Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III LEGENDS OF THE CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY Section 1. Pre-christian Mythology And Religion The second body of legends which I wish to consider is chiefly concerned with the introduction of Christianity into the country. These, together with the traditional beliefs centered about the chief geographical feature of the land, Mt. Ararat, constitute a group bearing a very distinct religious stamp. For this reason, and also because they have a later origin, they are to be marked off very distinctly from those already taken up. In view of their religious bearing I shall introduce them with a brief account of the various forms of pagan worship that preceded the Christianization of the people. The chief religious influences have been the Assyrian, the Persian, and the Greek. It seems, however, that a kind of monotheism prevailed before the gods of any of these were taken over. The very ancient Armenian kings planted groves of poplars around their cities and the worship was carried on in these groves.1 An altar was placed-among the trees, where the first male descendant of the royal family (and perhaps other families) offered sacrifices to the one God, while the priests derived oracles from the rustling of the leaves. Even now the poplar groves are held in uncommon regard. This is a survival of the old belief that they were the dwelling place of God, and of the later practice of consecrating children in them. The belief that God dwelt among the leaves must have been suggested by the slightest trembling of the leaves, even at the gentlest breeze, and one can well imagine the people looking up at them in the impressive silence of the forest with an awe and wonder no other environment could possibly induce. The Armenian for poplar, "Sossi" .is used jo-da3as ajiame for girl...