Mice

frogs, fish, worms, and the Devil himself, were excommunicated. There are judicial records of the trial of oxen and pigs for injuring men. A cock was tried and condemned to death for laying an egg; but one court was much concerned how to try a mouse which had devoured the Sacred Host (see Notes and Queries, August 7th, 1897). These absurdities were all based on belief in po e ion by demons—justified by the case of the Gadarene swine. Bét-edie. “House of Corruption” in Babylonian, the name of Hades (see Babylon). Béthel. Hebrew: “house of god.” In the mountains N. of Jerusalem near Liz (see Almond) Abram built an altar. Jacob lighted on a “ certain place” (Makdm in Hebrew, the Arabic Makam applying to sacred places), and dreamed of the stairs leading to heaven. He too called it Bethel, and erected a stone from the older “place” or shrine, which he anointed with oil (see Baptism) and revisited later. But any holy stone was a Bethel if a spirit dwelt in it, like the Betulai or “ambrosial stones” under the sea at Tyre, shown on coins as a pair of menhirs (see Ambrosia), Such a stone —baptised or anointed—is the lingam in India, and the Ta-aroa in Polynesia. Some fell from heaven (see Artemis), Even natural rocks, resembling the lingam, were Betulai (see Pliny, Hist.