Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/428

 indisputable testimony to the fact that so they were regarded.

Nonnus Dionysius (v. 163 et seq.) spoke of the moon as a luminous white stone, and Democritus regarded the stars as πέτρους. Lucretius considered the sun as a wheel (v. 433), and Ovid as a shield— “Ipse Dei clypeus, terra cum tollitur ima, Mane rubet: terraque rubet, cum conditur ima. Candidus in summo &hellip;'”—(Metam. xv. 192 sq.) As late as 1600, a German writer would illustrate a thunder-storm destroying a crop of corn by a picture of a dragon devouring the produce of the field with his flaming tongue and iron teeth (Wolfii Memorabil. ii. p. 505); and at the present day children are taught that the thunder-crash is the voice of the Almighty.

The restless mind of man, ever seeking a reason to account for the marvels presented to his senses, adopts one theory after another, and the rejected explanations encumber the memory of nations as myths, the significance of which has been forgotten.