Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/484



shields; so that on the next day, when they fled bereft of their arms, many of them fell. And to this day, a stone statue of this king stands in the temple of Vulcan, with a mouse in his hand, and an inscription to the following effect: ‘Whoever looks on me, let him revere the gods .’”

Among the Babylonians the mouse was sacrificed and eaten as a religious rite, but in connexion with what god does not transpire. And the Philistines, who, according to Hitzig, were a Pelasgic am therefore Aryan race, after having suffered from the retention of the ark, were told by their divines to ‘make images of your mice that mar the land; and ye shall give glory unto the God of Israel.” Therefore they made five golden mice as an offering to the Lord. This indicates the mouse as having been the symbol among the Philistines of a deity whom they identified with the God of Israel.