M. Dulaure,* nevertheless, is of opinion that ;this and many-

other legends were emblematical of the triumph of the christian faith over the Roman and Druidical rituals. Incredulity is in fact, the worst of all vices in the eyes of the heads of any faith. The retreat of the dragon which was vanquished by St. Julian, f was near a temple of Jupiter ; its fall may have figured that of Polytheism, when, at the voice of the apostle of Mans, its wor- shippers overthrew the altars of the dethroned God, and left his temple desolate. Upon the site of Epidaurus is to be seen a cavern which tradition has sometimes designated as the retreat of Cad- mus when metamorphosed into a serpent, but more frequently as the abode of the serpent of Esculapius. "When St. Jerome related that at Epidarus, St. Hilary triumphed over a devastating serpent concealed in that cavern, the learned seemed to have some reason for supposing the recital to be emblematical of the victory of the preacher of the gospel over the worship of Esculapius. J A similar allegory also explains the miracle that rendered St. Donat, Bishop of Corinth, the vanquisher of a serpent so enormous that eight yoke of oxen could scarcely drag along its corpse. || The date of the miracle, in the year 399, is also the period in which paganism fell irrevocably beneath the blow struck against it by the command of the two sons of Theodosius.
A monstrous dragon desolated the neighbourhood of Theil near Roche aux Fées (Rock of the Fairies), in the department of the Isle and Vilaine. St. Arnel, the apostle of that country, led it with his stole to the summit of a mountain and then commanded it to precipitate itself into the river Seiche. M. Nouai de la Houssaye is of opinion that this miracle is emblematical of the
* Dulaure, Physical, Moral, and Civil History of Paris, 1st edit. pp. 161, 162 and 185, 186.
f Mémoires de l' académie celtique, tome iv, p. 311.
X Appending Notizie istorico-critiche sulle Anticliita, 8fc. de' Ragusei, tome i, p. 30. Pouqueville, Voyage dans la Grèce, tome i, pp. 24, 25.
|| Sigeberti, Chronicon, anno 399.
ILLUSTRATIONS. 297
victory this Saint achieved over the remains of the Druidical religion, the ceremonies of which had, till then, been perpe- tuated on the Rock of the Fairies. He explains in the same way the repetition of a similar miracle in the legend of St. Efflam, and in that of other saints.* His conjecture may be easily extended to the works of a Thaumaturgist, who, before a stone, most pro- bably druidical and still honoured by superstitious rites, overcame a dragon which had ravaged the territory of Neuilly- Saint- Front skirting Chateau-Thierry.f On a leaden medal, struck at Amiens in 1552, (doubtless from some more ancient type), St. Martin is represented as piercing with a lance the body of a dragon which he tramples under foot. This was intended to designate the victories of the Saint over the pagan divinities. J
Constantine, the overthrower of paganism, loved to have himself painted, armed with a cross and striking with his lance a formi- dable dragon. || Thirty years ago, in a town of Normandy, might be seen an old picture which served as a sign to an hotel ; the cos- tume and the figure were those of Louis XIV, the new St. Michael levelling to the earth the infernal dragon. It was, I presume, as a commemoration of the revocation of the edict of Nantes.
Heresy, indeed, not less than false religion, is reputed to be the work of the spirit of darkness. § The bronze dragon, therefore, which until 1728, the monks of St. Loup, at Troyes, carried in the pro- cession of Rogation*[[ passed for the emblem of the victory of St. Loup over the Pelagian heresy.
* Mémoires de l'Académie celtique, tome v. page 377.
f Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de France, tome i. pages 426, 427.
% Mémoires de l'Académie du département de la Somme, tome i. page 699.
|| Euseb. Pamph...de vitâ Constantini. lib. ni. cap. m.
§ The Emperor Sigismond instituted the order of the Vanquished Dragon, in celebration of the anathema denounced by the council of Constance against the doctrines of John Huss and Jerome of Prague. The dragon signified heresy overcome.
If Grosley, Ephémérides, 3e partie, chap, xci, tome n. pages 222 — 225.
298 ILLUSTRATIONS.
§ VIL
MULTIPLICITY OK FACTS OF THIS NATURE, ADOPTED AS REAL FACTS.
Allegories are beyond the comprehension of the ignorant multi- tude, who are accustomed to believe whatever they are told. The serpent paraded on Rogation day was generally regarded as the representation of a real serpent, to the existence of which they assigned a certain date. In vain was the meaning of the allegory revealed to the superstitious ; in vain were they shown, for instance, a picture of St. Veran loading the evil spirit with chains ; they persisted in believing, and in relating that the territory of Aries was formerly delivered by St. Veran from the ravages of a monstrous serpent ; and a picture perpetuates the remembrance of this victory,* which according to the legend was obtained at the entrance of a grotto near a fountain.
Every parish had its dragon ; and, stiil in all the parishes in Spain, the image of the serpent (Taras) is carried in procession on Corpus Christi day. The history of the monster varies still more than its forms, as imagination and credulity attributed to it supernatural deeds. From dread they passed to respect. The dragon of Poitiersf was piously surnamed the good Saint Vermine ; they prayed to it ; and they were eager to obtain chaplets touched by it. It is difficult to say, whether as a monument it remained what it had formerly been, an idol, or that it became so by degrees, among a superstitious people.
More commonly the emblem was surrounded by signs of hatred and horror. Its legendary history justified these sentiments. It had been the curse of the country in which its image was paraded. Its venom had poisoned the springs, and its breath infected the
* I saw these pictures in 1813, in Majore, Laa church in Aries, f Notes of the Society of the Antiquaries of France, vol. i. page 464. Notes of the Celtic Academy, vol. v. pages 54 — 55.
ILLUSTRATIONS. 299
air with contagious diseases. It devoured the flocks ; killed men, and chose young girls, virgins consecrated to the Lord, for its victims ; whilst children disappeared engulphed in the abyss of its terrible jaws. The Bailla, a figure of a dragon that was paraded at Rheims every Easter day, had probably this origin. The gilded dragon that figured in the processions of the Roga- tion, in the parish of St. James of Douai, was the emblem of the demon that had devoured the corn in the ear, and destroyed the harvest to punish the cultivators of it for having refused to pay the tithes.*
At Provence until 1761 — in the parishes of Notre Dame and St. Quiriace, there was carried in the former in the processions of the Rogation, a winged dragon, and in the latter a monster termed a lizard, two animals which had formerly desolated the town and its environs. f St. Florence went, we are told, by the command of God, to establish himself in a grotto or cavern situated on the left bank of the Loire, and to expel from it serpents with which it was filled. Soon afterwards he delivered the inhabi- tants of Mur, now Saumur, from an enormous serpent, which devoured men and animals, and hid itself in a wood upon the banks of the Vienne .%
At Tonnerre, the holy Abbot Johan overcame a basilisk which infected the waters of a fountain. || The Vivre of Larré, to which a Burgundian proverb likened any woman accused of beshrewing,§ was a serpent hidden near a fountain in the vici- nity of a Priory of the order of St. Benoit, and long an object
* Bottin. Traditions des Dragons volants, etc. pages 157 and 160 — 161.
t Ch. Opoix. Histoire et Description des Provins, pp. 435, 436.
+ J. J. Bodin. Recherches historiques sur Saumur et le Haut-Anjou, tome i. pages 117 — 122.
|| Greg. Turon. De gloria confessor, cap. lxxxvii.
§ La Monnoye. Noel borguignon. 12mo. 1729, pages 399 — 400. — Vivre, vouivre or, guivre, viper, serpent. The word guivre has still this sense in the heraldic vocabulary.
300 ILLUSTRATIONS.
of public terror. At Aix in Provence, the procession of the Ro- gations deposits upon a rock, called the Rock of the Dragon, and near a chapel dedicated to St. Andrew, the figure of a dragon, killed by the intercession of this holy apostle.* No less the source of succour than St. Andrew and St. George, St. Victor at Marseilles overcame a monstrous reptile. f St. Theodore tramp- led a serpent under foot; J and St. Second, patron of Asti, is represented on horseback, piercing a dragon with his lance. || We might quote many other similar legends without pretend- ing to exhaust the subject. Knowing the common origin of all, and the causes which, since the fifth century, multiplied them in the East, we are far from being astonished at their number ; on the contrary, we are surprised that more do not exist.
§ VIII.
VARIATIONS IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES AND DATES OF THE NARRA- TIONS ; NEW VESTIGES OF THE ASTRONOMICAL LEGEND.
The custom of bearing the image of the serpent in the ceremo- nies of the Rogations ceased very gradually ; and it may be said, this emblem of the Prince of Darkness yielded but slowly to the advancement of the light of truth. Several churches in France did not abandon the use of it until the eighteenth century ; in 1771, Grosley found it kept up in full force, in all the Catholic churches of the Low Countries. § During so long a lapse of time
* Fauris Saint-Vincent. Mémoire sur l'ancienne cité d'Aix. — Magasin en- cyclopédique, year 1812. vol. vi. page 287.
f In the Abbey of Saint Victor at Marseilles.
% Dorbessan. Essay upon Sacred Serpents. Historical and Critical Miscel- lanies, vol. ii. page 138.
|| Millin. Travels in Savoy and Piedmont, vol. i. p. 121.
§ Grosley. Travels in Holland. Unpublished Works of Grosley. 3 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1815. vol. in. page 336.
ILLUSTRATIONS. 301
the narrations must necessarily have varied, and, consequently, the explanations of them.
To overcome the Gargouille, the dragon of Rouen, Saint Ro- mans caused himself to be accompanied by a criminal condemned to death, whose pardon was obtained by the miracle of the Saint.
The clergy willingly gave credit to these kind of tales. They augmented their power, by obtaining for the heads of their order the right of pardoning ; or at least, as at Rouen, that of giving liberty to prisoners. It was regarded as not granting too much to the memory of a miracle, of which, by the will of God, a condemned criminal became the instrument.
Still more willingly did the vulgar receive this variation of the universal legend ; according to them no man could have resolved to undertake so perilous a combat, unless with the fear of some infamous and cruel death before him. In this manner, a criminal condemned to death, robbed St. Radegonde of the honour of having vanquished the Grand' gueule, the terrible dragon of Poitiers, which issuing every day from its cavern on the banks of the river Clain, devoured the Virgins of the Lord, the nuns of the convent of St. Croix.* Another doomed man was said to have delivered the parish of Villiers, near Vendôme, from the ravages of a serpent.f A third killed a dragon, or a crocodile, which, hidden beneath the waters of the Rhone, was the scourge of the sailors and the inhabitants of the country. \ A deserted soldier, in order to obtain his pardon, fought with a dragon that spread terror into the environs of Niort. || He triumphed; but lost his life in the struggle.
In discussing the history of this pretended soldier,§ M. Eloi- Johanneau remarks how suspicious it is rendered, by one of the
* Mémoires de l'académie celtique, tome v. pages 52, 53, 55. Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de France, tome i. page 464 — 465. f Mémoires de l'Académie celtique, tome iv. page 311. % Ibid, tome v. page 111. || Ibid. ibid, pages 58, 60, 132, 134. § Ibid. ibid, pages 59, and 134—135.
302 ILLUSTRATIONS.
names given to him signifying the vanquisher of a beast, or a mons- ter, and particularly by its date 1589 or 1692, a date much too recent for history not to have recorded the fact. .The date assigned by D. Calmet to the appearance of the serpent of Luneville is still more modern. He places it a century from the time in which he wrote.* Of all the variations which popular traditions are subject to, in the course of time, the most common are those which relate to date. For such stories there exist no archives ; and it is in the nature of man to be for ever endeavouring to appropriate to himself recollections bequeathed to him by the past. Too long an inter- val between them and the time present wearies his imagination, unable to fill up the gap ; he, therefore, endeavours to narrow it in proportion as the lapse of time may demand. Thus the dragon of Niort has been successively placed in 1589, and in 1692. That of the Grand' gueule of Poitiers, when attributed to a condemned criminal, was placed at so great a distance from the period in which St. Radegonde lived, that in 1280 the apparition of the flying dragon was also attributed to that town.f Although St. Jerome has described the combat of St- Hilary against the serpent of Epidaurus, the caverns and remains of which are still shown to travellers, its defeat has been attri- buted to himself.^ The tradition which attributes the destruction of the Tarasque to St. Martha, is modern compared to that which gave the honour to sixteen brave men, eight of whom perished victims to their courage ; the others founded the towns of Beaucaire and Tarascon.||
We might instance several other dates that time has also disarranged and modernised. It is, nevertheless, for a different
* Journal of Verdun, June 1751. page 430.
f Mémoires de l'Académie celtique, tome v. pages 61, 62.
% Pouqueville. Voyage dam la Grèce, tome i. pages 24, 25.
|| Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de France, tome i. page 423. The foundation of Tarascon (or more properly the establishment of the Marseillaise in this town) appears previous to the war of Caesar against Pom- pey.
ILLUSTRATIONS. 303
cause that the death of the heroes of Tarascon and the soldier of Niort deserve to be remembered. In those myths which describe the struggle of the principle of light over the principle of darkness, the former frequently paid for its victory with its life. It is thus related of Osiris, of Bacchus, of Atys, and of Adonis. In the Scandinavian mythology, likewise, at that terrible day when the world is to be destroyed and renewed, the God Thor, after having exterminated the great serpent, engendered by the principle of evil, is to perish himself, stifled by the venomous breath emitted by the monster. We are not astonished at finding another vestige of the solar legend, or in seeing several vanquishers of enormous serpents falling in the midst of their triumphs, or unable to survive them.
Ancient Greece offers an example of such generous devo- tion. The town of Thespia, by the command of a miracle, offered every year a youth to a homicidal dragon. Cleos- trates was destined by fate for this horrible sacrifice. His friend, Menestrates, took his place ; and clothed in a cuirass, each scale of which bore a hook with the point turned upper- most, he delivered himself to the monster whose death he caused, although he himself perished.*
Towards the end of the fifteenth century, or according to a more ancient tradition in 1273, (for here the date is varied that it may be brought nearer to our times), the mountains of Neufchatel were ravaged by a serpent, the recollection of which is still maintained by the names of several places in the environs of the village of Sulpy f Raymond of Sulpy, fought with the monster, killed it, and died two days afterwards.
Such was also the fate of Belzunce who delivered Bayonne
* Pausanias. Boœtica, cap. xxvi.
f Roche à la Vuivra ; Combe à la Vuivra, Fontaine à la Vuivra (vivra vivre, guivre, serpent.) Description des Montagnes de Neufchâtel, Neufcha- tel, 1776, 12mo. p. 34—37.
304 ILLUSTRATIONS.
from a dragon with several heads ; he perished, suffocated by the flames and smoke vomited by the monster.*
Patriotism celebrates with enthusiasm the name of Arnold Strouthan of Wihkelried who, at the battle of Sampach, in 1386, devoted himself for the safety of his countrymen. The name of one of his ancestors has a less authentic but not less popular title to immortality. Upon the banks of the river Meleh, near Alpen- ach, in the Canton of Underwald there appeared, in 1250, a dragon, the cave of which is still shown. Struth de "Winkelried condemned to banishment for having fought a duel, determined to regain the right of re-entering his country by delivering it from this scourge ; he succeeded, but died of his wounds the day after his victory. f Petermann Eterlin (who in truth wrote two hun- dred and fifty years later), J has recorded this fact in his chronicles. The hand of the artist has sketched it upon the walls of a chapel near the scene of the encounter ; the place has preserved the name of the Marsh of the Dragon (Drakenried) ; and the cavern that of the Dragon's Hole (Drakenlok.) These commemorative names and those of the same kind, existing near Sulpy, indicate, perhaps, like that of the Rock of the Dragon, at Aix, the places where the procession of Rogations stopped, and where the image of the allegorical dragon was momentarily deposited. || Perhaps, they may also have related, as we have already suspected, to the course of some devastating torrent.
* Mercure de France, March 29th, 1817. p. 585.
f Le Conservateur Suisse, 7 vols. 12mo. Lausanne. 1813 — 1815. tome vi. p. 440 — 441. Mayer. Travels in Switzerland, vol. i. p. 251, seems to at- tribute this adventure to Arnold of Winkelried, and places the dragon's cavern near Stanz.
% W. Coxe. Letters upon Switzerland, vol. i. p. 160.
|| The mountain nearest to Cologne, is called Rocks of the Dragons. Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de France, tome h, pp. 139, 140.
ILLUSTRATIONS. 305
§ IX.
THIS LEGEND HAS BEEN APPLIED TO CELEBRATED PERSONAGES : AND HISTORY HAS BEEN ALTERED THAT IT MIGHT SEEM TO RELATE THE EVENTS.
Eterlin, the biographer of Struth of Winkelried, has transferred to William Tell the adventure of the apple*, which Saxo Gram- maticus, who wrote more than a century before the birth of Tell, had already related of a Danish archer named Toko ;f an adven- ture borrowed, with precisely the same circumstances, from a still more ancient tradition of Egil, father of the clever smith Wailland, and himself an expert archer. I Eterlin seems to have taken pains to impress, with an historical character, the religious myths and fables imported from other countries into his own. He wrote down all popular beliefs ; and nothing is more usual with the vulgar than to apply the histories and fables, composing their documents, to personages well known to them. Winkelried and Tell, are to the Swiss peasants, what Alexander was and still is in the East. To the name of the King of Macedonia, the Asiatics attached a thousand recollections, some of them anterior to his existence, and evidently borrowed from mythology. The tradi- tions of a devastating dragon over which Alexander triumphed,
* W. Coxe. Letters on Switzerland, vol. i. p. 160. See a writing, entitled : William Tell, a Danish Fable, by Uriel Freudenberger, a work published at Berne, in 1760, by Haller, jun. 1 vol. 8vo. — Uriel Freudenberger, Pastor of Glarisse, Canton of Berne, died in 1768.
f Saxo Gramm. Hist. Danic. lib. x. folio. Francofurti, 1576. pp. 166 — 168. Saxo died in 1204. Harold who plays in history the same part as Gessler, fell beneath the blows of Toko in 981. The fable of the apple being much more ancient, it was renewed by the public hatred, under the name of Harold, as it has since been reproduced in Switzerland, under the odious name of Gessler.
% Mémoires de la Société' des Antiquaires de France, tome v. p. 229.
VOL, II. X
306 ILLUSTRATIONS.
was, in the twelfth century, still preserved in an island of Western Africa.* The Paladine Roland enjoyed the same honour in the West ; and this is still attested by the names of several places. f Ariosto, when singing of Roland, the vanquisher of the Orca, a sea monster about to devour a young girl, J probably did no more than copy and embellish a tradition of preceding ages, as in a thousand other passages of his poem.
An individual whose existence and fame are in no respect fabu- lous has, nevertheless, become like Roland, the hero of a fable which renders him a rival of Hercules and Perseus. The import- ance which the remembrance of him had acquired in a country which was so long his abode, has doubtlessly gained this honour for him. Petrarch was following Laura in the chase : they arrived near a cavern where a dragon, the terror of the country, was concealed. Less ravenous than amorous the dragon pursued Laura. Petrarch flew to the assistance of his mistress ; fought with, and stabbed the monster. The sovereign pontif, however, would not allow the picture of the triumph of love to be placed in any sacred building. Simon of Sienna, the friend of the poet, evaded this prohibition, by painting this adventure under the portal of the church of Notre Dame du Don, at Avignon. Laura is depicted in the attitude of a suppliant virgin ; and Petrarch, in the costume of St. George, armed with a poignard instead of a lance. Time, though it has lowered the estimation in which this work was held, has not weakened the tradition, which it perpe- tuates, and which has been repeated to me as a real historical fact. ||
In the examination of traditions, sufficient attention has not always been paid to that inclination which induces the ignorant man to find in everything, the myths occupying the first place in
* L'île de Mostachiin, Géographie cCEdrisi, tome i. pp. 198 — 200.
f La Baume Roland, near Marseilles ; la Brèche Roland, in the Pyrenees ; il C. ... d? Orlando, three miles from Rimini, &c.
X Orlando Furioso. canto xi.
|| In 1813. I ohserved that in recitals concerning Laura at Avignon or at Vaucluse, she is always respectfully called Madame Laura.
ILLUSTRATIONS. 307
his belief. To arrive at such a result, he perverts his recollec- tions, either by attributing to some individual events that have never happened to him ; or, by introducing into history, the in- credible parts of a fable. The story in which Petrarch figures, is an example of the first kind' of alteration; we shall find one of the second kind, without diverging from our subject.
A Swedish Prince* had nurtured up near his daughter, named Thora, two serpents to be the guardians of her virginity. Grown to an immense size, these monsters spread terror and death around them, chiefly by their pestilential breath. The King, in despair, promised the hand of his daughter to the hero who should kill the serpents. Regner-Lodbrog, a Prince, a Scald, and a warrior, achieved this perilous adventure, and became the husband of the beautiful Thora. That is the fable : — but, according to the Ragnara-Lodbrog's-Saga,t the history is as follows. It was not to two serpents, but to one of his vassals, the possessor of a strong castle, that the King had confided the charge of his daughter ; the guardian becoming enamoured of the Princess, refused to restore her ; and the King, after vain attempts to compel him, promised that Thora should espouse her liberator. Régner- Lod- brog was this happy individual.
In an incursion upon the coasts of Northumberland, however, Régner was conquered, made a prisoner, and thrown into a sub- terranean dungeon filled with serpents, their bites proved fatal. This is said to have occurred about the year 866. The story is related by every historian^ perpetuated also in the Dirge which has been attributed to Régner himself. I nevertheless suspect that, in the nature of his punishment, an attempt was
* Saxo. Grammat. Hist. Dan. lib. ix, p. 153. Olaus Magnus Hist. sept, gentium. Brev. lib. v, cap. xvn.
t Quoted in the work of Biorner, entitled: Koempedater (Stockholm, 1737) and by Graberg of Hemsôe. Saggio istorico Sugli caldi, 8vo. Pisa, 1811, p. 217.
% Saxo Grammat. Hist. Dan. lib. ix. p. 159. — Olaus Magnus, loc. cit. — Ragnara-Lodbrog 's- Saga.
x 2
308 ILLUSTRATIONS.
made to connect it with the legend of which this hero was already the object. The same spirit which had altered the history of his hymeneals, so as to recal or emblemize the struggle in which the principle of good triumphed over the principle of evil, intended perhaps that his tragical end should also recal the death suffered by the principle of good in the allegorical combats. The name of the vanquisher, Regna Hella, favours this supposition ; the Scan- dinavians can discern in it the name of Héla, goddess of death, like the great serpent, the offspring of the principle of evil. What sanctions my conjecture, is the great importance accorded in Scandinavian mythology to the great serpent ; it is never described as perishing, except it draws after it, into annihilation, the god with whom it fought. In this manner, serpents and dragons reappear more than once in the Scandinavian annals. I find that, both before and after Régner, the general myth is inter- woven, in two several places, into the individual history . Frotho I. ninth King of Denmark,* requiring money to pay his soldiers, attacked, in a desert isle, a dragon, the guardian of a treasure, and killed it at the very entrance of its cavern. Harold, f exiled from Norway, took refuge in Byzance. Having been guilty of homicide, he was exposed to the fury of a monstrous dragon. More fortunate than Régner, he overcame it, and returned to occupy the throne of Norway, and to annoy the nephew of Canute the Great, who was then seated upon the throne of Denmark.
* 761 years before J. C. — Saxo Grammat. Hist. Dan. lib. n. pp. 18, 19.
f In the 11th century. — Saxo Grammat. Hist. Dan. lib. xi. pp. 185, 186. I translate the word antrum into cavern. The ditch in which Régner Lod- brog perished, seems to me to correspond with the caverns of almost all the legends quoted.
ILLUSTRATIONS. 309
X.
PHYSICAL OBJECTS AND MONUMENTS, IN WHICH THE VULGAR FIND AGAIN THE PICTURE OF THE DESTRUCTION OF A MON- STROUS SERPENT.
That which daily strikes the senses has an influence upon the belief of uneducated men, at least as much as the recollections which are engraved on the memory ; physical objects, paintings, and sculpture, like history, aid the imagination to discover every where legends that favour credulity.
In the Abbey of St. Victor, at Marseilles, in the Hospital of Lyons,* and in a church at Ragusa, the skin of a crocodile is shown to travellers. It is pointed out as the skin of a monster, the hero of legends, belonging to these different places ; and, nevertheless, at Ragusa, for example, it is not unknown that it is a skin which was brought from Egypt by Ragusan sailors. f These kind of relics, intended for keeping up and confirming faith, when they do not originate it, have never appeared mis- placed in our temples, into which, probably, they were first introduced in the quality of votive offerings. This was the opinion passed by MilhnJ upon the skin of a cayman, || suspended from the roof of a church at Cimiers, in the province of Nice. It did not appear that any history was attached to it; whether it was from the lapse of time the legend has fallen into oblivion,
* Mémoires de l'Académie celtique, vol. v. p. 111.
f Pouqueville. Voyage dans la Grèce, tome i. pp. 24, 25.
% Millin. Voyage en Savoie, en Piémont, à Nices, à Genes, tome n. p. 124.
|| The CaymaD, Crocodilus Pal/pebresus (Cuvier) is a native of Surinam and Guiana. It does not attain to as large a size as the other species of crocodiles ; nor will it attack a man either on the land, or in the water as long as he keeps his legs and arms in motion. This species of crocodile has never been found in the old continent ; hence it is not found in any of the ancient temples. — Ed.
310 ILLUSTRATIONS.
or that the ex voto was too recent to presume to apply any legend to it.
Another monument of this kind, the existence of which however is less certain, is the head of the dragon, which was so miraculously conquered by Dieudonné of Gozon. It was preserved at Rhodes. The Turks, when they became masters of Rhodes, respected it. The traveller Thévenot saw it towards the middle of the 17th century, and the description which he gives of it, would lead it to be regarded as belonging rather to a hippopotamus than to a serpent.* Will it be considered too bold, to think that this head, like the cayman of Cimiers, like the crocodiles of Ragusa, of Lyons, and of Marseilles, was first exposed by public piety or by interest ; and that, constantly attracting the observations of the multitude, it furnished an occasion for applying, at a later period, the legend of the hero who conquered the dragon, to a celebrated cavalier, a Grand Master of the Order ?
At Wasmes, near Mons, on Pentecost Tuesday, and on Trinity Day, the head of a crocodile is carried in procession. In the eyes of a credulous population, it represents the head of the dragon, which in the 12th century, ravaged the environs of Wasmes, and which, when about to devour a young girl in his cavern, fell under the blows of Gilles, Lord of Chin.f A tradition, carefully preserved in the country, attributes to the father of Chin, who died in 1137, the most striking traits of an exploit, the honour of which, two centuries later, was given to Dieu- donné, of Gozon, namely, the difficulty of obtaining permis- sion to combat the dragon, the care with which a figure resem- bling it was manufactured a long time previously, for the purpose of training the horses and the dogs gradually to attack it fear- lessly, and the precaution of being followed by devoted servants
* Thevenot. Relation d'un Voyage fait au Levant, &c. p. 223.
f Recherches Historiques sur Gilles, seigneur de Chin, et le Dragon. Mons. 1825. — Revue encyclopédique, vol. xxvin, pp. 192, 193. — M. Bottin. Tradi- tions des Dragons volants &" "" ■""
ILLUSTRATIONS. 3 1 1
to the place of combat. Here is another example of the facility with which they applied to persons known at one period and in one country, the myths borrowed from another country, and from an anterior epoch.
A direct interest is not always requisite for changing an astro- nomical myth into local history. There is at Clagenfurt, placed upon a fountain an antique group, found at Saal or Zolfeld, the ancient Colonia Solvensis, representing a dragon of a prodigious size, and a Hercules armed with a club. The people believe it to be a poor peasant who had formerly delivered the country from the ravages of a dragon, the image of which they conceive is properly placed by the side of his own.*
Upon a cross, placed in the cemetery of Dommarie, a commune of the department of the Meurthe, (of which the forest of Thorey is a dépendance), is sculptured the figure of a winged dragon. Calmet, deceived by this emblem, has related that a winged dragon was formerly the terror of this country .f
The inhabitants of Trebizonde relate, that in 1204, Alexis Comnenes overthrew with his own hands a monstrous dragon. In memory of this exploit, he caused a fountain, which he called the fountain of the dragon, to be constructed in the town. This monument remains ; the mouth of the pipe whence the water issues, representing the head of the fabulous animal. J This figure of the spout has given to the fountain the name which it bears ; and, consequently, is the origin of the legend.
Augustus Caesar, wishing to immortalize the remembrance of his conquest, and the submission of Egypt, gave as a type for the medals of a colony which he had just founded in Gaul, a crocodile tied to a palm-tree. The town in which the colony settled had
* Ed. Brown. Narrative of many Voyages.
f Bottin. Traditions, &c. pp. 156, 157. Journal de Verdun, Juin, 1751. p. 454.
% Prottiers. Itinéraire de Tiflis à Constantinople, (Brussels, 1829), p. 206.
3 1 2 ILLUSTRATIONS.
for several centuries recognised Nemausus whose name it bore, and who was its founder, as its local divinity ; and this name could not fail to figure upon its medals. Very soon, and notwithstanding that the palm-tree never grew on the soil of Nismes, (the ancient Nemausus), the crocodile became one of those monsters in all the different legends, which stated that the imitators of Hercules, holy men, or those worthy of being regarded as such, had over- come. This terrible animal poisoned the waters of a fountain, and desolated the country. The hero had triumphed over it ; and he thus received, and transmitted to the town which he founded near the fountain, the name of Nemausus, which still recals that he alone had performed, what none had dared to attempt*
Here at least, a real representation, although badly interpreted, had attracted observation and excused the error. According to a received tradition at Pisa, Nino Orlandi, in 1109, succeeded in confining an enormous and dangerous serpent in an iron cage, and paraded it thus into the middle of the town. How can we doubt of the truth of the fact ? A bas-relievo, placed in the Campo Santo, represented it ; an inscription attested it. Ob- servant eyes have, in our time, examined these two monuments ; the inscription was placed in 1777 ; the bas-relief, a fragment in Paros marble, does not pourtray a single object that can relate to Orlandi's pretended victory.f
* Nemo Jusus. — M. l'Abbé Simil. Mémoires sur la Maison carrée. — Notices sur les travaux de l'Académie du Gard, of 1812 to 1822. 1st Part, pp. 329, 330. — Eusèbe Salverte. Essai sur les noms d'Hommes, de Peuples et de Lieux, tome u. pp. 279, 280.
t See the Moniteur Universel of Monday, July 2, 1812.
ILLUSTRATIONS. 313
§ XI.
COATS-OF-ARMS AND MILITARY ENSIGNS GIVE PLACE TO NEW APPLICATIONS OF THE ASTRONOMICAL LEGEND.
Greedy of glory and of power, it was natural for the nobles and the warriors to wish to share with the demi-gods of paga- nism, with the favoured of Heaven, the honour of those triumphs which would secure immortal claims on the gratitude of the people. After the Scandinavian heroes, after Struth of Win- kelried, Belzunce, and Dieudonné of Gozon, we can refer to a young noble who accompanied St. Pol, when he wished to destroy the dragon of the Isle of Batz ;* and also St. Bertrand, the conqueror of the dragon of Comminges ; a bishop, who belonged to an illustrious race ; for he was the son of a Count of Toulouse. f
We might also quote the pretended origin of the prœnomen of the Nompar of Caumont. Reviving for themselves the fabulous history of the founder of Nismes, they relate that this prœnomen was transmitted to them by one of their ancestors, who, in fact, showed himself sans pair (non par), in giving death to a monstrous dragon, whose ravages desolated his territory.
But to avoid tedious repetitions, we shall confine ourselves to remarking how much this pretension on the part of the nobles was favoured by the figures with which each of them ornamented his helmet or his shield, and which, from them have passed into coats-of-arms.
Ubert was the first who, among the Milanese, fulfilled the functions delegated to the Counts (Comités) of the Lower- Empire, and of the Empire of Charlemagne. He adopted, in consequence, the surname of Vice-Count, which he transmitted
* Cambry, Voyage dans le département du Finislerre. tome i. pp. 147, 1 18. f Dictionnaire de Moreri, art. Saint -Bertrand.
314 ILLUSTRATIONS.
to his descendants. At Milan, in that place where the very ancient Church of St. Denis rears itself, there was there a deep cavern, the dwelling of an ever-hungry dragon, whose breath spread death to a great distance. Ubert fought it, and killed it ; and he wished its image to figure in the coats -of- arms of the Visconti.* According to Paul Jove, Othon, one of the first Vice-Counts distinguished himself in the army of Godfrey of Bouillon : a Saracen chief, whom he slew in single combat, bore upon his helmet the figure of a serpent devouring an infant; the conqueror placed it in his coat-of-arms, and left to his posterity this monument of his glory .f The recital of Paul Jove, if it is not as true as the other, is at least as probable.
Aymon, Count of Corbeil, bore upon his shield a dragon with two heads. In a street of Corbeil there may be seen a covered drain, which terminates at the river of Etampes : according to popular tradition, this was formerly the den of a dragon with two heads, the terror of the country ; the Count Aymon had the honour of conquering it. J
The family Dragon of Ramillies had as its arms, a gold dragon in an azure field. This family traces the origin of its name, and of its coat-of-arms, to a victory obtained by John, Lord of Ramillies, over a dragon which desolated the neigh- bouring territory of Escaut; and which the intrepid Baron combatted even in the cavern into which the monster enticed its victims. ||
The lion, being the symbol of strength, generally decorated the tombs of the knights. Upon the tomb of Gouffier of Lascours, a serpent is added to it, as the symbol of prudence. In these representations one may perceive an evident allusion to a
* Carlo Torre. Ritratto di Milano. p. 273. f Paul. Jov. in Vit. duod. Vicecom. mediol. princip. . . . Prafatio. X Millin. Antiquités nationales, tome n. art. Saint Spire de Corbeil. || Bottin, Traditions, &c. pp. 164, 165.
ILLUSTRATIONS. 315
marvellous adventure, related by the chronicles, in which this warrior had delivered a lion, from an enormous dragon by which it was pursued. The grateful animal attached himself to his bene- factor, and followed him every where, like a faithful dog.* We may observe that this is precisely the adventure that the author of the Morgante ascribes to Renaud of Montauban.f But the invention does not belong to him ; the same story is found again in the poetical romance of Chrestien of Troyes, entitled the Knight of the Lion. J
Similar recitals have arisen from similar causes, before the invention of chivalrous emblems and coats-of-arms.
A warrior always desires to present to his adversaries, objects capable of striking them with terror. The serpent is the emblem of a prudent and dangerous enemy ; the winged- serpent, or dragon, is the presage of rapid and inevitable destruction. These signs found their place upon the banners, as well as upon the face of the shields, and upon the tops of the helmets. The dragon figured also among the military ensigns of the Assyrians ; and Cyrus, the Conqueror of the Assyrians, caused it to be adopted by the Persians and by the Medes.|| Under the Roman Emperors, and under the Emperors of Byzantium, every cohort, or centurion, bore a dragon as its ensign. § Grosley affirms (but without bearing out his assertion by decisive proofs) that the dragons, from being military ensigns, which were the ob- jects of the wortehip of the Roman soldier, passed into the churches, and figured in the processions of the Rogations, as trophies acquired by the conquests of religion. %
* N. Dallou. Monumens des différens Ages observés dans le Département de la Haute-Vienne, p. 359.
t Morgante. Cont. iv. ottav. 7 et seq.
X Manuscr. de la Bibliothèque du Roi, No. 7535, folio 16 verso, colonne 2.
|| Georg. Codin. Curop. de Officiai. Palat. Constant Feriœ quai in
palatio soient, &çc.
§ Modestus. De Vocabul. Rei. Milit. — Flav. Veget. De Re Militari, lib. n. cap. 13 ; Georg. Codin. Curop. loc. cit.
If Grosley. Ephemérides, me, partie, chap, ix, tom. n, pp. 222 — 225.
3 1 6 ILLUSTRATIONS.
We must admit, also, that similar signs have more than once recalled the remembrance of astronomic myths ; and, when it is known that in religious ceremonies, the image of the dragon was carried by the side of that of St. George, before the Emperor of Constantinople,! we are tempted to believe, that St. George owes to this custom, the legend which has placed him in the same rank as St. Michael.
Uther, the first King of England, the father of the famous King Arthur, imitated in battle the example of the Assyrians and the Persians, and hoisted a dragon, with a golden head, as an ensign. In consequence of this transaction, he received the surname of Pen-dragon (Dragon-head), a surname which gave rise to many marvellous recitals. For instance, it is related that he saw in the skies a star which had the form of a fiery dragon, and which foretold his elevation to the throne. % The astronomical origin of the primitive legend had not been for- gotten.
§ XII.
ANCIENT MYTHOLOGY ALTERED FOR THE PURPOSE OF FINDING IN IT THE LEGEND OF THE SERPENT.
After having corrupted history ; after having mistaken the origin of physical representations ; forgotten the signification of monuments ; and even having read and seen upon them what had never existed, the desire of discovering every where a myth which had been familiarised, required but one step more : — it only remained to sacrifice objects of ancient credulity, and to disfigure a preceding mythology, in order to bend it to the recitals of a new mythology. The following is a fact of this
t Georg. Codin. Curop. De Official. Palal. Cons. loc. cit. " Cantata igitur lilurgia . . . aliud (Flammeolum) quod fert sanctum Ceorgium equitem, aliitd clraconteum," &c.
X Ducange. Glossar. verbo. Draco.
ILLUSTRATIONS. 3 1 7
species, which without being positive, is not devoid of proba- bility. It is attached to a memorial sufficiently famous, to render excusable the details upon which we are forced to enter.
In explaining a medal which appeared to belong to the 15th century, and which, on the reverse of the head of Geoffrey of Lusignan, says, Geoffrey à la grand'dent, displayed the head of a fantastic monster. Millin* relates that Geoffrey was invited to combat a monster, which had already devoured an English knight. When prepared to attempt the adventure, Geoffrey died of sickness. The head drawn upon the medal is, he adds, that of the monster, "which Geoffrey would cer- tainly have conquered, had not death prevented him." But a medal would never have been struck out to immortalize what had never occurred : it must then have been, that tradition in the family of Lusignan, to which Millin attributes the manufacture of the medal, and which related that the brave Count, like so many saints and heroes who have passed in review before us, was the vanquisher of the monster.
Let us remember, firstly, that Geoffrey was the son or rather the descendant of the famous Mellusine or Merlusine.f Mele- sendis, who transformed herself every Saturday into a serpent ; secondly, that the Sassenages, who considered Geoffrey of the
* Voyage au Midi de la France, tome iv. pages 707, 708 ; Geoffroy à la grand'dent, died about the year 1250.
t I shall not contest with M. Mazet, quoted by Millin (Voyage au midi de la France, tome iv. page 706), whether the mother of Geoffrey was entitled Me- licendis, Melesindis (Melisende), and that this name may have been confounded with that of Mellusine. But far from admitting that it has produced it, it is my opinion that the confusion arose because the name of Mellusine was already celebrated. Still less easily shall I adopt another etymology according to which the lady of Melle, bearing this lordship as her dower to the Sieur de Lusignan, the two names united and formed that of Mellusine. (Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de France, tome ni. pages 279, 280.) At the commencement of the thirteenth century, women did not join their names to that of their husband's dominions. I do not even think that they
318 ILLUSTRATIONS.
great tooth (à la grand'dent) as among their ancestors, had sculptured upon the exterior door of their castle a figure Mellu- sine,* that is to say, half woman half serpent.
Merlusine was a benevolent fairy, it seemed, therefore, natural to rank one of her descendants among the number of hero- destroyers of the deadly serpent, and when applying to him the universal and common legend, to ascribe to him a victory perpetuated by the medal, of which an explanation has been attempted by Millin.
But where in the marshes of Poitou, could a being half woman, half serpent, or alternately the one or the other, have originated ?
A tradition, preserved to the present day, informs us that Merlusine transformed herself into a fish, and not into a ser- pent, f This is the key to the enigma which belongs to a high
commonly bore the name of their own possessions. In pronouncing it Merlusin with Brantôme (Vies des Hommes illustres, etc. tome, vin. p. 322) and with the people, more certain guides than the learned upon the pronunciation of names handed down in ancient stories, I draw near to the orthography of the family name of Geoffroy, thus written upon the medal before men- tioned, Godefridus de Lusinem. You have only to place mère (mater) before the last word to reproduce the name of Merlusine, and to prove that it was nothing more than the simple title of Mother of the Lusignan (Mère des Lusignan), applied by the people to the woman-serpent, to the fairy from whom this family claimed or adduced their descent. Our etymology is the less probable from the fact that Jean d'Arras, the first author who compiled the history of Merluzine, wrote in the reign of Jean in the fourteenth cen- tury, when the family name of the Lusignans had been long fixed and become celebrated.
* Millin. Magasin Encyclopédique, 1811. tome vi. pages 108 — 112.
f Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de France, tome ni. page 320. Scarron was not ignorant of this tradition, for in his third satire he makes a fop declare that he will make,
" The infant Mellusine ; The heroine will be half woman half fish," appear on the stage. [Let
ILLUSTRATIONS. 319
antiquity. The image of the mermaid, which the moderns deemed a syren although all the ancient writings and monuments depict the syrens as bird and woman,* this image, so common in the time of Horace, that the poet cited it as the type of absurdity, f — this image, that the Greeks applied to Eurynome, one of the wives of the God of the Sea, this image is that under which the Syrians and Phoenicians invoked Astarte, or Atergatis, the Celestial Virgin. % It may be found in the Egyptian planisphere, where it represents the sign of the Fishes united to that of the Virgin. It is perpetuated in the religions of
Let us observe the most generally received tradition very nearly approaches this in placing Mellusine in an immense basin, the blows of her tail forced the water up to the vaulted roof of the chamber. — Bulletin de la Société d'Agriculture de Poitiers, 1828. p. 214, 215.
* In a wall of the interior court of the Museum of Paris is in crusted an ancient alto-relievo of white marble, a bird-woman, a syren. Mount- faucon saw similar figures of syrens in red marble in the town of Aldo- brandino (Diarium Italicum, 170) p. 190, 191. At Stymphales upon the borders of Argolis and Arcadia, marble statues represent young girls hav- ing the legs of birds, {Pausanias Arcad. cap. xxn). In the ruins of the ancient temples of the island of Java, several figures of birds having the heads of girls have been discovered, and one was remarked as having the head of an aged man {Description of Java, by Marchai, 4to. Brussels, 1824). This proves the antiquity of the myth relative to the syren, but does not in- dicate the origin of it. Plato assisted, perhaps, by the traditions of ancient India, placed a syren on each of the eight circles of the heavens, who sung whilst following the periodical revolution {Plat, de Repub. lib. x.) Mene- phylle, in Plutarch, rejects this idea, because the syrens, he says, are ma- levolent genii ; but Ammonius justifies Plato.
t Turpiter atrum
Desinit in piscem mulier formosa superne.
Horat. De Art. Poet.
X According to the scholiast of Germanicus {Aratcsa Phenomena Virgo), the celestial virgin is identical with Atergatis, Hyginus recognises Venus in the sign Pisces,
320 ILLUSTRATIONS.
Japan* and Hindustan, \ and preserved in the ancient mythology of the island of Java.+
It has even penetrated into Kamtschatka, doubtless with the Lamich religion. In the Iortes (iourtes) of the northern Kamts- chatdales one sees the idol, Khan-tai, represented with a human body as far as the chest, the remainder resembling the tail of a fish. A fresh image is fabricated every year, and the number of these point out the number of years the Iourt has been con- structed. || This peculiarity proves that the idol, Khan-tai, like the mermaid of the Egyptian planisphere, is of an astronomical origin, since it has remained the symbol of the renewal of the year.
We are not able to speak so decidedly of the Mother of the Water, a malevolent divinity, half fish, half woman, who, accord- ing to the natives of Guiana, delights in attracting the fishermen to the open sea, and then sinking their frail vessels. This fable, it is said, was spread over America before the arrival of the Europeans. §
Could a symbol so frequently reproduced reach Gaul ? Could time modify it sufficiently to have changed the extremity of a fish into that of a serpent ?
1 . To the first question I answer, that this symbol still exists in one of the most ancient towns of France, namely, at Marseilles. Upon an angle of the Fort St. John can be distinguished the gigantic figure of a monster, half- woman, half-fish. If it has been thus reproduced in the construction of Fort St. John, it was most probably because it existed long before as a national monu- ment. Its name, the same as that of the town, Marseilles,
* Canon, Japanese Divinity.
f Third Avater of Vishnu.
% Description of Java.
|| Krachéninnikow. Description of Kamtschatka, first part, chap. iv.
§ Barbé Marbois. Journal aVun déporté, tome n. p. 134.
ILLUSTRATIONS, 321
indicates that it represented the local divinity, the town itself deified. The Phoceans, in adopting a symbol so suitable for characterizing a large maritime city, would not have had occasion to borrow from Tyre, Sidon, or Carthage. They had founded their colony under the auspices of the Great Diana of Ephesus, the heavenly virgin who was adored in this form not only in Asia, but even in Greece, for the statue, half woman, half fish, honoured at Phigalia, was frequently regarded as a statue of Diana.*
2. Almost all the Tartar Princes trace their genealogy to a celestial virgin, impregnated by a sunbeam or some equally marvellous means. f In other language, the mythology which serves as the starting point of their annals, belongs to the age in which the sign of the Virgin was used for denoting the summer solstice.
The Greeks deduced the origin of the Scythians from a virgin, half- woman, half- serpent, who had intercourse with Jupiter or Hercules,^ both emblems of the generating sun. If, as it is allowable to suppose, the two origins are synonymous, the Greeks, in the image of the national divinity of the Celestial Virgin, from whom the Scythians and Tartars pretended to derive their descent, will have mistaken or not recognized the form of the lower part, but in place of the extremity of a fish have seen that of a serpent.
* Pausanias. Arcad. cap. xli. A priestess of Diana, at Ephesus, had fol- lowed the Phoceans to Marseilles, bearing with her a statue of the Divinity and these latter instituted the worship of Diana as they had received it from their ancestors, in every town they founded in Gaul, as, for instance, at Agde. Strabo, lib. iv.
f Eulogiumof Moukden, pp. 13 and 221 — 225. Alankava, or Alancoua, a Mongol Princess, experienced three times successively that a celestial light had penetrated her bosom, and she confidently announced that she should bring forth to the world three male children. Her prediction was verified. Of her three sons, called children of the light, one beeame the father of the Kap- Giaks Tartars, another the ancestor of the Selgink, or Selgionkides, and from the third Genghis and Tamerlane were descended. Petis de la Croix, History of Genghis Khan, pp. 11 — 13 ; Dherbelot, Biblioth. Orientale, art. Alankava.
X Herodat. lib. iv. cap, ix. — Biod. Sic. lib. n. cap. xx.
VOL. il. Y
322 ILLUSTRATIONS.
Now, in order to fix upon the banks of the Sevre both the ancient symbol and the alteration by which it has been disfigured, I need not refer to the Druids, who honoured a virgin who was to bring forth children — the Celestial Virgin, who every year shining in the highest heavens, should at midnight restore to the earth the child- god, the sun, born of the winter solstice. It does not appear that the Druids ever offered physical representations to the veneration of our ancestors, or at least, not until the times when communication with other nations induced them, by degrees, to imitate their idolatry. But Pytheas, who had coasted along the western shores of Gaul, could not assuredly have been the only one among the Marseillaise navigators ;* nor could the Phoe- nicians and Carthagenians, in their researches after tin in the Cassiterides islands, have omitted landing upon the coasts of Brittany and Poictiers. One of these nations may have brought the worship of the mermaid into Western Gaul ; for under the name of Onvana or Anvana, the Gauls adored a figure of a woman, having the tail of a fish.f A Gallic chief, as jealous as the Tartars of ascribing to himself a supernatural origin, may have pretended to have been descended from this divinity, and would therefore select the image as his distinctive emblem. The pro- gress of Christianity would have the effect of making the goddess regarded as a woman only, yet endowed like a fairy with supernatu- ral powers, but not of abolishing her memory or effacing her image. Time and the imperfection of sculpture would, rather later, occa-
* The Marseillaise established the worship of Diana of Ephesus in every town they founded. Strabo, lib. iv.
t Martin. Religion of the Gauls, vol. n. p. 110. — Toland. History of the Druids, p. 137. — Amongst the descriptions discovered upon the ancient wall at Bordeaux, the following was remarked :
" Cuius Julius Florus onvav^e." (Mémoire de l' Académie de Bordeaux. Meeting of 16th June, 1829, p. 182, and Shelf 3, No. 52.) I think onvavee is the dative of the same noun as onvana ; either the inscription may have been copied incorrectly, or the work- man may have made a mistake in transcribing a strange name.
ILLUSTRATIONS. 323
sion an error similar to that which the Greeks had already- committed ; the tail of a fish would pass for the extremity of a serpent. Founded upon this mistake, the new tradition would prevail with greater ease, because, as we have already seen, from the 5th to the 15th century, serpents held a prominent part in the popular superstitions of the West ; and thus the form given to Merlusine, and the exploit attributed to her descendant, would be the consequences of the sacrifice of an ancient belief to one more recently and generally adopted.
§ XIII.
RECAPITULATION, OR SUMMARY.
The discussion of this conjecture, which we submit to the decision of archaeologists, has not caused us to diverge from our subject. We had proposed seeing how a narration, evidently absurd, false, and impossible, could be spread, and multiplying itself under a thousand different forms, universally meet with an equal and constant credulity.
Metaphorical expressions of real facts may sometimes have given rise to it ; but not have the effect of sending it beyond the narrow circle where the one was observed and the other put in practice.
An accident, as local and variable as the overflowing of a river, could not have been universally represented by the same allegory which elsewhere could be but very imperfectly applied.
The pretended fact is, in -its origin, nothing more than the representation of an astronomical picture, adopted by the greater part of the mythologies of antiquity. When the tradition of this dogma of polytheism ceded to the progress of Christianity, an outward ceremony, perpetuated in this religion, ereated as many repetitions of the original myth as the Western church could num- ber congregations of the faithful. In vain they attempted to draw
y 2
324 ILLUSTRATIONS.
the attention of the vulgar to the allegory expressed by the cere- mony, their minds and looks remained fixed on the physical representation. Their habits getting the better of their piety, they looked not for their deliveries among the inhabitants of the heavens alone, but recognized them among men, particularly when conformable with a point of the astronomical allegory, the victor was supposed to have lost his life in the bosom of victory. The names of celebrated personages, those of nobles whose power had been feared, or courage admired, were unceasingly reproduced. Historical remains were falsified for this end, every physical repre- sentation which might recal it, renewed the recital ; and it was sought out among emblems and monuments utterly foreign to it, and even in signs invented by glory or military pride» They even went so far (if our last conjecture is not too rash) as to alter the symbols and beliefs of a mythology prior to it, in order to appro- priate them to it. Singular progress of an incredulity, not only blind and easy, but greedy and insatiable. Does it not merit being signalized by the meditations of a philosopher ? The his- tory of credulity is the most extensive branch, and certainly one of the most important in the moral history of the human race.
ILLUSTRATIONS. 325
ON THE STATUE OF MEMNON.
Notices and Inscriptions attesting the Vocal Property of the Statue ; some of them mention even the particular words pronounced — Explanations pronounced — Explanations proposed by various Authors, but little conclu- sive— According to Langlès the sounds occasionally uttered by the Statue correspond to the Seven Vowels, emblematical of the Seven Planets — The Oracle delivered by the Statue of Memnon — Refutation of the System of