Forlong - Rivers of Life

458
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
at all called for. We now know, however, that this ruling was only recorded between
630 and the 3d C.B.C., and the going into tabernacles at harvesting, had of course been
customary for thousands of years before Ezra’s day. In all these countries, Ceres was
ordered to be worshipped at this time among her own fields, for only on the fields,
especially where the ground waa rocky and hilly, could the grain be properly trodden
out and dried. Whilst anxiously awaiting the ripening of the crops, the Jews, like others,
“humbled themselves before the Lord” by mortification and penance, and this
during the first week of Elul, when their priests taught that Moses was up on Sinai
pleading for them with the Lord. Christians said that Mary—their Ceres, had
then also (15th is Assumption) ascended on high. Hindoos offered grain on the
13th to the “Great Unknown,” as Sinai’s God was sometimes called, and Rome
feted Vertumnus, Diana, and all slaves, of whom many were at this season set free.
In the first week of August, when Hindoos diligently worship Lakshmi—their Ceres,
Jews in fear institute a Fast called “Extinguishing of Lights,” and Romans exhibit their
Sol Indiges of no chaste form. Christians at this time, as if to parody rich Ceres, exhibit
the reliques of St. Stephen, and dedicate their representative maiden—Mary, to Jahveh.
On Lammas (i.e. Hlaf-mass), the 1st, all should give a loaf (Hlaf) to the Church,
and present a penny to St. Peter. Our ancient fathers were more manly if less refined
in their doings, for Druids dedicated the 1st of Auguat, as a great gule or fete, to Luna
—the Moon, calling it Luain-Nas or “Luna’s Anniversary” or “Fair.” This the
Kooths and Kelts of Ireland are said to have first celebrated in the days of the somewhat
mythic Lugh, a gret monarch, “of the long hand,” a rather suspicious title in
this cult. He, say Irish historians, flourished “nearly 2000 years B.C.” 1 The worship
was evidently Sexual Fire, whether of Luna or Bel, and whether by Kelts or Goths;
the Scoti used then to erect a rower of stones and turf—all the poor rural folks could
build—and no doubt exactly like these Tatar Phalli which Huc gives is (p. 333
ante), for they too stuck them over with flags and then danced round them, blowing
trumpets like the Jews, believing such rites drove away all evil spirits, and fertilized
their women and cattle. The men thcn went through various athletic exercises, and
tried to pull down each other’s Tors or Turf-deities; which, though commencing in
sport, very commonly ended in blood-shed.
In the early part of the autumnal harvest, Rome exhibited the ornaments of Ceres,
and on gathering the early vintage, instituted her Dionysia. Christians assigned the
nativity of their Virgin to the time of early vines; and as the month of September
advanced, they called the 14th Holy rood, Rod, or Cross day, when, to hide the old
god, they averred a fragment of the real cross had been recovered. Papists worshipped
this piece of wood, and put a male and female figure on it, which they called “MARY
and JOHN." About this time—the 13th, a nail or “sign of life” was brought for-
ward by the Roman Pretor, and solemnly fixed in the Capitol.
The Egyptians—who up to this time, 17th of Athyr, had been ploughing and
sowing—now said that Osiris went into his Ark, i.e. the seed into the ground. Cocks
1 The Druids, &c., of Ireland, by Rev. R. Smiddy, p. 104. Kelly, Dublin, 1873. [It is sometimes
suggests that the festival itself was to Lug as a solar or Fire god rather than to Luna. — T.S.]