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 Magic, Murder and a Movie Star:
Wonky Inn Book 10
by
JEANNIE WYCHERLEY

Copyright © 2020 Jeannie Wycherley

All rights reserved

Publishers note: This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and incidents are
either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and for effect or are used
with permission. Any other resemblance to actual persons, either living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any
means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by
any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the
publisher, except in the case of very brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and
certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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Magic, Murder and a Movie Star was edited by Christine L Baker
Cover design by JC Clarke of The Graphics Shed.
Formatting by Tammy
Proofing by Johnny Bon Bon

Please note: This book is set in England in the United Kingdom. It uses British English
spellings and idioms.
 CONTENTS

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue

Need More Wonky?

Coming Next
Out Now
Also by Jeannie Wycherley
I pressed a finger to my lips and lifted the receiver of the old
Bakelite phone on my desk.
“Whittle Inn, Alfhild Daemonne speaking,” I said, keeping my
voice smooth and rich, channelling my inner Gwyn, my deceased
great-grandmother. “How may I help you?”
Florence, Whittle Inn’s housekeeper, wiggled with excitement,
barely able to contain herself. “Oh, Miss Alf!” she said.
“Shhhh!” hissed Charity. If she had been able to, she would
probably have nudged Florence, but as Florence had been dead for
well over a hundred years, there wasn’t a great deal of point.
I raised my eyebrows with mock haughtiness in the direction of
the office door where the pair of them huddled together. Do you
mind? I telegraphed. I’m the important person here and I need to
have this essential conversation.
“Ms Daemonne?” The Boston drawl of an American female
repeated my name. “I am so pleased I’ve managed to track you
down at last—”
 Track me down? I hadn’t been anywhere except the inn. Where
had she been searching?
“It’s Tammi-Jo Merrick here from The Toad and Newt Production
Company.”
“Oh yes?” I feigned … not disinterest exactly … but more an air
of someone who has seen it all and done it all. I haven’t, obviously.
Charity bared her teeth at me. She didn’t want me to play games
when this conversation was hugely important to us for a variety of
reasons. We had an inkling that the movie company wanted to lodge
some of their crew with us. Earlier this morning, I’d received an
email informing me that Tammi-Jo would be calling me today to
discuss booking the inn for her production company. I’d read the
message out to Charity and Florence over breakfast and, ever since,
they’d been behaving like a pair of love-struck schoolgirls. Most of
their giddy excitement could be put down to the fact that two of the
biggest movie stars in the world would be starring in the film and
therefore filming in our locality.
Given how poor business had been thus far this season—with the
exception of the week when Kappa Sigma Granma had been in
residence—we needed the bookings.
But on the other hand, I didn’t want to appear too needy,
otherwise Tammi-Jo would barter the price of the rooms down to
zero.
“I don’t know whether you were aware that Toad and Newt will
be filming in your area in a few weeks?”
“No, I must have missed that,” I lied. Florence’s feather duster
jabbed at my head.
“You did?” She sounded incredulous. “Well ma’am, we most
certainly are, and it’s my job to book hotels where I can lodge some
of the cast and crew—”
 I winked at Charity. She opened her eyes wide, her fists gripped
tightly under her chin. “Yes?”
“—so I was wondering how much availability you have there at
Whittle Inn?”
“I see.” I must admit I was starting to impress myself with how
calm and collected I sounded. “Let me just check my reservations.
Would you mind holding for a few seconds?”
“Of course!”
“Thank you.” I carefully placed the receiver face down on the
desk—that’s what passed for ‘on hold’ in the olden days, after all—
and tapped the mouse. My computer screen lit up. I hurriedly closed
down my game of Crones and Corridors and opened the database
that allowed us to keep track of our reservations. I clicked through
the spreadsheets that covered the next few weeks—all the rows and
columns were empty but I made sure I tapped the keys noisily—and
picked the phone back up.
“Erm …” I exhaled through my nose, letting her know I had a
problem, “… we’re a bit chock-a-block but … when were you
thinking?”
“We’re in Exeter filming until the 22 nd and ideally we’d like to
have rooms ready that evening.”
“Right—” I replied, laying on an ‘I’m-trying-so-hard-to-be-helpful’
tone of voice, similar to one I’d had used on me so many times in
the past.
“I should mention that we have an advance unit too. They would
need to come down a few days beforehand to set up.”
“Set up what, exactly?” Now I was genuinely puzzled. “Are you
intending to film at Whittle Inn?”
“Perhaps a few scenes. It looks very beautiful there. I’ve checked
out your website and we might use the reception area, maybe do a
couple of outside scenes. But no, our plans are more for that cute
village of yours, and the surrounding countryside. Also”—this woman
hardly ever paused for breath—“we thought, given that you have
quite a large amount of land available, we could make use of that
and set up a parkour course. The leads in the movie are doing their
own stunts and they won’t have been able to practise for the
previous week or so while they’ve been hanging out in the city.”
“Parker?” I had no idea what that was.
Charity’s mouth dropped open.
I frowned at her. What? I mouthed.
She widened her eyes.
“Oh, how adorable,” Tammi-Jo said. “You’ve never heard of
parkour?”
“No,” I replied. “Should I have?”
“It’s like … when you see all those stars in the big Witchywood
blockbusters? And they’re running over the rooftops and jumping
from roof to roof and sliding down bannisters and things? All at high
speed? Tumbling here and throwing themselves off the tops of cars
and catapulting themselves from trains onto the tops of lorries?”
Tammi-Jo sounded breathless with excitement.
“You want to do that at Whittle Inn?” I baulked at the idea. It
was an old building. Who knew whether bits of it might fall off if
someone was pretending to do their best spiderman impression
while hanging from the turrets?
“We wouldn’t be using the building itself. We’d build a course in
the grounds.”
“Oh, I see,” I laughed nervously. “Build it … how? Out of
concrete?” I think in my mind’s eye I was beginning to imagine some
kind of huge cement skateboarding park. I shuddered. There was no
way I wanted some ugly monstrosity like that on my front lawn,
thank you very much!
“No, it would be a temporary construction,” Tammi-Jo was saying.
“The crew would strike it before leaving. You’ll never know it was
there.”
“Right.” What did strike it mean? Burn it to the ground? These
film people were hard-core.
“So, what are your thoughts? We’ve also been looking into
accommodation at”—I heard her rustling some paper—“The Hay
Loft, is it? Yes. The Hay Loft. They seem to have a large field we
could think about hiring.”
“At extra cost, no doubt.” I couldn’t quite hide the derision in my
voice. Lyle Cavendish, the owner of The Hay Loft, would have
charged his mother for a night’s stay on his sofa.
“Money’s no object to us, Ms Daemonne. Cam Vendez has access
to one of the biggest budgets ever put together in Witchywood
history.”
I swallowed. How enticing.
“You know, we have two of the biggest stars on the planet in this
film,” Tammi-Jo reminded me. “Believe me, the studio is practically
throwing money at us.”
“Gosh,” was all I could think of to say. I made another attempt to
sound casual. “So we’d get a chance to see the actors?” I lifted my
eyes. In the doorway, Charity was jumping up and down impatiently,
her mouth a rigor mortis of a silent scream. Florence twirled about,
creating a draught.
“See the actors? Of course. They’re not hermits.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
I could hear the smirk in Tammi’s voice. “I should imagine you’d
be running into them every five minutes, given that they’d be
staying at your inn. Assuming you have the room, of course.”
“Haha,” I replied, slightly weak at the joints. “Let me just see
what I can re-jig here.”
I hit a few keys to make it sound like I was trying to organise
myself. “How many rooms are we looking at?”
“The whole inn, ideally,” Tammi-Jo replied. “If that’s not possible
then we could look at potentially over-spilling to The Hay Loft, and
we’ll bring some trailers too. Dom and Cam prefer staying in their
personal trailers rather than being forced to check in to different
hotel rooms every night.”
“Understandable,” I said, impressed at the way she could just
drop the first name of the hottest star in the galaxy into the
conversation so casually.
Dom Bruise!
“So, what about it, Ms Daemonne?”
Now was the time to quit playing games. “Absolutely no problem.
I’ll contact the prior reservations on my books, free up the space
and reserve the inn for Toad and Newt.”
“Excellent. I’ll send you the contracts and if you could invoice me,
I’ll get a twenty per cent deposit sent through within twenty-four
hours.”
Wow. That quickly? Money really was no object to these people.
“I’ll also organise the advance team to visit you about a week
before. They’ll advise about the parkour course.”
“Perfect,” I squeaked. All semblance of my smooth, calm and
professional self had flown out of the window at the mention of
money.
Big bucks! What a lifesaver!
“Thank you, Ms Daemonne. Bye for now. Have a lovely day.”
“You too! Thank you! Bye!”
 I replaced the heavy receiver carefully before looking up at
Charity and Florence. They stood in the doorway, quiet now, both
waiting on tenterhooks for me to say something.
I tried to look nonchalant. Tried valiantly, in fact. And failed
miserably. I jumped to my feet and shrieked.
“Witchywood is coming to Whittlecombe and they’re staying
here!”
Charity threw herself into the room and caught me up in a huge
bear hug. “Brian Ben-Olds!”
“And Dom Bruise,” I reminded her.
“I know, but Brian Ben-Olds!”
“Yeah, but Dom Bruise.” I held her at arm’s length and gave her
a stern look. “Priorities,” I said. “Dom. The Dom Bruise!”
“He’s nice,” Charity acknowledged.
“Nice?” What was wrong with the woman? “Are we talking about
the same man? Dom Bruise! You know? The super-hot, heart-
stopping, international megastar for at least thirty-five years? That
Dom Bruise!”
“He’s getting on a bit now though, isn’t he?” Charity wrinkled her
nose.
“Seriously, Charity!” I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing.
“In what other line of work would we suggest that thirty-five years
of experience counted for nothing?”
“Well—” Charity shrugged, not entirely convinced.
“Look at Hal Cappuccino and Hobbit le Fearo. Veteran actors, still
worth watching on the big screen.”
Florence’s feather duster spun wildly. “Ooh now you’re talking,
Miss Alf! I love a bit of Hobbit le Fearo!”
“He’s a truly marvellous actor,” I agreed. “And so is Dom Bruise.”
 “Yes, but,” Charity replied, lifting her stubborn little chin, “Brian
Ben-Olds is hot.”
“He’s not that young himself,” I reminded her. “He must be forty
or so.”
“I don’t care,” said Charity. “I think he’s the bee’s knees. And
when he gets here, bagsy making his bed up every morning.”
“You can’t bagsy that!” Florence jumped in quickly, more than a
little alarmed. “I’m the housekeeper. Making his bed is my job.”
“Ladies, ladies!” I held my hands up. “Surely we’re not quarrelling
about who gets to make whose bed?”
“I’ll ensure I’m there bright and early.” Florence wagged her
feather duster at Charity.
Charity gave Florence a knowing look. “Maybe I’ll inveigle my
way into his affections and be tucked up next to him when you
arrive to clean his room,” she said.
“Charity!” My mouth dropped open in surprise.
She folded her arms defiantly, gave us both a little stink-eye,
then burst out laughing.
After a moment Florence and I joined in. “You had me there,” I
said.
“We don’t fraternise with the guests,” said Florence.
“I know,” Charity sighed. “But it’s a shame, because I don’t meet
anyone else, and Brian is so handsome, and cheeky, and funny, and
everything I want in a man.”
“And very rich,” I said. “That’s always an attractive proposition
when you’ve got an inn bleeding money left, right and centre.”
“There is that,” Charity said.
“Oh, I’m glad I’m past all that,” Florence said. “No need for any
complicated romances here.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And me.”
 “Pftttt!” Charity sniggered, while Florence rolled her eyes. “I
never knew anyone with a more complicated love life than you. You
never know where Mr Silvanus is from one moment to the next.”
There was a definite truth in that.
“Well, in any case,” I said, “we should start making sure this inn
sparkles! It would appear that the big names are coming to Whittle
Inn and we three will need to be on our best behaviour! Am I right,
ladies?”
“Absolutely,” said Charity.
“You can count on me, Miss Alf,” Florence nodded.
“I t’s just so quaint,” marvelled Tammi-Jo for about the
thousandth time, flicking back her sleek chocolate-coloured
hair and batting huge eyelashes at me.
It had transpired that the advance team consisted of Tammi-Jo
and a swarthy man named Bill Fox. Bill had eyes the colour of
granite and short black hair with a curl that fell over his left
eyebrow. He appeared to be in charge of security, as well as the
complicated advance logistics for getting the set, equipment, props
and wardrobe for the film to Whittlecombe. Outside, it was pelting
down with typical Devon rain, but several of Bill’s team were already
out there, oblivious of the conditions, measuring the grounds for the
parkour course.
Parkour course? The things I get myself into.
We were in The Throne Room, the most impressive suite in the
whole of Whittle Inn and one that I was immensely proud of. It had
a large four-poster bed with red walls and drapes. Along with gilt
mirrors—and a specially commissioned portrait of my great-great-
great-great grandmother, Rosahilde Medusa Daemonne—velvet had
been heavily utilised everywhere.
Dusting it kept Florence busy for hours.
I glanced out of the window. Was it my imagination or did Bill’s
team all look like special forces operatives? They were built like brick
outhouses, with neatly trimmed beards and glittering eyes. They all
wore tight-fitting black clothing and despite the atrocious weather,
there wasn’t a cagoule in sight.
I’d seen their kind on the television, hiking across the wilds of
Scotland or climbing Everest and, although they could probably have
killed a man with a well-placed thumb, I must confess they were
easy on the eye …
Bill caught me looking and I flushed. “They don’t mind the
weather?” I asked, trying to cover my fluster.
He raised one eyebrow. “They’re game for anything, Ms
Daemonne.”
I laughed nervously, my face undoubtedly the colour of an
overripe tomato. “That’s useful.”
“It certainly is, in our line of work.” Tammi-Jo sidled up beside Bill
and smiled, a little icily I thought. She was older than she’d sounded
on the phone, curvaceous and immaculately made up. Those huge
fake eyelashes of hers dominated her face like spiders let loose on a
blank canvas. “Isn’t it, Bill?” she placed a proprietary hand on his
arm.
His eyes never left my face. My knees trembled. “It is,” he
replied, and there was some hidden meaning in those flinty eyes of
his.
Was he flirting with me?
I grimaced inwardly. That would never do. I conjured an image
of Silvan to the forefront of my mind, the dastardly witch who had
my heart, and cleared my throat. I gestured vaguely around at the
room. “So, erm … what do you think? This is the pick of the bunch.”
Tammi-Jo nodded. “It’s gorgeous. What do you think, Bill? We
could put Medea in here?” She tapped something out on her little
Palm Wizard—like a mobile phone—but with the capacity to do
more. “I think I told you that Dom and Cam prefer to stay in their
trailers, so we’re really only looking for space for Medea and Brian
…”
“What about Brian?” Bill asked her. “Where are you thinking of
putting him?”
“I haven’t seen anything that would suit, so far,” she widened her
eyes at me, the lashes brushing her fringe.
What did she mean? How hadn’t I shown her anything that
would suit? I’d shown her everything.
“I … erm …” What could I say? That’s it?
“There’s a room in the corner?” she said. “Overlooking the
grounds? While we were outside I noticed the window was open.”
“That’s probably my room,” I said. “I have a suite there next to
my office. It has a mini kitchen, not that I ever use it—”
“That sounds perfect!” said Tammi-Jo.
“—but—”
“Can we see it?” She moved towards the door.
“I … it’s …” Flummoxed, I regarded the two of them in horror. “I
don’t think that’s possible—”
Tammi-Jo fixed me with a withering glare. “If money is the
issue?”
“Gosh, no! It’s just I haven’t decorated it since I moved in. It’s a
mess.”
Bill laughed. “Let’s see it, anyway. Nothing we can’t fix up, I’m
sure.”
 I led them down the corridor to my corner, worrying about what
they’d think of my personal space and not entirely sure I wanted my
room ‘fixed up’.
Pushing the door open, I stood back to let them in. Fortunately, it
wasn’t too untidy. I hadn’t made the bed because I’d been up at five
thirty, as usual, and I probably hadn’t dusted for a few weeks
because, you know, dusting, but apart from that there were minimal
belongings on the floor or draped over chairs or bedsteads.
The thing was, my furnishings were all a bit tired. The wardrobe
was an enormous monstrosity, something from the nineteen forties,
all utilitarian and cheap-looking. Plus the walls were tatty. I’d peeled
the wallpaper off to expose the plaster underneath … then lost
interest and, sort of, abandoned the decorating at that stage. The
door into the en-suite had been sanded but never repainted, and the
gigantic radiator looked like something that wouldn’t have been out
of place in a school in the 1960s.
Bill smirked.
“I’ve been a bit busy,” I explained, defending myself.
“I’m sure you have,” he said, with the air of a man who could
remodel and redecorate an entire English inn before breakfast and
still have time to run the marathon with a three-thousand pound
Devon bull on his back. “We could paint it for you. What would you
like? Pink? Peach?”
Pink or peach! Ugh! What did he think I was?
“Mmm … I’m not sure really,” I replied, resisting the urge to curl
my lip in disgust.
“What do you think, Tammi-Jo?” Bill asked.
Tammi-Jo looked me up and down. This morning I’d dressed in
my black jeans—unusually clean for me—and a black jumper with a
V-neck. This was about as smart as I could manage. I hadn’t been
clothes shopping for absolutely ages. I’d been relying on my heavy-
duty witch’s robes for a long time.
I withered a little under her scrutiny, until I remembered I’d had
far more important things to do over the past eighteen months. Like
run an inn and rescue ghosts and facilitate baking competitions and
track down a time traveller and kick the backsides of The Mori … and
not forgetting sorting out the vampires.
I shuddered.
“Ms Daemonne doesn’t look like someone who appreciates
pastels and girlie colours,” Tammi-Jo ventured.
She’d read me right. I was a little surprised.
“No,” I agreed. “I have a few ideas for décor, but I haven’t been
able to settle on what I want in here yet.”
Tammi-Jo paced to the wall, mostly devoid of wallpaper, and
slipped the edge of her immaculately painted pale-blue thumbnail
under a slither of a wallpaper remnant. She gently peeled it away
and dropped it to the floor. “Do you know what, Bill?”
Bill and I waited for Tammi-Jo to bring forth her wisdom on
interior decoration.
“I think Brian would love this room just the way it is.”
I crinkled my nose. Seriously?
Bill caught my expression and lifted the corner of his mouth in a
half-smile. “He’s a tad unconventional, is Mr Ben-Olds.”
“I see.” Glancing around doubtfully, I said, “Well if you’re quite
sure …”
“This will be perfect,” Tammi-Jo nodded. “Trust me.”
Where would I sleep? Maybe I’d have to bunk up with Charity. It
was just as well Silvan was elsewhere attending to whatever it is
dark-witches-for-hire attend to.
“I’ll get it cleaned up and move out,” I said.
 “By all means, clean the room,” Tammi-Jo nodded, pulling open
one of the wardrobe doors, “but don’t go overboard emptying it out.
He’ll only need it for a few days so it will be a kind of home from
home for him.”
I watched her poke through the robes hanging there. All exactly
the same, made by a dressmaker on Celestial Street. They had a
variety of rips, tears and rents thanks to my adventures. I was
reminded again that I needed to go shopping.
I mean, Dom Bruise was going to be staying at my inn and I’d
look like a proper ragamuffin! That would never do.
“A bit different to what Brian Ben-Olds is used to,” I ventured.
“A novelty,” Tammi-Jo agreed.
Bill snorted.
I frowned at him, and his eyes sparkled in amusement. He and
Silvan had evidently been cut from the same cloth.
“Could we go and meet the chef, now?” Tammi-Jo asked, and,
with relief, I led the way out of my humble bedroom and down the
back stairs to the kitchen.

Gwyn, my deceased great-grandmother, met us in the kitchen as

previously arranged. I needed her to translate for Monsieur Emietter,
my French chef, another of my ghosts—this one with a short temper.
The good thing about working with a Witchywood or Witchflix
company like Toad and Newt was that they didn’t blink twice at the
existence of ghosts, although to be fair, not everyone—not even
every witch—can see ghosts. The ghost has to want to be seen, and
you have to be open to the idea of seeing them. Fortunately, the
majority of my ghosts were perfectly happy to be seen by all and
sundry. In that sense, they were a sociable bunch.
I guess Tammi-Jo and Bill had both been around the block a bit,
given their interesting and varied experiences of working on movies,
because neither of them was even remotely perturbed by Monsieur
Emietter.
I greeted the chef cheerfully with a loud, “Bonjour!” which was
still pretty much the limit of my French. He twirled his impressive
moustache at me and nodded at the newcomers. Gwyn had
obviously prepped him in advance, for he stood by his stove, an
almost-transparent notebook and pencil in his hands, ready to scrawl
down instructions.
I’d been a little wary of this part of the tour. Gwyn’s sorority
event had pushed the inn’s kitchen to its limits, thanks to demands
for all manner of odd foodstuffs. It had turned out that some of her
witchy friends had few or no teeth, which meant that they couldn’t
handle food that needed to be chewed.
I could imagine that movie stars would be even more finicky.
I shuffled together a sheath of emails I’d printed out earlier.
Tammi-Jo had sent me pages and pages of requests and buried
somewhere amongst these were her requirements.
“Cam and Dom prefer high protein, low-fat diets. They only take
carbs with their evening meal,” Tammi-Jo began, and Gwyn
translated. Monsieur Emietter nodded and scribbled that down on his
notepad. “Brian is a vegetarian but not a vegan, so if we can make
sure his dishes are prepared separately, we’d be grateful.”
“That’s not a problem,” I told her, feeling confident we could
handle that, at least. “We always have vegetarian options on the
menu.”
 “As long as there’s no cross-contamination,” Tammi-Jo nodded.
“Mr Ben-Olds gets very upset about that.”
Gwyn levelled an icy gaze at Tammi-Jo. “I can assure you
Monsieur Emietter runs a tight ship, young lady,” she said. “He
knows what he’s doing.”
“Oh, of course, of course.” Tammi-Jo waved away the tension.
“Then there’s Medea. She’s a pescatarian—”
Here we go, I thought.
“And finally—”
I pricked my ears up. Was that it? I’d imagined pages and pages
of pernickety requirements.
“There’s the crew.” Tammi-Jo hesitated. “I hate to say this, but
most of them eat like philistines.”
Gwyn halted her interpretation to Monsieur Emietter. “Like—?”
“What I mean to say is, they like pizza and pasta and curry …
things of that ilk.”
I couldn’t hide my delight. “Like ordinary people, you mean?”
Gwyn translated and Monsieur Emietter frowned. He began to
address Tammi-Jo directly, speaking rapidly and gesticulating wildly.
“He says he doesn’t do fast food—”
“I’m sure he could run to pasta,” I interjected hurriedly.
Gwyn mentioned this to him, and he threw his pencil at me.
Fortunately, it being a ghost pencil, he didn’t take my eye out.
“He’s French, Alfhild, not Italian.”
“I know, but—” A thought suddenly occurred to me. “Wait, it’s
fine.” I held my hands palms up. “Tell him he should do upmarket
fast food—”
“Really, my dear—”
“Grandmama, dress that up somehow with fancy words! Use
your imagination!” I urged her. “I’ve got an idea.”
 Gwyn arched her eyebrows. “Do tell, Alfhild?”
“Monsieur Emietter could produce his usual array of amazing
French food, and I could see whether Rob Parker and his van are
available to supply”—I nearly said proper food but just caught myself
—“more common fare.”
Tammi-Jo looked quizzical. “Parker’s Porky Perfection,” I
explained. “Rob does the best sausage and mash you’re ever likely
to have.” I licked my lips. “Mmm. Cider and apple pork sausages
with a rich onion gravy—”
“That certainly sounds like the sort of thing the crew would eat.
The more of it the better.” Tammi-Jo twisted a delicate lip, evidently
disapproving.
“I could ensure Rob is available for a little … erm … extra.” I had
my business head on. These people could afford it.
“You’re making me hungry,” Bill said, and I grinned.
“Are you hungry, sir, did you say?” Florence apparated out of
nowhere. “Shall I put the kettle on?” A large cake tin spun through
the air and landed on the scrubbed kitchen table in front of us. “I
baked an upside-down rhubarb and ginger cake this morning if you’d
like a slice?”
The lid flew off and Bill leaned over to gaze inside the tin. “That
looks—and smells—delicious,” he groaned, inhaling the fragrance,
“but I really shouldn’t—”
“Oh, nonsense,” said Florence, her cake knife plunging savagely
into the centre of the sponge.
The scent of rhubarb tickled my nostrils. My tummy rumbled.
Florence smiled at Bill. “I’ve half a pint of clotted cream in the
cold store too. Unless you’d prefer custard?”
Bill surrendered. “Cream would be lovely.”
“M iss, Alf? Don’t you think it’s funny how folk always say
they ‘really shouldn’t’ when you offer them cake, but then
two seconds later they’re snatching your hand off?”
Charity, Florence and I were standing together in the main
entrance, sheltering from the rain and watching the advance
construction team build the parkour course on my lawn from planks
of wood, scaffolding and old tyres. It was mid-March and the ground
was sodden, so they’d rolled out great lengths of some kind of
rubber flooring with blisters that helped you grip as you walked on
it. The flooring would protect the ground from being churned up.
The lawn beneath would quickly discolour, but at least at this time of
year the grass would grow back again soon enough.
“When they say they really shouldn’t, they mean they shouldn’t
really,” I told her. I could distinguish between the two although I’m
sure others would have struggled. “They also mean they’re weak-
willed and they want all the cake.”
Charity glanced down at the cake stand she held in her hands.
“That’s true,” she said. “And anybody who says, ‘I really shouldn’t,’
also means they’re going to at any second.”
We had arranged a table here in the vestibule so that Bill and his
men could have tea and coffee—and cake of course—out of the rain
without having to divest themselves of boots and jackets when they
came inside. They’d trotted over at my first call, wolfed down
practically everything on offer in seconds, glugged their drinks and
disappeared back out into the rain, intent on finishing the job.
I reached out for the last remaining slice of lime marmalade and
coconut cake that had been left forlorn and alone on the plate, but
Charity snatched it away. “No, you really, really shouldn’t,” she said.
I pouted. She had a point though. Any day now and my wonky
inn would be swarming with handsome men and I wanted to look
my best. I’d even booked a hairdressing appointment down in the
village and ordered some new robes from a new dressmaker I’d
found online.
“Fair enough,” I grumbled and poured myself a cup of tea from
one of the near-empty flasks, hoping it would keep the hunger
pangs at bay till dinnertime.
I squinted through the rain.
“I didn’t realise this thingummy would be so big,” I lamented.
“Who?” Charity asked, barging up next to me.
“Not who, what.” I tipped my head in the direction of the course.
“I meant that parkour thingie.”
“Oh, I thought you meant that tall chap, there,” Charity grinned
impishly. “He’s enormous.”
Florence slipped between us to take a peek at a man the others
had referred to as ‘Manc’, probably on account of the fact that he
hailed from Manchester in the north-west. “Ooh, he is a big boy,
Miss Charity. He looks like a Viking.”
“Or a bear,” I said.
 Standing well over six foot, he had a broad build too. He had
long hair, a kind of sandy-blond colour, currently pulled back in a
neat ponytail, and a trimmed beard. On account of his size, he
wasn’t as fast as the others when he ran—and they all seemed to do
a lot of running—but he was still more nimble on his feet than I was.
And strong!
All of these men were strong.
Bill, Manc and another four men, dressed almost identically and
sporting identikit facial hair—although of varying colours—were
lifting a large wooden pole into place. It stood vertically, almost like
a totem. It was wider than the rest of the supports they had raised
into place so far, perhaps a foot wide and a foot deep, but it was
easily twenty feet high. There appeared to be hand- or footholds
screwed into the wood.
“What is that?” I wondered. They had joined everything else on
the course together, like some gigantic game of Mousetrap, but this
stood alone in the middle of the circuit.
“Who knows?” Charity said, her gaze fixed firmly on Manc.
“Put him down,” I said, joshing with her. Charity had never had a
lot of luck on the boyfriend front and I could never understand why.
She was a pretty young woman with ever-changing hair colour—
currently short and a vivid pink—but more than that, she was
practical, no-nonsense, compassionate and a wonderful friend.
Movement along the tree-lined part of the drive caught my
attention. A large white wagon of some kind. As I watched, an
enormous campervan drove slowly and carefully onto the gravelled
area of drive that separated the inn from the grounds. About the size
of a coach, but taller if anything, it took up an awful lot of room.
“What the devil?” Charity’s mouth dropped open. “That’s huge!”
“I’ve never seen a campervan that size before,” I agreed.
 Florence folded her arms. “American,” she said, all-seeing and all-
knowing thanks to Witchflix. “I’ve seen them on the television. They
do everything bigger and better over there. That’s for the big stars.”
“Oooh,” Charity said, clapping her hands in excitement.
As we gawped, another one, equally as large as the first, pulled
in behind it. Bill stopped what he was doing and trotted towards the
vehicles.
I craned my neck. “Who’s driving? Anyone we know?”
“It won’t be Mr Bruise, Miss Alf,” Florence told me. “He’ll have his
own drivers.”
“A fleet probably,” Charity agreed.
I put down my cup of tea and grabbed my mackintosh. “I should
go and investigate.”
“Shall I come?” Charity asked.
“No, no.” I waved her away. “I can handle this.”

Tammi-Jo had sent me a load of bumf and if I’d read it all through
properly, then I’d have known what to expect. Within three hours of
the first trailer arriving, I’d had to direct fourteen of these massive
campervans to the open green space, something that I often
referred to as a field or a meadow although it was neither, that lay in
the direction of Speckled Wood.
Just two of them parked side by side were larger than the
combined area of the main bar and dining room inside the inn!
Bill and his crew had lain down temporary iron grids to prevent
the trailers’ tyres becoming bogged down in the mud which,
fortuitously, would also save me having to re-landscape the grounds
after the production crew had left. They directed each van into an
allocated space and then, noting my curiosity and probably fed up
with me hovering at his elbow, Bill had offered to show me into one
of the trailers.
I jumped at the chance, not least because I knew it would turn
Charity green with envy.
I carefully wiped my feet and Bill took my arm to help me up the
high step into the first trailer. “This one’s for make-up,” he explained
as I looked around.
The leather chairs, like tall comfortable stools, had all been
screwed into place. Large, square mirrors were secured on the walls
too, each surrounded by lights. I pulled open one of the cupboards.
Make-up in bottles and jars, emblazoned with bright logos, and
plastic containers with cellophane seals had been carefully strapped
into place. Everything was neat and clean.
“Ingenious,” I said. “Nothing can get loose and rattle around.”
“That’s the idea.”
I pivoted. “So, no-one sleeps in here, then? I imagined these
trailers would all be for the actors to hang out in.”
“This one is for the make-up team.” Bill gestured to the rear and
I followed him. He twisted a knob and pushed a door open. Inside
were four bunks. Each was neatly made up and awaiting an
occupant. A door in the corner opened onto a small workshop. Wigs
hung from hooks and under the narrow counter, there were several
gadgets and machines, safely stowed in plastic containers. “I have
no idea what they are,” Bill said. “But I think Cosmo, the head make-
up artist, uses this area to colour his wigs.”
A second door off the bedroom opened into a tiddly bathroom
tucked away with a shower and a loo.
“Does the shower work?” I asked. Spot the witch who had only
ever stayed in a caravan once in her life. I’d consigned that memory
to the furthest recesses of my mind.
“Of course,” Bill said. “It’s not hooked up to the water yet. My
boys will sort that out later.”
I raised my eyebrows, impressed, and patted the bunk nearest to
me. “The beds look surprisingly comfortable.”
Bill smiled, his teeth white and even. “Do you fancy trying one
out, Ms Daemonne?”
I laughed at his little joke—well, I hoped it was a joke—and
backtracked out of the bedroom. Bill followed me, amused by my
slight discomfort, and opened another door. “There’s another shower
in here in case any of the actors need to wash off the blood and
gore make-up that gets used quite frequently on these movies. This
trailer is only for the main stars of the film. The extras and walk-ons
have to make do with a marquee that we’ll probably get around to
erecting tomorrow.”
“What about the other trailers?” I asked as I jumped back down
onto the soft grass outside. The rain had let up a little, which was
good news.
Bill came after me and beckoned me to the left. “This one is
Cam’s trailer. I can let you have a quick peek, but if you don’t mind,
I won’t let you in.”
“No, of course not,” I said and craned my neck to get a good
look. Cam Vendez wasn’t the tidiest of souls. It seemed he liked his
home comforts. There were numerous books and magazines on the
floor—probably all dislodged as the trailer made its way down the
narrow lanes to Whittlecombe from Exeter—as well as a large
television on the wall and a posh stereo system tucked beneath it. It
was a homely looking space, with lots of cushions and blankets and
even a silk rug spread over the plush carpet.
 “I’ll get you a set of keys so that you, or your staff, or whoever,
can clean the trailers for us every morning. Is that doable?”
“Oh, eminently,” I replied, cheered by the thought that everyone
could have a closer look. “I have a team of ghosts who just love
cleaning.” It wouldn’t be me. As if he’d ever catch me cleaning the
trailers for a bunch of mega-rich movie stars. Hell would freeze over
first.
Not even for Dom.
“I must remind you that all cleaners must be your most
trustworthy—”
I jumped in quickly, channelling my inner Gwyn. “I think you’ll
find all of my staff are trustworthy.”
“I’m sure they are,” Bill winked and, without further ado, walked
away.
I fanned myself, my face suddenly unseasonably warm.
Love him or loathe him, Bill had a way of getting me hot under
the collar.

I hadn’t been back inside the inn for ten minutes when Archibald,
who was keeping an eye on reception, notified me that another
trailer was making its way down the long drive. I reluctantly forsook
my place by the warm fire in the bar, where my clothes had been
steaming as I dried off, and headed back to the front door.
I pulled my wellies on once more and, given that my own
mackintosh was still sopping wet, I pinched Charity’s instead. I have
to confess it was a little too twee for my tastes—pink with rainbows
and unicorns—but it would serve a purpose. I stomped through the
puddles, taking great delight in acting like a six-year-old as well as
Another random document with
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the son or the youthful favourite.” If we put aside the suggestion of a
matriarchal theory here, the main idea in this judgment accords
generally with the evidence that the author of it has himself done
most to accumulate and to present to us. It is not insignificant that
the earliest type of Aegean idol in existence is that of a goddess, not
a god; and in the more developed Minoan period the representations
of the goddess are more frequent and more imposing than those of
the god; while in the few scenes of cult where the male deity appears
in her company, he appears in a subordinate position, either in a
corner of the field or standing before her throne.93.1 And a strong
current of early Greek legend induces us to believe that when the
earliest Hellenes reached Crete they found a powerful goddess-cult
overshadowing the island, associated with the figure of a young or
infant god: hence spread the Cretan worship of Rhea and the Μήτηρ
τῶν θεῶν, and hence there came to a few places on the Hellenic
mainland, where Minoan influence was strong, the cult and the cult-
legend of the infant Zeus.93.2 Yet we must not strain the evidence too
far; besides the youthful or infant Cretan god, there may have been
the powerful cult of a father-god as well. On three monuments we
catch a glimpse of the armed deity of the sky.93.3 What is more
important is the prominence of the double-headed axe in the service
of the Minoan palace; and this must be a fetichistic emblem
mystically associated with the thunder-god, though occasionally the
goddess might borrow it. The prominence and great vogue of this
religious emblem detracts somewhat from the weight of the evidence
as pointing to the supremacy of the female divine partner. It is Zeus,
not Rhea, that inspired Minos, as Jahwé inspired Moses, and
Shamash Hammurabbi. Yet the view is probably right on the whole
that the mother-goddess was a more frequent figure in the Minoan
service, and was nearer and dearer to the people.
May we also regard her as the prototype of all the leading Hellenic
goddesses? The consideration of this question will bring this
particular line of inquiry to a close.
If we find goddess-supremacy among the early Hellenes, shall we
interpret it as an Aryan-Hellenic tradition, or as an alien and
borrowed trait in their composite religion? If borrowed, are they more
likely to have derived it from the East or from their immediate
predecessors in the regions of Aegean culture? The latter question,
if it arises, we ought to be able to answer at last.
We might guard ourselves at the outset against the uncritical
dogma which has been proclaimed at times that the goddesses in
the various Aryan polytheisms were all alien, and borrowed from the
pre-Aryan peoples in whose lands they settled. Any careful study of
the Vedic and old-Germanic, Phrygo-Thracian religions can refute
this wild statement: the wide prevalence in Europe of the worship of
“Mother Earth,” which Professor Dieterich’s treatise establishes,94.1
is sufficient evidence in itself. Nor could we believe that the early
Aryans were unmoved by an anthropomorphic law of the religious
imagination that is almost universally operative. The Hellenic Aryans,
then, must be supposed to have brought certain of their own
goddesses into Greece, and perhaps philology will be able one day
to tell us who exactly they were. On linguistic and other grounds,
Dione and Demeter may be accepted as provedly old Hellenic: on
the same grounds, probably, Hera; also the name and cult of Hestia
is certainly “Aryan,”94.2 only we dare not call her in the earliest, and
scarcely at any period, a true personal goddess. Now, there is a
further important induction that we may confidently make: at the
period when the Aryan conquerors were pushing their way into
Aegean lands and the Indo-Iranians into the Punjaub and
Mesopotamia, they had a religious bias making for the supremacy of
the Father-God and against the supremacy of the goddess. We can
detect the same instinct also in the old Germanic pantheon.95.1 Its
operation is most visible when the Thrako-Phrygian stock, and their
cousins the Bithynian, broke into the north of Asia Minor, and the
regions on the south of the Black Sea. The god-cult they bring with
them clashes with the aboriginal and—as it proved—invincible
supremacy of the goddess linked to her divine boy: we hear of such
strange cult-products as Attis-Παπαῖος, Father Attis, and one of the
old Aryan titles of the High God appears in the Phrygian Zeus
Βαγαῖος, Bagha in old Persian and Bog in Slavonic meaning deity.
The Aryan hero-ancestor of the Phrygian stock, Manes, whom Sir
William Ramsay believes to be identical with the god Men, becomes
the father of Atys;95.2 also we have later proof of the powerful cult of
Zeus the Thunderer, Zeus the Leader of Hosts, in this region of the
southern shore of the Black Sea. Another induction that I venture,
perhaps incautiously, to make, is that in no Aryan polytheism is there
to be found the worship of an isolated or virgin-goddess, keeping
apart from relations with the male deity: the goddesses in India,
Germany, Ireland, Gaul,96.1 Thrace, and Phrygia are usually
associated temporarily or permanently with the male divinity, and are
popularly regarded as maternal, if not as wedded. Trusting to the
guidance of these two inductions, and always conscious of the
lacunae in our records, we may draw this important conclusion
concerning the earliest religious history of Hellas: namely, that where
we find the powerful cult of an isolated goddess, she belongs to the
pre-Hellenic population. The axiom applies at once and most forcibly
to Artemis and Athena; the one dominant in certain parts of Arcadia
and Attica, the other the exclusive deity of the Attic Acropolis. Their
virginal character was probably a later idea arising from their
isolation, their aversion to cult-partnership with the male deity.96.2
The Aryan Hellenes were able to plant their Zeus and Poseidon on
the high hill of Athens, but not to overthrow the supremacy of Athena
in the central shrine and in the aboriginal soul of the Athenian
people. As regards Hera, the question is more difficult: the
excavations at the Heraeum have been supposed by Dr. Waldstein
to prove the worship of a great goddess on that site, going back in
time to the third millennium B.C.,96.3 a period anterior to the advent
of the god-worshipping Aryan Hellenes. And this goddess remained
dominant through all history at Argos and Samos. But we have no
reason for supposing that her name was Hera in that earliest period.
Phonetically, the word is best explained as “Aryan”: if it was originally
the name brought by the Hellenes and designating the wife-goddess
of the sky-god—and in spite of recent theories that contradict it I still
incline to this view—the Hellenes could apply it to the great goddess
of the Argolid, unless her aversion to matrimony was a dogma, or
her religious isolation a privilege, too strong to infringe. This does not
seem to have been the case. The goddess of Samian cult, a twin-
institution with the Argive, was no virgin, but united with the sky-god
in an old ἱερὸς γάμος. Nevertheless, throughout all history the
goddess in Argos, and probably in Samos, is a more powerful cult-
figure than the god.
 As regards Aphrodite, few students of Greek religion would now
assign her to the original Aryan-Hellenic polytheism. Most still regard
her as coming to the Greek people from the Semitic area of the
Astarte cult. And this was the view that I formerly developed in the
second volume of my Cults. But at that time we were all ignorant of
the facts of Minoan-Mycenaean religion, and some of us were
deceived concerning the antiquity of the Phoenician settlements in
Cyprus and Hellas. The recently discovered evidence points, I think,
inevitably to the theory that Sir Arthur Evans supports; that the
goddess of Cyprus, the island where the old Minoan culture lived
longest, is one form of the great goddess of that gifted Aegean
people, who had developed her into various manifestations through
long centuries of undisturbed religious life. Let us finally observe that
it is just these names, Artemis, Athena, Aphrodite, that have hitherto
defied linguistic explanation on either Aryan or Semitic phonetic
principles. We do not yet know the language of King Minos.
A cursory and dogmatic answer may now be given to the two
questions posed above. The Aryan Hellenes did not bring with them
the supremacy of the goddess, for the idea was not natural to them:
they did not borrow it from any Semitic people in the second
millennium, for at that time it was not natural to the Semites: they
found it on the soil of the Aegean lands, as a native growth of an old
Mediterranean religion, a strong plant that may be buried under the
deposits of alien creeds, but is always forcing its head up to the light
again.
Therefore in tracing goddess-cult from the Euphrates valley to the
western Aegean shores, as a test of the influence of the East on the
West, we are brought up sharply at this point. The Western world is
divided from the Eastern by this very phenomenon that the older
scholars used to regard as proving a connection. And it may well
have been the Western cult that influenced the western Semites.
 CHAPTER VI.
The Deities as Nature-Powers.

So far as we have gone our main question must be still regarded as

an open one. We may now compare the particular conceptions
concerning divinity that prevailed at the period to which our search is
limited, in the valley of the Euphrates, and in the other communities
that are in our route of comparison. Many striking points of general
similarity will present themselves, upon which we must not lay too
much weight for our argument, since all polytheisms possess a
certain family likeness: of more importance will be certain strikingly
dissimilar features, if we find any.
First, in regard to the general concepts or characters of the
divinities, the same formula seems mainly applicable to the
Mesopotamian as to the Hellenic facts: the leading divinities have
usually some distinct association with the world of nature; but the
natural phenomenon or elemental fact that may be there in the
background of their personality, becomes overlaid and obscured by
the complex ethical and mental traits that are evolved. Therefore the
mere nature-fact rarely explains the fully-developed god, either of
Babylon or of Hellas. A few salient examples will make this clear. It is
only perhaps Shamash the sun-god of Sippar, and Sin the moon-god
of Ur, that retain their nature-significance rarely obscured. The hymn
to Sin in Dr. Langdon’s collection reveals an intelligible lunar imagery
throughout; but in another published by Zimmern,100.1 his personality
becomes more spiritual and mystical; he is at once “the mother-body
who bears all life, and the pitiful gracious father,” the divinity who has
created the land and founded temples; under the Assyrian régime he
seems to have become a god of war.100.2 Shamash even surpasses
him in grandeur and religious value, so far as we can judge from the
documents; but his whole ethical and spiritual character, clearly
articulated as it is, can be logically evolved from his solar. But in
studying the characters of Marduk and Nergal, for instance, we feel
that the physical theories of their origin help us but little, and are at
times self-contradictory; and it might be well for Assyriologists to take
note of the confusion and darkness that similar theories have spread
in this domain of Hellenic study. Thus we are told that the Sun in the
old Sumerian-Babylonian system gave birth to various special
personalities, representing various aspects of him: Marduk is the
spring-sun, rejoicing in his strength, although his connection with
Shamash does not seem specially close; yet Jeremias, who
expresses this opinion,100.3 believes also that Marduk is a storm-
god, because “his word can shake the sea.” Shall we say, then, that
Jahwé is a storm-god “because the voice of the Lord shaketh the
cedar-trees”? The phrase is quite innocent if we only mean by it that
any and every personal God could send a storm; it becomes of
doubtful value if it signifies here that Marduk is an impersonation of
the storm. The texts seem sometimes to contradict each other; Ninib,
for instance, is regarded by Jeremias101.1 as the rising sun, on the
ground of certain phrases in his hymn of praise; but the concept of
him as a storm-god is more salient in the oldest texts, and thus he is
pre-eminently a deity of destruction and death, and becomes
specially an Assyrian war-god. Does it help us if we imagine him
originally as the Storm-Sun, as Jensen would have us? or is it not
allowable to suspect that solar terms of religious description became
a later Babylonian convention, and that any deity might attract them?
Nergal, again, the god of Kutha, has been supposed to have had a
solar origin, as the god of the midday and destructive sun;101.2 yet
his special realm is Hades, where he ruled by the side of the
goddess Allatu, and his name is doubtfully interpreted as the Lord of
the Great Habitation, and thus he is regarded as a god of disease
and death. This did not hinder him from becoming with Ninib the
great war-god of the Assyrians and their god of the chase, nor a
pious Babylonian poet from exalting him as “God of the little ones, he
of the benevolent visage.”101.3 In one of the Tel-El-Amarna texts he
is designated by an ideogram, that almost certainly means “the god
of iron.”101.4 This last fact, if correct, is an illustration of that which a
general survey of the Babylonian texts at last impresses upon us: the
physical origin of the deity, if he had one, does not often shape and
control his whole career; the high god grows into manifold forms,
dilates into a varied spiritual personality, progresses with the life of
his people, reflects new aspects of life, altogether independently of
any physical idea of him that may have originally prevailed. Adad,
the god of storms, becomes a god of prophecy, and is addressed as
a god of mercy in the fragment of a hymn.102.1 Ea the god of waters
becomes par excellence the god of wisdom, not because waters are
wise, but probably because Eridu, the seat of his cult, was an
immemorial home of ancient wisdom, that is to say, magic. As for the
great Nebo of Borsippa, Jeremias,102.2 who is otherwise devoted to
solar theories, has some good remarks on the absence of any sign
of his nature-origin: his ideogram designates “the prophet,” in his
earliest character he is the writer, his symbol is the “stilus” of the
scribe. Yet he does not confine himself to writing: he is interested in
vegetation, and eulogised in one hymn as “he who openeth the
springs and causeth the corn to sprout, he without whom the dykes
and canals would run dry.” Surely this interest comes to him, not
from the planet Mercury,102.3 but from his wisdom and his concern
with Babylonian civilisation, which depended upon dykes and canals.
We are presented here with a progressive polytheism, that is, one of
which the divinities show the power of self-development parallel with
the self-development of the people.
The question we have just been considering, the physical
character of the Babylonian deities in relation to their whole
personality, suggests two last reflections. Their gods have a certain
relation to the planets, which is preserved even in our modern
astronomy. That the early Sumerians worshipped stars is
probable,102.4 as the Sumerian sign for divinity is a star; but that the
Sumerian-Babylonian high gods were personal forms of the planets,
is denied by leading modern Assyriologists,103.1 except in the case of
the sun and the moon, Shamash and Sin. It was only the Chaldaean
astronomic theory that came to regard the various planets in their
varying positions as special manifestations of the powers of the
different personal gods; and the same planet might be a
manifestation, according to its different positions, of different gods:
the “star Jupiter at one point is Marduk, at another point Nebo”; this
dogma is found on a seventh-century tablet, which declares at the
same time that “Mercury” is Nebo.103.2 This planetary association of
the deities is well illustrated by the memorial relief of Asarhaddon
found at Sinjerli, and the relief of Maltaija, showing stars crowning
their heads;103.3 but both these are later than the period with which
we are here immediately concerned.
Lastly, we fail to observe in that domain of the old Babylonian
religion which may be called nature-worship, any clear worship of the
earth regarded as a personal and living being, as the Hellenes
regarded Gaia. The great goddesses, Ishtar, the goddess at once
warlike and luxurious, virgin and yet unchaste, terrible and merciful,
the bright virgin of the sky, Bau, the wife of Ninib, the “amorous lady
of heaven,” are certainly not of this character. Still less is Allatu, the
monstrous and grim Queen of Hell, at whose breast the lions are
suckled. It seems that if the early Sumerians conceived the earth as
a personal divinity at all, they imagined it as a male divinity. For in
the inscriptions of Nippur, Enlil or Bel appears as a Lord of the
underworld, meaning our earth as distinct from the heavens: he is
hymned as the “lord of the harvest-lands, lord of the grain-fields”104.1
—he is the “husbandman who tends the fields”; when Enlil is angry,
“he sends hunger everywhere.” In another hymn he is thus
described: “The great Earth-Mountain is Enlil, the mountain-storm is
he, whose shoulders rival the heavens, whose foundation is the
bright abyss”;104.2 and again, “Lord, who makest to abound pure oil
and nourishing milk;… in the earth Lord of life art thou”; “to give life
to the ground thou dost exist.”104.3 It is evident that Enlil is more than
the personal earth regarded as a solid substance; he is rather the
god of all the forces and life that move on and in the earth, hence he
is “the lord of winds.”104.4 He is more, then, than the mere equivalent
of Gaia. One might have expected to find a Sumerian counterpart for
this goddess in Ninlil or Belit, the wife and female double of Enlil or
Bel: but in an inscription that is dated as early as 4000 B.C. she is
styled “The Queen of Heaven and Earth,”104.5 and though in a hymn
of lamentation addressed to her104.6 she is described as the goddess
“who causeth plants to come forth,” yet the ecstatic and mysticising
Babylonian imagination has veiled and clouded her nature-aspect.
 This strange religious poetry which had been fermenting for
thousands of years, was likely enough to transform past recognition
the simple aboriginal fact. It is only the lesser deities, the
“Sondergötter” of the Sumerian pantheon, whose nature-functions
might remain clear and unchanged: for instance, such a corn-deity
as we see on a cylinder, with corn-ears in his hand and corn-stalks
springing from his shoulders.105.1 Even the simple form of Tammuz,
the darling of the Sumerian people, has been somewhat blurred by
the poetry of passion that for long ages was woven about him. As
Zimmern has shown in a recent treatise,105.2 he was never the chief
deity of any Babylonian or Assyrian state, but nevertheless one of
great antiquity and power with the Sumerian people, and his cult and
story were doubtless spreading westward in the second millennium.
In spite of all accretions and the obscurity of his name, which is
interpreted to mean “real son of the water-deep,”105.3 we can still
recognise the form of the young god of vegetation who dies in the
heat of the summer solstice and descends to the world below,
leaving the earth barren till he returns. This idea is expressed by
some of his names, “the Lord of the land’s fruitfulness, the Lord of
the shepherd’s dwelling, the Lord of the cattle-stall, the God of
grain,”105.4 and by many an allusion to his legend in the hymns,
which are the most beautiful and pathetic in the old Sumerian
psalmody: “in his manhood in the submerged grain he lay”; “how
long still shall the verdure be imprisoned, how long shall the green
things be held in bondage?”105.5 An interesting title found in some of
the incantation liturgies is that of “the shepherd,” and like some other
vegetation-powers he is at times regarded as the Healer. Though he
was not admitted as the compeer of the high gods into the
Babylonian or Assyrian pantheon, he may be said to have survived
them all, and his name and myth became the inspiration of a great
popular religion. No other of that vast fraternity of corn-spirits or
vegetation-spirits into which Dr. Frazer has initiated us, has ever had
such a career as Tammuz. In one of his hymns he is invoked as
“Lord of the world of Death,” because for a time he descended into
Hell.106.1 If this idea had been allowed to germinate and to develop
its full potentiality, it might have changed the aspect of Babylonian
eschatology. But, as we shall see, the ideas naturally attaching to
vegetation, to the kindly and fair life of seeds and plants, were never
in Babylonia properly harmonised with those that dominated belief
concerning the lower world of the dead. The study of the Tammuz-
rites I shall reserve for a later occasion.
We have now to consider the other Anatolian cults from the point
of view of nature-worship. The survey need not detain us long as our
evidence is less copious. As regards the western Semites, our
trustworthy records are in no way so ancient as those that enlighten
us concerning Mesopotamia. Philo of Byblos, the interpreter of the
Phoenician Sanchuniathon, presents us only with a late picture of
the Canaanite religion, that may be marred by their own symbolic
interpretations. Because we are told106.2 that “the Phoenicians and
Egyptians were the first to worship the sun and the moon and the
stars,”106.2 or “the first to deify the growths of the earth,”106.3 we
cannot conclude that in the second millennium the religion of the
Phoenicians was purely solar or astral, or merely the cult of
vegetation-gods. “Baalshamin” means the lord of the heavens, an
Aramaic and Phoenician god, and Sanchuniathon explained him as
the sun;107.1 but Robertson Smith gives good reason for the view
that the earliest conception of the local Baal was of a deity of the
fertilising spring, a local divine owner of a well-watered plot, hence
the giver of all life to fruits and cattle.107.2 Nor are we sure what was
the leading “nature-aspect” of the cult of Astarte. The title “Meleket
Ashamaim,” “the Queen of the Heavens,” which Ezekiel attaches to
her, does not inform us precisely concerning her earliest and original
character. From her close association with the Minoan goddess of
Cyprus, she was no doubt worshipped as the source of the life of
plants and animals and men. Also, it is of some value to bear in mind
the later records concerning the worship of Helios at Tyre in the
Roman Imperial period, and of Helios and the thunder-god at
Palmyra, where Adad-Rimmon, the storm-god who was in power
among the western Semites in the earliest period, may have
survived till the beginning of Christianity. We may conclude from all
this that in the oldest period of the western Semite societies the cult
of special nature-deities was a prominent feature of the religion. But
even these may already in the second millennium have acquired a
complex of personal attributes ethical and spiritual. In the later
Carthaginian religion, the personal deities are clearly distinguished
from the mere nature-powers, such as the sun, earth, and moon; and
this important distinction may have arisen long before the date of the
document that proves it.107.3
Of the Hittite gods we may say this much at least, that the
monuments enable us to recognise the thunder-god with the
hammer or axe, and in the striking relief at Ibreez we discern the
form of the god of vegetation and crops, holding corn and grapes.
The winged disk, carved with other doubtful fetich-emblems above
the head of the god who is clasping the priest or king on the Boghaz-
Keui relief, is a solar emblem, borrowed probably from Egyptian
religious art. And the Hittite sun-god was invoked in the Hittite treaty
with Rameses II.108.1 Whether the mother-goddess was conceived
as the personal form of Gaia is doubtful; her clear affinity with Kybele
would suggest this, and in the Hittite treaty with Rameses II.
mentioned above, the goddess Tesker is called the Mistress of the
Mountains, the express title of the Phrygian Mother, and another “the
Mistress of the Soil.”108.2 Yet evidently the Hittite religion is too
complex to be regarded as mere nature-worship: the great relief of
Boghaz-Keui shows a solemn and elaborate ritual to which doubtless
some spiritual concepts were attached.
As regards the original ideas underlying the cults of those other
Anatolian peoples who were nearer in geographical position and
perhaps in race to the Aegean peoples, we have no explicit ancient
records that help us to decide for the second millennium. For some
of these various communities the goddess was, as we have seen,
the supreme power. The great Phrygian goddess Kybele is the cult-
figure of most importance for our purpose, and it is possible to divine
her original character with fair certainty.108.3 In her attributes,
functions, and form, we can discern nothing celestial, solar or lunar;
she was, and remained to the end, a mother-goddess of the earth, a
personal source of and life of fruits, beasts, and man: her favourite
haunt was the mountains, and her earliest image that we know, that
which the Greeks called Niobe on Mount Sipylos, seems like a
human shape emerging from the mountain-side: she loved also the
mountain caverns, which were called after her κύβελα; and
according to one legend she emerged from the rock Agdos, and
hence took the name Agdestis. The myth of her beloved Attis is clear
ritual-legend associated with vegetation; and Greek poetry and
Greek cult definitely linked her with the Greek Gaia. We gather also
from the legend of Attis and other facts that her power descended to
the underworld, and the spirits of the dead were gathered to her;109.1
hence the snake appears as her symbol, carved as an akroterion
above her sepulchral shrine, where she is sculptured with her two
lions at Arslan Kaya—“the Lion Rock in Phrygia”;109.2 and her
counterpart, the Lydian Mother Hipta, is addressed as χθονίη.109.3
In all her aspect and functions she is the double of the great
Minoan mother-goddess described already, whose familiar animals
are the lion and the serpent, who claims worship from the mountain-
top, and whose character is wholly that of a great earth goddess with
power doubtless reaching down to the lower world of the dead. Only
from Crete we have evidence which is lacking in pre-Aryan Phrygia
of the presence of a thunder or sky-god by her side.109.4
Turning our attention now to the early Hellenic world, and to that
part of its religion which we may call Nature-worship, we discern
certain general traits that place it on the same plane in some
respects with the Mesopotamian. Certain of the higher deities show
their power in certain elemental spheres, Poseidon mainly in the
water, Demeter in the land, Zeus in the air. But of none of these is
the power wholly limited to that element: and each has acquired, like
the high gods of Assyria and Babylon and Jahwé of Israel, a
complex anthropomorphic character that cannot be derived, though
the old generation of scholars wearily attempted to derive it, from the
elemental nature-phenomenon. Again, other leading divinities, such
as Apollo, Artemis, Athena, are already in the pre-Homeric period, as
far as we can discern, pure real personalities like Nebo and Asshur,
having no discoverable nature-significance at all. Besides these
higher cults, we discern a vast number of popular local cults of
winds, springs, rivers, at first animistically and then
anthropomorphically imagined. So in Mesopotamia we find direct
worship of canals and the river. Finally, we discern in early Hellas a
multitude of special “functional” divinities or heroes, “Sondergötter,”
like Eunostos, the hero of the harvest: and it may be possible to find
their counterparts in the valley of the Euphrates.110.1 We have also
the nameless groups of divine potencies in Hellas, such as the
Πραξιδίκαι, Μειλίχιοι, these being more frequent in the Hellenic than
in the Mesopotamian religion, which presents such parallels as the
Annunaki and the Igigi, nameless daimones of the lower and upper
world: and these in both regions may be regarded as products of
animism not yet developed into theism.
But such general traits of resemblance in two developed
polytheisms deceive no trained inquirer; and it would be childish to
base a theory of borrowing on them. What is far more important are
the marked differences in the nature-side of the Greek polytheism,
as compared with the Sumerian-Babylonian. In the latter, the solar-
element was very strong, though perhaps not so omnipresent as
some Assyriologists assure us. On the contrary, in the proto-Hellenic
system it was strikingly weak, so far as we can interpret the
evidence. The earliest Hellenes certainly regarded the Sun as a
personal animate being, though the word Helios did not necessarily
connote for them an anthropomorphic god. But the insignificance of
his figure in the Homeric poems agrees well with the facts of actual
cult. As I have pointed out in the last volume of my Cults,111.1 it was
only at Rhodes that Helios was a great personal god, appealing to
the faith and affections of the people, revered as their ancestor and
the author of their civilisation, and descending, we may believe, from
the period of the Minoan culture111.2 with which Rhodes was closely
associated in legend. And it appears from the evidence of legend
and Minoan art that sun-worship was of some power in the pre-
Hellenic Aegean civilisation. In the Mycenaean epoch he may have
had power in Corinth, but his cult faded there in the historic age
before that of Athena and Poseidon. The developed Hellene
preferred the more personal deity, whose name did not so obviously
suggest a special phenomenon of nature. And if he inherited or
adopted certain solar personages, as some think he adopted a sun-
god Ares from Thrace, he seems to have transformed them by some
mental process so as to obliterate the traces of the original nature-
perception.
Even more significant for our purpose is the comparison of the two
regions from the point of view of lunar-cult. We have sufficiently
noted already the prominence of the moon-god Sin in the Babylonian
pantheon, an august figure of a great religion: and among all the
Semitic peoples the moon was a male personality, as it appears to
have been for the Vedic Indians and other Aryan peoples. The
Hellenic imagination here presents to us this salient difference, that
the personal moon is feminine, and she seems to have enjoyed the
scantiest cult of all the great powers of Nature. Not that anywhere in
Greece she was wholly without worship.112.1 She is mentioned in a
vague record as one of the divinities to whom νηφάλια, “wineless
offerings,” were consecrated in Athens: she had an ancient place in
the aboriginal religion of Arcadia; of her worship in other places the
records are usually late and insignificant. The great Minoan goddess
may have attracted to herself some lunar significance, but this
aspect of her was not pronounced.
Here, then, is another point at which the theory of early Babylonian
influence in nascent Hellenic religion seriously breaks down. And in
this comparison of Nature-cults it breaks down markedly at two
others. The pantheon of Mesopotamia had early taken on an astral-
character. The primitive Hellenes doubtless had, like other peoples,
their star-myths; and their superstitions were aroused and
superstitious practices evoked by celestial “teratology,” by striking
phenomena, such as eclipses, comets, falling stars.113.1 But there is
no record suggesting that they paid direct worship to the stars, or
that their deities were astral personations, or were in the early period
associated with the stars: such association, where it arose, is merely
a sign of that wave of Oriental influence that moved westward in the
later centuries. The only clear evidences of star-cult in Hellenic
communities that I have been able to find do not disturb this
induction: Lykophron and a late Byzantine author indicate a cult of
Zeus Ἀστέριος in Crete, which cannot, even if real, be interpreted as
direct star-worship:113.2 at Sinope, a city of Assyrian origin, named
after the Babylonian moon-god, a stone with a late inscription
suggests a cult of Seirios and the constellations;113.3 and an Attic
inscription of the Roman Imperial epoch, mentions a priest of the
φωσφόροι, whom we must interpret as stellar beings.113.4 What,
then, must we say about the Dioskouroi, whom we are generally
taught to regard as the personal forms of the morning- and the
evening-star? Certainly, if the astral character of the great Twin-
Brethren of the Hellenes were provedly their original one, the general
statement just put forth would have to be seriously modified. But a
careful study of their cult does not justify the conventional view; and
the theory that Wide has insisted on113.5 appears to me the only
reasonable account of them, namely, that originally they were heroic
“chthonian” figures, to whom a celestial character came later to be
attached: it is significant that the astral aspect of them is only
presented in comparatively late documents and monuments, not in
Homer or the Homeric hymn, and that their most ancient ritual
includes a “lectisternium,” which properly belonged to heroes and
personages of the lower world.
Lastly, the nature-worship of the Hellenes was pre-eminently
concerned with Mother-earth—with Ge-meter, and this divine power
in its varied personal forms was perhaps of all others the nearest
and dearest to the popular heart: so much of their ritual was
concerned directly with her. And some scholars have supposed,
erroneously, I think, but not unnaturally, that all the leading Hellenic
goddesses arose from this aboriginal animistic idea. We may at least
believe this of Demeter and Kore, the most winning personalities of
the higher Hellenic religion. And even Athena and Artemis, whatever,
if any, was their original nature-significance, show in many of their
aspects and much of their ritual a close affinity to the earth-goddess.
But, as I have indicated above, it is impossible to find in the early
Mesopotamian religion a parallel figure to Ge: though Ishtar was
naturally possessed of vegetative functions—so that, when she
disappears below the world, all vegetation languishes—yet it would
be hazardous to say that she was a personal form of earth: we may
rather suspect that by the time the Semites brought her to
Mesopotamia from the West, she had lost all direct nature-
significance, and was wholly a personal individual.
Finally, the cleavage between the two groups of peoples in their
attitude towards the powers of nature is still further marked in the
evolution of certain moral and eschatologic ideas. The concept of a
Ge-Themis, of Earth as the source of righteousness, and of Mother-
earth as the kindly welcomer of the souls of the dead, appears to
have been alien to Mesopotamian imagination, for which, Allatu, the
Queen of the lower world, is a figure wholly terrible.
 CHAPTER VII.
The Deities as Social-Powers.

The next important section of our survey is the comparison of the

social and ethical aspects of the religions in the eastern and western
areas. Here again the former warning may be repeated, not to draw
rash conclusions from the observance of mere general points of
similarity, such as occur in the religious systems of all the more
advanced societies of which we have any explicit record.
The idea that religion is merely a concern of the private individual
conscience is one of the latest phenomena in all religious history.
Both for the primitive and the more cultured communities of ancient
history, religion was by a law of its nature a social phenomenon, a
force penetrating all the institutions of the political life, law and
morality. But its precise contribution to the evolution of certain social
products in the various communities is still a question inviting and
repaying much research. It will be interesting to compare what may
be gleaned from Assyriology and the study of Hellenism bearing on
this inquiry, although it may not help us much towards the solution of
our main question.
We may assume of the Mesopotamian as of other peoples, that its
“social origins” were partly religious; only in the valley of the
Euphrates, society had already so far advanced in the fifth
millennium B.C. that the study of its origins will be always
problematic. The deities are already national, having developed far
beyond the narrow tribal limits before we begin to discern them
clearly; we have not to deal with the divinities of clans, phratries, or
septs, but of complex aggregates, such as cities and kingdoms. And
the great cities are already there before our knowledge begins.
In the Sumerian myth of creation, it is the high god himself who,
after settling the order of heaven and earth, immediately constructs
cities such as Borsippa; a passage in Berosus speaks of Oannes,
that is to say, Ea as the founder of cities and temples;117.1 and the
myths may enshrine the truth that the origin of the Mesopotamian
city was often religious, that the temple was its nucleus. I cannot
discover that this is indicated by the names of any other of the great
cities, Babylon, Borsippa, Sippar, Kutha; but it is shown by the name
of Nineveh and its connection with the Sumerian goddess Nin or
Nina, possibly a form of Ishtar.117.2 And in the inscription of Sargon
giving the names of the eight doors of his palace, all named after
deities, Ninib is described as the god “who lays the ground-stone of
the city for eternity”;117.3 also we find designations of particular cities,
as the city of such-and-such a deity.117.4 Finally, it may be worth
noting in this direction that Nusku the fire-god, who lights the
sacrifices, is called “the City-Founder, the Restorer of Temples.”117.5
The evidence of Anatolia is late, but it tells the same story: Sir
William Ramsay has emphasised the importance for early political
history of such names as Hieroupolis, the City of the Temple,
developing into Hierapolis, the Holy City.118.1 In Hellas the evidence
is fuller and older of the religious origin of some, at least, of the
πόλεις, for some of the old names reveal the personal name or the
appellative of the divinity. Such are Athenai (the settlements of
Athena); Potniai, “the place of the revered ones”; Alalkomenai, “the
places of Athena Alalkomene”; Nemea, “the sacred groves of Zeus”;
Megara, probably “the shrines of the goddess of the lower world”;
Diades, Olympia and others. The reason of such development is not
hard to seek: the temple would be the meeting-place of many
consanguineous tribes, and its sanctuary would safeguard intertribal
markets, and at the same time demand fortification and attract a
settlement. Mecca, the holy city of Arabia in days long before and
after Islam, had doubtless this origin.118.2 We have traces of the
same phenomenon in our English names: Preston, for instance,
showing the growth of a city out of a monastery. In the later history of
Hellenism the religious origin of the πόλεις is still more frequently
revealed by its name: the god who leads the colonists to their new
home gives his name to the settlement; hence the very numerous
“Apolloniai.”
But though it is not permissible to dogmatise about the origin of
the great cities in the valley of the Euphrates, we have ample
material supplied by Babylonian-Assyrian monuments and texts of
the close interdependence of Church and State, to illustrate what I
remarked upon in my inaugural lecture, the political character of the
pantheon. This emerges most clearly when we consider the relations
of the monarch to the deity. Of all Oriental autocracies, it may be
said with truth that the instinctive bias of the people to an autocratic
system is a religious instinct: the kingship is of the divine type of
which Dr. Frazer has collected the amplest evidence. And this was
certainly the type of the most ancient kingship that we can discover
in the Mesopotamian region. The ancient kings of the Isin dynasty
dared to speak of themselves as “the beloved consort of Nana.”119.1
But more usually the king was regarded as the son or fosterling of
the divinity, though this dogma need not have been given a literal
interpretation, nor did it clash with the well-established proof of a
secular paternity. An interesting example is the inscription of
Samsuilina, the son of Hammurabi, who was reigning perhaps as
early as the latter part of the third millennium:119.2 the king proclaims,
“I built the wall in Nippur in honour of the goddess Nin, the walls of
Padda to Adad my helper, the wall of Lagab to Sin the god, my
begetter.” The tie of the foster-child was as close as that of actual
sonship; and Assurbanipal is regarded as the foster-child of the
goddess of Nineveh. Nebo himself says to him in that remarkable
conversation between the god and the king that an inscription has
preserved,119.3 “weak wast thou, O Assurbanipal, when thou sattest
on the lap of the divine Queen of Nineveh, and didst drink from her
four breasts.” Similarly, the early King Lugalzaggisi declares that he
was nourished by the milk of the goddess Ninharsag, and King
Gudea mentions Nina as his mother.119.4 In an oracle of
encouragement given by the goddess Belit to Assurbanipal, she
speaks to him thus, “Thou whom Belit has borne, do not fear.”120.1
Now a few isolated texts might be quoted to suggest that this idea
of divine parentage was not confined to the kings, but that even the
private Babylonian might at times rise to the conception that he was
in a sense the child of God. At least in one incantation, in which
Marduk is commissioned by Ea to heal a sick man, the man is called
“the child of his god”;120.2 and Ishtar is often designated “the Mother
of Gods and men” and the source of all life on the earth, human,
animal, and vegetative.120.3 But the incantation points only to a
vague spiritual belief that might be associated with a general idea
that all life is originally divine. We may be sure that the feeling of the
divine life of the king was a much more real and living belief than
was any sense that the individual might occasionally cherish of his
own celestial origin. The king and the god were together the joint
source of law and order. The greatest of the early Babylonian
dynasts, Lugalzaggisi, whose reign is dated near to 4000 B.C., styles
himself the vicegerent (Patesi) of Enlil, the earth-god of Nippur;120.4
and in early Babylonian contracts, oath was taken in the names both
of the god and the king.120.5 Hammurabi converses with Shamash
and receives the great code from his hands, even as Moses received
the law from Jahwé or Minos from Zeus. Did any monument ever
express so profoundly the divine origin of the royal authority and the
State institutions as the famous Shamash relief?121.1 It is the gods
who endow Hammurabi with his various mental qualities: he himself
tells us so in his code, “Marduk sent me to rule men and to proclaim
Righteousness to the world”;121.2 and he speaks similarly of the sun-
god Shamash: “At the command of Shamash, the great Judge of
Heaven and Earth, shall Righteousness arise up in the land.”121.3 He
proclaims himself, therefore, the political prophet of the Lord; and
curses with a portentous curse any one who shall venture to abolish
his enactments. The later Assyrian kings have the same religious
confidence: Sargon (B.C. 722-705) proclaims that he owes his
penetrating genius to Ea, “the Lord of Wisdom,” and his
understanding to the “Queen of the crown of heaven.”121.4 We find
them also, the Assyrian kings, consulting the sun-god by presenting
to him tablets inscribed with questions as to their chances of success
in a war, or the fitness and loyalty of a minister whom they proposed
to appoint.121.5
And this religion affords a unique illustration of the intimacy of the
bond between the king as head of the State and the divine powers.
The gods are the rulers of destiny: and in the Hall of Assembly at
Esagila each year the Council of the Gods under the presidency of
Nebo fixed the destiny of the king and the Empire for the ensuing
year.121.6 This award must have signified the writing down of oracles