The Idol Bel.
Mons. Johanneau considers that Bel, or Belinus,
is derived from the Greek, a surname of Apollo, and
means the archer; from Belos, a dart or arrow. [290]
I own I think this among the spurious conceits of
the learned, suggested by the vague affinities of
name. But it is quite as likely, (if there be
anything in the conjecture,) that the Celt taught the
Greek, as that the Greek taught the Celt.
There are some very interesting questions, however,
for scholars to discuss—viz. 1st, When
did the Celts first introduce idols? 2d, Can we believe
the classical authorities that assure us that the Druids
originally admitted no idol worship? If so, we
find the chief idols of the Druids cited by Lucan;
and they therefore acquired them long before Lucan’s
time. From whom would they acquire them?
Not from the Romans; for the Roman gods are not the
least similar to the Celtic, when the last are fairly
examined. Nor from the Teutons, from whose deities
those of the Celt equally differ. Have we not
given too much faith to the classic writers, who assert
the original simplicity of the Druid worship?
And will not their popular idols be found to be as
ancient as the remotest traces of the Celtic existence?
Would not the Cimmerii have transported them from
the period of their first traditional immigration
from the East? and is not their Bel identical with
the Babylonian deity?
Unguents used by Witches.
Lord Bacon, speaking of the ointments used by the
witches, supposes that they really did produce illusions
by stopping the vapours and sending them to the head.
It seems that all witches who attended the sabbat
used these unguents, and there is something very remarkable
in the concurrence of their testimonies as to the
scenes they declared themselves to have witnessed,
not in the body, which they left behind, but as present
in the soul; as if the same anointments and preparatives
produced dreams nearly similar in kind. To the
believers in mesmerism I may add, that few are aware
of the extraordinary degree to which somnambulism
appears to be heightened by certain chemical aids;
and the disbelievers in that agency, who have yet tried
the experiments of some of those now neglected drugs
to which the medical art of the Middle Ages attached
peculiar virtues, will not be inclined to dispute
the powerful and, as it were, systematic effect which
certain drugs produce on the imagination of patients
with excitable and nervous temperaments.
Hilda’s Adjurations.
I.
“By the Urdar fount dwelling,
Day by day from the rill,
The Nornas besprinkle
The Ash Ygg-drasill.”
The Ash Ygg-drasill.—Much learning has
been employed by Scandinavian scholars in illustrating
the symbols supposed to be couched under the myth
of the Ygg-drasill, or the great Ash-tree. With
this I shall not weary the reader; especially since
large systems have been built on very small premises,
and the erudition employed has been equally ingenious
and unsatisfactory: I content myself with stating
the simple myth.
