[474] Fish and doves were sacred to Derceto (Attar),[475] who had a mermaid form. "I have beheld", says Lucian, "the image of Derceto in Phoenicia. A marvellous spectacle it is. One half is a woman, but the part which extends from thighs to feet terminates with the tail of a fish.

Derceto was supposed to have been a woman who threw herself in despair into a lake. After death she was adored as a goddess and her worshippers abstained from eating fish, except sacrificially. A golden image of a fish was suspended in her temple. Atargatis, who was identical with Derceto, was reputed in another form of the legend to have been born of an egg which the sacred fishes found in the Euphrates and thrust ashore (p. 28).

The Greek Aphrodite was born of the froth of the sea and floated in a sea-shell.

The animals sacred to Aphrodite included the sparrow, the dove, the swan, the swallow, and the wryneck.[477] She presided over the month of April, and the myrtle, rose, poppy, and apple were sacred to her.

Some writers connect Semiramis, in her character as a dove goddess, with Media and the old Persian mother goddess Anaitis, and regard as arbitrary her identification with the fish goddess Derceto or Atargatis. The dove was certainly not a popular bird in the religious art of Babylonia and Assyria, but in one of the hymns translated by Professor Pinches Ishtar says, "Like a lonely dove I rest". In another the worshipper tries to touch Ishtar's heart by crying, "Like the dove I moan". A Sumerian psalmist makes a goddess (Gula, who presided over Larak, a part of Isin) lament over the city after it was captured by the enemy:

Apparently there were temple and household doves in Babylonia. The Egyptians had their household dovecots in ancient as in modern times. Lane makes reference to the large pigeon houses in many villages. They are of archaic pattern, "with the walls slightly inclining inwards (like many of the ancient Egyptian buildings)", and are "constructed upon the roofs of the huts with crude brick, pottery, and mud. Each pair of pigeons occupies a separate (earthen) pot.

"[479] It may be that the dove bulked more prominently in domestic than in official religion, and had a special seasonal significance. Ishtar appears to have had a dove form. In the Gilgamesh epic she is said to have loved the "brilliant Allalu bird" (the "bright-coloured wood pigeon", according to Sayce), and to have afterwards wounded it by breaking its wings. [480] She also loved the lion and the horse, and must therefore have assumed the forms of these animals.

Here the goddess appears to be identified with the doves which rest on the walls and make their nests in the shrine. The Sumerian poets did not adorn their poems with meaningless picturesque imagery; their images were stern facts; they had a magical or religious significance like the imagery of magical incantations; the worshipper invoked the deity by naming his or her various attributes, forms, &c.

Of special interest are the references in Sumerian psalms to the ravens as well as the doves of goddesses. Throughout Asia and Europe ravens are birds of ill omen. In Scotland there still linger curious folk beliefs regarding the appearance of ravens and doves after death. Michael Scott, the great magician, when on his deathbed told his friends to place his body on a hillock. "Three ravens and three doves would be seen flying towards it.

If the ravens were first the body was to be burned, but if the doves were first it was to receive Christian burial. The ravens were foremost, but in their hurry flew beyond their mark. So the devil, who had long been preparing a bed for Michael, was disappointed.

In Indian mythology Purusha, the chaos giant, first divided himself. "Hence were husband and wife produced." This couple then assumed various animal forms and thus "created every living pair whatsoever down to the ants".[482] Goddesses and fairies in the folk tales of many countries sometimes assume bird forms. The "Fates" appear to Damayanti in the Nala story as swans which carry love messages.[483]

According to Aryo-Indian belief, birds were "blessed with fecundity". The Babylonian Etana eagle and the Egyptian vulture, as has been indicated, were deities of fertility. Throughout Europe birds, which were "Fates", mated, according to popular belief, on St. Valentine's Day in February, when lots were drawn for wives by rural folks. Another form of the old custom is referred to by the poet Gay:--

The dove appears to have been a sacred bird in various areas occupied by tribes of the Mediterranean race. Models of a shrine found in two royal graves at Mycenae are surmounted by a pair of doves, suggesting twin goddesses like Isis and Nepthys of Egypt and Ishtar and Belitsheri of Babylonia. Doves and snakes were associated with the mother goddess of Crete, "typifying", according to one view, "her connection with air and earth. Although her character was distinctly beneficent and pacific, yet as Lady of the Wild Creatures she had a more fearful aspect, one that was often depicted on carved gems, where lions are her companions. "[484] Discussing the attributes and symbols of this mother goddess, Professor Burrows says: "As the serpent, coming from the crevices of the earth, shows the possession of the tree or pillar from the underworld, so the dove, with which this goddess is also associated, shows its possession from the world of the sky".

[485] Professor Robertson Smith has demonstrated that the dove was of great sanctity among the Semites. [486] It figures in Hittite sculptures and was probably connected with the goddess cult in Asia Minor.

Pigeons, as indicated, are in Egypt still regarded as sacred birds, and a few years ago British soldiers created a riot by shooting them. Doves were connected with the ancient Greek oracle at Dodona. In many countries the dove is closely associated with love, and also symbolizes innocence, gentleness, and holiness.

The pigeon was anciently, it would appear, a sacred bird in these islands, and Brand has recorded curious folk beliefs connected with it. In some districts the idea prevailed that no person could die on a bed which contained pigeon feathers: "If anybody be sick and lye a dying, if they lye upon pigeon feathers they will be languishing and never die, but be in pain and torment," wrote a correspondent. A similar superstition about the feathers of different varieties of wild fowl[488] obtained in other districts. Brand traced this interesting traditional belief in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Derbyshire, and some of the Welsh and Irish counties. [489] It still lingers in parts of the Scottish Highlands.

In the old ballad of "The Bloody Gardener" the white dove appears to a young man as the soul of his lady love who was murdered by his mother. He first saw the bird perched on his breast and then "sitting on a myrtle tree".

The dove was not only a symbol of Semiramis, but also of her mother Derceto, the Phoenician fish goddess. The connection between bird and fish may have been given an astral significance. In "Poor Robin's Almanack" for 1757 a St. Valentine rhyme begins:--

As we have seen, the example was set by the mating birds. The "Almanack" poet no doubt versified an old astrological belief: when the spring sun entered the sign of the Fishes, the love goddess in bird form returned to earth.

Advocates of the Totemic theory, on the other hand, may hold that the association of doves with snake goddesses and fish goddesses of fertility was due to the fusion of tribes who had various animal totems. "The Pelew Islanders believed", says Professor Frazer, "that the souls of their forefathers lived in certain species of animals, which accordingly they held sacred and would not injure. For this reason one man would not kill snakes, another would not harm pigeons, and so on; but everyone was quite ready to kill and eat the sacred animals of his neighbours. "[491] That the Egyptians had similar customs is suggested by what Herodotus tells us regarding their sacred animals: "Those who live near Thebes and the lake Moeris hold the crocodile in religious veneration. Those who live in or near Elephantine, so far from considering these beasts as sacred, make them an article of food.

The hippopotamus is esteemed sacred in the district of Papremis, but in no other part of Egypt. They roast and boil . birds and fishes . excepting those which are preserved for sacred purposes. "[492] Totemic animals controlled the destinies of tribes and families.

"Grose tells us", says Brand, "that, besides general notices of death, many families have particular warnings or notices: some by the appearance of a bird, and others by the figure of a tall woman, dressed all in white. Pennant says that many of the great families in Scotland had their demon or genius, who gave them monitions of future events. "[493] Members of tribes which venerated the pigeon therefore invoked it like the Egyptian love poet and drew omens from its notes, or saw one appearing as the soul of the dead like the lover in the ballad of "The Bloody Gardener". They refrained also from killing the pigeon except sacrificially, and suffered agonies on a deathbed which contained pigeon feathers, the "taboo" having been broken.

Some such explanation is necessary to account for the specialization of certain goddesses as fish, snake, cat, or bird deities. Aphrodite, who like Ishtar absorbed the attributes of several goddesses of fertility and fate, had attached to her the various animal symbols which were prominent in districts or among tribes brought into close contact, while the poppy, rose, myrtle, &c., which were used as love charms, or for making love potions, were also consecrated to her. Anthropomorphic deities were decorated with the symbols and flowers of folk religion.

From the comparative evidence accumulated here, it will be seen that the theory of the mythical Semiramis's Median or Persian origin is somewhat narrow. It is possible that the dove was venerated in Cyprus, as it certainly was in Crete, long centuries before Assyrian and Babylonian influence filtered westward through Phoenician and Hittite channels. In another connection Sir Arthur Evans shows that the resemblance between Cretan and early Semitic beliefs "points rather to some remote common element, the nature of which is at present obscure, than to any definite borrowing by one side or another".[494]

From the evidence afforded by the Semiramis legends and the inscriptions of the latter half of the Assyrian Middle Empire period, it may be inferred that a renascence of "mother worship" was favoured by the social and political changes which were taking place. In the first place the influence of Babylon must have been strongly felt in this connection. The fact that Adadnirari found it necessary to win the support of the Babylonians by proclaiming his descent from one of their ancient royal families, suggests that he was not only concerned about the attitude assumed by the scholars of the southern kingdom, but also that of the masses of old Sumerian and Akkadian stocks who continued to bake cakes to the Queen of Heaven so as to ensure good harvests. In the second place it is not improbable that even in Assyria the introduction of Nebo and his spouse made widespread appeal. That country had become largely peopled by an alien population; many of these aliens came from districts where "mother worship" prevailed, and had no traditional respect for Ashur, while they regarded with hostility the military aristocracy who conquered and ruled in the name of that dreaded deity.