“Amongst the animals whose forms the corn-spirit is supposed to take, are the wolf, dog, hare, cock, goose, cat, goat, cow (ox), bull, pig, and horse.” (Idem, vol. ii. p. 1.) “Other animal forms assumed by the corn-spirit are the stag, roe, sheep, bear, ass, fox, mouse, stork, swan, and kite.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 33.)
Here we have pretty nearly all our list of animals, and the excrement of every one here mentioned has been and is used in the prescriptions of folk-medicine, excepting the excreta of the bear and swan.
“Remembering that in European folk-lore the pig is a common embodiment of the corn-spirit, we may now ask, May not the pig, which was so closely associated with Demeter, be nothing but the goddess herself in animal form? The pig was sacred to her; in art she was represented carrying or accompanied by a pig; and the pig was regularly sacrificed in her mysteries, the reason assigned being that the pig injures the corn, and is therefore an enemy of the goddess. But after an animal has been conceived as a god, or a god as an animal, it sometimes happens, as we have seen, that the god sloughs off his animal form, and becomes purely anthropomorphic; and that then the animal, which at first had been slain in the character of the god, comes to be the victim offered to the god, on the ground of its hostility to the deity; in short, that the god is sacrificed to himself, on the ground that he is his own enemy.... As men emerge from savagery, the tendency to anthropomorphize or humanize their divinities gains strength.”—(“The Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. i. p. 360.)
“A man would eat freely of what was regarded as the incarnation of the god of another man, but the incarnation of his own particular god he would consider it death to injure or eat. The god was supposed to avenge the insult by taking up his abode in that person’s body, and causing to generate there the very thing which he had eaten, until it produced death.”—(“Samoa,” Turner, p. 17.)
“The ram was Ammon himself. On the monuments, it is true, Ammon appears in semi-human form, with the body of a man, and the head of a ram. But this only shows that he was in the usual chrysalis state through which beast-gods regularly pass before they emerge as full-fledged anthropomorphic gods.”—(“The Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. ii. p. 93.)
“Each god has his favorite animal, which is dedicated to him, and serves him as messenger.”—(“Fetichism,” Baudin, p. 68.)
To write what may be designated the hagiology of animal life, as known to the ancients, would be impossible. Our knowledge is too fragmentary and too confused, from the inextricable blending of the ideas of different races and cults, due to the conquests by and the subversion of the Roman empire, when victor and vanquished reciprocally exchanged gods, or added to the attributes of the victorious deities those of the defeated.
Religion, in the last years of the Roman empire, was a kaleidoscopic jumble of the tenets and rituals of many races, adopting without caring to fully understand, whatever struck the fancy in the religion of their neighbors.
Hence it is impossible to demonstrate, what at first sight seemed to be an easy task, that the excreta of any particular animal was applied in the treatment of the diseases over which the god to whom the animal was assigned stood guard. We are not absolutely without light upon the subject,—just enough to discover that no animal was insignificant enough to be absolutely without adoration, but not sufficiently clear to define exactly what functions each quadruped or bird god exercised.
“The representation of the devil in the shape of a he-goat goes back to a remote antiquity. What can have given it such a vigorous growth among heretics and witches? The witches all imagine their master as a black he-goat, to whom, at festival-gatherings, they pay divine honors; conversely, the white goat atoned for and defeated diabolic influence.... In oaths and curses of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the he-goat apes the true god.” (Grimm, “Teutonic Mythology,” vol. iii. p. 395.) “The devil, in retiring, is compelled unawares to let his foot be seen.” (Idem, p. 994.) “A kobold (horse-sprite) is also horse-footed.... To the water-sprite, the whole or half of a horse’s figure is attributed.... That is why horses are sacrificed to rivers.... A British demon, Grant, ... shewed himself as a foal.... Loki changed himself into a mare.... The devil appears as a horse in the stories of Zeno and Brother Rausch.... In legends, black steeds fetch away the damned.... Next to the goat, ... the boar is a devil’s animal.” (Idem, pp. 994-996.) “A soul-snatching wolf, the devil was already to the fathers.” (Idem, p. 996.) “A canine conformation of the devil is supported by many authorities.” (Idem, p. 996.) “Foremost among birds comes the raven, whose form the devil is fond of assuming.” (Idem, p. 997.) “Within the last few centuries only I find the vulture put for the devil.... Still more frequently the cuckoo.” (Idem, p. 997.) “Another bird whose figure is assumed is the cock.” (Idem, p. 997), “When stag-beetles and dung-beetles are taken as devils, ... it gives assurance of a heathen point of view.”—(p. 999.)