XXIX. cap. VI.

t The name of Baal-zebud may be traced in that of Bal-zub, under which the ancient Irish worshipped the sun as the God of Death ; that is the sun of the inferior signs ; the same as Serapis and Huto, (C. Higgins on the Celtic Druids, p. 119). It is difficult now to prove a common origin between the divinities of Ireland and those of Phenicia. Baal-zebud was in Phenicia the star of the autumnal equinox, the God whose annual arrival put an end to the plague of flies.
: Plin. Hist. Nat.
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nearer to the point we desire to arrive at. It was from the platform of Meroe,* far from the formidable Tsalt- salya, that the shepherds took flight, to await the autumnal equinox, the desired termination of his six months' reign. They must have worshipped in this conqueror of flies, the constellation of the equinox, afterwards represented by Serapis, Pluto, and the Ser- pent. In the countries where this divinity was adored as changing the face of the earth and the destinies bf men, the lively impression made on those who had frequently witnessed the plague over which he triumphed, concurred to extend his worship from Cyrenaiea into Syria, among the Phenidans.
The Romans and the Greeks, perhaps, also borrowed this superstition; but it is remarkable that Greece attached itself only to African traditions. The Arcadians of Hersea joined the worship of the demi-god Myagrus, which they had acquired from Africa, to that of Minerva. Their tradition reported indeed that Minerva was bom in Arcadia, but it was on the margin of the fountain Tritonides, that we are told the same wonders were
* Modern geographers hare diiBFered in fixing the locality of Meroe ; but M. Cailloux has settled the question. He describes it to be that part of Africa in the vicinity of the Nile, which is . formed into a kind of peninsula by the Nile itself, not its branches Astapus and Astaboras as formerly supposed. The river bends in such a manner as nearly to insulate a space so large, that to travel round it requires many weeks, while across its neck, is only one day's journey. Its inhabitants resembled the Egyptians in their refinement and their architecture ; indeed Meroe was supposed to have been the cradle of most of the religious institutions of the Egyptians . — ^E d .
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displayed,* as those which assigned the lake or river Tritonis in Lybia, as having the honour of being the birth-place of Minerva. An Arcadian colony which established itself among those hills on which, at a future period Rome was built, carried there the worship of Hercules. If Numa owes to the Tyrrhians the knowledge which induced him to consecrate at Rome, under the name of Janus,t a temple to the planetary God of Meroe,| it was most probably communicated by the companions of Evander, who, long before his time, had raised aD altar on the banks of the Tiber to the annual liberator of the river Astapus and Astaboras.
When the worship of this local divinity was thus propagated among a people, to whom it must have been foreign, the prodigy attributed to him arose naturally from the interpretation of his name, of the origin of which they were ignorant. Analogous inventions have at all times been nimierous ; and especially when they were often fostered by the exhibition of the emblems appropriated to the name which the God bore, and regarding which the supposed prodigy furnished a plau- sible explanation.
The vulgar, for whose adoration prodigies are pre- sented, believe without reflecting on the nature of their
* Fausanias, Aread. cap. xxvi. The Boetians also of Alalco- menia show in their country a river Triton, on the banks of which they placed the birth of Minerva, (Pausanias, Bceot, cap. xxxiii)«
t Janus was merely a symbolical representation of the year. Some of his statutes held the number 300 in one hand and 65 in the other. — ^Ed.
X Lenglet, Introduction d. rHistoire, p. 19.
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belief; — the man of education submits, from habit, to the established' belief ; — ^the endeavours of the priest is to make it respected, and to increase his own influence.^
* It is curious to observe superstition holding her sway over the minds of the ignorant long after the sun of Christianity dis- pelled the shades of idolatry, and shed its benign influence upon this island. Kirk, in his Essay on Fairies, seriously informs us that these beings changed their places of abode at each quarter of the year ; ** and at such revolution of time/' says he, " seers, or men of the second sight, have very terrifying encounters with them, even on the high ways ; who, therefore, usually shun to travel abroad at these four seasons of the year, and thereby have made it a custom to this day among the Scottish- Irish to keep church duly every first Sunday of the quarter to sain or hallow themselves, their come and cattell from the shots and stealth of these wandering tribes ; and many of these superstitious people will not be seen in church againe 'till the next quarter begin, as if no duty were to be learned or done by them, but all the use of worship and sermons were to save them from these arrows that fly in the dark."* The popular creed, also, at the same period, and almost onward to the present day, was burthened with the belief in omens, and auguries, whilst the common people nourished as sacred the most absurd superstitions and observances. Regi- nald Scot, who wrote a work entitled *' Discoverie of Witchcraft," says, " amongst us there be manie women and effeminat men (manie papists alwaies, as by their superstition may appeare) that make great divinations upon the shedding of salt, wine, &c. ; and for the observation of dates, and horses use as great witchcraft as in anie thing. For if one chance to take a faU from a horse, either in a slipperie or in a stumbling waie, he will note the daie and hour, and count the time unlucky for a joiunie. Otherwise he that receiveth a mischance, will consider whether he met with a cat, or a hare, where he went first out of his doores in the morning ; or stumbled not at the threshold at his going out ; or put
' Kirk's Essays on Funerals, p. 2, 3.
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Miners who have died from suffocation, were at one time thought to have been killed by the demons of the
not on his shirt the wrong side outwards ; or his left shoe on hi« right foote/'* Reginald's name- sake,. Sir Walter Scott, informs us that supernatural appearances are " still helieved to announce death to the ancient Highland femily of MacLean of Lochhuy. The spirit of an ancestor slain in battle is heard to gallop along a stony bank, and then to ride thrice around the family residencci ringing his fairy bridle, and thus intimating the approaching calamity ."** Sir Walter refers to this omen in the Ladi^ of the Lake.
" Sounds, too, had come in midnight blast. Of charging steeds, careering fast Along Benharrow's shingly side. Where mortal horseman ne'er might ride/*
The tomb-fires of the Scandinavijuis, the tan-we of the Welsh, were also omens announcing death ; and it was generally believed that when a freeholder was about to die, a meteor was always seen either to shoot over and vanish on his estate, or to gleam with a lurid light over the family burying ground. Mrs. Grant, in her Essays on the superstitions of the Highlanders of Scotland, relates a singular instance of the belief of a learned and pious clergjrman in the predictive property of these tomb-fires, well worthy of perusal.* The apparition of the " corpse candle," canwyll corph, implicitly believed in Wales, is a light which is supposed to pass from the habitation of a person about to die, to the church-yard, precisely along the path which the funeral must afterwards proceed. It is believed to be a mark of divine bene- ficence conferred upon the Welsh, from the prayers of St. David, who, on his death bed, obtained a promise that none of his flock should die without having previous intimation of his death. The Welsh have impHcit belief in the apparition ; they give the name ** canwyll corph," also to the inflammable gas, fired by electricity
• Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 203.
*• Lady of the Lake, p. 106.
^ Vide Grant's Essays, &c. vol. i. p. 259.
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mi/ae ; who were infernal spirits, guardians of treasures hidden in the depths of the earth, and who destroyed all covetous men, for endeavouring to penetrate to their asy- lum. In these ancient and universal traditions we recognise the effects of exhalations and noxious gasses, which are disengaged in subterraneous places, particularly in mines. In order to preserve the miners from their deadly influence, science has investigated their nature, and by thus acquiring a control over them, has dissipated the phantoms, which were created by ignorance and terror. But could this have been attempted with success, had science been able only to point out the evil without having discovered the remedy ? Could science have dared to promulgate its beneficial discovery, when Princes, who committed their gold to the bosom of the earth, beheld in those superstitious terrors the surest safeguard of their hidden treasures : or even so long as the miners referred to the influence of the demons of the mine, not only the real dangers that surrounded them, but also attributed to them their own awkwardness, their faults, and their misconduct in their subterranean dwellings?*
To science it still belongs to denoimce and to eradicate such universal errors, which may be regarded
in boggy grounds ; and which they believe indicates the death of a Welshman in some distant country. They have, also, credulity sufficient to give credence to another apparition which they call teulu, a kind of phantasmagoria representation of the funeral. — ^Ed. *'j. Tollins, Epist. Itiner. p. 96, 97.
• Meyrick's History and Antiquities of Cardiganshire, 4to. p. 123.
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as real epidemics, by which multitudes are duped, although without a deceiver. At one time it was be- lieved in two countries of Italy that the accouchement of women was always accompanied by the birth of monsters, an event which was believed so common, that these monsters were designated " brothers of the Lom- bards^ or Salemitans/^^ and they went so far as to believe that in the patrician families they were noble animals, such as eagles, and hawks ; and, in the plebeian families, the baser animals, such as lizards and toads. This belief gave rise to frequent accusations of sorcery, productive of atrocious condemnations; and at that time any learned man would have shared the same fete as the victims whom he might have desired to save; if, in opposing the general extravagance of opinion, he had unveiled some ill-observed or incorrectly reported phenomenon as the origin of it: and thus exposed the deceptions inspired by folly, or interest, or the spirit of revenge.f
* Flomazm Tractatus de Fascinatione, pages 622, 623, 626. Frater Lomhardorum vel Salernitarum. Rabelais probably alluded to this absurd belief in the prodigies described as having preceded the birth of Pantagruel, (liv. ii. chap, ii.) prodigies which have always been regarded as deserving a place among those extrava- gant fictions which sometimes are destined to serve as passports to bold truths.
t In the commencement of the seventeenth century, a French priest having been, by an unlucky chance, attacked by one of the lower animals in a manner too disgusting to relate, was accused of sorcery by his own brother. On the outcry of the whole town, struck with horror, he was taken before the tribunal of justice ; and constrained by the pains of the torture to confess an
92 EXTRAORDINARY STORIES CREDIBLE.
To explain many tales of sorcery, and elucidate many features in mythology, it is only necessary to observe the deviations from the usual course of nature among tame animals, and among those in a state of confinement, and detached from the society of their fellows.
But it would have been in vain for the voice of J\
science to have raised itself to explain a phenomenon in which enthusiasm beheld a prodigy; especially when men who had the power of creating belief, had an interest in persuading the multitude that the prodigy i
was real. The priesthood would have menaced him I
in the name of that Divinity, whose rights he might be accused of contemning. Eresicthon, so says an ancient fable, used his axe in cutting down a wood consecrated
to Ceres. Some time afterwards he was attacked
j
by the disease named Bulimia,* — a malady which was as j
I imaginary crime, for which he was condemned, and suffered an
ignominious death. Could a well informed man, had he then related what Aristotle had written twenty centuries before re- garding the charge, have ended the scandal, and terminated an ab- surd criminal prosecution, or prevented its abominable issue? A i man, enlightened amidst a blind population, would he not have been called upon to exculpate himself as a favourer of the crime, and as I an accomplice of the sorcery ? Such a result might be suspected, when we are told that the illusion was entertained even by the celebrated Aubign^, one of the most enlightened men of the time in which he lived. i
* The quantity of food consumed in some of the well authen- ticated cases of this extraordinary disease, is almost incredible. Among others. Dr. Cochrane, of Liverpool, has recorded the case of a man, placed under his own personal inspection, who in one day consumed four pounds of raw cow's udder, ten pounds of raw beef, and two pounds of candles, besides five bottles of porter. The disease has appeared in persons of all ages; and many of
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well known in the times of the ancients, as in our own. He suffered insatiable hunger, which he attempted in vain to satisfy. His wealth soon disappeared : all his resources failed ; he sank under his malady, and died of inanition : the priests of Ceres consequently triumphed ; and a fable invented by them, records that the impious Eresicthon perished miserably, the devoted victim of the vengeance of the Goddess, whose gifls are bestowed for the nourishment of the human species.*
Such were the nature of those accidents which the priests knew how to turn to advantage, when cir- cumstances threw them in their way: nor did they allow a single phenomenon of this kind to escape their investiga- tion. The Roman Pontifs, however, did not introduce the practice of inserting in registers the miracles, which were every year brought to light; they borrowed the custom from the Etruscan priests, whose sacred books are frequently quoted by Lydus :t and it is more than
them seemed to be, in every other respect, in good health* They, however, have usually soon died, and not unfreqnendy of apparent inanition.* The unfortunate Thessalian mentioned in the text, is said to have been driven to devour his own limbs. Ovid extends the tradition, aud completely destroys its probability, by relating that the daughter of Eresicthon could transform herself into any animal she pleased; a power which she employed for her father's benefit. — Metamorp, f. xviii. — ^Ed.
* Modem superstition equals in many respects the ancient. Fromann (Tract, de Fascinatione, p. 6, 13) quotes instances of Bulimia, which might be regarded as examples of persons pos- sessed by a devil.
t Lydus de Osientis,
* Medical and Physical Journal, vol. iii.
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probable that this usage has existed in all the ancient temples. With whatever intention they may have been at first established, such records must, in the end, have afforded very extensive information. It is difficult to collect a series of philosophical observations, without even involuntarily drawing comparisons.
For instance, it would be interesting to discover what is reasonable or scientific in the judgment given by a priest or an augur, on the results of a miracle, or the expiatory ceremonies proscribed for displaying them. Often, without doubt, it was only meant to disturb, or to reassure the alarmed imagination: often ignorance and fear blindly obeyed a superstitious custom, however stupid or ferocious. But as Democritus informs us, the condition of the entrails of the animals sacrificed would furnish to a new colony, disembarked on an unknown shore, a probable idea of the nature of the soil and the climate on which their future welfare depended."*^
The inspection of the liver of the victims, an opera- tion which afterwards served as a basis for many predictions, had originally no other object. If they found it in all victims presenting an unhealthy character, they concluded there was little salubrity, either in the waters, or the pastures. The Romans were also
* There caQ be no doubt that valuable information on the score of health might occasionally be obtained from such inspections ; yet animals like men become naturalized to the localities in which they have long resided, and do not suffer from their insalubrity as animals or men newly transported to them. More accurate information can be obtained from observing the description of animals, reptiles, and insects peculiar to the country, and particularly the plants indigenous to the soil. — ^Ed.
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regulated by simflar indications, in determining the foundations of towns, and the position of fortified camps.* Such examples prove that some of the reli- gious practices of the ancients, emanated from positive science, founded on long observation ; and in these we may still discover instructive vestiges and real philosophy. We have now reason for believing that magical performances were much more useful to the priests than prodigies, since far from happening suddenly, the precise moment, the extent, and the oature of the results were entirely dependant on the will of man. The apparent miracles related by the ancients explain them- selves naturally ; their accounts of them cannot, therefore, be regarded as fialsehoods: and wherefore should their recitals be doubted, when they treat of magical per- formances, which also admit of explanations not less satisfactory ? It can only be believed that the priests possessed and kept secret the knowledge necessary to operate these wonders. Let us not overlook the rule by which our belief may be regulated ; namely, the measure of favourable or of contrary probabilities. Is it likely that in every country, men whose veracity we have established on points which have been powerfully attacked, should relate so many absurd wonders, and yet have only for their object to impose upon the ignoncnt? Is it not more probable that the recitals are founded on truth ; and that these wonders have been affected by means acquired from the study of the Occult Sciences, which were shut
* Vitruvius de Archit. lib. i. cap. iv. Cicer, de Dioni, lib. i. cap. Lvii.
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up in their temples? And does not this likelihood approach to certainty ; if we admit, that careful obser- vation and a patient comparison of all prodigies and extraordinary facts, would endow the priests with a con- siderable fund of practical knowledge : — and, that from these researches magic may have originated ?
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