phallic
observances occurred in Easter week, March 29-April 15, 1282.[77]

[77] _The Chronicles of Lanercroft._

In Ireland, the female sexual organs seem to have been the symbol of
phallic worship most in use. In the arches over the doorways of
churches, a female figure, with the person fully exposed, was invariably
so placed that the external organs of generation at once caught the eye.
These figures were called _Shela-na-gig_, which in Irish means "Julian
the giddy." Sometimes these images were placed on the walls and used as
caryatides. From this symbol the horseshoe's power to ward off evil and
bring good luck has been evolved. The people in olden times were in the
habit of painting, or sketching with charcoal, drawings of the female
genitalia over the doors of their houses to ward off bad luck. These
drawings were necessarily rude, and probably resembled a horseshoe more
than they did the object for which they were intended. In course of
time, when the symbol had lost its original significance, the horseshoe
entirely took the place of the phallic image.

Herodotus says that Sesostris, king of Egypt, was in the habit of
erecting pillars in the countries conquered by his armies, on which he
had the female genitals engraved in order to show his contempt.[78] I
think that the historian misinterprets the meaning of the pillars; the
Egyptians were phallic worshipers, and these obelisks were, in all
probability, altars to Priapus.

[78] Herodotus: _Euterpe_, 102.

The beneficent influence of this particular phallic symbol has been well
brought out in several classical stories. When Ceres was wandering over
the world in her search after Proserpine, she came to the house of a
peasant woman, Baubo by name. Baubo saw that the goddess was heart-sick
and miserable, so she offered her a drink of cyceon ({~GREEK SMALL
LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER NU~} [Transliteration: kykeon]). The goddess refused the
refreshing mixture, and continued her lamentations. Fully believing in
the virtue and efficacy of the symbol, Baubo lifted her robe and showed
Ceres her genitals.[AA] The goddess burst into laughter and at once
drank the cyceon.[79] The same superstition appears in a celebrated book
of the sixteenth century, _Le Moyen de Parvenir_. The author of the
"Worship of the Generative Powers" gives the fo