s to what occurred at the Creation
is a repetition of the same dispute between Wainamoinen and Joukahainen,
in the Kalewala of the Finns. Released from his husk, the opponent
becomes Beaconsfield = the field of light, or radiant sky.

In works of art, Gladstone is represented as armed with an axe. This, of
course, is probably a survival from the effigies of Zeus Labrandeus, den
Man auf Munsen mit der streitaxt erblickt (Preller, i. 112). We hear of
axes being offered to Gladstone by his worshippers. Nor was the old
custom of clothing the image of the god (as in the sixth book of the
"Iliad") neglected. We read that the people of a Scotch manufacturing
town, Galashiels, presented the Midlothian Gladstone (a local hero), with
"trouserings," which the hero graciously accepted. Indeed he was
remarkably unlike Death, as described by AEschylus, "Of all gods, Death
only recks not of gifts." Gladstone, on the other hand, was the centre
of a lavish system of sacrifice--loaves of bread, axes, velocipedes,
books, in vast and overwhelming numbers, were all dedicated at his
shrine. Hence some have identified him with Irving, also a deity
propitiated (as we read in Josephus Hatton) by votive offerings. In a
later chapter I show that Irving is really one of the Asvins of Vedic
mythology, "the Great Twin Brethren," or, in mythic language, "the
Corsican Brothers" (compare Myriantheus on the Asvins). His inseparable
companion is Wilson-Barrett.

Among animals the cow is sacred to Gladstone; and, in works of art, gems
and vases (or "jam-pots"), he is represented with the cow at his feet,
like the mouse of Horus, of Apollo Smintheus, and of the Japanese God of
Plenty (see an ivory in the Henley Collection). How are we to explain
the companionship of the cow? At other times the Sun-hero sits between
the horns of the Cow-Goddess Dilemma, worshipped at Westminster. (Compare
Brugsch, "Religion und Mythologie der alten Aegypter," p. 168, "Die
Darstellungen Zeigen uns den Sonnengott zwischen den Hornern der Kuh
sitzend.") The idea of Le Page Renouf, and of Pierret and De Rouge, is
that the cow is a symbol of some Gladstonian attribute, perhaps
"squeezability," a quality attributed to the hero by certain Irish
minstrels. I regard it as more probable that the cow is (as in the Veda)
the rain-cloud, released from prison by Gladstone, as by Indra. At the
same time the cow, in the Veda, stands for Heaven, Earth, Dawn, Night,
Cloud, R