THE VIRGIN MARY AND RHOMBUS 



439 



again, and its descendants have ever since preserved the same 

 peculiarities of colour." 



The half-destroyed fish which recovers life meets us also in 

 the belief which unto this day lingers in some towns on the 

 Black Sea, but on the Rhombus, 

 not on the Sole, is the miracle 

 wrought. 



According to a Russian legend, 

 the tidings of the Resurrection 

 were brought to the Virgin Mary, 

 when at food : incredulous and as 

 one of little faith she flung the 

 uneaten half of a Rhombus into 

 the water, bidding it, were the 

 message true, come back to life 

 whole ! And lo ! this it instantly 

 did. 



Pictures of the Virgin, com- 

 memorating the incident are 

 painted on a Rhombus, nailed to 

 a board, thoroughly dried, and 

 ornamented with a background of 

 gold. A great ceremonial marks 

 their removal to a shrine her- 

 metically sealed. The custom, 

 no doubt, sprang from the belief 

 that fishing enjoyed the special protection of the Holy 

 Mother. 1 



Mahometan tradition abounds with fish lore of the oddest 

 kind. The commentators of the Koran vie, indeed, with the 

 Talmudists in the curious subjects to which they often devote 

 serious study, and in their grotesqueness of invention. The 

 learned Rabbi el Bassam seems to have spent fifteen whole 

 years in the vain endeavour to discover the name of the chef 

 who made the pottage for Esau ! 



The story of the fishes, who made a point of coming every 

 Saturday morning- to tempt the Hebrews to the sin of catching 



^ See Keller, op. ciL, p. 369. 



JONAH ENTERING THE WHALE'S 

 MOUTH. 



From a 14th Century MS. in 

 H. Schmidt, Jona, p. 94, fig. 16. 



