The Goat.
The goat is another animal to which mystic powers are attributed. In the mythology of the West he is associated with Dionysos, Pan, and the Satyr. In England it is commonly believed that he is never seen for twenty-four hours together, and that once in this space he pays a visit to the Devil to have his beard combed.[64] The Devil, they say, sometimes appears in this form, which accounts for his horns and tail. The wild goat was associated with the worship of Artemis, the Arab unmarried goddess.[65] In the Râmâyana, Agamukhî, or “goat’s face,” is the witch who wishes Sîtâ to be torn to pieces.
Mr. Conway asks whether this idea about the goat is due to the smell of the animal, its butting and injury to plants, or was it demonized merely because of its uncanny and shaggy appearance?[66] Probably the chief reason is because it has a curious habit of occasionally shivering, which is regarded as caused by some indwelling spirit. The Thags in their sacrifice used to select two goats, black, and perfect in all their parts. They were bathed and made to face the west, and if they shook themselves and threw the water off their hair, they were regarded as a sacrifice acceptable to Devî. Hence in India a goat is led along a disputed boundary, and the place where it shivers is regarded as the proper line. Plutarch says that the Greeks would not sacrifice a goat if it did not shiver when water was thrown over it.
In the Panjâb it is believed that when a goat kills a snake it eats it and then ruminates, after which it spits out a Manka or bead, which, when applied to a snake-bite, absorbs the poison and swells. If it be then put in milk and squeezed, the poison drips out of it like blood, and the patient is cured. If it is not put in milk, it will burst to pieces.[67] It hence resembles the Ovum Anguinum, or Druid’s Egg, to which reference has been already made.[68] If a person suffers from spleen, they take the spleen of a he-goat, if the patient be a male; or of a she-goat, if the patient be a female. It is rubbed on the region of the spleen seven times on a Sunday or Tuesday, pierced with acacia thorns and hung on a tree. As the goat’s spleen dries, the spleen of the patient reduces.
The horn is regarded as somehow most closely connected with the brain. So, in the “Merry Wives of Windsor,” Mrs. Quickly says: “If he had found the young man, he would have been horn mad,” and Horace gives the advice, “Fenum habet in cornu longe fuge.” Martial describes how in his time the Roman shrines were covered with horns, Dissimulatque deum cornibus ora frequens.[69]
It is for this reason that the local shrines in the Himâlaya are decorated with horns of the wild sheep, ibex, and goat. In Persia many houses are adorned with rams’ heads fixed to the corners near the roof, which are to protect the building from misfortune. In Bilochistân and Afghanistân it is customary to place the horns of the wild goat and sheep on the walls of forts and mosques.[70] Akbar covered his Kos Minars or mile-stones with the horns of the deer he had killed. The conical support of the Banjâra woman’s head-dress was originally a horn, and many classes of Faqîrs tie a piece of horn round their necks. We have the well-known horn of plenty, and it is very common in the folk-tales to find objects taken out of the ears or horns of the helpful animals.[71]