s, with
physical attributes like those of men, the legend of Cronus, and Uranus,
and Gaea ceases to be a mystery. It is, at bottom, a savage explanation
(as in the Samoan story) of the separation of earth and heaven, an
explanation which could only have occurred to people in a state of mind
which civilisation has forgotten.

The next generation of Hesiodic gods (if gods we are to call the members
of this race of non-natural men) was not more fortunate than the first
in its family relations.

Cronus wedded his sister, Rhea, and begat Demeter, Hera, Hades,
Poseidon, and the youngest, Zeus. "And mighty Cronus swallowed down each
of them, each that came to their mother's knees from her holy womb, with
this intent that none other of the proud sons of heaven should hold his
kingly sway among the immortals. Heaven and Earth had warned him that he
too should fall through his children. Wherefore he kept no vain
watch, but spied and swallowed down each of his offspring, while grief
immitigable took possession of Rhea."(1) Rhea, being about to become the
mother of Zeus, took counsel with Uranus and Gaea. By their advice she
went to Crete, where Zeus was born, and, in place of the child, she
presented to Cronus a huge stone swathed in swaddling bands. This he
swallowed, and was easy in his mind. Zeus grew up, and by some means,
suggested by Gaea, compelled Zeus to disgorge all his offspring. "And
he vomited out the stone first, as he had swallowed it last."(2) The
swallowed children emerged alive, and Zeus fixed the stone at Pytho
(Delphi), where Pausanias(3) had the privilege of seeing it, and where,
as it did not tempt the cupidity of barbarous invaders, it probably
still exists. It was not a large stone, Pausanias says, and the
Delphians used to pour oil over it, as Jacob did(4) to the stone at
Bethel, and on feast-days they covered it with wraps of wool. The custom
of smearing fetish-stones (which Theophrastus mentions as one of the
practices of the superstitious man) is clearly a survival from
the savage stage of religion. As a rule, however, among savages,
fetish-stones are daubed with red paint (like the face of the wooden
ancient Dionysi in Greece, and of Tsui Goab among the Hottentots), not
smeared with oil.(5)

(1) Theog., 460, 465.

(2) Theog., 498.

(3) x. 245.

(4) Gen. xxviii. 18.

(5) Pausanias, ii. 2, 5. "Churinga" in Australia are greased with
the natural moisture of the palm of the hand, and rubbed wit