In August, 1901, I was on the mountain and saw a procession representing Noah’s Ark and the Universal Deluge one of those strange and picturesque cavalcades that were formerly more common than they are now.

Usually, in other parts of Italy, the same story is repeated at the same season: in one place, always the Passion at Easter; in another, always the Nativity at Christmas, and so forth. On the mountain they have the procession at irregular intervals, after perhaps three or four years, and the story, though now, as a rule, scriptural, is never the same again. When it does occur, it is as an extra embellishment of the annual harvest thanksgiving; it takes place by night and always introduces the Madonna di Custonaci. And now it is time to say a few words about this famous Madonna, whose influence is felt throughout the whole comune at all times, but nowhere more than on the Mountain, and at no time more than during the harvest thanksgiving.

Mount Eryx, as every one knows, was in classical times famous for the worship of Venus: here stood perhaps the most celebrated of all her temples the one with which her name is most familiarly associated and here, long before Horace wrote of “Erycina ridens,” she was worshipped as Aphrodite by the Greeks, and as Astarte or Ashtaroth by the Phoenicians. Hardly any vestige of a temple can now be made out, but the remains of the Pelasgic walls that protected the city in prehistoric ages are still to be seen near the Trapani gate. The late Samuel Butler (author of Erewhon) wrote The Authoress of the Odyssey (Longmans, 1897) in support of his view that the Odyssey was written by a woman who lived at Trapani and upon the mountain, and who in the poem described her own country. In Chapter XII. he quotes Thucydides (v, to show that the Sicans had inhabited this corner of the island from a very remote period, having come probably from Spain. After the fall of Troy, some of the Trojans, who had escaped the Greeks, migrated to Sicily, settled in the neighbourhood of the Sicans and were all together called Elymi, their cities being Eryx and Segesta. The city walls were originally built by the Sicans, and restored by the Phoenicians when they came to the mountain; on many of the stones the quarrymen’s marks in Phoenician characters are still visible.

It was believed that at certain seasons of the year the goddess left her shrine on the mountain and went over into Africa accompanied by all the pigeons of the neighbourhood, and this was the occasion for a festival of Anagogia. A little later, when the pigeons returned, the goddess was believed to come back with them, and then there was another festival of Catagogia. Seeing that she would have had to go little more than 120 miles in order to reach what is now Cape Bon, and then only to cross the gulf of Tunis to arrive at the Phoenician colony of Carthage, one may suppose it probable that these flittings began when Astarte was in power.

In our own time the Madonna di Custonaci reigns upon the Mountain, and is Protectress of the whole comune. Her sacred picture is normally in her sanctuary down at Custonaci, about 15 kilometres distant, but when any general calamity afflicts the district, it is brought up to the Matrice or Mother Church of the comune on Mount Eryx. On these occasions three days of humiliation are proclaimed, priests and men, their heads crowned with thorns, their necks encircled with cords, go about the town flagellating themselves; in the evening fires are lighted in the balio, and all the villages below answer by lighting fires too, to show that they are taking part in the general tribulation. A document is signed by the sindaco, and then the picture is brought from Custonaci and set over the great altar in the church of the Matrice. When it has become quite clear that the anger of Heaven has been appeased, the picture is taken back to Custonaci.

The calamity that most commonly befalls the comune is a drought, or the fear of a drought. Rain is not wanted while the salt is being made, but as soon as that is all under cover in the autumn it is time for the rain to begin, otherwise the crops will fail. In 1893 the rain was delayed until matters began to look so serious that it was determined to bring the picture up to the mountain. The proper formalities having been observed, the people all went out in crowds to welcome it and, as it was borne along, cried

“Acqua, Maria, acqua!” ("Rain, Maria, rain!”)

Meanwhile the clouds were gathering and presently a tremendous thunderstorm came on which drenched them all, and they returned to the mountain, shouting

“Basta, Maria, basta!” ("Leave off, Maria, leave off!”)

The lightning struck the church and injured four persons who were standing near the altar, but the Madonna was already in her place, and owing to her presence they recovered.

The picture, like many of the thaumaturgic representations of the Madonna, is the work of St. Luke the Evangelist all except the head which was done by an angel who descended from heaven expressly for the purpose. This being so, one would expect to find its home on the top of the very Mountain itself, in the chief place of the comune, and not down at an insignificant little village like Custonaci. Some have thought that to allow the Sanctuary of a Madonna Ericina to take the place of the Temple of Venus Erycina would have been to insist on a parallelism about which it was desirable to say as little as possible. Others believe the real reason why we have a Madonna di Custonaci to be preserved in the following legend.

A French vessel, laden with precious merchandise and also with this still more precious picture, was returning to Marseilles from Alexandria in Egypt, and, while sailing the Sicilian seas, encountered a furious tempest. The more the unhappy mariners laboured to govern their craft, the less they succeeded, and at last, despairing of earthly help, they turned their thoughts to the Madonna. With streaming eyes they knelt before the painting and prayed without ceasing to the Queen of Heaven that she would be graciously pleased to conduct them safely home. For a long time they met with no response, but when they were nearing Cofano, every sailor heard a voice, as though coming from the picture and declaring that the Madonna desired to be landed on the neighbouring coast. Whereupon they bound themselves by a vow that if they reached land in safety they would build a sanctuary then and there in memory of their miraculous preservation. No sooner was the vow uttered than the wind fell, the storm ceased and the surface of the waters became as smooth as polished glass, over which the fortunate bark glided without guidance into harbour and this to the great astonishment of the crew who observed that her course lay among dangerous shoals and sunken rocks.

The joyful mariners returned thanks to their Blessed Protectress and immediately began to perform their vow; but while disembarking, they found themselves surrounded by a crowd of armed peasants who, taking them for Turkish pirates, ran to the spot with the intention of frustrating their supposed nefarious designs. Mutual explanations averted bloodshed, and the peasants then began to dissuade the sailors from performing their vow in so literal a manner, pointing out that they would be abandoning their precious charge to the risk, if not the certainty, of sacrilegious theft at the hands of the corsairs who frequented that harbour. In the end the simple mariners yielded to the arguments of the peasants, and with many tears consigned the picture to their care. The peasants put it into a cart harnessed with two oxen who started to draw it inland, but would only go in a direction chosen by themselves and, after proceeding two or three kilometres, lay down and by no means could be persuaded to go a step further. This was accepted as an indication of the Madonna’s approval of what had been done and of her desire that her church should be erected there, and on that spot now stands the Sanctuary of Custonaci. The poor sailors, grieving bitterly for the loss of their treasure, returned to the ship and continued their interrupted voyage till they reached Marseilles in safety.

Owing to the culpable negligence of those who ought to have considered it a privilege to be permitted to chronicle the many important miracles which the Madonna performed in honour of the arrival of her picture, we have particulars of only two cures wrought in those times, one on a cripple and the other on a mute. Any one, however, who is disposed to doubt that there were many more has only to visit the sanctuary and take note of the large number of votive pictures there exhibited. Besides, how else could the fame of this wonder-working image have travelled abroad so extensively unless the wonders had been not less numerous than undoubted?

There is uncertainty as to the exact date of the arrival of the picture at the Sanctuary: some give the year 1570; others consider this too late, if only because wills exist dated as far back as 1422 bequeathing gifts to Santa Maria di Custonaci; others say that this need not have anything to do with our Madonna, because there has been a church or chapel at Custonaci dedicated to the Virgin from very early times, and there is nothing to show that these wills do not refer to the earlier Madonna; others believe 1370, not 1570, to be the true date. We should have something to guide us if we could ascertain how often the picture has been transported to the mountain in times of calamity, but here again the culpable negligence of the chroniclers has left us with records of only fifty-one such occasions from the beginning of the 16th century to 1794, viz. five when the pestilence walked by midday, four when the mountains trembled and the earth opened, two when the locusts came without number and devoured the fruits of the ground, four when war clouds gathered in the sky and thirty-six when the autumn rains were delayed.

The disputes extend also to the date of the painting, some even denying that it was painted by St. Luke. But to do this they are obliged to ignore all the considerations which support the orthodox view, viz. the place from which the sailors brought it, the many wonders performed by it, the miraculous preservation of the colouring during all the years that have elapsed since St. Luke’s time, the widespread belief in the efficacy of its powers and lastly the fact that, though many have made the attempt, no artist has yet succeeded in producing a perfect copy of the original.

I asked several people what St. Luke had to do with Alexandria, and was always told that St. Mark’s body was brought from there to Venice in 828, why then should not another of the Evangelists have been there also? Why not indeed? But this reply was as little satisfying as those with which pre-occupied age endeavours to silence inquisitive childhood, and produced much the same sort of result, spurring me on to further investigations.

A musician who desires to compose a tune that shall become popular must contrive something apparently original and yet not so original as to demand study; it must also contain echoes of other tunes previously popular, and yet they must be so indefinite that no one can tell for certain where they come from, which is what we mean when we say it is a wise tune that knows its own father. Similarly, the framers of the foregoing legend had to compose an entirely Christian story, as original as was compatible with the use of the forms of Christian legend, and yet they could not neglect all the pagan traditions with which their public had been impregnated for generations. In the first place the picture must come over the sea everything that arrives in an island does so; one of the most effective of the common forms in legend is the arrival of a boat with a precious cargo from a distant land, often bringing corn to stay a famine, and every one is now familiar with the opening of Lohengrin. Tunis would not do for the point of departure, not only because it is where pagan Astarte came from when she arrived in Sicily, but also because it had been Moslem since the seventh century and could not have been accepted by the people as a Christian seaport. It is quite likely that the popularity of the St. Mark legend determined the selection of Alexandria, which had the advantage also of being on the coast of the same continent as Tunis. The storm, the vow and the oxen are as much common form in legend as the ship; and the next thing that strikes one is the curious similarity between the alternate domiciles of the Madonna on the mountain and at Custonaci, and the flittings of Venus Erycina to and fro between the mountain and Carthage. If we look upon the arrival of the picture at Custonaci as involving the transplanting of a piece of Africa into Sicily, much as an ambassador’s house is regarded as being part of his own country transplanted into a foreign land, we may then consider that the Madonna, to all intents and purposes, still travels between the Mountain and Africa, only she now has an easier journey and avoids actually dwelling among heretics. In this view the transporting of her picture backwards and forwards should be looked upon as the modern version of the feasts of Anagogia and Catagogia.

It is admitted that the picture has, more than once, been placed in the hands of skilful modern painters whose services have been called in merely to repair any damage it may have sustained in its journeyings they have had nothing to do therefore with the miraculous preservation of the colouring. What these experts thought about the date of the original painting is known only to themselves. We need not suppose that they agreed that would have been indeed a miracle and quite a fresh departure for a picture with a reputation earned in a different branch of thaumaturgy. It does not much matter, however, what they thought, for experts in matters of art are the victims of such cast-iron prejudices that if once they fancy they see the influence of Leonardo da Vinci in a picture and take it into their heads that it comes from Piedmont, it will be found the most difficult thing in the world to persuade them that it really was painted in Egypt more than 1000 years before Giotto.

We shall probably not be far wrong if we assume that something like the processions of the Personaggi, involving the display of the most beautiful men and women that could be found, took place on the mountain in heathen times as part of the cult of the goddess and that, as a compromise, they were not abolished but accommodated to Christian usages.

Giuseppe Pitre, in his Feste Patronali in Sicilia, gives an account of the procession on the mountain held in 1752. We are to suppose that the wickedness of the good people of Eryx had attained to such monstrous proportions that the whole universe, incited thereto by observing the anger of God against them, took up arms in the cause of justice. The Madonna di Custonaci, however, intervened and saved her chosen people. It began with the Wrath of God, personified by a warrior armed with thunderbolts and lightning and setting forth to destroy the mountain. Then came the Angry Heavens, the Benignant Moon, Mars and Mercury ready to avenge the outrages done to God; Jove grasping a thunderbolt and about to hurl it against the comune, Venus anxious to overthrow the city, and Saturn whetting his golden scythe. The Sun is obscured, the Four Winds blow terribly, the Four Elements assist in the work of desolation, the Four Seasons threaten misery and affliction. Mount Eryx being convinced by this display that it is in a great danger, the Genius of the city appears next, bearing in his hand a figure of the Madonna di Custonaci. He calls to his assistance Divine Counsel, Devotion, Beneficence and Piety, and the procession closes with the Guardian Angel.

It must have been a magnificent spectacle. Many clouds have rested on Mount Eryx since 1752 and we do not now expose our bedrock of paganism quite so openly. This, indeed, but for the slight veneer of Christianity, might have passed for a downright pagan procession.

In 1894, L’Aurora Consurgens della Cantica was the subject. There were twelve figures showing the growth of idolatry and culminating with the Emperor Julius Cæsar who, it will be remembered, accepted worship as a god; moreover, his death having occurred not half a century before the birth of Christ, he was naturally followed by the Aurora, symbolizing the Madonna di Custonaci, and the explanatory pamphlet contained a reference to the Song of Solomon v: “Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?” After the Aurora came the Rising Sun, Faith, Christian Civilization, Mount Eryx, Charity and Youth meaning, probably, that Christianity will never grow old. In conclusion came a car with a copy of the sacred picture and a chorus of youths.

It would seem that the personages formerly appeared on foot, for the earliest record states that in 1750 they appeared for the first time on horseback. In 1897 the subject was Jael, and the cavalcade consisted of eight figures, of whom Deborah, seated in the shade of a palm tree surrounded with a chorus of damsels, Jael in the tent with Sisera nailed to the ground, and Triumph, appeared on cars, each of the others being on horseback and the horses being led by grooms suitably attired. A nocturnal procession, whether the figures go on foot, on horseback, or on cars, does not strike one as being a particularly favourable medium for the telling of a story. Nevertheless, by choosing a subject with which the people are more or less familiar, by emphasizing the climax and by providing an explanatory pamphlet for 2d., a more satisfactory result is produced than one would have supposed probable, as I realized when I saw the procession in August, 1901. The sacred picture had been on the mountain since 1893, an unusually long time, and was now to be taken back to the sanctuary at Custonaci, which, during its absence, had been beautified “in the Gothic style.” The two events of the Procession and the Return synchronizing, there was a double festa, lasting four days on the mountain and four days more at Custonaci.