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 P[oe]nula 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.