Forlong - Rivers of Life

384
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
between Gallus and Phallus, is often forced upon our notice, as in the figure given
by Payne Knight, 1 where the body of a man has for its head the figure of a cock, of
which the beak is the phallus, whilst on the pediment below is written: SOTHR KOS-
MOU—“Saviour of the World,” a term applied to all gods, but especially those charged
with creative functions. Minerva, who is also called Pallas, is very often shown with
a cock sitting on her helmet, and her crest denotes her penchant for this salacious bird.
The stone beside which Jacob slept (Genesis xxviii), and which he anointed with oils,
was a GiI-gal, and he called it “the house of El,” “the gate of Heaven,” and a Beth-El,
or “El’s Abode.” It was also “Tsur or The Rock,” still in Ireland one of the meanings
of Gall; so we have in Gaelic Caill (pronounced Kaely) for the testis; Cail or
Kal, energy and strength; in lowland Scotch, Callan, a hardy youth, and in English,
gallant, one more than usually attentractive to the sex. “In Ireland,” says Petrie
(p. 19), “Gallan or Dallān is a word still used all over Munster to denote pillar-stones,”
which are also called Leagans, Coirthe, Cairthe or Carha; 2 which Liagān is pronounced
Leegaun, and applied more usually than Gallan “to a standing stone.” Leac or Leeg is
a stone, as in Krom-lech, a sloping Sun stone, but being a sacred one, is of course a Lingam,
which the word itself as closely as possible resembles. In the permissible change in
Hebrew pronunciation from Eduth to Geduth, we seem to see the same as here from
Leag to Gala. The prefix an or am is a diminutive, and thus Leac-an is “a little stone,”
as Ling-am may be “a little pillar;” but both, whether in India or Ireland, are properly
only applied to a standing stone. Perhaps from the more ancient Irish form Liacc we
see the Greek Lithos, Latin Lapis, and Welsh Llech, or vice versa as the Classic enthusiast
will probably insist.
In the Septuagint we have Gilgal mentioned thrice as the name of important religious
places. One was the capital of Canaan, and one that sacred town near Jericho where
Samuel, it is said, continually circumambulated a circle of twelve stones. This place
had with the Jews a strange phallic history, being called “the hill of foreskins.” The
twelve stones no doubt meant the twelve houses of the Sun, for he of Rama or Suntown
appears to have been a strict phallo-solar worshipper, urging Israel to put away
Astaroth and “the strange gods,” 3 which shows that he preferred the Lingam to the
Yoni sect. Thus also, when his people had won a battle at Beth-Car, he “took a
stone, set it up, and callad the name of it Eben-ezer,” that is a.phallus or “the stone of
help.” This act was precisely the aame as that of Jacob, who, wishing solemnly to
ratify his vow with Laban, raised and feasted on what he called a Galeed, 4 or “heap
of witnesses,” that is “testis” or “testimony.” It was this place—Gil-gal—which
seems to have reminded the leader of the tribes that no circumcisions had taken place
for forty years, though some five centuries before, the penalty for neglecting it over
the eighth day of every infant’s life was solemnly decreed to be death! 4 Moses clearly
1
[Worship of Priapus; pl. II fig. 3. A current English slang use also comes to mind. — T.S.]
2
Dr. Joyce’s Irish Names, 3d ed., pp. 331-2. M’Glashan & Gill, Dublin, 1871.
3 4 5
1 Sam. vii. 3
Gen. xxxi. 45-8.
Gen. xvii. 14.