hes bear in their ornamentation numerous evidences of the
failure at suppression. Of course, much of this ornamentation may have
been due to mere imitation, but often enough it was deliberate. "The
scholar," says Bonwick, "who gazed to-day at the roof of Temple Church,
London, had the illustration before him. A symbol there, repeatedly
displayed, is the popular Hindu one to express sex worship."[86] The
belief found expression in other ways than ornamentation. When Sir
William Hamilton visited Naples in 1781 he found in Isernia a Christian
custom in vogue which he described in a letter to Sir William Banks, and
which admitted of no doubt as to its Priapic character. Every September
was celebrated a festival in the Church of SS. Cosmus and Damianus.
During the progress of the festival vendors paraded the streets offering
small waxen phalli, which were bought by the devout and placed in the
church, much as candles are still purchased and given. At the same time,
prayers are offered to St. Como by those who desire children. In
Midlothian, in 1268, the clergy instructed their flock to sprinkle water
with a dog's phallus in order to avert a murrain. The same practice
existed in Inverkeithing, and in Easter week priest and people danced
round a wooden phallus.[87] Mr. Westropp, quoting an eighteenth-century
writer,[88] says: "When the Huguenots took Embrun, they found among the
relics of the principal church a Priapus, of three pieces in the ancient
fashion, the top of which was worn away from being constantly washed
with wine." The temple of St. Eutropius, destroyed by the Huguenots, is
said to have contained a similar figure. From Mr. Sidney Hartland's
collection of practices for obtaining children I take the following:--

"At Bourg-Dieu, in the diocese of Bourges, a similar saint" (similar to
the priapean figure previously described) "was called Guerlichon or
Greluchon. There after nine days' devotions women stretched themselves
on the horizontal figure of the saint, and then scraped the phallus for
mixture in water as a drink. Other saints were worshipped elsewhere in
France with equivalent rites. Down to the Revolution there stood at
Brest a chapel of Saint Guignolet containing a priapean statue of the
holy man. Women who were, or feared to be, sterile used to go and scrape
a little of the prominent member, which they put into a glass of water
from the well and drank. The same practice was followed at the Chapel of
Saint