FISH AND FAST DAYS 353 



the fish-god of the Philistines, belongs to the same group 

 of mythologic inventions. He was half-fish and half- 

 human, like a merman, and is, in spite of this strange 

 personality identified with the Greek Adonis ! The cult 

 of the fish-god was widely spread in ancient Greece, even 

 in Byzantine times, and many Christian converts were 

 devotees of the fish worship. I have on my table a 

 photograph of a life-sized fish modelled in gold which 

 was dug up in 1883 from the shores of a lake near the 

 coasts of the Black Sea. It was at one time supposed 

 to be of mediaeval workmanship, but is now shown to be 

 of ancient Greek workmanship (450 B.C.), and was prob- 

 ably a votive oiiFering connected with the worship tjf the 

 fish-god. 



Then, again, in the ancient Indian story of the 

 Deluge we read of Manu (who is the Noah of that 

 variety of the ancient legend) finding a remarkable young 

 fish in a stream where he is bathing. The young fish 

 (which is really the god Vishnu in disguise) can talk, and 

 requests Manu to take care of it, and promises him if he 

 does so to reveal to him when the deluge is coming on. 

 Manu takes the fish home and rears it. He then is told 

 by the fish to prepare an ark, and place on board useful 

 animals and seeds and then to embark on it with his 

 family. The ark floats away in the flood, guided by the 

 sagacious fish, which seizes a rope and, swimming in 

 front of the ark, tows it to a mountain in Armenia 

 (Ararat !), where the vessel rests whilst the flood goes 

 down. 



There was evidently a special cult of the fish in 

 Syria and the East, which spread to Greece and Rome 

 in very early pre-Christian times, and survives in some 

 of the stories in the " Arabian Nights " about human 

 beings being turned into fish. It is not surprising that 



23 



