Hew Morrison Collection > Adhamh agus Eubh, no Craobh Sheanachais nan Gàël

148 HISTORY OF THE
of Osiris into the moon, which planet he was
believed to fecundate, that it might, in turn, fecun-
date the earth.
" In Egypt," says Abbe Pluche, if we well recollect,
" where the inhabitants can with certainty judge of the pro-
duct of the year by the state of the river, they proclaimed a
plentiful crop b}' surrounding Isis with a multitude of breasts :
on the contrary, when the presage of fertility was not favour-
able, they exposed her with a single breast ; thereby to warn
the people to make amends for the smallness of the harvest,
by the culture of vegetables, or by some other industry."
The term Bhean or Ven, is but another name
for this symbol, as the following will show : —
" Sometimes," says Pluche, " they put upon the Canopus
the head of a dog, to signify the state of the river, or the
time of the rising of the Dog-star. At another time they
put thereon the head of a maid, to mark out the state of the
Nile under the sign of the Virgin."
Yes; and at the same time, perhaps, to symboHze
the nuptials of the sun with the sign of the
virgin, by vvhich she was impregnated, and so of
the moon from her monthly changes, her borrowed
glory, and her putting on weeds of woe when her
husband, the sun, leaves her wholly.
From her connexion thus with water, it is that
Venus is said to have risen from the sea — that she
is made to preside over waters — to appease the
troubled ocean, and so forth. We now understand
how she was called Oivcig, Oinas, by the Greeks,
which term is from the Celtic Oin, a river ; and
by the Romans Fen?xs Marina, from the Celtic