Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

774

The Dioskouroi as Stars

ashore they are a sign of tumult, law-suits, war, or grievous disease. But at the
last they let men go scatheless from all clangers, and such as are already
involved in any of these alarms they speedily deliver. For the gods are
saviours, but saviours of those that have previously been in some fear or peril1.5

Porphyrion notes that in his day (the third century A.D.) sailors
regarded the stars of Castor and Pollux as commonly hostile
to ships2. Fulgentius the mythographer (c. 480—5 50 A.D.), after
moralising in his tasteless way about Iupiter and Leda, continues :

' But Castor and Pollux stand for perdition, wherefore at sea too they spoke
of the signs of the Castores, which create danger3.'

In modern times the process of degradation has gone further
still. Mr G. F. Abbott in his Macedonian Folklore remarks that
the electric phenomena once ascribed to the Dioskouroi ' are by
the modern Greek mariners called [Teloniay or "Devils" and
treated as such : the sailors look upon them as presages of disaster
and try to frighten them away by dint of exorcisms and loud
noises—an instance of beneficent pagan deities degraded to the
rank of malignant demons5.' The name Telonia has had a curious
history6. N. G. Polites states that it meant originally demons
acting as publicans or custom-house officials and so hindering
souls from a free entrance into heaven. The same authority in-
forms us that these Telonia are believed to snap the mast and sink
the ship: hence, directly they appear, the sailors have recourse to

*

prayers, burn incense, recite incantations from the Key of Solomon,
discharge fire-arms, pull the tails of pigs, in short do anything and
everything calculated to scare away the dreaded powers7.

viii. Saint Elmo's Fire.

Throughout the Mediterranean and the western coasts of
Europe the same phenomenon is viewed sometimes as a good,
sometimes as an evil sign8. It is commonly called the 'fire of
Saint Elmo'—a name which has many variants9 and has been

1 Artemid. oneirocr. 2. 37.

2 Porphyr. in Hor. od. 1. 3. 2 : see, however, F. Hauthal ad loc.

3 Fulgent, myth. 2. 16, cp. Myth. Vat. 3. 3. 6. 4 TeAwi/ta.

5 G. F. Abbott Macedonian Folklore Cambridge 1903 p. 241.

6 B. Schmidt Das Volksleben der Neugriechen Leipzig 1871 i. 171 ff.

7 N. G. Polites in Melusine 1884—85 ii. 117. For ancient apotropaeics see Solin. 1.
54—57, cp. Plin. nat. hist. 28. 77.

8 P. Sebillot Le Folk-lore de France Paris 1904 i. 96.

9 These are collected in Melusine 1884—85 ii. 112 f. (cp. id. 112 ff., 138 ff., 189, 255 f.,
382) : e.g. Italian fuoco di Sanf Elmo, luce di Santo Ermo, San? Ermo, Sardinian fogu
de S. Elmn, Genoese feugo de Sanf Emo, French feu Saint-Elme, sailors' French feu
Saint-Erme, Provencal f iie" Sant Eoume,fio de Saut Eiime, lume Sant Eiime, Bouches-du-