The Mysteries of All Nations: Rise and Progress of Superstition, Laws Against and Trials of Witches, Ancient and Modern Delusions Together with Strange Customs, Fables, and TalesGrant, James (Archaeologist)
History
The Mysteries of All Nations: Rise and Progress of Superstition, Laws Against and Trials of Witches, Ancient and Modern Delusions Together with Strange Customs, Fables, and Tales
Grant, James (Archaeologist)
Occultism; Superstition; Trials (Witchcraft)
"The hunters, deeply impressed with what the fair one had said,
watched with something like impatience the appearance and
disappearance of moon after moon, till the thirteenth moon had come
and gone, and then they repaired to the spot where they were to
receive their reward. To their surprise, they found plants they did
not know, but which have been constantly cultivated ever since, to the
great advantage of man. Where the woman's right hand had rested, they
found maize; where her left hand had touched the ground, they
discovered beans; and where she had sat, tobacco grew luxuriantly."
We are accustomed to speak of the sun as "he," and of the moon as
"she," but in many other countries the former is considered to be
feminine, and the latter masculine. In Hindoo mythology the moon is a
male deity, and is represented as the son of the patriarch Atri, who
procreated him from his eyes; but by others it is said the moon arose
from the milk sea when it was churned by the gods to procure the
beverage of immortality. An old writer says that the sun supplies the
moon, when reduced by the draughts of the gods to a single ray; and in
the same proportion as the moon is exhausted by the celestials, it is
replenished by the sun, for the gods drink the nectar accumulated in
the moon during half the month; and from this being their food, they
are immortal. When the remaining portion of the moon consists but of a
fifteenth part, the Manes (infernal spirits, or inferior deities)
approach it in the afternoon, and drink the remaining portion of
nectar. And probably in this statement are to be found grounds for the
superstitious belief that the time when the moon is increasing is more
fortunate than when it is waning.
_Tuesday_ was so called from Tiwes-dœg, which signifies the day of
Tiw, or Tiu, a name for the old Saxon war god Tyr. Other names were
given to it by the Romans and Germans. It was called by the Romans
_Dies Martis, feria tertia_, from its having been dedicated to Mars.
Wormius, Marshall, and Sommes endeavour to prove that the day took its
name from Thisa or Desa, the goddess of justice, the wife of Thor.
Taking the views of any of the authors who have written on the
subject, it is plain that the day was named in honour of some
mythological deity. Tyr did not belong entirely to the Northern
mythology, but was known to the Germans as Ziu or Zio, and to
Anglo-Saxons as Tiv.
Tyr, it will be remembered, was single-handed. When the gods prevailed
on the wolf Fenrir to allow himself to be bound with the bandage
Gleipner, Tyr put his right hand into the wolf's mouth, as a pledge
that he would be loosened. The gods refused to liberate the wolf,
which in revenge bit off Tyr's hand. He and his enemy, the monster dog
Garmr, met their death in the twilight battle of the gods.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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