Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/467

Rh “milk elixir” is still remembered in a proverbial recipe for an elixir for children—in Gaelic we have (the Rev Kenneth MacLeod, Colonsay, informs me) it as cír na meala is bainne nan cnó (“comb of honey and milk of the nut”). Mistletoe berries may have been “milk berries.” White rivers, white wells, white seas, etc., were “something more” than “white.” They contained certain virtues. The “whiteness” of a river or well might be due to stellar or lunar influence. “Wells of milk” were names of some Irish holy wells; there was at least one “milk lake.” The “milk” was not ordinary milk: the water was not ordinary water. Like the ancient Egyptians, the Hindus believed that the Ganges had its source in the sky, and they had a “Celestial Ganges” as the Egyptians had a “Celestial Nile.” In China a similar belief obtained in connection with the Yellow River. A sage who sails up the Yellow River reaches the “Milky Way,” and an oar of his boat falls from the sky and is afterwards exhibited in the palace of the famous Emperor Wu, who concerned himself greatly about discovering the elixir of life.

In the Pyramid Texts there is evidence to show that the solar and Osirian theologies were already in process of fusion. One view is that the Nile flowed from the subterranean cavern of Osiris.

Another view was that it had its source in the sky. Both views are combined in the allegorical lines: