stones, and perhaps the most important of 
 such stones generally were so ornamented and enriched ; as were 
 the Baitulia, which were dressed-up, like many human idols of the 
 gods, with clothes and ornaments which varied with the feasts,' as 
 altar-vestments do to this day. Damascius^ mentioned the 
 baitulos enveloped in its veils. A coin of Uranius Antoninus 
 shows the Emessa stone of Elagabalus covered with an enriched 
 envelope, of metal apparently, and topped by a pointed crown 
 with a sort of curtain or mantle of stuff round about. Coins 
 which give the manapsa or stone of Artemis at Perga in Pamphylia 
 evidently figure a metal bell-like cover. We see similar metal 
 coverings, showing only the face and hands, on Russian and Greek 
 church-pictures to this day. 
 
 The rock or pillar-stone of Cnamchoill (Cleghile) near Tipperary 
 was a fragment of the Wheel by means of which Simon Drui 
 sailed in the air. Mog Ruith and his daughter, a great Druid and 
 Druidess of Valencia, were pupils of Simon Drui, and the daughter 
 brought this fragment to Ireland. This strange and striking 
 junction of the Pillar and the Wheel is of firstrate significance in 
 this Inquiry. It is fully dealt-with under the heading of " The 
 Wheel" in Vol. II. There also the Welsh goddess ArianRliod, 
 Bright-wheel, is treated of. 
 
 In a legend in the Book of Leinster {Ulcsca Ulad) Trisgatal the 
 strong man of Ulster, that is the extreme North, pulls out of the 
 ground the pillar-stone which all the clanna Degad cannot move.^ 
 Here we obviously have a doublet of Arthur's magic sword, and 
 both are symbols of the axis. 
 
 Petrie admitted indeed,'' in the case of the pillar-stone of 
 Kilmalkedar, that it 
 may have been originally a pagan monument, consecrated to the service of 
 
 Christianity by inscribirig on it . . . the name of the Lord It 
 
 was not unusual for the Irish apostle thus to dedicate pagan monuments to the 
 honour of the true god. 
 
 This admission however scarcely contains a concession of the 
 argument I am here seeking to develop. 
 
 ' Rev. numismat. 1843, P- 270, etc. (Ch. Lenormant). " Bekker's ed. p. 348. 
 3 Folk and Hero Tales of Argyllshire, 1890, 446. ^ Ui supra, p. 132. 
 
 S 
 
2 74 The Night of the Gods. {Axis 
 
 The Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland \-isitcd in 1890 
 Glencolumbkille in Donegal, where they found "some forty stones 
 scattered up and down the valley, which are penitential 'stations' 
 to this day. Some of the pillar-stones are finely carved with 
 figures and the usual interlaced Irish patterns. On the slope of 
 Glen Head, which rises perpendicularly from the sea to a height of 
 800 feet, is a holy well with a cairn of stones left by devotees, and 
 some ruins with a large stone called St. Columb's Bed. This is 
 kissed as a cure for all kinds of diseases, and is the last spot visited 
 in the penance."' The words penance and penitential are some- 
 what inaccurate here, I fancy. 
 
 I must insert here the Pelvan or Pierre levee, which Littr^ described as 
 une " pierre longue dressde perpendiculairement en forme de piher (Basbreton 
 peulvan— /d';c/ pilier, mati figure). I find the temi " Pierres fites ou levt5es " in 
 the Hist. Lift, de la France commenced by the Benedictines (xx, 623). Fites ^ 
 fi^tes fixtes ? 
 
 Upon the general subject of stone-worship, the Reader must 
 be requested to refer back to the Section which deals with Beth- 
 Els and to the Index. Here can be set down onl}' a izw facts 
 which seem to connect themselves more closely, from the historical 
 pcint of view, with stone-\\'orship in Ireland. 
 
 There still remain certain Irish pillar-stones with circular 
 artificial holes, through which (whether originally so or not) faith 
 was in later times plighted between persons who grasped hands 
 through the opening. This " hand-fasting " through a pillar was 
 known in Orkney as a "promise to Odinn," so late as 1781." 
 
 In the 7th century St. Eloi forbad Christians to pray at pagan shrines 
 (fana) or stones or wells or trees. ^ 
 
 In the 8th century Charlemagne and the Councils had to fulminate against 
 the worship of stones wells and trees, and the Saxons still worshipped wells 
 and trees in the 13th century. The Council of Leptine (743) forbad oblations to 
 be made on stones called fanes of Jupiter and Mercurius ; and the Councils of 
 Aries, Tours, and many synods, and the capitulary of Aix-la-Chapelle in 789, 
 renewed these prohibitions.* Up to this present century there were stones on 
 the banks of the Lot which the French peasants oiled and decked with flowers, 
 believing that if they could do so undetected they would be cured of or pre- 
 served from the fever.^ The bishop of Cahors had one of the stones 
 destroyed (see also p. 126 si/p?-a). 
 
 ' Athcnamm, 20th Sept. 1S90, p. 393. 
 
 ° W. G. Wood-Martin's Rude Stone Monuments of Ireland, 1SS8. 
 
 ^ De Baecker Relig. Nord France, 301, 316, 317. 
 
 ^ Capitular Caroli Ma^. i, 150, and Du Cange. 
 
 * C. Coture : Hist, du Queny, i, 5. 
 
Myths.'] The Round Toivers of Ireland. 275 
 
 Seidell's De Dis Syris^ (which Prof. W. Robertson Smith- says is by no 
 means superseded by the Phenizier of Movers) cites Rabbi Nathan as 
 mentioning the fani Merkolis or fanes of Mercurius which were simply three 
 stones placed, unus hinc, alter illinc, tertius super utrumque — dolmens in fact 
 (see p. 254), as we now catalogue them. Another rabbi, cited by Drusius, called 
 them simply Mercurii. Prof. W. Robertson Smith' has also pointed out how, 
 before the time of Mohammed, the greater gods of the Arabs had to a large 
 extent become anthropomorphic, or were represented at their sanctuaries (if 
 not worshipped as images of human form) by a simple pillar, or by an altar, 
 of stone ; sometimes by a sacred tree. My suggestion would be that these 
 Arabian pillar-stones were originally erected to the supreme heavens-deity 
 alone ; but all the leading gods were central, and they all subdivide in time, 
 to meet the subdivision of their worshippers. There is a sufficiently remark- 
 able connexion between this Arabian record and that which has already been 
 adduced (p. 271) as to Cormac the grandson of Conn forswearing the worship 
 of stones and trees ; and it even renders the theory of a Phoenician connexion 
 with the Irish pillar-stones some whit less unlikely. 
 
 So far as to the Irish pillar-stones ; but the attentive Reader 
 will have already detected in the Section dealing with " The 
 Pillar" (pp. 204 to 207) that it is almost impossible to draw a hard 
 and fast line of demarcation between the sacred pillar and the 
 sacred tower. The solid pillar becomes hollow, the hollow pillar 
 becomes a chambered pillar ; and that again differentiates into the 
 tower. I shall even submit that the Irish Round Tower, as so 
 fully and minutely described and depicted by Petrie's master hand, 
 would in any attempt at a rigidly scientific classification naturally 
 fall nearer to a category of chambered pillars than to one of 
 towers, as we now employ the latter word. This is amply clear 
 from their high-up door, which was to hinder rather than to afford 
 access ; their interior exiguity ; and the doubt, in most if not in all 
 cases, as to how their stories, floors, and stairs were adjusted. 
 
 The height of the doors above the ground outside is generally 13 ft., though 
 the door at Scattery is on the ground. At Lusk the doorway is 4 ft. ; and in 
 others 8, 11, and 13 ft. above the exterior level.' 
 
 Attention must again be drawn to the minar at Gaur (p. 207 
 supra) of which Fergusson said it looked " more like an Irish 
 round-tower than any other example known " ; and that also has the 
 elevated doorway. One other close parallel can be added from 
 Petrie himself (p. 29), which does more than suggest a connexion 
 between the pillar-tower, the pillar-stone, and the worship. Lord 
 
 ' C. Coture : Hist, du Quercy, ii, cap. 15. ^ Keh'g. of Semites (1SS9), pp. ix, 437. 
 
 ^ Kinship and Marriage, 207. ^ Lord Dunraven's A'ijte, ii, 23, 150. 
 
 S 2 
 
276 
 
 The Night of the Gods. 
 
 [Axis 
 
 Valentia, in his " Travels in the East Indies," described the two 
 round towers one mile North-west of Bhaugulpoor. He was 
 much pleased at sighting them, as they resembled the towers of 
 Ireland ; but they are a little more ornamented, the door about tlie 
 same Iieiglit from tlie ground. There was no tradition concerning 
 them, but the Rajah of Jyenegar considered them holy, and had 
 built a small shelter for the great number of his subjects who 
 annually came to worship there. The early Christians can scarcely 
 have had aught to do with these particular Indian pillar-towers, 
 which arc those near Bhagalpur that the Jains still frequent for 
 pilgrimage and worship. Indeed Petrie wrote^ : " I am far from 
 wishing to deny that a remarkable conformity is to be found 
 between many of the Round Towers, whether Christian or 
 Mahomedan, noticed by travellers, and our Irish towers." 
 
 On the lower or square part of the stambhas or soHtary pillars of the 
 Jains of southern India, says Fergusson,- as well as on the pillars inside the 
 temples at Moodbidri and elsewhere in Canara, we find " that curious interlaced 
 basket-pattern which is so familiar to us from Irish manuscripts or the orna- 
 ments of Irish crosses. It is equally common in Armenia, and can be traced 
 up the valley of the Danube into central Europe." Of course this last bit is 
 only one of Fergusson's '' views," and need not be conceded more than its due 
 modicum of weight. 
 
 To show (see p. 263) how the Moslems sometimes add the 
 round minaret, here is a rough sketch of one 
 at the Haidar Pasha mosque in Nicosia 
 (St. Katherine's church) ; and another very 
 strange example of a ruined minaret on a 
 ruined church-steeple, 
 a fine specimen of a 
 campanile, at Jaitzc 
 in Bosnia' " The cir- 
 cular plan was much 
 
 S:: <Cx.>-)^-JiU 
 
 Vt Slip} a, p. ^o. ' Indian Arc/i. p. 277. 
 
 ' I. de Asbutli's Bo>iiiti and Herzcgat-ina , 1S90. p. 421. 
 
 ■iX-vuii Tc'^">'>'u. 
 
Myths.'] The Rotmd Toivers of Ireland. 277 
 
 used by Moslem races for their minarets," saj's the Encyclopedia 
 Britannica. 
 
 " Round towers wider and lozver than the Irish appear to have 
 been built by many prehistoric races in different parts of Europe. 
 Many examples exist in Scotland, and in the islands of Corsica 
 and Sardinia. They are called brochs in Scotland, and seem to be 
 the work of a pre-Christian Celtic race."^ 
 
 The church of Bramfield in Suffolk has a detached round- 
 tower which stands some distance away from the church.^ There 
 are many round-towered churches in this quarter of England, as 
 for example at Mettingham, Haddiscoe, Watton, Fritton, and near 
 Cromer (Norfolk), and Bungay (Suffolk). The country-people 
 have a tale that these round-towers were the casings of wells 
 before the deluge, which succeeded in washing the land away, 
 leaving the circular stone-work standing.^ But this is too obviously 
 not a legend but a rough " sell," of the " thing to make a fool ask " 
 description. The Encyclopedia Britannica'^ briefly asserts that these 
 round towers, which are at the West end of churches in Norfolk 
 Suffolk and Essex, are " Norman " ; which does not help us too 
 much. All the Irish round-towers stand a little to the N. or N.W. 
 (points not accurately stated or ascertained) of the churches near 
 them.' 
 
 The round Towers covered with a dome, which exist in the 
 island of Sardinia (see p. 2S4) are also attributed to an unknown 
 archaic race, says Colonel Hermant of the French Artillery, who 
 seems to have encountered a somewhat similar tower in Algeria 
 (dans le Sud Oranais), terminating in a rounded and massive 
 capping (coiffee d'une calotte arrondie et massive).^ 
 
 Lord Dunraven' gives authentic particulars and sketches of a 
 great number — some two-and-twenty — continental round towers, 
 
 ' Encyd. Brit,, citing Anderson's Scotland in Pagan Times (iSSj) and Scotland in 
 Early Times (\?,&\). 
 
 ^ J. J. Hissey's Taiir in a Phaeton, 1SS9, p. 152. 
 
 =* Ibid. 153, 175, 177, 1S5, 1S9, 225, 271. 
 
 ■* xxi, 22 (gth ed.) 
 
 ° Lord Dunraven's Azotes, ii, 23, 152, 154. 
 
 * Academie des Sciences, Sth Dec. 18S9. 
 
 ^ Notes, ii, 14S, 156, 162. 
 
2 78 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 none of which however has any exact typical resemblance to the 
 Irish towers, except in a common roundness, and in the conical 
 tops of some ; and both those facts are of leading symbolic im- 
 portance. 
 
 The divine companions of the great Mexican deity Ouetzalcoatl 
 raised mounds or pyramids of stones and bricks, and they gave 
 their pillars the form of serpents, not an infrequent Irish middle- 
 age ornamentation. Quetzalcoatl himself invented (that is, of 
 course, created) the tower absolutely round and without angles, 
 which, says M. Eugene Beauvois, " has such a curious parallel in 
 gaelic lands."' 
 
 Round towers some 33 feet high, and half that diameter, 
 have just been discovered by Mr. J. Theodore Bent at Zimbabwi 
 in Mashona-land. This is where he found the soapstone poles or 
 pillars, with the birds on top. (See " Divine Birds " in Vol. II, and 
 Proceedings of the Geographical and Anthropological Societies, 
 May 1892.) 
 
 Petrie says- that the Irish round towers " are finished at the top 
 with a conical roof of stone which frequently, as there is every 
 reason to believe, terminated with a cross formed of a single 
 stone." It does not appear that he adduced one single reason for 
 this belief If he has, the passage has escaped my very careful 
 reading. One might with equal apparent probability suggest that 
 the roof was terminated with " a round ball stuck on a spike " like 
 those " buildings of the Pollygars of the Circars of India" men- 
 tioned in Pennant's Vieiu of Hiiidoostan (ii, 123), which buildings 
 are " of a cylindrical or round-tower shape, with their tops pointed 
 at the summit. One is inclined to claim as Cosmic this ball on a 
 spike, that is the sphere transpierced by its axis ; and much will be 
 said later on (see Index) as to the important sj-mbolism of this 
 conical roof-cap. (See also what is said of the Egyptian benben 
 at p. 199 supra, and of the phalse at p. 240.) 
 
 With reference to this " ball on a spike," the wooden " rattles " used by 
 " sorcerers," that is I presume priests, in British Guiana, are still of such a 
 
 ' L' F.lysc'e des lilexuains in Rev. de I'Hist. des Relig. x, 2S9, 295. 
 " Ut supra, p. 356. 
 
Myt/is.'] The Round Toiuers of Ireland. 279 
 
 form, as may be seen from the specimens in the Museum of St. 
 Augustine's College at Canterbury (8th July iSgo). The whole 
 sacred symbol is two feet high, and stands on a round base. The 
 hollow ball is of thin wood, and about eight inches in diameter, with 
 two slits in it like those on the front of a fiddle. Is not this a sort 
 of bull-roarer ? See also what is said as to the Japanese nu-hoko on | 
 p. 67. 
 
 Lord Dunraven' gave some particulars of the capstones of the 
 Round-tower roofs. At Antrim " a portion of the original stone 
 which crowned the conical top is still preserved. There is a square 
 hole in the centre, into which a small wedge-shaped stone fitted " (" probably 
 a cross " is added, but why ?). At Ardmore : " Last year (?date) the capstone 
 fell down, and only half of it is now preserved. It is about 2 ft. high and is 
 semi-circular, i ft. 8 in. in diameter; the other half must have been split off." 
 [This is somewhat vague.] Elsewhere it is stated that Professor Willis- "alludes 
 to a floral ornament in the plan [on parchment, of the towers of St. Gall near 
 Lake Constance] which is also often seen in MSS. of the 9th century, and 
 which Lord Dunraven suggests may indicate the ornamental finial of the 
 conical roof" I can only presume that the fleur-de-lis is here meant. 
 
 That pre-Christian sacred, as well as domestic and other, 
 buildings might have been round as well as of any other shape is so 
 self-evident, in the nature of things, as almost to go without 
 telling ; but here are some leading instances of the fact. 
 
 " The houses of the ancient Irish were circular, and generally 
 made of wood."^ 
 
 The late Laurence Oliphant,* writing from Taganrog in 1852, 
 describes the round houses of the Don Co.ssacks as being " like 
 the haystacks with which they were afways surrounded, and from 
 which you could scarcely distinguish them." 
 
 The most usual, if not the most ancient form of the European 
 hut, says Dr. O. Schrader, was circular. If this is correct we shall 
 not go far wrong in regarding it as an imitation of the felt-covered 
 circular tent of the nomad. The Teutonic huts on the triumphal 
 column of Marcus Aurelius are round. So too did Strabo describe 
 the dwelling of the Belgse as a doXoeiSi']<i. Helbig has shown the 
 primitive form of the Italian hut to have been round. The ash- 
 urns from the necropolis of Alba Longa were obviously intended 
 
 ' A^'o/es on Irish Arch, ii, I, 39, 157. 
 
 '^ Archirolog. Journal^ v, 85. 
 
 •' Dr. Joyce's Celtic Rotuances, 191. 
 
 ^ Mrs, M. O. W. Oliphant's Life of him, i, 96. 
 
2 So The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 to represent the then round huts of the hving. [See an illus- 
 tration in Canon Isaac Taylor's Origin of titc Aryans, p. 176 ; but 
 such huts were square too, see the drawing of one found near 
 Chiusi in Daremberg and Saglio's Dictioiinairc, i, 984. I. O'N.] 
 The pre-historic dome-shaped graves of Mycenae, Menidi, and 
 Orchomenus were but reproductions of human dwellings. 
 [The Chinese idea of the roundness of heaven, and the Greek 
 and Roman round temples are here out of sight. I. O'N.] Dr. 
 Schrader then compares the Latin fala, a wooden tower or struc- 
 ture, with the Greek 66\o';, meaning both circular structure and 
 dome-shaped roof or round temple.' Lisch says the circular was 
 the original form of the German urns also ; and F. S. Hartmann 
 says the funnel-pit dwellings of Southern Bavaria as a rule exhibit 
 a circular form.- 
 
 To this I shall add that the primitive circular Greek houses 
 had, according to Winckler,^ the hearth at the centre, the smoke 
 going out at the top of the conical roof. Every Greek city had 
 its prytaneum, in rotunda or doXo^ form, sacred to Hestia. The 
 holy hearth or fire-focus of the city was immediately under the 
 summit of the vault, just as the hearth at Delphi, the central fire 
 common to all the Hellenes, was (soi-disant) right beneath the 
 summit of the celestial vault. This Delphin sanctuary, the navel 
 of the earth, the o/i,^aXo? 7?;^, had the omphalos-stone close beside 
 this hearth-altar and sacred fire of Hestia, the goddess who per- 
 sonified the stability of the Earth.* The Roman Vesta, who 
 paralleled the Grecian Hestia, likewise had rotunda-temples with 
 hemispherical roofs. 
 
 Numa Pompilius, said Festus {s. v. Rotunda), seems to have consecrated 
 to Vesta a round temple (rotundam or rutundam sedem), because she was the 
 same as the Earth, and so he gave her a temple in the form of a pila. But 
 we must not forget that Stata Mater was another name for ^'esta ; who in 
 that case may be VeSta, and another deity to add to the rest in Yt-. As to 
 these I state elsewhere a suspected connexion with the root of veho to drive, 
 and with the town of Veji or of the Yeji, for it is hard to accept Ovid's \'eJovis 
 {Fast, iii, 447) for " little Jupiter." 
 
 It is such facts as these that throw the proper light upon the 
 confused supposition of Anaxagoras (elsewhere mentioned) that 
 
 ' Guhl and Koner, p. 4S. 
 
 ^ Jevons's Schrader 's Frehist. Aryan Antiq. (1S90) 342, 345, 364 to 366. 
 
 ^ Wohnhduser der Helleneii (1S6S) pp. 123 to 132. 
 
 ■• Th. H. Martin : Mythe cU Hestia (Mem. Acad. Inscr. xxviii.) 
 
Myi/is.'] The Round Toiuers of Ireland. 281 
 
 primitively the pole coincided with the zenith. A supposition 
 which was agreed in by others of the Ionian school — Archelaus, 
 Diogenes of Apollonia, Empedocles and Democritus.^ One of the 
 two most archaic temples discovered by Conze, Deville, and 
 Coquart at Samothrace, the sanctuary of Kabeirian worship, was 
 round in form, and covered-in like an odeum {whelov, Odeon).- 
 
 ' Stoba:us Ed. Ph. i, i6 (pp. 356 to 358, Huren). 
 ^ F. Lenormant in Saglio's Diet, i, 765. 
 
282 
 
 The Night of the Gods. 
 
 \_Axis 
 
 on 
 
 -Some other Towers. 
 
 HERE are now recorded some notes and observations upon a 
 variety of Towers which are not round, but which seem to 
 belong to the same symbolism. The square form accords with the 
 Chinese conception of the earth-symbol as square (the heavens- 
 symbol being round) ; and it also figures forth the sacred number 
 Four of the cardinal points, fully treated of above, p. 157. 
 
 At Kuku-Hote, or Blue Town in Manchuria Hue' mentioned 
 a large Lamasery called, in common with a more celebrated one in 
 the province of Shan-si, the Lamasery of the Five Towers, from 
 its handsome square tower with five turrets ; one very lofty in the 
 centre, and four smaller at the angles. 
 
 At Tali and Tali-fu in Yunnan, Air. A. R. Colquhoun" mentions 
 
 and depicts some " Alahomedan 
 pagodas or minarets." That num- 
 bered 4 reminds one somewhat of 
 the Egyptian tat(see jw/n?). That 
 the}' are pillar-like tower struc- 
 tures, with an archaic religious 
 and mystic signification now lost, 
 .-eems to be the conclusion. The 
 m)-thological nightmarist might 
 perhaps see in them some parcel 
 of gigantic glorified glow-worms. 
 The existence of the Chinese Wei-Kan in the same countr}' (see 
 p. 193 supra) seems to exhibit to us the same original idea 
 descending through two different channels, and so evolving side 
 by side (whether due to migration or not) very different forms 
 of the same central pil!ar-s\-mbol, which are both still produced 
 to this day. It was in this countrj- too that the Alahomedan 
 rebels were put down and massacred. The aboriginal (.') Heh 
 Miao tribe of this part of S. W. China " stick-in a bamboo-pole 
 at the graves, with silk threads of the five colours."^ 
 
 The staged towers (zikkurat) of Chaldea and Ass}-ria seem to 
 
 1 Travels, i, 1 10. " Aiross C/insc, ii, 246. 253. 
 
 ■' //././. ii, 372. 
 
Myths:] 
 
 Some other Towers. 
 
 283 
 
 T«.-r. 
 
 have given the model for the atesh-gahs 
 or fire-towers of the Persians. That at 
 Jur near Firuzabad is 91 feet high and 
 has been "restored" by M. Dieulafoy.^ 
 The minaret of the mosque of Ibn Tulun, 
 one of the oldest Mussulman edifices, is 
 said to resemble it. 
 
 Dr. E. G. King, D.D.,^ says "the 
 topmost stage in the Babylonian zig- 
 gurats or temples denoted the pillar 
 round which the highest heaven or 
 sphere of the fixed stars revolved."^ 
 If so, it clearly represented the Norths 
 polar celestial region. (Refer again to 
 the Tower at Jaitze in Bosnia p. 276.) 
 
 In the Persian Rauzat-us-Safa (p. 141) Nimrud, obstinate in 
 his purpose of ascending to heaven, spent many years in erecting 
 a Tower which was so high that the bird of imagination could not 
 reach its summit. (Remember that it is the exaggeration here 
 that falls short of the mythic reality.) Fara'un (Pharaoh) also 
 wanted to go up to heaven and learn about the God of Musa, and 
 to fight him ; and he commanded Haman to erect him a lofty 
 castle, so lofty that its building took all the time of the 9 signs, 
 and anyone wishing to reach its summit had to climb for a whole 
 year. {Ibid. p. 333.) 
 
 One is inclined to suggest that the marvellous Tower in the 
 Shi King,* built with a rapidity as if it had been the work of spirits 
 (as Chu Hi said), and proper for astrological observations and for 
 the searching'out of divination omens, should find its proper place 
 among the mythic cosmic towers. 
 
 In France, the " Pile de Saint-Marc " or Cinq Mars, where the 
 Cher joins the, Loire, is built of bricks and is in plan a square of 
 12^ feet to the side, its height being 861- feet, as described long ago 
 by La Ss.\XMa.ghre {Aiitiquitcs). 
 
 That we have here the god Mars (or his Gauhsh double) seems probable 
 enough ; and his mantle descended to his namesake St. Martin (Mars, Martis), 
 as maybe seen especially from the legend in the 12th-century chronicle of Jean 
 de Marmoatier (near neighbouring Tours) which says that Caesar built a tower 
 upon the rock of neighbouring Amboise, with a great statue of Mars on its 
 
 ' V .Art Antique de la Perse, iv, 79. ' Akkadian Genesis (18S8) p. 24. 
 
 ' See also The Story of the Nations (Chnldea) pp. 153, 276. ^ Legge's, 1S71, p. 456. 
 
284 The Night of the Gods. [^Axis 
 
 summit, which statue fell in a miraculous storm raised by the iconoclast 
 St. Martin to abolish the emblems of paganism. Les dieu.x se suivent et se 
 ressemblent. The J/,n- in .Marmoutier I'mouticr = monasterium) is said to be 
 Mains, but is nearer Mars. The village was once known as Saint-Maars 
 (which confirms what I have just stated), and also Saint-Medard-la-Pile, which 
 gives us a central divine name, like unto all others in Me-, see pp. 143 seg. 
 
 Near Sablenceau.x is a similar construction called la Pile- 
 Longue or Pirelonge, built of rubble stone in a hard cement, 18 feet 
 square and 74 feet high. There is said to have been another near 
 the confluence of the Creuze and Vienna rivers, at a place called 
 Port-de-Pile. 
 
 A curious name belongs to the 291 feet high tower of the 
 church at Boston in Lincolnshire, built in 1309. It is called 
 " Boston Stump," and is visible 40 miles off. (We all know too 
 that another Boston is the hub of the Universe !) 
 
 As to the nijraghs or round-towers of Sardinia (see p. 277), 
 Perrot and Chipiez say in LHistoirc dc I'Art that they still exist 
 in very great numbers — more than 3000 — all over the island. 
 Their commonest form is a circular chamber, on the ground, 
 covered with a conical vault, corbelled not arched, like the beehive 
 tombs of Mycenae and Orchomenos. Some are more complicated, 
 fusing 3 or more single towers into one colossal mass. The con- 
 clusion now favoured is that they were strongholds against invaders 
 and pirates. Their dates and builders are unknown, but the 
 vaulting may be Phcenician. (Does nuragh belong to nar, fire ? see 
 p. 20S supra.) 
 
 The celebrated Octagonal Tower of the Eight Winds at Athens 
 has already been often mentioned (pp. 167, 193 and 244). It was 
 crowned by a trident-god or Triton who acted as a weather-cock. 
 Spon identified this famous tower with the horologium or dial 
 described by Vitruvius (i, 6, 4). There was a water-clock within 
 it, and it also served as a dial, for horary lines are still traceable 
 below the figure of a wind on each face. ^Mlen Stuart \-isited the 
 tower in the last centur}-, and still at the time of Cell's tour, it was 
 used as a chapel for dancing (that is rotating, spinning) dervishes.' 
 To those who follow the theories here broached, it will not seem 
 strange, but accordant, that the connexion of this tower with the 
 rotating Universe should thus have been perpetuated. It was 
 dedicated, as the architra\'e-inscription still testifies, to Athene 
 
 ' Harrison and Verrall's Ancient Athens, p. 203. 
 
MythsP\ Some other Tozvers. 285 
 
 Archegetis. Now apj(_-r)'yeTri<i, apx-ayeT7]<;, apT^-Tj^ert? combine 
 the two central divine terms dp'y^ and ay {ayw go, lead ; Sanskrit aj 
 drive) ; and ' Apxayerrji; thus meant the Supreme goer, leader or 
 impeller of the Universe. The same adjectival title was also given 
 to the great central gods Apollo and Asklepios. 
 
 The turretted head of Cj'bele may owe its symbo- 
 lism to the cosmic tower and heavens-palace, or " city of 
 the new Jerusalem." Compare the Egyptian present- 
 ments of Neith, Isis, and Nephthys. 
 
 The tower in which Danae was shut- up, the golden shower as 
 which Zeus ( = Zan = Dan) descended, the resultant heavens-god 
 Perseus, and the chest in which //e was shut-up (see '' The Arcana ") 
 are all central and celestial. Remember too that if Zan = Dan 
 was Zeus, Zano ( = Dan6) was the Doric (and Cretan ?) Here. And 
 I here insert an important addition to the Section on " The god 
 Picus " supra, which is taken from John of Antioch, who not alone 
 said repeatedly that Picus was the same as Zeus — Ili/co? d Kai Zev<i ; 
 but that some said he was the father of Perseus : koI erepo^ vcb'i 
 Tov YltKov Ato? aTTo ^avdr]<; y6vo/j,evo<; ovo/xari, Tiepaeu<;.^ 
 
 In Dr. Schliemarm's Report on excavations at "Troy" in 1890,= is men- 
 tioned a whorl with an inscription found in the sixth " Trojan " settlement. 
 Prof. Sayce gives the inscription which is in the Cypriot syllabary, as Tla-ro-pi 
 Tv-pi which, on the supposition that it is Phrygian, would be " to Father 
 Turis." 
 
 The fragments of Philo's version of Sanchoniathon,as presented 
 by Eusebius,'' have preserved to us a perhaps stupendously old 
 instance of the cosmic Tower-myth. The passage is that Hyps- 
 Ouranios (that is the god of the highest heavens) was said to 
 have set up his home at Turos, that is at Tyre. Etra (/)?;o-i tov 
 'T-ijrOvpdviop olKYfaai Tvpov, which was put into Latin by K. O. 
 Miiller as Jam vero HypsUranium in insula Tyro domicilium suum 
 collocasse, which would give us a very ancient view indeed of Tory- 
 island (see p. 267 supra). (Of course there was a Tyre on the 
 island, now Sour ( = tsur?) but the old Tyre, TraXat Tuyoo?, seems to 
 have been on the mainland.) If this be the true etymolog}' of Tyre, 
 it disposes of all the words in tyr- or rvp- as having a tower sense. 
 The Hebrew name of Tyre was "il^. The bull that bore Europa 
 
 ' Didot's Frag. Hist. Griic. iv, 542, 544. 
 
 ° Published posthumously by Brockhaus, Leijizig. 
 
 ■' Prep. Ev. i, cap. 10. Didot's Fra;^. Hist. Gntc. iii. 566. 
 
2 86 The Night of tlie Gods. [Axis 
 
 was called Tyrian. The Thcbans were poetically, that is archaically, 
 called Tyrians, and I shall endeavour later to show that Thebes 
 was the heavens-city of the gods, the theoi. 
 
 Again we may have the tower-axis god in Turrenus or 
 Turrhenus who was the dux (drawer or leader) of the Lydians (see 
 also pp. 143, 146). So said Festus under the word Turrani, which 
 he cited from Verrius as an ordinary appellation for the Etruscans. 
 Note, by the way, that we are here working out a very supreme 
 divine right indeed for the tyrant, tyrannus, or Tvpavvo<;. 
 
 An Etruscan mirror' shows a scene which is called " Castor and Pollu.\; 
 with Miner\'a and Venus ; " but the names over the heads are Laran, Aplu, 
 Menfra and Turan. In this last name of the Etruscan Venus (according to 
 F. Lenonnant^) are we not to see a Tower goddess ? Another mirror shows 
 Casutru, Pulutuke, Chaluchasu (Menfra), and Turan. Another gives Turms or 
 Tu/-mu5 (I\Iercurius ?) Laran, Menfra, and Turan. Another, Menfra and 
 Turan.' (See also Turo, p. 136 si/pra.) 
 
 A curious and pretty, though very ordinary, religious toy may be had in 
 certain devotional bookshops. It consists of an ornamented double hollow 
 turret or cylinder of ivory which, when turned round a.xially, opens and dis- 
 closes a little statuette of the Virgin in (or as) the turris eburnea or turris 
 Davidica of the So?jg of Solomon and the Litanies.* 
 
 Under the heading of the Number Twelve I have already 
 mentioned the Frangrasyan o'i 'Ca& Avcsta, the Afrasyab of Firdusi. 
 He was King of Turan for 200 years, which (for me) at once gives 
 a tower-axis clue, and a probable etymology for Tiir-an as the 
 kingdom of the Tower. 
 
 Justi {Handb. dcr Zeiidspr.) derives tixra from taurv, tarv = Sanskrit turv, 
 turvati. I believe turris rvpcns has not been previously carried beyond the Greek. 
 Now Airyu, Tura, and Sairima were grandsons of Yima the first 
 man-god, thus : 
 
 Vima =f^ " 
 
 I 
 
 I I 
 
 daughter SavangavatchX_.^,,..,,,^^^ (Fpr!H,',nl — JErenavatch 
 
 (i'lrdousis -Shahrinaz) J ^ ' 
 
 I (Ar 
 
 I , . i -, .V. 
 
 Tura^ Sairania or Selni, Airyu, King of 
 
 King of Turan. King of Rum. Airyana (Iran). 
 
 The 2 mothers of the triad had been raxished by the demon-serpent Azhi 
 Dahaka, but were rescued by Thractaona when he slew the monster. Again 
 
 ' Inghirami, Moniiiiienti Etruski. - In Saglio's Diet, i, 771. 
 
 ^ M. Maurice Albert, Castor ei Pollux, 18S3, p. 134. 
 ■• Hicrolexicon (Roma, 1677), p. 644. 
 
MytJisP\ Some other Toivers. 287 
 
 Iran Vej is the more archaic Airyana Vaejo or Vaija, the first region created, 
 near by the heavens-river Daitya.' Airyaman was an old Indo-Iranian 
 god, who is an dditya in the RigVeda, and called Aryaman. The meaning 
 of both the resemblant words is in each speech the same : brightness, 
 light.' Airyaman's mansion (nmanem) is the mansion of the sky, the bright 
 dwelling in which, according to the Vedas, Mitra Aryaman and Varuna abide. 
 In later Parsiism Airyaman is the ised of the heavens. Here is one of my 
 reasons (see p. 24) for making the original Aryans the bright star-gods of the 
 heavens. In another, a parallel direction, it is not at all impossible (I venture 
 to submit) that we have here too our own English word air {ar^p, aer). Mt. 
 Kaoirisa or Koiras in Iran-Vej,^ then becomes the hollow (KoiXor, root ku) 
 mountain of the heavens, in space. 
 
 But I want to deal with Tiira, the King of TClran. The mythic 
 source of the even prehistoric enmity of Iran and Tdran would be 
 a war-in-heaven (of which so many are seen in the course of this 
 Inquiry) between the (tower) axis-gods and the heavens-gods at 
 large. And it is very notable that although the Turanians, the 
 sons of Tura, are to be smitten in myriads of myriads in the 
 Avesta^ certain of them are to be worshipped, such as Arejangand 
 and Frarazi and their holy men and women.'' Thus they (or their 
 fravashis, their spirits) were gods. The Diiiai Ulatiiogt Khiradli^ 
 preserves the legend that this enmity was caused through the 
 killing of Airyu (Airich) by his two brothers. This is supposed 
 to have been also related in a lost Nask of the Avesta. Afrasyab 
 the tower-god (as I say) was, after 12 years' dominion, beaten, 
 and took refuge in a cave on the top of a mountain (in the 
 Shah NdineJi) ; but in a more archaic form of the legend the cave 
 was an underground palace, the height of 1000 men, with walls 
 of iron and 100 columns. This is clearly one of the many 
 variants of the Southern infernal Labyrinth (see that heading), and 
 Afrasyab was simply damned to hell as a fallen god. 
 
 Since the above was worked-out, I f5nd that M. Jean Fleury, reader at the 
 St. Petersburg University, considers the Russian popular god Tur to be "no 
 other than Perun, under a name brought probably by the Turanians."" But of 
 course the word perun has no etymological resemblance whatever with tur. If 
 these theories of mine turn out worth the trouble of publishing, Tur will be a 
 tower-god, and Perun (see pp. 194, 19S supra) a pillar-j/o/zf (pierre) god. 
 
 ' Darmesteter's Z. A. i, 2, 5, 229. 
 
 ■^ Z. A. ii, 2S9. 
 
 ^ Ibid, ii, 67, 71, 189. 
 
 ■* Ibid, ii, 212, 217, 226. 
 
 * West's Paid. Texts, iii, 52. 
 
 '• Congih des trad. fop. : Paris, 1891, pp. 91, 96, 97 (received by mc 7th Feb. 1S92). 
 
288 
 
 The Night of the Gods. 
 
 \The exigaicies of Space and Time — in ivJiich all things have their 
 becomings or their 7wn-bccomings — have foixed me to hold over ^ for 
 the present, the Section on " The Tomoye."] 
 
 I f ^ f 
 
 1 f T f fi 
 
289 
 
 The Axis and the Universe-Tree. 
 
 24. The Tree-trunk. 
 
 25. The Christmas-tree. 
 
 26. The myths of Daphne and AgLauros. 
 
 27. The Gods of the Druids. 
 
 24. — The Tree-trunk. 
 
 w 
 
 Two stedfast Poles 
 twixt which this All doth on the Ax-tree move. 
 
 (Drayton, Barons' IVarres, \i, 5.) 
 
 E must now turn to the Axis as the trunk of the Universe- 
 Tree ; the Axe-tree as we might call it, reviving an old 
 English alias for axle-tree. 
 
 The Vedic habitable Earth is Jambu-dwipa, the island of the 
 tree Jambu. Siva is the lord of the Jambu tree which is in the 
 centre of the delightful plateau which in the puranas crowns the 
 height of Mount Meru — the world-Tree which j'ielded the gods 
 their soma, the drink of immortality. Its roots are in the under- 
 world of Yama ; it is so high that it casts the shadow on the 
 moon. Its tips are in the heaven of the gods, its trunk the 
 sustaining Axis of the Universe. 
 
 In another character it becomes the Avestan Harvisptokhm,^ 
 the Tree of all seed ; and it is also the Hindu Parijata," yielding 
 all the objects of desire, which we have already seen (under the 
 heading of "The Spear") churned-up out of mid-Ocean. It is 
 also the Tree of desires or of ages, the kalpa-druma, kalpa-taru, or 
 kalpa-vrikshas of Hindu myth, of which there are four planted on 
 the four buttresses of Mount Meru. Vriksha = tree in the 
 Rig Veda. 
 
 ' Darmestetei's Zend Av. i, Ixix, 72, 54, 59. 
 - Rd. Lifi and Thought in Indin, i, loS, 332. 
 
2 9° The AUglit of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 Soma himself is \'ishnu, says the Satapatka-brdlimaiia,^ Soma was \'ritra. 
 In the RigVeda and its commentaries Gayatri, in the shape of a hawk, 
 forcibly carries off the Soma from Swarga, the paradise, the lordship, of Indra, 
 and also the supreme station of \"ishnu on the summit of Mount Meru.- But 
 here soma must be a branch or portion of the heavenly tree ; and the hawk and 
 soma are thus a clear parallel to the dove and olive-leaf of Genesis \'iii, 1 1. 
 The Safapatlui-b7-ahinand?' prescribed the brown-flowering- phalgnna plant as 
 being akin to the soma-plant ; in the absence of this the Syena-hrtra 'falcon- 
 rapt) plant, or the adara, or the brown dub' (dur\'a), or any kind of yellow kusa 
 plants. But Dr. O. Schrader' pronounces that all the investigations of the 
 original terrestrial soma-plant have failed to produce any tangible result. 
 This soma is the Avestan haoma which, like the universe-mountain, 
 becomes dupHcated ; for there is an earthly as well as a heavenly 
 haoma ; the celestial one gro\ving-up in the actual middle of the 
 sublime spring ArdvisCira in the sea of air Vurukasha, or the 
 Airanya-vaeja, the atmosphere, the ether ^see p. 287). 
 Haugi^ says that there is an invocation in the Haoma yasht of the Avesta 
 to the holy haoma-tree as the " imperishable Pillar of life, amareza gayehe 
 stiina." The passage is not traced in Darmesteters version. 
 
 MaiXu the plant unknown to men, black at the root but with 
 a milk-like flower, which Hermes plucks up for Odusseus (x, 305) 
 is clearly a type of the world-tree ; /iojXo? being a pile raised in 
 the sea. 
 
 Prof Sa}-ce' has translated a bilingual hymn of Eridu about 
 a dense tree gro\^'ing in a holy place : 
 
 Its fruits (or roots) of brilliant crystal extend to the liquid abyss, its place 
 is the central spot of the earth, its foliage is a couch for the goddess Zikum. 
 In the heart of this holy dwelling, which casts a shade like a forest into which 
 no man has entered, resides the powerful Mother who passes athwart the 
 heavens : in the midst is Tammuz. 
 
 And Tammuz = Attis, as to whom see the Pine legends, p. 298 
 infra (see also Attius Xavius under " The Xavel ";. 
 
 On the Blacas vase we clearly have the Universe tree in the 
 midst of the Cabiric gods. Its roots, said F. Lenormant,'' grow 
 down into the region of the hells, and its branches spread out in 
 the upper region, where are the deities of the Cabiric mysteries. 
 
 Not to turn aside just at this moment for other parallels to the 
 
 ' Eggeling's, ii, 100, 126. 371. 
 
 - 'Wilson's RigVcda, i, 23, 54, 241. ^ Eggeling's, ii, 422. 
 
 ^ Dub means both tree and oaktree in Russian, see Ralston's able Muss. Foli-taks, 
 ^ Jevons's Schrader's Pnhiit. Aryan Antiq. (iSgo) 326. * Essays, 177. 
 
 7 Rel. of Atut. Babyl. 1SS7, p. 238. F. Lenormant, Orig. di r/iist. ii, 104. I 
 overset from the French. ^ In Saglio's Did. i, 766. 
 
Myths.'\ The Tree-trunk. 291 
 
 Norse mima-meither or to the Tree of the golden apples of im- 
 mortality guarded by the goddess Idunn, or to the similar apple- 
 tree of the garden of the Hcsperides — there is the world-ash 
 Ygg-drasil, the greatest and best of all trees, whose branches 
 spread all over heaven, while its roots plunge down to hell. It 
 was the Tree of Life, and the judgement-seat of the gods,^ whose 
 chief abode and sanctuary, is at the Ash Ygg's stead (or stmidmg^ 
 place) where they hold their court every day. Three of its roots 
 stretch across the heavens, and hold them up.- It is white, like 
 the Avestan haoma — although the whiteness must rather mean 
 brightness — and as Grimm pointed out" it is a near relation of the 
 Irmensaiile, that highest universe-column sustaining all things : 
 universalis columna quasi sustinens omnia, which is so deeply- 
 rooted an idea in German antiquity. 
 
 The name of the Yggdrasill Ash (Norse : askr ygg-drasils) must I think 
 mean powerful-whirler ; as thus : Ygg seems to be the root ug vigoxrc, as in 
 Latin vigeo thiive, vegeo arouse, augeo increase ;* Oldlrish 6g entire" 
 Lithuanian augu grow, Greek r-yiijs- whole sound heahhy, Sanskrit ugra very- 
 strong, ojas strength. I suppose the name Ugrian must be thus connected 
 with Yggdrasill. It is odd that this etjaiiology bring's ygg and 5:'£'_fetable 
 together. 
 
 Drasill, drasils, seems to be Gothic ihrnd/s, Scythian tracihis, Greek 
 Tpa-)(Ckoi ; ne.xt to which I set down Tpn-)ip^ race racecourse, and Tpo^os wheel 
 hoop sphere, rpoxia wheel-rut, and rpoxaXos fleet, round, with rpoxaXla water- 
 wheel roller windlass. It is customary to refer all these to rpe'xo) run, and to 
 the root targh tragh to tug ; and Prof. Skeat suggested a Teutonic type 
 thragila, to take in both English thrall and OHG drigil a slave. But I venture 
 to think that the root tharh iark, to twist turn-round, must also be indicated. 
 It would thus be possible, disregarding rpino), to include in the group not alone 
 the wheel-raevLmngs of the Greek words but the Latin torqueo turn, and the 
 Sanskrit tarkus a spindle. 
 
 If these etymologies will stand the strain, then Yggdrasill = force -f 
 circular-motion ; that is, the energy of Nature, the almighty /i'K't'r that seemed 
 to turn the Uni^'erse and its typical Tree. This at once makes it a doublet of 
 the Winged Oak of Zeus (p. 308 infra) ; and we also thus see why " Yggdrasill " 
 is incomplete without the word " ash." We should say " the Yggdrasill Ash." 
 
 I know the nine cycles of the world, says the Vala or priestess 
 in the Volu-Spa, and the gigantic tree which is in the middle of the 
 
 ' Bergmann's Gylfa Ginning, 90, 212, 223. 
 
 ^ Vigfusson and Powell's reconstructed Voluspa (in Corpus Poet. Bor. ii, 634). 
 ^ Deutsche Afyth. 759. 
 
 ■* Mr. H. D. Darbishire points out that iyiij? can be connected with vegeo or with 
 augeo, but not with both. 
 
 " E. R. Wharton, Etyina Latina. 
 
 T 2 
 
292 The Night of the Gods. \_Axis 
 
 earth, the ash called Yggdrasill raising its head to the highest 
 heavens. 
 
 Adam of Bremen said in the i ith century that the Saxons vene- 
 rated in their Irminsul (as above) the image of "the universal column 
 which sustains all things " ■} Truncum quoque ligni non par\'ae 
 magnitudinis in altum erectum sub dio locabant, patria eum lingua 
 Irminsul appellantes, quod Latine dicitur universalis colunina 
 sustincns omnia. It was thus a big wooden post set up in the 
 open air. " As a cosmogonic column related to the Scandinavian 
 Yggdrasill," writes M. Goblet d'Alviella,- " the Irminsul connects 
 itself just as well with the tradition of the universal pillar as with 
 that of the Tree of the world." But the axis idea seems never to 
 have crossed M. Goblet's vision. He however approaches very 
 near to the theory advocated in this Inquiry (without however 
 coming into touch with it) when he says " the Chaldeans must be 
 included among the peoples who saw in the universe a tree having 
 the heavens (le ciel) for top and the earth for base or trunk."' 
 The trunk of course is the beam or shaft of the axis. And he adds 
 that Mr. W. Mansell"* has found gis, tree, as a name for the 
 heavens, on a tablet. Again M. Goblet says-' " the idea of 
 referring to the form of a tree the apparent structure of the 
 universe is one of the most natural reasonings that can pre- 
 sent themselves to the mind of savages." But here it is also 
 manifest that the vegetating idea is alone present to the savant's 
 view. 
 
 The god Irmin or Hirmin of the WestphaUan Saxons seems to have had a 
 grand temple on the Eresberg, afterwards the Stadtberg. It was also called 
 the Mersberg or Mens Martis, which indicates the usual confusion of the spear- 
 gods of two races. The Irmin-sul or suul alias Hirmin-suul, Hermen-sul or 
 Ermen-sul was his pillar at that spot, and the reading Hernien would seem to 
 convey another confusion with another speargod, Hermes. Charlemagne in 772 
 destroyed the " idol " on the Mens JNIartis, which he christianised. This idol 
 seems to have been both a pillar and a statue placed on a pillar ; and the statue 
 held in one hand a rod or standard tipped with a rose (wheel .'), and in the other 
 a balance, which would indicate a god of Truth. On the breast was the figure of 
 a bear. He was worshipped on horseback by the nobles, who rode several times 
 round the statue {A'ocl). Adam of Bremen (i, 6) said (as abo\e) that the statue was 
 of wood (which would give it a tree-trunk and post origin) holding a flag-standard 
 
 ' Gesta Hammenbiirgeiisis Ecilesiae fcitti/uum, Hamburg 1706, I, vi. 
 ^ Mig. des SymboUs, 1S91, p. 144. •* IhiJ. p. 1S7. 
 
 ^ Caz. AitIu'oI. 1S7S, 134. ' Mig. des SymboUs, p. 20S. 
 
Mytlis^^ The Tree-tritnk. 293 
 
 in the right hand and a lance in the left.' There is a confused German legend 
 which makes the dead Annin'm?, become the Irwi'/isul. Now one of the 
 Argonauts (which see) was Armenios or Armenos, and he was a natne of the 
 Rose(wheel)-Land. See also the Roland-Saiilen at p. 332 infra. 
 
 The parish of Preston, Gloucestershire, is bounded on the west by " the 
 Irmin-street," a Roman way which passes through Cirencester. In the parish 
 stands an ancient rude stone about four feet high called "the Hangman's stone." 
 Rudder- suggested that this was a corruption of " Hereman-stone." I take this 
 from Mr. E. S. Hartland's truly valuable County Folk-lore.'^ I also find in Canon 
 Isaac Taylor's "Words and Places" the form " Ermin Street." In the French 
 department of the Oise is Ermenonville ; in the Puy-de-D6me is Herment ; in 
 the ancient litus Saxonicum near Caen is Hermanville ; in Bohemia are Herman- 
 stadt (or Hermanmiestetz or Hermanmiestec), Hermansdorf (or Hermsdorf), and 
 Hermanstift (or Hermanseifen) ; and in Transylvania is another Hermannstadt. 
 Perhaps our Norfolk parish of Irmingland should also be catalogued. 
 
 [Here, as I have just had to mention stone monuments, I must be 
 forgiven for inserting out of its place some further similar facts, which 
 ought to have gone with the Perrons, p. 194 supra. In the high- 
 way some 200 yards W. of the church of St. George's, Gloucester- 
 shire "stood Don John's cross, which was a round freestone column 
 supported by an octangular base." The " Dane John " at Canter- 
 bury consists of a similar monument on a high mound. Near by 
 is a public-house which still calls itself " Don Jon House." It 
 seems obvious that the real name of both the Kentish and the 
 Gloucester survivals is Don (or Dan) Ion. Dan, Don, Dom, Tai* 
 (see p. 135 supra) Zan and Zeus (see p. 285) are of course all 
 identical, and the lugging-in of "the Danes" used to be a too 
 frequent relaxation for our local antiquarians in the past. I shall 
 add as to the Perron (see p. 194 «//>;-«), which the Canterbury Dan 
 Ion monument closely enough resembles, that Perry Wood, near by 
 where I write, still a place for frequent pleasure-pilgrimage, may 
 have been first so-called from a monument to the god Perun. There 
 are other places in England which contain the name Perry, but the 
 list of such places in the American gazetteers is something quite 
 astonishing in its length.] 
 
 It is under the Willow that the Taoist saints obtain the elixir of immortality. 
 In S. China where it is rare the fig takes its place. The pine (matsu) is a 
 symbol of long-life in Japan. There is as much difference of opinion among 
 
 ' See Krantz Orig. Sax. ii, g ; Fabriciiis Orig. Sax. 6 ; J. Grimm, DeiiJsclic Myth. 
 pp. Si, 209. 
 
 - Hist. Gloucestci-sh. 1779, p. 606. ' Folk-lore Soiiity 1S92, i, 51. 
 
2 94 The Night of the Cods. [Axis 
 
 " sinologues " as to what is the Chinese divining-plant Shi as there is among our 
 Western pundits about the sarcostemma-soma. Both are probably cases of the 
 gold-silver shield over again ; the fabulous soma and shi being materially 
 represented by differing substitutes in different places according to the exigencies 
 of vegetation." Look at the (now Christian) " palms " on Palm-Sunday. 
 
 We can scarcely separate the whiteness of the haoma from the whiteness of 
 the birch (GeiTnan birke, Lithuanian berzas, Russian bereza, Old-Saxon breza, 
 Sanskrit bhurja, Ossetic barse bars, Pamir dialects furz, bruj) to which Dr. O. 
 Schrader^ assigns the probable source of the Sanskrit bhraj, to shine. So that 
 the shining white birch would be meant, which thrives only in N. latitudes. The 
 Latin name betula has a common origin with the Irish beithe and Welsh bedew. 
 
 The Canoe (white) Birch, betula papyracea, is commonest in America above 
 43° N. lat. The bark is almost indestructible, and, being therefore turned into 
 the Red Indian's canoes, gives the tree its name ; the wood of the yellow birch, 
 betula lutea, is well-fitted for the under-water hulls of ships. The bark is used 
 as an impenetrable roof, under shingles which keep it down. The European 
 white birch, betula alba, has its S. forest-limit at 45° N. lat. Its bark slowly 
 burnt in a furnace supplies the empyreumatic oil which gives the perfume to 
 Russian leather and the stench to Russian ships. Its rich sugar)' plentiful spring 
 sap makes a beer, a wine, and a vinegar. The leaves of the black birch, betula 
 lenta, when dried make an agreeable tea. 
 
 It may have been primitively thought a supernatural fact that the common 
 birch reappears as if by magic in forests of other trees, European and American, 
 after their destruction by fire. 
 
 To the soma (and beanstalk) varieties of the Universe-tree must be assigned 
 the vine of gold fashioned by Hephaistos and presented to the Trojans by Zeus.^ 
 The golden vine of the Jerusalem temple caused it to be said that the Jews 
 worshipped Dionusos.' Both worships took the symbol from a cosmic source. 
 
 THE BEANSTALK. In a New Guinea legend, the Man 
 who kills the Mountain-devil is so strong that he drives a spear 
 through the earth and rock into the heart of the cave where he 
 and his mother live. Not far from this cave was a tree so huge 
 that it \\'as twice the size of anj' other tree in the forest. Even the 
 head of the giant devil Tauni-kapi-kapi (= Man-eating man) 
 would not reach to the top of it. The Man and his mother ascend 
 to the treetop, and from there he eventually kills the giant.-' In 
 another legend the king of the Eagles lives with his human wife 
 
 1 Plath, Kelig. and Ciiltus Alt. Chin, i, 96; Edkin's Rclig. in Chi. 15; Legge's 
 Shu-A'ing, 144. 
 
 " Jevons's Schrader's Pnkiit. Aryan An'iq. 271. ■'* Myth Kit. and ^"(7. ii. iSo. 
 
 " Josephus Ant. /iid. xv, 11, 3. * H. H.,Romilly's J/j' Vci-andah, p. 120. 
 
MythsP\ The Tice-trunk, 295 
 
 and son in the top of a tall tree, and the king of the Snakes 
 attacks them, coils himself tightly round the tree, and bit by bit 
 begins to break it down. The tree begins to shake and crack, but 
 the Eagle king says " he cannot pull down my tree," spits at the 
 snake, and the tree is immediately renewed.' 
 
 (The legends in the book from which these two are quoted are obviously 
 ver)' much edited ; and the last suggests some missionary tale told from Genesis 
 to the Papuan.) 
 
 Jack going up a ladder to the abode of the Giant who killed 
 his father is an analogous incident to this New Guinea myth. In 
 a Wyandot tale a child's father is killed and eaten by a Bear, and 
 he in turn kills the destroyer. He then climbs up into a tree, and 
 blows upon it, whereupon the tree grows and stretches up and up 
 till it raises him to the heavens. In it he builds huts, and finally 
 breaks off the lower end [separation of heavens and earth see pp. 38, 
 87 supr(x\ so that no one now can get to the heavens that way. 
 The sun too gets caught in this tree, which is just the leading 
 mythical fact of the sun on or in the Universe-tree which we have 
 at p. 325 infra? The Dog-Rib Indians say that Chapewee stuck 
 up in the ground a piece of wood which became a firtree and grew 
 with amazing rapidity until its top reached the heavens. Chapewee 
 pursued a squirrel up the tree until he reached the stars, and found 
 there a fine plain and a beaten Way. The sun here too gets 
 caught in a snare set for the squirrel' 
 
 One of Jack's pretty-coloured Beans (therefore a phaseolus), 
 got from the butcher in exchange for the cow, grows and grows 
 until next morning it has grown right up into the heavens. When 
 Jack goes up, he steals the hen that lays the golden Eggs, and 
 being pursued down the Beanstalk by the Giant that killed his 
 father, he is just in time to cut the ladder through, [again the 
 separation of heavens and earth] and the Giant tumbles down head 
 first into the well. 
 
 De Gubernatis has pointed out* that " the kidney-bean is 
 evidently intended by the fruit of fruits which, according to the 
 Mahd-bliarata (iii, 13, 423), the merciful man receives in exchange 
 for the little black cow, krishnadhenuka, given to the priest, 
 phalanam phalam ac^noti tada dattva. 
 
 > H. H. Romilly's My Verandah, p. Ii8. 
 
 - Le Jeiine (1637) in Relations des Jhiiiks (Quebec 1S5S) on Tylor's E. H. 1\T. 
 
 ■' Richardson, Franklin's Expedition (1828) in Tylor. 
 
 * Zool. Myth. 1872, i, 244. 
 
296 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 In the sixth of Porchat's Contes Mcrvcillcux a youngster climbs 
 for a nest in an elmtrcc, and the never-ending ascent takes him up 
 near heaven. Out of the nest appears a beautiful fair-haired 
 maiden, either the sun (as before) or the moon. Among the 
 American Alandans the tribe climb up a vine from the underworld 
 to the Earth, but when half have ascended the vine breaks with the 
 weight.'' In the Malay island of Celebes Kasimbaha clambers 
 up the rattans into the heavens and dwells among the gods.- The 
 Mbocobis of Paraguay send their dead up to the heavens by the 
 tree Llagdigua which joins heavens and Earth.'' The arrowroot and 
 another plant — here we have a duality, the dual pillar — pushed-up the 
 Samoan heavens; and the "heavens-pushing-place" is still shown. ^ 
 There are other ways up to the skies in various parts of the world, 
 "the rank Spear-grass, a rope or thong, a spider's web, a ladder of 
 iron or gold, a column of smoke, or the rainbow." So wrote Mr. 
 E. R. Tylor in the pages I am using ;"' but the rainbow is a separate 
 conception altogether. 
 
 M. A. Reville" says the New Zealand separator Tsee pp. 38, 87 
 supra) was a divine tree the Father of forests. This idea of separa- 
 tion by pushing asunder would of course in such a case also include 
 a holding together; just as in the RigVeda the axle is said 
 " powerfully to separate heavens and earth " ; whereas it not alone 
 separates but connects the wheels which are understood in the 
 metaphor. (See " The Wheel") 
 
 The Russian " Beanstalk " stories do not mention Ivan (or 
 Jack) but only the Old Couple (who are in other tales Ivan's 
 parents). The old man goes up a cabbage-stalk in one version, 
 and takes up the old woman in a sack, but lets her fall when near 
 the top, and she is dashed to pieces. In another, she is killed by 
 a bundle which falls from the hands of the old man who is up a 
 peastalk. In yet another, she falls off the old man's back, as he 
 is carrying her up a beanstalk. In another, the peastalk dis- 
 appears as soon as the old man is up above, where he encounters 
 a scven-ey&di goat (= seven-starred Bear!), and to get down again 
 he makes a cord of the cobwebs " that float in the summer air," 
 and secures it " to the edge of heaven." 
 
 ' Lewis nnd Clarke, Expedition (Philadelphin, 1S14), p. 139 (in Tylor). 
 
 - Schirren, Wandcrsai;cn (Riga, 1S56) p. 126 (in Tylor). 
 
 ' Humboldt and Bonpland, ii, 276 (in Tylor). ■• Turner's Samoa, 198. 
 
 ' Early Hist. Mankind, 2nd ed. p. 356. '' Rel. des non-civilises, ii, 28. 
 
Myths7\ The Tree-trunk. 297 
 
 In some other Russian variants, the Old Couple both climb up 
 with their young granddaughter, the bine breaks and down they fall. 
 " Since that time," says the story, " no one has set foot in that heavenly 
 izbushka (cottage) ; so no one knows anything more about it."' 
 Here we clearly have again that most archaic and widespread idea 
 of the separation of a once-joined heavens and Earth." 
 
 The sacredness of the Bean, that is the celestial connexion of the 
 plant, is to be detected in a very early stage of civilisation in the 
 worship of Cardea, p. 160 sjipra. In the legend of Demeter's visit to 
 Trisaules and Damithales," the mother of the gods, who was also the 
 Earth-mother, tabooed the bean. (Pomegranates, which were un- 
 doubtedly phallic, were also taboo in the worship of Demeter.*) 
 
 The mj'stic tree appears unexpectedly in the Ainu legends 
 recently published by Mr. Batchelor.^ There we have a metal 
 pine-tree which grew at the head of the Island, that is the World, 
 against which the swords of the gods broke and bent when they 
 attacked it. It recurs in another Ainu legend of a visit to the 
 under-world, where it has a bear-goddess, and is worshipped, and 
 divine symbols are set up to it. We have also a mountain-top, an 
 immense serpent, and a long tunnel-like cavern in this legend." 
 
 In the KalevaLa the far outspreading branches of the universe- 
 Oak shut out the light from the Northland, and Pikku Mies the 
 pigmy-god, in answer to the intercession of Waino, quickly grows, 
 like the Indian Vishnu-Vamana, to a gigantic size and fells the 
 tree with three strokes of his copper hatchet. The oak is in this 
 " Epic " called pun YamaLa = tree of thunder-land.' 
 
 Skade, the daughter of the giant Thjasse, bore many sons to 
 Odinn. She was also called the iron pine-tree's daughter, and she 
 sprang from the rocks that rib the sea.'* 
 
 The Babylonian (or Akkadian) tree was a dark pine which 
 grew in Eridu. Its crown was crystal white and spread towards 
 the vault above ; its station was the centre of the Earth ; its 
 
 ' Ralston's Russ. Folk-talcs, 298. 
 
 ^ I trust I may be pardoned for referring the reader to an article of my own in the 
 National Ohsei-ver of 3 Oct. 1891, on "Jack and the Beanst.ilk." 
 
 ^ Pausanias viii, 15, i. * Y . Lenormant in Saglio's Diet. Antiq. i, 102S. 
 
 " Trans. As. Soc. Jap. xvi, 134. 
 
 ' Mr. B. H. Chamberlain in Memoirs of Tohya University 1S87, pp. 23, 24. 
 
 ' J. M. Crawford's Kakvala (iSSg) xix, xxxi. * Inglinga Saga, ch. ix. 
 
298 The Night of the Gods. \A. 
 
 xis 
 
 shrine was the couch or throne of the might)' mother Zikuni.^ 
 The subbas too have a tree of life called Setarvan, the shader, and 
 a milk-tree of Paradise, the mahziun, which is prayed-to. Its 
 human breasts suckle the babes that die }-oung.- 
 
 The pine under which he mutilated himself was sacred to Attis, 
 and it was at the \'ernal equinox that the tree was cut [to obtain 
 the turpentine, perhaps b\- " bleeding,'''' which was thus a sacred 
 simulacrum]. An image or idol of Attis hung on the sacred pine ; 
 and the tree must also have been cut-down, unless indeed it was a 
 pot-plant, for it was carried with great pomp into the sanctuary of 
 the Mother of the gods, and adorned with woollen ribbons and spring 
 violets. This was the feast called " Arbor intrat " on 22nd IMarch.^ 
 
 The weighty Spear, 8opv, of leson (Jason;, son of Aison, when 
 hardened by the magic drug of i\IeDea, presents another parallel 
 to the Ainu tree. " Idas the son of Aphareus in furious anger 
 hacks the butt end thereof with his mighty sword, but the edge 
 leaps from it like a hammer from an anvil, beaten back." And his 
 comrades cannot bend that spear ever so little.^ The serpent 
 Ladon who, in the place of AtLas, guarded the apples of the triad 
 of the Hesperides, is, when slain by Herakles, found by the 
 Argonauts fallen against the trunk of the apple-tree f and the 
 three become, Hespere a poplar, Erutheis an elm, and Aigle a 
 willow with sacred trunk. All this is Universe-tree myth. And 
 we get the same motif in the legend told b}- Phineus in the 
 Argo?iaHtika (11,4/6) of the father of Paraibios who drew down a 
 curse by his disregard of the " \\'oodman, spare that tree " of a 
 Hamadryad. He " cut the trunk of an oak that had groiv/i ?tp 
 zi'it/i her" — so is irpe^ivov hpvo<i r/\iKo<; rendered (479}; but I 
 cannot refrain from a reminder that eXiV?; is the Arcadian willow 
 as well as the Great Bear. There is an alternative reading for 
 Spuo? too, which is A(09 (^^'ellauer in loc). We should thus, if one 
 slight emendation were permissible here, have the northern 
 Arcadian willow of Zeus as the tree-trunk on which the Universe 
 turns. Compare the Winged Oak, p. 30S. Of course it is 
 ahva\-s here maintained that m)-thic Arcadia is the highest heavens 
 (see "The Arcana."). 
 
 ' Records oj Fas!, ix, 146. 
 
 - Relig. dcs Soiibbas, pp. 6, 41, 27 ; Norberg, Ccde-x Kasaracus, iii, 6S. 
 
 ^ F. Lenonnant in Saglio's Diet. Antiq. i, 16S9. 
 
 "• Ih:d. 1682, 16S5 ; Arnobius Adv. ^ciii. v, 5 to 7 ; Clem. Alex. Frctrcft. ii, 15, 16. 
 
 * Ar^oiiaulika, iii, 1246. * Jidd. iv, 1401, 1427. 
 
MythsP^ The Tree-trunk. 299 
 
 The eight-cornered sacrificial post or stake (see also pp. 193, 171) 
 belongs to Vishnu in the Satapatha-brdhmana} It is raised up 
 solemnly (for fixing in the ground) with the text : " With thy crest 
 thou hast touched the Sky, with thy middle thou hast filled the 
 Air, with thy foot thou hast steadied the Earth." It seems impos- 
 sible to deny that this has reference to the Utiiverse-axis, of v\'hich 
 the post is thus manifestly the symbol. 
 
 When the priest had to cut down a tree for the sacrificial post, 
 he was ordered by the Satapatha-brdhmana- to place a blade of 
 darbha-grass between the axe and the tree, saying : " Oh 
 grass, shield it ! " He then struck, saying : " Oh axe, hurt 
 not ! " where we have again the " Oh Woodman, spare that 
 tree ! " of the drawingroom ditty. It was an ostrich's-head-in- 
 the-sand kind of conscience-salve ; and so, when the priest was 
 pounding and pestling the soma-twigs for their juice, he was^ to think 
 in his mind of his enemy, and say : " With this stone I strike not 
 thee, but " so-and-so. " But if he hate no one," goes on the guileless 
 guide, " he may even think of a straw, and so no guilt is incurred." 
 
 ErusiChthon, son of Kekrops and AgLauros (or son of Triops 
 or Triopas) profaned with the hatchet a " forest primeval " sacred to 
 Demeter, each tree of which was the home of a Dryad (see "The 
 Gods of the Druids" infra). Demeter (= Ceres) plagued him 
 therefore with the ravenous hunger of -famine, and he devoured his 
 . own limbs (but see also " The Arcana " infra).^ The Hindu priest 
 doubtless feared some similar vengeance. 
 
 As to " Woodman, spare that tree," there was a pious old- 
 woman's wish as far back as Cicero's time -.^ that the pinewood 
 post cut in the forest of Pelion had not fallen to the earth. Cicero 
 took his quotation from Ennius : Utinam ne in nemore Pelio 
 securibus | caesa cecidisset abiegna ad terram trabes ; and that 
 again seems to have been lifted from the Medea of Euripides : 
 yirjh' iv vdiraicn YlrfKiov ireaelv irore Tfju^Oeiaa irevKr]. 
 
 I think too that this Yiipa or sacrificial post which is hymned 
 in the RigVeda as typical of the tree or lord of the wood (Vanas- 
 pati),^ and is well-clad and hung with wreaths,' must clearly be 
 
 ■ Eggeling's, ii, 162, 167, 171, 143. " Ih'd. ii, 164. ^ /h'd. ii, 243. 
 
 ■* F. Lenormant in Saglio's Diet, i, 1039. '" De nat. Dear, iii, 30. 
 
 ' It is no harm here to draw attention to the pretty old fable about the trees electing 
 a king, which is put into Jotham's mouth m Judges ix. See also the New Zealand lather 
 of Forests, p. 296. ' Wihon's JiigVeda. iii, 4. 
 
The N'ight of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 placed in the same categoi}- as tlie Asherah, whicli I ha\ e already 
 mentioned at p. 195, and which must says Piof. Robertson Smith, 
 have been cither a living tree or a tree-like post, planted in the 
 ground like an English Maj-pole [or a French arbre de Liberte]. 
 An Ass}-rian monument from Khorsabad, figured b\- Botta, 
 Layard, and Rawlinson' shows an ornamental pole planted beside 
 a portable altar. Priests stand by it engaged in worship and 
 touch the pole with their hands, or perhaps anoint it with some 
 liquid substance.- If this were blood it would give our barber's 
 pole ; and if oil, would be the " greasy pole " to which I have 
 already referred (p. 191 supra). Prof Smith also suggests that in 
 early times tree-worship had such a vogue in Canaan that the sacred 
 tree, or the pole its surrogate, had come to be viewed as a general 
 symbol of deity which might fittingly stand beside the altar of any 
 god.' The Universe-tree and Universe-axis theories here urged go 
 farther than this on the same lines. 
 
 The Asherah, a post or pole more or less enriched with orna- 
 ments, formed, said F. Lenormant, the consecrated simulacrum of 
 the Chthonian goddess of fecundity and life in the Canaanite 
 worship of Palestine.* But he added that the artificial Ass}-rian 
 Asherah (which like Sheru}-ah his female seems named from As- 
 shur) was a figment of the Cosmic tree, which was also the tree of life. 
 
 On the Babylonian "black stone of Lord Aberdeen," of the 
 time of king Asarhaddon, the Universe-tree or Tree-of-Life 
 appears, like any other idol, in a naos surmounted by a cidaris or 
 upright tiara, while the god Asshur hovers above.^ 
 
 ]\I. Goblet d'Alviella remarks that the Hebrews in spite of the 
 objurgations of the prophets of Yahveh ne\-er gave over the 
 making and planting of asherim from their establishment in 
 Canaan'' down to king Josias who burnt the asherah which 
 Manasseh, the worshipper of the hosts of the heavens, made and 
 set up in the very temple of Jerusalem.' He adds that the 
 asherah, being made as well as planted, must have been artificial 
 and conventional like our J\Iay.^ (See " The Christmas Tree " inf>-a.) 
 
 The Tibetans, says Prof Rh}-s Davids, are fond of putting up 
 
 ' Monarchies, ii, 37. - Relig. of Semite;, 171, 175. ' Hid. 172. 
 
 ■* Orig. de riiist. i, 89, 570. 
 
 '" Fergusson : Ninev. and Persep. 298. F. Lenormant, Orig. i, SS. 
 
 * Judges, iii, 7 (Asheroth ; but Asherim in E.xod. .\xxiv, 13). 
 
 ' ii Kings, xxiii, 6 : xxi, 3. 7. * ^Hg. c'es Sy7?iie!e;, 1?9I. 142. 
 
Myths.'] The Tree-trjmk. 301 
 
 what they call Trees of the Law, that is lofty flagstaffs with silk 
 flags upon them emblazoned with that mystic charm of wonder- 
 working power : Om mani padme hum.' As my theory here is 
 that the Dharma, or Law, of Buddhism is the revolution of the 
 Universe, these Trees of the Law must be symbols of the Axis. I 
 would especially press upon the reader's attention that here we 
 have a Buddhist Tree of the Law as well as a Wheel of the Law ; 
 compare also the Egyptian flagstaffs of p. 252. 
 
 Among the Aboriginal (?) tribes of S. W. China, the Kau-erh 
 Lung-kia " after the springtime stick a small tree in a field, 
 which they call the demon(.?)-stick. There is a gathering round 
 this stick and a dance," and men make their engagements with 
 women. The Yao-Miao tribe bind their dead to a tree with 
 withies, and the Heh Miao "stick in a bamboo-pole at the graves, 
 with silk threads of the five colours."^ 
 
 THE BARBER'S POLE. The mention of the sacrificial 
 post at p. 300 leads me on here to speak further of the Barber's 
 pole. Brand^ said that 
 
 It was grasped by the patient " to accelerate the discharge of the blood " 
 (which is insufficient on the face of it), and that " as the pole was thus liable to be 
 stained, it was painted red, and when not in use was suspended (?) outside the 
 door with the white linen swathing-bands twisted around it. In later times, 
 when surgery was dissociated from the tonsorial art " [the pomposity is as un- 
 grateful as the rest] " the pole was painted red and white, or black and white, or 
 even with red white and blue lines winding about it, emblematic of its fonner 
 use." 
 
 Now anyone is at liberty unhesitatingly to declare that Brand was 
 here plainly and roundly inventing, or retailing invention. 
 
 The theory that this pole had its true and only archaic origin 
 in the sacrificial, in the human-sacrificial post is the over- 
 mastering one. If the barber's patient grasped the pole, then he 
 had been originally a victim. The painting of a red colour is to 
 be seen all over India, where, since the Brahminical (and perhaps 
 the Buddhistic) abolition of blood-sacrifice, everything is ritualis- 
 tically smeared with a red paint, instead of being sprinkled with 
 blood.'' It is a pious fraud, the outcome of a religious evolution. 
 Remember, too, that there is a never-ending mass of evidence 
 
 ' Buddhism (iSSo), p. 2io. 
 
 - A. R. Colquhoun's Across Ckiyse, ii, 369 to 373. 
 
 •^ Pop. Aiitiq. 112. 
 
 * See also p. 332 infra as to the red tree. 
 
3°2 The Night of the Gods. [A 
 
 xis 
 
 about the sacrifice of the victim's hair (where tlie barber comes in 
 again) and of his or of her blood, as a paUiation of the sacrifice of 
 the victim's hfe. All this was piacular pious fraud ; self-deception 
 and cheating the god, both. And the barber's trade of haircutting 
 and of bleeding, and his combination of the two, therefore prove 
 him to have been originally a butcher-priest at the sacrificial post. 
 The medically insane and murderous practice of bleeding the sick 
 (and the whole too) never had any other than this expiatory and 
 — well, barberous origin. 
 
 Brand further reported that in the House of Lords, on 17th July 1797, 
 Lord Thurlow cited a statute which then required both barbers and surgeons to 
 use poles (of course as a public security and convenience), the former painting 
 them with blue and black stripes. Naturally, when they once got to fancy- 
 painting, colour was likely to become a matter of taste. 
 
 In China the greater number of the barbers fix a vertical red 
 bar over their stove.-' 
 
 THE MA Y-POLE. Somewhat must here be said of the 
 May-pole, which should be carefully distinguished from the May 
 or artificial tree (see p. 336). Reference is also requested to the 
 Egyptian poles mentioned under the head of " The Dokana," 
 p. 252 supra. 
 
 The great shaft or principal May pole of London used to be set 
 up in Cornhill, before the parish church of St. Andrew, thence 
 called Undershaft,^ Philip Stubs, in his Anatoinie of Abuses, 1S9S, 
 said men women and children then went to the woods and groves, 
 and spent all the night in pleasant pastimes [which we may perhaps 
 admit depended somewhat on the weather], returning in the morn- 
 ing with birch boughs and branches of trees. 
 
 But their chiefest jewel they bring from thence is the Maie-pole, which they 
 bring home with great veneration, as thus — they have twentie or fourtie yoake of 
 oxen, every oxe having a sweete nosegaie of flowers tied to the tip of his homes, 
 and these oxen drawe home the I\Iay-poale, their stinking idol rather [wrote this 
 rabid puritan], which they covered all o\er with flowers and hearbes, bound 
 round with strings from the top to the bottome, and sometimes it was painted 
 with variable colours, having two or three hundred men women and children 
 following it with great devotion."' 
 
 Perhaps the most remarkable thing here is the use of the 
 words, '' veneration," " devotion," and '' idol." [See also the post on 
 p. 194, and the greasy pole, pp. 191, 300.] 
 
 ' De Groot, Fclcs dEntoui, i, 171. 
 
 - Stow's Su)-'ey, p. So ; .Striitt, p. 352, ' Strutt, p. 352. 
 
Mytlis^ The Tree-trunk. 303 
 
 It is for me noteworthy that the Universe-tree and the Spear- 
 axis gods seem to be brought together in the Welsh myth of 
 Peredur /'rt/adyr Hir (see p. 198 supra), the Spearsman of the 
 long Pal. " Gwalchmei ( = falcon of the May-tree) approached 
 Peredur, threw his arms round his neck, and they went away 
 joyous and united towards Arthur . . . Peredur took the same 
 garments as Gwalchmei, and then they repaired, hand in hand, to 
 Arthur and saluted him.""^ 
 
 THE REED. There is an ever recurrent necessity throughout 
 this Inquiry to make mention from varying points of view of the 
 symbolism of The Reed, which I consider as cosmic and axial. I 
 therefore insert here, next the Pole, some ritualistic particulars 
 about it. 
 
 MeyaXi?, the Grand, was a title of Demeter as the Great Mother ; 
 and the Megalesia, Roman games and feasts in honour of Cybele 
 (4th to loth April), owed their name to this adjectival title. At 
 this period was commemorated the bringing to Rome of the Stone 
 (idol) of Demeter from Pessinunte (Jleaaivov'^ on the frontiers of 
 Phrygia), and on previous days, from the 22nd to the 27th of March, 
 was held at Rome the Phrygian feast of Cybele and Attis. Before 
 that again, on 15th March, was the feast of Anna Perenna and the 
 cannophori or Reed-carrying procession, composed of confrater- 
 nities of men, and of women. F. Lenormant made some excellent 
 remarks on these Reeds.^ He with much insight picks-up out of 
 Herodian' the statement that the Phrygians celebrated the similar 
 feast on the banks of the river Gallos, and that the reeds were an 
 allusion to the Moses-myth of the infant Attis, exposed on those 
 banks, and rescued by Cybele. Nothing could be, for me, more 
 direct and genuine and archaic in Cosmic mythology, if he had only 
 added on the fact that the river Gallos must be viewed, like the 
 Chinese Hoang-ho or Yellow River, as a terrestrial continuation of 
 the Milky Way or heavens-river. Thus Galatia where the Gallos 
 flowed, and the Galli priests of Cybele, and the FaX-a^ta? kxikXo^, via 
 lactea, or Milky Way all belong to a similar nominalism, as will 
 be more fully shown under " The Heavens-River," where it will be 
 found that from Japanese origins I have quite independently 
 argued down to a similar conclusion with F. Lenormant — a coin- 
 
 ' Loth's Mabiitogion, ii, 74, 75. 
 
 - In Saglio's Diet. Antiq. " Cybele," (i, 16S5, 168S). ' Hist, i, 11, 7. 
 
304 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 cidence at which anyone might well be self-pleased. F~. Lenormant 
 further signalled on the mystic Cista found in the ruins of the 
 Metroon at Ostia (see " The Arcana " infra), the self-same celestial 
 reeds together witli the lion of Cybele, and the heads of Idaean 
 Zeus and of Attis. 
 
 The great Rccd on the great North Mountain of the Navajo 
 Indians is the Universe-tree. The mountain grows higher and 
 higher, and so does the reed, all that is alive takes refuge there from 
 the Deluge. When the reed grows to the floor of the fourth world 
 creation is saved by creeping through a hole (the Navel).-' 
 
 A poem of the Japanese Korj/iiki also gives us one of the other 
 obvious references to the world-tree, hitherto undetected :- 
 " As for the branches of the five-hundred-fold true tsuki-tree . . . the 
 uppermost branch has the Sky above it, the middle branch has the East above 
 it, the lowest branch has the Earth above it. A leaf from the tip of the upper- 
 most branch falls against the middle branch ; a leaf from the tip of the middle 
 branch falls against the lowest branch ; a leaf from the tip of the lowest falling 
 . . . . all [goes] curdle-curdle. Ah, this is very awe-inspiring." 
 This expression curdle-curdle, koworo-koworo, is said by the com- 
 mentators to be akin to the name of the island Onogoro (ono-koro, 
 from koru to become solid) or self-curdled, which Izanagi made 
 with his spear," and to which early reference is made in this Inquiry 
 (p. 31). It is just possible that we have here traces of a variant in 
 the original creation-myth, and a recognition of the identity of the 
 Spear and the World-Tree — one of the points I contend for. 
 
 The Chinese K'iung-tree, the tree of life, is 10,000 cubits high, 
 and 300 arm-spans round. Eating its blossom confers immortality. 
 Its name, k'iung is a convertible term with Yii, the jadestone, and 
 it grows upon the heavens-mountain Kw'cn Lun.^ The Tong 
 tree of the Taoists also grows on Kw'enlun at the Gate of 
 heaven.^ This mystic plant is, again, the princess Parizade's 
 Singing Tree in Galland's Arabian Nights, " whose leaves are so 
 many mouths, which neverendingly give forth a harmonious concert 
 of assorted voices " ; where we clearly have an allusion to the 
 Music of the Spheres. 
 
 ' Ainer. Antiquarian (1SS3), 20S (W. Matthews, " N.ivajo Mythology ''). 
 
 * Mr. B. H. Chamberlain's valuable version, pp. 321 to 323. 
 
 ^ Ibid. p. 19. 
 
 ■• Mayers : Manual, 99. 
 
 '■• Paradise Found, 274 (citing Luken's Traditionen, 72), 
 
Myths7\ The Tree-tnmk. 3°S 
 
 The Chinese Shen-t'ao, or Peachtree of the gods, grows near 
 the palace of Si Wang-Mu, the West Queen-mother. Its fruit of 
 immortality ripens once in 3,000 years, and gives 3,000 years of life 
 to the eater. Tung-Fang So (Jap. Tobosaku) stole three (compare 
 Herakles and the Hesperides-apples), and lived 9,000 years. Si 
 Wang-Mu brought seven peaches when she visited the Emperor 
 Wu Ti. The Japanese god Izanagi repels the Eight thunder-gods 
 in the infernal regions by throwing at them the Three fruits of the 
 Peachtree that grew at the entrance of the level Pass of the Dark 
 World (Yomo tsu hira-saka no saka-moto .... sono Saka- 
 moto naru momo no mi wo mi, etc.)' The t'ao (peach) has a 
 doublet in the k'iung-tree just mentioned. This tree is also the 
 special property of Si Wang-Mu,^ who bestows its leaves and 
 blossoms. 
 
 \_Si Watig-Mu and her consort Tung Wang-Kting, the East 
 King-lord, bear a strange resemblance to Izanami and Izanagi, 
 having been the first created and creating results of the powers of 
 Nature in tJieir primary process of developinent.^'] 
 
 There is a tradition among the Siibbas (or Sabaeans) of Mesopotamia that 
 a leaf once fell from the heavens with a divine message.' Here we seem to get 
 behind the Sibylline leaves. The leaves of the tulasi basil (see p. 317 infra), 
 are still offered to Vishnu in India.'^ The Egyptian dead were crowned with 
 leaves." The leaves of the pipal {ficus religiosa, see p. 317 infra), somewhat 
 resemble those of the poplar, and quiver ceaselessly like those of the aspen. '^ Is 
 this perpetual life-motion and whispering of the leases one reason towards its 
 holiness ? No wood but white poplar was used in burning sacrifices to Zeus at 
 Olympia in Elis.' The virtue of the leaves comes clearly out in the Apoca- 
 lypse, xxii, 2 : " And on this side of the River and on that was a Tree of 
 Life bearing twelve crops of fruit (see p. 176 supra), yielding its fruit every 
 month. And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." Here 
 \\& have the heavens-river besides, and the number twelve is clearly celestially 
 zodiacal. 
 
 In the Persian Moslem legends, Joseph (Yusuf), in his dream, fixes his 
 staff in the ground (see " The Rod and Rhabdomancy," supra), and his brothers 
 stick-in theirs around his ; whereupon Yusuf beholds his staff growing skyward, 
 
 ^ Yo-mo — night side ; hira-saka = level descent, i.e. the top, the ' col ' of the 
 mountain-pass ; saka-moto = descent-beginning ; mi — fruit ; mi — three. {Kozhiki, 
 i, 9. Mr. Chamberlain's, p. 37.) 
 
 ^ Kozhiki, p. 19. ^ See Mayers, Manual, pp. 210, 17S, 100. 
 
 ■* Siouffi Relig. des SoiiM'as, 1880, p. 7. 
 
 ^ ^\\=,sGox(\on-Cuvi\\n\n^^ Himalayas and I)7dian Plains, 547, 218. 
 
 * Pei-eiiihru ch. xviii and .\x. Papyrus of Osor-aaou. Th. Deveria, Cat, H/SS. 
 1S81, 135. ' Pausanias, v, 13 and 14. 
 
 U 
 
3o6 The Night of the Gods. [A 
 
 xis 
 
 and budding forth branches so bright that theyhght up the interval between the 
 East and the West. Then fruits rained from the branches on the heads of the 
 brethren, who worshipped him while they eat them.' T-wclve is, of course, the 
 zodiacal number of staves here too ; and see the similar stone-legendj p. 273 
 supra, and also " The Number Twelve," p. 173. 
 
 A tree with ten branches is a frequent incised ornament on archaic "Trojan" 
 vases, whorls, and balls.- Here we have a decimal zodiac instead of a duo- 
 decimal. 
 
 OSIRIS. To the world-tree myths must, I think, be attached 
 a leading portion of the story of Osiris, the coffin containing whose 
 dead body is found in the trunk of a tree which had grown round it. 
 This tree too, like the spear of Izanagi (pp. 36, 224 j/(/i;-(2j, becomes 
 the column which sustains the roof of a royal palace. In the 
 papyrus of Har-si-esi, Osiris is alluded to as " the One in the Tree.''^ 
 The erica-tree of Osiris reappears in IMaspero's Egyptian tale 
 of the Two Brothers (Papyrus of Orbiney in Brit. Mus.) where 
 Bitiou places his heart in an acacia-tree. At Hermopolis-Magna 
 Thoth was represented by a cocoa-palm 60 cubits high. The 
 " coffin-tree " of Osiris is shown by a Thcban bas-relief from 
 l\Iedinet-abu (Th. Deveria) to be at the water's edge.* Al- 
 thojgh called an erica at times, it seems to be a tamarisk also ;^ 
 and in its branches perches the bennu-bird. This is a further 
 identification of the Osiris-tree with the Universe-tree. The vine 
 was also sacred to Osiris. Prof. Robertson Smith compares the 
 sacred erica which grew round the dead body of Osiris to the 
 Hebrew asherah. The erica was anointed (with mj-rrh) like the 
 asherah.^ 
 
 The wooden image of Artemis Orthia, also called L\-godesma 
 (willow-boimd) by Pausanias, because found in a willow, is clearly 
 another similar legend to that of Osiris. M}-rrha, ^Ivppa, the 
 daughter of Kinuras King of Cyprus (and father of Adonis in 
 Ovid) was when pregnant of Adonis changed into a myrrh-tree 
 from which the child was delivered, said Hj-ginus (^Fab. 58, 242, 
 270), by a blow of a hatchet, or else the tree split-open of itself in the 
 tenth month, and the god came forth." I cannot just now lay hands 
 on the authority for the enclosure of the body of Attis in his (and 
 
 ' Rauzat-us-Safa, 203. - Schliemann's Ilios, 367, 3S3, 413. 
 
 3 Th. Deveria, Cat. iMSS. iSSi, 68. * Pierret : Diet. 57, 534. 
 
 ' Kelig. of Semites, 75. '' Relig. of Semites, 1S49, p. S7. 
 
Myths?\ The Tree-t7'iink. 307 
 
 Cybele's) pine-tree until the spring. Zakhariah the prophet is said 
 by the moslems to have taken refuge from his persecutors in the 
 hollow of a tree/ In Irish myth Diarmait and Grania in their flight 
 to the south from Finn are helped by Angus to a refuge in the 
 wood of the Two Sally-trees, " which is now called Limerick " f 
 and Diarmait is further counselled by Angus to go not into a tree 
 having only one trunk. [See also the remarks on seeking 
 sanctuary by grasping the sacred tree, and its connexion with 
 the children's game of tig-touch-wood, under the heading of " The 
 Navels."] 
 
 Are we to see a glimmering of some similar idea to the tree-Osiris in Yahveh's 
 changing of Lot's wife into a pillar (of salt) see p. 239 supra. 
 
 This perennial Universe-myth springs up again in Merlin's Oak ; 
 Then in one moment she put forth the charm 
 Of woven paces and of waving hands ; 
 And in the hollow Oak he lay as dead, 
 And lost to life and use and name and fame. (Tennyson's Vivien.) 
 
 And previously, in Merlin's mystic words : 
 
 Far other was the song that once I heard 
 
 By this huge Oak, sung nearly where we sit ; 
 
 For here we met — some ten or Twelve of us. 
 The Twelve here are doubtless (see p. 306) the celestial or zodiacal twelve 
 round the Axis and the Table of the heavens. 
 
 The temple of Jupiter on the capitol at Rome replaced, so 
 tradition said, the sacred oak of Romulus.^ An Etruscan in- 
 scription showed the antiquity of another oak on the Vatican hill.^ 
 In 456 B.C. Livy (iii, 25) records that a consul solemnly took an 
 oak to witness, as though it had been a god, the broken faith of 
 the neighbouring warlike /liqui — et haec sacrata quercus et 
 quidquid deorum est audiant foedus a vobis ruptum. Apollo- 
 doros (iv, 9, 16) makes Athene attach to the prow of the Argo 
 a piece of the prophetic oak of Dodona ; but the earlier and 
 weightier legend given by ApoUonios of Rhodes'' makes this 
 oaken beam from Dodona the middle of the keel, and it cries out 
 and prophecies in the gloom. That this oak is the Universe-tree 
 and this keel a metaphor of the Axis scarcely admits of contest. 
 
 ' Masnavi i Ma'navi of Jalalu-'d-din Riimi, founder of the Mevlevl dervishes 
 (1887), p. 74. 
 
 " Joyce's Celtic Romances, 292, 295, 296. 
 
 ^ Livy, i, to. * Pliny, Hist. Xat. xvi, 87. 
 
 ^ Argonaut ka (Wellauer), iv, 583. 
 
 U 2 
 
3°8 The Night of the Gods. {Ax, 
 
 IS 
 
 The Russian abbot Daniel in A.D. i io6 described the Oak of 
 Mamre near Mount Hebron' as standing on a high mountain. 
 Beneath it " the hoi)' Trinity appeared to the patriarch Abraham, 
 and did eat with him. The Trinit)' also showed Abraham the 
 spring." Jews and Christians were naturally at variance as to the 
 site of this oak or terebinth." 
 
 In the sacred hymns of the Finns, the relation of the origin of 
 the Birch and also that of the origin of the Oak both mention 
 that " its head strove towards the sky, its boughs spread outwards 
 into space. "^ A variant sa)'s " its head seized the sky, its branches 
 touched the clouds," " an oak had sprouted, a tree-of-god had taken 
 root." 
 
 For the Oak and the Ash and the bonny Birchen tree, 
 
 They're all a-growin' green in the North countree. (Sailor's Shanty.) 
 
 Merrick's Holy-Oke or Gospel-Tree, under which " thou yerely 
 go'st procession," existed at many points of the boundaries of 
 Wolverhampton ; and the gospel was read under them by the 
 priest who made the parish perambulations.'' A clear survival and 
 but slight transformation of a pagan ritual. 
 
 The Willow of Zeus upon which the Universe turns (p. 29S 
 supra), and the et\-mology of YggDrasill as turning-force (p. 291) 
 lead us at once to what we shall have again under the heading of 
 " The Winged Sphere," that is the apologue of the \\'inged Oak, 
 over which Zeus threw a magnificent Veil, on which were repre- 
 sented the stars, the earth, and the Universe-Ocean. It was a 
 myth taken by Pherecydes of S>'ros (circ. 600 B.C.) from Phcenician 
 literature and legends,^ which Philo Byblius'' testified to his having 
 studied. The Universe was thus conceived-of as an immense tree, 
 furnished with wings to indicate its rotary motion ; its roots 
 plunging into the abyss, and its extended branches upholding the 
 display of the Veil of the firmament. 
 
 The Maruts — Wind-gods or Universe- J//7/-gods — dwell in the 
 Ashvattha (that is the horsed) tree, which is another version of the 
 \\-ingcd-oak of Zeus. One flies round with wings, the other is 
 
 ' Pal. Filgiims' Te.xt. Soc. iSSS, p. 43. = Ibid. 18S9, p. 33. 
 
 ^ Magic Songs of t lie Finns in Fo!k-Loir, i, 337, 339, 342. 
 ■* Shaw's Hist. Staff, id, 165. 
 
 * F. Lenormant, Orig. dc PHist. i, 96, 56S, 569. Goblet d'Alviella, Mig. des 
 Syniboli's, 167. 
 
 ^ Didot's Fra^. Hist. Grose, iii, 572. 
 
Myths P\ The Tree-trunk. 309 
 
 drawn round by horses.' And in all these cases it seems clear as 
 
 day that the trunk is the axe, the beam, on which the Cosmos 
 
 turns. 
 
 Lazarus Geiger said the ashvattha was a name for the banana, and that its 
 
 use for producing fire by twirling and friction is in the Vedas.^ This quite 
 
 accords with what has just been said about the turning, and also with what will 
 
 be seen later under the head of " The Fire-Wheel." 
 
 Here seems to be the place to mention Zeus Tropaios, or the 
 reverting. The sense of the title is connected with the rotation, 
 the return, of the heavens and of the heavenly annual phenomena. 
 To say that it merely means the " turn and flee " of the enemy is 
 base rubbish. We may even conjoin the turning Universe tree 
 and the word tropaion by considering that this trophy (see p. 205 
 supra) was first (as on a medal of Severus) some lopped tree on 
 the battle-field,' or else a tall stone — where again we have the 
 close connexion of the stock and the stone as sacred monuments. 
 Remember that the same root and sense gives us the TpowiKol 
 KVKXoi, the tropic, the returning, circles of the solstices. And 
 note well for future use that the root is ta?-k, which also gives 
 us torqueo and Tarquinius. It must of course be added that the 
 sacred belief was that the trophy-tree held a god,* and this again 
 is another immediate link with the winged oak of Zeus. 
 
 According to Thrasybulus (in Scholiast on Iliad xvi, 233) 
 Deukalion prophesied in an oak.' Zeus, according to Hesiod," 
 dwelt in the trunk of the oak-tree. Leto, that is Latona, grasped 
 the trunk of a palm-tree as she brought forth Apollo and Artemis, 
 the children of Zeus. This was in the floating island of Delos, 
 which I have paralleled with the Japanese Onogoro (p. 31). So 
 Homer, but Tacitus later laid the venue in Ephesus, " leaning 
 against an olive-tree."" Dionusos was adored in Boiotia as 
 endendros," " in the tree," as well as Zeus. Dionusos, Artemis 
 and Helene of Troy were all called dendrites or tree-beings ; 
 the last however (in a variant) because of her hanging herself 
 or being hanged to a tree (see p. 326 infra). Many of the con- 
 
 ' RigVeda, i, 65, I. Prof. Max Miiller's Vedic Hymns, 1S91, 329. 
 ^ Development Human Race, 1880, p. 100. 
 
 ^ See also y^neid xi, 5 : Ingentem quercum decisis undique ramis | Constituit 
 tumulo, fulgentiaque induit arma. 
 
 ■" E. Saglio in his grand Diet. Antiq. i, 361. 
 
 * Taylor's Paiisanias, ii, 202. ^ Preller, i, 98, ' Annals, iii, 61. 
 
 ^ Hesychius, sub voce. 
 
3'° The Night of the Gods. \Axis 
 
 sorts of Dionusos liad tree or plant-names, such as Althaia 
 (marsh-mallow) and Karua ; and Artemis was called Karuatis 
 from the walnut-tree. Under that title she was worshipped in 
 Laconia.^ Artemis Soteira (saviour) of Boia was a myrtle.^ 
 The temple of the Ephesian Artemis was in an elm-bole, 
 ■wpefjuvu) ivl TrT€\e7j<;, or an oak-trunk, (^7?7uD vtto irpefj-vu). Pau'^anias 
 gave her, as A. Kedreatis, a mighty cedar at Orchomenos. 
 
 In an Indian story which has been called Punchkin,''* Seven 
 princesses are starved by their stepmother, but a tree grows-up out 
 of their dead mother's grave, laden with fruits for their relief The 
 German Cinderella is helped by the White Bird that dwells on 
 the hazel-tree growing out of her mother's grave."* A similar 
 legend is familiar to ourselves in the ballad of Lord Lovell, and an 
 explanation is offered on p. 323 infra. 
 
 The trees out of which come men arc endless. Out of the 
 Omumborombonga tree of the Bushmen came the first man and 
 woman,'^ and also oxen. 
 
 It is impossible here to avoid comparing the Deukalion and 
 the DaiDalos stone and tree myths of the creation of mankind. 
 Deukalion and Purra throw stones which become men and women, 
 animated stones. DaiDalos invents statues {or^aXjxaTaf or makes 
 animated statues which see and walk, otherwise open their eyes 
 and move their arms and legs. In the Daidala annual festivals in 
 Bceotia (Boiotia) fourteen (=7 x 2) human figures were cut out 
 of oaks chosen by bird-divination (Pausanias ix, 6), and burnt in 
 sacrifice to Zeus and Hera. Every sixty years (a chronological 
 cyclic period) there was a jubilee of these Daidala. The ancients, 
 added Pausanias, called wooden statues Daidalian. Apart from 
 the reminiscence of a (disused) human sacrifice here noticeable, we 
 must see a manifest up-cropping of the similar Norse myth in 
 which the sons of Bor make man out of an Ash and woman out of 
 an P21m. 
 
 ' Saglio's Did. An/iq. i, 615 (F. Lenormant), 931. 
 
 - Pausanias iii, 10, 70 ; viii, 13, 2 ; iii, 22, 12. Biitticher, Baunicult, p. 45 1. 
 
 3 Does I'unchkin here go with Thumbling, and mean Little-fist ; punch being = 
 Hindi panch, five (fingers) ? This would instantly make clear the fine old phrase 
 ' punch his head ! ' Although Prof. Skeat takes a more classic view, ' fives ' for the fists 
 is a common term of the prize-ring. 
 
 ■* Miss Frere's Old Deccan Days, 3.4 ; tirinim. No. 21. 
 
 * Lang's Myth. Rit. and Rel. i, 176. « Apoll. Bibl. iii, 15, S, 10. 
 
]\Iyths?\ The Tree-friink. 311 
 
 The Italiotes also made men issue from the bursting trunks of 
 oaks : Gensque virum truncis et duro robore nata/ Various 
 legends on the subject may be seen in the Mythology of Plants by 
 Count A. de Gubernatis. One of the earliest we can now come 
 by is perhaps that in Hesiod- where Father Zeus made the third 
 race of bronze men, endowed with speech, who issued from the 
 trunks of ashtrees, terrible and robust. 
 
 In Saxony and Thuringia folk-lore still makes children 
 (especially girls) " grow on the tree."^ Our own nursery-lore 
 instructs enquiring childhood that babies are found under goose- 
 berry-bushes. The Arab geographers Bakui, Masudi, and Ibn- 
 Tofeili recounted that the waqwaq talking-tree, in the Waqwaq 
 islands at the Eastern extremity of the known Earth, bore young 
 women instead of fruit at the tips of its branches.'' (See also 
 the Subban milk-tree p. 298 supra}) And we must not forget 
 that Gautama the Buddha was born beneath the Sala (asoka) 
 trees in the garden of Lumbini.'^ All this seems to bear the 
 mystic interpretation that man is — like everything else in the 
 Universe — a denizen of the Universe-tree ; and it also enlightens 
 the return of the dead to their origin by hanging their bodies on 
 trees (see p. 327). But of course we must give a large share in 
 arguing this question of the birth of men from trees to the in- 
 dubitable natural-history fact that pristine " men " were tree- 
 climbers and tree-dwellers. This is an almighty consideration in 
 the argument. 
 
 Sir Monier Williams points out" that in some passages of the 
 RigVeda (x, 58, 7 ; 16, 3) there are dim hints of a belief in the 
 possible migration of the spirits of the dead into plants, trees, and 
 streams ; and he adds that in the Hindij theory of metempsychosis 
 all trees and plants are conscious beings, having as distinct per- 
 sonalities and souls of their own as gods demons men and animals 
 have.' Plants and trees speak in the archaic sacred Nihongi, 
 Japan-Chronicles of the 8th century. See too what has been said 
 (p. 301) about returning the dead corpse to the tree among the 
 Yao-Miao. 
 
 ' ALn. viii, 315, and Censorinus De die natali, 4. 
 
 " Works and Days, v. 143. ' Bergmann's Gylfa Ginning, 85, 194, 346. 
 
 ** Alex. V. Humboldt, Exanien critique, i, 52. 
 
 ' Fergusson's Tree and Serpent Worship, p. 131 (see pi. Ixv, fig, 3). 
 
 ' Rel. Thought and Life in India, i, 281, 
 
 " Manu, i, 49. Kel. Thouglit and Life in India, i, 331. 
 
31- The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 Lady Wilde mentions ' the ancient superstition tliat the first 
 man was created from an alder-tree, and the first woman from the 
 mountain-ash."' In an Irish fairy-tale, a cow goes regularly and 
 stands under an old hawthorn-tree, out of the trunk of which a 
 little wizened old woman comes and milks her, and goes back into 
 the tree again.- In another tale it is a little witch-woman all in red 
 that does the same thing. 
 
 An Ainu who lost his way found " a large leafy oak. He lay 
 down crying beneath it. Then he fell asleep. He dreamt that 
 there was a large house " [proved by another tale mentioned under 
 "The Enchanted Horse," in Vol. II. to be the heavens-palace], 
 " A divine woman came out of it, and spoke thus . . . ' I am 
 this Tree, which is made the chief of trees by heaven (?).' Then he 
 worshipped the Tree."^ Of a childless Ainu couple it is told that 
 " one day, as the wife went to the mountains to fetch wood, she 
 found a little boy crying beside a tree " — just our firm nursery 
 faith. In yet another tale, which I think I have already men- 
 tioned, an Ainu falls asleep " at the foot of a pine-tree of extra- 
 ordinary size and height. To him then in a dream appeared the 
 goddess of the tree.'' This pine is near the entrance of an 
 immense cavern, at the far-end of which is a gleam of light, where 
 there is the issue to another world (see the Japanese Passof Yomo, 
 p. 305 stipra). He found this cavern by pursuing a Bear up a 
 mountain until it took refuge in a hole in the ground which led 
 into this Cosmic cavern. After his vision of the goddess he wakes, 
 offers-up thanks to the Tree, and sets-up divine symbols in its 
 honour. The Bear turns out to be a goddess of the underworld. 
 
 The palm was an attribute of Apollo, who was born at the foot 
 of one as above, p. 309. It is named with the laurel, and at times 
 with the olive, whereat legends also place the birth of Latonas' 
 twins.'' It is figured side by side with a tripod. The Andaman 
 islanders say the Earth rests on a palm-tree." Mahomet's 
 favourite fruits were fresh dates and water-melons, and he ate 
 them both together. '' Honour," said he, " your paternal aunt 
 the date-palm, for she was created of the earth of which Adam 
 
 ' Anct. Legends of Inland, iSSS, p. 202. 
 
 - Ibid. pp. 112, 171. 
 
 ^ Mr. Chamberlain's Aino Folk-tales, iSSS, pp. 25, 26, 41. 
 
 ■* t. Saglio : Diet, des Anliq. i, 35S. 
 
 5 E. H. Man, Ahiig. of An,'an:ans, S6. 
 
Myths.'] The Tree-trunk. i^2> 
 
 was formed."^ The name of Semitic god Baal-Tamar means Lord 
 of the Palm-tree, and the Jews carried green branches on the feast 
 of Cabanuelas.^ I need do no more than just mention our own 
 Palm-Sunday. 
 
 The early Christian s3'mbol of the date-Palm tree was of 
 course adopted from the preceding religions of the Eastern 
 countries where that tree flourishes. Ciampini, in his Vetera 
 Monitineiita, gives instances from the church of Saints Cosmo and 
 Damian at Rome (6th century), where such palm-trees flank the 
 figures of Christ and his disciples ; and he adds such a tree with a 
 nimbussed bird seated on the topmost palm-leaf The Christian 
 palm-leaf or branch as we are in the habit of calling it, was also 
 adopted from the victorious emblem of former creeds ; and so also 
 was the olive-branch as a symbol of peace. Olive crowns had also 
 been given to victors in gymnastics, especially in the Athenian 
 games. David compared himself to a green olive-tree in the 
 house of Elohim (Psalm lii, 8). 
 
 " The sacred olive-tree of the Academy was an offshoot of the 
 original olive of the Athens Acropolis with which the life and 
 personality of the Attic nation was mysteriously bound-up."^ It 
 would seem that the name of the olive-tree ^lopia, the mulberry- 
 tree jjiopea, and fxopoq fate destiny, must all be connected with the 
 Universe-tree round which the wheel of fate or fortune turns. This 
 is the only way of adequately expounding Zeus Morios ; for it is 
 petty to make him merely ( — he fell to it no doubt — ) the protector 
 of olive-trees. He was a Fate-god as well, and the central olive- 
 tree of the Acropolis (see Index) was the tree of fate as well. The 
 mulberry had the same significance elsewhere, just as the shrew or 
 mole ash was a tree of luck or fortune. 
 
 The ficus Indica (Banyan or Vata, popularly Var for Vad), is 
 sacred to Kala, that is to Time,'' which accords with my theories of 
 the turning of the Universe-tree being a measure of Time. Siva is 
 lord of the Vata tree. (See what is said p. 317 infra, as to 
 the Jictis religiosa.) In an Egyptian funereal papyrus occurs the 
 prayer " Homage to thee, my father Ra, thy substances are the fig- 
 tree (Beq.)."^ A great figtree in fullest leaf grows on the top of the 
 
 ' Lane's Thousand and One Nights, i, 2ig. '-^ Rev. dcs Eludes Junes, xi, 97. 
 
 ■' Harrison and Verrall : Aiuient Athene, 599. 
 
 ■* Sir Monier Williams, Rel. Thought and Life in India, i, 337, 446. 
 
 ^ Th. Deveria, Cat. M.SS. iSI^'i, 146. 
 
1'4 The AUght of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 cliff of Charubdis ((9(/)'5jr. xii, 103). Odusseus is saved by clinging 
 to it like a bat (xii, 432), and its roots spread far below, while its 
 branches hang aloft out of reach, long and large and overshadowing, 
 just like the YggDrasill Ash. The first figtree was given by 
 Demeter to l^hutalos (the planter: ^vw produce), in return for his 
 hospitality.' Here planting must have had a phj-sical sense, as in 
 Villon's Jargon, and 15th centurj' French slang. This figtree was 
 shown on the Sacred Way at Eleusis, and there was a similar 
 legend at Byzantium. The myrtle was taboo in the women's night- 
 offerings to Bona Dea. 
 
 TREE WORSHIP. The great list of Edfu,^ enumerates 
 many temples of sacred trees and groves. At An;)j;-taui, Life-of-the- 
 two-lands, a temple of Memphis, were the holy trees ncbcs and sent. 
 These were also at Ai or pa-Ai or Ari in the 2nd noma ; and 
 the trees nebes, sent, scnta, shent, neh-t, neh, and ashet were also 
 found at Aa-taneh, het-Mes-Mes (the measurer's temple, i.e. 
 Thoth's), het-Biu temple of the Rams at Mendes, and het-nebes or 
 
 ia-nebes Q ^11 S °'' — J PO ©' ^"■^"'"- °'" ^*^ ^'^""^ 
 nebes, which is rendered sj-comore. We have also het-neh [A 
 
 or J [7-1 fa temple of the sycomore or of the tree, where Osiris 
 
 was worshipped. (Many other words are translated sycomore.) 
 Brugsch, writing in 1881 of the gods of the Arabian nome,^ sought 
 
 to identify a Tree-town I A with the tree nebes jR 0, and to 
 
 call it het-nebes. 
 
 A Sacred grove of neh and sent was at ha-se;;^un ; a grove of an 
 unnamed species at Pa-sebek or Pa-sui ; a grove of ashet, nebes and 
 senta at Aa-n-behu, where was a tomb of Osiris in a grotto d | [^ 
 beneath ashet trees. The tree ashet was also at a (fire?) temple 
 
 called Aa bes neb-nebat """^ J \q\ "^^^ J'fl © ^^ Bubastis ; and 
 the same tree (one of the names rendered by persea) was in the 
 enclosure of the " Phcenix "-temple het-Bennu J %=& at An (Helio- 
 polis). The Alexandria obelisk, which came from An, mentions 
 
 ^ Paus. i, 47, 2. Demeter's Acopco truKOTre'StXos- (fig-footed) is here noticed by 
 F. Lenormant. He leaves it unexpounded, and so shall I ; niais a bon entendeur, salut. 
 - y. de Rouge, Inscrip. d" Edfoti. '■' Zeitschrift u. s. 7,'. iSSi, 15. 
 
Myths.'] The Tree-trunk. 3^5 
 
 the " holy tree ashet in the interior of het-Bennu " [I A '„ >, 
 
 Finally^ there was in the 3rd, the Mareotic, nome the chief-town 
 of Pa-nebt-Amu, town of (our) Lady of the date-Palms 
 
 and the sacred trees aru \> () and tema '^ J V) were at the 
 
 sanctuary of Ma-ti or Ma-Ma ^^ '^ W^ o*" [Jp^ '" the same 
 
 town. 
 
 Sacred trees were, in ancient Greece and Rome, like altars and 
 temples, protected by a walled sanctuary called a septum ; and 
 sometimes enclosed by an unroofed chapel, a sacellum. The olive 
 of Athene on the acropolis of Athens was so enshrined by the 
 open-air temple of PanDrosos,- which, with his name, seems to make 
 him an All-Tree god (see p. 349 infra), and Jupiter's beech at 
 Rome stood in the building called the fagutal. Many such 
 enclosures may be seen in the Pompeian wall-paintings, and on 
 the coins of Antoninus Pius. A tree struck by lightning, was ipso 
 facto immediately set apart from the vulgar forest, among the 
 Romans, as an arbor fulguritica or fanatica.' 
 
 The keremet or sacred sacrificial enclosure — the templum in 
 fact — of the Ersa branch of the Mordvin Finns, dwelling between 
 the Oka and the Volga, which is figured by Mr. Abercromby in the 
 Folk-lore Journal (vii, 83), is so like the similar Maha-vedi or 
 sacrificial ground of the Hindus in Dr. Eggeling's version of the 
 Satapatha-bi-dlunana^ that I desire the reader specially to compare 
 the two. In the centre of the Keremet was the sacred oak or lime 
 tree into which the chief sacrificer (the vos-atya ; atya = father ; 
 vos= ? otsu, great) climbed, and concealed himself amid the foliage. 
 The vats of beer (pure) were under the tree, and the cakes sus- 
 pended to its branches." The Ersa were heathen until the middle 
 of the i8th century ; and this elder up a tree is a close reminder of 
 the Irish divinities in a similar position (p. 320). The Great 
 Bear is placed in the top of The Tree by the KalevaLa of the Finns." 
 
 ' J. de Rouge, Giog. Anc. \%'^\, passim. - Botticher, Bauiiiaikiis, 153. 
 
 ^ Servius on ALneid, vi, 72 ; Paulus Diac. 92, 295. 
 
 '• Sacred Books of the East, xxvi, 475. The " Vttara'\eA\ " of the plan of this Maha- 
 vedi shows me that the '* E " point of the plan should be (or once was) the N. 
 ^ Foik-Iot'C Journal, vii, 93. 
 '' Schiefner's version, x, 31, 42 {in Paradise Found, 27^). 
 
3i6 The Niglit of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 When an oracle was given in the sacred forest of juno on the Esquiline 
 hill, the tops of the trees were agitated, according to Ovid. The phrase " at the 
 top of the tree," which is still so common popularly for the position of a successful 
 man, can, I think, be expounded only from the archaically first position of the 
 higher Universe gods at the top of the Universe-tree. Otherwise, the top of a 
 tree is not a pleasant pitch for any human being, not even for a primeval tree- 
 man. 
 
 Hushaby baby, on the tree-top ; 
 
 When the wind blows the cradle will rock ; 
 
 When the tree shakes the cradle will fall, 
 
 And down comes baby, cradle, and all. 
 i\I. Charles Rabot, in his A travers rOni-al ct la Sibhie" gi\es an account 
 of " the keremetes or sacred woods of the Ostiaks, in which they immolate 
 domestic animals [sacrificially butcher their meat in fact] before rude idols.'' 
 The ki^r(^mete seen by M. Rabot was a clearing in a wood on a river's bank 
 near the village of Sukkeria-Paoul at the foot of the Ourals. The gods were 
 represented by some pine-trunks surrounded by a mass of rags of glaring 
 colours. On one side was a little hut which sheltered two big dolls made out of 
 strips of cloth rolled round and round each other. The faces were formed of a 
 piece of yellow stuff pierced with four holes for the eyes, nose, and mouth. 
 Alongside the idols were the hoofs of horses, which had been sacrificed in 
 honour of the gods. On a tree hung a tambourine which the priests (chamanes) 
 beat when invoking the spirits. 
 
 It was in the forest of the Teutberg that, in A.D. 9, the Germans 
 under that very " Arminius " or Hermann to whom the Irminsul 
 legends (p. 293 supra), are falsely attributed — for of course he was 
 named after the god — There it was, at the modern Winfeld (victory- 
 field .'') that the Cherusci ("from whom came the Hcninonea) 
 extinguished the famous legions of Varus. When Germanicus six 
 years later devastated that region, and buried the bleaching bones 
 of three legions, he found the heads of the dead fixed on the tree- 
 trunks : truncis arborum antefixa ora.- This recalls the Turkish 
 legend of the tree Zakim which bears skidls for fruits.^ 
 
 Buddha is said to have occupied trees forty-three times in the 
 course of his transmigrations.'' Egyptian metempsychosis also, of 
 course, embraced the vegetable kingdom [Pcrauhni, 81). In 
 the Siamese Life of Buddha, he, on attaining omniscience 
 adores from the East and from the North the great holy Bo-tree. 
 This is the Sanskrit Bodhi or Wisdom-tree, the Pipal ; the term 
 bodhi, applied to the penetrating wisdom of a Buddha, being 
 
 ' Revue Encrcl. ii, S2 (Janvier 1S92) ; i, S70. 
 
 - Taeit. Ajiii. i, 61. 
 
 ^ Paravey, Astrou. Flicrogl. 76 (cited in SehlegeVs Uraiiog. Chi. 6S2). 
 
 ■* Sir Monier 'Williams, Rel. Thoiiglit and IJfc in India, i, 331. 
 
Alyths^ The Tree-trunk. S'? 
 
 referred to a word budh, to penetrate. So says Alabaster' ; but as 
 there is little doubt that the World-tree is here in question, it seems 
 to me that the penetrating permeating idea is to be regarded — if 
 it is to be admitted at all — as the primary one in this tree-name. 
 The East taking precedence in the adoration, denotes the predomi- 
 nance of Sun-worship. 
 
 The bo-tree of Ceylon is the bodhi-druma or wisdom-tree of India, under 
 which Buddha attained enUghtenment.= Of course they say no Hindu will tell 
 a lie under a pipal tree — if he can avoid it (that is, the tree). Pippala (beri-y) 
 refers especially to the berry or fruit of the ficus religiosa^ ; and the Sanskrit 
 pippali reappears in Greek as Triirepi (Lat. piper) pepper. Prof Max Miiller in 
 his Vedic Hynms^ translates pippala as apple, and the expression pippalam 
 rushat, ^ red apple, which occurs in the RigVeda, v, 54, 12, may thus contain 
 not alone our word russet, but also pippin and apple ? 
 
 The tulasi, tulsi, or holy Basil, ociniuiii sanctum, in whose midst 
 are all the deities, and in whose upper branches are all the Vedas, 
 must be given a foremost rank among trees that are still wor- 
 shipped. Hindu women are at this moment perpetually per- 
 ambulating such shrubs as pot-plants in the interior of their 
 houses.' For the illiterate Hindu women it is a handy symbol, 
 a devotional manual as one might say, of the divine Universe-tree. 
 Flowers and rice are offered to it, and it is married to the idol of the 
 youthful Krishna in every Hindu family every year in the month 
 Karttika(see Index). A plant of it is also placed at the foot of the 
 village pipal-tree, and the poorest women, who have none at home, go 
 there for their soul's constitutional." In Sicily the Basil is revered 
 and kept in the house-windows for luck, which reminds one of the 
 local story of " Isabella and the pot of Basil," a fine picture of 
 Mr. Holman Hunt's. 
 
 In early Christian symbolism, the "lily," as experts call it, is "not always 
 very accurately defined." On painted glass it sometimes appears as " a little, 
 tree or bush, without blossoms."' This must I think be viewed as a parallel to 
 the tulasi shrub of the HindCis. 
 
 [We shall return to this under the head of " Circular Worship " 
 in Vol. II.] 
 
 An acacia was the principal object of worship with the Khoreish 
 
 ' Wheel of the Law, x.\x to x.xxii, 161. 
 
 " See also Sir M. Williams, Hinduism, iSSo. p. 75 ; and Prof Rhys Davids, 
 Buddhism, 18S0, p. 39. 
 
 ^ Sat.-b7-6hm. (J. Eggeling) ii, 170. * 1S91, p. 492. 
 
 * Sir Monier ^^"illiams, Rcl. Thought and Life in India, i, 333, 334, 392. 
 ^ "Miss Gordon Ciimming's Himalayas and Ind. Plains, 5S4. 
 ' Twining's Eailr Christian Art, 1SS5. p 197. 
 
3i8 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 tribe of Arabs. Khaled, dy Alalwmct's orders, cut it dozun to the 
 roots and put its priestess to death.' Two capitularies of Char- 
 lemagne (A.D. 789 and 794) forbad the worship of stones, wells, 
 and trees ; ordered the Christian priests to get the sacred trees and 
 luoods destroyed ; and treated as insane those who burnt candles 
 or went through other ceremonies to them. The ecclesiastical 
 Councils of Agde, Auxerre, Nantes, and otlicrs had to renew these 
 prohibitions.- As late as the 13th century Helmoldus said the 
 Saxons still worshipped wells and trees.' 
 
 These last records give us an all-powerful motive for the 
 fatal destruction of European forests ; but it is only fair to 
 add that the civil power was not lotK to aid in this almost cosmic 
 crime, because of the refuge which endless forests afforded to 
 the bagaudae and ribauds of the past. The cupidity and 
 wastefulness of man, according as the sedentary populations 
 increased, must also bear the greatest share of the blame. 
 Nevertheless survivals of the holy groves are to be traced. 
 " Every one does not know," writes Sir Monier Williams, " that 
 there existed quite recently a particular oak-copse in the island 
 of Skye, which the inhabitants held inviolably sacred."* The 
 sacred groves in Ireland in the 3rd century were called fidhneimadh,^ 
 and see p. 271 supra. In the 7th century St. Eloi had to forbid the 
 making of vows at trees, or driving the flocks through a hollow 
 tree, or in any way honouring trees.'' The council of Leptines in 
 Hainault in 742 forbad sacrifices called uiinidas to be made in forests. 
 The Hessians, who lived on the lower Rhine in the 8th century, 
 when they were christened by St. Boniface, still then adored a 
 tree-trunk which was their symbol of Thor : robur Jovis sive Thori 
 deastri'' (robur meant strength, pillar, oak, as well as tree-trunk). 
 
 Pausanias (viii, 4) recorded that the tomb of Alkmaion at 
 Psophis was surrounded by lofty cypresses which could not be 
 cut down, and they were called Virgins by the natives. Until 
 about 1872 no one in Orissa dare plant a cocoa-nut tree except a 
 Brahman." Vanin means tree in the Rig\'eda{\, 39, 3 ; vii, 56, 25), 
 
 ' Dulaure : Ciilles (abrege) i, 65. - Capilitl. ii, 269, 255. 
 
 ^ Chronic. Sax. Sclmoldii, c. lo, p. io6 (in Dulaure). 
 
 ■• Kel. Thought ami Life in Indin, i, 330. * Petrie's Irish Arciut. 62,63. 
 
 ^ De Baecker Rclig. Nord France, 316, 317, 315. 
 
 '' Eckart, Dc rcbu% Fi'ancicc, p. 344. 
 
 ^ Hunter's Orissa, ii, 141. 
 
MytJis7\ The Trec-tmnk. 319 
 
 and vanin also means worshipful (i, 64, 12). The Japanese Shinto 
 priests, vested in white, exorcise by waving branches of trees.^ 
 
 At Tenby and elsewhere in Wales existed a custom of the people 
 whipping each other's legs with Itclly branches on 26th December, 
 and this was sometimes done until the blood ran down.^ Here we 
 have a survival of the milder substitute for total human sacrifice 
 which is found all over the world under the form of ritualistic 
 bleeding (see "The Barber's Pole," p. 301 supra), and which even 
 still survives in the " discipline " self-inflicted by devoutly ascetic 
 Christians, and the eccentricities of the moslem Rufai (our Howl- 
 ing) dervishes. The Welsh use of /loliy is typical, and it still holds 
 its holiness with us as a house-decoration at the feasts of the winter 
 solstice. The spellings holin and holie occur in the Ancrcn Riwle 
 (Rule, of Anchorites, circa 1230) p. 418, but the derivation of the 
 word from a root kul = hul is scarcely convincing. 
 
 In the Forest of Dean was a mine-law court held before the 
 constable of St. Briavels. The parties and witnesses to a suit were 
 sworn upon a Bible into which a piece of Iwlly stick was put, and 
 they wore their hooff or mining-cap during examination. Here 
 we have an oath, with the head covered, taken on sacred wood. 
 The Bible must have been an addition.^ This oath has been 
 traced back to at least the 13th century, and another storian says 
 they "touched the book of the four gospels with a stick of holly, 
 and the same stick was usually employed, being by long usage 
 consecrated to the purpose."'' I take these interesting particulars 
 from Mr. E. S. Hartland's excellent County Folk-lore (i, 39) now in 
 course of issue by the devoted Folk-Lore Society ; and I add that 
 this oath is like the Hindu's oath in our Indian courts of justice, 
 which is taken on a bottle of Ganges water, upon which a branch of 
 the sacred tulasi basil is laid.'' Mr. Hartland has also collected the 
 curious fact that in the Vale of Gloucester the hedgers and ditchers 
 will not faggot the Elder boughs, saying no one ever heard of such 
 a thing as burning Elian wood — so they call it ; and they carry 
 about them a natural cross, obtained by cutting a branch above and 
 
 ' Chamberlain's Things fapanesc, 91. 
 
 - Southey's Comtjion Place Book, 1S51, p. 365 ^4th series). Mason's Talcs and 
 Traditions of Tenby, 1858, p. 5. 
 
 ^ Rudder's Hist. Gloucestcnh. 1779, pp. 32, 33. 
 
 ^ NichoU's ^^crf. of the Forest of Dean, 1S5S, p. 149. 
 
 ^ Miss Gordon Cumnnng's J/inialayas a/id Indian Plains, 570, 514. 
 
320 The Night of the Gods. \_Axis 
 
 below two side-shoots, as a charm against rheumatism.' ]-5ut were 
 I to print all the facts of this nature that I have amassed, the 
 quantity of them would merely confuse. 
 
 THE ROWAN TREE. The Gaelic name of the rowan is 
 caerthainn, and its earthly origin is related in the Pursuit of 
 Diannait and Grania. The divine De Dananns brought its berries 
 from their celestial Land of Promise, Tir Tairrngire (which name 
 seems permutable with Inis-Manann, the mythic Isle of Man), and 
 they fed upon them. As they passed through the wood of Dooros 
 (Oldlrish «'«//;- tree oak) one scarlet berry fell to Earth, and from 
 it sprang up in a vast wilderness a great tree which had all the 
 virtues of its celestial double. Its berries tasted of honey, eating 
 of them cheered like old mead, and if a man had reached the age 
 of a hundred he reverted to his thirtieth year at his third berry. This 
 of course is a straight parallel to the haoma, and to the Chinese 
 peaches, p. 305 supra ; and the red berries are even a reminder of the 
 pippalam rusat, p. 317. The berries on the summit of the Rowan- 
 tree — it is ever so, in spite of the fox — were sweetest ; those on 
 the lowest branches being bitter in comparison. It was guarded by 
 a/ow///;- giant of the North called Sharvan {scarblian, surly?), with 
 one broad red fiery eye in the middle of his black forehead (a 
 Cyclops) ; he had his hut up among the branches of the tree. 
 Finn sends an Angus and an Aedh (flame) to get him a handful 
 of the berries ; but Grania longs for them, and Diarmait kills 
 Searbhan, obtains the berries, and lives with Grania in the fomuir's 
 hut. [Compare the mistletoe (and the sun) on the Universe-tree, 
 p. 325 infra?\ Another English name found for the rowan, quick- 
 beam (Anglo-Saxon bcdiii — tree) or quicken-tree, is simply tree of 
 life or life-giving tree. 
 
 Pursuers of this Inquiry will not be surprised to find a Palace 
 of this Tree, the Bruighean Caerthainn, which forms the subject 
 and title of one of the most popular Gaelic tales.- Diarmait's 
 servant Muadhan uses a long straight rod of the tree to fish for 
 his three mystic salmon ; and the palace in which Finn and the 
 
 ' County Folk-lore (Folk-Lore Society) 1S92, i, 54. 
 
 - Translated for the first time by Dr. P. W. Joyce in Old Cellic Romances, 1S79 
 pp. 177. ^iv. 
 
Myihs.'\ The Tree-trunk. 3*1 
 
 Fianna (Fenians) were enchanted by Miodhach (a central divine 
 power : miodh = mid, navel) turns out to be a hut of rough boards 
 fastened together with tough withies of the caerthainn.^ 
 
 On May morning the people (where in Ireland is not stated) 
 cut and peel branches of the mountain-ash, and bind the twigs 
 round the milk-pails and the churn. No witch or fairy can then 
 play tricks with the milk or butter. This must be done before 
 sunrise. The mountain-ash is the best of all safeguards against 
 witchcraft and devil's magic.- (See also p. 339 infra.) In a sacred 
 hymn of the Finland Finns it is said that " the rowan was made 
 by Piru."^ (See p. 338 infra.) 
 
 King James (no less), '' who never said a foolish thing, and 
 never did a wise one," in his Daemonologic (i, ch. 4) recorded the 
 charming of cattle " from evill eyes by knitting rountrecs to the 
 haire and tailes of the goodes " (cattle). " The raven tree was good 
 to keip upon both man and beist" in 1663.* The rown tree or 
 quick-beam ( = tree of life) is frequent near " druidical circles." 
 One stood in every churchyard in Wales, and on one day in the 
 year every one wore a cross of the wood, against fascination and 
 evil spirits.^ In the trial of a poor wretch named Bartie Paterson 
 for witchcraft in 1607 it came out that he wore continually upon 
 him, " for his helth, nyne pieces of rowne trie."^ A twig of wicken, 
 as the rowan is called in the Lincolnshire fens, is marvellously 
 effective against witches and all other ill things.' 
 
 The most typical popular custom about the rowan seems to be 
 in Yorkshire, where at Cleveland the 2nd day in May is rowan- 
 tree day or rowantree-witch day. Some one then goes out of the 
 house until a rowan is met with, when branches are broken off and 
 carried back by a different path, which gives us a circular per- 
 ambulation. A twig is then stuck over every door of the house 
 and outhouses, and left there till it falls. A bit is or was also 
 carried in the pocket or the purse by some. " Rowantree-gads " or 
 whipstocks are also charms against restiveness, jibbing, stopping, 
 or sulking in horses, caused by witches.* Here we may dimly see 
 a connexion between the Universe-tree branches and the heavens- 
 
 ' Old Celtic Romances, 314 to 323, 190, 192, 29S. ' Lady Wilde's And. 
 
 Legends, 18S8, p. 104. ^ Magic Songs of the Finns, in Folk-Lore, i, 347. 
 
 ■" 'OiA'jtXi Darker Sitperst. 1835, 139. * Evelyn's J'zVjM, ch. xvi. 
 
 " Dalyell, 395. ' Miss M. G. W. Peacock in Folk-Lore, ii, 510. 
 
 " T. F. Thiselton Dyer's Brit. Pop. Cast. 1S76, 274, 154, 394. 
 
 X 
 
?,22 The Night of the Gods. . [Axis 
 
 charioteer. Crosses of rowan-twiLjs are put over doors and windows 
 in Aberdeenshire' on this day, which was turned by the Roman 
 Christian Church into the feast of "the Invention of the Cross." 
 On Good Friday a rowan stick is the only poker in the Isle of 
 Man, for iron must not touch fire that day. In Scotland on 
 Hallowe'en the red end of a rowan-brand is waved about. A 
 rhyme ad hoc (doubtless corrupt) is given as : 
 
 Rowantree and red thread 
 
 Gar the witches dance their dead. 
 Perhaps I ought here to note that the pipal (ficus religiosa), so 
 much mentioned already, in which the essence of Brahma abides, 
 is still invested in India with the sacred thread.^ 
 
 Prof. Skeat briny^s the name of the rowan-tree (which he gives as roan 
 and rowan), from the Latin ornus. But one would wish to see proof that the 
 Latin ornus, wild ash, meant our rowan. This seems a case in which a philo- 
 logical rule of letter-change drives instead of being driven. The Swedish he 
 gives as ronn ; OldSwedish runn ; Danish ron ; Icelandic reynir ; which mean 
 the service and sorb trees as well. Mr. E. G. Wharton says ornus was the 
 mountain-ash and is not from Sanskrit drnas which Sanskrit grammarians have 
 (unsupported) given as meaning teak. He does not connect ornus with rowan.' 
 The botanical fraxinus ornus is of course not evidence, and the French orne is 
 not our berried rowan, which is a frene sauvage. 
 
 T//E TREE AND THE WELL. The term edntveU tree 
 
 o 
 
 seems to have been current for the holy tree at the zve/t ; and a 
 branch falling from an oak in this position at Dalhousie Castle 
 portended a death in the family.'' 
 
 In the Persian Raiizat-iis-Safa (p. 313) when Musa fled after 
 murdering the Egyptian, "he arrived near thewt'//of Madian which 
 was deep as the meditations of sages, and penetrating like the 
 thoughts of the intelligent. Near the ivell there was a Tree, lifting 
 its head to the cupola of Orion." The top of the well was covered 
 by a stone, which it took 40 men's strength to nunc. He took up 
 his station under the tree, and addressed his prayers to the omni- 
 potent granter of requests. In the Koran (ch. liii) is the lote or 
 lotos tree, beyond which there is no passing ; near it is the garden 
 of eternal abode. It stands in the seventh heaven, on the right 
 hand of the throne of Allah, and that over which it spreads exceeds 
 
 ' T. F. Thiselton Dyer's Brit. Fop. Cust. 1876, 274, 154, 394. 
 
 - Sir Monicr Williams, J\.:I. Thought and Life, i, 335. ' Etyma Laiina. 
 
 ^ .Mian Ramsay, poiiu^. i, 276. 
 
Myiks.'] The Trce-triink. 
 
 all description and numbering. " Some boundless contiguity of 
 shade," is Cowper s satisfying expression in " The Task." 
 
 There is a curious enchainment of Universe-tree traditions in the Legend 
 of the " Sancta Crux,"' which might be abridged somewhat as follows : — Through 
 a tree we were forlorn, and through a tree to life y-brought. Adam sent his son 
 Seth back to paradise to implore pardon, and get him the oil of mercy to anoint 
 (smear) himself with, and be saved. In the centre of a flowery mead Seth saw 
 a fair well, from which come all the waters on Earth. Over the well there 
 stood a tree ; an adder was curled round it ; and it was that tree and that 
 Naddre {sic) that made Adam do the first sin. The angel took an apple off the 
 tree, and gave Seth three kernels thereof to put under his father's tongue when 
 he should die, and so bury him. [A strange and obviously genuine old ritual, which 
 doubtless gives us. the clue to the " Lord Lovell" legends, see p. 310 supra^ A 
 few years thereafterward three small svveetsmelling rods grew up, fair beyond all 
 things. Moses, leading the folk of Israel, discovered them, and " Lo here !" he 
 said, " great betokening of the holy Trinity ! " He took them up with great 
 honour and carried them two-and-forty year, for to heal sick men ; and then set 
 them under the hill of Tabor, dying there himself [like Buddha under the Bo- 
 tree of Ceylon]. More than a thousand year later Saint David the king came, 
 and with great melody of his harp transplanted the three to Jerusalem in nine 
 days, where they grew together in a night into one single tree. David built a 
 strong wall round it [like the Roman septum or sacellum, p. 315 supra]. King 
 Salomon felled and hewed it for his temple, but it was by a foot too short ; and 
 being rejected of the carpenters it became a bridge over an old ditch. But the 
 queen of Saba passing that way, recognised and honoured it, and made Salomon 
 bury it away safely. A fair well then again sprang from the buried beam, and a 
 fair water with great fischsches. At last the piece of timber began to float in this 
 deep long river, and the Giwds (Jews) coming and finding it, made thereof the 
 Holy Rood. This legend is in the Gospel of Nicodemus. See also the Citez de 
 Jherusalem (1187 A.D.)= 
 
 The tree of the banks of the Cocytus was the Yew, and this 
 perhaps gives us a broad hint as to the reason for the yews of 
 our churchyards. 
 
 THE THORN. Cardea was beloved by Janus, who gave her 
 her good-fortunate power, and also her Iiaivtiiorn which banishes 
 evil from the threshold touched with it. This is native Latin or 
 Italic ; and Cardea is elsewhere connected with the Cardo, and 
 the Navel, and Beans (see p. 160 supra). Festus {s. v. Patrimi) 
 said that a torch of wJiitetJiorn, spina alba, was carried before the 
 newly married couple by a boy. 
 
 The Glastonbury thorn is found very far back in the Wi'iXiov 
 
 ' Bodleian MS. Laud, 108 {circ. A.D. 12S0). Early English Te.xt Society, 1SS7. 
 - Pal. Pilgrims' Text See. 188S, p. 22, 
 
 X 2 
 
3 24 The Nio-ht of the Gods. {Axis 
 
 6po<; of Dicnearchus, where the ivhite-thorn growing on the heavens- 
 mountain Pelion had (like the white m)'rtlcs) the power to make the 
 body insensible to the winter's cold and to the most ardent beams 
 of the sun. Hard to find, it was harder still to gather it. In 
 Halfdan the l^lack's Saga, queen Ragnhild takes a thorn out of 
 her shift — one of the pins of those days — and while she holds it 
 in her fingers it grows into a great tree, one end of which strikes 
 down roots into the earth, while the other grows up out of sight. 
 Below it was red, higher up the stem was green, and the branches 
 were white as snow. So vast is it that it spreads over all Norway, 
 and much more : Thomson's '' boundless deep immensity of shade," 
 in The Seasons (Summer). This legend the saga turns into a 
 dream, and the same dream is also told of Harald Fairfax (or 
 Fairhair).! 
 
 This Glastonbury myth breaks out in William of Malmesbury's 
 1 2th century story of Joseph of Arimathca striking his staff into 
 the ground at Avallonia (afterwards called Glastonbury), when it 
 burst into leaf and bloomed with the blossoms of the holy Thorn. 
 It was fabled that this Joseph was sent to christianize Britain about 
 A.D. 6^^ ; but note that Avallon denotes another tree, the apple 
 (Breton, aval), and not the white thorn. 
 
 Arthur was buried in the Isle of Avallach or Avallon, a name 
 which, says M. J. Loth, primitively indicates a mysterious region, 
 a sort of Celtic paradise, which was only at a late enough period 
 identified with Glastonbury." May I add to this that it would 
 indicate a perhaps mythic origin for the Glas- of Glastonbury, as 
 having reference perhaps to the towers of glass and Merlin's 
 crystal prison (see p. 267 supra). In one of the islands visited 
 by Maelduin a single apple-treii vcr)- tall and slender (axis) 
 grew in the middle ; and all its branches were in like manner 
 exceedingly slender and of wondrous length, so that they grew 
 over the circular high hill that bounded the island, and down into 
 the sea.^ 
 
 No one modern record about the Glastonburj' Thorn that I 
 have been able to examine seems to merit two perusals. They 
 are all hopelessly loose, and many are obviously lying ; but such 
 a freak of nature, if \iewed as occasional, is by no means to be 
 wholly denied. There is a celebrated Fudan-zakura or perpetual- 
 
 ' Heiniskfinf:;Ia (Laing and Anderson) iSSg, i, pp. 337, 396. 
 
 ' Lcs Mahiiiogioii, 1SS9, ii, 215, 360. ■* Joyce's Celtic Romances, 125. 
 
Myths.^ The Tree-trunk 325 
 
 cherry at Shiroko in Japan which is reputed to blossom all the 
 year round. The writer who describes it in Messrs. Satow 
 and Hawes's model Handbook of Japaii^ saw it once on 17th 
 November with at least 100 flowers on its N. side. When I took 
 this note I added the following: "This year, 1886, the apple-trees 
 here covered themselves with blossom in October. Villa de la 
 Combe, near Cognac (Charente)." It is stated in Dumas's La Rcine 
 Margot (i, ch. 11), upon the authority of I know not what Memoirs, 
 that the aubepine of the cemetery of the Innocents in Paris flowered 
 after the Saint Bartholomew battue, 24th August 1572. The 
 hygroscopic annual plant Anastatica liieroclmntica is said in many 
 countries to flower on Christmas-day, and that is said to be the 
 reason of its popular name of Rose of Jericho. In the Roman de 
 Roncevanx a miraculous aubepine grows out of the grave of every 
 christian killed with Roland at this purely mythic battle,^ a legend 
 which gives us, from one point of view another and a wholesale 
 ''Lord Lovell " incident (see pp. 310 and 323 supra). 
 
 THE MISTLETOE. Lazarus Geiger was at least indistinct 
 in claiming the ficus religiosa as a type of the sun. He said in 
 " The Discovery of Fire " : 
 
 the Hindoos do not choose the wood which is practically the 
 fittest, but that of the ficus religiosa ; and that not only because this tree bears a 
 reddish fruit but (as is expressly said, and as analogies of other holy trees 
 amongst kindred peoples, eg. the Mistletoe so sacred among the Gauls, testify) 
 because it takes root upon other trees, and its branches hang down in great 
 abundance. It is manifestly a type of the Sun, for he is often compared to a 
 wonderful tree, whose roots are high up in the air, and which sends down its rays 
 like branches on to the earth.' 
 
 Geiger had not thought this out ; " roots high up in the air " is 
 rank nonsense, and the direct reason for the mistleto; representing 
 the Sun is that the globular plant, the golden branch, as seen on a 
 bare winter tree, with the light on it, fitly enough in northern 
 latitudes, suggests the face of the feeble winter sun with his fabled 
 yellow beard and yellow hair. Latet arbore opaca aureus et foliis 
 et lento vimine ramus. {Aineid vi, 137). The Sun is not the 
 Universe-tree, but is on the Universe-tree, makes his daily journey 
 round with the Universe-tree. A good illustration of the widely 
 human nature of this idea will be found in the Chinese characters 
 
 ' 2nd ed. London, John Murray, 18S4, p. 169. 
 
 - MS. 86j in Bibl. Nat. de Paris, fo. 25 recto, col. 2. 
 
 ^ Development of Human Race, Triibner, 188"), p. Ict6. 
 
326 The Nighl of the Gods. \Ax, 
 
 IS 
 
 for East, noon, and sunset, tung, kao, and yao, which consist of a 
 sun H behind a tree /fC, tung >|i (as if sunriscj ; a sun above a tree, 
 kao ^ ; and a sun beneath a tree, }"ao ^ (see p. 320 supra). 
 F. G. Bergmann makes a similar extraordinary blunder to Geiger's, 
 when he says " the sun was represented by a symbolic tree, an 
 oak or an ash," among the Scj-thian tribes.^ But Geiger and 
 Bergmann would not have made these statements if many others 
 had not done so before them. The incongruous absorption of all 
 the gods and all the symbols ■ojlioliis-bolus by the Sun has been 
 going on for at least some 1700 years in the Latin world. A useful 
 brief survey of the question has been given by M.Jean Reville,^ but 
 anyone who wants to have his fill of this sun-madness in excelsis 
 need only read chapters xvii to xxiii of the 5th century Saturnalia 
 of Macrobius, for whom Microbius would therein have been a better 
 name. The Sun has in fact been gradually made a sort of 
 " universal referee," and there is scarce a mythologian that has 
 not joined in the facile and labour-saving occupation of over- 
 loading him with business. As already intimated at p. 21 a 
 Section on this aspect of Sun-Worship has been excluded by the 
 boundaries of the present Inquiry. 
 
 A book of American Lectures' says that Baldur was killed with a mistletoe 
 " wand." English girls at all events know better than to talk of a -wand of 
 mistletoe. 
 
 The (white) Fianna are preceded in Irish mythology by the 
 powers of the Red Branch, the Craebh-ruadh.* 
 
 SWINGING. There is one rite of tree-worship which may be 
 mentioned here: '"swinging" — the almpa or edpa (from aetptu to 
 raise) of the Greeks. This was referred to Erigone the daughter of 
 Ikarios, who like Helene (p. 309) hanged herself in a tree.^ And 
 it has been (idly, as I think) theorised that the actual swinging 
 by pushing a person seated in a " swing," meant purification by air 
 as a parallel rite to purification by water and by fire." 
 
 Festus says those who were swung, the oscillantes, had their 
 faces covered through shame, verecundia. For this he quotes 
 Cornificius, but as he is tr}'ing to bring oscillantes from os cclare (to 
 
 ^ GyJfa Ginning, 1 87 1, p. 23. 
 
 " Rclig. a Rome scnts Ics Scveres. 1SS6. pp. 2S6 to 290. 
 
 3 Sanskrit and its Kindred LiUratitri^s. by Laura Elizabeth Poor. iSSi, p. 28 1. 
 
 ■* Joyce's Celtic Romances, 409. 
 
 '" llyginus : .4stnvi. ii, 4. ' Servius on -tS/ziVi/ vi, 741. 
 
Mytlis.\ The Ti-ee-ti'imk. 327 
 
 hide the face, with a mask ?)^ we may as well receive what he says 
 with utmost caution. If such a practice existed, it would be 
 monstrous like the " hangman's nightcap." Festus goes on to 
 explain the swing as figurative of human life, with its ups and 
 downs ; and also of the rocking cradle, adding that milk was the 
 drink at the swinging festivals. He winds up, however, with the 
 trigone explanation. The oscilla seem from Macrobius- to have 
 been artificial human effigies : oscilla ad humanam effigiem arte 
 simulata ; and Virgil mentions^ the mobile oscilla suspended from 
 the tall pine to Bacchus, with joyful hymns. 
 
 I think we must discern a similar belief in the account of the 
 plain of Circe in the Argonaiitika (iii, 200) : 
 
 " On it were growing in rows many willows and osiers, on whose branches 
 hang dead men, bound with cords. For to this day it is an abomination to 
 Colchians to burn the corpses of men with fire ; nor is it lawful to lay them in 
 the earth and heap a cairn above them ; but two men must roll them up in hides 
 untanned, and fasten them to trees afar from the town [see also p. 311 supra\ 
 And yet the Earth getteth an equal share with the Air, for they bury their 
 women-folk in the ground." 
 
 Here we seem to have those men who die in their beds given 
 the blessed advantage of hanging after death,'' a privilege denied to 
 women. The hanging of women still goes hard with us. They 
 say the first hanging of a woman in France was in 1449." French 
 kings, according to J. B. B. de Roquefort" were buried in stag- 
 hides. 
 
 The good effects of the cord in curing headaches — grim was the 
 joke — were mentioned by Pliny (xxviii, 4), and he added that the 
 hairs of the hanged were a febrifuge. (Mon ami, c'est du froid, 
 said shivering Bailly at the scaffold.) 
 
 Then again, Odinn was the god of the hanged, in which we 
 must perhaps discern the true rationale for archaic hanging-sacri- 
 fices of men and animals on trees ; and also that Odinn must also 
 have been a tree-god. Prisoners of war, and all \'ictims, were 
 hanged on the trees of sacred groves as sacrifices to him as god of 
 
 ' The best suggestion seems obscillo, move-from ; unless indeed the word merely 
 tells us that the practice was got from the Osci, the Oscan people. 
 
 - Satur7i. i, 7. '^ Gcor^. ii, 3S9. 
 
 ^ On the other hand hanging was *' the curse of Elohim " among the Hebrews in 
 the time o\ Detderonoviy x\i, 23. .See also Genesis xl, 19. 
 
 '' Desmaze : Curiosith dcs Aiiciennes justices (i%t1], p. 328. 
 
 ^ His edition of Le Grand d'Aussy's ]'ie Prn-a- (1815) i, 396. 
 
32S The Night of the Gods. {Axis 
 
 battles and of the air, says Bergmann ;' and thus hanging, being 
 a mode of sacrifice to the supreme god, was not dishonouring. 
 Odinn's horse is said to have been a name for a gallows.- Our 
 own putting-to-death and suicide b}- hanging must have had 
 such an origin and sanction. It also explains — what no other 
 incident of the hanging will — the ancient and universal luckiness 
 of "a bit of the rope," which is still an ineradicable and wide- 
 spread belief [I have had a piece offered to me (in a case of 
 suicide, and it was soaped) by a police-officer in the East.] " Tell'em 
 her's going to heaven on a string," says Taffy in the old song. 
 Harman's Caveat used the phrase " to ch-me three trees with a 
 [one] ladder." Even the scaffolding for the guillotine in France 
 is still called " les bois dc justice." The king's kindred were (alone ?) 
 hanged in archaic China, and the hangman was a forester.^ Yama 
 holds a noose round the neck of every living creature.'' The sagas 
 speak of Hagbard's noose falling in middle air,'' and all this may cast 
 the real light upon the other kind of swinging from trees, the diwpa, 
 which would have been a mild substitute for the human sacrifice.^ 
 
 In a Russian tale of a childless old couple, ''the husband at last 
 went into the forest, felled wood, and made a cradle. Into this his 
 wife laid one of the logs he had cut, and began swinging it, crooning 
 the while a rune beginning : ' swing, blockie dear, swing ! ' After a 
 little time, behold the block already had legs. The old woman 
 rejoiced greatly, and began singing anew, and went on singing until 
 the block became a baby."'' Here we have an odd pendant to the 
 creation of men from trees supra. 
 
 The merry-go-round gymnastic machine common at schools, 
 consisting of a stout pole with a swivel at the top and pendant 
 ropes by which the children can fly round in a circle, may have had 
 a sacred oritrin likewise. 
 
 It is a curious and very admirable form of the primeval Tree-legend that is 
 still so survivacious in the Indian juggler stories. The oddest thing about these 
 tales is that so many people receive helplessly, as " a positive fact Sir," and 
 without any warranty whatever, the actual bona-fide performance of a miracle 
 by each and every one of these nameless mountebanks. The receivers will 
 " stuff them down your throat " too ; and if you politely feign sufficient interest 
 
 ' Gylfa Giniu7ig, 247. - Heiniskringla (1S89) i, 300. 
 
 ' Lcgge's Z/-A7, i, 356. ■• Darmesteter's Zend Av. i, Ixviii. 
 
 * See also an article of mine called " As High as Hainan " in the National Ohsci~'er, 
 22nd August iSgr. 
 
 '' Kalston's Russ. Folk-tales, 16S. 
 
Myf/is.'\ The Trce-triink. 329 
 
 to ask uncomfortable questions about a thing that always happens " in a com- 
 pound up country" somewhere, they become ahnost as rude as fanatics will 
 about " a mystery of revealed religion." 
 
 The rapid conjuring-up of a seed into a sprout, a plant, a bloom, and 
 finally a Mango-fruit, may well be a plagiary from some long-lost sacred 
 mystery-play of the Universe-tree ; and one must suspect the basket-trick too 
 to be a remanet of a ritualistic commemoration of the once holy great myth, so 
 widely spread and oft-repeated, of the youthful deity condemned to extinction 
 in a chest, coffer, or basket. Numbers of these myths are mentioned under 
 the head of " The Arcana." 
 
 A third of these tricks, as they have long sunk down to being, is that of the 
 ball of twine. The juggler winds the end of the string round a finger, and then 
 throws the ball up into the air. The ball goes higher and higher until it is lost 
 to sight, and then hand-over-hand the juggler shins up the string. Now this is 
 a clear variant of Jack and the Beanstalk ; but it combines with that Universe- 
 tree idea another one, much dvvelt-on here, of the primeval connexion and 
 actual communication between heavens and earth by the Axis. In other 
 variants a second juggler with a knife pursues the first fellow up the — well, up 
 the yarn, and cuts him into pieces which fall to the ground. The slayer then 
 slides down, puts the pieces together, and brings his precursor back to life. 
 This terrible incident belongs to the Osiris-myth type (see Index). " Ibn Batuta, 
 the old Arab traveller in the East, saw the thing done, and tells the story." 
 Col. Yule quoted it in his Marco Polo, and ga\e Mr. Andrew Lang a set of 
 notes tracing the narrative through some 500 years ; he also had cuttings of 
 modern instances from Indian newspapers.' 
 
 Now the easy explanation of "downright lying" will not wholly suffice here. 
 The gravamen for the comparative mythologist is the subsisting faith in, and 
 magnification of, all these clumsy tricks as being bona fide miraculous ; and 
 that faith can, I think, be explained only as a survival too, as a survival of 
 a once overawing worship of the great Cosmic myths of which the poor tricks 
 are now but the relicts. The acquired brain-habit of this worship — as of so 
 many other worships which are still more vigorous — has not even yet wholly 
 ceased to be instinctive. Of course one must also posit a fierce and firm faith 
 in an active and protean devil — he long since became a devil — hidden away 
 behind the candid belief in all these stories. 
 
 The All-embracing conception of the Universe-Tree obtains — it 
 is not too fanciful to suggest — a very striking illustration and 
 support from the extraordinary number of products (now getting 
 on for 200j which modern chemists keep on extracting from coal- 
 tar. These embrace a most extensive variety of the substances or 
 elements in Nature, which must have been all assimilated in past 
 titnes by the Trees that made the coal that gives the tar, and they 
 range from Dr. Berkeley's panacea tar-water to the aniline dyes ; 
 
 ' Loiigtiiau^ i I\Iagaziue, Apiil 1S91, p. 630. 
 
33° The Night of I he Cods. [Axi. 
 
 IS 
 
 from a powerful " acid " to the sweetest thing known — saccharin.^ 
 In fact the Tree might be said to rival the celestial Bee "in 
 furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are 
 Sweetness and Light. "- 
 
 The Stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam from the Timber shall 
 answer it 1 — (Habakkuk ii, 1 1). 
 
 FJiOM POST TO PILLAR. The connexion between the 
 stone Pillar-idol and the tree Post-idol confront us continually ; 
 and in the few citations I shall here make, we must include some 
 sacred devotional statues. 
 
 A rough post planted in the ground, a tree-trunk which was not 
 even squared, was one of the earliest symbols or representations of 
 Bacchus.^ In Boiotia was a Dionusos Stulos (root sta, to stand) or 
 post ; another at Thebes was called Perikionios (kiwv, pillar), and 
 \\'as a similar post ivj'grown. In Thebes too was worshipped the 
 piece of wood — Dionusos Kadmeios — which had fallen from the 
 celestial ceiling into Semele's bed, and was bronze-covered by 
 PoluDoros, a successor of Kadmos/ 
 
 As art or artificiality gained upon rude man, a mask and the 
 symbolic clothes of the god were hung to a real column with a 
 Doric (forget not the connexion with Sopi/) capital. That was 
 properly the god Stulos, and no doubt led up, or down, to 
 St. Simeon Stylites and his compeers.'^ The title Dendritis, as 
 contrasted with Stulos, appears to have applied rather to the tree- 
 trunk origin of the post ; and then the bearded head of Dionusos 
 was combined with the trunk." Arms holding attributes were 
 added, as was also the (^aXXo9 symbol of generation. All this con- 
 nects the world-tree with the pillar. 
 
 Movers pointed to something similar as regards the asherah's passing, like 
 the obelisk (p. 201), insensibly into the phallos. It was of wood, he said, and 
 sometimes an upright pillar or phallus, and sometimes a tree.' 
 
 M. Salomon Reinach has sugg^ested an interesting point.' He says the 
 first statues of gods appear in Uruidic Gaul only during the epoch of the Roman 
 
 CoHj I gQ^ r NH. 
 
 - Swift : TJic Battle of the Books (1766 ed.) i, 149. ^ M,a.N. Tyr. viii, I. 
 
 ^ P.ius. ix, 12, 3. Clem. AIe.\'. Strom, i, 41S. Eurip. Fragm. 202. 
 
 * JNIincrvini, C/. plate vii (see also p. 197 supra). 
 
 '' Kraun, Aiit. Marmor. ii, plate 2. 
 
 '' CUugnaut';. Creiizer. ii. S77. ' .Acad'nii^- dcs Insaiptions, 15 Janvier 1S92. 
 
MythsP\ The Tree-trmik. 
 
 domination, and he therefore concludes that Druidism, hke the Hebrew behef, 
 was hostile to idols in human form. But it seems to me that the fact of Trees 
 and Stones being the real deities would have ipso facto precluded any other 
 representation of a deity but a tree or a stone. The megalithic monuments, the 
 giant dolmens, menhirs, and so on, were surely very grandiose idols and temples 
 in themselves. M. Reinach then alleges passages from Cssar and Lucanus which 
 show that they in their time had made the similar observation that the gods of the 
 Gauls were pillar-stones and tree-trunks. But I shall add that there is no proof 
 that the stones were exclusively Druidic : the trees were. (See " The Gods of 
 the Druids," i>if?-a.) 
 
 An image of wood, about 2 feet in height, carved and painted 
 Hke a woman, was kept about 1727 by one of the O'Herlehy family 
 in the parish of Ballyvorny, co. Cork. It was called " Gubinet." 
 Pilgrims came there twice a year, on Valentine's Eve and on Whit- 
 Thursday, when it was put up on the old walls of the ruined church. 
 The devotees then went round it on their knees, and prayed to be 
 protected from the smallpox, bholgagh. People attacked by 
 smallpox sent for the idol, as I shall call it, sacrificed a sheep to it, 
 and wrapped the sheep-skin about the patient.^ 
 
 There was, in Le Temps of 2Sth Jan. 1892, an interesting account of the 
 harmless necessary devotional-statue trade of Paris. Says the manufacturer to 
 the interviewer: "You'll tell me that here and there in my show I strike 
 an atrocious note, aesthetically. That's true enough, but they're for South 
 America. Cast your eye on that St. Christopher down there, who's stark naked, 
 with the great eyes in enamel ; that's a good sample of the models we e.xport. 
 Then again, for this other quite special line we use not papier-mach^ or compo 
 but the wood of the liine-tree ; and on the lay-figures so made we drape our 
 stufifs. Look here ! this is a Virgin just ofiT to Lima. We've made her a red 
 velvet mantle, starred with embroidery, which tots up to j^6o ; the dress itself, 
 with its waistbelt of paste-diamonds, costs in or about .£36, and the under- 
 clothing comes to a few fivers ; for, you see, these dressed statues are outfitted 
 like real women : muslin chemisettes, bodices, and a whole set of petticoats 
 stififly starched for the great feasts, in order to fill out the dress. Silk stockings 
 and ball-slippers go with this toilette. What with the enamel eyes, the wig, 
 and the inserted eyebrows and lashes, the illusion of life is complete." 
 
 When Elpfenor's ashes are buried {Odyss. xi, yj ; xii, 14) they 
 pile a barrow over them and drag up thereon a stone pillar, and on 
 the topmost mound they set the shapen oar. Likewise in the 
 ^■Encid (vi, 232) the pious ^E^neas ingenti mole sepulcrum imponit 
 suaque arma viro /■einujnc[Vie tubamque (I must pass by tuba = 
 tubus for the present). 
 
 The junction of an elegant column and a sacred tree, which 
 
 Folly of nignniagcs^ Dul)lin, 1727, 70. 
 
332 The Niglit of tlie Gods. \_Axis 
 
 may be seen continually in the Pompeian paintings,' is for me 
 extremely symbolic and suggestive of the identity of these two 
 cosmic axis-symbols. And Pliny when opining- that trees were 
 the most ancient dwellings of the gods, wholly lost sight of sacred 
 stones and bcth-Els, which, as readers of this hiqiiiry ("so farj will 
 probably agree, seem to have an ex aequo claim. The Olympian 
 Doric temple of Here was surrounded with stone pillars, but 
 at the back part one of the pillars was of oak.^ There is in 
 Orissa a legend of the aborigines having worshipped a blue 
 stone in the depths of the forest. The common people still 
 have some shapeless log, or black stone, or trunk of a tree red- 
 stained (see p. 301 supra) at the present day in every hamlet of 
 Orissa, and it is adored with simple rites in the open air.^ 
 
 " Saint Silvia " (regarding whom the famous question " Who is 
 Sylvia, what is she } " still waits for an answer) seems to have 
 made a pilgrimage to Mount Sinai in — as they say — or about 
 385 A.D. She saw at '' Rameses " a great Theban stone, unus 
 lapis ingens Thebeus, in which two great statues were cut out 
 (exclusae) [said, of course, to be Moses and Aaron, done by the 
 sons of Israel]. There was also an arbor sicomori, planted by the 
 same mj-thic pair, and called in the Greek the dendros alethiae or 
 Tree of Truth, from which twigs were pulled by the sick.'' The 
 Editor, Rev. J. H. Bernard, points out that E. Naville in his 
 Gosheti (pp. 12,20) quotes inscriptions on the Egyptian monuments 
 of Saft, which speak of the Sycomore of Saft. Brugsch gives 
 
 Nehi 
 
 [III •»+?^ as " land of the Sycomore, a name of Egypt." 
 
 ra 
 
 The Roland-Saiilen are wooden or stone pillars, with a warrior's 
 image on the top, which exist on the market-places of some 40 or 
 50 towns of Lower Saxony. Hugo Meyer said" that these monu- 
 ments are sometimes called Tio-dute, pillars of Tic or Ziu." It 
 seems to me that we must look for the ideas of rolling and round- 
 ness in the names of Roland and Roncesvaux ; and one cannot 
 help suspecting a connexion between the German Saule pillar and 
 the French saule sail}'. See the Irminsaule p. 292 supra, and see 
 also the connexion of the holy Thorn \\ith Roland, p. 325. 
 
 ' See the engraving in Saglio's Diet, des Antiq. i, 360. 
 
 " Hist. Nat. xii, I, 2. ^ Pausanias, v, i6. ^ Hunter's Orissa, i, 95. 
 
 5 Pal. Pilgrims' Tixt Soc. 1S91, pp. 89, 22 ■= .U'liamiluiig ii/ter Rolatui, 1S68. 
 
 ' I take this from a \ahiable note of M Goblet's Mit;. dcs Syrnholes, p. 339. 
 
Myths?\ The Tree-trunk. 333 
 
 The Hubertus-stock also deserves mention here (and see p. 218 
 supra). 
 
 We sometimes get the dual tree as a doublet of the duat pillar 
 (p. 235 supra), as when Krishna, the new-born infant, uproots the 
 two trees reaching to the heavens, between which he was laid.' 
 This is a Samson myth also, and an infant Hercules myth too. 
 In an Egyptian funereal papyrus of the baser epochs Th. Deveria 
 remarked the mummy of the deceased placed between two trees.^ 
 
 ' Biirnoufs BhAgavata-purdna, ii, 7, 27. - Cat. Jl/SS. iSSi, p. 143. 
 
334 TJie Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 T 
 
 25. — The Christmas-Tree. 
 
 HE YggDrasill Ash and the IrminSaiile are racially and 
 geographically the great types and originals of the Teutonic 
 Christmas-tree, which has spread so much in England since the 
 marriage of our present Sovereign. 
 
 The national importance in Germany of this survival of archaic tree- 
 worship is well shown by Germania citing in December 1891, as a most 
 significant and disquieting symptom of the economic crisis through which that 
 country is passing, the one simple fact that more than 20,000 Christmas-trees 
 remained unsold that Christmas in the Berlin shops alone ; and this was 
 ndependent of vast numbers of such trees never unloaded off the railway 
 trucks, when it was found there was no market for them.' 
 
 But some authentic English records of similar trees are to be 
 found. Twelfth-night or Holly-night (see p. 319 supra) was 
 formerly celebrated at Brough in Westmoreland by carrying 
 through the town at S o'clock in the evening a holly-tree with 
 torches attached to its branches." Another genuine native 
 instance of the Christmas-tree was the Wassail-bob (that is, 
 bunch) of holly and other evergreens, which was also corruptly 
 called a wessel- or wesley-bob. It was put together " like a 
 bower," hung with oranges apples and coloured ribbons, and 
 sometimes enclosed a pair of dolls also decked with ribbons. It 
 was still carried about on a stick on Christmas-day in Yorkshire 
 (Huddersfield, Leeds, and Aberford) some 40 or 50 \-ears since.'' 
 
 A very strange English relic of this tree-vvorship and of the 
 artificial sacred tree is the Bezant of Shaftesbury (or Shaston), 
 town of the Shaft, pole, or pillar. On the Monday morning before 
 Ascension-Thursday the Bezant was carried in procession, accom- 
 panied b_\' a Lord and Lady chosen for the nonce, who from time 
 to time danced a traditional step to a noi.-^e of music. The Bezant 
 is described as having been (for it came to an end in 1S30) a sort 
 of trophy constructed of a frame about four feet high, to which 
 ribbons, flowers, and peacock's feathers were fastened, while round 
 it were hung plate, jewels, coins, medals, and other objects of value 
 lent by the local gentry for the purpose. In early times the 
 
 ' Le Tnnps, 31 decembre 1S91. - Hone's Tabk Book (1838), p. 26. 
 
 ^ Brit. Pop. Customs, p. 4S4 (e.xtracting from Notts and Quon'os). I shall also cite 
 an article of mine in T/ie National Ohseifer oi 12th December 1S91. See also " The 
 Christmas Box" under "The .-\rcana " infra. 
 
Myths.'] The Christuias-Tree. 335 
 
 Bezant represented a considerable value, and Hutchins's History 
 of Dorset (1803, ii, 425) says the " beson " or " b\zant" used to be 
 sometimes valued at ^'1500. 
 
 Its connexion as an annual custom with the neig-hbouring wells of Enmore- 
 Green doubtless led to its being eventually regarded as a sort of feudal 
 " service " for the use of the water of those wells ; and it was joined to a raw- 
 calf s-head, a gallon of ale and two penny-loaves, which must ha\-e represented 
 an archaic sacrifice and sacrificial feast. The term Bezant would lead one to 
 suppose an origin for the name of the coin so-called in some similar "trophy," 
 " May," or " bezant " stamped upon an ancient piece of money. The Saracen 
 bezant was otherwise known as the sol d'or, but there were also sil\-er or white 
 bezants of the Christian crusading coiners. In 1250 the golden coin was worth 
 about ;{J9 of our money (Leber, 122). Chambers's Book of Days (i, 585) con- 
 jectures altro that it was the coin that named the Shaftesbury trophy. We 
 know indeed that in heraldry French knights used to put the coin on their 
 shields when they had been to Palestine (Littr^), and that nummus Byzantius 
 is supposed to be a sufficient explanation of the coin's name (De Beaumont) 
 But byzantius is but an adjective which brings us back to byzant or ^v^avr-wv, 
 which is a cul-de-sac. It has suggested itself that we may also have the 
 same word — whate\er it be — in Irebisoiid, which is also called Tarabozan, 
 and by the Turks Tarabezun ; the Germans say Trapezunt, and the French 
 Trdbisonde. But the ancient Greek was Tpane^ovs which merely tables us i 
 another puzzle. 
 
 And I am sorry to say I have to make a much more prosaic 
 suggestion as to the Shaftesbury " bezant." Hutchins, as above, 
 called it a " beson." How would it be if this were nothing whatever 
 but our own old homely besom, a broom ? The Middle-English 
 was besum besme besowme ; AngloSaxon besema besem ; German 
 besen, a broom, a rod. " The original sense," says Prof Skeat, from 
 whose never-failing Dictionary I am here quoting, " seems to have 
 been a rod, or perhaps a collection of twigs or rods " — which by- 
 the-way is an exact description of the Pars} baresma p. 337 infra. 
 Wedgwood cited a Dutch term hrem-besse7i = broom-twigs. Besen 
 and bessen get us easily to Hutchins's beson, and this may very 
 well be, after all, the good old stay-at-home explanation of the 
 fine-sounding bezant. 
 
 The 13th-century AngloNorman poet " Guillaume, clerc de Nonnandie," 
 which is his only name come down to us, wrote among other poems the satire 
 called " Le Besant de Dieu." The besant, said M. Amaury Du^■al' was a gold 
 piece struck at Byzantium, which crusaders on their return brought back in 
 sufficient abundance to have obtained currency for its intrinsic value, in 
 England and Nonnandy especially. The poet, taking the word in a meta- 
 phorical sense, made it the equivalent of the talent of the New Testament 
 
 Hisl. litt. de la France^ xix, 661. 
 
336 The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 parable. It was in the end of this poem that he left us his name, as " Guillaume 
 un clers qui fu Normans" ; but we feel more grateful to him for his brace of 
 tales or fabliaux" La malle honte" and " Le pretre et Alison." I note this 
 merely because anything- that here throws a light, however feeble, on the bezant 
 is not out of place. 
 
 li\\.Q. Revue dc Snintoiige ct d'Aitiiis for May 1892,' treating of 
 "la Guillaneu " — the New-year feast — in the extreme West, quotes 
 what we should call a carol, taken down in 1855 at Saint-Cyr en 
 Talmondais, which contains the lines : 
 
 Y at in abre en les fouras {11 y a un arbre dans les forets) 
 qui passe les cretes daux chagnes {des chenes) 
 queme les vergnes et les fragnes {coniine . . . firnes) 
 passent I'aronde et le garas. (Ja ronce el les g2u'rets) 
 Notre Seigneur on est le tronc ; (en) 
 les apotres on sent les bronches ; {sont, branches) 
 chaque onge de ses ales bllonches [ange, ailes blanches) 
 fait deux feilles ontour sen front {feiiilles aiitour son) 
 M. E. Guionneau picked up at the Chateau d'Oleron in 1861 a 
 variant of this : 
 
 Dans la mer y at un arbre 
 qu'on a jamais vu le pied. 
 La bonne Vierge en est les branches 
 Jdsus-Christ en est le pied. 
 Here we see again a new faith (p. 261 supra) picking over the 
 rags (p. 10) of the old, and stooping low enough in the process. 
 Note here too the clear tree-doublet of Rlailduin's pillar, p. 193. 
 And there is no doubt, I submit, that we here have a Christmas- 
 tide hymn to the Universe-tree. 
 
 It is strange to find a similar conception to the Christmas-tree 
 in the myths of archaic Japan, where the adorable 500-fold Saka-^ 
 tree is uprooted on Mount Kagu in heaven by the gods, and hung 
 with the sacred jewels, octagonal mirror, and blue-and-white 
 peace-offerings to AmaTerasu, the Japanese PasiPhae ; while the 
 gods KoYane and FutoTama devoutly recite a grand ritual." The 
 Cleyera japonica now does duty on earth for this mythical tree. 
 
 I think too that a phase of the same fantas)' may be also 
 detected in the descriptions of the artificial haoma (see p. 289 
 supra) general!}' figured as a sort of " May " made up of pieces of 
 different vegetals, or greener}', bound together, we may perhaps 
 
 ^ This is the Bulletin of the Societe des Archives Historiques, a remarkable society 
 of which I have the pleasant honour to be a member. Its president is the well-known 
 able and hearty M. Louis Audiat. 
 
 - Chamuerlain's A'cjiki, 56. 274. Sa-ka can aichaicalh- mean holy-place. 
 
]Myths?\ The Christiiias-Trce. 337 
 
 take it, to represent the Tree of all Seed (p. 290). The Persians 
 said F. Lenormant borrowed this from Assyrio-Babylonian sacred 
 art, and it is so that the haoma is shown on gems cylinders and 
 cones of the time of the Achemenides.^ It follows from this that 
 the similar mysterious and sacred plant, accompanied by celestial 
 genii in attitudes of adoration, and worshipped by royal personages, 
 which is so frequently found on Assyrian and Babylonian cylinders 
 and bas-reliefs, must also be viewed as an artificial idol of the 
 world-tree. Above the plant is often found what Lenormant 
 called the symbolic image of the supreme god, that is the winged 
 "disk" (which I maintain to have been the representation of the 
 heavenly revolving sphere) surmounted, or not, b)' a human bust." 
 
 Lenormant made the ancient (Akkadian) name of Babylon, 
 Tintirki, to mean Tree-of-Life," and Dr. Wallis Budge translates it 
 Wood-of-Life.^ 
 
 The Parsi ritualistic baresuia or bundle of twigs (now a bundle of 
 utilitarian wires) is clearly an outcome of the Persian artificial haom?, 
 and it has already afforded me a comparison for the beson or byzant. 
 
 Forerunners of the Christmas-tree — to apply that name to all 
 the modern types — must certainly be also seen in the trees loaded 
 with all sorts of ornaments and sacred attributes, which, according 
 to Lucian, were brought each spring, as symbols of life to be 
 burnt in the temple of Atergatis ('Atar-'Ate) at Hierapolis of 
 Syria. Nay, a doubtless still earlier, because more closely natura- 
 listic origin may be assumed in the great trees which the same 
 Loukianos records as being loaded with goats, sheep, garments, and 
 gold and silver objects hung to the branches, and burnt before the 
 Syro-Phoenician gods at the same spring festival.^ We still burn 
 our Christmas greeneries at the expiration of the twelve days ; 
 though I find that in East-Kent it is unlucky to burn them ; they 
 must be " thrown out a' doors." 
 
 A most important example of the " Christmas-tree " is the pine 
 of Cybele and Attis on a bas-relief,' to which are hung bells, a 
 syrinx or reed-flute, a pail, a wheel, and so on ; with sacred birds 
 among the branches, and a ram and bull for sacriiice beneath. 
 Pictures and other votive objects were tied to the laurel of Apollo. 
 
 ' Orig. de tHist. i, yS to So. 
 
 ^ Ibid, i, 74, 76, 77. ^ Babyl. Life and Hist. 14. 
 
 ■* De Dea Syra, 49. 
 
 ^ Zocga, Bassvil. aui. i, jil. xiv, p. 45. 
 
33^ The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 British Popular Customs (1876, p. 464) considered that the mobile oscilla 
 suspended from the tall pine to Bacchus, with joyful hymns (in Virgil's Georgics 
 i, 389) " distinctly porlrayed " the Christmas-tree ; and that the engraving 
 " from an ancient gem representing a tree with four oscilla hung upon its 
 branches " in Smith's Roman Antiquities'^ " is an exact picture of a Christmas 
 tree." But here we ha\'e, rather, the hanging and swinging of mock-human 
 victims (see p. 327 supra). However, the connexion is undeniable. 
 
 According to the Traipltooiii, the standard Siamese work on 
 cosmogony, the Kalpavriksha (see p. 289 supra) grows in the 
 Tushita heaven of contented desires, and produces everything that 
 can be wanted, whether useful or beautiful : in fact it is the World- 
 tree ; and connected with this are the practices of hanging gifts 
 for rhe monks, at night, to the trees of their garden, and loading 
 with limes and nutshells, which contain money and lottery-tickets, 
 a frame-work made to represent the tree at cremations ; these 
 kalpavriksha (karaphruk) fruits being afterwards scattered to the 
 crowd.- The Siamese also, at the topknot-shaving of a youth, 
 make standards about five cubits high, called Bai-Si. These con- 
 sist of a central pole which is fixed into a wooden pedestal, and 
 supports either three or five saucer-like tiers or stories formed of 
 plantain-leaves ornamented with gilt and silvered paper. In the 
 leaf-saucers are put cooked rice, cakes, other edibles, flowers, and 
 so on ; and a big bunch of flowers tops the pole. These baisi are 
 placed in the midst of the assemblage, and a procession is formed 
 which circumambulates them five times, or, if the ceremony be for 
 a prince, nine times. This is clearly an artificial World-tree, and 
 it also reproduces the royal terraced umbrella of Siam,' see p. 222. 
 
 This tree is of course, in one form or other, as ubiquitous as 
 tree-vegetation. Mr. Consul Bourne, under the date of February' 
 7th (1886), the period of the Chinese and Shan new-}-ear festivities, 
 writes that " in all the villages within reach of wood there was a 
 12-foot fir-tree, without roots, planted in front of each door; 
 making an avenue of the road — a new-year's custom."'' This was 
 near Ch'iao-t'ou at an altitude of over 6,000 feet. 
 
 The scavenger caste of Upper India pay reverence to the 
 memory of Zahir Pir,' alias Lai Beg. The emblem which they 
 carry in procession is a tall bamboo gailj- decked with scraps of 
 
 ^ O. S. V. Oscillum, citing Maffei's Gem. Ant. iii, 64. 
 
 - Alabaster's IVIieel of tlie Law, 216. ^ [bid. p. 29S. 
 
 ■• Journey in S. W. China. Parly. Paper C. 5371 (iSSSj p. 2S. 
 
 ' Compare this Pir with Pirn p. 321, and Perun p. 194. 
 
A'Iyihs.'\ The Christmas-Tree. 339 
 
 bright-coloured cloth, and crowned by a huge brush of peacock's 
 feathers at the top. Fans and bunches of cocoa-nuts are also 
 slung to the pole, which cannot I fancy be regarded merely as " a 
 glorified conception of the sweeper's broom."' But even so it gives 
 us a besom or beson or byzant ! And I may very properly note 
 here that a broom made of grass was the sacred symbol of purifica- 
 tion in the great spring-cleaning ritual of archaic Japan called the 
 liarai or great sweeping,^ and was waved towards the people by 
 the chief priest. 
 
 The Arabs adored the sacred date-palm (see p. 313 supra) at 
 Nejran in an annual feast, when it was hung with fine clothes and 
 women's ornaments. There was a similar tree at Mecca on which 
 weapons, garments, ostrich eggs and other gifts were hung. By 
 the modern Arabs sacred trees are called manahil, places where 
 angels or jinn descend, and are heard dancing and singing. They 
 are honoured with sacrifices, and parts of the victim's flesh are 
 hung on them, as well as shreds of calico, beads, &c." This seems 
 to connect the tying-on of rags with the earlier " Christmas-tree." 
 The hangings or drapery woven for the asherah in 2 Kings 
 xxiii, 7 is thus also easily explained, and F. Lenormant considered 
 it a figment of the cosmic tree.^ 
 
 The cosmic symbolism of this tree-idol may, I think be further 
 demonstrated, and in a commanding way, from the ' property '-tree 
 which was carried at the laurel-bearing or daphnephoria festival of 
 Grecian Thebes (see p. 341 infra) and which might very fairly be 
 called a Bezant, 
 
 Professor G. Schlegel" cites from Maurer^ an Icelandic legend 
 that the Reynir (Rowan see p. 322 supra) covers itself on Christmas- 
 7iiglit with lights which the strongest wind cannot put out. These 
 night-lights are of course, initially, the stars on the branches of the 
 Universe-tree. He also extracts from Wanglang's Antiquities of 
 Tlisin the statement that in the Chinese state of Thsin, previously 
 to 247 B.C., a tree with a hundred flowers and lamps was placed on 
 Nevv-year's-night at the steps of the audience-hall, while outside 
 the "correct gate" candles of five and of three feet were lit. A 
 lamp-tree of agate, three feet high, is mentioned as an offering by 
 
 ' Capt. Temple's Legends of the Punjab ; Mr. J. C. Oman's Indian Life, Social and 
 Religious, 1889. 
 
 " Mr. E. M. Satow's Ancient Rituals, in Trans. As. Soc, Jap. 
 3 Relig. of Semites, 169. •• Orig. de FHist. i, 570. 
 
 ' In tlie Toung-fao, Leiden iSgr, vol. ii, 5. " hldndische Volkssagen, p. 14S. 
 
 Y 2 
 
34° The Night of the Gods. [Axis 
 
 one Tu Kwanglo in A.D. 652. There is another record, of our 8th 
 century, that the famous princess Vang put up a "hundred-lamps- 
 tree" eighty feet in height on a high mountain on New-year's- 
 night. In the poetry of the same Chinese T'ang dynasty is men- 
 tioned "The dragon holding in its mouth tlie firetree whereon a 
 thousand lamps are shining," which is obviously a cosmic image 
 for the universe-tree, the celestial dragon, and the host of the night- 
 heavens. 
 
 In quoting these facts, as I am glad to do, from Prof Schlegel, the able 
 professor of Chinese at Leiden University, I should perhaps state that he seems 
 inclined to connect them with sun-worship, but there I am totally unable to 
 follow him. 
 
 On p. 300 mention has been made of the French Trees of 
 Libert)', and I now cite the follo\\-ing passage from a speech 
 of Danton's in the National Convention on the very da\-, 21st 
 Januar)- 1793, on which Louis XVI had been guillotined : " Roland 
 (whom he was attacking) a pense, dans cette erreur, que le grand 
 Arbre de la Liberte, dont les racines tiennent tout le sol de la 
 Republique, pouvait etre renverse." Here we have clear Universe- 
 tree imagery, but all Danton's enthusiasm cannot alter the fact 
 that these arbres de liberte are always uprooted trees of many 
 years' standing, uprooted and replanted for the occasion, in some 
 spot where they rarely thrive. The occasion was, of course, 
 archaically, a ritualistic one in Tree-worship, and the long life of 
 the tree thereafter was not desired. 
 
 I here desire to direct attention to the interesting and valuable chapter on 
 "The Jewel-bearing Tree'' in Mr. W. R. Lethaby's Architecture, Mysticism, 
 ajid Mytlu'"^ It has much pleased me to find that, working quite unknown to 
 each other, we have arrived at conclusions that sometimes approximate. This 
 is the first opportunity I have found here of mentioning Mr. Lethaby's book, 
 but I see he also treats of others of the subjects of this Inquiry, such as the 
 four-square Earth, the Centre of the Earth, the Labyrinth, the Gate, and so on. 
 Having obtained his book at such a late period of my own work I regret that 
 I have been unable to use it in any way. 
 
 ' London, Percival and Co. 1S92. 
 
]\[ytlis^ Daphne and AgLanros. 34' 
 
 26. — The Myths of Daphne and AgLauros. 
 
 THE Grecian daphne, as it is not difficult to show, was a 
 similar plant to the Babylonian (p. 337 supra) ; and may be the 
 geographically nearest European parallel we can now find for the 
 sacred shrub so common on the cylinders and other West-Asian 
 monuments. It is said to have been our baytree ; but that is most 
 uncertain ; laurus (see p. 344) and daphne cannot both be bays. 
 
 The leaves of the daphne were eaten by the diviners called 
 daphnephagoi, to inspire them with the science of the gods ; 
 branches of it were burnt in daphnomantia to get omens from its 
 sputtering ; sleeping on a pillow of laurel-branches was similarly 
 efficient in regard to dreams. Branches of the tree were placed at 
 the doors of the sick to call the medicine-god Apollo. It was also 
 the tree of Diana and of Bacchus, and the priests of Juno and of 
 Hercules crowned themselves with this laurel. It was the tree of 
 health ; it not alone purified and cured, but prevented and repulsed 
 maladies and evil spells and influences. It was thought lightning- 
 proof,' and was planted before houses. The superstitious carried 
 laurel-sticks, and put its leaves in their mouths ; so copying the 
 Pythia, ITi^^ia?, or high-priestess of Apollo at Delphoi.- 
 
 Under the heading " Magncs, Medea and RIaia " (p. 149 supra) 
 the artificial tree called " a May '' is, I think, clearly connected 
 with the month of May and the goddess Maja ; both the month 
 and the tree having been called majus. At the daphnephoria (the 
 processions at the daphne festival of the Boeotians, held every nine 
 years at Thebes) an artificial tree or May (to which I ha\'e already 
 referred, p. 336), formed of an olive-bough with garlands of daphne 
 and other flowers, upheld a sphere of brass from which depended 
 many lesser spheres. To these were given celestial meanings, and 
 the large sphere was said to have represented Apollo ; but the 
 youth of choice, magnificently dressed-up and wearing a crown of 
 gold, who was the daphnephoros or Jack-in-the-green, was more 
 probably the true representative of the god. He wore shoes called 
 iphikratides "from IphiKratos their inventor," and these shoes 
 must be a fragmentarj- allusion to the solid planting of the feet of tlie 
 
 ' I'liny, Nal. Hist, ii, 56 ; xv, 40. Eotticher, Bauiukull, 
 ' .Hschylus, -4^wj/r 1237. 
 
5i2 The Night of the Gods. {A. 
 
 xis 
 
 heavens-bearer, for X<^i-Kp('no^ simply msans "powerful-strong." 
 They have also close variants in the shoes of Magnes and the 
 brazen feet of Talos (see pp. 131, 142 supra). 365(?) crowns 
 (or wreaths?) surrounded the globes, and were said to be tj^pes 
 of the heavenly revolutions. A near relative of this Jack-in- 
 the-green preceded him bearing a rod twined with garlands, and 
 he was followed by a dancing company of girls holding branches. 
 The procession was to (or round ?) the temple of Apollo called 
 both Ismenian and Galaxius. The last is clearly a reference to 
 the yaXa^ia^ kvkXo<;, the Milky Tire or Way, and Ismenos, is the 
 river of knowledge (^la-qm, to know) that issued from the footprint 
 of Kadmos which, like the footprint of Buddha (see that heading 
 in Vol. II.) must be taken to be at the celestial omphalos. A 
 variant of this is Apollo giving his son Ismenos the gift of oracles ; 
 here too the mother of Ismenos is Melia, who is no terrestrial sea- 
 nymph as was said, but the daughter of the Cosmic god (_)keanos, 
 and brings us round to the Bees (or stars) of heaven ; for Melia 
 was also the mother of the Meliai or Melian n_\-mphs, the bees or 
 stars, who attro, according to Hesiod's account, were born of the 
 drops of blood from the mutilation of Ouranos by Kronos, which 
 brings us again to the closely similar Japanese mj'th (sec " The 
 Heavens-River" in Vol. II.) in which Izanagi cuts off the head of 
 Kagu-tsu-Chi (or cuts him into three pieces), and 8 gods are born 
 of the drops of blood that fall from the weapon^ of mutilation. 
 .\nother origin is of course asserted for the name Melia : that it means, and that 
 she was, an ashtree. This in no wise disconcerts my arguments, for we 
 have had plenty about the YggDrasill Ash, and the formation of woman from 
 it (pp. 291, 311 supra) ; and how account for the name /^eXi'j; of the ash except as 
 the honey (iJ-eXi) tree ? And how then account for the fieXir; being the honey- 
 tree, unless by viewing it as the Universe Ash (or other tree) on whose branches 
 are the Bees, the stars, of the heavens ? But this will be driven home under the 
 sub-head " Bees" in " The Heavens-River." 
 
 This daphne procession was to commemorate an episode of a 
 sort of triangular War-in-heaven between the yEolians or wind- 
 gods, the Thebans (see Index), and the Pelasgians, whose founder 
 Pelasgos was a " first man " like Kadmos. In this episode, which 
 was a truce, we have Helikon and a river Alelas. 
 
 The " nymph " Daphne was clearly a goddess of the Universe- 
 
 ' Chamberlain's Kojiki, p. 32. Satow's Fiire Shinti, 72. I shall just note here that 
 Kagu-tsu-Chi = The Old Man of the (kagu = shining) Mountain (of the heavens). 
 This will be developed under " Kronos '' in \'o\. II. 
 
Myths ^ Daphne and Ao-Lanros. 343 
 
 tree. The Earth opened and engulphed her, just as it did 
 Trophonios, and a daphne-shrub sprang up ; Apollo thus en- 
 clasped the tree-stem only. The disappearance of Daphne in a 
 tree-bole is akin to the similar fate of the body of Osiris (see 
 p. ■^06 snpfd). In Sparta she had divine honours, and gave oracles, 
 as PasiPhae, that is shining-to-all ; a glittering-heavens name which 
 also reminds of the famous device : " I am become all things to all 
 men — Tot's iraai ysyova ra iravTa^ which has been applied to the 
 Roman Christian Church. 
 
 At Delphoi Daphne gave famous oracles as Artemis, or as the 
 daughter of Teiresias (the blind augur who understood the language 
 of birds). Or, by a tradition Pausanias (x, 5, 3) records, Ge the 
 Earth, the first owner before Apollo of the oracle of Delphoi, chose 
 Daphne as its very first priestess. In any case she may strictly be 
 said to have "moved in the uppermost circles'" of the supernal 
 gods. The giving of oracles by Daphne may also, and perhaps 
 more satisfactorily, be considered as the giving of oracles by Apollo 
 himself out of the daphne (laurel) of Delphoi, just as Zeus did out 
 of the oak of Dodona. 
 
 Hermes had a son called Daphnis (the male counterpart of 
 Daphne) who was taught by Pan himself, the All-god, to play upon 
 the flute (see Index). He was blind like Teiresias, and his turning 
 to stone, when compared with Daphne's becoming a tree, gives 
 another junction of the tree and pillar-stone. Apollo was called 
 Daphnian, not perhaps from the encounter with the nymph but 
 from the daphne-tree itself or from its Syrian shrine ; and Artemis 
 (Diana) herself was called Daphnaia. (Artemis of course had other 
 tree-names. She was Kedreatis at Orchomenos where her images 
 were hung on the hugest cedars. At Ephesos she had her sacred 
 olives and her oaks, and at Delos her palmtree, see pp. 210, 312 
 supra). There was also a miraculously-produced daphne or laurel 
 of Maia the daughter of Atlas and mother of Hermes. Lobeck 
 quotes a text in which the laurel furnishes the wood for the fire- 
 drill ;- which is quite accordant with the mystic functions of the 
 Axis as here expounded (see " The Fire-Wheel " in Vol. II.). 
 
 It will thus I think be seen that the myth of Daphne was 
 eminently a cosmic Universe-tree conception. 
 
 ' i Corinthians, ix, 22. " Lang's Myth, Ritual, and Religion, i, 159. 
 
344 The AUgJit of tJie Gods. \^Axis 
 
 AGLAUROS. Lanrus, the baytrcc, is brought hy philologists 
 from a hypothetical daurus Savpo<; ?iapFo<; = tree ; and the Old- 
 Irish daur oak is alleged, as well as the Avestan dauru log, the 
 Sanskrit daru, and the Greek Sopu beam.' But I think we have the 
 word A.aO/309 in the name of "AyAavpo<;, who seems to be actually 
 called Aau/309(?) on an ancient vase of Corneto which also shows 
 
 the names of her sisters as Epcre and Tlai'S " 
 
 Note well that both the Latin /ai/rus and the Greek ^idtjjvr] are said by classi- 
 cists to name our baytrcc ; a conclusion that must be doubted. 
 AgLauros PanDrosos and Hcrse were mi.xecl up, as nurse-maids, 
 with the birth of EriChthonios. The very intimate connexion of 
 AgLauros, in her myth and ritual, with PalLas and with Hermes, 
 both axis-deities, supports the theory that .Ag + Lauros indicates 
 the tree, beam, or shaft on which the agging (to coin a useful word) 
 of the Universe was supposed to be carried on. 
 
 The Sanskrit aj-, the Avestan az-, the Greek ayw, the Latin ago 
 (move), the midh'ish agaim, and the oldNorse aka, all have the 
 same signification of (yrAvV/o-; and such is the meaning, in a Cosmic 
 sense, which I app)l3' to all the godnames and sacred words in Ag-. 
 I say that the syllable indicates that the function of the god was 
 the driving the agging-round of the revolving Cosmos. The 
 Vcdic word aja, goat, should thus mean the pusher, and ma\' gi\'e a 
 clue to the celestial goats. Ajiita and ajinan, racing, which are also 
 Vedic, seem to belong to the conception of driving-round the heavens 
 as a chariot is driven -with (drawn by) horses. \^'e verj- clearly 
 get the veering of the application of the root in Festus : Agasotics 
 (grooms), equos agentes, id est minantes : drivers, that is leaders, of 
 horses. AJira, switt, used of the horses of Va^ai the wind-god and of 
 the Maruts (Rig J 'cdd, i, 1 34, 3 ; v, 56, 6) must be referred to this early 
 sacred sense. I even go so far as to say that ajm, a plain, in R F, 
 V, 54, 4, refers to the plain of the high heavens (so frequently 
 mentioned throughout this Inquiry) as being aj-ed, agged, round. 
 Although it iTiay look trifling, it is nevertheless important that Aja, Aya is the 
 name of the mother of the "Quatre fils Aymon." This makes them the four 
 Cardinal powers at once (see p. 157 si/pi-a), and their father Aymon the central 
 power. It has recently been pointed out in the Gartcnlaiibe that (Goethe's 
 mother was, by a household word, called Aja, from some domestic incident which 
 recalled some action in this famous legendary tale. I suppose it is the present 
 Hindi aya, a nurse. 
 
 ' Wh.-ii-.un's Etyina Lalina. - I )Lieml.)Oiirc: and S.i?;lio'5 Z>/i/. Aiiii.t. i, oSo. 
 
Myths.'] Dapline and AgLatiros. 345 
 
 And I suggest that this cosmic root ag is the real origin of 
 a'yiov in the sense of sanctuary (or holy things), and of the arfia 
 a^ittiv or Holy of Holies in Hebrews viii, 2 ; ix, 3 ; 'd'^jia having 
 been a title of the first tabernacle (tent of the heavens), and a'^ia 
 a'jLuiv the innermost tabernacle inside the second veil of the heavens, 
 where is situated the Ark of the Covenant (see also " The Arcana'' 
 infra). This is also the true and perfect explanation of the god 
 Agonius (in Festus) who presided over things to be carried forward : 
 Agoniuiu etiam putabant deum dici praesidentem rebus agendis. 
 AgaMeDes (see p. 145 supra and "The Arcana" infra) is an alias 
 of this god, as the Central-Driver-God. Recollect that the two texts 
 I cite from Hebrews treat of the seat or throne of the Majesty, the 
 Greatness, the lAe<^aXw(jvvr\ (see p. 148 supra) in the heavens, and 
 of the true tent [of those heavens], which not man pitched but its 
 Lord, who said to Moses, when he was about to set up the mimic 
 tent : " See that thou make all things according to the pattern 
 that was shown thee in the Mount." 
 
 Mr. E. R. Wharton {Etyina Gracca, pp. 17, i8)makes ayn- and ay- = fxiyas great, 
 in the words aya-vuKria, ay-ep(OKOs, dy-rjvap. Dr. O, Schrader approaches a-yior, 
 ayos to a^o/iai and the Sanskrit yaj, worship dedicate offer := Avestan yaz ; 
 and he makes "Ak/iuiv = Avestan asman, heaven. 
 
 It thus would become immaterial to argue whether dyadot;, 
 good (with which compare djd-6eo^ — r)yd-6eo^ holiest) first meant 
 holy-god or urger-god : the one merely implies adoration of the 
 other, and both apply to the same supreme central god, to whom 
 the title AgathoDaimon also belongs. Then the contested 
 etymology of the agonalia in honour of lanus (rootj'rt, to go), who 
 opened the year, becomes easy ; so does the title agomis for the 
 Ouirinal (from Sabine enris [the axis-]spear) Hill, and the same 
 title agoncuses for the Salii' priests of that hill. I have already 
 explained the 'A7o/3a (p. 155) and Apollo Aguieus (p. 120) from 
 the same root ag (see also the pul-agorai, p. 179) ; and I shall now 
 add the Latin agea, the deck or bridge of a ship, because it was 
 thence the ship was driven (sailed and steered). 
 
 And I further suggest that the root j'<x^ and the Vedicjv?/', to 
 sacrifice, are inseparably connected with all this — take for example 
 the phrase Gratias ago ; and that tltat was why victims were called 
 agonia (and this ought to be the true etymology of agmis, and of 
 dyvoi; and dyvo<; also). I should very mtich like to squeeze-in here 
 the dya\/j,a idol, and even the splendid dy-\ao<;, dri\ing-rock (see 
 
 ^ See " The Salii '' section in Wil. II. 
 
346 The Nioht of the Gods. \Axis 
 
 " The Rock of Ages "). The priest-butcher's, the rex's, technical 
 question at sacrifices was "Agone?"; to which the chief-priest 
 reph'ed " Hoc age," and then the sacrificial blow was given. To be 
 added here is the imperative exclamation " Age-dum !" go ahead ! 
 (in Festus) ; and I shall here ask the candid reader carefully to 
 consider together in Festus all his words in ag- : some fifteen 
 or so. 
 
 Remember that the verb ago primitively gave axim, axit (in 
 place of egcrim, egcrit), which puts beyond doubt the etymology 
 o{ axis as coming from the same root ag ; and the axis is that on 
 which the Universe, and the chariot wheels, are driven. That is 
 how I shall later on explain the Cabiric gods AxioKersos and 
 AxioKersa as an archaic dual Axis-god (see " The Three Kabeiroi " 
 in Vol. II.), a sexual pair of driving-gods, the impellers, the com- 
 pellers, of the rolling heavens : 
 
 Quaegelidis ab stellis axis agiintur (Lucretius vi, 721), 
 where " axis " is held to mean the North Pole, though that seems 
 by no means necessary. 
 
 KyavT] (compare ayaa, I wonder) was the daughter of Kadmos and Har- 
 monia, and was an ultra devotee of Dionusos ; AgEnor [rjvopiri manhness ; 
 .'. rjvaip = dvrip) father of Kadmos and son of Poseidon or AntEnor (= fore- or 
 first-man), is a primitive man-god who falls into the same long category, which 
 I cannot exhaust here. 'AyyiAlcr-Tis was a name of Rhea or Cybele, the mother 
 of the gods, on Mount AgDistis, otherwise Mount Dindumos or Didumos, which 
 last would imply twin or dual mountain or mountains(?). It was there that, 
 after the deluge, stones were animated into men by Deukalion. AgaAIemnon 
 (meinnon = eternal, fiiva fiifiva to last) is another divine name for the central 
 great entity or force (see p. 1 19 supra and " The Rock of Ages " 1/1/7-0). 
 
 And one of my foremost contentions is that we are to see in all 
 these gods in ag-, and in fact in all the Cosmic upholders as well 
 as in the Cosmic movers, a recognition of the divinity of the Forces 
 of Nature, of what scientific nomenclature now calls Energy, of 
 what Schopenhauer's great generalisation called the \\'ille, the 
 Ding an Sich of the All, as that All is revealed by our senses. 
 " No one has ever contested," wrote Prof Sven Nilsson," " that the 
 Alfs, Vans, Dwergs and so forth, are not presented as Natural 
 Forces in the Voluspa and the other chants oi \\\(t EddasT 
 
 To return to AgLauros. The Palatina laurus which stood 
 before the palace of the Caesars (Ovid, Fast, iv, 593) has already 
 
 ' A^c de la Pknc, 3rd ed. 1S6S, p. 295. 
 
MytJis^ Daphne and AgLanros. 347 
 
 been mentioned (p. 43) as a representative of the Universe-laurel- 
 tree. 71?/ius, whom I maintain to have been an axis-god, was 
 buried in a laurel-wood on the Aventine hill ■} and Troja (which I 
 call a celestial Trinidad) was the name of a spot in the Laurentum 
 territory, where ^neas was fabled to have landed. 
 
 In Ovid,^ PalLas changes AgLauros into a stone, which is a 
 further connexion of her with the Axis stone-pillar deities, and 
 also another link of the Tree with the Pillar (see p. 330 supra). The 
 petrifaction (which is a sort of doublet of that of Daphnis p. 343 
 supra) took place near the lofty rocks with which we have to meet 
 so often in this Inquiry — the fxaKpai irerpai (Herod, viii, 53) at the 
 North of the Akropolis (again, see " The Rock of Ages "). The 
 legend which makes AgLauros precipitate herself as a mediating 
 saviour from the height of the akropolis is also often here paral- 
 leled. 
 
 She was sworn by ;' and she had an important place in the ritual 
 of Athene Polias (a title which is one more bond of PalLas to the 
 Pole). It would even seem that AgLauros was the sole heroine, 
 or goddess rather, of the 7r\vvTi'^pi.a* a washing-day {TrXvvo)) or 
 purification festival of Athene Polias, of whom she was also said 
 (compare Daphne, p. 343) to have been the first high-priestess. 
 Athene was even surnamed AgLauros :' AgLauros had a son 
 'Kvjpv^ (singer, herald) by Hermes, and a daughter Alkippe {oXki} 
 strength ?) by Ares. So said Pausanias and Apollodoros, thus 
 making her the consort of supreme central Axis and Spear gods. 
 In Cyprus, as Porphyry related,'' her worship was conjoined with 
 that of Ares, and a human victim was sacrificed to them with a 
 spear. 
 
 In the Syriac version of the Tlicophania attributed to Eusebius,' it is stated 
 that "at Salamis in the Cypriot month Aphrodisios (23 Sept. to 23 Oct.) a man 
 was sacrificed to ' Argaula ' the daughter of Kekrops and daughter-in-law of 
 ' ArgauHs.' In one enclosure was the temple of Athene, 'Argaula,' and 
 DioMedes. He who was to be sacrificed, when his coevals had led him thrice 
 round the altar, was stricken on the stomach with a spear by the priest (see 
 " The Navels " infra). He was then wholly burnt on a fire. This custom 
 was so changed that they sacrificed the man to DioMeDes. Diphilos 
 King of Cyprus changed this custom for the sacrifice of a bull." Here we 
 
 ' Festiis, Tatiiim, Troja. - Metam. ii. 70S, 832. 
 
 ' Aristoph. Thesmoph. 533 (Schol). ' Ilesych. sub voce. Phot. Lc.rit. 
 
 ■' Harpocrat. p. 4. ^ Dc Absi. Cain, ii, 54. 
 
 ^ Dr. Lee's translation, 1S43, P- ^^9- 
 
34S The Night of the Gods. ^Axis 
 
 have the triad of deities, but Hermes replaced by (not Arcs but) the son of 
 Arcs or of TuDeus. Note the feminine 1)ut garbled form of AyLauros. 
 
 AgLauros has been confounded in ancient and modern times with her 
 mother Agraulos ('"ypn chace ?) daughter of Aktaios (uKTaiva move ?) — names 
 which seem to classify themselves with the Atalanta and Kaludon heavens- 
 rotation myths. Cognate to this confusion was the making AgLauros to be one 
 of the daughters of EreChTheus (who was thus equated with Kekrops) ; and 
 the daughters of EreChTheus do as these three nursemaids of EriChThonios 
 do. (See also what is said on this subject in "The Arcana".) In Harrison and 
 Verrall's recent and charming inanual on the Mythology of Ancient Athens' the 
 goddess is theoretically called Agiaulos throughout. Seyffert's new Dictionai-y 
 (iSgi) also calls her Agraulos (her mother's name) although giving the "grotto 
 of Aglauros " on a plan of the Acropolis. But all this cannot I think be held 
 to blot-out the indubitable and more frequent Aglauros. At all events I have 
 with me here the Franco-Greco-decado-symbolo-Roman poet Jean Aloreas 
 (l5orn at Athens, 15th of April 1856) who, in his Pt'lcrin passioiic {\?><-)i), has the 
 
 lines : 
 
 II lui faudrait la reine Cleopatre, 
 
 II lui faudrait Hdlie et Melusine, 
 
 Et celle-lk nommde Aglaure, et celle 
 
 Que le Soudan emporte en sa nacelle. 
 The hicron of AgLauros was called the Agrauleion, probably 
 after her mother, to whose cult she may have succeeded — as is so 
 common with the }-oungcr divine generations. This hieron too had 
 an underground commimication with the I'lrechthcion \\hicli was 
 the original sanctuary of Athene Polias, ErcCliTlteus and Poseidon. 
 It had tliree altars, and was connected by three doors ^^■ith a 
 smaller cliamber, entered from the North, on one wall of which were 
 three windows and seven half-columns. The North side of the 
 temple without had seven columns in front and one pillar on each 
 side. Underneath was the cleft in the rock made b)- a blow of 
 Poseidon's trident. This may be all Polar. In the adjoining 
 PanDroseion was the sacred olivetree of Athene. It is obvious 
 that the whole of the extremely archaic myth has been much 
 muddled, and one would incline even to the belief that PanDrosos 
 (see "The Gods of the Druids") and AgLauros were once 
 identical. The basket or chest in which EriChThonios \\-as shut- 
 up is treated with the analogous Rloses-nn-th of C\'psclus under 
 the heading "The Arcana." 
 
 If Herse and Drosos both mean only dew, might not one incline to the 
 idea that drosos-dew was that tree-dew which we call honey-dew ? (But see 
 what is said under " The Arcana.") 
 
 ' MacMill.in, 1^90. 
 
Myths?!^ Daphne and AgLanros. 349 
 
 The -OS is a masculine termination both in AgLauros and 
 PanDrosos, although all three are sisters in the myth ; and it is 
 acutely pointed out in Harrison and Verrall's Ancient Athens 
 (p. xxxii) that the figures on an amphora in the British Museum, 
 which seem intended for two of the sisters, are " drawn male not 
 female" as to their robes. If PanDrosos could be viewed as an 
 AllSproutage god, it would suit me well enough. But it must not be 
 forgotten that their father KeKpo-ijr was a bisexual first-god, he was 
 diphues or biformis, a man-woman or a man-serpent. In regard to 
 the doubtful sex of AgLauros it may be noted too that the god 
 AgDis-tis was also a HermAphrodite (Paus. vii, i8). 
 [There are three sisters in the legend of Mehisine (see p. 149 supra), who is 
 a woman-serpent on every seventh-day. They shut-up their father iT/enas 
 king of v4/i5ania in the mountain of Brundelois, which may belong to bronte, 
 thunder.] 
 
 This duplexity it may have been that gave /ce/cpw-v/r or KeKpo^ 
 its signification of duplicity as an " impostor."' There was also a 
 stone called SL(pvT]<;.- Kekrops was autochthonous and a son of 
 Earth. He was also son and successor of Aktaios, the first king 
 (/. e. man-god) of Athens. Or Kekrops also founded Athens and 
 the worship of Zeus Hypatos (the most high) and Athene Polias 
 — a pair who are here clearly a dual celestial polar deity. Kekrops 
 also put up the first altar to Kronos and Rhea. He, or the Twelve 
 gods (one of the earliest juries, and to be compared with the 
 proverb about the Twelve Apostles, see p. 179 snpni) arbitrated 
 between Poseidon and Athene about the possession of Attica, 
 where she had planted the first olive and so gained her cause. 
 Attike (? cLTra, fatherland) ought thus to mean figuratively the 
 Earth ? Kekrops was sometimes shown holding a branch 
 (QaXKo^ ?) sometimes a very long spear topped unmistakeably with 
 a large fleur-de-lis." 
 
 ' There is however KepKoi\jf, tailed (from Kepnos tail ?), cunning, a kind of ape or 
 monkey, a grasshopper ; which suggests a comparison with ovpa^ grouse, and thence 
 with the other ovpa (tail) words ; and even brings Ouranus and Cecrops together. (See 
 pp. 23, 46, supra. ) 
 
 - Fliny xx.wii, 10, 57. ' D.iremboiirg and Saglio's Diet. Antiq. i, 9S7. 
 
35° The Night of the Gods. {Axis 
 
 27. — The Gods of the Druids. 
 
 THE Irish rendered a';-///, a druid, into Latin as Magus; and 
 inversely, when Christianity was coming in, Simon Magus 
 became Simon Drui. The word also went into Anglo-Saxon as 
 dr\''. a magician. 
 
 The Druids of ancient Erinn maintained that they were the 
 creators of the heavens and the earth, said O'Curry Hi, 21) ; and 
 this is considered " privileged audacity."' But I think that if we 
 make use of the important leading fact that the Cabires, the Car- 
 cines, Corybantes, and Sintians, the Curetes, the Dactyles, and the 
 Telchines were, whether magician-priests or the gods of those 
 priests, alike called by the same titles, we shall probably see in the 
 Creator-Drui a god, and in the Man-Drui his priest. 
 
 " There are two kinds of gods," declares the Satapatlia- 
 hrahuianar " first the gods ; then those who are Brahmans, and 
 have learnt the Veda and repeat it ; they are human gods." 
 
 This general consideration seems effectualI\-to disperse much of 
 the mist which has gathered round the word ' druid,' and to give us 
 the true clue to the name of the druidical god, whose aydXixa or image 
 was said b\' ]\Iaximus Tyrius^ to be a lofty oak : /ceXToi ae/Bovac 
 /u,ev Ala' dya\/u.a Se Aio? KeXriKov vip-rjXr] Bpv'i. This also explains 
 better why the " Dia druidcchta, god of druidism," of the Irish 
 texts' was considered a sufficient mention of him, without giving his 
 actual name (see also p. 331 supra). 
 
 The terms druidical (druidechta) and druidical spells (geasa 
 druidechta) seem indubitabU' to have straightly represented the 
 words divine and dixination in their (accreted) sense of enchantment, 
 discovery of the occult, and so on. In fact it may be strong!)- 
 suspected that the real origin of our word guess is nearer to this 
 xcry geis {^\Mx-a\ gcasa ox gesa) Xh'axi to the Scandinavian or Old- 
 Low-German from which Professor Skeat (without mentioning the 
 Irish) deduces the word. In support of this, the reader is referred 
 to the numerous passages about the gcsa easily accessible in Dr. 
 JoN'ce's Old Celtic Romances f and I quote the following from his 
 " Fairy Palace of the Quicken Trees" (Rowan-Palace, Bruighean 
 
 ' Rips's Bil: Lects. 673. 
 
 - Dr. Eggelirg's, ii, 341. ^ Dissert, viii (Reiske, i, 1^21. 
 
 ■* Rhys's A'zV'. Lccts. 224. ^ Pp. 60, 61, 62, 1S9, 191, 2S1, 354, 3^-. 300. 
 
Myths ^ The Gods of the Druids. 35 1 
 
 Caerthainn) p. i86 — " But the strange champion [Miodhach, a central 
 power] answered Finn : ' I now put you under gesa, which true 
 heroes do not suffer, that you hsteii to my [enigma-] poem, and that 
 you find out and explain its meaning' ;" and this from " Dermat 
 and Grania " (p. 339): "Then the steward [of Angus] laid me 
 [Finn] under fearful bonds of druidical gesa to find out for him who 
 slew his son"; which Finn does by chewing his thumb under his 
 tooth of knowledge, and he practises similar divination at other 
 times.^ Druidical art or spell is always divination- or enchantment.^ 
 Grania placed Diarmait " under gesa and under the bonds of heavy 
 druidical spells — bonds that true heroes never break through," to 
 take her for his consort.^ Thick mists in which men get lost were 
 druidical, magical ; and men were made to forget by druidical 
 spells which could be sent to follow after the absent/ The virga 
 divina appears as the golden druidical (fairy or magic) wand, with 
 which Cian changes himself into a pig, and Brian changes his 
 brothers into fleet hounds to pursue it, and afterwards changes 
 himself and his brothers into hawks and into swans ;" or Eva (Aeife) 
 changes the children of Lir into the four snow-white swans of one 
 of the most pathetic fairy-tales in any tongue, while the king of the 
 De Dananns changes her into a demon of the air until the end of 
 Time/ The steward of Angus also thus brings his dead son to life 
 as the boar of Ben-Gulban.* (All which last might have been 
 mentioned under " Rhabdomancy.") 
 
 The druids were consulted as to places fortunate to settle in,'' 
 just as fengshui is to this day similarly practised in China. Coran 
 the druid of Conn puts forth his power and chants against the 
 witchery and voice of the Woman of the Mountain (bean-sidhe, 
 banshee), and his power was greater than hers for that time.'" 
 Mailduin goes to the druid Nuca to get advice about building his 
 triple-hide corrach, and a charm to protect him both while building 
 it and sailing in it afterwards.^' Miluchradh, the daughter of 
 Culand, the Hephaistos of the De Dananns, breathes a druidical 
 virtue into the waters of a lake, in which all who bathe become old.'- 
 Daire of the Poems was one of Finn's druids.'' The giant 
 Draoigheantoir (Dryantore) was a druid with powerful magical 
 
 ' Rhys's Hih. Lects. 194. = /bid. 4S, 266. ^ //,,y, jg^^ 369, 3S3. < //,/</. 2S1. 
 
 5 y,5/</. 363, 365, 84. "^ //'/(/. 44, 45, 65, 66. 7/3/./. 8,15. 
 
 " lliiJ. 339. 9 Ibid. 98. '" Ibid. 107 to 109. 
 
 " Ibid. 116. •■- Il;d. 352. . 1^ Ibid. 277. 
 
3S2 
 
 The Night of the Gods. 
 
 {Axis 
 
 spells, and the Fomorian giant Lobais was also a clruid/ The 
 inhabitants of the celestial Land of Promise were " the most skilled 
 in Druidic art.''- There was a Coill-na-drua, Wood of the Druids, 
 near Fermoy.^ The giant of Antwerp is called Druon Antigon.* 
 The title of W. Reynitzsch's book Ucbcr Tnilitcii uiid Tnilttetisteine 
 (Gotha, 1802) makes Druid = Truht, but the German dictionaries 
 give Druid. 
 
 Professor Rhys draws drui from the Celtic word dm " which we 
 have in Drunemeton (ApwaifieTiov?), or the sacred Oak-grove, 
 given by Strabo as the place of assemblage of the Galatians of 
 Asia Minor." The Greek Spvi is of course the same word ; but it 
 may well be denied that S/jO? (as is generally held in this connexion) 
 originally meant an oak, or any other species /tv se of trees. ApC'? 
 equals Tree simply ; the Platonic idea of " tree " if you will ; that 
 is, cosmo-theologically, the Universe-Tree. And what is more, 
 Tree and Apv^ are identicall)- the same word, and are the same also 
 with Sopv a spear-shaft, which is a further identification of the Sopu 
 of Kronos with the Universe-a.xis. Thus we have : 
 . Dru . 
 
 Ursprache 
 Avestan 
 Sanskrit , 
 
 Celtic : Old-Irish . 
 Irish . 
 Welsh 
 " Teutonic type " . 
 Teutonic : Gothic . 
 Icelandic 
 Anglo-Saxon 
 Swedish 
 
 Danish . 
 
 Greek 
 
 Lithuanian 
 Old Slavonic 
 Russian . 
 
 daura 
 dru . 
 
 dru . 
 cirus . 
 daru . 
 daur . 
 darag, dar 
 derw, ddi 
 
 triu . 
 tre . 
 treci . 
 tra . 
 trad . 
 trii-et 
 trae . 
 SpCs . 
 5dpv . 
 
 derwa 
 drevo 
 drevo 
 
 original sense tree rather 
 than timber (Curtius). 
 
 log- 
 timber, 
 timber, 
 log. 
 
 timber ; a species of pine, 
 tree and oak. 
 oak. 
 oak. 
 
 tree (Fick). 
 tree, timber, 
 timber, 
 tree, timber, 
 timber. 
 tree. 
 
 " //;t--\vood.'' 
 timber. 
 
 fruit-tree, any tree, an oak. 
 spear-shaft, beam, 
 pine-wood, 
 tree, 
 tree. 
 
 ' Rhys's Hit'. Lais. 3S3, 41. ' 
 
 ■I De Baeckcr, AV//''-. lyord. Fraiirc, 202 
 
 ll'iJ. 26S. 
 
 ^ Il'uL 224. 
 
Myths^^ The Gods of the Dniids. 353 
 
 "That bpw, Old-Irish daur, Sanskrit dru, Gothic triu, &c., are related is 
 certain," writes Dr. O. Schrader, "and yet the question whether the original 
 meaning was oak or tree hardly admits of solution."' But elsewhere he says 
 that " the words which, though differing widely in their vowels, are noted for 
 the presence of the consonants d-7; mean sometimes tree, sometimes oak, and 
 not unfrequently have even taken on the meaning of pine. Probably the 
 primary significance of this stock of words in the original language was tree." 
 And he reckons up : Sanskrit and Avestan dr-u tree, O-Saxon drtivo drevo 
 wood, Albanian dru wood and tree, OHG trog wooden-vessel, Lithuanian derwk 
 resinous-wood, 0-Norse tyrr fir, Dutch teer = tar, O-Norse tjara = tar, Sanskrit 
 daru wood, Avestan dauru wood, Greek Siipu spear, Macedonian &apvK\os oak, 
 Irish dair and daur oak, Greek hiv-bp-ov tree, perhaps = 8p-i;r. 
 Similarly busk in Norway now means any bush in general ; but 
 among the peasantry its ancient meaning of birch-tree still survives.- 
 And I shall here note down that a^wv axle a.xis and assis, o^va 
 beech (= English ash) are now all put with Sanskrit aksh, reach.' 
 
 Apv/u.o'i is a forest not of oaks alone, and gave the diminutive 
 surname Drymulus ; the bird Spuo-zcoXaTrr?;? is a woodpecker not 
 an oakpecker ; Spu-TreTr-^? or Spvinra or Spv-7reT)j<; is not a falling 
 acorn but a ripe olive or any other fruit ready to drop ; Spv6(povov 
 is a kind of fern ; ipvo-irTepl^ is straightly the winged-tree (of the 
 Universe, see p. 308 supra) ; and the plant drys was also called 
 chamaepitys and drysites. 
 
 One wonders that nobody seems to point out the inevitable 
 connexion of Druid and Dryad (dryas, dryades ; S/jua?, 8pvdSe<;).* 
 A.pva<! was a centaur who transfixed with a pole the giant or 
 centaur or king of the Marsi magicians, Rhoetus (which must have 
 a connexion with Rhea 'Pea the Earth) ; he was also a son of 
 Ares or (according to Hyginus) of lapetos, the giant-father of 
 AtLas ; Homer (//. i) said Apvai; covered himself with glory fighting 
 the centaurs of the mountains. He was also one of the LapiThai, 
 or stone-gods, and joined in the hunt of the Boar of KaXvScov. 
 Apua? was the father of the great Z^rcgiver, LukOurgos ; and as 
 such warred against the gods. Again — it is all in the part — he 
 was son to LukOurgos and killed by his father, who mistook him 
 for a vine-stem, with a blow of a hatchet. He is also killed by 
 
 ^ Jevons's Schrader's Prchist. Aryan Antiq. (iSgo) 13S, 272_ 
 
 - Hoh-nbot's Biiddhisnie en Norvege, Paris, 1S57, p. 48. 
 
 ^ Wharton's Etyma Graca and Etyma Latina. 
 
 '• The "A/ia-8pua5ec must, I think, be compared with "Ajitaja, a wain, " Charles's "- 
 Wain. To say with Schrevelius that iiixa- in the nymphs-name means " coeval " with 
 their trees, is unsufficing. "A/na- in a Wain may refer to its paired wheels ; but Mr. 
 Wharton in his Ely ma Gricca makes the word ana^a = ii/xa (together) -I- ii^av (axle). 
 
 Z 
 
354 
 
 TJie Ni^/it of the Gods. 
 
 [Axis 
 
 Hecate. The name of this god doubtless gives us the true mythic 
 sense of Pliny's (xxxvii, ii, ~^) "unknown precious stone" the 
 hpvlTiq, which is not alone a close parallel to the IMedea nigra 
 (p. 142 supra), but brings the Stone and Tree together, as in the 
 Irish myth of Diarmait. Druas must be the chief of the Druades, 
 and therefore one with the god of the Druids ; and I shall here 
 ask whether this does not enlighten the difficult Latin adjective 
 drudus = fidus (see P"idius), amicus, amasius, with which the 
 Italian drudo and the German traut should be compared. We 
 thus have : 
 
 Italian .... drudo, druda 
 
 Latin .... drudus 
 
 Old Prussian . . . druwi, druwis 
 ... druwit 
 
 a lover. 
 
 fidus, amicus, amasius. 
 
 belief (Fick). 
 
 to believe (Fick). 
 
 and we must connect these with our own word True, as follows 
 
 " Base " 
 
 " Teutonic type '' 
 
 Teutonic : Gothic 
 
 Icelandic 
 Anglo-Saxon 
 
 )» 
 English . 
 
 )? 
 
 Old high-German 
 German . 
 
 Dutch 
 Swedish 
 
 Danish 
 Thus Tree and True w 
 
 trau . 
 
 trewa 
 
 trauan 
 
 triggwa 
 
 triggws . 
 
 tryggr, triu- 
 
 tre6«-, tryw 
 
 treou e, trywe 
 
 troth 
 
 true. 
 
 trust, truth. 
 
 triuwa 
 
 triuwi 
 
 traut. 
 
 treu . 
 
 treue 
 
 trouw 
 
 tro . 
 
 trogen 
 
 tro . 
 
 to believe (Fick). 
 
 true (Fick). 
 
 to trust. 
 
 covenant. 
 
 true. 
 
 true. 
 
 truth, fidelity to a compact. 
 
 true. 
 
 fidelitv. 
 
 fidelity. 
 
 true. 
 
 beloved. 
 
 true. 
 
 fidelity. 
 
 fidelity, faithful, true. 
 
 fidelity. 
 
 true. 
 
 truth, true. 
 
 ould perhaps lia\'e a common root ; and 
 the root of True would no longer be so "unknown" as Prof. 
 Skeat says it is. The rationale of all this is what is so often 
 pointed-out in the course of this Inquiry (Prithee refer to the 
 Index) as to the immo\'eable central supernal position of the gods 
 of Truth and of the Universe-Tree ; and the analogy here drawn 
 is very much on all fours -with that between ayioi;, dya66i and the 
 root ag on p. 345 siipi'a. 
 
Myi/is.] The Gods of the Driiids. 355 
 
 With all these must be mentioned the Hindu god-name of the 
 Polestar, Dhruva, and also Drupada the king of PauchdXz. (which 
 must be an alias for \.\\^ five districts of Bharata, which I maintain 
 to be the revolving universe). The grandfather of Drupada was 
 Soma-ka (see p. 290 supra). 
 
 With the divine Dryads we must of course also connect the 
 goddess ApvoTri], consort of HeraKles and mother of Amphissos by 
 Apollo or AndrAimon/ She is clearly a most important Universe- 
 tree goddess, and her union both with Apollo and the man-god (?) 
 Andraim6n may figure the heavenly and earthly presence of the 
 Tree, while Herakles must here be viewed as the Atlas whose 
 place he often took. Druope offers crowns or wreaths to the 
 nymphs of the lotus-lake ; but plucking a lotus-flower for her 
 infant it drops blood, and the plant trembles with anger. Affrighted 
 she tries to flee, but her feet have grown to the ground, the bark of 
 the injured plant springs upwards around her, enwraps her whole 
 body, and she becomes a lotus-tree. Here we have clearly, not 
 alone a companion to the myth of Magnes as a fixed Axis-god 
 (p. 142 supra), but a rooted Universe-axis-tree goddess, another 
 Daphne ; a form of the footprint myths ; the sanctity and person- 
 ality of the lotus-flower ; a blood-incident which is also perhaps 
 adumbrated in the father's name AndrAimon, and which reappears 
 in the mediaeval legend of the eucharist-host ; besides the super- 
 natural punishment of blasphemers against tree-worship. Another 
 function of this great goddess was (in Homer) to be the mother 
 of Pan by Hermes. Virgil {yEii. x, 551) made her mother of 
 Tarquitus (the name of a heavens-turning god) by Faunus. 
 Now Faunus (= Pan ?) father of Latinus, was the son of Picus ( = 
 the pike or lance which is the Axis, see p. 40) the son of SaTurnus 
 (= Kronos). Faunus had also a daughter Dryas ; which is another 
 indubitable connexion of Faunus (= Pan) with Apua?, the Dryades, 
 and (I venture to assert) the Druids. 
 
 Fauna, alias Fatua and Marica, the Bona Dea, sister and wife of 
 Faunus (alias Fatuus) and daughter of Picus, was also an alias of 
 Cybele ; and Fauna has been equated with Juno Sispita (or Sospita, 
 Saviour). Faunus and Fauna as Lares make the Lares the 
 
 ' This word contains an oblique case of avi]p ; and the genitive av-Spus includes, I 
 suggest, a recognition of the myth that men came from trees (see p. 310 supra, and 
 EuAndros just below). All the words in dcSp- assume from this point of view a strange 
 interest. 
 
 Z 2 
 
3S6 The Nigkt of the Cods. [Axis 
 
 supremest of gods. The descent of Faunus on earth (so we read 
 his passage to Itaha from Arcadia, the Northern heavens, see 
 Index) was celebrated in tlie FaunaHa of I'cbruary ; and his 
 reasccnsion in the Faunaha of November or December. His 
 altars were said to have been honoured even in the mythic times 
 of the man-god (.') Kv\v8po<; (another Italian immigrant from 
 Arcadia). Incense was burnt at those altars, oblations of wine 
 iTiade, and sheep and kids sacrificed. The Fauni (man-goat or 
 ram deities) to whom the pine and \\ild olive were sacred, and who 
 played the flute, were identified with the Panes and Ficarii. 
 
 F. Lenormant^ makes the suggestion that the god A.pvoip- of 
 Asinc (Pausanias iv, 34, 6) is the same as Zeus Triopas, Hellanicos 
 having used the name Apvoyp- instead of Tptoi/r. This (see below) 
 may not be impossible, but Lcnormant, according to his wont, was 
 here arguing ethnically only. The fact that the Dryopes people 
 were said to be a branch of the Pelasgians- or of the Dorians (spear- 
 gods) merely endows them with the stupendous mythic age of their 
 gods. The name LaoGoras, of the king of the Dryopes killed by 
 HeraKles, may (see pp. 119, I30 supra) indicate a stone-deit\-, but 
 to test that thoroughly one would have to run down the mjths of 
 all the deities and words in Lao-, and there is no time for that just 
 now. 
 
 To these may be added as druidical gods, Zeus EnDcn/?;^^ and 
 Helene DenZ^r/tis in Rhodes, and Dionusos EnDenDros in 
 Boeotia.'' 
 
 The nymph Drymo (Gcorgics iv, 1^^) >nust also be named ; and 
 the term /\pv/j,w8r]i; Drymodes or Sylvosa, for Arcadia. Also the 
 feasts to DeMeter Thcsmophoros (Law-bearer) at .lpvp.la, Apvp.aia 
 or Apv/j.o'i in Phocis. 
 
 The name UdvSpoaoi; must be of the dpv<; family, and would 
 thus one fancies indicate the L"niverse-tree deity (see p. 315 siiprd). 
 It was within the enclosure of her sanctuary, the PanDroseion that 
 stood the walled-round sacred Olive (eXaia irayKvjjo^) which Athene 
 made to spring suddenly from the Earth by a tap of her spear. •• 
 There too was the well of holy salt water, or hole of the trident. 
 The PanDroseion opened to the North, and was next the sanctuary 
 of Athene Polias ; and both deities were conjoined in worship. 
 
 ' Art. Ceres in Davemberg and Saglio's Did. Antiq. i, 1051. 
 
 - Ibid. 1021, 1025, 1033. 
 
 •" Paui. iii, 19, 10 ; and Hesychius (Endendros). ■* Botticher : Bauinkidt. 107, 231. 
 
Myths.'] The Gods of the Druids. 357 
 
 PanDrosos was sworn by/ Her sanctuary also held a statue of 
 Thallo, who was sacrificed-to with PanDrosos. If Thallo be con- 
 nected with daXKo'i a branch, it seems to be one more proof of the 
 tree-nature of PanDrosos. The masculine form of the word Pan- 
 Drosos is remarked upon at p. 349 supra, and it is suggested that 
 PanDrosos was originally the equivalent of AgLauros. Their rock- 
 sanctuaries the Agrauleion and the PanDroseion communicated by 
 a fissure. 
 
 ApO? in Thrakc was founded by IphiKrates ( = almighty-power); 
 which merely means that the Universe tree-axis was placed by the 
 chief force of the Cosmos. The description which Theopompos 
 gave of IphiKrates belongs here : "he was huge in mind and body, 
 and of such imperial form that the very sight of him inspired 
 wonder. But in labour he was no way remiss, nor in patience 
 thereunto."- This is clearly allegorical (see also p. 342 supra). 
 
 Perhaps it is somewhat venturesome to follow Spur into 'OSpiio-ios a surname 
 of Boreas, the north and the north-wind. It was also a surname of Bacchus 
 and of Orpheus. The origin of the original noun would have been 'O-Apur, if it 
 be permissible so to divide the word ; but there is also found on coins "oSpof ; 
 and '08po7/r exists^ as well as 'OSpvcrm as a name of the Thracians, whose god 
 'oSpvs (or"o8pos) must have been. As to 'O-Apvs, why should not a tree-god 
 have been male as well as female ? Clemens Alexandrinus'' wrote that the 
 Kithairon mountains of Bceotia (where Pentheus and Aktaion died), and 
 Helikon, and the mountains of the Odrusai, and the initiatory rites of the 
 Thracians, mysteries of deceit, were hallowed and celebrated in hymns. Then 
 he says (ch. ii), that the Phrygian Midas learned cunning imposture from 
 Odrusos ; and again that (as above) Orpheus was an Odrusian, and that wise 
 men were honoured, and philosophy cultivated publicly by all the Brahmans 
 and the Odrusai and the Getae.^ 
 
 And it is as well to add here another extract from Clemens, who says : 
 "The Gerandruon, once regarded sacred in the midst of desert sands, and the 
 oracle there gone to decay with the Oak " (tree ?) " itself — consign these to the 
 region of anticiuated fables." The dictionaries, picking up the idea of decay, 
 say that yepavSpvov is " an old tree or trunk ; from yepoiv-Spvs," thus completely 
 sinking the termination -ov. And the commentators (for Shakespeare does not 
 monopolise them all) say " what this is, is not know-n ; but it is likely that the 
 word is a corruption of Upav-hpvv, the sacred oak." Clemens clearly had in his 
 eye a tree-oracle in an oasis, and it is more likely perhaps that the word really 
 means the temple of the Crane-tree yipai/os-Spis. 
 
 But these chips and my occupation of Spvropns must here for the present 
 come to an end ; else will the reader become a ApvaKos, a proper name which 
 
 ' Aristoph. Thesniofh. 533 (Schol). - Theopomp. /ra^. 117, IlS, 175. 
 
 ^ Steph. Byz. 507. ■• Exhorin. to Hellenes, ch. i. 
 
 " Stroniata, i, ch. 15. 
 
3S8 The Night of the Gods. 
 
 the old dictionaries used woodenly to render: "one who has had enough of 
 oaks." 
 
 At the end of this Tree section has to be written down a humihatincf con- 
 fession. I have not read Mr. Fraser's famous Golden Bough. When that book 
 came out, this section was already in manuscript, and the ^doubtless trivial) 
 resolution was formed not to read Mr. Fraser's book until I had, as it were, 
 burnt my ships by getting into print. Xow, at length, will come the great treat 
 of its perusal. 
 
 \_Want of room in tins I'olnuic has enforced the teuiporarv 
 exclusion of the Sections on the Bridge, the Dogs, tJic Boat, and the 
 Ladder {see p. 4).] 
 
359 
 
 Polar Myths. 
 
 I. — The Navels. 
 — The Rock of Ages. 
 — The Arcana. 
 —The North. 
 — The Eye of Heaven. 
 — The Polestar. 
 
 I. — The Navels. 
 
 THE self-styled Middle-Kingdom of the Chinese is familiar to 
 all the world : not so one of the ancient names for Japan, 
 Ashi-hara no naka tsu kuni, the middle-kingdom of the Reed- 
 plain, which lies on the summit of the globe.^ Japan was also the 
 centre of the Earth, under the pivot of the vault of the heavens.^ 
 The Avestans dwelt in the middle Karshvar (later Keshvar) of the 
 world, which answers to the Indian central Jambu-dwipa,^ where 
 the axis-tree Jambu grows-up, see p. 289 supra. In the Rig Veda^ 
 amrtasya nabhim is the navel of the heavens, and nabhir prthivyas 
 the navel of the Earth. The one, the holiest supernal spot, is 
 directly over the other, the holiest terrestrial shrine."' The Chinese 
 terrestrial paradise at the centre of the Earth is directly underneath 
 Shang-Ti's heavenly palace." Surely all this imager}^ can be 
 puzzled-out only by the key supplied from the respective positions 
 of the celestial and terrestrial Northern poles. And thus, as there 
 were two Pillars (see p. 235) so there were two Navels. 
 
 The Swarga-dwara or heavens-gate at Puri (compare with " The 
 Dokana" supra) is the mystic navel of the Earth." The Roof-of- 
 
 ' Mr. Chamberlain's Kcjiki, 37. Mr. Satow's Pure Shinto, 68. 
 
 - MetchnikofTs //-Sw/wryrt/. 18S1, 265. ^ G<i\'gftx'% Iranian Civilisation, i, IC9. 
 
 ■* ii, 40, I ; iii, 29, 4, » Dr. Warren's Paradise Found, ill. 
 
 ' Chinese Recorder, iv, 95. ' Sir W. Hunter's Orissa, 84, 144. 
 
36o The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 the-World, the Bam-i-Dunia on the Pamirs, is also called the heart 
 and the central boss of Asia. Odusseus was detained by Kalupso 
 the daughter of AtLas — is kalupso = koKov v^o-i, holy height? — in 
 the island of Ogugia, the navel of the Universe-Ocean,' 6fi(f)a\6<; 
 OaXiiaarji;. 
 
 If this island, like most mythic "islands" in all cosmogonies, be figurative 
 of the Earth (see p. 33 si/pra), then we ought to find in ti-yi-yia the words 
 yvijr, plough-tree (? Earth-axis), and yaia yn Earth (but see p. 32) ; yi'ijt also of 
 course meant field, tract of land : and so did yia yvi) yvia, which last may 
 rather be the yia of 'Qyvyia. If this be any approximation to the real et)-mology, 
 then the names 'nyvyr/i and Tvyrji would have to range themselves under the 
 same head. 
 The nombril of white stone in the temple at Delphoi was the 
 
 " But that which is called by the Dclphians the Omphalos," wrote Pausanias 
 ix, 16) "and which is made of white stone, is, as they say, the middle point 
 of the whole Earth." Elsewhere he had written (ii, 13) " Not far from the 
 agora of Phlious there is a place which is called '0/i<^aX6r, and which is the 
 middle of all Peloponnesos, if their reports can be depended on." 
 Then we have also the Vedic Agni standing at the Xavel of the 
 Earth; as in W'i'lson's Hi'^-l'afa : " thou Vaishwanara (/. ^. Agni) 
 art the navel of men, and supportest tliem like a deep-planted 
 column;" "Agni, head of hea\-en, navel of earth" (i, 157). 
 Nabhi and Meru are even the parents of Rishabha, who is again 
 the father of the great Bharata and of 99 other sons. According 
 to Garcilasso de la Vega," Cuzco, their capital, meant ' navel ' in 
 the special language of the Incas ; the Chickesaw Indians believed 
 Mississippi to be in the centre of the Earth, and the " mounds" of 
 the country to be navels.' Jerusalem was believed to be the exact 
 centre of the earth, and long passed as its navel ; and so did 
 Bab)-lon, Athens, Delphoi, Paphos, and other places, not forgetting 
 Samarcand, which is the Turkoman central focus of the globe,'' and 
 Boston (Mass.) ^^hich is reputed the hub, the nave, of the universe. 
 All these may very well be offshoots from a lost primeval cosmic 
 conception, which I am here endeavouring to make clear, of the 
 northern terrestrial na\-el or nave, which turned on the cosmic 
 axe-tree (see p. 289). 
 
 The Navel, nabhih, became in the \'edas, b\- (as will presently 
 be seen) a natural extension, first the Altar, and then its sacrifice ; 
 
 ' Odyss. i, 50. - Hist, of the Yncas, book i, ch. iS. 
 
 ^ Schoolcraft, i, 311. '' Yamhery's False Dervish, :SS (Frencli eil. ). 
 
Myths:] The Navels. 361 
 
 the centre of worship being attracted-by and assimilated-to the 
 centre of the worshipped. Agni too, the sacred Fire, the mes- 
 senger also of the gods, was present on the sacrificial altar-navel as 
 well as at the nave of the wheel, of the fire-wheel, the navel of the 
 heavens. Under the head of " The Wheel" in Vol. II. I dwell at 
 greater length on the Touraine altar placed-on and turned-about 
 on a cart-wheel, while the priest gave his benediction. And it 
 seems to me that the terms nave of a wheel and nave of a church 
 are thus of identical origin ; the derivation of the latter nave from 
 navis a ship being fantastical merely. Nau is the Vedic Sanskrit 
 for ship (navah, v, 54, 4 ; nauh, v, 59, 2, said of the Earth ; daivim 
 navam (into) the divine boat, x, 63, 10.)^ 
 
 One may however discern another (and not antagonistic) origin for nave (of a 
 church). Professor Alfred Holder in his forthcoming Alt-Celtischer Sprachs- 
 chatz thus deals with the word *nemes, the heavens : '' *neiTies Jiimniel, s-sf., 
 noin. *nem-os, gc7i. *nem-es-os, air. neni = *nemas, gc7i. nim-e, gacL neamh, 
 m., gen. neimhe, altcy. nem, w. corn, nef, ;«., p/. nefoedd, bref. [n]env {Leon), 
 nev,//. nevou, ai. nimas inclinatio, adora/io." 
 
 This suggests too that vefiea-Ls, as the wrath of the gods, had a similar origin 
 with namas, adoration ; Timor the great godmaker having been here also at 
 work. 
 Dr. O. Schrader attacks the difficulty thus : 
 
 Tjr-i» »'i ^ if Gk. TOor, sacred-tree trunk, temple. 
 Indo-Greek nav- navo, tree-trunk -{ ' ' . 
 
 I. Gk. or Indo-Gk. vavs, dug-out, skiff. 
 
 So taking for his fulcrum the dug-out idea of a boat and wholly ignoring the 
 stone idea of the deity-container, the beth-fel (see supra pp. in, &c.). But the 
 Odyssey (xix, 163) remembered the two beliefs : " Thou art not sprung from the 
 oak (or tree — dnb Spvos) renowned in story, or from a rock." And Dr. Schrader 
 adds : "the question as to the root of this stem may be left undiscussed"; but 
 I am not inclined to throw up the sponge just yet awhile. 
 
 The Altar became even the extreme point of the Earth in its 
 relation to the heavens, the essence of the earth, the earth itself; 
 as will be seen from the following passages of the Rig Veda 
 (Wilson's version) : 
 
 Mighty Agni, stationed on the navel of the Earth, in the form [.' structure] of 
 the firmament . . . the friendly and adorable Agni who breathes in mid- 
 heaven. (AT. ii, 333.) I ask what is the uttermost end of the Earth ; I ask 
 where is the navel of the world. This altar is the uttermost end of the Earth ; 
 this sacrifice is the navel of the world (ii, 138).= Agni placed by strength [that is 
 by moti\e power in wood-friction] upon the navel of the Earth (ii, 76). Scenting 
 the navel of the world [? the burnt offering] (ii, 188). Present oblations in the three 
 
 ^ Vedk Hymns, 4S9, 249. 
 
 ^ It seems quite " on the cards " that " the tV2(/ of the world being to be burnt by 
 tire " may be connected with garbled versions of these ideas. 
 
362 The Night of I he Gods. [Polar 
 
 high places, upon the navel of the Earth [probably the three sacred fires and the 
 altar] (ii, 218). Ayni as an embryo [in the wood] is called Tanunapat (iii, 36). 
 In the extremely archaic ritual for Hindu cow-sacrifice, one spot in the sacri- 
 ficial enclosure was called the Northern navel, uttaranabhi. (Rajendralala 
 Mitra's Indo-ArYiins, i, 370.) 
 
 The Russian Abbot Daniel, in his pilc^rrlmage to Jerusalem 
 A.D. 1 106, says: Behind the altar, outside the wall fof the church 
 of the Resurrection) is the Navel of the earth, which is covered by 
 a small building, on the vault of which Christ is represented 
 in Mosaic, with this inscription : " The sole of my foot^ serves as a 
 measure for the heavens and the earth." It is still shown in the 
 Greek church, Catholicon." It is mentioned as the Centre of the 
 Earth by Bernhard, and as a place called Compas by Saewulf 
 (a.D. 1 102). Arculfus in A.D. 670-' said Jerusalem was in the 
 middle of the earth, and that the Psalmist's "El is my king of old, 
 working salvation in the midst of the Earth " (Ixxiv, 12) referred 
 to Jerusalem which, being in the middle, is also called the Navel 
 of the earth. 
 
 A quite independent remark of Prof. Robertson Smith's comes 
 in well here. " The [Semite] altar " he says, " in its developed 
 form as a table or hearth, does not supersede the pillar ; the two 
 are found side by side at the same sanctuary : the Altar as a piece 
 of sacrificial apparatus, and the Pillar as a visible sj-mbol or 
 embodiment of the presence of the deity."* If wc take the 
 Universe-navel, as above, to be the type of the altar, and the 
 Universe-axis to be that of the pillar, their subsistence side by 
 side seems to require little further elucidation. Where fire-sacri- 
 fices prevailed. Prof. Robertson Smith points out that " the altar 
 was above all things a hearth,"'' that is a fire-place. Here we have 
 again a point of contact between the fire-god Agni and the nabhi 
 or omphalos, as in the above Vedic citations. 
 
 THE NAVEL HEARTH-FIRE. To return to the very 
 important and central point I have already made a start with at 
 p. 280, it seems indisputable that the sacredness of the Hearth-Yxre. 
 may be connected in another very satisfactor}' and archaic way 
 with the y] //(?;•- Pi re, as thus. The hearthstone, and the fire on it, 
 were at the centre of the archaic round hut, the central opening 
 
 ' See " Buddha's Footprint " in V(]l. II. of this Inquiry. 
 
 ■ Tal. Pilgrhns' Text See. iSSS, pj). 13, 96. ^ ffiid. 1SS9, p. 16. 
 
 •I AV-//?-. of SeiniUs, 1S7. ^ Ihid. 322. 
 
Myths:] The Navels. 363 
 
 right over the fire being the chimneys-hole. Thus the stone of the 
 hearth was a navel, as well as the stone of the altar was, and when 
 the Father of the family ^vas its priest as well, both stones were 
 identical. It was (as I maintain p. 270 supra) the terrestrial 
 counterpart of the celestial heim-dall, the home-stone of Norse 
 mythology. The hideous English " ornamints f yir fiyer-stove " 
 were once, doubtless, holy ritualistic hearth-decorations ; and the 
 shrieking sisterhood that hawk them about are a warning to us of 
 what the Vestal virgins had to come-down to. 
 
 Then the karia, ia-)(^dpa, focus, was in the centre of the 
 primitive enclosure {epKo<;, herctum), and later in the centre of the 
 group of buildings which formed the home-stead. /Eschylus 
 i^Agam. 1025) has the exact expression I want here : ^eao^^dXo^ 
 krrrla. And the stranger or the fugitive who could get in peaceably 
 so far, and then sat him down on the ashes of the focus, became ipso 
 facto inviolable, and had to be protected. This is precisely 
 Orestes taking refuge at the Omphalos,- to which we shall return 
 presently. In the same way Odusscus, as a stranger entreating 
 help {Odjss. vii, 153, i6g; xi, 191), sat down in the ashes on the 
 hearth of Alkinous, and was then brought forward and set 
 in a high place. The Grimms cited this last in their notes on 
 Aschenbrodel (Cinderella), but fell short of the truth in adding : 
 " It was a very ancient custom that those who wereunhapp}^ should 
 seat themselves among the ashes." 
 
 We can get further into the arcana of this leading question by 
 taking what Pausanias said (v, 13, 14 and 15 ; ix, 11) of the gigantic 
 altar of Zeus at Olympia, the main structure of which was 125 ft. 
 round, and 32 ft. high. The altar proper, like the altar in Pergamos, 
 was formed of the heaped-up ashes of the thighs of the victims 
 there burnt. The altar of the Samian Hera was, he added, also 
 made of ashes. That of Apollo at Thebes was called Spodios, 
 ashen, for the same reason. But there was another source for this 
 holy material, for the Hestian (Vestal) hearth at Olympia, where a 
 perpetual fire was ritualistically imperative, was also of piled-up 
 ashes, and from that hearth they carried the ashes to the altar of 
 Zeus, and that was by no means the smallest contribution to the size 
 of it. When the Father of the family was a priest, the hearth- 
 
 * Chimney really mean.s heartlistone. Chemince = c.imlmis = Ktip-ivos ~ in Old 
 Slaviiih kamini stone. (Wharton's Etyina Graced and Latiiia. ) 
 ^ E. Saglio in his great Diet, i, 347. 
 
364 The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 ashes were those of the grilled or burnt victims as well as of the 
 perpetual fire. 
 
 I must not be decoyed here into some interminable disquisition 
 upon Fire-worship, but it must be stated that in Avestan times 
 (and still among the modern Parsis) a mixture of the ashes from the 
 Bahrain fire mixed with the gomez of the bull (which is also navicular, 
 see p. 3S0 infra ),wa.s drank in 3, 6, or 9 cups as a charm by women 
 in c\\\\<M>irth} In N?iiul>crs xix we have the ashes of the whole- 
 burnt red heifer mixed \\ith water and used as a purifier by the 
 Jews. The inccnse-ashes from the Chinese "joss-sticks " (joss = 
 Portuguese dios) are full of virtue, and are worn round the neck in 
 sachets).^ The daily bhasma-dharana rite of the Brahman of the 
 present day consists in, after bathing, rubbing ashes taken from the 
 holy domestic hearth on the head and other parts of the body, with 
 the prayer: " Homage to Siva (Sadyo-jata). May he preserve me 
 in every Inrtti. Homage to the source of all birth." The pious 
 Hindu Siva-worshipper also makes his sect-mark on his forehead 
 with the same ashes.-' 
 
 The purificatory ashes-rite survives also both in the Roman and 
 the Greek christian churches on Ash-Wcdnesday, Cinerum dies, 
 when a cross is made on the forehead of the penitent with the 
 ashes from the blessed palms and olive-branches of the previous 
 year's Palm-Sunday or Branch-Sunday,* burnt for that purpose, 
 and applied with the formula : Memento homo ' quia pulvis es, et 
 in pulvercm revertcris' {Geii. iii, 19). The celebrating Cardinal who 
 makes the ash-cross on the pope's head is silent, and the pope 
 speaks the formula.^ We shall have the use of the blessed ashes 
 again in the consecration of churches under " The North." 
 
 We have this issuing- from and return to ashes — to the ashes of 
 the navel-hearth — strikingly preserved to us in the Russian h-an 
 legends atid the German Aschenbrodel (Cinderella) tales. The 
 mythic Ivan son-of-the-Ashes (= Popyal-off) was ably discussed in 
 the late Mr. Ralston's Russian Folk-Talcs. Ivan was one of a triad 
 of brothers — the other two are left nameless — sons of an Old Couple, 
 a pair of ancient gods, of course (see p. 296 supra). But another, a 
 sort of Phoenix genesis is also given to this Russian John or " Jack " 
 
 ' Darmesteter's Zt'iid Avesta i, 62, Ixxxviii. Note the navicular conne.\ion here too. 
 
 - De Groot, Fcies tf Ennuti {Anioy). p. S. 
 
 ' Sir Jlonier Williams, AV/. Thought and Lifr, i, 400. 
 
 '' Dominica palmaium sen ramorum ; Dominica in palmis sen in ramis oli^arum. 
 
 ^ Hierolcxicon (Roma, 1677), pp. 155, 434, 
 
Myths:\ The Navels. 365 
 
 in one tale, where it is said that for " tiuclve (zodiacal) whole years 
 Ivan lay among the ashes (from the stove) ; but then he arose and 
 shook himself so that six poods of ashes fell off him." Here we 
 notably have the hearth- or navel-fire, and perhaps a figure of the 
 Northern winter. This Ivan was manifestly a potent heavens-god. 
 " In the land in which he lived, there was never any day but always 
 night." He was therefore a night-heavens god too. The triad of 
 brothers kill the j/.i--headed Snake, " and immediately there was 
 bright light throughout the whole land." Ivan performs endless 
 feats of adventure ; we have had him already, and shall have to 
 return to him. 
 
 Now it is this legend that must give us the true clue to the myth 
 of Cenerentola, Cendrillon, Cinderella (whose shoe we shall discuss 
 under " Buddha's Footprint.") She slept by the fireside in the ashes, 
 and after her magic excursions (managed by the White Bird on the 
 hazel-rod tree) she went back and lay among the ashes, as usual. 
 The German fonns of the name of this divine heroine are endless accord- 
 ing to dialect, and serve as one proof of her world-wide cosmic character. 
 Aschenputtel, Aeschengriddel, Aschenbrodel, Ascherling are some of the High 
 Dutch names given by the Grimms.' In Platt-Deutsch the forms are Asken- 
 piister, Askenboel, Askenbiiel. In Holstein, Aschenposelken ; in Pomerania, 
 Aschpuk ; in Upper Hesse, Aschenpuddel ; in Swabia, Aschengrittel, Aschen- 
 gruttel, Aeschengrusel ;- in Danish and Swedish, Askesis ; in Shetland (Jamieson) 
 Assiepet, Ashypet, Ashiepattle ; in Norwegian, Askepot. But it by no means 
 follows that a tale always hangs by these terms in these various tongues. 
 Aschenprddel and Aschenpossel are boys, just as Ivan is ; and so are Eschen- 
 griidel, Aschenbrodel (Luther), Aschenbaltz, Aschenwedel ; and in Finnish he 
 is Tukhame or Tukhimo (tukka = ashes). 
 
 To return to the hearth itself One of the plagues in the 
 Mabinogion is a great cry which is heard on May-Night above 
 every hearth in the isle of Britain, and which, piercing the hearts of 
 men, turns them to palefaced weaklings, and deprives of their 
 reason the women with babes at the bfeast, the young men, and 
 the maidens.^ The stone of Tara (see p. 192 supra) also screams 
 all over the land when the true king by right divine steps upon it. 
 These stones are thus divinely animated, voiceful. I have another, 
 a classic, cry from a hearthstone in mind, but I cannot lay hands 
 on my note of it, and memory refuses just now to answer at the 
 call. The fighting phrase of " pro aris et focis " seems thus to take 
 
 ' Mrs. Margaret Hunt's ed. 1SS4, i, 366. 
 
 - The patient Grizzle, Griselda, Griselidis, and so on, seems to belong here. 
 
 '^ J, Loth, Malniwg. 1SS9, i, 176. 
 
366 The Nii^ht of the Gods. {^Polar 
 
 on a much more definite and holy sic^nificance. Prof. F. Max 
 Wiiller points out that the first idea of house was fin the Sanskrit 
 word harmya) fire-pit, and then hearth.' fThc term "pit" here is 
 difficult to receive.) The hearth round which the Maruts have 
 their places {RigJ^cda, vii, 56, 16) must be the celestial navel. 
 In the Finnish sacred hymn of the birth of the primeval Bear, " a 
 maiden walked along the air's edge, a girl along the navel of the 
 sky, along the outline of a cloud, along the heaven's boundary."- 
 
 If \\'e consider the philological equation Sanskrit nabhas, Greek 
 vecjjo^, Latin nebula, OHG nebil, ON nifl-heim, OS nebo = Sky, 
 Irish nel — b}' the side of Sanskrit nabhi, OHG naba, AS nafu, 
 OPrussian nabis,'' it is not easy to avoid the conception that it 
 may have been the navel of the heavens that came by extension 
 to mean first the heavens, the sk)- ; and was then vulgarised into 
 the clouds. But as no hint of this is met with among philologists, 
 one is timid about the suggestion. Zeus ^ecpeXt^yepera, instead of 
 being merely and w^eakly cloud-compeller, would then be heavens- 
 compeller, or the compeller at the heavens-nave. This would quite 
 accord with and also support my proposal (pp. 23, 46 supra) to 
 consider Ouranos as an extension of ovpo';. 
 
 It may be added that nabhas being 'sky,' we also have iRl\ viii, 20, 10) 
 vrsha nabhina used for the 'strong-na\"ed ' celestial chariot of the ?\Iaruts,"' the 
 forces, as I suggest, of the universe-machine. Again, in a significant passage, 
 we have {RV. i, 43, 9) " the Immortal, in the highest place of the Law, on its 
 summit, in its centre (nabha).''^ 
 
 This interpretation of mine seems to be brought out very 
 distinctly by a passage in the Satapatha-brahiiiaiut which much 
 puzzles the commentators, who render it three difierent ways : 
 " may the Agni called Nabhas know ! " " mayest thou know 
 Agni's name Nabhas," and "the Agni of the Altar (\-edi) is 
 Nabhas b}' name (vider Agnir nabho nama)." This last is 
 Sayana's and is derided b)- Dr. Eggeling, who sa}-s nabhas here 
 means "apparentl}- \-apour, welkin." But vapour is not welkin 
 (a word which conve)-s the Z;.'(7//(-ing-round of the heavens), and 
 nabhas has here most indubitabh^ its navel meaning, and from the 
 symbolic point of view Sa}"ana was right. The navel-name here 
 refers to the Agni-fire produced at the nave (see p. 361 supra and 
 
 • Vedic Hymns 1S91, 216, 217, 374. 
 
 - Magk Songs of the Finns, in Folk-Lore, i, 26. 
 
 •' Jevons's Schrader's Prchist. Antiq. Aryans (1S90) 339, 414. 
 
 ■* Vedic Fly inns, 1S91, 4S7, 136, 515. ° Ibid. 419, 4SS. '' Dr. Eggeliiig's ii, iiS. 
 
Myths:] The Navels. 367 
 
 "The Wheel" in Vol. II.); but Brahma is called navel-born 
 (Nabhi-ja) as, by a naturalistic myth (to which we return presently), 
 springing from the lotus that grows from Vishnu's navel, which 
 again is that of the Universe. Furthermore, the priest in the Sata- 
 patha (ii, 198) throws the two spits (of which we shall have more 
 lower down) into the fire, with the words : " go ye to Urdhva- 
 nabhas," which also clearly means Agni as the uppermost-navel, for 
 urdhva-loka is one of the names of Swarga, the central heaven of 
 Indra ; the Vedic iirdhva meaning erect. 
 
 Dr. Eggeling here again fails, as I venture to think, in catching the symbolic 
 drift, saying that " Urdhvanabhas (he who drives the clouds upwards, or keeps 
 the clouds above, or perhaps he who is abo^■e in the welkin) is apparently a 
 name of Vayu, the Wind." 
 
 Plato's god sits in the centre on the Omphalos ; and we must not 
 forget Isaiah's " he that sitteth above the circle, the chug, of the 
 Earth, qui scdet super gyrum terrae " (xl, 22). In Job xxii, 12, 
 the Vulgate has : An non cogitas C]u6d Deus excelsior ccelo sit, et 
 super stellarum ■z'tvY/ftv//' sublimetur ? J. L; Bridel's critical version' 
 was : Dieu, disais-tu, n'est-il pas 61evi^ par-dessus les cieux ? Ne 
 voit-il pas aii-dessous de lui la tcte des eroiles. Again (xxii, 14) 
 circa cardines cceli perambulat (see p. 160 supra), which Bridel 
 gave as : il se promene sur la convexite des cieux, and Dr. VVarren- 
 as : " ]&1 walketh in the chug of heaven." The Revised version 
 has " in the circuit (or on the vault) of heaven." 
 
 We find also that in Finnish myth the supreme god Ukko is 
 called, from his abode, Taivahan napanen, Navel of heaven, and in 
 the great epic of the Finns, the KalevaLa, that abode appears as 
 tahtela, place of tahti, Estonian taht, the Polestar." (I shall just 
 here again refer to the mention of taht at p. 219.) 
 
 SANCT UARY. On a fine antique vase described by De 
 Witte"* a Wheel is suspended over Orestes taking refuge near the 
 Omphalos (see p. 363 sipra). It is clear to me that this sym- 
 bolism (as will be seen under " The Wheel " in Vol. II.) is indi- 
 cative of the Cosmos turning like a wheel round the omphalos- 
 pivot, the nave, oi the north celestial pole. 
 
 1 Firmin Didot, iSiS, p. S4. 
 
 - Paradise Fo2ind, 202. ■' Schiefner-Castren, Finnish Mythology, 32, 33. 
 
 "* Elite des inon. i\'raniogy. p. 25. 
 
368 The Night of tlic Gods. {Polar 
 
 An extremely archaic tradition said that Dionusos was buried under the 
 Omphalos at Delphoi or under the Mantic tripod there.' Apollo as the knower 
 of the future was often depicted seated on the omphalos or the tripod. Apollo 
 and HeraKles wrestle for the tripod at the conical omphalos in numerous bas- 
 reliefs." Apollo shoots the python through the tripod, from which hang" chains, 
 on a coin of Crotona. He is shown seated before the net-covered conical 
 omphalos (on which is perched the Bird; in a Greco-Etruscan composition.' 
 The Corsini vase also shows Orestes seated on the netted omphalos.-" Dionusos, 
 whether as ""O^eto?, ■0/jet(^otV7;s-, Ovpia-LfpOL-rqs, 'OpfCKios or 'Opec-njs was clearly 
 a mountain-god,^ and so therefore must Orestes have been. This almost 
 equates him with Dionusos ; and I must not leave the point unnoticed that a 
 connexion through opos = ovpos is thus possible and likely with Ouranos (see 
 pp. 23, 46). (Some of the authorities for the Delphian o/i0aXof y^f are Pindar, 
 Pyth. iv, 4 ; vi, i ; viii, 3 ; xi, i. ^-Eschylus, Eiiincn. v, 40. Pausanias, 
 X, 16, 2.) 
 
 The Orestes ni\-th reappears in Ireland in the legend of the large 
 stone at " Dunsang " (Louth) which bears a rude resemblance to a 
 chair. It is called the Madman's Stone, and lunatics are seated on 
 it to bring back their reason.' Pausanias (v. 18) said that one of 
 the subjects represented on the Kv^e\j] of Cypselus (as to whose 
 myth see "The Arcana") was the flight of Helene daughter of 
 Zeus and Leda (Lede), and sister of Castor and Pollu.x ; with her 
 pursuit by AleneLaos, brother of Aga]\Iemnon. In Delaborde's 
 Vases dc Lainbcrg, ii, pi. 34, this subject is depicted ; and we see 
 Helen taking refuge near the altars, and on the point of grasping 
 the sacred Tree standing near by (Guignaut's Creuzer, plate 223). 
 It is impossible to ignore the resemblance this engraving suggests 
 to the children's game of tig-touch-wood (see pp. 300, 307 supra). 
 I also point to an engraving in Saglio's Dictionary (i, 351) of 
 " Orestas " seated on the altar of Apollo at Delphoi, with the 
 sacred (laurel) tree behind.'' The Sanskrit (neuter sadma, seat, 
 is frequently used in the RigVeda in the sense of altar, and the 
 two sadmani of heavens and Earth are also mentioned.' These 
 would therefore seem to be the celestial and terrestrial na\'els. 
 Edris (Enoch) having, in Persian JNIoslem legend, got into 
 paradise alive by playing a trick on Azraj-Il, the angel of 
 death, refuses to be ejected, and "taking refuge near a Tree" 
 said that " unless the creator of paradise and hell remo\-cs me, this 
 
 ' MuUer, Orchom. 3S3. -' K. O. MUller, Handbuch §§ 96, 20. 
 
 ' Saglio's Did. i, 321, 399. ■■ F. Lenorraant in Saglio's Diet, i, 605. 
 
 ^ Lady ^^'ilde's Ancient Cures, cr-'t". , 1S90, p. 70. 
 
 * Monum. del. Inst. 1S57, pi. 43 ; 1S46, pi, 30 ; 1S61, pi. "I. 
 
 " Prof. F. JI. iluller's V'edic Hymns i, 92. 
 
Myths?^ The Navels. 369 
 
 place I shall not quit."^ We doubtless have here the omphalos 
 and the supremely sacred tree that represents the Universe-axis ; 
 and the sanctuary there afforded accords with all that is here 
 said about the quietude and undisturbance of the pole itifi-a, and 
 p. 6 supra. Again the Medio tutissimus ibis (see p. 144) recurs to 
 the mind ; and this instance helps us much towards a true con- 
 ception of the full signification of the deity-names and idol-names 
 of Tutanus, Tutelina, Tutunus. 
 
 Tuticus, the most high, was shown by Lanzi {Sagg. di lingua Etrusca 
 ii, 619) and Rosini {Dissert. Isagog. 38) to be a word of the Osk tongue. 
 Meddixtuticus was the supreme magistrate (? god) of the Osks (Festus, and 
 Muller, Etrusk. 1,29). M. Michel Bnfal- says Meddix designates the supreme 
 magistrate both in Campanian and in Volscian, and is a most frequent word in 
 Oskan inscriptions. He connects the meaning of mcd with " to have care-of, 
 to reign-over." But I think this idea of protection is secondary, and is to be ex- 
 plained as I have suggested at p. 145 siipia. The town of Equus-tuticus, too, 
 thus irresistibly suggests a supreme central horse-g^od. 
 
 The Roman goddess MaTuta has been absurdly connected with Minerva 
 and the dawn. The true clue is given in this Tuticus, the Great, the Highest. 
 Ma- means mater (as shown below for Kubele), and thus Mater MaTuta 
 contains a pleonasm. The Oxidian connexion of the Osk MaTuta with the 
 Greek Ino (daughter of Kadmos) and LeukoThee (White-goddess) seems 
 purely academical. Tuta is also, of course, connected with the sense of guardian, 
 protector. The god Tutanus, who must belong to the same family, was said to 
 be Hercules, by Nonius Marcellus ; and of course Tutunus (also an alias of 
 Priapus) must here be included, with the tutulus worn on the flamen's head- 
 dress and the female coiffure. Tutela, a goddess whose tall-pillared temple was 
 at Bordeaux, and Tutelina, Tutilina or Tutulina, who picked up the stones 
 flung from heaven by Jupiter, and was therefore the Roman farmer's insurance- 
 agent against hail-stones, belongs to the same class ; and I shall certainly note 
 
 down here that the Egyptian word tut q V\ c^ vSj meant father, and to pro- 
 create. And the " Mutinus Titinus " of Festus, who had a chapel in Rome 
 where the women offered sacrifices to him, must also be here set down. Mutinus 
 or Mutunus (from mutus) was a title of Priapus and of the phallus.-' Titinus 
 seems clearly Tutunus ; and Festus said the Titiensis tribus took their name 
 from Tatius (see p. 219 supra), and they were also called Tatienses. Therefore 
 Titius from Titus ^ Tatius, and this casts quite another aspect upon the 
 etymology of Tltcoi. 
 
 An interesting series of conclusions may, I think, be deduced 
 from an Irish instance of the Chinese Middle-Kingdom. I have 
 already recorded at p. 272 how Merlin by his magic transported 
 the pillar-stones of Kilair to Stonehenge, and how that castrum of 
 
 ' Raiizat-us-Safa, 71. ^ Les Tables Eiigidnnes (1S75) V- ^^• 
 
 ' Lciclautius, i, 20; St. Aug., Cro. Dei, iv, 11 ; Priapea, 74. 
 
 2 A 
 
37° The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 Kilair (on the hill of Uisnech ?)' was called the stone and umbilicus 
 of Hibernia, as if placed in the midst and middle of the land, medio 
 et meditullio. It was a navel, and Stonehenge was therefore a navel 
 also. In the Old Irish mythic tales one may pick up numerous 
 other instances of this important and universal Middle. The great 
 hall of Tara was called Aleath- or Mid-court, Miodhchuarta (pro- 
 nounce, Micorta). In Lochlann in the North is the hill of Miodh- 
 chaoin (or Midkena), jealously guarded by Miodhchaoinn and his 
 three sons. A great battle in the war-in-heaven is waged on this 
 hill, where Brian cleaves Miodhchaoin's helmet and head through 
 and through. Three shouts are given on the hill by the victors. 
 Miodhach the son of the king of Lochlann enchants Finn, but is 
 killed by Diarmait with a spear-thrust through his body.^ 
 
 In Welsh myths, LIudd is counselled by his brother Llevelys to measure 
 his island of Britain in length and breadth, and at the spot which he finds to be 
 the exact centre, to dig a hole and bury a vat of hydromel. He finds the 
 centre to be at Rytychen, now Oxford (England),' which was thus a hub even 
 before Boston (Mass.). The second of Britain's names was Isle of Honey. 
 Meath itself, " the beautiful seat of brave Niall's sons " (see p. 39 
 sHpraf where this Kilair na\'el stood, was anciently the central 
 one of the five divisions of Ireland, and is called Media by 
 Giraldus Cambrensis,* and it would thus be the IMiddle-Kingdom. 
 Furthermore the strange words connected with it — medi-tullium 
 and medi-tullus — can only be made sense (for me here) by calling in 
 the third fabulous rex of Rome, Tullus Hostilius (grandson of 
 Hostus Hostilius b}- Hersilia). The explanation of Hostus and 
 Hostilius as " enem\' " and " inimical " is most unsufficing, and 
 the statement that Hostilina was a goddess who evened the corn- 
 ears (!) is, at least on the surface, silly in the extreme. It seems to 
 me to be here imjjortant that Festus" says Tullus Hostilius was 
 binominis, that is had a dual name '' cui geminum est nomen." Now, 
 could Hostus be a verj-archaic or dialectic form oUiasta, spear ? In a 
 corrupt passage, Festus" seems to connect Tullus Hostilius -with 
 divine weapons, that is with a shower of stones that fell in or on the 
 Mons Albanus. This for me is a shower of aerolites in the 
 White heavens-mountain. He also mentions the Hostilii Lares. 
 
 ' O'Curr)', Manmis, ii, 13, 151. 
 
 - Dr. Joyce's Ccllic Romances, 55, 60, Sg to 91, 207. 
 
 ^ J. Loth, Lcs Mabinogion, 1SS9, i, 179, iSo, 70. 
 
 ■• Topog. Hibcrn. Dist. iii, c. 4. O'Cuny, Manners, i, p. xcix. 
 
 '^ s.v. Binontinis. '' s. v. ^aieneiiaks fci'ia. 
 
Myths:\ The Navels. 37 1 
 
 Remember that it was Tullus Hostilius who with Metius Sufetius^ 
 arranged the combat of the spear-god triad the Curatii (curis = 
 spear) with the Horatii (adjectival form from hora, hour = time- 
 gods, zodiacal powers ?). Metius is an adjectival form meaning 
 " of the middle," and sufes meant judge at Carthage. Metius 
 Sufetius too was the dux of the Albani, that is the leader of the 
 white star-gods. And this I interpret as a war-in-heaven between 
 the axis-powers and the rotating-heavens powers. This again tells 
 for H«stilius as a spear-'s.'Kxs god. 
 
 It is very pleasing to me subsequently to find this conjecture borne-out by 
 Dr. O. Schrader's equation of the Latin htrstatus with the Umbrian hostatir, 
 hostatu. He cites Brugmann's Grundriss i, 373 (Jevons's Schrader's PrcJiist. 
 Aryan Antiq. i8go, 228). 
 
 This would at once make all clear, and give us a Medi- 
 Tullus hastilius as a central spear-axis god. But what is tullus ? 
 Is it connected with iutulus ? The only suggestion that is usable 
 here is that tullus is another form of tcllus, the Earth, and that 
 medi-t«llus is (what it signified, according to Festus) medi-tellus, 
 which I maintain to have been originally the centre of the Earth. 
 Festus seems to give it the acquired loose meaning of ' inland.' 
 We get a confirmation of the subordinate (terrestrial) status of 
 Tullus where the lightning-fire descended at the prayers of Lars 
 Porsena^ and of Numa Pompilius, to burn their sacrifices, but 
 destroyed Tullus when he attempted the same ' business.'^ 
 Tellus itself was ne\er, or hardly ever, used excej^t in poetry, which, as 
 before urged (p. 14) is a great proof of extreme age. Tullus (except as a 
 proper name) only survived in medi-tullus, I believe. Have we yet another 
 form of the word in the name of the dux, the leader, of the Etruscan Veji (or 
 Ovrfioi, see p. 280 supra), 7"(9/«mnius, or Lar or Lars Tolumnius, who was also 
 an augur, and belonged to the "camp" of Turnus (see Index), otherwise the 
 field of the rotating heavens. Tullus Hostilius besieged Veji.' 
 
 ' 5ufetius is K. O. Miiller's reading in Festus, s.v. Sororiiitn tigilbtiii (see also 
 p. 113 supra). 
 
 ^ The true form had only one n (Servius ad ^E?!. viii, 646). I divide the word 
 PorSena, and make por (forth) =pro- in primus, Priscus ; Sena = old (Oldlrish sen, 
 Lithuanian senas, Sanskrit sanas = senex). Lars PorSena then = the first-bom first-Old. 
 
 ^ Plutarch Numa. Pliny Hist. Nat. ii, 54 ; xxxviii, 4. Livy i, 12. Valerius 
 Maximus ix, 12, I. 
 
 "* Festus, Septimontio, citing Varro. Li\'y i, 27. The Veji were considered so 
 ancient that Florus doubted whether they ever existed, and their plural name had come 
 to be taken as that of their town. The name must belong to veho to carry along, to 
 waft ; and I should apply it to the gods who carry-round the heavens, the chariot-gods in 
 fact (vea, veha = way ; vehes, cartload). Festus said Veia was an Osk or Tuscan word 
 for a plaustrum. This has the advantage (see p. 2S0) of giving us some sort of an 
 
 2 A 2 
 
372 The Night of the Gods. \_Polar 
 
 We discern the connexion between the ////- and the tol- in the archaic 
 forms which became parts of the conjugation o( fero carry, bring, bear — a verb 
 with a truly vast and various number of uses. Its /u/i and /e-/u/i which a.re, 
 of course, utterly foreign la fero, come from tulo and tulero or tolo and tolero 
 alias tollo ; and its latus is supposed to come from tlatum, tXhw, TKy)vtu 
 Then /()/lo, to raise or carry-off, has also a great variety of senses, and has 
 with it sus-/«/i and sub-latus. This is sufficient to show us that Twllus and 
 Tollus are all one ; and that the meaning of bearing and carrying, or borne 
 or carried is the only one we have to assign to Tullus. 
 
 That being so, we find a Tulla who (^Eneid, xi) was a companion of the 
 amazon Camilla. Camilla was a Volscian (the V'olsci, of Latium or Etruria, 
 were originally winged-gods ?) and was daughter of Casmilla ; and both names 
 must have been Cadmilla (who belongs to the Section on "The Kabeiroi"). 
 Here we find ourselves at once among foreign, Phoenician, most archaic powers. 
 Then we have Tullia, daughtei of Servus Tullius and wife of Tarquinius Super- 
 bus (the Supreme Turner of the heavens) another primitive divinity. Servus 
 Tullius must mean servant of Tellus (compare MeDus = Magnes, servant of 
 MeUea, pp. 142, 143 supra) and he was the patron of servants (slaves).' 
 Where is the history, wrote Cicero," that does not retail the blazing of the 
 head of the sleeping Servius Tullius : caput arsisse Servio TuUio dormienti, 
 quae historia non prodidit ? This I think must be a lost, or rather a strayed 
 aurora-borealis myth. 
 
 Pluto was called Tellumo, "because his wealth was in the Earth" and 
 Tellurus was a god of the Earth who was also called Tellumo. Tellus is 
 manifestly a masculine name, although always a goddess in the legends. In 
 Egypt the Earth, Seb, was male, the heavens. Nut, female. 
 
 Medina is another name which must, like Meath and the Vedic 
 medini, the Earth, convey a " middle" signification. The deriva- 
 tion of Medini (in the Hari-vansa) from the incdas, marrow, of 
 certain demons, is only a half-way house — both words must come 
 from the root of Sanskrit madhya, middle. And the word 
 meditation too (which is sent to the base inadh and root via to 
 think) may very well have to do with the ancient practice of 
 introspecting at the navel, at the middle, to which we shall return 
 directly ; Medhii, one of the 1 3 wi\-es of Dharma (the Law), 
 means attention.^ I must here again refer to Saint-Medard-la-Pile 
 
 acceptable clue to Vejovis or VeDiJovis or VeDius, the hitherto mj-sterious god of the 
 Etruscans. The root is wagh or wag, Sanskrit vah, draw, carr)', dri\e ; Latin rvlum 
 sail. This Jove would thus be the Impeller of the Universe, and would have been 
 dreaded because of his all-enveloping power, and not *' because tr- is an evil particle," 
 which here, at all events, sounds nonsensical. This exposition accords in a striking and 
 unpremeditated manner with the expounding of Zeus Nephelegereta at p. 366 supra, and 
 is another of those many happy coincidences that make me believe " there is something 
 m" these theoiies. 
 
 ' Fcstus, ScTToniiii dic^ f(-i/iis. - /'c Di7\ i, 53. ■' Burnnufb B/iiig.-/'iir. iv, I, 49. 
 
Myths?[ The Navels. 373 
 
 at p. 284, and of course I need scarcely remind the Reader that I 
 am now following-up and (I trust) driving home the theories already 
 stated as to all the central deities in Me- at pp. 143 et seq. 
 
 The goddess MeDiTrina and her feast the MeUiTrinaha speak to me of 
 a central triple or a three-named deity. Her curative powers may be com- 
 pared with those of Cardea (p. i6o supra). The bringing of this deity-name 
 from medeor heal, as Varro and Festus did, is futile. The verbal descent of 
 medeor is all the other way, from the sorceress MeDea, who may have been 
 also this very MeDiTrina. Mr. E. R. Wharton curiously enough' has " medeor 
 heal : ' stand in the middle, stop the disease,' see merits ' central, essential ' " ; 
 but I am very much afraid he does not mean what I mean. 
 
 I have already mentioned the myth of Attius Navius at p. 113, 
 but must now point him out as a Navel-god. We get some ink- 
 lings of him as such in Cicero. He was a contemporary of 
 Tarquinius Priscus,- that is the pristine Universe-twirler. His 
 position was in the middle of the vineyard, in vinea media — which 
 must be taken, I think, to mean the navel of the Universe — and 
 looking towards the South (for he was in the North) he divided 
 the vineyard with his lituus into four divisions, that is, traced an 
 augur's templum (see " The North " infra). The birds, by augury 
 of course, directed him which of the four divisions to choose ; and 
 therein, " as we find it written, he found a grape of most wonder- 
 ful magnitude,"" which we must perhaps take to be a figure of the 
 Earth. Rex Hostilius, whom I maintain to be hrtstilius (as above) 
 and a spear-axis god, waged great wars upon his auguries.^ But 
 Romulus also parted out with his lituus the several districts, when 
 he founded the urbs in the days of the feast of Pales^ ; so that he 
 is here, pro hac vice, a doublet, I say, of Attius Navius, the Old 
 Man of the Omphalos. 
 
 Attius is clearly an adjectival form of the god-name Attus ^ Attys, Atys 
 = "Aruff, "Attvs, "Attls ; also called Hdwrras = TraTray = tirra father = TraTTTTos 
 grandfather. We have also of course Sanskrit atta mother, Gothic atta father, 
 Old Frisian atta. Old Gemian atto, Norse edda grandmother. Scythian pappa, 
 Armenian pap, Phrygian Zeus Papas (which is almost an equation with the 
 Phrj'gian Attis being also called Pappas). Papa is the Mangaian (South 
 Pacific) first-mother. Papa is also the Eart'n of the Maoris, and she and the 
 heavens, Rangi, are the all-parents."' I have already stated (p. 3S) that the 
 archaic Japanese form of haha mother must have been papa. This is on all 
 
 ' Etyma Latina, 1890. - See also Festus, s.v. Navia. 
 
 ^ De Divirmt. i, 17. •■ De Nat. Dear, ii, 3. 
 
 * De Div. i, 17 ; ii, 47. And see " Divine Names in Pal." p. 43 supra. 
 ^ Mr. Lang's Myth, Rit. and Rel. i, 195 ; ii, 29. 
 
374 The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 fours with the Lydian name Ma' of Kvl^iXt] (DcMeter) the consort of the god 
 Attis, which fia still survives in our ma and ma-ma doublets of mother, 
 Kubele and Attis (whence, I say, the Latin adjectival Attius) were of course 
 the Phrygian ' first parents,' the father and mother, //le papa and mama. 
 
 Accius, which was and is considered an alias oi At/ius, reminds one of the 
 Finnish Akka (see p. 38) the Universal Mother ; it is impossible to make it 
 into Axii/s, an adjective from axis, or Accius would thus classify itself with 
 AxiEros, AxioKersos, and AxioKersa (whom we shall have later-on under 
 " The Three Kabeiroi ")• Of course we might, perhaps, apply the Finnish 
 akka to these names also. It is in any case very noteworthy that Ukko the 
 male consort of Akka (see p. 38 supra) is also a navel-god. 
 
 Naviiis must be viewed, in accordance with all I have been here 
 hammering-at, as retaining for us cosmically the sense of omphalos which we 
 also have in nave (of a wheel) and navel. And this is why the Roman figtree 
 was called Navia, as being a type of the central Universe-tree at the Navel. 
 Its name did not (in despite of Festus s.v. Navia) come from Attius Navius, 
 but both took their names from the navel. So did the Roman wood Naevia 
 silva or nemora ; and I think we get in Festus (s.v. Naeviaiii silvam) the real 
 word we want, in his Naeviis, but not as the name of a man but of the ttavel 
 of the Earth. Unless indeed it was also the name of the navel-god. The 
 central position of the god Attis is of value to me here in regard to Attius, 
 and it is proved by his sitting on the rock AgDos or AgDus, a name which 
 must clearly be read with i\IeDus (p. 143) and which will be treated-of injra as 
 the divine " Rock of Ages '' from which the Universe is agged or impelled 
 round. Kubele, the consort of Attis, was also called AgDistis (Strabo, 567) 
 from the same rock-mountain. 
 
 Thus Attius Accius Navius — for I retain all the tiames — is the Old 
 Father, the Axis-god, of the Omphalos. 
 
 As to the stone-cutting myth of Attius Navius (p. i iT,supra),l have 
 since been fortunate enough to happen upon another exact parallel. 
 King Athelstan gave Hakon a sword with hilt and handle of gold, 
 and the blade still better, for with it Hakon cut down a millstone to 
 the centre eye, and the sword thereafter was called Kvernbite.^ 
 This legend with its Eye (see infra), and its Millstone (see " The 
 Wheel ") clearly indicates the sword as an axis-symbol (see p. 36 
 supra). It was not a ' cut ' but a ' point ' that Hakon made. 
 
 To deal now with the naturalistic signification of the corporeal 
 navel, we h'sve already (p. 367) had Brahma as navel-born, and 
 Vishnu's navel as that of the Universe, a figure which quite 
 accords with the position of the Assj-rian wheel-god Asshur in the 
 Univcrsc-Whccl, for his bodily navel is also the nave of the wheel.'' 
 
 ' Stephen of Byzantium, s.v. ^auravpa. ' Hciinskrhif^/a (1SS9) i, 394. 
 
 ' Layard's Momiiiiciiis, pis. 14 and 21. We shall have this figure under "The 
 Wheel-God "in Vol. II. 
 
Myths?^ The Navels. 375 
 
 This is also very clear in a coin of Tarsus (figured by M. Goblet 
 d'Alviella') whither the design had clearly descended from the 
 same source. 
 
 Mammals issue, tied by the navel, from the part, the uterus, 
 which is internally at the navel. And we might perhaps even 
 explain the " taking refuge at the Omphalos " as a going back to 
 the mother. Thus the navel of the Earth would have a physio- 
 logical significance qua the Mother-Goddess, the Mother-Earth. 
 Diodorus Siculus mentions the Cretan omphalos, which was con- 
 nected in the legend with a realistic tale about the umbilical cord 
 of Zeus. One of the common and complex images of sacred Hindu 
 art (to return again to what I have already stated) is also of a 
 similarly naturalistic character, and shows Vishnu as Narayana, 
 or Bhagavat as Purusha, floating on the waters, while there issues 
 from the omphalos of the god a lotus-stem, and the creator Brahma 
 appeal's seated on the flower it bears.- There must thus be a close 
 symbolic connexion between the cosmic navel we have been con- 
 sidering and that of the human body, the importance of which led 
 the Hesychiasts or Omphalopsyches of the 4th (and also, it would 
 appear, of the 12th) century, among the monks of Mount Athos 
 to practise meditation (a word already mentioned in this con- 
 nexion at p. 372) on things divine by hanging the head on the 
 breast, and looking fixedly at the navel, where all the powers 
 of the soul concentre, until a commencing obscurity at length 
 suddenly flashed into dazzling light. The monks of Mount Athos 
 had no monopoly of this strange occupation. In Wilson's Rig 
 Veda is the following passage : " Those which are the Seven 
 Rays, in them is my navel expanded " (i, 272) ; a text which may 
 have mystic reference to the seven bright stars of Ursa Major, 
 and also to the adjoining northern polar navel of heaven, as well 
 as to the actual navel of the human or divine meditater.-^ The 
 placing of the soul in the belly is a widespread idea in the East, 
 and the Papuans place the seat of intelligence " in the midrift"."^ 
 The Japanese word Iiara, belly, also means mind or con- 
 science, and also takes the place of our word ' heart ' in its 
 secondary senses. The practice of harakiri or seppuku, death 
 
 ' Mig. des Symboles, 1891, p. 274. 
 
 - Moor's Hindil Pantheon, plate 7. Biiniouf's Bliag.-pur. i, 9. And see an 
 Addition at the end of this volume. 
 
 ■^ See an Addition at the end of this volume. 
 ■* H. H. Romilly's Terandak in N. Guinea, 61. 
 
376 The Night of the Gods. \_Polar 
 
 b}' opening the abdomen, which we somewhat dully call the happy 
 despatch, doubtless arose, perhaps sacrificially, out of such a 
 belief. It is not confined to Japan. Vambery describes' how the 
 infamous Abdul Samcd Khan, who put Conolly and Stoddart to 
 death, cut open his bell)' at the foot of the Emir's throne at 
 Khokand, to avoid imminent assassination. One of the Dervish- 
 like tricks of the Lamas of Tibet is to cut themselves open, let 
 the entrails eush out, and then rub the wound over, and hey jjresto 
 all is whole again. - 
 
 This naturalistic view was by no means confined to India, the East, and the 
 Pacific. There was a reHc called le saint nombril de Dieu in the church of 
 Notre-Danie de Vaux at Chalons, about which the canons brought an action 
 against their bishop (J. B. de Koailles) in 1707.^ (See the relics of Osiris 
 p. 21S siiprn.) 
 
 I think it is the ph\-sical congenital idea of the navel that we 
 must chiefly use to expound this belief that the belly was the 
 central seat of the organism ; but we must by no means leave the 
 cosmic navel out of the count. The Romans prayed to Cardea 
 (who must I think be viewed as the central goddess of the Cardo, 
 the female element in this duality of Cardo + Cardea, see p. 160 
 supra) to fortify the heart, reins, and all the viscera, either because 
 (said Prcllcr*) by the heart, cor, cardia, the stomach was under- 
 stood, or because cor, cardia, meant the intelligence. The Japanese 
 still use the Chinese term kanjin |j^ '^ (liver and kidneys) to imply 
 a matter of the highest importance. 
 
 The WiV-rtrr/rc/ conical protuberant stone omphalos of Delphoi, 
 before which Apollo holding a laurel-tree is seated, has already 
 been mentioned. The illustration, which it is too late now to 
 procure for insertion here, is taken from a well-known Italian 
 publication'' by Daremberg and Saglio's Dictionary (i, 321) and 
 there is a differing presentation of the netted stone, with the 
 melancholy-mad Orestes seated on it, at p. 399 of the same volume, 
 taken from the celebrated silver vase of the Corsini ^Museum. I 
 regret the absence of these illustrations here, because of the theory 
 to explain that extremely puzzling net which I am now about to 
 develop The net in question was called the a'^pr^vov or 'ypTivov ; 
 
 ' Tna'cls of a False De7~dislt (French ed. 1S65), p. 351. 
 
 " Hazlitt's Hue's Tiavcls, i, 191. ** Dulnure : Ctiltes, ii, 3SS. 
 
 ■* Rom. Mytli. 604 (citing Lucretius \i, 1150 and Horace Sat. ii, 3, 29, 161 ; he also 
 refer?, to the apologue of Menenius Agrippa). 
 
 " Moiiitincnti deir Inst. Arch. \,\\. xlvi. 
 
Myths?\ The Navels. 377 
 
 but the term applied especially to the woollen net (or knitted ?) 
 over-garment worn by diviners and servers of Dionusos. The 
 word was not generally used for any of the nets of the ordinary 
 occupations of men ; for instance Schrevelius did not give either 
 form of the word. Still it has been suggested to me that it may 
 be connected with aypevoi, dypeco to catch in hunting or fishing, 
 which again hangs on to dypa chace, capture, booty. But this 
 view would condemn one to go round in a circle from which no 
 issue is seen. 
 
 Now my notion is that the navel-net had a sacrificial origin, and 
 that it may have been the net-like slight strong membrane well 
 known to butchers as ' the caul,' which covers the navel-fat and 
 the intestines. By some curious survival of a doubtless once 
 ritualistic practice, this ' caul ' is still used in butchers' shops to cover 
 and shall I say decorate the carcase of a lamb or a calf, and is 
 sent out with the joint of veal or lamb, to serve as a protective 
 covering to the meat at the fire, and prevent it " from drying up " 
 (says a cook), "from burning" (says a butcher). There need be 
 no doubt that butchers, who were once of course sacrificing priests 
 and their aids, traditionally continue practices which had their 
 origin in a sacredly significant ritual. The Jewish butchers are 
 to the present day the subordinates of the Rabbis, and still carry 
 out their ritualistic sacrificial commands ; else the meat is not 
 koslier, and it must not be eaten by strict Jews. The Hindu sacri- 
 ficer also girded a rope of kusa-grass round the sacrificial post at 
 the height of his own navel.' 
 
 Let us now take up the Satapatha-brahiiiana- , as one of the oldest 
 authorities left us upon the minutiae of the butcher-priest's duties, 
 and we shall find that so soon as " the victim had been quieted," 
 that is, strangled or suffocated to death, the washing of the ten 
 external organs took place : among them " the navel, that 
 mysterious (opening of a) vital air." Then the very first thing 
 done after cutting it open was to " pull out the omentum (vapa) 
 from the middle of the victim " and skewer it on the two omentum- 
 roasters, vapashrapanis, wooden spits. (An ancient gloss on this 
 explains that a tree grew out of the first victim slain in the 
 beginning by the gods.) They then roasted the omentum at the 
 nortli side of the fire. When it was basted, the drop-verses were 
 
 ' Satafatha-bydhmana, ii, 172. 
 
 - Dr. Eggeling's Version, ii, 190 to 200. See also " The North " iii/ia. 
 
37S The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 recited to Agni (see p. 361 supra as to Agni's position at the navel) 
 because the dripping-drops were impetrative of the rain-drops. 
 When the omentum was roasted, it was cut off the wooden spits, 
 and a prayer was recited to Agni and Soma (see p. 290 supra and 
 the Index) " for the omentum, and fat of the buck." " Having 
 offered the omentum, he la}-s the two spits together and throws 
 them after (the omentum into the fire) with ' consecrated by 
 Svaha, go ye to UrdhvaXabhas !' " (as to which last word, see 
 p. 367 s?pra). 
 
 The exposition of this in the Satapatha-braliinana, like all its 
 other similar expositions, is proof positive that long before that 
 book of instructions was compiled, all tradition of the meaning of 
 the ritual had come to be completely lost. " The reason why thej' 
 perform with the omentum is this. For whatever deity the victim 
 is sacrificed, that same deit}- is pleased by means of that fat ; and 
 being thus pleased, waits patiently for the cooking of the other 
 sacrificial dishes." 
 
 The next thing done therefore with the victim is to cut it up 
 into these '' other sacrificial dishes " ; and I have indeed written this 
 Navel section wholly in vain if the Reader cannot see for himself, 
 without my further fatiguing him, that the cosmic and genital 
 reasons are amply sufficient to account for the superior significance 
 and priority of the navel-fat of the omentum in the sacrifice and 
 burnt offering. These then are some of my reasons for suggesting 
 that the omphalos-net represents the membrane that covers the 
 omentum-fat of the sacrifice. This too explains the nii/htes, French 
 nombles (low-Latin numbile, numbulus, nebulus) of the deer and 
 other venison. The word comes from umbilicus, alias ;/umbilicus.^ 
 And o/i(^aXdt must have been also vofitpaXos, because although the Greek and 
 Latin root was a/ziM, the corresponding words in other languages come from a 
 root /lai/i, which should probably be regarded as the older form." (Umbilir/cj- 
 is adjecti^•al, from some lost umbilus or ombolos = ofi<f)a\6s.) Here is a list of 
 some of these words in ;/, taken from Ski 
 Icelandic 
 
 Danish 
 
 Swedish 
 
 ' IJtlre fell into an error in bringing nombles from lumbulus, dim. of lumbi the 
 loins ; but perhaps the words are related. " Ciirtius i, 367, in Skeat. 
 
 from SK 
 
 eat 
 
 and E. R. Wharton : 
 
 ndf 
 
 
 na\-e 
 
 nafli 
 
 
 navel 
 
 nav 
 
 
 na\'e 
 
 navle 
 
 
 navel 
 
 naf 
 nafle 
 
 
 na\-e 
 navel 
 
Myths^^ 
 
 The Navels. 
 
 379 
 
 English 
 
 Old High German 
 
 German 
 
 Dutch . 
 
 wheel-nave 
 
 navel 
 of nave " (or query nave-hole ?) 
 
 nave 
 
 nave 
 
 navel 
 
 nave 
 
 navel 
 
 centre 
 wheel-na\'e, centre. 
 
 centre 
 
 na\-el (iinaiitliciiticafed). 
 
 Anglo-Saxon . nafa, nafu 
 
 nafela . 
 navel, " dim. 
 napa 
 nabe 
 nabel . 
 naaf 
 navel . 
 Lettish . . . naba 
 Sanskrit . . nabhi, navel, 
 
 nabhis . 
 nabhilam 
 
 [The root ?iab!i (^ nab) means ' to swell,' and the bodily navel of the young 
 mammal of course protuberates at first. So did the omphalos-stone of 
 Delphi.] 
 
 As for words without the n, we have besides umbilicus and o/ii^aXds the 
 Latin umbo boss, and the Midlrish imbliu navel. There is one more, auger, 
 which will be instantly dealt with. 
 
 To dwell a little longer on this my omentum-' caul ' theory. 
 Fick^ supplies a very pointed analogy here in the similarity between 
 0eo-7r/3O7ro9 priest, and TrpaTrtSe? midriff. Would the theo-propos 
 have been originally the butcher-priest who dealt with the omentum- 
 fat, just as the Hindu priest did .'' And now I am going to outstrip 
 even that by suggesting that ^?/'^§-«/- comes from the same radical 
 sacred ideas, and the same verbal root as navel. In the first place 
 no successful attempt at an etymology of augur has ever been made. 
 Next I say that it is the same word as our auger a boring-tool. 
 
 Our English auger has lost an n (like adder) and was nauger. Halliwell has 
 " «a7'^_gr);' an auger, A.D. 1301." The Anglo-Saxon was nafegar := ?7rr/a wheel- 
 nave -^ gdr a piercer, the tool being used for boring the nave-hole of a wheel. 
 (We have the same gdr in garfish and garlic.) The Old High German was 
 napager := napa nave -|- ger spear-point ; the Swedish is nafvare ^ a lost nafgare 
 = naf nave + a word allied to Icelandic geirr spear. Dutch avegaar auger 
 was navegaar = naaf wheel-nave -|- (obsolete) gaar spear-point ; but the Dutch 
 also has another word for auger, naaf boor, where the ;; sui-vives, and boor is from 
 boren to bore. The Icelandic for auger is nafarr. (Skeat and E. R. Wharton.) 
 Thus auger means ' the nave-hole piercer,' and mj suggcstio)i is 
 that the priest- Augur laas also a nave-hole piercer, the cuttcr-7p of the 
 victim, the maker of the first cut at the navel. A nd I therefore 
 advance the theory that his Auguries ivere originally from immediate 
 observation of the intestines that he so exposed to his view, and not 
 from observing the flight of birds. Augur has naught to do 
 etymologically with auspicium = avi-spicium (avis -|- spicere, the 
 
 ' Eiyni. Wortcrb. first ed. 
 
380 ^ The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 spying of birds). And must we not thus diagnose a connexion 
 between omen and omentum ? See also the strilcing fact about 
 the making of a navel in the Hindu altar under "The Augur's 
 Templum " infra. 
 
 I shall just note down here, and leave it so, that 0aAos also = boss (as well 
 as the Latin umbo). Why should not (j>aW6i belong to this, and cfiaKw belong 
 to o/K^aXof ? Recollect that .Sanskrit nabhilas = cunnus. <I>aXos was the cone 
 or crest of a helmet, and (pa\os splendid bright white, may have got that signi- 
 fication by extension from the navel of the heavens. 
 
 I must also set down here, with reference to the heavens-River Ismenos 
 flowing from the omphalos, p. 342 supra., and the incidental mention of the gomez 
 above (p. 364), that the Welsh afon river, the English Avon, and the Latin 
 amnis river are put to the same root as ificpaXos. The Midlrish abann is the 
 same word as avon, so was the Gaulish ambe, rivo ; and the Sanskrit was 
 ambhas, water.' Remember that (as above) the Greek and Latin root ambh, 
 (nasalised form of abli) to which belong umbilicus and o^c/jnXos-, comes down 
 side by side with root nahli of similar sense. We shall be inundated with this 
 under "The Heavens-River" in \'ol. II. 
 
 One more point, and this complicated and I fear wearisome 
 Section closes. The Navel must be connected not alone with the 
 Net but with the Veil of the Universe, which will be fully dealt 
 with in Vol. II. The Sth century Nonnos of Panopolis,^ who may 
 have taken his information from Pherecydes — in which case it 
 would have been a thousand years older — narrated how Harmonia, 
 the All-Mother, wove in her palace this cosmic Veil : " Bent over 
 the artful loom of Athene, Harmonia wove a peplos with the shuttle. 
 In the stuff which she wove she displayed first earth, with its 
 omphalos in the centre," and so forth. When Phrixos and Helle 
 fly on the golden-fleeced Ram, their heavens-mother Xcphele is 
 seen, on a Naples vase,' extending her Veil over them. (See what 
 is said abo\'e, p. 366, as to Zeus Nephele-gereta.) 
 
 [On the subject of the Navels, the reader will find much interesting dis- 
 quisition in Dr. Warren's Paradise Found, to which 1 am indebted for some 
 general ideas and several illustrative facts.] 
 
 ' E. R. Wharton's, Elyiiia Gficca and Latina. 
 
 - Dionysiaca xli, 294. He wrote when a ]iagan, but became a Christian afterwards. 
 
 ^ Heydemann Vascn des Mui. iia-Joii. Neapol. No. 31 12, in Saglio's Diet, i, 416, 
 414. 
 
Myths:] The Rock of Ages. 381 
 
 2. — The Rock of Ages. 
 
 THE Japanese heavens-Rock Dwelling, ame-no-Iha Ya, in 
 the Kozliiki (i, 16) must I think be taken to be the spot in 
 the heavens which is fixed and eternal as a rock — that is the 
 Northern celestial centre wherein the axis is unshakeably fixed. 
 This is confirmed by the fact that the Iha Ya is " near the source 
 of the peaceful heavens-River" (i, 32) which, as will be shown in 
 its section, is the Milky Way proceeding from the Northern 
 celestial pole. The Chinese Li Khi, as to which see p. 390 infra, 
 says that heaven — that is the heavens, as I always say here for 
 clearness — are hollow in the centre, but solid in their heights.' 
 
 The entrance to the Norse Asgard, the garden or enclosure of 
 the Ases or great gods, is by HiminBiorg, heaven s-Rocks,'^ which 
 is clearly an identical myth. I have already (pp. 270, 280 and 
 363) pointed to HeimDall as an alias of this HiminBiorg, and 
 connected it indubitably with the heavens-omphalos, which shows 
 that all my present arguments hang together. The Japanese 
 phrase for the throne of god, ame-no-Iha Kura, the seat of the 
 heavens-Rock {Kozhiki i, 34) must be the same mythic locus. In 
 all these cases, ' Rock ' implies immobility, the fixature of the Pole, 
 the rock in which the Axis turns. Compare Isaiah xxvi, 4 : "In 
 Yah Yahveh is an everlasting Rock, or a Rock of Ages." 
 
 It is indispensable to bear in mind here that Upos, holy, orig-inally meant 
 strong, mighty.^ So that all-mighty and all-holy would be equivalent ; and so 
 we obtain the highest possible sanction for " Might is right." Sanskrit ishiras 
 = strong ; and Upos is also coupled with laiva warm"' ; so that here we ha\'e 
 the central rocks, the central fire, and the central Holiness and Might all 
 together. 
 
 These heavens-Rocks must be also the Kvaveai TveTpai men- 
 tioned by Homer and Euripides, which guard the entrance of the 
 Pontos or heavens-River, or Universe-ocean. Through them the 
 good ship Argo came forth. '^ And it will presently be seen that 
 they are also Dual Rocks, like the Dual Pillars of which we ha\'e 
 already had ample evidence. 
 
 ' liadez £10/1: /•/itYos. de la Chine, l6r. ° Gylfa Gijiniug, 211, 240. 
 
 ^ Curtius Etyiii. No. 614. * Wharton's Etyma GiiCia. 
 
 ° Argonaudka (Wc-llauei) i, 5; ii, 318, 565. 
 
382 The Night of the Gods. \Polai- 
 
 The Japanese parallel to this mythic heavens-ship the Argo is the Boat of 
 the heavens-Rock (or rocks), ame-no-Iha Bune (or -Iwa Fune) ; for so I render 
 it, and do not consider that the word ' rock, iwa' solely indicates the material 
 or the indestructibility of the boat as being A, i for ever. However Mr. Satow,' 
 the value of whose opinion none will dispute, has pointed out that the word iwa 
 or iha as used in the compound names of Japanese Kami is held to mean 
 'strong, enduring, eternal.' 
 
 (As examples of my view may be cited : iwa-shiki, the rock or mountain 
 deer ; iwa-ki (rock-tree) the coriander ; iwa-momo (rock-peach) the cowberr\- ; 
 iwa-renge, a kind of rock-moss ; iwa-take, rock-mushroom ; iwa-tsubame, the 
 rock-swift (swallow). The Kami-name Iwa-tsuchi seems to me to be 'Rock- 
 weapon.') 
 
 But it must be regarded as most strange that there is an actual rock -boat in 
 the Odyssey (xiii, 147 etc), where Poseidon smites the ship of the Phaiekians (or 
 Phaiakians) into a Stone in the likeness of a swift ship, that all mankind might 
 marvel. (Note also that this ship's crew numbered 50 and 2 — Odyss. viii, 35, 
 4S, and that she issues from the stream (poof) of the river {jrora^ios) Okeanos, 
 that is the Universe-river.) He also at the same time overshadows their city 
 Scheria with a great mountain. Xow 1 interpret uxepia here as Order (of the 
 Universe) — o'X^P'f orderly, crxepos order ; and it must be remembered that the 
 Phaiekians are also said to have dwelt (Odyss. y\, 4) of old in wide-musicked 
 HyperEia, iv evprxopio 'YTrfpf/i;, near the Cyclopes, which I would interpret as 
 the heavens, or harmonic sphere. Pherecydes (frag. 55) made Hj-perEs (the 
 son of Phrixos, strong, bristling ; son of Melas. black) hve at the fountain 
 HvperEia which was so called after him. Scheria was also Corcyra (Kerkura, 
 which see in Index) and Drepane. The derivation of Phaiakia from (j)a bright 
 is that I adopt. 
 
 As to the signification of the Greek Kuanean Rocks, Kvarerj is 
 given as ' black,' but Kvaveo^ is ' black, dusky, deep-blue, azure, 
 sky-coloured.' We have here, in fact, a typical instance of the 
 ancient unfixedness of blue, the root-cause of which must be 
 sought in the Protean colours of the sky and the sea. And 
 the other terms for these same rocks : -TrXajraL (understood as 
 ' wandering' or 'striking," but the real sense is manifesth" lost) and 
 sumplegades (' dashers,' which may indicate the opening and 
 shutting of these Iron Gates) show how complex and overlaid the 
 myth had become even in archaic Greece. These rocks were 
 placed where two seas met. When they closed up together, after 
 opening for the Argo to pass on the return voyage, they then 
 became rooted firmly for ever," because a man had passed through 
 alive in his ship. Here ^e may see a parallel conception to the 
 Gate-of-Heaven dual pillars so fully treated-of under "The 
 
 ' Trans. As. Soc. Tap. vii, 123. 
 "' Ar-^onauttia ii, 604. 
 
Myths ?\ The Rock of Ages. 383 
 
 Dokana." We have still always with us the same immeasurably 
 archaic conception in the naively pious rhymes : 
 Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 
 Let me hide myself in thee.^ 
 A local legend of Clirton in Gloucestershire gives us a Moses- 
 myth of this nature in the contest between a hermit Goram, 
 perhaps a local god — the name is a strange reminder of the 
 Guraian Rock just below, and the Spanish saint Vincentius, who 
 clove the Clirton rocks asunder, and so gave passage to the river 
 Frome.- It is of course a mere localisation of the celestial myth 
 (of which we shall read plenty under "The Heavens River "); and 
 equally of Course the often striking and even awful geological 
 phenomena of rivers issuing from between impossible-looking 
 rocks suggested the terms of the celestial myth. This may be 
 bracketed also with the Rock (irirpa), near the Tritonian lake and 
 the (Universe) apple-tree of the triad of Hesperides, which 
 HeraKles, in another Moses-miracle, strikes with his foot, and a 
 spring gushes forth at once.^ Pindar called Poseidon Trerpaio?. 
 
 At the Kuanean Rocks we must therefore locus the Kuane 
 fountain (and its legends) whereinto Plouton plunged through the 
 Earth with Persephone/ 
 
 The Odyssey (xii, 56 etc.) version of the dual-rocks myth in the 
 Argonautika says ''One rock reaches with sharp peak to the wide 
 heaven, and a dark cloud encompasses it. No mortal man may 
 scale it or set foot thereon, for the rock is sheer and smooth, as it 
 were polished." This is clearly the slippery pillar of the Chinese 
 king, the elusive, evasive, indubitable but non-existent axis 
 (p. 191 supra). This passage of the Odyssey (line 10 1 etc) clearly 
 shows that these Rocks and those of Scylla and Charybdis are 
 identical in myth. And the same conclusion is manifestly 
 deducible from the Argonautika, although Apollonios the Rhodian 
 did not detect the concurrence in compiling the framework of his 
 poem from the garbled legendary fragments that had then come 
 down to him (one and twenty centuries ago) through all mytho- 
 logical time. He fully recognised that both myths belonged to 
 the same spot, but there he stopped : " For on one side arose 
 Skulla's sheer wall of cliff, and on the other Charubdis did spout 
 
 ' Hymns And. and Mod. No. 1S4. 
 
 - Mr. E. S. Hartlaiid's County Folk-lore, i, 50. 
 
 ^ Argonaut, iv, 1445. ■* Cicero, In IWr. W, 4S. Preller, p. iSo. 
 
3 §4 The Night of the Gaels. [Polar 
 
 and roar unceasingl)' ; while in another place the ' wandering ' 
 Rocks thundered at the buffet of the mighty waves : there where in 
 front of them a blazing flame vomited from the top of the crags, 
 high o'er a redhot rock."^ Here we must see the central Universe- 
 fire (see p. 365 supra). 
 
 The numerous rock)' promontories or places called Scylla, 2KvXKa, Scylleum, 
 in Greece and Italia ; the three Irish Skellig islands off \'alentia, and Skull on 
 the Cork coast ; the Scilly islands, and so forth, all seem to point to a similar 
 origin for the word ; but the etymologists only give us ' (TKvWa I tear,' which is 
 not filling. 
 
 It further seems difficult to keep the Kuanean, or the 
 ' wandering ' or the ' clashing ' rocks, or the cliffs of Scylla and 
 Char)-bdis, separate from the Rock in the legend of the death of 
 Ajax (Aias) {Odyssey iv, 500 etc). Poseidon brought Aias near to 
 Gurai, to the mighty Rocks, and presently caught up his trident 
 into his strong hands and smote the Guraian Rock, and cleft it in 
 twain. And the one part abode in its place, but the other, whereon 
 Aias sat at the first, fell into the Ocean ; and the Rock bore him 
 down into the vast and heaving deep. Gurai must be connected 
 with yupoi round (the heavens?; ; and Aias seems to belong to ala 
 land, alei always, aiero'; eagle, a'ir)To^ mighty. 
 
 Two strange Japanese natural rocks rise out of the sea near the 
 shore of Futami. Side by side they stand up like twin giants, and 
 are known as the W'ife-and-Husband rocks, ]\Ii6to seki. They 
 are joined together by a stra\\--rope ; and the use of this talismanic 
 bond as a charm against all diseases and ill-luck is said in Japan 
 to have there sprung up when the god Susa-no-\\"o was succoured 
 by the peasant Somin. In return the god foretold a plague and 
 the hygienic remed\- for it — a belt of twisted grass round the 
 body, and a straw-rope across the house-door.- Thus these dual 
 Rocks must also be looked-on as a celestial Doorway, like the 
 Dokana. 
 
 The lofty rocks, the /xaKpai Trirpai, at the North of the 
 Akropolis (Herod, viii, 53) from which AgLauros (p. 347 s»/>ra) 
 precipitated herself as a mediating saviour must be typical of 
 these supreme cosmic rocks. In the same class of numerous 
 divine suicides is the m)-th of Ke'^aXo? casting himself from the 
 summit of the rocks into the (Universe) ocean, a celestial allegory 
 which became terrestrialh- locused at Leukata" = Aevi^i] rrtrpa — 
 
 ' Argaii. iv, 922 (Mr. E. P. Coleridge). 
 
 - Satow and Hawes's Handbook, p. 150. Strabo, .\, 452. 
 
Myths^^ The Rock of Ages. 385 
 
 Album saxum, white Rock, where commemorative human sacrifices 
 by flinging down from a cliff took place. Kephalos is given to the 
 O. H. German gebal skull, English gable ; but gabal, as mountain- 
 peak (see pp. 94, 1 16), although Semitic, gives us more clearly the 
 straight tip here. See also the case of Aspalis in " The E)'e of 
 Heaven." Hera speeds forth from heaven, and shouts from the 
 Hercynian rock, anoTreXoio 'KpKvviov (Arg'on. iv, 640), "and one 
 and all did quake with fear at her shout, for terribly rumbled the 
 wide firmament." At the other pole of the Universe the Odyssey 
 (x, 515) gives another Rock : " By the dank house of Hades into 
 Acheron flows Puriphlegethon, and Kokutos (cocytus) a branch of 
 the water of the Stux (Styx), and there is a Rock and a meeting 
 of two roaring Rivers." 
 
 One of the Welsh Old Ones of the Worid is the Eagle of 
 Gwernabwy who on his arrival there found a Rock from the 
 summit of which he pecked each evening at the stars, and there 
 he remained ever until the rock had worn down to the height of a 
 man's palm.^ It was from a Rock on the Aventine (that is Bird) 
 hill that Remus observed the flight of birds (six vultures). The 
 temple of Bona Dea thereunder was thence called Subsaxana. 
 
 I have already dealt, in " The Navels," with the rock AgDos, 
 upon which Attis sat.- It must be the central heavens-rock. 
 From it Deukalion and Pyrrha (see p. 1 19 j«/;-rt) took the stones 
 which they flung down to make men. Zeus turned it into a 
 woman, said Arnobius, and she bore him AgDistis or AgDestis the 
 Herm-Aphrodite dual primal god. He was mutilated like Kronos, 
 the result being an almond-tree which bore magic fruits (compare 
 Demeter's fig-tree p. 313 supra). Nana (= Sanskrit Nana, mother) 
 the daughter of the river 'S.ayyapio'; became pregnant of Attis by 
 these almonds. Hence was Attis called Sangarius puer in statius.^ 
 Ovid (Fast, iv, 229) makes him in love with a nymph of the river : 
 Sagaritis Nympha. The. Sangarios must be a river of blood, and 
 therefore sacrificial, because of sanguis (or sanguen), and crdvSv^ 
 vermilion. AgDistis afterwards drove Attis (the myth, as has 
 already been seen, is full of introversions) to mutilate himself 
 AgDos is the rock from or in which the Universe is driven, agged, 
 round on its axis. At p. 345 I have claimed ag-laos as another 
 driving-rock. To this must be added Ageleia (or -a) as a title of 
 
 ' J. Loth, Les Mabinogion, 18S9, i, 263. 
 
 - M. de I.ongperier, (Eiivrcs, ii, 360. ' Silvae, iii, 4, 41. 
 
 2 B 
 
?S6 
 
 The Night of the Gods. \_Poh 
 
 ar 
 
 Athene, which would thus accord with her alias PalLas. It is 
 brought by the dictionaries from ci'^/ui + Xaos\ and held to mean 
 ' leading the people ' ; but that is senseless ; Xao^; here (see p. 119, 
 where I make MeneLaos = Rock of ages) is the stone-rock with 
 which we are dealing. (The alternative old explanation of Ageleia 
 (if the other missed fire) as praedatrix plunderess, from ayta -)- \eia, 
 was of the knock-you-down-with-the-butt-end sort ; and of course 
 the two were mutually destructive.) To these may be added the 
 ireTpa called AgeLastos,' on which DeMeter the god-mother seated 
 herself when worn-out with seeking the rapt Persephone night and 
 day over the universal orb of the Earth. There was the well close 
 by the Rock, just as in the case of Plouton's rape of the same 
 Persephone above (p. 383), and DeMeter's night and day progress 
 is a progress-of-the-spheres mj'th. Of course the localisation of 
 the Rock at E/tns'is was a pious fraud of priests and worshippers 
 alike — comparable to the vast number of local Navels. The very 
 ancient and droll explanation of this AgeLastos as "not laughing" 
 (a + yeXdw), from the wailing of the goddess, air' e/ce(V;;9 icKrjOelaav,^ 
 is merely grotesque. The ayeXai and dyeXaaTol of Crete- seem 
 to refer to athletic clubs, unless the terms can have also referred to 
 some original stone-fights (see p. 1 14 supra) or sling-fights of these 
 combative associations of youths. To put all this beyond doubt, 
 I call as another witness AgeLaos whose identity with the Navel- 
 Rock seems indubitable, as he was born of its goddess Omphale^ 
 (sire PleraKles, the keystone god). Another legend* makes 
 AgeLaos expose on Alount Ida, and a bear suckle, Paris alias 
 AlexAuder (which gives the Alexander myths a long start of him 
 called the Great). The Bear is another northern celestial proof for 
 AgeLaos. lun of Chios (born circa 480 B.C.) recorded a local 
 legend that Poseidon had, by some nymph of the island, two sons 
 named AgeLos and Mclas.^ 
 
 The rock of Ali Baba's legend, which we shall have in " The 
 Arcana," as well as its doublet there given, seem to me to be 
 reminiscences of the same great Rock ; and the celestial treasures 
 it contains arc a further identification with the North, as shown in 
 that Section. 
 
 ' Apoll. Bib!, i, 5, I. 
 
 ^ Mentioned by Ephorusand Hemclides. Didot's Fi-a;;. Hist. Ct\ic. i, 251 ; ii, 211. 
 
 3 ApoU. Bibl. ii, 7, S, 10. « Ibid, iii, 12, 5. 
 
 ^ Didot's Frai;. Hist. CruC. ii, 50. 
 
Myths.'] The Rock of Ages. 
 
 One of the most famous mythic terrestrial Rocks is that called 
 the Sakhr^i, which is covered by the sacred building known as the 
 Kubbet es Sakhra at Jerusalem. The holy Rock itself measures 
 57 feet by 43, and bulges up about 6h feet over the pavement. 
 The earliest reference to it is found in the Jalinud and the ancient 
 Jewish traditions, and in the Targuin or interpretations of the 
 Hebrew Bible. The mythic Ab^-ss, with a torrent, is covered by 
 the Rock. Abraham and Melchizedek sacrificed upon it ; it was 
 there Abraham was about to immolate Isaac ; and it was anointed 
 by Jacob, which would make a beth-El of it. It is a navel of the 
 world, and the Ark [see " The Arcana "] stood there until it was 
 concealed by Jeremiah beneath the Rock. On it is written the 
 shemhamphorash, the great and unspeakable Name, by reading 
 which Jesus was enabled to work miracles. In the 3rd or 4th 
 century A.D. this Rock was identified with the eben shatya or 
 foundation-stone, as Sepp agrees. 
 
 The Moslems say it hovers unsupported over the Abyss, or the 
 well of souls, bir el-arwah. It came from paradise, and here are 
 the gates of hell. On the last day the Kaaba of Mecca (see p. 229 
 stipra) will come to this sakhra, on which Allah's throne will be 
 placed. Here Mahomet sprang to heaven on his enchanted horse 
 el-Burak.' The minor legends about this rock are interminable. 
 
 The Spanish oath by Roque, called obscure by the commen- 
 tators of Don Quixote (ch. iv), as well as the place-name San Roque 
 and the famous saint's-name Saint-Roch, here get their full and 
 sufficient and most archaic expounding. 
 
 THE GOD TERMINUS. " Cursed be he that removeth his 
 neighbour's landmark "^ is simply calling in the aid of the deity and 
 of divine terrors to enforce the law and customs against trespass. 
 Gods were put-up at boundaries in order that they — both gods and 
 boundaries — might be simultaneously respected and taboo ; and 
 this worship of the Hermes or Terminus may very well have at 
 length — without much aid from an elusive " fetish " theory — have 
 led to the worship of the scare-thief and mere scarecrow, not 
 unknown in Japan and in ancient Rome (see p. 81 supra). 
 
 Here must be anticipated a portion of the Section on the rex- 
 god Numa Pompilius (whom I posit as the numen or god of the 
 procession of the heavens) in order to speak of the god Terminus, 
 
 ' Baedeker's Palestine, p. 173. - Deuteronomy xxvii, 17. 
 
 2 B 2 
 
38S The Night of the Gods. {Polar 
 
 to whom (with Fides = MeDius Fidius, the central god of fixed 
 truth) he erected a temple. The Romans worshipped no older god 
 than Terminus. There was a Jupiter terminalis, doubtless another 
 name for the self-same deity, whom Dionysius of Halicarnassus put 
 into Greek as Zeus Opto?, which last name and oversetting gives 
 me another excellent argument in help of my theory that Ouranos 
 was a terminal heavens-god (see pp. 23, 46 supra). The forms 
 Termo and Termen must be the more archaic, and Terminus is 
 thus manifestly adjectival, and means ' uf the extremity,' as is 
 shown by the Sanskrit tarman point, and the Greek rep/ia, repfxi^, 
 repiMoov. The statement that Numa invented Terminus is merely 
 an assertion of a supremer godhood for Numa. The legend about 
 the stone or statue of Terminus holding on immoveably to the 
 Tarpeian rock against the efforts of Tarquinius Superbus, the 
 supreme Rotater of the heavens, is a variant of the deeply-rooted 
 eternal Pillar we have had quite enough of in this Inquiry, and 
 wraps up the central fact that Termen was an unshakeable Axis- 
 god who withstood all the gigantic strain of the vast universe that 
 turned upon him — he was the god of the socket, the end, the term 
 (ination) of that Axis. The 77rrpeian rock is also thus clearly an 
 avatar of the terminal Rock of Ages, for its name contains the 
 same root tar that is in Termen, 
 
 It was either the Tarpeian mons or rupes or saxum ; and the precipitation from 
 it of criminals (originally of course human sacrifices in reparation to the gods) 
 shows that it belongs to the category, celestial and terrestrial, mythic and 
 actual, of the Kuanean rock of Plouton and Persephone's plunge, the Guraian 
 rock of the fall of Aias, the Akropolis rocks of the suicide of AgLauros, and the 
 human sacrifices from the cliff of Leukata (p. 384 supra). The well-known 
 proverb makes its proxiinity to the Capitol familiar, and the Capitol was also the 
 Tarpeian arx. Jupiter was quite accurately the Tarpeian Father, and his 
 thunder (fulmen) was called Tarpeian, but that was a celestial survival ; so 
 must have been the phrase 'the Tarpeian gods,' dei. 
 
 The worship of Terminus had to be celebrated in the open air — 
 always a note of a supreme heavens-god — and a hole in the roof of 
 the Capitol was kept open above his statue.^ This is paralleled 
 by the numerous roofless archaic temples to be found in all 
 religions (see " The Eye of Heaven " and the Index;. 
 
 How luminous, and easily made out, does this present to us all 
 the images and statues of Terminus, which were originally a long 
 squared upright stone (or a tree-stump, to which we shall return 
 
 ' Servius on ^-Ein-iJ i\, 44S. Festus, s. v. Terminus. 
 
Myths r^ The Rock of Ages. 3S9 
 
 directly) ; and how immediately and aptly does Termen's head, 
 and head alone (armless, bodiless, legless) on the top of the Pillar, 
 at the end of the Axis, follow and explain itself in this symbology. 
 It is just what has been shown at p. 214 about Ptah : that the body 
 of the god permutes with the lower, the pillar portion of the monu- 
 ment. Termen the god of the boundary, of the opo<^ or ovpo<i of 
 the heavens, thus readily becomes the god of all boundaries ; and 
 we thus at once perceive how damnable was the sacrilege of 
 removing ftis idol, of profaning the neighbour's landmark. 
 
 The reader will have seen, without my underlining of it, that 
 this theory, by moving a previous and infinitely higher question, 
 completely overturns all Dulaure's elaborate construction^ about the 
 sacredness of pillar-stones coming from the sacredness of boundaries 
 and f-ontiers ; nay not alone overturns it, but puts it up again 
 upside-down, for indeed the true, the divine, theory is all ' the 
 other way up.'- 
 
 The alternative tree-stump representations of Terminus not 
 alone give us another coalescence of the pillar-stone and tree-trunk 
 symbols of the axis, but also enable me to explain the wooden 
 striped boundary-marks which denote to the hale and active tramp 
 the frequent frontier of the minor German statelets. In the Grimms' 
 tale (No. 56) of ' Sweetheart Roland,' the heroine changes herself 
 into " a red stone landmark." I have already dealt with Roland's 
 pillars, p. 332, and now the colour "red" must be accounted for. 
 At the setting-up of a Roman boundary-stone all living near the 
 spot were assembled, and in their presence the hole made for it in 
 the ground was sanctified with the blood of a sacrificed victim. 
 Incense field-produce honey and wine were also laid and poured 
 in and upon the hole, and the victim was burnt thereon. The stone 
 smeared with the blood — here is the red colour — and decked with 
 ribbons and garlands, was then erected upon the still smouldering 
 bones and ashes, and sunk into the foundation prepared for it. 
 Whoever removed the stone was accursed and outlawed, and could 
 therefore be killed with impunity by anyone. 
 
 At the annual terniinalia festival on the 23rd of February, the 
 neighbours from both sides of the boundary gathered at such a 
 holy landmark, adorned it with wreaths, and offered cakes, and a 
 
 ' Hist, des Ciiltes, iSo5-'6, and 1825, /ffi.(//«. Dulaure also produced a History of 
 he Beard, and other compilations. 
 
 ' The full import of my note on p. 270 will now be apparent. 
 
39° 'Jlic Nii^hl of the Gods. {Polar 
 
 lamb or sucking-pig was sacrificed, the stone being smeared with 
 the blood ; and then there was a feast. In the grove of Terminus 
 near Laurentum (six miles outside Rom.c) a lamb was also the 
 sacrifice. Now here we have not alone Grimms' ' red ' colour but 
 the ribbons which will explain to us the striping or ribboning with 
 paint of the surviving German boundary-posts. And I must ask 
 the reader who may have been following me thus far with moderate 
 attention, to turn back now and read again what has been said at 
 p. 301 of the Barber's Pole. lie will then be in a positi*)n to draw 
 his own conclusion as to whether I am inconsistent in making out 
 my case. 
 
 The important Chinese philosophical compilation called the 
 Li-Khi, effected under the personal superintendence of the 
 Emperor K'ang Hi {1662-1723), sa\-s that the Ki of Tai-Ki (see 
 p. 226 supra, and fully under "The Polestar" infra) "is the 
 extremity. Placed in the middle, it is (like a pivot, like a king, 
 like the Polestarj the centre and terminus ; or it is like the upper 
 end of the post of a house, which is in the middle and bears-up all."^ 
 The /,/-A7// condensed the writings of philosophers from the iith 
 century downwards. 
 
 The Japanese Buddhist Ji-z6 (? Sanskrit Kshiti-garbha) is the patron of 
 travellers, and is frequently set up as a siifn-post.'- This seems to be quite a 
 different idea, and it is only just mentioned in order to make out of it a sort of 
 parallel to the street-god Apollo Aguieus at p. 120 supra. 
 
 The archaic legend of P'an Ku |f "j^, which means the Ancient 
 Rotater or the Convolver of Antiquity, seems to me to be the 
 first groundwork of the more elaborated pliilosophic theories about 
 Tai-Ki, the Great-Extreme or Great-Final of all speculation. In 
 fact P'an Ku is represented in Chinese popular imagery as a naked 
 
 ©savage, with a girdle of leaves, holding against his navel, 
 and as if rolling it between his hands, the round figure 
 of all things' which is that of Yang entering Yin (see 
 p. 226 supra). 
 
 It is said in the Loo S/ic (by Lo ]\Ii or L6 Pe of the Sung 
 dynasty, A.D. 960 to 11 26) that 
 
 when the Great First Principle (Tai Ki) had given birth to the two Primary 
 Forms (Yin and Vang) and these had produced the four secondaiy figures, the 
 latter underwent transformations and evolutions, whence the natural objects 
 
 ' Harlez, t-colc philos. dc la Chine, iSgo, 152. 
 " Satow and Hawes, Handbook of Japan, 29. 
 •' Archdeacon Gray'.s China, i, i, iS. 
 
MythsP\ The Rock of Ages. 391 
 
 depending from their respective influences came abundantly into being. The 
 first who came forth to rule the world was named P'an Ku, and he was called 
 the Undeveloped and Unenlightened }jp S^ J^ Hwen-tun-Shi.' 
 The early historians, including Sze-ma Ts'ien (B.C. 130.''), did 
 not mention P'an Ku, but the philosophers of the Sung dynasty 
 accepted the legend. Among them Hu Jen-chung wrote that 
 P'an Ku came into being in the great Waste ; his beginning is unknown. 
 He understood the ways of Heaven and Earth, and comprehended the permuta- 
 tions of the two Principles of Nature, and he became the chief and prince of the 
 Three Powers, San Ts'ai, ~ TJ". Hereupon development began from Chaos. 
 These three ts'ai are also called the three ki ;g and the 
 three i ^. In addition to this, Mr. Aston informs me^ that he 
 finds it stated in a Japanese book that one Chinese tradition 
 makes P'an Ku dual, a male and a female. Another writer 
 said (in the Fung Chozo Kang Keen, vol. i) that Heaven was 
 his father and Earth his mother, and that he was therefore 
 called Heaven's son, T'ien tsze 3^^ "?• The dissolution of his 
 body at death gave the existing material universe ; the breath 
 becoming winds and clouds, the voice thunder, the blood rivers, the 
 hair plants and trees, the parasites mankind, his left eye the sun 
 and his right the moon.'' In Japanese myth the purification of 
 Izanagi and also the transformation of the dead body of Kagutsuchi 
 when killed by Izanagi are parallel cosmogonies to P'an Ku ; but 
 a ?MVi-godeless comes from Izanagi's left eye and a moon-_^(?c/ from 
 his right.'' In Norse m)'thology we find an equally striking 
 parallel in the evolution uf the Universe from the carcass of 
 Ymir." 
 
 Now here is a Norse-Japanese riddle-me riddle-me-ree for the 
 migrationists ; and they are placed under fearful bonds of gesa, 
 which no true heroes elude (see p. 351), to answer it. 
 
 At this present day in the text-books for elementary Chinese 
 schools, such for example as the Yu-hio-tsien, it is taught that P'an 
 Ku was the first man, but of supernatural qualities which contributed 
 to the formation of the world. His successors came down gradually 
 to the ordinary condition of men — a sort of sliding scale from the 
 
 ' Mayers, Manual, p. 174. Prof. G. Schlc;;cl prefers the translation 'Chaotic,' 
 and adds that the name is also written ^§ 'Ji^ ^ which had the original meaning of a 
 watery chaos. - Letter of i6th Oct. 1891. 
 
 ^ Mayers, Manual, p. 174, citing also the h'-ican:; po laiih Che, vol. 9. 
 
 ^ Chamberlain's Kojiki, pp. Ixix, 33, 39, 42. 
 
 '' Bergmann's Gylfa Ginning, 82, S3, iSS to 193. 
 
392 
 
 The Night of the Gods. 
 
 \_Polar 
 
 J£n-Ki chao-P an cue t'l'. 
 
Myths 7\^ The Rock of Ages. 393 
 
 divine to the human condition which avoids the shock of a Fall' 
 As such we see him in the accompanying plate copied from the 
 A % IH {Jen ki liiy) section of the }l| fiB H ( Ti yii liiy) an 
 exposition of the legends of the origin of Earth and Man.^ Here 
 we see what I take to be Pan (Ku) precisely in the position of 
 a Terminus on a central cosmic Rock of Ages, which also exhibits 
 in its two upright lines an assimilation to the Chinese universe- 
 pillar that we had at p. 191. Around we see the Universe Ocean 
 and the clouds of heaven, with four constellations and the Sun and 
 Moon about his ears. In the moon the folklore hare is busy with 
 its pestle, and the sun-bird seems to be intended for the crow, 
 which is also Japanese. The First Man whom I conjecture to 
 be P'an (Ku) is here seen without the above-mentioned round 
 symbol of the All. 
 
 The description above the plate runs Jen-Ki chao-P'an^ che t'u, 
 'the picture of the first parting (from chaos?) of primordial Man,' 
 where the expression Jen-Ki, Man-Extreme, must of course be 
 related to Tai-Ki ; the ' extreme '" being, after the Chinese idiom, 
 the backward extreme of cosmic time and evolution. 
 We might apply to him two of the old hnes of the 14th century ballad ' Moriana 
 en un Castillo,' which Cervantes used in the second chapter of Don Quixote ;' 
 Mis arreos son las armas, My armour is my only wear, 
 
 Mi descanso el pelear, My only rest the fray, 
 
 Mi cama, las duras peiias, j\Iy bed is on tlie Jiinty rock. 
 
 Mi dormir, siempre velar. My sleep to watch alway. 
 
 In the Japanese description of the Rambini (Sanskrit Lumbini) 
 garden, where Buddha was born, is "a lake large as the Ocean, 
 with a rockwork of diamonds, crystal and lapis-lazuli."'"* 
 
 CEdipus (see p. 153) sits on a stone-throne where the way parts 
 into many roads, that is at the centre of the Universe. See also 
 p. 368 supra as to sitting on the Navel-Altar. All this I conceive 
 to have been the initial mythic origin of the rock-seat or stone- 
 throne of kings by "right divine," see p. 192. In Matthew v, 34, 
 35, it is said that ovpavo'i is the throne of God, of Theos. 
 
 ' Harlez, £,colc pliitos. de la Chine, 1S90, 1S4. 
 
 "^ I owe Mr. Aston many thanks for permitting me to make this illustration from a 
 volume in his Ctiinese library. See also the addiiion made to p. 193 at the end of thi-s 
 Volume. 
 
 ■' There is unfortunately no authority traced for identifying this ifl] p'an with the 
 name of P'an Ku, but the coincidence is extraordinary. 
 
 ■* The Englisli is from Mr. John Ormsby's scholarly version of Don Qjiixotc (1SS5, 
 i. 1 -j). ° Satriw and Hawes, Handbook of Japan {2nd cd.) p. [72]. 
 
394 The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 3. — The Arcana. 
 
 A hair perhaps divides the false and true. 
 Yes, and a single Alif were the clue 
 
 — could you but find it — to the Treasure-house ; 
 and peradventure to The Master too ! 
 
 Filzg'erald's Rubdiyai (4th ed.j i. 
 
 THE highest signification of ^-J/'.r is the height of heaven ; that 
 is, as I explain that height throughout this Inquiry, the North 
 celestial Pole. Thus Ovid' spoke of Father SaTurnius looking 
 from the highest arx, suinma arce ; and again" the omnipotent 
 father seeks the highest arx. Thence it came to mean the whole 
 heavens ; as in Ovid, still," the starry arx of the Universe : " sideream 
 arcem mundi." Then it meant a temple on a height, as in Horace's'' 
 " sacras arces." In the arx the augurs consulted,'* and there they 
 made a sacrifice kept so remote from the knowledge of the vulgar 
 that its ritual had never been written down, but was gone through 
 from memor}' b\' successive celebrants.'' Then it was the summit 
 of a mountain, as of Parnassus in Ovid,' or of a tower.** Next it 
 came to stand for the topmost, and thus the best fortified, spot in 
 a town — the citadel ; and that became its commonest use, generally 
 given as its primary sense in the dictionaries ; and in this connexion 
 Varro^ put it (as the most recent authorities still do) to the verb 
 arceo to enclose, to shut up. Arx also, without any straining, 
 meant the seat of tyrants, and even t\"rann}' itself, in the senses of 
 sovereigns and sovereign power.'" (Of course I maintain, what is 
 quite consistent, that rvp-avvot; is connected with turris, p. 2S6 
 supra.) Servius" says as to area, the coffer we call an arte, "arete 
 ct arx quasi res secretae, a quibus omnes arceantur": safe places, 
 ill fact, in which things are shut up ; but the secrecy of the 
 heavenly arx has a loftier meaning. And I hold that the Arcana, 
 the highest mj'steries and secrets of the gods, belonged to that arx 
 and that area. 
 
 ' Mcl. i, 163. " JMii. ii, 306. '' .4rs Amor, iii, 10, 21. 
 
 ■* Odes, i, 2. =■ Ciceio : Off. iii, 16, 66. " Festus s.v. .Arcani. 
 
 '• .M,-l. 1,467. " Ibid, xi, 39-;. ' L.L. v, 151. 
 
 '" Lucan. vii. ^U}^. '' .4d\\x'^. .i\ri. i, 2D2. 
 
]\[yths?\ The Arcana. 395 
 
 Arciiliis, whose name is found only in Festus, was thought, 
 according to him, to be the god who guarded the arcae, the safes ; 
 but it must originally have been an adjectival title of the god or 
 gods of the heavenly ai'x itself y\.nd that would account for the 
 ring-cushion, the " circulus," put on the head for safely supporting 
 the sacred vessels, being called an arcuhis' and for the similarly 
 shaped arcnlata or cakes used in sacrifices, and held by Dcmeter and 
 Kore.^ These ring-cakes are doubtless connected with the symbolic 
 heavens- Wheel and wreath or crown (see those headings in Index). 
 The bread still baked in that shape in France is called a couronne. 
 The hindering bird in the auspices was also called an arcula 
 (Festus), which word also meant an arcclla or small area. 
 
 Arkas, son of Kallisto b}' Zeus (who changed son and mother 
 into the Great and Little Bears) was also placed in the heavens as 
 Arktouros and, by another legend, as Arktophulax. Arkas (see 
 also "The Seven of Ursa Major") was the father of the A.rkades 
 or Arcadians, who claimed to be the first men. Hermes, born on 
 Mount Kullene (Cyllene) in Arcadia — that is on the hollow {Kvka) 
 or the rolling {Kvklin) mountain of the heavens — was the Arcadian 
 Kar e^oxw j a-^d the caduceus of Mercury was therefore called 
 the Arcadian rod, Arcadia virga ; which is bringing us strangely 
 near the Universe-Axis, when we consider that the Great Bear 
 was also called the Arcadian star, Arcadium sidus (Seneca, CEd. 
 476). Pan was the Arcadian god, and Mercury's winged cap the 
 Arcadian galerus. In fact, all this points to a typical celestial 
 Arcadia which was the northernmost portion of the heavens. 
 Byron's " Arcades ambo, id est : blackguards both," would thus 
 become not a mere libel upon the simple Arcadian asinine 
 mountaineers, but a flat blasphemy — unless indeed we once more 
 apply the theory here so often urged as to fallen gods becoming 
 infernal powers. 
 
 The meaning of arcamis, hidden mysterious, applied to the 
 gods themselves, like absconditus — Kronos was the hidden, the 
 veiled god — and to things and practices of religion whose ver}- 
 names were taboo, then acquires a far and deeper significance. 
 
 ' Festus; .Serviiis on .-Eneid'w-, 137. 
 
 - In a tena-ciitta ex-voto from I'raeneste figured from Gerhard in Saglio's Did. 
 Anfiq. i, 1049. The cakes held by Astarte in Phoenician ex-votos are also round and flat, 
 
 but not rinirs. 
 
396 The Night of the Gods. \ Polar 
 
 The arcana Jovis were the counsels of Jupiter, and the adjective 
 was its own superlative. 
 
 With these, I fancy — the k and % and cli to the contrar}^ not- 
 withstanding — must be classed a.pX'h whether as meaning origin or 
 command. Thus all the compounds containing arcli- receive a high 
 supernal derivation. Such are Archibuculus apKi^ovKo\o<; the arch- 
 cowherd, the high-priest of Bacchus ; archaic ; dpKo<; a leader, a 
 ruler ; apxtov the supreme magistrate ; the time-adverb apyriv, in 
 the sense of ' before all things'; architect apy^ireKTiov in its primary' 
 sense of the first begetter, bringer-forth, producer, creator ;' arch- 
 angelos, a head-mcsscnger of the gods, and so forth. 
 
 ROBBING THE TREASUR V. This arcanum, this treasure- 
 house is, I confidently suggest, the magic rock-cave, with the door 
 in the rock which is opened and shut by enchantment in Ali Baba 
 and the Forty Thieves. It is also the strong marble Tower in the 
 legend of Fortunatus, the chambers of which held rich vessels and 
 jewels, gold coin, fine garments, and golden candlestickswhich"shine 
 all over the room " — the stars scintillating all over the heavens. 
 
 When Herodotus (ii, 121) heard in Egypt the tale of the 
 Treasury, it had been fathered on Rameses III, or Rhampsinitus. 
 The mason who builds the strong-room cuts and lays one stone in 
 the outer wall so nicely that two men, or even one, could draw and 
 move it from its place. By this artifice the mason's two sons, 
 after his death, gain access to the hoard and steal from it. Mr. W. 
 A. Clouston in a most useful compilation- has run down this tale, 
 as a mere epic of expert thieving, in a great number of versions ; 
 but he does not mention that it is found in the famous Orbiney 
 papyrus, now in the British Museum.^ The version of Pausanias 
 (ix, 37) brings us nearest to the supreme celestial origin of the 
 myth ; when AgaMeDes, the central Impeller God, and his brother 
 Trophonios, build and play the same trick with the Treasury of 
 'Ypiev<i (the Beehive heavens-god : vpov hi\e, vptov honeycomb, 
 beeswork) in"Yp(a of Boiotia, which they enter and plunder every 
 nigJit. (See this Beehive again p. 413.) AgaMeDes being caught 
 in a trap ( — that is in tlie hole, and oddly enough we still call a 
 
 ' Compare the Seven Egj'ptian Khniimu or architects who aided Ptah. 
 
 - Px)puhir Talcs ami Fictions, ii , 115. 
 
 •* Maspero : Contcs ropiilaircs dc P E^yptc Aihicnnc, 1SS2. 
 
Il/yf/is.'] The Arcana. 397 
 
 hole in the floor or ceihng a trap — ) Trophonios, in order to keep 
 " the secrets of the gods," that is the arcana as above, offs with his 
 brother's head ; and the ground opening swallows-up Trophonios 
 in the pit of AgaMeDes, which pit was shown in the sacred wood 
 of Lebadeia with a coluuui which was erected thereabove. 
 
 This is the punishment of the defeated attempters of tlie Ai-x of 
 high heaven, and numbers of {fallen^ axis-gods are seen in the course 
 of this Inquiry to be sivalloivcd-up in like manner. 
 
 I must not omit to point-out that in the fine tale of the Forty 
 Thieves, the only thieves that we really see at work thieving arc 
 the quite other two that break into the treasury of the Forty and 
 rob it ; and that these two are brothers, like Trophonios and 
 AgaMeDes ; and that one of them, Cassim, is belated in and caught 
 in the treasury, and sabred, though not by his brother. In Herodo- 
 tus one of the brothers beheads the other when he is caught in the 
 trap, and the same catastrophe, with variants, occurs in most of 
 the other tales. One of the two Indian jugglers, who go up the 
 axis-string to the heavens, cuts-up his fellow (p. 329), and Osiris 
 was cut-up by his brother, and Absurtos by his sister MeDeia. 
 Qain kills his brother Hahbel for capturing the divine favour of 
 Yahveh. 
 
 (Nor is it unimportant for my tree + stone arguments ante that Ali Baba gets 
 up into a great tree which is near a greater and inaccessible rock [see " The 
 Rock of Ages"], wherein is the treasure-cave : II monta sur un gros Arbre, 
 dont les branches, k peu de hauteur, se separoient en rend . . . . et I'arbre 
 s'dlevoit au pied d'un Rocher isold de tous les cotds, beaucoup plus haut que 
 I'arbre, et escarpd de rrianicre qu'on ne pouvoit monter au haut par aucun en- 
 droit.'-) 
 
 Note too the pregnant passage that " it was not for long years 
 but for ages that this grotto served as a retreat for thieves that had 
 succeeded each other."^ 
 
 The Grimms gave a tale^ in which the Devil is plugged into a 
 hole in a firtree. Being delivered, for a consideration, by the hero, 
 the devil takes him to a high towering Rock and strikes it with a 
 hazel-rod (see p. 53 supra), whereupon the rock splits in two and 
 the devil plunges in, soon reappearing with the elixir he has 
 promised. Again he strikes the rock, and it instantly closes 
 together again. (Compare the Clashing Rocks, p. 382 supi-a.) 
 
 Just as I here laid down the pen (23rd September 1S91) I took 
 
 ' Galland, Paris iSo6 (Caussin de Percival's ed.) vi, 344. 
 
 - Ibid. 348. ■■' Mrs. Margaret Hunt's ed. ii, 401. 
 
398 The Night of the Gods. \_Poh 
 
 ar 
 
 up Mr. Jacobs's excellent article on Childe Rowland in Folk-Lorc 
 for June 1891, in which Jamieson's \er.sion brings Rowland not to 
 the Dark Tower but to " a round green hill surrounded with rings 
 from the bottom to the top." Even if we had not the clue of the 
 dark tower, this round hill with its rings, like Jeiushid's cup or 
 Volund's smithy, would be presumably the heavens. ^The archaic 
 colour green was also blue and black ; or else the greenness is a 
 terrestrial after-touch.) Rowland has to go round it three times 
 withershins, each time saying " open, door !" (' = "Open, Sesame"). 
 When he gets in, the door immediately closes behind him, as it 
 does on Ali Baba, and he then finds in a great hall all manner of 
 treasures, zjitli a diamond Iceystoiic to tlic arcli above [ — tliis stri/ces 
 me, see p. 402 infra, as a very strange co-incident— '\ from which 
 hangs by a gold chain (see Index) an immense lamp of one hollow 
 transparent pearl, inside which, by magic power continually turns 
 a large carbuncle like the setting sun. These last items seem to 
 put the heavens explanation beyond dispute. 
 " In those days," says that truly great work called Jack the Giant-Killer, 
 
 "the Mount of Cornwall was kept by a huge giant named Cormoran'' 
 
 Jack asked 'What reward will be given to the man who kills Cormoran?' 'The 
 Giant's treasure,' they said, ' will be the reward.' Quoth Jack, ' Then let me 
 
 undertake it ' Jack then went to search the Cave, which he 
 
 found contained much treasure."' 
 
 Under the " Eye of Heaven" I deal with the ArimAspoi who 
 pillage the gold which is guarded in the extreme North by the 
 gryphons. It is doubtless a similar central celestial m\th to all 
 those we are now considering. 
 
 The king's daughter calls from the balcony to the Russian 
 prince Ivan (our Jack) : " see, there is a chink in the enclosure ; 
 touch it with your little finger, and it will become a door."- Which 
 Jack does ; and so gets into the "huge house" on the "tremen- 
 dously high, steep, mountain," which he had ascended by the magic 
 ladder. 
 
 In the Rev. Edward Davies's Mytliology (p. 155) is a Tale in 
 which on every May Day a door in a rock near a small lake in the 
 motmtains of Brecknock was opened. Whoe\er thus found it open, 
 and boldly entered, was led b}" a secret passage to an (invisible; 
 fairy island of enchanting beauty in the lake. This island-garden 
 
 ' Mr. Jacobs, £iig. Fairy Talcs. N'ersion altered from two chapbooks of 1S05 
 (London) and 1814 (Paisley). 
 
 - Ralston's A'«j«a« />//!- /Ij/. J, 102. 
 
Myths^ The Arcana. 399 
 
 was occupied by the Tylwyth Teg (Fair Family), and stored with 
 fruit and flowers.^ William of Newbury related 600 years ago the 
 tale of a Yorkshire peasant finding a door open in the side of a 
 barrow, and a great banquet going on inside. 
 
 From a serving-man he obtained by stratagem a cup strange in form and stuff 
 and colour,' which is manifestly one of the endless versions of the Holy Grail. 
 William's contemporary Gervase of Tilbury tells a similar legend of ascending 
 a hillock in a Gloucestershire forest, and getting a similar cup.' Of course 
 barrow and hillock — and cup, as for that matter — are figures of the heavens- 
 vault. 
 
 Dr. M. Gaster, citing numerous authorities, mentions the Jewish 
 legend that at the destruction of the first temple of Jerusalem, the 
 ark and the stone tables of the Law were hid within the kubbet- 
 es-Sakhra (see " The Rock of Ages " p. 387 supra). He also refers 
 to the second book of Maccabees, where we find that the prophet 
 Jeremiah 
 
 " went forth into the mountain where Moses climbed up, and laid the tabernacle 
 and the ark and the altar of incense within ' a house of a cave,' and so stopped 
 the door. And some of those that followed him came to mark the place, but 
 they could not find it. Which when Jeremiah perceived, he blamed them, 
 saying : As for that place, it shall be unknown until the time that God gather 
 his people again together : then shall the Lord show them these things." (ii 
 Mace, ii, 4, &c.) 
 
 Dr. Gaster says that the " rock was sealed with the ineffable name 
 of God."- This seems to suggest that in the word Sesame we 
 really have some divine word. 
 
 What that word is, I tliink I have discovered. The Grimms^ 
 gave (from the Mi.inster province, and from the Hartz) the legend 
 of Simeli Mountain — told of the Dummberg or Hochberg in the 
 Hartz. There are two brothers, a rich and a poor, just as in AH 
 Baba. The poor one sees a great bare naked-looking Mountain, 
 towards which approach twelve great wild men. He climbs up 
 into a tree like All Baba, and the twelve cry ' Semsi Mountain, 
 Semsi Mountain, open!' Immediately it moves asunder, and when 
 the twelve go in it shuts up. The story proceeds very similarly to 
 the Arabian Nights tale ; the rich brother being eventually caught 
 in the cave, and beheaded. The Grimms, in annotating, pointed 
 out, from Pistorius, a Similes Mountain in Grabfeld, and also a 
 Simeliberg, in a Swiss song ; in a tale of Meier's collection " open 
 Simson " occurs, and the mountain becomes Simsimseliger, where 
 
 ' E. S. Hartland's Science of Faiiy Tales (1891), pp. 136, 146, 145. 
 - Folk-Lore, ii, 205. •' Mrs. Margaret Hunt's e^'. ii, 206, 439. 
 
4CO The Night of ihc Gods. \Polar 
 
 seliger is clearly 'happy,' 'blessed.' Now the Indian Universe- 
 mountain Meru (of which we shall have quite too much in Vol. II) 
 is called 5«Meru or the 'excellent' the 'goodly' Meru, and 
 the name went with Buddhism to China as SiuMi, and to Japan 
 as ShuMi, the full names (in which shan and sen mean mountain) 
 being Siumishan and Shumisen J_g ^ ^Jj. Even in compara- 
 tively modern philosophic works, such as the Li-Khi (see p. 
 390 supra), the existence of " Mount Siumi in the middle " of 
 the cosmos is posited.' Hepburn's Japanese Dictionary explains 
 Shumisen as a " Buddhist fabulous mountain of wonderful height, 
 forming the axis of every Universe, and the centre around which 
 all the heavenly bodies revolve." This mountain's name is, I 
 suggest, the real origin of " Sesame " and of all the resemblant 
 words given by the Grimms, and one may be permitted to wonder 
 that those celebrated philological and mythological brothers never 
 hit upon the fact. The altar in a Buddhist temple is called 
 Shumidan in Japan, where dan is jtj, and the other two characters 
 are the same as before. This brings together in an inexpugnable 
 manner the mountain, the altar and the na\cl (see p. 362 supra) 
 and clenches the matter. " Seliger " above thus still carries on the 
 Sanskrit sit-. SuMeru is also personified ; is in the Navel or centre 
 of the Earth ; on it lies Swarga the heaven of Indra, which encloses 
 the seats and dwellings of the gods. It is the Olympus of Hindu 
 mythology, and its terrestrial counterpart (see p. 415 and "The 
 Hyperboreans " infra) is north of the Himalayas. It is called 
 Hemadri 'gold-mountain,' Ratnasfmu 'jewel-peak,' Karnikachala 
 ' lotus-mountain ' (where we perhaps have a clue to the famous 
 Mani padme hum, 'the jewel is in the lotus') and Amaradri and 
 Deva-parvata ' mountain of the gods.'- 
 
 The mother of Chang T'ien-shi 51 ^ ^, Chang the Heavens- 
 Master, was visited by the god of the Polar star who gave her a 
 fragrant herb called heng-wei which caused her to become pregnant 
 of Chang. By another legend this Heavens-Master was the son of 
 another Chang, a poor herdsman, who discovered, like Ali Baba, 
 the secret of the stone-door in the cave of Kwang-siu-f'u in Kiang- 
 si. One day he overheard a " genie " saying "Stone-door open! 
 Mr. Kwei-ku is coming": ^ H iJ> .1. ^ ^ ^ 2l5 Shih-mun 
 kai, Kwaiku-hsien sheng lai. Thereupon the door opened and the 
 
 ' Mgr. de Harlez, .'^iiigLi, iS(,,o, p. 155. " Dowson's Diet. 
 
MythsT^ The Arcana. 4°! 
 
 genie went in. When he came out he said : " Stone-door shut, 
 Mr. Kvveiku is going." Chang tried the charm, found a vast para- 
 dise within, and there lost his old grandmother^ (which resembles 
 the death of the old woman in the Russian " Beanstalk " tales, 
 p. 296 supra). 
 
 To return to the Greek version. Trophonios was an adjectival 
 title of Zeus, and of underground Hermes. 
 
 {rpina an auger-tool, and the hole it makes ; rpviramv a wimble gimlet 
 auger, rpoivaia turning, returning; rpo7raZoi' = trophaeum = trophy (retuming- 
 spoil); rpowaa, Tpmrea, TpeVa), to turn-round ; Tponfi a solstice ; TpowiKos tropical, 
 rpoTTos the rowlock in which the oar works). 
 
 Zeus was called Tropaios and Tropaiokos as well as Trophonios ; 
 and Hera was called Tropaia. Of course it is quite a secondary 
 and debased view (see p. 309 supra) that connects these titles with 
 victory-trophies and the ' turn and flee ' of the enemy. The lost 
 reference is to the turning of the Universe. The trophies, it is 
 important to note, were hung on an upright perch or a pole or a 
 tree-trunk, doubtless as offerings to the god of battles; or a stand- 
 ing stone on the battlefield was a trophy (see p, 205 supra). 
 These last are facts of the first rate as myth-items in my outfit. 
 The Greek victors used even to lop the branches off a convenient 
 tree in order to get their (axis) trunk, or pole. 
 
 The death of Trophonios and AgaMeDes after an f/n-/;/-day guttle (Plutarch, 
 following Pindar), must be founded on Tpocpfj victuals, and rpecpa to feed. A 
 gentler version was that Apollo, in return for the building of his (heavens-) 
 temple promised them the best gift to man on the coming seventh day, when 
 they both died peacefully like the brothers KXeofiis and BiVmi/ of Argos (the 
 heavens), sons of Kudippe. (Note carefully the name of Aleohis.)- But the 
 gormandizing is also found in a Ceylonese version of the robbery, wherein the 
 thief, having eaten to distension, sticks in the hole when he wants to get out, 
 and so has to be beheaded. 
 
 The all-famous oracle of Trophonios was on a mount within a circle of 
 white stones, where stood brazen obelisks (compare St. Patrick's brass-plated 
 stones, p. 272). There was the tight little hole by which the speiring dupe, 
 having first had a couple of drinks after several days of fasting, got himself 
 down with a moveable ladder into the Davenport-^brothers little cave-cabinet, 
 his fists (in order that the sceptic might not feel about him) being first shut 
 upon sticky masses of honied stuff which, like the grease at the bottom of the 
 log, would afterwards tell their own tale of his gropings. He then had to 
 thrust his feet through a second hole, and was pulled through it with a super- 
 
 ' CAina Reviiw, ii, 226. Dennys, Folklore of China, 134. 
 
 " Cicero Tnsc.Disp. 1,47, 113, 114; Plutarch, Consol. ad Apolloniitm, 14. Herod, 
 i, 31. 
 
 2 C 
 
402 The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 natural bang which no doubt knocked all his remaining senses out of him ; and 
 he was then about fit to see or hear "all about it," well knowing also that any- 
 one that resisted was said to be instantly murdered. His ears and eyes were 
 then assailed by most unearthly noises, bowlings, shrieks and bellowings, with 
 lurid lights and sudden glares ; in the midst of all which uproar and phantas- 
 magoria the oracle was at length pronounced. The patient was then super- 
 naturally pulled out again feet foremost, in order to put him back in his right 
 mind ; plumped down into the chair of Mnemosyne, questioned, haled-off to 
 the chapel of the good genius or agathodemon, and given a brief inter\'al for 
 recollection. Then he had to write down his visions, which the augurs inter- 
 preted secundem artem. (I shall just mention here the well-known and indubi- 
 table likeness between this and the stories of St. Patrick's purgalor)-.) 
 
 Festus' connected the .secular games of Tarquinius Superbus 
 (that is, as I interpret those games, the eternal motions of 
 the High Turner of the heavens, and their rituah'stic com- 
 memoration) with an altar 20 feet down in the Earth, consecrated 
 to Dis and Proserpine in the Terentes extremity of the field of 
 Mars, whereon for three days and three nights black (furvus) 
 victims were immolated. Elsewhere Festus- confirms this rotating- 
 heavens explanation of mine, when he reports the statement of 
 Verrius that the four-in-hands at these games represented the 
 motions of the sun and moon. However, Festus goes on to say 
 that Verrius here spoke aniliter. Natheless am I for the drivelling 
 Verrius. 
 
 Trophonios in the pit of AgaMeDes might also perhaps be the axis in the 
 Earth-tube which is worked on it by the ^_gitating central deity MeDes ; and 
 they are then brothers, somewhat as screws are male and female. 
 
 The man-hole is also possibly the socket or bearings in which 
 the axis abuts ; and it is found again in Polynesian myth, where 
 mankind come-up through the single hole in the roof of the 
 underworld. In a modern Greek popular version,'' the thief-hole 
 is in the roof and not in the wall ; and it is thus, as I conceive, 
 the key-stone of the vault of the heavens that is removed to effect 
 the entry. (But in a Tyrolese tale^ it is an underground passage ;° 
 and so it is in a Ceylon version.) I must here request the reader 
 to make a special reference to what has been said above (p. 220) 
 as to the Indian relic-casket and the dome. I think it will be seen 
 
 * Scculares hidi. ~ Tercntitnt. 
 
 ^ No. 24 of Le Grand's Fabliaux. * Zingerle's Kinder iind Hainrndrchen. 
 
 '" In the Greek gospel according to Matthew (vi, ig, 20), " treasures in heaven 
 \vhere thieves do not dig through (Siopu'crcroiicrij') nor steal " seems to allude to this myth. 
 
Myths^ The Arcana. 
 
 40.1 
 
 from the engravings at a glance how entrance into the Tee or arx 
 could be effected from the inside of the vault. 
 
 The breaking-in and robbery at night is important and, 
 together with the revolving explanation of the name of Trophonios, 
 clears up some items that are recurrent in endless wide-apart 
 versions. In Herodotus the right sides of the treasury-guards'^ 
 beards are shaved-off at midnight ; the modern Greek story shaves 
 half their beards and hair ; in a Russian tale half the thief's 
 beard is shaved ; in a Kabylian legend half the thief's moustache 
 is cut-off. All this is a story-telling view of Night and Day, or of 
 a northern summer and winter. The same allegory peeps through 
 in the 20 (=10 x 2) horsemen in white armour, and as many in 
 black, in the version told in " Dolopathos or the King and the 
 Seven Sages." A couple of quatrains from Omar Khayyam are 
 not much out of place here : 
 
 Think, in this battered CaravanSerai 
 whose portals are alternate Night and Day, 
 
 how sultan after sultan with his pomp 
 abode his destined hour, and went his way. 
 and again : 
 
 . . . But helpless pieces of the game he plays 
 
 upon this chequer-board of Nights and Days ; 
 
 hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays ; 
 and one-by-one back in the closet lays.- 
 \Ve have the cosmic idea of the interchangeability of black and white in 
 the black sail of the celestial ship of Theseus, which he forgot to change for a 
 white one, and so caused a calamity, the death of his father Aigeus son of 
 PanDion. It is also in the myth of Athamas (p. 142) whose children by one 
 goddess are dressed in black, and those by another goddess in white. The 
 white and black Egyptian A^imu (p. 166) are on all fours with these instances. 
 In Mailduin's voyage (3rd day) he discovers an island divided off by a central 
 wall of brass, with white sheep on one side and black on the other. A 
 monstrous man is occupied in lifting the sheep over the wall ; whether he 
 puts a white or a black sheep over among the others, it immediately turns to 
 their colour, whether black or white. In the wanderings of the, Welsh Peredur 
 /'a/adyr Hir, the Spearsman of the long Pal, he finds in the valley of level 
 meadows a flock of white sheep on one side of a river, and a flock of black on 
 the other. When a white sheep bleats, a black one crosses the water and 
 becomes white ; and when a black one baas, exactly the reverse takes place.'' 
 
 ' The guarded Treasury must of course be connected with the guarded garden of the 
 Hesperides, which I elsewhere identify with the Pole. 
 - Fitzgerald's RitbAiyat (4th ed.) xvii, Ixix. 
 ■' Loth's Mabiiiogioii (1SS9) ii, 87, SS. 
 
404 The Night of the Gods. {Polar 
 
 He also finds on the bank a tree, one half of which is ablaze from root to top, 
 the other half green with foliage. 
 
 The rationale of all this about the black and white seems to be given us 
 in the Hc-raKles myth of Geruon's land of EriTheia, in the West (?) beyond 
 the pillars of HeraKles, which is the border-land of Light and Darkness, of 
 the supernal and under hemispheres, and where the herds of Helios and of 
 Pluto graze in the same pastures. And we have the same idea put another 
 way in the Italian myth of MeDientius, the central god, closely joining the 
 living body to the corpse, Life to Death, at mouth, hand, leg, and every member. 
 In one of Grimm's Tales,^ the Smith of Jiiterbock (=Hephaistos) wears a 
 black and white coat, but Grimm's expounding of " good and bad, spiritual and 
 worldly" is but a secondary sort of bethinking. In a Hessian tale the castle- 
 garden ishalf summer with flowers and half winter with snow, and later the castle 
 is entirely hung with black crape, and the summer-garden covered with snow.'' 
 
 We get the above decimal-zodiacal number again in Berinus, 
 where the lo treasurers arc themselves accused of the robbery 
 by the thief. And do we not therefore see that Ali Baba's 
 40=10 X 2 X 2 ; and also why they are libelled as thieves by the 
 successful thief Ali Baba, when they were clearly the treasury- 
 guards. V\c get the duodecimal zodiac and the nocturnal ideas in 
 the 12 porters disguised in black habits in Ser Giovanni's Pecoro?ie; 
 and in Dozon's Contes Atbanais (No. 13) there are 12 robbers and a 
 triad of brothers, instead of a duad. In the old Dutch rhyme of 
 " Der Dieb von Bri.igge " — I am here working from Mr. Clouston's 
 collection of the versions, but the commentary is my own — 12 
 warders are muffled in cowls. We get the cardinal number of 4 
 once, in a Breton version, where 4 soldiers (2 in front and 2 behind) 
 watch the beheaded thief's body. In Berinus all the barons are 
 black-marked on the foreheads. The Seven Sages reappear in 
 the Berinus version, where Aigres de I'Aimant (so called from his 
 adventure on the Loadstone Mountain, see p. 131) and his father 
 Berinus are the robber couple. Here again the connexion with 
 the central Northern heavens comes true. The sticky stuff of the 
 Trophonios oracle-cave is found in the pitch-tub which traps the 
 thief in Dolopatlws, in the modern Greek tale, in the Gaelic story of 
 the Shifty Lad, and in the above Thief of Bruges (or of the 
 Bridge?). In the Danish version it is a tar-barrel, and becomes a 
 " glutinous composition " in Berinus. (The curious item of the 
 dead hand would lead us out of our way.) 
 
 This mode of considering this myth can, I think, be further 
 buttressed by an enumeration of the several constructions credited 
 
 • Mrs. M. Hunt's ed. i, 449, 452. - Ibid, ii, 37S, 379. 
 
j][ytlis.\ The Arcana. 4°5 
 
 to the archi-tektons (see p. 396) Trophonios and AgaMeDes. 
 These were (i) the temple of Apollo at Delphi, (2) that of Poseidon 
 at Mantineia, (3) the bed-chamber (or holy-of-holies, OaKajjio^) of 
 AlkMene in Thebes, (4) the treasury of Augeias (the oldest form 
 of the name) in Elis, and (5) the treasury of Hyrieus, as abo\-e.i 
 No time need be spent in proving that the heavens are the temple 
 of Apollo. 
 
 As to the Thalamos (see p. 227 supra), I maintain throughout 
 this Inquiry that the mythic Thebes was the heavens. Zeus there 
 visits AlkMene, but under the shape of AmphiTruon- ; he lengthens 
 the night and shortens the day, an incident (profanely perverted 
 by the late Mr. Thomas Moore) which can be classed with the 
 black-white changes of the Treasury of Hyrieus. AlkMene's 
 head-ornament of three moons is also celestial. Her twin-children 
 by this double diiafxiy Zeus-yJw///^/Tru6n are IphiKles and 
 HeraKles ; and I suggest elsewhere that this difficult component 
 -kKi)^ and its derivatives or similars klas, klos, kleias (AmuKlas, 
 Kleia, AntiKleias, Kleis, AndroKlos, IphiKlos, PatroKlos alias 
 PatroKles) may sometimes be explained as the key{stone), the 
 very stone, as I maintain, which is displaced by the divine thieves 
 who break- into the Arcanum.. Compare K\eiS6a>, Kkeiui, kXtjU^co to 
 shut; KXrjh, K\eU bolt. (Now, see Kleobis above, p. 401.) The 
 fact of the natural magnet being called the HeraKlean stone (see 
 pp. 146 and 130 supra) seems indefeasibly connected with this idea 
 of the divine keystone of the northern heavens-vault in the name 
 of HeraKles. 
 
 Iphi- of course is strength ; and may not Hera-, as Juno's equivalent, be 
 simply the feminine counterpart of Hpcot ? Heros = god, hera = goddess. The 
 meaning really seems to hs force, energy. Sanskrit saras strength, viras hero. 
 Thus HeraKles = the powerful keystone of the heavens-vault ; where indeed he 
 was the rival of the other stone AtLas his watch. 
 
 Of course the cradle, evvii, in which HeraKles strangled the 
 two serpents (and which will be discerned again a little later on 
 in the mystic KLaTtj) stood in the same thalamos in Thebes (the 
 
 ' Homeric Hymn to ApoUo, I iS ; Strabo, 421 ; Paus. x, 5, 13 ; viii, 10, 2 ; ix, 11, 
 I ; ix, 37, 4. Aristoph. Nubes, 50S. 
 
 " I suggest that rpv-av may be = triple being. Amphion thus compares with 
 AmphiTruOn. Unless indeed AmphiTruon gives us a companion word to SeptemTriunes 
 (see " The Seven of Ursa JIajor," where trio will be brought from tero, because of the 
 rubbing or crushing by the labour-oxen and flint harrow, in the Eastern method of 
 threshing). 
 
4o6 Tlic Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 heavens), and that is for me a point that marks. I therefore think, 
 for several supreme reasons, that this thalamos was the highest 
 heaven, the Northern Apex of the heavens. AlkMene herself is 
 one of the numerous divinities turned to stone, or else the stone 
 is left in her place when she is rapt by Hermes, at the command 
 of Zeus, into the Blessed Isles, et? /xaKupcop in'jcrovi;, where she 
 married RhadaManthus ; which seems to prove her high state in 
 the underworld also. Her poking out the eyes of the severed head 
 of EurusTheus with spindles must not now lead us aside, but it is 
 significant of much.^ 
 
 Now as to the treasury of Augeias, I think it must be bracketed 
 as a doublet with the other treasurj' built by the same architektons. 
 Augeias and Hyrieus were both sons of Poseidon- (whose temple, 
 as above, the same constructors made). Augeias had other 
 fathers — Helios or Phorbas. I suppose his name must indicate 
 the light or splendour, avji^, of a heavens-god. His flocks and 
 herds, with their twelve white (zodiacal) bulls, are the hosts of 
 the heavens ; and the famous stable into which HeraKles turned 
 aside the heavens-rivers is another figure for the heavens, of which 
 the highest spot was his treasury. 
 
 And further, if the two constructor-gods be, as I suggest, forces 
 of the rotating heavens, their mode of making, of creation, was 
 that of the potter with his wheel, on which we have Ptah and 
 Khnum engaged in making man from clay in Egypt. 
 
 THE CI ST A IITYSTICA. The Kiaryj, Latin cista mystica, 
 also at times called KOiTrj, was ritualistically a basket-work cjdinder 
 with cover of the same, which held the I'epa fivaTiKci, the holy 
 and mysterious " properties " of the pagan ' bag of tricks.' In 
 Aristophanes {Thcsinophor. 284), circa 410 B.C., the Kiarri holds 
 only the cakes for the sacrificial meal. The receptacle also 
 belonged to the mystic worship of DeMeter, and in the Eleusinian 
 mysteries it contained chiefly cakes to be partaken-of during the 
 nights of initiation.'' 
 
 The Asia-Minor coins called kistophoroi in the 2nd and 1st 
 
 ' See Apoll. Bibl. ii, 4 (S, 7 ; 6, 6 ; 8, 3 ; II, 8) ; ii, 8, I, 4. Pherecydes frags. 
 27, 39. Antoninus Liberalis in liis Mclamoi-phoses confirmed, if he did not use, ApoUo- 
 oros, some 300 years later. - Apoll. Bibl. ii, 5, 5, i- 
 
 ^ F. Lenormant in Saglio, i, 1207 [Cista). 
 
Myths^ • The Arcana. 407 
 
 centuries B.C. were so named because they bore on one side the 
 drum- or turret-shaped Dionysiac KiaTr}. These are well figured 
 in Daremberg and Saglio's Dictionary (i, 121 1), and they were 
 struck, so far as we now know, at Ephesus, Smyrna, Fergamos, 
 Thyatira, Sardis, Laodicea, Adramyttium, Nyssa (Antiochia), 
 Trallis (Antiochia), Parium, and Apamea : all in the kingdom of 
 Pergamos, which was willed to the Roman people by the vastly 
 wealthy last king of Pergamos, Attalus III, who is credited 
 with the gorgeous invention of cloth of gold, and who died in 
 138 B.C. The monetary circulation of Asia-Minor and part of 
 Greece then consisted mainly of these kistophoroi, which the 
 Romans continued to coin. Cicero's name is found on them as 
 proconsul, Mark-Antony's as Emperor, and the latest coinage 
 known which bears the turret-cista is that of Octavius.^ It 
 will be seen that the first six of the above-named towns were 
 also six of "the Seven churches of Asia," and Adramyttium is 
 mentioned in the Acts, while Antioch of course goes as I want 
 it without telling. Here I think we have a very perfect Roman- 
 Christian title to the holy turrct-c\s\.2.. 
 
 And it was doubtless adopted by the Christian priesthood, for 
 the eucharistic bread was kept and carried in a vessel formed 
 like a tower (and to this I ought to have made a reference at 
 p. 286 supra). Gregory of Tours, in his Glory of the Martyrs (85) 
 attiibutes to a polluted conscience the accident which happened 
 to some poor deacon at Riom on the feast of St. Polycarp, who 
 let-fall the tiirris in qua mysterium Dominici corporis habebatur, 
 as he was bearing it to the altar. St. Remigius also left his little 
 tower, turriculus, turret, to his church. The French Benedictine 
 Martene- said the body of the Lord is carried in towers because 
 the monument of the Lord was cut out of rock in the shape of a 
 tower: quia monumentum Domini in similitudincm turris fuit 
 scissum in petra. Smith's Dictionary of Christian A ntiquitics ( 1 8S0) 
 says this is " a sufficiently far-fetched and unintelligible reason " ; 
 which gives me an opportunity for saying that that most valuable 
 work has not anticipated my investigations. (At Rome the 
 Eucharist was transported in a capsa, which was an interchangeable 
 
 ^ See also p. 420 iiijra. In reference to what was said at p. 335, one wonders 
 whether some numismatist may not some day rim down the " bezani " bush on the bezant 
 coin. 
 
 - Anccdot. (1717) V, 95. 
 
4o8 The Nio/u of the Gods. [Pole 
 
 ar 
 
 word with cista in classic times, for the box in which MS. rolls 
 were kept.)' The pagan predecessor of Gregory's deacon was 
 called a maro^opo^, which word the Romans sometimes latinised 
 as cistifer. Consecrated virgins chosen by lot also led the cars on 
 which the chests containing the lepa jj.vo-tiku. were borne. 
 
 Clemens of Alexandria gave a ritualistic formula of the Eleu- 
 sinian mysteries as follows : " I fasted. I drank the cup. Kvrreoiv. 
 I took from the Kiarri ; and, having tasted, I put it into the 
 KuXaOo^ (another basket-box), and then out of the Kd\a6o<; into 
 the KL(TTTj."'~ He went-on to give a miscellaneous catalogue of the 
 contents of the kiste in many mysteries : " What are in those 
 mystic chests ? for I must expose their holy things. Are there 
 not sesame cakes, and p)Tamidal cakes, and globular and flat cakes 
 embossed all over, and lumps of salt, and a serpent the symbol of 
 Dionusos Bassareus ? And besides these, are there not pome- 
 granates, and hearts (Kaphiai)^ and rods, and iv}-bine ; and 
 besides round cakes and poppyseeds? And further there are the 
 symbols of Themis : marjoram, a lamp, a sword, a woman's comb." 
 Clement's snake seems, as he implied, to have been confined to the 
 originally Sabazian mysteries of Dionusos. On the famous 
 " Ptolemies' sardony.x cup," which belonged to the Abbey of St. 
 Denis, is an opened kiste from which the serpent is issuing in the 
 midst of a lot of vases, masks, and ritualistic oddments of sorts, 
 appertaining to the Bacchic celebrations. These were the lepa 
 which Apuleius {illctain. vi, 2) called the tabooed (tacita) secrets 
 of the cistae, and that Valerius Flaccus said (ii, 267) were not even 
 named, because of religious dread (plenae tacita formidine cistae) — 
 a kind of Freemason's secrets, or ' seacrabs ' as the smaller children 
 say. These concealed items were implicit!)' adored by the devout * 
 and the contents of the kiste were thus in point of fact Arcana, as 
 above, p. 394. 
 
 The sacred kiste seems indubitabh- to have been originally, if 
 
 ' L. Duchesne, Etude sitr la Ltturgie Lalme (1SS9) 195, 196. Hicrokxicon, 
 Roma, 1677. 
 
 ^ Exhort, to Ike Hellenes, ch. 2. 
 
 ^ Probably heart-shaped cakes to represent the heart of Zagreus torn-out by Titans, 
 and enshrined in a kiste by Athene ; from which heart the pomegranate sprung. In the 
 margin of a kistophoroi coin of Adramyttium the kiste seems surrounded with hearts and 
 seeds (Dar. and SagL i, 121 1). 
 
 ■* Aristides, Oral. ^7. 
 
Mytlis?^ The Arcana. 4^9 
 
 not always, of basket-work, and I trace in the Kozhiki'^ what seems 
 to be a distinct Japanese parallel : The goddess, " taking the 
 jointed-bamboo of the River-island of that Idzu-shi (= Magic- 
 stone) river, made an eight-mesh new basket, took the stones of 
 that river, [and] mingling brine (or salt), she wrapped [them] up 
 in the leaves of that bamboo, and had an evil charm repeated." 
 Sono Idzushi-gawa no kawasMvca^L no j/odake wo torite, yatsu-me no ara-Vo wo 
 tsukuri, sono kawa no ishi wo tori shiwo ni ahete, sono take no ha ni tsutsumi, 
 tokohi iwashime keraku. 
 
 kawashima, if it were possible to read in kawai, would be beautiful-island 
 = the Greek Kalliste, the Earth (see p. 33). 
 
 yo might mean world here, and yodake would thus be the tall world tree. 
 Another reading is hito-dake, which means " the One Bamboo." 
 ara, aru to storm, arashi a storm, and arare hail, here suggest to me a sky- 
 meaning for ara, and ara-ko would thus be heavens-basket. This basket has 
 already been mentioned under "The Number Eight," p. 170, and see p. 410 
 infra. 
 
 Here we have some very primitive savage tepa ixvaTiica. The 
 
 river is the heavens-river of our Milky Way, the bamboo is the 
 
 universe axe-tree, and the stones are meteorites or natural 
 
 magnets. 
 
 The word kiste is still extant in Scotland. Here is a Deeside 
 
 chapping- or titting- or counting-out rhyme of children : 
 
 One, two, three, four ; Mary at the cottage door, 
 
 eating cherries off a plate. Down fell the summer seat. 
 
 I've a kistie, I've a creel, I've a baggie fu' o' meal, 
 
 I've a doggie at the door ; one, two, three, four.- 
 
 I know not whether Mj^Kto-rey?, son of Talaos and brother of 
 Melampodos and Adrastos (see p. 135 supra), is to be connected 
 with the kiste of mid-heavens. He was father of Eurualos and 
 some made him one of the Seven against Thebes.^ MeKisteus 
 was otherwise one of the 50 sons of Lukaon.* A MeKisteus son 
 of Echios was a companion of Aias and was killed by Poly- 
 Damas at Troy. MeKiston was a town of Triphulia or of £lis. 
 
 ' Mr. Chamberlain's Kojiki, p. 263. My transcription of the title is perhaps 
 pedantic ; but ^ (koto, matter) is in the Japanese syllabary ••/ , not ^r- , although 
 
 the modern sound of these be in places the same. 
 
 " Cou7iting-out Rhy/nes by Dr. Walter Gregor, 1S91, p. 23. 
 
 2 ApoU. Bilil. i, 9, 13 ; iii, 6, 3. ■• IbiJ. iii, S, 3. 
 
41° The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 THE "ARK OF BULRUSHES!' This wide-branching 
 subject of the typical sacred basket now renders necessary the 
 examination of some Moses- myths. 
 
 The mother of Sargon I, the first (fabulous?) monarch of 
 Agade B.C. 3800, was embarked by his mother in a watertight 
 ark of rushes caulked with pitch, on the Euphrates. He was 
 rescued by Akki (akkad = north). The golden goddess Istar 
 made Sargon king.^ The papyrus-basket used by the mother of 
 Aloses is called in St. Jerome's Vulgate a fiscella scirpea, and it 
 was plastered with bitumen and pitch (Exod. ii, 3). 
 
 In Japanese myth Hirugo, a child of Izanagi and Izanami, is 
 put, apparently b}' them, into a rush-boat, and allowed to float 
 away (or cast away, floating) : ashi-bune ni irete, nagashi-utetsu.- 
 I desire to fix attention on this extraordinary Japanese coincidence, 
 as to which there can be no manner of dubitation, and I rely on it 
 to support my view above, p. 409, about the analogy of the ara-ko. 
 
 In Welsh legend El^nn, the king's son, sees floating on the 
 waters a basket, and in the basket a child which he adopts and 
 calls Taliesin, because of his radiant brow f which last gives 
 another parallel — to the horns of Moses. 
 
 In a fairy-tale of the Western Irish islands, a man who was out 
 late one feast of Samhain (November Eve) was asked to carry a 
 basket for a little red-haired woman, " but the basket was very 
 heavy, and he longed to drop it. ' Well, here, put down the 
 basket' said the woman, and she took it and opened the cover, 
 and out came a little old man, the ugliest, most misshapen little 
 imp that could be imagined.''* I must here add on an im- 
 portant piece of commentary. The basket from one point of view 
 is simply the cradle or crib of the human infant. i\Iany house- 
 holds still have their dog-baskets. To this crib gloss I return 
 lower down (pp. 414, 419). 
 
 Prof Eugene O'Curry has a remark of some value in one of 
 his Lectures ■} " I can testify that I myself, as I am sure thousands 
 besides me, have seen" [Irish peasant] "children from one to two 
 )'ears old rocked to sleep in one of those modern ^otd.to- sciaths 
 which . . . are certainly not larger nor probably at all dif- 
 ferent in shape from the ancient shields." The English name for 
 
 ' Dr. Wallis Budge : Babyl. Life ami Hist. 40. - Chamberlain's Kojiki, p. 20. 
 
 ' Ed. Schure ia Rev. des Deiix-Mondes, 15 aoi'it 1S91. 
 
 ■" Lady Wilde's Ancient Legends, 18SS, p. 79. ' Maiuieys and Customs, ii, 331. 
 
Myths^^ The Arcana. 411 
 
 the sciath in Munster is sometimes ' scuttle.' The sciath is 
 strongly made of osier in the shape of half-an-egg, cut lengthwise. 
 
 Pausanias gave (iii, 24, 3) a local legend peculiar to Brasiai, 
 according to which Semele produced Dionusos naturally, but 
 Kadmos shut her up with the infant in a box which was cast into 
 the sea and carried by the waves to Brasiai. When it was opened 
 Semele was found dead, but the living child was taken by Ino and 
 brought up in a neighbouring grotto. 
 
 Tonnes or Tenes and his sister AmphiThea or HemiThea, 
 children of Kuknos (who himself had also been exposed on the 
 seashore by his mother Kaluke) were thrown by their father in a 
 chest into the sea, because of the Potiphar's-wife accusations of 
 their stepmother, his second wife, Philonome. Tenes was really 
 son of Apollo, by another account, and his proverbial tenaciVy and 
 his vengeance on perjurers make him one of the endless central 
 Truth-gods whom I identify with the Polar deity. His sister's 
 names both clearly indicate divine duality. In this legend we 
 have the exposure of Perdita through jealousy in A Winter's Tale, 
 and the casting into the sea in a chest of Lychorida in Pericles, 
 prince of Tyre. 
 
 Akrisios similarly set his daughter Danae and her son (by 
 Zeus) Perseus adrift in a \dpva^, to destroy them. Hypsipyle, 
 'T^|n7^v\ela, saved her father from massacre by first disguising him 
 as Bacchus and then sending him to sea in a " hollow coffer, 
 XdpvaKi S'ip KoiXy."^ Festus gave a similar tale of the hiding and 
 saving of a sexagenarian Roman by his son, at the mythic time 
 when all men over 60 years of age ( — our Civil Service now merely 
 .superannuates them — ) were thrown into the Tiber ; and Festus 
 here preserves for us a legendary scrap of the sanctity I claim for 
 the area, when he says that the hiding-place chosen by the son 
 was considered worthy of religious consecration, and so was 
 called an arccea : latebras autem . . . sanctitate dignas esse 
 visas, ideoque arccEa appellata. 
 
 Set induced Osiris at a feast to go into a box, which was im- 
 mediately closed, carried to the Nile, thrown in, and borne away 
 by the river to the sea, and by the sea to Egyptian Byblos and 
 
 ^ Argonauiika \, 622; Val. Flaccus ii, 265. 
 
412 The Night of tJie Gods. [Polar 
 
 there lodged in a tamarisk which then miraculously grew round 
 and enclosed the chest from view.' 
 
 There is a quite isolated incident in the Welsh legend of Owein 
 and Lunet,- where Lunet or £'/uned is shut up by two varlets of 
 the Lady of the Fountain in a coffer of stone, fl have suggested 
 on p. 198 that the Welsh mj-thic names in El- may hide more than 
 is now thought-for.) In another Welsh legend, of Kulhwch and 
 Olwen, the nameless old hag opens a stone coffer which was near 
 the hearthstone, and a young man with white curling hair comes 
 out of it. (Note, see p. 362 supra, that the hearth was in the 
 centre of the dwelling.)^ He was hidden there by his mother, to 
 save him from his father, who had already killed his 23 brothers. 
 (Note 23 + I = 2 X 12.) In an Ainu tale a wife, who was jealous 
 of the affection her husband showed ' the baby,' waited till he had 
 gone off bear-hunting in the mountains, and then put the child 
 " into a box, which she took to the river, and allowed to float away." 
 The husband goes off in search of it, and at last finds an Old Man 
 whose daughter had found box and boy when she went to fetch 
 water from the river.^ In the Wilkinasage Siegfried is laid b}- his 
 mother in a little glass coffer that rolls into the river and is 
 carried away. In a Hessian folktale a king's daughter and her 
 waiting-maid who are shut-up in a tower from mice (compare 
 the Mausthurm Rhine legends) miraculously bear a son apiece, 
 and putting them in a chest, let it float down stream, whence a 
 fisherman rescues it.' 
 
 The scenes of Danae and Perseus, or of Tennes and HerniThea, 
 or of Thoas, in great solid coffers were famous subjects for the vase- 
 painters ; and on the Etruscan mirrors Adonis is shut up in a box. 
 In the early Christian catacomb paintings Noah's ark is a rect- 
 angular packing-case. Our ' Old oak chest ' and the tale of ' The 
 Mistletoe Bough ' must no doubt be also traced back to such far 
 away originals. In the Russian tale of the Norka, a bird so big 
 that it blots out the light takes the Prince into the other world in 
 a large zasyek (safe or bin)." Gulliver is taken out of Brobdingnag 
 in his box by an eagle of the country, which seizes its ring in his 
 beak. And I shall not omit to mention the Indian juggler's far- 
 
 ' Plutarch and Dr. Wallis Budge in Archaeologia, lii (1890), 401. 
 
 - Loth's Mabinogion (1SS9) ii, 36. •* J. Loth, Mabinog. i, 232. 
 
 •* Chamberlain's Aino Folk-Tales, p. 46. 
 
 ' Grimm's Tales (Mrs. Hunt's ed.) i, 421, 419. 
 
 * Ralston's j?«.w. Folk-Tales, 1S73, p. 77. 
 
Myths^ The Arcana. 413 
 
 famed basket-txicV, in which a girl is shut-up, put to death, and 
 brought to life again. 
 
 May I venture to put into very small type here a scrap of a ballad about 
 the discovery made by Pharaoh's daughter, which used to be sung about Dublin 
 long ago by old blind Zosimus. It is rough enough, but here goes : 
 
 And as she ran upon the shthrand to dhry her shkin, 
 
 She kicked the bucket that the babe lay in ; 
 
 Then, turning to her maids so coy, 
 
 " Girls," says she, " which of yiz owns the boy ?" 
 
 At which they all, in accents mild did say : 
 
 " Sure you know very well. Mam, that none 
 of us was ever in the family way !" 
 
 THE CHEST OF CYPSELUS. I have reser^-ed for 
 separate treatment the very similar myth of the famous hiding of 
 Cypselus in a chest by his mother Labda, to prevent a massacre of 
 the innocent. In this myth' the infant KuT/reXo? passes round from 
 hand to hand until he returns (through tfii would-be murderers) 
 to his mother ; and this incident not alone recalls the " infant 
 Horus " but clearly must be a rotating-heavens myth. The hiding 
 of him in a Kvi^ekr) is all in the part, for it means here, as I believe, 
 the Beehive of the heavens (see p. 396 supra, and the Section on 
 "The Bees" in Vol. II) rather than Kv^^eXU the wooden corn- 
 bushel. 
 
 The father of Kupselos was 'Heriwi', also a king of the heavens 
 (Thebes) ; and his son was PeriAndros (one of the Seven Sages, 
 or Upper-Lights ? = aom + </)&j?)° a word like MaiAndros 
 (Meander) which must have been originally (see Maia, p. 148 
 supra) the heavens-river. To this Periander's reign belongs another 
 heavens-harmony god Arion (compare Aries and Ares) with his 
 harp and his ship, which is a doublet of Argo navis. Periander is 
 also connected with the given and stolen copper [heavens-] cup of 
 Crcesus (Kpoto-o?, another treasure-god), graven on the rim with 
 [zodiacal] animals, which holds 300 amphorae. Three hundred 
 boys are also sent for mutilation by Periander to Haluattes ; but 
 they dance at night (with honey-cakes — see " The Bees ") and 
 escape, returning whence they started. This is all manifestly 
 astrological. Periander marries Melissa (see Index) the Queen 
 Bee, and Herodotus also makes Kupselos their son, thus preseryitig 
 
 ' See Herodotus v, 59, 92 ; i, 14, 20, 23. 
 
 ' Liddell and Scott suggest that Si-a-v<pos seems 10 be from the same root as a-ocfios. 
 
414 The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 for us a usual confusion of divine generations. Of course the 
 authorities' make out two, if not more, of this name of Cypselus ; 
 mais nous avons change tout cola.- 
 
 The actual practicable much-decorated chest or Kv^eXrj of 
 Kupselos (Cypselus), which Pausanias saw in the temple of Hera 
 in Olympia, was of course a 'relic,' a pious fraud of the priests, 
 and a mere material replica of the mythic chest or coffer made by 
 Hcphaistos, and taken by Eurupulos (see p. 420 infra) from Troy. 
 It was of cedar ivory and gold, and richly adorned with many 
 celestial mythic subjects and figures carved in relief That, as 
 Pausanias relates the legend, the kupsele was acquired by an 
 ancestor of Kupselos, who kept in it his most costly treasures ; 
 that it remained with the descendants of this ancestor ; and that 
 in it was young Kupselos hid, is all of course mythically quite 
 accurate when understood of the heavens-vault itself, its arcana as 
 above e.xposited, and the genealogical succession of supreme 
 heavens-gods — the successive thieves of Ali Baba (p. 397). 
 V^v^iXi), say Liddell and Scott, meant any hollow vessel, and they bring it from 
 KiiTTTO), Kv\ra, to bend down (like the sky, as I say). Mr. E. R. Wharton makes 
 it a " box." But it belongs to a large group of words : cupa, tub ; OldSlav 
 kupa, cup ; Sanskrit kupas, a hollow ; Kvnapos capacious vessel, KVTieWov cup ; 
 Kt5(^€XXa hollow thing, clouds ; Kv(j)oi bent, Kvcpav arched roof. 
 And the verb Kv\lreXA.i^a> " to tyrannize like Cypselus," that is to 
 over-rule like the heavens-god, is pregnant with meaning for my 
 purposes. KvyfreXr] is the cupola of the heavens. It is a word like 
 KolXo';, which gave us caelum'' and ceiling. Kupselos is thus also, 
 
 ' However, two of the latest — Daremberg and Saglio's Dictionary, and Seyffert's 
 (by Nettleship and Sandys), make up for this by fighting shy of Cypselus altogether. 
 
 - The account of Kupselos the tyrant of Corinth in Nicholas of Damascus (Didot's 
 ■Frag: Hist. GrcEc. iii, 391) is obviously drawn from parallel mythic scurces. The 
 would-be murderers there are shield-bearers iwaa-nLo-rU, which oddly sends one back to 
 O'Curry's remark on p. 410 si/pra, and also concords with the zodiacal bucklers of the 
 Salii, which we shall have in Vol. II. Action is the father, and exposes the child on 
 Olympus. Gorgos was brother or son to this Kupselos ; PeriAndros is his son, and so 
 on. The identity is sufficiently proved. 
 
 ^ Caelum being now held to be undoubtedly the true spelling, the connexion with 
 kol\o£ is denied, and caelum is put to caelo caelatura and so forth, as 'the adoiTied 
 thing ' scil. by the stars. Above and on p. 230 supra I was following Prof. Skeat in 
 the 2nd ed. of his Dictionary, s.v. Ceil. The name of the mighty Kylas peaks of the 
 Himalayas where the chief of all the gods of the Paharis abides, and where heaven 
 lies high among those inaccessible altitudes, seems to give us the same root ; and in 
 that case a sky (and not an earth) mountain must be the conception. The rock-cut 
 temples of EUora are also called Kylas, which must mean hollowed uut. (Miss 
 Gordon-Cumming's Hiiiialayas and Indian Plains, 400, 401.) 
 
Mytlis?^ The Arcana. 415 
 
 of course, one of the heavens-treasure gods ; and so harks us back 
 again to the Treasury we have been robbing above. 
 
 Taking this view, the KupseHdai or descendants of Kupselos would be the 
 host of the heavens, and the votive gifts of the Cypsehdae at Olympia, men- 
 tioned in Plato's Phaedrus and by Agaclytus (in Photius), the Ku\|/-eXtS5i/ dvddrifia, 
 must have been offerings dedicated /o the star-gods and not dy them ; in fact 
 " the ex-votos of the Cypselidae " is and was an indefinite phrase ; the real sig- 
 nification had been long lost. Near by these (or this) dvddrifia (which is the 
 same word as awiSf/xo, and thus had, from 'dedicated' ' set-apart,' taken-on the 
 sense first of ' taboo ' and then of ' curse ') stood a golden kolossos wrought with 
 the hammer which was a votive offering 0/ Kupselos, that he might become 
 turannos of Korinthos. Didymus (ist century B.C.) said this kolossos was made 
 by PeriAndros, but he was a kupselides,' and peri-andros {di/ijp) indicates for 
 me a rotating man-god, and may only have been an alias for Kupselos, although 
 said in the myths to have been his son.'- Theophrastus added a comparison of this 
 kolossos with the Egyptian pyramids and all other like works, and said they 
 were all made with one intention, and he cited a proverbial saying (epigramma) 
 which hinted to him this intention : e^oKris cnj Kui//-fXi8mv yepcd, ' that the race of 
 Kupselos might be destroyed.'^ It seems quite impossible to extract sense out 
 of this, and a kolossos of wrought gold that can be compared with the pyramids 
 is obviously mythic,' and must be explained from similar AtLas axis-symbols 
 such as that of Rhodes, which we shall have in " The Romaunt of the Rose " 
 (in Vol. II), and such Pillar-symbols as the columen (KoXavrj). 
 
 Diogenes Laertius cited Ephoros (4th century B.C. : may have been copied 
 by Didymus), who also gave PeriAndros the dedication of a golden man-statue 
 "xpi"'"ow avSpiavra.^' Ephoros and Aristotle* were cited by Diogenes as saying 
 that PeriAndros was the first who had spear-bearers, Sopu^dpoi (see p. 36 supra), 
 and he instituted the rule of the turannoi, who are originally, for me, tower- 
 gods, see p. 286. There can scarcely be a doubt that we here have cosmic 
 northern myths, and this is further supported by PeriAndros having been one 
 of the Seven Wise whom I put, later on, to the Seven of Ursa Major. 
 
 But now I must transfer the attention to the much-discussed question of 
 the dpprjfpopoi, (pprj(p6poi or €pcri]cj>6poi,' who were two or four young maidens 
 of noble birth, chosen from their 7th to their i ith year," who carried something 
 or other at the Athenian festival of similar name, the 'Apprjcpopia. The night 
 before, that is on the vigil of the feast, the priestess of Athene Polias gave 
 
 ' See the Cin's put to Virgil's debit, line 463. 
 
 - Didot's Frai'. Hist. Grac. iv, 2SS. 
 
 ' Of course Theophrastus may (but there is nothing to show it) have referred to 
 the numerous Egyptian colossi — of Memnon and Rameses III at Thebes, at Abu- 
 Simbel, Scbu'ah, Luxor, Karnak, Konosso ; and the colossos of Cypselus may have 
 been gilt. We have some Egyptian colossi in the British Museum. * Politics, v, 8. 
 
 ' E'.yincl. Mai;. ^ Paus. i, 27, 3. 
 
4i6 The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 two of these girls a basket or vessel, of which the contents were unknown. 
 This they carried down into a cave, bringing up instead another equally 
 mysterious. This ceremony was anciently explained as being in honour of 
 "iLpa-q, sister of PanDrosos and AgLauros, and K. O. Miiller considered there- 
 fore that these girls carried deia, which is a meaning of fpo-T;. But that I submit 
 is most unsatisfying, if not deadly absurd. The other explanation is that 
 appr) means apprjTa, 'not to be mentioned, indicia, taboo' ; but it is hard to 
 get rid of the -to.. One thing seems C|uite clear : that they were carrying this 
 hermetic /'rtJ'/?Y/ in commemoration of the mysterious basket of EriChthonios, 
 Athene, PanDrosos, Herse, and AgLauros ; and it seems to me further that 
 the title of these girls, arre- or erse- or errephoroi may have meant neither more 
 nor less than (^^j-z^^Acarriers, simply and merely — a straight parallel to the 
 kistophoroi above. (See too the name of Arriphe p. 146 supra.) 
 
 The word for a ivickcr basket had many forms ; it was lipi-xo's and appl-Krj 
 and (ippi-Kos and I'lpcn-xos and r-appos and r-apa-os and even vppis and vppicr- 
 a-os; if I may trust the dictionary of Schrevelius. Liddell and Scott and 
 Mr. E. R. Wharton give the form vpi-a-os. The fact is that common utensil- 
 names naturally get mouthed into various shapes in differing, dialects and 
 districts, just as the shapes and uses of the utensils themselves slightly differ. 
 If there be anything in what I advance, then apprj- and epprj- were more archaic 
 or dialect forms of apt-, <'ippi-, dppl- and I'ppi- ; and e'pcrtj was similarly the 
 ec|uivalent of apcrt ; and the whole thing was nothing more than a very old 
 fraud of a ' basket-trick.'' 
 
 And further, the aspiration ofEpa-tj need not, in view of vpuros, vppis and 
 iippitTcros above, imply any dit^erence from e pcrTjtfxipoi unaspivated. Thus^EpoT; — 
 which, for the matter of that, is also found as "Epo-j; — need no longer mean deAV 
 ( — and at least one of the two supposed dew-sisters Herse and PanDrosos must 
 be de trop — ) but the sacred mystic k'kttj]. 
 
 If one now again reflect upon the undoubted fact that the girls did not 
 know the contents of the baskets they carried to and fro, it is an irrefragable 
 proof that the title of these same girls could not at the s^me time have declared 
 those contents to them and all the world ! What then was the use of K, O. 
 Miiller's guessing-out a revelation where, by the nature of the case, none could 
 have been conveyed ? 
 
 EriChThonios was the son of Hcphaistos and Atthis daughter 
 of Kranaos (an auto-chthon), or else the abnormal result of an 
 unsuccessful attempt by Hephaistos upon the virgin person of 
 Athena. She however desiring to bring up the infant, unknown to 
 the rest of the gods, took the strange course of shutting it up in a 
 
 ' Of course I am not saying what was in the basket, Two of the Fathers of the 
 Church however compel me to mention the rpaWoi of Dionuso.s, put into a kiste after his 
 murder by his two brother Kabeiroi, carried into the land of the Tvpprjvo'i or Tvpa-jjim, 
 that is of the Tower-gods (or men), and there worshipped in a basirt (Clemens Alexan- 
 drinus, Exhortn. 16, 19 ; Arnobius, Adv. Xalioncs, v, 19. .See also p. 422 infra.) And 
 this strangely enough further supports my remarks above aboiit the turris(= ri'p(rif) 
 being the kisle and basket. 
 
Jl/yf/is.'\ The Arcana. 417 
 
 KLCTTTi, confiding it and the secret to PanDrosos daughter of 
 Kekrops, and forbidding her to open the basket. But the curiosity 
 of the two sisters of PanDrosos led them to peep inside, where they 
 saw twined round the baby a serpent, which thereupon killed them 
 both. Or, according to another account, the sacrilegious pair were 
 struck mad by Athena, and flung themselves down from the 
 Akropolis. In any case we have here the dire punishment of 
 prying into the Kicnri yaxnuK-q of Dionusos (whom the serpent, on 
 F. Lenormant's supposition, here indicates). See also the note 
 on the preceding page. 
 
 The above legend is that given by Apollodoros,^ but Homer 
 (see also pp. 232, 348 supra) called the child EreChTheus, and said 
 he was the son of the Earth by Hephaistos, and that (like Kekrops) 
 his legs were serpents. 
 
 The rest of Homer's version resembles that of ApoUodoros, but the latter 
 seems to explain the name EriChThonios to be an alias descriptive of the 
 manner of EreChTheus his production. 'E(cfii/i; fie nva-ax^f'ia-a, epia dtrofid^aa-a 
 rbv yovQV fls yrjv [Athena] eppiy\re. <t€vyov(Trjs fie avrijs, Kat Trjs yovrfs eiff yrjv 
 wea-ova-rjs, 'Epixf^ovms yii'srai. {Bibl. iii, 14, 6, 5)'- ; leading us to suppose, though 
 he points it not, that the name means " flung on the Earth." But looking at the 
 number of other names in Eri- this etymology can hardly stand ; and this 
 method of production seems to be a doublet of the cryptic production of Arion 
 by Poseidon's striking the earth with his trident, in his contest with Athena. 
 (It also, of course, belongs to the union of heavens and earth as a sexual 
 pair, see p. 88 supra.) 
 
 Another genealogy of EriChThonios was -.^ 
 
 AtLas = Pleione 
 ,- ■ 1 
 
 Elektra = Zeus 
 
 lasion Dardanos — Bateia 
 
 d.s.p. , . \ 
 
 Ilos EriChThonios^ — Astuoche 
 
 d. s.p. 1^ 
 
 Tros 
 [I think the equation EreChTheus = EriChThonios = adjectival form of 
 EriChThon, shows that, on a comparison with such words as PhaeThon, the real 
 word was 'E/>i-;(-5ajj', where 6a>v was exchangeable with 6^vs (= Sfos) in 
 'Epf-x-^fDf. The word for Earth then =: X'^^^- This of course encounters the 
 difficulty of the Greek x^ being only an aspirate in other tongues, e.o,. x^coi' = 
 X">p (an unencountered word) = humus ; x^" == Sanskrit hyas ^ heri ; x^'^H-"^''^ 
 low = humilis, and so on.] 
 ' BiU. iii, 14, 6. 
 
 " The legend of the formation of AgDistis from the sleeping Zeus and the Earth 
 ( ? Ge), preserved by Pausanias (vii, 18) as current at Pessinous, is a similar case. 
 ^ Eustathius, ad Dion. 270 (citing .'^trabo and Arrianos). 
 
 2 D 
 
4i8 The Night of tlic Gods. [Polar 
 
 Hermes seeirs to have been called 'EpiOwiot and XQovlos and 'EpiXewior, 
 which Lenormant' calls "producer of wealth" ; but that has to be fetched so 
 far that one can scarcely see it ; and EriOunios itself is a hard word. Zeus 
 ChThonios was also a similar " producer of wealth ; "- and in fact it may be 
 generally premissed that V. Lenormant's mythology preoccupied itself with the 
 agricultural money-grubbing idea ; and so every possible god was a Hodge or 
 a hobereau with him. Of course I anticipate what the reader might here turn 
 round and say to myself; but Lenormant had no glimmer of cosmic speculation 
 in his eye. He said elsewhere^ that x^''" expresses especially the ground and 
 its depths, and then that, as one of the forms of the deified Earth, UeMeter was 
 the goddess to whom par excellence belonged the epithet ;^5oj'i'a, she was even 
 ChThonia alone. But surely this is a mythic conception not quite so grovelling 
 as the mere 'ground.' Then he identifies her with Ge ChThonia, but still sticks 
 to the idea of "the fecund soil of the humus or germ of vegetation" — the 
 market-gardener's view in fact. Then her empire extends to what is underneath 
 that ground, that soil — a ce qui est au-dessous de ce sol — to the sombre region 
 where dwell the shades of the dead whose remains have been confided to the 
 Earth. (Here he begs the burial question.) She, DeMeter, personifies the 
 bowels of the Earth as well as the cultivable soil which the plough opens (as if 
 all men had been originally mere agricultural labourers, serfs adscripti glebae). 
 She is KaraxdovLos as well as x^o"'", and this last qualification tended more and 
 more towards an infernal sense. Here of course is where the Cosmic should 
 have come in, but Lenormant has no notion deeper than the inside of the Earth, 
 a hole in the ground. Kata here means ' down from,' and kata-ChThon thus 
 means beneath the Earth in the cosmic sense, down where the stars and moon 
 and sun go when they set, the infernal southern hemisphere.' That is where Zeus 
 KataChThonios belonged. 
 
 Lucian — but he was a quiz — did indeed say that EriChThonios 
 " came out of the ground hke a vegetable ; '"■' but this would mean 
 that he was autochthonous, a " first-man ; " unless indeed it also 
 include the idea of the Tree. EriChTho was a name for a 
 Thessalian she-magician, and also a Fury. 
 
 EriChThonios (or EreChTheus ?) reigned 50 years (a chronic 
 cycle?). He also established the festival of the Horaia, of the 
 Hours who were the gatekeepers of the heavens, another indubit- 
 ably cosmic note. He invented cars, or else added wheels to the 
 previous sledge. This makes him a universe wheel-god, like the 
 similarly-inventive Chinese Hwang Ti, whom we shall have in "The 
 Wheel." He was rapt into the heavens as 'Hz^to;^o?, Auriga the 
 charioteer, the driver of the heavens-chariot ; which idea of 
 
 ' Dar. and Saglio's Die/. 1052. - Lenormant, again, ilu'd. 632. ' Ibid. 1046. 
 
 ■• I believe it was Dr. Warren, the President of Boston University, JIass. , who first 
 worked out, or at all events fully elaborated this theory for lis moderns, in his works on 
 cosmic mythology. Sec his Paradise Founds Appx. sec. vi. 
 
 5 Phtlop. 3. 
 
Myths.^^ The Arcana. 419 
 
 driving ( — he was also said to have invented four-in-hands — ) we 
 have had in the name of ^^Lauros (p. 344), one of the trans- 
 gressinsf sisters who were his nurse-maids. The chariot is also in 
 the similar (what shall I call it ?) of the assumption of Elijah,^ a 
 name which includes the two god-names El and Yah. The likeness 
 of name and fate, too, between Enoch" and Eniochos is striking. 
 "Enoch walked (went or proceeded) with the Elohim (= the 
 Eloahs ?) and he was-not any more, for the Elohim had taken 
 him." [Genesis v, 22, 24) ; and " 'Ei'm;^ was translated, that he 
 should not see death ; and he was not found, because God (©eo?) 
 translated him" {Hebreius xi, 5). 
 
 Can 'Ept- be = EH- ? If so, much would be plain-sailing. 
 Enoch joining the Els would be merely one of the endless cases 
 of turning into a stone-god (see " Axis-Myths " Sec. 9 supra): 
 E/iChThonios would be a stone-axis (symbol) god, for he is als6 
 = 'Hi'to;\;o9 ; and his equalisation with Erech77^«i'j gives a parallel 
 to 'Ez^ct);\; joining ©eo?. If that be so, one can perhaps see the way 
 to giving 'Epe;^- the sense of erectus, rectus (root rak to stretch- 
 out, make-straight) as on p. 230 supra, and ErecliTheus would be 
 a pillar-stone god. 
 
 To return for a little to the serpents. On an amphora in the 
 British Museum (cat. E, 418) two serpents are seen issuing, one 
 on each side, from under the basket-coffer of EriChThonios. This 
 recalls the incident of the infant HeraKIes strangling the brace of 
 snakes sent to his cradle by Hera to destroy him. F. Lenormant^ 
 considered the serpent in the ritualistic kiste of Dionusos as a 
 symbol and image of the god himself; and he added that some 
 accounts represent the infant Dionusos as brought up in a coffer, 
 but he is never given the kiste for cradle, while it was in a basket 
 of this last form that Athene shut up the child EriChThonios ut 
 mysteria.^ See however what has been said above p. 410 as to 
 basket = crib or cradle. In a frequent antique terra-cotta bas- 
 relief a Satyr and a Menad dance holding the infant Dionusos in 
 a crib. See the subject reproduced in Saglio's Dictionnaire, i, 239,^ 
 and note once again O'Curry's remark on p. 410 supra, and see 
 
 ' ii Kings ii, u. 
 
 " The Vulgate of Hieronymus (St. Jerome) gave Henoch ; F. Lenonnant transcribed 
 it as 'Hanoch (ch = English s/t ?) ; and Bishop Hdlmuth gives Chanokh. 
 ' In Saglio i, 598 (Saahus). 
 
 ^ Ibid. 1207. i From Winckehnann, Mon. iiud. 53. 
 
 2 D 2 
 
420 The Night of the Gods. \_Polar 
 
 p. 424 infra. We get the two serpents again upon one face of the 
 Asia-Minor coins called KiaTo<^bpoi (see p. 407 supra), which show 
 on the other side the Dionysiac /oziw-shaped basi:et-V\sX.k with a 
 single serpent issuing therefrom.' Of course the two araret serpents 
 of the Egyptian winged-sphere symbol (sec the Frontispiece; must 
 here be considered as straight equivalents. 
 
 I have already mentioned fp. 414) the coffer of EuruPulos, 
 whose name must be read wide (that is here ' extensive') pillar or 
 gate, see pp. 179, I'&o supra. He is given various divine fathers: 
 Poseidon, HeraKles, Thestios, Temenos, Dexamenos, Telestcr, 
 TelePhos, EuAimon, McKisteus, and HyperOchos. This Euru- 
 Pulos had a daughter named AsteroDia who wedded Ikarios (a 
 star and a heavens-wheel couple). He was also (see p. 33 supra) 
 the demi-ourgos who supplied the clod which became the Earth (as 
 ;!^num supplied clay to the potter Ptah). 
 
 The chest or coffer of EuruPulos was made by Hephaistos- — ail 
 whose works of this category refer to the making of the heavens — 
 and it was taken as a spoil from Troia by EuruPulos"^ Twho had 
 been bribed to go to Troy with a golden vine like the Jerusalem 
 one, p. 294). It held an image of Dionusos, which connects it at 
 once with the other mystic kists wrought also by Hephaistos, and 
 formerly given by Zeus to Dardanos, of course a spear-god. 
 This gifting, see pp. 47, 48, 212 supra, at once makes it a doublet 
 of the PalLadion. EuruPulos sacrilegiously opened the coffer, and 
 at the sight of the image was struck mad, just like the three nurse- 
 maids of Kupselos. Eventually however he got, with the help of 
 the Delphian oracle, to Patras or Patrai in Achaia, where (or at 
 Aroe) a male and a female virgin pair v/ere customarily immolated 
 to Artemis TriKlaria.'' There the image was adored in the 
 coffer under the title of Aisumnetes the Umpire, and the cofler was 
 borne in procession on the day of its festival. Aisumnetes may 
 also be considered the Ruler or Dispenser of P"ate, the just 
 Governor, which would complete the supremacy of the divine 
 
 ^ See the four illustrations, Saglio, 121 1 to 1213. 
 
 - The etymology i,^a-1<rroi conveys the ideas of joining, awra, and of a loom or a 
 mast, which are neither of them out of the way. 
 
 ■* Pausanias ix, 41. 
 
 ■* Has this to do with the famous three caskets, of go'd silver and lead, in the Mer- 
 chant of T'eniie and so on ? Zeus was also Klarios. 
 
Myths?^ The Arcana. 421 
 
 allegory; Aristotle said the name was archaically given to the 
 tyrants, and was an honorable title.^ The name of Patrai must 
 (like Attike) mean Fatherland, la Patrie," the Earth. Of course 
 the divine punishment for the sacrilege of prying into these coffers 
 may be simply viewed as a bogie invented by the priests, to aid 
 the taboo — like the Christian legends of meddling with the conse- 
 crated wafers, and so on. 
 
 But I must not leave undiscussed another important personage 
 always omitted from the EriChThonios myth. I mean Erusi- 
 ChThon, the brother of this triad of sisters, as in this Athenian 
 genealogy r' 
 
 Aktaios = 
 
 I 
 Agraulos — KeKrops 
 
 I 1 L 1 _i 
 
 ErusiChThon AgLauros:^ Ares Herse — Hermes PanDrosos^ 
 
 '^•'•^- I , I A. 
 
 Alkippe Kephalos = E6s 
 
 I. 
 TiThonos 
 
 I 
 
 PhaeThon 
 F. Lenormant, endorsing Preller,' said that the composition and etymological 
 sense of Epvo-iXewi/ show incontestably that it means Divide-Earth, alleging the 
 phrase (3oCr epvcrixdav in AthenEus (ix, 382) for an ox harnessed to the plough. 
 If this were incontestable, one could then make him, not as Lenormant did, " a 
 personification of the labourer "" but an Axis-god, an Earth-piercer. But the 
 name was also written 'Epio-i-, and we must first look at another (Thessalian) 
 genealogy of ErusiChThon : 
 
 Helios — Rhode 
 r ' -I . 
 
 rpTriOpes (or -as) PhaeThon 
 
 1 ' 1 1 1 1 . ^ 
 
 ErusiChThon = lasos Pelasgos AgEnor IphiMeDeia — Poseidon 
 
 Mestra [both names of Otos EphiAltes 
 
 Argos (Hellanikos, 
 /'•"*-• 37)] 
 Lenormant' said these two ErusiChThons are closely connected, pointing 
 ' Didot Fra^. Hist. Grac ii, 163. 
 
 " Should anyone object that Patrai was only a town, I shall quote him Le Temps of 
 this very day, 8th August 1892, where news is given (col. 2) de " la delegation envoyee 
 par la ville d'Orleans, patrie d'Etienne Dolet." 
 ' Apoll. Bibl. iii, 14, 2, etc. 
 
 * Suidas recorded, on the authority of " Skamon " of Mytilene, that Aktaion (not 
 Aktaios) had no son, but four daughters : AgLauros, Herse, PanDrosos, and Phoinike, 
 who thus permutes with ErusiChThon. 
 
 ' Dim. itnd Persepk. 331. * Saglio's Did. i, 1038. ' Ibid. 1039. 
 
422 The Night of Ihc Gods. \_Pola?- 
 
 out that the Athenian has a companion Purrakos, a name which corresponds to 
 the hill Purraia in the plain of Dotion in Thessaly (Magnesia). 
 
 ErusiChThon cut down the tree of DeMeter (see p. 299 supra), 
 and devoured his own Hmbs. Now if we take these to be both 
 figures for the separation of heavens and Earth by the destruction 
 of the axis-tree and the removal of the legs of an Atlas axis-god, 
 we are at once turned back to the Polynesian legend and its 
 explanation on p. 88 supra, which again redirects us to the 
 severance of the (paXX.o<; of Dionusos (p. 416), which last then 
 beconnes merely another variant of the endless cosmic mutilations, 
 which Mr. Lang has suggested (p. 88) belong to the mythic 
 sundering of the heavens-father and the Earth-mother. And I 
 think that if the reader who has been attentively following me will 
 reflect upon these facts he will see that we are here at an important 
 juncture of our arguments. So I shall ask him also to turn back- 
 to pp. 67 and 38, where the Japanese version is touched upon. 
 
 But there is yet another genealogy of ErusiChThon which I cannot find 
 that Lenormant had in sight. Athenaus (x, 416) recorded that Hellanikos 
 stated that ErusiChThon, son of Murmidon, was called Aithon because he was 
 an insatiable glutton, oTirfv t'niKr^cTTos jiopiii A'iSava KXriBfjuaiJ Lenormant reports 
 the legend that DeMeter struck hirn with a " fierce and unassuagable hunger, 
 aWa>v, [invlipaxTTis, jiovireiva."" It must be left to a stronger than I to say whether 
 Ai'emi/ be not here a proper name. It was (as /Ethon) the name of a horse 
 harnessed to the chariots of Phcebus (Ovid's Met. ii, 153), of Pallas {.-Encid, xi, 
 89), of Aurora (Servius on ^-E?!. xi, 89), and of Pluton (Claudianus, Rap/. 
 Proserp. i, 284). One of the genealogies made Aithon (or AiVajj/ ?) the father of 
 Ixion.^ Aithon is an odd word, which meant dark and blazing, besides 
 impetuous ; aithos was black and fiery ; aitho was to blaze. When we remem- 
 ber the various phases of the heavens, and that aither is the sky, I think one 
 might advance that AiThon could in reality be the heavens-god, or the ever- 
 lasting god (aifi, aluiv). 
 
 An important genealogical point is that the crime and punishment 
 of ErusiChThon are also attributed by some accounts'* to his father 
 TriOps, TriOpes, or Zeus TriOpas, whom H\-ginus'' made into the 
 constellation Ophiouchos, jnit there b\- DeMeter ; but the gods in 
 oi|r and (OT^r will claim attention under the head of " The E)'e of 
 Heaven." 
 
 Everything thus seems to point to the conclusion that Erisi-(i:';- 
 Erusi-)T^-@ci)z', alias AiQcoj', the brother of AgLauros, Hcrse, and 
 PanDrosos, is the same as Eri-;;^-Boi'(os- (the adjectival form of Eri- 
 
 ■ Hellanikos, /ra?'. 17 (Didcit. i. 4S). - Saglio, 1039. ^ Schol Apollon. iii, 62. 
 ■* Schol. on Thcocjil. xvii, 69. ' P. Astion. ii, 14. 
 
Myths?\ The Arcana. 423 
 
 ')(^-%ijiiv), the infant entrusted to their care, who is also identical with 
 Ere-^-©ev9, which god is the same as Zeus TriOpas. 
 
 THE CHRISTMAS BOX. It seems as if some sort of a case 
 could be made out for connecting the Christmas Bex with the holy 
 kist. Take, for example, the following instances of carrying about 
 boxes and such, in England. 
 
 That useful compilation British Popular Customs'^ states : There 
 is a custom, now nearly obsolete, of bearing the vessel at Christmas. 
 This consisted of a box containing two dolls, decorated with ribbons, 
 and surrounded by flowers and apples. The box had usually a 
 glass lid, and was covered over by a white napkin, and carried 
 from door to door on the arms of a woman. On the top of, or in, 
 the box, was placed a china basin ; and on reaching a house, the box 
 was uncovered, and a carol sung. [It is then suggested that 
 " vessel " = wassail. The dolls represented Virgin and Child ; and 
 the carol was the " Seven Joys of the Virgin."] In Yorkshire 
 formerly the box was surrounded with evergreens and flowers, and 
 at the houses to which it was brought a leaf or flower was taken, 
 and saved up as a cure for toothache. There was only one image 
 in this box, the Child.- 
 
 This "Vessel"-ho-K was clearl}' the "•fF«/^j'"-box, containing 
 two dolls, carried about at Aberford near Leeds." At Leeds itself 
 it became a "Wesley-Z'w/;," which, veiled in a cloth, was borne from 
 house to house by children. When it was uncovered, a ditty was 
 sung. The word wassail remained almost intact at Huddersfield, 
 where a " wessel-bob " was carried. 
 
 Here, of course, we have a genuine English (or rather Yorkshire) form of 
 the Christmas-tree, which, as stated above, p. 334, has come into fashion from 
 Germany since Oueen Victoria's marriage ; " previous to which time it was 
 almost unknown in this country," as the Book of Days (ii, 787) very properly 
 points out. 
 
 In Cheshire the poor went from farm to farm a-Thomasin' on 
 the 2 1st of December, and took \\ith them a bag or can in which 
 corn, meal, flour, were given them.' 
 
 It seems clear here that the gifts were to the box and for a 
 
 ' By Kev. T. F. T. Dyer, 1S76, pp. 464, 4S4, 441, citing authorities which I here 
 repeat. 
 
 - /oiiinal A\ch. Soc. viii, 3S (1853) : Bk. of Days, ii, 725 (1S64) Brand, i, 454. 
 ■' Notes and Queries (3rd series) vi, 494, ^i, 144. 
 ' founinl, Arch. Soc. v, 253 (1850;. 
 
424 The N'ight of the Gods. \_Pola7- 
 
 wassail or holy feast and orgie. Then the gift itself came to be 
 called a Christmas-box. The box also clearly held the Child, with 
 or without the virgin-mother ; and thus the offerings \\ere to the 
 Ch'ld. And here I should desire to refer to Francois Lenormant's 
 Origines (i, 258), where he deals with the Grecian women's night 
 orgie on the mountains at the winter solstice, waking with their 
 shouts the new-born Dionusos, lying in the m\-stic basket which 
 sen-ed for his cradle.^ See also, again, the dancing of the Menads 
 and Satyrs with the infant in a basket-cradle mentioned at p. 419 
 supra. It was in the beginning of our 4th centur\-, adds Lenormant, 
 that the birth of Christ was put by the Church to the 25th of 
 December.- 
 
 ' Plutarch, De Is. et Osir. 35. 
 
 - See also Gaidoz, Syinbolisnie de la Rom, 15 ; Memain, Tevtps EvangHiques, 97. 
 
Myths ?^ The North. 425 
 
 4.— The North. 
 
 Out of the North cometh golden splendour : 
 £l6ah hath upon him terrible Majesty.' 
 He stretcheth-out the North over empty space 
 and hangeth the Earth upon nothing. 
 
 {Job x.Kxvii, 22 ; xxvi, 7.) 
 
 THESE verses are a clear identification of the supreme stone-god 
 Eloah (see pp. 116, 196 j«/;-«), with the North. The Greeks 
 prayed to the North ; so did Roman worshippers, for the statues of 
 their gods had their backs to the North,^ where Varro expressly put 
 the seat of the gods : a deorum sede cum in Meridiem spectes, ad 
 sinistram sunt partes mundi exorientes, ad dexteram occidentes. 
 Servius also called the North the domicilium Jovis.^ The Greek 
 augurs faced the N, while the Roman placed themselves in the N, 
 so as to look S, like their gods. A priest in such a position would 
 face the worshippers ; and " there are ancient churches in Rome where 
 the disposition of the altar causes the celebrant to look the people 
 in the face in saying mass."* 
 
 The ancient Hindu diviners faced N ; so does the Hawaian 
 medicine-man or Kilo-kilo, when observing the heavens or the 
 flight of birds, for omens.' (But this is in the Southern hemi- 
 sphere.) In the Bhagavata-purdna (i, 9, 17), the King Bhagavat 
 sits down full of stedfastness and meditation with his face turned 
 towards the N. 
 
 According to the Katika-purdna, " the side sacred to Kuvera 
 (north) is the most gratifying to Siva ; therefore, seated with the 
 face directed to that side should Chandika {i.e. Siva) be always 
 worshipped." When people sit to repeat their sandhya (sunrise 
 noon, and sunset) prayers, they turn towards the North if they be 
 Saktas, that is worshippers of Siva's consort. The followers of 
 Ganesa, the son of Siva, also turn to the North.'' 
 
 ' Or ' is terrible of glory,' : "liH N'Vi: K^'^. 
 
 - Dacier's Horace, iii, 339. ' On .'Eneid ii, 693. 
 
 ■* Montpellier Catechisme, iii, 162. 
 
 •' Fornander's Polynesian Race, i, 240. 
 
 ' Rajendralala Mitra's Indo-.Aiyans (18S1), i, 72, 73' 
 
426 The Night of the Gods. \PoU 
 
 ar 
 
 In the remotely archaic ritual for the Hindu cow-sacrifice, the 
 priest stood up facing the North, and covering his face with a cloth, 
 repeated a mantra offering any blood which had been spilt on 
 the ground to the serpents to whom it belonged. This seems to 
 refer to the ' uraeus ' serpent or araret, found with the central 
 winged sphere in Egypt' (see Frontispiece). 
 
 In the trial of the Jubraj of Manipur for the kilhng of Messrs. Ouinton and 
 Grimwood on 24th March 1891, the ninth witness was Sagonsenka Dana Singh, 
 who stated (on 4th June) that he was an executioner by profession. He 
 executed four officers and one bugler. He faced the North while executing 
 them. The victims faced the West ; they were standing.^ In this mode of 
 execution we must discern a human sacrifice, for the victims were brought for 
 beheading before the two " dragons " which Avere the chief idols of Manipur. 
 The sacrificing executioner (-priest) faced the Northern place of the heavens- 
 god. 
 
 In ii Kings xvi, 14 the blood is, according to the only compre- 
 hendable te.xt, applied by Ahaz to the Northern flank of the Altar.' 
 
 The following texts in the Salapatlia-hraluuana refer to the 
 sacredness of the North ; but it is obvious that when that book, as 
 we now have it, went throt|gh its latest revision or modernisation, 
 much of the pristine meaning of the North had been long wholly 
 lost. 
 
 In the N the sacrificer raises the Agnidhra shed (ii, p. 147). He spreads 
 the cloth with the fringe towards the N (355) ; towards the E or N (66). He 
 lays the lower chuming-stick with the top to the N (91, 309). He lays the 
 yoke-pin from S to N, and draws the W outline (117), which is a reminder of 
 the augur's laying-out of his templum, infra. Thus indeed his work attains 
 completion towards the N (177). 
 
 He steps out towards the N, with a slight turn to the E — prah ivodah = 
 uttarapurvardham (8) ; They walk northwards out of the sacrificial ground (233). 
 They lead the soma-cow northwards round (58) ; when they lead the victims 
 northwards they lead Agni's first (222). 
 
 The sacrifice requires a northern attendance (102). In the N (or upwards) 
 shall this sacred work of ours be accomplished (365) ; We will then enter on the 
 sacrifice on the N side, in a place free from danger and injuiy [This is eight 
 times repeated, as in a litany.] (433). 
 
 The adhvaryu and sacrificer sit N, looking towards the S (238). The 
 Aswins became the adhvaryu priests, who are the heads of the sacrifice (239 
 276) ; the adhvarju makes libations on the N side of the fire (316). 
 He first sprinkles the high-altar in front, standing facing the N (122). 
 Having gone round to the front, he sits down facing the N, and anoints the 
 stake (170) ; thereupon he heats the navel-fat (see p. 377 supra) v;\i\\& standing 
 
 ' Rajendralala Witra's htdo-Arvans, i, 366. 
 
 - Boinbny Gazelle BiiJ^cl, I2th June iSgi, p. 5. ^ ffc/tj;. of Scnntcs, 467 
 
Myths.'] The North. 427 
 
 on the N side (195) ; therewith he offers on the N part of the fire (367) ; he 
 offers on the N part of the fire for that is the region of that god Agni (352). 
 
 Let him deposit the Graha (soma-cup, Graal ?) on the N (uttara) part of 
 the mound, because there is not any higher (uttara) graha than this. Let him 
 then lay-down the soma-pressing-stone beside the graha, with the face towards 
 the N (256). 
 
 \The Graha. The graha vessel or cup is described as resembhng a 
 mortar in shape. It is also explained as a small saucer-cup of clay, to put over 
 the cavity of the soma-vessel (patra) and so cover the precious intoxicating 
 soma-juice, the sacrificial wine of these archaic Indian sacrifices. The patra is 
 said to be " a vessel which resembles a large wooden jar," but has only a very 
 slight cavity (on the top) into which the soma-juice is poured. (Note that 
 chalice and paten would seem here to have changed names.) Graha and patra 
 are as inseparable as cup and saucer are ; and were perhaps the original of our 
 ' cup-and-saucer.' Graha also means ^a cupful of the soma. Again, there is 
 both a patra (cup) and a sthali (bowl). Dr. Eggeling' gives all this doubtfully 
 from Haug- ; and doubtable it justly is, in its making the Graha into the mere 
 saucer. 
 
 Graha, however, primarily seems to have meant 'seizing' or the 'seizer' ; 
 thus " we take the cups " ^ we grab the grahas,"^ and it ought to be cognate with 
 grasp (grap)? The planets are also grahas because of their grasp on the 
 destinies of men ; so is also the power that lays-hold of sun or moon in an 
 eclipse ; so are the evil spirits of demoniacs and of the sick. 
 
 Many mysteries are asserted about the Graha (cup) in the fifth Bralimana 
 of the Cow-Walk (Gavam-ayana).' The Graha is the Word, it is the Name, it 
 is Food, and the soma (its contents) is also Food. The Kanva text of the same 
 says the Graha is the Breath, the graha of breath (Life ?) is food, the graha of 
 food is water, the graha of water is Agni, the graha of Agni (fire) is Breath, 
 again. 
 
 Here is a mort of mystery sufficient to usher in the mysteriousness of the 
 Graal., of which I suggest the Graha to have been the true original. See also 
 p. 231 siipra-l 
 
 That the Egyptian also put his back to the N, is proved by ab 
 % \Lr-~s> being left, and abti 7|< 1 "^ "^ and "^'f^ and % )( " and 
 
 ■\^ '^ ^ and xf^ being East, tk b}' itself is also the sign of the 
 
 East. Besides, "^iP which indicates the N, is also ha, behind. 
 
 Right, unami ft v\ ^ and ^.ft^ has for its initial the glyph ft 
 
 which designates the West. 
 
 In the 13th century the Tartars pitched their tents or huts with 
 
 ' Sat.-brdhin. 11,259. " .iil.-br&hm. IlS. •* .Sat.-bralim. ii, 432. 
 
428 The Night of Ihc Gods. [Polar 
 
 the doors to the South and the bed of the master at the North side, 
 so that sitting upon it he faced South. They also sprinkled of their 
 drink to the North, in behalf of the dead. So reported Willielmus 
 de Rubriquis, envoy of St. Louis of France to the Tartars, in 1253. 
 He also wrote that the idolaters whom he calls " lugures " wor- 
 shipped towards the North, clapping their hands together, and 
 prostrating themselves on their knees upon the earth, holding their 
 foreheads in their hands. The doors of their temples also opened to 
 the South, contrary to the custom of the Saracens. From their 
 bells, big gilt idols, shaven heads, saffron garments, beads, and 
 formula of " Ou mam Hactani " (Om mani padme hum ?) these 
 lugures appear to have been Buddhists.' 
 
 The Chinese North is the point " over which the Polestar 
 stands," while the three other points are referred to the sun : 
 E, where he rises, S, where he rests, and W, where he sets.- The 
 Emperor when officiating at the round altar of Heaven faces the 
 N,^ and the Taoists turn towards the same point when addressing 
 the first person of their trinity,'' just as the pagan Germans did 
 when praying and sacrificing.^ The round altar of Heaven, T'ien, 
 stands at the N of the Northern round temple at Peking.^ In 
 divining by the tortoiseshcll, the Emperor faced N, while the 
 divining priest holding the shell faced S, that is faced the Emperor.' 
 Though the place of honour occupied by the head of every Chinese 
 family is now in the E, which may be the fruit of a later sun- 
 worship, the Emperor and every mandarin has his throne or 
 judgement-seat in the N,'* that is he faces S ; taking in fact the 
 position of the Judge of Heaven, see under "The Polestar" hifra. 
 This looking S seems to be well confirmed even as late as 161 8 
 by the Lo-king kia'i (Astrological compass described) which states 
 that " heaven is represented by the 28 stellar divisions ; it con- 
 tinuously turns to the right."" This would only be true to an 
 observer facing S. 
 
 The Eastern and Western walls of Peking, bfuilt under the 
 second of the Ming Emperors (circa 1400) are directed 2° 30' to 
 the E of S (and therefore to the W of N). Gaubil thought this 
 
 ' Voyage of W. de Rubriquis, chaps. 3, 26, 27 (in Hakluyt). 
 
 ^ Mayers, Chi. Reader's Manual, p. 306. ^ Dr. Warren's Paradise Foinid, 216. 
 
 ■* Edkins, Relig. in China (2nd ed. ) 151. * Grimm, Deutsche Myth. 77S. 
 
 '' W. .Simpson's Meeting the Sun, 1S3. ' Dr. Legge's Li Ki, ii, 233. 
 
 '^ Giles, Historic China, 393. 
 
 '■' Ed. Biot, in Coiiiplcs icndus, .Acad, dcs Sciences (1S44) \i.\, S27. 
 
Myths:\ The North. 429 
 
 was due to the variation of the compass/ which is normally 
 2° to 2^ 30' in China, and rarely more than 4° 30'.- From the 
 end of the 17th century down to our days, wrote Ed. Biot'^ the 
 declination of the compass has remained nil or very minute in 
 China. In the Lo-king kia'i (see p. 98) published in 161 8 the 
 declination of the needle was indicated as being only 1°. Amyot 
 said* that the Chinese in fixing their sundials with a compass 
 allowed 2° for W declination. That the compass-wagons (see p. 
 98 supra) were used for fixing the aspect of buildings is proved 
 by the Cyclopedia Santsai t'u hwuy (1609) which says that in the 
 period yanyow (13 14 to 1 320) the situation of the Yao-mu-ngan 
 monastery was so determined.' The Tseng ting Tsing wen kian 
 (Great Mirror of Manchu and Chinese tongues — vii, 57) as cited by' 
 Klaproth (p. 109) says that " when a house is to be built, the 
 diviners use the astrological compass (which is a wooden instru- 
 ment made like a mirror, that is like a round plate) to determine 
 whether the spot is luckily situated," This is fengshui, and luckily 
 must be read holily, but is also clearly connected with the points 
 of the compass. 
 
 Mr. W. G. Aston, C.M.G., who possesses such an intimate 
 knowledge of Japan and Corea, and of the languages of both 
 countries, informs me that both the Mikado of Japan and the 
 King of Corea place themselves in the North when holding a 
 court ; while the palaces of both Kioto and of Soiil lie to the 
 North of those cities, and their chief gates open to the South. 
 The main entrance to the castle of Tokio (Yedo) is also in the 
 South. At the promulgation of the decree creating a Japanese 
 parliament, on nth February 1889, the Mikado's "throne faced 
 the South."" The temple of the Japanese thunder-god faces N, 
 although the shrine of his symbol, the Sword, faces East. 
 
 " Send round the glass to the South, from the left to the right hand. All 
 things should front the South."'' This is just the Chinaman's taking his posi- 
 tion at the N. 
 
 But we must now discuss in some detail the aspecting of 
 religious buildings. 
 
 ' Descrip. de Peking, Paris 1763, p. 8. 
 
 - Amiot in Mem. concernant les Chinois, ix, 2 ; x, 142. 
 
 ^ Compter rendus, Acad, des Sciences (1S44) xix, S23. 
 
 ■• Mem. des Miss, iv, 2. » Klaproth, La Boussole. 93. 
 
 " Daily News, 22nd March 1S89. 
 
 ^ Lad)' Wilde's Ancient Cnn's, iSrc. 1S90, p.' 251. 
 
43° The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 THE AUGUR'S TEA! PLUM. One of the oldest, most 
 permanent, indubitable connexions of the North with the Divinity 
 is assuredly that still subsisting clearly in Roman classical times 
 in the teinplum of the augurs. And there need be no doubt that 
 the position of that templum has descended to us in Christian 
 churches, and in the Northern position of their celebrating ministers, 
 which still gives rise in England to ecclesiastical litigation. 
 
 The initial essential point to posit and bear in mind is that 
 the templum being for sighting and observing celestial meteoro- 
 logical phenomena and the venue and flight of the birds of the 
 heavens (see " Divine Birds " in Vol. II), it was by virtue of neces- 
 sity a dividing-off of the whole heavens ; the templum was thus 
 originally celestial. So did Varro say that tCDiphiin originally 
 applied to the whole extent of the heavens. Bene autem uni- 
 versus mundus Dei templum vocatur, wrote Macrobius' ; and that 
 meaning is still familiar to ourselves in devotional poesy. 
 The old derivation of templum from reiivav, to cut, which would thus refer it 
 merely to 'the dividing-off' of the heavens by the augnr, is most unsatisfactory. 
 I make from Mr. E. R. Wharton's Efyma Latiria, the following extracts : 
 
 ieino pole : = *tex-m6 fr. texo shaped. Cf. Anglosaxon thisle pole. 
 
 tcmpero qualify (English tamper) : fix the limits of. Lithuanian tempti 
 stretch. 
 
 templum open space : expanse. Cf. ex-templ6 on the spot. 
 
 tempora temples of the head : spaces. 
 
 tempus time : extension (see tempero;. 
 Note here the connexion of tempus, tempora, templum, tempti ; and the idea 
 of stretching, extension (in both space and time). Templum seems to me to be 
 simply the wide expanse of the heavens. 
 
 It would almost seem that the true origin of the word templum 
 has been just missed by merely, as it were, taking the wrong 
 turning. Tempus (time, extension, space) seems to me to be the 
 nearest word ; the tempora of the head are ' spaces ' ; tempero = 
 fi.x limits (Lithuanian tempti stretch) ; and I suggest (it cannot be 
 for the first time) that temo contains the real origin of all these 
 words, which have a time (temporal) and a space and a heavens 
 meaning. For temo is a pole, and we know that ttoXo? was not 
 alone the pole or a.xis of the universe, but was also the revolving 
 heavens, that is space itself. The analogous e.xtension of the 
 meaning of temo from pole (or axis) I obtain by citing its ancient 
 meaning as the constellation of the Great Bear, which \\as quoted 
 
 ' Seniii. Slip, i, 14. 
 
Myths.'] The North. -43' 
 
 in Varro^ from Ennius. The word reappears as the French timon, 
 and I suppose one is free to wonder whether timeo may not have 
 a similar heavenly origin. I direct attention also to the Egyp- 
 tian temet to join (at p. 460 infra), and temt temtu total, 
 i:f=i and /^ "^^^^ ' '"^ ' > which are clearly celestial words. 
 
 These considerations would lead one to attach great importance 
 to the aiigurat verb contemplor, which referred to the tracing of 
 the celestial as well as the terrestrial space for studying the will of 
 heaven, and also to the ancient meaning of templum in Festus 
 (Contemplari) as a place from which all parts could be seen : loco 
 ex quo omnis pars videri potest. 
 
 The Etruscans seem to have given the better part of their 
 religious time to ascertaining the will of the gods, that is to 
 divination, rather than to prayer. In their auguries the templum 
 was a determinate space of the heavens, which the augurs ob- 
 served. The Roman augurs, as has been already stated, p. 425, 
 placed themselves in the North,^ so as to look South, like their 
 gods. In Plutarch's Niiina? the chief of the augurs covered 
 Numa's head, and turned his face towards the South. The 
 Roman augur, thus facing South, first drew with his litiius or 
 crooked rod — which was as like as need be (see p. 56 supra) to 
 a Roman bishop's ' crozier ' of to-day — a meridian, the cardo, from 
 N to S. 
 
 The unmistakeable " lituus ''-crook here given is held, left, by 
 a four-handed MahaDeva in Moor's Hindu Pantheon (plate 46). 
 Attention is directed to the triple emblem on it, which is the fleur- 
 de-lis. The Roman lituus, which is taken from Guhl and Koner, was 
 held in the right hand, and was a curved rod without a knot 
 (Dextra manu baculum sine nodo aduncum tenens, quern lituum appel- 
 laverunt. Livy, i, 18). Romulus created three augurs and gave them 
 the lituus to mark their dignity. He is represented on an ancient gem 
 as an Arvalian brother, holding the lituus. Here we have the pedigree 
 of the crozier. (There was also a Roman cavalry bugle of similar curvature 
 and same name, with which the Indian conch-shell might be compared.) Lituus 
 is said be an Etruscan word. 
 
 It is this Cardo, so drawn by the augur, that gives us the origin 
 of our ' cardinal ' points ; the four winds blow from the four 
 
 ' L.L. vii, 4, 94. See also Statius Thcb. i, 370, 692 ; Cicero De Nat. dear, ii, 42 ; 
 Ovid, Met. x, 447. 
 
 - M. A. BoucheLeclercq's statements in Daremberg and Saglio's Diet. vol. i 
 (especially note 127 on p. 554) as to "later" and differing practices are inconclusive. 
 
 ^ Clough's, 136. 
 
432 The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 cardines (Quintil. hist, xii, lo, 6j). And here the reader must be 
 reminded that, the heavens being divided by this cardo, all that 
 lay-round to one side of it, from N to S, was the E, while the 
 W similarly embraced the other half-circle and semi-hemisphere. 
 The cardo caeli or muudi was also the North Pole. Mount 
 Taurus was called the cardo for a similar reason (see " The 
 Mountain" in Vol. II). Our Earth was a cardo, as the centre 
 of the Universe (Pliny ii, 64, 64 ; 9, 6). The cardo masculus was 
 the kingpost of a roof (see p. 226 supi'o). The latest etymology 
 for cardo, which allies it with icaphia}- is clearly the correct one ; 
 and the OldSlavish sreda, middle, is directly in point here. It is 
 thus evident that the meaning 'hinge ' of a door for cardo must be 
 quite secondary, even though we take the ' hinge ' or socket or 
 pivot to be that of the Axis in the North Pole. 
 
 The archaic Latin goddess Cardea (see p. 160 supra) must here of course 
 be connected with the Cardo. That was why she was the Dea Cardinis, and 
 not liecause she was (save in the sense just hinted) the goddess of hinges. She 
 was indeed the goddess of the socket in which the Universe turned on its Axis, 
 and subsequently must have fallen to the creaking door ; where she became a 
 sort of concierg'e. She was also, in her primeval state, the beloved of Janus 
 (p. 323 supra)., who gave her her potency and the sacred Whitethorn which 
 banishes unluck from the threshold touched with it. Her festival was near 
 Midsummer (Calends of June) and Beans were then eaten with pork (of a 
 sacrificed sow). Thence were these calends (ist June) called calendae 
 fabariae,^ and thence (or by a parallel descent) our ' beanfeasts.' Here once 
 again we connect the Bean with the Pole, and are again reminded of Jack and 
 the Beanstalk (p. 295). 
 
 The augur, having drawn the cardo, next drew another line 
 crossing it at right-angles from E to W, that is from his left-hand 
 to his right-hand quarter. This line was the decu»ia/i»s, unsatis- 
 factorily said to be from the Etruscan cypher for ten, which, like 
 the Chinese and Japanese of to-day, was a -f-. The centre, where 
 stood the augur, was the decus, whence of course decu-manus 
 really comes ; 
 
 [and this it must be which gave the kot' (^n^iji) meaning to decus : a subject which, 
 as well as the + for ten, would bear threshing out, but not on this occasion.] 
 The S half of the heavens so lined off was the pars antica or front 
 portion ; the other half was the pars postica or portion behind 
 the augur. 
 
 Mr. E. R. Wharton's Etyma Latina. pp. 15, 23. 
 Macrob. Saturn, i. 12. 
 
Myths:\ 
 
 The North. 
 
 433 
 
 N 
 
 D = Decus or deciis-sis. 
 
 N S = Cardo. 
 
 E W = Decu-manus. ^V 
 
 . ■. E = left hand ; W = right hand. 
 
 [at D was the augur's tabernacle or tent.] 
 
 I) 
 
 
 
 
 AN augur's TEMPLUM. 
 
 We learn from an excellent authority on such a subject, from the augur 
 Cicero,' that the Romans only had four divisions to their heavens-templum, 
 while the Etruscan sixteen (as I should have stated at p. 182) was got by 
 bisecting and rebisecting the four angles : Caelum in xvi partes diviserunt 
 Etrusci ; facile id quidem fuit quattuor quas nos habemus duplicare, post idem 
 iterum facere. 
 
 Martianus Capella confirms what Varro tells (p. 430 supra) and 
 gives lis besides the deities belonging to the 16 (4 x 4) Etruscan 
 divisions of the templum ; and it is obvious that if the N celestial 
 pole was thus taken for the holiest point of departure, the line 
 from E to W which cqt the meridian at right-angles shoiald have 
 been the great circle of the equator. 
 
 The Umbrian temple, ac- 
 cording to Kirchhofif^ and BreaP 
 was practically the same as the 
 Roman, in as far as its dividing- 
 off of the heavens was con- 
 cerned, but its earthly boun- 
 daries were drawn so as to 
 present external angles, and 
 not sides, towards the cardinal 
 points — if we may draw the 
 conclusion th^t the angles 
 were pointed as lettered in this 
 figure. 
 
 Cicero, augur that he was, only made a mere mention {De Div. i, 42) of 
 the Umbrian augurs ; but the highly important bronze tables of Iguvium (now 
 Gubbio) have preserved us some fragments of this ritual from a date which is 
 
 W 
 
 De Div. ii, 18. 
 
 Die umbrisihen Spraclidcnkmctlcr, p. 102. 
 
 ' Lcs Tables Euguhines, p. 52 
 2 E 
 
434 The N'ight of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 widely put at between 400 and 200 B.C. But the whole thing was then mani- 
 festly archaic and decayed, as may be clearly seen from an attentive perusal of 
 AI. Michel Breal's long and tentative study of the Tables. 
 The great interest of this Umbrian practice is that it not alone 
 gives us a practical recognition of the Egyptian title of the Four 
 Cardinal powers, the "lords of the kebs (= angles) of the heavens 
 '"T^ i [p' " P- I 'Si supra, but it must also be viewed as a (not 
 identical but only; similar case to the posing of Bab\-lonian temples, 
 as we shall see later, at p. 444. This Umbrian ritual seems also 
 to supply a clue to the strange proceeding in Gallican church-con- 
 secration, upon which we shall come immediate!}-. 
 [Indeed the boundary' of the augurs templum seems to have been some- 
 times drawn in a circle (Guhl and Koner, ii, 410 , whence, and originally from 
 the roundness of the heavens, the magician's circle and, perhaps directly, 
 round churches. See also p. 2S0 si/pra.'] 
 
 H. Nissen in his researches ( Daj Toiiplum, Berlin. 1869' seems to show that 
 the later Roman temples were not always East-ed towards the selfsame point 
 of the East. And it would appear that a practice grew up, under the influence 
 of Sun-Worship, of facing the temple towards the actual rising-point of the sun 
 on its foundation-day. This day of course became later the day of the saint to 
 whom the church is dedicated. That this would admit of great latitude is 
 evident, for the northern and southern hmits of sunrise at Rome are " some 65" 
 apart." This even gave rise geographically or nautically to an odd system 
 of terminology, which may be often encountered in old books. For example 
 Vertot describing Cos said' : " cette ile a celle de Rhodes a I'orient d'hjwer," 
 which meant the direction in which the sun set in winter, as \'iewed from Cos. 
 Kissen thinks the Romans only very- rarely laid their temples accor-ding to the 
 archaic Etruscan N and S mode. See also p. 442 infra. 
 
 The sacred significance of this li'ide East, as defined on p. 432 supra. lay 
 in the rising of all heavenly obiects therein, and not the sun only. " For the 
 E is the quarter of the gods, and from the E v.-estwards the gods approach 
 men."= 
 
 All the Roman practices were, according to Hyginus, taken from, the lore 
 of the Etruscan haruspices as to the dwelling of their gods, which 1 as already 
 seen'' was in the Northern portion of the hea^"ens. because of its immobility j 
 from the polar region they watched over the earth. The S thus faced their 
 abode, the W was to their right hand, and the E to their left. As all the 
 heavenly bodies come in at the E, it was the good quarter of the Etruscans, 
 while the \V, where they disappeared, was of evil augury. Right is here ■nTOng 
 and evil, it will be remarked ; and left is its opposite. 
 
 • Hist, de; chez: de S.Jean, 177S, ii, 77. 
 
 " Dr. Eggeling's Satata'ha-brahmaiia. ii, 3. 163. 
 
MytIls^^ The North. 435 
 
 Any sign in the N half was greatly more significant than if it 
 occurred in the S. The N-E, the nearest on the good side to the 
 dwelling of the gods — of which region the stars never set — was the 
 most favourable quarter of the augur's templum, and the S-W, 
 where the stars are always "down among the dead men," was the 
 most inauspicious. These are my glosses, for the reason given by 
 Servius^ as to the left-North : quoniam altiora et viciniora Domi- 
 cilio Jovis, is only half a good one. It forgets the N-W. 
 
 In the Satapatlia-brdlanana" the Hindu sacrificer " stepped out 
 towards the N, with a slight turn to the E : prari ivodan 
 = uttarapurvardham ;" and in digging the hole for the sacrificial 
 post, he strewed the sacred barhis-grass " both eastward-pointed 
 and northward-pointed." 
 
 To show what had been irrgcoverably lost, the N-E quarter belonged to 
 the opertanei or hidden gods, with the lares, penates, favores, consentes (who 
 were also called complices, and recall the epithets of the Zoroastrian Aniesha- 
 spentas who, under "The Nupiber Seven" are sought to be identified with the 
 stars of Ursa Major), But these last three terms seem also to be mere 
 adjectival epithets of classes of omens, and not substantive names of gods. 
 
 The augur's tracing having been done (as above) on the heavens 
 by waving his lifuus in the air (making " the sign of the cross " with 
 it, in fact, just as is done in giving a sacerdotal blessing to this day), 
 the tracing of a cross was next done more permanently with the 
 same divining-rod on the ground, and was limited by a square or 
 TrXivQiov, which enclosed and formed the visible tcinplnvi, of which 
 the sides were also caviled cardines and decumanes. The augur 
 then pronounced the verba concepta for the in-augur-ation^ of the 
 templum, some at least of which words Jiave been preserved for us 
 by Varro. 
 
 The passages of the ancient augur's Latin ' mumpsimus' gibberish in Varro 
 (jL./.. vii, 8) seem from his commentary — but he knew little about them — to 
 denote the marking of a ground-templum among trees (In hoc templo faciundo 
 arbores cqnstitui fines apparet), which may have been just the keremet of the 
 Finns, see pp. 315, 316 supra. The puzzling augur's (Sabine) tesca also seem 
 from these passages to have beer) all that was not templum, the forest-primeval 
 roundabout, in fact, with its rocks and other barren places (see also Festus, s.v. 
 Tesca). Note that the templum and the tesca being thus conterminous explains 
 much. 
 
 A fence of boards, or even a textile screen, was next emplo}-ed to 
 mark the boundary of the templum, which was then a locus 
 septus ; but the uttered words alone were sufficient, and then it 
 
 ' On A'.ncid, ii, 69 J. - Dr. Eggeling's, ii, 8, l6g, 139. ' .See p. 440 infra. 
 
 2 E 2 
 
436 The Alight of tJie Gods. \_Polar 
 
 was a locus effatus merely. But thus consecrated it was inviolable ; 
 none dare cross its holy boundaries, none could enter it or go out 
 from it but by its door. 
 
 The difficulties of sighting birds in flight — especially when the birds would'nt 
 come — seems at length to have led the Etruscans to artificially induce 
 these tokens from the gods by liberating captured birds from the terrestrial 
 templum-enclosure, and then observing their comportment in the air ; and the 
 pious practice of buying doves and so on in the temples, to let them loose, 
 must have thus originated. These difficulties indeed had led to the total 
 abandonment of the obsen'ation of wild birds in Cicero's augural time.' The 
 ground-templum was even put to the use of observing the ways of small animals 
 and reptiles, at large therein ; but this too had gone out in Cicero's time," and 
 all these frauds had dwindled down to idiotically watching the feeding of 
 chickens.' ;\Iigration too would have played hell, or heaven, with the omens of 
 wild birds, according to the season of the year. 
 
 To K. O. ]\Ii.iller^ we perhaps first owed the clearest generalisa- 
 tion from the augur's templum to the religious edifices that 
 succeeded it. Thence they took the form of an oblong square, 
 which was that of the great temple of the Capitol at the founda- 
 tion, in-augurTation, of which the Etruscan haruspices presided. 
 Thus the door of the first, the Etruscan, temple-building faced 
 the South, because the deity's place (as above seen) was at the 
 other end, the North. 
 
 Here is inserted, from Guhl and Koner's handy book, 
 the supposititious plan of an Etruscan temple, sketched 
 by Hirt from the data of \'itruvius (iv, 7). 
 The entrance to an Etruscan tomb was also in 
 the S and its posticum consequently in the N, 
 whereas the Greek and Roman tombs and temples 
 gencrall}' ran E and \\'. The frequent cross- 
 form of the Etruscan sepulchral cavern would 
 Etruscan Temple ha\"e been due to the fundamental cross-lines of 
 (as supposed). the templum.'' 
 
 It is easy to see from all this why mensuration and sur\"eying 
 formed portion of the functions of the Etruscan haruspex ; and 
 the augurs being thus also the first land-surveyors,' camps were 
 
 1 De Div. ii, 31. ° Ibid, ii, 23. 
 
 ^ Obiter, ' chickens ' is a double plural ; ' chicken ' is a plural in East Kent, and 
 includes the hen and chickens, and the cock too. 
 
 ■• Etrtisker, ii, 124 seq. 
 
 '" A. Maury, in Guignaut's Creuzer, ii, 1216. See also .M. Bouche-Leclercq's Hist, 
 de la diiiiidfion dans [antignitc, Paris 1S79 et seq., and Guhl and Koner's La Vie 
 Antique (P'rench version of 4th ed.) 1SS5, ii, 6, &c. 
 
 ' Marquardt, ii, 68 ; iv, 34. 
 
aryths:\ 
 
 The North. 
 
 437 
 
 also sacredly laid-out in right-angled fashion,^ and so were colonies, 
 which were at first permanent camps.^ Lots of land were also 
 consequently bounded and divided by lines running in the same 
 straight fashion, which has again broken out in the American 
 ' city.' And I believe it is not generally known that the ordinary 
 cross-walks of our old-fashioned rectangular gardens descend 
 directly from these sanctified customs. The Romans called the 
 main path or Ii)ii€s from X to S the cardo ; that crossing it from 
 E to W was the limes decumanus. Smaller paths in the same 
 directions were called by the names of transversus and prorus.'* 
 Thus each man's ' allotment ' became pro tanto a sort of private 
 templum where auguries could be observed at home ; and this it 
 is that explains " the humour of it." 
 
 A very curious practice survives in the Gallicari ceremony for 
 the consecration of a new Roman Christian church. As soon as 
 the bishop, after thrice knocking, is admitted into the building, an 
 oblique cross is made upon 
 the floor with ashes. ^ This 
 cross extends from end 
 to end of the church, and 
 is diagonal, like a saltire 
 in heraldry, or a St. 
 Patrick's or St. Andrew's ^'^^\ "/ S^ (?oiiUL. S^Ji^U^.,^ 
 
 cross. 
 
 The existence of this cross in the two Celtic countries of Ireland and Scot- 
 land, with differing modern'* names in each, would seem to point to a common 
 but more archaic origin than the preaching of Christianity in either. Our 
 Union-jack, as is well known, consists of the superposition of the straight 
 cross, here called after St. George, upon these diagonal crosses attributed to 
 
 Sts. Patrick and Andrew. But the very same diagram ^^^^M '^ to be seen 
 
 ' Pliny, Hist. Nat. xviii, 76, 77. 
 
 ' Marquardt, iii, 343. See also Daiemberg and Saglio's Diet, i, 1312 to 1314. 
 
 ^ Hyginus, De Limit, const, xviii, 33, 34. 
 
 ■* Montpellier Catichisjnc (1751), 265. Duchesne, Orig. du culte Chretien, 1S89, 
 395, 402. The ashes were originally, of course, taken from the sacrificial fire, as shown 
 above at p. 364. 
 
 * Of course these names must be very archaic too, for patricius, patrick, patraic is 
 simply a pater, a Father-god's name ; and Andrew (see p. 415) is an ander, andros, Man- 
 god's name. 
 
438 The Night of the Gods. \ Polar 
 
 on a ' Gnostic gem," which also clearly gives the seven stars of Ursa Major 
 (see "The Number Seven '' in \'ol. II) round the Old Man (Kronos?)who is 
 here a terminal figure, that is (see p. 3S7 supra) an Axis-god. !\Ir. C. Boutell 
 is therefore abundantly accurate (perhaps sans le savoirj, when he says the 
 making of the Union-jack was " reviving a still earlier process."- 
 To return to the church. Supposing its sides to face the 
 cardinal points, the ends of the cross of ashes would thus, oddly 
 enough, face the cardinal points of the Babylonians as gi\-en by 
 Dr. Wallis Budge (p. 444 infra) ; but a more likely connexion is, 
 of course, as already stated, with the Unibrian augur's templum 
 shown above, p. 433. 
 
 The Roman architologist De Rossi' says these oblique diagonals correspond to 
 the lines which the Roman surveyors first traced on the lands they measured, 
 and the Abbe L. Duchesne follows him* ; but they are both astray, of course, as 
 has been seen. 
 
 That this ashes-cross has some extreme!}' archaic pagan origin is 
 still further suggested by the use to which it is put. The bi.shop 
 draws upon one of its cross-lines, in the ashes and with the end 
 of his staff (or lituus, see p. 431), all the letters of the Greek 
 alphabet ; and on the other he so writes the Latin alphabet ; so that 
 the two alphabets cross in the middle, and the first letter of each 
 alphabet is in a corner of the church, and its last letter in the 
 diagonally opposite corner. This is done during the chanting of 
 the psalm, Fundamenta Ejus in Montibus Sanctis. The scription 
 of the alphabets suggests a pagan adoration of the Word (that is 
 of the Name, or of Speech ; for all these senses and interpretations 
 existed, and can be abundantly illustrated, in Vedic, Avestan, and 
 Egyptian antiquity). " S'il y a une raison litterale pour I'institution 
 de cette ceremonie," says the Montpellier Catechism (iii, 273) 
 very honestly, " nous ignorons cette raison." Neither De Rossi 
 nor the Abbe Duchesne' throw the faintest light on the question. 
 
 In the subsequent consecration of the altar of the church, in 
 the same Gallican ceremonial, the bishop, with holy-water in which 
 blessed salt ashes and wine have been mingled, 
 makes five crosses with his thumb on the table 
 of the altar : one in the middle and one at each 
 of the four corners f and these crosses he repeats 
 thrice. The same thing is done in the Roman 
 
 ' King's Gnostics, 1S64, p. 213. - English HeraUlry (4th ed. 1S79) p. 261. 
 
 ' Bulkiino di archeologia Cristiana, iSSi, p. 140. 
 
 •■ Origiiies dii (iilte Chretien, 1SS9, p. 402. ' Ibid. 1SS9, p. 402. 
 
 ^ Montpellier Catcchisine, iii, 266, 269. 
 
Aly^/is.] The North. 439 
 
 ritual. This would give (see p. 437) a ' St. Andrew's ' cross of 
 five St. Andrew's crosses, and would be in concord with the Chinese 
 five quarters, as stated on p. 184, though not right but oblique. 
 (5X5 = )25 "grains" of incense are next blessed, and five are 
 put on the centre and points of each one of the five crosses 
 so made. Above each of the five crosses is then placed a bees- 
 wax-taper, and the tapers are lit and allowed to burn-down to 
 and with the grains of incense. This is doubtless extremely 
 ancient and supremely significant ; it gives a burnt sacrifice. 
 The Abb6 Duchesne' says the first and second 5 crosses are made 
 with ordinary blessed oil, and the third time they are made with 
 holy chrism. See also pp. 124, 125 supra. 
 
 In the Satapatlia-bralundna the priest "makes in the middle of 
 the high altar as it were a navel," and when he makes the libation 
 of ghee, he pours it on the four corners of the " navel," and thereby 
 as it were on the whole high altar.- (See also the identity of 
 navel and altar p. 360 supra.) He pours the ghee crosswise on 
 the corners ; and first on " the southern of the two front corners 
 of that navel, so to say, which is in the middle of the sides of the 
 altar ; then on the northern of the two back corners, then on the 
 southern of the two back corners, then on the northern of the front 
 corners. He then pours ghee into the middle." The ritualistic 
 parallel is here, I think, perfect. 
 
 But the Roman augur's right-angled cardo and decumanus are 
 also perpetuated by the bishop whoj subsequently to the diagonal 
 rite, sprinkles the floor with holy-water on those right lines, 
 " walking from the E altar to the W door, and then in the centre 
 of the church, on a line perpendicular to thelength of the building."' 
 So that we obviously have here a syncresis of two separate pagan 
 temple practices. He then places himself in the middle of the 
 church — just as the Roman augur did in his templum — and pro- 
 ceeds with his consecrational prayers. The right cross made with 
 the holy-water is patently connected with the origin of the cross 
 formed by the transept''' crossing the nave at right angles ; both 
 these together reproducing the cardo and decumanus of the augur's 
 templum. In fact the whole function now called " consecration " is 
 
 * Orig. du culte Chretien^ 397, 396, Dr. Eggeling's translation, ii, 120, 124. 
 
 ^ The wheel-windows in the gables of the transept, which point N and S are 
 notable cosmic symbols of the turning of the heavens on the Axis, as will be shown 
 under "The Wheel." 
 
440 The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 a survival of the augur's " in-augur-atio," the effect of which (either 
 on priests, other persons or buildings) could be annulled b)' a con- 
 trary conjuration the " ex-augur-atio," which still also survives in 
 Christian practices as the de-consecration of a church on demolition, 
 and so on. 
 
 The North in their churches still interests the Anglican priesthood. " I 
 shall," wrote the Rev. J. H; Newman from Oxford, 2ist June 1S34, " have a desk 
 put up (in .St. Mary the Virgin) near the altar, facing the South, from which I shall 
 read the psalins and lessons ; kneeling however towards the East."^ (.See also 
 as to priests facing the people, p. 425 supra.) Among the charges preferred in 18S9 
 against the Bishop of Lincoln, was one "for having offended against the 
 laws ecclesiastical by . . . on the morning of the 1 8th day of December 
 1887, in the cathedral church of the B.V'.M. of Lincoln . . . as the prin- 
 cipal celebrant during the ser\'ice for the administration of the holy communion 
 . . . stood during the whole of such service (down to the ordering of the 
 bread and wine before the prayer of consecration; on the West instead of on 
 t/te Kortli side of the holy table.- 
 
 The (Judicial) Privy-Council judgement on this, 2nd August 1892, quotes 
 the Rubric as saying " the priest standing at the N side of the table shall " 
 (and so on). " In their Lordships' opinion, there can be no doubt that at the 
 period when the rubric in question was framed, the table was . . . placed in 
 almost all parish churches lengthwise in the body of the church or chancel ; the 
 smaller sides or ends facing E and W, and the longer sides N and S." The 
 judgement then says " It appears to be suggested that the eastward position at 
 the holy table is significant of the act of the priest being a sacrificial one." 
 . . . " Of what importance can it be to insist that he shall . . . place 
 himself at that part of the table which faces towards the N ? . . . Even if 
 the contention that the priest must stand at that part of the table which faces 
 northward w-ere well-founded." ..." The only question is whether he can 
 lawfully" [say certain prayers] "when occupying a position near the N comer 
 of the W side of the table. Of what moment is it, or can it ever have been, to 
 insist that he should, during the two prayers with which the ser\ice commences, 
 place himself at that part of the table which faces towards the N .^ " . . . 
 It will here be evident that the Judicial Committee of the Privy-Council argue 
 (to repeat a very old joke) from different premises to those of this Inquiry. 
 The final conclusion (as infinitely abbreviated) is that "Their Lordships are not 
 to be understood as indicating an opinion that it would be contrary- to the law 
 to occupy a position at the N end of the table, when saying the opening 
 prayers. All that they determine is that it is not an ecclesiastical offence to 
 stand at the N part of the side which faces eastwards." {The Mail, 3rd Aug. 
 1892.) 
 
 ^ Letters of J. H. A^ewman, edited by Anne Mozley, 1S91, ii, 50. 
 - Citation of the Archbishop of Canterbury 4th Jan. 1S89, in the Doily Ke-i-s of 9th 
 Feb. 1SS9. Trial in Morning Post 5th Feb. iSpo and Daily Ne-ees Sth Feb. 1S90. 
 
Jllyl/is.] The North. 44i 
 
 The Times, in commenting on this judgement (which already, loth August 
 1892, leads to misinterpretation) safely remarked that "whether the Archbishop 
 or the Privy-Council are entirely successful in dealing with this puzzling question 
 may be doubted." To quote Seigny Joan, fol insigne de Paris, bisayeul de 
 Caillette : " Ordonne la dite court que chascun se retire en sa chascuniere, sans 
 despens, at pour cause."' 
 
 The haram or sanctuary at Hebron is a right-angled oblong, 
 197 feet by III feet, one of the angles of which is directed nearly 
 to the N. " The exact orientation of the quadrangle is 50° true 
 bearing" [instead of 45°?]." The entrance door was in 1047 "in the 
 middle of the northern wall," that is the north-eastern, where it 
 now still is. I have just mentioned the composite sacredness of 
 the North-East portion of the heavens, see p. 435. 
 
 The N door of the Dome of the Rockj Kubbet es Sakhra in 
 Jerusalem lies a little W of N. This N gate is called that of 
 Paradise, and the S, the gate of prayer or bab el kibleh.^ (See 
 also " The Rock of Ages," supra.) 
 
 The little sacred building, called in Irish tempiil Benen, in the 
 island of Aran Mor stands N and S, the door being in the N end. 
 Lord Dunraven's Notes on Irish Architecture'' has the following 
 remarks upon it : 
 
 As the primitive Irish churches are generally placed E and W, it is a 
 curious thing that this building stands N and S, without there being any 
 apparent reason for this most unusual arrangement. The doorway is in the N 
 gable wall. It is the narrowest I have seen, as compared with its height, and its 
 jambs incline in a remarkable degree. 
 
 This little temple is rectangular and 5 
 
 measures inside only 10 ft. 9 in. x 7 ft. Walls 
 2 ft. thick ; one great stone in them 7 ft. long, 
 another 4 ft. 8 in. x 4 ft. 4 in. Door 23 inches 
 wide below and only 16 in. at top; height of 
 door 5 ft. 2 in. The single aperture (besides 
 the door) is in the E wall, and only measures 
 
 W 
 
 outside 4^ in. wide below, and 3^ in. at the |\j 
 
 springing of its rounded top, which is scooped out of big stones. 
 This "window" begins 3 ft. 6 in. above the ground. The anti- 
 quaries seem to have taken this tempul for granted as a Christian 
 
 ' Rabelais, iii, ch. 37. 
 
 ^ Palestine Pilgrims' Text Soc. (188S) : Nihir-i-Khusrau s Diary A.D. IO47, 
 pp. 54, 58. '' Pal. Pilgrims' Text Soc. 1888, pp. 28, 44. ^ 1S75, vol. i, p. 70. 
 
442 T/ic Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 " church " : why, I know not. There is a good photograph of it in 
 Lord Dunraven's pubHcation. Another such building on the same 
 island is described by O'Currj'^ and its name is an important one 
 for me. He calls it the tempall an Cheathrair Aluinn, temple of 
 the Four Beautiful Ones. This, of course, I at once suggest was 
 originally connected with the divine powers of the four cardinal 
 points ; see especially the Irish facts stated on p. 165 supra. Near 
 it is a doclian or archaic dwelling (as is supposedj built-up of 
 " dry stones," that is without mortar of any kind. This clochan 
 stands X and S and measures about 20 ft. x 9 x 9, the last being 
 the height to the top of the roof. 
 
 All the Irish round towers stand a little to the N or N-W 
 (points not accurately stated or ascertained) of the churches near 
 them.- 
 
 Referring again to what has been quoted from Nissen above, p. 434, I find 
 that the distinguished astronomer-chemist Professor J. Norman Lockyer 
 states in The Spcdker of 6th June 1891, that by "an old world tradition" the 
 chancel windows or the church-axis should in such cases face or point 
 absolutely to sunrise on the Saints^ day. This I have already mentioned, 
 though I can find no satisfying authority for it.^ He also says that the churches 
 of St. John face \'ery nearly N-E i and he defines the term "orientation" to 
 ha\e meant this aspecting of churche's towards such a particular spot in the 
 Orient, although he adds that " in our churches the door is always to the W, 
 and the altar always to the E, but it is a modern practice."* But all this, as 
 before stated, was sun-worship, and still not pure sun-worship, having been 
 combined with the worship of the " saint," who would of course have been 
 previously a pagan holy, " saintly" star-god. 
 
 In a quite modern description of the Little Braxted church of 
 St. Nicholas, Essex (a.U. 1120 t) the rector states that the chancel 
 points much to the S of E, so that on 6th December, St. Nicholas's 
 day, the rising sun " shines straight in at the E window over the 
 altar."^ 
 
 A notable instance of " orientation " is familiar to MUonists. The church 
 of Saint-Benoit near the Sorbonne (destroyed 1854) had its apse or chevet to 
 the W, and so came to be called Sanctus Benedictus maleversus. But in the 
 14th century the altar was moved to the E end, and thenceforward the church 
 became Sanctus Benedictus beneversus (1481) or Saint-Benoist le Eientoum^ 
 
 ' I^Ianncrs and Customs, iii, 66. " Lord Dunraven's Notes, ii, 23, 152, 154. 
 
 ' Professor Lockyer in the Nineteenth Century for July 1S92 makes a general 
 reference to Mr. Gilbert Scott's Essay on Church Architecture and Mr. Penrose's obser- 
 vations of Greek temples, "the greater pare of which were turned to the sun-rising at a 
 particular time of the year." ■■ XlXth Century, July 1892, p. 43. 
 
 " J. J. Hissey's Tour in a Phaeton, 1SS9, p. 61. 
 
Myths.'] The North. ^43 
 
 (1455), which became B^tourne in the popular mouth ; and in its cloister lived 
 for a time Francois Montcorbier alias Des Leges alias Villon.' When this 
 church was originally founded, they were careless about the Eastern position. 
 
 And now must we Eastward-ho again. 
 
 The exact direction of Chaldean and Assyrian sacred and royal buildings 
 seemed difficult to define. Loftus- said the top story of the great temple at 
 Mugeyer, Mugheir, or Umgheir (Ur or Hur of the Chaldees) appears to have 
 been square, and its angles to have pointed due N, Sj Ej and W. This is re- 
 produced in the useful compilation known as Rawlinson's Five Monarchies 
 (i, 96 to 99). Layard says'* that the N side of the Assyrian Ziggurat (staged 
 temple-tower) at Nimrud had a sort of apse outside on its remaining lowest 
 story, which none of the other three sides had. This is also adopted by Canon 
 Rawlinson (i, 397). 
 
 But Babelon, following Victor Place, says* of Sargon's Assyrian fortress 
 Dur-Sarrukin that the angles of the wdll of circumvallation "pointed to the four 
 quarters of the heavens, as in the Chaldean buildings." This would be definite 
 if the circuit wall were a true scjuare, but he figures it as an oblong, which at 
 once stamps his statement as indefinite. 
 
 Again Babelon (p. 8), apparently following Heuzey, says of the Chaldean 
 Tello palace : " Like the palaces of Warka and Mugheir its orientation is 
 according to the Assyrian custom, that is to say the angles are turned towards 
 the cardinal points, not the sides as in the Egyptian monuments." This 
 contradicts Layard's statement about Nimriid ; and besides, the Tello building 
 immediately in question is no true square but most irregular (173 feet x 10 1 
 feet, with two bulging sides), so that it is impossible to argue from Babelon's 
 loose statement about its "angles." It is passing strange that, after all the 
 explorations, it is so difficult to obtain mathematical certainty on so simple and 
 important a point as the aspect of the sacred buildings of the most astrognostic 
 nation of ancient West Asia. A protest must here be entered against the 
 French term " orientation." " Aspect " is a truer and a more applicable term. 
 
 Babelon (p. 9) makes another statement about Tello which appeared at first 
 reading to confirm an idea which seems to pierce through all the accounts : 
 namely that one external corner of every building faced N, that is that the 
 meridian bisected its interior angle. This of course, in the case of a true 
 square, would plant the other corners S, E, and W. Babelon's statement is : 
 "the adjacent sides of the northern angle are " [externally] " ornamented by 
 projections alternately curved and rectilineal — a system of decoration which has 
 also been observed at Warka" [in Chalda;a] "among the ruins of the temple 
 called Wuswas, and is found later in the Assyrian monuments." But un- 
 fortunately the plan of Tello which Babelon appends (from Heuzey) contra- 
 dicts his description, and the N angle is not a right angle. He also (p. 12) calls 
 the N-E " the principal side " of this palace. 
 
 ' Longnon's Atude siir Villon, 1877, pp. 133, igo, 205. 
 
 - 7"rat't/s(l857) p. 128. '^ Niiu't'eh and Babylon, pp. 123, 127. 
 
 ■• Manual (enlarged by Evetts) p. 67. 
 
444 . TIic Night of the Gods. ^Polar 
 
 From an excellent book by Dr. W'allis Budge one learns 
 however that " from a tablet brought to the British Museum in 
 1 88 1 it appears that the cardinal points of the Babylonians 
 were rather different from ours ; our N-W being their N,"' and so 
 on. This is the only piece of consistent information I have come 
 across upon the subject ; it throws quite another light upon the 
 " lie " of their buildings, and merits most careful investigation.- 
 Our X would thus answer to their X-E ; and this is what has 
 led me abo\-e (p. 438; to compare the Galilean church-conse- 
 cration and the Umbrian augur's practices with the Chaldean 
 temples. Dr. Budge, whose great and genuine practical scholar- 
 ship and his willingness to communicate it are well known, 
 further says the sides of the (now shapeless 1) Birs-Ximrud are as 
 follows : 
 
 X-W 'their X) . . 643 feet. I X-E their E) . . 420 feet. 
 
 S-E (their S; . . 643 „ | S-W {their W) . . 376 „ 
 
 These measurements however suggest no systematic conclusion to 
 the mind. 
 
 In the Phoenician town south of T\-re (now called Umm el 
 'Amiid) which was ransacked b\- ^I. Renan, and where inscriptions 
 to Moloch, Astarte, and Baal, Lord of the heavens, have been 
 unearthed, the temple faced North of Xorth-east, says Capt. 
 Conder.' 
 
 Professor Xorman Lock\'er has published an Eg}"ptian fact which 
 is curious, but does not surprise in view of all the rest that is stated 
 here about the Eg}-ptian kopesh r';:^ 'see p. 85 supra and " The 
 Xumber Seven" in Vol. II;. It accords also with the Eg\-ptian 
 corner-gods (p. 161), with the Egj-ptian holiness of the Great Bear, 
 and apparently with the aspecting of Bab}-lonian temples by their 
 corners. 
 
 Brugsch Bey was good enough to look up 5ome of the old inscriptions, and told 
 me he had found a very interesting one concerning the foundation of the temple 
 at Edfu. It describes what happened when the temple was founded. The 
 king gives the account ; it runs that the god told him to take with him a 
 wooden stake, a heavy mallet, and a cord : '■ I drove in the wooden stake with 
 the hea\y hammer, I stretched the cord. My glance followed the course of the 
 
 ' Balyl. Life and Hist. (1SS4), 110, 23. 
 
 * Professor Terrien de Lacouperie read to the London Oriental Congress of Septem- 
 ber 1S92 a paper attributing the shifting of " the points of space " to migration, a subject 
 on which, so far as Cosmic Myths are concerned, my views are slated at p. II. 
 
 ^ Hcth aiid Mcab, S7, 77, 79. 
 
Myths?\ The North. 445 
 
 star, my eye being directed to the Great Bear. In this way I laid the co7-ner of 
 thy holy temple." {The Speaker, 6th June 1S91, p. 665.) 
 
 The sides of every Egyptian pyramid face nearly N, S, E, and 
 W ; the aspects of the Gizeh examples being exact, says Mr. 
 Flinders Petrie.^ The " entrance " is nearly in the middle of the 
 N face ; Khafra's had two entrances, both to the N. The stone 
 sarcophagi holding the bodies lay " feet to S, head to N, along the 
 W wall."' (See p. 448 vtft-a.) 
 
 We knew that the name and the Mastabas of Medum (? Methun 
 ^ s;=5 •=!(=' /-AA^^ '^^ ®)2 -^yere most archaic, and it had been con- 
 jectured that the pyramid of Medum was the monument of Snefru, 
 the first of the 4th dynasty. Mr. Flinders Petrie now announces 
 that Medum is proved, by the hieratic graffiti discovered by him 
 and translated by Brugsch Pasha,^ to belong to Snefru of the 3rd 
 dynasty ; and it is therefore the oldest dated pyramid. It opened 
 to the N. He has also found there a statuette '' dedicated to the 
 gods of a town Tat-snefru by a woman named Snefru-khati." 
 
 The chief exception to the exactitude of the pyramidal rule of 
 N, S, E, and W is the extraordinary oblong (about 39S ft. E and 
 W X 354 N and S) six-staged pyramid of Sakkara (an Arab 
 name said to come from Sokar) at Memphis, of which the N side 
 lies 4° 21' E of due N. "It has four entrances, the main one 
 being in the N."'' This pyramid, " perhaps," said Mariette, " the 
 most ancient structure in the world," " must have been used for 
 different purposes from the great sepulchral pyramids of Gizeh, 
 but the scanty inscriptions found afford no information." Its six 
 stages might, supposing an obelisk to have been the seventh 
 portion, be connected with the seven-staged zikkurat of Assyria. 
 See also what is stated as to the mysterious Egyptian Six, p. 179 
 supra. It contains a " very numerous and complicated series of 
 passages and chambers."^ It may be of the ist dynasty according 
 to Mariette, but this is merely one way of saying that it belongs to 
 unkenned prc-histqric time. 
 
 1 Maspero's Egypt. Arcli. 129, 326, 132, 133, 135. 
 
 " Baedeker's Lower Egypt (Ebers) 457. 
 
 ^ Academy iSth April 1891, p. 376 ; Atlien,ium i6th May iSgi, p. 644. 
 
 * Maspero's £^j'//. Arcti. 129, 326, 132, 133, 135. 
 
 * Baedeker's Lower Egypt, 368. 
 
44^ Tlte Night of the Gods. \Polar 
 
 Five of the other pyramids of Sakkarah (of which the plan is 
 uniform) belonged to Unas and the first four kings of the 6th 
 dynasty, Teti, Pepi I, Mcrenra, and Pepi II. They are inscribed 
 and decorated within, and " the ceilings covered with stars to 
 represent the sky and night."' This last strikes me as a leading 
 but neglected fact of the utmost importance. 
 
 The sides of the square base of the Great Pyramid " verj' truly" face 
 astronomically "due" N, S, E, and W. So writes Mr. Piazzi Sm>lh,= although 
 on another page he states that by means of a " Pla^'fair astronomical instru- 
 ment " he has reduced " the alleged error of its orientation from 19' 58" to 
 4' 30"." At Thel^es and in Nubia, he adds, the temples and tombs are founded 
 " at every possible azimuth in almost every quarter of the compass," while in 
 Mesopotamia the rectangular, though not square, bases of the Chaldean temples 
 are set forth " with their sides as far as possible from any cardinal point, or at 
 an angle of 45° therefrom."^ The down-sloping entrance-passage which pierces 
 the N face of the great pyramid points upwards to a spot in the heavens 3° 42' 
 vertically below the celestial pole.' The endeavours to connect this fact with 
 a Draco and the year 2170 B.C. are unconvincing ; but the fact remains that, 
 although the passage does not guide the eyesight right on to the pole, its 
 direction does very nearly hit the Earth-axis somewhat (3° 42') below the 
 pole ; being only 19' 58" or 4' 30" West of it. It would therefore appear that 
 we may admit that the pole was aimed-at, if it wasn't hit. It is important 
 to note too that this passage does not internally strike the axis of the pyramid 
 itself, but, as in other cases, lies considerably to the E of it. Nor is any one 
 of the chambers directly "on" the axis. These stubborn leading skews (which 
 are of course shunted) seem to play Old Boots at the verj' start with all the 
 pseudo-systematic, mystical, supernatural, theories and measurements of this 
 great building. 
 
 The above " alleged error of orientation " — septentrionation would be a 
 real term — may perhaps find some explanation in the now more than strongly 
 suspected instability of the Earth-axis, within some very small limit. The lati- 
 tude of Greenwich — it makes one's blood run cold to think of it — has pretty 
 regularly decreased from 51° 28' 38"-59 in 1S26 to 51° 2S' 37"'95 in 1SS9. The 
 latitude of Pulkova showed a decrease of o"-33 between 1S43 iirid 1S82, which 
 corresponds to a shifting of some 6 inches yearly. Washburn in Wisconsin 
 approaches the pole by o"-o43 yearly. All these observations would work out 
 to a shifting of the N polar terrestrial spot by some 4 feet every 3-ear along the 
 (Greenwich) meridian of 69° W. The astronomers Schiaparelli, George C. 
 Comstock, S. S. Chandler, and others, have recently given attention to this 
 subiect, and the German government sent an expedition to Honolulu (189° E 
 of Berlin) in 1890, which has proved that the latitude of that place shows a 
 corresponding change to those of Pulkova and Berlin, but of course in a reverse 
 direction.* 
 
 ' Maspero's R^^ypt. Anheol. (Edwards) 136. 
 
 - Great Pyramid (\%Ti,) 55, 60. ^ IbiJ. 64. * Ibid. 313, 323, 327. 
 
 ■^ Prince Kropotkinc in XI Xth Caitury, May 1S92, ji. 74S. 
 
Myths:] The North. 447 
 
 The Egyptian temples adjoining the pyramids were not 
 aspected by the same rules as the pyramids themselves. We 
 certainly have seen above (p. 444) an instance of laying the 
 foundation of an Edfu temple by a star and the Great Bear, but 
 others seem to tell different tales. 
 
 Mr. Flinders Pctrie has uncovered the temple which is on the 
 E side of the Medum pyramid. The temple-door is in the S end 
 of its E face. An obelisk stands on each side of the altar which 
 is in the temple-court, situated against the pyramid at the N end 
 of the temple. The obelisks are over 13 ft. high, with founded 
 tops, and uninscribed (a fact which I ought to have mentioned at 
 p. 200, but Egyptian discoveries now come-on hand-over-hand). 
 This, "the only pyramid-temple ever found entire" is, says Mr. 
 Petrie, " the oldest dated building in the world. "^ But can it be as 
 old as the pyramid against which it stands, and which (see p. 445) 
 is the " oldest dated pyramid ? " 
 
 Remains of the separate " chapels " of the pyramids are still to 
 be seen at Gizeh, Abusir, and Dashur " at the E or N front of the 
 pyramids," says Maspero.^ The exterior temple of the king buried 
 in the pyramid stood close to the E side of the mass, says 
 Mariette ;' presumably, as I suggest, to face him on his up-coming 
 from Amenti, the lower hemisphere, whence every celestial object 
 rises in the E. This last view (already stated by me at pp. 25 1, 434 
 and to be more fully stated under its proper head, " The South ") is 
 the great expounder of Egyptian beliefs about man's ' future states.' 
 Professor Lockyer points out that while the temples of Isis which 
 are associated with each of the pj'ramids at Gizeh face due E, 
 a quite recently excavated temple of Osiris (near the Sphinx), 
 built strictly in relation to the second pyramid, faces due W. 
 "The temple of Isis" [at the E side, facing due E] "is in an 
 e.xact line running through the centre of the pyramid. The 
 temple of Osiris is built so that its axis prolonged passes along 
 the face of the pyramid. . . . There has been a covered way 
 found connecting the temple of Isis with the temple of Osiris." 
 . . " The temples of Osiris at the pyramids invariably point 
 
 to the Westward."* The temple of Osiris faces W because (in 
 my view) there, in the W, was the entrance to the Southern 
 underworld into which descended the souls of men as well as 
 
 ' Academy, iSth April 1891, p. 376. '■ Egypt. Arch. (Edwards) 2nd ed. 127. 
 
 •' Itinciaire dcs invites dn Khedive. < XlXth Century, July 1S92, pp. 45, 4S. 
 
44S The Night of the Gods. {Polar 
 
 the star-gods of the heavens ; and the souls arose again with 
 those same gods in the E. 
 
 Prof. Lockyer, in support of his very probable theory that certain temples were 
 built to face the rising of certain stars at certain times of the year, states the 
 following aspects of some other temples. Denderah : Hathor's, i8° E of N, 
 and that of I sis 1 8° S of E (Biot). Karnak : large temple 26° N of W ; 
 Maut's, 71° N of E ; another, 63° S of W. Both at Denderah and at Kamak 
 he points to adjoining temples at right angles to each other." For me this 
 right-angled apposition is the same fact (laying aspect aside) as the right-angled 
 crossing of the augur's cardo and decumanus, and of the nave and transept of 
 Christian churches. 
 
 [Although I have been to Egypt and Syria, the mass of these 
 facts — though not of the arguments^is here taken from the work 
 of others, to whom the reader is referred in the notes.] 
 
 NORTHERN BURIAL. The entrances to the overground 
 Egj'ptian tomb-buildings called Mastabas is usually on the E, and 
 the descending burial-shaft inside at the W, where also was the 
 statue of the dead, and an imitation door, no doubt the \V entrance 
 to the S underworld. The entrance to the celebrated tomb of Ti 
 however (Sakkara, 5th dynasty) is at the N, and the construction 
 runs due South. M. Maspero^says the longer axis of the mastabas 
 ran N and S, but that practically the masons took no special care 
 to find the true N, and the aspect of a mastaba is thus seldom 
 exact. " The doors face to the eastward side " ; but there is " a 
 kind of forecourt open to the N." The mouths of the Medum 
 tombs were towards the E.' Mr. Flinders Petrie says the bodies 
 buried at Medijm " are always on the left side, with the face E, 
 head N."* We have seen above, p. 445, that the stone sarcophagi 
 holding the bodies in the pyramids lay " feet to S head to N along 
 the W wall,"° and I must here again desire the reader to refer back 
 to the profession of faith on this subject at p. 251. 
 
 The Scandinavian stone-tomb with a covered gallery or passage 
 at the entrance, had the mouth usually cither to the N or to the W.'' 
 
 The archaic Chinaman when dying was laid on the ground 
 under the N window, with his head to the E. \^'hen actually 
 
 ' The speaker, 6th June 1S91. XlXth Century, July lS92,p. 41. 
 
 - Egypt. Areh. (Edwards) pp. Ill, 112. 
 
 ^ Baedeker's Lower Egypt (Ebers) 457. ■• Academy, iSth April 1S91, p. 376. 
 
 * Maspero, iii sup. Baedeker's Lower Eg}'pt. 
 
 * Sven Nilsson's Age de la Pierre, Paris, 1S6S, pp. 163, 165, iSo, 1S3, 1S7. 
 
Myths^^ The North. 449 
 
 dead, his head was changed round to the S.' The souls of the 
 Chinese dead are still " called back " from the North before the 
 body is prepared for the grave,- and the caller-back goes through 
 his function on the housetop, the significance of which has been 
 already dwelt on (pp. 226 to 230). 
 
 The custom of calling-back exists also in Annam, where it is 
 called Tan-pash. On 20th February 1889, before the funeral pro- 
 cession of the late king Dong-Khanh started from the palace, one 
 of his relatives ascended the roof, holding a white silk turban-cloth, 
 and three times in a loud voice called the dead king, making a 
 knot each time in the cloth.'' 
 
 Le Cardinal Pecci [now Leo XIII] vint a la nuit tombee. II fit 
 soulever le voile blanc qui couvrait le visage de Pie IX, et de son 
 marteau d'argent le frappant a la tempe par trois fois : " Dors- 
 tu Jean Mastai ? " lui demanda-t-il. Comme il ne recevait point 
 de r^ponse, il entonna le De proftmdis} 
 
 I am tempted to copy the following from " A Patern of True Love, &c." 
 (about 1 71 5) in The Yorkshire Garland [I'jZZ). "And so in mournful cries and 
 prayers [she] was fainter and fainter for about three hours, and seemed to 
 breath her last ; but her mother and another girl of the town shrick'd aloud, 
 and so called her back again, (as they term it) and in amazed manner, distorted 
 with convulsion fits, (just as it is described in Dr. Taylor's Holy Living and 
 Dying) stayed her spirit lo or 12 hours longer, and then she dyed." 
 
 When the archaic Chinaman's body was shrouded, the male 
 relatives and officials faced North, but the women faced South.' 
 Their burial-grounds lie to the North of the town or village,'^ and 
 burial takes place with the head to the North ; the North is 
 the land of the dead, whither libations to ancestors are directed. 
 The Japanese Buddha died with his head to the North,' and 
 corpses are laid out in that position ; for which reason the living 
 will not sleep or lie that way. When a death takes place in Japan, 
 the body is at once turned with its head to the North ; and in 
 Japanese inns, as Mr. Aston informs me, a circular card showing 
 the cardinal points is nailed to the ceiling of each sleeping room 
 so that lying down with the head to the North may be avoided. 
 
 ' Dr. Legge's Li Ki, ii, 173, 175, 188, 189, 136. 
 
 * Prof. Schlegel's Uranog. Chi. 234. 
 
 ^ Le Temps (special correspondence) II Avril 1889. 
 
 ' M. Charles Benoist, in Lc Temps 23 Aug. 1S90. 
 
 '^ Li Ki, ii, 173, 175, 188, 189, 136. ' Uranog. Clii. 217 lo 219. 
 
 ' Murray's Hdhlc. of Japan, p. [S3]. 
 
 2 F 
 
45° The Night of the Gods. \ Polar 
 
 The megalithic tombs of Japan also all open towards the South, so 
 as, it may be presumed, to have admitted of burial in the North. 
 The Ainu, on the other hand, who appear to be aborigines who 
 were driven off by the Japanese, bury with the feet to the North ; 
 and the 2,000,000 of aboriginal non-Ar\-an Ghonds of India do the 
 same,' for the home of their gods is there. 
 
 At the funeral ceremony in ancient India, as described b}- Mr. 
 Rajendralala Mitra,- three trenches dug to the North of the crema- 
 tion p\"re were filled with water, in which the mourners purified 
 themselves. They then spread out their clothes towards the 
 North, and sat down there until the stars were seen. 
 It is here in point to quote Lord Tennyson's epitaph on Sir 
 John Franklin : 
 
 Not here ! The white North has thy bones. And thou, 
 
 Heroic sailor-soul, 
 Art passing on thine happier voyage now 
 
 Toward no earthly Pole. 
 
 The Yezidis are buried "^^-ith the face turned towards the 
 North-star " wrote Layard,^ but this does not define the exact lie 
 of the body. Siouffi is more precise about the Subbas or 
 Mandoyo (ancients) of Mesopotamia. 
 
 So soon as the sick man has breathed his last, the corpse is laid on a mat- 
 tress, head to S and feet to N. so that it has the Polar-star before the 
 eyes. The grave is dug in the same direction, so that even underground the 
 dead may always have the Polestar in front. In all their actions, even during 
 sleep, the Subbas are bound to turn towards this Star, which fixes for them the 
 place where dwells Avather 'the angel of the scales, the judge of the dead, 
 guardian of paradise , and where is Olmi-Danhuro, or paradise.' 
 [In this section of "The North" I have several times made use of facts 
 cited in Dr. Warren's attracti\e book Paradise Found; the Cradle of the 
 Human Rate at the North Pole/ but the interested reader will find a quantity 
 of valuable matter there, which this Inquiry does not touch, although it was his 
 book that, I believe, first crystallized, if it did not suggest, the main Northern 
 theory here urged, ^\'hile acknowledging respectfully with friendly pleasure 
 the influence of much of his book, I must also express my regret at not having 
 been able to follow him in the conclusions and arguments which are the chief 
 motors of, and give the title to his work. Doubtless he could say the same of 
 much of this book.] 
 
 ' Miss Gordon Cumming"s Himalayas and Indiar. Plains, I"I. 
 
 ' Indo-Aryans, ii, p. 141. ' Nin. and Bab. 94. 
 
 ■■ .Siouffi : Relig. des Soubbas, 124. ° London, Sampson Low. 1SS5. 
 
Myths^ The North. 45 ^ 
 
 THE HYPERBOREANS. Every schoolgirl knows that 
 " the top of the map is the North ; " and that must descend to us, 
 at the very least, from the time when the Sanskrit uttara. North, 
 meant ' upwards.' 
 
 Of course the etymology of uttara shows that its sense of ' left ' is purely 
 secondary. Its original sense as a cosmic point must have been similar to our 
 ' utter,' that is parallel to the Greek /y'/^;-Borean, farthest North. The sense 
 of ' left ' could not have come until worshippers faced the East, and the uttara 
 quarter thus became that at their left hands.' Compare arat far, arattat from afar 
 atas yonder, ut-tama highest, ut-tame in the highest (heavens), ut-tara higher.^ 
 The Earth was born of UttanaPada, which was bom of Space, which was born 
 of Being, which was born of Not-Being. Such is the cosmogony in the RigVeda 
 X, 72, 3 and 4 ;' and UttanaPada must here mean the furthest Northern foothold. 
 In Malayan the Sanskrit word is used, as utara, for the N point of the compass. 
 The Hindi region lying far to the North, Uttara-kuru, is clearly 
 = the hyperBorean land. Uttara is always rendered higher by 
 Dr. Eggeling ; but it here clearly carries a superlative, absolute, 
 meaning. This would place the locus of the blessed people of the 
 Uttara-kuravah in the Northern heavens, and make their story a 
 celestial myth. These are said to be the 'OTrapaKopai, of Ptolemy, 
 whom tradition, according to Lassen, placed in the remotest 
 (geographical) North. H. Zimmer, on the other hand* wants to 
 put them near Cashmere. 
 
 Festus said the HyperBoreans lived above the N wind : supra 
 Aquilonis flatum (where by the way we have a clear connexion of 
 the eagle with the N pole); and he quoted vTrep^alvovTe^ opov 
 of them, as meaning living beyond the limits of human life, 
 beyond 100 years : "humanae vits modum excedant, vivendo ultra 
 c. annum." But the opo? or ovpo<i beyond which they move (round) 
 is not the limit of human life but the Northern limit of the Universe, 
 as has so often to be pointed out here (see pp. 23, 46, 366 and 368 
 supra). Ora in Latin had a similar meaning, and the famous 
 " Trojae qui primus ab oris" thus gains a great significance in view 
 of the suggestion that mythic Troia was a celestial northern 
 Trinidad. Pal3.r\io the mother of Latmus by Hercules was the 
 daughter of HyperBoreus^ (see words in lat- and in pal-). 
 
 Our phrase " At the back o' the North Wind " is also in the 
 Argonautika (iv, 286) : "beyond the breath of Boreas in the Ripaian 
 mountains." That was where the HyperBoreans dwelt too, accord- 
 
 ' See Dr. Y.^'^taXv^^s Sat.-br&hviana. ii, 2, 50. 
 
 ' F. M. Miiller, Vedic Hymns (Glossary). 3 ii,ij^ p ^^.j_ 
 
 * Altin.i. Leben, lOI. * Fe?tus : palatitim. ■ 
 
 2 F 2 
 
45-^ The Nighi of the Gods. {Polar 
 
 ingto Hellanikos [frag. 96).' Diodorus also cited from Hekataios 
 (circa 550 B.C.) the statement that they were so called because 
 they lay further off than the Borean wind : aivo rov TroppcoTepca 
 Keladai ri)^ (iopelov ttz^o)}?. But the wind idea is here clearly an 
 excrescence. See also what is said about the Arimaspoi in "The 
 Eye of Heaven " infra. 
 
 The Thrakian word fiopeas is now brought from (fiepa, and is explained as a 
 ventus ferens, being compared with the old Xorse byrr, a fair wind (Wharton's 
 Etyma Latino). But we must I fancy look rather to the Norse (and Celtic ?)" 
 god Bor father of Odinn and son of, or the same as, Buri the son of Tiv, who 
 (Buri) was born out of a Rock of ice.' 
 
 Clement of Alexandria, writing of the Hebrew Tabernacle,* says : 
 " North of the altar of incense was placed a table on which there 
 was the exhibition of the loaves ; for the most nourishing of the 
 winds are those of the North." Like hundreds more of Clement's 
 reasons, this one is not very nourishing ; but the question is a good 
 deal one of climate. He doubtless had some glimmerings of the 
 Egyptian belief that the N wind proceeds from the nostrils of 
 khnum (the original father of all the gods, and co-creator of man) 
 and enlivens all creatures.'^ '' Give the sweet breath of the N wind 
 to the Osiris ""^ (that is to the dead one). In the Boulak papyrus 
 "the agreeable winds of the N in the amhi " are wished to the 
 
 dead;' amhi (amhit ?) l| , | ^1 -1 r^ being the exit-gate of the 
 
 funereal underworld, and also Memphis itself* (where perhaps the 
 priests fabled that resurrection took place). 
 
 In a Hannoverian story of The Water of Life, given by the 
 Grimms (No. 97, notes), the North Wind knows the castle where it is 
 to be had, and takes the youngest Prince there at dead of night, when 
 alone the castle is visible, after which time it sinks into the water." 
 This is genuine myth, for the heavens-River of the Milk}- Way 
 flows from the N celestial pole, and is visible only at night. 
 
 The legends of Hyperborean Apollo must also be locussed with 
 'O/ceai^o? 'TTrepBopeto? in the polar parts of the Lniverse. The 
 references of these legends to Mounts Pelion and Ossa, or to " tra- 
 
 ' See also Didot's Frag. Hist. Grac. ii, 65. 
 
 ' " Quidam putant, ut Asclepiades ait, Boream fuisse Celtarum regem. '' Probus, ad 
 
 A irg. Georg. ii, 84. 
 
 ^ Bergmanr's Gylfa Ginning, S2, 1S2 to 1S4. * Siromata, v, 6. 
 
 5 Rcccrds of Past, iv, 67. « Birch, Book of Dead, p. 170. 
 
 ' Brugsch, Diet. Geog. 37. ' Pierret, Vocah. 30. 
 
 ' Mrs. Hunt's ed. 18S4, ii, 399. 
 
MythsT^ The North. 453 
 
 ditions borne from a farther North," are unsufficing efforts. The 
 ■ Hyper Boreans worshipped the Virgins Arge and TlTrt? ;' the iirst 
 of which is a white-heavens name, and the second resembles the 
 Latin Ops, but there is ottj; and also oTr-tovpo?, which might perhaps 
 be strained to the Northern peg or pivot, and its socket. 
 And I think this might be driven somewhat further home. '^Stfy was the son of 
 PeisEnor and the father of EuruKleia.^ Now Xlfio-HKcop was a heavens-herald, a 
 sort of Hermes, who gave his a-KrjTTTpoiJ, his rod, to Odusseus. PeisEnor is 
 clearly I think Rope^-man (r^vopiri manhood, dvi^p man), that is the man who ' 
 anchors the world by his cable. Compare the etymology of Seirios referred to 
 on p. 24, and given z'w/Va under " The Polestar." He was also a Centaur and 
 the father of Kleitos the companion of PoluDamas the All-conqueror, a parallel 
 to the Indian ChakraVartin or Universal Emperor. Homer attributes to Polu- 
 Damas the exclusive knowledge of the future and the past, that is he was a 
 Sphere-of-Fortune, a wheel (chakra)-god. His putting a patent break on the 
 hind wheels of a chariot in full career must be understood of his control of the 
 Universe-chariot. The Bull that he seizes by the hindleg, and that leaves its 
 hoof (a footprint myth) in his hand, is the Bull of the Universe. He fights and 
 slays a Triad, which makes him an opposition-god in a war-in-heaven ; another 
 way of saying which was that (with AntEnor ; the Fore-man or Adverse-man .' 
 — all these divine names in ijvap are of man-gods), he betrayed the Trinity- 
 house, Tpoia, oftXiov. Like HeraKles he, on Olympus, killed a Lion. Like 
 AtLas he was the tallest of the Heroes. Like many Axis-gods he is swallowed 
 up by a rock which opens to engulph him ; or (a fate which was parodied by 
 PolyDumas in the death of Porthos), the rock he tries to uphold falls on him 
 with the whole Universe-Mountain. AntEnor is a chronological cyclic god also 
 for he has 19 sons.' Klei-tos and EuruKleia must be regarded as Keystone- 
 deities, and I here renew my suggestion that we have in all such god-names the 
 word kXtjis the key or bolt or keystone of the heavens (see p. 405 supra). 
 Kleitos drove the chariot of PoluDamas, and was killed by Teukros (Teucer) 
 the Maker. Kleitos was otherwise the son of Mantios, a Fortune-god, which is a 
 still further connexion with PoluDamas. EuruKleia was the slave of Laertes, 
 a stone-god whose name must come from 'Kaa^ a stone (XSef stones). Surely 
 here is a strong point in favour of the keystone hypothesis. 
 
 To continue about the HyperBoreans. A fragment of Heka- 
 taios (373), or of his namesake of Abdera, reported by Diodoros, 
 made Phrenikos state that the HyperBoreans were of Titanic race, 
 TiTaviKov yefovi. This we may read as meaning also that the 
 
 ' Apoll. Bid/, i, 4, 5. Herod, iv, 35. 
 
 - Oaj'ssey, i, 429 ; xx ; ii, 38. 
 
 ^ The Spartans who sprang from the dragon-teeth sown by Kadmos were Rope-men ? 
 (TTvdpTov = rope. One of them was HyperEnor = SuperHuman ? (ApoU. BiiL iii, 
 4, I. Hellanikos, /raf. 2. Pheryc. yVa^. 44.) 
 
 * Diodorus related that the Apollo of the HyperBoreans descended every 19 years, 
 whence the Great Year uf the Greeks. (Didot's Frag. Hist. Giac. ii, 3S7.) 
 
454 • The ATight of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 Titans were celestial H)-perBoreans, which is what is always here 
 maintained. HeraKlcs (I have suggested, p. 405, that KKr]=; is also' 
 the same ' key,' while the rest is )7pto9 hero ; Sanskrit saras strength) 
 has to go among the HyperBoreans to get to AtLas (by the advice 
 of PromeTheus, the Chief-god or First-god), when he takes the 
 sphere or pole, ttoXo?, of AtLas on to his own shoulders, and so 
 takes the place of AtLas.' 
 
 AtLas then, in turn, gives HeraKles the three golden apples of the seven or 
 three Hesperides or Atlantides, daughters of AtLas and Hesperis daughter of 
 Hesperos (son of AtLas or else) son of lapetos and thus brother of AtLas ; or 
 else they were the daughters of Xight. Hesperos was also son of Kephalos ; and 
 as son of AtLas he was a god of Justice, which connects him with the Judge 
 Siiddiiq and the Polar spot (see infra). He climbed to the top of Mt. AtLas (a 
 mj-th-variant) to obsen'e the stars, when, like EliYah, he was rapt away by a 
 whirlwind. His special mountain was Oite (oiVor doom ?) on which HeraKles 
 cremated himseif. The Dorians, the Spear-a.xis gods as I suggest, lay round 
 :\It. Oite.= 
 
 Hellanikos (frag. 96, as above) said the HyperBoreans, which 
 he wrote 'TTrepBopeoi, dwelt beyond the Ripaian mountains [pnrri 
 swing, rotation ?). They taught Justice (compare Hesperos above) 
 and ate tree-fruit, Hesperides-apples in fact. 
 
 The hyperBorean was a mysterious region to which the route 
 could no longer be found by sea or land. This I consider to be 
 merel}^ a variant of the world-wide myth of the separation of the 
 once-conjoined heavens and earth. Peace and eternal light there 
 reigned ; which I interpret as the nirvana of the ''point quiescent," 
 (see pp. 6, 7, supra), and the cosmic Fire-origin ; both of them 
 points which are further dealt with under " The \\'heel.'' There 
 abided Apollo in the midst of pleasures with his mother Leto and 
 his sister Artemis ; descending each j-ear^ to the foot of the 
 Universe-trees at Delos and at Delphoi, and returning borne or 
 drawn by swans or gryphons."* 
 
 I should theorise that this going up and down the tree-axis-spear was 
 intimately connected with the rank of Apollo as the national chief god of the 
 Dorians or Spear-people, othemise the chief of the spear-gods. He was their 
 6eos fjyriTap or " leader.'' The Argives also called him Zeus and 'H-^ap.^ But 
 Tiyrjrrjp or-Tti>p belongs to fjyeofiai which belongs to aya ; and that brings me back 
 to one of my repeated contentions that di\"ine names in ag- refer to the agging- 
 
 ' ApoUod. Bih'. ii, 5, 11 (13, 14). - Ephoro5,/ra^. 10. 
 
 ^ See note 4 p. 453 siir-ra as to 19 years. 
 
 ■' See illustration from Tischbein's Vascd Hami'toii. ii, pi. 12 in S.Tglio's Z^/V/. i, 311. 
 See also Hekataiosof Abdera on the HyperBoreans as preserved by Diodorus and others : 
 Didot's iv-.Tj'. Hist. Gi\zc. ii, 3S6. - ' Theopompos, /Vi!j. 171. 
 
Myths^^ The North. 4SS 
 
 on, the driving round, the compelling of the Universe (see p. 345 supra). That, 
 I am free to maintain, is the sense of the Hegetor name of Zeus-Apollo. The 
 first day of his feast in Sparta was the dyjjTopia, and the celebrant was called 
 the dy»;r7)f, one of the numerous instances of priests (and peoples) taking the 
 names of their gods. Another Spartan name for this Apollo was Kapi/fioj, as to 
 which see what is said supra (p. 432) as to the goddess Carnea or CarDea. At 
 Kurene he had a perpetual fire in his temple, in which we may see a commemo- 
 ration of the central cosmic fire. All this seems better at least than Pictet's 
 suggestion' that Apollo was Hegetor "because the sun was the leader of the 
 Aryan migrations in their march from East to West " ! 
 
 All the fabled happiness of the HyperBoreans and their abode 
 must be referred to the conception of a highest northern celestial 
 ' heaven ' of the blessed. And the " famous temple" of the same 
 peoples to Apollo, fashioned as a sphere and adorned with many 
 votive offerings, vab'i d^L6Xoyo<; dvaOi]/j.aai ttoA-Xoi? KeKoafirj/jievo'i, 
 (K^aipoeihrj tw a-^ij/j,aTi, is of course nothing but the spherical 
 heavens itself. And the reader, with these views in mind, is begged 
 to read again carefully the fragments of Hekataios (of Abdera) 
 about the HyperBoreans,- and I think he will say that all the much- 
 derided " absurdities " about them at once become the most ortho- 
 dox cosmic mythology. The divine progeny of Boreas, the 
 Boreades, naturally had the supreme care of this temple. (Claudius) 
 ./Elianus (2nd century A.D.) stated that the three sons of Boreas 
 and Chione were the priests of Apollo there, and that they were of 
 the height of 6 cubits {Trrjxv'i, a word in which one strongly suspects 
 a relationship with the god Picus, see p. 40 supra). But Diodorus 
 said that all the HyperBoreans were, as it were, priests of Apollo, for 
 they perpetually chanted hymns in his honour ; which is a straight 
 parallel to the blessed in the Christian heaven never-endingly sing- 
 ing the praises of the Deity. The name of the cosmic island (or 
 orb) of the HyperBoreans was 'EXt^ota, which simply gives me a 
 parallel to the name 'EXt/cTj of the Great Bear (which we shall have 
 under " The Number Seven ") and of the Arcadian Cosmic Willow 
 (see p. 298 supra). It refers directly to the rotating of the Heavens. 
 Stephen of Byzantium also cited Hierokles as stating that the Tar- 
 kunaioi, among whom the gryphons (lypij-^) guarded gold, were a 
 HyperBorean people f and this word must contain the root tark 
 (see p 309 supra), and so mean the Turners (the Tarquins in fact) 
 
 ' Orig. Indo-curop. ii, 668. 
 
 " Didot's Frag. Hist. Grccc. ii, 3S6 to 3SS. 
 
 ' Ibid, iv, 430. 
 
645 The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 of the Sphere. The swans of that region will be dealt with under 
 " Divine Birds " ; but see also p, 463 infra. 
 
 This subject caught, and only just caught, the attention of Swift. 
 In the Tate of a Tub he made a faulty reference to Pausanias, and 
 spoke of " the almighty North, an antient deity, whom the inhabi- 
 tants of Megalopolis in Greece had in the highest reverence : om- 
 nium deorum Boream maxime celebrant." It was in the Arkadika 
 that Pausanias (viii, 78) recorded this, saying that the people of 
 Megalopolis kept the anniversary of Boreas as a holy day, and had 
 no other god in greater honour, because by him they had been 
 helped against the LakeDaimons (Lacedemonians) and King Agis : 
 a clear war-in-heaven, which also gives us the supreme god as a god 
 of battles, which he will be found to be in all mythologies. 
 What XoKE may mean here is now difficult to speir into (one may perhaps sus- 
 pect that K =x\ '^'^t ths haifiwv half of the name must have its full mythic value ; 
 and the name of Agides, like that of the similarly-named priests of DeMeter, 
 the agidiai, must be put with the other celestial names of powers in ay- (see 
 p. 345 sup7'a). 
 
 The myth of serpent-legged Boreas abducting and cohabiting 
 with OreThuia was on the chest of Cypselus,' and must be under- 
 stood of the revolving cosmic year pivoting on the northern strong- 
 hold ((OreThuia = wpa wpTj year season -I- diico rush, whence Ovtin;, 
 dancing Bacchante). She was daughter of ErechTheus and Praxi- 
 Thea (Trpdaaco ='7Tepuco pass-through = Sanskrit par carr}--over ; 
 compare Latin 7'(V-(men) = Avestan tar go-over = Sanskrit tar 
 pass. She is a terminal goddess, see p. 388 supra'). Sisters of 
 PraxiThea were the primeval female powers ProtoGeneia First- 
 Birth, and ChThonia the Earth-goddess. Here is the genealogy 
 of Boreas, whose horse-god character will be dealt-with under " The 
 Centaurs." 
 
 Krios, — Eurubia 
 the Titan | dau. of Pontos 
 
 1 r 
 
 Aurora — Aslraios Pal Las Perses 
 
 (borealis?) I (giant) 
 
 Astra ErechTlieus == OreThuia 
 
 Boreas ^ PraxiThea ProloGencia ChThonia 
 
 Boreas was also worshipped at Thourion in an annual festival. 
 On the Tower of the Winds at Athens he appeared as a winged 
 child wearing sandals and with his head veiled, which is also a note 
 of Kronos. 
 
 ' Pau.s. V. 44. 
 
Myths:] The North. 
 
 457 
 
 THE NORTH, contra. Against the foregoing the following 
 must be set as diametrically opposed. In Zoroastrianism the 
 North is the domain of all evil and hurtful powers.^ Did reforming 
 Mazdeism in transforming — as new faiths are wont to do — the old 
 gods in Heaven, the varenya daevas, into demons, also turn the 
 originally holy North into a cursed quarter ; influenced also 
 perhaps by the old belief that it was the quarter of the dead.^ 
 The myth of the evil god Ahriman forcing his way through 
 the earth to the South lends support to this theory of a volte-face. 
 So does a passage in the Sad Dar (xxx, i) by which it was for- 
 bidden to throw water out of the house by night, especially at the 
 North side (janib), which would be the worst offence. The good 
 genii or demons of pagan Rome were fully recognised by the 
 Christians of the third century as having a very real existence and 
 influence ; but in their eyes they were bad demons, acolytes of 
 Satan.^ 
 
 In Snorri's Edda,* when Hermodhr rides to Hel to look for 
 the soul of Baldr, the maiden Modhgudhr who keeps the bridge 
 over the river Gioll tells him " Hel's way lies still deeper and more 
 Northward." Then rode Hermodhr forwards till he came to Hel's 
 grate. The ' devil's door ' at the North side of some Christian 
 cliurches, near the baptismal font, opened to let him out when he 
 was renounced by the sponsors, may arise from teaching the people 
 that their old gods whom they worshipped when pagans, were 
 devils ; for one man's god is another man's devil, all the world 
 over. There is such a door in Wellcombe church, Morvenstowe, 
 which is always opened at a baptism, that the fiend may escape 
 when the rite is done.^ One must theorise of course that the 
 opening of this Northern aperture had a directly opposite meaning 
 in Pagan times — it admitted a deity. The North side of the 
 churchyard for suicides, too, is of this class of facts : 
 
 'Tis said that some have died for love ; 
 
 And here and there a churchyard grave is found 
 
 In the cold North's unhallowed ground ; 
 
 Because the wretched man himself has slain, 
 
 His love was such a grievous pain. (Wordsworth, iSoo.) 
 
 ^ Geiger : Civ. of Iranians, i, 133. 
 
 ' i)r. Warren : Paradise Found, 207, 213. Darmesteter's Zend AveJa i Ixvii 
 Ixxx. 
 
 ^ Reville : Relig. sons les Sevircs, p. 46. * Fab. 44, ed. Resen. 
 
 • Church-Lore Cleanings by T. F. Thiselton Dyer, 1S92. 
 
45 S The Xight of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 Here is an actual example. The Xonh side of the Seaford (Sussex) church- 
 yard is " devoted to suicides and bodies washed up from the sea ; '' ' noncon- 
 formists ' object to their dead being buried there, and a dispute v.-ith the vicar 
 on the subject is in progress.' 
 
 One of Ezekiel's complaints (viii, 14) is of the women who came 
 and sat at the X door of the temple of Jerusalem, and bewept 
 the death of Tammuz. 
 
 \\'hen a body was cremated in ancient India, the ashes and 
 cinders were collected (leaving the bones for urn-burial; and thrown 
 towards the South side.- In ancient Eg}-pt, too, Set (orTyphon) is 
 found connected with Ursa I\Iajor, and therefore with the North ; 
 but Set was first a good god, before he was degraded, and so 
 they scratched and battered him out of the monuments, and he 
 became the principle of darkness.'' But this is a still ver\- mysteri- 
 ous point upon which no .stable conclusion has }"et been reached. 
 
 To the same class of facts must also, I presume, be referred 
 " the horrible army of Maras coming from the North " who attack 
 Buddha in his Siamese Life,* but cannot enter the shadow of the 
 Bo-tree (world-tree) where he is sheltered. Buddha adores this 
 tree, first on the East, which denotes the rise of sun-worship, and 
 then on the North. Kronos is another instance of a fallen god. 
 Originally in Heaven, he is found in Tartaros after the contest 
 with Zeus, having been defeated and cast down like Ahriman and 
 Lucifer. In considering the variations of the Kronos myth, as we 
 shall have to do, it is indispensable to disentangle these two 
 periods. 
 
 There is just one other explanation for the few contradictory 
 facts about the supreme sacredness of the North which one would 
 wish to put on record without in an\- wa}- pressing it or even 
 following it up. It is this, and it is perhaps somewhat novel in 
 ethnological speculations : that the theory of an archaic migration 
 from our Southern to our Northern hemisphere could be introduced 
 to account for these few facts. This would be quite consistent with 
 the rejection of a necessary- migration of cosmic mj'ths within the 
 N hemisphere :'see p. 11 sii/ira). The recent extraordinary fossil 
 finds of more than 200 species of mammals of the most outlandish 
 
 ' Dau'y A't-u:', iS July 1SS9, p. 6, col. 6. - R. 'Mius.'i //njo-Arjaiu, ii, I4I. 
 
 ' Dr. Ebers (Baedekers Zi?ii-<fr ^gj;/'/, 12S, 130). Eiugsch : Astroit. Inschr. c.2. 
 
 123- 
 
 •• Alabaiier's Wheel of llu Lan-, 150. 161. 
 
Myths^, The North. 459 
 
 new types in the Argentine and in Patagonia include remains of 
 Man which are considered by Dr. F. Ameghino to belong to the 
 pliocene and miocene ages.^ 
 
 Sir R. Ball, the Royal Astronomer of Ireland, in treating of the Ice-Age, 
 or of successive ice-ages as he posits them, says that, viewing the two hemi- 
 spheres each as a whole, it is most important to observe that their respecti\e 
 glaciations were not simultaneous. He points out that while one hemisphere 
 was experiencing the rigours of an ice-age, tne opposite one was genial, and as 
 it were proffered hospitality to the creatures retiring before the ice in the 
 desolated hemisphere in search of a suitable abode. " In accordance with this 
 view, we should expect to find indications of an oscillation of characteristic 
 organic forms between one hemisphere and another. In Darwin's pages will 
 be found some singularly interesting phenomena connected with the distribu- 
 tion of Alpine plants and animals, which lend much support to this view.'" Here 
 we clearly have the idea of migration from hemisphere to hemisphere, which 
 is quite left out of the purview of" Indo-Germanic " pundits. 
 
 As the subject of ethnological migrations has been mentioned 
 it may be convenient to set down here some briefest skeleton-notes 
 of the newest views as to the origin-spot of the Celtindians. 
 
 R. G. Latham in 1S54 and i862'' thought that Sanskrit might 
 have had its origin to the E or S-E of the Lithiianic district. He 
 presupposed an Indo-European population in Europe, to which the 
 Indians likewise once belonged ; and he put them, but by way of 
 hypothesis only, in Podolia or Volhynia. 
 
 Lazarus Geiger*put an Aryo-Hellenic period before the Aryaii, 
 
 as thus : Aryo-Hellenic 
 
 1 ' 1 
 
 Aryan Hellenic 
 
 r ^ 1 
 
 Indian Persian ; 
 
 and he maintained that a good deal of what was called Indo- 
 European is merely Aryo-Hellenic. [It is of course maintained 
 throughout this Inquiry that most part of the cosmic myth-matter 
 with which it deals is not Aryan merely, or Indo-European, or 
 Celtindic ; but is human, widely human as the Northern terrestrial 
 hemisphere] Geiger further considered that the British barbarian 
 Kelts were the most embryonic form of the Indo-European nature 
 left in the North ; and — a good deal on the nothing-like-leather 
 
 ' Rcvista Argentina, December 1S91. Prince Krapotkin in XlXtli Cenlury,i\\ioyxsX 
 1S92. Dr. Ameghino has published important works on all these discoveries, in Spanish 
 at Buenos Ayres since 18S0. 
 
 " The Cause of an Ice Age^ iSgi, pp. 30 to 32. 
 
 3 Native Races of Russ. Emp. ( Com p. Pliilol. p. 611). 
 
 •■ Developt. of Human Race {x'&'&o), 131, 151, 156. 
 
4'''o ■ Tlie Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 principle — suggested that the primitive Indo-European people had 
 its home in Germany. 
 
 Mr. E. R. Wharton^ justifies the supposition that the languages 
 spoken by the nations of Europe (with isolated exceptions), and 
 of Asia from the Caucasus to Ceylon, all descend from one com- 
 mon original speech or Ursprache, the speakers of which, issuing 
 from Scandinavia in search of a warmer climate, separated in 
 various directions. He also proposes the convenient term Celtindic 
 which has been here adopted. 
 
 NORTH AND SOUTH. The division of the Egyptian 
 empire into North and South is one of the most leading historical, 
 ritualistic, and symbolical facts in the arclijeology of the country. 
 This is very generally misunderstood or debased into a mere geo- 
 graphical expression ; but there can be no doubt, it seems to me, 
 that we must take a higher and holier cosmic view of the symbo- 
 logy, which expresses itself in the well-known and perpetual title 
 of Suten-se;)^et (or net)- '^i^ ' king of the double-crown ' (or ' of N 
 and S '), of the red and white crowns^ net ^ and nefer /J whose 
 union ^ implied the empire over both N and S. The name of 
 this last crown was se;^et (see also p. 56 supra). M. Pierret says 
 the hieroglyph ^^ (temet, Coptic TCUJUL, to join)* properly in- 
 dicates by the emblems of sovereignty — crossed the whips — 
 domination over the N and the S, adding that Ajs = ;^eb, with a 
 single whip, indicates dominion over the N alone, ;^eb also being 
 the sound of the glj'phs 'JT and \M^ which designate the North. 
 
 I may say parenthetically here that ' whip ' is a misnomer ; the object 
 meant is the horse-tail on a short baton, still carried by the Turkish pasha, as 
 any one who has been to the East must have observed. It may also be added 
 
 that the glyph lJ\\ leads us on to the right appreciation of the glyph kei 
 
 0_ so incessant as a supreme symbol on sarcophagi and all sorts of monuments. 
 It must indicate the Universe, and we shall have it again under the heading 
 
 " Kronos and Ptah." M. Naville" reads K37 i^TD as "he in whom are 
 
 ' Etyma Latina (iSgo) p. xxv. 
 
 ° Dr. Wallis Budge's Nesi-Amsn papyrus (Archaeolo^a, 1S90, Hi, 470). 
 
 ^ Dr. Wallis Budge's Dwelhrs on I he Nilt, p. 50. ■• See p. 431 supra. 
 
 = Litanies du Soleil, 15, 16. 
 
Myills^^ The Noiih. 461 
 
 . assembled all the spheres and who comprises them all in him." The meanings 
 zone and sphere are given for ker ^^^^^ Q in Pierret's Vocab. p. 627. 
 
 M. Grebaut maintains' that the title of Suten-se;!^;et is divine, 
 and impHes domination over the S and N of the Universe ; not 
 merely over Upper and Lower Egypt. I cordially welcome this 
 scrap of encouragement to my theories. The title must correspond, 
 then, to the Indian one of Universal Emperor, ChakraVartin. M. 
 Grebaut also considers the Bee alone, \j^^ %eb, to mean the 
 
 sovereignty of the North in general. This, too, exactly fits-in with 
 the considerations as to the Bees (or stars) of heaven urged 
 throughout this Inquiry. But to be mythically consistent we must 
 go beyond this, and maintain further that the dominion over the 
 N and the S meant also in its fulness the lordship over this world 
 and the next ; for the celestial S was the underworld of the dead. 
 Thus the Egyptian monarch, who in life was divine, had attributed 
 to him an imperium comparable to that of his greatest gods ; just 
 as each one of his faithful worshippers became one with Osiris, 
 absolutely an Osiris, in that god's dominion of the S heavens. 
 
 In the festival Songs of Isis and Nephthys, translated by 
 Dr. Wallis Budge in his important work on the Nesi-Amsu 
 papyrus,^ occurs the phrase, addressed to the infant Osiris : 
 " The great and living god, the greatly beloved one, is dandled 
 in the presence of the North and South, qema mehit -1 " ^[F*^©." 
 Again, in the Litanies of Seker, " Hail thou sacred visitor of the 
 South and North, qemat mehit .=Xfl'^f' "^-^ ®." The N and S 
 
 emblems for Lower JT and Upper W Egypt are triple, like the 
 
 fleur-de-lis, and this demands consideration (see p. 66 supra). 
 
 M. Maspero says^ that " the great Egyptian temple, like the 
 universe, was double," the temple of the N and the temple of 
 the S. " This fiction of duality was carried yet further ; each 
 chamber was divided, in imitation of the temple, into two halves," 
 one belonging to the N the other to the S. " The house of the o-od 
 had no communication with the adjoining parts except by doors 
 in the southern wall." , This is quite a parallel to the symbology of 
 the Labyrinth, as will be seen under that heading ; only that the 
 
 ^ Hymnt a Aminon-Ra, p. 175. 
 
 ' Archaeologia lii (1890) 407, 467. 
 
 ' Egyptian Avchirphgy, trans, by A. B. Edwards, 2nd ed. pp. 93, 6S. 
 
4''^2 ■ The Night of the Gods. \_PoIar 
 
 N and S portions of the temple are here both above ground, while 
 the supernal half alone of the lalv/rinth is overground, the infernal 
 or southern portion being subterranean, as in the cosmos. The 
 crypts of our churches and all underground temples and sacred 
 caves and pits must fall into this last classification. 
 
 The sacrificial post in the Satapattia-brdhinajia (ii, 141)' is 
 ordered to stand exactly in the centre of the sacrificial shed, which 
 is divided by a cross-line into two equal parts, a northern and a 
 southern half. This seems an identical usage to the Egj'ptian. 
 
 Uet'i,Uat'i,Uat'|[]^[]^ "^ ^ S 3 "^ ^ fl^ 5 Si "' '^''' '° 
 be the goddess personifying or symbolising the North ; and also a form of 
 Sexet. " Her sanctuary was at Tep ^ a town situated at the extremity 
 of the Rosetta branch" (Pierret, Diet 399; Vocab. 117, 70S). But we must 
 not forget Pa-Uet' (= Bute) (I |/n ^ ^""^ P-ta-n-Uet' (Phthenotes) 
 
 }^\ ' ■■■ ' H fl j/n the name of geographical Lower fXorthemj Eg)-pt, 
 
 of which Pa-Uet', dwelling of Uet', was the capital. J. de Rouge says Uat' 
 was a form of Isis {J/o/!!:aies des A'omes). 
 
 Nexeb I ^ | M woman-faced and wearing the nefer head-dress, was the 
 
 goddess of the South, the opposite of Uat'. She was also indicated by the 
 
 vulture holding the ankh -p and "the emblem of serenity." (Her name 
 
 had first been read Suban, and Brugsch even proposed to read it Heben.) 
 Eileithya in Upper Egypt, El Kab, was called Xe^eb, and there was 
 
 also Nekeb "^ ] 1^^ r^^'^ also AK "^ J ^ which last = the 
 
 Hebrew South with the Egyptian article (Chabas, Melanges, iii, 2, 291). But 
 
 the South was also expressed by the plant I which phonetically = su and thus 
 
 the reading of 5//ban for Ne;(eb in another of its forms I 1 is partly ex- 
 plained. Set was also ' lord of the South,' Nubt or X^ubti {>rf\ ■ The .South 
 
 was also res =L or — " — or jp and mer-t-res I (Brugsch, 
 
 Geog. i, 32). See also "The Eye of Heaven" infra, p. 465. 
 The division of the Earthly kingdom of Eg}-pt into North and 
 South was paralleled in North (Akkad) and South (Sumir) 
 Babylonia.- With the Hebrews, to go North was to go up, to 
 
 ^ Dr. Eggeling's version. 
 
 = Dr. Wallis Budge's Bahyl. Life and Hist. 14. 
 
Myths:] The North. 463 
 
 , travel South was to go down.^ Prof. Sayce detected, cut in hiero- 
 glyphs on a small greenstone dish from Bubastis, Hri Khebu Amu, 
 which he reads ' Lord of the N and S, Amu ' (Amu = terrible 
 one, plural Emim. Gen. xiv, 5 ; Deut. ii, 10).^ Lucanus in the 
 PJiarsalia (vii, 422), addressing Rome, merely reproduces the same 
 conception when he says that Titan beheld her empire stretch from 
 pole to pole : Te geminum Titan procedere videt in axem. 
 
 In " the very oldest " Irish books, the two leaders of the Milesian 
 colonisation, the brothers Eber and Eremon, divided Ireland 
 between them into a Northern and a Southern Kingdom.^ We 
 have a fuller (and later ?) division when, in the central hall, the 
 miodh-chuarta of Tara, the king of Erinn sat in the centre with 
 his face to the E, the king of Ulster being at his N and the 
 king of Munster at his S ; while the king of Leinster sat 
 opposite to him and the king of Connacht beliind him.' This 
 should previously have been mentioned under the Cardinal points, 
 p. 165 supra. 
 
 The myth which accounted for the taboo of the swan in Erinn 
 makes the Four Swans fly straight to the North till they alight on 
 the sea of Mael (= the bald mountain) between Erin and Alban 
 (= the ivliitc land) ; and they are not to be disenchanted until 
 Lairgnen the prince from the North is united to Deoch the princess 
 from the South.^ The mythic Niall Navi-giallach, of the Nine 
 Treasures (see p. 39 supra), had a Northern king for father and a 
 Southern princess for mother.^ 
 
 [In here interposing the headings of "The North, contra" and "The 
 North and South " before getting the reader to " The Polestar," the section on 
 ' The South " in Vol. II has been somewhat anticipated ; but it had to be done. 
 Never did warlock in tale or legend set his most persecuted victim a more 
 impossible task than the logical assortment of the sections and subordinate 
 facts in this Inquiry. Each one of them wants to be in two or more places at 
 once. For one example, the unsatisfactory section on " Rhabdomancy " might 
 have been in the Tree division.] 
 
 ' Lenormant : Orig. de thut. 313. " Academy 26 Oct. 1SS9, p. 276. 
 
 ' O'Curry's Manners and Customs, ii, 4, 16. 
 
 ■* Dr. Joyce's Celtic Romances, 9, iS. The subject of mythic swans will be dealt 
 with under "Divine Birds." 
 
 ° O'Curry's Manners and Customs, ii, 147. 
 
4^14 The Nighl of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 5. — The Eye of Heaven. 
 
 THE Japanese deity Ama no Ma-hitotsu, One-Eye of Heaven, 
 has already been mentioned at p. 67. The One-e}-ed 
 Mexican Waters-god Tlaloc dwells in the North on the highest of 
 Mountains, whence come the rains and all streams.' The revolving 
 Eye of the Norse v/orld-millstone is directly above Hvergelmer, and 
 through it the waters flow to and from the great fountain of the 
 Universe waters.- See also what is said as to the one Eye of a 
 Shan deity at p. 72. The supreme Babylonian god Ea (identified 
 with Kronos in Vol. H) is called on the tablets the lord with the 
 clear-seeing Eye,^ and also the motionless Lord, which last seems 
 to me to be an epithet peculiar to the polar divinity. To these 
 should be added the all-piercing Eye of AtLas in the Odyssey,* for 
 At Las is an axis-god, and this seems to make a Cyclops of him.. 
 The eye of Ra at the tip of the pap\TUs-stem (an axis-symbol ?) 
 will be met with a little lower down. And there was an all-seeing 
 Eye in the forehead of Krishna. Nor is the eye alwaj's in the 
 fore-head, it is sometimes in the fore-body, as in the case of the 
 rakshasa Kabandha, slain by Rama, who had one enormous eye in 
 the breast. A close parallel to this is to be found in the Rig Veda 
 (iii, 59) where " Mitra sustains the Earth and the sky, Mitra with 
 unwinking eye beholds all creatures." It is of course a leading 
 point that Mitra was not originally \h<t sun, and it is not to weaken 
 my case to state that animisha, unwinking, became a general 
 epithet of all gods.^ The Avestan ]\Iithra, the yazata of light, has 
 " 10,000 eyes,*^ high, with full knowledge (perethu-vaedhayana), 
 strong, sleepless, and ever awake (jaghaurvaunghem)."' The 
 supreme god Ahura Mazda also has one Eye,' or else it is said 
 that " with his e}-es, the sun moon and stars, he sees everything."^ 
 
 ' A. Reville's A'//'. Lecti. 71. - Rydberg's Tent. Myth. 395. 
 
 ^ F. Lenormant, Orig. i, 505. 
 
 •" i, 52 ; and see Paus. Lx, 20 ; and Liter under " The Polestar. '' 
 
 * Dowson's Hindu Diet. ' Darmesteter's Zend Az'esta, ii, 121. 
 
 ' W. Geiger's Civ. of Irinians, i, Iv to Iviii, 133. The identification of archaic 
 Mithra with the sun is quite unproved. See " The Judge of Heaven," infra. 
 
 ' Ihid. xxviii, 133. This eye the commentators also assume to be the sun, but they 
 do not prove that either. 
 
 ^ Darmesteter's Zen / Avesla, ':, Iviii. It will be seen that this theor)' and W. Geiger's 
 are incompatible. 
 
Myths?\ The Eye of Heaven. 465 
 
 The theory that Mithra was originally a title of the supreme 
 heavens-god — putting the sun out of court — is the only one that 
 answers all requirements. It will be evident that here we have 
 origins in abundance for the Freemason's Eye and its " nunquam 
 dormio." A Chinese constellation is called " the Eye of Heaven 
 that judges the wicked." 5^ g iS^} 
 
 The single and the dual ut'at Eye ^^ of Egyptian symbolism 
 is of the utmost importance in the interpretation of the sacred lore 
 of Egypt's past. The conclusion which I advance here is that the 
 pair of these Eyes indicate the deities of the North and the South 
 poles respectively (see " North and South " supra, p. 460). 
 
 The scarab with a green globe on his head is seen at the top 
 
 of one of the 3 coffins of the librarian Shutemes. " This symbol," 
 
 said E. De Rouge,^ " is placed between two winged Eyes which 
 
 represent the two chief divisions of the heavens, the North and 
 
 South, which are reproduced on the inner sides of the coffin in the 
 
 two crowned vipers" (the araret). Here, as it seems to me, De Rouge 
 
 was on the right road, and in consonance with that remarkable 
 
 Egyptologist Thdodule Deveria, who held the two Eyes to be 
 
 "symbols of celestial space,"' which they are on my supposition, as 
 
 will be seen lower down. But elsewhere De Rouge shows that 
 
 (perhaps at some other period of his studies) he was quite unfixed 
 
 about the dual Eyes, which are also called the " eyes of Horus." 
 
 For example, he said vaguely they had " a most extensive symbolism."* 
 
 " The right eye referred to the sun, the left to the moon." " Thoth-Moon 
 
 sometimes bears in his hands the eye of Horus, symbol of the full moon." 
 
 This, according to Lanzone,'* is Amsu, who holds in each hand '^T j . _ 
 
 v_y which 
 
 seem to me to be the N and S .^^w/spheres. And then, said De Rougd, 
 
 further, " they were also taken sometimes for the two divisions of the heavens " 
 
 (here again he approaches the real origin) ; and " they then replace the wings 
 
 of the winged disk." " But the principal sense attached to this much-revered 
 
 emblem appears to have been the epoch of the accomplishment of astronomical 
 
 periods. The eye thus figured with an appendage below the globe -^^ was 
 
 called in Egyptian outa " [now read ut'at]. " This word indicated the eqiiilibriiiin 
 
 and accomplishment of the phases of the lunar and solar periods. The fate of 
 
 man being assimilated to that of the stars, the return of the sun to its ut'at, that 
 
 is to say to the initial point of its diverse periods" [all this is oddly indefinite] 
 
 " was the emblem, and as if the perpetual pledge, of the resurrection of his soul, 
 
 ■'' G. Schlegel, Uranog. Chi. 436. - Notice Somniaire (1876), p. 105. 
 
 = Cat. desMSS. 1S81, 78. '■ Not. Som. 150, 141, 151. 
 
 '^ DizioJiayio, 617. 
 
 2 G 
 
466 The NigJit of the Gods. [Pole 
 
 ar 
 
 after it had got through the infernal periods. These ideas explain" [do they I] 
 " the singular \eneration which was attained by this symbol, which is found 
 spread abroad in profusion. The Egyptians employed for the purpose all the 
 precious materials known to them." (These last I e.\plain as Evil-Eye charms, 
 lower down, p. 4S1.) 
 
 M. Pierret in his indispensable Vocabulaire (p. 106; makes a portion of this 
 somewhat clearer by citing the same De Rouge for the statement that ut'at meant 
 (also ?) " the node of an astronomical period, that is to say its point of meeting 
 with a determinate point of the vague year." But surely this was manifestly a 
 secondar)- scientific use of the term. 
 
 In his DictioHnaire j\l. Pierret says the two ut'at are often 
 personified by Shu and Tefnut ; but Shu I make here the axis- 
 god, and Tefnut his consort. The fact that the two Eyes permute, 
 as symbols flanking the sphere {not the ' disk ' !), with the two 
 'jackals ' called the guides of the X and S, is clearly an argument 
 of the first rate in my favour (see the postponed section on 
 " The Dogs "). Two Iwiis flank the sphere on one of the coffins of 
 Shutemcs. ^Mistaking this round symbol for the " sun's disk," as 
 usual, De Rouge said' that "this is one of the figures of the rising 
 Sun." I declare I cannot see it. The god Shu at times has a lion's 
 head, and so has Tefnut, and these must be the lions that 'support' 
 the sphere (heraldically) ; and the\- support me too, with leonine 
 force, in the exposition of the AI)-cenje lions p. 208 supra. One 
 pair guards the Sphere, the other the pillar-axis ; and each is a 
 polar symbolic beast divine, quia nominatur Leo. The symbolism 
 must have had its birth in a lion country, as the equally polar 
 bear s\-mbolism arose in a country- where the bear was king. 
 
 M. Grebaut {Hymiie a Ammon-Ra) considers that in the Sun's daily pro- 
 gress from E to W, one of his two eyes looks N and the other S ; and that 
 that is why the two regions of Egypt and the two regions of hea\en are each 
 called ut'at.'- But surely that is an Alice-in-\Vonderland way of accounting for 
 N and S, as to which see the heading "North and South" supra p. 460. 
 And the fact which M. Grebaut points out as to there being two 
 Truths, two ^la, one of the \ and one of the S. and that the\- also 
 are identified with the two eyes, is a proof-positive for me, when it 
 is borne in mind (see '' The Judge of Heaven " infra) that Truth here 
 means that which is Just, Right, Fixed, as the Poles alone were in 
 the Cosmos. AI. Pierret also says "there does not exist a more 
 complex symbol " than the ut'at eye. The greater part of the com- 
 plexity instantly vanishes, as it seems to me, if the position of the 
 Eyes be identified with the position of the sockets of the Universe 
 
 ' A'ol. Sorn. loS. - Pierret, Did. 399, 372. 
 
Afy/ks.'\ The Eye of Heaven. 467 
 
 axis. And the word sockets is here advisedly used, for we shall soon 
 
 'see some physiological analogies for it in archaic grjeco-celtic myths. 
 
 A text published by Dumichen^ says : " Thou art the Eye of 
 
 Ra, at the tip of the papyrus-stem, she [Isis, as " Buto," Uat'] 
 
 protects her son, she suckles Hor in the reeds" £ r]4 „ ^=' j H 
 
 ^ Hi' \^ ^ ^ ^^ i^ \ ^- ^^^ ending of this recalls the 
 typeof the Moses-myths p. 410). ' See also Index as to the relics cf 
 the Eye and eyelids of Osiris. Brugsch gives the meaning 'heaven' to 
 
 V^ \ ; -^ and 1^ both read as ut'at, the same word as the 
 
 symbolic eye. Here we have the principal, highest, point of the 
 vault standing for the vault itself ; an analogous fact to my argu- 
 ments about Ouranos on pp. 23, 46, 366, 364 and 451 supra. In 
 the decree of Rosetta is the following glyph for Egypt ^^ q. 
 " It is difficult to explain," says M. Pierret, " but ought to have a 
 religious character." If the views I here urge find any acceptance, 
 it would be easily understood as the country under the Eye of 
 heaven, the middle-kingdom in fact, like the infinite number of 
 similar instances already sampled under the head of " The Navels." 
 
 The ut'at itself is written_p ^ ^ ^^ as above, but without the determinant 
 1=1 for the jheavens, also as ^ () ^l q ^^^ and simply as •^^. Ut'at Heru, 
 the " personification of the sacred Eye " of Horus, where Horus must mean 
 the heavens-god, appears as ^^^ ^^ and ^^ fe>.1- Ut'a also means to 
 judge, and ut'u to dispense justice, which strikes me as sufficiently remarkable 
 in view of what will hereinafter be exposited as to the Heavens-Judge p. 493. 
 Then again, as an unlooked-for parallel to what is said about the Arcana at 
 p. 394, we find that ut'a ^ i\ \. CT! is a store-house and a /o/t. 
 In the remarkable Egyptian Cosmogony which is known as the 
 Evolutions of Ra, in Dr. Wallis Budge's important edition of the 
 Nesi-Amsu papyrus,- the god says : " Shu and Tefnut " (who are an 
 AtLas and his consort) " brought to me my Eye ... I wept . . . 
 and men and women sprang into existence from my Eye, mata 
 
 W' This is a close parallel to the Chinese evolutions of P'an 
 
 Ku and the Japanese of IzanaGi pp. 239, 391 supra, and also throws 
 the proper light upon the phrase found by M. Pierret" upon a funereal 
 
 * Geogr. Inschrift. iv, 125. 
 
 " Archaeologia lii (1S90), 441, 541. 
 
 ^ Dkt. 371. 
 
 2 G 2 
 
468 
 
 The Night of the Gods. 
 
 {Polar 
 
 statuette : " Horus brought-forth Shu's Eye ^ [j] jl ^ ^ ^ ^." 
 
 In the. same papyrus we have the common " Horus of the two 
 
 Eyes, Heru maa ^ r-Tj," where Dr. Budge notes that the 
 
 two E\-es are the two Ut'at eyes ^^ ^^^-^ Again it is said that 
 
 one of the names of the Eye of Horus is Se;^et ^ r-^j ." In the 
 
 Festival-songs of Isis and Nephthys, still in the same papyrus, it is 
 said the " two eyes " (of Osirisj '' light up the two Lands " Cof the 
 
 North and South, see p. dfi>o supra), " and the gods IT ^ ^i *i-=^ 
 
 =^^^= I I ] I r^ I sehet' maa-f taiu neteru."^ Perhaps these ' eyes ' did 
 
 become later the sun and moon, but they were not so at first, as 
 this and the Japanese cosmogony show. Again Ptah of Memphis 
 is called lord of the two Lands (or regions) :* Ptah Oema Anbu-f 
 
 nebt taiu 
 
 1^: 
 
 
 J © 3 ^ ^s'li®- 
 
 The eyes of Ptah in the figure on p. 214 
 (here repeated) are badly defined, but in 
 the Eg>'ptian original they are the same 
 
 ut'at eyes as already shown J^f;. As this 
 Inquiry proposes to equate Ptah with Kronos 
 (or II), and as Ptah-Osiris was an under- 
 world Egyptian combination, this seems 
 ver}- significant for my purposes. 
 
 It is a question what significance, beyond the 
 literal, we are warranted in assigning to the eye in 
 the verb ar, ari, aru, to make, create, produce : ,<S>- 
 or ^^ or :g^^ or ^^ ©. Eye, art, is -^, 
 which could also be read ut'at : and art, " a part of 
 Thebes comprising doubtless the temple of Kamak " 
 Q. de Rouge) was written ■'^^ © or ■^^"©. Ar 
 and ut'at both occur in the names of the daughters of 
 Amenrut and of king Takelot,caIledArBastUt'atXifn 
 
 ^ y V^ I and ArBastUt'at-n-Xif 
 
 ^UJ>aJl<r",<Wiu''U 
 
 
 ^- 
 
 ' Archaeologia lii, 43S, 531 : 439, 533. 
 
 - Ibid. 435, 523. ' Ibid. 414, 4S7. 
 
 Ibid. 530, 43". 
 
Myths.'] The Eye of Heaven. 469 
 
 The central cosmic character of the Eye is shown in Indian 
 myth where Chakshus fEye) espouses Akuti the goddess of the 
 Extreme (Avestan aku = point ; see Akis p. 473 infra), and so 
 becomes father to Manu, who again has 12 (zodiacal) sons, the 
 Yamas.^ 
 
 Of the hundred (that is the unlimited number of the) eyes of 
 Argos, who is nothing but the shining heavens, one half are ever 
 open, while the other half are closed in sleep ; the significance 
 of this saute aux yeux, and requires no exposition. But the 
 Scholiast of Euripides {Phccii. 11 16) quotes a cyclic poet who 
 gave Argos (see also p. 474 infra) only two pairs of eyes, one pair 
 before and one behind, and an unfatiguable strength which 
 banished sleep. This is in one aspect a clear parallel to the two 
 pairs of similarly-placed eyes of the Phcenician \\ (Kronos), as 
 preserved to us by Sanchoniathon-Philo-Eusebius, by means of 
 which he watched sleeping and slept waking.^ These myth-items 
 of both Argos and II are perfectly genuine celestial allegories, 
 and are only a doubling of the Eg}'ptian eyes (see also the '' two- 
 winged Eyes," p. 465 supra). In Il's case the reference is to night 
 and day, or the upper and under hemisphere, which comes to much 
 the same thing as my theory. The four eyes of Kronos may 
 be paralleled to the four eyes of the two dogs who guard the 
 Chinvadh Bridge in the Avesta, or the roads and mansion of 
 Yama in the RigVeda ; which dogs seem to me to suggest so 
 forcibly the Egyptian 'jackals' of the North and South. An 
 alternative tale of the same Scholiast's about Argos was that Hera 
 gave him an extra eye in the poll of his head, when she set him to 
 watch lo (as to whom see p. 181 supra). This is clearly celestial 
 also, and is an analogous myth. 
 
 As to this third eye, on the back of the head, surely it is an astounding co- 
 incidence that it is now held as proved by comparative anatomists that the 
 pineal gland of the human brain, which Descartes elected as the seat of the 
 soul, is a decayed third eye — not that ' man ' ever had such an eye, but in the 
 lizards the fact that it is a suppressed eye is indubitable. Baldwin Spencer has 
 shown and figured this pineal eye, with its retina still surviving, within the head 
 of the lizard Hatteria punctata, and it is now beyond doubt that the hole in the 
 skulls of the ichthyosaurus and plesiosaurus of the Jurassic epoch was the socket 
 of a third large eye ; they saw all round like Argos. 
 
 The third eye of the Cyclopes was of course in the forehead, see 
 p. 475 infra. 
 
 ' Eurnoufs BhSg.-pur. ii, 70. ^ Didot's Frag. Hist. Grccc. iii, 569, 26. 
 
47° ■ The Night of the Gods. {Polar 
 
 Pausanias (ii, 24) in his description of the land of Argos says : 
 In the high tower which is called Larissa there is a temple of Zeus sur- 
 named Larissaios, which is without a roof ; and the statue of the god, which 
 is of wood, no longer stands upon a base. There is also in this place a temple 
 of Athena which contains a wooden statue of Zeus that has two eyes., each in 
 its natural place, and a tliird in the forehead. They report that this is the Zeus 
 Patrios that was placed in the open air in the palace of Priam . . . But 
 \\e may collect the propriety of the statue having tliree eyes if we consider that 
 in the opinion of all men Zeus reigns in the heavens ; and that he governs the 
 places under the earth is evident from the verse of Homer in which the sub- 
 terranean ruler is called Zeus ; and yEschylus the son of Euphorion calls Zeus 
 the ruler of the sea. Hence, whoever made the statue "gzy^'w three eyes, because 
 this god rules over the aforesaid three divisions of the Universe. See also 
 p. 474 infra. 
 
 This interpretation, invented by Pausanias, does not fit in so 
 well with other instances of the single Eye, as would the theor)' 
 (here suggested) that the three eyes arise simply from the addition 
 of the One- Eye to the ordinary two, by a confusion of symbolisms. 
 Had I been pursuing the Lares further at p. 211 (but one must 
 draw the line somewhere) the name Larissa, of so man}- towns, 
 should have been dealt-with, together with Larissaios as a title both 
 of Achilles and of his Spear, and also of Artemis, Apollo, Zeus, and 
 the citadel of Argos (as above). So should Larissa daughter of 
 Pelasgos or of Piasos the chief of the Pelasgians, which Piasos was 
 adored at at least one Larissa. It was at a Larissa that Perseus 
 killed Akrisios (a god of the Extreme) with a quoit (the chakra 
 of the Indian gods). All this seems stipremel)- celestial mj-th. • 
 
 The Cyclops : Did not the rascals know 
 
 I am a God, sprung from the race of Heaven .' 
 
 (Shelley, The Cyclops.) 
 
 THE CYCLOTES. If the Eye of Heaven can be successfully 
 connected with the Polar deity, then the C}'clopes would be clearly 
 central supernal powers equally with the Titans, for both categories 
 — Hesiod {Theog. 139 sqq.) made the Cjxlopes Titans — were 
 children of Ouranos and Gaia (Ge) ;' and the C}'clopes, who were 
 gods in Hesiod, were stronger than the gods according to Homer. 
 Leading facts too are these : that Apollodorus opens his Cosmic 
 M^'tholog)- with the birth (i) of the Triad of the Hundred-handed, 
 (2) of the Triad of the Kuklopes, and (3) of the Si.x ( = 3 x 2) Titans 
 
 I Apoll. Bihl. i, I. 
 
Mytlis:\ 
 
 Tlie Eye of Heaven. 
 
 471 
 
 1 . Hiindred-luijided. 
 
 3. Tifanes. 
 
 Bri^reos, 
 
 Okeanos, 
 
 Cues, 
 
 Koios, 
 
 Kottos. 
 
 Hyperios, 
 
 
 Krios, 
 
 2. Kuklopes. 
 
 lapetos. 
 
 Arges, 
 
 
 Steropes, 
 
 
 Brontes. 
 
 
 and their Seven sisters ; and that all three classes are children of 
 Ouranos and Ge, of Heavens and Earth. 
 
 Titanides. 
 Tethys, 
 Rhea, 
 Themis, 
 Mnemosyne, 
 Phoibe, 
 Dione, 
 Theia. 
 
 Other legends made the Cyclopes descendants of the Titans ; and 
 Photius (citing Proclus, 5th century A.D., who commentated Hesiod) 
 said the Greek epic cycle began with the fabled union of Heavens 
 and Earth, whence proceeded 300 armed Giants and 3 Cyclopes.^ 
 That they were worshipped is proved by the ancient altar or 
 hieron called Ku/cXfUTrtai/ ^(UyLtd? on the isthmus of Corinth, whereon 
 sacrifices were still offered to them in the time of Pausanias(ii, 2, 2). 
 Schoemann^ has also pointed out other traces of their lost worship, 
 which must have been extremely archaic. The Cyclopes were in 
 fact the brute Forces of the Universe. 
 
 These Ku/cXfiTre? or Wheel-eyes were also sons of KotA.09 and 
 X^wta (?) who was Latined as Tellus, a goddess with a masculine 
 name (see p. 372 supra). Koilos = ' the hollow ' is of course an 
 alias of Ouranos, as Chthonia is of Gaia. By some accounts there 
 were over a hundred Cyclopes, but they had, in Hesiod (as well as 
 in ApoUodorus) an original and supreme triad of their own (as 
 above) ; Tlvp h.K)ji,uiv (fire-extreme-one ?) and Akamos (untireable) 
 were other names for Cyclopes, perhaps for members of the triad. 
 There was also a Centaur named PurAkmos, a name conveying the 
 same idea no doubt as Pur Akmon, and SterOpes must be star-eyes ? 
 The KuklOpes were also blacksmiths of Hephaistos, and made 
 Pluton's invisible helmet (the under-hemisphere), PoseiUon's trident 
 (Tpiaiva — Tpla + l'? strength?), and the bolts (the bronte, the 
 astrapd, and the keraunos),^ whence Zeus was called Bronton, the 
 thunderer. I must add KekrOps, TailEye, see pp. 349, 486. 
 
 The KuklOpes were conquered and precipitated into Tartaros, 
 together with the Hundred-handed trio, by their common father 
 Ouranos ;* but they were released later-on by Kronos, to aid him in 
 
 ' Didot's Cycli epici reliquiae, 581. " De Cyclopibus. 
 
 ' Apoll. Bibl. i, 2, 1. And see " Weapons of the Gods '' in Vol. II of this Inquiry. 
 
 * Apoll. Bibl. i, I. 
 
47-' The Night of the Gods. {Polar 
 
 dispossessing his and their father Ouranos ; and then again re-im- 
 prisoned by Kronos in Tartaros, where they remained until the 
 next divine and parricidal generation, when Zeus, killing their 
 gaoleress Kd/xirr] (who gave her name to the Clianips Elysees), set 
 them free to be his allies in the war-in-heaven with his father 
 Kronos, the Gigantes, or the Titans. Or else the KuklOpes them- 
 selves killed their gaoleress and escaped to the upper day. Zeus 
 then again re-incarcerated them in the same prison, where myth 
 has since allowed them to remain, the old Cosmic faith having come 
 to an ending. It is all the same legend, this of the Cyclopes and 
 their kin, which descended from generation to generation in the 
 divine Cosmic family and among their worshippers, for whom the 
 son-god constantly succeeded the father-god ("see p. 19 supra). This 
 Tartaros was a dark infernal place in "At>> (Hades), as far from — 
 that is, as far below — the Earth (ge) as Earth was from Ouranos,* 
 which thus can be he)-c identified with the N Polar celestial region, 
 affording yet another help to my contention at pp. 23, 46 etc. ; 
 Tartaros being thus the infernal S pole. 
 
 And it is further obvious, I think, on a general broad and com- 
 parative view, that the Hundred-handed, the Cyclopes, the Titans, 
 and the Giants, were all Forces of the cosmic machine, as (it is in 
 this Inquiry maintained) the Kabeiroi were also. Statius indeed, 
 2000 years ago, said" that the Cyclopes were related to the Giants, 
 the Curetes, and the Telchines ; the two last being a direct link 
 with the Kabeiroi, whose large eyes we must not forget here. 
 
 As to "Wheel-Eyes" above, Hesiod {Tlieog. 144) or some 
 interpolater brought the meaning ' round-eyed ' out of kvkXwijt, as 
 from KVK\oi + oiyjr ; but is it not " Eye of the kuklos (or wheel) " 
 that is to be concluded from this ^patent et)-mology, rather than 
 any other meaning .' 
 
 Dr. O. Schrader says eipio-rra Zeus is an expression of a primeval stamp, that 
 it equals ctkAoj Aws, and means ' broad-eyed sky.' This rendering sounds 
 wondrous poetical, but when you ask it for a meaning it refuses to reply. Wide- 
 seeing Zeus seems plain enough. I. Schmidt says euruopa (neuter), found in 
 connexion with the primeval accusative Zijj', claims an antiquity of the first 
 rank.' 
 
 The Laistrygones. Kampe (just above) is fully dealt with 
 under " The Lab}-rinth " ; here I shall be contented to direct 
 
 ' ApoU. BihI. i, I. = Thebais ii, 273 ; Stlvae iv, 6, 47. 
 
 ^ Jevons's Schrader's Frckist. Aryan Aiiliq. 41S. 
 
Ulyths.^ The Eye of Heaven. 473 
 
 attention to Campania, where were placed the LaiStrygones whom 
 Thucydides (vi, 2) made co-inhabitants with the Cyclopes, of 
 Trinakria. In LaeStrz'gones I think we must see Xae?' stones 
 + strz'go, a warlock (striga witch, strix screechowl). They stoned 
 to death the companions of Odusseus,^ and they thus form one 
 more class to add to the interminably long list of stone-gods. Note 
 by-the-way that PoluPhemos (see p. 211 supra), as well as being a 
 Cyclops, was one of the LapiThoi (stone-gods); and the LaiStrygones 
 were horrible giants and cannibals (a note, among deities, of human 
 sacrifice), the queen of their king AntiPhates (' the opponent of 
 the bright ' ? ^dm shine) being as high as a mountain. Homer 
 placed them in the most distant North, just where I want to put 
 their neighbours the Cyclopes. In fact they are a second, or a first, 
 edition of the Cyclopes, for they skewer the companions of 
 Odusseus, and carry them off for roasting and devouring. Their 
 city was TelePuIos (terminal-gate).' and its founder was Lamos 
 (compare Lamia the Libyan Ogress who devoured children).* As 
 for Trinakria it is generally interpreted ' three-caped ' (a'/cpa) and 
 understood to mean Sicily, to which island the symbol of the 
 three ' Legs o' Man ''^ belonged. But iiKpa (see p. 145 supra) I 
 claim to be the very cosmic summit ever kept in view here, and thus 
 Sicily would be viewed as one more of the endless symbolic islands, 
 and Tri-n-Akria refers to the Triad of the Highest ; and of course 
 (as above) the Cyclopes had their triad. The word must be closely 
 connected with the goddess MeDiTrina at p. 373 supra. 
 
 Another supreme celestial connexion is given by the mating of 
 the Cyclops, or nominally of PoluPhemos (many-shining .■*), with 
 Galatia or Galateia, by whom he has a son Galatos." She was of 
 the sea, that is of the Universe Ocean, just as PoluPhemos was the 
 son of PoseiDon ; and her name and that of her son are clear 
 relations to the Galaxias or via lactea, the Milky Way or Heavens- 
 river (rydXa milk). Her romance with Akis, famous in literature,' 
 is to be mythically expounded first by the fact that his name a/ct'?, 
 'point,' should be referred to the N Extreme of the axis (see Akuti 
 
 ' See Laertes, pp. 177, 453 supra. - Odyssey x, 82, 106. 
 
 ^ See " The God Terminus " p. 3S7 supra, and " The Dokana " p. 253. 
 
 * Euripides. Aristotle Mor. iv. Diodorus, Horace, A. P. 340. 
 
 * See " Buddha's Footprint " in Vol. II. 
 
 * Timaeus, y;-aj. 37. ' Theocritus v and xi. Ovid Meiam. xiii, 722. 
 
474 The Night of tlic Gods. [Polai- 
 
 p. 469 supra, and " The God Terminus," p. 387), and then by the 
 other myth-item that he was god of the same-named river, which 
 again must be taken to be the heavens-river flowing down from the 
 same Extreme. The river-name Akis is in fact an ahas of the 
 Galaxias at its source ; and thus Acis and Galatea were god and 
 goddess of the same river ; and FohiPhemos being the lawful cosmic 
 spouse of Galateia must also be given a similar Northern celestial 
 position. In a painting discovered on the Palatine Hill in the 
 house of Livia, Galatea is seen seated on a HippoKampos or 
 seahorse (like Neptune's, with only the two forefeet and a fish's 
 tail). HippoKampos is a strange word, which seems to claim 
 contrast with HippoKentauros. The Kdfnro^ may mean, as in the 
 case of Kampe above, the Latin campus, the ' field/ the plain of the 
 Universe Ocean. 
 
 The Northern central position of the Cyclopes is further illus- 
 trated from Adam of Bremen's Dc situ Dauice. He says the Northern 
 Giants, who were such as we call C}'clopes, dwelt within solid 
 walls, surrounded by the water to which one comes after traversing 
 the land of frost, and after passing that Euripus in which the water 
 of the Ocean flows back to its Arcanian fountain (ad initia quredam 
 fontis sui Arcani recurreus).' See "The Arcana" supra, and " The 
 Heavens-River '" in Vol. H. I also direct the attention again to 
 what is said about the neighbourhood and the locus of the Phaia- 
 kians at p. 382 supra; and at p. 464 we have had AtLas as a 
 Cyclops, and of course the head of AtLas is at the N celestial pole. 
 
 At p. 422 there was promised a treatment here of the deities in 
 oi|r and ii)^. Let me first take up again the self-made KekrOps 
 or KekrOps, whom I think we really, as hinted in the note to 
 p. 349, must now here take as coming from Kepico<; tail, and 
 meaning Tail-E}-e, which is again a further help to m)- etymology 
 of Ouranos at pp. 23, 46, 366, 36S, and 451. At pp. 145, 146 we 
 had DolOps and PelOps (see also p. 212). DruOps (Tree-Eye or 
 TriOps ?) was shown on pp. 356, 422 to be the same as TriOpes 
 and Zeus TriOpas ; and also seems to be the same as the triple 
 Zeus of Corinth in Pausanias (ii, 2, 7 ; see also p. 470 supra), and as 
 Zeus TriOphthalmos of the same citadel of Argos,- which is alwa}-s 
 claimed here as the height of the white heavens. The xoanon, 
 polished or worked statue, of this last Zeus was brought from Troia 
 
 ' Rydberg's Teutonic Mythology, 1SS9, p. 4S5. 
 - Pans, ii, 24, 5, and see p. 469 sjipra. 
 
Myths:\ The Eye of Hcazrit. 475 
 
 (my celestial Trinidad) and was thus of Dardanian origin, which 
 connects it with the spear-axis gods and the PalLadion, which, see 
 p. 212 si/J>ra, was made of the bones of PelOps ; and the Cyclopes 
 are as often three-eyed as one-eyed. EllOps was a son of Zeus or 
 of Ion {Strabo). Juno and Ceres Mater sometimes become Ops in 
 Latin inscriptions. Cicero^ gave one origin for Diana as the 
 daughter of Upis and Glauce. This is said to be the 'flTrt? 
 of some old Greek fragments, and the OuTTf? of Kallimachos. 
 But in Apollodoros" Tl7rt9 is one of the virgins venerated by 
 the Hyperboreans (see p. 453 supra), and is transfixed by 
 Artemis with arrows. I also refer the reader to what is said of 
 Ops on p. 453. Festus {s. v. Oscos) quoted from Verrius the 
 statement that the Osks or Osci were anciently called Opsci. 
 And in regard to that, it might be added that w-v/r being ' eye,' 
 o(T(Ti (dual) was ' two eyes,' doubtless the two sacred eyes (of the 
 Egyptians) which we have here been considering (p. 465 supra) ; 
 o-v/rf? is 'sight,' and the verb oaaojxai to foresee, forebode, augur, and 
 the word oaaa an omen, are clearly to be expounded by our own 
 analogy which makes the prophet a seer, a see-r ; Sun), sight, further 
 gives us a word of this family to compare with''n7rt9 above. It is 
 somewhat risky to go further and claim the name of Mount Ossa, 
 "Oaarj, as being the dual-cye mountain of the heavens ; but the 
 name PelOps gives us a curious adjunct to the legend which piles 
 Pelion upon Ossa (see p. 452 and also the Chinese Heavens-Eye- 
 Mountain Under " Polestar-Worship " infra'). 
 
 It ought again to be repeated that the central forehead eye of 
 the Cyclopes was as often represented with the two ordinary human 
 eyes, as without them ; that is they were indifferently three-eyed or 
 one-eyed. In an Etruscan painting on a tomb at Corneto the 
 PoluPhemos of Odusseus has only one vast eye in the forehead.^ 
 But there is yet another curious mythic monster tribe — clear doublets 
 of the Cyclopes. 
 
 THE ARIMASPOI, ever at war with the gryphons {'^pv^) for 
 the gold of the North, the treasures of the Arcana (see p. 398) 
 had but one eye ; and bej-ond them were the HyperBoreans (see 
 p. 45 I supra'). Stephen of Byzantium cited Damastcs of Sigaea* 
 
 ' Dc nat. Dcor. iii, 23. ' Bibl. i, 4, 5. 
 
 ^ See the illustration in Daremberg and Saglio's Dictionnaire i, 1695, from Mon. de 
 rinst. ix, plates 15 and 4 ; x, plate 53. 
 * Didot's Frag. Hul. Gncc, ii, 65. 
 
476 Tlie Night of the Gods. {Polar 
 
 as recording that beyond the Scythians came the Issedones, beyond 
 those the Arimaspoi, then came the Ripaian mountains of perpetual 
 ice, out of which Boreas blew his blasts. On the far side of these 
 mountains dwelt the Hyperboreans. 
 
 Herodotus e.xplained that in the Scythian tongue ariina meant ' one ' and 
 spoil ' eye." If so, o-ttov must be related to our spy and espy, and the root spak 
 to spy, see, observe, behold. Several other etymologies have suggested them- 
 selves : o-TTfof, o-TTfiof, a-nrjos, a cave or den (PoluPhemos lived in one), and the 
 name Speio of the Nereid, daughter of Nereus and Doi-is ; cnrfiSa, urge-on, root 
 spa (English, speed), which would suit celestial central gods ; o-ttoC, o-Trflo = 
 ea-jrnv, follow (imperative) part of ea-!rop.ai = iirofim, to follow, accompany. There 
 is also (bearing in mind the extensive myth of the prod in the eye of the Cyclops 
 of which 1 give so many instances later, p. 478) the English word spit ("pointed 
 stick, skewer), Danish spyd spear, Swedish spjut spear, Icelandic spjot spear 
 lance, which bring us to the axis-spear in the socket. But " arima = one " 
 (unless as unique, best) is hard to swallow ; apis auger would fit-in with the 
 ' spit' notion. 
 
 But the true mythic clue seems to be given by the name of the 
 river Arimaspa which lay in their region, which region was according 
 to Pliny (iv, I2j between the Palus Maeotis and the Ripaian 
 mountains (see p. 454 supra). This Arimaspa seems therefore to 
 be one of the endless names of the Northern heavens-river ; the 
 Arimaspoi would have taken their name from it ; and I explain 
 the river's name as Ari-m-aspa ; and to strengthen my case, I take 
 the archaic town Aspa (Aspadana) in Ptolemy, the " Scythian " 
 places Aspabota and Aspacara, the Scythian tribe of the Aspasiacae, 
 and the people called both Aspasioi and Hippasioi,- whom Alexander 
 subdued in 327 B.C. This last it is that makes the disclosure as to 
 asp-, which must be the Avestan aspa-, Vedic ashva, Lithuanian 
 aszwa mare, rendered into Greek in Hippasioi as 'iiriro^. These 
 are then (witliout prejudice to the famous filly Aspasia) all horse- 
 names, and the ArimAspa was a clear parallel to the HippoKrene 
 horse-fountain, produced by a stamp of the foot of Pegasos. Arim- 
 presents a close analogy to the name of the divine horse Arion, got 
 by PoseiDon out of DeMcter, p. 78 supra. Aspalis the daughter of 
 Argeios, who killed herself to avoid the violence of Tartaros, and 
 was changed into a statue by the side of Artemis, connects herself 
 with this central region by the sacrifice to her of an annual goat 
 by flinging it off a rock (of ages) — see p. 385 supra. It would not 
 have been impossible, from this point of view, that Aspa may have 
 
 ' Herod, ill. 116; iv, 13,27. The Aristaios of Ileiodotos is obviously mythic. 
 " Strabo, xv. 
 
Mylks.'] The Eye of Heaven. 477 
 
 given the place-name Spa and the English word spa, supposed to 
 have come therefrom. I should even be inclined to add the Asp 
 (or Aspen) tree, and the Ash also, and derive their hitherto un- 
 explained origin from the myths (mentioned on pp. 291 and 308) 
 of the Ashvattha tree of the RigVcda and the Ygg-drasill Ash. 
 (Vedic asJiva. = Avestan aspd^, as above.) We shall have horse-gods 
 to a fatiguing extent when the Centaurs are treated of (see also 
 p. 233 siipni), but for the present it would appear that these one- 
 eyed ArimAspoi must be locussed with the one-eyed Cyclopes, and 
 with the HippoCentaurs, as central celestial gods of a most various 
 and archaic category. 
 
 THE EVIL EYE. And now it is strange how we shall have 
 to connect the one or the third central eye with malevolence and 
 the working of evil. Siva is called the three-eyed Giant, the 
 destroyer of the eyes of Bhaga.^ See also Rama's slaying of 
 Kabandha, p. 464 supra. One head of Brahma's five was burnt off 
 by the fire of Siva's central eye. Siva is commonly represented 
 seated in profound meditation, with a third eye in the middle of 
 his forehead. 
 
 In the curious Egyptian ritual called " The overthrowing of 
 
 Apepi," the maa Heru, Eye of Horus, .<2>- £5:2 jj [/l prevails- 
 over (se^^em), eats-into (am am) Apepi, the chief of the powers of 
 darkness. It destroys (sehctem) and makes an end of (tern) him. 
 It also condemns (sap), which connects it with the Judge of Heaven 
 (see " The Polestar " infra). A flame^ comes forth from it. The 
 
 Eye of Ra, Maa Ra -=2::^ qM does the same, and it hooks 
 
 (sesennu) the enemy, acting in its name of Devourer (Ami), and 
 
 mastering in its name of Sep(;et ® M In fact Ra, Horus and 
 
 p-Aa all three triumph over Apepi in this co'mmination service, 
 
 and p-Aa, ' the Mighty' f^^ ^ J that is Osiris, here means the 
 
 dead man himself, in whose tomb a copy of the ritual is placed, 
 for all the dead became one with Osiris.^ 
 
 In Irish myth, Searbhan the Fomorian giant of Tory (= tower) 
 island, and of Lochlann in the North, who guards the rowan or 
 
 ' Biirnoufs Bhag..par. ii, 22, 32. - Tlie determinative |1 indicites fire, flame. 
 
 ^ Dr. Wallis Budge's Papyrus of Ncsi-Atinu in Archacologia (1S90) lii, 518 to 523, 
 421. 
 
478 The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 quicken-tree, that is tree-of-life, of Dubhros or Blackforest/ had 
 one broad red fiery eye in the middle of his black forehead. Like 
 the jinni Shaibar in the Arabian Nights, whose name his 
 resembles, he is armed, not with an iron rod but with a great 
 club. Balor the Fomorian king had one evil eye, whose glance 
 struck dead or turned into stone what he looked at. He kept it 
 covered except when in use against his enemies. Lugh of the 
 long arms slung a stone at him, which went clean through the eye, 
 and out at the back of Balor's head : so putting an end to him at 
 the second great war-in-heaven battle of Magh-tuireadh (Moytura, 
 plain of towers). A high tower-like rock in Tory island is to this 
 day called Balor's castle.- See pp. 267, 285 supra as to Tory 
 island. 
 
 By another account, Balor had one eye in the middle of his 
 forehead, the other in the back of his head. This back-eye, which 
 he kept covered unless he wished to petrify his foes, was the evil 
 one, for its foul distorted glance and venomous rays would strike 
 one dead. To this day an evil Eye in Ireland is a Bal6r"s eye.' 
 Kynon, a knight of Arthur's court, also finds a big black (unnamed) 
 giant on a mound in a large open field. He has but one foot (see 
 p. 215 supra) and only one eye in the centre of his forehead ; like 
 Shaibar also he is armed with an iron rod, which is a load for four 
 warriors. He is not unkind, though frightsome ; directs Kynon to 
 a " road at the end " which goes up a hill to the top, where is a 
 large Tree greener than the greenest fir. Beneath the tree is a 
 fountain, and near-by a silver tankard fastened by a silver chain. 
 There comes a shower which clears the tree of leaves, a flight of 
 birds that perch on the tree making better music than any music ; 
 and so forth — all the imagery being celestial and cosmic. Fand 
 (tear?) the sister of Aengus is also the daughter of Aed Abrat, 
 that is Eyelid-Fire or eye-pupil* 
 
 The Irish Balor seems to have a doublet in the Welsh giant- 
 headed Yspaddaden, whose eyelids have to be lifted-open and 
 propped-up with forks. Lug kills Balor with a stone from a sling. 
 Yspaddaden uses a stone-javelin (llechwaew) and is himself struck 
 with one,^ which pierces the ball of the eye and goes out at the 
 back of the head. The Spear-god Peredur Az/adyr Hir, of the 
 
 1 Rhys's Hib. Lefts. 356, 463. 
 
 - Dr. Joyce's Celtic /Romances, 315, 405, 407. O'Curry, Manners and Customs, ii, 
 251, 252. ' Rhys's Hib. Lects. 314, 348. ^ Ibid. 356, 463. 
 
 " J. Loth, Les Maliinogion, 1SS9, i, 235, 236, 23S. 
 
MythsP\ The Eye of Heaven. 479 
 
 long Pal (see pp. 217, 303 supra), strikes the Red Knight in the 
 eye with a sharp-pointed javelin which comes out at the back of 
 his head, and kills him on the spot.^ The glance of the Servian 
 Vy, or Aged One, is as deadly as a basilisk's (" which nobody can 
 deny"). He lies on an iron couch and sees nothing, because his 
 thick brows and long lashes completely hide his eyes ; but he gets 
 12 mighty heroes to lift up the hair about his eyes with iron forks.' 
 Note that the number 12 is here zodiacal, the iron is northern, and 
 that we here identify the Evil Eye with the ' Old Un.' To this 
 must be added another Russian myth (see p. 216 supra) of the evil 
 Verlioka, who is of vast stature, and one-eyed.^ 
 
 In a New Guinea legend, the Man fights the mountain giant- 
 devil Tauni-kapi kapi (= Man-eating man) by hurling spears at 
 his eye ; and at length, when the giant has got up to the third 
 platform of the Man's hugest tree of all the forest, the Man drives 
 his very long and heavy spear into his right eye ; he falls to the 
 ground, and bursts into a hundred pieces.' 
 
 When Odusseus and his four companions (see p. 18S supra) turn 
 the burning pole about in the Eye of the Kuklops, the poem* 
 compares it to the turning of an auger when a carpenter bores a 
 hole in a beam, and the Eye of the monster hisses round the hot 
 end. Here I think we have not alone the method of getting fire 
 from a wooden apparatus, but also the central fire of heaven, here 
 treated of under " The Wheel," and we thus reach the Cosmic 
 machinery of the axis turning in its socket. 
 
 Tine Artemis Kondulitis or Koiiduleatis mentioned by Clemens of Alexandria 
 and elsewhere should it is suggested be brought (as well as the town-name 
 Konduleai) from KiicSuXof, a socket (joint) or ring ; kMv was a cup. 
 The Etruscan painting of Corneto has been already mentioned 
 (p. 475) ; it gives an excellent representation of the scene in the 
 Od)Ssey. I have led up to this boring of the eye of PoluPhemos 
 by first citing all the numerous parallels to it which I have been 
 able to discover in other mythologies. Doubtless there are at least 
 as many more which have escaped me ; one more shall be added — 
 Echetos thrusting bronze spikes into the eyeballs of his daughter.'' 
 In Homer he also makes her grind iron barley all her life long. 
 Here we seem clearly to have the Universe Mill also (see " The 
 Wheel ") and Northern iron. 
 
 ^ Loth's Alabinogion, ii, 54. 
 
 ^ Ralston 's j?!Mj. Folk-Tales, 72, 162. ^ H. H. Romilly's Jy5' Verandah. 
 
 ■* Odyss. ix, 384 to 394. ° Ai-gonatitika iv, 1093. 
 
48o The Night of the Gods. {Polar 
 
 Taking up again the theory at p. 465 that the ut'at eyes were 
 cosmic, and of the N and S poles, it may I think be suggested 
 that the Evil (cosmic) Eye was the Southern one, the dead eye, 
 that of the infernal region of the dead. Thus we should have the 
 sphere, as the King says in Hamlet (i, 2, 1 1) " With one auspicious, 
 and one dropping eye." And if we regard the two-eyed sphere as 
 turning, proceeding, from E to W, the left eye would then be the 
 evil eye as asserted (otherwise meaninglessly) by the gobemouche 
 " Desbarolles " (le comte d'Hautencourt), quoting from Hermes 
 Trismegistus in his My s teres de la Afaiti (i860, p. 416); but that 
 supposition will not explain the destructive power of the Eye of 
 Horus or of Ra above, p. 477. 
 
 Eye-biting and over-looking are some of our own terms for the 
 Evil (human) Eye. Cattle suddenly falling sick were certainly 
 eye-bitten.^ Plutarch said that mothers would not expose their 
 children even to the protracted gaze of their fathers" — perhaps 
 because of an instinct inherited from the time when human males 
 destroyed (and eat) their offspring, p. 19 supra. Great part of the 
 rationale of the Evil (human) Eye may I think be traced to the 
 great early difficulties of retaining property ; the steady enquiring 
 gaze of the enemy indicating the close observation, the envy and 
 covetousness, that preceded actual rapt by force. If the cherished 
 object could not be kept secret or concealed (for what the Eye doth 
 not see, the heart doth not grene after), stronger predatory men 
 (homo homini lupus) would see, gloat-over (that is, ' o\'erlook '), 
 devour with the eyes (that is ' eye-bite '), covet, and finally make 
 away with the precious possession : Facit gratum fortuna quern 
 nemo vidit : Cache ta vie. It is impossible to put the idea and the 
 acquisition of property too early or far-back in the past of the 
 human animal ; even a chicken will pick-up, and run away and hide 
 with, the best morsel of food. One fancies this can be detected 
 in children. When Hermann, one of my most intimate friends 
 of the recent past, was a young hero of about two-and-a-half, 
 who plyed a good spoon, if one said to him " Isn't that good ? " 
 he would reply instantly "It is not"; or if the question was 
 " Do you like it ? " he was sure to answer " I do not," and eat 
 it up all the faster. It even seems, if we take up again Plutarch's 
 remark just above, that kidnapping, which must originally have 
 
 ' Reginald Scot, Disi. of Witchcvafl, 15S4, iii, 64. - Sympos. qujest. 7. 
 
Myths?\ The Eye of Heaven. 481 
 
 been practised as an easy way of getting food, would account 
 for the modern dread of the evil eye resting upon children, which 
 is so common in the folklore of so many countries, that no reader 
 will expect me to give instances here. The only thing these 
 suppositions will not account for is the pining-away of children 
 and of adults, the sickness of domestic animals, chiefly co\\-s, and 
 the failure of their milk and butter. But all these la.st arc 
 pathological natural facts, and once the Evil Eye belief is postu- 
 lated, it is quite ea.sy to see that those facts too would 
 have at once been attributed to it. Add on too that these 
 misfortunes are — pace Reginald Scot above — by no means always 
 attributed solely to an evil human eye, but very commonly to 
 spells of various kinds worked by evil-wishers. 
 
 Charms, amulets, talismans and gestures against the Evil 
 (human) Eye are so endless and well-known, that filling pages 
 here with even an endeavour at enumeration would be quite out 
 of the question. A few however must be mentioned, as falling 
 within the framework of this Inquiry, and first among these comes 
 the Eye itself. 
 
 Greeks Etruscans and Romans all made and wore charm- 
 rings, "of which the stone, by its colours and at times by the 
 form of its setting, presented the image of an Eye. It was some- 
 times movable, turning on pivots. This was an amulet against 
 the Evil Eye." ' I think this is (see p. 466 supra) the real 
 explanation of the truly enormous number of Egyptian eye- 
 charms, big little less and least, which swarm in the museums 
 and collections.'' They were also Phoenician.^ It must always 
 be remembered that ut'a, very close to the Egyptian name 
 of the holy eye, also meant health, well-being, luck, fortune. It 
 
 or "il, and in the Decree of Canopus 
 
 was written 
 
 (ii, 20) a'yaOri Tv^rj, good luck, is written 'iJ.'^T^ ' \\ | ut'a ah 
 
 senib, happiness and health. The fact that ' amulet ' was ut'a 
 
 ' See the illustration in Saglio's Did. Antiq. i, 294, which refers to the Bijoux dii 
 miisi-e. Nap. Ill, Nos. 477, 522, 557, 5S8, 592. See also the strange amulet of a cocKs 
 head and wattles found at Kertch' in the Crimea, figured in Saglio i, 257. The whole 
 charm is as like the Egyptian ^S^ as well may be. This surprise is pointed-out 
 especially to Egyptologists. 
 
 " See for example remarkable specimens 15,664, 16,966, 18,067, 18,078, iS,iio, 
 and so on, in the British Museum (iSth December 18S9). 
 
 ^ Perrot and Chipiez L'Art iii, 237. 
 
 2 H 
 
482 • The Night of /he Gods. [Polar 
 
 v\'w\^ or a (ut'aiu, plural), or Q, and also ut'at 
 
 V \ fc\ '^,„ ' (as above) puts the connexion of the eye-charm with 
 the Evil Eye almost beyond doubt. One of the manuscripts catalo- 
 
 gued in the " library " of Denderah' was entitled r. r\ i Jn ^^%* 
 sta (?) ut'at ban, ' to avert the Evil Eye ' ; and as ban = evil, we 
 see that the Evil Eye was the ' bad ut'at.' 
 
 Pi'oclus, in his treatise De Magia says : " the sun-stone by its golden rays 
 imitates those of the sun ; but the stone called the eye of heaven (or of the 
 sun) has a figure similar to the pupil of an eye, and a ray shines from the middle 
 of the pupil." The words in a parenthesis must be an erroneous gloss. The 
 Beli oculus, Eye of Bel, was the nameof a precious stone, perhaps our Cat's-eye." 
 These may also have been amulets. I wholly omit the numerous facts and 
 allusions about the god Fascinus. 
 
 And here may be introduced another curious idea, the divert- 
 ing from one's eye itself of the direct gaze of the dominating 
 evil eye. In the Persian Raiicat-us-Safa (p. 275) Joseph has on 
 his face a mole, " which the sovereign creator had fixed on the 
 page of his beauty for the purpose of averting the evil eye." 
 Here, I think, we have the true origin of patches, and of the 
 luckiness of moles and beauty-spots. Just as potentially hurtful 
 fairies are called ' the good people,' so the evil eye, which can- 
 not only injure but kill, is euphemistically in the Persian dimt- 
 1-kamal, the eye of perfection. It is devil-worship. 
 
 In the large gardens of houses in Cyprus — even of the Turks — 
 may be commonly seen a cow's naked skull, with its horns, raised 
 on the top of a tall pole. They say it is to attract and defeat 
 the evil eye. Palladius, Columella, and Pliny," all mentioned the 
 head of a horse or an ass, stripped of its skin, as put up 
 against hail-storms in gardens. But this is of course connected 
 with the worship of horse-gods, and not of bull-gods. The 
 naked skull of an ox with the horns on is figured in Saglio's 
 Dictioiuiairc'^ from an antique vase, as hung against the side of 
 the altar of Dionusos. On other vases they are seen hung-up, 
 not far from an altar, on a column. In C}-prus also have been 
 found, in archaic rock-tombs, gold earrings formed like the naked 
 skull and horns of a ram. Mr. Hamilton Lang has already sug- 
 
 ' Pienet, Diet. 96, 371, 3S5 ; Vocab. 106, 120, 557. - Pliny, .Nxxvii, lo, 55. 
 
 ' De re rust, i, ch. 35. De cult. hort. x, § 344. Hist. Nat. xxviii, ch. 5 ; xvii, 4". 
 " Vol. i, 349, 350. 
 
Myiks.'] The Eye of Heaven, 483 
 
 gested that these were charms against the Evil Eye,' and of course 
 there need be little doubt that such was their purpose, although 
 they must originally have been devout symbols in Ram-god 
 worship. In Egypt of course the Bull and the Ram were of 
 overwhelming import in the worships of Ptah the axis-god of the 
 Universe, of Amen, and of Ra — all supreme gods long before 
 Sun-worship was connected with the two last. ^num has the 
 
 ram's head and horns 5|' yv :^, and Isis has the cow's head 
 and horns (see Baedeker's Loiver Egypt, p. 134). So has Ashtoreth 
 a bull's (? cow's) head in the Eusebius-Philo-Sanchoniathon frag- 
 ments.^ And we find an Egyptian hieroglyph which gives the cow's 
 
 head on the top of the uas sceptre (see p. 57 supra) Y, hke as in the 
 
 Cyprus gardens, except that the head is fresh, and has not become 
 a skull by exposure. Doubtless the head was so fixed aloft after 
 sacrifice of the animal to the deity. 
 
 It will be shown under " The Wheel," that the transept Wheel or Rose windows 
 of Christian cathedrals are symbols of the rotation of the Universe ; and the 
 round or rather oval ceil-de-Bo;uf roof-window is yet another lucky roof-symbol 
 to add to the suastika and the wheel ; in fact VioUet-le-Duc^ said the ocicliis in 
 the gable over the door of the early Roman Christian basilica (but 1 cannot go 
 with him) was the origin of the Rose. Here may be inserted a curious 
 Japanese fact. At Nikko, one of the wooden pillars of the beautiful gate 
 called the Yomei-mon was purposely carved upside-down, lest perfection should 
 bring misfortune on the great house of Tokugawa. It is called the ' evil 
 averting pillar,' mayoke no hashira.'' This is like the Hindus naming a fair 
 child 'black,' or giving an ugly and inauspicious name to ward off the evil eye.* 
 It was the horns of these lucky skulls that gave us,' I fancy, the 
 little Italian charm, still fully extant, in which the index and little 
 finger are extended from the closed hand to avert the evil eye. 
 The gesture so made with the hand is common, and can even 
 be observed as used by Indian deities in Moor's Hindu Pantheon. 
 
 I find the expression 'il'ceil saillant du jettatore " in the Journal 
 des Goncourt!^ If 'saillant' be here equivalent (as usual) to our 
 'jumping from the sockets,' these able literary brothers had an 
 erratic idea of the evil eye, for Prof Pitre says the Italian jettatore 
 has small and deeply-sunken eyes. At Palermo this year is shown 
 
 ' Cyprus, 1S78, p. 343. - Didot's Frag. Hist. Grac. iii, 569, 24. 
 
 3 Diet, d'arch. viii, 39. ■* Murray's Handbook of Japan (2nd ed.) p. 447. 
 
 '" Sir Monier Williams, Rel. Thought and Life, i, 371. 
 6 Janvier 1853 ; i, 31. 
 
 2 H 2 
 
4^4 
 
 Tlic Niglit of the Gods. 
 
 IPolar 
 
 a most interesting and complete collection of national amulets 
 and talismans against the evil eye, amassed by Signor Pitre, the 
 author of Usi e Costitmi, who seems to be at this hour a fer\-ent 
 believer in the jettatnra as " one of the greatest dangers we can be 
 threatened-with in this life.'' Among these defensive engines are 
 the real oxhorns and the imitation horns of coral mentioned above.^ 
 
 Katiira cd Arte, 15 Ssttembre 1S92. 
 
Myths.'] The Polcstar. 4^5 
 
 6. — The Polestar. 
 
 Is not Eloah in the Height of the Heavens ? 
 
 Doth he not see beneath him the Head of the Stars ? 
 
 (Job xxii, 12.) 
 
 To whom then will ye liken El, 
 
 or what likeness will ye compare unto him ? 
 
 He that sitteth above the Khug' of the Earth, 
 
 and the dwellers therein are as grasshoppers ; 
 
 That stretcheth out the Heavens as a curtain, 
 
 and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. 
 
 Lift up your eyes On High and see who hath created these, 
 
 That bringeth out their host by number ; 
 
 He calleth them all by name, by the greatness of his might ; 
 
 and, for that he is strong in power, 
 
 not one is lacking. {Isaiah xl, i8 ff.) 
 
 Which removeth the Mountains, and they know it not ^^^ 
 
 when he overturaeth them in his anger ; 
 
 Which shaketh the Earth out of her place, 
 
 and the Pillars thereof tremble ; 
 
 Which alone stretcheth out the Heavens, 
 
 and treadeth upon the High Places of the Ocean ; 
 
 Which maketh the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades,' 
 
 and the chambers of the South. {Job ix, 5 ; xxxvii, iS.) 
 
 He is the infinite Ptah and Kabes ■* 
 he createth all works therein ; 
 all writing, all sacred words, 
 all his implements in the North.^ 
 
 ' ' Gyrus ' in St. Jerome's Vulgate. 
 
 - Or 'gauze,' R.V.; ' velut nihilum ' in Vulgate. 
 
 ' 'Ash, Kesil, Kimah. 
 
 ■* Kab TJ_ aa \S n and "^ * ' ' means the vault of heaven. Here 
 
 therefore we seem to have ihe axis and the sphere, the axis-god Ptah and the hollow 
 heavens that revolve on the axis. * Records of the Past, iv, ill. 
 
4S6 The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 THIS subject, towards which we have been working our way 
 throughout this Volume, of which it forms the closing section, 
 will most conveniently be opened by some proofs that the Alost 
 High, the deity symbolically worshipped on High Places, was the 
 God of the Polestar, who was seated at the Highest celestial spot 
 of the Cosmos, the North Pole of the heavens. The foregoing 
 quotations from Hebrew and Egyptian sacred literature form a 
 fitting introduction, and we may now add to them some Greek and 
 other instances. 
 
 THE MOST HIGH. Zeus HypatosC'TTraro?), the Most High, 
 was offered no living victim, but only cakes and wine on his 
 altar on the Athenian acropolis.' He is clearly the same as Zeus 
 Polios who was similarly propitiated until a sacrilegious ox ate-up 
 some of the cakes and wafers, and trampled on others. For which 
 that ox was slain, and many others afterwards on the same spot 
 in expiation of the desecration, at the famous Athenian mid- 
 summer feast of the AuTIoXta or AtiTToXeia (Dii = ' to Zeus ') which 
 fell on the 14th of the month Skirophorion (June-July) and was 
 celebrated in honour of Zeus Polios. Consecrated cakes were 
 placed on a brass table and the oxen for sacrifice were driven 
 round them until one took the cake, and was instantaneously struck 
 down. A triad of priest-families officiated : so Porphyry reported. 
 J. his is a cogent instance in favour of my theory that the Most 
 High and the Polar deity are identical. The title Polias of Athene 
 must be similarly explained, and not, as the pointless custom is, 
 by repeating dully that she was the ' goddess of the city,' of the 
 7roX(9 ; a word indeed which mythically must refer to the heavens- 
 city of the Pole; and the meaning 'grey' of ttoXio? has a double 
 source — from the mythic whilaicss of the heavens and the fact 
 that the Old-Alan god was the Polar deity, as will be shown under 
 the heads of " The White V\'all " and " Kronos and Ptah." 
 
 The Maker in the Highest, vTrare KpeiovTcav (generally ren- 
 dered ' ruler ' or ' crowned ' ; but it belongs to Kpaivw accomplish, 
 creo) is a common form of address to Zeus the son of Kronos in 
 the Odyssey passim. 
 
 The altars on high places to Zeus EpAkrios' were originally on 
 the summit of a mountain, and the title must here be explained 
 
 ' Hariison and ^"erral^s Ancient Athens, pp. 424, 426. - Hesychius, sub. voce. 
 
Myths.'] The Polestar. 487 
 
 from eVt upon (Sanskrit api further) + atcpo'i the ' extreme ' of the 
 heavens-mountain, see pp. 145, 473 supra. EpAkria was founded by 
 KekrOps, see p. 349 supra, the Tail-Eye god, who falls into line 
 here without a word of command. And we doubtless have the 
 same Zeus in the two inscriptions which M. A. Mezieres^ found on 
 the slopes of Mt. Pelion. These proved the supreme deity whose 
 temple was on its summit to have been Zeus Akraios — tov Aio'; 
 Tov 'KKpaiov in both cases — and not Ak^'aios — Ato? 'Aktmov lepov 
 as it theretofore appeared in all the editions of Dicsearchus.'^ This 
 must also be the Zeus of the High-Places mentioned by Livy 
 (xxxviii, 2 ; xxxii, 23), and Here had the same title, naturally. And 
 here we have the true import of the superb ' Gloria in Excclsis 
 Deo '^ of the Mass. I have already (at p. 229, to which the Reader 
 is requested to turn) dwelt upon the Jewish worship of their heavens- 
 gods on High Places, and shown that the Vedic Agni, the central 
 fire-god, also had his abode on high places. A passage that we have 
 twice in the Hebrew theologico-historical Books* puts into the mouth 
 of Solomon this phrase : " The Adonai Elohim said he would dwell 
 in the thick darkness," for which last Dr. E. G. King D.D. sub- 
 stitutes " the High-abyss."^ Both refer to the night-heavens god 
 of the Pole. 
 
 All this makes plain the fine apostrophe to the Day Star in 
 Isaiah (xiv, 12, 15) where that Son of the Morning aspired to 
 ascend above the heights of the clouds into Heaven, above the 
 Stars of El, and to be like the Most High; sitting upon the 
 Mount of congregation'' in the uttermost parts of the North. It 
 is clear that in this myth the Day Star wanted to usurp the place 
 of the Polestar, It was a war-in-heaven : one of the unsuccessful 
 wars (see p. 19 supra). But the usurper is brought down to Sheol, 
 to the utterrnost parts of the Pit. Super astra Dei exaltabo 
 solium meum ; sedebo ... in lateribus Aquilonis^ . . , similis 
 ero Altissimo, says the Vn/gate, It is worth noting that in 
 Piers the Plowman the passage is given as ponam pedem meum in 
 Aquilone ; and Langland's reflections upon it may find place 
 here: 
 
 ' Le Pt-lion el POssa, Paris 1853, pp. 117, 118, 
 
 '^ Descr. Gr<£c. p. 31, Buttm. ^ Luke (only) ii, 14 : eV i-^lsrois Qeoi. 
 
 ■* i J^i/i^s viii, 12 ; ii Chron. vi, i. ^ Akkadian Genesis (18S8) p. 43. 
 
 ' Of course ' congregation ' here means the host of the heavens. 
 
 ^ See p. 451 siipia. 
 
488 The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 Lord 1 why would he then, the wretched Lucifer, 
 
 leapen aloft in the North side [rather] 
 
 than sitten in the Sun side, where the day beams ? 
 
 Ne were it for Northern men, anon I would tell. 
 The \\'estern Mongols call the Polestar by a name equivalent 
 to the cardo, the ' apex of the golden mountain, ' that is, of course, 
 the heavens-vault : apex mentis aurei, nomine cardo caeli, Stella 
 Polaris faltan kadasu niken nara tagri-dschin urkilka).^ 
 
 The Satapatha-brdJuiiaiid- directs that in marking out the 
 temple (to use the Roman augur's word) for sacrifice, the place 
 " which lies highest, and above which rises no other part of the 
 ground " must be chosen. The Uttara-\'edi, higher or high-altar, 
 of the Satapatlia-brdhiiiana still continues to be the common 
 Christian term. All this placing of the altar of the highest god on 
 a summit must be considered and dwelt-on very carefully in con- 
 nexion with the fact that the Vedic altar was symbolically the 
 extreme point of the Earth, as paralleled to the Navel of the 
 Universe, see p. 361 supra. And as to what is said about the End 
 of the world on that page, it may be here added from Grimm's 
 Tales'' that the end is reached, in those mj'th-scraps that sun.-ive in 
 Folklore, after adventures with grv-phons and fierce mountain- 
 piling giants (see p. 475). There the blue vault of heaven is found 
 sinking down on the earth like a dome ; and whoever bends down 
 deep enough at that spot finds that, without turning round, he 
 points his finger to the Antarctic (pole)."* Is it possible to get 
 anything more direct, more unpremeditated, more uncollusive than 
 this, in support of the theory that it is the X pole we have to deal 
 with in the expression ' the end of the world.' 
 
 Attis, who was assimilated to Adamas in the mysteries of 
 Samothrace, and also to Sabazios, and to Pappas the Phr\-gian Zeus, 
 was furthermore {Ji/rtcrTo?, the Highest, who embraced all things/ 
 His head-covering was a starr>' cap, aaTepoiro^ 771X09, and he was 
 the shepherd who led the troop of twinkling stars.'' Attis must 
 thus be viewed as = ciTTa = TraTTTra? = papa, pope, father ; and 
 the identifications with Adamas (p. 142) with the Highest, and with 
 the guider of the stars, are unmistakeably Polar. 
 
 ' Urmwgraphia Moir^olica [Fund^rubm des Orients iii, iSi), in Paradise Fotind, 
 p. 216. - Dr. Eggling's, ii, I. ^ Mrs. Marg. Hunt's ed. i, 374. 
 
 ^ ' region ' is the word here in Grimm. 
 = P. Decharme, in Saglio's Diet. {Cybeli) i, J6S6. 
 ^ Julian. Orat. v ; Hymn to Attis in Hippul. Refut. v. 9. 
 
Myths?\ The Polestar. 4S9 
 
 The Tartars (the Tungus, Turk, and Mongol Tatars) have a 
 Heavens-spirit called Khaira-khan who dwells in the highest 
 heavens, and governs the universe sovereignly if not directly.' 
 The sacred Tunisian city of Khairwan must thus have got its 
 name. I suppose we must perceive in Cicero's " orbis celestis . . . 
 summus ipse Deus, arcens et continens ceteros, the very summit- 
 god of that celestial sphere which clasps and contains all the 
 others,"^ a reference to the central supernal polar deity. 
 
 Though generally quoted from St. Augustine,'' Festus^ said 
 earlier that day-thunder came of Jove and night-thunder from 
 Summanus : diurna Jovis, nocturna Summani fulgura habentur ; it 
 was he also said the suiiiiiiamilia were flour-cakes made in manner 
 of a Wheel : liba farinacea in modum rotae ficta. M. Henri 
 Gaidoz^ rightly concludes from this that the Wheel was a symbol 
 of Summanus, which enables me to claim him for a Highest god of 
 the Universe wheel, seated at its nave, the celestial Navel ; an 
 imagery which cannot be followed up here, but is fully developed 
 in Vol. n. The fact of giving him the night-thunder makes him 
 a god of the Night-sky, a star-god, a Polestar god, of course ; and 
 Varro said he was a Sabine, that is a Sabsan god. St. Augustine 
 made an important addition to Festus in saying that the old 
 Romans honoured him more than Jove ; coluerunt magis quam 
 Jovem ; which is a very valuable statement indeed for me, and at 
 once explains Cicero's record of the clay statue of Summanus which 
 was on the summit of the temple of Jove the best and greatest, and 
 was (either actually or in legend) beheaded by lightning : cum 
 Summanus in fastigio Jovis optimi maximi, qui tum erat fictilis, 
 etc." The calling of Jove best and greatest here is rather out of 
 place, considering that his very temple was dominated by some 
 most archaic image of Summanus. That Summanus came to be 
 confused with the supreme infernal Pluto," is, viewing him as one 
 of the endless instances of a fallen god (p. 19 supra), only one 
 more proof of his pristine high estate. That Ovid'' was ignorant 
 of the god's true nature shows how 'unknown' a god (see p. 18 
 supra') he had become. The Monte Sumano at Rome doubtless 
 also commemorates the same deity. 
 
 1 W. Radloff. Das Schaniaiieiit/iiim (1SS5). ° De tiat. Dear, ii, 54. 
 
 ^ Civ. Dei'w, 23. ^ In voce Provoisitm fulgor. 
 
 * SymboHsme de la Roue, 18S6, p. 92. ^ De Div. i, lo. 
 
 ' Martins Capella ii, 40. ' Fasti Vi, 731. 
 
49° The Night of the Gods. {Polar 
 
 The word summanus, as belonging to summus highest, must of course be 
 compared with superbus from super over ; and Superbus Tarquinius (or Tar- 
 quinius Superbus) has thus nothing to do with the secondary sense of ' proud,' 
 but is, as I here so constantly find occasion to say, "the Superb, the highest, 
 Turner" (of the heavens). 
 
 Securus judical orbis terrarum. 
 
 THE JUDGE OF HE A VEN. The theory that places the 
 supreme, the upright, the unbiassed, the unwavering, divine Judge 
 at the only spot of the Cosmos that seemed irremoveable, un- 
 shakeable — that is the Pole of the heavens — will be found to 
 accord with and support in a remarkable degree the theory above 
 broached as to " The Eye of Heaven." It is impossible that 
 this Judge so seated should have been one-sided or partial. 
 The balance in which he weighed was as truly poised as the 
 accurate pivot of the Universe. The sureness, the certainty, of 
 his judgements was as exact, as indubitable as the security, the 
 identity, of his eternal cosmic position. There proclivities or 
 inclinations were impossible, fixed as the keystone of the celestial 
 vault, the Justice there dispensed was true and right (in the 
 mechanical senses), and therefore also merciless. There could be 
 no prevailing upon, no gaining over, no tampering with, no forcing. 
 And it is not too much to say that all our endless metaphors and 
 idioms that turn upon the equation just = right = true, may owe 
 their origin to this great cosmic pious faith. " Constant as the 
 Northern star " was no mere happy thought, it was the religion of 
 a whole world. 
 
 The Subbas of Alesopotamia (see p. iS supra), whose tenets 
 have frequently to be cited in the course of this Inquiry, now still 
 hold that Avather, their Judge of the souls of the dead, has his 
 throne placed under the Polestar.' There was an Assyrian Dayan 
 Same = Judge of Heaven- ; and the great god Ea was " king of 
 destinies, stability and justice."^ In Norse mythology, the third 
 root (?) of the YggDrasill Ash is in heaven where is the very holy 
 
 ' Siouffi, Relig. des Sonbbas (iSSo), p. 7. 
 
 - Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch, iii, 206. Dayan judge, sami heaven ; din, to judge. Raw- 
 linson's Five iilonaTC hics i, 342, 344. The name of the great goddess Dingiri ( = Nana 
 or Anat) seems to contain this vocable. 
 
 ' Dr. ^Vallis Budge, Babylonian I ife and History. 
 
Myths?^ The Polestar. 491 
 
 fountain of Urdur. There, at the stem of the Universe tree, is 
 the seat of Judgement of the 12 gods. Each day they, the Ases 
 or Godes, repair thither on horseback by their bridge Bifrost or 
 AsBru,^ which is the Axis. It has been already shown, p. 291, 
 that the YggDrasill Ash is the Universe-tree. The Sinico- 
 Japanese god DaiKoku Ten ;/c M ?C (^ai = great, ten = heaven) 
 is ahvays painted blue, the heavens-colour ; and koku, black, is the 
 colour of the North, for which reason DaiKoku wears a black 
 cap ;- which is not wholly unknown to our own judges. Did a 
 judge, who took the place of the supreme judge, also wear his cap ; 
 and did he wear it because he was ordering a supreme human 
 sacrifice } The Japanese purely Buddhist Yemma, or Yemma or 
 Yemma Dai 0,^ presents a doublet of DaiKoku. Yemma wears 
 " a cap like a judge's beret " and is the Indian Vedic Yama, the 
 first man (see p. 393 supra and Kadmos infra p. 497) and therefore 
 the first and king and judge and god of the dead. Yama is 
 " regent of the South quarter, in which direction, in some region of 
 the lower world, is his abode YamaPura," and he is king of the 
 Law, Dharma-raja.'' 
 
 But while some nations and races continued, and indeed 
 continue, thus to put their Divine Judge in heaven, that is at the 
 Upper Pole of the axis, others transferred their Judges to the 
 lower, to the underworld, In fact the great assize followed the 
 criminals to their place of detention. Take the Greek Minos, who 
 in the Odyssey (xi, 568) is in Ais, Aides or Haides (= Hades), and 
 in Plato* forms one of a triad of Judges^ with AiAkos (= bottom 
 of Ais ?) and RhadaManthus ; or a quartette is made up with 
 TriPtolemos. In another place'' Plato put the Judge at the foot 
 of the Column. But the Draconian laws" directed the Greek 
 judges of the Heliaia, the roofless court of justice at Athens, to 
 take their oaths of office by Zeus Boulaios, Athene Polias and 
 DeMeter. Here we clearly have the Pole goddess joined to the 
 
 ' Bergrnann's Gylfa Ginning, 91, 224. I have often to depart from his interpreta- 
 tions. 
 
 " Anderson's Cat. of Jap. paintings in Brit. Miis. 35. We shall have DaiKoku 
 again lower down. 
 
 ' Satow and Hawes, Handbook of Japan, 23, 37, 172. Dai = great, o = ruler, T. 
 
 ■* Williams, Sa}iskrit Diet. Dowson's Diet. Darmesteter's ZendAvesta, i, Lxxv 10. 
 
 ' Apol. 41a; Gorg. 523c. * Also Apoll. Bihl. iii, i, 2 ("fV'ASou"). 
 
 '' Repub. i,\\sqq. Dr. Warren's Paradise Found, p. 158. 
 
 * Scholiast on Iliad, O, 36. 
 
492 The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 Law goddess and the god of Counsel or of Decrees ; and also 
 evidence that the Judge of heaven, when this ritual was instituted, 
 was considered to be an upper heavens-god ; for the roofless 
 temples were always to such a supreme deity. The temple of 
 Juppiter or Jq\'c was so perforated' and we have seen the same 
 pregnant fact as to the god Terminus at p. 38S. Nonius- recorded 
 that in swearing by the Dius Fidius whom we shall shortly con- 
 sider more fully, it was essential to go forth into the open air, 
 to go out of doors into the courtyard. Plutarch' said the same 
 about Hercules. The temple of DeAIeter iMusia near Mjxenae 
 (Mukenai) was roofless.* 
 
 An idiomatic phrase used by Clement of Alexandria preserves for us the same 
 cosmic imagery when he prays' that Truth may deliver men from delusion, 
 stretching forth her highest (y-n^pTarTjv) right hand, which is wisdom, for their 
 salvation. Potter wanted to render the Greek as " verj' strong," and the 
 scholiast in Klotz said it meant that the hand is held over them ; which it is, but 
 they both ignored the cosmic point. 
 
 The Egyptian Judges of the underworld were (as we shall see 
 presently) in the same position as those of the Greek Hades, but 
 it seems clear that great numbers of the gods of that region have 
 in all mythologies fallen there. M. Grebaut, in treating of the 
 H\-mn to Amen-Ra,'^ says that in the Egj-ptian system Truth, or 
 Wat conveys the idea of the harmony of the universe, maintained 
 from day to day in equilibrium. " Truth is double," he adds, " there 
 is a Alat of the North and a ?vlat of the South ; and this double 
 Truth is sometimes identified with the Two Eyes. . . The 
 Unique Being is the principle and source of the true v, y ^^, he is 
 
 the ' true in word ' (vrai dc parole) 1)1 " mat ;^;eru or ma' ;^;eru. A 
 
 ceremony practised on the mummy on the day of burial, the 
 opening of the mouth and eyes, was to enable the dead to ' speak 
 Truth ' mat ;Yeru, as above' — to its judges, it is to be presumed, 
 for the dead one was introduced to the underworld judgement hall 
 
 ' Varro L.L. v, 66. 
 
 "^ viii, 95 (citing "Varro, Cato vel de liberis educandis") Itaque domi rituis 
 nostri, qui per Dium Fidium jurare volt prodire solet in compluvium. 
 
 3 Quest, rom. 2S. ^ Paus. ii, iS, 3 : 35, 3. 
 
 '" Exhort, to Hellenes, ch. i. 
 
 « Melanges d Archeol. jtgypt. i, 249. I omit his references to the Sun as forced and 
 unnatural. 
 
 ■ //'/,/. i. 2 (Th. Deveria) ; i, IlS (P. Pierret) ; Bull, de T Acad, des inscrip. (Chabas) 
 1874. Pierret, I'ocab. lS5. 
 
Myths.'] The Polestar. 493 
 
 of Osiris by Mat the goddess of Truth/ and there his heart was 
 weighed against a statue of the same goddess y). This ceremony 
 
 must be referred to by Plutarch in ch. 3 of his his and Osiris 
 where he said the knowledge of Truth was the only thing the 
 
 dead took with them into the other world. %eru, ^^er, 
 
 ® TT 
 
 ____ 1 meant to speak loud, to declare.^ Th. Deveria^ rendered 
 
 ma' %eru as ' truthful ' (veridique). In one funereal papyrus he 
 detected " The soul enters into the heart of truth " (that is, receives 
 back its weighed heart ?) ; " it receives the glorification of ma' ;;^eru, 
 its heart rejoices in the heart of the Truth ; " "his soul is truthful." 
 In another, the dead " lives anew in the vesture of Truth." In 
 another, in which the dead are often called "veridique" ^^_ 
 Hathor is prayed to " give him the double Truth." In yet another 
 
 the dead is "truthful in the bosom of truth" ^^^ ^^^ '^^ T\\e. 
 
 t^ea (DK^- (==&>• 
 
 full-length statues or portraits of Mat the Truth-goddess jra show 
 
 her naked, as may be seen from the illustration of her given by 
 the late Prof Ebers in Baedeker's Lower Egypt (p. 127) ; but there 
 
 she holds the sceptre | instead of the ]• Here is our persistent 
 
 imagery of ' the naked truth ' ; and the Mat of the South pole, of the 
 underworld of the dead, is of course our Truth at the bottom of 
 the Well, " au fond du puits inespuisable onquel disoit Heraclite — 
 now some 2400 years ago — estre la Veritc cachee." * 
 
 For the purpose of keeping the theory here urged fully present 
 to the Reader, I must continue to emphasize the fact that Truth 
 here must also be understood as Trueness, Justness, in the 
 mechanical sense : as we say a weight is just and true, a number 
 
 or count is true, a line or a plumb is true. The glyph / 1 used in 
 
 writing the name of Mat was the standard cubit of Egypt, 
 the legal true measure ;^ and works of precision were Ma(t)iu 
 
 ^^ P }., , . The word mat S^ , '9' , 'truth, the true,' meant 
 
 also ' the good ' and ' universal harmony,' a signification which will 
 be sufficiently illustrated from other mythologies a little lower 
 
 Picture in ch. 125 of the Peremhrii. - Pierret, Vocab. 440. 
 
 Cat. des IMSS. (Louvre) 1881, 141, 134, 130, 71, 43. * Raliekis, Pant, i, ch. i5 
 
 Pierret, Diet. 162, 310; Vocah. 186; Pantheon, pp. xi, xii. 
 
494 The Night of the Gods. {Polar 
 
 down. The name of the goddess Mat was written ^^Ci%?) or 
 
 c^ 
 
 ^ ; and I) stood cither for the Truth or for Shu, the name of the 
 
 Egyptian AtLas. This must contain a mj-thic relation to the two 
 Truths, one at each end of the Axis, of which ever}' AtLas and Shu 
 is a god. Forty-two divine personages called Masters of Truth 
 figure in the scene of the underworld judgement of the soul, and 
 
 each one of them bears this same feather 1) in his cap.^ And 
 here must the connexion (p. 467) be once more made between the 
 two Truths and the two Eyes, by means of the words ut'at ' eye,' and 
 ut'u ' to dispense justice.' I have already mentioned (p. 464) the 
 Avestan Mithra, the yazata of light, the infallible, the undeceived, 
 who has 10,000 eyes, takes no rest and no sleep, and sees all. He 
 is besides the guardian of Truth, oaths and promises." The Eye 
 of heaven, a constellation in the Chinese Sphere, is also the Judge 
 of the wicked' (but this does not now seem to be polar). 
 
 We have an archaic Italian parallel to Mat in the (Sabine ?) 
 goddess Fides, to whom, and to the god Terminus, and to them 
 only, Numa Pompilius (by Euhemeristic corruption) was said to 
 have erected temples. It will be demonstrated in Vol. II that 
 Numa is here a supremer god than either Fides or Terminus, and 
 that the myth refers to his having created and pitched the 
 templum of the heavens, at the pole of which Terminus (as above 
 shown, p. 3S8) and Fides had their Cosmic locus. Fides held a 
 Key, which I take to be that of the Arcana (see that heading 
 supra), and was accompanied by a heavens-dog, which gives us a 
 doublet of the Egyptian jackal of the N. 
 
 Fido is still a name for a little dog, and " Old dog Trey is ever faithful 1 " 
 Trey, see the etymologies at p. 354, is clearly ^ true, for which word Prof. 
 Skeat gives us the etymological senses of ' firm, established, certain, honest, 
 faithful.' 
 
 Virgil calls Fides cana, ' white, brilliant,' just as he does Vesta,'' 
 and Cicero calls her alma^ (= ? alba). The Roman archaic god 
 Fidius must be a duality of this conception. His general popular 
 title was Medius Fidius, which — so completely was he a lost, an 
 unknown, god — came to be written medius fidius'' and even in one 
 
 ' Pierret, Diet. 443. See "Divine Birds" and " P^eathers " in Vol. II of this 
 Inquiry. 
 
 " W. Geiger, Iranian Cii'. i, Iv to Iviii, 133. ' Prof. G. Schlegel Urancg. Chi. 436. 
 ^ .-En. i, 292 : \, 744. ^ Off. iii, 29, 104. ' Cicero Fam. v, 21, i. 
 
Myt/ts?\ The Polcstar. 495 
 
 word mediusfidius as a term of affirmation^ This Medius is 
 generally explained as me Dius (that is me Deus) Fidius (adjuvet) ; 
 but the explanation is an excrescence, once the central supernal 
 position of Fidius is grasped. It seems also more than probable 
 (see p. 144 supra) that this god MeDius Fidius is identical with 
 the other central god MeDus (= MeDeus ?). 
 
 In fact all such words contain the title deus or dius, and the meaning may 
 be ' the Me Dius who is the Fi Dius,' the central god who is the Faith or Truth 
 god. We absolutely have this Fi in the old French fei ^ modern foi ; for al- 
 though both these are generally (as fei/ and foi/') brought from Latin fides, the 
 descent is not necessarily by that particular narrow channel, but by some 
 parallel one ; and if the root be bhtdh (Curtius i, 235), it is quite possible to see 
 that the original name of the god could have been Fid Dius, or even that Fidius 
 is an adjectival form from bhidh. Fid, for it is not necessary to insist on a second 
 dius ( =: deus) in MeDius Fidius. 
 
 This god was said to be Jupiter, who was certainly called Fidius, 
 which is a straight parallel to Zeus IIi'o-Tio?, used for Fidius by 
 Dionysius of Halicarnassus in his Roman Antiquities circa 8 B.C. 
 Fidius was also called Dios filius, and of course it is mythologi- 
 cally absurd to take Dios here as the genitive of JuPiter, we must 
 refer it to Dies(piter). Varro- connected Jove (Juppiter), Diovis, 
 DiesPiter, Dius, and Dius Fidius, and he quoted his master ^lius 
 (b. circa 150 B.C.) as authority for the statement that Dius Fidius 
 was called Diovis filius. (But I think there is just room for some 
 scribe's confusion between fi/ius and fii/ius.) He has also been 
 bracketed with Janus and with Sylvanus (or say rather with Pan, 
 the All-god ?). All this shows what a truly great god the title 
 Fidius indicates. His confusion with Sancus ( = sanctus = holy) 
 would here interrupt the connexion and will be dealt with in 
 Vol. II. 
 
 Let us now pick up again the statement (p. 492) that "the 
 Egyptian Mat conveys the idea of the harmony of the Universe, 
 maintained from day to day in Equilibrium," and we shall see that 
 it at once leads us here to some most weighty points in the Cosmic 
 myths we are now considering in their indubitable connexion 
 with the supernal sanctions for the Law and Justice of mankind. 
 The Canaanite goddess Huscharth ( = Harmony) presided over 
 the Law of the order of the Universe, and even personified it in so 
 
 ' Sallust Catil. xxxv. Made " me Dius Fidius " in some modern editions. Pliny 
 -£/• i\'. 3i S ; Quintilian Inst, v, 12, 17. ' L.L. v, 66. 
 
496 The Kight of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 far that she was called Thorah, ' the Law.' Eusebius preserved the 
 Greek names given b\" Philo from Sanchoniathon) as Thuro and 
 Chousarthis/ This Huscharth presents a wonderful likeness to 
 DelMeter Thesmia in the character of the goddess of the Law, that 
 is of Order, Truth, Rectitude, Justness and so on, as was deduced 
 by F. Lenormant, citing the fragments of Sanchoniathon and 
 Damascius as to the Eight Kabirim (who must be the eight great 
 half-cardinal powers dealt-with above at p. i66) ; and he said that 
 their father was Siidduq ' the Just, the Right,'- a god who personified 
 the invariable Law presiding over the Universe and its movements. 
 But Lenormant also makes Siiddiaq's brother Misor the Law per- 
 sonified, so that the brothers must have been a dual pair, like Minos 
 and Rada^Ianthus, see pp. 1 39 and 491 supra. And ]\Iisor's son was 
 Taaut, a curiously similar word to the Chinese Tao and to the 
 Egyptian Tahuti (Thoth), whom in fact, as (dcocad and Qav6, San- 
 choniathon or Philo said (per Eusebius) that he was. (Tahuti was 
 the lord and the prophet of Truth, and e\-en the consort, ka, of the 
 
 Truth-goddess y Ij.'') Anyhow, here is the Just made the central 
 
 deity of the heavens. And it \\-as for a similar reason, of course, 
 that the central goddess DeMetcr was the Lawbearer or bringer 
 (ThesmoPhoros, Legifera) and was called Thesmia, ThesmoThetis or 
 ThesmoDoteira.^ And deafio^ the Law, a divine decree, a rite, quite 
 naturally = deo^' + /xo?, that is the Latin i/ios, and its true et}-mo- 
 logical sense therefore is ' the custom of the gods,' which is as like the 
 Sinico-Japanese 'Way of the gods ' Shin To ^l| ^ 'Japanese literal 
 translation : kami no michi) as human terms are made. I just stick 
 a pin in this, and note that this To J^ is the famous Chinese Tao. 
 It is impossible here to anticipate all the proofs (under "The 
 Number Seven" in \'ol. 11^ that the Thebes of Kadmos and 
 Harmonia, that is the; QT]/3ai (plural of Qi^jSr]'^), were the Seven 
 
 > Didot's Frag-. Hist. GriTc. iii, 570, 5. Saglio's Diet, i, 1045 (F. Lenormant). 
 
 - Didot iii, 569, 27, 567, 11. Saglio i, 772, 773. 
 
 ' Peremh?-u ch. xciv. Pierrei, Diet. 546. ■* Saglio's Diet, i, 1042 (F. Lenormant). 
 
 ^ As in OicTKeXos mighty, 6e(r7rdo-ios BitTTTLS divine, 6iiT(Ta(T6ai pray-for, deai^aros 
 god-ordained (WTiarton's Etyma Craea). Surely this is better than the hare-brained 
 Clement's (of Ale.vandria) " for God is called 6ec'r from f'ecrif (placing) and order and 
 arrangement " (Stromata i, ch. 9). He laid hold of the stick by the wrong end whenever 
 he got a chance. 
 
 ^ I should like very- much to make this S/j-B;;, and put 3i) to ^aiva, go, walk, move, 
 proceed (/3^ = he went ; Irish beim step), connecting Btj with Beos. Thus these heavens 
 
Myths.'] The Poles tar. 497 
 
 heavens, of the seven gates. The temple of DeMeter Thesmo- 
 Phoros, in which Kadmos dwelt, is of course but another metaphor 
 for the heavens. This was also the Kadmeia, the stronghold and 
 citadel of Thebes. Thomas Taylor, who translated Pausanias (1794 
 and 1824) said that " as Cadmus is the deity of the sublunary region, 
 the city Thebes must be an image of the body of the sublunary 
 world ;" but we must go to Adam Oadmon for Kadmos — Pausanias 
 said he was a Phoenician — and see in him a first-man-god like the 
 Chinese similar entity at p. 391. Preller^ and F. Lenormant" made 
 Kadmos = the Order-er. The Kadmeia was in the agora (see 
 p. 1 5 5 supra) of the Tower of Thebes ; and the Theban Tower of the 
 stars-god Teiresias (reipea, stars, portents) was manifestly a dupli- 
 cate symbol. Here we have at once the heavens-palace with the 
 Tower-axis (see p. 286 supra) ; and in this palace (said Pausanias, 
 naturally) " they show the ruins of the bed-chambers of Harmonia 
 and Semele "( = @6/i6\?; = ©fail'?; =BonaDea)'', the wife and daughter 
 of Kadmos, the latter the mother of Dionusos. " Here too is a 
 statue of ProNomos the piper, who first invented pipes adapted to 
 every kind of Harmony, and was the first that played all the dif- 
 ferent measures at once on one sole pipe.* 
 
 " Order is heaven's first law, and this confest," it follows as the 
 day the night, that First-Law is the proper rendering of ProNomos 
 the Harmoniser ; while the sole pipe of universal harmony is, in 
 another view, the axis on which that Universe was held peacefully 
 to revolve in unison. AmphiOn playing the stones into their 
 position in the walls of Thebes by the mere chords of his lyre' is 
 clearly but one more variation upon the mythical theme that the 
 Universe was definitively organized by Zeus with the aid of 
 Harmonia. Nonnos of Panopolis in the Dionusiaka, which he 
 wrote in our 5th century while he was still a pagan — to use the 
 
 would be the Way, the Paths, of the 6(o\, of the star-gods. Plato {Crat. 397^) connected 
 the ^eoi, the potent starry hosts worshipped from all time by the Pelasgoi, with ^e'co 
 (run, race, send along) and the movements of the heavenly bodies ; Herodotus (ii, 52) 
 with the ordinance and government of the Universe. They were the fieyaXoi, xp^^™, 
 SvvaToi, the mighty or lofty, the pure, the oracular, the beneficent, the powerful. But 
 this and the large number of supremely sacred allied words must be dealt with under the 
 "Heavens Myths." 
 
 ' Demeter uitd Perseph. 359. " Saglio's Diet, i, 1044, 762. 
 
 ' ApoUodorus in Lydus De Mensibus, iv, 38. Apoll. B^bl iii, 5. 1. Macrobius 
 Saturn, i, 12. 
 
 ■* Paus. ix, 16, 12, ° Paus. ix, 5, 8 ; x, 174. Apoll. khod. i, 741. 
 
 2 I 
 
498 The Ni;rJit of llic Gods. [Polar 
 
 later Christian term of contempt — gives Harmonia as TrafiixriTr^p 
 mother of all things, the weaving of the Cosmic peplos or garment, 
 an idea he may have taken from Pherecydes of Syros who took 
 from Phoenician books the cosmic veil which Zeus (see p. 308 
 supra) flung over the winged-oak that is the Universe-tree. 
 Pausanias said (ii, I, 7) that at the Syrian Gabala — clearly a holy- 
 mountain name — there was preserved in the temple of Doto a 
 sacred peplos, symbolical image of the cosmic veil. This Doto, 
 said ¥. Lenormant' is an Aramcan synonym (dotho, the Law) of the 
 Plioenician goddess Thouro (thuro = Hebrew thorah, the Law) who 
 was also called Shusarthis ('husarth, harmony) and is also of course 
 the Canaanite goddess we have had just above, p. 495. We have 
 also seen the vedic judge Yama as king of the Law, Dharma-raja 
 (p. 491). 
 
 In the heavens (in caelo) therefore, wrote Cicero", there is 
 nothing fortuitous, unadvised, inconstant, or variable ; on the 
 contraiy all is Order, Truth, reason, and constancy.^ Here is the 
 genuine origin of " Constancy dwells in realms above." " What is 
 Truth? said jesting Pilate," very much in earnest. It is this, and 
 nothing more. 
 
 Lower down, under the head of the Polestar (p. 516) will be 
 found a Chinese Lord of the heavens prescribing " the execution of 
 the laws of the silent Wheels of the Hea\'ens-palace, promulgated 
 by the divine prince of the great Northern equilibrium." I must 
 not here encroach on the heading in Vol. II which deals with "The 
 Wheel of the Law " further than to accentuate each piece of 
 evidence on which the ideas of Judge, Law, and North distinctly 
 hang together ; and the reader must therefore be requested to note 
 that the mass of proofs is by no means exhausted in the present 
 section. Nor can I towards the end of a volume open a long disqui- 
 sition upon the Tao of the Chinese ; but here may be inserted a 
 description, which likes me well, of what Tao is, as expounded by 
 Mr. de Groot from the TaoTeh king: '' There was a time when the 
 heavens and the Earth did not as )-ct e.vist. Then there was but 
 limitless Space alone, in which absolute immobility reigned. All 
 things visible and all that has existence were born in this space, 
 and of a potent Principle which exists of Itself which has 
 developed itself, and which /nnts the heavens, and maintains the 
 
 ' Ong. de riiist. i, 569, 551. - Dc nat. Deer, ii, 21. 
 
 ^ Sec .iI;o the Truth-god Tenes on p. 411 supra. 
 
Myths^^ The Polestar. 499 
 
 life of the Universe. The name of this principle' is unknown, and 
 it is therefore merely designated by the word Tao j^." Mr. de 
 Groot expounds this term by " the universal soul or force of 
 Nature," or by the word "Nature" alone. But there is no doubt 
 that the Chinese character and word mean a Way," and that is what 
 — directly, and also by every analogy — I call it : the Way of the 
 gods, or the Law of God, the Order of the universe, or Schopen- 
 hauer's Wille, our own ' the Will of God.' " I am the Way, the 
 Truth, and the Life " contains as pure Taoism as ever was put into 
 words. And as Mr. de Groot says,'' the French sinalogue Pauthier 
 did not exaggerate when he declared that " human wisdom has 
 perhaps never spoken holier nor deeper words " than the moral 
 maxims of Taoism contain. On these I refer my readers to Prof 
 R. K. Douglas's Confucianism and Taouisni^ (of which I believe a 
 new edition is in preparation) and to Stanislas Julien's Livre de la 
 Voie et de la Vertu ; but a little lower down we must return to 
 Tao and Taoism (p. 527). 
 
 Tao shows itself in heavens and Earth, with which it is, so to 
 say, one. If then a man attains to purity and repose [which sounds 
 very like Nirvana, see p. 6 supra'] he will be not only one with 
 heavens and Earth, but his entire being will even be absorbed in 
 the great principle Tao. This glosses Lao-tsze's mystic phrase 
 "obtaining Unity."" I cannot see so very much difference between 
 this and the Christian mystic's " entire conformity to the Will of 
 God " and his " becoming one with, lost in, the divine essence." 
 Holiness, wrote Chang-tsze, is complete Truth and Rectitude.'' 
 And the following passage from Hermes Trismegistus (iv, 9) is here 
 very much in point. " Regard as true only the Eternal and the 
 Just. Man is not for always, therefore he is not true. What is the 
 primal Truth? He who is One and Only." 
 
 ' The mere title of Montesquieu's famous treatise, V Esprit des Lois sounds well 
 here. 
 
 ^ It is odd thai the Arabic semt, whence comes our word 'zenith,' means way, road. 
 Zenith = semt er-ras, way of the head ; nadir = semt er-ridjl, way of the foot (Devic). 
 See p. 520 infra. 
 
 ' Fetei dEmoui, ii, 693, 695. * S.P.C.K. 1S79. 
 
 " Julien, Voie el Vertu, pp. 14410 149. Chamberlain's Kojiki, 10. 
 
 ^ Harlez, SingLi, 44. 
 
500 
 
 The Night of the Gods. 
 
 [Po/ar 
 
 V Ht/tcuh^ 
 
 i-'ife- 
 
 ^'''^^^•Hit. 
 
 PoJtj S^ ifU ^^^ - 
 
 The Northern Star, 
 of whose true-fixed and resting quahty 
 there is no fellow in the firmament. 
 The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks ; 
 they arc all fire, and every one doth shine ; 
 but there's but One in all doth hold His place. 
 
 {Jidiiis Cdsar iii, i, 60.) 
 
 POLE STAR WORSHIP. Were I called upon to indicate 
 a probable period lor the culmination of Polcstar worship, I should 
 be inclined to point to the time when the pole was last in the 
 neighbourhood of the beauteous Vega, that is from 13,000 to 16,000 
 years ago. It strikes one that the clear witchery of the steely blue 
 
Myths P^ The Poles tar. 5°i 
 
 light of that splendid point de mire may then have helped the 
 worship of the Polar deity into its highest position. 
 
 The latest intelligence from Vega was communicated to the Royal Astro- 
 nomical Society on 14th Nov. 1890 by Mr. Fowler. He says it is spectro- 
 scopically a double-star, and that the pair revolve round one another once in 
 about every 24 hours. The distance between them is for all that "rather more" 
 than five millions of miles, and their combined mass is about 22i times that of 
 the sun.' This news seems to the ine.xpert to lack confirmation. (We shall 
 meet with Vega again under the head of " The Veil " in Vol. II.) 
 
 The main traditions on the subject of Polestar worship may 
 have come down all that way, which is but as yesterday when com- 
 pared with all mythological time ; and it is manifest to anyone 
 taking up the medley called the Blidgavata-piirdna, for example, 
 that the worship had at that book's date (whenever it was) slowly 
 sunk down to mere lives-of-the-Saints sort of matter. Take these 
 extracts from the legend of Dhruva the Polar deity, as there given 
 (iv, ch. 8, &c.). 
 
 After a long course of austerity Dhruva son of UttanaPada maintained 
 himself upright on one foot, motionless as a stake. [This is obviously an 
 attribute of the axis and polar deity frequently met with in this Inquiry^- and 
 uttana-pada, to which the dictionaries give a secondary meaning of 'out- 
 stretched, supine ' must be ' ii/ter{TCiosX., or outdrawny^t'/.' Remember that 
 uttarat = North. See also p. 504 infra.'] (iv, 8, 76.) 
 
 While the King's son held himself upright on one foot, half the Earth, 
 wounded by his great toe, inclined itself [under his weight, add the commen- 
 tators and Eugene Burnouf ; but it is obviously a fragment of an archaic cosmo- 
 gony ; see what is said in Japan, p. 35 sitpra.] (iv, 8, 79.) 
 
 In consequence of his austerities, Bhagavat said : I grant thee, virtuous 
 Child, a Spot which has never yet been occupied by any being, a Spot blazing 
 with splendour, of which the ground is firm, where is fixed the circus of the 
 celestial lights, of the planets, of the constellations, and of the stars ; which 
 turn all-around like (threshing) oxen round their stake [note here and at p. 502 
 infra the labour-oxen (triones) metaphor of the Great Bear, which we shall 
 work out under "The Number Seven"] and which subsists motionless even after 
 the dwellers of a Kalpa [a night and day of Brahma, aHas 4,320,000,000 years] 
 have disappeared. Around this Spot there turn with the stars — and leaving It on 
 their right — Dharma [the Law of the universe] Agni [the northern Fire] 
 Kasyapa[the Tortoise, the All-Father, self-sprung from Time] Sakra [= Indra?] 
 and the Solitaries who live in the Forest . . . Thou shalt govern the Earth 
 during 36,000 years . . . Thereafter thou shalt ascend unto My abode 
 which is an object of respect for all the Worlds, which is placed above the Seven 
 Rishis, and whence the sage returns no more [the true Bourne of the Universe 
 — see Nirvana, pp. 6, 214, 454 supra] . . . the supreme sojourn so inacces- 
 sible to man. (iv, 9 ; 20, 21, 25, 28.)' 
 
 ' Ai/ienceutn, 22 Nov. 1S90, p. 703. - See p. 216 supra. 
 
 ^ Thi.s is also in the RigVeda, see p. 504 infra. 
 
502 The Night of the Gods. [Pola? 
 
 Dhruva espoused Bhrami (the celestial Revolution), daughter of Sisumara 
 chief of creatures (the star-sphere or planet-sphere,'. By her he had two sons 
 Kalpa and \"atsara (the Year). This king, whose Force was immensity, had 
 again, by his wife Ila (the Earth; daughter of Vayu (Wind), a son named UtKala 
 [utmost-time ?]. 
 
 Uttama, brother of Dhruva, was killed by a yaksha more powerful than 
 himself in the HiMalaya mountain. Having learnt the death of his brother, 
 DhruVa started for the abode of the Yakshas, and arrived at the region of the 
 North, which is inhabited by the servitors of Rudra [a fire-wheel god ?], and the 
 valley of HiMavat (iv, lo ; 1,2, 5). 
 
 T/ie Ascension of Dlnntva. Having meditated himself into forgetfulness of 
 identity, Dhruva saw a beauteous chariot descending from the heavens and 
 illuminating the ten points of space [This is a totally different zodiacal notation 
 from the four and (4x2=) eight category. It is the decimal one, the five and 
 (5x2 =) ten. The duodecimal seems to be a third, got from the four (4 x 3 
 ^ 12) and not from the eight (= 4 x 2)] ; and in this chariot two eminent four- 
 armed black young Devas, leaning on their clubs ; who say : The god who 
 sustains the Universe, who carries the bow of horn, this god is Bhagavat our 
 Master, and it is to conduct thee to his abode that we are here. Thou hast 
 mastered the honour of dwelling in the sojourn of \'ishnu, that supreme sojourn 
 of so difficult access. Take thy place in that Spot around which march (leaving 
 It on their right) the moon and the god of day, with the planets, the constella- 
 tions, and the stars. Take there thy place in that Spot which has never been 
 occupied, neither by thy ancestors nor by others, that Spot which should be an 
 object of the respect of the XYorlds, which is the sojourn of ^'ishnu .... 
 Having on his divine chariot outpassed the three worlds and even the Seven 
 Solitaries, the Sage whose step is firm attained, far beyond, the sojourn of 
 X'ishnu . . . 
 
 It is thus that Dhruva, son of UttanaPada exclusively devoted to Krishna, 
 became the pure jewel [think here of ^'ega] of the three worlds. It is around 
 Him that the astral sphere makes its Revolution without ever tiring ; like to a 
 team of oxen that runs rapidly round the stake to which they are attached.' 
 (iv, 12 ; 19, 20, 24 to 26, 34, 37, 38.) 
 
 Then we are told of the " indulgences " attached (so holy and virtueful is 
 the legend) to the mere recital of the history of Dhruva. This recital procures 
 riches, glory, long-life, constancy, joy, the possession of hea\'en, and the effacing 
 of sin ; it is pure, fortunate, great, and worthy of praises. He who shall con- 
 stantly hear with faith this histor)' of the friend of Achyuta ( = Unfallen ; applied 
 to Vishnu and Krishna), will experience for Bhagavat a devotion that will dissi- 
 pate all grief It is, for him who hears it, equivalent to a place of pilgrimage 
 where proiiitj' and all the virtues, with greatness splendour and majesty, are the 
 lot of him who desires them. Then let them, in the assembly of men of the three 
 first classes, recite evening and morning, with conscientious absorption, this great 
 history of Dhruva and of the god whose glory is pure, when the moon is at the 
 full, the day when she is visible, the twelfth day of each moon, under the 
 asterism Sravana [?], at the fall of day [?], when the new moon appears on the 
 
 ' See p. 501 jiiit above. 
 
Myths.'] The Polcstar. 503 
 
 Sun's-day, at the entry of the Sun into a new sign, or on the Sun's-day. [I draw 
 the Reader's attention to this self-manifest predominance of later Sun-worship 
 over Dhruva, Polestar, worship.] He who, taking refuge with the god whose 
 feet are like a holy tank — and desiring nought, but finding therein the satisfaction 
 of his soul — makes this recital heard by men endowed with faith, he indeed 
 attains to perfection, (iv, 12 ; 44 to 49.) 
 
 The age of this (corrupted) Legend must be unutterable. 
 
 In the preparations for archaic animal-sacrifice in the Satapatlia- 
 braJnnana} a priest " sews the hurdles to the four doorposts with 
 cord, by means of a wooden pin. With ' Thou art Vishnu's 
 Dhruvah,' he then makes a knot lest it should fall asunder." The 
 gloss to dhruvah here is "the firm one ? the pole-star?" Later on 
 {ibid. 303) there are the words : " And because they could not 
 overturn that, therefore it is called Dhruva." That Dhruva is here 
 the Polestar deity admits of no doubt. Dowson's Dictionary gives 
 an outline of some of the other legends about him. He was the 
 eldest of the four sons of UttanaPada (the son of Manu) by SuNrta 
 (good-dancer ?). Dhruva's half-brother was Uttama. Dhruva was 
 a Rishi to whom Indra was inimical, but Vishnu in the end gave 
 him his favour, and put him at the Polestar. His name Auttana- 
 padi is patronymic, and he is also Graha-dhara, the stay or pivot of 
 the planets. "As Dhruva turns, he causes the sun moon and other 
 planets " [and all the stars, of course] "to turn round also, and the 
 lunar (.?) asterisms follow in his circular course, for all the celestial 
 lights are in fact bound to the Polar-star by aerial cords."- But my 
 extracts given above from the Bhagavata-pitraiia make the matter 
 clearer and more important. See an important and ph)-sical con- 
 nexion of Dhruva with the navel and vital energy in the Satapatha- 
 brdliinana ii, 298, 300 to 302, 84.'^ 
 
 " Uttana-pad, a peculiar creative source from which the Earth sprang " (Dow- 
 son's Diet.) is not conspicuously clear, or explanatory, or etymological. I think 
 we have the distinctest indication of the meaning in the Satapatlia-brahmana .•* 
 " Now at one time the Beings sur-passed (ati-rik) Indra . . . Indra then 
 bethought himself; ' How can I stand foiih over everything here, and how may 
 everything Irere be beneath me ? ' . . Then he stood forth over e\'erything 
 here, and everything here was beneath him." Uttana-pad is thus clearly the 
 farthest-foot, the uttermost-steading, the North-stand of the celestial pole. (See 
 also pp. 451 and 501 supra.) 
 
 ' Dr. Eggeling's, ii, 134, 146. - Vishiiii-purdna, and see p. 24 supra. 
 
 ' Dr. Eggeling's version. ■* Ibid, ii, 397. 
 
504 The Night of the Gods [Polar 
 
 Uttara and Uttara (the dual god of the North Extreme, as I 
 view it) were the son and daughter of the raja of Virata.' Virat, 
 according to Genl. Cunningham, is the same as Bairat, and have we 
 not here the prototype of the low-Latin virare, Provencal virar, 
 French virer, Spanish birar ? Diez does no more than suggest that 
 the radical is also in the Latin viria (virije ?J bracelet. Virata would 
 thus be the turned, the revolving Universe, and its raja would be its 
 Supreme impeller. Parikshit, the son of Uttara, and a king of 
 Hastina-pura, conquers the dwipas (or Universe-islands) including 
 Bharata, which I suggest is the Earth, and the dwipa of the 
 Uttara-kurus,- that is of the HyperBoreans, p. 451 supra. 
 
 It may here be noted that while 5es ^~~' j. TTTT' means the heavens (see 
 
 p. 15S .™/r(?), u6es 2=3'^ ^ (u5es pet.') is the height of the heavens, in 
 Egyptian ; while the same word u5es V\ rHi "^^"^"^ ^'^o chair or seat. 
 
 Here, it may well be, we have once again the] polar height and the throne of 
 deity. (Has ui9es any more than a resemblance to Sanskrit uttarat ? See also 
 :he ut'a words under "The Eye of Heaven." Brugsch renders the Egyptian 
 Ta-nutar-t Mahti,' ' das nordliche Gottesland.' 
 
 The RigVeda^ (see also p. 502 supra) places the abode of the 
 Supreme " beyond the Seven Rishis," that is, farther N than the 
 seven stars of Ursa Major ; and the following verse of the same 
 Veda'' must also be referred to the celestial pole : " We pray that 
 you may go to those regions where the many-pointed and wide- 
 spreading rays (expand) ; for here the supreme station of the 
 many-hymned (Vishnu), the showerer, shines great." 
 
 SIRIUS. We have seen just above from the BJiagavata-piirana 
 how the astral sphere makes its revolution round the Polestar, 
 like oxen that move round the stake to which the}' are tied ; and 
 also how all the celestial lights are bound to the Polestar by aerial 
 cords. I have already intimated at pp. 24, 453 — what will by now 
 be more acceptable to the Reader than it may then have been — 
 that the etymology of 'Eelpio^i can unquestionably be deduced 
 immediately from aeipd a cord. In fact it ma)- correctly be said 
 that the Polestar is in this m_\-thic view a Seirios. Here therefore 
 is the place to insert a parenthetic but no means idle leaf in 
 illustration of the high rank of Sirius in myth and in astrognosy. 
 
 1 Bhdg.-pur. i, 8, 14. - Ibid, i, 16, So. 
 
 •* Gcogy. Inschr. ii, 37. * Grassman's, n. S2, 2. ' \Vilson'.s, vol. ii. p, 95. 
 
Myths.'] The Polestar. S°5 
 
 The fact that Sirius is the most brilliant star of the whole 
 heavens may have been nearly sufficient, given star-worship, to have 
 commenced its ancient renown. But there is another speculation 
 (of Kant's') which is worthy of record. Remarking that it may be 
 possible for future times to discover the centre of our star-system, 
 he adds that it seemed probable to him that the central body oi 
 that system was Sirius. His notion was that all the elements oi 
 the Milky- Way system of the stellar Universe should tend in a 
 common fall towards this foundation-stone or fundamental rock, 
 as to which Wright of Durham (in his An Original Theory of the 
 Universe: London, 1750) had, as Kant records, been in front 01 
 him. Wright, said Kant " filled with a fanatical enthusiasm, 
 placed in this fortunate spot, upon the Throne of all Nature, a 
 puissant Being of divine qualities, endowed with spiritual potencies 
 of attraction and repulsion, exercising his influence in an infinite 
 Sphere, and drawing to himself all the virtues, while repelling all 
 the vices." 
 
 This is practically what, by the theories advanced in this 
 Inquiry, it is suggested that our far-back predecessors did for 
 what they viewed as the Polar pivot of the same Universe ; and 
 the quaint conception of a suspension by strings is by no means 
 the exclusive property of those " untutored ancients " whom we 
 so smugly despise. The unsubstantial thread or cord is obvious in 
 the following : 
 
 Supposing primitive velocities altogether abolished (and we know of no reason 
 why they should necessarily exist), any number of bodies might be united 
 nto a system endowed only with pendulum-like motions. The sun and stars 
 might thus, by an abstract possibihty, be totally devoid of advancing or circu- 
 latory movements ; each swinging for ever to-and-fro through their common 
 centre of gravity {The Syste>?i of the Stars., by Agnes M. Gierke, 1S90, p. 329). 
 It reminds one of the lines in Measure for Measure (iii, 2, 297) : 
 To draw with idle spiders' strings 
 most pond'rous and substantial things. 
 
 Professor J. Norman Lockyer FRS,in \h<t Nineteenth Ct77/«n' for July 1892 
 (which I receive when sending the MS of this section to the printer) effects an 
 astronomical identification of Sirius with the Egyptian Hathor (at Denderah) and 
 Sati- (at Philae). As anything tending to magnify .Sirius is welcome, there is 
 here therefore inserted a paragraph from one of my postponed sections (on 
 " The Dogs ") : " Though of the Roman and Ptolemaic periods, the Denderah 
 'Zodiac' (celestial chart, see p. \'^i supra) must have perpetuated many things 
 
 ' Altgem. Natitrgesch. und T/ieor. des Himnieh, 1755 (addition to ch. vii). 
 - XlXtlt Century ut sup. pp. 41, 42, 44. 
 
S°6 ■ The Night of the Gods. ■ [Polar 
 
 infinitely more ancient than tliose periods. Amon^ these archaic items one 
 would suppose to be the representation of the Egyptian Sept | ^.H, A S 
 (Sothis, Siriusj as the Cow-Isis lyinuf down in a boat. ' The soul of Osiris dwelt 
 in the personage who stalks on before Sept, holding the | uas sceptre, and wear- 
 ing the crown of the South Q ■' ^ 'The soul of I sis was placed in the star Sothis. '= 
 The Decree of Canopus calls Sept 'the star of Isis.' Sept A ^1 is a man- 
 headed god in the Peremhru (Book of the Dead).^ The acceptation of the 
 word sept (which has many meanings) must here be, I suggest, ' to protect, to 
 be a Providence,' as in Sept-taiu A '. •" '. ' Providence of the double-region,' 
 that is of the region of the N and S (see p. 468 supra), of the world — a title of 
 Amasis.^ As meaning ' triangle ' sept too ought perhaps to have some connexion 
 
 with the pyramid." To this 1 shall now add that HatHor = hetHeru ^ 
 Horus-house has been shown on p. 1 59 to have the celestial-constellation sense 
 of an astrological 'house.' She has long been thought to be a form of Isis.' 
 Sati , > < — «« JJ a goddess who wears the crown of the south Zy combined 
 with the cow's horns \X is one of a Nubian triad with the creator ^num and 
 
 the little-known goddess Ank or Ankt fAnouke) ^ ^ . An inscription of the 
 
 Cataracts equates her with Hestia, t;; Kai 'Ea-ria. One Ethiopian king is called 
 the 'son of xnu'Tii brought forth by Sati, suckled by Ank' ; and another is the 
 ' son of Osiris, brought forth by Isis, suckled by Nephthys ', whence Sati = Isis, 
 and Ank = Mephthys.' Latin inscriptions equate Sati to Juno ; she is also in 
 Egyptian inscriptions the daughter of Ra, Lady of the heavens, regent of the 
 worlds, consort of xnum, and she always accompanies him on the e.x-votos of 
 the Cataracts." 
 
 The god Anhur -/J ^ is much misunderstood.^ He is the 
 
 companion of the AtLas-god Shu, and holds a cord. In the 
 Harris Magic Papyrus (ii, 3, 5) Shu upholds the heavens, which 
 Anhur brings-round (by hauling on his rope, as I say), or with his 
 spear, where we have the Axis. He is also ' master of ;^epesh ', 
 which, see p. 85 supra, ma}- mean Force or the Great-Bear. Shu 
 is the stable, Anhur the turning, forces of the Cosmos. The cord 
 which hangs-down from Ammon-Ra's head to his feet must have a 
 similar explanation, and has its counterpart in Maine's chain p. 39 
 supra. See also the chain, rope, and string at pp. 153, 296, 329. 
 
 To continue with some further facts as to the sacred value of 
 
 ■ E. de Rouge, Notice, iS8j, 197. = E. de Rouge, Notice Sommaire, iS;6, 13S. 
 
 ^ cxxx, 7 ; and see Wilkinson, v, 79. ■■ Pierret, Vocab. 4S2, 658. 
 
 * Dr. Wallis Budge's Du'clUrs on tlie Nile, 141. 
 ^ See also Pierret, Pant/ieon, 10. 
 
 ' Pierret, Diet, and Voca/i. E. de Rouge, Notice Sominaire, 124, 14S, 
 
 * See Pierrel's Di:!. 42, and ranthcon 17, iS, 97. 
 
Myths.'] The Polcstar. S^l 
 
 the Polestar. Under the head of the Magnet (p. 96) I have shown 
 how in Europe and Arabia in the 12th and 13th centuries the 
 needle was regarded as pointing " to the North Star, the motionless 
 axe of the firmament," or to " The Star " ; and the extract from 
 Guyot de Provins's La Bible (p. 105 supra) is remarkable as com- 
 paring our Father the Apostolic (the Pope) to this Star, wliich is 
 beautiful, clear, and immoveable. Arabic names for the compass 
 are ibreh el-kutbiyeh = needle of the pole, and kutb noma = pole 
 indicator.^ It is also called star-box, singfan ^ %% in China. 
 
 But we have seen (p. 105) the polestar called the tresmontaigne 
 or tres-montaine in 1190. In 1245 Gautier de Metz calls it the 
 tresmontagne in his Image du Mo7ide. Littre gives, from " Lais 
 inedits p. iv " the following : Car done quel part la pointe (of the 
 needle) vise, la tresmontaigne est la sans doute" (13th century). 
 Le Testami7it de Jean de Meung (same century ?) addresses the 
 Virgin as " clere Estoille de mer, qu'on nomme tresmointaine " 
 (line 21 17) according to Roquefort, and as " certaine tresmontaine " 
 according to Littre, citing another MS no doubt, We thus see 
 that the Star of the Sea to which the Virgin is currently likened 
 in the hymn " Ave Maris Stella," is the mariner's polestar,^ where 
 also stands the " felix caeli porta " (see " The Dokana " j'?/'/';-^') to 
 which she is also likened in the same verse. Littre saj-s tramontane 
 is the correct word, and explains it as tramontana stella because 
 from Provence and the North of Italy the star was seen bej/ond 
 the Alps and the Apennines ; and he therefore brings tresmon- 
 taigne from tra or trans (beyond) -|- mens, montis. But all this 
 won't quite gee by any means. Brunetto before quoted, in his 
 Trcsor (circa 1260), clearly understood a South tramontane as 
 well as a North one : 
 
 Les gens qui sont en Europe, wrote he, nagent-ils k tramontane devers 
 septentrion, et les autres nag'ent-ils a celle du midi. Et que ce soit la veritd, 
 prenez une aiguille d'yamant (ce est calamite), vous trouverez qu'elle a deux 
 faces : I'une gist vers une tramontane, et I'autre gist vers rautrej et chacune 
 des faces allie I'aiguille vers cette tramontane vers qui cette face gist ; et pour ce 
 seraient les mariniers ddceus se ils ne preissent garde. 
 
 Another passage I shall quote does not seem to have been in 
 Littre's view either. It is from the Image du Monde already 
 mentioned. Having said that the right line of the South divides 
 the Eastern from the Western half of the Earth, he goes on to say 
 ( — perhaps I had better modernise a little here) : 
 
 ' Klaproth's La Boussoh, 1834, p. 29. - See also p. 512 infra. 
 
The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 Et en la fin de cette ligne, | si comme elle s'en va a ligne, | une cite voir 
 pouvons [ qui Aaron ainsi a nom. | Celle siet en mi lieu du monde* | et fut 
 faite toute ?viide. | La fut trouvee astronomie | premierement par grand 
 maistrie. | Ce lieu est dit le droit midi j car en mi le mont* est assis. | Li autres 
 d'icelle lignie | qui devers sinistre se lie | appcUe Ton septemirio?i, \ et des Sept 
 Etoiles prend nom, | qui tournent vers la tresmontagne j qui par nuit le 
 marinier mene. (Bartsch, Langiie ct litt.fr. 1887, 422.; 
 
 Remembering that Aaron means mountain, we here have the 
 celestial city on the mountain ; and that is the mountain beyond 
 which the star is seen, and not the Alps or the Apennines. 
 Gauticr de Metz has here muddled up the legends of his midi 
 and his Septentrion. ' Le mont ' above, at *, is an early form of ' le 
 monde,' see historical extracts in Littre. It seems to me the con- 
 nexion of monde with muiidiis (see Skeat, Wharton, Littre) is as 
 yet uneffected, and that its form mont may very well come from 
 112011S moiitcut. In that case we should have a mythic origin for the 
 Earth being called a iiionntaiu. The AngloSaxon mund ' pro- 
 tection ' and the English mound 'refuge' are put to mons 
 (Wharton's ii/j'Wrt Z(?////rt^ \vh}- not so put mundus as well? No 
 ingenuity will, on the explanation of mundus = kosmos, account 
 for mundus meaning the Roman pit symbolic of the infernal 
 regions' which was closed by the stone of the Manes, the Manalis 
 lapis (see p. 118 siiprdj ; but the underworld pit can easily be — 
 what it was — the inverted mountain. But these points must be 
 worked out in the section on "The Mountain " in \'ol. IL Monde 
 from mons would give us a cosmic concord with tres-montagne, 
 viewing montagne as the heavens-mountain. 
 
 The present polar star is the last in the tail of Ursa Minor. It 
 is a little more than one degree from the true Pole, and the pole 
 will come nearer to the star (within 30') before it begins to go off 
 in the other direction, see diagram on p. 500. The Polestar's 
 Arabic name Al-rucaba may be for al-rekab," the original of the 
 Spanish arrocaba, the upright beam on which a roof rests, the 
 king-post (see p. 226 supra). Al-roukba, the knee, is Devic's sug- 
 gestion. Al-rekab is properly ' the stirrup,' the point d'appui ; and 
 the explanation socket (of the Axis) would be quite correct, and 
 just what I want throughout this Inquiry. The term al-chitot for 
 the axis of the sphere, the pole of the universe is, Devic says, 
 altered from al-kutb (see p. 229), the axle, the pole, the polar star. 
 There is likewise in TanAgra (wrote Pausanias, ix, 20) a place 
 
 ' Festus, s.v. mundus (twice) ; Macrobius Saturn, (citing Varro) i, 16. 
 - Mues's Tradatiis de Globis (Hakluyt Soc. 1SS9) p. 209. 
 
Myths^^ The Polestar. 5^9 
 
 called Poloson ; and here they say that AtLas sat, diligently 
 investigating subterranean and celestial affairs ; and that Homer, 
 agreeably to this, says : " AtLas, her sire, by whose all-piercing 
 Eye (see p. 464 supra) the depths of every sea are clearly seen ; 
 and who the lofty pillars strenuous rears, which every way divide 
 the Earth from heavens."^ Poloson here must clearly refer to the 
 place of the ttoXo?, the Pole. Is it a foreign word ? 
 Some of Liddell and Scott's meanings for ttoXos are i. A pivot or hinge on 
 which anything turns ; an axis ; the polestar. 3. The sphere which revolves 
 on this axis, i.e. the vault of heaven, the sky or firmament {\^zX\xi, polics). 
 
 Vambery in his Travels of a False Dervish" describes the 
 Turkoman caravans steering their night-marches through the 
 pathless desert by the Polestar, whose immobility has given these 
 Tartars their name for it : temir-Ivazik, the iron Pivot. In his 
 Primitive Culture of the Turko-Tartars, he says that this word 
 for iron, temir or timir, originally meant the firm, the stout, the 
 strong. In Turkish timir is iron, and temirzi is iron man. It is I 
 think self-evident that, as in the case of the magnetic compass, see 
 p. 98 supra, steering by the Polestar must first have been resorted 
 to in land-travel, and long long indeed before it was trusted to in 
 seafaring. 
 
 Capt. Conder {Heth and Moab, p. 85) calls the Phoenicians a "stock of 
 hardy sailors who were the first to learn to sail by the Pole-star " ; but he cites 
 no authority for this statement. F. Lenormant had no doubt that the Polestar 
 was observed and used as a guide by Phcenician navigators, being for that 
 reason at first called by the Greeks Soij/ikj;. He seems however to rely on 
 Ideler f one would rather have had his own authority here. 
 It will be shown lower down (p. 520) how the pivot, Polestar, 
 and terminus are connected with the Chinese Tai-Ki or Great- 
 Extreme of all things. With reference to what is said at p. 2,6^, I 
 find that Mr. Crawford's Kalevala (p. xv) gives the Finnish name 
 of the polestar as taehti. 
 
 The Greek ^Xos- a nail would at once give ryXios as an adjectival form. It is 
 strange that we might thus get a purchase upon all the resemblant divine 
 names, similar to that which iCk-qK the key(stone) has already so often given us 
 in this Inquiry, upon the divine names that seem to contain that word. And 
 the polar f;Xos and kXtjis are identical in cosmic position. But this hare cannot 
 be further hunted here and now. The strong Roman superstition of driving 
 nails also invites, but I must not turn aside to it. 
 
 ' Thos. Taylor's Notes to Pausanias (1S24) iii, 310 
 
 ^ French ed. 1865, p. 87. 
 
 ' Unpiting und Bcdeiitttn^ der Sternnaincn, p. 5. 
 
Sio The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 The Subas (or as they call themselves, Mandoyo, that is 
 ' ancients ') of Mesopotamia still pray towards the Polestar ; and 
 they put the sole door of their temple in its South side, in order 
 that those who enter may face the Polestar ;' and the reason of 
 this is that Hivel Zivo the Subban creator, when he took up the 
 government of the worlds he had formed, placed himself at the 
 limit of the Seven Matarathos, at the extremity of the Universe, 
 where the Polestar was then created to cover him.- Hivel Zivo 
 seems to be an alias of Avather whom the polestar also covers, and 
 who is the Judge of souls (see p. 490). In all their actions, and in 
 their position during sleep (see p. 450 supra) the Subbas must 
 turn towards the Polestar, which fixes the spot where Avather 
 dwells, and therefore the direction of Olmi-danhuro, their heaven. 
 The corpse of a Subba is laid out head to S and feet to N, so that 
 the dead may have the polestar before his eyes, and he is buried 
 the same way.' Towards the polestar, thus covering Avather, as 
 above, the Subban sacrificer turns his face and the victim's head 
 when he is about to strike.'' In one of their legends (which they 
 share with the Moslems) Solomon obtains access to the heavenly 
 city through a hidden door in the centre of the wall facing the 
 Polestar.' As stated at p. 18 of this Inquiry, this seems to me to 
 be a most startling survival, although we shall also find the same 
 thing among the Chinese Taoists, both as to the Polestar and the 
 Great Bear. For here we have a community who. while worshipping 
 that Star, are also Baptists who are held to continue the traditions 
 of St. John, and to worship him also as Yahio. Their religion was 
 one of those tolerated by Mahomet on paying tribute,^ and Sale 
 said " travellers commonly call them Christians of St. John." Of 
 course a large proportion of the preMahometan Arabs were 
 Sabseans in their worship. Siouffi, a French vice-consul at 
 Mussul, said the name of Subbas is given to them by their 
 Christian and Aloslem neighbours, but they call themselves 
 Mandoyo, ' ancients.' Chwolsohn says the sect of the Koran 
 were the Mendaites, and Renan' endorsed that. Cardinal Wiseman 
 called them Mendseans or disciples of John. It was to them 
 Prof Norberg's famous publication of the Codex N^asaraeus or Book 
 
 ' Siouffi's La Relig. da Soubbas, IlS, 201. 
 
 2 Ibid. iSSo, p. 62. 3 //,;j^ p. ,24. 
 
 •* Ibid. 112, 114. ° /hid. 154. 
 
 " .Sale's A'ljruii, p. 11. ^ On 'lie Gnostic book called .Afocalypsc and .-i dam. 
 
Myths.~\ The Polestar. S'" 
 
 of Adam applied, and M. Siouffi's book^ is also of considerable 
 importance. In 1875 there were about 4,000 of these Subbas or 
 Mandoyo, near Basrah, where Turkey joins Persia ; those of 
 Shushtar (the ancient Susa) are looked up to by the rest as being 
 better educated in religious and other ways. None of them till the 
 soil, but they are chiefly highly-skilled goldsmiths and joiners ; a 
 few are blacksmiths, and a very few are traders. Norberg's Codex 
 said their name came from ' mando d'hhai, living word.' 
 
 I venture here to transcribe a cautious remark addressed to me 
 by that able and clear-sighted mythologist M. Henri Gaidoz : 
 Mais pour rester sur le terrain de la mcthode, je vous avoueras 
 franchement que les exegetes de I'Etoile polaire devraient coiiinienccr 
 par montrer son importance dans les rites et les croyances des 
 peuples contemporains, ou il n'y aurait matiere a aucun doute.- I 
 have naturally elaborated this side of my arguments throughout, 
 so far as the means permitted ; but the reader must be requested, 
 in regard to this point of view, to conjoin the similar facts regarding 
 Ursa Major in Vol. II, for they are practically inseparable from the 
 celestial polar question. Here I cannot refrain from quoting a bit 
 of Norfolk-lore from an article by Dr. Jessop in the Nineteenth 
 Century for March 1887 : 
 
 " That there old Gladstone, lawk ! he's a deep un, he is ! He's as deep as 
 the polestar, he is ! " said Solomon Bunch to me one day. " Polestar ? " I 
 asked in surprise, "where is the polestar, Sol?" " Lawks ! I dunno ; I've heard 
 tell o' the polestar as the deep un ever sin I was a boy '. " 
 Here is a survival in the mangled remains, a superstitio of the old 
 faith confronting us, and in a most unexpected manner too. It is 
 at least odd that Homer said the same of Kronos whom I claim as 
 a Polar god — that he was ar^KvKoyurjrrjt;^ wily. 
 
 There is a remarkable passage on this subject in the Koran 
 (vi, ^^) : 
 
 And when the night overshadowed Abraham, he saw a star, and he said 
 " This is my 'Lord ; " but when it set he said " I like not gods that set." 
 And when he saw the moon rising he said "This is my Lord ;" but when he 
 saw it set he said " Verily, if my Lord direct me not, I shall become of the 
 people that go astray." And when he saw the sun rising he said " This is my 
 Lord, this is the greatest." But when it set he said " Verily I direct my face 
 unto Him who hath created the heavens and the Earth." 
 Now the Polestar and the Bears and other polar constellations 
 do not set in Arabic latitudes. The commentators say Abraham's 
 
 ' Eludes sur la 7-elig. des Soiibbas ou Sabeens, leurs do^tiies, Icuis luaurs. Paris, 
 laiprimerie Nafionale i8So, pp. 2, 17S, 179, 15S, 159. 
 - Letter of 21 Janvier iSSS. 
 
512 The Night of the Gods. {Polar 
 
 youthful religion was the Sabjean, which consisted chiefly in 
 worshipping the hea\-cnl\- bodies. A statement which must be 
 compared with what \\q have just seen as to the Subbas. 
 
 Near Assouan on the Nile is the ruin of a castle constructed of 
 crude bricks by some early Arab conqueror. It is called the 
 fortress of the sheyk al Nagmeh, and the North star is commonly 
 called in the Arabic of Egypt al nagmeh, the Star.^ 
 
 In the Chaldean account of the deluge, according to the tablets, 
 " the gods in the heavens became afraid of the waterspout, and 
 sought for a refuge ; they ascended to the heaven of Anu," where 
 they " were motionless ; like dogs in a heap were they crouched."^ 
 This obviously means that retreating from the rest of the sky they 
 sought refuge at its central station of the supreme god Anu, which 
 can only be understood as the Pole, where they got together " in a 
 heap." Anu was the primeval deity who presided over heaven and 
 its stars. - 
 
 F. Lenormant' quoting ]\Iaury* sa}'s that that one of the 
 Titanides (or Tanides ?J of whom was born the eighth of the Kabi- 
 rim, appears to be the Polar star : '" celle dont nait le huitieme 
 des Cabires, personnifiant I'ensemble du monde sideral, parait 
 etre I'etoile polaire." Note here that the Polar deity is supposed 
 to be female, and compare p. 50" supra. He adds that the Seven 
 Titanides'' are the stars of the Little Bear. To this we shall 
 return under the head of " The Kabeiroi." 
 
 The feats of Arthur and his knightly peers ; 
 of Arthur who, to upper light restored 
 
 with that terrific sword 
 which yet he brandishes for future war, 
 shall lift his countr)'''s fame above the Polar Star. 
 
 (^\'ords^\•orth — Artcgal and Elidure. ) 
 
 And we came to the Isle of Fire ; «e were lured by the ligh? from afar, 
 for the peak sent up one league of Fire to the Northern Star. 
 
 (Tennyson — Maildui?is I'oyage.) 
 
 There was an ancient Scandinavian order of knighthood of the Polar Star, 
 which was revived in Sweden in 174S. Professor Sven Xilsson, to whose 
 
 ^ Saturday Rcz'iew, 14th June 1S90, p. 732. 
 
 ^ F. Lenormant, Orig. de thist. i, 397, 6io, 564. 
 
 •' Art. Cabiri in Saglio's Diet, i, 772. 
 
 * Kcv. Ai-ih. iii, 769. ■" Orelli's Sanchoni.ith6n, p. 32. 
 
Myths ^^ The Polestar. 513 
 
 excellent Age of Stone I am sometimes indebted here, was a commander of 
 this order. The ship of war in which the Tzar \isited Denmark this year is 
 called the Polar Star," and the opera of L'Etoile du Nord is familiar to all good 
 lovers of music. By-the-way it is a holy and a wholesome thought to have the 
 first laugh at yourself, when you can. An old friend, on this 20th February 
 1S92, writes and calls me a pole-ytheist. 
 
 "Don Adriano de Armado : By the North Pole, I do challenge thee ! 
 Costard {a clown): I will not fight with a pole like a Northern man." 
 {Love's Labours Lost v, 2, 697.) 
 
 POLESTAR WORSHIP IN CHINA AND JAPAN. The 
 body of evidence which comes immediately under the above 
 heading has gravitated to the end of this Section, and the Reader 
 will perhaps find that it furnishes by no means the least important 
 of the facts set out or deduced in this Volume of the Inquiry. It 
 will especially be found that we are here at length focussing the 
 tenets, legends, and speculations of Chinese philosophy and religion 
 as to their supreme gods and principles, as to Shang-Ti, Tai-Ki, 
 Tai-Yi and the Polestar, which have from time to time been 
 mentioned or referred to, as we have got along (see especially 
 pp. 226, 390, 49S, 509). 
 
 Our present Polestar, a in the Little Bear (sec diagram on 
 p. 500), is worshipped in China as T'ien-hwang-Ta-Ti ^C %. 
 yc % 'the heavens-king who is the Great Ruler.' So said 20 
 centuries ago the T'ien Kwan Shu section of the SIic-Kc, the very 
 earliest Chinese historical record, stretching from B.C. 122 back 
 into remote antiquity, and compiled by the Chinese Herodotus 
 Szema-ts'ien (died circa B.C. 85). /3 (koshab) of the same con- 
 stellation is called T'ien-Ti sing, ' the heavens-Ruler star.' It is 
 also the seat of Tai Yih -js^ Z^ or -j^ — ' the Great One ' or ' the 
 Arch-First,' and presides over the sun, says the Sing-King (star- 
 book), of the Tang dynasty, A.D. 61 8 to 905.'^ Among all the 
 Spirits {Shin, the Chinese word which the Japanese use for their 
 kami, tlieir gods) of the heavens, the highest dwells in the star 
 Tai-Yih in Draco ; and in accordance with ancient custom the 
 Chinese emperor Wu (circa B.C. 99) sacrificed to Tai-Yih.'' Here 
 we doubtless have a survival from a former position of the Pole 
 (see the diagram). Dr. Edkins once asked a schoolmaster at 
 
 ' Le Temps nth July 1S92. 
 
 " This is the posthumous title of every Japanese Mikado, see p. 53S infra. 
 
 ■* Prof. Schlegel's Uranog. Chi. 523, 524, 726. 
 
 ■• Dr. Edkins, quoted by Dr. Legge, Kelig. of China, iSSo, p. 175. 
 
 2 K 
 
514 The ATight of the Gods. {Polar 
 
 Chapoo who was the Lord of heavens and earth, and the reply was 
 that he knew of none but the Polestar, T'ien-hwang Ta-Ti.' An- 
 other name for a in Ursa Minor is T'ien-Ki sing ^ ^Ji ^ star 
 of the heavens-Extreme, and it was said 2,000 years ago that 
 Tai-Yih had ahvays dwelt tliere also.- But no doubt all these 
 supreme titles would ha\'e changed their celestial loci with the 
 changes of the Pole. AnutJier name for the polestar is T'ien-chung- 
 kung, ' Heavens-ceiitre-palacc ' (see p. 226 supra) must be classed 
 with the Palace built by the Japanese pair of creator-deities round 
 their spear-pillar- Axis (see Section iS of the Axis-^Iyths supra, 
 p. 224). 
 
 But this polestar belongs of course to relatively quite modern 
 times ; and the names of many other Chinese constellations still 
 preserve a record, not easily set aside, of the existence of an 
 astronomical nomenclature when the Pole was in C}-gnus, say 
 18,500 }-ears ago, and in Draco, some 5,000 )'ears ago. That there 
 is no similar record of the intermediate 13,000 or 14,000 years is, 
 no doubt, somewhat embarrassing for those who uphold the 
 extreme antiquity of the Chinese sphere. 
 
 For e.^ample the above title of Tai-Yih, Great-First, is also given to another 
 polar star near a of Draco ; and k of Draco also has the name of T'ien Yih 
 ^ 2< heavens-First. Gaubil (who died in 1759 at Peking) conjectured no 
 doubt correctly that these must have been former polestars.' The THen-hwang 
 /rd'uy fling says this Tai-Yih presides over the revolutions of the heavens ; 
 and the Slie-Ke Ching-i^ says that Tai-Yih is another name for T'ien-Ti, the 
 heavens-Ruler, the most venerated of all the celestial divinities. " In fact," 
 adds Prof. G. Schlegel, "the polestar, round which the entire firmament appears 
 to turn, ought to be considered as the Sovereign of the heavens, as the most 
 \enerated divinity.'' Again, Prof Schlegel, in treating^ of the division of the 
 Milky Way or heavens-River " into two arms near the X pole, and its going 
 thence to the S pole,'' as stated by Ko-hung in our 4th centun-,= supposes the 
 pole to have been then, that is 18,500 years ago, near the star 01 below a of 
 Cygnus ; but we shall discuss this under " The Heavens-River" in Vol. II. 
 "The North Ki, that is the Xorth Extreme (peh-Ki :it :j^)" says 
 the commentar}' on the classic Urh-Ya (or Literary Expositor, 
 attributed to Tsze-hea, the disciple and contemporary of Confucius, 
 circa 507 B.C.) " is in the centre of the heavens, and serves to 
 determine the four she Q.J ; that is why it is called the Xorth 
 
 ' RcHg. in China, p. 109. = Uranog. C/ii. 524 (citing the S/u-W, as before). 
 
 ^ Clironologie Chinoise (published 1S14) 1S3. 
 
 ■* .\s ciled in Uranog. Chi. 507. = Ibid. 20S. 
 
Myths ?\ The Polestar. 5^5 
 
 slmi ^."^ SItin means division of time, and therefore of the 
 heavens ; and as there are four she they must be the ' quarters ' of 
 the heavens (see "The Cardinal Points," p. 157). The T'ien-Ki, 
 heavens-Extreme, already mentioned, is also called the peh-Ki in 
 the Kao-Yao (^ ^). Its place is central, and it determines the 
 four points, faug "jj , of the heavens. It is for that reason it is 
 called the Chung-kung (as above) central-palace and peh-shin.- 
 It must thus be obvious that all the names or titles in the following 
 list are inter-changeable, and each indicates the Polar deity o?- his 
 position ; and it is essential to dwell here upon the Chinese and 
 Japanese honorific custom of distant references to, instead of any 
 
 r terrestrial Rulers : 
 
 . heavens-King . . X ^ 
 . North-Extreme . -lb "S 
 
 Great-Extreme . . ~J^ f^ 
 . heavens-Extreme . IK. ili 
 North point . ■ iu S 
 . Supreme Ruler . Jl "© 
 . Great Ruler . ■ '3'\ ^ 
 . heavens-Ruler . ■ 5^ 'UJ' 
 
 Great First . ■ ^ "^ or 2» 
 . heavens-First . ■ 7C — ' or 2< 
 The insertion in this list of the two titles put in italics will be 
 justified lower down, and it will be seen that other titles will 
 gradually be added, until a sort of litany, as it were, is arrived at. 
 
 Yij-hwang Shang-Ti is incarnate in the chief priest of the 
 Taoists. The first of these, Chang Tao Ling, was born (A.D. 34 ? ?) 
 of a virgin-mother who dreamt that the Polestar descended and 
 offered her a sweet-smelling herb ; on waking a divine odour filled 
 the room, and she was with-child ; she was delivered of him on 
 the heavens-Eye-mountain, T'ien-muh shan, ^ @ |Jj ^ (as to 
 which see p. 475 siipra)^ The title of Chang Tao Ling was 
 heavens-Lord, T'ien-she 5c &(!' ! he eventually' ascended alive into 
 the heavens at the age of 123 ; and a follower of his, K'ow K'ien- 
 che, was directed to assume his succession (in A.D. 423 ?) by 
 
 ' Uranog. Chi. 146. - Ibid. 524. ^ De Groot's Feles ditiiwiii i, 74. 
 
 •• I must note here (referring to p. 4S2 supra] that the Sanskrit name of t'le Cat's- 
 eye stone is Valavaya-oa, which literally means ' product of (mount)Valavaya', that is 
 the Tail-mountain ; vala meaning ' tail.' This is very extraordinary indeed, see pp. 23, 
 46, 244, 349, 366, 36S, 451, 467, 472, 474 supra as to Ouranos. 
 
 2 K 2 
 
 actual direct mention of, the 
 T'ien-hwang . 
 Peh-Ki (= Tien Ki) 
 Tai-Ki 
 
 T'ien-Ki {— Peh-Ki) 
 Peh-Shin (= Peh-Ki) 
 Shang- Ti 
 Ta-Ti 
 
 T'ien-Ti (= Tai-Yih) 
 Tai-Yih (= T'ien-Ti) 
 T'icn-Yih 
 
5i6 The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 Lao-tsze himself, who miraculously appeared for the purpose, and 
 his family continue to this day to hold the headship of the 
 great Taoist religion.' Chu-Hi, the famous I2th century philosopher, 
 historian, and critic, recorded" a divine command given to this 
 K'ow K'ien che " to co-pperate in the execution of the Laws of 
 the silent Wheels of the heavens-Palace, which the divine prince 
 of the great Northern equilibrium had promulgated" fsee p. 498 
 supra). On this Dr. J. J. M de Groot remarks ■?• 
 
 This Northern prince can be none other than the god of the Polar star, of the 
 centre round which turn the heavens and all they contain ; the god who main- 
 tains the grand equilibrium of the Universe. The silent Wheels are probably 
 the orbits of [not the " orbits of," but the apparent celestial circles described 
 by] the stars, of which wheels the Pole is as it were the Xave. 
 There could not well be anything much stronger, in confirmation 
 of the theories of this Inquiry, even if I had had the passage 
 written to order ; and it was pleasant to come across it, when 
 much of this first volume was already printed. " The supreme 
 god of Nature," goes on Dr. de Groot, " sits at the centre of the 
 heavens, at the Pole ; this is why K'ow K'ien-che affirmed that his 
 mission had thence been revealed to him." 
 
 K'ow K'ien-che eventually dwelt on Mount Sung ^ (^layers 
 called it Ho ^) the highest and central of the five holy mountains ; 
 which is merely another name for the N height of heaven. The 
 earthly Vatican of this Taoist Pope and his hereditary successors 
 has, by Imperial decree, been given the title of Palace of Supreme 
 Purity Shang-ts'ing kung Jl -^ ^, which is in the Taoist mytho- 
 logy, says Dr. de Groot, the quarter of the heavens where the 
 heavens-god dwells — that is of course, in view of the T'ien chung 
 kung just twice mentioned above, the N Pole. 
 
 This is the wheel-symbolism which will be identified, under 
 "The Wheel" section in Vol. II, with the Universe-wheel (and 
 wheels), and with the Buddhic Wheel of the Law, which Law 
 (Dharma) of the Universe I equate with Tao. Buddha alone 
 makes the Wheel turn, that none coming after him, neither god 
 demon Sramana nor Brahmana, has been able to make turn. 
 It is the (cosmic) Wheel which cannot turn backwards, the Wheel 
 which cannot be laid hold of, nor thrown ; the Wheel without a 
 
 ' Mayers, Manual, pp. 10, 11. Douglas, Conf. and Toon. 2S5. And see p. 524 
 infra. 
 
 ' Tiling K ieiz Kang Miik (Historic Mirror, compiled in our I2lh centur)"), ch. 24. 
 "* F'€tes d'^moui (Amny), i„ 77, So. 
 
Myths:\ The Polestar. 517 
 
 second, without a place that stops it ; composed of a thousand 
 spokes, launching a thousand rays which penetrate everywhere.^ 
 Dharma, writes Mr. Rhys Davids, is that which underlies and 
 includes the Law, and we shall see in Japan (p. 537 infra) "the 
 Polestar worshipped in the form of a Buddha with a Wheel, the 
 emblem of the revolving World.'" Chakra-devendra (= deva- 
 Indra), the Wheel-god Indra, is rendered into Chinese as T'ien- 
 Ti-shih, 5c "^ I? ^"d Chakra-varti-raja, is rendered word for 
 word as Chwan-lun wang,^ wheel-turner king, ^ H J. 
 
 TAI-YIH. -^ — {Great-First}) I must now address myself to a 
 dry and ungrateful task, the expounding of the terms or titles 
 Tai-Yih, Tai-Ki, and Shang-Ti ; and as we have already 
 identified the first of these, the Great-First, Tai-Yih, with the N 
 Pole, it will be convenient to begin with Him or It. 
 
 Dr. Legge has adopted, from Gallery's French, ' Grand Unity ' 
 as an English equivalent ;■* Medhurst said ' Supreme One,' and 
 came to the conclusion that Tai-Yih was an -immaterial Being 
 acting with wisdom intention and goodness, the almighty One 
 who rules over all things f and he quoted the Chinese critical 
 commentary as saying that this Supreme One is the source of all 
 others, and that he existed before the powers of Nature were 
 divided, and before the myriad things were produced, the One 
 only Being. The Li Ki itself, the Confucian compilation on 
 Ritual, says " Tai-Yih separated and became heavens and Earth ; 
 Tai-Yih revolved and became (the dual force of) the Yin and 
 Yang." Dr. Legge cites K'ung Ying-Ta (a.D. 574 to 64S) as 
 saying that Tai-Yih was " the original vapour}' matter of chaos," 
 which may be good philosophy and physics, but is not theology 
 or mythology. Of course the words tai and yih (= great and 
 one) convey no information whatever on the subject. The term 
 as used in the Li Ki is of unknown age ; the Li Ki itself being 
 some 24 centuries in existence. All I now want the Reader to do 
 is to ear-mark the facts that Tai-Yih is the Polar deity, and that 
 He or It divided into the yin and the yang. 
 
 [In order not to confuse matters, I only just mention here in brackets the 
 system of the Taoist Lieh-tsze, who belonged to the period immediately 
 
 ' Senart's Essai siir la Ijgendc du Buddha, 357, 362 (citing BurnouPs Lotus and the 
 Lalita Vistara). " Satow and Hawes, Handbook of Japan, 2nd ed. p. 39. 
 
 ' S. Julien, Mithodc, 1 861, 71, 74. '■Li Ki (Book of Ritual) i, 3S6. 
 
 ^ Theol. of Chinese, p. S5. 
 
SiS 
 
 The Nioht of the Gods. 
 
 \Poh 
 
 ar 
 
 succeeding Confucius. In the beginning-, he said, was Tai-Vi the great change 
 Tai-chu the great beginning, Tai-che the great first, and Tai-su the great 
 pure. This chu was the origin of spirit, the cJic was the beginning of form 
 and the su was the beginning of matter. There was no separation between 
 spirit form and matter, and all was chaos, which was invisible inaudible and 
 impalpable ; and this chaos was called Yi, change. This Yi was without form 
 and void, and underwent a transformation and became One. And so on.] 
 
 TAI-KI, -ji |g {Grcat-Extrcuic). It ha.s now to be shown 
 that the Great-Extreme, Tai-Ki, is the same as the Great-First, 
 Tai-Yih. My first proof shall be taken from the very most 
 archaic of all Chinese books, the Yi King or Book of Evolutions, 
 which Dr. Legge very cautiously puts to a date previous to 
 B.C. 1 143, or over thirty centuries ago, and at the very least 600 
 }'ears before Confucius. To this great cosmic treatise Confucius 
 wrote (or spoke, and his immediate disciples compiled) a series 
 of appendices or 'Wings.' In the fifth of these Wings' is the 
 following paragraph: "In the Yi {King) there is Tai-Ki, which 
 produced the two *t. These two I produced the four Hsiang, which 
 produced the eight kwa." These I are the yin and yang, and as 
 we have already had this nomenclature at p. 226, we must now 
 here bear with the figures for all of them. 
 
 The two /, liang I ^ f^, are (i) a straight line called 
 
 Yang I \>^ f^ the symbol of the yang (male) principle, and (2) a 
 
 broken line called Yin I [?^ ^', the symbol of the }'in 
 
 (female) principle. So that we see that in the time of Confucius 
 it was held that Tai-Ki divided into the >-in and yang, just as 
 Tai-Yih did above. There could be no higher proof that Tai-Ki 
 = Tai-Yih. O. E. D. 
 
 The four Hsiang gj^ produced by the two I are named and 
 symbolled as follows : 
 
 '• t'l' ilK great) Yang 
 
 2. shao {>lf petty) Yin- ' 
 
 The eight kwa "^ produced b)" 
 arc : 
 
 shao Yano 
 
 4. tai Yin - - - 
 
 further combinations of these 
 
 
 3- 
 
 _ 
 
 7- 
 
 
 5 
 
 — — 
 
 4. 
 
 s. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' Legge's Z/ A7, 1882, pp. ;',73, 12; where Tai-Ki is rendered both Great Extreme 
 and Grand Tenninus. See also p. 172 stipi-a. 
 
Myths?^ The Polestar. 5^9 
 
 We have had these already (at p. 99 and in a different orderj 
 apph'ed round the compass, and have thus seen their indubitable 
 cosmic connexion with the eight half-quarters of the universe. 
 Thus these arrangements of lines, v/hich have been by re-multi- 
 plication extended first to (8 x 8 =) 64, then to (6 x 64 = ) 384, 
 and finally (in theory) to 16,777,216 different forms of symbols,' 
 indicate the interminable variety of the Universe, all originating, 
 as above, in Tai-Ki or Tai-Yih. 
 
 I shall next make some extracts from Mons^igneur de Harlez's 
 useful Ecole Pliilosophique de la Chine, ou systbiie de la Nature 
 {SiiigLi), Bruxelles 1890, which for brevity will be cited as the 
 StiigLi. 
 
 Chow-tsze (a.D. 1017-1073 ; predecessor of, but viewed as secondary to, 
 the I2th century Chu Hi), said Tai-Ki was the Great, par excellence. Tai-Ki is 
 a cause, a principle, which has neither cause nor principle. By motion Tai-Ki 
 engendered the secondary principles, yang (active) and yin (receptive). 
 SiiigLi p. 15. (This, it will be seen, is merely continued from the Yi King). 
 But Tai-Ki is One, and yin and yang proceed from It without dividing It 
 although they are distinct, and have separate existences and activities. 
 SingLi 16. Tai-Ki thus = yinyang {SingLi 21, 31) ; and Tai-Ki -|- yin -\- 
 yang = Yih = One = All = heavens + Earth -|- Man. SingLi 21. 
 Tai-Ki never existed without his productions. This is the view of Shao 
 pe-wen (1057-1134) who endorsed Chow-tsze. SingLi 84, 79. 
 Mgr. de Harlez would be in error {SingLi 11) in joining those 
 who say that Chow-tsze invented the term Tai-Ki. We have seen 
 it above in the Appendix to the Yi King at least 1,500 years 
 before Chow-tsze was thought of 
 
 That Chow-tsze drew a new explanatory diagram to illustrate the theory of 
 the working of Tai-Ki, yin, and yang in the cosmos, is indubitable. He 
 called it the "Tai-Ki tableau (t'u) " and Mgr. Harlez gives a copy of it in his 
 SingLi pp. ig, 11, which I have compared with the original. Shao-tsze 
 (1057-1 134) redrew the Tai-Ki tableau in a way of his own, using the term 
 "Yih" = One, instead of Tai-Ki, and giving the eight kwa as above {SingLi 
 81, 77) ; and he also called Tai-Ki the Tao or rational Law {SingLi 104). 
 
 I specially direct the Reader's attention to this important 
 equation Tai-Ki = Yih (the One) = Tao, the Order or Law of the 
 universe, to which we shall return at p. 527. 
 
 The School of Chang-tsze (1032 to 1085), another predecessor of Chu-Hi, 
 left out the term Tai-Ki, and started with an untermed "absolute universal 
 indistinct Being," composed as before of the two Elements {SingLi 148). 
 The Sing-Ming, a treatise compiled from previous authorities in the 17th 
 
 ' Mayers, Manual, 309, 333 to 336. See also the excellent diagrams prelixed to 
 Legge's Yi King, 1882. 
 
520 The Alight of the Gods. \Polar 
 
 century, says that Tai-Ki, the supreme principle, is the receptacle andi pivot of 
 the All {SingLi 124). 
 
 The Li-KJii, a similar treatise of the same period, says (citing Chow-tsze) 
 that Tai-Ki is the law (//) of heavens. Earth, and all beings. It dwells in them 
 in general, and in each thing in particular. This H is a unique indivisible 
 source, formless unapparent infinite. The Ki (of Tai-Ki) is the Extremity. 
 Placed in the middle, it is {like the pivot, like the king, like the Polestar) the 
 centre and the Terminus ; Or, like the upper poi^t 0/ the post of a housed which 
 is the centre, and supports all. From this point everything is derived, in it 
 everything adapts itself In the same way, all the stars surround the Polestar, 
 and turn around it, without its moving or shaking. Tai-Ki is thus the li round 
 which the heavens turn perpetually ; which puts all terrestrial things in order ; 
 which, without ever ceasing, produces and causes to be produced animals and 
 men. Centre of All, the // (that is Tai-Ki) dominates All. Hidden principle 
 of heavens. Earth, man, and things, by which All exists, such is the supreme 
 principle Tai-Ki. SingLi 152, 153, 156.= 
 
 This Li-Khi also says that the Ki, the supreme Pole,^ is the centre of the 
 heavens and of the Earth. It is thus the rational principle which is equally on 
 both sides. SingLi 156. The Li-K'hi adds that the Polestar budges not : still 
 it is the principal fundamental part of the khi (that which has formj, and the 
 most worthy of honour of all the stars. SingLi 157. 
 
 The lull ki 5^ |5( six limits (of space) are the zenith, nadir 
 and four cardinal points.'' Tai-Ki, the greatest Ki, should there- 
 fore be the greatest zenith, which, considering the Earth astro- 
 nomically from a position in its N hemisphere, must be the N 
 pole of the heavens. The Arabic scmt (see p. 499J, whence comes 
 our word zenith, means ' a waj-,' that is a tao, 
 
 I find my Zenith doth depend upon 
 
 a most auspicious Star, whose influence 
 
 if now I court not but omit, my fortunes 
 
 will ever after droop — TJic Tempest, i, 2, iSl. 
 Wang tsze-hwae, an author of the 17th century, wrote a Lun 
 or ' Discussion ' of the above Tai-Ki fu of Chow-tsze's, with a 
 view of showing that Tai-Ki originated in Taoism^, in which no 
 doubt he was right, for Taoism, in spite of its jealous abasement 
 by Confucianists, in which they are tamely followed up by 
 Western Sinalogues, is undoubtedly the superstitio, the sun'ival, 
 of the very most archaic religious traditions and legends of the 
 Chinese ; of which Confucianism is in much only a partial epura- 
 tion. The view that the practical Taoism of to-day is all a 
 
 ' See p. 226 supra. 
 
 - See also a statement of Chu-Ili's view in M. A. Reville's Rdig. Chi. 1SS9, p. J55. 
 
 ■* See p. 23 supra. 
 
 ^ Mayers, Manual, 323, 306. ^ Wylie's Nota, p. 71. 
 
Myths:\ 
 
 The Polestar. 
 
 521 
 
 decadence from the time of Lao-tsze will not stand any strain, 
 
 when tested by comparative studies. 
 
 Dr. de Groot^ says that at Amoy the oldest of the Taoist priests 
 
 present at a ceremony acts as high-priest and wears on the back 
 of his vestment, between the shoulders, this 
 design representing Tai-Ki divided into the 
 yin (black), and yang (white), which is enter- 
 ing yin. Sometimes the vestment bears in- 
 stead of this circular symbol the Chinese 
 characters for Tai-Ki ^ .;g- In either case, 
 the eight kwa shown at p. 518 are arranged 
 around as in the compass at p. 99.- Mr. W. 
 who has been Consul- General m Corea has 
 
 G. Aston, C.M.G., 
 kindly sent me a coloured engrav- 
 ing of the Corean flag on which 
 the TaiKi-yin-yang symbol" is also 
 seen surrounded by the four 
 hsiang. A similar design belongs, 
 see p. 390 supra, to P'an Ku (see 
 
 @p. 525 infra) whom we 
 thus need have but little 
 compunction in equating 
 with Tai-Ki, as an independent 
 title of the supreme principle made 
 man. 
 
 Mgr. de Harlez considers that the placing of Tai-Ki at the origin of things 
 is a negation of Shang-Ti (the Supreme-Ruler) and of every other divinity 
 {SinglJ WZ). But that is, it seems to me, but a Western purview, which is 
 indeed contradicted j*ra tanto by his own subsequent extracts from the Tai-Ki 
 theorists at pp. 124 and 154 of the SingLi, where Shang-Ti is given his full 
 divine rank. I take this opportunity to say that Mgr. de Harlez would have 
 much increased the undoubted value of his book had he made freer use of 
 Chinese characters for the technical terms. 
 
 SHANG-TI X lu- {Siiprevie-Ruler). Shang-Ti's abode, his 
 palace, Tsze-wei is " a celestial space round the N Pole."^ The 
 
 ' Fetes (ttlmotii, i, 60 to 62. 
 
 - As to the two modes of nrrangement, the Fuhsi and the Wan, see Mayers, lilamial, 
 p. 335 and Legge's Yt King, 1SS2, plates ii and iii, and pp. 32, 33. 
 
 '^ Annam is also completely sinicized in this respect. See Les syinbolcs chcz Ics 
 Aiiiianiitcs, par G. Dumontier (Paris, Leroux, 1S91). 
 
 "• Legge's Chi. Classics iii, 34 (cited in Paiiuiisc Found, 216) 
 
522 j^iie Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 C/iiiicse Repository (iv, 194) contained the statement that " Shang- 
 Ti's throne is in Tszc-wei, that is the Polar star."^ This is the 
 Wei j^ we have ah'eady had at p. 226, and the constellation 
 is one of the remarkable ones of the Chinese Sphere, the Wei 
 House (in the astrological sense of house, sin ^). There is 
 also a smaller neighbouring constellation called the sze (pj, judge) 
 Wei." (Remember that Wei is equivalent to Ki ^^, p. 226.; The 
 supreme divine position of Shang-Ti in the Chinese Pantheon 
 could not be better illustrated for Westerns than by Dr. Legge's 
 arguments for its being the only true rendering into Cninese 
 of the English Christian word God.'' The reverse practice, that 
 of substituting ' God ' for Shang-Ti in translations from the 
 Chinese, is of course utterly unscientific, misleading, and even 
 distracting. The term should be left as it is, with the explanation 
 that it means SupremefdivinejRuler. AI. A. Kcville very properly 
 dissents from this practice,'' and Mgr. de Harlez says Shang-Ti 
 is the Supreme Spiritual Being, and renders the term as " le 
 Maitre Supreme, Dieu." Of course he makes Shang-Ti distinct 
 from T'ien 5$ the heavens.'' The compilation called the Li-KIii 
 (= Reason and Matter, and see p. 390J says, as to that ancient 
 poetical classic the Slii King,' that every thought that expresses 
 domination or help has Shang-Ti for its object ; every thought 
 which refers to what comprehends, envelops, and covers on all 
 sides, has T'ien for its object. Here (comments M. de Harlez) the 
 nature and function of each is well determined.'' In the Sim 
 King, that other extremely archaic historical classic,^ the niing 
 (or celestial destiny of good and evil) of empires, princes, and 
 individual men is attributed to the action of Shang-Ti.'^ Both 
 these primeval books use the expressions that Ti was angry ; that 
 
 ' Piwadise Found, 2i6. 
 
 - Uranog. Chi. 233, 22S, 252. Prof. Douglas mention.s a Taoist deity, Tsze-wei 
 te-keun, the steward of this region. Conf. and Taoit. 2S5. 
 
 ■* Letter to Prof. F. Max Miiller, iSSo. The Roman Christian missionarj- uses 
 T'ien Chir ^ ^ , Heavens-Lord ; and Ti Shih seems to have been adopted by the 
 Buddhists for Buddha (says Medhurst), for Indra (says Legge). But Tai-Ti is, according 
 to the dictionary of Indian words translated into Chinese {Fa>i-i-nting i-tsi, cited by 
 S. Juhen), the Chinese rendering of Great Indra (Mahendra = Mahalndra). We have 
 also had him above, p. 517, as T'ien-Ti Shih. 
 
 ■• Larelig. Chi. 1SS9, p. 127. » SiiigLi, tit sup. 54, 3, iS. 
 
 6 Ibid. 154. 
 
 '< Selected and compiled by Confucius from moic ancient remains. 
 
 ' .SingLi, 114. 
 
Myths^^ ■ The Polestar. S^-l 
 
 the august Shang-Ti sent down calamities. That, says the pubh- 
 cation called the Sing-Ming (= Nature and Destiny, compiled 
 at the same period as the Li-Klii), shows the sovereign puissance 
 (of Shang-Ti ).' It is held that Shang-Ti actually revealed the 
 4th (Hongfan) chapter of the Shu King to the divine great Yii 
 circa 220S B.C. (of course a purely mythical date). This chapter 
 contains lengthy teachings as to celestial phenomena and their 
 meanings, the elements, divination, the moral virtues, the principles 
 of government, and judgements." The great philosopher Chu-Hi 
 (a.D. 1 1 30 to 1200) said "Do all your acts as if in the presence 
 of Shang-Ti."^ When a man comprehends Spiritual Being, he is 
 in a state to sacrifice to Shang-Ti,* wrote Chang-tsze (A.D. 1020 
 to 1077) a disciple of Chow-tsze, see p. 519 supra. Confucius 
 himself said "the ceremonies of the sacrifices to Heaven (T'ien) 
 and Earth are those by which we serve Shang-Ti."" 
 
 The highest object of worship among the ancient Chinese was Shang-Ti, 
 writes Professor Douglas ;'' as an earthly sovereign rules over a kingdom, so 
 Shang-Ti lords it over the azure heavens.' The worship of Shang-Ti is the 
 most ancient as well as the most sacred form of Chinese worship. When 
 the sovereign worshipped before Shang-Ti, says the archaic Clwiu Ritual (Li), 
 he offered up on a round liillock a first-bortt male as a whole-burnt sacrifice. 
 The Confucian classic called the Shu King said the ways of Shang-Ti are not 
 invariable ; he showers down blessings on the good, and pours down miseries 
 on the evil, His worship has been maintained with such marks of reverence 
 as place its object on the highest pinnacle of the Chinese pantheon. At the 
 present day the Imperial worship of Shang-Ti on the round hillock at Peking 
 is surrounded with all the solemnity of which such an occasion is capable. 
 The vast altar is a three-terraced marble structure, ascended by (3x3 X3=)27 
 steps. Upon its top platform is built a triple-roofed circular temple 99 feet 
 high — note all the threes, and see the illustration at p. 221 supra. This top 
 platform is also laid with marble slabs forming 9 concentric circles, the outer 
 consisting of the favourite sacred number (9X9=) 81 stones, and the inner 
 circle consisting of 9 (see Mayers, Manual, p. 346) cut so as to fit closely in a 
 ring round a central perfectly circular stone, which is thus surrounded by 
 numerous circular rings and walls and terraces, and finally by the circular 
 horizon of the heavens. This central circular stone is thus typically the centre 
 of the universe, and on it the Emperor kneels before Shang-Ti's tablet, and 
 
 ' SingLi 124. - Ibid. 3. 
 
 ^ Tsieh-Yao book iv, fo. 3, cited in Sin^Li 158. "* SingLi 54. 
 
 ^ Doct. of the Alean [Chttng-Yiing, by a grandson of Confucius) xi.x, 6. Prof. 
 Douglas says this is tlie only lime Confucius seems to be reported as actually mentioning 
 Shang-Ti. 
 
 ® Confucianism and Taonisiu, 82 to S7. 
 
 ' *' Kin 1:00 foo slioo tscili ctiing. Shin e teen,'' 
 
524 The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 faces the North (see p. 428 supra). Here alone is still offered the whole-burnt 
 sacrifice, and a foot-long cylinder of blue jade (see p. 95 supra) the archaic 
 symbol of sovereignty.' 
 
 This last is an irrefutable official sanction for the so-called 
 Taoist title of Yij-Hwang Shang-Ti, Jade-Sovereign Supreme 
 Ruler. Du Halde said that about the year 1700, the Jesuit mis- 
 sionaries disputed with the Chinese literati, and an imperial decree 
 subsequently appeared in the Peking Gazette to say that it was not 
 to the visible heavens that sacrifices were ordered, but to the Lord 
 and Master of the heavens, Earth, and all things. Further, that 
 the tablet to Shang-Ti meant a tablet to the Supreme Lord, who, 
 through awe, was not called by his proper name." (There was 
 another and better reason for this than the " awe " !) 
 
 Of course the Taoist godname Huen-T'ien( = hidden"-heavens) 
 Shang-Ti, ^ ^ J: '^, is only another title of the same Supreme 
 Ruler ; and another of his titles is Chin-Wu Ta-Ti, the Great 
 Ruler who is the True Warrior, Mi'^'};, ^, where, as in so many 
 other mythologies the supreme god is also the god of battles. The 
 ritual of this war-god's cult is called Peh-fang Chin-Wu paots'an, 
 the ' precious ritual of the True W arrior of the North quarter,' 
 clearly affording us, whichever way we turn, an identification with the 
 Polar deity. In fact Wylie actually says'* Hiien-T'ien Shang-Ti is 
 "the god of the N Pole" ; and his abode is on the Great Peak of 
 Perfect Harmony, Tai-yo tai-ho shan, which must be a name for 
 the heavens-mountain, although there is a terrestrial doublet in the 
 Hupeh province. Wylie's other statement (on his p. 44) that " a 
 famous Taoist priest was deified under this title of H.T.S.T." is of 
 course only another version of the sacred legend we have had at 
 p. 5 15 supra. And we get the other title of the same supreme god 
 in the anecdote told by Dr. Edkins, who asked the Head of Taoism_ 
 when at Shanghai some years ago, how long his ancestor Chang 
 Tao Ling (see p. 515 supra) had been deified as YiJ-Hwang 3i 4 
 (Jade-King) Shang-Ti. " Since the universe has existed,"-^ was the 
 very proper reply to a question he must have felt blasphemous. 
 
 ' Edkins, Peking {zilzAh^ Vxo{. Douglas). W. Simpson, JMecting the Sun, 1874, 
 176, 177, iSS. 
 
 " Legge's Li-k'i 1SS5, ii, 21S. 
 
 ' Williams has 'sombre,' and hlian might be read 'black,' 'still,' or 'silent.' The 
 Japanese S/iiiisa-ji/iiii gives the meanings kasuka ' distant and indistinct,' haruka ' remote,' 
 and others. See also p. 532 infra as to Hiien-Yiien. 
 
 * Notes on Chinese Literature, 44, iSo. Douglas, Conf. and Taou. 253. 
 
 ° Dr. Legge's Rclig. of Chi. 236. 
 
Myths^ The Polestar. 5^5 
 
 T'ien-Kung (/^) Heavens-Lord is yet another title. 'Jade' here, 
 the most precious jewel of Chinese sacred and secular fancies, 
 means ' purest, immaculate, spotless.'^ These Taoist titles" are 
 just as good myth as the official government title bestowed in 
 1538 : Hwang-T'ien ^ 3^(Sovereign-heavens)Shang-Ti,^and I have 
 already indefeasibly proved the Yu-Hwang title pp. 523, 524. 
 
 TRIADS. Shang-Ti also enters into the Taoist divine triad 
 formed of (i) F'an-Ku (see p. T,C)Osii/>ra), (2) Lao (that is 'the Old '), 
 and (3) Yii-Hwang Shang-Ti ; but each one of the triad partici- 
 pates in the titles T'ien-tsun ' honoured celestial,' and Shang-Ti 
 ' Supreme-Ruler.'^ This gives P'an-Ku a very high rank, and 
 actually identifies Lao, the mythic founder of Taoism, with 
 Shang-Ti. (But see p. 531 infra.) It must be borne in mind 
 that Ku ■^ and Lao ^ both mean Old, and under the heading 
 " Kronos " I hope to prove that " the Old One," " the Ancient of 
 Days," and so on, are the supreme pristine Polar deity. 
 Dr. Leg-ge gives this Triad as the San Ch'ing,'' the three pure or holy : (i) the 
 jade holy, (2) the highest holy, (3) the greatest hoi)', (i) P'an-Ku, (2) T'ai 
 Shang Lao Kiin, the most high prince Lao, the greatest holy one of Tao and 
 Virtue, heavenly-honoured (see p. 531 infra), (3) Yii-Hwang Shang-Ti (as above) 
 also called Yu Ti, Jade-Ruler, for short." Of course, in accordance with Chinese 
 fashions, the last-mentioned, number three, is the chief of the triad. 
 
 I must here modify the interpretation given to P'an-Ku on 
 p. 390. It is more correctly, both linguistically and in cosmic myth, 
 ' the Coiled Ancient ' or ' coiled-up Antiquity ' ; that is to say the 
 Un-evoluted Man, the one that contained all succeeding human 
 beings in himself, if viewed as a Man-god, or Un-unrolled Time, if 
 taken as a Kronos. Dr. Lcgge' says P'an-Ku is popularly described 
 as " the first man, who opened-up heavens and Earth " ; and in 
 pidgin-English he is " all same your Adam." He also adopts the 
 description "P'an-Ku or Chaos," and cites the authorities given in 
 the note below.- 
 
 ' De firoot, Fetes (TKnioiti, i, 3S, 43. Douglas, Conf. and Tao2t. 276. 
 
 - Taoism also has a god of " the South" whom we shall meet with under that he.ading. 
 
 ^ Legge, Rdig. of Chi. 65, 44. 
 
 ^ A. Reville, Relig. Chi. 1S90, pp. 445 to 44S, citing Legge and Edkins. 
 
 " ' Tsing,' Douglas Conf. and Taou. 275. 
 
 « Relig. of Chi. iSSo, 167, 190. ' Ibid. 16S. 
 
 ' iVIoriison's Did. i, i, 15 ; and I'ie^cO of Cliina, III. Chalmers, Taoist JVords, 
 in Doolittle's Vocab. ii, 235. 
 
526 The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 At Amoy, in the worship of the Lords of the Three Worlds, 
 Sam-Kai-Kong, the altar for the chief feast of the Great Force of 
 Heavens and Earth — the siong-goan = shang yiien (supreme first) 
 J2, tC — is put up in the principal room of the house at or before 
 midnight, but not later. The rest of the night is passed in offer- 
 ings and amusements.' The midnight Mass of the West must 
 have had some similar origin, and both clearly denote the adoration 
 of the supreme god of the night heavens, that is the Polar deity. 
 M. Henri Gaidoz quotes from Wuttke' a fact that seems to fit itself 
 in here : German children have a play in which they represent the 
 journey of the Three Kings of Christmas, and they turn in the air 
 the Star that they carry. Here are the Three Kings of Cologne in 
 " far Cathay." 
 
 Fuh-Hi, Shen-Nung, and Hwang( = yellow)'^-Ti are called the 
 San-Hwang or Three primordial-sovereigns of China, which is a 
 clear divine subordinate Triad,'' for me. The Hwangs ^ of 
 Chinese chronology are, says Mgr. de Harlez," the first mythic 
 beings that ruled for thousands of years at the origin of the Taoist 
 universe. The succeeding legendary sovereigns of the same 
 chronology were called Ti ^ ; while the Wangs ]£ are the kings 
 of the historic dynasties. This, so far as the Ti goes, accords 
 with my claiming the above Hwang-Ti "^ -f^ as a mythological 
 power, and as a universe-Wheel god under " The Wheel " in 
 Vol. H, To him, fabulous, by a superfcetation of fabulousness is 
 attributed " the oldest Taoist record," the Yin-fii Icing^' which was 
 criticised by Chu-Hi in one of his numerous valuable publications. 
 Fu-Hi was also titled Tai Hao -j^ ^ ' the Great Heavens-One'; 
 his mother conceived him miraculously by the inspiration of 
 Heaven, and bore him twelve years in her womb ; he is also called 
 feug = wind. Shen-Nung( Divine-Labourer) was also miraculously 
 conceived by the influence of a celestial dragon, and his other 
 name is Yen-Ti j^| '^j" fire-Ruler. They are obvious cosmic divine 
 inventions. 
 
 ' De Gioot, Fetes d EnwHi,\, 126. - Der Deutsche Volksaherglauhe , p. 67. 
 
 ^ Colour of the Hwang- Ho, Yellow-River, which is the iNIilky Way and its terrestrial 
 continuation and namesake. 
 
 ■• Mayers, Chi. K. Manual, 297. 
 
 " This character is compounded of f^ poh, white luminous shining holy, and ^ 
 wang Emperor: thus the idea is 'bright-divine-king,' for I claim this shining-white 
 term as one more of the endless terms in all mythologies that refer to the bright heavens. 
 
 ^ SingLi, 80. ' Wylie, A'oles, 173. 
 
Myths.'] The Polestar. 5^7 
 
 We must see the same Supreme Being in Tai-Tao kung, the 
 Lord of Grand Tao or Order, •)<;_ '^ ^ otherwise Po-sing Tai-Ti, 
 wisdom-star great-Ruler. " In this principle Tao (whence Taoism) 
 we must see the mysterious impenetrable Force of the universe, 
 to which all that is owes its existence. We might thus call it the 
 universal Soul of Nature." ^ M. de Groot's statement that 
 " Taoism is the only purely Chine.se religion that has created 
 gods " - is quite in accordance with the views here held ; and if the 
 ' familiarity that breeds something like contempt ' have any value 
 then Shang Ti, to whom they give more titles and avatars and 
 human connexions than any Confucianist, must have been an 
 aboriginal Taoist god. But for Tao and Taoism we must now 
 mark out a separate heading, although it has been impracticable to 
 keep them out of previous Sections. 
 
 TAO \% AND TAOISM iii % (Tao-kia). The 2Sth chapter 
 of the treatise on Tao and Teh attributed to Lao-tsze says : Man 
 has for his law the Earth, Earth has the heavens for its law, 
 heaven has Tao for its Law, and the law of Tao is its own spon- 
 taneousness. There was an Infinite that existed before heavens 
 and Earth ; I know not its name, but call it great Tao.'' Of 
 course the word Tao was not invented in that great archaic 
 Treatise. It was constantly in the mouth of Confucius,* and the 
 linguistic signification of it is ' Way ' '^. So is it used in Japanese 
 for their religion Shin-To, the .Tao of the gods, Gods-Way, kami 
 no michi, the Path of the Kami. Tlic Way of Heaven is the 
 familiar name of a Christian prayer-manual. But Tao is more than 
 the Way, writes Prof Douglas, it is an eternal road along which all 
 beings and things walk ; it is everything and nothing, and the 
 cause and effect of All. No being made it, for it is Being itself. 
 All things originate from Tao, conform to Tao, and to Tao at last 
 return.' From it phenomena appear, through it they change, in it 
 they disappear. Formless, it is the cause of form ; nameless, it is 
 the origin of heavens and Earth. If we were compelled to 
 adopt a single word to represent Tao, continues Prof Douglas, we 
 should prefer ' the Way,' that is /j.edoBo';. 
 
 The Li Ki, Ritual-Book (xxiv, 16) puts into the mouth of 
 
 ' De Groot's FHes ttHinoiii, i, 275. - Ibid, i, 3S, 39, 44, 62. 
 
 '' Legge's Relig. of Chi. 213. 
 
 * Douglas, Conf. and Taou. 189. = Ibid. iSg, 190. 
 
528 The Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 Confucius a statement about the Tao or Way or Order of T'ien, 
 the heavens, that might have been in the treatise on Tao and Teh 
 itself.' " The wise man values the unceasingncss of the Tao of 
 T'icn(Way of Heaven). The succession and sequence of the sun 
 and moon from the East and West is the Tao of T'ien. The long 
 continuance of the progress of Tao without interruption is the 
 Tao of T'ien. Its completion of things without doing anything is 
 the Tao of T'ien. Their brilliancy when they are complete is 
 the Tao of T'ien." Gallery rendered T'ien Tao here by 'la Verite 
 celeste,' and Dr. Lcgge makes it the Way of Heaven. Gallery 
 said that " these two fathers of Ghinese philosophy, Lao-Tsze and 
 Gonfucius, had on this mysterious Being ideas nearly similar." 
 (It is ever a marvel to me how it has become the vogue among so 
 many students of the term to consider Tao as so impenetrably 
 mysterious.) 
 
 Here will be conveniently inserted some extracts on the subject 
 of Tao from M. de Harlez's SingLi. We shall then go on to 
 consider Lao-Tsze, the reputed founder of the great religion of 
 Tao, and then Taoism itself. 
 
 Tao is even above the .Supreme Ruler Shang-Ti, wrote the famous Taoist 
 philosopher Chvvang-tsze, about 330 B.C. ; and he was here basing himself on 
 the exact words of the Tao-Tch Jdiig." It is as it were the Law(Dhanna) of 
 Buddha, the ' Law of God.' It is a universal impersonal immaterial principle, 
 which gives to all, even to Shang-Ti himself, its Energy ; and it e.xisted 
 before all things, SingLi p. 5. (This, I may parenthetically remark, is as like 
 Schopenhauer's Wilie working in the Welt as wc are likely to find it in 
 China.) 
 
 Tao is the great universal Harmony (ta-Ho) which is ihe law of beings, 
 said Chang-tsze, whom we have had before, p. 519. J\Igr. de Harlez says here 
 that " the word Tao is taken in very different senses by the diverse schools of 
 Chinese philosophy ; the Tao of Chang-tsze is not at all that of Lao-Tsze." 
 {SinoLi p. yj) It is not possible to give this criticism a paramount weight. 
 M. de Harlez's admirable book proves amply that Tao is ever the same great 
 supreme, universal, all-englobing, principle or law, necessarily described 
 partially by each school, according to its point of puri'iew. I am unable to 
 comprehend M. de Harlez when {SingLi p. 56) he calls Tao "une conception 
 nouvelle." 
 
 Tao is that which operates, evolutes, without sensible form ; it is Law, 
 Order. Tao is the rational Law of existence and activity. (Chang-tsze again) 
 SingLi ^1, f\l. Tao is Law and Order. All that is formless (law, principle, 
 
 ' Book xxix, ch. 5 (§§ 2S to 34), and also Cook iv, v and vii are held to be Taoistic 
 as well as Confucian (Dr. Legge's Li-A'i i, 45, 22, 20 : ii, 344). 
 - Douglas, Conf. and Taoii. 211. 
 
Myths?^ The Poles far. 5^9 
 
 moral and rational rule and order) is alone Tao. It is the rational, the 
 invisible, the void of form, says the Li-Khi {^^ Reason and Matter, an impor- 
 tant compilation of philosophical theories from the nth to the 17th centuries, 
 see p. ^go supra). SingLi 1 si- 
 
 Tao covers (envelops ?) and supports every thing ; without it beings could 
 not be endowed with life. It is the law of bodies as well as of spirits. By it 
 did Fuhi' establish eternal principles. It is by it that the sun, the moon, and 
 the Great Bear (Northern Bushel) have never ceased to move in their orbits, 
 without ever deviating. Even the insect bears Tao within itself fChwang- 
 tsze, as above) SingLi 6, 5. 
 
 Tao is Virtue, and seasonable weather as well, says the Hongfan chapter of 
 that archaic classic the SJiu-King (see p. 522 supra) which was revealed by 
 Shang-Ti himself to the mythic Yu successor of Shun. SingLi 3. 
 Tao, as the rule of the saints, consists solely in goodness, justice, the juslc 
 milieu and Rectitude. To cause it to prevail is to be like heavens and Earth. 
 Ritual belongs to Tao (Chow-tsze, whom we have had before, p. 519) SingLi 
 28, 30. Holiness is complete Truth, complete Rectitude. It is possible for 
 man to bring about the triumph of Tao within himself (Chang-tsze) SingLi 
 44, 57- 
 
 Tao was also called Tai-Ki by Shao-tsze, as to whom, see p. 519 supra. 
 Si?igLi 104. 
 
 Let us now look at a few extracts from M. P. L. F. Philastre's 
 edition of the Yi Kins: •' 
 
 Si-shan Chcn-shi said : Day and night, the dark and the clear, succeed without 
 end ; such is the ordinary course of the Tao (' marche ') of celestial phenomena. 
 A period of increase and a period of decrease, such is the Tao (' loi ') of heaven 
 (Philastre's Yi King i, 11). 
 
 Chu-Hi calls it the immutable Tao ('voie') of the heavens, and says that 
 passive subjection to the influence emanating from the heavens is the Tao of 
 the Earth l^lbid. 18, 59). 
 
 Tao is the law of the heavens (Chang-tsze) //'z'rf. 48. 
 
 The activity of the wise man lasts all day, returning and coming again in 
 Tao (Confucius). Whether he advance or recede, move or repose, it is 
 necessarily ever according to Tao. The sage can place himself according to 
 Tao, without pride as without sadness, whatever be the height or lowliness of 
 his position (Chang-tsze) Jbid. 30, 31, 4]. 
 
 " To have faith in Tao ^ ^ ^ JE " is one of the oracular 
 phrases of the Yi King. "To pursue (?) Tao in divers directions 
 W. fM 'S 7^ " is another of these divining responses, which Chu-Hi 
 said referred to the natural spontaneousness of the movement-of- 
 translation of the heavens. Chang-tsze thereupon made a 
 pregnant remark, which is Taoistic (or Laoistic) and anti-Confucian. 
 " All the first Confucian philosophers have always considered 
 Repose as constituting the innerness (heart) of heavens and Earth. 
 
 ' One of the fabulous divine Emperors of mylh. - Paris, 1S85. 
 
 2 L 
 
53° The Night of the Gods. {Polar 
 
 In truth this was because they could not see tliat the origin of 
 Motion is precisely the Will (heart) of heavens and Earth. But 
 who can see \\'ithout knowing Tao ? " (Philastrc, ut sup. 300, 393, 
 
 395 to 397)- 
 
 This seems to be of great interest as fore-going, in Taoism, wiiat we con- 
 sider to be modern Western philosophy, Cartesian and other. Vous qui 
 imaginez si liien la maticre en repos, wrote Diderot after Descartes, pouvez- 
 vous imaginez le feu en repos ? Give me Extent and Motion, said Descartes 
 himself, and I will construct the World. .Since his time at all events the 
 grand principle of the permanence and continuity of Motion has tended more 
 and more to dominate modern science. From 'heat is a mode of motion' we 
 have not yet got to ' Life is a mode of motion,' but even the Kirghiz women 
 said to Vambery' that nothing in Nature was motionless but the dead. That 
 too could be capped from \'irgirs philosophy which admitted no such thing as 
 cosmic death : " nee morti esse locum."^ 
 
 Immediately following upon S;he above remark, Chang-tsze also wrote a 
 very odd thing : " The thunder is negativity and positivity striking together 
 and producing sound " [Ibid. p. 398). This of course meant yin (negative) and 
 yang (positive) ; but the persistence of philosophical nomenclature down all 
 that way and distance into our own positive and negative electricity is worthy 
 of some admiration. 
 
 I have already (p. 499) sought to identify Tao with the Buddhic 
 Dharma, and there is plenty of evidence for this on the moral 
 side. Tao, writes Prof. Douglas,' is the ethical nature of the good 
 man and the principle of his action. The Tao-Tch promises to 
 him who follows Tao that he shall gain such an insight into the 
 workings of Tao as is withheld from him who has not conquered 
 his passions ; that he shall see the small beginnings of things, and 
 shall possess a Light which shall bring him home to its own 
 brightness ; that he shall be like an infant. Lay hold of the 
 great form of Tao, and the whole world will go to }'ou. All- 
 assimilating Buddhism, when it came to China, of course adopted, 
 as its wont is, such a grand and noble native tenn as Tao ; calling 
 their own flock Tao-jin, men of the Law. 
 
 Dharma is however translated into Chinese as Fah ji, which is pronounced 
 in Japan Ho, whence Buppo (= Butsu-ho) means Buddhism. But there is an 
 alternative term, Butsu-do, ' the Way of Buddha,' where do ^ to ^ Tao jM". 
 The Chinese t'an (^ t'anmo) is a mere phonetic attempt at dharma. 
 Xot alone so, but Chinese Budtlhist priests took the name. One 
 of these, Tao-shi, wrote in the 7th century a notable treatise in 
 1 20 parts on the Dharma, called Fah-yuen chu-lin ; and another, 
 
 ' False Dervish (French ed.). 142. - Cccr^. iv, 226. 
 
 ' Coiif. c.iiti Taoii. i<^o, 203. 212. 
 
Myths^^ The Pokstar. 
 
 Tao-p'ei, produced in 1818 an abstract of the history of Chinese 
 
 Buddhism.' 
 
 Thus I think it is fairly well proved that we have in Tao, in 
 
 full nneasure, all the qualities or attributes I have been contending 
 
 for above, from other Cosmic mythologies, in the Judge of Heaven : 
 
 Law, Dharma, Harmony, Order, Rectitude, Truth, Justice ; and 
 
 besides these Moral law, Reason, and Virtue. 
 
 LAO-TSZE ^ ^, that is Oldman-Child, was so called be- 
 cause he was born with hair and eyebrows already white, and 
 face wrinkled, from age, having been carried 81 (= g .x 9) years 
 in his mother's womb. He was an incarnation of the Polestar, and 
 had an immortal bod\\ 
 
 " Mais nous n'avons pas a nous arreter a ces contes," says Dr. de (Jroot,- from 
 whom I am here borrowing. That, on the contrary, is our main and very 
 business here, de nous arreter a ces contes, et de les bien peser, et de les 
 retourner et comparer juscju'^. ce que nous en ayons extrait tout ce qu'ils 
 nous cachent de verite mythique et divine. All the 'superstitions,' all the 
 ' contes,' that I shall rescue here, and that it is the sorry custom to deride in 
 a slap-bang and irresponsible fashion, are purely Cosmic ; they are also 
 therefore purely Taoistic, for Tao is the divine Law, Order, and Harmony of 
 the Cosmos, of the three Powers of the Universe, of the San ts'ai, ki, or i, of 
 Heavens, Earth, and Man. 
 
 " Lao-Tsze's history is almost altogether legendary " wrote Mayers ; 
 but the true theory seems to me to be that the term or nomen 
 ' Oldman-Child ' is the aboriginal mythic conception of the decay 
 and renewal of things,^ of a Kronos in point of fact, of the 
 Lao whom we saw above (p. 525) in a divine Triad ; and that the 
 assumed author of the Tao-Teh king; whom Confucius is said to 
 have known and been snubbed b)-,' was a mere terrestrial name- 
 sake. This thcor)- — like another which brings the ^i^i?^/ Alex- Andros 
 (son of the god EurusTheos who imposed the twelve labours on 
 the god HeraKles) to the front instead of his namesake the con- 
 queror — this theory at once enables us to work off the ' legends ' 
 of the iiiau into pure and genuine myth of the god. The 
 statement that the earthly author of the treatise on Tao and 
 Teh (Law and Virtue) was an incarnation of the divine Lao who 
 
 ' Wylii;, A')/jj, 166, 172. - Fe'/es d£iiwiii (K\nQy)\\, 6g2. 
 
 ' It is not iii>igiiilicaiit that by pulling /ao over lizc we gel ihe character for hsiio 
 '^. filial piety, the Chinese virtue. 
 
 * This is a tale o( the Taoi>l Clnvang-lsze [circa B.C. 330). See Mayers, I\fantial, 
 I .[1. Ill, 30. 
 
 2 L 3 
 
532 xhe Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 was called Tai-Shang Lao Kun :fc Jl ^ S the Great-Supreme 
 Old Prince, then becomes transferable, and so acceptable ; and I 
 would straightway equate him with the Old One, the Ancient of 
 Da}\s met with, and to be met with, so often throughout this 
 Inquiry in a variety of mythologies. The fact that it is always 
 the most aged of the Taoist priests present on any occasion that 
 wears the ceremonial vestment bearing the emblem of Tai-Ki 
 (seep. 521 supra) seems to me of much importance here. '• In 
 .fl.D. 666," \\Tote Mayers,' " Kao Tsung canonized him with the 
 title :fc Jl S X' ^ '^," Tai-Shang hiien-yuen Hwang-Ti," Great- 
 Supreme hidden-origin" divine-Ruler, " when for the first time he 
 was ranked among the gods." (It is not necessary to accept this 
 last gratuitous statement.) In A.D. 1013 the title of Tai-Shang 
 Lao Kiin (as above) was added. 
 
 Professor Douglas says' : By some Chinese writers Lao-tsze is declared to 
 have been a spiritual being, and the embodiment of Tao ; without beginning 
 and without cause ; . . . dark, yet having within himself a spiritual sub- 
 stance which was Truth. His appearance during the Chow dynasty (604 B.C.) 
 was only one of his avatars. At the mythical time of the Three Hwang he 
 first appeared as a Man under the name of Yiien-Chung fa-sze, and had ten 
 inore incarnations [which would make twelve in all] before his final birth as 
 Lao-tsze, when he was brought forth under a Li ^ tree [which is of course 
 the Uni\erse-tree, and accounts for the vast number of Chinese names in Li, 
 of which the plum is the terrestrial type]. 
 
 The paradises promised to the followers of Lao-tsze, says De Groot, are in 
 the stars, in the moon, in the Jade-Palace, Yii-Kung 3i ^, or in the Concealed 
 Purple Palace, Tsse-wi Kung jS ^ ^ ; a region surrounding the Pole, and 
 bounded by some 15 stars which form the hidden purple Enclosure (or Garden 
 JB huan). There is seated the Supreme Being of the Taoist pantheon, the 
 Highest monarch and Jade-emperor,= Yu-hwang Shang-Ti. 
 
 " Lao-Tsze alone," writes M. de Harlez,'^ " sought to pry into 
 the mysteries of Being and of its origin, of the first principle, of the 
 last causa renmi ; while Confucius and his disciples, even including 
 
 ' Manual, p. 113. ^ As to Hwang-Ti see p. 53S infra. 
 
 ■* Or ' dark First-Cause ' (Mayers) ; ' first dark cause' (Douglas) ; ' mysterious exis- 
 tence' (Legge). It is very remarkable that when the character ^ was made taboo, it 
 was ^ that was substituted for it. Thus we may see the analogy of the indistinct 
 remoteness belonging to the Cosmic sense of either ; and the difficulties of translation. 
 See also p. 524 supra, as to Hiien-T'ien. "■ Confucianism and Taouism, 1S79, p. 179. 
 
 ^ De Groot, itt sup. 697. Prof. .Schlegel says Tsse, purple, here means 'of the 
 court,' and Wi ' the concealed ' refers to virtuous and retiring ignored men whom the 
 sovereign should SL-ek out, and reward {Uranot;. Chi. 50S, 462). '' SiiigLi 3, iSj- 
 
Myths?\ The Polestar. 533 
 
 the celebrated Mencius himself, merely occupied themselves about 
 morality and the rules of government." This of course affords us 
 one paramount reason why the " real or pretended disciples of Lao- 
 Tsze are considered as sectaries by the entire body of lettered 
 officials,"' and why Taoism is scouted as a superstition, as charla- 
 tanism, as a farrago of fables. 
 
 Wylie- has made some remarks of a very general character, on 
 the corpus of the Taoist books : 
 
 It is difficult to define the limits of the class of Literature under the 
 designation Tao-kia, Taoism. Its aspect has changed with almost every age 
 and while the philosophy taught by the sage Lao-Tsze, its reputed founder, is 
 now numbered among the doctrines of antiquity [?] the genius of modem 
 Taoism is of such a motley character as to defy an attempt to educe well- 
 ordered system from the chaos. [Well, as for the matter of that, one might 
 state the same of any other literature — say the Christian ; or of the Universe, 
 with which Tao is busy.] Commencing with the profound speculations of 
 contemplative recluses on some of the most abstruse questions of theology and 
 philosophy, other subjects in the course of time were superadded, which at 
 first appear to have little or no connexion with the doctrine of Tao. Among 
 these, the pursuit of immortality [not unknown outside Taoism !], the conquest 
 of the passions, the search after the philosopher's-stone, the use of amulets and 
 charms, the observance of fasts and sacrifices, together wi_;:h rituals and the 
 indefinite multiplication of objects of worship, have now become an integral 
 part of modern Taoism [and have been of every other great system under the 
 Skies of heaven 1] 
 
 The famous Chu-Hi's remark (a.D. 1130-1200) that the fol- 
 lowers of Lao-Tsze wandered further and further from the Book of 
 Law and Virtue, as the period lengthened which separated them 
 from it," is not of much value here. Chu-Hi came some 1800 years 
 after Lao-Tsze's supposed date, and the Book in question is an 
 abstract philosophical treatise wholly high and dry from the 
 indispensable popular beliefs and superstitions that all men enjoy ; 
 and that were of course, by the nature of the case, rife and 
 vigorous when (as well as before) the Tao-Teh treatise was pro- 
 duced. The other day, I caine across two letters from Frederick 
 the Great written to Voltaire in 1766, in which he has these 
 unanswerable words : 
 
 " All the truths collectively which the pJiilosoplies announce are not as valu- 
 able as tranquillity, the one blessing enjoyable by man [if he can get it !] on 
 
 ' SingLi 3, 1S5. 
 
 ^ Note! on Chinese Literature by A. Wylie, Agent of the British and Foreign Bible 
 Society in China. Shanghai 1867, p. 173. 
 ^ Douglas Conf. and Taoii. 230. 
 
534 'Jlic Nio-lit of the Cods. \Polai 
 
 this atom of an earth. . . As for me, who through the duties of my 
 position am very well acquainted with the featherless species of biped, I 
 predict that neither you nor all the pliilosopJics in the world will ever cure the 
 human race of the superstition to which it cleaves." 
 
 Any man who harbours the Quixotic idea that the Tao-Te/i 
 king ouLjht or could have abolished or even laid a finger on 
 popular Taoistic superstition, must have shut his e}'es to the whole 
 of the uninterrupted superstitious history of all the races and 
 religions of mankind. Popular Taoism, that is the aggregate of 
 the Itiiiiian belief-habits of a vast populace, opened like an ocean, 
 engulphcd the Tao-Te/i king, and then closed in again over it. 
 
 The historical fact that Jenghiz Khan's armies, when they 
 appeared in 1200 on the Chinese frontier, immediately attracted 
 the Chinese Taoist priests (alchymists and magicians as they are 
 dubbed) to his banners, is a most significant fact, and points even 
 to a JNIongol origin for Taoism. These priests were Kublai's court 
 chaplains. The further fact that so soon as a Chinese d)-nasty was 
 restored in the ]\Iings, 160 years later, persecution of the then 
 powerful Taoists at once commenced, is another pregnant circum- 
 stance that points, and tells, in the same direction. "^ 
 
 To further drive home the Cosmic connexion between the Law 
 of the rotating Universe and the Polar heavens, between Taoism 
 and the celestial North, let us follow Stanislas Julien and Prof. 
 Douglas — we could have no safer guides — in making some extracts 
 from the truiy famous primer of modern Taoism, well known as 
 the Book of Rewards and Punishments, the Ka)i yiiig peai : 
 
 There are also the Three Counsellors (San Kung, a constellation in our 
 Ursa Major) and the Northern Bushel (Peh-tow, Ursa Major itself), the prince 
 of spirits, who are placed over men. There are also three spirits, the San 
 Chih, wno dwell in the bodies of men and mount to the Heavens- Palace to 
 render account of their crimes and faults. The Spirit of the Hearth- does 
 the same. . . Don't scold the wind, nor abuse the rain. Don't leap over 
 a well or a hearth.- . . Don't weep or spit or utter abuse towards the 
 North, where resides the prince of the Stars of the North. The N Pole is 
 the hinge of the heavens ; if you dare to weep or spit towards the N you outrage 
 the gods and profane their presence. . . Don't sing or weep before the 
 hearth ; don't burn perfumes with fire taken from the hearth. . . Don't 
 spit towards shooting stars ; don't point at a rainbow. When Confucius 
 finished the Classic on Filial Piety [the footnote on p. 531 comes m here very 
 usefully] he observed a severe fast, and then turning towards Ursa Major, he 
 respectfully explained the motives with which he had composed his work. . 
 Don't point rudely at the sun moon or stars ; don't stare at the sun or moon. 
 
 ' Douglas, Covf. and Taai. 252 to 254. - See p. 362 sii/'ra. 
 
Myths:] 
 
 The Polcstar. 
 
 And still, after all written and speculated as to Taoism Con- 
 fucianism and Buddhism, the Chinese have a quiet saying : Sam 
 kao it kao, ' the three sects are one sect.'' 
 
 JAPAN. All this abundant Chinese Polar and Cosmic mjlho- 
 logy prepares us for the analogous Japanese Lord-God of the divine 
 Centre of the heavens, Ame-no-MiNaka Nushi kami, who, as will 
 immediately be seen, dwelt in the Polestar. To illustrate the 
 Japanese cosmogony, I append a couple of diagrams copied from 
 the SanDaiKo (Study of Three Generations) of Hatori Nakatsune. 
 These diagrams have already been mentioned at p. 62 which I now 
 here slightly modif\-. 
 
 This tract, published in 1791, now forms a suppleirlent to vol. xvii of the 
 KoshikiDen (tradition of the Koshiki) of the celebrated Motowori Norinaga 
 (1730-1801), and as Hatori was his favourite pupil, it is thought that Motowori 
 inspired it, if he were not its real author. The commentator Hirata Atsutane 
 (1776-1843) also interwove a great part of this SanDai/co, including the 
 diagrams,- into his own Tama no miHasliira"- so that all these three famous 
 Shinto writer? may, 1 fanc\', be viewed as a solidarity in so far as the \alue and 
 authority of the leading myths set out in the SanDaiko and in the Tama no 
 miHasliira are concerned ; and this it is important to bear in mind. 
 
 Description of the diagrams. The first words of the Kozhilx'i 
 (see p. 190 supra) are : 
 
 ' De Groot, Fcles dEmoui, 55. - Mr. .'^atow's Fine Sliinlo, 1875, pp. 57, 69. 
 
536 The Ni^ht of the Gads. [Polar 
 
 "The opening of the Ijeginning of heavens and Earth. The divine names 
 of the kami that deigned to become in the waste of the high heavens : Ame- 
 no-miNaka Nushi kami ; then TakamiMusu bi kami ; then Kami AIusu hi kami. 
 These three kami, having deigned to become (as) sclf-kami, concealed their 
 divine personahties." (Ame-tsuchi no hazhime no hiraki. Tak' ama-hara ni 
 narimaseru kami no mi-na \va : Ame-no-miNaka Nushi kami ; tsugini Taka 
 miMusu bi' kami ; tsugini Kami Musu bi' kami. Kono mi- bashira no kami 
 wa, mina hitori-gami narimashite mi mi' wo kakushi.) 
 
 Bi = hi in these god-names should be read ' bright,' not 
 ' wondrous.' It is a straight parallel to the white brightness of 
 Argos, and refers to star-gods. The names of the second and 
 third gods of the Triad thus read : ' the bright gods High divine- 
 Producer and Above-Producer.' They seem to me to have been 
 either necessarily identical, or a dual equivalent pair ; and they 
 must be viewed as parallels to the Chinese Yin and Yang, and 
 also to the genealogically later IzanaGi and IzanaMi in Japanese 
 myth. Their pristine appearance with, but beneath, the central 
 Northern god is a clear parallel to the Chinese procession of Yin 
 and Yang from the Polar Tai-Ki (p. 518 supra). 
 
 These are the three primeval cosmic gods shown by black 
 spots in the circular diagram. 
 
 The circle is meant to indicate ame ^ the heavens, or sora or 6 sora, 
 ' vasty space,' or ama tsu mi sora ' the divine space of heaven,' or (as 
 above) tak'ama hara, ' high heaven waste (or plain).' (The parallel authority, 
 the Nilwngi, calls it by a Chinese term kiochiu, emptiness, the void, and 
 also uses mashiki ' existed,' in regard to god-origin, instead of narimaseru, 
 ' became.') 
 
 The upper central spot is Amc-no-miXaka Nushi kami, or the 
 Lord god of the divine (mij centre (naka)' of the hcax-cnsfame). 
 Hirata said the upper part of the heavens is the Polestar, and 
 that these three first-gods had their abode in that star. Accord- 
 
 ^ bi = hi ' bright.' - mi = three. 
 
 ■' mi = self. In the tilhcr four cases mi = divine. The use of hashira as 'the 
 numeral for gods ' is an important archaic fact which is dealt with in the (temporarily 
 omitted) section on " The Ladder," but it ought to have been mentioned at p. \%<) supra. 
 The expressions ' to become ' (narimaseru) and ' self-gods,' as I render hitorigami, afford 
 a close equivalent to the Greek avToy(vr]s. The concealment of their 'selves' seems 
 merely to mean that they were never individually visible bodily or otherwise. 
 
 ■* This is doubtless the god mentioned as Naka-Kami in the 11th-century Gmji Mono- 
 gatarl : " The day was tirawing to an end when it was announced that the mansion was 
 closed in the certain celestial direction of the Naka-gami (central God)." Mr. Suyematz 
 Kenchio's translation 1SS2, p. 49. The translator's note on this page shows that the 
 meaning is now quite lost, so far as he is concerned. Indeed the translation is "scarcely 
 even a paraphrase of the original." Trans. As. Soc. fap. ^iii, 97. 
 
MythsP^ The Polestar. 537 
 
 ingly, in the second diagram above (which is the top third of the 
 fourth diagram in the SanDaiko), we see the word 5^ indicating the 
 summit of the Cosmos-figure, and the three spots in a horizontal 
 row • • • are the same three gods that we had before in a 
 triangle ,\. Above them now appears the god ame-no-Toko- 
 Tachi kami, ' the god Eternal-Stand of the heavens,' which must 
 refer to the only stable spot, the celestial Pole. In the parallel 
 Nilwngi account there is a /i'««/-no-TokoTachi,i whom (kuai 
 being the Earth) I view as the corresponding terrestrial god, which 
 is in direct consonance with the heavens and Earth pillar gods on 
 p. 189 stipra. 
 
 The subsequent effacement in Japanese mythology of this old 
 central Polar celestial first god by Amaterasu (Heavens-Shine), 
 who became the Sun-goddess, has been a stumbling-block to com- 
 mentators ; but it only shows the later- predominance of Sun- 
 worship. It is the fate of all divinities to fall and be forgotten 
 in their turn, see p. 19 supra ; every god has his day. Still, stray 
 survivals of the original great god can always be detected. At 
 Ikegami (which may mean august-god or living-god) the Polestar 
 is still worshipped under the title of Miyau Ken ^ nji ; where 
 miyau (pronounce miyo) is 'divine,' ' m3-sterious,' as in Miyau-Han 
 (Chinese Miao-fah) = Sad-Dharma, the 'divine' Law of Buddha, 
 and ken is Eye.- We thus have the Eye of Heaven over again 
 as the Polar god. " Under this name of MiyauKen the Polestar is 
 worshipped in the form of a Buddha with a Wheel, the emblem of 
 the revolving world " (that is, of course, of the heavens), " resting 
 on his folded hands,"^ which last indicates the immobility of the 
 Pole. Though the compound word be Chinese, and although 
 Buddhism is in possession, it is important that the Buddhist sect 
 
 ' On the subject of these gods see Mr. Satow's lievival of Pure Shinto, pp. 6l, 59, 
 47> 53> 60. 67 ; Mr. Chamberlain's Kojiki, p. 15 ; and Mr. Satow again in Trans. 
 As. Soc. Jap. vii, 114, 120. 
 
 " It may also be _p[ 'to see' ' vision,' as in senken foresight; and in the old 
 Portuguese Dictionary (re-edited by Leon Pages) Mioken is given as '"vue des Kami et 
 des Ilotoke, inconnue des hommes." The hotoke are the Buddhist gods. But Chinese 
 yen becomes ' gan ' in Sinico-Japanese ; thus niku-gan is the worldly, and shin-gan the 
 spiritual eye, in the everyday devout slang of Buddhism. In Chinese, Virdpaksha, evil- 
 eyed, the title of the three-eyed Siva (see p. 477 supra), is rendered Ngo-j«;z ^ |Jg^ 
 just this Japanese niku-gan ; and the reverse SuNetra is rendered Shen-yen ^ [|^ 
 beneficent (Jap. zen) eye. Thus the iWiyauKen that is worshipped is either ' divine eye ' 
 or ' divine-eyed.' 
 
 ■^ Satow and Ilawes Hdbk. of Japan, 2nd ed. p. 39. 
 
S3S The Niolii of the Goth. [Polar 
 
 which worships MiyauKcn is tlic purcl)' Japanese sect founded by 
 Nichiren, who died at Ikec^^ami. 
 
 There is a village called Miokcn, and also a mountain of that name. There 
 is also, in a village named Komagi, a temple called Suwa no Mioken which, as 
 suwe (= sue) in archaic Japanese meant ' the end or extremity of anything,' 
 may mean the Mioken of the Extreme, that is, of the Chinese Polar Ki of which 
 we have had so much. Furthermore this would give us a clue to the real 
 meaning of the temple-name at Hamamatsu called Suwa Miojin, which would 
 mean ' the Extreme Divine Man,' a straight parallel to P'an Ku, see pp. 390 
 and 525. The temple of Kami no Suwano jinja then perhaps claims bracketing.' 
 But this is somewhat precarious. 
 
 This Wheel of MiyauKen gives us besides a direct connexion 
 with the Taoist wheel-god at p. 516 supra. It must be just added 
 here (and then left for the section on "The Suastil-:a" in Vol. II) 
 that the rt so frequently to be seen on Japanese Buddhist temples 
 is the symbol of Fudo-sama, the motionless Buddha- (fu ^ negative 
 particle, and do = to = Chinese tung ^ ' to move ') which seems 
 to connect the suastika with the Universe-wheel. The character 
 also means ban, All(things), in Japan, which is a confirmation. 
 
 Here is the place to note the very important fact that the .MiKado's Sinico- 
 Japanese posthumous title Tcnnou, is simply a direct forced loan of the Chinese 
 T'ien-hwang 7^ ^, Heavens-sovereign, the name (see p. 513 supra) by which 
 the Polestar is nowadays worshipped in China. Of course T'ien-Hwang(She) 
 was also the title of the divine first sovereigns who followed P'an-Ku in Chinese 
 cosmic myth.^ As used after death for each MiKado it is thus an apotheosis, 
 a deification, such as we meet with in all mythologies ; and we ha\'e already 
 seen, p. 251, that MiKado means Gate of Heaven. Another Imperial title, 
 Kau-tei, is merely the Japanese pronunciation of Hwang-Ti, with the characters 
 for which it is written. 
 
 In .\.D. 674 the Chinese Emperor Kao Tsung assumed the title of T'ien 
 Hwang, and in 690 his widow usurped the title Hwang-Ti ^ "% which, by a 
 combination of the titles of the mythological legendary 'three Hwang' and 
 five Ti,' see p. 526 supra, the great Emperor She(= first)Hwang-Ti (B.C. 259- 
 210) had established as the Imperial dignity. It is worthy of attentive remark, 
 as showing that Kao Tsung was a devout Taoist, that it was he who in 666 
 officially registered Lao-Tsze's title which contains the divine rank of Hwang- 
 Ti (see p. 532 supra). 
 
 There is another very curious natixe title of the MiKado, Subera-gi or 
 Sumera-gi or Sumero-gi or Sumera-mikoto (as gixenby Hepburn); the Chinese 
 characters for writing which are in one place those for Hwang-Ti, and in 
 another those for T'ien-Hwang. In the Shinsdpitiki ho\ve\er the word is gi\en 
 as .Subera-ki under the character ^. The verb subc meairs ' to unite in oire ' 
 
 ' Handboo!;, pp. [90], 469, 71, 206, 234. 
 
 - Mr. T. R. H. McClatchic in Trans. .\s. .Soc. J.Tp. v, i. This is Nirvana, see 
 p. 551 i^Pra. ^ Mayers, Maiuiai, p. 364. 
 
Myiks.'] 7 lis Polcstar. 539 
 
 ' to take the whole,' and tenga wo sube-osameru means ' to govern the whole 
 empire ' ; subete also means ' all, the whole.' The archaic meaning of subu or 
 sumu is said by Mr. Chamberlain to have been ' to control, to be chief.' As to 
 -ra- it seems to be the archaic (and modern) vague plural, and /■/' may be 
 for kimi, ' lord, sovereign,' as it is interchangeable as above with mikoto (divine- 
 object) ; kimi is one of the meanings given for "^ in the Shinso-jibiki, while 
 MiKado is another. Subera-ki and Subera-mikoto ought thus apparently to be 
 the true forms, and the meaning is ' Universal Emperor.' But as the Empress 
 is called SuberaMi, we also arrive at the interesting fact (for those who care 
 about such arid items) thatki=_^/is the ancient masculine correspondent to 
 mi the female term, and we thus still have in the Imperial SuberaGi and 
 SuberaMi a straight parallel to the pair of gods IzanaGi and IzanaMi that we 
 started with on the opening page (31) of this Inquiry. One of the names of 
 NiNigi' the 'Earth Holder' god, the ancestor of the MiKados, was Sume 
 miMa, wherein we also detect the pedigree of this title Sumex-ACA. MiMa 
 := divine grandchild (of AmaTerasu). 
 
 Another title of the MiKado's, Ten-shi, Heavens-Son, is simply the Chinese 
 T'ien-tzCi. 
 
 After all this complicated discussion of so many divine names 
 which have all been identified or connected with the Polestar and 
 the supremely sacred North, a classified list of them is indispen- 
 sable to both the writer and his reader. Let us first take those 
 god-names in which the idea of the Ruler (Ti) of the Universe 
 occurs ; they are eleven : 
 Hwang-- 7"/ . . . Sovereign-ruler (Ti here always has the celestial 
 
 divine sense). 
 Hiien-yiien Hwang- Z/ . Hidden-origin Sovereign-ruler. 
 Shang-7i' . . . Supreme-Ruler or god. 
 
 Hiien-T'ien Shang-7"/ . Hidden-heavens Supreme Ruler. 
 Hwang-T'ien Shang-7/' . Sovereign-heavens Supreme Ruler. 
 Yii-Hwang Shang-7/' . Jade-Sovereign Supreme Ruler (also YLi-Ti', Jade- 
 Ruler). 
 (See also Shang-'^'i.ien, Supreme-First, p. 526). 
 Tai-7/' .... Great-Ruler. 
 
 ' This god's names are noteworthy. They are (l)Ame-nigi-Shi, (2)Kmii-nigi-Shi, 
 (3)Ama tsu Hi, (4)Taka-hiko-ho no NiNigi. Taking I -h 2 we get ' Heavena-holding 
 Wind ' and ' Earth-holding Wind,' which give us a clear dual parallel to the dual pillar- 
 wind-godsat p. 242. Then 4 means the ' Earth-holder of the High-brightmale-summit, 
 a title which repeats 2, at the same time that it inchides the idea of the heavens-height 
 in I. Then (j)Ama tsu Hi = 'Brightness (or fire or sun) of the heavens.' [Ame = 
 ama heavens ; kimi Earth ; nigi to hold, shi wind, taka high, hi bright, ko male (same 
 as ki in SuberaKi), ho summit, ni earth. ) The explanations of the native commentators 
 are here more utterly ludicrous than usual. He is a dual Axis and Wind god of the 
 bright heavens. 
 
 '- As stated on p. 526 I should alw.iys desire to translate flwang as ' Bright-(divine) 
 Emperor.' 
 
540 Tlie Night of the Gods. [Polar 
 
 Chin-Wu Tai-7z' . . True- Warrior Great-Ruler. 
 Po-Sing Tai-7>' . . Wisdom(?)-star Great Ruler. 
 T'ien-Hwang Tai-7V . Heavens-sovereign Great Ruler. 
 Tien-7i' .... Heavens-Ruler. 
 
 Then vv'c have twelve names of god.s that contain T'ien, the 
 heavens : 
 
 T'ien-Chxi . . . Heavens-Lord. 
 
 T^ie/i-chung . . . Heavens-centre (also Yuen-chung, First-centre). 
 Hiien- T^ie/i, T 
 
 Hwang- rViv/, |" (under Ti above). 
 PzOT-Hwang, J 
 7^ien-K\ . 
 T'zen-Kung 
 T'uvt-Muh 
 T'ie>!-She . 
 T'len-T'i (under Ti). 
 T'ien-tsun 
 T'lcn-Yih . 
 
 Heavens-Extreme. 
 Heavens-Lord. 
 Heavens-Eye. 
 Heavens-Lord. 
 
 Heavens'-honoured. 
 . Heavens-First (also Tai-Yih, Great-First, and see 
 Shang-Yiien, Supreme-First, and Yiien-chung, 
 First-centre, above). 
 The Extreme, the A'z of the Heavens occurs in three names or terms : Peh-A'V, 
 North-Extreme; Tai-A"/, Great-Extreme; and T'ien-AV, Heavens-Extreme. 
 If we add P'an-Ku and the four Japanese gods, Naka-Nushi (Centre- 
 Lord), alias Naka-Kami ; Toko-Tachi (Eternal-Stand), and Miyau- 
 Ken, we obtain the considerable total number of some thirty-one 
 Chinese and Japanese divine names for the Polar power — which 
 would make quite a litany, as I said above, in Polestar-worship. 
 
 A very extraordinary fact will here be well-placed, as a climax 
 to this section. Scientific though it be, and rigidly so, it will not 
 much distract our present astro-theological attitude of contem- 
 plation. Professor Perry FRS, in his admirable monograph on 
 Spinning Tops,' shows how a spinning gyrostat whose spinning- 
 axis is compelled by the experimenter into a horizontal plane, is 
 then constrained by the Earth's motion alone to direct its spinning- 
 axis due N and S, and so to indicate mathematically the lie of the 
 true meridian of its spot. If the spinning gyrostat be next shut-off 
 from all other motion except a vertical one in the plane of this 
 meridian, its spinning-axis will point its N end up to, and continue 
 to point truly up to the celestial pole. Then adds Prof Perry, 
 in terms strangely suitable to my purposes : " It is with a curious 
 mixture of feelings that one first recognises the fact that all 
 
 ' JUcv/tana' of Sficiia- : S/'innJng To/^s, by Prof. John Perry ME, DSc, FRS, 1S90, 
 pp. 107 to no, 12, 13. A publication that does much credit to the S.P. C.K. 
 
Myths.'] The Polestar. 54i 
 
 rotating bodies — -fly-wheels of steam-engines and the hke— are 
 ahvays tending to turn themselves towards the Polestar ; gently and 
 vainly tugging at their foundations, all the time they arc in motion, 
 to get round towards the object of their adoration." But Prof. 
 Perry has not confined his gaze to gyrostats ; he has also " watched 
 the tedzuma-shi directing the evolutions of his heavily-rimmed 
 koma under the dropping cherry-blossoms beside the red-pillared 
 temple of Asakusa, in the land of the waving bamboo and the 
 circling hawk and the undulating summer sea." 
 
 >i< >k ® ^^ ^ ® ~k i< 
 
 Emerging here for the moment from our perdurable plunge 
 into the dark backward and abysm of mythological Time, I cannot 
 but fear me that the end of this first Volume is very much " upon 
 the heavy middle of the Night " in dulness as well as in position 
 It is but little in the Author's favour that due and early warning 
 was given to the Reader, on p. 26, of the hammer-and-tongs sort 
 of hard dry stuff" he was to encounter. May it make him indulgent 
 to reflect that the Writer has gone through at least double punish- 
 ment — without reckoning what was jettisoned in the course of this 
 first long run in the Argo voyage round the World — for he has 
 finished the second Volume. However, the less said about it here 
 and now, the better ; though it may be explained that he had no 
 first intention of landing this section in Mr. Potts's (critic's) " Chi- 
 nese Metaphysics." One can only strain the hope that this venture 
 may not have the monotonous fate of other Polar enterprises. 
 Last year, in the simple poetry of M. Francois Coppee's Paroles 
 sinceres, I came across an ominous, a haunting, verse : 
 
 Vingt fois, les vieux marins qui flanent sur le mole 
 
 Ont vu, tout pavoise, ce brick rentrer au port ; 
 
 Puis, un jour, le navire est parti vers le Nord. 
 
 Plus rien. II s'est perdu dans les glaces du Pole. 
 It is here set down to reassure the Reader that the Author cradles 
 no puerile illusions about his work. But this an rcvoir must be cut 
 short, else will these pages, as the Deputy says in Measure for 
 Measure, "outlast a night in Russia, when nights are longest there — 
 I'll take my leave." 
 
FKO.M CENTRE OF CROSS ON TOMBSTONE OK IT-ANNCHADH, 
 ABBOT OFCLONMACNfilSE, circa A.D. 1000. 
 
 ARl.MA BACGE. (J.ipnnese Daimio.' 
 
 f^ 
 
Appendix to this Volume, 
 
 a— Additions and Subtractions ■ . , p. 545 
 /8 — Skeleton of the Argument . . , , 569 
 
 7 — Lapses and Relapses ..... 580 
 
545 
 
 a. — Additions and Subtractions. 
 
 — Page 23. Oiiranos. DcMeter and Kore are called oipavlm Beat in inscrip- 
 tions of Syros,' and, more than that, Der\Icter herself, the mother of the gods, 
 is Ovpavia and Ovpavtaivr]. 
 
 — Page 33. Island Rlytlis. See also p. 140 and the important addition made 
 below in this Appendix to p. 304. " The lost Atlantis " is, from its very name, 
 now also and obviously a mythic figure for the Earth on the AtLas-axis. 
 
 — Page 40. The god Piciis. It should have been noted here (see p. 209) 
 that Faunus alias Fatuus was (see p. 355) the father of Latinus. The statement 
 (by Verrius) that Remus and Romulus, the sons of Latinus and Rhoma, \\ere 
 suckled by a she-wolf and fed by Picus Martius ("et a pico Martio nutritos 
 esse")= is another equation of the gods Picus and Mars, and however much the 
 Latin may be read as ' the picus-bird sacred to Mars,' it is indubitable that 
 Picus Martius was the children's grandfather. There need be no doubt that the 
 picus was that tree-est of birds, the wooA-pecker. 
 
 — Page 41. For sabini read Sabini. The statement (which is by Paulus 
 Diaconus)^ ttaXpzcits meant a bird here, if true, must be held to imply that that 
 was the sacred bird of a Sabine standard ; but the eventual explanation must 
 of course be the pike or pal god, for Verrius said the god gave his name to the 
 bird.3 
 
 — Page 42. 7q-]c ficas xtdiA picas. K. O. Mliller said the Greek word here 
 was (^iKai, and was not Doric but /Eolic (citing Grsevius on Hesiod, Theog. 
 p. 326). But/icas must be the real word, whether pronounced _/icas, or in the 
 form (/jiKoi, or not ; for what is referred to here in this passage of Festus is ''dub- 
 foot.' Pilumnus as the pcstie-goA, on the previous page (41) gives us the cue, 
 and the passage manifestly meant pestle-footed. The bringing-in of the 
 Sphinx only confuses the riddle more confoundedly. True she took her seat 
 on Mount ^ikios or ^I'/cfios-,-' but that name must simply mean ' Peaky.' 
 Whether she were sur-named or not from this mountain is beside the true 
 question here ; unless indeed the putter as well as the guesser of the riddle was 
 each an OidiPous, or ClubFoot (see p. 153), which would flash an unexpected 
 light on the whole thing. 
 
 — Page 43. Palanto or Pallantia, daughter of EuAndros was also vwther 
 of Latinus, by Hercules ; and see p. 451.* 
 
 Pales., genius Jovialis, Ceres, and Fortuna were given as the celestial Penates 
 of the Etruscans by Servius and Arnobius.'' Virgil called her magna Pales, and 
 in her honour the Palilia feast (p. 45) was held. She was the goddess of 
 Shepherds, dea pastorum, and they carry crooks, see " The Rod " p. 56, where 
 we again encounter the Etruscans. 
 
 ' Corpus inscr. Gr. Nos. 2347/, 62S0Z?. Saglio's Did. i, 1029, 1036. 
 
 - Festus, piaim and Roinam. ^ Festus, Picena regio and Picum avcm. 
 
 ^ ApoU. Bibl. iii, 5, S. •" Servius on Aincid \\\\, 51. Festus, Palatiiim. 
 
 " Servius on ^Eneidvii, 325. Arnobius (citing Nigidius) Adv. gcntesm, 34. 
 
 2 M 
 
546 The Night of the Gods. [Ap 
 
 — Page 4S. PalLadion. See also the additional remarks at p. 212. With 
 the latter part of the word we may connect the river-god's name Ladon, father 
 of Daphne and of MetOpe (central-Eye),' who seems to have been a female 
 Cyclops. Ladon was also the name of the extreme Northern dragon that 
 guarded the Hesperides apples.- The river Ladon must be the heavens-River. 
 
 — Page 50. The initial sacred character of iu>xsiling contests is of course 
 admitted. See for example what F. Lenormant said on the subject in Darem- 
 berg and Saglio's Dictionnairc? See too what is said about the stone-fights at 
 p. 115. 
 
 — Page 51. The explanation of the title of the mythic Paladins of Charle- 
 mag'ne as having been given because they "lived in the/«/ace" of the emperor 
 (Littre), is base enough for a court flunkey. Of course they were pal-bearers, 
 spear-powers ; and as the word paladin was an alternative name for the Peers 
 of all these great old legends, and their number was tiuchie, we see at once the 
 celestial zodiacal origin of the purely mythic narratives. This will be fully 
 shown, under the heading of the Centaurs, as to the Quatre Fils Aimon (see 
 also p. 344). Littre pointed out in his supplement that pal in ' hollandais ' 
 means pillar, and it may be added that pal as an adjective in Flemish means 
 'firm, assured, unshakeable.'^ i\Iy accomplished friend Dr. \V. G. C. Bijvanck 
 has kindly furnished me with the following note here : Paal is a post, an 
 engineer's pile, a pole ; paal has a slightly vulgar sense, and cannot be used 
 for pillar ^column. But to our national mind paal is the sjTnbol of firmness 
 and stability. Our classical national poet says ' Hy staat geljk ees paal,' he 
 stands like a post ; and adverbially one of our true national expressions is 
 ' pal staan,' stand firm. This pal seems to be the old fomi of paal. 
 
 — Page 55. JSIcrcunits is called ;\Iedi-currius by Arnobius,'^ but !Medius 
 currens by Augustine and by Isidorus. 
 
 — Page 5S. In Dr. Schuchhardt's work on the late Dr. Schliemann's excava- 
 tions" will Ije found drawings of two (supposed) hair-pins in gold, some 4 inches 
 long. The shape is exactly that of the Egyptian rod, as made from the fork of 
 a branch in the manner of the Arabs of the present day. These pins may have 
 been lucky mimic divining-rods. 
 
 — Page 59. Miisa's " Rod of permanency " in the Persian Raii:at-iis-Safa^- 
 was of a bramble or thistle (? thorn) which grew before any other tree grew on 
 the banks of the rivers (of heaven). It \^as 10 cubits long and was brought 
 from paradise by Adam, and then kept by Shoa'ib (Jethro) for Moses. He loads 
 his baggage on it and it follows him in his wanderings like an animal (see the 
 addition made below in this Appendix to p. 363), and talks with him like a man. 
 When hungry, he strikes the staff" on the ground, and food for a days consump- 
 tion issues from the earth. When he desired fruit he planted it, whereon it 
 
 ' ApoU. Bibl. iii, 12, 5. 
 
 " Argonautikavi, 1395. ' Vol. i, p. 10S5: Cars. 
 
 * Winkelman's Woordcnlock, Utrecht, 17S3. J. Des Roches, Woordin-Boel:, 
 T'Antwerpen, iSoi. 
 
 * Adv. nat. iii, 32. <• " Translated by Eugenie Sellers," 1S91. 
 ~' 3I4> 315. 319. 323. 32S. 
 
pendix^ a. Additions and Subtractions. 547 
 
 immediately put forth branches, became green, and fruitful. It stretched down 
 a well and drew water by developing a bucket at its end. At night it became a 
 torch. In battles it fought without his e.xertion. When cast on the ground it 
 becomes a great dragon and swallows all the rods of the other magicians, which 
 were only simulacra of the true Rod.' 
 
 — Page 63. Prince-of- Wales's Plume. If we accept — as why should we not ? 
 — the record in Froissart (i, ch. 130) and Walsingham that the Black Prince 
 succeeded to this cognisance in 1346 at Crecy, on the death in battle of the 
 heroic blind King of Bohemia, whose helmet bore the plumes, we may also 
 admit at once that the motto ' Ich dien,' which was also on that helm beneath the 
 three feathers, meant ' I serve ' the Triad of which those feathers were the sym- 
 bol. But the reader must get to "Divine Birds" and "Feathers" in Vol. II 
 before giving its full import to this remark. 
 
 — Page 69. Fleiir-dc-Lis. This section could be much extended, but it shall 
 only be added here that it will now be evident (from the " Loadstone," " Cardi- 
 nal Points," and other sections) that in the rhumbs of the compass we have the 
 sacred numbers : One, at the N ; two (duality) in N + S ; four in the 
 cardinal, and eight in the cardinal and half-cardinal points. ' Three ' was 
 wanting, and wanted where the 'One' was, so they added the triple or the 
 triune emblem there. This seems to complete the rationale of the symbolism, 
 see the triad of polar gods at p. 525 sqq. 
 
 — Page loS. Prof Perry FRS, has recently pointed out the analogous 
 properties of the magnetic needle and the spinning gyrostat. They both, 
 when only capable of horizontal motion, point to the N (one to the magnetic, 
 the other to the true N) ; and a very frictionless spinning gyrostat might thus 
 be used as a corrector of compasses. There is, he says, undoubtedly a dyna- 
 mical connexion between magnetic and gyrostatic facts. Magnetism depends 
 on rotatory motion. The molecules of matter are in actual rotation, and a cer- 
 tain allineation of the axes of their rotations produces 'magnetism.' In a steel 
 bar not magnetised these little axes of rotation are all in different directions. 
 The process of magnetisation brings the rotations to be more or less round 
 parallel axes, allincates those axes. A honey-combed mass with a spinning 
 gyrostat in every cell, all the spinning-axes being parallel and all the spins 
 being in the same sense, would resemble a magnet in many ways.= See also 
 p. 540 siip7-a. 
 
 — Page 1 10. Mahomefs Coffin. These are the two Chinese myths. The 
 Emperor Hung-Wu (i 368-1 399) and his councillor opened the tomb of Chu-Ko 
 Liang alias Kung-Ming (A.D. 181-234), to whom is attributed the invention of 
 one-wheel vehicles (a manifest plagiary from the universe-wheel), wooden oxen, 
 and mechanical (that is, "enchanted ") horses.' Within an inner chamber of 
 the tomb (in the mountain of Ting-chiin) were several figures built of loadstone 
 which attracted the iron armour the violaters were wearmg, and they had to 
 cast it off before they could escape. A closer tale to Mahomet's is told of the 
 
 ' Also Koy&n ch. 7, and Exodus, vii, 12. 
 
 " Spinning Tops, by Prof. Jno. Perry (S.P.C.K. 1890) p. ill. 
 
 ^ Mayers, Manual, 28. 
 
 2 M 3 
 
548 The Night of the Gods. {Ap 
 
 tomb of Confucius, in the hill of Keu-fau in Shantung. His disciple Tsze-Kung 
 is said to have enclosed the coffin in loadstone, and when the Emperor Chin 
 ordered the tomb to be opened, the pickaxes were seized and held by the mag- 
 netic force, and so was the armour of the guard of soldiers. The violation of 
 the tomb was therefore abandoned.' 
 
 Early Arabic writers on the Egyptian pyramids said that their fabled builder 
 Surid placed in every pyramid a treasurer. The treasurer of the Westerly 
 pyramid was a marble statue standing upright with a lance, and upon his head 
 a serpent wreathed. He that should come near, the serpent bit him in the side, 
 and coiling roundabout his throat, and slaying him, returned to its station. He 
 of the Easterly was an idol of black agate, with eyes wide and shining, who sat 
 on a throne with a spear ; and when any should look on him, he heard from 
 one side a voice which took away his sense, so that he fell prostrate on his face, 
 and so continued till he died. The treasurer of the Coloured Pyramid was a 
 statue made of the stone called albut, seated ; and he that might look thereon 
 should be drawn unto the image till he clove to it, and could not be freed there- 
 from till such time as he died." 
 
 — Page 114. I have found a curious Corean parallel to the Rex 7icnwrensis of 
 Aricia : all the more curious that I have already (p. 115) illustrated the Grecian 
 stone-fights from Corea also. 
 
 According to communications made by the Corean embassy to the court of 
 the Chinese Emperor Ngan Ti in a.d. 405, the Great Tui-lu, apparently the 
 chief noble functionary' of that state, was not appointed by the cabinet of the 
 king, but succeeded to the charge on vancjuishing his predecessor ; the office 
 being renewable, that is open to challenge and actual contest, every three years.^ 
 A dynastic histoi-j' of the T'ang Emperors of China compiled in the i ith century 
 gives us this custom in the period which it embraces (a.D. 618 to 906),-' and 
 states that when the Tui-lu in possession would not resign, the armed challenger 
 attacked him ; the king shutting himself up in his palace, and awarding the 
 post for the ensuing three years to the victor, whichever of the two it might 
 turn out to be. This is also found in another earlier history of the same dj-nast}', 
 part of which must be at least as old as the 9th centur)'.= This mode of turning 
 out a prime minister must imply a sacerdotal sacredness for the office. 
 I draw this from Prof G. Schlegel's remarkable Foie-Saiig-Kouo/' in which 
 he proves that FuSang was not America. 
 
 — Page 131. Loadstone Moiitiiain. Wallace m\\\s Account of the Orlcncys' 
 mentions the belief that if anyone having iron about him endeavoured to land at 
 a rock called Ness at the Nouphead of Westray, the rising of the surrounding 
 sea precluded the access of boats until the iron was cast overboard. This is 
 obviously a fragmentary reminiscence of the main myth. 
 
 ' Dennys, Folklore of China, 135, 136. 
 
 - Piazzi Smyth, Great Pyramid, 1S74, S2. Baedeker's Lozvcr E^'J't, 335. jrasudi. 
 Ibn Abd Alkokm. 
 
 ^ Ma Twan-lin's IVan h'icn fiiiig k'aou (1319) bk. 325. 
 
 ^ Siii-T'ang Slni, bk. 145, art. Corea. ' K'iu-T'ang Shu, bk. 149. 
 
 <= Leiden, E. J. Brill, iSg2, p. 51. . 
 
 ' London, 1700, p. 60. 
 
pendix?\ a. Additions and Subtractions. 549 
 
 — Page 144. As to ISIcDius Fidius see " The Judge of Heaven," p. 490. 
 
 — Page 1 53. OidiPous. See the suggestion as to the name meaning Club- 
 Foot in the addition made above in this Appendix to p. 42. Does not this, 
 added to the myth-item about the roots on p. 153 show that this old Swollen- 
 Feet or deformed-feet must have been a Universe-tree god, the archaic god 
 whose symbol was some tree of stupendous age with the gigantic gnarled roots 
 that Gustave Dore was so fond of putting into his Aveird legendary drawings ? 
 I really think this goes near to solving the whole mystery ; and his 'feet' are 
 thus the mighty roots of the Cosmic tree itself. The French still say ' un pied 
 de laitue,' where we say a head of lettuce. This too at once makes the fountain 
 CEdipodia on p. 153 a parallel to the Norse Mimir fountain that issues from a 
 root of the Ash YggDrasill. And the god-name DruPada at p. 355 becomes a 
 doublet of OidiPous. I ought to have cited in the text Berthe aux grands pieds, 
 the mother of CharleMagne, round whom so much of far inore ancient legend 
 has settled down. 
 
 — Page 157. Pillars and Jicad. Doubtless we have the same idea in the 
 
 " 4 heads on one neck ^ \ "TTX | q ," indicated on a statue from 
 
 Mendes (paBa-neb-Tat, see p. 217) as a 4-headed Ram.' 
 
 — Page 15S. Tlie Four Props. A good plate in M. Paul Pierret's Paiitlieoii 
 Egyptien shows Shu, the AtLas-god, supporting Nut, the heavens, over Seb, the 
 earth. Shu is assisted in his function by the four props TTTT- These are the 
 same that are also seen in the common hieroglyph for the upheld heavens 
 
 M. Maspero in a paper read before the London Congress of Orientalists 
 1891= stated that the Egyptian creation was considered to endure only so long 
 as the heavens, separated from the Earth, should remain solidly upheld by four 
 pillars. That was why the Pillar-gods, divinities of the four cardinal points, 
 were the first created, and continued to be the indispensable gods par excellence, 
 and the last who were to be called upon to die. 
 
 We find the idea of the cardinal supporters peeping through in the legends 
 of the Irish god Balor whose brow (the heavens) grew to such a size that it 
 required four men to raise it.= (See also p. 478.) This too seems to give us 
 the four great kings of Erin, each of whom had two deputies (4X2^ 8). At a 
 great feast, a brooch of gold was given to each of seven of these, but one of silver 
 only to the eighth.* Here we have a confusion with the 7 -|- i Phoenician idea 
 (see Index). 
 
 — Page 159. Tlic Four '■Canapes.^ M. Pierret says in his Pantheon' that 
 on some sarcophagi Hapi is seen presenting the heart to Osiris, Qebhsenuf the 
 mummy, Amseth the Ka, and Tuaumutef the Ba. The importance of the heart 
 is shown under " The Judge of Heaven " p. 490. 
 
 ' J. de Rouge, Geog. anc. 114. 
 
 " Compte-rendu in Le Temps, i6th Sept. 1S91. I had mislaid this note. 
 
 ■* Lady Wilde's Ancient Legends, iSSS, p. 23. ■* Ibid. 50, 51. '" p. 98. 
 
55° ' The Night of the Gods. \Ap 
 
 Amsctk. M. Pierret' gives from Brugsch another " primitive form " of the 
 
 name of this god as „ ^ and l) ^ and y ^ '^ ; calling it ' Mast.' 
 
 di 1 # ^ o o o I 
 
 But if we read it Mest, it almost seems to prove, when taken with the 'Mestha ' 
 fomi at p. 159 that the other form [j '' J 1 '^ not 'Am^-^th' but Am^j-th 
 
 (perhaps Amestha ?). Still more important (for my purposes at pp. 376 to 379) 
 is the further fact that the word Afesi also " designates the interior part of the 
 body of animals consecrated to sacrifice. It was this same part of the 
 human body that was extracted, washed, embalmed, and was the object of 
 magic words." (It is added that the part was 'the liver or the kidney,' but I 
 cannot go wdth that, quite, notwithstanding the mention of kanjin at p. 376.) 
 
 — Page 160. To 'scattering his dust to the 4 winds of heaven,' might have 
 been added the traitor's sentence to be ' hanged, drawn, and gua?-t£rtA.' 
 
 — Page 161. Four Lords. 'When SakyaMuni became a Buddha he spent 
 4 periods of 7 days each under each of 4 trees ; and the 4 great gods, the 
 guardians of the 4 cjuarters of the world, provided him 4 stone bowls out of 
 which the Buddha ate. The 4 great deities and all their train shouted, and so 
 was the Dharma-Chakra, or Wheel of the Law set revolving." This is extremely 
 important, as effecting an immediate connexion between the Universe- Wheel 
 and the Buddhist Chakra. 
 
 Four Angles. It is thus not difficult to see why the angle p ^^'^s worn as a 
 common amulet or ' chann ' in ancient Egypt.^ 
 
 We have the temi 'corner' in English, as denoting a compass-direction : 
 "Sits the wind in that Corner?" Much Ado about Nothing, ii, 3, loS. The 
 word 'coin ' in French was used by Marot in writing to Francois I" : 
 Dieu tout puissant te doint (donne), pour t'estrenner, 
 Les quatre coins du monde gouverner.^ 
 
 — Page 166. I suppose we must here enter down the ecclesiastical Octave of 
 greater festivals, which is " a prorogation of solemnities during 8 days."* 
 
 — Page 171. Dr. Coplestonin his just-published work on Buddhism in Ceylon 
 has a valuable remark, on which I immediately seize. He says " the EigJitfold- 
 IVay of Buddhism, constantly as it is praised, is never explained. Perhaps the 
 terms refer to some system of which all record is lost, perhaps the vjord Eight- 
 fold had some associations unknoiun to us. But however that may be, there is 
 no Eightfold-Path to be found in the books, no eight branches of study or 
 practice corresponding to the eight names." I think the tenns in which this 
 remark of the bishop of Colombo is made are quite astonishing, and I venture 
 to say thereupon that these "unknown associations" of the cosmic number 
 Eight are fully set forth in this Inquiry. The 8 paths are of course the lines 
 coming from the 8 points to the polar centre, where I have (pp. 6 and 7) 
 
 ' VoialK p. 1S8. 
 
 " Dr. Copleston's Buddhism in Ceylon 1S92, 3S, 44. ^ Pierret, Diet. 38. 
 
 ^ " Au Roy, pour avoir este desrobbe," 127. 
 
 ^ Hierolcxicon (Roma, 1677) p. 411, which also mentions the 8 notes and 8 chords of 
 the Rabbis, and the 8 beatitudes. 
 
 ^ London, Longmans, Green and Co. p. 127. 
 
pendix."\ a. Additions and Subtractions. 55 1 
 
 figuratively locussed nirvana. The extract just above from Dr. Copleston's 
 book about the 4 great gods of the 4 quarters seems to me to clench the 
 matter. 
 
 Another able Bishop, Dr. Bigandet, supplies another startling illustration' 
 in a Burmese definition of Nirvana (neibban), derived from Pali books, as : 
 " the end of all existences, the exemption from the action of kan (karma), of 
 tsit (trishna, desire), 0/ ///6' jrt'tzj-o/zj-, and of sensation." Udoo, season, is here 
 explained as ^"^ a revolution of Nature ;'" and it is conjectured that "Nirvana 
 lies in vacuum or space, far beyond the extensive horizon that encircles the 
 world, or worlds, or systems of Nature." This it will be observed starts out 
 into the infinite in the opposite direction to my positing ; but once admit 
 the rotation of the universe, and then the farther you go outwards the more 
 rapid is your motion round. To escape motion you must come the reverse way, 
 and get to the centre, to the mathematical point which is the absolute centre ; 
 to the axle of the Wheel of the Law. There alone is immobility-; and Nirvana 
 — to go on quoting Bigandet — is " a state of undisturbed calm, and a never- 
 ending cessation of existence." Considering that Buddhists "do not agree 
 among themselves in explaining the nature of the state of Nirvana ; " and seeing 
 the undeniable cosmicality of the S-fold Path above, and how all the 8 lead to 
 the centre ; and seeing also how the addition made below (in this Appendix) to 
 p. 367 sufficiently expounds ' sanctuary ' on the same assumption, I am really 
 coming to think after all that the mystic cosmic symbolism of Nirvana may 
 have been hit upon in the speculations at pp. 5 and 7. Add-on that nir is 
 negative, and " va? to be set in motion," and it is seen that I am strictly 
 accordant with etymology too. And I am not done hammering it home yet. 
 Dr. Copleston says* " the doctrine that the 8-fold path is the Middle Way is, 
 though often named, rarely stated, and still more rarely explained illustrated or 
 dwelt upon. This Middle Way is another instance of a Buddhist formula 
 which has played no real part in the thought of the writers of the books." But 
 if we apply my key, it becomes quite clear how the 8-fold path leads in towards 
 the Middle way ; each of the 8 is in fact a way to the middle. And we 
 actually find the Commentaries saying as to the middle way of which the 
 Buddha attained the perfect knowledge, that " the noble way is called the Middle, 
 and the fruit and Nirvana are its end f it leads to calm, to knowledge, to 
 Nirvana." Does not this clench the symbolism of these terms ? 
 
 — Page 191. The slippery Chinese pillar finds a surprisingly close parallel 
 in Mr. S. H. O'Grady's quite recent version of the cosmic myth of the " Cilia 
 decair : "' " Three days he and his passed thus ; nor of mainland, of isle or 
 island, saw any coast at all. But at the end of that period a man of Finn's 
 
 ' Life or Legend of Gaudaiiia, tlie Budha of the Burmese (2nd ed.) Rangoon, 1S66, 
 320 to 322, 347. - Compare the "motionless Buddha" p. 53S supra. 
 
 ^ i.e. vail to can7, waft, bear along ; nisvah, draw-out-of, save-from, remove. 
 However, Prof. A. A. Macdonell in his Sanskrit Diet. 1892, puts nirva??a to vii blow ; 
 nisva blow-out be extinguished ; nirva«a extinguished, light of life gone out. But the 
 doctrinal import of nirvana has wholly to do with rest and unrest ; and indeed the verbs 
 vah and va. are indissolubly related. 
 
 ■* Bdhin. in Ceylon, 127, 12S, 363, 43. ' Silva Cadeliea, 1S92, p. 300. 
 
5S-- The Night of the Gods. [Ap 
 
 folk went into the ship's head, and away out from him descried a rugged grey 
 huge precipice ; towards which cHfif they drove their craft, and found that on it 
 there abutted a rock, solid and cylindrical, having sides slipperier than dorsal 
 fin of eel on river's bottom." Up this Diarmait springs on the two magic spears 
 of Manannan son of Lir, and gets to the Land of Promise (see p. 182 supra). 
 Another, a Greek, parallel has already been pointed out at p. 383. 
 
 — Page 192. Sloiic Throne. In 1296 Edward I won the battle of Dunbar, 
 and gained possession of the stone chair in which the kings of Scotland had 
 been inaugurated at Scone from earliest times. "This was the palladium of the 
 Scotch, and it is reported that it contains or is composed of the stone of Beth-el 
 {sic) on which Jacob slept."' This chair was brought in triumph to England, 
 and was placed in the Abbey of Westminster, where it has remained ever 
 since.- 
 
 — Page 193. On reading this page, ■\Ir. Aston wrote me (aSth June 1892) 
 that he was struck by the resemblance of the description of Mailduin's pillar- 
 island and the Japanese artist Hokusai's drawing of iSIount Shumi (^ SuMeru), 
 which again is very like the column on which the Chinese First Man is repre- 
 sented as sitting under the heading of " The Rock of Ages," p. 392. Hokusai 
 puts the sun on the right of his island-pillar and the moon on the left ; thus 
 reversing the Chinese positions on p. 392. (Vide Hokusai's Maiigiva, vols, iii 
 and xiii.) 
 
 — Page 212. Names in Lat-. See the addition made above in this Appendix 
 to p. 48, regarding Ladon. 
 
 — Page 216. The Single Leg. Martin de Aries-'' mentions as asuperstitio the 
 practice, which he had observed, of raising the right and the left foot alternately 
 during divine service. 
 
 — Page 222. The Annamite umbrella or tan has usually the four Chinese 
 celestial animals around its curtain,-* a further obvious identification (see p. 185) 
 of the symbol with the canopy of the heavens. Since the introduction of the 
 French umbrella of commerce, the people who are forbidden by their low rank 
 the honour of a tan walk about under an expanded foreign substitute in the 
 finest weather, and even at night.^ 
 
 — Page 226. E\ ery Ainu household has its special guardian-god, the Turen 
 kamui, who sits upon the roof of -the house. In the legend of Kotan-Uttunai 
 this god " sent forth a cry from the top of our grass hut."= See also the calling- 
 back of the dead from the roof-top, p. 449. 
 
 — Page 230. As to Caelum, see the subsequent note to p. 414. 
 
 — Prfge 241. Duality. A vegetable cell multiplies itself by dividing into two, 
 so as to give two cells identically like to what it was itself before division." The 
 
 ' Hutchinson's yV'w/'/i«OT&;7a«if 1 77S, ii, 166. 
 
 - Ibid, and see Hume, who quotes Walsingham p. 60, and Trivet p. 299. 
 
 ■* Tradatus de Siipcrstitionibus § 28. 
 
 ^ Dumoutier, Syiiiboks des Annaniitis, 1S91, pp. 121, 123. 
 
 * Rev. J. Batchelor, Trans. As. Soc. Jap. xviii, 27, 44. 
 
 ' L. Guignard, Acad, des Sciences, gth March 1S91. 
 
pendix.'] a. Additioiis and Subtractions. 553 
 
 ethological (e^os, habit) individuality of the first order is the couple. Fre- 
 quently, for example among the Bopyri, those parasites of the prawn, the couple 
 is seen to form itself before sexual differentiation.' 
 
 Chabas= has pointed out, but not explained, the duplication of determina- 
 tives in Egyptian words which refer to gods and kings. " I am thy double 
 sister," says Isis to Osiris ; Ra "joins himself to his double mother ; " a Ptolemy 
 calls himself "loved by the double divine mother." This dualism, says M. 
 Pierret'' dominates the whole Egyptian symbolism. A \'ery strange case of this 
 is to find the Earth-god Seb as a mother,* and to see on the naos of Aahmes 
 (Amasis) in the Louvre, Seb accompanied by his feminine form Sebt.' 
 
 For falando, twice, read falandum. Blr. Wharton refers to <^aXat in Hesy- 
 chius. The notion in the odd word falandum may thus be the whiteness, the 
 sheen, even the baldness, of the heavens. 
 
 — Page 24S. Ganinae should have been printed as geminae, being adjec- 
 tival ; which somewhat weakens my argument. 
 
 — Pages 251, 252. The pylon-portal forms a worthy introduction to the 
 Horus-teraple at Edfu, flanked on either side by a tower with sloping walls 
 about 100 ft. high. This is usually named in the inscriptions Mahet, that is 
 ' portal-building ' ' entrance-hall ; ' and maliet is not unfrequently used to include 
 the entire gatehouse and the two towers, though the most usual term for the 
 
 entire entrance-structure was J ^,^®^ 'H'TVK I'Sxen, that is ' tower ' 
 ' watch-tower.'^ 
 
 — Page 253. I must not omit to point out here that in IIuAaia the latter 
 half must (in accordance with all I have hitherto urged) be Xaiai stones. This 
 .opens up quite a new country ; and seems to give us n, | |, which was pre- 
 viously both p and T, as an additional gate-symbol, a dokana. This, if the 
 Chinese Egyptian and astronomical signs on pp. 246 to 249 be compared, 
 seems worth considerable attention. First, it would equate | | to the dolmen 
 7^ on p. 254 ; then it would give Yiv = U, so that the word ttv-Xtj would really 
 = n-Ar;, that is n-stone(s), gate-stones, or pillars. Of course the sound of 
 TTv = 7rt = 77, and my suggestion (p. 253) was that thjXt; = pila (pillar, shaft) = 
 pllum (javelin, pestle). Then we see how to divide and display IIvAaf, UiAm, 
 IIvAos (compare TaAao? p. 133), Ilv\ddr;s, UvAapjjs and HvAdav, SO as to concord 
 with all my arguments about PalLas AtLas DoruLas and so on. And I shall 
 then venture even farther still, and embrace the dual divine names Ilijeio? (the 
 god) + nvBuis (the ' priestess '), with the serpent-god's name niJemj/, which 
 must of course be, all three, referred to 6e6s god. The Reader sees that I have 
 not yet got through the n to the meaning of ttd ; but there are endless good 
 sayings about knocking at that gate, any one of which he may apply to me, and 
 welcome. However, for a last shot, can the ttv not =; the Avestan H-, which 
 means two- in composition? This would hark us straight back to the iluul- 
 
 ' Lectures of M. Alfred Giard at the Sorbonne. Tvcz'. Encycl. 1892, io6g, 1070. 
 
 " A/asiines cfAni ii, 40. '^ Pantheon ^gypt. 28, 109. 
 
 '' Diimicheii Hist. Iinclirifi. ii, 4. ■" Baedeker's Upper Egypt 1892, 249. 
 
554 The Night of the Gods. [Ap 
 
 pillar ; make PuThios and -Thias a (//^aZ-deity ; and as to PuThon the same 
 exposition fits it at once if we look at the dual-serpents on the frontispiece. 
 Can I yet say mea pila est ? 
 
 — Pages 255 and 258. Tlic Toii-I. A considerable muddle has grown out 
 of some accident here. The tablet on a tori-i is properly called a gaku, a 
 word of Chinese origin &f} meaning 'picture ' or 'tablet.' The sotoba is a sort 
 of wooden lath a few feet long, and some three or four inches wide, inscribed 
 with Sanskrit letters or words, and nicked for a few inches from the top on each 
 side. These nicks (writes Mr. Aston, who has been good enough to catch me 
 when I fell here) represent the stories of the Chinese pagoda, which again are 
 superimposed umbrellas (see p. 220). Several of them are customarily stuck in 
 the ground over a new-made gra\e. The name is nothing more than the 
 Indian stiipa, says Mr. Aston.' The Indo-Chinese Buddhistic origin of this 
 gakii on the tori-i, which last is claimed as purely Japanese and Shintoic, e.\plains 
 its unorthodox character as a pendant to the tori-i. It is not allowed where the 
 Shinto priests have the custody of the tori-i.- 
 
 I find that I had carefully noted all this accurate information from Messrs. 
 Satow and Hawes's Handbook in 1S85. How I since came to make such a 
 blundering hash of the matter, I know not ; and I humbly apologise to the 
 Reader for it. 
 
 — Page 25S. The large pigeon-houses, "not unlike pylons,"' which are to be 
 seen in Egyptian villages,' might have been mentioned. Here we have, as it 
 were, the tori-i, birds and all. 
 
 — Page 26r. Round Towers. It is considerably in my favour, as to the 
 point made here about burial-places, that the late Prof. O'Curry to his transla- 
 tion of " The Fair of Carman " appends a note that it is very interesting to find 
 from one version that "the celebrated ancient Fairs appear to have been always 
 held around the ancient pagan cemeteries."^ 
 
 —Page 263. A corollary to the arguments against the early Christian origin 
 has been unaccountably omitted. If the building of these so very remarkable 
 monuments was begun by early Christian kings and saints — which as above 
 shown is in itself an unsustained assumption — why did they not continue to be 
 built, why did they become mere antiquarian puzzles, relics of an inexplicable 
 past? By the analogy of all architectural 'styles' and developments, these 
 Round Towers, if a Cliristian ecclesiastical eclosion, should have continued to 
 be erected in some modified form. But instead of anything of that kind 
 happening, they became dead symbols, and dropped into desuetude, like a 
 disused organ or a frostbitten member. This consideration seems to complete 
 the removal of the ground from under Petrie's whole structure, for which in fact 
 he had never dug out a workmanlike foundation. 
 
 Tor. Neai Yevering Bell in the Cheviots is the mountain called West 
 Tor.=' In Devon are Bel Tor, Brent Tor, Fur Tor, Hare Tor, Hey Tor, Lynx 
 
 ' See also Satow and Ilawcs's Handbook of Japan (John Murray) 2nd ed. pp. 17, 556. 
 - Ibid. pp. [65], 445. ' Baedeker's Upper Egypt 1S92, p. 46 reminds of them. 
 
 * manners and Customs, iii, 529. Perliaps the note is Dr. W. K. .Sullivan's. 
 
 * Hutchinson's Northumberland 177S, i, 257. 
 
pendix.'\ a. Additions and Subtractions. 555 
 
 Tor, Mis Tor, Hessary Tor, and Yes Tor (Celtic deity Esus or Hesus).' In 
 Derbyshire are Adyn Tor, Chee Tor, Mam Tor, Owlar Tor, and Row Tor. 
 Canon Isaac Taylor says- the Celtic tor means topographically " a tower-like 
 rock." Of course it meant a ' tower ' too. 
 
 — Page 267. Tory island, which was taken possession of by the Mythic 
 Northern Fomorians under their leader Conaing son of Faebharj'is terrestrially 
 on the N-W coast of DoneGa/. (See also pp. 285, 478.) 
 
 Prof. O'Curry in describing the construction of the archaic Irish round 
 house of wickerwork (see p. 279) says " there was firmly set up in the centre a 
 stout post called a tuireadJi" to which were attached the sloping rafters. ^ In 
 his " glossorial index " he gives " tuireadh^ a tower, a stout post or column." 
 Had I named the post myself I could not have better supported the theories of 
 this Inquiry which cosmically identify the roof-post and palace-pillar, see pp. 
 224 and 275, with the Tower. (I should have said that Magh-tuireadh must = 
 strong-tower, see p. 146.) 
 
 — Page 268. Tara {=■ temhair). It is well known that the etymologies in 
 old Irish books are no better than they should be, but the following one, from 
 the Book of Leinster, must be cited here: ''whence Tcmhiiir? Temhuir = 
 teamhiir, i.e. Mur Tea, ' wall= of Tea ' daughter of Lughaid, and wife of Here- 
 mon, son of Milesius ; for there she was buried.^ Or, again, iemair is from the 
 Greek verb icmoro \6eapi<ji\ ' I view ' ; for temair is a name for all places whence 
 it is pleasant to take a prospective view, unde dicitur ' the temair of the country, 
 and 'the temair of the house' (Book of Leinster, 159s). This is cited in Mr. 
 S. H. O'Grady's new Silva Gadelica p. 514, and it is he that inserts dcoipfioy 
 but I draw attention to the derivation of teniplum already given at p. 430 supra, 
 and observe how oddly that funny "temoro" and the "view" fall in. In Vol. 
 Ill hope to show that the 12 pillars of the mighty Hill of Tara (Temhair), its 
 7-day triennial feis at Samhain, its (heavens-)post of 30,000 — just Hesiod's 
 number of Greek gods — in its tigh Tamrach (:= house of Tara ^ 300-fold 
 Labyrinth =: heavens-Palace), and some other facts, show Temhair to be celestial 
 in the origin of its myths. 
 
 — Page 270. Dalian, and gall. In the ancient legend (O'Curry puts it to 
 B.C. 100) of King Eochaidh Airemh and his queen Edain, the'chief Druid is 
 called Dalian. On the mountain Sliabh DaUai7i, called after him — that is, as 
 we must read, called after the dallan or stone-deity on its summit — this Druid 
 cut four wands of yew, and cut an ogam in them which revealed to him, 
 " through his keys of science," that queen Edain was concealed in a mountain 
 in the palace of Midir, a clear central god-name. When attacked, Midir sent 
 out of the mountain-side 50 beautiful (chronological) women, all of the same age, 
 size, form, face and dress as Edain." Another fabulous Druid of high renown 
 was Dala.ch. brother to King Conn, who himself " at some unknown period " was 
 " one of the greatest druids of his time." He was able by his magic to " resist 
 all the druidical power" of the counter-deities the Tuatha De Danann, who 
 
 ' Lucan : horrensque feris alt.iribus Hesus (i, 445). 
 
 - Words and Places, 6th ed. 326, 150, 55, 220. 
 
 ■* O'Curry's Manners and Customs, ii, 1S4, 1S6. "• Ibid, iii, 32, 302. 
 
 ^ Ibid, ii, 106, makes mur = mound, ' Ibid, ii, 193 ; iii, 163, 191. 
 
556 The Night of the Gods. \Ap 
 
 however managed subsequently to obtain the aid of Dalach.' Druid in these 
 cases clearly means god, and not priest (see " The Gods of the Druids," 
 p. 35°)- Dalach, the beloved or the friend, was also hereditary prince of 
 DoneCrt/, the county in which St. Patrick's Purgatory with its famous stones is 
 situated. Its last syllable must be the v/oxd gall. 
 
 Dalian Ua ForGaill (also called Eochaidh) w-as a " royal poet and great 
 scholar of Erinn," he was King of the poets, righ eigeas. There was also a 
 Dalian MacMore,' who was another poet. O'Curry said dalUm meant ' the 
 blind ' and forgaiU ' the testifying,'^ but he denied us any justification of this 
 interpretation ofdallan. We also find the name of Z)«/ran, as a builder of raths,= 
 dwellings surrounded by an earthen rampart. There need be no doubt that we 
 have one of the gall names in ForGall Monach,' father of Emer the consort of 
 the famous god Cuchulainn (Cuchulaind, or Cuchuland) to whom Emer's father 
 presents himself as an envoy from the King of the Galls (" i.e. foreigners," said 
 O'Curry, whom I shall not follow in this mere conjecture). Emer, just like 
 Edain above, sits at her father's court surrounded by 50 young maidens. There 
 is also a Glenn Dalliin, a solitude for recluses, connected with the story of 
 Dalian ForGaill.^ 
 
 I think it may well be suggested too that we have the same dal in thenaine 
 of the mythic Z)(;/Cassians of Thomond, Munster (where the dallans are) 
 descended from (the god of harmony) Gas son of a great Tuatha De Danann^ 
 (deity). Gas has 12 (zodiacal) sons the ancestors of the Z'rt/Cassians ; a parallel 
 to the 12 tribes of Israel (p. 174 supra), and the twelfth of the sons was, by his 
 druidic art, the Fire-producer (or god of Fire). He again had 6 sons + i 
 daughter = 7. The Fire he produced issued in 5 rivers of flames, which his 5 
 sons by his orders followed. Here we have the strange cosmic connexion 
 between Fire and Water which will be dealt with under " The Fire- Wheel " and 
 "The Heavens-River." We also have the place-name ZJa/Cais, which I would 
 read ' Pillar-stone of Gas ' ; and that doubtless immediately afforded the name 
 DalGassian." 
 
 " The true Ultonians," that is the people of the farthest North, " received 
 another name, that of the ZJa/Araidhe, Latinised DalArddia " (araid ^ chario- 
 teers ; raidh = rota) ; and in their DalAraidh^ was the god Diarmait put to 
 death. There were also the DalRiada of Scotland.' And it may perhaps be 
 fairly surmised that the "assembly where laws were enacted," the Dal,^ drew its 
 name from some holiest pillar-stone whereat the assembly met. It is a very 
 important fact that the god Gas was son of RosRuadh of the royal Rudh- 
 Raidh(5 race of the North, where we must, as in MogRuith, see the names of 
 Wheel-gods. The son of Gas was the "aged" //iach, where we have a hint 
 of an " Old Man" god, even of a younger generation., (See too what is said of 
 Welsh divine names in E1-, p. 198.) 
 
 The easily first living authority on Irish, ]\lr. Standish Hayes O'Grady, 
 
 ' O'Curry's lilamters and Customs, ii, 11, 102, 52, 7S, S5, 105. 
 
 - Jbid. iii, 247, 46S, 15. ■' Ibid, ii, 368 ; iii, 122. ■* Ilnd. iii, 235. 
 
 * Ibid, iii, 325, 169, 117 ; ii, 177, 219. " Ibid, i, x.wiii. 
 
 ' Ibid, ii, 17 ; iii, 552, 471, 337, 52, 77. 
 
 ^ Ibid, i, ccliv (and see references iii, 66S). 
 
pend{x7\^ a. Additions and Siibtractiovs. 557 
 
 writes ' DalMn forgaill.'' As to ' ddl Araidhe ' he cites from the Book of 
 Leinster a passage which shows that the ddl of Araidhe was the legitimate bed, 
 seat, or couch of the Kings of Ireland.'- Bearing in view what has already been 
 said here of dal and dallan, and of beds too (see p. 152), and of the Irish 
 stone-throne (p. 192 and addition made thereto in this Appendix), je me fais 
 fort to have demonstrated that dal must in all Irish mythic names be equated to 
 ' divine stone' or 'stone-god.' The same Book of Leinster says Dallin was 
 grandson of the Great Maine." It also makes Dala one of the Seven Seers.^ 
 Besides, we have a curious legend of DallBronach's grandchild being, in his 
 mother's " pains, as she bore him, jammed against a stone, which made hills 
 and hollows in his pate." We also have a Brennan Dall and a Fedach son of 
 Dall.* It was but yesterday (30th December 1892), when this Appendix was 
 with the printer, that I had the pleasure to receive Mr. O'Grady's ample 
 volumes,'" but I hasten to signal to fellow-workers the mine of strong rich ore 
 which therein lies opened to us all. 
 
 — Page 2S7. It is once more confidently suggested that in this Avestan 
 vaejo vaija vej we have the true clue to the signification of " the town of Veji 
 or of the Veji," p. 2S0. See what has been said as to the derivation of Veji at 
 p. 371. I think that if the Reader will be so kind as carefully to compare and 
 investigate what' has been urged on the subject on the pp. I have named : 
 280, 287, 290, 371, he may be inclined to agree that the Veji really were either 
 the chariot-gods of the heavens or else the wafters-round, the wind-gods, of 
 those heavens. I must also ask the Reader to refer at the same time to p. 551 
 infra and to the paragraph of Appendix /3 (the Skeleton Argument) which deals 
 with the "foircs of the Cosmos," and what is therein said of the Maruts. It 
 would be pleasant to think that Vejovis had thus at long last been explained. 
 
 — Page 383. In Babylon the temple of Bel, on the top of the famous Tower 
 of 7 stages, held a state-bed (see p. 152) where the god lay, and a golden 
 table." 
 
 ■ — Page 2S9. In the Bhagavata-Purana is the following verse (iii, 9, 16) in 
 the Hymn of Brahma : " Adoration to Bhagavat, the Tree of the Universe, who, 
 having divided his own root, sending-up Three trunks — Me (Brahma), Girisa 
 (Siva), and Vibhu (Vishnu) himself — to create, preserve, and destroy the 
 universe, developed himself, eternally unique, into infinite branches." There 
 could scarcely be a more complete and certain text as to the mythological con- 
 ception of the divine Universe-Tree. 
 
 — Page 294. Beanstalk. See the string trick at p. 329. 
 
 — Page 299. Sacrificial post. It is indispensable to point out here that the 
 AngloSaxon rod, OldSaxon rdda, meant a gallows (properly a rod or pole) ; 
 Friesland, rode. This gave the early-English rood which, as well as being the 
 rod or pole used for measuring, gave the term a ' rood ' of land. The significa- 
 tion of ' cross ' which came to be attached to ' rood ' is thus not etymological in 
 any way ; the rod or gallows was the sacrificial post. 
 
 1 Silva Gadelica, 4S0, 527. • Ibid. 515. ^ Ibid. 524. ■> Ibid. Sg, 93. 
 
 ° Silva Gadelica, a collection of tales in Irish, with extracts illustrating persons and 
 places, edited from MSS, and translated, by Standish H. O'Grady. Williams and 
 Norgate, 1892. " Herodotus i, iSi. 
 
558 
 
 The Night of the Gods. 
 
 \_Ap 
 
 —Page 301. Poles. The " TotemPoIes " of the Alaska Indians are curious, 
 and I am indebted to the very obliging kindness of the Manager of The Graphic 
 
 for this illustra- 
 
 
 TOTEM rOLF.S (ALASKA). 
 
 grotesquely carved with the 
 totem animal or cognisance 
 of each family from which, 
 by interminglings, the chief 
 descended. The four prin- 
 cipal totems are the Crow, 
 Bear, Winged-Fish and 
 Frog.' (See the four totems 
 of the Gold Coast, p. 174.) 
 The student may here too 
 compare the somewhat re- 
 semblant but much shorter 
 poles, which are carved out 
 of treefern stumps in the 
 New-Hebrides, as memorials 
 of the accession of great 
 chiefs. The illustration is 
 from the excellent Revue 
 Encyclopcdique for ist Octo- 
 ber 1892, column 1463. 
 
 ' The Daily Graphii, 26th 
 July 1S92. 
 
 tion of them. 
 Fort Simpson 
 is the head- 
 quarters of the 
 Hudson's-Bay 
 company in Nor- 
 thern British 
 Columbia, and 
 is close to the 
 54th parallel. 
 Its Indian popu- 
 lation is about 
 Soo, and they 
 erect these Poles 
 on the death of 
 a chief as family 
 in o n u m e n t s . 
 They are from 
 20 to 80 ft. high, 
 each made out of 
 a single tree, and 
 
 "TELEI'UO.NES " (NEW ilELKIIjE^). 
 
pendix7\ a. Additions and S^tbtraciions. 559 
 
 — Page 304. Japan is also called Fuso koku jfe ^ P, the land of Fu-Sang. 
 This name, of Chinese origin, is really mythic, and must be another figure for 
 the Earth as viewed in its relation to the axial Universe-tree. It is one of the 
 numerous Chinese enchanted islands (see pp. 33 and 140). For the island of 
 Fu-Sang takes its name in Chinese myth from the same-named tree ; where fii 
 means "self-supporting" — note the character for t'ien y^ the self-supporting 
 heavens in this word — and sa?ig cannot of course be identified. There is no 
 doubt that sang is used for a hibiscus — in Sinico-Japanese fusoka is the Chinese 
 hibiscus — and also for a mulberry, but the mythic sang is obviously, from the 
 fables about it, a compound of the Indian soma, the Iranian haoma, and the 
 general fabulous gigantic universe-tree. The Shan-Hai King, ' Mountain and 
 River Classic,' which is nearly as old as Confucius, says it is called simply the 
 " Fu tree " ^ TJC; that is the self-supporting tree, and it grows on the top of a 
 mountain in Mid-Ocean at the North of the country of the Black Teeth. It is 
 300 Chinese miles high, and on its lower branches are 9 suns, while a single sun 
 is perched on its top ; and these suns succeed each other." This is obviously 
 the sun making the circuit of the Universe-tree, as I have expounded it at 
 p. 326 ; and from " Hwainan tsze," the great Taoist who died B.C. 122, in his 
 Cosmic Philosophy, we can explain these suns ■j' they are the 'v-arious stages of 
 the day, and altitudes of the sun, as he " ascends above (or brushes by) 
 FuSang," a further proof that it is a mythic term for this Earth. These stages 
 are rising, coming forth in brightness, bright on the horizon, morning meal, 
 meal in repose, centre of the angle, exact centre (South), and so forth. The 
 ancient dictionary Shwo-wen, published a.d. 100, writes Fu as ;f5, and says it is 
 " a divine Tree from which the sun issues." The mythological treatise on the 
 Te?i Islands — where ' island,' like the Iranian karshvare and the Indian dwipa, 
 must be given a cosmic sense — written by the famous Tungfang So of the 
 2nd century B.C., describes the trees of FuSang as many thousands of fathoms 
 high and more than 2000 half-cubits round. It is this book which pointed out 
 that Fu meant ' self-supporting.' The spirits sienjin f|I[j }^ (note the heavens- 
 mountain character) that eat its fruit (mulberries) which it bears once in 9000 
 years, become bright bodies, can fly, and poise in the air — clearly the starry 
 hosts of heaven, which in other mythologies are on the branches of the 
 Universe-tree. 
 
 When the Fu became a mulberry-tree in fable, it took on shining golden 
 silkworms of 7 feet long and 7 inches thick, whose eggs were like swallow's 
 eggs, and four films of whose silk would bear a weight of 30 pounds.' The 
 crystal wall in the palace of the King of FuSang, which is a mile square, is an 
 obvious figure of the heavens. " Before daybreak, it is there as clear as day, 
 and the wall is no longer visible." 
 
 This Fu tree myth, as given in the Shan-Hai King, also discloses to 
 us the origin of the 3-legged crow in the Chinese sun (see the plate on 
 p. 392). The tree or its branches bear " a thousand," that is any number, of 
 
 ' Prof. G. Schlegcl, Fmi-Sang Kouo, Leiden 1S92, 10 to ig. 
 
 - Mayers, Manual, p. 76. 
 
 ^ Prof. Schlegel ut sup. 25, 15, i5. 
 
56o The Night of the Gods. \Ap 
 
 crows," and doubtless that is how one of those supernaturally knowing Eastern 
 birds managed to hop into the sun as it passed. And indeed another myth, which 
 exhibits some misapprehension of this one, says, as given by Hwainan tsze, that 
 the mythic archer How I, a sort of Chinese Apollo, some 4250 years ago shot 
 arrows at the 10 suns, and killed 9 of them with all their crows. This of course 
 leaves wholly out of sight Hwainan tsze's own e.xplanation of the number of 
 suns, above given ! Prof Schlegel has ingeniously suggested a Euhemeristic 
 gloss as to occasional mock-suns, but it is not required. We are in the regions 
 of pure Cosmic Myth. 
 
 — Page 30S. Zeus gave the Veil or peplos to Europa as a wedding-garment 
 (see "Weaving the Veil" in Vol. \\). At Gortyne in Crete their nuptials were 
 celebrated annually (but they were really the imported Phcenician Ba'al and 
 Ashtoreth) near a sacred planetree. On the silver coins of the town, Europa is 
 seated among its branches, spreading the peplos o\-erhead.= The Egyptian 
 heavens-goddess is represented in a sycomore (?) dispensing the elixir of 
 immortality and the fruits of this universe-tree to her worshippers' (see pp. 304, 
 305). It is on the leaves of the Persea-tree (see p. 304) that Safekh, consort of 
 Thoth (Tahuti) and goddess of sacred writings, inscribes the names of those 
 who become immortal' Here the tree is clearly the Universe-tree of Life, and 
 its leaves form the Book of Life. (See also p. 498.) 
 
 — Page 310 Men a?id women from trees. One of my endless omissions 
 is a reference here to the separation of the sexes in numerous trees. For 
 example the female aueuba Japo?iica lived a berryless grass-\^'idowhood of 
 some 80 years in Europe before the male plant followed it from its native 
 land. All the weeping willows in Europe are female trees, obtained by 
 cuttings from a single specimen. The male hop-plant is called " the buck 
 hop" in East Kent. 
 
 — Page 312. The Latona myth (also mentioned at pp. 32,209 and2ii) is also 
 told in the Koran (xix, :6 to 35) of the Blessed Virgin Mary, upon whom child- 
 birth came in winter near the withered trunk of a -palmtree. A voice called to 
 her, saying : " Now hath Allah provided a rivulet under thee ; and do thou shake 
 the body of the palmtree, and it shall let fall ripe dates upon thee." So the 
 dry stump shot forth a head laden with green leaves and fruit. In the Gospel 
 known as the pseudo Matthew (ch. .\x), of the 5th century, the palm bows down 
 to Mary's feet that she may gather the dates ; whereupon the Saracens and 
 pagans cut it down, but it grows up again in the night, and thenceforth they do 
 it great honour.' The legend also resembles the Buddhist myth of Maya and 
 the pala.ya" tree. In Nasir-i-Khusrau's Journey in A.n. 1047 he saw in the 
 mosque where " Jesus (may peace be upon him) " was bom, a mark on one of 
 the columns as though a hand had gripped the shaft with two fingers ; and they 
 
 ' Prof. Schlegel tit sup. 25, 15, 16. 
 
 - F. Lenormant, Orig. de Thist. i, 56S, 570. 
 
 ^ Wilkinson's Ami. Egyptians, 2nd series, plate 36A. Pierret, Diet. 59, 376. 
 
 ■• Baedeker's Lower Egypt, 132. Wilkinson, plate 54A. 
 
 » See also Epist. Barnabas, ch. xii (2nd century). 
 
 " Butca froudosa. Gave its name to Clive's Plassey. 
 
peitdix.~\ a. Additions and Subtractions. Sf'i 
 
 said that Mary, " when taken in the pangs of labour, did thus with one hand 
 seize upon the stone."' This only adds one more to the many proofs I advance 
 that the Pillar and the Tree-trunk are permutable symbols. (See also p. 330.) 
 
 — Page 316. An able student of Buddhism, Bishop Bigandet, stated^ that 
 every one of the 28 last Buddhas always attained " supreme intelligence " under 
 trees, and he added that he "never had been able to discover any well-grounded 
 reason to account for this remarkable circumstance, so carefully noted down." 
 I know of no theory that will suit this very strong case except the cosmic one 
 of the Universe-tree which is urged in this hiquiry. 
 
 — Page 321. Rowan-tree. The druidical fires were made of the Rowan, 
 and the druidical ordeal compelled the accused to rub the tongue to a bronze 
 adze heated in a lire of blackthorn or rowali-wood. O'Curry further stated 
 (1857)' that he had known some housewives in Munster \vho would not have a 
 churn in their dairies without at least one hoop of that tree round it, or a gad or 
 ring twisted from a twig of the holy tree round the staff while churning. 
 
 — Page 322. Tree and IVe/l. Mr. Aston reminds me here of the multitudi- 
 nous (yu tsu) Katsura tree above the well at the side of the august gate (Mi- 
 kado) of the Japanese god of the Great Ocean (O-Wata)."" This must be the 
 Universe-tree, and it is also mentioned as at the gate of the son of heaven, 
 Ame-Waka-hike (heavehs-young-bright-roale). Katsura is a mythic woi~d ; 
 anciently it was " a creeping plant '" which perhaps gives us another Bean- 
 stalk ; it is also the cassia or cinnamon, and a kind of maple ; katsura no hana, 
 that is ' the katsura-flower,' means moonlight ; which gives us a close parallel 
 to the Chinese Sun on the Uhiverse-tree, p. 326. 0-Wata is of course the 
 Universe-Ocean. Mr. Aston also connotes the Scottish legend at p. 91 of 
 Mr. A. Lang's Custom and Myth. Other cases of tree-and- well have been men- 
 tioned at pp. 271, 274, 308, 318, 356. 
 
 I have unaccountably omitted the Norse Mimir fountain which Issues from a root 
 of the Ash YggDrasill, to which, if OidiPous be a tree-god (see p. 549 of this 
 Appendix) must be added the fountain CEdipodia at p. 1 53. 
 
 — Page 323. O'Curry" considered the Yew (and not the oak or mistletoe) to 
 have been the druidical sacred tree in Erinn. The druid's four-sided wand was 
 of yew. 
 
 Mr. Aston says the correct trees for planting on Chinese tumuli are pines. 
 
 — Page 325. Sun on Tree. See the addition made above in this Appendix 
 to pp. 304, 322. 
 
 — Page 332. Roland- Saulc7i. See the addition made below in this Appendix 
 to p. 390. 
 
 ' Pal. Pilgrims' Text Soc. 1888, p. 34. Compare the George legend at p. 197 supra. 
 ' Life of Gaudatna, Rangoon 1866, p. 37. 
 ' Manners and Customs, ii, 213, 214, 216. 
 
 ^ Mr. Chamberlain's Kojilii, pp. 121,26,95. Yutsu may mean '500,' as in the 
 case of the " 500-fold true tsuki-tree " at p. 304 of this Inquiry. 
 ' Ch2Lmhfi\s.m's And. Jap. Vocab. 
 •■ Manners and Customs, ii, 226, 210, 194, 193 four wands, 
 
 2 N 
 
562 The Night of the Gods. \Ap 
 
 — Page 338. "/«// bamboo? The following passage from the RigVcda> is 
 very much in point : " The Brahmanas raise thee (Satakratu, ' of a hundred 
 rites,' i.e. Indra) aloft like a bamboo-pole." This was explained by the Scholiast 
 Sayana as Indra being raised on high like an Indian acrobat balancing on the 
 tip of a pole held by his companions ; but it sounds more like an address to the 
 god of the Universe-axis. Besides, the acrobat's ' business' must have been 
 once a sacred mystery-play incident. (See also pp. 302, 329.) 
 
 — Page 341. Daphne. A common pattern for old-fashioned halldoor- 
 knockers (I am looking at one as I write) was a wreath formed by two berried 
 Daphne laurel branches grasped by a right hand. 
 
 — Page 343. Daphne. See the addition made above in this Appendix to 
 p. 48. Her sister MetOpe, apparently a she-Cyclops, and the name of her 
 father LaDon seem further to connect her with the central N celestial spot. 
 
 — Page 350. Gods of the Druids. As to some recorded god-Druids, see the 
 addition made above in this Appendix to p. 270. 
 
 In the legends of the blind Mogh Ruith, "the chief druid of the world" 
 (whom I have mentioned at p. 273), as dealt \Vith by O'Curr)','' there are also 
 three chief druids of the King of Erinn : Cecht, Ciotha and CiothRuadh, whose 
 name resembles Mogh Ruith's. There is a druidical contest by fire. Mogh 
 Ruith builds up his firewood of the Rowan-tree " in the shape of a small 
 triangular kitchen with 7 doors, whereas the Northern, prepared by CiothRuadh, 
 was but rudely heaped up and had but 3 doors." The flames chase each other 
 over the brow of the Mountain W ahd N down to Druim Asail ; an alias of 
 Tory Hill, in which we seem to see the Tower-mountain of the heavens also 
 called the hill of the Norse gods, the Ases, which would be good mjthology. 
 Mogh Ruith uses as druidic properties a dark-grey hornless bull-hide and a 
 white-speckled bird head-piece, with fluttering wings — clearly celestial, both. 
 His fire puts out that of the other druids, and he then transforms the triad into 
 stones. These druids are clearly god-druids, and we have a war-in-heaven, 
 together with stone-deitieS; In one ancient poem, the druid CeannMhor (great 
 chief?), who is called a pupil ahd companion of Mogh Ruith, "invokes his gods, 
 and the chief druid of the world Mogh Ruith,"^ which is a considerable confirma- 
 tion of the god-druid theory^ and suggests that CeannMhor was but a priest- 
 druid. Mac Roth, the herald of queen Medbh (clearly a middle, central divine 
 name) is made in the poems to describe the warriors of the hill of Midhe' 
 (Meath, middle, see p. 370) that is, of the heavens. That the Druids were of 
 the North, northerly, seems supported by the challenge addressed to their 
 priests by Connla, " to prove their great powers by causing the sun and moon 
 to appear in the N," which they could not do, " and the druids were confounded," 
 although they had asserted " they were the creators of the heavens and the 
 Earth ; "' a claim I have already exposited at p. 350. 
 
 The King of Erinn's ministers (as we should now put it) were a chief, a 
 judge, a druid, a doctor, a poet, a historian and a musician. The druid's 
 
 ' Wilson's version, i, 24. " Manners and Customs, ii, 213 to 215, 2S0. 
 
 ' /hid. i. 280. 
 
 ■* Ibid, iii, 91 sqq. 415. Jledhb's cloak with the golden brooch is clearly a s}inboI 
 of the heavens-veil. " This is that very Mab." * Ibid, ii, 21, 23. 
 
pendix?\ a. Additions and Snbtraciions. 5^3 
 
 department was " sacrifice, and prophecy of good or evil to the country," which 
 clearly made him a sacerdotal prime-minister. This rule is said to have held 
 down to the death of Brian Boroimhe in A.D. 1014, but from Christian times 
 onAvards a bishop took the druid's place,' just as there were Cardinal prime- 
 ministers down to the close of the old French monarchy. 
 
 — Page 351. Gesa. It is found unmistakeably in a Buddhist Sutra. Gotama 
 the Buddha proposed a question to Ambattha, a young Brahman, which forces a 
 check mate. " Here, Ambattha, is a reasonable question which comes to you. 
 Against your will you must answer it. If you do not answer, or go from one 
 thing to another, or are silent, or go away, then and there your head will split 
 in seven." Ambattha was silent. Gotama repeated the question. Ambattha 
 was still silent. Then Gotama said: "Answer, now, Ambattha ; this is no 
 time for you to be silent. Whoever fails to answer when asked a reasonable 
 question by the Tathagata for the third time, his head will split in seven." At 
 the same time a demon with a blazing iron sledge-hammer stood in the air over 
 Ambattha, ready to carry out the threat. Ambattha saw him, and his hair 
 stood on end, and he ran for protection to Gotama, and begged him to ask his 
 question again. And when the question was repeated, Ambattha acknowledged 
 that it was exactly as the Buddha had stated it.- This form of "gesa," as I 
 shall call it, is frequent in the Buddhic dialogues. 
 
 — Page 363. Column of Smoke. If, to this holiness of the hearth and 
 chimney-hole of the archaic round hut (see also pp. 279, 280), we conjoin the 
 column of smoke, which (p. 296) is a way of getting to the skies, we at once 
 divine the symbolic meaning of the devinaille of 
 
 Chip, Chip, Cherry ; 
 
 All the men in Derry 
 
 Couldn't climb as high as 
 
 Chip, Chip, Cherry ; 
 
 the answer to which is : " the smoke going up the chimney." We also get at 
 the same time the sacred origin of witches going up the chimney on hxoo'm.sticks, 
 see p. 61 and the addition made above in this Appendix to p. 59. The witch's 
 flight was an ascension into the heavens to join the Sabaean Sabbat-dance of 
 the heavenly host of the stars (see " Dancing" in Vol. II), and it clearly must 
 have a parallel in the going up and down on Jacob's ladder. (See the postponed 
 Section on that subject.) " The Devil on Two Sticks " thus earns an honorable 
 mention here. 
 
 Navel Hcarthfire. Here we find the true explanation of the hob of a grate, 
 which the etymologists all agree is ^ hub. It is the hub which is the nave(l) ; 
 and that is the archaic forgotten reason why the title of Hub of the Universe 
 clings to Boston (Mass.). 
 
 — Page 367. Sanchcary. The churches at Hexham and Beverley, Northum- 
 berland, had the privilege of Sanctuary until it was abolished under Henry 
 VIII in 1534. There was a Tridstol — exactly of course the tripod that we have 
 at p. 368 — also called the Stool of Peace, and whatever criminal could sit in it 
 
 ' Manners and Customs, ii, 21, 23. 
 
 ' Dr. Copleston's Bddhm. in Ceylon, 1892, 237. 
 
 2 N 2 
 
5^4 ■ The Night of the Gods. \Ap 
 
 was sure of remission. If his pursuer presumed to take him out of the stool 
 the sacrilege was not redeemable by any penalty, it was botoless, beyond the 
 range of money-fines, and the offender was left to the utmost severity of the 
 Church, suffering excommunication, that ancient and most terrible form of boy- 
 cotting.' The sanctuary even extended around the church a mile four ways, the 
 limits being marked by crosses, and heavy penalties were levied on those who 
 dared to violate the sacredness of these four square miles.- The Romans were 
 370 years in Northumberland, and perhaps this sanctuary and stool first 
 belonged to a Roman pagan temple. This safety, this absence of disquiet, this 
 remission and deliverance at the Universe-Navel, must clearly be set down as 
 one more point to me in regard to what was said at pp. 6 and 7 about the 
 'quies in caelo ' and Nirvana at the celestial Pole. (See also the addition made 
 above in this Appendix to p. 171.) 
 
 — Page 370. MeatJi. " The provinces of Ulster Leinster Munster and Con- 
 nacht met in a single poirtt at a great stone which stood upon the hill of Uisnech 
 in Westmeath.''^ We have the concurrent triune notion in Irish myth long 
 before the St. Patrick stories : " Now when Fergus heard these insulting words, 
 he put his two hands to the calad bolg (hard-bulging) sword, and in sweeping 
 round the edge came in contact with 3 small hillocks which were immediately 
 at his back, and such was the force of the action that he cut the three tops off 
 them, and hurled them to a distance into the adjoining swamp [the Universe 
 Marsh] where they remain to this day, as well as the 3 decapitated trunks, 
 which have ever since been called na tri maela Midd, or the 3 bald hills of 
 Meath."^ It is also quite clear that we have a central god in the accomplished 
 magician Mider, the great Tuatha D^ Danann chief of the hill of Bri Leith in 
 Longford, who surprised the beautiful Edain and her fifty attendant Maidens. 
 See the additions made above in this Appendix to pp. 270 and 350. 
 
 Meath, Midhe, is (very appositely for me) connected with the navel-hearth- 
 fire (see p. 362) by a passage in the Book of Ballymote cited by Mr. S. H. 
 O'Grady in his quite recent Silva Gaddica > Midhe it was that first in Erin 
 lighted a magic fire against the clan Neimidh, and it remained alight for 
 7 years, from which fire originally was kindled every fire in Erin. . . . Then 
 all Erin's druids were convened into one house and, by Midhe's motion, had 
 their tongues extracted from their heads ; they were buried in Uisnech's 
 ground, and over them Midhe, Erin's Chief-Druid (prtmdrui) and chief anti- 
 quarian (primsenchaid), took his seat. (Have we here a clue to the meaning of 
 Neimed as = NeiMidhe?) 
 
 — Page 372. St. Augustine^ said Tellumo was not an alias of Tellus. 
 — Page 375. Here has unaccountably dropped out the pregnant fact, as to 
 the omphalos of Delphoi, that 8e\(f>vi = uterus, whence a-Se\<po\ means uterine 
 brothers. Thus Delphoi takes on the sense of ' navels.' (See Livy x.xxviii, 
 48 ; xli, 23 ; Ovid, Metam. x, 168 ; ,\v, 630. S/atius TJicb. i, 1 18.) 
 
 ' Rich, of Hexham, in Stavely's Hist. Ch. 173. Pennant's Tour in Scotland, -pi. ii. 
 
 * Steven's Cont. of Diigdale, ii, 135. Hutchinson's Norliiumbertand l"]")^, i, 93. 
 
 ^ O'Curry, I\lan7ters, ii, 13, 321. 
 
 ■* 1S92, pp. 475, 520. See also O'Curry, ii, 191. (It is in the Dinnseanchas. ) 
 
 ' Civ. Dei, vii, 23. 
 
pendix.'\ a. Additions and Subti'actions. 5*55 
 
 In the beginning Bhagavat (= Maghavat = the Almighty) took the form 
 of Purusha, composed of i6 parts (see p. 1S2). While he lay on the Ocean, 
 plunged in the sleep of meditation, from his navel as from a pond issued a 
 golden lotus, which had the immense splendour of a thousand suns, and from 
 which was born Brahma. " The composition of the worlds presents the form of 
 this lotus." In the eighth of his nine births Bhagavat was the son of Nabhi 
 (clearly the Navel-god) and MeruDevi, goddess of central mount Meru, or of 
 SuDevi.' %vho is the same, for SuMeru, excellent-pure, is the Universe Moun- 
 tain's name. SuDevI means precisely Bona Dea. Vishnu is also called "the 
 Navel of the Universe."^ 
 
 " Drawing the vital breath from the navel into his heart, let the Solitary 
 cause it to rise thence by the way of the air called Udana into his breast. Then, 
 mastering his attention, and uniting the breath of life to his intelligence, he 
 brings it little by little to the root of his palate," and so on. This, in the Blidga- 
 ziata-pitrana,^ gives us Swedenborg's " ordered breathing,"* and the similar 
 stuff which T. L. Harris imposed upon the late Mr. Lawrence Oliphant among 
 others. It is found in Ceylonese Buddhism in the collection of sutras called 
 the Majjhima Nikaya (x), where a comparison used is, curiously enough, the 
 alternate pulls of a lathe-rope (see the IVf andara-rope p. 34).= 
 
 — Pages 377, 378. Omentum. See the addition made above in this 
 Appendix to p. 159. 
 
 — Page 390. Japanese sign-posts . Mr. Aston remarks on this that the 
 Corean ' milestone ' is a square wooden post, the top of which is rudely carved 
 into the semblance of a (to us Westerns) hideous god. 
 
 — Page 392. P'an-Ku's pillar. See the addition made abo\e in this 
 Appendix to p. 193. 
 
 — Page 393. Crow in Sun. See the addition made above in this Appendix 
 to p. 304. 
 
 — Page 400. Sesame. The Rev. S. Beal mentions, from Wong Pith's Life of 
 Buddha,aChineseBuddhist masterofSastras called Bhavaviveka, who recited the 
 magic formula called Kin-Kong, or the Diamond dharani, before an Asura's cave, 
 and then " enchanting a white mustard-seed, chiu pih kae tsen lli ^ ^ "J"," 
 knocked on the face of tlie rock which masked the cave, whereupon the 
 rock opened. Mr. Beal suggested that as siddhattho is the Pali word for white 
 mustard, that seed was employed in charms because of the similarity to the 
 Sanskrit Siddhartha .(=:'the accomplisher of the end') the prince-name of 
 Buddha ; and then he goes on to say ; " It is possible that we have here the 
 explanation of ' Open Sesame ' in the tale of Ali Baba.'" A parallel, yes ; 
 explanatipn, no. That a seed was meant in Ali Baba is clear from Galland's 
 version. Sesame is not taken farther by our etymologists than the Greek 
 
 ' Biidg.-pm: (Burnouf) i, 9, 19S, 37, 130, 137, 138, 10; ii, xi, 49, 256. 
 
 - Ibid, i, 109. 3 Burnoufs, i, 108. 
 
 ■* J. J. G. Wilkinson's Einannel Swedenhorg, 2nd ed. 1SS6, 77 to S3. 
 
 ° Dr. Gopleston's Buddliism 1892, p. 221. 
 
 '' Journal Kny. As. Soc. (1884) xvi, 270. 
 
566 The Night of the Gods. \_Ap 
 
 o-'jcraiiov,' which is a word foreign to Greek. The modern Greek is sesami, and 
 the Turkish is sesawm. 
 
 — Page 405. Keystone. Though we have to say in Enghsh ' the Vtystoiie 
 of the vauh,' the very word (and the exposition of it for which I am contending) 
 still actually survives in French as '\a. clef A& la vodte.' Here I also should 
 have re-named DioKles (see p. 178), one of DeMeter's Four, who, according to 
 a Homer's hymn cited by I'ausanias (ii, 35, i), was an admirable driver of 
 horses {i.e. of the horses that drag-round the sphere). The kissing-contest at 
 the DioKIeia spring feast in his honour at Megara arouses surmise. I have 
 seen a derivation of this kX^s from ' xXe'or gloire '- (? report) which seems to 
 want inversion. (See also AntiKleia p. 17S, DoriKles etc. p. 92, Kleio and 
 Kleitorp. 142.) 
 
 — Page 424. It is not uninteresting to note here that the chief festival of the 
 ecclesiastical year at Donderah was that of the first day of the month of Tahuti 
 (Thoth), their New-Year. A preliminary celebration before the feast was gone- 
 through in the suite of three chief festal chambers in the temple of Hathor 
 at Denderah, by the priests thereof This was on the fourth intercalated day, 
 on the night of which the closing festival of the Old Year began. The 
 occasion was called "the day of the Night of the Child in his cradle 
 
 — Page 428. Hwang T'ien is the venerable supreme Heaven, the upper 
 part of the heavens, as the saint is the supreme fraction of humanity,^ wrote the 
 Chinese philosopher .Shaotsze.'' It seems to me impossible to avoid the 
 straight conclusion that this description can be true only of the celestial Pole. 
 That which from Heaven knows how to coniplece all things, continued 
 Shaotsze, is called Hwang T'ien. 
 
 — Page 444. The main axis of the temple of Horus at Edfu lies N and S, 
 as is repeatedly mentioned in the inscriptions referring to this : "from Orion 
 
 (the S star) to the Great Bear T % \ <=> (t| ® -f*-^."' (Read 
 xepesh, as on p. 85.) 
 
 — Page 446. " Astronomical representations, whether simply golden stars 
 scattered promiscuously on a blue ground, or actual copies of the constellations 
 as seen at some particular time, have been adopted as a suitable ceiling- 
 decoration in nearly every Egyptian temple and tomb." The exact words of 
 Baedeker's Handbook" are here purposely quoted. I had already referred to 
 this on p. 230 also. 
 
 —Page 448, The Reader can handily examine for himself in the plates to 
 Baedeker's Upper Ef;ypt, just published, the lie of the contiguous temples of 
 Rameses III (comparatively modern)and the much older one of the i8th dynasty 
 
 ' Littre. Mr. E. R. Wharton's Elyina Gnvca 1S90. 
 
 ' Se?iw Sancus Fidhis, par E. Jannetaz iSbs, p. 19. 
 
 ^ Baedeker's Upper Egj'pt 1S92, p. 94. " Mgr, dc Harltz, SinsLi, p. S9. 
 
 ° Baedeker's Upper Egypt 1892, 248. 
 
 ' Upper Egypt 1S92, p. 8j. 
 
pendix.~\ a. Additions and Subtractions. 5^1 
 
 at Medinet Habu.' The aspects have nothing in common ; the newer building 
 having been laid out with total disregard to the other, and neither of them 
 lying to any exact point. The same may be said of the successive portions oi 
 the temple of Luxor,' and indeed of numerous other temple plans in the 
 volume. 
 
 — Page 450. Northern Burial. One of Brown's Vulgar Errors (ii, ch. 3) 
 clearly belongs here, and conclusively connects burial with reference to the N 
 with the magnet and its free flotation on water (pp. 103 to 106 supra). I see 
 no verisimilitude, he said, in what some have imagined, that tne human corpse 
 is magnetic, and that if it be laid down at its .length in a boat, the boat will turn 
 until the head of the dead body looks to the N. He here, by the context, may 
 have meant that the crown of the head is to the S, so that the g^ze may be to 
 the N J the body lying face uppermost. (Se.e a,lsa p. 51Q.) 
 
 -Page 461. M. Pierref^ gives a te.xt : " >Juternub taiu | -fl fw"! t. I\ \ 
 
 God the fashioner (or modeller) of the Two Regions," \yhich js aidful to me 
 here. 
 
 — Page 471. Cyclopes. See the addition made above in this .i\ppepdix to 
 p, 4S. MetOpe seems to be a lijtherto disregarded she-Cyclops. 
 
 — Page 486. (See also 509.) Pausanias (bk. vii) describes an Achaian 
 •Statue of Athene Polias having the ttoXos- on the head and a disjaff^ in each hand. 
 He also (ii, ip) d,escribes at Sicyon an ivory and gold seated image of Aphrodite 
 'bearing tlie ttoXos on her head, and at Smyrna (iv, 31) he says Boupalos was the 
 ;flrst known-K)f to make a statue of Tvx'? (Fortune) having a ttoXos on her head, 
 ,and in one hand the horn of AmalTheia. In Vol. Ill make the Wheel of 
 fortune that of the Universe. 
 
 — Page 491. Such words as "Ai's, maa fate, mcnij.os just right, alVior lucky, 
 aiaTos obscure, A'la-mv (father ,of 'lacrav) the Old Man ,who was jtiade young by 
 MeDeia, must all hang together. To these .we must add (^ee p. 420) Ala-Y/j.i'TjTrjs 
 = 'just governor, umpire, .ruler, prince ; ' a name .which now seems to me to be 
 clearly compounded of ala-a or ci'ts + viivfjTrjs ' one that celebrates (in song)'; 
 from vfivim, whence our ' hymn.' The ideas of fate .and prophesy are embraced, 
 and I think we here get the true clue to the mea,n,ing,of Ais, or Aides or Haides 
 and Hades. It means the lot after death (and also the allotter). AisYmnetes, 
 of which I make a proper name, thus seems to me to be ' Ais the Prophet,' 
 that is Ais merely. (It should be stated that M-T. E. R. Wharton brings aisym- 
 netes from the same alira + fj-vrjfn] memory.)' All the di\'ine Greek names in 
 Ai- badly want a comparative treatnient. 
 
 — Page 497. A parallel to ProNoroos js the Phrygian (Asia-Minor) Satyr or 
 Pan-god Marsyas, whose ^name mus.t clearly be put to that of Mars, and to 
 whom Pausanias (x, 30, 9) attributed fhe invention of the sacred pipe, fife, or 
 
 ' Upper Egypt 1892^ pp. 172, \lo z.nA passim . - Etudes egypt. i, 3. 
 
 ' Mr. E. R. Wharton gives " ro/«i distaff : not ' revolving,' from colo celer, as the 
 distaff was held stationary." This view would make a Cosmos-spinning goddess of the 
 distaff-holder, which is all my desire. 
 
 ■* Ely ma Grceca 1 890 ( 1 8S2 ). 
 
568 The Night of the Gods. \_Ap 
 
 flute music of the Phrygian Mother-of-the-gods Kybele. It was on challenging 
 Apollo to a musical contest that Marsyas, being beaten, was flayed alive. The 
 Phrygians called themselves the most ancient of races,' and claimed to have, 
 from time immemorial invented the pipe, which was indispensable in the 
 worship of Kybele. This worship was of course introduced to Rome with the 
 stone of Pessinous in 204 B.C. (see pp. 94, 116, 273 supra) ; and we get a most 
 interesting clue to the origin of the//<?rf dress of the Piper of Hameln in a law 
 or resolution of the senate referred to (circa 8 B.C.) by Dionysius of Halicar- 
 nassusj^ which forbad Roman citizens to follow the piping of the tibia, avXds, or 
 appear in a particoloured (ttoikiXos) robe at these foreign Asiatic feasts of the 
 Great-Mother.^ And furthermore, we are then enabled to set-back the reason 
 for the stained garments to the fact that in the religious orgies and dances 
 of this worship, the frenzied devotees were anciently accustomed to strike and 
 hack themselves and each other with their swords. The spots on the clotlies 
 must therefore have been intended to simulate the meritorious blood-stains 
 from these sacramental wo,unds. They were a pious fraud. 
 
 Pipes of various shapes were also essential in the worship of Dionysos ;' 
 and Clement of Alexandria mentioned^ a myth that Athene played the pipe, 
 which was evidently from the context not the horizontal ' German flute.' In 
 Bekker's account" of the Hameln legend (which belongs also to Brandenberg, 
 Lorch and Ispahan) taken from Wierus, Erichius, and Schoock, the Piper is a 
 hunter of " extraordinary and terrifying size," wearing a hat of ' purple' (and all 
 'purple' was red, to simulate sacrificial blood) of strange shape. He took all 
 the children between 4 and 12' (see those cardinal and zodiacal numbers supra) 
 into the Koppenberg or Calvary outside the town. We shall see plenty about 
 the baldness of the heavens-mountain in Vol. II. 
 
 — Page 504. I much regret I did not bethink me in time of an aptest motto 
 for the heading " Sirius," in Mr. George Meredith's fine sonnet to the Star : 
 Long watches through, at one with godly night, 
 I mark thee planting joy in constant fire.' 
 
 — Page 505. The Chain of Zeus and of the Great Maine (see pp. 38, 39) 
 
 must be parallel myths. At p. 153, Hera suspended by a chain seems an Earth- 
 
 goddes^. See too the rope at p. 296, and the siring at p. 329. The ' fils de la 
 
 Vierge' cobwebs, p. 296, will float into our ken once more in the Section on 
 
 ^' The VeiJ." 
 
 « 
 — Page 519. Subsequently to the printing of p. 519 I receive (18 Nov. 1892) 
 
 the Transactions Asiatic Society of Japan for June, which contain an able paper 
 
 by Mr. T. Haga on Tai-Ki, yin and yang ; or as the Japanese call them 
 
 ' Herodotus ii, 2. ^ Ant. Rom. ii, 19. 
 
 ^ Here is the Latin version of Dion's passage : NuUus enim est Romanus indigena 
 qui MatriMagnse stipem cogat, aut qui ad tibiarum modulationem per urbem incedat 
 versicolore stola indutiis, aut Phrygiis cerenioniis deam colat, idque ex lege vel senalus, 
 consulto. 
 
 •* Welcker Alte Denlnn. iii, 12S. ° naiSn-yajyot ii. ch. 2. 
 
 ^ Le Monde encliante, 1694, iv, 364. " Query meaning 8 hours out of the 24 ? 
 
 ' Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth, 1SS3, p. 15S. 
 
peiidix7\ /3. Skeleton of the Argwnsnt. 569 
 
 Taikiyoku, in and yo. He reprints the diagram or tableau of Tai-Ki to which 
 I have referred above in the text.' 
 
 — Page 531 (also 400 and 515). Star, miraculous conception. There is a 
 similar legend of the Irish Saint Kieran. "Before she conceived Kieran in her 
 womb, his mother had a dream : as it were a Star that fell in her mouth ; 
 which dream she related to the Druids." (S. H. O'Grady's Silva Gadclita. 
 1893, p. I.) 
 
 ^. Skeleton of the Argument. 
 
 [A complete Index to this vol. alone being of course an impracticable thing, the 
 following precis is offered for temporary use. It is unavoidably a mere dry skeleton, the 
 bare bones of which are all there, goodhap, though unarticulated. 
 
 The Reader is understood to have (first) read the ' Disputatio Circularis,' and tp 
 have then well conned the table of Contents ; otherwise the following abstract — which, 
 according to the use and wont of this Iiiqiiiiy, plunges at once in medias res, and gets to 
 business rightaway — may be considerably thrown away upon him.] 
 
 — {Spear) axis-mytlis pp. 5, 6, 7. — The vol. starts (6, 31) with the churning of this 
 Earth oi^t of chaos by means of its Axis, the mythic spear 31, 304. — the Earth so churned 
 is the ' island^ in space. Parallels follow. All enchanted islands dvipas varshas are types 
 of the Earth 33, 137, 140, 210, 267, 2S9, 309, 360, 455, 545, 559. — Crete a special type 
 138,267. — Corcyra, Scheria, Corfu 33, 83, 150, 382. — FuSang 559. — The spear - 
 handle is the axis-symbol, and its N tip is the fleur-de-lis apd the trident, both emble- 
 matic of a polar divine triad 62, 70. — Churning again 34, 2S9. — Bharata or Bharata 
 ( = churned? 34) 355, 360, 504. — Peruvian spear-myth 35. — Spear 217,228. — Spear 
 of KekrOps(tail-eye) 349. — Spear = sword 36, 273, 374, 429. — Spear =/;7/flr 37, 189, 
 192, 306, 514 ; =lat 204 ; =trce-\x\yak 304, 306, 330, 561. — Spear and (aurel 135 ; and 
 olive 356. 
 
 Pal ^ mythic term for the axis-spear in endless divine names 43, 19S, 451, 545, 546. 
 
 — PalLas = this pal -fAof stone 48, 119, 181, 212,456, 553. — palladium also 47, 212, 
 475.546,552. — Peredur /'(7/ad)r Hir 1 98, 217, 303, 403,478. — pal = pole2o8. 
 
 — jula = spear (especially of 6'iva) or pal 75. — sceptres 58. 
 
 Spear-axis-gods : Picus (pike) 40, = Pikos = Zeus 285, 545. — Apollo spear-god 454. 
 — MerCurius from mer central and curis spear ; he is a central spear-god 55, 144, 269, 546; 
 an axis-god 53, 55, 14S, 269, 275, 2S6. — Hermes an axis-god ? 53, 292, 395. — winged 
 caduceus the axis 54, — Quirinal from curis 345. — Tullus Hostilius = Tellus Hastilius, 
 an Earth-on-spear-axis god 371, 373. — Sopu of Kronos 7, 61, 80, 330, 344, 352. — 
 DoruLas = hapv (i.e. pal) -f Xas 93, 553. — Doros spear-axis god 136, 415, 454. — 
 divine names in dor- 91. — dart 7. — Dardanos 47, 420, 475 ; genealogy 417. — 
 pilum, javelin 253, 553. 
 
 Axis-gods : O'vWVowi., Magnes, IphiKratos, TaLos 153, 341, 357, 545 : others 347. 
 
 — HeraKles as an .\tjjas 178, 405 (see AtLas under Stones). — Shu the Egyptian AtLas 
 158, J64, 208, 494, 506, 549. — also Ptah 214. — ' one leg ' of axis-gods 215, 230, 47S, 
 552. — ' one foot ' of heavens 216, 224 ; of Polar god 501, 545. 
 
 ' Trans. As. Soc. Jap. xx, 1 78 sgq. 
 
57° The Night of the Gods. [Ap 
 
 — Axis as tree-trunk. — tree-trunk = spear(axis) 304, 306. Axe-tree 6, 7, 52, 2S9, 
 301, 309, 313,324, 353, 357. — tree and navel 368, 369. — tree-trunk = pillar-stone 271, 
 274, 275, 290, 292, 306, 347, 354, 361. — tree = pillar 194, 197, 210, 290, 292, 306, 330 
 ^11> 3'I3> 347; 3S9, 397- — tree = heavens-palace pillar 306. — Jambu, Harvispfokhm, 
 Parijata, Kalpav/v'ksha, Soma, Haoma, MwAu, all are sacred names for the Universe- 
 tree whose stem is the axis 289, 290, 299, 336, 33S, 355, 378. — tree-of-the-Law(axle of 
 wheel-of-the Law) 301. — the AshVjjgDrasill( = 'po\verful-whirler ') 291. — willow, 
 turning-universe, and great Bear 298, 308, 455. — mistletoe = sun on uiiiveise-tree 320, 
 325, 559, 561. — winged-Oak of Zeus, rotating universe-tree 291, 29S, 301, 30S, 309, 353, 
 49S. — oak of Dodona and the Argo 307, 343. — oak of Romulus 307. — Merlin's 
 oak 307. —oak 297, 298,310,312,315, 318,332,343,350, 352,353,361. —gospel- 
 oak 308. — ' Heme's oak ' = HermenSul ? 293. — Hirmin, Ermen, Hermen = Hermes ? 
 
 292. — IrmenSaule, IrminSul, universe-pillar 291, 292, 332, 334. — Rowland Saiilen 
 
 293, 332, 389 (Rowland 398) 561. — Hubertus-stock 333. — ashvattha (horsed) tree 308, 
 321,477. — the Ash VggDrasill tree-of-life and judgement-seat 291, 308, 314, 334, 342, 
 477,490,491,561. —ash 291, 308,310, 311,313,342, 353,477- — asherih and Asshur 
 54, 195, 300, 339 ; and Osiris( = Ausares) 59, 306. — ashet 314, 315. — oxua = ash? 353. 
 
 — Japanese tsuki( = saka)tree 304, 336 ; also katsura 561. — Chinese FuSang 548 ; which 
 is also Japanese 559. — Haoma and YggDrasill white-bright 291; birch ditto 294, 302, 
 308, 353 ; pine ditto 297 ; poplar ditto 305, 306. 
 
 Tree-of-Life (continued) 293, 304, 305, 320, 337, 560. — tuielve crops of fruit of tree- 
 of-life 176, 305, 560. — twelve apostles as branches 336. — Taoist willow-of-immortality 
 293 ; also k'iung 304, 305, apd tong 304, and shen-t'&o 305, and li 532, and Fu 559. 
 
 — willow298, 306, 327. — Chinese shi 294. — quicken and quickbeam ( = rowan) mean 
 tree-of-life 312, 313, 320, 321, 339, 350, 478, 561, 562 ; guardian of, 477 (whitethorn also 
 called quick). — I'arbre s^c 560. 
 
 — Men born from trees 310, 311, 355, 560 ; from oaks 311 ; man from ash 310, 311, 342, 
 from alder 312 ; woman from elm 310, from rowan 312. — children grow on trees 311, 
 312; girls grow on trees 311 ; milktree 298, 311, 312, 327. — ' Lord Lovell ' myth 310 
 323, 325. — men tree-climbers and tree-dwellers 311,316, 320. — man a denizen of the 
 Universe-tree 311. — metempsychosis into trees 311,316. — hanging and swinging on 
 trees 309, 326. — dead bodies bound to trees (no burial) 301, 311, 316, 327. — poles on 
 graves 2S3, 30J, 558. 
 
 Tree-ofr Knowledge : bodhi-tree ( = bo = pipal = ficus religiosa) tree of knowledge 305, 316 
 (budh. to penetrate), 317, 322, 323,325,458,561. —tree of Truth 332, 354.(493). — arbre 
 de Lilterte, 300, 301, 340. 
 
 Oilier typical trees. — differences of climate and vegetation make differing universe- 
 trees 294,338. — acacia 306,317. — alder 312. — almond 52. — apple 268,291, 
 298,305,317,323,324,383,546. — ash (already above). — aspen 305, 477. — bamboo 
 (and see ' reed ') 33S, 562. — basil (tulasi) 317, 319. — bay 341, 344. — beech 315, 
 353. — birch 294, 302, 30S, 353. —cedar 310, 343. —cypress 318. — ^elder or 
 ellan 319. —elm 298,310. —fig 293, 313, 314, 316, 325, 3S5. —fir 353, 397. — 
 hazel 53, 365. — laurel 312, 337, 341, sqq. — Daphne-laurel 341, 343 (355) 368, 562. 
 
 — laurus 43, 346. — lily 317. — lime 315, 331. — lote or lotus-tree 322, 355, 565. 
 
 — mulberry 313, — myrtle 314, 324. — oak (already above). — olive 60, 211, 309, 
 312, 313, 315, 343, 348, 349, 356. — pala_ta 560. —palm 265, 294, 306, 309, 312, 313, 
 315. 31S, 339. 343. 560. — peach 305. — persea 304, 560. —pine 293, 297, 299, 312, 
 316,352,353,356,561, — plane (sycomore ?) 52, 560. — pomegranates 241,297. — 
 poplar 298, 305, 306. — quicken and quickbeam (under ' tree-of-life '). — reed 131, 
 183, 224(296 rattan) 303. — rowan (under ' tree-of-life '). — storax 52. — S)-comore? 
 52,560. — tulasi (basil, ocimum sanctum) 317, 319. — vine (under 'tree-worship'). — 
 whitethorn 312, 323, 432. — wicken (= rowan) 321. — willow (already above). — 
 yew323, 555, 561. 
 
 'J'rce--LL'orship 8, 271, 300, 302, 312, 314 sqq, 322, 340, 355. — put-down b\ Moslems 
 
pendix.'] /3. Skeleton of the Argument. 57 1 
 
 and Christians 318. — tree anointed 300, 306. — PanDrosos universe-tree god ? 315, 
 344,348, 349, 356, 416. — AgLauros an axis-tree deity 135, 210, 344, 3S4, 388, 416 = 
 PanDrosos? 34S, 357. — Odinn tree-god 327. — god Pir and Piru(Perun?) 321,338, 
 194. — keremet of Finns atree-templum 315, 316, 435. — Bhagavat the universe-tree 
 557- — Buddhas and trees 561. — Indra and bamboo 562. — universe-tree goddess 
 355- — goddess Maia 14S, 149, 560. — Vanas-pati (soma) lord of the wood, king of trees 
 299)312. — rex Nemorensis 114, 54S. — godstree-dwellers3l5. — Artemis in willow 
 306. — Attis in pine 290, 29S, 306, 337. — Osiris (= Ausares 59) in erica-tree trunk 
 236, 306 { = asherah), 412 ; parallels 306, 309, 343. — Egyptian Bitiu's heart in acacia 
 306. — Adonis from niyrrh-tree 306. — Myrrha changed to myrrh-tree 306. — fairy lives 
 in whitethorn 312. — sanctuary at tree, tig-touch-wood 300, 307, 368. — princess Pari- 
 zade's singing-tree, and music of the spheres 304. — sibylline leaves, and parallels 304, 
 305. — speaking trees 311. — talking(prophesying)oak 309,316. — swearing by 
 divine oak 307, 319. — oath by holly 319, 334, (58). — Trinity and oak 308. — Christ 
 as trunk 336. — the Rood 322, 323, 557. — OidiPousand roots 153, 545, 549, 557, 561. 
 
 — ' Woodman, spare that tree ' 298, 299, 422. — hanging and swinging on trees 309, 
 326. — Thallo (branch ?) 357. — branch-Sunday 364. — devil in tree 397. — picus, 
 woodpecker, tree-bird 545. 
 
 — ' Christmas'-tree is a universe-tree idol ; so are all ' artificial ' trees 334 sqq, 423 ; is 
 Teutonic? 334. — wassail-bob 334. — ' bezant ' or ' bezon ' of Shaftesbury 334, 339, 
 407. — Parsi baresma 337. — ' the May ' ( = Majus 149) a similar idol 300, 302, 303, 335, 
 336. — goddess Maia, iMaya 14S, 149, 560. — Jack-in-the-green 198, 341, 342. — 
 Jack's beanstalk 191, 267, 294, 329, 39S, 561. — sacredness of beans and beanfeasts 160, 
 233. 297, 323. 432, 455' '^'ine of gold 294, 296, 353, 420. 
 
 — /Wa and /iw/j- as universe-tree idols. — peeled posts, Romangods52. — octagonal 
 sacrificial post 166, 171, 193, 227, 299 to 301. — rood = gallows 557. — barber's-pole 
 = sacrificial post 300 to 302, 319, 390. — ' greasy pole ' 191, 300 — May-pole (Maia, 
 Majus) 149, 222, 300, 302, 339. — Egyptian ' Venetian '-masts 252. — Tibetan also 301. 
 
 — flagstaffs 301. — trophy-post 205, 309, 401. — other posts 194, 292, 565. — poles 
 on graves 2S2, 301, 561. — Alaskan totem-poles 558. — Indraand bai^iboo 562. — 
 metal-covered idols 330 (272, 273). 
 
 Druids tree-iuorshippers ; their gods \^^xt Druids^ tree-gods, 350, 562. — creator- 
 Drui a god, the man-Drui his priest 350, 556, 562. — Druas a god-druid 354. — druid = 
 dryad 353. — oak as druidical god 350. — Gaels viewed Christ as a druid 261. — 
 druidism becoming Christianity 261. — chief-druid Midhe 564. — Simon Drui — Simon 
 Magus 273, 350. — Mogh Ruith and his daughter 273, 556, 562. — the giant Drj-antore 
 a powerful druid 351. — DruonAntigon the giant of Antwerp 352. — DruOpe =naphne 
 355. — DruPada = OidiPous 153, 355, 549. — Dhruva (see under ' Polar God '). — 
 Odros, Odrusios, tree-gods ? 357. — the GeranDruon 357. — tree and stone idols 271, 
 274. 275. 331. 334> 347. 350. 354, 361, 389> 397- — druitis, precious stone 354. — 
 druidical geasa(spells)350, 391, 563. — ' guess ' = geis (pi. geasa) 350. — drus = tree 
 = hopv 352. — drudus (adj.) = true, faithful 354. — druid = truht ? 352. — druid 
 still at an Eistedhvod 272. — tree-and-well worship 61, 271, 274, 308, 318, 322, 47S, 491, 
 534.547,549.560,561- 
 
 Rod and Rhabdoinancy. — divining Rod or wand is a branch of Universe-tree 52, 
 58, 463, 546 ; also the axis or tree itself 7,57, 546. — winged caduceus of MerCurius is 
 winged axis which turns 54 (see also winged-oak and 'Tree' above), ^caduceus has sphere 
 on axis 54. — caduceus 53,75,395. — serpent on rod 60,210. — tiermes an axisgod? 53, 
 54,292,395. — wandofPalLas Athene 52. — Attis, the Fauni, Pan, and rod 56. — 
 BdKX°''. iiscchus, baklron, bakteria, baculum 75, 7$. — Arcadia vjrga 395. — virga 
 divina 53, 60, 319, 351. — rod of Moses 546. — rod, rood 557. — virgula divina 52. 
 — witches on sticks 61, 563. — 'devil on two .sticks' 563. — healing-rods 323. — 
 hazel-wand 53, 365, 397. — Jacob's peeled rods 52. — Jo.seph's rod 305. — Aaron ( = 
 
572 The Night of the Gods. [Ap 
 
 mountain) his rod and serpent 52,56, 60. — Moses his rod 52 (348,356 PoseiDon's trident). 
 — shepherd's pedum 56. — lituus a Northern symbol 56, 57, 431, 438 (460). — rod and 
 rood 323. — rods and pillars 52, 58 (and see Reed under ' Tree ' above). Thallo (branch?) 
 357. — ' beating the bounds ' 61,250. — mace, sceptre, staff, standard 55. — sceptres 
 58. — Osiris and sceptre 5S, 59. — trident emblem of triad 7, 20, 70, 284, 34?. — bident 
 of duad 74. — four yew wands 555. 
 
 — Stones and Plllar-stoncs. The pillar-stone is an axis-symbol 269; 270 ; and the 
 celestial holiness of stones comes from two sources : the stones that fall from heaven 
 (jerolites, the weapons of the gods) 95, 114, 122, 123, 212, 409 ; and the natural magiicl 
 which points to the holiest highest celestial spot, the N pole 7, 94, 95, 212, 409. — 
 meteoric clashings 6. — stone-fights = war-in-heaven 114. — war-in-heaven 19, 114, 212, 
 287. 342, 353, 369, 371, 386,453, 472, 487, 562. — Argoi lithoi and Apollo Aguieus 120. 
 — flints 1 12. — Attius Navius cuts flint 113 [would not the vulgar think the expert chipper 
 made the clean ' cleavage ' with a razor ?] lithobolice, gephurismoi 115, 546, 548. — load- 
 stone legends (and iron) 107, 129, 198, 212, 322, 479, 507, 509, 547, 548. — Medea nigi-a 
 = loadstone 142 ; theory of, 108, 547. — touchstone 7, 150. — druitis, precious stone 354. 
 — ^jadestone and tree 304. — jade in sacrificial fire 524 (95). — stone and tree idols 271, 
 274, 275, 331, 334, 347, 350, 354, 361, 389, 397. —keystone (see 'the Arcana'). 
 
 Bt-th-Els-j, III, 113, 115,274,332, 387, 419, 552. — El,E16ah, and the North 116,196, 
 425, 4S5, 4S7. — Welsh names in El- 198, 410,412, 556. — ' animated stones ' 7, in, 118, 
 310, 346, 365. [I ought perhaps here say I have naught to meddle with a modem theory 
 called 'animism.'] — men and gods turned to stone 117, 142, 239, 343, 347,406, 419, 562. 
 — men from stones 119, 385 ; and therefore Xadr people from Xans stone-god 1 19, 553. — 
 At Las = 'farthest (pillar-)stone ' 6, 7,212, 405, 415, 464, 474, 509, 553. — 'lost At- 
 Lantis'545. — PalLas = paI(spear) + Aas- 48, 119,181,212. — PalLas killed by Tumus 
 49, 209. — \aas, Xas, lat 203, 204, 209, 272. — Lares 21 r, 355, 370, 470. — PyLares 
 553. — stone gods in Lao- 120, 356, 473, 546, 562. — TaLos-Tal^aos (= tall-stone) 134, 
 142, 212, 553; = AtLas 119, 134. — their genealogies 134, 136. — MeneLaos(= rock of 
 ages), Laertes, and so on 119, 177, 386,453,473. — the LaeStrigones 473. — LapiThai 
 stone-gods 353, 473. — manalis lapis 118, 273, 508. — Kronos and stone 1 11, 120. — 
 Pieros = pierre, stone 142 ; Pierian = Petraian, stony 142. — perron and Perun = stone 
 194, 198, 287 (? = Pir, Piru 32 1, 338). — stone of Sisyphos 177. 
 
 Stone-worship 115, 126, 271, 274; centred in Polar deity 7. — keystone (see 'The 
 Arcana'). — pivot-stone 192, 390, 453, 456. — stone-worship with oil 123. — black 
 stone of DeJIeter-Cybele at Pessinous 121, 303, 568. — similar stone (of ElaGabalus) at 
 Emesa 94, 116, 273. — cubic stones and temples 122. — seven black stones 122. — 
 Arabnosbi95. — stones of dervishes 127. — oaths by stones 112. — tables of the law 
 113. — stone-altars 114, 229 ; ah ar and pillar 262. — rocking-stones 141. — handfast- 
 ing through holed stones 274. — stone thrones 153, 192, 365, 36S, 381, 3S7, 393, 504, 
 505, 522, 552 (and see ' the Omphalos'). — pet-au-diable 126. — stone beds 152, 557. 
 
 Pillar-stones igg, 200,226. — crru-Xof = standing-stone 119, 144, 197. — MigDoI, 
 MagDala = ' great-pillarstone ' 147. — dolmen 254, 270, 275, 553. — DaiDalos III, 
 134, 147, 310. — dalle, Dalos, dallan, pillarstones 133, 134, 147, 269, 270, 555. — Heim- 
 Dall 249, 270, 381. — dal, a division = dal, a boundary-stone 270, 3S7 to 389, 557. — 
 gall and gallan = pillarstone 269, 270, 555. — pierre levee 127, 205, 274. — pierre fite 
 274. — pelvan274. — eistedhvod 272. — menhirs 123, 1 98, 200. — Stonehenge 272. 
 — metal-covered pillarstone idols 272, 273, 401(330). — pillar-stone a doublet of .Arthur's 
 magic sword 273. — pillnr-stones = Round-Towers 2('.6, 269. — trophy-stones 205, 
 401. — dual pillar-stones 271. 
 
 Pillars. — the axis the heavens-pillar 7, 3^^, iSg, 232, 38S. — pillar = Jpear = axis 
 
pendix7\ fi. Skeleton of the Arginnent. 573 
 
 37, 1S9, 192. — central post of Universe-palace 224, 227, 514, 555. — Ptah's tat is axis 
 and four heavens 76, 21J, 219, 389. — tee (htee) and umbrella = tat 220, 403, 554. — 
 Tarius? 136, 219, 347, 369. St. Hubert's legend 218, 333. — pillar on mountain 122. 
 — pillar-myths and symbols 190 sqq, 485. — slippery pillar 191, 3S3, 393, 551. — obe- 
 lisks 7, 195, 19S, 201, 236, 237. — pyramid 199, 548. — thelat pillar 32, 122, 203, 204, 
 235. — lat = spear 204. — lat = Lot ? 239, 307. — Minars 205. — stambha 204, 
 221, 235 ; of Jains 276 [Skt. ' jaina, relating to thejinas' ; ' Jina = overcomer, a Jain god, 
 a Buddha, an epithet of Vishnu ' ; ' ji to conquer ' (? our slang ' that won't gee ')]. — My- 
 cenre lion column 20S, 466. — king of the golden pillars 26S. — dual pillars 189,199, 
 219, 221, 235 sqq, 333, 537. — pillars of Hercules, Kronos, Briarios 236. — pillars of 
 sons of Boreas 237. — of Usoiis 237, 244. — pillar \vind-god.s 242, 185,342. — foiir 
 cardinal pillars 157, 549. — pillar = tree-trunk 194, 197, 210, 290, 292, 306, 330, sqq, 
 343.347.389,397,561- — Saule, saule, Sally 332. — pillars and rods 52, 58. — pillar 
 becomes tower 275, 
 
 — Pillar-worship. — the pillar a god 202. — polar god on pillar ? 241. — Vishnu in pillar 
 203, 236 ; iron pillar dedicated to him 207. — Lat'WiWr, -V Lalond. dual pillar-deity 2IO, 
 545. — divine names in Lat- 209, 552. — Lat, AlLat 32, 122, 203. — lat = Lot ? 239, 
 307. — obelisks adored 201, 237. — dual pillars of Melqarth worshipped 237. — CEdi- 
 pus Coloneus 153, 156. — piUirs of Apollo 120. — tiodute, pillars of 2iu 332. — 
 Hebrew massehbhah 123, 195. — mizpeh 123. — Samson-myths 250. — Simeon 
 stylites 197, 207, 330. — St. George and pillar 197, 203, 561. — Belgian perrons and 
 god Perun 194, 293. — pillar and altar362. — ' Dane John ' at Canterbury = Don John's 
 cross in Gloucestershire = Dan Ion's pillar 293. — pillar-axis wind-gods t6o, 242, 244. 
 — ' hand-fasting ' through pillar 274. — pile de Saint-Mars 2S3, 292. — pillar becomes 
 tower 275. — pila, round temple 2S0, 553. — pillar of fire 235, 269, 283, 3S4, 512. 
 
 Towers as axis-symbols J. — all obelisks (19S) and steeples also 7. — Irish round- 
 towers 260 sqq, 266, 270, 442, 554. — magh-tuireadh (strong-tower) is the axis 267, 268, 
 478,555. — other round-towers 277. — other towers (not round) 282. — other round 
 buildings 279. — round churches 280, 434. — rotating tower 267. — glass tower of 
 Nimedh 267, 564. — tower of Thebes (heavens) 2S6, 497. — tower of Kronos 7. — 
 tower of Fortunatns 396. — dark tower of Rowland 398. — mythic cosmic towers 266 
 sqq. — Nimrud's tower 283. — Tor-M6r268. Tor Conaing 267, 555. — many other 
 Tors 554. — Tory-island and Tory-hill 153, 263, 267, 268, 285, 477, 47S, 555, 562. — 
 minarets 20S, 263, 276, 2S3. — ziggurats 2S3. — fate 241, 27S, 2S0, 55J. — tower of 
 fire 269, 2S3. — tower = pillar 275. 
 
 — Turo tower-goddess 136, 267 ; Turan also 286. — Tuireann a tower-god (= Mer- 
 Curius ?) 268, 269, 2S6. — Turrenus tower-god 286. — Turan = towerland of king (god) 
 Tura 286. — Tyre = Turos, a tower name 285. — ' tyrant ' (turannos) a tower-god 286, 
 394, 415, 421. — turns, turriculub, or turret as holy capsa or cista mystica 264, 304, 407, 
 416,420. — ' turris eburnea' and ' Davidica ' 286, 407. — turres, teres 263. — sense 
 of ' tor ' 263, 407, 555. — Zephthah, Zepho, Ba'alZephon, 265. 
 
 Polar myths. — holinessof North 425, 485, 534. — N prayed-to 425. — sacrifice 
 to N 426. — auguriesandN425,43i. — burial to N 448, 249, 567. — sleeping reverse 
 way 449. — ' calling back ' from N 449. — N in Christian churches 430, 440, 452. — 
 the N (contra) 457. — ' devil's door '457. — Tammuz and N 458. — ' back o' the N 
 wind '451. — ' black cap ' 491. — Akkad = N 410, 462. — HyperBoreans 451, 475, 
 504. — N and S 460, 465, 468, 480, 492, 506, 567. — E and \V 251, 432, 434, 447, 507. 
 
 — A''a/?(;-a/ Magnet, sanctity of, 106,142. — in worship of polar god 94, 507, 540, 547, 
 567. — Athamas, Adamas, Damas, Damia, and so on, 142, 143, 154, 181. — ' the load 
 stone-mountain' a polar-heavens myth 129, 404. — loadstone myth of Magnes 142; 
 
574 The Night of the Gods. [Ap 
 
 similar myths of TaLo^ antl TaLaos (= tall-stone) 133, 142, 212. — Volta's pile of two 
 metals in my til of TaLos 133. — talisman a holy stone 133. — myth of IphiKratos (strong 
 force) 341. — Touchstone, Battos 150. — HeraKles, Index 151, 245. — Mahomet's 
 coftin an Earth-myth 1 10. — ' invention of compass ' 96, 509. 
 
 — Nii-'ana6,2\^, 369, 454, 464, 499, 501, 53S, 551, 564. — ' hole in the roof ' 2'?6, 
 304, 388, 402, 492. — ' end of the world ' 236, 361, 47S, 48S. — Ultana-Pada 451, 501, 
 504. — Ursa-Major 7, 19, 23, 85, 144, 247, 24S, 296 to 29S, 375, 3S6, 395, 458, 466, 529, 
 534, 566. — Bear and pillar 197. 
 
 — 'Eye of Heaven 7, 67, 72, 464, 470, 490, 494, 515. — sockets 136, 3SS, 432, 453, 466, 
 469, 476, 479, 508. — creation Ijy (production from) Eye 239, 391, 467, 46S. — worship 
 of ' divine Eye ' in Japan 537. — ' coil de bceuf ' 4S3. — cat's-eye stone 482, 515. ■ — 
 third eye 469, 470, 475,477. — evil eye 477 sqq, 4S0, 549 ; eye-charms against it 466, 
 481. 
 
 — Cyclopes ^ja. — in HyperEia 382. — worshipped 471. — wheel-eyes 471, 472. — 
 AtLas a Cyclops 464, 474, 509. — PolyPhemos 211, 473, 479. — the ArimAspoi were 
 Cyclopes 475. — the LaeStrigones also 472. — Balor 478. — Searbhan 477, 47S. — 
 ■Verlioka2i6, 479. — 'job in the eye with a burnt stick '(of Cyclops etc.) 18S, 406, 476, 
 478,479. —Opis (a female Cyclops) 453, 475 ; Ops 422, 475 ; Ops 453, 475 ; Opsci 475 ; 
 Ossa, Osse452, 475, 515 ; Oupis 475 ; Upis 475. — DolOps 145, 146,212,474; Dru- 
 Ops 356, 422, 474 ; EUOps 475 ; KekrOps (tail-eye) 349, 421, 474, 4S7 ; MerOpe (a female 
 Cyclops) 55 ; MerOps (central eye) 55 ; MetOpe (a female Cyclops) 546, 562, 567 ; PelOps 
 145, 146, 212, 474 ; TriOpas or TriOpes 356, 422, 474. 
 
 — the Pole as oniiilia1n<< 7, 359 sqq. — Vishnu's navel = Universe-nave! 374, 565. — 
 Brahma born from Vishnu's (Bhagavat's) navel 367, 374, 375, 565. — Nabhi, navel-god 
 565. — navel and Maruts 366. — and Bear 366. — Attius Navius a navel-god 113, 290, 
 
 373. — Naevus 374. — Zeus nephelegereta = compeller at the navel 366, 372. 375, 3S0. 
 
 — Summanus wheel-god at navel 4S9. — wheel-god (S) Asshur has navel at wheel-nave 
 
 374. — wheel-nave = navel 374 = hub 563 = church-nave 361. 
 
 — Agni (fire-god) as navel 360, 361, 366, 37S. — navel-hearthfire 8, 2S0, 362, 365, 384, 
 563, 564. — spirit of hearth 534. — hearthstone = navel 363. — a//ar-stone a navel 
 360, 363, 36S, 393, 40c, 439. — Vedic nabhi = altar and sacrifice 360, 361, 366,488. — 
 altar and pillar 362. — ritualistic holiness oi ashes 363 sqq, 437, 438. — Cinderella tales 
 365. — column of smoke 363, 563. — ' chimney ' = hearthstone 363. — hearthstone 
 = heim-dall (home-stone) 363 = omphalos 381. — altar as seat 368. — ^ hub (hob) 563. 
 
 — ' Sanctuary ' at omphalos 363, 367, 375, 551, 563. — Nirvana (see above). — Ma- 
 Tuta, Tutanus, Tutela, Tuticus, Meddi.xTuticus, Tutelina, tutulus, Tutunus 145, 369. 
 
 — ' medio tutissimus itiis ' 144, 369, 529, 551. — MeDius Fidius 144, 492, 494, 549. 
 
 — navel in sacrifice 347, 377 sqq, 426, 550. — omentum best bit in sacrifice 377, 550, 
 565. — omen 38c. — ' umbles' of deer 37S. — etymology of o/icpaXos 378, 380 ; of 
 I)elphoi564; of ' augur '(= navel-cutter) 379. — ' nave ' words 378. — netonompha- 
 los 182, 273, 36S, 376. — net = ' caul ' ? 377. — physiological view of navel 374 sqq, 
 503,564. — miJo'z'tation and navel 372, 375, 565. — omphalo-psyches 375. — har.akiri 
 347, 375, 379. — navel and birth (in transmigrations) 364, 564. 
 
 — Divine names in Me- denote central (omphalos) deities. — Andro?iIeda 144. — 
 Saint-MeDard 284, 372. — PeriMeDe 144. — MeDea, Medeia 55, 134, 142, 143, 373, 
 397 ; IphiMeDeia 144,421. — MeDes 402 ; AgaMeDes 14;, 345, 396, 402. — Dio- 
 MeDes 145, 347. — PalaMeDes 44, 145. — Medha consort of Dh.arma (Law) 372. — 
 navel highest place of the Law 366. — MeDientius and MeDius 144.145,210.404. — 
 MeDius Fidius 144, 492, 494, 549. — MeDiTrina 373. — AutoMeDon 145 ; EuruMeDon 
 (= Perseus) 144 ; IphiMeDon, LaoMeDon 145. — MeDos 134, 143, 374, 495. — Me- 
 Dusa 144 ; AstuMeDousa, AutoMeDousa, HippoMeDousa, IphiMeDousa, MetiaDousa 
 144. — MeKisteus 135, 409, 420. — Melusine 149. — MetiaDousa, Metion 144 ; Me- 
 
pendix?\ ^. Skeleton of the Argument. 575 
 
 tins Sufetius 113, 371. — Miodhach 321, 351, 370. — Midir555. — queen Medbh (Mab) 
 562. — MerCurius 55, 144. — MerMeros (a centaur) 56. — MerOpe, MerOps 55 (474). 
 
 — SuMeru as navel 55, 400, 552, 565. 
 
 — ' Middle-kingdom ' of China, and of Japan 359. — Chinese navel 523. — me-di- 
 tuUus = me-di-tellus 145, 371, 564. — Meath (Midhe) a middle-kingdom 370, 562, 564. 
 
 — Medina 372. — Midgardr 143,370. — Delphoi 360. — Cuzco = navel 360. — 
 khug of the Earth 367, 485. — navel and rock 3S5, 3S6. — navel and tree 36S, 369. 
 
 — the Polar Arrana. — arx = N height of heavens 394. — Arculus god of the arx 
 395. — Tarpeian arx 3S8. — Arkas 395. — Arcadians, first men 395. — Arcadia, N 
 polar heavens 395. — Arcanian fountain 474. — ArktoPhylax, Arktouros 395. — 
 (Apollo, Asklepios and) Athene ArxAgetes 285. — ark 345, 387, 394, 399, 410, 411, 
 412. — arcana (secrets of gods) belong to N polar arx 394, 395, 397, 40S. — arcana = 
 ' treasury ' that is robbed in tales and legends 220, 396, 39S, 402, 406, 467, 475, 502. — 
 Indian relic-casket (Tee) 220, 402. — key of arx and arcana (?) 494. — Keystone (key 
 of arch) which is displaced for robberies is denoted in mythologj' by names in -KKrjs and 
 so on, 398, 402,405, 453, 509, 565 (and see the following names) : — AmuKlas 405. — 
 Kleia 405, AntiKleia 178, EuruKleia 453. — AnliKleias 405. — Kleio 142, Kleis 405, 
 Kleitor 142, Kleitos453, Kleobis 401,405. — DioKles 178, 566, DoriKles 92. — Hera- 
 Kles (= strong-keystone) 1781 405, 454. — Heraklean stone = magnet 130, 146, 405. 
 
 — IphiKles (= strong keystone), PatroKles 405. — DoriKleus 92. — AndroKlos 405, 
 DoriKlos 92, IphiKlos 405, PatroKlos, 405. — clef (= key) 566. 
 
 — mystic ritual chests (i!i(jrr\) 408, 420 ; and baskets 329, 409, 413, 416, 420 ; made of 
 rushes 303, 410. — cradles 410, 419, 424; Moses-myths of, 303, 410, 467. — myth of 
 Cypselus 413, 456. — Christmas-box 423. 
 
 — Rock of Ages 3S1, 383, 407. — 'Rock' conveys fixity of pole, and secondarily 
 perhaps permanence of heavens-firmament 381. — axis unshakeably fixed in rock 381. 
 
 — divine rock AgDos, whence cosmos is ' agged ' round 1 19, 344, 346, 385. — AgLaos 345, 
 385 ; AgeLaos, AgeLos, AgeLastos 386. — HiminBiorg (alias HeimDall, home-stone) 
 = heavens-rocks (or mountain ?) 249, 270, 381. — Gyraian rock of heavens [I now think 
 (see p. 384) that this must be connected with 'gyTate,' and so gives a * turning ' sense 
 concordant with that of A^Dos] 383, 384, 388. — ship Argo passes through Kvaviai 
 irirpaL 381, 3S2, 388. — Scylla and Charybdis 383. — rock is at source of heavens- 
 river (= Milky-way) 381. — rock and ftiythic well (see also ' tree and well ') 386. — 
 Moses-myths 381, 383, 384, 397. 
 
 — Sakhra at Jerusalem 117, 387, 441. — Spanish oath 'by Roque ' 387. — Saint- 
 Roch 387. — sacrifice by precipitation off holy Rock 347, 384, 388, 476. — Tarpeian 
 rock 388. — fallen gods 19, 153, 155, 287, 397, 489, 492, 537 ; !(«fallen 502. — rock of 
 All Baba 3S6, 397, 414. — 'Open Sesame' 399, 565. 
 
 — Gate of Heaven. — at N pole 249. — at navel 359. — the dokana 54, 245 sqq, 
 473,553. — Ursa Major and Minor (?) 247. — Nirvana 6, 214,369. — 'felix caeli 
 porta '507. — gods of the Gate 179, 180,250,253,411,420,495. — janitors 24S, 251. 
 — crawling through dolmens 254. — 'threading the needle' 255. — etymology of 
 ' Pharaoh,' MiKado, Sublime-Porte 251. — triumphal arch 256, 259. — pylons 250, 553. 
 
 — ThermoPyLai 253. 553. — the Paphos gate 237, 254, 256,258. — Babylon 254. 
 
 — Ba'alPeor 196, 255, 271. — toran (Sanskrit tora«a) 255. — pailo 255, 257. — tori-i- 
 255,258,554. — ' Iron Gates ' 3S2. — Ij-chgate 250, 257. — the ' Blue Posts '255. 
 
 Polcstar. — pivot 6, 7, 192, 390, 453, 456, 490, 503, 505, 509, 520, 534. — nail 
 367, 509. — constancy cf, 490, 49S, 502, 520, 537. — machinery in motion turns to, 
 540. — al Kutb 229, 508. — al Nagmeh 512. al Rucuba 226, 508. — Vega 500, 
 502. — cardo = pole 432, 488. — Dhruva (see under ' Polar god '). — trcsmontaigne 
 105,507. — steering by, 509. — ' maris Stella ' 507. — n in Ursa Minor 513, 514 ; in 
 Cygnus and in Draco 514. — changes of, 513, 514 (map 500). 
 
576 The Night of the Gods. \Ap 
 
 — in China po-sing tai-ti 513, 5I4. — t'ien chungkung 226, 514 to 516. — t'ien- 
 hwang ta-ti 513, 514. — t'ien-ki sing 514 = peh-ki, north-extreme 514, 515. — t'ien-ti 
 sing 513 = tai-yih 514. — t'ien yih 514. — great ruler 513, 527. — heavens-extreme 
 514,520. — heavens-king 513. — heavens-ruler 513, 514. 
 
 — Worship of Polestay 450, 500, 510, 513, 520. — god of, 4S6. — Chinese god of, 400. 
 — abode of Japanese triad 536. — Buddha with wheel 517, 537. — throne in, 522. — 
 miraculous conception bj', 400, 5i5i 569- — incarnation of, 531. — myths of, 487. — 
 order of knighthood etc 512. — worship in Japan 535 sqq. — Miyau Ken (divine Eye) 
 537- 
 
 — The Polar Goil 516. — Ouranos -I- Ourania a dual polar deity. I^erivation of 
 name 23, 46, 161, 244, 349, 366, 368, 388, 393, 451, 467, 472, 474, 515, 545. — llyps- 
 Ouranios 244, 285. — Zeus Ourios and Orios (which connect with Ouranos?), 23, 388. 
 
 — opos or ovpos of the heavens 389. — motionless 464. — Boreas 456, 476. — Anu 
 512. — El, Eloah 425, 485, 4S7. — Etruscart gods at pole 434, 436. — yEngus as polar 
 god 228. — great druid of the palace of the Boinne (heavens-)river 228, 271. — Dhruva 
 the Hindu polar god 24, 255, 503 [Does not ' dri'i wood tree' come from '-/dhrz hold- 
 tight cling-to ' rather than from ' \f(kn burst rend tear ' ? In that case ' Dhruva firm 
 fixed perpetual ' (which comes from dhW) would belong to the tree conception.] — polar 
 goddess 512, 507. — Maia, Majus 149, 302. — worship of polar god 37, 513 sqq, 526. 
 
 — 'god of battles' 524, 205, 309, 401. — AhuraMazdaO, AsuraMedha (/xeyar, magh, 
 magnus) 147, 148, 252. — Ba'al Shamayim, 87, 265, 268. 
 
 — Termo, Termen, Terminus, the polar god 387, 456, 473, 494, 509, 520. — 
 Jupiter terminalis 388. — terminalia festivals 3S9. — worship of Hermes 3S7 (see also 
 
 ' Rod'). — statues of Termen were boundary-stones 387, 388 (270) ; they were taboo 
 389. — boundary posts 3S9. — Dulaure's theory of boundary-stones reversed 270, 389. 
 
 — Turnus throws terminal stone at /Eneas 209. — polar god on pillar ? 241. 
 
 — Akrisios god of the extreme 470 ; Zeus Akraios 487 ; Zeus EpAkraios 48^. — Trin- 
 Akria 473. — aKpa, aKprj, k.t.X = N summit 145, 228, 252, 473, 4S7. — AkroPolis is 
 N heavens-palace ; so is AkroKorinthos 145, 22S, 252, 347, 473, 4S7. — Akuti goddess of 
 extreme (?) 469, 473 ; Akis 473. — oKir = N summit 473. — akkad = N 410, 462. — 
 Chinese ki = Avestan aku 469. — Tai-ki (great-extreme) polar god 7, 226, 390, 393, 509, 
 513,517 to 521, 536, 540, 56S. — P'an-ku (= Tai-ki 521) a Termen 390, 525, 538,552, 
 565. — other Chinese names of polar god 515, 539. — Hiien-T'ien (hidden-heavens) 
 524,540. — Hwang-T'ien (sovereign-heavens) 513, 525, 538, 540, 566. — T'ien-kung 
 (heavens-lord) 525, 540. — -ShangTi (supreme ruler) 7, 513, 515, 517, 521 to 523, 525, 
 539 ; a Taoist god 527, 532. — Tai-Yih (great-one, archfirst) 513 to 515, 517 = Tai-ki 
 518,519. — Yii-hwang 515, 524, 525, 532, 539. — Yu-Ti 525, 539. — Japanesemi- 
 Naka-nushi 535, 540. 
 
 — ' most high ' = polar deity 486. — Uttama the highest 502, 503. — ' gloria in 
 excelsis Deo ' 487. — ' high altar ' 48S. — ' high places '229, 485, 4S7, 516. — 
 bama 229. — ' house-tops ' 230. — Zens Hypatos the most high 349, 486. — Attis 
 Hypsistos 48S. — Suinmanus 489, and his summanalia-cakes 489 ; cakes of Zeus Hypatos 
 and Zeus Polios 486. — Athene Polias 347 to 349,356,486. — TrdXos-on heads of Athene 
 Polias, Aphrodite, and Tiike (Fortune) 567. 
 
 — Oldest god 38S, 521,532. — Ptah 7. — Kronos, Zeus 7, 228, 531. — ' Old man of 
 the (heavens-)mountain ' 9, 132, 150, 244, 4S6, 525,532, 556, 567. — Chinese Lao 'the 
 old ' 525, 531. — Battos, old man 150. — fallen gods 19, 153, 155, 2S7, 397, 489, 492, 
 537 ; /(//fallen 502. — motionless (nirvana) 538, 551. 
 
 — Judge of Heaven 428, 454, 490, 496, 498, 531. — god of trulli 490, 492,494, 498, 
 499, 52S. — truth = trueness justness (mechanical) 493. — ' naked truth ' goddess 493. 
 
 — 'at bottom of well ' 155, 493. — tree of truth 332, 354. — probity 502. — Jupiter 
 
pendix?\ /3. Skeleton of the Argument. 577 
 
 fidius 495- — Dius Fidius 144, 492, 494, 495. — Zeus Pisdos 495. — goddess Fides 
 494. — AisYmnetes = Ais the prophet 567. 
 
 — Tri&A of polar gods. — Japanese 37, 535. — Chinese triads 62, 391, 42S, 525' — 
 ' three ' in China 523. — ' the three sects are one sect ' 535. — triad of brothers 364. 
 
 — triad of sisters 144, 149, 349, 373. — triad of Cyclopes 470 ; of druids 562. — three 
 eyes 469. — sons of Boreas 455. — ' three kings ' 526. — MeDiTrina 373, 473. — 
 another triad 347, 348. — TrinAlcria 473. — genealogy of Tros 417. — Troia (Troy) a 
 celestial Trinidad 250, 475 ; a Trinity-house 453. — Trinity at oak 308. — apples of 
 Hesperides triad 26S, 291, 298, 305, 3S3, 403, 454, 546. — fleur-de-Z;j- emblem of triad 
 7, 62, 349, 461, 547. — fleur-de-lis as finial 279, — colophon? 234, 241 ; on compass- 
 needle's point 62, 66, 547. — Lis = Lli (?) 68, 137 (the Llinon myth at p. 137 is very 
 strong). — Lis = lotus-flower 64, 400, 565. — shamrock, and Prince-ofWales's plume 
 8,63, 547, 564. — trident emblem of triad 7, 20,70,284, 348,471. — tripod, tridstol 368, 
 563. — sense and etymology of ' triumph ' 256. 
 
 — Duality of gods. — dual polar deity 349. — Ouranos and Oiirania, 23. — Uttara 
 and Uttara (?) 504. — Yama and ^'ami 246. — PuThios -1- PuThias 553. — AmphiOn 
 497. — HeraKles -f- AtLas a duality 236. — two Kabeiroi ( = forces) 346. — Herm- 
 Aphrodite 239, 349, 385. — Fidius and Fides 494. — IzanaGi and IzanaMi 31, 
 226, 246, 305, 410, 536, 539. — SuberaGi and SuberaMi 539. — Si WangMu and Tung 
 WangKung 305. — Yin-Yang 226, 235, 239, 390, 517 to 519, 521, 530, 536, 568. — 
 sexually dual deity 235, 237 sqq, 373, 553. — duality of Adam 240, 391 (P'an Ku). — 
 rationale of all this 240 sqq, 246, 247, 552. — north and south 461, 547. — dual forces 
 of Cosmos 346, 402. 
 
 — two altars 368. — two spits in burnt-sacrifice 61, 367, 377. — two truths 492 sqq. 
 
 — two eyes 465, 468. — two navels 359. — dual serpents 554. — dual rocks 381, 384, 
 397. — dual tower 267. — dual pillars 1S9, 199, 219, 221, 235 sqq, 244, 333. — dual 
 pillar = dual tree 296. — dual tree 296, 307, 333, 560. — dual pillar-stones 27 1. — 
 positive and negative electricity 530. — bident emblem of d itad 74. — dual number in 
 grammar 241 , 5 t3. — Avestan /'.'- = Greek ttd- = two ? 553. 
 
 HeaTens-inyths. — heavens as /a/at- 1' 222 sqq, 5 14, 521. — the AkroPolisis a palace ; 
 so is AkroKorinthos 145, 228, 252, 347, 473, 4S7. — palace on the Boinne heavens-river 
 228,271. — palace and polestar 226. — palace on 'one foot' 36,189,224. — Universe- 
 tree as palace-pillar 306. — spear as palace-pillar 36, 189, 224, 306. — heavens as 
 pagoda 228. — heavens as roof 226, 449, 552. — axis as king-post 226. — ceilings in 
 Egypt 230, 446, 566. — roofless temples 121, 1 22, 3S8, 491 ,492. — heavens as tent 345, 
 485. — as veil 30S, 560, 562. — as umbrella 220 sqq, 338, 552. — IVar-in-heaven ig, 
 114, 212, 287,342, 353,369, 371, 3S6, 453, 472, 487. — Meteoric clashings 6. — fallen 
 gods 18, 19. — palpitating nebuL-e 6. 
 
 — Labyrinth is Universe 8, 230, 287, 461 , 555. — Thebes = the heavens 9, 2S6, 405, 
 497. — ' white wall ' of Memphis = heavens 9 ; also Chinese 559. — Argos = shining 
 heavens 9, 421, 469, 536. — Aryans the ' bright ones ' of the heavens 24, 287. — star- 
 gods 163. — Sabi^ans 18, 450, 490, 510, 512, 545, 563. — heavens as Beehive (bees = 
 stars) 56, 396, 413, 460, 461. — night and day 23, 142, 166, 403, 405, 529. — cloak of 
 invisibility 228. — heavens as augur's templuni 430, 455, 497, 555. — Japanese ame 536. 
 
 — Chinese T'ien 428, 522, 523, 528. — caelum, etymology 148, 230, 235, 2S7, 414, 552. 
 
 — KoiXos 471 ; Kylas ? 235, 414. — the word ' heaven ' 5. — Floly Grail 231, 427, 550. 
 
 — Heavens and Earth 416, 417, 4?2, 454. — separation of, 36, 38, 87, 295 to 297, 549. 
 
578 ■ The Night of the Gods. [Ap 
 
 — axis as chain 39,153,505. — Ouranosand Ge47l. — Ouranos and Ourania (see ' Polar 
 
 god '). — mulilation of heavens-god a myth of the separation of heavens and Earth 87. 
 
 — Vani;;a, \'arena, Ouranos {? Ourania) 161. — Ouranos invented beth-Els ill. — his 
 progeny 136. — round heavens, square earth (see ' Cardinal points ') 161. 
 
 — Cardinal points 157, 367, 51-I, 520. 547. — N and S 460, 465, 468, 4S0, 492, 506. 
 
 — E andW 251, 432, 434, 447, 507. — worshipped 164. — gods of, 159, 550, 551, 566. 
 
 — four cardines 432. — cardo = axis 226, 431 = polestar 432. 4SS. — goddess Cardea, 
 Carda, Dea Cardinis 160, 297, 323, 432, 455 — four-faced Brahma 165, 549. — four-leavei! 
 shamrock 63. — four living crcatiires{he.re is a true zodiai'\ 9, 1S4 sqq. — four totems 
 174,558. — four beautiful ones 442. — four angels 160, 162,185,550. — 'lesquatre 
 tils Aymon ' 344 (355). — ' quatuor coronati ' 165. — Canopic urns e.xpounded 159, 
 549. — four angles 161, 1S5, 433, 434, 515, 564. — square Earth 161. — four winds 
 129, 160,185, 243 sqq.,431. — ' tower of the winds' at Athens 167, 244, 2S4. — fourapes 
 159. — four castes or tribes 174, 233, 55S. — four horns 164. — four w-ands 555. 
 
 — other ' Zodiacs.' — octagonal zodiac 502. — eight points = four x two 99, 166, 
 226, 51S, 521, 547. — eight godi ; octagonal palace, pillars, and towers ; octave ; sanctity 
 of ' tight' W have unfortunately omitted the eight canonical Christian hours] 166 sqq, 193, 
 200, 205, 224, 299, 518, 549, 550. — eight-fold path of Buddhism 550. — \hs sixteen 
 points belong to this ' zodiac ' 1S2, 235, 433, 565. 
 
 — decimal zodiac 502. 
 
 — duodecimal zodiac. — six points 17S, 365, 445. 520 (is twelve = six x two?). — 
 t'dielve points (= 4 x 3 or 8 -1- 4?) 76, 144, 173 sqq, 225, 365, 526, 531, 532 ; years 365. 
 
 — twelve at Round-Table 176, 307. — twelve /a/adins 546. — twelve Yamas 469 ; bulls 
 175, 406 : Russian heroes 479 ; Russian palace of twelve columns etc. 225, 555. — twelve 
 great wild men 399 : guards or thieves 404. — twelve ' godes ' of Odinn 76, 491 ; Greek 
 gods 349 ; AmphiKtiones 179 ; idols (stone) of St. Patrick ( = holy father) 272, 176 ; hand- 
 maids of MeDea 144 ; daughters of Lot 239 ; tribes 174, 556 ; many other typical ' twelves ' 
 175. — twelve apostles as tree-branches 336 ; as jury 349. 
 
 — aspcctingo{ templum 430 sqq, 436 ; of Babylonian temples 434, 443, 446 : of Eg)-ptian 
 temples 447. 566 ; of the pyramids 445. — nave and transept 436, 439, 44S. 
 
 Cosmos, rotation of the, 5, 6, 8, 54, 402, 455, 534. — ' motion the U'ill of heavens and 
 earth ' (Chinese) 530. — cosmos turns on navel 367. — Ripaian (rotating?) mountain 
 454,476. — gvTostat experiments 540. — dance of the stars S. — Winged Sphere S. — 
 circular worship 8. — origin of cosmic myths 6. 
 
 — machiring of the cosmos 6, 7, 25, 346, 401, 402, 498, 504. — silent wheels of the, 
 516, 538. — wheel 8, 556. — Buddhist wfuel-cf-the-La-i' (dharma) = rotation of universe 
 8, 301, 516, 52S, 530, 534, 550. — Indra and Buddha wheel-gods 517, 53S : also Asshur 
 8, 374 ; Hwang-Ti 526, 547 ; and Summanus 4S9. — chakra-varti raja (wheel-turning 
 raler) 517. — Universal emperor 539. — Tarquinius Superbus = supreme turner (of the 
 heavens) 309, 355, 372, 373, 388, 402, 455, 490. — deus ex machina 6. — Bharata or 
 Bhaiata (= churned? 34) 355, 360, 504. — suastika 538, 231. — gjrostat and pole 540. 
 — spinning 567. 
 
 — machininghy ropes, chains, strings 24, 34, 39, 153, 296, 329, 398,453, 504,505, 565, 
 56S. — Ammon-Pva, Anhur, and Maine were rope-gods 506. . — Seirios, Sirius = the tier 
 (ueipti cord) 24, 453, 504, 56S. 
 
 — forces of the Cosmos 7, 346, 357, 472, 506. — Maruts as these forces 244, 366, 557 ; 
 also the CyclOpes 471. — kinetic mytholog)- 6, 540. — energy 528. — might is right 
 381. — Zeus-Apollo Hegetor 454. — the ' d^ging," urging, dri^^ng-round of the spheres 
 1 19, 120, 155. — leading disquisition on words in as- 344 ; also 1 19, 120. I45, 155. 285' 
 
pendix?^ /3. Skeleton of the Argument. 579 
 
 374. 385. 396, 402, 4I9> 454 to 4S6, 497- — Veji = the wafters (windgods ?) 280, 287, 293, 
 37l> 551. 557- — VeSta (?) 2S0, 363, 494. — pillar windgods 242, 185, 342. 
 
 Law, Order, Harmony, T^a, Way, of the rotating Universe. — equilibrium 516, 520. 
 
 — Buddhist ro/iCd/-^-M^-XaJt' (dhanna) = rotation of the heavens 8, 301, 516, 528, 530, 534. 
 
 — Dharma revolves round Polestar 501. — (axle)trees-of-the-Law 301, 498. — DeMeter 
 the Law-bearer, and Universe-tree 356 ; Thesmia 496. — thesmos = 5eot -F mos 496. 
 
 — highest place of the Law in the centre 366 ; fxedoSos 527- — Medha consort of Dharma 
 (law) 372. — Doto, Dotho, the Law 49S ; Thuro, Thorah, the Law 496. — Daksha, the 
 right, the lawgiver 20. — Yama a king of the I,aw 491. — law of Minos 138, 491, 496. 
 LukoUrgos (misprinted 353) and RadaManthus 139. — SUddiiq and Misor 496. — sad- 
 Dharma (divine Law) 537. 
 
 — A/tistc of the spheres 153, 304, 47S. — vvide-musicked HyperEia 3S2. — harmony- 
 mountain = heavens(Chinese)524, 52S. — Harmonia and I'eil of universe 380. — 
 Harmonia the All-Mother 498. — progeny of Kadmos and Harmonia 154, 497. — Chou- 
 sarthis, Huscharth, harmony 495, 496, 49S. — Egj'ptian Mat and harmony 492, 493, 495. 
 
 — ProNomos(= first-law) the piper 497, 567. — pipe = axis? 497. — Fauni play on 
 pipes 356. — Marsyas 567. — ' pied piper of Hameln ' explained 56S. 
 
 — Chinese 7^0496,498,510,516; = order, law 519 5527, 52S. — Tao = Tai-Ki 519, 529, 
 
 — all that Tao is 530. — ' have faith in Tao ' 529 ; moral side of, 530. — Lao-Tsze 516, 
 521, 525, 527, 528, 531, 53S. — Taoism jealously abased 520, 527, 533 ; persecuted 534 ; 
 its ' superstitions ' 533, 534 ; Mongolian ? 534 ; Taoism and Buddhism 530. — ^^epla 3S2. 
 
 — Egyptian Tahuti 496. 
 
 — Way of the gods 496, 499, 527, 52S. — Way, Truth, and Life 499. — Will of God 
 499. — Schopenhauer's Wille 52S. 
 
5 So ■ The Night of the Gods. \Ap 
 
 y. Lapses and Relapses. 
 
 p. 20, read DevaMatr/. 
 
 ,, 23 ,, Ovpavia. 
 
 ,, 33 ,, KipKvpa, s-nd {iKice '.) Argonan/iia. 
 
 ,, 35. Mr. Aston informs me " Hirata wrote a work on Hmdu mytholog)', and, I believe, 
 promised one on European learning. lie certainly often wrote as if well ac- 
 quainted with European ideas." (This should have appeared in Appendix a. 
 
 P- S45-) 
 
 ,, 36, read Centumvirs. 
 
 „ 40. for Ara read araret. 
 
 ,, 42, strike out " The Japanese name for it is surikogi." 
 
 ,, 53. Dr. Wallis Budge reminds me of the rod which Xectanebus used in working magic 
 by means of a bowl of water and wax figures (see his AUxajider the Great). 
 
 ,, 55, read MerOps and MerOpe. 
 
 ,, 56. Yama. See the etymolog)* on p. 246, which is preferable. 
 
 ,, 72. San-ko, ^ Jj§. The character for ko is rendered in Williams's Chinese dic- 
 tionary as ' a short javelin.' Mr. Aston also informs me that the Buddhist sect 
 in question is the Mio-shu. (This should have appeared in Appendix a, p. 547. ) 
 
 ,, 99 (last line), read 335. 
 
 ,, 119, read AgaMemnon (tw'ice). 
 
 ,, 121 ,, Pessinous. 
 
 ,, 177 ,, Odusseus has 12 styes with 50 sows in each, and 360 boars [Odyss. xiv, 20). 
 
 ,, 185 ,, ii':<?/!'2i.'/ and the ^/('ra/i'/jt? accord with the Chinese astrology. 
 
 pp. 189, 190, read A'zH::/!z/f; •!£ ^ |^ (kiu = furui, archaic). 
 
 p. 197, read Xar Q^aos) \aas, stone. 
 
 ,, 198 ,, Maimakterion. 
 
 ,, 213, iortkat read thet. (It is simply a magic knot Uke those of GorDos and HeraKles. ) 
 
 ,, 224 (note i), read Hakuseki. 
 
 ,, 227. The paragraph beginning " The udumbara-post " really belongs to p. 299. 
 
 ,, 236. An should be An. 
 
 ,, 237, read ovpeav rfki^axav. 
 
 ,, ,, (note i), read: Mr. E. P. Coleridge. 
 
 ,, 23S, write, preferably: Meleketh-hash-Shamayim and Veya. 
 
 ,, 239, strike out the comma after ' rock ' in line 23. 
 
 ,, 241. Egyptian plural. For u read in. 
 
 ,, ,, for falando (twice) read falandum. 
 
 ,, 244, read .\lKha)-yami. 
 
 ., 253 -, TTuXorif. 
 
 ,, 257 ,, ^piafci) I rage, rave (like a prophet). 
 
 ,, 265 (line 17) read : (see also pp. 201 and 241 siifra). 
 
 ,, 267 (and 47S). Magh in Magh-tuireadh may perhaps (see p. 146) here mean 'strong ".- 
 
 ,, 284, read Triton. 
 
 ,, 295 (note 2), for ' on ' read ' in.' 
 
 ,, 303, omit Pessinunte. 
 
 ,, 353, for LukOurgos read LukoUrgos. 
 
 ,, 356, ' flute' means pipe. 
 
 ,, 367, for ' chug ' read khug. 
 
 .. 3S2 Mine S). read i^\a-shika. 
 
peiidix^ 
 
 y. Lapses and Relapses. 
 
 581' 
 
 . 385 (line 30), read Stalius. 
 
 399 (and p. 565). Although it was received near])' two months ago, it was only to-day, 
 27th Feb. 1S93, that I could read Mr. E. S. Hartland's able address at the 
 Folklore congress of 1S91. Therein, p. 28, he deals with the Ali Baba legend, 
 and my readers will do well in giving full weight therein to his greit familiarity 
 with folktales. 
 
 405, read sara energ}', vira man-of-might, hero. 
 
 411 „ HypsiPyle. (She was a gate-goddess, see p. 253.) 
 
 425 ,, sawdhya. 
 
 432. The figure -f for ten was of course adopted by the Japanese with the other 
 Chinese numerals. 
 
 444, read kepesh. 
 
 451 ,, uttara, North, meant ' upper ' of the two regions N and S. 
 
 452 ,, ;^num instead of khnum. 
 454 ,, sara energy. 
 
 473 >> LapiThai. 
 
 474 (middle) read recurrens. 
 
 476 read ArimAspa instead of ArlniAspa. 
 
 491 and 49S, read Dharma-raj (not raja, which meant 'just king,' and is also a title 
 
 of Yama's). 
 501, read uttard = North. 
 502 
 
 (The asterism represents the three footsteps 
 but the conne.xion with n;-rt, 
 
 A/'yuta instead of Achyiita. 
 ,, ,, .Jrava^/a instead of ' Sravana [?] 
 
 of Vishnu. ) 
 503 ,, SuNrna. (It seems to mean 'best manhood 
 nr/tya, nr/tii, dance, dancer, is certain. ) 
 ,, (line 24), strike out : (?). 
 509, read Ylokouav. 
 
 526. The character w^ang ^ is upside-down in the note. 
 535 (line 6) read Study of the great Three. 
 539 (line I), read tenka, which Chinese compound word 5C 1^ '^ '" Japanese ama 
 
 ga shita, and means (all that is) ' under the heavens.' 
 559. for ^ read ^. 
 
 [The date on p. 27 : " 12th February 1S91 " was that of the manuscript of that sheet 
 (B) ; but the first and last sheets of this volume (A and 2 O) did not go to press until 
 the lOth April 1893. I. O'N.] 
 
I.iibtiu Morgue! Voil.i unesotte nuit, 
 d'etre si noire que cela. ! Je voudrois bien 
 savoir, monsieur, vous qui etes savant, pnur- 
 quoi il ne fait point jour la nuit. 
 
 Clilandn. C'est une grande question, 
 et qui est difficile. Tu es curieux, Lubin. 
 
 Lubiii. Oui. Si j'avois etudie, j'aurois 
 ^te songer a des choses ou on n'a jamais 
 songe. 
 
 (Georges Dandiii, iii, I.) 
 

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