Ijitrodiiction. xxi 



or priests of Mars, were not slow in procuring for themselves greater 

 favours in attributing the abatement of pestilence to their manipula- 

 tion of, and devotion to, the sacred shields. The true nature of the 

 malady, or its predisposing or exciting causes, were seldom the sub- 

 ject for investigation. ' Pestis et ira Deum Stygiis sese extulit ' was 

 generally sufficient to account for its presence among them. Sacrifices, 

 idolatrous prayers, and implicit faith in what the soothsayers or priests 

 thought fit to teach, mark the history of these inflictions in early times. 

 The terror and desperation induced by such a calamity as a plague is 

 well illustrated in the instance cited by Baronius, in which we are told 

 that a visitation of this kind raged with such fury at Carthage, that 

 parents sacrificed their children to appease the gods. 



In our own country many superstitious customs, having reference 

 to the preservation of the domestic animals, appear to have been derived ' 

 from the early traders with Britain — the Phoenicians. Some of these 

 rites, if they do not now exist, were at any rate in vogue at no very 

 distant date. The worship of Baal, Bel, or Belus, the son of Nimrod, 

 was a Phoenician rite. Fires were set blazing for him at certain times 

 of the year, and if the object of their suppHcations demanded it, human 

 beings were offered as a sacrifice ; but on ordinary and later occasions, 

 the person or animal for whom protection was entreated, rushed, or 

 was driven rapidly through the flames. In the Highlands of Scot- 

 land, so late as the middle of the last century, the remains of this 

 gross superstition were noted by Pennant. ' On the first of May, the 

 herdsmen of every village in the Highlands hold their Bel-t'ien, or rural 

 sacrifice. They cut a square trench in the ground, leaving the turf in 

 the middle 5 on that they make a large fire, on which they dress eggs, 

 butter, oatmeal, and milk, and bring, besides, the ingredients for the 

 caudle, plenty of beer and whisky, for each of the company must con- 

 tribute something. The rites begin by pouring some of the caudle on 

 tlie ground by way of libation, on, which every one takes a cake of 

 oatmeal, with nine square knobs raised upon it, each dedicated to some 

 particular being, the supposed preserver of their flocks and herds, or to 

 some particular animal, the real destroyer of them. Each person then 

 turns his face to the fire, breaks ofi^ a knob, and flings it over his 

 sh(;ulder, saying, ' This I give to thee ! preserve thou my horses ; this to 

 thee ! preserve thou my sheep ; ' and so on. After that they use the 

 same ceremony to the noxious animals. 'This I give to thee, oh fox, 

 spare thou my Iambs 5 this to thee, oh eagle j this to ihee, oh hooded 

 crow ! ' 



