Forlong - Rivers of Life

Serpent and Phallic Worship.
of a phallic cross, and pointing with a “phallic hand” see Plate IV., Fig. 2, and
elsewhere.
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 Dolphins in their zodiac. Burckhardt saya in his travels in Nubia
(p. 470) 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. As we closely study
the illustrations of sacred fish, and the language used in regard to them and their ways,
we gradually begin to see the coarseness of the symbolism, and why all this extraordinary
pisci-cult. This mermaid, Fig. 115, from Galway in Ireland, for which I am indebted
to Mr. Marcus Keane, exhibits what
one would fancy the water here might have
been allowed to cover; but, instead of this,
great and even unnatural prominence is given
to the organ within the water; which assures
us that it, and not her liber or book, is what
Fig 114.—VISHNOO IN
THE FISH-AVATAR
pisci-cult mostly relates to; and this is confirmed
as we study Kaldian and Asyrian
pisci-olatry, where we find the woman merges into a kind of seal, and
is held up to us belly foremost, like this Irish mermaid. I give this
in the figure on page 244, where it will be observed that we have a woman’s head but
arms à la torso, as in the case of our Greek and Serapium Tau, page 225, Fig. 97.
The Indian idea does not seem to have embraced this feature of the sexual parts, at
least so far as I have yet been able to observe, but to be merely connected with the
known great fertility of the fish, and its dwelling in
water—the source of all fertility. India, however, early
notices its vaginal form, and shows us therefore man
and animals issuing from its mouth. This is well exemplified
in my large figure of Vishnoo’s Măch, or
fish-Avatár, and in this modified small Fig. 114 of the
same, which Mr. Marcus Keane gives me. The evident
idea here is, that all creation issues from a fishy sheath, to
the astonishment and adoration of the somewhat waterylooking
world; and as it issues, becomes gradually armed,
with “the weapons necessary towards the continuance of all animal life.”
Mr. Keane further gives us this very remarkable sculpture, Fig. 116, from the cross
of Kells, County Meath, which is clearly the worship of the fish and phallus
combined; or of a fish, as a phallus, a not uncommon idea. Taken in connection with the
Iberian mermaid, Fig. 115, there is no mistaking what this upright fish was intended for.
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Fig 115.—MERMAID, CLONFERRY
Fig 116.—PISCO-PHALLIC WORSHIP,
COUNTY MEATH, IRELAND.