The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 04 of 12)

Similarly the other tales of the slaughter of the dragon may be mythical descriptions of the changes of the seasons.

In other countries a similar myth might, with appropriate variations of detail, express in like manner the passage of one season into another. For example, in more rigorous climates the dragon might stand for the dreary winter and the dragon-slayer for the genial summer. The myths of Apollo and the Python, of St. George and the Dragon have thus been interpreted as symbolising the victory of summer over winter.334 Similarly it has been held with much probability that the Babylonian legend of Marduk and Tiamat reflects the annual change which transforms the valley of the Euphrates in spring. During the winter the wide Babylonian plain, flooded by the heavy rains, looks like a sea, for which the Babylonian word is tiamtu, tiamat. Then comes the spring, when with the growing power of the sun the clouds vanish, the waters subside, and dry land and vegetation appear once more. On this hypothesis the dragon Tiamat represents the clouds, the rain, the floods of winter, while Marduk stands for the vernal or summer sun which dispels the powers of darkness and moisture.335

The cosmogonical significance of the Babylonian myth may have been an after-thought, the early philosophers picturing the creation of the world on the analogy of the change from winter to summer.

But if the combat of Marduk and Tiamat was primarily a mythical description of the Babylonian spring, it would seem that its cosmogonical significance as an account of creation must have been an after-thought. The early philosophers who meditated on the origin of things may have pictured to themselves the creation or evolution of the world on the analogy of the great changes which outside the tropics pass over the face of nature every year. In these changes it is not hard to discern or to imagine a conflict between two hostile forces or principles, the principle of construction or of life and the principle of destruction or of death, victory inclining now to the one and now to the other, according as winter yields to spring or summer fades into autumn. It would be natural enough to suppose that the same mighty rivals which still wage war on each other had done so from the beginning, and that the formation of the universe as it now exists had resulted from the shock of their battle. On this theory the creation of the world is repeated every spring, and its dissolution is threatened every autumn: the one is proclaimed by summer's gay heralds, the opening flowers; the other is whispered by winter's sad harbingers, the yellow leaves. Here as elsewhere the old creed is echoed by the poet's fancy: —

“Non alios prima crescentis origine mundiInluxisse dies aliumve habuisse tenoremCrediderim: ver illud erat, ver magnus agebatOrbis, et hibernis parcebant flatibus Euri:Cum primae lucem pecudes hausere, virumqueFerrea progenies duris caput extulit arvis,Inmissaeque ferae silvis et sidera caelo.”336

Thus ceremonies intended to hasten the departure of winter are in a sense attempts to repeat the creation of the world.

Thus the ceremonies which in many lands have been performed to hasten the departure of winter or stay the flight of summer are in a sense attempts to create the world afresh, to “re-mould it nearer to the Heart's desire.” But if we would set ourselves at the point of view of the old sages who devised means so feeble to accomplish a purpose so immeasurably vast, we must divest ourselves of our modern conceptions of the immensity of the universe and of the pettiness and insignificance of man's place in it. We must imagine the infinitude of space shrunk to a few miles, the infinitude of time contracted to a few generations. To the savage the mountains that bound the visible horizon, or the sea that stretches away to meet it, is the world's end. Beyond these narrow limits his feet have never strayed, and even his imagination fails to conceive what lies across the waste of waters or the far blue hills. Of the future he hardly thinks, and of the past he knows only what has been handed down to him by word of mouth from his savage forefathers. To suppose that a world thus circumscribed in space and time was created by the efforts or the fiat of a being like himself imposes no great strain on his credulity; and he may without much difficulty imagine that he himself can annually repeat the work of creation by his charms and incantations. And once a horde of savages had instituted magical ceremonies for the renewal or preservation of all things, the force of custom and tradition would tend to maintain them in practice long after the old narrow ideas of the universe had been superseded by more adequate conceptions, and the tribe had expanded into a nation.

In Babylon and India the myth of the slaughter of the dragon may have been acted as a magical ceremony to hasten the advent of summer or of the rainy season. New-year festival of Zagmuk at Babylon.

Neither in Babylonia nor in India, indeed, so far as I am aware, is there any direct evidence that the story of the Slaughter of the Dragon was ever acted as a miracle-play or magical rite for the sake of bringing about those natural events which it describes in figurative language. But analogy leads us to conjecture that in both countries the myth may have been recited, if not acted, as an incantation, for the purpose I have indicated. At Babylon the recitation may have formed part of the great New Year festival of Marduk, which under the name of Zagmuk was celebrated with great pomp about the vernal equinox.337 In this connexion it may not be without significance that one version of the Babylonian legend of creation has been found inscribed on a tablet, of which the reverse exhibits an incantation intended to be recited for the purification of the temple of E-zida in Borsippa.338 Now E-zida was the temple of Nabu or Nebo, a god closely associated, if not originally identical, with Marduk; indeed Hammurabi, the great king of Babylon, dedicated the temple in question to Marduk and not to Nabu.339 It seems not improbable, therefore, that the creation legend, in which Marduk played so important a part, was recited as an incantation at the purification of the temple E-zida. The ceremony perhaps took place at the Zagmuk festival, when the image of Nabu was solemnly brought in procession from his temple in Borsippa to the great temple of Marduk in Babylon.340 Moreover, it was believed that at this great festival the fates were determined by Marduk or Nabu for the ensuing year.341 Now, the creation myth relates how, after he had slain the dragon, Marduk wrested the tablets of destiny from Ningu, the paramour of Tiamat, sealed them with a seal, and laid them on his breast.342 We may conjecture that the dramatic representation of this incident formed part of the annual determination of the fates at Zagmuk. In short, it seems probable that the whole myth of creation was annually recited and acted at this great spring festival as a charm to dispel the storms and floods of winter, and to hasten the coming of summer.343

Part played by the king in the drama of the Slaughter of the Dragon.

Wherever sacred dramas of this sort were acted as magical rites for the regulation of the seasons, it would be natural that the chief part should be played by the king, at first in his character of head magician, and afterwards as representative and embodiment of the beneficent god who vanquishes the powers of evil. If, therefore, the myth of the Slaughter of the Dragon was ever acted with this intention, the king would appropriately figure in the play as the victorious champion, while the defeated monster would be represented by an actor of inferior rank. But it is possible that under certain circumstances the distribution of parts in the drama might be somewhat different. Where the tenure of the regal office was limited to a fixed time, at the end of which the king was inexorably put to death, the fatal part of the dragon might be assigned to the monarch as the representative of the old order, the old year, or the old cycle which was passing away, while the part of the victorious god or hero might be supported by his successor and executioner.

Suggested reconciliation of the totemic with the cosmological interpretation of the Slaughter of the Dragon.

An hypothesis of this latter sort would to a certain extent reconcile the two apparently discrepant interpretations of the myth which have been discussed in the preceding pages, and which for the sake of distinction may be called the totemic and the cosmological interpretations respectively. The serpent or dragon might be the sacred animal or totem of the royal house at the same time that it stood mythically for certain cosmological phenomena, whether moisture or drought, cold or heat, winter or summer. In like manner any other species of animal which served as the totem of the royal family might simultaneously possess a cosmological significance as the symbol of an elemental power. Thus at Cnossus, as we have seen reason to think, the bull was at once the king's crest and an emblem of the sun. Similarly in Egypt the hawk was the symbol both of the sun and of the king. The oldest royal capital known to us was Hieraconpolis or Hawk-town, and the first Egyptian king of whom we hear had for his only royal title the name of hawk.344 At the same time the hawk was with the Egyptians an emblem of the sun.345 Hawks were kept in the sun-god's temple, and the deity himself was commonly represented in art as a man with a hawk's head and the disc of the sun above it.346 However, I am fully sensible of the slipperiness and uncertainty of the ground I am treading, and it is with great diffidence that I submit these speculations to the judgment of my readers. The subject of ancient mythology is involved in dense mists which it is not always possible to penetrate and illumine even with the lamp of the Comparative Method. Demonstration in such matters is rarely, if ever, attainable; the utmost that a candid enquirer can claim for his conclusions is a reasonable degree of probability. Future researches may clear up the obscurity which still rests on the myth of the Slaughter of the Dragon, and may thereby ascertain what measure of truth, if any, there is in the suggested interpretations.

§ 7. Triennial Tenure of the Kingship

In the province of Lagos, which forms part of Southern Nigeria, the Ijebu tribe of the Yoruba race is divided into two branches, which are known respectively as the Ijebu Ode and the Ijebu Remon. The Ode branch of the tribe is ruled by a chief who bears the title of Awujale and is surrounded by a great deal of mystery. Down to recent times his face might not be seen even by his own subjects, and if circumstances obliged him to communicate with them he did so through a screen which hid him from view. The other or Remon branch of the Ijebu tribe is governed by a chief, who ranks below the Awujale. Mr. John Parkinson was informed that in former times this subordinate chief used to be killed with ceremony after a rule of three years. As the country is now under British protection the custom of putting the chief to death at the end of a three years' reign has long been abolished, and Mr. Parkinson was unable to ascertain any particulars on the subject.347

§ 8. Annual Tenure of the Kingship

Evidence of an annual tenure of the kingship at Babylon. Further, it would seem that in very early times the kings of Babylon were put to death at the end of a year's reign. The mock king put to death at the festival of the Sacaea was probably a substitute for the real king.

At Babylon, within historical times, the tenure of the kingly office was in practice lifelong, yet in theory it would seem to have been merely annual. For every year at the festival of Zagmuk the king had to renew his power by seizing the hands of the image of Marduk in his great temple of Esagil at Babylon. Even when Babylon passed under the power of Assyria, the monarchs of that country were expected to legalise their claim to the throne every year by coming to Babylon and performing the ancient ceremony at the New-year festival, and some of them found the obligation so burdensome that rather than discharge it they renounced the title of king altogether and contented themselves with the humbler one of Governor.348 Further, it would appear that in remote times, though not within the historical period, the kings of Babylon or their barbarous predecessors forfeited not merely their crown but their life at the end of a year's tenure of office. At least this is the conclusion to which the following evidence seems to point. According to the historian Berosus, who as a Babylonian priest spoke with ample knowledge, there was annually celebrated in Babylon a festival called the Sacaea. It began on the sixteenth day of the month Lous, and lasted for five days. During these five days masters and servants changed places, the servants giving orders and the masters obeying them. A prisoner condemned to death was dressed in the king's robes, seated on the king's throne, allowed to issue whatever commands he pleased, to eat, drink, and enjoy himself, and to lie with the king's concubines. But at the end of the five days he was stripped of his royal robes, scourged, and hanged or impaled. During his brief term of office he bore the title of Zoganes.349 This custom might perhaps have been explained as merely a grim jest perpetrated in a season of jollity at the expense of an unhappy criminal. But one circumstance – the leave given to the mock king to enjoy the king's concubines – is decisive against this interpretation. Considering the jealous seclusion of an oriental despot's harem we may be quite certain that permission to invade it would never have been granted by the despot, least of all to a condemned criminal, except for the very gravest cause. This cause could hardly be other than that the condemned man was about to die in the king's stead, and that to make the substitution perfect it was necessary he should enjoy the full rights of royalty during his brief reign. There is nothing surprising in this substitution. The rule that the king must be put to death either on the appearance of any symptom of bodily decay or at the end of a fixed period is certainly one which, sooner or later, the kings would seek to abolish or modify. We have seen that in Ethiopia, Sofala, and Eyeo the rule was boldly set aside by enlightened monarchs; and that in Calicut the old custom of killing the king at the end of twelve years was changed into a permission granted to any one at the end of the twelve years' period to attack the king, and, in the event of killing him, to reign in his stead; though, as the king took care at these times to be surrounded by his guards, the permission was little more than a form. Another way of modifying the stern old rule is seen in the Babylonian custom just described. When the time drew near for the king to be put to death (in Babylon this appears to have been at the end of a single year's reign) he abdicated for a few days, during which a temporary king reigned and suffered in his stead. At first the temporary king may have been an innocent person, possibly a member of the king's own family; but with the growth of civilisation the sacrifice of an innocent person would be revolting to the public sentiment, and accordingly a condemned criminal would be invested with the brief and fatal sovereignty. In the sequel we shall find other examples of a dying criminal representing a dying god. For we must not forget that, as the case of the Shilluk kings clearly shews,350 the king is slain in his character of a god or a demigod, his death and resurrection, as the only means of perpetuating the divine life unimpaired, being deemed necessary for the salvation of his people and the world.

The festival of the Sacaea was perhaps identical with Zagmuk. Festival of Zagmuk in Assyria. Trace of an annual tenure of the kingship in Assyria.

If at Babylon before the dawn of history the king himself used to be slain at the festival of the Sacaea, it is natural to suppose that the Sacaea was no other than Zagmuk or Zakmuk, the great New-year festival at which down to historical times the king's power had to be formally renewed by a religious ceremony in the temple of Marduk. The theory of the identity of the festivals is indeed strongly supported by many considerations and has been accepted by some eminent scholars,351 but it has to encounter a serious chronological difficulty, since Zagmuk fell about the equinox in spring, whereas the Sacaea according to Berosus was held on the sixteenth of the month Lous, which was the tenth month of the Syro-Macedonian calendar and appears to have nearly coincided with July. The question of the sameness or difference of these festivals will be discussed later on.352 Here it is to be observed that Zagmuk was apparently celebrated in Assyria as well as in Babylonia. For at the end of his great inscription Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, expresses a wish that it may be granted to him to muster all his riding-horses and so forth every year at Zagmuk in his palace.353 But whether the power of the Assyrian kings had, like that of the Babylonian monarchs, to be annually renewed at this festival, we do not know. However, a trace of an annual tenure of the kingly office in Assyria may perhaps, as Dr. C. Brockelmann thinks,354 be detected in the rule that an Assyrian king regularly gave his name only to a single year of his reign, while all the other years were named after certain officers and provincial governors, about thirty in number, who were appointed for this purpose and succeeded each other according to a fixed rotation.355 But we know too little about the institution of the limu or eponymate to allow us to press this argument for an annual tenure of the kingship in Assyria.356 A reminiscence of Zagmuk seems to linger in the belief of the Yezidis that on New-year's day God sits on his throne arranging the decrees for the coming year, assigning to dignitaries their various offices, and delivering to them their credentials under his signature and seal.357

Slaves sacrificed instead of their masters in West Africa.

The view that at Babylon the condemned prisoner who wore the royal robes was slain as a substitute for the king may be supported by the practice of West Africa, where at the funeral of a king slaves used sometimes to be dressed up as ministers of state and then sacrificed in that character instead of the real ministers, their masters, who purchased for a sum of money the privilege of thus dying by proxy. Such vicarious sacrifices were witnessed by Catholic missionaries at Porto Novo on the Slave Coast.358

Trace of custom of killing the kings of Hawaii at the end of a year's reign.

A vestige of a practice of putting the king to death at the end of a year's reign appears to have survived in the festival called Macahity, which used to be celebrated in Hawaii during the last month of the year. About a hundred years ago a Russian voyager described the custom as follows: “The taboo Macahity is not unlike to our festival of Christmas. It continues a whole month, during which the people amuse themselves with dances, plays, and sham-fights of every kind. The king must open this festival wherever he is. On this occasion his majesty dresses himself in his richest cloak and helmet, and is paddled in a canoe along the shore, followed sometimes by many of his subjects. He embarks early, and must finish his excursion at sun-rise. The strongest and most expert of the warriors is chosen to receive him on his landing. This warrior watches the canoe along the beach; and as soon as the king lands, and has thrown off his cloak, he darts his spear at him, from a distance of about thirty paces, and the king must either catch the spear in his hand, or suffer from it: there is no jesting in the business. Having caught it, he carries it under his arm, with the sharp end downwards, into the temple or heavoo. On his entrance, the assembled multitude begin their sham-fights, and immediately the air is obscured by clouds of spears, made for the occasion with blunted ends. Hamamea [the king] has been frequently advised to abolish this ridiculous ceremony, in which he risks his life every year; but to no effect. His answer always is, that he is as able to catch a spear as any one on the island is to throw it at him. During the Macahity, all punishments are remitted throughout the country; and no person can leave the place in which he commences these holidays, let the affair be ever so important.”359

§ 9. Diurnal Tenure of the Kingship

The reign and life of the king limited to a single day in Ngoio, a province of Congo.

That a king should regularly have been put to death at the close of a year's reign will hardly appear improbable when we learn that to this day there is still a kingdom in which the reign and the life of the sovereign are limited to a single day. In Ngoio, a province of the ancient kingdom of Congo in West Africa, the rule obtains that the chief who assumes the cap of sovereignty is always killed on the night after his coronation. The right of succession lies with the chief of the Musurongo; but we need not wonder that he does not exercise it, and that the throne stands vacant. “No one likes to lose his life for a few hours' glory on the Ngoio throne.”360

Chapter III. The Slaying Of The King In Legend

Reminiscences of a custom of regicide in popular tales. Story how Lancelot came to a city where the king had to perish in the fire on New Year's Day.

If a custom of putting kings to death at the end of a set term has prevailed in many lands, it is natural enough that reminiscences of it should survive in tradition long after the custom itself has been abolished. In the High History of the Holy Graal we read how Lancelot roamed through strange lands and forests seeking adventures till he came to a fair and wide plain lying without a city that seemed of right great lordship. As he rode across the plain the people came forth from the city to welcome him with the sound of flutes and viols and many instruments of music. When he asked them what meant all this joy, “ ‘Sir,’ said they, ‘all this joy is made along of you, and all these instruments of music are moved to joy and sound of gladness for your coming.’ ‘But wherefore for me?’ saith Lancelot. ‘That shall you know well betimes,’ say they. ‘This city began to burn and to melt in one of the houses from the very same hour that our king was dead, nor might the fire be quenched, nor ever will be quenched until such time as we have a king that shall be lord of the city and of the honour thereunto belonging, and on New Year's Day behoveth him to be crowned in the midst of the fire, and then shall the fire be quenched, for otherwise may it never be put out nor extinguished. Wherefore have we come to meet you to give you the royalty, for we have been told that you are a good knight.’ ‘Lords,’ saith Lancelot, ‘of such a kingdom have I no need, and God defend me from it.’ ‘Sir,’ say they, ‘you may not be defended thereof, for you come into this land at hazard, and great grief would it be that so good a land as you see this is were burnt and melted away by the default of one single man, and the lordship is right great, and this will be right great worship to yourself, that on New Year's Day you should be crowned in the fire and thus save this city and this great people, and thereof shall you have great praise.’ Much marvelleth Lancelot of this that they say. They come round about him on all sides and lead him into the city. The ladies and damsels are mounted to the windows of the great houses and make great joy, and say the one to another, ‘Look at the new king here that they are leading in. Now will he quench the fire on New Year's Day.’ ‘Lord!’ say the most part, ‘what great pity is it of so comely a knight that he shall end on such-wise!’ ‘Be still!’ say the others. ‘Rather should there be great joy that so fair city as is this should be saved by his death, for prayer will be made throughout all the kingdom for his soul for ever!’ Therewith they lead him to the palace with right great joy and say that they will crown him. Lancelot found the palace all strown with rushes and hung about with curtains of rich cloths of silk, and the lords of the city all apparelled to do him homage. But he refuseth right stoutly, and saith that their king nor their lord will he never be in no such sort. Thereupon behold you a dwarf that entereth into the city, leading one of the fairest dames that be in any kingdom, and asketh whereof this joy and this murmuring may be. They tell him they are fain to make the knight king, but that he is not minded to allow them, and they tell him the whole manner of the fire. The dwarf and the damsel are alighted, then they mount up to the palace. The dwarf calleth the provosts of the city and the greater lords. ‘Lords,’ saith he, ‘sith that this knight is not willing to be king, I will be so willingly, and I will govern the city at your pleasure and do whatsoever you have devised to do.’ ‘In faith, sith that the knight refuseth this honour and you desire to have it, willingly will we grant it you, and he may go his way and his road, for herein do we declare him wholly quit.’ Therewithal they set the crown on the dwarf's head, and Lancelot maketh great joy thereof. He taketh his leave, and they commend him to God, and so remounteth he on his horse and goeth his way through the midst of the city all armed. The dames and damsels say that he would not be king for that he had no mind to die so soon.”361