Servius, in commenting on Virgil’s mystical fan of Bacchus, (‘mystica vannus Iacchi,’ Georg. i. 166) affirms that the sacred rites of Bacchus pertained to the purification of souls; in Assyria, also, it was introduced in the ceremonies connected with the worship of Bacchus and became a sacred emblem.[10] This instrument, carried at the Dionysia or festivals in honour of Bacchus, was called Lichnon (Λίχνον), and was so essential to the solemnities of this god, that they could not be duly celebrated without it. So also Osiris, when judge of Amenti, holds in his crossed hands the crook and flagellum, the mystical vannus—‘whose fan is in his hand,’[11] each of these instances having reference to the generative principle, and the improvement of the world by tillage.
The passage in Jeremiah xiii. 24, ‘Therefore will I scatter them as the stubble that passeth away by the wind of the wilderness,’ suggested the proud motto of the Kentish family of Septvans (Setvans):
‘Dissipabo inimicos Regis mei ut paleam.’
‘The enemies of my king will I disperse like chaff.’[12]
On the brass of Sir Robert de Septvans, 1306, Chartham, Kent, the knight’s shield and aillettes upon the shoulders are charged with the winnowing-fans from which he takes his name, and small fans are embroidered upon his surcoat. In the Lansdowne MSS. 855 B.M., the arms are thus given: ‘Sir robt de sevens dazur e iij vans dor.’
The Greeks named ῥιπίς the large flat instrument which was used to fan the fire: the diminutive ῥιπίδιον was applied to objects of similar form in ordinary use amongst both sexes for the purpose of fanning as well as to drive away the flies. Indeed the use of the fan as bellows
appears to have been practically universal, and to have dated from a very early period of the world’s history.
The employment of these instruments, as well as the forms which they assumed, is continued even to the present day:[13] in the Republic of Colombia, where fans are employed as much by men as by women, the kitchen of every hut and house throughout the country is provided with a fan in lieu of bellows, rectangular in form, albeit broader at the outside than at the short handle, and about 12 inches by 9 inches in size: These are formed of the young inside leaf of the cabbage-palm, the handle and back being the rib of the leaf, the fan portion being the fronds of the leaf plaited.