XLIX] Studies in primitive Greek religion. 21 



From such a general view to the conception of certain 

 creatures as incarnate deities there is but a step. And only 

 from this high opinion of what is to us a lower creation can 

 we understand many of the ideas which underlie animal tote- 

 mism, ideas of animals that have been the ancestors of men, 

 of men changed into animals, ol marriages taking place bet- 

 ween men and beasts, and so forth. 



Independently of the part that beasts such as the Hon, 

 the wolf, the stag, the goat, may have played as totems, there 

 is reason to believe that some of them were worshipped also 

 simply as beasts, since they had proved powerful to influence 

 human welfare for evil or for good. Thus Aelian states that 

 the Delphians used to worship the wolf, the Samians, the 

 goat, the Ampraciotans the lioness ^), and the Thebans the 

 weasel^). His explanation that, for instance, the Ampraciotans 

 worshipped the lioness because such an animal had killed their 

 tyrant Phaylos and had thus been the cause of their liberty ^) 

 at least contains that general truth that ideas of the super- 

 natural are often connected by primitive peoples with remark- 

 able incidents. The wolf played rather an important part in 

 Greek mythology, being an incarnation of everything that 

 is dark, cruel, and destructive in nature, but there are also 

 evidences of its being sometimes actually propitiated and wor- 

 shipped as a terrible deity *). 



That even some birds were for similar reasons looked 

 upon as incarnate deities or as supernatural beings, is shown 

 by the fact that the Thessalians worshipped the stork as a 

 god ^), The origin of this cult according to Aristotle was, 

 that the storks devoured the snakes which at a certain time 

 had increased so dreadfully in Thessalia that they threatened 



*) Aelian. De nat. anini. XII, 40 : rifiåaL öe aQa /leXcpol fj.kv Xvxov, 

 XåiiLOi be nQÖ^arov, 'J[i7rQaxLWTai ye firjv Tcur frooji' T7)r Xéaivav. 



') Aelian. op. dt., XII, 5: xat Q-q^aloi de aé^ovaiv, "EXkijveg ovreg, 

 cSg åxovm, yaXfjv. 



*) Aelian. op. dt XII, 40. 



*) On the significance of the wolf in Greek religion, see R. de Block, 

 Le loup dans les mythologies de la Gréce et de Tltalie anciennes, Rev. de 

 Vinstruct. publique en Belgique, tome 20, 1877, p. 217 sqq. 



*) Arist. Mir. Ausc. c. 22. Clem Alex. Protr. II, 40. 



