Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/377

 The Binding of a God. 341

that it was not unusual to erect maimed or deformed idols ; many in particular, for reasons which cannot be discussed now, were made lame or without hands. Artemis of Ephe- sus, for instance, had artificial arms supported by golden rods. So with Sala, the consort of the Babylonian sun- god, Savitar, Tyr and the Celtic Nuad of the Silver Hand.-^ The statues of the maids of the daughter of Mycerinus had no hands." The fall of an image was always regarded as ominous, and showed at any rate that the deity who lacked the power to save himself from disgrace could be of little service to his worshippers. We have the case of Dagon of the Philistines, which fell down before the Ark, and suffered much in repute in consequence.^ We come across the same idea at the other end of the world, in New Ireland, where we are told : " Their idols are set up upon lofty eminences. . . . Whenever the image falls to the ground, or is broken or otherwise damaged, it is no longer visited, for as it is unable to keep itself erect, it is supposed that its intercession with Kannua would no longer be of any avail." '' I may give some examples of the manner in which gods are chained or bound. The statue of the goddess Aphro- dite Morpho, " the goddess of beautiful form," or the bridal deity, had, according to Pausanias, chains on her feet.^ The old tourist tells us that they say that Tyndareus added the fetters " symbolising the bonds of love that unite men so powerfully to women." In the same place he notices an old statue of Enyalius, a form of Ares, and he adds that the opinion of the Lacedaemonians about this statue and that of the Athenians called Nike Apteros, Wingless Victory, is the same — that Enyalius will never depart from the

' Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, "Babylonian Religion," p. 212.

^ Herodotus, ii. 131.

' I Samuel v. 3. There is a similar case in the Arabian tale of " Gharib and his Brother Ajib," Burton, Arabian Nights, vol. vii. p. 83 ; Lib. ed. vol. v. p. 282.

from the statue of Hiero, see Tlutarch, De Pyth. Resp.
 * Featherman, Papuo Melanesians, p. 61. On the omen of the eyes falling

^ iii. 15, II.