Part 97 (1/2)

Their G.o.d Thor, son of the Supreme G.o.d Odin, and the G.o.ddess Freyga, had the hammer for his symbol. It was with this hammer that Thor crushed the head of the great Mitgard serpent, that he destroyed the giants, that he restored the dead goats to life, which drew his car, that he consecrated the pyre of Baldur. _This hammer was a cross._[346:2]

The cross of Thor is still used in Iceland as a magical sign in connection with storms of wind and rain.

King Olaf, Longfellow tells us, when keeping Christmas at Drontheim:

”O'er his drinking-horn, the sign He made of the Cross Divine, And he drank, and mutter'd his prayers; But the Berserks evermore Made the sign of the hammer of Thor Over theirs.”

Actually, they both made the same symbol.

This we are told by Snorro Sturleson, in the Heimskringla (Saga iv. c.

18), when he describes the sacrifice at Lade, at which King Hakon, Athelstan's foster-son, was present:

”Now when the first full goblet was filled, Earl Sigurd spoke some words over it, and blessed it in Odin's name, and drank to the king out of the horn; and the king then took it, and made the sign of the cross over it. Then said Kaare of Greyting, 'What does the king mean by doing so? will he not sacrifice?' But Earl Sigurd replied, 'The King is doing what all of you do who trust in your power and strength; for he is blessing the full goblet in the name of Thor, by making the sign of his hammer over it before he drinks it.”[346:3]

The cross was also a _sacred_ emblem among the _Laplanders_. ”In solemn sacrifices, all the Lapland idols were marked with it from the blood of the victims.”[346:4]

It was adored by the ancient _Druids_ of Britain, and is to be seen on the so-called ”fire towers” of Ireland and Scotland. The ”consecrated trees” of the Druids had a _cross beam_ attached to them, making the figure of a cross. On several of the most curious and most ancient monuments of Britain, the cross is to be seen, evidently cut thereon by the Druids. Many large stones throughout Ireland have these Druid crosses cut in them.[346:5]

Cleland observes, in his ”Attempt to Revive Celtic Literature,” that the Druids taught the doctrine of an overruling providence, and the immortality of the soul: that they had also their Lent, their Purgatory, their Paradise, their h.e.l.l, their Sanctuaries, and the similitude of the May-pole _in form to the cross_.[347:1]

”In the Island of I-com-kill, at the monastery of the Culdees, at the time of the Reformation, there were three hundred and sixty crosses.”[347:2] The Caaba at Mecca was surrounded by three hundred and sixty crosses.[347:3] This number has nothing whatever to do with Christianity, but is to be found everywhere among the ancients. It represents the number of days of the ancient year.[347:4]

When the Spanish missionaries first set foot upon the soil of _America_, in the fifteenth century, they were amazed to find that the _cross_ was as devoutly wors.h.i.+ped by the red Indians as by themselves. The hallowed symbol challenged their attention on every hand, and in almost every variety of form. And, what is still more remarkable, the cross was not only a.s.sociated with other objects corresponding in every particular with those delineated on Babylonian monuments; but it was also distinguished by the Catholic appellations, ”the tree of subsistence,”

”the wood of health,” ”the emblem of life,” &c.[347:5]

When the Spanish missionaries found that the cross was no new object of veneration to the red men, they were in doubt whether to ascribe the fact to the pious labors of St. Thomas, whom they thought might have found his way to America, or the sacrilegious subtlety of Satan. It was the central object in the great temple of Cozamel, and is still preserved on the _bas-reliefs_ of the ruined city of Palenque. From time immemorial it had received the prayers and sacrifices of the Aztecs and Toltecs, and was suspended as an august emblem from the walls of temples in Popogan and Cundinamarca.[347:6]

The ruined city of Palenque is in the depths of the forests of Central America. It was not inhabited at the time of the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards. They discovered the temples and palaces of Chiapa, but of Palenque they knew nothing. According to tradition it was founded by Votan in the ninth century before the Christian era. The princ.i.p.al building in this ruined city is the palace. A n.o.ble tower rises above the courtyard in the centre. In this building are several small temples or chapels, with altars standing. At the back of one of these altars is a slab of gypsum, on which are sculptured two figures, one on each side of a cross (Fig. No. 29). The cross is surrounded with rich feather-work, and ornamental chains.[348:1] ”The style of scripture,”

says Mr. Baring-Gould, ”and the accompanying hieroglyphic inscriptions, leave no room for doubting it to be a heathen representation.”[348:2]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. No. 29]

The same cross is represented on old pre-Mexican MSS., as in the Dresden Codex, and that in the possession of Herr Fejervary, at the end of which is a colossal cross, in the midst of which is represented a bleeding deity, and figures stand round a _Tau_ cross, upon which is perched the sacred bird.[348:3]

The cross was also used in the north of Mexico. It occurs among the Mixtecas and in Queredaro. Siguenza speaks of an Indian cross which was found in the cave of Mixteca Baja. Among the ruins on the island of Zaputero, in Lake Nicaragua, were also found old crosses reverenced by the Indians. White marble crosses were found on the island of St. Ulloa, on its discovery. In the state of Oaxaca, the Spaniards found that wooden crosses were erected as sacred symbols, so also in Aguatoleo, and among the Zapatecas. The cross was venerated as far as Florida on one side, and Cibola on the other. In South America, the same sign was considered symbolical and sacred. It was revered in Paraguay. In Peru the Incas honored a cross made out of a single piece of jasper; it was an emblem belonging to a former civilization.[348:4]

Among the Muyscas at c.u.mana the cross was regarded with devotion, and was believed to be endowed with power to drive away evil spirits; consequently new-born children were placed under the sign.[348:5]

The Toltecs said that their national deity Quetzalcoatle--whom we have found to be a virgin-born and crucified Saviour--had introduced the sign and ritual of the cross, and it was called the ”Tree of Nutriment,”

or ”Tree of Life.”[349:1]

Malcom, in his ”Antiquities of Britain,” says

”Gomara tells that St. Andrew's cross, which is the same with that of Burgundy, was in great veneration among the c.u.mas, in South America, and that they fortified themselves with the cross against the incursions of evil spirits, and were in use to put them upon new-born infants; which thing very justly deserves admiration.”[349:2]

Felix Cabrara, in his ”Description of the Ancient City of Mexico,” says:

”The adoration of the cross has been more general in the world, than that of any other emblem. It is to be found in the ruins of the fine city of Mexico, near Palenque, where there are many examples of it among the hieroglyphics on the buildings.”[349:3]

In ”Chambers's Encyclopaedia” we find the following: