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644 ELEMENTS.
signified taking possession of land, especially in the case of
emigrants. As Eaphamos sits on the prow of the Argo, Triton
appears in human form and presents him with a clod of earth as a
gift of hospitality. Euphamos takes the symbolic earth (/3w\afca
Satpoviav), and gives it to his men to keep,, but they drop it
in the sea, and it melts away. Had it been preserved and
deposited at Tainaros, the descendants of Euphamos would have
won the promised land (Gyrene) in the fourth generation. As
it was, they only got it in the 17th (see Suppl.). 1
In an AS. spell which is elsewhere given, four pieces of turf
are cut out, oil, honey, yeast and the milk of all cattle are dropt
on them, and thereto is added some of every kind of tree that
grows on the land, except hard trees, 2 and of every herb except
burs ; and then at length the charm is repeated over it. With
their seedcorn people mix earth from three sorts offields (Superst.
I, 477) ; on the coffin, when lowered, three clods are dropt (699) ;
by cutting out the sod on which footprints [of a thief or enemy]
are left, you can work magic (524. 556; and see Suppl.).
Of holy mountains and hills there were plenty ; yet there seems
to have been no elemental worship of them :
they were honoured
for the sake of the deity enthroned upon them, witness the
Wodan s and Thunar s hills. When Agathias, without any such
connexion, speaks of \6$oi and (fjapayyes (hills and gullies) as
objects of worship (p. 100) ; possibly his knowledge
of the facts
was imperfect, and there was a fire or water worship connected
with the hill. It is among the Goths, to whom fairguni meant
mountain (p. 172), that one would first look for a pure mountainworship,
if the kinship I have supposed between that word and
the god s name be a matter of fact. Dietmar of Merseburg
(Pertz 5, 855) gives an instance of mountain-worship among the
Slavs: Posita autem est haec (civitas, viz. Nemtsi, Nimptch)
in pago silensi, vocabulo hoc a quodam monte, nimis excelso et
grandi, olim sibi indito : et hie ob qualitatem suam et quantitatem,
cum execranda gentilitas ibi veneraretur, ab incolis omnibus nimis
som hade deraf stor harm (great sorrow),
der de nu kastade den snarta mull (black mould)
allt ofver skon Valborg s arm.
*
Pindar s Pyth. 4, 21-44. 0. Miiller s Orchom. 352, and proleg. 142 sen. ;
his Dorier 1, 85. 2, 535.
2
Only of soft wood, not hard, EA. 506.