Forlong - Rivers of Life

372
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
Hephestus was said to have loved a. nymph; carij, Karis, whose name spelt
with a K shows better its connection with other words of Solo-Phallic and Fire Cults.
This Karis was a Prutaneum in a temple, or perhaps, on a tower, but clearly understood
to be female, as the name signified grace and elegance, and all Prutanes being sacred
to Vulcan, this Karis was said to be his beloved one. But Karis was also a name for
Charon or Kar-On, that celebrated temple of the Sun, Fire, or Hephestus, situated at a
ferry near Memphis, on the river bank as fire-temples usually are; here the dead were
paddled to be buried in the catacombs. Hence Hephestus and his myths got
inexplicably mixed up with those of Kar-On, although it puzzles a reasonable mind
to see why a poor ferryman, living near a great city, and earning an honest livelihood,
albeit through somewhat ghastly employment, should be so very mythical a personage.
It could only have been ignorant fancy, or that inveterate love of Paranomasia or
punning, so strong in the Greeks, that changed Prutaneum into a nymph, Hephestus
into the Sun, and converted Tor-Chares (“Temple of the Sun” among Easterns) into
Trikaris, tricarij, the three Graces.
Vulcan is in many particulars like Vishnoo, who is also Hari—the sun. He is,
however, oftener like Siva, being the exact counterpart of the latter under the form of
Agni—fire, and like them he had no father, being the; offspring of Hera or Juno. As
female fire, Athena also had but one parent, for priests have always contended for
this supposed necessity of a great God or Goddess. Like the rising sun of spring,
Vulcan was it weakly child and disliked by his mother, as the eager sower grumbles
at the slow increasing warmth of the early year. Eaten up by Typhon, Nox, or the
“dark seas,” Vulcan is fabled to have gone under the sea, but to have returned on “glowing
Olympus,” where his shrine was and from which come all beautiful and marvellous
things. He was a great favourite with the Kyklopians, and all Islanders; he made the
armour of Achilles, the fatal necklace of Harmonia, and the fiery bulls of the king of
Kolkis; but above all poets sing the praises of the fire-god for his wondrous power in
the plastic art, that is, imparting life, colour, and solidity to the image of clay, no less
than transforming the plastic youth or animal into a creature of boldness, love, and
power, as the days of his hot fires approach. The Greek and Latin history of the God
is much mixed up with the Kyklops and inhabitants of the Isle of Lemnos, on which
it is said he fell when hurled by Jove from heaven. This island, says Apollonius
Rhodius, was inhabited by Amazons when the Argornāt chiefs rested here on their celebrated
search for the Golden Fleece. On landing the ladies received them well, and I
may quote the poet to show how thoroughly these and all ancient peoples understood
the meaning of Vulcan and Venus:
“ The Queen of Love Thessalia’s chief inspires,
For Vulcan’s sake, with amorous desires;