Aradia

Gospel Of The Witches

it up, and looked at it by the light of the moon, he saw that it was a human head, half decayed.

Another priest, who had heard his cry of terror, entered his room, and having looked at the head, said, I know that face! It is of a man whom I confessed, and who was beheaded three months ago at Siena.

And three days after, the priest who had insulted the goddess died.

The foregoing tale was not given to me as belonging to the Gospel of Witches, but as one

of a very large series of traditions relating to Virgil as a magician. But it has its proper place in this book, because it contains the invocation to and incantation of Diana, these being remarkably beautiful and original. When we remember how these hymns have been handed down or preserved by old women, and doubtless much garbled, changed, and deformed by transmission, it cannot but seem wonderful that so much classic beauty still remains in them, as, for instance, in -

Lovely Goddess of the bow!

Lovely Goddess of the arrows!

Thou who walkst I starry heaven!

Robert Browning was a great poet, but if we compare all the Italian witch poems of and to

Diana with the formers much admired speech of Diana-Artemis, it will certainly be admitted by impartial critics that the spells are fully equal to the following by the bard -

I am a goddess of the ambrosial courts,

And save by Here, Queen of Pride, surpassed

By none whose temples whiten this the world;

Through heaven I roll my lucid moon along,

I shed in Hell oer my pale people peace,

On Earth, I, caring for the creatures, guard

Each pregnant yellow wolf and fox bitch sleek,

And every feathered mothers callow brood,

And all that love green haunts and loneliness.

This is pretty, but it is only imitation, and neither in form or spirit really equal to the

incantations, which are sincere on faith. And it may here be observed in sorrow, yet in very truth, that in a very great number of modern poetical handlings of classic mythic subjects, the writers have, despite all their genius as artists, produced rococo work which will appear to be such to another generation, simply from their having missed the point, or omitted from ignorance something vital which the folk lorist would probably not have lost. Achilles may be admirably drawn, as I have seen him, in a Louis XIV. wig with a Turkish scimitar, but still one could wish that the designer had been a little more familiar with Greek garments and weapons.

CHAPTER XIV

THE GOBLIN MESSENGERS OF DIANA AND MERCURY

The following tale was not given to me as connected with the Gospel of the Witches, but as Diana appears in it, and as the whole conception is that of Diana and Apollo in another form, I include it in the series.

Many centuries ago there was a goblin, or spirit or devil-angel, and Mercury, who was the

god of speed and of quickness, being much pleased with this imp, bestowed on him the gift of running like the wind, with the privilege that whatever he pursued, be it spirit, a human being, or animal, he should certainly overtake or catch it.

This goblin had a beautiful sister, who like him, ran errands, not for the gods, but for the

goddesses (there was a female god for every male, even down to the small spirits); and Diana on the same day gave to this fairy the power that, whoever might chase her, she should, if pursued, never be overtaken.

On day the brother saw his sister speeding like a flash of lightning across the heaven, and

he felt a sudden strange desire in rivalry to overtake her. So he dashed after as she flitted on; but though it was his destiny to catch, she had been fated never to be caught, and so the will of one supreme god was balanced by that of another.

So the two kept flying round and round the edge of heaven, and at first all the gods roared

with laughter, but when they understood the case, hey grew serious, and asked one another how it was to end.

Then the great father-god said, Behold the earth, which is in darkness and gloom! I will

change the sister into a Moon, and her brother into a sun. And so shall she ever escape him, yet will he ever catch her with his light, which shall fall on her from afar; for the rays of the sun are his hands, which reach forth with burning grasp, yet which are ever eluded.