href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@37713@[email protected]#f_5" id="fna_5" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">[5]

Moule remarks that “the classical tale of Polycrates, related by Herodotus a thousand years before the time of St. Kentigern, is perhaps the earliest version of the fish and ring, which has often been repeated with variations. The ring, Herodotus says, was an emerald set in gold and beautifully engraved, the work of Theodorus the Samian; and this very ring, Pliny relates, was preserved in the Temple of Concord at Rome, to which it was given by the Emperor Augustus. The device of the fish is engraved in M. Claude Paradin’s “Hervical Devices” as an emblem of uninterrupted prosperity.”

“If we turn to chapter xxxviii. of Mahomet’s Koran, we find the story of the fish and the ring in another form. The note upon the words—‘We placed on his throne a counterfeit body,’ says: ‘The most received exposition of this passage is taken from the following Talmudic fable: Solomon, having taken Sidon, and slain the king of that city, brought away his daughter Jerada, who became his favourite; and because she ceased not to lament her father’s loss, he ordered the devils to make an image of him for her consolation: which being done, and placed in her chamber, she and her maids worshipped it morning and evening, according to their custom. At length Solomon being informed of this idolatry, which was practised under his roof by his vizier, Asaf, he broke the image, and having chastised the woman went out into the desert, where he wept and made supplications to God; who did not think fit, however, to let his negligence pass without some correction. It was Solomon’s custom, while he washed himself, to entrust his signet, on which his kingdom depended, with a concubine of his named Amina: one day, therefore, when she had the ring in her custody, a devil named Sakhar came to her in the shape of Solomon, and received the ring from her; by virtue of which he became possessed of the kingdom, and sat on the throne in the shape which he had borrowed, making what alterations in the law he pleased. Solomon, in the mean time, being changed in his outward appearance and known to none of his subjects, was obliged to wander about and beg alms for his subsistence; till at length, after the space of forty days, which was the time the image had been worshipped in his house, the devil flew away and threw the signet into the sea; the signet was immediately swallowed by a fish, which being taken and given to Solomon, he found the ring in its belly, and having by this means recovered the kingdom, took Sakhar, and, tying a great stone to his neck, threw him into the lake of Tiberias.”

One of the windows of St. Neot’s Church, Cornwall, contains the history of that saint known as the pious sacristan of Glastonbury Abbey, “perhaps,” says Moule “the only instance of the legend of a local saint so represented, and one of the most splendid specimens of stained glass in the kingdom. The hermit’s fish-pond, now remaining in the valley near his cell, afforded materials for one of the legendary tales now represented in the window. In this pool there were three fishes, of which Neot had divine permission to take one every day, with an assurance that the supply should never be diminished. Being afflicted with a severe indisposition, his disciple Barius one day caught two fishes, and having boiled one and broiled the other, placed them before him: ‘What hast thou done?’ exclaimed Neot; ‘lo, the favour of God deserts us: go instantly and restore these fishes to the water.’ While Barius was absent Neot prostrated himself in earnest prayer, till he returned with the intelligence that the fishes were disporting in the pool. Barius again went and took only one fish, of which Neot had no sooner tasted than he was restored to perfect health.”[6]

A species of perch, common in the Mediterranean, is of a brilliant scarlet colour, but with a very strong spinal fin, and, from the resemblance of this spine to a razor, it is named le barbier. This fish is held sacred among the divers for marine productions, and when caught by a hook, it is instantly relieved by the rest of the shoal cutting the line of the angler with their sharp spines.

“The dolphin, as a most peculiarly sacred fish, was called Philanthropist by the ancients, and said to delight in music. It saved the great bard Arion when he threw himself into the Mediterranean on his way to Corinth, which event is said to have happened in the seventh century B.C., or about the time the story of Jonah arose. The Greeks placed the dolphin in their Zodiac. Burckhardt says in his travels in Nubia, that no one is permitted to throw a lance at or injure a dolphin in the Red Sea; and the same rule is enforced among most of the Greek islands.

“Neptune, the male sea-god of Rome, was identical with Poseidon of Greece, and his temples and festivals were in the Campus Martius. Poseidon was a brother of Jupiter and Pluto, and a mighty representative god-man of the waters, and of what the sea symbolised; his was the teeming womb of fertility, and therefore woman. His hosts are dolphins and innumerable sea-nymphs and monsters. His chariots are yoked with horses, which he is said to have created and taught men to manage. His symbol is the phallic trident, or rather the Trisool, or ‘giver of life’ of Siva, which can cleave rocks, produce water, and shake heaven and earth. The Nephthus of Egypt was the goddess of the coasts of the Red Sea and the wife of the wicked serpent deity Typhon. The Dolphin as a highly emblematic fish often stands for Neptune himself, although it probably first rose in importance from a mere punning on the words delphis a dolphin, and delphus the womb, and occasionally the pudenda. Delphax was also a young pig which was occasionally offered to Juno; Delphi was goddess Earth: symbolic chasm, and Delphinius was her Apollo, and from dolphin springs the name Delphin or Dauphin, the eldest son of the King of France.”[7]

CHAPTER II.

The Ancient Sacred Fish—Fish Diet and its supposed Effects—Fish and the Jews—The god Krodo—Oanes—Dagon—The Fish-god at Nimroud—Khorsabad—Fish Worship in Syria—Temple of Dagon at Azotus—The Dagon of the Bible—Adramelech—Abstinence from Fish Food—Ancient Character of Fish Worship—Paradise Lost—The Irish demi-god Phin—The Fish as a Christian Symbol—Idea involved in Fish Worship—Holy Fish Ponds—Ancient Caledonian Objections to Fish—Other anti-fish-eating Nations—Ishtar.

Inman remarks that “the fish selected for honour amongst the ancients was neither flat, globular, nor cylindrical; it was more or less oval, and terminated in a forked tail. In shape it was like the almond, or the ‘concha’ with the ‘nates.’ Its open mouth resembles the ‘os uteri,’ still called ‘os tincæ,’ or tench’s mouth. Ancient priests are represented as clothed with a fish, the head being the mitre. The fish’s head as a mitre still adorns the heads of Romish bishops. The fish was sacred to Venus, and was a favourite esculent among the luxurious Romans. The fish was an emblem of fecundity. The word nun, however, in the Hebrew, signifies to sprout, to put forth, as well as fish; and thus the fish symbolises the