Forlong - Rivers of Life

Serpent and Phallic Worship.
the winged arrow is the male, and carries a flear de lis head with, I suspect, the heel
wings of that “old thief” Mercury, so that the piercing of the rudder is highly
emblematic. I give the two gems seen in the
Dictionary article for facility of references, also a
rudder and shield, regarding which I must say a few
words more.
In the celebrated Irish Tāra brooch, which Mr.
Waring gives us in plate 92 of his handsome
volume, 1 the serpent is the cross-pin of the feminine
emblem, as the arrow here is of the rudder,
yet we should have fancied that the Irish broochmaker
would, for the circular parts of his work,
have preferred the serpent from its curling coil-
ing propensities, and had the javelin or spear
—equally symbolical—for the pin of the jewel;
Fig. 48.—RUDDER, SHIELD, &c.
yet it is not so, shewing us that for this crown jewel, the Irish people preferred
Python male to Python female. We see what importance the sensual monarch of the
Jews attached to shields by his making no less than three hundred, and of pure gold,
and hanging them up in his amatory palace of Lebanon (1 Kings x. 17); of which the
value, we are gravely asked to believe, was something like a quarter million sterling.
David captured similar “shields of gold” on the servants of a king of Arabia-
Deserta (2 Sam. viii.), and also dedicated them, like Great Cesar, to his gods. Such
shields we find were either sacred to the sun, as Turner and others tell well us the shield
of Palls was, or to the Genetrix, and may be classed with the Roman ancilia, keys,
rudders, and such sexual simulacra. The serpent was the steersman who guided the
arks or boats of this faith, see Fig. 73, page 191, and Pallas-Athena, Ceres, and other
Saktis often had such emblems as these. Feathers or wings attached to gods or god~
desses, I have elsewhere shewn, had always some sexual signification, and this feathering
of the rudder; so precisely like that attached to the Phallic cap of the gods, is
suspicious. Ceres had usually a cross at the head of her shaft, which completes the
symbolism; the shields had serpents and such like, with a centre boss. Jehovah, who
was once a female. god, called himself the shield of Abram on the occasion of his
asking for offspring (Gen. xv. 1). The Romans preserved with great reIigious care
and reverence twelve. ancilia in the temple of Mars on the hill of Pallas, for which
there were regular priests, called the Salii Palatini. In connection with them also
were sacred cups—Patera, Patella or Patina, which in Sivaik temples are called
Arghas; these appear also in Grecian rites, and in the sacramental chalice of Christi-
anity. The arghas are occasionally used for incense, and the distinction between them
and the cups and the censer of the Christian churches is very fine. All have been in use
from unknown times, for as Dryden says,—
“The Salii sing and cense their altars round
With Sabine smoke.”
1 Monuments and Ornaments, &c., by J. B. Waring. J. Day & Co., London, 1878.
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