Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

^CANNES—? FISH-GOD 365fish. The head of the fish formed a mitre above that of theman, whilst its scaly limbs, back, and fan-like tail fell as acloak behind, leaving the humanlimbs and feet exposed." Butin identifying this mythic formwith Cannes, he terms it merely"the sacred man-fish," not deity.There were to be seen in thetemple of Belus, according toBerosus, sculptured representationsof men with two wings, ortwo faces, with the legs and hornsof goats, 2 or the hoofs of horses ;also bulls with the heads of men,and horses with the heads ofdogs. 3I venture to suggest that themystic fish-form of Dagon orCannes is of the same nature andin the same category as the manwith the legs and horns of goats,or with the hoofs of horses : butthese mythic goat or horse formswere not elevated into goat-godsFISH-GOD.^ Nineveh and Babylon, op. cit., pp. From Layard's Nineveh and343. 35°- See also Le Mythe de Dagon,Babylon.by Menant ; Revue de I'Hist. des Religions(Paris, 1885), vol. II. p. 295 ff., where a great variety of Assyrian fish-menmay be found. Forlong [op. cit., I. 231) instances a cornelian cylinder inthe Ouseley collection depicting Cannes or the Babylonian god or demi-god,attended by two gods of fecundity, on whom the Sun-god with a fish taillooks down benignantly. Forlong's obsession detects in every representation,Indian or Irish, Assyrian or Australasian, some emblem of fecundity, whilehis ever-present " King Charles's head " is some phallic symbol. We arealmost reminded of the witty quatrain current some years back :" Diodorus SiculusMade himself ridiculousBy insisting that thimbles"Were all phallic symbols !^ The goat-fish god dates as far back as Gudea, c. 2700 B.C. He was likethe man-fish or fish-god, a symbol of Ea, the god of water, and probablyderives from Capricorn. See Ward, p. 214, fig. 649 ; and p. 249, figs. 745, 747.^ Cf. Ezekiel, VIII. 10, " Every form of creeping things and abominablebeasts pourtrayed upon the wall round about."