Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/208

 198 Reviews.

first time, I felt inclined to bow down before the huge and mysterious stones of the circle and to recognise a divinity in them. Among the Semites, however, the stone seems to have needed a special act of consecration before it could actually become a Beth-el or " House of God." This act of consecration consisted in pouring oil upon it and thereby fitting it to be a true abode of deity. Dr. Palmer is doubtless right in connecting with the beUef in the sacredness of certain stones the comparison of Jahveh with a tstir or " rock." It may be added that one of the Babylonian gods bore the name of Tsar.

The consecration of the Beth-el leads to a consideration of the use of oil for this purpose. The religious use of unction was not confined to the Semitic peoples ; we find it in Egypt and Greece as well as among the savage races of the modern world. Dr. Palmer follows Robertson Smith in supposing that its employment in ritual originated in the fat of the sacrifice, which in the Mosaic law is expressly called " the food of the Lord," and for which vegetable oil was afterwards substituted. A simpler explanation would be that just as oil or grease is rubbed over the body to preserve it from sickness and the stings of insects, so too it was poured over the sacred stone to protect it from the attacks of demons. Primitive man saw in sickness not a disease of the body but an attack from without by a hostile spirit. In this case the fat of the victim would have been dedicated to the gods, because it represented the means whereby they were protected from the powers of evil.

A. H. Sayce.

The Homeric Hymns. A New Prose Translation and Essays, Literary and Mythological. By Andrew Lang. With illustrations. George Allen.

We know what to expect from Mr. Lang as a translator : an accurate version in a style which, if a trifle affected, is really not unlike the Authorised Version of the Scriptures. In this book we have something more. The text of the hymns is in a corrupt state, and Mr. Lang has had to play the critic now and again.