POWER OF PERE. The Frisian term for Father is vaar, to whom we may attribute the city name VERONA and the Christian name VERONICA.1

The original identity of VER with BER may be deduced from place-names apparently all the world over. Mount BEROMA in Mashonaland is alternatively Mount VEROMA. In Cornwall is a ST BURYAN and a ST VERYAN; the former is no doubt identical with the Christian name BRYAN or BRIEN.

739

2

740

VER is the French for Spring, i.e. se puring, the fire of PERE, and is the root of verdure. VIR is Latin for strength, and in Sanscrit the word vrishan, according to Max Müller, means "the strong rising sun." In French vrai means true, and the same root is responsible for verité, verax, veracity, virtue, virility, and very. The expression "Very God of Very God" is still in frequent use.

The consort of ODIN, the Scandinavian ONE EYE, was said to be FRIG, the "Great Fire," and the means by which

VOL. I.

1 The Vera Icon legend must have been an afterthought.
2 Science of Language, ii. 463.

21

the ancients obtained fire was friction. FURICK is also evidently the root of the name AFRICA; a conclusion strengthened by the fact that Africa was alternatively known as APARICA. In Peru the word VIRACOCHA, besides meaning the Great Father, was a generic term for all divine beings.1

Sir John Maundeville mentions in his Asiatic Travels? a place named PHARSIPEE, i.e. PHAR, the Fire Father. At PHARSIPEE there was said to be a marvellous Sparrow-hawk -we may call it a Peregrine (per-eg-ur-un, the Fire of the One Great POWER)—and whosoever watched this bird for seven days and seven nights-some said three days and three nights would have every desire granted by a "fair lady of fairie." In fig. 739 the letter F is figured on the Bird of Fire, and fig. 740 is designed in such a way as to convey the notion of a flaming Fire.

1 Myth. of Ancient Mexico and Peru, Spence (L.), p. 48.
2 Chapter XIII.

CHAPTER XIII

THE PRESIDENT OF THE MOUNTAINS

"Every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills." PSALM 1. 10.

THE first Deity that looms out of the prodigious antiquity of Egyptian history is PTAH, the Creator. Under the symbolism of a Bull-" the beautiful Bull of the Cycle of the Gods"-PTAH was worshipped as HAPI or APIs. He was also typified by a Bull known as the KA-NUB OF KANOBus ; a name resolving easily into ak-an-obus, the "great Sun, the obus." A third Bull was known as BAKH or BAKIS, i.e. "Ob, the Great Light," or, in other words, BACCHUS. The Egyptians also symbolised the Creator under the form of a fourth Bull named UR-Mer. The first syllable of this name probably, as among the Semites, meant Fire, and the word is probably allied to MER, one of the names of the Assyrian God of Lightning. One of the titles of the Assyrian Fire-god was NIN-IP and NINIP or NERIGon ur ig, the one Great Fire, was also known as URAS.1 The giant Bull of primitive Europe was known to the Latins as urus, the "light of the Fire," and this word is practically identical with HORUS or ORUS, the Egyptian APOLLO. SO widespread was the cult of HORUS that in Egypt the word horus was used as a generic term for "God." 2 Urus is

1 Pinches, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, 97.

2 Tiele (C. P.), Religious Systems of the World, p. 6.

evidently the foundation of tauros the Greek, taurus the Latin, and toro1 the Spanish, for Bull. The Chinese have still a Temple called the Palace of the Horned Bull, and the same symbol is venerated in Japan and all over Hindustan. THOR, the Scandinavian Jupiter, was represented in the Temple of UPSAL (OP-CIEL ?) with the head of a Bull upon his breast; and in Old Scandinavian, as in Phoenician and Chaldee, thur was the generic term for bull: 3 tur was Chaldee for sun. At MIAKO (OM-YAK-O?) in Japan, the

creation of the world is represented under the image of a Bull breaking the shell of an egg and animating the contents with his breath.5

The name PTAH must have been pronounced either

1 The city arms of TORINO or TURIN are a rampant Bull.

2 Upsal, the Eye of the Fire of God, was also called UPSALA. This name is almost identical with upsilon, the Greek name for their letter v. Compare also epsilon, the Greek name for E. One of the titles of BACCHUS was PSILAS.

3 Payne-Knight (R.), Symbol. Lang. of Ancient Art and Mythology, p. 20. 1 Higgens, Anacalypsis, i. 607.

• Payne-Knight (R.), Symbol. Lang. of Ancient Art and Mythology, p. 20.

OPTAH, the "shining Eye," or PATAH, the "shining Father," and Egyptologists have commented upon the fact that the images of PTAH closely resemble the pataikoi or small figures carried about by Phoenician sailors. The word pata is related to pehti, the Egyptian for strong or strength, and to patu the Maori term for father; and the pataikoi or pataiks were presumably small symbols of St Patrick, the Great Strong Father.

In subsequent ages the term PTAH was extended by the addition of later God-names, such as SEKER,' whose symbol was a Hawk. The name SEKER, SOKAR, or Seger, is clearly the same as the English word saker, a kind of Falcon. The French and Spanish call this bird sacre, and the Arabians saqr. At the town of OPIS in Assyria was the chief shrine of the Deity ZAKAR, and this name, identified with the Biblical ISSACHAR, the Son of JACOB, is the foundation of our word sacred (French sacre). The Supreme God of Buddhism is known as SEKRA.

In addition to the title PTAH-SEKER the Egyptian AllFather was named also PTAH-SEKER-OSIRIS. An earlier form of the name OSIRIS, the Watcher, the Many-Eyed, the Good Being, was ASAR or ASIR. ESAR is the Turkish, SIRE is the Persian, name for God—and sire,3 which is English for father, is Chaldean for light. The presiding Deity of ASSYRIA was named ASSUR. ASURA was one of the appellations of VARUNA, and ASURA has been equated with AHURAMAZDA, i.e. ORMUZ. In Hebrew the name AZUR means "He that assists"; ASSER is an English surname; and in Assyrian ASSUR or ASUR means Holy. There is an inscrip

1 Varying into SOKAR, SEGER, etc.

2 JACOBUS is Latin for JAMES.

3 Our English title Sir has the same meaning. At one time all priests were entitled Sir or Sir reverence; sometimes as Sir John. The King is addressed as Sire.

4 Cox, Aryan Mythology, p. 156.