CHAPTER XIX 



FISH IN MYTHS, SYMBOLS, DIET, AND MEDICINE 



Although the salutary warning — Terminal Jiora diem : ierminet 

 auctor opus — forbids us prolonging the Greek-Roman section, 

 already disproportionate in space, yet the part played by fish 

 (A) in myths, (B) in symbols or emblems, Pagan or Christian, 

 (C) in medicine, and (D) in diet necessarily demands some notice. 



And as our authorities are, in the main, writers in Greek 

 and Latin, this section seems the appropriate place for what 

 must, although the literature on the subject is superabundant, 

 be summary and restricted comment. 



By the Solar Mythologists, the fish (no creature, however 

 small, escapes the mesh of their net) has been made to take a 

 prominent role. The fair-haired and silvery moon in the ocean 

 of light is simply the little gold-fish ; the little silver-fish which 

 announces the rainy season is merely the deluge. The gold- 

 fish and the luminous pike, like the moon, seem to expand and 

 contract, and in this form, as expanding or contracting, 

 the god Vishnu or Hari (perhaps meaning " fair-haired " or 

 " golden ") refers now to the sun, now to the moon, Vishnu 

 being held to have taken the form of the gold-fish. 



" The epic exploits of fishes," to borrow de Gubernatis's 

 term, would include the myths of Adrika, the fish nymph who 

 became the mother of Matsyas, the king of fishes ; of the 

 Puranic fishes, symbolical and natural ; of the fishes of the 

 Eddas, with the scaly transformations of Loki, and hundreds 

 of similar legends, i 



1 A. de Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology (London, 1872), II. 329 ff. The 

 latest luminary among the Solar Mythologists is L. Frobenius, Sonnenkultus , 

 whose lengthy chapter in vol. I. on the world-wide Fish-Myth and its solar 

 significance may be consulted by the leisurely. 



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