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 CURIOUS MYTHS 
 
 THE MIDDLE AGES 
 
 BY 
 
 S. BARING-GOULD, M.A. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
 
 1880.
 
 University Press: 
 John Wilson & Son, Cambridge.
 
 no 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Wandering Jew i 
 
 Prester John 30 
 
 The Divining Rod 54 
 
 The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus 92 
 
 William Tell no 
 
 The Dog Gellert 132 
 
 Tailed Men 144 
 
 Antichrist and Pope Joan 160 
 
 The Man in the Moon 189 
 
 The Mountain of Venus 207 
 
 St. George 221 
 
 The Legend of the Cross 270 
 
 ScHAMiR 313 
 
 Melusina 343 
 
 The Fortunate Isles 394 
 
 The Knight of the Swan 430
 
 MEDIEVAL MYTHS. 
 
 ^Ije Ulanbcrlng Icro. 
 
 WHO, that has looked on Gustave Dore's mar- 
 vellous illustrations to this wild legend, can 
 forget the impression they made upon his im- 
 agination? 
 
 I do not refer to the first illustration as striking, 
 where the Jewish shoemaker is refusing to suffer 
 the cross-laden Savior to rest a moment on his 
 door-step, and is receiving with scornful lip the 
 judgment to wander restless till the Second Coming 
 of that same Redeemer. But I refer rather to the 
 second, which i-epresents the Jew, after the lapse 
 of ages, bowed beneath the burden of the curse, 
 worn with unrelieved toil, wearied with ceaseless 
 travelling, trudging onward at the last lights of 
 evening, when a ray less night of unabating rain is 
 I (1)
 
 2 The Wandering Jew. 
 
 creeping on, along a sloppy path between dripping 
 bushes ; and suddenly he comes over against a way- 
 side crucifix, on which the white glare of departing 
 daylight falls, to throw it into ghastly relief against 
 the pitch-black rain-clouds. For a moment we see 
 the working of the miserable shoemaker's mind. 
 We feel that he is recalling the tragedy of the first 
 Good Friday, and his head hangs heavier on his 
 breast, as he recalls the part he had taken in that 
 awful catastrophe. 
 
 Or, is that other illustration more remarkable, 
 where the wanderer is amongst the Alps, at the 
 brink of a hideous chasm ; and seeing in the con- 
 torted pine-branches the ever-haunting scene of 
 the Via Dolorosa, he is lured to cast himself into 
 that black gulf in quest of rest, — when an angel 
 flashes out of the gloom with the sword of flame 
 turning every way, keeping him back from what 
 would be to him a Paradise indeed, the repose of 
 Death ? 
 
 Or, that last scene, when the trumpet sounds 
 and earth is shivering to its foundations, the fire 
 is bubbling forth through the rents in its surface, 
 and the dead are coming together flesh to flesh,
 
 The Wandering yew. 3 
 
 and bone to bone, and muscle to muscle — then 
 the weary man sits down and casts off his shoes ! 
 Strange sights are around him, he sees them not ; 
 strange sounds assail his ears, he hears but ohe — 
 the trumpet-note which gives the signal for him to 
 stay his wanderings and rest his weary feet. 
 
 I can linger over those noble woodcuts, and learn 
 from them something new each time that I study 
 them ; they are picture-poems full of latent depths 
 of thought. And now let us to the history of this 
 most thrilling of all medieval myths, if a myth. 
 
 If a myth, I say, for who can say for certain that 
 it is not true ? " Verily I say unto you. There 
 be some standing here, which shall not taste of 
 death till they see the Son of Man coming in His 
 kingdom," * are our Lord's words, which I can 
 hardly think apply to the destruction of Jerusalem, 
 as commentators explain it to escape the difficulty. 
 That some should live to see Jerusalem destroyed 
 was • not very surprising, and hardly needed the 
 emphatic Verily which Christ only used when 
 speaking somethrng of peculiarly soleixin or mystei'i' 
 ous import. 
 
 * Matt xvi. 28. Mark in. 1.
 
 4 The Wandering yew. 
 
 Besides, St. Luke's account manifestly refers the 
 coming in the kingdom to the Judgment, for the 
 saying stands as follows: "Whosoever shall be 
 ashamed of Me, and of My words, of him shall 
 the Son of Man be ashamed, when He shall come 
 in His own glory, and in His Father's, and of the 
 holy angels. But I tell you^ of a truth, there be 
 some standing here, which shall not taste of death 
 till they see the kingdom of God." * 
 
 There can, I think, be no doubt in the mind of 
 an unprejudiced person that the words of our Lord 
 do imply that some one or more of those then 
 living should not die till He came again. I do not 
 mean to insist on the literal signification, but I 
 plead that there is no improbability in our Lord's 
 words being fulfilled to the letter, That the cir- 
 cumstance is unrecorded in the Gospels is no 
 evidence that it did not take place, for we are 
 expressly told, " Many other signs truly did Jesus 
 in the presence of His disciples, which are not 
 written in this book;"f and again, "There are 
 also many other things which Jesus did, the which, 
 if they should be written every one, I suppose that 
 
 * Luke ix. f John xx. 30.
 
 The Wandering Jew. 5 
 
 even the world itself could not contain the books 
 that should be written." * 
 
 We may remember also the mysterious witnesses 
 who are to appear in the last eventful days of the 
 world's history and bear testimony to the Gospel 
 truth before the antichiistian world. One of these 
 has been often conjectured to be St. John the 
 Evangelist, of whom Christ said to Peter, " If 
 I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to 
 thee?" 
 
 The historical evidence on which the tale rests 
 is, however, too slender for us to admit for it more 
 than the barest claim to be more than myth. The 
 names and the circumstances connected with the 
 Jew and his doom vary in every account, and the 
 only point upon which all coincide is, that such an 
 individual exists in an vmdying condition, wander- 
 ing over the face of the earth, seeking rest and 
 finding none. 
 
 The earliest extant mention of the Wandering 
 Jew is to be found in the book of the chronicles 
 of the. Abbey of St. Albans, which was copied and 
 continued by Matthew Paris. He records that in 
 
 * John xxi. 25.
 
 6 The Wandering yew, 
 
 the year 1228, "a certain Archbishop of Armenia 
 the Greater came on a pilgrimage to England to 
 see the relics of the saints, and visit the sacred 
 places in the kingdom, as he had done in others ; 
 he also produced letters of recommendation from 
 his Holiness the Pope, to . the religious and the 
 prelates of the churches, in which they were en- 
 joined to receive and entertain him with due rever- 
 ence and honor. On his arrival, he came to St. 
 Albans, where he was received with' all respect 
 by the abbot and the monks ; and at this place, 
 being fatigued with his journey, he remained some 
 days to rest himself and his followers, and a con- 
 versation took place between him and the inhabit- 
 ants of the convent, by means of their interpreters, 
 during which he made- many inquiries relating to 
 the lieligion and religious' observances of this coun- 
 try, and told many strange things concerning the 
 countries of the East. In the course of conversa- 
 tion he was asked whether he had ever 'seen or 
 heard any thing of Joseph, a man of whom there 
 was much talk in the world, who, when our Lord 
 suffered, was present and spoke to Him, and who 
 is still alive, in evidence of the Christian faith ;. in
 
 The Wandering" Jeiu. 7 
 
 reply to which, a knight in his retinue, who was 
 his interpreter, replied, speaking in French, ' My 
 lord well knows that man, and a little before he 
 took his way to the western countries, the said 
 Joseph ate at the table of my lord the Archbishop 
 of Armenia, and he has often seen and conversed 
 with him.' 
 
 " He was then asked about what had passed be- 
 tween Christ and the said Joseph ; to which he 
 replied, ' At the time of the passion of Jesus Christ, 
 He was seized by the Jews, and led into the hall 
 of judgment before Pilate, the governor, that He 
 might be judged by him on the accusation of the 
 Jews ; and Pilate, finding no fault for which he 
 might sentence Him to death, said unto them, 
 " Take Him and judge Him according to your 
 law ; " the shouts of the Jews, however, increasing, 
 he, at their request, released unto theni Barabbas, 
 and delivered Jesus to them to be crucified. When, 
 therefore, the Jews were dragging Jesus forth, and 
 had reached the door, Cartaphilus, a porter of the 
 hall in Pilate's service, as Jesus was going out of 
 the door, impiously struck Him on the back with 
 his hand, and said in mockery, " Go quicker,
 
 8 The Wandering yew. 
 
 Jesus, go quicker; wliy do you loiter?" and Jesus, 
 looking back on him with a severe countenance, 
 said to him, " I am going, and you shall wait till 
 I return.'.' And according as our Lord said, this 
 Cartaphilus is still awaiting His return. At the 
 time of our Lord's suffering he was thirty years 
 old, and when he attains the age of a hundred 
 years, he always returns to the same age as he 
 was when our Lord suffered. After Christ's death, 
 when the Catholic faith gained ground, this Cartaph- 
 ilus was baptized by Ananias (who also baptized 
 the Apostle Paul), and was called Joseph. He 
 dwells in one or other divisions of Armenia, and in 
 divers Eastern countries, passing his time amongst 
 the bishops and other prelates of the Church ; he 
 is a man of holy conversation, and religious ; a 
 man of few words, and very circumspect in his 
 behavior ; for he does not speak at all imless 
 when questioned by the bishops and religious ; 
 and then he relates the events of olden times, and 
 speaks of things which occurred at the suffering 
 and resurrection of our Lord, and of the wit- 
 nesses of the resurrection, namely, of those who 
 rose with Christ, and went into the holy city, and
 
 The Wander big Jeiv. 9 
 
 appeared unto men. He also tells of the creed of 
 the Apostles, and of their separation and preach- 
 ing. And all this he relates without smiling, or 
 levity of conversation, as one who is well practised 
 in sorrow and the fear of God, always looking for- 
 ward with dread to the coming of Jesus Christ, lest 
 at the Last Judgment he should find him in anger 
 whom, when on his way to death, he had provoked 
 to just vengeance. Numbers came to him from dif- 
 ferent parts of the world, enjoying his society and 
 conversation; and to them, if they are men of author- 
 ity, he explains all doubts on the matters on which he 
 is questioned. He refuses all gifts that are offered 
 him, being content with slight food and clothing.' " 
 Much about the same date, Philip Mouskes, after- 
 wards Bishop of Tournay, wrote his rh^-fned chron- 
 icle (1243), which contams a similar account of the 
 Jew, derived from tlie same Armenian prelate : — 
 
 " Adonques vint un arceveskes 
 De 9a mer, plains de bonnes teques 
 Par samblant, et fut d'Armenie," 
 
 and this man, having visited the shrine of " St. 
 Tumas de Kantorbire," and then having paid his 
 devotions at '* Monsigour St. Jake," he went on to
 
 lO The Wandering Jeiv. 
 
 Cologne to see the heads of the three kings. The 
 version told in the Netherlands much resembled that 
 related at St. Albans, only that the Jew, seeing the 
 people dragging Christ to his death, exclaims, — 
 
 " Atendes moi ! g'i vois, 
 S'iert mis le faus profete en crois." 
 
 Then 
 
 " Le vrais Dieux se regarda, 
 Et li a dit qu'e n'i tarda, 
 Icist ne t'atenderont pas, 
 Mais saces, tu m'atenderas." 
 
 We hear no more of the wandering Jew till the 
 sixteenth century, when we hear first of him in a 
 casual manner, as assisting a weaver, Kokot, at the 
 royal palace in Bohemia (1505), to find a treasure 
 which had been secreted by the great-grandfather of 
 Kokot, sixty years before, at which time the Jew was 
 present. He then had the appearance of being b. 
 man of seventy years.* 
 
 Curiously enough, we next hear of him in the 
 East, where he is confounded with the prophet 
 Elijah. Early in the century he appeared to Fad- 
 hilah, under peculiar circumstances. 
 
 * Gubitz, Gesellsch. 1845, No. 18.
 
 The Wandering Jetv.- ii 
 
 After the Arabs had captured the city of Elvan, 
 Fadhilah, at the head of three hundred horsemen, 
 pitched his tents, late in tire evening, between two 
 mountains. Fadhilah, having begun his evening 
 prayer with a loud voice, heai'd the words " Allah 
 akbar " (God is great) repeated distinctly, an,d each 
 word of his prayer was followed in a similar man- 
 ner. Fadhilah, not believing this to be the result 
 of an echo, was much astonished, and cried out, 
 " O thou ! whether thou art of the angel ranks, or 
 whether thou art of some other order of spirits, it is 
 well ; the power of God be with thee ; but if thou 
 art a man, then let mine eyes light upon thee, that I 
 may rejoice in thy presence and society." Scarcely 
 had he spoken these words, before an aged man, 
 with bald head, stood before him, holding a. staff in 
 his hand, and much resembling a dervish in appear- 
 ance. After having courteously saluted him, Fadhi- 
 lah asked the old man who he was. Thereupon the 
 stranger answered, " Bassi Hadhret Issa, I am here 
 by command of the Lord Jesus, who has left me in 
 this world, that I may live therein until he comes a 
 second time to earth. I wait for this Lord, who is 
 the Fountain of Happiness, and in obedience to his
 
 12 The Wandering Jeiv. 
 
 command I dwell behind yon mountain." When 
 Fadhilah heard these words, he asked when the Lord 
 Jesus would appear ; and the old man replied that his 
 appearing would be at the end of the world, at the 
 Last Judgment. But this only increased Fadhilah's 
 curiosity, so that he inquired the signs of the approach 
 of the end of all things, whereupon Zerib Bar Elia 
 gave him an account of general, social, and moral 
 dissolution, which would be the climax of this 
 world's history.* 
 
 In 1547 he was seen in Europe, if we are to believe 
 the following narration : — 
 
 " Paul von Eitzen, doctor of the Holy Scriptures, 
 and Bishop of Schleswig,t related as true for some 
 years past, that when he was young, having studied 
 at Wittemberg, he returned home to his parents in 
 Hamburg in the winter of the year 1547, and that on 
 the following Sunday, in church, he observed a tall 
 man, with his hair hanging over his shoulders, stand- 
 ing barefoot, during the sermon, over against the 
 
 * Herbelot, Bibl. Orient, iii. p. 607. 
 
 t Paul V. Eitzen was born January 25, 1522, at Hamburg; 
 in 1562 he was appointed chief preacher for Schleswig, and 
 died February 25, 1598. (Greve, Memor. P. ab. Eitzen. 
 Hamb. 1S44.)
 
 The Wandering Jew. 13 
 
 pulpit, listening with deepest attention to the dis- 
 course, and, whenever the name of Jesus was men- 
 tioned, bowing himself profoundly and humbly, with 
 sighs -and beating of the breast. He had no other 
 clothing, in the bitter cold of the winter, except a pair 
 of hose which were in tatters about his feet, and a 
 coat with a girdle which reached to his feet ; and his 
 general appearance was that of a man of fifty years. 
 And many people, some of high degree and title, 
 have .seen this same man in England, France, Italy, 
 Hungary, Persia, Spain, Poland, Moscow, Lapland, 
 Sweden, Denmark, Scotland, and other places. 
 
 " Every one wondered over the man. Now, after 
 the seriAon, the said Doctor inquired diligently where 
 the stranger was to be found ; and when he had 
 sought him out, he inquired of him privately whence 
 he came, and how long that winter he had been in 
 the place. Thereupon he replied, modestly, that he 
 was a Jew by birth, a native of Jerusalem, by name 
 Ahasverus, by trade a shoemaker ; he had been pres- 
 ent at the .crucifixion of Christ, and had lived ever 
 since, travelling through various lands and cities, the 
 which he substantiated by accounts he gave ; he 
 related also the circumstances of Christ's transfer-
 
 14 The Wandering Jew. 
 
 ence from Pilate to Herod, and the final crucifixion, 
 together with other details not recorded . in the 
 Evangelists and historians ; he gave accounts of the 
 changes of government in many countries, especially 
 of the East, thi'ough sevei"al centui'ies ; and moreover 
 he detailed the labors and deaths of the holy Apostles 
 of Christ most circumstantially. 
 
 " Now when Doctor Paul v. Eitzen heard this with 
 profound astonishment, on account of its incredible 
 novelty, he inquired further, in order that he might 
 obtain more accurate information. Then the man 
 answered, that he had lived in Jerusalem at the time 
 of the crucifixion of Christ, whom he had regarded as 
 a deceiver of the people, and a heretic ; he had seen 
 Him with his own eyes, and had done his best, along 
 with others, to bring this deceiver, as he regarded 
 Him, to justice, and to have Him put out of the way. 
 When the sentence had been pronounced by Pilate, 
 Christ was about to be dragged past his house ; then 
 he ran home, and called together his household to have 
 a look at Christ, and see what sort of a person He was. 
 
 " This haying been done, he had his little child on 
 his arm, and was standing in his doorway, to have a 
 sight of the Lord Jesus Christ.
 
 The Wandering yew, 15 
 
 " As, then, Christ was led by, bowed under • the 
 weight of the heavy cross, He tried to rest a Httle, and 
 stood still a moment ; but the shoemaker, in zeal and 
 rage, and for the sake of obtaining credit among the 
 other Jews, drove the Lord Christ forward, and told 
 Him to hasten on His way. Jesus, obeying, looTced at 
 him, and said, ' I shall stand and rest, but thou shalt 
 go till the last day.' At these words the man set down 
 the child ; and, unable to remain where he was, he 
 followed Christ, and saw how cruelly He was cruci- 
 fied, how He suffered, how He died. As soon as this 
 had taken place, it came upon him suddenly that he 
 could no more return to Jerusalem, nor see again his 
 wife and child, but must go forth into foreign lands, 
 one after another, like a mournful pilgrim. Now, 
 when, years after, he returned to Jerusalem, he found 
 it ruined and utterly razed, so that not one stone was 
 left standing on another ; And he could not recognize 
 former localities. 
 
 " He believes that it is God's purpose, in thus 
 driving him about in miserable life, and preserving 
 him undying, to present him before the Jews at the 
 end, as a living token, so that the godless and unbe- 
 lieving may remember the death of Christ, and be
 
 i6 The Wandering- Jew. 
 
 turned to repentance. For his part he would well 
 rejoice were God in heaven to release him from this 
 vale of tears. After this conversation, Doctor Paul v. 
 Eitzen, along with the rector of the school of Ham- 
 burg, who was well read in history, and a traveller, 
 questioned him about events which had taken place 
 in the East since the death of Christ, and he was able 
 to give them n'luch information on many ancient 
 matters ; so that it was impossible not to be convinced 
 of the truth of his story, and to see that what seems 
 impossible with men is, after all, possible with God. 
 
 " Since the Jew has had his life extended, he has 
 become silent and reserved, and only answers direct 
 questions. When invited to become any one's guest, 
 he eats little, and drinks in great moderation ; then 
 hurries on, never remaining long in one place. 
 When at Hamburg, Dantzig, and elsewhere, money 
 has been offered him, he never took more than -two 
 skillings (fourpence, one farthing), and at once distrib- 
 uted it to the poor, as token that he .needed no money, 
 for God would- provide for him, as he rued the sins 
 he had committed in ignorance. 
 
 " During the period of his stay in Hamburg and 
 Dantzig he was never seen to laush. In whatever
 
 The Wandering Jew. 17 
 
 land he travelled he spoke its language, and when 
 he spoke Saxon, it was like a native Saxon. Many 
 people came from different places to Hamburg and 
 Dantzig in order to see and hear this man, and were 
 convinced that the .providence of God was exercised 
 in this individual in a very remarkable manner. He 
 gladly listened to God's word, or heard it spoken of 
 always with great gravity and compunction, and he 
 ever reverenced with sighs the pronunciation of the 
 name of God, or of Jesus Christ, and could not endure 
 to hear curses ; but whenever he heard any one swear 
 by God's death or pains, he waxed indignant, and ex- 
 claimed, with vehemence and with sighs, ' Wretched 
 man and miserable creature, thus to misuse the name 
 of thy Lord and God, and His bitter sufferings and 
 passion. Hadst thou seen, as I have, how heavy and 
 bitter were the pangs and wounds of thy Lord, en- 
 dured for thee and for me, thou wouldst rather under- 
 go great pain thyself than thus take His sacred name 
 in vain ! ' 
 
 " Such is the account given to me by Doctor Paul 
 von Eitzen, with many circumstantial proofs, and 
 corroborated by certain of my own old acquaint- 
 2
 
 1 8 The Wandering Jew.- 
 
 ances who saw this same individual with their own 
 eyes in Hamburg. 
 
 " In the year 1575 the Secretary Christopher 
 Krause," and Master Jacob von Holstein, legates to 
 the Court of Spain, and afterwards sent into the 
 Netherlands to pay the soldiers serving his Majesty 
 in that country, related on their return home to 
 Schleswig, and confirmed with solemn oaths, that 
 they had come across the same mysterious individual 
 at Madrid in Spain, in appearance, manner of life, 
 habits, clothing, just the same as he had appealed in 
 Hamburg. They said that they had spoken with 
 him, and that many people of all classes had con- 
 versed with him, and found him to speak good Span- 
 ish. In the year 1599, in December, a reliable per- 
 son wrote from Brunswick to Strasburg that the same 
 mentioned strange person had been seen alive at 
 Vienna in Austria, and that he had started for Poland 
 and Dantzig ; and that he purposed going on to Mos- 
 cow. This Ahasverus was at Lubeck in 1601, also 
 about the same date in Revel in Livonia, and in 
 Cracow in Poland.' In Moscow he was seen of mary 
 and spoken to by many. 
 
 " What thoughtful. God-fearing persons are to think
 
 The Wandering Jew. 19 
 
 of the said person, is at their option. God's works 
 are wondrous and past finding out, and are manifested 
 day by day, only to be revealed in full at the last great 
 day of account. 
 
 "Dated, Revel, August ist, 1613. 
 "D.W. 
 
 " Chrysostomus Duduloeus, 
 " Westphalus." 
 
 The statement that the Wandering Jew appeared 
 in Lubeck in 1601, does not tally with the more pre- 
 cise chronicle of Henricus Bangert, which gives : 
 " Die 14 Januarii Anno MDCIII., adnotatum reliquit 
 Lubecae fuisse^ Judaeum ilium immortalem, qui se 
 Christi crucifixioni intjprfuisse affirmavit." * 
 
 In 1604 he seems to have appeared in Paris. Ru- 
 dolph Botoreus says, under this date, " I fear lest I be 
 accused of giving ear to old wives' fables, if | insert 
 in these pages what is reported all over Europe of 
 the Jew, coeval with the Savior Christ ; however, 
 nothing is more common, and our popular histories 
 
 * Henr. Bangert, Comment, de Ortu, Vita, et Excessu 
 Coleri, I. Cti. Lubec.
 
 20 The Wandering yew. 
 
 have not scrupled to assert it. Following the lead 
 of those who wrote our annals, I may say that he 
 who appeared not in one centuiy only, in Spain, 
 Italy, and Germany, was also in this year seen and 
 recognized as the same individual who had appeared 
 in Hamburg, anno MDLXVI. The common people, 
 bold in spreading reports,, relate many things of him ; 
 and this I allude to, lest anything should be left 
 unsaid."-* 
 
 J. C. Bulenger puts the date of the Hamburg visit 
 earlier. " It was reported at this time that a Jew of 
 the time of Christ was wandering without food and 
 drink, having for a thousand and odd years beefi ^ 
 vagabond and outcast, condemned by God to rove, 
 because he, of that generation of vipers, was the first 
 to cry out for the crucifixion o% Christ and the release 
 of Barabbas ; and also because soon after, when 
 Christ, panting under the burden of the rood, sought 
 to rest before his workshop (he was a cobbler), the 
 fellow ordered Him ofl:' with acerbity. Thereupon 
 Christ replied, ' Because thou grudgest Me such a 
 moment of rest, I shall enter into My rest, but thou 
 shalt wander restless.' At once, frantic and agitated, 
 
 * R. Botoreus, Coram. Histor. lii. p. 305.
 
 The Wandering Jew. 21 
 
 he fled through the whole earth, and on the same 
 account to this day he journeys through the world. 
 It was this person who was seen in Hamburg in 
 MDLXIV. Credat Judajus Apella ! / did not see 
 him, or hear anything authentic concerning him, at 
 that time when I was in Paris." * 
 
 A curious little book,t written against the quackery 
 of Paracelsus, by Leonard Doldius, a Niirnberg phy- 
 sician, and translated into Latin and augmented, by 
 Andreas Libavius, doctor and physician of Roten- 
 burg, alludes to the same story, and gives the Jew a 
 new name nowhere else met with. After having 
 referred to a report that Paracelsus was not dead, but 
 was seated alive, asleep or napping, in his sepulchre 
 at Sti-asburg, presented from death by some of his 
 specifics, Labavius declares that he would sooner be- 
 lieve in the old man, the Jew, Ahasverus, wandering 
 over the woi"ld, called by some Buttad^eus, and other- 
 wise, again, by others. 
 
 He is said to have appeared in Naumburg, but 
 the date is not given ; he was noticed in church, 
 listening to the sermon. After the service he was 
 
 * J. C. Bulenger, Historia sui Temporis, p. 357. 
 t Praxis Alchymise. Francfurti, MDCIV. 8vo.
 
 22 The Wandering jfetv. 
 
 questioned, and he related his story. On this occa- 
 sion he received" presents from the burgers.* In 1633 
 he was again in Hamburg. |- In the year 1640, two 
 citizens, living in the Gerberstrasse, in Brussels, were 
 walking in the Sonian wood, when they encountered 
 an aged man, whose clothes were in tatters and of 
 an antiquated appearance. They invited him to go 
 with them to a house of refreshment, and he went 
 with them, but would not seat himself, remaining on 
 foot to drink. When he came before the doors with 
 the two burgers, he told them a great deal ; but theA/^ 
 were mostly stories of events which had happened 
 many hundred years before. Hence the burgers 
 gathered that their companion was Isaac Laquedem, 
 the Jew who had refused to permit our Blessed Lord 
 to rest for a moment at his door-step, and they left him 
 full of terror. In 1642 he is reported to have visited 
 Leipzig. On the zzd July, 1721, he appeared at the 
 gates of the city of Munich. \ About the end of the 
 seventeenth century or the beginning of the eighteenth, 
 an impostor, calling himself the Wandering Jew, at- 
 
 * Mitternacht, Diss, in Johann. xxi. 19. 
 
 t Mitternacht, ut supra. 
 
 X Hormayr, Taschenbuch, 1834, p. 216.
 
 The Wandering Jevj. 2j 
 
 tracted attention in England, and was listened to by 
 the ignorant, and despised by the educated. He, 
 howev^er, managed to thrust himself into the notice 
 of the nobilit}', who, half in jest, half in curiosity, 
 questioned him, and paid him as they might a juggler. 
 He declared that he had been an officer of the Sanhe- 
 drim, and that he had struck Christ as he left the 
 judgment hall of Pilate. He remembered all the 
 Apostles, and described their personal appearance, 
 their clothes, and their peculiarities. He spoke many 
 languages, claimed the po\Nrer of healing the sick, 
 and asserted that he had travelled nearly all over the 
 world. Those who heard him were perplexed by his 
 familiarity with foreign tongues and places. Oxford 
 and Cambridge sent professors to question him, and 
 to discover the imposition, if any. An English noble- 
 man conversed with him in Arabic. The mysterious 
 stranger told his questioner in that language that 
 historical works v;ere not to be relied upon. And 
 on being asked his opinion of Mahomet, he replied 
 - that he had been acquainted with the father of the 
 prophet, and that he dwelt at Ormuz. As for 
 Mahomet, he believed him to have been a man of 
 intelligence ; once when he heard the prophet deny
 
 24 The Wandering Jew. 
 
 that Christ was crucified, he answered abruptly b}- 
 tcUing him he was a witness to the truth of that 
 event. He related also that he was in Rome when 
 Nero set it on fire ; he had known Saladin, Tamer- 
 lane, Bajazeth, Eterlane, and could give minute 
 details of the history of the Crusades.* 
 
 Whether this wandering Jew was found out in 
 London or not, we cannot tell, but he shortly after 
 appeared in Denmark, thence travelled into Sweden, 
 and vanished. 
 
 Such are the principal notices of the Wandering 
 Jew which have appeared. It will be seen at once 
 how wanting they are in all substantial evidence 
 which could make us regard the story in any other 
 light than myth. 
 
 But no myth is wholly without foundation, and 
 there must be some substantial verity upon which 
 this vast superstructure of legend has been raised. 
 What that is I am unable to discover. 
 
 It has been suggested by some that the Jew 
 Ahasverus is an impersonation of that race which 
 wanders, Cain-like, oyer the earth with the brand 
 of a brother's blood upon it, and one which is not 
 
 * Calmet, Dictionn. de la Bible, t. ii. p. 472.
 
 The Wandering yew. 25 
 
 to pass away till all be fulfilled, not to be reconciled 
 to its angered God till the times of the Gentiles 
 are accomplished. And yet, probable as this sup- 
 position may seem at first sight, it is not to be har- 
 monized with some of the leading features of the 
 stoiy. The shoemaker becomes a penitent, and 
 earnest Christian, wdiilst the Jewish nation has still 
 the veil upon its heart ; the wretched wanderer es- 
 chews money, and the avarice of the Israelite is 
 proverbial. 
 
 According to local legend, he is identified with 
 the Gypsies, or rather that strange people are sup- 
 posed to be living under a curse somewhat similar 
 to that inflicted on Ahasverus, because they refused 
 shelter to the Virgin and Child on their flight into 
 Egypt.* Another tradition connects the Jew with 
 the wild huntsman, and there is a forest at Bretten, 
 in Swabia, which he is said to haunt. Popular 
 superstition attributes to him there a purse con- 
 taining a gi'oschen, which, as often as it is expended, 
 returns to the spender.f 
 
 In the Harz one form of the Wild Huntsman 
 
 * Aventinus, Bayr. Chronik, viii. 
 
 f Meier, Sclivvtibischen Sagen, i. 116.
 
 26 The W^andering yew. 
 
 myth is to this eflcct : that he was a Jew who had 
 refused to suffer our Blessed Lord to drink out of 
 a river, or out of a horse-trough, but had contemptu- 
 ously pointed out to Him the hoof-print of a horse, 
 in which a little water had collected, and had bid 
 Him quench His thirst thence.* 
 
 As the Wild Huntsman is the personification of 
 the storm, it is curious to find in parts of France 
 that the sudden roar of a gale at night is attributed 
 by the vulgar to the passing of the Everlasting Jew. 
 
 A Swiss story is, that he was seen one day stand- 
 ing upon the Matterberg, which is below the 
 Matterhorn, contemplating the scene with mingled 
 sorrow and wonder. Once before he stood on that 
 spot, and then it was the site of a flourishing city ; 
 now it is covered with gentian and wild pinks. 
 Once again will he revisit the hill, and that will be 
 on the eve of Judgment. 
 
 Perhaps, of all the myths which originated in the 
 middle ages, none is more striking than that we 
 have been considering ; indeed, there is something 
 so calculated to arrest the attention and to excite 
 the imagination in the outline of the story, that it 
 
 * Kuhn u. Schwarz Nordd. Sagen, p. 499.
 
 The Wandering yevj. 27 
 
 is remarkable that we should find an interval of 
 three centuries elapse between its first introduction 
 into EurojDe by Alatthew Paris and Philip Mouskes, 
 and its general acceptance in the sixteenth century. 
 As a myth, its roots lie in that great mystery of 
 human life which is an enigma never solved, and 
 ever originating speculation. 
 
 What was life? Was it of necessity limited to 
 fourscore years, or could it be extended indefinitely? 
 were questions curious minds never wearied of ask- 
 ing. And so the mythology of the past teemed 
 with legends of favored or accursed mortals, who 
 had reached beyond the term of days set to most 
 men. Some had discovered the water of life, the 
 fountain of perpetual youth, and were ever renew- 
 ing their strength. Others had dared the power of 
 God, and were therefore sentenced to feel the weight 
 of His displeasure, without tasting the repose of 
 death. 
 
 John the Divine slept at Ephesus, untouched by 
 corruption, with the ground heaving over his breast 
 as he breathed, waiting the summons to come forth 
 and witness against Antichrist. The seven sleepers 
 reposed in a cave, and centuries glided by like a
 
 28 The Wandering yew. 
 
 watch in the night. The monk of Hildcsheim, 
 doubting how with God a thousand years could be 
 as yesterday, listened to the melody of a bird in 
 the green wood during three minutes, and found 
 that in three minutes three hundred years had flown. 
 Joseph of Arimathaea, in the blessed city of Sarras, 
 draws perpetual life from the Saint Graal ; Merlin 
 sleeps and sighs in an old tree, spell-bound of Vivien. 
 Charlemagne and Barbarossa wait, crowned and 
 armed, in the heart of the mountain, till the time 
 comes for the release of Fatherland from despotism. 
 And, on the other hand, the curse of a deathless 
 life has passed on the Wild Huntsman, because he 
 desired to chase the red-deer for evermore ; c n the 
 Captain of the Phantom Ship, because he vowed he 
 would double the Cape whether God willed it or 
 not; on the Man in the Moon, because he gathered 
 sticks during the Sabbath rest ; on the dancers of 
 Kolbeck, because they desired to spend eternity in 
 their mad gambols. 
 
 I began this article intending to conclude it with 
 a bibliographical account of the tracts, letters, essays, 
 and books, written upon the Wandering Jew ; but 
 I relinquish my intention at the sight of the multi-
 
 The Wandering yezv. 29 
 
 tude of works which have issued from the press 
 upon the subject ; and this I do with less compunc- 
 tion as the bibliographer may at little trouble and 
 expense satisfy himself, by perusing the lists given 
 by Grasse in his essay on the myth, and those to be 
 found in " Notice historique et bibliographiqiie sur 
 les Juifs-errants : par O. B." (Gustave Brunet), Paris, 
 Techener, 1845 » ^^^^ "^ ^^^^ article by M. Mangin, 
 in " Causeries et Meditations historiques et litte- 
 raires," Paris, Duprat, 1843 ; and, lastly, in the essay 
 by Jacob le Bibliophile (M. Lacroix) in his " Curi- 
 osites de I'Histoire des Croyances populaires," Paris, 
 Delahays, 1859. 
 
 Of the romances of Eugene Sue and Dr. Croly, 
 founded upon the legend, the less said the bettei'. 
 The original legend is so noble in its severe sim- 
 plicity, that none but a master mind could develop 
 it with any chance of success. Nor have the poeti- 
 cal attempts upon the story fared better. It was 
 reserved for the pencil of Gustave Dore to treat it 
 with the originality it merited, and in a scries of 
 woodcuts to produce at once a poem, a romance, 
 and a chef-d'oeuvre of art.
 
 30 
 
 JJrcstfr Sol)n. 
 
 Arms of the See of Chichester. 
 
 ABOUT the middle of the twelfth century, a 
 rumor circulated through Europe that there 
 reigned in Asia a powerful Christian Emperor, Pres- 
 byter Johannes. In a bloody fight he had broken the 
 power of the Mussulmans, and was ready to come to 
 the assistance of the Crusaders. Great was the ex- 
 ultation in Europe, for of late the news from the East 
 had been gloomy and depressing, the power of the 
 infidel had increased, overwhelming masses of men 
 had been brought into the field against the chivalry 
 of Christendom, and it was felt that the cross must 
 yield before the odious crescent. 
 
 The news of the success of the Priest-King 
 opened a door of hope to the desponding Christian
 
 Pr ester John. 31 
 
 world. Pope Alexander III. determined at once 
 to effect a union with this mysterious personage, 
 and on the 27th of September, 1177, wrote him a 
 letter, which he intrusted to his physician, Philip, 
 to deliver in person. 
 
 Philip started on his embassy, but never returned. 
 The conquests of Tschengis-Khan again attracted 
 the eyes of Christian Europe to the East. The 
 Mongol hordes were rushing in upon the west with 
 devastating ferocity ; Russia, Poland, Hungary, and 
 the eastern provinces of Germany, had succumbed, 
 or suffered grievously ; and the fears of other na- 
 tions were roused lest they too should taste the 
 misery of a Mongolian invasion. It was Gog and 
 Magog come to slaughter, and the times of Anti- 
 christ were dawning. But the battle of Liegnitz 
 stayed them in their onward career, and Europe 
 was saved. 
 
 Pope Innocent IV. determined to convert these 
 wild hordes of barbarians, and subject them to the 
 cross of Christ ; he therefore sent among them a 
 number of Dominican and Franciscan missioners, 
 and embassies of peace passed between the Pope, 
 the King of France, and the Mogul Khan.
 
 32 Prestcr yohn. 
 
 The result of these communications with the East 
 was, that the travellers learned how false were the 
 prevalent notions of a mighty Christian empire existing 
 in Central Asia. Vulgar superstition or conviction is 
 not, however, to be upset by evidence, and the local- 
 ity of the monarchy was merely transferred by the 
 people to Africa, and they fixed upon Abyssinia, with 
 a show of truth, as the seat of the famous Priest-King. 
 However, still some doubted. John de Piano Carpini 
 and Marco Polo, though they acknowledged the exist- 
 ence of a Christian monarch in Abyssinia, yet stoutly 
 maintained as well that the Prester John of popular 
 belief reigned in splendor somewhere in the dim 
 Orierjt. 
 
 But before proceeding with the history of this 
 strange fable, it will be well to extract the different 
 accounts given of the Priest-King and his realm by 
 early writers ; and we shall then be better able to 
 judge of the influence the myth obtained in Europe. 
 
 Otto of Frcisingen is the first author to mention 
 the monarchy of Prester John with whom we are 
 acquainted. Otto wrote a chronicle up to the date 
 1 1 56, and he relates that in 1145 the Catholic Bishop 
 of Cabala visited Europe to lay certain complaints
 
 Pr ester yohii. 33 
 
 before the Pope. He mentioned the fall of Edessa, 
 and also " he stated that a few years ago a certain 
 King and Priest called John, who lives on the farther 
 side of Persia and Armenia, in the remote East, and 
 who, with all his people, were Christians, though 
 belonging to the Nestorian Church, had overcome 
 the royal brothers Samiardi, kings of the Medes and 
 Persians, and had captured Ecbatana, their capital 
 and residence. The said kings had met with their 
 Persian, Median, and Assyrian troops, and had fought 
 for three consecutive days, each side having deter- 
 mined to die rather than take to flight. Prester John, 
 for so they are wont to call him, at length routed the 
 Persians, and after a bloody battle, remained victori- 
 ous. After which victory the said John was hasten- 
 ing to the assistance of the Church at Jerusalem, but 
 his host, on reaching the Tigris, was hindered from 
 passing, through a deficiency in boats, and he directed 
 his march North, since he had heard that the river 
 was there covered with ice. In that place he had 
 waited many years, expecting severe cold ; but the 
 winters having proved unpropitious, and the severity 
 of the climate having carried off many soldiers, he 
 had been forced to retreat to his own land. This 
 3
 
 34 Prester jfohn. 
 
 king belongs to the family of the Magi, mentioned in 
 the Gospel, and he rules over the veiy people formerly 
 governed by the Magi; moreover, his fame and his 
 wealth are so great, that he uses an emerald sceptre 
 only. 
 
 " Excited by the example of his ancestors, whe 
 came to worshii) Christ in his cradle, he had pro- 
 posed to go to Jerusalem, but had been impeded by 
 the above-mentioned causes." * 
 
 At the same time the story crops up in other quar- 
 ters ; so that v^^e cannot look upon Otto as the inventor 
 of the myth. The celebrated Maimonides alludes to 
 it in a passage quoted by Joshua Lorki, a Jewish 
 physician to Benedict XIII. Maimonides lived from 
 1 135 to 1204. The passage is as follows : " It is evi- 
 dent both from the letters of Rambam (Maimonides), 
 whose memory be blessed, and from the narration of 
 merchants who have visited the ends of the earth, 
 that at this time the root of our faith is to be found 
 in the lands of Babel and Teman, where long ago 
 Jerusalem was an exile ; not reckoning those who 
 live in the land of Paras f and Madai, | of the exiles 
 of Schomrom, the number of which people is as the 
 
 * Otto, Ep. Frising., lib. vii. c. 33. f Persia. J Media.
 
 Prester John, 35 
 
 sand : of these some are still under the yoke of Paras, 
 who is called the Great-Chief Sultan by the Arabs ; 
 others live in a place under the yoke of a strange 
 people . . . governed by a Christian chief, Preste- 
 Cuan by name. With him they have made a com- 
 pact, and he with them ; and this is a matter concern- 
 ing which there can be no manner of doubt." 
 
 Benjamin of Tudela, another Jew, travelled in the 
 East between the years 1159 and 11 73, the last being 
 the date of his death. He wrote an account of his 
 travels, and gives in it some information with regard 
 to a mythical Jew king, who reigned in the utmost 
 splendor over a realm inhabited by Jews alone, situ- 
 ate somewhere in the midst of a desert of vast extent. 
 About this period there appeared a document which 
 produced intense excitement throughout Europe — 
 a letter, yes ! a letter from the mysterious personage 
 himself to ]\Ianuel Comnenus, Emperor of Constanti- 
 nople (1143-11S0). The exact date of this extraor- 
 dinary epistle cannot be fixed with any certaintv, but 
 it certainly appeared before 1241, the date of the 
 conclusion of the chronicle of Albericus Trium Fon- 
 tium. This Albericus relates that in the year 1165 
 " Presbyter Joannes, the Indian king, sent his won-
 
 36 Pr ester yoJin. 
 
 derful letter to various ChristiaH princes, and espe- 
 cially to Manuel of Constantinople, and Frederic 
 the Roman Emperor." Similar letters were sent to 
 Alexander III., to Louis VII. of France, and to the 
 King of Portugal, which are alluded to in chroni- 
 cles and romances, and which were indeed turned 
 into rhyme, and sung all over Europe by minstrels 
 and trouveres. The letter is as follows : — 
 
 "John, Priest by the Almighty power of God and 
 the Might of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of Kings, 
 and Lord of Lords, to 'his friend Emanuel, Prince 
 of Constantinople, greeting, wishing him health, 
 prosperity, and the continuance of Divine favor. 
 
 " Our Majesty has been informed that you hold 
 our Excellency in love, and that the rejDort of our 
 greatness has reached you. Moreover, we have 
 heai'd through our treasurer that you have been 
 pleased to send to us some objects of art and 
 interest, that our Exaltedness might be gratified 
 thereby. 
 
 " Being human, I receive it in good part, and we 
 have ordered our treasurer to send you some of our 
 ai'ticles in return. 
 
 " Now we desire to be made certain that you
 
 Prester yohn. 37 
 
 nold the right faith, and in all things cleave to 
 Jesus Christ, our Lord, for we have heard that your 
 court regard you as a god, though we know that 
 you are mortal, and subject to human infirmities. 
 . . . Should you desire to learn the greatness 
 and excellency of our Exaltedness and of the land 
 subject to our sceptre, then hear and believe : — I, 
 Presbyter Johannes, the Lord of Lords, surpass all 
 under heaven in virtue, in riches, and in power ; 
 seventy-two kings pay us tribute. ... In the three 
 Indies our jSIagnificence rules, and our land extends 
 beyond India, where rests the body of the holy- 
 Apostle Thomas ; it reaches towards the sunrise 
 over the wastes, and it trends towards deserted 
 Babylon near the tower of Babel. Seventy-two 
 provinces, of which only a few are Christian, serve 
 us. Each has its own king, but all are tributary 
 to us. 
 
 " Our land is the home of elephants, dromedaries, 
 camels, crocodiles, meta-collinarum, cametennus, tcn- 
 sevctes, wild asses, white and red lions, white bears, 
 white inerules, crickets, griffins, tigers, lamias, hy- 
 enas, wild horses, wild oxen and wild men, men 
 with horns, one-eyed, men with eyes before and
 
 38 • Prestcj' yoJin. 
 
 behind, centaurs, fauns, satyrs, pygmies, forty-ell- 
 high giants, Cyclopses, and similar women ; it is 
 the home, too, of the phcEnix, and of nearly all 
 living animals. We have some people subject to 
 us who feed on the flesh of men and of prematurely 
 born animals, and who never fear death. When 
 any of these people die, their friends and relations 
 eat him ravenously, for they regard it as a main 
 duty to munch human flesh. Their names are Gog 
 and Magog, Anie, Agit, Azenach, Fommeperi, 
 Befari, Conei-Samante, Agrimandri, Vintefolei, Cas- 
 bei, Alanei. These and similar nations were shut 
 in behind lofty mountains by Alexander the Great, 
 towards the North. We lead them at our pleasure 
 against our foes, and neither man nor beast is left 
 undevoured, if our Majesty gives the requisite per- 
 mission. And when all our foes are eaten, then w^e 
 return with our hosts home again. These accursed 
 fifteen nations will burst forth from the four quarters 
 of the earth at the end of the world, in the times 
 of Antichrist, and overrun all the abodes of the 
 Saints as well as the great cit}^ Rome, which, by 
 the way, we are prepared to give to our son who 
 will be born, along with all Italy, Germany, the
 
 Pr ester John. 39 
 
 two Gauls, Britain and Scotland. AV^e shall also 
 give him Spain and all the land as far as the icy 
 sea. The nations to which I have alluded, accord- 
 ing to the words of the prophet, shall not stand in 
 the judgment, on account of their offensive practices, 
 but will be consumed to ashes by a fire which will 
 fall on them from heaven. 
 
 " Our land streams with honey, and is overflow- 
 ing w'ith milk. In one region grows no poisonous 
 herb, nor does a querulous frog ever quack in it ; 
 no scorpion exists, nor does the serpent glide 
 amongst the grass, nor can any poisonous animals 
 exist in it, or injure any one. 
 
 " Among the heathen, flows through a certain 
 province the River Indus ; encircling Paradise, it 
 spreads its arms in manifold windings through the 
 entire province. Here are found the emeralds, 
 sapphires, carbuncles, topazes, chrysolites, onyxes, 
 beryls, sardius, and other costly stones. Here grows 
 the plant Assidos, which, when worn by any one, 
 protects him from the evil spirit, forcing it to state 
 its business and name ; consequently the foul spirits 
 keep out of the way there. In a certain land sub- 
 ject to us, all kinds of pepper is gathered, and is
 
 40 Prester John. 
 
 exchanged for corn and bread, leather and cloth. 
 . . . At the foot of Mount Olympus bubbles up a 
 spring which changes its flavor hour by hour, night 
 and day, and the spring is scarcely three days' 
 journey from Paradise, out of which Adam was 
 driven. If any one has tasted thrice of the foun- 
 tain, from that day he will feel no fiitigue, but will, 
 as long as he lives, be as a man of thirty years. 
 Here are found the small stones called Nudiosi, 
 which, if borne about the body, jDrevent the sight 
 from waxing feeble, and restore it where it is lost. 
 The more the stone is looked at, the keener be- 
 comes the sight. In our territory is a certain water- 
 less sea, consisting of tumbling billows of sand 
 never at rest. None have crossed this sea ; it lacks 
 water altogether, yet fish are cast up upon the 
 beach of various kinds, very tasty, and the like are 
 nowhei'e else to be seen. Three days' journey from 
 this sea are mountains from which rolls down a 
 stony, waterless river, which opens into the sandy 
 sea. As soon as the stream reaches the sea, its 
 stones vanish in it, and are never seen again. As 
 long as tlie river is in motion, it cannot be crossed ; 
 only four days a week is it possible to traverse it.
 
 Prester yohn. 41 
 
 Between the sandy sea and the said mountains, in 
 a certain plain is a fountain of singular virtue, 
 which purges Christians and would-be Christians 
 from all transgressions. The water stands four 
 inches high in a hollow stone shaped like a mussel- 
 shell. Two saintly old men watch by it, and ask 
 the comers whether they are Christians, or are 
 about to become Christians, then whether they de- 
 sire healing with all their hearts. If they have 
 answered well, they are bidden to lay aside their 
 clothes, and to step into the mussel. If what they 
 said be true, then the water begins to rise and gush 
 over their heads ; thrice does the water thus lift 
 itself, and every one who has entered the mussel 
 leaves it cured of every complaint. 
 
 " Near the wilderness trickles between barren 
 mountains a subterranean rill, which can only by 
 chance be reached, for only occasionally the earth 
 gapes, and he who would descend must do it with 
 precipitation, ere the earth closes again. All that 
 is gathered under the ground there is gem aiid 
 precious stone. The brook pours into another 
 river, and the inhabitants of the neighborhood ob- 
 tain thence abundance of precious stones. Yet they
 
 42 P fester jfo/m. 
 
 never venture to sell them without having first 
 oflbred them to us for our j^rivate use : should we 
 decHnc them, they are at Hberty to dispose of them 
 to strangers. Boys there are trained to remain 
 three or four da3's under water, diving after the 
 stones. 
 
 " Beyond the stone river are the ten tribes of the 
 Jews, which, though subject to their own kings, 
 are, for all that, our slaves and tributary to our 
 Majesty. In one of our lands, hight Zone, are 
 worms called in our tongue Salamanders. These 
 worms can only live in fire, and they build cocoons 
 like silk-worms, which are unwound by the ladies 
 of our palace, and spun into cloth and dresses, 
 which are worn by our Exaltcdness. These dresses, 
 in order to be cleaned and washed, are cast into 
 flames. . . . When we go to war, we have foui^teen 
 golden and bejewelled crosses borne before us in- 
 stead of banners ; each of these crosses is followed 
 by 10,000 horsemen, and 100,000 foot soldiei's fully 
 armed, without reckoning those in chai^ge of the 
 luggage and provision. 
 
 " When we ride abroad plainly, we have a 
 wooden, unadorned cross, without gold or gem
 
 Pr ester yoJrn. 43 
 
 about it, borne before us, in order that we may 
 meditate on the sufferings of Our Lord Jesus 
 Christ ; also a golden bowl filled with earth, to 
 remind us of that whence we sprung, and that to 
 which we must return ; but besides these there is 
 borne a silver bowl full of gold, as a token to all 
 that we are the Lord of Lords. 
 
 " All riches, such as are upon the world, our 
 Magnificence possesses in sui^erabundance. With 
 us no one lies, for he who speaks a lie is thence- 
 forth regarded as dead ; he is no more thought of, 
 or honored by us. No vice is tolerated by us. 
 Every year we undertake a pilgrimage, with reti- 
 nue of war, to the body of the holy prophet Dan- 
 iel, which is near the desolated site of Babylon. 
 In our realm fishes are caught, the blood of which 
 dyes purple. The Amazons and the Brahmins are 
 subject to us. The palace in which our Super- 
 eminency resides, is built after the pattern of the 
 castle built by the Apostle Thomas for the Indian 
 king Gundoforus. Ceilings, joists, and architrave 
 are of Sethym wood, the roof of ebony, which 
 can never catch fire. Over the gable of the pal- 
 ace are, at the extremities, two golden apples,
 
 44 Py ester yohn. 
 
 in each of which are two carbuncles, so that the 
 gold may shine by clay, and the carbuncles by 
 night. The greater gates of the palace are of sar- 
 dius, with the liorn of the horned snake inwrought, 
 so that no one can bring poison within. 
 
 " The other portals are of ebony. The wi dows 
 are of crystal ; the tables are partly of gold, partly 
 of amethyst, and the columns supporting the tables 
 are partly of ivory, partly of amethyst. The court 
 in which we watch the jousting is floored with 
 onyx in oi'der to increase the coui'age of the com- 
 batants. In the palace, at night, nothing is burned 
 for light but wicks supplied with balsam. . . . Be- 
 fore ovir palace stands a mirror, the ascent to 
 which consists of five and twenty steps of por- 
 phyry and serpentine." After a description of the 
 gems adorning this mirror, which is guarded night 
 and day by three thousand armed men, he explains 
 its use : " We look therein and behold all that is 
 taking place in every province and region subject 
 to our sceptre. 
 
 " Seven kings wait upon us monthly, in turn, 
 with sixty-two dukes, two hundred and fifty-six 
 counts and marquises : and twelve archl)ishops sit
 
 Pr ester yo/ui. 45 
 
 at table with us on our right, and twenty bishops 
 on the left, besides the patriarch of St. Thomas, the 
 Sarmatian Protopope, and the Archpope of Susa. 
 . . . Our lord high stew^ard is a primate and king, 
 our cup-bearer is an archbishop and king, our 
 chamberlain a bishop and king, our marshal a king 
 and abbot." 
 
 I may be spared further extracts from this ex- 
 traordinary letter, which proceeds to describe the 
 church in which Prester John worships, by enu- 
 merating the precious stones of which it is con- 
 structed, and their special virtues. 
 
 Whether this letter was in circulation before 
 Pope Alexander wrote his, it is not easy to decide. 
 Alexander does not allude to it, but speaks of the 
 reports which have reached him of the piety and 
 the magnificence of the Priest-King. At the same 
 time, there runs a tone of bitterness through the 
 letter, as though the Pope had been galled at the 
 pretensions of this mysterious personage, and per- 
 haps winced under the prospect of the man-eaters 
 overrunning Italy, as suggested by John the Priest. 
 The papal epistle is an assertion of the claims of 
 the See of Rome to universal dominion, and it
 
 46 Pr ester jfohn. 
 
 assures the Eastern Prince-Pope that his Christian 
 professions are worthless, unless he submits to the 
 successor of Peter. " Not every one that saith unto 
 me, Lord, Lord," &c., quotes the Pope, and then 
 explains that the will of God is that every monarch 
 and prelate should eat humble joie to the Sovereign 
 Pontiff. 
 
 Sir John Maundevil gives the origin of the 
 priestly title of the Eastern despot, in his curious 
 book of travels. 
 
 " So it befelle, that this emperour cam, with a 
 Cristene knyght with him, into a chirche in Egypt : 
 and it was Saterday in Wyttson woke. And the 
 bishop made orders. And he beheld and listened 
 the servyse fuUe tentyfly : and he asked the Cris- 
 tene knyght, what men of degree thei scholden 
 ben, that the prelate had before him. And the 
 knyght answerede and seyde, that thei scholde ben 
 prestes. And then the emperour seyde, that he 
 woldc no longer ben clept kyng ne emperour, but 
 preest : and that he vvolde have the name of the 
 first preest, that wente out of the chirche ; and his 
 name was John. And so evere more sittiens, he is 
 clept Prestre John."
 
 Prester John. 47 
 
 It is probable that the foundation of the whole 
 Prester-John myth lay in the report which reached 
 Europe of the wonderful successes of Nestorianism 
 in the East, and there seems reason to believe that 
 the famous letter given above was a Nestoria:i 
 fabrication. It certaiuly looks un-European ; the 
 gorgeous imagery is thoroughly Eastern, and the 
 disparaging tone in which Rome is spoken of could 
 hardly have been the expression of Western feel- 
 ings. The letter has the object in view of exalting 
 the East in religion and arts to an undue eminence 
 at the expense of the West, and it manifests some 
 ignorance of European geography, when it speaks 
 of the land extending from Spain to the Polar Sea. 
 Moreover, the sites of the patriarchates, and the 
 dignity conferred on that of St. Thomas, are indica- 
 tions of a Nestorian bias. 
 
 A brief glance at the history of this heretical 
 Church may be of value here, as showing that 
 there really was a foundation for the wild legends 
 concerning a Christian empii-e in the East, so 
 prevalent in Europe. Nestorius, a priest of An- 
 tioch and a disciple of St. Chrysostom, was elevated 
 by the emperor to the patriarchate of Constanti-
 
 48 Pr ester jfohn. 
 
 nople, and in the year 42S began to propagate his 
 heres)^, denying the hypostatic union. The Council 
 of Ephesus denounced him, and, in spite of the 
 emperor and court, Nestorius was anathematized 
 and driven into exile. His sect spread through the 
 East, and became a flourishing church. It reached 
 to China, where the emperor was all but converted ; 
 its missionaries traversed the frozen tundras of Si- 
 beria, preaching their maimed Gospel to the wild 
 hordes which haunted those dreary wastes ; it faced 
 Buddhism, and wrestled with it for the religious 
 supremacy in Thibet ; it established churches in 
 Persia and in Bokhara ; it penetrated India ; it 
 formed colonies in Ceylon, in Siam, and in Suma- 
 tra ; so that the Catholicos or Pope of Bagdad 
 exercised sway more extensive than that ever ob- 
 tained b}^ the successor of St. Peter. The number 
 of Christians belonging to that communion proba- 
 bly exceeded that of the members of the true Cath- 
 olic Church in East and West. But the Nestorian 
 Church was not founded on the Rock ; it rested on 
 Nestorius ; and when the rain descended, and the 
 winds blew, and the floods came, and beat upon 
 that house, it fell, leaving scarce a fragment behind.
 
 Pr ester yohn. 49 
 
 Rubruquis the Franciscan, who in 1253 was sent 
 on a mission into Tartaiy, was the first to let in a 
 little light on the fable. He writes, " The Catai 
 dwelt beyond certain mountains across which I wan- 
 dered, and in a plain in the midst of the mountains 
 lived once an important Nestorian shepherd, who 
 ruled over the Nestorian people, called Nayman. 
 When Coir-Khan died, the Nestorian people raised 
 this man to be king, and called him King Johannes, 
 and related of him ten times as much as the truth. 
 The Nestorians thereabouts have this way with them, 
 that about nothing they make a gi'eat fuss, and thus 
 they have got it noised abroad that Sartach, Mangu- 
 Khan, and Ken-Khan were Christians, simply because 
 they treated Christians well, and showed them more 
 honor than other people. Yet, in fact, they were not 
 Christians at all. And in like manner the story got 
 about that there was a great King John. However, 
 I traversed his pastures, and no one knew anything 
 about him, excej^t a few Nestorians. In his pastures 
 lives Ken-Khan, at whose court was Brother Andrew, 
 \vhom I met on my way back. This Johannes had 
 a brother, a famous shepherd, named Unc, who lived 
 
 4
 
 5© Pr ester John. 
 
 three weeks' journey beyond the mountains of Cara- 
 catais." 
 
 This Unk-Khan was a real individual ; he lost his 
 life in the year 1203. Kuschhik, prince of the Nay- 
 man, and follower of Kor-Khan, fell in 1218. 
 
 Marco Polo, the Venetian traveller (i 254-1324), 
 identifies Unk-Khan with Prcster John ; he says, " I 
 will now tell you of the deeds of the Tartars, how 
 they gained the mastery, and spread over the whole 
 earth. The Tartars dwelt between Georgia and Bar- 
 gu, where there is a vast plain and level country, on 
 which are neither cities nor forts, but capital pastur- 
 age and water. They had no chief of their own, but 
 paid to Prester Johannes tribute. Of the greatness 
 of this Prester Johannes, who was properly called 
 Un-Khan, the whole world spake ; the Tartars gave 
 him one of every ten head of cattle. When Prester 
 John noticed that they were increasing, he feared 
 them, and planned how he could injure them. He 
 determined therefore to scatter them, and he sent 
 barons to do this. But the Tartars guessed what 
 Prester John purposed . . . and they went away into 
 the wide wastes of the North, where they might be 
 beyond his reach." He then goes on to relate how
 
 Pr ester John. 51 
 
 Tschengis-(Jenghiz-)Khan became the head of the 
 Tartars, and how he fought against Prester John, 
 and, after a desperate fight, overcame and slew him. 
 
 The S}'riac Chronicle of the Jacobite Primate, 
 Gregory Bar-Hebr£eus (born 1226, died 12S6), also 
 identifies Unk-Khan with Prester John, " In the 
 year of the Greeks 15 14, of the Arabs 599 (A. D. 
 1202), when Unk-Khan, who is the Christian King 
 John, ruled over a stock of the barbarian Hunns, 
 called Kergt, Tschingys-Khan served him with great 
 zeal. When John observed the superiority and ser- 
 viceableness of the other, he envied him, and plotted 
 to seize and murder him. But two sons of Unk- 
 Khan, having heard this, told it to Tschingys ; where- 
 upon he and his comrades fled by night, and secreted 
 themselves. Next morning Unk-Khan took posses- 
 sion of the Tartar tents, but found them empty. 
 Then the party of Tschingys fell upon him, and they 
 met by the spring called Balschunah, and the side 
 of Tschingys won the day ; and the followers of 
 Unk-Khan were compelled to yield. They met again 
 several times, till Unk-Khan was utterly discomfited, 
 and was slain himself, and his wives, sons, and 
 daughters carried into captivity. Yet we must con-
 
 52 Pr ester yohn. 
 
 sider that King John the Kergtajer was not cast clown 
 for nought ; nay, rather, because he had turned his 
 heart from the fear of Christ his Lord, who liad 
 exalted him, and had taken a wife of the Zinish 
 nation, called Qiiarakhata. Because he forsook the 
 religion of his ancestors and followed strange gods, 
 therefoi-e God took the government from him, and 
 gave it to one better than he, and whose heart was 
 right before God." 
 
 Some of the early travellers, such as John de 
 Plano-Carpini and Marco Polo, in disabusing the 
 popular mind of the belief in Prester John as a 
 mighty Asiatic Christian monarch, unintentionally 
 turned the popular faith in that individual into a 
 new direction. They spoke of the black people of 
 Abascia in Ethiopia, which, by the way, they called 
 Middle India, as a great people subject to a Christian 
 monarch. 
 
 Marco Polo says that the true monarch of Abyssinia 
 is Christ ; but that it is governed by six kings, three 
 of whom are Christians and three Saracens, and that 
 they are in league with the Soudan of Aden. 
 
 Bishop Jordanus, in his description of the world, 
 accordingly sets down Abyssinia as the kingdom of
 
 Prester John. 53 
 
 Prcster John; and such was the popular impression, 
 which was confirmed by the appearance at intervals 
 of ambassadors at Eui'opean courts from the King 
 of Abyssinia. The discovery of the Cape of Good 
 Hope was due partly to a desire manifested in Portu- 
 gal to open communications with this monarch,* and 
 King John II. sent t wo men, lear ned in Oriental lan - 
 guages through Egypt to the court of Abyssinia. The 
 might and dominion of this prince, who had replaced 
 the Tartar chief in the popular creed as Prester John, 
 was of course greatly exaggerated, and was supposed 
 to extend across Arabia and Asia to the wall of 
 China. The spread of geographical knowledge has 
 contracted the area of his dominions, and a critical 
 acquaintance with history has exploded the myth 
 which invested Unk-Khan, the nomad chief, with all 
 the attributes of a demigod, uniting in one the utmost 
 pretensions of a Pope and the proudest claims of a 
 monarch. 
 
 * Ludolfi Hist, ^thiopica, lib. ii. cap. i, 2. Petrus, Petri 
 filius Lusitanige princeps, M. Pauli Veneti librum (qui de 
 Indorum rebus multa : speciatim vero de Presbytero Johanne 
 aliqua rnagnifice scripsit) Venetiis secuin in patriam detulerat, 
 qui (Chronologicis Lusitanoruni testantibus) prsecipuam Jo- 
 hanni Regi ansani dedit Indicse navigationis, quam Henricus 
 Johannis I. filius, patruus ejus, tentaverat, prosequendse, &c.
 
 54 
 
 ®l)e Piuining Hob 
 
 I T^ROM the remotest period a rod has been re- 
 -^ garded as the symbol of power and authority, 
 and Holy Scripture employs it in the popular sense. 
 Thus David speaks of " Thy rod and Thy staff' com- 
 forting me ; " and Moses works his miracles before 
 Pharaoh with the rod as emblem of Divine commis- 
 sion. It was his rod which became a serpent, which 
 turned the water of Egypt into blood, which opened 
 the waves of the Red Sea and restored them to their 
 former level, which " smote the rock of stone so that 
 the water gushed out abundantly." The rod of Aaron 
 acted an oracular part in the contest with the princes ; 
 laid up before the ark, it budded and brought forth 
 almonds. In this instance we have it no longer as 
 a symbol of authority, but as a means of divining 
 the will of God. And as such it became liable 
 to abuse ; thus Hosea rebukes the chosen people 
 for 2)ractising similar divinations. "My people ask
 
 The Divining Rod. 55 
 
 counsel at their stocks, and their staff declarcth unto 
 them." * 
 
 Long before this, Jacob had made a different use 
 of rods, employing them as a charm to make his 
 father-in-law's sheep bear pied and spotted lambs. 
 
 We find rhabdomancy a popular form of divination 
 among the Greeks, and also among the Romans. 
 Cicero in his " De Officiis" alludes to it. "If all 
 that is needful for our nourishment and support ar- 
 rives to us by means of some divine rod, as people 
 say, then each of us, free from all care and trouble, 
 may give himself up to the exclusive pursuit of 
 study and science." 
 
 Probably it is to this rod that the allusion of 
 Ennius, as the agent in discovering hidden treasures, 
 quoted in the first book of his " De Divinatione," 
 refers. 
 
 According to Vetrauius Maurus, Varro left a satire 
 on the " Virgula divina," which has not been pre- 
 served. Tacitus tells us that the Germans practised 
 some sort of divination by means of rods. " For 
 the purpose their method is simple. They cut a 
 rod off some fruit-tree into bits, and after having 
 distinguished them by various marks, they cast them 
 * Hos. iv. 12.
 
 56 The Divining Rod. 
 
 into a white cloth. ... Then the priest thrice 
 draws each piece, and explains the oracle accord- 
 ing to the marks." Ammianus Marcellinus says that 
 the Alains employed an osier rod. 
 
 The fourteenth law of the Frisons ordered that 
 the discovery of murders should be made by means 
 of divining rods used in Church. These rods should 
 be laid before the altar, and on the sacred relics, 
 after which God was to be supplicated to indicate 
 the culprit. This was called the Lot of Rods, or 
 Tan-teen, the Rod of Rods. 
 
 But the middle ages was the date of the full 
 development of the superstition, and the divining rod 
 was believed to have efficacy-' in discovering hidden 
 treasures, veins of precious metal, springs of water, 
 thefts, and murders. The first notice of its general 
 use among late writers is in the " Testamentum 
 Novum," lib. i, cap. 25, of Basil Valentine, a Ben- 
 edictine monk of the fifteenth century. Basil speaks 
 of the general fiiith in and adoption of this valuable 
 instrument for the discovery of metals, which is 
 carried by workmen in mines, either in their belts 
 or in their caps. He says that there are seven 
 names by which this rod is known, and to its ex-
 
 The Divi7iing Rod. 57 
 
 cellences under each title he devotes a chapter of 
 his book. The names arc : Divine Rod, Shining 
 Rod, Leaping Rod, Transcendent Rod, Trembling 
 Rod, Dipping Rod, Superior Rod. In his admira- 
 ble treatise on metals, Agricola speaks of the rod 
 in terms of disparagement ; he considers its use as 
 a relic of ancient magical forms, and he says that 
 it is only irreligious workmen who employ it in 
 their search after metals. Goclenius, however, in 
 his treatise on the virtue of plants, stoutly does bat- 
 tle for the properties of the hazel rod. Whereupon 
 Roberti, a Flemish Jesuit, falls upon him tooth and 
 nail, disputes his facts, overwhelms him with abuse, 
 and gibbets him for popular ridicule. Andreas Li- 
 bavius, a writer I have already quoted in my article 
 on the Wandering Jew, undertook a series of ex- 
 periments upon the hazel divining rod, and con- 
 cluded that there was truth in the popular belief. 
 The Jesuit Kircher also " experimentalized several 
 times on wooden rods which were declared to be 
 sympathetic with regard to certain metals, by placing 
 them on delicate pivots in equilibrium ; but they 
 never turned on the approach of metal." (De Arte 
 Magnetica.) However, a similar course of experi-
 
 58 The Divining Rod. 
 
 ments over water led him to attribute to the rod the 
 power of indicating subterranean springs and water- 
 courses ; " I 'would not affirm it," he says, " unless I 
 had established the fact by my own experience." 
 
 Dechales, another Jesuit, author of a treatise on 
 natural springs, and of a huge tome entitled " Mun- 
 dus Mathematicus," declared in the latter work, 
 that no means of discovering sources is equal to 
 the divining rod ; and he quotes a friend of his 
 who, with a hazel rod in his hand, could discover 
 springs with the utmost precision and facility, and 
 could trace on the surface of the ground the course 
 of a subterranean conduit. Another writer, Saint- 
 Romain, in his " Science degagee des Chimeres de 
 rficole," exclaims, " Is it not astonishing to see a rod, 
 which is held firmly in the hands, bow itself and 
 turn visibly in the direction of water or metal, with 
 more or less promptitude, according as the metal or 
 the water are near or remote from the surface ! " 
 
 In 1659 the Jesuit Gaspard Schott writes that the 
 rod is used in evei'y town of Germany, and that he 
 had frequent opportunity of seeing it used in the 
 discovery of hidden treasui-es. "I searched with the 
 greatest care," he adds, " into the question whether
 
 The Dlviniitg Rod. 59 
 
 the hazel rod had any sympathy with gold and sil- 
 ver, and whether any natural property set it in mo- 
 tion. In like manner I tried whether a ring of 
 metal, held suspended by a thread in the midst of 
 a tumbler, and which strikes the hours, is moved 
 by any similar force. I ascertained that these effects 
 could only have rise from the deception of those 
 holding the rod or the pendulum, or, may be, from 
 some diabolic impulsion, or, more likely still, be- 
 cause imagination sets the hand in motion." 
 
 The Sieur le Roj^er, a lawyer of Rouen, in 1674, 
 published his " Traite du Baton universel," in which 
 he gives an account of a trial made with the rod 
 in the presence of Father Jean Fi'an^ois, who had 
 ridiculed the operation in his treatise on the science 
 of waters, published at Rennes in 1655, and which 
 succeeded in convincing the blasphemer of the divine 
 Rod. Le Royer denies to it the power of picking 
 out criminals, which had been popularly attributed 
 to it, and as had been unhesitatingly claimed for it 
 by Debrio in his " Disquisitio Magica." 
 
 And now I am brought to the extraordinary story 
 of Jacques Aymar, which attracted the attention of 
 Europe to the marvellous properties of the divining
 
 6o The Divining Rod. 
 
 rod. I shall give the history of this man in full, as 
 such an account is rendered necessary by the muti- 
 lated versions I have seen current in English maga- 
 zine articles, which follow the lead of Mrs. Crowe, 
 who narrates the earlier portion of this impostor's 
 career, but says nothing of his expose- and downfall. 
 
 On the 5th July, 1692, at about ten o'clock in the 
 evening, a wine-seller of L3'ons and his wife were 
 assassinated in their cellar, and their money carried 
 oft". On the morrow, the officers of justice arrived, 
 and examined the premises. Beside the corpses lay 
 a large bottle wrapped in straw, and a bloody hedg- 
 ing bill, which undoubtedly had been the instrument 
 used to accomplish the murder. Not a trace of 
 those who had committed the horrible deed was to 
 be found, and the magistrates were quite at fault 
 as to the direction in which they should turn for a 
 clew to the murderer or murderers. 
 
 At this juncture a neighbor reminded the magis- 
 trates of an incident which had taken place foui 
 years previous. It was this. In 1688 a theft of 
 clothes had been made in Grenoble. In the parish 
 of Crole lived a man named Jacques Aymar, sup- 
 posed to be endowed with the faculty of using the
 
 The Divining Rod. 6l 
 
 divining rod. This man was sent for. On reacl\ing 
 the spot where the theft had been committed, his 
 rod moved in his hand. He followed the track in- 
 dicated by the rod, and it continued to rotate between 
 his fingers as long as he followed a certain direction, 
 but ceased to turn if he diverged from it in the small- 
 est degree. Guided by his rod, Aymar went from 
 street to street, till he was brought to a standstill 
 before the prison gates. These could not be opened 
 without leave of the magistrate, who hastened to wit- 
 ness the experiment. The gates were unlocked, and 
 Aymar, under the same guidance, directed his steps • 
 towards four prisoners lately incarcerated. lie or- 
 dered the four to be stood in a line, and then he 
 2:)laccd his foot on that of the first. The rod re- 
 mained immovable. He passed to the second, and 
 the rod turned at once. Before the third prisoner 
 there were no signs ; the fourth trembled, and begged 
 to be heard. He owned himself the thief, along 
 with the second, who also acknowledged the theft, 
 and mentioned the name of the receiver of the stolen 
 goods. This was a farmer in the neighborhood of 
 Grenoble. The magistrate and officers visited him 
 and demanded the articles he had obtained. The
 
 62 The Divining Rod. 
 
 farmer denied all knowledge of the theft and all par- 
 ticipation in the booty. Aymar, however, by means 
 of his rod, discovered the secreted property, and re- 
 stored it to the persons from whom it had been stolen. 
 
 On another occasion Aymar had been in quest of a 
 spring of water, when he felt his rod turn sharply in 
 his hand. On digging at the spot, expecting to dis- 
 cover an abundant source, the body of a murdered 
 woman was found in a barrel, with a rope twisted 
 round her neck. The poor creature was recognized 
 as a woman of the neighborhood who had vanished 
 four months before. Aymar went to the house which 
 the victim had inhabited, and presented his rod to 
 each member of the household. It turned upon the 
 husband of the deceased, who at once took to flight. 
 
 The magistrates of Lyons, at their wits' ends how 
 to discover the perpetrators of the double murder in 
 the wine shop, urged the Procureur du Roi to make 
 experiment of the powers of Jacques Aymar. The 
 fellow was sent for, and he boldly asserted his capa- 
 city for detecting criminals, if he were first brought to 
 the spot of the murder, so as to be put en rapport 
 with the murderers. 
 
 He was at once conducted to the scene of the out-
 
 The Divining Rod. 63 
 
 rage, with the rod in his hand. This remained sta- 
 tionary as he traversed the cellar, till he reached the 
 spot where the body of the wine seller had lain ; then 
 the stick became violently agitated, and the man's 
 pulse rose as though he were in an access of fever. 
 The same motions and symptoms manifested them- 
 selves when he reached the place where the second 
 victim had lain. 
 
 Having thus received his impression^ Aymar left 
 the cellar, and, guided by his rod, or rather by an 
 internal instinct, he ascended into the shop, and then 
 stepping into the street, he followed from one to 
 another, like a hound upon the scent, the track of the 
 murderers. It conducted him into the court of the 
 archiepiscopal palace, across it, and down to the gate 
 of the Rhone. It was now evening, and the city 
 gates being all closed, the quest of blood was relin- 
 quished for the night. 
 
 Next morning Aymar returned to the scent. Ac- 
 companied by three officers, he left the gate, and 
 descended the right bank of the Rhone. The rod 
 gave indications of there having been three involved 
 in the murder, and he pursued the traces till two of 
 them led to a gardener's cottage. Into this he en-
 
 64 The Divining Rod. 
 
 tered, and there he asserted with warmth, against the 
 asseverations of the proprietor to the contrary, that 
 the fugitives had entered his rooin, had seated them- 
 selves at his table, and had drunk wine out of one of 
 the bottles which he indicated. Aymar tested each 
 of the household with his rod, to see if they had been 
 in contact with the murderers. The rod moved over 
 the two children only, aged respectively ten and nine 
 years. These little things, on being questioned, an- 
 swered, with reluctance, that during their father's 
 absence on Sunday morning, against his express com- 
 mands, they had left the door open, and that two 
 men, whom they described, had come in suddenly 
 upon them, and had seated themselves and made 
 free with the wine in the bottle pointed out by the 
 man with the rod. This first verification of the talents 
 of Jacques Aymar convinced some of the sceptical, but 
 the Procurateur General forbade the prosecution of the 
 experiment till the man had been further tested. 
 
 As already stated, a hedging bill had been dis- 
 covered, on the scene of the murder, smeared with 
 blood, and imquestionably the weapon with which 
 the crime had been committed. Three bills from the 
 same maker, and of precisely the same description.
 
 The Divining Rod. 65 
 
 Nvere obtained, and the four were taken into a garden, 
 and secretly buried at intervals, Aymar was then 
 brought, staff' in hand, into the garden, and conducted 
 over the spots where lay the bills. The rod began to 
 vibrate as his feet stood upon the place where was 
 concealed the bill which had been used by the assas- 
 sins, but was motionless elsewhere. Still unsatisfied, 
 the four bills were exhumed and concealed anew. 
 The comptroller of the province himself bandaged 
 the . sorcerer's eyes, and led him by the hand from 
 place to place. The divining rod showed no signs 
 of movement till it approached the blood-stained 
 weapon, when it began to oscillate. 
 
 The magistrates were now so far satisfied as to 
 agree that Jacques Aymar should be authorized to 
 follow the trail of the murderers, and have a com- 
 pany of archers to follow him. 
 
 Guided by his rod, Aymar now recommenced his 
 pursuit. He continued tracing down the right bank 
 of the Rhone till he came to half a league from the 
 bridge of Lyons. Here the footprints of three men 
 were observed in the sand, as though engaged in 
 entering a boat. A rowing boat was obtained, and 
 Aymar, with his escort, descended the river ; he found 
 5
 
 66 The Divining Rod. 
 
 some difficulty in following the trail upon water ; 
 still he was able, with a little care, to detect it. It 
 brought him under an arch of the bridge of Vienne, 
 which boats rarely passed beneath. This proved that 
 the fugitives were without a guide. The way in 
 which this curious journey was made was singular. 
 At intervals Aymar was put ashore to test the banks 
 with his rod, and ascertain whether the murderers 
 had landed. He discovered the places where they 
 had slept, and indicated the chairs or benches on 
 which they had sat. In this manner, by slow degrees, 
 he arrived at the military camp of Sablon, between 
 Vienne and Saint- Valier. There Aymar felt violent 
 agitation, his cheeks flushed, and his pulse beat with 
 rapidity. He penetrated the crowds of soldiers, but 
 did not venture to use his rod, lest the men should 
 take it ill, and fall upon him. He could not do more 
 without special authority, and was constrained to re- 
 turn to Lyons. The magistrates then provided him 
 with the requisite powers, and he went back to the 
 camp. Now he declared that the murderers were not 
 there. He recommenced his pursuit, mnd descended 
 the Rhone again as far as Beaucaire. 
 ' On entering the town he ascertained by means of
 
 The Divining Rod. 67 
 
 his rod that those whom he was pursuing had parted 
 company. He traversed several streets, then crowded 
 on account of the annual fair, and was brought to a 
 standstill before the prison doors. One of the mur- 
 derers was within, he declared ; he would track the 
 others afterwards. Having obtained permission to 
 enter, he was brought into the presence of fourteen 
 or fifteen prisoners. Amongst these was a hunch- 
 back, who had only an hour pi-eviously been incar- 
 cerated on account of a theft he had committed at the 
 fair. Aymar applied his rod to each of the prisoners 
 in succession : it turned upon the hunchback. The 
 sorcerer ascertained that the other two had left the 
 town by a little path leading into the Nismes road. 
 Instead of following this track, he returned to Lyons 
 with the hunchback and the guard. At Lyons a 
 triumph awaited him. The hunchback had hitherto 
 protested his innocence, and declared that he had 
 never set foot in Lyons. But as he was brought to 
 that town by the way along which Aymar had ascer- 
 tained that he had left it, the fellow was recognized 
 at the ditlerent houses where he had lodged the night, 
 or stopped for food. At the little town of Bagnols, he 
 was confronted with the host and hostess of a tavern
 
 68 The Divining Rod. 
 
 where be and his comrades had slept, and they swore 
 to his identit}', and accurately described his compan- 
 ions : their description tallied with that given by the 
 children of the gardener. The wretched man was so 
 confounded by this recognition, that he avowed hav- 
 ing staid there, a few days before, along with two 
 Provencals. These men, he said, were the criminals ; 
 he had been their servant, and had only kept guard 
 in the upper room whilst they committed the murders 
 in the cellar. 
 
 On his arrival in Lyons he was committed to 
 prison, and his trial was decided on. At his first 
 interrogation he told his tale precisely as he had 
 related it before, with these additions : the murderers 
 spoke patois, and had purchased two bills. At ten 
 o'clock in the evening all three had entered the wine 
 shop. The Provencals had a large botde wrapped in 
 straw, and they persuaded the publican and his wife 
 to descend with them into the cellar to fill it, whilst 
 he, the hunchback, acted as watch in the shop. The 
 two men murdered the wine-seller and his wife with 
 their bills, and then mounted to the shop, where they 
 opened the coffer, and stole from it one hundred and 
 thirty crowns, eight louis-d'ors, and a silver belt.
 
 The Divining Rod. 69 
 
 The crime accomplished, they took refuge in the 
 court of a large house, — this was the archbishop's 
 palace, indicated by Aymar, — and passed the night 
 in it. Next day, early, they left Lyons, and only 
 stopped for a moment at a gardener's cottage. 
 Some way down the river, they found a boat 
 moored to the bank. This they loosed from its 
 mooring and entei'ed. They came ashore at the 
 spot pointed out by the man with the stick. They 
 staid some days in the camp at Sablon, and then 
 went on to Beaucaire. 
 
 Aymar was now sent in quest of the other mur- 
 derers. He resumed their trail at the gate of 
 Beaucaire, and that of one of them, after con- 
 siderable ditours^ led him to the prison doors of 
 Beaucaire, and he asked to be allowed to search 
 among the prisoners for his man. This time he 
 was mistaken. The second fugitive was not with- 
 in ; but the jailer affirmed that a man whom he 
 described — and his description tallied with the 
 known appearance of one of the Provencals — had 
 called at the gate shortly after the removal of the 
 hunchback to inquire after him, and on learning 
 of his removal to Lyons, had hurried oft' pre-
 
 7o The Divining Rod. 
 
 cipitately. Aymar now followed his track from 
 the prison, and this brought him to that of the 
 third criminal. He pursued the double scent for 
 some days. But it became evident that the two 
 culprits had been alarmed at what had transpired in 
 Beaucaire, and were flying from France. Aymar 
 traced them to the frontier, and then returned to 
 Lyons. 
 
 On the 30th of August, 1692, the poor hunch- 
 back was, according to sentence, broken on the 
 wheel, in the Place des Terreaux. On his way to 
 execution he had to pass the wine shop. There 
 the recorder publicly read his sentence, which had 
 been delivered by thirty judges. The criminal 
 knelt and asked pardon of the poor wretches in 
 whose murder he was involved, after which he 
 continued his course to the place fixed for his 
 execution. 
 
 It may be well here to give an account of the 
 authorities for this extraordinary story. There are 
 three circumstantial accounts, and numerous letters 
 written by the magistrate who sat during the trial, 
 and by an eye-witness of the whole transaction, 
 men honorable and disinterested, upon whose vera-
 
 The Divining Rod. ^i 
 
 city not a shadow of doubt was supposed to rest 
 by their contemporaries. 
 
 M. Chauvin, Doctor of Medicine, published a 
 " Lettre d Mme. la Marquise de Se?iozan^ stir 
 les moyens dont on s'est servi pour decouvrir les 
 complices d'un assassi7tat coffimls d Lyon., le 5 
 yulllet., 1692." Lyons, 1692. The proces-verbal 
 of the Procureur du Roi, M. de Vanini, is also 
 extant, and published in the Physique occulie of 
 the Abbe de Vallemont. 
 
 Pierre Garnier, Doctor of Medicine of the Uni- 
 versity of Montpellier, wrote a Dissertation phy- 
 sique en fo7'7ne de lettre^ a M. de Seve, seigneur 
 de J^lecheres^ on Jacques Aymar, printed the same 
 year at Lyons, and republished in the Hlstolre 
 critique des pratiques superstltleuses du Pere 
 Lebrun. 
 
 Doctor Chauvin was witness of nearly all the 
 circumstances related, as was also the Abbe 
 Lagarde, who has written a careful account of the 
 whole transaction as far as to the execution of 
 the hunchback. 
 
 Another eye-witness writes to the Abb6 Bignon 
 a letter printed by Lebrun in his Hlstolre crl-
 
 *j2 The Dlvmhzg Rod. 
 
 tique cited above. " The following circumstance 
 happened to me yesterday evening," he says : " M. 
 le Procureur du Roi here, who, by the way, is one 
 of the wisest and cleverest men in the country, 
 sent for me at six o'clock, and had me conducted 
 to the scene of the murder. We found there M. 
 Grimaut, director of the customs, whom I knew 
 to be a very upright man, and a young attorney 
 named Besson, with whom I am not acquainted, 
 but who M. le Procureur du Roi told me had the 
 power of using the rod as well as M. Grimaut. 
 We descended into the cellar where the murder 
 had been committed, and where there were still 
 traces of blood. Each time that M. Grimaut and 
 the attorney passed the spot where the murder had 
 been perpetrated, the rods they held in their hands 
 began to turn, but ceased when they stepped be- 
 yond the spot. We tried experiments for more 
 than an hour, as also with the bill, which M. 
 le Procureur had brought along with him, and 
 they were satisfactory. I observed several curious 
 facts in the attorney. The rod in his hands was 
 more violently moved than in those of M. Grimaut, 
 and when I placed one of my fingers in each of
 
 The Divining Rod. 73 
 
 his hands, whilst the rod turned, I felt the most ex- 
 traordinary throbbings of the arteries in his palms. 
 His pulse was at fever heat. He sweated profusel}-, 
 and at intervals he was compelled to go into the 
 court to obtain fresh air." 
 
 The Sieur Pauthot, Dean of the College of 
 Medicine at Lyons, gave his observations to the 
 public as well. Some of them are as follows : 
 " We began at the cellar in which the murder had 
 been committed ; into this the man with the rod 
 (Aymar) shrank from entering, because he felt 
 violent agitations which overcame him when he 
 used the stick over the place where the corpses 
 of those who had been assassinated had lain. On 
 entering the cellar, the rod was put in my hands, 
 and arranged by the master as most suitable for 
 operation ; I passed and repassed over the spot 
 where the bodies had been found, but it remained 
 immovable, and I felt no agitation. A lady of rank 
 and merit, who w^as with us, took the rod after 
 me ; she felt it begin to move, and was internally 
 agitated. Then the owner of the rod resumed it, 
 and, passing over the same places, the stick rotated 
 with such violence that it seemed easier to break
 
 74 The Divining Rod. 
 
 than to stop it. The peasant then quitted our 
 company to faint away, as was his wont after 
 similar experiments. I followed him. He turned 
 very pale and broke into a profuse perspiration, 
 whilst for a quarter of an hour his pulse was vio- 
 lently troubled ; indeed, the faintness was so con- 
 siderable, that they were obliged to dash water in 
 his face and give him water to drink in order to 
 bring him round." He then describes experiments 
 made over the bloody bill and others similar, which 
 succeeded in the hands of Aymar and the lady, but 
 failed when he attempted them himself. Pierre 
 Gamier, physician of the medical college of Mont- 
 pellier, appointed to that of Lyons, has also written 
 an account of what he saw, as mentioned above. 
 He gives a curious proof of Aymar's powers. 
 
 " M. le Lieutenant-General having been robbed 
 by one of his lackeys, seven or eight months ago, 
 and having lost by him twenty-five crowns which 
 had been taken out of one of the cabinets behind 
 his library, sent for Aymar, and asked him to 
 discover the circumstances. Aymar went several 
 times round the chamber, rod in hand, placing 
 one foot on the chairs, on the various articles of
 
 The Divining Rod. 75 
 
 furniture, and on two bureaux which are in the 
 apartment, each of which contains several drawers. 
 He fixed on tlie very bureau and the identical 
 drawer out of which the money had been stolen. 
 M. le Lieutenant-General bade him follow the 
 track of the robber. He did so. With his rod 
 he went out on a new terrace, upon which the 
 cabinet opens, thence back into the cabinet and 
 up to the fire, then into the library, and from 
 thence he went direct up stairs to the lackeys' 
 sleeping apartment, when the rod guided him to 
 one of the beds, and turned over one side of the 
 bed, remaining motionless over the other. The 
 lackeys then present cried out that the thief had 
 slept on the side indicated by the rod, the bed 
 having been shared with another footman, who 
 occupied the further side." Garnier gives a lengthy 
 account of various experiments he made along with 
 the Lieutenant-General, the uncle of the same, the 
 Abbe de St. Remain, and M. de Puget, to detect 
 whether there was imposture in the man. But all 
 their attempts failed to discover a trace of decep- 
 tion. He gives a report of a verbal examination 
 of Aymar which is interesting. The man always 
 replied with candor.
 
 76 The Divining Rod. 
 
 The report of the extraordinar}' discovery of 
 murder made by the divining I'od at Lyons at- 
 tracted the attention of Paris, and Aymar was 
 ordered up to the capital. There, hov/ever, his 
 powers left him. The Prince de Conde submitted 
 him to various tests, and he broke down under 
 every one. Five holes were dug in the garden. 
 In one was secreted gold, in another silver, in 
 a third silver and gold, in the fourth copper, and 
 in the fifth stones. The rod made no signs in 
 presence of the metals, and at last actually began 
 to move over the buried pebbles. He was sent to 
 Chantilly to discover the perpetrators of a theft of 
 trout made in the ponds of the park. He went 
 round the water, rod in hand, and it turned at spots 
 where he said the fish had been drawn out. Theiij 
 following the track of the thief, it led him to the 
 cottage of one of the keepers, but did not move 
 over any of the individuals then in the house. The 
 keeper himself was absent, but arrived late at 
 night, and, on hearing what was said, he roused 
 Aymar from his bed, insisting on having his inno- 
 cence vindicated. The divining rod, however, pro- 
 nounced him guilty, and the poor fellow took to his
 
 The Divining Rod. ^>j 
 
 heels, much upon the principle recommended by 
 Montesquieu a while after. Said he, " If you are 
 accused of having stolen the towers of Notre- 
 Dame, bolt at once." 
 
 A peasant, taken at haphazard from the street, 
 was brought to the sorcerer as one suspected. The 
 rod turned slightly, and Aymar declared that the 
 man did not steal the fish, but ate of them. A 
 boy was then introduced, who was said to be the 
 keeper's son. The I'od rotated violently at once. 
 This was the finishing stroke, and Aymar was 
 sent away by the Prince in disgrace. It now 
 transpired that the theft of fish had taken place 
 seven years before, and the lad was no relation of 
 the keeper, but a country boy who had only bc^n 
 in Chantilly eight or ten months. M. Goyonnot, 
 Recorder of the King's Council, broke a window 
 in his house, and sent for the diviner, to whom he 
 related a story of his having been robbed of valu- 
 ables during the night. Aymar indicated the 
 broken window as the means whereby the thief had 
 entered the house, and pointed out the window by 
 which he had left it with the booty. As no such 
 I'obbery had been committed, Aymar was turned
 
 78 The Divining Rod. 
 
 out of the house as an impostor. A few similar 
 cases brought him into such disrepute that he was 
 obliged to leave Paris, and return to Grenoble. 
 
 Some years after, he was made use of by the 
 Marechal Montrevel, in his cruel pursuit of the 
 Camisards. 
 
 Was Aymar an impostor from first to last, or 
 did his powers fail him in Paris? and was it only 
 then that he had recourse to fraud? 
 
 Much may be said in favor of either supposition. 
 His expose, at Paris tells heavily against him, but 
 need not be regarded as conclusive evidence of im- 
 posture throughout his career. If he really did 
 possess the powers he claimed, it is not to be sup- 
 posed that these existed in full vigor under all con- 
 ditions ; and Paris is a place most unsuitable for 
 testing them, built on artificial soil, and full of dis- 
 turbing influences of every description. It has been 
 remarked with others who used the rod, that their 
 powers languished under excitement, and that the 
 faculties had to be in repose, the attention to be 
 concentrated on the subject of inquiry, or the ac- 
 tion — nervous, magnetic, or electrical, or what you 
 will — was impeded.
 
 The Divining Rod. 79 
 
 Now, Paris, visited for the first time by a poor 
 peasant, its salons open to him, dazzling him with 
 their splendor, and the novelty of finding himself in 
 the midst of princes, dukes, marquises, and their 
 families, not only may have agitated the country- 
 man to such an extent as to depi-ive him of his 
 peculiar faculty, but may have led him into simu- 
 lating what he felt had departed from him, at the 
 moment when he was under the eyes of the gran- 
 dees of the Court. We have analogous cases in 
 Bleton and Angelique Cottin. The former was a 
 hydroscope, who fell into convulsions whenever he 
 passed over running water. This peculiarity was 
 noticed in him when a child of seven years old. 
 When brought to Paris, he failed signally to detect 
 the presence of water conveyed underground by 
 pipes and conduits, but he pretended to feel the 
 influence of water where there certainly was none. 
 Angelique Cottin was a poor girl, highly charged 
 with electricity. Any one touching her received 
 a violent shock ; one medical gentleman, having 
 seated her on his knee, was knocked clean out of 
 his chair by the electric fluid, which thus exhibited 
 its sense of propriety. But the electric condition
 
 So The Divining Rod. 
 
 of Angeliqne became feebler as she approached 
 Paris, and failed her altogether in the capital. 
 
 I believe that the imagination is the principal 
 motive force in those who use the divining rod ; 
 but whether it is so solely, I am unable to decide. 
 The powers of nature are so mysterious and in- 
 scrutable that we must be cautious in limiting 
 them, under abnormal conditions, to the ordinary 
 laws of experience. 
 
 The manner in which the rod was used by cer- 
 tain persons renders self-deception possible. The 
 rod is generally of hazel, and is forked like a Y ; 
 the forefingers are placed against the diverging 
 
 arms of the rod, and the elbows are brought back 
 against the side ; thus the implement is held in 
 front of the operator, delicately balanced before the 
 pit of the stomach at a distance of about eight 
 inches. Now, if the pressure of the balls of the 
 digits be in the least relaxed, the stalk of the rod
 
 The Divining Rod. 8i 
 
 will naturally fall. It has been assumed by some, 
 that a restoration of the pressure will bring tlie 
 stem up again, pointing towards the operator, and 
 a little further pressure will elevate it into a per- 
 pendicular position. A relaxation of force will 
 again lower it, and thus the rotation observed in 
 the rod be maintained. I confess myself unable to 
 accomplish this. The lowering of the leg of the 
 rod is easy enough, but no efforts of mine to pro- 
 duce a revolution on its axis have as yet suc- 
 ceeded. The muscles which would conti^act the 
 fingers upon the arms of the stick, pass the shoul- 
 der ; and it is worthy of remark that one of the 
 medical men who witnessed the experiments made 
 on Bleton the hydroscope, expressly alludes to a 
 slight rising of the shoulders during the rotation of 
 the divining rod. 
 
 But the manner of using the rod was by no 
 means identical in all cases. If, in all cases, it 
 had simply been balanced between the fingers, 
 some probability might be given to the sugges- 
 tion above made, that the rotation was always 
 effected by the involuntary action of the muscles. 
 
 The usual manner of holding the rod, however, 
 6
 
 82 The Divining Rod. 
 
 precluded such a possibility. The most ordinary use 
 consisted in taking a forked stick in such a manner 
 that the palms were turned upwards, and the fingers 
 closed upon the branching arms of the rod. Some 
 required the normal position of the rod to be hori- 
 zontal, others elevated the point, others again de- 
 pressed it. 
 
 If the implement were straight, it was held in a 
 similar manner, but the hands were brought some- 
 what together, so as to produce a slight arc in the 
 rod. Some who practised rhabdomancy sustained this 
 species of rod between their thumbs and forefingers ; 
 or else the thumb and forefingers were closed, and the 
 rod rested on their points ; or again it reposed on the 
 flat of the hand, or on the back, the hand being held 
 vertically and the rod held in equilibrium. 
 
 A third species of divining rod consisted in a 
 straight staff' cut in two : one extremity of the one 
 half was hollowed out, the other half was sharpened 
 at the end, and this end was inserted in the hollow, 
 and the pointed stick rotated in the cavity. 
 
 The way in which Bleton used his rod is thus 
 minutely described : " He does not grasp it, nor 
 warm it in his hands, and he does not regard with
 
 S3 
 
 POSITIOXS OF THE HANDS. 
 
 From " Lettres qui deoouvrent I'lllusion des Philosophes sur la Baguette.' 
 Paris, 1693.
 
 The Divining Rod. Z^ 
 
 preference a hazel branch lately cut and full of sap. 
 He places horizontally between his forefingers a rod 
 of any kind given to him, or picked up in the road, 
 of any sort of wood except elder, fresh or dry, not 
 always forked, but sometimes merely bent. If it is 
 straight, it rises slightly at the extremities by little 
 jerks, but does not turn. If bent, it revolves on its 
 axis with more or less rapidity, in more or less time, 
 according to the quantity and current of the water. 
 I counted from thirty to thirty-five revolutions in a 
 minute, and afterwards as many as eighty. A 
 curious phenomenon is, that Bleton is able to make 
 the rod turn between another person's fingers, even 
 without seeing it or touching it, by approaching his 
 body towards it when his feet stand over a subter- 
 ranean watercourse. It is true, however, that the 
 motion is much less strong and less durable in other 
 fingers than his own. If Bleton stood on his head, 
 and placed the rod between his feet, though he felt 
 strongly the peculiar sensations produced in him by 
 flowing water, yet the rod remained stationary. If 
 he were insulated on glass, silk, or wax, the sen- 
 sations were less vivid, and the rotation of the stick 
 ceased."
 
 86 The Divin{77g Rod. 
 
 But this experiment failed in Paris, under circum- 
 stances which either proved that Bleton's imagina- 
 tion produced the movement, or that his integrity- 
 was questionable. It is quite possible that in many- 
 instances the action of the muscles is purely invol- 
 untary, and is attributable to the imagination, so that 
 the operator deceives himself as well as others. 
 
 This is probably the explanation of the story of 
 Mdlle. Olivet, a young lady of tender conscience, who 
 was a skilful performer with the divining rod, but 
 shrank from putting her powers in operation, lest she 
 should be indulging in unlawful acts. She consulted 
 the Pere Lebrun, author of a work already referred to 
 in this paper, and he advised her to ask God to with- 
 draw the power from her, if the exercise of it was 
 harmful to her spiritual condition. She entered into 
 retreat for two days, and prayed with fervor. Then 
 she made her communion, asking God what had been 
 recommended to her at the moment when she re- 
 ceived the Host. In the afternoon of the same 
 day she made experiment with her rod, and found 
 that it would no longer operate. The girl had 
 strong faith in it before — a faith coupled with fear ; 
 and as long as that faith was strong in her, the rod
 
 The Divhting Rod. 87 
 
 moved ; now she believed that the faculty was taken 
 from her ; and the power ceased with the loss of her 
 fiiith. 
 
 If the divining rod is put in motion by any other 
 force except the involuntary action of the muscles, we 
 must confine its powers to the property of indicating 
 the presence of flowing water. There are numerous 
 instances of hydroscopes thus detecting the existence 
 of a spring, or of a subterranean watercourse ; the 
 most remarkably endowed individuals of this descrip- 
 tion are Jean-Jacques Parangue, born near Marseilles, 
 in 1760, who experienced a horror when near water 
 which no one else perceived. He was endowed with 
 the faculty of seeing water through the ground, says 
 I'Abbe Sauri, who gives his history. Jenny Leslie, a 
 Scotch girl, about the same date claimed similar 
 powers. In 1790, Pennet, a native of Dauphine, 
 attracted attention in Italy, but when carefully tested 
 by scientific men in Padua, his attempts to discover 
 buried metals foiled ; at Florence he was detected 
 in an endeavor to find out b}^ night what had been 
 secreted to test his powers on the morrow. Vin- 
 cent Amoretti was an Italian, who underwent peculiar 
 sensations when brought in proximity to water, coal,
 
 88 The Diviitmg Rod. 
 
 and salt ; he was skilful in the use of the rod, but 
 made no public exhibition of his powers. 
 
 The rod is still employed, I have heard it asserted, 
 by Cornish miners ; but I have never been able to 
 ascertain that such is really the case. The mining 
 captains whom I have questioned invariably repu- 
 diated all knowledge of its use. 
 
 In Wiltshire, however, it is still employed for the 
 purpose of detecting water ; and the following extract 
 from a letter I have just i-eceived will show that 
 it is still in vogue on the Continent : — 
 
 " I believe the use of the divining rod for dis- 
 covering springs of water has by no means been 
 confined to mediaeval times ; for I was personally 
 acquainted with a lady, now deceased, who has suc- 
 cessfully practised with it in this way. She was a 
 very clever and accomplished woman ; Scotch by birth 
 and education ; by no means credulous ; possibl}' a 
 a little imaginative, for she wrote not unsuccessfully ; 
 and of a remarkably open and straightforward dis- 
 position. Captain C , her husband, had a large 
 
 estate in Holstein, near Lubeck, supporting a consid- 
 erable population ; and whether for the wants of the 
 people or for the improvement of the land, it now
 
 The Divining Rod. 89 
 
 and then happened that an additional well was 
 needed. 
 
 " On one of these occasions a man was sent foi" 
 who made a regular profession of finding water by 
 the divining rod ; there happened to be a large paily 
 staying at the house, and the whole company turned 
 out to see the fun. The rod gave indications in the 
 usual way, and water was ultimately found at the 
 
 spot. Mrs. C , utterly sceptical, took the rod 
 
 into her own hands to make experiment, believing 
 that she would prove the man an impostor ; and she 
 said afterwards she was never more frightened in her 
 life than when it began to move, on her walking over 
 the spring. Several other gentlemen and ladies tried 
 it, but it was quite inactive in their hands. ' Well,' 
 said the host to his wife, ' we shall have no occasion 
 to send for the man again, as you are such an adept.' 
 
 " Some months after this, water was wanted in 
 another part of the estate, and it occurred to Mrs. 
 
 C that she would use the rod again. After some 
 
 trials, it again gave decided indications, and a well 
 was begun and carried down a very considerable 
 depth. At last she began to shrink from incurring 
 more expense, but the laborers had implicit faith ; and
 
 90 The Divining Rod. 
 
 begged to be allowed to persevere. Very soon the 
 wa*er burst up with such force that the men escaped 
 with difficulty ; and this proved afterwards the most 
 unftiiling spi"ing for miles round. 
 
 " You will take the above for what it is worth ; the 
 facts I have given are undoubtedly true, whatever 
 conclusions may be drawn from them. I do not pro- 
 pose that you should print my narrative, but I think 
 in these cases personal testimony, even indirect, is 
 more useful In forming one's opinion than a hundred 
 
 old volumes. I did not hear it from Mrs. C 's 
 
 own lips, but I was sufficiently acquainted with her to 
 form a very tolerable estimate of her character ; and 
 my wife, who has known her intimately from her 
 own childhood, was in her younger days often staying 
 with her for months together." 
 
 I remember having been much perplexed by read- 
 ing a series of experiments made with a pendulous 
 ring over metals, by a Mr. Mayo : he ascertained that 
 it oscillated in various dii'ections under peculiar cir- 
 cumstances, when suspended by a thread over the ball 
 of the thumb. I instituted a series of experiments, 
 and was surprised to find the ring vibrate in an unac- 
 countable manner in opposite directions over diflerent
 
 I The Divining Rod. 91 
 
 metals. On consideration, I closed my eyes whilst 
 the I'ing was oscillating over gold, and on opening 
 them I found that it had become stationary. I got a 
 friend to change the metals whilst I was blindfolded 
 — the ring no longer vibrated. I was thus enabled 
 to judge of the involuntary action of muscles, quite 
 sufficient to have deceived an eminent medical man 
 like Mr. Mayo, and to have perplexed me till I suc- 
 ceeded in solving the mystery.* 
 
 * A similar series of experiments was undertaken, as I 
 learned afterwards, by M. Chevreuil in Paris, with similar 
 results.
 
 92 
 
 ©l)c Seem 6kcpcr0 of (!5pl)cstt0. 
 
 .NE of the most picturesque myths of ancient 
 days is that which forms the subject of this 
 article. It is thus told by Jacques de Voragine, in 
 his " Legenda Aurea : " — 
 
 " The seven sleepers were natives of Ephesus. 
 The Emperor Decius, who persecuted the Christians, 
 having come to Ephesus, ordered the erection of 
 temples in the city, that all might come and sacrifice 
 before him ; and he commanded that the Christians 
 should be sought out and given their choice, either to 
 worship the idols, or to die. So great was the con- 
 sternation in the city, that the friend denounced his 
 friend, the father his son, and the son his father. 
 
 " Now there were in Ephesus seven Christians, 
 Maximian, Malchus, Marcian, Dionysius, John, Sera- 
 pion, and Constantine by name. These refused to 
 sacrifice to the idols, and remained in their houses
 
 The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. 93 
 
 praying and fasting. They were accused before 
 Decius, and they confessed themselves to be Chris- 
 tians. However, the emperor gave them a little 
 time to consider what line they would adopt. They 
 took advantage of this reprieve to disjpense their 
 goods among the poor, and then they retired, all 
 seven, to Mount Celion, where they determined to 
 conceal themselves. 
 
 "One of their number, Malchus, in the disguise 
 of a physician, went to the town to obtain victuals 
 Decius, who had been absent from Ephesus for a 
 little while, returned, and gave orders for the seven 
 to be sought. Malchus, having escaped from the 
 town, fled, full of fear, to his comrades, and told 
 them of the emperor's fury. They were much 
 alarmed ; and Malchus handed them the loaves he 
 had bought, bidding them eat, that, fortified by the 
 food, they might have courage in the time of trial. 
 They ate, and then, as they sat weeping and speak- 
 ing to one another, by the will of God they fell 
 asleep. 
 
 " The pagans sought everywhere, but could not 
 find them, and Decius was greatly irritated at their 
 escape. He had their pai-ents brought before him,
 
 94 The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. 
 
 and threatened them with death if they did not 
 reveal the place of concealment ; but they could 
 only answer that the seven young men had distrib- 
 uted their goods to the poor, and that they were 
 quite ignorant as to their whereabouts. 
 
 " Decius, thinking it possible that they might be 
 hiding in a cavern, blocked up the mouth with 
 stones, that they might perish of hunger. 
 
 " Three hundred and sixty years passed, and in 
 the thirtieth year of the reign of Theodosius, there 
 broke forth a heresy denying the resurrection of 
 the dead. . . . 
 
 " Now, it happened that an Ephesian was build- 
 ing a stable on the side of Mount Celion, and finding 
 a pile of stones handy, he took them for his edifice, 
 and thus opened the mouth of the cave. Then the 
 seven sleepers awoke, and it was to them as if they 
 had slept but a single night. They began to ask 
 Malchus what decision Decius had given concern- 
 ing them. 
 
 " ' He is going to hunt us down, so as to force 
 us to sacrifice to the idols,' was his reply. ' God 
 knows,' replied Maximian, ' we shall never do that.' 
 Then exhorting his companions, he urged Malchus
 
 The Seven Sleepers of Ephes7(s. 95 
 
 to go back to the town to buy some more bread, 
 and at the same time to obtain fresh information. 
 Malchus took five coins and left the cavern.. On 
 seeing the stones he was filled with astonishment ; 
 however, he went on towards the city ; but what 
 was his bewilderment, on approaching the gate, to 
 see over it a cross ! He went to another gate, and 
 there he beheld the same sacred sign ; and so he 
 observed it over each gate of the city. He believed 
 that he was suffering from the effects of a dream. 
 Then he entered Ephesus, rubbing his eyes, and he 
 walked to a baker's shop. He heard people using 
 our Lord's name, and he was the more perplexed. 
 ' Yesterday, no one dared pronounce the name of 
 Jesus, and now it is on every one's lips. Wonder- 
 ful ! I can hardly believe myself to be in Ephesus.' 
 He asked a passer-by the name of the city, and on 
 being told it was Ephesus, he was thunderstruck. 
 Now he entered a baker's shop, and laid down his 
 money. The baker, examining the coin, inquired 
 whether he had found a treasure, and began to 
 whisper to some others in the shop. The youth, 
 thinking that he was discovered, and that they were 
 about to conduct him to the emperor, implored tiiem
 
 96 The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. 
 
 to let him alone, offering to leave loaves and money 
 if he might only be suffered to escape. But the 
 shop-men, seizing him, said, ' Whoever you are, 
 you have found a treasure ; show us where it is, 
 that we may share it with you, and then we will 
 hide you.' Malchus was too frightened to answer. 
 So they put a rope round his neck, and drew him 
 through the streets into the market-place. The news 
 soon spread that the young man had discovered a 
 great treasure, and there was presently a vast crowd 
 about him. He stoutly protested his innocence. No 
 one recognized him, and his eyes, ranging over the 
 faces which surrounded him, could not see one which 
 he had known, or which was in the slightest degree 
 familiar to him. 
 
 " St. Martin, the bishop, and Antipater, the gov- 
 ernor, having heard of the excitement, ordered the 
 young man to be brought before them, along with 
 the bakers. 
 
 " The bishop and the governor asked hira where 
 he had found the treasure, and he replied that he 
 had found none, but that the few coins were from 
 his own purse. He was next asked whence he 
 came. He replied that he was a native of Ephesus, 
 ' if this be Ephesus.*
 
 The Seven Sleepers of Ephesiis. 97 
 
 "'Send for your relations — your parents, if they 
 live here,' ordered the governor, 
 
 " ' They live here, certainly,' replied the youth ; 
 and he mentioned their names. No such names 
 were known in the town. Then the governor ex- 
 claimed, ' How dare j-ou say that this money 
 belonged to your parents when it dates back three 
 hundred and seventy-seven years,* and is as old as 
 the beginning of the reign of Decius, and it is 
 utterly unlike our modern coinage? Do you think 
 to impose on the old men and sages of Ephesus? 
 Believe me, I shall make you suffer the severities 
 of the law till you show where you made the dis- 
 covery.' 
 
 " ' I implore you,' cried Malchus, ' in the name 
 of God, answer me a few questions, and then I 
 will answer yours. Where is the Emperor Decius 
 gone to?' 
 
 " The bishop answered, ' My son, there is no 
 emperor of that name ; he who was thus called 
 died long ago.' 
 
 " Malchus replied, ' All I hear perplexes me more 
 and more. Follow me, and I will show you my 
 
 * This calculation is sadly inaccurate.
 
 98 The Sevejt Sleepers of Ephestis. 
 
 comrades, who fled with me into a cave of Mount 
 CcHon, only yesterday, to escape the cruelty of 
 Decius. I will lead you to them.' 
 
 " The bishop turned to the governor. ' The hand 
 of God is here,' he said. Then they followed, and 
 a great crowd after them. And Malchus entered 
 first into the cavern to his companions, and the 
 bishop after him. . . . And there they saw the 
 martyrs seated in the cave, with their faces fresh 
 and blooming as roses ; so all fell down and glori- 
 fied God. The bishop and the governor sent notice 
 to Theodosius, and he hurried to Ephesus. All 
 the inhabitants met him and conducted him to the 
 cavern. As soon as the saints beheld the emperor, 
 their faces shone like the sun, and the emperor 
 gave thanks unto God, and embraced them, and 
 said, ' I see you, as though I saw the Savior restor- 
 ing Lazarus.' Maximian replied, ' Believe us ! for 
 the faith's sake, God has resuscitated us before the 
 great resurrection day, in order that you may be- 
 lieve firmly in the resurrection of the dead. For 
 as the child is in its mother's womb living and 
 not suffering, so have we lived without suffering, 
 fast asleep.' And having thus spoken, they bowed
 
 The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. 99 
 
 their heads, and their souls returned to their Maker. 
 The emperor, rising, bent over them and embraced 
 them weeping. He gave them orders for golden 
 reliquaries to be made, but that night they ap- 
 peai-ed to him in a dream, and said that hitherto 
 they had slept in the earth, and that in the earth 
 they desired to sleep on till God should raise them 
 again." 
 
 Such is the beautiful story. It seems to have 
 travelled to us from the East. Jacobus Sarugiensis, 
 a Mesopotamian bishop, in the fifth or sixth cen- 
 tury, is said to have been the first to commit it to 
 writing. Gregory of Tours (De Glor. Mart. i. 9) 
 was perhaps the first to introduce it to Europe. 
 Dionysius of Antioch (ninth century) told the story 
 in Syrian, and Photius of Constantinople repro- 
 duced it, with the remark that Mahomet had 
 adopted it into the Koran. Metaphrastus alludes 
 to it as well ; in the tenth century Eutychius in- 
 serted it in his annals of Arabia ; it is found in 
 the Coptic and the Maronite books, and several 
 early historians, as Paulus Diaconus, Nicephorus, 
 &c., have inserted it in their works.
 
 lOO The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. 
 
 A poem on the Seven Sleepers was composed 
 by a troLivere named Chardri, and is mentioned by 
 M. Fr. Michel in his " Rapports au Ministre de 
 rinstruction Public ; " a German poem on the same 
 subject, of the thirteenth century, in 935 verses, has 
 been published by M. Karajan ; and the Spanish 
 poet, Augustin Morreto, composed a . drama on it, 
 entitled " Los Siete Durmientes," which is inserted 
 in the 19th volume of the rare work, " Comedias 
 Nuevas Escogidas de los Mejores Ingenios." 
 
 Mahomet has somewhat improved on the story. 
 He has made the Sleepers prophesy his coming, 
 and he has given them a dog named Kratim, or 
 Kratimir, which sleeps with them, and which is 
 endowed with the gift of prophecy. 
 
 As a special favor this dog is to be one of the 
 ten animals to be admitted, into his paradise, the 
 others being Jonah's whale, Solomon's ant, Ish- 
 mael's ram, Abraham's calf, the Qiieen of Sheba's 
 ass, the prophet Salech's camel, Moses' ox, Belkis' 
 cuckoo, and Mahomet's ass. 
 
 It was perhaps too much for the Seven Sleepers 
 to ask, that their bodies should be left to rest in 
 earth. In ages when saintly relics were valued
 
 The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. loi 
 
 above gold and precious stones, their request was 
 sure to be shelved ; and so we find that their 
 remains were conveyed to Marseilles in a large 
 stone sarcophagus, which is still exhibited in St. 
 Victor's Church. In the Musseum Victorium at 
 Rome is a curious and ancient representation of 
 them in a cement of sulphur and plaster. Their 
 names are engraved beside them, together with 
 certain attributes. Near Constantine and John are 
 two clubs, near Maximian a knotty club, near 
 Malchus and Martinian two axes, near Serapion 
 a burning torch, and near Danesius or Dionysius 
 a great nail, such as those spoken of by Horace 
 (Lib. I, Od. 3) and St. Paulinus (Nat. 9, or Carm. 
 24) as having been used for torture. 
 
 In this group of figures, the seven are repre- 
 sented as young, without beai'ds, and indeed in an- 
 cient martyrologies they are frequently called boys. 
 
 It has been inferred from this curious plaster 
 representation, that the seven may have suffered 
 under Decius, A. D. 350, and have been buried in 
 the afore-mentioned cave ; whilst the discovery and 
 translation of their relics under Theodosius, in 479, 
 may have given rise to the fable. And this I think
 
 I02 The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. 
 
 probable enough. The story of long sleepers and 
 the number seven connected with it is ancient 
 enough, and dates from heathen mythology. 
 
 Like many another ancient myth, it was laid 
 hold of by Christian hands and baptized. 
 
 Pliny relates the story of Epimenides the epic 
 poet, who, when tending his sheep one hot day, 
 wearied and oppressed with slumber, retreated into 
 a cave, where he fell asleep. After fifty-seven years 
 he awoke, and found every thing changed. His 
 brother, whom he had left a stripling, was now a 
 hoary man. 
 
 Epimenides was reckoned one of the seven sages 
 by those who exclude Periander. He flourished in 
 the time of Solon. After his death, at the age of 
 tivo hundred and eighty-nine, he was revered as a 
 god, and honored especially by the Athenians. 
 
 This story is a version of the older legend of 
 the perpetual sleep of the shepherd Endymion, who 
 was thus preserved in unfading youth and beauty 
 by Jupiter. 
 
 According to an Arabic legend, St. George thrice 
 rose from his grave, and was thrice slain. 
 
 In Scandinavian mythology we have Siegfrid or
 
 The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. 103 
 
 Sigurd thus resting, and awaiting his call to come 
 forth and fight. Charlemagne sleeps in the Oden- 
 berg in Hess, or in the Untersberg near Salzburg, 
 seated on his throne, with his crown on his head 
 and his sword at his side, waiting till the times 
 of Antichrist are fulfilled, when he will wake and 
 burst" forth to avenge the blood of the saints. Ogier 
 the Dane, or Olger Dansk, will in like manner 
 shake ofl:^ his slumber and come forth from the 
 dream-land of Avallon to avenge the right — O 
 that he had shown himself in the Schleswig- 
 Holstein war ! 
 
 Well do I remember, as a child, contemplating 
 with wondering awe the great Kyffhauserberg in 
 Thuringia, for therein, I was told, slept Frederic 
 Barbarossa and his six knights. A shepherd once 
 penetrated into the heart of the mountain by a 
 cave, and discovered therein a hall whei^e sat the 
 emperor at a stone table, and his red beard had 
 grown through the slab. At the tread of the 
 shepherd Frederic awoke from his slumber, and 
 asked, " Do the ravens still fly over the moun- 
 ^ .ins ? " 
 
 "Sire, they do."
 
 I04 The Seven Sleepers of Ephestis. 
 
 " Then we must sleep another hundred years." 
 
 But when his beard has wound itself thrice 
 round the table, then will the emperor awake 
 with his knights, and rush forth to release Ger- 
 many from its bondage, and exalt it to the first 
 place among the kingdoms of Europe. 
 
 In Switzerland slumber three Tells at Rutli, near 
 the Vierwaldstatter-see, waiting for the hour of 
 their country's direst need. A shepherd crept into 
 the cave where they rest. The third Tell rose 
 and asked the time. " Noon," replied the shepherd 
 lad. " The time is not yet come," said Tell, and 
 lay down again. 
 
 In Scotland, beneath the Eilden hills, sleeps 
 Thomas of Erceldoune ; the murdered French who 
 fell in the Sicilian Vespers at Palermo are also 
 slumbering till the time is come when they may 
 wake to avenge themselves. When Constantinople 
 fell into the hands of the Turks, a priest was 
 celebrating the sacred mysteries at the great silver 
 altar of St. Sophia. The celebrant cried to God to 
 protect the sacred host from profanation. Then the 
 wall opened, and he entered, bearing the Blessed 
 Sacrament. It closed on him, and there he is
 
 The Seven Sleepers of EpJiesus. 105 
 
 sleeping with his head bowed before the Body of 
 Our Lord, waiting till the Turk is cast out of 
 Constantinople, and St. Sophia is released from 
 its profonation. God speed the time ! 
 
 In Bohemia sleep three miners deep in the heart 
 of the Kuttenberg. In North America Rip Van 
 Winkle passed twenty years slumbering in the 
 Katskill mountains. In Portugal it is believed 
 that Sebastian, the chivalrous young monarch who 
 did his best to ruin his country by his rash inva- 
 sion of Morocco, is sleeping somewhere ; but he 
 will wake again to be his country's deliverer in the 
 hour of need. Olaf Tryggvason is waiting a simi- 
 lar occasion in Norway. Even Napoleon Bonaparte 
 is believed among some of the French peasantry 
 to be sleeping on in a like manner. 
 
 St. Hippolytus relates that St. John the Divine 
 is slumbering at Ephesus, and Sir John Mande- 
 ville relates the circumstances as follows : " From 
 Pathmos men gone unto Ephesim a fair citee and 
 nyghe to the see. And there dyede Seynte Johne, 
 and was buryed behynde the highe Awtiere, in 
 a toumbe. And there is a faire chirche. For 
 Christene mene weren wont to holden that place
 
 io6 The Seven Sleepers of Efhesus. 
 
 alweyes. And in the tombe of Seynt John is 
 noughte but manna, that is clept Aungelcs n:icte. 
 For his body was translated into Paradys. And 
 Turkes holden now alio that pL'ice and the citce 
 and the Chirche. And all Asie the lesse is yclept 
 Turkye. And ye shalle undrestond, that Scynt 
 Johne bid make his grave there in his Lyf, and 
 leyd himself there-inne all quyk. And therefore 
 somme men seyn, that he dyed noughte, but that 
 he resteth there till the Day of Doom. And for- 
 soothe there is a gret marveule : For men may see 
 there the erthe of the tombe apertly many tymes 
 steren and moven, as there weren quykke thinges 
 undre." The connection of this legend of St. John 
 with Ephesus may have had something to do with 
 turning the seven martyrs of that city into seven 
 sleepers. 
 
 The annals of Iceland relate that, in 1403, a Finn 
 of the name of Fethmingr, living in Halogaland, in 
 the North of Norway, happening to enter a cave, 
 fell asleep, and woke not for three whole years, 
 lying with his bow and arrows at his side, un- 
 touched by bird or beast. 
 
 There certainly are authentic accounts of persons
 
 The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. 107 
 
 having slept for an extraordinary length of time, 
 but I shall not mention any, as I believe the legend 
 we are considering, not to have been an exaggera- 
 tion of facts, but a Christianized myth of paganism. 
 The fact of the number seven being so prominent 
 in many of the tales, seems to lead to this con- 
 clusion. Barbarossa changes his position every 
 seven years. Charlemagne starts in his chair at 
 similar intervals. Olger Dansk stamps his iron 
 mace on the floor once every seven years. Olaf 
 Redbeard in Sweden uncloses his eyes at precisely 
 the same distances of time. 
 
 I believe that the mythological core of this pic- 
 turesque legend is the repose of the earth through 
 the seven winter months. In the North, Frederic 
 and Charlemagne certainly replace Odin. 
 
 The German and Scandinavian still heathen le- 
 gends represent the heroes as about to issue forth 
 for the defence of Fatherland in the hour of direst 
 need. The converted and Christianized tale brings 
 the -martyr youths forth in the hour when a heresy 
 is afflicting the Church, that they may destroy the 
 heresy by their witness to the truth of the Resur- 
 rection.
 
 io8 The Seven Sleeper's of Ephesus. 
 
 If there is something majestic in the heathen 
 myth, there are singular grace and beautj'^ in the 
 Christian tale, teaching, as it docs, such a glorious 
 doctrine ; but it is surpassed in delicacy by the 
 modern form which the same myth has assumed — 
 a form which is a real transformation, leaving the 
 doctrine taught the same. It has been made into 
 a romance by Ploffman, and is versified by Trinius. 
 I may perhaps be allowed to translate with some 
 freedom the poem of the latter : — 
 
 In an ancient shaft of Falun 
 
 Year by year a body lay, 
 God-preserved, as though a treasure, 
 
 Kept unto the waking day. 
 
 Not the turmoil, nor the passions, 
 
 Of the busy world o'erhead, 
 Sounds of war, or peace rejoicings, 
 
 Could disturb the placid dead. 
 
 Once a youthful miner, whistling, 
 Hewed the chamber, now his tomb : 
 
 Crash ! the rocky fragments tumbled. 
 Closed him in abysmal gloom. 
 
 Sixty years passed bj-, ere miners 
 Toiling, hundred fathoms deep, 
 
 Broke upon the shaft where rested 
 That poor miner in his sleep.
 
 The Seven Sleepers oj" Ephesus. 109 
 
 As the gold-grains lie untarnished 
 
 In the dingy soil and sand, 
 Till they gleam and flicker, stainless, 
 
 In the digger's sifting hand ; — 
 
 As the gem in virgin brilliance 
 
 Rests, till ushered into day; — 
 So uninjured, uncorrupted, 
 
 Fresh and fair the body lay. 
 
 And the miners bore it upward, 
 
 Laid it in the yellow sun ; 
 Up, from out the neighboring houses, 
 
 Fast the curious peasants run. 
 
 "Who is he.'"' with eyes they question; 
 
 "Who is he.-*" thej- ask aloud; 
 Hush ! a wizened hag comes hobbling, 
 
 Panting, through the wondering crowd. 
 
 O! the cry, — half joy, half sorrow, — 
 
 As she flings her at his side : 
 "John! the sweetheart of my girlhood, 
 
 Here am I, am I, thy bride. 
 
 " Time on thee has left no traces, 
 Death from wear has shielded thee ; 
 
 I am ag6d, worn, and wasted, 
 O ! what life has done to me ! " 
 
 Then his smooth, unfurrowed forehead 
 Kissed that ancient withered crone; 
 
 And the Death which had divided 
 Now united them in one.
 
 no 
 
 lllilllam ML 
 
 I SUPPOSE that most people regard William 
 Tell, the hero of Switzerland, as an historical 
 character, and visit the scenes made memorable by 
 his exploits, with corresponding interest, when they 
 undertake the regular Swiss round. 
 
 It is one of the painful duties of the antiquarian 
 to dispel many a popular belief, and to pi-obe the 
 groundlessness of many an historical statement. The 
 antiquarian is sometimes disposed to ask with Pi- 
 late, "What is truth?" when he finds historical 
 facts crumbling beneath his touch into mythological 
 fables ; and he soon learns to doubt and question 
 the most emphatic declarations of, and claims to, 
 reliability. 
 
 Sir Walter Raleigh, in his prison, was composing 
 the second volume of his History of the World. 
 Leaning on the sill of his window, he meditated 
 on the duties of the historian to mankind, when
 
 William Tell. iii 
 
 suddenly his attention was attracted by a disturb- 
 ance in the court-yard before his cell. He saw 
 one man strike another whom he supposed by his 
 dress to be an officer ; the latter at once drew his 
 sword, and ran the former through the body. The 
 wounded man felled his adversary with a stick, 
 and then sank upon the pavement. At this junc- 
 ture the guard came up, and carried off the officer 
 insensible, and then the corpse of the man who 
 had been run through. 
 
 Next day Raleigh was visited by an intimate 
 friend, to whom he related the circumstances of 
 the quarrel and its issue. To his astonishment, 
 his friend unhesitatingly declared that the prisoner 
 had mistaken the whole series of incidents which 
 had passed before his eyes. 
 
 The supposed officer was not an officer at all, 
 but the servant of a foreign ambassador ; it was he 
 who had dealt the first blow ; he had not drawn 
 his sword, but the other had snatched it from his 
 side, and had run him through the body before 
 any one could interfere ; whereupon a stranger 
 from among the crowd knocked the murderer 
 down with his stick, and some of the foreigners
 
 112 Willia77i Tell. 
 
 belonging to the ambassador's retinue carried off 
 the corpse. The friend of Raleigh added that 
 government had ordered the arrest and immediate 
 trial of the murderer, as the man assassinated was 
 one of the principal servants of the Spanish am- 
 bassador. 
 
 " Excuse me," said Raleigh, " but I cannot have 
 been deceived as you suppose, for I was eye-wit- 
 ness to the events which took place under my 
 own window, and the man fell there on that spot 
 where you see a paving-stone standing up above 
 the rest." 
 
 " My dear Raleigh," replied his friend, " I was 
 sitting on that stone when the fray took place, and 
 I received this slight scratch on my cheek in 
 snatching the sword from the murderer ; and upon 
 my word of honor, you have been deceived upon 
 every particular." 
 
 Sir Walter, when alone, took up the second 
 volume of his Flistory, which was in MS., and 
 contemplating it, thought — "If I cannot believe 
 my own eyes, how can I be assured of the truth 
 of a tithe of the events which happened ages be-
 
 William Tell. in. 
 
 fore I was born ? " and he flung the manuscript 
 into the fire.* 
 
 Now, I think that I can show that the story of 
 William Tell is as fabulous as — what shall I say? 
 any other historical event. 
 
 It is almost too well known to need repetition. 
 
 In the year 1307, Gessler, Vogt of the Emperor 
 Albert of Hapsburg, set a hat on a pole, as sym- 
 bol of imperial power, and ordered every one who 
 passed by to do obeisance towards it. A moun- 
 taineer of the name of Tell boldly ti^aversed the 
 space before it without saluting the abhorred sym- 
 bol. By Gessler's command he was at once seized 
 and brought before him. As Tell was known to 
 be an expert archer, he was ordered, by way of 
 punishment, to shoot an apple oft' the head of his 
 own son. Finding remonstrance vain, he submit- 
 ted. The apple was placed on the child's head, 
 Tell bent his bow, the arrow sped, and apple and 
 arrow fell together to the ground. But the Vogt no- 
 ticed that Tell, before shooting, had stuck another 
 arrow into his belt, and he inquired the reason. 
 
 * This anecdote is taken from the Journal de Paris, May, 
 1787; but whence did the Journal obtain it.'' 
 
 8
 
 114 , WilUam Tell. 
 
 "It was for you," replied the sturdy archer. 
 " Had I shot my child, know that it would not 
 have missed your heart." 
 
 This event, observe, took place in the beginning 
 of the fourteenth century. But Suxo Grammaticus, 
 a Danish writer of the twelfth century, tells tlie 
 story of a hero of his own country,, who lived in 
 the tenth century. He relates the incident in horri- 
 ble style as follows : — 
 
 " Nor ought what follows to be enveloped in 
 silence. Toki, who had for some time been in the 
 king's service, had, by his deeds, surpassing those 
 of his comrades, made enemies of his virtues. One 
 day, when he had drunk too much, he boasted to 
 those who sat at table with him, that his skill in 
 archery was such, that with the first shot of an 
 arrow he could hit the smallest apple set on the 
 top of a stick at a considerable distance. His de- 
 tractors, hearing this, lost no time in conveying 
 what he had said to the king (Harald Bluetooth). 
 But the wickedness of this monarch soon trans- 
 formed the confidence of the father to the jeopardy 
 of the son, for he ordered the dearest pledge of his 
 life to stand in place of the stick, from whom, if
 
 William Tell. 115 
 
 the utterer of the boast did not at his first shot 
 strike down the apple, he should with his head 
 pay the penalty of having made an idle boast. The 
 command of the king urged the soldier to do this, 
 which was so much more than he had underta- 
 ken, the detracting artifices of the others having 
 taken advantage of words spoken when he was 
 hardly sober. As soon as the boy was led forth, 
 Toki carefully admonished him to receive the 
 whir of the arrow as calmly as possible, with at- 
 tentive ears, and without moving his head, lest 
 by a slight motion of the body he should frustrate 
 the experience of his well-tried skill. He also 
 made him stand with his back towards him, lest 
 he should be frightened at the sight of the arrow. 
 Then he drew three arrows from his quiver, and 
 the very first he shot struck the proposed mark. 
 Toki being asked by the king why he had taken 
 so many more arrows out of his quiver, when he 
 was to make but one trial with his bow, ' That I 
 might avenge on thee,' he replied, 'the error of the 
 first, by the points of the others, lest my innocence 
 might happen to be afflicted, and thy injustice go 
 unpunished.' "
 
 Ii6 Williajn Tell. 
 
 The same incident is told of Egil, brother of tho 
 mythical Velundr, in the Saga of Thidrik. 
 
 In Norwegian history also it appears with varia- 
 tions again and again. It is told of King Ohif tho 
 Saint (d. 1030)-, that, desiring the conversion of a 
 brave heathen named Eindridi, he competed with 
 him in various athletic sports ; he swam with 
 him, wrestled, and then shot with him. The king 
 dared Eindridi to strike a writing-tablet from off 
 his son's head with an arrow. Eindridi prepared 
 to attempt the difficult shot. The king bade two 
 men bind the eyes of the child and hold the 
 napkin, so that he might not move when he heard 
 the whistle of the arrow. The king aimed first, 
 and the arrow grazed the lad's head. Eindridi 
 then prepared to shoot ; but the mother of the boy 
 interfered, and persuaded the king to abandon this 
 dangerous test of skill. In this version, also, Ein- 
 <lridi is prepared to revenge himself on the king, 
 should the child be injured. 
 
 But a closer approximation still to the Tell myth 
 is found in the life of Hemingr, another Norse 
 archer, who was challenged by King Harald, 
 Sigurd's son (d. 1066). The story is thus told: —
 
 William Tell. 117 
 
 " The island was densely overgrown with wood, 
 and the people went into the forest. The king 
 took a spear and set it with its point in the soil, 
 then he laid an arrow on the string and shot up 
 into the air. The arrow turned in the air and 
 came down upon Ihe spear-shaft and stood up in 
 it. Hemingr took another arrow and shot up ; his 
 was lost to sight for some while, but it came back 
 and pierced the nick of the king's arrow. . . . 
 Then the king took a knife and stuck it into an 
 oak ; he next drew his bow 'and planted an arrow 
 in the haft of the knife. Thereupon Hemingr took 
 his arrows. The king stood by him and said, 
 ' They are all inlaid with gold ; you are a capital 
 workman.' Hemingr answered, •• They are not my 
 manufacture, but are presents.' He shot, and his 
 arrow cleft the haft, and the point entered the 
 socket of the blade. 
 
 " ' We must have a keener contest,' said the 
 king, taking an arrow and flushing with anger ; 
 then he laid the arrow on the string and drew his 
 bow to the farthest, so that the horns were nearly 
 brought to meet. Away flashed the arrow, and 
 pierced a tender twig. All said that this was a
 
 Ii8 William Tell, 
 
 most astonishing feat of dexterity. But Hemingr 
 shot from a greater distance, and split a hazel nut. 
 All were astonished to see this. Then said the king, 
 ' Take a nut and set it on the head of your brother 
 Bjorn, and aim it at from precisely the same distance. 
 If you miss the mark, then your life goes.' 
 
 " Hemingr answered, ' Sire, my life is at your 
 disposal, but I will not adventure that shot.' ' Then 
 out spake Bjorn — 'Shoot, brother, rather than die 
 yourself.' Hemingr said, ' Have you the pluck to 
 stand quite still without shrinking?' ' I will do my 
 best,' said Bjorn. ' Then let the king stand b}^,' said 
 Hemingr, ' and let him see whether I touch the nut.' 
 
 " The king agreed, and bade Oddr Ufeigs' son 
 stand by Bjorn, and see that the shot was fair. 
 Hemingr then went to the spot fixed for him by 
 the king, and signed himself with the cross, saying, 
 ' God be my witness that I had rather die myself 
 than injure my brother Bjorn ; let all the blame rest 
 on King Harald.' 
 
 " Then Hemingr flung his spear. The spear went 
 straight to the mark, and passed between the nut and 
 the crdwn of the lad, who was not in the least jnjared. 
 It flew farther, and stopped not till it fell.
 
 William Tell. 119 
 
 " Then the king came up and asked Oddr what he 
 thought about the shot." 
 
 Years after, this risk was revenged upon the hard- 
 hearted monarch. In the battle of Stamfordbridge 
 an arrow from a skilled archer penetrated the wind- 
 pipe of the king, and it is supposed to have sped, 
 observes the Saga writer, from the bow of Hemingr, 
 then in the service of the English monarch. 
 
 The story is related somewhat diflerently in the 
 Faroe Isles, and is told of Geyti, Aslak's son. The 
 same Harald asks his men if they know who is his 
 match in strength. "Yes," they reply; "there is a 
 peasant's son in the uplands, Geyti, son of Aslak, who 
 is the strongest of men." Forth goes the king, and at 
 last rides up to the house of Aslak. " And where is 
 your youngest son ? " 
 
 " Alas ! alas ! he lies under the green sod of Kolrin 
 kirkgarth." Come, then, and show me his corpse, 
 old man, that I may judge whether he was as stout 
 of limb as men say." 
 
 The father puts the king off with the excuse that 
 among so many dead it would be hard to find his 
 boy. So the king rides away over the heath. He 
 meets a stately man returning from the chase, with
 
 t20 Willia7}i Tell. 
 
 a bow over his shoulder. "And v/ho art thou, 
 friend?" " Geyti, Aslak's son." The dead man, 
 in short, alive and well. The king tells him he has 
 heard of his prowess, and is come to match his 
 strength with him. So Geyti and the king try a 
 swimming-match. 
 
 The king swims well ; but Geyti swims better, and 
 in the end gives the monarch such a ducking, that he 
 is borne to his house devoid of sense and motion. 
 Harald swallows his anger, as he had swallowed the 
 water, and bids Geyti shoot a hazel nut from oft' his 
 brother's head. Aslak's son consents, and invites the 
 king into the forest to witness his dexterity. 
 
 " On the string the shaft he laid, 
 And* God hath heard his prayer; 
 He shot the little nut away, 
 Nor hurt the lad a hair." 
 
 Next day the king sends for the skilful bowman : — 
 
 "List thee, Geyti, Aslak's son, 
 And truly tell to me, 
 Wherefore hadst thou arrows twain 
 In the wood yestreen with theef " 
 
 The bowman replies, —
 
 William Tell. 121 
 
 " Therefore had I arrows twain 
 Yestreen in the wood with me, 
 Had I but hurt mv brother dear, 
 The other had pierced thee." 
 
 A very similar tale is told also in the celebrated 
 Malleus Maleficaruin of a man named Puncher, with 
 this diflercnce, that a coin is placed on the lad's head 
 instead of an apple or a nut. The person who had 
 dared Puncher to the test of skill, inquires the use 
 of the second arrow in his belt, and receives the usual 
 answer, that if the first arrow had missed the coin, 
 the second would have transfixed a certain heart 
 which was destitute of natural feeling. 
 
 We have, moreover, our English version of the 
 same story in the venerable ballad of William of 
 Cloudsley. 
 
 The Finn ethnologist Castren obtained the follow- 
 ing tale in the Finnish village of Uhtuwa : — 
 
 A fight took place between some freebooters and 
 the inhabitants of the village of Alajawi. The rob- 
 bers plundered every house, and carried ofi' amongst 
 their captives an old man. As they proceeded with 
 their spoils along the strand of the lake, a lad of 
 twelve years old appeared from among the reeds on
 
 122 William Tell. 
 
 the opposite bank, armed with a bow, and amply 
 provided with arrows; he threatened to shoot down 
 the captors unless the old man, his father, were re- 
 stored to him. The robbers mockingly replied that 
 the aged man would be given to him if he could shoot 
 an apple ofi' his head. The boy accepted the chal- 
 lenge, and on successfully accomplishing it, the sur- 
 render of the venerable captive was made. 
 
 Farid-Uddin Attar was a Persian dealer in per- 
 fumes, born in the year 1119. He one day was so 
 impressed with the sight of a dervish, that he sold his 
 possessions, and followed righteousness. He com- 
 posed the poem Mantic Uttair, or the language of 
 birds. Observe, the Persian Attar lived at the same 
 time as the Danish Saxo, and long before the birth 
 of Tell. Curiously enough, we find a trace of the 
 Tell myth in the pages of his poem. According to 
 him, however, the king shoots the apple from the 
 head of a beloved page, and the lad dies from sheer 
 fright, though the arrow does not even graze his 
 skin. 
 
 The coincidence of finding so many versions of the 
 same story scattered through countries as remote as 
 Persia and Iceland, Switzerland and Denmark, proves,
 
 William Tell. 123 
 
 I think, that it can in no way be regarded as history, 
 but is rather one of the numerous household myths 
 common to the vvliole stock of Aryan nations. Prob- 
 ably, some one more acquainted with Sansls:rit litera- 
 ture than myself, and with better access to its unpub- 
 lished stores of fable and legend, will some day light 
 on an early Indian tale corresponding to that so 
 prevalent among other branches of the same family. 
 The coincidence of the Tell myth being discovered 
 among the Finns is attributable to Russian or Swedish 
 influence. I do not regard it as a primeval Turanian, 
 but as an Aryan story, which, like an erratic block, 
 is found deposited on foreign soil far from the moun- 
 tain whence it was torn. 
 
 German mythologists, I suppose, consider the myth 
 to represent the manifestation of some natural phe- 
 nomena, and the individuals of the story to be imper- 
 sonifications of natural forces. Most primeval stories 
 were thus constructed, and their origin is traceable 
 enough. In Tliorn-rose, for instance, who can fail 
 to see the earth goddess represented by the sleeping 
 beauty in her long winter slumber, only returning to 
 life when kissed bj- the golden-haired sun-god Phoe- 
 bus or Baldur? But the Tell myth has not its sig-
 
 124 William Tell. 
 
 nification thus painted on the surface ; and those who 
 suppose Gessler or Harald to be the power of evil 
 and darkness, — the bold archer to be the storm-cloud 
 with his arrow of lightning and his iris bow, bent 
 against the sun, which is resting like a coin or a 
 golden apple on the edge of the horizon, are over- 
 straining their theories, and exacting too much frorr. 
 our credulity. 
 
 In these pages and elsew^here I have shown how 
 some of the ancient myths related by the whole 
 Aryan family of nations are reducible to allegori- 
 cal explanations of certain well-known natural phe- 
 nomena ; but I must protest against the manner in 
 which our German friends fasten rapaciously upon 
 every atom of history, sacred and profane, and de- 
 monstrate all heroes to represent the sun ; all villains 
 to be the demons of night or winter ; all sticks and 
 spears and arrows to be the lightning ; all cows 
 and sheep and dragons and swans to be clouds. 
 
 In a work on the superstition of Werewolves, I 
 have entered into this subject with some fulness, 
 and am quite prepared to admit the premises upon 
 which mythologists construct their theories ; at the 
 same time I am not disposed to run to the extrava-
 
 Williajn Tell. 
 
 125 
 
 gant lengths reached by some of the most enthusiastic 
 German schohxrs. A wholesome warning to these 
 gentlemen was given some years ago by an ingenious 
 French ecclesiastic, who wrote the following argu- 
 ment to prove that Napoleon Bonaparte was a myth- 
 ological character. Archbishop Whately's "• Historic 
 Doubts " was grounded on a totally different line of 
 argument ; I subjoin the other, as a curiosity and as 
 a caution. 
 
 Napoleon is, says the writer, an impersonification 
 of the sun. 
 
 I. Between the name Napoleon and Apollo, or 
 Apoleon, the god of the sun, there is but a trifling 
 diflerence ; indeed, the seeming difference is lessened, 
 if we take the spelling of his name from the column 
 of the Place Vendome, where it stands Neapoleo. 
 But this syllable Ne prefixed to the name of the sun- 
 god is of importance ; like the rest of the name it is 
 of Greek origin, and is »'/ or *'««, a particle of affirma- 
 tion, as though indicating Napoleon as the very true 
 Apollo, or sun. 
 
 Plis other name, Bonaparte, makes this apparent 
 connection between the French hero and the lumi- 
 nary of the firmament conclusively certain. The day
 
 126 William Tell. 
 
 has its two parts, the good and lumyious portion, and 
 that which is bad and dark. To the sun belongs the 
 good part, to the moon and stars belongs the bad 
 portion. It is therefore natural that Apollo or Nc- 
 Apoledn should receive the surname of Bonaparte. 
 
 2. Apollo was born in Delos, a Mediterranean 
 island ; Napoleon in Corsica, an island in the same 
 sea. According to Pausanias, Apollo was an Egyp- 
 tian deity ; and in the mythological history of the 
 fabulous Napoleon we find the hero in Egypt, re- 
 garded by the inhabitants with veneration, and 
 receiving their homage. 
 
 3. The mother of Napoleon was said to be Letitia, 
 which signifies joy, and is an impersonification of 
 the dawn of light dispensing joy and gladness to all 
 creation. Letitia is no other than the break of day, 
 which in a manner brings the sun into the world, and 
 " with rosy fingers opes the gates of Day." It is sig- 
 nificant that the Greek name for the mother of Apollo 
 was Leto. From this the Romans made the name 
 J^atona, which they gave to his mother. But Lceto is 
 the unused form of the verb Icetor^ and signified to 
 inspire joy ; it is from this unused form that the sub- 
 stantive Letitia is derived. The identity, then, of
 
 William Tell. 127 
 
 the motliei- of Napoleon with the Greek I. etc and the 
 Latin Latona, is estabhshed conclusively. 
 
 4. According to the popular story, this son of 
 Letitia had three sisters ; and was it not the same 
 with the Greek deity, who had the three Graces? 
 
 5. The modern Gallic Apollo had four brothers. 
 It is impossible not to discern here the anthropomor- 
 phosis of the four seasons. But, it will be objected, 
 the seasons should be females. Here the French 
 language interposes ; for in French the seasons are 
 masculine, with the exception of autumn, upon the 
 gender of which grammarians are undecided, whilst 
 Autumnus in Latin is not more feminine than the 
 other seasons. This difficulty is therefore trifling, 
 and what follows removes all shadow of doubt. 
 
 Of the four brothers of Napoleon, three are said 
 to have been kings, and these of course are, Spring 
 reigning over the flowers. Summer reigning over the 
 harvest. Autumn holding sway over the fruits. And 
 as these three seasons owe all to the powerful in- 
 fluence of the Sun, we are told in the popular myth 
 that the three brothers of Napoleon drew their 
 authoiity from him, and received from him their 
 kingdoms. But if it be added that, of the four
 
 128 William Tell. 
 
 brothers of Napoleon, one was not a king, that was 
 because he is the impersonification of Winter, which 
 has no reign over anything. If, however, it be as- 
 serted, in contradiction, that the winter has an em- 
 pire, he will be given the principality over snows 
 and frosts, which, in the dreary season of the year, 
 whiten the face of the earth. Well, the fourth 
 brother of Napoleon is thus invested by popular 
 tradition, commonly called history, with a vain prin- 
 cipality accorded to him in the decline of the power 
 of Napoleon. The principality was that of Canino, 
 a name derived from cani^ or the whitened hairs of 
 a frozen old age, — true emblem of winter. To the 
 eyes of poets, the forests covering the hills are their 
 hair, and when winter frosts them, they rejoresent 
 the snowy locks of a decrepit nature in the old age 
 of the year : — 
 
 " Cum gelidus crescit canis in montibus humor." 
 
 Consequently the Prince of Canino is an impersoni- 
 fication of winter ; — winter whose reign begins 
 when the kingdoms of the three fine seasons are 
 passed from them, and when the sun is driven from 
 his power by the children of the North, as the poets 
 call the boreal winds. This is the origfin of the fabu-
 
 William Tell. 129 
 
 lous invasion of France by tlie allied armies of the 
 North. The story relates that these invaders — the 
 northern gales — banished the many-colored flag, and 
 replaced it by a white standard. This too is a grace- 
 ful, but, at the same time, purely fabulous account 
 of the Northern winds driving all the brilliant colors 
 from the face of the soil, to replace them by the 
 snowy sheet. 
 
 6. Napoleon is said to have had two wives. It is 
 well known that the classic fable gave two also to 
 Apollo. These two were the moon and the earth. 
 Plutarch asserts that the Greeks gave the moon to 
 Apollo for wife, whilst the Egyptians attributed to 
 him the earth. By the moon he had no posterity, 
 but by the other he had one son only, the little 
 Horus. This is an Egyptian allegory, representing 
 the fruits of agriculture produced by the earth fer- 
 tilized by the Sun. The pretended son of the fabu- 
 lous Napoleon is said to have been born on the 20th 
 of March, the season of the spring equinox, when 
 agriculture is assuming its greatest period of activity. 
 
 7. Napoleon is said to have released France from 
 the devastating scourge which terrorized over the 
 country, the hydra of the revolution, as it was pop- 
 
 9
 
 130 William Tell. 
 
 ularly called. Who cannot see in this a Gallic ver- 
 sion of the Greek legend of Apollo releasing Hellas 
 from the terrible Python? The very name revolu' 
 tion^ derived from the Latin verb rcvolvo^ is indica- 
 tive of the coils of a serpent like the Python. 
 
 8. The fiamous hero of the 19th century had, it is 
 asserted, twelve Marshals at the head of his armies, 
 and four who were stationary and inactive. The ' 
 twelve first, as may be seen at once, are the signs 
 
 of the zodiac, marching under the orders of the sun 
 Napoleon, and each commanding a division of the 
 innumerable host of stars, which are parted into 
 twelve portions, corresponding to the twelve signs. 
 As for the four stationary officers, immovable in the 
 midst of general motion, they are the cardinal points. 
 
 9. It is currently reported that the chief of these 
 brilliant armies, after having gloriously traversed the 
 Southern kingdoms, penetrated North, and was there 
 unable to maintain his sway. This too represents 
 the course of the Sun, which assumes its greatest 
 power in the South, but after tlie spring equinox 
 seeks to reacli the North ; and after a three months^ 
 march towards the boreal regions, is driven back 
 upon his traces following the sign of Cancer, a sign
 
 William Tell. 131 
 
 given to represent the retrogression of the sim in that 
 portion of the sphere. It is on this that the story of 
 the march of Napoleon towards Moscow, and his 
 humbhng retreat, is founded. 
 
 10. Finally, the sun rises in the East and sets in 
 the Western sea. The poets picture him rising out 
 of the waters in the East, and setting in the ocean 
 after his twelve hours' reign in the sky. Such is 
 the history of Napoleon, coming from his Mediter- 
 ranean isle, holding the reins of government for 
 twelve years, and finally disappearing in the myste- 
 rious regions of the great Atlantic. 
 
 To those who see in Samson, the image of the 
 sun, the correlative of the classic Hercules, this 
 clever skit of the accomplished French Abb6 may 
 prove of value as a caution.
 
 13a 
 
 ^l)e P03 (f^clUrt. 
 
 T TAVING demolished William Tell, I proceed 
 -■--*- to the destruction of another article of popular 
 belief. 
 
 Who that has visited Snovvdon has not seen the 
 grave of Llewellyn's faithful hound Gellert, and been 
 told by the guide the touching story of the death of 
 the noble animal? How can we doubt the facts, 
 seeing that the place, Beth-Gellert, is named after 
 the dog, and that the grave is still visible? But 
 unfortunately for the truth of the legend, its pedigree 
 can be traced with the utmost pi'ecision. 
 
 The story is as follows : — 
 
 The Welsh Prince Llewellyn had a noble deer- 
 hound, Gellert, whom he trusted to watch the cradle 
 of his baby son whilst he himself was absent. 
 
 One day, on his return, to his intense horror, he 
 beheld the cradle empty and upset, the clothes dab- 
 bled with blood, and Gellert's mouth dripping with
 
 The Dog Gellert. 133 
 
 gore. Concluding hastily that the hound had proved 
 unfaithful, had fallen on the child and devoured it, 
 — in a paroxysm of rage the prince drew his sword 
 and slew the dog. Next instant the cry of the babe 
 from behind the cradle showed him that the child 
 was uninjured ; and, on looking farther, Llewellyn 
 discovered the body of a huge wolf, which had en- 
 tered the house to seize and devour the child, but 
 which had been kept oft' and killed by the brave 
 dog Gellert. 
 
 In his self-reproach and grief, the prince erected 
 a stately monument to Gellert, and called the place 
 where he was buried after the poor hound's name. 
 
 Now, I find in Russia precisely the same story 
 told, with just the same appearance of truth, of a 
 • Czar Piras. In Germany it appears with consider- 
 able variations. A man determines on slaying his 
 old dog Sultan, and consults with his wife how this 
 is to be effected. Sultan overhears the convei'sation, 
 and complains bitterly to the wolf, who suggests an 
 ingenious plan by which the master may be induced 
 to spare his dog. Next day, when the man is going 
 to his work, the wolf undertakes to carry oft' the child 
 from its cradle. Sultan is to attack him and rescue
 
 134 '^^'-^ D<^S Gellert. 
 
 the infant. The plan succeeds admirably, and the 
 dog spends his remaining years in comfort. (Grimm, 
 K. M. 48.) 
 
 But there is a story in closer conformity to that 
 of Gellert among the French collections of fabliaux 
 made by Le Grand d'Aussy and Edelestand du M6ril. 
 It became popular through the " Gesta Romanorum," 
 a collection of tales made by the monks for harmless 
 reading, in the fourteenth century. 
 
 In the " Gesta" the tale is told as follows : — 
 " Folliculus, a knight, was fond of hunting and 
 tournaments. He had an only son, for whom three 
 nurses were provided. Next to this child, he loved 
 his falcon and his greyhound. It happened one 
 day that he was called to a tournament, whither 
 his wife and domestics went also, leaving the child 
 in the cradle, the greyhound lying by him, and the 
 falcon on his perch. A serpent that inhabited a 
 hole near the castle, taking advantage of the pro- 
 found silence that reigned, crept from his habita- 
 tion, and advanced towards the cradle to devour 
 the child. The fiilcon, perceiving the danger, flut- 
 tered with his wings till he awoke the dog, who 
 instantly attacked the invader, and after a fierce
 
 The Dog Gellert. 135 
 
 conflict, in which he was sorely wounded, killed 
 him. He then lay down on the ground to lick 
 and heal his wounds. When the nurses returned, 
 they found the cradle overturned, the child thrown 
 out, and the ground covered with blood, as was also 
 the dog, who they immediately concluded had killed 
 the child. 
 
 " Terrified at the idea of meeting the anger of 
 the parents, they determined to escape ; but in their 
 flight fell in with their mistress, to whom they v/ere 
 compelled to relate the supposed murder of the 
 child by the greyhound. The knight soon arrived 
 to hear the sad story, and, maddened with fury, 
 rushed forward to the spot. The poor wounded 
 and faithful animal made an effort to rise and wel- 
 come his master with his accustomed fondness ; but 
 tlie enraged knight received him on the point of 
 his sword, and he fell lifeless to the ground. On 
 examination of the cradle, the infant was found 
 alive and unhurt, with the dead serpent lying by 
 him. Tlie knight now perceived what had hap- 
 pened, lamented bitterly over his faithful dog, and 
 blamed himself for having too hastily depended on 
 the words of his wife. Abandoning the profession
 
 136 The Dog Gellert. 
 
 of arms, he broke his lance in pieces, and vowed 
 a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where he spent 
 the rest of his days in peace." 
 
 The monkish hit at the wife is amusing, and 
 might have been supposed to have originated with 
 those determined misogynists, as the gallant Welsh- 
 men lay all the blame on the man. But the good 
 compilers of the "• Gesta " wrote little of their own, 
 except moral applications of the tales they relate, 
 and the story of FoUiculus and his dog, like many 
 others in their collection, is drawn from a foreign 
 source. 
 
 It occurs in the Seven Wise Masters, and in the 
 " Calumnia Novercalis" as well, so that it must 
 have been popular throughout medijeval Europe. 
 Now, the tales of the Seven Wise Masters are trans- 
 lations from a Hebrew work, the Kalilah and Dim- 
 nah of Rabbi Joel, composed about A. D. 1350, or 
 from Simeon Seth's Greek Kylile and Dimne, writ- 
 ten in 1080. These Greek and Hebrew works were 
 derived from kindred sources. That of Rabbi Joel 
 was a translation from an Arabic version made by 
 Nasr-Allah in the twelfth century, whilst Simeon 
 Seth's was a translation of the Persian Kalilah and
 
 The Dog Gellert. 137 
 
 Dimnah. Bat the Persian Kalilah and Dimnah 
 was not either an original work ; it Vv'as in turn a 
 translation from the Sanskrit Pantschatantra, made 
 about A. D. 540. 
 
 In this ancient Indian book the story runs as 
 follows : — 
 
 A Brahmin named Devasaman had a wife, who 
 gave birth to a son, and also to an ichneumon. 
 She loved both her children dearly, giving them 
 alike the breast, and anointing them alike with 
 salves. But she feared the ichneumon might not 
 love his brother. 
 
 One day, having laid her boy in bed, she took 
 up the water jar, and said to her husband, " Hear 
 me, master ! I am going to the tank to fetch 
 water. Whilst I am absent, watch the boy, lest 
 he gets injured by the ichneumon." After she had 
 left the house, the Brahmin went forth begging, 
 leaving the house empty. In crept a black snake, 
 and attempted to bite the child ; but the ichneumon 
 rushed at it, and tore it in pieces. Then, proud of 
 its achievement, it sallied forth, all bloody, to meet 
 its mother. She, seeing the creature stained with 
 blood, concluded, with feminine precipitance, that it
 
 138 The Dog Gellert. 
 
 had follen on the baby and killed it, and she flung 
 her water jar at it and slew it. Only on her 
 return home did she ascertain her mistake. 
 
 The same story is also told in the Hitopadesa 
 (iv. 13), but the animal is an otter, not an ich- 
 neumon. In the Arabic version a weasel takes the 
 place of the ichneumon. 
 
 The Buddhist missionaries carried the story into 
 Mongolia, and in the Mongolian Uligerun, which 
 is a translation of the Tibetian Dsanghen, the 
 story reappears with the pole-cat as the brave and 
 suffering defender of the child. 
 
 Stanislaus Julien, the great Chinese scholar, has 
 discovered the same tale in the Chinese work 
 entitled " The Forest of Pearls from the Garden 
 of the Law." This work dates from 668 ; and in 
 it the creature is an ichneumon. 
 
 In the Persian Sindibad-nameh is the same tale, 
 but the faithful animal is a cat. In Sandabar and 
 Syntipas it has become a dog. Through the in- 
 fluence of Sandabar on the Hebrew ti'anslation of 
 the Kalilah and Dimnah, the ichneumon is also 
 replaced by a dog. 
 
 Such is the history of the Gellert legend ; ifc is
 
 The Dog Gellert. 139 
 
 an introduction into Europe from India, every step 
 of its transmission being clearly demonstrable. 
 From the Gesta Romanorum it passed into a 
 popular tale throughout Europe, and in different 
 countries it was, like the Tell myth, localized and 
 individualized. Many a Welsh story, such as those 
 contained in the Mabinogion, are as easily traced 
 to an Eastern origin. 
 
 But every story has its root. The root of the 
 Gellert tale is this : A man forms an alliance of 
 friendship with a beast or bird. The dumb animal 
 renders him a signal service. He misunderstands 
 the act, and kills his preserver. 
 
 We have tracked this myth under the Gellert 
 form from India to Wales ; but under another form 
 it is the property of the whole Aryan family, and 
 forms a portion of the traditional lore of all nations 
 sprung from that stock. 
 
 Thence arose the classic fable of the peasant, 
 who, as he slept, was bitten bv a fly. H*^ awoke, 
 and in a rage killed the insect. ,v . lute, '' 
 
 observed that the little creature had aroused him 
 that he might avoid a snake which lay coiled up 
 near his pillow.
 
 140 The Dog Gellert. 
 
 In the Anvar-i-Suhaili is the following kindred 
 tale. A king had a falcon. One day, whilst hunt- 
 ing, he filled a goblet with water dropping from a 
 rock. As he put the vessel to his lips, his falcon 
 dashed upon it, and upset it with its wings. The 
 king, in a fury, slew the bird, and then discovered 
 that the water dripped from the jaws of a serpent 
 of the most poisonous description. 
 
 This story, with some variations, occurs in ^sop, 
 /^lian, and Apthonius. In the Greek" fable, a 
 peasant liberates an eagle from the clutches of a 
 dragon. The dragon spirts poison into the water 
 which the peasant is about to drink, without ob- 
 serving what the monster had done. The grateful 
 eagle upsets the goblet with his wings. 
 
 The story appears in Egypt under a whimsical 
 form. A Wali once smashed a pot full of herbs 
 which a cook had prepared. The exasperated cook 
 thrashed the well-intentioned but unfortunate Wali 
 within an inch of his life, and V.'nen he returned, 
 ^^^'^'^ySL - iiii' eftbrts at belaboring the man, 
 
 to examine the broken pot, he discovered amongst 
 the herbs a poisonous snake. 
 
 How many brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, and
 
 The Dog Gellert. 141 
 
 cousins of all degrees a little story has ! And how 
 few of the tales we listen to can lay any claim to 
 originality ! There is scarcely a story which I hear 
 which I cannot connect with some family of myths, 
 and whose pedigree I cannot ascertain with more 
 or less precision. Shakespeare drew the plots of 
 his plays from Boccaccio or Straparola ; but these 
 Italians did not invent the tales they lent to the 
 English dramatist. King Lear does not originate 
 with Geofry of Monmouth, but comes from early 
 Indian stores of fable, whence also are derived the 
 Merchant of Venice and the pound of flesh, ay, 
 and the very incident of the three caskets. 
 
 But who would credit it, were it not proved by 
 conclusive facts, that Johnny Sands is the inherit- 
 ance of the whole Aryan family of nations, and 
 that Peeping Tom of Coventry peeped in India 
 and on the Tartar steppes ages before Lady Godiva 
 was born ? 
 
 If you listen to Traviata at the opera, you have 
 set before you a tale which has last^ for centuries, 
 and which was perhaps born in India. 
 
 If 3^ou read in classic fable of Orpheus charming 
 woods and meadows, beasts and birds, with his
 
 142 The Dog Gellert. 
 
 magic lyre, you remember to have seen the same 
 fable related in the Kalewala of the Finnish Wai- 
 nomainen, and in the Kalcopoeg of the Esthonian 
 Kalewa. 
 
 If you take up English history, and read of 
 William the Conqueror slipping as he landed on 
 British soil, and kissing the earth, saying he had 
 come to greet and claim his own, you remember 
 that the same story is told of Napoleon in Egypt, 
 of King Olaf Harold's son in Norway, and in 
 classic history of Junius Brutus on his return from 
 the oracle. 
 
 A little while ago I cut out of a Sussex news- 
 paper a story purporting to be the relation of a 
 fact which had taken place at a fixed date in 
 Lewes. This was the story. A tj'rannical hus- 
 band locked the door against his wife, who was out 
 having tea with a neighbor, gossiping and scandal- 
 mongering ; when she applied for admittance, he 
 pretended not to know her. She threatened to 
 jump into tho.uell unless he opened the door. 
 
 The man, not supposing that she would carry 
 her threat into execution, declined, alleging that he 
 was in bed, and the night was chilly ; besides
 
 The Dog Gellert. 143 
 
 which he entirely disclaimed all acquaintance with 
 the lady who claimed admittance. 
 
 The wife then flung a log into a well, and se- 
 creted herself behind the door. The man, hearing 
 the splash, fancied that his good lady was really in 
 the deeps, and forth he darted in his nocturnal 
 costume, which was of the lightest, to ascertain 
 whether his delivei-ance was complete. At once 
 the lady darted into the house, locked the door, 
 and, on the husband pleading for admittance, she 
 declared most solemnly from the window that she 
 did not know him. 
 
 Now, this story, I can positively assert, unless 
 the events of this world move in a circle, did not 
 happen in Lewes, or any other Sussex town. 
 
 It was told in the Gesta Romanorum six hundred 
 years ago, and it was told, may be, as many hun- 
 dred years before in India, for it is still to be found 
 in Sanskrit collections of tales.
 
 144 
 
 ^aWtit iHen. 
 
 T WELL remember having it impressed upon me 
 -■- by a Devonshire nurse, as a little child, that all 
 Cornish men were born with tails ; and it was long 
 before I could overcome the prejudice thus early 
 implanted in my breast against ray Cornubian neigh- 
 bors. I looked upon those who dwelt across the 
 Tamar as " uncanny," as being scarcely to be classed 
 with Christian people, and certainly not to be freely 
 associated with by tailless Devonians. I think my 
 eyes were first opened to the fact that I had been 
 
 deceived by a worthy bookseller of L , with 
 
 whom I had contracted a warm friendship, he hav- 
 ing at sundry times contributed pictures to my scrap- 
 book. I remember one day resolving to broach the 
 delicate subject vwith my tailed friend, whom I liked, 
 notwithstanding his caudal appendage. 
 
 " Mr. X , is it true that you are a Cornisl 
 
 man? "
 
 Tailed Alen. 145 
 
 " Yes, my little man ; born and bred in the West 
 country." 
 
 " I like you very much ; but — have you really 
 got a tail?" 
 
 When the bookseller had recovered from the aston- 
 ishnjcnt which I had produced by my question, he 
 stoutly repudiated the charge. 
 
 "But you are a Cornishman?" 
 
 " To be sure I am." 
 
 " And all Cornishmen have tails." 
 
 I believe I satisfied my own mind that the good 
 man had sat his oft', and my nurse assured me that 
 such was the case with those of sedentary habits. 
 
 It is curious that Devonshire superstition should 
 attribute the tail to Cornishmen, for it was asserted 
 of certain men of Kent in olden times, and was re- 
 ferred to Divine vengeance upon them for having 
 insulted St. Thomas a Becket, if we may believe 
 Polydore Vergil. " There were some," he says, " to 
 whom it seemed that the king's secret wish was, that 
 Thomas should be got rid of. He, indeed, as one 
 accounted to be an enemy of the king's person, was 
 already regarded with so little respect, nay, was 
 treated with so much contempt, that when he came 
 10
 
 146 Tailed Men. 
 
 to Strood, which village is situated on the Medvvay, 
 the river that washes Rochester, the inhabitants of the 
 place, being eager to show some mark of contumely 
 to the prelate in his disgrace, did not scruple to cut 
 ort' the tail of the horse on which lie was riding; 
 but by this profane and inhospitable act they covered 
 themselves with eternal reproach ; for it so happened 
 after this, by the will of God, that all the oflspring 
 born from the men who had done this thing, were 
 born with tails, like brute animals. But this mark 
 of infam}-, which formerly was everywhere notorious, 
 has disappeared with the extinction of the race whose 
 fathers perpetrated this deed." 
 
 John Bale, the zealous reformer, and Bishop of 
 Ossory in Edward VI. 's time, refers to this story, 
 and also mentions a variation of the scene and cause 
 of this ignoble punishment. He writes, quoting his 
 authorities, "John Capgrave and Alexander of Es- 
 seby sayth, that for castynge of fyshe tayles at thys 
 Augustyne, Dorsettshyre men had tayles ever after. 
 But Polydorus applieth it unto Kentish men at Stroud, 
 by Rochester, for cuttinge oft' Thomas Becket's horse's 
 tail. Thus hath England in all other land a per- 
 petual infamy of tayles by theye wrytten legendes of
 
 Tailed Men. 147 
 
 lyes, yet can they not well tell where to bestovve 
 them truely." Bale, a fierce and unsparing reformer, 
 and one who stinted not hard words, appljing to 
 the inventors of these legends an epithet more strong 
 than elegant, says, " In the legends of their sanctified 
 sorcei-ers they have difiamed the English posterity 
 with tails, as has been showed afore. That an Eng- 
 lyshman now cannot travayle in another land by way 
 of marchandyse or any other honest occupyinge, but 
 it is most contumeliously thrown in his tethe that all 
 Englyshmen have tails. That uncomely note and 
 report have the nation gotten, without recover, by 
 these laisy and idle lubbers, the monkes and the 
 priestes, which could find no matters to advance 
 their canonized gains by, or their saintes, as they 
 call them, but manifest lies and knaveries." * 
 
 Andrew Marvel also makes mention of this strange 
 judgment in his Loyal Scot: — 
 
 " But who considers right will find, indeed, 
 'Tis Holj Island parts us, not the Tweed. 
 Nothing but clergy could us two seclude, 
 No Scotch was ever like a bishop's feud. 
 
 * " Actes of English Votaries."
 
 14.8 Tailed Men. 
 
 All Litanys in this have wanted faith, 
 
 There's no — Deliver tis from a Bishop's wrath. 
 
 Never shall Calvin pardoned be for sales, 
 
 Never, for Burnet's sake, the Lauderdales ; 
 
 For Becket's sake, Kent alwaj^s shall have tails." 
 
 It may be remembered that Lord Monboddo, a 
 Scotch judge of hist century, and a pliilosopher of 
 some repute, though of great eccentricity, stoutly 
 maintained the theory that man ought to have a 
 tail, that the tail is a desideratum^ and that the 
 abrupt termination of the spine without caudal elon- 
 gation is a sad blemish in the origination of man. 
 The tail, the point in which man is inferior to the 
 brute, what a delicate index of the mind it is ! how 
 it expresses the passions of love and hate ! how nicely 
 it gives token of the feelings of joy or fear which 
 animate the soul ! But Lord Monboddo did not 
 consider that what the tail is to the brute, that the 
 eye is to man ; the lack of one member is supplied 
 by the other. I can tell a proud man by his eye 
 just as truly as if he stalked past one with erect tail ; 
 and anger is as plainly depicted in the human eye 
 as in the bottle-brush tail of a cat. I know a sneak 
 by his cowering glance, though he has not a tail 
 between his legs ; and pleasure is evident in the
 
 Tailed Men. 
 
 149 
 
 laughing eye, without there being any necessity for 
 a wagging brush to express it. 
 
 Dr. Jolinson paid a visit to the judge, and knocl-ced 
 on the head his theory that men ought to have tails, 
 and actually were born with thein occasionally ; for 
 said he, ^' Of a standing fact, sir, there ought to be 
 no controversy ; if there are men with tails, catch a 
 homo caudaius." And, " It is a pity to see Loi'd 
 Monboddo publish such notions as he has done — a 
 man of sense, and of so much elegant learning. 
 There would be little in a fool doing it ; we should 
 only laugh ; but, when a wise man does it, we are 
 sorry. Other people have strange notions, but they 
 conceal them. If they have tails they hide them ; 
 but Monboddo is as jealous of his tail as a squirrel." 
 And yet Johnson seems to have been tickled with the 
 idea, and to have been amused with the notion of 
 an appendage like a tail being regarded as the com- 
 plement of human perfection. It may be remem- 
 bered how Johnson made the acquaintance of the 
 young Laird of Col, during his Highland tour, and 
 how pleased he was with him. "Col," says he, "is 
 a noble animal. He is as complete an islander as 
 the mind can figure. He is a farmer, a sailor, a
 
 150 Tailed Men. 
 
 hunter, a fisher : he will run you down a dog ; if 
 any man has a tail, it is Col," And notwith- 
 standing all his aversion to puns, the great Doctor 
 was fain to yield to hnman weakness on one occa- 
 sion, under jthe influence of the mirth which Mon- 
 boddo's name seems to have excited. Johnson 
 writes to Mrs. Thrale of a party he had met one 
 night, which he thus enumerates : " There were 
 Smelt, and the Bishop of St. Asaph, who comes 
 to every place ; and Sir Joshua, and Lord Mon- 
 boddo, and ladies ozit of tale" 
 
 There is a Polish story of a witch who made a 
 girdle of human skin and laid it across the thres- 
 hold of a door where a marriage-feast was, being 
 held. On the bridal pair stepping across the 
 girdle they were transformed into wolves. Three 
 years after the v/itch sought them out, and cast 
 over them dresses of fur with the hair turned out- 
 ward, whereupon they recovered their human 
 forms, but, unfortunately, the dress cast over the 
 bridegroom was too scanty, and did not extend 
 over his tail, so that, when he was restored to his 
 former condition, he retained his lupine caudal 
 appendage, and this became hereditary in his
 
 Tailed Men. 151 
 
 family ; so that all Poles with tails are lineal 
 descendants of the ancestor to whom this little 
 misfortune happened. John Struys, a Dutch trav- 
 eller, who visited the Isle of Formosa in 1677, 
 gives a curious story, whicli is worth transcribing. 
 
 "Before I visited this island," he writes, "I had 
 often heard tell that there were men who had long 
 tails, like brute beasts ; but I had never been able 
 to believe it, and I regarded it as a thing so alien 
 to our nature, that I should now have difficulty in 
 accepting it, if my own senses had not removed 
 from me every pretence for doubting the fact, by 
 the following strange adventure : The inhabitants 
 of Formosa, being used to see us, were in the 
 habit of receiving us on terms which left nothing 
 to apprehend on either side ; so that, although 
 mere foreigners, we always believed ourselves in 
 safety, and had grown familiar enough to ramble 
 at large without an escort, when grave experience 
 taught us that, in so doing, we were hazarding 
 too much. As some of our party were one day 
 taking a stroll, one of them had occasion to with- 
 draw about a stone's throw from the rest, who, 
 being at the moment engaged in an eager conver-
 
 152 Tailed Men. 
 
 sation, proceeded without heeding the disappear- 
 ance of their companion. After a while, however, 
 his absence was observed, and tlie party paused, 
 thinking he would rejoin them. They waited 
 some time ; but at last, tired of the delay, they 
 returned in the direction of the spot where they 
 remembered to have seen him last. Arriving there, 
 they were horrified to find his mangled body lying 
 on the ground, though the nature of the lacerations 
 showed that he had not had to suflbr long ere 
 death released him. Whilst some remained to 
 watch the dead body, others went off in search of 
 the murderer ; and these had not gone far, when 
 they came upon a man of peculiar appearance, 
 who, finding himself enclosed by the exploring 
 party, so as to make escape from them impossi- 
 ble, began to foam with rage, and by cries and 
 wild gesticulations to intimate that he would make 
 any one repent the attempt who should venture to 
 meddle with him. The fierceness of his despera- 
 tion for a time kept our people at bay ; but as his 
 fury gradually subsided, they gathered more closely 
 round him, and at length seized him. He then 
 soon made them understand that it was he who
 
 Tailed Men. 153 
 
 had killed their comrade, but they could not learn 
 from him any cause for this conduct. As the 
 crime was so atrocious, and, if allowed to pass 
 with impunity, might entail even more serious 
 consequences, it was determined to burn the man. 
 He was tied up to a stake, where he was kept 
 for some hours before the time of execution ar- 
 rived. It was then that I beheld what I had never 
 thought to see. He had a tail more than a foot 
 long, covered with red hair, and ver}' like that of a 
 cow. When he saw the surprise that this discov- 
 ery created among the European spectators, he 
 informed us that his tail was the effect of climate, 
 for that all the inhabitants of the southern side of 
 the island, where they then were, were provided 
 with like appendages." * 
 
 After Struys, Hornemann reported that, between 
 the Gulf of Benin and Abyssinia, were tailed an- 
 thropophagi, named by the natives Nlam-nlajns ; 
 and in 1S49, M. Descourct, on his return from 
 Mecca, affirmed that such was a common report, 
 and added that they had long arms, low and nar- 
 row foreheads, long and erect ears, and slim legs. 
 
 * " Voyages de Jean Struys," An. 1650.
 
 154 Tailed Men. 
 
 Mr. Harrison, in his " Highlands of Ethiopia,'' 
 alludes to the common belief among the Abys- 
 sinians, in a pygmy race of this nature. 
 
 MM. Arnault and Vayssiere, travellers in the 
 same country, in 1S50, brought the subject before 
 the Academy of Sciences. 
 
 In 1 85 1, M. de Castelnau gave additional de- 
 tails relative to an expedition against these tailed 
 men. " The Niam-niams," he says, " were sleep- 
 ing in the sun : the Haoussas approached, and, 
 falling on them, massacred them to the last man. 
 They had all of them tails forty centimeti'es long, 
 and from two to three in diameter. This organ is 
 smooth. Among the corpses were those of sev- 
 eral women, who were deformed in the same 
 manner. In all other particulars, the men were 
 precisely like all other negroes. They are of a 
 deep black, their teeth are polished, their bodies 
 not tattooed. They are armed with clubs and jave- 
 lins ; in war they utter piercing cries. They cul- 
 tivate rice, maize, and other grain. They are fine 
 looking meu, and their hair is not frizzled." 
 
 M. d'Abbadie, another Abyssinian traveller, writ- 
 ing in 1852, gives the following account from the
 
 Tailed Men. 155 
 
 lips of an Abyssinian priest: "At the distance of 
 fifteen days' journey south of Herrar is a place 
 where all the men have tails, the length of a palm, 
 covered with hair, and situated at the extremity of 
 the spine. The females of that country are very 
 beautiful and are tailless. I have seen some fifteen 
 of these people at Besberah, and I am positive 
 that the tail is natural." 
 
 It will be observed that there is a discrepancy 
 between the accounts of M. de Castelnau and 
 M. d'Abbadie. The former accords tails to the 
 ladies, whilst the latter denies it. According to 
 the former, the tail is smooth ; according to the 
 latter, it is covered with hair. 
 
 Dr. Wolf has improved on this in his " Travels 
 and Adventures," vol. ii. 1861. "There are men 
 and women in Abyssinia with tails like dogs and 
 horses." Wolf heard also from a great many 
 Abyssinians and Armenians (and Wolf is con- 
 vinced of the truth of it), that " there are near 
 Narea, in Abyssinia, people — men and women — 
 with large tails, with which they are able to knock 
 down a horse ; and there are also such people 
 near China." And in a note, " In the College of
 
 156 Tailed Men. 
 
 Surgeons at Dublin may still be seen a human 
 skeleton, with a tail seven inches long! There are 
 many known instances of this elongation of the 
 caudal vertebra, as in the Poonangs in Borneo." 
 
 But the most interesting and circumstantial ac- 
 count of the Niam-niams is that given by Dr. 
 Hubsch, physician to the hospitals of Constantino- 
 ple. "It was in 1S53," says he, "that I saw for 
 the first time a tailed negress. I was struck with 
 this phenomenon, and I questioned her master, a 
 slave dealer. I learned from him that there exists 
 a tribe called Niam-niam, occupying the interior of 
 Africa. All the members of this tribe bear the 
 caudal appendage, and, as Oriental imagination is 
 given to exaggeration, I was assured that the tails 
 sometimes attained the length of two feet. That 
 which I observed was smooth and hairless. It was 
 about two inches long, and terminated in a point. 
 This woman was as black as ebony, her hair was 
 frizzled, her teeth white, large, and planted in sock- 
 ets which inclined considerably outward ; her four 
 canine teeth were filed, her eyes bloodshot. She 
 ate meat raw, her clothes fidgeted her, her intellect 
 was on a par with that of others of her condition.
 
 Tailed Men. 1 57 
 
 " Her master had been unable, during six months, 
 to sell her, notwithstanding the low figure at which 
 he would ha\e disposed of her ; the abhorrence 
 with which she was regarded was not attributed 
 to her tail, but to the partiality, which she was 
 unable to conceal, for human flesh. Her tribe fed 
 on the flesh of the prisoners taken from the neigh- 
 boring tribes, with whom they were constantly at 
 war. 
 
 "As soon as one of the tribe dies, his relations, 
 instead of burying him, cut him up and regale 
 themselves upon his remains ; consequently there 
 are no cemeteries in this land. They do not all of 
 them lead a wandering life, but many of them con- 
 struct hovels of the branches of trees. They make 
 for themselves weapons of war and of agriculture ; 
 they cultivate maize and wheat, and keep cattle. 
 The Niam-niams have a language of their own, of 
 an entirely primitive character, though containing an 
 infusion of Arabic words. 
 
 " They live in a state of complete nudity, and 
 seek only to satisfy their brute appetites. There is 
 among them an utter disregard for morality, incest 
 and adultery being common. The strongest among
 
 158 Tailed Men. 
 
 them becomes the chief of the tribe ; and it is he 
 who apportions the shares of the booty obtained in 
 war. It is hard to say whether they have any re- 
 ligion ; but in all probability they have none, as 
 they readily adopt any one which they are taught. 
 
 "• It is difficult to tame them altogether ; their in- 
 stinct impelling them constantly to seek for human 
 flesh ; and instances are related of slaves who have 
 massacred and eaten the children confided to their 
 charge. 
 
 " I have seen a man of the same race, who had 
 a tail an inch and a half long, covered with a few 
 hairs. He appeared to be thirty-five years old ; he 
 was robust, vs'ell built, of an ebon blackness, and 
 had the same peculiar formation of jaw noticed 
 above ; that is to say, the tooth sockets were in- 
 clined outwards. Their four canine teeth are filed 
 down, to diminish their power of mastication. 
 
 " I know also, at Constantinople, the son of a 
 physician, aged two years, who was born with a 
 tail an inch long ; he belonged to the white Cau- 
 casian race. One of his grandfathers possessed the 
 same appendage. This phenomenon is regarded gen- 
 erally in the East as a sign of great brute force."
 
 Tailed Men. 159 
 
 About ten years ago, a newspaper paragraph re- 
 coidcd the birth of a boy at Newcastle-on-Tyne, 
 ]:)ro\i(le(l with a tail about an inch and a quarter 
 long. It was asserted that the child when sucking 
 wagged this stump as token of pleasure. 
 
 \'ct, notwithstanding all this testimony in favor 
 of tailed men and women, it is simply a matter of 
 impossilMlity for a human being to have a tail, for 
 the spinal vertebrae in man do not admit of elonga- 
 tion, as in many animals; for the spine terminates 
 in the os sacrum, a large and expanded bone of 
 peculiar character, entirely precluding all possibility 
 of production to the spine as in caudate animals.
 
 i6o 
 
 ^utifljrist ani) Jpopc loan. 
 
 I ^ROM the earliest ages of the Church, the ad- 
 -^ vent of the Man of Sin has been looked for- 
 ward to with terror, and the passages of Scripture 
 relating to him have been studied with solemn awe, 
 lest that day of wrath should come upon the Church 
 unawares. As events in the world's history took 
 place which seemed to be indications of the ap- 
 proach of Antichrist, a great horror fell upon men's 
 minds, and their imaginations conjured up myths 
 which flew from mouth to mouth, and which were 
 implicitly believed. 
 
 Before speaking of these strange tales which pro- 
 duced such an effect on the minds of men in the 
 middle ages, it will be well briefly to examine the 
 opinions of divines of the early ages on the pas- 
 sages of Scripture connected with the coming of 
 the last great persecutor of the Church. Antichrist 
 was believed by most ancient writers to be destined
 
 A.ntichrlst a?zd Pope Joait. t6i 
 
 to arise out of the tribe of Dan, a belief founded 
 on the prediction of Jacob, ''Dan shall be a serpent 
 by the way, an adder in the path " (conf. Jeremiah 
 viii. i6), and on the exclamation of the dying pa- 
 triarch, when looking on his son Dan, " I have 
 waited for Thy Salvation, O Lord," as though the 
 long-suffering of God had borne long with that 
 tribe, but in vain, and it was to be extinguished 
 without hope. This, indeed, is implied in the seal- 
 ing of the servants of God in their foreheads (Rev- 
 elation vii.), when twelve thousand out of every 
 tribe, except Dan, were seen by St. John to receive 
 the seal of adoption, whilst of the tribe of Dan not 
 one was sealed, as though it, to a man, had apos- 
 tatized. 
 
 Opinions as to the nature of Antichrist were di- 
 vided. Some held that he was to be a devil in 
 phantom body, and of this number was Hippolytus. 
 Others, again, believed that he would be an incarnate 
 demon, true man and true devil ; in fearful and 
 diabolical parody of the Incarnation of our Lord. 
 A third view was, that he would be merely a des- 
 perately wicked man, acting upon diabolical inspira- 
 tions, just as the saints act upon divine inspirations. 
 II
 
 t62 Antichrist and Pope yoajz. 
 
 St. John Damascene expressly asserts that he will 
 not be an incarnate demon, but a devilish man ; 
 for he says, " Not as Christ assumed humanity, so 
 will the devil become human, but the Man will 
 receive all the inspiration of Satan, and will suffer 
 the devil to take up his abode within him." In 
 this manner Antichrist could have many forerunners ; 
 and so St. Jerome and St. Augustine saw an Anti- 
 christ in Nero, not the Antichrist, but one of those 
 of whom the Apostle speaks — "Even now are there 
 many Antichrists." Thus also every enemy of the 
 faith, such as Diocletian, Julian, and Mahomet, has 
 been regarded as a precursor of the Arch-persecutor, 
 who was expected to sum up in himself the cruelty 
 of a Nero or Diocletian, the show of virtue of a 
 Julian, and the spiritual pride of a Mahomet. 
 
 From infancy the evil one is to take possession 
 of Antichrist, and to train him for his office, instil- 
 ling into him cunning, cruelty, and pride. His 
 doctrine will be — not downright infidelity, but a 
 *' show of godliness," whilst " denying the power 
 thereof;" i. e., the miraculous origin and divine au- 
 thority of Christianity. He will sow doubts of our 
 Lord's manifestation " in the flesh," he will allow
 
 Antichrist and Pope yoan. 163 
 
 Christ to be an excellent Man, capable of teaching 
 the most exalted truths, and inculcating the purest 
 morality, yet Himself fallible and carried away by 
 fanaticism. 
 
 In the end, however, Antichrist will " exalt him- 
 self to sit as God in the temple of God," and be- 
 come "the abomination of desolation standing in 
 the holy place." At the same time there is to be 
 an awful alliance struck between himself, the im- 
 personification of the world-power and the Church 
 of God ; some high pontiff of which, or the epis- 
 copacy in general, will enter into league with the 
 unbelieving state to oppress the very elect. It is 
 a strange instance of religionary virulence which . 
 makes some detect the Pope of Rome in the Man 
 of Sin, the Harlot, the Beast, and the Priest going ( 
 before it. The Man of Sin and the Beast ai"e un- 
 mistakably identical, and refer to an Antichristian 
 world-power ; whilst the Harlot and the Priest are 
 symbols of an apostasy in the Church. There is 
 nothing Roman in this, but something very much 
 the opposite. 
 ^ How the Abomination of Desolation can be con- 
 sidered as set up in a Church where every sanc- 
 
 -/ ^-'i^ >y ^- ' . , . N. / , , ,. . r - ^' 

 
 164 Antichrist and Pope yoan. 
 
 tuary is adorned with all that can draw the heart 
 to the Crucified, and raise the thoughts to the 
 imposing ritual of Heaven, is a puzzle to me. To 
 the man uninitiated in the law that Revelation is 
 to be interpreted by contraries, it would seem more 
 like the Abomination of Desolation in the Holy 
 Place if he entered a Scotch Presbyterian, or a 
 <i> A . Dutch Calvinist, place of worship. Rome does 
 (I ' IImaJ^ "^'^ ^S^^^ against the Daily vSacrifice, and endeavor 
 Jjuy0v%^W^'^ abolish it; that has been rather the labor of so- 
 liif-*^ ^^'ji called Church Reformers, who with the suppression 
 W/**'^-'^" Qf ti-,e doctrine of Eucharistic Sacrifice and Sacra- 
 fi-^eJ ^ /^ *f^l nental Adoration have well nigh oblitei^ated all 
 f/^tht^^tx notion of worship to be addressed to the God-Man. 
 ^* ^ j^ Rome does not deny the power of the godliness 
 of which she makes show, but insists on that power 
 with no broken accents. It is rather in other com- 
 munities, where authority is flung aside, and any 
 man is permitted to believe or reject what he likes, 
 that we must look for the leaven of the Anti-chris- 
 tian spirit at work. 
 
 It is evident that this spirit will infect the 
 Church, and especially those in place of authority 
 therein ; so that the elect will have to wrestle
 
 Antichrist aiid Pope Joan. 165 
 
 against both "principalities and powers" in the 
 state, and also " spiritual wickedness in the high 
 places " of the Church. Perhaps it will be this 
 feeling of antagonism between the inferior orders 
 and the highest which will throw the Bishops into 
 the arms of the state, and establish that unholy 
 alliance which will be cemented for the purpose 
 of oppressing all who hold the truth in sincerity, 
 who are definite in their dogmatic statements of 
 Christ's having been manifested in the flesh, who 
 labor to establish the Daily Sacrifice, and offer in 
 every place the pure offering spoken of by Malachi. 
 Perhaps it was in anticipation of this, that ancient 
 mystical interpreters explained the scene at the 
 well in Midian as having reference to the last 
 times. 
 
 The Church, like the daughters of Reuel, comes 
 to the Well of living waters to water her parched 
 flock ; whereupon the shepherds — her chief pastors 
 — arise and strive with her. " Fear not, O flock, 
 fear not, O daughter ! " exclaims the commentator ; 
 " thy true Moses is seated on the well, and He 
 will arise out of His resting-place, and will with 
 His own hand smite the shepherds, and water the
 
 1 66 Antichrist and Pope yoan. 
 
 flock." Let the sheep be in barren and dry pas- 
 tures, — so long the shepherds strive not; let the 
 sheep pant and die, — so long the shepherds show 
 no signs of irritation ; but let the Church approach 
 the limpid well of life, and at once her prelates 
 will, in the latter days, combine " to strive " with 
 her, and keep back the flock from the reviving 
 streams. 
 
 In tlie time of Antichrist the Church will be 
 divided : one portion will hold to the world-power, 
 the other will seek out the old paths, and cling to 
 the only true Guide. The high places will be 
 filled with unbelievers in the Incarnation, and the 
 Church will be in a condition of the utmost spiritual 
 degradation, but enjoying the highest State patron- 
 age. The religion in favor will be one of morality, 
 but not of dogma ; and the Man of Sin will be 
 able to promulgate his doctrine, according to St. 
 Anselm, througli his great eloquence and wisdom, 
 his vast learning and mightiness in the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, which he will wrest to the overthrowing of 
 dogma. He will be liberal in bribes, for he will 
 be of unbounded wealth ; he will be capable of 
 performing great " signs and wonders," so as " to
 
 Antichrist atzd Pope Joan. 167 
 
 deceive — the very elect;" and at the last, he will 
 tear the moral veil from his countenance, and a 
 monster of impiety and cruelty, he will inaugurate 
 that awful persecution, which is to last for three 
 years and a half, and to excel in horror all the 
 persecutions that have gone before. 
 
 In that terrible season of confusion faith will be 
 all but extinguished. " When the Son of Man 
 cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?" asks 
 our Blessed Lord, as though expecting the answer, 
 No ; and then, says Marchantius, the vessel of the 
 Church will disappear in the foam of that boil- 
 ing deep of infidelity, and be hidden in the black- 
 ness of that storm of destruction which sweeps 
 over the earth. The sun shall " be darkened, and 
 the moon shall not give her light, and the stars 
 shall fall from heaven ; " the sun of faith shall have 
 gone out ; the moon, the Church, shall not give 
 her light, being turned into blood, through stress 
 of persecution ; and the stars, the great ecclesiasti- 
 cal dignitaries, shall fall into apostasy. But still the 
 Church will remain unwrecked, she will weather 
 the storm ; still will she come forth " beautiful as 
 the moon, terrible as an army with baunei*s ; " for
 
 l68 Antichrist and Pope yoan. 
 
 after the lapse of those three and a half years, 
 Christ will descend to avenge the blood of the 
 saints, by destroying Antichrist and the world- 
 power. 
 
 Such is a brief sketch of the scriptural doctrine 
 of Antichrist as held by the early and mediaeval 
 Church. Let us now see to what myths it gave 
 rise among the vulgar and the imaginative. Raba- 
 nus Maurus, in his work on the life of Antichrist, 
 gives a full account of the miracles he will jDcrform ; 
 he tells us that the Man-fiend will heal the sick, 
 raise the dead, restore sight to the blind, hearing 
 to the deaf, speech to the dumb ; he v\-ill raise 
 storms and calm them, will remove mountains, 
 make trees flourish or wither at a word. He will 
 rebuild the temple at Jerusalem, and making the 
 Holy City the great capital of the world. Popular 
 opinion added that his vast wealth would be ob- 
 tained from hidden treasures, which are now being 
 concealed by the demons for his use. Various 
 possessed persons, when interrogated, announced 
 that such was the case, and that the amount of 
 buried gold was vast. 
 
 " In the year 1599," says Canon Moreau, a con-
 
 Antichrist and Pope Joan. 169 
 
 temporary historian, " a rumor circulated with i)ro- 
 digious rapidity through Europe, that Antichrist 
 had been born at Babylon, and that already the 
 Jews of that part were hurrying to receive and 
 recognize him as their Messiah. The news came 
 from Italy and Germany, and extended to Spain, 
 England, and other Western kingdoms, troubling 
 many people, even the most discreet ; however, the 
 learned gave it no credence, saying that the signs 
 predicted in Scripture to precede that event were 
 not yet accomplished, and among other that the 
 Roman empire was not yet abolished. . . . Others 
 said that, as for the signs, the majority had already 
 appeared to the best of their knowledge, and with 
 regard to the rest, they might have taken place in 
 distant regions without their having been made 
 known to them ; that the Roman empii^e existed 
 but in name, and that the interpretation of the 
 passage on which its destruction was predicted, 
 might be incorrect; that for many centuries, the 
 most learned and pious had believed in the near 
 approach of Antichrist, some believing that he had 
 already come, on account of the persecutions which 
 had fallen on the Christians ; others, on account of
 
 lyo Antichrist and Pope yoan. 
 
 fires, or eclipses, or earthquakes. . . . Ever}' one was 
 in excitement ; some declared that the news must be 
 correct, others believed nothing about it, and the 
 agitation became so excessive, that Henry IV., who 
 was then on the throne, was compelled by edict to 
 forbid any mention of the subject." 
 
 The report spoken of by Moreau gained additional 
 confirmation from the announcement made by an ex- 
 orcised demoniac, that in 1600, the Man of Sin had 
 been born in the neighborhood of Paris, of a Jewess, 
 named Blanchefleure, who had conceived by Satan. 
 The child had been baptized at the Sabbath of Sor- 
 cerers ; and a witch, under torture, acknowledged 
 that she had rocked the infant Antichrist on her 
 knees, and she averred that he had claws on his 
 feet, wore no shoes, and spoke all languages. 
 
 In 1623 appeared the following startling announce- 
 ment, which obtained an immense circulation among 
 the lower orders : " We, bi'others of the Order of St. 
 John of Jerusalem, in the Isle of Malta, have received 
 letters from our spies, who are engaged in our ser- 
 vice in the country of Babylon, now possessed by the 
 Grand Turk ; by the which letters we are advertised, 
 that, on the ist of May, in the year of our Lord
 
 Antichrist and Pope yoan. i>ji 
 
 1623, a child was born in the town of Bourydot, 
 otherwise called Calka, near Babylon, of the which 
 child the mother is a very aged woman, of race 
 unknown, called Fort-Juda : of thfe father nothing is 
 known. The child is dusky, has pleasant mouth and 
 eyes, teeth pointed like those of a cat, ears large, 
 stature by no means exceeding that of other chil- 
 dren ; the said child, incontinent on his birth, walked 
 and talked perfectly well. His speech is compre- 
 hended by every one, admonishing the people that 
 he is the true Messiah, and the son of God, and that 
 in him all must believe. Our spies also swear and 
 protest that they have seen the said child with their 
 own eyes ; and they add, that, on the occasion of his 
 nativity, there appeared marvellous signs in heaven, 
 for at full noon the sun lost its brightness, and was 
 for some time obscured." This is followed by a list 
 of other signs appearing, the most remarkable being 
 a swarm of flying serpents, and a shower of precious 
 stones. 
 
 According to Sebastian Michaeliz, in his history of 
 the possessed of Flanders, on the authority of the ex- 
 orcised demons, we learn that Antichrist is to be a 
 son of Beelzebub, who will accompany his offspring
 
 1^2 Antlcht'ist and Pope yoan. 
 
 under the form of a bird, with four feet and a bull's 
 head ; that he will torture Christians with the same 
 tortures with which the lost souls ai'e racked ; that 
 he will be able to fly, speak all languages, and will 
 have any number of names. 
 
 We find that Antichrist is known to the Mussul- 
 mans as well as to Christians. Lane, in his edition 
 of the " Arabian Nights," gives some curious details 
 on Moslem ideas regarding him. According to 
 these, Antichrist will overrun the earth, mounted on 
 an ass, and followed by 40,000 Jews ; his empire 
 will last forty days, whereof the first day will 
 be a year long, the duration of the second will 
 be a month, that of the third a week, the others 
 being of their usual length. He will devastate the 
 whole world, leaving Mecca and Medina alone in 
 security, as these holy cities will be guarded by 
 angelic legions. Christ at last will descend to eai'th, 
 and in a great battle will destroy the Man-devil. 
 
 Several writers, of different denominations, no less 
 superstitious than the common people, connected the 
 apparition of Antichrist with the fable of Pope Joan, 
 which obtained such general credence at one time, 
 but which modern criticism has at length succeeded 
 in excluding from history.
 
 Antichrist and Pope y'oan, i 73 
 
 Perhaps the earliest writer to mention Pope Joan 
 is Marianus Scotus, who in his clironicle inserts the 
 following passage: "A. D. S54, Lotharii 14, Joanna, 
 a woman, succeeded Leo, and reigned two years, 
 five months, and four days." Marianus Scotus died 
 A. D. 10S6. Sigebert de Gemblours (d. 5th Oct., 
 1 112) inserts the same story in his valuable chroni- 
 cle, copying from an interpolated passage in the work 
 of Anastasius the librarian. His words are, " It is 
 reported that this John was a female, and that she 
 conceived by one of her servants. The Pope, be- 
 coming pregnant, gave birth to a child ; wherefore 
 some do not number her among the Pontiffs." Hence 
 the story spread among the mediaeval chroniclers, 
 who were great plagiarists. Otto of Frisingen and 
 Gotfrid of Viterbo mention the Lady-Pope in their 
 histories, and Martin Polonus gives details as fol- 
 lows: "After Leo IV., John Anglus, a native of 
 Metz, reigned two years, five months, and four days. 
 And the pontificate was vacant for a month. He died 
 in Rome. He is related to have been a female, and, 
 when a girl, to have accompanied her sweetheart in 
 male costume to Athens ; there she advanced in va- 
 rious sciences, and none could be found to equal her.
 
 1 74 Antichrist and Pope yoan. 
 
 bo, after having studied for three years in Rome, 
 she had great masters for her pupils and hearers. 
 And when there arose a high opinion in the city of 
 her virtue and knowledge, she was unanimously 
 elected Pope. But during her papacy she became 
 in the family way by a familiar. Not knowing the 
 time of birth, as she was on her way from St. Peter's 
 to the Lateran she had a painful delivery, between 
 the Coliseum and St. Clement's Church, in the street. 
 Having died after, it is said that she was buried on 
 the spot ; and therefore the Lord Pope always turns 
 aside from that way, and it is supposed by some out 
 of detestation for what happened there. Nor on that 
 account is she placed in the catalogue of the Holy 
 Pontifls, not only on account of her sex, but also 
 because of the horribleness of the circumf-;tance." 
 
 Certainly a story at all scandalous crescit eundo. 
 
 William Ocham alludes to the story, and John 
 Huss, only too happy to believe it, provides the lady 
 with a name, and asserts that she was baptized 
 Agnes, or, as he will have it with a strong aspirate, 
 Hagnes. Others, however, insist upon her name 
 having been Gilberta ; and some stout Germans, not 
 relishing the notion of her being a daughter of Fa-
 
 Antichrist and Pope yoan. 175 
 
 thevland, palm her oft' on England. As soon as we 
 arrive at Reformation times, the German and French 
 Protestants fasten on the story with the utmost 
 avidity, and add sweet little touches of their own, 
 and draw conclusions galling enough to the Roman 
 See, illustrating their accounts with wood engravings 
 vigorous and graphic, but hardly decent. One of 
 these i^epresents the event in a peculiarly startling 
 manner. The procession of bishops, with the Host 
 and tapers, is sweeping along, when suddenly the 
 cross-bearer before the triple-crowned and vested 
 Pope starts aside to witness the unexpected arrival. 
 This engraving, which it is quite impossible for me 
 to reproduce, is in a curious little book, entitled 
 " Puerperium Johannis Papa3 8, 11^30." 
 
 The following jingling record of the event is from 
 the Rhythmical Vitce Pontificum of Gulielmus Jaco- 
 bus of Egmonden, a work never printed. This 
 fragment is preserved in " Wolftii Lectionum Memo- 
 rabilium centenarii, XVI.:" — 
 
 " Priusquam reconditur Sergius, vocatur 
 Ad summam, qui dicitur Johannes, huic addatur 
 Anglicus, Moguntia iste procreatur. 
 Qui, ut dat sententia, feminis aptatur 
 Sexu : quod sequentia monstrant, breviatur,
 
 l*j6 Ajitichrist and Pope yoan. 
 
 Hz3ec vox: nam prolixius chronica procedunt. 
 Ista, de qua brevius dicta minus laedunt. 
 Huic erat amasius, ut scriptores credunt. 
 Patria relinquitur Moguntia, Grcecorum 
 Studiose petitur schola. Post doctorum 
 Hffic doctrix efficitur Romae legens : horum 
 Hsec auditu fungitui- loquens. Hinc prostrato 
 Summo hsec eligitur: sexu exaltato 
 Quandoque negligitur. Fatur quod ha;c nato 
 Per servum conficitur. Tempore gignendi 
 Ad processum equus scanditur, vice flendi, 
 Papa cadit, panditur improbis ridendi 
 Norma, puer nascitur in vico Clementis, 
 Colossceum jungitur. Corpus parentis 
 In eodem traditur sepulturse gentis, 
 Faturque scriptoribus, quod Papa praefato, 
 Vico senioribus transiens amato 
 Congruo ductoribus sequitur negato 
 Loco, quo Ecclesia partu denigratur, 
 Qiiamvis inter spacia Pontificum ponatur, 
 Propter sexum." 
 
 Stephen Blanch, in his " Urbis Romce Mirabilia," 
 says that an angel of heaven appeared to Joan 
 before the event, and asked her to choose whether 
 she would prefer burning eternally in hell, or hav- 
 ing her confinement in public ; with sense which 
 does her credit, she chose the latter. The Protes- 
 tant writers were not satisfied that the father of 
 the unhappy baby should have been a servant : some
 
 Anicchrist a7td Pope yoajz. 177 
 
 made him a Cardinal, and others the devil himself. 
 According to an eminent Dutch minister, it is im- 
 material whether the child be fathered on Satan 
 or a monk ; at all events, the former took a lively- 
 interest in the youthful Antichrist, and, on the oc- 
 casion of his birth, was seen and heard fluttering 
 overhead, crowing and chanting in an unmusical 
 voice the Sibylline verses announcing the birth of 
 the Arch-persecutor : — 
 
 " Papa pater patrum, Papissae pandito partum 
 Et tibi tunc eadem de corpore quando recedam ! " 
 
 which lines, as being perhaps the only ones known 
 to be of diabolic composition, are deserving of pres- 
 ervation. 
 
 The Reformers, in order to reconcile dates, were 
 put to the somewhat perplexing necessity of moving 
 Pope Joan to their own times, or else of giving to 
 the youthful Antichrist an age of seven hundred 
 years. 
 
 It must be allowed that the accouchement of a 
 Pope in full pontificals, during a solemn procession, 
 was a prodigy not likely to occur more than once 
 in the world's history, and was certain to be of 
 momentous import. 
 12
 
 lyS Antichrist and Pope yoan. 
 
 It will be seen by the curious woodcut repro- 
 duced as frontispiece from Baptista Mantuanus, that 
 he consigned Pope Joan to the jaws of hell, not- 
 withstanding her choice. The verses accompanying 
 this picture are : — 
 
 " Hie pendebat adhuc sexum mentita virile 
 FcEinina, cui triplici Phrvgiam diademate mitram 
 Extollebat apex : et pontificalis adulter." 
 
 It need hardly be stated that the whole story of 
 Pope Joan is fabulous, and rests on not the slightest 
 historical foundation. It was probably a Greek in- 
 vention to throw discredit on the papal hierarchy, 
 first circulated more than two hundred years after 
 the date of the supposed Pope. Even Martin Polo- 
 nus (A. D. 1282), who is the first to give the details, 
 does so merely on popular report. 
 
 The great champions of the myth were the Prot- 
 estants of the sixteenth century, who were thorough- 
 ly unscrupulous in distorting history and suppressing 
 facts, so long as they could make a point. A paper 
 war was waged upon the subject, and finally the 
 whole story was proved conclusively to be utterly 
 destitute of historical truth. A melancholy example 
 of the blindness of part)' feeling and prejudice is
 
 Antichrist a7td Pope yoan. 1^9 
 
 seen in Mosheim, who assumes the truth of the 
 ridiculous story, and gravely inserts it in his " Ec- 
 clesiastical History." " Between Leo IV., who died 
 855, and Benedict III., a woman, who concealed 
 her sex and assumed the name of John, it is said, 
 opened her way to the Pontifical throne by her 
 learning and genius, and governed the Church for 
 a time. She is commonly called the Papess Joan. 
 During the five subsequent centuries the witnesses 
 to this extraordinary event are without number ; nor 
 did any one, prior to the Reformation by Luther, 
 regard the thing as either incredible or disgraceful 
 to the Church." Such are Mosheim's words, and 
 I give them as a specimen of the credit which is 
 due to his opinion. The " Ecclesiastical History " 
 he wrote is full of perversions of the plainest facts, 
 and that under our notice is but one out of many. 
 " During the five centuries after her reign," he says, 
 " the witnesses to the story are innumerable." Now, 
 for two centuries there is not an allusion to be 
 found to the events. The only passage which can 
 be found is a universally acknowledged interpola- 
 tion of the " Lives of the Popes," by Anastasius 
 Bibliothecarius ; and this interpolation is stated in
 
 I So Antichrist and Pope yoan. 
 
 the first printed edition by Busceus, Mogunt. 1602, 
 to be only found in two MS. copies. 
 
 From Marianus Scotus or Sigebert dc Gemblours 
 the story passed into other chronicles totidem verbis^ 
 and generally with hesitation and an expression of 
 doubt in its accuracy. Martin Polonus is the first 
 to give the particulars, some four hundred and 
 twenty years after the reign of the fabulous Poj^e. 
 
 Mosheim is false again in asserting that no one 
 prior to the Reformation regarded the thing as 
 either incredible or disgraceful. This is but of a 
 piece with his malignity and disregard for truth, 
 whenever he can hit the Catholic Church hard. 
 Bart. Platina, in his " Lives of the Popes," written 
 before Luther was born, after relating the story, says, 
 "■These things which I relate are popular reports, 
 but derived from uncertain and obscure authors, 
 which I have therefore inserted briefly and baldly, 
 lest I should seem to omit obstinately and pertina- 
 ciously what most people assert." Thus the ficts 
 were justly doubted by Platina on the legitimate 
 grounds that they rested on popular gossip, and not 
 on reliable history. Marianus Scotus, the first to 
 relate the story, died in 10S6. He was a monk
 
 Antichrist and Pope Joan, i8i 
 
 of St. Martin of Cologne, then of Fulda, and lastly 
 of St. Alban's, at Metz. How could he have ob- 
 tained reliable information, or seen documents upon 
 which to ground the assertion? Again, his chron- 
 icle has suffered severely from interpolations in nu- 
 merous places, and there is reason to believe that 
 the Pope-Joan passage is itself a late interpolation. 
 
 ]f so, we are reduced to Sigebert de Gemblours 
 (d. 1 1 13), placing two centuries and a half between 
 him and the event he records, and his chronicle 
 may have been tampered with. 
 
 The historical discrepancies are sufficiently glar- 
 ing to make the story more than questionable. 
 
 Leo IV. died on the 17th July, '^s^'^ ; and Benedict 
 III. v\-as consecrated on the ist September in the 
 same year ; so that it is impossible to insert between 
 their pontificates a I'eign of two years, five months, 
 and four days. It is, however, true that there was 
 an antipope elected upon the death of Leo, at the 
 instance of the Emperor Louis ; but his name was 
 Anastasius. This man possessed himself of the 
 palace of the Popes, and obtained the incarceration 
 of Benedict. However, his supporters almost im- 
 mediately deserted him, and Benedict assumed the
 
 1 82 Antichrist and Pope Joan. 
 
 pontificate. The reign of Benedict was only for 
 two years and a half, so that Anastasius cannot 
 be the sujDposed Joan ; nor do we hear of any 
 charge brought against him to the effect of his 
 being a woman. But the stout partisans of the 
 Pope-Joan tale assert, on the authority of the " An- 
 nates Augustani," * and some other, but late au- 
 thorities, that the female Pope was John VIII., 
 who consecrated Louis II. of France, and Ethel- 
 wolf of England. Here again is confusion. Ethel- 
 wolf sent Alfred to Rome in 853, and the youth 
 received regal unction from tire hands of Leo IV. 
 In Z'^<) Ethelwolf visited Rome, it is true, but 
 was not consecrated by the existing Pope, whilst 
 Charles the Bald was anointed by John VIII. in 
 875. John VIII. was a Roman, son of Gundus, 
 and an archdeacon of the Eternal City. He as- 
 sumed the triple crown in 872, and reigned till 
 December 18, 8S2. John took an active part in the 
 troubles of the Church under the incursions of the 
 Sarasins, and 325 letters of his are extant, ad- 
 dressed to the princes and prelates of his day. 
 Any one desirous of pursuing this examination 
 
 * These Annals were written in 1135.
 
 Antichrist and Pope yoan. 183 
 
 into the untenable nature of the storv may find an 
 excellent summary of the arguments used on both 
 sides in Gieseler, " Lehrbuch," &c., Cunningham's 
 trans., voL ii. pp. 20, 21, or in Bayle, " Diction- 
 naire," torn. iii. art. Papesse. 
 
 The arguments in favor of the myth may be 
 seen in Spanheim, " Exercit. de Papa Fopmina," 
 0pp. torn. ii. jD. 577, or in Lenfant, " Histoire de 
 la Papesse Jeanne," La Haye, 1736, 2 vols. i2mo. 
 
 The arguments on the other side may be had in 
 " Allatii Confutatio Fabulce de Johanna Papissa," 
 Colon. 1645 ; in Le Qiiien, ." Oriens Christianus," 
 torn. iii. 2^. 777 ; and in the pages of the Lutheran 
 Huemann, " Sylloge Diss. Sacras.," torn. i. par. ii. 
 
 P- 352- 
 
 The final development of this extraordinary story, 
 under the delieate fingers of the German and 
 French Protestant controversialists, may not prove 
 uninteresting. 
 
 Joan was the daughter of an English missionary, 
 who left England to preach the Gospel to the re- 
 cently converted Saxons. She was born at Er.- 
 gclheim, and according to different authors she 
 was christened Agnes, Gerberta, Joanna, Margaret,
 
 184 Antichrist and Pope yoan. 
 
 Isabel, Dorothy, or Jutt — the last must have been 
 a nickname surely ! She early distingiu'shed her- 
 self for genius and love of letters. A }oimg monk 
 of Fulda having conceived for her a violent pas- 
 sion, which she returned with ardor, she deserted 
 her parents, dressed herself in male attire, and in 
 the sacred precincts of Fulda divided her affec- 
 tions between the youthful monk and the musty 
 books of the monastic library. Not satisfied with 
 the restraints of conventual life, nor finding the 
 library sufficiently well provided with books of 
 abstruse science, she eloped with her young man, 
 and after visiting England, France, and Italy, she 
 brought him to Athens, where she addicted herself 
 with unflagging devotion to her literary pursuits. 
 Wearied out by his journey, the monk expired in 
 the arms of the blue-stocking who had influenced 
 his life for evil, and the young lady of so many 
 aliases was for a while inconsolable. She left 
 Athens and repaired to Rome. There she opened 
 a school and acquired such a reputation for learn- 
 ing and feigned sanctity, that, on the death of Leo 
 IV., she was unanimously elected Pope, For two 
 years and five months, under tlie name of John
 
 A7ttlchrist and Pope Joan. 185 
 
 VIII., she filled the papal chair with reputation, 
 no one suspecting her sex. But having taken a 
 fancy to one of the cardinals, by him she became 
 pregnant. At- length arrived the time of Rogation 
 processions. Whilst passing the street between the 
 amphitheatre and St. Clement's, she was seized 
 with violent pains, fell to the ground amidst the 
 crowd, and, whilst her attendants ministered to her, 
 was delivered of a son. Some say the child and 
 mother died on the spot, some that she survived 
 but w^as incarcerated, some that the child was 
 spirited away to be the Antichrist of the last days. 
 A marble monument representing the papess with 
 her baby was erected on the spot, which was de- 
 clared to be accursed to all ages. 
 
 I have little doubt myself that Pope Joan is an 
 tmpersonification of the great whore of Revelation, 
 seated on the seven hills, and is the popular ex- 
 pression of the idea prevalent from the twelfth to 
 the sixteenth centuries, that the mystery of iniquity 
 was somehow woi'king in the papal coui't. The 
 scandal of the Antipopes, the utter worldliness and 
 pride of others, the spiritual fornication with the
 
 l86 Antichrist and Pope yoan. 
 
 kings of the earth, along with the words of Rev- 
 elation projohcsying the advent of an adulterous 
 woman who should rule over the imperial city, 
 and her connection with Antichrist, crj'stallized 
 into this curious myth, much as the floating uncer- 
 tainty as to the signification of our Lord's words, 
 " There be some standing here which shall not 
 taste of death till thev see the kingdom of God," 
 condensed into the myth of the Wandering Jew. 
 
 The literature connected with Antichrist is volu- 
 minous. I need only specify some of the most 
 curious works which have appeared on the sub- 
 ject. St. Hippol)tus and Rabanus Maurus have 
 been already alluded to. Commodianus wrote 
 " Carmen Apologeticum adversus Gentes," which 
 has been published by Dom Pitra in his " Spicile- 
 gium Solcsmense," with an introduction contain- 
 ing Jewish and Christian traditions relating to 
 Antichrist. " De Turpissima Conceptione, Nativi- 
 tate, et aliis Prtesagiis Diaboliciis illius Turpissimi 
 Hominis Antichristi," is the title of a strange little 
 volume published by Lenoir in A. D. 1500, con- 
 taining rude yet characteristic woodcuts, represent-
 
 Antichrist and Pope jfoarz. 187 
 
 ing the birth, life, and death of the Man of Sin, 
 each picture accompanied bv French verses in ex- 
 planation. An equally remarkable illustrated work 
 on Antichrist is the famous " Liber de Antichristo," 
 a blockbook of an early date. It is in twenty-seven 
 folios, and is excessively rare. Dibdin has repro- 
 duced three of the plates in his " Bibliotheca Spen- 
 seriana," and Falckenstein has given full details of 
 the work in his " Geschichte der Buchdrucker- 
 kunst." 
 
 There is an Easter miracle-play of the twelfth 
 century, still extant, the subject of which is the 
 " Life and Death of Antichrist." More curious 
 still is the " Farce de I'Antechrist et de Trois 
 Femmes " — a composition of the sixteenth centu- 
 ry, when that mysterious personage occupied all 
 brains. The farce consists in a scene at a fish- 
 stall, with three good ladies quarrelling over some 
 fish. Antichrist steps in, — for no particular reason 
 that one can see, — upsets fish and fish-women, sets 
 them fighting, and skips oiT the stage. The best 
 book on Antichrist, and that most full of learning 
 und judgment, is Malvenda's great work in two
 
 i88 Antichrist and Pope Joan. 
 
 folio volumes, " De Antichristo, libvi xii." Lyons, 
 1647. 
 
 For the fable of the Pope Joan, see J. Lenfant, 
 " Histoire de la Papesse Jeanne." La Haye, 1736, 
 2 vols. i2mo. " Allatii Confutatio Fabulae de Johan- 
 na Papissa." Colon. 1645.
 
 189 
 
 ®l)e illan in tl)e IHoon. 
 
 From L. Richter. 
 
 EVERY one knows that the moon is inhabited 
 by a man with a bundle of sticks on his back, 
 who has been exiled thither for many centuiies, 
 and who is so far off that he is beyond the reach 
 of death. 
 
 He has once visited this earth, if the nursery 
 rhyme is to be credited, when it asserts that — 
 
 "The Man in the Moon 
 Came down too soon, 
 And asked his way to Norwich ; " 
 
 but whetlier he ever reached that city, the same 
 authority does not state.
 
 190 The Man in the Moon. 
 
 The story as told by nurses is, that this man was 
 found by Moses gathering sticks on a Sabbath, 
 and that, for this crime, he was doomed to reside 
 in the moon till the end of all things ; and they 
 refer to Numbers xv. 32-36 : — 
 
 " And while the children of Israel were in the 
 wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks 
 upon the Sabbath day. And they that found him 
 gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and 
 Aaron, and unto all the congregation. And they 
 put him in ward, because it was not declared what 
 should be done to him. And the Lord said unto 
 Moses, The man shall be surely put to death : all 
 the congregation shall stone him with stones with- 
 out the camp. And all the congregation brought 
 him without the camp, and stoned him with stones 
 till he died." 
 
 Of course, in the sacred writings there is no 
 allusion to the moon. 
 
 The German tale is as follows : — 
 
 Ages ago there went one Sunday morning an 
 old man into the wood to hew sticks. He cut a 
 fagot and slung it on a stout staff', cast it over 
 his shoulder, and began to trudge home with his
 
 The Man in the Moon. 
 
 igi 
 
 burden. On his way he met a handsome man 
 in Sunday suit, walking towards the Church ; this 
 man stopped and aslced the fagot-bearer, *•' Do you 
 know that this is Sunday on earth, when all njust 
 rest from their labors?" 
 
 " Sunday on earth, or Monday in heaven, it is 
 all one to me ! " laughed the wood-cutter. 
 
 " Then bear your bundle forever," answered the 
 stranger ; " and as you value not Sunday on earth, 
 yours shall be a perpetual Moon-day in heaven ; 
 and you shall stand for eternity in the moon, a 
 warning to all Sabbath-breakers." Thereupon the 
 stranger vanished, and the man was caught up with 
 his stock and his fagot into the moon, where he 
 stands yet. 
 
 The superstition seems to be old in Germany, for 
 the full moon is spoken of as wadel, or wedel, a 
 fagot. Tobler relates the story thus : " An arma 
 ma, ket alawel am Sonnti holz ufglesa. Do hedem 
 der liebe Gott dwahl gloh, 6b er lieber wott ider 
 sonn verbrenna oder im mo verfrura, do wilier 
 lieber inn mo ihi. Dromm siedma no jetz an ma 
 im mo inna, wenns wedel ist. Er hed a piischeli 
 uflem rogga." * That is to say, he was given the 
 * Tobler, Appenz. Sprachsbuch, 20.
 
 192 The Man in the Moon. 
 
 choice of burning in the sun, or of freezing in the 
 moon ; he cliose the latter ; and now at full moon 
 he is to be seen seated with his bundle of fagots 
 on.his back. 
 
 In Schaumburg-Li-ppe,* the story goes, that a 
 man and a woman stand in the moon, the man 
 because he strewed brambles and thorns on the 
 church path, so as to hinder people from attend- 
 ing Mass on Sunday morning ; the woman because 
 she made butter on that day. The man carries 
 his bundle of thorns, the woman her butter-tub. 
 A similar tale is told in Swabia and in Marken. 
 Fischart f says, that there "is to be seen in the 
 moon a manikin who stole wood ; " and Praetorius, 
 in his description of the world, \ that " superstitious 
 people assert that the black flecks in the moon are 
 a man who gathered wood on a Sabbath, and is 
 therefore turned into stone." 
 
 The Dutch household myth is, that the unhappy 
 man was caught stealing vegetables. Dante calls 
 him Cain : — 
 
 * Wolf, Zeitschrift fUr Deut. Myth. i. 168. 
 t Fischart, Garg. 130. 
 \ Praetorius, i. 447.
 
 The Man in the Moon. 193 
 
 ** . . . Now dotli Cain with fork of thorns confine, 
 On either hemisphere, touching the wave 
 Beneath the towers of Seville. Yesternight 
 The moon was round." — Hell, cant. xx. 
 
 And again, — 
 
 "... Tell, I pray thee, whence the gloomy spots 
 Upon this bod}', which below on earth 
 Give rise to talk of Cain in fabling quaint?" 
 
 Paradise, cant. ii. 
 
 Chaucer, in the " Testament of Cresside," adverts 
 to the man in the moon, and attributes to him the 
 same idea of theft. Of Lady Cynthia, or the moon, 
 he says, — 
 
 " Her gite was gray and full of spottis blake, 
 And on her brest a chorle painted ful even, 
 Bering a bush of thornis on his backe, 
 Whiche for his theft might clime so ner the heaven." 
 
 Ritson, among his " Ancient Songs," gives one 
 extracted from a manuscript of the time of Edward 
 II., on the Man in the Moon, but in very obscure 
 language. The first verse, altered into more modern 
 orthography, runs as follows : — 
 
 " Man in the Moon stand and stit. 
 
 On his bot-fork his burden he beareth, 
 It is much wonder that he do na doun slit, 
 
 For doubt lest he fall he shudd'reth and shivereth. 
 
 13
 
 194 -^^ Man in the Moon. 
 
 " When the frost freezes must chill he bide, 
 The thorns be keen his attire so teareth, 
 Nis no wight in the world there wot when he sjt, 
 Ne bote it by the hedge what weeds he weareth." 
 
 Alexander Necham, or Nequam, a writer of the 
 
 twelfth centiry, in commenting on the dispersed 
 
 shadows in the moon, thus alludes to the vulgar 
 
 belief: " Nonne novisti quid vulgus vocet rusti- 
 
 cum in luna portantem spinas? Unde quidam 
 
 vulgariter loquens ait: — 
 
 " Rusticus in Luna, 
 
 Quern sarcina deprimit una 
 Monstrat per opinas 
 Nulli prodesse rapinas," 
 
 which may be translated thus : " Do you know 
 
 what they call the rustic in the moon, who carries 
 
 the fagot of sticks? So that one vulgarly speak' 
 
 ing says, — 
 
 " See the rustic in the Moon, 
 How his bundle weighs him down ; 
 Thus his sticks the truth reveal, 
 It never profits man to steal." 
 
 Shakspeare refers to the same individual in his 
 "Midsummer Night's Dream." Qiiince the car- 
 penter, giving directions for the performance of the 
 play of " Pyramus and Thisbe," orders : " One must
 
 The Man in the Moon. 195 
 
 come in with a bush of thorns and a lantern, and say 
 he comes in to disfigure, or to present, the person 
 of Moonshine." And the enacter of this part says, 
 " All I have to say is, to tell you that the lantern 
 is the mooa ; I the man in the moon ; this thorn- 
 bush my thorn-bush ; and this dog my dog." 
 Also " Tempest," Act 2, Scene 2 : — 
 
 " C«/. Hast thou not dropt from heaven? 
 
 " Stcph. Out o' th' moon, I do assure thee. I was the man 
 in th' moon when time was. 
 
 " Cal. I have seen thee in her; and I do adore thee. My 
 mistress showed me thee, and thy dog, and thy bush." 
 
 The dog I have myself had pointed out to me by 
 an old Devonshire crone. If popular superstition 
 places a dog in the moon, it puts a lamb in the 
 sun ; for in the same county it is said that those 
 who see the sun rise on Easter-day, may behold in 
 the orb the lamb and flag. 
 
 I believe this idea of locating animals in the two 
 great luminaries of heaven to be very ancient, and 
 to be a relic of a primeval superstition of the Aryan 
 race. 
 
 There is an ancient pictorial representation of 
 our friend the Sabbath-breaker in Gyffyn Church,
 
 ig6 The Alan i7t the Moon. 
 
 near Conway. The roof of the chancel is divided 
 into compartments, in four of which are the Evan- 
 gelistic symbols, rudely, yet eflectively painted. Be- 
 sides these symbols is delineated in each compart- 
 ment an orb of heaven. The sun, the moon, and 
 two stars, are placed at the feet of the Angel, 
 the Bull, the Lion, and the Eagle. The represen- 
 tation of the moon is as below ; in the disk is the 
 
 conventional man with his bundle of sticks, but 
 without the dog. There is also a curious seal ap- 
 pended to a deed preserved in the Record Office, 
 dated the 9th year of Edward the Third (1335), 
 bearing the man in the moon as its device. The 
 deed is one of conveyance of a messuage, barn, and 
 four acres of ground, in the parisli of Kingston-on- 
 Thames, from Walter de Grendesse, clerk, to Mar- 
 garet his mother. On the seal we see the man
 
 The Man in the Moon. - 197 
 
 carrying his sticks, and the moon surrounds him. 
 
 There are also a couple of stars added, perhaps to 
 
 show that he is in the sky. The legend on the 
 
 seal reads : — 
 
 " Te Waltere docebo 
 
 cur spinas phebo 
 
 gero," 
 
 which may be translated, " I will teach thee, Walter, 
 why I carry thorns in the moon." 
 
 The general superstition with regard to the spots 
 in the moon may briefly be summed up thus : A 
 man is located in the moon ; he is a thief or Sab- 
 bath-breaker ; * he has a pole over his shoulder, from 
 
 * Hebel, in his charming poem on the Man in the Moon, 
 in " Allemanische Gedichte," makes him both thief and 
 Sabbath-breaker.
 
 198 The JSIan in the Moon, 
 
 which is suspended a bundle of sticks or thorns. In 
 some places a woman is believed to accompany him, 
 and she has a butter-tub with her ; in other locali- 
 ties she is replaced by a dog. 
 
 The belief in the Moon-man seems to exist among 
 the natives of British Columbia; for I read in one 
 of Mr. Duncan's letters to the Church Missionary 
 Society, " One very dark night I was told that there 
 was a moon to see on the beach. On going to see, 
 there was an illuminated disk, with the figure of a 
 man upon it. The water was then very low, and 
 one of the conjuring parties had lit up this disk at 
 the water's edge. They had made it of wax, with 
 great exactness, and presently it was at full. It was 
 an imposing sight. Nothing could be seen around 
 it ; but the Indians suppose that the medicine party 
 are then holding converse with the man in the 
 moon. . . . After a short time the moon waned away, 
 and the conjuring party returned whooping to their 
 house." 
 
 Now let us turn to Scandinavian mythology, and 
 see what we learn from that source. 
 
 M;lni, the moon, stole two children from their 
 parents, and carried them up to heaven. Their
 
 The Maji in the j\Ioon. 199 
 
 names were Hjuki and Bil. They had been draw- 
 ing water from the well Byrgir, in the bucket ScEgr, 
 suspended from the pole Simul, which they bore 
 upon their shoulders. These children, pole, and 
 bucket were placed in heaven, " where they could 
 be seen from earth." This refers undoubtedly to 
 the spots in the moon ; and so the Swedish peas- 
 antry explain these spots to this day, as representing 
 a boy and a girl bearing a pail of water between 
 them. Are we not reminded at once of our nursery 
 rhyme — 
 
 "Jack and Jill went up a hill 
 To fetch a pail of water; 
 Jack fell down, and broke his crown, 
 And Jill came tumbling after"? 
 
 This verse, which to us seems at first sight non- 
 sense, I have no hesitation in saying has a high 
 antiquity, and refers to the Eddaic Hjuki and Bil. 
 The names indicate as much. Hjuki, in Norse, 
 would be pronounced Juki, which would readily 
 become Jack; and Bil, for the sake of euphony, and 
 in order to give a female name to one of the chil- 
 dren, would become Jill. 
 
 The fall of Jack, and the subsequent fall of Jill,
 
 200 The Man in the Moon. 
 
 simply represent the vanishing of one moon-spot 
 after another, as the moon wanes. 
 
 But the old Norse m3th had a deeper significa- 
 tion than merely an explanation of the moon-spots. 
 
 Hjuki is derived from the verb jakka, to heap or 
 pile together, to assemble and increase; and Bil 
 from bila, to break up or dissolve. Hjuki and Bil, 
 therefore, signify nothing more than the waxing and 
 waniiig of the moon, and the water they are repre- 
 sented as bearing signifies the fact that the rainfall 
 depends on the phases of the moon. Waxing and 
 waning were individualized, and the meteorological 
 fact of the connection of the rain witli the moon was 
 represented by the children as water-bearers. 
 
 But though Jack and Jill became by degrees dis- 
 sevei'ed in the popular mind from the moon, the 
 original myth went througli a fresh phase, and exists 
 still under a new form. The Norse superstition 
 attributed theft to the moon, and the vulgar soon 
 began to believe that the figure they saw in the moon 
 was the thief. The hmar specks certainl}^ may be 
 made to resemble one figure, and only a lively im- 
 agination can discern two. The girl soon dropped 
 out of popular mythology, the boy oldened into a
 
 The Mail in the Moon. 201 
 
 venerable man, he retained his pole, and the bucket 
 was transformed into the thing he had stolen — 
 sticks or vegetables. The theft was in some places 
 exchanged for Sabbath-breaking, especially among 
 those in Protestant countries who were acquainted 
 with the Bible story of the stick-gatherer. 
 
 The Indian superstition is worth examining, be- 
 cause of the connection existing between Indian and 
 European mjthology, on account of our belonging 
 to the same Aiyan stock. 
 
 According to a Buddhist legend, Sakyamunni him- 
 self, in one of his earlier stages of existence, was a 
 hare, and liv-ed in friendship with a fox and an ape. 
 In order to test the virtue of the Bodhisattwa, Indra 
 came to the friends, in the form of an old man, ask- 
 ing for food. Hare, ape, and fox went forth in quest 
 of victuals for their guest. The two latter returned 
 from their foraging expedition successful, but the 
 hare had found nothing. Then, rather than that he 
 should treat the old man with inhospitality, the hare 
 had a fire kindled, and cast himself into the flames, 
 th;it he might himself become food for his guest. 
 In reward for this act of self-sacrifice, Indra car-
 
 202 The Man in the Moon. 
 
 lied the hare to heaven, and placed him in the 
 moon.* 
 
 Here we have an old man and a hare in connec- 
 tion with the lunar planet, just as in Shakspeare we 
 have a fagot-bearer and a dog. 
 
 The fable rests upon the name of the moon in 
 Sanskrit, 9a5in, or " that marked with the hare ; ' 
 but whether the belief in the spots taking the shape 
 of a hare gave the name ^a^in to the moon, or ths 
 lunar name ^agin originated the belief, it is impossi 
 ble for us to say. 
 
 Grounded upon this mj'th is the curious story ot 
 "The Hare and the Elephant," in the " Pantscha- 
 tantra," an ancient collection of Sanskrit fables. It 
 will be found as the first tale in the third book. I 
 have room only for an outline of the story. 
 
 THE CRAFTY HARE. 
 
 In a certain forest lived a mighty elephant, king 
 of a herd. Toothy by name. On a certain occasion 
 there was a long drought, so that pools, tanks, 
 
 * " Memoires . . . par Hjouen Thsang, traduits du Chinois 
 par Stanislas Julien," i. 375. Upham, " Sacred Books of 
 Ceylon," iii. 309.
 
 The Man i7i the Moon. 
 
 203 
 
 swamps, and lakes were dried up. Then the ele- 
 phants sent out exploring parties in search of water. 
 A young one discovered an extensive lake surrounded 
 with trees, and teeming with water-fowl. It went 
 by the name of the Moon-lake. The elephants, de- 
 lighted at the prospect of having an inexhaustible 
 supply of water, marched off to the spot, and found 
 their most sanguine hopes realized. Round about 
 the lake, in the sandy soil, were innumerable hare 
 warrens ; and as the herd of elephants trampled on 
 the ground, the hares were severely injured, their 
 homes broken down, their heads, legs, and backs 
 crushed beneath the ponderous feet of the monsters 
 of the forest. As soon as the herd had withdrawn, 
 the hares assembled, some halting, some dripping 
 with blood, some bearing the corpses of their cher- 
 ished mfants, some with piteous tales of ruination 
 in their houses, all with tears streaming from their 
 eyes, and wailing forth, " Alas, we are lost ! The 
 elephant-herd will return, for there is no water else- 
 where, and that will be the death of all of us." 
 
 But the wise and prudent Longear volunteered 
 to drive the herd away ; and he succeeded in this 
 manner : Longear went to the elephants, and hav-
 
 204 The Ma7t in the Moon, 
 
 ing singled out tlieir king, he addressed him as 
 follows : — 
 
 " Ha, ha ! bad elephant ! what brings you with 
 such thoughtless frivolity to this strange lake? Back 
 with you at once ! " 
 
 When the king of the elephants heard this, he 
 asked in astonishment, "Pray, who are you?" 
 
 " I," replied Longear, — "I am Vidschajadatta by 
 name ; the hare who resides in the Moon. Now 
 am I sent by his Excellency the Moon as an ambas- 
 sador to you. I speak to you in the name of the 
 Moon." 
 
 " Ahem ! Hare," said the elephant, somewhat stag- 
 gered ; "" and what message have you brought me 
 from his Excellency the Moon?" 
 
 " You have this day injured several hares. Are 
 you not aware that they are the subjects of me? 
 If you value your life, venture not near the lake 
 again. Break my command, and I shall withdraw 
 my beams from you at night, and your bodies will 
 be consumed with perpetual sun." 
 
 The elephant, after a short meditation, said, 
 " Friend ! it is true that I have acted against the 
 rights of the excellent Majesty of the Moon. I
 
 The Ma7t ht the Moon. 205 
 
 sliould wish to make an apology ; how can I do 
 so?" 
 
 The hare rephed, " Come along with me, and I 
 will show you." 
 
 The elephant asked, "Where is his Excellency at 
 present? " 
 
 The other replied, " He is now in the lake, hear- 
 ing the complaints of the maimed hares." 
 
 " If that be the case," said the elephant, humbl}', 
 "bring me to my lord, that I may tender him my 
 submission." ^ 
 
 So the hare conducted the king of the elephants 
 to the edge of the lake, and showed him the re- 
 flection of the moon in the water, saying, " There 
 stands our lord in the midst of the water, plunged 
 in meditation ; reverence him with devotion, and 
 then depart with speed." 
 
 Thereupon the elephant poked his proboscis into 
 the water, and muttered a fervent prayer. By so 
 doing he set the water in agitation, so that the re- 
 flection of the moon was all of a quiver. 
 
 " Look ! " exclaimed the hare ; " his Majesty is 
 trembling with rage at you ! " 
 
 "Why is his supreme Excellency enraged with 
 me?" asked the elephant.
 
 2o6 The Man in the Moon. 
 
 " Because yow have set the water in motion. 
 Worship him, and then be oft'! " 
 
 The elephant let his ears droop, bowed his great 
 head to the earth, and after having expressed in 
 suitable terms his regret for having annoyed the 
 Moon, and the hare dwelling in it, he vowed never 
 to trouble the Moon-lake again. Then he departed, 
 and the hares have ever since lived there unmo- 
 lested.
 
 207 
 
 Sljc iHountain of l)enu0. 
 
 RAGGED, bald, and desolate, as though a curse 
 rested upon it, rises the Horselberg out of the 
 rich and populous land between Eisenach and Gotha, 
 looking, from a distance, like a huge stone sarcoph- 
 agus — a sarcophagus in which rests in magical 
 slumber, till the end of all things, a mysterious world 
 of wonders. 
 
 High up on the north-west flank of the mountain, 
 in a precipitous wall of rock, opens a cavern, called 
 the Horselloch, from the depths of which issues a 
 muffled roar of water, as though a subterraneous 
 stream were rushing over rapidly-whirling mill- 
 wheels. " When I have stood alone on the ridge 
 of the mountain," says Bechstein, " after having 
 sought the chasm in vain, I have heard a mighty 
 rush, like that of falling water, beneath my feet, and 
 after scrambling down the scarp, have found m3'self 
 — how, I never knew — in front of the cave." (" Sa- 
 genschatz des Thi'iringes-landes," 1835.)
 
 2o8 Tlie Mottntain of Ventis. 
 
 In ancient days, according to the ThiJringian 
 Chronicles, bitter "cries and long-drawn moans were 
 heard issuing from this cavern ; and at night, wild 
 shrieks and the burst of diabolical laughter would 
 ring from it over the vale, and fill the inhabitants 
 with terror. It was supposed that this hole gave 
 admittance to Purgatory ; and the popular but faulty- 
 derivation of Horsel was Hore^ die Seele — Hark, the 
 Souls ! 
 
 But another popular belief respecting this moun- 
 tain was, that in it Venus, the pagan Goddess of 
 Love, held her court, in all the pomp and revelry 
 of heathendom ; and there were not a few who de- 
 clared that they had seen fair forms of female beauty 
 beckoning them from the mouth of the chasm, and 
 that they had heard dulcet strains of music well 
 up from the abyss above the thunder of the falling, 
 unseen torrent. Charmed by the music, and allured 
 by the spectral forms, various individuals had en- 
 tered the cave, and none had returned, except the 
 Tanhiiuser, of whom more anon. Still does the 
 Horseliierg go by the name of the Venusberg, a 
 name frequently used in the middle ages, but with- 
 out its locality being defined.
 
 The Mo7i72tain of Vemis. 209 
 
 "In 1398, at midday, there appeared suddenly 
 three great fires in the air, which jDresently ran 
 together into one globe of flame, parted again, antl 
 finally sank into the Horselberg," says the Thi'irin- 
 gian Chronicle. 
 
 And now for the story of Tanhauser. 
 
 A French knight was riding over the beauteous 
 meadows in the Horsel vale on his way to Wart- 
 burg, where the Landgrave Hermann was holding 
 a gathering of minstrels, who were to contend in 
 song for a prize. 
 
 Tanhauser w^as a famous minnesinger, and all 
 his lays were of love and of women, for his heart 
 was full of passion, and that not of tire purest and 
 noblest description. 
 
 It was towards dusk that he passed the cliff in 
 which is the Horselloch, and as he rode by, he saw 
 a white glimmering figure of matchless beauty stand- 
 ing before him, and beckoning him to her. He knew 
 her at once, by her attributes and by her superhuman 
 perfection, to be none other than Venus. As she 
 spake to him, the sweetest strains of music floated 
 in the air, a soft roseate light glowed around her, 
 and nymphs of exquisite loveliness scattered roses 
 14
 
 2IO The ]\Iountain of Vcmis. 
 
 at her feet. A thrill of passion ran through the 
 veins of the minnesinger ; and, leaving his horse, 
 he followed the apparition. It led him up the 
 mountain to the cave, and as it .vent .lovk^ers 
 bloomed upon the soil, and a radiant track was 
 left for Tanhauser to follow. He entered the cavern, 
 and descended to the palace of Venus in the heart 
 of the mountain. 
 
 Seven years of revelry and debauch were passed, 
 and the minstrel's heart began to feel a strange 
 void. The beauty, the magnificence, the variety of 
 the scenes in the pagan goddess's home, and all 
 its heathenish pleasures, palled upon him, and he 
 yearned for the pure fresh breezes of earth, one 
 look up at the dark night sky spangled with stars, 
 one glimpse of simple mountain-flowers, one tinkle 
 of sheep-bells. At the same time his conscience 
 began to reproach him, and he longed to make his 
 peace with God. In vain did he entreat Venus to 
 permit him to depart, and it was only when, in the 
 bitterness of his grief, he called upon the Virgin- 
 Mother, that a rift in the mountain-side appeared 
 to him, and he stood again above ground. 
 
 How sweet was the morning air, balmy with the
 
 The Moiuitaln of V^enus. 211 
 
 scent of hay, as it rolled up the mountain to him, 
 and fanned his haggard cheek ! How delightful to 
 him was the cushion of moss and scanty grass after 
 the downy couches of the palace of i^evelry below ! 
 He plucked the little heather-bells, and held them 
 before him ; the tears rolled from his eyes, and 
 moistened his thin and wasted hands. He looked 
 up at the soft blue sky and the newly-risen sun, 
 and his heart overflowed. What were the golden, 
 jewel-incrusted, lamp-lit vaults beneath to that pure 
 dome of God's building ! 
 
 The chime of a village church struck sweetly on 
 his ear, satiated with Bacchanalian songs ; and he 
 hurried down the mountain to the church which 
 called him. There he made his confession ; but the 
 priest, horror-struck at his recital, dared not give 
 him absolution, but passed him on to another. And 
 so he went from one to another, till at last he was 
 referred to the Pope himself. To the Pope he went. 
 Urban IV. then occupied the chair of St. Peter. 
 To him Tanhauser related the sickening story of 
 his guilt, and prayed for absolution. Urban was a 
 hard and stern man, and shocked at the immensity 
 of the sin, he thrust the penitent indignantly from
 
 212 The Mountain of Venus. 
 
 him, exclaiming, " Guilt such as thine can never, 
 never be remitted. Sooner shall this staff in my 
 hand grow green and blossom, than that God should 
 pardon thee ! " 
 
 Then Tanhauser, full of despair, and with his 
 soul darkened, went away, and returned to the only 
 asylum open to him, the Venusberg. But lo ! three 
 days after he had gone. Urban discovered that his 
 pastoral staff had put forth buds, and had burst 
 into flower. Then he sent messengers after Tan- 
 hauser, and they reached the Horsel vale to hear 
 that a wayworn man, with haggard brow and bowed 
 head, had just entered the Horselloch. Since then 
 Tanhauser has not been seen. 
 
 vSuch is the sad yet beautiful story of Tanhauser. 
 It is a very ancient myth Christianized, a wide-spread 
 tradition localized. Originally heathen, it has been 
 transformed, and has acc^uired new beauty by an 
 infusion of Christianity. Scattered over Europe, it 
 exists in various forms, but in none so graceful as 
 that attached to the Horselberg. There are, how- 
 ever, other Venusbergs in Germany ; as, for instance, 
 in Swabia, near Waldsee ; another near Ufhausen, 
 at no great distance from Freiburg (the same story
 
 The Mountahi of Venus. 213 
 
 is told of this Veausberg as of the Horselberg) ; in 
 Saxony there is a Venusberg not far from Wolken- 
 stein. Paracelsus speaks of a Venusberg in Italy, 
 referring to that in which ^neas Sylvius (Ep. i6) 
 says Venus or a Sibyl resides, occupying a cavern, 
 and assuming once a week the form of a serpent. 
 Geiler v. Keysersperg, a quaint old preacher of the 
 fifteenth century, speaks of the witches assembling 
 on the Venusberg. 
 
 The story, either in prose or verse, has often been 
 printed. Some of the earliest editions are the fol- 
 lowing : — 
 
 " Das Lied von dem Danhevvser." Niirnberg, 
 without date; the same, Niirnberg, 1515. — "Das 
 Lyedt v. d. Thanheuser." Leyptzk, 1520. — "Das 
 Lied V. d. Danheiiser," reprinted by Bechstein, 1S35. 
 — " Das Lied vom edlen Tanheuser, Mons Veneris." 
 Frankfort, 1614 ; Leipzig, 1668. — " Twe lede volgen 
 Dat erste vam Danhiisser." Without date. — " Van 
 heer Danielken." Tantwerpen, 1544. — A Danish 
 version in " Nyerup, Danske Viser," No. VIIL 
 
 Let us now see some of the forms which this 
 remarkable myth assumed in other countries. Every 
 popular tale has its root, a root which may be
 
 214 The Mountain of Venus. 
 
 traced among diflerent countries, and though the 
 accidents of the story may vary, yet the substance 
 remains unaltered. It has been said that the com- 
 mon people never invent new story-radicals any more 
 than we invent new word-roots ; and this is perfectly 
 true. The same story-root remains, but it is varied 
 according to the temperament of the narrator or the 
 exigencies of localization. The story-root of the 
 Venusberg is this : — 
 
 The underground folk seek union with human 
 beings. 
 
 a. A man is enticed into their abode, whei^e he 
 unites with a woman of the underground 
 race. 
 
 (?. He desires to revisit the earth, and escapes. 
 , /. He returns again to the region below. 
 
 Now, there is scarcely a collection of folk-lore 
 which does not contain a story founded on this 
 root. It appears in every branch of the Aryan 
 family, and examples might be quoted from Modern 
 Greek, Albanian, Neapolitan, French, German, 
 Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, Icelandic, Scotch, 
 Welsh, and other collections of popular tales. I 
 have only space to mention some.
 
 The Mountain of Venus. 215 
 
 There is a Norse Thattr of a certain Helgi Thorir's 
 son, which is, in its present form, a production of 
 the fourteenth century. Helgi and his brother Thor- 
 stein went a cruise to Finnniark, or Laph\nd. They 
 reached a ness, and found the land covered with 
 forest. Helgi explored this forest, and lighted sud- 
 denly on a party of red-dressed women riding upon 
 red horses. These ladies were beautiful and of troll 
 race. One surpassed the others in beauty, and she 
 was their mistress. They erected a tent and pre- 
 pared a feast. Helgi observed that all their vessels 
 were of silver and gold. The lady, who named her- 
 self Ingibjorg, advanced towards the Norseman, and 
 invited him to live with her. He feasted and lived 
 with the trolls for three days, and then returned to 
 his ship, bringing with him two chests of silver 
 and gold, which Ingibjorg had given him. He had 
 been forbidden to mention where he had been and 
 with whom ; so he told no one whence he had ob- 
 tained the chests. The ships sailed, and he returned 
 home. 
 
 One winter's night Helgi was fetched away from 
 home, in the midst of a furious storm, by two mys- 
 terious horsemen, and no one was able to ascertain
 
 2i6 The Mou7italn of Venus. 
 
 for many years what had become of him, till the 
 prayers of the king, Olaf, obtained his release, and 
 then he was restored to his father and brother, but 
 he was thenceforth blind. All the time of his ab- 
 sence he had been with the red-vested lady in her 
 mysterious abode of Gloesisvellir. 
 
 The Scotch story of Thomas of Ercildoune is the 
 same story. Thomas met with a strange lady, of 
 elfin race, beneath Eildon Tree, who led him into 
 the underground land, where he remained with her 
 for seven years. He then returned to earth, still, 
 however, remaining bound to come to his royal mis- 
 tress whenever she should summon him. Accord- 
 ingly, while Thomas was making merry with his 
 friends in the Tower of Ercildoune, a person came 
 running in, and told, with marks of fear and aston- 
 ishment, that a hart and a hind had left the neigh- 
 boring forest, and were parading the street of the 
 village. Thomas instantly arose, left his house, and 
 followed the animals into the forest, from which he 
 never returned. According to popular belief, he 
 still "drees his weird" in Fairy Land, and is one 
 day expected to revisit earth. (Scott, " Minstrelsy 
 of the Scottish Border.") Compare with this the 
 ancient ballad of Tamlane.
 
 The Mountain of Venus. 217 
 
 Debes relates that "• it happened a good while 
 since, when the burghers of Bergen had the com- 
 merce of the Faroe Isles, that there was a man in 
 Serraade, called Jonas Soidenian, who was kept by 
 the spirits in a mountain during the space of seven 
 years, and at length came out, but lived afterwards 
 in great distress and fear, lest they should again take 
 him away ; wherefore people were obliged to watch 
 him in the night." The same author mentions 
 another young man who had been carried away, 
 and after his return was removed a second time, 
 upon the eve of his marriage. 
 
 Gervase of Tilbury says that " in Catalonia there 
 is a lofty mountain, named Cavagum, at the foot 
 of which runs a river with golden sands, in tlie 
 vicinity of which there are likewise silver mines. 
 This mountain is steep, and almost inaccessible. 
 On its top, which is always covered with ice and 
 snow, is a black and bottomless lake, into which if 
 a stone be cast, a tempest suddenly arises ; and near 
 this lake is the portal of the palace of demons." He 
 then tells how a young damsel was spirited in 
 there, and spent seven years with the mountain 
 spirits. On her return to earth she was thin and
 
 2i8 The Mountain of Venus. 
 
 withered, with wandering eyes, and ahnost bereft 
 of understanding. 
 
 A Swedish story is to this effect. A young man 
 was on his way to his bride, when he was aHured 
 into a mountain by a beautiful elfin woman. With 
 her he lived forty years, which passed as an hour ; 
 on his return to earth all his old friends and rela- 
 tions were dead, or had forgotten him, and finding 
 no rest there, he returned to his mountain elf-land. 
 
 In Pomerania, a laborer's son, Jacob Dietrich of 
 Rambin, was enticed away in the same manner. 
 
 There is a curious story told by Fordun in his 
 " Scotichronicon," which has some interest in con- 
 nection with the legend of the Tanhauser. He re- 
 lates that in the year 1050, a youth of noble birth 
 had been married in Rome, and during the nuptial 
 feast, being engaged in a game of ball, he took oft' 
 his wedding-ring, and placed it on the finger of a 
 statue of Venus. When he wished to resume it, he 
 found that the stony hand had become clinched, so 
 that it was impossible to remove the ring. Thence- 
 forth he was haunted by the Goddess Venus, who 
 constantly whispered in his ear, " Embrace me ; I 
 am Venus, whom you have wedded ; I will never
 
 T7ie Mountain of Vetius. 219 
 
 restore your ring." However, by the assistance of 
 a priest, she was at length forced to give it up to 
 its rightful owner. 
 
 The classic legend of Ulysses, held captive for 
 eight years by the nymph Calypso in the Island of 
 Ogygia, and again for one year by the enchantress 
 Circe, contains the root of the same story of the 
 Tanhauser. 
 
 What may have been the significance of the pri- 
 meval story-radical it is impossible for us now to 
 ascertain ; but the legend, as it shaped itself in the 
 middle ages, is certainly indicative of the struggle 
 between the new and the old faith. 
 
 We see thinly veiled in Tanhauser the story of 
 a man, Christian in name, but heathen at heart, 
 allured by the attractions of paganism, which seems 
 to satisfy his poetic instincts, and which gives full 
 rein to his passions. But these excesses pall on him 
 after a wdiile, and the religion of sensuality leaves 
 a great void in his breast. 
 
 He turns to Christianity, and at first it seems to 
 promise all that he requires. But alas ! he is repelled 
 by its ministers. On all sides he is met by practice 
 widely at variance with profession. Pride, worldli-
 
 220 The Alountain of Venus. 
 
 ness, want of sympathy exist among those who should 
 be the foremost to guide, sustain, and receive liim. 
 All the warm springs which gushed up in his broken 
 heart are choked, his softened spirit is hardened 
 again, and he returns in despair to bury his sorrows 
 and drown his anxieties in the debauchery of his 
 former creed. 
 
 A sad picture, but doubtless one very true.
 
 A MORE interesting task for the comparative mythol- 
 ogist can hardly be found, than the analysis of the 
 legends attaching to this celebrated soldier-martyr ; — 
 interesting, because these legends contain almost unal- 
 tered representative myths of the Semitic and Aryan 
 peoples, and myths which may be traced with certainty 
 to their respective roots. 
 
 The popular traditions current relating to the Cappa- 
 docian martyr are distinct in the East and the West, and 
 are alike sacred myths of faded creeds, absorbed into 
 the newer faith, and recolored. On dealing with these 
 myths, we are necessarily drawn into the discussion as to 
 whether such a person as St. George existed, and if he did 
 exist, whether he were a Catholic or a heretic. Eusebius 
 says (Eccl. Hist. B. viii. c. 5), "Immediately on the first 
 promulgation of the edict (of Diocletian), a certain man 
 of no mean origin, but highly esteemed for his temporal 
 dignities, as soon as" the decree was published against the
 
 222 St. George. 
 
 Churches in Nicomedia, stimulated by a divine zeal, and 
 excited by an ardent faith, took it as it was openly placed 
 and posted up for public inspection, and tore it to pieces 
 as a most profane and wicked act. This, too, was done 
 when two of the Caesars were in the city, the first of whom 
 was the eldest and chief of all, and the other held the 
 fourth grade of the imperial dignity after him. But this 
 man, as the first that was distinguished there in this man- 
 ner, after enduring what was likely to follow an act so 
 daring, preserved his mind calm and serene until the 
 moment when his spirit fled." 
 
 This martyr, whose name Eusebius does not give, has 
 been generally supposed to be St. George, and if so, this 
 is nearly all we know authentic concerning him. But 
 popular as a saint he unquestionably was, from a very 
 early age. He is believed to have suffered at Nicomedia 
 in 303, and his worship was soon extended through 
 Phoenicia, Palestine, and the whole East. In the seventh 
 century he had tAvo Churches in Rome ; in Gaul he was 
 honored in the fifth century. In an article contributed to 
 the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature,* Mr. 
 Hogg speaks of a Greek inscription copied from a very 
 ancient church, originally a heathen temple at Ezra, in 
 
 * Second Series, vol. vii. pt. i.
 
 S^. George. 223 
 
 Syria, dated a.d. 346, in which St. George is spoken of 
 as a holy martyr. This is important testimony, as at this 
 very time was living the other George, the Alexandrian 
 bishop (d. 362), with whom the Saint is sometimes con- 
 founded. 
 
 The earliest acts quoted by the Bollandists, are in 
 Greek, and belong to the sixth century ; they are fabu- 
 lous. Beside these, are some Latin acts, said to have 
 been composed by Pasikras, the servant of the martyr, 
 which belonged to the eighth century, and which are 
 certainly translations of an earlier work than the Greek 
 acts printed by the Bollandists. These are also apocry- 
 phal. Consequently we know of St. George little, except 
 that there was such a martyr, that he was a native of 
 Lydda, but brought up in Cappadocia, that he entered 
 the Roman army and suffered a cruel death for Christ. 
 That his death was one of great cruelty, is rendered 
 probable by the manner in which his biographers dilate 
 on his tortures, all agreeing to represent them as exces- 
 sive. 
 
 The first to question the reverence shown for St. 
 George was Calvin, who says " Nil eos Christo reliquum 
 facere qui pro nihilo ducunt ejus intercessionem, nisi 
 accedant Georgius aut HippoHtus, aut snniles larvae."
 
 224 -5"/. George. 
 
 Dr. Reynolds follows in the wake, and identifies the 
 martyr with the Arian Bishop of Alexandria. This man 
 had been born in a fuller's mill at Epiphania, in Cilicia. 
 He is first heard of as purveyor of provisions for the 
 army at Constantinople, where he assumed the profession 
 of Arianism ; from thence, having been detected in cer- 
 tain frauds, he was obliged to fly, and take refuge in 
 Cappadocia. His Arian friends obtained his pardon, by 
 payment of a fine, and he was sent to Alexandria, where 
 his party elected him Bishop, in opposition to St. Athan- 
 asius, immediately after the death of the Arian prelate, 
 Gregory. There, associatmg with himself Dracontius, 
 master of the mint, and the Count Diodorus, he tyran- 
 nized alike over Catholics and heathens, till the latter rose 
 against him and put him to death. Dr. Heylin levelled a 
 lance in honor of the Patron of England ; * but his his- 
 torical character was again questioned, in 1753, by Dr. 
 John Pettingal in a work on the original of the equestrian 
 statue of St. George ; and he was answered by Dr. Samuel 
 Pegge, in 1777, in a paper read before the Society of 
 Antiquaries. Gibbon, without much investigation into the 
 ground of the charge, assumes the identity of the Saint 
 
 * Historic of that Most famous Saint and Soldier of Christ 
 Jesus, St George of Cappadocia, 1633.
 
 S^. George. 225 
 
 and the Arian prelate. " The odious stranger, disguising 
 every circumstance of time and place, assumed the mask 
 of a martyr, a saint, and a Christian hero ; and the 
 infamous George of Cappadocia has been transformed 
 into the renowned St. George of England, the patron of 
 arms, of chivalry, and of the Garter." * 
 
 The great improbability of such a transformation would 
 lead one to question the assertion, even if on no other 
 ground. Arians and Catholics were too bitterly hostile, 
 for it to be possible that a partisan of the former, and a 
 persecutor, should be accepted as a saint by the latter. 
 The writings of St. Athanasius were sufficiently known to 
 the Medisevals to save them from falling into such an 
 error, and St. Athanasius paints his antagonist in no 
 charming colors. I am disposed to believe that there 
 really was such a person as St. George, that he was a 
 martyr to the Catholic faith, and that the very uncertainty 
 which existed regarding him, tended to give the com- 
 posers of his biography the opportunity of attaching to 
 him popular heathen myths, which had been floating un- 
 adopted by any Christian hero. The number of warrior 
 saints was not so very great ; Sebastian's history was fixed, 
 so were those of Maurice and Gereon, but George was 
 
 * Gibbon's Decline and Fall, chap, xxiii. 
 15
 
 226 S^. George. 
 
 unprovided with a history. The deficiency was soon 
 supplied. We have a similar instance in the story of 
 St. Hippolitus. The ancient tale of the son of Theseus 
 torn by horses was deliberately transferred to a Christian 
 of the same name. 
 
 The substance of the Greek acts is to this effect : — 
 George was born of Christian parents in Cappadocia. 
 His father suffered a martyr's death, and the mother with 
 her child took refuge in Palestine. He early entered the 
 army, and behaved with great courage and endurance. 
 At the age of twenty he was bereaved of his mother, and 
 by her death came in for a large fortune. He then went 
 to the court of Diocletian, where he hoped to find ad- 
 vancement. On the breaking out of the persecution, he 
 distributed his money among the poor, and declared him- 
 self, before the Emperor, to be a Christian. Having been 
 ordered to sacrifice, he refused, and was condemned to 
 death. The first day, he was thrust with spears to prison, 
 one of the spears snapped like straw when it touched 
 him. He was then fastened by the feet and hands to 
 posts, and a heavy stone was laid upon his breast. 
 
 The second day, he was bound to a wheel set with 
 blades of knives and swords. Diocletian believed him 
 to be dead ; but an angel appearing, George courteously
 
 Si. George. 227 
 
 saluted him in military fashion, whereby the persecutor 
 ascertained that the Saint was still living. On removing 
 him from the wheel, it was discovered that all his wounds 
 were healed. George was "then cast into a pit of quick- 
 lime, which, however, did not cause his death. On the 
 next day but one, the Emperor sent to have his limbs 
 broken, and he was discovered on his knees perfectly 
 whole. 
 
 He was next made to run in red-hot iron shoes. The 
 following night and day he spent in prayer, and on the 
 sixth day he appeared before Diocletian walking and 
 unhurt. He was then scourged with thongs of hide till 
 his flesh came off his back, but was well next day. 
 
 On the seventh day he drank two cups, whereof the 
 one was prepared to make him mad, the other to poison 
 him, without experiencing any ill effects. He then per- 
 formed some miracles, raised a dead man to life, and 
 restored to hfe an ox which had been killed ; — miracles 
 which resulted in numerous conversions. 
 
 That night George dreamed that the Saviour laid a 
 golden crown on his head, and bade him prepare for 
 Paradise. St. George at once called to him the servant 
 who wrote these memoirs (ocrrts kuI to. vtto tov ayiov 
 VTTOfjivrjixaTa crvv oKpLf^iia. yrdcrr] crvvira^ev), and commanded
 
 228 St. George. 
 
 him, after his death, to take his body and will to Palestine. 
 On the eighth day, the saint, by the sign of the cross, 
 forced the devil inhabiting the statue of Apollo to declare 
 that he was a fallen angel ; then all the statues of the gods 
 fell before him. 
 
 This miracle converted the Empress Alexandra ; and 
 Diocletian was so exasperated against the truth, that he 
 condemned her to instant death. George -was then exe- 
 cuted. The day of his martyrdom was the 23rd of April. 
 
 The Latin acts may be summed up as follows ; they, as 
 already stated, are a translation from a Greek original : — 
 
 The devil urges Dacian, Emperor of the Persians, king 
 of the four quarters of heaven, having dominion over 
 seventy-two kings, to persecute the Church. At this time 
 lived George of Cappadocia, a native of Mehtena. Me- 
 litena is also the scene of his martyrdom. Here he lived 
 with a holy widow. He is subjected to numerous tortures, 
 such as the rack, iron pincers, fire, a sword-spiked wheel, 
 shoes nailed to his feet ; he is put into an iron box set 
 within with sharp nails, and flung down a precipice ; he 
 is beaten with sledge-hammers, a pillar is laid on him, a 
 heavy stone dashed on to his head ; he is stretched on a 
 red-hot iron bed, melted lead is poured over him ; he is 
 cast into a well, transfixed with forty long nails, shut into
 
 Si. George. 229 
 
 a brazen bull over a fire, and cast into a well with a stone 
 round his neck. Each time he returns from a torment, 
 he is restored to former vigor. His tortures continue 
 through seven years. His constancy and miracles are 
 the means of converting 40,900 men, and the Empress 
 Alexandra. Dacian then orders the execution of George 
 and his queen ; and as they die, a whirlwind of fire carries 
 off the persecutor. 
 
 These two acts are the source of all later Greek 
 legends. 
 
 Papenbroech prints legends by Simeon Metaphrastes 
 (d. 904), Andreas Hierosolymites, and Gregorios Kyprios 
 (d. 1289). 
 
 Reinbot von Dorn (cent, xiii.), or the French author 
 from whom he translated the Hfe of St. George, thought 
 fit to reduce the extravagance of the original to moderate 
 proportions, the seventy-two kings were reduced to seven, 
 the countless tortures to eight ; George is bound, and has 
 a weight laid on him, is beaten with sticks, starved, put 
 on a wheel covered with blades, quartered and thrown 
 into a pond, rolled down a hill in a brazen bull, his nails 
 transfixed with poisoned thorns, and he is then executed 
 with the sword. 
 
 Jacques de Voragine says that he was first attached to
 
 230 SL George. 
 
 a cross, and torn with iron hooks till his bowels protruded, 
 and that then he was washed with salt water. Next day 
 he was given poison to drink without its affecting him. 
 Then George was fastened to a wheel covered with 
 razors and knives, but the wheel snapped. He was next 
 cast into a caldron of molten lead. George was unin- 
 jured by the bath. Then, at his prayer, lightning fell 
 and destroyed all the idols, whilst the earth, opening, 
 swallowed up the priests. At the sight of this, the wife 
 of Dacian, whom Jacques de Voragine makes proconsul 
 under Diocletian, is converted, and she and George are 
 decapitated. Thereupon lightning strikes Dacian and his 
 ministers. 
 
 St. George, then, according to the Oriental Christian 
 story, suffers at least seven martyrdoms, and revives after 
 each, the last excepted. 
 
 The Mussulmans revere him equally with the Christians, 
 and tell a tale concerning him having a strong affinity to 
 that recorded in the acts. Gherghis, or El Khoudi, as 
 he is called by them, lived at the same time as the 
 Prophet. He was sent by God to the king of El Mau9il 
 with the command that he should accept the faith. This 
 the king refused to do, and ordered the execution of 
 Gherghis. The saint was slain, but God revived him,
 
 St. George. 231 
 
 and sent him to the king again. A second time was he 
 slain, and again did God restore him to life. A third 
 time did he preach his mission. ■ Then the persecutor 
 had him burned, and his ashes scattered in the Tigris. 
 But God restored him to life once more, and destroyed 
 the king and all his subjects.* The Greek historian, John 
 Kantakuzenos (d. 1380) remarks, that in his time there 
 were several shrines erected to the memory of George, at 
 which the Mohammedans paid their devotions ; and the 
 traveller Burckhardt relates, that " the Turks pay great 
 veneration to St. George ; " Dean Stanley moreover no- 
 ticed a Mussulman chapel on the sea-shore near Sara- 
 fend, the ancient Sarepta, dedicated to El Khouder, in 
 which " there is no tomb inside, only hangings before a 
 recess. This variation from the usual type of Mussulman 
 sepulchres was, as we were told by peasants on the spot, 
 because El Khouder is not yet dead, but flies round and 
 round the world, and these chapels are built wherever he 
 has appeared." f Ibn Wahshiya al Kasdani was the trans- 
 lator of the Book of Nabathaean Agriculture. " Towards 
 the year 900 of our era, a descendant of those ancient 
 Babylonian families who had fled to the marshes of Wasith 
 
 * Mas'udi, iibers. von Sprenger, vol. i. p. 120. 
 t Sinai and Palestine, p. 274.
 
 232 SL George. 
 
 and of Bassora, where their posterity still dwell, was struck 
 with profound admiration for the works of his ancestors, 
 whose language he understood, and probably spoke. Ibn 
 Wahshiya al Kasdani, or the Chaldaean, was a Mussulman, 
 but Islamism only dated in his family from the time of 
 his great-grandfather ; he hated the Arabs, and cherished 
 the same feeling of national jealousy towards them as the 
 Persians also entertained against their conquerors. A 
 piece of good fortune threw into his hands a large collec- 
 tion of Nabathsean writings, which had been rescued from 
 Moslem fanaticism. The zealous Chaldsean devoted his 
 life to their translation, and thus created a Nabathaso- 
 Arabic library, of which three complete works, to say 
 nothing of the fragments of a fourth, have descended to 
 our days." * One of these is the Book of Nabathsean 
 Agriculture, written by Kuthami the Babylonian. In it 
 we find the following remarkable passage : " The contem- 
 poraries of Yanbushadh assert that all the seka'in of the 
 gods and all the images lamented over YanbQshadh after 
 his death, just as all the angels and seka'in lamented over 
 TammiizT. The images (of the gods), they say, congre- 
 gated from all parts of the world to the temple in Baby- 
 
 * Ernest Renan, Essay on the Age and Antiquity of the Book of 
 Nabatha;an Agriculture, London, 1S62, p. 5.
 
 5/. George. 233 
 
 Ion, and betook themselves to the temple of the Sun, to 
 the great golden image that is suspended between heaven 
 and earth. The Sun image stood, they say, in the midst 
 of the temple, surrounded by all the images of the world. 
 Next to it stood the images of the Sun in all countries ; 
 then those of the Moon ; next those of Mars ; after them, 
 the images of Mercury ; then those of Jupiter ; after them, 
 those of Venus ; and last of all, of Saturn. Thereupon 
 the image of the Sun began to bewail Tammilzi, and the 
 idols to weep ; and the image of the Sun uttered a lament 
 over Tammiiz and narrated his history, whilst the idols all 
 wept from the setting of the sun till its rising at the end 
 of that night. Then the idols flew away, returning to 
 their own countries. They say that the eyes of the idol 
 of Tehama (in South Arabia), called the eagle, are per- 
 petually flowing with tears, and will so continue, from the 
 night wherein it lamented over Tammuz along with the 
 image of the Sun, because of the peculiar share that it 
 had in the story of Tammiiz. This idol, called Nesr, they 
 say, is the one that inspired the Arabs with the gift of 
 divination, so that they can tell what has not yet come to 
 pass, and can explain dreams before the dreamers state 
 what they are. They (the contemporaries of Yanbiis- 
 hadh) tell that the idols in the land of Babel bewailed
 
 234 'S"/. George. 
 
 Yanbushadh singly in all their temples a whole night long 
 till morning. During this night there was a great flood 
 of rain, with violent thunder and lightning, as also a furi- 
 ous earthquake (in the district) from the borders of the 
 mountain ridge of Holwan to the banks of the Tigris 
 near the city Nebarwaja, on the eastern bank of that 
 river. The idols, they say, returned during this flood to 
 their places, because they had been a little shaken. This 
 flood was brought by the idols as a judgment upon the 
 people of the land of Babel for having abandoned the 
 dead body of Yanbushadh, as it lay on the bare ground 
 in the desert of Shamas, so that the flood earned his dead 
 body to the WadI el-A'hfar, and then swept it from this 
 wadi into the sea. Then there was drought and pestilence 
 in the land of Babel for three months, so that the living 
 were not sufficient to bury the dead. These tales (of 
 Tammiiz and Yanbiishadh) have been collected and are 
 read in the temples after prayers, and the people 
 weep and lament much thereupon. When I myself am 
 present with the people ' in the temple, at the feast of 
 Tammiiz, which is in the month called after him, and 
 they read his story and weep, I weep along with them 
 always, out of friendly feeling towards them, and because 
 I compassionate their weeping, not that I believe what
 
 S^. GeoTge. 235 
 
 they relate of him. But I believe in the story of Yan- 
 bilshadh, and when they read it and weep, I weep along 
 with them, very differently from my weeping over Tam- 
 miizi. The reason is this, that the time of Yanbilshadh 
 is nearer to our own than the time of Tammuz, and his 
 story is, therefore, more certain and worthy of belief. It 
 is possible that some portions of the story of Tammuz 
 may be true, but I have my doubts concerning other 
 parts of it, owing to the distance of his time from 
 ours." 
 
 Thus writes KiithamI the Babylonian, and his translator 
 adds : — 
 
 " Says Abii Bekr A'hmed ibn Wa'hshlya. This month 
 is cajled Tammuz, according to what the Nabathaeans 
 say, as I have found it in their books, and is named 
 after a man of whom a strange long story is told, and who 
 was put to death, they relate, several times in succession 
 in a most cruel manner. Each of their months is named 
 after some excellent and learned man, who was one, in 
 ancient times, of those Nabathseans that inhabited the 
 land of Babel before the Chaldaeans. This Tammuz was 
 not one of the Chaldaeans, nor of the Canaanites, nor of 
 the Hebrews, nor of the Assyrians, but of the primaeval 
 lanbanis. ... All the Ssabians of our time, down to our
 
 236 St. < George. 
 
 own day, wail and weep over Tammuz in the month of 
 tliat name, on the occasion of a festival in his honor, and 
 make great lamentation over him ; especially the women, 
 who all arise, both here (at Bagdad) and at 'Harran, and 
 wail and weep over Tammuz. They tell a long and silly 
 story about him ; but, as I have clearly ascertained, not 
 one of either sect has any certain information regarding 
 Tammiiz, or the reason of their lamenting over him. 
 However, after I had translated this book, I found in the 
 course of my reading the statement that Tammuz was a 
 man concerning whom there was a legend, and that he 
 had been put to death in a shameful manner. That was 
 all ; not another word about him. They knew nothing 
 more about him than to say, ' We found our ancestors 
 weeping and wailing over him in this way at this feast that 
 is called after him TammuzL' My own opinion is, that 
 this festival which they hold in commemoration of Tam- 
 muz is an ancient one, and has maintained itself till now, 
 whilst the story connected with him has been forgotten, 
 owing to the remoteness of his age, so that no one of 
 these Ssabians at the present day knows what his story 
 was, nor why they lament over him." Ibn Wa'hshiya 
 then goes on to speak of a festival celebrated by the 
 Christians towards the end of the month Nisan (April) in
 
 St. George. 237 
 
 honor of St. George, who is said to have been several 
 times put to death by a king to whom he had gone to 
 preach Christianity, and each time he was restored to life 
 again, but at the last died. Then Ibn Wa'hshiya remarks 
 that what is related of the blessed George is the same as 
 that told of Tammuz, whose festival is celebrated in the 
 month Tammiiz ; and he adds that besides what he found 
 regarding Tammiiz in the " Agriculture," he Ht on another 
 Nabathsean book, in which was related in full the legend 
 of Tammuz ; — " how he summoned a king to worship 
 the seven (planets) and the twelve (signs), and how the 
 king put him to death several times in a cruel manner, 
 Tammijz coming to life again after each time, until at last 
 he died ; and behold ! it was identical with the legend 
 of St. George that is current among the Christians." * 
 
 Mohammed en Medun in his Fihrist-el-U'lilm, says, 
 "Tammiiz (July). In the middle of this month is the 
 Feast El Biigat, that is, of the weeping women, which 
 Feast is identical with that Feast of Ta-uz, which is cele- 
 brated in honor of the god Ta-uz. The -women bewail 
 
 * Chwolson : iiber Tammuz. St. Petersburg, i860, pp. 41-56. The 
 translation is for the most part from the Christian Remembrancer, 
 No. cxii., an article on Tammuz, with the conclusions of which I 
 cannot altogether agree. My own conviction as to Tammuz will be 
 seen in the sequel.
 
 238 Sf. George. 
 
 him, because his Lord had him so cruelly martyred, his 
 bones being ground in a mill, and scattered to the 
 winds." * 
 
 We have then the Eastern myth of St, George identified 
 with that of Tammiiz, by one' who is impartial. What 
 that myth of Tammuz was in its entirety we cannot say, 
 but we have sufficient evidence in the statement of Ibn 
 Wa'hshiya to conclude that the worship of St. George and 
 its popularity in the East is mainly due to the fact of his 
 being a Christianized Tammiaz. 
 
 Professor Chwolson insists on Tammuz having been a 
 man, deified and worshipped ; and the review below 
 referred to confirms this theory. I believe this to be 
 entirely erroneous. Tammuz stands to Chaldee myth- 
 ology in precisely the same relation that the Ribhavas 
 do to that of the Vedas. A French orientalist, M. Neve, 
 wrote a learned work in 1847, o^^ these ancient Indian 
 deities, to prove that they were deified sages. But the 
 careful study of the Vedic hymns to the Ribhus lead to 
 an entirely opposite conclusion. They are the Summer 
 breezes deified, which, in that they waft the smoke of the 
 sacrifices to heaven, are addressed as assisting at the 
 sacred offerings ; and in a later age, when their real 
 
 * Chwolson : Die Ssabier, ii. 27.
 
 St. George. 239 
 
 signification was lost, they were anthropomorphized into 
 a sacred caste of priests. A similar process has, I believe, 
 taken place with Tammiiz, who was the sun, regarded as 
 a God and hero, dying at the close of each year, and 
 reviving with the new one. In Kuthami's age the old 
 deity was apparently misappreciated, and had suffered, 
 in consequence, a reincarnation in Yanbiishadh, of whom 
 a similar story was told, and who received similar worship, 
 because he was in fact one with Tammiiz. Almost ex- 
 actly the same legend is related by the Jews of Abraham, 
 who, they say, was cruelly tortured by Nimrod, and mirac- 
 ulously preserved by God.* 
 
 The Phoenician Adonis was identical with Tammuz. 
 St. Jerome in the Vulgate rendered the passage in Ezekiel 
 (viii. 14), " He brought me to the door of the gate of the 
 Lord's house, which was towards the north ; and behold, 
 there sat women weeping for Tammiiz," by ecce inidieres 
 sedentes plangc7ites Adonidem ; and in his commentary on 
 the passage says, "Whom we have interpreted Adonis, 
 both the Hebrew and Syriac languages call Thamuz . . . 
 and they call the month June by that name." He informs 
 us also of a very important fact, that the solstice was the 
 
 * Leben Abrahams nach Ausfassung der Judischen Sage, v. Dr. 
 B Beer, Leipzig, 1859.
 
 240 St. George. 
 
 time when Tammuz was believed to have died, though 
 the wailing for him took place in June. Consequently 
 Tammuz's martyrdom took place at the end of December. 
 Cyril of Alexandria also tells us of the identity existing 
 between Adonis and Tammiiz (in Isaiah, chap, xviii.). 
 
 The name Adonis is purely Semitic, and signifies the 
 Lord. His worship was introduced to the Greeks by the 
 Phoenicians through Crete. 
 
 Adonis is identified with the Sun in one of the Orphic 
 hymns : " Thou shining and vanishing in the beauteous 
 circle of the Hora^, dwelling at one time in gloomy 
 Tartarus, at another elevating thyself to Olympus, giving 
 ripeness to the fruits ! " * According to Theocritus, this 
 rising and setting, this continual coursing, is accomplished 
 in twelve months : " In twelve months the silent pacing 
 Horas follow him from the nether world to that above, 
 the dwelling of the Cyprian goddess, and then he declines 
 again to Acheron." f The cause of these wanderings, 
 according to the fable, was that two goddesses loved 
 Adonis, *Aphrodite, or more properly Astarte, and Per- 
 sephone. Aphrodite, the Syrian Baalti, loved him so ten- 
 derly that the jealousy of Ares was aroused, and he sent 
 
 * Orph. Hymn, Iv. 5, and 10, 11. 
 t Theocrit. Id. xv. 103, 104, 136.
 
 6"/. George. 241 
 
 a wild boar to gore him in the chase. When Adonis 
 descended to the reahii of darkness, Persephone was 
 inflamed with passion for the comely youth. Conse- 
 quently a strife arose between her and Aphrodite, which 
 should possess him. The quarrel was settled by Zeus 
 dividing the year into three portions, wliereof one, from 
 the summer solstice to the autumn equinox, was to belong 
 to Adonis, the second was to be spent by him with 
 Aphrodite, and the third with Persephone. But Adonis 
 voluntarily surrendered his portion to the goddess of 
 beauty.* Others say, that Zeus decreed that he should 
 spend six months in the heavens with Aphrodite, and the 
 other six in the land of gloom with Persephone. f 
 
 The worship of Adonis, who was the same as Baal, was 
 general in Syria and Phoenicia. The devotion to Tam- 
 muz, we are told, was popular from Antioch to Elymais.J 
 It penetrated into Greece from Crete. Biblos in Phoe- 
 nicia was the main seat of this worship. 
 
 Tammuz, or Adonis, was again identical with Osiris. 
 This is stated by several ancient writers. § 
 
 The myth relating to Osiris was very similar. The Egyp- 
 
 * Cyrill. Alex, in Isa. ; Apollodor. lib. iii. c. 14. 
 
 t Schol. in Theocrit. Id. iii. v. 48, and xv. v. 103. 
 
 I Ammian. Marcel), xxii. 9. CElian, Hist, animal, xii. 33. 
 
 § Lucian. de dea Syria, n. 7. Steph. de Urb. v. 
 
 16
 
 242 S^. George. 
 
 tian sun-god was born at the summer solstice and died at 
 the winter solstice, when processions went round the 
 temple seeking him, seven times. Osiris in heaven was 
 the beloved of Isis, in the land of darkness was embraced 
 by Nepthys. 
 
 Typhon, as the Greeks call Seth or Bes, a monster 
 represented in swine or boar shape, attacked Osiris, and 
 slaying him, cut him up, and cast him into the sea. This 
 took place on the 1 7th of the month Athor. 
 
 Then began the wailing for Osiris, which lasted four 
 days ; this was followed by the seeking, and this again 
 by the finding of the God. 
 
 Under another form, the same myth, and its accom- 
 panying ceremonies, prevailed in Egypt, just as at Baby- 
 lon that of TammQz had its reflection in the more modern 
 cidtus of Yanbushadh. The soul of the deceased Osiris 
 was supposed to be incarnate in Apis ; and, in process 
 of mythologic degradation, the legend of Osiris passed 
 over to Apis, and with it the significant ceremonial. 
 Thus Herodotus tells us how that at Memphis the death 
 of the sacred bull was a cause of general wailing, and its 
 discovery one of exultation. When Cambyses was in 
 Egypt, and the land groaned under foreign sway, no Apis 
 appeared ; but when his two armies were destroyed, and
 
 Si. George. 243 
 
 he came to Memphis, Apis had appeared ; and he found 
 the conquered people manifesting their joy in dances, 
 and with feasting and gay raiment.* 
 
 We have, it will be seen, among Phoenicians, Syrians, 
 Egyptians, and Nabathceans, all Semitic nations, peculiar 
 myths, with symbolic ceremonies bearing such a close 
 resemblance to one another, that we are constrained to 
 acknowledge them as forms, slightly varied, of some 
 primaeval myth. 
 
 We find also among the Arabs, another Semitic nation, 
 a myth identical with that of the Babylonian Tammuz, 
 prevalent among them not long after their adoption of 
 Islamism. How shall we account for this? My answer 
 is, that the pre -Mohammedan Arabs had a worship very 
 similar to that of Taramiiz, Baal, Adonis, or Osiris, and 
 that, on their conversion to the faith of the prophet, they 
 retained the ancient legend, adapting it to El Koudir, 
 whom they identified with St. George, because they found 
 that the Christians had already adopted this course, and 
 had fixed the ancient myth on the martyr of Nicomedia. 
 In Babylonia it had already passed to Yanbushadh ; and 
 it was made to pass further to Gherghis, much as in 
 Greece the story of Apollo and Python was transferred 
 * Thalia, c. 27.
 
 244 'S'/. George. 
 
 to Perseus and the sea-monster, and, as we shall see 
 presently, was adopted into Christian mythology, and 
 attributed to the subject of this paper. And indeed the 
 process was perhaps facilitated by the fact that one of the 
 names of this solar god was Giggras ; he was so called 
 after the pipes used in wailing for him. 
 
 The circumstances of the death of Tammuz vary m 
 the different Semitic creeds. 
 
 Let me place them briefly in apposition. 
 Nabathaean myth. Tammuz. 
 
 A great hero, and prophet ; is cruelly put to death 
 several times, but revives after each martyrdom. His 
 death a subject of waihng. 
 Phoenician myth. Adon or Baal. 
 
 A beautiful deity, killed by the furious Boar god. Re- 
 vived and sent to heaven. Divides his time between 
 heaven and hell, subject of wailing, seekmg, and find- 
 ing. 
 Syrian myth. Baal. 
 
 Identical with the Phoenician. 
 Egyptian myth. Osiris. 
 
 A glorious god and great hero, killed by the evil god. 
 Passes half his time in heaven, and half in the nether 
 world. Subject of waihng, seeking, and finding.
 
 St. George. 245 
 
 Arabian myth. El Khouder, original name Ta'uz. 
 A prophet, killed by a wicked king several times and 
 revived each time. 
 Oriental Christian myth. St. George. 
 
 A soldier, killed by a wicked king, undergoes numerous 
 torments, but revives after each. On earth lives with 
 a widow. Takes to the other world with him the 
 queen. Wailing and seeking fall away, and the festi- 
 val alone remains. 
 
 From this tabular view of the legends it is, I think, 
 impossible not to see that St. George, in his mythical 
 character, is a Semitic god Christianized. In order to 
 undergo the process of conversion, a few little arrange- 
 ments were rendered necessary, to divest the story of its 
 sensuous character, and purify it. Astarte or Aphrodite 
 had to be got out of the way somehow. Slie was made 
 into a pious widow, in whose house the youthful saint 
 lodged. 
 
 Then Persephone, the queen of Hades, had to be 
 accounted for. She was turned into a martyr, Alex- 
 andra ; and just as Persephone was the wife of the ruth- 
 less monarch of the nether world, so was Alexandra 
 represented as the queen of Diocletian or Datian, and 
 accompanied George to the unseen v.-orld. Consequently
 
 246 St. George. 
 
 in the land of light, George was with the widow ; in that 
 of gloom, with Alexandra : just as Osiris spent his year 
 between Isis and Nepthys, and Adonis between Aphrodite 
 and Persephone. According to the ancient Christian 
 legend, the body of George travelled from the place of 
 his martyrdom to that of his nativity ; this resembles the 
 journey of the body of Osiris, down the Nile, over the 
 waves to Biblos, where Isis found him again. 
 
 The influence of Persian mythology is also perceptible 
 in the legend. El Nedim says that Tammuz was brayed 
 in a mill ; this feature in his martyrdom is adopted from 
 the Iranian tradition of Hom, the Indian Soma, or the 
 divine drink of sacrifice, which was anthroponaorphized, 
 and the history of the composition of the liquor was 
 transformed into the fable of the hero. The Hom was 
 pounded in a mortar, and the juice was poured on the 
 sacrificial flames, and thus carried up into heaven in fire ; 
 in the legend of the demigod, Hom was a martyr who 
 was cruelly bruised and broken in a mortar, but who 
 revived, and ascended to the skies. In the tale of George 
 there is another indication of the absorption into it of a 
 foreign myth. George revives the dead cow of the peas- 
 ant Glycerius ; the same story is told of Abbot William 
 of Villiers, of St. Germanus, of St. Garmon, and of St.
 
 St. George. 247 
 
 Mochua. Thor also brought to life goats which had been 
 killed and eaten. The same is told in the Rigveda of the 
 Ribhus : " O sons of Sudharvan, out of the hide have 
 you made the cow to arise ; by your songs the old have 
 you made young, and from one horse have you made 
 another horse."* 
 
 The numbers in the legend of the soldier-saint have 
 a solar look about them. The torments of St. George 
 last seven years, or, according to the Greek acts, seven 
 days ; the tyrant reigns over the four quarters of heaven, 
 and seven kings ; in the Nabathaean story, Tammiiz 
 preaches the worship of the seven planets, and the- twelve 
 signs of the Zodiac. Osiris is sought seven days. The 
 seven winter months are features in all mythologies. 
 
 The manner in which St. George dies repeatedly repre- 
 sents the different ways in which the sun dies each day. 
 The Greeks, and, indeed, most nations, regarded the 
 close of day as the expiration of the solar deity, and 
 framed myths to account for his decease. In Greek 
 mythology the solar gods are many, and the stories of 
 their deaths are distributed so as to provide each with his 
 exit from the world ; but in Semitic mythology it is not 
 
 * See my note in Appendix to " The Folklore of the N. Coun- 
 ties of England," London, 1866, pp. 321-4.
 
 248 St. George. 
 
 so, the sun-god is one, and all kinds of deaths are attrib- 
 uted to him alone, or, if he suffers anthropomorphism, to 
 his representative. 
 
 Phaethon is a solar deity ; he falls into the western 
 seas. Herakles is another ; he expires in flames, rending 
 the poisoned garment given him by Dejanira. Phaethon's 
 death represents the rapid descent of the sun in the west ; 
 that of Herakles, the setting orb in a flaming western sky 
 rending the fire-lined clouds, which wrap his body. The 
 same blaze, wherein sank the sun, was also supposed to 
 be a funeral pyre, on which lay Memnon ; and the clouds 
 fleeting about it, some falling into the fire, and some 
 scudding over the darkling sky, were the birds which 
 escaped from the funeral pyre. Achilles, a humanized 
 sun-god, was vulnerable in his heel, just as the Teutonic 
 Sigfried could only be wounded in his back : this repre- 
 sents the sun as retiring from the heavens with his back 
 turned, struck by the weapon of darkness, just as Ares, 
 the blmd God, with his tusk slew Adonis, or sightless 
 Hodr with his mistletoe shaft smote Baldur. 
 
 In the St. George fable, we have the martyr, like Mem- 
 non or Herakles, on the fire, and transfixed, like Achilles 
 and Ajax ; exposed in a brazen bull on a fire, that is, 
 hung in the full rain-cloud over the western blaze ; cast
 
 St. George. 249 
 
 down a hill, like Phaethon ; plunged into boiling metal, 
 a representation of the lurid vapors of the west. 
 
 Having identified St. George or Tammuz with the sun, 
 we shall have little difficulty in seeing that Aphrodite or 
 Isis is the moon when visible, and Persephone or Nepthys 
 the waned moon ; Persephone is in fact no other than 
 Aphrodite in tlie region of gloom, where, according to 
 the decree of Zeus, she was to spend six months with 
 Aidoneus, and six months in heaven. 
 
 But it is time for us to turn to the Western myth, that 
 of the fight of St. George with the dragon ; in this, again, 
 we shall find sacred beliefs of antiquity reappearing in 
 Christian form. 
 
 The story of St. George and the dragon first presents 
 itself in the Legenda Aurea of Jacques de Voragine. It 
 was accepted by the unquestioning clerks and laity of the 
 middle ages, so that it found its way into the office-books 
 of the Church. 
 
 O Georgi Martyr inclyte, 
 Te decet laus et gloria, 
 Predotatum militia ; 
 Per quern puella regia, 
 Existens in tristitia, 
 Coram Dracone pessimo, 
 Salvata est. Ex animo 
 Te rogamus corde intimo,
 
 250 St. George. 
 
 Ut cunctis cum ficlelibus 
 Cceli jungamur civibus 
 Nostris ablatis sordibus : 
 Et sitnul cum laetitia 
 Tecum simus in gloria ; 
 Nostraque reddant labia 
 Laudes Christo cum gratia, 
 Cui sit honos in secula. 
 
 Thus sang the clerks from the Sarum " Horee B. 
 Marise," on St. George's day, till the reformation of the 
 Missals and Breviaries by Pope Clement VIL, when the 
 story of the dragon was cut out, and St. George was 
 simply acknowledged as a martyr, reigning with Christ. 
 His introit was from Ps. Ixiii. The Collect, " God, who 
 makest us glad through the merits and intercession of 
 blessed George the martyr, mercifully grant that we who 
 ask through him Thy good things may obtain the gift of 
 Thy grace." The Epistle, 2 Tim. ii. 8-1 1, and iii. 10-13 ; 
 and the Gospel, St. John xv. 1-8. 
 
 The legend, as told by Voragine, is this : — 
 George, a tribune, was born in Cappadocia, and came 
 to Lybia, to the town called Silene, near which was a 
 pond infested by a monster, which had many times driven 
 back an armed host that had come to destroy him. He 
 even approached the walls of the city, and with his ex- 
 halations poisoned all who were near. To avoid snrh
 
 Si. George. 251 
 
 visits, he was furnished each day with two sheep, to 
 satisfy his voracity. If these were not given, he so at- 
 tacked the walls of the town, that his envenomed breath 
 infected the air, and many of the inhabitants died. He 
 was supplied with sheep, till they were exhausted, and it 
 was impossible to procure the necessary number. Then 
 the citizens held counsel, and it was decided that each 
 day a man and a beast should be offered, so that at last 
 they gave up their children, sons and daughters, and none 
 were spared. The lot fell one day on the princess. The 
 monarch, horror-struck, offered in exchange for her his 
 gold, his silver, and half his realm, only desiring to save 
 his daughter from this frightful death. But the people 
 insisted on the sacrifice of the maiden, and all the poor 
 father could obtain was a delay of eight days, in which 
 to bewail the fate of the damsel. At the expiration of 
 this time, the people returned to the palace, and said, 
 "Why do you sacrifice your subjects for your daughter? 
 We are all dying before the breath of this monster ! " 
 The king felt that he must resolve on parting with his 
 child. He covered her with royal clothes, embraced her, 
 and said, " Alas ! dear daughter, I thought to have seen 
 myself re-born in your offspring. I hoped to have in- 
 vited princes to your wedding, to have adorned you with
 
 252 Si. George. 
 
 royal gannents, and accompanied you with flutes, tam- 
 bourins, and all kinds of music ; but you are to be de- 
 voured by this monster ! Why did not I die before you ? " 
 
 Then she fell at her father's feet and besought his 
 blessing. He accorded it her, weeping, and he clasped 
 her tenderly in his arms ; then she went to the lake. 
 George, who passed that way, saw her weeping, and 
 asked the cause of her tears. She replied : — " Good 
 youth ! quickly mount your horse and fly, lest you perish 
 with me." But George said to her: — "Do not fear; 
 tell me what you await, and why all this multitude look 
 on." She answered : — "I see tliat you have a great and 
 noble heart ; yet, fly !" "I shall not go without knowing 
 the cause," he rephed. Then she explained all to him \ 
 whereupon he exclaimed : — " Fear nothing ! in the name 
 of Jesus Christ, I will assist you." " Brave knight ! " said 
 she ; '' do not seek to die with me ; enough that I should 
 perish ; for you can neither assist nor deUver me, and you 
 will only die with me." 
 
 At this moment the monster rose above the surface 
 of the water. And the virgin said, all trembling, " Fly, 
 fly, sir knight ! " 
 
 His only answer was the sign of the cross. Then he 
 advanced to meet the monster, recommending himself 
 to God.
 
 St. George. 253 
 
 He brandished his lance with such force, that he 
 transfixed it, and cast it to the ground. Then, addressing 
 the princess, he bade her pass her girdle round it, and 
 fear nothing. When this was done, the monster followed 
 like a docile hound. When they had brought it into the 
 town, the people fled before it ; but George recalled 
 them, bidding them put aside all fear, for the Lord had 
 sent him to deliver them from the dragon. Then the 
 king and all his people, twenty thousand men, without 
 counting women and children, were baptized, and George 
 smote off the head of the monster. 
 
 Other versions of the story are to the effect that the 
 princess was shut up in a castle, and that all within 
 were perishing for want of water, which could only be 
 obtained from a fountain at the base of a hill, and this 
 was guarded by the "laidly worm," from which George 
 delivered them. 
 
 "The hero won his well-earn 'd place 
 
 Amid the saints, in death's dread hour ; 
 And still the peasant seeks his grace, 
 
 And next to God, reveres his power. 
 In many a church his form is seen 
 With sword, and shield, and helmet sheen : 
 Ye know him by his steed of pride, 
 And by the dragon at his side." 
 
 Chr. Schmid.
 
 254 ^^- George. 
 
 The same story has attached itself to other saints and 
 heroes of the middle ages, as St. Secundus of Asti, St. 
 Victor, Gozo of Rhodes, Raimond of St. Sulpice, Struth 
 von Winkelried, the Count Aymon, Moor of Moorhall, 
 " who slew the dragon of Wantley," Conyers of Sockburn, 
 and the Knight of Lambton, "John that slew ye Worme." 
 Ariosto adopted it into his Orlando Furioso, and made his 
 hero deliver Angelica from Orca, in the true mythic style 
 of George ; * and it appears again in the tale of Che- 
 derles.f The cause of the legend attaching itself to our 
 hero, was possibly a misunderstanding of an encomium, 
 made in memory of St. George, by Metaphrastes, which 
 concludes thus : " Licebat igitur videre astutissimum Dra- 
 conem, adversus carnem et sanguinem gloriari solitum, 
 elatumque, et sese efferentem, a juvene uno illusum, et 
 ita dispectum atque confusum, ut quid ageret non ha- 
 beret." Another writer, summing up the acts of St. 
 George, says : " Secundo quod Draconem vicit qui sig- 
 nificat Diabolum ; " and Hospinian, relating the sufferings 
 of the martyr, affirms distinctly that his constancy was 
 the occasion of the creation of the legend by Voragine.f 
 
 * Orland. Fur. c. xi. 
 
 t Noel : Diet, de la Fable ; art. Chederles. 
 
 J Christian Remembrancer, vol. xlv. p. 320.
 
 5/. George. 255 
 
 If we look at the story of Perseus and Andromeda, 
 we shall find that in all essential particulars it is the same 
 as that of the Cappadocian Saint. 
 
 Cassiope having boasted herself to be fairer than Hera, 
 Poseidon sent a flood and a sea-monster to ravage the 
 country belonging to her husband Cepheus. The oracle 
 of Amnion having been consulted, it was ascertained that 
 nothing would stop the resentment of the gods except the 
 exposure of the king's daughter, Andromeda, on a rock, 
 to be devoured by the monster. At the moment that the 
 dragon approached the maiden, Perseus appeared, and 
 learning her peril, engaged the monster and slew him. 
 
 The scene of this conflict was near Joppa, where in the 
 days of St. Jerome the bones of the huge reptile were 
 exhibited, and Josephus pretends to have seen there the 
 chains which attached the princess to the rock.* It was 
 at Berytus (Beyrut) that the fight of St. George with the 
 dragon took place. 
 
 Similar stories were prevalent in Greece. In the isle 
 of Salamis, Cenchrius, a son of Poseidon, reheved the 
 inhabitants from the scourge of a similar monster, who 
 devastated the island. At Thespia, a dragon ravaged tlie 
 country round the city ; Zeus ordered the inhabitants to 
 * Ilieron. Epist. io8. Joseph. Bell. Jud. iii. c. 7.
 
 256 6"/. George. 
 
 give the monster their children by lot. One year it fell 
 on Cleostratus. Menestratus determined to save him. 
 He armed himself with a suit covered with hooks, and 
 was devoured by the dragon, which perished in killing 
 him. Pherecydes killed a great serpent in Caulonia, an 
 adventure afterwards related of Pythagoras, with the scene 
 shifted to Sybaris ; and Herakles, as is well known, slew 
 Hydra. But these are all versions — echoes — of the 
 principal myth of Apollo and Python. 
 
 The monster Python was sent by Hera to persecute 
 Leto, when pregnant. Apollo, the moment that he was 
 born, attacked the hideous beast and pierced him with his 
 arrows. And from the place where the serpent died, there 
 burst forth a torrent. 
 
 A similar myth is found among the Scandinavian and 
 Teutonic nations. In these Northern mythologies Apollo 
 is replaced by Sigurd, Sigfried, and Beowulf. 
 
 The dragon with which Sigurd fights is Fafnir, who 
 keeps guard over a treasure of gold. Sigfried, in like 
 manner, in the Nibelungen Lied, fights and overcomes a 
 mighty dragon, and despoils him of a vast treasure. The 
 Anglo-Saxon poem of Beowulf contains a similar engage- 
 ment. A monster Grendel haunts a marsh near a town 
 on the North Sea. At night the evil spirit rises from the
 
 St. Geoj'ge. 257 
 
 swamp, and flies to the mountains, attacking the armed 
 men, and slaying them. Beowulf awakes, fights him, and 
 puts him to flight. But next night Grendel again attacks 
 him, but is killed by the hero with an enchanted sword. 
 He fights a dragon some years later, and robs it of an 
 incalculable store of gold. The Icelandic Sagas teem 
 with similar stories ; and they abound in all European 
 household tales. 
 
 In the Rigveda we have the same story. Indra fights 
 with the hideous serpent Ahi, or Vrita, who keeps guard 
 over the fountain of rains. In Iranian mythology, the 
 same battle is waged between Mithra and the daemon 
 Ahriman. 
 
 It seems, then, that the fight with the dragon is a myth 
 common to all Aryan peoples. 
 
 Its signification is this : — 
 
 The maiden which the dragon attempts to devour is 
 the earth. The monster is the storm-cloud. The hero 
 who fights it is the sun, with his glorious sword, the 
 lightning-flash. By his victory the earth is relieved from 
 her peril. The fable has been varied to suit the atmos- 
 pheric peculiarities of different climes in which the Aryans 
 found themselves. In India, Vrita is coiled about the 
 source of water, and the earth is perishing for want of 
 
 17
 
 258 S/. George. 
 
 rain, till pierced by the sword of Indra, when the streams 
 descend. " I will sing," says the Rigveda, " the ancient 
 exploits by which flashing Indra is distinguished. He has 
 struck Ahi, he has scattered the waters on the earth, he 
 has unlocked the torrents of the heavenly mountains (i. e., 
 the clouds). He has struck Ahi, who lurked in the bosom 
 of the celestial mountain, he has struck him with that 
 sounding weapon wrought for him by Twachtri ; and the 
 waters, like cattle' rushing to their stable, have poured 
 down on the earth." * And again : — 
 
 " O Indra, thou hast killed the violent Ahi, who with- 
 held the waters ! " 
 
 " O Indra, thou hast struck Ahi, sleeping guardian of 
 the waters, and thou hast precipitated them into the sea ; 
 thou hast pierced the compact scale of the cloud ; thou 
 hast given vent to the streams, which burst forth on all 
 sides." t 
 
 Among the ancient Iranians the same myth prevailed, 
 but was sublimated into a conflict between good and evil. 
 
 * Rigveda, sect. i. lee. 2, p. xiii. Ed. Langlois, iii. p. 329. 
 
 t Ibid. vol. i. p. 44 ; ii. p. 447. In the Katha Sarit Sagara, a 
 hero fights a daemon monster, and releases a beautiful woman from 
 his thraldom. The story as told by Soma Deva has already pro- 
 gressed and assumed a form very similar to that of Perseus and 
 Andromeda. Katha Sarit Sagara, book vii. c. 42.
 
 SL George. 259 
 
 Ahriman represents Ahi, and is the principle of evil ; 
 
 corrupted into Kharaman, it became the Armenian name 
 
 for a serpent and the devil. Ahriman entered heaven in 
 
 the shape of a dragon, was met by Mithra, conquered, 
 
 and like the old serpent of Apocalyptic vision, " he shall 
 
 be bound for three thousand years, and burned at the end 
 
 of the world in melted metals." * Aschmogh (Asmodeus) 
 
 is also the infernal serpent of the books of the Avesta ; 
 
 he is but another form of Ahriman. This fable rapidly 
 
 followed in Persia the same process of application to 
 
 known historical individuals that it pursued in Europe, 
 
 In the ninth hymn of the Ya^na, Zoroaster asks Homa 
 
 who were the first of mortals to honor him, and Homa 
 
 replies : " The first of mortals to whom I manifested 
 
 myself was Vivanghvat, father of Yima, under whom 
 
 flourished the blessed age which knew not cold of winter, 
 
 or scorching heat of summer, old age or death, or the 
 
 hatred produced by the Devas. The second was Athwya, 
 
 father of Thraetana, the conqueror of the dragon Dahak, 
 
 with three heads, and three throats, and six eyes, and a 
 
 thousand strengths." This Thraetana, in the Shahnameh, 
 
 has become Feridun, who overcomes the great dragon 
 
 Zohak. 
 
 * Boundehesch. ii. 351, 416.
 
 26o S^. George. 
 
 In Northern mythology, the serpent is probably the 
 winter cloud, which broods over and keeps from mortals 
 the gold of the sun's light and heat, till in the spring the 
 bright orb overcomes the powers of darkness and tempest, 
 and scatters his gold over the face of the earth. In the 
 ancient Sagas of Iceland, the myth has assumed a very 
 peculiar form, which, if it would not have protracted this 
 article to an undue length, I should have been glad to 
 have followed out. The hero descends mto a tomb, 
 where he fights a vampire, who has possession of a glo- 
 rious sword, and much gold and silver. After a desperate 
 struggle, the hero overcomes, and rises with the treasures 
 to the surface of the earth. This, too, represents the sun 
 in the northern realms, descending into the tomb of win- 
 ter, and there overcoming the power of darkness, from 
 whom he takes the sword of the lightning, and the treas- 
 ures of fertility, wherewith the earth is blessed on the 
 return of the sun to the skies in summer. 
 
 This is probably the ancient form of the Scandinavian 
 myth, and the King of gloom reigning over his gold in 
 the cairn, was only dragonized when the Norse became 
 acquainted with the dragon myths of other nations. In 
 the Saga of Hromund Greipson, the hero is let down by 
 a rope mto a barrow, into which he had been digging for
 
 St. George. 261 
 
 six days. He found below the old king Thrain the Viking, 
 with a kettle of quivering red flames suspended from the 
 roof of the vault above him. This king, years before, had 
 gathered all the treasures that he had obtained in a long 
 life of piracy, and had suffered himself to be buried alive 
 with his ill-gotten wealth. Hromund found him seated 
 on a throne in full armor, girded with his sword, crowned, 
 and with his feet resting on three boxes containing silver. 
 We have the same story in the Gretla ; only there the 
 dead king is Karr the old ; Grettir is led to open his 
 cairn, by seeing flames dancing on the mound at night. 
 In the struggle underground, Grettir and the vampire 
 stumble over the bones of the old king's horse, and 
 thereby Grettir is able to get the upper hand. 
 
 Similar stories occur in the F16amanna Saga, the 
 younger Saga of Olaf the saint (cap. 16), the elder Olaf 
 Saga (3-4), the history of Olaf Geirstafaalp, the Holm- 
 verja Saga, and the Barda Saga. The last of these is 
 strongly impressed with Christian influence, and gives 
 indications of the transformation of the evil being into 
 a dragon. Gest visited an island off the coast of Hellu- 
 land (Labrador), where lay buried a grimly daemon king 
 Raknar. He took with him a priest with holy water and 
 a crucifix. They had to dig fifty fathoms before they
 
 262 5/. George. 
 
 reached the chamber of the dead. Into this Gest de- 
 scended by a rope, holding a sword in one hand, and a 
 taper in the other. He saw below a great dragon-ship, 
 in which sat five hundred men, champions of the old 
 king, who were buried with him. They did not stir, but 
 gazed with blank eyes at the taper flame, and snorted 
 vapor from their nostrils. Gest despoiled the old king 
 of all his gold and armor, and was about to rob him of 
 his sword, when the taper expired. Then, at once, the 
 five hundred rose from the dragon-ship, and the dcemon 
 king rushed at him ; they grappled and fought. In his 
 need, Gest invoked St. Olaf, who appeared with light 
 streaming from his body, and illumining the interior of 
 the cairn. Before this light, the power of the dead men 
 failed, and Gest completed his work in the vault.* la 
 the story of Sigurd and Fafnir, the dragon is more than 
 half man ; but in the battle of GuU-Thorir, the creature 
 is scaled and winged in the most approved Oriental 
 style, t 
 
 Let me place in apposition a few of the Aryan myths 
 relating to the strife between the sun and the daemon of 
 darkness, or storm. 
 
 * Bardar S. Snaefellsass. Kjobnhavn. i860, pp. 41-43- 
 t Gull-Thoris Saga. Leipzig, 1858. c. iv.
 
 5/. George. 263 
 
 Indian myth, Indra fights Ahi. 
 
 Indra kills Ahi, who is identified with the storm-cloud, 
 and releases ft-om him the pent-up waters, for want of 
 which the earth is perishing. Ahi a serpent. 
 
 Persian myth. Mithra and Ahriman. 
 
 Mithra is clearly identical with the sun, and Ahriman 
 with darkness. Ahriman a dragon. 
 
 Greek myth. Apollo and Python ; Perseus and the sea- 
 monster. 
 Apollo identical with the sun, Python the storm-cloud. 
 Apollo delivers his mother from the assault of the 
 dragon. 
 
 Perseus delivers Andromeda from the water-born ser- 
 pent. In other Greek fables it is the earth which is 
 saved from destruction by the victory of the hero. 
 
 Teutonic myth. Sigfried and the dragon. 
 
 Sigfried conquers the dragon who keeps guard over a 
 hidden treasure, the hero kills the dragon and brings 
 to light the treasure. 
 
 Scandinavian myth. Sigiird and Fafnir. 
 
 Like the myth of Sigfried. Other, and perhaps earlier 
 form, the dragon is a king of Hades, who cannot endure 
 light, and who has robbed the earth of its gold. The 
 hero descends to his realm, fights, overcomes him, and 
 despoils him of his treasures.
 
 264 St. George. 
 
 Christian myth. St. George and dragon. 
 
 St. George delivers a princess from a monster, who is 
 about to devour her. According to another version, 
 the dragon guards the spring of water, and the country 
 is languishing for want of water ; St. George restores 
 to the land the use of the spring by slaying the 
 dragon. 
 
 This table might have been considerably extended by 
 including Keltic and Sclavonic fables, but it is sufficiently 
 complete to show that the legend of St. George and the 
 dragon forms part of one of the sacred myths of the 
 Aryan family, and it is impossible not to grasp its sig- 
 nification in the light cast upon it by the Vedic poems. 
 And when we perceive how popular this venerable 
 myth was in heathen nations of Europe, it is not surpris- 
 ing that it should perpetuate itself under Christianity, and 
 that, when once transferred to a hero of the new creed, 
 it should make that hero one of the most venerated and 
 popular of all the saints in the calendar. 
 
 In the reign of Constantine the Great, there existed 
 a great and beautiful church between Ramula, the ancient 
 Arimathsea, and Lydda or Decapolis, dedicated by the 
 Emperor to St. George, over his tomb. Ramula also 
 bore the name of Georgia, and the inhabitants pretended
 
 St. George. 265 
 
 that the warrior-saint was a native of their town. A 
 temple of Juno at Constantinople was converted into a 
 church, with the same dedication, by the first Christian 
 Emperor, and according to one tradition, the bones of the 
 martyr were translated from his tomb near Lydda, to the 
 church in the great city of Constantine. At an early 
 date his head was in Rome, or at all events one of his 
 heads, for another found its way to the church of Mares- 
 Moutier, in Picardy, after the capture of Byzantium by 
 the Turks, when it was taken from a church erected by 
 Constantine Monomachus, dedicated to the saint. The 
 Roman head, long forgotten, was rediscovered in 751, 
 with an inscription on it which identified it with St. 
 George. In 1600 it was given to the church of Ferrara. 
 In Rome, at Palermo, and at Naples there were churches 
 at a very early date, consecrated to the martyr. In 509 
 Clotilda founded a nunnery at Chelles in his honor ; and 
 Clovis II. placed a convent at Barala under his invoca- 
 tion. In this rehgious house was preserved an arm of St. 
 George, which in the ninth century was transported to 
 Cambray ; and fifty years later St. Germain dedicated an 
 altar in Paris to the champion. In the sixth century a 
 church was erected to his honor at Mayence ; Clothaire 
 in the following century dedicated one at Nimegue, and
 
 266 St. George. 
 
 his brother another in Alsace. George had a monastery 
 dedicated to him at Thetford, founded in the reign of 
 Canute ; a collegiate church in Oxford placed under his 
 invocation in the reign of the Conqueror. St. George's, 
 Southwark, dates from before the Norman invasion. The 
 priory church of Griesly in Derbyshire was dedicated to 
 Saints Mary and George, in the reign of Henry I. The 
 Crusades gave an impetus to the worship of our patron. 
 He appeared in light on the walls of Jerusalem, waving 
 his sword, and led the victorious assault on the Holy City. 
 Unobtrusively he and St. Michael slipped into the offices, 
 and exercised the functions, of the Dioscuri. Robert of 
 Flanders, on his return from the Holy Land, presented 
 part of an arm of the saint to the city of Toulouse, and 
 other portions to the Countess Matilda and to the abbey 
 of Auchin. Another arm of St. George fell miraculously 
 from heaven upon the altar of St. Pantaleon at Cologne, 
 and in honor of it Bishop Anno founded a church. 
 
 The church of Villers-Saint-Leu contains relics of the 
 saint, which were given to it in iioi by Alexander, chap- 
 lain of Count Ernest, who had received them from Bald- 
 win at Jerusalem. 
 
 The enthusiasm of the Crusaders for the Eastern 
 soldier-saint who led them to battle, soon raised St.
 
 St. George. 267 
 
 George to the highest pitch of popularity among the 
 nobles and fighting-men of Europe. England, Aragon, 
 and Portugal assumed him as their patron, as well as most 
 chivalrous orders founded at the date of these wars. In 
 1245, on St. George's Day, Frederic of Austria instituted 
 an order of knighthood under his patronage ; and its 
 banner, white charged with a blood-red cross, in battle 
 floated alongside of that of the empire. When the em- 
 peror entered the castle of St. Angelo at Rome, these two 
 banners were carried before him. The custody of the 
 sacred standard of St. George was confided to the Swabian 
 knights. In the early part of the thirteenth century there 
 existed a military order under the protection of St. George 
 at Genoa, and in 1201 an order was founded in Aragon, 
 with the title of knights of St. George of Alfama. 
 
 In 1348 King Edward III. founded St. George's 
 Chapel, Windsor. In the following year he was besieging 
 Calais. Moved by a sudden impulse, says Thomas of 
 Walsingham, he drew his sword with the exclamation 
 " Ha ! Saint Edward 1 Ha ! Saint George ! " The words 
 and action communicated spirit to his soldiers : they fell 
 with vigor on the French, and routed them with a slaugh- 
 ter of two hundred soldiers. From that time St. George 
 replaced Edward the Confessor as patron of England.
 
 268 St George. 
 
 In 1350 the celebrated order was instituted. In 1415, 
 by the Constitutions of Archbishop Chichely, St. George's 
 Day was made a major double feast, and ordered to be 
 observed the same as Christmas Day, all labor ceasing ; 
 and he received the title of spiritual patron of the English 
 soldiery. 
 
 In 1545 St. George's Day was observed as a red letter 
 day, with proper Collect, Epistle, and Gospel ; but in the 
 reign of Edward VI. it was swept away, and the holding 
 of the chapter of the Garter on St. George's Day was 
 transferred to Whitsun Eve, Whitsun Day, and Whitsun 
 Monday. Next year, the first of Queen Mary, the enact- 
 ment was reversed, and since then the ancient custom 
 has obtained, and the chapter is held annually on the 
 feast of the patron. 
 ^ In concluding this paper, it remains only to point out 
 the graceful allegory which Hes beneath the Western fable. 
 St. George is any Christian who is sealed at his baptism 
 to be " Christ's faithful soldier and servant unto his life's 
 end," and armed with the breastplate of righteousness, 
 the shield of the faith, marked with its blood-red cross, 
 the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, 
 which is the word or power of God. 
 
 The hideous monster against whom the Christian sol-
 
 S^. George. 269 
 
 dier is called to fight is that " old serpent, the devil," who 
 withholds or poisons the streams of grace, and who seeks 
 to rend and devour the virgin soul, in whose defence the 
 champion fights. 
 
 If the warfare symbolized by this legend be carried out 
 in life, then, in Spenser's words — 
 
 "Thou, amongst those saints whom thou doest see, 
 Shall be a saint, and thine owne nations frend 
 And patrone : thou Saint George shalt called bee, 
 Saint George of mery England, the sign of victoree."
 
 ©lie Cegmtr of tl)e €ross, 
 
 Sibyl! . vi. 26. 
 
 IN the year 1850 chance led me to the discovery of a 
 Gallo-Roman palace at Pont d'Oli (Pons Aulse), near 
 Pau, in the south of France. I was able to exhume the 
 whole of the ruins, and to bring to light one of the most 
 extensive series of mosaic pavements extant. 
 
 The remains consisted of a mansion two hundred feet 
 long, paved throughout with mosaic : it was divided into 
 summer and winter apartments ; the latter heated by 
 means of hypocausts, and of small size ; the former very 
 large, and opening on to a corridor above the river, once 
 adorned with white marble pillars, having capitals of the 
 Corinthian order. One of the first portions of the palace 
 to be examined was the atrium, out of which, on the 
 west, opened the tablinum, a semi-circular chamber pan- 
 elled with alabaster and painted. 
 
 The atrium contained a large quadrangular tank or 
 impluvium, the dwarf walls of which were encased in
 
 The Legend of the Cross. 2yi 
 
 variegated Pyrenean marbles. On the west side of the 
 impluvium, below the step of the tablinum, the pavement 
 represented five rows of squares. The squares in the first, 
 third, and fifth rows were filled with a graceful pattern 
 composed of curves. In the second and fourth rows, 
 however, every fourth square contained a distinctly char- 
 acterized red cross on white ground, with a delicate white 
 spine down the middle (Fig. 2). Some few of these 
 crosses had a black floriation in the angles, much resem- 
 bling that met with in Gothic crosses (Fig. 4). Immedi- 
 ately in front of the tablinum, on the dwarf wall of the 
 impluvium, stood the altar to the Penates, which was 
 found. The corresponding pavement on the east of the 
 impluvium was similar in design to the other, but the 
 St. George's crosses were replaced by those of St. Andrew, 
 each limb terminating either in a heart-shaped leaf or a 
 trefoil (Figs, i, 5). The design on the north and south 
 was different, and contained no crosses. The excavations 
 to the north led to the summer apartment. The most 
 northerly chamber measured 26 feet by 22 feet; it was 
 not only the largest, but evidently the principal room of 
 the mansion, for the pavement was the most elaborate and 
 beautiful. It was bordered by an exquisite running pat- 
 tern of vines and grape bunches, springing from four
 
 272 
 
 The Legend of the Cross. 
 
 drinking vessels in the centres of the north, south, east, 
 and west sides. The pattern within this border was of 
 circles, containing conventional roses alternately folded 
 and expanded. This design was, however, rudely inter- 
 
 rupted by a monstrous cross measuring 19 feet 8 inches 
 by 13 feet, with its head towards the south, and its foot 
 at the head of a flight of marble steps descending into 
 what we were unable to decide whether it was a bath or a 
 vestibule. The ground of the cross was white ; the limbs 
 were filled with cuttle, lobsters, eels, oysters, and fish, 
 swimming as though in their natural element ; but the 
 centre, where the arms intersected, was occupied by a
 
 The Legend of the Cross. 273 
 
 gigantic bust of Neptune with his trident. The flesh was 
 represented red ; the hair, and beard, and trident were a 
 blue-black. The arms of the figure did not show : a line 
 joining the lower edge of the transverse limbs of the cross 
 cut the figure at the breast, leaving the head and shoulders 
 above. The resemblance to a crucifix was sufficiently 
 remarkable to make the laborers exclaim, as they un- 
 covered it, " C'est le bon Dieu, c'est Jesus ! " and they 
 regarded the trident as the centurion's spear. A neigh- 
 boring cur6 satisfied himself that the pavement was laid 
 down in conscious prophecy of Christianity, and he 
 pointed to the chalices and grapes as symbolizing the 
 holy Eucharist, and the great cross, at the head of what 
 we believed to be a circular bath, as typical of Christian 
 baptism. With regard to the cross, the following laws 
 seem to have governed its representation in the Gallo- 
 Roman villa : — 
 
 The St. George's cross occupied the place of honor 
 in the chief room, and at the head of this room, not in 
 the middle, but near the bath or porch. Again, in the 
 atrium this cross was repeated twenty times in the prin- 
 cipal place before the tablinum and altar of the household 
 divinities, and again in connection with water. Its color 
 was always red or white. 
 
 18
 
 274 "^^^^ Legend of the Cross. 
 
 Six varieties of crosses occurred in the villa (Figs. 1-5) : 
 the St. George's cross plain ; the same with foliations in 
 the angles ; the same inhabited by fish, and bust of Nep- 
 tune : the Maltese cross : the St. Andrew's cross with 
 trefoiled ends ; the same with heart-shaped ends. 
 
 On the discovery of the villa, several theories were 
 propounded to explain the prominence given to the cross 
 in the mosaics. 
 
 It was conjectured by some that the Neptune crucifix 
 was a satire upon the Christians. To this it was objected 
 that the figure was too large and solemn, and was made 
 too prominent, to be so taken ; that to the cross was 
 assigned the place of honor; and that, independently 
 of the bust of the sea-god, it was connected by the 
 artists with the presence of water. 
 
 It was supposed by others that the villa had belonged 
 to a Christian, and that the execution of his design in the 
 pavement had been intrusted to pagans, who, through 
 ignorance, had substituted the head of Neptune for that 
 of the Saviour. 
 
 Such a solution, though possible, is barely probable. 
 
 My own belief is, that the cross was a sacred sign 
 among the Gaulish Kelts, and that the villa at Pau had 
 belonged to a Gallo-Roman, who introduced into it the
 
 X 
 
 
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 U 
 
 rill! 
 
 £ 
 
 
 X
 
 1
 
 The Legend of the Cross. 277 
 
 symbol of the water-god of his national religion, and 
 combined it with the representation of the marine deity 
 of the conquerors' creed. 
 
 My reasons for believing the cross to have been a 
 Gaulish sign are these : — 
 
 The most ancient coins of the Gauls were circular, 
 with a cross in the middle ; little wheels, as it were, with 
 four large perforations (Figs. 6, 7, 8). That these rouelles 
 were not designed to represent wheels is apparent from 
 there being only four spokes, placed at right angles. 
 Moreover, when the coins of the Greek type took their 
 place, the cross was continued as the ornamentation of 
 the coin. The gold and silver Greek pieces circulating 
 at Marseilles were the cause of the abandonment of the 
 primitive type ; and rude copies of the Greek coins were 
 made by the Keltic inhabitants of Gaul. In copying 
 the foreign pieces, they retained their own symboHc 
 cross. 
 
 The reverse of the coins of the Volcae Tectosages, who 
 inhabited the greater portion of Languedoc, was im- 
 pressed with crosses, their angles filled with pellets, so 
 like those on the silver coins of the Edwards, that, were 
 it not for the quality of the metal, one would take these 
 GauHsh coins to be the production of the Middle Ages.
 
 278 The Legend of the Cross. 
 
 The Leuci, who inhabited the country round the modem 
 Toul, had similar coins. One of their pieces has been 
 figured by M. de Saulcy.* It represents a circle con- 
 taining a cross, the angles between the arms occupied by 
 a chevron. Some of the crosses have bezants, or pearls, 
 forming a ring about them, or occupying the spaces 
 between their limbs. Near Paris, at Choisy-le-Roy, was 
 discovered a Gaulish coin representing a head, in barbar- 
 ous imitation of that on a Greek medal, and the reverse 
 occupied by a serpent coiled round the circumference, 
 and enclosing two birds. Between these birds is a cross, 
 with pellets at the end of each limb, and a pellet in each 
 angle. 
 
 A similar coin has been found in numbers near 
 Arthenay, in Loiret, as well as others of analogous type. 
 Other Gaulish coins bear the cross on both obverse and 
 reverse. About two hundred pieces of this description 
 were found in 1835, in the village of Cremiat-sur-Yen, 
 near Quimper, in a brown earthen urn, with ashes and 
 charcoal, in a rude kistvaen of stone blocks ; proving that 
 the cross was used on the coins in Armorica, at the time 
 when incremation was practised. This cross with pellets, 
 a characteristic of Gauhsh coins, became in time the 
 
 * Revue de Numismatique, 1836.
 
 The Legend of the Cross. 279 
 
 recognized reverse of early French pieces, and intro- 
 duced itself into England with the Anglo-Norman kings. 
 
 We unfortunately know too little of the iconography 
 of the Gauls, to be able to decide whether the cross was 
 with them the symbol of a water deity ; but I think it 
 probable, and for this reason, that it is the sign of gods 
 connected, more or less remotely, with water in other 
 religions. That it was symbolic among the Irish and 
 British Kelts is more than probable. The temple in the 
 tumulus of Newgrange is in the shape of a cross with 
 rounded arms (Fig. 9). Curiously enough, the so-called 
 Phoenician ruin of Giganteia, in Gozzo, resembles it in 
 shape. The shamrock of Ireland derives its sacredness 
 from its affecting the same form. In the mysticism of 
 the Druids the stalk or long arm of the cross represented 
 the way of life, and the three lobes of the clover-leaf, 
 or the short arms of the cross, symbolized the three 
 conditions of the spirit-world, Heaven, Purgatory, and 
 Hell. 
 
 Let us turn to the Scandinavians. Their god Thorr 
 was the thunder, and the hammer was his symbol. It 
 was with this hammer that Thorr crushed the head of the 
 great Mitgard serpent, that he destroyed the giants, that 
 he restored the dead goats to life which drew his car, that
 
 28o The Legend of the Cross. 
 
 he consecrated the pyre of Baldur. This hammer was a 
 cross. 
 
 Just as the St, George's cross appears on the Gaulish 
 coins, so does the cross cramponn^e, or Thorr's hammer 
 (Fig. ii), appear on the Scandinavian moneys. 
 
 In ploughing a field near Bornholm, in Fyen, in 1835, 
 a discovery was made of several gold coins and ornaments 
 belonging to ancient Danish civilization. The collection 
 consisted of personal ornaments, such as brooches, fibulae, 
 and torques, and also of pieces of money, to which were 
 fastened rings in order that they might be strung on a 
 necklace. Among these were two rude copies of coins 
 of the successors of Constantine ; but the others were 
 of a class very common in the North. They were im- 
 pressed with a four-footed horned beast, girthed, and 
 mounted by a monstrous human head, intended, in bar- 
 barous fashion, to represent the rider. In front of the 
 head was the sign of Thorr's hammer, a cross cram- 
 ponnee. Four of the specimens bearing this symbol 
 exhibited likewise the name of Thorr in runes. A still 
 ruder coin, discovered with the others, was deficient in 
 the cross, whose place was occupied by a four-point star.* 
 
 Among the flint weapons discovered in Denmark are 
 
 * Transactions of the Society of Northern Antiquaries for 1836. 
 
 1
 
 The Legend of the Cross. 281 
 
 stone cruciform hammers, with a hole at the intersection 
 of the arms for the insertion of the haft (Fig. 10). As 
 the lateral limbs could have been of little or no use, it is 
 probable that these crucifonn hammers were those used 
 in consecrating victims in Thorr's worship. 
 
 The cross of Thorr is still used in Iceland as a magical 
 sign in connection with storms of wind and rain. 
 
 King Olaf, Longfellow tells us, when keeping Christmas 
 at Drontheim — 
 
 '*0'er his drinking-horn, the sign 
 He made of the Cross Divine, 
 
 As he drank, and mutter'd his prayers; 
 But the Berserks evermore 
 Made the sign of the Hammer of Thorr 
 Over theirs." 
 
 Actually they both made the same symbol. 
 
 This we are told by Snorro Sturleson, in the Heims- 
 kringla,* when he describes the sacrifice at Lade, at 
 which King Hakon, Athelstan's foster-son was present : 
 " Now, when the first full goblet was filled. Earl Sigurd 
 spoke some words over it, and blessed it in Odin's name, 
 and drank to the king out of the horn ; and the king 
 then took it, and made the sign of the cross over it. 
 Then said Kaare of Greyting, ' What does the king mean 
 
 * Heimskringla, Saga iv. c. 18.
 
 282 The Legend of the Cross. 
 
 by doing so? will he not sacrifice?' But Earl Sigurd 
 replied, ' The king is doing what all of you do who trust 
 in your power and strength ; for he is blessing the full 
 goblet in the name of Thorr, by making -the sign of his 
 hammer over it before he drinks it.' " 
 
 Bells fvere rung in the Middle Ages to drive away 
 thunder. Among the German peasantry the sign of the 
 cross is used to dispel a thunder-storm. The cross is 
 used because it resembles Thorr's hammer, and Thorr 
 is the Thunderer : for the same reason bells wpre often 
 marked with the "fylfot," or cross of Thorr (Fig. ii), 
 especially where the Norse settled, as in Lincolnshire and 
 Yorkshire. Thorr's cross is on the bells of Appleby, and 
 Scotherne, Waddingham, Bishop's Norton, and West Bark- 
 with, in Lincolnshire, on those of Hathersage in Derby- 
 shire, Mexborough in Yorkshire, and many more. 
 
 The fylfot is curiously enough the sacred Swaslika of 
 the Buddhist ; and the symbol of Buddha on the reverse 
 of a coin found at Ugain is a cross of equal arms, with 
 a circle at the extremity of each, and the fylfot in each 
 circle. 
 
 The same peculiar figure occurs on coins of Syracuse, 
 Corinth, and Chalcedon, and is frequently employed on 
 Etruscan cinerary urns. It curiously enough appears on
 
 TJie Legend of the Cross. 283 
 
 the dress of a fossor, as a sort of badge of his office, on 
 one of the paintings in the Roman catacombs. 
 
 But, leaving the cross cramponnee, let us examine 
 some other crosses, 
 
 Sozomen, the ecclesiastical historian, says that, on the 
 destruction of the Serapium in Egypt, " there were found 
 sculptured on the stones certain characters regarded as 
 sacred, resembling the sign of the cross. This representa- 
 tion, interpreted by those who knew the meaning, signified 
 ' The Life to come.' This was the occasion of a great 
 number of pagans embracing Christianity, the more so 
 because other characters announced that the temple would 
 be destroyed when this character came to light." * Soc- 
 rates gives further particulars : " Whilst they were demol- 
 ishing and despoiling the temple of Serapis, they found 
 characters, engraved on the stone, of the kind called 
 hieroglyphics, the which characters had the figure of the 
 cross. When the Christians and the Greeks [i. e. heathen] 
 saw this, they referred the signs to their own religions. 
 The Christians, who regarded the cross as the symbol 
 of the salutary passion of Christ, thought that this char- 
 acter was their own. But the Greeks said it was common 
 to Christ and Serapis ; though this cruciform character is, 
 
 * Sozomen, Hist. Eccles. vii. c. 14.
 
 284 The Legend of the Cross. 
 
 in fact, one thing to the Christians, and another to the 
 Greeks. A controversy having arisen, some of the Greeks 
 [heathen] converted to Christianity, who understood the 
 hieroglyphics, interpreted this cross-hke figure to signify 
 'The Life to come,' The Christians, seizing on this as 
 in favor of their rehgion, gathered boldness and assur- 
 ance ; and as it was shown by other sacred characters 
 that the temple of Serapis was to have an end when was 
 brought to light this crucifomi character, signifying * The 
 Life to come,' a great number were converted and were 
 baptized, confessing their sins." * 
 
 Rufinus, who tells the story also, says that this took 
 place at the destruction of the Serapium at Canopus ; f 
 but Socrates and Sozomen probably followed Sophronius, 
 who wrote a book on the destruction of the Serapium, 
 and locate the event in Alexandria. J 
 
 Rufinus says, "The Egyptians are said to have the 
 sign of the Lord's cross among those letters which are 
 called sacerdotal — of which letter or figure this, they say, 
 is the interpretation : ' The Life to come.' " 
 
 * Socrat. Hist. Eccles. v. c. 17. 
 
 t Rufin. Hist. Eccles. ii. c. 29. 
 
 X " Sophronius, vir apprime eruditus, laudes Bethleem adhuc 
 puer, et nuper de subversione Serapis insignem librum composuit." 
 — Hieronym. Vit Illust.
 
 The Legend of the Cross. 285 
 
 There is some slight difficulty as to fixing the date 
 of the destruction of the Serapiuni. Marcellinus refers 
 it to the year 389, but some chronologists have moved 
 it to 391. It was certainly overthrown in the reign of 
 Theodosius I. 
 
 There can be litde doubt that the cross in the Serapium 
 was the Crux ansata (Fig. 12), the St. Anthony's cross, 
 or Tau with a handle. The antiquaries of last century 
 supposed it to be a Nile key or a phallus, significations 
 purely hypothetical and false, as were all those they attrib- 
 uted to Egyptian hieroglyphs. As Sir Gardner Wilkinson 
 remarks, it is precisely the god Nilus who is least often 
 represented with this symbol in his hand,* and the Nile 
 key is an ascertained figure of different shape. Now it is 
 known for certain that the symbol is that of fife. Among 
 other indications, we have only to cite the Rosetta stone, 
 on which it is employed to translate the title alavS^ios 
 given to Ptolemy Epiphanius. 
 
 The Christians of Egypt gladly accepted this witness 
 to the cross, and reproduced it in their churches and 
 elsewhere, making it precede, follow, or accompany their 
 inscriptions. Thus, beside one of the Christian inscrip- 
 tions at Phile is seen both a Maltese cross and a crux 
 
 * Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, iv. p. 341.
 
 286 The Legend of the Cross. 
 
 ansata. In a .painting covering the end of a church in 
 the cemetery of El-Khargeh, in the Great Oasis, are three 
 handled crosses around the principal subject, which seems 
 to have been a figure of a saint.* 
 
 Not less manifest is the intention in an inscription in a 
 Christian church to the east of the Nile in the desert. 
 It is this : — 
 
 KAeO>¥<AIKH + EKKAH^GIA. 
 Beside, or in the hand of, the Egyptian gods, this symbol 
 is generally to be seen : it is held in the right hand, by 
 the loop, and indicates the Eternity of Life which is the 
 attribute of divinity. When Osiris is represented holding 
 out the crux ansata to a mortal, it means that the person 
 to whom he presents it has put off mortality, and entered 
 on the life to come. 
 
 Several theories have been started to account for the 
 shape. The Phallic tlieory is monstrous, and devoid of 
 evidence. It has also been suggested that the Tau (T) 
 represents a table or altar, and that the loop symbolizes 
 a vase t or an egg % upon that altar. 
 
 * Hoskins, Visit to the Great Oasis, Lond. 1837, plate xii. 
 
 \ " Hieroglyphica ejusdem (vocis) figura formam exhibet mensae 
 sacrae fulcro innixae cui vas quoddam religionis indicium super- 
 positum est." — P. Ungarelli, Interpretat. Obeliscorum Urbis, p. 5. 
 
 } Dognee, Les Symboles Antiques, L'CEuf. Bruxelles, 1865. 
 
 I
 
 The Legend of the Cross. 287 
 
 These explanations are untenable when brought into 
 contact with the monuments of Egypt. The ovoid form 
 of the upper member is certainly a handle, and is so used 
 (Fig. 13). No one knows, and probably no one ever will 
 know, what originated the use of this sign, and gave it 
 such significance. 
 
 The Greek cross is also found on Egyptian monuments, 
 but less frequendy than the cross of St. Anthony. A 
 figure of a Shari (Fig. 14), from Sir Gardner Wilkinson's 
 book, has a necklace round his throat, from which de- 
 pends a pectoral cross. A similar ornament hangs on the 
 breast of Tiglath Pileser, in the colossal tablet from Nim- 
 roud, now in the British Museum (Fig. 15). Another 
 king from the ruins of Nineveh wears a Maltese cross on 
 his bosom. And another, from the hall of Nisroch, car- 
 ries an emblematic necklace, consisting of the sun sur- 
 rounded by a ring, the moon, a Maltese cross likewise in 
 a ring, a three-horned cap, and a symbol like two horns.* 
 
 A third Egyptian cross is that represented Fig. 16, 
 which apparently is intended for a Latin cross rising out 
 of a heart, like the mediseval emblem of " Cor in Cruce, 
 Crux in Corde : " it is the hieroglyph of goodness. f 
 
 The handled cross was certainly a sacred symbol 
 
 * Bonomi, Nineveh and its Palaces, pp. 303, 333, 414. 
 
 t H. W. Westrop, in Gentleman's Magazine, N. S., vol. xv. p. 80.
 
 288 TJie Legend of the Cross. 
 
 among the Babylonians. It occurs repeatedly on their 
 cylinders, bricks, and gems. 
 
 On a cylinder in the Paris Cabinet of Antiquities, 
 published by Miinter, * are four figures, the first winged, 
 the second armed with what seems to be thunderbolts. 
 Beside him is the crux ansata, with a hawk sitting on the 
 oval handle. The other figures are a woman and a child. 
 This cross is half the height of the deity. 
 
 Another cylinder in the same Cabinet represents 
 three personages. Between two with tiaras is the same 
 symbol. A third in the same collection bears the 
 same three principal figures as the first. The winged 
 deity holds a spear ; the central god is armed with a 
 bundle of thunderbolts and a dart, and is accompanied 
 by the cross ; the third, a female, bears a flower. On 
 another and still more curious cylinder is a monarch or 
 god, behind whom stands a servant, holding up the symbol 
 (Fig. 17). The god is between two handled crosses, and 
 behind the servant is a Maltese cross. Some way above 
 is a bird with expanded wings. Again, on another the 
 winged figure is accompanied by the cross. A remark- 
 able specimen, from which I have copied the principal 
 figure (Fig. 18), represents a god holding the sacred sign 
 by the long arm, whilst a priest offers him a gazelle. 
 * Miinter, Religion d. Babylonier, Taf. i.
 
 TJie Legend of the Cross. 289 
 
 An oval seal, of white chalcedony, engraved in the 
 M^moires de I'Acad^mie royale des Inscriptions et Belles 
 Lettres (vol. xvi.), has as subject a standing figure be- 
 tween two stars, beneath which are handled crosses. 
 Above the head of the deity is the triangle, or symbol 
 of the Trinity. 
 
 This seal is of uncertain origin : it is supposed not 
 to be Babylonish, but Phoenician. The Phoenicians also 
 regarded the cross as a sacred sign. The goddess Astarte, 
 the moon, the presiding divinity over the watery element, 
 is represented on the coins of Byblos holding a long staff 
 surmounted by a cross, and resting her foot on the prow 
 of a galley, and not unlike the familiar figures of Faith on 
 the Christian Knowledge Society books. 
 
 The Cyclopean temple at Gozzo, the island adjacent 
 to Malta, has been supposed to be a shrine of the 
 Phoenicians to Mylitta or Astarte. It is of a cruciform 
 shape (Fig. 9). A superb medal of Cilicia, bearing a 
 Phoenician legend, and struck under the Persian domina- 
 tion, has on one side a figure of this goddess with a crux 
 ansata by her side, the lower member split. 
 
 Another form of the cross (Figs. 19, 20) is repeated 
 frequently and prominently on coins of Asia Minor. It 
 occurs as the reverse of a silver coin supposed to be of 
 
 19
 
 290 The Lege7td of the Cross. 
 
 Cyprus, on several Cilician coins : it is placed beneath 
 the throne of Baal of Tarsus, on a Phoenician coin of 
 that town, bearing the legend Tin ^isn (Baal Tharz). 
 A medal, possibly of the same place, with partially oblit- 
 erated Phoenician characters, has the cross occupying the 
 entire field of the reverse side. Several, with inscriptions 
 in unknown characters, have a ram on one side, and the 
 cross and ring on the other. Another has the sacred 
 bull accompanied by this symbol ; others have a lion's 
 head on obverse, and the cross and circle on the 
 reverse. 
 
 A beautiful Sicilian medal of Camarina bears a swan 
 and altar, and beneath the altar is one of these crosses 
 with a ring attached to it.* 
 
 As in Phoenician iconography this cross generally ac- 
 companies a deity, in the same manner as the handled 
 cross is associated with the Persepolitan, Babylonish, and 
 Egyptian gods, we may conclude that it had with the 
 Phoenicians the same signification of life eternal. That 
 it also symbolized regeneration through water, I also be- 
 lieve. On Babylonish cylinders it is generally employed 
 in conjunction with the hawk or eagle, either seated on 
 
 * These medals are engraved to accompany the article of M. 
 Raoul-Rochette on the Croix ansee, in the Mem. de 1' Academic des 
 Inscr. et Belles Lettres, torn. xvi.
 
 TJie Legend of the Cross. 291 
 
 it, or flying above it. This eagle is Nisroch, whose eyes 
 are always flowing with tears for the death of Tammuz. 
 Nesr, or Nisroch, is certainly the rain-cloud. In Greek 
 iconography Zeus, the heaven, is accompanied by the 
 eagle to symbolize the cloud. On several Phoenician or 
 uncertain coins of Asia Minor the eagle and the cross go 
 together. Therefore I think that the cross may symbolize 
 life restored by rain. 
 
 An inscription in Thessaly, EPMAfi X0ONIOY, is 
 accompanied by a Calvary cross (Fig. 21) ; and Greek 
 crosses of equal arms adorn the tomb of Midas, in Phry- 
 gia. Crosses of different shapes, chiefly like Figs. 2 and 1 1, 
 are common on ancient cinerary urns in Italy. These two 
 forms occur on sepulchral vessels found under a bed of vol- 
 canic tufa on the Alban mount, and of remote antiquity. 
 
 It is curious that the T should have been used on 
 the roll of the Roman soldiery as the sign of life, whilst 
 the designated death.* 
 
 But, long before the Romans, long before the Etrus- 
 cans, there lived in the plains of Northern Italy a people 
 to whom the cross was a religious symbol, the sign be- 
 neath which they laid their dead to rest ; a people of 
 
 * Isidor. Origin, i. c. 23. "T nota in capite versiculi supposita 
 superstitem designat." Persius, Sat. iv. 13. Rufin. in Hieronym. 
 ap. Casaubon ad Pers.
 
 2g2 The Legend of the Cross. 
 
 whom history tells nothing, knowing not their name ; but 
 of whom antiquarian research has learned this, that they 
 lived in ignorance of the arts of civilization, that they 
 dwelt in villages built on platforms over lakes, and that 
 they trusted in the cross to guard, and may be to revive, 
 their loved ones whom they committed to the dust. 
 Throughout Emilia are found remains of these people ; 
 these remains form quarries whence manure is dug by the 
 peasants of the present day. These quarries go by the 
 name of terramares. They are vast accumulations of 
 cinders, charcoal, bones, fragments of pottery, and other 
 remains of human industry. As this earth is very rich in 
 phosphates, it is much appreciated by the agriculturists as 
 a dressing for their land. In these terramares there are 
 no human bones. The fragments of earthenware belong 
 to articles of domestic use ; with them are found querns, 
 moulds for metal, portions of cabin floors and walls, and 
 great quantities of kitchen refuse. They are deposits 
 analogous to those which have been discovered in Den- 
 mark and in Switzerland. The metal discovered in the 
 majority of these terramares is bronze. The remains 
 belong to three distinct ages. In the first none of the 
 fictile ware was turned on the wheel or fire-baked. Some- 
 times these deposits exhibit an advance of civilization.
 
 The Legend of the Cross. 293 
 
 Iron came into use, and witla it the potter's wheel was 
 discovered, and the earthenware was put in the furnace. 
 
 When in the same quarry these two epochs are found, 
 the remains of the second age are ahvays superposed 
 over those of the bronze age. 
 
 A third period is occasionally met with, but only occa- 
 sionally. A period when a rude art introduced itself, and 
 representations of animals or human beings adorned the 
 pottery. Among the remains of this period is found the 
 first trace of money, the aes rude, little bronze fragments 
 without shape. 
 
 According to the calculations of M. Des Vergers, the 
 great development of Etruscan civilization took place 
 about 290 years before the foundation of Rome, more 
 than 1040 years before our era. The age of the terra- 
 mares must be long antecedent to the time of Etruscan 
 civilization. The remote antiquity of these remains may 
 be gathered from the amount of accumulation over them. 
 A section of the deposit in Parma, where was one of these 
 
 lacustrine villages is as follows : — 
 
 ft. in. 
 
 Roman and later remains a depth of 41 
 
 Midden of ancient inliabitants, three deposits separated by 
 
 thin layers of red earth or ashes 6 8 
 
 Latest bed of lake containing piles 7 o 
 
 Secondary bed containing piles 3 3 
 
 Original bed of lake containing piles 21 o
 
 294 TJie Legend of the Cross. 
 
 Twice had the accumulation risen so as to necessitate the 
 re-driving of piles, and over the last, the deposits had 
 reached the height of 6 feet 8 inches. Since the age 
 when these people vanished, earth has accumulated to 
 the depth of 4 feet. 
 
 At Castione, not far from the station of Borgo St. 
 Donino, on tlie line between Parma and Placenza, is a 
 convent built on a mound. Where that mound rises there 
 was originally a lake, and the foundations of the building 
 are laid in the ruins of an ancient population which filled 
 the lake, and converted it into a hill of refuse. 
 
 From the broken bones in the middens, we learn that 
 the roebuck, the stag, the wild boar, then ranged the 
 forests, that cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, and dogs were 
 domesticated ; that these people had two kinds of horses, 
 one a powerful animal, the other small-boned, and that 
 horseflesh was eaten by the inhabitants of the terramares. 
 
 Wheat, barley, millet, and beans have been found about 
 the piles, together with the stones of wild plums, sloes, 
 and cherries, also crab-apple pips. 
 
 A bronze dagger was found at Castione, a spear-head 
 of the same metal in the deposit of Bargone di Salso. A 
 hatchet came from the terramare of Noceto ; quantities 
 of little wheels, of unknown use, have been discovered.
 
 TJie Legend of the Cross. 295 
 
 also hair-pins and combs. One, for a lady's back-hair, 
 ornamented, and of stag's horn, came from the terramare 
 of Fodico di Poviglio. The pottery found is mostly in 
 fragments. Sometimes the bottoms of the vessels were 
 rudely engraved with crosses (Figs. 22, 23, 24). 
 
 At Villanova, in the Commune of St. Maria delle Ca- 
 selle, near Bologna, has been discovered a cemetery of 
 this ancient people. The, graves cover a space measuring 
 about 73 yards by 36 yards. One hundred and thirty- 
 three tombs have been examined. They were constructed 
 of great bowlders, rectangular, somewhat cylindrical, and 
 slightly conical. Earth had accumulated over them, and 
 they were buried. They were about four feet deep. The 
 cist was floored with slabs of freestone, the sides were 
 built up of bowlders ; other cists were constructed of 
 slabs, and cubical in shape. A hundred and seventy-nine 
 of the bodies had been burnt. Each tomb contained a 
 cinerary urn containing the calcined human remains. The 
 urns were of a peculiar shape, and appeared to have been 
 made for the purpose. They resembled a dice-box, and 
 consisted of a couple of inverted cones with a partition 
 at their bases, where they were united. Half-melted 
 remains of ornaments were found with some of the 
 human ashes. In one vessel was a charred fragment of a
 
 296 TJic Legend of tJie Cross. 
 
 horse's rib. Therefore it is likely that the favorite horse 
 was sacrificed and consumed with his master. 
 
 The mouth of the urn which contained the ashes of 
 the deceased was closed uith a little vessel or saucer. 
 Near the remains of the dead were found curious solid 
 double cones with rounded ends ; these ends were elabo- 
 rately engraved with crosses (Figs. 23, 25, 27). In the 
 ossuaries made of double cones, around the diaphragm 
 ran a line of circles containing crosses (Fig. 26). 
 
 Another cemetery of the same people exists at Gola- 
 secca, on the plateau of Somma, at the extremity of the 
 Lago Maggiore. A vast number of sepulchres have there 
 been opened. They belong to the same period as those 
 of Villanova, the age of lacustrine habitations. 
 
 " That which characterizes the sepulchres of Golasecca, 
 and gives them their highest interest," says M. de Mortil- 
 let, who investigated them, " is this, — first, the entire 
 absence of all organic representations ; we only found 
 three, and they were exceptional, in tombs not belonging 
 to the plateau ; — secondly, the almost invariable presence 
 of the cross under the vases in the tombs. When one 
 reverses the ossuaries, the saucer-lids, or the accessory 
 vases, one saw almost always, if in good preservation, a 
 cross traced thereon. . . , The examination of the tombs
 
 The Legend of tJie Cross. 297 
 
 of Golasecca proves in a most convincing, positive, and 
 precise manner, that which the terramares of Emilia had 
 only indicated, but which had been confirmed by the 
 cemetery of Villanova ; that above a thousand years be- 
 fore Christ, the cross was already a religious emblem of 
 frequent employment." * 
 
 It may be objected to this, that the cross is a sign so 
 easily made, that it was naturally the first attempted by a 
 rude people. There are, however, so many varieties of 
 crosses among the urns of Golasecca, and ingenuity 
 seems to have been so largely exercised in diversifying 
 this one sign, without recurring to others, that I can- 
 not but believe the sign itself had a religious signification. 
 
 On the other side of the Alps, at the same period, 
 lived a people in a similar state of civilization, whose 
 palustrine habitations and remains have been carefully 
 explored. Among the Swiss potteries, however, the cross 
 is very rarely found. 
 
 In the depths of the forests of Central America is a 
 ruined city. It was not inhabited at the time of the con- 
 quest of Mexico by the Spaniards. They discovered the 
 
 * De Mortillet, Le signe de la Croix avant le Christianisme. 
 Paris, 1S66. The title of this book is deceptive. The subject is 
 the excavations of pre-historic remains in Northern Italy, and pre- 
 Christian crosses are only casually and cursorily dealt with.
 
 298 TJie Legend of the Cross. 
 
 temples and palaces of Chiapa, but of Palenque they 
 knew nothing. According to tradition it was founded by 
 Votan in the ninth century before the Christian era. 
 The principal building in Palenque is the palace, 228 feet 
 long, by 180 feet, and 40 feet high. The Eastern fagade 
 has fourteen doors opening on a terrace, with bas-reliefs 
 between them. A noble tower rises above the courtyard 
 in the centre. In this building are several small temples 
 or chapels, with altars standing. At the back of one of 
 these altars is a slab of gypsum, on which are sculptured 
 two figures standing, one on each side of a cross (Fig. 28), 
 to which one is extending his hands with an offering of a 
 baby or a monkey. The cross is surrounded with rich 
 feather-work, and ornamental chains.* 
 
 The style of sculpture, and the accompanying hiero- 
 glyphic inscriptions, leave no room for doubting it to be a 
 heathen representation. Above the cross is a bird of 
 peculiar character, perched, as we saw the eagle Nisroch, 
 on a cross upon a Babylonish cylinder. The same cross 
 is represented on old pre-Mexican MSS., as in the 
 Dresden Codex, and that in the possession of Herr 
 Fejervary, at the end of which is a colossal cross, in the 
 midst of which is represented a bleeding deity, and fig- 
 
 * Stephens, Central America. London, 1842. Vol. ii. p. 346.
 
 The Legend of the Cross, 299 
 
 ures stand round a Tau cross, upon which is perched 
 the sacred bird.* 
 
 The cross was also used in the north of Mexico. It 
 occurs amongst the Mixtecas and in Queredaro. Si- 
 guenza speaks of an Indian cross which was found in the 
 cave of Mixteca Baja. Among the ruins on the island 
 of Zaputero in Lake Nicaragua were also found old 
 crosses reverenced by the Indians. White marble crosses 
 were found on the island of St. UUoa, on its discovery. 
 In the state of Oaxaca, the Spaniards found that wooden 
 crosses were erected as sacred symbols, so also in Agua- 
 tolco, and among the Zapatecas. The cross was vener- 
 ated as far as Florida on one side, and Cibola on the 
 other. In South America, the same sign was considered 
 symbolical and sacred. It was revered in Paraguay. In 
 Peru the Incas honored a cross made out of a single 
 piece of jasper ; it was an emblem belonging to a former 
 civilization. 
 
 Among the Muyscas at Cumana the cross was regarded 
 with devotion, and was believed to be endued with power 
 to drive away evil spirits ; consequently new-born children 
 were placed under the sign.f 
 
 * Klemm, Kiilturgeschichte, v. 142, 143. 
 
 t See list of authorities in Miiller, Geschichte der Amerikan- 
 ischeii Uireligionen. Basel, 1855, pp. 371, 421, 49S, 499.
 
 300 The LegeJid of the Cross. 
 
 Probably all these crosses, certainly those of Central 
 America, were symbols of the Rain-god. This we are 
 told by the conquerors, of the crosses on the island of 
 Cozumel. The cross was not an original symbol of the 
 Azteks and Tolteks, but of the Maya race, who inhabited 
 Mexico, Guatemala, and Yucatan. The Mayas were sub- 
 divided into the tribes of Totonacs, Othomi, Huasteks, 
 Tzendales, &c., and were conquered by a Nahual race 
 from the North, called Azteks and Tolteks, who founded 
 the great Mexican empire with which Cortez and his 
 Spaniards were brought in collision.* This Maya stock 
 was said to have been highly civilized, and the conquered 
 to have influenced their conquerors. 
 
 The Maya race invaded Central America, coming from 
 the Antilles, when the country was peopled by the Quina- 
 mies, to whom the Cyclopean erections still extant are 
 attributed. They were overthrown by Votan, B.C. 800. 
 The cross was adopted by the Azteks, from the conquered 
 ISlayas. It was the emblem of Quiateot, the god of Rain. 
 In order to obtain rain litde boys and girls were sacrificed 
 to him, and their flesh was devoured at a sacred banquet 
 by the chiefs. Among the Mexicans, the showery month 
 
 * It is exceedingly difficult to classify these races, and arrive at 
 anv exact conclusions with regard to their history. The Tzendales 
 were probably never conquered.
 
 Tlie Legend of the Cross. 301 
 
 Quiahuitl received its name from him. In Cibola, water 
 as the generator was honored under this symbol ; in 
 Cozumel, the sacred cross in the temples was of wood or 
 stone, ten palms high, and to it were offered incense 
 and quails. To obtain showers, the people bore it in 
 procession. 
 
 The Tolteks said that their national deity Quetzalcoatl 
 had introduced the sign and ritual of the cross, and it was 
 their God of Rain and Health, and was called the Tree 
 of Nutriment, or Tree of Life. On this account also was 
 the mantle of the Toltek atmospheric god covered with 
 red crosses. 
 
 The cross was again a symbol of mysterious significance 
 in Brahminical iconography. In the Cave of Elephanta, 
 in India, over the head of a figure engaged in massacring 
 infants, is to be seen the cross. It is placed by Muller, 
 in his " Glauben, Wissen, und Kunst der alten Hindus," 
 in the hands of Seva, Brahma, Vishnu, Tvashtri (Fig. 29). 
 This cross has a wheel in the centre, and is called Kiakra, 
 or Tschakra. When held by Vishnu, the world-sustaining 
 principle, it signifies his power to penetrate heaven and 
 earth, and bring to naught the powers of evil. It symbol- 
 izes the eternal governance of the world, and to it the 
 worshipper of Vishnu attributes as many virtues as does
 
 302 The Legend of the Cross. 
 
 the devout Catholic to the Christian cross, Fra Paolino 
 tells us it was used by the ancient kings of India as a 
 sceptre. 
 
 In a curious Indian painting reproduced by Miiller 
 (Tab. I., fig. 2), Brahma is represented crowned with 
 clouds, with lilies for eyes, with four hands — one holding 
 the necklace of creation ; another the Veda ; a third, the 
 chalice of the source of life ; the fourth, the fiery cross. 
 Another painting (Tab. i., fig. 78) represents Krishna in 
 the centre of the world as its sustaining principle, with 
 six arms, three of which hold the cross, one a sceptre of 
 dominion, another a flute, a third a sword. Another 
 (Tab. II., fig. 61) gives Jama, the judge of the nether 
 world, with spear, sword, scales, torch, and cross. Tab. 
 II., fig. 140, gives Brawani, the female earth-principle, 
 holding a lily, a flame, a sword, and a cross. The list of 
 representations might be greatly extended. 
 
 It was only natural that the early and mediaeval Chris- 
 tians, finding the cross a symbol of life among the nations 
 of antiquity, should look curiously into the Old Testament, 
 to see whether there were not foreshadovvings in it of 
 '' the wood whereby righteousness cometh." 
 
 They found it in the blood struck on the lintel and the 
 door-posts of the houses of the Israelites in Egypt. They 
 
 I
 
 The Legend of the Cross. 303 
 
 supposed the rod of Moses to have been headed 'v\ith the 
 Egyptian Crux ansata, in which case its employment in 
 producing the storm of rain and hail, in dividing the Red 
 Sea, in bringing streams of water from the rock, testify 
 to its symbolic character with reference to water. They 
 saw it in Moses with arms expanded on the IMount, in 
 the pole with transverse bar upon which was wreathed 
 the brazen serpent, and in the two sticks gathered by tlie 
 Widow of Sarepta. But especially was it seen in the 
 passage of Ezekiel (ix. 4. 6), "The Lord said unto him, 
 Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of 
 Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men 
 that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be 
 done in the midst thereof. Slay utterly old and young, 
 both maids, and little children, and women : but come not 
 near any man upon whom is the mark ; and begin at My 
 sanctuary." In the Vulgate, it stands : " Et signa Thau 
 super frontes vivorum gementium." There is some doubt 
 as to whether the sign Thau should be inserted or not. 
 The Septuagint does not give it. It simply says 809 
 a-rjfxfiov. St. Jerome testifies that the versions of Aquila 
 and Symmachus, written, the one under Adrian, the other 
 under Marcus Aurelius, were without it, and that it was 
 only in the version of Theodotion, made under Septimius
 
 304 TJie Legend of the Cross. 
 
 Severus, that the T was inserted. Nevertheless St. Jerome 
 adopted it in his translation. 
 
 On the other hand Tertullian saw the cross in tliis 
 passage.* The Thau was the old Hebrew character, 
 which the Samaritan resembled, and which was shaped 
 like a cross. St. Jerome probably did not adopt his ren- 
 dering without foundation, for he was well skilled in 
 Hebrew, and he refers again and again to this passage 
 of Ezekiel.t The Epistle of St. Barnabas seems to allude 
 to it ; J so do St. Cyprian, St. Augustine, Origen, and St. 
 Isidore. § Bishop Lowth was disposed to accept the 
 Thau, so was Dr. Miinter, the Protestant bishop of Zee- 
 land. But, indeed, there need be litde doubt as to the 
 passage. The word for sign used by the prophet is ipi 
 Tail, meaning, as Gesenius says in his Lexicon, signnvi 
 crucifoi-me ; and he adds, "The Hebrews on their coins 
 adopted the most ancient cruciform sign -|-." 
 
 The Mediaevals went further still : they desired to see 
 the cross still stronger characterized in the history of the 
 
 * Adv. Marcion. iii. 22 : " Est enim littera, Groecorum Thau, 
 nostra autem T, species crucis quam portendebant futuram in 
 frontibus nostris apud veram et catholicam Hierusalem." 
 
 t In Ezech. ix. 4. Epistol. ad Fabio]. In Isaia c. Ixvi. 
 
 \ Epist. ch. ix : 2Tai»pJ»s eV t^ T eyusAAf j/ «x*"' ''"V X*/"*'- 
 
 § Cvpr. Testimon. adv. Jud. ii. c. 27. August, de Alterc. S3113J. 
 et Eccles.
 
 The Legend of the Cross. 305 
 
 Jewish Church, and, as the records of the Old Covenant 
 were deficient on that point, they supplemented them 
 with fable. 
 
 That fable is the fomance or Legend of the Cross, a 
 legend of immense popularity in the Middle Ages, if we 
 may judge by the numerous representations of its 
 leading incidents, which meet us in stained glass and 
 fresco. 
 
 In the churches of Troyes alone, it appears on the 
 windows of St. Martin-es-Vignes, of St. Pantaleon, St. 
 Madeleine, and St. Nizier.* 
 
 It is frescoed along the walls of the choir of the church 
 of St. Croce at Florence, by the hand of Agnolo Gaddi. 
 Pietro della Francesca also dedicated his pencil to the 
 history of the Cross in a series of frescoes in the Chapel 
 of the Bacci, in the church of St. Francesco at Arezzo. 
 It occurs as a predella painting among the specimens of 
 early art in the Academia delle Belle Arti at Venice, and 
 is the subject of a picture by Beham in the Munich 
 Gallery.! The legend is told in full in the Vita Christi, 
 printed at Troyes in 151 7; in the Legenda Aurea of 
 Jacques de Voragine ; in an old Dutch work, " Gerschie- 
 
 * Curiosites de la Champagne. Paris, i860. 
 
 t Lady Eastlake's History of our Lord. Lond 1865, ii. p. 390.
 
 3o6 The Legend of the Cross. 
 
 denis van det heylighe Cruys ; " in a French MS. of the 
 thirteenth century in the British Museum. Gen'ase of 
 Tilbury relates a portion of it in his Otia Imperalia,* 
 quoting from Comestor ; it appears "also in the Speculum 
 Historiale, in Gottfried von Viterbo, in the Chronicon 
 Engelhusii, and elsewhere. 
 
 Gottfried introduces a Hiontus in the place of Seth in 
 the following story ; Hiontus is corrupted from lonicus 
 or lonithus. 
 
 The story is as follows : — 
 
 When our first father was banished Paradise, he lived 
 in penitence, striving to recompense for the past by prayer 
 and toil. When he reached a great age and felt death 
 approach, he summoned Seth to his side, and said, " Go, 
 my son, to the terrestrial Paradise, and ask the Archangel 
 who keeps the gate to give me a balsam which will save 
 me from death. You will easily find the way, because 
 my footprints scorched the soil as I left Paradise. Fol- 
 low my blackened traces, and they will conduct you to 
 the gate whence I was expelled." Seth hastened to Para- 
 dise. The way was barren, vegetation was scanty and of 
 sombre colors ; over all lay the black prints of his father's 
 and mother's feet. Presently the walls surrounding Para- 
 
 * Tertia Decisio, c. liv. ; ed. Liebiecht, p. 25.
 
 TJie Legend of the Cross. 307 
 
 dise appeared. Around them nature revived, the earth 
 was covered with verdure and dappled with flowers. The 
 air vibrated with exquisite music. Seth was dazzled with 
 the beauty which surrounded him, and he walked on 
 forgetful of his mission. Suddenly there flashed before 
 i him a wavering line of fire, upright, like a serpent of light 
 continuously quivering. It was the flaming sword in the 
 hand of the Cherub who guarded the gate. As Seth drew 
 nigh, he saw that the angel's wings were expanded so as 
 to block the door. He prostrated himself before the 
 Cheiiib, unable to utter a word. But the celestial being 
 read in his soul, better than a mortal can read a book, the 
 words which were there impressed, and he said, " The 
 time of pardon is not yet come. Four thousand years 
 must roll away ere the Redeemer shall open the gate to 
 Adam, closed by his disobedience. But as a token of 
 future pardon, the wood whereon redemption shall be 
 won shall grow from the tomb of thy father. Behold 
 what he lost by his transgression ! " 
 
 At these words the angel swung open the great portal 
 of gold and fire, and Seth looked in. 
 
 He beheld a fountain, clear as crystal, sparkhng like 
 silver dust, playing in the midst of the garden, and gush- 
 ing forth in four living streams. Before this mystic foun-
 
 3oS TJie Legend of the Cross. 
 
 tain grew a mighty tree, with a trunk of vast bulk, and 
 thickly branched, but destitute of bark and foliage. 
 Around the bole was wreathed a frightful serpent or 
 caterpillar, which had scorched the bark and devoured 
 the leaves. Beneath the tree was a precipice. Seth 
 beheld the roots of the tree in Hell. There Cain was 
 endeavoring to grasp the roots, and clamber up them into 
 Paradise ; but they laced themselves around the body and 
 limbs of the fratricide, as the threads of a spider's web 
 entangle a fly, and the fibres of the tree penetrated the 
 body of Cain as though they were endued with life. 
 
 Horror-struck at this appalling spectacle, Seth raised 
 his eyes to the summit of the tree. Now all was changed. 
 The tree had grown till its branches reached heaven. The 
 boughs were covered with leaves, flowers, and fruit. But 
 the fairest fruit was a little babe, a living sun, who seemed 
 to be listening to the songs of seven white doves who 
 circled round his head. A woman, more lovely than the 
 moon, bore the child in her arms. 
 
 Then the Cherub shut the door, and said, " I give thee 
 now three seeds taken from that tree. When Adam is 
 dead, place these three seeds in thy father's mouth, and 
 bury him." 
 
 So Seth took the seeds and returned to his father.
 
 The Legend of the Cross. 309 
 
 Adam was glad to hear what his son told him, and he 
 praised God. On the third day after the return of Seth 
 he died. Then his son buried him in the skins of beasts 
 which God had given him for a covering, and his sepulchre 
 was on Golgotha. In course of time three trees grew 
 from the seeds brought from Paradise : one was a cedar, 
 another a cypress, and the third a pine. They grew with 
 prodigious force, thrusting their boughs to right and left. 
 It was with one of these boughs that Moses performed 
 his miracles in Egypt, brought water out of the rock, 
 and healed those whom the serpents slew in the desert. 
 
 After a while the three trees touched one another, 
 then began to incorporate and confound their several 
 natures in a single trunk. It was beneath this tree that 
 David sat when he bewailed his sins. 
 
 In the time of Solomon, this was the noblest of the 
 trees of Lebanon ; it surpassed all in the forests of King 
 Hiram, as a monarch surpasses those who crouch at his 
 feet. Now, when the son of David erected his palace, 
 he cut down this tree to convert it into the main pillar 
 supporting his roof. But all in vain. The column refused 
 to answer the purpose : it was at one time too long, at 
 another too short. Surprised at this resistance, Solomon 
 lowered the walls of his palace, to suit the beam ; but at
 
 3IO TJie Legend of the Cross. 
 
 once it shot up and pierced the roof, like an arrow driven 
 . through a piece of canvas, or a bird recovering its liberty. 
 Solomon, enraged, cast the tree over Cedron, that all 
 might trample on it as they crossed the brook. 
 
 There the Queen of Sheba found it, and she, recog- 
 nizing its virtue, had it raised. Solomon then buried it. 
 Some while after, the king dug the pool of Bethesda on 
 the spot. This pond at once acquired miraculous prop- 
 erties, and healed the sick who flocked to it. The water 
 owed its virtues to the beam which lay beneath it. 
 
 When the time of the Crucifixion of Christ drew nigh, 
 this wood rose to the surface, and was brought out of the 
 water. The executioners, when seeking a suitable beam 
 to serve for the cross, found it, and of it made the instru- 
 ment of the death of the Saviour. After the Crucifixion 
 it was buried on Calvary, but it was found by the Empress 
 Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, deep in the 
 ground with two others. May 3, 328 ; Christ's was distin- 
 guished from those of the thieves by a sick woman being 
 cured by touching it. This same event is, however, 
 ascribed by a Syriac MS. in the British Museum, unques- 
 tionably of the 5th century, to Protonice, wife of the 
 Emperor Claudius. It was carried away by Chosroes, 
 king of Persia, on the plundering of Jerusalem ; but was
 
 The Legend of the Cross. 3 1 1 
 
 recovered by Heraclius, who defeated him in battle, 
 Sept. 14, 615 ; a day that has ever since been com- 
 memorated as the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. 
 
 Such is the Legend of the Cross, one of the wildest 
 of mediaeval fancies. It is founded, though uncon- 
 sciously, on this truth, that the Cross was a sacred sign 
 long before Christ died upon it. 
 
 And how account for this? • 
 
 For my own part, I see no difficulty in believing that 
 it formed a portion of the primaeval religion, traces of 
 which exist over the whole world, among every people ; 
 that trust in the Cross was a part of the ancient faith 
 which taught men to believe in a Trinity, in a War in 
 Heaven, a Paradise from which man fell, a Flood, and a 
 Babel ; a faith which was deeply impressed with a con- 
 viction that a Virgin should conceive and bear a son, that 
 the Dragon's head should be bruised, and that through 
 Shedding of blood should come Remission. The use of 
 the cross, as a symbol of life and regeneration tlirough 
 water, is as widely spread over the world as the belief in 
 the ark of Noah. May be, the shadow of the Cross was 
 cast further back into the night of ages, and fell on a 
 wider range of country, than we are aware of. 
 
 It is more than a coincidence that Osiris by the cross
 
 3 1 2 The Legend of the Cross. 
 
 should give life eternal to the Spirits of the Just ; that 
 with the cross Thon- should smite the head of the Great 
 Serpent, and bring to life those who were slain ; that 
 beneath the cross the Muysca mothers should lay their 
 babes, trusting by that sign to secure them from the power 
 of evil spirits ; that with that symbol to protect them, the 
 ancient people of Northern Italy should lay them down 
 in the dust. •
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 0cl)amir, 
 
 T will be remembered that, on the giving of the law 
 from Sinai, Moses was bidden erect to God an altar : 
 " Thou shalt not build it of hewn stone, for if thou Uft up 
 thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it " (Exod. xx. 25). 
 And later : " There shalt thou boild an altar unto the 
 Lord thy God, an altar of stones : thou shalt not lift up 
 any iron tool upon them " (Deut. xxvii. 6). Such an 
 altar was raised by Joshua after the passage of Jordan : 
 " An altar of whole stones, over which no man hath lift 
 up any iron" (Joshua viii. 31). 
 
 When King Solomon erected his glorious temple, " the 
 house, when it was in building, was built of stone made 
 ready before it was brought thither : so that there was 
 neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron, heard in 
 the house while it was in building " (i Kings vi. 7). And 
 the reason of the prohibition of iron in the construction 
 of the altar is given in the Mischna — iron is used to 
 shorten life, the altar to prolong it (Middoth 3, 4). Iron
 
 314 Schamir. 
 
 is the metal used in war ; with it, says Pliny, we do the 
 best and worst acts : we plough fields, we build houses, 
 we cleave rocks ; but with it, also, come strife and blood- 
 shed and rapine. The altar was the symbol of peace 
 made between God and man, and therefore the metal 
 employed in war was forbidden to be used in its erection. 
 The idea was extended by Solomon to the whole temple. 
 It is not said that iron was not used in the preparation of 
 the building stones, but that no tool was heard in the 
 fitting together of the parts. 
 
 That temple symbolized the Church triumphant in 
 heaven when the stones, hewn afar off in the quarries 
 of this world, are laid noiselessly in their proper place, 
 so that the whole, " fitly framed together, groweth unto a 
 holy temple in the Lord ;" an idea well expressed in the 
 ancient hymn " Angulare fundamentum : " — 
 
 " Many a blow and biting sculpture 
 Polish'd well those stones elect, 
 In their places well compacted 
 By the heavenly Architect." 
 
 Nothing in the sacred narrative implies any miraculous 
 act having been accomplished in this erecting a temple 
 of stones hewn at a distance ; and in the account of the 
 building of the temple in the Book of Chronicles no
 
 Schamir. 3 1 5 
 
 reference is made to the circumstance, which would have 
 been the case had any marvel attended it. 
 
 The Septuagint renders the passage, 6 ouoy Xt'^ots 
 oKpoTOfjiois dpyols (OKo^ofifjdrj. The word aKpoTOfios is used 
 by the LXX in three places, for mi?3iin, which is rough, 
 hard, unhewn stone. Where it says in Deuteronomy 
 (viii. 15), "Who brought thee forth water out of the 
 rock of flint," the LXX use aKporojios. Where the Psalm- 
 ist says, " Who turned the flint-stone into a springing 
 well " (Ps. cxiv. 8), and Job, " He putteth His hand upon 
 the rock " (xxviii. 9), they employ aKporoiios. So, too, in 
 the Book of Wisdom (xi. 4), " Water was given them out 
 of the flinty rock," « irerpas aKporonov, which is paralleled 
 by " the hard stone," 'Kldos <TK\r}p6s. And in Ecclesiasti- 
 cus, Ezekias is said to have " digged the hard rock with 
 iron," (opv^e (Tihrjpa oKpoTopov (xlviii. 17). 
 
 Aldos d-KpoTopos is, therefore, not a hewn stone, but one 
 with natural angles, unhewn. Thus Suidas uses the ex- 
 pression, a-KXrjpa Kol arp-qros, and Tlieodotion calls the 
 sharp stone used by Zipporah in circumcising her son, 
 oKpoTopos. The dpyois of the LXX signifies also the rough 
 natural condition of the stones. Thus Pausanias speaks 
 of gold and silver in unfused, rough lumps as apyvpos kqi 
 Xpva-oi dpyos. Apparently, then, the LXX, in saying that
 
 3i6 Schamir. 
 
 the temple was erected of ciKpoTo/ioiy apyoTs-, express their 
 meaning that the stones were unhewn and in their natural 
 condition, so that the skill of Solomon was exhibited in 
 putting together stones which had never been subjected 
 to the tool. This is also the opinion of Josephus, who 
 says, " The whole edifice of the temple is, with great art, 
 compacted of rough stones, e'/c Xi'^wf dKporofiwi', which 
 have been fitted into one another quite harmoniously, 
 without the work of hammer or any other builder's tool 
 being observable, but the whole fits together without the 
 use of these, and the fitting seems to be rather one of 
 free will than of force through mechanical means." And 
 therein lay the skill of the king, for the unshapen blocks 
 were pieced together as though they had been carefully 
 wrought to their positions. And Procopius says that the 
 temple was erected of unhewn stones, as it was forbidden 
 of God to hft iron upon them, but that, nevertheless, they 
 all fitted into one another. We see in these passages 
 tokens of the marvellous having been supposed to attach 
 to a work which was free from any miraculous interposi- 
 tion. But at this point fable did not stop. Upon the 
 carrying away of the Jews to Babylon, they were brought 
 into contact with a flood of Iranian as well as Chaldsean 
 myths, and adopted them without hesitation.
 
 Schamir. 317 
 
 Around Solomon accumulated the fables which were 
 related of Dschemschid and other Persian heroes, and 
 were adopted by the Jews as legends of native produc- 
 tion. It was not sufficient that Solomon should have 
 skilfully pieced together the rough stones : he was sup- 
 posed to have hewn them by supernatural means, without 
 the tool of iron. 
 
 As Solomon, thus ran the tale, was about to build the 
 temple wthout the use of iron, his wise men drew his 
 attention to the stones of the high priest's breastplate, 
 which had been cut and polished by something harder 
 than themselves. This was schamir, which was able to 
 cut where iron would not bite. Thereupon Solomon sum- 
 moned the spirits to inform him of the whereabouts of 
 this substance. They told him schamir was a worm of 
 the size of a barley com, but so powerful that the hardest 
 flint could not resist him. The spirits advised Solomon 
 to seek Asmodeus, king of the devils, who could give him 
 further information. When Solomon inquired where As- 
 modeus was to be met with, they replied that, on a distant 
 mountain, he had dug a huge cistern, out of which- he 
 daily drank. Solomon then sent Benaiah with a chain, on 
 which was written the magic word " schem hammpho- 
 rasch," a fleece of wool, and a skin of wine. Benaiah,
 
 3 1 8 Schamir. 
 
 having arrived at the cistern of Asmodeus, undermined it, 
 and let the water off by a little hole, which he then 
 plugged up with the wool ; after which he filled the pit 
 with wine. The evil spirit came, as was his wont, to the 
 cistern, and scented the wine. Suspecting treachery, he 
 refused to drink, and retired ; but at length, impelled by 
 thirst, he drank, and, becoming intoxicated, was chained 
 by Benaiah and carried away. Benaiah had no willing 
 prisoner to conduct : Asmodeus plunged and kicked, up- 
 setting trees and houses. In this manner he came near a 
 hut in which lived a widow, and when she besought him 
 not to injure her poor little cot, he turned aside, and, m 
 so doing, bfoke his leg. " Rightly," said the devil, " is it 
 written : * a soft tongue breaketh the bone ! ' " (Pro v. xxv. 
 15). And a diable boiteux he has ever remained. When 
 in the presence of Solomon, Asmodeus was constrained to 
 behave with greater decorum. Schamir, he told Solomon, 
 was the property of the Prince of the Sea, and that prince 
 intrusted none with the mysterious worm except the 
 moor-hen, which had taken an oath of fidelity to him. 
 The moor-hen takes the schamir with her to the tops 
 of the mountains, splits them, and injects seeds, which 
 grow and cover the naked rocks. Wherefore the bird is 
 called Naggar Tura, the mountain-carver. If Solomon
 
 Schamir. 319 
 
 desired to possess himself of the worm, he must find the 
 nest of the moor-hen, and cover it with a plate of glass, 
 so that the mother-bird could not get at her young with- 
 out breaking the glass. She would seek schamir for the 
 purpose, and the worm must be obtained from her. 
 
 Accordingly, Benaiah, son of Jehoiada, sought the nest 
 of the bird, and laid over it a piece of glass. When the 
 moor-hen came, and could not reach her young, she flew 
 away and fetched schamir, and placed it on the glass. 
 Then Benaiah shouted, and so terrified the bird, that she 
 dropped the worm and flew away. Benaiah by this means 
 obtained possession of the coveted schamir, and bore it 
 to Solomon. But the moor-hen was so distressed at 
 having broken her oath to the Prince of the Sea that she 
 slew herself* According to another version, Solomon 
 went to his fountain, where he found the daemon Sackar, 
 whom he captured by a ruse, and chained down. Solo- 
 mon pressed his ring to the chains, and Sackar uttered a 
 cry so slirill that the earth quaked. 
 
 Quoth Solomon, " Fear not ; I shall restore you to 
 hberty if you will tell me how to burrow noiselessly after 
 minerals and metals." 
 
 * Gittin, Ixviii. Eisenmenger : Neu-Entdecktes Judenthum. 
 Konigsberg, 1711, i. p. 351.
 
 320 Schamir. 
 
 " I know not how to do so," answered the Jin; "but 
 the raven can tell you : place over her eggs a sheet 
 of crystal, and you shall see how the mother will 
 break it." 
 
 Solomon did so, and the mother brought a stone and 
 shattered the crystal. " Whence got you that stone ? " 
 asked Solomon. 
 
 " It is the stone Samur," answered the raven ; " it 
 comes from a desert in the uttermost east." So the 
 monarch sent some giants to follow the raven, and bring 
 him a suitable number of stones." * 
 
 According to a third version, the bird is an eagle, 
 and schamir is the Stone of Wisdom. 
 
 Possessed of this schamir, Solomon wTOught the stones 
 for his temple. 
 
 Rabbinical fantasy has developed other myths con- 
 cerning this mysterious force, resident in worm or stone. 
 On the second day of Creation were created the well by 
 which Jacob met Rebecca, the manna which fed the 
 Israelites, the wonder-working rod of Moses, the ass 
 which spake to Balaam, and schamir, the means whereby 
 without iron tool Solomon was to build the House of God. 
 
 * Collin de Plancy : Legendes de I'Ancien Test. Paris, 1861, 
 p. 280.
 
 Schamir. 321 
 
 Schamir is not in early rabbinical fable a worm ; the trea- 
 tise Sota gives the first indication of its being regarded as 
 something more than a stone, by terming it a " creature," 
 i<^'"a. " Our Rabbis have taught us that schamir is 
 a creature as big as a barley-corn, created in the hexa- 
 meron, and that nothing can resist it. How is it pre- 
 served ? It is wrapped in a wisp of wool, and kept in a 
 leaden box full of small grains like barley-meal." * After 
 the building of the temple schamir vanished. 
 
 The story passed to the Greeks. ^Han relates of the 
 eTTox//- or hoopoe, that a bird had once a nest in an old 
 wall, in which there was a rent. The proprietor plastered 
 over this crack. The hoopoe finding that she could not 
 get to her young, flew away in quest of a plant ttoo, 
 which she brought, and applied to the plaster, which at 
 once gave way, and admitted her to her young. Then 
 she went forth to seek food, and the man again stopped 
 up the hole, but once more the hoopoe removed the 
 obstacle by the same means. And this took place a third 
 time again. t What JEhan relates of the hoopoe, Pliny 
 tells of the woodpecker. This bird, he says, brings up its 
 young in holes ; and if the entrance to them be plugged 
 
 * Sota, xlviii. 8. t ^lian, Hist. Animal, iii. 26. 
 
 21
 
 322 Schamir. 
 
 up never so tight, the bird is able to make the plug burst 
 out. 
 
 In the English Gesta Romanorum is the following 
 story. There lived in Rome a noble emperor, Diocletian 
 by name, who loved the virtue of compassion above every 
 thing. Therefore he desired to know which of all the 
 birds was most kindly affectioned towards its young. One 
 day, the Emperor was wandering in the forest, when he 
 lit upon the nest of a great bird called ostrich, in which 
 was the mother with her young. The king took the nest 
 along with the poults to his palace, and put it into a glass 
 vessel. This the mother-bird saw, and, unable to reach 
 her little ones, she returned into the wood, and after an 
 absence of three days came back with a worm in her 
 beak, called thumare. This she dropped on the glass, 
 and by the power of the worm, the glass was shivered, 
 and the young flew away after their mother. When the 
 Emperor saw this, he highly commended both the affec- 
 tion and the sagacity of the ostrich. On which we may 
 remark, that a portion of that sagacity was wanting to 
 those who applied the myth to that bird which of all 
 others is singularly deficient in the qualities with which 
 Diocletian credited it. Similar stories are told by Vincent 
 of Beauvais in his " Historical Mirror," * and by gossip- 
 * Vincent Bellov , Spec. Nat. 20, 170.
 
 Schamir. 323 
 
 ing, fable-loving, and delightful Gervase of Tilbury.* The 
 latter says that Solomon cut the stones of the temple with 
 the blood of a little worm called thamir, which when 
 sprinkled on the marble, made it easy to split. And the 
 way in which Solomon obtained the worm was this. He 
 had an ostrich, whose chick he put in a glass bottle. 
 Seeing this, the ostrich ran to the desert, and brought the 
 worm, and with its blood fractured the vessel. " And in 
 our time, in the reign of Pope Alexander III., when I was 
 a boy, there was found at Rome, a vial full of milky liquid, 
 which, when sprinkled on any kinds of stone, made them 
 receive such sculpture as the hand of the graver was 
 wont to execute. It was a vial discovered in a most 
 ancient palace, the matter and art of which was a subject 
 of wonder to the Roman people." 
 
 Gervase drew from Comestor (Regum lib. iii. c. 5). 
 
 '•' If you wish to burst chains," says Albertus Magnus, f 
 " go into the wood, and look for a woodpecker's nest, 
 where there are young ; climb the tree, and choke the 
 mouth of the nest with any thing you like. As soon as 
 she sees you do this, she flies off for a plant, which she 
 lays on the stoppage ; this bursts, and the plant falls to 
 
 * Gervasii Tilberiensis Otia Imp., ed. Liebrecht. Hanov. 1856, 
 p. 48. 
 
 t De Mirab. Mundi. Argent. 1601, p. 225.
 
 324 ScJiamir. 
 
 the ground under the tree, where you must have a cloth 
 spread for receivmg it." But then, says Albertus, this is 
 a fancy of the Jews.* 
 
 Conrad von Megenburg relates : " There is a bird which 
 in Latin is called merops, but which we in German term 
 Bomheckel (i. e. Baumhacker), which nests in high trees, 
 and when one covers its children with something to im- 
 pede the approach of the bird, it brings a herb, and holds 
 it over the obstacle, and it gives way. The plant is called 
 herha meropis^ or woodpecker-plant, and is called in magi- 
 cal books chora." f 
 
 In Normandy, the swallow knows how to find upon the 
 sea-beach a pebble which has the marvellous power of 
 restoring sight to the blind. The peasants tell of a certain 
 way of obtaining possession of this stone. You must put 
 out the eyes of a swallow's young, whereupon the mother- 
 bird will immediately go in quest of the stone. When 
 she has found it and applied it, she will endeavor to make 
 away with the talisman, that none may discover it. But 
 if one has taken the precaution to spread a piece of scar- 
 let cloth below the nest, the swallow, mistaking it for fire, 
 will drop the stone upon it. 
 
 * De Animalibus. Mantua, 1479, ^'^- P^S- 
 t Apud Mone, Anzeiger, viii. p. 614.
 
 Schaniir. 325 
 
 I met with the story in Iceland. There the natives tell 
 that there is a stone of such wondrous power, that the 
 possessor can walk invisible, can, at a wish, provide him- 
 self with as much stock-fish and corn-brandy as he may 
 desire, can raise the dead, cure disease, and break bolts 
 and bars. In order to obtain this prize, one must hard- 
 boil an egg from the raven's nest, then replace it, and 
 secrete oneself till the mother-bird, finding one of her 
 eggs resist all her endeavors to infuse warmth into it, flies 
 off and brings a black pebble in her beak, with which she 
 touches the boiled egg, and restores it to its former con- 
 dition. At this moment she must be shot, and the stone 
 be secured. 
 
 In this form of the superstition schamir has the power 
 of giving life. This probably connects it with those sto- 
 ries, so rife in the middle ages, of birds or weasels, which 
 were able to restore the dead to life by means of a mys- 
 terious plant. Avicenna relates in his eighth book, " Of 
 Animals," that it was related to him by a faithful old man, 
 that he had seen two little birds squabbling, and that one 
 was overcome ; it therefore retired and ate of a certain 
 herb, then it returned to the onslaught ; which when the 
 old man observed frequently, he took away the herb, and 
 when the bird came and found the plant gone, it set
 
 326 Schamir. 
 
 up a great cry and died. And this plant was ladua 
 agrestis. 
 
 In Fouque's " Sir Elidoc," a little boy Amyot is watch- 
 ing by a dead lady laid out in the church, when " suddenly 
 I heard a loud cry from the child. I looked up, a little 
 creature glided by me ; the shepherd's staff of the boy 
 flew after it ; the creature lay dead, stretched on tlie 
 ground by the blow. It was a weasel. . . . Presently 
 there came a second weasel, as if to seek his comrade, 
 and when he found him dead, a mournful scene began ; 
 he touched him as if to say, ' Wake up, wake up, let us 
 play together ! ' And when the other little animal lay 
 dead and motionless, the living one sprang back from him 
 in terror, and then repeated the attempt again and again, 
 many times. Its bright little eyes shone sadly, as if they 
 were full of tears. The sorrowful creature seemed as 
 though it suddenly bethought itself of something. It 
 erected its ears, it looked round with its bright eyes, and 
 then swiftly darted away. And before Amyot and I could 
 ask each other of the strange sight, the little animal re- 
 turned again, bearing in its mouth a root, a root to which 
 grew a red flower ; I had never before seen such a flower 
 blowing ; I made a sign to Amyot, and we both remained 
 motionless. The weasel came up quickly, and laid the
 
 Schamir. '^2'/ 
 
 root and the flower gently on its companion's mouth ; the 
 creature, but now stiff in death, stretched itself, and sud- 
 denly sprang up, with the root still in its mouth. I called 
 to Amyot, ' The root ! take it, take it, but do not kill ! ' 
 Again he flung his staff, but so dexterously that he killed 
 neither of the weasels, nor even hurt them. The root 
 of life and the red blossoms lay on the ground before me, 
 and in my power." With this, naturally enough, the lady 
 who is speaking restores the corpse to life. Sir Elidoc is 
 founded on a Breton legend, the Lai d'EHduc of Marie 
 de France ; but another tale from the same country makes 
 the flower yellow ; it is a marigold, which, when touched 
 on a certain morning by the bare foot of one who has a 
 pure heart, gives the power to understand the language 
 of birds.* This is the same story as that of Polyidus and 
 Glaucus. Polyidus observed a serpent stealing towards 
 the corpse of the young prince. He slew it ; then came 
 another serpent, and finding its companion dead, it 
 fetched a root by which it restored life to the dead 
 serpent. Polyidus obtained possession of the plant, and 
 therewith revived Glaucus. f In the Greek romance of 
 Rhodante and Dosicles is an incident of similar char- 
 
 * Bode, Volksm'ahrchen a. d. Bretagne. Leipz 1847, p. 6. 
 t Apollodoius, ii. 3.
 
 328 S chain ir. 
 
 acter. Rhodante swallows a poisoned goblet of wine, 
 and lies as one dead, deprived of sense and motion. In 
 the meanwhile, Dosicles and Cratander are chasing wild 
 beasts in the forest. There they find a wounded bear, 
 which seeks a certain plant, and, rolling upon it, recovers 
 health and vigor instantaneously. The root of this herb 
 was white, its flowers of a rosy hue, attached to a stalk 
 of purplish tinge. Dosicles picked the herb, and with 
 it returned to the house where he found Rhodante appar- 
 ently dead ; with the wondrous plant he, however, was 
 able to restore her. The same story is told in Germany, 
 in Lithuania, among the modern Greeks and ancient 
 Scandinavians. 
 
 Germany teems with stories of the marvellous proper- 
 ties of the Luckflower. 
 
 A man chances to pluck a beautiful flower, which in 
 most instances is blue, and this he puts in his breast, or 
 in his hat. Passing along a mountain side, he sees the 
 rocks gape before him, and entering, he sees a beautiful 
 lady, who bids him help himself freely to the gold which 
 is scattered on all sides in profusion. He crams the glit- 
 tering nuggets into his ])ockets, and is about to leave, 
 when she calls after him, "Forget not the best ! " Think- 
 ing that she means him to take more, he feels his crammed
 
 Schamir. 329 
 
 pockets, and finding that he has nothing to reproach 
 himself with in that respect, he seeks the light of day, 
 entirely forgetting the precious blue flower which had 
 opened to him the rocks, and which has dropped on the 
 ground. 
 
 As he hurries through the doonvay, the rocks close 
 upon him with a thunder-crash and cut off his heel. 
 The mountain-side is thenceforth closed to him for ever. 
 
 Once upon a time a shepherd was driving his flock 
 over the Ilsenstein, when, wearied with his tramp, he 
 leaned upon his staff. Instantly the mountain opened, 
 for in that staff was the " Springwort." Within he saw 
 the Princess Use, who bade him fill his pockets with 
 gold. The shepherd obeyed, and was going away, when 
 the princess exclaimed, " Forget not the best ! " allud- 
 ing to his staff, which lay against the wall. But he, 
 misunderstanding her, took more gold, and the moun- 
 tain, clashing together, severed him in twain. In some 
 versions of the stor}', it is the pale blue flower — 
 
 " The blue flower, which — Bramins say — 
 Blooms nowhere but in Paradise " — 
 
 {Lalla Rookh) 
 
 which exclaims in feeble, piteous tone, " Forget-me- 
 not ! " but its little cry is unheeded.
 
 330 ScJiamir. 
 
 Thus originated the name of the beautiful little 
 flower. When this story was forgotten, a romantic 
 fable was invented to account for the peculiar appella- 
 tion. 
 
 In the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, it is 
 a word, "sesame," which makes the rocks part, and 
 gives admission to the treasures within ; and it is ob- 
 livion of the magic word which brings destruction upon 
 the luckless wretch within. But sesame is the name of 
 a well-known eastern plant, sesamum orientale; so that 
 probably in the original form of the Persian tale ab- 
 sorbed into the Arabian Nights, a flower was employed 
 to give admission to the mountain. But classic an- 
 tiquity has also its rock-breaking plant, the saxifraga, 
 whose tender rootlets penetrate and dissolve the hardest 
 stones with a force for which the Ancients were unable 
 to account. 
 
 Isaiah, describing the desolation of the vineyard of 
 Zion, says that " There shall come up briers and 
 thorns " (v. 6), n^'^■' n^imil ^"lyamb (vii. 23 : cf. also ix. 17 ; 
 X. 17). And, " Upon the land of my people shall come 
 up thorns and briers " (xxxii. 13), where ^^■'O'O is com- 
 bined with f ^p. The word rr^tJ never stands alone, but 
 is always joined with n'^QD, which the LXX render
 
 Schamir. 331 
 
 oLKavOa KOL x'^P''''^'^ '} the word in the fifth chapter they 
 render xh^°^ aKavOai ; that in the seventh, x^pcros and 
 aKavOa ; SO that x^po'os is put for n''?2:23, and aKavOa for 
 ni23- The word in the ninth chapter is aypwoTis irjpa, 
 that in the tenth, wo-et x'^P'''^^ '''W ^^W- Upon both 
 names the translators are not agreed. Now, this word 
 " smiris " is used by Isaiah alone as the name of a 
 plant. The smiris, as we have seen, is a stone-breaking 
 substance, and the same idea which is rendered in 
 Latin by saxifraga is given in the Hebrew word used 
 by Isaiah, so that we may take nia^ n''72Ci to mean 
 saxifragra and thorn.* In the North, we have another 
 object, to which are attributed the same properties as to 
 the " Springwort " and schamir, and that is the Hand 
 of Glory. This is the hand of a man who has been 
 hung, and it is prepared in the following manner : wrap 
 the hand in a piece of winding-sheet, drawing it tight, so 
 as to squeeze out the little blood which may remain ; 
 then place it in an earthenware vessel with saltpetre, salt, 
 and long pepper, all carefully and thoroughly powdered. 
 
 * Cassel, Ueber Schamir, in Denkschrift d. Konigl. Akad. der 
 Wissenschaften. Erfurt, 1856, p. 76. The Oriental word "smiris" 
 passed into use among the Greeks as the name of the hardest sub- 
 stance known, used in polishing stones, and is retained in the 
 German " Smirgel," and the English "emery."
 
 332 Schamir. 
 
 Let it remain a fortnight in this pickle till it is well 
 dried, then expose it to the sun in the dog-days, till it is 
 completely parched, or, if the sun be not powerful 
 enough, dry it in an oven heated with vervain and fern. 
 Next make a candle with the fat of a hung man, virgin- 
 wax, and Lapland sesame. Observe the use of this 
 herb : the hand of glory is used to hold this candle 
 when it is lighted.* Douster Swivel, in the " Antiquary," 
 adds, " You do make a candle, and put into de hand 
 of glory at de proper hour and minute, with de proper 
 ceremonisth ; and he who seeksh for treasuresh shall 
 find none at all ! " Southey places it in the hands of 
 the enchanter Mohareb, when he would lull to sleep 
 Yohak, the giant guardian of the caves of Babylon. 
 
 He — 
 
 *' From his wallet drew a human hand, 
 Shrivell'd, and dry, and black ; 
 And fitting, as he spake, 
 A taper in his hold, 
 Pursued : ' A murderer on the stake had died ; 
 I drove the vulture from his limbs, and lopt 
 The hand that did the murder, and drew up 
 The tendon strings to close its grasp ; 
 
 And in the sun and wind 
 Parch'd it, nine weeks exposed. 
 The taper .... But not here the place to impart, 
 
 * Collin de Plancy, Dictionnaire Infernal. Paris, 1818.
 
 Schamir. 333 
 
 Nor hast thou undergone the rites 
 That fit thee to partake the mystery. 
 Look ! it burns clear, but with the air around, 
 Its dead ingredients mingle deathliness.' " * 
 
 Several stories of this terrible hand are related in 
 Henderson's " Folklore of the Northern Counties of 
 England." I will only quote one, which was told me 
 by a laboring man in the West Riding of Yorkshire, 
 and which is the same story as that given by Martin 
 Anthony Delrio in his " Disquisitiones Magicae, in 1593, 
 and which is printed in the Appendix to that book of M. 
 Henderson. 
 
 One dark night, after the house had been closed, 
 there came a tap at the door of a lone inn, in the midst 
 of a barren moor. 
 
 The door was opened, and there stood without, shiv- 
 ering and shaking, a poor beggar, his rags soaked with 
 rain, and his hands white with cold. He asked pit- 
 eously for a lodging, and it was cheerfully granted him ; 
 though there was not a spare bed in the house, he 
 might lie along on the mat before the kitchen fire, and 
 welcome. 
 
 All in the house went to bed except the servant lassie, 
 who from the kitchen could see into the large room 
 
 * Thalaba the Destroyer, book v.
 
 334 Schamir. 
 
 through a small pane of glass let into the door. When 
 every one save the beggar was out of the room, she ob- 
 served the man draw himself up from the floor, seat 
 himself at the table, extract a brown withered human 
 hand from his pocket, and set it upright in the candle- 
 stick ; he then anointed the fingers, and, applying a 
 match to them, they began to flame. Filled with 
 horror, the girl rushed up the back stairs, and endeav- 
 ored to arouse her master and the men of the house; 
 but all in vain, they slept a charmed sleep ; and finding 
 all her efforts ineffectual, she hastened downstairs 
 again. Looking again through the small window, she 
 observed the fingers of the hand flaming, but the thumb 
 gave no light : this was because one of the inmates of 
 the house was not asleep. The beggar began collect- 
 ing all the valuables of the house into a large sack — 
 no lock withstood the application of the flaming hand. 
 Then, putting it down, the man entered an adjoining 
 apartment. The moment he was gone, the girl rushed 
 in, and seizing the hand, attempted to extinguish the 
 quivering yellow flames, which wavered at the fingers' 
 ends. She blew at them in vain ; she poured some 
 drops from a beer-jug over them, but that only made 
 the fingers burn the brighter ; she cast some water upon
 
 Schamir. 335 
 
 them, but still without extinguishing the light. As a 
 last resource, she caught up a jug of milk, and dashing 
 it over the four lambent flames, they went out imme- 
 diately. 
 
 Uttering a piercing cry, she rushed to the door of the 
 room the beggar had entered, and locked it. The 
 whole house was aroused, and the thief was secured 
 and hung. 
 
 We must not forget Tom Ingoldsby's rendering of a 
 similar legend : — 
 
 " Open, lock, 
 
 To the Dead Man's knock ! 
 
 Fly, bolt, and bar, and band ! 
 
 Nor move, nor swerve, 
 
 Joint, muscle, or nerve, 
 At the spell of the Dead Man's hand ! 
 Sleep, all who sleep ! — Wake, all who wake ! 
 But be as the dead for the Dead Man's sake ! 
 
 " Now lock, nor bolt, nor bar avails. 
 Nor stout oak panel thick-studded with nails. 
 Heavy and harsh the hinges creak, 
 Though they had been oil'd in the course of the week. 
 The door opens wide as wide may be, 
 And there they stand, 
 That murderous band. 
 Lit by the light of the Glorious Hand, 
 By one ! — by two ! — by three ! " 
 
 But, instead of pursuing the fable through its further 
 ramifications, let us apply the schamir of comparative
 
 336 Schamir. 
 
 mythology to the myth itself, and see whether before it 
 the bolts do not give way, and the great doors of the 
 cavern of mysteries expand, and discover to us the 
 origin of the superstitious belief in this sea-prince's 
 worm, the stone of wisdom, sesame, forget-me-not, or 
 the hand of glory. 
 
 What are its effects ? 
 
 It bursts locks, and shatters stones, it opens in the 
 mountains the hidden treasures hitherto concealed from 
 men, or it paralyzes, lulling into a magic sleep, or, 
 again, it restores to life. 
 
 I believe the varied fables relate to one and the 
 same object — and that, the lightning. 
 
 But what is the bird which bears schamir, the worm 
 or stone which shatters rocks ? It is the storm-cloud, 
 which in many a mythology of ancient days was sup- 
 posed to be a mighty bird. In Greek iconography, 
 Zeus, " the sether in his moist arms embracing the 
 earth," as Euripides describes him, is armed with the 
 thunderbolt, and accompanied by the eagle, a symbol of 
 
 the cloud. 
 
 " The refulgent heaven above, 
 "Which all men call, unanimously, Jove," * 
 
 * Cicero, De N. Deorum xvi.
 
 Schamir. 337 
 
 has for its essential attributes the cloud and its bolt, 
 and when the aether was represented under human form, 
 the cloud was given shape as a bird. It is the same 
 storm-cloud which as " blood-thirsting eagle " banquets 
 its " full on the black viands of the liver " of Prome- 
 theus. The same cloud in its fury is symbolized by the 
 Phbrcidas with their flashing eye and lightning tooth — 
 
 oX ^opKlSes vaiovai 5r)vai.al Kdpai 
 
 TpeiS KVKV6/J.0p(p0l, KOLVOV 6p.fl iKTTJfl^Vai, 
 
 fiovbdovTes, &s odd' rfkios wpoahepKiTai 
 
 &KTl(7lV, Ouff 7] fVKTepOS P-'^VT] TTOtL 
 
 (^SCH. From.), 
 
 and also by the ravening harpies. In ancient Indian 
 mythology, the delicate white cirrus cloud drifting over- 
 head was a fleeting swan, and so it was as well in the 
 creed of the Scandinavian, whilst the black clouds 
 were ravens coursing over the earth, and returning to 
 whisper the news in the ear of listening Odin. The 
 rushing vapor is the roc of the Arabian Nights, which 
 broods over its great luminous egg, the sun, and which 
 haunts the sparkling valley of diamonds, the starry sky. 
 The resemblance traced between bird and cloud is not 
 far fetched : it recurs to the modern poet as it did to 
 the Psalmist, when he spoke of the " wings of the wind."
 
 338 Schamir. 
 
 If the cloud was supposed to be a great bird, the light- 
 nings were regarded as writhing worms or serpents in 
 its beak. These fiery serpents, kXiKiai ypaja/AoeiSois 
 (fapojuLevoi, are believed in to this day by the Canadian 
 Indians, who call the thunder their hissing. It was 
 these heavenly reptiles which were supposed by the 
 Druids to generate the sun, the famous anguineum so 
 coveted and so ill comprehended. The thunderbolt, 
 shattering all it struck, was regarded as the stone 
 dropped by the cloud-bird. A more forced resemblance 
 is that supposed to exist between the lightning and a 
 heavenly flower, blue, or yellow, or red, and yet there is 
 evidence, upon which I cannot enter here, that so it 
 was regarded. 
 
 The lightning-flashing cloud was also supposed to be 
 a flaming hand. The Greek placed the forked dart in 
 
 the hand of Zeus — 
 
 " rubente 
 Dextera sacras jaculatus arces ; " 
 
 and the ancient Mexican symbolized the sacrificial fire 
 by a blood-red hand impressed on his sanctuary walls. 
 The idea may have been present in the mind of the ser- 
 vant of Elijah when he told his master that he saw from 
 the top of Carmel rising " A little cloud out of the sea.
 
 Schamir. 339 
 
 like a man's hand. And it came to pass, that the 
 heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was 
 a great rain " (i Kings xviii. 44). In Finnish and Es- 
 thonian mythology, the cloud is a little man with a 
 copper hand, who, rising from the water, becomes a 
 giant. 
 
 The black cloud with the lambent flames issuing 
 from it was the original of the magical hand of glory. 
 
 The effects produced by the lightning are differently 
 expressed. As shattering the rocks, schamir is easily 
 intelligible. It is less so as giving access to the hidden 
 treasures of the mountains. The ancient Aryan had 
 the same name for cloud and mountain. To him the 
 piles of vapor on the horizon were so like Alpine ranges, 
 that he had but one word whereby to designate both. 
 These great mountains of heaven were opened by the 
 lightning. In the sudden flash he beheld the dazzling 
 splendor within, but only for a moment, and then; with 
 a crash, the celestial rocks closed again. Believing 
 these vaporous piles to contain resplendent treasures of 
 which partial glimpse was obtained by mortals in a 
 momentary gleam, tales were speedily formed, relating 
 the adventures of some who had succeeded in entering 
 these treasure-mountains. The plant of life, brought
 
 340 Schamir. 
 
 by weasel or serpent, restores life to one who was dead. 
 This myth was forged in Eastern lands, where the earth 
 apparently dies from a protracted drought. Then 
 comes the cloud. The lightning flash reaches the 
 barren, dead, and thirsty land ; forth gush the waters 
 of heaven, and the parched vegetation bursts once 
 more into the vigor of life, restored after suspended 
 animation. It is the dead and parched vegetation 
 which is symbolized by Glaucus, and the earth still and 
 without the energy of life which is represented by the 
 lady in the Lai d'Eliduc. This reviving power is attrib- 
 uted in mythology to the rain as well. In Sclavonic 
 myths, it is the water of life which restores the dead 
 earth, a water brought by a bird from the depths of a 
 gloomy cave. A prince has been murdered, — that is, 
 the earth is dead ; then comes the eagle bearing a vial 
 of the reviving water — the cloud with the rain; it 
 sprinkles the corpse with the precious drops, and life 
 returns.* 
 
 But the hand of glory has a very different property 
 — it paralyzes. In this it resembles the Gorgon's head 
 or the basilisk. The head of Medusa, with its flying 
 
 * Compare with this the Psyche in " The Golden Ass," and the 
 Fair One with the Golden Locks of the Countess d'Aulnay.
 
 Schamir. 341 
 
 serpent locks, is unquestionably the storm-cloud ; and 
 the basilisk which strikes dead with its eye is certainly 
 the same. The terror inspired by the outburst of the 
 thunder-storm is expressed in fable by the paralyzing 
 effect of the eye of the cockatrice, the exhibition of the 
 Gorgon's countenance, and the waving of the glorious 
 hand. 
 
 Strained as some of these explanations may seem, 
 they are nevertheless true. We, with our knowledge of 
 the causes producing meteorological phenomena, are 
 hardly able to realize the extravagance of the theories 
 propounded by the ignorant to account for them. 
 
 How Finn cosmogonists could have believed the 
 earth and heaven to be made out of a severed egg, the 
 upper concave shell representing heaven, the yolk 
 being earth, and the crystal surrounding fluid the cir- 
 cumambient ocean, is to us incomprehensible : and yet it 
 remains a fact that so they did regard them. How the 
 Scandinavians could have supposed the mountains to 
 be the mouldering bones of a mighty Jotun, and the 
 earth to be his festering flesh, we cannot conceive : yet 
 such a theory was solemnly taught and accepted. How 
 the ancient Indians could regard the rain-clouds as cows 
 with full udders, milked by the winds of heaven, is be-
 
 342 Schamir. 
 
 yond our comprehension, and yet their Veda contains 
 indisputable testimony to the fact that so they were 
 regarded. 
 
 Nonnus Dionysius (v. 163 et seq.) spoke of the moon 
 as a luminous white stone, and Democritus regarded the 
 stars as Trerpovs. Lucretius considered the sun as a 
 wheel (v. 433), and Ovid as a shield — 
 
 *' Ipse Dei clypeus, terra cum tollitur ima, 
 Mane rubet : terraque rubet, cum conditur ima. 
 Candidus in summo . . . ." — {Metam. xv. 192 sq.) 
 
 As late as 1600, a German writer would illustrate a 
 thunder-storm destroying a crop of corn by a picture of 
 a dragon devouring the produce of the field with his flam- 
 ing tongue and iron teeth (Wolfii Memorabil. ii. p. 
 505) ; and at the present day children are taught that 
 the thunder-crash is the voice of the Almighty. 
 
 The restless mind of man, ever seeking a reason to 
 account for the marvels presented to his senses, adopts 
 one theory after another, and the rejected explanations 
 encumber the memory of nations as myths, the signifi- 
 cance of which has been forgotten.
 
 illchtshta. 
 
 FROM PUC6 CHURCH (GIRONDE). 
 
 TT-MMERICK, Count of Poitou, was a nobleman of 
 -' — ' great wealth, and eminent for his virtues. He 
 had two children, a son named Bertram, and a daughter 
 Blaniferte. In the great forest which stretched away in 
 all directions around the knoll on which stood the town 
 and castle of Poictiers, lived a Count de la Foret, re- 
 lated to Emmerick, but poor and with a large family 
 Out of compassion for his kinsman, the Count of Poitou 
 adopted his youngest son Raymond, a beautiful and 
 amiable youth, and made him his constant complnion 
 in hall and in the chase. One day the Count and his
 
 344 Melusina. 
 
 retinue hunted a boar in the forest of Colombiers, and 
 distancing his servants, Emmerick found himself alone 
 in the depths of the wood with Raymond, The boar 
 had escaped. Night came on, and the two huntsmen 
 lost their way. They succeeded in lighting a fire, and 
 were wanning themselves over the blaze, when sud- 
 denly the boar plunged out of the forest upon the 
 Count, and Raymond, snatching up his sword, struck at 
 the beast, but the blade glanced off and slew the Count. 
 A second blow laid the boar at his side. Raymond 
 then with horror perceived that his friend and master 
 was dead. In despair he mounted his horse and* fled, 
 not knowing whither he went. 
 
 Presently the boughs of the trees became less inter- 
 laced, and the trunks fewer ; next moment his horse, 
 crashing through the shrubs, brought him out on a 
 pleasant glade, white with rime, and illumined by the 
 new moon ; in the midst bubbled up a limpid fountain, 
 and flowed away over a pebbly floor with a soothing 
 murmur. Near the fountain-head sat three maidens in 
 glimmering white dresses, with long, waving golden hair, 
 and faces of inexpressible beauty. 
 
 Raymond was riveted to the spot with astonishment. 
 He believed that he saw a vision of angels, and would have
 
 Melusina. 345 
 
 prostrated himself at their feet, had not one of them ad- 
 vanced and stayed him. The lady inquired the cause of 
 his manifest terror, and the young man, after a shght hesi- 
 tation, told her of his dreadful misfortune. She listened 
 with attention, and at the conclusion of his story, recom- 
 mended him to remount his horse, and gallop out of the 
 forest, and return to Poictiers, as though unconscious of 
 what had taken place. All the huntsmen had that day 
 lost themselves in the wood, and were returning singly, at 
 intervals, to the castle, so that no suspicion would attach 
 to him. The body of the count would be found, and from 
 the proximity of the dead boar, it would be concluded 
 that he had fallen before the tusk of the animal, to which 
 he had given its death-blow. 
 
 Relieved of his anxiety, Raymond was able to devote 
 his attention exclusively to the beauty of the lady who 
 addressed him, and found means to prolong the conversa- 
 tion till daybreak. He had never beheld charms equal to 
 hers, and the susceptible heart of the youth was completely 
 captivated by the fair unknown. Before he left her, he ob- 
 tained from her a promise to be hi?. She then told him to 
 ask of his kinsman Bertram, as a gift, so much ground 
 around the fountain where they had met, as could be cov- 
 ered by a stag's hide : upon this ground she undertook to
 
 34^ Melusina. 
 
 erect a magnificent palace. Her name, she told him, was 
 Melusina ; she was a water- fay of great power and wealth . 
 His she consented to be, but subject to one condition, 
 that her Saturdays might be spent in a complete seclusion, 
 upon which he should never venture to intrude. 
 
 Raymond then left her, and followed her advice to the 
 letter. Bertram, who succeeded his father, readily granted 
 the land he asked for, but was not a little vexed when he 
 found that, by cutting the hide into threads, Raymond had 
 succeeded in making it include a considerable area. 
 
 Raymond then invited the young count to his wedding, 
 and the marriage festivities took place, with unusual 
 splendor, in the magnificent castle erected by Melusina. 
 On the evening of the marriage, the bride, with tears in 
 her beautiful eyes, implored her husband on no account 
 to attempt an intrusion on her privacy upon Saturdays, for 
 such an intrusion must infallibly separate them for ever. 
 The enamored Raymond readily swore to strictly observe 
 her wishes in this matter. 
 
 Melusina continued to extend the castle, and strengthen 
 its fortifications, till the- like was not to be seen in all the 
 country round. On its completion she named it after 
 herself Lusinia, a name which has been corrupted into 
 Lusignan, which it bears to this day.
 
 Melusina. 347 
 
 In course of time, the Lady of Lusignan gave birth 
 to a son, who was baptized Urian. He was a strangely 
 shaped child : his mouth was large, his ears pendulous ; 
 one of his eyes was red, the other green. 
 
 A twelvemonth later she gave birth to another son, 
 whom she called Gedes ; he had a face which was scarlet. 
 In thank-offering for his birth she erected and endowed 
 the convent of Malliers ; and, as a place of residence for 
 her child, built the strong castle of Favent. 
 
 Melusina then bore a third son, who was christened 
 Gyot. He was a fine, handsome child, but one of his 
 eyes was higher up in his face than the other. For him 
 his mother built La Rochelle. 
 
 Her next son, Anthony, had long claws on his fingers, 
 and was covered with hair ; the next again had but a 
 single eye. The sixth was Geoffry with the Tooth, so 
 called from a boar's tusk which protruded from his jaw. 
 Other children she had, but all were in some way dis- 
 figured and monstrous. 
 
 Years passed, and the love of Raymond for his beauti- 
 ful wife never languished. Every Saturday she left him, 
 and spent the twenty-four hours in the strictest seclusion, 
 without her husband thinking of intruding on her privacy. 
 The children grew up to be great heroes and illustrious
 
 348 Melusina. 
 
 warriors. One, Freimund, entered the Church, and be- 
 came a pious monk, in the abbey of Malliers. The aged 
 Count de la Foret and the brothers of Raymond shared 
 in his good fortune, and the old man spent his last 
 years in the castle with his son, whilst the brothers 
 were furnished with money and servants suitable to their 
 rank. 
 
 One Saturday, the old father inquired at dinner after 
 his daughter-in-law. Raymond replied that she was not 
 visible on Saturdays. Thereupon one of his brothers, 
 drawing him aside, whispered that strange gossiping tales 
 were about relative to this sabbath seclusion, and that it 
 behoved him to inquire into it, and set the minds of peo- 
 ple at rest. Full of wrath and anxiety, the count rushed 
 off to the private apartments of the countess, but found 
 them empty. One door alone was locked, and that 
 opened into a bath. He looked through the key-hole, 
 and to his dismay beheld her in the water, her lower ex- 
 tremities changed into the tail of a monstrous fish or 
 serpent. 
 
 Silently he withdrew. No word of what he had seen 
 passed his lips ; it was not loathing that filled his heart, 
 but anguish at the thought that by his fault he must lose 
 the beautiful wife who had been the charm and glory of
 
 Melusina. 349 
 
 his life. Some time passed by, however, and Melusina 
 gave no token of consciousness that she had been ob- 
 served during the period of her transformation. But 
 one day news reached the castle that Geoffry with the 
 Tooth had attacked the monastery of Malliers, and burned 
 it ; and that in the flames had perished Freimund, with 
 the abbot and a hundred monks. On hearing of this dis- 
 aster, the poor father, in a paroxysm of misery, exclaimed, 
 as Melusina approached to comfort him, " Away, odious 
 serpent, contaminator of my honorable race ! " 
 
 At these words she fainted ; and Raymond, full of sor- 
 row for having spoken thus intemperately, strove to revive 
 her. When she came to herself again, with streaming tears 
 she kissed and embraced him for the last time. " O hus- 
 band ! " she said, " I leave two little ones in their cradle ; 
 look tenderly after them, bereaved of their mother. And 
 now farewell for ever ! yet know that thou, and those who 
 succeed thee, shall see me hover over this fair castle of 
 Lusignan, whenever a new lord is to come." And with a 
 long wail of agony she swept from the window, leaving the 
 impression of her foot on the stone she last touched. 
 
 The children in arms she had left were Dietrich and 
 Raymond. At night, the nurses beheld a glimmering 
 figure appear near the cradle of the babes, most like the
 
 350 Melusina. 
 
 vanished countess, but from her waist downwards termi- 
 nating in a scaly fish-tail enamelled blue and white. At 
 her approach the little ones extended their arms and 
 smiled, and she took them to her breast and suckled 
 them ; but as the gray dawn stole in at the casement, she 
 vanished, and the children's cries told the nurses that their 
 mother was gone. 
 
 Long was it believed in France that the unfortunate 
 Melusina appeared in the air, wailing over the ramparts of 
 Lusignan before the death of one of its lords ; and that, 
 on the extinction of the family, she was seen whenever a 
 king of France was to depart this life. Mdzeray informs 
 us that he was assured of the truth of the appearance of 
 Melusina on the old tower of Lusignan, previous to the 
 death of one of her descendants, or of a king of France, by 
 people of reputation, and who were not by any means 
 credulous. She appeared in a mourning dress, and con- 
 tinued for a long time to utter the most heart-rending 
 lamentations. 
 
 Brantome, in his eulogium on the Duke of Montpensier, 
 who in 1574 destroyed Lusignan, a Huguenot retreat, 
 says : — 
 
 " I heard, more than forty years ago, an old veteran 
 say, that when the Emperor Charles V. came to France,
 
 Melusina. 351 
 
 they brought him by Lusignan for the sake of the recrea- 
 tion of hunting the deer, which were then in great abun- 
 dance in the fine old parks of France ; that he was never 
 tired of admiring and praising the beauty, the size, and 
 the chef d'ceuvre of that house, built, which is more, by 
 such a lady, of whom he made them tell him several fabu- 
 lous tales, which are there quite common, even to the 
 good old women who washed their linen at the fountains, 
 whom Queen Catherine de Medicis, mother of the king, 
 would also question and listen to. Some told her that 
 they used sometimes to see her come to the fountain, to 
 bathe in it, in the form of a most beautiful woman and in 
 the .dress of a widow. Others said that they used to see 
 her, but very rarely, and that on Saturday evening (for in 
 that state she did not let herself be seen), bathing, half 
 her body being that of a very beautiful lady, the other 
 half ending in a snake ; others, that she used to appear 
 a-top of the great tower in a very beautiful form, and as a 
 snake. Some said, that when any great disaster was to 
 come on the kingdom, or a change of reign, or a death, 
 or misfortune among her relatives, who were the greatest 
 people of France, and were kings, that three days before 
 she was heard to cry, with a cry most shrill and terrible, 
 three times.
 
 352 Melusina. 
 
 "This is held to be perfectly true. Several persons of 
 that place, who have heard it, are positive of it, and hand 
 it from father to son ; and say that, even when the siege 
 came on, many soldiers and men of honor, who were 
 there, affirmed it. But it was when order was given to 
 throw down and destroy her castles, that she uttered her 
 loudest cries and wails. Since then she has not been 
 heard. Some old wives, however, say she has appeared 
 to them, but very rarely." * 
 
 In 1387, Jean d'Arras, secretary to the Duke of Berry, 
 received orders from his master to collect all information 
 attainable with reference to Melusina, probably for the en- 
 tertainment of the sister of the duke, the Countess de Bar. 
 This he did, making considerable use of a history of the 
 mysterious lady, written " by one of the race of Lusinia, 
 William de Portenach (qu. Partenope), in Itahan." This 
 history, if it ever existed, has not come down to us ; the 
 work of Jean d'Arras is a complete romance. According 
 to him, Helmas, king of Albania (Scotland, or, a^ the Ger- 
 man popular versions have it, Nordland), married a fay 
 named Pressina, whom he found singing beside a fountain. 
 She became his, after having exacted from him an oath 
 never to visit her during her lying-in. She gave birth to 
 
 * Keightley's Fairy Mythology, i860, pp. 483, 484.
 
 Meliisina. 353 
 
 three little girls at once, Melusina, Melior, and Plantina. 
 A son of Helmas by a former wife hurried to his father 
 with the joyful news, and the king, oblivious of his prom- 
 ise, rushed to his wife and found her bathing her thret 
 children. Pressina, on seeing him, exclaimed against his 
 forgetfulness, and, taking her babes in her arms, vanished. 
 She brought up the daughters until they were fifteen, when 
 she unfolded to them the story of their father's breach of 
 promise, and Melusina, the youngest, determined on re- 
 venge. She, in concert with her sisters, caught King Hel- 
 mas and chained him in. the heart of a mountain called 
 Avalon, or, in the German books, Brunbelois, in Northu- 
 belon, i.e. Northumberland. At this unfilial act the mother 
 was so indignant that she sentenced her daughter Melu- 
 sina to spend the sabbath in a semi- fish form, till she 
 should marry one who would never inquire into what 
 became of her on that day. Jean d'Arras relates' that 
 Serville, who defended Lusignan for the English against 
 the Duke de Berry, swore to that prince upon his faith 
 and honor, "that three days before the surrender of 
 the castle, there entered into his chamber, though the 
 doors were shut, a large serpent, enamelled blue and 
 white, which struck its tail several times against the foot 
 of the bed whereon he was lying with his wife, who was 
 
 23
 
 354 Melusina. 
 
 not at all frightened at it, though he was very considerably 
 so ; and that when he seized his sword, the serpent 
 changed all at once into a woman, and said to him : 
 ' How, Serville, you, who have been in so many battles 
 and sieges, are you afraid? Know that I am the mis- 
 tress of this castle, which I erected, and that soon you 
 will have to surrender it ! ' When she had ended these 
 words, she resumed her serpent-shape, and glided away 
 so swiftly that he could not perceive her." 
 
 Stephan, a Dominican, of the house of Lusignan, de- 
 veloped the work of Jean d'Arras, and made the story so 
 famous, that the families of Luxembourg, Rohan, and 
 Sassenaye altered their pedigrees so as to be able to 
 claim descent from the illustrious Melusina ; * and the 
 Emperor Henry VH. felt no little pride in being able 
 to number the beautiful and mysterious lady among his 
 ancestors. " It does not escape me," writes the chron- 
 icler Conrad Vecerius, in his life of that emperor, " to 
 report what is related in a Uttle work in the vernacular, 
 concerning the acts of a woman, Melyssina, on one day 
 of the week becoming a serpent from her middle down- 
 wards, whom they reckon among the ancestors of Henry 
 
 * Bullet, Dissertat. sur la Mythologie Fran5aise. Paris, 1771, 
 pp. 1-32.
 
 Melusina. 355 
 
 VII. . . . But, as authors relate, that in a certain island 
 of the ocean, there are nine Sirens endowed with various 
 arts, such, for instance, as changing themselves into any 
 shape they like, it is no absurd conjecture to suppose that 
 Melyssina came thence." * 
 
 The story became immensely popular in France, in 
 Germany, and in Spain, and was printed and reprinted. 
 The following are some of the principal early editions 
 of it. 
 
 Jean d'Arras, " Le liure de Melusine en fracoys ; " 
 Geneva, 1478. The same, Lyons and Paris, without date ; 
 Lyons, 4to, 1500, and again 1544; Troyes, 4to, no date. 
 " L'histoire de Melusine fiUe du roy d'Albanie et de dame 
 Pressine, revue et mise en meilleur langage que par cy 
 devant ; " Lyons, 1597. " Le roman de Melusine, prin- 
 cesse de Lusignan, avec l'histoire de Geoffry, surnomm^ 
 a la Grand Dent," par Nodot ; Paris, 1700. An outline 
 of the story in the " Bibliotheque des Romans," 1775, 
 T. II . A Spanish version, " Historia de la linda Melo- 
 syna ; " Tolosa, 1489. "La hystoria de la linda Melo- 
 sina;" Sevilla, 1526. A Dutch translation, " Een san 
 sonderlingke schone ende wonderlike historie, die men 
 warachtich kout te syne ende autentick sprekende van 
 * Urstisius, Scriptores Germanias. Frankfort, 1670.
 
 356 Melusina. 
 
 eenre vrouwen gheheeten Melusine;" Tantwerpen, 1500. 
 A Bohemian version, probably translated from the Ger- 
 man, " Kronyke Klratochvvilne, o ctn^ a slech netn^ Panne 
 Meluzijne;" Prag, 1760, 1764, 1805. A Danish version, 
 made about 1579, " Melusine ; " Copenhagen, 1667, 1702, 
 1729. One in Swedish, without date. The original of 
 these three last was the " History of Melusina," by Thiir- 
 ing von Ringoltingen, published in 1456 ; Augsburg, 1474 ; 
 Strasburg, 1478. " Melosine-Geschicht," illustrated with 
 woodcuts; Heidelberg, 1491. "Die Historia von Melu- 
 sina;" Strasburg, 1506. "Die Histori oder Geschicht 
 von der edle und schonen Melusina;" Augsburg, 1547; 
 Strasburg, 1577, 1624. "Wunderbare Geschichte von der 
 edeln und schonen Melusina, welche eine Tochter des 
 Konigs Helmus und ein Meervvunder gewesen ist ; " 
 Niirnberg, without date ; reprinted in Marbach's " Volks- 
 biicher." Leipzig, 1838. 
 
 In the fable of Melusina, there are several points de- 
 serving of consideration, as — the framework of the story, 
 the half-serpent or fish-shape of Melusina, and her ap- 
 pearances as warnings of impending misfortune or death. 
 The minor details, as, for instance, the trick with the 
 hide, which is taken from the story of Dido, shall not 
 detain us.
 
 Melusina. 357 
 
 The framework of the myth is the story-radical corre- 
 sponding with that of Lohengrin. The skeleton of the 
 romance is this — 
 
 1. A man falls in love with a woman of supernatural 
 race. 
 
 2. She consents to live with him, subject to one con- 
 dition. 
 
 3. He breaks the condition and loses her. 
 
 4. He seeks her, and — a. recovers her ; (3. never re- 
 covers her. 
 
 In the story before us, the last item has dropped out, 
 but it exists in many other stories which have sprung from 
 the same root. The beautiful legend of Undine is but 
 another version of the same story. A young knight mar- 
 ries a water-sprite, and promises never to be false to her, 
 and never to bring her near a river. He breaks his 
 engagement, and loses her. Then she comes to him on 
 the eve of his second marriage and kisses him to death. 
 Fouqu6's inimitable romance is founded on the story as 
 told by Theophrastus Paracelsus in his " Treatise on Ele- 
 mental Sprites ; " but the bare bones of the myth related 
 by the philosopher have been quickened into life and 
 beauty by the heaven-drawn spark of poetry wherewith 
 Fouqu6 has endowed them.
 
 3 5 8 Melusina. 
 
 In the French tale, Melusina seeks union with a mortal 
 solely that she may escape from her enchantment ; but in 
 the German more earnest tale, Undine desires to become 
 a bride that she may obtain an immortal soul. The cor- 
 responding Danish story is told by Hans Christian Ander- 
 sen. A little mermaid sees a prince as she floats on the 
 surface of the sea, and saves him in her arms from drown- 
 ing when the ship is wrecked. But from that hour her 
 heart is filled with yearning love for the youth whose life 
 she has preserved. She seeks earth of her own free will, 
 leaving her native element, although the consequence is 
 pain at every step she takes. 
 
 She becomes the constant attendant of the prince, till 
 he marries a princess, when her heart breaks and she 
 becomes a Light-Elf, with prospect of immortality. 
 
 Belonging to the same family is the pretty Indian tale 
 of Urva?!. Urvagi was an " apsaras," or heavenly maiden ; 
 she loved Puravaras, a martial king, and became his wife, 
 only, however, on condition that she should never behold 
 him without his clothes. For some years they were to- 
 gether, till the heavenly companions of Urva?i determined 
 to secure her return to her proper sphere. They accord- 
 ingly beguiled Puravaras into leaving his bed in the dark- 
 ness of night, and then, with a lightning-flash, they
 
 Melusina. 359 
 
 disclosed him in his nudity to the wife, who was there- 
 upon constrained to leave him. A somewhat similar story 
 is told, in the Katha Sarit Sagara (Book iii. c. 18), of 
 Vidushaka, who loves and marries a beautiful Bhadra, but 
 after a while she vanishes, leaving behind her a ring. The 
 inconsolable husband wanders in search of her, and reach- 
 ing the heavenly land, drops the ring in a goblet of water, 
 which is taken to her. By this she recognizes him, and 
 they are re-united. 
 
 The legend of Melusina, as it comes to us, is by no 
 means in its original condition. Jean d'Arras, or other 
 romancers, have considerably altered the simple tale, so 
 as to make it assume the proportions of a romance. All 
 that story of the fay Pressina, and her marriage with King 
 Helmas, is but another version of the same story as 
 Melusina. 
 
 Helmas finds Pressina near a fountain, and asks her to 
 be his ; she consents on condition that he does not visit 
 her during her lying-in ; he breaks the condition and loses 
 her. This is the same as Raymond discovering Melusina 
 near a spring, and obtaining her hand subject to the con- 
 dition that he will not visit her one day of the week. 
 Like Helmas, he breaks his promise and loses his wife 
 That both Pressina and Melusina are water-sprites, or
 
 360 Mehisina. 
 
 nymphs, is unquestionable ; both haunt a fountain, and 
 the transformation of the lady of Lusignan indicates her 
 aquatic origin. As Grimm has observed,* this is a Gallic, 
 and therefore a Keltic myth, an opinion confirmed by the 
 Banshee part played by the unfortunate nymph. For the 
 Banshee superstition has no corresponding feature in 
 Scandinavian, Teutonic, or Classic mythology, and be- 
 longs entirely to the Kelts. Among others there are 
 death portents, but not, that I am aware of, spirits of 
 women attached to families, by their bitter cries at night 
 announcing the approach of the king of terrors. 
 
 The Irish Banshee is thus described : " We saw the 
 figure of a tall, thin woman with uncovered head, and long 
 hair that floated round her shoulders, attired in something 
 which seemed either a loose white cloak or a sheet thrown 
 hastily about her, uttering piercing cries. 
 
 "The most remarkable instance (of the Banshee) oc- 
 curs in the MS. memoirs of Lady Fanshawe, so exemplary 
 for her conjugal affection. Her husband, Sir Richard, 
 and she chanced, during their abode in Ireland, to visit a 
 friend, the head of a sept, who resided in an ancient 
 baronial castle surrounded with a moat. At midnight she 
 was awakened by a ghastly and supernatural scream, and 
 * Deutsche Mythologie, i. 405.
 
 Melusina. 361 
 
 looking out of bed, beheld in the moonlight a female face 
 and part of the form hovering at the window. The face 
 was that of a young and rather handsome woman, but 
 pale, and the hair, which was reddish, loose and di- 
 shevelled. The dress, which Lady Fanshawe's terror did 
 not prevent her remarking accurately, was that of the 
 ancient Irish. This apparition continued to exhibit itself 
 for some time, and then vanished, with two shrieks similar 
 to that which had first excited Lady Fanshawe's attention. 
 In the morning, with infinite terror, she communicated 
 to her host what she had witnessed, and found him 
 prepared, not only to credit, but to account for the ap- 
 parition : — 
 
 " ' A near relation of my family,' said he, ' expired last 
 night in this castle. We disguised our certain expecta- 
 tions of the event from you, lest it should throw a cloud 
 over the cheerful reception which was your due.* Now, 
 before such an event happens in this family and castle, 
 the female spectre whom ye have seen always is visible : 
 she is believed to be the spirit of a woman of inferior 
 rank, whom one of my ancestors degraded himself by 
 marrj-ing, and whom afterwards, to expiate the dishonor 
 
 * Like Admetus in the Alcestis of Euripides. Tiiis story of 
 Lady Fanshawe is from a note to " The Lady of the Lake."
 
 362 Melusina. 
 
 done to his family, he caused to be drowned in the 
 castle moat.' " 
 
 A very remarkable story of the Banshee is given by 
 Mr. Crofton Croker. The Rev. Charles Bunworth was 
 rector of Buttevant, in the county Cork, about the middle 
 of last century. He was famous for his performance on 
 the national instrument, the Irish harp, and for his hospi- 
 table reception and entertainment of the poor harpers 
 who travelled from house to house about the country ; 
 and in his granary were deposited fifteen harps, be- 
 queathed to him by the last members of a race which 
 has now ceased to exist. 
 
 The circumstances attending the death of Mr. Bun- 
 worth were remarkable ; but, says Mr. Crofton Croker, 
 there are still living credible witnesses who declare their 
 authenticity, and who can be produced to attest most, if 
 not all, of the following particulars. Shortly before his 
 decease, a shepherd heard the Banshee keening and 
 clapping her hands under a lightning-struck tree near the 
 house. On the eve of his death the night was serene and 
 moonlit, and nothing broke the stillness of the melancholy 
 watch kept by the bedside of the sick man, who lay in the 
 drawing-room, by his two daughters. The little party 
 were suddenly roused by a sound at the window near the
 
 Melusina. 363 
 
 bed : a rose-tree grew outside the window, so closely as 
 to touch the glass ; this was forced aside with some noise, 
 and a low moaning was heard, accompanied by clapping 
 of hands, as if of some female in deep affliction. It 
 seemed as if the sound proceeded from a person holding 
 her mouth close to the window. The lady who sat by the 
 bedside of Mr. Bunworth went into the adjoining room, 
 where sat some male relatives, and asked, in a tone of 
 alarm, if they had heard the Banshee. Sceptical of super- 
 natural appearances, two of them rose hastily, and went 
 out to discover the cause of these sounds, which they also 
 distinctly heard. Tliey walked all round the house, ex- 
 amining every spot of ground, particularly near the win- 
 dow from whence the voice had proceeded ; the bed of 
 earth beneath, in which the rose-tree was planted, had 
 been recently dug, and the print of a footstep — if the 
 tree had been forced aside by mortal hand — would have 
 inevitably remained ; but they could perceive no such 
 impression, and an unbroken stillness reigned without. 
 Hoping to dispel the mystery, they continued their search 
 anxiously along the road, from the straightness of which, 
 and the lightness of the night, they were enabled to see 
 •some distance around them ; but all was silent and de- 
 serted, and they returned surprised and disappointed.
 
 364 Melusina. 
 
 How much more then were they astonished at learning 
 that, the wliole time of their absence, those who remained 
 within the house had heard the moaning and clapping of 
 hands even louder and more distinct than before they had 
 gone out ; and no sooner was the door of the room 
 closed on them, than they again heard the same mournful 
 sounds. Every succeeding hour the sick man became 
 worse, and when the first glimpse of the morning ap- 
 peared, Mr. Bunworth expired. 
 
 The Banshee is represented in Wales by the Gwrach y 
 Rhibyn, who is said to come after dusk, and flap her 
 leathern wings against the window, giving warning of 
 death, in a broken, howling tone, and calling on the one 
 who is to quit mortality by his or her name several times. 
 In Brittany, similar spirits are called Bandrhudes, and are 
 attached to several of the ancient families. In other parts 
 of France, they pass as Dames Blanches, who, however, 
 are not to be confused with the Teutonic white ladies, 
 which are spirits of a different order. 
 
 But, putting the Banshee part of the story of Melusina 
 on one side, let us turn to the semi-fish or serpent form 
 of Melusina. Jean d'Arras attributes this to a curse pro- 
 nounced on her by the fay Pressina, but this is an inven- 
 tion of his own ; the true conception of Melusina he did
 
 Melusina. 365 
 
 not grasp, and was therefore obliged to forge a legend 
 which should account for her peculiar appearance. Mel- 
 usina was a mermaid. Her presence beside the fountain, 
 as well as her fishy tail, indicate her nature ; she was not, 
 perhaps, a native of the sea, but a stream-dweller, and 
 therefore as closely related to the true mermaid of the 
 briny deep as are the fresh-water fish to those of the salt 
 sea. 
 
 The superstitious beHef in mermaids is universal, and I 
 frankly confess my inability to account for its origin in 
 every case. In some particular cases the origin of the 
 myth is clear, in others it is not so. Let me take one 
 which can be explained — the Oannes of the Chaldaeans, 
 the Philistine Dagon. 
 
 Oannes and Dag-on (the fish On) are identical. Ac- 
 cording to an ancient fable preserved by Berosus, a crea- 
 ture half man and half fish came out of " that part of the 
 Erythrcean sea which borders upon Babylonia," where he 
 taught men the arts of life, " to construct cities, to found 
 temples, to compile laws, and, in short, instructed them in 
 all things that tend to soften manners and humanize their 
 lives ; " and he adds that a representation of this animal 
 Oannes was preserved in his day. A figure of him sport- 
 ing in the waves, and apparently blessing a fleet of vessels,
 
 366 
 
 Melusina. 
 
 was discovered in a marine piece of sculpture, by M. 
 Botta, in the excavations of Khorsabad. 
 
 CANNES, FROM KHORSABAD. 
 
 At Nimroud, a gigantic image was found by Mr. Lay- 
 ard, representing him with the fish's head as a cap and 
 the body of the fish depending over his shoulders, his 
 legs those of a man, in his left hand holding a richly 
 decorated bag, and his right hand upraised, as if in the 
 act of presenting the mystic Assyrian fir-cone (British 
 Museum, Nos. 29 and 30). 
 
 This Oannes is the Mizraimite On, and the Hebrew 
 Aon, with a Greek case-termination, derived from a 
 root signifying ''to illumine." Aon was the original 
 name of the god reverenced in the temple of Heliopolis, 
 which in Scripture is called Beth-Aon, the house of On, 
 as well as by its translation Beth-Shemesh, the house of 
 the Sun. Not only does his name indicate his solar
 
 Melusina. 367 
 
 origin, but his representation with horned head-dress 
 testifies to his nature. Ammon, Apis, Dionysos are sun- 
 gods ; Isis, lo, Artemis are moon-goddesses, and are all 
 horned. Indeed, in ancient iconography horns invari- 
 ably connect the gods represented with the two great 
 sources of light. Apparent exceptions, such as the 
 Fauns, are not so in reality, when subjected to close 
 scrutiny. Civilizing gods, who diffuse intelligence and 
 instruct barbarians, are also solar deities, as the Egyp- 
 tian Osiris, the Nabathaean Tammuz, the Greek Apollo, 
 and the Mexican Quetzalcoatl ; beside these Cannes 
 takes his place, as the sun-god, giving knowledge and 
 civilization. According to the fable related by Berosus, 
 
 A BABYLONISH SEAL IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM, FROM MUNTER S 
 BABYLON I ER. 
 
 he came on earth each morning, and at evening plunged 
 into the sea ; this is a mythical description of the rising
 
 368 Mehisina. 
 
 and setting of the sun. His semi-piscine form was an 
 expression of tlie idea that half his time was spent above 
 ground, and half below the waves. 
 
 In precisely similar manner the Semitic moon-goddess, 
 who followed the course of the sun, at times manifesting 
 herself to the eyes of men, at others seeking concealment 
 in the western flood, was represented as half woman, half 
 fish, with characteristics which make her lunar origin in- 
 disputable. Her name was Derceto or Atergatis. On the 
 coins of Ascalon, where she was held in great honor, is 
 figured a goddess above whose head is a half-moon, and 
 at her feet a woman with her lower extremities like a fish. 
 This is Semiramis, who, according to a popular legend, 
 Avas the child of Derceto. At Joppa she appears as a 
 memiaid. The story was, that she fled from Typhon, 
 and plunged into the sea, concealing herself under the 
 form of a fish. According to Plutarch, the Syrian Tirgata, 
 the Derceto of Palestine, was the goddess of moisture ; * 
 and Lucan (De dea Syra, c. 14) declares that she was 
 represented as a woman with a fish-tail from her hips 
 downward. 
 
 * Plutarch, Crass c. 17. According to Greek mythology, this 
 goddess, under the name of Ceto, " with comely cheeks," is the 
 daughter of Sea and Earth, and wife of Phorcys (Hesiod, Theog. 
 V. 235, 270).
 
 Meliishia, 369 
 
 In every mythology, the different attributes of the deity 
 in process of time became distinct gods, yet with sufficient 
 impress of their origin still upon them to make that origin 
 easy to be detected. 
 
 As On, the sun-god rising and setting in the sea, was 
 supplied with a corresponding moon-goddess, Atergatis, 
 and Bel or Baal, also a solar deity, had his lunar Baalti, so 
 the fiery Moloch, " the great lord," was supplied with his 
 Mylitta, " the birth-producer." Moloch was the fierce 
 flame-god, and Mylitta the goddess of moisture. Their 
 worship was closely united. The priests of Moloch wore 
 female attire, the priestesses of Mylitta were dressed 
 like men. Human sacrifices characterized the worship of 
 the fire-god, prostitution that of the goddess of water. 
 From her came the names of the hetarce Melitta, Meleto, 
 Milto, Milesia (Athenaeus, lib. xiii.). Among the Cartha- 
 ginians, this goddess was worshipped, as appears from 
 their giving the name of Magasmelita (the tent of 
 Mylitta) to one of the African provinces. Mylitta was 
 identical with Atergatis ; she was regarded as a universal 
 mother, a source of life. 
 
 In Greece, the priestesses of Demeter were called 
 Melissse, the high-priest of Apollo was entitled Kvpio^ to>v 
 jxeWicra-wp. A fable was invented to account for this 
 
 24
 
 370 Mehisina. 
 
 name, and to connect them with bees and honey ; but 
 I have little doubt that it was corrupted from the Semitic 
 designation of the servants of Mylitta. The Meliss^e are 
 sometimes spoken of as nymphs, but are not to be identi- 
 fied with the Meliad^e, Dryads sprung from the ash. Yet 
 Melia, daughter of Oc'eanus, who plunges into the Haliac- 
 mon, strongly resembles the Syrian goddess. Selene, the 
 moon, was also known by the name Melissa. Kal ras 
 
 Ar]fxr]Tpos iepeias, cos rijs ^(dovias 6fas /xucTTi'Say, fj.f\icr<Tas ol 
 TToXaioi fKoXovv, avTrjv re rrjv Koprjv yiieXttrcrwS?;, '2e\rjvr]v re, 
 ovcrav ytuecr(o}s irpodTaTiha fifXicraau fKaXovv.* 
 
 When we remember the double character of Mylitta, as 
 a generative or all-mother, and as a moon-goddess, we 
 are able to account for her name having passed into the 
 Greek titles of priestesses of their corresponding god- 
 desses Demeter and Selene. 
 
 The name Melissa was probably introduced into Gaul 
 by the Phocian colony at Massilia, the modern Marseilles, 
 and passed into the popular mythology of the Gallic Kelts 
 as the title of nymphs, till it was finally appropriated by 
 the Melusina of romance. 
 
 It may seem difficult at first sight to trace the con- 
 nection between the moon, a water-goddess, and a deity 
 
 * Schol. Theocr. xv. 94. Porphyr. de Antro Nymph, c. 18.
 
 Melusina. 371 
 
 presiding over childbirtli; yet it is certain that such a 
 connection does exist. The classic Venus was born of 
 the sea-foam, and was unmistakably one with the moon. 
 She was also the goddess of love, and was resorted to by 
 barren women — as the Venus of Quimperle in Brittany 
 is, to this day, sought by those who have no children. 
 
 On the Syrian coast, they told of their goddess plung- 
 ing into the sea, because they saw the moon descend 
 into the western waters ; but the Cretans, who beheld 
 her rise above the eastern horizon of sea, fabled of a 
 foam-born goddess. 
 
 In classic iconography the Tritons, and in later art the 
 Sirens, are represented half fish, half human. Originally 
 the Sirens were winged, but after the fable had been 
 accepted, which told of their strife with the Muses, and 
 their precipitation into the sea, they were figured like 
 mermaids ; the fish-form was by them borrowed from 
 Derceto. It is curious how widely-spread is the belief 
 in fish-women. The prevalence of tales of mermaids 
 among Celtic populations indicates these water-nymphs 
 as having been originally deities of those peoples ; and I 
 cannot but believe that the circular mirror they are 
 usually represented as holding is a reminiscence of the 
 moon-disk. Bothe, in his " Kronecke der Sassen," in
 
 372 Mehtsina. 
 
 1492, described a god, Krodo, worshipped in the Hartz, 
 who was represented with his feet on a fish, a wheel to 
 symbolize the moon in one hand, and a pail of water in 
 the other. As among the Northern nations the moon is 
 masculine, its deity was male. Probably the Mexican 
 Coxcox or Teocipactli (i.e. Fish-god) was either a solar 
 or lunar deity. He was entitled Huehueton-acateo-cateo- 
 cipatli, or Fish-god-of-our-flesh, to give him his name in 
 full ; he somewhat resembled the Noah of Sacred Writ ; for 
 the Mexican fable related, that in a great time of flood, 
 when the earth was covered with water, he rescued himself 
 in a cypress trunk, and peopled the world with wise and 
 iiitelligent beings.* The Babylonish Cannes was also 
 identified with the flood. 
 
 The Peruvians had likewise their semi-fish gods, but 
 the legend connected with them has not descended to 
 our days. 
 
 The North-American Indians relate that they were 
 conducted from Northern Asia by a man-fish. " Once 
 upon a time, in the season of opening buds, the people 
 of our nation were much terrified at seeing a strange crea- 
 ture, much resembling a man, riding upon the waves. 
 
 * Miiller, Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen. Basel, 
 1855, p. 515-
 
 Mehisina. 373 
 
 He had upon his head long green hair, much resembling 
 the coarse weeds which the mighty storms scatter along 
 the margin of the strand. Upon his face, which was 
 shaped like that of a porpoise, he had a beard of 
 the same color. But if our people were frightened at 
 seeing a man who could live in the water like a fish or a 
 duck, how much more were they frightened when they 
 saw that from his breast down he was actually a fish, or 
 rather two fishes, for each of his legs was a whole and 
 distinct fish. And there he would sit for hours singing 
 to the wondering ears of the Indians the beautiful things 
 he saw in the depths of the ocean, always closing his 
 strange stories with these words : ' Follow me, and 
 see what I will show you.' For a great many suns, they 
 dared not venture upon the water ; but when they grew 
 hungry, they at last put to sea, and following the man- 
 fish, who kept close to the boat, reached the American 
 coast." * 
 
 It is not impossible that the North-American Indians 
 may have symbolized the sun in the same manner as the 
 Syrians, and t4iat this legend may signify that the early 
 colonists, to reach the New Land, followed the Jish- 
 
 * Epitomized from Traditions of the North-American Indians, 
 by J. A. Jones. 1S30, pp. 47-58-
 
 374 Melusina. 
 
 course of the sun, which as man goes from East to 
 West, whereas when it dives it swims from West to East, 
 the course taken by the Indians in their canoes. The 
 wanderers in the Canadian forests have also their fish- 
 woman, of whom a tale is related which bears a lively 
 resemblance to that of Undine, and which is not a little 
 like that of Melusina. 
 
 One day an Ottawa chief, whilst sitting by the water 
 side, beheld a beautiful woman rise from the flood, her 
 face exquisitely lovely, her eyes blue, her teeth white, and 
 her locks floating over her shoulders. From her waist 
 downwards she was fish, or rather two fishes. She en- 
 treated the warrior to permit her to live on earth, as she 
 desired to win a human soul, which could only be ac- 
 quired by union with a mortal. He consented and took 
 her to his house, where she was to him as a daughter. 
 Some years after an Andirondack youth beheld and loved 
 her. He took her to wife, and she obtained that which 
 she had desired — a human soul. 
 
 In the Undine story, a water-maiden, in like manner 
 and for a like object, is adopted by an old fisherman, and 
 becomes the bride of a youthful German knight. But the 
 Andirondack tribe was ill-pleased at the marriage of their 
 chief with the mysterious damsel, and they tore her from
 
 Mehisina. 375 
 
 his arms, and drove her back to her original element. 
 Then all the water-spirits vowed revenge at the insult 
 offered to one of their race ; they stirred up war between 
 the Ottawas and Andirondacks, which led to the extermi- 
 nation of the latter ; one only was rescued, and he was 
 grasped by the fish-wife, and by her borne down to the 
 watery depths below the Falls of St. Anthony. In the 
 German story, the husband is weary with the taunts of 
 those around at having married a water-sprite, and bids 
 her return to her element. Then the spirits of the flood 
 \'Ow his destruction, and send Undine on earth to embrace 
 her faithless lord, and kiss him to death. The name of 
 the fish-woman is in German Meerfrau or Meriminni ; in 
 Danish, the Siren is Maremind ; and in Icelandic and old 
 Norse, Marmennill ; in Irish she is the Merrow ; with the 
 Breton peasantry she is Marie-Morgan. In the legendary 
 lore of all these people, there are stories of the loves of a 
 mortal man and a mermaid. According to Mr. Crofton 
 Croker, O'Sullivan More, Lord of Dunkerron, lost his 
 heart to one of these beautiful water-sprites, and she 
 agreed to be his, but her parents resented the union and 
 killed her. 
 
 On the shore of Smenvick harbor, an Irishman, Dick 
 Fitzgerald, caught a Merrow with her cohuleen driuth, or
 
 3/6 Melusina. 
 
 enchanted cap, lying on a rock beside her. He grasped 
 the cap, and thereby possessed himself of the nymph, 
 who, however, seemed nothing loth to obtain a mortal 
 husband. They lived together happily for some years, 
 and saw a family of beautiful children grow up at their 
 knees. But one day the Lady of Gollerus, as she was 
 called, discovered her old cap in a corner. She took it 
 up and looked at it, and then thought of her father the 
 king and her mother the queen, and felt a longing to go 
 back to them. She kissed the babies, and then went 
 down to the strand with the full intention of returning to 
 Gollerus after a brief visit to her home. However, no 
 sooner was the cohuleen driiith on her head, than all re- 
 membrance of her life on earth was forgotten, and she 
 plunged into the sea, never to return. Similar tales are 
 related in Shetland, the Faroes, in Iceland, and Nor- 
 way. 
 
 Vade, the father of the famous smith Velund, was the 
 son of King Vilkin and a mermaid whom he met in a 
 wood on the sea-shore in Russia.* In the Saga of Half 
 and his knights is an account of a merman who was 
 caught and kept a little while on land. He sang the 
 following entreaty to be taken back to his native ele- 
 ment — 
 
 * Vilkina Saga, c. l8. 
 
 1
 
 Melusina. 2)77 
 
 " Cold water to the eyes ! 
 Flesh raw to tlie teeth ! 
 A shroud to the dead ! 
 Flit me back to the sea ! 
 Henceforward never 
 Men in ships sailing ! 
 Draw me to dry land 
 From the depth of the sea ! " * 
 
 In the " Speculum Regale," an Icelandic work of the 
 twelfth century, is the following description of a mer- 
 maid : — 
 
 " A monster is seen also near Greenland, which people 
 call the Margygr. This creature appears like a woman as 
 far down as her waist, with breast and bosom like a 
 woman, long hands, and soft hair, the neck and head in 
 all respects like those of a human being. The hands 
 seem to people to be long, and the fingers not to be 
 parted, but united by a web like that on the feet of water- 
 birds. From the waist downwards, this monster resembles 
 a fish, with scales, tail, and fins. This prodigy is believed 
 to show itself especially before heavy storms. The habit 
 of this creature is to dive frequently and rise again to the 
 surface with fishes in its hands. When sailors see it 
 playing with the fish, or throwing them towards the ship, 
 they fear that they are doomed to lose several of the 
 
 * Halfs Saga ok rekum hans, c. 7.
 
 3/8 Meliisina. 
 
 crew ; but when it casts the fish, or, turning from the 
 vessel, flings them away from her, then the sailors take 
 it as a good omen that they will not suffer loss in the 
 impending storm. This monster has a very horrible face, 
 with broad brow and piercing eyes, a wide mouth, and 
 double chin." * The Landnama, br Icelandic Doomsday 
 book, speaks of a Marmennill, or merman, having been 
 caught off the island of Grimsey ; and the annals of the 
 same country relate the appearance of these beings off 
 the coast in 1305 and in 1329. 
 
 Megasthenes reported that the sea which washed Tap- 
 robane, the modern Ceylon, was inhabited by a creature 
 having the appearance of a woman ; and ^lian improved 
 this account, by stating that there are whales having the 
 form of Satyrs. In 1187, a merman was fished up off the 
 coast of Suffolk. It closely resembled a man, but was not 
 gifted with speech. One day, when it had the opportu- 
 nity to escape, it fled to the sea, plunged in, and was 
 never seen again. Pontoppidan records the appearance 
 of a merman, which was deposed to on oath by the 
 observers. 
 
 " About a mile from the coast of Denmark, near Lands- 
 crona, three sailors, observing something like a dead 
 
 * Quoted in " Iceland, its Scenes and Sagas," p. 349.
 
 Mehisina. 379 
 
 body floating in the water, rowed towards it. When they 
 came within seven or eight fathoms, it still appeared as at 
 first, for it had not stirred ; but at that instant it sank, 
 and came up almost immediately in the same place. 
 Upon this, out of fear, they lay still, and then let the boat 
 float, that they might the better examine the monster, 
 which, by the help of the current, came nearer and nearer 
 to them. He turned his face and stared at them, which 
 gave them a good opportunity of examining him nar- 
 rowly. He stood in the same place for seven or eight 
 minutes, and was seen above the water breast-high. At 
 last they grew apprehensive of some danger, and began 
 to retire ; upon which the monster blew up his cheeks 
 and made a kind of lowing noise, and then dived from 
 their view. In regard to his form, they declare in their 
 afifidavits, which were regularly taken and recorded, that 
 he appeared like an old man, strong limbed, with broad 
 shoulders, but his arms they could not see. His head was 
 small in proportion to his body, and had short, curled 
 black hair, which did not reach below his ears ; his eyes 
 lay deep in his head, and he had a meagre face, with a 
 black beard ; about the body downwards, this merman 
 was quite pointed like a fish." * 
 
 * Pontoppidan's Nat. Hist, of Norway, p. 154.
 
 380 > Melusina. 
 
 In the year 1430, after a violent tempest, which broke 
 down the dykes in Holland and flooded the low lands, 
 some girls of the town of Edam in West Friesland, going 
 in a boat to milk their cows, observed a mermaid in shal- 
 low water and embarrassed in the mud. 
 
 They took it into their boat and brought it into Edam, 
 dressed it in female attire, and taught it to spin. It fed 
 with them, but never could be taught to speak. It was 
 afterwards brought to Haerlem, where it lived for several 
 years, though still showing a strong inclination for water. 
 Parival, in his " Delices de HoUande," relates that it was 
 instructed in its duty to God, and that it made reverences 
 before a crucifix. Old Hudson, the navigator, in his dry 
 and ponderous narrative, records the following incident, 
 when trying to force a passage to the pole near Nova 
 Zembla, lat. 75°, on the 15th June. "This morning, one 
 of our company looking overboard saw a mermaid ; and 
 calling up some of the company to see her, one more 
 came up, and by that time she was come close to the 
 ship's side, looking earnestly at the men. A little after, a 
 sea came and overturned her. From the navel upward, 
 her back and breasts were like a woman's, as they say that 
 saw her; her body as big as one of us, her skin very 
 white, and long hair hanging down behind, of color black.
 
 Melusina. 381 
 
 In her going down they saw her tail, which was like the 
 tail of a porpoise, speckled like a mackerel. Their names 
 that saw her were Thomas Hilles and Robert Rayner." 
 
 In 1560, near the island of Mandar, on the west of 
 Ceylon, some fishermen entrapped in their net seven 
 mermen and mermaids, of which several Jesuits, and 
 Father Henriques, and Bosquez, physician to the Viceroy 
 of Goa, were witnesses. The physician examined them 
 with a great deal of care, and dissected them. He asserts 
 that the internal and external structure resembled that of 
 human beings. We have another account of a merman 
 seen near the great rock Diamon, on the coast of Mar- 
 tinique. The persons who saw it gave a precise descrip- 
 tion of it before a notary; they affirmed that they saw 
 it wipe its hands over its face, and even heard it blow its 
 nose. Another creature of the same species was captured 
 in the Baltic in 1531, and sent as a present to Sigismund, 
 King of Poland, with whom it hved three days, and was 
 seen by all the Court. Another was taken near Rocca de 
 Sintra, as related by Damian Goes. The King of Portugal 
 and the Grand-Master of the Order of St. James are said 
 to have had a suit at law, to determine which party the 
 creature belonged to. 
 
 Captain Weddell, well known for his geographical dis-
 
 382 
 
 Melnsina. 
 
 coveries in the extreme south of the globe, relates the 
 following story : " A boat's crew were employed on Hall's 
 Island, when one of the crew, left to take care of some 
 produce, saw an animal whose voice was even musi- 
 cal. The sailor had lain down, and about ten o'clock he 
 heard a noise resembling human cries ; and as daylight in 
 these latitudes never disappears at this season, he rose and 
 looked around, but, on seeing no person, returned to bed. 
 Presently he heard the noise again, rose a second time, 
 but still saw nothing. Conceiving, however, the possi- 
 bility of a boat being upset, and that some of the crew 
 might be clinging to some detached rocks, he walked 
 along the beach a few steps, and heard the noise more 
 distinctly, but in a musical strain. Upon searching round, 
 he saw an object lying on a rock a dozen yards from the 
 shore, at which he was somewhat frightened. The face 
 and shoulders appeared of human form, and of a reddish 
 color ; over the shoulders hung long green hair ; the tail 
 resembled that of the seal, but the extremities of the arms 
 he could not see distinctly. The creature continued to 
 make a musical noise while he gazed about two minutes, 
 and on perceiving him it disappeared in an instant. Im- 
 mediately when the man saw his officer, he told this wild 
 tale, and to add weight to his testimony (being a Roman-
 
 Mchisina. 383 
 
 ist) he made a cross on the sand, which he kissed, as 
 making oath to the truth of his statement. When I saw 
 him, he told the story in so clear and positive a manner, 
 making oath to its truth, that I concluded he must really 
 have seen the animal he described, or that it must have 
 been the effect of a disturbed imagination." * 
 
 In a splendidly illustrated work with plates colored by 
 hand, " Poissons, ^crevisses et crabes de diverses cou- 
 leurs et figures extraordinaires, que Ton trouve autour des 
 Isles Moluques," dedicated to King George of England, 
 and published by Louis Renard at Amsterdam, in 171 7, 
 is a curious account of a mermaid. This book was the 
 result of thirty years' labor, in the Indian seas, by Blatazar 
 Coyett, Governor of the Islands of the Province of Am- 
 
 boine and President of the Commissioners in Batavia, 
 and by Adrien Van der Stell, Governor Regent of the 
 
 * Voyage towards the South Pole, p. 143, quoted by Goss : 
 Romance of Nat. Hist., 2nd Series.
 
 384 Melusina. 
 
 Province of Amboine. In the 2nd volume, p. 240, is the 
 picture of a mermaid here reproduced, and the subjoined 
 description : — 
 
 " See-wyf. A monster resembMng a Siren, caught near 
 the island of Born^, or Boeren, in the Department of 
 Amboine. It was 59 inches long, and in proportion as 
 an eel. It lived on land, in a vat full of water, during 
 four days seven hours. From time to time it uttered 
 little cries like those of a mouse. It would not eat, 
 though it was offered small fish, shells, crabs, lobsters, &c. 
 After its death, some excrement was discovered in the vat, 
 like the secretion of a cat." The copy from which I have 
 taken the representation for this work is thus colored : 
 hair, the hue of kelp ; body, olive tint ; webbed olive 
 between the fingers, which have each four joints ; the 
 fringe round the waist orange, with a blue border ; the 
 fins green, face slate-gray; a delicate row of pink hairs 
 runs the length of the tail. 
 
 With such a portrait we may well ask with Tenny- 
 son — 
 
 " Who would be 
 
 A mermaid fair, 
 
 Singing alone, 
 
 Combing her hair 
 
 Under the sea 
 
 In a golden curl, 
 
 With a comb of pearl, 
 
 On a throne .'' "
 
 Mebisina. 385 
 
 The introduction to the book contains additional infor- 
 mation. 
 
 The Avetiissemenf de rEditeiir says : — " M. Baltazar 
 Coyett is the first to whom the great discovery is due. 
 Whilst governor, he encouraged the fishery of these fishes ; 
 and after having had about two hundred painted of those 
 which were brought to his home by the Indians of Am- 
 boine and the neighboring isles, as well as by the Dutch 
 there settled, he formed of them two collections, the 
 , originals of which were brought by his son to M. Scott 
 the Elder, who was then chief advocate, or prime min- 
 ister, of the Company General of the East Indies at 
 Amsterdam. He had them copied exactly. The second 
 volume, less correct indeed in the exactitude of the draw- 
 ings, but very curious on account of the novelties where- 
 with it is filled, and of the remarks accompanying each 
 fish, was taken from the collection of M. Van der Stell, 
 Governor of the Moluccas, by a painter named Gamael 
 Fallours, who brought them to me from the Indies, and 
 of which I have selected about 250. Moreover, to check 
 incredulity in certain persons, I have thought fit to subjoin 
 the following certificates." Among them, the most curious 
 are those relating to the mermaid. 
 
 Letter from Renard, the publisher, to M. Francois 
 '5
 
 386 Mehisina. 
 
 Valentyn, minister of the Gospel at Dort, late superin- 
 tendent of the churches in the colonies, dated Amster- 
 dam, Dec. 17, 1 716. 
 
 " Monsieur, 
 
 " His Majesty the Czar of Muscovy having done me 
 the honor of visiting my house, and having had occasion 
 to show the prince the work on the fishes of the Molucca 
 islands, by the Sieur Fallours, in which, among other draw- 
 ings, is the enclosed plate, representing a monster resem- 
 bling a Siren, which this painter says that he saw alive for 
 four days at Amboine, as you will be pleased to see in the 
 writing with his own hand, which accompanies this pic- 
 ture, and as he believes that M. Van der Stell, the present 
 Governor of Amboine, may have sent it to you, I re- 
 marked that his Majesty the Czar would be much gratified 
 to have this fact substantiated ; wherefore I shall be greatly 
 obliged if you will favor me with a reply. 
 
 " I remain, &c." 
 
 REPLY. 
 
 "Dort, Dec. 18, 17 16. 
 " Monsieur, 
 
 " It is not impossible that, since my departure from the 
 Indies, Fallours may have seen at Amboine the monster
 
 Melusina. 387 
 
 whose picture you had the courtesy to send me, and which 
 I return enclosed ; but up to the present moment I have 
 neither seen nor heard of the original. If I had the 
 creature, I would with all my heart make a present of 
 it to his Majesty the Czar, whose application in the re- 
 search of objects of curiosity deserves the praise of all the 
 world. But, sir, as evidence that there are monsters in 
 nature resembling this Siren, I may say that I know for 
 certain, that in the year 1652 or 1653 a heutenant in the 
 service of the Company saw two of these beings in the 
 gulf, near the village of Hennetelo, near the islands of 
 Ceram and Bcero, in the Department of Amboine. They 
 were swimming side by side, which made him presume 
 that one was male, the other female. Six weeks after they 
 reappeared in the same spot, and were seen by more than 
 fifty persons. These monsters were of a greenish gray 
 color, having precisely the shape of human beings from 
 the head to the waist, with arms and hands, but their 
 bodies tapered away. One was larger than the other; 
 their hair was moderately long. I may add that, on my 
 way back from the Indies, in which I resided thirty years, 
 I saw, on the ist May, 1714, long. 12° 18', and on the 
 Meridian, during clear, calm weather, at the distance of 
 three or four ship-lengths off, a monster, which was
 
 388 Mehisina. 
 
 apparently a sort of marine-man, of a bluish gray (gris 
 de mer). It was raised well above the surface, and 
 seemed to have a sort of fisher's cap of moss on its 
 head. All the ship's company saw it, as well as myself; 
 but although its back was turned towards us, the monster 
 seemed conscious that we were approaching too near, and 
 it dived suddenly under water, and we saw it no more. 
 
 " I am, &c., 
 
 "F. Valentyn," 
 
 Letter from M. Parent, Pastor of the church of Am- 
 sterdam, written and exhibited before the notary Jacob 
 Lansman. 
 
 "Amsterdam, Jidy 15, 1717. 
 " Monsieur, 
 
 " I have seen with mingled pleasure and surprise the 
 illuminated proofs of the beautiful plates which you have 
 had engraved, representing the fishes of Molucca, which 
 were painted from nature by the Sieur Samuel Fallours, 
 with whom I was acquainted when at Amboine. I own, 
 sir, that I was struck with astonishment at the sight of 
 this work, the engravings of which closely resemble the 
 fishes I have seen during my life, and which, or some of 
 which, I have had the pleasure of eating during the
 
 Melusina. 389 
 
 thirteen years I resided at Amboine, from which I re- 
 turned with the fleet in 1716. . . . Touching your 
 inquiry, whether I ever saw a Siren in that country, I 
 reply that, whilst making the circuit of our churches in 
 the Molucca Isles (which is done twice in the year by the 
 pastors who understand the language of the country) , and 
 navigating in an orambay, or species of galley, between 
 the villages of Holilieuw and Karieuw, distant from one 
 another about two leagues by water, it happened, whilst I 
 was dozing, that the negro rowers uttered a shrill cry of 
 astonishment, which aroused me with a start ; and when I 
 inquired the cause of their outcry, they replied unani- 
 mously that they had seen clearly and distinctly a monster 
 like a Siren, with a face resembling that of a man, and 
 long hair like that of a woman floating down its back ; 
 but at their cry it had replunged into the sea, and all I 
 could see was the agitation of the water where this Siren 
 had disturbed it by diving. 
 
 " I am, sir, &c., 
 
 " Parent." 
 
 One of the most remarkable accounts of a mermaid is 
 that in Dr. Robert Hamilton's " History of the Whales 
 and Seals," in the " Naturalist's Library," he himself 
 vouching for its general truth, from personal knowledge
 
 390 Melusina. 
 
 of some of the parties. " It was reported that a fishing- 
 boat off the island of Yell, one of the Shetland group, had 
 captured a mermaid by its getting entangled in the lines." 
 The statement is, that the animal was about three feet 
 long, the upper part of the body resembling the human, 
 with protuberant mammae, like a woman ; the face, the 
 forehead, and neck were short, and resembling those of a 
 monkey ; the arms, which were small, were kept folded 
 across the breast ; the fingers were distinct, not webbed ; 
 a few stiff, long bristles were on the top of the head, ex- 
 tending down to the shoulders, and these it could erect 
 and depress at pleasure, something like a crest. The 
 inferior part of the body was like a fish. The skin was 
 smooth, and of a gray color. It offered no resistance, 
 nor attempted to bite, but uttered a low, plaintive sound. 
 The crew, six in number, took it within their boat ; but 
 superstition getting the better of curiosity, they carefully 
 disentangled it from the lines and from a hook which had 
 accidentally fastened in its body, and returned it to its 
 native element. It instantly dived, descending in a per- 
 pendicular direction. 
 
 "After writing the above (we are informed), the nar- 
 rator had an interview with the skipper of the boat and 
 one of the crew, from whom he learned the following
 
 Melusina, 391 
 
 additional particulars. They had the animal for three 
 hours within the boat ; the body was without scales or 
 hair, was of a silver-gray color above and white below, 
 like the human skin ; no gills were observed, nor fins on 
 the back or belly ; the tail was like that of the dog-fish ; 
 the mammae were about as large as those of a woman \ 
 the mouth and lips were very distinct, and resembled the 
 human. This communication was from Mr. Edmonton, a 
 well-known and intelligent observer, to the distinguished 
 professor of natural history in the Edinburgh University ; 
 and Mr. E. adds a few reflections, which are so pertinent 
 that we shall avail ourselves of them. That a very peculiar 
 animal has been taken, no one can doubt. It was seen 
 and handled by six men on one occasion and for some 
 time, not one of whom dreams of a doubt of its being a 
 mermaid. If it were supposed that their fears magnified 
 its supposed resemblance to the human form, it must at 
 all events be admitted that there was some ground for ex- 
 citing these fears. But no such fears wei;e likely to be 
 entertained ; for the mermaid is not an object of terror to 
 the fisherman : it is rather a welcome guest, and danger 
 is to be apprehended only from its experiencing bad treat- 
 ment. The usual resources of scepticism, that the seals 
 and other sea-animals, appearing under certain circum-
 
 392 Melusina. 
 
 stances, operating on an excited imagination, and so pro- 
 ducing ocular illusion, cannot avail here. It is quite 
 impossible that, under the circumstances, six Shetland 
 fishermen could commit such a mistake." 
 
 One of these creatures was found in the belly of a 
 shark, on the north-west coast of Iceland, and is thus 
 described by Wernhard Guthmund's son, priest of Ottrar- 
 dale : — 
 
 " The lower part of the animal was entirely eaten away, 
 whilst the upper part, from the epigastric and hypogastric 
 region, was in some places partially eaten, in others com- 
 pletely devoured. The sternum, or breast-bone, was per- 
 fect. This animal appeared to be about the size of a boy 
 eight or nine years old, and its head was formed like that 
 of a man. The anterior surface of the occiput was very 
 protuberant, and the nape of the neck had a considerable 
 indentation or sinking. The alae of the ears were very 
 large, and extended a good way back. It had front teeth, 
 which were long and pointed, as were also the larger 
 teeth. The eyes were lustreless, and resembled those of 
 a codfish. It had on its head long black, coarse hair, 
 very similar to the fiicus filifonnis ; this hair hung over 
 the shoulders. Its forehead was large and round. The 
 skin above the eyelids was much wrinkled, scanty, and of
 
 Melusina. 393 
 
 a bright olive color, which was indeed the hue of the 
 whole body. The chin was cloven, the shoulders were 
 high, and the neck uncommonly short. The arms were 
 of their natural size, and each hand had a thumb and four 
 fingers covered with flesh. Its breast was formed exactly 
 like that of a man, and there was also to be seen some- 
 thing like nipples ; the back was also like that of a man. 
 It had very cartilaginous ribs ; and in parts where the skin 
 had been rubbed off, a black, coarse flesh was perceptible, 
 very similar to that of the seal. This animal, after having 
 been exposed about a week on the shore, was again 
 thrown into the sea." * 
 
 To the manufactured mermaids which come from 
 Japan, and which are exhibited at shows, it is not neces- 
 sary to do more than allude ; they testify to the Japanese 
 conception of a sea-creature resembling the Tritons of 
 ancient Greece, the Syrian On and Derceto, the Scandi- 
 navian Marmennill, and the Mexican Coxcox. 
 
 * Quoted in my " Iceland, its Scenes and Sagas."
 
 ®l)c Jortunate 3s[t3. 
 
 IN my article on the " Terrestrial Paradise " I men- 
 tioned the principal mediaeval fables existing relative 
 to that blessed spot, which was located, according to 
 popular belief, in the remote East of Asia. The Ancients 
 had a floating tradition relative to a vast continent called 
 Atlantis, in the far West, where lay Kronos asleep, guarded 
 by Briareus ; a land of rivers, and woods, and soft airs, 
 occupying in their thoughts the position assumed in 
 Christian belief by the earthly paradise. The Fathers 
 of the Church waged war against this object of popular 
 mythology, for Scripture plainly indicated the position of 
 the garden land as " eastward in Eden " (Gen. ii. 8) ; 
 but, notwithstanding their attempts to drive the western 
 paradise from the minds of men, it held its ground, and 
 was believed in throughout the middle ages, till Christo- 
 pher Columbus sought and found Atlantis and paradise in 
 the new world, a world in which the theories of the
 
 The Fortunate Isles. 395 
 
 Ancients and of the Mediaevals met, for it was truly east 
 of Asia and west of Europe. "The saintly theologians 
 and philosophers were right," are the words of the great 
 admiral in one of his letters, " when they fixed the site of 
 the terrestrial paradise in the extreme Orient, because it 
 is a most temperate clime ; and the lands which I have 
 just discovered are the limits of the Orient ; " an opinion 
 he repeats in his letter of 1498 : " I am convinced that 
 there is the terrestrial paradise," namely that which had 
 been located by Saints Ambrose, Isidore, and the Vener- 
 able Bede in the East.* 
 
 The behef in a western land, or group of islands, was 
 prevalent among the Kelts as well as the Greek and Latin 
 geographers, and was with them an article of religion, 
 upon which were founded superstitious practices, which 
 perpetuated themselves after the introduction of Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 This belief in a western land probably arose from the 
 discovery of objects, unfamiliar and foreign, washed up 
 on the European shores. In the life of Columbus, Martin 
 Vincent, pilot of the King of Portugal, picked up oflF 
 Cape St. Vincent a piece of carved wood ; and a similar 
 fragment was washed ashore on the Island of Madeira, 
 
 * Navarrette, Coll. de Documents, i. p. 244.
 
 396 The Fortunate Isles. 
 
 and found by Pedro Correa, brother-in-law of the great 
 navigator. The inhabitants of the Azores said that when 
 the wind blew from the West, there were brought ashore 
 great bamboos and pines of a description wholly unknown 
 to them. On the sands of the Island of Flores were 
 found one day the bodies of two men with large faces, 
 and witli features very different from those of Europeans. 
 On another occasion, two canoes were driven on the coast 
 filled with strange men.* In 1682, a Greenland canoe 
 appeared off the Isle of Eda in the Orkneys, and in the 
 church of Burra was long preserved an Esquimaux boat 
 which had been washed ashore. f On the stormy coast 
 of the Hebrides are often found nuts, which are made 
 by the fishermen into snuff-boxes or worn as amulets. 
 Martin, who wrote of the Western Isles in 1703, calls 
 them " MoUuka beans." They are seeds of the Mimosa 
 scandens, washed by the gulf-stream across the Atlantic to 
 our shores. Great logs of drift-wood of a strange char- 
 acter are also carried to the same coasts, and are used 
 l)y the islanders in the construction of their hovels. 
 
 In 1508, a French vessel met with a boat full of Ameri- 
 can Indians not far off the English coast, as Bembo tells 
 
 * Herrera, Hist. General, Dec. i. lib. i. cap. 2. 
 
 t Wallace, An Account of the Islands of Orkney, 1700, p. 60.
 
 The Fortunate Isles. 397 
 
 us in his history of Venice.* Other instances have been 
 cited by commentators on the curious fragment of Cor- 
 nelius Nepos, which gave rise in the middle ages to a 
 discussion of the possibility of forcing a north-west pas- 
 sage to India. Humboldt, in his remarks on this passage, 
 says : " Pomponius Mela, who lived at a period sufficiently 
 near that of Cornelius Nepos, relates, and Pliny repeats 
 it, that Metellus Celer, whilst Proconsul of Gaul, received 
 as a gift from a king of the Boil or Boeti (the name is 
 somewhat uncertain, and Pliny calls him a king of the 
 Suevi) some Indians who, driven by the tempests from 
 the Indian seas, landed on the coasts of Gemiany. It is 
 of no importance discussing here whether Metellus Celer 
 is the same as the Prsetor of Rome in the year of the 
 consulship of Cicero, and afterwards consul conjoindy 
 with L. Africanus ; or whether the German king was 
 Ariovistus, conquered by Julius Csesar. What is certain 
 is, that from the chain of ideas which lead Mela to cite 
 this fact as indisputable, one may conclude that in his 
 time it was believed in Rome that these swarthy men sent 
 from Germany into Gaul had come across the ocean 
 which bathes the East and North of Asia." f 
 
 * Bembo, Hist. Ven. vii. p. 257. 
 
 t Humboldt, Essai sur I'Hist. de la Geographic du N. Conti- 
 nent, ii. p. 264, note 2.
 
 398 The Fortunate Isles. 
 
 The canoes, bodies, timber, and nuts, washed up on 
 the western coasts of Europe, may have originated the 
 belief in there being a land beyond the setting sun ; and 
 this country, when once supposed to exist, was variously 
 designated as Meropis, the continent of Kxonos, Ogygia, 
 Atlantis, the Fortunate Isles, or the Garden of the Hes- 
 perides. Strabo says distinctly that the only hindrance in 
 the way of passing west from Iberia to India is the vast- 
 ness of the Atlantic ocean, but that " in the same temper- 
 ate zone as we inhabit, and especially about the parallel 
 passing through Thinse and traversing the Atlantic, there 
 may exist two inhabited countries, and perhaps even more 
 than two." * A more distinct prophecy of America than 
 the vague expressions of Seneca — " Finitam cuique rei 
 magnitudinem natura dederat, dedit et modum : nihil 
 infinitum est nisi Oceanus. Fertiles in Oceano jacere 
 terras, ultraque Oceanum rursus alia littora, alium nasci 
 orbem, nee usquam naturam rerum desinere, sed semper 
 inde ubi desiisse videatur, novam exsurgere, facile ista 
 finguntur, quia Oceanus navigari non potest " (Suasoria I.). 
 Aristotle accepted the notion of there being a new con- 
 tinent in the West, and described it, from the accounts 
 of the Carthaginians, as a land opposite the Pillars of 
 
 * Strabo, Geog. lib. i.
 
 The Fortunate Isles. 399 
 
 Hercules (Str. of Gibraltar), fertile, well-watered, and 
 covered with forests.* Diodorus gives the Phoenicians 
 the credit of having discovered it, and adds that there 
 are lofty mountains in that country, and that the tempera- 
 ture is not subject to violent changes.f He however tries 
 to distinguish between it and the Elysium of Homer, the 
 Fortunate Isles of Pindar, and the Garden of the Hes- 
 perides. The Carthaginians began to found colonies 
 there, but were forbidden by law, as it was feared that 
 the old mother settlement would be deserted for the new 
 and more attractive country. Plutarch locates Homer's 
 Island of Ogygia five days' sail to the west of Brittia, and 
 he adds, the great continent, or terra firma, is five thou- 
 sand stadia from Ogygia. It stretches far away towards 
 the north, and the people inhabiting this great land regard 
 the old world as a small island. This is an observation 
 made also by Theopompus, in his geographical myth of 
 Meropis.| 
 
 The ancient theories of Atlantis shall detain us no 
 longer, as they have been carefully and exhaustively 
 treated by Humboldt in the already quoted work on the 
 geography of the New World. We shall therefore pass 
 
 * Aristot. De Mirab. Aucult. c. 84. 
 
 t Diod. Hist., ed. Wessel, torn. i. p. 244. 
 
 X yElian, Var. Hist. iii. 18.
 
 400 TJic Fortunate Isles. 
 
 to the Kelts, and learn the position occupied by America 
 in their mythology. 
 
 Brittia, says Procopius, lies 200 stadia from the coast 
 between Britannia and Thule, opposite the mouth of the 
 Rhine, and is inhabited by Angles, Frisians, and Britons.* 
 By Britannia he means the present Brittany, and Brittia 
 is England. Tzetze relates that on the ocean coast, 
 opposite Britannia, live fishermen subject to the Franks, 
 but freed from paying tribute, on account of their occu- 
 pation, which consists in rowing souls across to the oppo- 
 site coast. t Procopius tells the same story, and Sir Walter 
 Scott gives it from him in his " Count Robert of Paris." 
 "I have read," says Agelastes, "in that brilliant mirror 
 which reflects the times of our fathers, the volumes of the 
 learned Procopius, that beyond Gaul, and nearly opposite 
 to it, but separated by an arm of the sea, lies a ghastly 
 region, on which clouds and tempests for ever rest, and 
 which is known to its continental neighbors as the abode 
 to which departed spirits are sent after this life. On one 
 side of the strait dwell a few fishermen, men possessed 
 of a strange character, and enjoying singular privileges in 
 consideration of thus being the living ferrymen who, per- 
 forming the office of the heathen Charon, carry the spirits 
 
 * De Bello Gothico, lib. iv. 20. t Ad Lycophr. v. 1200.
 
 The Fortunate Isles. 40 1 
 
 of the departed to the island which is their residence after 
 death. At the dead of the night these fishermen are in 
 rotation summoned to perform the duty by which they 
 seem to hold permission to reside on this strange coast. 
 A knock is heard at the door of his cottage, who holds 
 the turn of this singular office, founded by no mortal 
 hand ; a whispering, as of a decaying breeze, summons 
 the ferryman to his duty. He hastens to his bark on the 
 sea-shore, and has no sooner launched it, than he per- 
 ceives its hull sink sensibly in the water, so as to express 
 the weight of the dead with whom it is filled. No form 
 is seen ; and though voices are heard, yet the accents are 
 undistinguishable, as of one who speaks in his sleep." 
 According to Villemarque, the place whence the boat put 
 off with its ghostly freight was near Raz, a headland near 
 the Bay of Souls, in the extreme west of Finisterre. The 
 bare, desolate valleys of this cape, opposite the Island of 
 Seint, with its tarn of Kleden, around which dance nightly 
 the skeletons of drowned mariners, the abyss of Plogofif, 
 and the wild moors studded with Druid monuments, make 
 it a scene most suitable for the assembly of the souls 
 previous to their ghastly voyage. Here too, in Yawdet, 
 the ruins of an ancient town near Llannion, has been 
 identified the 'YaSerot of Strabo. 
 
 26
 
 402 The Fortunate Isles. 
 
 " On the great island of Brittia," continues Procopius, 
 " the men of olden time built a great wall cutting off a 
 great portion of the land. East of this wall, there was a 
 good climate and abundant crops, but west of it, on the 
 contrary, it was such that no man could live there an 
 hour ; it was the haunt of myriads of serpents and other 
 reptiles, and if any one crossed the wall, he died at once, 
 poisoned by the noxious exhalations." This belief, which 
 acted as a second wall to the realm of the dead, preserved 
 strict privacy for the spirits. Procopius declares that 
 this tradition was widely spread, and that it was reported 
 to him by many people. 
 
 Claudian also heard of the same myth, but confused 
 it with that of the nether world of Odysseus. "At the 
 extreme coast of Gaul is a spot protected from the tides 
 of Ocean, where Odysseus by bloodshed allured forth the 
 silent folk. There are heard wailing cries, and the light 
 fluttering around of the shadows. And the natives there 
 see pale, statue-like figures and dead corpses wander- 
 ing." * According to Philemon in Pliny, the Cimbri 
 called the Northern Ocean Morimarusa, i.e. mare mor- 
 tuum, the sea of the dead. 
 
 In the old romance of Lancelot du Lac, the Demoiselle 
 
 * In Rufin, i. 123-133.
 
 The Fortunate Isles. 403 
 
 d'Escalot directed that after death her body should be 
 placed richly adorned in a boat, and allowed to float away 
 before the wind ; a trace of the ancient belief in the 
 passage over sea to the soul-land. 
 
 " There take the little bed on which I died 
 For Lancelot's love, and deck it like the Queen's 
 For richness, and me also like the Queen 
 In all I have of rich, and lay me on it. 
 And let there be prepared a chariot-bier 
 To take me to the river, and a barge 
 Be ready on the river, clothed in black." 
 
 Tennyson's Elaine. 
 
 And the grave-digger in Hamlet sings of being at death 
 
 "... shipp'd intill the land, 
 As if I had never been such." 
 
 Act V. Sc. I. 
 
 When King Arthur was about to die, with a mortal 
 wound in the head, he was brought by good Sir Bedivere 
 to the water's side. 
 
 " And when they were at the water's side, even fast by 
 the banke, hoved a little barge with many faire ladies in 
 it, and among them all was a queene, and all they had 
 blacke hoods, and they wept and shriked when they saw 
 King Arthur. ' Now put mee into the barge,' said the 
 king ; and so hee did softly ; and there received him 
 three queenes with great mourning, and so these three
 
 404 The Fortunate Isles. 
 
 queenes set them downe, and in one of their laps King 
 Arthur laide his head. And then that queene said, ' Ah ! 
 deer brother, why have ye tarried so long from me? 
 Alas ! this wound on your head hath taken over much 
 cold.' And so then they rowed from the land, and Sir 
 Bedivere cried, ' Ah ! my lord Arthur, what shall become 
 of mee now ye goe from me, and leave me here alone 
 among mine enemies?' 'Comfort thy selfe,' said King 
 Arthur, ' and do as well as thou maiest, for in mee is no 
 trust for to trust in ; for I wil into the vale of Avilion for to 
 heale me of my gi-eivous wound ; and if thou never heere 
 more of mee, pray for my soule.' But evermore the 
 queenes and the ladies wept and shriked that it was pity 
 for to heare them. And as soone as Sir Bedivere had lost 
 the sight of the barge, he wept and wailed, and so tooke 
 the forrcst." * 
 
 This fair Avalon — 
 
 " Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, 
 Nor ever wind blows loudly ; but — lies 
 Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns 
 And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea," 
 
 is the Isle of the Blessed of the Kelts. Tzetze and Pro- 
 copius attempt to localize it, and suppose that the Land 
 
 * La Mort d'Arthure, by Sir Thomas Malory, ed. Wright, 
 vol. iii. c. 168.
 
 TJie Fortunate Isles. 405 
 
 of Souls is Britain ; but in this they are mistaken ; as also 
 are those who think to find Avalon at Glastonbury. Ava- 
 lon is the Isle of Apples — a name reminding one of the 
 Garden of the Hesperides in the far western seas, with its 
 tree of golden apples in the midst. When we are told 
 that in the remote Ogygia sleeps Kronos gently, watched 
 by Briareus, till the time comes for his awaking, we have 
 a Graecized form of the myth of Arthur in Avalon being 
 cured of his grievous wound. It need hardly be said that 
 the Arthur of romance is actually a demi-god, believed in 
 long before the birth of the historic Arthur. This Ogygia, 
 says Plutarch, lies due west, beneath the setting sun. 
 According to an ancient poem published by M, Ville- 
 marqu^, it is a place of enchanting beauty. There youths 
 and maidens dance hand in hand on the dewy grass, 
 green trees are laden with apples, and behind the woods 
 the golden sun dips and rises. A murmuring rill flows 
 from a spring in the midst of the island, and thence drink 
 the spirits and obtain life with the draught. Joy, song, 
 and minstrelsy reign in that blessed region.* There all 
 is plenty, and the golden age ever lasts ; cows give their 
 milk in such abundance that they fill large ponds at a 
 milking, t There, too, is a palace all of glass, floating in 
 
 * Villemarque, Barz. Breiz, i. 193. 
 t Mem. de I'Acad. Celtique, v. p. 202.
 
 406 The Fortunate Isles. 
 
 air, and receiving within its transparent walls the souls of 
 the blessed : it is to this house of glass that Merddin 
 Emrys and his nine bards voyage.* To this alludes 
 Taliesin in his poem, " The Booty of the Deep," where 
 he says, that the valor of Arthur is not retained in the 
 glass enclosure. Into this mansion three classes of men 
 obtain no admission — the tailors, of whom it takes 
 nine to make a man, spending their days sitting, and 
 whose hands, though they labor, are white ; the warlocks, 
 and the usurers, f 
 
 In popular opinion, this distant isle was far more beau- 
 tiful than paradise, and the rumors of its splendor so ex- 
 cited the mind of the medisevals, that the western land 
 became the subject of satyre and jest. It was nicknamed 
 Cocaigne or Schlaraffenland. 
 
 An English poem, "apparently written in the latter 
 part of the thirteenth century," says Mr. Wright (St. 
 Patrick's Purgatory), "which was printed very in- 
 accurately by Hickes, from a manuscript which is now 
 in the British Museum," describes Cocaigne as far away 
 out to sea, west of Spain. Slightly modernized it runs 
 thus : — 
 
 * Davies, Mythology of the Druids, p. 522. 
 t Barz. Breiz, ii. 99.
 
 The Fortunate Isles. 407 
 
 " Though Paradise be merry and bright, 
 Cokaygne is of fairer sight ; 
 What is there in Paradise ? 
 Both grass and flower and green ris (boughs). 
 Though there be joy and great dute (pleasure), 
 There is not meat, but fruit. 
 There is not hall, bower, nor bench. 
 But water man's thirst to quench." 
 
 In Paradise are only two men, Enoch and Elias ; but 
 Cocaigne is full of happy men and women. There is no 
 land like it under heaven ; it is there always day and 
 never night ; there quarrelling and strife are unknown ; 
 there no people die ; there falls neither hail, rain, or snow, 
 neither is thunder heard there, nor blustering winds — 
 
 " There is a well fair abbaye 
 Of white monks and of grey ; 
 There both bowers and halls, 
 All of pasties be the walls, 
 Of flesh, and fish, and rich meat. 
 The like fullest that men may eat. 
 Floweren cakes be the shingles all. 
 Of church, cloister, bower, and hall. 
 The pins be fat pudings, 
 Rich meat to princes and kings." 
 
 The cloister is built of gems and spices, and all about 
 are birds merrily singing, ready roasted flying into the 
 hungry mouths ; and there are buttered larks and " garlek 
 gret plenty."
 
 408 The Foj'tnnate Isles. 
 
 A French poem on this land describes it as a true 
 cookery-land, as its nickname implies. All down the 
 streets go roasted geese turning themselves ; there is a 
 river of wine ; the ladies are all fair ; every month one 
 has new clothes. There bubbles up the fountain of 
 perpetual youth, which will restore to bloom and vigor 
 all who bathe in it, be they ever so old and ugly. 
 
 However much the burlesque poets of the Middle 
 Ages might laugh at this mysterious western region of 
 blissful souls, it held its own in the belief of the people. 
 Curiously enough, the same confusion between Britain 
 and Avalon, which was made by Procopius, is still made 
 by the German peasantry, who have their Engel-land 
 which, through a similarity of name, they indentify with 
 England, to which they say, the souls of the dead are 
 transported. In this land, according to Teutonic myth- 
 ology, which in this point resembles the Keltic, is a glass 
 mountain. In like manner the Slaves believe in a para- 
 dise for souls wherein is a large apple -orchard, in the 
 midst of which rises a glass rock crowned with a golden 
 palace ; and in olden times they buried bear's claws 
 with the dead, to assist him in climbing the crystal 
 mountain.* 
 
 * Mannhardt, Germanische Mythen, 330 et seq.
 
 The Fortunate Isles. 409 
 
 The mysterious Western Land, in Irish, is called 
 Thierna na oge, or the Country of Youth ; and it is 
 identified with a city of palaces and minsters sunk be- 
 neath the Atlantic, or at the bottom of lakes. 
 
 " The ancient Greek authors," says M. de Latocnaye 
 in his pleasant tour through Ireland, quoted by Crofton 
 Croker, " and Plato in particular, have recorded a tradi- 
 tion of an ancient world. They pretend that an immense 
 island, or rather a vast continent, has been swallowed up 
 by the sea to the west of Europe. It is more than prob- 
 able that the inhabitants of Connemara have never heard 
 of Plato or of the Greeks ; nevertheless they have also 
 their ancient tradition. ' Our land will reappear some 
 day,' say the old men to the young folk, as they lead them 
 on a certain day of the year to a mountain-top, and point 
 out over the sea to them ; the fishers also on their coasts 
 pretend that they see towns and villages at the bottom of 
 the water. The descriptions which they give of this 
 imaginary country are as emphatic and exaggerated as 
 those of the promised land : milk flows in some of the 
 rivulets, others gush with wine ; undoubtedly there are 
 also streams of whisky and porter." * 
 
 * Crofton Croker, Fairy Legends of the South of Ireland. 1862, 
 p. 165. See also Kennedy, Popular Fictions of the Irish Celts. 
 London, 1867.
 
 4IO The Forttmate Isles. 
 
 The subject of cities beneath the water, which appear 
 above the waves at dawn on Easter-day, or which can be 
 seen by moonHght in the still depths of a lake, is too ex- 
 tensive to be considered here, opening up as it does 
 questions of mythology which, to be fully discussed, 
 would demand a separate paper. Each myth of an- 
 tiquity touches other myths with either hand, and it is 
 difficult to isolate one for consideration without being 
 drawn into the discussion of other articles of belief on 
 which it leans, and to which it is united. As in the 
 sacred symbol of the Church each member predicates 
 that which is to follow, and is a logical consequence of 
 that which goes before, so that the excision of one article 
 would destroy the completeness, and dissolve the unity 
 of the faith — so, with the sacred beliefs of antiquity, one 
 myth is linked to another, and cannot be detached with- 
 out breaking into and destroying the harmony of the 
 charmed circle. 
 
 But to confine ourselves to two points — the phantom 
 western land, and the passage to it. 
 
 " Those who have read the history of the Canaries," 
 writes Washington Irving, " may remember the wonders 
 told of this enigmatical island. Occasionally it would 
 be visible from their shores, stretching away in the
 
 The Fortunate Isles. 411 
 
 clear bright west, to all appearance substantial like 
 themselves, and still more beautiful. Expeditions 
 would launch forth from the Canaries to explore this 
 land of promise. For a time its sun-gilt peaks and long 
 shadowy promontories would remain distinctly visible; 
 but in proportion as the voyagers approached, peak and 
 promontory would gradually fade away, until nothing 
 would remain but blue sky above and deep blue water 
 below. 
 
 " Hence this mysterious isle was stigmatized by 
 ancient cosmographers with the name of Aprositus, or 
 the inaccessible. " * The natives of the Canaries relate 
 of this island, which they name after St. Brandan, the 
 following tale. In the early part of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury, there arrived in Lisbon an old bewildered pilot of 
 the seas, who had been driven by the tempests he 
 knew not whither, and raved about an island in the far 
 deep, upon which he had landed, and which he had 
 found peopled v.-ith Christians and adorned with noble 
 cities. The inhabitants told him they were descendants 
 of a band of Christians who fled from Spain, when that 
 country was conquered by the Moslems. They were 
 
 * Washington Irving, Chronicles of Wolfert's Roost, and other 
 Papers. Edinburgh, 1855, p. 312.
 
 412 TJie Fortunate Isles. 
 
 curious about the state of their fatherland, and grieved 
 to hear that the Moslem still held possession of the 
 kingdom of Granada. The old man, on his return to 
 his ship, was caught by a tempest, whirled out once 
 more to sea, and saw no more of the unknown island. 
 This strange story caused no little excitement in Portu- 
 gal and Spain. Those well versed in history remem- 
 bered to have read that in the time of the conquest of 
 Spain, in the eighth century, seven bishops, at the head 
 of seven bands of exiles, had fled across the great 
 ocean to some distant shores, where they might found 
 seven Christian cities, and enjoy their faith unmolested. 
 The fate of these wanderers had hitherto remained a 
 mystery, and their story had faded from memory ; but 
 the report of the old pilot revived the long-forgotten 
 theme, and it was determined, by the pious and enthusi- 
 astic, that this island thus accidentally discovered was 
 the identical place of refuge, whither the wandering 
 bishops had been guided with their flock by the hand of 
 Providence. No one, however, entered into the matter 
 with half the zeal of Don Fernando de Alma, a young 
 cavalier of high standing in the Portuguese court, and of 
 the meek, sanguine, and romantic temperament. The 
 Island of the Seven Cities became now the constant
 
 The Fortunate Isles. 413 
 
 subject of his thoughts by day and of his dreams by 
 night ; and he determined to fit out an expedition, and 
 set sail in quest of the sainted island. Don loacos II. 
 furnished him with a commission, constituting him Ada- 
 lantado, or governor, of any country he might discover, 
 with the single proviso, that he should bear all the ex- 
 penses of the discovery, and pay a tenth of the profits 
 to the crown. With two vessels he put out to sea and 
 steered for the Canaries — in those days the regions of 
 nautical discovery and romance, and the outposts of the 
 known world ; for as yet Columbus had not crossed the 
 ocean. Scarce had they reached those latitudes, than 
 they were separated by a violent tempest. For many 
 days the caravel of Don Fernando was driven about at 
 the mercy of the elements, and the crew were in despair. 
 All at once the storm subsided, the ocean sank into a 
 calm, the clouds which had veiled the face of heaven 
 were suddenly withdrawn, and the tempest-tossed mari- 
 ners beheld a fair and mountainous island, emerging, as 
 if by enchantment, from the murky gloom. The caravel 
 now lay perfectly becalmed off the mouth of a river, on 
 the banks of which, about a league off, was descried a 
 noble city, with lofty walls and towers, and a'protecting 
 castle. After a time, a stately barge with sixteen oars
 
 414 TJie Fortunate Isles. 
 
 was seen emerging from the river and approaching the 
 vessel. Under a silken canopy in the stern sat a richly- 
 clad cavalier, and over his head was a banner bearing 
 the sacred emblem of the cross. When the barge 
 reached the caravel, the cavalier stepped on board and, 
 in the old Castilian language, welcomed the strangers 
 to the Island of the Seven Cities. Don Fernando could 
 scarce believe that this was not all a dream. He 
 made known his name and the object of his Voyage. 
 The Grand Chamberlain — such was the title of the 
 cavalier from the island — assured him that, as soon as 
 his credentials were presented, he would be acknowl- 
 edged as the Adalantado of the Seven Cities. In the 
 mean time, the day was waning ; the barge was ready to 
 convey him to land, and would assuredly bring him 
 back. Don Fernando leaped into it after the Grand 
 Chamberlain, and was rowed ashore. Every thing 
 there bore the stamp of former ages, as if the world had 
 suddenly rolled back for several centuries ; and no 
 wonder, for the Island of the Seven Cities had been cut 
 off from the rest of the M'orld for several hundred years. 
 .On shore Don Fernando spent an agreeable evening at 
 the court-house, and late at night with reluctance he re- 
 entered the barge to return to his vessel. The barge
 
 The Fortunate Isles. 415 
 
 sallied out to sea, but no caravel was to be seen. The 
 oarsmen rowed on — their monotonous chant had a 
 lulling effect. A drowsy influence crept over Don Fer- 
 nando : objects swam before his eyes, and he lost con- 
 sciousness. On his recovery, he found himself in a 
 strange cabin, surrounded by strangers. Where was he ? 
 On board a Portuguese ship, bound for Lisbon. How 
 had he come there .-* He had been taken senseless 
 from a wreck drifting about the ocean. The vessel 
 arrived in the Tagus, and anchored before the famous 
 capital. Don Fernando sprang joyfully on shore, and 
 hastened to his ancestral mansion. A strange porter 
 opened the door, who knew nothing of him or of his 
 family : no people of the name had inhabited the house 
 for many a year. He sought the house of his betrothed, 
 the Donna Serafina. He beheld her on the balcony ; 
 then he raised his arms towards her with an exclamation 
 of rapture. She cast upon him a look of indignation, 
 and hastily retired. He, rang at the door \ as it was 
 opened by the porter, he rushed past, sought the well- 
 known chamber, and threw himself at the feet of Sera- 
 fina. She started back with affright, and took refuge in 
 the arms of a 5'^outhful cavalier. 
 
 " Wliat mean you, Seiior ? " cried the latter.
 
 4i6 ' The Fortunate Isles. 
 
 " What right have you to ask that question ? " de- 
 manded Don Fernando fiercely. 
 
 " The right of an affianced suitor ! " 
 
 " O Serafina ! is this your fidelity? " cried he in a tone 
 of agony. 
 
 " Serafina ! What mean you by Serafina, Senor ? This 
 lady's name is Maria." 
 
 " What ! " cried Don Fernando ; " is not this Serafina 
 Alvarez, the original of yon portrait which smiles on me 
 from the wall?" 
 
 " Holy Virgin ! " cried the young lady, casting her eyes 
 upon the portrait, " he is talking of my great-grand- 
 mother ! " 
 
 With this Portuguese legend, which has been charm- 
 ingly told by Washington Irving, must be compared the 
 adventures of Porsenna, king of Russia, in the sixth 
 volume of Dodsley's " Poetical Collection." Porsenna 
 was carried off by Zephyr to a distant region, where the 
 scenery was enchanting, the flowers ever in bloom, and 
 creation put on her fairest guise. There he found a 
 princess with whom he spent a few agreeable weeks. 
 Being, however, anxious to return to his kingdom, he 
 took leave of her, saying that after three months' absence 
 his return would be necessary.
 
 The Fortunate Isles. 4 1 7 
 
 " ' Three months ! ' replied the fair, ' three months alone ! 
 
 Know that three hundred years are roli'd away 
 
 Since at my feet my lovely Phoenix lay.' 
 ' Three hundred years ! ' re-echoed back the prince : 
 ' A whole three hundred- years completed since 
 
 I landed here ? ' " 
 
 On his return to Russia, he was overtaken by all- 
 conquering time, and died. A precisely similar legend 
 exists in Ireland. 
 
 In a similar manner Ogier-le-Danois found himself 
 unconscious of the lapse of time in Avalon. He was one 
 day carried by his steed Papillon along a track of light to 
 the mystic Vale of Apples ; there he alighted beside a 
 sparkling fountain, around which waved bushes of fragrant 
 flowering shrubs. By the fountain stood a beautiful 
 maiden, extending to him a golden crown wreathed with 
 blossoms. He put it on his head, and at once forgot the 
 past : his battles, his love of glory, Charlemagne and his 
 preux, died from his memory like a dream. He saw only 
 Morgana, and felt no desire other than to sigh through 
 eternity at her feet. One day the crown slipped from 
 Ogier's head, and fell into the fountain : immediately his 
 memory returned, and the thoughts of his friends and 
 relatives, and military prowess, troubled his peace of mind. 
 He begged* Morgana to permit him to return to earth. 
 
 27
 
 41 8 The Fortunate Isles. 
 
 She consented, and he found that, in the few hours of 
 rapture in Avalon, two hundred years had elapsed. 
 Charlemagne, Roland, and Oliver were no more. Hugh 
 Capet sat on the throne of France, the dynasty of the 
 great Charles having come to an end. Ogier found no 
 rest in France, and he returned to Avalon, nevermore to 
 leave the fay Morgana. 
 
 In the Portuguese legend, the Island of the Seven 
 Cities is unquestionably the land of departed spirits of 
 the ancient Celtiberians-; the properties of the old belief 
 remain : the barge to conduct the spirit to the shore, the 
 gorgeous scenery, and the splendid castle, but the signifi- 
 cance of the myth has been lost, and a story of a Spanish 
 colony having taken refuge in the far western sea has been 
 invented, to account for the Don meeting with those of 
 his own race in the phantom isle. 
 
 That the belief in this region was very strong in Ireland, 
 about the eleventh century, is certain from its adoption 
 into the popular mythology of the Norsemen, under the 
 name of Greater Ireland (Ireland hit Mikla). Till the 
 ruin of the Norse kingdom in the east of Erin, in the great 
 battle of Clontarf (1114), the Norsemen were brought 
 much in contact with the Irish, and by this means 
 adopted Irish names, such as Nial and Cormac, and Irish
 
 The Fortunate Isles. 419 
 
 superstitions as well. The name they gave to the Isle 
 of the Blessed, in the western seas, was either Great Ire- 
 land, because there the Erse tongue was spoken, — it 
 being a colony of the souls of the Kelts, — or Hvitra- 
 mannaland, because there the inhabitants were robed in 
 white. In the mediaeval vision of Owayne the Knight, 
 which is simply a fragment of Keltic mythology in a 
 Christian garb, the paradise is enclosed by a fair wall, 
 '' whyte and brygth as glass," a reminiscence of the glass- 
 palace in Avalon, and the inhabitants of that land — 
 
 " Fayre vestytnentes they hadde on." 
 
 Some of these met him on his first starting on his 
 journey, and there were fifteen in long white garments. 
 
 The followang passages in the Icelandic chronicles refer 
 to this land of mystery and romance. 
 
 " Mar of Holum married Thorkatla, and their son was 
 Ari ; he was storm-cast on the White-man's land, which 
 some call Great Ireland ; this lies in the Western Sea near 
 Vinland the Good (America) : it is called six days' sail 
 due west from Ireland. Ari could never leave it, and 
 there he was baptized. Hrafn, who sailed to Limerick, 
 v/as the first to tell of this ; he had spent a long time in 
 Limerick in Ireland."
 
 420 The Fortwiate Isles. 
 
 This passage is from the Landnamabok, a work of the 
 twelfth century. A turbulent Icelander, named Bjorn of 
 Bradwick, vanished from his home. Years after, a native 
 of the same island, GudUef by name, was trading between 
 Iceland and Dubhn, when, somewhere about the year 
 looo, he was caught by a furious gale from the east, and 
 driven further in the western seas than he had ever visited 
 before. Here he came upon a land well populated, where 
 the people spoke the Irish tongue. The crew were taken 
 before an assembly of the natives, and would probably 
 have been hardly dealt with, had not a tall man ridden 
 up, surrounded by an armed band, to whom all bowed the 
 knee. This man spoke to Gudlief in the Norse tongue, 
 and asked him whence he came. On hearing that he 
 was an Icelander, he made particular inquiries about the 
 residents in the immediate neighborhood of Bradwick, 
 and gave Gudlief a ring and a sword, to be taken to 
 friends at home. Then he bade him return at once to 
 Iceland, and warn his kindred not to seek him in his new 
 home. Gudlief put again to sea, and, arriving safely in 
 Iceland, related his adventures, concluding that the man 
 he had seen was Bjorn of Bradwick.* Another Icelander 
 brought away two children from Vinland, and they related 
 
 * Eyrbyggja Saga, c. 64. Hafnice, 1787, p. 329.
 
 The Fortunate hies. 42 1 
 
 that near their home was a land, where people walked 
 about in flowing white robes, singing processional psalms. 
 Northern antiquarians attempt to identify this White-man's 
 land with Florida, where they suppose was settled the 
 Welsh colony led beyond the sea by Madoc in 11 69. I 
 have little doubt that it is simply an Icelandic reminis- 
 cence of the popular Irish superstition relative to the Soul 
 Island beneath the setting sun. 
 
 " In his crystal ark, 
 Whither sail'd Merlin with his band of bards, 
 Old Merlin, master of the mystic lore ; 
 Belike his crystal ark, instinct with life. 
 Obedient to the mighty Master, reach'd 
 The Land of the Departed ; there, belike. 
 They in the clime of immortality, 
 Themselves immortal, drink the gales of bliss 
 Which o'er Flathinnis breathe eternal spring, 
 Blending whatever odors make the gale 
 Of evening sweet, whatever melody 
 Charms the wood traveller." 
 
 Southey's Madoc, xi. 
 
 This Flath Innis, the Noble Island, is the Gaelic name 
 for the western paradise. Macpherson, in his Introduction 
 to the " History of Great Britain," relates a legend which 
 agrees with those prevalent among other Keltic peoples. 
 In former days there lived in Skerr a Druid of renown. 
 He sat with his face to the west on the shore, his eye
 
 422 TJie Fortunate Isles. 
 
 following the declining sun, and he blamed the careless 
 billows which tumbled between him and the distant Isle 
 of Green. One day, as he sat musing on a rock, a storm 
 arose on the sea ; a cloud, under whose squally skirts the 
 foaming waters tossed, rushed suddenly into the bay, and 
 from its dark womb emerged a boat with white sails bent 
 to the wind, and banks of gleaming oars on either side. 
 But it was destitute of mariners, itself seeming to live and 
 move. An unusual terror seized on the aged Druid ; he 
 heard a voice call, " Arise, and see the Green Isle of those 
 who have passed away ! " Then he entered the vessel. 
 Immediately the wind shifted, the cloud enveloped him, 
 and in the bosom of the vapor he sailed away. Seven 
 days gleamed on him through the mist ; on the eighth, 
 the waves rolled violently, the vessel pitched, and darkness 
 thickened around him, when suddenly he heard a cry, 
 " The Isle ! the Isle ! " The clouds parted before him, 
 the waves abated, the wind died away, and the vessel 
 rushed into dazzling light. Before his eyes lay the Isle of 
 the Departed basking in golden light. Its hills sloped 
 green and tufted with beauteous trees to the shore, the 
 mountain-tops were enveloped in bright and transparent 
 clouds, from which gushed Kmpid streams, which, wander- 
 ing down the steep hill-sides with pleasant harp-like mur-
 
 T]ie Fortunate Isles. 423 
 
 mur, emptied themselves into the twinkling blue bays. 
 The valleys were open and free to the ocean ; trees loaded 
 with leaves, which scarcely waved to the light breeze, were 
 scattered on the green declivities and rising ground ; all 
 was calm and bright ; the pure sun of autumn shone from 
 his blue sky on the fields ; he hastened not to the west for 
 repose, nor was he seen to rise in the east, but hung as a 
 golden lamp, ever illumining the Fortunate Isle. 
 
 There, in radiant halls, dwelt the spirits of the de- 
 parted, ever blooming and beautiful, ever laughing and 
 
 gay. 
 
 It is curious to note how retentive of ancient mytho- 
 logic doctrines relative to death are the memories of the 
 people. This Keltic fable of the " Land beyond the Sea," 
 to which the souls are borne after death, has engrafted 
 itself on popular religion in England. The following 
 hymn is from the collection of the Sunday School Union, 
 and is founded on this venerable Druidic tenet : — 
 
 " Shall we meet beyond the river, 
 Where the surges cease to roll, 
 Where in all the bright For-ever 
 Sorrow ne'er shall press the soul ? 
 
 " Shall we meet in that blest harbor, 
 When our stormy voyage is o'er ? 
 Shall we meet and cast the anchor 
 By the fair celestial shore ?
 
 424 TJie Fortunate Isles. 
 
 " Shall we meet with majiy loved ones, 
 Who were torn from our embrace ? 
 Shall we listen to their voices, 
 And behold them face to face ? " 
 
 So is a hymn from the Countess of Huntingdon's col- 
 lection : — 
 
 " I launch into the deep, 
 
 And leave my native land. 
 
 Where sin lulls all asleep : 
 For thee I fain would all resign, 
 And sail for heav'n with thee and thine. 
 
 " Come, heav'nly wind, and blow 
 A prosp'rous gale of grace. 
 To waft from all below 
 To heav'n, my destined place : 
 There in full sail my port I '11 find, 
 And leave the world and sin behind." 
 
 Or I might quote a poem on " The Last Voyage," from 
 the L}Ta Messianica, which one would have supposed to 
 have been founded on the Gaelic legend told by Mac- 
 pherson : — 
 
 " On ! on ! through the storm and the billow; 
 
 By life's chequer'd troubles opprest. 
 The rude deck my home and my pillow, 
 
 I sail to the land of the Blest. 
 The tempests of darkness confound me, 
 
 Above me the deep waters roll, 
 But the arms of sweet Pity surround me, 
 
 And bear up my foundering soul.
 
 The Fortunate Isles. 425 
 
 " With a wild and mysterious commotion 
 
 The torrent flows, rapid and strong ; 
 Towards a mournful and shadowy ocean 
 
 My vessel bounds fiercely along. 
 Ye waters of gloom and of sorrow, 
 
 How dread are your tumult and roar ! 
 But, on ! for the brilliant to-morrow 
 
 That dawns upon yonder bright shore ! 
 
 " O Pilot, the great and the glorious, 
 
 That sittest in garments so white, 
 O'er death and o'er hell 'The Victorious,' 
 
 The Way and the Truth and the Light, 
 Speak, speak to the darkness appalling. 
 
 And bid the mad turmoil to cease : 
 For, hark ! the good Angels are calling 
 
 My soul to the haven of Peace. 
 
 " Now, ended all sighing and sadness. 
 The waves of destruction all spent, 
 I sing with the children of gladness 
 The song of immortal content." 
 
 It would be a study of no ordinary interest to trace 
 modem popular Protestantism back to the mythologic 
 systems of which it is the resultant. The early Fathers 
 erred in regarding the ancient heresies as bastard forms 
 of Christianity ; they were distinct religions, feebly tinged 
 by contact with the religion of the Cross. In like manner, 
 I am satisfied that we make a mistake in considering the 
 Dissent of England, especially as manifested in greatest 
 intensity in the wilds of Cornwall, Wales, and the eastern
 
 426 The Fortunate Isles. 
 
 moors of Yorkshire, where the Keltic element is strong, ■ 
 as a form of Christianity. It is radically different : its | 
 framework and nerve is of ancient British origin, passing | \\ 
 itself off as a spiritual Christianity. f 
 
 In St. Peter's, Rome, is a statue of Jupiter, deprived 
 of his thunderbolt, which is replaced by the emblematic 
 keys. In like manner, much of the religion of the lower 
 orders, which we regard as essentially Christian, is ancient 
 heathenism, refitted with Christian symbols. The story 
 of Jacob's stratagem is reversed : the voice is the elder 
 brother's voice, but the hands and the raiment are those 
 of the younger. 
 
 I have instanced the belief in angeUc music calling 
 away the soul as one heathen item in popular Protestant 
 mythology — 
 
 " Hark ! they whisper ! Angels say, 
 ' Sister spirit, come away ! ' " 
 
 Another is embodied in the tenet that the souls of the 
 departed become angels. In Judaic and Christian doc- 
 trine, the angel creation is distinct from that of human 
 beings, and a Jew or a Catholic would as little dream of 
 confusing the distinct conception of angel and soul as 
 of believing in metempsychosis. But not so dissenting 
 religion. According to Druidic dogma, the souls of
 
 The Fortunate Isles. 427 
 
 the dead were guardians of the hving ; a behef shared 
 with the ancient Indians, who venerated the spirits of 
 their ancestry, the Pitris, as watching over and protecting 
 them. Thus, the hyinn " I want to be an Angel," so 
 popular in dissenting schools, is founded on the venerable 
 Aryan myth, and therefore of exceeding interest ; but 
 Christian it is not. 
 
 Another tenet wliich militates against Christian doc- 
 trine, and has supplanted it in popular behef, is that of 
 the transmigration of the soul to bliss immediately on its 
 departure from the body. 
 
 The article stajiiis vel cadentis Fidei, of the Apostles, 
 was the resurrection of the body. If we read the Acts of 
 the Apostles and their Epistles with care, it is striking how 
 great weight, we find, is laid on this doctrine. They 
 went everywhere preaching — i. the rising of Christ; 2. 
 the consequent restoration of the bodies of Christians. 
 " If the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised ; and if 
 Christ be not raised, your faith is vain. But now is Christ 
 risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them 
 that slept. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ 
 shall all be made alive." * This was the key-note to the 
 teaching of the x\postles ; it runs through the New Testa- 
 
 * I Cor. XV. 16, 17, 20, 21.
 
 428 The Fortunate Isles. 
 
 ment, and is reflected in the writings of the Fathers. It 
 occupies its legitimate position in the Creeds, and the 
 Church has never failed to insist upon it with no faltering 
 voice. 
 
 But the doctrine of the soul being transported to hea- 
 ven, and of its happiness being completed at death, finds 
 no place in the Bible or the Liturgies of any branch — 
 Greek, Roman, or Anglican — of the Church Catholic. 
 Yet this was the tenet of our Keltic forefathers, and it has 
 maintained itself in English Protestantism, so as to divest 
 the doctrine of the resurrection of the body of its grasp 
 on the popular mind. Among the Kelts, again, reception 
 into the sacred inner circle of the illuminated was pre- 
 cisely analogous to the received dissenting doctrine of 
 conversion. To it are applied, by the bards, teniis such 
 as " the second birth," " the renewal," which are to this 
 day employed by Methodists to designate the mysterious 
 process of conversion. 
 
 But to return to the subject of this article. It is a 
 singular fact that only the other day I heard of a man in 
 Cleveland, being buried two years ago with a candle, a 
 penny, and a bottle of wine in his coffin : the candle to 
 light him along the road, the penny to pay the ferry, and 
 the wine to nourish him, as he went to the New Jerusalem.
 
 The Fortunate Isles. 429 
 
 I was told this, and this explanation was given me, by 
 some rustics who professed to have attended the funeral. 
 This looks to me as though the shipping into the other 
 land were not regarded merely as a figure of speech, but 
 as a reality.
 
 Sl)e Ixnigljt of tlje 0t»an, 
 
 " T "^ TE rede in the auncient and autentike cronicles 
 ' ▼ that sometime ther was a noble king in Lile- 
 fort, otherwise named the strong yle, a muche riche 
 lande, the which kinge had to name Pieron. And he 
 tooke to wife and spouse Matabrunne the doughter of 
 an other king puissaunt and riche mervailously." By his 
 wife Matabrune, the king became father of Oriant, 
 " the which after the dyscease of his father abode with 
 his mother as heir of the realme, whiche he succeded 
 and governed peasiabli without to be maried." 
 
 One day King Oriant chased a hart in the forest, and 
 lost his way ; exhausted with his ride, he drew rein 
 near a fountain which bubbled out from under a mossy 
 rock. 
 
 " And there he sat downe under a tree, to the which 
 he reined his horse the better to solace and sporte him 
 at his owne pleasure. And thus as he was in consola- 
 cion there came to him a yonge damoysel moche gre-
 
 The Knight of the Swan. 43 1 
 
 vous and of noble maintene, named Beatrice, accom- 
 panied of a noble knight, and two squires, with iiii 
 damoyselles, the which she held in her service and 
 famyliarite." 
 
 This Beatrice became the wife of Oriant, much to the 
 chagrin of his mother, who had hitherto held rule in the 
 palace, and who at once hated her daughter-in-law, and 
 determined on her destruction. 
 
 The king had not been married many months before 
 war broke out, and he was called from home to head 
 his army. Before leaving, he consigned his wife to the 
 care of his mother, who promised to guard her with the 
 utmost fidelity. *' Whan the time limited and ordeined 
 of almighti god approched that the noble and goodly 
 quene Beatrice should be delivered after the cours of 
 nature, the false matrone aforsaid went and delibered 
 in herselfe to execute and put in effecte her malignus or 
 moste wicked purpose .... But she comen made 
 maners of great welth to the said noble quene Beatrice. 
 And sodainly in great paine and traivable of bodye, she 
 childed vi sonnes and a faire doughter, at whose birthe 
 eche of them brought a chaine of silver about their 
 neckes issuing out of their mothers wombe. And whan 
 Matabrune saw the vii litle children borne having
 
 432 The Knight of the Stvan. 
 
 echone a chaine of silver at necke, she made them 
 lightli and secretli to be borne a side by her chamberer 
 of her teaching, and than toke vii litle dogges that she 
 had prepared, and all bloudy laide them under the quene 
 in maner as they had issued of her bodye." 
 
 Then Matabrune ordered her squire Marks to take 
 the seven children to the river and drown them ; but 
 the man, moved by compassion, left them in the forest 
 on his cloak, where they were found by a hermit who 
 " toke and lapped them tenderly in his mantel and with 
 al their chaines at their neckes he bare them into the 
 litle hous of his hermitage, and there he warmed and 
 sustened them of his poore goodnes as well as he 
 coulde." Of these children, one excelled the others in 
 beauty. The pious old man baptized the little babes, 
 and called the one who surpassed the others by the 
 name Helias, " And whan that they were in the age of 
 theyr pleasaunt and fresshe grene yougth thei reane all 
 about sporting and playinge in the said forest about the 
 trees and floures." 
 
 One day it fell out that a yeoman of Queen Mata- 
 brune, whilst chasing in the forest, saw the seven chil- 
 dren sitting under a tree eating wild apples, each with a 
 silver chain about his neck. Then he told Matabrune
 
 The Knight of the Swan. 433 
 
 of the marvel he had seen, and she at once concluded 
 that these were her grandchildren ; wherefore she bade 
 the yeoman take seven fellows with him and slay the 
 children. But by the grace of God these men's hearts 
 were softened, and, instead of murdering the little ones, 
 they robbed them of their silver chains. But they only 
 found six children, for the hermit had taken Helias 
 with him on a begging excursion. Now, " as soone as 
 their chaines were of, they were al transmued in an in- 
 staunt in faire white swannes by the divine grace, and 
 began to flee in the ayre through the forest, making a 
 piteous and lamentable crye." 
 
 Helias grew up with his godfather in the forest. The 
 stor)^ goes on to relate how that the hermit was told by 
 an angel in vision whose the children were ; how a 
 false charge was brought against Beatrice, and she was 
 about to be executed, when Helias appeared in the lists, 
 and by his valor proclaimed her innocence ; and how 
 Matabrune's treachery was discovered. 
 
 " But for to returne to the subject of the cronykill of 
 the noble Helias knight of the swanne. It is to be 
 noted that the said Helias knight of the swanne de- 
 manded of Kyng Oriant his father that it wolde please 
 him to give him the chaines of silver of his brethern 
 
 28
 
 434 ^/^^ Knight of the Swan. 
 
 and sister that the goldesmith had brought. The which 
 he delivered him with good herte for to dispose them at 
 his pleasure. Than he made an othe and sware that he 
 wolde never rest tyll he had so longe sought by pondes 
 and stagnes that he had founde his v brethren and his 
 sister, which were transmued into swannes. But our 
 Lorde that consoleth his freendes in exal tinge their 
 good will shewed greatly his vertue. For in the river 
 that ranne about the kinges palays appeared visibly the 
 swannes before all the people. — And incontinent the 
 kynge and the queene descended wyth many lordes, 
 knightes, and gentilmen, and came with great diligence 
 upon the water syde, for to see the above sayde 
 swannes. The king and the queene behelde them pite- 
 ousli in weeping for sorrow that they had to se theyr 
 poore children so transmued into swannes. And whan 
 they saw the good Helias come nere them . they began 
 to make a mervaylous feast and rejoyced them in the 
 water. So he approched upon the brinke : and whan 
 they sawe him nere them, they came lightli fawning and 
 flickering about him making him chere, and he playned 
 lovingly their fethers. After he shewed them the 
 chaynes of silver, whereby they set them in good ordre 
 before him. And to five of them he remised the
 
 The Ktiight of the Swan. 43 5 
 
 chaynes about their neckes, and sodeynlye they began 
 to retourne to theyr propre humayne forme as they were 
 before." But unfortunately the sixth chain had been 
 melted to form a silver goblet, and therefore one of the 
 brothers was unable to regain his human shape. 
 
 Helias spent some time with his father ; but a voice 
 within his breast called him to further adventures. 
 
 "After certayne tyme that the victoryous kynge 
 Helyas had posseded the Realme of Lyleforte in good 
 peace and tranquilite of justice, it happened on a day 
 as he was in his palais looking towarde the river that he 
 apperceived the swanne, one of his brethren that was 
 not yet tourned into his fourme humayne, for that his 
 chaine was molten for to make Matabrune a cup. And 
 the sayd swanne was in* the water before a ship, the 
 which he had led to the wharfe as abiding king Helias. 
 And when Helias saw him, he saide in him«elfe : Here 
 is a signification that God sendeth to me for to shew to 
 me that I ought to go by the guyding of this swanne 
 into some countrey for to have honour and consolacion. 
 
 " And when Helyas had mekelye taken his leave of 
 all his parentes and freendes, he made to bere his ar- 
 mures and armes of honoure into the shyppe, with hys 
 target and his bright sheelde, of whiche as it is written
 
 436 The Knight of the S'wa?i. 
 
 the felde was of sylver, and thereon a double crosse of 
 golde. So descended anon the sayd Helyas with his 
 parentes and freendes, the which came to convey him 
 unto the brinke of the water." 
 
 About this time, Otho, Emperor of Germany, held 
 court at Neumagen, there to decide between Clarissa, 
 Duchess of Bouillon, and the Count of Frankfort, who 
 claimed her duchy. It was decided that their right 
 should be established by single combat. The Count of 
 Frankfort was to appear in person in the lists, whilst 
 the duchess was to provide some doughty warrior who 
 would do battle for her. 
 
 "Than the good lady as al abasshed loked aboute 
 her if there were ony present that in her need wolde 
 helpe her. But none wolde medle seynge the case to 
 her imposed. Wherefore she committed her to God, 
 praying Him humbly to succour her, and reprove the 
 injury that wickedly to her was imposed by the sayd 
 erle." 
 
 The council broke up, and lords and ladies were 
 scattered along the banks of the Meuse. 
 
 " So, as they stray' d, a swan they saw 
 Sail stately up and strong, 
 And by a silver chain she drew 
 A little boat along,
 
 The Knight of the Swan. 437 
 
 Whose streamer to the gentle breeze, 
 
 Long floating, flutter'd light, 
 Beneath whose crimson canopy 
 
 There lay reclined a knight. 
 
 " With arching crest and swelling breast 
 On sail'd the stately swan, 
 And lightly up the parting tide 
 
 The little boat came on. 
 And onward to the shore they drew, 
 
 And leapt to land the knight. 
 And down the stream the little boat 
 Fell soon beyond the sight." 
 
 Southey's Rudiger. 
 
 Of course this knight, who is Helias, fights the Count 
 of Frankfort, overcomes him, and wins the heart of the 
 daughter of the duchess. Thus Helias became Duke of 
 Bouillon. 
 
 But before marr)'ing the lady, he warned her that if 
 she asked his name, he would have to leave her. 
 
 At the end of nine months, the wife of Helias gave 
 birth to a daughter, who was named Ydain at the font, 
 and who afterwards became the mother of Godfrey de 
 Bouillon, King of Jerusalem, and of his brothers Bald- 
 win and Eustace. 
 
 One night the wife forgot the injunction of her hus- 
 band, and began to ask him his name and kindred. 
 Then he rebuked her sorrowfully, and leaving his bed,
 
 438 The Knight of the Stvan. 
 
 bade her farewell. Instantly the swan reappeared on 
 the river, drawing the little shallop after it, and uttering 
 loud cries to call its brother. So Helias stepped into 
 the boat, and the swan swam with it from the sight of 
 the sorrowing lady. 
 
 The romance of Helias * continues the story to the 
 times of Godfrey de Bouillon, but I shall leave it at this 
 point, as it ceases to deal with the myth which is the 
 subject of this article. The story is very ancient and 
 popular. It is told of Lohengrin, Loherangrin, Salvius, 
 and Gerhard the Swan, whilst the lady is Beatrice of 
 Cleves, or Else of Brabant. In the twelfth century it 
 seems to have localized itself about the Lower Rhine. 
 
 Probably the most ancient mention of the fable is 
 that of William of Tyre (1180), who says: "We pass 
 over, intentionally, the fable of the Swan, although 
 many people regard it as a fact, that from it he (God- 
 frey de Bouillon) had his origin, because this story 
 seems destitute of truth." Next to him to speak of the 
 story is Helinandus (circ. 1220), quoted by Vincent de 
 Beauvais : t "In the diocese of Cologne, a famous and 
 vast palace overhangs the Rhine, it is called Juvamen. 
 
 * Helyas, the Knight of the Swanne. From the edition of Cop- 
 land, reprinted in Thorns : " Early English Prose Romances," 
 1858, vol. iii. t Specul. Nat. ii. 127.
 
 The Knight of the Sivan. 439 
 
 Thither when once many princes were assembled, sud- 
 denly there came up a skiff, drawn by a swan attached 
 to it by a silver chain. Then a strange and unknown 
 knight leaped out before all, and the swan returned 
 with the boat. The knight afterwards married, and had 
 children. At length, when dwelling in this palace, he 
 saw the swan return again with the boat and chain : he 
 at once re-entered the vessel, and was never seen again ; 
 but his progeny remain to this day." 
 
 A genealogy of the house of Flanders, in a MS. of 
 the thirteenth century, states : " Eustachius venit ad 
 Buillon ad domum ducissas, quae uxor erat militis, qui 
 vocabatur miles Cigni."* Jacob van Maerlant (b. 
 1235), in his " Spieghel Historiael," f alludes to it — 
 
 " Logenaers niesdaet an doen, 
 Dat si hem willen tien ane, 
 Dat tie ridder metter swane 
 Siere moeder vader was. 
 No wijf no man, als ict vernam 
 Ne was noint swane, daer hi af quam 
 Als ist dat hem Brabanters beroemea 
 Dat si van der Swane sijn coemen." 
 
 And Nicolaes de Klerc, who wrote in 13 18, thus refers 
 ' to it in his "Brabantine Gests:" "Formerly the Dukes 
 
 * Reiffenberg, Le Chevalier au Cygne- Bruxelles, 1846. p. viii. 
 t Maerlant, Fig. i. 29.
 
 440 The KnigJit of the Szvan. 
 
 of Brabant have been much belied in that it is said of 
 them that they came with a swan. "* And Jan Velde- 
 nar (1480) says: "Now, once upon a time, this noble 
 Jungfrau of Cleves was on the banks by Nymwegen, 
 and it was clear weather, and she gazed up the Rhine, 
 and saw a strange sight : for there came sailing down a 
 white swan with a gold chain about its neck, and by 
 this it drew a little skiff . . . ." — and so on. 
 
 There is an Icelandic saga of Helis, the Knight of 
 the Swan, translated from the French by the Monk 
 Robert, in 1226. In the Paris royal library is a ro- 
 mance upon this subject, consisting of about 30,000 lines, 
 begun by a Renax or Renant, and finished by a Gandor 
 de Douay. In the British Museum is a volume of 
 French romances, containing, among others, " L'Ystoire 
 du Chevalier au Signe," told in not less than 3,000 
 
 lines. 
 
 The " Chevelere Assigne," a shorter poem on the 
 
 same subject, was reprinted by M. Utterson for the 
 Roxburghe Club, from a MS. in the Cottonian library, 
 which has been quoted by Percy and Warton as an 
 early specimen of alliterative versification. It is cer- 
 tainly not later than the reign of Henry VI. 
 
 * Von Wyn, Avondstonden, p. 270.
 
 The Knight of the Stvan. 441 
 
 The next prose romance of Helias is that of Pierre 
 Desrey, entitled " Les faictz etgestes du preux Godsffroy 
 de Boulion, aussi plusieurs croniques et histoires;" 
 Paris, without date. " La Genealogie avecques les 
 gestes et nobles faitz darmes du tres preux et renomme 
 prince Godeffroy de Boulion : et de ses chevalereux 
 freres Baudouin et Eustace : j'ssus et descendus de la 
 tres noble et illustre lignee du vertueux Chevalier au 
 Cyne;" Paris, Jean Petit, 1504; also Lyons, 1580. 
 This book was partly translated into English, and 
 printed by Wynkyn de Worde, " The hystory of Hilyas 
 Knight of the Swann, imprjmted by Wynkyn de Worde," 
 &c., 1512 ; and in full by Caxton, under the title, "The 
 last Siege and Conqueste of Jherusalem, with many 
 histories therein comprised J " Westmester, fol. 1480. 
 
 It is from the first thirty-eight chapters of the French 
 " Faits et Gestes," that Robert Copland translated his 
 Helias, which he dedicated " to the puyssant and illus- 
 trious prynce, lorde Edwarde, duke of Buckynghame," 
 because he was lineally descended from the Knight of 
 the Swan. This duke was beheaded. May 17th, 152 1. 
 
 We need hardly follow the story in other translations. 
 
 The romance, as we have it, is a compilation of at 
 least two distinct myths. The one is that of the Swan-
 
 442 T]ie K 7 light of the Swan. 
 
 children, the other of the Swan-knight. The compiler 
 of the romance has pieced the first legend to the second, 
 in order to explain it. In its original form, the knight 
 who came to Neumagen, or Cleves, in the swan-led boat, 
 and went away again, was unaccounted for : who he 
 was, no man knew ; and Heywood, in his " Hierarchies 
 of the Blessed Angels," 1635, suggests that he was one 
 of the evil spirits called inciibi ; but the romancer 
 solved the mystery by prefixing to the story of his mar- 
 riage with the duchess a story of transformation, 
 similar to that of Fionmala, referred to in the previous 
 article. 
 
 We shall put aside the story of the swan-children, and 
 confine our attention to the genuine myth. 
 
 The home of the fable was that border-land where 
 Germans and Kelts met, where the Nibelungen legends 
 were brought in contact with the romances of Arthur 
 and the Sangreah 
 
 Lohengrin belongs to the round table ; the hero who 
 releases Beatrice of Cleves is called Elias Grail. Pig- 
 hius relates that in ancient annals it is recorded that 
 Elias came from the blessed land of the earthly para- 
 dise, which is called Graele.* And the name Helias, 
 * Hercules Prodicus, Colon. 1609.
 
 TJie Knight of the Swan. 443 
 
 Helius, Elis, or Salvius, is but a corruption of tiie Keltic 
 ala, eala, ealadh, a swan. I believe the story of the 
 Knight of the Swan to be a myth of local Brabantine 
 origin. That it is not the invention of the romancer is 
 evident from the variations in the tale, some of which 
 we must now consider. 
 
 I. Lohengrin. 
 
 The Duke of Limburg and Brabant died leaving an 
 only daughter, Else or Elsam. On his death-bed he 
 committed her to the care of Frederick von Telramund, a 
 bra»'e knight, who had overcome a dragon in Sweden. 
 After the duke's death, Frederick claimed the hand of 
 Else, on the plea that it had been promised him ; but 
 when she refused it, he appealed to the emperor, 
 Henry the Fowler, asking permission to assert his right 
 in the lists against any champion Else might select. 
 
 Permission was granted, and the duchess looked in 
 vain for a knight who would fight in her cause against 
 the redoubted Frederick of Telramund. 
 
 Then, far away, in the sacred temple of the Grail, at 
 Montsalvatsch, tolled the bell, untouched by human 
 hands, a signal that help was needed. At once Lohen- 
 grin, son of Percival, was sent to the rescue, but whither 
 to go he knew not. He stood foot in stirrup, ready to
 
 444 "^^^^ Knight of the Swan. 
 
 mount, when a swan appeared on the river drawing a 
 ship along. No sooner did Lohengrin behold this, than 
 he exclaimed : " Take back the horse to its stable ; I 
 will go with the bird whither it shall lead ! " 
 
 Trusting in God, he took no provision on board. 
 After he had been five days on the water, the swan 
 caught a fish, ate half, and gave the other half to the 
 knight. 
 
 In the mean while the day of ordeal approached, and 
 Else fell into despair. But at the hour when the lists 
 were opened, there appeared the boat drawn by the 
 silver swan ; and in the little vessel lay Lohengrin 
 asleep upon his shield. The swan drew the boat to the 
 landing, the knight awoke, sprang ashore, and then the 
 bird swam away with the vessel. 
 
 Lohengrin, as soon as he heard the story of the mis- 
 fortunes of the Duchess Else, undertook to fight for her. 
 The knight of the Grail prevailed, and slew Frederick. 
 Then Else surrendered herself and her duchy to him ; 
 but he would only accept her hand on condition that 
 she should not ask his race. For some time they lived 
 together happily. One day, in a tournament, he over- 
 threw the Duke of Cleves and broke his arm, whereat 
 the Duchess of Cleves exclaimed : " This Lohengrin
 
 The KnigJit of the Swan. ^ 445 
 
 may be a strong man and a Christian, but who knows 
 whence he has sprung ! " These words reached the 
 ears of the Duchess of Brabant ; she colored and hung 
 her head. 
 
 At night, Lohengrin heard her sobbing. He asked ; 
 " My love what ails thee ? " 
 
 She replied : " The Duchess of Cleves has wounded 
 me." 
 
 Lohengrin asked no more. 
 
 Next night she wept again ; her husband again asked 
 the reason, and received the same answer. 
 
 On the third night she burst forth with : " Husband, 
 be not angry, but I must know whence you have 
 sprung." 
 
 Then Lohengrin told her that his father was Percival, 
 and that God had sent him from the custody of the 
 Grail. And he called his children to him, and said, 
 kissing them : " Here are my horn and my sword, keep 
 them carefully ; and here, my wife, is the ring my 
 mother gave me — never part with it." 
 
 Now, at break of day, the swan reappeared on the 
 river, drawing the little shallop. Lohengrin re-entered 
 the boat, and departed never to return. 
 
 Such is the story in the ancient German poem of
 
 446 TJie Kjiight of the Swan. 
 
 Lohengrin, published by Gorres from a MS. in the 
 Vatican ; and in the great Percival of Wolfram von 
 Eschenbach, verses 24,614-24,715. 
 
 2, The swan-knight of Conrad von Wiirzburg re- 
 sembles Lohengrin and Helias in the outline of the 
 story, but no name is given to the hero. He marries 
 the daughter of the deceased Duke Gottfried of Bra- 
 bant, and fights against the Duke of Saxony. His 
 children are the ancestors of the great houses of Gel- 
 ders and Cleves, which bear a swan as their arms. 
 
 3. Gerard Swan. 
 
 One day Charlemagne stood at his window overlook- 
 ing the Rhine. Then he was ware of a swan floating 
 on the water, drawing a boat by a silken band fastened 
 round its neck. When the boat came alongside of the 
 quay, the swan ceased to row, and the emperor saw 
 that a knight armed cap-a-pie sat in the skiff, and round 
 his neck hung a ribbon to which was attached a note. 
 Navilon (Nibelung), one of the emperor's men, gave 
 the stranger his hand to help him out of the bark, and 
 conducted him to Charlemagne. The monarch inquired 
 of the stranger his name ; for answer he pointed to the 
 letter on his breast. This the king read. It stated that 
 Gerard Swan sought a wife and lands.
 
 The KiiigJit of the Swan. 447 
 
 Navilon then unarmed the strange knight, and the 
 king gave him a costly mantle. So they went to table. 
 But when Roland observed the man, he asked who he 
 was. Charlemagne replied, " He is a godsend ; " and 
 Roland observed, " He seems to be a man of courage." 
 Gerard proved to be a worthy knight ; he served the 
 monarch well. He soon learned to talk. The king was 
 very fond of him, and gave him his sister Adalis in mar- 
 riage, and made him Duke of Ardennes.* 
 
 4. Helias. 
 
 In the year 711 lived Beatrice only daughter of Diet- 
 rich, Duke of Cleves, at her castle of Nynwegen. One 
 bright day she sat at her window looking down the 
 Rhine, when she saw a swan drawing a boat by a gold 
 chain. In this vessel was Helias. He came ashore, 
 won her heart, became Duke of Cleves, and lived 
 happily with her for many years. One thing alone in- 
 terfered with her happiness : she knew not whence her 
 husband came, and he had strictly forbidden her to ask. 
 But once she broke his command, and asked him 
 whence he had come to her. Then he gave his chil- 
 dren his sword, his horn, and his ring, bidding them 
 
 * Northern Chapbooks of the Emperor Charlemagne. Nyerup 
 Morskabslasning, p. 90.
 
 448 The Knight of the Swan. 
 
 never separate or lose these legacies, and entering the 
 boat which returned for him, he vanished for ever.* 
 One of the towers of Cleves is called, after this event, 
 the Swan-tower, and is surmounted by a swan. 
 
 5. Salvius Brabo, 
 
 Gottfried-Carl was King of Tongres, and lived at 
 Megen on the Maas. He had a son named Carl-Ynach, 
 whom he banished for some misdemeanor. Carl-Ynach 
 fled to Rome, where he fell in love with Germana, 
 daughter of the Proconsul Lucius Julius, and fled with 
 her from the eternal city. They took ship to Venice, 
 whence they travelled on horseback to Burgundy, and 
 reached Cambray. Thence they proceeded to a place 
 called Senes, and finding a beautiful valley, they dis- 
 mounted to repose. Here a swan, at which one of the 
 servants aimed an arrow, took refuge in the arms of 
 Germana, who, delighted at the incident, asked Carl- 
 Ynach the name of the bird in his native tongue. He 
 replied " Swana." " Then," said she, " let me be hence- 
 forth called by that name, lest, if I keep my former 
 name, I be recognized and parted from thee." 
 
 The lady took the swan with her as they proceeded 
 on their journey, and fed it from her hand. 
 
 * Grimm, Deutsche Sagen, 1866, ii. p. 267.
 
 The Knight of the Swan. 449 
 
 They now reached Florimont, near Brussels, and 
 there Carl-Ynach heard that his father was dead. He 
 was therefore King of Tongres. Shortly after his 
 arrival at Megen, his wife gave birth to a son, whom he 
 named Octavian, and next year to a daughter, whom 
 they called Swan. Shortly after, Ariovistus, King of 
 the Saxones, waged war against Julius Caesar. Carl- 
 Ynach united his forces with those of Ariovistus, and 
 fell in the battle of Besan^on. Swan, his widow, then 
 fled with his children and her husband's body to Megen, 
 fearing her brother Julius Csesar. There she buried 
 Carl-Ynach, and daily fed her swan upon his grave. 
 
 In the Roman army was a hero, Salvius Brabon by 
 name, descended from Frankus, son of Hector of Troy. 
 Caesar rested at Cleves, and Salvius Brabon amused 
 himself with shooting birds in the neighborhood. One 
 day he wandered to the banks of the Rhine. On its 
 discolored waters swam a snow-white swan, playfully 
 pulling at the roge which bound a small skiff to the 
 shore. Salvius leaped into the boat, and cast it loose 
 from its mooring. Then the bird swam before him as a 
 guide, and he rowed after it. On reaching the castle of 
 Megen, the swan rose from the water, and flew to the 
 grave of Carl-Ynach, where its mistress was wont to 
 
 29
 
 450 The Knight of the Swan. 
 
 feed it. Salvius pursued it, bow in hand, and was about to 
 discharge an arrow, when a window of the castle opened, 
 and a lady cried to him in Latin to spare the bird. Sal- 
 vius consented ; and casting aside his bow and arrow, en- 
 tered the castle. There he learned the story of the lady. 
 He hastened to Julius Caesar, and told him that his 
 sister was in the neighborhood. The conqueror accom- 
 panied Salvius to the castle, and embraced Germana 
 with joy. Salvius Brabon then asked the emperor to 
 give him the young damsel Swan in marriage, and he 
 readily complied with the request, creating him at the 
 same ^ime Duke of Brabant ; Octavian took the name 
 of Germanicus, and became King of Cologne, and Ton- 
 gres exchanged its name for Germania, after the sister 
 of the emperor, its queen.* 
 
 It was in commemoration of the beautiful myth of the 
 Swan-knight, that Frederick II, of Brandenburg insti- 
 tuted the Order of the Swan, in 1440. The badge was 
 a chain from which was suspended an image of the Virgin, 
 and underneath that a swan. The badge of the Cleves 
 order of knighthood was also a silver swan suspended 
 from a gold chain. In 1453, Duke Adolph of Cleves 
 
 * Jehan le Maire, Illustrations de Gaule. Paris, 1548, iii. pp. 
 20-23.
 
 The Knight of the Swan. 45 1 
 
 held a tournament at Lille, " au nom du Chevalier au 
 Cygne, serviteur des dames." 
 
 On the 13th May, 1548, the Count of Cleves pre- 
 sented the players with a silver swan of considerable 
 value. Charles, Duke of Cleves, attempted, in 16 15, to 
 revive the order of the swan. When Cleves fell to 
 Prussia, the Count de Bar endeavored to persuade 
 Frederick the Great to resuscitate the order, but in vain. 
 With Anne of Cleves, the white swan passed to our 
 tavern signboards. 
 
 The myth is a Belgic religious myth. Just as in the 
 Keltic legends of the Fortunate Isles, we hear of mor- 
 tals who went by ship to the Avalon of Spirits, and then 
 returned to their fellow-mortals ; so in this Belgic fable 
 we have a denizen of the distant paradise coming by 
 boat to this inhabited land, and leaving it again. 
 
 In the former legends the happy mortal lives in the 
 embraces of a divine being in perpetual youth ; in the 
 latter, a heavenly being unites himself, for a while, to a 
 woman of earth, and becomes the ancestor of an 
 aristocracy. 
 
 An Anglo-Saxon story bears some traces of the 
 same legend. A ship once arrived on the coast of 
 Scandia, without rudder or sail ; in it lay a boy asleep
 
 452 TJie Knight of the Swan. 
 
 upon his arms. The natives took and educated him, 
 calling him Scild, the son of Sceaf (the skiff). In 
 course of time he became their king. In Beowulf, it is 
 added that Scild reigned long ; and when he saw that 
 he was about to die, he bade his men lay him fully 
 armed in a boat, and thrust him out to sea. Among 
 the Norse such a practice was not unknown. King 
 Haki, when he died, was laid in a ship, the vessel fired, 
 and sent out upon the waves. And the same is told of 
 Baldur. But the shipping of the dead had no signifi- 
 cance in Scandinavian mythology, whilst it was full of 
 meaning in that of the Kelts. The Scandinavian Val- 
 halla was not situated beyond the Western Sea, but on 
 the summit of a great mountain ; whereas the Keltic 
 Avalon lay over the blue waters, beneath the setting 
 sun. Consequently, I believe the placing of the dead in 
 ships to have been a practice imported among the 
 Northern and Germanic nations, and not indigenous. 
 
 The classic fable of Helios sailing in his golden 
 vessel deserves notice in connection with the myth of 
 Helias. That the sun and moon travel in boats of 
 silver or gold is an idea common to many mythologies. 
 At first sight it seems probable that Helias is identical 
 with Helios ; but the difficulty of explaining how this
 
 The Kfiight of the Swan. 453 
 
 classic deity should have become localized in Brabant 
 is insurmountable, and I prefer the derivation of the 
 name Helias from the Keltic appellation of the swan. 
 
 The necessity of the knight leaving his bride the 
 moment she inquired his race connects this story with 
 the Grail myth. According to the rules of the order of 
 the Sangreal, every knight was bound to return to the 
 temple of the order, immediately that any one asked his 
 lineage and office. In the popular legend this reason 
 does not appear, because the Grail was a genuine 
 Keltic myth, with its roots in the mysteries of Druidism. 
 
 Of the different editions of Lohengrin, Helias, and 
 the other Swan-knight legends, I will give no list, as 
 the principal are referred to in the notes of this article. 
 
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