206 



THE CENTURY BOOK OF FACTS. 



l)agon, the national god of the Philistines, half man 

 and half fish, is mentioned in the Old Testament as 

 having temples at Gaza and Ashdod. Several names of 

 places prove that the worship of Dagon existed also in 

 other parts of Palestine. 



Astral Spirits are the supposed spirits which per- 

 vade the stars, each star having its own spirit or soul. 

 Paracelsus thought that every human being had an 

 astral spirit: hence the influence of one's particular 

 star on his'life. 



Wehr-wolf. According to the ancient German 

 superstition, the Wehr-wolf was a man-wolf, who had 

 the form of a man by day and a wolf by night. Lycan- 

 thropy, or wolf-madness, was prevalent in Europe, and 

 especially in Germany, in the fourteenth and fifteenth 

 centuries. 



Cornucopia ,the horn or symbol of plenty, is placed in 

 the hands of emblematical figures of Plenty, Liberality, 

 and the like, who are represented as pouring from it an 

 abundance of fruits or corn. It is frequently used in 

 architecture, sculpture, and heraldry. 



Idris, a mythical figure in Welsh tradition, supposed 

 to have been at once a giant, a prince, and an astrono- 

 mer. On the summit of Cader Idris in Merionethshire, 

 may be seen his rock-hewn chair, and an ancient tradi- 

 tion told that any Welsh bard who could pass the night 

 upon it would be found the next morning, either dead, 

 mad, or endowed with supernatural poetic inspiration. 

 This tradition forms the subject of a fine poem by Mrs. 

 Hemans; the gigantic size of the chair is alluded to in 

 Tennyson's " Geraint and Enid." 



Griffln, The, is a chimerical creature, and first men- 

 tioned by Aristeas about 500 B. C. The griffin is vari- 

 ously described and represented, but the shape in which 

 it most frequently appears is that of a cross between a 

 lion and an eagle, having the body and legs of the for- 

 mer, with the beak and wings of the latter, and the 

 addition of pointed ears. Sometimes the four legs are 

 all like those of an eagle, and the head is that of a cock. 

 The figure seems to have originated in the East, as it is 

 found in ancient Persian sculptures. Among the Greeks 

 it appears on antique coins, and as an ornament in clas- 

 sical architecture. 



Nectar is the name given by Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, 

 and the Greek poets generally, and by the Romans, to 

 the beverage of the gods, their food being called am- 

 brosia. But Sappho and Alcman make nectar the food 

 of the gods, and ambrosia their drink. Homer describes 

 nectar as resembling red wine, and represents its con- 

 tinued use as causing immortality. By the later poets, 

 nectar and ambrosia are represented as of most deli- 

 cious odor ; and sprinkling with nectar, or anointing 

 with ambrosia, is spoken of as conferring: perpetual 

 youth, and they are assumed as the symbols of every- 

 thing most delicious to the taste. 



Vishnu is the second god of the Hindu triad, now the 

 most worshiped of all Hindu gods. Originally, in the 

 oldest Vedas, a sun-god, he gradually increased'in influ- 

 ence at the expense of other gods, and in the later 

 Purana, is the supreme god. Always a friendly god, he 

 became specially the friend and benefactor of man in 

 his avatars or incarnations. The Vishnuite doctrines 

 were gathered into one body in the eleventh century, as 

 the Vishnu-Purana. Of twenty principal sects, votaries 

 of Vishnu, and one hundred minor brotherhoods, some 

 are merely local, others are wealthy bodies and wide- 

 spread. 



Damon and Pythias, two noble Pythagoreans of 

 Syracuse, are remembered as the models of faithful 

 friendship. Pythias, having been condemned to death 

 by the elder Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, begged 

 to be allowed to go home for the purpose of arranging 

 his domestic affairs, Damon pledging his own life for 

 the- reappearance of his friend at the time appointed 

 for his doom. Dionysius consented, and Pythias re- 

 turned just in time to save Damon from death. Struck 

 by so noble an example of mutual affection, the tyrant 

 pardoned Pythias, and desired to be admitted into' their 

 sacred fellowship. 



Brownie, a very engaging though mythical creature 

 of the Scottish rural districts, is believed to assist in 

 housework at night. The brownie is good tempered 

 and industrious, but has a great objection to slovenli- 

 ness, and marks his sense of neglect by pinching slat- 

 ternly maids. Good housewives leave out a bowl of 

 milk for him. If the farm changed hands the brownie 

 usually left, which may explain why there are none 

 now. The resemblance of the Scotch brownie to the 

 Robin Goodfellow of the English and the Kobold of the 

 German folklore is obvious, but perhaps they may be 



traced further to the lares or hearth spirits of the an- 

 cients. The Russian Domovoy lives behind the stove, 

 and in some families a portion of the supper is always 

 set aside for him ; for if he is neglected he waxes wroth 

 and knocks the tables and benches about at night. 

 Spirits with similar functions elsewhere, are the Lithu- 

 anian kanka, the Finnish /inara. and the French /nti/i. 



Star Legends. In Galicia, the province northeast of 

 Hungary, the peasants believe that when a star falls to 

 earth, it is at once transformed into a rarely beautiful 

 woman with long hair, blonde and glittering. This 

 splendid creature, miraculously engendered, exercises 

 on all who come in contact with her a magical influence. 

 Every handsome youth unfortunate enough to attract 

 her attention becomes her victim. Thus having allured 

 them to her, she encircles them with her arm in an em- 

 brace that becomes gradually tighter and tighter, until 

 the poor dupes are strangled to death. If certain words 

 are murmured the moment the star starts to fall, they 

 cause her allurements to lose their power. From this 

 superstition springs the custom of wishing while a star is 

 seen hurrying through the air, a wish said surely to 

 come true if -completely formulated before the light is 

 extinguished. The Spaniards saw in the falling stars 

 the souls of their dead friends, the thread of whose ex- 

 istence was cut short by destiny. The Arabs thought 

 these stars to be burning stones thrown by angels at the 

 heads of devils who attempted to enter Paradise. 



Valhalla is the place of residence for the fallen in 

 battle, in Scandinavian mythology. The name Valhalla 

 was given to a magnificent marble structure of nearly 

 the same proportions as the Parthenon, erected by Lud*- 

 wig I., of Bavaria (1830-41), as a Temple of Fame for all 

 Germany, on an eminence two hundred and fifty feet 

 above the Danube, near Ratisbon. By means of statues, 

 busts, reliefs, and tablets, the mythology and history of 

 Germany are illustrated and her great names commemo- 

 rated. 



Thule was the name given by ancient Greeks and 

 Romans to the most remote northern portion of the 

 world then known. Whether an island or part of a 

 continent, is not known. It is mentioned by Pytheas, 

 the Greek navigator, who says it is six days'" sail from 

 Britain, and that its climate 'is a mixture of earth, air, 

 and sea. Ptolemy, with more exactitude, tells us that 

 the sixty-three degrees of north latitude runs through 

 the middle of Thule, and adds that the days there are, at 

 the equinoctials, twenty-four hours long. 



Amulet is any object worn as a charm. It is often a 

 stone or a piece of metal, with an inscription or some 

 figures engraved on it, and is generally suspended from 

 the neck, and worn as a preservative against sickness or 

 witchcraft. Its origin, like its name, seems to be ori- 

 ental. 



Cockatrice, The, is a fabulous monster, often con- 

 founded with the basilisk, and regarded as possessing 

 similar deadly powers. To the charms of the basilisk is 

 added a dragon's tail armed with a sting; and it shared 

 also the power of destroying, by a glance, so of ten re- 

 ferred to in Shakespeare, and other early writers. 



Cuneiform is a term descriptive of a form of writ- 

 ing of which the component parts resemble a wedge. It 

 was used by the peoples of Babylonia . Assyria . and other 

 ancient nations, and was inscribed upon stone, bronze, 

 iron, glass, and clay. It was not until the seventeenth 

 century that the wedge-shaped characters were sus- 

 pected to be other than idle fancies of the architects. 



Arthur's Round Table contained seats for one hun- 

 dred and fifty knights. Three were reserved ; two for 

 honor, and one (called the siege perilous) for Si r Gala- 

 had, destined to achieve the quest of the Sangreal. If 

 anyone else attempted to sit in it, his death was the cer- 

 tain penalty. 



' Undines, The, according to the fanciful system of 

 Paracelsis, were female water sprites. They intermarry 

 readily with human beings, and the Undine who gives 

 birth "to a child under such a union receives, with her 

 babe, a human soul. But the man who takes an I'ndine 

 to wife must be careful not to go on the water with her, 

 or at least mus.t not vex her while there, or she returns 

 to her native element. 



Isis was an Egyptian goddess. The deities of ancient 

 F.gypt might be male or female, but in neither case 

 could the Egyptian worshiper conceive a deity as ex- 

 isting in isolation; to every deity of either sex there 

 must be a counterpart of the other sex. It was to this 

 notion that the goddess Isis owed her origin; she was 

 the counterpart of Osiris, and this fact is expressed in 

 the statement that she was at once wife and iistsr of 

 Osirii. 



