CHAPTER VII. AND DEADLY THE DIVINING OR WISH-ROD CONTINUED TRADITIONS OF IT IN It is remarked as a matter of special significance in the old sacred books of India, and by their Sanscrit commentators, that the palasa (p. 158) is tripleleafed, that is to say, its leaves consist, like those of the clover, of three distinct lobes springing from one stalk. There can be no doubt as to what this form of leaf was understood to typify, for a trident,* and a cross or hammer with three points, are among the oldest Indo-European symbols of the forked lightning from which sprang the palasa, and which is called trisulcum, "three-pronged," by Ovid and Varro. The herald rod of Hermes (Kηpúκelov) was taken from a tree leafed like the palasa; it was a rod of prosperity and wealth," a real wish-rod, * Poseidon was the Zeus of the sea, and his trident was equivalent to his brother's fulmen trisulcum. 188 HERMES STAFF. "golden, triple-leafed,"* and was given to him by Apollo, the Grecian Rudra (p. 18). It had served Apollo as a herdsman's staff when he tended the cattle of Admetus, a fact which again assimilates it to the palasa, the sami, and the rowan rod (p. 159 ff.). In later times it was represented as having two serpents coiled round it, with necks and heads curving towards each other at its upper end, appendages which were either mere artistic variations of its originally forked form, or which stood for the serpents that were connected with the world-tree. Hermes himself possesses among his multifarious attributes and functions some that connect him in a very marked manner with Agni. Repeatedly in Vedic hymns and prayers is Agni invoked as the messenger of the gods, and the mediator who carries up to them the offerings of men in wreaths of smoke from the altar fires. He is styled priest of sacrifice and prayer-speaker. Hermes too is priest of sacrifice, prayer-bearer (precum minister),† and messenger of the Olympic gods, especially of Zeus (Διὸς ἄγγελος). This very title of his, angelus, messenger, angel, for which no Greek root can be found, has been traced back by Roth to Angiras,‡ *Homer, Hymn. in Merc. 529. Preller, Griech. Myth. i., 258. HERMES A FIRE-GOD. 189 a name frequently given in the Vedas to Agni himself, as well as to one of the priestly families attendant upon himself. Hermes is in fact an old fire-god, and Callimachus actually ranks him with the fiery Cyclops. The poet says in his hymn to Diana that among the gods, when a girl is fractious, her mother calls out for the Cyclops Arges and Steropes, and then Hermes makes his appearance, coming forth from the innermost part of the house (where the hearth stood) begrimed with soot. Above all, Hermes was commonly credited with the invention of the pyreia, or fire-kindling machine, which Diodorus ascribed to Prometheus (p. 44). All things considered, therefore, we must conclude that the staff of Hermes could have been nothing else than that ligneous receptacle of transformed lightning, the drilling-stick of the pyreia. Dr. Kuhn has not been able to ascertain whether or not there were any certain plants known to the Greeks and Romans as substitutes in ordinary life for the staff of Hermes; but that they had their wish-rods like ourselves, or at least traditions of such instruments, is plain from sundry passages in their writers. One of them, which the author of Charicles has cited from Arrian, is this: "He has a bad father, but I have a good one, and that is the staff of DIVINING-ROD. Hermes. Touch what you will with it, they say, and it turns to gold." Another is the well-known passage in Tully's Offices: "But were all the necessaries of life supplied to us by means of a divine rod (virgula divina) then," &c. "Ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius:" it is not every forked hazel twig that is fit to make a divining-rod, nor can so precious an instrument be manufactured at all seasons and at a moment's notice. Had the Antiquary been half as well skilled in magic lore as he was in the art of discovering Roman camps and Latin inscriptions, he might have convicted Dousterswivel on the spot as an impostor, when the fellow pretended to cut a divining-rod in the broad glare of day, and with as little ceremony as one might cut a walking-stick. The success of such an operation is dependent upon many special conditions. It must always be performed after sunset and before sunrise, and only on certain nights, among which are specified those of Good Friday, Epiphany, Shrove Tuesday, St. John's day, the first night of a new moon or that preceding it. In cutting it one must face the east, so that the rod shall be one which catches the first rays of the morning sun; or, as some say, the eastern and western sun must shine through the fork of the rod, otherwise it will be good for nothing. Such also were the directions given in the Vedas with respect to the sami branch and the arani. They were to be cut at new moon or on the night before it, and none were to be chosen but such as grew towards the east, the north, or straight upwards. This last peculiarity has also been recognised as proper to the wishing or divining rod, to which a mediæval poet of Germany compares the form and carriage of the Greek Helen, "Fair as a wish-rod came she gliding upright.' ?? * The summer solstice is a favourite season for gathering plants of the lightning tribe, and particularly the springwort and fern. It is believed in the Oberpfalz that the springwort, or St. John's wort (johanniswurzel) as some call it, can only be found among the fern on St. John's night. It is said to be of a yellow colour, and to shine in the night like a candle; which is just what is said of the mandrake in an Anglo-Saxon manuscript of the tenth or eleventh century. Moreover, it never stands still, but hops about continually, to avoid the grasp of men. Here then, in the luminosity and the power of nimble movement attributed to the springwort, we have * D. M. p. 926. |