_Speck_ is the root of _speculum_, a mirror, and it might be suggested by the materialist that the first reflection in a metal mirror was assumed to be a spook. The mirror is an attribute of nearly every ancient Deity, and the British Druids seem to have had some system of flashing the sunlight on to the crowd by means of what was termed by the Bards, the Speculum of the Pervading Glance. _Specula_ means a watch-tower, and _spectrum_ means vision. _Speech, speak_, and _spoke_, point to the probability that speech was deemed to be the voice of the indwelling spook or spectre, which etymology is at any rate preferable to the official surmise "all, perhaps, from Teutonic base _sprek_--to make a noise". [Illustration: Fig. 68.--The Mirror of Thoth. From _The Correspondences of Egypt_ (Odhner, C.T.)] [Illustration: FIG. 69.] [Illustration: FIGS. 70 to 72.--British. From _English Coins and Tokens_ (Jewitt & Head).] [Illustration: FIG. 73.--From _The Correspondences of Egypt_ (Odhner, C. T.).] The Egyptian hieroglyph here illustrated depicts the speculum of Thoth, a deity whom the Phoenicians rendered Taut, and to whom they attributed the invention of the alphabet and all other arts. The whole land of Egypt was known among other designations as "the land of the Eye," and by the Egyptians as also by the Etrurians, the symbolic blue Eye of Horus was carried constantly as an amulet against bad luck. Fig. 69 is an Egyptian die-stamp, and Figs. 70 to 72 are British coins of which the intricate symbolism will be considered in due course. The arms of Fig. 73 are extended into the act of benediction, and _utat_, the Egyptian word for this symbol, resolves into the soft, gentle, pleasing, and propitious Tat. That the _utat_ or eye was familiar in Europe is evidenced by the Kio coin here illustrated. [Illustration: FIG. 74.--From _Numismatique Ancienne_ (Barthelemy, J. B. A. A.).] [Illustration: FIG. 75.--From _Symbolism of the East and West_ (Aynsley, Mrs. Murray).] _Spica_, which is also the same word as spook, meant ear of corn; the wheatear is proverbially the Staff of Life, and _loaf_, old English _loof_, is the same word as _life_. Not infrequently the _Bona Dea_ was represented holding a loaf in her extended hand, and the same idea was doubtless expressed by the two breasts upon a dish with which St. Agatha, whose name means _Good_, is represented. Christianity accounts for this curious emblem by a legend that St. Agatha was tortured by having her breasts cut off, and it is quite possible that this nasty tale is correctly translated; the original tyrant or torturer being probably Winter, or the reaper Death, which cuts short the fruit fulness of Spring. In the Tartar emblem herewith the Phrygian-capped Deity is holding, like St. Agatha, the symbol of the teat or feeder, or _fodder_.[278] [Illustration: FIGS. 76 and 77.--Iberian. From Akerman.]