[1057] Semitic Magic, 1908.

[1058] See Bennett, Exodus, p. 178, where he cites Baentsch, and E. Meyer. Other writers, who admit the sacrifice, deduce its cause from some very early rite by which the bride was deflowered by some god or his representatives, the Holy Men: hence what the deity had given, the deity claimed. See infra, p. 435, n. 2, where this view is brought out.

[1059] Hosea, iv. 12. Cf. Herodotus, IV. 67.

[1060] 1 Sam. xiv. 41-2. Urim and Thummin seem pebbles kept in the Ephod.

[1061] Isaiah, xlvii. 13.

[1062] Gen. xxxi. 10-13; Judges, vii. 13.

[1063] Petrie, op. cit., p. 49.

[1064] Cf. the custom at certain Greek temples, whereby every person, who paid the fee and complied with the rules laid down, was allowed to sleep in or near the sanctuary for the purpose of receiving omens in a dream. The men slept in the east, the women in the west of the dormitory. Frazer, op. cit., II. 44. A good monograph on the subject is by Miss M. Hamilton, Incubation, London, 1906. Oneiromancy was highly esteemed in Israel, as in Egypt and elsewhere. Joseph’s skill (Gen. xl. and xli.) no doubt aided his rapid advancement by Pharaoh.

[1065] “Sacred stones or monoliths were regular features of Canaanite or Hebrew sanctuaries: many of these have been excavated in modern times.” Some of these Bethel stones are described “as uttering oracles in a whistling voice, which only a wizard was able to interpret.” Frazer, op. cit., II., p. 59 and p. 76.

[1066] T. Davies in Magic Divination and Demonology among the Hebrews, etc., 1898, especially in chs. ii. and iii., has much of interest on these subjects.

[1067] Cf. R. Campbell Thompson, Semitic Magic, p. 18. Not analogous but not unakin seems the passage in Theocritus (Idyll, II. 28-9) of the love-slighted maiden melting the wax, “so that Delphis may be soon wasted by my love.” Diaper (in his Nereides or Sea Eclogues) imitates the scene, but for the waxen image of the lover and its wasting, substitutes a poor dog-fish, which is pierced so as to torture Phorbas by proxy. Cf. Virgil, Ecl., VIII. 80.

[1068] J. G. Frazer, Folk-Lore in the Old Testament (London, 1918), 520 ff.

[1069] R. Campbell Thompson, Semitic Magic (London, 1908), pp. 74-75.

[1070] Annals of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1797), III. Appendix 1, pp. 1-21; Le Droit du Seigneur (Paris 1864), 191 ff., 232-243, and 276 ff. As to the supposed exception owing to the mythical law by that mythical king, Evenus or Eugenius, by the provisions of which according to Boece (who in his History of Scotland, published in 1527, seems to have been the first to resurrect or create the law, and the monarch) landlords were permitted to “deflower the virgin brides of their tenantry,” see Cosmo Innes’s Lectures on Legal Antiquities, 1872, “in Scotland there is nothing to ground a suspicion of such a right,” and J. G. Frazer, op. cit., vol. I. pp. 485-493.

[1071] See the judgment delivered in 1409 in the case brought to the Bishop of Amiens against the Mayor, etc., of Abbeville to establish his right to receive such fees, which were “sometimes ten, sometimes twelve, sometimes twenty Parisian sous.”

[1072] See Martine, de Antiq. Eccles. Ritibus, I. ix. 4.

[1073] J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina (Paris, 1862), tom. I., p. 859, par. 463.

[1074] Lord Hailes, op. cit., iii. 15.

[1075] Tobit, viii. 4 and 5 (Douai version). The fatuity of his reasoning, although with seven predecessors slain by the demon much must be pardoned to Tobias, is obvious, when we discover that the practice of deferring the consummation of marriage for a certain time is older than Tobit and Christianity, and has been observed by heathen tribes, not on any ascetic principle, in many parts of the world. Hence, “we may reasonably infer that far from instituting the rule and imposing it on the pagans, the Church, on the contrary, borrowed it (like much else) from the heathen, and sought to give it a scriptural sanction by appealing to the authority of the angel Raphael.” Frazer, op. cit., I. 505.

[1076] The whole question is fully treated by J. G. Frazer, op. cit., vol. I., pp. 485-530, and Adonis, Attis, and Osiris, 3rd ed., vol. I., pp. 57-60. Some writers hold that the period of continence originated at an ancient time when it was deemed advisable that the deflowering should be effected by a god or his representatives—In Israel the Sacred Men—so that the woman should receive strength to bear children to her husband. For the practice they rely on Hosea iv. 14, and for the deferment to the seventh night on Gen. xxix. 27, and in the correction of the reading in Judges, xiv. 18, from “before the sun went down” to “before he went into her chamber.” The evidence to my mind is far from convincing.

[1077] Babylonian Magic (London, 1914), pp. 223-224, and Le Poème Sumérien, already cited, p. 72, note 3.

[1078] Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, pp. 634, 776.

[1079] It would seem that the Babylonians intelligently, if unconsciously, anticipated our law of germs, for “the doctrine of disease was that the swarming demons could enter a man’s body and cause sickness.” On a fragment of a tablet, Budge has found six evil spirits mentioned by name, each of which specialised in attack, the first going for the head, and so on. See Encyc. Bibl., 1073.

[1080] Robinson, op. cit., p. 40. In S. Bochart’s Hierozoicon (Leipzig, 1796), p. 869, Abuhamed Hispanus gives quite a different account.

[1081] In Klunzinger’s Upper Egypt, London, 1878.

[1082] See Keller, op. cit., p. 369.

[1083] Cf. with these inciters to Sabbath-breaking, (A) The fish, “called the Jewish Sheikh, which with a long white beard and a body as large as a calf, but in shape like a frog and hairy as a cow, comes out of the sea every Saturday and remains on land until sundown on Sunday” (Robinson, op. cit., p. 35), and (B) the story of how on a Friday during St. Corbinian’s pilgrimage to Rome, when although meat and all else abounded—the Saint had always been a bit of a bon viveur!—there was an absolute dearth of fish, an eagle suddenly dropped from the clouds and let fall at the feet of the chef a fine fish. Baring-Gould, Lives of the Saints, vol. X. 123 (London, 1897).

[1084] “O True Believers, kill no game while ye are on pilgrimage. It is lawful for you to fish in the sea and eat what ye shall catch as a provision for you and for those that travel.” The Koran (Sale, chap. V. or “on Contracts”). “This passage,” says Jallaleddin, “is to be understood only of fish which live altogether in the sea, and not of those which live partly in the sea and partly on land, such as crabs.” The Turks, who are Hanifites, never eat of the latter class; but some sects have no scruples.

[1085] Robinson, op. cit., p. 41. See the Koran (Sale, vol. II. 89), “God hath only forbidden you that which dieth of itself, and blood, and swine’s flesh, and that which has been slain in the name of any besides God.”

[1086] See antea, p. 388, n. 1.

[1087] The Compleat Angler, ch. I. “Others say that he left it (the Art of Angling) engraven on those pillars which he erected to preserve the knowledge of Mathematicks, Musick, and the rest of those precious Arts, which by God’s appointment or allowance, and his noble industry were thereby preserved from perishing in Noah’s Floud.” According to Manetho, Syncell Chron., 40, these tables engraved with sacred characters were translated into the Greek tongue in hieroglyphic characters, and committed to writing and deposited in the temples of Egypt. See the Epistle of Manetho, the Sebennyte, to Ptolemæus Philadelphus, and I. P. Cory, Ancient Fragments of Phœnician, Egyptian and other writings (London, 1832), pp. 168-9, and Eusebius, Chron. 6. Cf. Georgius Syncellus, Chronographia (Bonnæ, 1829), i. pp. 72-3.

[1088] An excellent monograph by Hans Schmidt (Jona Eine Untersuchung zur vergleichenden Religionsgeshichte, Göttingen, 1907) gives 39 cuts.

[1089] Op. cit., p. 53.

[1090] Four Poems from Zion’s Flowers, etc., by Mr. Zacharie Boyd, printed from his manuscripts in the Library of the University of Glasgow, edited by G. Neil, Glasgow, 1855. Perhaps the Rector’s Muse was spurred to these heights of poesie by the fact that the arms of the City of Glasgow bear a salmon with a ring in its mouth, illustrative of the miracle wrought by St. Kentigern, the founder of the See and first bishop. At the Reformation the revenue of the church included one hundred and sixty-eight salmon. See T. Moule, Heraldry of Fish (London, 1842), pp. 124-5. In the recovery of the keys of cathedrals and episcopal rings, fish play a part, as the adventures of St. Egwin (vol. i. 161), of St. Benno (vol. vi. 224), and of St. Maurilius (vol. x. 188), described by Baring-Gould (op. cit.) all testify.

[1091] Sale, Sura 38 of the Koran, gives, as regards the incident, references to: (A) The Talmud, probably to the treatise Gittin, pp. 68, a, b. See Jew. Encycl., xi. 448, and cf. p. 443b. (B) En Jacob, Pt. ii.—probably to a work of this title, Well of Jacob, a collection of legends and parables by Jacob ben Solomon ibn Chabib from the Babylonian Talmud, 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1684-85). (C) Yalkut in lib. Reg., p. 182—this is a collection of expositions of the O.T. books and first printed in 1521. Solomon’s throwing of the demon seems quite justifiable, if Sakhar and Asmodeus were under different names one and the same, for from Gittin, 68 b, we learn that the demon, after swallowing Solomon, “spat him a distance of 400 miles,” a feat in ballistics, or “the art of propelling heavy bodies,” which surpasses even the German long-range gun.

[1092] Jewish Ency., xi. 441.

[1093] R. Blakey, op. cit., p. 145 (more suo), gives as his authority merely “one of the poetical effusions of the Anglo-Norman Trouvéres.”

[1094] See P. Dabry de Thiersant, La Pisciculture et la Pêche en Chine, Paris, 1872.

[1095] The Middle Kingdom (New York, 1900), vol. I., p. 276. Cf. S. Wright, op. cit., p. 204, “In China there are more river-fishers than all the sea-fishers of Europe and America put together.”

[1096] S. W. Williams, op. cit., I., p. 779 f.

[1097] E. T. C. Werner, Descriptive Sociology: Chinese, London, 1911. This work, an abiding monument of twenty years of unabated toil and unceasing research into Chinese literature, ancient and modern, was published by the Herbert Spencer Trustees.

[1098] I shih ching, i. 5, v. i., ii. 8, apud Werner.

[1099] Ibid. i. 5, iii. 4.

[1100] Ibid. i. 8, ii. 5.

[1101] To my friend Dr. Lionel Giles of the British Museum, and to his father, Prof. H. A. Giles of Cambridge, my thanks are due for leading and kindly lights.

[1102] See L. C. Hopkins in New China Review, 1917, 1918, 1919.

[1103] If the Chinese were behind the Egyptians in inscriptions on material such as papyrus, they anticipated Gutenberg and printing by some 600 years, as is proved by the recent discovery of the first specimen of block printing in the roll containing the Diamond Sutra, with woodcut of 868 a.d., which deprives Fêng Tao (of the tenth century) of the fame of being the inventor of printing.

[1104] Cf. Introduction, p. 60. I shih chi shih, or The Origin of Things, although of modern date, gives an account of the introduction of the various Things among the Chinese.

[1105] Apud Werner, op. cit., p. 277.

[1106] Mr. Wei-Ching W. Yen, Address before the fourth International Fishery Congress, Washington, 1908.

[1107] See H. A. Giles, Chinese Biographical Dict., 1898, p. 135, No. 343.

[1108] See Ibid., No. 34.

[1109] Legge, Chinese Classics, I. p. 67.

[1110] Op. cit., p. 250.

[1111] J. B. du Halde, Description géographique (etc.) de l’Empire de la Chine (etc.), Paris, 1735.

[1112] Op. cit., vol. II. p. 780, ff.

[1113] J. H. Gray, China (London, 1878), vol. II., 291-301.

[1114] Op. cit., passim.

[1115] These, with fish-maws, and birds’ nests—of the swallow species, Collocalia—are esteemed for their stimulating (or aphrodisiacal) qualities. Williams, op. cit., II. 397.

[1116] Op. cit.

[1117] Pei t’ang shu ch’ao, apud Werner, op. cit., p. 264.

[1118] Op. cit., vol. IV., Pt. I. p. 148.

[1119] Op. cit., vol. IV., Pt. I., 36.

[1120] Ibid., IV. 5, v. “Tapering” according to Prof. Giles should be “very long.” To judge from representations, the rod was about six feet long, although for fresh-water turtles a stouter one of four feet was more usual.

[1121] Ibid., II. 8, ii. (3, 4). Neither the value nor the valour of the fishes seem worthy of onlookers. Perhaps the husband had invented—China seems to have anticipated most of our inventions—and was displaying the Double Spey or Steeple cast. But a rod, like a wedding, invariably attracts a crowd, as a stroll on the Seine any Sunday will verify. Some years ago Mr. Kelson and I were trying a new salmon rod, faute de mieux, from the south bank of the Thames. In ten minutes the Surrey side of the Waterloo Bridge was black with folk, hoping, perchance, to witness a capture of the mythical Thames salmon.

[1122] Apud Werner, op. cit., 277.

[1123] In 325 b.c. Chinese silks were sold in Greek markets (Werner, op. cit., Table III.), while by the first century b.c. there was a brisk trade in them with Rome, through Parthia. Cf. Pliny, N. H., XXIV. 8, and XXXIV. 41; Virgil, Georg., II. 121; Horace, Epod., VIII. 15; Mela, III. 7 “ ... pretiosis vestibus in omnes terræ partes mittere solebant,” and Seneca’s protest Ep. 90, “posse nos vestitos esse sine commercio Serico.” Pliny, XII. 41, estimates that for luxuries from China, India, and Arabia, Rome was paying annually over 100,000,000 sesterces.

[1124] Eutropius, VII. 14.

[1125] Han Wu Ku Shih, apud Werner, op. cit., p. 278. Imperial hunting and fishing expeditions are described on the stone drums of the Chou Dynasty c. 750 b.c. now at Peking. See Journal N.-C., R.B.A.S., N.S., VIII. 146-152.

[1126] Ch’üeh Tzǔ, apud Werner, p. 276.

[1127] Antea, p. 238.

[1128] Antea, p. 243.

[1129] La Pisciculture et la Pêche en Chine (Paris, 1872) was written, not by a globe-trotter, but by an expert sent out by the French Government to report fully on Fishing in China.

[1130] See antea, p. 43.

[1131] Legge speaks of the Nets being made of very fine bamboo.

[1132] Werner, op. cit., 280 ff.

[1133] Compare another trap which is made by “the people piling up wooden logs in the water. The fish, feeling cold, take shelter under these, and are caught by means of a bamboo screen.” Erh ya, apud Werner, p. 276.

[1134] Yu yang tsa tsu, apud Werner, p. 279. It should really be the ten-thousand, not million, worker.

[1135] Ibid., p. 281.

[1136] Ibid., p. 251.

[1137] Ch ’u hsüeh chi. Ibid., p. 281.

[1138] Op. cit., but in Japan, especially at Gifu, the cormorant is in common use, while D. Ross, The Land of Five Rivers and Sindh (London, 1883), states that on the Indus not only the Cormorant (Graculus carbo), but also the Pelican and the Otter are similarly employed. Early in the seventeenth century an attempt was made to introduce Cormorant fishing into England as a sport, but failed (cf. Wright, op. cit., p. 182). There was at one time a court official, styled The Master of the Herons.

[1139] Blackwood’s Magazine, March, 1917, p. 32.

[1140] Op. cit., V.

[1141] The ichthyologists divided fresh-water fishes into two kinds—Yeh yü, wild, and Chia yū, tame fish: the former cannot live, much less propagate their species, in waters lacking a stream.

[1142] Du Halde, op. cit., vol. I. p. 36 f.

[1143] The Yü of a pond, according to the Shan t’ang ssŭ k’ao, was the name of “a fence of bamboo set up in the water, and used for rearing fish.”

[1144] Op. cit., ch. XXX.

[1145] Op. cit. This is but another name assumed by Fan Li.

[1146] See antea, 251 ff.

[1147] Biog. Dict., 540. Li’s fish-ponds are mentioned in the Wu Yüeh Ch’un Ch’iu, or Annals of the States of Wu and Yüeh.

[1148] Op. cit., vol. I.

[1149] De Thiersant, op. cit.

[1150] Though they and their subjects rejoiced greatly in cock and quail fighting, nature denied to them the “fighting fish,” which in Siam are the occasion of weekly contests, heavy wagering, and a fruitful source of revenue to the government from the sale of special licenses (cf. Wright, op. cit., 187-8).

[1151] For these two stories, see de Thiersant, op. cit., VII. ff.

[1152] The earliest drawings represent Ebisu holding a red tai (Chrysophis cardinalis) in one hand, and a fishing-rod in the other. In popular sketches he is usually shown with a laughing countenance, watching the struggles of the tai at the end of his line, or else banqueting with his companion gods on the same fish. In placing a fisherman god among the Seven Deities of Happiness the Japanese display shrewdness of observation and skill in selection.

[1153] Williams, op. cit., I. p. 818.

[1154] In Chuang Tzŭ (translated by Professor Legge, and also by Professor Giles) a good deal about fishermen, but very little technical can be read.

[1155] Second edition (London, 1909), p. 390. Then on p. 250 there is a weird story of the goblins who ate the bodies of nineteen men drowned in the river, but spared the father of Wang Shih-hsiu, because he was a skilled drop-kicker in the football matches played on a mat in the middle of Lake Tung-t’ing. The ball was a fish’s bladder!