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Talisman of the Jaina Kings.

CHAPTER THE SEVENTH.

MYTHIC HISTORY OF THE FLEUR-DE-LIS.

HE maypole is a phallos. The ribbons depending from the discus, or ring, through which the may

pole pierces, should be of the seven prismatic colours-those of the rainbow (or Règne-beau). According to the Gnostics and their Remains, Ancient and Modern, a work by the Rev. C. W. King, M.A., published in 1864, Horapollo has preserved a talisman, or Gnostic gem, in yellow jasper, which presents the engraved figure of a Cynocephalus, crowned, with bâton erect, adoring the first appearance of the new moon."

The phallic worship prevailed, at one time, all over India. It constitutes, as Mr. Sellon asserts, to this day one of the chief, if not the leading, dogmas of the Hindoo religion. Though it has degenerated into gross and sensual superstition, it was originally intended as the worship of the creative principle in Nature. Innumerable curious particulars lie scattered up and down, in all countries of the world, relating to this worship, mad as it seems-bad as, in its grossness, it is. It is only in modern times that sensuality, and not sublimity, has been actively associated with this worship, however. There was a time when the rites connected with it were grand and solemn enough. The general diffusion of these notions regarding the Phalli and the Ioni, and

ORIGIN OF THE FLEUR-DE-LIS.

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of the sacred mystic suggestions implied in both, as well as the inflections in design of these unlikely, repulsive figures for serious worship, prove that there was something very extraordinary, and quite beyond belief, in the origin of them. The religion of the Phallos (and of its twin emblem) is to be traced all over the East. It appears to be the earliest worship practised by man. It prevailed not only amongst the Hindoos, Assyrians, Babylonians, Mexicans, Etruscans, Greeks, and Romans, in ancient times, but it still forms an integral part of the worship of India, Thibet, China, Siam, Japan, and Africa. We cannot, therefore, afford to ignore this, when we discover it to be a religion so widely spread, and reappearing so unexpectedly, not only in the countries with which we are contemporaneously acquainted, but also in those old countries of which we in reality know very little, or nothing at all; for all history reads doubtfully.

In the Temple-Herren of Nicolai, there is an account of a Gnostic gem, or talisman, which represents a "Cynocephalus," with a lunar disc on his head, standing in the act of adoration, with sceptrum displayed, before a column engraved with letters, and supporting a triangle. This latter architectural figure is, in fact, an obelisk. The triangle symbolises one of the Pillars of Hermes (Hercules). The Cynocephalus was sacred to him. The Pillars of Hermes have been Judaised into Solomon's "Jachin and Boaz." So says Herz, in regard to "Masonic Insignia." We will explain something, later in our book, of these interesting sexual images, set up for adoration so strangely.

We now propose to deduce a very original and a very elaborate genealogy, or descent, of the famous arms of France, the Fleurs-de-Lis, "Lucifera," Lisses, Luces, "Lucies," Bees, Scarabs, Scara-bees, or Imperial "Bees" of Charlemagne, and of Napoleon the First and Napoleon the

Third, from a very extraordinary and (we will, in the fullest assurance, add) the most unexpected point of view. The real beginning of these inexpressibly sublime arms (or this "badge"), although in itself, and apart from its purpose, it is the most refined, but mysteriously grand, in the world, contradictory as it may seem, is also the most ignoble. It has been the crux of the antiquaries and of the heralds for centuries! We would rather be excused the mentioning of the peculiar item which has thus been held up to the highest honour (heraldically) throughout the world. It will be sufficient to say that mystically, in its theological, Gnostic allusion, it is the grandest device that armory ever saw; and those who are qualified to apprehend our hidden meaning will read correctly and perceive our end by the time that they have terminated this strange section of our history of Rosicrucianism for to it it refers particularly.

Scarabæi, Lucifera ("Light-bringers"), Luce, Fleur-deLis, Lily, Lucia, Lucy, Lux, Lu(+)x.

The Luce is the old-fashioned name for the "pike" or jack-a fish famous for the profuse generation of a certain insect, as some fishermen know full well. This once (incredible as it may seem) formed an object of worship, for the sake of the inexpressibly sublime things which it symbolised. Although so mean in itself, and although so far off, this implied the beginning of all sublunary things.

The bees of Charlemagne, the bees of the Empire in France, are "scarabs," or figures of the same affinity as the Bourbon "lilies." They deduce from a common ancestor. Now, the colour heraldic on which they are always emblazoned is azure, or blue-which is the colour of the sea, which is salt. In an anagram it may be expressed as C." Following on this allusion, we may say that "Ventre-saintgris !" is a very ancient French barbarous expletive, or oath.

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STRANGE MYTHS.

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Literally (which, in the occult sense, is always obscurely), it is the "Sacred blue (or gray) womb,”—which is absurd. Now, the reference and the meaning of this we will confidently commit to the penetration of those among our readers who can surmise it; and also the apparently circuitous deductions, which are yet to come, to be made by us.

Blue is the colour of the "Virgin Maria." Maria, Mary, mare, mar, mara, means the "bitterness," or the "saltness," of the sea. Blue is expressive of the Hellenic, Isidian, Ionian, Yonian (Yoni-Indian) Watery, Female, and Moonlike Principle in the universal theogony. It runs through all the mythologies.

The "Lady-Bird," or "Lady- Cow" (there is no resemblance between a bird and a cow, it may be remarked en passant, except in this strangely occult, almost ridiculous, affinity), and the rustic rhyme among the children concerning it, may be here remembered:

"Lady-Bird, Lady-Bird, fly away home!

Your House is on fire-your children at home!"

Such may be heard in all parts of England when a lady-bird is seen by the children. Myths are inextricably embodied -like specks and straws and flies in amber-amidst the sayings and rhymes of the common people in all countries; and they are there preserved for very many generations, reappearing to recognition after the lapse sometimes of centuries. Now, how do we explain and re-render the above rude couplet? The "Lady-Bird" is the "Virgin Maria," Isis, the "Mother and Producer of Nature;" the "House" is the "Ecliptic"-it is figuratively "on fire," or "of fire," in the path of the sun; and the "children at home” are the "months" produced in the house of the sun, or the solar year, or the "signs of the zodiac”—which were originally "ten," and not "twelve," each sign answering to one of the

letters of the primeval alphabet, which were in number "ten." Thus, re-read, the lines run:

"Lady-Bird, Lady-Bird" (Columba, or Dove), "fly away home! Your House is of Fire-your Children are Ten!"

The name of the flying insect called in England "LadyBird" is Bête-à-Dieu in French, which means "God-creature," or "God's creature." The Napoleonic green is the mythic, magic green of Venus. The Emerald is the Smaragdus, or Smaragd. The name of the insect Barnabee, Barnbee, "Burning Fire-Fly," whose house is of fire, whose children are ten, is Red Chafer, Rother-Kaefer, Sonnen-Kaefer, UnserFrawen Kohlein, in German; it is "Sun-Chafer," "Our Lady's Little Cow," Isis, or Io, or C-ow, in English. The children Tenne (Tin, or Tien, is fire in some languages) are the earliest "Ten Signs" in the Zodiacal Heavens-each "Sign" with its Ten Decans, or Decumens, or "Leaders of Hosts." They are also astronomically called "Stalls," or "Stables." We may here refer to Porphyry, Horapollo, and Chifflet's Gnostic Gems. The Speckled Beetle was flung into hot water to avert storms (Pliny, Nat. Hist. lib. xxxvii. ch. x.). The antiquary Pignorius has a beetle "crowned with the sun and encircled with the serpent." Amongst the Gnostic illustrations published by Abraham Gorlæus is that of a talisman of the more abstruse Gnostics-an onyx carved with a "beetle which threatens to gnaw at a thunderbolt." See Notes and Queries: "Bee Mythology."

The "Lilies" are said not to have appeared in the French arms until the time of Philip Augustus. See Montfauçon's Monumens de la Monarchie française, Paris, 1729. Also Jean-Jacques Chifflet, Anastasis de Childeric, 1655. See also Notes and Queries, 1856, London, zd Series, for some learned papers on the "Fleur-de-lis." In the early armorial