double disembodiment; they not only lost their bodies, but also that something between a body and a soul, which was set free and despatched to the nether regions by the burning of the body, or the performance of other regular sepulchral rites; and this dire condition they were destined to endure for a hundred years, or until the funeral rites were performed.

The ghosts rejected are th' unhappy crew
Depriv'd of sepulchres, and fun'ral due.
The boatman Charon; those the bury'd host,
He ferries over to the farther coast.

Nor dares his transport vessel cross the waves
With such whose bones are not compos'd in graves.
A hundred years they wander on the shore,
At length their penance done, are wafted o'er.'

The idea is related to that which gave rise amongst so many races to the destruction by fire or by dedication in the tomb, of food, clothing, arms, horses, slaves and wives, to serve the great departed in the land of shades: of which the Hindu suttee was one development. But associated with this was the realization of the diety as a hungry demon, the Devourer par excellence. Loki, the Scandinavian god of subterranean fire, was a great devourer, and was ready to challenge any other being, god or man, to an eating match, and he was met and beaten by Logi,

1 Dryden's "Virgil's 'Eneid,"" b. 6.

such it is

The older

the Scandinavian god of devouring fire,' assumed, as a prairie fire or forest fire. gods of the Greeks and Romans, Kronos and Saturn, were devouring gods who were not only pleased with perpetual sacrifices, but went to the length of devouring their own offspring; and even Zeus himself, of the later race of gods, once gave way to this devouring propensity when he swallowed his wife, Metis. Again Moloch, the great Phoenician god, was generally identified by the Greeks with Kronos, and he was essentially a hungry and blood-thirsty deity. Moloch has always been associated with fire, although perhaps strictly not a fire-god: he was worshipped, not only by victims being consumed in his presence, but even by their being thrown into his belly of fire : his image is described as of brass, hollow within, and with a head like a calf, and outstretched arms into which were thrown the victims, who sank down into the fire, which was kindled in the belly. The worship of this Phoenician god by these rites was wide-spread, and it was so well established as to be almost ineradicable, even under the strong denunciation of the Hebrew prophets, who inveighed against the passing of children through the fire to Moloch. This form of human sacrifice, if indeed it ever was subdued, smouldered on amongst the Hebrews, and again

Mallet's "Northern Antiquities,” 439.