Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/211

 Collectanea. 179

vocalic sign seems to matter little. It is easily changed, as we see from later Semitic script when vowels were marked, as in Erech (Hebrew) for Uruk (? Assyrian).

The habit of mountain races, who always feared the higher summits, of placing demons and gods there is practically universal and easily explicable. How else could falling stones and avalanches be accounted for ? When the gods passed they were inhabited by dragons. The curious may consult The Early Moiintaineers (Francis Gribble, 1899) for accounts of such and the views of Johann Jacob Scheuchzer, a professor at Zurich at the end of the seventeenth century. Probably the terror of great heights is partially due to these superstitions. Early orography is full of such myths. We may compare the Pico de Teide, the Peak of Tenerife. The mountain was terrible and holy, or devilish, a place for " High Ones." Mr. A. B. Cook states that in the panegyric of Zeus attributed to Minos the god is called " The High and Holy One." It may be taken for granted, on the principles of Semantics, that " high " in the religious sense was once used literally. Its value has been slowly enhanced, just as " Divine Right " is now interpreted to mean by divine appoint- ment or decree, although it seems obviously the last survival of the view that Kings were really Gods. In Zeus I also find it remarked that Enlil or Ellil, the Sumerian god of Nippur, is some- times actually addressed as "The Great Mountain." His temple was E-Kur, which means "the mountain house." His consort Nin-lil was described as Nin-Khar-Sag, i.e. Lady of the High Mountain.

Driver notes that Sargon and Assurbanipal speak of Bel and Asshur as shadu rabu, " the great mountain." Some think this is the origin of the Hebrew Shaddai. The real meaning of this is far more interesting, but the subject cannot be entered on here.

I put these suggestions forward merely for the purpose of stimulating discussion. As views of my own I am only too well aware they cannot carry weight. But the subject of these non- Hellenic names is certainly of great interest, and might well be inquired into by some one of linguistic authority.

MoRLEY Roberts.