68 BIRDS IN LEGEND 



in this chapter some very curious attributes assigned to 

 the great bird by ancient wonder-mongers that long ago 

 would have been lost in the discarded rubbish of primi- 

 tive ideas — mental toys of the childhood of the world — 

 had they not been preserved for us in the undying pages 

 of literature. Poetry, especially, is a sort of museum 

 of antique inventions, preserving for us specimens — 

 often without labels — of speculative stages in the early 

 development of man's comprehension of nature. 



In the case of the eagle (as a genus, in the Old World 

 not always clearly distinguished from vultures and the 

 larger hawks) it is sometimes difficult to say whether 

 some of its legendary aspects are causes or effects of 

 others. Was its solar quality, for example, a cause or a 

 consequence of its supposed royalty in the bird tribe? 

 The predatory power, lofty flight, and haughty yet noble 

 mien of the true eagle, may account for both facts, to- 

 gether or separately. It would be diving too deeply into 

 the murky depths of mythology to show full proof, but 

 it may be accepted that everywhere, at least in the East, 

 the fountain of superstitions, the eagle typified the sun 

 in its divine aspect. This appears as a long-accepted con- 

 ception at the very dawn of history among the sun-wor- 

 shippers of the Euphrates Valley, and it persisted in art 

 and theology until Christianity remodelled such "heathen" 

 notions to suit the new trend of religious thought, and 

 transformed the "bird of fire" into a symbol of the 

 Omnipotent Spirit — an ascription which artists inter- 

 preted very liberally. 



In Egypt a falcon replaced it in its religious signifi- 

 cance, true eagles being rare along the Nile, and "eagle- 

 hawks" were kept in the sun-gods' temples, sacred to 

 Horus (represented with a hawk-head surmounted by a 



