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
It appears, therefore, that the Winwick monster, in this respect, is but
an apt illustration of ordinary mythological transference of attributes
or emblems, which in no way invalidates the more remote origin to which
I have ascribed it, or its connection with the totem or beast symbol of
the heathen warrior. The boar, indeed, has been a sacred symbol for ages
amongst the Aryan nations. Herodotus (b. 3, c. 59) says that the
Eginetæ, after defeating the Samians in a sea-fight, "cut off the prows
of their boats, which represented the figure of a boar, and dedicated
them in the temple of Minerva, in Egina."
The Rev. Sir G. W. Cox, in his "Introduction to Mythology and
Folk-Lore," referring to the Greek war god Arês, says--"In the Odyssey
his name is connected with Aphrodite, whose love he is said to have
obtained; but other traditions tell us that when she seemed to favour
Adonis, Arês changed himself into a boar, which slew the youth of whom
he was jealous."
The Mussulman's abhorrence of roast pork is well known. Amongst the
Turkomans of Central Asia (the ancient home of our Aryan ancestors) the
prowess of the living animal is likewise regarded with a strange
superstitious dread, evidently akin to some more ancient belief in the
supernatural attributes of the animal. Arminius Vámbéry, in his "Travels
in Central Asia" (having narrowly escaped serious injury from a wild
porcine assailant), informs us he was seriously assured by a Turkoman
friend that he might regard himself as very lucky, inasmuch as "death by
the wound of a wild boar would send even the most pious Mussulman nedgis
(unclean) into the next world, where a hundred years' burning in
purgatorial fire would not purge away his uncleanness."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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