Note 11 — Chapter XIX · The Man of Sin.

We should probably look in vain after any satisfactory vestiges of the migration of the superstition concerning the mystical potency of food. It is found fully developed in the ancient Hindu myth of the struggle between the gods and demons for the Amrita, the immortalising nectar, one stolen sip of which gave the monster Ráhu the imperishable nature which no other of his order possesses. It is found in corresponding myths concerning the gods of Asgard and of Olympus. The fall of man in the Iranian legend was through a certain milk given by Ahriman to the first pair, Meschia and Meschiane. In Buddhist mythology, it was eating rice that corrupted the nature of man. It was the process of incarnation in the Gilghit legend (i. 398). The whole story of Persephone turns upon her having eaten the seed of a pomegranate in Hades, by which she was bound to that sphere. There is a myth very similar to that of Persephone in Japan. There is a legend in the Scottish Highlands that a woman was conveyed into the secret recesses of the ‘men of peace’—the Daoine Shi’, euphemistic name of uncanny beings, who carry away mortals to their subterranean apartments, where beautiful damsels tempt them to eat of magnificent banquets. This woman on her arrival was recognised by a former acquaintance, who, still retaining some portion of human benevolence, warned her that, if she tasted anything whatsoever for a certain space of time, she would be doomed to remain in that underworld for ever. The woman having taken this counsel, was ultimately restored to the society of mortals. It was added that, when the period named by her unfortunate friend had elapsed, a disenchantment of this woman’s eyes took place, and the viands which had before seemed so tempting she now discovered to consist only of the refuse of the earth.11