, 94 SEA FABLES EXPLAINED. 



one, but issuing from it, as Noah issued from the ark. In 

 all of them the fish denoted "preservation," "fecundity," 

 " plenty," and " diffusion of know- 

 ledge." * As the image was not the 

 effigy of a divine personage, but 

 symbolized certain attributes of 

 Divinity, its sex was comparatively 

 unimportant ; although it is possible 

 that, combined with the fecundity of 

 the fish, the idea of Noah's wife, as 



FIG. 7. NOAH AND HIS WIFE 



AS FISH-TAILED DEITIES, the second mother of all subsequent 

 On a Babylonian Seal, generations, according to the widely- 

 spread and accepted traditions of the 

 Deluge, may have influenced the impersonation. 



Atergatis, the far-famed goddess of the Syrians, was also 

 a fish-divinity. Her image, like that of Dagon, had at 

 first a fish's body with human extremities protruding 

 from it ; but in the course of centuries it was gradually 

 altered to that of a being the upper portion of whose 

 body was that of a woman and the lower half that of 

 a fish. Gatis was a powerful queen of Sidon, and mother 

 of Semiramis. She received the title of " Ater," or " Ader," 

 " the Great," for the benefits she conferred on her people ; 

 one of these benefits being a strict conservation of their 

 fisheries, both from their own imprudent use, and from foreign 



* Some writers are of the opinion that the legend of Cannes con- 

 tains an allusion to the rising and setting of the sun, and that his. 

 semi-piscine form was the expression of the idea that half his time was 

 spent above ground, and half below the waves. The same commen- 

 tators also regard all the " civilizing " gods and goddesses as, respec- 

 tively, solar and lunar deities. A double character in one impersonation 

 is so common in ancient mythology, and the attributes symbolized in 

 the worship of Noah and the sun are so nearly alike, that the two 

 interpretations are not incompatible. 



t From an electrotype kindly presented to me by Messrs. W. and 

 R. Chambers, Edinburgh. 



