6S8 BURMA, ITS PEOPLE AXD PRODUCTIOyS. 



and Loki, though a mischievous person, was not a fiend. The German goddess, Hel, 

 too, like Prosei-pine, had seen better days.' It was thus no easy task to imbue them 

 ■with an adequate horror of a being of whose absolute malignity they could form no 

 clear conception." — Rev. G. W. Cox, Mythology of ihe Aryan Nations, vol. ii. p. 360. 



It is lamentable to reflect how deeply imbued modern Christianity is with so 

 contemptible a leaven as the belief in a personal' and almost omnipotent fiend! 

 No reasonable man can doubt that the religion of the future must be purged of 

 this monstrous admixture, meanwhile how many devoted servants of Christ are 

 wasting their energies in preaching the gospel of everlasting damnation, as it merits 

 being called, in place of the simple gospel of Love. In years gone by it was perhaps 

 as possible to believe in a personal Devil, as in a personal Saviour, but we, who 

 know whence the idea of the Christian devil has been derived, and how in monkish 

 times Satan eame to be elevated into the position he holds in popular theology, have 

 not the same excuse, if we fail to lift up our voices in protest at the continued 

 profanation involved in the prominence vulgarly assigned to the Devil in the religion 

 of Christ. 



AEISTOLOCHIA (Page 229). 



An undetermined species is thus alluded to in a note by Eev. C. Parish: — " At 

 the top of Zwa-ka-bin, the limestone rock, known as ' the Duke of York's nose,' 

 North of Maulmain, a small species of AristoJocltia is to be found, which may prove to 

 be new. I have not seen the flower, but the fruit is very remarkable, resembling 

 when dry and fully expanded and empty (the state in which I found it) a small 

 inverted parachute." 



According to De Gubernatis^ a species of AristuJochia was used as a counter 

 charm for fumigating the bridegroom, "si guis devotatus defixusque fuerit in suis 

 nuptiis." These words refer to that very curious superstition which lived down to 

 past the time of the Tudors, called ' point-tying,' it being supposed that a magical 

 knot being tied in one of the 'points ' or laces of the bridegroom's dress, prior to the 

 wedding, wholly prevented him from reciprocating the endearments of his bride 

 till the charm was removed or destroyed by some more powerful counter-charm. 

 One such counter-charm quoted from Apuleius (I.e.) was as follows: " Herbfe pedis 

 leonis frutices numero septem sine radicibus decoque cum aqua, luna decrescente, 

 lavato eura, ct teipsum qui facis ante limen extra domum prima nocte, et herbam in- 

 cende Aristolochiam et sutfumigato eum, et redito ad domum, et ne post vos respiciatis, 

 resolvisti cum." The superstition is a very curious one and laughable, but for the 

 fact that it has consigned numbers of hapless creatures to the stake, and the dread of 

 being ' point-tyed ' was a veritable sword of Damocles to many a mediaeval bride- 

 groom. The practice was, of course, usually believed to originate from the malice of 

 a discarded mistress or jealous rival, but it might also be done as a joke by some 

 friend of the luckless bridegroom. Anyhow, if there was the least suspicion of any 

 such trick having been perpetrated, it was one of the most arduous tasks of the 

 groomsman to furnish a counter-chanu. A similar superstition is e^'idently alluded 

 to by Ovid : 



" Quid me ludis? ait, Quis te, male sane, jubebat 

 Invitum nostro ponere membra toro ? 

 Aut te frajectis Atea renifica lanis 



Devuiet, aut alio lassus amore venis." 



Ainonon, iii. 7. 77. 



' It is liiircUy necessary, of coiu'se, to more th.in simply remark that the tempter or serpent in 

 Paradise of the Book of Genesis is wholly distinct from tlie Satan of the Book of Job, or the Persian 

 or Miltonic Satan of the New Testament, "and is (it is well known) simply an allegorical impersonation 

 of sensual love, an explanation less recondite perhaps than that commonly dilated on to poor Sunday 

 School children, but claiming nevertheless our consideration from its essential truth. The subject is 

 doubtless one which does not readily lend itself to a very copious exegesis before a mixed or juvenile 

 audience, but that is no excuse for the deliberate falsiUcation so much in vogue of the now well under- 

 stood sense of the original myth. 



- Mtjthologie (lis Tlantts, vol. i p. 'iOS. 



