Forlong - Rivers of Life

332
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
no cattle safe unless passed through the May-day and Midsummer Beltine fires, and
no persons would suffer a fire within their parish, which had not been then kindled
afresh from the Tin-Egin, or sacred fire produced by friction. The Irish called May,
Mi-na-Beal-tine, in honour of the sun.
It was only in the reign of Henry III., or shortly after Magna Charta, that Eng–
land began to abolish the ordeal by fire and water, and in the 8th century, we find
Christian Arch-Priests publicly inveighing against the then existing “practice of passing
children through the fire,” 1 and the wars of the new faith against the old, dearly-loved,
and well-understood ones of Solo-phallic meaning, continued most vigorous until education
began to spread. Colonel Forbes Leslie shows us that even the other day in
Scotland, Christian baptism was not thought sufficient, instancing a case in which, on
return from the church, the young Christian was duly “swayed three times gently over
a flame. . . . . In cases of private christening in Perthshire there was a custom of
passing the child three times round the crook which was suspended over the centre of
the fire,” and this rite was considered by no means second to Christian baptism.
Probably this crook conveyed the significant idea of the Kaduceus or Baton,
such as that which the Vernal Queen holds, as she gently leads the Agnus Dei
in his opening year; see my large figure at the beginning of the chapter on Sun
Worship. The twists of the sacred crook have, among other occult matters as virile
power, the signification of Ananta or Eternity, the returning of time, as it were, into
itself. In Fig. 121, page 252, I give four crozier ideas, the oldest being No. 1, which
the Etruscans used as a rod of office. No. 2 is the Ankoos or elephant goad and guide
of India, and when used as an official instrument, is usually made of bright steel,
inlaid with gold and silver. The hammer of Tor is the same idea; so is the phallic
spear twisted round with flax, cotton, &c.; 2 and the Distaff, which was sacred to Pallas,
and which was carried in the old bridal processions, and “was sculptured with the
spindle in the Trojan Palla-dium.” 3 The Etrurian Kentaurs carried hammers and
boughs of trees, and no doubt it was this very ancient race who taught Skands, Kelts,
Gauls, and Romans 4 to do this, and to revere the Kentaur and his insignia.
The Sabines were perhaps more nearly related. to our ancestors than is generally
thought; at least we may believe so from the Sabine and Gaelic lauguages having more
affinity even than Welsh and Irish, and from other evidence which I will lhereafter
adduce. 5 Dr Leathamt, in his work on Descriptive Ethnology, says that “much of
the blood of the Romans was Keltic, and so is much of the Latin language,” and a
study of the movments of ancient peoples will show how this is so. 6 Like the Skyths,
these old Sabines were devoted to all the worship of Sivaites, and particularly of Mars’
symbol, the Quiris or Spear, after which we still call thair greatest fête Quirinalia, and
their Mount Zion, the Quirinal. The worship of the Quiris has not yet ceased in high Asia,
1
Col. Forbes Leslie’s Early Races of Scotland, I. 113.
3
Smith’s Greek and Roman Ants. Fusus.
5
Regal Rome, by Prof. Newman, p. 49.
2
See fig. 66. line ii. p. 185.
4
F.L.’s Early Races, II. 443.
6
Leatham, II. 38.