THE RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT CELTS
BY
J.A. MACCULLOCH
CATHEDRAL
“RELIGION: ITS ORIGIN AND FORMS” “THE MISTY ISLE OF SKYE”
“THE CHILDHOOD OF FICTION: A STUDY OF FOLK-TALES AND PRIMITIVE
THOUGHT”
LIMITED.
PREFACE
The scientific study of ancient Celtic religion is a thing of
recent growth. As a result of the paucity of materials for such a
study, earlier writers indulged in the wildest speculative flights
and connected the religion with the distant East, or saw in it the
remains of a monotheistic faith or a series of esoteric doctrines
veiled under polytheistic cults. With the works of MM. Gaidoz,
Bertrand, and D’Arbois de Jubainville in France, as well as by the
publication of Irish texts by such scholars as Drs. Windisch and
Stokes, a new era may be said to have dawned, and a flood of light
was poured upon the scanty remains of Celtic religion. In this
country the place of honour among students of that religion belongs
to Sir John Rh[^y]s, whose Hibbert Lectures On the Origin and
Growth of Religion as illustrated by Celtic Heathendom (1886)
was an epoch-making work. Every student of the subject since that
time feels the immense debt which he owes to the indefatigable
researches and the brilliant suggestions of Sir John Rh[^y]s, and I
would be ungrateful if I did not record my indebtedness to him. In
his Hibbert Lectures, and in his later masterly work on The
Arthurian Legend, however, he took the standpoint of the
“mythological” school, and tended to see in the old stories myths
of the sun and dawn and the darkness, and in the divinities
sun-gods and dawn-goddesses and a host of dark personages of
supernatural character. The present writer, studying the subject
rather from an anthropological point of view and in the light of
modern folk survivals, has found himself in disagreement with Sir
John Rh[^y]s on more than one occasion. But he is convinced that
Sir John would be the last person to resent this, and that, in
spite of his mythological interpretations, his Hibbert Lectures
must remain as a source of inspiration to all Celtic students. More
recently the studies of M. Salomon Reinach and of M. Dottin, and
the valuable little book on Celtic Religion, by Professor
Anwyl, have broken fresh ground.1
In this book I have made use of all the available sources, and
have endeavoured to study the subject from the comparative point of
view and in the light of the anthropological method. I have also
interpreted the earlier cults by means of recent folk-survivals
over the Celtic area wherever it has seemed legitimate to do so.
The results are summarised in the introductory chapter of the work,
and students of religion, and especially of Celtic religion, must
judge how far they form a true interpretation of the earlier faith
of our Celtic forefathers, much of which resembles primitive
religion and folk-belief everywhere.
Unfortunately no Celt left an account of his own religion, and
we are left to our own interpretations, more or less valid, of the
existing materials, and to the light shed on them by the
comparative study of religions. As this book was written during a
long residence in the Isle of Skye, where the old language of the
people still survives, and where the genius loci speaks
everywhere of things remote and strange, it may have been easier to
attempt to realise the ancient religion there than in a busier or
more prosaic place. Yet at every point I have felt how much would
have been gained could an old Celt or Druid have revisited his
former haunts, and permitted me to question him on a hundred
matters which must remain obscure. But this, alas, might not
be!
I have to thank Miss Turner and Miss Annie Gilchrist for
valuable help rendered in the work of research, and the London
Library for obtaining for me several works not already in its
possession. Its stores are an invaluable aid to all students
working at a distance from libraries.
J.A. MACCULLOCH.
THE RECTORY,
BRIDGE OF ALLAN,
October 1911.
Footnote 1:(return)See also my article “Celts” in Hastings’ Encyclopædia
of Religion and Ethics, vol. iii.
[TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: Throughout this book, some characters are
used which are not part of the Latin-1 character set used in this
e-book. The string “[^y]” is used to represent a lower-case “Y”
with a circumflex mark on top of it, “[=a]” is used to represent a
lower-case “A” with a line on top of it, and “[oe]” is used to
represent the “oe”-ligature. Numbers in superscripts such as
3 were used in the book to give edition numbers to
books.]
CONTENTS
III. THE GODS OF GAUL AND THE CONTINENTAL
CELTS
IV. THE IRISH MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE
XVI. SACRIFICE, PRAYER, AND DIVINATION
XXIII. REBIRTH AND TRANSMIGRATION
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE NOTES THROUGHOUT THIS
WORK
(This list is not a Bibliography.)
BRAND: Rev. J. Brand, Observations on the Popular Antiquities
of Great Britain. 3 vols. 1870.
BLANCHET: A. Blanchet, Traité des monnaies
gauloises. 2 vols. Paris, 1905.
BERTRAND: A. Bertrand, Religion des gaulois. Paris,
1897.
CAMPBELL, WHT: J.F. Campbell, Popular Tales of the
West Highlands. 4 vols. Edinburgh, 1890.
CAMPBELL LF: J.F. Campbell, Leabhar na Feinne.
London, 1872.
CAMPBELL, Superstitions: J.G. Campbell, Superstitions
of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. 1900.
CAMPBELL, Witchcraft: J.G. Campbell, Witchcraft and
Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.
1902.
CORMAC: Cormac’s Glossary. Tr. by J. O’Donovan. Ed. by W.
Stokes. Calcutta, 1868.
COURCELLE—SENEUIL.: J.L. Courcelle-Seneuil, Les dieux
gaulois d’après les monuments figurés. Paris,
1910.
CIL: Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Berlin, 1863
f.
CM: Celtic Magazine. Inverness, 1875 f.
CURTIN, HTI: J. Curtin, Hero Tales of Ireland.
1894.
CURTIN, Tales: J. Curtin, Tales of the Fairies and
Ghost World. 1895.
DALZELL: Sir J.G. Dalzell, Darker Superstitions of
Scotland. 1835.
D’ARBOIS: H. D’Arbois de Jubainville, Cours de litterature
celtique. 12 vols. Paris, 1883-1902.
D’ARBOIS Les Celtes: H. D’Arbois de Jubainville, Les
Celtes. Paris, 1904.
D’ARBOIS Les Druides: H. D’Arbois de Jubainville, Les
Druides et les dieux celtiques à formes d’animaux.
Paris, 1906.
D’ARBOIS PH: H. D’Arbois de Jubainville, Les premiers
habitants de l’Europe. 2 vols. Paris, 1889-1894.
DOM MARTIN: Dom Martin, Le religion des gaulois. 2 vols.
Paris, 1727.
DOTTIN: G. Dottin, Manuel pour servir a l’étude de
l’antiquité celtique. Paris, 1906.
ELTON: C.I. Elton, Origins of English History. London,
1890.
FRAZER, GB2: J.G. Frazer, Golden
Bough2. 3 vols. 1900,
GUEST: Lady Guest, The Mabinogion. 3 vols. Liandovery,
1849.
HAZLITT: W.C. Hazlitt, Faiths and Folk-lore: A Dictionary of
National Beliefs, Superstitions, and Popular Customs. 2 vols.
1905.
HOLDER: A. Holder, Altceltischer Sprachschatz. 3 vols.
Leipzig, 1891 f.
HULL: Miss E. Hull, The Cuchullin Saga. London, 1898.
IT: See Windisch-Stokes.
JAI: Journal of the Anthropological Institute.
London, 1871 f.
JOYCE, OCR: P.W. Joyce, Old Celtic
Romances2. London, 1894.
JOYCE, PN: P.W. Joyce, History of Irish Names of
Places4. 2 vols. London, 1901.
JOYCE, SH: P.W. Joyce, Social History of Ancient
Ireland. 2 vols. London, 1903.
JULLIAN: C. Jullian, Recherches sur la religion gauloise.
Bordeaux, 1903.
KEATING: Keating, History of Ireland. Tr. O’Mahony.
London, 1866.
KENNEDY: P. Kennedy, Legendary Fictions of the Irish
Celts. 1866.
LARMINIE: W. Larminie, West Irish Folk-Tales and
Romances. 1893.
LEAHY: Leahy, Heroic Romances of Ireland. 2 vols. London,
1905.
LE BRAZ: A. Le Braz, La Legende de la Mort chez les Bretons
armoricains. 2 vols. Paris, 1902.
LL: Leabhar Laignech (Book of Leinster), facsimile
reprint. London, 1880.
LOTH: Loth, Le Mabinogion. 2 vols. Paris, 1889.
LU: Leabhar na h-Uidhre (Book of the Dun Cow),
facsimile reprint. London, 1870.
MACBAIN: A. MacBain, Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic
Language. Inverness, 1896.
MACDOUGALL: Macdougall, Folk and Hero Tales. London,
1891.
MACKINLAY: J.M. Mackinlay, Folk-lore of Scottish Lochs and
Springs. Glasgow, 1893.
MARTIN: M. Martin, Description of the Western Islands of
Scotland2. London, 1716.
MAURY: A. Maury, Croyances et legendes du Moyen Age.
Paris, 1896.
MONNIER: D. Monnier, Traditions populaires
comparées. Paris, 1854.
MOORE: A.W. Moore, Folk-lore of the Isle of Man.
1891.
NUTT-MEYER: A. Nutt and K. Meyer, The Voyage of Bran. 2
vols. London, 1895-1897.
O’CURRY MC: E. O’Curry, Manners and Customs of the
Ancient Irish. 4 vols. London, 1873.
O’CURRY MS. Mat: E. O’Curry, MS. Materials of Ancient
Irish History. Dublin, 1861.
O’GRADY: S.H. O’Grady, Silva Gadelica. 2 vols. 1892.
REES: Rev. W.J. Rees, Lives of Cambro-British Saints.
Llandovery, 1853.
REINACH, BF: S. Reinach, Bronzes Figurés de la Gaule
romaine. Paris, 1900.
REINACH, BF Catal. Sommaire: S. Reinach, Catalogue
Commaire du Musée des Antinquitée
Nationales4. Paris.
REINACH, BF CMR: S. Reinach, Cultes, Mythes, et
Religions. 2 vols. Paris, 1905.
RC: Revue Celtique. Paris, 1870 f.
RENEL: C. Renel, Religions de la Gaule. Paris 1906.
RH[^Y]S, AL: Sir John Rh[^y]s, The Arthurian
Legend. Oxford, 1891.
RH[^Y]S, CB4: Sir John Rh[^y]s, Celtic
Britain4. London, 1908.
RH[^Y]S, CFL: Sir John Rh[^y]s, Celtic Folk-Lore.
2 vols. Oxford, 1901.
RH[^Y]S, HL: Sir John Rh[^y]s, Hibbert Lectures on
Celtic Heathendom. London, 1888.
SÉBILLOT: P. Sebillot, La Folk-lore de la France.
4 vols. Paris, 1904 f.
SKENE: W.F. Skene, Four Ancient Books of Wales. 2 vols.
Edinburgh, 1868.
STOKES, TIG: Whitley Stokes, Three Irish
Glossaries. London, 1862.
STOKES, Trip. Life: Whitley Stokes, The Tripartite
Life of Patrick. London 1887.
STOKES, US: Whitley Stokes, Urkeltischer
Sprachschatz. Göttingen, 1894 (in Fick’s Vergleichende
Wörterbuch4).
TAYLOR: I. Taylor, Origin of the Aryans. London, n.d.
TSC: Transactions of Society of Cymmrodor.
TOS: Transactions of the Ossianic Society. Dublin
1854-1861.
Trip. Life: See Stokes.
WILDE: Lady Wilde, Ancient Legends and Superstitions of
Ireland. 2 vols. 1887.
WINDISCH, Táin: E. Windisch, Die altirische
Heldensage Táin Bó Cúalgne. Leipzig,
1905.
WINDISCH-STOKES, IT: E. Windisch and W. Stokes,
Irische Texte. Leipzig, 1880 f.
WOOD-MARTIN: Wood-Martin, Elder Faiths of Ireland. 2
vols. London, 1903.
ZCP: Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie.
Halle, 1897 f.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
To summon a dead religion from its forgotten grave and to make
it tell its story, would require an enchanter’s wand. Other old
faiths, of Egypt, Babylon, Greece, Rome, are known to us. But in
their case liturgies, myths, theogonies, theologies, and the
accessories of cult, remain to yield their report of the outward
form of human belief and aspiration. How scanty, on the other hand,
are the records of Celtic religion! The bygone faith of a people
who have inspired the world with noble dreams must be constructed
painfully, and often in fear and trembling, out of fragmentary and,
in many cases, transformed remains.
We have the surface observations of classical observers,
dedications in the Romano-Celtic area to gods mostly assimilated to
the gods of the conquerors, figured monuments mainly of the same
period, coins, symbols, place and personal names. For the Irish
Celts there is a mass of written material found mainly in eleventh
and twelfth century MSS. Much of this, in {2} spite of
alteration and excision, is based on divine and heroic myths, and
it also contains occasional notices of ritual. From Wales come
documents like the Mabinogion, and strange poems the
personages of which are ancient gods transformed, but which tell
nothing of rite or cult.2 Valuable
hints are furnished by early ecclesiastical documents, but more
important is existing folk-custom, which preserves so much of the
old cult, though it has lost its meaning to those who now use it.
Folk-tales may also be inquired of, if we discriminate between what
in them is Celtic and what is universal. Lastly, Celtic
burial-mounds and other remains yield their testimony to ancient
belief and custom.
From these sources we try to rebuild Celtic paganism and to
guess at its inner spirit, though we are working in the twilight on
a heap of fragments. No Celt has left us a record of his faith and
practice, and the unwritten poems of the Druids died with them. Yet
from these fragments we see the Celt as the seeker after God,
linking himself by strong ties to the unseen, and eager to conquer
the unknown by religious rite or magic art. For the things of the
spirit have never appealed in vain to the Celtic soul, and long ago
classical observers were struck with the religiosity of the Celts.
They neither forgot nor transgressed the law of the gods, and they
thought that no good befell men apart from their will.3 The submission of the Celts to the
Druids shows how they welcomed authority in matters of religion,
and all Celtic regions have been characterised by religious
devotion, easily passing over to superstition, and by loyalty to
ideals and lost causes. The {3} Celts were born dreamers, as their
exquisite Elysium belief will show, and much that is spiritual and
romantic in more than one European literature is due to them.
The analogy of religious evolution in other faiths helps us in
reconstructing that of the Celts. Though no historic Celtic group
was racially pure, the profound influence of the Celtic temperament
soon “Celticised” the religious contributions of the non-Celtic
element which may already have had many Celtic parallels. Because a
given Celtic rite or belief seems to be “un-Aryan,” it need not
necessarily be borrowed. The Celts had a savage past, and,
conservative as they were, they kept much of it alive. Our
business, therefore, lies with Celtic religion as a whole. These
primitive elements were there before the Celts migrated from the
old “Aryan” home; yet since they appear in Celtic religion to the
end, we speak of them as Celtic. The earliest aspect of that
religion, before the Celts became a separate people, was a cult of
nature spirits, or of the life manifested in nature. But men and
women probably had separate cults, and, of the two, perhaps that of
the latter is more important. As hunters, men worshipped the
animals they slew, apologising to them for the slaughter. This
apologetic attitude, found with all primitive hunters, is of the
nature of a cult. Other animals, too sacred to be slain, would be
preserved and worshipped, the cult giving rise to domestication and
pastoral life, with totemism as a probable factor. Earth, producing
vegetation, was the fruitful mother; but since the origin of
agriculture is mainly due to women, the Earth cult would be
practised by them, as well as, later, that of vegetation and corn
spirits, all regarded as female. As men began to interest
themselves in agriculture, they would join in the female cults,
probably with the result of changing the sex of the spirits
worshipped. An Earth-god would take the place of the Earth-mother,
or stand as her consort or son. Vegetation {4} and corn
spirits would often become male, though many spirits, even when
they were exalted into divinities, remained female.
With the growth of religion the vaguer spirits tended to become
gods and goddesses, and worshipful animals to become
anthropomorphic divinities, with the animals as their symbols,
attendants, or victims. And as the cult of vegetation spirits
centred in the ritual of planting and sowing, so the cult of the
divinities of growth centred in great seasonal and agricultural
festivals, in which the key to the growth of Celtic religion is to
be found. But the migrating Celts, conquering new lands, evolved
divinities of war; and here the old female influence is still at
work, since many of these are female. In spite of possessing so
many local war-gods, the Celts were not merely men of war. Even the
equites engaged in war only when occasion arose, and
agriculture as well as pastoral industry was constantly practised,
both in Gaul and Britain, before the conquest.4 In
Ireland, the belief in the dependence of fruitfulness upon the
king, shows to what extent agriculture flourished there.5 Music, poetry, crafts, and trade gave
rise to culture divinities, perhaps evolved from gods of growth,
since later myths attributed to them both the origin of arts and
crafts, and the introduction of domestic animals among men.
Possibly some culture gods had been worshipful animals, now
worshipped as gods, who had given these animals to man.
Culture-goddesses still held their place among culture-gods, and
were regarded as their mothers. The prominence of these divinities
shows that the Celts were more than a race of warriors.
The pantheon was thus a large one, but on the whole the
{5}
divinities of growth were more generally important. The older
nature spirits and divine animals were never quite forgotten,
especially by the folk, who also preserved the old rituals of
vegetation spirits, while the gods of growth were worshipped at the
great festivals. Yet in essence the lower and the higher cults were
one and the same, and, save where Roman influence destroyed Celtic
religion, the older primitive strands are everywhere apparent. The
temperament of the Celt kept him close to nature, and he never
quite dropped the primitive elements of his religion. Moreover, the
early influence of female cults of female spirits and goddesses
remained to the end as another predominant factor.
Most of the Celtic divinities were local in character, each
tribe possessing its own group, each god having functions similar
to those of other groups. Some, however, had or gained a more
universal character, absorbing divinities with similar functions.
Still this local character must be borne in mind. The numerous
divinities of Gaul, with differing names—but, judging by
their assimilation to the same Roman divinity, similar functions,
are best understood as gods of local groups. This is probably true
also of Britain and Ireland. But those gods worshipped far and wide
over the Celtic area may be gods of the undivided Celts, or gods of
some dominant Celtic group extending their influence on all sides,
or, in some cases, popular gods whose cult passed beyond the tribal
bounds. If it seem precarious to see such close similarity in the
local gods of a people extending right across Europe, appeal can be
made to the influence of the Celtic temperament, producing
everywhere the same results, and to the homogeneity of Celtic
civilisation, save in local areas, e.g. the South of Gaul.
Moreover, the comparison of the various testimonies of onlookers
points to a general similarity, while the permanence of the
primitive elements in Celtic religion must have tended to keep it
everywhere {6} the same. Though in Gaul we have only
inscriptions and in Ireland only distorted myths, yet those
testimonies, as well as the evidence of folk-survivals in both
regions, point to the similarity of religious phenomena. The
Druids, as a more or less organised priesthood, would assist in
preserving the general likeness.
Thus the primitive nature-spirits gave place to greater or
lesser gods, each with his separate department and functions.
Though growing civilisation tended to separate them from the soil,
they never quite lost touch with it. In return for man’s worship
and sacrifices, they gave life and increase, victory, strength, and
skill. But these sacrifices, had been and still often were rites in
which the representative of a god was slain. Some divinities were
worshipped over a wide area, most were gods of local groups, and
there were spirits of every place, hill, wood, and stream. Magic
rites mingled with the cult, but both were guided by an organised
priesthood. And as the Celts believed in unseen gods, so they
believed in an unseen region whither they passed after death.
Our knowledge of the higher side of Celtic religion is
practically a blank, since no description of the inner spiritual
life has come down to us. How far the Celts cultivated religion in
our sense of the term, or had glimpses of Monotheism, or were
troubled by a deep sense of sin, is unknown. But a people whose
spiritual influence has later been so great, must have had glimpses
of these things. Some of them must have known the thirst of the
soul for God, or sought a higher ethical standard than that of
their time. The enthusiastic reception of Christianity, the
devotion of the early Celtic saints, and the character of the old
Celtic church, all suggest this.
The relation of the Celtic church to paganism was mainly
intolerant, though not wholly so. It often adopted the less
{7}
harmful customs of the past, merging pagan festivals in its own,
founding churches on the sites of the old cult, dedicating sacred
wells to a saint. A saint would visit the tomb of a pagan to hear
an old epic rehearsed, or would call up pagan heroes from hell and
give them a place in paradise. Other saints recall dead heroes from
the Land of the Blessed, and learn the nature of that wonderland
and the heroic deeds
“Of the old days, which seem to be
Much older than any history
That is written in any book.”
Reading such narratives, we gain a lesson in the fine spirit of
Christian tolerance and Christian sympathy.
Footnote 2:(return)Some writers saw in the bardic poetry a Druidic-esoteric system
and traces of a cult practised secretly by the bards—the
“Neo-Druidic heresy”; see Davies, Myth. of the Brit. Druids,
1809; Herbert, The Neo-Druidic Heresy, 1838. Several French
writers saw in “Druidism” a monotheistic faith, veiled under
polytheism.
Footnote 4:(return)Cæsar, vi. 15, cf. v. 12, “having waged war, remained
there and cultivated the lands.”
Footnote 5:(return)Cf. Pliny, HN xvii. 7, xviii. 18 on the wheeled ploughs
and agricultural methods of Gauls and Britons. Cf. also Strabo, iv.
1. 2, iv. 5. 5; Girald. Camb. Top. Hib. i. 4, Descr.
Camb. i. 8; Joyce, SH ii. 264.
CHAPTER II.
THE CELTIC PEOPLE.
Scrutiny reveals the fact that Celtic-speaking peoples are of
differing types—short and dark as well as tall and fairer
Highlanders or Welshmen, short, broad-headed Bretons, various types
of Irishmen. Men with Norse names and Norse aspect “have the
Gaelic.” But all alike have the same character and temperament, a
striking witness to the influence which the character as well as
the language of the Celts, whoever they were, made on all with whom
they mingled. Ethnologically there may not be a Celtic race, but
something was handed down from the days of comparative Celtic
purity which welded different social elements into a common type,
found often where no Celtic tongue is now spoken. It emerges where
we least expect it, and the stolid Anglo-Saxon may suddenly awaken
to something in himself due to a forgotten Celtic strain in his
ancestry.
Two main theories of Celtic origins now hold the field:
(1) The Celts are identified with the progenitors of the short,
brachycephalic “Alpine race” of Central Europe, existing there in
Neolithic times, after their migrations from Africa and Asia. The
type is found among the Slavs, in parts of Germany and Scandinavia,
and in modern France in the region of Cæsar’s “Celtæ,”
among the Auvergnats, the Bretons, and in Lozère and Jura.
Representatives of the type have been {9} found in
Belgian and French Neolithic graves.6 Professor
Sergi calls this the “Eurasiatic race,” and, contrary to general
opinion, identifies it with the Aryans, a savage people, inferior
to the dolichocephalic Mediterranean race, whose language they
Aryanised.7 Professor Keane thinks that they were
themselves an Aryanised folk before reaching Europe, who in turn
gave their acquired Celtic and Slavic speech to the preceding
masses. Later came the Belgæ, Aryans, who acquired the Celtic
speech of the people they conquered.8
Broca assumed that the dark, brachycephalic people whom he
identified with Cæsar’s “Celtæ,” differed from the
Belgæ, were conquered by them, and acquired the language of
their conquerors, hence wrongly called Celtic by philologists. The
Belgæ were tall and fair, and overran Gaul, except Aquitaine,
mixing generally with the Celtæ, who in Cæsar’s time
had thus an infusion of Belgic blood.9 But before
this conquest, the Celtæ had already mingled with the
aboriginal dolichocephalic folk of Gaul, Iberians, or
Mediterraneans of Professor Sergi. The latter had apparently
remained comparatively pure from admixture in Aquitaine, and are
probably the Aquitani of Cæsar.10
But were the short, brachycephalic folk Celts? Cæsar says
the people who call themselves “Celtæ” were called Gauls by
the Romans, and Gauls, according to classical writers, were tall
and fair.11 Hence the Celtæ were not a
short, dark race, {10} and Cæsar himself says that Gauls
(including Celtæ) looked with contempt on the short
Romans.12 Strabo also says that Celtæ
and Belgæ had the same Gaulish appearance, i.e. tall
and fair. Cæsar’s statement that Aquitani, Galli, and
Belgæ differ in language, institutions, and laws is vague and
unsupported by evidence, and may mean as to language no more than a
difference in dialects. This is also suggested by Strabo’s words,
Celtæ and Belgæ “differ a little” in language.13 No classical writer describes the
Celts as short and dark, but the reverse. Short, dark people would
have been called Iberians, without respect to skulls. Classical
observers were not craniologists. The short, brachycephalic type is
now prominent in France, because it has always been so, eliminating
the tall, fair Celtic type. Conquering Celts, fewer in number than
the broad and narrow-headed aborigines, intermarried or made less
lasting alliances with them. In course of time the type of the more
numerous race was bound to prevail. Even in Cæsar’s day the
latter probably outnumbered the tall and fair Celts, who had,
however, Celticised them. But classical writers, who knew the true
Celt as tall and fair, saw that type only, just as every one, on
first visiting France or Germany, sees his generalised type of
Frenchman or German everywhere. Later, he modifies his opinion, but
this the classical observers did not do. Cæsar’s campaigns
must have drained Gaul of many tall and fair Celts. This, with the
tendency of dark types to out-number fair types in South and
Central Europe, may help to explain the growing prominence of the
dark type, though the tall, fair type is far from uncommon.14
(2) The second theory, already anticipated, sees in Gauls and
Belgæ a tall, fair Celtic folk, speaking a Celtic language,
{11}
and belonging to the race which stretched from Ireland to Asia
Minor, from North Germany to the Po, and were masters of Teutonic
tribes till they were driven by them from the region between Elbe
and Rhine.15 Some Belgic tribes claimed a
Germanic ancestry,16 but
“German” was a word seldom used with precision, and in this case
may not mean Teutonic. The fair hair of this people has made many
suppose that they were akin to the Teutons. But fairness is
relative, and the dark Romans may have called brown hair fair,
while they occasionally distinguished between the “fair” Gauls and
fairer Germans. Their institutions and their religions (pace
Professor Rh[^y]s) differed, and though they were so long in
contact the names of their gods and priests are unlike.17 Their languages, again, though of
“Aryan” stock, differ more from each other than does Celtic from
Italic, pointing to a long period of Italo-Celtic unity, before
Italiotes and Celts separated, and Celts came in contact with
Teutons.18 The typical German differs in
mental and moral qualities from the typical Celt. Contrast an east
country Scot, descendant of Teutonic stock, with a West Highlander,
and the difference leaps to the eyes. Celts and Germans of history
differ, then, in relative fairness, character, religion, and
language.
The tall, blonde Teutonic type of the Row graves is
dolichocephalic. Was the Celtic type (assuming that Broca’s “Celts”
were not true Celts) dolicho or brachy? Broca thinks the
Belgæ or “Kymri” were dolichocephalic, but all must agree
with him that the skulls are too few to generalise from. Celtic
iron-age skulls in Britain are dolichocephalic, perhaps a
{12}
recrudescence of the aboriginal type. Broca’s “Kymric” skulls are
mesocephalic; this he attributes to crossing with the short
round-heads. The evidence is too scanty for generalisation, while
the Walloons, perhaps descendants of the Belgæ, have a high
index, and some Gauls of classical art are broad-headed.19
Skulls of the British round barrows (early Celtic Bronze Age)
are mainly broad, the best specimens showing affinity to Neolithic
brachycephalic skulls from Grenelle (though their owners were 5
inches shorter), Selaigneaux, and Borreby.20
Dr. Beddoe thinks that the narrow-skulled Belgæ on the whole
reinforced the meso- or brachycephalic round barrow folk in
Britain. Dr. Thurnam identifies the latter with the Belgæ
(Broca’s Kymri), and thinks that Gaulish skulls were round, with
beetling brows.21
Professors Ripley and Sergi, disregarding their difference in
stature and higher cephalic index, identify them with the short
Alpine race (Broca’s Celts). This is negatived by Mr. Keane.22 Might not both, however, have
originally sprung from a common stock and reached Europe at
different times?23
But do a few hundred skulls justify these far-reaching
conclusions regarding races enduring for thousands of years? At
some very remote period there may have been a Celtic type, as at
some further period there may have been an Aryan type. But the
Celts, as we know them, must have mingled with the aborigines of
Europe and become a mixed race, though preserving and endowing
others with their racial and mental characteristics. Some Gauls or
Belgæ were dolichocephalic, {13} to judge by their skulls,
others were brachycephalic, while their fairness was a relative
term. Classical observers probably generalised from the higher
classes, of a purer type; they tell us nothing of the people. But
the higher classes may have had varying skulls, as well as stature
and colour of hair,24 and
Irish texts tell of a tall, fair, blue-eyed stock, and a short,
dark, dark-eyed stock, in Ireland. Even in those distant ages we
must consider the people on whom the Celts impressed their
characteristics, as well as the Celts themselves. What happened on
the Eurasian steppe, the hypothetical cradle of the “Aryans,”
whence the Celts came “stepping westwards,” seems clear to some,
but in truth is a book sealed with seven seals. The men whose Aryan
speech was to dominate far and wide may already have possessed
different types of skull, and that age was far from “the very
beginning.”
Thus the Celts before setting out on their Wanderjahre
may already have been a mixed race, even if their leaders were of
purer stock. But they had the bond of common speech, institutions,
and religion, and they formed a common Celtic type in Central and
Western Europe. Intermarriage with the already mixed Neolithic folk
of Central Europe produced further removal from the unmixed Celtic
racial type; but though both reacted on each other as far as
language, custom, and belief were concerned, on the whole the
Celtic elements predominated in these respects. The Celtic
migration into Gaul produced further racial mingling with
descendants of the old palæolithic stock, dolichocephalic
Iberians and Ligurians, and brachycephalic swarthy folk (Broca’s
Celts). Thus even the first Celtic arrivals in Britain, the
Goidels, were a people of mixed race, though probably relatively
purer than the late coming Brythons, the latest of whom had
probably mingled with the Teutons. Hence among Celtic-speaking folk
or their {14} descendants—short, dark,
broad-beaded Bretons, tall, fair or rufous Highlanders, tall
chestnut-haired Welshmen or Irishmen, Highlanders of Norse descent,
short, dark, narrow-headed Highlanders, Irishmen, and
Welshmen—there is a common Celtic facies, the result
of old Celtic characteristics powerful enough so to impress
themselves on such varied peoples in spite of what they gave to the
Celtic incomers. These peoples became Celtic, and Celtic in speech
and character they have remained, even where ancestral physical
types are reasserting themselves. The folk of a Celtic type,
whether pre-Celtic, Celtic, or Norse, have all spoken a Celtic
language and exhibit the same old Celtic
characteristics—vanity, loquacity, excitability, fickleness,
imagination, love of the romantic, fidelity, attachment to family
ties, sentimental love of their country, religiosity passing over
easily to superstition, and a comparatively high degree of sexual
morality. Some of these traits were already noted by classical
observers.
Celtic speech had early lost the initial p of old
Indo-European speech, except in words beginning with pt and,
perhaps, ps. Celtic pare (Lat. præ)
became are, met with in Aremorici, “the dwellers by
the sea,” Arecluta, “by the Clyde,” the region watered by
the Clyde. Irish athair, Manx ayr, and Irish
iasg, represent respectively Latin pater and
piscis. P occurring between vowels was also lost,
e.g. Irish caora, “sheep,” is from kaperax;
for, “upon” (Lat. super), from uper. This
change took place before the Goidelic Celts broke away and invaded
Britain in the tenth century B.C., but while Celts and Teutons were
still in contact, since Teutons borrowed words with initial
p, e.g. Gothic fairguni, “mountain,” from
Celtic percunion, later Ercunio, the Hercynian
forest. The loss must have occurred before 1000 B.C. But after the
separation of the Goidelic group a further change took place.
Goidels preserved the sound represented by qu, or more
simply by c or ch, but this {15} was changed
into p by the remaining continental Celts, who carried with
them into Gaul, Spain, Italy, and Britain (the Brythons) words in
which q became p. The British Epidii is from
Gaulish epos, “horse,” which is in Old Irish ech
(Lat. equus). The Parisii take their name from
Qarisii, the Pictones or Pictavi of Poictiers from
Pictos (which in the plural Pidi gives us “Picts”),
derived from quicto. This change took place after the
Goidelic invasion of Britain in the tenth century B.C. On the other
hand, some continental Celts may later have regained the power of
pronouncing q. In Gaul the q of Sequana
(Seine) was not changed to p, and a tribe dwelling on its
banks was called the Sequani. This assumes that Sequana was a
pre-Celtic word, possibly Ligurian.25
Professor Rh[^y]s thinks, however, that Goidelic tribes, identified
by him with Cæsar’s Celtæ, existed in Gaul and Spain
before the coming of the Galli, and had preserved q in their
speech. To them we owe Sequana, as well as certain names with
q in Spain.26 This at
least is certain, that Goidelic Celts of the q group
occupied Gaul and Spain before reaching Britain and Ireland. Irish
tradition and archæological data confirm this.27 But whether their descendants were
represented by Cæsar’s “Celtæ” must be uncertain.
Celtæ and Galli, according to Cæsar, were one and the
same,28 and must have had the same general
form of speech.
The dialects of Goidelic speech—Irish, Manx, Gaelic, and
that of the continental Goidels—preserved the q sound;
those of Gallo-Brythonic speech—Gaulish, Breton, Welsh,
Cornish—changed q into p. The speech of the
Picts, perhaps connected with the Pictones of Gaul, also had this
p sound. Who, then, {16} were the Picts? According to Professor
Rh[^y]s they were pre-Aryans,29 but
they must have been under the influence of Brythonic Celts. Dr.
Skene regarded them as Goidels speaking a Goidelic dialect with
Brythonic forms.30 Mr.
Nicholson thinks they were Goidels who had preserved the
Indo-European p.31 But
might they not be descendants of a Brythonic group, arriving early
in Britain and driven northwards by newcomers? Professor Windisch
and Dr. Stokes regard them as Celts, allied to the Brythons rather
than to the Goidels, the phonetics of their speech resembling those
of Welsh rather than Irish.32
The theory of an early Goidelic occupation of Britain has been
contested by Professor Meyer,33 who
holds that the first Goidels reached Britain from Ireland in the
second century, while Dr. MacBain34 was of
the opinion that England, apart from Wales and Cornwall, knew no
Goidels, the place-names being Brythonic. But unless all Goidels
reached Ireland from Gaul or Spain, as some did, Britain was more
easily reached than Ireland by migrating Goidels from the
Continent. Prominent Goidelic place-names would become Brythonic,
but insignificant places would retain their Goidelic form, and to
these we must look for decisive evidence.35 A
Goidelic occupation by the ninth century B.C. is suggested by the
name “Cassiterides” (a word of the q group) applied to
Britain. If the Goidels occupied Britain first, they may have
called their land Qretanis or Qritanis, which Pictish
invaders would change to Pretanis, found in Welsh “Ynys
Pridain,” Pridain’s Isle, or Isle of the Picts, “pointing to the
original underlying the Greek [Greek: Pretanikai Nêsoi]
{17}
or Pictish Isles,”36 though
the change may be due to continental p Celts trading with
q Celts in Britain. With the Pictish occupation would agree
the fact that Irish Goidels called the Picts who came to Ireland
Cruithne=Qritani=Pre-tani. In Ireland they almost certainly
adopted Goidelic speech.
Whether or not all the Pictish invaders of Britain were called
“Pictavi,” this word or Picti, perhaps from quicto (Irish
cicht, “engraver”),37 became
a general name for this people. Q had been changed into
p on the Continent; hence “Pictavi” or “Pictones,” “the
tattooed men,” those who “engraved” figures on their bodies, as the
Picts certainly did. Dispossessed and driven north by incoming
Brythons and Belgæ, they later became the virulent enemies of
Rome. In 306 Eumenius describes all the northern tribes as
“Caledonii and other Picts,” while some of the tribes mentioned by
Ptolemy have Brythonic names or names with Gaulish cognates.
Place-names in the Pictish area, personal names in the Pictish
chronicle, and Pictish names like “Peanfahel,”38
have Brythonic affinities. If the Picts spoke a Brythonic dialect,
S. Columba’s need of an interpreter when preaching to them would be
explained.39 Later the Picts were conquered by
Irish Goidels, the Scotti. The Picts, however, must already have
mingled with aboriginal peoples and with Goidels, if these were
already in Britain, and they may have adopted their supposed
non-Aryan customs from the aborigines. On the other hand, the
matriarchate seems at one time to have been Celtic, and it may have
been no more than a conservative survival in the Pictish royal
house, as it was elsewhere.40
Britons, as well as Caledonii, had wives in common.41 As to tattooing, it was practised
by the Scotti (“the {18} scarred and painted men”?), and the
Britons dyed themselves with woad, while what seem to be tattoo
marks appear on faces on Gaulish coins.42
Tattooing, painting, and scarifying the body are varieties of one
general custom, and little stress can be laid on Pictish tattooing
as indicating a racial difference. Its purpose may have been
ornamental, or possibly to impart an aspect of fierceness, or the
figures may have been totem marks, as they are elsewhere. Finally,
the description of the Caledonii, a Pictish people, possessing
flaming hair and mighty limbs, shows that they differed from the
short, dark pre-Celtic folk.43
The Pictish problem must remain obscure, a welcome puzzle to
antiquaries, philologists, and ethnologists. Our knowledge of
Pictish religion is too scanty for the interpretation of Celtic
religion to be affected by it. But we know that the Picts offered
sacrifice before war—a Celtic custom, and had Druids, as also
had the Celts.
The earliest Celtic “kingdom” was in the region between the
upper waters of the Rhine, the Elbe, and the Danube, where probably
in Neolithic times the formation of their Celtic speech as a
distinctive language began. Here they first became known to the
Greeks, probably as a semi-mythical people, the
Hyperboreans—the folk dwelling beyond the Ripoean mountains
whence Boreas blew—with whom Hecatæus in the fourth
century identifies them. But they were now known as Celts, and
their territory as Celtica, while “Galatas” was used as a synonym
of “Celtæ,” in the third century B.C.44
The name generally applied by the Romans to the Celts was
{19}
“Galli” a term finally confined by them to the people of
Gaul.45 Successive bands of Celts went
forth from this comparatively restricted territory, until the
Celtic “empire” for some centuries before 300 B.C. included the
British Isles, parts of the Iberian peninsula, Gaul, North Italy,
Belgium, Holland, great part of Germany, and Austria. When the
German tribes revolted, Celtic bands appeared in Asia Minor, and
remained there as the Galatian Celts. Archæological
discoveries with a Celtic facies have been made in most of
these lands but even more striking is the witness of place-names.
Celtic dunon, a fort or castle (the Gaelic dun), is
found in compound names from Ireland to Southern Russia.
Magos, “a field,” is met with in Britain, France,
Switzerland, Prussia, Italy, and Austria. River and mountain names
familiar in Britain occur on the Continent. The Pennine range of
Cumberland has the same name as the Appenines. Rivers named for
their inherent divinity, devos, are found in Britain and on
the Continent—Dee, Deva, etc.
Besides this linguistic, had the Celts also a political unity
over their great “empire,” under one head? Such a unity certainly
did not prevail from Ireland to the Balkan peninsula, but it
prevailed over a large part of the Celtic area. Livy, following
Timagenes, who perhaps cited a lost Celtic epos, speaks of king
Ambicatus ruling over the Celts from Spain to Germany, and sending
his sister’s sons, Bellovesus and Segovesus, with many followers,
to found new colonies in Italy and the Hercynian forest.46 Mythical as this may be, it
suggests the hegemony of one tribe or one chief over other tribes
and chiefs, for Livy says that the sovereign power rested with the
Bituriges who appointed the king of Celticum, {20} viz.
Ambicatus. Some such unity is necessary to explain Celtic power in
the ancient world, and it was made possible by unity of race or at
least of the congeries of Celticised peoples, by religious
solidarity, and probably by regular gatherings of all the kings or
chiefs. If the Druids were a Celtic priesthood at this time, or
already formed a corporation as they did later in Gaul, they must
have endeavoured to form and preserve such a unity. And if it was
never so compact as Livy’s words suggest, it must have been
regarded as an ideal by the Celts or by their poets, Ambicatus
serving as a central figure round which the ideas of empire
crystallised. The hegemony existed in Gaul, where the Arverni and
their king claimed power over the other tribes, and where the
Romans tried to weaken the Celtic unity by opposing to them the
Aedni.47 In Belgium the hegemony was in the
hands of the Suessiones, to whose king Belgic tribes in Britain
submitted.48 In Ireland the “high king” was
supreme over other smaller kings, and in Galatia the unity of the
tribes was preserved by a council with regular assemblies.49
The diffusion of the Ambicatus legend would help to preserve
unity by recalling the mythic greatness of the past. The Boii and
Insubri appealed to transalpine Gauls for aid by reminding them of
the deeds of their ancestors.50 Nor
would the Druids omit to infuse into their pupils’ minds the
sentiment of national greatness. For this and for other reasons,
the Romans, to whom “the sovereignty of all Gaul” was an obnoxious
watch-word, endeavoured to suppress them.51
But the Celts were too widely scattered ever to form a compact
empire.52 The Roman empire extended itself
gradually in the consciousness of {21} its power; the cohesion of the
Celts in an empire or under one king was made impossible by their
migrations and diffusion. Their unity, such as it was, was broken
by the revolt of the Teutonic tribes, and their subjugation was
completed by Rome. The dreams of wide empire remained dreams. For
the Celts, in spite of their vigour, have been a race of dreamers,
their conquests in later times, those of the spirit rather than of
the mailed fist. Their superiority has consisted in imparting to
others their characteristics; organised unity and a vast empire
could never be theirs.
Footnote 6:(return)Ripley, Races of Europe; Wilser, L’Anthropologie,
xiv. 494; Collignon, ibid. 1-20; Broca, Rev.
d’Anthrop. ii. 589 ff.
Footnote 9:(return)Broca, Mem. d’Anthrop. i. 370 ff. Hovelacque thinks, with
Keane, that the Gauls learned Celtic from the dark round-heads. But
Galatian and British Celts, who had never been in contact with the
latter, spoke Celtic. See Holmes, Cæsar’s Conquest of
Gaul, 311-312.
Footnote 16:(return)Cæsar, ii. 4; Strabo, vii. 1. 2. Germans are taller and
fairer than Gauls; Tacitus, Agric. ii. Cf. Beddoe,
JAI xx. 354-355.
Footnote 17:(return)D’Arbois, PH ii. 374. Welsh Gwydion and Teutonic Wuotan
may have the same root, see p. 105. Celtic
Taranis has been compared to Donar, but there is no connection, and
Taranis was not certainly a thunder-god. Much of the folk-religion
was alike, but this applies to folk-religion everywhere.
Footnote 19:(return)Beddoe, L’Anthropologie, v. 516. Tall, fair, and highly
brachycephalic types are still found in France, ibid. i.
213; Bortrand-Reinach, Les Celtes, 39.
Footnote 26:(return)Rh[^y]s, Proc. Phil. Soc. 1891; “Celtæ and Galli,”
Proc. Brit. Acad. ii. D’Arbois points out that we do not
know that these words are Celtic (RC xii, 478).
Footnote 32:(return)Windisch, “Kelt. Sprachen,” Ersch-Gruber’s
Encylopädie; Stokes, Linguistic Value of the Irish
Annals.
Footnote 35:(return)In the Isle of Skye, where, looking at names of prominent places
alone, Norse derivatives are to Gaelic as 3 to 2, they are as 1 to
5 when names of insignificant places, untouched by Norse influence,
are included.
Footnote 42:(return)Isidore, Etymol. ix. 2, 103; Rh[^y]s, CB 242-243;
Cæsar, v. 14; Nicholson, ZCP in. 332.
Footnote 44:(return)If Celtæ is from qelo, “to raise,” it may
mean “the lofty,” just as many savages call themselves “the men,”
par excellence. Rh[^y]s derives it from qel, “to
slay,” and gives it the sense of “warriors.” See Holder,
s.v.; Stokes, US 83. Galatæ is from
gala (Irish gal), “bravery.” Hence perhaps
“warriors.”
Footnote 45:(return)“Galli” may be connected with “Galatæ,” but D’Arbois
denies this. For all these titles see his PH ii. 396 ff.
Footnote 52:(return)On the subject of Celtic unity see Jullian, “Du patriotisme
gaulois,” RC xxiii. 373.
CHAPTER III.
THE GODS OF GAUL AND THE CONTINENTAL CELTS.
The passage in which Cæsar sums up the Gaulish pantheon
runs: “They worship chiefly the god Mercury; of him there are many
symbols, and they regard him as the inventor of all the arts, as
the guide of travellers, and as possessing great influence over
bargains and commerce. After him they worship Apollo and Mars,
Juppiter and Minerva. About these they hold much the same beliefs
as other nations. Apollo heals diseases, Minerva teaches the
elements of industry and the arts, Juppiter rules over the heavens,
Mars directs war…. All the Gauls assert that they are descended
from Dispater, their progenitor.”53
As will be seen in this chapter, the Gauls had many other gods
than these, while the Roman gods, by whose names Cæsar calls
the Celtic divinities, probably only approximately corresponded to
them in functions. As the Greeks called by the names of their own
gods those of Egypt, Persia, and Babylonia, so the Romans
identified Greek, Teutonic, and Celtic gods with theirs. The
identification was seldom complete, and often extended only to one
particular function or attribute. But, as in Gaul, it was often
part of a state policy, and there the fusion of cults was intended
to break the power of the Druids. The Gauls seem to have adopted
Roman civilisation easily, and to have acquiesced in the process of
assimilation of their {23} divinities to those of their conquerors.
Hence we have thousands of inscriptions in which a god is called by
the name of the Roman deity to whom he was assimilated and by his
own Celtic name—Jupiter Taranis, Apollo Grannus, etc. Or
sometimes to the name of the Roman god is added a descriptive
Celtic epithet or a word derived from a Celtic place-name. Again,
since Augustus reinstated the cult of the Lares, with himself as
chief Lar, the epithet Augustus was given to all gods to whom the
character of the Lares could be ascribed, e.g. Belenos
Augustus. Cults of local gods became cults of the genius of the
place, coupled with the genius of the emperor. In some cases,
however, the native name stands alone. The process was aided by
art. Celtic gods are represented after Greco-Roman or
Greco-Egyptian models. Sometimes these carry a native divine
symbol, or, in a few cases, the type is purely native, e.g.
that of Cernunnos. Thus the native paganism was largely transformed
before Christianity appeared in Gaul. Many Roman gods were
worshipped as such, not only by the Romans in Gaul, but by the
Gauls, and we find there also traces of the Oriental cults affected
by the Romans.54
There were probably in Gaul many local gods, tribal or
otherwise, of roads and commerce, of the arts, of healing, etc.,
who, bearing different names, might easily be identified with each
other or with Roman gods. Cæsar’s Mercury, Mars, Minerva,
etc., probably include many local Minervas, Mars, and Mercuries.
There may, however, have been a few great gods common to all Gaul,
universally worshipped, besides the numerous local gods, some of
whom may have been adopted from the aborigines. An examination of
the divine names in Holder’s Altceltischer Sprachschatz will
show how numerous the local gods of the continental Celts must have
been. Professor {24} Anwyl reckons that 270 gods are mentioned
once on inscriptions, 24 twice, 11 thrice, 10 four times, 3 five
times, 2 seven times, 4 fifteen times, 1 nineteen times (Grannos),
and 1 thirty-nine times (Belenos).55
The god or gods identified with Mercury were very popular in
Gaul, as Cæsar’s words and the witness of place-names derived
from the Roman name of the god show. These had probably supplanted
earlier names derived from those of the corresponding native gods.
Many temples of the god existed, especially in the region of the
Allobrogi, and bronze statuettes of him have been found in
abundance. Pliny also describes a colossal statue designed for the
Arverni who had a great temple of the god on the Puy de
Dôme.56 Mercury was not necessarily the
chief god, and at times, e.g. in war, the native war-gods
would be prominent. The native names of the gods assimilated to
Mercury are many in number; in some cases they are epithets,
derived from the names of places where a local “Mercury” was
worshipped, in others they are derived from some function of the
gods.57 One of these titles is Artaios,
perhaps cognate with Irish art, “god,” or connected with
artos, “bear.” Professor Rh[^y]s, however, finds its cognate
in Welsh âr, “ploughed land,” as if one of the god’s
functions connected him with agriculture.58
This is supported by another inscription to Mercurius Cultor at
Wurtemberg. Local gods of agriculture must thus have been
assimilated to Mercury. A god Moccus, “swine,” was also identified
with Mercury, and the swine was a frequent representative of the
corn-spirit or of vegetation divinities in {25} Europe. The
flesh of the animal was often mixed with the seed corn or buried in
the fields to promote fertility. The swine had been a sacred animal
among the Celts, but had apparently become an anthropomorphic god
of fertility, Moccus, assimilated to Mercury, perhaps because the
Greek Hermes caused fertility in flocks and herds. Such a god was
one of a class whose importance was great among the Celts as an
agricultural people.
Commerce, much developed among the settled Gauls, gave rise to a
god or gods who guarded roads over which merchants travelled, and
boundaries where their transactions took place. Hence we have an
inscription from Yorkshire, “To the god who invented roads and
paths,” while another local god of roads, equated with Mercury, was
Cimiacinus.59
Another god, Ogmíos, a native god of speech, who draws
men by chains fastened to the tip of his tongue, is identified in
Lucian with Heracles, and is identical with the Goidelic
Ogma.60 Eloquence and speech are important
matters among primitive peoples, and this god has more likeness to
Mercury as a culture-god than to Heracles, Greek writers speaking
of eloquence as binding men with the chains of Hermes.
Several local gods, of agriculture, commerce, and culture, were
thus identified with Mercury, and the Celtic Mercury was sometimes
worshipped on hilltops, one of the epithets of the god, Dumias,
being connected with the Celtic word for hill or mound. Irish gods
were also associated with mounds.
Many local gods were identified with Apollo both in his
{26}
capacity of god of healing and also that of god of light.61 The two functions are not
incompatible, and this is suggested by the name Grannos, god of
thermal springs both in Britain and on the Continent. The name is
connected with a root which gives words meaning “burning,”
“shining,” etc., and from which comes also Irish grian,
“sun.” The god is still remembered in a chant sung round bonfires
in Auvergne. A sheaf of corn is set on fire, and called “Granno
mio,” while the people sing, “Granno, my friend; Granno, my father;
Granno, my mother.”62 Another
god of thermal springs was Borvo, Bormo, or Bormanus, whose name is
derived from borvo, whence Welsh berw, “boiling,” and
is evidently connected with the bubbling of the springs.63 Votive tablets inscribed Grannos or
Borvo show that the offerers desired healing for themselves or
others.
The name Belenos found over a wide area, but mainly in Aquileia,
comes from belo-s, bright, and probably means “the shining
one.” It is thus the name of a Celtic sun-god, equated with Apollo
in that character. If he is the Belinus referred to by Geoffrey of
Monmouth,64 his cult must have extended into
Britain from the Continent, and he is often mentioned by classical
writers, while much later Ausonius speaks of his priest in
Gaul.65 Many place and personal names point
to the popularity of his cult, and inscriptions show that he, too,
was a god of health and of healing-springs. The plant
Belinuntia {27} was called after him and venerated for its
healing powers.66 The
sun-god’s functions of light and fertility easily passed over into
those of health-giving, as our study of Celtic festivals will
show.
A god with the name Maponos, connected with words denoting
“youthfulness,” is found in England and Gaul, equated with Apollo,
who himself is called Bonus Puer in a Dacian inscription.
Another god Mogons or Mogounos, whose name is derived from
Mago, “to increase,” and suggests the idea of youthful
strength, may be a form of the sun-god, though some evidence points
to his having been a sky-god.67
The Celtic Apollo is referred to by classical writers. Diodorus
speaks of his circular temple in an island of the Hyperboreans,
adorned with votive offerings. The kings of the city where the
temple stood, and its overseers, were called “Boreads,” and every
nineteenth year the god appeared dancing in the sky at the spring
equinox.68 The identifications of the temple
with Stonehenge and of the Boreads with the Bards are quite
hypothetical. Apollonius says that the Celts regarded the waters of
Eridanus as due to the tears of Apollo—probably a native myth
attributing the creation of springs and rivers to the tears of a
god, equated by the Greeks with Apollo.69 The
Celtic sun-god, as has been seen, was a god of healing springs.
Some sixty names or titles of Celtic war-gods are known,
generally equated with Mars.70 These
were probably local tribal {28} divinities regarded as leading their
worshippers to battle. Some of the names show that these gods were
thought of as mighty warriors, e.g. Caturix, “battle-king,”
Belatu-Cadros—a common name in Britain—perhaps meaning
“comely in slaughter,”71 and
Albiorix, “world-king.”72 Another
name, Rigisamus, from rix and samus, “like to,” gives
the idea of “king-like.”73
Toutatis, Totatis, and Tutatis are found in inscriptions from
Seckau, York, and Old Carlisle, and may be identified with Lucan’s
Teutates, who with Taranis and Esus mentioned by him, is regarded
as one of three pan-Celtic gods.74 Had
this been the case we should have expected to find many more
inscriptions to them. The scholiast on Lucan identifies Teutates
now with Mars, now with Mercury. His name is connected with
teuta, “tribe,” and he is thus a tribal war-god, regarded as
the embodiment of the tribe in its warlike capacity.
Neton, a war-god of the Accetani, has a name connected with
Irish nia, “warrior,” and may be equated with the Irish
war-god Nét. Another god, Camulos, known from British and
continental inscriptions, and figured on British coins with warlike
emblems, has perhaps some connection with Cumal, father of Fionn,
though it is uncertain whether Cumal was an Irish divinity.75
Another god equated with Mars is the Gaulish Braciaca, god of
malt. According to classical writers, the Celts were {29} drunken
race, and besides importing quantities of wine, they made their own
native drinks, e.g. [Greek: chourmi], the Irish
cuirm, and braccat, both made from malt
(braich).76 These
words, with the Gaulish brace, “spelt,”77
are connected with the name of this god, who was a divine
personification of the substance from which the drink was made
which produced, according to primitive ideas, the divine frenzy of
intoxication. It is not clear why Mars should have been equated
with this god.
Cæsar says that the Celtic Juppiter governed heaven. A god
who carries a wheel, probably a sun-god, and another, a god of
thunder, called Taranis, seem to have been equated with Juppiter.
The sun-god with the wheel was not equated with Apollo, who seems
to have represented Celtic sun-gods only in so far as they were
also gods of healing. In some cases the god with the wheel carries
also a thunderbolt, and on some altars, dedicated to Juppiter, both
a wheel and a thunderbolt are figured. Many races have symbolised
the sun as a circle or wheel, and an old Roman god, Summanus,
probably a sun-god, later assimilated to Juppiter, had as his
emblem a wheel. The Celts had the same symbolism, and used the
wheel symbol as an amulet,78 while
at the midsummer festivals blazing wheels, symbolising the sun,
were rolled down a slope. Possibly the god carries a thunderbolt
because the Celts, like other races, believed that lightning was a
spark from the sun.
Three divinities have claims to be the god whom Cæsar
calls Dispater—a god with a hammer, a crouching god called
Cernunnos, and a god called Esus or Silvanus. Possibly the
{30}
native Dispater was differently envisaged in different districts,
so that these would be local forms of one god.
1. The god Taranis mentioned by Lucan is probably the Taranoos
and Taranucnos of inscriptions, sometimes equated with
Juppiter.79 These names are connected with
Celtic words for “thunder”; hence Taranis is a thunder-god. The
scholiasts on Lucan identify him now with Juppiter, now with
Dispater. This latter identification is supported by many who
regard the god with the hammer as at once Taranis and Dispater,
though it cannot be proved that the god with the hammer is Taranis.
On one inscription the hammer-god is called Sucellos; hence we may
regard Taranis as a distinct deity, a thunder-god, equated with
Juppiter, and possibly represented by the Taran of the Welsh tale
of Kulhwych.80
Primitive men, whose only weapon and tool was a stone axe or
hammer, must have regarded it as a symbol of force, then of
supernatural force, hence of divinity. It is represented on remains
of the Stone Age, and the axe was a divine symbol to the
Mycenæans, a hieroglyph of Neter to the Egyptians, and a
worshipful object to Polynesians and Chaldeans. The cult of axe or
hammer may have been widespread, and to the Celts, as to many other
peoples, it was a divine symbol. Thus it does not necessarily
denote a thunderbolt, but rather power and might, and possibly, as
the tool which shaped things, creative might. The Celts made ex
voto hammers of lead, or used axe-heads as amulets, or figured
them on altars and coins, and they also placed the hammer in the
hand of a god.81
The god with the hammer is a gracious bearded figure, clad in
Gaulish dress, and he carries also a cup. His plastic type is
derived from that of the Alexandrian Serapis, ruler of the
underworld, and that of Hades-Pluto.82 His
emblems, especially that of the hammer, are also those of the Pluto
of the Etruscans, with whom the Celts had been in contact.83 He is thus a Celtic Dispater, an
underworld god, possibly at one time an Earth-god and certainly a
god of fertility, and ancestor of the Celtic folk. In some cases,
like Serapis, he carries a modius on his head, and this,
like the cup, is an emblem of chthonian gods, and a symbol of the
fertility of the soil. The god being benevolent, his hammer, like
the tool with which man forms so many things, could only be a
symbol of creative force.84 As an
ancestor of the Celts, the god is naturally represented in Celtic
dress. In one bas-relief he is called Sucellos, and has a consort,
Nantosvelta.85 Various meanings have been assigned
to “Sucellos,” but it probably denotes the god’s power of striking
with the hammer. M. D’Arbois hence regards him as a god of blight
and death, like Balor.86 But
though this Celtic Dispater was a god of the dead who lived on in
the underworld, {32} he was not necessarily a destructive god.
The underworld god was the god from whom or from whose kingdom men
came forth, and he was also a god of fertility. To this we shall
return.
2. A bearded god, probably squatting, with horns from each of
which hangs a torque, is represented on an altar found at
Paris.87 He is called Cernunnos, perhaps
“the horned,” from cerna, “horn,” and a whole group of
nameless gods, with similar or additional attributes, have
affinities with him.
(a) A bronze statuette from Autun represents a similar
figure, probably horned, who presents a torque to two ram’s-headed
serpents. Fixed above his ears are two small heads.88 On a monument from Vandoeuvres is a
squatting horned god, pressing a sack. Two genii stand beside him
on a serpent, while one of them holds a torque.89
(b) Another squatting horned figure with a torque occurs
on an altar from Reims. He presses a bag, from which grain escapes,
and on it an ox and stag are feeding. A rat is represented on the
pediment above, and on either side stand Apollo and Mercury.90 On the altar of Saintes is a
squatting but headless god with torque and purse. Beside him is a
goddess with a cornucopia, and a smaller divinity with a cornucopia
and an apple. A similar squatting figure, supported by male and
female deities, is represented on the other side of the
altar.91 On the altar of Beaune are three
figures, one horned with a cornucopia, another three-headed,
holding a basket.92 Three
figures, one female and two male, are found on the Dennevy altar.
One god is three-faced, the other has a cornucopia, which he offers
to a serpent.93
(c) Another image represents a three-faced god, holding a
serpent with a ram’s head.94
(d) Above a seated god and goddess on an altar from
Malmaison is a block carved to represent three faces. To be
compared with these are seven steles from Reims, each with a triple
face but only one pair of eyes. Above some of these is a ram’s
head. On an eighth stele the heads are separated.95
Cernunnos may thus have been regarded as a three-headed, horned,
squatting god, with a torque and ram’s-headed serpent. But a horned
god is sometimes a member of a triad, perhaps representing myths in
which Cernunnos was associated with other gods. The three-headed
god may be the same as the horned god, though on the Beaune altar
they are distinct. The various representations are linked together,
but it is not certain that all are varying types of one god. Horns,
torque, horned snake, or even the triple head may have been symbols
pertaining to more than one god, though generally associated with
Cernunnos.
The squatting attitude of the god has been differently
explained, and its affinities regarded now as Buddhist, now as
Greco-Egyptian.96 But if
the god is a Dispater, and the ancestral god of the Celts, it is
natural, as M. Mowat points out, to represent him in the typical
attitude of the Gauls when sitting, since they did not use
seats.97 While the horns were probably
symbols of power and worn also by chiefs on their helmets,98 they may also show that the god was
an anthropomorphic form of an earlier animal god, like the
wolf-skin of other gods. Hence also horned animals would be
regarded as symbols of the god, and this may account for
{34}
their presence on the Reims monument. Animals are sometimes
represented beside the divinities who were their anthropomorphic
forms.99 Similarly the ram’s-headed serpent
points to animal worship. But its presence with three-headed and
horned gods is enigmatic, though, as will be seen later, it may
have been connected with a cult of the dead, while the serpent was
a chthonian animal.100
These gods were gods of fertility and of the underworld of the
dead. While the bag or purse (interchangeable with the cornucopia)
was a symbol of Mercury, it was also a symbol of Pluto, and this
may point to the fact that the gods who bear it had the same
character as Pluto. The significance of the torque is also
doubtful, but the Gauls offered torques to the gods, and they may
have been regarded as vehicles of the warrior’s strength which
passed from him to the god to whom the victor presented it.
Though many attempts have been made to prove the non-Celtic
origin of the three-headed divinities or of their images,101 there is no reason why the
conception should not be Celtic, based on some myth now lost to us.
The Celts had a cult of human heads, and fixed them up on their
houses in order to obtain the protection of the ghost. Bodies or
heads of dead warriors had a protective influence on their land or
tribe, and myth told how the head of the god Bran saved his country
from invasion. In other myths human heads speak after being cut
off.102 It might thus easily have been
believed that the representation of a god’s head had a still more
powerful protective influence, especially when it was triplicated,
thus looking in all directions, like Janus.
The significance of the triad on these monuments is {35} uncertain
but since the supporting divinities are now male, now female, now
male and female, it probably represents myths of which the horned
or three-headed god was the central figure. Perhaps we shall not be
far wrong in regarding such gods, on the whole, as Cernunnos, a god
of abundance to judge by his emblems, and by the cornucopia held by
his companions, probably divinities of fertility. In certain cases
figures of squatting and horned goddesses with cornucopia
occur.103 These may be consorts of
Cernunnos, and perhaps preceded him in origin. We may also go
further and see in this god of abundance and fertility at once an
Earth and an Under-earth god, since earth and under-earth are much
the same to primitive thought, and fertility springs from below the
earth’s surface. Thus Cernunnos would be another form of the Celtic
Dispater. Generally speaking, the images of Cernunnos are not found
where those of the god with the hammer (Dispater) are most
numerous. These two types may thus be different local forms of
Dispater. The squatting attitude of Cernunnos is natural in the
image of the ancestor of a people who squatted. As to the symbols
of plenty, we know that Pluto was confounded with Plutus, the god
of riches, because corn and minerals came out of the earth, and
were thus the gifts of an Earth or Under-earth god. Celtic myth may
have had the same confusion.
On a Paris altar and on certain steles a god attacks a serpent
with a club. The serpent is a chthonian animal, and the god, called
Smertullos, may be a Dispater.104 Gods
who are anthropomorphic forms of earlier animal divinities,
sometimes have the animals as symbols or attendants, or are
regarded as hostile to them. In some cases Dispater {36} may have
outgrown the serpent symbolism, the serpent being regarded locally
as his foe; this assumes that the god with the club is the same as
the god with the hammer. But in the case of Cernunnos the animal
remained as his symbol.
Dispater was a god of growth and fertility, and besides being
lord of the underworld of the dead, not necessarily a dark region
or the abode of “dark” gods as is so often assumed by writers on
Celtic religion, he was ancestor of the living. This may merely
have meant that, as in other mythologies, men came to the surface
of the earth from an underground region, like all things whose
roots struck deep down into the earth. The lord of the underworld
would then easily be regarded as their ancestor.105
3. The hammer and the cup are also the symbols of a god called
Silvanus, identified by M. Mowat with Esus,106
a god represented cutting down a tree with an axe. Axe and hammer,
however, are not necessarily identical, and the symbols are those
of Dispater, as has been seen. A purely superficial connection
between the Roman Silvanus and the Celtic Dispater may have been
found by Gallo-Roman artists in the fact that both wear a
wolf-skin, while there may once have been a Celtic wolf totem-god
of the dead.107 The
Roman god was also associated with the wolf. This might be regarded
as one out of many examples of a mere superficial assimilation of
Roman and Celtic divinities, but in this case they still kept
certain symbols of the native Dispater—the cup and hammer.
{37}
Of course, since the latter was also a god of fertility, there was
here another link with Silvanus, a god of woods and vegetation. The
cult of the god was widespread—in Spain, S. Gaul, the Rhine
provinces, Cisalpine Gaul, Central Europe and Britain. But one
inscription gives the name Selvanos, and it is not impossible that
there was a native god Selvanus. If so, his name may have been
derived from selva, “possession,” Irish sealbh,
“possession,” “cattle,” and he may have been a chthonian god of
riches, which in primitive communities consisted of cattle.108 Domestic animals, in Celtic
mythology, were believed to have come from the god’s land. Selvanus
would thus be easily identified with Silvanus, a god of flocks.
Thus the Celtic Dispater had various names and forms in
different regions, and could be assimilated to different foreign
gods. Since Earth and Under-earth are so nearly connected, this
divinity may once have been an Earth-god, and as such perhaps took
the place of an earlier Earth-mother, who now became his consort or
his mother. On a monument from Salzbach, Dispater is accompanied by
a goddess called Aeracura, holding a basket of fruit, and on
another monument from Ober-Seebach, the companion of Dispater holds
a cornucopia. In the latter instance Dispater holds a hammer and
cup, and the goddess may be Aeracura. Aeracura is also associated
with Dispater in several inscriptions.109 It
is not yet certain that she is a Celtic goddess, but her presence
with this evidently Celtic god is almost sufficient proof of the
fact. She may thus represent the old Earth-goddess, whose place the
native Dispater gradually usurped.
Lucan mentions a god Esus, who is represented on a Paris altar
as a woodman cutting down a tree, the branches of which are carried
round to the next side of the altar, on which is represented a bull
with three cranes—Tarvos Trigaranos. The same figure,
unnamed, occurs on another altar at Trèves, but in this case
the bull’s head appears in the branches, and on them sit the birds.
M. Reinach applies one formula to the subjects of these
altars—”The divine Woodman hews the Tree of the Bull with
Three Cranes.”110 The
whole represents some myth unknown to us, but M. D’Arbois finds in
it some allusion to events in the Cúchulainn saga. To this
we shall return.111 Bull
and tree are perhaps both divine, and if the animal, like the
images of the divine bull, is three-horned, then the three cranes
(garanus, “crane”) may be a rebus for three-horned
(trikeras), or more probably three-headed
(trikarenos).112 In
this case woodman, tree, and bull might all be representatives of a
god of vegetation. In early ritual, human, animal, or arboreal
representatives of the god were periodically destroyed to ensure
fertility, but when the god became separated from these
representatives, the destruction or slaying was regarded as a
sacrifice to the god, and myths arose telling how he had once slain
the animal. In this case, tree and bull, really identical, would be
mythically regarded as destroyed by the god whom they had once
represented. If Esus was a god of vegetation, once represented by a
tree, this would explain why, as the scholiast on Lucan relates,
human sacrifices to Esus were suspended from a tree. Esus was
worshipped at Paris and at Trèves; a coin with the name
Æsus was found in England; and personal names like Esugenos,
“son of Esus,” {39} and Esunertus, “he who has the strength of
Esus,” occur in England, France, and Switzerland.113 Thus the cult of this god may
have been comparatively widespread. But there is no evidence that
he was a Celtic Jehovah or a member, with Teutates and Taranis, of
a pan-Celtic triad, or that this triad, introduced by Gauls, was
not accepted by the Druids.114 Had
such a great triad existed, some instance of the occurrence of the
three names on one inscription would certainly have been found.
Lucan does not refer to the gods as a triad, nor as gods of all the
Celts, or even of one tribe. He lays stress merely on the fact that
they were worshipped with human sacrifice, and they were apparently
more or less well-known local gods.115
The insular Celts believed that some of their gods lived on or
in hills. We do not know whether such a belief was entertained by
the Gauls, though some of their deities were worshipped on hills,
like the Puy de Dôme. There is also evidence of mountain
worship among them. One inscription runs, “To the Mountains”; a god
of the Pennine Alps, Poeninus, was equated with Juppiter; and the
god of the Vosges mountains was called Vosegus, perhaps still
surviving in the giant supposed to haunt them.116
Certain grouped gods, Dii Casses, were worshipped by
Celts on the right bank of the Rhine, but nothing is known
regarding their functions, unless they were road gods. The name
means “beautiful” or “pleasant,” and Cassi appears in
personal and tribal names, and also in Cassiterides, an
early name of Britain, perhaps signifying that the new lands were
“more beautiful” than those the Celts had left. When tin was
{40}
discovered in Britain, the Mediterranean traders called it [Greek:
chassiteros], after the name of the place where it was found, as
cupreus, “copper,” was so called from Cyprus.117
Many local tutelar divinities were also worshipped. When a new
settlement was founded, it was placed under the protection of a
tribal god, or the name of some divinised river on whose banks the
village was placed, passed to the village itself, and the divinity
became its protector. Thus Dea Bibracte, Nemausus, and Vasio were
tutelar divinities of Bibracte, Nimes, and Vaison. Other places
were called after Belenos, or a group of divinities, usually the
Matres with a local epithet, watched over a certain
district.118 The founding of a town was
celebrated in an annual festival, with sacrifices and libations to
the protecting deity, a practice combated by S. Eloi in the eighth
century. But the custom of associating a divinity with a town or
region was a great help to patriotism. Those who fought for their
homes felt that they were fighting for their gods, who also fought
on their side. Several inscriptions, “To the genius of the place,”
occur in Britain, and there are a few traces of tutelar gods in
Irish texts, but generally local saints had taken their place.
The Celtic cult of goddesses took two forms, that of individual
and that of grouped goddesses, the latter much more numerous than
the grouped gods. Individual goddesses were worshipped as consorts
of gods, or as separate personalities, and in the latter case the
cult was sometimes far extended. Still more popular was the cult of
grouped goddesses. Of these the Matres, like some individual
goddesses, were probably early Earth-mothers, and since the
primitive fertility-cults included all that might then be summed up
as “civilisation,” {41} such goddesses had already many functions,
and might the more readily become divinities of special crafts or
even of war. Many individual goddesses are known only by their
names, and were of a purely local character.119
Some local goddesses with different names but similar functions are
equated with the same Roman goddess; others were never so
equated.
The Celtic Minerva, or the goddesses equated with her, “taught
the elements of industry and the arts,”120 and
is thus the equivalent of the Irish Brigit. Her functions are in
keeping with the position of woman as the first
civiliser—discovering agriculture, spinning, the art of
pottery, etc. During this period goddesses were chiefly worshipped,
and though the Celts had long outgrown this primitive stage, such
culture-goddesses still retained their importance. A goddess
equated with Minerva in Southern France and Britain is Belisama,
perhaps from qval, “to burn” or “shine.”121 Hence she may have been
associated with a cult of fire, like Brigit and like another
goddess Sul, equated with Minerva at Bath and in Hesse, and in
whose temple perpetual fires burned.122 She
was also a goddess of hot springs. Belisama gave her name to the
Mersey,123 and many goddesses in Celtic myth
are associated with rivers.
Some war-goddesses are associated with Mars—Nemetona (in
Britain and Germany), perhaps the same as the Irish Nemon, and
Cathubodua, identical with the Irish war-goddess Badb-catha,
“battle-crow,” who tore the bodies of the slain.124 Another goddess Andrasta,
“invincible,” perhaps the same as the Andarta of the Voconces, was
worshipped by {42} the people of Boudicca with human
sacrifices, like the native Bellona of the Scordisci.125
A goddess of the chase was identified with Artemis in Galatia,
where she had a priestess Camma, and also in the west. At the feast
of the Galatian goddess dogs were crowned with flowers, her
worshippers feasted and a sacrifice was made to her, feast and
sacrifice being provided out of money laid aside for every animal
taken in the chase.126
Other goddesses were equated with Diana, and one of her statues was
destroyed in Christian times at Trèves.127 These goddesses may have been
thought of as rushing through the forest with an attendant train,
since in later times Diana, with whom they were completely
assimilated, became, like Holda, the leader of the “furious host”
and also of witches’ revels.128 The
Life of Cæsarius of Arles speaks of a “demon” called Diana by
the rustics. A bronze statuette represents the goddess riding a
wild boar,129 her symbol and, like herself, a
creature of the forest, but at an earlier time itself a divinity of
whom the goddess became the anthropomorphic form.
Goddesses, the earlier spirits of the waters, protected rivers
and springs, or were associated with gods of healing wells. Dirona
or Sirona is associated with Grannos mainly in Eastern Gaul and the
Rhine provinces, and is sometimes represented carrying grapes and
grain.130 Thus this goddess may once have
been connected with fertility, perhaps an Earth-mother, and if her
name means “the long-lived,”131 this
would be an appropriate title for an Earth-goddess. Another
goddess, Stanna, mentioned in an inscription at Perigueux, is
perhaps {43} “the standing or abiding one,” and thus
may also have been Earth-goddess.132
Grannos was also associated with the local goddesses Vesunna and
Aventia, who gave their names to Vesona and Avanche. His statue
also stood in the temple of the goddess of the Seine,
Sequana.133 With Bormo were associated
Bormana in Southern Gaul, and Damona in Eastern Gaul—perhaps
an animal goddess, since the root of her name occurs in Irish
dam, “ox,” and Welsh dafad, “sheep.” Dea Brixia was
the consort of Luxovius, god of the waters of Luxeuil. Names of
other goddesses of the waters are found on ex votos and
plaques which were placed in or near them. The Roman Nymphæ,
sometimes associated with Bormo, were the equivalents of the Celtic
water-goddesses, who survived in the water-fairies of later
folk-belief. Some river-goddesses gave their names to many rivers
in the Celtic area—the numerous Avons being named from
Abnoba, goddess of the sources of the Danube, and the many Dees and
Dives from Divona. Clota was goddess of the Clyde, Sabrina had her
throne “beneath the translucent wave” of the Severn, Icauna was
goddess of the Yonne, Sequana of the Seine, and Sinnan of the
Shannon.
In some cases forests were ruled by goddesses—that of the
Ardennes by Dea Arduinna, and the Black Forest, perhaps because of
the many waters in it, by Dea Abnoba.134
While some goddesses are known only by being associated with a god,
e.g. Kosmerta with Mercury in Eastern Gaul, others have
remained separate, like Epona, perhaps a river-goddess merged with
an animal divinity, and known from inscriptions as a
horse-goddess.135 But
the most striking instance is found in the grouped goddesses.
Of these the Deoe Matres, whose name has taken a Latin
form and whose cult extended to the Teutons, are mentioned in many
inscriptions all over the Celtic area, save in East and North-West
Gaul.136 In art they are usually
represented as three in number, holding fruit, flowers, a
cornucopia, or an infant. They were thus goddesses of fertility,
and probably derived from a cult of a great Mother-goddess, the
Earth personified. She may have survived as a goddess Berecynthia;
worshipped at Autun, where her image was borne through the fields
to promote fertility, or as the goddesses equated with Demeter and
Kore, worshipped by women on an island near Britain.137 Such cults of a Mother-goddess
lie behind many religions, but gradually her place was taken by an
Earth-god, the Celtic Dispater or Dagda, whose consort the goddess
became. She may therefore be the goddess with the cornucopia on
monuments of the horned god, or Aeracura, consort of Dispater, or a
goddess on a monument at Epinal holding a basket of fruit and a
cornucopia, and accompanied by a ram’s-headed serpent.138 These symbols show that this
goddess was akin to the Matres. But she sometimes preserved
her individuality, as in the case of Berecynthia and the
Matres, though it is not quite clear why she should have
been thus triply multiplied. A similar phenomenon is found in the
close connection of Demeter and Persephone, while the Celts
regarded three as a sacred number. The primitive division of the
year into three seasons—spring, summer, and winter—may
have had its effect in triplicating a goddess of fertility with
which the course of the seasons was connected.139 In other mythologies groups of
three goddesses are found, the {45} Hathors in Egypt, the Moirai,
Gorgons, and Graiæ of Greece, the Roman Fates, and the Norse
Nornæ, and it is noticeable that the Matres were
sometimes equated with the Parcæ and Fates.140
In the Matres, primarily goddesses of fertility and
plenty, we have one of the most popular and also primitive aspects
of Celtic religion. They originated in an age when women cultivated
the ground, and the Earth was a goddess whose cult was performed by
priestesses. But in course of time new functions were bestowed on
the Matres. Possibly river-goddesses and others are merely
mothers whose functions have become specialised. The Matres
are found as guardians of individuals, families, houses, of towns,
a province, or a whole nation, as their epithets in inscriptions
show. The Matres Domesticæ are household goddesses;
the Matres Treveræ, or Gallaicæ, or
Vediantæ, are the mothers of Trèves, of the
Gallaecæ, of the Vediantii; the Matres Nemetiales are
guardians of groves. Besides presiding over the fields as Matres
Campestræ they brought prosperity to towns and
people.141 They guarded women, especially in
childbirth, as ex votos prove, and in this aspect they are
akin to the Junones worshipped also in Gaul and Britain. The
name thus became generic for most goddesses, but all alike were the
lineal descendants of the primitive Earth-mother.142
Popular superstition has preserved the memory of these goddesses
in the three bonnes dames, dames blanches, and White
Women, met by wayfarers in forests, or in the three fairies or wise
women of folk-tales, who appear at the birth of {46} children.
But sometimes they have become hateful hags. The Matres and
other goddesses probably survived in the beneficent fairies of
rocks and streams, in the fairy Abonde who brought riches to
houses, or Esterelle of Provence who made women fruitful, or Aril
who watched over meadows, or in beings like Melusine, Viviane, and
others.143 In Gallo-Roman Britain the cult
of the Matres is found, but how far it was indigenous there
is uncertain. A Welsh name for fairies, Y Mamau, “the
Mothers,” and the phrase, “the blessing of the Mothers” used of a
fairy benediction, may be a reminiscence of such goddesses.144 The presence of similar goddesses
in Ireland will be considered later.145
Images of the Matres bearing a child have sometimes been
taken for those of the Virgin, when found accidentally, and as they
are of wood blackened with age, they are known as Vierges
Noires, and occupy an honoured place in Christian sanctuaries.
Many churches of Nôtre Dame have been built on sites where an
image of the Virgin is said to have been miraculously
found—the image probably being that of a pagan Mother.
Similarly, an altar to the Matres at Vaison is now dedicated
to the Virgin as the “good Mother.”146
In inscriptions from Eastern and Cisalpine Gaul, and from the
Rhine and Danube region, the Matronæ are mentioned,
and this name is probably indicative of goddesses like the
Matres.147 It
is akin to that of many rivers, e.g. the Marne or Meyrone,
and shows that the Mothers were associated with rivers. The Mother
river fertilised a large district, and {47} exhibited
the characteristic of the whole group of goddesses.
Akin also to the Matres are the Suleviæ,
guardian goddesses called Matres in a few inscriptions; the
Comedovæ, whose name perhaps denotes guardianship or
power; the Dominæ, who watched over the home, perhaps
the Dames of mediæval folk-lore; and the
Virgines, perhaps an appellative of the Matres, and
significant when we find that virgin priestesses existed in Gaul
and Ireland.148 The
Proxumæ were worshipped in Southern Gaul, and the
Quadriviæ, goddesses of cross-roads, at
Cherbourg.149
Some Roman gods are found on inscriptions without being equated
with native deities. They may have been accepted by the Gauls as
new gods, or they had perhaps completely ousted similar native
gods. Others, not mentioned by Cæsar, are equated with native
deities, Juno with Clivana, Saturn with Arvalus, and to a native
Vulcan the Celts vowed spoils of war.150
Again, many native gods are not equated with Roman deities on
inscriptions. Apart from the divinities of Pyrenæan
inscriptions, who may not be Celtic, the names of over 400 native
deities, whether equated with Roman gods or not, are known. Some of
these names are mere epithets, and most of the gods are of a local
character, known here by one name, there by another. Only in a very
few cases can it be asserted that a god was worshipped over the
whole Celtic area by one name, though some gods in Gaul, Britain,
and Ireland with different names have certainly similar
functions.151
The pantheon of the continental Celts was a varied one. Traces
of the primitive agricultural rites, and of the priority of
goddesses to gods, are found, and the vaguer aspects of
{48}
primitive nature worship are seen behind the cult of divinities of
sky, sun, thunder, forests, rivers, or in deities of animal origin.
We come next to evidence of a higher stage, in divinities of
culture, healing, the chase, war, and the underworld. We see
divinities of Celtic groups—gods of individuals, the family,
the tribe. Sometimes war-gods assumed great prominence, in time of
war, or among the aristocracy, but with the development of
commerce, gods associated with trade and the arts of peace came to
the front.152 At the same time the popular
cults of agricultural districts must have remained as of old. With
the adoption of Roman civilisation, enlightened Celts separated
themselves from the lower aspects of their religion, but this would
have occurred with growing civilisation had no Roman ever entered
Gaul. In rural districts the more savage aspects of the cult would
still have remained, but that these were entirely due to an
aboriginal population is erroneous. The Celts must have brought
such cults with them or adopted cults similar to their own wherever
they came. The persistence of these cults is seen in the fact that
though Christianity modified them, it could not root them out, and
in out-of-the-way corners, survivals of the old ritual may still be
found, for everywhere the old religion of the soil dies hard.
Footnote 57:(return)These names are Alaunius, Arcecius, Artaius, Arvernorix,
Arvernus, Adsmerius, Canetonensis, Clavariatis, Cissonius,
Cimbrianus, Dumiatis, Magniacus, Moecus, Toeirenus, Vassocaletus,
Vellaunus, Visuoius, Biausius, Cimiacinus, Naissatis. See Holder,
s.v.
Footnote 60:(return)Lucian, Heracles, 1 f. Some Gaulish coins figure a head
to which are bound smaller heads. In one case the cords issue from
the mouth (Blanchet, i. 308, 316-317). These may represent Lucian’s
Ogmíos, but other interpretations have been put upon them.
See Robert, RC vii. 388; Jullian, 84.
Footnote 61:(return)The epithets and names are Anextiomarus, Belenos, Bormo, Borvo,
or Bormanus, Cobledulitavus, Cosmis (?), Grannos, Livicus, Maponos,
Mogo or Mogounos, Sianus, Toutiorix, Viudonnus, Virotutis. See
Holder, s.v.
Footnote 63:(return)See Holder, s.v. Many place-names are derived from
Borvo, e.g. Bourbon l’Archambaut, which gave its name to the
Bourbon dynasty, thus connected with an old Celtic god.
Footnote 65:(return)Jul. Cap. Maxim. 22; Herodian, viii. 3; Tert.
Apol. xxiv. 70; Auson. Prof. xi. 24.
Footnote 70:(return)Albiorix, Alator, Arixo, Beladonnis, Barrex, Belatucadros,
Bolvinnus, Braciaca, Britovis, Buxenus, Cabetius, Camulus,
Cariocecius, Caturix, Cemenelus, Cicollius, Carrus, Cocosus,
Cociduis, Condatis, Cnabetius, Corotiacus, Dinomogetimarus,
Divanno, Dunatis, Glarinus, Halamardus, Harmogius, Ieusdriuus,
Lacavus, Latabius, Leucetius, Leucimalacus, Lenus, Mullo, Medocius,
Mogetius, Nabelcus, Neton, Ocelos, Ollondios, Rudianus, Rigisamus,
Randosatis, Riga, Segomo, Sinatis, Smertatius, Toutates, Tritullus,
Vesucius, Vincius, Vitucadros, Vorocius. See Holder,
s.v.
Footnote 74:(return)Holder, s.v.; Lucan, i. 444 f. The opinions of writers
who take this view are collected by Reinach, RC xviii.
137.
Footnote 75:(return)Holder, s.v. The Gaulish name Camulogenus, “born of
Cumel,” represents the same idea as in Fionn’s surname,
MacCumall.
Footnote 81:(return)Gaidoz, RC vi. 457; Reinach, OS 65, 138; Blanchet,
i. 160. The hammer is also associated with another Celtic Dispater,
equated with Sylvanus, who was certainly not a thunder-god.
Footnote 86:(return)D’Arbois, ii. 126. He explains Nantosvelta as meaning “She who
is brilliant in war.” The goddess, however, has none of the
attributes of a war-goddess. M. D’Arbois also saw in a bas-relief
of the hammer-god, a female figure, and a child, the Gaulish
equivalents of Balor, Ethne, and Lug (RC xv. 236). M.
Reinach regards Sucellos, Nantosvelta, and a bird which is figured
with them, as the same trio, because pseudo-Plutarch (de
Fluv. vi. 4) says that lougos means “crow” in Celtic.
This is more than doubtful. In any case Ethne has no warlike traits
in Irish story, and as Lug and Balor were deadly enemies, it
remains to be explained why they appear tranquilly side by side.
See RC xxvi. 129. Perhaps Nantosvelta, like other Celtic
goddesses, was a river nymph. Nanto Gaulish is “valley,” and
nant in old Breton is “gorge” or “brook.” Her name might
mean “shining river.” See Stokes, US 193, 324.
Footnote 87:(return)RC xviii. 254. Cernunnos may be the Juppiter Cernenos of
an inscription from Pesth, Holder, s.v.
Footnote 101:(return)See, e.g., Mowat, Bull. Epig. i. 29; de Witte,
Rev. Arch. ii. 387, xvi. 7; Bertrand, ibid. xvi.
3.
Footnote 106:(return)Reinach, BF 162, 184; Mowat, Bull. Epig. i. 62,
Rev. Epig. 1887, 319, 1891, 84.
Footnote 107:(return)Reinach, BF 141, 153, 175, 176, 181; see p. 218, infra. Flouest, Rev. Arch. 1885,
i. 21, thinks that the identification was with an earlier chthonian
Silvanus. Cf. Jullian, 17, note 3, who observes that the
Gallo-Roman assimilations were made “sur le doinaine archaisant des
faits populaires et rustiques de l’Italie.” For the inscriptions,
see Holder, s.v.
Footnote 109:(return)Gaidoz, Rev. Arch. ii. 1898; Mowat, Bull. Epig. i.
119; Courcelle-Seneuil, 80 f.; Pauly-Wissowa, Real. Lex. i.
667; Daremberg-Saglio, Dict. ii., s.v.
“Dispater.”
Footnote 112:(return)For a supposed connection between this bas-relief and the myth
of Geryon, see Reinach, BF 120; RC xviii. 258 f.
Footnote 117:(return)Holder, i. 824; Reinach, Rev. Arch. xx. 262; D’Arbois,
Les Celtes, 20. Other grouped gods are the Bacucei,
Castoeci, Icotii, Ifles, Lugoves, Nervini, and Silvani. See Holder,
s.v.
Footnote 119:(return)Professor Anwyl gives the following statistics: There are 35
goddesses mentioned once, 2 twice, 3 thrice, 1 four times, 2 six
times, 2 eleven times, 1 fourteen times (Sirona), 1 twenty-one
times (Rosmerta), 1 twenty-six times (Epona) (Trans. Gael. Soc.
Inverness, xxvi. 413).
Footnote 136:(return)Holder, ii. 463. They are very numerous in South-East Gaul,
where also three-headed gods are found.
Footnote 139:(return)See my article “Calendar” in Hastings’ Encyclop. of Religion
and Ethics, iii. 80.
Footnote 142:(return)There is a large literature devoted to the Matres. See De
Wal, Die Mæder Gottinem; Vallentin, Le Culte des
Matræ; Daremberg-Saglio, Dict. s.v. Matres; Ihm,
Jahrbuch. des Vereins von Alterth. in Rheinlande, No. 83;
Roscher, Lexicon, ii. 2464 f.
Footnote 143:(return)See Maury, Fées du Moyen Age; Sébillot, i.
262; Monnier, 439 f.; Wright, Celt, Roman, and Saxon, 286
f.; Vallentin, RC iv. 29. The Matres may already have
had a sinister aspect in Roman times, as they appear to be intended
by an inscription Lamiis Tribus on an altar at Newcastle.
Hübner, 507.
Footnote 144:(return)Anwyl, Celt. Rev. 1906, 28. Cf. Y Foel Famau, “the
hill of the Mothers,” in the Clwydian range.
Footnote 152:(return)We need not assume with Jullian, 18, that there was one supreme
god, now a war-god, now a god of peace. Any prominent god may have
become a war-god on occasion.
CHAPTER IV.
THE IRISH MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE.
Three divine and heroic cycles of myths are known in Ireland,
one telling of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the others of
Cúchulainn and of the Fians. They are distinct in character
and contents, but the gods of the first cycle often help the heroes
of the other groups, as the gods of Greece and India assisted the
heroes of the epics. We shall see that some of the personages of
these cycles may have been known in Gaul; they are remembered in
Wales, but, in the Highlands, where stories of Cúchulainn
and Fionn are still told, the Tuatha Dé Danann are less
known now than in 1567, when Bishop Carsewell lamented the love of
the Highlanders for “idle, turbulent, lying, worldly stories
concerning the Tuatha Dédanans.”153
As the new Achæan religion in Greece and the Vedic sacred
books of India regarded the aboriginal gods and heroes as demons
and goblins, so did Christianity in Ireland sometimes speak of the
older gods there. On the other hand, it was mainly Christian
scribes who changed the old mythology into history, and made the
gods and heroes kings. Doubtless myths already existed, telling of
the descent of rulers and people from divinities, just as the Gauls
spoke of their {50} descent from Dispater, or as the Incas of
Peru, the Mikados of Japan, and the kings of Uganda considered
themselves offspring of the gods. This is a universal practice, and
made it the more easy for Christian chroniclers to transmute myth
into history. In Ireland, as elsewhere, myth doubtless told of
monstrous races inhabiting the land in earlier days, of the strife
of the aborigines and incomers, and of their gods, though the
aboriginal gods may in some cases have been identified with Celtic
gods, or worshipped in their own persons. Many mythical elements
may therefore be looked for in the euhemerised chronicles of
ancient Ireland. But the chroniclers themselves were but the
continuers of a process which must have been at work as soon as the
influence of Christianity began to be felt.154
Their passion, however, was to show the descent of the Irish and
the older peoples from the old Biblical personages, a process dear
to the modern Anglo-Israelite, some of whose arguments are based on
the wild romancing of the chroniclers.
Various stories were told of the first peopling of Ireland.
Banba, with two other daughters of Cain, arrived with fifty women
and three men, only to die of the plague. Three fishermen next
discovered Ireland, and “of the island of Banba of Fair Women with
hardihood they took possession.” Having gone to fetch their wives,
they perished in the deluge at Tuath Inba.155
A more popular account was that of the coming of Cessair, Noah’s
granddaughter, with her father, husband, a third man, Ladru, “the
first dead man of Erin,” and fifty damsels. Her coming was the
result of the advice of a laimh-dhia, or “hand-god,” but
their ship was wrecked, and all save her husband, Finntain, who
survived for centuries, perished {51} in the flood.156 Cessair’s ship was less
serviceable than her grandparent’s! Followed the race of Partholan,
“no wiser one than the other,” who increased on the land until
plague swept them away, with the exception of Tuan mac Caraill, who
after many transformations, told the story of Ireland to S. Finnen
centuries after.157 The
survival of Finntain and Tuan, doubles of each other, was an
invention of the chroniclers, to explain the survival of the
history of colonists who had all perished. Keating, on the other
hand, rejecting the sole survivor theory as contradictory to
Scripture, suggests that “aerial demons,” followers of the
invaders, revealed all to the chroniclers, unless indeed they found
it engraved with “an iron pen and lead in the rocks.”158
Two hundred years before Partholan’s coming, the Fomorians had
arrived,159 and they and their chief Cichol
Gricenchos fought Partholan at Mag Itha, where they were defeated.
Cichol was footless, and some of his host had but one arm and one
leg.160 They were demons, according to
the chroniclers, and descendants of the luckless Ham. Nennius makes
Partholan and his men the first Scots who came from Spain to
Ireland. The next arrivals were the people of Nemed who returned to
Spain, whence they came (Nennius), or died to a man (Tuan). They
also were descendants of the inevitable Noah, and their sojourn in
Ireland was much disturbed by the Fomorians who had recovered from
their defeat, and finally overpowered the Nemedians after the death
of Nemed.161 From Tory Island the Fomorians
ruled Ireland, and forced the {52} Nemedians to pay them annually
on the eve of Samhain (Nov. 1st) two-thirds of their corn and milk
and of the children born during the year. If the Fomorians are gods
of darkness, or, preferably, aboriginal deities, the tribute must
be explained as a dim memory of sacrifice offered at the beginning
of winter when the powers of darkness and blight are in the
ascendant. The Fomorians had a tower of glass in Tory Island. This
was one day seen by the Milesians, to whom appeared on its
battlements what seemed to be men. A year after they attacked the
tower and were overwhelmed in the sea.162 From
the survivors of a previously wrecked vessel of their fleet are
descended the Irish. Another version makes the Nemedians the
assailants. Thirty of them survived their defeat, some of them
going to Scotland or Man (the Britons), some to Greece (to return
as the Firbolgs), some to the north, where they learned magic and
returned as the Tuatha Dé Danann.163
The Firbolgs, “men of bags,” resenting their ignominious treatment
by the Greeks, escaped to Ireland. They included the Firbolgs
proper, the Fir-Domnann, and the Galioin.164
The Fomorians are called their gods, and this, with the
contemptuous epithets bestowed on them, may point to the fact that
the Firbolgs were the pre-Celtic folk of Ireland and the Fomorians
their divinities, hostile to the gods of the Celts or regarded as
dark deities. The Firbolgs are vassals of Ailill and Medb, and with
the Fir Domnann and Galioin are hostile to Cúchulainn and
his men,165 just as Fomorians were to the
Tuatha Dé Danann. The strifes of races and of their gods are
inextricably confused.
The Tuatha Dé Danann arrived from heaven—an idea in
keeping with their character as beneficent gods, but later legend
told how they came from the north. They reached {53} Ireland on
Beltane, shrouded in a magic mist, and finally, after one or, in
other accounts, two battles, defeated the Firbolgs and Fomorians at
Magtured. The older story of one battle may be regarded as a
euhemerised account of the seeming conflict of nature powers.166 The first battle is described in
a fifteenth to sixteenth century MS.,167 and
is referred to in a fifteenth century account of the second battle,
full of archaic reminiscences, and composed from various earlier
documents.168 The Firbolgs, defeated in the
first battle, join the Fomorians, after great losses. Meanwhile
Nuada, leader of the Tuatha Dé Danann, lost his hand, and as
no king with a blemish could sit on the throne, the crown was given
to Bres, son of the Fomorian Elatha and his sister Eri, a woman of
the Tuatha Dé Danann. One day Eri espied a silver boat
speeding to her across the sea. From it stepped forth a magnificent
hero, and without delay the pair, like the lovers in Theocritus,
“rejoiced in their wedlock.” The hero, Elatha, foretold the birth
of Eri’s son, so beautiful that he would be a standard by which to
try all beautiful things. He gave her his ring, but she was to part
with it only to one whose finger it should fit. This was her child
Bres, and by this token he was later, as an exile, recognised by
his father, and obtained his help against the Tuatha Dé
Danann. Like other wonderful children, Bres grew twice as quickly
as any other child until he was seven.169
Though Elatha and Eri are brother and sister, she is among the
Tuatha Dé Danann.170
There is the usual inconsistency of myth here and in other accounts
of Fomorian and Tuatha Dé Danann unions. The latter had just
landed, but already had united in marriage with the Fomorians. This
inconsistency {54} escaped the chroniclers, but it points to
the fact that both were divine not human, and that, though in
conflict, they united in marriage as members of hostile tribes
often do.
The second battle took place twenty-seven years after the first,
on Samhain. It was fought like the first on the plain of Mag-tured,
though later accounts made one battle take place at Mag-tured in
Mayo, the other at Mag-tured in Sligo.171
Inconsistently, the conquering Tuatha Dé Danann in the
interval, while Bres is their king, must pay tribute imposed by the
Fomorians. Obviously in older accounts this tribute must have been
imposed before the first battle and have been its cause. But why
should gods, like the Tuatha Dé Danann, ever have been in
subjection? This remains to be seen, but the answer probably lies
in parallel myths of the subjection or death of divinities like
Ishtar, Adonis, Persephone, and Osiris. Bres having exacted a
tribute of the milk of all hornless dun cows, the cows of Ireland
were passed through fire and smeared with ashes—a myth based
perhaps on the Beltane fire ritual.172 The
avaricious Bres was satirised, and “nought but decay was on him
from that hour,”173 and
when Nuada, having recovered, claimed the throne, he went to
collect an army of the Fomorians, who assembled against the Tuatha
Dé Danann. In the battle Indech wounded Ogma, and Balor slew
Nuada, but was mortally wounded by Lug. Thereupon the Fomorians
fled to their own region.
The Tuatha Dé Danann remained masters of Ireland until
the coming of the Milesians, so named from an eponymous Mile, son
of Bile. Ith, having been sent to reconnoitre, was slain, and the
Milesians now invaded Ireland in force. In spite of a mist raised
by the Druids, they landed, and, having met the three princes who
slew Ith, demanded instant battle or surrender of the land. The
princes agreed to abide by {55} the decision of the Milesian poet
Amairgen, who bade his friends re-embark and retire for the
distance of nine waves. If they could then effect a landing,
Ireland was theirs. A magic storm was raised, which wrecked many of
their ships, but Amairgen recited verses, fragments, perhaps, of
some old ritual, and overcame the dangers. After their defeat the
survivors of the Tuatha Dé Danann retired into the hills to
become a fairy folk, and the Milesians (the Goidels or Scots)
became ancestors of the Irish.
Throughout the long story of the conquests of Ireland there are
many reduplications, the same incidents being often ascribed to
different personages.174
Different versions of similar occurrences, based on older myths and
traditions, may already have been in existence, and ritual
practices, dimly remembered, required explanation. In the hands of
the chroniclers, writing history with a purpose and combining their
information with little regard to consistency, all this was reduced
to a more or less connected narrative. At the hands of the prosaic
chroniclers divinity passed from the gods, though traces of it
still linger.
“Ye are gods, and, behold, ye shall die, and the waves be upon
you at last.
In the darkness of time, in the deeps of the years, in the
changes of things,
Ye shall sleep as a slain man sleeps, and the world shall forget
you for kings.”
From the annalistic point of view the Fomorians are sea demons
or pirates, their name being derived from muir, “sea,” while
they are descended along with other monstrous beings from them.
Professor Rh[^y]s, while connecting the name with Welsh
foawr, “giant” (Gaelic famhair), derives the name
{56}
from fo, “under,” and muir, and regards them as
submarine beings.175 Dr.
MacBain connected them with the fierce powers of the western sea
personified, like the Muireartach, a kind of sea hag, of a
Fionn ballad.176 But
this association of the Fomorians with the ocean may be the result
of a late folk-etymology, which wrongly derived their name from
muir. The Celtic experience of the Lochlanners or Norsemen,
with whom the Fomorians are associated,177
would aid the conception of them as sea-pirates of a more or less
demoniacal character. Dr. Stokes connects the second syllable
mor with mare in “nightmare,” from moro, and
regards them as subterranean as well as submarine.178 But the more probable derivation
is that of Zimmer and D’Arbois, from fo and morio
(mor, “great “),179
which would thus agree with the tradition which regarded them as
giants. They were probably beneficent gods of the aborigines, whom
the Celtic conquerors regarded as generally evil, perhaps equating
them with the dark powers already known to them. They were still
remembered as gods, and are called “champions of the
síd,” like the Tuatha Dé Danann.180 Thus King Bres sought to save his
life by promising that the kine of Ireland would always be in milk,
then that the men of Ireland would reap every quarter, and finally
by revealing the lucky days for ploughing, sowing, and
reaping.181 Only an autochthonous god could
know this, and the story is suggestive of the true nature of the
Fomorians. The hostile character attributed to them is seen from
the fact that they destroyed corn, milk, and fruit. But in Ireland,
as elsewhere, this destructive power was deprecated by begging them
not to destroy “corn nor milk in Erin beyond their fair
tribute.”182 Tribute was also paid to them on
Samhain, the time when {57} the powers of blight feared by men are in
the ascendant. Again, the kingdom of Balor, their chief, is still
described as the kingdom of cold.183 But
when we remember that a similar “tribute” was paid to Cromm
Cruaich, a god of fertility, and that after the conquest of the
Tuatha Dé Danann they also were regarded as hostile to
agriculture,184 we
realise that the Fomorians must have been aboriginal gods of
fertility whom the conquering Celts regarded as hostile to them and
their gods. Similarly, in folk-belief the beneficent corn-spirit
has sometimes a sinister and destructive aspect.185 Thus the stories of “tribute”
would be distorted reminiscences of the ritual of gods of the soil,
differing little in character from that of the similar Celtic
divinities. What makes it certain that the Fomorians were
aboriginal gods is that they are found in Ireland before the coming
of the early colonist Partholan. They were the gods of the
pre-Celtic folk—Firbolgs, Fir Domnann, and Galioin186—all of them in Ireland
before the Tuatha Dé Danaan arrived, and all of them
regarded as slaves, spoken of with the utmost contempt. Another
possibility, however, ought to be considered. As the Celtic gods
were local in character, and as groups of tribes would frequently
be hostile to other groups, the Fomorians may have been local gods
of a group at enmity with another group, worshipping the Tuatha
Dé Danaan.
The strife of Fomorians and Tuatha Dé Danann suggests the
dualism of all nature religions. Demons or giants or monsters
strive with gods in Hindu, Greek, and Teutonic {58} mythology,
and in Persia the primitive dualism of beneficent and hurtful
powers of nature became an ethical dualism—the eternal
opposition of good and evil. The sun is vanquished by cloud and
storm, but shines forth again in vigour. Vegetation dies, but
undergoes a yearly renewal. So in myth the immortal gods are
wounded and slain in strife. But we must not push too far the
analogy of the apparent strife of the elements and the wars of the
gods. The one suggested the other, especially where the gods were
elemental powers. But myth-making man easily developed the
suggestion; gods were like men and “could never get eneuch o’
fechtin’.” The Celts knew of divine combats before their arrival in
Ireland, and their own hostile powers were easily assimilated to
the hostile gods of the aborigines.
The principal Fomorians are described as kings. Elatha was son
of Nét, described by Cormac as “a battle god of the heathen
Gael,” i.e. he is one of the Tuatha Dé Danann, and has as
wives two war-goddesses, Badb and Nemaind.187
Thus he resembles the Fomorian Tethra whose wife is a badb
or “battle-crow,” preying on the slain.188
Elatha’s name, connected with words meaning “knowledge,” suggests
that he was an aboriginal culture-god.189 In
the genealogies, Fomorians and Tuatha Dé Danann are
inextricably mingled. Bres’s temporary position as king of the
Tuatha Déa may reflect some myth of the occasional supremacy
of the powers of blight. Want and niggardliness characterise his
reign, and after his defeat a better state of things prevails.
Bres’s consort was Brigit, and their son Ruadan, sent to spy on the
Tuatha Dé Danann, was slain. His mother’s wailing for him
was the first mourning wail ever heard in Erin.190 Another god, Indech, {59} was son of
Déa Domnu, a Fomorian goddess of the deep, i.e. of the
underworld and probably also of fertility, who may hold a position
among the Fomorians similar to that of Danu among the Tuatha
Dé Danann. Indech was slain by Ogma, who himself died of
wounds received from his adversary.
Balor had a consort Cethlenn, whose venom killed Dagda. His one
eye had become evil by contact with the poisonous fumes of a
concoction which his father’s Druids were preparing. The eyelid
required four men to raise it, when his evil eye destroyed all on
whom its glance fell. In this way Balor would have slain Lug at
Mag-tured, but the god at once struck the eye with a sling-stone
and slew him.191
Balor, like the Greek Medusa, is perhaps a personification of the
evil eye, so much feared by the Celts. Healthful influences and
magical charms avert it; hence Lug, a beneficent god, destroys
Balor’s maleficence.
Tethra, with Balor and Elatha, ruled over Erin at the coming of
the Tuatha Dé Danann. From a phrase used in the story of
Connla’s visit to Elysium, “Thou art a hero of the men of Tethra,”
M. D’Arbois assumes that Tethra was ruler of Elysium, which he
makes one with the land of the dead. The passage, however, bears a
different interpretation, and though a Fomorian, Tethra, a god of
war, might be regarded as lord of all warriors.192 Elysium was not the land of the
dead, and when M. D’Arbois equates Tethra with Kronos, who after
his defeat became ruler of a land of dead heroes, the analogy, like
other analogies with Greek mythology, is misleading. He also
equates Bres, as temporary king of the Tuatha Dé Danann,
with Kronos, king of heaven in the age of gold. Kronos, again,
slain by Zeus, is parallel to Balor slain by his grandson Lug.
Tethra, Bres, and Balor are thus separate fragments of one god
equivalent to Kronos.193 Yet
their {60} personalities are quite distinct. Each
race works out its mythology for itself, and, while parallels are
inevitable, we should not allow these to override the actual myths
as they have come down to us.
Professor Rh[^y]s makes Bile, ancestor of the Milesians who came
from Spain, a Goidelic counterpart of the Gaulish Dispater, lord of
the dead, from whom the Gauls claimed descent. But Bile, neither a
Fomorian nor of the Tuatha Dé Danann, is an imaginary and
shadowy creation. Bile is next equated with a Brythonic Beli,
assumed to be consort of Dôn, whose family are equivalent to
the Tuatha Dé Danann.194 Beli
was a mythic king whose reign was a kind of golden age, and if he
was father of Dôn’s children, which is doubtful, Bile would
then be father of the Tuatha Dé Danann. But he is ancestor
of the Milesians, their opponents according to the annalists. Beli
is also equated with Elatha, and since Dôn, reputed consort
of Beli, was grandmother of Llew, equated with Irish Lug, grandson
of Balor, Balor is equivalent to Beli, whose name is regarded by
Professor Rh[^y]s as related etymologically to Balor’s.195 Bile, Balor, and Elatha are thus
Goidelic equivalents of the shadowy Beli. But they also are quite
distinct personalities, nor are they ever hinted at as ancestral
gods of the Celts, or gods of a gloomy underworld. In Celtic belief
the underworld was probably a fertile region and a place of light,
nor were its gods harmful and evil, as Balor was.
On the whole, the Fomorians came to be regarded as the powers of
nature in its hostile aspect. They personified blight, winter,
darkness, and death, before which men trembled, yet were not wholly
cast down, since the immortal gods of growth and light, rulers of
the bright other-world, were on their side and fought against their
enemies. Year by year the gods suffered deadly harm, but returned
as conquerors to renew {61} the struggle once more. Myth spoke of this
as having happened once for all, but it went on continuously.196 Gods were immortal and only
seemed to die. The strife was represented in ritual, since men
believe that they can aid the gods by magic, rite, or prayer. Why,
then, do hostile Fomorians and Tuatha Dé Danann intermarry?
This happens in all mythologies, and it probably reflects, in the
divine sphere, what takes place among men. Hostile peoples carry
off each the other’s women, or they have periods of friendliness
and consequent intermarriage. Man makes his gods in his own image,
and the problem is best explained by facts like these, exaggerated
no doubt by the Irish annalists.
The Tuatha Dé Danann, in spite of their euhemerisation,
are more than human. In the north where they learned magic, they
dwelt in four cities, from each of which they brought a magical
treasure—the stone of Fal, which “roared under every king,”
Lug’s unconquerable spear, Nuada’s irresistible sword, the Dagda’s
inexhaustible cauldron. But they are more than wizards or Druids.
They are re-born as mortals; they have a divine world of their own,
they interfere in and influence human affairs. The euhemerists did
not go far enough, and more than once their divinity is practically
acknowledged. When the Fian Caoilte and a woman of the Tuatha
Dé Danann appear before S. Patrick, he asks, “Why is she
youthful and beautiful, while you are old and wrinkled?” And
Caoilte replies, “She is of the Tuatha Dé Danann, who are
unfading and whose duration is perennial. I am of the sons of
Milesius, that are perishable and fade away.”197
After their conversion, the Celts, sons of Milesius, thought
that the gods still existed in the hollow hills, their former
dwellings and sanctuaries, or in far-off islands, still caring for
their former worshippers. This tradition had its place with that
which made them a race of men conquered by the Milesians—the
victory of Christianity over paganism and its gods having been
transmuted into a strife of races by the euhemerists. The new
faith, not the people, conquered the old gods. The Tuatha Dé
Danann became the Daoine-sidhe, a fairy folk, still
occasionally called by their old name, just as individual fairy
kings or queens bear the names of the ancient gods. The euhemerists
gave the Fomorians a monstrous and demoniac character, which they
did not always give to the Tuatha Dé Danann; in this
continuing the old tradition that Fomorians were hostile and the
Tuatha Dé Danann beneficent and mild.
The mythological cycle is not a complete “body of divinity”; its
apparent completeness results from the chronological order of the
annalists. Fragments of other myths are found in the
Dindsenchas; others exist as romantic tales, and we have no
reason to believe that all the old myths have been preserved. But
enough remains to show the true nature of the Tuatha Dé
Danann—their supernatural character, their powers, their
divine and unfailing food and drink, their mysterious and beautiful
abode. In their contents, their personages, in the actions that are
described in them, the materials of the “mythological cycle,” show
how widely it differs from the Cúchulainn and Fionn
cycles.198 “The white radiance of eternity”
suffuses it; the heroic cycles, magical and romantic as they are,
belong far more to earth and time.
Footnote 153:(return)For some Highland references to the gods in saga and
Märchen, see Book of the Dean of Lismore, 10;
Campbell, WHT ii. 77. The sea-god Lir is probably the Liur
of Ossianic ballads (Campbell, LF 100, 125), and his son
Manannan is perhaps “the Son of the Sea” in a Gaelic song
(Carmichael, CG ii. 122). Manannan and his daughters are
also known (Campbell, witchcraft, 83).
Footnote 154:(return)The euhemerising process is first seen in tenth century poems by
Eochaid hua Flainn, but was largely the work of Flainn Manistrech,
ob. 1056. It is found fully fledged in the Book of
Invasions.
Footnote 158:(return)Keating, 111. Giraldus Cambrensis, Hist. Irel. c. 2,
makes Roanus survive and tell the tale of Partholan to S. Patrick.
He is the Caoilte mac Ronan of other tales, a survivor of the
Fians, who held many racy dialogues with the Saint. Keating abuses
Giraldus for equating Roanus with Finntain in his “lying history,”
and for calling him Roanus instead of Ronanus, a mistake in which
he, “the guide bull of the herd,” is followed by others.
Footnote 174:(return)Professor Rh[^y]s thinks the Partholan story is the aboriginal,
the median the Celtic version of the same event. Partholan, with
initial p cannot be Goidelic (Scottish Review, 1890,
“Myth. Treatment of Celtic Ethnology”).
Footnote 186:(return)“Fir Domnann,” “men of Domna,” a goddess (Rh[^y]s, HL
597), or a god (D’Arbois, ii. 130). “Domna” is connected with
Irish-words meaning “deep” (Windisch, IT i. 498; Stokes,
US 153). Domna, or Domnu, may therefore have been a goddess
of the deep, not the sea so much as the underworld, and so perhaps
an Earth-mother from whom the Fir Domnann traced their descent.
Footnote 196:(return)Whatever the signification of the battle of Mag-tured may be,
the place which it was localised is crowded with Neolithic
megaliths, dolmens, etc. To later fancy these were the graves of
warriors slain in a great battle fought there, and that battle
became the fight between Fomorians and Tuatha Dé Dananns.
Mag-tured may have been the scene of a battle between their
respective worshippers.
Footnote 198:(return)It should be observed that, as in the Vedas, the Odyssey, the
Japanese Ko-ji-ki, as well as in barbaric and savage
mythologies, Märchen formulæ abound in the Irish
mythological cycle.
CHAPTER V.
THE TUATHA DÉ DANANN
The meaning formerly given to Tuatha Dé Danann was
“the men of science who were gods,” danann being here
connected with dán, “knowledge.” But the true meaning
is “the tribes or folk of the goddess Danu,”199 which agrees with the cognates
Tuatha or Fir Dea, “tribes or men of the
goddess.” The name was given to the group, though Danu had only
three sons, Brian, Iuchar, and Iucharbar. Hence the group is also
called fir tri ndea, “men of the three gods.”200 The equivalents in Welsh story of
Danu and her folk are Dôn and her children. We have seen that
though they are described as kings and warriors by the annalists,
traces of their divinity appear. In the Cúchulainn cycle
they are supernatural beings and sometimes demons, helping or
harming men, and in the Fionn cycle all these characteristics are
ascribed to them. But the theory which prevailed most is that which
connected them with the hills or mounds, the last resting-places of
the mighty dead. Some of these bore their names, while other beings
were also associated with the mounds
(síd)—Fomorians and Milesian chiefs, heroes of
the sagas, or those who had actually been buried in them.201 Legend told how, after the defeat
of the gods, the mounds were divided among them, the method
{64}
of division varying in different versions. In an early version the
Tuatha Dé Danann are immortal and the Dagda divides the
síd.202 But
in a poem of Flann Manistrech (ob. 1056) they are mortals
and die.203 Now follows a regular chronology
giving the dates of their reigns and their deaths, as in the poem
of Gilla Coemain (eleventh century).204
Hence another legend told how, Dagda being dead, Bodb Dearg divided
the síd, yet even here Manannan is said to have
conferred immortality upon the Tuatha Dé Danann.205 The old pagan myths had shown
that gods might die, while in ritual their representatives were
slain, and this may have been the starting-point of the
euhemerising process. But the divinity of the Tuatha Dé
Danann is still recalled. Eochaid O’Flynn (tenth century), doubtful
whether they are men or demons, concludes, “though I have treated
of these deities in order, yet have I not adored them.”206 Even in later times they were
still thought of as gods in exile, a view which appears in the
romantic tales and sagas existing side by side with the notices of
the annalists. They were also regarded as fairy kings and queens,
and yet fairies of a different order from those of ordinary
tradition. They are “fairies or sprites with corporeal forms,
endowed with immortality,” and yet also dei terreni or
síde worshipped by the folk before the coming of S.
Patrick. Even the saint and several bishops were called by the fair
pagan daughters of King Loegaire, fir síde, “men of
the síd,” that is, gods.207 The
síd were named after the names of the Tuatha
Dé Danann {65} who reigned in them, but the tradition
being localised in different places, several mounds were sometimes
connected with one god. The síd were marvellous
underground palaces, full of strange things, and thither favoured
mortals might go for a time or for ever. In this they correspond
exactly to the oversea Elysium, the divine land.
But why were the Tuatha Dé Danann associated with the
mounds? If fairies or an analogous race of beings were already in
pagan times connected with hills or mounds, gods now regarded as
fairies would be connected with them. Dr. Joyce and O’Curry think
that an older race of aboriginal gods or síd-folk
preceded the Tuatha Déa in the mounds.208
These may have been the Fomorians, the “champions of the
síd,” while in Mesca Ulad the Tuatha
Déa go to the underground dwellings and speak with the
síde already there. We do not know that the fairy
creed as such existed in pagan times, but if the síde
and the Tuatha Dé Danann were once distinct, they were
gradually assimilated. Thus the Dagda is called “king of the
síde“; Aed Abrat and his daughters, Fand and Liban,
and Labraid, Liban’s husband, are called síde, and
Manannan is Fand’s consort.209
Labraid’s island, like the síd of Mider and the land
to which women of the síde invite Connla, differs but
little from the usual divine Elysium, while Mider, one of the
síde, is associated with the Tuatha Dé
Danann.210 The síde are once
said to be female, and are frequently supernatural women who run
away or marry mortals.211 Thus
they may be a reminiscence of old Earth goddesses. But they are not
exclusively female, since there are kings of the
síde, and as the name Fir síde, “men of
the {66} síde,” shows, while S.
Patrick and his friends were taken for síd-folk.
The formation of the legend was also aided by the old cult of
the gods on heights, some of them sepulchral mounds, and now
occasionally sites of Christian churches.212
The Irish god Cenn Cruaich and his Welsh equivalent Penn Cruc,
whose name survives in Pennocrucium, have names meaning
“chief or head of the mound.”213
Other mounds or hills had also a sacred character. Hence gods
worshipped at mounds, dwelling or revealing themselves there, still
lingered in the haunted spots; they became fairies, or were
associated with the dead buried in the mounds, as fairies also have
been, or were themselves thought to have died and been buried
there. The haunting of the mounds by the old gods is seen in a
prayer of S. Columba’s, who begs God to dispel “this host
(i.e. the old gods) around the cairns that reigneth.”214 An early MS also tells how the
Milesians allotted the underground part of Erin to the Tuatha
Déa who now retired within the hills; in other words, they
were gods of the hills worshipped by the Milesians on hills.215 But, as we shall see, the gods
dwelt elsewhere than in hills.216
Tumuli may already in pagan times have been pointed out as tombs
of gods who died in myth or ritual, like the tombs of Zeus in Crete
and of Osiris in Egypt. Again, fairies, in some aspects, are ghosts
of the dead, and haunt tumuli; hence, when gods became fairies they
would do the same. And once they were thought of as dead kings, any
{67}
notable tumuli would be pointed out as theirs, since it is a law in
folk-belief to associate tumuli or other structures not with the
dead or with their builders, but with supernatural or mythical or
even historical personages. If síde ever meant
“ghosts,” it would be easy to call the dead gods by this name, and
to connect them with the places of the dead.217
Many strands went to the weaving of the later conception of the
gods, but there still hung around them an air of mystery, and the
belief that they were a race of men was never consistent with
itself.
Danu gave her name to the whole group of gods, and is called
their mother, like the Egyptian Neith or the Semitic Ishtar.218 In the annalists she is daughter
of Dagda, and has three sons. She may be akin to the goddess Anu,
whom Cormac describes as “mater deorum hibernensium. It was
well she nursed the gods.” From her name he derives ana,
“plenty,” and two hills in Kerry are called “the Paps of
Anu.”219 Thus as a goddess of plenty Danu
or Anu may have been an early Earth-mother, and what may be a dim
memory of Anu in Leicestershire confirms this view. A cave on the
Dane Hills is called “Black Annis’ Bower,” and she is said to have
been a savage woman who devoured human victims.220 Earth-goddesses {68} usually have
human victims, and Anu would be no exception. In the cult of Earth
divinities Earth and under-Earth are practically identical, while
Earth-goddesses like Demeter and Persephone were associated with
the underworld, the dead being Demeter’s folk. The fruits of the
earth with their roots below the surface are then gifts of the
earth- or under-earth goddess. This may have been the case with
Danu, for in Celtic belief the gifts of civilisation came from the
underworld or from the gods. Professor Rh[^y]s finds the name Anu
in the dat. Anoniredi, “chariot of Anu,” in an inscription
from Vaucluse, and the identification is perhaps established by the
fact that goddesses of fertility were drawn through the fields in a
vehicle.221 Cormac also mentions Buanann as
mother and nurse of heroes, perhaps a goddess worshipped by
heroes.222
Danu is also identified with Brigit, goddess of knowledge
(dán), perhaps through a folk-etymology. She was
worshipped by poets, and had two sisters of the same name connected
with leechcraft and smithwork.223 They
are duplicates or local forms of Brigit, a goddess of culture and
of poetry, so much loved by the Celts. She is thus the equivalent
of the Gaulish goddess equated with Minerva by Cæsar, and
found on inscriptions as Minerva Belisama and Brigindo. She is the
Dea Brigantia of British inscriptions.224 One
of the seats of her worship was the land of the Brigantes, of whom
she was the eponymous goddess, and her name (cf. Ir. brig,
“power” or “craft”; Welsh bri, “honour,” “renown”) suggests
her high functions. But her popularity is seen in the continuation
of her personality and cult in those of S. Brigit, at {69} whose shrine
in Kildare a sacred fire, which must not be breathed on, or
approached by a male, was watched daily by nineteen nuns in turn,
and on the twentieth day by the saint herself.225 Similar sacred fires were kept up
in other monasteries,226 and
they point to the old cult of a goddess of fire, the nuns being
successors of a virgin priesthood like the vestals, priestesses of
Vesta. As has been seen, the goddesses Belisama and Sul, probably
goddesses of fire, resembled Brigit in this.227
But Brigit, like Vesta, was at once a goddess of fire and of
fertility, as her connection with Candlemas and certain ritual
survivals also suggest. In the Hebrides on S. Bride’s day
(Candlemas-eve) women dressed a sheaf of oats in female clothes and
set it with a club in a basket called “Briid’s bed.” Then they
called, “Briid is come, Briid is welcome.” Or a bed was made of
corn and hay with candles burning beside it, and Bride was invited
to come as her bed was ready. If the mark of the club was seen in
the ashes, this was an omen of a good harvest and a prosperous
year.228 It is also noteworthy that if
cattle cropped the grass near S. Brigit’s shrine, next day it was
as luxuriant as ever.
Brigit, or goddesses with similar functions, was regarded by the
Celts as an early teacher of civilisation, inspirer of the
artistic, poetic, and mechanical faculties, as well as a goddess of
fire and fertility. As such she far excelled her sons, gods of
knowledge. She must have originated in the period when the Celts
worshipped goddesses rather than gods, and when
knowledge—leechcraft, agriculture, inspiration—were
women’s rather than men’s. She had a female priesthood, and men
were perhaps excluded from her cult, as the tabued shrine at
{70}
Kildare suggests. Perhaps her fire was fed from sacred oak wood,
for many shrines of S. Brigit were built under oaks, doubtless
displacing pagan shrines of the goddess.229
As a goddess, Brigit is more prominent than Danu, also a goddess of
fertility, even though Danu is mother of the gods.
Other goddesses remembered in tradition are Cleena and Vera,
celebrated in fairy and witch lore, the former perhaps akin to a
river-goddess Clota, the Clutoida (a fountain-nymph) of the
continental Celts; the latter, under her alternative name Dirra,
perhaps a form of a goddess of Gaul, Dirona.230
Aine, one of the great fairy-queens of Ireland, has her seat at
Knockainy in Limerick, where rites connected with her former cult
are still performed for fertility on Midsummer eve. If they were
neglected she and her troops performed them, according to local
legend.231 She is thus an old goddess of
fertility, whose cult, even at a festival in which gods were
latterly more prominent, is still remembered. She is also
associated with the waters as a water-nymph captured for a time as
a fairy-bride by the Earl of Desmond.232 But
older legends connect her with the síd. She was
daughter of Eogabal, king of the síd of Knockainy,
the grass on which was annually destroyed at Samhain by his people,
because it had been taken from them, its rightful owners. Oilill
Olomm and Ferchus resolved to watch the síd on
Samhain-eve. They saw Eogabal and Aine emerge from it. Ferchus
killed Eogabal, and Oilill tried to outrage Aine, who bit the flesh
from his ear. Hence his name of “Bare Ear.”233
In this legend we see how earlier gods of fertility come to be
regarded as hostile to growth. Another story tells of the love of
Aillén, {71} Eogabal’s son, for Manannan’s wife and
that of Aine for Manannan. Aine offered her favours to the god if
he would give his wife to her brother, and “the complicated bit of
romance,” as S. Patrick calls it, was thus arranged.234
Although the Irish gods are warriors, and there are special
war-gods, yet war-goddesses are more prominent, usually as a group
of three—Morrigan, Neman, and Macha. A fourth, Badb,
sometimes takes the place of one of these, or is identical with
Morrigan, or her name, like that of Morrigan, may be generic.235 Badb means “a scald-crow,”
under which form the war-goddesses appeared, probably because these
birds were seen near the slain. She is also called Badbcatha,
“battle-Badb,” and is thus the equivalent of -athubodua, or,
more probably, Cathubodua, mentioned in an inscription from
Haute-Savoie, while this, as well as personal names like
Boduogenos, shows that a goddess Bodua was known to the
Gauls.236 The badb or battle-crow is
associated with the Fomorian Tethra, but Badb herself is consort of
a war-god Nét, one of the Tuatha Dé Danann, who may
be the equivalent of Neton, mentioned in Spanish inscriptions and
equated with Mars. Elsewhere Neman is Nét’s consort, and she
may be the Nemetona of inscriptions, e.g. at Bath, the
consort of Mars. Cormac calls Nét and Neman “a venomous
couple,” which we may well believe them to have been.237 To Macha were devoted the heads
of slain enemies, “Macha’s mast,” but she, according to the
annalists, was slain at Mag-tured, though she reappears in the
Cúchulainn saga as the Macha whose ill-treatment led to the
“debility” of the Ulstermen.238 The
name Morrigan may mean “great queen,” though Dr. Stokes,
{72}
connecting mor with the same syllable in “Fomorian,”
explains it as “nightmare-queen.”239 She
works great harm to the Fomorians at Mag-tured, and afterwards
proclaims the victory to the hills, rivers, and fairy-hosts,
uttering also a prophecy of the evils to come at the end of
time.240 She reappears prominently in the
Cúchulainn saga, hostile to the hero because he rejects her
love, yet aiding the hosts of Ulster and the Brown Bull, and in the
end trying to prevent the hero’s death.241
The prominent position of these goddesses must be connected with
the fact that women went out to war—a custom said to have
been stopped by Adamnan at his mother’s request, and that many
prominent heroines of the heroic cycles are warriors, like the
British Boudicca, whose name may be connected with boudi,
“victory.” Specific titles were given to such classes of female
warriors—bangaisgedaig, banfeinnidi, etc.242 But it is possible that these
goddesses were at first connected with fertility, their functions
changing with the growing warlike tendencies of the Celts. Their
number recalls that of the threefold Matres, and possibly
the change in their character is hinted in the Romano-British
inscription at Benwell to the Lamiis Tribus, since
Morrigan’s name is glossed lamia.243
She is also identified with Anu, and is mistress of Dagda, an
Earth-god, and with Badb and others expels the Fomorians when they
destroyed the agricultural produce of Ireland.244 Probably the scald-crow was at
once the symbol and the incarnation of the war-goddesses, who
resemble the Norse Valkyries, appearing sometimes as crows, and the
Greek Keres, bird-like beings which drank the blood of the slain.
It {73} is also interesting to note that Badb, who
has the character of a prophetess of evil, is often identified with
the “Washer at the Ford,” whose presence indicates death to him
whose armour or garments she seems to cleanse.245
The Matres, goddesses of fertility, do not appear by name
in Ireland, but the triplication of such goddesses as Morrigan and
Brigit, the threefold name of Dagda’s wife, or the fact that Arm,
Danu, and Buanan are called “mothers,” while Buanan’s name is
sometimes rendered “good mother,” may suggest that such grouped
goddesses were not unknown. Later legend knows of white women who
assist in spinning, or three hags with power over nature, or, as in
the Battle of Ventry, of three supernatural women who fall
in love with Conncrithir, aid him in fight, and heal his wounds. In
this document and elsewhere is mentioned the “síd of
the White Women.”246
Goddesses of fertility are usually goddesses of love, and the
prominence given to females among the síde, the fact
that they are often called Be find, “White Women,” like
fairies who represent the Matres elsewhere, and that they
freely offer their love to mortals, may connect them with this
group of goddesses. Again, when the Milesians arrived in Ireland,
three kings of the Tuatha Déa had wives called Eriu, Banba,
and Fotla, who begged that Ireland should be called after them.
This was granted, but only Eriu (Erin) remained in general
use.247 The story is an ætiological
myth explaining the names of Ireland, but the three wives may be a
group like the Matres, guardians of the land which took its
name from them.
Brian, Iuchar, and Iucharba, who give a title to the whole
{74}
group, are called tri dee Donand, “the three gods (sons of)
Danu,” or, again, “gods of dán” (knowledge), perhaps
as the result of a folk-etymology, associating dân
with their mother’s name Danu.248
Various attributes are personified as their descendants, Wisdom
being son of all three.249
Though some of these attributes may have been actual gods,
especially Ecne or Wisdom, yet it is more probable that the
personification is the result of the subtleties of bardic science,
of which similar examples occur.250 On
the other hand, the fact that Ecne is the son of three brothers,
may recall some early practice of polyandry of which instances are
met with in the sagas.251 M.
D’Arbois has suggested that Iuchar and Iucharba are mere duplicates
of Brian, who usually takes the leading place, and he identifies
them with three kings of the Tuatha Déa reigning at the time
of the Milesian invasion—MacCuill, MacCecht, and MacGrainne,
so called, according to Keating, because the hazel (coll),
the plough (cecht), and the sun (grian) were “gods of
worship” to them. Both groups are grandsons of Dagda, and M.
D’Arbois regards this second group as also triplicates of one god,
because their wives Fotla, Banba, and Eriu all bear names of
Ireland itself, are personifications of the land, and thus may be
“reduced to unity.”252
While this reasoning is ingenious, it should be remembered that we
must not lay too much stress upon Irish divine genealogies, while
each group of three may have been similar local gods associated at
a later time as brothers. Their separate personality is suggested
by the fact that the Tuatha Dé Danann are called after them
“the Men of the Three Gods,” and their supremacy appears in the
incident of Dagda, Lug, and Ogma consulting them before the fight
at Mag-tured—a natural proceeding if they {75} were gods of
knowledge or destiny.253 The
brothers are said to have slain the god Cian, and to have been
themselves slain by Lug, and on this seems to have been based the
story of The Children of Tuirenn, in which they perish
through their exertions in obtaining the eric demanded by
Lug.254 Here they are sons of Tuirenn,
but more usually their mother Danu or Brigit is mentioned.
Another son of Brigit’s was Ogma, master of poetry and inventor
of ogham writing, the word being derived from his
name.255 It is more probable that Ogma’s
name is a derivative from some word signifying “speech” or
“writing,” and that the connection with “ogham” may be a mere
folk-etymology. Ogma appears as the champion of the gods,256 a position given him perhaps from
the primitive custom of rousing the warriors’ emotions by eloquent
speeches before a battle. Similarly the Babylonian Marduk, “seer of
the gods,” was also their champion in fight. Ogma fought and died
at Mag-tured; but in other accounts he survives, captures Tethra’s
sword, goes on the quest for Dagda’s harp, and is given a
síd after the Milesian victory. Ogma’s counterpart in
Gaul is Ogmíos, a Herakles and a god of eloquence, thus
bearing the dual character of Ogma, while Ogma’s epithet
grianainech, “of the smiling countenance,” recalls Lucian’s
account of the “smiling face” of Ogmíos.257 Ogma’s high position is the
result of the admiration of bardic eloquence among the Celts, whose
loquacity was proverbial, and to him its origin was doubtless
ascribed, as well as that of poetry. The genealogists explain his
relationship to the other divinities in different ways, but these
confusions may result from the fact that gods had more than one
name, of which the annalists made separate personalities.
{76}
Most usually Ogma is called Brigit’s son. Her functions were like
his own, but in spite of the increasing supremacy of gods over
goddesses, he never really eclipsed her.
Among other culture gods were those associated with the arts and
crafts—the development of Celtic art in metal-work
necessitating the existence of gods of this art. Such a god is
Goibniu, eponymous god of smiths (Old Ir. goba, “smith”),
and the divine craftsman at the battle of Mag-tured, making spears
which never failed to kill.258
Smiths have everywhere been regarded as uncanny—a tradition
surviving from the first introduction of metal among those hitherto
accustomed to stone weapons and tools. S. Patrick prayed against
the “spells of women, smiths, and Druids,” and it is thus not
surprising to find that Goibniu had a reputation for magic, even
among Christians. A spell for making butter, in an eighth century
MS. preserved at S. Gall, appeals to his “science.”259 Curiously enough, Goibniu is also
connected with the culinary art in myth, and, like Hephaistos,
prepares the feast of the gods, while his ale preserves their
immortality.260 The
elation produced by heady liquors caused them to be regarded as
draughts of immortality, like Soma, Haoma, or nectar. Goibniu
survives in tradition as the Gobhan Saer, to whom the
building of round towers is ascribed.
Another god of crafts was Creidne the brazier (Ir. cerd,
“artificer”; cf. Scots caird, “tinker”), who assisted in
making a silver hand for Nuada, and supplied with magical rapidity
parts of the weapons used at Mag-tured.261
According to the annalists, he was drowned while bringing golden
ore from Spain.262
Luchtine, god of carpenters, provided spear-handles {77} for the
battle, and with marvellous skill flung them into the sockets of
the spear-heads.263
Diancecht, whose name may mean “swift in power,” was god of
medicine, and, with Creidne’s help, fashioned a silver hand for
Nuada.264 His son Miach replaced this by a
magic restoration of the real hand, and in jealousy his father slew
him—a version of the Märchen formula of the
jealous master. Three hundred and sixty-five herbs grew from his
grave, and were arranged according to their properties by his
sister Airmed, but Diancecht again confused them, “so that no one
knows their proper cures.”265 At
the second battle of Mag-tured, Diancecht presided over a
healing-well containing magic herbs. These and the power of spells
caused the mortally wounded who were placed in it to recover. Hence
it was called “the spring of health.”266
Diancecht, associated with a healing-well, may be cognate with
Grannos. He is also referred to in the S. Gall MS., where his
healing powers are extolled.
An early chief of the gods is Dagda, who, in the story of the
battle of Mag-tured, is said to be so called because he promised to
do more than all the other gods together. Hence they said, “It is
thou art the good hand” (dag-dae). The Cóir
Anmann explains Dagda as “fire of god” (daig and
déa). The true derivation is from dagos,
“good,” and deivos, “god,” though Dr. Stokes considers
Dagda as connected with dagh, whence daghda,
“cunning.”267 Dagda is also called Cera, a word
perhaps derived from kar and connected with Lat.
cerus, “creator” and other names of his are
Ruad-rofhessa, “lord of great knowledge,” {78} and
Eochaid Ollathair, “great father,” “for a great father to
the Tuatha Dé Danann was he.”268 He
is also called “a beautiful god,” and “the principal god of the
pagans.”269 After the battle he divides the
brugs or síd among the gods, but his son
Oengus, having been omitted, by a stratagem succeeded in ousting
his father from his síd, over which he now himself
reigned270—possibly the survival of an
old myth telling of a superseding of Dagda’s cult by that of
Oengus, a common enough occurrence in all religions. In another
version, Dagda being dead, Bodb Dearg divides the
síd, and Manannan makes the Tuatha Déa
invisible and immortal. He also helps Oengus to drive out his
foster-father Elemar from his brug, where Oengus now lives
as a god.271 The underground brugs are
the gods’ land, in all respects resembling the oversea Elysium, and
at once burial-places of the euhemerised gods and local forms of
the divine land. Professor Rh[^y]s regards Dagda as an atmospheric
god; Dr. MacBain sees in him a sky-god. More probably he is an
early Earth-god and a god of agriculture. He has power over corn
and milk, and agrees to prevent the other gods from destroying
these after their defeat by the Milesians—former beneficent
gods being regarded as hurtful, a not uncommon result of the
triumph of a new faith.272
Dagda is called “the god of the earth” “because of the greatness of
his power.”273
Mythical objects associated with him suggest plenty and
fertility—his cauldron which satisfied all comers, his
unfailing swine, one always living, the other ready for cooking, a
vessel {79} of ale, and three trees always laden with
fruit. These were in his síd, where none ever tasted
death;274 hence his síd was a
local Elysium, not a gloomy land of death, but the underworld in
its primitive aspect as the place of gods of fertility. In some
myths he appears with a huge club or fork, and M. D’Arbois suggests
that he may thus be an equivalent of the Gaulish god with the
mallet.275 This is probable, since the
Gaulish god may have been a form of Dispater, an Earth or
under-Earth god of fertility.
If Dagda was a god of fertility, he may have been an equivalent
of a god whose image was called Cenn or Cromm
Cruaich, “Head or Crooked One of the Mound,” or “Bloody
Head or Crescent.”276
Vallancey, citing a text now lost, says that Crom-eocha was
a name of Dagda, and that a motto at the sacrificial place at Tara
read, “Let the altar ever blaze to Dagda.”277
These statements may support this identification. The cult of Cromm
is preserved in some verses:
“He was their god,
The withered Cromm with many mists…
To him without glory
They would kill their piteous wretched offspring,
With much wailing and peril,
To pour their blood around Cromm Cruaich.
Milk and corn
They would ask from him speedily
In return for a third of their healthy issue,
Great was the horror and fear of him.
To him noble Gaels would prostrate themselves.”278
Elsewhere we learn that this sacrifice in return for the gifts
of corn and milk from the god took place at Samhain, and that on
one occasion the violent prostrations of the worshippers caused
three-fourths of them to die. Again, “they beat their palms, they
pounded their bodies … they shed falling showers of tears.”279 These are reminiscences of
orgiastic rites in which pain and pleasure melt into one. The god
must have been a god of fertility; the blood of the victims was
poured on the image, the flesh, as in analogous savage rites and
folk-survivals, may have been buried in the fields to promote
fertility. If so, the victims’ flesh was instinct with the power of
the divinity, and, though their number is obviously exaggerated,
several victims may have taken the place of an earlier slain
representative of the god. A mythic Crom Dubh, “Black Crom,”
whose festival occurs on the first Sunday in August, may be another
form of Cromm Cruaich. In one story the name is transferred to S.
Patrick’s servant, who is asked by the fairies when they will go to
Paradise. “Not till the day of judgment,” is the answer, and for
this they cease to help men in the processes of agriculture. But in
a variant Manannan bids Crom ask this question, and the same result
follows.280 These tales thus enshrine the
idea that Crom and the fairies were ancient gods of growth who
ceased to help men when they deserted them for the Christian faith.
If the sacrifice was offered at the August festival, or, as the
texts suggest, at Samhain, after harvest, it must have been on
account of the next year’s crop, and the flesh may have been
mingled with the seed corn.
Dagda may thus have been a god of growth and fertility.
{81}
His wife or mistress was the river-goddess, Boand (the
Boyne),281 and the children ascribed to him
were Oengus, Bodb Dearg, Danu, Brigit, and perhaps Ogma. The
euhemerists made him die of Cethlenn’s venom, long after the battle
of Mag-tured in which he encountered her.282
Irish mythology is remarkably free from obscene and grotesque
myths, but some of these cluster round Dagda. We hear of the
Gargantuan meal provided for him in sport by the Fomorians, and of
which he ate so much that “not easy was it for him to move and
unseemly was his apparel,” as well as his conduct with a Fomorian
beauty. Another amour of his was with Morrigan, the place where it
occurred being still known as “The Couple’s Bed.”283 In another tale Dagda acts as
cook to Conaire the great.284
The beautiful and fascinating Oengus is sometimes called Mac
Ind Oc, “Son of the Young Ones,” i.e. Dagda and Boand,
or In Mac Oc, “The Young Son.” This name, like the myth of
his disinheriting his father, may point to his cult superseding
that of Dagda. If so, he may then have been affiliated to the older
god, as was frequently done in parallel cases, e.g. in
Babylon. Oengus may thus have been the high god of some tribe who
assumed supremacy, ousting the high god of another tribe, unless we
suppose that Dagda was a pre-Celtic god with functions similar to
those of Oengus, and that the Celts adopted his cult but gave that
of Oengus a higher place. In one myth the supremacy of Oengus is
seen. After the first battle of Mag-tured, Dagda is forced to
become the slave of Bres, and is much annoyed by a lampooner who
extorts the best pieces of his rations. Following the advice of
Oengus, he not only causes the lampooner’s death, but triumphs over
the {82} Fomorians.285 On
insufficient grounds, mainly because he was patron of Diarmaid,
beloved of women, and because his kisses became birds which
whispered love thoughts to youths and maidens, Oengus has been
called the Eros of the Gaels. More probably he was primarily a
supreme god of growth, who occasionally suffered eclipse during the
time of death in nature, like Tammuz and Adonis, and this may
explain his absence from Mag-tured. The beautiful story of his
vision of a maiden with whom he fell violently in love contains too
many Märchen formulæ to be of any mythological or
religious value. His mother Boand caused search to be made for her,
but without avail. At last she was discovered to be the daughter of
a semi-divine lord of a síd, but only through the
help of mortals was the secret of how she could be taken wrung from
him. She was a swan-maiden, and on a certain day only would Oengus
obtain her. Ultimately she became his wife. The story is
interesting because it shows how the gods occasionally required
mortal aid.286
Equally influenced by Märchen formulæ is the
story of Oengus and Etain. Etain and Fuamnach were wives of Mider,
but Fuamnach was jealous of Etain, and transformed her into an
insect. In this shape Oengus found her, and placed her in a glass
grianan or bower filled with flowers, the perfume of which
sustained her. He carried the grianan with him wherever he
went, but Fuamnach raised a magic wind which blew Etain away to the
roof of Etair, a noble of Ulster. She fell through a smoke-hole
into a golden cup of wine, and was swallowed by Etair’s wife, of
whom she was reborn.287
Professor Rh[^y]s resolves all {83} this into a sun and dawn myth.
Oengus is the sun, Etain the dawn, the grianan the expanse
of the sky.288 But
the dawn does not grow stronger with the sun’s influence, as Etain
did under that of Oengus. At the sun’s appearance the dawn
begins
“to faint in the light of the sun she loves,
To faint in his light and to die.”
The whole story is built up on the well-known
Mãrchen formulæ of the “True Bride” and the
“Two Brothers,” but accommodated to well-known mythic personages,
and the grianan is the Celtic equivalent of various objects
in stories of the “Cinderella” type, in which the heroine conceals
herself, the object being bought by the hero and kept in his
room.289 Thus the tale reveals nothing of
Etain’s divine functions, but it illustrates the method of the
“mythological” school in discovering sun-heroes and dawn-maidens in
any incident, mythical or not.
Oengus appears in the Fionn cycle as the fosterer and protector
of Diarmaid.290 With
Mider, Bodb, and Morrigan, he expels the Fomorians when they
destroy the corn, fruit, and milk of the Tuatha Dé
Danann.291 This may point to his functions
as a god of fertility.
Although Mider appears mainly as a king of the
síde and ruler of the brug of Bri
Léith, he is also connected with the Tuatha
Déa.292
Learning that Etain had been reborn and was now married to King
Eochaid, he recovered her from him, but lost her again when Eochaid
attacked his brug. He was {84} ultimately avenged in the
series of tragic events which led to the death of Eochaid’s
descendant Conaire. Though his síd is located in
Ireland, it has so much resemblance to Elysium that Mider must be
regarded as one of its lords. Hence he appears as ruler of the Isle
of Falga, i.e. the Isle of Man regarded as Elysium. Thence
his daughter Bláthnat, his magical cows and cauldron, were
stolen by Cúchulainn and Curoi, and his three cranes from
Bri Léith by Aitherne293—perhaps distorted versions
of the myths which told how various animals and gifts came from the
god’s land. Mider may be the Irish equivalent of a local Gaulish
god, Medros, depicted on bas-reliefs with a cow or bull.294
The victory of the Tuatha Déa at the first battle of
Mag-tured, in June, their victory followed, however, by the deaths
of many of them at the second battle in November, may point to old
myths dramatising the phenomena of nature, and connected with the
ritual of summer and winter festivals. The powers of light and
growth are in the ascendant in summer; they seem to die in winter.
Christian euhemerists made use of these myths, but regarded the
gods as warriors who were slain, not as those who die and revive
again. At the second battle, Nuada loses his life; at the first,
though his forces are victorious, his hand was cut off by the
Fomorian Sreng, for even when victorious the gods must suffer. A
silver hand was made for him by Diancecht, and hence he was called
Nuada Argetlám, “of the silver hand.” Professor
Rh[^y]s regards him as a Celtic Zeus, partly because he is king of
the Tuatha Dé Danann, partly because he, like Zeus or Tyr,
who lost tendons or a hand through the wiles of evil gods, is also
maimed.295 Similarly in the Rig-Veda
the Açvins substitute a {85} leg of iron for the leg of
Vispala, cut off in battle, and the sun is called “golden-handed”
because Savitri cut off his hand and the priests replaced it by one
of gold. The myth of Nuada’s hand may have arisen from primitive
attempts at replacing lopped-off limbs, as well as from the fact
that no Irish king must have any bodily defect, or possibly because
an image of Nuada may have lacked a hand or possessed one of
silver. Images were often maimed or given artificial limbs, and
myths then arose to explain the custom.296
Nuada appears to be a god of life and growth, but he is not a
sun-god. His Welsh equivalent is Llûd Llawereint, or
“silver-handed,” who delivers his people from various scourges. His
daughter Creidylad is to be wedded to Gwythur, but is kidnapped by
Gwyn. Arthur decides that they must fight for her yearly on 1st May
until the day of judgment, when the victor would gain her
hand.297 Professor Rh[^y]s regards
Creidylad as a Persephone, wedded alternately to light and dark
divinities.298 But
the story may rather be explanatory of such ritual acts as are
found in folk-survivals in the form of fights between summer and
winter, in which a Queen of May figures, and intended to assist the
conflict of the gods of growth with those of blight.299 Creidylad is daughter of a
probable god of growth, nor is it impossible that the story of the
battle of Mag-tured is based on mythic explanations of such ritual
combats.
The Brythons worshipped Nuada as Nodons in Romano-British times.
The remains of his temple exist near the mouth of the Severn, and
the god may have been equated with Mars, though certain symbols
seem to connect him with the waters as a kind of Neptune.300 An Irish mythic poet Nuada
{86}
Necht may be the Nechtan who owned a magic well whence issued the
Boyne, and was perhaps a water-god. If such a water-god was
associated with Nuada, he and Nodons might be a Celtic
Neptune.301 But the relationship and
functions of these various personages are obscure, nor is it
certain that Nodons was equated with Neptune or that Nuada was a
water-god. His name may be cognate with words meaning “growth,”
“possession,” “harvest,” and this supports the view taken here of
his functions.302 The
Welsh Nudd Hael, or “the Generous,” who possessed a herd of 21,000
milch kine, may be a memory of this god, and it is possible that,
as a god of growth, Nuada had human incarnations called by his
name.303
Ler, whose name means “sea,” and who was a god of the sea, is
father of Manannan as well as of the personages of the beautiful
story called The Children of Lir, from which we learn
practically all that is known of him. He resented not being made
ruler of the Tuatha Déa, but was later reconciled when the
daughter of Bodb Dearg was given to him as his wife. On her death,
he married her sister, who transformed her step-children into
swans.304 Ler is the equivalent of the
Brythonic Llyr, later immortalised by Shakespeare as King Lear.
The greatness of Manannan mac Lir, “son of the sea,” is proved
by the fact that he appears in many of the heroic tales, and is
still remembered in tradition and folk-tale. He is a sea-god who
has become more prominent than the older god of the sea, and though
not a supreme god, he must have had a far-spreading cult. With Bodb
Dearg he was elected king of the Tuatha Dé Danann. He made
the gods invisible and immortal, gave them magical food, and
assisted Oengus in {87} driving out Elemar from his
síd. Later tradition spoke of four Manannans,
probably local forms of the god, as is suggested by the fact that
the true name of one of them is said to be Orbsen, son of Allot.
Another, the son of Ler, is described as a renowned trader who
dwelt in the Isle of Man, the best of pilots, weather-wise, and
able to transform himself as he pleased. The Cóir
Anmann adds that the Britons and the men of Erin deemed him god
of the sea.305 That
position is plainly seen in many tales, e.g. in the
magnificent passage of The Voyage of Bran, where he suddenly
sweeps into sight, riding in a chariot across the waves from the
Land of Promise; or in the tale of Cúchulainn’s
Sickness, where his wife Fand sees him, “the horseman of the
crested sea,” coming across the waves. In the Agallamh na
Senorach he appears as a cavalier breasting the waves. “For the
space of nine waves he would be submerged in the sea, but would
rise on the crest of the tenth without wetting chest or
breast.”306 In one archaic tale he is
identified with a great sea wave which swept away Tuag, while the
waves are sometimes called “the son of Lir’s horses”—a name
still current in Ireland, or, again, “the locks of Manannan’s
wife.”307 His position as god of the sea
may have given rise to the belief that he was ruler of the oversea
Elysium, and, later, of the other-world as a magical domain
coterminous with this earth. He is still remembered in the Isle of
Man, which may owe its name to him, and which, like many another
island, was regarded by the Goidels as the island Elysium under its
name of Isle of Falga. He is also the Manawyddan of Welsh
story.
Manannan appears in the Cúchulainn and Fionn cycles,
{88}
usually as a ruler of the Other-world. His wife Fand was
Cúchulainn’s mistress, Diarmaid was his pupil in fairyland,
and Cormac was his guest there. Even in Christian times surviving
pagan beliefs caused legend to be busy with his name. King Fiachna
was fighting the Scots and in great danger, when a stranger
appeared to his wife and announced that he would save her husband’s
life if she would consent to abandon herself to him. She
reluctantly agreed, and the child of the amour was the
seventh-century King Mongan, of whom the annalist says, “every one
knows that his real father was Manannan.”308
Mongan was also believed to be a rebirth of Fionn. Manannan is
still remembered in folk-tradition, and in the Isle of Man, where
his grave is to be seen, some of his ritual survived until lately,
bundles of rushes being placed for him on midsummer eve on two
hills.309 Barintus, who steers Arthur to
the fortunate isles, and S. Barri, who crossed the sea on
horseback, may have been legendary forms of a local sea-god akin to
Manannan, or of Manannan himself.310 His
steed was Enbarr, “water foam or hair,” and Manannan was
“the horseman of the manéd sea.” “Barintus,” perhaps
connected with barr find, “white-topped,” would thus be a
surname of the god who rode on Enbarr, the foaming wave, or who was
himself the wave, while his mythic sea-riding was transferred to
the legend of S. Barri, if such a person ever existed.
Various magical possessions were ascribed to Manannan—his
armour and sword, the one making the wearer invulnerable,
{89}
the other terrifying all who beheld it; his horse and canoe; his
swine, which came to life again when killed; his magic cloak; his
cup which broke when a lie was spoken; his tablecloth, which, when
waved, produced food. Many of these are found everywhere in
Märchen, and there is nothing peculiarly Celtic in
them. We need not, therefore, with the mythologists, see in his
armour the vapoury clouds or in his sword lightning or the sun’s
rays. But their magical nature as well as the fact that so much
wizardry is attributed to Manannan, points to a copious mythology
clustering round the god, now for ever lost.
The parentage of Lug is differently stated, but that account
which makes him son of Cian and of Ethne, daughter of Balor, is
best attested.311
Folk-tradition still recalls the relation of Lug and Balor. Balor,
a robber living in Tory Island, had a daughter whose son was to
kill her father. He therefore shut her up in an inaccessible place,
but in revenge for Balor’s stealing MacIneely’s cow, the latter
gained access to her, with the result that Ethne bore three sons,
whom Balor cast into the sea. One of them, Lug, was recovered by
MacIneely and fostered by his brother Gavida. Balor now slew
MacIneely, but was himself slain by Lug, who pierced his single eye
with a red-hot iron.312 In
another version, Kian takes MacIneely’s place and is aided by
Manannan, in accordance with older legends.313
But Lug’s birth-story has been influenced in these tales by the
Märchen formula of the girl hidden away because it has
been foretold that she will have a son who will slay her
father.
Lug is associated with Manannan, from whose land he comes to
assist the Tuatha Déa against the Fomorians. His appearance
was that of the sun, and by this brilliant warrior’s {90} prowess the
hosts were utterly defeated.314 This
version, found in The Children of Tuirenn, differs from the
account in the story of Mag-tured. Here Lug arrives at the gates of
Tara and offers his services as a craftsman. Each offer is refused,
until he proclaims himself “the man of each and every art,” or
samildánach, “possessing many arts.” Nuada resigns
his throne to him for thirteen days, and Lug passes in review the
various craftsmen (i.e. the gods), and though they try to
prevent such a marvellous person risking himself in fight, he
escapes, heads the warriors, and sings his war-song. Balor, the
evil-eyed, he slays with a sling-stone, and his death decided the
day against the Fomorians. In this account Lug
samildánach is a patron of the divine patrons of
crafts; in other words, he is superior to a whole group of gods. He
was also inventor of draughts, ball-play, and horsemanship. But, as
M. D’Arbois shows, samildánach is the equivalent of
“inventor of all arts,” applied by Cæsar to the Gallo-Roman
Mercury, who is thus an equivalent of Lug.315
This is attested on other grounds. As Lug’s name appears in Irish
Louth (Lug-magh) and in British Lugu-vallum, near Hadrian’s
Wall, so in Gaul the names Lugudunum (Lyons), Lugudiacus, and
Lugselva (“devoted to Lugus”) show that a god Lugus was worshipped
there. A Gaulish feast of Lugus in August—the month of Lug’s
festival in Ireland—was perhaps superseded by one in honour
of Augustus. No dedication to Lugus has yet been found, but images
of and inscriptions to Mercury abound at Lugudunum
Convenarum.316 As
there were three Brigits, {91} so there may have been several forms of
Lugus, and two dedications to the Lugoves have been found in
Spain and Switzerland, one of them inscribed by the shoemakers of
Uxama.317 Thus the Lugoves may have been
multiplied forms of Lugus or Lugovos, “a hero,” the meaning
given to “Lug” by O’Davoren.318
Shoe-making was not one of the arts professed by Lug, but Professor
Rh[^y]s recalls the fact that the Welsh Lleu, whom he equates with
Lug, disguised himself as a shoemaker.319
Lugus, besides being a mighty hero, was a great Celtic culture-god,
superior to all other culture divinities.
The euhemerists assigned a definite date to Lug’s death, but
side by side with this the memory of his divinity prevailed, and he
appears as the father and helper of Cúchulainn, who was
possibly a rebirth of the god.320 His
high position appears in the fact that the Gaulish assembly at
Lugudunum was held in his honour, like the festival of Lugnasad in
Ireland. Craftsmen brought their wares to sell at this festival of
the god of crafts, while it may also have been a harvest
festival.321 Whether it was a strictly solar
feast is doubtful, though Professor Rh[^y]s and others insist that
Lug is a sun-god. The name of the Welsh Lleu, “light,” is equated
with Lug, and the same meaning assigned to the latter.322 This equation has been contested
and is doubtful, Lugus probably meaning “hero.”323 Still the sun-like traits
ascribed to Lug before Mag-tured suggest that he was a sun-god, and
solar gods elsewhere, e.g. the Polynesian Maui, are
culture-gods as well. But it should be remembered that Lug is
{92}
not associated with the true solar festivals of Beltane and
Midsummer.
While our knowledge of the Tuatha Dé Danann is based upon
a series of mythic tales and other records, that of the gods of the
continental Celts, apart from a few notices in classical authors
and elsewhere, comes from inscriptions. But as far as can be
judged, though the names of the two groups seldom coincide, their
functions must have been much alike, and their origins certainly
the same. The Tuatha Dé Danann were nature divinities of
growth, light, agriculture—their symbols and possessions
suggesting fertility, e.g. the cauldron. They were
divinities of culture and crafts, and of war. There must have been
many other gods in Ireland than those described here, while some of
those may not have been worshipped all over Ireland. Generally
speaking, there were many local gods in Gaul with similar functions
but different names, and this may have been true of Ireland.
Perhaps the different names given to Dagda, Manannan, and others
were simply names of similar local gods, one of whom became
prominent, and attracted to himself the names of the others. So,
too, the identity of Danu and Brigit might be explained, or the
fact that there were three Brigits. We read also in the texts of
the god of Connaught, or of Ulster, and these were apparently
regional divinities, or of “the god of Druidism”—perhaps a
god worshipped specially by Druids.324 The
remote origin of some of these divinities may be sought in the
primitive cult of the Earth personified as a fertile being, and in
that of vegetation and corn-spirits, and the vague spirits of
nature in all its aspects. Some of these still continued to be
worshipped when the greater gods had been evolved. Though animal
worship was not lacking in Ireland, divinities who are
anthropomorphic forms of earlier animal-gods are less in
{93}
evidence than on the Continent. The divinities of culture, crafts,
and war, and of departments of nature, must have slowly assumed the
definite personality assigned them in Irish religion. But,
doubtless, they already possessed that before the Goidels reached
Ireland. Strictly speaking, the underground domain assigned later
to the Tuatha Dé Danann belongs only to such of them as were
associated with fertility. But in course of time most of the group,
as underground dwellers, were connected with growth and increase.
These could be blighted by their enemies, or they themselves could
withhold them when their worshippers offended them.325
Irish mythology points to the early pre-eminence of goddesses.
As agriculture and many of the arts were first in the hands of
women, goddesses of fertility and culture preceded gods, and still
held their place when gods were evolved. Even war-goddesses are
prominent in Ireland. Celtic gods and heroes are often called after
their mothers, not their fathers, and women loom largely in the
tales of Irish colonisation, while in many legends they play a most
important part. Goddesses give their name to divine groups, and,
even where gods are prominent, their actions are free, their
personalities still clearly defined. The supremacy of the divine
women of Irish tradition is once more seen in the fact that they
themselves woo and win heroes; while their capacity for love, their
passion, their eternal youthfulness and beauty are suggestive of
their early character as goddesses of ever-springing
fertility.326
This supremacy of goddesses is explained by Professor Rh[^y]s as
non-Celtic, as borrowed by the Celts from the aborigines.327 But it is too deeply impressed on
the fabric of {94} Celtic tradition to be other than native,
and we have no reason to suppose that the Celts had not passed
through a stage in which such a state of things was normal. Their
innate conservatism caused them to preserve it more than other
races who had long outgrown such a state of things.
Footnote 199:(return)HL 89; Stokes, RC xii. 129. D’Arbois, ii. 125,
explains it as “Folk of the god whose mother is called Danu.”
Footnote 200:(return)RC xii. 77. The usual Irish word for “god” is dia;
other names are Fiadu, Art, Dess.
Footnote 207:(return)IT i. 14, 774; Stokes, TL i. 99, 314, 319.
Síd is a fairy hill, the hill itself or the dwelling
within it. Hence those who dwell in it are Aes or Fir
síde, “men of the mound,” or síde, fairy
folk. The primitive form is probably sêdos, from
sêd, “abode” or “seat”; cf. Greek [Greek: edos] “a
temple.” Thurneysen suggests a connection with a word equivalent to
Lat. sidus, “constellation,” or “dwelling of the gods.”
Footnote 216:(return)See p. 228. In Scandinavia the dead were
called elves, and lived feasting in their barrows or in hills.
These became the seat of ancestral cults. The word “elf” also means
any divine spirit, later a fairy. “Elf” and síde may
thus, like the “elf-howe” and the síd or mound, have
a parallel history. See Vigfusson-Powell, Corpus Poet.
Boreale, i. 413 f.
Footnote 217:(return)Tuan MacCairill (LU 166) calls the Tuatha Déa,
“dée ocus andée,” and gives the meaning as “poets and
husbandmen.” This phrase, with the same meaning, is used in
“Cóir Anmann” (IT iii. 355), but there we find that
it occurred in a pagan formula of blessing—”The blessing of
gods and not-gods be on thee.” But the writer goes on to
say—”These were their gods, the magicians, and their
non-gods, the husbandmen.” This may refer to the position of
priest-kings and magicians as gods. Rh[^y]s compares Sanskrit
deva and adeva (HL 581). Cf. the phrase in a
Welsh poem (Skene, i. 313), “Teulu Oeth et Anoeth,” translated by
Rh[^y]s as “Household of Power and Not-Power” (CFL ii. 620),
but the meaning is obscure. See Loth, i. 197.
Footnote 219:(return)Cormac, 4. Stokes (US 12) derives Anu from (p)an,
“to nourish”; cf. Lat. panis.
Footnote 220:(return)Leicester County Folk-lore, 4. The Cóir
Anmann says that Anu was worshipped as a goddess of plenty
(IT iii. 289).
Footnote 222:(return)Rh[^y]s, ibid. ii. 213. He finds her name in the
place-name Bononia and its derivatives.
Footnote 225:(return)Girald. Cambr. Top. Hib. ii. 34 f. Vengeance followed
upon rash intrusion. For the breath tabu see Frazer, Early Hist.
of the Kingship, 224.
Footnote 231:(return)Fitzgerald, RC iv. 190. Aine has no connection with Anu,
nor is she a moon-goddess, as is sometimes supposed.
Footnote 242:(return)Petrie, Tara, 147; Stokes, US 175; Meyer, Cath
Finntrága, Oxford, 1885, 76 f.; RC xvi. 56, 163,
xxi. 396.
Footnote 245:(return)RC xxi. 157, 315; Miss Hull, 247. A baobh (a
common Gaelic name for “witch”) appears to Oscar and prophesies his
death in a Fionn ballad (Campbell, The Fians, 33). In
Brittany the “night-washers,” once water-fairies, are now regarded
as revenants (Le Braz, i. 52).
Footnote 246:(return)Joyce, SH i. 261; Miss Hull, 186; Meyer, Cath
Finntraga, 6, 13; IT i. 131, 871.
Footnote 258:(return)RC xii. 89. The name is found in Gaulish Gobannicnos, and
in Welsh Abergavenny.
Footnote 264:(return)Connac, 56, and Cóir Anmann (IT iii. 357)
divide the name as día-na-cecht and explain it as
“god of the powers.”
Footnote 265:(return)RC xii. 67. For similar stories of plants springing from
graves, see my Childhood of Fiction, 115.
Footnote 271:(return)Irish MSS. Series, i. 46; D’Arbois, ii. 276. In a MS.
edited by Dr. Stirn, Oengus was Dagda’s son by Elemar’s wife, the
amour taking place in her husband’s absence. This incident is a
parallel to the birth-stories of Mongan and Arthur, and has also
the Fatherless Child theme, since Oengus goes in tears to Mider
because he has been taunted with having no father or mother. In the
same MS. it is the Dagda who instructs Oengus how to obtain
Elemar’s síd. See RC xxvii. 332, xxviii.
330.
Footnote 276:(return)The former is Rh[^y]s’s interpretation (HL 201)
connecting Cruaich with crúach, “a heap”; the
latter is that of D’Arbois (ii. 106), deriving Cruaich from
cru, “blood.” The idea of the image being bent or crooked
may have been due to the fact that it long stood ready to topple
over, as a result of S. Patrick’s miracle. See p. 286, infra.
Footnote 278:(return)LL 213b. D’Arbois thinks Cromm was a Fomorian, the
equivalent of Taranis (ii. 62). But he is worshipped by Gaels.
Crin, “withered,” probably refers to the idol’s position
after S. Patrick’s miracle, no longer upright but bent like an old
man. Dr. Hyde, Lit. Hist. of Ireland, 87, with exaggerated
patriotism, thinks the sacrificial details are copied by a
Christian scribe from the Old Testament, and are no part of the old
ritual.
Footnote 285:(return)RC xii. 65. Elsewhere three supreme “ignorances” are
ascribed to Oengus (RL xxvi. 31).
Footnote 287:(return)LL 11c; LU 129; IT i. 130. Cf. the
glass house, placed between sky and moon, to which Tristan conducts
the queen. Bedier, Tristan et Iseut, 252. In a fragmentary
version of the story Oengus is Etain’s wooer, but Mider is
preferred by her father, and marries her. In the latter half of the
story, Oengus does not appear (see p. 363,
infra). Mr. Nutt (RC xxvii. 339) suggests that
Oengus, not Mider, was the real hero of the story, but that its
Christian redactors gave Mider his place in the second part. The
fragments are edited by Stirn (ZCP vol. v.).
Footnote 289:(return)See my Childhood of Fiction, 114, 153. The tale has some
unique features, as it alone among Western Märchen and
saga variants of the “True Bride” describes the malicious woman as
the wife of Mider. In other words, the story implies polygamy,
rarely found in European folk-tales.
Footnote 294:(return)Cumont, RC xxvi. 47; D’Arbois, RC xxvii. 127,
notes the difficulty of explaining the change of e to
i in the names.
Footnote 299:(return)Train, Isle of Man, Douglas, 1845, ii. 118; Grimm,
Teut. Myth. ii. ch. 24; Frazer, GB2 ii. 99
f.
Footnote 307:(return)Bodley Dindsenchas, No. 10, RC xii. 105; Joyce,
SH i. 259; Otia Merseiana, ii. “Song of the Sea.”
Footnote 310:(return)Geoffrey, Vita Merlini, 37; Rees, 435. Other saintly
legends are derived from myths, e.g. that of S. Barri in his
boat meeting S. Scuithne walking on the sea. Scuithne maintains he
is walking on a field, and plucks a flower to prove it, while Barri
confutes him by pulling a salmon out of the sea. This resembles an
episode in the meeting of Bran and Manannan (Stokes,
Félire, xxxix.; Nutt-Meyer, i. 39). Saints are often
said to assist men just as the gods did. Columcille and Brigit
appeared over the hosts of Erin assisting and encouraging them
(RC xxiv. 40).
Footnote 315:(return)D’Arbois, vi. 116, Les Celtes, 39, RC xii. 75,
101, 127, xvi. 77. Is the defaced inscription at Geitershof, Deo
M … Sam … (Holder, ii. 1335), a dedication to Mercury
Samildánach? An echo of Lug’s story is found in the Life of
S. Herve, who found a devil in his monastery in the form of a man
who said he was a good carpenter, mason, locksmith, etc., but who
could not make the sign of the cross. Albert le Grand, Saints de
la Bretagne, 49, RC vii. 231.
Footnote 318:(return)Stokes, TIG 103. Gaidoz contests the identification of
the Lugoves and of Lug with Mercury, and to him the Lugoves are
grouped divinities like the Matres (RC vi. 489).
Footnote 327:(return)The Welsh People, 61. Professor Rh[^y]s admits that the
theory of borrowing “cannot easily be proved.”
CHAPTER VI.
THE GODS OF THE BRYTHONS
Our knowledge of the gods of the Brythons, i.e. as far as
Wales is concerned, is derived, apart from inscriptions, from the
Mabinogion, which, though found in a fourteenth century MS.,
was composed much earlier, and contains elements from a remote
past. Besides this, the Triads, probably of twelfth-century
origin, the Taliesin, and other poems, though obscure and
artificial, the work of many a “confused bard drivelling” (to cite
the words of one of them), preserve echoes of the old
mythology.328 Some of the gods may lurk behind
the personages of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Britonum
and of the Arthurian cycle, though here great caution is required.
The divinities have become heroes and heroines, kings and
princesses, and if some of the episodes are based on ancient myths,
they are treated in a romantic spirit. Other episodes are mere
Märchen formulæ. Like the wreckage of some rich
galleon, the débris of the old mythology has been
used to construct a new fabric, and the old divinities have even
less of the god-like traits of the personages of the Irish
texts.
Some of the personages bear similar names to the Irish
divinities, and in some cases there is a certain similarity of
{96}
incidents to those of the Irish tales.329 Are,
then, the gods dimly revealed in Welsh literature as much Goidelic
as Brythonic? Analysing the incidents of the Mabinogion,
Professor Anwyl has shown that they have an entirely local
character, and are mainly associated with the districts of Dyfed
and Gwent, of Anglesey, and of Gwynedd, of which Pryderi, Branwen,
and Gwydion are respectively the heroic characters.330 These are the districts where a
strong Goidelic element prevailed, whether these Goidels were the
original inhabitants of Britain, driven there by Brythons,331 or tribes who had settled there
from Ireland,332 or
perhaps a mixture of both. In any case they had been conquered by
Brythons and had become Brythonic in speech from the fifth century
onwards. On account of this Goidelic element, it has been claimed
that the personages of the Mabinogion are purely Goidelic.
But examination proves that only a few are directly parallel in
name with Irish divinities, and while here there are fundamental
likenesses, the incidents with Irish parallels may be due to
mere superficial borrowings, to that interchange of
Märchen and mythical données which has
everywhere occurred. Many incidents have no Irish parallels, and
most of the characters are entirely different in name from Irish
divinities. Hence any theory which would account for the
likenesses, must also account for the differences, and must explain
why, if the Mabinogion is due to Irish Goidels, there should
have been few or no borrowings in Welsh literature {97} from the
popular Cúchulainn and Ossianic sagas,333
and why, at a time when Brythonic elements were uppermost, such
care should have been taken to preserve Goidelic myths. If the
tales emanated from native Welsh Goidels, the explanation might be
that they, the kindred of the Irish Goidels, must have had a
certain community with them in divine names and myths, while others
of their gods, more local in character, would differ in name. Or if
they are Brythonic, the likenesses might be accounted for by an
early community in myth and cult among the common ancestors of
Brythons and Goidels.334 But
as the date of the composition of the Mabinogion is
comparatively late, at a time when Brythons had overrun these
Goidelic districts, more probably the tales contain a mingling of
Goidelic (Irish or Welsh) and Brythonic divinities, though some of
these may be survivals of the common Celtic heritage.335 Celtic divinities were mainly of
a local, tribal character. Hence some would be local Goidelic
divinities, others, classed with these, local Brythonic divinities.
This would explain the absence of divinities and heroes of other
local Brythonic groups, e.g. Arthur, from the
Mabinogion. But with the growing importance of these, they
attracted to their legend the folk of the Mabinogion and
other tales. These are associated with Arthur in Kulhwych,
and the Dôn group mingles with that of Taliesin in the
Taliesin poems.336
Hence Welsh literature, as far as concerns the old religion, may be
regarded as including both local Goidelic and Brythonic
{98}
divinities, of whom the more purely Brythonic are Arthur, Gwynn,
Taliesin, etc.337 They
are regarded as kings and queens, or as fairies, or they have
magical powers. They are mortal and die, and the place of their
burial is pointed out, or existing tumuli are associated with them,
All this is parallel to the history of the Tuatha Dé Danann,
and shows how the same process of degradation had been at work in
Wales as in Ireland.
The story of the Llyr group is told in the Mabinogion of
Branwen and of Manawyddan. They are associated with the Pwyll
group, and apparently opposed to that of Dôn. Branwen is
married to Matholwych, king of Ireland, but is ill-treated by him
on account of the insults of the mischievous Evnissyen, in spite of
the fact that Bran had atoned for the insult by many gifts,
including that of a cauldron of regeneration. Now he crosses with
an army to Ireland, where Evnissyen throws Branwen’s child, to whom
the kingdom is given, on the fire. A fight ensues; the dead Irish
warriors are resuscitated in the cauldron, but Evnissyen, at the
cost of his life, destroys it. Bran is slain, and by his directions
his head is cut off and carried first to Harlech, then to Gwales,
where it will entertain its bearers for eighty years. At the end of
that time it is to be taken to London and buried. Branwen,
departing with the bearers, dies of a broken heart at Anglesey, and
meanwhile Caswallyn, son of Beli, seizes the kingdom.338 Two of the bearers of the head
are Manawyddan and Pryderi, whose fortunes we follow in the
Mabinogi of the former. Pryderi gives his mother Rhiannon to
Manawyddan as his wife, along with some land which by magic art is
made barren. After following different crafts, they are led by a
boar to a strange castle, where Rhiannon and Pryderi disappear
along with the building. {99} Manawyddan, with Pryderi’s wife Kieva, set
out as shoemakers, but are forced to abandon this craft on account
of the envy of the craftsmen. Finally, we learn how Manawyddan
overcame the enchanter Llwyt, who, because of an insult offered by
Pryderi’s father to his friend Gwawl, had made Rhiannon and Pryderi
disappear. They are now restored, and Llwyt seeks no further
revenge.
The story of Branwen is similar to a tale of which there are
variants in Teutonic and Scandinavian sagas, but the resemblance is
closer to the latter.339
Possibly a similar story with their respective divinities or heroes
for its characters existed among Celts, Teutons, and Norsemen, but
more likely it was borrowed from Norsemen who occupied both sides
of the Irish Sea in the ninth and tenth century, and then
naturalised by furnishing it with Celtic characters. But into this
framework many native elements were set, and we may therefore
scrutinise the story for Celtic mythical elements utilised by its
redactor, who probably did not strip its Celtic personages of their
earlier divine attributes. In the two Mabinogi these
personages are Llyr, his sons Bran and Manawyddan, his daughter
Branwen, their half-brothers Nissyen and Evnissyen, sons of Llyr’s
wife Penardim, daughter of Beli, by a previous marriage with
Eurosswyd.
Llyr is the equivalent of the Irish Ler, the sea-god, but two
other Llyrs, probably duplicates of himself, are known to Welsh
story—Llyr Marini, and the Llyr, father of Cordelia, of the
chroniclers.340 He
is constantly confused with Lludd Llawereint, e.g. both are
described as one of three notable prisoners of Britain, and both
are called fathers of Cordelia or Creiddylad.341
Perhaps the two were once identical, for {100} Manannan
is sometimes called son of Alloid (= Lludd), in Irish texts, as
well as son of Ler.342 But
the confusion may be accidental, nor is it certain that Nodons or
Lludd was a sea-god. Llyr’s prison was that of Eurosswyd,343 whose wife he may have abducted
and hence suffered imprisonment. In the Black Book of
Caermarthen Bran is called son of Y Werydd or “Ocean,”
according to M. Loth’s interpretation of the name, which would thus
point to Llyr’s position as a sea-god. But this is contested by
Professor Rh[^y]s who makes Ywerit wife of Llyr, the name being in
his view a form of the Welsh word for Ireland. In Geoffrey and the
chroniclers Llyr becomes a king of Britain whose history and that
of his daughters was immortalised by Shakespeare. Geoffrey also
refers to Llyr’s burial in a vault built in honour of Janus.344 On this Professor Rh[^y]s builds
a theory that Llyr was a form of the Celtic Dis with two faces and
ruler of a world of darkness.345 But
there is no evidence that the Celtic Dispater was lord of a gloomy
underworld, and it is best to regard Llyr as a sea-divinity.
Manawyddan is not god-like in these tales in the sense in which
the majestic Manannan of Irish story is, though elsewhere we learn
that “deep was his counsel.”346
Though not a magician, he baffles one of the great wizards of Welsh
story, and he is also a master craftsman, who instructs Pryderi in
the arts of shoe-making, shield-making, and saddlery. In this he is
akin to Manannan, the teacher of Diarmaid. Incidents of his career
are reflected in the Triads, and his union with Rhiannon may
point to an old myth in which they were from the first a divine
pair, parents of Pryderi. This would give point to his deliverance
of Pryderi and Rhiannon from the {101} hostile magician.347 Rhiannon resembles the Irish
Elysium goddesses, and Manawyddan, like Manannan, is lord of
Elysium in a Taliesin poem.348 He
is a craftsman and follows agriculture, perhaps a reminiscence of
the old belief that fertility and culture come from the god’s land.
Manawyddan, like other divinities, was drawn into the Arthurian
cycle, and is one of those who capture the famous boar, the
Twrch Trwyth.349
Bran, or Bendigeit Vran (“Bran the Blessed”), probably an old
pagan title which appropriately enough denotes one who figured
later in Christian hagiology, is so huge that no house or ship can
hold him. Hence he wades over to Ireland, and as he draws near is
thought to be a mountain. This may be an archaic method of
expressing his divinity—a gigantic non-natural man like some
of the Tuatha Déa and Ossianic heroes. But Bran also appears
as the Urdawl Ben, or “Noble Head,” which makes time pass to
its bearers like a dream, and when buried protects the land from
invasion. Both as a giant squatting on a rock and as a head, Bran
is equated by Professor Rh[^y]s with Cernunnos, the squatting god,
represented also as a head, and also with the Welsh Urien whose
attribute was a raven, the supposed meaning of Bran’s name.350 He further equates him with Uthr
Ben, “Wonderful Head,” the superior bard, harper and piper of a
Taliesin poem.351
Urien, Bran, and Uthr are three forms of a god worshipped by bards,
and a “dark” divinity, whose wading over to Ireland signifies
crossing to Hades, of which he, like Yama, who first crossed the
rapid waters to the land of death, is the ruler.352 But Bran is not a “dark” god in
the sense implied here. Cernunnos is god of a happy underworld, and
there is nothing {102} dark or evil in him or in Bran and his
congeners. Professor Rh[^y]s’s “dark” divinities are sometimes, in
his view, “light” gods, but they cannot be both. The Celtic lords
of the dead had no “dark” character, and as gods of fertility they
were, so to speak, in league with the sun-god, the slayer of Bran,
according to Professor Rh[^y]s’s ingenious theory. And although to
distracted Irish secretaries Ireland may be Hades, its introduction
into this Mabinogi merely points to the interpretation of a
mythico-historic connection between Wales and Ireland. Thus if Bran
is Cernunnos, this is because he is a lord of the underworld of
fertility, the counterpart of which is the distant Elysium, to
which Bran seems rather to belong. Thus, in presence of his head,
time passes as a dream in feasting and joy. This is a true Elysian
note, and the tabued door of the story is also suggestive of the
tabus of Elysium, which when broken rob men of happiness.353 As to the power of the head in
protecting the land, this points to actual custom and belief
regarding the relics of the dead and the power of divine images or
sculptured heads.354 The
god Bran has become a king and law-giver in the Mabinogion
and the Triads,355
while Geoffrey of Monmouth describes how Belinus and Brennus, in
the Welsh version Beli and Bran, dispute the crown of Britain, are
reconciled, and finally conquer Gaul and Rome.356 The mythic Bran is confused with
Brennus, leader of the Gauls against Rome in 390 B.C., and Belinus
may be the god Belenos, as well as Beli, father of Lludd and
Caswallawn. But Bran also figures as a Christian missionary. He is
described as hostage at Rome for his son Caradawc, returning thence
as preacher of Christianity to the Cymry—a legend arising out
{103} of a misunderstanding of his epithet
“Blessed” and a confusing of his son with the historic
Caractacus.357
Hence Bran’s family is spoken of as one of the three saintly
families of Prydein, and he is ancestor of many saints.358
Branwen, “White Bosom,” daughter of a sea-god, may be a
sea-goddess, “Venus of the northern sea,”359
unless with Mr. Nutt we connect her with the cauldron described in
her legend,360
symbol of an orgiastic cult, and regard her as a goddess of
fertility. But the connection is not clear in the story, though in
some earlier myth the cauldron may have been her property. As
Brangwaine, she reappears in romance, giving a love-potion to
Tristram—perhaps a reminiscence of her former functions as a
goddess of love, or earlier of fertility. In the Mabinogion
she is buried in Anglesey at Ynys Bronwen, where a cairn with bones
discovered in 1813 was held to be the grave and remains of
Branwen.361
The children of Dôn, the equivalent of Danu, and probably
like her, a goddess of fertility, are Gwydion, Gilvæthwy,
Amæthon, Govannon, and Arianrhod, with her sons, Dylan and
Llew.362 These correspond, therefore, in
part to the Tuatha Déa, though the only members of the group
who bear names similar to the Irish gods are Govannon (= Goibniu)
and possibly Llew (= Lug). Gwydion as a culture-god corresponds to
Ogma. In the Triads Beli is called father of
Arianrhod,363 and assuming that this Arianrhod
is identical with the daughter of Dôn, Professor Rh[^y]s
regards Beli as husband of Dôn. But the identification is far
from certain, and the theory built upon it that Beli is one with
the Irish Bile, and that both {104} are lords of a dark
underworld, has already been found precarious.364 In later belief Dôn was
associated with the stars, the constellation Cassiopeia being
called her court. She is described as “wise” in a Taliesin
poem.365
This group of divinities is met with mainly in the
Mabinogi of Math, which turns upon Gilvæthwy’s illicit
love of Math’s “foot-holder” Goewin. To assist him in his
amour, Gwydion, by a magical trick, procures for Math from
the court of Pryderi certain swine sent him by Arawn, king of
Annwfn. In the battle which follows when the trick is discovered,
Gwydion slays Pryderi by enchantment. Math now discovers that
Gilvæthwy has seduced Goewin, and transforms him and Gwydion
successively into deer, swine, and wolves. Restored to human form,
Gwydion proposes that Arianrhod should be Math’s foot-holder, but
Math by a magic test discovers that she is not a virgin. She bears
two sons, Dylan, fostered by Math, and another whom Gwydion
nurtures and for whom he afterwards by a trick obtains a name from
Arianrhod, who had sworn never to name him. The name is Llew Llaw
Gyffes, “Lion of the Sure Hand.” By magic, Math and Gwydion form a
wife for Llew out of flowers. She is called Blodeuwedd, and later,
at the instigation of a lover, Gronw, she discovers how Llew can be
killed. Gronw attacks and wounds him, and he flies off as an eagle.
Gwydion seeks for Llew, discovers him, and retransforms him to
human shape. Then he changes Blodeuwedd into an owl, and slays
Gronw.366 Several independent tales have
gone to the formation of this Mabinogi, but we are concerned
here merely with the light it may throw on the divine characters
who figure in it.
Math or Math Hen, “the Ancient,”367 is
probably an old {105} divinity of Gwyned, of which he is
called lord. He is a king and a magician, pre-eminent in wizardry,
which he teaches to Gwydion, and in a Triad he is called one
of the great men of magic and metamorphosis of Britain.368 More important are his traits of
goodness to the suffering, and justice with no trace of vengeance
to the wrong-doer. Whether these are derived from his character as
a god or from the Celtic kingly ideal, it is impossible to say,
though the former is by no means unlikely. Possibly his supreme
magical powers make him the equivalent of the Irish “god of
Druidism,” but this is uncertain, since all gods were more or less
dowered with these.
Gwydion’s magical powers are abundantly illustrated in the tale.
At Pryderi’s court he changes fungus into horses and dogs, and
afterwards slays Pryderi by power of enchantments; he produces a
fleet by magic before Arianrhod’s castle; with Math’s help he forms
Blodeuwedd out of flowers; he gives Llew his natural shape when he
finds him as a wasted eagle on a tree, his flesh and the worms
breeding in it dropping from him; he transforms the faithless
Blodeuwedd into an owl. Some of these and other deeds are referred
to in the Taliesin poems, while Taliesin describes himself
as enchanted by Gwydion.369 In
the Triads he is one of the three great astrologers of
Prydein, and this emphasis laid on his powers of divination is
significant when it is considered that his name may be derived from
a root vet, giving words meaning “saying” or “poetry,” while
cognate words are Irish fáith, “a prophet” or “poet,”
German wuth, “rage,” and the name of Odinn.370 The name is suggestive of the
ecstasy of inspiration producing prophetic and poetic utterance. In
the Mabinogion he is a mighty bard, and in a poem, he, under
the name of {106} Gweir, is imprisoned in the Other-world,
and there becomes a bard, thus receiving inspiration from the gods’
land.371 He is the ideal
fáith—diviner, prophet, and poet, and thus the
god of those professing these arts. Strabo describes how the Celtic
vates (fáith) was also a philosopher, and this
character is given in a poem to Seon (probably = Gwydion), whose
artists are poets and magicians.372 But
he is also a culture-god, bringing swine to men from the gods’
land. For though Pryderi is described as a mortal who has himself
received the swine from Annwfn (Elysium), there is no doubt that he
himself was a lord of Annwfn, and it was probably on account of
Gwydion’s theft from Annwfn that he, as Gweir, was imprisoned there
“through the messenger of Pwyll and Pryderi.”373
A raid is here made directly on the god’s land for the benefit of
men, and it is unsuccessful, but in the Mabinogi a different
version of the raid is told. Perhaps Gwydion also brought kine from
Annwfn, since he is called one of the three herds of Britain,374 while he himself may once have
been an animal god, then an anthropomorphic deity associated with
animals. Thus in the Mabinogi, when Gwydion flees with the
swine, he rests each night at a place one of the syllables of which
is Moch, “swine”—an ætiological myth explaining
why places which were once sites of the cult of a swine-god,
afterwards worshipped as Gwydion, were so called.
Gwydion has also a tricky, fraudulent character in the
Mabinogi, and although “in his life there was counsel,” yet
he had a “vicious muse.”375 It
is also implied that he is lover of his sister Arianrhod and father
of Dylan and Llew—the mythic reflections of a time when such
unions, perhaps only in royal houses, were permissible. Instances
occur in Irish tales, {107} and Arthur was also his sister’s
lover.376 In later belief Gwydion was
associated with the stars; and the Milky Way was called Caer
Gwydion. Across it he had chased the faithless Blodeuwedd.377 Professor Rh[^y]s equates him
with Odinn, and regards both as representing an older
Celto-Teutonic hero, though many of the alleged similarities in
their respective mythologies are not too obvious.378
Amæthon the good is described in Kulhwych as the
only husbandman who could till or dress a certain piece of land,
though Kulhwych will not be able to force him or to make him follow
him.379 This, together with the name
Amæthon, from Cymric amæth, “labourer” or
“ploughman,” throws some light on his functions.380 He was a god associated with
agriculture, either as one who made waste places fruitful, or
possibly as an anthropomorphic corn divinity. But elsewhere his
taking a roebuck and a whelp, and in a Triad, a lapwing from
Arawn, king of Annwfn, led to the battle of Godeu, in which he
fought Arawn, aided by Gwydion, who vanquished one of Arawn’s
warriors, Bran, by discovering his name.381
Amæthon, who brings useful animals from the gods’ land, plays
the same part as Gwydion, bringer of the swine. The dog and deer
are frequent representatives of the corn-spirit, of which
Amæthon may have been an anthropomorphic form, or they, with
the lapwing, may have been earlier worshipful animals, associated
with Amæthon as his symbols, while later myth told how he had
procured them from Annwfn.
The divine functions of Llew Llaw Gyffes are hardly apparent in
the Mabinogi. The incident of Blodeuwedd’s unfaithfulness is
simply that of the Märchen formula of the {108}
treacherous wife who discovers the secret of her husband’s life,
and thus puts him at her lover’s mercy.382 But
since Llew is not slain, but changes to eagle form, this unusual
ending may mean that he was once a bird divinity, the eagle later
becoming his symbol. Some myth must have told of his death, or he
was afterwards regarded as a mortal who died, for a poem mentions
his tomb, and adds, “he was a man who never gave justice to any
one.” Dr. Skene suggests that truth, not justice, is here meant,
and finds in this a reference to Llew’s disguises.383 Professor Rh[^y]s, for reasons
not held convincing by M. Loth, holds that Llew, “lion,” was
a misapprehension for his true name Lleu, interpreted by him
“light.”384 This meaning he also gives to
Lug, equating Lug and Llew, and regarding both as sun-gods.
He also equates Llaw Gyffes, “steady or strong hand,”
with Lug’s epithet Lám fada, “long hand,” suggesting
that gyffes may have meant “long,” although it was Llew’s
steadiness of hand in shooting which earned him the title.385 Again, Llew’s rapid growth need
not make him the sun, for this was a privilege of many heroes who
had no connection with the sun. Llew’s unfortunate matrimonial
affairs are also regarded as a sun myth. Blodeuwedd is a dawn
goddess dividing her love between the sun-god and the prince of
darkness. Llew as the sun is overcome by the latter, but is
restored by the culture-hero Gwydion, who slays the dark rival. The
transformation of Blodeuwedd into an owl means that the Dawn has
become the Dusk.386 As
we have seen, all this is a Märchen formula with no
mythical significance. Evidence of the precariousness of such an
interpretation is furnished from {109} the similar interpretation
of the story of Curoi’s wife, Blathnat, whose lover
Cúchulainn slew Curoi.387 Here
a supposed sun-god is the treacherous villain who kills a dark
divinity, husband of a dawn goddess.
If Llew is a sun-god, the equivalent of Lug, it is curious that
he is never connected with the August festival in Wales which
corresponds to Lugnasad in Ireland. There may be some support to
the theory which makes him a sun-god in a Triad where he is
one of the three ruddroawc who cause a year’s sterility
wherever they set their feet, though in this Arthur excels them,
for he causes seven years’ sterility!388 Does
this point to the scorching of vegetation by the summer sun? The
mythologists have not made use of this incident. On the whole the
evidence for Llew as a sun-god is not convincing. The strongest
reason for identifying him with Lug rests on the fact that both
have uncles who are smiths and have similar names—Govannon
and Gavida (Goibniu). Like Amæthon, Govannon, the artificer
or smith (gôf, “smith”), is mentioned in
Kulhwych as one whose help must be gained to wait at the end
of the furrows to cleanse the iron of the plough.389 Here he is brought into
connection with the plough, but the myth to which the words refer
is lost. A Taliesin poem associates him with Math—”I
have been with artificers, with the old Math and with Govannon,”
and refers to his Caer or castle.390
Arianrhod, “silver wheel,” has a twofold character. She pretends
to be a virgin, and disclaims all knowledge of her son Llew, yet
she is mistress of Gwydion. In the Triads she appears as one
of the three blessed (or white) ladies of Britain.391 Perhaps these two aspects of her
character may point to a divergence between religion and mythology,
the cult of a virgin {110} goddess of whom myth told discreditable
things. More likely she was an old Earth-goddess, at once a virgin
and a fruitful mother, like Artemis, the virgin goddess, yet
neither chaste nor fair, or like a Babylonian goddess addressed as
at once “mother, wife, and maid.” Arianrhod, “beauty famed beyond
summer’s dawn,” is mentioned in a Taliesin poem, and she was
later associated with the constellation Corona Borealis.392 Possibly her real name was
forgotten, and that of Arianrhod derived from a place-name, “Caer
Arianrhod,” associated with her. The interpretation which makes her
a dawn goddess, mother of light, Lleu, and darkness, Dylan, is far
from obvious.393
Dylan, after his baptism, rushed into the sea, the nature of which
became his. No wave ever broke under him; he swam like a fish; and
hence was called Dylan Eil Ton or “son of the wave.” Govannon, his
uncle, slew him, an incident interpreted as the defeat of darkness,
which “hies away to lurk in the sea.” Dylan, however, has no dark
traits and is described as a blonde. The waves lament his death,
and, as they dash against the shore, seek to avenge it. His grave
is “where the wave makes a sullen sound,” but popular belief
identifies him with the waves, and their noise as they press into
the Conway is his dying groan. Not only is he Eil Ton, “son
of the wave,” but also Eil Mor, “son of the sea.”394 He is thus a local sea-god, and
like Manannan identified with the waves, and yet separate from
them, since they mourn his death. The Mabinogi gives us the
débris of myths explaining how an anthropomorphic
sea-god was connected with the goddess Arianrhod and slain by a god
Govannon.
Another Mabinogion group is that of Pwyll, prince of
Dyved, his wife Rhiannon, and their son Pryderi.395 Pwyll {111} agrees
with Arawn, king of Annwfn (Elysium), to reign over his kingdom for
a year. At the end of that time he slays Arawn’s rival Havgan.
Arawn sends him gifts, and Pwyll is now known as Pen or Head of
Annwfn, a title showing that he was once a god, belonging to the
gods’ land, later identified with the Christian Hades. Pwyll now
agrees with Rhiannon,396 who
appears mysteriously on a magic hillock, and whom he captures, to
rid her of an unwelcome suitor Gwawl. He imprisons him in a magical
bag, and Rhiannon weds Pwyll. The story thus resolves itself into
the formula of the Fairy Bride, but it paves the way for the
vengeance taken on Pryderi and Rhiannon by Gwawl’s friend Llwyt.
Rhiannon has a son who is stolen as soon as born. She is accused of
slaying him and is degraded, but Teyrnon recovers the child from
its super-human robber and calls him Gwri. As he grows up, Teyrnon
notices his resemblance to Pwyll, and takes him to his court.
Rhiannon is reinstated, and because she cries that her anguish
(pryderi) is gone, the boy is now called Pryderi. Here,
again, we have Märchen incidents, which also appear in
the Fionn saga.397
Though there is little that is mythological here, it is evident
that Pwyll is a god and Rhiannon a goddess, whose early importance,
like that of other Celtic goddesses, appears from her name, a
corruption of Rigantona, “great queen.” Elsewhere we hear of her
magic birds whose song charmed Bran’s companions for seven years,
and of her marriage to Manawyddan—an old myth in which
Manawyddan may have been Pryderi’s father, while possibly in some
other myth Pryderi may have been child of Rigantona and Teyrnon
(=Tigernonos, “king”).398 We
may postulate an old Rhiannon saga, fragments of which {112} are to be
found in the Mabinogi, and there may have been more than one
goddess called Rigantona, later fused into one. But in the tales
she is merely a queen of old romance.
Pryderi, as has been seen, was despoiled of his swine by
Gwydion. They were the gift of Arawn, but in the Triads they
seem to have been brought from Annwfn by Pwyll, while Pryderi acted
as swineherd.399 Both
Pwyll and Pryderi are thus connected with those myths which told of
the bringing of domestic animals from the gods’ land. But since
they are certainly gods, associated with the gods’ land, this is
perhaps the result of misunderstanding. A poem speaks of the magic
cauldron of Pen Annwfn, i.e. Pwyll, and this points to a
myth explaining his connection with Annwfn in a different way from
the account in the Mabinogi. The poem also tells how Gweir
was imprisoned in Caer Sidi (=Annwfn) “through the messenger of
Pwyll and Pryderi.”400 They
are thus lords of Annwfn, whose swine Gweir (Gwydion) tries to
steal. Elsewhere Caer Sidi is associated with Manawyddan and
Pryderi, perhaps a reference to their connection as father and
son.401 Thus Pryderi and Pwyll belong to
the bright Elysium, and may once have been gods of fertility
associated with the under-earth region, which was by no means a
world of darkness. Whatever be the meaning of the death of Pryderi
at the hands of Gwydion, it is connected with later references to
his grave.402
A fourth group is that of Beli and his sons, referred to in the
Mabinogi of Branwen, where one of them, Caswallawn, usurps
the throne, and thus makes Manawyddan, like MacGregor, landless. In
the Dream of Maxen, the sons of Beli are Lludd, Caswallawn,
Nynnyaw, and Llevelys.403
Geoffrey calls Beli Heli, and speaks of an earlier king Belinus, at
enmity with his brother Brennius.404 But
probably Beli or Heli and {113} Belinus are one and the same, and
both represent the earlier god Belenos. Caswellawn becomes
Cassivellaunus, opponent of Cæsar, but in the Mabinogi
he is hostile to the race of Llyr, and this may be connected with
whatever underlies Geoffrey’s account of the hostility of Belinus
and Brennius (=Bran, son of Llyr), perhaps, like the enmity of the
race of D[^o]n to Pryderi, a reminiscence of the strife of rival
tribes or of Goidel and Brython.405 As
has been seen, the evidence for regarding Beli as D[^o]n’s consort
or the equivalent of Bile is slender. Nor, if he is Belenos, the
equivalent of Apollo, is he in any sense a “dark” god. He is
regarded as a victorious champion, preserver of his “honey isle”
and of the stability of his kingdom, in a Taliesin poem and
in the Triads.406
The personality of Casswallawn is lost in that of the historic
Cassivellaunus, but in a reference to him in the Triads
where, with Caradawc and Gweirydd, he bears the title “war king,”
we may see a glimpse of his divine character, that of a god of war,
invisibly leading on armies to battle, and as such embodied in
great chiefs who bore his name.407
Nynnyaw appears in Geoffrey’s pages as Nennius, who dies of wounds
inflicted by Cæsar, to the great grief of
Cassivellaunus.408
The theory that Lludd Llaw Ereint or Lodens Lamargentios
represents Nodens (Nuada) L[=a]margentios, the change
being the result of alliteration, has been contested,409 while if the Welsh Lludd and Nudd
were identical it is strange that they should have become distinct
personalities, Gwyn, son of Nudd, being the lover of Creiddylad,
daughter of Lludd,410
unless in some earlier myth their love was that of brother and
sister. Lludd is {114} also confused or is identical with Llyr,
just as the Irish Ler is with Alloid. He is probably the son of
Beli who, in the tale of Lludd and Llevelys, by the advice
of Llevelys rids his country of three plagues.411 These are, first, the Coranians
who hear every whisper, and whom he destroys by throwing over them
water in which certain insects given him by Levelys have been
bruised. The second is a shriek on May-eve which makes land and
water barren, and is caused by a dragon which attacks the dragon of
the land. These Lludd captures and imprisons at Dinas Emreis, where
they afterwards cause trouble to Vortigern at the building of his
castle. The third is that of the disappearance of a year’s supply
of food by a magician, who lulls every one to sleep and who is
captured by Lludd. Though the Coranians appear in the Triads
as a hostile tribe,412 they
may have been a supernatural folk, since their name is perhaps
derived from còr, “dwarf,” and they are now regarded
as mischievous fairies.413 They
may thus be analogous to the Fomorians, and their story, like that
of the dragon and the magician who produce blight and loss of food,
may be based on older myth or ritual embodying the belief in powers
hostile to fertility, though it is not clear why those powers
should be most active on May-day. But this may be a
misunderstanding, and the dragons are overcome on May-eve. The
references in the tale to Lludd’s generosity and liberality in
giving food may reflect his function as a god of growth, but, like
other euhemerised gods, he is also called a mighty warrior, and is
said to have rebuilt the walls of Caer Ludd (London), his name
still surviving in “Ludgate Hill,” where he was buried.414 This legend doubtless points to
some ancient cult of Lludd at this spot.
Nudd already discussed under his title Nodons, is less prominent
than his son Gwyn, whose fight with Gwthur we have explained as a
mythic explanation of ritual combats for the increase of fertility.
He also appears as a hunter and as a great warrior,415 “the hope of armies,” and thus he
may be a god of fertility who became a god of war and the chase.
But legend associated him with Annwfn, and regarded him, like the
Tuatha Déa, as a king of fairyland.416
In the legend of S. Collen, the saint tells two men, whom he
overhears speaking of Gwyn and the fairies, that these are demons.
“Thou shalt receive a reproof from Gwyn,” said one of them, and
soon after Collen was summoned to meet the king of Annwfn on
Glastonbury Tor. He climbed the hill with a flask of holy water,
and saw on its top a splendid castle, with crowds of beautiful and
youthful folk, while the air resounded with music. He was brought
to Gwyn, who politely offered him food, but “I will not eat of the
leaves of the tree,” cried the saint; and when he was asked to
admire the dresses of the crowd, all he would say was that the red
signified burning, the blue coldness. Then he threw the holy water
over them, and nothing was left but the bare hillside.417 Though Gwyn’s court on
Glastonbury is a local Celtic Elysium, which was actually located
there, the story marks the hostility of the Church to the cult of
Gwyn, perhaps practised on hilltops, and this is further seen in
the belief that he hunts souls of the wicked and is connected with
Annwfn in its later sense of hell. But a mediant view is found in
Kulhwych, where it is said of him that he restrains the
demons of hell lest they should destroy the people of this world.
In the Triads he is, like other gods, a great magician and
astrologer.418
Another group, unknown to the Mabinogion, save that
{116} Taliesin is one of the bearers of Bran’s
head, is found in the Book of Taliesin and in the late story
of Taliesin. These, like the Arthur cycle, often refer to
personages of the Mabinogion; hence we gather that local
groups of gods, originally distinct, were later mingled in story,
the references in the poems reflecting this mingling. Late as is
the Hanes Taliesin or story of Taliesin, and expressed as
much of it is in a Märchen formula, it is based on old
myths about Cerridwen and Taliesin of which its compiler made use,
following an old tradition already stereotyped in one of the poems
in the Märchen formula of the Transformation
Combat.419 But the mythical fragments are
also mingled with traditions regarding the sixth century poet
Taliesin. The older saga was perhaps developed in a district south
of the Dyfi estuary.420 In
Lake Tegid dwell Tegid Voel, Cerridwen, and their
children—the fair maiden Creirwy, Morvran, and the ugly
Avagddu. To give Avagddu knowledge, his mother prepares a cauldron
of inspiration from which three drops of inspiration will be
produced. These fall on the finger of Gwion, whom she set to stir
it. He put the finger in his mouth, and thus acquired the
inspiration. He fled, and Cerridwen pursued, the rest of the story
being accommodated to the Transformation Combat formula. Finally,
Cerridwen as a hen swallows Gwion as a grain of wheat, and bears
him as a child, whom she throws into the sea. Elphin, who rescues
him, calls him Taliesin, and brings him up as a bard.421
The water-world of Tegid is a submarine Elysium with the
customary cauldron of inspiration, regeneration, and fertility,
like the cauldron associated with a water-world in the
Mabinogion. “Shall not my chair be defended from the
{117} cauldron of Cerridwen,” runs a line in a
Taliesin poem, while another speaks of her chair, which was
probably in Elysium like that of Taliesin himself in Caer
Sidi.422 Further references to her
connection with poetry show that she may have been worshipped by
bards, her cauldron being the source of their inspiration.423 Her anger at Gwion may point to
some form of the Celtic myth of the theft of the elements of
culture from the gods’ land. But the cauldron was first of all
associated with a fertility cult,424 and
Cerridwen must therefore once have been a goddess of fertility,
who, like Brigit, was later worshipped by bards. She may also have
been a corn-goddess, since she is called a goddess of grain, and
tradition associates the pig—a common embodiment of the
corn-spirit—with her.425 If
the tradition is correct, this would be an instance, like that of
Demeter and the pig, of an animal embodiment of the corn-spirit
being connected with a later anthropomorphic corn-goddess.
Taliesin was probably an old god of poetic inspiration confused
with the sixth century poet of the same name, perhaps because this
boastful poet identified himself or was identified by other bards
with the gods. He speaks of his “splendid chair, inspiration of
fluent and urgent song” in Caer Sidi or Elysium, and, speaking in
the god’s name or identifying himself with him, describes his
presence with Llew, Bran, Gwydion, and others, as well as his
creation and his enchantment before he became immortal.426 He was present with Arthur when a
cauldron was stolen from Aunwfn, and basing his verses on the
mythic transformations and rebirths of the gods, recounts in highly
inflated {118} language his own numerous forms and
rebirths.427 His claims resemble those of the
Shaman who has the entree of the spirit-world and can
transform himself at will. Taliesin’s rebirth is connected with his
acquiring of inspiration. These incidents appear separately in the
story of Fionn, who acquired his inspiration by an accident, and
was also said to have been reborn as Mongan. They are myths common
to various branches of the Celtic people, and applied in different
combinations to outstanding gods or heroes.428
The Taliesin poems show that there may have been two gods or
two mythic aspects of one god, later combined together. He is the
son of the goddess and dwells in the divine land, but he is also a
culture-hero stealing from the divine land. Perhaps the myths
reflect the encroachment of the cult of a god on that of a goddess,
his worshippers regarding him as her son, her worshippers
reflecting their hostility to the new god in a myth of her enmity
to him. Finally, the legend of the rescue of Taliesin the poet from
the waves became a myth of the divine outcast child rescued by
Elphin, and proving himself a bard when normal infants are merely
babbling.
The occasional and obscure references to the other members of
this group throw little light on their functions, save that
Morvran, “sea-crow,” is described in Kulhwych as so ugly and
terrible that no one would strike him at the battle of Camlan. He
may have been a war-god, like the scald-crow goddesses of Ireland,
and he is also spoken of in the Triads as an “obstructor of
slaughter” or “support of battle.”429
Ingenuity and speculation have busied themselves with
{119} trying to prove that the personages of
the Arthurian cycle are the old gods of the Brythons, and the
incidents of the romances fragments of the old mythology. While
some of these personages—those already present in genuinely
old Welsh tales and poems or in Geoffrey’s History—are
reminiscent of the old gods, the romantic presentment of them in
the cycle itself is so largely imaginative, that nothing certain
can be gained from it for the understanding of the old mythology,
much less the old religion. Incidents which are the common stock of
real life as well as of romance are interpreted mythologically, and
it is never quite obvious why the slaying of one hero by another
should signify the conquest of a dark divinity by a solar hero, or
why the capture of a heroine by one knight when she is beloved of
another, should make her a dawn-goddess sharing her favours, now
with the sun-god, now with a “dark” divinity. Or, even granting the
truth of this method, what light does it throw on Celtic
religion?
We may postulate a local Arthur saga fusing an old Brythonic god
with the historic sixth century Arthur. From this or from
Geoffrey’s handling of it sprang the great romantic cycle. In the
ninth century Nennius Arthur is the historic war-chief, possibly
Count of Britain, but in the reference to his hunting the Porcus
Troit (the Twrch Trwyth) the mythic Arthur momentarily
appears.430 Geoffrey’s Arthur differs from
the later Arthur of romance, and he may have partially rationalised
the saga, which was either of recent formation or else local and
obscure, since there is no reference to Arthur in the
Mabinogion—a fact which shows that “in the legends of
Gwynedd and Dyfedd he had no place whatever,”431
and also that Arthur the god or mythic hero was also purely local.
In Geoffrey Arthur is the fruit {120} of Igerna’s amour
with Uther, to whom Merlin has given her husband’s shape. Arthur
conquers many hosts as well as giants, and his court is the resort
of all valorous persons. But he is at last wounded by his wife’s
seducer, and carried to the Isle of Avallon to be cured of his
wounds, and nothing more is ever heard of him.432 Some of these incidents occur
also in the stories of Fionn and Mongan, and those of the
mysterious begetting of a wonder child and his final disappearance
into fairyland are local forms of a tale common to all branches of
the Celts.433 This was fitted to the history of
the local god or hero Arthur, giving rise to the local saga, to
which was afterwards added events from the life of the historic
Arthur. This complex saga must then have acquired a wider fame long
before the romantic cycle took its place, as is suggested by the
purely Welsh tales of Kulhwych and the Dream of
Rhonabwy, in the former of which the personages (gods) of the
Mabinogion figure in Arthur’s train, though he is far from
being the Arthur of the romances. Sporadic references to Arthur
occur also in Welsh literature, and to the earlier saga belongs the
Arthur who spoils Elysium of its cauldron in a Taliesin
poem.434 In the Triads there is a
mingling of the historic, the saga, and the later romance Arthur,
but probably as a result of the growing popularity of the saga
Arthur he is added to many Triads as a more remarkable person than
the three whom they describe.435
Arthurian place-names over the Brythonic area are more probably the
result of the popularity of the saga than that of the later
romantic cycle, a parallel instance being found in the extent of
Ossianic place-names over the Goidelic area as a result of the
spread of the Fionn saga.
The character of the romance Arthur—the flower of
{121} knighthood and a great warrior—and
the blending of the historic war-leader Arthur with the mythic
Arthur, suggest that the latter was the ideal hero of certain
Brythonic groups, as Fionn and Cúchulainn of certain
Goidelic groups. He may have been the object of a cult as these
heroes perhaps were, or he may have been a god more and more
idealised as a hero. If the earlier form of his name was Artor, “a
ploughman,” but perhaps with a wider significance, and having an
equivalent in Artaius, a Gaulish god equated with Mercury,436 he may have been a god of
agriculture who became a war-god. But he was also regarded as a
culture-hero, stealing a cauldron and also swine from the gods’
land, the last incident euhemerised into the tale of an
unsuccessful theft from March, son of Meirchion,437 while, like other culture-heroes,
he is a bard. To his story was easily fitted that of the
wonder-child, who, having finally disappeared into Elysium (later
located at Glastonbury), would reappear one day, like Fionn, as the
Saviour of his people. The local Arthur finally attained a fame far
exceeding that of any Brythonic god or hero.
Merlin, or Myrddin, appears in the romances as a great magician
who is finally overcome by the Lady of the Lake, and is in Geoffrey
son of a mysterious invisible personage who visits a woman, and,
finally taking human shape, begets Merlin. As a son who never had a
father he is chosen as the foundation sacrifice for Vortigern’s
tower by his magicians, but he confutes them and shows why the
tower can never be built, namely, because of the dragons in the
pool beneath it. Then follow his prophecies regarding the dragons
and the future of the country, and the story of his removal of the
Giant’s Dance, or Stonehenge, from Ireland to its present
site—an ætiological myth explaining the origin of the
great {122} stone circle. His description of how the
giants used the water with which they washed the stones for the
cure of sickness or wounds, probably points to some ritual for
healing in connection with these megaliths. Finally, we hear of his
transformation of the lovelorn Uther and of his confidant Ulfin, as
well as of himself.438 Here
he appears as little more than an ideal magician, possibly an old
god, like the Irish “god of Druidism,” to whose legend had been
attached a story of supernatural conception. Professor Rh[^y]s
regards him as a Celtic Zeus or as the sun, because late legends
tell of his disappearance in a glass house into the sea. The glass
house is the expanse of light travelling with the sun (Merlin),
while the Lady of the Lake who comes daily to solace Merlin in his
enchanted prison is a dawn-goddess. Stonehenge was probably a
temple of this Celtic Zeus “whose late legendary self we have in
Merlin.”439 Such late romantic episodes and
an ætiological myth can hardly be regarded as affording safe
basis for these views, and their mythological interpretation is
more than doubtful. The sun is never prisoner of the dawn as Merlin
is of Viviane. Merlin and his glass house disappear for ever, but
the sun reappears every morning. Even the most poetic mythology
must conform in some degree to actual phenomena, but this cannot be
said of the systems of mythological interpretation. If Merlin
belongs to the pagan period at all, he was probably an ideal
magician or god of magicians, prominent, perhaps, in the Arthur
saga as in the later romances, and credited with a mysterious
origin and an equally mysterious ending, the latter described in
many different ways.
The boastful Kei of the romances appears already in {123}
Kulhwych, while in Geoffrey he is Arthur’s seneschal.440 Nobler traits are his in later
Welsh poetry; he is a mighty warrior, fighting even against a
hundred, though his powers as a toper are also great. Here, too,
his death is lamented.441 He
may thus have been a god of war, and his battle-fury may be
poetically described in a curious passage referring to him in
Kulhwych: “His breath lasted nine days and nine nights under
water. He could remain without sleep for the same period. No
physician could heal a wound inflicted by his sword. When he
pleased he could make himself as tall as the tallest tree in the
wood. And when it rained hardest, whatever he carried remained dry
above and below his hand to the distance of a handbreadth, so great
was his natural heat. When it was coldest he was as glowing fuel to
his companions.”442 This
almost exactly resembles Cúchulainn’s aspect in his
battle-fury. In a curious poem Gwenhyvar (Guinevere) extols his
prowess as a warrior above that of Arthur, and in Kulhwych
and elsewhere there is enmity between the two.443 This may point to Kei’s having
been a god of tribes hostile to those of whom Arthur was hero.
Mabon, one of Arthur’s heroes in Kulhwych and the
Dream of Rhonabwy, whose name, from mab (map),
means “a youth,” may be one with the god Maponos equated with
Apollo in Britain and Gaul, perhaps as a god of healing
springs.444 His mother’s name, Modron, is a
local form of Matrona, a river-goddess and probably one of
the mother-goddesses as her name implies. In the Triads
Mabon is one of the three eminent prisoners of Prydein. To obtain
his help in hunting the magic boar his prison must be found, and
this is done by {124} animals, in accordance with a
Märchen formula, while the words spoken by them show
the immense duration of his imprisonment—perhaps a hint of
his immortality.445 But
he was also said to have died and been buried at Nantlle,446 which, like Gloucester, the place
of his prison, may have been a site of his widely extended
cult.447
Taken as a whole the various gods and heroes of the Brythons, so
far as they are known to us, just as they resemble the Irish
divinities in having been later regarded as mortals, magicians, and
fairies, so they resemble them in their functions, dimly as these
are perceived. They are associated with Elysium, they are lords of
fertility and growth, of the sea, of the arts of culture and of
war. The prominent position of certain goddesses may point to what
has already been discovered of them in Gaul and Ireland—their
pre-eminence and independence. But, like the divinities of Gaul and
Ireland, those of Wales were mainly local in character, and only in
a few cases attained a wider popularity and cult.
Certain British gods mentioned on inscriptions may be identified
with some of those just considered—Nodons with Nudd or Lludd,
Belenos with Belinus or Beli, Maponos with Mabon, Taranos (in
continental inscriptions only), with a Taran mentioned in
Kulhwych.448
Others are referred to in classical {125} writings—Andrasta, a
goddess of victory, to whom Boudicca prayed;449
Sul, a goddess of hot springs, equated with Minerva at Bath.450 Inscriptions also mention Epona,
the horse-goddess; Brigantia, perhaps a form of Brigit; Belisama
(the Mersey in Ptolemy),451 a
goddess in Gaulish inscriptions. Others refer to the group
goddesses, the Matres. Some gods are equated with
Mars—Camulos, known also on the Continent and perhaps the
same as Cumal, father of Fionn; Belatucadros, “comely in
slaughter”; Cocidius, Corotiacus, Barrex, and Totatis (perhaps
Lucan’s Teutates). Others are equated with Apollo in his character
as a god of healing—Anextiomarus, Grannos (at Musselburgh and
in many continental inscriptions), Arvalus, Mogons, etc. Most of
these and many others found on isolated inscriptions were probably
local in character, though some, occurring also on the Continent,
had attained a wider popularity.452 But
some of the inscriptions referring to the latter may be due to
Gaulish soldiers quartered in Britain.
COMPARATIVE TABLE OF DIVINITIES WITH SIMILAR NAMES IN IRELAND,
BRITAIN, AND GAUL.
Italics denote names found in Inscriptions.
| IRELAND. | BRITAIN. | GAUL. |
| Anextiomarus | Anextiomarus | |
| Anu | Anna (?) | Anoniredi, “chariot of Anu” |
| Badb | Bodua | |
| Beli, Belinus | Belenos | |
| Belisama | Belisama | |
| Brigit | Brigantia | Brigindu |
| Bron | Bran | Brennus (?) |
| Buanann | Buanu | |
| Cumal | Camulos | Camulos |
| Danu | Dôn | |
| Epona | Epona | |
| Goibniu | Govannon | |
| Grannos | Grannos | |
| Ler | Llyr | |
| Lug | Llew or Lleu (?) | Lugus, Lugores |
| Mabon, Maponos | Maponos | |
| Manannan | Manawyddan | |
| Matres | Matres | |
| Mider | Medros (?) | |
| Modron | Matrona (?) | |
| Nemon | Nemetona | |
| Nét | Neton | |
| Nuada | Nodons, Nudd | |
| Hael, Llûdd (?) | ||
| Ogma | Ogmíos | |
| Silvanus | Silvanus | |
| Taran | Taranis | |
| Totatis, Tutatis | Teutates |
Footnote 328:(return)The text of the Mabinogion has been edited by Rh[^y]s and
Evans, 1887, and it has been translated into English by Lady Guest,
and more critically, into French, by Loth. Many of the
Triads will be found in Loth’s second volume. For the poetry
see Skene, Four Ancient Books of Wales.
Footnote 329:(return)These incidents are found mainly in the story of Branwen,
e.g. those of the cauldron, a frequent accessory in Irish
tales; the regeneration of the warriors, also found in the story of
Mag-tured, though no cauldron is used; the red-hot house, occurring
also in Mesca Ulad; the description of Bran paralleled by
that of MacCecht.
Footnote 331:(return)Bp. of S. Davids, Vestiges of the Gael in Gwynned, 1851;
Rh[^y]s, TSC 1894-1895, 21.
Footnote 333:(return)Cf. John, The Mabinogion, 1901, 19. Curoi appears as
Kubert, and Conchobar as Knychur in Kulhwych (Loth, i. 202).
A poem of Taliesin has for subject the death of Corroi, son
of Dayry (Curoi mac Daire), Skene, i. 254.
Footnote 336:(return)Anwyl, ZCP ii. 127-128, “The merging of the two legends
[of Dôn and Taliesin] may have arisen through the fusion of
Penllyn with Ardudwy and Arvon.”
Footnote 337:(return)Professor Rh[^y]s thinks that the Llyr family may be pre-Celtic,
TSC 1894-1895, 29 f.; CFL 552.
Footnote 350:(return)See Skene i. 355. The raven is rather the bird of prey come to
devour Urien than his “attribute.”
Footnote 356:(return)Hist. Brit. iii. 1f. Geoffrey says that
Billingsgate was called after Belinus, and that his ashes were
preserved in the gate, a tradition recalling some connection of the
god with the gate.
Footnote 362:(return)Dôn is sometimes held to be male, but she is distinctly
called sister of Math (Loth, i. 134), and as the equivalent of Danu
she must be female.
Footnote 382:(return)See my Childhood of Fiction, 127. Llew’s vulnerability
does not depend on the discovery of his separable soul, as is
usual. The earliest form of this Märchen is the
Egyptian story of the Two Brothers, and that of Samson and Delilah
is another old form of it.
Footnote 396:(return)Rhiannon is daughter of Heveidd Hen or “the Ancient,” probably
an old divinity.
Footnote 397:(return)In the Mabinogi and in Fionn tales a mysterious hand
snatches away newly-born children. Cf. ZCP i. 153.
Footnote 406:(return)Skene, i. 431; Loth, ii. 278. Some phrases seem to connect Beli
with the sea—the waves are his cattle, the brine his
liquor.
Footnote 425:(return)Mon. Hist. Brit. i. 698, ii.; Thomas, Revue de l’hist.
des Religions, xxxviii. 339.
Footnote 426:(return)Skene, i. 263, 274-276, 278, 281-282, 286-287. His “chair”
bestows immortal youth and freedom from sickness.
Footnote 443:(return)Myv. Arch. i. 175; Loth, i. 269. Rh[^y]s, AL 59,
thinks Merlin may have been Guinevere’s ravisher.
Footnote 447:(return)Hu Gadarn is mentioned in the Triads as a leader of the
Cymry from the east and their teacher in ploughing. He divided them
into clans, and invented music and song. The monster avanc
was drawn by him from the lake which had burst and caused the flood
(see p. 231, infra). Perhaps Hu is an
old culture-god of some tribes, but the Triads referring to
him are of late date (Loth, ii. 271, 289, 290-291, 298-299). For
the ridiculous Neo-Druidic speculations based on Hu, see Davies,
Celtic Researches and Mythology and Rites of the
Druids.Gurgiunt, son of Belinus, in Geoffrey, iii. 11, may be the
French legendary Gargantua, perhaps an old god. See the works of
Sébillot and Gaidoz on Gargantua.
CHAPTER VII.
THE CÚCHULAINN CYCLE.
The events of the Cúchulainn cycle are supposed to date
from the beginning of the Christian era—King Conchobar’s
death synchronising with the crucifixion. But though some
personages who are mentioned in the Annals figure in the tales, on
the whole they deal with persons who never existed. They belong to
a world of romance and myth, and embody the ideals of Celtic
paganism, modified by Christian influences and those of classical
tales and romantic sagas of other regions, mainly Scandinavian. The
present form of the tales as they exist in the Book of the Dun
Cow and the Book of Leinster must have been given them
in the seventh or eighth century, but they embody materials of a
far older date. At an early time the saga may have had a more or
less definite form, but new tales were being constantly added to
it, and some of the longer tales are composed of incidents which
once had no connection with each other.
Cúchulainn is the central figure of the cycle, and its
central episode is that of the Táin bó
Cuailgne, or “Cattle Spoil of Cooley.” Other personages are
Conchobar and Dechtire, Ailill and Medb, Fergus, Conall Cernach,
Cúroi, Deirdre, and the sons of Usnach. Some of these are of
divine descent, some are perhaps euhemerised divinities; Conchobar
is called día talmaide, “a terrestrial god,” and
Dechtire a goddess. The cycle opens with the birth of {128}
Conchobar, son of Cathbad and of Nessa, daughter of one of the
Tuatha Dé Danann, though in an older rescension of the tale
he is Nessa’s son by the god Lug. During Conchobar’s reign over
Ulster Cúchulainn was born. He was son of Dechtire, either
by Sualtaim, or by her brother Conchobar, or by the god Lug, of
whom he may also be a reincarnation.453 Like
other heroes of saga, he possesses great strength and skill at a
tender age, and, setting out for Conchobar’s court, overpowers the
king’s “boy corps,” and then becomes their chief. His next
adventure is the slaying of the watch-dog of Culann the smith, and
his appeasing the anger of its owner by offering to act as his
watch-dog. Cathbad now announced that his name would henceforth be
Cú Chulainn, “Culann’s hound.”454 At
the mature age of seven he obtained Conchobar’s spears, sword,
shield, and chariot, and with these he overcame three mighty
champions, returning in the distortion of his “battle-fury” to
Emania. To prevent mischief from his rage, the women went forth
naked to meet him. He modestly covered his eyes, for it was one of
his geasa not to look on a woman’s breast. Thus taken
unawares, he was plunged into three successive vats of cold water
until his natural appearance was restored to him, although the
water boiled and hissed from his heat.455
As Cúchulainn grew up, his strength, skill, wisdom, and
beauty were unsurpassed. All women fell in love with him, and to
forestall a series of bonnes fortunes, the men of Ulster
sought a wife for him. But the hero’s heart was set on Emer,
daughter of Forgall, whom he wooed in a strange language which none
but she could understand. At last she consented to be his
{129} wife if he would slay a number of
warriors. Forgall was opposed to the match, and with a view to
Cúchulainn’s destruction suggested that he should go to
Donall in Alba to increase his skill, and to Scathach if he would
excel all other warriors. He agreed, provided that Forgall would
give him whatever he asked for on his return. Arrived in Alba, he
refused the love of Donall’s daughter, Dornolla, who swore to be
avenged. Thence he went to Scathach, overcoming all the dangers of
the way, leaping in safety the gulf surrounding her island, after
essaying in vain to cross a narrow, swinging bridge. From Scathach
he learned supreme skill in arms, and overcame her Amazonian rival
Aife. He begat a son by Aife, and instructed her to call him Conla,
to give him his father’s ring, to send him to seek
Cúchulainn, and to forbid him to reveal his name. In the
sequel, Cúchulainn, unaware that Conla was his son, slew him
in single combat, too late discovering his identity from the ring
which he wore. This is the well-known saga formula of Sohrab and
Rustum, of Theseus and Hippolytus. On his return from Scathach’s
isle Cúchulainn destroyed Forgall’s rath with many of
its inmates, including Forgall, and carried off Emer. To the ten
years which followed, during which he was the great champion of
Ulster, belong many tales in which he figures prominently. One of
these is The Debility of the Ultonians. This was caused by
Macha, who, during her pregnancy, was forced to run a race with
Conchobar’s horses. She outran them, but gave birth immediately to
twins, and, in her pangs, cursed the men of Ulster, with a curse
that, in time of oppression, they would be overcome with the
weakness of childbirth. From this Cúchulainn was exempt, for
he was not of Ulster, but a son of Lug.456
Various attempts have been {130} made to explain this “debility.” It
may be a myth explaining a Celtic use of the “couvade,” though no
example of a simultaneous tribal couvade is known, unless we have
here an instance of Westermarck’s “human pairing season in
primitive times,” with its consequent simultaneous birth-period for
women and couvade for men.457
Others, with less likelihood, explain it as a period of tabu, with
cessation from work and warfare, at a funeral or festival.458 In any case Macha’s curse is a
myth explanatory of the origin of some existing custom, the
duration of which is much exaggerated by the narrator. To this
period belong also the tale of Cúchulainn’s visit to
Elysium, and others to be referred to later. Another story
describes his attack upon Morrigan because she would neither yield
up the cows which she was driving away nor tell her true
name—an instance of the well-known name tabu. Morrigan took
the form of a bird, and was then recognised by Cúchulainn,
who poured scorn upon her, while she promised to oppose him during
the fight of the Táin in the forms of an eel, a wolf,
and a cow, all of which he vowed to destroy.459
Like many others in the saga, this story is introductory to the
main episode of the Táin. To this we now turn.
Medb had been wife of Conchobar, but, leaving him, had married
in succession two chiefs called Ailill, the second of whom had a
bull, Findbennach, the White-horned, which she resolved to match by
one in every way its equal. Having been refused the Brown Bull of
Cuailgne, she summoned all her forces to invade Ulster. The moment
was inauspicious for Ulster, for all its men were suffering from
their “debility.” Cúchulainn, therefore, went out to
encounter the host, and forced Medb to agree that a succession of
her warriors should {131} engage him in single combat. Among these
was his old friend Ferdia, and nothing is so touching as his
reluctance to fight him or so pathetic as his grief when Ferdia
falls. The reluctance is primarily due to the tie of
blood-brotherhood existing between them. Finally, the Ulstermen
rose in force and defeated Medb, but not before she had already
captured the bull and sent it into her own land. There it was
fought by the Findbennach and slew it, rushing back to Ulster with
the mangled body on its horns. But in its frenzy a rock seemed to
be another bull, which it charged; its brains were dashed out, and
it fell dead.
The Morrigan had warned the bull of the approach of Medb’s army,
and she had also appeared in the form of a beautiful woman to
Cúchulainn offering him her love, only to be repulsed. Hence
she turned against him, and described how she would oppose him as
an eel, a wolf, and a red heifer—an incident which is
probably a variant of that already described.460
In each of these shapes she was conquered and wounded by the hero,
and knowing that none whom he hurt could be healed save by himself,
she appeared to him as an old crone milking a cow. At each draught
of the milk which he received from her he blessed her with “the
blessing of gods and not-gods,” and so her wounds were
healed.461 For this, at a later time, she
tried to ward off his death, but unsuccessfully. During the
progress of the Táin, one of Cúchulainn’s
“fairy kinsmen,” namely, Lug, who announced himself as his father,
appeared to aid him, while others of the Tuatha Déa threw
“herbs of healing” into the streams in which his wounds were
washed.462
During the Táin, Cúchulainn slaughtered the
wizard Calatin and his daughters. But Calatin’s wife bore three
{132} posthumous sons and three daughters, and
through their means the hero was at last slain. Everything was done
to keep him back from the host which now advanced against Ulster,
but finally one of Calatin’s daughters took the form of Niamh and
bade him go forth. As he passed to the fight, Calatin’s daughters
persuaded him to eat the flesh of a dog—a fatal deed, for it
was one of his geasa never to eat dog’s flesh. So it was
that in the fight he was slain by Lugaid,463
and his soul appeared to the thrice fifty queens who had loved him,
chanting a mystic song of the coming of Christ and the day of
doom—an interesting example of a phantasm coincidental with
death.464 This and other Christian touches
show that the Christian redactors of the saga felt tenderly towards
the old pagan hero. This is even more marked in the story in which
he appears to King Loegaire and S. Patrick, begging the former to
believe in God and the saint, and praying Patrick to “bring me with
thy faithful ones unto the land of the living.”465 A similar Christianising appears
in the story of Conchobar’s death, the result of his mad frenzy on
hearing from his Druid that an earthquake is the result of the
shameful crucifixion of Christ.466
In the saga, Cúchulainn appears as the ideal Celtic
warrior, but, like other ideal warriors, he is a “magnified,
non-natural man,” many of his deeds being merely exaggerations of
those common among barbaric folk. Even his “distortion” or battle
frenzy is but a magnifying of the wild frenzy of all wild fighters.
To the person of this ideal warrior, some of whose traits may have
been derived from traditional stories of actual heroes,
Märchen and saga episodes attached themselves. Of every
ideal hero, Celtic, Greek, Babylonian, or {133}
Polynesian, certain things are told—his phenomenal strength
as a child; his victory over enormous forces; his visits to the
Other-world; his amours with a goddess; his divine descent. These
belong to the common stock of folk-tale episodes, and accumulate
round every great name. Hence, save in the colouring given to them
or the use made of them by any race, they do not afford a key to
the mythic character of the hero. Such deeds are ascribed to
Cúchulainn, as they doubtless were to the ideal heroes of
the “undivided Aryans,” but though parallels may be found between
him and the Greek Heracles, they might just as easily be found in
non-Aryan regions, e.g. in Polynesia. Thus the parallels
between Cúchulainn and Heracles throw little light on the
personality of the former, though here and there in such parallels
we observe a peculiarly Celtic touch. Thus, while the Greek hero
rescues Hesione from a dragon, it is from three Fomorians that
Cúchulainn rescues Devorgilla, namely, from beings to whom
actual human sacrifice was paid. Thus a Märchen formula
of world-wide existence has been moulded by Celtic religious belief
and ritual practice.467
It was inevitable that the “mythological school” should regard
Cúchulainn as a solar hero. Thus “he reaches his full
development at an unusually early age,” as the sun does,468 but also as do many other heroes
of saga and Märchen who are not solar. The three
colours of Cúchulainn’s hair, dark near the skin, red in the
middle, golden near the top, are claimed to be a description of the
sun’s rays, or of the three parts into which the Celts divided the
day.469 Elsewhere his tresses are yellow,
like Prince Charlie’s in fact and in song, yet he was not a solar
hero. Again, the seven pupils of his eyes perhaps {134} “referred
to the days of the week.”470
Blindness befell all women who loved him, a reference to the
difficulty of gazing at the sun.471 This
is prosaic! The blindness was a compliment paid to
Cúchulainn the blind, by women who made themselves blind
while talking to him, just as Conall Cernach’s mistresses squinted
as he did.472 Cúchulainn’s blindness
arose from his habit of sinking one eye into his head and
protruding the other—a well-known solar trait! His
“distortion,” during which, besides this “blindness,” blood shot
upwards from his head and formed a magic mist, and his anger caused
showers of sparks to mount above him, points to dawn or
sunset,473 though the setting sun would
rather suggest a hero sinking calmly to rest than a mad giant
setting out to slaughter friend and foe. The “distortion,” as
already pointed out, is the exaggerated description of the mad
warrior rage, just as the fear which produced death to those who
saw him brandish his weapons, was also produced by Maori warrior
methods.474 Lug, who may be a sun-god, has no
such “distortion.” The cooling of the hero in three vats, the
waters of which boil over, and his emergence from them pinky red in
colour, symbolise the sun sinking into the waters and reappearing
at dawn.475 Might it not describe in an
exaggerated way the refreshing bath taken by frenzied warriors, the
water being supposed to grow warm from the heat of their
bodies?476 One of the hero’s geasa
was not to see Manannan’s horses, the waves; which, being
interpreted, means that the sun is near its death as it approaches
the sea. Yet Lug, a sun-god, rides {135} the steed Enbarr, a
personification of the waves, while Cúchulainn himself often
crossed the sea, and also lived with the sea-god’s wife, Fand,
without coming to grief. Again, the magic horses which he drives,
black and grey in colour, are “symbols of day and night,”477 though it is not obvious why a
grey horse should symbolise day, which is not always grey even in
the isles of the west. Unlike a solar hero, too, Cúchulainn
is most active in winter, and rests for a brief space from
slaughtering at midday—the time of the sun’s greatest
activity both in summer and winter.
Another theory is that every visit of the hero to a strange land
signifies a descent to Hades, suggested by the sun sinking in the
west. Scathach’s island may be Hades, but it is more probably
Elysium with some traits borrowed from the Christian idea of hell.
But Emer’s land, also visited by Cúchulainn, suggests
neither Hades nor Elysium. Emer calls herself ingen rig richis
garta, translated by Professor Rh[^y]s as “daughter of the
coal-faced king,” i.e. she is daughter of darkness. Hence
she is a dawn-maiden and becomes the sun-hero’s wife.478 There is nothing in the story to
corroborate this theory, apart from the fact that it is not clear,
even to the hypothetical primitive mind, why dawn and sun should be
a divine pair. Emer’s words probably mean that she is “daughter of
a king” and “a flame of hospitality” (richis garta.)479 Cúchulainn, in visiting
her, went from west to east, contrary to the apparent course of the
sun. The extravagance of the solar theory is further seen in the
hypothesis that because Cúchulainn has other wives, the
sun-god made love to as many dawn-maidens as there are days in the
year,480 like {136} the king
in Louys’ romance with his 366 wives, one for each day of the year,
leap-year included.
Further examples of the solar theory need not be cited. It is
enough to see in Cúchulainn the ideal warrior, whose traits
are bombastic and obscure exaggerations of actual custom and
warfare, or are borrowed from folk-tale motifs not
exclusively Celtic. Possibly he may have been a war-god, since he
is associated with Badb481 and
also with Morrigan. But he has also some traits of a culture hero.
He claims superiority in wisdom, in law, in politics, in the art of
the Filid, and in Druidism, while he brings various things
from the world of the gods482. In
any case the Celts paid divine honours to heroes, living or
dead,483 and Cúchulainn, god or
ideal hero, may have been the subject of a cult. This lends point
to the theory of M. D’Arbois that Cúchulainn and Conall
Cernach are the equivalents of Castor and Pollux, the Dioscuri,
said by Diodorus to be worshipped among the Celts near the
Ocean.484 Cúchulainn, like Pollux,
was son of a god, and was nursed, according to some accounts, by
Findchoém, mother of Conall,485 just
as Leda was mother of Castor as well as of Pollux. But, on the
other hand, Cúchulainn, unlike Pollux, was mortal. M.
D’Arbois then identifies the two pairs of heroes with certain
figures on an altar at Cluny. These are Castor and Pollux;
Cernunnos and Smertullos. He equates Castor with Cernunnos, and
Pollux with Smertullos. Smertullos is Cúchulainn, and the
name is explained from an incident in the Táin, in
which the hero, reproached for his youth, puts on a false beard
before attacking Morrigan in her form as an eel. This is expressed
by smérthain, “to attach”, and is thus connected with
and gave rise to the name Smertullos. On the altar Smertullos is
attacking an eel or serpent. Hence Pollux is {137}
Smertullos-Cúchulainn.486
Again, the name Cernunnos signifies “the horned one,” from
cernu, “horn,” a word found in Conall’s epithet Cernach. But
this was not given him because he was horned, but because of the
angular shape of his head, the angle (cern) being the result
of a blow.487 The epithet may mean
“victorious.”488 On
the whole, the theory is more ingenious than convincing, and we
have no proof that the figures of Castor and Pollux on the altar
were duplicates of the Celtic pair. Cernunnos was an underworld
god, and Conall has no trace of such a character.
M. D’Arbois also traces the saga in Gaul in the fact that on the
menhir of Kervadel Mercury is figured with a child, Mercury, in his
opinion, being Lug, and the child Cúchulainn.489 On another altar are depicted (1)
a woodman, Esus, cutting down a tree, and (2) a bull on which are
perched three birds—Tarvos Trigaranos. The two subjects, as
M. Reinach points out, are combined on another altar at
Trèves, on which a woodman is cutting down a tree in which
are perched three birds, while a bull’s head appears in the
branches.490 These represent, according to M.
D’Arbois, incidents of the Táin—the cutting
down of trees by Cúchulainn and placing them in the way of
his enemies, and the warning of the bull by Morrigan in the bird
form which she shared with her sisters Badb and Macha.491 Why, then, is Cúchulainn
called Esus? “Esus” comes from a root which gives words meaning
“rapid motion,” “anger,” “strength”—all shown by the
hero.492 The altars were found in the land
of the Belgic Treveri, and some Belgic tribes may have passed into
Britain and Ireland carrying the Esus-Cúchulainn legend
there in the second century {138} B.C., e.g. the Setantii,
dwelling by the Mersey, and bearing a name similar to that of the
hero in his childhood—Setanta (Setantios) as well as
the Menapii and Brigantes, located in Ireland by Ptolemy.493 In other words, the divine Esus,
with his surname Smertullos, was called in Ireland Setanta, after
the Setantii, and at a later date, Cúchulainn. The princely
name Donnotaurus resembles Dond tarb, the “Brown Bull” of
the saga, and also suggests its presence in Gaul, while the name
[Greek: dêiotaros], perhaps the equivalent of
De[^u]io-taruos, “Divine Bull,” is found in Galatia.494 Thus the main elements of the
saga may have been known to the continental Celts before it was
localised in Ireland,495 and,
it may be added, if it was brought there by Gallo-British tribes,
this might account for the greater popularity of the native,
possibly pre-Celtic, Fionn saga among the folk, as well as for the
finer literary quality of the Cúchulainn saga. But the
identification of Esus with Cúchulainn rests on slight
grounds; the names Esus and Smertullos are not found in Ireland,
and the Gaulish Esus, worshipped with human sacrifice, has little
affinity with the hero, unless his deeds of slaughter are
reminiscent of such rites. It is possible, however, that the
episode of the Táin came from a myth explaining
ritual acts. This myth may have been the subject of the
bas-reliefs, carried to Ireland, and there worked into the
saga.
The folk-versions of the saga, though resembling the literary
versions, are less elaborate and generally wilder, and perhaps
represent its primitive form.496 The
greatest differences are found in versions of the
Táin and of Cúchulainn’s death, {139} which,
separate in the saga, are parts of one folk-tale, the death
occurring during the fighting over the bull. The bull is his
property, and Medb sends Garbh mac Stairn to take it from him. He
pretends to be a child, goes to bed, and tricks Garbh, who goes off
to get the bull. Cúchulainn arrives before him and
personates the herdsman. Each seizes a horn, and the bull is torn
in two.497 Does this represent the primitive
form of the Táin, and, further, were the bull and
Cúchulainn once one and the same—a bull, the
incarnation of a god or vegetation spirit, being later made
anthropomorphic—a hero-god whose property or symbol was a
bull? Instances of this process are not unknown among the
Celts.498 In India, Indra was a bull and a
divine youth, in Greece there was the bull-Dionysos, and among the
Celts the name of the divine bull was borne by kings.499 In the saga Morrigan is friendly
to the bull, but fights for Medb; but she is now friendly, now
hostile to Cúchulainn, finally, however, trying to avert his
doom. If he had once been the bull, her friendliness would not be
quite forgotten, once he became human and separate from the bull.
When she first met Cúchulainn she had a cow on whom the
Brown Bull was to beget a calf, and she told the hero that “So long
as the calf which is in this cow’s body is a yearling, it is up to
that time that thou art in life; and it is this that will lead to
the Táin.”500 This
suggests that the hero was to die in the battle, but it shows that
the Brown Bull’s calf is bound up his life. The Bull was a
reincarnation of a divine swineherd, {140} and if, as in the case of
Cúchulainn, “his rebirth could only be of himself,”501 the calf was simply a duplicate
of the bull, and, as it was bound up with the hero’s life, bull and
hero may well have been one. The life or soul was in the calf, and,
as in all such cases, the owner of the soul and that in which it is
hidden are practically identical. Cúchulainn’s “distortion”
might then be explained as representing the bull’s fury in fight,
and the folk-tales would be popular forms of an old myth explaining
ritual in which a bull, the incarnation of a tree or vegetation
spirit, was slain, and the sacred tree cut down and consumed, as in
Celtic agricultural ritual. This would be the myth represented on
the bas-reliefs, and in the ritual the bull would be slain, rent,
and eaten by his worshippers. Why, then, should Cúchulainn
rend the bull? In the later stages of such rites the animal was
slain, not so much as a divine incarnation as a sacrifice to the
god once incarnated in him. And when a god was thus separated from
his animal form, myths often arose telling how he himself had slain
the animal.502 In
the case of Cúchulainn and the bull, the god represented by
the bull became separate from it, became anthropomorphic, and in
that form was associated with or actually was the hero
Cúchulainn. Bull sacrifices were common among the Celts with
whom the bull had been a divine animal.503
Possibly a further echo of this myth and ritual is to be found in
the folk-belief that S. Martin was cut up and eaten in the form of
an ox—the god incarnate in the animal being associated with a
saint.504 Thus the literary versions of the
Táin, departing from the hypothetical primitive
versions, kept the bull as the central figure, but introduced a
rival bull, and described its death differently, while both bulls
are said to be reincarnations of divine swine-herds.505 The idea of a fight {141} for a
bull is borrowed from actual custom, and thus the old form of the
story was further distorted.
The Cúchulainn saga is more coherent than the Fionn saga,
because it possesses one central incident. The “canon” of the saga
was closed at an early date, while that of Fionn has practically
never been closed, mainly because it has been more a saga of the
folk than that of Cúchulainn. In some respects the two may
have been rivals, for if the Cúchulainn saga was introduced
by conquerors from Britain or Gaul, it would not be looked on with
favour by the folk. Or if it is the saga of Ulster as opposed to
that of Leinster, rivalry would again ensue. The Fionn saga lives
more in the hearts of the people, though it sometimes borrows from
the other. This borrowing, however, is less than some critics,
e.g. Zimmer, maintain. Many of the likenesses are the result
of the fact that wherever a hero exists a common stock of incidents
becomes his. Hence there is much similarity in all sagas wherever
found.
Footnote 453:(return)IT i. 134; Nutt-Meyer, ii. 38 f.; Windisch,
Táin, 342; L. Duvau, “La Legende de la Conception de
Cúchulainn,” RC ix. 1 f.
Footnote 454:(return)Windisch, Táin, 118 f. For a similar reason
Finnchad was called Cú Cerca, “the hound of Cerc” (IT
iii. 377).
Footnote 456:(return)RC vii. 225; Windisch, Táin, 20. Macha is a
granddaughter of Ler, but elsewhere she is called Mider’s daughter
(RC xvi. 46).
Footnote 458:(return)Miss Hull, Folk-Lore, xii. 60, citing instances from
Jevons, Hist. of Religion, 65.
Footnote 474:(return)Other Celtic heroes undergo this distortion, which resembles the
Scandinavian warrior rage followed by languor, as in the case of
Cúchulainn.
Footnote 479:(return)See Meyer, RC xi. 435; Windisch, IT i. 589, 740.
Though richis means “charcoal,” it is also glossed “flame,”
hence it could only be glowing charcoal, without any idea of
darkness.
Footnote 486:(return)Les Celtes, 58 f. Formerly M. D’Arbois identified
Smertullos with Lug, ii. 217; Holder, i. 46, 262. For the incident
of the beard, see Windisch, Táin, 308.
Footnote 495:(return)In contradiction to this, M. D’Arbois elsewhere thinks that
Druids from Britain may have taught the Cúchulainn legend in
Gaul (RC xxvii. 319).
Footnote 496:(return)See versions in Book of the Dean of Lismore; CM
xiii.; Campbell, The Fians, 6 f.
Footnote 497:(return)CM xiii. 327, 514. The same story is told of Fionn,
ibid. 512. See also ballad versions in Campbell, LF 3
f.
Footnote 499:(return)A Galatian king was called Brogitaros, probably a form of
Brogitaruos, “bull of the province,” a title borne by
Conchobar, tarb in chóicid (IT i. 72). This
with the epithets applied to heroes in the Triads,
“bull-phantom,” “prince bull of combat” (Loth, ii. 232, 243), may
be an appellative denoting great strength.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FIONN SAGA.
The most prominent characters in the Fionn saga, after the death
of Fionn’s father Cumal, are Fionn, his son Oisin, his grandson
Oscar, his nephew Diarmaid with his ball-seire, or
“beauty-spot,” which no woman could resist; Fergus famed for wisdom
and eloquence; Caoilte mac Ronan, the swift; Conan, the comic
character of the saga; Goll mac Morna, the slayer of Cumal, but
later the devoted friend of Fionn, besides a host of less important
personages. Their doings, like those of the heroes of saga and epos
everywhere, are mainly hunting, fighting, and love-making. They
embody much of the Celtic character—vivacity, valour,
kindness, tenderness, as well as boastfulness and fiery temper.
Though dating from pagan times, the saga throws little light upon
pagan beliefs, but reveals much concerning the manners of the
period. Here, as always in early Celtdom, woman is more than a mere
chattel, and occupies a comparatively high place. The various parts
of the saga, like those of the Finnish Kalevala, always
existed separately, never as one complete epos, though always
bearing a certain relation to each other. Lonnrot, in Finland, was
able, by adding a few connecting links of his own, to give unity to
the Kalevala, and had MacPherson been content to do this for
the Fionn saga, instead of inventing, transforming, and serving up
the whole in the manner of the sentimental eighteenth century, what
a boon would he have conferred on Celtic literature. The various
parts of the saga belong to {143} different centuries and come from
different authors, all, however, imbued with the spirit of the
Fionn tradition.
A date cannot be given to the beginnings of the saga, and
additions have been made to it even down to the eighteenth century,
Michael Comyn’s poem of Oisin in Tir na n-Og being as genuine a
part of it as any of the earlier pieces. Its contents are in part
written, but much more oral. Much of it is in prose, and there is a
large poetic literature of the ballad kind, as well as
Märchen of the universal stock made purely Celtic, with
Fionn and the rest of the heroic band as protagonists. The saga
embodies Celtic ideals and hopes; it was the literature of the
Celtic folk on which was spent all the riches of the Celtic
imagination; a world of dream and fancy into which they could enter
at all times and disport themselves. Yet, in spite of its immense
variety, the saga preserves a certain unity, and it is provided
with a definite framework, recounting the origin of the heroes, the
great events in which they were concerned, their deaths or final
appearances, and the breaking up of the Fionn band.
The historic view of the Fians is taken by the annalists, by
Keating, O’Curry, Dr. Joyce, and Dr. Douglas Hyde.506 According to this view, they were
a species of militia maintained by the Irish kings for the support
of the throne and the defence of the country. From Samhain to
Beltane they were quartered on the people, and from Beltane to
Samhain they lived by hunting. How far the people welcomed this
billeting, we are not told. Their method of cooking the game which
they hunted was one well known to all primitive peoples. Holes were
dug in the ground; in them red-hot stones were placed, and on the
stones was laid venison wrapped in sedge. All was then covered
over, and in due time the meat was done to a turn. Meanwhile the
heroes engaged in an elaborate {144} toilette before sitting
down to eat. Their beds were composed of alternate layers of
brushwood, moss, and rushes. The Fians were divided into
Catha of three thousand men, each with its commander, and
officers to each hundred, each fifty, and each nine, a system not
unlike that of the ancient Peruvians. Each candidate for admission
to the band had to undergo the most trying ordeals, rivalling in
severity those of the American Indians, and not improbably genuine
though exaggerated reminiscences of actual tests of endurance and
agility. Once admitted he had to observe certain geasa or
“tabus,” e.g. not to choose his wife for her dowry like
other Celts, but solely for her good manners, not to offer violence
to a woman, not to flee when attacked before less than nine
warriors, and the like.
All this may represent some genuine tradition with respect to a
warrior band, with many exaggerations in details and numbers. Some
of its outstanding heroes may have had names derived from or
corresponding to those of the heroes of an existing saga. But as
time went on they became as unhistorical as their ideal prototypes;
round their names crystallised floating myths and tales; things
which had been told of the saga heroes were told of them; their
names were given to the personages of existing folk-tales. This
might explain the great divergence between the “historical” and the
romantic aspects of the saga as it now exists. Yet we cannot fail
to see that what is claimed as historical is full of exaggeration,
and, in spite of the pleading of Dr. Hyde and other patriots,
little historic fact can be found in it. Even if this exists, it is
the least important part of the saga. What is important is that
part—nine-tenths of the whole—which “is not true
because it cannot be true.” It belongs to the region of the
supernatural and the unreal. But personages, nine-tenths of whose
actions belong to this region, must bear the same character
themselves, and for that reason are all the {145} more
interesting, especially when we remember that the Celts firmly
believed in them and in their exploits. A Fionn myth arose as all
myths do, increasing as time went on, and the historical nucleus,
if it ever existed, was swamped and lost. Throughout the saga the
Fians are more than mere mortals, even in those very parts which
are claimed as historical. They are giants; their story “bristles
with the supernatural”; they are the ideal figures of Celtic legend
throwing their gigantic shadows upon the dim and misty background
of the past. We must therefore be content to assume that whether
personages called Fionn, Oisin, Diarmaid, or Conan, ever existed,
what we know of them now is purely mythical.
Bearing in mind that they are the cherished heroes of popular
fancy in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands, we have now to inquire
whether they were Celtic in origin. We have seen that the Celts
were a conquering people in Ireland, bringing with them their own
religion and mythology, their own sagas and tales reflected now in
the mythological and Cúchulainn cycles, which found a local
habitation in Ireland. Cúchulainn was the hero of a saga
which flourished more among the aristocratic and lettered classes
than among the folk, and there are few popular tales about him. But
it is among the folk that the Fionn saga has always been popular,
and for every peasant who could tell a story of Cúchulainn a
thousand could tell one of Fionn. Conquerors often adopt beliefs,
traditions, and customs of the aboriginal folk, after hostilities
have ceased, and if the pre-Celtic people had a popular hero and a
saga concerning him, it is possible that in time it was accepted by
the Celts or by the lower classes among them. But in the process it
must have been completely Celticised, like the aborigines
themselves; to its heroes were given Celtic names, or they may have
been associated with existing Celtic personages like Cumal, and the
whole saga {146} was in time adapted to the conceptions
and legendary history of the Celts. Thus we might account for the
fact that it has so largely remained without admixture with the
mythological and Cúchulainn cycles, though its heroes are
brought into relation with the older gods. Thus also we might
account for its popularity as compared with the Cúchulainn
saga among the peasantry in whose veins must flow so much of the
aboriginal blood both in Ireland and the Highlands. In other words,
it was the saga of a non-Celtic people occupying both Ireland and
Scotland. If Celts from Western Europe occupied the west of
Scotland at an early date, they may have been so few in number that
their own saga or sagas died out. Or if the Celtic occupation of
the West Highlands originated first from Ireland, the Irish may
have been unable to impose their Cúchulainn saga there, or
if they themselves had already adopted the Fionn saga and found it
again in the Highlands, they would but be the more attached to what
was already localised there. This would cut the ground from the
theory that the Fionn saga was brought to Scotland from Ireland,
and it would account for its popularity in the Highlands, as well
as for the fact that many Fionn stories are attached to Highland as
well as to Irish localities, while many place-names in both
countries have a Fian origin. Finally, the theory would explain the
existence of so many Märchen about Fionn and his men,
so few about Cúchulainn.
Returning to the theory of the historic aspect of the Fians, it
should be noted that, while, when seen through the eyes of the
annalists, the saga belongs to a definite historical period, when
viewed by itself it belongs to a mythic age, and though the Fians
are regarded as champions of Ireland, their foes are usually of a
supernatural kind, and they themselves move in a magic atmosphere.
They are also brought into connection with the unhistoric Tuatha
Dé Danann; they fight with them {147} or for
them; they have amours with or wed their women; and some of the
gods even become members of the Fian band. Diarmaid was the darling
of the gods Oengus and Manannan, and in his direst straits was
assisted by the former. In all this we are in the wonderland of
myth, not the terra firma of history. There is a certain
resemblance between the Cúchulainn and Fionn sagas, but no
more than that which obtains between all sagas everywhere. Both
contain similar incidents, but these are the stock episodes of
universal saga belief, fitted to the personages of individual
sagas. Hence we need not suppose with Professor Windisch that the
mythic incidents of the Fionn saga are derived from the
Cúchulainn cycle.
The personages against whom Fionn and his men fight show the
mythic nature of the saga. As champions of Leinster they fight the
men of Ulster and Connaught, but they also war against oversea
invaders—the Lochlanners. While Lochlann may mean any land
beyond the sea, like the Welsh Llychlyn it probably meant
“the fabulous land beneath the lakes or the waves of the sea,” or
simply the abode of hostile, supernatural beings. Lochlanners would
thus be counterparts of the Fomorians, and the conflicts of the
Fians with them would reflect old myths. But with the Norse
invasions, the Norsemen became the true Lochlanners, against whom
Fionn and his men fight as Charlemagne fought Muhammadans—a
sheer impossibility. Professor Zimmer, however, supposes that the
Fionn saga took shape during the Norse occupation from the ninth
century onwards. Fionn is half Norse, half Irish, and equivalent to
Caittil Find, who commanded the apostate Irish in the ninth
century, while Oisin and Oscar are the Norse Asvin and Asgeirr. But
it is difficult to understand why one who was half a Norseman
should become the chosen hero of the Celts in {148} the very
age in which Norsemen were their bitter enemies, and why Fionn, if
of Norse origin, fights against Lochlanners, i.e. Norsemen.
It may also be inquired why the borrowing should have affected the
saga only, not the myths of the gods. No other Celtic scholar has
given the slightest support to this brilliant but audacious theory.
On the other hand, if the saga has Norse affinities, and if it is,
in origin, pre-Celtic, these may be sought in an earlier connection
of Ireland with Scandinavia in the early Bronze Age. Ireland had a
flourishing civilisation then, and exported beautiful gold
ornaments to Scandinavia, where they are still found in Bronze Age
deposits.507 This flourishing civilisation was
overwhelmed by the invasion of the Celtic barbarians. But if the
Scandinavians borrowed gold and artistic decorations from Ireland,
and if the Fionn saga or part of it was already in existence, why
should they not have borrowed some of its incidents, or why, on the
other hand, should not some episodes have found their way from the
north to Ireland? We should also consider, however, that similar
incidents may have been evolved in both countries on similar lines
and quite independently.
The various contents of the saga can only be alluded to in the
briefest manner. Fionn’s birth-story belongs to the well-known
“Expulsion and Return” formula, applied to so many heroes of saga
and folk-tale, but highly elaborated in his case at the hands of
the annalists. Thus his father Cumal, uncle of Conn the Hundred
Fighter, 122-157 A.D., wished to wed Muirne, daughter of Conn’s
chief druid, Tadg. Tadg refused, knowing that through this marriage
he would lose his ancestral seat. Cumal seized Muirne and married
her, and the king, on Tadg’s appeal, sent an army against him.
Cumal was slain; Muirne fled to his sister, and gave {149} birth to
Demni, afterwards known as Fionn. Perhaps in accordance with old
matriarchal usage, Fionn’s descent through his mother is
emphasised, while he is related to the ancient gods, Tadg being son
of Nuada. This at once points to the mythical aspect of the saga.
Cumal may be identical with the god Camulos. In a short time,
Fionn, now a marauder and an outlaw, appeared at Conn’s Court, and
that same night slew one of the Tuatha Déa, who came yearly
and destroyed the palace. For this he received his rightful
heritage—the leadership of the Fians, formerly commanded by
Cumal.508 Another incident of Fionn’s youth
tells how he obtained his “thumb of knowledge.” The eating of
certain “salmon of knowledge” was believed to give inspiration, an
idea perhaps derived from earlier totemistic beliefs. The bard
Finnéces, having caught one of the coveted salmon, set his
pupil Fionn to cook it, forbidding him to taste it. But as he was
turning the fish Fionn burnt his thumb and thrust it into his
mouth, thus receiving the gift of inspiration. Hereafter he had
only to suck his thumb in order to obtain secret information.509 In another story the inspiration
is already in his thumb, as Samson’s strength was in his hair,
{150} but the power is also partly in his
tooth, under which, after ritual preparation, he has to place his
thumb and chew it.510
Fionn had many wives and sweethearts, one of them, Saar, being
mother of Oisin. Saar was turned into a fawn by a Druid, and fled
from Fionn’s house. Long after he found a beast-child in the forest
and recognised him as his son. He nourished him until his beast
nature disappeared, and called him Oisin, “little fawn.” Round this
birth legend many stories sprang up—a sure sign of its
popularity.511
Oisin’s fame as a poet far excelled that of Fionn, and he became
the ideal bard of the Gaels.
By far the most passionate and tragic story of the saga is that
of Diarmaid and Grainne, to whom Fionn was betrothed. Grainne put
geasa upon Diarmaid to elope with her, and these he could
not break. They fled, and for many days were pursued by Fionn, who
at last overtook them, but was forced by the Fians to pardon the
beloved hero. Meanwhile Fionn waited for his revenge. Knowing that
it was one of Diarmaid’s geasa never to hunt a wild boar, he
invited him to the chase of the boar of Gulban. Diarmaid slew it,
and Fionn then bade him measure its length with his foot. A bristle
pierced his heel, and he fell down in agony, beseeching Fionn to
bring him water in his hand, for if he did this he would heal him.
In spite of repeated appeals, Fionn, after bringing the water, let
it drip from his hands. Diarmaid’s brave soul passed away, and on
Fionn’s character this dire blot was fixed for ever.512
Other tales relate how several of the Fians were spirited away
to the Land beyond the Seas, how they were rescued, {151} how
Diarmaid went to Land under Waves, and how Fionn and his men were
entrapped in a Fairy Palace. Of greater importance are those which
tell the end of the Fian band. This, according to the annalists,
was the result of their exactions and demands. Fionn was told by
his wife, a wise woman, never to drink out of a horn, but coming
one day thirsty to a well, he forgot this tabu, and so brought the
end near. He encountered the sons of Uirgrenn, whom he had slain,
and in the fight with them he fell.513 Soon
after were fought several battles, culminating in that of Gabhra in
which all but a few Fians perished. Among the survivors were Oisin
and Caoilte, who lingered on until the coming of S. Patrick.
Caoilte remained on earth, but Oisin, whose mother was of the
síd folk, went to fairyland for a time, ultimately
returning and joining S. Patrick’s company.514
But a different version is given in the eighteenth century poem of
Michael Comyn, undoubtedly based on popular tales. Oisin met the
Queen of Tir na n-Og and went with her to fairyland, where time
passed as a dream until one day he stood on a stone against which
she had warned him. He saw his native land and was filled with
home-sickness. The queen tried to dissuade him, but in vain. Then
she gave him a horse, warning him not to set foot on Irish soil. He
came to Ireland; and found it all changed. Some puny people were
trying in vain to raise a great stone, and begged the huge stranger
to help them. He sprang from his horse and flung the stone from its
resting-place. But when he turned, his horse was gone, and he had
become a decrepit old man. Soon after he met S. Patrick and related
the tale to him.
Of most of the tales preserved in twelfth to fifteenth century
{152} MSS. it may be said that in essence they
come down to us from a remote antiquity, like stars pulsing their
clear light out of the hidden depths of space. Many of them exist
as folk-tales, often wild and weird in form, while some folk-tales
have no literary parallels. Some are Märchen with
members of the Fian band as heroes, and of these there are many
European parallels. But it is not unlikely that, as in the case of
the Cúchulainn cycle, the folk versions may be truer to the
original forms of the saga than the rounded and polished literary
versions. Whatever the Fians were in origin—gods, mythic
heroes, or actual personages—it is probable that a short
Heldensage was formed in early times. This slowly expanded,
new tales were added, and existing Märchen
formulæ were freely made use of by making their heroes the
heroes of the saga. Then came the time when many of the tales were
written down, while later they were adapted to a scheme of Irish
history, the heroes becoming warriors of a definite historic
period, or perhaps connected with such warriors. But these heroes
belonged to a timeless world, whose margins are “the shore of old
romance,” and it was as if they, who were not for an age but for
all time, scorned to become the puppets of the page of history.
The earliest evidence of the attitude of the ecclesiastical
world to these heroes is found in the Agallamh na Senorach,
or “Colloquy of the Ancients.”515 This
may have been composed in the thirteenth century, and its author
knew scores of Fionn legends. Making use of the tradition that
Caoilte and Oisin had met S. Patrick, he makes Caoilte relate many
of the tales, usually in connection with some place-name of Fian
origin. The saint and his followers are amazed at the huge stature
of the Fians, but Patrick asperges them with holy water, and hosts
of demons flee from them. At each tale which Caoilte tells, the
saint says, “Success and benediction, Caoilte. All this is to us a
{153} recreation of spirit and of mind, were
it only not a destruction of devotion and a dereliction of prayer.”
But presently his guardian angel appears, and bids him not only
listen to the tales but cause them to be written down. He and his
attendant clerics now lend a willing ear to the recital and
encourage the narrator with their applause. Finally, baptism is
administered to Caoilte and his men, and by Patrick’s intercessions
Caoilte’s relations and Fionn himself are brought out of hell. In
this work the representatives of paganism are shown to be on terms
of friendliness with the representatives of Christianity.
But in Highland ballads collected in the sixteenth century by
the Dean of Lismore, as well as in Irish ballads found in MSS.
dating from the seventeenth century onwards, the saint is a sour
and intolerant cleric, and the Fians are equally intolerant and
blasphemous pagans. There is no attempt at compromise; the saint
rejoices that the Fian band are in hell, and Oisin throws contempt
on the God of the shaven priests. But sometimes this contempt is
mingled with humour and pathos. Were the heroes of Oisin’s band now
alive, scant work would be made of the monks’ bells, books, and
psalm-singing. It is true that the saint gives the weary old man
hospitality, but Oisin’s eyes are blinded with tears as he thinks
of the departed glories of the Fians, and his ears are tormented
“by jangling bells, droning psalms, and howling clerics.” These
ballads probably represent one main aspect of the attitude of the
Church to Celtic paganism. How, then, did the more generous
Colloquy come into being? We must note first that some of
the ballads have a milder tone. Oisin is urged to accept the faith,
and he prays for salvation. Probably these represent the beginning
of a reaction in favour of the old heroes, dating from a time when
the faith was well established. There was no danger of a pagan
revival, and, provided the Fians were Christianised, it might be
legitimate {154} to represent them as heroic and noble.
The Colloquy would represent the high-water mark of this
reaction among the lettered classes, for among the folk, to judge
by popular tales, the Fians had never been regarded in other than a
favourable light. The Colloquy re-established the dignity of
the Fian band in the eyes of official Christianity. They are
baptized or released from hell, and in their own nature they are
virtuous and follow lofty ideals. “Who or what was it that
maintained you in life?” asks Patrick. And Caoilte gives the noble
reply, “Truth that was in our hearts, and strength in our arms, and
fulfilment in our tongues.” Patrick says of Fionn: “He was a king,
a seer, a poet, a lord with a manifold and great train; our
magician, our knowledgeable one, our soothsayer; all whatsoever he
said was sweet with him. Excessive, perchance, as ye deem my
testimony of Fionn, although ye hold that which I say to be
overstrained, nevertheless, and by the King that is above me, he
was three times better still.” Not only so, but Caoilte maintains
that Fionn and his men were aware of the existence of the true God.
They possessed the anima naturaliter Christiana. The growing
appreciation of a wider outlook on life, and possibly acquaintance
with the romances of chivalry, made the composition of the
Colloquy possible, but, again, it may represent a more
generous conception of paganism existing from the time of the first
encounter of Christianity with it in Ireland.
The strife of creeds in Ireland, the old order changing, giving
place to new, had evidently impressed itself on the minds of Celtic
poets and romancers. It suggested itself to them as providing an
excellent “situation”; hence we constantly hear of the meeting of
gods, demigods, or heroes with the saints of the new era.
Frequently they bow before the Cross, they are baptized and receive
the Christian verity, as in the Colloquy and in some
documents of the Cúchulainn cycle. Probably {155} no other
European folk-literature so takes advantage of just this situation,
this meeting of creeds, one old and ready to vanish away, the other
with all the buoyant freshness of youth.
Was MacPherson’s a genuine Celtic epic unearthed by him and by
no one else? No mortal eye save his has ever seen the original, but
no one who knows anything of the contents of the saga can deny that
much of his work is based on materials collected by him. He knew
some of the tales and ballads current among the folk, possibly also
some of the Irish MS. versions. He saw that there was a certain
unity among them, and he saw that it was possible to make it more
evident still. He fitted the floating incidents into an epic
framework, adding, inventing, altering, and moulding the whole into
an English style of his own. Later he seems to have translated the
whole into Gaelic. He gave his version to the world, and found
himself famous, but he gave it as the genuine translation of a
genuine Celtic epic. Here was his craft; here he was the “charlatan
of genius.” His genius lay in producing an epic which people were
willing to read, and in making them believe it to be not his work
but that of the Celtic heroic age. Any one can write an epic, but
few can write one which thousands will read, which men like
Chateaubriand, Goethe, Napoleon, Byron, and Coleridge will admire
and love, and which will, as it were, crystallise the aspirations
of an age weary with classical formalism. MacPherson introduced his
readers to a new world of heroic deeds, romantic adventure,
deathless love, exquisite sentiments sentimentally expressed. He
changed the rough warriors and beautiful but somewhat unabashed
heroines of the saga into sentimental personages, who suited the
taste of an age poised between the bewigged and powdered formalism
of the eighteenth century, and the outburst of new ideals which was
to follow. His Ossian is a cross between Pope’s Homer
and Byron’s Childe Harold. His {156} heroes
and heroines are not on their native heath, and are uncertain
whether to mince and strut with Pope or to follow nature with
Rousseau’s noble savages and Saint Pierre’s Paul and Virginia. The
time has gone when it was heresy to cast doubt upon the genuineness
of MacPherson’s epic, but if any one is still doubtful, let him
read it and then turn to the existing versions, ballads, and tales.
He will find himself in a totally different atmosphere, and will
recognise in the latter the true epic note—the warrior’s rage
and the warrior’s generosity, dire cruelty yet infinite tenderness,
wild lust yet also true love, a world of magic supernaturalism, but
an exact copy of things as they were in that far-off age. The
barbarism of the time is in these old tales—deeds which make
one shiver, customs regarding the relations of the sexes now found
only among savages, social and domestic arrangements which are
somewhat lurid and disgusting. And yet, withal, the note of
bravery, of passion, of authentic life is there; we are held in the
grip of genuine manhood and womanhood. MacPherson gives a picture
of the Ossianic age as he conceived it, an age of Celtic history
that “never was on sea or land.” Even his ghosts are un-Celtic,
misty and unsubstantial phantasms, unlike the embodied
revenants of the saga which are in agreement with the Celtic
belief that the soul assumed a body in the other world. MacPherson
makes Fionn invariably successful, but in the saga tales he is
often defeated. He mingles the Cúchulainn and Ossianic
cycles, but these, save in a few casual instances, are quite
distinct in the old literature. Yet had not his poem been so great
as it is, though so un-Celtic, it could not have influenced all
European literature. But those who care for genuine Celtic
literature, the product of a people who loved nature, romance,
doughty deeds, the beauty of the world, the music of the sea and
the birds, the mountains, valour in men, beauty in women, will find
all these {157} in the saga, whether in its literary or
its popular forms. And through it all sounds the undertone of
Celtic pathos and melancholy, the distant echo
“Of old unhappy, far-off things
And battles long ago.”
Footnote 508:(return)The popular versions of this early part of the saga differ much
in detail, but follow the main outlines in much the same way. See
Curtin, HTI 204; Campbell, LF 33 f.; WHT iii.
348.
Footnote 509:(return)In a widespread group of tales supernatural knowledge is
obtained by eating part of some animal, usually a certain snake. In
many of these tales the food is eaten by another person than he who
obtained it, as in the case of Fionn. Cf. the Welsh story of Gwion,
p. 116, and the Scandinavian of Sigurd, and other parallels in Miss
Cox, Cinderella, 496; Frazer, Arch. Rev. i. 172 f.
The story is thus a folk-tale formula applied to Fionn, doubtless
because it harmonised with Celtic or pre-Celtic totemistic ideas.
But it is based on ancient ideas regarding the supernatural
knowledge possessed by reptiles or fish, and among American
Indians, Maoris, Solomon Islanders, and others there are figured
representations of a man holding such an animal, its tongue being
attached to his tongue. He is a shaman, and American Indians
believe that his inspiration comes from the tongue of a mysterious
river otter, caught by him. See Dall, Bureau of Ethnol. 3rd
report; and Miss Buckland, Jour. Anth. Inst. xxii. 29.
Footnote 512:(return)Numerous ballad versions are given in Campbell LF 152 f.
The tale is localised in various parts of Ireland and the
Highlands, many dolmens in Ireland being known as Diarmaid and
Grainne’s beds.
Footnote 514:(return)O’Grady, ii. 102. This, on the whole, agrees with the Highland
ballad version, LF 198.
CHAPTER IX.
GODS AND MEN.
Though man usually makes his gods in his own image, they are
unlike as well as like him. Intermediate between them and man are
ideal heroes whose parentage is partly divine, and who may
themselves have been gods. One mark of the Celtic gods is their
great stature. No house could contain Bran, and certain divine
people of Elysium who appeared to Fionn had rings “as thick as a
three-ox goad.”516 Even
the Fians are giants, and the skull of one of them could contain
several men. The gods have also the attribute of invisibility, and
are only seen by those to whom they wish to disclose themselves, or
they have the power of concealing themselves in a magic mist. When
they appear to mortals it is usually in mortal guise, sometimes in
the form of a particular person, but they can also transform
themselves into animal shapes, often that of birds. The animal
names of certain divinities show that they had once been animals
pure and simple, but when they became anthropomorphic, myths would
arise telling how they had appeared to men in these animal shapes.
This, in part, accounts for these transformation myths. The gods
are also immortal, though in myth we hear of their deaths. The
Tuatha Dé Danann are “unfading,” their “duration is
perennial.”517 This
immortality is sometimes an inherent quality; sometimes it is the
result of eating immortal food—Manannan’s {159} swine,
Goibniu’s feast of age and his immortal ale, or the apples of
Elysium. The stories telling of the deaths of the gods in the
annalists may be based on old myths in which they were said to die,
these myths being connected with ritual acts in which the human
representatives of gods were slain. Such rites were an inherent
part of Celtic religion. Elsewhere the ritual of gods like Osiris
or Adonis, based on their functions as gods of vegetation, was
connected with elaborate myths telling of their death and revival.
Something akin to this may have occurred among the Celts.
The divinities often united with mortals. Goddesses sought the
love of heroes who were then sometimes numbered among the gods, and
gods had amours with the daughters of men.518
Frequently the heroes of the sagas are children of a god or goddess
and a mortal,519 and
this divine parentage was firmly believed in by the Celts, since
personal names formed of a divine name and -genos or
-gnatos, “born of,” “son of,” are found in inscriptions over
the whole Celtic area, or in Celtic documents—Boduogenos,
Camulognata, etc. Those who first bore these names were believed to
be of divine descent on one side. Spirits of nature or the elements
of nature personified might also be parents of mortals, as a name
like Morgen, from Morigenos, “Son of the Sea,” and many
others suggest. For this and for other reasons the gods frequently
interfere in human affairs, assisting their children or their
favourites. Or, again, they seek the aid of mortals or of the
heroes of the sagas in their conflicts or in time of distress, as
when Morrigan besought healing from Cúchulainn.
As in the case of early Greek and Roman kings, Celtic kings who
bore divine names were probably believed to be {160}
representatives or incarnations of gods. Perhaps this explains why
a chief of the Boii called himself a god and was revered after his
death, and why the Gauls so readily accepted the divinity of
Augustus. Irish kings bear divine names, and of these Nuada occurs
frequently, one king, Irél Fáith, being identified
with Nuada Airgetlam, while in one text nuadat is glossed
in ríg, “of the king,” as if Nuada had come to
be a title meaning “king.” Welsh kings bear the name Nudd (Nodons),
and both the actual and the mythic leader Brennus took their name
from the god Bran. King Conchobar is called día
talmaide, “a terrestrial god.” If kings were thought to be
god-men like the Pharaohs, this might account for the frequency of
tales about divine fatherhood or reincarnation, while it would also
explain the numerous geasa which Irish kings must observe,
unlike ordinary mortals. Prosperity was connected with their
observance, though this prosperity was later thought to depend on
the king’s goodness. The nature of the prosperity—mild
seasons, abundant crops, fruit, fish, and cattle—shows that
the king was associated with fertility, like the gods of
growth.520 Hence they had probably been once
regarded as incarnations of such gods. Wherever divine kings are
found, fertility is bound up with them and with the due observance
of their tabus. To prevent misfortune to the land, they are slain
before they grow old and weak, and their vigour passes on to their
successors. Their death benefits their people.521 But frequently the king might
reign as long as he could hold his own against all comers, or,
again, a slave or {161} criminal was for a time treated as a
mock king, and slain as the divine king’s substitute. Scattered
hints in Irish literature and in folk survivals show that some such
course as this had been pursued by the Celts with regard to their
divine kings, as it was also elsewhere.522 It
is not impossible that some at least of the Druids stood in a
similar relation to the gods. Kings and priests were probably at
first not differentiated. In Galatia twelve “tetrarchs” met
annually with three hundred assistants at Drunemeton as the great
national council.523 This
council at a consecrated place (nemeton), its likeness to
the annual Druidic gathering in Gaul, and the possibility that
Dru– has some connection with the name “Druid,” point to a
religious as well as political aspect of this council. The
“tetrarchs” may have been a kind of priest-kings; they had the
kingly prerogative of acting as judges as had the Druids of Gaul.
The wife of one of them was a priestess,524
the office being hereditary in her family, and it may have been
necessary that her husband should also be a priest. One tetrarch,
Deiotarus, “divine bull,” was skilled in augury, and the
priest-kingship of Pessinus was conferred on certain Celts in the
second century B.C., as if the double office were already a Celtic
institution.525
Mythic Celtic kings consulted the gods without any priestly
intervention, and Queen Boudicca had priestly functions.526 Without giving these hints undue
emphasis, we may suppose that the differentiation of the two
offices would not be simultaneous over the Celtic area.
{162} But when it did take effect priests
would probably lay claim to the prerogatives of the priest-king as
incarnate god. Kings were not likely to give these up, and where
they retained them priests would be content with seeing that the
tabus and ritual and the slaying of the mock king were duly
observed. Irish kings were perhaps still regarded as gods, though
certain Druids may have been divine priests, since they called
themselves creators of the universe, and both continental and Irish
Druids claimed superiority to kings. Further, the name [Greek:
semnotheoi], applied along with the name “Druids” to Celtic
priests, though its meaning is obscure, points to divine
pretensions on their part.527
The incarnate god was probably representative of a god or spirit
of earth, growth, or vegetation, represented also by a tree. A
symbolic branch of such a tree was borne by kings, and perhaps by
Druids, who used oak branches in their rites.528
King and tree would be connected, the king’s life being bound up
with that of the tree, and perhaps at one time both perished
together. But as kings were represented by a substitute, so the
sacred tree, regarded as too sacred to be cut down, may also have
had its succedaneum. The Irish bile or sacred tree,
connected with the kings, must not be touched by any impious hand,
and it was sacrilege to cut it down.529
Probably before cutting down the tree a branch or something growing
upon it, e.g. mistletoe, had to be cut, or the king’s
symbolic branch secured before he could be slain. This may explain
Pliny’s account of the mistletoe rite. The mistletoe or branch was
the soul of the tree, and also contained the life of the divine
representative. It must be plucked before the tree could be cut
down or the victim slain. Hypothetical as this may be, Pliny’s
account is incomplete, or he is relating {163} something
of which all the details were not known to him. The rite must have
had some other purpose than that of the magico-medical use of the
mistletoe which he describes, and though he says nothing of cutting
down the tree or slaying a human victim, it is not unlikely that,
as human sacrifice had been prohibited in his time, the oxen which
were slain during the rite took the place of the latter. Later
romantic tales suggest that, before slaying some personage, the
mythico-romantic survivor of a divine priest or king, a branch
carried by him had to be captured by his assailant, or plucked from
the tree which he defended.530
These may point to an old belief in tree and king as divine
representatives, and to a ritual like that associated with the
Priest of Nemi. The divine tree became the mystic tree of Elysium,
with gold and silver branches and marvellous fruits. Armed with
such a branch, the gift of one of its people, mortals might
penetrate unhindered to the divine land. Perhaps they may be
regarded as romantic forms of the old divine kings with the branch
of the divine tree.
If in early times the spirit of vegetation was feminine, her
representative would be a woman, probably slain at recurring
festivals by the female worshippers. This would explain the slaying
of one of their number at a festival by Namnite women. But when
male spirits or gods superseded goddesses, the divine priest-king
would take the place of the female representative. On the other
hand, just as the goddess became the consort of the god, a female
representative would continue as the divine bride in the ritual of
the sacred marriage, the May Queen {164} of later folk-custom.
Sporadically, too, conservatism would retain female cults with
female divine incarnations, as is seen by the presence of the May
Queen alone in certain folk-survivals, and by many Celtic rituals
from which men were excluded.531
Footnote 520:(return)IT iii. 203; Trip. Life, 507; Annals of the
Four Masters, A.D. 14; RC xxii. 28, 168. Chiefs as well
as kings probably influenced fertility. A curious survival of this
is found in the belief that herrings abounded in Dunvegan Loch when
MacLeod arrived at his castle there, and in the desire of the
people in Skye during the potato famine that his fairy banner
should be waved.
Footnote 521:(return)An echo of this may underlie the words attributed to King
Ailill, “If I am slain, it will be the redemption of many”
(O’Grady, ii. 416).
Footnote 522:(return)See Frazer, Kingship; Cook, Folk-Lore, 1906, “The
European Sky-God.” Mr. Cook gives ample evidence for the existence
of Celtic incarnate gods. With his main conclusions I agree, though
some of his inferences seem far-fetched. The divine king was, in
his view, a sky-god; he was more likely to have been the
representative of a god or spirit of growth or vegetation.
Footnote 525:(return)Cicero, de Div. i. 15, ii. 36; Strabo, xii. 5. 3;
Stachelin, Gesch. der Kleinasiat. Galater.
Footnote 530:(return)Cf. the tales of Gawain and the Green Knight with his holly
bough, and of Gawain’s attempting to pluck the bough of a tree
guarded by Gramoplanz (Weston, Legend of Sir Gawain, 22,
86). Cf. also the tale of Diarmaid’s attacking the defender of a
tree to obtain its fruit, and the subsequent slaughter of each man
who attacks the hero hidden in its branches (TOS vol. iii.).
Cf. Cook, Folk-Lore, xvii. 441.
CHAPTER X.
THE CULT OF THE DEAD.
The custom of burying grave-goods with the dead, or slaying wife
or slaves on the tomb, does not necessarily point to a cult of the
dead, yet when such practices survive over a long period they
assume the form of a cult. These customs flourished among the
Celts, and, taken in connection with the reverence for the
sepulchres of the dead, they point to a worship of ancestral
spirits as well as of great departed heroes. Heads of the slain
were offered to the “strong shades”—the ghosts of tribal
heroes whose praises were sung by bards.532
When such heads were placed on houses, they may have been devoted
to the family ghosts. The honour in which mythic or real heroes
were held may point to an actual cult, the hero being worshipped
when dead, while he still continued his guardianship of the tribe.
We know also that the tomb of King Cottius in the Alps was a sacred
place, that Irish kings were often inaugurated on ancestral burial
cairns, and that Irish gods were associated with barrows of the
dead.533
The cult of the dead culminated at the family hearth, around
which the dead were even buried, as among the Aeduii; this latter
custom may have been general.534 In
any case the belief in the presence of ancestral ghosts around the
hearth was widespread, as existing superstitions show. In
{166} Brittany the dead seek warmth at the
hearth by night, and a feast is spread for them on All Souls’ eve,
or crumbs are left for them after a family gathering.535 But generally the family ghost
has become a brownie, lutin, or pooka, haunting the hearth and
doing the household work.536
Fairy corresponds in all respects to old ancestral ghost, and the
one has succeeded to the place of the other, while the fairy is
even said to be the ghost of a dead person.537
Certain archæological remains have also a connection with
this ancient cult. Among Celtic remains in Gaul are found andirons
of clay, ornamented with a ram’s head. M. Dechelette sees in this
“the symbol of sacrifice offered to the souls of ancestors on the
altar of the hearth.”538 The
ram was already associated as a sacrificial animal with the cult of
fire on the hearth, and by an easy transition it was connected with
the cult of the dead there. It is found as an emblem on ancient
tombs, and the domestic Lar was purified by the immolation of a
ram.539 Figurines of a ram have been
found in Gaulish tombs, and it is associated with the god of the
underworld.540 The
ram of the andirons was thus a permanent representative of the
victim offered in the cult of the dead. A mutilated inscription on
one of them may stand for Laribus augustis, and certain
markings on others may represent the garlands twined round the
victim.541 Serpents with rams’ heads occur
on the monuments of the underworld god. The serpent was a chthonian
god or the {167} emblem of such a god, and it may have
been thought appropriate to give it the head of an animal
associated with the cult of the dead.
The dead were also fed at the grave or in the house. Thus cups
were placed in the recess of a well in the churchyard of
Kilranelagh by those interring a child under five, and the ghost of
the child was supposed to supply the other spirits with water from
these cups.542 In
Ireland, after a death, food is placed out for the spirits, or, at
a burial, nuts are placed in the coffin.543
In some parts of France, milk is poured out on the grave, and both
in Brittany and in Scotland the dead are supposed to partake of the
funeral feast.544
These are survivals from pagan times and correspond to the rites in
use among those who still worship ancestors. In Celtic districts a
cairn or a cross is placed over the spot where a violent or
accidental death has occurred, the purpose being to appease the
ghost, and a stone is often added to the cairn by all
passers-by.545
Festivals were held in Ireland on the anniversaries of the death
of kings or chiefs, and these were also utilised for purposes of
trade, pleasure, or politics. They sometimes occurred on the great
festivals, e.g. Lugnasad and Samhain, and were occasionally
held at the great burial-places.546 Thus
the gathering at Taillti on Lugnasad was said to have been founded
by Lug in memory of his foster-mother, Tailtiu, and the Leinstermen
met at Carman on the same day to commemorate King Garman, or in a
variant account, a woman called Carman. She and her sons had tried
to blight the {168} corn of the Tuatha Dé Danann, but
the sons were driven off and she died of grief, begging that a fair
should always be held in her name, and promising abundance of milk,
fruit, and fish for its observance.547
These may be ætiological myths explaining the origin of these
festivals on the analogy of funeral festivals, but more likely,
since Lugnasad was a harvest festival, they are connected with the
custom of slaying a representative of the corn-spirit. The festival
would become a commemoration of all such victims, but when the
custom itself had ceased it would be associated with one particular
personage, the corn-goddess regarded as a mortal.
This would be the case where the victim was a woman, but where a
male was slain, the analogy of the slaying of the divine king or
his succedaneum would lead to the festivals being regarded
as commemorative of a king, e.g. Garman. This agrees with
the statement that observance of the festival produced plenty;
non-observance, dearth. The victims were slain to obtain plenty,
and the festival would also commemorate those who had died for this
good cause, while it would also appease their ghosts should these
be angry at their violent deaths. Certain of the dead were thus
commemorated at Lugnasad, a festival of fertility. Both the
corn-spirit or divinity slain in the reaping of the corn, and the
human victims, were appeased by its observance.548 The legend of Carman makes her
hostile to the corn—a curious way of regarding a
corn-goddess. But we have already seen that gods of fertility were
sometimes thought of as causing blight, and in folk-belief the
corn-spirit is occasionally believed to be dangerous. Such
inversions occur wherever revolutions in religion take place.
The great commemoration of the dead was held on {169} Samhain
eve, a festival intended to aid the dying powers of vegetation,
whose life, however, was still manifested in evergreen shrubs, in
the mistletoe, in the sheaf of corn from last harvest—the
abode of the corn-spirit.549
Probably, also, human representatives of the vegetation or
corn-spirit were slain, and this may have suggested the belief in
the presence of their ghosts at this festival. Or the festival
being held at the time of the death of vegetation, the dead would
naturally be commemorated then. Or, as in Scandinavia, they may
have been held to have an influence on fertility, as an extension
of the belief that certain slain persons represented spirits of
fertility, or because trees and plants growing on the barrows of
the dead were thought to be tenanted by their spirits.550 In Scandinavia, the dead were
associated with female spirits or fylgjur, identified with
the disir, a kind of earth-goddesses, living in hollow
hills.551 The nearest Celtic analogy to
these is the Matres, goddesses of fertility. Bede says that
Christmas eve was called Modranicht, “Mothers’ Night,”552 and as many of the rites of
Samhain were transferred to Yule, the former date of
Modranicht may have been Samhain, just as the Scandinavian
Disablot, held in November, was a festival of the
disir and of the dead.553 It
has been seen that the Celtic Earth-god was lord of the dead, and
that he probably took the place of an Earth-goddess or goddesses,
to whom the Matres certainly correspond. Hence the
connection of the dead with female Earth-spirits would be
explained. Mother Earth had received the dead before her place was
taken by the Celtic Dispater. Hence the time of Earth’s
{170} decay was the season when the dead, her
children, would be commemorated. Whatever be the reason, Celts,
Teutons, and others have commemorated the dead at the beginning of
winter, which was the beginning of a new year, while a similar
festival of the dead at New Year is held in many other lands.
Both in Ireland and in Brittany, on November eve food is laid
out for the dead who come to visit the houses and to warm
themselves at the fire in the stillness of the night, and in
Brittany a huge log burns on the hearth. We have here returned to
the cult of the dead at the hearth.554
Possibly the Yule log was once a log burned on the hearth—the
place of the family ghosts—at Samhain, when new fire was
kindled in each house. On it libations were poured, which would
then have been meant for the dead. The Yule log and the log of the
Breton peasants would thus be the domestic aspect of the fire
ritual, which had its public aspect in the Samhain bonfires.
All this has been in part affected by the Christian feast of All
Souls. Dr. Frazer thinks that the feast of All Saints (November
1st) was intended to take the place of the pagan cult of the dead.
As it failed to do this, All Souls, a festival of all the dead, was
added on November 2nd.555 To
some extent, but not entirely, it has neutralised the pagan rites,
for the old ideas connected with Samhain still survive here and
there. It is also to be noted that in some cases the friendly
aspect of the dead has been lost sight of, and, like the
síd-folk, they are popularly connected with evil
powers which are in the ascendant on Samhain eve.
Footnote 535:(return)Le Braz, ii. 67; Sauvé, Folk-lore des Hautes
Vosges, 295; Bérenger-Féraud, Superstitions et
Survivances, i. 11.
Footnote 536:(return)Hearn, Aryan Household, 43 f.;
Bérenger-Féraud, i. 33; Rev. des Trad. i. 142;
Carmichael, ii. 329; Cosquin, Trad. Pop. de la Lorraine, i.
82.
Footnote 537:(return)Kennedy, 126. The mischievous brownie who overturns furniture
and smashes crockery is an exact reproduction of the
Poltergeist.
Footnote 541:(return)Dechelette, 257-258. In another instance the ram is marked with
crosses like those engraved on images of the underworld god with
the hammer.
Footnote 545:(return)Le Braz, ii. 47; Folk-Lore, iv. 357; MacCulloch, Misty
Isle of Skye, 254; Sébillot, i. 235-236.
Footnote 546:(return)Names of places associated with the great festivals are also
those of the chief pagan cemeteries, Tara, Carman, Taillti, etc.
(O’Curry, MC ii. 523).
Footnote 550:(return)See Vigfusson-Powell, Corpus Poet. Boreale, i. 405, 419.
Perhaps for a similar reason a cult of the dead may have occurred
at the Midsummer festival.
CHAPTER XI.
PRIMITIVE NATURE WORSHIP.
In early thought everything was a person, in the loose meaning
then possessed by personality, and many such “persons” were
worshipped—earth, sun, moon, sea, wind, etc. This led later
to more complete personification, and the sun or earth divinity or
spirit was more or less separated from the sun or earth themselves.
Some Celtic divinities were thus evolved, but there still continued
a veneration of the objects of nature in themselves, as well as a
cult of nature spirits or secondary divinities who peopled every
part of nature. “Nor will I call out upon the mountains, fountains,
or hills, or upon the rivers, which are now subservient to the use
of man, but once were an abomination and destruction to them, and
to which the blind people paid divine honours,” cries Gildas.556 This was the true cult of the
folk, the “blind people,” even when the greater gods were
organised, and it has survived with modifications in out-of-the-way
places, in spite of the coming of Christianity.
S. Kentigern rebuked the Cambrians for worshipping the elements,
which God made for man’s use.557 The
question of the daughters of Loegaire also throws much light on
Celtic nature worship. “Has your god sons or daughters?… Have
many fostered his sons? Are his daughters dear and beautiful to
men? Is he in heaven or on earth, in the sea, in the rivers, in the
mountains, in the valleys?”558 The
words suggest {172} a belief in divine beings filling
heaven, earth, sea, air, hills, glens, lochs, and rivers, and
following human customs. A naïve faith, full of beauty and
poetry, even if it had its dark and grim aspects! These powers or
personalities had been invoked from time immemorial, but the
invocations were soon stereotyped into definite formulas. Such a
formula is put into the mouth of Amairgen, the poet of the
Milesians, when they were about to invade Erin, and it may have
been a magical invocation of the powers of nature at the beginning
of an undertaking or in times of danger:
“I invoke the land of Ireland!
Shining, shining sea!
Fertile, fertile mountain!
Wooded vale!
Abundant river, abundant in waters!
Fish abounding lake!
Fish abounding sea!
Fertile earth!
Irruption of fish! Fish there!
Bird under wave! Great fish!
Crab hole! Irruption of fish!
Fish abounding sea!”559
A similar formula was spoken after the destruction of Da Derga’s
Hostel by MacCecht on his finding water. He bathed in it and
sang—
“Cold fountain! Surface of strand …
Sea of lake, water of Gara, stream of river;
High spring well; cold fountain!”560
The goddess Morrigan, after the defeat of the Fomorians, invokes
the powers of nature and proclaims the victory to “the royal
mountains of Ireland, to its chief waters, and its river
mouths.”561 It was also customary to take
oaths by the elements—heaven, earth, sun, fire, moon, sea,
land, day, night, {173} etc., and these punished the breaker of
the oath.562 Even the gods exacted such an
oath of each other. Bres swore by sun, moon, sea, and land, to
fulfil the engagement imposed on him by Lug.563
The formulæ survived into Christian times, and the faithful
were forbidden to call the sun and moon gods or to swear by them,
while in Breton folk-custom at the present day oaths by sun, moon,
or earth, followed by punishment of the oath-breaker by the moon,
are still in use.564
These oaths had originated in a time when the elements themselves
were thought to be divine, and similar adjurations were used by
Greeks and Scandinavians.
While the greater objects of nature were worshipped for
themselves alone, the Celts also peopled the earth with spirits,
benevolent or malevolent, of rocks, hills, dales, forests, lakes,
and streams,565 and
while greater divinities of growth had been evolved, they still
believed in lesser spirits of vegetation, of the corn, and of
fertility, connected, however, with these gods. Some of these still
survive as fairies seen in meadows, woodlands, or streams, or as
demoniac beings haunting lonely places. And even now, in French
folk-belief, sun, moon, winds, etc., are regarded as actual
personages. Sun and moon are husband and wife; the winds have
wives; they are addressed by personal names and reverenced.566 Some spirits may already have had
a demoniac aspect in pagan times. The Tuatha Déa conjured up
meisi, “spectral bodies that rise from the ground,” against
the Milesians, and at their service were malignant
sprites—urtrochta, and “forms, spectres, and great
queens” called guidemain (false demons). The Druids also
sent forth mischievous spirits called siabra. In the
Táin there are {174} references to
bocânachs, banânaichs, and
geniti-glinni, “goblins, eldritch beings, and
glen-folk.”567
These are twice called Tuatha Dé Danann, and this suggests
that they were nature-spirits akin to the greater gods.568 The geniti-glinni would be
spirits haunting glen and valley. They are friendly to
Cúchulainn in the Táin, but in the Feast of
Bricriu he and other heroes fight and destroy them.569 In modern Irish belief they are
demons of the air, perhaps fallen angels.570
Much of this is probably pre-Celtic as well as Celtic, but it
held its ground because it was dear to the Celts themselves. They
upheld the aboriginal cults resembling those which, in the lands
whence they came, had been native and local with themselves. Such
cults are as old as the world, and when Christianity expelled the
worship of the greater gods, younger in growth, the ancient nature
worship, dowered with immortal youth,
“bowed low before the blast
In patient deep disdain,”
to rise again in vigour. Preachers, councils, and laws inveighed
against it. The old rites continued to be practised, or survived
under a Christian dress and colouring. They are found in Breton
villages, in Highland glens, in Welsh and Cornish valleys, in Irish
townships, and only the spread of school-board education, with its
materialism and uninviting common sense, is forcing them at last to
yield.
The denunciations of these cults throw some light upon them.
Offerings at trees, stones, fountains, and cross-roads, the
lighting of fires or candles there, and vows or incantations
addressed to them, are forbidden, as is also the worship of trees,
groves, stones, rivers, and wells. The sun and moon {175} are not
to be called lords. Wizardry, and divination, and the leapings and
dancings, songs and choruses of the pagans, i.e. their
orgiastic cults, are not to be practised. Tempest-raisers are not
to ply their diabolical craft.571
These denunciations, of course, were not without their effect, and
legend told how the spirits of nature were heard bewailing the
power of the Christian saints, their mournful cries echoing in
wooded hollows, secluded valleys, and shores of lake and
river.572 Their power, though limited, was
not annihilated, but the secrecy in which the old cults often
continued to be practised gave them a darker colour. They were
identified with the works of the devil, and the spirits of paganism
with dark and grisly demons.573 This
culminated in the mediæval witch persecutions, for witchcraft
was in part the old paganism in a new guise. Yet even that did not
annihilate superstition, which still lives and flourishes among the
folk, though the actual worship of nature-spirits has now
disappeared.
Perhaps the most important object in nature to the early Celts
as to most primitive folk was the moon. The phases of the moon were
apparent before men observed the solstices and equinoxes, and they
formed an easy method of measuring time. The Celtic year was at
first lunar—Pliny speaks of the Celtic method of counting the
beginning of months and years by the moon—and night was
supposed to precede day.574
{176} The festivals of growth began, not at
sunrise, but on the previous evening with the rising of the moon,
and the name La Lunade is still given to the Midsummer
festival in parts of France.575 At
Vallon de la Suille a wood on the slope where the festival is held
is called Bois de la Lune; and in Ireland, where the
festival begins on the previous evening, in the district where an
ascent of Cnoc Aine is made, the position of the moon must be
observed. A similar combination of sun and moon cults is found in
an inscription at Lausanne—To the genius of the sun and
moon.576
Possibly sun festivals took the place of those of the moon.
Traces of the connection of the moon with agriculture occur in
different regions, the connection being established through the
primitive law of sympathetic magic. The moon waxes and wanes,
therefore it must affect all processes of growth or decay. Dr.
Frazer has cited many instances of this belief, and has shown that
the moon had a priority to the sun in worship, e.g. in Egypt
and Babylon.577
Sowing is done with a waxing moon, so that, through sympathy, there
may be a large increase. But harvesting, cutting timber, etc.,
should be done with a waning moon, because moisture being caused by
a waxing moon, it was necessary to avoid cutting such things as
would spoil by moisture at that time. Similar beliefs are found
among the Celts. Mistletoe and other magical plants were culled
with a waxing moon, probably because their {177} power
would thus be greater. Dr. Johnson noted the fact that the
Highlanders sowed their seed with a waxing moon, in the expectation
of a better harvest. For similar occult reasons, it is thought in
Brittany that conception during a waxing moon produces a male
child, during a waning moon a female, while accouchements at
the latter time are dangerous. Sheep and cows should be killed at
the new moon, else their flesh will shrink, but peats should be cut
in the last quarter, otherwise they will remain moist and give out
“a power of smoke.”578
These ideas take us back to a time when it was held that the
moon was not merely the measurer of time, but had powerful effects
on the processes of growth and decay. Artemis and Diana,
moon-goddesses, had power over all growing things, and as some
Celtic goddesses were equated with Diana, they may have been
connected with the moon, more especially as Gallo-Roman images of
Diana have the head adorned with a crescent moon. In some cases
festivals of the moon remained intact, as among the Celtiberians
and other peoples to the north of them, who at the time of full
moon celebrated the festival of a nameless god, dancing all night
before the doors of their houses.579 The
nameless god may have been the moon, worshipped at the time of her
intensest light. Moonlight dances round a great stone, with
singing, on the first day of the year, occurred in the Highlands in
the eighteenth century.580
Other survivals of cult are seen in the practices of bowing or
baring the head at new moon, or addressing it with words of
adoration or supplication. In Ireland, Camden found the custom at
new moon of saying the Lord’s Prayer with the {178} addition
of the words, “Leave us whole and sound as Thou hast found us.”
Similar customs exist in Brittany, where girls pray to the moon to
grant them dreams of their future husbands.581
Like other races, the Celts thought that eclipses were caused by a
monster attacking the moon, while it could be driven off with cries
and shouts. In 218 B.C. the Celtic allies of Attalus were
frightened by an eclipse, and much later Christian legislation
forbade the people to assemble at an eclipse and shout, Vince,
Luna!582 Such a practice was observed in
Ireland in the seventeenth century. At an earlier time, Irish poets
addressed sun and moon as divinities, and they were represented on
altars even in Christian times.583
While the Celts believed in sea-gods—Manannan, Morgen,
Dylan—the sea itself was still personified and regarded as
divine. It was thought to be a hostile being, and high tides were
met by Celtic warriors, who advanced against them with sword and
spear, often perishing in the rushing waters rather than retreat.
The ancients regarded this as bravado. M. Jullian sees in it a
sacrifice by voluntary suicide; M. D’Arbois, a tranquil waiting for
death and the introduction to another life.584
But the passages give the sense of an actual attack on the
waves—living things which men might terrify, and perhaps with
this was combined the belief that no one could die during a rising
tide. Similarly French fishermen threaten to cut a fog in two with
a knife, while the legend of S. Lunaire tells how he threw a knife
at a fog, thus causing its disappearance.585
Fighting the waves is also referred to in Irish texts. {179} Thus
Tuirbe Trágmar would “hurl a cast of his axe in the face of
the flood-tide, so that he forbade the sea, which then would not
come over the axe.” Cúchulainn, in one of his fits of anger,
fought the waves for seven days, and Fionn fought and conquered the
Muireartach, a personification of the wild western sea.586 On the French coast fishermen
throw harpoons at certain harmful waves called the Three Witch
Waves, thus drawing their blood and causing them to subside.587 In some cases human victims may
have been offered to the rising waters, since certain tales speak
of a child set floating on the waves, and this, repeated every
seven years, kept them in their place.588
The sea had also its beneficent aspects. The shore was “a place
of revelation of science,” and the sea sympathised with human
griefs. At the Battle of Ventry “the sea chattered, telling the
losses, and the waves raised a heavy, woeful great moan in wailing
them.”589 In other cases in Ireland, by a
spell put on the waves, or by the intuitive knowledge of the
listener, it was revealed that they were wailing for a death or
describing some distant event.590 In
the beautiful song sung by the wife of Cael, “the wave wails
against the shore for his death,” and in Welsh myth the waves
bewailed the death of Dylan, “son of the wave,” and were eager to
avenge it. The noise of the waves rushing into the vale of Conwy
were his dying groans.591 In
Ireland the roaring of the sea was thought to be prophetic of a
king’s death or the coming of important news; and there, too,
certain great waves were celebrated in story—Clidna’s,
Tuaithe’s, and Rudhraidhe’s.592 Nine
waves, or the ninth wave, {180} partly because of the sacred nature
of the number nine, partly because of the beneficent character of
the waves, had a great importance. They formed a barrier against
invasion, danger, or pestilence, or they had a healing
effect.593
The wind was also regarded as a living being whose power was to
be dreaded. It punished King Loegaire for breaking his oath. But it
was also personified as a god Vintius, equated with Pollux and
worshipped by Celtic sailors, or with Mars, the war-god who, in his
destructive aspect, was perhaps regarded as the nearest analogue to
a god of stormy winds.594
Druids and Celtic priestesses claimed the power of controlling the
winds, as did wizards and witches in later days. This they did,
according to Christian writers, by the aid of demons, perhaps the
old divinities of the air. Bishop Agobard describes how the
tempestarii raised tempests which destroyed the fruits of
the earth, and drew “aerial ships” from Magonia, whither the ships
carried these fruits.595
Magonia may be the upper air ruled over by a sky god Magounos or
Mogounos, equated with Apollo.596 The
winds may have been his servants, ruled also by earthly magicians.
Like Yahweh, as conceived by Hebrew poets, he “bringeth the winds
out of his treasures,” and “maketh lightnings with rain.”
Footnote 565:(return)Gregory of Tours, Hist. ii. 10, speaks of the current
belief in the divinity of waters, birds, and beasts.
Footnote 571:(return)Capit. Karoli Magni, i. 62; Leges Luitprand. ii.
38; Canon 23, 2nd Coun. of Arles, Hefele, Councils, iii.
471; D’Achery, v. 215. Some of these attacks were made against
Teutonic superstitions, but similar superstitions existed among the
Celts.
Footnote 574:(return)Cæsar, vi. 18; Pliny xxii. 14. Pliny speaks of culling
mistletoe on the sixth day of the moon, which is to them the
beginning of months and years (sexta luna, quae principia,
etc.). This seems to make the sixth, not the first, day of the moon
that from which the calculation was made. But the meaning is that
mistletoe was culled on the sixth day of the moon, and that the
moon was that by which months and years were measured. Luna,
not sexta luna, is in apposition with quae. Traces of
the method of counting by nights or by the moon survive locally in
France, and the usage is frequent in Irish and Welsh literature.
See my article “Calendar” (Celtic) in Hastings’ Encyclop. of
Religion and Ethics, iii. 78 f.
Footnote 578:(return)Pliny, xvi. 45; Johnson, Journey, 183; Ramsay,
Scotland in the Eighteenth Century, ii. 449;
Sébillot, i. 41 f.; MacCulloch, Misty Isle of Skye,
236. In Brittany it is thought that girls may conceive by the
moon’s power (RC iii. 452).
Footnote 584:(return)Aristotle, Nic. Eth. iii. 77; Eud. Eth. iii. 1.
25; Stobæus, vii. 40; Ælian, xii. 22; Jullian, 54;
D’Arbois, vi. 218.
Footnote 585:(return)Sébillot, i. 119. The custom of throwing something at a
“fairy eddy,” i.e. a dust storm, is well known on Celtic
ground and elsewhere.
Footnote 586:(return)Folk-Lore, iv. 488; Curtin, HTI 324; Campbell,
The Fians, 158. Fian warriors attacked the sea when told it
was laughing at them.
CHAPTER XII.
RIVER AND WELL WORSHIP.
Among the Celts the testimony of contemporary witnesses,
inscriptions, votive offerings, and survivals, shows the importance
of the cult of waters and of water divinities. Mr. Gomme argues
that Celtic water-worship was derived from the pre-Celtic
aborigines,597 but
if so, the Celts must have had a peculiar aptitude for it, since
they were so enthusiastic in its observance. What probably happened
was that the Celts, already worshippers of the waters, freely
adopted local cults of water wherever they came. Some rivers or
river-goddesses in Celtic regions seem to posses pre-Celtic
names.598
Treasures were flung into a sacred lake near Toulouse to cause a
pestilence to cease. Caepion, who afterwards fished up this
treasure, fell soon after in battle—a punishment for
cupidity, and aurum Tolosanum now became an expression for
goods dishonestly acquired.599 A
yearly festival, lasting three days, took place at Lake
Gévaudan. Garments, food, and wax were thrown into the
waters, and animals were sacrificed. On the fourth day, it is said,
there never failed to spring up a tempest of rain, thunder, and
lightning—a strange reward for this worship of the
lake.600 S. Columba routed the spirits of
a Scottish fountain which was worshipped as a god, and {182} the well
now became sacred, perhaps to the saint himself, who washed in it
and blessed it so that it cured diseases.601
On inscriptions a river name is prefixed by some divine
epithet—dea, augusta, and the worshipper
records his gratitude for benefits received from the divinity or
the river itself. Bormanus, Bormo or Borvo, Danuvius (the Danube),
and Luxovius are found on inscriptions as names of river or
fountain gods, but goddesses are more numerous—Acionna,
Aventia, Bormana, Brixia, Carpundia, Clutoida, Divona, Sirona,
Ura—well-nymphs; and Icauna (the Yonne), Matrona, and Sequana
(the Seine)—river-goddesses.602 No
inscription to the goddess of a lake has yet been found. Some
personal names like Dubrogenos (son of the Dubron), Enigenus (son
of the Aenus), and the belief of Virdumarus that one of his
ancestors was the Rhine,603
point to the idea that river-divinities might have amours with
mortals and beget progeny called by their names. In Ireland,
Conchobar was so named from the river whence his mother Nessa drew
water, perhaps because he was a child of the river-god.604
The name of the water-divinity was sometimes given to the place
of his or her cult, or to the towns which sprang up on the banks of
rivers—the divinity thus becoming a tutelary god. Many towns
(e.g. Divonne or Dyonne, etc.) have names derived from a
common Celtic river name Deuona, “divine.” This name in various
forms is found all over the Celtic area,605
and there is little doubt that the Celts, in their onward progress,
named river after river by the name of the same {183} divinity,
believing that each new river was a part of his or her kingdom. The
name was probably first an appellative, then a personal name, the
divine river becoming a divinity. Deus Nemausus occurs on votive
tablets at Nimes, the name Nemausus being that of the clear and
abundant spring there whence flowed the river of the same name. A
similar name occurs in other regions—Nemesa, a tributary of
the Moselle; Nemh, the source of the Tara and the former name of
the Blackwater; and Nimis, a Spanish river mentioned by Appian.
Another group includes the Matrona (Marne), the Moder, the Madder,
the Maronne and Maronna, and others, probably derived from a word
signifying “mother.”606 The
mother-river was that which watered a whole region, just as in the
Hindu sacred books the waters are mothers, sources of fertility.
The Celtic mother-rivers were probably goddesses, akin to the
Matres, givers of plenty and fertility. In Gaul, Sirona, a
river-goddess, is represented like the Matres. She was
associated with Grannos, perhaps as his mother, and Professor
Rh[^y]s equates the pair with the Welsh Modron and Mabon; Modron is
probably connected with Matrona.607 In
any case the Celts regarded rivers as bestowers of life, health,
and plenty, and offered them rich gifts and sacrifices.608
Gods like Grannos, Borvo, and others, equated with Apollo,
presided over healing springs, and they are usually associated with
goddesses, as their husbands or sons. But as the goddesses are more
numerous, and as most Celtic river names are feminine, female
divinities of rivers and springs doubtless had the earlier and
foremost place, especially as {184} their cult was connected
with fertility. The gods, fewer in number, were all equated with
Apollo, but the goddesses were not merged by the Romans into the
personality of one goddess, since they themselves had their groups
of river-goddesses, Nymphs and Naiads. Before the Roman conquest
the cult of water-divinities, friends of mankind, must have formed
a large part of the popular religion of Gaul, and their names may
be counted by hundreds. Thermal springs had also their genii, and
they were appropriated by the Romans, so that the local gods now
shared their healing powers with Apollo, Æsculapius, and the
Nymphs. Thus every spring, every woodland brook, every river in
glen or valley, the roaring cataract, and the lake were haunted by
divine beings, mainly thought of as beautiful females with whom the
Matres were undoubtedly associated. There they revealed
themselves to their worshippers, and when paganism had passed away,
they remained as fées or fairies haunting spring, or
well, or river.609
Scores of fairy wells still exist, and by them mediæval
knights had many a fabled amour with those beautiful beings still
seen by the “ignorant” but romantic peasant.
Sanctuaries were erected at these springs by grateful
worshippers, and at some of them festivals were held, or they were
the resort of pilgrims. As sources of fertility they had a place in
the ritual of the great festivals, and sacred wells were visited on
Midsummer day, when also the river-gods claimed their human
victims. Some of the goddesses were represented by statues or busts
in Gallo-Roman times, if not earlier, and other images of them
which have been found were of the nature of ex votos,
presented by worshippers in gratitude {185} for the
goddess’s healing gifts. Money, ingots of gold or silver, and
models of limbs or other parts of the body which had been or were
desired to be healed, were also presented. Gregory of Tours says of
the Gauls that they “represent in wood or bronze the members in
which they suffer, and whose healing they desire, and place them in
a temple.”610 Contact of the model with the
divinity brought healing to the actual limbs on the principle of
sympathetic magic. Many such models have been discovered. Thus in
the shrine of Dea Sequana was found a vase with over a hundred;
another contained over eight hundred. Inscriptions were engraved on
plaques which were fastened to the walls of temples, or placed in
springs.611 Leaden tablets with inscriptions
were placed in springs by those who desired healing or when the
waters were low, and on some the actual waters are hardly
discriminated from the divinities. The latter are asked to heal or
flow or swell—words which apply more to the waters than to
them, while the tablets, with their frank animism, also show that,
in some cases, there were many elemental spirits of a well, only
some of whom were rising to the rank of a goddess. They are called
collectively Niskas—the Nixies of later tradition, but
some have personal names—Lerano, Dibona, Dea—showing
that they were tending to become separate divine personalities. The
Peisgi are also appealed to, perhaps the later Piskies, unless the
word is a corrupt form of a Celtic peiskos, or the Latin
piscus, “fish.”612 This
is unlikely, as fish could not exist in a warm sulphurous spring,
though the Celts believed in the sacred fish of wells or streams.
The fairies now associated with wells or with a {186}
water-world beneath them, are usually nameless, and only in a few
cases have a definite name. They, like the older spirits of the
wells, have generally a beneficent character.613
Thus in the fountains of Logres dwelt damsels who fed the wayfarer
with meat and bread, until grievous wrong was done them, when they
disappeared and the land became waste.614
Occasionally, however, they have a more malevolent character.615
The spirit of the waters was often embodied in an animal,
usually a fish. Even now in Brittany the fairy dweller in a spring
has the form of an eel, while in the seventeenth century Highland
wells contained fish so sacred that no one dared to catch
them.616 In Wales S. Cybi’s well contained
a huge eel in whose virtues the villagers believed, and terror
prevailed when any one dared to take it from the water. Two sacred
fish still exist in a holy well at Nant Peris, and are replaced by
others when they die, the dead fish being buried.617 This latter act, solemnly
performed, is a true sign of the divine or sacred character of the
animal. Many wells with sacred fish exist in Ireland, and the fish
have usually some supernatural quality—they never alter in
size, they become invisible, or they take the form of beautiful
women.618 Any one destroying such fish was
regarded as a sacrilegious person, and sometimes a hostile tribe
killed and ate the sacred fish of a district invaded by them, just
as Egyptians of one nome insulted those of another by killing their
sacred animals.619 In
old Irish beliefs the salmon was the fish of knowledge. Thus
whoever ate the salmon of Connla’s {187} well was dowered with the
wisdom which had come to them through eating nuts from the hazels
of knowledge around the well. In this case the sacred fish was
eaten, but probably by certain persons only—those who had the
right to do so. Sinend, who went to seek inspiration from the well,
probably by eating one of its salmon, was overwhelmed by its
waters. The legend of the salmon is perhaps based on old ritual
practices of the occasional eating of a divine animal. In other
cases, legends of a miraculous supply of fish from sacred wells are
perhaps later Christian traditions of former pagan beliefs or
customs concerning magical methods of increasing a sacred or totem
animal species, like those used in Central Australia and New
Guinea.620 The frog is sometimes the sacred
animal, and this recalls the Märchen of the Frog
Bridegroom living in a well, who insisted on marrying the girl who
drew its waters. Though this tale is not peculiar to the Celts, it
is not improbable that the divine animal guardian of a well may
have become the hero of a folk-tale, especially as such wells were
sometimes tabu to women.621 A
fly was the guardian spirit of S. Michael’s well in Banffshire.
Auguries regarding health were drawn from its movements, and it was
believed that the fly, when it grew old, transmigrated into
another.622
Such beliefs were not peculiarly Celtic. They are found in all
European folk-lore, and they are still alive among
savages—the animal being itself divine or the personification
of a divinity. A huge sacred eel was worshipped by the Fijians; in
North America and elsewhere there were serpent guardians of the
waters; and the Semites worshipped the fish of sacred wells as
incarnations or symbols of a god.
Later Celtic folk-belief associated monstrous and malevolent
{188} beings with rivers and lakes. These may
be the older divinities to whom a demoniac form has been given, but
even in pagan times such monstrous beings may have been believed
in, or they may be survivals of the more primitive monstrous
guardians of the waters. The last were dragons or serpents,
conventional forms of the reptiles which once dwelt in watery
places, attacking all who came near. This old idea certainly
survived in Irish and Highland belief, for the Fians conquered huge
dragons or serpents in lochs, or saints chained them to the bottom
of the waters. Hence the common place-name of Loch na piast, “Loch
of the Monster.” In other tales they emerge and devour the impious
or feast on the dead.623 The
Dracs of French superstition—river monsters who assume
human form and drag down victims to the depths, where they devour
them—resemble these.
The Each Uisge, or “Water-horse,” a horse with staring
eyes, webbed feet, and a slimy coat, is still dreaded. He assumes
different forms and lures the unwary to destruction, or he makes
love in human shape to women, some of whom discover his true nature
by seeing a piece of water-weed in his hair, and only escape with
difficulty. Such a water-horse was forced to drag the chariot of S.
Fechin of Fore, and under his influence became “gentler than any
other horse.”624 Many
Highland lochs are still haunted by this dreaded being, and he is
also known in Ireland and France, where, however, he has more of a
tricky and less of a demoniac nature.625 His
horse form is perhaps {189} connected with the similar form ascribed
to Celtic water-divinities. Manannan’s horses were the waves, and
he was invariably associated with a horse. Epona, the
horse-goddess, was perhaps originally goddess of a spring, and,
like the Matres, she is sometimes connected with the
waters.626 Horses were also sacrificed to
river-divinities.627 But
the beneficent water-divinities in their horse form have undergone
a curious distortion, perhaps as the result of later Christian
influences. The name of one branch of the Fomorians, the
Goborchinn, means the “Horse-headed,” and one of their kings was
Eochaid Echchenn, or “Horse-head.”628
Whether these have any connection with the water-horse is
uncertain.
The foaming waters may have suggested another animal
personification, since the name of the Boyne in Ptolemy, [Greek:
bououinda], is derived from a primitive bóu-s, “ox,”
and vindo-s, “white,” in Irish bó find, “white
cow.”629 But it is not certain that this
or the Celtic cult of the bull was connected with the belief in the
Tarbh Uisge, or “Water-bull,” which had no ears and could
assume other shapes. It dwells in lochs and is generally friendly
to man, occasionally emerging to mate with ordinary cows. In the
Isle of Man the Tarroo Ushtey, however, begets
monsters.630 These Celtic water-monsters have
a curious resemblance to the Australian Bunyip.
The Uruisg, often confused with the brownie, haunts
lonely places and waterfalls, and, according to his mood, helps or
harms the wayfarer. His appearance is that of a man with
{190} shaggy hair and beard.631 In Wales the afanc is a
water-monster, though the word first meant “dwarf,” then
“water-dwarf,” of whom many kinds existed. They correspond to the
Irish water-dwarfs, the Luchorpáin, descended with
the Fomorians and Goborchinn from Ham.632
In other cases the old water beings have a more pleasing form,
like the syrens and other fairy beings who haunt French rivers, or
the mermaids of Irish estuaries.633 In
Celtic France and Britain lake fairies are connected with a
water-world like that of Elysium tales, the region of earlier
divinities.634 They
unite with mortals, who, as in the Swan-maiden tales, lose their
fairy brides through breaking a tabu. In many Welsh tales the bride
is obtained by throwing bread and cheese on the waters, when she
appears with an old man who has all the strength of youth. He
presents his daughter and a number of fairy animals to the mortal.
When she disappears into the waters after the breaking of the tabu,
the lake is sometimes drained in order to recover her; the father
then appears and threatens to submerge the whole district. Father
and daughters are earlier lake divinities, and in the bread and
cheese we may see a relic of the offerings to these.635
Human sacrifice to water-divinities is suggested by the belief
that water-monsters devour human beings, and by the tradition that
a river claims its toll of victims every year. In popular rhymes
the annual character of the sacrifice is {191} hinted
at, and Welsh legend tells of a voice heard once a year from rivers
or lakes, crying, “The hour is come, but the man is not.”636 Here there is the trace of an
abandoned custom of sacrifice and of the traditional idea of the
anger of the divinity at being neglected. Such spirits or gods,
like the water-monsters, would be ever on the watch to capture
those who trespassed on their domain. In some cases the victim is
supposed to be claimed on Midsummer eve, the time of the sacrifice
in the pagan period.637 The
spirits of wells had also a harmful aspect to those, at least, who
showed irreverence in approaching them. This is seen in legends
about the danger of looking rashly into a well or neglecting to
cover it, or in the belief that one must not look back after
visiting the well. Spirits of wells were also besought to do harm
to enemies.
Legends telling of the danger of removing or altering a well, or
of the well moving elsewhere because a woman washed her hands in
it, point to old tabus concerning wells. Boand, wife of Nechtain,
went to the fairy well which he and his cup-bearers alone might
visit, and when she showed her contempt for it, the waters rose and
destroyed her. They now flow as the river Boyne. Sinend met with a
similar fate for intruding on Connla’s well, in this case the
pursuing waters became the Shannon.638
These are variants of a story {192} which might be used to
explain the origin of any river, but the legends suggest that
certain wells were tabu to women because certain branches of
knowledge, taught by the well, must be reserved for men.639 The legends said in effect, “See
what came of women obtruding beyond their proper sphere.” Savage
“mysteries” are usually tabu to women, who also exclude men from
their sacred rites. On the other hand, as all tribal lore was once
in the hands of the wise woman, such tabus and legends may have
arisen when men began to claim such lore. In other legends women
are connected with wells, as the guardians who must keep them
locked up save when water was drawn. When the woman neglected to
replace the cover, the waters burst forth, overwhelming her, and
formed a loch.640 The
woman is the priestess of the well who, neglecting part of its
ritual, is punished. Even in recent times we find sacred wells in
charge of a woman who instructs the visitors in the due ritual to
be performed.641 If
such legends and survivals thus point to former Celtic priestesses
of wells, these are paralleled by the Norse Horgabrudar, guardians
of wells, now elves living in the waters.642
That such legends are based on the ritual of well-worship is
suggested by Boand’s walking three times widdershins round
the well, instead of the {193} customary deiseil. The due
ritual must be observed, and the stories are a warning against its
neglect.
In spite of twenty centuries of Christianity and the anathemas
of saints and councils, the old pagan practices at healing wells
have survived—a striking instance of human conservatism. S.
Patrick found the pagans of his day worshipping a well called
Slán, “health-giving,” and offering sacrifices to
it,643 and the Irish peasant to-day has
no doubt that there is something divine about his holy wells. The
Celts brought the belief in the divinity of springs and wells with
them, but would naturally adopt local cults wherever they found
them. Afterwards the Church placed the old pagan wells under the
protection of saints, but part of the ritual often remained
unchanged. Hence many wells have been venerated for ages by
different races and through changes in religion and polity. Thus at
the thermal springs of Vicarello offerings have been found which
show that their cult has continued from the Stone Age, through the
Bronze Age, to the days of Roman civilisation, and so into modern
times; nor is this a solitary instance.644 But
it serves to show that all races, high and low, preserve the great
outlines of primitive nature religion unchanged. In all probability
the ritual of the healing wells has also remained in great part
unaltered, and wherever it is found it follows the same general
type. The patient perambulated the well three times deiseil
or sun-wise, taking care not to utter a word. Then he knelt at the
well and prayed to the divinity for his healing. In modern times
the saint, but occasionally the well itself, is prayed to.645 Then he drank of the waters,
bathed in them, or laved his limbs or sores, probably attended
{194} by the priestess of the well. Having
paid her dues, he made an offering to the divinity of the well, and
affixed the bandage or part of his clothing to the well or a tree
near by, that through it he might be in continuous rapport
with the healing influences. Ritual formulæ probably
accompanied these acts, but otherwise no word was spoken, and the
patient must not look back on leaving the well. Special times,
Beltane, Midsummer, or August 1st, were favourable for such
visits,646 and where a patient was too ill
to present himself at the well, another might perform the ritual
for him.647
The rag or clothing hung on the tree seems to connect the spirit
of the tree with that of the well, and tree and well are often
found together. But sometimes it is thrown into the well, just as
the Gaulish villagers of S. Gregory’s day threw offerings of cloth
and wool into a sacred lake.648 The
rag is even now regarded in the light of an offering, and such
offerings, varying from valuable articles of clothing to mere rags,
are still hung on sacred trees by the folk. It thus probably has
always had a sacrificial aspect in the ritual of the well, but as
magic and religion constantly blend, it had also its magical
aspect. The rag, once in contact with the patient, transferred his
disease to the tree, or, being still subtly connected with him,
through it the healing properties passed over to him.
The offering thrown into the well—a pin, coin, etc., may
also have this double aspect. The sore is often pricked or rubbed
with the pin as if to transfer the disease to the well, and if
picked up by another person, the disease may pass to {195} him. This
is also true of the coin.649 But
other examples show the sacrificial nature of the pin or other
trifle, which is probably symbolic or a survival of a more costly
offering. In some cases it is thought that those who do not leave
it at the well from which they have drunk will die of thirst, and
where a coin is offered it is often supposed to disappear, being
taken by the spirit of the well.650 The
coin has clearly the nature of an offering, and sometimes it must
be of gold or silver, while the antiquity of the custom on Celtic
ground is seen by the classical descriptions of the coins
glittering in the pool of Clitumnus and of the “gold of Toulouse”
hid in sacred tanks.651 It
is also an old and widespread belief that all water belongs to some
divine or monstrous guardian, who will not part with any of it
without a quid pro quo. In many cases the two rites of rag
and pin are not both used, and this may show that originally they
had the same purpose—magical or sacrificial, or perhaps both.
Other sacrifices were also made—an animal, food, or an ex
voto, the last occurring even in late survivals as at S.
Thenew’s Well, Glasgow, where even in the eighteenth century tin
cut to represent the diseased member was placed on the tree, or at
S. Winifred’s Well in Wales, where crutches were left.
Certain waters had the power of ejecting the demon of madness.
Besides drinking, the patient was thrown into the waters, the shock
being intended to drive the demon away, as elsewhere demons are
exorcised by flagellation or beating. The divinity of the waters
aided the process, and an offering was usually made to him. In
other cases the sacred waters were supposed to ward off disease
from the district or from those {196} who drank of them. Or,
again, they had the power of conferring fertility. Women made
pilgrimages to wells, drank or bathed in the waters, implored the
spirit or saint to grant them offspring, and made a due
offering.652 Spirit or saint, by a transfer of
his power, produced fruitfulness, but the idea was in harmony with
the recognised power of water to purify, strengthen, and heal.
Women, for a similar reason, drank or washed in the waters or wore
some articles dipped in them, in order to have an easy delivery or
abundance of milk.653
The waters also gave oracles, their method of flowing, the
amount of water in the well, the appearance or non-appearance of
bubbles at the surface when an offering was thrown in, the sinking
or floating of various articles, all indicating whether a cure was
likely to occur, whether fortune or misfortune awaited the
inquirer, or, in the case of girls, whether their lovers would be
faithful. The movements of the animal guardian of the well were
also ominous to the visitor.654
Rivers or river divinities were also appealed to. In cases of
suspected fidelity the Celts dwelling by the Rhine placed the
newly-born child in a shield on the waters. If it floated the
mother was innocent; if it sank it was allowed to drown, and she
was put to death.655
Girls whose purity was suspected were similarly tested, and S.
Gregory of Tours tells how a woman accused of adultery was proved
by being thrown into the Saône.656 The
{197} mediæval witch ordeal by water is
connected with this custom, which is, however, widespread.657
The malevolent aspect of the spirit of the well is seen in the
“cursing wells” of which it was thought that when some article
inscribed with an enemy’s name was thrown into them with the
accompaniment of a curse, the spirit of the well would cause his
death. In some cases the curse was inscribed on a leaden tablet
thrown into the waters, just as, in other cases, a prayer for the
offerer’s benefit was engraved on it. Or, again, objects over which
a charm had been said were placed in a well that the victim who
drew water might be injured. An excellent instance of a
cursing-well is that of Fynnon Elian in Denbigh, which must once
have had a guardian priestess, for in 1815 an old woman who had
charge of it presided at the ceremony. She wrote the name of the
victim in a book, receiving a gift at the same time. A pin was
dropped into the well in the name of the victim, and through it and
through knowledge of his name, the spirit of the well acted upon
him to his hurt.658
Obviously rites like these, in which magic and religion mingle, are
not purely Celtic, but it is of interest to note their existence in
Celtic lands and among Celtic folk.
Footnote 605:(return)Cf. Ptolemy’s [Greek: Dêouana] and [Greek: Dêouna]
(ii. 3. 19, 11. 29); the Scots and English Dee; the Divy in Wales;
Dêve, Dive, and Divette in France; Devon in England; Deva in
Spain (Ptolemy’s [Greek: Dêoua], ii. 6. 8). The Shannon is
surnamed even in the seventh century “the goddess” (Trip.
Life, 313).
Footnote 606:(return)Holder, s.v.; D’Arbois, PH ii. 119, thinks
Matrona is Ligurian. But it seems to have strong Celtic
affinities.
Footnote 608:(return)On the whole subject see Pictet, “Quelques noms celtiques de
rivières,” RC ii. 1 f. Orosius, v. 15. 6, describes
the sacrifices of gold, silver, and horses, made to the
Rhône.
Footnote 611:(return)See Reinach, Catal. Sommaire, 23, 115; Baudot, Rapport
sur les fouilles faits aux sources de la Seine, ii. 120;
RC ii. 26.
Footnote 617:(return)Rh[^y]s, CFL i. 366; Folk-Lore, viii. 281. If the
fish appeared when an invalid drank of the well, this was a good
omen. For the custom of burying sacred animals, see Herod, ii. 74;
Ælian, xiii. 26.
Footnote 623:(return)S. Patrick, when he cleared Ireland of serpents, dealt in this
way with the worst specimens. S. Columba quelled a monster which
terrified the dwellers by the Ness. Joyce, PN i. 197;
Adamnan, Vita Columb. ii. 28; Kennedy, 12, 82, 246;
RC iv. 172, 186.
Footnote 625:(return)For the water-horse, see Campbell, WHT iv. 307;
Macdongall, 294; Campbell, Superstitions, 203; and for the
Manx Glashtyn, a kind of water-horse, see Rh[^y]s,
CFL i. 285. For French cognates, see
Bérenger-Féraud, Superstitions et Survivances,
i. 349 f.
Footnote 628:(return)LU 2a. Of Eochaid is told a variant of the Midas
story—the discovery of his horse’s ears. This is also told of
Labraid Lore (RC ii. 98; Kennedy, 256) and of King Marc’h in
Brittany and in Wales (Le Braz, ii. 96; Rh[^y]s, CFL 233).
Other variants are found in non-Celtic regions, so the story has no
mythological significance on Celtic ground.
Footnote 631:(return)Macdougall, 296; Campbell, Superstitions, 195. For the
Uruisg as Brownie, see WHT ii. 9; Graham, Scenery of
Perthshire, 19.
Footnote 635:(return)See Pughe, The Physicians of Myddfai, 1861 (these were
descendants of a water-fairy); Rh[^y]s, Y Cymmrodor, iv.
164; Hartland, Arch. Rev. i. 202. Such water-gods with
lovely daughters are known in most mythologies—the Greek
Nereus and the Nereids, the Slavonic Water-king, and the Japanese
god Ocean-Possessor (Ralston, Songs of the Russian People,
148; Chamberlain, Ko-ji-ki, 120). Manannan had nine
daughters (Wood-Martin, i. 135).
Footnote 636:(return)Sébillot, ii. 338, 344; Rh[^y]s, CFL i. 243;
Henderson, Folk-Lore of the N. Counties, 262. Cf. the
rhymes, “L’Arguenon veut chaque année son poisson,” the
“fish” being a human victim, and“Blood-thirsty Dee
Each year needs three,
But bonny Don,
She needs none.”
Footnote 638:(return)Rendes Dindsenchas, RC xv. 315, 457. Other
instances of punishment following misuse of a well are given in
Sébillot, ii. 192; Rees, 520, 523. An Irish lake no longer
healed after a hunter swam his mangy hounds through it (Joyce,
PN ii. 90). A similar legend occurs with the Votiaks, one of
whose sacred lakes was removed to its present position because a
woman washed dirty clothes in it (L’Anthropologie, xv.
107).
Footnote 640:(return)Girald. Cambr. Itin. Hib. ii. 9; Joyce, OCR 97;
Kennedy, 281; O’Grady, i. 233; Skene, ii. 59; Campbell, WHT
ii. 147. The waters often submerge a town, now seen below the
waves—the town of Is in Armorica (Le Braz, i. p. xxxix), or
the towers under Lough Neagh. In some Welsh instances a man is the
culprit (Rh[^y]s, CFL i. 379). In the case of Lough Neagh
the keeper of the well was Liban, who lived on in the waters as a
mermaid. Later she was caught and received the baptismal name of
Muirghenn, “sea-birth.” Here the myth of a water-goddess, said to
have been baptized, is attached to the legend of the careless
guardian of a spring, with whom she is identified (O’Grady, ii.
184, 265).
Footnote 641:(return)Roberts, Cambrian Pop. Antiq. 246; Hunt, Popular
Romances, 291; New Stat. Account, x. 313.
Footnote 643:(return)Joyce, PN ii. 84. Slán occurs in many names
of wells. Well-worship is denounced in the canons of the Fourth
Council of Arles.
Footnote 644:(return)Cartailhac, L’Age de Pierre, 74; Bulliot et Thiollier,
Mission de S. Martin, 60.
Footnote 647:(return)I have compiled this account of the ritual from notices of the
modern usages in various works. See, e.g., Moore,
Folk-Lore, v. 212; Mackinley, passim; Hope, Holy
Wells; Rh[^y]s, CFL; Sébillot, 175 f.; Dixon,
Gairloch, 150 f.
Footnote 651:(return)Folk-Lore, iii. 67; Athenæum, 1893, 415;
Pliny, Ep. viii. 8; Strabo, iv. 287; Diod. Sic. v. 9.
Footnote 654:(return)See Le Braz, i. 61; Folk-Lore, v. 214; Rh[^y]s,
CFL i. 364; Dalyell, 506-507; Scott, Minstrelsy,
Introd. xliii; Martin, 7; Sébillot, ii. 242 f.; RC
ii. 486.
Footnote 657:(return)See examples of its use in Post, Grundriss der Ethnol.
Jurisprudenz, ii. 459 f.
CHAPTER XIII.
TREE AND PLANT WORSHIP.
The Celts had their own cult of trees, but they adopted local
cults—Ligurian, Iberian, and others. The Fagus Deus
(the divine beech), the Sex arbor or Sex arbores of
Pyrenean inscriptions, and an anonymous god represented by a
conifer on an altar at Toulouse, probably point to local Ligurian
tree cults continued by the Celts into Roman times.659 Forests were also personified or
ruled by a single goddess, like Dea Arduinna of the Ardennes
and Dea Abnoba of the Black Forest.660
But more primitive ideas prevailed, like that which assigned a
whole class of tree-divinities to a forest, e.g. the
Fatæ Dervones, spirits of the oak-woods of Northern
Italy.661 Groups of trees like Sex
arbores were venerated, perhaps for their height, isolation, or
some other peculiarity.
The Celts made their sacred places in dark groves, the trees
being hung with offerings or with the heads of victims. Human
sacrifices were hung or impaled on trees, e.g. by the
warriors of Boudicca.662
These, like the offerings still placed by the folk on sacred trees,
were attached to them because the trees were the abode of spirits
or divinities who in many cases had power over vegetation.
Pliny said of the Celts: “They esteem nothing more sacred
{199} than the mistletoe and the tree on which
it grows. But apart from this they choose oak-woods for their
sacred groves, and perform no sacred rite without using oak
branches.”663 Maximus of Tyre also speaks of
the Celtic (? German) image of Zeus as a lofty oak, and an old
Irish glossary gives daur, “oak,” as an early Irish name for
“god,” and glosses it by dia, “god.”664
The sacred need-fire may have been obtained by friction from
oak-wood, and it is because of the old sacredness of the oak that a
piece of its wood is still used as a talisman in Brittany.665 Other Aryan folk besides the
Celts regarded the oak as the symbol of a high god, of the sun or
the sky,666 but probably this was not its
earliest significance. Oak forests were once more extensive over
Europe than they are now, and the old tradition that men once lived
on acorns has been shown to be well-founded by the witness of
archæological finds, e.g. in Northern Italy.667 A people living in an oak region
and subsisting in part on acorns might easily take the oak as a
representative of the spirit of vegetation or growth. It was
long-lived, its foliage was a protection, it supplied food, its
wood was used as fuel, and it was thus clearly the friend of man.
For these reasons, and because it was the most abiding and living
thing men knew, it became the embodiment of the spirits of life and
growth. Folk-lore survivals show that the spirit of vegetation in
the shape of his representative was annually slain while yet in
full vigour, that his life might benefit all things and be passed
on undiminished to his successor.668
Hence the oak or a {200} human being representing the spirit of
vegetation, or both together, were burned in the Midsummer fires.
How, then, did the oak come to symbolise a god equated with Zeus.
Though the equation may be worthless, it is possible that the
connection lay in the fact that Zeus and Juppiter had agricultural
functions, or that, when the equation was made, the earlier spirit
of vegetation had become a divinity with functions resembling those
of Zeus. The fires were kindled to recruit the sun’s life; they
were fed with oak-wood, and in them an oak or a human victim
representing the spirit embodied in the oak was burned. Hence it
may have been thought that the sun was strengthened by the fire
residing in the sacred oak; it was thus “the original storehouse or
reservoir of the fire which was from time to time drawn out to feed
the sun.”669 The oak thus became the symbol of
a bright god also connected with growth. But, to judge by folk
survivals, the older conception still remained potent, and tree or
human victim affected for good all vegetable growth as well as
man’s life, while at the same time the fire strengthened the
sun.
Dr. Evans argues that “the original holy object within the
central triliths of Stonehenge was a sacred tree,” an oak, image of
the Celtic Zeus. The tree and the stones, once associated with
ancestor worship, had become symbols of “a more celestial Spirit or
Spirits than those of departed human beings.”670
But Stonehenge has now been proved to have been in existence before
the arrival of the Celts, hence such a cult must have been
pre-Celtic, though it may quite well have been adopted by the
Celts. Whether this hypothetical cult was practised by a tribe, a
group of tribes, or by the whole people, must remain obscure, and,
indeed, it may well be questioned whether Stonehenge was ever more
than the scene of some ancestral rites.
Other trees—the yew, the cypress, the alder, and the ash,
were venerated, to judge by what Lucan relates of the sacred grove
at Marseilles. The Irish Druids attributed special virtues to the
hazel, rowan, and yew, the wood of which was used in magical
ceremonies described in Irish texts.671
Fires of rowan were lit by the Druids of rival armies, and
incantations said over them in order to discomfit the opposing
host,672 and the wood of all these trees
is still believed to be efficacious against fairies and
witches.
The Irish bile was a sacred tree, of great age, growing
over a holy well or fort. Five of them are described in the
Dindsenchas, and one was an oak, which not only yielded
acorns, but nuts and apples.673 The
mythic trees of Elysium had the same varied fruitage, and the
reason in both cases is perhaps the fact that when the cultivated
apple took the place of acorns and nuts as a food staple, words
signifying “nut” or “acorn” were transferred to the apple. A myth
of trees on which all these fruits grew might then easily arise.
Another Irish bile was a yew described in a poem as “a firm
strong god,” while such phrases in this poem as “word-pure man,”
“judgment of origin,” “spell of knowledge,” may have some reference
to the custom of writing divinations in ogham on rods of yew. The
other bile were ash-trees, and from one of them the Fir
Bile, “men of the tree,” were named—perhaps a
totem-clan.674 The
lives of kings and chiefs appear to have been connected with these
trees, probably as representatives of the spirit of vegetation
embodied in the tree, and under their shadow they were inaugurated.
But as a substitute for the king was slain, so doubtless these
pre-eminent sacred trees were too sacred, too much charged with
supernatural force, to {202} be cut down and burned, and the yearly
ritual would be performed with another tree. But in time of feud
one tribe gloried in destroying the bile of another; and
even in the tenth century, when the bile maighe Adair was
destroyed by Maelocohlen the act was regarded with horror. “But, O
reader, this deed did not pass unpunished.”675
Of another bile, that of Borrisokane, it was said that any
house in which a fragment of it was burned would itself be
destroyed by fire.676
Tribal and personal names point to belief in descent from tree
gods or spirits and perhaps to totemism. The Eburones were the
yew-tree tribe (eburos); the Bituriges perhaps had the
mistletoe for their symbol, and their surname Vivisci implies that
they were called “Mistletoe men.”677 If
bile (tree) is connected with the name Bile, that of the
ancestor of the Milesians, this may point to some myth of descent
from a sacred tree, as in the case of the Fir Bile, or “men
of the tree.”678
Other names like Guidgen (Viduo-genos, “son of the tree”),
Dergen (Dervo-genos, “son of the oak”), Guerngen
(Verno-genos, “son of the alder”), imply filiation to a
tree. Though these names became conventional, they express what had
once been a living belief. Names borrowed directly from trees are
also found—-Eburos or Ebur, “yew,” Derua or Deruacus, “oak,”
etc.
The veneration of trees growing beside burial mounds or
megalithic monuments was probably a pre-Celtic cult continued by
the Celts. The tree embodied the ghost of the person buried under
it, but such a ghost could then hardly be differentiated from a
tree spirit or divinity. Even now in Celtic districts extreme
veneration exists for trees growing in cemeteries and in other
places. It is dangerous to cut them {203} down or to pluck a leaf or
branch from them, while in Breton churchyards the yew is thought to
spread a root to the mouth of each corpse.679
The story of the grave of Cyperissa, daughter of a Celtic king in
the Danube region, from which first sprang the “mournful
cypress,”680 is connected with universal
legends of trees growing from the graves of lovers until their
branches intertwine. These embody the belief that the spirit of the
dead is in the tree, which was thus in all likelihood the object of
a cult. Instances of these legends occur in Celtic story.
Yew-stakes driven through the bodies of Naisi and Deirdre to keep
them apart, became yew-trees the tops of which embraced over Armagh
Cathedral. A yew sprang from the grave of Bailé Mac Buain,
and an apple-tree from that of his lover Aillinn, and the top of
each had the form of their heads.681 The
identification of tree and ghost is here complete.
The elder, rowan, and thorn are still planted round houses to
keep off witches, or sprigs of rowan are placed over
doorways—a survival from the time when they were believed to
be tenanted by a beneficent spirit hostile to evil influences. In
Ireland and the Isle of Man the thorn is thought to be the resort
of fairies, and they, like the woodland fairies or “wood men” are
probably representatives of the older tree spirits and gods of
groves and forests.682
Tree-worship was rooted in the oldest nature worship, and the
Church had the utmost difficulty in suppressing it. Councils
fulminated against the cult of trees, against offerings to them or
the placing of lights before them and before wells {204} or
stones, and against the belief that certain trees were too sacred
to be cut down or burned. Heavy fines were levied against those who
practised these rites, yet still they continued.683 Amator, Bishop of Auxerre, tried
to stop the worship of a large pear-tree standing in the centre of
the town and on which the semi-Christian inhabitants hung animals’
heads with much ribaldry. At last S. Germanus destroyed it, but at
the risk of his life. S. Martin of Tours was allowed to destroy a
temple, but the people would not permit him to attack a much
venerated pine-tree which stood beside it—an excellent
example of the way in which the more official paganism fell before
Christianity, while the older religion of the soil, from which it
sprang, could not be entirely eradicated.684
The Church often effected a compromise. Images of the gods affixed
to trees were replaced by those of the Virgin, but with curious
results. Legends arose telling how the faithful had been led to
such trees and there discovered the image of the Madonna
miraculously placed among the branches.685
These are analogous to the legends of the discovery of images of
the Virgin in the earth, such images being really those of the
Matres.
Representations of sacred trees are occasionally met with on
coins, altars, and ex votos.686 If
the interpretation be correct which sees a representation of part
of the Cúchulainn legend on the Paris and Trèves
altars, the trees figured there would not necessarily be sacred.
But otherwise they may depict sacred trees.
We now turn to Pliny’s account of the mistletoe rite. The Druids
held nothing more sacred than this plant and the tree on which it
grew, probably an oak. Of it groves were formed, while branches of
the oak were used in all religious rites. Everything growing on the
oak had been sent from heaven, and the presence of the mistletoe
showed that God had selected the tree for especial favour. Rare as
it was, when found the mistletoe was the object of a careful
ritual. On the sixth day of the moon it was culled. Preparations
for a sacrifice and feast were made beneath the tree, and two white
bulls whose horns had never been bound were brought there. A Druid,
clad in white, ascended the tree and cut the mistletoe with a
golden sickle. As it fell it was caught in a white cloth; the bulls
were then sacrificed, and prayer was made that God would make His
gift prosperous to those on whom He had bestowed it. The mistletoe
was called “the universal healer,” and a potion made from it caused
barren animals to be fruitful. It was also a remedy against all
poisons.687 We can hardly believe that such
an elaborate ritual merely led up to the medico-magical use of the
mistletoe. Possibly, of course, the rite was an attenuated survival
of something which had once been more important, but it is more
likely that Pliny gives only a few picturesque details and passes
by the rationale of the ritual. He does not tell us who the
“God” of whom he speaks was, perhaps the sun-god or the god of
vegetation. As to the “gift,” it was probably in his mind the
mistletoe, but it may quite well have meant the gift of growth in
field and fold. The tree was perhaps cut down and burned; the oxen
may have been incarnations of a god of vegetation, as the tree also
may have been. We need not here repeat the meaning which has been
given to the ritual,688 but
it may be added that if this meaning is {206} correct,
the rite probably took place at the time of the Midsummer festival,
a festival of growth and fertility. Mistletoe is still gathered on
Midsummer eve and used as an antidote to poisons or for the cure of
wounds. Its Druidic name is still preserved in Celtic speech in
words signifying “all-healer,” while it is also called
sùgh an daraich, “sap of the oak,” and Druidh
lus, “Druid’s weed.”689
Pliny describes other Celtic herbs of grace. Selago was
culled without use of iron after a sacrifice of bread and
wine—probably to the spirit of the plant. The person
gathering it wore a white robe, and went with unshod feet after
washing them. According to the Druids, Selago preserved one
from accident, and its smoke when burned healed maladies of the
eye.690 Samolus was placed in
drinking troughs as a remedy against disease in cattle. It was
culled by a person fasting, with the left hand; it must be wholly
uprooted, and the gatherer must not look behind him.691 Vervain was gathered at
sunrise after a sacrifice to the earth as an
expiation—perhaps because its surface was about to be
disturbed. When it was rubbed on the body all wishes were
gratified; it dispelled fevers and other maladies; it was an
antidote against serpents; and it conciliated hearts. A branch of
the dried herb used to asperge a banquet-hall made the guests more
convivial692
The ritual used in gathering these plants—silence, various
tabus, ritual purity, sacrifice—is found wherever plants are
culled whose virtue lies in this that they are possessed by a
spirit. Other plants are still used as charms by modern Celtic
peasants, and, in some cases, the ritual of gathering {207} them
resembles that described by Pliny.693 In
Irish sagas plants have magical powers. “Fairy herbs” placed in a
bath restored beauty to women bathing therein.694 During the Táin
Cúchulainn’s wounds were healed with “balsams and healing
herbs of fairy potency,” and Diancecht used similar herbs to
restore the dead at the battle of Mag-tured.695
Footnote 659:(return)Sacaze, Inscr. des Pyren. 255; Hirschfeld,
Sitzungsberichte (Berlin, 1896), 448.
Footnote 663:(return)Pliny, xvi. 44. The Scholiast on Lucan says that the Druids
divined with acorns (Usener, 33).
Footnote 666:(return)Mr. Chadwick (Jour. Anth. Inst. xxx. 26) connects this
high god with thunder, and regards the Celtic Zeus (Taranis, in his
opinion) as a thunder-god. The oak was associated with this god
because his worshippers dwelt under oaks.
Footnote 679:(return)See Sébillot, i. 293; Le Braz, i. 259; Folk-Lore
Journal, v. 218; Folk-Lore Record, 1882.
Footnote 681:(return)Miss Hull, 53; O’Ourry, MS. Mat. 465. Writing tablets,
made from each of the trees when they were cut down, sprang
together and could not be separated.
Footnote 685:(return)Grimm, Teut. Myth. 76; Maury, 13, 299. The story of
beautiful women found in trees may be connected with the custom of
placing images in trees, or with the belief that a goddess might be
seen emerging from the tree in which she dwelt.
Footnote 689:(return)See Cameron, Gaelic Names of Plants, 45. In Gregoire de
Rostren, Dict. françois-celt. 1732, mistletoe is
translated by dour-dero, “oak-water,” and is said to be good
for several evils.
Footnote 693:(return)See Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica; De Nore, Coutumes
… des Provinces de France, 150 f.; Sauvé, RC
vi. 67, CM ix. 331.
CHAPTER XIV.
ANIMAL WORSHIP.
Animal worship pure and simple had declined among the Celts of
historic times, and animals were now regarded mainly as symbols or
attributes of divinities. The older cult had been connected with
the pastoral stage in which the animals were divine, or with the
agricultural stage in which they represented the corn-spirit, and
perhaps with totemism. We shall study here (1) traces of the older
animal cults; (2) the transformation of animal gods into symbols;
and (3) traces of totemism.
1.
The presence of a bull with three cranes (Tarvos
Trigaranos) on the Paris altar, along with the gods Esus,
Juppiter, and Vulcan, suggests that it was a divine animal, or the
subject of a divine myth. As has been seen, this bull may be the
bull of the Táin bó Cuailgne. Both it and its
opponent were reincarnations of the swine-herds of two gods. In the
Irish sagas reincarnation is only attributed to gods or heroes, and
this may point to the divinity of the bulls. We have seen that this
and another altar may depict some myth in which the bull was the
incarnation of a tree or vegetation spirit. The divine nature of
the bull is attested by its presence on Gaulish coins as a
religious symbol, and by images of the animal with {209} three
horns—an obvious symbol of divinity.696
On such an image in bronze the Cimbri, Celticised Germans, swore.
The images are pre-Roman, since they are found at Hallstadt and La
Tène. Personal names like Donnotaurus (the equivalent of the
Donn Taruos of the Táin) or Deiotaros (“divine
bull”), show that men were called after the divine animal.697 Similarly many place-names in
which the word taruos occurs, in Northern Italy, the
Pyrenees, Scotland, Ireland, and elsewhere, suggest that the places
bearing these names were sites of a bull cult or that some myth,
like that elaborated in the Táin, had been there
localised.698 But, as possibly in the case of
Cúchulainn and the bull, the animal tended to become the
symbol of a god, a tendency perhaps aided by the spread of
Mithraism with its symbolic bull. A god Medros leaning on a bull is
represented at Haguenau, possibly a form of Mider or of Meduris, a
surname of Toutatis, unless Medros is simply Mithras.699 Echoes of the cult of the bull or
cow are heard in Irish tales of these animals brought from the
síd, or of magic bulls or of cows which produced
enormous supplies of milk, or in saintly legends of oxen leading a
saint to the site of his future church.700
These legends are also told of the swine,701
and they perhaps arose when a Christian church took the place of
the site of a local animal cult, legend fusing the old and the new
cult by making the once divine animal point out the site of the
church. A late relic of a bull cult may be found in the carnival
procession of the Boeuf Gras at Paris.
A cult of a swine-god Moccus has been referred to. The boar was
a divine symbol on standards, coins, and altars, and many bronze
images of the animal have been found. These were temple treasures,
and in one case the boar is three-horned.702
But it was becoming the symbol of a goddess, as is seen by the
altars on which it accompanies a goddess, perhaps of fertility, and
by a bronze image of a goddess seated on a boar. The altars occur
in Britain, of which the animal may be the emblem—the
“Caledonian monster” of Claudian’s poem.703
The Galatian Celts abstained from eating the swine, and there has
always been a prejudice against its flesh in the Highlands. This
has a totemic appearance.704 But
the swine is esteemed in Ireland, and in the texts monstrous swine
are the staple article of famous feasts.705
These may have been legendary forms of old swine-gods, the feasts
recalling sacrificial feasts on their flesh. Magic swine were also
the immortal food of the gods. But the boar was tabu to certain
persons, e.g. Diarmaid, though whether this is the
attenuated memory of a clan totem restriction is uncertain. In
Welsh story the swine comes from Elysium—a myth explaining
the origin of its domestication, while domestication certainly
implies an earlier cult of the animal. When animals come to be
domesticated, the old cult restrictions, e.g. against eating
them, usually pass away. For this reason, perhaps, the Gauls, who
worshipped an anthropomorphic swine-god, trafficked in the animal
and may have eaten it.706
Welsh story also tells of the magic boar, the {211} Twrch
Trwyth, hunted by Arthur, possibly a folk-tale reminiscence of
a boar divinity.707
Place-names also point to a cult of the swine, and a recollection
of its divinity may underlie the numerous Irish tales of magical
swine.708 The magic swine which issued from
the cave of Cruachan and destroyed the young crops are suggestive
of the theriomorphic corn-spirit in its occasional destructive
aspect.709 Bones of the swine, sometimes
cremated, have been found in Celtic graves in Britain and at
Hallstadt, and in one case the animal was buried alone in a tumulus
at Hallstadt, just as sacred animals were buried in Egypt, Greece,
and elsewhere.710 When
the animal was buried with the dead, it may have been as a
sacrifice to the ghost or to the god of the underworld.
The divinity of the serpent is proved by the occurrence of a
horned serpent with twelve Roman gods on a Gallo-Roman altar.711 In other cases a horned or
ram’s-headed serpent appears as the attribute of a god, and we have
seen that the ram’s-headed serpent may be a fusion of the serpent
as a chthonian animal with the ram, sacrificed to the dead. In
Greece Dionysus had the form both of a bull and a horned serpent,
the horn being perhaps derived from the bull symbol. M. Reinach
claims that the primitive elements of the Orphic myth of the
Thracian Dionysos-Zagreus—divine serpents producing an egg
whence came the horned snake Zagreus, occur in dislocated form in
Gaul. There enlacing serpents were believed to produce a magic egg,
and there a horned {212} serpent was worshipped, but was not
connected with the egg. But they may once have been connected, and
if so, there may be a common foundation both for the Greek and the
Celtic conceptions in a Celtic element in Thrace.712 The resemblances, however, may be
mere coincidences, and horned serpents are known in other
mythologies—the horn being perhaps a symbol of divinity. The
horned serpent sometimes accompanies a god who has horns, possibly
Cernunnos, the underworld god, in accordance with the chthonian
character of the serpent.713 In
the Cùchulainn cycle Loeg on his visit to the Other-world
saw two-headed serpents—perhaps a further hint of this aspect
of the animal.714
In all these instances of animal cults examples of the tendency
to make the divine animal anthropomorphic have been seen. We have
now to consider some instances of the complete anthropomorphic
process.
2.
An old bear cult gave place to the cult of a bear goddess and
probably of a god. At Berne—an old Celtic place-name meaning
“bear”—was found a bronze group of a goddess holding a patera
with fruit, and a bear approaching her as if to be fed. The
inscription runs, Deae Artioni Licinia Sabinilla.715 A local bear-cult had once
existed at Berne, and is still recalled in the presence of the
famous bears there, but the divine bear had given place to a
goddess whose name and symbol were ursine. From an old Celtic
Artos, fem. Arta, “bear,” were derived various divine
names. Of these {213} Dea Artio(n) means “bear
goddess,” and Artaios, equated with Mercury, is perhaps a
bear god.716 Another bear goddess, Andarta,
was honoured at Die (Drôme), the word perhaps meaning “strong
bear”—And– being an augmentive.717
Numerous place-names derived from Artos perhaps witness to a
widespread cult of the bear, and the word also occurs in Welsh, and
Irish personal names—Arthmael, Arthbiu, and possibly Arthur,
and the numerous Arts of Irish texts. Descent from the divine bear
is also signified in names like Welsh Arthgen, Irish
Artigan, from Artigenos, “son of the bear.” Another
Celtic name for “bear” was the Gaulish matu, Irish
math, found in Matugenos, “son of the bear,” and in
MacMahon, which is a corrupt form of Mac-math-ghamhain, “son
of the bear’s son,” or “of the bear.”718
Similarly a cult of the stag seems to have given place to that
of a god with stag’s horns, represented on many bas-reliefs, and
probably connected with the underworld.719 The
stag, as a grain-eater, may have been regarded as the embodiment of
the corn-spirit, and then associated with the under-earth region
whence the corn sprang, by one of those inversions of thought so
common in the stage of transition from animal gods to gods with
animal symbols. The elk may have been worshipped in Ireland, and a
three antlered stag is the subject of a story in the Fionn
saga.720 Its third antler, like the third
horn of bull or boar, may be a sign of divinity.
The horse had also been worshipped, but a goddess Epona (Gaul.
epo-s, “horse”), protectress of horses and asses, took its
place, and had a far-spread cult. She rides a horse or mare
{214} with its foal, or is seated among
horses, or feeds horses. A representation of a mare suckling a
foal—a design analogous to those in which Epona feeds
foals—shows that her primitive equine nature had not been
forgotten.721 The Gauls were horse-rearers, and
Epona was the goddess of the craft; but, as in other cases, a cult
of the horse must have preceded its domestication, and its flesh
may not have been eaten, or, if so, only sacramentally.722 Finally, the divine horse became
the anthropomorphic horse-goddess. Her images were placed in
stables, and several inscriptions and statuettes have been found in
such buildings or in cavalry barracks.723 The
remains of the cult have been found in the Danube and Rhine
valleys, in Eastern Gaul, and in Northern Italy, all Celtic
regions, but it was carried everywhere by Roman cavalry recruited
from the Celtic tribes.724
Epona is associated with, and often has, the symbols of the
Matres, and one inscription reads Eponabus, as if
there were a group of goddesses called Epona.725
A goddess who promoted the fertility of mares would easily be
associated with goddesses of fertility. Epona may also have been
confused with a river-goddess conceived of as a spirited steed.
Water-spirits took that shape, and the Matres were also
river-goddesses.
A statuette of a horse, with a dedication to a god Rudiobus,
otherwise unknown, may have been carried processionally, while a
mule has a dedication to Segomo, equated elsewhere with Mars. A
mule god Mullo, also equated with Mars, is mentioned on several
inscriptions.726 The
connection with Mars {215} may have been found in the fact that the
October horse was sacrificed to him for fertility, while the horse
was probably associated with fertility among the Celts. The horse
was sacrificed both by Celts and Teutons at the Midsummer festival,
undoubtedly as a divine animal. Traces of the Celtic custom survive
in local legends, and may be interpreted in the fuller light of the
Teutonic accounts. In Ireland a man wearing a horse’s head rushed
through the fire, and was supposed to represent all cattle; in
other words, he was a surrogate for them. The legend of Each Labra,
a horse which lived in a mound and issued from it every Midsummer
eve to give oracles for the coming year, is probably connected with
the Midsummer sacrifice of the horse.727
Among the Teutons the horse was a divine sacrificial animal, and
was also sacred to Freyr, the god of fertility, while in Teutonic
survivals a horse’s head was placed in the Midsummer fire.728 The horse was sporadically the
representative of the corn-spirit, and at Rome the October horse
was sacrificed in that capacity and for fertility.729 Among the Celts, the horse
sacrificed at Midsummer may have represented the vegetation-spirit
and benefited all domestic animals—the old rite surviving in
an attenuated form, as described above.
Perhaps the goddess Damona was an animal divinity, if her name
is derived from damatos, “sheep,” cognate to Welsh
dafad, “sheep,” and Gaelic damh, “ox.” Other divine
animals, as has been seen, were associated with the waters, and the
use of beasts and birds in divination doubtless points to their
divine character. A cult of bird-gods may lurk behind the divine
name Bran, “raven,” and the reference to the magic birds of
Rhiannon in the Triads.
3.
Animal worship is connected with totemism, and certain things
point to its existence among the Celts, or to the existence of
conditions out of which totemism was elsewhere developed. These are
descent from animals, animal tabus, the sacramental eating of an
animal, and exogamy.
(1) Descent from animals.—Celtic names implying
descent from animals or plants are of two classes, clan and
personal names. If the latter are totemistic, they must be derived
from the former, since totemism is an affair of the clan, while the
so-called “personal totem,” exemplified by the American Indian
manitou, is the guardian but never the ancestor of a man.
Some clan names have already been referred to. Others are the
Bibroci of south-east Britain, probably a beaver clan
(bebros), and the Eburones, a yew-tree clan
(eburos).730
Irish clans bore animal names: some groups were called “calves,”
others “griffins,” others “red deer,” and a plant name is seen in
Fir Bile, “men of the tree.”731 Such
clan totemism perhaps underlies the stories of the “descendants of
the wolf” at Ossory, who became wolves for a time as the result of
a saintly curse. Other instances of lycanthropy were associated
with certain families.732 The
belief in lycanthropy might easily attach itself to existing
wolf-clans, the transformation being then explained as the result
of a curse. The stories of Cormac mac Art, suckled by a she-wolf,
of Lughaid mac Con, “son of a wolf-dog,” suckled by that animal,
and of Oisin, whose mother was a fawn, and who would not eat
venison, are perhaps totemistic, {217} while to totemism or to a
cult of animals may be ascribed what early travellers in Ireland
say of the people taking wolves as god-fathers and praying to them
to do them no ill.733 In
Wales bands of warriors at the battle of Cattraeth are described in
Oneurin’s Gododin as dogs, wolves, bears, and ravens, while
Owein’s band of ravens which fought against Arthur, may have been a
raven clan, later misunderstood as actual ravens.734 Certain groups of Dalriad Scots
bore animal names—Cinel Gabran, “Little goat clan,” and Cinel
Loarn, “Fox clan.” Possibly the custom of denoting Highland clans
by animal or plant badges may be connected with a belief in descent
from plants or animals. On many coins an animal is represented on
horseback, perhaps leading a clan, as birds led the Celts to the
Danube area, and these may depict myths telling how the clan totem
animal led the clan to its present territory.735
Such myths may survive in legends relating how an animal led a
saint to the site of his church.736
Celtic warriors wore helmets with horns, and Irish story speaks of
men with cat, dog, or goat heads.737
These may have been men wearing a head-gear formed of the skin or
head of the clan totem, hence remembered at a later time as
monstrous beings, while the horned helmets would be related to the
same custom. Solinus describes the Britons as wearing animal skins
before going into battle.738 Were
these skins of totem animals under whose protection they thus
placed themselves? The “forms of beasts, birds, and fishes” which
the Cruithne or Picts tattooed on their bodies may have been totem
marks, while the painting of their bodies with woad among the
{218} southern Britons may have been of the
same character, though Cæsar’s words hardly denote this.
Certain marks on faces figured on Gaulish coins seem to be tattoo
marks.739
It is not impossible that an early wolf-totem may have been
associated, because of the animal’s nocturnal wanderings in
forests, with the underworld whence, according to Celtic belief,
men sprang and whither they returned, and whence all vegetation
came forth. The Gallo-Roman Silvanus, probably an underworld god,
wears a wolf-skin, and may thus be a wolf-god. There were various
types of underworld gods, and this wolf-type—perhaps a local
wolf-totem ancestor assimilated to a local “Dispater”—may
have been the god of a clan who imposed its mythic wolf origin on
other clans. Some Celtic bronzes show a wolf swallowing a man who
offers no resistance, probably because he is dead. The wolf is much
bigger than the man, and hence may be a god.740
These bronzes would thus represent a belief setting forth the
return of men to their totem ancestor after death, or to the
underworld god connected with the totem ancestor, by saying that he
devoured the dead, like certain Polynesian divinities and the Greek
Eurynomos.
In many individual names the first part is the name of an animal
or plant, the second is usually genos, “born from,” or “son
of,” e.g. Artigenos, Matugenos, “son of the bear”
(artos, matu-); Urogenos, occurring as Urogenertos,
“he who has the strength of the son of the urus”; Brannogenos, “son
of the raven”; Cunogenos, “son of the dog.”741
These names may be derived from clan totem names, but they date
back to a time when animals, trees, and men were on a common
footing, {219} and the possibility of human descent
from a tree or an animal was believed in. Professor Rh[^y]s has
argued from the frequency of personal names in Ireland, like
Cúrói, “Hound of Rói,” Cú Corb, “Corb’s
Hound,” Mac Con, “Hound’s Son,” and Maelchon, “Hound’s Slave,” that
there existed a dog totem or god, not of the Celts, but of a
pre-Celtic race.742 This
assumes that totemism was non-Celtic, an assumption based on
preconceived notions of what Celtic institutions ought to have
been. The names, it should be observed, are personal, not clan
names.
(2) Animal tabus.—Besides the dislike of swine’s
flesh already noted among certain Celtic groups, the killing and
eating of the hare, hen, and goose were forbidden among the
Britons. Cæsar says they bred these animals for amusement,
but this reason assigned by him is drawn from his knowledge of the
breeding of rare animals by rich Romans as a pastime, since he had
no knowledge of the breeding of sacred animals which were not
eaten—a common totemic or animal cult custom.743 The hare was used for divination
by Boudicca,744
doubtless as a sacred animal, and it has been found that a sacred
character still attaches to these animals in Wales. A cock or hen
was ceremonially killed and eaten on Shrove Tuesday, either as a
former totemic animal, or, less likely, as a representative of the
corn-spirit. The hare is not killed in certain districts, but
occasionally it is ceremonially hunted and slain annually, while at
yearly fairs the goose is sold exclusively and eaten.745 Elsewhere, e.g. in Devon,
a ram or lamb is ceremonially slain and eaten, the eating being
believed to confer {220} luck.746 The
ill-luck supposed to follow the killing of certain animals may also
be reminiscent of totemic tabus. Fish were not eaten by the Pictish
Meatæ and Caledonii, and a dislike of eating certain
fresh-water fish was observed among certain eighteenth century
Highlanders.747 It
has been already seen that certain fish living in sacred wells were
tabu, and were believed to give oracles. Heron’s flesh was disliked
in Ireland, and it was considered unlucky to kill a swan in the
Hebrides.748 Fatal results following upon the
killing or eating of an animal with which the eater was connected
by name or descent are found in the Irish sagas. Conaire was son of
a woman and a bird which could take human shape, and it was
forbidden to him to hunt birds. On one occasion he did so, and for
this as well as the breaking of other tabus, he lost his
life.749 It was tabu to Cúchulainn,
“the hound of Culann,” to eat dog’s flesh, and, having been
persuaded to do this, his strength went from him, and he perished.
Diarmaid, having been forbidden to hunt a boar with which his life
was connected, was induced by Fionn to break this tabu, and in
consequence he lost his life by one of the boar’s bristles entering
his foot, or (in a variant) by the boar’s killing him. Another
instance is found in a tale of certain men transformed to badgers.
They were slain by Cormac, and brought to his father Tadg to eat.
Tadg unaccountably loathed them, because they were transformed men
and his cousins.750 In
this tale, which may contain the débris of totemic
usage, the loathing arises from the fact that the badgers are
men—a common form of myths explanatory of misunderstood
totemic customs, but the old idea of the relation between a man and
{221} his totem is not lost sight of. The
other tales may also be reminiscent of a clan totem tabu, later
centred in a mythic hero. Perhaps the belief in lucky or unlucky
animals, or in omens drawn from their appearance, may be based on
old totem beliefs or in beliefs in the divinity of the animals.
(3) Sacramental eating of an animal.—The custom of
“hunting the wren,” found over the whole Celtic area, is connected
with animal worship and may be totemistic in origin. In spite of
its small size, the wren was known as the king of birds, and in the
Isle of Man it was hunted and killed on Christmas or S. Stephen’s
day. The bird was carried in procession from door to door, to the
accompaniment of a chant, and was then solemnly buried, dirges
being sung. In some cases a feather was left at each house and
carefully treasured, and there are traces of a custom of boiling
and eating the bird.751 In
Ireland, the hunt and procession were followed by a feast, the
materials of which were collected from house to house, and a
similar usage obtained in France, where the youth who killed the
bird was called “king.”752 In
most of these districts it was considered unlucky or dangerous to
kill the bird at any other time, yet it might be ceremonially
killed once a year, the dead animal conferred luck, and was
solemnly eaten or buried with signs of mourning. Similar customs
with animals which are actually worshipped are found
elsewhere,753 and they lend support to the idea
that the Celts regarded the wren as a divine animal, or perhaps a
totem animal, that it was necessary to slay it ritually, and to
carry it round the houses of the community to obtain its divine
influence, to eat it sacramentally or to bury it. {222} Probably
like customs were followed in the case of other animals,754 and these may have given rise to
such stories as that of the eating of MacDatho’s wonderful boar, as
well as to myths which regarded certain animals, e.g. the
swine, as the immortal food of the gods. Other examples of ritual
survivals of such sacramental eating have already been noted, and
it is not improbable that the eating of a sacred pastoral animal
occurred at Samhain.
(4) Exogamy.—Exogamy and the counting of descent
through the mother are closely connected with totemism, and some
traces of both are found among the Celts. Among the Picts, who
were, perhaps, a Celtic group of the Brythonic stock, these customs
survived in the royal house. The kingship passed to a brother of
the king by the same mother, or to a sister’s son, while the king’s
father was never king and was frequently a “foreigner.” Similar
rules of succession prevailed in early Aryan royal
houses—Greek and Roman,—and may, as Dr. Stokes thought,
have existed at Tara in Ireland, while in a Fian tale of Oisin he
marries the daughter of the king of Tír na n-Og, and
succeeds him as king partly for that reason, and partly because he
had beaten him in the annual race for the kingship.755 Such an athletic contest for the
kingship was known in early Greece, and this tale may support the
theory of the Celtic priest-kingship, the holder of the office
retaining it as long as he was not defeated or slain. Traces of
succession through a sister’s son are found in the
Mabinogion, and Livy describes how the mythic Celtic king
Ambicatus sent not his own but his sister’s sons to found new
kingdoms.756 Irish and Welsh divine and heroic
groups {223} are named after the mother, not the
father—the children of Danu and of Dôn, and the men of
Domnu. Anu is mother of the gods, Buanann of heroes. The eponymous
ancestor of the Scots is a woman, Scota, and the earliest
colonisers of Ireland are women, not men. In the sagas gods and
heroes have frequently a matronymic, and the father’s name is
omitted—Lug mac Ethnend, Conchobar mac Nessa, Indech, son of
De Domnann, Corpre, son of Etain, and others. Perhaps parallel to
this is the custom of calling men after their
wives—e.g. the son of Fergus is Fer Tlachtga,
Tlachtga’s husband.757 In
the sagas, females (goddesses and heroines) have a high place
accorded to them, and frequently choose their own lovers or
husbands—customs suggestive of the matriarchate. Thus what
was once a general practice was later confined to the royal house
or told of divine or heroic personages. Possibly certain cases of
incest may really be exaggerated accounts of misunderstood unions
once permissible by totemic law. Cæsar speaks of British
polyandry, brothers, sons, and fathers sharing a wife in
common.758 Strabo speaks of Irish unions
with mothers and sisters, perhaps referring not to actual practice
but to reports of saga tales of incest.759 Dio
Cassius speaks of community of wives among the Caledonians and
Meatæ, and Jerome says much the same of the Scoti and
Atecotti.760 These notices, with the exception
of Cæsar’s, are vague, yet they refer to marriage customs
different from those known to their reporters. In Irish sagas
incest legends circle round the descendants of Etain—fathers
unite with daughters, a son with his mother, a woman has a son by
her three brothers (just as Ecne was son of Brian, Iuchar, and
{224} Iucharba), and is also mother of
Crimthan by that son.761
Brother and sister unions occur both in Irish and Welsh
story.762
In these cases incest with a mother cannot be explained by
totemic usage, but the cases may be distorted reminiscences of what
might occur under totemism, namely, a son taking the wives of his
father other than his own mother, when those were of a different
totem from his own. Under totemism, brothers and sisters by
different mothers having different totems, might possibly unite,
and such unions are found in many mythologies. Later, when totemism
passed away, the unions, regarded with horror, would be supposed to
take place between children by the same mother. According to totem
law, a father might unite with his daughter, since she was of her
mother’s totem, but in practice this was frowned upon. Polygamy
also may co-exist with totemism, and of course involves the
counting of descent through the mother as a rule. If, as is
suggested by the “debility” of the Ultonians, and by other
evidence, the couvade was a Celtic institution, this would also
point to the existence of the matriarchate with the Celts. To
explain all this as pre-Aryan, or to say that the classical notices
refer to non-Aryan tribes and that the evidence in the Irish sagas
only shows that the Celts had been influenced by the customs of
aboriginal tribes among whom they lived,763
is to neglect the fact that the customs are closely bound up with
Celtic life, while it leaves unexplained the influence of such
customs upon a people whose own customs, according to this theory,
{225} were so totally different. The evidence,
taken as a whole, points to the existence of totemism among the
early Celts, or, at all events, of the elements which elsewhere
compose it.
Celtic animal worship dates back to the primitive hunting and
pastoral period, when men worshipped the animals which they hunted
or reared. They may have apologised to the animal hunted and
slain—a form of worship, or, where animals were not hunted or
were reared and worshipped, one of them may have been slain
annually and eaten to obtain its divine power. Care was taken to
preserve certain sacred animals which were not hunted, and this led
to domestication, the abstinence of earlier generations leading to
an increased food supply at a later time, when domesticated animals
were freely slain. But the earlier sacramental slaying of such
animals survived in the religious aspect of their slaughter at the
beginning of winter.764 The
cult of animals was also connected with totemic usage, though at a
later stage this cult was replaced by that of anthropomorphic
divinities, with the older divine animals as their symbols,
sacrificial victims, and the like. This evolution now led to the
removal of restrictions upon slaying and eating the animals. On the
other hand, the more primitive animal cults may have remained here
and there. Animal cults were, perhaps, largely confined to men.
With the rise of agriculture mainly as an art in the hands of
women, and the consequent cult of the Earth-mother, of fertility
and corn-spirits probably regarded as female, the sacramental
eating of the divine animal may have led to the slaying and eating
of a human or animal victim supposed to embody such a spirit. Later
the two cults were bound to coalesce, and the divine animal and the
animal embodiment of the vegetation {226} spirit would not be
differentiated. On the other hand, when men began to take part in
women’s fertility cults, the fact that such spirits were female or
were perhaps coming to be regarded as goddesses, may have led men
to envisage certain of the anthropomorphic animal divinities as
goddesses, since some of these, e.g. Epona and Damona, are
female. But with the increasing participation of men in
agriculture, the spirits or goddesses of fertility would tend to
become male, or the consorts or mothers of gods of fertility,
though the earlier aspect was never lost sight of, witness the
Corn-Mother. The evolution of divine priest-kings would cause them
to take the place of the earlier priestesses of these cults, one of
whom may have been the divine victim. Yet in local survivals
certain cults were still confined to women, and still had their
priestesses.765
Footnote 696:(return)Reinach, BF 66, 244. The bull and three cranes may be a
rebus on the name of the bull, Tarvos Trikarenos, “the
three-headed,” or perhaps Trikeras, “three-horned.”
Footnote 698:(return)Holder, s.v. Tarba, Tarouanna,
Tarvisium, etc.; D’Arbois, Les Druides, 155; S. Greg.
In Glor. Conf. 48.
Footnote 700:(return)Leahy, ii. 105 f.; Curtin, MFI 264, 318; Joyce, PN
i. 174; Rees, 453. Cf. Ailred, Life of S. Ninian, c. 8.
Footnote 702:(return)Tacitus, Germ. xlv.; Blanchet, i. 162, 165; Reinach,
BF 255 f., CMR i. 168; Bertrand, Arch. Celt.
419.
Footnote 705:(return)Joyce, SH ii. 127; IT i. 99, 256 (Bricriu’s feast
and the tale of Macdatho’s swine).
Footnote 706:(return)Strabo, iv. 4. 3, says these swine attacked strangers. Varro,
de Re Rustica, ii. 4, admires their vast size. Cf. Polyb.
ii. 4.
Footnote 707:(return)The hunt is first mentioned in Nennius, c. 79, and then appears
as a full-blown folk-tale in Kulhwych, Loth, i. 185 f. Here
the boar is a transformed prince.
Footnote 709:(return)RC xiii. 451. Cf. also TOS vi. “The Enchanted Pigs
of Oengus,” and Campbell, LF 53.
Footnote 710:(return)L’Anthropologie, vi. 584; Greenwell, British
Barrows, 274, 283, 454; Arch. Rev. ii. 120.
Footnote 716:(return)CIL xiii. 5160, xii. 2199. Rh[^y]s, however, derives
Artaios from ar, “ploughed land,” and equates the god with
Mercurius Cultor.
Footnote 718:(return)For all these place and personal names, see Holder and D’Arbois,
op. cit. Les Celtes, 47 f., Les Druides, 157 f.
Footnote 721:(return)Epona is fully discussed by Reinach in his Epona, 1895,
and in articles (illustrated) in Rev. Arch. vols. 26, 33,
35, 40, etc. See also ii. [1898], 190.
Footnote 722:(return)Reinach suggests that this may explain why Vercingetorix, in
view of siege by the Romans, sent away his horses. They were too
sacred to be eaten. Cæsar, vii. 71; Reinach, RC xxvii.
1 f.
Footnote 726:(return)CIL xiii. 3071; Reinach, BF 253, CMR i. 64,
Répert. de la Stat. ii. 745; Holder, ii. 651-652.
Footnote 730:(return)Cæsar, v. 21, 27. Possibly the Dea Bibracte of the Aeduans
was a beaver goddess.
Footnote 733:(return)O’Grady, ii. 286, 538; Campbell, The Fians, 78; Thiers,
Traité des Superstitions, ii. 86.
Footnote 739:(return)Herodian, iii. 14, 8; Duald MacFirbis in Irish Nennius,
p. vii; Cæsar, v. 10; ZCP iii. 331.
Footnote 740:(return)See Reinach, “Les Carnassiers androphages dans l’art
gallo-romain,” CMR i. 279.
Footnote 745:(return)See a valuable paper by N.W. Thomas, “Survivance du Culte des
Animaux dans le Pays de Galles,” in Rev. de l’Hist. des
Religions, xxxviii. 295 f., and a similar paper by Gomme,
Arch. Rev. 1889, 217 f. Both writers seem to regard these
cults as pre-Celtic.
Footnote 752:(return)Vallancey, Coll. de Reb. Hib. iv. No. 13; Clément,
Fétes, 466. For English customs, see Henderson,
Folklore of the Northern Counties, 125.
Footnote 754:(return)For other Welsh instances of the danger of killing certain
birds, see Thomas, op. cit. xxxviii. 306.
Footnote 755:(return)Frazer, Kingship, 261; Stokes, RC xvi. 418;
Larminie, Myths and Folk-tales, 327.
Footnote 760:(return)Dio Cass. lxxvi. 12; Jerome, Adv. Jovin. ii. 7. Giraldus
has much to say of incest in Wales, probably actual breaches of
moral law among a barbarous people (Descr. Wales, ii.
6).
CHAPTER XV.
COSMOGONY.
Whether the early Celts regarded Heaven and Earth as husband and
wife is uncertain. Such a conception is world-wide, and myth
frequently explains in different ways the reason of the separation
of the two. Among the Polynesians the children of heaven and
earth—the winds, forests, and seas personified—angry at
being crushed between their parents in darkness, rose up and
separated them. This is in effect the Greek myth of Uranus, or
Heaven, and Gæa, or Earth, divorced by their son Kronos, just
as in Hindu myth Dyaus, or Sky, and Prithivi, or Earth, were
separated by Indra. Uranus in Greece gave place to Zeus, and, in
India, Dyaus became subordinate to Indra. Thus the primitive Heaven
personified recedes, and his place is taken by a more
individualised god. But generally Mother Earth remains a constant
quantity. Earth was nearer man and was more unchanging than the
inconstant sky, while as the producer of the fruits of the earth,
she was regarded as the source of all things, and frequently
remained as an important divinity when a crowd of other divinities
became prominent. This is especially true of agricultural peoples,
who propitiate Earth with sacrifice, worship her with orgiastic
rites, or assist her processes by magic. With advancing
civilisation such a goddess is still remembered as the friend of
man, and, as in the Eleusinia, is represented sorrowing and
{228} rejoicing like man himself. Or where a
higher religion ousts the older one, the ritual is still retained
among the folk, though its meaning may be forgotten.
The Celts may thus have possessed the Heaven and Earth myth, but
all trace of it has perished. There are, however, remnants of myths
showing how the sky is supported by trees, a mountain, or by
pillars. A high mountain near the sources of the Rhone was called
“the column of the sun,” and was so lofty as to hide the sun from
the people of the south.766 It
may have been regarded as supporting the sky, while the sun moved
round it. In an old Irish hymn and its gloss, Brigit and Patrick
are compared to the two pillars of the world, probably alluding to
some old myth of sky or earth resting on pillars.767 Traces of this also exist in
folk-belief, as in the accounts of islands resting on four pillars,
or as in the legend of the church of Kernitou which rests on four
pillars on a congealed sea and which will be submerged when the sea
liquefies—a combination of the cosmogonic myth with that of a
great inundation.768 In
some mythologies a bridge or ladder connects heaven and earth.
There may be a survival of some such myth in an Irish poem which
speaks of the drochet bethad, or “bridge of life,” or in the
drochaid na flaitheanas, or “bridge of heaven,” of Hebridean
folk-lore.769
Those gods who were connected with the sky may have been held to
dwell there or on the mountain supporting it. Others, like the
Celtic Dispater, dwelt underground. Some were connected with mounds
and hills, or were supposed to have taken up their abode in them.
Others, again, dwelt in a distant region, the Celtic Elysium,
which, once the Celts reached the sea, became a far-off island.
Those divinities {229} worshipped in groves were believed to
dwell there and to manifest themselves at midday or midnight, while
such objects of nature as rivers, wells, and trees were held to be
the abode of gods or spirits. Thus it is doubtful whether the Celts
ever thought of their gods as dwelling in one Olympus. The Tuatha
Dé Danann are said to have come from heaven, but this may be
the mere assertion of some scribe who knew not what to make of this
group of beings.
In Celtic belief men were not so much created by gods as
descended from them. “All the Gauls assert that they are descended
from Dispater, and this, they say, has been handed down to them by
the Druids.”770
Dispater was a Celtic underworld god of fertility, and the
statement probably presupposes a myth, like that found among many
primitive peoples, telling how men once lived underground and
thence came to the surface of the earth. But it also points to
their descent from the god of the underworld. Thither the dead
returned to him who was ancestor of the living as well as lord of
the dead.771 On the other hand, if the earth
had originally been thought of as a female, she as Earth-mother
would be ancestress of men. But her place in the myth would easily
be taken by the Earth or Under-earth god, perhaps regarded as her
son or her consort. In other cases, clans, families, or individuals
often traced their descent to gods or divine animals or plants.
Classical writers occasionally speak of the origin of branches of
the Celtic race from eponymous founders, perhaps from their
knowledge of existing Celtic myths.772
Ammianus Marcellinus also reports a Druidic tradition to the effect
that some Gauls were indigenous, some had come from distant
islands, and others from beyond the Rhine.773
But this is not so much a myth of origins, as an explanation of the
presence of different peoples in Gaul—the {230}
aborigines, the Celtæ, and the Belgic Gauls. M. D’Arbois
assumes that “distant islands” means the Celtic Elysium, which he
regards as the land of the dead,774 but
the phrase is probably no more than a distorted reminiscence of the
far-off lands whence early groups of Celts had reached Gaul.
Of the creation of the world no complete myth has survived,
though from a gloss to the Senchus Mór we learn that
the Druids, like the Br[=a]hmans, boasted that they had made sun,
moon, earth, and sea—a boast in keeping with their supposed
powers over the elements.775
Certain folk-beliefs, regarding the origin of different parts of
nature, bear a close resemblance to primitive cosmogonic myths, and
they may be taken as disjecta membra of similar myths held
by the Celts and perhaps taught by the Druids. Thus sea, rivers, or
springs arose from the micturition of a giant, fairy, or saint, or
from their sweat or blood. Islands are rocks cast by giants, and
mountains are the material thrown up by them as they were working
on the earth. Wells sprang up from the blood of a martyr or from
the touch of a saint’s or a fairy’s staff.776
The sea originated from a magic cask given by God to a woman. The
spigot, when opened, could not be closed again, and the cask never
ceased running until the waters covered the earth—a tale with
savage parallels.777 In
all these cases, giant, saint, or fairy has doubtless taken the
place of a god, since the stories have a very primitive
facies. The giant is frequently Gargantua, probably himself
once a divinity. Other references in Irish texts point to the
common cosmogonic myth of the earth having gradually {231} assumed
its present form. Thus many new lakes and plains are said to have
been formed in Ireland during the time of Partholan and Nemed, the
plains being apparently built up out of existing materials.778 In some cases the formation of a
lake was the result of digging the grave of some personage after
whom the lake was then named.779 Here
we come upon the familiar idea of the danger of encroaching on the
domain of a deity, e.g. that of the Earth-god, by digging
the earth, with the consequent punishment by a flood. The same
conception is found in Celtic stories of a lake or river formed
from the overflowing of a sacred well through human carelessness or
curiosity, which led to the anger of the divinity of the
well.780 Or, again, a town or castle is
submerged on account of the wickedness of its inhabitants, the
waters being produced by the curse of God or a saint (replacing a
pagan god) and forming a lake.781
These may be regarded as forms of a Celtic deluge-myth, which in
one case, that of the Welsh story of the ship of Nevyd, which saved
Dwyvan and Dwyfach and a pair of all kinds of animals when Lake
Llion overflowed, has apparently borrowed from the Biblical
story.782 In other cases lakes are formed
from the tears of a god, e.g. Manannan, whose tears at the
death of his son formed three lochs in Erin.783
Apollonius reports that the waters of Eridanus originated from the
tears of Apollo when driven from heaven by his father.784 This story, which he says is
Celtic, has been clothed by him in a Greek form, and the god in
question may have been Belenos, equated with Apollo. Sometimes the
formation of streams was ascribed to great hail-storms—an
evident mythic rendering of the damage done by actual spates, while
the Irish myths of {232} “illimitable sea-bursts,” of which three
particular instances are often mentioned, were doubtless the result
of the experience of tidal waves.
Although no complete account of the end of all things, like that
of the Scandinavian Ragnarok, has survived, scattered hints tell of
its former existence. Strabo says that the Druids taught that “fire
and water must one day prevail”—an evident belief in some
final cataclysm.785 This
is also hinted at in the words of certain Gauls to Alexander,
telling him that what they feared most of all was the fall of the
heavens upon their heads.786 In
other words, they feared what would be the signal of the end of all
things. On Irish ground the words of Conchobar may refer to this.
He announced that he would rescue the captives and spoil taken by
Medb, unless the heavens fell, and the earth burst open, and the
sea engulphed all things.787 Such
a myth mingled with Christian beliefs may underlie the prophecy of
Badb after Mag-tured regarding the evils to come and the end of the
world, and that of Fercertne in the Colloquy of the Two
Sages.788 Both have a curious resemblance
to the Sybil’s prophecy of doom in the Voluspa. If the gods
themselves were involved in such a catastrophe, it would not be
surprising, since in some aspects their immortality depended on
their eating and drinking immortal food and drink.789
Footnote 775:(return)Antient Laws of Ireland, i. 23. In one MS. Adam is said
to have been created thus—his body of earth, his blood of the
sea, his face of the sun, his breath of the wind, etc. This is also
found in a Frisian tale (Vigfusson-Powell, Corpus Poet. Bor.
i. 479), and both stories present an inversion of well-known myths
about the creation of the universe from the members of a giant.
Footnote 789:(return)A possible survival of a world-serpent myth may be found in “Da
Derga’s Hostel” (RC xxii. 54), where we hear of Leviathan
that surrounds the globe and strikes with his tail to overwhelm the
world. But this may be a reflection of Norse myths of the Midgard
serpent, sometimes equated with Leviathan.
CHAPTER XVI.
SACRIFICE, PRAYER, AND DIVINATION.
The Semites are often considered the worst offenders in the
matter of human sacrifice, but in this, according to classical
evidence, they were closely rivalled by the Celts of Gaul. They
offered human victims on the principle of a life for a life, or to
propitiate the gods, or in order to divine the future from the
entrails of the victim. We shall examine the Celtic custom of human
sacrifice from these points of view first.
Cæsar says that those afflicted with disease or engaged in
battle or danger offer human victims or vow to do so, because
unless man’s life be given for man’s life, the divinity of the gods
cannot be appeased.790 The
theory appears to have been that the gods sent disease or ills when
they desired a human life, but that any life would do; hence one in
danger might escape by offering another in his stead. In some cases
the victims may have been offered to disease demons or diseases
personified, such as Celtic imagination still believes in,791 rather than to gods, or, again,
they may have been offered to native gods of healing. Coming danger
could also be averted on the same principle, and though the victims
were usually slaves, in times of great peril wives and children
were sacrificed.792
After a defeat, which showed that the gods were still implacable,
the wounded and feeble were slain, or a great leader would
{234} offer himself.793
Or in such a case the Celts would turn their weapons against
themselves, making of suicide a kind of sacrifice, hoping to bring
victory to the survivors.794
The idea of the victim being offered on the principle of a life
for a life is illustrated by a custom at Marseilles in time of
pestilence. One of the poorer classes offered himself to be kept at
the public expense for some time. He was then led in procession,
clad in sacred boughs, and solemnly cursed, and prayer was made
that on him might fall the evils of the community. Then he was cast
headlong down. Here the victim stood for the lives of the city and
was a kind of scape-victim, like those at the Thargelia.795
Human victims were also offered by way of thanksgiving after
victory, and vows were often made before a battle, promising these
as well as part of the spoil. For this reason the Celts would never
ransom their captives, but offered them in sacrifice, animals
captured being immolated along with them.796
The method of sacrifice was slaughter by sword or spear, hanging,
impaling, dismembering, and drowning. Some gods were propitiated by
one particular mode of sacrifice—Taranis by burning, Teutates
by suffocation, Esus (perhaps a tree-god) by hanging on a tree.
Drowning meant devoting the victim to water-divinities.797
Other propitiatory sacrifices took place at intervals, and had a
general or tribal character, the victims being criminals or slaves
or even members of the tribe. The sacrificial pile had the rude
outline of a human form, the limbs of osier, enclosing human as
well as some animal victims, who perished by fire. Diodorus says
that the victims were malefactors who {235} had been
kept in prison for five years, and that some of them were
impaled.798 This need not mean that the
holocausts were quinquennial, for they may have been offered
yearly, at Midsummer, to judge by the ritual of modern
survivals.799 The victims perished in that
element by which the sun-god chiefly manifested himself, and by the
sacrifice his powers were augmented, and thus growth and fertility
were promoted. These holocausts were probably extensions of an
earlier slaying of a victim representing the spirit of vegetation,
though their value in aiding fertility would be still in evidence.
This is suggested by Strabo’s words that the greater the number of
murders the greater would be the fertility of the land, probably
meaning that there would then be more criminals as sacrificial
victims.800 Varro also speaks of human
sacrifice to a god equated with Saturn, offered because of all
seeds the human race is the best, i.e. human victims are
most productive of fertility.801
Thus, looked at in one way, the later rite was a propitiatory
sacrifice, in another it was an act of magico-religious ritual
springing from the old rite of the divine victim. But from both
points of view the intention was the same—the promotion of
fertility in field and fold.
Divination with the bodies of human victims is attested by
Tacitus, who says that “the Druids consult the gods in the
palpitating entrails of men,” and by Strabo, who describes the
striking down of the victim by the sword and the predicting of the
future from his convulsive movements.802 To
this we shall return.
Human sacrifice in Gaul was put down by the Romans, who were
amazed at its extent, Suetonius summing up the whole {236} religion
in a phrase—druidarum religionem diræ
immanitatis.803 By
the year 40 A.D. it had ceased, though victims were offered
symbolically, the Druids pretending to strike them and drawing a
little blood from them.804 Only
the pressure of a higher civilisation forced the so-called
philosophic Druids to abandon their revolting customs. Among the
Celts of Britain human sacrifice still prevailed in 77 A.D.805 Dio Cassius describes the
refinements of cruelty practised on female victims (prisoners of
war) in honour of the goddess Andrasta—their breasts cut off
and placed over their mouths, and a stake driven through their
bodies, which were then hung in the sacred grove.806 Tacitus speaks of the altars in
Mona (Anglesey) laved with human blood. As to the Irish Celts,
patriotic writers have refused to believe them guilty of such
practices,807 but there is no a priori
reason which need set them apart from other races on the same level
of civilisation in this custom. The Irish texts no doubt exaggerate
the number of the victims, but they certainly attest the existence
of the practice. From the Dindsenchas, which describes many
archaic usages, we learn that “the firstlings of every issue and
the chief scions of every clan” were offered to Cromm
Cruaich—a sacrifice of the first-born,—and that at one
festival the prostrations of the worshippers were so violent that
three-fourths of them perished, not improbably an exaggerated
memory of orgiastic rites.808 Dr.
Joyce thinks that these notices are as incredible as the mythic
tales in the Dindsenchas. Yet the tales were doubtless quite
credible to the pagan Irish, and the ritual notices are certainly
founded on fact. Dr. Joyce admits the existence of foundation
sacrifices in Ireland, and it is difficult to understand why human
victims may not have been offered on other occasions also.
The purpose of the sacrifice, namely, fertility, is indicated in
the poetical version of the cult of Cromm—
The Nemedian sacrifice to the Fomorians is said to have been
two-thirds of their children and of the year’s supply of corn and
milk810—an obvious
misunderstanding, the victims really being offered to obtain corn
and milk. The numbers are exaggerated,811 but
there can be no doubt as to the nature of the sacrifice—the
offering of an agricultural folk to the divinities who helped or
retarded growth. Possibly part of the flesh of the victims, at one
time identified with the god, was buried in the fields or mixed
with the seed-corn, in order to promote fertility. The blood was
sprinkled on the image of the god. Such practices were as obnoxious
to Christian missionaries as they had been to the Roman Government,
and we learn that S. Patrick preached against “the slaying of yoke
oxen and milch cows and the burning of the first-born progeny” at
the Fair of Taillte.812 As
has been seen, the Irish version of the Perseus and Andromeda
story, in which the victim is offered not to a dragon, but to the
Fomorians, may have received this form from actual ritual in which
human victims were sacrificed to the Fomorians.813 In a Japanese version of the same
story the maiden is offered to the sea-gods. Another tale suggests
the offering of human victims to remove blight. In this case the
land suffers from blight because the adulteress Becuma, married to
the king of Erin, has pretended to be a virgin. {238} The
Druids announced that the remedy was to slay the son of an
undefiled couple and sprinkle the doorposts and the land with his
blood. Such a youth was found, but at his mother’s request a
two-bellied cow, in which two birds were found, was offered in his
stead.814 In another instance in the
Dindsenchas, hostages, including the son of a captive
prince, are offered to remove plagues—an equivalent to the
custom of the Gauls.815
Human sacrifices were also offered when the foundation of a new
building was laid. Such sacrifices are universal, and are offered
to propitiate the Earth spirits or to provide a ghostly guardian
for the building. A Celtic legend attaches such a sacrifice to the
founding of the monastery at Iona. S. Oran agrees to adopt S.
Columba’s advice “to go under the clay of this island to hallow
it,” and as a reward he goes straight to heaven.816 The legend is a semi-Christian
form of the memory of an old pagan custom, and it is attached to
Oran probably because he was the first to be buried in the island.
In another version, nothing is said of the sacrifice. The two
saints are disputing about the other world, and Oran agrees to go
for three days into the grave to settle the point at issue. At the
end of that time the grave is opened, and the triumphant Oran
announces that heaven and hell are not such as they are alleged to
be. Shocked at his latitudinarian sentiments, Columba ordered earth
to be piled over him, lest he cause a scandal to the faith, and
Oran was accordingly buried alive.817 In a
Welsh instance, Vortigern’s castle cannot be built, for the stones
disappear as soon as they are laid. Wise men, probably Druids,
order the sacrifice of a child born without a father, and the
sprinkling of the site with his blood.818
“Groaning hostages” were placed under a fort in {239} Ireland,
and the foundation of the palace of Emain Macha was also laid with
a human victim.819 Many
similar legends are connected with buildings all over the Celtic
area, and prove the popularity of the pagan custom. The sacrifice
of human victims on the funeral pile will be discussed in a later
chapter.
Of all these varieties of human sacrifice, those offered for
fertility, probably at Beltane or Midsummer, were the most
important. Their propitiatory nature is of later origin, and their
real intention was to strengthen the divinity by whom the processes
of growth were directed. Still earlier, one victim represented the
divinity, slain that his life might be revived in vigour. The earth
was sprinkled with his blood and fed with his flesh in order to
fertilise it, and possibly the worshippers partook sacramentally of
the flesh. Propitiatory holocausts of human victims had taken the
place of the slain representative of a god, but their value in
promoting fertility was not forgotten. The sacramental aspect of
the rite is perhaps to be found in Pliny’s words regarding “the
slaying of a human being as a most religious act and eating the
flesh as a wholesome remedy” among the Britons.820 This may merely refer to
“medicinal cannibalism,” such as still survives in Italy, but the
passage rather suggests sacramental cannibalism, the eating of part
of a divine victim, such as existed in Mexico and elsewhere. Other
acts of cannibalism are referred to by classical writers. Diodorus
says the Irish ate their enemies, and Pausanias describes the
eating the flesh and drinking the blood of children among the
Galatian Celts. Drinking {240} out of a skull the blood of slain
(sacrificial) enemies is mentioned by Ammianus and Livy, and
Solinus describes the Irish custom of bathing the face in the blood
of the slain and drinking it.821 In
some of these cases the intention may simply have been to obtain
the dead enemy’s strength, but where a sacrificial victim was
concerned, the intention probably went further than this. The blood
of dead relatives was also drunk in order to obtain their virtues,
or to be brought into closer rapport with them.822 This is analogous to the custom
of blood brotherhood, which also existed among the Celts and
continued as a survival in the Western Isles until a late
date.823
One group of Celtic human sacrifices was thus connected with
primitive agricultural ritual, but the warlike energies of the
Celts extended the practice. Victims were easily obtained, and
offered to the gods of war. Yet even these sacrifices preserved
some trace of the older rite, in which the victim represented a
divinity or spirit.
Head-hunting, described in classical writings and in Irish
texts, had also a sacrificial aspect. The heads of enemies were
hung at the saddle-bow or fixed on spears, as the conquerors
returned home with songs of victory.824 This
gruesome picture often recurs in the texts. Thus, after the death
of Cúchulainn, Conall Cernach returned to Emer with the
heads of his slayers strung on a withy. He placed each on a stake
and told Emer the name of the owner. A Celtic oppidum or a
king’s palace must have been as gruesome as a Dayak or Solomon
Island village. Everywhere were stakes crowned with heads, and the
walls of houses were adorned with them. Poseidonius tells
{241} how he sickened at such a sight, but
gradually became more accustomed to it.825 A
room in the palace was sometimes a store for such heads, or they
were preserved in cedar-wood oil or in coffers. They were proudly
shown to strangers as a record of conquest, but they could not be
sold for their weight in gold.826
After a battle a pile of heads was made and the number of the slain
was counted, and at annual festivals warriors produced the tongues
of enemies as a record of their prowess.827
These customs had a religious aspect. In cutting off a head the
Celt saluted the gods, and the head was offered to them or to
ancestral spirits, and sometimes kept in grove or temple.828 The name given to the heads of
the slain in Ireland, the “mast of Macha,” shows that they were
dedicated to her, just as skulls found under an altar had been
devoted to the Celtic Mars.829
Probably, as among Dayaks, American Indians, and others, possession
of a head was a guarantee that the ghost of its owner would be
subservient to its Celtic possessor, either in this world or in the
next, since they are sometimes found buried in graves along with
the dead.830 Or, suspended in temples, they
became an actual and symbolical offering of the life of their
owners, if, as is probable, the life or soul was thought to be in
the head. Hence, too, the custom of drinking from the skull of the
slain had the intention of transferring his powers directly to the
drinker.831 Milk drunk from the skull of
Conall Cernach restored to enfeebled warriors {242} their
pristine strength,832 and
a folk-survival in the Highlands—that of drinking from the
skull of a suicide (here taking the place of the slain enemy) in
order to restore health—shows the same idea at work. All
these practices had thus one end, that of the transference of
spirit force—to the gods, to the victor who suspended the
head from his house, and to all who drank from the skull.
Represented in bas-relief on houses or carved on dagger-handles,
the head may still have been thought to possess talismanic
properties, giving power to house or weapon. Possibly this cult of
human heads may have given rise to the idea of a divine head like
those figured on Gaulish images, or described, e.g., in the
story of Bran. His head preserved the land from invasion, until
Arthur disinterred it,833 the
story being based on the belief that heads or bodies of great
warriors still had a powerful influence.834
The representation of the head of a god, like his whole image,
would be thought to possess the same preservative power.
A possible survival of the sacrifice of the aged may be found in
a Breton custom of applying a heavy club to the head of old persons
to lighten their death agonies, the clubs having been formerly used
to kill them. They are kept in chapels, and are regarded with
awe.835
Animal victims were also frequently offered. The Galatian Celts
made a yearly sacrifice to their Artemis of a sheep, goat, or calf,
purchased with money laid by for each animal caught {243} in the
chase. Their dogs were feasted and crowned with flowers.836 Further details of this ritual
are unfortunately lacking. Animals captured in war were sacrificed
to the war-gods by the Gauls, or to a river-god, as when the horses
of the defeated host were thrown into the Rhine by the Gaulish
conquerors of Mallius.837 We
have seen that the white oxen sacrificed at the mistletoe ritual
may once have been representatives of the vegetation-spirit, which
also animated the oak and the mistletoe. Among the insular Celts
animal sacrifices are scarcely mentioned in the texts, probably
through suppression by later scribes, but the lives of Irish saints
contain a few notices of the custom, e.g. that of S.
Patrick, which describes the gathering of princes, chiefs, and
Druids at Tara to sacrifice victims to idols.838
In Ireland the peasantry still kill a sheep or heifer for S. Martin
on his festival, and ill-luck is thought to follow the
non-observance of the rite.839
Similar sacrifices on saints’ days in Scotland and Wales occurred
in Christian times.840 An
excellent instance is that of the sacrifice of bulls at Gairloch
for the cure of lunatics on S. Maelrubha’s day (August 25th).
Libations of milk were also poured out on the hills, ruined chapels
were perambulated, wells and stones worshipped, and divination
practised. These rites, occurring in the seventeenth century, were
condemned by the Presbytery of Dingwall, but with little effect,
and some of them still survive.841 In
all these cases the saint has succeeded to the ritual of an earlier
god. Mr. Cook surmises that S. Maelrubha was the successor of a
divine king connected with an oak and sacred well, the god or
spirit of which was incarnate in him. These divine kings may at one
time have been {244} slain, or a bull, similarly incarnating
the god or spirit, may have been killed as a surrogate. This
slaying was at a later time regarded as a sacrifice and connected
with the cure of madness.842 The
rite would thus be on a parallel with the slaying of the oxen at
the mistletoe gathering, as already interpreted. Eilean Maree
(Maelrubha), where the tree and well still exist, was once known as
Eilean mo righ (“the island of my king”), or Eilean a Mhor Righ
(“of the great king”), the king having been worshipped as a god.
This piece of corroborative evidence was given by the oldest
inhabitant to Sir Arthur Mitchell.843 The
people also spoke of the god Mourie.
Other survivals of animal sacrifice are found in cases of
cattle-plague, as in Morayshire sixty years ago, in Wales, Devon,
and the Isle of Man. The victim was burned and its ashes sprinkled
on the herd, or it was thrown into the sea or over a
precipice.844 Perhaps it was both a
propitiatory sacrifice and a scape-animal, carrying away the
disease, though the rite may be connected with the former slaying
of a divine animal whose death benefited all the cattle of the
district. In the Hebrides the spirits of earth and air were
propitiated every quarter by throwing outside the door a cock, hen,
duck, or cat, which was supposed to be seized by them. If the rite
was neglected, misfortune was sure to follow. The animal carried
away evils from the house, and was also a propitiatory
sacrifice.
The blood of victims was sprinkled on altars, images, and trees,
or, as among the Boii, it was placed in a skull adorned with
gold.845 Other libations are known mainly
from folk-survivals. {245} Thus Breton fishermen salute reefs and
jutting promontories, say prayers, and pour a glass of wine or
throw a biscuit or an old garment into the sea.846 In the Hebrides a curious rite
was performed on Maundy Thursday. After midnight a man walked into
the sea, and poured ale or gruel on the waters, at the same time
singing:
“O God of the sea,
Put weed in the drawing wave,
To enrich the ground,
To shower on us food.”
Those on shore took up the strain in chorus.847 Thus the rite was described by
one who took part in it a century ago, but Martin, writing in the
seventeenth century, gives other details. The cup of ale was
offered with the words, “Shony, I give you this cup of ale, hoping
that you will be so kind as to send plenty of seaweed for enriching
our ground for the ensuing year.” All then went in silence to the
church and remained there for a time, after which they indulged in
an orgy out-of-doors. This orgiastic rite may once have included
the intercourse of the sexes—a powerful charm for fertility.
“Shony” was some old sea-god, and another divinity of the sea,
Brianniul, was sometimes invoked for the same purpose.848 Until recently milk was poured on
“Gruagach stones” in the Hebrides, as an offering to the Gruagach,
a brownie who watched over herds, and who had taken the place of a
god.849
PRAYER.
Prayer accompanied most rites, and probably consisted of
traditional formulæ, on the exact recital of which depended
{246} their value. The Druids invoked a god
during the mistletoe rite, and at a Galatian sacrifice, offered to
bring birds to destroy grasshoppers, prayer was made to the birds
themselves.850 In
Mona, at the Roman invasion, the Druids raised their arms and
uttered prayers for deliverance, at the same time cursing the
invaders, and Boudicca invoked the protection of the goddess
Andrasta in a similar manner.851
Chants were sung by the “priestesses” of Sena to raise storms, and
they were also sung by warriors both before and after a battle, to
the accompaniment of a measured dance and the clashing of
arms.852 These warrior chants were
composed by bards, and probably included invocations of the
war-gods and the recital of famous deeds. They may also have been
of the nature of spells ensuring the help of the gods, like the
war-cries uttered by a whole army to the sound of trumpets.853 These consisted of the name of a
god, of a tribe or clan, or of some well-known phrase. As the
recital of a divine name is often supposed to force the god to
help, these cries had thus a magical aspect, while they also struck
terror into the foe.854
Warriors also advanced dancing to the fray, and they are depicted
on coins dancing on horseback or before a sword, which was
worshipped by the Celts.855 The
Celtiberian festival at the full moon consisted entirely of
dancing. The dance is a primitive method of expressing religious
emotion, and where it imitates certain actions, it is intended by
magical influence to crown the actions themselves with success. It
is thus a kind of acted prayer with magical results.
DIVINATION.
A special class of diviners existed among the Celts, but the
Druids practised divination, as did also the unofficial layman.
Classical writers speak of the Celts as of all nations the most
devoted to, and the most experienced in, the science of divination.
Divination with a human victim is described by Diodorus. Libations
were poured over him, and he was then slain, auguries being drawn
from the method of his fall, the movements of his limbs, and the
flowing of his blood. Divination with the entrails was used in
Galatia, Gaul, and Britain.856
Beasts and birds also provided omens. The course taken by a hare
let loose gave an omen of success to the Britons, and in Ireland
divination was used with a sacrificial animal.857 Among birds the crow was
pre-eminent, and two crows are represented speaking into the ears
of a man on a bas-relief at Compiègne. The Celts believed
that the crow had shown where towns should be founded, or had
furnished a remedy against poison, and it was also an arbiter of
disputes.858 Artemidorus describes how, at a
certain place, there were two crows. Persons having a dispute set
out two heaps of sweetmeats, one for each disputant. The birds
swooped down upon them, eating one and dispersing the other. He
whose heap had been scattered won the case.859
Birds were believed to have guided the migrating Celts, and their
flight furnished auguries, because, as Deiotaurus gravely said,
birds never lie. Divination by the voices of birds was used by the
Irish Druids.860
Omens were drawn from the direction of the smoke and flames of
sacred fires and from the condition of the clouds.861 Wands of yew were carried by
Druids—”the wand of Druidism” of many folk-tales—and
were used perhaps as divining-rods. Ogams were also engraved on
rods of yews, and from these Druids divined hidden things. By this
means the Druid Dalan discovered where Etain had been hidden by the
god Mider. The method used may have been that of drawing one of the
rods by lot and then divining from the marks upon it. A similar
method was used to discover the route to be taken by invaders, the
result being supposed to depend on divine interposition.862 The knowledge of astronomy
ascribed by Cæsar to the Druids was probably of a simple
kind, and much mixed with astrology, and though it furnished the
data for computing a simple calendar, its use was largely
magical.863 Irish diviners forecast the time
to build a house by the stars, and the date at which S. Columba’s
education should begin, was similarly discovered.864
The Imbas Forosnai, “illumination between the hands,” was
used by the Filé to discover hidden things. He chewed
a piece of raw flesh and placed it as an offering to the images of
the gods whom he desired to help him. If enlightenment did not come
by the next day, he pronounced incantations on his palms, which he
then placed on his cheeks before falling asleep. The revelation
followed in a dream, or sometimes after awaking.865 Perhaps the animal {249} whose
flesh was eaten was a sacred one. Another method was that of the
Teinm Laegha. The Filé made a verse and
repeated it over some person or thing regarding which he sought
information, or he placed his staff on the person’s body and so
obtained what he sought. The rite was also preceded by sacrifice;
hence S. Patrick prohibited both it and the Imbas
Forosnai.866
Another incantation, the Cétnad, was sung through the
fist to discover the track of stolen cattle or of the thief. If
this did not bring enlightenment, the Filé went to
sleep and obtained the knowledge through a dream.867 Another Cétnad for
obtaining information regarding length of life was addressed to the
seven daughters of the sea. Perhaps the incantation was repeated
mechanically until the seer fell into a kind of trance. Divination
by dreams was also used by the continental Celts.868
Other methods resemble “trance-utterance.” “A great obnubilation
was conjured up for the bard so that he slept a heavy sleep, and
things magic-begotten were shewn to him to enunciate,” apparently
in his sleep. This was called “illumination by rhymes,” and a
similar method was used in Wales. When consulted, the seer roared
violently until he was beside himself, and out of his ravings the
desired information was gathered. When aroused from this ecstatic
condition, he had no remembrance of what he had uttered. Giraldus
reports this, and thinks, with the modern spiritualist, that the
utterance was caused by spirits.869 The
resemblance to modern trance-utterance and to similar methods used
by savages is remarkable, and psychological science sees in it the
promptings of the subliminal self in sleep.
The taghairm of the Highlanders was a survival from pagan
times. The seer was usually bound in a cow’s hide—the
{250} animal, it may be conjectured, having
been sacrificed in earlier times. He was left in a desolate place,
and while he slept spirits were supposed to inspire his
dreams.870 Clothing in the skin of a
sacrificial animal, by which the person thus clothed is brought
into contact with it and hence with the divinity to which it is
offered, or with the divine animal itself where the victim is so
regarded, is a widespread custom. Hence, in this Celtic usage,
contact with divinity through the hide would be expected to produce
enlightenment. For a like reason the Irish sacrificed a sheep for
the recovery of the sick, and clothed the patient in its
skin.871 Binding the limbs of the seer is
also a widespread custom, perhaps to restrain his convulsions or to
concentrate the psychic force.
Both among the continental and Irish Celts those who sought
hidden knowledge slept on graves, hoping to be inspired by the
spirits of the dead.872
Legend told how, the full version of the Táin having
been lost, Murgan the Filé sang an incantation over
the grave of Fergus mac Roig. A cloud hid him for three days, and
during that time the dead man appeared and recited the saga to
him.
In Ireland and the Highlands, divination by looking into the
shoulder-blade of a sheep was used to discover future events or
things happening at a distance, a survival from pagan times.873 The scholiast on Lucan describes
the Druidic method of chewing acorns and then prophesying, just as,
in Ireland, eating nuts from the sacred hazels round Connla’s well
gave inspiration.874 The
“priestesses” of Sena and the “Druidesses” of the third century had
the gift of prophecy, {251} and it was also ascribed freely to the
Filid, the Druids, and to Christian saints. Druids are said
to have prophesied the coming of S. Patrick, and similar prophecies
are put in the mouths of Fionn and others, just as Montezuma’s
priests foretold the coming of the Spaniards.875
The word used for such prophecies—baile, means
“ecstasy,” and it suggests that the prophet worked himself into a
frenzy and then fell into a trance, in which he uttered his
forecast. Prophecies were also made at the birth of a child,
describing its future career.876
Careful attention was given to the utterances of Druidic prophets,
e.g. Medb’s warriors postponed their expedition for fifteen
days, because the Druids told them they would not succeed if they
set out sooner.877
Mythical personages or divinities are said in the Irish texts to
have stood on one leg, with one arm extended, and one eye closed,
when uttering prophecies or incantations, and this was doubtless an
attitude used by the seer.878 A
similar method is known elsewhere, and it may have been intended to
produce greater force. From this attitude may have originated myths
of beings with one arm, one leg, and one eye, like some Fomorians
or the Fachan whose weird picture Campbell of Islay drew
from verbal descriptions.879
Early Celtic saints occasionally describe lapses into heathenism
in Ireland, not characterised by “idolatry,” but by wizardry,
dealing in charms, and fidlanna, perhaps a kind of
divination with pieces of wood.880 But
it is much more likely that these had never really been abandoned.
They belong to the primitive element of religion and magic which
people cling to long after they have given up “idolatry.”
Footnote 796:(return)Cæsar, vi. 16; Livy, xxxviii. 47; Diod. Sic. v. 32, xxxi.
13; Athenæus, iv. 51; Dio Cass., lxii. 7.
Footnote 797:(return)Diod. Sic, xxxiv. 13; Strabo, iv. 4; Orosius, v. 16; Schol. on
Lucan, Usener’s ed. 32.
Footnote 811:(return)See, however, accounts of reckless child sacrifices in Ellis,
Polynesian Researches, i. 252, and Westermarck, Moral
Ideas, i. 397.
Footnote 820:(return)Pliny, HN xxx. 1. The feeding of Ethni, daughter of
Crimthann, on human flesh that she might sooner attain maturity may
be an instance of “medicinal cannibalism” (IT iii. 363). The
eating of parents among the Irish, described by Strabo (iv. 5), was
an example of “honorific cannibalism.” See my article “Cannibalism”
in Hastings’ Encycl. of Rel. and Ethics, iii, 194.
Footnote 821:(return)Diod. Sic. vi. 12; Paus. x. 22. 3; Amm. Marc. xxvii. 4; Livy,
xxiii. 24; Solin. xxii. 3.
Footnote 824:(return)Sil. Ital. iv. 213; Diod. Sic. xiv. 115; Livy, x. 26; Strabo,
iv. 4. 5; Miss Hull, 92.
Footnote 833:(return)Loth, i. 90 f., ii. 218-219. Sometimes the weapons of a great
warrior had the same effect. The bows of Gwerthevyr were hidden in
different parts of Prydein and preserved the land from Saxon
invasion, until Gwrtheyrn, for love of a woman, dug them up (Loth,
ii. 218-219).
Footnote 835:(return)L’Anthropologie, xii. 206, 711. Cf. the English tradition
of the “Holy Mawle,” said to have been used for the same purpose.
Thorns, Anecdotes and Traditions, 84.
Footnote 843:(return)Mitchell, loc. cit. 147. The corruption of “Maelrubha” to
“Maree” may have been aided by confusing the name with mo or
mhor righ.
Footnote 844:(return)Mitchell, loc. cit.; Moore, 92, 145; Rh[^y]s, CFL
i. 305; Worth, Hist. of Devonshire, 339; Dalyell,
passim.
Footnote 848:(return)Martin, 28. A scribe called “Sonid,” which might be the
equivalent of “Shony,” is mentioned in the Stowe missal
(Folk-Lore, 1895).
Footnote 853:(return)Livy, v. 38, vii. 23; Polybius, ii. 29. Cf. Watteville, Le
cri de guerre chez les differents peuples, Paris, 1889.
Footnote 855:(return)Appian, vi. 53; Muret et Chabouillet, Catalogue des monnaies
gauloises, 6033 f., 6941 f.
Footnote 856:(return)Diod. v. 31; Justin, xxvi. 2, 4; Cicero, de Div. ii. 36,
76; Tac. Ann. xiv. 30; Strabo, iii. 3. 6.
Footnote 858:(return)Reinach, Catal. Sommaire, 31; Pseudo-Plutarch, de
Fluviis, vi. 4; Mirab. Auscult. 86.
Footnote 860:(return)Justin, xxiv, 4; Cicero, de Div. i. 15. 26. (Cf. the two
magic crows which announced the coming of Cúchulainn to the
other world (D’Arbois, v. 203); Irish Nennius, 145; O’Curry,
MC ii. 224; cf. for a Welsh instance, Skene, i. 433.)
Footnote 862:(return)IT i. 129; Livy, v. 34; Loth, RC xvi. 314. The
Irish for consulting a lot is crann-chur, “the act of
casting wood.”
Footnote 865:(return)Cormac, 94. Fionn’s divination by chewing his thumb is called
Imbas Forosnai (RC xxv. 347).
CHAPTER XVII.
TABU.
The Irish geis, pl. geasa, which may be rendered
by Tabu, had two senses. It meant something which must not be done
for fear of disastrous consequences, and also an obligation to do
something commanded by another.
As a tabu the geis had a large place in Irish life, and
was probably known to other branches of the Celts.881 It followed the general course of
tabu wherever found. Sometimes it was imposed before birth, or it
was hereditary, or connected with totemism. Legends, however, often
arose giving a different explanation to geasa, long after
the customs in which they originated had been forgotten. It was one
of Diarmaid’s geasa not to hunt the boar of Ben Gulban, and
this was probably totemic in origin. But legend told how his father
killed a child, the corpse being changed into a boar by the child’s
father, who said its span of life would be the same as Diarmaid’s,
and that he would be slain by it. Oengus put geasa on
Diarmaid not to hunt it, but at Fionn’s desire he broke these, and
was killed.882
Other geasa—those of Cúchulainn not to eat
dog’s flesh, and of Conaire never to chase birds—also point
to totemism.
In some cases geasa were based on ideas of right and
{253} wrong, honour or dishonour, or were
intended to cause avoidance of unlucky days. Others are
unintelligible to us. The largest number of geasa concerned
kings and chiefs, and are described, along with their corresponding
privileges, in the Book of Rights. Some of the geasa
of the king of Connaught were not to go to an assembly of women at
Leaghair, not to sit in autumn on the sepulchral mound of the wife
of Maine, not to go in a grey-speckled garment on a grey-speckled
horse to the heath of Cruachan, and the like.883
The meaning of these is obscure, but other examples are more
obvious and show that all alike corresponded to the tabus applying
to kings in primitive societies, who are often magicians, priests,
or even divine representatives. On them the welfare of the tribe
and the making of rain or sunshine, and the processes of growth
depend. They must therefore be careful of their actions, and hence
they are hedged about with tabus which, however unmeaning, have a
direct connection with their powers. Out of such conceptions the
Irish kingly geasa arose. Their observance made the earth
fruitful, produced abundance and prosperity, and kept both the king
and his land from misfortune. In later times these were supposed to
be dependent on the “goodness” or the reverse of the king, but this
was a departure from the older idea, which is clearly stated in the
Book of Rights.884 The
kings were divinities on whom depended fruitfulness and plenty, and
who must therefore submit to obey their geasa. Some of their
prerogatives seem also to be connected with this state of things.
Thus they might eat of certain foods or go to certain places on
particular days.885 In
primitive societies kings and priests often prohibit ordinary
mortals from eating things which they desire for themselves by
making them tabu, and {254} in other cases the fruits
of the earth can only be eaten after king or priest has partaken of
them ceremonially. This may have been the case in Ireland. The
privilege relating to places may have meant that these were sacred
and only to be entered by the king at certain times and in his
sacred capacity.
As a reflection from this state of things, the heroes of the
sagas, Cúchulainn and Fionn, had numerous geasa
applicable to themselves, some of them religious, some magical,
others based on primitive ideas of honour, others perhaps the
invention of the narrators.886
Geasa, whether in the sense of tabus or of obligations,
could be imposed by any one, and must be obeyed, for disobedience
produced disastrous effects. Probably the obligation was framed as
an incantation or spell, and the power of the spell being fully
believed in, obedience would follow as a matter of course.887 Examples of such geasa are
numerous in Irish literature. Cúchulainn’s father-in-law put
geasa on him that he should know no rest until he found out
the cause of the exile of the sons of Doel. And Grainne put
geasa on Diarmaid that he should elope with her, and this he
did, though the act was repugnant to him.
Among savages the punishment which is supposed to follow
tabu-breaking is often produced through auto-suggestion when a tabu
has been unconsciously infringed and this has afterwards been
discovered. Fear produces the result which is feared. The result is
believed, however, to be the working of divine vengeance. In the
case of Irish geasa, destruction and death usually followed
their infringement, as in the case of Diarmaid and
Cúchulainn. But the best instance is found in the tale of
The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel, in which {255} the
síd-folk avenge themselves for Eochaid’s action by
causing the destruction of his descendant Conaire, who is forced to
break his geasa. These are first minutely detailed; then it
is shown how, almost in spite of himself, Conaire was led on to
break them, and how, in the sequel, his tragic death
occurred.888 Viewed in this light as the
working of divine vengeance to a remote descendant of the offender
by forcing him to break his tabus, the story is one of the most
terrible in the whole range of Irish literature.
Footnote 881:(return)The religious interdictions mentioned by Cæsar (vi. 13)
may be regarded as tabus, while the spoils of war placed in a
consecrated place (vi. 18), and certain animals among the Britons
(v. 12), were clearly under tabu.
Footnote 888:(return)RC xxii. 27 f. The story of Da Choca’s Hostel has
for its subject the destruction of Cormac through breaking his
geasa (RC xxi. 149 f.).
CHAPTER XVIII.
FESTIVALS.
The Celtic year was not at first regulated by the solstices and
equinoxes, but by some method connected with agriculture or with
the seasons. Later, the year was a lunar one, and there is some
evidence of attempts at synchronising solar and lunar time. But
time was mainly measured by the moon, while in all calculations
night preceded day.889 Thus
oidhche Samhain was the night preceding Samhain (November
1st), not the following night. The usage survives in our “sennight”
and “fortnight.” In early times the year had two, possibly three
divisions, marking periods in pastoral or agricultural life, but it
was afterwards divided into four periods, while the year began with
the winter division, opening at Samhain. A twofold, subdivided into
a fourfold division is found in Irish texts,890
and may be tabulated as follows:—
| A. Geimredh (winter half) |
| ||
| B. Samradh (summer half) |
|
These divisions began with festivals, and clear traces of three
of them occur over the whole Celtic area, but the fourth has now
been merged in S. Brigit’s day. Beltane and Samhain marked the
beginning of the two great divisions, and were perhaps at first
movable festivals, according as the signs of summer or winter
appeared earlier or later. With the adoption of the Roman calendar
some of the festivals were displaced, e.g. in Gaul, where
the Calends of January took the place of Samhain, the ritual being
also transferred.
None of the four festivals is connected with the times of
equinox and solstice. This points to the fact that originally the
Celtic year was independent of these. But Midsummer day was also
observed not only by the Celts, but by most European folk, the
ritual resembling that of Beltane. It has been held, and an old
tradition in Ireland gives some support to the theory, that under
Christian influences the old pagan feast of Beltane was merged in
that of S. John Baptist on Midsummer day.891
But, though there are Christian elements in the Midsummer ritual,
denoting a desire to bring it under Church influence, the pagan
elements in folk-custom are strongly marked, and the festival is
deeply rooted in an earlier paganism all over Europe. Without much
acquaintance with astronomy, men must have noted the period of the
sun’s longest course from early times, and it would probably be
observed ritually. The festivals of Beltane and Midsummer may have
arisen independently, and entered into competition with each other.
Or Beltane may have been an early pastoral festival marking the
beginning of summer when the herds went out to pasture, and
Midsummer a more purely agricultural festival. {258} And since
their ritual aspect and purpose as seen in folk-custom are similar,
they may eventually have borrowed each from the other. Or they may
be later separate fixed dates of an earlier movable summer
festival. For our purpose we may here consider them as twin halves
of such a festival. Where Midsummer was already observed, the
influence of the Roman calendar would confirm that observance. The
festivals of the Christian year also affected the older
observances. Some of the ritual was transferred to saints’ days
within the range of the pagan festival days, thus the Samhain
ritual is found observed on S. Martin’s day. In other cases, holy
days took the place of the old festivals—All Saints’ and All
Souls’ that of Samhain, S. Brigit’s day that of February 1st, S.
John Baptist’s day that of Midsummer, Lammas that of Lugnasad, and
some attempt was made to hallow, if not to oust, the older
ritual.
The Celtic festivals being primarily connected with agricultural
and pastoral life, we find in their ritual survivals traces not
only of a religious but of a magical view of things, of acts
designed to assist the powers of life and growth. The proof of this
will be found in a detailed examination of the surviving customs
connected with them.
SAMHAIN.
Samhain,892
beginning the Celtic year, was an important social and religious
occasion. The powers of blight were beginning their ascendancy, yet
the future triumph of the powers of growth was not forgotten.
Probably Samhain had gathered up into itself other feasts occurring
earlier or later. {259} Thus it bears traces of being a harvest
festival, the ritual of the earlier harvest feast being transferred
to the winter feast, as the Celts found themselves in lands where
harvest is not gathered before late autumn. The harvest rites may,
however, have been associated with threshing rather than
ingathering. Samhain also contains in its ritual some of the old
pastoral cults, while as a New Year feast its ritual is in great
part that of all festivals of beginnings.
New fire was brought into each house at Samhain from the sacred
bonfire,893 itself probably kindled from the
need-fire by the friction of pieces of wood. This preserved its
purity, the purity necessary to a festival of beginnings.894 The putting away of the old fires
was probably connected with various rites for the expulsion of
evils, which usually occur among many peoples at the New Year
festival. By that process of dislocation which scattered the
Samhain ritual over a wider period and gave some of it to
Christmas, the kindling of the Yule log may have been originally
connected with this festival.
Divination and forecasting the fate of the inquirer for the
coming year also took place. Sometimes these were connected with
the bonfire, stones placed in it showing by their appearance the
fortune or misfortune awaiting their owners.895
Others, like those described by Burns in his “Hallowe’en,” were
unconnected with the bonfire and were of an erotic nature.896
The slaughter of animals for winter consumption which took place
at Samhain, or, as now, at Martinmas, though connected with
economic reasons, had a distinctly religious aspect, as it had
among the Teutons. In recent times in {260} Ireland
one of the animals was offered to S. Martin, who may have taken the
place of a god, and ill-luck followed the non-observance of the
custom.897 The slaughter was followed by
general feasting. This later slaughter may be traced back to the
pastoral stage, in which the animals were regarded as divine, and
one was slain annually and eaten sacramentally. Or, if the
slaughter was more general, the animals would be propitiated. But
when the animals ceased to be worshipped, the slaughter would
certainly be more general, though still preserving traces of its
original character. The pastoral sacrament may also have been
connected with the slaying and eating of an animal representing the
corn-spirit at harvest time. In one legend S. Martin is associated
with the animal slain at Martinmas, and is said to have been cut up
and eaten in the form of an ox,898 as
if a former divine animal had become an anthropomorphic divinity,
the latter being merged in the personality of a Christian
saint.
Other rites, connected with the Calends of January as a result
of dislocation, point also in this direction. In Gaul and Germany
riotous processions took place with men dressed in the heads and
skins of animals.899 This
rite is said by Tille to have been introduced from Italy, but it is
more likely to have been a native custom.900
As the people ate the flesh of the slain animals sacramentally, so
they clothed themselves in the skins to promote further contact
with their divinity. Perambulating the township sunwise dressed in
the skin of a cow took place until recently in the Hebrides at New
Year, in order to keep off misfortune, a piece of the hide being
burned and the smoke inhaled by each person and animal in
{261} the township.901
Similar customs have been found in other Celtic districts, and
these animal disguises can hardly be separated from the sacramental
slaughter at Samhain.902
Evils having been or being about to be cast off in the New Year
ritual, a few more added to the number can make little difference.
Hence among primitive peoples New Year is often characterised by
orgiastic rites. These took place at the Calends in Gaul, and were
denounced by councils and preachers.903 In
Ireland the merriment at Samhain is often mentioned in the
texts,904 and similar orgiastic rites lurk
behind the Hallowe’en customs in Scotland and in the licence still
permitted to youths in the quietest townships of the West Highlands
at Samhain eve.
Samhain, as has been seen, was also a festival of the dead,
whose ghosts were fed at this time.905
As the powers of growth were in danger and in eclipse in winter,
men thought it necessary to assist them. As a magical aid the
Samhain bonfire was chief, and it is still lit in the Highlands.
Brands were carried round, and from it the new fire was lit in each
house. In North Wales people jumped through the fire, and when it
was extinct, rushed away to escape the “black sow” who would take
the hindmost.906 The
bonfire represented the sun, and was intended to strengthen it. But
representing the sun, it had all the sun’s force, hence those who
jumped through it were strengthened and purified. The Welsh
reference to the hindmost and to the black sow may point to a
former human sacrifice, perhaps of any one {262} who
stumbled in jumping through the fire. Keating speaks of a Druidic
sacrifice in the bonfire, whether of man or beast is not
specified.907 Probably the victim, like the
scapegoat, was laden with the accumulated evils of the year, as in
similar New Year customs elsewhere. Later belief regarded the
sacrifice, if sacrifice there was, as offered to the powers of
evil—the black sow, unless this animal is a reminiscence of
the corn-spirit in its harmful aspect. Earlier powers, whether of
growth or of blight, came to be associated with Samhain as demoniac
beings—the “malignant bird flocks” which blighted crops and
killed animals, the samhanach which steals children, and
Mongfind the banshee, to whom “women and the rabble” make petitions
on Samhain eve.908
Witches, evil-intentioned fairies, and the dead were particularly
active then.
Though the sacrificial victim had come to be regarded as an
offering to the powers of blight, he may once have represented a
divinity of growth or, in earlier times, the corn-spirit. Such a
victim was slain at harvest, and harvest is often late in northern
Celtic regions, while the slaying was sometimes connected not with
the harvest field, but with the later threshing. This would bring
it near the Samhain festival. The slaying of the corn-spirit was
derived from the earlier slaying of a tree or vegetation-spirit
embodied in a tree and also in a human or animal victim. The
corn-spirit was embodied in the last sheaf cut as well as in an
animal or human being.909 This
human victim may have been regarded as a king, since in late
popular custom a mock king is chosen at winter festivals.910 In other cases the effigy of a
saint is {263} hung up and carried round the different
houses, part of the dress being left at each. The saint has
probably succeeded to the traditional ritual of the divine
victim.911 The primitive period in which the
corn-spirit was regarded as female, with a woman as her human
representative, is also recalled in folk-custom. The last sheaf is
called the Maiden or the Mother, while, as in Northamptonshire,
girls choose a queen on S. Catharine’s day, November 26th, and in
some Christmas pageants “Yule’s wife,” as well as Yule, is present,
corresponding to the May queen of the summer festival.912 Men also masqueraded as women at
the Calends. The dates of these survivals may be explained by that
dislocation of the Samhain festival already pointed out. This view
of the Samhain human sacrifices is supported by the Irish offerings
to the Fomorians—gods of growth, later regarded as gods of
blight, and to Cromm Cruaich, in both cases at Samhain.913 With the evolution of religious
thought, the slain victim came to be regarded as an offering to
evil powers.
This aspect of Samhain, as a festival to promote and assist
festivity, is further seen in the belief in the increased activity
of fairies at that time. In Ireland, fairies are connected with the
Tuatha Dé Danann, the divinities of growth, and in many
folk-tales they are associated with agricultural processes. The use
of evergreens at Christmas is perhaps also connected with the
carrying of them round the fields in older times, as an evidence
that the life of nature was not extinct.914
Samhain may thus be regarded as, in origin, an old pastoral and
agricultural festival, which in time came to be looked upon as
affording assistance to the powers of growth in their conflict with
the powers of blight. Perhaps some myth {264}
describing this combat may lurk behind the story of the battle of
Mag-tured fought on Samhain between the Tuatha Dé Danann and
the Fomorians. While the powers of blight are triumphant in winter,
the Tuatha Déa are represented as the victors, though they
suffer loss and death. Perhaps this enshrines the belief in the
continual triumph of life and growth over blight and decay, or it
may arise from the fact that Samhain was both a time of rejoicing
for the ingathered harvest, and of wailing for the coming supremacy
of winter and the reign of the powers of blight.
BELTANE.
In Cormac’s Glossary and other texts, “Beltane” is
derived from bel-tene, “a goodly fire,” or from
bel-dine, because newly-born (dine) cattle were
offered to Bel, an idol-god.915 The
latter is followed by those who believe in a Celtic Belus,
connected with Baal. No such god is known, however, and the god
Belenos is in no way connected with the Semitic divinity. M.
D’Arbois assumes an unknown god of death, Beltene (from
beltu, “to die”), whose festival Beltane was.916 But Beltane was a festival of
life, of the sun shining in his strength. Dr. Stokes gives a more
acceptable explanation of the word. Its primitive form was
belo-te[p]niâ, from belo-s,
“clear,” “shining,” the root of the names Belenos and Belisama, and
te[p]nos, “fire.” Thus the word would mean
something like “bright fire,” perhaps the sun or the bonfire, or
both.917
The folk-survivals of the Beltane and Midsummer festivals show
that both were intended to promote fertility.
One of the chief ritual acts at Beltane was the kindling of
bonfires, often on hills. The house-fires in the district were
often extinguished, the bonfire being lit by friction from a
rotating wheel—the German “need-fire.”918
The fire kept off disease and evil, hence cattle were driven
through it, or, according to Cormac, between two fires lit by
Druids, in order to keep them in health during the year.919 Sometimes the fire was lit
beneath a sacred tree, or a pole covered with greenery was
surrounded by the fuel, or a tree was burned in the fire.920 These trees survive in the
Maypole of later custom, and they represented the
vegetation-spirit, to whom also the worshippers assimilated
themselves by dressing in leaves. They danced sunwise round the
fire or ran through the fields with blazing branches or wisps of
straw, imitating the course of the sun, and thus benefiting the
fields.921 For the same reason the tree
itself was probably borne through the fields. Houses were decked
with boughs and thus protected by the spirit of vegetation.922
An animal representing the spirit of vegetation may have been
slain. In late survivals of Beltane at Dublin, a horse’s skull and
bones were thrown into the fire,923 the
attenuated form of an earlier sacrifice or slaying of a divine
victim, by whom strength was transferred to all the animals which
passed through the fire. In some cases a human victim may have been
slain. This is suggested by customs surviving in Perthshire in the
eighteenth century, when a cake was broken up and distributed, and
the person who received a certain {266} blackened portion was
called the “Beltane carline” or “devoted.” A pretence was made of
throwing him into the fire, or he had to leap three times through
it, and during the festival he was spoken of as “dead.”924 Martin says that malefactors were
burned in the fire,925 and
though he cites no authority, this agrees with the Celtic use of
criminals as victims. Perhaps the victim was at one time a human
representative of the vegetation-spirit.
Beltane cakes or bannocks, perhaps made of the grain of the
sacred last sheaf from the previous harvest, and therefore
sacramental in character, were also used in different ways in
folk-survivals. They were rolled down a slope—a magical
imitative act, symbolising and aiding the course of the sun. The
cake had also a divinatory character. If it broke on reaching the
foot of the slope this indicated the approaching death of its
owner. In another custom in Perthshire, part of a cake was thrown
over the shoulder with the words, “This I give to thee, preserve
thou my horses; this to thee, preserve thou my sheep; this to thee,
O fox, preserve thou my lambs; this to thee, O hooded crow; this to
thee, O eagle.” Here there is an appeal to beneficial and noxious
powers, whether this was the original intention of the rite.926 But if the cakes were made of the
last sheaf, they were probably at one time eaten sacramentally,
their sacrificial use emerging later.
The bonfire was a sun-charm, representing and assisting the sun.
Rain-charms were also used at Beltane. Sacred wells were visited
and the ceremony performed with their waters, these perhaps being
sprinkled over the tree or the fields to promote a copious rainfall
for the benefit of vegetation. {267} The use of such rites at
Beltane and at other festivals may have given rise to the belief
that wells were especially efficacious then for purposes of
healing. The custom of rolling in the grass to benefit by May dew
was probably connected with magical rites in which moisture played
an important part.927
The idea that the powers of growth had successfully combated
those of blight may have been ritually represented. This is
suggested by the mimic combats of Summer and Winter at this time,
to which reference has already been made. Again, the May king and
queen represent earlier personages who were regarded as embodying
the spirits of vegetation and fertility at this festival, and whose
marriage or union magically assisted growth and fertility, as in
numerous examples of this ritual marriage elsewhere.928 It may be assumed that a
considerable amount of sexual licence also took place with the same
magical purpose. Sacred marriage and festival orgy were an appeal
to the forces of nature to complete their beneficial work, as well
as a magical aid to them in that work. Analogy leads to the
supposition that the king of the May was originally a priest-king,
the incarnation of the spirit of vegetation. He or his surrogate
was slain, while his bodily force was unabated, in order that it
might be passed on undiminished to his successor. But the
persistent place given to the May queen rather than to the king
suggests the earlier prominence of women and of female spirits of
fertility or of a great Mother-goddess in such rites. It is also
significant that in the Perthshire ritual the man chosen was still
called the Beltane carlane or cailleach (“old
woman”). And if, as Professor Pearson maintains, witch {268} orgies
are survivals of old sex-festivals, then the popular belief in the
activity of witches on Beltane eve, also shows that the festival
had once been mainly one in which women took part. Such orgies
often took place on hills which had been the sites of a cult in
former times.929
MIDSUMMER.
The ritual of the Midsummer festival did not materially differ
from that of Beltane, and as folk-survivals show, it was practised
not only by the Celts, but by many other European peoples. It was,
in fact, a primitive nature festival such as would readily be
observed by all under similar psychic conditions and in like
surroundings. A bonfire was again the central rite of this
festival, the communal nature of which is seen in the fact that all
must contribute materials to it. In local survivals, mayor and
priest, representing the earlier local chief and priest, were
present, while a service in church preceded the procession to the
scene of the bonfire. Dancing sunwise round the fire to the
accompaniment of songs which probably took the place of hymns or
tunes in honour of the Sun-god, commonly occurred, and by imitating
the sun’s action, may have been intended to make it more powerful.
The livelier the dance the better would be the harvest.930 As the fire represented the sun,
it possessed the purifying and invigorating powers of the sun;
hence leaping through the fire preserved from disease, brought
prosperity, or removed barrenness. Hence also cattle were driven
through the fire. {269} But if any one stumbled as he leaped,
ill-luck was supposed to follow him. He was devoted to the
fadets or spirits,931 and
perhaps, like the “devoted” Beltane victim, he may formerly have
been sacrificed. Animal sacrifices are certainly found in many
survivals, the victims being often placed in osier baskets and
thrown into the fire. In other districts great human effigies of
osier were carried in procession and burned.932
The connection of such sacrifices with the periodical slaying of
a representative of the vegetation-spirit has been maintained by
Mannhardt and Dr. Frazer.933 As
has been seen, periodic sacrifices for the fertility of the land
are mentioned by Cæsar, Strabo, and Diodorus, human victims
and animals being enclosed in an osier image and burned.934 These images survive in the osier
effigies just referred to, while they may also be connected with
the custom of decking the human representatives of the spirit of
vegetation in greenery. The holocausts may be regarded as
extensions of the earlier custom of slaying one victim, the
incarnation of a vegetation-spirit. This slaying was gradually
regarded as sacrificial, but as the beneficial effect of the
sacrifice on growth was still believed in, it would naturally be
thought that still better effects would be produced if many victims
were offered. The victims were burned in a fire representing the
sun, and vegetation was thus doubly benefited, by the victims and
by the sun-god.
The oldest conception of the vegetation-spirit was that of a
tree-spirit which had power over rain, sunshine, and every species
of fruitfulness. For this reason a tree had a prominent place both
in the Beltane and Midsummer feasts. It was carried in procession,
imparting its benefits to each house or {270} field.
Branches of it were attached to each house for the same purpose. It
was then burned, or it was set up to procure benefits to vegetation
during the year and burned at the next Midsummer festival.935 The sacred tree was probably an
oak, and, as has been seen, the mistletoe rite probably took place
on Midsummer eve, as a preliminary to cutting down the sacred tree
and in order to secure the life or soul of the tree, which must
first be secured before the tree could be cut down. The life of the
tree was in the mistletoe, still alive in winter when the tree
itself seemed to be dead. Such beliefs as this concerning the
detachable soul or life survive in Märchen, and are
still alive among savages.936
Folk-survivals show that a human or an animal representative of
the vegetation-spirit, brought into connection with the tree, was
also slain or burned along with the tree.937
Thus the cutting of the mistletoe would be regarded as a
preliminary to the slaying of the human victim, who, like the tree,
was the representative of the spirit of vegetation.
The bonfire representing the sun, and the victims, like the
tree, representing the spirit of vegetation, it is obvious why the
fire had healing and fertilising powers, and why its ashes and the
ashes or the flesh of the victims possessed the same powers. Brands
from the fire were carried through the fields or villages, as the
tree had been, or placed on the fields or in houses, where they
were carefully preserved for a year. All this aided growth and
prosperity, just as the smoke of the fire, drifting over the
fields, produced fertility. Ashes from the fire, and probably the
calcined bones or even the flesh of the victims, were scattered on
the fields or preserved and mixed {271} with the seed corn. Again,
part of the flesh may have been eaten sacramentally, since, as has
been seen, Pliny refers to the belief of the Celts in the eating of
human flesh as most wholesome.
In the Stone Age, as with many savages, a circle typified the
sun, and as soon as the wheel was invented its rolling motion at
once suggested that of the sun. In the Edda the sun is “the
beautiful, the shining wheel,” and similar expressions occur in the
Vedas. Among the Celts the wheel of the sun was a favourite
piece of symbolism, and this is seen in various customs at the
Midsummer festival. A burning wheel was rolled down a slope or
trundled through the fields, or burning brands were whirled round
so as to give the impression of a fiery wheel. The intention was
primarily to imitate the course of the sun through the heavens, and
so, on the principle of imitative magic, to strengthen it. But
also, as the wheel was rolled through the fields, so it was hoped
that the direct beneficial action of the sun upon them would
follow. Similar rites might be performed not only at Midsummer, but
at other times, to procure blessing or to ward off evil,
e.g. carrying fire round houses or fields or cattle or round
a child deiseil or sunwise,938 and,
by a further extension of thought, the blazing wheel, or the
remains of the burning brands thrown to the winds, had also the
effect of carrying off accumulated evils.939
Beltane and Midsummer thus appear as twin halves of a spring or
early summer festival, the intention of which was to {272} promote
fertility and health. This was done by slaying the spirit of
vegetation in his representative—tree, animal, or man. His
death quickened the energies of earth and man. The fire also
magically assisted the course of the sun. Survival of the ancient
rites are or were recently found in all Celtic regions, and have
been constantly combated by the Church. But though they were
continued, their true meaning was forgotten, and they were mainly
performed for luck or out of sheer conservatism. Sometimes a
Christian aspect was given to them, e.g. by connecting the
fires with S. John, or by associating the rites with the service of
the Church, or by the clergy being present at them. But their true
nature was still evident as acts of pagan worship and magic which
no veneer of Christianity could ever quite conceal.940
LUGNASAD.
The 1st of August, coming midway between Beltane and Samhain,
was an important festival among the Celts. In Christian times the
day became Lammas, but its name still survives in Irish as
Lugnasad, in Gaelic as Lunasdal or Lunasduinn, and in Manx as Laa
Luanys, and it is still observed as a fair or feast in many
districts. Formerly assemblies at convenient centres were held on
this day, not only for religious purposes, but for commerce and
pleasure, both of these being of course saturated with religion.
“All Ireland” met at Taillti, just as “all Gaul” met at Lugudunum,
“Lug’s town,” or Lyons, in honour of Augustus, though the feast
there had formerly been in honour of the god Lugus.941 The festival was {273} here
Romanised, as it was also in Britain, where its name appears as
Goel-aoust, Gul-austus, and Gwyl Awst, now the
“August feast,” but formerly the “feast of Augustus,” the name
having replaced one corresponding to Lugnasad.942
Cormac explains the name Lugnasad as a festival of Lugh mac
Ethlenn, celebrated by him in the beginning of autumn, and the
Rennes Dindsenchas accounts for its origin by saying that
Lug’s foster-mother, Tailtiu, having died on the Calends of August,
he directed an assembly for lamentation to be held annually on that
day at her tomb.943 Lug
is thus the founder of his own festival, for that it was his, and
not Tailtiu’s, is clear from the fact that his name is attached to
it. As Lammas was a Christian harvest thanksgiving, so also was
Lugnasad a pagan harvest feast, part of the ritual of which passed
over to Samhain. The people made glad before the sun-god—Lug
perhaps having that character—who had assisted them in the
growth of the things on which their lives depended. Marriages were
also arranged at this feast, probably because men had now more
leisure and more means for entering upon matrimony. Possibly
promiscuous love-making also occurred as a result of the festival
gladness, agricultural districts being still notoriously immoral.
Some evidence points to the connection of the feast with Lug’s
marriage, though this has been allegorised into his wedding the
“sovereignty of Erin.” Perhaps we have here a hint of the rite of
the sacred marriage, for the purpose of magically fertilising the
fields against next year’s sowing.
Due observance of the feast produced abundance of corn, fruit,
milk, and fish. Probably the ritual observed included the
preservation of the last sheaf as representing the corn-spirit,
giving some of it to the cattle to strengthen them, and mingling
{274} it with next year’s corn to impart to it
the power of the corn-spirit. It may also have included the slaying
of an animal or human incarnation of the corn-spirit, whose flesh
and blood quickened the soil and so produced abundance next year,
or, when partaken of by the worshippers, brought blessings to them.
To neglect such rites, abundant instances of which exist in
folk-custom, would be held to result in scarcity. This would also
explain, as already suggested, why the festival was associated with
the death of Tailtiu or of Carman. The euhemerised queen-goddess
Tailtiu and the woman Carman had once been corn-goddesses, evolved
from more primitive corn-spirits, and slain at the feast in their
female representatives. The story of their death and burial at the
festival was a dim memory of this ancient rite, and since the
festival was also connected with the sun-god Lug, it was easy to
bring him into relationship with the earlier goddess. Elsewhere the
festival, in its memorial aspect, was associated with a king,
probably because male victims had come to be representatives of a
corn-god who had taken the place of the goddess.
Some of the ritual of these festivals is illustrated by
scattered notices in classical writers, and on the whole they
support our theory that the festivals originated in a female cult
of spirits or goddesses of fertility. Strabo speaks of sacrifices
offered to Demeter and Kore, according to the ritual followed at
Samothrace, in an island near Britain, i.e. to native
goddesses equated with them. He also describes the ritual of the
Namnite women on an island in the Loire. They are called Bacchantes
because they conciliated Bacchus with mysteries and sacrifices; in
other words, they observed an orgiastic cult of a god equated with
Bacchus. No man must set foot on the island, but the women left it
once a year for intercourse with the other sex. Once a year the
temple of the god was unroofed, and roofed {275} again
before sunset. If any woman dropped her load of materials (and it
was said this always happened), she was torn in pieces and her
limbs carried round the temple.944
Dionysius Periegetes says the women were crowned with ivy, and
celebrated their mysteries by night in honour of Earth and
Proserpine with great clamour.945
Pliny also makes a reference to British rites in which nude women
and girls took part, their bodies stained with woad.946
At a later time, S. Gregory of Tours speaks of the image of a
goddess Berecynthia drawn on a litter through the streets, fields,
and vineyards of Augustodunum on the days of her festival, or when
the fields were threatened with scarcity. The people danced and
sang before it. The image was covered with a white veil.947 Berecynthia has been conjectured
by Professor Anwyl to be the goddess Brigindu, worshipped at
Valnay.948
These rites were all directed towards divinities of fertility.
But in harvest customs in Celtic Scotland and elsewhere two sheaves
of corn were called respectively the Old Woman and the Maiden, the
corn-spirit of the past year and that of the year to come, and
corresponding to Demeter and Kore in early Greek agricultural
ritual. As in Greece, so among the Celts, the primitive
corn-spirits had probably become more individualised goddesses with
an elaborate cult, observed on an island or at other sacred spots.
The cult probably varied here and there, and that of a god of
fertility may have taken the place of the cult of goddesses. A god
was worshipped by the Namnite women, according to Strabo, goddesses
according to Dionysius. The mangled victim was probably regarded as
representative {276} of a divinity, and perhaps part of the
flesh was mixed with the seed-corn, like the grain of the Maiden
sheaf, or buried in the earth. This rite is common among savages,
and its presence in old European ritual is attested by survivals.
That these rites were tabu to men probably points to the fact that
they were examples of an older general custom, in which all such
rites were in the hands of women who cultivated the earth, and who
were the natural priestesses of goddesses of growth and fertility,
of vegetation and the growing corn. Another example is found in the
legend and procession of Godiva at Coventry—the survival of a
pagan cult from which men were excluded.949
Pliny speaks of the nudity of the women engaged in the cult.
Nudity is an essential part of all primitive agricultural rites,
and painting the body is also a widespread ritual act. Dressing
with leaves or green stuff, as among the Namnite women, and often
with the intention of personating the spirit of vegetation, is also
customary. By unveiling the body, and especially the sexual organs,
women more effectually represented the goddess of fertility, and
more effectually as her representatives, or through their own
powers, magically conveyed fertility to the fields. Nakedness thus
became a powerful magico-religious symbol, and it is found as part
of the ritual for producing rain.950
There is thus abundant evidence of the cult of fertility,
vegetation, and corn-spirits, who tended to become divinities, male
or female. Here and there, through conservatism, the cult remained
in the hands of women, but more generally it had become a ritual in
which both men and women took part—that {277} of the
great agricultural festivals. Where a divinity had taken the place
of the vaguer spirits, her image, like that of Berecynthia, was
used in the ritual, but the image was probably the successor of the
tree which embodied the vegetation-spirit, and was carried through
the fields to fertilise them. Similar processions of images, often
accompanied by a ritual washing of the image in order to invigorate
the divinity, or, as in the similar May-day custom, to produce
rain, are found in the Teutonic cult of Nerthus, the Phrygian of
Cybele, the Hindu of Bhavani, and the Roman ritual of the Bona Dea.
The image of Berecynthia was thus probably washed also. Washing the
images of saints, usually to produce rain, has sometimes taken the
place of the washing of a divine image, and similarly the relics of
a saint are carried through a field, as was the tree or image. The
community at Iona perambulated a newly sown field with S. Columba’s
relics in time of drought, and shook his tunic three times in the
air, and were rewarded by a plentiful rain, and later, by a
bounteous harvest.951
Many of these local cults were pre-Celtic, but we need not
therefore suppose that the Celts, or the Aryans as a whole, had no
such cults.952 The
Aryans everywhere adopted local cults, but this they would not have
done if, as is supposed, they had themselves outgrown them. The
cults were local, but the Celts had similar local cults, and easily
accepted those of the people they conquered. We cannot explain the
persistence of such primitive cults as lie behind the great Celtic
festivals, both in classical times and over the whole area of
Europe among the peasantry, by referring them solely to a pre-Aryan
folk. They were as much Aryan as pre-Aryan. They belong to those
unchanging strata of {278} religion which have so largely supplied
the soil in which its later and more spiritual growths have
flourished. And among these they still emerge, unchanged and
unchanging, like the gaunt outcrops of some ancient rock formation
amid rich vegetation and fragrant flowers.
Footnote 889:(return)Pliny, xvi. 45; Cæsar, vi. 18. See my article “Calendar
(Celtic)” in Hastings’ Encyclopædia of Rel. and
Ethics, iii. 78 f., for a full discussion of the problems
involved.
Footnote 892:(return)Samhain may mean “summer-end,” from sam, “summer,” and
fuin, “sunset” or “end,” but Dr. Stokes (US 293)
makes samani– mean “assembly,” i.e. the gathering of
the people to keep the feast.
Footnote 895:(return)Brand, i. 390; Ramsay, Scotland and Scotsmen in the
Eighteenth Century, ii. 437; Stat. Account, xi. 621.
Footnote 899:(return)See Chambers, Mediæval Stage, App. N, for the
evidence from canons and councils regarding these.
Footnote 902:(return)Hutchinson, View of Northumberland, ii. 45; Thomas,
Rev. de l’Hist. des Rel. xxxviii. 335 f.
Footnote 906:(return)The writer has himself seen such bonfires in the Highlands. See
also Hazlitt, 298; Pennant, Tour, ii. 47; Rh[^y]s, HL
515, CFL i. 225-226. In Egyptian mythology, Typhon assailed
Horus in the form of a black swine.
Footnote 909:(return)See Mannhardt, Mythol. Forschung. 333 f.; Frazer,
Adonis, passim; Thomas, Rev. de l’Hist. des
Rel. xxxviii. 325 f.
Footnote 917:(return)Stokes, US 125, 164. See his earlier derivation, dividing
the word into belt, connected with Lithuan. baltas,
“white,” and aine, the termination in sechtmaine,
“week” (TIG xxxv.).
Footnote 918:(return)Need-fire (Gael. Teinne-eiginn, “necessity fire”) was
used to kindle fire in time of cattle plague. See Grimm, Teut.
Myth. 608 f.; Martin, 113; Jamieson’s Dictionary,
s.v. “neidfyre.”
Footnote 919:(return)Cormac, s.v.; Martin, 105, says that the Druids
extinguished all fires until their dues were paid. This may have
been a tradition in the Hebrides.
Footnote 926:(return)For these usages see Ramsay, Scotland and Scotsmen in the
Eighteenth Century, ii. 439 f.; Sinclair, Stat. Account,
v. 84, xi. 620, xv. 517. For the sacramental and sacrificial use of
similar loaves, see Frazer, Golden Bough2, i. 94,
ii. 78; Grimm, Teut. Myth. iii. 1239 f.
Footnote 928:(return)See Miss Owen, Folk-lore of the Musquakie Indians, 50;
Frazer, Golden Bough2, ii. 205.
Footnote 929:(return)For notices of Beltane survivals see Keating, 300; Campbell,
Journey from Edinburgh, i. 143; Ramsay, Scotland and
Scotsmen, ii. 439 f.; Old Stat. Account, v. 84, xi. 620,
xv. 517; Gregor, Folk-lore of N.E. of Scotland, 167. The
paganism of the survivals is seen in the fact that Beltane fires
were frequently prohibited by Scottish ecclesiastical councils.
Footnote 935:(return)Frazer, op. cit. i. 74; Brand, i. 222, 237, 246, 318;
Hone, Everyday Book, ii. 595; Mannhardt, op. cit.
177; Grimm, Teut. Myth. 621, 777 f.
Footnote 938:(return)Martin, 117. The custom of walking deiseil round an
object still survives, and, as an imitation of the sun’s course, it
is supposed to bring good luck or ward off evil. For the same
reason the right hand turn was of good augury. Medb’s charioteer,
as she departed for the war, made her chariot turn to the right to
repel evil omens (LU 55). Curiously enough, Pliny (xxviii.
2) says that the Gauls preferred the left-hand turn in their
religious rites, though Athenæus refers to the right-hand
turn among them. Deiseil is from dekso-s, “right,”
and svel, “to turn.”
Footnote 940:(return)This account of the Midsummer ritual is based on notices found
in Hone, Everyday Book; Hazlitt, ii. 347 f.; Gaidoz, Le
Dieu Soleil; Bertrand; Deloche, RC ix. 435;
Folk-Lore, xii. 315; Frazer, Golden
Bough2, iii. 266 f.; Grimm, Teut. Myth. ii.
617 f.; Monnier, 186 f.
Footnote 947:(return)Greg, de Glor. Conf. 477; Sulp. Sev. Vita S.
Martini, 9; Pass. S. Symphor. Migne, Pat. Graec. v.
1463, 1466. The cult of Cybele had been introduced into Gaul, and
the ritual here described resembles it, but we are evidently
dealing here with the cult of a native goddess. See, however,
Frazer, Adonis, 176.
Footnote 950:(return)Professor Rh[^y]s suggests that nudity, being a frequent symbol
of submission to a conqueror, acquired a similar significance in
religious rites (AL 180). But the magical aspect of nudity
came first in time.
CHAPTER XIX.
ACCESSORIES OF CULT.
TEMPLES.
In primitive religion the place of worship is seldom a temple
made with hands, but rather an enclosed space in which the symbol
or image of the god stands. The sacredness of the god makes the
place of his cult sacred. Often an open space in the forest is the
scene of the regular cult. There the priests perform the sacred
rites; none may enter it but themselves; and the trembling
worshipper approaches it with awe lest the god should slay him if
he came too near.
The earliest temples of the Gauls were sacred groves, one of
which, near Massilia, is described by Lucan. No bird built in it,
no animal lurked near, the leaves constantly shivered when no
breeze stirred them. Altars stood in its midst, and the images of
the gods were misshapen trunks of trees. Every tree was stained
with sacrificial blood. The poet then describes marvels heard or
seen in the grove—the earth groaning, dead yews reviving,
trees surrounded with flame yet not consumed, and huge serpents
twining round the oaks. The people feared to approach the grove,
and even the priest would not walk there at midday or midnight lest
he should then meet its divine guardian.953
Dio speaks of human sacrifices offered to Andrasta in a British
grove, and in 61 A.D. the woods of Mona, devoted to strange rites,
were cut down by {280} Roman soldiers.954
The sacred Dru-nemeton of the Galatian Celts may have been a
grove.955 Place-names also point to the
widespread existence of such groves, since the word nemeton,
“grove,” occurs in many of them, showing that the places so called
had been sites of a cult. In Ireland, fid-nemed stood for
“sacred grove.”956 The
ancient groves were still the objects of veneration in Christian
times, though fines were levied against those who still clung to
the old ways.957
Sacred groves were still used in Gallo-Roman times, and the
Druids may have had a preference for them, a preference which may
underlie the words of the scholiast on Lucan, that “the Druids
worship the gods without temples in woods.” But probably more
elaborate temples, great tribal sanctuaries, existed side by side
with these local groves, especially in Cisalpine Gaul, where the
Boii had a temple in which were stored the spoils of war, while the
Insubri had a similar temple.958
These were certainly buildings. The “consecrated place” in
Transalpine Gaul, which Cæsar mentions, and where at fixed
periods judgments were given, might be either a grove or a temple.
Cæsar uses the same phrase for sacred places where the spoils
of war were heaped; these may have been groves, but Diodorus speaks
of treasure collected in “temples and sacred places” ([Greek: en
tois hierois chai temenesin]), and Plutarch speaks of the “temple”
where the Arverni hung Cæsar’s sword.959
The “temple” of the Namnite women, unroofed and re-roofed in a day,
must have been a building. There is no evidence that the insular
Celts had temples. In {281} Gallo-Roman times, elaborate temples,
perhaps occupying sites of earlier groves or temples, sprang up
over the Romano-Celtic area. They were built on Roman models, many
of them were of great size, and they were dedicated to Roman or
Gallo-Roman divinities.960
Smaller shrines were built by grateful worshippers at sacred
springs to their presiding divinity, as many inscriptions show. In
the temples stood images of the gods, and here were stored sacred
vessels, sometimes made of the skulls of enemies, spoils of war
dedicated to the gods, money collected for sacred purposes, and war
standards, especially those which bore divine symbols.
The old idea that stone circles were Druidic temples, that human
sacrifices were offered on the “altar-stone,” and libations of
blood poured into the cup-markings, must be given up, along with
much of the astronomical lore associated with the circles.
Stonehenge dates from the close of the Neolithic Age, and most of
the smaller circles belong to the early Bronze Age, and are
probably pre-Celtic. In any case they were primarily places of
sepulture. As such they would be the scene of ancestor worship, but
yet not temples in the strict sense of the word. The larger
circles, burial-places of great chiefs or kings, would become
central places for the recurring rites of ghost-worship, possibly
also rallying places of the tribe on stated occasions. But whether
this ghost-worship was ever transmuted into the cult of a god at
the circles is uncertain and, indeed, unlikely. The Celts would
naturally regard these places as sacred, since the ghosts of the
dead, even those of a vanquished people, are always dangerous, and
they also took over the myths and legends961
associated with {282} them, such, e.g., as regarded the
stones themselves, or trees growing within the circles, as
embodiments of the dead, while they may also have used them as
occasional places of secondary interment. Whether they were ever
led to copy such circles themselves is uncertain, since their own
methods of interment seem to have been different. We have seen that
the gods may in some cases have been worshipped at tumuli, and that
Lugnasad was, at some centres, connected with commemorative cults
at burial-places (mounds, not circles). But the reasons for this
are obscure, nor is there any hint that other Celtic festivals were
held near burial mounds. Probably such commemorative rites at
places of sepulture during Lugnasad were only part of a wider
series occurring elsewhere, and we cannot assume from such vague
notices that stone circles were Druidic temples where worship of an
Oriental nature was carried on.
Professor Rh[^y]s is disposed to accept the old idea that
Stonehenge was the temple of Apollo in the island of the
Hyperboreans, mentioned by Diodorus, where the sun-god was
worshipped.962 But
though that temple was circular, it had walls adorned with votive
offerings. Nor does the temple unroofed yearly by the Namnite women
imply a stone circle, for there is not the slightest particle of
evidence that the circles were ever roofed in any way.963 Stone circles with mystic trees
growing in them, one of them with a well by which entrance was
gained to Tír fa Tonn, are mentioned in Irish tales. They
were connected with magic rites, but are not spoken of as
temples.964
ALTARS.
Lucan describes realistically the awful sacrifices of the Gauls
on cruel altars not a whit milder than those of Diana, {283} and he
speaks of “altars piled with offerings” in the sacred grove at
Marseilles.965
Cicero says that human victims were sacrificed on altars, and
Tacitus describes the altars of Mona smeared with human
blood.966 “Druids’ altars” are mentioned in
the Irish “Expedition of Dathi,” and Cormac speaks of
indelba, or altars adorned with emblems.967 Probably many of these altars
were mere heaps of stone like the Norse horg, or a great
block of stone. Some sacrifices, however, were too extensive to be
offered on an altar, but in such cases the blood would be sprinkled
upon it. Under Roman influence, Celtic altars took the form of
those of the conquerors, with inscriptions containing names of
native or Roman gods and bas-reliefs depicting some of these. The
old idea that dolmens were Celtic altars is now abandoned. They
were places of sepulture of the Neolithic or early Bronze Age, and
were originally covered with a mound of earth. During the era of
Celtic paganism they were therefore hidden from sight, and it is
only in later times that the earth has been removed and the massive
stones, arranged so as to form a species of chamber, have been laid
bare.
IMAGES.
The Gauls, according to Cæsar, possessed plurima
simulacra of the native Mercury, but he does not refer to
images of other gods. We need not infer from this that the Celts
had a prejudice against images, for among the Irish Celts images
are often mentioned, and in Gaul under Roman rule many images
existed.
The existence of images among the Celts as among other
{284} peoples, may owe something to the cult
of trees and of stones set up over the dead. The stone, associated
with the dead man’s spirit, became an image of himself, perhaps
rudely fashioned in his likeness. A rough-hewn tree trunk became an
image of the spirit or god of trees. On the other hand, some
anthropomorphic images, like the palæolithic or
Mycenæan figurines, may have been fashioned without the
intermediary of tree-trunk or stone pillar. Maximus of Tyre says
that the Celtic image of Zeus was a lofty oak, perhaps a rough-hewn
trunk rather than a growing tree, and such roughly carved
tree-trunks, images of gods, are referred to by Lucan in his
description of the Massilian grove.968
Pillar stones set up over the graves of the dead are often
mentioned in Irish texts. These would certainly be associated with
the dead; indeed, existing legends show that they were believed to
be tenanted by the ghosts and to have the power of motion. This
suggests that they had been regarded as images of the dead. Other
stones honoured in Ireland were the cloch labrais, an
oracular stone; the lia fail, or coronation stone, which
shouted when a king of the Milesian race seated himself upon it;
and the lia adrada, or stone of adoration, apparently a
boundary stone.969 The
plurima simulacra of the Gaulish Mercury may have been
boundary stones like those dedicated to Mercury or Hermes among the
Romans and Greeks. Did Cæsar conclude, or was it actually the
case, that the Gauls dedicated such stones to a god of boundaries
who might be equated with Mercury? Many such standing stones still
exist in France, and their number must have been greater in
Cæsar’s time. Seeing them the objects of superstitious
observances, he may have concluded that they were simulacra
of a god. Other Romans besides himself had been struck by
{285} the resemblance of these stones to their
Hermai, and perhaps the Gauls, if they did not already regard them
as symbols of a god, acquiesced in the resemblance. Thus, on the
menhir of Kervadel are sculptured four figures, one being that of
Mercury, dating from Gallo-Roman times. Beneath another, near
Peronne, a bronze statuette of Mercury was discovered.970 This would seem to show that the
Gauls had a cult of pillar stones associated with a god of
boundaries. Cæsar probably uses the word simulacrum in
the sense of “symbol” rather than “image,” though he may have meant
native images not fully carved in human shape, like the Irish
cérmand, cerstach, ornamented with gold and
silver, the “chief idol” of north Ireland, or like the similarly
ornamented “images” of Cromm Cruaich and his satellites.971 The adoration of sacred stones
continued into Christian times and was much opposed by the
Church.972 S. Samson of Dol (sixth century)
found men dancing round a simulacrum abominabile, which
seems to have been a kind of standing stone, and having besought
them to desist, he carved a cross upon it.973
Several menhirion in France are now similarly
ornamented.974
The number of existing Gallo-Roman images shows that the Celts
had not adopted a custom which was foreign to them, and they must
have already possessed rude native images. The disappearance of
these would be explained if they were made of perishable material.
Wooden images of the Matres have been occasionally found,
and these may be pre-Roman. Some of the images of the three-headed
and crouching gods show no sign of Roman influences in their
modelling, and they may have been copied from earlier images of
wood. We also find {286} divine figures on pre-Roman coins.975 Certain passages in classical
writings point to the existence of native images. A statue of a
goddess existed in a temple at Marseilles, according to Justin, and
the Galatian Celts had images of the native Juppiter and Artemis,
while the conquering Celts who entered Rome bowed to the seated
senators as to statues of the gods.976 The
Gauls placed rich ornaments on the images of the gods, and
presumably these were native “idols.”
“Idols” are frequently mentioned in Irish texts, and there is no
doubt that these mean images.977
Cormac mac Art refused to worship “idols,” and was punished by the
Druids.978 The idols of Cromm Cruaich and
his satellites, referred to in the Dindsenchas, were carved
to represent the human form; the chief one was of gold, the others
of stone. These were miraculously overthrown by S. Patrick; but in
the account of the miracle the chief idol was of stone adorned with
gold and silver, the others, numbering twelve, were ornamented with
bronze.979 They stood in Mag Slecht, and
similar sacred places with groups of images evidently existed
elsewhere, e.g. at Rath Archaill, “where the Druid’s altars
and images are.”980 The
lady Cessair, before coming to Ireland, is said to have taken
advice of her laimh-dhia, or “hand gods,” perhaps small
images used for divination.981
For the British Celts the evidence is slender, but idolatry in
the sense of “image-worship” is frequently mentioned in the lives
of early saints.982
Gildas also speaks of images {287} “mouldering away within and
without the deserted temples, with stiff and deformed
features.”983 This pathetic picture of the
forsaken shrines of forgotten gods may refer to Romano-Celtic
images, but the “stiff and deformed features” suggest rather native
art, the art of a people unskilful at reproducing the human form,
however artistic they may have been in other directions.
If the native Celts of Ireland had images, there is no reason to
suppose, especially considering the evidence just adduced, that the
Gauls, or at least the Druids, were antagonistic to images. This
last is M. Reinach’s theory, part of a wider hypothesis that the
Druids were pre-Celtic, but became the priests of the Celts, who
till then had no priests. The Druids prohibited image-worship, and
this prohibition existed in Gaul, ex hypothesi, from the end
of palæolithic times. Pythagoras and his school were opposed
to image-worship, and the classical writers claimed a connection
between the Pythagoreans and the Druids. M. Reinach thinks there
must have been some analogy between them, and that was hostility to
anthropomorphism. But the analogy is distinctly stated to have lain
in the doctrine of immortality or metempsychosis. Had the Druids
been opposed to image-worship, classical observers could not have
failed to notice the fact. M. Reinach then argues that the Druids
caused the erection of the megalithic monuments in Gaul, symbols
not images. They are thus Druidic, though not Celtic. The monuments
argue a powerful priesthood; the Druids were a powerful priesthood;
therefore the Druids caused the monuments to be built. This is not
a powerful argument!984
As has been seen, some purely Celtic images existed in Gaul. The
Gauls, who used nothing but wood for their houses, probably knew
little of the art of carving stone. They would therefore make most
of their images of wood—a perishable material. The insular
Celts had images, and if, as Cæsar maintained, the Druids
came from Britain to Gaul, this points at least to a similarity of
cult in the two regions. Youthful Gauls who aspired to Druidic
knowledge went to Britain to obtain it. Would the Druids of Gaul
have permitted this, had they been iconoclasts? No single text
shows that the Druids had any antipathy to images, while the Gauls
certainly had images of worshipful animals. Further, even if the
Druids were priests of a pre-Celtic folk, they must have permitted
the making of images, since many “menhir-statues” exist on French
soil, at Aveyron, Tarn, and elsewhere.985 The
Celts were in constant contact with image-worshipping peoples, and
could hardly have failed to be influenced by them, even if such a
priestly prohibition existed, just as Israel succumbed to images in
spite of divine commands. That they would have been thus influenced
is seen from the number of images of all kinds dating from the
period after the Roman conquest.
Incidental proofs of the fondness of the Celts for images are
found in ecclesiastical writings and in late survivals. The
procession of the image of Berecynthia has already been described,
and such processions were common in Gaul, and imply a regular
folk-custom. S. Martin of Tours stopped a funeral procession
believing it to be such a pagan rite.986
Councils and edicts prohibited these processions in Gaul, but a
more effectual way was to Christianise them. The Rogation
{289} tide processions with crucifix and
Madonna, and the carrying of S. John’s image at the Midsummer
festivals, were a direct continuation of the older practices.
Images were often broken by Christian saints in Gaul, as they had
been over-turned by S. Patrick in Ireland. “Stiff and deformed”
many of them must have been, if one may judge from the
Groah-goard or “Venus of Quinipily,” for centuries the
object of superstitious rites in Brittany.987
With it may be compared the fetich-stone or image of which an old
woman in the island of Inniskea, the guardian of a sacred well, had
charge. It was kept wrapped up to hide it from profane eyes, but at
certain periods it was brought out for adoration.988
The images and bas-reliefs of the Gallo-Roman period fall mainly
into two classes. In the first class are those representing native
divinities, like Esus, Tarvos Trigaranos, Smertullos, Cernunnos,
the horned and crouching gods, the god with the hammer, and the god
with the wheel. Busts and statues of some water-goddesses exist,
but more numerous are the representations of Epona. One of these is
provided with a box pedestal in which offerings might be placed.
The Matres are frequently figured, usually as three seated
figures with baskets of fruit or flowers, or with one or more
infants, like the Madonna. Images of triple-headed gods, supposed
to be Cernunnos, have been found, but are difficult to place in any
category.989
To the images of the second class is usually attached the Roman
name of a god, but generally the native Celtic name is added, but
the images themselves are of the traditional Roman type. Among
statues and statuettes of bronze, that of Mercury occurs most
often. This may point to the fact that Cæsar’s
simulacra of the native Mercury were images, and that the
old preference for representing this god continued in Roman times.
Small figures of divinities in white clay have been found in large
numbers, and may have been ex votos or images of household
lararia.990
SYMBOLS.
Images of the gods in Gaul can be classified by means of their
symbols—the mallet and cup (a symbol of plenty) borne by the
god with the hammer, the wheel of the sun-god, the cornucopia and
torque carried by Cernunnos. Other symbols occur on images, altars,
monuments, and coins. These are the swastika and triskele, probably
symbols of the sun;991
single or concentric circles, sometimes with rays;992 crosses; and a curious S
figure. The triskele and the circles are sometimes found on faces
figured on coins. They may therefore have been tattoo markings of a
symbolic character. The circle and cross are often incised on
bronze images of Dispater. Much speculation has been aroused by the
S figure, which occurs on coins, while nine models of this
symbol hang from a ring carried by the god with the wheel, but the
most probable is that which sees in it a thunderbolt.993 But lacking any old text
interpreting {291} these various symbols, all explanations
of them must be conjectural. Some of them are not purely Celtic,
but are of world-wide occurrence.
CULT OF WEAPONS.
Here some reference may be made to the Celtic cult of weapons.
As has been seen, a hammer is the symbol of one god, and it is not
unlikely that a cult of the hammer had preceded that of the god to
whom the hammer was given as a symbol. Esus is also represented
with an axe. We need not repeat what has already been said
regarding the primitive and universal cult of hammer or axe,994 but it is interesting to notice,
in connection with other evidence for a Celtic cult of weapons,
that there is every reason to believe that the phrase sub ascia
dedicare, which occurs in inscriptions on tombs from Gallia
Lugdunensis, usually with the figure of an axe incised on the
stone, points to the cult of the axe, or of a god whose symbol the
axe was.995 In Irish texts the power of
speech is attributed to weapons, but, according to the Christian
scribe, this was because demons spoke from them, for the people
worshipped arms in those days.996 Thus
it may have been believed that spirits tenanted weapons, or that
weapons had souls. Evidence of the cult itself is found in the fact
that on Gaulish coins a sword is figured, stuck in the ground, or
driving a chariot, or with a warrior dancing before it, or held in
the hand of a dancing warrior.997 The
latter are ritual acts, and resemble that described by Spenser as
performed by Irish warriors in his day, who said prayers or
incantations before a sword stuck in the earth.998 Swords were also addressed in
songs composed {292} by Irish bards, and traditional remains
of such songs are found in Brittany.999 They
represent the chants of the ancient cult. Oaths were taken by
weapons, and the weapons were believed to turn against those who
lied.1000 The magical power of weapons,
especially of those over which incantations had been said, is
frequently referred to in traditional tales and Irish texts.1001 A reminiscence of the cult or
of the magical power of weapons may be found in the wonderful
“glaives of light” of Celtic folk-tales, and the similar mystical
weapon of the Arthurian romances.
Footnote 955:(return)Strabo, xii. 51. Drunemeton may mean “great temple”
(D’Arbois, Les Celtes, 203).
Footnote 957:(return)Holder, ii. 712. Cf. “Indiculus” in Grimm, Teut. Myth.
1739, “de sacris silvarum, quas nimidas (= nemeta) vocant.”
Footnote 961:(return)See Reinach, “Les monuments de pierre brute dans le langage et
les croyances populaires,” Rev. Arch. 1893, i. 339; Evans,
“The Roll-Right Stones,” Folk-Lore, vi. 20 f.
Footnote 967:(return)O’Curry, MS. Mat. 284; Cormac, 94. Cf. IT iii.
211, for the practice of circumambulating altars.
Footnote 972:(return)See the Twenty-third Canon of Council of Arles, the Twenty-third
of the Council of Tours, 567, and ch. 65 of the Capitularia,
789.
Footnote 978:(return)Keating, 356. See also Stokes, Martyr. of Oengus, 186;
RC xii. 427, § 15; Joyce, SH 274 f.
Footnote 984:(return)For the whole argument see Reinach, RC xiii. 189 f.
Bertrand, Rev. Arch. xv. 345, supports a similar theory,
and, according to both writers, Gallo-Roman art was the result of
the weakening of Druidic power by the Romans.
Footnote 985:(return)L’Abbé Hermet, Assoc. pour l’avancement des Sciences,
Compte Rendu, 1900, ii. 747; L’Anthropologie, v.
147.
Footnote 987:(return)Monnier, 362. The image bears part of an inscription … LIT…
and it has been thought that this read ILITHYIA originally. The
name is in keeping with the rites still in use before the image.
This would make it date from Roman times. If so, it is a poor
specimen of the art of the period. But it may be an old native
image to which later the name of the Roman goddess was given.
Footnote 988:(return)Roden, Progress of the Reformation in Ireland, 51. The
image was still existing in 1851.
Footnote 989:(return)For figures of most of these, see Rev. Arch. vols. xvi.,
xviii., xix., xxxvi.; RC xvii. 45, xviii. 254, xx. 309,
xxii. 159, xxiv. 221; Bertrand, passim; Courcelle-Seneuil,
Les Dieux Gaulois d’apres les Monuments Figures, Paris,
1910.
Footnote 990:(return)See Courcelle-Seneuil, op. cit.; Reinach, BF
passim, Catalogue Sommaire du Musée des Ant.
nat.4 115-116.
Footnote 991:(return)Reinach, Catal. 29, 87; Rev. Arch. xvi. 17;
Blanchet, i. 169, 316; Huchet, L’art gaulois, ii. 8.
CHAPTER XX.
THE DRUIDS.
Pliny thought that the name “Druid” was a Greek appellation
derived from the Druidic cult of the oak ([Greek:
drus]).1002
The word, however, is purely Celtic, and its meaning probably
implies that, like the sorcerer and medicine-man everywhere, the
Druid was regarded as “the knowing one.” It is composed of two
parts—dru-, regarded by M. D’Arbois as an intensive,
and vids, from vid, “to know,” or “see.”1003 Hence the Druid was “the very
knowing or wise one.” It is possible, however, that dru– is
connected with the root which gives the word “oak” in Celtic
speech—Gaulish deruo, Irish dair, Welsh
derw—and that the oak, occupying a place in the cult,
was thus brought into relation with the name of the priesthood. The
Gaulish form of the name was probably druis, the Old Irish
was drai. The modern forms in Irish and Scots Gaelic,
drui and draoi mean “sorcerer.”
M. D’Arbois and others, accepting Cæsar’s dictum that “the
system (of Druidism) is thought to have been devised in Britain,
and brought thence into Gaul,” maintain that the Druids were
priests of the Goidels in Britain, who imposed themselves upon the
Gaulish conquerors of the Goidels, and that Druidism then passed
over into Gaul about 200 B.C.1004
But it is hardly {294} likely that, even if the Druids were
accepted as priests by conquering Gauls in Britain, they should
have affected the Gauls of Gaul who were outside the reflex
influence of the conquered Goidels, and should have there obtained
that power which they possessed. Goidels and Gauls were allied by
race and language and religion, and it would be strange if they did
not both possess a similar priesthood. Moreover, the Goidels had
been a continental people, and Druidism was presumably flourishing
among them then. Why did it not influence kindred Celtic tribes
without Druids, ex hypothesi, at that time? Further, if we
accept Professor Meyer’s theory that no Goidel set foot in Britain
until the second century A.D., the Gauls could not have received
the Druidic priesthood from the Goidels.
Cæsar merely says, “it is thought (existimatur)
that Druidism came to Gaul from Britain.”1005 It was a pious opinion, perhaps
his own, or one based on the fact that those who wished to perfect
themselves in Druidic art went to Britain. This may have been
because Britain had been less open to foreign influences than Gaul,
and its Druids, unaffected by these, were thought to be more
powerful than those of Gaul. Pliny, on the other hand, seems to
think that Druidism passed over into Britain from Gaul.1006
Other writers—Sir John Rh[^y]s, Sir G.L. Gomme, and M.
Reinach—support on different grounds the theory that the
Druids were a pre-Celtic priesthood, accepted by the Celtic
conquerors. Sir John Rh[^y]s thinks that the Druidism of the
aborigines of Gaul and Britain made terms with the Celtic
conquerors. It was accepted by the Goidels, but not by the
Brythons. Hence in Britain there were Brythons without Druids,
aborigines under the sway of Druidism, and Goidels who combined
Aryan polytheism with Druidism. Druidism {295} was also
the religion of the aborigines from the Baltic to Gibraltar, and
was accepted by the Gauls.1007
But if so, it is difficult to see why the Brythons, akin to them,
did not accept it. Our knowledge of Brythonic religion is too
scanty for us to prove that the Druids had or had not sway over
them, but the presumption is that they had. Nor is there any
historical evidence to show that the Druids were originally a
non-Celtic priesthood. Everywhere they appear as the supreme and
dominant priesthood of the Celts, and the priests of a conquered
people could hardly have obtained such power over the conquerors.
The relation of the Celts to the Druids is quite different from
that of conquerors, who occasionally resort to the medicine-men of
the conquered folk because they have stronger magic or greater
influence with the autochthonous gods. The Celts did not resort to
the Druids occasionally; ex hypothesi they accepted them
completely, were dominated by them in every department of life,
while their own priests, if they had any, accepted this order of
things without a murmur. All this is incredible. The picture drawn
by Cæsar, Strabo, and others of the Druids and their position
among the Celts as judges, choosers of tribal chiefs and kings,
teachers, as well as ministers of religion, suggests rather that
they were a native Celtic priesthood, long established among the
people.
Sir G.L. Gomme supports the theory that the Druids were a
pre-Celtic priesthood, because, in his opinion, much of their
belief in magic as well as their use of human sacrifice and the
redemption of one life by another, is opposed to “Aryan sentiment.”
Equally opposed to this are their functions of settling
controversies, judging, settling the succession to property, and
arranging boundaries. These views are supported by a comparison of
the position of the Druids relatively to the Celts {296} with that
of non-Aryan persons in India who render occasional priestly
services to Hindu village communities.1008
Whether this comparison of occasional Hindu custom with Celtic
usage two thousand years ago is just, may be questioned. As already
seen, it was no mere occasional service which the Druids rendered
to the Celts, and it is this which makes it difficult to credit
this theory. Had the Celtic house-father been priest and judge in
his own clan, would he so readily have surrendered his rights to a
foreign and conquered priesthood? On the other hand, kings and
chiefs among the Celts probably retained some priestly functions,
derived from the time when the offices of the priest-king had not
been differentiated. Cæsar’s evidence certainly does not
support the idea that “it is only among the rudest of the so-called
Celtic tribes that we find this superimposing of an apparently
official priesthood.” According to him, the power of the Druids was
universal in Gaul, and had their position really corresponded to
that of the pariah priests of India, occasional priests of Hindu
villages, the determined hostility of the Roman power to them
because they wielded such an enormous influence over Celtic thought
and life, is inexplainable. If, further, Aryan sentiment was so
opposed to Druidic customs, why did Aryan Celts so readily accept
the Druids? In this case the receiver is as bad as the thief. Sir
G.L. Gomme clings to the belief that the Aryans were people of a
comparatively high civilisation, who had discarded, if they ever
possessed, a savage “past.” But old beliefs and customs still
survive through growing civilisation, and if the views of Professor
Sergi and others are correct, the Aryans were even less civilised
than the peoples whom they conquered.1009
Shape-shifting, magic, human sacrifice, priestly domination, were
as much Aryan as non-Aryan, and if the {297} Celts had
a comparatively pure religion, why did they so soon allow it to be
defiled by the puerile superstitions of the Druids?
M. Reinach, as we have seen, thinks that the Celts had no
images, because these were prohibited by their priests. This
prohibition was pre-Celtic in Gaul, since there are no Neolithic
images, though there are great megalithic structures, suggesting
the existence of a great religious aristocracy. This aristocracy
imposed itself on the Celts.1010
We have seen that there is no reason for believing that the Celts
had no images, hence this argument is valueless. M. Reinach then
argues that the Celts accepted Druidism en bloc, as the
Romans accepted Oriental cults and the Greeks the native Pelasgic
cults. But neither Romans nor Greeks abandoned their own faith.
Were the Celts a people without priests and without religion? We
know that they must have accepted many local cults, but that they
adopted the whole aboriginal faith and its priests en bloc
is not credible. M. Reinach also holds that when the Celts appear
in history Druidism was in its decline; the Celt, or at least the
military caste among the Celts, was reasserting itself. But the
Druids do not appear as a declining body in the pages of
Cæsar, and their power was still supreme, to judge by the
hostility of the Roman Government to them. If the military caste
rebelled against them, this does not prove that they were a foreign
body. Such a strife is seen wherever priest and soldier form
separate castes, each desiring to rule, as in Egypt.
Other writers argue that we do not find Druids existing in the
Danube region, in Cisalpine territory, nor in Transalpine Gaul,
“outside the limits of the region occupied by the
Celtæ.”1011
This could only have weight if any of the classical {298} writers
had composed a formal treatise on the Druids, showing exactly the
regions where they existed. They merely describe Druidism as a
general Celtic institution, or as they knew it in Gaul or Britain,
and few of them have any personal knowledge of it. There is no
reason to believe that Druids did not exist wherever there were
Celts. The Druids and Semnotheoi of the Celts and Galatæ
referred to c. 200 B.C. were apparently priests of other
Celts than those of Gaul, and Celtic groups of Cisalpine Gaul had
priests, though these are not formally styled Druids.1012 The argument ex silentio
is here of little value, since the references to the Druids are so
brief, and it tells equally against their non-Celtic origin, since
we do not hear of Druids in Aquitania, a non-Celtic region.1013
The theory of the non-Celtic origin of the Druids assumes that
the Celts had no priests, or that these were effaced by the Druids.
The Celts had priests called gutuatri attached to certain
temples, their name perhaps meaning “the speakers,” those who spoke
to the gods.1014
The functions of the Druids were much more general, according to
this theory, hence M. D’Arbois supposes that, before their
intrusion, the Celts had no other priests than the
gutuatri.1015
But the probability is that they were a Druidic class, ministers of
local sanctuaries, and related to the Druids as the Levites were to
the priests of Israel, since the Druids were a composite priesthood
with a variety of functions. If the priests and servants of
Belenos, described by Ausonius and called by him oedituus
Beleni, were gutuatri, then the latter must have been
connected with the {299} Druids, since he says they were of
Druidic stock.1016
Lucan’s “priest of the grove” may have been a gutuatros, and
the priests (sacerdotes) and other ministers
(antistites) of the Boii may have been Druids properly so
called and gutuatri.1017
Another class of temple servants may have existed. Names beginning
with the name of a god and ending in gnatos, “accustomed
to,” “beloved of,” occur in inscriptions, and may denote persons
consecrated from their youth to the service of a grove or temple.
On the other hand, the names may mean no more than that those
bearing them were devoted to the cult of one particular god.
Our supposition that the gutuatri were a class of Druids
is supported by classical evidence, which tends to show that the
Druids were a great inclusive priesthood with different classes
possessing different functions—priestly, prophetic, magical,
medical, legal, and poetical. Cæsar attributes these to the
Druids as a whole, but in other writers they are in part at least
in the hands of different classes. Diodorus refers to the Celtic
philosophers and theologians (Druids), diviners, and bards, as do
also Strabo and Timagenes, Strabo giving the Greek form of the
native name for the diviners, [Greek: ouateis], the Celtic form
being probably vátis (Irish,
fáith).1018
These may have been also poets, since vátis means
both singer and poet; but in all three writers the bards are a
fairly distinct class, who sing the deeds of famous men (so
Timagenes). Druid and diviner were also closely connected, since
the Druids studied nature and moral philosophy, and the diviners
were also students of nature, according to Strabo and Timagenes. No
sacrifice was complete without a Druid, say Diodorus and Strabo,
but both speak of the diviners as concerned with sacrifice. Druids
also prophesied as well as diviners, according {300} to Cicero
and Tacitus.1019
Finally, Lucan mentions only Druids and bards.1020 Diviners were thus probably a
Druidic sub-class, standing midway between the Druids proper and
the bards, and partaking of some of the functions of both. Pliny
speaks of “Druids and this race of prophets and doctors,”1021 and this suggests that some
were priests, some diviners, while some practised an empiric
medical science.
On the whole this agrees with what is met with in Ireland, where
the Druids, though appearing in the texts mainly as magicians, were
also priests and teachers. Side by side with them were the
Filid, “learned poets,”1022
composing according to strict rules of art, and higher than the
third class, the Bards. The Filid, who may also have been
known as Fáthi, “prophets,”1023 were also diviners according to
strict rules of augury, while some of these auguries implied a
sacrifice. The Druids were also diviners and prophets. When the
Druids were overthrown at the coming of Christianity, the
Filid remained as a learned class, probably because they had
abandoned all pagan practices, while the Bards were reduced to a
comparatively low status. M. D’Arbois supposes that there was
rivalry between the Druids and the Filid, who made common
cause with the Christian missionaries, but this is not supported by
evidence. The three classes in Gaul—Druids, Vates, and
Bards—thus correspond to the three classes in
Ireland—Druids, Fáthi or Filid, and
Bards.1024
We may thus conclude that the Druids were a purely Celtic
priesthood, belonging both to the Goidelic and Gaulish branches of
the Celts. The idea that they were not Celtic is sometimes
connected with the supposition that Druidism was something
superadded to Celtic religion from without, or that Celtic
polytheism was not part of the creed of the Druids, but sanctioned
by them, while they had a definite theological system with only a
few gods.1025
These are the ideas of writers who see in the Druids an occult and
esoteric priesthood. The Druids had grown up pari passu with
the growth of the native religion and magic. Where they had become
more civilised, as in the south of Gaul, they may have given up
many magical practices, but as a class they were addicted to magic,
and must have taken part in local cults as well as in those of the
greater gods. That they were a philosophic priesthood advocating a
pure religion among polytheists is a baseless theory. Druidism was
not a formal system outside Celtic religion. It covered the whole
ground of Celtic religion; in other words, it was that religion
itself.
The Druids are first referred to by pseudo-Aristotle and Sotion
in the second century B.C., the reference being preserved by
Diogenes Laertius: “There are among the Celtæ and
Galatæ those called Druids and Semnotheoi.”1026 The two words may be
synonymous, or they may describe two classes of priests, or, again,
the Druids may have been Celtic, and the Semnotheoi Galatic (?
Galatian) priests. Cæsar’s account comes next in time. Later
writers gives the Druids a lofty place and speak vaguely of the
Druidic philosophy and science. Cæsar also refers to their
science, but both he and Strabo {302} speak of their human
sacrifices. Suetonius describes their religion as cruel and savage,
and Mela, who speaks of their learning, regards their human
sacrifices as savagery.1027
Pliny says nothing of the Druids as philosophers, but hints at
their priestly functions, and connects them with magico-medical
rites.1028 These divergent opinions are
difficult to account for. But as the Romans gained closer
acquaintance with the Druids, they found less philosophy and more
superstition among them. For their cruel rites and hostility to
Rome, they sought to suppress them, but this they never would have
done had the Druids been esoteric philosophers. It has been thought
that Pliny’s phrase, “Druids and that race of prophets and
doctors,” signifies that, through Roman persecution, the Druids
were reduced to a kind of medicine-men.1029 But the phrase rather describes
the varied functions of the Druids, as has been seen, nor does it
refer to the state to which the repressive edict reduced them, but
to that in which it found them. Pliny’s information was also
limited.
The vague idea that the Druids were philosophers was repeated
parrot-like by writer after writer, who regarded barbaric races as
Rousseau and his school looked upon the “noble savage.” Roman
writers, sceptical of a future life, were fascinated by the idea of
a barbaric priesthood teaching the doctrine of immortality in the
wilds of Gaul. For this teaching the poet Lucan sang their praises.
The Druids probably first impressed Greek and Latin observers by
their magic, their organisation, and the fact that, like many
barbaric priesthoods, but unlike those of Greece and Rome, they
taught certain doctrines. Their knowledge was divinely conveyed to
them; “they speak the language of the gods;”1030 hence it was easy to read
anything into this teaching. Thus the Druidic legend {303} rapidly
grew. On the other hand, modern writers have perhaps exaggerated
the force of the classical evidence. When we read of Druidic
associations we need not regard these as higher than the organised
priesthoods of barbarians. Their doctrine of metempsychosis, if it
was really taught, involved no ethical content as in
Pythagoreanism. Their astronomy was probably astrological1031; their knowledge of nature a
series of cosmogonic myths and speculations. If a true Druidic
philosophy and science had existed, it is strange that it is always
mentioned vaguely and that it exerted no influence upon the thought
of the time.
Classical sentiment also found a connection between the Druidic
and Pythagorean systems, the Druids being regarded as conforming to
the doctrines and rules of the Greek philosopher.1032 It is not improbable that some
Pythagorean doctrines may have reached Gaul, but when we examine
the point at which the two systems were supposed to meet, namely,
the doctrine of metempsychosis and immortality, upon which the
whole idea of this relationship was founded, there is no real
resemblance. There are Celtic myths regarding the rebirth of gods
and heroes, but the eschatological teaching was apparently this,
that the soul was clothed with a body in the other-world. There was
no doctrine of a series of rebirths on this earth as a punishment
for sin. The Druidic teaching of a bodily immortality was
mistakenly assumed to be the same as the Pythagorean doctrine of
the soul reincarnated in body after body. Other points of
resemblance were then discovered. The organisation of the Druids
was assumed by Ammianus to be a kind of corporate
life—sodaliciis adstricti consortiis—while the
Druidic mind was always searching into lofty things,1033 but {304} those who
wrote most fully of the Druids knew nothing of this.
The Druids, like the priests of all religions, doubtless sought
after such knowledge as was open to them, but this does not imply
that they possessed a recondite philosophy or a secret theology.
They were governed by the ideas current among all barbaric
communities, and they were at once priests, magicians, doctors, and
teachers. They would not allow their sacred hymns to be written
down, but taught them in secret,1034
as is usual wherever the success of hymn or prayer depends upon the
right use of the words and the secrecy observed in imparting them
to others. Their ritual, as far as is known to us, differs but
little from that of other barbarian folk, and it included human
sacrifice and divination with the victim’s body. They excluded the
guilty from a share in the cult—the usual punishment meted
out to the tabu-breaker in all primitive societies.
The idea that the Druids taught a secret
doctrine—monotheism, pantheism, or the like—is
unsupported by evidence. Doubtless they communicated secrets to the
initiated, as is done in barbaric mysteries everywhere, but these
secrets consist of magic and mythic formulæ, the exhibition
of Sacra, and some teaching about the gods or about moral
duties. These are kept secret, not because they are abstract
doctrines, but because they would lose their value and because the
gods would be angry if they were made too common. If the Druids
taught religious and moral matters secretly, these were probably no
more than an extension of the threefold maxim inculcated by them
according to Diogenes Laertius: “To worship the gods, to do no
evil, and to exercise courage.”1035
{305} To this would be added cosmogonic myths
and speculations, and magic and religious formulæ. This will
become more evident as we examine the position and power of the
Druids.
In Gaul, and to some extent in Ireland, the Druids formed a
priestly corporation—a fact which helped classical observers
to suppose that they lived together like the Pythagorean
communities. While the words of Ammianus—sodaliciis
adstricti consortiis—may imply no more than some kind of
priestly organisation, M. Bertrand founds on them a theory that the
Druids were a kind of monks living a community life, and that Irish
monasticism was a transformation of this system.1036 This is purely imaginative.
Irish Druids had wives and children, and the Druid Diviciacus was a
family man, while Cæsar says not a word of community life
among the Druids. The hostility of Christianity to the Druids would
have prevented any copying of their system, and Irish monasticism
was modelled on that of the Continent. Druidic organisation
probably denoted no more than that the Druids were bound by certain
ties, that they were graded in different ranks or according to
their functions, and that they practised a series of common cults.
In Gaul one chief Druid had authority over the others, the position
being an elective one.1037
The insular Druids may have been similarly organised, since we hear
of a chief Druid, primus magus, while the Filid had
an Ard-file, or chief, elected to his office.1038 The priesthood was not a caste,
but was open to those who showed aptitude for it. There was a long
novitiate, extending even to twenty years, just as, in Ireland, the
novitiate of the File lasted from seven to twelve
years.1039
The Druids of Gaul assembled annually in a central spot, and
there settled disputes, because they were regarded as the most just
of men.1040 Individual Druids also decided
disputes or sat as judges in cases of murder. How far it was
obligatory to bring causes before them is unknown, but those who
did not submit to a decision were interdicted from the sacrifices,
and all shunned them. In other words, they were tabued. A
magico-religious sanction thus enforced the judgments of the
Druids. In Galatia the twelve tetrarchs had a council of three
hundred men, and met in a place called Drunemeton to try cases of
murder.1041 Whether it is philologically
permissible to connect Dru– with the corresponding syllable
in “Druid” or not, the likeness to the Gaulish assembly at a
“consecrated place,” perhaps a grove (nemeton), is obvious.
We do not know that Irish Druids were judges, but the Filid
exercised judgments, and this may be a relic of their connection
with the Druids.1042
Diodorus describes the Druids exhorting combatants to peace, and
taming them like wild beasts by enchantment.1043 This suggests interference to
prevent the devastating power of the blood-feud or of tribal wars.
They also appear to have exercised authority in the election of
rulers. Convictolitanis was elected to the magistracy by the
priests in Gaul, “according to the custom of the State.”1044 In Ireland, after partaking of
the flesh of a white bull, probably a sacrificial animal, a man lay
down to sleep, while four Druids chanted over him “to render his
witness truthful.” He then saw in a vision the person who should be
elected king, and what he was doing at the moment.1045 Possibly the {307} Druids
used hypnotic suggestion; the medium was apparently
clairvoyant.
Dio Chrysostom alleges that kings were ministers of the Druids,
and could do nothing without them.1046
This agrees on the whole with the witness of Irish texts. Druids
always accompany the king, and have great influence over him.
According to a passage in the Táin, “the men of
Ulster must not speak before the king, the king must not speak
before his Druid,” and even Conchobar was silent until the Druid
Cathbad had spoken.1047
This power, resembling that of many other priesthoods, must have
helped to balance that of the warrior class, and it is the more
credible when we recall the fact that the Druids claimed to have
made the universe.1048
The priest-kingship may have been an old Celtic institution, and
this would explain why, once the offices were separated, priests
had or claimed so much political power.
That political power must have been enhanced by their position
as teachers, and it is safe to say that submission to their powers
was inculcated by them. Both in Gaul and in Ireland they taught
others than those who intended to become Druids.1049 As has been seen, their
teachings were not written down, but transmitted orally. They
taught immortality, believing that thus men would be roused to
valour, buttressing patriotism with dogma. They also imparted “many
things regarding the stars and their motions, the extent of the
universe and the earth, the nature of things, and the power and
might of the immortal gods.” Strabo also speaks of their teaching
in moral science.1050
As {308} has been seen, it is easy to exaggerate
all this. Their astronomy was probably of a humble kind and mingled
with astrology; their natural philosophy a mass of cosmogonic myths
and speculations; their theology was rather mythology; their moral
philosophy a series of maxims such as are found in all barbaric
communities. Their medical lore, to judge from what Pliny says, was
largely magical. Some Druids, e.g. in the south of Gaul, may
have had access to classical learning, and Cæsar speaks of
the use of Greek characters among them. This could hardly have been
general, and in any case must have superseded the use of a native
script, to which the use of ogams in Ireland, and perhaps also in
Gaul, was supplementary. The Irish Druids may have had written
books, for King Loegaire desired that S. Patrick’s books and those
of the Druids should be submitted to the ordeal by water as a test
of their owners’ claims.1051
In religious affairs the Druids were supreme, since they alone
“knew the gods and divinities of heaven.”1052 They superintended and arranged
all rites and attended to “public and private sacrifices,” and “no
sacrifice was complete without the intervention of a Druid.”1053 The dark and cruel rites of the
Druids struck the Romans with horror, and they form a curious
contrast to their alleged “philosophy.” They used divination and
had regular formulæ of incantation as well as ritual acts by
which they looked into the future.1054
Before all matters of importance, especially before warlike
expeditions, their advice was sought because they could scan the
future.
Name-giving and a species of baptism were performed by the
Druids or on their initiative. Many examples of this {309} occur in
Irish texts, thus of Conall Cernach it is said, “Druids came to
baptize the child into heathenism, and they sang the heathen
baptism (baithis geintlídhe) over the little child”,
and of Ailill that he was “baptized in Druidic streams”.1055 In Welsh story we read that
Gwri was “baptized with the baptism which was usual at that
time”.1056 Similar illustrations are
common at name-giving among many races,1057 and it is probable that the
custom in the Hebrides of the midwife dropping three drops of water
on the child in Nomine and giving it a temporary name, is a
survival of this practice. The regular baptism takes place later,
but this preliminary rite keeps off fairies and ensures burial in
consecrated ground, just as the pagan rite was protective and
admitted to the tribal privileges.1058
In the burial rites, which in Ireland consisted of a lament,
sacrifices, and raising a stone inscribed with ogams over the
grave, Druids took part. The Druid Dergdamsa pronounced a discourse
over the Ossianic hero Mag-neid, buried him with his arms, and
chanted a rune. The ogam inscription would also be of Druidic
composition, and as no sacrifice was complete without the
intervention of Druids, they must also have assisted at the lavish
sacrifices which occurred at Celtic funerals.
Pliny’s words, “the Druids and that race of prophets and
doctors”, suggest that the medical art may have been in the hands
of a special class of Druids though all may have had a smattering
of it. It was mainly concerned with the use of herbs, and was mixed
up with magical rites, which may have {310} been
regarded as of more importance than the actual medicines
used.1059 In Ireland Druids also
practised the healing art. Thus when Cúchulainn was ill,
Emer said, “If it had been Fergus, Cúchulainn would have
taken no rest till he had found a Druid able to discover the cause
of that illness.”1060
But other persons, not referred to as Druids, are mentioned as
healers, one of them a woman, perhaps a reminiscence of the time
when the art was practised by women.1061
These healers may, however, have been attached to the Druidic
corporation in much the same way as were the bards.
Still more important were the magical powers of the
Druids—giving or withholding sunshine or rain, causing
storms, making women and cattle fruitful, using spells, rhyming to
death, exercising shape-shifting and invisibility, and producing a
magic sleep, possibly hypnotic. They were also in request as
poisoners.1062
Since the Gauls went to Britain to perfect themselves in Druidic
science, it is possible that the insular Druids were more devoted
to magic than those of Gaul, but since the latter are said to have
“tamed the people as wild beasts are tamed”, it is obvious that
this refers to their powers as magicians rather than to any
recondite philosophy possessed by them. Yet they were clear-sighted
enough to use every means by which they might gain political power,
and some of them may have been open to the influence of classical
learning even before the Roman invasion. In the next chapter the
magic of the Druids will be described in detail.
The Druids, both in Gaul (at the mistletoe rite) and in Ireland,
were dressed in white, but Strabo speaks of their scarlet and gold
embroidered robes, their golden necklets and bracelets.1063 Again, the chief Druid of the
king of Erin wore {311} a coloured cloak and had earrings of
gold, and in another instance a Druid wears a bull’s hide and a
white-speckled bird headpiece with fluttering wings.1064 There was also some special
tonsure used by the Druids,1065
which may have denoted servitude to the gods, as it was customary
for a warrior to vow his hair to a divinity if victory was granted
him. Similarly the Druid’s hair would be presented to the gods, and
the tonsure would mark their minister.
Some writers have tried to draw a distinction between the Druids
of Gaul and of Ireland, especially in the matter of their priestly
functions.1066
But, while a few passages in Irish texts do suggest that the Irish
Druids were priests taking part in sacrifices, etc., nearly all
passages relating to cult or ritual seem to have been deliberately
suppressed. Hence the Druids appear rather as magicians—a
natural result, since, once the people became Christian, the
priestly character of the Druids would tend to be lost sight of.
Like the Druids of Gaul, they were teachers and took part in
political affairs, and this shows that they were more than mere
magicians. In Irish texts the word “Druid” is somewhat loosely used
and is applied to kings and poets, perhaps because they had been
pupils of the Druids. But it is impossible to doubt that the Druids
in Ireland fulfilled functions of a public priesthood. They appear
in connection with all the colonies which came to Erin, the
annalists regarding the priests or medicine-men of different races
as Druids, through lack of historic perspective. But one fact shows
that they were priests of the Celtic religion in Ireland. The
euhemerised Tuatha Dé Danann are masters of Druidic
{312} lore. Thus both the gods and the priests
who served them were confused by later writers. The opposition of
Christian missionaries to the Druids shows that they were priests;
if they were not, it remains to be discovered what body of men did
exercise priestly functions in pagan Ireland. In Ireland their
judicial functions may have been less important than in Gaul, and
they may not have been so strictly organised; but here we are in
the region of conjecture. They were exempt from military service in
Gaul, and many joined their ranks on this account, but in Ireland
they were “bonny fechters,” just as in Gaul they occasionally
fought like mediæval bishops.1067
In both countries they were present on the field of battle to
perform the necessary religious or magical rites.
Since the Druids were an organised priesthood, with powers of
teaching and of magic implicitly believed in by the folk,
possessing the key of the other-world, and dominating the whole
field of religion, it is easy to see how much veneration must have
been paid them. Connoting this with the influence of the Roman
Church in Celtic regions and the power of the Protestant minister
in the Highlands and in Wales, some have thought that there is an
innate tendency in the Celt to be priest-ridden. If this be true,
we can only say, “the people wish to have it so, and the
priests—pagan, papist, or protestant—bear rule through
their means!”
Thus a close examination of the position and functions of the
Druids explains away two popular misconceptions. They were not
possessed of any recondite and esoteric wisdom. And the culling of
mistletoe instead of being the most important, was but a
subordinate part of their functions.
In Gaul the Roman power broke the sway of the Druids, aided
perhaps by the spread of Christianity, but it was Christianity
alone which routed them in Ireland and in Britain {313} outside
the Roman pale. The Druidic organisation, their power in politics
and in the administration of justice, their patriotism, and also
their use of human sacrifice and magic, were all obnoxious to the
Roman Government, which opposed them mainly on political grounds.
Magic and human sacrifice were suppressed because they were
contrary to Roman manners. The first attack was in the reign of
Augustus, who prohibited Roman citizens from taking part in the
religion of the Druids.1068
Tiberius next interdicted the Druids, but this was probably aimed
at their human sacrifices, for the Druids were not suppressed,
since they existed still in the reign of Claudius, who is said to
have abolished Druidarum religionem dirae immanitatis.1069 The earlier legislation was
ineffective; that of Claudius was more thorough, but it, too, was
probably aimed mainly at human sacrifice and magic, since Aurelius
Victor limits it to the “notorious superstitions” of the
Druids.1070 It did not abolish the native
religion, as is proved by the numerous inscriptions to Celtic gods,
and by the fact that, as Mela informs us, human victims were still
offered symbolically,1071
while the Druids were still active some years later. A parallel is
found in the British abolition of S[=a]ti in India, while
permitting the native religion to flourish.
Probably more effective was the policy begun by Augustus.
Magistrates were inaugurated and acted as judges, thus ousting the
Druids, and native deities and native ritual were assimilated to
those of Rome. Celtic religion was Romanised, and if the Druids
retained priestly functions, it could only be by their becoming
Romanised also. Perhaps the new State religion in Gaul simply
ignored them. The annual assembly of deputies at Lugudunum round
the altar of Rome and {314} Augustus had a religious character, and
was intended to rival and to supersede the annual gathering of the
Druids.1072 The deputies elected a flamen
of the province who had surveillance of the cult, and there were
also flamens for each city. Thus the power of the Druids in
politics, law, and religion was quietly undermined, while Rome also
struck a blow at their position as teachers by establishing schools
throughout Gaul.1073
M. D’Arbois maintains that, as a result of persecution, the
Druids retired to the depths of the forests, and continued to teach
there in secret those who despised the new learning of Rome, basing
his opinion on passages of Lucan and Mela, both writing a little
after the promulgation of the laws.1074.
But neither Lucan nor Mela refer to an existing state of things,
and do not intend their readers to suppose that the Druids fled to
woods and caverns. Lucan speaks of them dwelling in woods,
i.e. their sacred groves, and resuming their rites after
Cæsar’s conquest not after the later edicts, and he does not
speak of the Druids teaching there.1075
Mela seems to be echoing Cæsar’s account of the twenty years’
novitiate, but adds to it that the teaching was given in secret,
confusing it, however, with that given to others than candidates
for the priesthood. Thus he says: “Docent multa nobilissimos gentis
clam et diu vicenis annis aut in specu aut in abditis
saltibus,”1076
but there is not the slightest evidence that this secrecy was the
result of the edicts. Moreover, the attenuated sacrificial rites
which he describes were evidently practised {315} quite
openly. Probably some Druids continued their teaching in their
secret and sacred haunts, but it is unlikely that noble Gauls would
resort to them when Greco-Roman culture was now open to them in the
schools, where they are found receiving instruction in 21
A.D.1077 Most of the Druids probably
succumbed to the new order of things. Some continued the old rites
in a modified manner as long as they could obtain worshippers.
Others, more fanatical, would suffer from the law when they could
not evade its grasp. Some of these revolted against Rome after
Nero’s death, and it was perhaps to this class that those Druids
belonged who prophesied the world-empire of the Celts in 70
A.D.1078 The fact that Druids existed at
this date shows that the proscription had not been complete. But
the complete Romanising of Gaul took away their occupation, though
even in the fourth century men still boasted of their Druidic
descent.1079
The insular Druids opposed the legions in Southern Britain, and
in Mona in 62 A.D. they made a last stand with the warriors against
the Romans, gesticulating and praying to the gods. But with the
establishment of Roman power in Britain their fate must have
resembled that of the Druids of Gaul. A recrudescence of Druidism
is found, however, in the presence of magi (Druids) with
Vortigern after the Roman withdrawal.1080
Outside the Roman pale the Druids were still rampant and practised
their rites as before, according to Pliny.1081 Much later, in the sixth
century, they opposed Christian missionaries in Scotland, just as
in Ireland they opposed S. Patrick and his monks, who combated “the
hard-hearted Druids.” Finally, Christianity was victorious and the
{316} powers of the Druids passed in large
measure to the Christian clergy or remained to some extent with the
Filid.1082
In popular belief the clerics had prevailed less by the persuasive
power of the gospel, than by successfully rivalling the magic of
the Druids.
Classical writers speak of Dryades or “Druidesses” in the
third century. One of them predicted his approaching death to
Alexander Severus, another promised the empire to Diocletian,
others were consulted by Aurelian.1083
Thus they were divineresses, rather than priestesses, and their
name may be the result of misconception, unless they assumed it
when Druids no longer existed as a class. In Ireland there were
divineresses—ban-filid or ban-fáthi,
probably a distinct class with prophetic powers. Kings are warned
against “pythonesses” as well as Druids, and Dr. Joyce thinks these
were Druidesses.1084
S. Patrick also armed himself against “the spells of women” and of
Druids.1085 Women in Ireland had a
knowledge of futurity, according to Solinus, and the women who took
part with the Druids like furies at Mona, may have been
divineresses.1086
In Ireland it is possible that such women were called “Druidesses,”
since the word ban-drui is met with, the women so called
being also styled ban-fili, while the fact that they
belonged to the class of the Filid brings them into
connection with the Druids.1087
But ban-drui may have been applied to women with priestly
functions, such as certainly existed in Ireland—e.g.
the virgin guardians of {317} sacred fires, to whose functions
Christian nuns succeeded.1088
We know also that the British queen Boudicca exercised priestly
functions, and such priestesses, apart from the Dryades,
existed among the continental Celts. Inscriptions at Arles speak of
an antistita deae, and at Le Prugnon of a flaminica
sacerdos of the goddess Thucolis.1089
These were servants of a goddess like the priestess of the Celtic
Artemis in Galatia, in whose family the priesthood was
hereditary.1090
The virgins called Gallizenæ, who practised divination and
magic in the isle of Sena, were priestesses of a Gaulish god, and
some of the women who were “possessed by Dionysus” and practised an
orgiastic cult on an island in the Loire, were probably of the same
kind.1091 They were priestesses of some
magico-religious cult practised by women, like the guardians of the
sacred fire in Ireland, which was tabu to men. M. Reinach regards
the accounts of these island priestesses as fictions based on the
story of Circe’s isle, but even if they are garbled, they seem to
be based on actual observation and are paralleled from other
regions.1092
The existence of such priestesses and divineresses over the
Celtic area is to be explained by our hypothesis that many Celtic
divinities were at first female and served by women, who were
possessed of the tribal lore. Later, men assumed their functions,
and hence arose the great priesthoods, but conservatism
sporadically retained such female cults and priestesses, some
goddesses being still served by women—the Galatian Artemis,
or the goddesses of Gaul, with their female {318} servants.
Time also brought its revenges, for when paganism passed away, much
of its folk-ritual and magic remained, practised by wise women or
witches, who for generations had as much power over ignorant minds
as the Christian priesthood. The fact that Cæsar and Tacitus
speak of Germanic but not of Celtic priestesses, can hardly, in
face of these scattered notices, be taken as a proof that women had
no priestly rôle in Celtic religion. If they had not,
that religion would be unique in the world’s history.
Footnote 1004:(return)D’Arbois, op. cit. 12 f.; Deloche, Revue des Deux
Mondes, xxxiv. 466; Desjardins, Geog. de la Gaule
Romaine, ii. 518.
Footnote 1014:(return)Gutuatros is perhaps from gutu-, “voice” (Holder,
i. 2046; but see Loth, RC xxviii. 120). The existence of the
gutuatri is known from a few inscriptions (see Holder), and
from Hirtius, de Bell. Gall. viii. 38, who mentions a
gutuatros put to death by Cæsar.
Footnote 1024:(return)In Wales there had been Druids as there were Bards, but all
trace of the second class is lost. Long after the Druids had passed
away, the fiction of the derwydd-vardd or Druid-bard was
created, and the later bards were held to be depositories of a
supposititious Druidic theosophy, while they practised the old
rites in secret. The late word derwydd was probably invented
from derw, “oak,” by some one who knew Pliny’s derivation.
See D’Arbois, Les Druides, 81.
Footnote 1026:(return)Diog. Laert. i. proem. 1. For other references see Cæsar,
vi. 13, 14; Strabo, iv. 4. 4; Amm. Marc. xv. 9; Diod. Sic, v. 28;
Lucan, i. 460; Mela, iii. 2.
Footnote 1035:(return)Diog. Laert. 6. Celtic enthusiasts see in this triple maxim
something akin to the Welsh triads, which they claim to be
Druidic!
Footnote 1038:(return)Trip. Life, ii. 325, i. 52, ii. 402; IT i. 373;
RC xxvi. 33. The title rig-file, “king poet,”
sometimes occurs.
Footnote 1042:(return)Their judicial powers were taken from them because their speech
had become obscure. Perhaps they gave their judgments in archaic
language.
Footnote 1049:(return)Cæsar, vi. 13, 14; Windisch, Táin, line 1070
f.; IT i. 325; Arch. Rev. i. 74; Trip. Life,
99; cf. O’Curry, MC ii. 201.
Footnote 1055:(return)RC xiv. 29; Miss Hull, 4, 23, 141; IT iii. 392,
423; Stokes, Félire, Intro. 23.
Footnote 1057:(return)See my art. “Baptism (Ethnic)” in Hastings’
Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, ii. 367 f.
Footnote 1065:(return)Reeves’ ed. of Adamnan’s Life of S. Col. 237; Todd, S.
Patrick, 455; Joyce, SH i. 234. For the relation of the
Druidic tonsure to the peculiar tonsure of the Celtic Church, see
Rh[^y]s, HL 213, CB4 72; Gougaud, Les
Chrétientés Celtiques, 198.
Footnote 1073:(return)Bloch (Lavisse), Hist. de France, i. 2, 176 f., 391 f.;
Duruy, “Comment périt l’institution Druidique,” Rev.
Arch. xv. 347; de Coulanges, “Comment le Druidisme a disparu,”
RC iv. 44.
Footnote 1075:(return)Phars. i. 453, “Ye Druids, after arms were laid aside,
sought once again your barbarous ceremonials…. In remote forests
do ye inhabit the deep glades.”
Footnote 1082:(return)Adamnan, Vita S. Col., i. 37. ii. 35, etc.; Reeves’
Adamnan, 247 f.; Stokes, Three Homilies, 24 f.;
Antient Laws of Ireland, i. 15; RC xvii. 142 f.;
IT i. 23.
Footnote 1084:(return)Windisch, Táin, 31, 221; cf. Meyer,
Contributions to Irish Lexicog. 176 Joyce, SH i.
238.
Footnote 1087:(return)RC xv. 326, xvi. 34, 277; Windisch, Táin,
331. In LL 75b we hear of “three Druids and three
Druidesses.”
Footnote 1092:(return)Reinach, RC xviii. 1 f. The fact that the rites were
called Dionysiac is no reason for denying the fact that some
orgiastic rites were practised. Classical writers usually reported
all barbaric rites in terms of their own religion. M. D’Arbois (vi.
325) points out that Circe was not a virgin, and had not eight
companions.
CHAPTER XXI.
MAGIC.
The Celts, like all other races, were devoted to magical
practices, many of which could be used by any one, though, on the
whole, they were in the hands of the Druids, who in many aspects
were little higher than the shamans of barbaric tribes. But similar
magical rites were also attributed to the gods, and it is probably
for this reason that the Tuatha Dé Danann and many of the
divinities who appear in the Mabinogion are described as
magicians. Kings are also spoken of as wizards, perhaps a
reminiscence of the powers of the priest king. But since many of
the primitive cults had been in the hands of women, and as these
cults implied a large use of magic, they may have been the earliest
wielders of magic, though, with increasing civilisation, men took
their place as magicians. Still side by side with the
magic-wielding Druids, there were classes of women who also dealt
in magic, as we have seen. Their powers were feared, even by S.
Patrick, who classes the “spells of women” along with those of
Druids, and, in a mythic tale, by the father of Connla, who, when
the youth was fascinated by a goddess, feared that he would be
taken by the “spells of women” (brichta ban).1093 In other tales women perform
all such magical actions as are elsewhere ascribed to Druids.1094 And after the Druids had passed
away precisely {320} similar actions—power over the
weather, the use of incantations and amulets, shape-shifting and
invisibility, etc.—were, and still are in remote Celtic
regions, ascribed to witches. Much of the Druidic art, however, was
also supposed to be possessed by saints and clerics, both in the
past and in recent times. But women remained as magicians when the
Druids had disappeared, partly because of female conservatism,
partly because, even in pagan times, they had worked more or less
secretly. At last the Church proscribed them and persecuted
them.
Each clan, tribe, or kingdom had its Druids, who, in time of
war, assisted their hosts by magic art. This is reflected back upon
the groups of the mythological cycle, each of which has its Druids
who play no small part in the battles fought. Though Pliny
recognises the priestly functions of the Druids, he associates them
largely with magic, and applies the name magus to
them.1095 In Irish ecclesiastical
literature, drui is used as the translation of magus,
e.g. in the case of the Egyptian magicians, while
magi is used in Latin lives of saints as the equivalent of
the vernacular druides.1096
In the sagas and in popular tales Druidecht, “Druidism,”
stands for “magic,” and slat an draoichta, “rod of
Druidism,” is a magic wand.1097
The Tuatha Dé Danann were said to have learned “Druidism”
from the four great master Druids of the region whence they had
come to Ireland, and even now, in popular tales, they are often
called “Druids” or “Danann Druids.”1098
Thus in Ireland at least there is clear evidence of the great
magical power claimed by Druids.
That power was exercised to a great extent over the {321} elements,
some of which Druids claimed to have created. Thus the Druid
Cathbad covered the plain over which Deirdre was escaping with “a
great-waved sea.”1099
Druids also produced blinding snow-storms, or changed day into
night—feats ascribed to them even in the Lives of
Saints.1100 Or they discharge
“shower-clouds of fire” on the opposing hosts, as in the case of
the Druid Mag Ruith, who made a magic fire, and flying upwards
towards it, turned it upon the enemy, whose Druid in vain tried to
divert it.1101
When the Druids of Cormac dried up all the waters in the land,
another Druid shot an arrow, and where it fell there issued a
torrent of water.1102
The Druid Mathgen boasted of being able to throw mountains on the
enemy, and frequently Druids made trees or stones appear as armed
men, dismaying the opposing host in this way. They could also fill
the air with the clash of battle, or with the dread cries of
eldritch things.1103
Similar powers are ascribed to other persons. The daughters of
Calatin raised themselves aloft on an enchanted wind, and
discovered Cúchulainn when he was hidden away by Cathbad.
Later they produced a magic mist to discomfit the hero.1104 Such mists occur frequently in
the sagas, and in one of them the Tuatha Dé Danann arrived
in Ireland. The priestesses of Sena could rouse sea and wind by
their enchantments, and, later, Celtic witches have claimed the
same power.
In folk-survivals the practice of rain-making is connected with
sacred springs, and even now in rural France processions to
shrines, usually connected with a holy well, are common in time of
drought. Thus people and priest go to the fountain of Baranton in
procession, singing hymns, and there pray for {322} rain. The
priest then dips his foot in the water, or throws some of it on the
rocks.1105 In other cases the image of a
saint is carried to a well and asperged, as divine images formerly
were, or the waters are beaten or thrown into the air.1106 Another custom was that a
virgin should clean out a sacred well, and formerly she had to be
nude.1107 Nudity also forms part of an
old ritual used in Gaul. In time of drought the girls of the
village followed the youngest virgin in a state of nudity to seek
the herb belinuntia. This she uprooted, and was then led to
a river and there asperged by the others. In this case the
asperging imitated the falling rain, and was meant to produce it
automatically. While some of these rites suggest the use of magic
by the folk themselves, in others the presence of the Christian
priest points to the fact that, formerly, a Druid was necessary as
the rain producer. In some cases the priest has inherited through
long ages the rain-making or tempest-quelling powers of the pagan
priesthood, and is often besought to exercise them.1108
Causing invisibility by means of a spell called feth
fiada, which made a person unseen or hid him in a magic mist,
was also used by the Druids as well as by Christian saints. S.
Patrick’s hymn, called Fâed Fiada, was sung by him
when his enemies lay in wait, and caused a glamour in them. The
incantation itself, fith-fath, is still remembered in
Highland glens.1109
In the case of S. Patrick he and his followers appeared as deer,
and this power of shape-shifting was wielded both by Druids and
women. The Druid Fer Fidail carried off a maiden by taking the form
of a {323} woman, and another Druid deceived
Cúchulainn by taking the form of the fair Niamh.1110 Other Druids are said to have
been able to take any shape that pleased them.1111 These powers were reflected
back upon the gods and mythical personages like Taliesin or
Amairgen, who appear in many forms. The priestesses of Sena could
assume the form of animals, and an Irish Circe in the Rennes
Dindsenchas called Dalb the Rough changed three men and their
wives into swine by her spells.1112
This power of transforming others is often described in the sagas.
The children of Lir were changed to swans by their cruel
stepmother; Saar, the mother of Oisin, became a fawn through the
power of the Druid Fear Doirche when she rejected his love; and
similarly Tuirrenn, mother of Oisin’s hounds, was transformed into
a stag-hound by the fairy mistress of her husband Iollann.1113 In other instances in the
sagas, women appear as birds.1114
These transformation tales may be connected with totemism, for when
this institution is decaying the current belief in shape-shifting
is often made use of to explain descent from animals or the tabu
against eating certain animals. In some of these Irish
shape-shifting tales we find this tabu referred to. Thus, when the
children of Lir were turned into swans, it was proclaimed that no
one should kill a swan. The reason of an existing tabu seemed to be
sufficiently explained when it was told that certain human beings
had become swans. It is not impossible that the Druids made use of
hypnotic suggestion to persuade others that they had assumed
another form, as Red Indian shamans have been known to do, or even
hallucinated others into the belief that their own form had been
changed.
By a “drink of oblivion” Druids and other persons could make one
forget even the most dearly beloved. Thus Cúchulainn was
made to forget Fand, and his wife Emer to forget her
jealousy.1115
This is a reminiscence of potent drinks brewed from herbs which
caused hallucinations, e.g. that of the change of shape. In
other cases they were of a narcotic nature and caused a deep sleep,
an instance being the draught given by Grainne to Fionn and his
men.1116 Again, the “Druidic sleep” is
suggestive of hypnotism, practised in distant ages and also by
present-day savages. When Bodb suspected his daughter of lying he
cast her into a “Druidic sleep,” in which she revealed her
wickedness.1117
In other cases spells are cast upon persons so that they are
hallucinated, or are rendered motionless, or, “by the sleight of
hand of soothsayers,” maidens lose their chastity without knowing
it.1118 These point to knowledge of
hypnotic methods of suggestion. Or, again, a spectral army is
opposed to an enemy’s force to whom it is an hallucinatory
appearance—perhaps an exaggeration of natural hypnotic
powers.1119
Druids also made a “hedge,” the airbe druad, round an
army, perhaps circumambulating it and saying spells so that the
attacking force might not break through. If any one could leap this
“hedge,” the spell was broken, but he lost his life. This was done
at the battle of Cul Dremne, at which S. Columba was present and
aided the heroic leaper with his prayers.1120
A primitive piece of sympathetic magic used still by savages is
recorded in the Rennes Dindsenchas. In this story one man
says spells over his spear and hurls it into his {325}
opponent’s shadow, so that he falls dead.1121 Equally primitive is the
Druidic “sending” a wisp of straw over which the Druid sang spells
and flung it into his victim’s face, so that he became mad. A
similar method is used by the Eskimo angekok. All madness
was generally ascribed to such a “sending.”
Several of these instances have shown the use of spells, and the
Druid was believed to possess powerful incantations to discomfit an
enemy or to produce other magical results. A special posture was
adopted—standing on one leg, with one arm outstretched and
one eye closed, perhaps to concentrate the force of the
spell,1122 but the power lay mainly in the
spoken words, as we have seen in discussing Celtic formulæ of
prayer. Such spells were also used by the Filid, or poets,
since most primitive poetry has a magical aspect. Part of the
training of the bard consisted in learning traditional
incantations, which, used with due ritual, produced the magic
result.1123 Some of these incantations have
already come before our notice, and probably some of the verses
which Cæsar says the Druids would not commit to writing were
of the nature of spells.1124
The virtue of the spell lay in the spoken formula, usually
introducing the name of a god or spirit, later a saint, in order to
procure his intervention, through the power inherent in the name.
Other charms recount an effect already produced, and this, through
mimetic magic, is supposed to cause its repetition. The earliest
written documents bearing upon the paganism of the insular Celts
contain an appeal to “the science of Goibniu” to preserve butter,
and another, for magical healing, runs, “I admire the healing which
Diancecht left in his family, in order to bring health to those he
succoured.” These are found in an eighth or ninth century MS., and,
with their appeal to pagan {326} gods, were evidently used in
Christian times.1125
Most Druidic magic was accompanied by a spell—transformation,
invisibility, power over the elements, and the discovery of hidden
persons or things. In other cases spells were used in medicine or
for healing wounds. Thus the Tuatha Dé Danann told the
Fomorians that they need not oppose them, because their Druids
would restore the slain to life, and when Cúchulainn was
wounded we hear less of medicines than of incantations used to
stanch his blood.1126
In other cases the Druid could remove barrenness by spells.
The survival of the belief in spells among modern Celtic peoples
is a convincing proof of their use in pagan times, and throws light
upon their nature. In Brittany they are handed down in certain
families, and are carefully guarded from the knowledge of others.
The names of saints instead of the old gods are found in them, but
in some cases diseases are addressed as personal beings. In the
Highlands similar charms are found, and are often handed down from
male to female, and from female to male. They are also in common
use in Ireland. Besides healing diseases, such charms are supposed
to cause fertility or bring good luck, or even to transfer the
property of others to the reciter, or, in the case of darker magic,
to cause death or disease.1127
In Ireland, sorcerers could “rime either a man or beast to death,”
and this recalls the power of satire in the mouth of File or
Druid. It raised blotches on the face of the victim, or even caused
his death.1128
Among primitive races powerful internal emotion affects the body in
curious ways, {327} and in this traditional power of the
satire or “rime” we have probably an exaggerated reference to
actual fact. In other cases the “curse of satire” affected nature,
causing seas and rivers to sink back.1129
The satires made by the bards of Gaul, referred to by Diodorus, may
have been believed to possess similar powers.1130 Contrariwise, the Filid,
on uttering an unjust judgment, found their faces covered with
blotches.1131
A magical sleep is often caused by music in the sagas,
e.g. by the harp of Dagda, or by the branch carried by
visitants from Elysium.1132
Many “fairy” lullabies for producing sleep are even now extant in
Ireland and the Highlands.1133
As music forms a part of all primitive religion, its soothing
powers would easily be magnified. In orgiastic rites it caused
varying emotions until the singer and dancer fell into a deep
slumber, and the tales of those who joined in a fairy dance and
fell asleep, awaking to find that many years had passed, are mythic
extensions of the power of music in such orgiastic cults. The music
of the Filid had similar powers to that of Dagda’s harp,
producing laughter, tears, and a delicious slumber,1134 and Celtic folk-tales abound in
similar instances of the magic charm of music.
We now turn to the use of amulets among the Celts. Some of these
were symbolic and intended to bring the wearer under the protection
of the god whom they symbolised. As has been seen, a Celtic god had
as his symbol a wheel, probably representing the sun, and numerous
small wheel discs made of different materials have been found in
Gaul and {328} Britain.1135
These were evidently worn as amulets, while in other cases they
were offered to river divinities, since many are met with in river
beds or fords. Their use as protective amulets is shown by a stele
representing a person wearing a necklace to which is attached one
of these wheels. In Irish texts a Druid is called Mag Ruith,
explained as magus rotarum, because he made his Druidical
observations by wheels.1136
This may point to the use of such amulets in Ireland. A curious
amulet, connected with the Druids, became famous in Roman times and
is described by Pliny. This was the “serpents’ egg,” formed from
the foam produced by serpents twining themselves together. The
serpents threw the “egg” into the air, and he who sought it had to
catch it in his cloak before it fell, and flee to a running stream,
beyond which the serpents, like the witches pursuing Tam o’
Shanter, could not follow him. This “egg” was believed to cause its
owner to obtain access to kings or to gain lawsuits, and a Roman
citizen was put to death in the reign of Claudius for bringing such
an amulet into court. Pliny had seen this “egg.” It was about the
size of an apple, with a cartilaginous skin covered with
discs.1137 Probably it was a fossil
echinus, such as has been found in Gaulish tombs.1138 Such “eggs” were doubtless
connected with the cult of the serpent, or some old myth of an egg
produced by serpents may have been made use of to account for their
formation. This is the more likely, as rings or beads of glass
found in tumuli in Wales, Cornwall, and the Highlands are called
“serpents’ glass” (glain naidr), and are believed to be
formed in the same way as the “egg.” These, as well as old
spindle-whorls called “adder stones” in {329} the
Highlands, are held to have magical virtues, e.g. against
the bite of a serpent, and are highly prized by their owners.1139
Pliny speaks also of the Celtic belief in the magical virtues of
coral, either worn as an amulet or taken in powder as a medicine,
while it has been proved that the Celts during a limited period of
their history placed it on weapons and utensils, doubtless as an
amulet.1140 Other amulets—white
marble balls, quartz pebbles, models of the tooth of the boar, or
pieces of amber, have been found buried with the dead.1141 Little figures of the boar, the
horse, and the bull, with a ring for suspending them to a necklet,
were worn as amulets or images of these divine animals, and phallic
amulets were also worn, perhaps as a protection against the evil
eye.1142
A cult of stones was probably connected with the belief in the
magical power of certain stones, like the Lia Fail, which
shrieked aloud when Conn knocked against it. His Druids explained
that the number of the shrieks equalled the number of his
descendants who should be kings of Erin.1143 This is an ætiological
myth accounting for the use of this fetich-stone at coronations.
Other stones, probably the object of a cult or possessing magical
virtues, were used at the installation of chiefs, who stood on them
and vowed to follow in the steps of their predecessors, a pair of
feet being carved on the stone to represent those of the first
chief.1144 Other stones had more musical
virtues—the “conspicuous stone” of {330} Elysium
from which arose a hundred strains, and the melodious stone of Loch
Láig. Such beliefs existed into Christian times. S.
Columba’s stone altar floated on the waves, and on it a leper had
crossed in the wake of the saint’s coracle to Erin. But the same
stone was that on which, long before, the hero Fionn had
slipped.1145
Connected with the cult of stones are magical observances at
fixed rocks or boulders, regarded probably as the abode of a
spirit. These observances are in origin pre-Celtic, but were
practised by the Celts. Girls slide down a stone to obtain a lover,
pregnant women to obtain an easy delivery, or contact with such
stones causes barren women to have children or gives vitality to
the feeble. A small offering is usually left on the stone.1146 Similar rites are practised at
megalithic monuments, and here again the custom is obviously
pre-Celtic in origin. In this case the spirits of the dead must
have been expected to assist the purposes of the rites, or even to
incarnate themselves in the children born as a result of barren
women resorting to these stones.1147
Sometimes when the purpose of the stones has been forgotten and
some other legendary origin attributed to them, the custom adapts
itself to the legend. In Ireland many dolmens are known, not as
places of sepulture, but as “Diarmaid and Grainne’s beds”—the
places where these eloping lovers slept. Hence they have powers of
fruitfulness and are visited by women who desire children. The rite
is thus one of sympathetic magic.
Holed dolmens or naturally pierced blocks are used for the
magical cure of sickness both in Brittany and Cornwall, the patient
being passed through the hole.1148
Similar rites {331} are used with trees, a slit being often
made in the trunk of a sapling, and a sickly child passed through
it. The slit is then closed and bound, and if it joins together at
the end of a certain time, this is a proof that the child will
recover.1149 In these rites the spirit in
stone or tree was supposed to assist the process of healing, or the
disease was transferred to them, or, again, there was the idea of a
new birth with consequent renewed life, the act imitating the
process of birth. These rites are not confined to Celtic regions,
but belong to that universal use of magic in which the Celts freely
participated.
Since Christian writers firmly believed in the magical powers of
the Druids, aided however by the devil, they taught that Christian
saints had miraculously overcome them with their own weapons. S.
Patrick dispelled snow-storms and darkness raised by Druids, or
destroyed Druids who had brought down fire from heaven. Similar
deeds are attributed to S. Columba and others.1150 The moral victory of the Cross
was later regarded also as a magical victory. Hence also lives of
Celtic saints are full of miracles which are simply a reproduction
of Druidic magic—controlling the elements, healing, carrying
live coals without hurt, causing confusion by their curses,
producing invisibility or shape-shifting, making the ice-cold
waters of a river hot by standing in them at their devotions, or
walking unscathed through the fiercest storms.1151 They were soon regarded as more
expert magicians than the Druids themselves. They may have laid
claim to magical powers, or perhaps they used a natural shrewdness
{332} in such a way as to suggest magic. But
all their power they ascribed to Christ. “Christ is my
Druid”—the true miracle-worker, said S. Columba. Yet they
were imbued with the superstitions of their own age. Thus S.
Columba sent a white stone to King Brude at Inverness for the cure
of his Druid Broichan, who drank the water poured over it, and was
healed.1152 Soon similar virtues were
ascribed to the relics of the saints themselves, and at a later
time, when most Scotsmen ceased to believe in the saints, they
thought that the ministers of the kirk had powers like those of
pagan Druid and Catholic saint. Ministers were levitated, or shone
with a celestial light, or had clairvoyant gifts, or, with dire
results, cursed the ungodly or the benighted prelatist. They
prophesied, used trance-utterance, and exercised gifts of healing.
Angels ministered to them, as when Samuel Rutherford, having fallen
into a well when a child, was pulled out by an angel.1153 The substratum of primitive
belief survives all changes of creed, and the folk impartially
attributed magical powers to pagan Druid, Celtic saints, old crones
and witches, and Presbyterian ministers.
Footnote 1098:(return)See RC xii. 52 f.; D’Arbois, v. 403-404; O’Curry, MS.
Mat. 505; Kennedy, 75, 196, 258.
Footnote 1106:(return)Sébillot, ii. 226 f., i. 101, ii. 225;
Bérenger-Féraud, Superstitions et Survivances,
iii. 169 f.; Stat. Account, viii. 52.
Footnote 1108:(return)Bérenger-Féraud, iii. 218 f.; Sébillot, i.
100, 109; RC ii. 484; Frazer, Golden
Bough2, i. 67.
Footnote 1109:(return)D’Arbois, v. 387; IT i. 52; Dixon, Gairloch, 165;
Carmichael, Carm. Gad. ii. 25.
Footnote 1114:(return)Bird-women pursued by Cúchulainn; D’Arbois, v. 178; for
other instances see O’Curry, MS. Mat. 426; Miss Hull,
82.
Footnote 1125:(return)Zimmer, Gloss. Hiber. 271. Other Irish incantations,
appealing to the saints, are found in the Codex Regularum at
Klosternenburg (RC ii. 112).
Footnote 1127:(return)Sauvé, RC vi. 67 f.; Carmichael, Carm.
Gadel., passim; CM xii. 38; Joyce, SH i.
629 f.; Camden, Britannia, iv. 488; Scot, Discovery of
Witchcraft, iii. 15.
Footnote 1128:(return)For examples see O’Curry, MS. Met. 248; D’Arbois, ii.
190; RC xii. 71, xxiv. 279; Stokes, TIG xxxvi. f.
Footnote 1133:(return)Petrie, Ancient Music of Ireland, i. 73; The Gael,
i. 235 (fairy lullaby of MacLeod of MacLeod).
Footnote 1135:(return)Archæologia, xxxix. 509; Proc. Soc. Ant.
iii. 92; Gaidoz, Le Dieu Gaul. du Soleil, 60 f.
Footnote 1139:(return)Hoare, Modern Wiltshire, 56; Camden, Britannia,
815; Hazlitt, 194; Campbell, Witchcraft, 84. In the
Highlands spindle-whorls are thought to have been perforated by the
adder, which then passes through the hole to rid itself of its old
skin.
Footnote 1141:(return)Rev. Arch. i. 227; Greenwell, British Barrows,
165; Elton, 66; Renel, 95f., 194f.
Footnote 1143:(return)O’Curry, MS Mat. 387. See a paper by Hartland, “The Voice
of the Stone of Destiny,” Folk-lore Journal, xiv. 1903.
Footnote 1147:(return)Trollope, Brittany, ii. 229;
Bérenger-Féraud, Superstitions et Survivances,
i. 529 f.; Borlase, Dolmens of Ireland, iii. 580, 689, 841
f.
Footnote 1148:(return)Rev. des Trad. 1894, 494; Bérenger-Féraud,
i. 529, ii. 367; Elworthy, Evil Eye, 70.
Footnote 1151:(return)Life of S. Fechin of Fore, RC xii. 333; Life of S.
Kieran, O’Grady, ii. 13; Amra Cholumbchille, RC xx. 41; Life
of S. Moling, RC xxvii. 293; and other lives passim.
See also Plummer, Vitæ Sanctorum Hiberniæ.
Footnote 1152:(return)Adamnan, ii. 34. This pebble was long preserved, but
mysteriously disappeared when the person who sought it was doomed
to die.
Footnote 1153:(return)Wodrow, Analecta, passim; Walker, Six Saints of
the Covenant, ed. by Dr. Hay Fleming.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE STATE OF THE DEAD.
Among all the problems with which man has busied himself, none
so appeals to his hopes and fears as that of the future life. Is
there a farther shore, and if so, shall we reach it? Few races, if
any, have doubted the existence of a future state, but their
conceptions of it have differed greatly. But of all the races of
antiquity, outside Egypt, the Celts seem to have cherished the most
ardent belief in the world beyond the grave, and to have been
preoccupied with its joys. Their belief, so far as we know it, was
extremely vivid, and its chief characteristic was life in the body
after death, in another region.1154
This, coupled with the fact that it was taught as a doctrine by the
Druids, made it the admiration of classical onlookers. But besides
this belief there was another, derived from the ideas of a distant
past, that the dead lived on in the grave—the two conceptions
being connected. And there may also have been a certain degree of
belief in transmigration. Although the Celts believed that the soul
could exist apart from the body, there seems to be no evidence that
they believed in a future existence of the soul as a shade. This
belief is certainly found in some late Welsh poems, where the
ghosts are described as wandering in the Caledonian forest, but
these can hardly be made use of as evidence for the old pagan
doctrine. The evidence for the latter may be gathered {334} from
classical observers, from archæology and from Irish
texts.
Cæsar writes: “The Druids in particular wish to impress
this on them that souls do not perish, but pass from one to another
(ab aliis … ad alios) after death, and by this chiefly
they think to incite men to valour, the fear of death being
overlooked.” Later he adds, that at funerals all things which had
been dear to the dead man, even living creatures, were thrown on
the funeral pyre, and shortly before his time slaves and beloved
clients were also consumed.1155
Diodorus says: “Among them the doctrine of Pythagoras prevailed
that the souls of men were immortal, and after completing their
term of existence they live again, the soul passing into another
body. Hence at the burial of the dead some threw letters addressed
to dead relatives on the funeral pile, believing that the dead
would read them in the next world.”1156
Valerius Maximus writes: “They would fain make us believe that the
souls of men are immortal. I would be tempted to call these
breeches-wearing folk fools, if their doctrine were not the same as
that of the mantle-clad Pythagoras.” He also speaks of money lent
which would be repaid in the next world, because men’s souls are
immortal.1157
These passages are generally taken to mean that the Celts believed
simply in transmigration of the Pythagorean type. Possibly all
these writers cite one common original, but Cæsar makes no
reference to Pythagoras. A comparison with the Pythagorean doctrine
shows that the Celtic belief differed materially from it. According
to the former, men’s souls entered new bodies, even those of
animals, in this world, and as an expiation. There is nothing of
this in the Celtic doctrine. The new body is not a prison-house of
the soul in which it must expiate its former sins, and the soul
receives it not in this world but in another. The real point of
{335} connection was the insistence of both
upon immortality, the Druids teaching that it was bodily
immortality. Their doctrine no more taught transmigration than does
the Christian doctrine of the resurrection. Roman writers, aware
that Pythagoras taught immortality via a series of
transmigrations, and that the Druids taught a doctrine of bodily
immortality, may have thought that the receiving of a new body
meant transmigration. Themselves sceptical of a future life or
believing in a traditional gloomy Hades, they were bound to be
struck with the vigour of the Celtic doctrine and its effects upon
conduct. The only thing like it of which they knew was the
Pythagorean doctrine. Looked at in this light, Cæsar’s words
need not convey the idea of transmigration, and it is possible that
he mistranslated some Greek original. Had these writers meant that
the Druids taught transmigration, they could hardly have added the
passages regarding debts being paid in the other world, or letters
conveyed there by the dead, or human sacrifices to benefit the dead
there. These also preclude the idea of a mere immortality of the
soul. The dead Celt continued to be the person he had been, and it
may have been that not a new body, but the old body glorified, was
tenanted by his soul beyond the grave. This bodily immortality in a
region where life went on as on this earth, but under happier
conditions, would then be like the Vedic teaching that the soul,
after the burning of the body, went to the heaven of Yama, and
there received its body complete and glorified. The two
conceptions, Hindu and Celtic, may have sprung from early “Aryan”
belief.
This Celtic doctrine appears more clearly from what Lucan says
of the Druidic teaching. “From you we learn that the bourne of
man’s existence is not the silent halls of Erebus, in another world
(or region, in orbe alio) the spirit animates the members.
Death, if your lore be true, is but the centre of a {336} long
life.” For this reason, he adds, the Celtic warrior had no fear of
death.1158 Thus Lucan conceived the
Druidic doctrine to be one of bodily immortality in another region.
That region was not a gloomy state; rather it resembled the
Egyptian Aalu with its rich and varied existence. Classical
writers, of course, may have known of what appears to have been a
sporadic Celtic idea, derived from old beliefs, that the soul might
take the form of an animal, but this was not the Druidic teaching.
Again, if the Gauls, like the Irish, had myths telling of the
rebirth of gods or semi-divine beings, these may have been
misinterpreted by those writers and regarded as eschatological. But
such myths do not concern mortals. Other writers, Timagenes,
Strabo, and Mela,1159
speak only of the immortality of the soul, but their testimony is
probably not at variance with that of Lucan, since Mela appears to
copy Cæsar, and speaks of accounts and debts being passed on
to the next world.
This theory of a bodily immortality is supported by the Irish
sagas, in which ghosts, in our sense of the word, do not exist. The
dead who return are not spectres, but are fully clothed upon with a
body. Thus, when Cúchulainn returns at the command of S.
Patrick, he is described exactly as if he were still in the flesh.
“His hair was thick and black … in his head his eye gleamed swift
and grey…. Blacker than the side of a cooking spit each of his
two brows, redder than ruby his lips.” His clothes and weapons are
fully described, while his chariot and horses are equally
corporeal.1160
Similar descriptions of the dead who return are not infrequent,
e.g. that of Caoilte in the story of Mongan, whom every one
believes to be a living warrior, and that of Fergus mac Roich, who
reappeared in a beautiful form, adorned with brown hair and
{337} clad in his former splendour, and
recited the lost story of the Táin.1161 Thus the Irish Celts believed
that in another world the spirit animated the members. This bodily
existence is also suggested in Celtic versions of the “Dead Debtor”
folk-tale cycle. Generally an animal in whose shape a dead man
helps his benefactor is found in other European versions, but in
the Celtic stories not an animal but the dead man himself appears
as a living person in corporeal form.1162
Equally substantial and corporeal, eating, drinking, lovemaking,
and fighting are the divine folk of the síd or of
Elysium, or the gods as they are represented in the texts. To the
Celts, gods, síde, and the dead, all alike had a
bodily form, which, however, might become invisible, and in other
ways differed from the earthly body.
The archæological evidence of burial customs among the
Celts also bears witness to this belief. Over the whole Celtic area
a rich profusion of grave-goods has been found, consisting of
weapons, armour, chariots, utensils, ornaments, and coins.1163 Some of the interments
undoubtedly point to sacrifice of wife, children, or slaves at the
grave. Male and female skeletons are often in close proximity, in
one case the arm of the male encircling the neck of the female. In
other cases the remains of children are found with these. Or while
the lower interment is richly provided with grave-goods, above it
lie irregularly several skeletons, without grave-goods, and often
with head separated from the body, pointing to decapitation, while
in one case the arms had been tied behind the back.1164 All this {338} suggests,
taken in connection with classical evidence regarding burial
customs, that the future life was life in the body, and that it was
a replica of this life, with the same affections, needs, and
energies. Certain passages in Irish texts also describe burials,
and tell how the dead were interred with ornaments and weapons,
while it was a common custom to bury the dead warrior in his
armour, fully armed, and facing the region whence enemies might be
expected. Thus he was a perpetual menace to them and prevented
their attack.1165
Possibly this belief may account for the elevated position of many
tumuli. Animals were also sacrificed. Hostages were buried alive
with Fiachra, according to one text, and the wives of heroes
sometimes express their desire to be buried along with their dead
husbands.1166
The idea that the body as well as the soul was immortal was
probably linked on to a very primitive belief regarding the dead,
and one shared by many peoples, that they lived on in the grave.
This conception was never forgotten, even in regions where the
theory of a distant land of the dead was evolved, or where the body
was consumed by fire before burial. It appears from such practices
as binding the dead with cords, or laying heavy stones or a mound
of earth on the grave, probably to prevent their egress, or feeding
the dead with sacrificial food at the grave, or from the belief
that the dead come forth not as spirits, but in the body from the
grave. This primitive conception, of which the belief in a
subterranean world of the dead is an extension, long survived among
various {339} races, e.g. the Scandinavians,
who believed in the barrow as the abiding place of the dead, while
they also had their conception of Hel and Valhalla, or among the
Slavs, side by side with Christian conceptions.1167 It also survived among the
Celts, though another belief in the orbis alius had arisen.
This can be shown from modern and ancient folk-belief and
custom.
In numerous Celtic folk-tales the dead rise in the body, not as
ghosts, from the grave, which is sometimes described as a house in
which they live. They perform their ordinary occupations in house
or field; they eat with the living, or avenge themselves upon them;
if scourged, blood is drawn from their bodies; and, in one curious
Breton tale, a dead husband visits his wife in bed and she then has
a child by him, because, as he said, “sa compte d’enfants” was not
yet complete.1168
In other stories a corpse becomes animated and speaks or acts in
presence of the living, or from the tomb itself when it is
disturbed.1169
The earliest literary example of such a tale is the tenth century
“Adventures of Nera,” based on older sources. In this Nera goes to
tie a withy to the foot of a man who has been hung. The corpse begs
a drink, and then forces Nera to carry him to a house, where he
kills two sleepers.1170
All such stories, showing as they do that a corpse is really
living, must in essence be of great antiquity. Another common
belief, found over the Celtic area, is that the dead rise from the
grave, not as ghosts, when they will, and that they appear en
masse on the night of All Saints, and join the living.1171
As a result of such beliefs, various customs are found in
{340} use, apparently to permit of the corpse
having freedom of movement, contrary to the older custom of
preventing its egress from the grave. In the west of Ireland the
feet of the corpse are left free, and the nails are drawn from the
coffin at the grave. In the Hebrides the threads of the shroud are
cut or the bindings of feet, hands, and face are raised when the
body is placed in the coffin, and in Brittany the arms and feet are
left free when the corpse is dressed.1172
The reason is said to be that the spirit may have less trouble in
getting to the spirit world, but it is obvious that a more material
view preceded and still underlies this later gloss. Many stories
are told illustrating these customs, and the earlier belief,
Christianised, appears in the tale of a woman who haunted her
friends because they had made her grave-clothes so short that the
fires of Purgatory burnt her knees.1173
Earlier customs recorded among the Celts also point to the
existence of this primitive belief influencing actual custom.
Nicander says that the Celts went by night to the tombs of great
men to obtain oracles, so much did they believe that they were
still living there.1174
In Ireland, oracles were also sought by sleeping on funeral cairns,
and it was to the grave of Fergus that two bards resorted in order
to obtain from him the lost story of the Táin. We
have also seen how, in Ireland, armed heroes exerted a sinister
influence upon enemies from their graves, which may thus have been
regarded as their homes—a belief also underlying the Welsh
story of Bran’s head.
Where was the world of the dead situated? M. Reinach has shown,
by a careful comparison of the different uses of the {341} word
orbis, that Lucan’s words do not necessarily mean “another
world,” but “another region,” i.e. of this world.1175 If the Celts cherished so
firmly the belief that the dead lived on in the grave, a belief in
an underworld of the dead was bound in course of time to have been
evolved as part of their creed. To it all graves and tumuli would
give access. Classical observers apparently held that the Celtic
future state was like their own in being an underworld region,
since they speak of the dead Celts as inferi, or as going
ad Manes, and Plutarch makes Camma speak of descending to
her dead husband.1176
What differentiated it from their own gloomy underworld was its
exuberant life and immortality. This aspect of a subterranean land
presented no difficulty to the Celt, who had many tales of an
underworld or under-water region more beautiful and blissful than
anything on earth. Such a subterranean world must have been that of
the Celtic Dispater, a god of fertility and growth, the roots of
things being nourished from his kingdom. From him men had
descended,1177
probably a myth of their coming forth from his subterranean
kingdom, and to him they returned after death to a blissful
life.
Several writers, notably M. D’Arbois, assume that the orbis
alius of the dead was the Celtic island Elysium. But that
Elysium never appears in the tales as a land of the dead. It
is a land of gods and deathless folk who are not those who have
passed from this world by death. Mortals may reach it by favour,
but only while still in life. It might be argued that Elysium was
regarded in pagan times as the land of the dead, but after
Christian eschatological views prevailed, it became a kind of
fairyland. But the existing tales give no hint of this, and, after
being carefully examined, they show that Elysium {342} had
always been a place distinct from that of the departed, though
there may have arisen a tendency to confuse the two.
If there was a genuine Celtic belief in an island of the dead,
it could have been no more than a local one, else Cæsar would
not have spoken as he does of the Celtic Dispater. Such a local
belief now exists on the Breton coast, but it is mainly concerned
with the souls of the drowned.1178 A
similar local belief may explain the story told by Procopius, who
says that Brittia (Britain), an island lying off the mouth of the
Rhine, is divided from north to south by a wall beyond which is a
noxious region. This is a distorted reminiscence of the Roman wall,
which would appear to run in this direction if Ptolemy’s map, in
which Scotland lies at right angles to England, had been consulted.
Thither fishermen from the opposite coast are compelled to ferry
over at dead of night the shades of the dead, unseen to them, but
marshalled by a mysterious leader.1179
Procopius may have mingled some local belief with the current
tradition that Ulysses’ island of the shades lay in the north, or
in the west.1180
In any case his story makes of the gloomy land of the shades a very
different region from the blissful Elysium of the Celts and from
their joyous orbis alius, nor is it certain that he is
referring to a Celtic people.
Traces of the idea of an underworld of the dead exist in Breton
folk-belief. The dead must travel across a subterranean ocean, and
though there is scarcely any tradition regarding what happens on
landing, M. Sébillot thinks that formerly “there existed in
the subterranean world a sort of centralisation of the different
states of the dead.” If so, this must have been founded on pagan
belief. The interior of the earth is {343} also believed to be the
abode of fabulous beings, of giants, and of fantastic animals, and
there is also a subterranean fairy world. In all this we may see a
survival of the older belief, modified by Christian teaching, since
the Bretons suppose that purgatory and hell are beneath the earth
and accessible from its surface.1181
Some British folk-lore brought to Greece by Demetrius and
reported by Plutarch might seem to suggest that certain
persons—the mighty dead—were privileged to pass to the
island Elysium. Some islands near Britain were called after gods
and heroes, and the inhabitants of one of these were regarded as
sacrosanct by the Britons, like the priestesses of Sena. They were
visited by Demetrius, who was told that the storms which arose
during his visit were caused by the passing away of some of the
“mighty” or of the “great souls.” It may have been meant that such
mighty ones passed to the more distant islands, but this is
certainly not stated. In another island, Kronos was imprisoned,
watched over by Briareus, and guarded by demons.1182 Plutarch refers to these
islands in another work, repeating the story of Kronos, and saying
that his island is mild and fragrant, that people live there
waiting on the god who sometimes appears to them and prevents their
departing. Meanwhile they are happy and know no care, spending
their time in sacrificing and hymn-singing or in studying legends
and philosophy.
Plutarch has obviously mingled Celtic Elysium beliefs with the
classical conception of the Druids.1183
In Elysium there is {344} no care, and favoured mortals who pass
there are generally prevented from returning to earth. The
reference to Kronos may also be based partly on myths of Celtic
gods of Elysium, partly on tales of heroes who departed to
mysterious islands or to the hollow hills where they lie asleep,
but whence they will one day return to benefit their people. So
Arthur passed to Avalon, but in other tales he and his warriors are
asleep beneath Craig-y-Ddinas, just as Fionn and his men rest
within this or that hill in the Highlands. Similar legends are told
of other Celtic heroes, and they witness to the belief that great
men who had died would return in the hour of their people’s need.
In time they were thought not to have died at all, but to be merely
sleeping and waiting for their hour.1184
The belief is based on the idea that the dead are alive in grave or
barrow, or in a spacious land below the earth, or that dead
warriors can menace their foes from the tomb.
Thus neither in old sagas, nor in Märchen, nor in
popular tradition, is the island Elysium a world of the dead. For
the most part the pagan eschatology has been merged in that of
Christianity, while the Elysium belief has remained intact and
still survives in a whole series of beautiful tales.
The world of the dead was in all respects a replica of
this world, but it was happier. In existing Breton and Irish
belief—a survival of the older conception of the bodily state
of the dead—they resume their tools, crafts, and occupations,
and they preserve their old feelings. Hence, when they appear on
earth, it is in bodily form and in their customary dress. Like
{345} the pagan Gauls, the Breton remembers
unpaid debts, and cannot rest till they are paid, and in Brittany,
Ireland, and the Highlands the food and clothes given to the poor
after a death, feed and clothe the dead in the other world.1185 If the world of the dead was
subterranean,—a theory supported by current
folk-belief,1186—the Earth-goddess or the
Earth-god, who had been first the earth itself, then a being living
below its surface and causing fertility, could not have become the
divinity of the dead until the multitude of single graves or
barrows, in each of which the dead lived, had become a wide
subterranean region of the dead. This divinity was the source of
life and growth; hence he or she was regarded as the progenitor of
mankind, who had come forth from the underworld and would return
there at death. It is not impossible that the Breton conception of
Ankou, death personified, is a reminiscence of the Celtic Dispater.
He watches over all things beyond the grave, and carries off the
dead to his kingdom. But if so he has been altered for the worse by
mediæval ideas of “Death the skeleton”.1187 He is a grisly god of death,
whereas the Celtic Dis was a beneficent god of the dead who enjoyed
a happy immortality. They were not cold phantasms, but alive and
endowed with corporeal form and able to enjoy the things of a
better existence, and clad in the beautiful raiment and gaudy
ornaments which were loved so much on earth. Hence Celtic warriors
did not fear death, and suicide was extremely common, while Spanish
Celts sang hymns in praise of death, and others celebrated the
birth of men with mourning, but their deaths with joy.1188 Lucan’s words are thus the
truest expression of Celtic eschatology—”In another
{346} region the spirit animates the members;
death, if your lore be true, is but the passage to enduring
life.”
There is no decisive evidence pointing to any theory of moral
retribution beyond the grave among the pagan Celts. Perhaps, since
the hope of immortality made warriors face death without a tremor,
it may have been held, as many other races have believed, that
cowards would miss the bliss of the future state. Again, in some of
the Irish Christian visions of the other-world and in existing
folk-belief, certain characteristics of hell may not be derived
from Christian eschatology, e.g. the sufferings of the dead
from cold.1189
This might point to an old belief in a cold region whither some of
the dead were banished. In the Adventures of S. Columba’s
Clerics, hell is reached by a bridge over a glen of fire,1190 and a narrow bridge leading to
the other world is a common feature in most mythologies. But here
it may be borrowed from Scandinavian sources, or from such
Christian writings as the Dialogues of S. Gregory the
Great.1191 It might be contended that the
Christian doctrine of hell has absorbed an earlier pagan theory of
retribution, but of this there is now no trace in the sagas or in
classical references to the Celtic belief in the future life. Nor
is there any reference to a day of judgment, for the passage in
which Loegaire speaks of the dead buried with their weapons till
“the day of Erdathe,” though glossed “the day of judgment of the
Lord,” does not refer to such a judgment.1192 If an ethical blindness be
attributed to the Celts for their apparent lack of any theory of
retribution, it should {347} be remembered that we must not judge a
people’s ethics wholly by their views of future punishment.
Scandinavians, Greeks, and Semites up to a certain stage were as
unethical as the Celts in this respect, and the Christian hell, as
conceived by many theologians, is far from suggesting an ethical
Deity.
Footnote 1162:(return)Larminie, 155; Hyde, Beside the Fire, 21, 153; CM
xiii. 21; Campbell, WHT, ii. 21; Le Braz2, i. p.
xii.
Footnote 1163:(return)Von Sacken, Das Grabfeld von Hallstatt; Greenwell,
British Barrows; RC x. 234; Antiquary, xxxvii.
125; Blanchet, ii. 528 f.; Anderson, Scotland in Pagan
Times.
Footnote 1165:(return)Nutt-Meyer, i. 52; O’Donovan, Annals, i. 145, 180;
RC xv. 28. In one case the enemy disinter the body of the
king of Connaught, and rebury it face downwards, and then obtain a
victory. This nearly coincides with the dire results following the
disinterment of Bran’s head (O’Donovan, i. 145; cf. p. 242, supra).
Footnote 1166:(return)LU 130a; RC xxiv. 185; O’Curry, MC
i. p. cccxxx; Campbell, WHT iii. 62; Leahy, i. 105.
Footnote 1167:(return)Vigfusson-Powell, Corpus Poet. Boreale, i. 167, 417-418,
420; and see my Childhood of Fiction, 103 f.
Footnote 1168:(return)Larminie, 31; Le Braz2, ii. 146, 159, 161, 184, 257
(the rôle of the dead husband is usually taken by a
lutin or follet, Luzel, Veillées
Bretons, 79); Rev. des Trad. Pop. ii. 267; Ann. de
Bretagne, viii. 514.
Footnote 1172:(return)Curtin, Tales, 156; Campbell, Superstitions, 241;
Folk-Lore, xiii. 60; Le Braz2, i. 213.
Footnote 1178:(return)Le Braz2, i. p. xxxix. This is only one out of many
local beliefs (cf. Sébillot, ii. 149).
Footnote 1182:(return)de Defectu Orac. 18. An occasional name for Britain in
the Mabinogion is “the island of the Mighty” (Loth, i. 69,
et passim). To the storm incident and the passing of the
mighty, there is a curious parallel in Fijian belief. A clap of
thunder was explained as “the noise of a spirit, we being near the
place in which spirits plunge to enter the other world, and a chief
in the neighbourhood having just died” (Williams, Fiji, i.
204).
Footnote 1184:(return)See Hartland, Science of Fairy Tales, 209; Macdougall,
Folk and Hero Tales, 73, 263; Le Braz2, i. p.
xxx. Mortals sometimes penetrated to the presence of these heroes,
who awoke. If the visitor had the courage to tell them that the
hour had not yet come, they fell asleep again, and he escaped. In
Brittany, rocky clefts are believed to be the entrance to the world
of the dead, like the cave of Lough Dearg. Similar stories were
probably told of these in pagan times, though they are now adapted
to Christian beliefs in purgatory or hell.
Footnote 1189:(return)Le Braz1, ii. 91; Curtin, Tales, 146. The
punishment of suffering from ice and snow appears in the
Apocalypse of Paul and in later Christian accounts of
hell.
Footnote 1192:(return)Erdathe, according to D’Arbois, means (1) “the day in
which the dead will resume his colour,” from dath, “colour”;
(2) “the agreeable day,” from data, “agreeable” (D’Arbois,
i. 185; cf. Les Druides, 135).
CHAPTER XXIII.
REBIRTH AND TRANSMIGRATION.
In Irish sagas, rebirth is asserted only of divinities or
heroes, and, probably because this belief was obnoxious to
Christian scribes, while some MSS. tell of it in the case of
certain heroic personages, in others these same heroes are said to
have been born naturally. There is no textual evidence that it was
attributed to ordinary mortals, and it is possible that, if
classical observers did not misunderstand the Celtic doctrine of
the future life, their references to rebirth may be based on
mythical tales regarding gods or heroes. We shall study these tales
as they are found in Irish texts.
In the mythological cycle, as has been seen, Etain, in insect
form, fell into a cup of wine. She was swallowed by Etar, and in
due time was reborn as a child, who was eventually married by
Eochaid Airem, but recognized and carried off by her divine spouse
Mider. Etain, however, had quite forgotten her former existence as
a goddess.1193
In one version of Cúchulainn’s birth story Dechtire and
her women fly away as birds, but are discovered at last by her
brother Conchobar in a strange house, where Dechtire gives birth to
a child, of whom the god Lug is apparently the father. In another
version the birds are not Dechtire and her women, for she
accompanies Conchobar as his charioteer. They arrive at the house,
the mistress of {349} which gives birth to a child, which
Dechtire brings up. It dies, and on her return from the burial
Dechtire swallows a small animal when drinking. Lug appears to her
by night, and tells her that he was the child, and that now she was
with child by him (i.e. he was the animal swallowed by her).
When he was born he would be called Setanta, who was later named
Cúchulainn. Cúchulainn, in this version, is thus a
rebirth of Lug, as well as his father.1194
In the Tale of the Two Swineherds, Friuch and Rucht are
herds of the gods Ochall and Bodb. They quarrel, and their fighting
in various animal shapes is fully described. Finally they become
two worms, which are swallowed by two cows; these then give birth
to the Whitehorn and to the Black Bull of Cuailgne, the animals
which were the cause of the Táin. The swineherds were
probably themselves gods in the older versions of this tale.1195
Other stories relate the rebirth of heroes. Conchobar is
variously said to be son of Nessa by her husband Cathbad, or by her
lover Fachtna. But in the latter version an incident is found which
points to a third account. Nessa brings Cathbad a draught from a
river, but in it are two worms which he forces her to swallow. She
gives birth to a son, in each of whose hands is a worm, and he is
called Conchobar, after the name of the river into which he fell
soon after his birth. The incident closes with the words, “It was
from these worms that she became pregnant, say some.”1196 Possibly the divinity of the
river had taken the form of the worms and was reborn as Conchobar.
We may compare the story of the birth of Conall Cernach. His mother
was childless, until a {350} Druid sang spells over a well in which
she bathed, and drank of its waters. With the draught she swallowed
a worm, “and the worm was in the hand of the boy as he lay in his
mother’s womb; and he pierced the hand and consumed it.”1197
The personality of Fionn is also connected with the rebirth
idea. In one story, Mongan, a seventh-century king, had a dispute
with his poet regarding the death of the hero Fothad. The Fian
Caoilte returns from the dead to prove Mongan right, and he says,
“We were with thee, with Fionn.” Mongan bids him be silent, because
he did not wish his identity with Fionn to be made known. “Mongan,
however, was Fionn, though he would not let it be told.”1198 In another story Mongan is son
of Manannan, who had prophesied of this event. Manannan appeared to
the wife of Fiachna when he was fighting the Saxons, and told her
that unless she yielded herself to him her husband would be slain.
On hearing this she agreed, and next day the god appeared fighting
with Fiachna’s forces and routed the slain. “So that this Mongan is
a son of Manannan mac Lir, though he is called Mongan son of
Fiachna.”1199
In a third version Manannan makes the bargain with Fiachna, and in
his form sleeps with the woman. Simultaneously with Mongan’s birth,
Fiachna’s attendant had a son who became Mongan’s servant, and a
warrior’s wife bears a daughter who became his wife. Manannan took
Mongan to the Land of Promise and kept him there until he was
sixteen.1200 Many magical powers and the
faculty of shape-shifting are attributed to Mongan, and in some
stories he is brought into connection {351} with the
síd.1201
Probably a myth told how he went to Elysium instead of dying, for
he comes from “the Land of Living Heart” to speak with S. Columba,
who took him to see heaven. But he would not satisfy the saints’
curiosity regarding Elysium, and suddenly vanished, probably
returning there.1202
This twofold account of Mongan’s birth is curious. Perhaps the
idea that he was a rebirth of Fionn may have been suggested by the
fact that his father was called Fiachna Finn, while it is probable
that some old myth of a son of Manannan’s called Mongan was
attached to the personality of the historic Mongan.
About the era of Mongan, King Diarmaid had two wives, one of
whom was barren. S. Finnen gave her holy water to drink, and she
brought forth a lamb; then, after a second draught, a trout, and
finally, after a third, Aed Slane, who became high king of Ireland
in 594. This is a Christianised version of the story of Conall
Cernach’s birth.1203
In Welsh mythology the story of Taliesin affords an example of
rebirth. After the transformation combat of the goddess Cerridwen
and Gwion, resembling that of the swine-herds, Gwion becomes a
grain of wheat, which Cerridwen in the form of a hen swallows, with
the result that he is reborn of her as Taliesin.1204
Most of these stories no longer exist in their primitive form,
and various ideas are found in them—conception by magical
means, divine descent through the amour of a divinity and a
mortal, and rebirth.
As to the first, the help of magician or priest is often
{352} invoked in savage society and even in
European folk-custom in case of barrenness. Prayers, charms,
potions, or food are the means used to induce conception, but
perhaps at one time these were thought to cause it of themselves.
In many tales the swallowing of a seed, fruit, insect, etc.,
results in the birth of a hero or heroine, and it is probable that
these stories embody actual belief in such a possibility. If the
stories of Conall Cernach and Aed Slane are not attenuated
instances of rebirth, say, of the divinity of a well, they are
examples of this belief. The gift of fruitfulness is bestowed by
Druid and saint, but in the story of Conall it is rather the
swallowing of the worm than the Druid’s incantation that causes
conception, and is the real motif of the tale.
Where the rebirth of a divinity occurs as the result of the
swallowing of a small animal, it is evident that the god has first
taken this form. The Celt, believing in conception by swallowing
some object, and in shape-shifting, combined his information, and
so produced a third idea, that a god could take the form of a small
animal, which, when swallowed, became his rebirth.1205 If, as the visits of barren
women to dolmens and megalithic monuments suggest, the Celts
believed in the possibility of the spirit of a dead man entering a
woman and being born of her or at least aiding conception,—a
belief held by other races,1206—this may have given rise
to myths regarding the rebirth of gods by human mothers. At all
events this latter Celtic belief is paralleled by the American
Indian myths, e.g. of the Thlinkeet god Yehl who transformed
himself now into a pebble, now into a blade of grass, and, being
thus swallowed by women, was reborn.
In the stories of Etain and of Lud, reborn as Setanta, this
{353} idea of divine transformation and
rebirth occurs. A similar idea may underlie the tale of Fionn and
Mongan. As to the tales of Gwion and the Swineherds, the latter the
servants of gods, and perhaps themselves regarded once as
divinities, who in their rebirth as bulls are certainly divine
animals, they present some features which require further
consideration. The previous transformations in both cases belong to
the Transformation Combat formula of many Märchen, and
obviously were not part of the original form of the myths. In all
such Märchen the antagonists are males, hence the
rebirth incident could not form part of them. In the Welsh tale of
Gwion and in the corresponding Taliesin poem, the ingenious fusion
of the Märchen formula with an existing myth of rebirth
must have taken place at an early date.1207 This is also true of The Two
Swineherds, but in this case, since the myth told how two gods
took the form of worms and were reborn of cows, the formula had to
be altered. Both remain alive at the end of the combat, contrary to
the usual formula, because both were males and both were reborn.
The fusion is skilful, because the reborn personages preserve a
remembrance of their former transformations,1208 just as Mongan knows of his
former existence as Fionn. In other cases there is no such
remembrance. Etain had forgotten her former existence, and
Cúchulainn does not appear to know that he is a rebirth of
Lug.
The relation of Lug to Cúchulainn deserves further
inquiry. While the god is reborn he is also existing as Lug, just
as {354} having been swallowed as a worm by
Dechtire, he appears in his divine form and tells her he will be
born of her. In the Táin he appears fighting for
Cúchulainn, whom he there calls his son. There are thus two
aspects of the hero’s relationship to Lug; in one he is a rebirth
of the god, in the other he is his son, as indeed he seems to
represent himself in The Wooing of Emer, and as he is called
by Laborcham just before his death.1209
In one of the birth-stories he is clearly Lug’s son by Dechtire.
But both versions may simply be different aspects of one belief,
namely, that a god could be reborn as a mortal and yet continue his
divine existence, because all birth is a kind of rebirth. The men
of Ulster sought a wife for Cúchulainn, “knowing that his
rebirth would be of himself,” i.e. his son would be himself
even while he continued to exist as his father. Examples of such a
belief occur elsewhere, e.g. in the Laws of Manu,
where the husband is said to be reborn of his wife, and in ancient
Egypt, where the gods were called “self-begotten,” because each was
father to the son who was his true image or himself. Likeness
implied identity, in primitive belief. Thus the belief in mortal
descent from the gods among the Celts may have involved the theory
of a divine avatar. The god became father of a mortal by a woman,
and part of himself passed over to the child, who was thus the god
himself.
Conchobar was also a rebirth of a god, but he was named from the
river whence his mother had drawn water containing the worms which
she swallowed. This may point to a lost version in which he was the
son of a river-god by Nessa. This was quite in accordance with
Celtic belief, as is shown by such names as Dubrogenos, from
dubron, “water,” and genos, “born of”; Divogenos,
Divogena, “son or daughter of a god,” possibly a river-god, since
deivos is a frequent river {355} name; and Rhenogenus, “son
of the Rhine.”1210
The persons who first bore these names were believed to have been
begotten by divinities. Mongan’s descent from Manannan, god of the
sea, is made perfectly clear, and the Welsh name Morgen =
Morigenos, “son of the sea,” probably points to a similar
tale now lost. Other Celtic names are frequently pregnant with
meaning, and tell of a once-existing rich mythology of divine
amours with mortals. They show descent from
deities—Camulogenus (son of Camulos), Esugenos (son of Esus),
Boduogenus (son of Bodva); or from tree-spirits—Dergen (son
of the oak), Vernogenus (son of the alder); or from divine
animals—Arthgen (son of the bear), Urogenus (son of the
urus).1211 What was once an epithet
describing divine filiation became later a personal name. So in
Greece names like Apollogenes, Diogenes, and Hermogenes, had once
been epithets of heroes born of Apollo, Zeus, and Hermes.
Thus it was a vital Celtic belief that divinities might unite
with mortals and beget children. Heroes enticed away to Elysium
enjoyed the love of its goddesses—Cúchulainn that of
Fand; Connla, Bran, and Oisin that of unnamed divinities. So, too,
the goddess Morrigan offered herself to Cúchulainn. The
Christian Celts of the fifth century retained this belief, though
in a somewhat altered form. S. Augustine and others describe the
shaggy demons called dusii by the Gauls, who sought the
couches of women in order to gratify their desires.1212 {356} The dusii are akin
to the incubi and fauni, and do not appear to
represent the higher gods reduced to the form of demons by
Christianity, but rather a species of lesser divinities, once the
object of popular devotion.
These beliefs are also connected with the Celtic notions of
transformation and transmigration—the one signifying the
assuming of another shape for a time, the other the passing over of
the soul or the personality into another body, perhaps one actually
existing, but more usually by actual rebirth. As has been seen,
this power of transformation was claimed by the Druids and by other
persons, or attributed to them, and they were not likely to
minimise their powers, and would probably boast of them on all
occasions. Such boasts are put into the mouths of the Irish
Amairgen and the Welsh Taliesin. As the Milesians were approaching
Ireland, Amairgen sang verses which were perhaps part of a ritual
chant:
“I am the wind which blows over the sea,
I am the wave of the ocean,
I am the bull of seven battles,
I am the eagle on the rock…
I am a boar for courage,
I am a salmon in the water, etc.”1213
Professor Rh[^y]s points out that some of these verses need not
mean actual transformation, but mere likeness, through “a primitive
formation of predicate without the aid of a particle corresponding
to such a word as ‘like.'”1214
Enough, however, remains to show the claim of the magician.
Taliesin, in many poems, makes similar claims, and says, “I have
been in a multitude of shapes before I assumed a consistent
form”—that of a sword, a tear, a star, an eagle, etc. Then he
was created, without father or mother.1215
Similar pretensions are common to the medicine-man everywhere. But
from another {357} point of view they may be mere poetic
extravagances such as are common in Celtic poetry.1216 Thus Cúchulainn says: “I
was a hound strong for combat … their little champion … the
casket of every secret for the maidens,” or, in another place, “I
am the bark buffeted from wave to wave … the ship after the
losing of its rudder … the little apple on the top of the tree
that little thought of its falling.”1217
These are metaphoric descriptions of a comparatively simple kind.
The full-blown bombast appears in the Colloquy of the Two
Sages, where Nede and Fercertne exhaust language in describing
themselves to each other.1218
Other Welsh bards besides Taliesin make similar boasts to his, and
Dr. Skene thinks that their claims “may have been mere
bombast.”1219
Still some current belief in shape-shifting, or even in rebirth,
underlies some of these boastings and gives point to them.
Amairgen’s “I am” this or that, suggests the inherent power of
transformation; Taliesin’s “I have been,” the actual
transformations. Such assertions do not involve “the powerful
pantheistic doctrine which is at once the glory and error of Irish
philosophy,” as M. D’Arbois claims,1220
else are savage medicine-men, boastful of their shape-shifting
powers, philosophic pantheists. The poems are merely highly
developed forms of primitive beliefs in shape-shifting, such as are
found among all savages and barbaric folk, but expressed in the
boastful language in which the Celt delighted.
How were the successive shape-shiftings effected? To answer this
we shall first look at the story of Tuan Mac Caraill, who survived
from the days of Partholan to those of S. Finnen. He was a decrepit
man at the coming of Nemed, {358} and one night, having lain down to
sleep, he awoke as a stag, and lived in this form to old age. In
the same way he became a boar, a hawk, and a salmon, which was
caught and eaten by Cairell’s wife, of whom he was born as Tuan,
with a perfect recollection of his different forms.1221
This story, the invention of a ninth or tenth century Christian
scribe to account for the current knowledge of the many invasions
of Ireland,1222
must have been based on pagan myths of a similar kind, involving
successive transformations and a final rebirth. Such a myth may
have been told of Taliesin, recounting his transformations and his
final rebirth, the former being replaced at a later time by the
episode of the Transformation Combat, involving no great lapse of
time. Such a series of successive shapes—of every beast, a
dragon, a wolf, a stag, a salmon, a seal, a swan—were
ascribed to Mongan and foretold by Manannan, and Mongan refers to
some of them in his colloquy with S. Columba—”when I was a
deer … a salmon … a seal … a roving wolf … a man.”1223 Perhaps the complete story was
that of a fabulous hero in human form, who assumed different
shapes, and was finally reborn. But the transformation of an old
man, or an old animal, into new youthful and vigorous forms might
be regarded as a kind of transmigration—an extension of the
transformation idea, but involving no metempsychosis, no passing of
the soul into another body by rebirth. Actual transmigration or
rebirth occurs only at the end of the series, and, as in the case
of Etain, Lug, etc., the pre-existent person is born of a woman
after being swallowed by her. Possibly the transformation belief
has reacted on the other, and {359} obscured a belief in actual
metempsychosis as a result of the soul of an ancestor passing into
a woman and being reborn as her next child. Add to this that the
soul is often thought of as a tiny animal, and we see how a
point d’appui for the more materialistic belief was
afforded. The insect or worms of the rebirth stories may have been
once forms of the soul. It is easy also to see how, a theory of
conception by swallowing various objects being already in
existence, it might be thought possible that eating a
salmon—a transformed man—would cause his rebirth from
the eater.
The Celts may have had no consistent belief on this subject, the
general idea of the future life being of a different kind. Or
perhaps the various beliefs in transformation, transmigration,
rebirth, and conception by unusual means, are too inextricably
mingled to be separated. The nucleus of the tales seems to be the
possibility of rebirth, and the belief that the soul was still clad
in a bodily form after death and was itself a material thing. But
otherwise some of them are not distinctively Celtic, and have been
influenced by old Märchen formulæ of successive
changes adopted by or forced upon some person, who is finally
reborn. This formulæ is already old in the fourteenth century
B.C. Egyptian story of the Two Brothers.
Such Celtic stories as these may have been known to classical
authors, and have influenced their statements regarding
eschatology. Yet it can hardly be said that the tales themselves
bear witness to a general transmigration doctrine current among the
Celts, since the stories concern divine or heroic personages. Still
the belief may have had a certain currency among them, based on
primitive theories of soul life. Evidence that it existed side by
side with the more general doctrines of the future life may be
found in old or existing folk-belief. In some cases the dead have
an animal form, as in the Voyage of Maelduin, where birds on
an island are said to {360} be souls, or in the legend of S.
Maelsuthain, whose pupils appear to him after death as birds.1224 The bird form of the soul after
death is still a current belief in the Hebrides. Butterflies in
Ireland, and moths in Cornwall, and in France bats or butterflies,
are believed to be souls of the dead.1225
King Arthur is thought by Cornishmen to have died and to have been
changed into the form of a raven, and in mediæval Wales souls
of the wicked appear as ravens, in Brittany as black dogs, petrels,
or hares, or serve their term of penitence as cows or bulls, or
remain as crows till the day of judgment.1226 Unbaptized infants become
birds; drowned sailors appear as beasts or birds; and the souls of
girls deceived by lovers haunt them as hares.1227
These show that the idea of transmigration may not have been
foreign to the Celtic mind, and it may have arisen from the idea
that men assumed their totem animal’s shape at death. Some tales of
shape-shifting are probably due to totemism, and it is to be noted
that in Kerry peasants will not eat hares because they contain the
souls of their grandmothers.1228
On the other hand, some of these survivals may mean no more than
that the soul itself has already an animal form, in which it would
naturally be seen after death. In Celtic folk-belief the soul is
seen leaving the body in sleep as a bee, butterfly, gnat, mouse, or
mannikin.1229
Such a belief is found among most savage races, and might easily be
mistaken for transmigration, or also assist the formation of the
idea of transmigration. Though the folk-survivals show that
transmigration was not {361} necessarily alleged of all the dead, it
may have been a sufficiently vital belief to colour the mythology,
as we see from the existing tales, adulterated though these may
have been.
The general belief has its roots in primitive ideas regarding
life and its propagation—ideas which some hold to be
un-Celtic and un-Aryan. But Aryans were “primitive” at some period
of their history, and it would be curious if, while still in a
barbarous condition, they had forgotten their old beliefs. In any
case, if they adopted similar beliefs from non-Aryan people, this
points to no great superiority on their part. Such beliefs
originated the idea of rebirth and transmigration.1230 Nevertheless this was not a
characteristically Celtic eschatological belief; that we find in
the theory that the dead lived on in the body or assumed a body in
another region, probably underground.
Footnote 1193:(return)For textual details see Zimmer, Zeit. für Vergl.
Sprach. xxviii. 585 f. The tale is obviously archaic. For a
translation see Leahy, i. 8 f.
Footnote 1194:(return)IT i. 134 f.; D’Arbois, v. 22. There is a suggestion in
one of the versions of another story, in which Setanta is child of
Conchobar and his sister Dechtire.
Footnote 1197:(return)IT iii. 393. Cf. the story of the wife of Cormac, who was
barren till her mother gave her pottage. Then she had a daughter
(RC xxii. 18).
Footnote 1200:(return)Ibid. 58. The simultaneous birth formula occurs in many
Märchen, though that of the future wife is not
common.
Footnote 1202:(return)ZCP ii. 316 f. Here Mongan comes directly from Elysium,
as does Oisin before meeting S. Patrick.
Footnote 1205:(return)In some of the tales the small animal still exists independently
after the birth, but this is probably not their primitive form.
Footnote 1207:(return)Skene, i. 532. After relating various shapes in which he has
been, the poet adds that he has been a grain which a hen received,
and that he rested in her womb as a child. The reference in this
early poem from a fourteenth century MS. shows that the fusion of
the Märchen formula with a myth of rebirth was already
well known. See also Guest, iii. 362, for verses in which the
transformations during the combat are exaggerated.
Footnote 1212:(return)S. Aug. de Civ. Dei, xv. 23; Isidore, Orat. viii.
2. 103. Dusios may be connected with Lithuanian
dvaese, “spirit,” and perhaps with [Greek: Thehos] (Holder,
s.v.). D’Arbois sees in the dusii water-spirits, and
compares river-names like Dhuys, Duseva, Dusius (vi. 182; RC
xix. 251). The word may be connected with Irish duis,
glossed “noble” (Stokes, TIG 76). The Bretons still believe
in fairies called duz, and our word dizzy may be
connected with dusios, and would then have once signified
the madness following on the amour, like Greek [Greek:
nympholeptos], or “the inconvenience of their succubi,” described
by Kirk in his Secret Commonwealth of the Elves.
Footnote 1220:(return)D’Arbois, ii. 246, where he also derives Erigena’s pantheism
from Celtic beliefs, such as he supposes to be exemplified by these
poems.
Footnote 1222:(return)Another method of accounting for this knowledge was to imagine a
long-lived personage like Fintan who survived for 5000 years.
D’Arbois, ii. ch. 4. Here there was no transformation or
rebirth.
Footnote 1226:(return)Choice Notes, 69; Rees, 92; Le Braz2, ii. 82,
86, 307; Rev. des Trad. Pop. xii. 394.
Footnote 1229:(return)Carmichael, Carm. Gadel. ii. 334; Rh[^y]s, CFL
602; Le Braz2, i. 179, 191, 200.
Footnote 1230:(return)Mr. Nutt, Voyage of Bran, derived the origin of the
rebirth conception from orgiastic cults.
CHAPTER XXIV.
ELYSIUM.
The Celtic conception of Elysium, the product at once of
religion, mythology, and romantic imagination, is found in a series
of Irish and Welsh tales. We do not know that a similar conception
existed among the continental Celts, but, considering the likeness
of their beliefs in other matters to those of the insular Celts,
there is a strong probability that it did. There are four typical
presentations of the Elysium conception. In Ireland, while the gods
were believed to have retired within the hills or
síd, it is not unlikely that some of them had always
been supposed to live in these or in a subterranean world, and it
is therefore possible that what may be called the subterranean or
síd type of Elysium is old. But other types also
appear—that of a western island Elysium, of a world below the
waters, and of a world co-extensive with this and entered by a
mist.
The names of the Irish Elysium are sometimes of a general
character—Mag Mór, “the Great Plain”; Mag Mell, “the
Pleasant Plain”; Tír n’Aill, “the Other-world”; Tir na
m-Beo, “the Land of the Living”; Tír na n-Og, “the Land of
Youth”; and Tír Tairngiri, “the Land of
Promise”—possibly of Christian origin. Local names are
Tír fa Tonn, “Land under Waves”; I-Bresail and the Land of
Falga, names of the island Elysium. The last denotes the Isle of
Man as Elysium, and it may have been so regarded by Goidels in
Britain at an {363} early time.1231
To this period may belong the tales of Cúchulainn’s raid on
Falga, carried at a later time to Ireland. Tír Tairngiri is
also identified with the Isle of Man.1232
A brief résumé of the principal Elysium tales is
necessary as a preliminary to a discussion of the problems which
they involve, though it can give but little idea of the beauty and
romanticism of the tales themselves. These, if not actually
composed in pagan times, are based upon story-germs current before
the coming of Christianity to Ireland.
1. The síd Elysium.—In the story of Etain,
when Mider discovered her in her rebirth, he described the land
whither he would carry her, its music and its fair people, its warm
streams, its choice mead and wine. There is eternal youth, and love
is blameless. It is within Mider’s síd, and Etain
accompanies him there. In the sequel King Eochaid’s Druid discovers
the síd, which is captured by the king, who then
regains Etain.1233
Other tales refer to the síd in similar terms, and
describe its treasures, its food and drink better than those of
earth. It is in most respects similar to the island Elysium, save
that it is localised on earth.
2. The island Elysium.—The story of the voyage of
Bran is found fragmentarily in the eleventh century LU, and
complete in the fourteenth and sixteenth century MSS. It tells how
Bran heard mysterious music when asleep. On waking he found a
silver branch with blossoms, and next day there appeared a
mysterious woman singing the glory of the land overseas, its music,
its wonderful tree, its freedom from pain and death. It is one of
thrice fifty islands to the west of Erin, and there she dwells with
thousands of “motley women.” Before she disappears the branch leaps
into her hand. Bran {364} set sail with his comrades and met
Manannan crossing the sea in his chariot. The god told him that the
sea was a flowery plain, Mag Mell, and that all around, unseen to
Bran, were people playing and drinking “without sin.” He bade him
sail on to the Land of Women. Then the voyagers went on and reached
the Isle of Joy, where one of their number remained behind. At last
they came to the Land of Women, and we hear of their welcome, the
dreamlike lapse of time, the food and drink which had for each the
taste he desired. Finally the tale recounts their home-sickness,
the warning they received not to set foot on Erin, how one of their
number leaped ashore and turned to ashes, how Bran from his boat
told of his wanderings and then disappeared for ever.1234
Another story tells how Connla was visited by a goddess from Mag
Mell. Her people dwell in a síd and are called “men
of the síd.” She invites him to go to the immortal
land, and departs, leaving him an apple, which supports him for a
month without growing less. Then she reappears and tells Connla
that “the Ever-Living Ones” desire him to join them. She bids him
come with her to the Land of Joy where there are only women. He
steps into her crystal boat and vanishes from his father and the
Druid who has vainly tried to exercise his spells against
her.1235 In this tale there is a
confusion between the síd and the island Elysium.
The eighteenth century poem of Oisin in Tír na n-Og is
probably based on old legends, and describes how Niam, daughter of
the king of Tír na n-Og, placed geasa on Oisin to
accompany her to that land of immortal youth and beauty. He mounted
on her steed, which plunged forwards across the sea, and brought
them to the land where Oisin spent three {365} hundred
years before returning to Ireland, and there suffering, as has been
seen, from the breaking of the tabu not to set foot on the soil of
Erin.1236
In Serglige Conculaind, “Cúchulainn’s Sickness,”
the goddess Fand, deserted by Manannan, offers herself to the hero
if he will help her sister’s husband Labraid against his enemies in
Mag Mell. Labraid lives in an island frequented by troops of women,
and possessing an inexhaustible vat of mead and trees with magic
fruit. It is reached with marvellous speed in a boat of bronze.
After a preliminary visit by his charioteer Laeg, Cúchulainn
goes thither, vanquishes Labraid’s foes, and remains a month with
Fand. He returns to Ireland, and now we hear of the struggle for
him between his wife Emer and Fand. But Manannan suddenly appears,
reawakens Fand’s love, and she departs with him. The god shakes his
cloak between her and Cúchulainn to prevent their ever
meeting again.1237
In this story Labraid, Fand, and Liban, Fand’s sister, though
dwellers on an island Elysium, are called síd-folk.
The two regions are partially confused, but not wholly, since
Manannan is described as coming from his own land (Elysium) to woo
Fand. Apparently Labraid of the Swift Hand on the Sword (who,
though called “chief of the síde“, is certainly a
war-god) is at enmity with Manannan’s hosts, and it is these with
whom Cúchulainn has to fight.1238
In an Ossianic tale several of the Fians were carried off to the
Land of Promise. After many adventures, Fionn, Diarmaid, and others
discover them, and threaten to destroy the land if they are not
restored. Its king, Avarta, agrees to the restoration, and with
fifteen of his men carries the Fians to Erin on one {366} horse.
Having reached there, he bids them look at a certain field, and
while they are doing so, he and his men disappear.1239
3. Land under Waves.—Fiachna, of the men of the
síd, appeared to the men of Connaught, and begged
their help against Goll, who had abducted his wife. Loegaire and
his men dive with Fiachna into Loch Naneane, and reach a wonderful
land, with marvellous music and where the rain is ale. They and the
síd-folk attack the fort of Mag Mell and defeat Goll.
Each then obtains a woman of the síde, but at the end
of a year they become homesick. They are warned not to descend from
horseback in Erin. Arrived among their own people, they describe
the marvels of Tír fa Tonn, and then return there, and are
no more seen.1240
Here, again, the síd Elysium and Land under Waves are
confused, and the divine tribes are at war, as in the story of
Cúchulainn.
In a section of the Ossianic tale just cited, Fionn and his men
arrive on an island, where Diarmaid reaches a beautiful country at
the bottom of a well. This is Tír fa Tonn, and Diarmaid
fights its king who has usurped his nephew’s inheritance, and thus
recovers it for him.1241
4. Co-extensive with this world.—An early example
of this type is found in the Adventures of Cormac. A divine
visitant appeared to Cormac and gave him in exchange for his wife,
son, and daughter, his branch of golden apples, which when shaken
produced sweetest music, dispelling sorrow. After a year Cormac set
out to seek his family, and as he journeyed encountered a mist in
which he discovered a strange house. Its master and
mistress—Manannan and his consort—offered him shelter.
The god brought in a pig, every quarter of which {367} was
cooked in the telling of a true tale, the pig afterwards coming to
life again. Cormac, in his tale, described how he had lost his
family, whereupon Manannan made him sleep, and brought his wife and
children in. Later he produced a cup which broke when a lie was
told, but became whole again when a true word was spoken. The god
said Cormac’s wife had now a new husband, and the cup broke, but
was restored when the goddess declared this to be a lie. Next
morning all had disappeared, and Cormac and his family found
themselves in his own palace, with cup and branch by their
side.1242 Similarly, in The Champion’s
Ecstasy, a mysterious horseman appears out of a mist to Conn
and leads him to a palace, where he reveals himself as the god Lug,
and where there is a woman called “the Sovereignty of Erin.” Beside
the palace is a golden tree.1243
In the story of Bran, Mag Mell is said to be all around the hero,
though he knows it not—an analogous conception to what is
found in these tales, and another instance is that of the
mysterious house entered by Conchobar and Dechtire.1244 Mag Mell may thus have been
regarded as a mysterious district of Erin. This magic mist
enclosing a marvellous dwelling occurs in many other tales, and it
was in a mist that the Tuatha Déa came to Ireland.
A certain correspondence to these Irish beliefs is found in
Brythonic story, but here the Elysium conception has been
influenced by Christian ideas. Elysium is called Annwfn,
meaning “an abyss,” “the state of the dead,” “hell,” and it is also
conceived of as is elfydd, “beneath the earth.”1245 But in the tales it bears no
likeness to these meanings of the word, save in so far as it has
been confused by their Christian redactors with hell. It is a
region on the earth’s surface or {368} an over-or under-sea world,
in which some of the characteristics of the Irish Elysium are
found—a cauldron, a well of drink sweeter than wine, and
animals greatly desired by mortals, while it is of great beauty and
its people are not subject to death or disease. Hence the name
Annwfn has probably taken the place of some earlier pagan
title of Elysium.
In the tale of Pwyll, the earliest reference to Annwfn
occurs. It is ruled by Arawn, at war with Hafgan. Arawn obtains the
help of Pwyll by exchanging kingdoms with him for a year, and Pwyll
defeats Hafgan. It is a beautiful land, where merriment and
feasting go on continuously, and its queen is of great loveliness.
It has no subterranean character, and is conceived apparently as
contiguous to Pwyll’s kingdom.1246
In other tales it is the land whence Gwydion and others obtain
various animals.1247
The later folk-conception of the demoniac dogs of Annwfn may be
based on an old myth of dogs with which its king hunted. These are
referred to in the story of Pwyll.1248
Annwfn is also the name of a land under waves or over
sea, called also Caer Sidi, “the revolving castle,” about
which “are ocean’s streams.” It is “known to Manawyddan and
Pryderi,” just as the Irish Elysium was ruled by Manannan.1249 Another “Caer of Defence” is
beneath the waves.1250
Perhaps the two ideas were interchangeable. The people of this land
are free from death and disease, and in it is “an abundant well,
sweeter than white wine the drink in it.” There also is a cauldron
belonging to the lord of Annwfn, which was stolen by Arthur and his
men. Such a cauldron is the property of people belonging to a water
world in the Mabinogion.1251
The description of the isle of Avallon (later identified with
Glastonbury), whither Arthur was carried, completes the likeness to
the Irish Elysium. No tempest, excess of heat or cold, nor noxious
animal afflicts it; it is blessed with eternal spring and with
fruit and flowers growing without labour; it is the land of eternal
youth, unvisited by death or disease. It has a regia virgo
lovelier than her lovely attendants; she cured Arthur of his
wounds, hence she is the Morgen of other tales, and she and her
maidens may be identified with the divine women of the Irish isle
of women. Morgen is called a dea phantastica, and she may be
compared with Liban, who cured Cúchulainn of his
sickness.1252
The identification of Avallon with Glastonbury is probably
post-pagan, and the names applied to Glastonbury—Avallon,
Insula Pomonum, Insula vitrea—may be primitive
names of Elysium. William of Malmesbury derives Insula
Pomonum in its application to Glastonbury from a native name
Insula Avallonioe, which he connects with the Brythonic
avalla, “apples,” because Glastenig found an apple tree
there.1253 The name may thus have been
connected with marvellous apple trees, like those of the Irish
Elysium. But he also suggests that it may be derived from the name
of Avalloc, living there with his daughters. Avalloc is evidently
the “Rex Avallon” (Avallach) to whose palace Arthur was carried and
healed by the regia virgo.1254
He may therefore have been a mythic lord of Elysium, and his
daughters would correspond to the maidens of the isle. William also
derives “Glastonbury” from the name of an eponymous founder
Glastenig, or from its native name Ynesuuitron, “Glass
Island.” This name {370} reappears in Chretien’s Eric in
the form “l’isle de verre.” Giraldus explains the name from the
glassy waters around Glastonbury, but it may be an early name of
Elysium.1255 Glass must have appealed to the
imagination of Celt, Teuton, and Slav, for we hear of Merlin’s
glass house, a glass fort discovered by Arthur, a glass tower
attacked by the Milesians, Etain’s glass grianan, and a boat
of glass which conveyed Connla to Elysium. In Teutonic and Slavonic
myth and Märchen, glass mountains, on which dwell
mysterious personages, frequently occur.
The origin of the Celtic Elysium belief may be found in
universal myths of a golden age long ago in some distant Elysian
region, where men had lived with the gods. Into that region brave
mortals might still penetrate, though it was lost to mankind as a
whole. In some mythologies this Elysium is the land whither men go
after death. Possibly the Celtic myth of man’s early intercourse
with the gods in a lost region took two forms. In one it was a
joyful subterranean region whither the Celt hoped to go after
death. In the other it was not recoverable, nor was it the land of
the dead, but favoured mortals might reach it in life. The Celtic
Elysium belief, as known through the tales just cited, is always of
this second kind. We surmise, however, that the land of the dead
was a joyous underworld ruled over by a god of fertility and of the
dead, and from that region men had originally come forth. The later
association of gods with the síd was a continuation
of this belief, but now the síd are certainly not a
land of the dead, but Elysium pure and simple. There must therefore
have been at an early period a tendency to distinguish between the
happy region of the dead, and the distant Elysium, if the two were
ever really connected. The subject is obscure, but it is not
impossible that another origin of the Elysium idea may {371} be found
in the phenomenon of the setting sun: it suggested to the
continental Celts that far off there was a divine land where the
sun-god rested. When the Celts reached the coast this divine
western land would necessarily be located in a far-off island, seen
perhaps on the horizon. Hence it would also be regarded as
connected with the sea-god, Manannan, or by whatsoever name he was
called. The distant Elysium, whether on land or across the sea, was
conceived in identical terms, and hence also whenever the hollow
hills or síd were regarded as an abode of the gods,
they also were described just as Elysium was.
The idea of a world under the waters is common to many
mythologies, and, generally speaking, it originated in the
animistic belief that every part of nature has its indwelling
spirits. Hence the spirits or gods of the waters were thought of as
dwelling below the waters. Tales of supernatural beings appearing
out of the waters, the custom of throwing offerings therein, the
belief that human beings were carried below the surface or could
live in the region beneath the waves, are all connected with this
animistic idea. Among the Celts this water-world assumed many
aspects of Elysium, and it has names in common with it, e.g.
it is called Mag Mell. Hence in many popular tales it is hardly
differentiated from the island Elysium; oversea and under-waves are
often synonymous. Hence, too, the belief that such water-worlds as
I-Bresail, or Welsh fairy-lands, or sunken cities off the Breton
coast, rise periodically to the surface, and would remain there
permanently, like an island Elysium, if some mortal would fulfil
certain conditions.1256
The Celtic belief in Tír fa Tonn is closely connected
with {372} the current belief in submerged towns or
lands, found in greatest detail on the Breton coast. Here there are
many such legends, but most prominent are those which tell how the
town of Is was submerged because of the wickedness of its people,
or of Dahut, its king’s daughter, who sometimes still seeks the
love of mortals. It is occasionally seen below the waves or even on
their surface.1257
Elsewhere in Celtic regions similar legends are found, and the
submersion is the result of a curse, of the breaking of a tabu, or
of neglect to cover a sacred well.1258
Probably the tradition of actual cataclysms or inroads of the sea,
such as the Celts encountered on the coasts of Holland, may account
for some of these legends, which then mingled with myths of the
divine water-world.
The idea that Elysium is co-extensive with this world and hidden
in a mist is perhaps connected with the belief in the magical
powers of the gods. As the Druids could raise a mist at will, so
too might the gods, who then created a temporary Elysium in it.
From such a mist, usually on a hill, supernatural beings often
emerged to meet mortals, and in Märchen fairyland is
sometimes found within a mist.1259
It was already believed that part of the gods’ land was not far
off; it was invisibly on or within the hills on whose slopes men
saw the mist swirling mysteriously. Hence the mist may simply have
concealed the síd of the gods. But there may also
have been a belief that this world was actually interpenetrated by
the divine world, for this is believed of fairyland in Welsh and
{373} Irish folk-lore. Men may unwittingly
interfere with it, or have it suddenly revealed to them, or be
carried into it and made invisible.1260
In most of the tales Elysium is a land without grief or death,
where there is immortal youth and peace, and every kind of delight.
But in some, while the sensuous delights are still the same, the
inhabitants are at war, invite the aid of mortals to overcome their
foes, and are even slain in fight. Still in both groups Elysium is
a land of gods and supernatural folk whither mortals are invited by
favour. It is never the world of the dead; its people are not
mortals who have died and gone thither. The two conceptions of
Elysium as a land of peace and deathlessness, and as a land where
war and death may occur, may both be primitive. The latter may have
been formed by reflecting back on the divine world the actions of
the world of mortals, and it would also be on a parallel with the
conception of the world of the dead where warriors perhaps still
fought, since they were buried with their weapons. There were also
myths of gods warring with each other. But men may also have felt
that the gods were not as themselves, that their land must be one
of peace and deathlessness. Hence the idea of the peaceful Elysium,
which perhaps found most favour with the people. Mr. Nutt thought
that the idea of a warlike Elysium may have resulted from
Scandinavian influence acting on existing tales of a peaceful
Elysium,1261 but we know that old myths of
divine wars already existed. Perhaps this conception arose among
the Celts as a warlike people, appealing to their warrior
instincts, while the peaceful Elysium may have been the product of
the Celts as an agricultural folk, for we have seen that the Celt
was now a fighter, now a farmer. In its peaceful aspect Elysium is
“a familiar, cultivated land,” where the fruits of the earth are
produced without {374} labour, and where there are no storms or
excess of heat or cold—the fancies which would appeal to a
toiling, agricultural people. There food is produced magically, yet
naturally, and in agricultural ritual men sought to increase their
food supply magically. In the tales this process is, so to speak,
heightened.1262
Some writers have maintained that Elysium is simply the land of
the dead, although nothing in the existing tales justifies this
interpretation. M. D’Arbois argues for this view, resting his
theory mainly on a passage in the story of Connla, interpreted by
him in a way which does not give its real meaning.1263 The words are spoken by the
goddess to Connla, and their sense is—”The Ever-Living Ones
invite thee. Thou art a champion to Tethra’s people. They see thee
every day in the assemblies of thy fatherland, among thy familiar
loved ones.”1264
M. D’Arbois assumes that Tethra, a Fomorian, is lord of Elysium,
and that after his defeat by the Tuatha Déa, he, like
Kronos, took refuge there, and now reigns as lord of the dead. By
translating ar-dot-chiat (“they see thee,” 3rd plur., pres.
ind.) as “on t’y verra,” he maintains that Connla, by going to
Elysium, will be seen among the gatherings of his dead kinsfolk.
But the words, “Thou art a champion to Tethra’s people,” cannot be
made to mean that Tethra is a god of the dead. It means simply that
Connla is a mighty warrior, one of those whom Tethra, a war-god,
would have approved. The phrase, “Tethra’s mighty men,” used
elsewhere,1265
{375} is a conventional one for warriors. The
rest of the goddess’s words imply that the Immortals from afar, or
perhaps “Tethra’s mighty men,” i.e. warriors in this world,
see Connla in the assemblies of his fatherland in Erin, among his
familiar friends. Dread death awaits them, she has just
said, but the Immortals desire Connla to escape that by coming to
Elysium. Her words do not imply that he will meet his dead
ancestors there, nor is she in any sense a goddess of death. If the
dead went to Elysium, there would be little need for inviting a
living person to go there. Had Connla’s dead ancestors or Tethra’s
people (warriors) been in Elysium, this would contradict the
picture drawn by the goddess of the land whither she desires him to
go—a land of women, not of men. Moreover, the rulers of
Elysium are always members of the Tuatha Dé Danann or the
síd-folk, never a Fomorian like Tethra.1266
M. D’Arbois also assumes that “Spain” in Nennius’ account of the
Irish invasions and in Irish texts means the land of the dead, and
that it was introduced in place of some such title as Mag
Mór or Mag Mell by “the euhemerising process of the Irish
Christians.” But in other documents penned by Irish Christians
these and other pagan titles of Elysium remain unchanged. Nor is
there the slightest proof that the words used by Tuan MacCaraill
about the invaders of Ireland, “They all died,” were rendered in an
original text, now lost according to M. D’Arbois, “They set sail
for Mag Mór or Mag Mell,” a formula in which Nennius saw
indications of a return to Spain.1267
Spain, in this hypothetical text, was the Land of the Dead or
Elysium, whence the invaders {376} came. This “lost original”
exists in M. D’Arbois imagination, and there is not the slightest
evidence for these alterations. Once, indeed, Tailtiu is called
daughter of Magh Mór, King of Spain, but here a person, not
a place, is spoken of.1268
Sir John Rh[^y]s accepts the identification of Spain with Elysium
as the land of the dead, and finds in every reference to Spain a
reference to the Other-world, which he regards as a region ruled by
“dark divinities.” But neither the lords of Elysium nor the Celtic
Dispater were dark or gloomy deities, and the land of the dead was
certainly not a land of darkness any more than Elysium. The
numerous references to Spain probably point to old traditions
regarding a connection between Spain and Ireland in early times,
both commercial and social, and it is not impossible that Goidelic
invaders did reach Ireland from Spain.1269
Early maps and geographers make Ireland and Spain contiguous; hence
in an Irish tale Ireland is visible from Spain, and this
geographical error would strengthen existing traditions.1270 “Spain” was used vaguely, but
it does not appear to have meant Elysium or the Land of the Dead.
If it did, it is strange that the Tuatha Dé Danann are never
brought into connection with it.
One of the most marked characteristics of the Celtic Elysium is
its deathlessness. It is “the land of the living” or of “the
Ever-Living Ones,” and of eternal youth. Most primitive races
believe that death is an accident befalling men who are naturally
immortal; hence freedom from such an accident naturally
characterises the people of the divine land. But, as in other
mythologies, that immortality is more or less dependent on the
eating or drinking of some {377} food or drink of immortality.
Manannan had immortal swine, which, killed one day, came alive next
day, and with their flesh he made the Tuatha Dé Danann
immortal. Immortality was also conferred by the drinking of
Goibniu’s ale, which, either by itself or with the flesh of swine,
formed his immortal feast. The food of Elysium was inexhaustible,
and whoever ate it found it to possess that taste which he
preferred. The fruit of certain trees in Elysium was also believed
to confer immortality and other qualities. Laeg saw one hundred and
fifty trees growing in Mag Mell; their nuts fed three hundred
people. The apple given by the goddess to Connla was inexhaustible,
and he was still eating it with her when Teigue, son of Cian,
visited Elysium. “When once they had partaken of it, nor age nor
dimness could affect them.”1271
Apples, crimson nuts, and rowan berries are specifically said to be
the food of the gods in the tale of Diarmaid and Grainne.
Through carelessness one of the berries was dropped on earth, and
from it grew a tree, the berries of which had the effect of wine or
mead, and three of them eaten by a man of a hundred years made him
youthful. It was guarded by a giant.1272 A
similar tree growing on earth—a rowan guarded by a dragon, is
found in the tale of Fraoch, who was bidden to bring a branch of it
to Ailill. Its berries had the virtue of nine meals; they healed
the wounded, and added a year to a man’s life.1273 At the wells which were the
source of Irish rivers were supposed to grow hazel-trees with
crimson nuts, which fell into the water and were eaten by
salmon.1274 If these were caught and eaten,
the eater obtained wisdom and knowledge. These wells were in Erin,
but in some instances {378} the well with its hazels and salmon is
in the Other-world,1275
and it is obvious that the crimson nuts are the same as the food of
the gods in Diarmaid and Grainne.
Why should immortality be dependent on the eating of certain
foods? Most of man’s irrational ideas have some reason in them, and
probably man’s knowledge that without food life would come to an
end, joined to his idea of deathlessness, led him to believe that
there was a certain food which produced immortality just as
ordinary food supported life. On it gods and deathless beings were
fed. Similarly, as water cleansed and invigorated, it was thought
that some special kind of water had these powers in a marvellous
degree. Hence arose the tales of the Fountain of Youth and the
belief in healing wells. From the knowledge of the nourishing power
of food, sprang the idea that some food conferred the qualities
inherent in it, e.g. the flesh of divine animals eaten
sacramentally, and that gods obtained their immortality from eating
or drinking. This idea is widespread. The Babylonian gods had food
and water of Life; Egyptian myth spoke of the bread and beer of
eternity which nourished the gods; the Hindus and Iranians knew of
the divine soma or haoma; and in Scandinavian myth
the gods renewed their youth by tasting Iduna’s golden apples.
In Celtic Elysium tales, the fruit of a tree is most usually the
food of immortality. The fruit never diminishes and always
satisfies, and it is the food of the gods. When eaten by mortals it
confers immortality upon them; in other words, it makes them of
like nature to the gods, and this is doubtless derived from the
widespread idea that the eating of food given by a stranger makes a
man of one kin with him. Hence to eat the food of gods, fairies, or
of the dead, binds the mortal to them and he cannot leave their
land. This might be {379} illustrated from a wide range of myth
and folk-belief. When Connla ate the apple he at once desired to go
to Elysium, and he could not leave it once he was there; he had
become akin to its people. In the stories of Bran and Oisin, they
are not said to have eaten such fruit, but the primitive form of
the tales may have contained this incident, and this would explain
why they could not set foot on earth unscathed, and why Bran and
his followers, or, in the tale of Fiachna, Loegaire and his men who
had drunk the ale of Elysium, returned thither. In other tales, it
is true, those who eat food in Elysium can return to
earth—Cormac and Cúchulainn; but had we the primitive
form of these tales we should probably find that they had refrained
from eating. The incident of the fruit given by an immortal to a
mortal may have borrowed something from the wide folk-custom of the
presentation of an apple as a gage of love or as a part of the
marriage rite.1276
Its acceptance denotes willingness to enter upon betrothal or
marriage. But as in the Roman rite of confarreatio with its
savage parallels, the underlying idea is probably that which has
just been considered, namely, that the giving and acceptance of
food produces the bond of kinship.
As various nuts and fruits were prized in Ireland as food, and
were perhaps used in some cases to produce an intoxicant,1277 it is evident that the trees of
Elysium were, primarily, a magnified form of earthly trees. But all
such trees were doubtless objects of a cult before their produce
was generally eaten; they were first sacred or totem-trees, and
their food eaten only occasionally and sacramentally. If so, this
would explain why they grew in Elysium and their fruit was the food
of the gods. For whatever man eats or drinks is {380} generally
supposed to have been first eaten and drunk by the gods, like the
soma. But, growing in Elysium, these trees, like the trees
of most myths of Elysium, are far more marvellous than any known on
earth. They have branches of silver and golden apples; they have
magical supplies of fruit, they produce wonderful music which
sometimes causes sleep or oblivion; and birds perch in their
branches and warble melody “such that the sick would sleep to it.”
It should be noted also that, as Miss Hull points out, in some
tales the branch of a divine tree becomes a talisman leading the
mortal to Elysium; in this resembling the golden bough plucked by
Æneas before visiting the underworld.1278 This, however, is not the
fundamental characteristic of the tree, in Irish story. Possibly,
as Mr. A.B. Cook maintains, the branch giving entrance to Elysium
is derived from the branch borne by early Celtic kings of the wood,
while the tree is an imaginative form of those which incarnated a
vegetation spirit.1279
Be this as it may, it is rather the fruit eaten by the mortal which
binds him to the Immortal Land.
The inhabitants of Elysium are not only immortal, but also
invisible at will. They make themselves visible to one person only
out of many present with him. Connla alone sees the goddess,
invisible to his father and the Druid. Mananuan is visible to Bran,
but there are many near the hero whom he does not see; and when the
same god comes to Fand, he is invisible to Cúchulainn and
those with him. So Mider says to Etain, “We behold, and are not
beheld.”1280 Occasionally, too, the people
of Elysium have the power of shape-shifting—Fand and Liban
appear to Cúchulainn as birds.
The hazel of knowledge connects wisdom with the gods’ world, and
in Celtic belief generally civilisation and culture {381} were
supposed to have come from the gods. The things of their land were
coveted by men, and often stolen thence by them. In Welsh and Irish
tales, often with reference to the Other-world, a magical cauldron
has a prominent place. Dagda possessed such a cauldron and it was
inexhaustible, and a vat of inexhaustible mead is described in the
story of Cúchulain’s Sickness. Whatever was put into
such cauldrons satisfied all, no matter how numerous they might
be.1281 Cúchulainn obtained one
from the daughter of the king of Scath, and also carried off the
king’s three cows.1282
In an analogous story, he stole from Cúroi, by the
connivance of his wife Bláthnat, her father Mider’s
cauldron, three cows, and the woman herself. But in another version
Cúchulainn and Cúroi go to Mider’s stronghold in the
Isle of Falga (Elysium), and steal cauldron, cows, and
Bláthnat. These were taken from Cúchulainn by
Cúroi; hence his revenge as in the previous tale.1283 Thus the theft was from
Elysium. In the Welsh poem “The Spoils of Annwfn,” Arthur stole a
cauldron from Annwfn. Its rim was encrusted with pearls, voices
issued from it, it was kept boiling by the breath of nine maidens,
and it would not boil a coward’s food.1284
As has been seen from the story of Gwion, he was set to watch a
cauldron which must boil until it yielded “three drops of the grace
of inspiration.” It belonged to Tegid Voel and Cerridwen, divine
rulers of a Land under the Waters.1285
In the Mabinogi of Branwen, her brother Bran received a
cauldron from two beings, a man and a huge woman, who came from a
lake. This cauldron was given by him to the {382} king of
Erin, and it had the property of restoring to life the slain who
were placed in it.1286
The three properties of the cauldron—inexhaustibility,
inspiration, and regeneration—may be summed up in one word,
fertility; and it is significant that the god with whom such a
cauldron was associated, Dagda, was a god of fertility. But we have
just seen it associated, directly or indirectly, with
goddesses—Cerridwen, Branwen, the woman from the
lake—and perhaps this may point to an earlier cult of
goddesses of fertility, later transferred to gods. In this light
the cauldron’s power of restoring to life is significant, since in
early belief life is associated with what is feminine. Woman as the
fruitful mother suggested that the Earth, which produced and
nourished, was also female. Hence arose the cult of the
Earth-mother who was often also a goddess of love as well as of
fertility. Cerridwen, in all probability, was a goddess of
fertility, and Branwen a goddess of love.1287 The cult of fertility was
usually associated with orgiastic and indiscriminate love-making,
and it is not impossible that the cauldron, like the Hindu
yoni, was a symbol of fertility.1288 Again, the slaughter and
cooking of animals was usually regarded as a sacred act in
primitive life. The animals were cooked in enormous cauldrons,
which were found as an invariable part of the furniture of every
Celtic house.1289
The quantities of meat which they contained may have suggested
inexhaustibility to people to whom the cauldron was already a
symbol of fertility. Thus the symbolic cauldron of a fertility cult
was merged with the cauldron used in the religious {383} slaughter
and cooking of animal food. The cauldron was also used in ritual.
The Cimri slaughtered human victims over a cauldron and filled it
with their blood; victims sacrificed to Teutates were suffocated in
a vat (semicupium); and in Ireland “a cauldron of truth” was
used in the ordeal of boiling water.1290
Like the food of men which was regarded as the food of the gods,
the cauldron of this world became the marvellous cauldron of the
Other-world, and as it then became necessary to explain the origin
of such cauldrons on earth, myths arose, telling how they had been
stolen from the divine land by adventurous heroes,
Cúchulainn, Arthur, etc. In other instances, the cauldron is
replaced by a magic vessel or cup stolen from supernatural beings
by heroes of the Fionn saga or of Märchen.1291 Here, too, it may be noted that
the Graal of Arthurian romance has affinities with the Celtic
cauldron. In the Conte du Graal of pseudo-Chrétien, a
cup comes in of itself and serves all present with food. This is a
simple conception of the Graal, but in other poems its magical and
sacrosanct character is heightened. It supplies the food which the
eater prefers, it gives immortal youth and immunity from wounds. In
these respects it presents an unmistakable likeness to the cauldron
of Celtic myth. But, again, it was the vessel in which Christ had
instituted the Blessed Sacrament; it contained His Blood; and it
had been given by our Lord to Joseph of Arimathea. Thus in the
Graal there was a fusion of the magic cauldron of Celtic paganism
and the Sacred Chalice of Christianity, with the product made
mystic and glorious in a most wonderful manner. The story of the
Graal became immensely popular, and, deepening in ethical,
mystical, and romantic import as time went on, was taken up
{384} by one poet after another, who “used it
as a type of the loftiest goal of man’s effort.”1292
In other ways myth told how the gifts of civilisation came from
the gods’ world. When man came to domesticate animals, it was
believed in course of time that the knowledge of domestication or,
more usually, the animals themselves had come from the gods, only,
in this case, the animals were of a magical, supernatural kind.
Such a belief underlies the stories in which Cúchulainn
steals cows from their divine owners. In other instances, heroes
who obtain a wife from the síd-folk, obtain also
cattle from the síd.1293
As has been seen the swine given to Pryderi by Arawn, king of
Annwfn, and hitherto unknown to man, are stolen from him by
Gwydion, Pryderi being son of Pwyll, a temporary king of Annwfn,
and in all probability both were lords of Elysium. The theft, in
the original form of the myth, must thus have been from Elysium,
though we have a hint in “The Spoils of Annwfn” that Gwydion
(Gweir) was unsuccessful and was imprisoned in Annwfn, to which
imprisonment the later blending of Annwfn with hell gave a doleful
aspect.1294 In a late Welsh MS., a white
roebuck and a puppy (or, in the Triads, a bitch, a roebuck,
and a lapwing) were stolen by Amæthon from Annwfn, and the
story presents archaic features.1295
In some of these tales the animals are transferred to earth by a
divine or semi-divine being, in whom we may see an early Celtic
culture-hero. The tales are attenuated forms of older myths which
showed how all domestic animals were at first the property of the
gods, and an echo of these is still heard in Märchen
describing the theft of cattle from fairyland. In {385} the most
primitive form of the tales the theft was doubtless from the
underworld of gods of fertility, the place whither the dead went.
But with the rise of myths telling of a distant Elysium, it was
inevitable that some tales should connect the animals and the theft
with that far-off land. So far as the Irish and Welsh tales are
concerned, the thefts seem mainly to be from Elysium.1296
Love-making has a large place in the Elysium tales. Goddesses
seek the love of mortals, and the mortal desires to visit Elysium
because of their enticements. But the love-making of Elysium is
“without sin, without crime,” and this phrase may perhaps suggest
the existence of ritual sex-unions at stated times for magical
influence upon the fertility of the earth, these unions not being
regarded as immoral, even when they trespassed on customary tribal
law. In some of the stories Elysium is composed of many islands,
one of which is the “island of women.”1297
These women and their queen give their favours to Bran and his men
or to Maelduin and his company. Similar “islands of women” occur in
Märchen, still current among Celtic peoples, and actual
islands were or still are called by that name—Eigg and
Groagez off the Breton coast.1298
Similar islands of women are known to Chinese, Japanese, and Ainu
folk-lore, to Greek mythology (Circe’s and Calypso’s islands), and
to ancient Egyptian conceptions of the future life.1299 They were also {386} known
elsewhere,1300
and we may therefore assume that in describing such an island as
part of Elysium, the Celts were using something common to universal
folk-belief. But it may also owe something to actual custom, to the
memory of a time when women performed their rites in seclusion, a
seclusion perhaps recalled in the references to the mysterious
nature of the island, its inaccessibility, and its disappearance
once the mortal leaves it. To these rites men may have been
admitted by favour, but perhaps to their detriment, because of
their temporary partner’s extreme erotic madness. This is the case
in the Chinese tales of the island of women, and this, rather than
home-sickness, may explain the desire of Bran, Oisin, etc., to
leave Elysium. Celtic women performed orgiastic rites on islands,
as has been seen.1301
All this may have originated the belief in an island of beautiful
divine women as part of Elysium, while it also heightened its
sensuous aspect.
Borrowed from the delight which the Celt took in music is the
recurring reference to the marvellous music which swelled in
Elysium. There, as the goddess says to Bran, “there is nothing
rough or harsh, but sweet music striking on the ear.” It sounded
from birds on every tree, from the branches of trees, from
marvellous stones, and from the harps of divine musicians. And this
is recalled in the {387} ravishing music which the belated
traveller hears as he passes fairy-haunted spots—”what pipes
and timbrels, what wild ecstasy!” The romantic beauty of Elysium is
described in these Celtic tales in a way unequalled in all other
sagas or Märchen, and it is insisted on by those who
come to lure mortals there. The beauty of its
landscapes—hills, white cliffs, valleys, sea and shore, lakes
and rivers,—of its trees, its inhabitants, and its
birds,—the charm of its summer haze, is obviously the product
of the imagination of a people keenly alive to natural beauty. The
opening lines sung by the goddess to Bran strike a note which
sounds through all Celtic literature:
“There is a distant isle, around which sea-horses glisten,
…
A beauty of a wondrous land, whose aspects are lovely,
Whose view is a fair country, incomparable in its haze.
It is a day of lasting weather, that showers silver on the
land;
A pure white cliff on the range of the sea,
Which from the sun receives its heat.”
So Oisin describes it: “I saw a country all green and full of
flowers, with beautiful smooth plains, blue hills, and lakes and
waterfalls.” All this and more than this is the reflection of
nature as it is found in Celtic regions, and as it was seen by the
eye of Celtic dreamers, and interpreted to a poetic race by
them.
In Irish accounts of the síd, Dagda has the
supremacy, wrested later from him by Oengus, but generally each
owner of a síd is its lord. In Welsh tradition Arawn
is lord of Annwfn, but his claims are contested by a rival, and
other lords of Elysium are known. Manannan, a god of the sea,
appears to be lord of the Irish island Elysium which is called “the
land of Manannan,” perhaps because it was easy to associate an
oversea world “around which sea-horses glisten” with a god whose
mythic steeds were the waves. But as it {388} lay
towards the sunset, and as some of its aspects may have been
suggested by the glories of the setting sun, the sun-god Lug was
also associated with it, though he hardly takes the place of
Manannan.
Most of the aspects of Elysium appear unchanged in later
folk-belief, but it has now become fairyland—a place within
hills, mounds, or síd, of marvellous beauty, with
magic properties, and where time lapses as in a dream. A wonderful
oversea land is also found in Märchen and tradition,
and Tír na n-Og is still a living reality to the Celt. There
is the fountain of youth, healing balsams, life-giving fruits,
beautiful women or fairy folk. It is the true land of heart’s
desire. In the eleventh century MSS. from which our knowledge of
Elysium is mainly drawn, but which imply a remote antiquity for the
materials and ideas of the tales, the síd-world is
still the world of divine beings, though these are beginning to
assume the traits of fairies. Probably among the people themselves
the change had already begun to be made, and the land of the gods
was simply fairyland. In Wales the same change had taken place, as
is seen by Giraldus’ account of Elidurus enticed to a subterranean
fairyland by two small people.1302
Some of the Elysium tales have been influenced by Christian
conceptions, and in a certain group, the Imrama or
“Voyages,” Elysium finally becomes the Christian paradise or
heaven. But the Elysium conception also reacted on Christian ideas
of paradise. In the Voyage of Maelduin, which bears some
resemblance to the story of Bran, the Christian influence is still
indefinite, but it is more marked in the Voyage of Snedgus and
MacRiagla. One island has become a kind of intermediate state,
where dwell Enoch and Elijah, and many others waiting for the day
of judgment. Another {389} island resembles the Christian heaven.
But in the Voyage of Brandan the pagan elements have
practically disappeared; there is an island of hell and an island
of paradise.1303
The island conception is the last relic of paganism, but now the
voyage is undertaken for the purpose of revenge or penance or
pilgrimage. Another series of tales of visionary journeys to hell
or heaven are purely Christian, yet the joys of heaven have a
sensuous aspect which recalls those of the pagan Elysium. In one of
these, The Tidings of Doomsday,1304
there are two hells, and besides heaven there is a place for the
boni non valde, resembling the island of Enoch and Elijah in
the Voyage of Snedgus. The connection of Elysium with the
Christian paradise is seen in the title Tir Tairngiri, “The
Land of Promise,” which is applied to the heavenly kingdom or the
land flowing with milk and honey in early glosses, e.g. on
Heb. iv. 4, vi. 15, where Canaan and the regnum c[oe]lorum
are called Tír Tairngiri, and in a gloss to 1 Cor. x.
4, where the heavenly land is called Tír Tairngiri
Innambéo, “The Land of Promise of the Living Ones,” thus
likening it to the “Land of the Living” in the story of Connla.
Sensuous as many of the aspects of Elysium are, they have yet a
spiritual aspect which must not be overlooked. The emphasis placed
on its beauty, its music, its rest and peace, its oblivion, is
spiritual rather than sensual, while the dwelling of favoured
mortals there with divine beings is suggestive of that union with
the divine which is the essence of all religion. Though men are
lured to seek it, they do not leave it, or they go back to it after
a brief absence, and Laeg says that he would prefer Elysium to the
kingship of all Ireland, and his {390} words are echoed by others.
And the lure of the goddess often emphasises the freedom from
turmoil, grief, and the rude alarms of earthly life. This “sweet
and blessed country” is described with all the passion of a
poetical race who dreamed of perfect happiness, and saw in the joy
of nature’s beauty, the love of women, and the thought of unbroken
peace and harmony, no small part of man’s truest life. Favoured
mortals had reached Elysium, and the hope that he, too, might be so
favoured buoyed up the Celt as he dreamed over this state, which
was so much more blissful even than the future state of the dead.
Many races have imagined a happy Other-world, but no other race has
so filled it with magic beauty, or so persistently recurred to it
as the Celts. They stood on the cliffs which faced the west, and as
the pageant of sunset passed before them, or as at midday the light
shimmered on the far horizon and on shadowy islands, they gazed
with wistful eyes as if to catch a glimpse of Elysium beyond the
fountains of the deep and the halls of the setting sun. In all this
we see the Celtic version of a primitive and instinctive human
belief. Man refuses to think that the misery and disappointment and
strife and pain of life must always be his. He hopes and believes
that there is reserved for him, somewhere and at some time, eternal
happiness and eternal love.
Footnote 1235:(return)LU 120a; Windisch, Irische Gramm. 120 f.;
D’Arbois, v. 384 f.; Gaelic Journal, ii. 307.
Footnote 1237:(return)LU 43 f.; IT i. 205 f.; O’Curry, Atlantis,
ii., iii.; D’Arbois, v. 170; Leahy, i. 60 f.
Footnote 1249:(return)Skene, i. 264, 276. Cf. the Ille tournoiont of the Graal
romances and the revolving houses of Märchen. A
revolving rampart occurs in “Maelduin” (RC x. 81).
Footnote 1252:(return)Chretien, Eric, 1933 f.; Geoffrey, Vita Merlini,
41; San Marte, Geoffrey, 425. Another Irish Liban is called
Muirgen, which is the same as Morgen. See Girald. Cambr. Spec.
Eccl. Rolls Series, iv. 48.
Footnote 1257:(return)Le Braz2, i. p. xxxix, ii. 37 f.; Albert le
Grand, Vies de Saints de Bretagne, 63.
Footnote 1258:(return)A whole class of such Irish legends is called Tomhadna,
“Inundations.” A typical instance is that of the town below Lough
Neagh, already referred to by Giraldus Cambrensis, Top. Hib.
ii. 9; cf. a Welsh instance in Itin. Cambr. i. 2. See
Rh[^y]s, CFL, passim; Kennedy, 282; Rev. des Trad.
Pop. ix. 79.
Footnote 1262:(return)In the Vedas, Elysium has also a strong agricultural aspect,
probably for the same reasons.
Footnote 1264:(return)For the text see Windisch, Ir. Gram. 120: “Totchurethar
bii bithbi at gérait do dáinib Tethrach. ar-dot-chiat
each dia i n-dálaib tathardai eter dugnathu inmaini.” Dr.
Stokes and Sir John Rh[^y]s have both privately confirmed the
interpretation given above.
Footnote 1266:(return)Tethra was husband of the war-goddess Badb, and in one text his
name is glossed badb (Cormac, s.v. “Tethra”). The
name is also glossed muir, “sea,” by O’Cleary, and the sea
is called “the plain of Tethra” (Arch. Rev. i. 152). These
obscure notices do not necessarily denote that he was ruler of an
oversea Elysium.
Footnote 1269:(return)Both art motifs and early burial customs in the two
countries are similar. See Reinach, RC xxi. 88;
L’Anthropologie, 1889, 397; Siret, Les Premiere Ages du
Metal dans le Sud. Est. de l’Espagne.
Footnote 1272:(return)TOS iii. 119; Joyce, OCR 314. For a folk-tale
version see Folk-lore, vii. 321.
Footnote 1276:(return)See Gaidoz, “La Requisition de l’Amour et la Symbolisme de la
Pomme,” Ann. de l’École Pratique des Hautes
Études, 1902; Fraser, Pausanias, iii. 67.
Footnote 1281:(return)O’Donovan, Battle of Mag Rath, 50; D’Arbois, v. 67;
IT i. 96. Dagda’s cauldron came from Murias, probably an
oversea world.
Footnote 1282:(return)Miss Hull, 244. Scath is here the Other-world, conceived,
however, as a dismal abode.
Footnote 1288:(return)For the use of a vessel in ritual as a symbol of deity, see
Crooke, Folk-Lore, viii. 351 f.
Footnote 1289:(return)Diod. Sic. v. 28; Athen. iv. 34; Joyce, SH ii. 124;
Antient Laws of Ireland, iv. 327. The cauldrons of Irish
houses are said in the texts to be inexhaustible (cf. RC
xxiii. 397).
Footnote 1290:(return)Strabo, vii. 2. 1; Lucan, Usener’s ed., p. 32; IT iii.
210; Antient Laws of Ireland, i. 195 f.
Footnote 1292:(return)See Villemarqué, Contes Pop. des anciens Bretons,
Paris, 1842; Rh[^y]s, AL; and especially Nutt, Legend of
the Holy Grail, 1888.
Footnote 1296:(return)For parallel myths see Rig-Veda, i. 53. 2; Campbell,
Travels in South Africa, i. 306; Johnston, Uganda
Protectorate, ii. 704; Ling Roth, Natives of Sarawak, i.
307; and cf. the myth of Prometheus.
Footnote 1297:(return)This is found in the stories of Bran, Maelduin, Connla, in Fian
tales (O’Grady, ii. 228, 238), in the “Children of Tuirenn,” and in
Gaelic Märchen.
Footnote 1299:(return)Burton, Thousand Nights and a Night, x. 239; Chamberlain,
Aino Folk-Tales, 38; L’Anthropologie, v. 507;
Maspero, Hist. anc. des peuples de l’Orient, i. 183. The
lust of the women of these islands is fatal to their lovers.
Footnote 1300:(return)An island near New Guinea is called “the land of women.” On it
men are allowed to land temporarily, but only the female offspring
of the women are allowed to survive (L’ Anthrop. v. 507).
The Indians of Florida had a tradition of an island in a lake
inhabited by the fairest women (Chateaubriand, Autob. 1824,
ii. 24), and Fijian mythology knows of an Elysian island of
goddesses, near the land of the gods, to which a few favoured
mortals are admitted (Williams, Fiji, i. 114).
Footnote 1301:(return)P. 274, supra. Islands may have
been regarded as sacred because of such cults, as the folk-lore
reported by Plutarch suggests (p. 343,
supra). Celtic saints retained the veneration for islands,
and loved to dwell on them, and the idea survives in folk-belief.
Cf. the veneration of Lewismen for the Flannan islands.
Footnote 1303:(return)Translations of some of these Voyages by Stokes are given
in RC, vols. ix. x. and xiv. See also Zimmer, “Brendan’s
Meerfahrt,” Zeits. für Deut. Alt. xxxiii.; cf.
Nutt-Meyer, ch. 4, 8.
INDEX
Abnoba, 43.
Adamnan, 72.
Aed Abrat, 65.
Aed Slane, 351.
Afanc, 190.
Agricultural rites, 3, 4, 57, 80,
107, 140, 227, 237. See Festivals.
Aife, 129.
Aillén, 70.
Aine, 70 f.
Aitherne, 84.
Albiorix, 28.
All Saints’ Day, 170.
All Souls’ Day, 170.
Altars, 282 f.
Amours with mortals, divine, 128,
159, 348, 350, 355.
Andarta, 41.
Anextiomarus, 125.
Animal gods, anthropomorphic, 34, 92, 106, 139 f., 158, 210, 212, 226.
Animal worship, 3, 92, 140, 186, 208 f., 260.
Animals, burial of, 186, 211, 221.
Animals, descent from, 213, 216 f.
Animals, domestic, from the gods’ land, 37, 384.
Animals, dressing as, 217, 260.
Animals, sacramental eating of, 221
f.
Animals, slaughter of, 382.
Animals, tabooed, 219.
Ankou, 345.
Annwfn, 106, 111,
115, 117, 367 f., 381.
Apollo, 25, 27,
125, 180, 183, 231.
Archæology, 2.
Arduinna, 43.
Arianrhod, 104, 105, 106, 109 f.
Arthur, 88, 97,
109, 117, 119 f., 211, 242, 344, 369, 381.
Artor, 121.
Arvalus, 125.
Astrology, 248.
Auto-suggestion, 254.
Avagddu, 116.
Bacchus, 274.
Badb, 58, 71,
72, 136, 137, 232.
Balor, 31, 35 note,
54, 57, 89, 90.
Banfeinnidi, 72.
Bangaisgedaig, 72.
Barintus, 88.
Barrex, 125.
Barri, S., 88.
Bear, cult of, 212.
Beddoe, Dr., 12.
Belenos, 26, 102,
113, 124, 231, 264, 298.
Belgæ, 9 f.
Beli, 60, 98,
103, 112 f., 124.
Bellovesus, 19.
Beltane, 92, 194,
239, 259, 264.
Bertrand, M., 305.
Black Annis’ Bower, 67.
Boar, cult of, 42.
Bodb, 83.
Bormana, 43.
Boundary stones, 284.
Braciaca, 28.
Bran, 34, 98,
100 f., 107, 111, 117, 160, 242, 363, 379 f.
Branwen, 98, 103
f., 381 f., 385.
Braziers, god of, 76.
Brennus, 160.
Brian, 73 f.
Bride, S., 69.
Bridge, 346.
Bridge of Life, 228.
Brigit, 41, 58,
68 f., 90, 92.
Brigit, St., 68 f., 88 note, 257.
Broca, 9.
Bronze Age, 148.
Brother-sister unions, 106, 113.
Brown Bull, 130.
Brug. See Síd.
Brythons, 13.
Brythons, gods of, 85, 95 f., 124.
Bull, cult of, 38, 140, 189, 208, 243.
Cæsar, 22, 29,
219, 223, 233, 283, 294, 334.
Cakes, 266.
Calatin, 131 f.
Candlemas, 69.
Caractacus, 103.
Carman, 167.
Carpenters, god of, 76.
Cassiterides, 39.
Cassivellaunus, 113.
Castor and Pollux, 136.
Cathbad, 127.
Caturix, 28.
Cauldron, 84, 92,
112, 116, 120, 368, 381.
Celtic and Teutonic religion, 11.
Celtic empire, 18 f.
Celtic origins, 8 f.
Celtic people, types of, 8.
Celtic religion, evolution of, 3 f.
Celtic religion, higher aspects of, 6.
Celtic religion, homogeneity of, 5.
Celtic religion, Roman influence on, 5.
Celts, gods of, 158.
Celts, religiosity of, 2.
Cera, 77.
Cernunnos, 29 f., 32, 101, 136, 212, 282.
Cerridwen, 116 f., 351, 358 f.
Cessair, 50.
Cetnad, 249.
Church and paganism, 6, 7, 48, 80,
115, 132, 152 f., 174 f., 203 f., 238, 249, 258, 272, 280, 285, 288-289, 315, 321, 331, 389.
Clairvoyance, 307.
Cleena, 70.
Clutoida, 70.
Cocidius, 125.
Cock, 219.
Columba, S., 17, 66,
88 note, 181, 238, 315, 324, 331-332, 358.
Comedovæ, 47.
Conall Cernach, 134, 136, 230, 240.
Conan, 142.
Conception, magical, 351.
Conchobar, 127, 132, 160, 182, 232, 254, 349.
Conn, 367.
Conncrithir, 73.
Connla, 59, 65,
364, 374, 377, 379, 380.
Conservatism in belief, 193.
Coral, 329.
Coranians, 114.
Cordelia, 99.
Corn-spirit, 92, 107, 117, 168, 173, 213, 260, 262, 273 f., 275.
Corotacus, 125.
Cosmogony, 227 f.
Crafts, gods of, 93.
Cranes, 38.
Craniology, 8 f.
Creation, 230.
Creirwy, 116.
Crom Dubh, 80.
Crom Eocha, 79.
Cromm Cruaich, 57, 79, 236, 286.
Cross, 290.
Cross-roads, 174.
Cruithne, 17.
Cúchulainn, 72, 109, 121, 123, 159, 174, 179, 220, 240, 252, 254, 336, 349, 355, 357, 365, 369, 381.
Cúchulainn saga, 38, 63, 71, 87, 97, 127 f., 145, 204, 207.
Culann, 128.
Culture gods and heroes, 4, 58, 92-93, 106, 121, 124 note, 136.
Cumal, 125, 142,
145 f., 148 f.
Cursing wells, 137.
Dagda, 44, 61,
64, 65, 72, 74-75, 77 f., 327, 387.
Danu, 63, 67 f.,
92, 103, 223.
Daoine-sidhe, 62.
D’Arbois, M., 31, 38, 56, 59, 74, 79, 90, 136, 178, 264, 293, 314, 341, 357, 374.
Day of Judgment, 347.
Dead, condition and cult of, 68, 165 f., 282, 330, 333 f., 340, 344 f., 378.
Dead Debtor, 337.
Dead, land of, and Elysium, 340 f.
Dead living in grave, 338-339.
Debility of Ultonians, 71, 129 f., 224.
Dechelette, M., 166.
Dei Terreni, 64.
Devorgilla, 133.
Diarmaid, 82, 83,
88, 100, 142, 147, 150, 210, 220, 252, 254, 351, 365-366.
Dii Casses, 39.
Diodorus Siculus, 334.
Dionysus, 211.
Dioscuri, 136.
Dirra, 70.
Disablot, 169.
Disir, 169.
Dispater, 29 f., 44,
60, 100, 169, 218, 229, 341, 345, 376.
Divination, 235, 247 f., 259, 266, 304.
Divine kings, 253.
Divineresses, 316.
Diviners, 299.
Divining rod, 248.
Dominæ, 47.
Drink of oblivion, 324.
Druidic Hedge, 324.
Druidic sending, 325.
Druids, 6, 22, 61,
76, 150, 161 f., 173, 180, 201, 205 f., 235 f., 238, 246 f., 250, 265, 280-281, 287 f., 293 f., 312.
Druids and Filid, 305 f.
Druids and magic, 310, 319, 325 f.
Druids and medicine, 309.
Druids and monasticism, 305.
Druids and Pythagoras, 303.
Druids and Rome, 312 f.
Druids, classical references to, 301
f.
Druids, dress of, 310 f.
Druids, origin of, 292 f.
Druids, poems of, 2.
Druids, power of, 312.
Druids, teaching of, 307 f., 314, 333.
Druids, varieties of, 298 f.
Dumias, 25.
Dusii, 355.
Dwelling of gods. See Gods, abode
of.
Each uisge, 188.
Earth and Under-earth, 35, 37, 68.
Earth cults, 3.
Earth divinities, 31, 35, 37, 40, 42, 44 f., 57 note, 65, 67 f., 72, 78, 92, 110, 162, 169, 227, 229 f., 345.
Eclipses, 178.
Ecstasy, 251.
Egg, serpent’s, 211.
Elements, cult of, 171 f.
Elphin, 118.
Elves, 66 note.
Elysium, 59, 78 f.,
84, 87, 102, 106, 115, 116, 120, 163, 201, 229 f., 350, 362 f.
Elysium, and Paradise, 388 f.
Elysium, characteristics of, 373 ff.
Elysium, lords of, 387.
Elysium, names of, 362.
Elysium, origin of, 370 f.
Elysium, varieties of, 363 f.
Eochaid, 83.
Eochaid Ollathair, 78.
Eochaid O’Flynn, 64.
Eogabail, 70.
Eri, 53.
Eridanus, 27.
Eriu, 73-74.
Esus, 29, 38,
137, 208, 234, 289.
Etain, 82 f., 223,
348, 363, 380.
Etair, 82.
Euhemerisation, 49 f., 84, 91, 95, 98, 127.
Eurosswyd, 100.
Evans, Dr., 200.
Evil eye, 59.
Evnissyen, 98.
Exogamy, 222.
Ex votos, 195.
Fachan, 251.
Fairies, 43, 45 f.,
62, 64 f., 70, 73, 80, 98, 114, 115, 166, 173, 178 note, 183, 185 f., 190, 201, 203, 262, 263, 378.
Fand, 65, 87,
88, 135, 365, 380.
Ferdia, 131.
Fertility cults, 3, 56, 70, 73, 78, 83, 92, 93, 112, 114-115, 276, 330, 352, 382 f.
Festivals of dead, 167.
Fetich, 289.
Filid, 248 f., 300, 305 f., 325.
Findbennach, 130.
Finnen, S., 351.
Finntain, 50.
Fionn, 28, 118,
120-121, 125,
142 f., 179, 220, 254, 344, 350, 365-366.
Fionn saga, 83, 97,
111, 120, 142 f.
Fir Dea, 63.
Fires, 199 f., 259, 261 f., 265, 268, 270.
Fires, sacred, 69.
Flann Manistrech, 64.
Fomorians, 51, 52
f., 55-56, 65, 72, 83, 89, 90, 114, 133, 189, 237, 251.
Food of immortality, 377 f.
Food as bond of relationship, 379.
Fotla, 73-74.
Foundation sacrifices, 238.
Fraoch, 377.
Friuch, 349.
Frazer, Dr. J.G., 170, 176, 269.
Fuamnach, 22.
Funeral sacrifices, 165, 234, 337.
Future life, 333 f.
Galatæ, 18.
Galli, 19.
Gallizenæ, 317. See Priestesses.
Garbh mac Stairn, 139.
Garman, 167.
Geasa,
128, 132, 134, 144, 150 f., 160, 252 f. See Tabu.
Geoffrey of Monmouth, 102, 112, 119.
Ghosts, 66, 67,
166, 169, 262, 281, 284, 330, 336.
Ghosts in trees, 202 f.
Gildas, 171.
Gilla Coemain, 64.
Gilvæthwy, 104.
Glass, 370.
Goborchin, 189.
God of Connaught, 92.
God of Druidism, 92, 105, 122.
God of Ulster, 92.
Goddesses and mortals, 355.
Goddesses, pre-eminence of, 93, 124, 183.
Godiva, 276.
Gods, abode of,
228 f., 362, 372.
Gods, children of, 159.
Gods, fertility and civilisation from land of, 100, 106-107, 112, 121, 380 f., 383.
Gods uniting with mortals, 159.
Goll mac Morna, 142.
Goose, 219.
Govannon, 109 f.
Graal, 383.
Grannos, 26, 42 f.,
77, 125, 183.
Gregory of Tours, 194, 196, 275.
Growth, divinities of, 5, 44, 80, 82, 92, 182.
Gruagach, 245.
Guinevere, 123.
Gurgiunt, 124.
Gutuatri, 298 f.
Gweir, 106.
Gwydion, 104, 105
f., 117, 368,
385.
Gwythur, 55.
Hades, 135.
Hallucinations, 323-324.
Hammer as divine symbol, 30, 291.
Hammer, God with, 30 f., 35, 36 f., 79.
Haoma, 76.
Hare, 219.
Head-hunting, 240.
Heads, cult of, 34, 71, 102, 240 f.
Hearth as altar, 165 f.
Heaven and earth, 227.
Hen, 219.
Hephaistos, 76.
Heroes in hills, 344.
Hills, 66.
Holder, A., 23.
Horned helmets, 217.
Horns, gods with, 32 f.
Horse, 213 f.
Hu Gadarm, 124 note.
Hyde, Dr., 143-144.
Iberians, 13.
Icauna, 43.
Iconoclasm, 287.
Igerna, 120.
Images, 79, 85,
204, 277, 283 f.
Imbas Forosnai, 248.
Incantations, 80, 248 f., 254, 297, 325.
Incest, 223 f.
Is, 372.
Juno, 47.
Junones, 45.
Jullian, 178.
Juppiter, 29.
Kalevala, 142.
Keane, 9.
Kei, 122 f.
Keres, 72.
Kieva, 99.
Kings, election of, 306.
Kronos, 59.
La Tène, 208.
Lammas, 273.
Land under waves, 371.
Lear, 86.
Lia Fail, 329.
Ligurians, 13.
Lludd Llawereint, 85, 99, 102, 113 f., 124.
Llyr, 98 f.
Lodens, 113.
Lonnrot, 142.
Loth, M., 108.
Love, 385.
Lucan, 38, 125,
279, 282, 335 f., 345.
Luchtine, 76.
Lug, 31 note, 35
note, 59, 60, 61, 74, 75, 89 f., 103, 108 f., 128, 131, 134, 137, 167, 272, 348, 353 f.
Lugaid, 132.
Lugnasad, 91, 109,
167 f., 272 f.
Lugoves, 91.
Lycanthropy, 216.
MacCuill, MacCecht, and MacGrainne, 74.
MacIneely, 89.
Madonna, 289.
Maelduin, 385.
Maelrubha, S. 243.
Magic, agricultural, 260, 265-266, 271, 273, 276 note.
Magico-medical rites, 330 f., 332.
Magonia, 180.
Manannan, 49 note, 64-65, 70, 80, 86 f., 92, 100, 134, 147, 178, 189, 231, 350 f., 358, 364 f., 380, 387.
Manawyddan, 87, 98
f., 100 f., 111,
368.
Mannhardt, 269.
Märchen formulæ, 77,
82, 83, 89, 95, 107-108, 111, 116, 124, 132, 133, 143, 148, 152, 187, 337, 353, 384.
Marriage, sacred, 163, 267, 273.
Martinmas, 259. f.
Math, 104 f.
Matholwych, 98.
Matres, 40, 44 f.,
72-73, 125, 169, 183, 214, 285, 289.
May-day, 114.
Medb, 130 f.
Medicine, 309 f.
Mediterranean race, 9.
Megaliths, 202, 297, 330, 352. See Stonehenge.
Men, cults of, 3.
Mercury, 24 f., 34,
137, 284 f.
Mermaids, 190.
Miach, 27.
Mider, 82 f., 209,
363, 380-381.
Midsummer, 70, 92,
176, 184, 191, 194, 200, 215, 235, 239, 257, 268 f.
Mile, 54.
Mistletoe, 162, 176, 199, 205, 243 f., 270.
Mithraism, 209.
Modranicht, 169.
Morrigan, 71, 81,
83, 130-131, 136-137, 159, 172.
Mountain gods, 39.
Mountains, 171 f.
Muirne, 148.
Mule, 214.
Mullo, 214.
Mythological school, 83, 89, 108, 119, 122, 133 f.
Name, 246.
Name-giving, 308 f.
Nantosvelta, 31.
Nature divinities and spirits, 48,
93, 171 f.
Needfire, 199.
Nemaind, 58.
Neman, 71.
Nemedians, 51 f.
Nemeton, 161.
Nennius, 119.
Neo-Druidic heresy, 2 note.
Neptune, 85.
Nera, 339.
Neton, 28.
Night, 256.
Niskas, 185.
Nuada, 53 f., 61,
77, 84, 90, 160.
Nuada Necht, 85 f.
Nudd Hael, 86.
Nymphs, 43.
Nynnyaw, 113.
Oak, 199.
O’Davoren, 91.
Oghams, 75.
Oilill Olom, 70.
Oisin, 142, 150-151, 152 f., 222, 364, 379, 387.
Omens, 247 f.
Oran, 238.
Orbis alius, 340.
Orbsen, 87.
Orgiastic rites, 80, 261, 265, 386.
Osiris, 66.
Paradise, 388 f.
Partholan, 51.
Patrick, S., 61. 64,
66, 70, 76, 79-80, 132, 151, 152 f., 171, 193, 237, 242, 249, 251, 286, 315 f., 319.
Peanfahel, 17.
Peisgi, 185.
Penn Cruc, 66.
Pennocrucium, 66.
Perambulation, 277.
Pillar of sky, 228.
Place-names, 16 note, 17, 19, 120, 146, 209, 211.
Pliny, 162, 175,
198, 205 f., 328.
Plutarch, 343.
Pluto, 34 f.
Plutus, 35.
Poeninus, 39.
Poetry, divinities of, 68, 75.
Pollux, 180.
Prayer, 245 f.
Pre-Celtic cults, 48, 81, 93, 174, 181, 200, 202, 219, 224, 277, 294 f., 361.
Priesthood. See Druids.
Priestesses, 69,
180, 192 f., 226, 246, 250, 316, 321.
Priest-kings, 161, 226, 267, 296, 307.
Procopius, 342.
Pryderi, 98 f., 110
f., 112, 368,
385.
Quadriviæ, 47.
Ragnarok, 232.
Reinach, M., 31 note, 38, 137, 211, 287, 297, 317, 340.
Relics, 332.
Retribution, 346.
Rh[^y]s, Sir J., 15, 16, 24, 55, 60, 68, 78, 82 f., 91, 93, 100, 101 f., 103, 106, 108, 122, 135, 183, 219, 282, 294, 356, 376.
Rigantona, 111.
Rigisama, 28.
River divinities, 43, 46, 123, 182, 243, 354.
Rivers, names of, 182.
Roman and Celtic gods, 22 f., 289 f.
Romans and Druids, 312 f.
Ruadan, 58.
Ruad-rofhessa, 77.
Rucht, 349.
Rudiobus, 214.
Saar, 150.
Sacramental rites, 222, 260, 266, 271.
Sacrifice of aged, 242.
Sacrifice of animals, 140, 181, 189, 205, 242 f., 260, 265.
Sacrifice, foundation, 121, 238 f.
Sacrifice, human, 57, 79, 165, 190, 198, 233 f., 261, 265, 269, 304, 308, 313, 337.
Sacrifice to dead, 165 f., 234, 337.
Sacrificial offerings, 6, 174, 181, 185, 190, 194, 198, 233 f., 299, 308.
Sacrificial survivals, 244 f.
Saints, 115, 209,
217, 251, 285 f., 288, 331 f., 386 note.
Saints and wells, 193.
Saints’ days and pagan festivals, 258.
Salmon of knowledge, 149, 187, 377.
Samhain, 56, 70,
80, 167-168, 170, 222, 256 f., 258 f.
Satire, 326.
Saturn, 47.
Scandinavia and Ireland, 148.
Scotti, 17.
Sébillot, 342.
Segomo, 214.
Segovesus, 19.
Selvanus, 37.
Sequana, 43.
Serpent with ram’s head, 34, 44, 166, 211.
Serpent’s egg, 328.
Serpent’s glass, 328.
Setanta, 349.
Shape-shifting,
104, 105, 117, 130, 131, 150, 221, 322 f., 350, 356 f.
Sinnan, 43.
Sirona, 42.
Slain gods and human victims, 159,
168 f., 199, 226, 235, 239, 262, 269, 272.
Sleep, magic, 327.
Smiths, god of, 76.
Smiths, magic of, 76.
Solar hero, 133.
Soma, 76.
Soul as animal, 360.
Soul, separable, 140, 162, 270.
Spain, 375.
Squatting gods, 32 f.
Sreng, 84.
Stag, 213.
Stanna, 42.
Stokes, Dr., 16, 56,
71, 77, 222, 264.
Stone circles, 281.
Stonehenge,
27, 121, 200, 281-282.
Stones, cult of, 174, 284, 329.
Sualtaim, 128.
Sucellos, 30 f.
Suleviæ, 46.
Sun myths, 83.
Swan-maidens, 82.
Swastika, 290.
Swineherds, The Two, 349.
Symbols, 290.
Tabu, 69, 102, 128, 132, 144, 186, 191 f., 210, 219, 252 f., 276, 304, 306, 323, 372. See Geasa.
Tadg, 221.
Taghairm, 249.
Taliesin, 95, 97,
116, 323, 335, 356, 358.
Taran, 124.
Taranos, 124.
Tarbh Uisge, 189.
Tarvos Trigaranos, 38, 137, 208, 289.
Tegid Voel, 116.
Teinm Laegha, 249.
Teyrnon, 111.
Three-headed gods, 32 f.
Thumb of knowledge, 149.
Thurnam, Dr., 12.
Tombs as sacred places, 165.
Tonsure, 311.
Torque, 34.
Totatis, 125.
Totemism, 149, 187, 201 f., 216, 323, 360, 379.
Toutatis, 28.
Transformation. See Shape-shifting.
Transformation Combat, 353.
Transmigration, 334 f., 348 f., 356, 359 f.
Tree cults, 162, 169, 174, 194, 198 f., 208, 265, 269, 331, 379.
Tree descent from, 202.
Trees of Elysium, 380.
Trees of Immortality, 377 f.
Triads, 34 f., 39,
95 f., 109, 113-114, 115, 118, 120, 123, 124 note.
Triple goddesses, 44 f.
Tristram, 103.
Tuan MacCairill, 57, 357, 375.
Tuatha Dé Danann, 49 f., 60, 61, 63 f., 66, 92 f., 146, 158, 168, 173.
Tutelar divinities, 40, 45, 73.
Tuag, 87.
Tyr, 84.
Underworld, 60, 102, 112, 341.
Urien, 101.
Urwisg, 189.
Valkyries, 72.
Vegetation gods and spirits, 38, 92, 139, 159, 162 f., 199, 208, 215, 243, 265, 269.
Venus of Quinipily, 289.
Vera, 70.
Vesta, 69.
Vierges noires, 46.
Vintius, 180.
Virgines, 47.
Viviane, 122.
Vosegus, 39.
Votive offerings, 185.
Vulcan, 47.
War chants, 246.
War gods, 4, 27 f.,
48, 71, 92, 115, 118, 123, 136.
Warrior, power of dead, 338.
Washer at the Ford, 73.
Water bull, 189.
Water fairies, 70, 73 note, 190.
Water, guardians of, 195.
Water horse, 188.
Waves, fighting the, 178.
Waves, nine, 179.
Weapons, 291.
Wells, 77, 180 f.,
184, 191, 193 f., 321, 372.
Wells, origin of, 230.
Wheel, god with, 29.
White women, 73.
Wind, 180.
Windisch, Prof., 16.
Wisdom, 74.
Wisdom from eating animal, 149 note.
Witch, 201, 203,
262, 268, 318, 321.
Women and magic, 319 f.
Women as first civilisers, 41, 45, 192, 317.
Women as warriors, 72.
Women, cults of, 3, 5,
41, 69, 163 f., 225 f., 274 f., 317.
Women, islands of, 385 f.
World, origin of, 230.
Wren, 221.
Yama, 101.
Year, division of, 256.