294 THE PRAISE OF GARDENS 



WALTER 'T^HE worship of Demeter belongs to that older religion, nearer 

 to t ^ ie eart ^ } w hi c h some have thought they could discern 



8Q ) 



behind the more definitely national mythology of Homer. She is 



the goddess of dark caves, and is not wholly free from monstrous 

 form. She gave men the first fig in one place, the first poppy in 

 another ; in another she first taught the old Titans to mow. She 

 is the mother of the vine also ; and the assumed name, by which 

 she called herself in her wanderings is Dos a gift ; the crane, -as 

 the harbinger of rain, is her messenger among the birds. She 

 knows the magic powers of certain plants, cut from her bosom, to 

 bane or bless ; and, under one of her epithets, herself presides 

 over the springs, as also coming from the secret places of the 

 earth. She is the goddess then of the fertility of the earth, in its 

 wildness ; and so far her attributes are to some degree confused 

 with those of the Thessalian Gaia and the Phrygian Cybele. 

 Afterwards, and it is now that her most characteristic attributes 

 begin to concentrate themselves, she separates herself from these 

 confused relationships, as specially the goddess of agriculture, of 

 the fertility of the earth as furthered by human skill. She is the 

 preserver of the seed sown in hope, under many epithets derived 

 from the incidents of vegetation, as the simple countryman names 

 her, out of a mind full of the various experiences of his little 

 garden or farm. She is the most definite embodiment of all those 

 fluctuating mystical instincts, of which Gaia, the mother of the 

 earth's gloomier offspring, is a vaguer and mistier one. There is 

 nothing of the confused outline, the mere shadowiness of mystical 

 dreaming, in this most concrete human figure. No nation, less 

 aesthetically gifted than the Greeks, could have so lightly thrown 

 its mystical surmise and divination into images so clear and 

 idyllic as those of the solemn goddess of the country, in whom 

 the characteristics of the mother are expressed with so much 

 tenderness, and the f beauteous head ' of Kore, then so fresh and 

 peaceful. ' The Myth of Demeter and Persephone? 



