Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Archaic, dialect and variant spellings remain as printed. Greek text appears as originally printed, but with a mouse-hover transliteration, Βιβλος.

C. Potter,
Delt.

W. Morton,
Sculpt.

THE SPECTRE HUNTSMAN
Page [153].

TRADITIONS, SUPERSTITIONS,
AND
FOLK-LORE,
(CHIEFLY LANCASHIRE AND THE NORTH OF ENGLAND:)
Their affinity to others in widely-distributed localities;
THEIR
EASTERN ORIGIN AND MYTHICAL SIGNIFICANCE.

BY
CHARLES HARDWICK,
AUTHOR OF "HISTORY OF PRESTON AND ITS ENVIRONS," "MANUAL FOR PATRONS AND MEMBERS
OF FRIENDLY SOCIETIES," ETC.

"Thou has hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes."—Matthew, c. xi. v. 25.

"Every fiction that has ever laid strong hold of human belief is the mistaken image of some great truth, to which reason will direct its search, while half reason is content with laughing at the superstition, and unreason with disbelieving it."—Rev. J. Martineau.

MANCHESTER:
A. IRELAND & CO., PALL MALL.
LONDON:
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL & CO., STATIONERS' HALL COURT.
1872.

TO
HIS VERY DEAR AND EVER KIND FRIEND,
ELIZA COOK,
THIS WORK IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED,
AS A VERY HUMBLE BUT SINCERE TRIBUTE
TO HER POETIC GENIUS
AND
HER PRIVATE WORTH,
BY ITS AUTHOR,
CHARLES HARDWICK.

PREFACE.

Our nursery legends and popular superstitions are fast becoming matters of history, except in the more remote and secluded portions of the country. The age of the steam engine, and the electric battery, and the many other practical adaptations of the triumphs of physical science, is apparently not the one in which such "waifs and strays" from the mythical lore of the dim and distant Past are very likely to be much sought after or honoured. But now that the light of modern investigation, and especially that ray furnished by recent discoveries in philological science, has been directed towards their deeper and more hidden mysteries, profound philosophical historians have begun to discover that from this apparently desolate literary region much reliable knowledge may be extracted, leading to conclusions of the most interesting and important kind, with reference to the early history of our race. The labours of the brothers Grimm, Dr. Adalbert Kuhn, Professor Max Müller, the Rev. G. W. Cox, and others, have recently received considerable attention from philosophic enquirers into the origin and early development of the people from whom nearly all of the European, and some of the Asiatic, modern nationalities have sprung.

It is found that many of these imperfect, and sometimes grotesque, traditions, legends, and superstitions are, in reality, not the "despicable rubbish" which the "learned" have been in the habit of regarding them, but rather the crude ore, which, when skilfully smelted down, yields, abundantly, pure metal well worthy of the literary hammer of the most profound student in general history, ethnology, or the phenomena attendant upon psychological development.

Professor Henry Morley, in the chapter on Ethnology, in his "English Writers," after noticing "how immediately and easily particular words, common in their application, would become available for common use," and "how often images of the seen would become symbols of the unseen," truly says, "The world about us is not simply mirrored, but informed with a true soul, by all the tongues that syllable man's knowledge and his wants. The subtlest harmonies of life and nature may lie hidden in the very letters of the alphabet."

The subject has been but recently introduced, in a thoroughly popular form, to the English reader. Dasent's "Popular Tales from the Norse," and occasional papers by local writers, intensified and extended the interest taken in this species of research. The publication, in 1863, by Mr. Walter K. Kelly, of his "Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-Lore," however, may be said to have given a still greater impetus to popular investigation in this direction. This is largely to be attributed to the fact that he has summarised in a very pleasing manner much of the abstruse learning of the German philologists and mythologists to whom reference has already been made.

Whilst contemplating the publication of some "Supplementary Notes to the History of Preston and its Environs," the early chapters of which, of course, would necessarily deal with what is termed the "pre-historic period," Mr. Kelly's work came into my hands. I was induced to considerably enlarge my plan, in consequence of the value I immediately placed upon its contents, and of the suggestion in the following paragraph, which appears in its preface:

"In not a few instances I have been able to illustrate Dr. Kuhn's principles by examples of the folk-lore of Great Britain and Ireland, and would gladly have done so more copiously had matter for the purpose been more accessible. My efforts in that direction have made me painfully aware how much we are behind the Germans, not only as to our insight into the meaning of such relics of the past, but also as to our industry in collecting them. The latter defect is indeed a natural consequence of the former, and it is to be hoped that our local archæologists will no longer be content to labour under either of them when once they have found what far-reaching knowledge may be extracted out of old wives' tales and notions. Only four years ago the editor of 'Notes and Queries' spoke hypothetically (in the preface to 'Choice Notes') of a time to come when the study of folk-lore (he was I believe the inventor of that very expressive and sterling word) should have risen from a pleasant pastime to the rank of a science. Already his anticipation has been realised, and henceforth every careful collector of a novel scrap of folk-lore, or of even a well-marked variety of an old type, may entertain a reasonable hope that he has in some degree subserved the purposes of the ethnologist and the philosophical historian."

In 1865-6 I published a series of the "Supplementary Notes" referred to, in the Preston Guardian newspaper. The general favour with which they were received, and the increasing interest I felt in the subject, induced me to continue my researches, with the view to the ultimate publication of the present volume. The original papers, as well as other essays afterwards published elsewhere, have not only been carefully revised, and, in some instances, rearranged, but the quantity of new matter added in each chapter is such as to render the work in every respect much more complete, and more worthy of being regarded as having, in some small degree, "subserved the purposes of the ethnologist and the philosophical historian." I would gladly persuade myself that I have, at least, rendered what many regard as frivolous, and others as very abstruse and very "dry reading," interesting, attractive, and instructive to the general reader. If I succeed in this respect, my chief object will have been accomplished.

The various authorities relied upon or quoted are sufficiently indicated in the body of the work to render a catalogue of them here unnecessary. I may add, however, that the principal portions of the papers contributed by my friend, Mr. T. T. Wilkinson, F.R.A.S., to the "Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Historic Society," have since been incorporated with a portion of the collection of the late Mr. Jno. Harland, F.S.A., and published in a volume by F. Warne and Co., entitled "Lancashire Folk Lore."

74, Halston Street, Hulme,
Manchester, April, 1872.

CONTENTS.

TRADITIONS, SUPERSTITIONS,
AND
FOLK-LORE.

CHAPTER I.

THE EARLY INHABITANTS OF LANCASHIRE AND THE NEIGHBOURING COUNTIES, AND REMAINS OF THEIR MYTHOLOGY AND LOCAL NOMENCLATURE.

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.

Shakspere.

On several occasions, when discussing obscure questions of early topography or ancient nomenclature, although readily acknowledging the value of all facts in connection with genuine etymological science, I have recommended great caution in the use of this powerful but somewhat capricious archæological ally. I yet retain a strong impression that this caution is still a necessary condition of truly scientific historical or antiquarian research. Consequently, several of the presumed etymologies in the present work are advanced with diffidence, and with a thorough conviction that some of them may prove to be illusive. The suggestion of a probability, however, is a very different thing to dogmatic assertion in such matters, a practice which cannot be too much condemned.

It is not very many years since the writer of the article "Language," in Knight's Cyclopædia, felt it his duty, in introducing the subject, to use the following strong expressions:—

"That division of grammar which is called etymology has been disgraced by such puerile trifling, and has been pursued with such an utter disregard to anything like scientific principles, as to create in the minds of many persons a suspicion against everything presented to their notice under the name of etymology. Such persons have viewed etymology as nothing else than a dexterous play upon words, and have looked upon etymologists as little better than indifferent punsters. That the generality of writers upon this subject scarcely deserve any better appellation will hardly be denied by anyone who has studied etymology on true philological principles; and, if any doubt were entertained upon the point, it would only be necessary to refer to such works as Damm's 'Homeric Lexicon,' and Lennep's 'Etymology of the Greek Language,' which are full of such wild conjectures and such extravagant etymologies, that we cannot be surprised that a study which has produced such results should have been considered ridiculous and absurd."

The writer afterwards refers to the extent, and explains the nature of the progress which had been made during the twenty or thirty years previous to the date of his own paper. (1839). He justly attributes this progress to the "comparison of many languages with each other;" but he especially insists that "nothing has perhaps contributed to this improvement more than the discovery of Sanscrit (for as it has been justly observed, it may properly be called a discovery), which was found to bear such a striking resemblance both in its more important words and in its grammatical forms to the Latin and Greek, the Teutonic and Sclavonic languages, as to lead to the conclusion that all must have been derived from a common source."

An able writer in the Saturday Review truly describes the science of comparative philology as "the great discovery of modern scholarship, the discovery which more than any other unites distant ages and countries in one tie of brotherhood." Hence its great value to antiquarian students of every class.

Further investigation has fully demonstrated the truth of the views thus expressed. Not only is the affinity of the languages now admitted without dispute, but the consanguinity of the peoples and the identity of many of their popular traditions and superstitions have been demonstrated with scientific precision by such writers as the brothers Grimm, Dr. Kuhn, Dr. Roth, Max Müller, Farrer, Dasent, the Rev. G. W. Cox, and others, who have devoted special attention to the subject.

This common ancestry is sometimes styled Indo-European; but the phrase being open to objection, as including more than the precise facts justify, the term Aryan, or Arian, is now generally preferred. Some writers regard the Aryans as descendants of Japhet, and the Semitic tribes as the progeny of Shem. In the latter they include the Hebrews, the Phœnicians, the Arabs, and Ethiopians; and their languages are radically distinct from those of the Aryan family. The country about the upper Oxus river, now mainly included in the dominions of the Khan of Bockhara, is generally agreed upon as the locality from whence the various members of the Aryan family originally migrated, some northward and westward over Europe, and others southward and eastward into India. The Kelts, the Teutons, the Greeks, Latins, Letts, and Sclaves are all European branches of this original stock. The Persians and the high caste Hindoos are the principal descendants of the southern and south-eastern migration. The chief elements of the British population at the present time are Keltic, represented by the Welsh, Irish, and Gaelic tribes, and the Teutonic, which includes Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, and Danish and Norse Scandinavians.

The non-Aryan races inhabiting Europe are not relatively very extensive or important. The chief are the Magyars and the Turks. There are besides some Tatars and Ugrians in Russia, a few Basques in the south-west of France and on the neighbouring Spanish frontier, and the Laps and Fins in Northern Europe.

The oldest writings extant in the Sanscrit branch of the Aryan tongue are termed the "Vedas." These works include a collection of hymns chanted or sung by the earlier south-eastern emigrants. It is believed this collection was formed about fourteen hundred years before the birth of Christ. According to ancient Hindoo authority, these hymns are coeval with creation. It is asserted that Brahma breathed them from his own mouth, or, in other words, that he milked them out from fire, air, and the sun. Some traditions state that they wore scattered abroad or lost; and that a great sage, "Vyasa, the arranger," collected them together about 5,000 years ago. Vyasa, who was assisted in his labours by many other sages, taught the Vedic literature or religion to four distinct pupils. Payla learnt the Rig Veda, Vais'ampayana the Yajur Veda, Jaimini the Sama Veda, and Sumantu the Atharvan'a. The three first-mentioned are named collectively the sacred Trayi, or the Triad. These versions were afterwards much extended and commented upon by after sages.

The term Veda is derived from the Sanscrit root vid, which signifies to know. It implies the sum of all knowledge. By another etymology it is held to imply revealed knowledge, or that species of wisdom which contains within itself the evidence of its own truth. Rig is from the root rich, to laud, and implies that the Vedic knowledge is delivered in the form of hymns of praise.

Max Müller regards the Vedas as containing the key note of all religion, natural as well as revealed. They exhibit a belief in God, a perception of the difference between good and evil, and a conviction that the Deity loveth the one and hateth the other. The degenerate religion of the modern Hindoos, and especially the worship of Krishnah, is described by a recent writer, as (in comparison with that of the Vedas) "a moral plague, the ravages of which are as appalling as they are astounding."

Walter Kelly says:—"The Sanscrit tongue, in which the Vedas are written, is the sacred language of India; that is to say, the oldest language, the one which was spoken, as the Hindoos believe, by the gods themselves, when gods and men were in frequent fellowship with each other, from the time when Yama descended from heaven to become the first of mortals. This ancient tongue may not be the very one which was spoken by the common ancestors of Hindoos and Europeans, but at least it is its nearest and purest derivative; nor is there any reason to believe that it is removed from it by more than a few degrees. Hence the supreme importance of the Sanscrit vocabulary and literature as a key to the languages and supernatural lore of ancient and modern Europe."

This discovery of the Sanscrit writings, and especially of the Vedas, has already exercised considerable influence upon etymological science. Before its introduction the main element in such inquiries consisted in the tracing backwards words corrupted or obscure in modern English to their original roots in Keltic, Teutonic, Greek, or Latin. The Sanscrit, however, being a written form of one of the earliest of the varieties of these cognate tongues, gives the etymological student the advantage of a flank or rear position, by means of which he may sometimes decipher the meaning of a doubtful term, by the inverse or ascending process, and thus gain some knowledge of its original meaning, perhaps long since lost by the descendants of those who first introduced it into the ancient language of Great Britain.[1]

It is by no means improbable that the idle historical legends related by Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth, respecting the arrival of Brutus and his Trojan followers in Britain, after the destruction of Priam's imperial city by the allied Greeks, may have just so much foundation in fact as might be furnished by a time-honoured tradition respecting the eastern home from which our remote ancestors originally migrated. The natives of Britain, on first coming in contact with the early merchants and traders from the Mediterranean shores, would doubtless hear something of the Iliad and the Æneid, with the heroes of which they might innocently confound their own remote and vaguely conceived demi-deities or warlike human ancestry. Notwithstanding the just contempt in which these legends are held by modern historians, there still exists a kind of instinctive faith that a very remote tradition, however much it may have been overlaid and disfigured by relatively modern inventions, lies at the base of the main story. Emigrants from Iberia (situated between the Caspian and the Euxine Seas) are said to have settled in Greece (the Pelasgi), and in Tuscany and Spain (the Iberians). In Laurent's "Ancient Geography" is the following passage:—"In the Caucasus were found the Bruchi, the modern Burtani or Britani, a free tribe, rich in silver and gold." It is not improbable that the advent of emigrants of this tribe in England may underlie the legend of the Trojan Brutus and his followers. Eastern Albania too may have contributed, along with its neighbours, to the migratory hordes which passed to the west. The earliest name by which Britain was known to the Greeks and Romans is Albion. The Gaels of Scotland still speak of the island as Albin. In Merlin's famous prophecy, in Geoffrey of Monmouth's British History, the country is frequently named Albania. The universal tradition of the North German and Scandinavian tribes is that they came from the neighbourhood of the Caucasus to the North West of Europe. An early Odin is said to have introduced from the east the worship of the sun. Another at the head of the Æsir warriors imported the Runic alphabet. He is styled Mid Othin. Two other chiefs of this name figure in their legendary history.

Dr. Leigh held the opinion that the Brigantes, and especially the Setantii, or the Lancashire portion of the then population, were a mixed race, consisting of Kelts, Phœnicians, and Armenians. His only reason for this conjecture appears to have been based on the fact that one of the chief rivers was named Belisama, which, he says, "in the Phœnician language, signifies the Moon or the Goddess of Heaven," and that Ribel, now the name of the same river, in the Armenian tongue signifies Heaven. Mr. Thornber says "Belisama means Queen of Heaven, and that the Romans paid divine honours to the Ribble under the title of Minerva Belisama." This conjecture apparently rests on the statement of Leigh, and the fact that the Roman temple at Ribchester was dedicated to Minerva. There appears to be, however, some error here respecting the sex of Bel. The Phœnician "Queen of Heaven," or "Queen of the Stars," was named Astroarche or Astarte. She is supposed by some to be identical with the Greek Juno, or Selene (the moon), by others she is regarded as the planet Venus. The Armenians were a branch of the Aryan family, and the Phœnicians, as I have before said, were of the Semitic stock.[2] Sanchuniathon, the ancient Phœnician historian, says that the Phœnicians worshipped the sun as "the only lord of heaven," under the name Beelsamen, which was equivalent to the Greek Zeus or the Latin Jupiter. Baal is formed from a root which signifies, and is literally equivalent to, lord or owner. A Maltese inscription "Malkereth Baal Tsor," is interpreted "King of the city, Lord of Tyre." In the Septuagint Baal is called Hercules; in the Phœnician language Orcul, light of all. One writer adds "Baal was Saturn; others have considered Baal to be the planet Jupiter. A supreme idol might easily be compared with those of other nations; hence arose this variety of opinions."

Amongst the many conjectures as to the origin of Stonehenge is one put forth by Godfrey Higgins, that it was built by Druids, "the priests of Oriental colonies, who emigrated from India." Mr. Davis, the author of "Celtic Researches," refers to a passage in Diodorus Siculus, in which it is stated, on the authority of Hecatæus, that a round temple existed in Britain dedicated to Apollo. Mr. Davis conjectures that Stonehenge is the edifice referred to.

The late Rev. John Williams, Archdeacon of Cardigan, in "Essays," published in 1858, strongly advocates the "Hyperborean theory," founded on the passage in Diodorus referred to. This view of the case implies that the Hyperboreans migrated mainly by water from Central Asia, not long after the days of Noah; that they eventually occupied Great Britain, Spain, and Gaul, west of the Alps; that the Druid priests of Stonehenge were in sympathy and constant communication with those of Delphi; that they were civilised to a large extent, and were intimately related by blood with the Pelasgians of Ancient Greece.

The ancient name of this remarkable relic of the past is unfortunately lost, "Stonehenge" being evidently of Saxon origin, and in no way connected with its architects; the tale told by Nennius, about the murder of four hundred and sixty British nobles, through the treachery of Hengist, being a later romance invented to account for its Saxon name, Stanhengist. W. G. Palgrave, in his "Central and Eastern Arabia," describes the ruins of a "structure" which so nearly resembles the famous Wiltshire relic, that he calls it an "Arabian Stonehenge." He adds that the natives spoke of a similar ancient edifice as still existing in a part of the country which he did not visit.

Sir John Lubbock in his "Pre-historic Times," after alluding to the mythical character of the expedition to Ireland of Aurelius Ambrosius and Merlin, as related by Geoffrey of Monmouth, in search of the sacred materials employed in the erection of the megalithic edifice, says the larger stones are evidently similar in lithological character to the immense numbers yet strewn over Salisbury plain, and locally termed "Sarcens." He adds,—

"Stonehenge is generally considered to mean the hanging stones, as indeed was long ago suggested by Wace, an Anglo-Norman poet, who says:

Stanhengues ont mom Englois
Pieres pandues en Francois,

but it is surely more natural to derive the last syllable from the Anglo-Saxon word 'ing,' a field; as we have Keston, originally Kyst-staning, the field of stone coffins. What more natural than that a new race, finding this magnificent ruin, standing in solitary grandeur on Salisbury Plain, and able to learn nothing of its origin, should call it simply the place of stones? What more unnatural than that they should do so, if they knew the name of him in whose honour it was erected?"

After disposing of some other arguments in favour of a post-Roman date for the edifice, and expressing his conviction that this structure and its kindred one at Abury were used as temples for worship, Sir John Lubbock says,—

"Stonehenge may then I think be regarded as a monument of the Bronze Age, though apparently it was not all erected at one time, the inner circle of small unwrought blue stones being probably older than the rest; as regards Abury, since the stones are all in their natural condition, while those of Stonehenge are roughly hewn, it seems reasonable to conclude that Abury is the older of the two, and belongs either to the close of the Stone Age, or to the commencement of that of Bronze."

Some writers regard the British or Keltic god Bel or Beil as not immediately the Belus or Baal of the Asiatic nations, but that it "designates an exalted luminous deity, peculiar to the Celts." This is the view of Jacob Grimm, and it is endorsed by W. K. Kelly. Another writer thinks that "the general character of Asiatic idolatry renders it likely that Baal meant originally the true lord of the universe, and that his worship degenerated into the worship of a powerful body in the material world."

The origin of the not yet entirely exploded superstition respecting the "divine right of kings" may have something to do with this primæval sun or fire worship. The Anglo-Saxon princes claimed descent from Odin or Woden, who, as will afterwards be shown, is evidently the Teutonic representative of the Aryan Indra, or the luminous or lightning-god. A recent writer in the Gentleman's Magazine says:—

"Every king of Egypt considered himself a direct descendant of the sun, and over his name was 'Son of the Sun;' and as the sun was Phrè, so each king was called Phrè. As in the East at the present time, the Ottoman Emperor is termed by the Arabs, 'Sooltan ebn Sooltan'—Emperor son of an Emperor. The king considered that his authority and the virtues and powers of his rule were direct emanations from the solar disc. This idea is beautifully set forth in a device from a tomb in the cemetery of El Emarna, where may be observed Ammophis, with his queen and their children, standing at a window or gallery of their palace, and are all engaged in throwing to their subjects, who are standing below with hands upraised to receive them, collars of distinction, vases, rings of money, symbols of life, and other blessings. These gifts the disc of the sun, which is represented above, is in the act of bestowing upon them. The king and his family were the only media of communication between the sun, the source of all blessings, and the people. This is significantly set forth by the rays which projected life into their mouths, and infused into their hearts courage, wisdom, and justice."

Frances Power Cobbe, in her "Cities of the Past," after visiting the ruins of Baalbec, quotes several beautiful passages from Du Perron's Zend Avesta, illustrative of the purity of the sentiment of the earlier fire-worshippers. She says:—

"In what degree this high Persian faith (still existing in no ignoble type among the Parsees of India) was connected with the sun-worship of the gross Phœnician mythology, it is hard to conjecture. Perhaps there was no relation at all, and Baal (or Bel), the sun-god, never received in his impure fanes the homage of a true worshipper of Ormusd, the supremely wise Lord, of whom the Zend Avesta only tells us his light is hidden under all that shines. At least the faith of which Heliogabalus was hierophant had fallen as low as ever the religious sentiment of human nature may be debased. Yet does the 'golden star,' Zoroaster, throw a mysterious halo over the fire worship of East and West; that faith which blazed out in the Bactrian plains before the dawn of history, and which lights yet its memorial fires each midsummer eve in the vales of the Christian Scotland and Ireland."

She might have added, at least until very recently, the hills and dales of Lancashire and some other parts of England.

It is not improbable that before the corruption referred to took place, the Keltic emigrants to this country may have arrived at their western home, and so have introduced the worship of Baal or Bel in something like its pristine purity; and hence the distinction between the famous deity of Heliopolis and his presumed representative in Britain. A semi-subterranean temple, dedicated to the worship of Mithras, the Persian Sun or Apollo, was discovered in 1822 at Housesteads, Northumberland (Borcovicus), on the line of the great Roman wall. Mr. Hodgson describes it in detail in a contribution to the Arch. ÆL. O.S., vol. 1. This worship appears to have belonged to the debased form referred to. It evoked edicts from several Roman emperors decreeing its suppression, but without avail. This cruel and degrading superstition was, however, not introduced into the western portion of the "old world," until shortly before the advent of Christ. An altar, dedicated to this deity, found in the cave temple at Housesteads, was erected A.D. 253. Remains of Mithraic worship have been found at York and Chester, and other places, including Chesterholm (Vindolana), and Rutchester (Vindobala), on the line of the great Roman wall. This worship of Mithras is evidently but a corrupt descendant from the ancient Aryan adoration of Mithra, the god of daylight.

From these and other reasons, yet to be advanced, I am inclined to regard the introduction of the British god Bel or Beil as appertaining to a much earlier epoch in our history than the advent of the Phœnician merchants, who, most probably, did visit the Belisama, Portus Setantiorum, and other harbours on the Lancashire and Cheshire coast, for trading purposes, but at a relatively much more recent period.

Mr. John Baldwin, in his "Pre-historic Nations," contends that the "Bronze Age in Western Europe was introduced by a foreign people of the Cushite race, culture, and religion, and that for a very long period it was controlled and directed by their influence." He further adds:—

"The first settlements of the Arabian Cushites in Spain and Northern Africa cannot have been later than 5,000 years before the Christian era.... Probably the Cushite race, religion, and civilisation first went to the ancient Finnic people of Britain, Gaul, and the Scandinavian countries from Spain and Africa. The beginning of the Bronze Age in these countries was much older than the period of Tyre. The Tyrian establishments in those western countries seem to have been later than the Aryan immigration that created the Keltic peoples and languages; and it may be that the Tyrians introduced the 'Age of Iron' not long after their arrival, for it was evidently much older than the time of the Romans."

Professor Nilsson refers the ancient bronze instruments, etc., to Phœnician influence, and describes some sculpture on two stones on a tumulus near Kivik, which, Mr. Baldwin observes, "even Sir John Lubbock admits, 'may fairly be said to have a Phœnician or Egyptian appearance.'"

Mr. Baldwin traces to Arabian Cushite colonies the very ancient civilisation of Egypt, Caldea, and the southern portion of India, as well as Phœnicia and the western nations. Another stone, described by Professor Nilsson, is an obelisk symbolising Baal. Referring to this monument, Mr. Baldwin says:—

"The festival of Baal or Balder, celebrated on midsummer night in the upper part of Norway, reveals the Cushite race, for the midnight fire in presence of the midnight sun did not originate in that latitude. This festival of Baal was celebrated in the British Islands until recent times. Baal has given such names as Baltic, Great and Little Belt, Belteburga, Baleshangen, and the like." He asks, "What other people could have brought the worship of Baal to Western Europe in pre-historic times? We see them in the stone circles, in the ruins at Abury and Stonehenge, in the festival of Baal that lingered until our own times; and there is something for consideration in the fact that Arabia has still the ruins of ancient structures precisely like Stonehenge. It is probable that the Arabians, or their representatives in Spain and North Africa, went northward and began the Age of Bronze more than 2,000 years before Gades [Cadiz] was built."

Mr. Baldwin draws a marked distinction between the modern Mohammedan Semitic population of Arabia and their great Cushite, Hamite, or Ethiopian predecessors. The former, he says, "are comparatively modern in Arabia," they have "appropriated the reputation of the old race," and have unduly occupied the chief attention of modern scholars.

Dr. Hooker, at the meeting of the British Association in 1868, described a race of men in a district of Eastern Bengal, who erect, at the present day, monuments similar to those termed, in Western Europe, Druidical. With his own eyes he had seen "dolmens" and "cromlechs" not six months old. He says that they call a stone by the same name as is given to it in the Keltic idioms of Wales and Brittany, though, he adds, little of the character of their language is yet known.

Sir John Lubbock, referring to the very ancient stone weapons found in Denmark, Switzerland, France, England, and other countries, termed palæoliths, says:—"Some implements of the same type have been found in Spain, in Assyria, and in India. The latter have been described by Mr. Bruce Foote; they were found in the Madras and North Arcot districts, and are of quartzite, and in several cases were found by Messrs. Foote and King, in situ, at depths of from three to ten feet. The specimens figured will show how closely they resemble our European specimens, and it is interesting that in the words of Mr. Foote, 'the area, over which the lateritic formations were spread, has undergone, as already stated, great changes since their deposition. A great part of the formation has been removed by denudation, and deep valleys cut into them are now occupied by the alluvium of various rivers.'"

In several parts of Britain, and especially in Cumberland, altars have been found dedicated by Roman legionaries or their auxiliaries to a god named Belatucadrus. Mr. Thomas Wright (Celt, Roman, and Saxon, p. 292), after referring to a small one erected at Ellanborough by Julius Civilis, says:—

"Several others dedicated to this deity have been found at Netherby, Castlesteads, Burgh-on-the-sands, Bankshead, and other places. In some instances, as in an altar found at Drumburgh, the deity is addressed by the epithet, DEO SANCTO BELATVCADRO. In some altars he is identified with Mars, as on one found at Plumpton Wall, dedicated DEO MARTI BELATVCADRI ET NVMINIB AVGG. Several attempts have been made to derive the name from Hebrew, Welsh, or Irish, and it has been hastily taken for granted that this god was identical with the Phœnician Baal. Altars to Belatucadrus have been found at Kirkby Thore, at Welp Castle, and at Brougham, in Westmorland. The one at Brougham was dedicated by a man named Andagus, which sounds like a Teutonic name."

Since the preceding paragraphs were written, I have seen in the Manchester Natural History Museum, a rude altar dedicated to this god, which, I am informed, was found some years ago at Ribchester, on the Ribble. As I had not previously seen or heard of it, it is not mentioned in my published "History of Preston and its Environs." The inscription is somewhat defaced, but the DEO MARTI BELATVCADRI is very distinct. It appears, like the one found at Plumpton Wall, to have been dedicated to this god, and to the gods of the emperor (NVMINIB AVGG), or, as some think, to the reigning emperor himself. The dedicator is Julius Augustalis, the prefect of some military corps, the name of which I cannot, at present, satisfactorily decipher.

The compounding of the name of Baal or Bel with other words is common, as in the ancient name of the Ribble—Belisama. This Belatucadrus appears to belong to this class, at least so far as cadrus is concerned, for at Risingham, in Northumberland, an altar was found dedicated to MOGONT CAD, which may perhaps mean, when written in full, in the nominative case, MOGONTIS CADRUS. Horsley imagined it probable that the CAD had reference to the Gadeni, a Caledonian tribe; but Mr. Wright regards this as very doubtful. The Welsh word cad means war, battle, tumult, etc. May not Cadrus, therefore, be a Keltic synonym for Mars?

Other altars have been found dedicated to gods that may probably be traced to an Eastern origin. One found at Birrens, in Scotland, exhibits a winged deity, holding a spear in her right hand and a globe in her left. The dedication is to the goddess Brigantia. Mr. Wright says:—

"It was supposed this was the deity of the Brigantes, but I am not aware that this country was ever called Brigantia, and it is not probable the conqueror would worship the deity of a vanquished tribe. I feel more inclined to think the name was taken from Brigantium, in Switzerland, a town which occupied the site of the modern Bregentz. An altar found at Chester was dedicated DEAE NYMPHAE BRIG, which in this case would be 'To the Nymph Goddess of Brigantium.'"

Another ancient city styled Brigantium, now Briançon, was situated on an opposite spur of the Alps, in the country of the Taurini, now Piedmont. Ancient geographers speak of a tribe of Thracians, who were styled Briges. In Laurent's work, the river at present named the Barrow, in Ireland, is termed the Birgus. A people on the eastern coast of Ireland were called Brigantes, and the name Brigantina is still retained in the province of Gallicia, in Spain. Some authorities contend that the Gaedhels or Gaels, the Gaelic or Erse element of our population, originally entered Ireland and the south-west of England from Spain. From Ireland they spread, northward, to the western isles and highlands of Scotland, and westward, to the Isle of Man and the North of England and Wales. In one of the preserved extracts from the lost book of Drom Sneachta, supposed to have been written before the advent of St. Patrick, is what is termed "the Prime Story of Irruption and Migration." From this we learn that the ancient Milesian inhabitants themselves had traditions respecting their advent from Spain, which referred to the prior occupation of the country by two other branches of the Gaelic race, viz., the Firbolgs and the Tuatha dé Dannan. The story says the Milesians left Scythia for Egypt, but returned, and afterwards migrated to Spain by way of Greece. After a long residence in the peninsula, they built the city of Bragantia. About 1700 B.C., a colony of them landed at the mouth of the Slaney, in Wexford, under the command of the eight sons of Milesias or Galamah. In two battles they defeated their predecessors, and divided the country amongst themselves. The Cymri, another branch of the Keltic stock, on the contrary, entered Britain from Gaul, and were, eventually, to a considerable extent, driven upon the Gaelic tribes in the West of England and Wales by the pressure of their Teutonic successors. Professor H. Morley says that that portion of the population "in the North of England, who battled against the gradual progress of expulsion," was "known as Briganted, fighting thieves. Brigant is Welsh for thief and highlander." Brig and Brigant meaning top or summit, in modern Welsh, and Brigantwys the people of the summit, Brigantes has doubtless only originally meant the dwellers in the hilly country. The habits of the brigands of Greece, Spain, and Italy, of the present day, sufficiently account for its application to mountain hordes organised for the purposes of plunder and bloodshed.

Perhaps the Aryan mythology will supply a common source for all these local appellations. Walter K. Kelly ("Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition") says:—"Agni, the god of fire (Latin, ignis), has for retainers the Bhrigus and the Angirases. They are his priests on earth whilst they dwell there in mortal form; and after death they are his friends and companions in heaven. They are also the companions of the clouds and storms"—in other words, personifications of some characteristics of clouds and storms. He afterwards speaks of "Bhrigu, the father of a mythological family of that name." The root of the word means "fulgent burning." The Bhrigus and a kindred mythical race, the Phlegyans, incurred the displeasure of the gods. The latter were condemned to the torments of Tartarus. Bhrigu, being an ancestor of the Brahmans, was more leniently treated. His father, Varuna, however, sent him "on a penitential tour to several hells, that he might see how the wicked are punished, and be warned by their fate."

The clouds and storms of the Alpine mountains and the Lancashire and Yorkshire hills would amply justify the appellation of the term Brigantium, or the country of the Brigantes, in the minds of Aryan emigrants, to both localities. The Bhrigus, according to Dr. Kuhn, were "brewers" of storms, or yielders of the heavenly soma, the drink of the gods; in other words, the distillers of rain water, which rendered the earth fruitful. The country of the Brigantes is the term given by the Roman historians to that part of England which lies north of the Humber and the Mersey, and includes the lesser tribes named the Volantii and the Setantii, or Sistuntii, which occupied the western or Lancashire coast, and perhaps that of Cumberland.

Another very common name on altars in the north of England is Vitires, Vetiris, or Veteres. Mr. Thomas Wright regards this as a "foreign deity," and thinks "it must have belonged to a national mythology." But he adds, "As the altars were dedicated apparently by people of widely different countries, they give us no assistance in appropriating this deity. The word has been supposed to be identical with Vithris, one of the names of the northern Odin, the Woden of the Germans." This name for Odin has evidently some relationship to the Vritra (or Ahi, the dragon) of the Hindoo Vedas.

Some altars have been found at Lancaster and in Cumberland, dedicated to Cocidius or Cocideus. According to the Ravenna manuscript, it is probable a temple to this god existed near the Roman Wall, of sufficient importance to name the place Fanococidi. The name of this god may probably be traced to an Aryan source. I can, however, at present, offer no better suggestion than that it may have some reference to the Stygian ferryman, which is of Aryan origin. The river or arm of the sea over which the dead are ferried, by Charon, is variously named by the Greeks as the Styx, the Acheron, and the Cocytus. Perhaps the latter term may likewise furnish a clue to the derivation of the name Coccium of the Itineraries, which I and others have placed at Walton, near Preston.[3] It has previously been suggested by others that this station may have been named after either the god Cocidius or the Emperor Cocceius Nerva. The assumption that it was derived from Cocytus or Cocidius would in no way vitiate the truthfulness of the usual derivation from the Keltic coch gwi, or red water, from the red rock in the Ribble, as it is easy to imagine such a description to have been given to the "river of death." That the station was named after Cocceius Nerva is improbable, as all the known evidence, including the site, coins, and the British foundation beneath the Roman remains, indicate it to have been one of Agricola's posts. He entered Lancashire in the year 79, and Nerva did not commence his reign until 96. He only reigned about two years.

A very large proportion of the names of mountains and streams in any part of Britain are corruptions, in a greater or lesser degree, of words belonging to the aboriginal or Keltic tongue. With the aid of the Welsh, the Gaelic, and the Irish, the meaning of many can be satisfactorily ascertained, such as the Darwen (Dwrgwen, white, or beautiful stream), Wyre (gwyr, pure, lively), Old Man (alt maen, high hill), Pennygent (Penygwyn, white head or summit), or, which I think better, Pen y gwynt, windy head or summit, from its exposed situation. Others are, however, by no means so satisfactorily explained on similar grounds. Mr. Davies in a very able contribution to the Philological Society's Transactions, on "The Races of Lancashire," with reference to the Ribble, says:—

"The name of this well known river has much perplexed antiquarian philologists. I can only venture to suggest that it may be compounded of rhe (active, fleet), and bala (a shooting out, a discharge, the outlet of a lake), and may refer to its rapid course as an estuary."

With our knowledge, from Ptolemy, of the existence of a "Belisama Estuarium" on the Lancashire coast, in the second century, and which can be otherwise shown, on the best available evidence, to apply to the Ribble, the Rhi-bell, or River Bell, is a much more satisfactory derivation; and more especially so as a god bel or beil of the beltain fires is conceded (as I have previously shown) to the early Keltic inhabitants of Britain. The altar, recently found at Ribchester, dedicated to the British god Belatucadrus, proves, at least, that votaries of that deity dwelt in the Ribble valley, as well as in Cumberland, &c.

Godfrey Higgins, in his "Celtic Druids," speaks of Samhan or Saman as "one of the gods, the most revered in Ireland." He says:—"An annual solemnity was instituted to his honour, which is yet celebrated on the evening of the first day of November, which yet at this day is called the Oidhche Samhna, or the night of Samhan." He further informs us that he was "also called Bal-Sab or Lord of Death," and that "Samhan was also the sun, or rather the image of the sun," and adds:—

"These attributes of Samhan seem at first contradictory, but they are not unusual amongst the heathen gods. With the Greeks, Dionysos, the good Demiurge, is identified with Hades. In Egypt, Osiris was the lord of Death; with the Scandinavians, Odin, the god beneficent, was, at the same time, King of the infernal regions. This deity was above all the others whom we have named, but he was below the supreme being Baal. If Samhan were the sun, as we see he was, he answers to Mithra of the Persians, who was the middle link between Oromasdes and Arimanes—between the Creator and the Destroyer, and was called the Preserver."[4]

With the aid of the Hindoo Vedas, perhaps some light may be thrown on this subject, as well as upon the origin of the names of some other rivers in the neighbourhood, which have hitherto eluded satisfactory explanation.

The gods of the Vedas appear to have been, more or less, personifications of what were termed "the elements." The sun, the moon, the sky or firmament, the dawn and evening twilight, the sea, lightning, clouds, rain, wind, frost, fire, &c., and their attendant active phenomena, contributed mainly to the construction of their mythological edifice. Indra was god of the firmament, the earliest thunderer, the forerunner of Zeus, Jupiter and Thor; Agni was the god of fire, and Soma was the deity who brought down to earth the celestial liquor, the "drink of the gods," the amrita of the Vedas, the nectar of the Greeks. Soma was so designated because the "soma plant, which the Hindoos now identify with the Asclepias acida or Sarcostemma viminale," contained "a milky juice of a sweetish sub-acid flavour, which, being mixed with honey and other ingredients, yielded to the enraptured Aryans the first fermented liquor their race had ever known." All celestial or atmospheric phenomena were named from earthly objects. Clouds were called rocks and cows, and the mountain streams of the former and the milk of the latter were the liquid nourishers and fertilisers of the soil. The lightning-god was believed to pierce the rock or the rain cloud, and so water the parched earth. Walter Kelly says:—

"The identity of the heavenly soma with the cloud-water, and the close connection in which fire and soma are brought in various Aryan legends, prove that the drink of the gods was conceived to be a product of the storm. It appears also that the earthly soma was boiled or brewed before it was fermented, whence it must have followed, as a matter of course, that its divine counterpart should be supposed to undergo the same process. Hence it is manifest that we cannot claim for any of the later ages the credit of having invented the metaphor involved in the common saying, 'It's brewing a storm.' In that phrase, as in many others, we only repeat the thoughts of our primæval ancestors."

Dr. Kuhn identifies the modern word brew with the brajj of the Rig Veda, which has reference to the roasting of barley for brewing purposes, and is intimately connected with the Bhrigus, beings who "brewed and lightened" the heavenly soma out of the stormy phenomena of the mountain regions. In the Welsh of the present day, brygu means to grow out, to overspread. One modern Welsh word, brwysg, means drunk, and another brwys, fertile, luxuriant. The double use of the term at the present time, is, therefore, in singular harmony with the hypothesis of Kuhn, and adds much to its probability. Kelly says:—"One of the synonyms of soma is madhu, which means a mixed drink; and this word is the methu of the Greeks, and the mead of our own Saxon, Norse, and Celto-British ancestors."

Near Rutchester, in Northumberland, the ancient Vindobala, is an excavation made in the solid rock, the cause or use of which is not with certainty known. It is 12 feet long, 4½ feet broad, and 2 feet deep, "and has a hole close to the bottom at one end." It is locally named the "Giant's Grave." It is not improbable, from remains discovered near it, that it has had some connection with a temple dedicated to the worship of Mithras. A manuscript by Sir David Smith, preserved in Alnwick Castle, referring to this singular excavation, says:—"The old peasants here have a tradition that the Romans made a beverage somewhat like beer of the bells of heather (heath), and that this trough was used in the process of making such drink." Dr. Collingwood Bruce, commenting on the above, says:—"The opinion long prevailed in Northumberland that the Picts had the art of preparing an intoxicating liquor from heather-bells, and that the secret died with them."

The names of the gods underwent much change as time advanced, and the race was scattered. Bel became the luminous deity of some of the settlers in Britain; Soma became a higher deity in importance than Indra or Agni, and absorbed their attributes. In the Zend version the drink soma is spelled haoma. The hymns addressed to Soma, in a later age, are styled Sama Vedas. Hence it may easily be inferred the Belisama of Ptolemy is a Latinised form of the British words which indicated that the Ribble water was the "liquor of the gods" furnished by Bel and Sama for the fertilisation of the earth. The hoary rocky mountains of Pennygent, Ingleborough, and Pendle, and the storm-clouds that contended with lightning about their summits, furnish sufficiently characteristic natural phenomena to justify the appropriateness of the appellation. This deification of rivers was by no means an uncommon occurrence. Sir William Betham, in his "Gael and Cymbri," says, expressly, "the Celtæ were much addicted to the worship of fountains and rivers as divinities. They had a deity called Divona, or the river-god." The Wharf, which springs not far from the source of the Ribble, received these honours from legionaries of Rome or some of their auxiliaries, who appear to have worshipped the stream as the water-goddess "Verbeia." The Roman name appears to be merely a Latin form of the ancient British word of which the modern name Wharf is a corruption. The Lune, too, appears to have had similar honours conferred upon it, as is evidenced by an altar found at Skerton, near Lancaster, inscribed DEO JALONO. The word Lune was anciently written Lone, and the hundred is still named Lonsdale. Indeed, the personification of rivers is not yet extinct. We speak of "Old Father Thames" to this day.

The Ituna Estuarium of Ptolemy is universally assigned to the Solway, the chief river entering it being called the Eden at the present time. As t and d are convertible, and the Latin i was pronounced e, as on the continent now, Eduna most probably expresses to our ears the ancient sound, which is the exact counterpart of the modern one, the Latin terminal letter not entering into the question. Does the Vedic and Teutonic mythologies throw any light on the derivation of this name? Kelly says:—

"The cloud-maidens are known in the Vedas as Apas (waters), and are styled brides of the gods (Dêvapatnis) and Návyah, i.e., navigators of the celestial sea. Nearly related to them, but less divine, are the Apsarases; damsels whose habitat is between the earth and the sun. They are the houris of the Vedic paradise, destined to delight the souls of heroes. Their name means either 'the formless' or 'the water going,' and they appear to have been personifications of the manifold but ill-defined forms of the mists; but other natural phenomena may also have been represented under their image."

Kelly further informs us that these inferior cloud-maidens possessed raiment or "shirts of swan plumage," by means of which they "transformed themselves into water-fowl, especially swans." He adds that "the Persian peris, and the German swan-maidens, changed their forms in the same way, and by the same means." Indeed, they are "the originals" of these "swan-maidens," and are closely related to the Elves, Mahrs, and Valkyries, of the Teutonic mythology. The same writer further states that "Odin's Valkyries (riders in the wild hunt) had their swan-shirts, and the Norse goddess Freyja" (from whence our Friday), "had her falcon-shirt,[5] which she lent to Loki, when he went in quest of Thor's stolen hammer, and to rescue Idunn," (elsewhere spelled Idhunn) "the goddess of youth, from captivity among the frost giants. Thiassi, who kept her in custody, had an eagle-shirt, and his follow giant, Suttungr, had another, in which he pursued Odin."

These wild riders of the stormy sky, like their prototypes in the Vedas, personify or typify "rain senders." Mr. Kelly says, in the Teutonic form of the myth, the manes of their horses "dropped dew upon the earth, filled the drinking horns for the gods and the warriors in Odin's hall; and like them, white maidens, elves, and witches offer full goblets and horns to thankless mortals, who usually run away with the beaker after spilling its contents on the ground."

It is a somewhat singular circumstance that the most celebrated relict of this old pagan superstition, or myth, is preserved at Edenhall, on the bank of the very river to which I am referring. Tradition says the goblet was secured, in the orthodox way, by an ancestor of the Musgraves, or one of his retainers, ages ago. Sir Walter Scott has rendered the story immortal. He makes the following distich salute the ears of the bold plunderer, as he hurriedly decamps from the fairy revel:—

If this glass do break or fall,
Farewell the luck of Edenhall.

The "Luck of Edenhall," as the very ancient glass vessel is styled, is believed to be of Venetian manufacture, and dates, probably, from the century preceding the Norman conquest.

The Rev. G. W. Cox, in his valuable work on the "Mythology of the Aryan Nations," ranks this cup amongst the numerous phallic symbols. Referring to this subject, he says:—"We have seen the myth starting from its crude and undisguised form, assume the more harmless shape of goblets or horns of plenty and fertility; of rings and crosses, of rods and spears, of mirrors and lamps. It has brought before us the mysterious ships endowed with the powers of thought and speech, beautiful cups in which the wearied sun sinks to rest, the staff of wealth and plenty with which Hermes guides the cattle of Helios across the blue pastures of heaven, the cup of Dêmetêr into which the ripe fruit casts itself by an irresistible impulse. We have seen the symbols assume the character of talismanic tests, by which the refreshing draught is dashed from the lips of the guilty; and, finally, in the exquisite legend of the Sangreal the symbols have become a sacred thing, only the pure in heart may see and touch."

The goddess of youth (Idunn), with her attendant swans and water-fowl, is not an inapt personification of the lovely Eden, in its lower course; while the wild moors and crags, where the eagles nestled, and amongst which its many tributary streamlets spring, aptly enough answers to the homes of the frost giants, who, in severe winters, held captive the congealed waters.

It may be thought that this, being a Teutonic etymology, is not so satisfactory as if it were Keltic. But its pertinence is corroborated by the fact that, in the Welsh of the present day, edn means fowl or bird, edyn winged one, and ednyw spirit, essence.

Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his work on "First Principles," when treating of "Laws in General," argues elaborately on the order in which the sense of law, or a recognition of "that constant course of procedure" which the term implies, was gradually developed in the human intellect. After showing that there are several derivative principles, some earlier arrived at than others from the relative frequency of the occurring phenomena and their immediate influence upon, or of "personal concern" to, the aboriginal savage, he has some observations very pertinent to the present question. He says:—"The solidification of water at a low temperature is a phenomenon that is simple, concrete, and of much personal concern. But it is neither so frequent as those which we saw are earliest generalised, nor is the presence of the antecedent so uniformly conspicuous. Though in all but tropical climates, mid-winter displays the relation between cold and freezing with tolerable constancy; yet, during the spring and autumn, the occasional appearance of ice in the mornings has not very manifest connection with the coldness of the weather. Sensation being so inaccurate a measure, it is not possible for the savage to experience the definite relation between a temperature of 32° and the congealing of water; and hence the long-continued conception of personal agency. Similarly, but still more clearly, with the winds, the absence of regularity, and the inconspicuousness of the antecedents, allowing the mythological explanation to survive for a great period."

The names of the Severn and the Dee, and some other rivers or estuaries, will admit of similar interpretation from similar sources. Mr. Kelly says:—"The collective appellation of the Vedic gods is Dêvas, and this name has passed into most of the Indo-European languages; for corresponding to the Sanscrit dêva is the Latin deus, Greek theós, Lithuanian déwas, Lettish dews, Old Prussian deiws, Irish dia, Welsh duw, Cornish duy. Amongst the German races the word dêva survives only in the Norse plural tìvar, gods; and amongst those of the Sclave stock the Servians alone preserve a trace of it in the word diw, giant. The daêvas of the Medes and Persians were in early times degraded from the rank of gods to that of demons by a religious revolution, just as the heathen gods of the Germans were declared by the Christian missionaries to be devils; and the modern Persian div, and Armenian dev, mean an evil spirit. Dêva is derived from div, heaven (properly 'the shining'), and means the heavenly being."

This appears to be a satisfactory and conclusive answer to a very pertinent question put by George Borrow in the last chapter of his work on "Wild Wales." He says:—"How is it that the Sanscrit devila stands for what is wise and virtuous, and the English devil for all that is desperate and wicked?" A similar answer is given to this question by the fate which the Teutonic gods of Western Europe underwent on the final triumph of Christianity. Dasent says:—"They were cast down from honour, but not from power. They lost their genial kindly influence as the protectors of men and the origin of all things good; but their existence was tolerated; they became powerful for ill, and degenerated into malignant demons."

In the Hindoo mythology, it appears revolutions took place at a very early date. In the early Vedic hymns Dêva is "addressed as Dyanish pitâ, i.e., Heaven Father, and his wife is Mata Prithivi, Mother Earth. He is the Zeus Pater of the Greeks, the Jupiter of the Romans, the German Tius, and the Norse Tyr. Dyanish pitâ was the god of the blue firmament, but even in the Vedic times his grandeur was considerably on the wane. Indra, the new lord of the firmament, had left him little more than a titular sovereignty in his own domain, while Varuna, another heavenly monarch, who was still in the plenitude of his power, commanded more respect than the roi fainéant, his neighbour. The all-covering Varuna,[6] the Uranos of the Greeks, was lord of the celestial sea and of the realm of light above it, that highest heaven in which the Fathers dwelt with their King Yama. After the southern branch of the Aryans had entered India, Varuna was brought down from the upper regions, to be thenceforth the god of the earthly sea, which had then for the first time become known to his votaries."

May not this Varun be possibly the true root of the name Severn? Etymologists are not at all agreed as to its derivation. Some say it was anciently called Hafren, and that this term is identical with Severn, the latter being merely a corruption of the former. This is the prevalent opinion. The Severn, indeed, yet retains the name Hafren, from its source to Llanidloes. Its principal upper tributary which enters it a little below Welshpool is called the Vyrnwy. May not this be the true Welsh root of the word? If such be the case, there is nothing improbable in the conjecture that Hafren is a Keltic corruption of the Sanscrit Varun, especially as the f and v are readily "convertible." The Se may be a prefix, of which more anon.[7]

Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his "British History," states that King Locrin divorced his queen Guendolœna, and married a beautiful captive named Estrildis. On the death of the king, the divorced queen commanded "Estrildis and her daughter Sabre to be thrown into the river now called the Severn, and published an edict through all Britain that the river should bear the damsel's name, hoping by this to perpetuate her memory, and by that the infamy of her husband. So that to this day the river is called in the British tongue Sabren, which by the corruption of the name is, in another language, Sabrina."

Milton, speaking of Sabrina as the goddess of the river, styles her "the daughter of Locrine, that had the sceptre from his father Brute." As the mythical or rather non-historical character of Brute and his progeny is now almost universally conceded, it is not improbable that the river named the maiden (if she ever existed in the flesh) rather than that her immersion changed its designation. Sabrina, or Savrina (for the b and v are convertible), may therefore but be the Latinised form of the old Welsh Hafren and the Sanscrit Varuna, with the prefix se added thereto.

The Dee is described as the Seteia Estuarium by Ptolemy. The Roman city Deva (Chester) was situated on its banks. The se is generally regarded as a prefix in this case, and it may likewise be so in the word Severn. D and t being convertible, the names of the river and city evidently spring from one root. The Rev. John Whitaker, the historian of Manchester, in interpreting the term Se-tan-tiu, says it may mean "the inferior or southerly country of water, and express the particular position of Lancashire with respect to the Volantii and the sea."[8]

The Se, in these cases, may have a somewhat similar import, or it may have reference to the Vedic great serpent Sesha, concerning which there is a curious story in the Hindoo poems. The Dêvas had been at war with their enemies, the Asuras, and, being thirsty with the work (or the country needing rain), a truce was agreed upon, and both sides joined their efforts "in churning the ocean to procure amrita" (or soma) "the drink of immortality. They took Mount Mandara for a churning stick, and wrapping the great serpent Sesha round it for a rope, they made the mountain spin round to and fro, the Dêvas pulling at the serpent's tail, and the Asuras at its head. Mount Mandara was more anciently written Manthara, and Manthara is the Sanscrit name of the churning stick which is used by every dairy in India."[9] The purely figurative character of this is easily seen. It is but another form of expressing the fertilisation of the earth by means of the rain which is engendered by the "strife of the elements." The churning stick and cord are but another form of the Hindoo pramantha, or fire churn, "or chark," by which the sacred or "need-fire" was produced amongst the Greeks and Romans, as well as the Keltæ and other Aryan tribes, before the discovery of the use of flint and steel. The "chark" represented the power of the sun, and it is not impossible our remote Eastern ancestors were aware that the sun really does, in a sense, "churn" or "brew" the ocean water, and distribute its vapours over mountain and plain, and by this means convert even an otherwise barren wilderness into a fertile garden, making it literally "blossom like the rose."

That this superstition has not yet become extinct in India is attested by the following paragraph, which appeared in the newspapers in the year 1869:—"The inhabitants of Burmah have an idea that pulling at a rope will produce rain. Two parties tug against each other. One is a raining party, the other is a fair weather party. By previous arrangement the rain party are allowed to be victorious. On the occasion of the late continued drought this proceeding was attended with the happiest results."

Geoffrey of Monmouth says that an "invading king of the Huns, named Humber, was defeated by Locrin on the banks of that river, and drowned in its flood, on account of which it has since borne his name." This, of course, is merely idle romance. Some writers contend that the name was originally Chumber, that Northumberland means North Cumri-land, of which the present Cumberland is a relic. It is not improbable that the Mersey derived its name from Mercia, or the territory from the boundary river. It, in conjunction with the Humber, divided Northumbria from Mercia during the heptarchy. The Mersey is still called the Cheshire Waters by some of the inhabitants on the south-west of Manchester.

It is somewhat singular that no Roman writer or Itinerary mentions the Humber. Ptolemy speaks of a river Abus, which is generally identified with that stream, but this helps us not to the etymology of the modern name. It is not altogether improbable, however, that the Aryan mythology may throw some light upon the ancient appellations. We are informed by Max Müller that, previous to the dispersion of the Aryan tribes, the Ribhus were called Arbhus, and that this latter term is identical with the Greek Orpheus. From this root likewise is derived the German Alb or Alp; plural Elbe or Elfen; English Elf, with its plural Elves. In the modern Welsh the word elod means intelligence, spirit, elaeth spiritual being, and elford both demon and intellectual existence. The Rev. G. W. Cox says that Alpheios, the mythic huntsman, "is the child of the waters.... He is, in short, the Elf, or water sprite, whose birth-place is the Elbe, or flowing stream." If the name of the German river Elbe (Albis) be derived from this source, the probability is heightened that the Abus of Ptolemy may have intimate relationship to the Aryan Arbhus, or Ribhus. These mystic beings were followers, like the Bhrigus and the Maruts, of Agni and Indra, "personifications of fire and firmament." Kelly says:—"The element of the Ribhus is rather that of the sunbeams or the lightning, though they too rule the winds, and sing, like the Maruts, the loud song of the storm.[10] Their name means the 'artificers,' and not even the divine workman of Olympus was more skilled than they in all kinds of handicraft. The armour and weapons of the gods, the chariots of the Asvins (deities of the dawn), the thunderbolt and the lightning steed of Indra, were of their workmanship. They made their old decrepid parents young and supple-jointed again. But the feat for which they were most renowned is the revival of the slaughtered cow on which the gods had feasted. Out of the hide alone these wonder-working Ribhus reproduced the perfect living animal; and this they did not once, but again and again. In other words, out of a small portion of the imperishable cloud that had melted away in rain and seemed destroyed, they reproduced its whole form and substance."

Similar feats were ascribed to the Northern thunder-god, Thor, whose practice it was to kill the two buck goats that drew his car, cook them for supper, and bring them to life again next morning by touching them with his hammer.

Kelly further adds that in "the gloomy season of the winter solstice the Ribhus sleep for twelve days in the house of the sun-god Savitar; then they wake up and prepare the earth to clothe itself anew with vegetation, and the FROZEN WATERS TO FLOW again."

The tributaries of the Humber are remarkable on account of their liabilities to sudden floods; and their constant recurrence, after long periods of drought, would suggest to a primæval people the interference of celestial beings which possessed the attributes assigned to these Arbhus or Ribhus. Referring to the Greek form of this myth, Kelly says:—

"We see how the cruder idea of the Ribhus sweeping trees and rocks in wild dance before them by the force of their stormy song grew under the beautifying touch of the Hellenic imagination into the legend of that master of the lyre whose magic tones made torrents pause and listen, rocks and trees descend with delight from their mountain beds, and moved even Pluto's unrelenting heart to pity."

The estuary on the opposite coast of Britain to the Severn, now known as the Wash, is called by Ptolemy, Metaris. May not this name have had, originally, some connection with Varuna's friend Mithra? Kelly says:—

"When the sun was still a wheel, a store of gold, a swan or a flamingo, an eagle, falcon, horse, and many other things, it was also the eye of Varuna; just as amongst the Anglo-Saxons and other Germans it was held to be the eye of Woden. Varuna and Mithra (the friend), the god of daylight, used to sit together at morning on a golden throne, and journey at even in a brazen car."

The sun, at the dawn at least, gilded the waves of the eastern estuary, and shed its ruddier glow at evening on the western or Severn sea. Under any interpretation, the coincidence of so many names and half-hidden characteristics, to say the least, is very remarkable.

There is nothing extravagant in this attempt to show that the terms thus applied conveyed both a literal, or earthly, as well as a figurative, or celestial, meaning. All mythology is fashioned out of such materials. Primitive languages are limited in the number of their words, and, of necessity, are highly figurative. The tongues of all the North American Indians, as well as those of the tribes of Aryan and Semitic origin, markedly exhibit this peculiarity. Farrer, in his essay on the "Origin of Language," says:—

"To call things which we have never seen before by the name of that which most nearly resembles them is a practice of every-day life. That children at first call all men 'father' and all women 'mother' is an observation as old as Aristotle. The Romans gave the name of Lucanian ox to the elephant, and camelopardus to the giraffe, just as the New Zealanders are stated to have called horses large dogs. The astonished Caffers gave the name of cloud to the first parasol which they had seen; and similar instances might be adduced almost indefinitely. They prove that it is an instinct, if it be not a necessity, to borrow for the unknown the names already used for things known."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The Pall Mall Gazette, of January, 1867, contained a paragraph announcing the success which had attended the labours of M. Lejean, who had been sent by the French government "on a journey of scientific exploration to India and the Persian Gulf." M. Lejean, in a letter from Abushehr (Bendershehr), reports to the French Minister of Public Instruction, discoveries "of so extraordinary a nature," that the writer in the Gazette "scarcely likes to repeat them without further confirmation." Amongst other matters, he says:—"They extend from the oldest times to the Alexandrine period, and from the Arians to Buddhism. He speaks of having discovered ante-Sanscrit idioms (langues paléo-ariennes) 'still spoken between Kashmir and Afghanistan by the mountain tribes,' and he undertakes to prove 'that these languages have a more direct connection with the European languages than Sanscrit.'" Should this prove correct, a careful analysis of this speech or tongue may throw much light, either confirmative or otherwise, on many of the more recondite questions discussed in this work.

[2] Baldwin, however, in his recent work, "Pre-historic Nations," contends that the Phœnicians, as well as the ancient Egyptians and others, were descended from the old Cushite Arabs, and were therefore "Hamitic" rather than "Semitic" in their origin.

[3] History of Preston and its Environs, p. 36.

[4] The Hindoo Trimürtti or Triad, namely, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, likewise represents the Creator, the Preserver, and the Destroyer.

[5] The falcon, as well as the eagle, was a "fire-bringer or lightning-bird."

[6] "Varuna and the demon Vitri both derive their names from var, vri, to cover, to enfold."

[7] Since the above was written, the Rev. G. W. Cox's "Mythology of the Aryan Nations" has been published. At page 78, vol. 2, speaking of the youth of Paris, the seducer of Helen, he says:—"In his early life he has the love of Oinônê, the child of the river-god Kebrên, and thus a being akin to the bright maidens who, like Athenê and Aphroditê, are born from the waters." In a note he adds "that this name Kebrên is probably the same as Severn, the intermediate forms leave little room for doubting."

[8] Since the above was written, I have seen, in Captain Speke's "Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile," the map of Eastern Equatorial Africa, which accompanied a paper, published in the third volume of "Asiatic Researches, in 1801." Speke, referring to this paper, says:—"It was written by Lieutenant Wilford, from the 'Purans' of the ancient Hindus.... It is remarkable that the Hindus have christened the source of the Nile Amara, which is the name of a country at the north-east corner of the Victoria N'yanza. This, I think, shows clearly, that the ancient Hindus must have had some kind of communication with both the northern and southern ends of the Victoria N'yanza." I find on this map, on the west side of the inland sea styled "Lake of Amara or of the Gods," a range of hills named "Sitanta M^ts." They are in close contiguity to the "Soma Giri" or "Mountains of the Moon," and seem to be a lower or inferior branch of that range, bordering upon the waters of the great lake. This appears to be a further confirmation of the high probability which exists that some of the very ancient local nomenclature of Britain and Western Europe is of Eastern origin. Ptolemy speaks not only of a people inhabiting the district of which Lancashire forms a part, which he names the Setantii, but of a harbour on the coast, the Portus Setantiorum, which I and others have fixed at the Wyre. [See "History of Preston and its Environs." p. 36.]

[9] The second "Avatâra" of Vishnu was in the form of a tortoise, when Vishnu placed himself under the mountain Mandara, while the gods and demons churned the Milky Sea for ambrosia. This incarnation is called the Kurma. This churning appears to have produced other miraculous results. Amongst the "gifts" of the ocean on this auspicious occasion, two especially fell to the share of Vishnu himself, namely, a miraculous jewel, named Kaustubha, and S'rî, the goddess of Beauty and Prosperity. The Venus of the Greeks was said to have been produced from the foam of the sea, in the neighbourhood of the island Cythera, hence one of the numerous appellations of the goddess—Cytherea.

[10] The modern Welsh word aban signifies din, tumult, uproar.

CHAPTER II.

FIRE OR SUN WORSHIP AND ITS ATTENDANT SUPERSTITIONS.

Most glorious orb! thou wert a worship, ere
The mystery of thy making was reveal'd!
Thou earliest minister of the Almighty,
Which gladden'd, on their mountain tops, the hearts
Of the Chaldean shepherds, till they pour'd
Themselves in orisons! Thou material God!
And representative of the Unknown—
Who chose thee for his shadow!

Byron.

Let us meditate on the adorable light of the divine ruler,
(Savitri, the sun); may it guide our intellects.

Vedic Hymn.

In his own image the Creator made,
His own pure sunbeam quicken'd, thee, O man!
Thou breathing dial! Since thy day began
The present hour was ever markt with shade.

W. Savage Landor.

I have said that some remains of the fire worship of Bel or Beil, until very recently, might be found in Lancashire and the North of England, as well as at present in Scotland and Ireland. Indeed, I am inclined to think certain English customs of the peasantry, at the present day, may, with perfect truthfulness, be referred to this source, although the original objects of the ceremonies may have been, either wholly or in part, obliterated by time, or obscured by the action of more recent rites and traditional observances.

Amongst these may be instanced a superstition prevalent in the North of England and many other places, that a funeral procession, when arrived at the churchyard, must move in the sun's course; that is, from east to west; otherwise evil resulted to the spirit of the departed. This sentiment is not confined to religious ceremonies, but is respected when passing the bottle in convivial assemblies; and in several other matters of ordinary every-day life. The fact that Brand, and most of the earlier writers after the Reformation, speak of these superstitions as "Popish," in no way invalidates the assignment to them of an Aryan origin. As early as the eleventh century, in the reign of Canute the Great, we find laws strictly prohibiting the people from worshipping, or venerating, "the sun, moon, sacred groves and woods, and hallowed hills and fountains." Decrees were again and again pronounced in vain against many of these practices by the ecclesiastical authorities. In the canons of the Northumberland clergy, quoted by Wilkins and Hallam, we read as follows:—

"If a king's thane deny this (the practice of heathen superstition), let twelve be appointed for him, and let him take twelve of his kindred (or equals, maga), and twelve British strangers; and if he fail, then let him pay for his breach of law, twelve half-marcs: if a landowner (or lesser thane) deny the charge, let as many of his equals and as many strangers be taken as for a royal thane; and if he fail, let him pay six half-marcs: If a ceorl deny it, let as many of his equals and as many strangers be taken for him as for the others; and if he fail, let him pay twelve oræ for his breach of law."

This demonstrates that all classes, whatever their rank, found it difficult to shake off the superstitions of their forefathers. Some of them became amalgamated with more modern festive ceremonies, and were eventually intermingled with the formulæ of the Christian worship itself. Sir Jno. Lubbock, in his recent work, "The Origin of Civilization and the Primitive Condition of Man," endorses this view. He says: "When man, either by natural progress, or the influence of a more advanced race, rises to the conception of a higher religion, he still retains his old beliefs, which long linger on, side by side with, and yet in utter opposition to, the higher creed. The new and more powerful spirit is an addition to the old Pantheon, and diminishes the importance of the older deities; gradually, the worship of the latter sinks in the social scale, and becomes confined to the ignorant and the young. Thus a belief in witchcraft still flourishes among our agricultural labourers and the lowest classes in our great cities, and the deities of our ancestors survive in the nursery tales of our children. We must, therefore, expect to find in each race, traces—nay, more than traces—of lower religions."

In the Irish Glossary of Cormac, Archbishop of Cashel, written in the beginning of the tenth century, the author says, in his time "four great fires were lighted up on the four great festivals of the Druids, viz., in February, May, August, and November." General Valancey says the Irish have discontinued their November fires and substituted candles; while the Welsh, though they retain the fire, "can give no reason for the illumination." All Saints' Day is on the first of November, and its vigil is termed Allhalloween, or Nutcrack night. Those festivals had all reference to the seasons, and their influence on the fruitfulness of the earth. Brand says "it is customary on this night with young people in the north of England to dive for apples, or catch at them, when stuck upon one end of a kind of hanging beam, at the other extremity of which is fixed a lighted candle, and that with their mouths only, their hands being tied behind their backs." Robert Burns tells us that Halloween is thought to be a "night when witches, devils, and other mischief making beings, are all abroad on their baneful midnight errands; particularly those ærial people, the fairies, are said on that night to hold a grand anniversary." Scotch girls, on this evening, pull, blindfolded, cabbage stalks, in order to divine the size and figure of their future husbands. Nuts are roasted or flung into the fire for a similar purpose both in Scotland and England. Gay describes the latter ceremony as follows:—

Two hazel nuts I threw into the flame,
And to each nut I gave a sweetheart's name;
This with the loudest bounce me sore amazed,
That in a flame of brightest colour blazed;
As blazed the nut so may thy passion grow,
For 'twas thy nut that did so brightly glow!

We possess some interesting accounts of these gatherings in various parts of Scotland during the latter portion of the last century. In Perthshire, heath, broom, and dressings of flax were tied to poles, lighted, and carried round the villages and fields. One minister says the people "set up bonfires in every village. When the bonfire is consumed, the ashes are carefully collected into the form of a circle. There is a stone put in near the circumference, for every person of the several families interested in the bonfire; and whatever stone is removed out of its place or injured before the next morning, the person represented by that stone is devoted, or fey, and is supposed not to live twelve months from that day. The people received the consecrated fire from the Druid priests next morning, the virtues of which were supposed to continue a year." A similar authority says, "the custom of making a fire in the fields, baking a consecrated cake, &c., on the 1st of May is not yet quite worn out."

In Derbyshire these fires were called Tindles, and were kindled at the close of the last century. In some localities the ceremony is called a Tinley. Sir William Dugdale says, "On All-Hallow Even the master of the family anciently used to carry a bunch of straw, fired, about his corne, saying—

"Fire and red low
Light on my teen low."

In Lancashire they are called tandles and teanlas. In Ireland May-day eve is called neen na Bealtina, the eve of Bael fires. The practice of divination by the roasting of nuts is yet common in Lancashire. The hollow cinder, too, which leaps from a coal fire, is supposed to augur wealth or death to the person against whom it strikes, in proportion as its shape nearest resembles a purse or a coffin.

Mr. Thornber, the historian of Blackpool, and Mr. T. T. Wilkinson, of Burnley, author of a series of valuable papers on Lancashire superstitions published in the "Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Historic Society," have furnished some curious information of a local character with reference to this ancient fire-worship. The latter says:—"Such fires are still lighted in Lancashire, on Hallowe'en, under the names of Beltains or Teanleas; and even the cakes which the Jews are said to have made in honour of the Queen of Heaven, are yet to be found at this season amongst the inhabitants of the banks of the Ribble.... Both the fires and cakes, however, are now connected with superstitious notions respecting purgatory, &c., but their origin and perpetuation will scarcely admit of doubt." He further observes:—"The practice of 'causing children to pass through the fire to Moloch,' so strongly reprobated by the prophet of old, may be cited as an instance in which Christianity has not yet been able to efface all traces of one of the oldest forms of heathen worship."

Mr. Thornber says:—"The conjoint worship of the sun and moon, the Samen and Sama, husband and wife of nature, has been from these early times so firmly implanted that ages have not uprooted it. Christianity has not banished it.... In my youth, on Hallowe'en, under the name of Teanla fires, I have seen the hills throughout the country illuminated with sacred flames, and I can point out many a cairn of fire-broken stones—the high places of the votaries of Bel—where his rites have been performed on the borders of the Ribble age after age. Nor at this day are these mysteries silenced; with a burning whisp of straw at the point of a fork on Sama's festival at the eve of All-hallows, the farmer in some districts of the Fylde encircles his field to protect the coming crop from noxious weeds, the tare and darnel; the old wife refuses to sit the eggs under her crackling hen after sunset; the ignorant boy sits astride a stile, as he looks at the new moon; the bride walks not widdershins to church on her nuptial moon; and if the aged parent addresses not the young pair in the words of Hanno, the Carthaginian in the Pœnula of Plautus, 'O that the good Bel-Samen may favour them,' or, like the Irish peasant, 'The blessing of Sama and Bel go with you;' still, we have often heard the benediction, 'May the sun shine bright upon you,' in accordance with the old adage,

'Blest is the corpse the rain fell on,
Blest the bride on whom the sun shone.'"

M. Du Chaillu, in his recent "Journey into Ashango-land and further penetration into Equatorial Africa," speaks of a certain superstitious reverence for fire and faith in its medical virtues by the inhabitants of the region he traversed. He relates the following beautiful story respecting their astronomical notions:—"I was not always so solitary in taking my nightly observations, for sometimes one and another of my men or Mayola" (the king or chief), "would stand by me. Of course, I could never make them comprehend what I was doing. Sometimes I used to be amused by their ideas about the heavenly bodies. Like all other remarkable natural objects, they are the subject of whimsical myths amongst them. According to them, the sun and moon are of the same age, but the sun brings daylight and gladness and the moon brings darkness, witchcraft, and death—for death comes from sleep, and sleep commences in darkness. The sun and moon, they say, once got angry with each other, each one claiming to be the eldest. The moon said, 'Who are you, to dare to speak to me? You are alone; you have no people. What! are you to consider yourself equal to me? Look at me,' she continued, showing the stars shining around her, 'these are my people; I am not alone in the world like you.' The sun answered, 'Oh, moon, you bring witchcraft, and it is you have killed all my people, or I should have as many attendants as you.' According to the negroes, people are more liable to die when the moon first makes her appearance and when she is last visible. They say that she calls the people her insects and devours them. The moon with them is the emblem of time and death."

The Teutonic tribes appear, contrary to the general faith of their Aryan kindred, to have regarded the sun as a female and the moon as a male deity. Palgrave, in his "History of the Anglo-Saxons," says:—"They had an odd notion that if they addressed that power as a goddess, their wives would be their masters."

I am strongly inclined to think that the continuance of the practice of lighting bonfires on the 5th of November owes quite as much to the associations connected with the ancient teanla fires of Allhalloween, as to any present Protestant horror of the treason of Guy Fawkes and his band of conspirators. It may be quite true that the House of Commons, in February, 1605-6 did ordain that the 5th of November should be kept as "a holiday FOR EVER in thankfulness to God for our deliverance, and detestation of the Papists;" but ordinances of this class seldom produce more than a temporary excitement amongst large masses of the people. I remember, in my youth, "assisting" at the celebration of several "bonfire days" in Preston and its neighbourhood, sometimes as amateur pyrotechnic artist, when we enjoyed our "fun" without any reference to Protestant or Catholic proclivities. Few, except the better educated, knew what the "Gunpowder Plot" really meant. Some associated it mainly with our own pyrotechnic efforts and other attendant consumption of the explosive compound, on the then special occasion. I rather fancy the ancient November "Allhallow fires" have in their decadence, merged into the modern "Gunpowder Plot" bonfires; and hence the reason why, in some rural districts, they yet abound, while they are fast disappearing from our more populous towns. I was surprised to find, when riding on an omnibus from Manchester for about five miles on the Bury-road, on the evening of a recent anniversary of this "holiday," that I could count, near and on the horizon, fires of this description by the dozen, and yet, while in Manchester, I had remained ignorant of the fact that bonfire associations were influencing the conduct of any section of society. The merging of one superstition, custom, habit, or tradition, into another, is one of the most ordinary facts of history.

Mr. Richard Edwards, in his "Land's End District," gives a very graphic account of the bonfires lighted up in Cornwall on Midsummer eve. Some of the details sufficiently resemble those of our northern "gunpowder plot" demonstrations to prove that a Guy Fawkes and an Act of Parliament are not absolutely necessary to make a bonfire festivity attractive to the descendants of the fire-worshippers of old. He says:—

"On these eves a line of tar barrels, relieved occasionally by large bonfires, is seen in the centre of each of the principal streets in Penzance. On either side of this line, young men and women pass up and down, swinging round their heads heavy torches made of large pieces of folded canvas steeped in tar, and nailed to the ends of sticks between three and four feet long; the flames of some of these almost equal those of the tar barrels. Rows of lighted candles, also, when the air is calm, are fixed outside the windows or along the sides of the streets. In St. Just and other mining parishes, the young miners, mimicking their father's employments, bore rows of holes in the rocks, load them with gunpowder, and explode them in rapid succession by trains of the same substance. As the holes are not deep enough to split the rocks, the same little batteries serve for many years.... In the early part of the evening, children may be seen wreathing wreaths of flowers,—a custom in all probability originating from the ancient use of these ornaments when they danced around the fires. At the close of the fireworks in Penzance, a great number of persons of both sexes, chiefly from the neighbourhood of the quay, used always, until within the last few years, to join hand in hand, forming a long string, and run through the streets, playing 'thread the needle,' heedless of the fireworks showered upon them, and ofttimes leaping over the yet glowing embers. I have, on these occasions, seen boys following one another, jumping through flames higher than themselves. But while this is now done innocently, in every sense of the word, we all know that the passing of children through fire was a very common act of idolatry; and the heathen believed that all persons, and all living things, submitted to this ordeal, would be preserved from evil throughout the year."

I remember well the bonfire processions during election periods, at Preston, above forty years ago, in the palmy days of the late Mr. Henry Hunt. It is not improbable that a remnant of the old superstition hovered about them; and that a latent belief in the "luck-bringing" qualities of fire, to a slight extent, influenced their promoters.

A few years ago I visited, in company with Mr. Thornber, a field at Hardhorn, near Poulton, and was shown by that gentleman some of the stones yet remaining of what he has for many years regarded as the remains of a very ancient Teanlea cairn. Some of the stones bore marks of fire. The mound must, however, have been neglected for a length of time, inasmuch as the shrewd old farmer who had destroyed it had no recollection or traditionary knowledge respecting the use to which it had been appropriated. But from the ashes and other indications of fire which the upper portion of the cairn presented, the worthy husbandman felt confident that "it hed bin a blacksmith's forge i' th' olden time."

Godfrey Higgins in his "Celtic Druids," asserts, on the authority of Hayman Rooke, that "so late as the year 1786, the custom of lighting fires was continued at the Druid temple at Bramham, near Harrowgate, Yorkshire, on the eve of the summer solstice." The Bramham crags referred to present a singularly curious specimen of the partial disintegration of huge rocks belonging to the millstone grit series. Their present peculiar forms are not now attributed by the learned to human agency, in any marked degree at least, but to the denuding action of water, frost, and other geological conditions or phenomena. Nevertheless, from the wild and even weird aspect of the group and its elevated site, it is by no means improbable that it has been used in early times as a place of worship, or as the locality for the performance of superstitious rites of the class referred to. Doubtless, other localities of a similar character might be pointed out. "Beacon Fell," near "Parlick Pike," and the "Tandle Hills," near Rochdale, may have been used as places of public assembly, and for the performance of similar superstitious observances. The same may be said of Ingleborough, which yet exhibits remains of Keltic occupation.

This fire-worship, amongst a barbarous people, appears to have had by no means a strange or unnatural origin. Mr. Walter Kelly, after a very elaborate analysis, concludes that the Prometheus of the Greeks and the Vedic Mâtarisvan are "essentially the same." "The elder fire-gods, Agni and Rudra," he says, "had a troop of fire-kindling attendants, called Pramathas or Pramâthas," and he regards Prometheus as the Greek form of this word. He calls attention to the fact that Diodorus says of the celebrated Titan, that "according to the mythographers he stole fire from the gods, but that in reality he was the inventor of the fire-making instrument." The discoverer of the chark, or "fire-drill," an instrument for obtaining fire by artificial means, would be so great a benefactor to a people that had to suffer all the inconveniences resulting from occasional fireless hearths, that we may well understand why he should be invested by his astonished and delighted fellow-savages with miraculous or supernatural powers.[11] Doubtless the production of fire by the rubbing together of two pieces of dry timber preceded this discovery, but, under many circumstances, the operation must have been a most laborious one, and ofttimes impracticable. But with the "chark" the result was nearly as certain as when flint, steel, and tinder were employed for this purpose. It was a very simple instrument indeed, but it has nevertheless exercised a marvellous influence on the destinies of mankind. It consisted merely of a piece of soft dry wood with a hole drilled in its centre, into which a rod of hard wood, ash, or oak, was placed, and caused to revolve with rapidity by a cord, passed round it, being pulled and slackened at each end alternately. A wheel and its axle have hence become types of the sun and the thunderbolt. Fire produced in this original way was considered sacred. Even the Greeks and Romans, as well as the Kelts, and some Christian populations until recent times, adopted the same or a similar process in the lighting of fires connected with religious ceremonies. Mr. Kelly says "the Church has not quite yet succeeded in effacing the vestiges of their heathen origin. This is especially evident in the usages of many districts, where the purity of the Easter fire (an idea borrowed from Pagan tradition) is secured by deriving the kindling flame either from the consecrated Easter candles, or from the new-born and perfectly pure element produced by the priest from flint and steel." The Vedic chark was made from the wood of two sacred trees; "the sami sprang from heavenly fire sent down to earth, and the asvattha from the vessel which contained it." Kelly adds:—"The idea of marriage, suggested by such a union of the two trees, is also developed in the Veda with great amplitude and minuteness of detail, and is a very prominent element in the whole cycle of myths connected with the chark." Doubtless, we have here exposed the root of the entire system of phallic worship, stripped of much, if not all, of the grossness afterwards attendant upon it. It appears that amongst the Peruvians, who were sun-worshippers, the great national festival was held at the summer solstice. They collected the rays of that luminary in a concave mirror, by which means they rekindled their fires. Sometimes, indeed, they obtained their "need-fire" by friction of wood. Amongst the Mexicans likewise grand religious celebrations took place at the close of the fifty-second year, when the extinguished fires were rekindled "by the friction of sticks." This is a very general practice amongst savage tribes at the present day. Mr. Angus says some of the western tribes of Australia "have no means of kindling fire. They say that it formerly came from the north." Should that of one tribe unfortunately become extinguished, there was nothing for it but journeying to a neighbouring encampment and borrowing a light. The Tasmanians are in the same predicament. The Fegeeans obtain fire by friction. So do other South Sea Islanders, as well as many of the North American Indians. The Dacotahs and Iroquois use an instrument not unlike the drilling bow at present employed for a certain class of work in Europe. According to Father Gabian, fire was utterly unknown to the natives of the Ladrone Islands "till Magellan, provoked by their repeated thefts, burned one of their villages. When they saw their wooden houses blazing, they first thought the fire a beast which fed upon wood, and some of them, who came too near, being burnt, the rest stood afar off, lest they should be devoured or poisoned by this powerful animal."

The practice of kindling original or "need-fire" from a superstitious reverence of its sacred character, is yet very common in various parts of Germany, Scotland, and Ireland, and even in England. Mr. Kemble quotes, from the Lanercost Chronicle, of the year 1268, a denunciation by the pious writer, of a practice which "certain bestial persons, monks in garb but not in mind," had taught the ignorant peasantry. This practice consisted in the extraction of fire from wood by friction, and the setting up of what he styles a "simulacrum Priapi," with a view to protect their cattle from disease. This image of Priapus is supposed to refer to the sun-god Fro or Fricco, who, according to Wolf, was worshipped until a very recent period in Belgium, under the form of Priapus. Priapus, the god of gardens or fertility, was the son of Bacchus and Venus. In the more mountainous portions of Wales a remnant of evidently heathen image-worship, of a somewhat similar character, survived till relatively modern times. In the reign of Henry the Eighth, an idol, or what old Fuller calls "a great lubberly image," was removed from the diocese of St. Asaph, and publicly burnt in Smithfield. This image was known by the name of "Darvell Gatheron;" and it was said that the country people were in the habit of sacrificing oxen and sheep to it. Hence its condemnation by the church authorities.

Grimm refers to a remarkable instance of this superstition, which occurred in the island of Mull as recently as 1767, which vividly illustrates the "toughness" of tradition, as Dasent expresses it. He says:—"In consequence of a disease amongst the black cattle, the people agreed to perform an incantation, though they esteemed it a wicked thing. They carried to the top of Carnmoor a wheel and nine spindles, long enough to produce fire by friction. If the fire were not produced before noon, the incantation lost its effect. They failed for several days running. They attributed this failure to the obstinacy of one householder, who would not let his fires be put out for what he considered so wrong a purpose. However, by bribing his servants, they contrived to have them extinguished, and on that morning raised their fire. They then sacrificed a heifer, cutting in pieces and burning, while yet alive, the diseased part. They then lighted their own hearths from the pile, and ended by feasting on the remains. Words of incantation were repeated by an old man from Morven, who came as the master of the ceremonies, and who continued speaking all the time the fire was being raised. This man was living a beggar at Bellochroy. Asked to repeat the spell, he said the sin of repeating it once had brought him to beggary, and that he dared not say those words again." Many other instances might be cited in Scotland and Ireland: but the one most to the present purpose is related by Mr. T. T. Wilkinson, in which a Lancashire man "unconsciously resorted to the old worship of Baal, and consumed a live calf in a fire, in order to counteract the influences of his unknown enemies." This individual was well known to Mr. Wilkinson. He firmly believed that witchcraft was at the root of all his troubles, and that his cattle had died in consequence of its spells. It appears he had previously tried the famous Lancashire expedient to render his stables and shippons proof against his supernatural enemies—the nailing of horseshoes on all his doors—without obtaining the desired result; so, in desperation, knowing the tradition, he sacrificed a living calf to the fire-god Bel!

The following paragraph appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette, on the 29th of June, 1867:—

"The accounts given by the Irish newspapers of the extent to which the old superstition of fire-lighting on Midsummer eve still prevails show how slowly the relics of Paganism disappear among country people, and how natural it was that the old idolatries should come at last to be known as the creed of the 'Pagana,' the dwellers in villages. These Midsummer fires, lighted annually on the hills, are simply relics of the worship of Bel. Beltane-day, or Belteine, is still a May-day as well as a Midsummer festival in the more ignorant districts of Scotland as well as of Ireland, and similar superstitious practices are connected with the lighting of the fires; and, what is still more remarkable, the word is still used in some Scotch almanacs as a term well-known to everybody. In a number of the Scotsman a few years ago appeared the announcement that 'On Beltane-day Mr. Robertson was elected convener of the Trades of Cannongate in Edinburgh.' The next year the following is to be found:—'On Beltane-day the weavers, dyers, etc., of the Cannongate re-elected their office bearers.'"[12]

The records of the Presbytery of Dingwall show that as recently as the latter portion of the seventeenth century, on the island of Innis Maree, in Loch Maree, bulls were offered up as a sacrifice, and milk offered on the hill sides as a libation. In the year 1678, the Presbytery took action against some of the Mackenzie family, "for sacrificing a bull in a heathenish manner, in the island of St. Rufus, for the recovery of the health of Cirstane Mackenzie, who was formerly sick and valetudinarie." Mr. Henderson, in his "Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties," mentions an instance, "within fifteen years ago," of "a herd of cattle, in that county (Moray) being attacked with fever," when, "one of them was sacrificed by burning alive, as a propitiatory offering for the rest."

Mr. Robert Hunt, in his "Drolls, Traditions, and Superstitions of Old Cornwall," published in 1865, says that he has been informed "that within the last few years a calf has been thus sacrificed by a farmer in a district where churches, chapels, and schools abound." He afterwards adds:—"While correcting these sheets I am informed of two recent instances of this superstition. One of them was the sacrifice of a calf by a farmer near Pontreath, for the purpose of removing a disease which had long followed his horses and cows. The other was the burning of a living lamb, to save, as the farmer said, 'his flocks from spells which had been cast on 'em.'"

The Midsummer fires, at the vigil of St. John the Baptist, and the yule log ceremonies at Christmas, may be referred to a similar origin. Brand says:—"The Pagan rites of this festival (Midsummer Eve) at the summer solstice may be considered as a counterpart of those used at the winter solstice at Yule-tide." The wheel, the type of the sun, was common to both festivities. Darand describes the practice, at the feast of St. John, of rolling about a wheel, "to signify that the sun, then occupying the highest place in the zodiac, was beginning to descend." The old poet, Naogeorgus, describes the wheel as being covered with straw, which was set on fire at the top of a high mountain, and then despatched on its downward course. He adds that the people imagined all their ill luck accompanied the wheel in its descent.

The writer of the old homily De Festo Sancti Johannis Baptistæ, when referring to these observances, speaks of three fires being kindled, one of which was called "a Bone fire; another is clene woode and no bones, and that is called a Wode fire, for people to sit and wake thereby; the third is made of wode and bones, and is called Saynt Johanny's Fyre.[13] The first fyre, as a great clerke, Johan Belleth, telleth he saw in a certayne countrey, so in the countrey there was soo greate hete the which causid that dragons to go together in tokenynge that Johan dyed in brennynge love and charyté of God and man.... Then as these dragons flewe in th' ayre, they shed down to the water froth of ther Kynde, and so envenymed the waters, and caused moche people for to take theyr deth thereby, and many dyverse sykenesse. Wyse clerkes knoweth well that dragons hate nothyng more than the stenche of brennynge bones, and therefore they gaderyd as many as they mighte fynde, and brent them; and so with the stenche thereof they drove away the dragons, and so they were brought out of greete dysease."

Brand regards this as a "pleasant piece of absurdity;" but it appears that the quaint old writer, after all, is but relating that which was believed to be true in his own age, and which after-gained knowledge enables us to distinguish as a remnant of the old Aryan superstition or myth, in a mediæval dress. These rolling fiery wheels, burning brands, bonfires, and processions round fields, &c., are common to both the Keltic and Teutonic branches of the Aryan race, and have evidently a similar origin. Kemble quotes an ancient Latin MS., which he found among the Harleian collection, which gives a precisely similar description of the St. John's fires. It is not improbable that it may have been written by the "learned clerke Johan Belleth," to whom the writer of the homily refers. Walter Kelly, speaking of it says, "Here we have again the primitive Aryan dragon Ahi, at his old work in the sultry midsummer weather." He contends that all the details referred to, as attendant on the St. John's fires, have been demonstrated by Dr. Kuhn to be "in striking accordance with the Vedic legend of Indra's fight with the midsummer demons. The passage quoted by Kemble, besides stating expressly that the course of the blazing wheel was meant to represent the descent of the sun from its solstitial height, brings the St. John's fires in immediate connection with the dragons that poison the waters, just as did the demon Vritra, otherwise called Ahi, the dragon. He possessed himself of the sun-wheel and the treasures of Heaven, seized the (white) women, kept them prisoners in his cavern, and laid a curse on the waters, until Indra released the captives and took off the curse. The same conception is repeated in countless legends of mountains that open on St. John's day, when the imprisoned white women come forth, and the hour approaches in which the spell laid upon them and upon the buried treasures will be broken.... Here we see at once that the German" (and Keltic) "custom was nothing else than a dramatic representation of the great elemental battle portrayed in the sacred books of the southern Aryans. In the one the blazing wheel stands on the top of the hill, in the other the sun stands on the summit of the cloud mountain. Both descend from their heights, and both are extinguished, the sun in the cloud sea, behind the cloud mountain, the wheel in the river at the foot of the hill." One name given to a combatant on the dragon's side is Kuyava, which is interpreted the "harvest spoiler, or the spoiled harvest." The following passage in the Rig Veda is uttered by Indra, when he resolves to destroy the monster,—"Friend Vishnu, stride vastly; sky give room for the thunderbolt to strike; let us slay Vritra and let loose the waters." His worshippers likewise exclaim,—"When, thunderer, thou didst by thy might slay Vritra, who stopped up the streams, then thy dear steeds grew."

The Rev. G. W. Cox says:—"The Nemean lion is the offspring of Typhon, Orthros, or Echidna; in other words it is sprung from Vritra, the dark thief, and Ahi, the throttling snake of darkness, and it is as surely slain by Heracles as the snakes which had assaulted him in his cradle. Another child of the same horrid parents is the Lernaian Hydra, its very name denoting a monster who, like the Sphinx or the Panis, shuts up the waters and causes drought. It has many heads, one being immortal, as the storm must constantly supply new clouds, while the vapours are driven off by the sun into space. Hence the story went that although Heracles could burn away its mortal heads, as the sun burns up the clouds, still he can but hide away the mist or vapour itself, which at its appointed time must again darken the sky."

Dr. Kuhn contends that the clothing of wheels with straw and the extinguishing of them when set on fire by immersion in a river, as is done in the vine-growing districts of Germany, with the view to secure a good harvest, is to be referred to this source. In support of his view, he enters into an elaborate philological argument to show that yava must have originally meant grass in general, afterwards cereal grasses, and that its root gave birth to the name of the grain from which the oldest bread-stuff known was made. He says—"But I go still further, and I believe that Kuyava was also regarded as the spoiler of vegetation in general, who parched up the plants used in making the fermented liquor, soma, and amongst these plants the Hindus included yava, which, in this case, meant barley or rice. It will be seen in the sequel that the demon possesses himself also of the heavenly soma (the moisture of the clouds), that he is robbed of it by Indra, and that the like conception is found also among the Greeks and the Germans. This, then, sufficiently explains the hope of a good wine year, which was associated with the victory in the above-described German customs."

The Venerable Bede, in his treatise on the "Nature of Things," gives us what may be termed the scientific view respecting rain and lightning which obtained about his time. It is singularly in accordance with Dr. Kuhn's interpretation of the myth now under consideration. He says:—

"Lightning is produced by the rubbing together of clouds, after the manner of flints struck together, the thunder occurring at the same time, but sound reaches the ears more slowly than light the eyes. For all things the collision creates fire. Some say that while air draws water in vapour from the depths, it draws also fire heat-wise, and by their contact the horrid crash of thunder is produced; and if the fire conquer, it will be injurious to fruits; if water beneficial; but that the fire of lightning has so much the more penetrative power, from being made of subtler elements than that which is in use by us."

It is merely necessary that the rhetorical figure, personification, be freely applied to this passage, with due reverence towards the ancient superstitions, and the mythic element which lies at the root of these singular customs is reproduced.

It is evident the whole have reference to the influence of the burning heat of the midsummer sun, which induces long droughts, and parches the soil and the vegetation; and to the delight engendered when that heat is mitigated, and the scorched earth is again rendered fruitful by copious showers, the product of the thunderstorm. And to this source, Mr. Kelly justly contends, may be referred all the supernatural dragon stories of our nurseries, whether fought "by Pagan or Christian champions, from Apollo, Hercules, and Siegfried, down to St. George, and to that modern worthy More, of Morehall,

Who slew the dragon of Wantley."

The learned Pettingall has shown that the dragon slain by the English champion and patron, St. George, was, by the ancient Orientals, engraved on amulets, and that it was intended to symbolise the virtues of Mithras, the sun. He says, "From the Pagans the use of these charms passed to the Basilidians, and in their Abraxas, the traces of the antient Mithras and the more modern St. George, are equally visible. In the dark ages, the Christians borrowed their superstitions from the heretics, but they disguised the origin of them, and transformed into the saint the sun of the Persians and the archangel of the Gnostics."[14]

Dr. Wilson, when speaking of the art examples pertaining to what is termed, in Western Europe, the "Stone age," says,—

"In no single case is any attempt made to imitate leaf or flower, bird, beast, or any simple, natural object; and when in the bronze work of the later Iron period, imitative forms at length appear, they are chiefly the snake and dragon shapes and patterns, borrowed seemingly by Celtic and Teutonic wanderers, with the wild fancies of their mythology, from the far Eastern cradle-land of their birth."

Marsden, in his "History of Sumatra," says that during an eclipse, the natives make "a loud noise with sounding instruments, to prevent one luminary from devouring the other, as the Chinese, to frighten away the dragon, a superstition that has its source in the ancient systems of astronomy (particularly the Hindu), where the nodes of the moon are identified with the dragon's head and tail."

The dragon was the standard of the West Saxons, and of the English previous to the Norman Conquest. It formed one of the supporters of the Royal arms borne by all our Tudor monarchs, with the exception of Queen Mary, who substituted the eagle. Several of the Plantagenet kings and princes inscribed a figure of the dragon on their banners and shields. Peter Langtoffe says, at the battle of Lewis, fought in 1264:—

"The King (Henry III.) schewed forth his schild his Dragon full austere."

Another authority says the said king ordered to be made "a dragon in the manner of a banner, of a certain red silk embroidered with gold; its tongue like a flaming fire must always seem to be moving; its eyes must be made of sapphire, or of some other stone suitable for that purpose."

Notwithstanding the transformations which several of them may have undergone from relatively modern local influences, there can be little doubt the fiery-dragon and the numerous huge-worm traditions of the North of England enshrine relics of Aryan superstitions. Besides the dragon Ahi, we have the Vedic great serpent Sesha, to which reference has been made in the first chapter of this work. We find the Dêvas, when at war with their enemies the Asuras, agreed to a truce in order that they might "churn the ocean," and so procure some soma or drink of the gods, or milk the heavenly cows (the clouds) wherewith to slake their grievous thirst. They coiled this great serpent around a hill or mountain in the sea, and used him as a rope under whose action the hill spun rapidly round until the heavenly liquor (rain water) was procured in sufficient quantity. The famous Lambton worm, when coiled round a hill, was pacified with copious draughts of milk, and his blood flowed freely when he was pierced by the spear heads attached to the armour of the returned crusader.[15] The Linton worm coiled itself round a hill, and by its poisonous breath, destroyed the neighbouring animal and vegetable life. The knight who destroyed it used burning pitch in the operation. The contractions of this huge worm in dying, are said to have left indented spiral lines on the sides of Warmington hill. The Pollard worm is described as "a venomous serpent which did much harm to man and beast," while that of Stockburn is designated as the "worm, dragon, or fiery flying serpent which destroyed man, woman, and child." These worms were said to have been slain by the spears or swords of knights, evidently modern substitutes for the thunderbolt of Indra, the ancient Aryan "god of the firmament." A bonâ fide slain worm, however, seems from the records to have been a very small affair in comparison with the gigantic monsters of the Durham traditions. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, a writer of the family history of the Somervilles, referring to the worm which John Somerville slew, in the reign of William the Lion, avers that it was "in length three Scots yards, and somewhat bigger than an ordinary man's leg, with a head more proportionable to its length than greatness, in form and colour like to our common muir-edders." As the valour of Indra fertilised the earth; so virtue of a similar quality in a high degree procured broad lands for the earthly champion, from his grateful sovereign.

It is by no means improbable, if, as Mr. D. Haigh contends, in his "Conquest of Britain by the Saxons," the scene of the fine old Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, was near Hartlepool, in the county of Durham, that these monster worm traditions of the north of England may be the remains of the mythic superstitions therein embodied.[16] The giant and sprite Grendel, the "Ghost-slayer," and his equally sanguinary mother, are evidently personifications of evil influences. After Beowulf had despatched the male monster, he proceeded to the pool, in the depths of which he successfully contended with the female. As he and his followers sat in the deep shadow of the wood overhanging the "bottomless" pool "they saw along the water many of the worm-kind, strange sea dragons, also in clefts of the ness Nickers lying." Professor Henry Morley, in his "English Writers," gives a summary of the poem, the following passage in which demonstrates the great antiquity of this superstition:—

"Afterward the broad land came under the sway of Beowulf. He held it well for fifty winters, until in the dark nights a dragon, which in a stone mound watched a hoard of gold and cups, won mastery. It was a hoard heaped up in sin, its lords were long since dead; the last earl, before dying, hid it in the earth-cave, and for three hundred winters the great scather held the cave, until some man, finding by chance a rich cup, took it to his lord. Then the den was searched while the worm slept; again and again when the dragon awoke there had been theft. He found not the man, but wasted the whole land with fire; nightly, the fiendish air-flyer made fire grow hateful to the sight of men. Then it was told to Beowulf.... He sought out the dragon's den and fought with him in awful strife. One wound the poison-worm struck in the flesh of Beowulf.... Then, while the warrior-king sat deathsick on a stone, he sent his thanes to see the cups and dishes in the den of the dread twilight-flyer.... He said, 'I for this gold have wisely sold my life; let others care now for the people's need. I may be here no longer.'"

Mr. John Mitchell Kemble, who published an amended prose translation of Beowulf, in 1833, considered the poem to be founded upon legends which existed anterior to the conquest of the northern part of Britain by the Angles. Beowulf he regarded as the name of a god, one of the ancestors of Woden, and who appears in the poem "as a defender, a protecting and redeeming being." The hero belonged to the tribe of Geáts or Goths. This word etymologists trace to the Anglo-Saxon geótan and geát, which imply a pouring forth. One of Odin's names amongst the gods, according to the Edda, was Gautr, the god of abundance. The monster Grendel is thus described in the English summary of the poem by Professor Henry Morley:—

"The grim guest was Grendel, he that held the moors, the fen, and fastness. Forbidden the homes of mankind, the daughters of Cain brought forth in darkness misshapen giants, elves, and orkens, such giants as long warred with God, and he was one of these." The reference to the daughters of Cain would seem to suggest an interpolation by a transcriber after the introduction of Christianity.

Geoffrey of Monmouth relates a story of a certain mythic King of Northumbria named Morvidus, who was less fortunate than Beowulf, inasmuch as he lost his life, and gained nothing for his people by its sacrifice. But then, we are informed, he "was a most cruel tyrant." It appears that the land north of the Humber was invaded in great force by a king of the Moreni (near Boulogne). He was defeated by Morvidus, who abused his victory by the most monstrous acts of cruelty. Whilst thus engaged, Geoffrey informs us that "there came from the coasts of the Irish Sea a most cruel monster, that was continually devouring the people upon the sea coasts. As soon as he heard of it, he ventured to go and encounter it alone. When he had in vain spent all his darts upon it, the monster rushed upon him, and with open jaws swallowed him up like a small fish."

These dragon monsters are often found in connection with imprisoned maidens, and treasures buried in caves or the inner recesses of mountains. Some mythographers regard the maiden as a personification of the dawn imprisoned by the darkness of the night, and afterwards freed by the rays of the sun. In the Vedic myths, besides Ahi, the throttling snake, and Vritra, the dragon, there is Pani, the thief and seducer, who stole the cows of Indra from their heavenly pastures, hid them in his dark cloud cave, and attempted to corrupt Sarama (the dawn), when, at the bidding of the lightning-god, she demanded the restoration of the plundered cattle. Max Müller, the Rev. G. W. Cox, and others, contend that these incidents underlie most of the mythical epics of all the Aryan nations. They say that the siege of Troy, even, "is a reflection of the daily siege of the East by the solar powers that every evening are robbed of their brightest treasures in the West."

The celebrated mediæval metrical romance, "Kyng Alisaunder," translated into English verse, in the thirteenth century, by an unknown author, is a complete repertoire of these dragon, worm, and monster superstitions. According to it, the hero was the son of a magician who appeared to his mother in the form of a great dragon of the air. At his birth "the earth shook, the sea became green, the sun ceased to shine, the moon appeared and became black, the thunder crashed." The original is said to have been written by Simeon Seth, keeper of the imperial wardrobe at Constantinople, about the year 1060. It is founded on Oriental legends, and was translated and enlarged into Latin and French before the English version appeared. Many of its monstrosities are evidently degraded forms of Grecian and other Aryan myths.

The celebrated prophecy of Merlin, in Geoffrey of Monmouth's "History of Britain," is full of malignant dragons, white and red, which fight furiously, and "cast forth fire with their breath." The red dragon, in one instance, the prophet says, "shall return to his proper manners, and turn his rage upon himself. Therefore shall the revenge of the Thunderer show itself, for every field shall disappoint the husbandman. Mortality shall snatch away the people, and make a desolation over all countries."

Dragons, huge worms, and serpents appear frequently to be confounded in Merlin's prophecy.[17] One sentence reads thus: "She shall be encompassed with the adder of Lincoln, who with a horrible hiss shall give notice of his presence to a multitude of dragons. Then shall the dragons encounter and tear one another to pieces. The winged shall oppress that which wants wings, and fasten its claws into the poisonous cheeks." In another instance, the Aryan dragon, or harvest destroyer, is very apparent. Merlin says:—"To him shall succeed a husbandman of Albania, at whose back shall be a serpent. He shall be employed in ploughing the ground, that the country may become white with corn. The serpent shall endeavour to diffuse his poison, in order to blast the harvest." Again he says:—"There shall be a miserable desolation of the kingdom, and the floors of the harvests shall return to the fruitful forests. The white dragon shall rise again, and invite over a daughter of Germany. Our gardens shall be again replenished with foreign seed, and the red one shall pine away at the end of the pond. After that shall the German worm be crowned, and the brazen prince buried." Merlin's red and white dragons are intended directly to personify the British and Saxon races of men, as the red and white roses in after time served as emblems of the houses of Lancaster and York; but the origin of the mythic form of expression is very apparent.

The Saxon Chronicle contains a paragraph under the date 793, which illustrates the power of this superstition in the North of England at that period. The passage itself likewise supplies sufficient evidence to connect its interpretation with the Aryan myth under consideration. We read: "A. 793. This year dire forewarnings came over the land of the North-humbrians, and miserably terrified the people; these were excessive whirlwinds and lightnings; and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air. A great famine soon followed these tokens."

Mr. Baring-Gould says,—"In a Slovakian legend the dragon sleeps in a mountain cave through the winter months, but at the equinox bursts forth. 'In a moment the heaven was darkened and became black as pitch, only illumined by the fire which flashed from the dragon's jaws and eyes. The earth shuddered, the stones rattled down the mountain sides into the glens; right and left, left and right, did the dragon lash his tail, overthrowing pines and bushes, and snapping them as reeds. He evacuated such floods of water that the mountain torrents were full. But after a while his power was exhausted; he lashed no more with his tail, ejected no more water, and spat no more fire.'" Mr. Gould adds,—"I think it impossible not to see in this description a spring-tide thunderstorm."

The following paragraph, published in the Calcutta Englishman last year (1871), demonstrates that this class of superstition still lingers in India:—

"An Astronomical Prediction.—The Urdu Akhbar says that Maulvi Mohammed Salimuz-yaman, the famous astronomer of Rampur, whose deductions have generally turned out right, has foretold that in the coming year (1872) a blaze of light resembling a shooting star, the like of which no mortal has yet seen, will be visible in the sky. 'It will dazzle the eyes of the people of particular places with lustre, and, after remaining for a ghari (i.e., 24 minutes), will vanish. The direction in which it will make its appearance will be the North Pole, and accordingly the people of northern countries will see it distinctly. Probably the natives of China and Persia will likewise have a sight of it. The effect of this meteor will be that the extent of the globe over which its light will fall will be visited by famine during the year, and a large number of the people inhabiting it will be destroyed, while vegetation will be also scanty.'"

Veritable comets appear to have at times been confounded with these fiery dragons. On the death of Aurelius Ambrosius, brother to Uther, father of the renowned Arthur, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth, "there appeared a star of wonderful magnitude and brightness, darting forth a ray, at the end of which was a globe of fire, in form of a dragon, out of whose mouth issued two rays, one of which seemed to stretch out itself beyond the extent of Gaul, the other towards the Irish sea, and ended in seven lesser rays."

Geoffrey further informs us that, after Uther's first great victory, "remembering the explanation which Merlin had made of the star above mentioned, he commanded two dragons to be made of gold, in likeness of the dragon which he had seen at the ray of the star. As soon as they were finished, which was done with wonderful nicety of workmanship, he made a present of one to the cathedral church of Winchester, but reserved the other for himself to be carried along with him to his wars. From this time, therefore, he was called Uther Pendragon, which, in the British tongue, signifies the dragon's head; the occasion of this appellation being Merlin's prediction, from the appearance of the dragon, that he should be king." The same "historical" romancer likewise informs us that the redoubtable Arthur himself, after he had embarked at Southampton, on his expedition against Rome, about midnight, during a brisk gale, in a dream, "saw a bear flying in the air, at the noise of which all the shores trembled; also a terrible dragon flying from the west, which enlightened the country with the brightness of its eyes. When these two met they began a dreadful fight; but the dragon, with its fiery breath, burned the bear which often assaulted him, and threw him down scorched to the ground." This, of course, was interpreted to augur Arthur's victory over the Emperor. Singularly enough, as has been before observed, we find, in authentic history, that the "Golden Dragon" was the standard of the Saxon kings of Wessex. When Cuthred defeated "Ethelbald the Proud," King of Mercia, at Beorgforda (Burford, in Oxfordshire), in 752, "the golden dragon, the ensign of Wessex," was borne by his general, Ethelhun, termed "the presumptuous alderman," owing to a previous unsuccessful act of rebellion.

Dragon superstitions appear to have been earnestly believed by mediæval alchemists, and even early chemists and physicians. An old German work on alchemy (1625) informs us, as "a great wonder and very strange," that the dragon contains the greatest "medicament," and that "there is a dragon lives in the forest who has no want of poison; when he sees the sun or fire he spits venom, which flies about fearfully. No living animal can be cured of it; even the basilisk does not equal him. He who can properly kill this serpent has overcome all his danger. His colours increase in death; physic is produced from his poison, which he entirely consumes, and eats his own venomous tail. This must be accomplished by him, in order to produce the noblest balm. Such great virtue as we will point out herein that all the learned shall rejoice."

The poison spitted out on sight of the sun or fire is evidently analogous to the breath of the Aryan dragon Ahi, who scorched the earth. The conqueror of the said dragon takes the place of Indra, who, by discharging his lightning spear into the rain cloud, subdues the monster, and converts his poison (excessive heat), into a medicine or balm, which aids in the fertilisation of the earth.

This is in accordance with the Greek legend, which asserted that Æsculapius or Asklêpios, the god of medicine, "wrought his wonderful cures through the blood of Gorgo." Hence the serpent became his symbol. At Epidaurus the god was supposed to manifest himself in the form of a yellowish brown snake, abundant in that neighbourhood. It frequented the temple, was large in size, but harmless and easily tamed. The Rev. G. W. Cox, says, "throughout Hellas, Asklêpios remained the healer and restorer of life, and accordingly the serpent is everywhere his special emblem, as the mythology of the Linga would lead us to expect." Again he says, "the symbol of the Phallos in its physical characteristics suggested the form of the serpent, which thus became the emblem of life and healing, and as such appears by the side of the Hellenic Asklêpios, and in the brazen crucified serpent venerated by the Jewish people until it was destroyed by Hezekiah."

According to the Edda, the Scandinavians believed that after the various gods had, for a considerable time, alternately overthrown each other, the "fiery snake" would consume "universal nature with all-destroying flames." The word "Edda" means "Mother of Poetry." The contents of the Edda have been styled "half oriental and half northern."

Remains of ancient serpent worship have been recently discovered in America and in Scotland. Some writers indeed regard the temples at Abury and Stonehenge as belonging to this class. One in North America, described by Mr. Squier, is a mound 700 feet long, fashioned in the form of a serpent. At the recent meeting of the British Association in Edinburgh, Mr. John S. Phené, F.G.S., described a mound of this character, which he had discovered in Argyleshire. A large cairn forms the head of the monster, which is 300 feet in length. The spinal column, with its sinuous windings, is distinctly marked out by carefully adjusted stones, now covered with peat. To detect the exact form of the entire reptile, it is necessary that the whole should be seen at one view from above. A megalithic chamber was found beneath the head of the serpent, or saurian, which contained burnt earth and bones, charcoal, and charred nutshells, and a flint implement with the edge serrated like a saw. The mound is described as being in a remarkably perfect condition, considering its great antiquity.

Some writers, and notably one, some years ago in "Chambers's Journal," discoursing on dragon superstitions, have suggested, as remains of the traditionary Moa of New Zealand is still said to be found in some portions of the islands, that our early ancestors may have had a slight knowledge of the existence of some of the huge saurian reptiles, known to us geologically in the fossil condition. This attempt to give a naturalistic solution of the problem at first sight is very plausible; but it falls to the ground at once, when the nature of geological time is taken into consideration. The earliest remains of man, including the flint implements in the higher river gravels, pertain to what Lyell terms the post-pliocene period. The huge lizards or saurians of the oolitic period had become extinct countless ages previously. The same may be said, though in a relatively lesser degree, of the huge Dinotherium found in the Upper Miocene formation. Some writers, indeed, who advocate the hypothesis of man's descent by "natural selection" or "evolution," from the lower animals, contend that some antitype of humanity may have lived in the Miocene period, but of this we have no evidence. The extinct gigantic animals, found in connection with the oldest known remains of man, are pachyderms, which in no way resemble, either in their habits, or by the most strained metaphor, in their forms, the dragons and serpents of the Aryan mythology or their modern descendants in British history and tradition. The discovery of their bones has undoubtedly had something to do with giants and other monsters of the mythic class, of which more will be said in another chapter.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] Du Chaillu, in his "Journey to Ashango-land," relates a story in which he suddenly struck a light with a lucifer match, to the astonishment of the benighted Africans, who regarded the feat as an additional proof of his being the "Oguisi" or "spirit" they had declared him to be.

[12] The Dundee Advertiser, Nov. 1869, contained the following paragraph:—

Hallowe'en at Balmoral Castle.—This time-honoured festival was duly celebrated at Balmoral Castle on Saturday evening, in a manner not soon to be forgotten by those who took part in the enjoyments of the evening. As the shades of evening were closing in upon the Strath, numbers of torch-lights were observed approaching the Castle, both from the cottages on the eastern portion of the estate and also those on the west. The torches from the western side were probably the more numerous, and as the different groups gathered together the effect was very fine. Both parties met in front of the Castle, the torch-bearers numbering nearly one hundred. Along with those bearing the torches were a great many people belonging to the neighbourhood. Dancing was commenced by the torch-bearers dancing a "Huachan" in fine style, to the lilting strains of Mr. Ross, the Queen's piper. The effect was greatly heightened by the display of bright lights of various colours from the top of the staircase of the Tower. After dancing for some time, the torch-bearers proceeded round the Castle in martial order, and as they were proceeding down the granite staircase at the northwest corner of the Castle, the procession presented a singularly beautiful and romantic appearance. Having made the circuit of the Castle, the remainder of the torches were thrown in a pile at the south-west corner, thus forming a large bonfire, which was speedily augmented with other combustibles until it formed a burning mass of huge proportions, round which dancing was spiritedly carried on. Her Majesty witnessed the proceedings with apparent interest for some time, and the company enjoyed themselves none the less heartily on that account. Mr. Begg, distiller, Lochnagar, had also a splendid bonfire on Cairnbeg, round which merry groups danced torch in hand.

[13] I have not met with a thoroughly satisfactory etymology of the word bonfire. It may mean good fire, that is sacred fire, or bone-fire, as the old writer suggests; but I am inclined to think boon fire is worth consideration, as the ceremonies and sacrifices were performed in order to extract a boon, a gift, or favour from the god Bel. Free service rendered by a tenant to his lord, as part of his tenure, was called boon work. Dr. Hibbert Ware records an old saying in the north of England to the effect that when a man has been working for nothing he has "been served like a boon-shearer."

[14] Since the above was written the following paragraph has appeared in the newspapers:—

An Apology for Fire Worship.—Tuesday, the 21st March, 1866, being the entrance of Sol into the zodiacal sign of the Ram, there was held at the Persian Embassy, Avenue d'Autin, Paris, the festival of Nourous Sultaniez, or New Year's Day of the Shah. His Excellency Hassan Ali Khan presided over a large assemblage of distinguished guests, and informed them in the course of the festivity that they were celebrating a red-letter day as old as nineteen centuries before the birth of Christ, first instituted by Djemchid, of the dynasty of Pischdadiens, who originated the solar computation of years. His excellency proceeded to recall the fire-worship of his country, which sprang from the primæval idolatry having for object that great luminary. It was still to fire that he fondly looked for the regeneration of Persia. Fire had changed the face of Europe. With the steam engine, the railroad, the electric spark, the screw or paddle ship, far more than in gunpowder or rifled cannon, fire was the great benefactor that would bless one day the land of his forefathers, who had instinctively worshipped that element in secret anticipation of what was to come. The remarks of his excellency were cordially received.

[15] Sir Bernard Burke says the legend asserts that the knight consulted a witch as to the best method of attacking the monster serpent or dragon, as this worm is sometimes styled. The witch duly instructed him, and he was victorious in the combat which followed. A condition, however, was attached, namely that the knight should follow up the achievement by slaying as a kind of sacrifice the first living thing he met. If he failed in this, "for nine generations the lords of Lambton would never die in their beds." It was intended that a dog should be placed so as to immediately attract the eye of the conqueror, but unfortunately the plot was accidentally marred, and the knight's father first confronted him. Lambton refused to fulfil the condition, under such circumstances. It is stated to be a fact that afterwards nine successive lords of Lambton died otherwise than in their beds.

[16] Mr. Haigh fixes Heorot, the site of the mead-hall, or banqueting home of Hrothgar, chief or king of the Scyldings, at Hartlepool. King Oswy, brother and successor of St. Oswald, consecrated his daughter Elfleda to the service of God as a nun, as an act of thanksgiving for his victory over the pagan Mercian King Penda, at Winwidfield, near Leeds (some say near Winwick, Lancashire.) Elfleda was placed in the monastery called Herut-ed (Hartlepool), which is believed to be the Heorot of the oldest Anglo-Saxon poem extant.

[17] Professor Owen (Palæontology, page 312) gives "slow-worms, serpents," as the English equivalent of Ophidia, the name of his eleventh order of the class Reptilia. Hence the confusion of traditionary worms, serpents, and dragons is not quite so absurd as modern non-scientific persons generally imagine. The Rev. G. W. Cox, referring to the Greek aspect of these mythic monsters, says:—"When the word Dragon, which is only another form of Dorkas, the clear-eyed gazelle, became the name for serpents, these mythical beings were necessarily transformed into snakes."

CHAPTER III.

CHRISTMAS AND YULE-TIDE SUPERSTITIONS AND OBSERVANCES.

Here's merry Christmas come again,
With all it ever used to bring;
The mistletoe and carol strain,
The holly in the window pane,
And all the bloom from hill and plain
That Winter's chilly hand can fling.

···

Eliza Cook.

If there by any possibility existed a doubt that the religion of the Messiah was one of love and not of gloom, the sunny side of the argument would be amply vindicated by the fact that, from the earliest Christian times, the anniversary of the advent of the Saviour was always celebrated with becoming social enjoyment. "Merrie Christmas," indeed, in spite of hail and rain, and sleet, and snow, the blustering of old Boreas, and the frigid embrace of "Jack Frost," has passed into a proverb. The mass of the British people, notwithstanding their characteristic constitutional phlegm, contrive to become conspicuously social at Christmas tide. They appear to have been too closely occupied with business affairs during the greater portion of the year to indulge much in the hearty humour and frank good-will which unquestionably form important elements in the national idiosyncrasy. Their habitual taciturnity, however, influenced by some law whose action is diametrically opposed to that which determines the elemental routine, generally thaws on the approach of Christmas. It is not too much to say that, at this period of the year, the manly generous side of the English character is seen to most advantage. Under the genial influence of Christmas associations, even stern, plodding "men of business" leave their well-worn official stools and well-thumbed ledgers, and enjoy heartily the Christmas meal of roast beef and plum pudding in company with their relatives and friends. Nay, at this festive season, we have seen the veriest old "money-grubbers" of the city, the most cool and calculating of the habitués of the stock-exchange, dance and frolic, and aid the juveniles of their social circles in the perpetration of practical Christmas jokes, the compounding of "snap-dragon," the fashioning of mistletoe bushes, etc., to the infinite delight of the youngsters and their own evident personal gratification. There is, undoubtedly, a time and a season for all things; and the British public especially appear for ages to have resolved that "Christmas time" is the season for the exercise of grateful memories, for the interchange of social loudness, the propagation of the great principle of progressive civilisation, "peace and good-will to man,"—yes, and likewise, for the temperate indulgence in harmless mirth, and hearty, jovial laughter.

Christmas is the season in which pantomimes flourish. By the bye, who ever heard of a pantomime that was not a "Christmas" one? I am certain I would not myself,—and I feel certain the most boisterous of the young imps who giggle themselves into a frightful condition of side-ache and cheek-ache when witnessing the tricks and jokes, stale or otherwise, of clown and pantaloon, and the perpetually unfortunate policeman, would endorse the sentiment,—I would not walk two streets' length, no, not two yards, to witness the best pantomime in the world on Midsummer's eve! One would as soon think of asking the cook, as a special mark of her personal regard, to give us a turn or two on the spit, accompanied by a copious basting with rancid butter! But it is quite a different affair on Christmas Eve, or "boxing night." The pantomime is, in every sense, unquestionably the property of "dear old Christmas," and then, and then only, can its rollicking fun, farce, fancy, and fairy marvels be thoroughly understood or enjoyed.

Pantomime, among the Greeks and Romans, as well as the Chinese, Persians, and other Oriental peoples, was a dramatic performance, in which action and gesticulation formed the most prominent features. The modern ballet is, perhaps, its most legitimate descendant at the present day. The name, however, is derived from two Greek words, which signify mimicry or "imitation of everything." The modern pantomime, therefore, with its universal hash of fun and frolic, of fairies and fiends, deities and dragons, of ghosts, goblins, and giants, of burlesque and ballet, painting and punning, of music and mountebanking, responds most accurately to the classical etymon.

Although the profuse but somewhat indiscriminate hospitality, and some of the ruder of the Christmas games and ceremonies of our mediæval ancestors, have declined or fallen into general disuse, the anniversary of the advent of the founder of the national religion yet remains the chief season set apart especially for genial social intercourse, the gathering together of relatives and friends, the interchange of mutual good-will, and of festive enjoyment.

After discussing the various opinions, facts, and conjectures advanced by others respecting the origin of "yule logs" and Christmas fires, Brand says: "However this may be, I am pretty confident that the yule block will be found, in its first use, to have been only a counterpart of the Midsummer fires, made within doors because of the cold weather at this winter solstice, as those in the hot season at the summer one, are kindled in the open air."

Precisely so; yet, as the Midsummer fires were not kindled for the sake of the warmth they afforded, but as a kind of incantation or a propitiatory sacrifice to the fire-god or the elements generally, if the two had a common origin, we may reasonably expect to find a similar principle or motive at the root of the Christmas observances. At the summer solstice the sun's heat parched the earth and burnt the vegetation. Hence the propitiatory ceremony of the fire worshippers. At the winter solstice his feeble rays were insufficient to the requirements of vegetable existence, and the severe cold added to the privations of both and man and beast. Hence the existence of a corresponding sentiment and corresponding ceremonial observances.

Brand further says: "On the night of this eve our ancestors were wont to light up candles of an uncommon size, called Christmas candles, and lay a log of wood upon the fire, called a yule-clog or Christmas block, to illuminate the house, and, as it were, turn night into day. This custom is, in some measure, still kept up in the north of England."

The early Christians were, and the learned of more modern times are, divided in opinion as to the precise day of the Nativity. The feast of the Passover and that of the Tabernacles have each found powerful advocates. According to St. Chrysostom, the primitive Christians celebrated the Christmas and Epiphany feasts at one and the same time. They were not separated till the council of Nice, in the year 325. Amongst the Armenians, notwithstanding, the two feasts were jointly celebrated till as recently as the thirteenth century. It has been urged by some that, as shepherds were watching their flocks by night in the open air, the birth of Christ could scarcely have occurred in the winter season. But so long as one time was accepted by the universal Church, it appeared to be of little moment which theory was adopted. Sir Isaac Newton, in his "Commentary on the Prophecies of Daniel," accounts for the choice of the 25th December on the ground of its being the winter solstice. He shows, likewise, that other feasts were originally fixed at the cardinal points of the year. "The first calendars having been so arranged by mathematicians at pleasure, without any ground in tradition, the Christians afterwards took up what they found in the calendars."

There can be little doubt that this view of the question is correct, and that many of the curious customs and ceremonies, which were for centuries religiously observed throughout the land, and many of which still linger about the holiday celebrations of remote districts, have an origin older than Christianity itself. The most orthodox and exemplary writers of the middle ages acknowledge this, and contend that the practice of the early Christians of appropriating the festive seasons of their heathen converts was productive of good results.

The testimony of Thomas Warmstry, whose now rare tract, entitled "A Vindication of the Solemnity of the Nativity of Christ," was published in 1648, is strongly in favour of this view. He says: "If it doth appeare that the time of this festival doth comply with the time of the heathen's Saturnalia, this leaves no charge of impiety upon it: for since things are best cured by their contraries, it was both wisdom and piety in the ancient Christians (whose work it was to convert the heathens from such as well as other superstitions and miscarriages) to vindicate such times from the service of the devill, by appointing them to the more solemne and especiall service of God. The blazes are foolish and vain, not countenanced by the church."

The "blazes" here referred to are evidently the yule logs and immense candles, which the worthy pastor denounces with orthodox precision. "Blazes" and "Pandemonium" are yet synonymous terms, in vulgar mouths, in many parts of Lancashire. Some of the ceremonies of this period, however, meet with his somewhat qualified approval. He says: "Christmas Kariles, if they be such as are fit for the time, and of holy and sober composures, and used with Christian sobriety and piety, they are not unlawfull, and may be profitable if they be sung with grace in the heart. New Yeare's gifts, if performed without superstition, may be harmless provocations to Christian love and mutuall testimonies thereof to good purpose, and never the worse because the heathens have had them at the like times."

One important attribute of the Yule log resulted from the fact that each succeeding brand received its kindling fire from the remains of its predecessor; hence its supposed supernatural influences. Herrick sings:—

With the last year's brand
Light the new block, and
For good success in his spending,
On your psaltries play,
That sweet luck may
Come while the log is a teending.

Etymologists have laboured hard to get at the root of the word Yule; some of them, however, with but indifferent success. Brand says:—"I have met with no word of which there are so many and such different etymologies as this of Yule, of which there seems nothing certain but that it means Christmas." Some writers, including the venerable Bede, derive it from hveol, the Anglo-Saxon form of our modern English word wheel, which, as I have already shown, is one of the Aryan types of the sun. Bede, I think, assigns the true meaning to the term when he says it is so named "because of the return of the sun's annual course, after the winter solstice." According to Mr. Davies (Cel. Res. p. 191), the god Bel or Beli was called Hu. Mallet in his "Northern Antiquities," says:—"All Celtic nations have been accustomed to the worship of the sun; either as distinguished from Thor," (? Bel) "or as considered his symbol. It was a custom that everywhere prevailed in ancient times to celebrate a feast at the winter solstice, by which men testified their joy at seeing this great luminary return again to this part of the heavens. This was the greatest solemnity in the year. They called it in many places Yole or Yuul, from the word Hiaul and Houl, which, even at this day, signifies the Sun in the languages of Bass-Britagne and Cornwall."

Brand objects to this etymology, on the ground that it "is giving a Celtic derivation of a Gothic word (two languages extremely different.)" This objection, however, falls to the ground with the discovery of the fact that both languages have a common origin, and that the several races and their superstitions are but separate developments of Aryan blood and Aryan mythology. In modern Welsh gwyl means a festival or holiday, and this may be the true root of the word gule, in the phrase "the gule of August," or Lammas-day. But the Welsh gwyl may itself be derived from the same root as yule, which, to our ears, now only signifies, as Brand says, "Christmas," or the festive season. Heulo, in modern Welsh, means to "shine as the sun." In India the term Huli festival is applied to the ceremonies attendant upon the sun's entering into the spring quarter at the vernal equinox.

In ordinary life we meet with very few persons who are aware of the fact that the practice of regarding the first of January as the commencement of a new year is of very modern origin, in England, at least. Prior to 1752, in most legal or official matters, and in private records, the year commenced on the 25th of March. At this time an Act of Parliament was passed which "directed that the legal year which then commenced in some parts of this country in March, and in others in January, should universally be deemed to begin on the first of January." This will appear to many as a strange species of legislation, savouring somewhat of the vanity and irreverence for which Canute, the great Danish King of England, rebuked his courtiers, when he ironically commanded the tide to cease flowing, lest, forsooth, it should damp his royal shoe-leather. The commencement of the year, as has been before observed, being not a fact in physics, but a conventional or civil arrangement for human convenience, is therefore a legitimate subject for legislative interference, with the view to arrive at a uniformity of style, and so facilitate business operations and the enquiries of historians and students of science.

The practice of celebrating the new year's advent on the first of January appears to have obtained to a considerable extent in England long prior to its legal recognition. The famous Puritan writer, Prynne, in his "Histrio-Mastrix, or a Scourge for Stage Players," published in 1632, has the following slashing tirade against the festive observances of this period:—

"If we now parallel our grand disorderly Christmases with these Roman Saturnals and heathen festivals, or our New Yeare's Day (a chiefe part of Christmas), with their festivity of Janus, which was spent in mummeries, stageplays, dancing, and such like enterludes, wherein fidlers and others acted lascivious effeminate parts, and went about their towns and cities in women's apparel; whence the whole Catholicke Church (as Alchuvinus and others write), appointed a solemn publike faste upon this our New Yeare's day (which fast it seems is now forgotten), to bewail these heathenish enterludes, sports, and lewd idolatrous practices which have been used on it; prohibiting all Christians, under pain of excommunication, from observing the calends, or first of January (which we now call New Yeare's Day), as holy, and from sending abroad New Yeare's Gifts upon it (a custom now too frequent), it being a mere relique of paganisme and idolatry, derived from the heathen Romans' feast of two-faced Janus, and a practice so execrable unto Christians that not only the whole Catholicke Church, but even four famous Councils" [and an enormous quantity of other authorities which it is useless to quote] "have positively prohibited the solemnization of New Yeare's Day, and the sending abroad of New Yeare's Gifts, under an anathema and excommunication."

Although there can be no doubt that the practices referred to were in existence prior to the introduction of Christianity, yet the threat of excommunication and anathema failed to root them out of the heart of the mass of the population, and they survive to the present day. Some of the gifts made to sovereign princes on the advent of the new year were not only valuable, but often quaint in device, and sometimes, according to modern ideas, in singularly bad taste. The accomplished scholar, soldier, and courtier, Sir Philip Sidney, on the New Year's Day of 1578, presented to Queen Elizabeth a "cambric chemise, its sleeves and collar wrought with black work and edged with a small bone lace of gold and silver. With it was a pair of ruffs interlaced with gold and silver, and set with spangles which alone weighed four ounces." His friend Fulke Greville likewise presented an embroidered chemise. On another occasion of a similar character, (1581), "Sidney made three characteristic presents—a gold-handled whip, a golden chain, a heart of gold, as though in token of his entire subservience to her Majesty, and his complete surrender of himself to the royal keeping." On one occasion, the Earl of Ormond presented to the Queen "a golden phœnix, whose wings and feet glittered with rubies and diamonds, and which rested on a branch covered with other precious stones. Sir Christopher Hatton tendered a cross of diamonds, furnished with a suitable motto; also a gold fancy, imaging a dog leading a man over a bridge, and garnished with many gems." Lord and Lady Cobham each presented a satin petticoat elaborately ornamented. Her Majesty, on New Year's Day, it appears, did not disdain to receive presents from her servants and tradesmen. Nichols, in his "Royal Progresses," records that a laundress solicited the Queen's acceptance of three pocket handkerchiefs and a "tooth cloth." One domestic sought favour with a linen and another with a cambric nightcap. Apothecaries presented packets of green ginger, orange candy, and "that kind of stuff." A butler's offering consisted of a meat knife, "with a bone handle and a motto carved thereon," while the dustman tendered "two bolts of cambric," the head gardener a silver-gilt porringer, with a "snail sticking to an oak-leaf for handle," and the "sergeant of the pastry" a "great quince pie with gilt ornaments." The Queen, in return, presented her courtiers, etc., with "gilt plate, showing her esteem by the quantity of the article" apportioned to each recipient. In his preface Nichols remarks that "the only remains of this custom at court now is that the two chaplains in waiting, on New Year's Day, have each a crown piece laid under their plates at dinner."

Old Thomas Warmstry, as we have seen, held much milder language on this subject than Prynne. He regarded the gifts as "harmless provocations to Christian love, and mutual testimonies thereof to good purpose," notwithstanding their heathen origin. The practice is by no means extinct at the present time. In many towns shopkeepers present their customers, on New Year's Day, with candles, nutmegs, spices, etc., in token of good will.

Brand speaks of an ancient custom, which is yet retained in many places on New Year's Eve: "Young women went about with a Wassail Bowl of spiced ale, with some sort of verses that were sung by them as they went from door to door." This liquor was sometimes called "Lamb's Wool," although it is difficult to conjecture now for what reason. In the "olden time" it appears to have been compounded of ale, sugar, nutmeg, toast, and roasted apples or crabs. The wassail bowl originally meant a health-drinking vessel, and is of very ancient origin. The name is derived from two Anglo-Saxon words wæs hæl, which signify "be in health," "wax (grow) in health," or in modern phrase, "good health."

Geoffrey of Monmouth refers to the Saxon practice of health drinking on important occasions, when describing the visit of the British King Vortigern to the palace of Hengist, the chieftain of the Teutonic warriors then recently arrived in Britain. During the banquet, Rowena, the beautiful daughter of Hengist, "came out of her chamber bearing a golden cup of wine, with which she approached the King, and making a low courtsey, said to him, 'Lanerd' (lord) 'King, wacht heil!' The King, at the sight of the lady's face, was on a sudden both surprised and inflamed with her beauty, and, calling to his interpreter, asked him what she said, and what answer he should make her. 'She called you Lord King,' said the interpreter, 'and offered to drink your health. Your answer to her must be, 'Drinc heil!' Vortigern accordingly answered 'Drinc heil!' and bade her drink; after which he took the cup from her hand, kissed her, and drank himself. From that time to this it has been the custom in Britain, that he who drinks to anyone says 'Wacht heil!' and he that pledges him answers 'Drinc heil?'"

In process of time, the practice of drinking healths on solemn or festive occasions was confounded with ordinary tippling, and the term wassail became applied indiscriminately to all festive intemperance. Hamlet says, speaking of the drinking habits of the usurper, Claudius—

The King doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassel and the swaggering up-spring reels;
And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.

The Antiquarian Repertory (1775) contains a rude wood-cut of a bowl carved on an oaken beam, which had formed a portion of an ancient chimney recess. The vessel rests on the branches of an apple tree, alluding perhaps, Sir Henry Ellis suggests, to "part of the materials of which the liquor was composed." On one side the word Wass-heil is inscribed, and on the other Drinc-heile. A commentator on this relic informs us that it represents a Wassel Bowl, so beloved of yore by our hardy ancestors, "who, on the vigil of the New Year, never failed to assemble round the glowing hearth with their cheerful neighbours, and then, in the spicy Wassel Bowl (which testified the goodness of their hearts) drowned every former animosity—an example worthy of modern imitation. Wassel was the word, Wassel every guest returned, as he took the circling goblet from his friend, whilst song and civil mirth brought in the infant year."

A work entitled "Naogeorgus," but generally styled the "Popish Kingdom," published in 1570, and translated by Barnabe Googe, thus refers to the New Year's Day ceremonies of the time:—

The next to this is New Yeare's Day, whereon to every frende
They costly presents in do bring, and Newe Yeare's giftes do sende;
These giftes the husband gives his wife, and father eke the child,
And maister on his men bestowes the like with favour milde;
And good beginning of the yeare they wishe and wishe againe,
According to the auncient guise of heathen people vaine.
These eight days no man doth require his dettes of any man,
Their tables do they furnish out with all the meate they can;
With march paynes, tartes, and custards great, they drink with staring eyes,
They rowte and revell, feede and feaste, as merry all as pyes;
As if they should at th' entrance of this New Yeare hap to die,
Yet would they have their bellies full, and auncient friends allie.

I remember, very recently, at the conclusion of a public jubilee dinner, within a very few miles from Manchester, one of the guests suddenly died of apoplexy. This sad event, of course, caused the adjournment of the festive gathering. The reason I refer to it here is merely to state that I heard, to my surprise, one of the country visitors say, in a very consolatory tone, "Well, poor Joe, God rest his soul! He has, at least, gone to his long rest wi' a bally full o' good me-at, and that's some consolation." This seems to illustrate the meaning of the last couplet in the quotation from "Naogeorgus," the sentiment in which appears to have some affinity to the Greek and Roman notions of providing the dead with food and money to aid their passage across the Styx.

The Rev. S. Baring-Gould, in his "Curious Myths of the Middle Ages," says "it is a singular fact that only the other day I heard of a man in Cleveland (Yorkshire) 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. I was told this, and this explanation was given to 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."

One writer says the "high feast of Yule lasted until the twelve days be passed," and consequently included our new year and twelfth night festivities. During this period a strong superstition yet obtains in Lancashire and Yorkshire respecting fire. A singular instance of this recently occurred to a friend of mine within three miles of Manchester. Seeing a cottage door open, he entered, and asked the good woman of the house to give him a light for his cigar. He was somewhat astonished at her inhospitable response: "Nay, nay, I know better than that." "Better than what?" he inquired. "Why, better than give a light out of the house on New Year's Day!" He contrived, notwithstanding, to ignite his cigar without the woman's assistance, and she seemed content. She had forgotten the best half of the condition, however, and committed the very blunder she sought to avoid. According to Sir Henry Ellis, in the North of England the superstition ordains that you "never allow any to take a light out of your house on New Year's Day; a death in the household, before the expiration of a year, is sure to occur if it be allowed."

Sir Henry Ellis likewise mentions a curious superstition still existing in Lincolnshire. It is considered unlucky to let anything be taken out of the house on New Year's Day, before something has been brought into it. The importation of the most insignificant article, even a piece of coal, is, it appears, sufficient to prevent the misfortunes occurring, which the contrary action, it is believed, would render inevitable during some portion of the year. This sentiment is expressed in the following popular rhyme:—

Take out, then take in,
Bad luck will begin;
Take in, then take out,
Good luck comes about.

A remarkable instance of the strength of the superstitious reverence for this day, or rather of the popular belief in the prophetic character of any incident occurring thereon, recently happened in Manchester. A publican, name Tilley, refused to serve a glass of whisky on credit during the New Year's Day's festivities, on the score that it was "unlucky" so to do. He said he preferred making the man a present of the liquor to the committal of any such act. The refusal so exasperated the thirsty customer that he stabbed the landlord in the abdomen, and, as the wound proved fatal, he was condemned to death for wilful murder, but the sentence was afterwards commuted to penal servitude for life. Thus the faith in the tradition produced a more tragic result than the most superstitious could have dreaded from its ignoration. Singularly enough, owing to the first day of the year happening on Sunday, the usual festival was postponed till the following day; so it appears in this instance the superstition accompanied the merry-making without reference to the date.

This practice of "bringing in the New Year" with festive rejoicing is still a very common one, especially in the north of England. A singular superstition in connection with it is evidently of very ancient origin. It is considered to be an unlucky omen if the first person who enters a house on the morning of the first of January happens to be a female.

Another unlucky omen is yet very commonly respected in Lancashire and elsewhere, even amongst comparatively educated people, at this festive season. It is considered to bode misfortune if the first person who enters your house on New Year's morning has a fair complexion and light hair. I have never heard this very popular prejudice satisfactorily accounted for. I can only suggest that it most probably arose from the fact that amongst the Keltic tribes, or the earliest Aryan immigrants, dark hair prevailed, as amongst the Welsh, Cornish, and Irish of the present day; and that when they afterwards came in contact with the Teutonic branch, as enemies, they found their mortal foes to possess fair skins and light hair. They consequently regarded the intrusion into their household, at the commencement of the year, of one of the hated race, as a sinister omen. The beards and hair of the ancient Aryan gods were golden or red, or fire-coloured. The Teutonic Thor, in this respect, was the counterpart of Indra and Agni. Red hair, no doubt, would have its admirers, where these gods were worshipped; and, of course, it would fall into contempt when the reverse was the case. The German early Christians, it appears, not only condemned Thor to the lower regions, but carried their dislike to the very colour of his hair. Hence the proverb, "Rother-bart, Teufelsart," or "Red-beard, devil-steered." They went so far, indeed, as to assert, without any other authority than the speciality of his personal character, that the beard of the arch-traitor, Judas Iscariot, was of this obnoxious colour. Dryden refers to it in the triplet which he despatched to Jacob Tonson, as a specimen of his power as a satirist, and which caused the celebrated publisher to deal more liberally than previously with the poor and angry poet. Dryden's lines are:

With leering look, bull-faced, and freckled fair,
With two left legs, with Judas-coloured hair,
And frowsy pores that taint the ambient air.

Kelly says the prejudice is of German and not of Eastern origin. Hence it is not improbable that the dethronement of the red-haired gods may have been at the root of the German antipathy. But the true Kelt does not simply abhor, on New Year's Day, the red hair of the Dane, but the brown or flaxen, or amber locks of the German as well. Indeed, black or dark hair and complexion are the chief objects of his concern in the individual who first enters his domicile on the dawn of the New Year.[18] Many householders feast their friends on New Year's Eve, and send out shortly before midnight one of the party, with dark hair, expressly "to bring in the New Year," as it is termed. I remember, some time ago, the landlady of one of the Preston hotels, being unmarried, was in the habit of rewarding the fortunate dark-haired gentleman with a kiss for his propitious entrance into her hostelry on the morning of this festivity. Of course, the fair one had nothing but frowns and harsh words if a light-haired interloper happened to first cross her threshold.

Mr. T. T. Wilkinson, in his "Popular Customs and Superstitions in Lancashire," referring to the practice of divination at this season of the year, says:—"When a Lancashire damsel desires to know what sort of a husband she will have, on New Year's Eve she pours some melted lead into a glass of water and observes what forms the drops assume. When they resemble scissors, she concludes that she must rest satisfied with a tailor; if they appear in the form of a hammer, he will be a smith or a carpenter; and so of the others. I have met with many instances of this class in which the example given did not admit of easy contradiction."

The prophetic character of the weather during this period is a superstition common to all the Aryan tribes. So strongly is this characteristic of the season felt in Lancashire, at the present day, that many country people may be met with who habitually found their "forecast," as the late Admiral Fitzroy would term the operation, on the appearance of the heavens on Old Christmas Day. Mr. T. T. Wilkinson relates a singular instance of this superstition, which shows the stubbornness of traditional lore, even when subjected to the power and influence of legislative enactments. He says:—"The use of the old style in effect is not yet extinct in Lancashire. The writer knows an old man, R. H., of Habergham, about 77 years of age, who always reckons the changes of the seasons in this manner. He alleges the practice of his grandfather and father in support of his method, and states with much confidence that 'Perliment didn't change t' seasons wen they chang'd day o' t' month.'"

The New Year's advent is still believed to be a period especially favourable for divination of various kinds. A work named the "Shepherd's Kalender," published in 1709, soberly informs us that "if New Year's Day in the morning open with dusky red clouds, it denotes strifes and debates among great ones, and many robberies to happen that year."

The "weatherwise" placed much reliance on the prophetic aspect of the heavens at this period. A clergyman at Kirkmichæl, quoted by Sir John Sinclair, says, with reference to the practices of some of his parishioners,—"On the first night of January they observe with anxious attention the disposition of the atmosphere. As it is calm or boisterous; as the wind blows from the north or the south, from the east or the west, they prognosticate the nature of the weather till the conclusion of the year. The first night of the new year when the wind blows from the west they call dar-na-coille, the night of the fecundation of the trees; and from the circumstance has been derived the name in the Gaelic language. Their faith in the above signs is couched in verses thus translated:—'The wind of the south will produce heat and fertility; the wind of the west milk and fish; the wind of the north cold and storm; the wind from the east fruit on the trees.'"

A curious custom of this class is mentioned by Sir Henry Ellis, termed "Apple-howling," as being well known in Sussex, Devon, and elsewhere. Troops of boys gather round the orchards on New Year's Eve, and chant the following ditty:—

Stand fast root, bear well top,
Pray God send us a howling crop;
Every twig, apples big;
Every bough, apples enow;
Hats full, caps full,
Full quarter sacks full.

The practice of divining or "fore-casting" the character of the weather, and influencing the vegetation of the coming year, by ceremonies and observations of atmospheric effects, at its commencement, or on New Year's Day, appears to be prefigured in the ancient Aryan mythology. On this subject Walter Kelly says:—"In the gloomy season of the winter solstice the Ribhus" (demi-gods, who aid in the ruling of the lightning and storms) "sleep for twelve days in the house of the sun-god Savitar; then they wake up and prepare the earth to clothe itself anew with vegetation, and the frozen waters to flow again. It appears certain, from some passages in the Vedas, that twelve nights about the winter solstice were regarded as prefiguring the character of the weather for the whole year. A Sanscrit text is noticed by Weber, which says expressly, 'The twelve nights are an image of the year.' The very same belief exists at this day in Northern Germany. The peasants say that the calendar for the whole year is made in the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany, and that as the weather is on each of these days so will it be on the corresponding month of the ensuing year. They believe also that whatever one dreams on any of the twelve nights will come to pass within the next year."

Before the introduction of the New Style, previously referred to, this weather fore-casting was indulged in at the end of March. Brand gives an old rhyme which demonstrates the truth of this:

March said to Aperill,
I see three hogs upon a hill;
But lend your first three days to me,
And I'll be bound to gar them dee.
The first it sall be wind an' weet,
The next it sall be snaw an' sleet,
The third it sall be sic a freeze,
Sall gar the birds stick to the trees.
But when the borrowed days were gane,
The three silly hogs came hirplin hame.

Mr. Henderson, in his recent work on the "Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties," says, "Old people presage the weather of the coming season by that of the last three days of March, which they call the 'borrowing days,' and thus rhyme about:

"March borrowed from April
Three days, and they were ill;
The first o' them war wind an' weet,
The next o' them war snaw an' sleet,
The last o' them war wind an' rain,
Which gaed the silly pair ewes come toddling hame."

The mistletoe and the oak were both of sacred, or "lightning" origin amongst the Aryans, and the medicinal, mythical, or magical character yet attributed to the former both by the Teutons and Kelts, had, doubtless, one common origin. Walter Kelly says the mistletoe "possesses, in a high degree, all the virtues proper to botanic lightning, as is implied in its Swiss name, donnerbesen, 'thunderbesom,' and its mode of growth is conformable in all particulars to its exalted mythical character. It is a parasite, and like the asvattha and the rowan, it is everywhere believed to spring from seed deposited by birds on trees. When it was found on the oak, the Druids ascribed its growth directly to the gods; they chose the tree; and the bird was their messenger, perhaps a god in disguise." The mistletoe was supposed to protect the homestead from fire and other disaster; and, like many other mysterious things, it was believed to be potent in matters relating to courtship and matrimony. It is to this sentiment we owe the practice of kissing under the bush formed of holly and mistletoe during the Christmas festivities.

This matrimonial element in the mysticism which attaches to the mistletoe is artistically presented in the Scandinavian mythology. Freyja, the mother of Baldr, had rendered him invulnerable against all things formed out of the then presumed four elements, fire, air, earth, and water. The mistletoe was believed to grow from none of these elements. Another version is that she swore all created things never to hurt this the "whitest" and most loved of all the Æsir; but she overlooked one insignificant branch of the mistletoe, and it was by an arrow fashioned from it that the bright day-god, Baldr, the Scandinavian counterpart of Apollo and Bel, was killed by the blind Hodr or Helder. The gods, however, restored him to life, and dedicated the mistletoe to his mother, who is regarded as the counterpart of the classical Venus. Hence its importance in affairs of love and courtship. It is not improbable that the far-famed dart of Cupid may have some relationship to the mistletoe arrow to which the beautiful Baldr succumbed. In a Vedic incantation, translated by Dr. Kuhn, this death-dealing power of the mistletoe is ascribed to a branch of the asvattha.

The medicinal qualities of the mistletoe were also in high repute. "This healing virtue, which the mistletoe shares with the ash," says Kelly, "is a long-descended tradition, for 'the kustha the embodiment of the soma,' a healing plant of the highest renown among the Southern Aryans, was one of those that grew beneath the heavenly asvattha." This heavenly asvattha is the ficus religiosa, or "world tree," "out of which the immortals shaped the heavens and the earth;" and it is supposed to be the prototype of the yggdrasil, the cloud-tree of the Norsemen, "an ash (Norse askr), the tree out of which the gods formed the first man, who was thence called Askr. The ash was also among the Greeks, an image of the clouds, and the mother of men." The Christmas tree of the Germans, recently imported into this country, no doubt originated in these ancient mythical superstitions.

The wide-spread traditionary belief in this world-overspreading tree is confirmed by a passage in Merlin's celebrated prophecy. The magician says, "After this shall be produced a tree upon the Tower of London, which, having no more than three branches, shall overshadow the surface of the whole island." Of course Merlin is speaking figuratively of the future prospects of Britain, and refers to the domination of London as the metropolitan city of the British empire. Nevertheless, the origin of the mythical language used for this purpose appears to admit of no doubt.

The famous bean-stalk up which the renowned "Jack," of nursery story, climbed till he reached cloud-land, the abode of fairies and giants, is, unquestionably, a remnant of the Scandinavian yggdrasil, or cloud-tree. Beans and peas, as will be hereafter shown, in the Aryan myths, were connected with celestial fire, and with departed spirits. This Gothic skiey realm has likewise its counterpart in the Greek Phæakian domain, or "cloudland geography," as Mr. Cox aptly expresses it.

A certain reverence for both the oak and the ash exists yet in the minds of others better educated than the peasantry of England. The phrase, "Our hearts of oak," may shortly be superseded by "Our iron-clads," but the figure of speech, as applied to the fighting sailor, and not to the craft, will long survive the era of the conversion of the ships. The oak and the ash are weather-prophets at this day. An old rhyme says:—

If the oak's before the ash,
We shall only get a splash;
If the ash precede the oak,
We shall surely get a soak.

This, of course, refers to the priority in the time of budding or coming into leaf.

Other Christmas customs and superstitions appear to distinctly exhibit an Aryan origin. The white-thorn is supposed to possess supernatural power, and certain trees of this class, in Lancashire called Christmas thorns, are believed to blossom only on Old Christmas Day. Mr. Wilkinson says that, in the neighbourhood of Burnley, many persons will yet travel a considerable distance "at midnight, in order to witness the blossoming." In the Arboretum at Kew gardens, Miss Pratt informs us, in her "Flowers, and their Associations," there is a tree of this kind which "is often covered with its clusters while the snow surrounds it." The thorn, as I shall afterwards show, was an Aryan "lightning plant," and, therefore, supposed to be endowed with supernatural properties.

The boar's head yet forms a prominent object amongst the traditionary dishes of Christmas festivities. Amongst the impersonations of natural phenomena in the Aryan mythology, the wild boar represented the "ravages of the whirlwind that tore up the earth." The boar is an animal connected with the storm and lightning, in all the Indo-European mythologies. Kelly says:—"Boars are winds, and their white flashing tusks were looked upon by the southern Aryans and the Greeks, as well as by the Germans, as images of the lightning." There exists yet a traditionary superstition very prevalent in Lancashire and its neighbourhood to the effect that pigs can "see the wind." I accidentally heard the observation made not long ago, in the city of Manchester, in what is termed "respectable society," and no one present audibly dissented. One or two individuals, indeed, remarked that they had often heard such was the case, and seemed to regard the phenomenon as related to the strong scent and other instincts peculiar to animals of the chase. Indeed, Dr. Kuhn says that in Westphalia this phase of the superstition is the prevalent one. There pigs are said to smell the wind. No one except myself, in the Manchester instance referred to, appeared to have any knowledge of the origin of the tradition, or that it was, at least, between three and four thousand years old, and, in all probability, very much older.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] Since the above was written, I have learned that, in some localities, light-haired men are preferred. This superstition may, therefore, perhaps, arise, as I have suggested, from prejudice of race, and equally apply to Teuton and Kelt, and, consequently, subject to local modification.

CHAPTER IV.

EASTER SUPERSTITIONS AND CEREMONIES.

Gentle Spring! in sunshine clad,
Well do'st thou thy power display!
For Winter maketh the light heart sad,
And thou, thou maketh the sad heart gay!
He sees thee, and calls to his gloomy train,
The sleet, and the snow, and the wind, and the rain,
And they shrink away, and they flee in fear,
When thy merry step draws near.