wever, ere a ball smashed the glass into a thousand pieces. Rising
from the seat into which he had but just sat down, he perceived a
conical ball on the floor of his room, which there is every reason to
believe would have killed him on the spot had he remained a
moment longer on the spot he had just quitted. From the yard of the
mosque of Arab-Djami, which is in front of the prelate's window,
the bullet had, it appears, been fired with the intention of frightening
the dragon or bear which, according to oriental superstition, lies in
wait to devour the moon at its eclipse. It is a fortunate circumstance
that the Syrian ecclesiastic escaped scathless from the snares laid to
destroy the celestial dragon." [305]

In the _Edda_, an ancient collection of Scandinavian poetry,
embodying the national mythology, Managarmer is the monster who
sometimes swallows up the moon, and stains the heaven and the air
with blood. "Here," says M. Mallett, "we have the cause of eclipses;
and it is upon this very ancient opinion that the general practice is
founded, of making noises at that time, to fright away the monster,
who would otherwise devour the two great luminaries." [306] Of the
Germans, Grimm says:--"In a lighted candle, if a piece of the wick
gets half detached and makes it burn away too fast, they say 'a
_wolf_ (as well as a thief) is in the candle'; this too is like the wolf
devouring the sun or moon. Eclipses of sun or moon have been a
terror to many heathen nations; the incipient and increasing
obscuration of the luminous orb marks for them the moment when
the gaping jaws of the wolf threaten to devour it, and they think by
loud cries to bring it succour." [307] And again:--"The personality
of the sun and moon shows itself moreover in a fiction that has
well-nigh gone the round of the world. These two, in their unceasing
unflagging career through the void of heaven, appear to be in flight,
avoiding some pursuer. A pair of wolves are on their track, _Skoell_
dogging the steps of the sun, _Hati_ of the moon: they come of a
giant race, the mightiest of whom, Managarmr (moon-dog),
apparently but another name for Hati, is sure some day to _overtake
and swallow the moon_." [308] Francis Osborn, whose _Advice_
contains, in the opinion of Hallam, "a considerable sprinkling of
sound sense and observation," thus counsels his son: "Imitate not
the wild Irish or Welch, who, during eclipses, run about beating
kettles and pans, thinking the