Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



pounded of various forms '* which was taken 

 with great solemnity twice a year to the sea- 

 shore, probably to be given a ritual bath ; at 

 any rate it accompanied the priests, who went 

 to fetch sea water twice a year. Its barbarous 

 form, which Lucian seems to hesitate to de- 

 scribe, is noteworthy enough ; but what is more 

 interesting yet is the fact that it bore on its 

 head the figure of a pigeon. Composite gods 

 with birds on their heads were dug up in the 

 last century in Mecklenburg on the Baltic 

 near the traditional site of a pagan temple. 

 But the bird was not the dove. 



We are safe in concluding that Dodona was 

 one of many sacred groves seized on by the 

 Greeks when they conquered Greece and made 

 over into their own, before Zeus was evolved 

 and had taken the place of the old god similar 

 to Vaino of the Finns — before Aphrodite the 

 seaborn had dispossessed a goddess similar to 

 the Finnic Aino and the nymph Syrinx. Vaino 

 himself is like Venus in his double character of 



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