A special peculiarity about amber is that when rubbed vigorously it attracts or lifts light articles. That is why it is called in Persian Kahruba (Kah, straw; ruba, to lift). This name appears in modern French as carabé (yellow amber). In Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese it is carabe. No doubt the early peoples, who gathered Adriatic and Baltic amber and distributed it and its lore far and wide, discovered this peculiar quality in the sacred substance. In Britain, jet was used in the same way as amber for luck charms and ornaments. Like amber it becomes negatively electric by friction. Bede appears to have believed that jet was possessed of special virtue. "When heated", he says, "it drives away serpents."[149] The Romans regarded jet as a depository of supernatural power[150] and used it for ornaments. Until comparatively recently jet was used in Scotland as a charm against witchcraft, the evil eye, &c. "A ring of hard black schistus found in a cairn in the parish of Inchinan", writes a local Scottish historian, "has performed, if we believe report, many astonishing cures."[151] Albertite, which, like jet and amber, attracts light articles when vigorously rubbed, was made into ornaments. It takes on a finer lustre than jet but loses it sooner.
The fact that jet, albertite, and other black substances were supposed to be specially efficacious for protecting black horses and cattle is of peculiar interest. Hathor, the cow goddess of Egypt, had a black as well as a white form as goddess of the night sky and death. She was the prototype of the black Aphrodite (Venus). In Scotland a black goddess (the nigra dea in Adamnan's Life of Columba) was associated with Loch Lochy.
The use of coral as a sacred substance did not begin in Britain until the knowledge of iron working was introduced. Coral is not found nearer than the Mediterranean. The people who first brought it to Britain must have received it and the beliefs attached to it from the Mediterranean area. Before reaching Britain they had begun to make imitation coral. The substitute was enamel, which required for its manufacture great skill and considerable knowledge, furnaces capable of generating an intense heat being necessary. It is inconceivable that so expensive a material could have been produced except for religious purposes. The warriors apparently believed that coral and its substitutes protected them as did amber and the boar symbol of the mother goddess.
At first red enamel was used as a substitute for red coral, but ultimately blue, yellow, and white enamels were produced. Sometimes we find, as at Traprain in Scotland, that silver took the place of white enamel. It is possible that blue enamel was a substitute for turquoise and lapis lazuli, the precious stones associated with the mother goddesses of Hathor type, and that yellow and white enamels were substitutes for yellow and white amber. The Greeks called white amber "electrum". The symbolism of gold and silver links closely with that of amber. Possibly the various sacred substances and their substitutes were supposed to protect different parts of the body. As much is suggested, for instance, by the lingering belief that amber protects and strengthens the eyes. The solar cult connected the ear and the ear-ring with the sun, which was one of the "eyes" of the world-deity, the other "eye" being the moon. When human ears were pierced, the blood drops were offered to the sun-god. Sailors of a past generation clung to the ancient notion that gold ear-rings exercised a beneficial influence on their eyes. Not only the colours of luck objects, but their shapes were supposed to ensure luck. The Swashtika symbol, the U-form, the S-form, and 8-form symbols, the spiral, the leaf-shaped and equal-limbed crosses, &c., were supposed to "attract" and "radiate" the influence of the deity. Thus Buddhists accumulate religious "merit" not only by fasting and praying, but by making collections of jewels and symbols.
In Britain, as in other countries, the deity was closely associated as an influence with law. A Roman inscription on a slab found at Carvoran refers to the mother goddess "poising life and laws in a balance". This was Ceres, whose worship had been introduced during the Roman period, but similar beliefs were attached to the ancient goddesses of Britain. Vows were taken over objects sacred to her, and sacred objects were used as mediums of exchange. In old Gaelic, for instance, a jewel or pearl was called a set; in modern Gaelic it is sed (pronounced shade). A set (pearl) was equal in value to an ounce of gold and to a cow. An ounce of gold was therefore a set and a cow was a set, too. Three sets was the value of a bondmaid. The value of three sets was one cumal. Another standard of value was a sack of corn (miach).[152]
The value attached to gold and pearls was originally magical. Jewels and precious metals were searched for for to bring wearers "luck"—that is, everything their hearts desired. The search for these promoted trade, and the sets were used as a standard of value between traders. Thus not only religious systems, but even the early systems of trade were closely connected with the persistent belief in luck and the deity who was the source of luck.[153]
CHAPTER XIV
The World of Our Ancestors
"All Heals"—Influences of Cardinal Points—The Four Red Divisions of the World—The Black North, White South, Purple East, and Dun or Pale East—Good and Bad Words connected with South and North—North the left, South the right, East in front, and West behind—Cardinal Points Doctrine in Burial Customs—Stone Circle Burials—Christian and Pagan Burial Rites—Sunwise Customs—Raising the Devil in Stone Circle—Coloured Winds—Coloured Stones raise Winds—The "God Body" and "Spirit Husk"—Deities and Cardinal Points—Axis of Stonehenge Avenue—God and Goddesses of Circle—Well Worship—Lore of Druids.
The ancient superstitions dealt with in the previous chapter afford us glimpses of the world in which our ancestors lived, and some idea of the incentives that caused them to undertake long and perilous journeys in search of articles of religious value. They were as greatly concerned as are their descendants about their health and their fate. Everything connected with the deity, or possessing, as was believed, the influence of the deity, was valuable as a charm or as medicine. The mistletoe berry was a famous medicine because it was the fruit of a parasite supposed to contain the "life substance" of a powerful deity. It was an "All Heal" or "Cure All",[154] yet it was a quack medicine and quite useless. Red earth was "blood earth"; it contained the animating principle too. Certain herbs were supposed to be curative. Some herbs were, and in the course of time their precise qualities were identified. But many of them continued in use, although quite useless, because of the colour of their berries, the shape of their leaves, or the position in which they grew. If one red-berried plant was "lucky" or curative, all red-berried plants shared in its reputation. It was because of the lore attached to colours that dusky pearls were preferred to white pearls, just as in Ceylon yellow pearls are chiefly favoured because yellow is the sacred colour of the Buddhists. Richard of Cirencester,[155] referring to Bede, says that British pearls are "often of the best kind and of every colour: that is, red, purple, violet, green, but principally white".