.

[445] _Ibid._, 21-2.

[446] _Micah_, vi, 16.

[447] _1 Kings_, xvi, 29-33.

[448] _Ibid._, xviii, 1-4.

[449] _1 Kings_, xx.

[450] _Ibid._, xxii, 43.

[451] _2 Chronicles_, xviii, 1-2.

[452] _1 Kings_, xxii and _2 Chronicles_, xviii.

[453] _1 Kings_, xxii, 48-9.

[454] _1 Kings_, viii.

[455] _2 Kings_, ix and _2 Chronicles_, xxii.

[456] _2 Kings_, viii, 1-15.

[457] _The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records and Legends
of Assyria and Babylonia_, pp. 337 _et seq._

[458] _2 Kings_, x, 32-3.

[459] _Ibid._, 1-31.

[460] _2 Kings_, xi, 1-3.

[461] _2 Chronicles_, xxii, 10-12.

[462] _2 Chronicles_, xxiii, 1-17.

[463] _2 Kings_, xiii, 1-5.

[464] _The Land of the Hittites_, J. Garstang, p. 354.

[465] _The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records and Legends
of Assyria and Babylonia_, T.G. Pinches, p. 343.

[466] _Nat. Hist_., v, 19 and _Strabo_ xvi, 1-27.

[467] _The Mahabharata_: _Adi Parva_, sections lxxi and lxxii (Roy's
translation, pp. 213 216, and _Indian Myth and Legend_, pp. 157 _et
seq._

[468] That is, without ceremony but with consent.

[469] _The Golden Bough_ (_The Scapegoat_), pp. 369 _et seq._, (3rd
edition). Perhaps the mythic Semiramis and legends connected were in
existence long before the historic Sammu-rammat, though the two got
mixed up.

[470] _Herodotus_, i, 184.

[471] _De dea Syria_, 9-14.

[472] _Strabo_, xvi, 1, 2.

[473] _Diodorus Siculus_, ii, 3.

[474] _Herodotus_, i, 105.

[475] _Diodorus Siculus_, ii, 4.

[476] _De dea Syria_, 14.

[477] This little bird allied to the woodpecker twists its neck strangely
when alarmed. It may have symbolized the coquettishness of fair
maidens. As love goddesses were "Fates", however, the wryneck may have
been connected with the belief that the perpetrator of a murder, or a
death spell, could be detected when he approached his victim's corpse.
If there was no wound to "bleed afresh", the "death thraw" (the
contortions of death) might indicate who the criminal was. In a
Scottish ballad regarding a lady, who was murdered by her lover, the
verse occurs:

[478] Langdon's _Sumerian and Babylonian Psalms_, pp. 133, 135.

[479] Introduction to Lane's _Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians._

[480] Tammuz is referred to in a Sumerian psalm as "him of the dovelike
voice, yea, dovelike". He may have had a dove form. Angus, the Celtic
god of spring, love, and fertility, had a s