Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



about the Mediterranean as well as in the 

 United States, while the woven and plaited 

 originals themselves have perished. When 

 found on the breech clouts of ancient idols, 

 or the arms and legs of rude statues, the 

 swastika has generally no reference to the god, 

 but refers to weaving and merely represents a 

 decoration on the clothing of these figures. 

 Later, in America and Europe, it became a 

 symbol of the four points of the compass and 

 of rain and perhaps, still later, of the sun in 

 relation to the weather, not the sun as a wheel 

 or a chariot ; for the symbol of the spider's 

 cross, as we see from the American tribes who 

 knew nothing of wheels or of a revolving sun, 

 must antedate by many ages the discovery of 

 the wheel. 



But from this digression on the cross-marked 

 spider as the origin of the fylfot or swastika 

 let us return to our owls. 



It is noteworthy that in Rome a festival for 

 Minerva that lasted five days, the Minervalia, 

 167 



