But whereas Adonis, like Attis, grew into a
stately figure of mythology, adored and mourned in splendid cities
far beyond the limits of his Phoenician home, Linus appears to have
remained a simple ditty sung by reapers and vintagers among the
corn-sheaves and the vines. The analogy of Lityerses and of
folk-custom, both European and savage, suggests that in Phoenicia
the slain corn-spirit--the dead Adonis--may formerly have been
represented by a human victim; and this suggestion is possibly
supported by the Harran legend that Tammuz (Adonis) was slain by his
cruel lord, who ground his bones in a mill and scattered them to the
wind. For in Mexico, as we have seen, the human victim at harvest
was crushed between two stones; and both in Africa and India the
ashes or other remains of the victim were scattered over the fields.
But the Harran legend may be only a mythical way of expressing the
grinding of corn in the mill and the scattering of the seed. It
seems worth suggesting that the mock king who was annually killed at
the Babylonian festival of the Sacaea on the sixteenth day of the
month Lous may have represented Tammuz himself.
Pages:
1219
1220
1221
1222
1223
1224
1225
1226
1227
1228
1229
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236
1237
1238
1239
1240
1241
1242
1243