On Some Ancient Battle-Fields in Lancashire: And Their Historical, Legendary, and Aesthetic Associations.Hardwick, Charles
History
On Some Ancient Battle-Fields in Lancashire: And Their Historical, Legendary, and Aesthetic Associations.
Hardwick, Charles
Battles -- England; Great Britain -- History -- Anglo-Saxon period, 449-1066; Lancashire (England) -- History
The crest is evidently one of the oldest, if not the oldest, forms in
which the beast symbol was displayed. The bronze Roman helmet, or rather
bust or head of Minerva, found at Ribchester, in 1796, had originally a
sphinx as a crest. This appendage, however, having become detached, has
since been lost. The gladiators' helmet decorations, in the pictures
found at Pompeii, are generally plumes or tufts of horsehair, but some
of their shields exhibit devices suggestive of those of more recent
date. The Roman historians, recording the events pertaining to the
great Cimbri-Teutonic invasion rather more than a century before the
Christian era, state that each of the fifteen thousand horsemen, which
formed the élite of the army of Bojorix, "bore upon his helmet the head
of some savage beast, with its mouth gaping wide."
Osman, the son of Ertoghrul, was the founder of the Turkish empire (A.D.
1288-1326). One writer (Pen. Cyc.) says--"The name Osman is of Arabic
origin (Othman), and signifies literally the bone-breaker; but it also
designates a species of large vulture, usually called the royal vulture,
and in this latter acceptation it was given to the son of Ertoghrul."
The Rev. Isaac Taylor, in his "Etruscan Researches," referring to the
origin of the tribal "totem" of the Asena horde, afterwards named Turks,
says--"It is not difficult to discover the genesis of the legend. It has
been already shown that the ancient Ugric word _sena_ meant a 'man.' The
analogy of a host of ancient tribe-names leaves little doubt that the
Asena simply called themselves 'the men.' This obvious etymology of the
name having in lapse of time become obscure by linguistic changes, the
word _schino_, a wolf, was assumed to be the true source of the national
appellation, and the myth came into existence as a means of accounting
for the name of the nation which proudly called itself the 'wolf-race,'
and bore the wolves' heads as its 'totem.'"
It is said the Kabyls tattoo figures of animals on their foreheads,
cheeks, nose, or temples, in order to distinguish their various tribes.
A similar practice obtains generally in central Africa and the Caroline
archipelago.
The plague, sent by Artemis to punish Æneus, who had neglected to offer
up to her a portion of a sacrifice, was a "monstrous boar," afterwards
slain by Meleagros, Atalanta, and others, in the famous Kalydonian hunt,
is evidently a Greek form of a mythical "monster, which in former ages
prowled over the neighbourhood, inflicting injury on man and beast."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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