Genebrand says Melvius, a Neapolitan, brought it to Europe in
A.D. 1303. Costa says Gama got it from Mohammedan seamen. But all
nations with whom it was found associate it with regions where Heraclean
myths prevailed. And one of the most curious facts is that the ancient
Britons, as the Welsh do to-day, call a pilot llywydd (lode).
Lodemanage, in Skinner's 'Etymology,' is the word for the price paid to
a pilot. But whether this famous, and afterward deified, mariner
(Hercules) had a compass or not, we can hardly regard the association of
his name with so many Western monuments as accidental."
Hercules was, as we know, a god of Atlantis, and Oceanos, who lent the
magnetic cup to Hercules, was the Dame by which the Greeks designated
the Atlantic Ocean. And this may be the explanation of the recurrence of
a cup in many antique paintings and statues. Hercules is often
represented with a cup in his hand; we even find the cup upon the handle
of the bronze dagger found in Denmark, and represented in the chapter on
the Bronze Age, in this work. (See p. 254 ante.)
So "oracular" an object as this self-moving needle, always pointing to
the north, would doubtless affect vividly the minds of the people, and
appear in their works of art.
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