§
:
;
5
i
:
: H
f
H
* A *
*-*.
º
º
:
t
º
;
º:
;
º-º
º
tº º
:
:
.
:
.
º
e = e C
º “º
º
:
;
:
• *
* * *
* ***, *
* * * * *
º
º
j
C
º
* Q & &
:
& 4
* * * *
* * * * * *
º
º
* *
‘. . . * *
c -º
* * * * *
ººt tº
* * *
tº:
'º
****
º
-*.*.
* : *
º
* *
ſº º
c
* W.
º
tº º
• C &
is e º ſº
* *
* * *
* * *
s". ».
Cºe s
tº e =
- -->
* * *
* * * *
****
º
º
º
C
º
ſº-º
* &
º
e -e ºr º
* & © ºr º
º
* * *
tº s
ſº tº º
* * * *
C
º s
tº a º e
* tº º
sº
****",
[. Cº º s º
* * * * * *
º
-º-º-º-º:
C tº * C
* * * * * * * *
tº a
tº º
. . * * * * * * *
e a re - e º e o e º a
s = ºr e < * * * * Cº - s
-º *...*.*.*.* º
..r. ". Cl
C
- ºn
e-º

P R O P E R T Y O F T H E
..Q/ * :/; P
#, 1 /...} !'; ,
S; 2 + . . . *} /
º ,’ : , ; ; , - . / * /. {
* A.--" , Az ~ Q2 29 /*_/
,” 2*.*
A/ f
!
£ g ... -
Á' * *: ;:/ º §ſ ſ f f º
| -: * . . . . . . . ; , S: & ...” -
§ iſ ºf y : ; /* * : *
2 & 2/3 fº," £4)
*=s.-->. {T} }
6.
*sºzzº &
º-" |
Å,
* 8 7.
a R T E S S C E N T A V E R T as
-*- wº-
*
*


CELTIC
MYTHOLOGY
AND RELIGION
WITH A CHAPTER ON
THE “DRUID’’ CIRCLES
BY
ALEX, MAC BAIN, LL.D., M.A., F.S.A. (Scot).
NEW YORK :
E. P. DUTTON. & CO., FIFTH AVE.
1917.

TVºiv
33 2, §
# 3
Joë& tº
2-2,3-772
Al
*
INTRODUCTION.
*º-º-º-º:
ALEXANDER MACBAIN, generally and rightly regarded
as the greatest of our Scottish Celtic scholars, was
born in Glenfeshie, in Badenoch, on 22nd July, 1855,
and died on 3rd April, 1907, at Stirling. The an-
Cestors of his father, John MacBain, were reputed
to hail from Lochaber. His mother was Margaret
Mackintosh, whose people were of the Mackintoshes
of Tirinie in Glen Tilt, descendants or connections
of the ancient Töiseach of that ilk. In MacBain’s
boyhood his district was so thoroughly Gaelic
Speaking that at the age of eight or nine he knew
no English, while at fifteen his English was still
hesitating, and though he was quick to observe the
errors of others, he himself could not avoid similar
mistakes of grammar and idiom. He was bred in a
Gaelic atmosphere and in a district which in virtue
of its central position was full of the clan spirit and
clan traditions, an environment which influenced
him strongly throughout his life. In his early years,
he had his full share of the joys and the hardships
of the Highland lad of humble station, and more
than his share of the perfervid energy and deter-
mination which have raised so many such lads to
honour and fame. Some day the full story of
MacBain’s early career may be given more completely
as related by himself in his Journal, a document of
vi INTRODUCTION.
great interest and value. “In the Introduction,”
he says, “I give all my early life up to the time I
commenced keeping a Journal, or the year I870,
when the Journal proper commences; and, moreover,
I also give an account of my ‘ancestors' in the said
Introduction.” Here only a short sketch of these
early days can be given. He entered Insh School
on 25th November, I863, and left it on 8th August,
1870. From December of 1870 till mid-April 1871,
he taught, quite alone, the School of Dunmullie,
Boat of Garten, which under him rose from twenty-
three to fifty-seven pupils. His salary consisted of
the fees. After this experience and some months of
attendance at Baldow School, where he began Greek,
he got work on the Ordnance Survey, first in Scot-
land, then in Wales. He had, however, no intention
of remaining permanently in the Survey; his aim
all along was, somehow or other, to work his way
to the University. His craving for knowledge of
every kind was intense; his means of gratifying it
were slender; but he never lost an opportunity.
Before leaving Badenoch he had made good progress
in English, History, Latin and Mathematics, and had
contrived, by dint of purchase and borrowing, to
read a great deal of Sound but exceedingly mis-
cellaneous literature. He had tried his hand at
poetry and had given it up. He had read astronomy
and done some architectural drawing, stirred thereto
by seeing the plans of Some new buildings on the
Mackintosh estate. He had even tried painting. He
INTRODUCTION. vii
had the habit of taking stock from time to time of
his attainments, his personal belongings, books, etc.,
and his physical development and appearance. He
looked upon his little world with the same appraising,
critical but kindly eye. He kept a full and careful
note of his correspondence with his father, who had
gone to better his fortune in America, and was
deeply solicitous for his son's welfare. On the
Ordnance Survey he added materially to his stock
of knowledge and became expert in the operations
of Surveying, but in So far as his main purpose was
concerned, the service was a failure, for he left it
in I873 as poor as when he entered it. He now
studied for a short time at Baldow School, and
succeeded in obtaining one of the Grammar School
Bursaries provided under the scheme of the Reverend
Dr. J. Calder Macphail. With this assistance, in
autumn of I874 he entered the Grammar School of
Old Aberdeen, famous then, under the Rectorship
of Dr. William Dey, as a preparatory school for
Aberdeen University. Two years later he entered
Ring’s College as second Bursar, and could at last
look forward with confidence to some realisation
of his ambition. Here he is said to have impressed
his fellow students as the ablest man of his year,
a year which included James Adam, afterwards of
Emmanuel College, Cambridge, foremost Platonist
of his time. Though a good classical scholar,
MacBain read for honours in philosophy, a subject
which in after life he reckoned one of the most barren
viii INTRODUCTION.
of studies, and graduated in 1880. For a short time
he assisted Dr. Dey in the Grammar School ; there-
after, in I880, he was appointed Rector of Raining's
School, Inverness, under the government of the
Highland Trust. He occupied this post till 1894,
when Raining’s School was transferred to the Inver-
ness Burgh School Board, and thereafter was officially
connected with the Secondary Department of the
Inverness High Public School. In 1901 his Uni-
versity of Aberdeen honoured him with the honorary
degree of LL.D. In 1905 Mr. Arthur J. Balfour,
then Prime Minister, in consideration of his great
services to Celtic, and specially Gaelic, philology,
history and literature, recommended him to the
King for a Civil List Pension of £90, as from Ist
April of that year. Two years later he died suddenly
in Stirling, where he had gone on business during
the Easter vacation.
As Headmaster of Raining’s School, MacBain
succeeded in making his school occupy for the North
of Scotland a position similar to that held by the
Grammar School of Old Aberdeen under Dr. Dey.
His reputation attracted to it many of the ablest
lads from the whole Highland area. He taught
them to think for themselves, to insist on having
not only facts, but also, so far as in them lay, the
reasons why these things are so. Keen young men
were not slow to kindle at the master’s quickening
fire. They gladly lived laborious nights and days,
doing with all their might that which was given
INTRODUCTION. ix
them to do. Raining's School became in those days
a nursery of students who subsequently took the
highest positions in the University classes, and
became useful and distinguished men in their various
callings. Some idea of the work is afforded by the
fact that in MacBain's time the school, which began
under him in 1880 with a secondary department of
three, by 1890 had sent over one hundred to the
Universities.
While thus actively and successfully engaged in the
work of an arduous profession, MacBain was at the
same time carrying on with extraordinary vigour
those Celtic studies which won him a world-wide
reputation. When he came to Inverness in 1880,
the scientific study of Scottish Gaelic had already
begun under Dr. Alexander Cameron of Brodick
(ob. I888), but little substantial progress had been
made. In February of 1882, in his first speech at
the annual dinner of the Gaelic Society of Inverness,
MacBain said: “Hitherto the Highlanders have
been too much inclined to guess, and too little in-
clined to accurate scientific research. We want a
good critical edition of the Gaelic poets; we want
also a scientific Gaelic Dictionary dealing with the
philology of the language.” He was then twenty-
seven, and was rapidly qualifying himself to deal
with the philological requirements. On New Year's
Day, 1875, being then a student at the Grammar
School, he had written in his diary : “I think that
I have now a good chance of yet appearing as an
X INTRODUCTION.
M.A. on equal terms in education with the other
literary men of our day, a goal which has always
been my ambition to arrive at, that I may have
confidence in discussing the topics which engross
the attention of mankind. I dread to commit
myself through ignorance, and ere I will appear (if
ever I shall) in public, I will be backed up with a
complete knowledge of the facts I speak on. This
is high talking for a poor student in the second class
of the Grammar School of Old Aberdeen.” Here
he enunciates a guiding principle from which he
never swerved. He had ever the true scientific spirit
in his respect for facts, and in the pains he took,
and would have others take, in verifying them.
No statement of his is made at haphazard. This
reverence for truth he had the knack of inspiring in
Some, at least, of those who came in contact with
him.
In Inverness he lived far from University centres
and far from libraries. He made up for this partly
by an expenditure on books which must have been
out of proportion to his income, and partly by the
direction he was able to give to the purchases of the
local Free Library, as a result of which its reference
department is exceedingly complete and useful on
the historical side. Inverness itself was at that time
rich in men of native talent and literary instincts.
In particular the Gaelic Society, founded in 1871,
by the discussions at its meetings and by the field
for publication offered by its Transactions, exercised
INTRODUCTION. xi
an important influence. There MacBain found
companionship that was much to his taste ; he
attended the meetings regularly, and contributed
eighteen valuable papers to its Transactions, the
first of which was that on Celtic Mythology read on
23rd February, 1883. Of the others, some of the
most important are his edition of the Book of Deer
(volume xi.); Badenoch History, Clans and Place
Names (vol. xvi.); Ptolemy's Geography (xviii.); the
last of which he himself considered “ the best thing
he had done ; ” the Norse Element in Highland Place
Names (xix.); Early Highland Personal Names
(xxii); Place Names of Inverness-shire (xxv.).
In addition, he wrote the introductions to volumes
x-xxv. of the Society's Transactions, constituting
a history of Gaelic literature and of the Gaelic move-
ment for the period covered by them. To the
Transactions of the Inverness Scientific Society and
Field Club he contributed papers on Celtic Burial
(vol. iii.); Who were the Picts P (vol. iv.); The
Chieftainship of Clan Chattan (vol. v.). He wrote
many articles and reviews for the local newspapers.
In addition to all this MacBain became, in I886,
editor of the Celtic Magazine, and was also for five
years joint editor of the Highland Monthly. All
MacBain’s articles show how firmly he held to his
guiding principle, verified knowledge of the facts.
In 1892, in conjunction with his lifelong friend,
the Rev. John Kennedy, Caticol, Arran, a Badenoch
man, MacBain published Reliquiae Celticae (two
xii INTRODUCTION.
volumes), being the literary remains of the Rev.
Dr. Alexander Cameron, Brodick, also a native of
Badenoch. In connection with this undertaking, he
completed and printed the transcription of the
Fernaig MS., which Cameron had not lived to
finish. His Etymological Gaelic Dictionary appeared
in I896. On this, of course, he had spent much
time ; in his usual manner, he both mastered the
principles and made himself acquainted with all
that had been done by scholars, British, French,
German and Italian. The Dictionary was his crown-
ing achievement, and was at Once recognised as
marking an era in Celtic Philology. A second edition,
which he did not live to superintend, was published
by Mr. Eneas Mackay, Stirling, in IQII. In 1902 he
edited Skene's Highlanders of Scotland, with valuable
and characteristic but all too brief notes. In the
same year, in conjunction with Mr. John Whyte,
he edited MacEachen’s Gaelic Dictionary, a most
useful work. Along with Mr. Whyte he also brought
out How to Learn Gaelic, with a brief but scientific
outline of Gaelic grammar. This handbook is now
in its fourth edition. -
The bare statement of MacBain’s achievement in
respect of output marks him as possessing extra-
ordinary power of application. Yet it would be a
complete mistake to regard him as a student only.
He was a full-blooded man, with a keen enjoyment
of life, and, it is only fair to say, with a distinctly
Bohemian temperament. His leisure for social inter-
INTRODUCTION. & xiii
course was small ; but he had his own circle of
intimates, which for many years met weekly in a
spirit of good fellowship reminiscent at once of the
old London coffee-house days and of the Highland
ceilidh. In congenial company, MacBain became
discursive, humorous, satirical, charming in manner
and personality, with the power of making others
feel at their best. Argument he disliked, especially
On matters within his own domain, whence he was
Sometimes accused of “dogmatism.” His dogma-
tism, however, was that of a man who has based his
Opinion on a wide induction and knows what is
meant by proof, but on the other hand does not
choose always to rehearse the process by which his
judgment has been arrived at, especially to such as,
in any case, would not appreciate that process. No
man could be more generous in helping others.
Either by letter or by conversation, the stores of his
knowledge were open to all fellow-students. Of
jealousy he was wholly free : his one aim was to
add to the sum total of scientific knowledge, to
enlarge the kingdom of facts. Sometimes his gener-
Osity was poorly rewarded ; this, knowing human
nature, he took philosophically. He had the power
characteristic of great minds of getting straight to
the essentials of a question, and of seeing things in
true perspective. He had the insight of the philo-
sopher into the significance of the facts he dealt
with, and the consequent power to correlate and
illumine them. His mind was powerfully analytic,
xiv. INTRODUCTION.
and in nearly, if not quite, as high a degree synthetic.
As a critic, while highly appreciative of good work.
he was not lenient to error, especially if the error
arose from negligence in verifying facts that Ought
to have been verified. Charlatans found to their
cost that he could wield a grievous cudgel. But he
was fair in statement, and with native courtesy
and nobility of heart he was ready to recognise
the good points even of a weakling. His reputation
among scholars all over Europe was very high, as I
have occasion to know from appreciations of his work
by practically all the leading Celtists of his day in
connection with his Civil List pension. In his later
years, though his brain was active and his interest
unabated, he no longer possessed the physical
elasticity necessary to continue the strain to which
he had subjected himself. From his youth upwards
he had lived a full and hard life, and had indeed
overtaxed a strong constitution. MacBain had
more than achieved the ambitions of his boyhood.
The poor struggling Badenoch lad had taken his
place among the scholars of Europe ; he had won
the highest academic distinction and national
recognition. His premature death was a disaster
which to those who knew him well was full of pathos.
The portrait which appears at the beginning of this
book represents him in his prime. My own recol-
lection of him may be quoted from an article in the
Celtic Review written a few days after his death :
“And now he is gone, and Inverness is a less interest-
INTRODUCTION. XV
ing place than it was. The sturdy, square figure,
the massive head, the rugged, kindly face, the shrewd
grey eyes twinkling under bushy brows, are now but
memories. We shall miss his sage counsel and his
friendly clasp; we shall long in vain for the light
and leading that he alone could give in many depart-
ments. He was a great man, and he deserved well
of Scotland. We shall not look upon his like again.”
The value of Dr. MacBain’s work can be best
appreciated by considering the condition in which
Gaelic scholarship would now be without it. His
researches and original contributions as embodied
in his Dictionary have raised Gaelic philology to
the highest scientific level, and—a service of equal
importance—have brought the whole subject into
convenient and accessible form for the student.
Some misconceptions as to its design and scope are
dealt with by MacBain himself in a prefatory note
to Further Gaelic Words and Etymologies in volume
xxi. of the Gaelic Society's Transactions (incorporated
in the second edition). “Nor did the work fail to
meet with critics who acted on Goldsmith's golden
rule in the Citizen of the World—to ask of any comedy
why it was not a tragedy, and of any tragedy why
it was not a comedy. I was asked how I had not
given derivative words, though for that matter most
of the seven thousand words in the Dictionary are
derivatives ; such a question overlooked the char-
acter of the work. Manifest derivatives belong to
ordinary dictionaries, not to an etymological One.
xvi INTRODUCTION.
This was clearly indicated in the preface. . . . Another
criticism was unscientific in the extreme. I was
found fault with for excluding Irish words Why,
it was the best service I could render to Celtic
philology, to present a pure vocabulary of the
Scottish dialect of Gaelic.” As a matter of fact, the
Dictionary is remarkably complete within the limits
assigned to it. Its conclusions will, as a rule, re-
main firm, for they are based on facts, and they can
be criticised to any purpose only by experts of experi-
ence. For the ordinary student the wisest course
is to try to understand the principles on which the
conclusions are based.
In the application of the principles of scientific
philology to the two special departments of names
of places and personal names, Dr. MacBain was, so
far as Scotland is concerned, a pioneer. In dealing
with Norse names as they appear now after many
centuries of use in the mouths of Gaelic speakers, he
came to realise what had not been realised previously,
namely, that such changes as take place between
Norse and Gaelic do not occur at haphazard, but are
On the whole regular and capable of being stated in
detail. Certain changes are invariable ; others
vary according to district ; others are impossible.
It follows that the value of any proposed interpre-
tation depends in the first instance on the accuracy
with which the true pronunciation of the name in
Gaelic has been ascertained. Additional data, often
of value, may of course, be got from charters, etc.,
INTRODUCTION. xvii
but the genuine Gaelic pronunciation comes first.
In dealing with Celtic names, the same principle
holds. Success depends on accurate data, inter-
preted in the light of a historical knowledge of the
language and its laws of sound. In all MacBain’s
work these principles are operative, and it is this
fact that makes his work a model.
Practically all our knowledge of Highland personal
names is due to Dr. MacBain’s researches, as set
forth in the Inverness Gaelic Society’s Transactions
and in the Celtic Review, volume ii. These papers,
however, represent but a part of his industry and of
his knowledge of the subject. He has left MS.
collections from charter sources, etc., bearing on a
vast number of Highland personal names, and
forming a valuable basis of interpretation, but he
himself did not commit the interpretation to paper.
With regard to the Pictish question, Dr. MacBain
argued with much force on the one hand against
Skene's view that the language of the Picts was
really Gaelic and on the other against the view
expressed by Professor Rhys that the Pictish lan-
guage was non-Aryan. MacBain's statement of the
case will be found in his papers (I) on Ptolemy's
Geography : (2) Who Were the Picts P (Inverness
Field Club Transactions, vol. iv.); (3) The Ethnology
of Celtic Scotland in his edition of Skene's High-
landers, pages 381–40I. In his view the Picts were
racially mixed, and linguistically Celtic, and the
form of Celtic spoken by them was of the Brettonic
xviii INTRODUCTION.
or Cymric branch, that is, Old Welsh, not Old Gaelic.
With these views most scholars now agree.
The present volume contains three of his earlier
essays. The essay on Celtic Mythology was his first
contribution to the Transactions of the Gaelic Society,
and while it is interesting historically and contains
much valuable matter, both its general attitude and
its conclusions have to be considered in the light of
subsequent researches, especially Sir J. G. Frazer's
Golden Bough. Of this Dr. MacBain himself was well
aware, and he had, in point of fact, largely ceased to
hold by the theories which were in favour at the date
when the essay was written. In justice to MacBain,
this qualification has to be kept in view. No Such
qualification attaches to the other two essays, The
Druid Circles, and Celtic Burial. False ideas
about the Druids he considered, rightly, to be the
source of much vain and erroneous speculation, and in
this respect he was wont to speak of them, together
with the Culdees and the Picts of Galloway, as the
“ three frauds " of Scoto-Celtic history. The essay
on Celtic Burial is another token of the keen interest
taken by MacBain in the archaeological side of
Celtic studies. -
The publication of these essays will, it is hoped,
be welcomed by many. There is among MacBain's
papers abundant material for several further volumes.
WILLIAM J. WATSON.
EDINBURGH,
May, 1916.
CCPNITECNſ' Hºs.
INTRODUCTION, - -
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION,
Character of Myth, –
Cause of Myth, -
Spread of Myth, -
The Aryan Nation, –
Aryan Myths, -
Results of the General Principles,
Sources of Information,
The Celts, -
Celtic Characteristics,
The Gaulish Religion,
Druidism, - -
Celtic Religion in Britain and Ireland,
British Religion, ->
-
-
The Gaelic Gods in History,
Gods of the Gaels, –
The Celtic Elysium, -
Welsh and Gaelic Elysium,
Celtic Worship and Rites,
Celtic Burial Rites, –
THE “DRUID '' CIRCLES,
CELTIC BURIAL, - -
-
-
-
PAGE
IO
I7
27
3O
39
43
45
48
54.
6I
69
85
87
IO4.
II6
I32
I38
I5O
I73
I8I
235
ILIST OF ][E.,L,LISTRATION Se
FACING PAGE
Dr. Mac Bain and his Students, – - Frontispiece
Druid Temple from the North, - - – I 81
Clava Cairns, ground plan, * * - I84
33 2 3 North and South, - * - IQ2
Clava, Northern Cairn, - * * – 2CO
Crainish Circle and Cairn, * gº - 208
Stonehenge, ground plan, dº gºs - 2I6
Rude Stone Monuments in India, $º - 224
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND
RELIGION.
7%z's zwork was first published in the “Celtzc Magazine” in 1883-4.
First published in book form, 1885.
CELTIC MYTHOLOGY
AND RELIGION
THE field of Mythology, strictly defined, embraces
the fabulous events believed in by a nation and the
religious doctrines implied in these. But the term
is for Convenience' sake extended so as to include
the kindred subject of folk-lore. Now folk-lore
includes all those popular stories of which the fairy
tales Of Our nursery are a good illustration, and where
the religious element implied in Mythology is absent.
The term Celtic Mythology, in these papers, is under-
stood, therefore, to include the popular traditions
and legendary tales of the Celts, the fabulous actions
and exploits of their heroes and deities, the traditions
of their early migrations, their fairy tales, and the
popular beliefs in regard to the Supernatural world.
The scope of the discussion will include an intro-
ductory section or two on the general principles
of Mythology—its cause and spread, and the Con-
nection of the Mythology of the Celts with those
of the kindred nations of Europe and Asia.
B 9
IO CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
CHARACTER OF MYTH,
“There was once a farmer, and he had three
daughters. They were washing clothes at a river.
A hoodie crow came round, and he said to the eldest
one, ‘’M-pos-u-mi-Will you marry me—farmer's
daughter 2 ‘I won’t, indeed, you ugly brute ;
an ugly brute is a hoodie,” said she. He came to the
second one on the morrow, and he said to her,
‘’M-pos-u-mi-Wilt thou wed me 2 ‘Not I, in-
deed,” said she ; an ugly brute is a hoodie.’ The
third day he said to the youngest, ‘’M-pos-u-mi-
Wilt thou wed me—farmer's daughter P’ ‘I will
wed thee,” said she , a pretty creature is the hoodie.’
And on the morrow they married.
“The hoodie said to her, Whether wouldst thou
rather that I should be a hoodie by day and a man
at night ; or be a hOOdie at night and a man by day P
‘ I would rather that thou wert a man by day and a
hoodie at night,’ says she. After this he was a splen-
did fellow by day and a hoodie at night. A few days
after he got married he took her to his own house.
“At the birth of the first child, there came at night
the very finest music that ever was heard about the
house. Every one slept, and the child was taken
away. Her father came to the door in the morning,
and he was both sorrowful and wrathful that the
child was taken away.
CHARACTER OF MYTH. II
“The same thing, despite their watching, happened
at the birth of the second child : music—sleep—and
Stealing of the child. The same thing happened,
too, at the birth of the third child, but on the morning
Of the next day they went to another house that
they had, himself and his wife and his sisters-in-law.
He said to them by the way, ‘See that you have not
forgotten something.” The wife said, ‘I forgot
my coarse comb.” The coach in which they were
fell a withered faggot, and he flew away as a hoodie
“Her two sisters returned, and she followed
after him. When he would be on a hill-top, she
would follow to try and catch him ; and when she
would reach the top of a hill, he would be in the
hollow on the other side. When night came, and she
was tired, she had no place of rest or dwelling. She
saw a little house of light far from her, and though
far from her, she was not long in reaching it.
“When she reached the house she stood deserted
at the door. She saw a little laddie about the house,
and she yearned after him exceedingly. The house-
wife told her to come in, that she knew her cheer and
travel. She lay down, and no sooner did the day
come than she rose. She went out, and as she was
going from hill to hill, saw a hoodie, whom she
followed as on the day before. She came to a second
house ; saw a second laddie ; pursued the hoodie
On a third day, and arrived at night at a third house.
Here she was told she must not sleep, but be clever
and catch the hoodie when he would visit her during
I2 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
night. But she slept ; he came where she was,
and let fall a ring on her right hand. Now, when she
woke, she tried to catch hold of him, and she caught
a feather of his wing. He left the feather with her,
and went away. In the morning she did not know
what to do till the house-wife told her that he had
gone over a hill of poison, over which she could not
go without horse shoes on her hands and feet. She
gave her man’s clothes, and told her to learn Smithy-
ing till she could make horse shoes for herself.
“This she did, and got over the hill of poison.
But on the day of her arrival, she found that her
husband was to be married to the daughter of a great
gentleman that was in the town. As festivities
were in progress, the cook of the house asked the
stranger to take his place and make the wedding
meal. She watched the bridegroom, and let fall the
ring and feather in the broth intended for him.
With the first spoon he took up the ring, with the
next the feather. He asked for the person who
cooked the meal, and said, ‘ that now was his married
wife.” The spells went off him. They turned back
over the hill of poison, she throwing the horse shoes
behind her to him, as she went a bit forward, and he
following her. They went to the three houses
where she had been. These were the houses of his
three sisters ; and they took with them their three
sons, and they came home to their own home, and
they were happy.” "
*Abridged from Campbell's West Highland Tales, vol. 1, p. 63.
CHARACTER OF MYTH. I3
Such is a good specimen of the folk-tale, and the
folk-tales are merely the modern representatives
of the old Mythology—merely the detritus, as it
were, of the old myths which dealt with the gods
and the heroes of the race. In the above tale we
are in quite a different world from the practical
and scientific views of the 19th century; we have
birds Speaking and acting as rational beings, and yet
exciting no wonder to the human beings they come
in contact with ; supernatural spells whereby men
may be turned into animals; a marriage with a
bird, which partially breaks these spells, and the bird
becomes a man for part of the day; supernatural
kidnapping, ending in the disappearance of the man-
bird ; and pursuit of him by the wife through fairy
regions of charms and spells and untold hardships—
a pursuit which ends successfully. It looks all a
wild maze of childish nonsense, unworthy of a mo-
ment's serious consideration ; it would certainly
appear to be a hopeless subject for scientific research ;
for what could science, whose object is truth, have
to do with a tissue of absurdities and falsehoods P
But this view is a superficial one, though it is the
One commonly held. On looking more deeply into
the matter, we shall find that after all there is a
method in the madness of Mythology, and that the
incongruous mass of tales and broken-down myths
that make up a nation’s folk-lore is susceptible of
scientific treatment. Science first attacks the pro-
blem by the method of comparison ; it compares
I4 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
the myths and tales of one nation with those of an-
other, with the view of discovering similarities.
The outlines, for example, of the tale already given,
exist not merely in one or two more tales in our own
folk-lore, but can also be traced over all the continent
of Europe, as well as in many parts of Asia. The
outline of the tale is this—The youngest and best
of three daughters is married or given up to some
unsightly being or monster, who in reality is a most
beautiful youth, but who is under certain spells
to remain in a low form of life until some maiden
is found to marry him. He then regains his natural
form, though, as a rule, Only partially ; and the
newly-married pair have to work out his complete
redemption from the spells. But, just as he is about
to be free from the spells, the curiosity or disobedience
of the wife ruins everything ; he disappears, and then
follows for the wife the dark period of wandering
and toil, which can be brought to an end only by
the achievement of tasks, generally three in number,
each hopelessly beyond human powers. The hus-
band, who meanwhile has forgotten, Owing to the
nature of the spells upon him, all about his wife,
is on the eve of marrying another, when the last
task of all is accomplished by the persevering courage
of the wife. The spells then leave him for ever, and
happiness reigns in the household ever after.
There are in our Highland folk-lore one or two
versions of this same tale. The story of the “Daugh-
ter of the Skies,” in Mr. Campbell’s book, is one
CHARACTER OF MYTHI. I5
variation. Here the hoodie crow is replaced by a
little doggie, and the wife's disobedience is clearly
brought out, while the Supernatural machinery—
the magical Scissors and needle, for example—is
much more elaborate. The tale also is found in
Norway; in the Norse tale, “East of the Sun and
West of the Moon,” the hero appears at first as a
white bear, who, on his marriage with the heroine,
becomes a man by night. She must not, however,
see him, for light must not fall on his body or else
he at once disappears. But the wife, instigated
by her mother, steals a sight of him by lamp-light,
with the consequence that he awakes and vanishes.
Then follow her trials, pursuit, and recovery of him.
The beautiful Greek tale of Psyche and Cupid is but
a variation of the same myth. Psyche, the youngest
of three royal daughters, incurs the wrath of Venus,
who sends Cupid to inspire her with love for some-
thing contemptible ; as Titania, in Shakespeare,
is made to fall in love with the transformed weaver,
Bottom. But Cupid, captivated by her beauty,
falls in love with her himself, conveys her to a secret
cave, and visits her only at night, under Strict charge
of her not attempting to see him by any light. Her
jealous sisters persuade her that she is married to
some ugly monster, and she accordingly determines
to disobey his injunctions, and inspect him by lamp-
light. In so doing, she allows in her admiration
of his beauty, a drop of hot oil to fall on his shoulder,
and he awakes, and escapes. She suffers woes
I6 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
untold in her pursuit of him, being finally a slave
in the household of Venus, who treats her very cruelly.
But, of course, she recovers her lost lover at long
last. And, again, in India, in the old religious
books of the Brahmins, is a somewhat similar tale—
the story of Urvasi and Pururavas, the main features
of which are the same as the Gaelic and Greek tales
already given. To the English reader, the well-
known tale of “Beauty and the Beast ’’ will at
once occur as an exact parallel to all these. And,
if we take the myths where the heroine is the loathly
monster, we shall find an equally wide distribution.
We have the Hindu tale, where the Princess is dis-
guised as a withered old woman ; the Loathly
Lady of Teutonic Mythology; and the Celtic story
of Diarmad's love for the daughter of the king of
the Land under the Waves, who appears first as a
hideous monster, and becomes, On approaching
Diarmad, the most beautiful woman ever seen.
Thus, then, we have traced the same myth among
nations so widely apart as the Celts and Hindus,
while, intermediate between these, we found it among
the Greeks and Teutons. And some myths are
even more widely distributed than that ; the tale of
the imprisoned maiden and the hero who rescues
her from the dragon or monster appears among all
the nations of Europe as well as among many of the
nations of Asia. Hence, from India in the East,
to Ireland in the West, we may find a great mass of
mythical tales common to the various nations.
CAUSE OF MYTH. I7
And this being the case, it may plainly become a
matter of scientific enquiry, first, What the cause
of these peculiar myths and tales can be 2 and,
secondly, What the significance is of their wide dis-
tribution ?
CAUSE OF MYTH.
The cause and Origin of these myths have puzzled
philosophers of all ages, and it is only a generation
ago when the first unravelling of the difficult problem
really took place. In olden times their origin was
set down to the well-known faculty of invention
that man possesses; they were mere inventions
and fictions, mostly purposeless, though some were
evidently intended for explanations of natural
phenomena or of historical events, and others again
for the conveyance of moral truth. There were
practically two Schools of myth-explainers; those
who regarded myths as mere allegories or parables,
and from them extracted codes of moral obligation
and hidden knowledge of the mysteries of nature ;
and, again, those who, so to speak, “ rationalised ''
the myths—that is to say, those who explained
myths as exaggerated real events. Some of these
explained, for example, Jupiter as king of Crete
in the pre-historic times; and, again, the giant
that Jack killed, according to such explanations,
was not necessarily far exceeding the natural limits
I8 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
of six or seven feet in height, for the only point to
notice was that he was a big burly brute of little
Sense, Overcome by the astuteness of a much lesser
man. But this theory gets into grave difficulties
when it grapples with the supernatural and the
Supranatural ; in fact, it fails ignominiously. And
as to the allegorical theory, while it has no difficulty
in explaining Jack the Giant Killer as merely the
personification of the truth that power of mind is
Superior to power of body, that theory is completely
wrecked in explaining the myths of Jupiter and the
gods generally. No allegory can explain most of
these myths, especially the older myths; while
the different explanations given by different “alle-
gorizers ” of even the simplest myths point to a
fundamental error in this theory. Now, it must
not be supposed that both allegory and real events
had no share in the formation of myths; they were,
indeed, most potent factors in the later stages of
Mythology, and must have existed all along as a
cause for myth. Another theory may be noticed in
passing as to the origin of myths in regard to the
deities and cosmogony of the world. It may be
called the “degradation ” theory, and the principle
of it is this : As all languages were supposed by
theologians to be descendants of the original Hebrew
tongue spoken in Eden, so the Mythology of all
Inations must be more or less a broken-down re-
membrance of the Hebrew religion and philosophy,
first imparted to man in the Garden of Eden. The
CAUSE OF MYTH. I9
stoutest supporter of this view is Mr. Gladstone.
He goes so far as to hold that distinct traces of the
Trinity can be found in Greek Mythology, and he
Consequently resolves Zeus, Appollo, and Athena
into the three persons of the Trinity Supposing
for a moment that this theory of the degradation
of myth was true, or, indeed, that our only explana-
tion was either or both of the other theories, what a
mass of Senseless wickedness and immorality much
of the deservedly admired Greek Mythology would
be 2. Such theories would argue equal wickedness
in the race from whose fancy such inventions sprung :
for the Greek Olympus is very full of rapine, paricide,
and vice. Yet the Greeks were neither an immoral
nor degraded race, but far otherwise. It is this
dark side of a nation's Mythology that has puzzled
and Shocked so many philosophers and made ship-
wreck of their theories as to the origin of myths.
With the rise of the science of language and its
marked success, all within this century, a complete
revolution has taken place, not merely in the case
of philology itself, but also in the kindred subjects
of Ethnology and Mythology. The methods adopted
in linguistic research have also been adopted in the
case of Mythology—first, all preconceptions and
national prejudices have been put aside ; then a
careful, even painful examination and comparison
of languages have been made, to find laws of inter-
change of sounds; a consequent discovery of the
relationships between languages has taken place ;
2O CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
and lastly, a discussion as to the Origin of language
is thus rendered possible. Exactly the same methods
have been employed in the elucidation of myths,
with a success that, on the whole, is gratifying.
In so airy and fanciful a subject, results of such strict
scientific accuracy cannot be obtained as in the
kindred science of language. And a good deal of
harm has also been done, even with scientific methods,
by pressing some theories of explanation too far.
Some Mythologists, for example, are too apt to
reduce every myth to a myth about the sun, and
hence the evil repute of the “solar myth '' theory.
But this is merely a good theory injudiciously used ;
it does not alter the fact of the importance in
Mythology of the sun worship.
The theory of the cause of myth that finds most
favour at the present time is that which explains
myth in connection with, and dependence On, lan-
guage ; while at the same time due regard is had to
the other possible sources of it in allegory, analogy,
and real, though exaggerated, events. The way
in which language gives rise to myth can, however,
be understood only after a consideration of the
mental powers, state of culture, and consequent
interpretation of nature which existed among primi-
tive and myth-making men. Language is but the
physical side, as it were, of mythology, and the
mental side of it must be considered before the action
of language can be appreciated properly. The origin
of myth springs from the same cause as the origin
CAUSE OF MYTH. 2I
of science; they are both man's attempt to interpret
his surroundings. Myth is but the badly remembered
interpretation of nature given in the youth and
inexperience of the world when the feelings were
predominant ; science is the same interpretation
in the old age of the world, given under the influence
of the “freezing reason's colder part.” Man in the
myth-making stage was ignorant of the cause and
real character of the mighty natural forces around
him—ignorant even of the unaltering uniformity
of nature—indeed the only thing the Celts said they
were afraid of was that the heavens should fall !
The relations of cause and effect they interpreted
by their own feelings and will-power ; every moving
thing, animate or inanimate, was regarded as im-
pelled by a force akin to that which impelled man ;
that is, by a will-force. Even stationary nature—
the everlasting hills and the solid earth—was en-
dowed with feeling, will, and thought. All the
mental powers that man found controlling his own
actions were unconsciously transferred to nature.
A personal life was accordingly attributed to Sun,
moon, clouds, winds, and the other natural powers;
they were looked upon as performing their special
functions by means of faculties of mind and body
analogous to those of man or beast. The varying
phenomena of the sky, morn and eve, noon and
black-clouded night, were the product of the life that
dwelt in each. The eclipse of the sun, for example—
a most dreaded event in ancient times—was Sup-
22 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
posed to be caused by a wild beast attempting to
swallow the lord of day ; and men poured forth, as
some savages do yet, with timbrels and drums, to
frighten away the monster. The clouds were cows
with swelling udders, milked by the sun and wind
of heaven—the cattle of the sun under the care of
the wind. The thunder was the roar of a mighty
beast ; the lightning, a serpent darting at its prey.
Modern savages are in much this state of Culture,
and their beliefs have helped greatly in unravelling
the problem of mythology. The ideas which chil-
dren form of outward nature exemplifies in some
degree the mythic age through which the race in its
childhood passed. “To a little child not only are
all living creatures endowed with human intelli-
gence, but everything is alive. In his world, pussy
takes rank with ‘ Pa * and “Ma’ in point of intelli-
gence. He beats the chairs against which he has
knocked his head ; the fire that burns his finger is
‘ naughty fire ; ' and the stars that shine through
his bedroom window are eyes like mamma's, or
pussy's, only brighter.” y
It was on these wrong impressions—this anthropo-
morphic view of nature—that language was founded.
Language, in man's passing to a higher state of
culture, still kept, stereotyped and fixed, the old
personal explanations and statements about nature ;
the language did not change, but man’s views of
natural causes and events changed very much as he
got more civilised—more free from the influence
CAUSE OF MYTH. 23
of his feelings, and more under the sway of his reason-
ing powers. The knowledge and ideas of earlier men
were thus, as it were, fossilised in language, and when
the feeling and personification impressed on language
had passed into a more intellectual age, the result
was misinterpretation and a too literal acceptance
of many of the warm and vivid epithets employed
of old. The personal explanation of the sun's mo-
tion, for instance, and the attributes and epithets
given to it, all charged with life and feeling, were in
the course of time and language taken in a more
literal way, and, since slightly more scientific views
were held as to the real nature of the sun, the old
explanations were fastened to a separate sun-god,
and thus a divorce was made between the Sun and
the personality given to it in the old epithets and
explanations. The result was that there came to be a
Sun and a sun-god, Apollo, quite separate ; and the
history given to this sun-god was taken from the life
explanations formerly given, in personal and anthro-
pomorphic language, of the Sun's daily and yearly
course, his “rising ” and “setting,” for example,
expressions which, though anthropomorphic, are
still in use. A myth cannot, therefore, well arise
unless the true meaning of a word or phrase has been
forgotten and a false meaning or explanation fastened
on it. We may take an example from Greek my-
thology to illustrate this. Prometheus, the fire-
bringer, is merely the personification of the wooden
fire-drill ; for the word is derived from the same
24 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
Source as the Sanscrit pramanthas, the “fire
machine.” Transplanted to Greek soil, the word
lost its original signification with the loss of the
thing signified, and became a mythological name,
for which a new etymology had to be coined. Now,
“ promethes,” in Greek, means “provident,” and
So Prometheus, the fire-bringer, was transformed
into the wise representative of forethought, who
stole the fire from heaven for suffering humanity ;
and a brother was supplied him in the foolish
Epimetheus or “ afterthought.” And thereby hangs
One of the most famous and noble myths of antiquity.
Gaelic, in its modern shape even, presents some
very startling personifications of natural objects.
The regular expression for “The sun is setting ”
is “ Tha a' ghrian 'dol a laidhe ’’—“going to bed.”
Mr. Campbell, in his very literal and picturesque
translation of the West Highland tales, does not
hesitate to follow the Gaelic even in its most personal
metaphors. “Beul na h-oidhche,” “ nightfall,”
is given literally as “the mouth of night.” Gaelic
poetry, too, is as a rule much more instinct with life
and feeling in dealing with natural objects than
English poetry. Ossian's address to the setting
Sun may be quoted to show what a mine of metaphor,
and consequent mythology, exists in our poetic
and elevated language— -
“An d' fhäg thu gorm astar nan speur,
A minic gun bheud, a”s Ör-bhuidh’ ciabh P
Tha dorsan na h-oidhche dhuit réidh,
Agus pāilliun do chlos 'san iar.
5 y.
CAUSE OF MYTH. 25
Thig na stuaidh mu’n cuairt gu mall
A choimhead fir a’s glaine gruaidh,
A’ togail fo eagal an Ceann
Ri d' fhaicin11 cho aillidh 'mad Shuain.
Gabhsa cadal ann ad chös,
A ghrian, is till o d’ chlos le aoibhneas.”
These lines bring us back to the anthropomorphism
of the Vedic hymns of India, to which alone, in their
richness of personification and mythic power, they
can be Compared.
Allied to the linguistic theory of myth is also the
simpler case of those myths consciously started to
explain the names of nations, Countries, and places.
A common method of accounting for a national
name was to invent an ancestor or patriarch who
bore that name in an individual form. Britain,
So say the myths, is so named from Brutus, grand-
son of Æneas, the Trojan hero, who first ruled
here. Scotland gets its name from Scota, the
daughter of Pharaoh. The names of places are
dealt with in the same way, and, if the name is any-
way significant, the myth takes the lines indicated
by the popular etymology of the name. This is
the origin of the name of Loch-Ness : “Where
Loch-Ness now is there was once a fine glen. A
woman went one day to the well to fetch water,
and the spring flowed so much that she got frightened,
left her pitcher, and ran for her life. Getting to
the top of a hill, she turned about and saw the glen
filled with water. “Aha said she, ‘tha loch ann
a nis ; and hence the lake was called Loch-Ness.”
C
26 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
A somewhat similar account is given of the origin
and name of Loch-Neagh, in Ireland, and Loch-Awe,
in Argyleshire.
From such myths as the last we gradually pass to
myths that do not depend in the least on the
quibbling and changes of language, but are, Con-
sciously or unconsciously, forged explanations of
national customs, historical events, or natural
phenomena. Thus the custom among the Picts
whereby the succession was in the female line, was
mythically explained by Bede, thus: The Picts,
having invaded Scotland, came to terms with the
indigenous Gaels, and, as they brought no women
with them, the compact was that, if the Gaels
gave them their daughters as wives, the succession
would be in the female line. Again, has the reader
ever thought why the sea is salt P. Well, this is the
reason why. A man once got possession, it is need-
less to detail how, of a fairy quern which was “good
to grind anything,” only requiring certain cabalistic
words to set it going or to stop it. A ship captain
bought it to grind salt for him on his voyage. In
mid-ocean the captain gave the quern the necessary
order to grind salt, and it did ; but unfortunately
he forgot the incantation for stopping it. The
quern ground on and filled the ship with salt till
it sank to the bottom of the sea, where the quern
is still grinding salt. And that is the reason why
the Sea is salt. If any one is sceptical, just let him
taste the sea water and he will know its truth !
, sº
SPREAD OF MYTH. - 27
SPREAD OF MYTH.
Closely akin to the consideration of the cause of
myth is the question why myths and tales, evidently
of the same origin, exist among nations differing
widely both in language and locality. We found
that tales of transformed lovers, descending even to
similarities in minute details, and hence showing
evidences of a common source, existed among all
the chief nations of Europe, Western Asia, and
India. Besides, other myths of a more general
character are found all over the world. Now, what
is the cause of this wide distribution of the same
myths 2 Two or three explanations are offered for
this, each of which can correctly explain why some
particular myths or tales are, but none of which can
explain why the whole body of mythology and folk-
lore is, so widely distributed. Some hold that the
stories and myths have been borrowed or trans-
mitted from one nation to another ; travellers and
translators, they think, will account for nearly the
whole of them. While it cannot be denied that
many tales have permeated from one nation to
another, this will by no means account for the
similarities of myths among two nations Or more,
in whose language and customs these myths are SO
deeply embedded and ingrooved that we should
have to say the language too was borrowed. If a
myth, and, to a less degree, a tale, depend on a
28 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
nation's language—its modes of thought and ex-
pression—if the roots of the proper names be em-
bedded in the language, and consequently obscured,
that myth and that tale must belong to that nation.
They belong to that nation’s inheritance as much as
its language. Of course, care must be exercised in
deciding what is really the peculiar property of a
nation, and distinction made between the various
classes into which the materials of mythology and
folk-lore fall. “That certain deities occur in India,
Greece, and Germany, having the same names and
the same character, is a fact that can no longer be
denied. That certain heroes, too, known to Indians,
Greeks, and Romans, point to one and the same
Origin for these nations, both by their name and by
their history, is a fact by this time admitted by all
whose admission is of real value. As heroes are in
most cases gods in disguise, there is nothing startling
in the fact that nations who had worshipped the
same gods should also have preserved some common
legends of demigods or heroes, nay, even in a later
phase of thought, of fairies and ghosts. The case,
however, becomes much more problematical when
we ask whether stories also, fables told with a
decided moral purpose, formed part of that earliest
Aryan inheritance 2 * Here Max Müller draws
a distinct line between fables with a moral or edu–
cative purpose and the rest of the materials of my-
thology, and he has clearly demonstrated that many
such are borrowed. The fables of AEsop have been
SPREAD OF MYTH. 29
adopted into every language in Europe, and the
moral tales of the Indians, after many vicissitudes,
found a “local habitation " in the pages of La
Fontaine and others. Another explanation for the
distribution of myths is that primitive men worked
in similar grooves wherever they lived ; man’s cir-
cumstances being the same, his ideas and the ex-
pression of them will present strong resemblances
everywhere. This view will account for the myths
that are most widely distributed over the earth's
surface. Jack the Giant-Killer, for instance, appears
in the Zulu story of Uhlakanyana, who cheats the
cannibal giant and his mother, to the latter of whom
he had been delivered to be boiled, and whom he
cunningly succeeds in substituting for himself.
But the theory can apply Only in a general way ;
to the great body of myths common to certain
nations it cannot apply at all ; it does not touch
their deep and often detailed resemblances. What
harmonises best with the facts of mythologic dis-
tribution is the grouping of nations into families
proved to be genealogically allied from possessing
a common body of myths and tales that must be
descended from a parent stock. Although the facts
of comparative mythology are sufficiently strong of
themselves to prove the common origin of the nations
from India to Ireland, yet it is satisfactory that the
science of language has already proved the common
descent of these nations, as far at least as language
is concerned. Linguists have called the parent
3O CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
nation, from which they have sprung, the Aryan
nation, a name which shall be adopted in this dis-
cussion. The only other group of nations that can
Satisfactorily be shown by their language and my-
thology to possess a common descent is the Semitic,
which includes the Hebrews, Chaldeans, and Arabians.
The Aryan and Semitic races have nothing in common,
except what is borrowed, either in the matter of
language or myth. When we are told that the Celtic
god Bel is the same as the Semitic Baal, we may
conclude that the assertion is, more than likely,
both unscientific and untrue.
THE ARYAN NATION.
From the comparison of roots in the various
present and past descendants of the original Aryan
tongue, and, in a less degree, from a comparison
of their myths, we are enabled to form a fair idea
of the culture and religion of the Aryans. Not only
can radical elements expressing such objects and
relations as father, mother, brother, daughter, hus-
band, brother-in-law, Cow, dog, horse, cattle, Ox,
corn, mill, earth, sky, water, star, and hundreds more,
be found identically the same, in the various branches
of the Aryan tongue, now or sometime spoken, but
they can also be proved to possess the elements of
a mythological phraseology clearly descended from
a common source. In the matter of culture, the
THE ARYAN NATION. 3I
Aryans were organised in communities framed on
the model of the patriarchal household. They had
adopted a system of regular marriage with an
elaborate grading of kinships and marriage affinities.
In the household the father was king and priest,
for there was also a family religion ; the wife and the
rest of the family, though subservient to the patria
potestas, were far from being slaves; while, outside
the household, grades and ranks of nobility or kin-
ship were strictly marked. Comfortable houses
and clustered villages, clearings and stations, with
paths and roads were in existence ; the precious
metals, together with copper, tin, and bronze, were
in use, but iron was probably unknown. The
domestic animals had long been tamed and named,
for cattle and flocks composed their chief wealth,
though the plough tilled the field and corn was grown
and crushed in the mills and querns. They could
count to one hundred at the very least, for the root
of ceud, “ hund-red,” is common to all the descendant
tongues, and they had divided the year into seasons
and months—a fact which is especially proved by
the root for month being taken from the name given
to the moon, “the measurer.” They spoke a lan-
guage that was highly inflected and complex ; that
is to Say, the relation between words and the relations
of time (or tense) and mood were expressed by
changes in the terminations of words. On the
whole, the Aryans were high in the barbaric state of
culture, as opposed, on the one hand to the Savage,
32 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
and, on the other, to the civilised state of
progress. - :
In regard to religion and Mythology, the Aryans
were in much the same stage of advancement as in
their culture generally. As their culture and
language had required long ages to reach up to the
state of comparative excellence at which they had
arrived, so, too, their religion must have passed
through lower phases until it reached the well de-
veloped cosmos of Aryan times. And as there are
not wanting many signs of those earlier Stages of
belief both in Aryan Mythology and in the My-
thologies of the descendant nations, it is necessary
to glance briefly at what these stages may have been.
Belief in the supernatural exists, and has existed,
in all races of men whose beliefs we have any know-
ledge of. The lowest phase of this belief is known
as “ Animism,” and consists in believing that what
is presented to us in our dreams and visions has a
real existence. Savage man makes no distinction
between his dreaming and waking existence. He
sees the “shadows " of the dead in his sleep, and
firmly believes in their objective reality. But not
merely the dead alone have shadows or spirits; the
living, too, have spirits or duplicates of self. Animals,
also, and material objects, have souls, for is not the
dead hero seen in dreams wearing the ghosts of arms
—sword and hatchet, and such like—that he
possessed in life 2 The worship of ancestors would
appear to have been the first form in which these
X y
THE ARY AN NATION. 33
beliefs took the shape of an active religion or worship
of higher beings. Ancestor worship, though first,
is by no means lost in subsequent stages, for of all
forms it is the rhost persistent in its survival.
Modern China and ancient Rome are prominent
proofs of this fact. From ancestors, it is an easy
step to worship the ghosts of other persons; some-
times these were looked on as beneficent, and at other
times as maleficent, beings, whose help was to be
invoked or whose wrath was to be deprecated.
Ghosts, ancestral and other, might inhabit natural
objects—trees, rivers, wells, and animals ; and this,
combined with the worship of the actual ghosts
of these objects, sometimes gave rise to “fetishism,”
so well called the worship of “stocks and stones.”
Totemism, again, consists in the worship of a tribal
badge ; some clan or nation worship a particular
object, generally an animal, a form of worship which
may easily have sprung from ancestor worship,
since the ancestral ghost may have taken that par-
ticular form. Some go so far as to assert that the
names of some of the Highland and Irish clans
and their badges are remnants or remembrances
of this worship, and appeal in proof is especially made
to the clan “ Chattan,” with its animal crest, the
cat. The next stage is the worship of the nature-
spirits, or the natural powers as seen in objects of
Outward nature—clouds, lightning, and sky. This
gives rise to polytheism proper, and, perhaps, prior
to that, to henotheism, as Max Müller has so well
34 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
named that “totemic ’’ worship of one especial
element of nature, making it for the moment the su-
preme deity with all the attributes that are applicable
to it embellished and exhausted. In polytheism
the plurality of deities is expressed ; in henotheism
it is implied. Polytheism generally presents a
dynastic system of gods under the rule of one supreme
king or father, while henotheism implies a co-
ordination of deities. “These deities,” says Mr.
Sayce, “are necessarily suggested by nature ; the
variety of nature Overpowers in an infantile state of
society the unity for which the mind of man is ever
yearning. Gradually, however, the attributes
applied to the Objects and powers of nature take
the place of the latter ; the sun becomes Apollo,
the storm Ares. Deities are multiplied with the
multiplication of the epithets which the mythopoeic
age changes into divinities and demi-gods, and side
by side with a developed Mythology goes a developed
pantheon. The polytheism, which the infinite
variety of nature made inevitable, continues long
after the nature worship that underlay it has grown
faint and forgotten. A time at last comes when even
abstract names have to Submit to the common
process; temples are raised to Terror and Fear,
to Love and Reverence ; and the doom of the old
polytheism of nature is at hand. When once the
spirit of divinity has been breathed into abstractions
of the human mind, it cannot be long before their
essential unity is recognised, and they are all summed
THE ARYAN NATION. 35
up under the one higher abstraction of mono-
theism.”
But this quotation anticipates the history of Aryan
Mythology in the descendant nations. Aryan
religion itself was a fully developed henotheism, or
rather a polytheism, where the Supreme Deity was
different at different times in the eyes of the same
worshipper. At one time, to take the Vedic hymns
as representative of the oldest and nearest stratum
of religious thought to the Aryan religion, Indra
is the only god whom the singer recognises, and he
exhausts his religious vocabulary On his praise alone ;
and at another time Varuna receives all worship,
at another it is Agni. Indra represents the heaven-
god, more especially in the view of a rain-giving deity,
for the root is the same as the English water, and
is seen also in the sacred River Indus. Agni is the
god of fire ; Varuna, of the canopy of heaven—the
Greek Uranus. Comparing and analysing the ele-
ments of Teutonic, Greek, and Hindu Mythology,
for example, we may arrive at a tolerably clear
conception of the Aryan pantheon and religious
cultus. It would seem the chief deity was con-
nected with the worship of light ; the shining canopy
of heaven was the head of the Aryan Olympus.
The Gaelic word dia (and diu day); Sanscrit, Dyaus ;
Greek, Zeus ; Latin, deus and Ju-piter ; and
English, Tiw (as seen in Tuesday), are from the
primitive name of this god, their common root being
div, Shining. Hence dia. Originally meant the bright
36 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
y
sky, and Jupiter, the “sky-father,” is the Roman
version of “Father in Heaven.” Fire, in all its
manifestations, was an especial object of worship ;
Agni is the Vedic name of this deity, which appears
in Latin ignis, and Gaelic aim (heat). The Sun and
moon were prominent among the deities, the Sun
being the most in favour, perhaps, of all the gods.
The epithets applied to him are innumerable, and,
as a consequence, scarcely two nations have the
same name for the Sun-god, and nearly all have One
or two deities that are phases of solar worship. The
Sanscrit, Surya , Latin, Sol, English, Sun , and
Gaelic, solus, present the chief root, the first four
actually meaning the “sun,” and being used as the
name of the sun-deity often.
And there were other gods hardly inferior to these
gods; such were what we may call the “meteoro-
logical ‘’ deities—the regulators of weather and
seasons. Prominent among these was the thunder
god, who brings thunder and rain ; in the Vedic
hymns his place is filled by the chief god Indra ; in
Latin he is the Jupiter Tonans; in the Norse
Mythology, he appears as Thor who is next in im-
portance to Odin himself ; and in the Celtic Myth-
ology, he is known as Taranis. The storm god was
worshipped under the title of Maruts, the Latin
Mars, and Greek Ares. The wind had a high position
among the deities, but among the descendant nations
its position is not quite so high, unless we connect
with it the god Hermes, who in Greek Mythology
THE ARYAN NATION. 37
is clearly a wind god both in his connection with
music and as messenger to the gods.
The gods we have hitherto discussed belong to the
intangible objects of nature—the sky, stars, Sun,
dawn, and, perhaps, so too the “weather ’’ gods.
Max Müller gives two other possible classes of deified
objects; semi-tangible objects such as trees, moun-
tains, the sea, the earth. These objects supply the
material for what he calls the semi-deities. And
thirdly, lowest of all, are tangible objects, such as
“stocks and stones '' and other elements of fetishism.
The worship of semi-tangible objects shows clearly
a remnant of the old animism, for these objects are
endowed in savage culture with spirits of a personal
type. “The lowest races,” says Mr. Tylor, “not
Only talk of such nature-spirits, but deal with them.
in a thoroughly personal way, which shows how
they are modelled on human souls. Modern
travellers have seen North Americans paddling
their canoes past a dangerous place on the river,
and throwing in a bit of tobacco with a prayer to
the river-spirit to let them pass. An African wood
Cutter who has made the first cut at a great tree
has been known to take the precaution of pouring
Some palm-oil on the ground, that the angry tree-
Spirit coming out may stop to lick it up, while the
man runs for his life. The state of mind to which
these nature-spirits belong must have been almost
as clearly remembered by the Greeks, when they
could still fancy the nymphs of the lovely groves
38 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
and springs and grassy meadows coming up to the
council of the Olympian gods, or the dryads growing
with the leafy pines and oaks, and uttering screams
of pain when the woodman's axe strikes the trunk.”
These nature spirits play a most important part
in folk-lore, appearing in the tales of the river demon,
the water kelpie, who drowns his victim in the whirl-
pool ; and in the giants, trolls, and dwarfs, who
represent mountain and earth spirits; the healing
waters of Sacred wells have only adopted saints'
names in place of the old pagan deities; while the
little elves and fairies of the woods are but dim
recollections of the old forest spirits.
Of magic, a word or two may be said. It must be
remembered that the gods could change their shape
at pleasure ; their normal shape among Aryan
nations was the human, but they could assume the
shape of particular men or beasts, or even of in-
animate objects, for Jupiter came into Danae's
prison in a shower of gold. Perseus' magical hat of
darkness and shoes of swiftness belong to the same
cloud-changing character. Spells and enchantments
form an important feature of magical powers, and
have their Origin in spirit-explanations of the
numbing power of frost, the relaxing power of heat,
the power of drugs, as of the Indian Soma, and doubt-
less in the magnetic influence exerted by some men
and animals, notably the serpent. And if we descend
still lower, we find magic as a rule depend on a false
use of analogies. The Zulu who has to buy cattle
ARYAN MYTHS. 39
may be seen chewing a bit of wood, in order to
soften the breast of the seller he is dealing with,
for as the wood gets softer in his mouth, the sellers’
heart is supposed also to soften. Such superstitions
exist even in our own country to the present day.
The writer of this has known of a case where a clay
body, “ Corpan creadha,” was actually made and
Stuck Over with nails and pins, and placed in a stream
channel to waste away. As the clay wasted, so with
sharp pangs would waste away the person for whom
it was intended. - -
The ethical side of the Aryan religion presented
Some interesting features. The contest between
the powers of light and darkness—Dyaus and Indra
On One side against Ahriman or Vritra, the bright
Sun-god against the Snake-god of darkness, Apollo
strangling the Python, represents a real ethical idea—
good Overcoming evil. Sacrifice and prayer, temple
and altar, were known ; and sin and sin-offering
were familiar ideas to the Aryans. A shadowy
spirit existence after death was believed in ; heroes
were taken to the halls of the gods, but the kingdom
of Hades was the general abode of spirits, where the
good and the evil got their deserts.
ARYAN MYTHS.
We shall now see how the Aryans dealt in One Or
two cases with the actions of their gods, and how
4O CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
this gave rise to a mythical life history of them in
later times. It was around the sun-god that most
of these myths were gathering. Offspring of night,
whom he slays, he loves the dawn maiden, Daphne—
“ rosy-fingered morn,” who flies from his embrace
over the azure plains of Heaven, but, Cinderella-
like, leaves a golden streak of light behind her
whereby she may be followed and found. The
sun has his toils too, in the pursuit ; storm-clouds
intercept his path ; at times even the eclipse monster
Swallows him ; and he has to toil for mean Creatures
like men to give them light and heat, owing to the
spells put upon him. But at length he overtakes,
in the evening, his morning love, the dawn, now the
evening dawn, who consoles him as he descends
beneath the wave. In some such strains must the
old Aryans have spoken of the Sun's career and
actions, and sung the praises of the Being who
guided his flying coursers over the plains of Heaven.
Later ages rationalised the myth into the loves and
actions of Apollo and Daphne, Hercules and Dejanira,
and others innumerable. The myth is broken
down to a folk-tale, which appears in a variety of
modern forms, of which the fairy tale of Cinderella
is the best example. Cinderella is the youngest,
as usual, of three sisters—the night-watches; she
is in fact the dawn maiden ; she is pursued by the
young prince, and leaves her glass slipper—her streak
of light—behind her, by means of which she is
identified at last. This tale appears also in the
ARYAN MYTHS. 4I
Gaelic popular stories. A king's daughter has to
fly with her fairy treasures—the peculiar thing is
that these maidens have always treasures, and there
generally is as much dispute about them as about the
maidens themselves ; these treasures appear to be
connected with the rain clouds, the cows and cattle
of the Sun. The king's daughter takes service in
the new land she arrives in ; goes to a ball, unknown
to her employers, in her fairy dress; creates a sen-
sation, so to speak ; but having to leave in haste,
she loses her glass slipper, whereby the enamoured
prince is enabled to find her. The tale of the
“Hoodie Crow,” with which our discussion com-
menced, would appear to be a broken down myth
of the solar class ; and it is accordingly connected
with the nocturnal life of the sun-god, who then is
under the spell of the dark powers. The dawn
maiden pursues him through toils and difficulties,
and at last frees him from the spells. -
Another fruitful source of myth and worship is
the change of summer into winter, when the earth
has to pass from the genial rule of the “fire” powers
to that of the “frost " king. The earth is spell-
bound during winter, by the machinations of the
frost-king; the lovely goddess of summer has been
carried away, leaving her mother Earth discon-
solate; “Proserpina gathering flowers, herself a
fairer flower, by gloomy Dis is gathered.” She
becomes the wife of Pluto, god of the lower world,
but is allowed to return to her mother for half of the
D
42 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
year. Connected with this myth is the widespread
tale of the imprisoned maiden. There are always
three characters in the myth ; the monster or giant,
who performs the abduction ; the maiden who is
rich in treasures as well as beautiful ; and the youth-
ful hero, the young Apollo, who is destined to over-
come the monster and his spells. -
Some minor points may briefly be noticed.
Among the many names of the sun in the Veda,
he is called the “golden-handed,” a very natural
simile for the golden rays shooting finger-like from
him. The Hindus accordingly rationalise. this, and
tell how Savitri cut off his hand in a strait, and that
, the priests made a golden hand for him. The Norse
god Tys (Zeus) had also his hand bitten off by the
Fenris-wolf, and the Irish king of the De Dannans,
Nuada of the Silver Hand, lost his hand in fight
with the Firbolg giant, and the physician Diancet
made him a silver one. Another wide-spread myth
is to be referred to the same source ; the sun-god
Apollo is the best of archers—the “Far-darter,”
of Homeric poetry. In nearly every Aryan nation
there is a historical legend telling the doughty deed
of some great archer ; such is the story of Tell, in
Switzerland, which is typical of the rest. The
legend appears in the German tale of Eigel, brother
of Wayland, the Smith-god , while in Braemar it is
circumstantially told regarding the ancestor of the
Machardies, also a “ smith ” family. Of myths
arising from the wind, storm, thunder, earth, and
RESULTS OF THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 43
sea, it is unnecessary to speak as yet ; they will
appear in their proper place among the folk-tales,
and some—as the sea-deities, Lir and his children—
among the myths of the heroes.
RESULTS OF THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES.
The peculiar characteristics of Mythology have now
been indicated ; the cause of myth, and the wide
diffusion of the same myths among different nations.
have been discovered respectively in the philosophy
of primitive man, and the common descent of the
chief European and Asiatic nations. It has been
shown that the Aryan nation possessed what may
be dignified with the name of a civilisation ; its
culture and religion were of a very high type, though
there were not wanting numerous traces of the
culture of more primitive and ruder times. It
now becomes our duty to follow the fortunes of the
Mythology of one of the nations descended from
this Aryan parent nation, and see how it shaped
the common heritage. -
It may be set down as a general principle that the
Celts Ought not to have in their language, myth-
ology, or customs, any features inconsistent with
their Aryan descent ; they may have developed the
outward and inward features of Aryan civilisation,
according to the idiosyncracies of the Celtic race,
but the essential Aryan characteristics ought still
44 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
to be recognisable in the descendant Celtic languages
and myths. Whatever we find in these must con-
form, regard being had to the development of Celtic.
peculiarities, to what we know to have been true of
the myths and language of the parent Aryan tongue,
or of those of one or two of the other Aryan nations.
Anything in Celtic myth, language, Or Customs,
inconsistent with an Aryan descent, or of a plainly
non-Aryan character, must first of all be distrusted
until its existence among the Celts, and them alone,
has been established on indubitable grounds. Nor
must explanations of Celtic phenomena be accepted
which would imply relationship with races outside
the Aryan stock—such as with the Semitic or Hebrew
race, until clear historical or other proof is adduced.
The a priori argument against such a Connection
is so strong that special care must be exercised in
allowing non-Aryan explanations to appear. It is
needless to remark that until lately the Celts suffered
much from the injudicious and unscientific theories
of Celtic enthusiasts, and it has been only by the
patient industry of the Germans that full recognition
has been given to the proper position of the Celts
among the other Indo-European nations. Even
yet, in Scotland, too little attention is paid to the
scientific facts established in Celtic ethnology and
philology. For this state of matters there is now
little excuse, more especially as within the last year
or two the results of Continental and British learning
have been put before the public in the works of Mr.
SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 45
Elton and Professor Rhys, to both of whom the
present writer must express his great obligations.
SOURCES OF INFORMATION.
Of the old Celtic nations—their culture and their
religion—we have no native account. No Celtic
language has got any literary remains earlier than
the seventh century at farthest, and even these are
but glosses or marginal Gaelic equivalents of Latin
words in manuscripts. The oldest manuscripts
of connected works cannot be traced farther back
than the eleventh century. By this period Christian-
ity had asserted its sway, at least in name, and the
old paganism remained only in the customs and the
heroic and folk-tales of the nation. What religion
existed in Ireland and Britain a thousand years before
this period of the oldest manuscripts must be dis-
covered, if it can at all, from some other source than
contemporary native evidence. Yet we are not
without a fair idea of what the old-Celtic religion
was. The sources of our information in deciphering
what Professor Rhys has called “ the weather worn
history '' of the Celts are these : Roman and Greek
writers have left contemporary accounts of Celtic
history, religion, and customs, though in the case of
religion and customs, such accounts are scrappy
indeed, and the history is generally a statement
46 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
of contemporary actions and the relations of the
Celts to the favoured races of Rome and Greece.
Next to these come the monuments and inscriptions
of ancient Gaul and Britain. These comprise mostly
the votive inscriptions to the deities, the statues,
and the coinage of the period. The names of places,
especially of rivers, have indicated Celtic localities,
migrations, and religious beliefs ; for how numerous
are, for instance, the rivers with the name Dee
(goddess), showing the wide-spread worship of water
and rivers among the Celts 2 Examination also of
the rude stone monuments and the barrows of pre-
historic times has elucidated much that is dark
in Celtic History, while the examination of physical
characteristics in the race has helped even more to
clear up difficulties of ethnology. A judicious use
of the oldest heroic and folk tales must divulge
some secrets in regard to Mythology, if not to history;
while modern folk-tales and customs lend special
aid in reflecting light on the past. An intelligent
scrutiny of the Roman calendar of Saints will disclose
a few more Celtic divinities in the realms of saint-
dom ; for where the Church did not make demons
or heroes of the ancient gods, it did the next best
thing—it made saints of them. In the same way we
can recognise Pagan festivals and customs in a
Christian guise ; the Church festivals are nearly
all the result of assimilating the existing religious
customs. And, lastly, to steady our whole results,
we have to remember that the Celts are an Aryan
SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 47
people, and that explanations of their customs and
religions must follow the ordinary lines of the other
Aryan nations. Where there are differences—and
there are many such—these must be caused by the
fact that the Celts assimilated with themselves an
earlier population. Notice has already been taken
of the Pictish law of succession, where descent is
traced through the mother. This implies clearly
a low view of the state of matrimony, and one clearly
Opposed to an Aryan source. We are therefore
fairly justified in regarding the Picts as strongly
admixed with a non-Aryan race. .
In thus reconstructing the past history of the
Celts, at least three classes of savants are pressed
into our service. First and foremost is the philologist,
who has within the last generation or two completely
revolutionised the science of ethnology. He has
shown in the clearest manner possible the common
descent of most of the European nations, at least
as far as language is concerned, and that means a
vast amount, for language is followed by a common
mythology, and, in a less degree, by common cus-
toms. The next savant we draw upon is the
anthropologist, or, rather, the physiologist ; he
examines the remains of ancient man and the
characteristics of modern man, and classifies accord-
ingly. And, thirdly, we have the archaeologist,
who examines prehistoric remains and implements.
These three classes of workers do not well agree ;
Professor Huxley despises the ethnological results
48 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
of linguistic science, while Professor Rhys does not
conceal his contempt for those who decide on national
descent by “skin and skull ; ” and Mr. Fergusson
will not leave his “rude stone monuments '' to
consider what either of them may say. Two such
men as Mr. Tylor and Mr. Elton are, therefore,
to the Ordinary student, simply invaluable guides,
from the fact that they attempt to combine the
researches of all three. From the materials collected
from these three sources, we shall proceed to give a
short account of the Celts and their religion.
THE CELTS,
When or where the people lived who spoke the
Original Aryan tongue is not known with any cer-
tainty. {. It seems probable,” says one writer,
“ that their home was somewhere in South-western
Asia, and the time of their dispersion not less than
three thousand years before Christ.” Fick holds
that they split up first into two parts, answering
to the modern Asiatic and European Aryans. f The
European branch again broke up into two—the
South-western European division and the Northern
European division. The latter included the Slavonic
(Russians and old Prussians), and the Teutonic
(English, Germans, Norse, &c.,) races ; while the
Southern branch comprised the Greek, Latin, and
Celtic races. The order in which they are enumer-
THE CELTS. 49
ated above shows the order of their arrival in Europe;
first came the Celts leading the van of the Southern]
division, while the Sclavs brought up the rear of all.
It has been remarked that for the purpose of attaining
political greatness the Celts came too soon, the Sclavs
too late. The line of Celtic migration across Europe
has been traced in the names of places, especially
the river names. The Don and the Dnieper would
appear to prove that they crossed the Russian
steppes. Yet there are evident traces of the Celts
On the AEgean Sea, and we have the River Strumon
On the Thracian Coast, which is clearly Celtic from the
existence of the s, which was lost in Greek itself ;
and we may add the famous Mount Pindus in
Greece.* In any case, however, be their route
whatever we please, we find the Celts in the earliest
records we have of them in possession of the greatest
portion of Western Europe. At the time of their
taking Rome in 390 B.C., the Celts would appear
to have possessed, as they certainly did two centuries
later, Nothern Italy, France, Belgium, and part of
Germany, most of Spain, Britain, and Ireland.
How much of the middle of Europe they then held
is unknown, but that they did possess part of what
now is Germany is clear from the names of places,
and also from the fact that the Germans have, in
common with the Celts, many myths which must
have then been absorbed by the Germans in absorbing
the Celtic population. About 220 B.C. the Romans
* See Kuhn's Beitraege, Vol. viii., p. 4.
50 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
conquered Nothern Italy, a hundred years later they
conquered the Mediterranean coast of France, and
seventy years afterwards Caesar conquered the whole
of France and completely crushed the Gallic power.
That is briefly the political side of their history.
But there are two points to notice in their internal
history of special importance in the present inquiry.
The Celts, in entering Europe, found the country
inhabited, and this previous population, a non-
Aryan one of course, they either exterminated or
absorbed. It is, therefore, of vital importance
to know as much as possible about this previous
population, for, naturally, its customs, beliefs, and,
in a much less degree, its language, were absorbed
by the conquering Celt. From the evidence of
language and customs alone, Professor Rhys has,
in his work on “Celtic Britain,” been able to prove
the existence of a previous non-Celtic and non-
Aryan population in Britain. The Pictish custom
of succession already mentioned, and the continual
reference in classical writers to some British nations
who had community of wives—Caesar erroneously
attributes this to all Britain alike, Celt and non-Celt
—point to a low idea of matrimony that must have
belonged to the previous population. Again, in
the list of Kings given for the Picts, the names are
not of an Aryan or Celtic type ; Aryan names were
always compounds, however much denuded by time,
but these Pictish names are monosyllabic and un-
meaning. The frequency of animal names in Pictish
THE CELTS. 5I
districts has also been adduced as a proof in the
same direction, though not a convincing argument,
for most nations have animal names among their
personal names. Mr. Elton has pointed out some
peculiar legal customs with regard to the right of
the youngest son to succeed to the father's property,
and these, he thinks, indicate a non-Aryan source.
But the matter is rendered practically a certainty,
if we summon to our aid the physiologist. He finds
the British nation divided into two or more races.
These are, at the least, the small dark-skinned race
and the fair-skinned race. “All the Celts,” says
Mr. Elton, “according to a remarkable consensus
of authorities, were tall, pale, and light-haired.”
The dark-skinned race evidently belong to a different
race from the Celts, and when we consider that
Europe has been inhabited for several thousand years,
and that men have existed here who used stone
weapons, and thereafter bronze, before iron came
into vogue, which it probably did along with the
Celts, we must believe that there was a race before
the Celts in Europe, who used stone and bronze
weapons. But the evidence does not stop here.
From the contents of the barrows and tombs of the
stone and bronze ages, it has been proved by the
skeletons and skulls that there were two races at
least previous to the Celts; one race being the dark-
skinned and small one already mentioned, with long
skulls ; the other with fair skin and hair and broad
skulls, a tall race, rough-featured, beetle-browed,
52 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
with the nose overhung at its root, heavy cheek-
bones, and prominent chin ; these last differing
much from the straight-faced, oval-headed men
who are recognised as Celts and Aryans. The dark-
skinned race of Britain is called the “Silurian,”
from the ancient tribe so named by Tacitus in the
Vale of the Severn, and described by him as “Iberian”
in appearance. The fair race Mr. Elton designates
the “Finnish,” from its apparent Finnish or Ugrian
affinities. The Picts would appear to be for the most
part of this race, doubtless, with a strong admixture
in after times of the pure Celtic stock. The
archaeologist, unfortunately, cannot help us much,
but it is believed that this Finnish race were the
builders of the huge stone monuments scattered
all over Europe—dolmens, cromlechs, and Druid
circles, while the barrows of both the ante-Celtic
races exist. -
The influence exerted by these previous races on
Celtic customs and religion must doubtless have
been considerable. “The strangeness of the ‘lower
mythology prevailing in Wales and Britanny
might afford some evidence in favour of its pre-
Celtic origin. But no country in Europe is free from
those gross Superstitions which seem to indicate
an underworld of barbarism and remnants of for-
gotten nations not wholly permeated by the culture
of the dominant races.” Professor Rhys goes so
far as to refer Druidism to the Silurian race, because
Caesar mentions Britain as the birthplace of that
WELSH AND GAELS 53
cultus, and it is of a character which he considers
non-Aryan. It is almost certain that second-sight
and other ecstatic moods must be referred to the pre-
Celtic races.
WELSH AND GAELS,
The second point in the internal history of the
Celts is the fact that the race is divided into two
great divisions, caused by the languages used by
each. The difference between Welsh and Gaelic
is very great, yet not so great as to preclude their
being classed as One race, making up One of the Aryan
branches. The difference between the two languages
can be traced as far back as history goes, and, by
monuments and inscriptions can be followed back
for two thousand years, when still the Gaelic race was
very different in language from the Welsh or British.
It would appear that the Celts overran Europe in
two successive waves of conquest. The first wave
was the Gaelic one ; it was followed by the Welsh—
we may rather call it the Gaulish wave. The Gauls
pushed the Gaels from France into Britain and
Ireland, and then followed them into Britain. When
British history begins with the Christian era, France
and Belgium were Gaulish or Welsh-speaking, and
so also was the Eastern part of England, and the
Scotch Lowlands ; while Cornwall and Devon, most
of Wales, Cumberland, Galloway, and the surround-
ing counties, north of the Forth, and all Ireland
54 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
belonged to the Gaels. It must be remembered
that a good portion of the population north of the
Grampians were probably non-Celtic. By the end
of the seventh century of this era no Gael lived in
England ; the British tribes had been driven back
to the corners of the country by the Saxons, and they
absorbed the old Gaelic population. Ireland was
still altogether Celtic, and so remained practically
till the I3th century and later.
The last wave of the Celts was in its turn pressed
on from two sides. First the Romans overran
and garrisoned Gaul, and then England, which they
kept for four hundred years, much as we keep India
at present. Then the Teutonic nations pressed
on France from the north, conquered it and were
absorbed ; while in England they conquered and
absorbed the old population, leaving the old Welsh
population to , the western shores. The eastern
portion of Ireland was conquered and settled in,
and the rest has been gradually falling under the
sway of the English tongue. The Celtic-speaking
peoples at present are the Bretons of Britanny,
the Welsh, the Irish, and the Highlanders. The
total number who can understand a Celtic tongue
is, according to M. Sebillot, three millions and a
half (Rev. Celt., iv., 278).
CELTIC CHARACTERISTIcs.
Of the physical characteristics of the Celts, except
to show unity or diversity of descent, it would be
CELTIC CHARACTERISTICS. 55
needless to speak in discussing their mythology ;
but there are so many Irish legends bearing upon
the early ethnology of these islands, with continual
reference to small dark men, tall brown-haired and
fair-haired races, that it is necessary to at least.
glance at the question. The unanimity of ancient
opinion in making the Celts tall and fair-haired
has already been noticed, and in the myths the ideal
of beauty is, as a rule, what is told of the summer
isles of the West, where dwelt a divine race of the
pure Celtic type, “long-faced, yellow-haired hunters”
and goddesses with hair like gold or the flower of the
broom. Another type of beauty was recognised :
Peredur or Percival of Wales, as well as the lady
Deirdre of Irish story, would have no consort unless
the hair was black as the raven's wing, the skin as
white as snow, and the two red spots in the cheeks
as red as the blood of the bird which the raven was
eating in the snow. But, “if you look at the Celtic
countries,” says the author of “Loch-Etive and the
Sons of Uisnach,’’ ‘‘ that is, countries in which
Celtic was spoken in old time, or is spoken now, you
find a predominance of dark hair.” There would
seem, therefore, to have been a decided change in
the colour of the hair among the Celts since the
times of Caesar and Tacitus ; but whether this is due
to mingling of races or is connected with a higher
nervous activity, for fair-haired children become
dark-haired as the nervous system becomes more
active by years, is a question which, though im-
56 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
portant for the mythologist to know in its bearing
On the migration and borrowing of myths and
manners, yet cannot be decided in the present state
of knowledge. We have still among us the remnants
of the small dark people, and, if Professor Rhys
is right, the Highlands must mostly in race be of
the fair Finnish type that anteceded the Celts, with
just sufficient of the Celtic conqueror among them
as to take his language and general manners.
There, is, however, a more wonderful agreement
in the mental characteristics formerly attributed
to the Celts with what we now regard as the Celtic
character. Roman writers have noticed their won-
wonderful quickness of apprehension, their im-
pressibility and great Craving for knowledge, qualities
which have rendered the Celt a very assimilable
being in the fusion of races. They were generous
to a degree ; prompt in action, but not very capable
of Sustained effort. Caesar is never tired speaking
Of the “mobilitas ''-changeableness—of the Gauls,
and also of their “celerity,” both mental and physical.
Another feature noticed from the very first, and still
noticeable in the Celts, is their fondness for colour;
“ loudness,” we might say, both in colour and sound,
musical or other, has been especially attractive to
them. They appear in flaming tartan dresses before
the walls of Rome in 390 B.C., as we see from both
Livy and Virgil. “They wear,” says Diodorus
Siculus, a writer of the Ist century, B.C., “bracelets
and armlets, and round their necks thick rings, all
CELTIC CHARACTERISTICS. 57
of gold, and costly finger rings, and even golden
corselets; they have dyed tunics, flowered with
colours of every kind, and striped cloaks fastened
with a brooch, and divided into numerous many-
coloured squares.” In this description we have the
tartan, but unfortunately the kilt had not yet made
its appearance ; the Gauls and ancient Britons
actually wore tartan trousers | Their love of orna-
ment and colour appears strongly in the mythic
tales equally of Wales, Ireland, and the Highlands;
indeed, so rich is the description in one Welsh tale
that at the end of it we are told that “no one knows
the ‘Dream of Rhonabwy without a book, neither
bard nor gifted seer ; because of the various colours
that were on the horses, and the many wondrous
colours of the arms, and of the panoply and of the
precious Scarfs, and of the virtue-bearing stones.”
We can trace among the Celts the same succession
of political life that we find in some of the other
Aryan nations, notably the Greeks and the Romans.
The patriarchal system of Aryan times had given
place on European Soil to kings, who were merely
larger editions of the patriarch of old. They were
kings of the Homeric type ; for the Irish kings are
not accurately represented in the lives of the saints
as Pharaohs surrounded with Druids and magicians.
The king consulted the chiefs beneath him, and the
people, after this consultation, were told of his
pleasure, but could Only, apparently, murmur
approval or disapproval. In the course of time,
E.
58 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
the chiefs abolished the kingly power, and conducted
matters themselves as an oligarchy, often Cruelly
oppressing the common people. In Greece, the
oligarchy was overthrown by some clever man who
sided with the common people and, through them,
made himself “ tyrant,” as they called it. The
last step was the abolition of tyranny and the Setting
up of a democracy. Rome shows much the same
historical sequence, only the tyrant does not appear ;
the oligarchy extended some privileges to the com-
mons, and a sort of union was established, which,
however, in the end, failed, and gave place to an
Imperial sway. Among the Gauls we have distinct
traces of all these phenomena," though,” as Pro-
fessor Rhys says, “no Gaulish erodotus or Livy
was found to commit them to the pages of history.”
Gaul would appear to have just passed through the
stage when tyrants and oligarchs were struggling
with the people ; for Caesar found everywhere “the
sulking and plotting representatives of the fallen
dynasties, and readily turned them into use, either
in bringing information about what was going on
in the senates of the peoples who had expelled their
ancestors from the office of king, or in keeping their
States in Subjection by appointing them kings in
the room of their fathers and under Roman pro-
tection.” No wonder then that Caesar tells us that
Gaul was torn asunder by factions. Britain had
yet retained its kings, and appears to have lost
them only when the Island was conquered by the
CELTIC CHARACTERISTICS. 59
Romans. Ireland had its five kings even within
historic times; and the history of Scotland during
the Stuart period shows how nearly an oligarchy
came to rule this country.
The Old Celtic population of both Gaul and Britain
appears to have been very prosperous. They were
excellent farmers, but their chief riches lay in their
cattle ; and their food, especially in Britain, was
mostly flesh, milk, and cheese. Posidonius, in the
first century before Christ, has left us a description
of a Gaulish banquet which is important as reflecting
light on the myths and tales of later Irish times.
He was delighted at the antique simplicity of his
entertainers, and amused at their Gallic frivolity
and readiness for fighting at meal times. “They
were just like the people in Homer's time.” The
guest was not asked his name or the purpose of his
journey until the feast was over. They sat on a
Carpet of rushes or on the skins of animals in front
of little tables. There was plenty of meat, roast
and boiled, which they ate, after the fashion of lions,
gnawing the joint, but they would at times use
their small bronze knives, kept in a separate sheath
by the side of the sword. Beer was their drink,
which they poured through their long moustaches
like water through a sieve or funnel. “The minstrels
Sang and the harpers played, and, as the Company
drank, they bowed to the right in honour of their
god. The guests sat in three rings—nobles, shield-
bearers, and javelin-men—all in order of their pre-
6O CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
cedence.” If they quarrelled about the food, they
would get up and fight it to the death ; and some-
times the guests were entertained with swordplay,
and sometimes even a man would consent to die
to amuse the rest, so careless were they of life. Their
Conduct and appearance in battle and in the chase
are no less important for us to notice. “We seem,”
says Mr. Elton, “to see the Brigantian soldier, with
his brightly-painted shield, his pair of javelins and
his sword hilt as white as the whale's-bone :
his matted hair supplied the want of a helmet, and
a leather jerkin served as a cuirass. When the line
Of battle was formed, the champions ran out to
insult and provoke the foe ; the chiefs rode up and
down on their white chargers shining in golden
breastplates, others drove the war chariots along the
front, with soldiers leaning out before their captain
to Cast their spears and handstones : the ground
shook with the prancing of horses, and the noise of
the chariot wheels. We are recalled to scenes of
old Irish life which so strangely reproduce the world
Of the Greek heroes and the war upon the plains of
Troy. We see the hunters following the cry of the
hounds through the green plains and sloping glens;
the ladies at the feast in the woods, the game roasting
On the hazel-spits, fish and flesh of boar and badger,’
and the great bronze cauldrons at the fireplace in
the cave. The hero, Cuchulain, passes in his chariot
brandishing the heads of the slain ; he speaks with
his horses, the Gray and ‘Dewy-Red,” like Achilles
THE GAULISH RELIGION. 6I
on the banks of Scamander. The horses, in Homeric
fashion, weep tears of blood and fight by their
master's side ; his sword shines redly in his hand,
the “light of valour 'hovers round him, and a goddess
takes an earthly form to be near him and to help
him in the fray.”
THE GAUL|SH RELIGION.
The religion of the Gauls is the only Celtic religion
of which we have any description, such as it is, left.
Now, we should be justified in assuming that the
Gaulish religion is fairly representative of what the
old religion of the British and Irish Celts was, even
though we had not Tacitus' direct testimony to this
being the case. The descriptions we have of the
Gaulish religion are sufficiently meagre. Three
chapters of Caesar, a few lines from Diodorus, Mela,
and Strabo, some scattered allusions in Pliny,
fifteen lines from Lucan, and a statement from the
Greek Timagenes reproduced in Ammianus Mar-
cellinus, are practically all our authorities. The
statues and inscriptions preserved to our time are
almost our only authority for the names of the deities;
while the calendar of the Church saints, local
festivities and traditions, render some little help
in this and also in matters of ritual.
Caesar's sketch of the Gaulish pantheon, though
meagre, is yet the best. We owe it entirely to the
fact that for practical purposes the Gaulish religion
62. CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
was much the same as the Roman, with the exception
of Druidism, which he doubtless saw would be a
source of danger, unless it could be assimilated to
Roman ideas and practices. We are, therefore,
prepared, from our knowledge of the Aryan descent
of the Celts, to believe what Caesar says when he
writes that the ideas of the Gauls with regard to the
gods were much the same as those of other nations,
meaning especially Romans and Greeks. He tells
us that the god most worshipped was Mercury;
that is to say, the Gaulish god was not named
Mercury, but corresponded in his attributes to that
Roman deity. Caesar, unfortunately, does not
record the native names for these deities. They
regarded Mercury as the inventor of arts, presiding
over trade and commerce, and means of communi-
cation between people. After him came the deities
answering to the Roman Apollo, Mars, Jupiter,
and Minerva; Apollo drove away diseases, Minerva
taught the useful arts of life, Jupiter held the sway
of Heaven, and Mars ruled the department of war.
To Mars they would vow what they should capture
in war, and when they conquered they would sacrifice
the cattle, and heap up the other wealth in mounds,
in consecrated places, and no one would dare touch
or steal these treasures, both from fear of the gods
and from the extreme cruelty of the punishment
that would follow detection. Caesar also notices
a feature of Celtic character which is still persistent
in the race. The nation, he says, is very much
THE GAULISH RELIGION. 63
given to religious matters. And on this account,
he proceeds, those who are affected with diseases
of a rather serious character, and those who are in
great dangers, either sacrifice human beings, or
make a vow to that effect ; and at these sacrifices
they employ the Druids. They think, he says,
that the Deity cannot be appeased unless human
life is given up for human life, and they have even
national sacrifices of this kind. They make huge
images of wickerwork, inside which they place human
beings alive ; and this they set on fire, and the
victims perish. Generally the victims are criminals,
but if criminals are wanting, they have recourse to
innocent persons. These human sacrifices seem
horrible to our modern minds, and to the Romans,
though familiar with the idea of human sacrifice,
for in the time of the Second Punic war, they, them-
selves, resorted in their religious terror to the sacri–
ficing of a male and female Gaul, and it was not until
the Ist century before Christ that the Senate formally
forbade such sacrifices even in Rome—to the Romans
even the Gauls appeared reckless in their massacres,
such occurring, too, when there did not appear to
be any special danger. Strabo says that it was a
tenet of the Druids that the harvest would be rich
in proportion to the richness of the harvest of death.
Another article of the Gaulish creed is given by
Caesar. The Gauls, he says, assert that they are
all sprung from Pluto (the god of the lower world),
for so the Druids teach. Hence, therefore, they
64 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
reckon by nights instead of days. In regard to
the belief which Caesar records, it is probably only
a mythical way of recording a belief common to
most nations in their barbarous state, that they are
the aboriginal inhabitants and sprung from the
soil on which they dwell. As to the Gauls reckoning
by nights instead of days, Caesar is scarcely right in
tracing to it the belief that they are sprung from
Pluto ; the Greeks originally thus counted their time,
and the Germans also computed their time the same
way, just as we still speak of fortnights and “sen-
nights,” while the Welsh word for week, wythmos,
means “eight-nights.” The mythical meaning of
the custom is quite clear ; the night was supposed
to give birth to the day and the sun ; for Chaos is
before Kosmos, Night before Day, in mythology.
Hence the night is before the day in the order of
time. This fact is embodied in the well-known
Gaelic expression, “ Thig an oidhche roimh ºn latha,”
which applies to all the festivals of the calendar,
with the exception of that referred to in the other
phrase, “An Inid bheadaidh, thig an latha roimh.
'n Oidhche.”
We have thus seen from Caesar that in the Gaulish
religion a Pluto reigned in darkness, and a Jupiter
in heaven ; that Mars was the lord of war ; that
Apollo, Mercury, and Minerva brought precious
gifts to mankind. The poet Lucan has preserved
to us, though in an obscure fashion, the names of
three Gaulish gods in the celebrated lines—
THE GAULISH RELIGION. 65
“Et quibus immitis placatur sanguine diro
Teutates horrensque feris altaribus Esus,
Et Taranis Scythicae non mitior Dianae.”
We have here the grim Teutates, Esus with fearful
sacrifices, and Taranis, whose altars were no less
cruel than those of Scythian Diana. Of Esus but
little can be said ; no trace of him exisits outside
Gaul, where statues and, at least, one inscription
bearing his name have been found. Teutates, likely
from the same root as the Gaelic tuath, people, has
been identified with various deities; probably he
was the war-god, defender of the people, at whose
altars captives poured forth their blood. It does
no appear that his name was used on British Soil ;
Mr. Elton thinks that his place in this country
was filled by “Camulus,” a word which appears
on British coins in connection with warlike emblems,
and is used as a compound in the names of Several
military stations of the Roman period. Taranis
was the Northern Jupiter, worshipped by the Britons,
also, under epithets derived from the words for
thunder and rain. He answers to the Norse god
Thor, the head of the “meteorological ‘’ gods, who
regulate the weather and the seasons—“ who can
withhold the rain and the dew, or blacken the
heavens with clouds and wind, or drive in the tempest
with chariot and horses of fire.” The Irish Dinn-
Senchus mentions this “thunder ’’ god as “Etirun,
an idol of the Britons.”
Two other names of deities are preserved to us in
66 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
the classical writers. Lucian speaks of a Sort of
Gaulish Hercules, represented as an old man drawing
a large multitude after him by cords fastened to their
ears and his tongue, and he was their god of letters
and eloquence, and they called him Ogmios. This
name appears afterwards as that of the Irish Sacred
or runic alphabet, so named from its inventor, Ogma,
the son of Elathan, evidently a degraded deity.
Again, one or two other writers mention the god
Belenus, a name common in inscriptions and in proper
names of persons. The inscriptions also give, ac-
cording to the Gallo-Romanic habit, the Latin God
as well, with whom he was identified : we have
such a combination often as Belenus Apollo, thus
making him the equivalent to the Roman Sun and
healing-god. This Belenus is the famous deity of
the Druids according to the school of Neo-Druidists,
the investigators into the system of the Druids,
lately rampant among us. As a rule, Belenus, or
rather Bel, as he was called by them, was identified
with the Phenician Baal, and no end of theories
were started on such suppositions. The word
Belenus may, however, be from the same root as
Apollo, and probably is from that root, as Mr.
Moberly has pointed out in his notes to Caesar. That
his worship was connected with solar rites is evident
from the manner in which Ausonius describes his
temple at Bayeux; but he was also especially
connected with health-giving waters and herbs
and was worshipped at medicinal resorts under
THE GAULISH RELIGION. 67
various local titles, the most important of which
are Borvo (Bourbon) and Grannus. The latter
title is doubtless connected with the Gaelic grian,
Sun, and it is interesting to note that an altar was
once found at Inveresk with the inscription, “Apollini
Granno,” which clearly shows the worship of this
Sun-god in ancient Scotland. It is probably in con-
nection with the service of Belenus that the cutting
of the mistletoe took place, as related by Pliny.
The passage is given either in full or in abstract
in almost all our School books of history, and it is
there wrongly given out as a “Druidic ’’ rite. It
is merely a case of herb worship, common to all
nations. The mistletoe is far more famous in
Teutonic Mythology, and the gallant rites at modern
Christmases are merely a remembrance of its ancient
efficacy as a preserver and defender from harm.
Pliny tells us that on the sixth day of the moon,
the commencement of the Gaulish month, a Druid
or priest, clothed in white, mounted the tree and cut
the plant with a golden sickle. It was received on
a white cloth, and two white bulls were sacrificed,
while the people burst forth in prayer for the favour
of the god. The mistletoe was supposed thus to be
a cure for sterility, and a safeguard against poisons.
This is just merely a form of fetishism.
The Gaulish inscriptions give us quite a host of
minor deities. The Roman system of assimilating
conquered peoples appears extremely well in these
inscriptions; in nearly every case the Roman deity
68 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
is given as the principal name to which is attached
as epithet the local Gaulish equivalent. We, there-
fore, meet w th combinations like these : “ Marti
Segomoni,” “Marti Caturigi,” “Mercurio Artaio,”
“Iovi Bagniati,” “Apollini Virotuti,” etc. The
Gaulish and British goddess, Belisama, is the most
important to notice ; she answered to the Latin
Minerva, goddess of arts, who, along with “Mercury,”
was the most human of all the deities of Gaul. The
goddesses of the healing springs were honoured as
the companions of Apollo. “ Divine beings every-
where mediated between man and heaven.” Foun-
tains, rivers, and hills had their deities, and the sea-
nymph of the Breton shore is still revered under the
title of St. Anne. Every village was protected by
local deities, with the generic title of “Matris '' or
“Mothers,” names which appear in great numbers
on the inscriptions, and which survive, we are told,
in mediaeval legends as the White Ladies, the “Three
Fairies,” the Weird Sisters, and the Wild Women
of the Woods. Some, again, of the lesser deities
appear as the giants of Our folk-tales. Such has
been the fate of “Gargantua,” an old Gaulish deity
of Normandy, whose festivals are not unknown yet,
and whose fame appears on the pages of Rabelais.
There were also innumerable private or family
gods, answering to the Roman Penates and Lares,
of whom inscriptions and statues testify.
DRUIDISM. 69
DRU |D|SM.
One feature of the Gaulish religion still remains
to be discussed, and that, too, perhaps its most
important one. We have discussed the religious
beliefs of the people, but not their ecclesiastical
polity. This is known as Druidism, although that
term is commonly made to include all that we know
of the Gaulish religion as well. But the Druids
were rather the philosophers and divines of the
Gauls; and, as what we know of their opinions
and practices is somewhat remarkable, it is better
not to confuse their system with the ordinary Aryan
religion of the Gauls. Here, again, it must be re-
peated that our information is meagre; in fact,
with regard to the Druids no less meagre, and far
more unsatisfactory than Our Comparatively poor
information about their general religion. Indeed,
with the addition of two chapters in Caesar, a sentence
in Cicero, and nigh a dozen lines of Lucan, our
authorities for Druidism are included in the enumera-
tion already made in regard to Gaulish religion in
general. No monuments or inscriptions can help
us, nor can we trust in the slightest degree the
references made to Druidism by early Irish or Welsh
writers: the Druids of Irish history are mere con-
jurors and magicians. Neither can any customs
or religious survivals be referred to Druidic belief
or usage. But it may be at the start premised that
7o CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
there is, perhaps, little to know, and that it is entirely
due to Caesar's account of them, probably itself
Somewhat exaggerated in its political aspect, and
certainly misread by modern writers under the
influence of their knowledge of mediaeval ecclesi-
asticism, that this exaggerated opinion of Druidism
is prevalent. So little is known, and the little that
is known is so interesting, that it opened quite a new
world for fancies and speculations. “Omne ignotum
pro magnifico est; ” the unknown passes for the
magnificent. Here was an unknown and un-
knowable land, where in circular temples of stone,
and mid groves of oak, in vestments of stainless
white, and Ornaments of glittering gold, stalked
majestically the Druids, holding high converse with
their disciples on the nature of the one God—for
such philosophers could only be monotheists l—on
the immortality of the soul, the courses of the stars,
and, in fact, on all the mighty problems of life.
Dr. Smith tells us that they alone kept the first
tradition of monotheism intact in the West ; and
Reynaud, but a generation ago, found in their
human sacrifices only the consequence of the idea,
dominant now as in the days of the Druids, that the
higher the victim the more complete the atonement
offered to the Deity for the sins of man. John
Toland, at the end of the I7th century, an Irishman
of fertile imagination and advanced Opinions,
possessed of no small learning, was the first to lead
the way into the undiscovered country of Druidism.
DRU IDISM. 7I
The references in Pliny were made to disclose a pomp
and ritual that could vie with the best days of the
Church of Rome; surplices of white—incidentally
worn, as may be seen from Pliny—were their usual
dress, with golden ornaments, sacrifice utensils and
amulets, all of gold. The megalithic monuments—
circles, cromlechs, and menhirs, were of course their
work—their temples and their altars, and these
also showed their knowledge of the mechanical
powers. Nay, cairns and barrows were Druidic
remains, and vetrified forts | Everything unex-
plained in archaeological monuments, in Social
customs, and in proverbial language must be Druidic.
Dr. Smith, of the “ Seann Dana,” followed Toland
and made a most unscrupulous use of his classical
authorities. Welsh and French writers took the
same view of the old religion of Gaul, and Celtomania
reigned supreme in this obscure region, until lately
the light of modern criticism was allowed to shine
through the overhanging mist of nonsensical specu-
lation.
All that can with certainty be known of the Druids
will first be briefly given, apart from any personal
theories. ... Caesar is again our first and best authority.
In the digression in his 6th book, on the manners
and customs of the Gauls and Germans, he tells
us that all men of any consideration or position
were included among either the Druids or the nobles.
The Druids conduct public and private sacrifices,
and interpret omens. Young men flock to them for
72 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
instruction ; and they are held in great honour ;
for they have the decision of all controversies, public
and private ; they are judges in cases of crime,
murder, and disputes in regard to succession or
boundaries ; and whoever abides not by their de-
cision is excommunicated—a most severe punish-
ment, for Such are reckoned sacrilegists, and men
flee from their presence for fear of disaster from
contact with them. A chief Druid presides over
them, having supreme authority. He may be
elected with or without voting, and they at times
resort to war to decide the matter. They meet
at an appointed time of the year in the territories
of the Carnutes, in the middle of Gaul, where there
is a consecrated place ; and there all come who
have disputes, and abide by their decisions. It is
thought that the system was founded in Britain, and
thence transferred to Gaul, and those who at the
present time wish to know it thoroughly, as a rule
proceed there to learn it. The Druids are wont to
hold aloof from war, and pay no taxes, being thus
free from military service and civil duties. Under
the inducement of such great rewards, many come
themselves into their ranks, or are sent by their
parents and friends. With them they learn off a
great number of lines of poetry, so that some remain
under training for twenty years. And they do
not regard it allowable by divine laws to commit
these things to writing, though in secular matters
they use Greek letters. The reason for this seems
DRUIDISM. 73
to be twofold, that they do not wish either their
system to be made public, or their pupils to fail to
cultivate their memory by trusting to writing, as
generally happens when books can be resorted to.
Their chief doctrine is that souls do not perish, but
pass after death from one individual to another,
and this—the removal of the fear of death—they
think the greatest incitement to valour. They
theorise largely on astronomy, on the size of the
universe and the earth, on nature, and on the power
and might of the gods, and in these matters they
instruct the youth. Caesar further on tells that the
Druids presided at the human sacrifices, and in the
7th book he gives us to know that the AEduan
magistrates, at least, were elected by them. Cicero,
in his treatise on “Divination,” written a few years
later, introduces his brother Quintus as saying :
“The principles of divination are not overlooked
among barbarous nations even, as, for instance, in
Gaul there are the Druids, one of whom Divitiacus,
the AEduan, I knew ; he was a guest of yours and
great in your praises. He professed to know natural
philosophy, which the Greeks call ‘physiology,’
and he used to tell partly by augury, partly by
conjecture, what was to happen in the future.”
Cicero's contemporary, Diodorus Siculus, tells
us that among the Gauls were bards, certain
philosophers and divines named Druids, and sooth-
sayers, adding that “the system of Pythagoras
held sway among them,” that is, the doctrine of the
F
74 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
transmigration of souls. To this doctrine Varelius
Maximus refers when he says: “One would have
laughed at these long-trousered philosophers [the
Druids], if we had not found their doctrine under
the cloak of Pythagoras.” Strabo, his contemporary
in the first century of our era, gives us a short account
of the Druids, half of which is but a variation of
Caesar’s sketch. “Amongst the Gauls,” he says,
“there are generally three divisions of men, especially
reverenced, the Bards, the Vates, and the Druids.
The bards composed and chanted hymns; the
Vates occupied themselves with the sacrifices and
the study of nature ; while the Druids joined to the
study of nature that of moral philosophy. The
belief in their justice is so great that the decision
both of public and private disputes is referred to
them, and they have before now by their decision
prevented battle. All cases of murder are particularly
referred to them. When there are plenty of these
they imagine there will be a plentiful harvest. Both
these and the others [Bards and Vates] assert that
the soul is indestructible and likewise the world,
but that fire and water will one day have the
mastery.” And further on he say; that without
the Druids the Gauls never sacrifice.3
Another geographer, Pomponius Mela, refers
to the Druids, but adds nothing to our knowledge,
merely echoing Caesar’s description. Lucan, who
died in 65, has been quoted in the former section
for the names of the Gaulish gods; but he further
DRUIDISM. 75
proceeds to describe, after a reference to the bards,
the barbarous rites of the Druids and their theology.
The passage is mostly an expansion of Caesar's re-
ference to the transmigration of souls, but the poet
beautifully brings out how “Pluto's gloomy reign ''
is not the habitation of souls, but that—
“Forth they fly immortal in their kind,
And other bodies in new worlds they find ;
Thus life for ever runs its endless race,
And like a line death but divides the space.
Thrive happy they beneath their northern skies,
Who that worst fear—the fear of death—despise ;
Hence they no cares for this frail being feel,
But rush undaunted on the pointed steel ;
Provoke approaching fate and bravely scorn
To spare that life which must so soon return.”
ºx
ſº.
* The writer on the Druids, next in importance to
Caesar, is Pliny the Elder. He has several interesting
allusions to them and their superstitions. At the
end of his I6th book he mentions the admiration
of the Gauls for the mistletoe. “The Druids,” he
says “ (for so they name their magi) hold nothing
more sacred than the mistletoe, and the tree on which
it grows, provided it be the oak. They choose
groves of that tree, and conduct no sacrifice without
a garland of its leaves, so that we may possibly
suppose the Druids are so called from its Greek
name [drus]. Whatever grows on the oak is con-
sidered a gift from heaven.” And he proceeds to
tell how it was culled from the tree, as has already
been told. Pliny mentions other plant superstitions
76 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
of the Gauls, connecting the rites naturally enough
with the Druids who presided. The next im-
portant fetish he mentions is the club-moss (selago);
it must be touched by no metal, but plucked by the
right hand passed through the tunic under the left,
with a thievish gesture ; the worshipper must be
dressed in white, with feet washed and bare ; and
the plant must be carried in a new cloth. The Druids
held that it was a charm against all misfortunes,
and the smoke of its burning leaves cured diseases
of the eye. In much the same way they thought
the “ samolus,” or water pimpernel, a talisman
against murrain in cattle. Vervain was another
plant, “about which the Gaulish magi raged,”
which cured everything, and had to be gathered
at the rise of the dog-star, and when neither Sun nor
moon was seen. But these plant superstitions
and ceremonies have nothing especially “Druidic ’’
about them ; they are Common among other nations
as well. Pliny’s account of the serpent’s egg—
the anguinum—is more important and special.
The snake's egg was said to be produced from the
frothy sweat of a number of Serpents writhing in an
entangled mass, and to be tossed up into the air
as soon as formed. . The Druid who was fortunate
enough to catch it in his cloak as it fell rode off at
full speed, pursued by the serpents, until stopped by
a running stream. If tried, the egg would swim
in water though cased in gold. Pliny says he saw
one himself, “about the size of a moderately large
DRUIDISM. 77
apple, with a cartilaginous rind, studded with
cavities like the arms of a polypus.” A Roman
knight was making use of it in court to gain an unfair
verdict, and for this was put to death by Claudius
the Emperor. And, lastly, in speaking of magic
and its “vanities,” he says that “ Britain celebrates
them to-day with such ceremonies that it might
seem possible that she taught magic to the Persians,”
and “Gaul was overrun with magic arts even up
to our own time, until Tiberius Caesar did away
with the Druids and this class of prophets and
medicine-men.” This passage has puzzled many
commentators, for if the Druids were done away
with, how does Pliny elsewhere mention them as
still existent in Gaul ? And to add to the difficulty,
Suetonius, a generation later, says that “Claudius
abolished entirely the religion of the Druids, a religion
of dreadful barbarity, and forbidden only the
Roman citizens under Augustus.” Pliny and
Suetonius do not agree as to which Emperor abolished
Druidism, nor can we well believe that it was alto-
gether abolished even then : it would appear that
only the human sacrifices and certain modes of
divination were put a stop to. Strabo, indeed,
Says as much ; and we can see from Tacitus that
the prophecies of the Druids incurred political wrath
as late as Vespasian's time—after the abolition of
Druidism, according to Pliny. Human sacrifices
and, probably, meddling in politics were sure to bring
the wrath of Rome on the system. Tacitus gives
78 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
us an insight of how at times the Romans did put a
stop to these phases of Druidism. In describing
the attack of the Romans on Mona, or Anglesea,
he represents the legions as awe-struck by the
appearance of the Druids amid their opponents'
ranks, pouring curses and vengeance on their heads,
with hands upraised to heaven. But they were rolled
in their own fires, and the groves sacred to grim
superstitions were cut down ; “for,” he adds, “they
hold it lawful to sacrifice captives at their altars
and to consult the gods from the movements of
human entrails.” After the first century, writers
speak of Druidism as a thing of the past ; evidently
the decrees of the Emperors had done away with
its fiercer elements of superstition, and the purer
and more philosophical parts had been absorbed
into the usual Roman faith. Christianity, at least,
had no contest with Druidism either in Gaul or in
England. It may be mentioned that Amminaus
Marcellinus, in the fourth century, gives us a few
lines on the old and long extinct Druidism. After
noticing the foundation of Marseilles by a Phocean
colony, he says that when the people in those parts
got gradually civilised, the learned studies which
had been begun by the bards, the Euhages (pro-
bably a corruption of Vates) and the Druids, throve
vigorously. Of these, he says, the Druids were the
intellectual superiors of the others, and were formed
into unions in accordance with the precepts of
Pythagoras, where deep and hidden problems were
DRUID ISM. 79
discussed, and looking from a lofty philosophic
pinnacle on human affairs, they pronounced human
souls immortal.
Such is the history of Druidism in Gaul and early
Britain : of its course in Ireland we have no direct
information. It is only when Christianity has been
long established, and Druidism a thing of the remote
past, that we have writers who speak of the Druids ;
and in their eyes the Druids were but magicians that
attended the courts of the pagan kings. The lives
of the pioneer saints, Patrick and Columba, are full
of contests between themselves and the royal
magicians, who are called in the Gaelic Druid and in
the Latin versions Magi. But in all the numerous
references to them in Irish chronicles and tales
there is no hint given of Druidism being either a
System of philosophy or religion : the Druids of Irish
Story are mere magicians and diviners, Sometimes
Only conjurors. But as such—as magicians—the
Druids play a most important part in Irish pagan
history, as chronicled by the long posterior Christian
writers. From the primaeval landing of Partholan
with his three Druids, to the days of Columba, we
have themselves and the bards exercising magic
and divining powers. The second fabled settlers
of Ireland, the Nemedians, meet the invading
Fomorians with magic spells ; but the fairy host
of the Tuatha De Dannan are par excellence the
masters of Druidic art. Their power over the forces
of Nature—over sea, wind, and storms—shows them
8O CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
plainly to be only degraded gods, who allow the sons
of Miled to land after showing them their power
and sovereignty as deities over the island. The
kings and chiefs had Druids about them to interpret
Omens and to work spells ; but there is no reference
to these Druids being a priestly class, and their power
was limited to the functions of mere divination and
Sorcery. Two of the most famous Druids were
Cathbadh, Druid of Conchobar Mac Nessa, the
instructor of Cuchulain, who, among many other
things, foretells the fate of Deirdre and the sons
of Uisnach, even before Deirdre was born ; and
Mogh Ruith of Munster, who single-handed opposed
Cormac and his Druids, and drove them by his
magic fire and storm-spells out of Munster. The
Druids of King Loegaire oppose St. Patrick with
their magic arts ; One of them causes snow to fall
so thickly that men soon find themselves neck-deep
in it, and at another time he brings Over the land an
Egyptian darkness that might be felt. But the saint
defeats them, even on their own ground, much as
Moses defeats the Egyptian magicians. St. Columba,
in Adamnan’s life of him, is similarly represented as
overcoming the spells of the northern Druids.
Broichan, Druid to King Brude, caused such a storm
and darkness on Loch-Ness that the navigation
appeared impossible, until the Saint gave orders
that the sails should be unfurled and a start made.
Then everything became calm and settled. "We are
also told in many instances how the Druids worked
DRUIDISM. 8I.
these spells. A wisp of hay, over which an incan-
tation was made, when cast on a person, caused
idiocy and deformity. The Druidic wand plays
an important part, a blow from it causing trans-
formations and spells. It must be remarked, too,
that the wood used for wands and Druidic rites and
fires was not the Oak at all, as in Gaul : sacred
wood among the Irish Druids would appear to have
been the yew, hawthorn, and, more especially, the
rowan tree. Divination was an important feature
of Druidic accomplishments, and there were various
forms of it. Pure Druidic divination sometimes
consisted in watching the Druidic fire—how the
Smoke and flame went. Sometimes the Druid
would chew a bit of raw flesh with incantation or
“ oration ” and an invocation to the gods, and then
generally the future was revealed to him. Some-
times, if this failed, he had to place his two hands
upon his two cheeks and fall into a divine sleep, a
method known as “illumination by the palms of
the hands.” Fionn used to chew his thumb when
he wanted any supernatural knowledge. The bards,
too, were diviners at times, a fact that would appear
to show their ancient connection with the Druids.
The bardic divination is known as “illumination
by rhymes,” when the bard in an ecstatic state
pours forth a flood of poetry, at the end of which he
brings out the particular fact that is required to be
known. Connected with this is the power of poetic
satire. If a man refused a gift, the bard could
82 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
satirise him in such a way that personal injury
would result, such as blisters and deformities.
f Irish Druidism consists, therefore, merelv of wº
Jr.” 3. y y Of magic
and divination ; it is not a philosophy, nor a religion,
nor a system. It is quite true that we have, at least,
an echo now and then of the time when Druidism
in Ireland and Scotland was something different,
and when even human sacrifices were offered.
Columba, in commencing the building of his church
at Iona, addressed his followers in words which
clearly point to human sacrifice. “It is good for
us,” says he, “ that our roots should go under the
earth here ; it is permitted that one of you should go
under the clay of this island to hallow it.” The
Story goes on to say that Odran arose readily, and
spoke thus: “If thou shouldst take me, I am ready
for that.” Columba readily accepted his offer,
and “ then Odran went to heaven, and Columba
founded the church of Hi.” It is said that a human
being was slain at the foundation of Emain, the
mythic capital of Ulster; and in Nennius we have
a remarkable story told of King Vortigern. He was
trying to build a castle on Snowdon, but somehow,
though he gathered ever so much material, every
time it was “spirited " away during the night.
He sought counsel from his “magi’’ (the Irish
translation calls them Druids), and they told him
that he must find a child born without a father,
and must put him to death, and sprinkle with his
blood the ground where the castle was to stand.
DRUIDISM. 83
. . , ' ', " ", ,
-8 (, ; 2. -.
• -? . .
matter. I is said that Tigh-a-chnuic, Kilcoy, in
the Black Isle, had its foundation consecrated by
the slaughtºr of a stranger who chanced to be passing
when the House was to be built, but unfortunately
his ghost uſed to haunt the house until he was able
to disburdºn his woes to somebody, and he then
disappeareſ. st
The sum and result of our inquiry into Druidism
may be gizen in the words of Professor Rhys:–
“At the ime of Caesar's invasions, they were a
powerfule cash of men, monopolizing the influence
of soothsayers, magicians, and priests. But in
Gaul, under, the faint rays of the civilization of
Marseilles, and other Mediterranean centres, they
seem to have added to their other characters that of
philosophe;3, discoursing to the youths, whose edu-
cation was entrusted to them, On the stars and their
movements, on the world and its Countries, on the
nature of things, and the power of the gods.”
Whether the doctrine of the transmigration of souls
was really of native origin or borrowed from the
Greeks, must remain an open question. Some
think it unlikely that the central doctrine of Druidism
should have been derived so late in the history of
the nation, or derived at all, from a foreign source,
and they appeal to the fact that Britain was the home
of Druidism, a country which could have had little
intercoursed with Marseilles. But in connection
with this idea of its British Origin, it must be re-
84 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGICN.
membered that at a certain stage of Culture, nations
are apt to consider their neighbours, provided they
are in a lower stage of civilization, ſuch more
religious than themselves. The Romans always
believed the Etrurians to be more versedin religious
matters than themselves. So, too, the Gauls pro-
bably looked on British Druidism, with it, “pristine
grimness '' of practices, as the source of their own,
while in reality their own was doubtles an inde-
pendent but more enlightened development. Pro-
fessor Rhys considers Druidism to be of anon-Aryan
character, and calls it the religion of the pre-Celtic
tribes, from the Baltic to Gibraltar. Now, in what
we have left us recorded of Druidism there is ab-
Solutely nothing that can be pointed to as hon-Aryan.
The strong priestly caste presented to u; in Caesar,
as divided off from the nobles and the commons,
can be somewhat paralleled in the Hinduism of
India with its rigidly priestly caste of Brahmans,
who monopolised all religious rites. And Brah-
manism is an Aryan religion. Among the Gauls,
from the Superstitious cast of their minds, a priestly
class was sure to arise to a position of supreme
power. Their human sacrifices can be matched,
in some degree, by actual instances of such, and by
rites which pointed to them as previously existent,
among other Aryan nations, including those of
Greece and Rome; only here, as before, the im-
pressionable and superstitious character of the
|
Gauls drove them to greater excesses. The doctrine
CELTIC RELIGION IN BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 85
of the transmigration of the soul is a tenet of both
Brahmans and Buddhists, of Aryan India, and it
found its classical development in the views of the
Greek Pythagoras. The position and fame of the
Druids as magicians is, as Pliny points out, of the
same nature as those of the Magi of Aryan Persia.
Some again think it absurd that if the Druids
were such philosophers, as they are represented to
have been, they would be so superstitious as to
practise human sacrifices, and other wild rites.
But there is no incongruity in at once being philo-
Sophic and superstitious ; the human mind is very
hospitable in its entertainment of quite opposite
Opinions, especially in moral and religious matters ;
for there is a wide difference between theories of the
intellect and practices prompted by the emotions.
CELTIC RELIGION IN BRIT Al N AND
|RELAN D.
In tracing the history of Celtic religion, we have
established that the religion of the Gauls fully
represents the pagan religion of both the great
branches of the Celtic race—the Brythonic (Gauls
and Welsh) and the Goidelic (Gaelic races). From
Caesar's account of the religion of the Gauls to the
first native notices of even the history of Celtic
Britain and Ireland, there is practically a period
of a thousand years. During the interval, Chris-
86 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
tianity had established its sway, nominally at least,
Over the whole land, and paganism was for centuries
a thing of the past. It may, however, be remarked
that one or two Latin ecclesiastical histories appeared
in the eighth century—notably the works of Adamnan
and Bede, but we in vain scan the pages left us of
their works for any definite information as to the
previous religion. Gildas, a century before either
of these writers, makes only a passing reference to
the old faith. “I shall not,” says he, “enumerate
those diabolical idols of my country, which almost
Surpassed in number those of Egypt, and of which
we still see [circ. A.D. 560] some mouldering away
within or without the deserted temples, with stiff
and deformed features as was customary. Nor will
I call out upon the mountains, fountains, or hills,
or upon the rivers, which now are subservient to the
use of men, but once were an abomination and
destruction to them, and to which the blind people
paid divine honour.” Our knowledge of the local
development of Celtic religion in Britain and Ireland
cannot be obtained directly from contemporary
history : we have, it is true, some British inscriptions
of the Roman period, which give, mid a host of
minor and local deities, one or two important gods.
But our information must be drawn, nearly all,
from the heroic poems and tales, which do not date
much earlier than a thousand years ago ; and most
are far later than this period. For information
as to the ritual of the old religion, local customs
BRITISH RELIGION. 87
and superstitions—Beltaine bannocks and Samhuinn
fires—form our only guides. -
It will also be necessary to discuss separately the
remains of the religion of the early Welsh and the
early Gaels. The religion of the former we shall
name “ British,” of the latter, “Gaelic.” And it
must be remembered that the Welsh are doubtless
the remnant of the Gaulish population which, about
the time of the Roman conquest, must have occupied
England (except Cornwall and Wales) and Low-
land Scotland. Gaul and England had, therefore,
practically the same people and language in the first
century of this era, and there now remain of them
still speaking the language, the Bretons of France
and the Welsh of Wales, from which country they
drove out or absorbed the previous Gaelic popu-
lation in the fifth century of our era, or thereabouts.
The “Gaelic Religion * will include the early religion
of Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland.
BRITISH RELIGION.
The gods of Britain suffered what appears to have
been the “common lot ” of gods; they were changed
into the kings and champions, the giants and en-
chanters, of heroic tales and folk-lore. In the words
of the poet –
“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.”
88 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
3.
The great deity, “Belinus,” appears in the pages of
Geoffrey of Monmouth, as a mere mortal conqueror.
In company with his brother, Brennus or “ Bran,”
he marched to the siege of Rome, when “Gabius
and Porsena ’’ were consuls l Gargantua appears
twice as a British King, under the title of Gurgiunt.
Camulus, the war-god, who gave his name to
Camulodunum, now Col-chester, is presented as
Coel Hen, “Old King Coul' of the song, who gave
his name to the Aryshire district of Kyle. The god,
“Nodens,” is the Nudd of Welsh, and King Nuada,
of Irish story ; and Lir, the sea-god, is immortalised
in the pages of Shakespeare as an old British king,
Some of the gods fight under Arthur's banner, and
perish on the battlefield of Camlan, along with him.
There, is, consequently, a considerable amount of
confusion in the Welsh tales, which does not appear
in the more consistent tales of Ireland. Probably,
there were kings of the names of Beli, Coel, Urien,
and Arthur, and there certainly were kings and
chiefs, of the names of Brennus, Cassibelaunus,
and Caractacus, but their history is irretrievably
mixed up with that of deities and demigods, possessed
of similar names. Thus, Bran the Blessed, is a son
of Lir, a personage of Such gigantic proportions
that no house could hold him, and evidently a
degraded god, possibly a war-god. He next appears
as father of Caradoc, for whom he is sent as hostage
to Rome, when the latter is conquered by Claudius.
In Rome he is converted to Christianity, which he
BRITISH RELIGION. 89
introduced into Britain, and hence his name of
“Bran the Blessed.” And again he is brother of
Belinus, and the same as the Brennus of the Roman
historians, who sacked Rome in B.C. 390. It is,
therefore, a matter of great difficulty to take either
history or myth out of the confusion in Welsh poetry
and tradition, caused by a little knowledge of
classical and Biblical history, a history which is
interwoven with native myths and facts.
The inscriptions of Roman times show that the
religious condition of Britain then differed in no
respect from that of Gaul. The local deities were
assimilated to the corresponding deities of Rome,
and we have in Britain combinations like those
met with in Gaul : the Roman deity has the corres-
ponding British name attached to him on the votive
inscription by way of epithet. Thus, at Bath, altars
are dedicated to Sul-Minerva, Sul being a goddess
unknown elsewhere. On the Roman wall, between
the Forth and Clyde, the name of Mars-Camulus
appears on the inscriptions, among many others
to the “genii " of the places, the spirits of “the
mountain and the flood,” and to “Sancta Britannia ''
and “ Brigantia,” the goddesses of Britain and the
land of the Brigantes respectively. The most
interesting inscriptions were those found in the
temple of a god discovered at Lydney Park, in
Gloucestershire. One inscription bears to be to the
“great god Nodon,” which proves the temple to
have been dedicated to the worship of Nodon, a
G
90 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
god of the deep sea, figured on a bronze plaque
as a Triton or Neptune borne by sea-horses and
surrounded by a laughing crowd of Nereids. This
deity is identified with the legendary Nudd, known
in Welsh fiction only as the father of famous sons
and in Irish story as King Nuada of the Silver Hand,
who fought the two battles of Moytura, and fell
in the second before “ Balor of the Evil Eye,” the
King of the Fomorians.
Passing, however, to the Welsh legends and myths
preserved in the “Ancient Books of Wales '' and
in the prose “Mabinogion,” we can easily eliminate
three principal families of deities, the children of
“ Don,” of “ Nudd,” and of “ Lir.” Of these the
first are purely Welsh, the second—the children of
Nudd—have Irish equivalents both in name and
office, while the children of Lir belong equally to
both nations. The family of Don is evidently
connected with the sky and its changes. He has
given his name in Welsh to the constellation of
Cassiopeia, called Llys Don, the court of Don. The
milky way is named after his son, Gwydion, Caer
Gwydion, the city of Gwydion ; and his daughter
Arianrhod, “silver-circled,” inhabits the bright
circle of stars which is called the Northern Crown.
With the name Don may be compared that of the
father of the Irish hero Diarmat, son of Donn.
Gwydion is the greatest of enchanters—a prince of
the powers of the air. He can change the forms
of trees, men, and animals, and along with “Math,
BRITISH RELIGION. 9I
the son of Mathonwy,” his master, styled by Pro-
fessor Rhys, the Cambrian Pluto, though rather
a god of air than earth, he forms a woman out of
flowers. “They took the blossoms of the oak,
and the blossoms of the broom, and the blossoms
of the meadow-sweet, and produced from them
a maiden, the fairest and most graceful that man
ever saw.” Amaethon, the son of Don, is a hus-
bandman—doubtless a god of weather and crops.
He has a fight with Arawn, king of Annwn, or Hell,
for a white roebuck and a whelp, which he had
carried off from the realms of darkness. The battle
is known as the ‘‘ battle of the trees,” and in it
Gywdion, by his divinations, won the victory for his
brother, for he guessed the name of the person
in the ranks of his opponents, which had to be
guessed before either side won.
Nudd, like Don, is eclipsed by his family. He
appears to have been god of the deep and its treasures.
His son Gwynn, known always as Gwynn ap Nudd,
is the Welsh king of the Fairies in the widest sense
of the word. It would appear that Gwynn is no
less a person than the god of the next world for
human beings. He answers, therefore, to the king
of “Tir-nan-og,” “Land of Youth " of the Irish
legends, and “Tir-fo-Thuinn " of the Gaelic stories—
the land below the waves. The son of the deep-sea
god is naturally enough made lord Over the happy
realm under the waves of the west. Christian
bias, however, gave Gwynn a more sinister position.
92 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
We are told that God placed him over the brood
of devils in Annwn, lest they should destroy the
present race. A Saint of the name of Collen one
day heard two men conversing about Gwynn ap
Nudd, and saying that he was King of Annwn and
the fairies. “Hold your tongue quickly,” says
Collen, “these are but devils.” “Hold thou thy
tongue,” said they, “ thou shalt receive a reproof
from him.” And sure enough the Saint was sum-
moned to the palace of Gwynn on a neighbouring
hill top, where he was kindly received, and bid
sit down to a sumptuous repast. “I will not eat
the leaves of the trees,” said Collen ; for he saw
through the enchantments of Gwynn, and, by the
use of Some holy water, caused Gwynn and his
castle to disappear in the twinkling of an eye. The
story is interesting, as showing how the early mission-
aries dealt with the native gods. Gwynn, according
to St. Collen, is merely a demon. His connection
with the lower world is brought out by his fight
with Gwythyr, the son of Greidwal, for Cordelia,
the daughter of Lir or Lud. She is represented
as a splendid maiden, daughter of the sea-god Lir,
“ a blossom of flowering seas,” at once a Venus
and a Proserpine, goddess of the summer flowers,
for whom there is a fight between the powers of the
worlds above and below the earth respectively.
Peace was made between these two deities on these
these conditions : “ that the maiden should remain
in her father's house, without advantage to either
BRITISH RELIGION. 93
of them, and that Gwynn ap Nudd, and Gwythyr,
the son of Greidwal, should fight for her every first
of May, from thenceforth till the day of doom, and
that whichever of them should be conqueror then,
should have the maiden.”
We have thus discovered in Don and his children
the powers of sky and air, answering to Jove and
his Olympians of Classical Mythology : in Nudd
and his son Gwynn we have probably found the
powers that rule over the land of “shades,” corre-
sponding to Pluto or Dis; and we now come to
consider the third family of British deities, Lir and
his children, whom we shall find to be the British
and Gaelic equivalents of Neptune, the sea-god,
and Aphrodite, “ daughter of the foam.” Lir,
or as the Welsh spell the name, Llyr, is the same as
the Gaelic lear, found in the Ossianic poems, and
signifying the “sea.” Lir is therefore the personi-
fication of the sea—the sea deified. He is a deity
common to both Britons and Gaels ; indeed, it may
rather be said that he is more properly a deity of
the Gaels transferred into the British pantheon.
The epithet Llediaith, or “half-speech,” that is,
“ dialect,” which is attached to his name, goes to
show that he was not a deity of native British origin.
We are therefore justified in considering Lir as the
sea deity of the ancient remnant of the Gaels still
surviving and maintaining their ground in Wales
in the fifth century, and represented as then expelled
by Cunedda and his sons. They were, however,
94 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
more probably slowly absorbed by the Welsh, who
were then pressed westwards by the Saxons. All
the legends preserved in Welsh, connected with Lir
and his family, point to a strong Gaelic influence,
if not to a Gaelic origin. Of Lir himself nothing
is said in the Welsh legends beyond his being the
father of so many children ; in Ireland he is repre-
sented as striving for the sovereignty of the Tuatha-
De-Dannan, the Gaelic gods, with Bove Derg, son
of the Dagda, and, when defeated in his aspirations,
as retiring to Sidh-Fionnachaidh. Here he leads
the life of a provincial chief, and all else that we
know of him is the cruel transformation of his four
children by their wicked aunt and stepmother.
Lir has also another name ; at least he must have
had another name, or else Manannan, his son, and
Cordelia, his daughter, must each have had two
fathers. In some traditions they are both repre-
sented as the children of Llud. The same confusion,
of course, appears in the Irish genealogy of Man-
nanan ; for the most part he is known as the son of
Lir, but in the genealogies he is set down as the son
of Alloid, doubtless the Original, or, at least, the
equivalent of Llud. Professor Rhys thinks that
Llud stands for Nudd, the N changing into Ll, because
Llud also received the title of Llaw Ereint, “silver-
handed,” just as the Irish King Nuada did ; and the
principle of alliteration required the changing of
Nudd Llaw Ereint into Llud Llaw Ereint. And
Nudd, besides, was somehow a god of the sea ;
BRITISH RELIGION. O5
what was the necessity of two chief sea-gods P. We
have interpreted Nudd as a god of the “land under
the waves,” and not as the sea-god proper ; and,
again, the Irish Alloid is distinctly against any
such change of letters as Nudd into Llud, besides
its being otherwise far from probable that such a
change should occur on any principle of alliteration.
Lir, under the name of Llud, is, in the histories
and tales the brother of Cassibelaunus, Caesar’s
opponent, and in his reign Britain was troubled with
three direful plagues: the Coranians, a people
“whose knowledge was such that there was no
discourse upon the face of the Island, however it
might be spoken, but what, if the wind blew it, it
was known to them ; ” second, a shriek that oc-
curred every May eve, that created all kinds of
terrors and horrors; and, third, the king's winter
provisions disappeared every year when stored.
From these plagues the wisdom of his brother
Llevelys freed King Llud. Lir appears in the pages
of Geoffrey of Monmouth as an old British king,
who reigned long before Llud, and who had three
daughters, whose story forms the groundwork of
Shakespeare's tragedy of King Lear.
Manannan, the son of Lir, is in the Welsh Myths
one of the seven—that mystical number, so common
in the old Welsh poems—who escaped from Ireland
on the death of his brother, Bran, the blessed, king
of Britain. Returning with the head of Bran, the
seven heroes found the throne usurped by Cassibel-
96 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
aunus and retired to Harlech, where the birds of
Rhiannon kept them enchanted by their music
for seven years; and after this they feasted for
eighty years more at Gwales in Penvro, from which
place they set out to London and buried Bran's head
with its face to France. As long as Bran's head was
left there facing France no invasion of Britain could
be successful. Unfortunately Arthur exhumed the
head, declaring that he would maintain the country
against any foe without need of supernatural safe-
guard. In his subsequent career Manannan is seen
to be a deity who presides over arts and commerce,
a god who is “deep in counsel.” He and another
of the mythic seven wander about doing artificers’ .
work ; he successively tries saddle-making, shoe-
making, and shieldmaking, trades in which he out-
distances all competitors as a matter of course.
From the Irish accounts of him, Manannan Mac Lir,
appears to be a god of sea and wind. Cormac, Arch-
bishop of Cashel, of the ninth century, describes
him in his glossary like a true Euhemerist, as “Man-
annan mac lir, a renowned trader who dwelt in the
Island of Man. He was the best pilot in the west
of Europe. Through acquaintance with the sky
he knew the quarter in which would be fair weather
and foul weather, and when each of these two seasons
would change. Hence the Scots and the Britons
called him a god of the sea, and hence they said he
was son of the sea, that is, mac lir, son of the sea.’”
Manannan is otherwise represented as one of the
BRITISH RELIGION. 97
Tuatha-De-Dannan chiefs. He was the possessor
of that wonderful steed mentioned in the story of
the “children of Tuireann.” Luga of the Long
Arms “ rode the steed of Manannan Mac Lir, namely
Enbarr of the Flowing Mane : no warrior was ever
killed on the back of this steed, for she was as swift
as the cold clear wind of spring, and she travelled
with equal ease on land and on sea. He wore Man-
annan's coat of mail ; no one could be wounded
through it, or above it or below it. He had on his
breast Manannan's breast-plate, which no weapon
could pierce. Manannan's sword, The Answerer,
hung at his left side ; no one ever recovered from its
wound ; and those who were opposed to it in the
battle-field were so terrified by looking at it that
their strength left them and they became weaker
than women.” In the curious story called the
“Sick-bed of Cuchulainn,” Manannan is represented
as a fairy chief who deserts his fairy bride Fand,
but Fand is helped and loved by Cuchulainn, mortal
though he was. Manannan on discovering this,
returns to his wife and shakes his magic cloak between
her and Cuchulainn,” so that they should never
meet again. This magic cloak had also the effect
of producing forgetfulness of the past. Of Man-
annan, Mr. Elton says: “ In him we see personified
the splendour and swiftness of the sun ; the god
rushes over the waves like a ‘wheel of fire and his
three-legged shape recalls the giant strides of Vishnu.
He was the patron of traffic and merchandise. The
98 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
best weapons and jewels from across the sea were
thought to be gifts from the god.”
Branwen, “white-bosom,” the daughter of Lir,
is the central figure of the most tragic of Welsh
myths. She is married to Matholwch, King of
Ireland, who treats her badly. Her brother Bran,
coming to know of it, invades Ireland. The Irish
yield, and build a house big enough for Bran to enter
into, a thing he never hitherto could get, so enormous
was his size. But the Irish had decided to murder
their guests at the first feast in the great house.
The cleverness of one of Bran’s men foils their pur-
pose ; there is, however, a general slaughter, in which
the Irish have at first the best of it, for they possess
a Cauldron, into which, when any one is dipped that
is dead, he comes to life hale and sound. But the
cauldron is discovered by the already-mentioned
One of Bran's men, and he breaks it. Bran is killed,
and only seven return of his people to Wales. The
story as a whole is a very widely-spread one ; it
appears in about a dozen forms in Teutonic lands—
the Volsung Saga and the Nibelung story being the
most famous forms of it. Probably there are in
the myth the evidences of a time when Celt and
Teuton lived not too amicably together on the banks
of the Rhine, a supposition which would obviate
the necessity of supposing the Celtic version a
borrowed one, inferior though it may be in some
details. Another legend represents Branwen or
Brangwaine as helping the loves, illicit though they
BRITISH RELIGION. 99
be, of Tristram and Iseult. It is she that hands to
Tristram the fateful love-potion which binds him
irrevocably to Iseult. Hence Mr. Elton considers
her the Venus of the Northern Seas. Indeed the
Sea was poetically named “ the fountain of Venus,”
according to the Iolo MSS. ; and a verse in the
“Black Book of Carmarthen * gives this stanza :-
“Accursed be the damsel
Who, after the wailing,
Let loose the Fountain of Venus, the raging deep.”
From this we can easily understand how Branwen
may be Venus and daughter of the sea-god as well,
just as Aphrodite was sprung from the foam of the
Sea. Cordelia, another daughter of Lear or Llud,
has already been mentioned as the resplendent
summer goddess for whom the powers of air and the
shades fight every May-day till the day of doom.
In the remarkable Mabinogi entitled “ Kilhwch
and Olwen,” so full of mythologic lore, we can see
the true character of at least one of Arthur's knights.
This is his seneschal Kai. From the references
in this mythic tale, it could alone be proved that
Kai was no less than the British Vulcan, the fire-god.
“ Kai,” says the tale, “ had this peculiarity, that
his breath lasted nine nights and nine days under
water, and he could exist nine days and nine nights
without sleep. A wound from Kai's sword no
physician could heal. Very subtle was Kai. When
it pleased him he could render himself as tall as the
highest tree in the forest. And he had another
tº ſº
* * * e
©
IOO CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
i
*
...
i
:
*
;
peculiarity : so great was the heat of his nature
that when it rained hardest, whatever he carried
remained dry for a handbreadth above and a hand-
breadth below his hand ; and when his companions
were coldest he was to them as fuel with which to
light their fire.” Such was Arthur's steward
Hephaestus and Vulcan do equally mean duties
in the halls of Olympus. The gods laugh heartily
at the limping gait and ungainly appearance of
Hephaestus as he hands round the cup of nectar.
So is Kai often the butt of Arthur’s knights. Another
of Arthur's knights may be mentioned as probably
a degraded war deity. Owain, the son of Urien
Rheged, is never mentioned in the older poems and
tales without reference to his army of ravens, “which
rose as he waved his wand, and swept men into
the air and dropped them piecemeal on the ground.”
We are here reminded of the Irish war goddess who
SO Often appears as, and is indeed named, the “scald-
Crow ’’ (Badb). Odin, too, has his ravens to consult
with, and to act as his messengers. Many others
of Arthur's heroes partake of the same mythical
type ; of Arthur himself we shall speak again in
considering the Celtic hero-tales. At present, it
is sufficient to say that Arthur is, at least, as mythical
as any of the rest we have mentioned.
Nor must we overlook Caridwen, who is considered
even by the Welsh themselves, their goddess of
nature. She is possessed of a cauldron of “inspir-
ation and science,” which, as Mr. Nutt points out,
BRITISH RELIGION. IOI
may be regarded as a symbol of the reproductive
power of the earth. It is doubtless this same
cauldron that has appeared in the story of Branwen
the daughter of Lir: when the dead heroes were
plunged into it they were resuscitated. The Tuatha-
De-Dannan were possessed in Scythia of a similar
cauldron, similarly employed. Caridwen, the tale
says, set her cauldron to boil, and placed Gwion
Bach, the dwarf, and the blind Morda to watch it,
charging them not to suffer it to cease boiling for a
year and a day. Towards the end of the year, three
drops of the boiling liquor spluttered out upon the
hand of Gwion, and suddenly putting his hand in
his mouth because of the heat, the future and
present were revealed to him. The cauldron burst,
the fairy returned, and Gwion had to run for his
life. Pursued at once by Caridwen, he changed
himself into a hare and fled. But she changed her-
self into a greyhound and turned him. And he ran
towards the river and became a fish ; she took the
form of an otter and gave chase. He then became
a bird, and she a hawk, and as she was Swooping
down upon him he fell among a heap of wheat and
became one of the grains. She, however, became
a high-crested black hen, Scratched the heap, found
him, and swallowed him. He was thereafter born
as a beautiful boy, whom Caridwen had not the
heart to kill. She put him in a leather sack, and
cast him into the sea. Being washed ashore, he was
discovered, and brought to Prince Elphin, to whom
IO2 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
he immediately, child though he was, began to sing
most elegant poetry. This youthful poet was none
else than Taliesin, “prince of song, and the chief
of the bards of the west.” The poems ascribed
to Taliesin have been called the romance of metem-
psychosis. “The Druidical doctrine of the trans-
migration of souls is thought to be hidden in the
poet’s account of his wonderful transformations.”
A specimen or two out of many such may be
quoted.—
“I have been in a multitude of shapes,
Before I assumed a consistent form,
I have been a sword narrow, variegated,
I have been a tear in the air ;
I have been the dullest of stars,
I have been a word among letters,
I have been a book in the origin.”
And again—
“I have been a sow, I have been a buck,
I have been a sage, I have been a snout,
I have been a horn, I have been a wild sow,
I have been a shout in battle.”
Evidently there is in these poems of Taliesin the
broken-down remembrance of the old Druidic cult.
True enough the poet does show a wonderful and
suspicious acquaintance with the “Metamorphoses ''
of Ovid and his account of Pythagorean doctrines,
as he also does with even Irish mythology, for he
speaks of his place in Caer Sidi, doubtless the Irish
Side, thus— -
“complete is my chair in Caer Sidi,
No one will be afflicted with disease or old age that may be in it.”
BRITISH RELIGION. IO3
Yet for all this, for all his mingling of Greek, Roman,
and Jewish history and myth, we may believe that
there is at bottom a germ of genuine Druidic in-
fluence, and of genuine Welsh myth. As a matter
of fact, the tale of the cauldron appears in the history
of the Gaelic counterpart of Taliesin–in the closing
scenes of Ossian's career, and not at the beginning,
as in Taliesin's case. Ossian, old and blind, tried
to recover his youth by magical means. He now
lived among little men who could not give him
food enough, and consequently he had a belt round
his waist with three skewers—dealg—in it to tighten
his stomach. He went out one day with his gillie
to hunt, and by Some supernatural means brought
down three remarkable deer. These he took home
and put in a cauldron to be cooked, bidding his gillie
watch them, and on no account to taste any of the
food. All went right for a time ; the deer were
cooked ; Ossian ate the first and let out one
shewer ; he ate a second and let out a second skewer ;
but as misfortune would have it, while the third
deer was simmering in the cauldron a drop of the
broth spurted out on the gillie's hand, which he
instantly put into his mouth. Ossian ate the third
deer and let out the third skewer, but no youth
returned to him. The licking of the little drop of
broth had broken the spell. The supernatural
knowledge and power gained by Gwion Bach do not,
of course, appear in this tale, but it may be observed
that Finn gained his knowledge of futurity in a
IO4 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
manner which, though dissimilar in details, is yet
the same in result. Following a strange woman
that he saw one day, he came to a hill side, where
she entered by a concealed door. Finn attempted
to follow her inside, and had his hand on the door-
post, when the door suddenly shut on him and
jammed his thumb. With difficulty extricating
his thumb, he very naturally shoved the hurt member
into his mouth, when lo l he found himself possessed
of the gift of seeing future events. This gift, how-
ever, he possessed only when he bruised his thumb
in his mouth.
THE GAELIC GODS IN HISTORY.
Material for reconstructing the Olympus of the
Gaels is not at all so scanty as we have found it to
be in the case of the Welsh. There is, it is true,
no general description of the Irish Olympus, but
references to particular deities are not uncommon.
The earliest reference to any Irish gods occurs
in one of the oldest monuments we possess
of the Gaelic language ; a manuscript of the
St. Gall Monastery contains incantations to the
powers Diancecht and Goibniu. This manuscript
Zeuss sets down as of the eighth century, and it is,
therefore, eleven hundred years old. Cormac's
glossary, Originally composed in the ninth century,
mentions as deities Art, Ana, Buanann, Brigit, Neit,
THE GAELIC GODS IN HISTORY. IO5
and Manannan. Keating quotes from the Book
of Invasions a poem that makes the Dagda “king
of heaven,” and he further enumerates Badb, Macha,
and Morrighan as the three goddesses of the Tuatha-
de-Danann. The Tuatha-de-Danann themselves
appear often in the tales as the fairy host, the Side
that dweli in the Land of Promise ; they interfere
in the affairs of mortals long after they are repre-
sented as having been expelled from Ireland, thus,
if not actually mentioned as having been the pagan
gods of the Gael, yet, despite the rampant Euhemer-
ism of Irish tales and histories, implicitly considered
as Such. And again, by adopting the same method
as in the case of the Welsh myths, we shall make the
Irish myths and histories, with their imposing array
of invasions and genealogies, deliver up the deities
they have consigned to the ranks of kings and heroes.
We must, however, first briefly indicate the leading
points of early Irish history, as set down in the
Sober pages of their own annalists. Forty days
before the flood the Lady Caesair, granddaughter
of Noah, with fifty girls and three men, came to
Ireland. This is reckoned as the first “invasion ''
or “taking ” of Ireland. Of course she and her
company all perished when the flood came—all,
with one doubtful exception. For some legends,
with more patriotism than piety, represent Fionntan,
the husband of Caesair, as actually surviving the
flood. The way in which he accomplished this
feat is unlike that of the ancestor of the Macleans,
H
IO6 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION,
who weathered the flood in an ark of his own. Fionn-
tan, when the flood began, was cast into a deep sleep,
which continued for a year, and when he woke he
found himself in his own house at Dun-Tulcha, in
Rerry somewhere (for O’Curry has not been able
exactly to localise this important event). He lived
here contemporaneously with the various dynasties
that ruled in Ireland down to the time of Dermot
in the sixth century of our era. He then appears
for the last time, “with eighteen companies of his
descendants,” in order to settle a boundary dispute,
since he was the oldest man in the world, and must
know all the facts. This story is not believed in
by the more pious of the historians, for it too fla-
grantly contradicts the Scriptures. It, therefore,
falls under O’Curry's category of “wild stories; ”
these are stories which contain some historic truth,
but are so overloaded with the fictions of the imagin-
ation as to be nearly valueless. The Irish historians
have as much horror of a blank in their history,
as nature was Once supposed to have of a vacuum.
The Lady Caesair fills the blank before the flood ;
Partholan and his colony fill the first blank after
the flood. He came from Migdonia, the middle of
Greece, “twenty-two years before the birth of
Abraham,” and was the ninth in descent from Noah,
all the intermediate names being duly given. He
was not in the island ten years when the Fomorians,
or sea-rovers, disturbed him. These Fomorians
were a constant source of trouble to all succeeding
THE GAELIC GODS IN HISTORY. IO7
Colonists, and Sometimes they actually became
masters of the country. Some three hundred years
after their arrival, the colony of Partholan was cut
Off by a plague. Plagues, and eruptions of lakes
and Springs, fill up the gaps in the annals, when
genealogies and battles are not forthcoming. For
thirty years after the destruction of Partholan’s
colony, Ireland was waste. Then came Nemed
and his sons, with their company, from “Scythia,”
in the year before Christ 2350. They were not long
in the Island when the Fomorians again appeared,
and began to harass the Nemedians. Both parties
were extremely skilled in Druidism, and they opposed
each other in a fierce contest of spells as well as
blows. The Fomorians were finally routed. Nemed
was the I2th in descent from Noah. He had four
sons—Starn, Jarbonnel, Fergus, and Aininn. Some
two hundred and sixteen years after coming to
Ireland, the Nemedians were overthrown by the
Fomorians and the plague together, and only thirty
escaped under the leadership of the three cousins,
grandsons of Nemed, Simeon Breac, son of Starn ;
Beothach, son of Jarbonnel ; and Britan Mael,
Son of Fergus. Simeon Breac and his party went
to Greece, and after eleven generations returned
as the Firbolgs. Beothach, with his clan, went to
the northern parts of Europe, where they made
themselves perfect in the arts of Divination, Druid-
ism, and Philosophy, and returned eleven genera-
tions later as the Tuatha-de-Damann. Britan Mael,
IO8 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
with his family, went to Mona, and from there poured
their descendants into the island, which is now
called Britain, after their leader, Britan Mael. The
Firbolgs, the descendants of Starn, son of Nemed,
being oppressed in Greece, much as the Israelites
were in Egypt, returned to Ireland, and took posses-
sion of it. “They were called the Firbolgs,” we
are told, “ from the bags of leather they used to have
in Greece for carrying soil to put on the bare rocks,
that they might make flowery plains under blossom
of them.” The Firbolgs held Ireland for thirty-
six years, and then they were invaded by their
I2th cousins, the Tuatha-de-Danann, the descendants
of Jarbonnel, son of Nemed. Next to the Milesian
colony yet to come, the Tuatha-de-Danann are the
most important by far of the colonists, for in them
we shall by-and-bye discover the Irish gods. What
the annalists tell of them is briefly this. They came
from the north of Europe, bringing with them “four
precious jewels; ” the first was the Lia Fail, the
Stone of Virtue or Fate, for wherever it was, there
a person of the race of Scots must reign ; the sword
of Luga Lamfada ; the spear of the same ; and the
cauldron of the Dagda, from which “a company
never went away unsatisfied.” The Tuatha landed
in Ireland on the first of May, either Igoo or I500
years before Christ, for the chronologies differ by
only a few hundred years. They burned their ships
as a sign of “no retreat,” and for three days con-
cealed themselves in a mist of sorcery. They then
THE GAELIC GODS IN HISTORY. IO9
demanded the Firbolgs to yield, which, however,
they would not do, and the great battle of Moytura
South was fought. The Firbolgs were routed with
immense slaughter. Nuada, leader of the Tuatha-
Dé in the battle, lost his hand in the fight, but Credne
Cerd, the artificer, made a silver one for him, and
Diancecht, the physician, fitted it on, while Miach,
his son, infused feeling and motion into every joint
and vein of it. For thirty years the Tuatha held
undisputed possession of Erin, but the Fomorians,
who were continually hovering about the coast,
now made a determined effort to conquer them.
The battle of Moytura North was fought between
them. In it Nuada of the Silver Hand fell, and so
did Balor of the Evil Eye, leader of the Fomorians.
He was slain by his grandson Luga of the Long Arms,
who was practically leader of the Tuatha, and who
succeeded to the kingship on the death of Nuada.
After a reign of forty years Luga died, and was
succeeded by the Dagda Mor, the central figure
of the Tuatha-de-Danann, and in the pages of our
Euhemerist annalists, an inscrutable and misty
personage. O’Curry ventures even to call him a
demigod. The Dagda was the twenty-fourth in
descent from Noah ; let it be observed that Nemid
was the twelfth in descent. The Firbolg chiefs also
were in the twenty-fourth generation from Noah.
Among the leading personages of the Tuatha were
Manannan, the son of Alloid or Lir ; Ogma, son of
Elathan, and brother of the Dagda, surnamed “Sur-
IIO CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
face ; ” Goibniu, the Smith ; Luchtine, the carpenter;
Danann, mother of their gods; Brigit, the poetess ;
Badb, Macha, and Morrigan, “ their three goddesses,”
says Keating. The Tuatha held Erin for nigh two
hundred years, but when MacCuill, MacCecht, and
MacGreine, who were so called “ because Coll, Cecht,
and Grian, the hazel, the plough, and the sun, were
gods of worship to them,” were ruling over Ireland
with their respective queens Banba, Fodla, and
Eire (three names of Ireland), the last colony of all
appeared on the southern coast. These were the
Milesians or Gaels from Spain and the East. They
were in no respect related to the previous races,
except that they were equally with them descended
from Noah, Golam Miled, after whom they were
called Milesians, being the twenty-fourth from Noah
in direct descent. They were also called Gaels or
Gaidels, from an ancestor Gadelus, seventh in descent
from Noah, and son of Scota, daughter of Pharaoh.
The family lived for the most part in Egypt, but
Golam Miled, who was also married to a second
Scota, daughter of Pharaoh, settled in Spain. The
sons of Miled, to avenge a relative's murder, resolved
to invade Erin. Under the leadership of Heber,
Heremon, and Amergin, and accompanied by Scota,
a vast army in many ships invaded Ireland. No
resistance was offered at first. The Milesians arrived
at Tara, and there met the three kings and queens
of the Tuatha-de-Danann. The latter Complained
of being taken by surprise, and asked the Milesians
THE GAELIC GODS IN HISTORY. III
to embark again on board their ships and allow
them to have a chance of opposing their landing.
The Milesians assented, entered their ships, and
retired for “nine waves '' on the sea. On facing
about again no Ireland was to be seen The Tuatha
by their sorcery had made the island as small as a
pig’s back, and the Milesians could therefore not
see it. In addition to this they raised a violent
storm on the sea, with clouds and darkness that
could be felt. Many Milesian ships were lost, and
the danger was brought to an end only when Amergin,
who was also a Druid, pronounced a Druidic prayer,
or oration, evidently addressed to the Tuatha Dé,
and the storm ceased. They then landed peaceably ;
but they did not get the island without a few battles
of a very hazy sort indeed. It probably at first
was intended to be shown that the Tuatha allowed
them to land, and themselves retired to the Land of
Promise—the country of the Side—where they still
took an interest in mortal affairs, and often after-
wards appeared in Irish history and tales. The
Milesians, or Gadelians or Gaels, are a purely mortal
race; they were, in fact, the dominant race of Ire-
land in historic times. Their history and full
genealogies from some thirteen hundred years before
Christ till the introduction of Christianity, are gravely
told in the Annals of the Four Masters and Keating’s
Ireland ; every king has his pedigree given, and
many are the details that are recorded of their doings
in war and in peace, in Society, and in the chase,
II2 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
in law, and in the care and seizure of land and of
cattle. Mythic persons constantly flit across the
page; the demigods become mere mortal chiefs,
and the “last reflections '' of the sun-god appear
in the features of Cuchulainn and Finn.
There are many interpretations put upon the
history that we have just summarily given. Natur-
ally enough, ethnological theories form the greater
part of such explanations. The leading invasions
of the Firbolgs, Fomorians, Tuatha-de-Dannan and
Milesians, are made use of to refute or support some
favourite theory about the various races that go
to compose the Irish nation. Two hundred years
ago an Irish genealogist, of the name of Dubaltach
MacFirbisigh, advanced the theory, doubtless sup-
ported by tradition, that “every one who is white-
skinned, brown-haired, bountiful in the bestowal
on the bards of jewels, wealth, and rings, not afraid
of battle or combat, is of the Clanna-Miled (the
Milesians); every one who is fair-haired, big, vin-
dictive, skilled in music, druidry, and magic, all
these are of the Tuatha-de-Danann ; while the
black-haired, loud-tongued, mischievous, tale-bear-
ing, inhospitable churls, the disturbers of assemblies,
who love not music and entertainment, these are
of the Feru-bolg and the other conquered peoples.”
Skene, in modern times, gives this theory of Mac-
Firbisigh in our modern terms: the Firbolgs belong
to the Iberian or Neolithic and pre-Celtic tribes;
the Celts themselves are divided into Gaels and
THE GAELIC GODS IN HISTORY. II3
Britons; the Gaelic branch is again subdivided
into (1) a fair-skinned, large-limbed, and red-haired
race—the Picts of Caledonia and the Tuatha-de-
Danann of Ireland ; and (2), a fair-skinned, brown-
haired race, “ of a less Germanic type,” represented
in Ireland by the Milesians, and in Scotland by the
band of invading Scots. We have already presented
the best modern scientific views on the ethnology
of these islands; there would appear to have been
three races—(I), A primitive, Small, dark, long-
headed race, of the Basque type in language and
Iberian in physique ; (2), a fair, tall, rough-featured,
round-headed, and rough-limbed race, also pre-
Celtic, which we called the Finnish ; and (3), the
Celts, fair, straight-featured, long-headed and tall,
and belonging to the Aryan family. We might
equate the Firbolgs with the dark Iberian race;
the Tuatha-de-Danann with the Finnish race ; and
the Milesians with the Celts. The legendary and
traditional account can easily be fitted into the
present scientific view of the subject. But, after
all, the truth of such a theory must be gravely
doubted ; even its agreement with proper scientific
methods in such case must be questioned. We may
grant that the strong contrast between a small
dark race and a tall fair race might give rise to a
myth like that of the Firbolgs and Tuatha-de-
Dananns. But in Wales, where the contrast is even
stronger, no such myth exists. Again the Milesians
were really fair-haired and not brown-haired ; the
II4 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
heroes of Ulster are all fair or yellow-haired, and so
are the Feni. It is best, therefore, to adopt a purely
mythological explanation of the matter. Despite
its pseudo-historical character, the whole history
of the invasions of the Firbolg, De-Dananns, and
Fomorians appears to be a Gaelic counterpart of
what we see in Greek mythology, the war of the
rough and untamed powers of earth, Sea, and fire,
against the Orderly cosmos of the Olympians; the
war, in short, of the giants and Titans against Zeus
and his brothers. The Firbolgs may be, therefore,
looked upon as the earth-powers ; too much stress
need not be laid on the fact that they and their
brethren, the Fir-Domnans, were wont to dig the
Soil, make pits, and carry earth in bags to make
flowery plains of bare rocks; but it should be noticed
that they always meet the Tuatha-de-Damann as
natives of the soil repelling invaders. The gods of
the soil often belong to a pre-Aryan people, while
the greater gods, the Olympians and the Tuatha-de-
Danann, are intrusive, the divinities of the new-
comers into the land, the patrons of warriors and
sea-faring men. Behind these last there often
stand deities of older birth, those who had been
worshipped in ancient days by the simple and settled
folk of the land. Such were Pan or Hermes of
Arcadia, Dionysus of Thrace, and Demeter and Dione.
The Firbolgs may, therefore, be looked on as either
the homely gods of preceding tribes of the non-
Aryan races, Or as answering to the giants and Titans
THE GAELIC GODS IN HISTORY. II5
of kindred Aryan races. “The King of the Feru-
Bolg,” says Mr. Fitzgerald, “ Eothaile—whom we
shall find reason to Suspect to be a fire-giant—fled
from the field when the day was lost, ‘in search of
water to allay his burning thirst,’ and by the water
of the sea he fell on Traigh-Eothaile, ‘Eothaile's
Strand,’ in Sligo. His great cairn, still standing,
On this Strand was one of the wonders of Ireland,
and though not apparently elevated, the water could
never cover it.” If we turn to the Fomorians, we
shall find quite as easy an explanation. The mean-
ing of the word is “Sea-rover ; ” it has always been
derived from the words “ fo,” under, and “ muir,”
Sea, and the meaning usually attached to the com-
bination has been “those that rove on the sea.” The
Fomorians are, therefore, sea-powers : the rough,
chaotic power of the Atlantic Ocean. They meet
the Tuatha-de-Dannan in the extreme West Of
Ireland, on the last day of summer, that is, November
eve : the fierce ocean powers meet the orderly
heaven and air gods on the Atlantic borders when
winter is coming on, and the latter do not allow the
former to overwhelm the country. Balor of the
Evil Eye, whose glance can turn his opponents into
stone, and who, in some forms of the legend, is
represented as having only one eye, is very suggestive
of Polyphemus, the giant son of the Grecian Ocean
god. To this we may compare the Gaelic tale of
the Muireartach, where the Atlantic Sea is repre-
sented as a “toothy carlin,” with an eye in the middle
II6 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
of her forehead. The Tuatha-de-Dananns will,
therefore, be simply the gods that beneficially direct
the powers of sky, air, sea, and earth ; they will
correspond exactly to Zeus, Poseidon, Pluto, and
the rest of the Grecian god-world, who benignly
rule over the heavens, the sea, and the shades. The
Milesians will accordingly be merely the main body
of the Gaelic people, whose gods the Tuatha-de-
Danann are. Why there is no more open acknow-
ledgment of the Tuatha-de-Danann as the pagan
gods of the Gael may easily be accounted for. The
accounts we have are long posterior to the intro-
duction of Christianity; and it was a principle of
the early Christian Church to assimilate to itself,
following the true Roman fashion, all native religions.
The native gods were made saints (especially the
female divinities, such as Brigit), fairies, demons,
and kings. Christianity was about five hundred
years established before we have any native record
of events; the further back we go the nearer do the
Tuatha-Dé come to be gods. Even in the 8th
century an Irish monk could still invoke Goibniu
and Diancecht, the Tuatha gods answering to Vulcan
and Aesculapius, for relief from, and protection
against, pain.
GODS OF THE GAELs.
Whatever interpretation we give to the Feru-
bolg and the Fomorians, there can be little question
GODS OF THE GAELS. II7
as to the fact that the Tuatha-De-Danann are the
Gaelic gods. The Irish historians, as we saw, re-
present them as kings with subjects, but even they
find it difficult to hide the fact that some of these
kings and queens afterwards appear on the scene
of history in a Super-natural fashion. The myths
, and tales, however, make no scruple to tell us that
the Tuatha-De-Danann still live in Fairyland, and
tten take part in human affairs. In a very ancient
ct which records a dialogue between St. Patrick
nd Caoilte Mac Ronain, they are spoken of as
“sprites or fairies, with corporeal and material
forms, but imbued with immortality.” Their skill
in magic, shown in their manipulation of storms,
clouds, and darkness, is insisted on in all the myths,
and is a source of trouble to the historians and
annalists, who regard them as mere mortals. “They
were called gods,” says Keating, “ from the wonder-
fulness of their deeds of sorcery.” To them is first
applied the term Side, which in modern Gaelic
means “fairy,” but which in the case of the Tuatha-
De-Danann has a much wider signification, for it
implies a sort of god-like existence in the “Land of
Promise.” The Book of Armagh calls the Side
“deos terrenos,” earthly gods, whom, we are told
in Fiacc's hymn, when Patrick came, the peoples
adored—“tuatha adortais Side.” Sid was a term
applied to the green knolls where some of these
deified mortals were supposed to dwell ; the word
appears in the modern Gaelic sith and sithean, a






II8 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
mound or rather a fairy mound. The Tuatha-De-
Danann were also called “Aes Side,” aes being here
used in the sense of “race ’’ and not of “ age.” We
may remark that the Norse gods were also known
as the Aes or Aesir, one of the many remarkable
coincidences in words and in actions between the
Irish gods and the deities of Asgard.
In attempting to reconstruct the Gaelic god-world
from the almost hopeless ruins in which piety a
time have laid it, we must not merely remem
the Aryan character of it, but also Caesar's bri
account of the Gaulish Olympus. There can b
little doubt but that the Gaelic and Gaulish Olympi
were similar in Outline, and probably also in details.
We shall, therefore, expect Mercury to be the most
important of the Gaelic deities, while Apollo, Mars,
Jupiter, and Minerva take rank after him. These
deities and others, as was pointed out, represent
the personified powers of nature—the wind, the
Sun, the storm, the sky, and the moon. Not only
are these elements personified as deities and so
worshipped, but we also find the elements in their
impersonified state, as it were, invoked for aid and
for good faith. The classical examples of this are
extremely numerous. One instance will suffice :
In Virgil, AEneas and Latinus are represented as
swearing by the sun, the earth, the sea, the stars,
by the Almighty Father and his Spouse, by Mars
and Janus, by the spring and rivers, the ether and the
deities of the sea. The first instance of such an




GODS OF THE GAELS. IIg
oath in Irish history is when Breas, the Fomorian,
swore by “the sun and the moon, by the sea and the
land, and by all the elements, to fulfil the engage-
ment ’’ which Luga imposed on him. Vows to the
heavens and the earth, to day and night, to the rain,
the dew and the wind, are exceedingly common,
appearing even in historic times both in Ireland and
otland ; among the Picts and Scots in the 4th
tury, in Ireland in the 5th, as when Loegaire
s made to swear by the elements that he would
ſever again demand the cow-tribute, and with M'Con-
glinne in the 8th century. It is said that Loegaire
forgot his oath, and thus met with an evil end, for
“ it was the sun and the wind that wrought his death,
because he had violated their sanctity ; ” so say
the Four Masters, good Christians though they were !
The divine elements are known in Gaelic as duli,
and one of the oldest and most favourite epithets
of the Deity is “ rig na n-dul,” the King of the
Elements, to which may be compared “ Dia nan
dul '’ of the Gaelic Psalms : the word for Creator
in old Gaelic is Dulem, the genitive of which is Dule-
%l (2.71.
Our description of the Gaelic gods will naturally
begin with the Jupiter of the Gaels. This honour
belongs most probably to the Dagda, “ in Dagda
mor,” “the great good one '' (?) as Mr. Fitzgerald
explains his name. Some interpret the name as the
“good fire.” In any case, dag signifies “good,”
appearing in modern Gaelic as deagh, but what da







2O CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
means is yet undecided. Though the Dagda is
very often mentioned, yet little information is given
about him. He was one of the leaders of the Tuatha-
De-Danann from Scythia to Ireland, and he brought
with him from “ Murias " a magical cauldron capable
of Satisfying the hunger of everyone. He is the
most renowned of all the Tuatha for his skill in
Druidism. With Luga, he makes and carries out
the arrangements of the second battle of Moyt
in which, however, he was wounded with a poison
weapon by the amazon queen Cethlenn. The veno
Of that wound caused his death I2O years later.
For eighty years previous to his death, he ruled the
Tuatha as king. There is little in these meagre
details to help us to a true notion of the character
of the Dagda. It is in the epithets attached to his
name, and the incidental references to him, scattered
through many tales, that we can hope to understand
his position among the gods. He is called Eochaidh
Ollathair, that is, Chevalier All-father, and, further,
Ruadrofhessa, “ the red one of all knowledge.”
The epithet “Ollathair "→All-father—puts him on
a level with Jupiter, Zeus, and Odin ; he is the father
Of gods and men, king of heaven and earth. Zeus,
we know, is the sky-god, the beneficent power of
light and life, who regulates the atmosphere and its
phenomena—notably, the thunder—for the good of
men : Odin is, however, a wind-god more than a
sky-god, answering rather to the Roman Mercury
and the Greek Hermes than to Jove and Zeus. Is








GODS OF THE GAELS. I2 I
the Dagda a wind-god or a light-god or a fire-god P
Mr. Fitzgerald classes him with Odin as a sky- and
wind-god, and appeals to the epithet “Eochaid "
—horseman—as confirmation; for horseman and
huntsman are nearly allied, and seem rather to
belong to the wind deity, as in the case of Odin
they do so apply. Mr. Elton makes the Dagda
a spirit of heat who ruled all fires in earth and heaven,
for he interprets the name after O'Donovan as signi-
fying “the great good fire.” The view which we
will adopt on the matter differs from both the fore-
going. The Dagda represents rather the sky-god,
exactly the Roman Jove. He is the All-father ;
he is the Red-one—the sky in certain states being so,
just as at other times he is said to be “greyer than
the grey mist "=who is all-wise ; he is the Dagda,
the good-father or good-one, the deus optimus
maximus, the benign providence, who arranges,
provides, and Superintends everything. His
cauldron is interpreted by Some as the canopy of
heaven ; like the thunder-god, Thor, he possessed a
hand-stone which returned of itself to the place
from which it was thrown, just as Thor's hammer—
the thunder-bolt—did.
The most important deity in the Gaelic pantheon
must have been Mercury : which of the Tuatha-De-
Danann was he 2 The honour of being the god
most worshipped by the Gael must fall to Manannan,
the son of Lir, whose attributes we have already
discussed. Manannan is always a deity ; he is never
I
Af
f
I22 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
a mortal hero like the others. We represented him
as god of sea and wind, as opposed to Mr. Elton's
view, who made him a sun-god. There is little doubt
but Manannan is a wind-god : he possesses all the
prominent requisites of such a deity. He is the owner
of the wonderful steed, Enbarr, of the flowing mane,
who is swift as the cold clear wind of spring ; his
also is the sword, from whose wound there was no
recovery ; and he possessed the curious mantle
that will cause people never to meet again. The
three characteristic possessions of Odin are his
sword, his mantle, and his horse Sleipnir. The
sword is the lightning ; the mantle is the air and
clouds, and the grey horse Sleipnir is the rushing
grey cloud driven by the wind. Odin is, as already
said, mostly a wind-god ; so, too, is Manannan.
Both deities, however, usurped features belonging
to more departmental gods, in proportion as they
took the first place in the worship of the people.
Manannan also possessed the wonderful canoe which
could hold any number of people, suiting its size
to them, and which obeyed the will of those it bore,
and swept over the Ocean as fast as the March wind.
He, too, instituted the “Feast of Age,” known as
the feast of Gobnenn the Smith. Whoever was
present at it, and partook of the food and drink,
was free ever after from sickness, decay, and old age.
The Land of Promise is often identified with Inis-
Mhanann, or Isle of Man, which was ruled over by
Manannan, but his connection with the land of
GODS OF THE GAELS. I23
promise is rather more like that of Mercury with the
land of shades; he would appear to have been the
psychopomp—the conductor of the shades of men to
the happy Isles of the West. He was, as we saw,
god of merchandise and also god of arts, for he
is represented as teaching Diarmat in all the arts
when he was with him in Fairyland. Why the Celts
and Teutons made the wind deity their chief god is
fairly clear. The atmospheric conditions of Western
and Northern Europe make the wind and storm
powers of Comparatively more importance than they
are in Sunnier lands, where the gods of light on the
Other hand are supreme. Manannan is further
very properly denominated the “son of Lir,” the
Son of the sea, for sure enough where else does the
wind come from in these islands of ours but from the
sea 2
There is little trouble in settling the identity of
the Gaelic Apollo. This is Luga Lamfada, surnamed
the Ildana ; Luga of the Long Arms, the many-
arted one. He appears with a stately band of
warriors on white steeds, “a young champion, tall
and Comely, with a countenance as bright and glorious
as the setting sun.” But more definite still is the
reference to his sunlike countenance ; in another
place the Fomorian champion, Breas, is made to say
in reference to the approach of Luga from the
west : “A wonderful thing has come to pass to-day ;
for the sun, it seems to me, has risen in the west.”
“It would be better that it were so,” said the
I24 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
Druids. “The light you see is the brightness of the
face and the flashing of the weapons of Luga of the
Long Arms, our deadly enemy.” He also possessed
the swiftness and keenness of the ocean-wind-god
Manannan, for we are told that he rode Manannan's
mare Enbarr of the flowing mane, that is, the driving
wind ; his coat of mail—the clouds ; and he is
further represented as having Manannan's Sword,
the lightning flash. But this last is doubtful, for
two of the precious jewels that the Tuatha-De-
Danann took from the east are Luga's sword and
his spear “ Gae Buaifneach,” tempered in the
poisoned blood of adders. These weapons are
merely the flashing rays of the sun, just as Luga's
helmet, Cannbarr, glittered with dazzling brightness,
with two precious stones set in it, one in front and
one behind. Whenever he took off the helmet, we
are told that his “face shone like the sun on a dry
summer day.” His deeds are also “sunlike ’’ in
their character. He first frees the Tuatha from the
hated tribute which was imposed on them after a
temporary success on the part of the Fomorians.
We are told that he put a Druidical spell on the
plundered cattle, and sent all the milch cows home
to their owners, leaving the dry cows to cumber his
enemies. The cows of the sun-god are famous in
all mythologies; they are the clouds of heaven that
bring rain and moisture to men, when shone upon
by the rays of the sun. Luga's greatest feat is the
overthrow of the Fomorians at Moytura. For years
GODS OF THE GAELS. I25
he had been preparing for this great fight. He
Summoned all the artists and artificers of renown
and got arms in readiness. He himself lent his help
to each tradesman, for he was a skilled carpenter,
mason, Smith, harper, druid, physician, cup-bearer,
and goldsmith, “one who embodied in himself
all these arts and professions,” as he described
himself on one occasion. When the sons of Turenn
slew his father, he made them procure for him as
“eric " or fine, several weapons of importance and
Several salves, with a view to using them in the great
Struggle against the stormy ocean powers. Such
were the apples of Hisberna, which could cure any
sickness and would return to the owner even when
thrown away ; the pig's skin whose touch made
whole; the spear—“the slaughterer”—whose fiery,
blazing head was always kept in the water;
the steeds and chariot of Dobar—the steeds
which travel with equal ease on land and
Sea ; the pigs of Asal—“whosoever eats a part of
them shall not suffer from ill health ''-even when
killed to-day they are alive to-morrow ; and the
hound-whelp Failinis, that shines like the sun on
Summer day—before him every wild beast falls to
earth powerless. In the battle of Moytura, he killed
Balor of the Evil Eye. That worthy had already
turned Nuada of the Silver Hand into stone, and
many more De-Danann, and just as he was opening
it on Luga, the latter flung a “sling stone '' at it,
which passed through it and Balor's brain. Now
I26 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
Balor was his grandfather, and it had been foretold
that he should be slain by his grandson. In view of
this he kept his only child, a daughter, Aethlenn,
secluded in a tower, where man and the idea of
“man” were to be strictly excluded. But in vain.
She became the wife of Cian, the son of Diancecht,
the physician, and Luga was the offspring. We must
note his connection with the god of healing ; that
god is his grandfather. In Greek mythology,
Aesculapius is the son of Apollo. The name Luga,
too, is suggestive ; it is doubtless from the root
luc, to shine, and it is interesting to observe that the
Norse fire-god, also master of many arts, though
evil arts, is called Loki. The epithet Lamjada,
long arms, reminds us of the far-darter Apollo, and
refers to the long-shooting rays of the Sun—a most
appropriate epithet.
Cormac informs us in his Glossary that Neith
was the god of battle among the pagan Gael, and
that Nemon was his wife, information which is
repeated in other and later manuscripts with some
variations and additions. We are vouchsafed no
further information as to Neith’s character or actions;
only he appears in some of the inevitable pedigrees,
and we are told that Neit, son of Indu, and his two
wives, Badb and Nemain, were slain at Ailech by
“ Neptur () of the Fomorians.” With . Nemain
may be compared the British war goddess Nemetona,
whose name appears on an inscription along with
that of Mars Lucetius. There would appear to have
GODS OF THE GAELS. I27
been more than one war goddess ; the names Badb,
Nemain, Macha, and Morrigan, constantly recur as
those of war deities and demons. Badb signifies
a Scald-Crow, and may be the generic name of the
war goddess rather than a proper name. The crow
and the raven are constantly connected in the
Northern Mythologies with battle-deities. “How
is it with you, Ravens 2 ” says the Norse “Raven-
song,” “whence are you come with gory beak at the
dawning of the day. There is flesh cleaving to
your talons, and a scent of carrion comes from your
mouth. You lodged last night I ween near where
ye knew the corses were lying.” The greedy hawks
of Odin scent the slain from afar. The ravens
also protect and assist heroes, both in Irish and
Norse myth. It was a lucky sign if a raven followed
a warrior. Of Macha, the third goddess mentioned,
little need be said ; she appears afterwards as a
queen of Ireland, under the title of Macha Mongruad,
or Macha Red-Mane. The goddess Morrigan was
also a war deity to all appearance. The name
signifies “great queen,” and may be, like Badb, a
generic name. She is represented as first resisting
and afterwards assisting the hero Cuchulainn,
appearing to him in various forms. O'Curry makes
her the wife of the Dagda, and she is often equated
with the goddess Ana. The name is doubtless the
same as that of Morgan le Fay, the fairy queen
and Arthur's sister. It may be remarked that
Morgan le Fay is also wife of Urian Rheged, who
I28 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
and his son Owen, with the army of ravens, are
clearly war deities.
The goddess Ana or Aine (gen. Anann) has been
called the queen of heaven, and connected with the
worship of the moon. Cormac describes her as
“ mater deorum Hibernensium ”—mother of the
Irish gods. “Well she used to nourish the gods,”
he adds, and in another place he says, “As Ana
was mother of the gods, so Buanann was mother
of the Fiann (heroes).” Camden found in his time
survival of moon-worship. “When they see the
moon first after the change,” he says, “ commonly
they bow the knee and say the Lord’s Prayer, and
then, with a loud voice, they speak to the moon,
thus-—‘Leave us whole and Sound as thou hast found
us.” Keating gives the name of this goddess as
Danann, and explains the Tuatha-De-Damann as
the worshippers of the gods of Danann, the gods of
Danann being, according to him, Brian, Iucharba,
and Iuchar. These three gods are known on other
myths as the “children of Turenn,” slain, as Keating
himself says, by Luga Lamfada. The goddess
Buanann, mentioned in connection with Ana or
Anann, appears in the story of the great Druid
Mogh Ruith as his patron, to whose Sid he fares to
consult her in his difficulties.
Minerva is the fifth and last deity mentioned by
Caesar as worshipped by the Gauls—their goddess
of arts and industry. A passage in Solinus, and
another in Giraldus Cambrensis, enable us to decide,
GODS OF THE GAELS. I29
with absolute certainty, what goddess answered
among the Gaels to the position of Minerva. Solinus
(first century A.D.) says that in Britain, Minerva
presides ovel the hot springs, and that in her temple
there flamed a perpetual fire, which never whitened
into ashes, but hardened into a strong maSS.
Giraldus (12th century A.D.) informs us that at the
shrine of St. Brigit at Kildare, the fire is never
allowed to gº out, and though such heaps of WOOd
have been consumed since the time of the Virgin,
yet there has been no accumulation of ashes. “Each
of her nineteen nuns has the care of the fire for a
single night in turn, and on the evening before the
twentieth night, the last nun, having heaped wood
upon the fireſ says, “Brigit, take charge of your own
fire, for this hight belongs to you.” She then leaves
the fire, and in the morning it is found that the
fire has not gone out, and that the usual quantity
of fuel has been used.” This sacred fire was kept
burning continually for centuries, and was finally
extinguished, only with the extinction of the monas-
teries by Henry VIII. Brigit, therefore, is the Gaelic
Minerva. She is goddess of the household fire ;
her position i. that of the hearth goddess Vesta,
as much as that of Minerva, for evidently she is
primarily a fire-goddess. Her name is probably
from the same root as the English bright, Gaelic
breo. The British goddess, Brigantia, is doubtless
the same as the Irish Brigit. Mr. Whitley Stokes
picks out the following instances in proof of her



I30 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
character as a fire-goddess ; she was borih at sunrise ;
her breath revives the dead ; a house in which she
stays flames up to heaven; she is fed with the milk
of a white red-eared cow ; a fiery pillar rises from her
head, and she remains a virgin like the Roman
goddess, Vesta, and her virgins—Westa, whom
Ovid tells us to consider “nothing else than the
living flame, which can produce no bodies.” Cor-
mac calls her the daughter of the Dâgda. “This
Brigit,” he says, “is a poetess, a º whom
poets worshipped. Her sisters were Brigit, woman
of healing ; Brigit, woman of Smith work; that is,
goddesses; these are the three daughters of the
Dagda.” Doubtless these three daughters, thus
distinguished by Cormac, are one and the same
person. Brigit, therefore, was goddess of fire, the
hearth and the home. |
The rest of the Gaelic pantheon may be dismissed
in a few sentences. Angus Mac-ind-ok, “the only
choice One, Son of Youth or Perfection,” has been
well called the Eros—the Cupid—of the Gael. “He
was represented with a harp, and attended by bright
birds, his own transformed kisses, at whose Singing
love arose in the hearts of youths and maidens.” He
is the son of the Dagda, and he ivº at the Brugh
of the Boyne; in one weird tale he is represented
as the son of the Boyne. He is the patron god of
Diarmat, whom he helps in escaping from the wrath
of Finn, when Diarmat eloped with Grainne. The
River Boyne is also connected with the Ocean-god


GODS OF THE GAELS. I31
Nuada ; it was called the wrist of Nuada’s wife.
The literary deity was Ogma, brother of the Dagda,
surnamed “Sun-face ; ” he invented the alphabet
known as the Ogam alphabet, and, as was pointed
out already, he is mentioned by Lucian as the
Gaulish god of eloquence. Three artisan gods are
mentioned : Goibniu, the Smith, invoked in the
St Gall Incantations of the 8th century; Creidne
Cerd, the goldsmith, and Luchtine, the carpenter.
These three made the Tuatha arms; when the Smith
finished a spear-head, he threw it from his tongs
towards the door-post, in which it stuck by the
point ; the carpenter had the handle ready, and
threw it accurately into the socket ; and Creidne
Cerd pitched the nails from his tongs into the holes
in the socket of the spear. Thus was the spear
finished in less time than we can describe the pro-
cess. Diancecht was the physician of the gods;
at Moytura battle he prepared a medical bath, into
which he plunged the wounded, and they instantly
came out whole again, and returned to the fight.
The three De-Danann queens, Eire, Fodhla, and
Banbha, gave their names to Ireland, but the first
is the one which is usually recognised. It may be
observed that these names and those of some others
of the gods are scattered widely over the topography
both of Ireland and Scotland. In the latter country
we meet with Eire, and its genitive Erenn in river
and district names; Fodla forms part of Athole,
Ath-Fodhla, probably ; Bamba appears in Banff;
I32 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
Angus the Beautiful gave his name to Angus;
- Manannan's name appears in the Isle of Man, and as
the old name of the district at the mouth of the Forth,
still seen in Clack-Mannan.
THE CELTIC ELYSIUM.
All the Aryan nations originally believed in the
existence, after death, of the human soul. This
belief had its root in the “ animism ‘’ of a more
barbaric period of their existence, and held its place
in the remnants of ancestral worship we meet with in
Rome and Greece, and in the many myths bearing
on the land of shades. Evidently, too, the pre-
Aryan tribes of Europe were strong believers in the
future existence of man's second self, his soul. Their
barrows, dolmens, and stone-circles point distinctly
to their reverence for the dead, and their belief in
their continued existence in another sphere of
nature, from which they visited, helped and ad-
monished their living representatives. Ancestor
worship clearly was their main Creed. Hence the
vividness of the belief of the early Northern Aryans—
Celts and Teutons—in future existence, and their
clinging to ancestor worship So long, may arise
from their mingling with a people who was in that
stage of belief; whereas at the dawn of our era,
in Greece and Rome, the whole doctrine of a future
state belonged to the region of languid half-belief.
The aristocracy and the philosophers entirely dis-
THE CELTIC ELYSIUM. I33
believed it. Caesar, as supreme pontiff of Rome,
declared, in his place in the senate, his utter disbelief
in another life, and the stern Cato but mildly replied
that their ancestors, men, perhaps, as wise as Caesar,
believed that the guilty, after death, were sent to
noisome abodes, full of all horrors and terrors. But
the classical belief, even at its best—in the poems of
Homer—gives but a poor, shadowy, comfortless
existence to the spirits of the dead. They lived
in Hades, a country which comprised various districts
of woe, and of bliss Such as it was. The ghost of
Achilles says to Ulysses —“Rather would I live on
earth as a poor man's hireling, than reign among
all the dead.” The gods lived on the heights of
Olympus, aloft in heaven, and far apart from the
hated abode of the dead, which lay under the earth
and ocean. Mortals were all consigned to the grisly
realm of Pluto ; even the demi-god Hercules, though
living in Olympus, had his ghostly mortal counte-
part in Hades. Among the Romans, ancestor
worship had a stronger force than in Greece; their
feast of the dead was duly celebrated in the latter
half of February, when chaplets were laid on their
tombs, and fruit, salt, corn soaked in wine, and
violets, were the least costly offerings presented to
them. The deification of the Emperors was merely
a further development of this ancestor worship.
The remembrance of the festival of the dead is still
kept up in the Roman calendar as the feast of All
Souls. The Celts of Brittany preserve still the
I34 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
remembrance of the ancestor worship on this day;
they put cakes and sweet meats on the graves, and
at night make up the fire and leave the fragments
of the Supper on the table, for the souls of the dead
of the family who will come to visit their home.
The Celts would appear to have had a much more
vivid belief in future existence than either the Greeks
or the Romans. We may pass over the Druidic
doctrine of transmigration ; it was doubtless not
the popular view of future life. We know as much
from Some side references in one or two classical
writers. So realistic was the Celtic belief in exis-
tence after death that money loans were granted
on the understanding that they were to be repaid
beyond the grave. Valerius Maximus laughs at the
Gauls for “lending money which should be paid
the creditor in the other world, for they believed
that the Soul was immortal.” Mela tells us one of
the Druidic doctrines that was publicly preached
and nationally believed in, namely, that the soul
was eternal and that there was another life in the
land of shades. “Accordingly,” he adds, “they
burn and bury along with the dead whatever was
once useful to them when alive. Business accounts
and debt claims used to be transferred to the next
world, and some even willingly cast themselves on
the funeral piles of their relatives under the im-
pression that they would live with them hereafter.”
Diodorus Siculus informs us that at the funeral
of their dead some threw letters addressed to their
THE CELTIC ELY SIUM. - I35
defunct relatives on the funeral pyre, under the
belief that the dead would read them. This intense
belief in the reality of future existence must have
removed the Celtic other-world from the unreal
and shadowy Hades of Greece and Rome. What
the exact character of this other world was among
the Gauls we cannot well say , but the later legends
in France, Wales, and Ireland go to prove that it
partook of the nature of an Earthly Paradise, situated
in Some happy isle of the West. The pseudo-
Plutarch introduces a grammarian Demetrius as
returned from Britain, and saying “ that there are
many desert islands Scattered round Britain, Some of
which have the names of being the islands of genii
and heroes. The island which lay nearest the desert
isles had but few inhabitants, and these were es-
teemed by the Britons sacred and inviolable. Very
Soon after his arrival there was great turbulence
in the air and portentous storms. The islanders
said when these ceased that some one of the Superior
genii had departed, whose extinction excited the
winds and storms. And there was one island where
Saturn was kept by Briareus in a deep sleep, attended
by many genii as his companions.” The poet
Claudian evidently records a Gaulish belief in the
Island of Souls in the lines :—
“Est locus extremum pandit quá Gallia litus,
Oceani praetentus aquis, ubi fertur Ulixes
Sanguine libato populum movisse silentern.
Illic umbrarum tenui stridore volantum
Felebilis auditur questus. Simulacra coloni
Pallida defunctasque vident migrare figuras.”
I36 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
Beyond the westermost point of the Gallic shore,
he says, is the place where Ulysses summoned the
shades (es Homer has it). There are heard the
tearful cries of fleeting ghosts ; the natives see their
pallid forms and ghostly figures moving on to their
last abode. The traditions of Brittany, with true
Celtic tenacity, still bear traces of this belief; at
the furthest extremity of that district, where Cape
Raz juts into the Western Sea, lies the Bay of Souls,
where departed spirits sail off across the sea in ghostly
ships to the happy isles. Procopius, in the 6th
century, enables us to understand what the peasants
of Northern Gaul believed in regard to the Happy
Isles, and to Britain in particular. He confuses
Britain with a fabulous island called Brittia, one
half of which is habitable ; but the other half
divided off by a wall, is set apart to be the home of
ghosts. The fishermen on the continent opposite
to Brittia performed the functions of ferrymen for
the dead. “At night they perceive the door to be
Shaken, and they hear a certain indistinct voice sum-
moning them to their work. They proceed to the
shore under compulsion of a necessity they cannot
understand. Here they perceive vessels—not their
Own—apparently without passengers. Embarking,
they take the oars, and feel as if they had a burden
on board in the shape of unseen passengers, which
Sometimes sinks the boat to within a finger-breadth
of the water. They see no one. After rowing for
an hour, they reach Brittia, really a mortal journey
THE CELTIC ELYSIUM. I37
of over twenty-four hours. Arrived at Brittia,
they hear the names of their passengers and their
dignities called over and answered ; and on the
ghosts all landing, they are wafted back to the
habitable world.”
So far we have discovered among the early Celts
an intense conviction in a personal existence in
another world, where they “married and gave in
marriage,” and into which business transactions
of this world might be transferred. Its locality was
to the west—an island in the land of the setting sun,
or possibly a country under the western waves,
for the traditions of Brittany, Cornwall, Wales,
Ireland, and Scotland continually insist on the
existence of such a land. Buried cities are recorded
as existing to the westward of every prominent
Celtic cape ; that sunken district of Lyonesse which
appears in all Brythonic traditions. The very
earthly character of the Celtic world of the departed
is seen in the surviving remembrances of it still
existent, despite all the Church's efforts, in the
mythic tales; an Earthly Paradise it truly was.
We do not find much in Welsh myth bearing on the
matter ; it is in Irish and Gaelic tales that we have
the material for judging of the character of the Celtic
Elysium.
I38 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
WELSH AND GAELIC ELYSIUM,
The Welsh Hades was known as Annwn. It
possessed kings, Chiefs, and commons, somewhat
like those of this world, only vastly superior—“the
comeliest and best equipped people ever seen.”
Pwyll, Prince of Dyved (South-west Wales), while
one day out hunting, lost his companions in his eager
pursuit of a stag. Hearing a cry of hounds near
him, he approached, and saw the stag brought down
by other dogs than his own. “ Then he looked at
the colour of the dogs, staying not to look at the stag,
and of all the hounds that he had seen in the world,
he had never seen any that were like unto these.
For their hair was of a brilliant shining white, and
their ears were red ; and as the whiteness of their
bodies shone, so did the redness of their ears glisten.”
He drove them from the stag, and set on it his own
dogs. Immediately there came upon him a man
dressed all in grey and mounted on a grey horse,
and he reviled Pywll for his discourtesy in turn-
ing off his hounds. Pwyll offered to make reparation,
and his offer was accepted. The stranger said
that he was Arawn, King of one-half of Annwn,
and he was at war with Havgan, the other King.
Pwyll, if he liked, could overthrow Havgan, who was
to come exactly a year thereafter against Arawn.
Would Pwyll change places with him and meet
Havgan 2 He would give him his own personal
WELSH AND GAELIC ELYSIUM. I39
appearance, and assume Pwyll's, and they could
govern each other's kingdoms for a year. This was
agreed on. Pwyll took the form of Arawn, and came
to Annwn. He never saw anything like the beauty
of Arawn's city and the appointments of his Courts,
“ which of all the courts on earth was the best
supplied with food and drink, and vessels of gold
and royal jewels.” Suffice it to say that he ruled
well during the year, and at the end of it slew
Havgan, “at the ford,” in single combat, and thus
made Arawn undisputed master of Hades. Arawn
had, meanwhile, conducted the kingdom of Dyved
as it never had been before ; his wisdom and justice
were unsurpassable. And these two kings made
an eternal bond of friendship with each other, and
Pwyll was called “Chief of Annwn." henceforward.
The dogs of Annwn, mentioned in the above tale,
are a common feature in mythology. Ossian, on his
way to Tir-nan-Og, saw a hornless fawn bounding
nimbly along the wave-crests pursued by a white
hound with red ears. The Wild Huntsman and his
dogs of Teutonic myth belong to the same category;
and these dogs of Annwn were similarly said to rush
through the air, and evil was the omen. These are,
undoubtedly, the wind-dogs of Hermes, the con-
ductor of souls ; the Wild Huntsman is none other
than Odin, sweeping up the Souls of the dead in his
path. Annwn, or the Lower Regions, possess, in
the myth, the same characteristics as this world ;
only things are on a grander Scale there altogether.
I40 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
The other reference of importance to this Earthly
Other-world is in the story of Arthur. Dying on
the battle-field of Camlan, he is carried away to heal
of his wounds to “the vale of Avilion,” which Tenny-
son, catching the true idea of the Welsh mythic
paradise, describes thus: Arthur, dying, speaks to
Bedivere ;
“I am going a long way—
To the island-valley of Avilion ;
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow’d, happy, fair with orchard lawns
And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea.”
And here Arthur still lives on, destined one day to
appear and set free his Cambrians from the hateful
yoke of the Saxon. -
The myths in Ireland bearing on the existence
of a happy western land are very numerous and
important. The names given to this land vary,
but they have a general reference to happiness, all
Save the name Tir-fa-tonn, the “ Under-wave
Land.” The names generally met with are Tir
Tairngire, “Land of Promise; ” Mag Mell, “Plains
of Happiness; ” Tir-nam-beo, “Land of the Living ;’
Tir-nan-og, “Land of the Young ; ” and O’Breasail,
“Breasal's Isle.” Whether there is any distinction
implied in these names cannot well be said. There
would seem to be something of a difference between
the Under-wave Land and the Plains of Happiness;
the latter may have rather been the abode of the gods,
WELSH AND GAELIC ELYSIUM. I4I
where Manannan lived with Fann his wife, as the
myths have it. Tir-fa-tonn looks rather like the
Gaelic Hades, the abode of the dead. The Gaelic
version of Diarmat's sojourn there gives strong
colour to such a supposition, and the early Middle
Age legends in regard to St. Patrick's Purgatory
below Lough Dearg—the precursors of Dante and
Milton's descriptions—lend great countenance to
such a distinction between Tir-fa-tonn and Mag
Mell. - .
The myths may be grouped in three divisions.
There are, first, the myths where a mortal is sum-
moned, in an enchanting Song, by a fairy being who
has fallen in love with the mortal, to a land of beauty
and happiness and ever-youthful life; second,
there are myths which tell how a hero has, Ulysses-
like, paid a business visit to the other world; and,
thirdly, the accounts of many voyages of discovery
in search of the Happy Isles, and the “Traveller's
Tales '' of the wonders seen. To the first class belong
three very remarkable Irish myths: the Courtship
of Etain, the story of Condla Cam, and Ossian in
Tir-nan-og. The outline of the story is as follows:–
There suddenly appears before a kingly company
a fairy being who chants, for Some particular person
in the company loved by the fairy, a song descriptive
of the glories and pleasures of the Land of the Ever-
young. The person so addressed cannot choose
but love the fairy, and go to the wonderful land.
In Ossian's case alone have we got an account of the
I42 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
career of the enchanted one in Tir-nan-og. Niam
of the Golden Hair suddenly presents herself before
the Feni, tells her love for Ossian, and says: “I
place you under obligations which no true heroes
break through—to come with me on my white
steed to Tir-nan-og, the most delightful and renowned
country under the sun. Jewels and gold there are
in abundance, and honey and wine; the trees bear
fruit and blossoms and green leaves all the year
round. Feasting and music and harmless pastimes
are there each day. You will get a hundred swords,
and robes of richest loom ; a hundred steeds, and
hounds of keenest scent ; numberless herds, and
sheep with fleeces of gold; a hundred maidens
merry and young, sweeter of mouth than the music
of birds; a hundred suits of armour, and a sword,
gold-handled, that never missed a stroke. Decline
shall not come on you, nor death, nor decay. These,
and much more that passeth all mention, shall be
yours, and myself as your wife ” Needless is it
to recount how Ossian went, the wonders he saw
by the way, and the feats he did ; how he found
Tir-nan-og all that it was painted by the Princess
Niam ; how, after three hundred years, he returned
to earth on the white steed, from whose back he was
forbidden to dismount ; how he fell from the Steed
when helping the poor weakly mortals that he found
then on earth to raise a huge stone; and how the
steed rushed off and left him, old and withered and
blind, “among little men.” -
WELSH AND GAELIC ELYSIUM. I43
Visits of the nature of that undertaken by Ulysses,
in Homer, to the Land of Shades, were made by at
least three great champions of the Gael. These are
Cuchulainn, Cormac Mac Art, and Diarmat O'
Duinn. We have already referred to Cuchulainn's
helping of Fand, wife of Manannan. The story
says that, like a wise man, Cuchulainn, when invited
to assist Fand, deserted as she was by her husband,
sent his charioteer Loeg to “prospect ’’ and report
as to the safety of Such a journey. Loeg and his
fairy guide “proceeded until they reached the side
of the island, when they saw the bronze skiff waiting
for them. They then stepped on to the ship and
landed on the island.” There they found Fand and
her father waiting them. Professor Rhys very
properly compares this passage to the well-known
boat and ferry of Charon in Classical mythology.
“There can be no mistake,” he says, “as to its
[the Isle of the Blest] being the Elysium of the dead,
and that going into it meant nothing less than death
to ordinary mortals; it was only by Special favour
that a mortal might enter it otherwise.” Passing
over Cormac Mac Art's visit to Manannan, and
rescue from death of his wife and two children, we
find a double account of Diarmat's visit to Tir-fa-
tonn—one Irish, one Gaelic. The Irish one is in
its main features the counterpart of the Welsh
Mabinogion, “The Lady of the Fountain.” Diarmat
fights with the knight of the Fountain, and in
wrestling with him they both fall into the fountain.
I44 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
Diarmat, arriving at the bottom of it, finds himself
in a most beautiful territory, where he does many
deeds of valour, and helps a distressed prince to a
throne. The Highland tale represents him as shelter-
ing a loathly creature that turns out to be a most
beautiful lady under spells. She is the daughter
of the King of the Land under the Waves. After
presenting Diarmat with a fairy castle, and living
with him some time, she left him for her own country,
a slight quarrel having occurred. He followed her,
crossed on the “Charon ’’ boat, much as already
described in Loeg's case, and arrived at an island,
where down went the boat to a land under the sea
Here Diarmat found his love, but she was deadly
sick, to be cured only by a drink from a magical
cup in the possession of the King of Wonderland.
This is procured by the help of “the messenger of
the other world,” who advised him to have nothing
to do with the King's silver or gold, or even with the
daughter, an advice which Diarmat took, for after
healing her, “he took a dislike to her.” Diarmat,
therefore, was allowed to return from the realms of
death. - º
The “Voyagers' Tales " of Ireland can compare
for sensuous imagination very favourably with any
other country’s “Travellers' Tales.” Naturally
enough, the tales deal altogether with Sea-voyages,
generally to some western islands, and they must
and do contain many reminiscences of the Happy
Isles, where the dead live and the gods reign. De-
WELSH AND GAELIC ELYSIUM. I45
spite the monkish garb they at times assume, for
two of the most important are undertaken by monks,
the old heathenism peeps out at every turn. Some-
times we hear of a man living in a happy island
with the souls of all his descendants as birds giving
music around him. Sometimes we get a glimpse
of the earthly paradise, where the travellers saw,
“a great number of people, beautiful and glorious-
looking, wearing rich garments adorned and radiant
all over, feasting joyously and drinking from em-
bossed vessels of red gold. The voyagers also heard
their cheerful festive songs, and they marvelled
greatly, and their hearts were full of gladness at all
the happiness they saw and heard. But they did
not venture to land.” They pass occasionally into
the regions of spirits, and are brought into contact
with the living and the dead. The wonders they
meet with often point a moral, for there are punish-
ments for wickedness. On one island was found a
man digging with a Spade, the handle of which
was on fire, for on earth he was accustomed to dig
on Sunday. On another island was found a burly
miller feeding his mill with all the perishable things
of which people are “so choice and niggardly in this
world.” Islands of lamentation and islands of
laughing are visited ; gorgeous palaces and towns,
both above and below the waves, are seen, and duly
described. The principal voyagers were St. Brendan,
the sons of Ua Corra and Maelduin.
No argument as to the character of the inhabi-
I46 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
tants of the next world can be drawn from the modern
names given to it. Flaithemnas or, Gaelic, Flaith-
eamhnas, meant “glory '' in its original sense,
being derived from the word “Flaithem,” a lord,
with the abstract termination—as. “Innis,” an
island, forms no part of the word, so that the old
derivation and its consequent theories—“Island
of chiefs ''-fall to the ground. In the same way do
the many weird speculations upon the place of
pain, fail. Uffern, in Welsh, and Ifrinn or Iutharn,
in Gaelic, are both borrowed from the Latin word,
Infernum, much to the misfortune of those Druidic
theories that make the Celtic hell an “Isle of the
Cold Waves.” Both Flaitheamhnas and Ifrinn are
Christian ideas, and have no counterpart in the
Pagan Mythology of the Celts. Our Celtic myths
warrant us to speak but of an earthly Paradise, a
home of sensuous ease for the departed soul. The
glimpses of places of woe in the “Voyagers' Tales ''
are too much inspired by Christian thought to render
speculation upon the Celtic “prison-house" for the
Soul possible.
What character of body did the spirits of the dead
possess, according to the opinions of the Celts 2
The sensuous paradise argues a material body capable
of both physical enjoyments and Sorrows. The gods,
of course, had bodies somewhat analogous to those
of men ; these bodies were celestial, but yet quite
as substantial as human bodies. The difference
was that they were not subject to the trammels
WELSH AND GAELIC ELYSIUM. I47
of gravitation and visibility, unless they chose.
Their persons were more beautiful and majestic
than those of men ; a “sublimated " humanity
characterised them. They appeared among mortals
—Sometimes all of a sudden in the midst of an as-
Sembly; ate, drank, and acted, like mortals, in every
respect. Sometimes they were seen only by one
person in the company, though heard by all, as in
the story of Condla Cam, whom the fairy enchanted
and abducted. These are, however, the Pagan
gods as seen in Christian myth. Yet we find the
ghosts of departed heroes appearing in much the
Same way as the Side and Tuatha-De-Danann. The
ghost of Caoilte is met with in one or two myths
representing different times—in St. Patrick's time
and King Mongan's time—and on each occasion he
appears in “his habit as he lived,” full of life and
Colour, not pale and shadowy. Besides, these
ghosts can appear in the day time, as Caoilte used
to do. The great poem of the Tain Bo Chuailgne
had been lost by the 6th century and it could be
recovered only by raising its composer, Fergus
MacRoy, from the dead. And this the Saints of
Erin were able to accomplish. “Fergus himself,”
we are told, “appeared in a beautiful form, adorned
with brown hair, clad in a green cloak, and wearing
a collared gold-ribbed shirt, a gold-hilted sword,
and sandals of bronze.” He was evidently a very
substantial apparition | St Patrick was also able,
though indirectly, to raise the spirit of the great
I48 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
Cuchulainn himself, to meet King Loegaire. The
famous champion appeared to him one morning
Splendidly dressed, with his chariot, horses, and
charioteer, the same as when alive. All is minutely
described : the charioteer, for instance, was a “lank,
tall, Stooped, freckle-faced man. He had curling
reddish hair upon his head. He had a circlet of
bronze upon his forehead which kept his hair from
his face; and cups of gold upon his poll behind,
into which his hair coiled ; a small winged cape on
him, with its buttoning at his elbows ; a goad of
red gold in his hand, by which he urged his horses.”
The substantial ghosts of dead heroes are in the
myths generally classed as Side, among whom also
the gods were classed. This, of course, arose from
a confusion. The Side, I take it, were the ghosts
of the glorious dead dwelling in their barrows or
tumuli (the sid). At these barrows, doubtless,
they were worshipped in accordance with the cus-
toms of ancestor worship. This cannot be proved
with satisfaction from the Gaelic myths alone, but
if we refer to the belief and rites of the Norse
peoples, we shall see plenty evidence of the worship
of the dead in their barrows. In the Land nama-
bok we read that at one place “there was a harrow
(‘high place ’) made there, and sacrifices began to
be performed there, for they believed that they died
wnto these hills.” The editors of the lately published
work, “Corpus Poeticum Boreale,” bring forward
quite an array of evidence in proof of the Sacredness
WELSH AND GAELIC ELYSIUM. I49
of these “houses" and barrows, and the belief
that dead ancestors lived another life there, and took
an interest in the living. “Of the spirit life and the
behaviour of the dead,” they say, “there is some
evidence. In the older accounts they are feasting
happily, and busying themselves with the good of
their living kindred, with whom they are still united
in intense sympathy. . . . Of the ritual names
of the worshipped dead, the oldest we know is ‘Anse,”
which survived in Iceland into the Middle Ages,
in the Sense of guardian spirit or genius of a hill.
‘Elf is another name used of spirits of the dead—
of divine spirits generally—as the ‘Anses ' and the
‘Elves of Loka-Senna. Later, in Christian times,
it sinks in Scandinavia to mean ‘fairy.’
There were evil spirits—spirits of bad men—and even
vampires and the like, such as the dreadful Glam
and unhallowed spirits and monsters.” We may
thus argue that the Side or Aes-Side (compare Anse
or Aesir above) were properly the divine ancestors,
and that the gods, originally in Pagan times quite
distinct from them, were afterwards confused with
the “side,” as we have them in the myths. But
a still greater confusion overtook these names and
ideas as time and Christianity advanced. The
“side " got mixed up with the “elves,” the earth
and wood powers, just as they did among the Norse ;
and the modern “sith ” is a mixture of tumulus-
dweller and wood-nymph. The gods have almost
entirely left the scene ; only the Lares—the Grua-
I50 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
gachs and Brownies are left. Of old, among the
Pagan-Gael, there were, doubtless, ghosts somewhat
analagous to those of present superstitions, but they
were clearly those of unhallowed men, as we have
seen in the case of the Norse beliefs. The modern
ghosts follow the analogy of the dwellers in the
Greek Hades, and not of the inhabitants of the
Earthly Paradise of the Gaels, that “Land of the
Leal ’’ where the sun sinks in the west. They grew
up during the Middle Ages under the shadow of the
Roman Church. -
CELTIC WORSHIP AND RITES.
A brief glance at the places and rites of worship
and burial among the ancient Celts will conclude
the religious aspect of their Mythology. The Celts
worshipped in temples and in groves ; both are
frequently referred to in the classical writers. Un-
fortunately no description of any Celtic temple is
vouchsafed us ; the natural conclusion we must
come to is that they must have been similar, how-
ever rude, to the temples of the kindred races of
Greece and Rome. Celtic houses were constructed
of wood ; “great houses,” says Strabo, “arched,
constructed of planks and wicker, and covered with
a heavy thatched roof.” They were circular, high,
and with either a conical or domed roof. This
description applies to the very earliest Celtic build-
ings, those of Britain and rural Gaul, for the Gauls
CELTIC WORSHIP AND RITES. I5I
of Caesar's time had towns with walls, streets and
market places, as opposed to the “dunum,” the
stockaded hill-top or fortified forest-clearing, of their
insular brethren. The Gaulish temples must, there-
fore, have been of stone, but the British temples
were most likely constructed, like the houses, of
wood. The earliest Christian churches were also
made of wood, and, for the most part, clearly con-
sisted of the old heathen temples consecrated to
Christian use. “The temples of the Idols in Britain,”
says Pope Gregory (A.D. 601), “ought not to be
destroyed ; but let the idols that are in them be
destroyed ; let holy water be made and sprinkled
in the said temples; let altars be erected and relics
placed.” There are no remains of either Celtic
heathen temples or early Christian churches. The
theory that the so-called “Druid " circles were
Celtic temples is refuted by the two facts that the
Celts were Aryans with Aryan culture, and that they
made use of metal—even iron—tools from the earliest
period we have record of them. The rude stone
circles are evidently not the work of a race well
acquainted with the use of metal. It is quite true
that in religious ceremonies old phases of culture,
whether of dress, instruments, or buildings, survive
in a higher stage of civilisation. Thus the flint
knife of the “stone '' age was used on solemn
occasions at the Jewish circumcision, and at the
sacrifices of old Carthage and Rome; and the gowns
of modern clergymen are the survivals of Middle-Age
I52 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
dresses. This, however, operates but to a limited
extent; the Jewish temple, unlike their rude stone
altars, was built of hewn stone, made ready before
being brought to the temple, so that “there was
neither hammer nor axe, nor any tool of iron, heard
in the house while it was building.” In this way
a metal-using people reconciled the old with the
new phase of culture, and we cannot suppose that
the Celts, even if they did use stone circles, which
is most improbable, would not have reconciled them
to their state of culture by dressing and shaping
the stones, as, indeed, the Bronze Age builders of
Stonehenge had begun to do.
Along with temples, the classical writers con-
tinually mention “groves” as especial places where
Celtic worship was conducted. A grove was a secret
recess embowered by tall trees, and marked by
votive offerings, insignia of the gods, and an altar
of Stone, or Some equivalent. The distinguishing
features of a grove were Secrecy and sacredness.
Groves are prior in time to temples, and Grimm has
analysed the Teutonic words for “temple '' to
signify “wood " or even “grove.” He says—
“The earliest seat of heathen worship was in groves,
whether on mountain or in pleasant mead ; there
the first temples were afterwards built, and there
also were the tribunals of the nation.” The classical
words for temple—Latin, templum, Greek, temenos,
both from the root tem, to cut, mean, originally, a
“clearing ”—a forest clearing, in fact. The Greek
CELTIC WORSHIP AND RITES. I53
temenos, which may mean a sacred grove, is often
used in speaking of Celtic places of worship. The
Gaulish word of like signification was nemeton, which
appears in several place-names in Britain, Gaul,
and Asia Minor ; in the latter country the Galatian
Council of the twelve tetrarchies met at a place
called Drynemeton, that is, “ oak-grove.” In old
Irish, the word appears as nemed, a chapel, and is
the same in root as the Gaelic meanh, heaven, and
the Latin nemus, a grove. Lucan, in the following
lines, gives us a vivid description of a Gaulish grove,
dwelling on the superstitions and miracles connected
with it, and alluding to the worship of the “secretum
illud,” the abstract existence, which Tacitus says
the Germans reverenced, who, here as elsewhere in
religion, differed but little from the Celts.
“A grove, inviolate from length of age,
With interwoven branches' mazy cage,
Enclosed a darkened space of earth and air,
With chilly shades, where sun could enter ne'er.
There not the rustic gods nor satyrs sport,
Nor sylvans, gods of groves, with nymphs resort ;
But barbarous priests, on altars dire, adore
Their gods, and stain each tree with human gore.
If miracles of old can be received
And pious tales of gods can be believed,
There not the feathered songster builds her nest,
Nor lonely dens conceal the savage beast ;
There no tempestuous winds presume to fly,
Ev’n lightnings glance aloof, obliquely by.
Nor ever breezes lift or lay the leaves,
But shivering horror in the branches heaves;
The plenteous stream the darkened fountains leaves :
The images of gods, a mournful band,
I54 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
Have ne'er been shaped so rude by artist's hand—
Misshapen forms with limbs lopped off forth stand.
The very place, with oaks all hoar and drear,
Inspires the gazer's soul with numbing fear:
'Tis not the deities of wonted form
They worship thus 'mid terrors and alarm,
But gods unknown—it but increases fear
They do not know the gods they so revere.
Oft, as fame tells, the earth in throbs of woe
Is heard to groan from hollow depths below ;
The baleful yew, though dead, has oft been seen,
To rise from earth and spring with dusky green ;
With sparkling flames the trees, unburning shine,
And round their boles prodigious serpents twine.
The pious worshippers approach not near,
But shun their gods and kneel with distant fear;
The priest himself, when Phoebus, god of light,
Rolling, has reached his full meridian height,
Or night rules all, dreads to approach the place
And shuns the master of the grove to face.”
The favourite tree among the Gauls for groves was
the oak ; “the Druids,” says Pliny, “choose groves
of oak and conduct no sacrifice without its leaf,”
and he suggests that the name Druid is from the
same root as Greek Drus, an oak, a derivation which
is yet the only one worth consideration of the many
suggested. The sacredness of groves and of trees
has not yet died out among the Celts. In Ireland
it is counted especially unlucky to cut down trees
in raths and such early structures. Mr. Kinahan,
in the “Folklore Record ” for 1882, says:—A
man, near Kilmaganny, County Kilkenny, came to
me in a great state of mind one morning, as the
previous night some one had cut a thorn tree in a
CELTIC WORSHIP AND RITES. I55
rath on his land, and some ill-luck must come to
him before the end of the year. I tried to console
him by saying the year [it being October] was nearly
out, so that he would probably live out the charm,
but curiously enough before Christmas he buried a
fine girl of a daughter. --
The Celts made use of statues in their worship :
Caesar mentions that there were very many statues
of Mercury, and other writers, as Lucan, in the lines
quoted above, bear testimony to the same fact.
Before they used images, they were content with
emblems of the gods; thus we are told by a writer
of the second century that the Celts worshipped
Zeus, and that a tall oak represented his statue,
a reference which again puts the Celts on a level
with the Germans of Tacitus, who had no statues,
and even thought it an impiety to represent celestial
grandeur in human shape. Some remains of Gaulish
art in statue-making have weathered the ravages
of ages, and of these the statuettes of Mercury and
Taranis are the most numerous and interesting.
Uninfluenced by Roman or Greek art, their statues
were rude and unshapely, as Lucan says:—“Simula-
craque maesta deorum arte carent.” Gildas speaks
of the grim-faced idols mouldering in the deserted
temples; and idols of bronze to the number of
nineteen were dug up at Devizes in 1714. A true
Celtic statue called by its Breton votaries the
“Groah-Goard,” and known as the “Venus of
Quinipily,” was worshipped in Brittany till the
I56 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
17th century. It was a huge misshapen figure,
7 feet high, with a large and uncouth body, aflattened
bust, and eyes, nose, and mouth like those of an
Egyptian idol. We meet in Irish history with the
mystical figure of Crom or Crom-Cruaich, King-idol
of Erin, first, in the reign of King Tiernmas (I543
B.C.), who, we are told, died along with three-
fourths of his people whilst they were “ic adrad
Chroim-Chroich, rig idaill hErenn,” and, a second
time, in St Patrick's life, who found at Mag
Slecht (“ adoration plain '') in Cavan, Crom-Cruaich,
the chief idol of Erin, covered with gold and
silver, and having twelve other idols about it
covered with brass. The Saint caused the earth to
swallow these up as far as their heads, where they
still were, as a sign of the miracle, when the pious
Middle-Age scribe was writing.
The Gaulish altars and also the Gaelic altars were
pillars of stone inscribed with emblems of the Sun
and moon, or a beast, bird, or something which
symbolised some force of nature—“ dealba nan
dula "-representations of the elements, as Cormac
calls them. Another feature of Celtic groves and
temples consisted of the many votive tablets and
images, with representation of limbs, faces, and
bodily parts, hung up on the walls or Suspended
from the trees. These were set up as thank-
offerings for rescue from some sickness or pain in the
part represented, or with a view that relief from
pain might come. The “rag-bush ’’ by the modern
CELTIC WORSHIP AND RITES. I57
wells, and the crutches and other accessories of
infirmities left at holy wells, are a remnant of ancient
and analogous beliefs in the deities of the fountains.
A more ghastly sight, however, would be presented
by the many heads of animals, and, possibly, of
men hung up in the groves, like trophies of the chase,
but really intended as votive offerings, and rendered,
at times, all the ghastlier by having their mouths
prized and kept open by sticks of wood. This
custom is still kept in remembrance in modern
architectural designs.
For Celtic religious rites we have to trust almost
entirely, in attempting to discover them, to the
Superstitions and customs of Christian and modern
times. Superstition is the survival, in another
phase of culture, of earlier religion and Science. At
present we shall only deal with some customs and
superstitions that appear to bear on Celtic religious
ritual, leaving the wider question of quaint, customs
and superstitions to be dealt with afterwards. The
classical writers mention but little of Celtic rites.
The human sacrifices attracted most attention :
“They sacrifice men,” says Diodorus, “striking
them at the place above the diaphragm [on the
back, Strabo says], and from their fall, the convul-
sion of the limbs and the flow of the blood, they
predict the future.” When the Romans put a
stop to their human sacrifices, vestiges, how-
ever, remained, as Mela says, of the old but abolished
Savagery, and “just as they refrain from going the
I58 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
whole length of slaughter, they nevertheless touch
and graze the persons devoted to sacrifice after
bringing them to the altars.” An interesting
parallel to this in modern times occurs in the Samoan
islands. There cannibalism has for ages been
unknown, yet the punishment that carries the highest
disgrace among them is to put the delinquent into a
cold oven, an evident survival from the time when
such a person would be roasted and eaten. The
remembrance of these old Celtic human sacrifices
was until lately kept up at the Beltane fires.
The only religious rites of any consequence that
can be pointed to are those connected with the
worship of fire and the changes of the year. It
must not be supposed that the Celts were greater
worshippers of fire, Sun, and moon than the other
European nations, and that this worship was dis-
tinctive of them. The fire worship was equally
as strong among Teutons, Romans, and Greeks as
among the Celts, and quite as long maintained
into modern times. But Celtic idiosyncracies bring
Some features of the worship and practices into
greater prominence. The custom of showing re-
verence by walking round persons or things, keeping
the right hand towards them, is derived from the
apparent course of the Sun, and is known as “deiseil"
(dextralis), “right-hand-wise.” In India the old
name for the custom is similarly the “right-hand
turn,” dakshiman kri. The “need-fire"—Gaelic,
teine-eiginn—is a “survival '' from a very ancient
CELTIC WORSHIP AND RITES. I59
phase of culture, and, possibly, from a time when
men lived in a warmer climate, and the rubbing of
sticks easily produced fire. It is also significant
that, in the best preserved form of the custom, the
need-fire makers must have no metal about them, a
survival which points to the Stone Age. Another
general fact in regard to Celtic need-fire was that all
the district fires within sight had previously to be
extinguished, to be re-lighted only from the pure
need-fire. The need-fire was variously produced.
In Mull, about 1767, a hill-top was selected, within
sigh hich all fires were put out, and then the
roduced by turning a wheel over nine
00d until the friction caused com-
tin in his “ Western Isles '' thus
“The timegin they used as an anti-
the plague or murrain in cattle, and it
ed thus—All the fires in the parish
guished, and then eighty-one married
ng thought the necessary number for
this design, took two great planks of wood,
e of them were employed by turns, who by
nited efforts rubbed one of the planks against
ther until the heat thereof produced fire ; and
ºfom this fire each family is supplied with new fire,
which is no sooner kindled than a pot full of water
is quickly set on it, and afterwards sprinkled on the
people infected with the plague or upon the cattle
that have the murrain.” In Caithness the friction
was produced by working a horizontal wooden



















I6O CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
bar, supplied with levers, in two upright pieces
of wood, into which it was inserted at each end.
In all cases, within Christian historic times, the need-
fire was lighted as a charm against the plague,
whether it attacked men or cattle. Fire has always
been considered the purifier par excellence, and
clearly no fire could be so pure as the need-fire,
which was there and then produced for the first time.
But though latterly restricted to being a charm
against the plague, the need-fire shows clear traces
of a higher religious purpose. These fires were
lighted at the great festivals of the * *-** - - - -
year, and from them all the fires of the
previously extinguished, were re-ligi
we know, presided at these sacred fires,
cattle were passed through them, as
Others tell us. One of St. Patrick’s fil
with King Loegaire was over the Sacred
fire. “Fire is kindled by him at that place
Eve,” says a Middle-Irish life of the saint ; ‘
is enraged when he sees the fire. For tha
prohibition of Tara which the Gael had, and
durst kindle a fire in Ireland on that day ul
had been kindled first at Tara at the solem:
And the Druids said ‘unless that fire be quenche
before this night, he whose fire it is shall have the
kingdom of Ireland for ever.’” But that fire was
not quenched, and the boldness of the missionary,
along with the inevitable miracles, brought Loegaire
and his people to the side of the Saint and Christianity.





















CELTIC WORSHIP AND RITES. I6I
The need-fire and the sunwise-turn, “deiseil,”
are but the outward embodiments of the great
worship of fire and light. The discovery how to
make fire at will was a tremendous step in human
progress, and has impressed itself on the oldest
mythologies in the many myths in regard to the
“descent of fire.” In India the god is taken down
from his hiding place in heaven and given to man,
and his sign is the wooden fire-drill, pramantha.
Prometheus and his history represent the Greek
equivalent myth. The sun was reverenced by
imitation of its course—the “deiseil,” though, also
as still on the Continent any day, the Gaels at
Beltane morn worshipped the rising sun by taking
off the caps, and saluting him with “failte ’’
or hail. For distinctive instances of rites
we must have recourse to the observances
and customs of certain festal days throughout the
year.
The year is a solar period, the unit of which is the
day, but ancient peoples felt the want of an inter-
mediate reckoner of time, and this was found in the
moon and its monthly period. In fact, the moon
was the measurer of time par excellence, as the words
for month in English, Latin, Greek, and Gaelic
prove, for they are from the root of “moon.” Its
four phases give rise to weeks of seven or eight days,
eight among the Romans ; and the Celts, as well
as the Teutons and Greeks, reckoned their time by
nights, and not by days. Pliny informs us that
I62 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
the Celtic year and the Celtic months began on the
6th day of the moon. Customs and Superstitions
in regard to the moon and its waxing and waning
still survive in connection with the cutting of wood
or turf, the starting of new enterprises or of a
journey, and such like. The lunar time does not
square with the solar time of revolution, and the
ancients were in endless confusion in regard to their
calendars. The Celts corrected lunar by solar
time every thirty years, which Pliny tells us was their
cycle. The month may have been alternately 29
and 30 days, to Suit the 293 days of lunar revolution,
and possibly by having IS lunar months for eleven
years of the thirty, they managed to make the Solar
fit with the lunar time to within a few days. The
year was originally divided into two seasons—
Summer and winter, gam and Sam, and then spring
was added, the name of which differs in root in the
two great branches of the Celtic race. The week
is most probably non-Celtic in idea, and also in
names to a very great extent. The Welsh names
of the days of the week are Roman ; the Gaelic
names are mixed, Roman and Christian. Sunday
is Di-domhnuich (dies dominica); Monday, Di-
luain (dies Lunae); Tuesday, Di-Mairt (dies Martis);
Wednesday, Di-ciadaoin (dies primi jejunii, “ day
of first fast; ” for religious people as Bede tells us,
fasted on Wednesdays as well as Fridays), a purely
church name ; Thursday, Di-ardaoin, or Irish, Dia
dardaoin, “day between two fasts; ” Friday, Di-
CELTIC WORSHIP AND RITES. I63
y
h-aoine, “ day of fast ;
(dies Saturni). -
Fire and Sun worship, and along with these, the
worship of the earth-powers, fell on the four great
solar periods, the two solstices and the two equinoxes.
Lunar time was made to fit these by holding the feasts
on the first full moon, or the I4th of the month,
after the equinox or Solstice. The great winter
feast on December 25th, when the Sun just turned
on its northward course again, was Solemnised in
honour of the new birth of the “unconquered sun,”
dies natalis invicti Solis, and was held in Rome in
honour of the sun-god Mithra, of Persian origin,
whose festival was finally established by Aurelian
as national and Roman, about A.D. 273. A hundred
years later the Christian Church accepted it, doubt-
fully and reluctantly, as the natal day of Christ,
thus entering on a course which it consistently
pursued of Christianising all pagan rites, festivals,
and even temples. The midsummer Solstice was
therefore dedicated to St John the Baptist, and so on.
The Celtic, or rather Gaelic festivals, of a distinctive
kind, are three in number ; Bealltuinn (Ist May),
LunaSquinn (ISt August), and Samhuinn (Ist No-
vember). Why these festivals should be a month
later than the solar periods in each case, is doubtful ;
but it is clear that these periods suit the climatic
changes of the seasons in the North better than the
earlier, though truer, Solar periods.
The great festival of Beltane occurred on May-day.
and Saturday, Di-Sathuirne
I64 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
Cormac's reference to this pagan festival is the first
and most important —“Belltaine, i.e. bil tene,
a goodly fire, i.e. two fires which Druids used to make
through incantations (or with great incantations),
and they used to bring the cattle to those fires as a
preservative against diseases of each year.” Here
we have to note that the fire was made by Druidic
incantations, which means no more than that it was
made by the “tinegin,” or need-fire method, and that
it was a preservative against disease in cattle. Cor-
mac's derivation has the misfortune of making a
wrong division of the syllables of the word, which
are beallt-uinn, or belt-ane ; not bel-tane. We
must reject any derivation that so divides the word,
and hold that the latter part of the word has nothing
to do with teine fire, but is, probably, the n termin-
ation of most words of time. Hence derivations
which connect the word with the fire of Baal or Bel
are out of place, granting that such a god as Bel is
Celtic, and not invented for the occasion. Belinu,
is the Celtic Apollo. Mr. Fitzgerald's derivation
of Beltane, from bile-tineadh, “fire-tree,” is to be
rejected on the ground of wrong division of the word,
and his instances adduced of the existence in Ireland
of usages pointing to a belief in a world-tree of the
Norse type appear to be too slight and too little
founded on general Celtic, especially Scottish, tra-
ditions in regard to the Beltane festival. The world-
tree, and consequent may-pole, are not distinctively,
if at all, Celtic in this connection. “ The first of
CELTIC WORSHIP AND RITES. I65
May,” says M. D’Arbois de Jubainville, “was con-
secrated to Beltene, one of the names of the god of
death, the god who gave and took away life,” the root
in this case being the pre-historic infinitive belliu,
to die. Why the festival of the beginning of the
summer, the outburst of nature, and the conquest
of the death and winter powers should be sacred,
not to the god of life and light, but to his opposite,
is a thing which this derivation and theory cannot
account for. The November feast might well be
one where the loss of the sun-god and victory of the
god of death were commemorated, but the first of
summer is far from appropriate for this. Both in
Welsh and Gaelic myth the victory of the light-
gods is indicated on the first of May ; Gwyn fights
for Cordelia, and the Tuatha de Danann overcame
the Firbolg, the Earth powers, on that day. Grimm
hesitatingly hints what appears to be the true
derivation —The Norse sun-god is called Balder,
and he suggests that this is connected with Lithuanian
baltas, “white.” The connection of Beltane with
these two words is confirmed by the Gaelic saying
of “la buidhe Bealltuinn,” “yellow May-day,”
which may be a reminiscence of the primary meaning
of Beltane.
We have numerous accounts of the Beltane rites,
all pointing to fire and Sun worship—phases of puri-
fication, sacrifice, and divination. One of the best
accounts is given in the Old Statistical Account
of the parish of Callander. “Upon the first of
I66 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
May,” it says, “which is called Beltan or Băl-tein,
all the boys in a township or hamlet meet on the
moors. They cut a table in the green sod, of a round
figure, by Casting a trench in the ground of such
circumference as to hold the whole company. They
kindle a fire and dress a repast of eggs and milk in
the consistence of a custard. They knead a cake
of oatmeal, which is toasted at the embers against
a stone. After the custard is eaten up, they divide
the cake into SO many portions, as similar as possible
to one another in size and shape, as there are persons
in the company. They daub one of these portions
all over with charcoal until it be perfectly black.
They put all the bits of the cake into a bonnet.
Every one, blindfold, draws out a portion. He who
holds the bonnet is entitled to the last bit. Who-
ever draws the black bit, is the devoted person who
is to be sacrificed to Baal, whose favour they implore
in rendering the year productive of the sustenance
of man and beast. There is little doubt of these
inhuman sacrifices having been Once offered in this
country, as well as in the East, although they now
pass from the act of Sacrificing, and only compel
the devoted person to leap three times through the
flames ; with which the ceremonies of the festival
are closed.” To this sensible account and its
inferences, all but the reference to Baal, we agree
fully. Most authorities hold, with Cormac, that
there were two fires, between which and through
which they passed their cattle and even their chil-
CELTIC WORSHIP AND RITES. I67
dren. Criminals were made to stand between the
two fires, and hence the proverb, in regard to a
person in extreme danger, as the Rev. D. Macqueen
gives it, “He is betwixt two Beltein fires.” Pennant
adds some interesting facts : the rites began with
Spilling Some caudle on the ground by way of libation,
whereupon “everyone takes a cake of oatmeal
upon which are raised nine square knobs, each one
dedicated to some particular being, the Supposed
preserver of their flocks and herds, or to some parti-
cular animal, the real destroyer of them. Each
person then turns his face to the fire, breaks off a
knob, and flinging it over his shoulders, says, “This
I give to thee, preserve thou my horses; this to thee,
preserve thou my sheep,” and so on. After that,
they use the same ceremony to the noxious animals :
‘This I give to thee, O fox spare thou my lambs :
this to thee, O hooded crow ! this to thee, O eagle.’”
Shaw, the historian of Moray, tells us that the fires
were kindled with a flint; “the Druidic incantations”
of Cormac and the “tinegin '' were not used within
the last century at least for lighting the Beltane
fire; their use seems latterly to have been restricted
to raising the need-fire during cattle plagues.
The midsummer festival, christianised into St.
John's Eve and Day, for the celebration of the
Summer Solstice, is not a specially Celtic, as it is a
Teutonic feast. The wheels of wood, wrapped round
with straw, set on fire, and sent rolling from a hillock
Summit, to end their course in Some river or water,
I68 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
which thus typified the descending course of the sun
onward till next solstice, is represented on Celtic
ground by the occasional use of a wheel for pro-
ducing the tinegin, but more especially by the custom
in Some districts of rolling the Beltane bannocks
from the hill summit down its side. Shaw remarks:
“They made the Deas-Sail [at Midsummer] about
their fields of corn with burning torches of wood
in their hands, to obtain a blessing on their corn.
This I have often seen, more, indeed, in the Lowlands
than in the Highlands. On Midsummer Eve, they
kindle fires near their cornfields, and walk round
them with burning torches.” In Cornwall last
century they used to perambulate the villages carry-
ing lighted torches, and in Ireland the Eve of Mid-
Summer was honoured with bonfires round which
they carried torches.
The specially Celtic feast or “Feill” was held
some five weeks later, on the Ist August, Lammas
Day. It is called in Scottish Gaelic “Lunasduinn,”
in Irish “Lunasd,” old Irish “Lugnasad,” the fair
of Lug. The legend says that Luga of the Long
Arms, the Tuatha De Danann king, instituted this
fair in honour of his foster-mother Tailtiu, queen
of the Firbolgs. Hence the place where it was held
was called Tailtiu after her, and is the modern
Teltown. The fair was held, however, in all the
capitals of ancient Ireland on that day. Games
and manly sports characterised the assemblies.
Luga, it may be noted, is the Sun-god, who thus
CELTIC WORSHIP AND RITES. I69
institutes the festival, and it is remarkable that at
ancient Lyons, in France, called of old Lug-dunum,
a festival was held on this very day, which was
famous over all Gaul.
Equal to Beltane in importance was the solemnity
of Hallowe'en, known in Gaelic as Samhuinn or
“Summerend.” Like Beltan it was sacred to the
gods of light and of earth ; Ceres, Apollo, and Dis
also, must have been the deities whose worship
was honoured. The earth goddess was celebrated
for the ingathering of the fruits; Apollo or Belinus
and Proserpine were bewailed for their disappearing
from earth, and Dis, who was god of death and
winter's cold, and who was especially worshipped
by the Celts, as Caesar Says, was implored for mercy,
and his subjects, the manes of the dead, had special
worship directed to them. It was, indeed, a great
festival—the festival of fire, fruits, and death. The
features that still remain in popular customs in regard
to Hallowe'en clearly show its connection with the
gods of fire and fate ; bonfires and divination are
its characteristics. The Statistical Account, al-
ready quoted, says of Hallowe'en —“On All-
Saint's Even they set up bonfires in every village.
When the bonfire is consumed, the ashes are carefully
collected in the form of a circle. There is a stone
put in, near the circumference, for every person
of the several families interested in the bonfire,
and whatever stone is moved out of its place or in-
jured before next morning, the person represented
M
I70 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
by that stone is devoted or fey, and is supposed not
to live twelve months from that day.” A Some-
what similar custom is recorded by Pennant as ex-
isting in North Wales, where every family made a
great bonfire in the most conspicuous place near
the house, and when the fire was extinguished, every
one threw a white stone into the ashes, having first
marked it. If next morning any of these stones is
found wanting, they have a notion that the person
who threw it in will die before next Hallowe'en.
We can only refer to the various laughable and serious
methods of divination resorted to on Hallowe'en
night to read into the future ; our national poet
Burns has left us a graphic picture of the night and
its ceremonies in “Hallowe'en.” It may be remarked
that the mystic apple plays an important part in
these ceremonies, as it also does in so many Celtic
fairy tales. The custom in various parts of keeping
a heap of cakes, called Soul-cakes, to give away to all-
comers, and more especially to the poor, clearly
commemorates the ancient offering to the dead of
food on this night. What was dedicated in Pagan
times to the manes of the dead, is in modern times
converted into doles of bread to the poor, as Mr.
Tylor points out.
Martin records a religious rite of the Lews people
that must not be passed over here. “The inhabi-
tants of this island had an ancient custom to sacrifice
to a sea-god called Shony, at Hallotide, in the
following manner:—The inhabitants round the
CELTIC WORSHIP AND RITES. I7I
island came to the Church of St Malvey,
having each man his provision along with him ;
every family furnished a peck of malt, and this was
brewed into ale; one of their number was picked
out to wade into the sea up to the middle, and carry-
ing a cup of ale in his hand, standing still in that
posture, cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Shony,
I give you this cup of ale, hoping that you'll be so
kind as to send us plenty of sea-ware for enriching
our ground for the ensuing year'; and so threw the
cup of ale into the sea. This was performed in the
night-time. At his return to land they all went
to church, where there was a candle burning upon the
altar; and then Standing silent for Some time, one
of them gave a signal, at which the candle was put
out, and immediately all of them went to the fields,
where they fell a-drinking their ale and spent the
remainder of the night in dancing, singing, etc.”
This they believed to be a powerful means to procure
a plentiful crop. This superstition is but lately
dead, though the sacrifice had been repressed, for
they proceeded in spring to the end of a long reef
and invoked “ Briannuil '' to send a strong north.
wind to drive plenty sea-ware ashore. There are
other instances of sacrifice within the last two
hundred years in the Highlands. An annual sacri-
fice on the 25th August to St Mourie in Applecross
and Gairloch troubled the Dingwall Presbytery in
the 17th century. These rites consisted in immo-
lating bulls, pouring of milk on hills as oblations,
172 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
visiting ruined chapels and “circulating ” them,
divining by putting the head into a hole in a stone,
and the worshipping of wells and stones. The bulls
were sacrificed “in ane heathenish manner ‘’ for
the recovery of man and beast from disease. A
Morayshire farmer some thirty years ago, in the
case of a murrain, lighted the need-fire with all due
ceremony, then dug a pit and sacrificed an ox to the
“unknown '' spirit. Sacrifice of cocks for epilepsy
has not been infrequent in modern times; this is
done by burying them alive. *
Other festival days retain a spice of heathen
Celticism about them yet. The last night of the
year the fire must not be allowed to go out, and there
is a particular dislike at this time to give a neighbour
a “kindling ” or even light for a pipe, a feeling
which in some degree exists at Beltane and
Hallowe'en. Candlemas day is known as La Fheill-
Brighde, St Brigit’s day, who is really the canonised
fire-goddess, the Vesta of the heathen Gaels. Some
customs in regard to her worship were mentioned
already, and Martin relates an interesting custom
in the Western Isles on Candlemas, showing St
Brigit clearly in the aspect of Vesta, the hearth
and home goddess. The mistress and servants
of each family take a sheaf of oats and dress it up
in women's apparel, put it in a large basket, and lay
a wooden club by it, and this they call Briid’s-bed,
and then they cry thrice, “Briid is come, Briid is
welcome.” Next morning they look in the ashes
CELTIC BURIAL RITES. I73
to see the impression of Briid's club there, and if
they do they reckon it a true presage of a good crop
and prosperous year, and the contrary they regard
an ill omen. Shrove Tuesday was a great day
in the Highlands for cock-fighting ; then each
scholar brought cocks to fight and decide who should
be king and queen of the school for the ensuing year.
It was also a noted day for ball-playing. Its popu-
larity for nut-burning and marriage-divination by
putting symbolic articles into brose or cakes is yet
great.
CELT I C BURIAL RíTES,
The customs at burial and the disposal of the dead
among the early Celts can only be discovered in a
general way. The earlier Aryan races evidently
burned the bodies of the dead, preserved the bones
in urns, and raised over them a circular mound.
The poems of Homer present us with what may be
regarded as typical examples of early Greek and Celtic
burials. A pyre of wood was constructed and on
them i-jºe-body was laid. Sheep and oxen
ir fat was placed about and upon the
their carcases were heaped around it.
ºney and oil were placed on the pile. Horses,
te dogs, and captives were slain and cast
fle pyre, and the whole set on fire. A wail was





I74 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
raised and the dead addressed by name. When the
fire burned low, it was finally extinguished with
wine, the bones were collected—“ the whitened
bones,” as the poet says—and placed in an urn of
gold. Then they dug a grave, and raised over it
a mound. In historic times, in Greece and Republi-
can Rome, the burning of the dead was the exception
not the rule; but in Imperial Rome the custom
revived, and became the rule, while inhumation,
at least of the better classes, was the exception,
Christianity, however, finally stopped the burning
of the dead. The old mounds had also developed
into the elegance of built tombs, vaults, and monu-
ments with inscriptions and other accessories of
civilisation. Among the Celts of Gaulin Caesar's time,
evidently the Homericage of burial was still prevalent;
all the classical writers of that and the succeeding
century testify to the burning of the bodies among
the Gauls, but they are silent as to the character
of the tombs. “Their funerals,” Caesar says, “are
magnificent and costly, considering their civilisation ;
and all that they think was dear to them when alive
they put in the fire, even animals; and shortly before
this generation the slaves and dependents that they
and bury along with the déad whatever i
them when alive, and there were sone who,
own free will, cast themselves on the funeral



CELTIC BljRIAL RITES. I75
of their relatives, expecting to live along with them.”
Thus, we have not merely the burning of the bodies,
but also the burning of things useful in this life,
and more especially of slaves and relatives; the
latter practice having become, previous to historic
times, obsolete. No trace of the remembrance of
a time when the dead were burnt can be found
in the earliest histories and myths of Ireland or
Britain, although abundance of instances occur
where personal and other property has been buried
along with the dead ; and even the immolation of
captives is not unknown, as when the Munster
hostages were buried alive around the grave of
Fiachra, about the end of the fourth century of our
era. Sacrifice of animals is referred to in the story
of Etain, the fairy queen of Eochaid Aiream, who
was left to “dig the Fert (grave), to raise the wail,
and slay the quadrupeds,” for Ailill the king's
brother. Burial of arms is mentioned more than
once ; an old “Druidic ’’ poem celebrates the fall
of Mog-Neid, King of Munster in the second century
of our era ; it says—
“The grave of Mog-Neid is on Magh Tualaing,
With his lance at his shoulder,
With his club, so rapid in action,
With his helmet, with his sword.”
The Scottish Gaelic “Lay of Dargo '' presents us
with a much more touching and important instance
of devotion than any of these. Dargo's wife ex-
pressed her love for her husband when the concocted
176 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
story of his death was brought to her, the effects
of which killed her, in these words—
“Chi mi 'n Seobhag, chi mi 'n cil
Leis an d'rinn mortin an t-Sealg,
'So na b'ionmhuinn leis an trilir,
Càirear sinn 'san ilir le Dearg.”
I see the hawk, I see the hound,
With which my love performed the chase,
And as the three to him were bound,
Let us in earth with Dearg have place.
What kind of tomb was erected over them 2 In
answer to this question, we are at once referred to
the numerous barrows and tumuli scattered over the
country, and more especially in Ireland, where the
remarkable mounds on the Boyne could not fail to
attract the attention of all ages. “The traditions
and history of the mound-raising period have in
other countries passed away,” says Standish O'Grady
very truly ; “but in Ireland they have been all
preserved in their original fulness and vigour, hardly
a hue has faded, hardly a minute circumstance has
been suffered to decay.” A proud claim is this,
and one which for the very uniqueness among the
nations that it postulates for Ireland, invites criticism
and suspicion. The Euhemerist historians and
scribes of Ireland have woven an intimate chain of
connection between every event of their modest (!)
four thousand years' chronology and the topography
of their country; be it the fortunes of Cesair before
the Flood, or of Partolan immediately after, or of
CELTIC BURIAL RITES. 177
Brian Boromh a generation or two before the writer's
time, yet every event is chronicled with a minuteness
of genealogy, detail, and localisation that is quite
oblivious of the perspective of time, the long roll
of ages with their change of customs, and the uncer-
tainty as to the far distant past. We saw that the
Irish gods were changed to kings; nay, more, their
tombs can still be seen on the banks of the Boyne !
There are the barrows of the Dagda and his heroes,
and there, too, Cuchulain rests beneath his mound.
But just about his time Eochaid Aiream had intro-
duced the practice of simple burial beneath the earth,
and had abolished the old custom of burying the dead
“by raising great heaps of stones over their bodies.”
These barrows are, mythologically considered, pre-
Celtic ; they are beyond the ken of Irish history
and myth, just as much as the Cromlechs are, which
popular archaeology accounts for as the “Beds of
Diarmat and Grainne '’ or “Granua’s Beds ''-the
beds occupied by this pair in their flight before Finn.
Considered, again archaeologically, they belong also
to the races that preceded the Celts, as the character
of the interments and of the accompanying articles
proves. We have, however, continued reference
in the myths and tales to the burial of early Christian
times—the grave, the stone over it, and the in-
scription. How little the Irish writers understood
the change of customs wrought by time is seen in
the description by an Irish writer of the I2th century
of the burial of Patroclus at Troy; Achilles “built
178 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
his tomb, and he set up his stone and wrote his name.”
Homer's account has already been given. The Irish-
man described the custom of his own time as existing
in the time of the Trojan War.
THE “DRUID " CIRCLES.
First published, in book form, by Mr. Eneas Mackay, Z914.
First published in the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, '
Volume XI., 1885. -
’HJ, RION GIHAT, INORIJI GITAIINGIJ, QII Q.}{CI
|×
ģă
¿
* …№}%，
§§
. . egº
* * sº tºº
sº
*** * * * * *** * *
\, .\
- \,.
Xe


THE “ DRUID '' CIRCLES.”
THE circles of rude, undressed stones found in various
parts of the British Isles have been for the last two
centuries alike the puzzle and the contention ground
of archaeologists. At the present time, the theories
as to their origin and use are at least as numerous
as the individuals who treat of them ; and, in such
a chaos of opinions, a rational conclusion is difficult
of attainment. Much, however, has been done
during the last quarter of a century in clearing up
the beliefs and customs of primitive man, and more
accurate knowledge has been obtained about modern
savages: in fact, a new science has been added to
the many other “ologies,” this one being called
Anthropology—the science of man and civilisation.
Much has also been done in settling the leading points
of European ethnology; for the Science of language
has been accepted as the basis and main source of
study in tracing the affinity of the nations of Europe,
and the result is that the leading facts of the eth-
nology of Europe are known and “fixed.” In
regard to the British Isles, quite a small revolution
has occurred since the publication of Mr. Elton's
* The drawings of Druid Temple, Clava Cairns—north and
south, and the northern cairn of Clava are from original
etchings by Mr. Smart, who gave valuable assistance and
suggestions throughout.
I8I
I82 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
work on the “Origins of English History,” where the
ethnology of Britain is dealt with in the light of all
the modern researches on ancient institutions,
history, language, and antiquities—whether human
crania or human works of art and use. From all
these scientific sources we are enabled to cast a
reflective light upon the darkness that shrouds
the so-called Druid circles and their builders. The
cause of failure in the usual theories is a common
one ; a priori conceptions are formed as to the
builders and the purpose of the circles, and the facts
are made unmercifully to Square with Such ideas.
And, further, archaeologists are unfortunately too
apt in their eager pursuit of relics and remains, to
forget the living Savage examples, and to ignore
the labours of students of Savage and barbaric
beliefs and customs. They in fact ignore the anthro-
pologist ; and, what is more, they show too often
a very irritating ignorance and unappreciation of
the facts established by the science of language,
which has so revolutionised our conceptions upon
European ethnology.
I intend dealing with the question of the Druid
circles from an anthropologist point of view, and my
argument will run in two main lines, positive and
negative. The positive argument will, after a general
description of the characteristics and geographical
distribution of stone circles, consider the history
and tradition in regard to them, and then inquire
if any such or similar structures are set up or used
THE “DRUID '' CIRCLES. I83
now-a-days anywhere, and, if so, what their purpose
is. The negative side of my argument is the most
important ; here I will endeavour to prove who did
not build them, and what they were not built for,
an argument on the lines of elimination, for which I
will lay under contribution what modern research—
So far as is known to me—has done in unravelling
the early history of Europe and of the races that
successively were prominent there.
The stone circles consist of undressed stones, more
or less pillar-shaped, set on end in the circumference
of a circle. That is the only general statement that
can be made about them, for they continually differ
as to the size, interval, and number of stones in the
circle ; as to the size or number of circles, concen-
tric or adjacent ; and as to the existence of other
structural accompaniments, such as outside trenches,
cairns or mounds inside, dolmens or menhirs at or near
the centre, or avenues of stones leading to them. The
size of the stones may vary from two dozen to only
One or two feet high ; the stones may be closely
set together or wide apart—thirty feet apart, as
Some Inverness-shire circles have them. The dia-
meter may vary from the twelve hundred feet of
the great Avebury circle to a few feet, and there may
be groups of circles together, or, as in the Inverness-
shire circles, the typical examples may consist of
three concentric circles, and so on. The structural
accompaniments – the dolmens, mounds, and
avenues—may appear each alone with them, or
I84 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
together with one or more of the others. And in
regard to their geographical distribution, they exist
On the continent of Europe, more especially in Scan-
dinavia ; they are numerous in Asia—in India,
in Tartary, and especially in Arabia ; they appear
also in North Africa, where fine specimens are found
in Algeria and Tripoli; but their most characteristic
development is in Britain and Ireland, and in Britain,
Scotland possesses the best examples, and again, of
the Scotch circles, the Inverness and Inverness-
shire ones are undoubtedly the best. The valley
of the Nairn is the richest spot in Scotland for such
remains.
Let us pass from these general statements to par-
ticular facts. The stone circle may exist alone :
there are many examples of single stone circles
unaccompanied by any other structure or super-
structure. Such exist in Africa, India, Arabia, and
frequently in the British Isles. These were alone
and single from the first ; they did not get so through
the denudations caused by time. But the general
rule is to find with these circles other structural
forms. Mr. Fergusson, who has written a most able,
though prejudiced, work on “Rude Stone Monu-
ments,” considers the mound as architecturally
the first step in the development of these monuments,
and, for the mere explanation of terms, we may
accept his order of exposition. The mound would
require a row of stones round its base to keep it
together ; hence arose the circle of close-fitting
CLAVA cºrns
G-ROU/V40 PLAny
&44& #2 a.e4 & footº
--- tº:
S&TION THROUGH MDDLE CARN FROM tº S. &


THE “DRUID '' CIRCLES. I85
Stones, which so often accompanies mounds and
Cairns, and which Sometimes also appears alone,
though not so often. These mounds may be of
earth or Stone, and their purpose is, as a rule, for
burial, though cairns might have also been raised
for the sake of “remembrance,” “witness,” and
boundary marks. The burial mound or barrow may
have a cist in it—that is, four slabs of stone set in
box form, and with another slab super-imposed.
These cists were intended to receive the bodies or
the urns. The cists when exposed, that is when
the earth of the mound is all cleared away, appear
as a box of large slabs, with a slab covering it ;
and this description, with the addition that the stones
are large, or megalithic, is true of a perfect “ dolmen ''
or “cromlech.” The dolmen consists of at least
two supporting Stones and One covering stone, but
it usually has side stones as well as end stones. The
true dolmens are found unattended by any trace of
tumulus, which shows that they were erected in-
dependent of any mound or cairn. Nevertheless,
the best antiquarians are of opinion that they were
intended for burial purposes, and not for altars of
worship, as the “Druid '' theorists have held.
Whether they were a development from the stone
cists is, perhaps, an open question. Another feature
of certain barrows is the internal chamber. This
chamber is generally circular, and built by over-
lapping the stones at a certain height, and thus
gradually narrowing the circle until at last the apex
N
I86 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
of the chamber can be closed with one slab. The
chambered cairns at Clava will illustrate the principle
of this construction. Here there is a foundation
laid of very large stones—some three feet high, and
on this a course or two of stones is laid, not per-
pendicularly as is more usual, but with a backward
inclination. At from four to five feet high, the stones
begin to overlap all round until, at last, at a height
probably of eleven or twelve feet, the circle could be
closed by a single stone, thus forming a domed
chamber, of a dozen feet in diameter and height.
Leading to this chamber there may be a passage made
of two walls of stone, with slabs across. The found-
ation-stones of the passage are usually large—
megalithic, in fact. Now, two points are to be
noticed here, according to the theory of the archi-
tectural development of these structures maintained
by Mr. Fergusson: If the cairn or mound is removed,
leaving only its megalithic foundations, there remain
an interior circle of closely-placed stones, with an
“ avenue '’ leading into it. Hence the avenue
or alignment of stones may be regarded as a de-
velopment of the passage into the chamber of the
mound, at least from an architectural point of view.
These avenues of stone are common in France,
but we have a good specimen of them in Lews, where
at Callernish, we find an avenue of megalithic
pillars—stones six or seven feet high On the average,
leading to an interior circle of 42 feet diameter.
The peculiarity at Callernish is that there branch
THE “DRUID '' CIRCLES. 187
off from the circle three lines of stones, making, with
the avenue, a kind of cruciform groundplan. The
great chambered mound at New Grange, in Ireland,
is entered by a long passage three feet wide and some
six feet high, the sides of which are composed of
megalithic pillars covered over with slabs. The
chamber has branches running off right and left,
and a third in continuation of the passage. The
general resemblance of this groundplan to that of
Callernish caused Dr. Stuart, in his “Sculptured
Stones of Scotland,” to say: “If the cairns at New
Grange were removed, the pillars would form another
Callernish.” But Callernish was never covered
with a mound ; it was, indeed, threatened to be
covered with peat, accreted through countless cen-
turies. The avenue is too broad—eight feet broad—
and the stones too pointed to be covered with cross
slabs, while they stand apart from one another at a
distance of some six feet, and not close together,
as such a theory would require. Besides, where
would the mound material be taken to in Such a
place P Callernish, from these and other considera-
tions, was never even intended to be covered with
a mound or cairn. These avenues attain their
highest development when unattended with any
other structures or superstructures in the way of
circles or of mounds, as at Carnac, in France. An-
other accompaniment of the stone circle may be a
single standing stone or “menhir,” placed either
interior or exterior to it. And, lastly, we may men-
I88 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
tion the existence of a ditch or trench exterior to a
circle or to a mound. Such ditches have passages
leading across them—a fact which throws some light
on the passages of the Clava middle cairn. Speci-
mens of these are to be seen in Derby and Cumber-
land. To sum up, we find circles connected with
mounds, either inside the mound, round its base, or
at a distance outside ; we find circles connected with
or surrounding dolmens, whether mound-covered or
not—Some dolmens, as in India, being, indeed, on
the top of the mound ; we find circles with avenues
leading into them, and we find them with menhirs
and with trenches. And there may be a com-
bination of two or more of these along with circles.
Further, it is amply clear that circles, avenues,
dolmens, and menhirs were set up independent of any
earth mounds or cairns.
A more particular description of the Inverness-
shire stone circles will tend greatly to elucidate the
subject, more especially as the circles are so
numerous, so well preserved on the whole, and so
definite in their character and development. The
Inverness and Strathnairn circles have been ex-
haustively mapped and described by Mr. Fraser,
C.E., of Inverness, in a paper to the local Field Club,
and to him I am in the main indebted for measure-
ments and details. There are altogether twenty-
five circles, more or less preserved, within the water-
shed of the Nairn, and some twelve or fourteen
between that and the River Ness, and extending
THE “DRUID '' CIRCLES. 189
as far as Loch Ness. The principal stone circles
and remains are at Tordarroch, Gask, Clava, Newton
of Petty, Druid Temple, and Dores. The general
characteristics of these circles are these :—(1) They
consist of three concentric rings of undressed boulder
or flag stones, fixed on end ; (2) The Outer ring varies
in diameter from 60 to I26 feet—averaging 96 feet,
and consists of long stones, from nine to twelve in
number, set at nearly regular intervals, the tallest
being at the south side, and the size gradually
diminishing towards the north side of the circle ;
(3) The middle ring varies from 22 to 88 feet—
average being 53 feet—in diameter, and consists of
smaller boulders—few flags being used—set on end
close together, with a slight slope towards the centre
of the circle, and their best and flattest face outward.
The largest stones are here again on the south side,
and the smallest on the north ; (4) A third and cen-
tral ring, concentric with the other two, from 12 to
32 feet in diameter—averaging IQ feet—consists of
stones or flags set on end close together. Of course
the accuracy of the concentricity of the circles cannot
be depended on ; they are often slightly eccentric.
They are built on low-lying or flat ground as a rule,
and where Stones are abundant. An entrance
or “avenue " to the inmost ring can be distinguished
in four or five cases only, and its direction varies
from S. 5° E. to S. 41° W., the average direction being
that of the Sun at One o'clock. It is only at Clava,
and only in two cases there, that chambers are found
I90 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
constructed on the innermost ring, and bounded by
the middle ring. But three others present traces
of a cairn of stones having existed between the middle
and innermost rings, which we may call ring cairns,
but no sign of an entrance passage ; while two which
have an avenue or passage (Croftroy and Druid
Temple) do not present any clear traces of ever hav-
ing had a cairn—certainly not the Druid Temple
circles. As to the process of building them, it would
Seem as if the outer ring was set up first, and the
other two rings thereafter, while any chambered
or ring cairn would be built on these as a foundation.
Another interesting series of stone circles exists
in Badenoch and Upper Strathspey. The principal
circles are at Delfoor, Ballinluig, Aviemore, and
Tullochgorm—half-a-dozen altogether. They all
partake more or less of the ring cairn type ; there is
an outer circle from 70 to IOI feet in diameter;
a middle one from 40 to 62 ; and an inner with a dia-
meter varying from about I2 to 25 feet—average,
20 feet. The outer ring is in every case unfortunately
incomplete, but it appears to average ten or eleven
stones, the largest of which, some nine feet high,
are to the south, and the lowest on the north side.
The circle at Grainish, two miles north of Aviemore
Station, is typical of the rest, and, indeed, typical
of all these ring cairns. This circle has been known
for a century or more. “Ossian ’’ Macpherson,
and his other namesake, Rev. John Macpherson,
speak of it as “ Druidic,” and in this the historian
THE “DRUID '' CIRCLES. I9I
of Moray, Lachlan Shaw, agrees with them. Dr.
Arthur Mitchell describes it in the tenth volume
of the Society of Antiquaries' Transactions, but
gives an inaccurate idea of it in his drawing. The
outer ring, IOI feet in average diameter, is repre-
Sented by two fallen stones—9 and 7 feet long re-
spectively, while five others can be detected by their
fragments and the holes in the ground where they
stood. The stones themselves, being granite, were,
of course, appropriated for building purposes at no
very remote date. The second circle is, with the
exception of a gap or two, complete. The heaviest
stones are to the south, and it is the same with the
inmost circle. The middle circle has diameters
of 62 and 59 feet, while the inner has a uniform dia-
meter of 25 feet. The cairn has fallen to Some extent
into the internal open space. The depth of the
cairn is about four feet, and that also is the height
of the highest stones of the second ring. There is
no trace of any passage entering to the interior open
space through the ring cairn, any more than there is
trace of such in the Inverness circles, of the same ring
cairn kind at Clava, Culdoich, and Gask. It is, more-
Over, abundantly clear that this cairn was never
much other than it is now ; there never was a cham-
ber erected on the innermost circle, for, were this so,
the stones would undoubtedly have still remained,
as the place is a long way from cultivated land, and
from any habitations. Within thirty yards of it,
to the south, there is a low barrow, enclosed by a
I92 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
circle of small stones; it is quite round, and 18 feet
in diameter. There are several such around here,
not far from the circles, all partaking of the same
type. Most of them have been disturbed. The
Strathspey Gaelic name for these stone circles and
cairns is “Na carrachan,” which implies a nomina-
tive singular “car,” evidently from the same root
as cairn. -
The examination and study of these Inverness-
shire circles and rude stone monuments raise the
most important questions as to the intention and
the plan of construction of stone circles. The three
concentric circles seem developed, architecturally
speaking, from the chambered cairn, encircled at
its base, and with another circle at a distance.
The next step would seem to have been the ring
cairn. Possibly the reason for the ring cairn may
consist in the fact that the builders could not, on
their bee-hive system, and with the Stones they used,
as seen in the chambered cairns at Clava, Construct
chambers on so large a diameter as all the undoubted
ring cairns have in their innermost circle, such as
those of Clava, Gask, Grainish, and Delfoor, all of
which are over 20 feet in diameter. The third step
might have been to drop the building of the ring
cairn, which would thus leave the three concentric
circles, so peculiar in their character, in that they
have a middle circle evidently designed for forming
an outer ring intended to bound a cairn So as to keep
it together. Druid Temple at Leys, Inverness,
|
º
º
|
º
º
|
W
|
ºHºº ºA
º Cº %3% -
§
ºº:
%
\º
\º ~ §
&%
º
&
§§ º
ſº
? º
§§ § %
22
l
º
§§|ºgº:º
§§;
\& ººº
ſº
§
2S
º
º
ū
\
# tº • *.
i
§ſº
:as:º-
:
§
|
Fº
§§
§§
ſº
º gº # º º
Fº 3%
†º § 7); '
*
ºiº
|
$º º
º § § W
ęż £º §
Fº º - §
º |
#ſºft"
º Åj}
}sº-
§§



THE “DRUID '' CIRCLES. I93
presents a good example of stone circles evidently
not completed by cairn of any kind, and yet having
traces of avenue, which so few of them have. It also
shows the state of preservation in which the ravages
of time and the last century or two of stone-building
have left these monuments of a remote antiquity.
In regard to the purpose of building these
structures, the answer which the interrogation of
them gives to the inquirer depends mainly on his
individual theories. The construction of the central
and middle circle, I believe, is developed from the
chambered cairn, but it is in regard to the outer
circle that the real difficulty exists. What is the
purpose of it 2 The chambered cairns are, by most
antiquarians, connected with burial, though other
theories, as we shall see, are held. In any case, burial
deposits and urns were found in the Clava cham-
bered cairns, a fact which connects them somehow
with burial. It does not appear that the other circles
have been yet scientifically explored ; at any rate
burial deposits have not been found, except in the
doubtful instances of Druid Temple and Gask. An
urn was found in a gravel cutting near the former,
and bits of bone have been found in the debris which
lies in the interior of the latter.
In Ireland, besides the famous mound of New
Grange, with its surrounding circle of monoliths,
and the several other mounds on the Boyne, where,
according to old Irish history, repose the fairy heroes
of Ireland’s golden age—the Dagda and his compeers,
I94 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
in whom modern research recognizes the old deities
of the Gael—besides these there are the “ battle-
fields” of the two Moyturas, the “tower fields"
as the name means, which are literally strewn with
circles, mounds, and stones. The stone circles
here are often alone, and often in connection with
the mounds, cairns, and dolmens. It was on these
Moytura plains that the fairy heroes overcame
their foes of ocean and of land—the Fomorians and
the Fir-bolgs; so Irish history says, and the dates
of these events are only some nineteen centuries
before our era ! In England, several good specimens
of stone circles still remain in the remote districts,
Such as Cornwall and Cumberland; they are often
single circles unattended by any other structure;
but there is a tendency towards their existing in
groups, some circles intersecting one another even—
Such groups as at Botallick in Cornwall, Stanton
Drew in Somersetshire, and others. The most
famous stone monuments in England, or in these
Isles, are those of Stonehenge and Avebury. The
remains at Avebury, from the immense size of the
outer circle (I2OO feet) and its external rampart, its
remains of two sets of contiguous circles, each set
being formed of two concentric rings of stones, and
its two remarkable avenues of stone, each of more
than a mile in length, the one winding to the south-
east, the other to the south-west—these remains
have brought Avebury into rivalry with Stonehenge,
with which it contests the honour of having been,
THE “DRUID '' CIRCLES. I95
as some think, vaguely heard of by the Greeks before
the Christian era. Stonehenge, however, though
much less in extent—its outer circle is only IOO feet
in diameter, which is just about the average of the
outer circles of Inverness-shire—is much better
preserved and much better known. It differs in
various ways from the usual type of circles and their
accompaniments, though preserving the general
features. In the first place the stones are “dressed ''
so far as to render them more suitable for contact
with, or superimposition of, other stones. Stonehenge
is, therefore, not quite a “rude stone monument.”
This dressing of the stones was connected with
another, though less unique, feature of these circles.
This is what is known as the trilithons. These
are composed of two upright pillar stones set
somewhat apart, with another stone passing on the
top from the one to the other. The trilithon is
common in Asiatic monuments, but not in European,
and Mr. Fergusson is of opinion that, architecturally,
it is only an improved dolmen, standing on two legs
instead of four. An earthen vallum surrounded
the outer circle at a distance from it of IOO feet
The outer circle itself was IOO feet in diameter, and
consisted originally of thirty square piers, spaced
tolerably equally ; but only twenty-six of these can
now be identified, in whole or part. They were,
evidently, all connected by a continuous stone
impost or architrave, of which only six are now in
position. Passing over the smaller and more
I96 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
doubtful second circle, we come to the five great
trilithons, the plan and position of which are now
quite settled. Their height is from 16 to 21 feet.
high. They form a horse-shoe plan, two pairs
on each side, and one pair at the middle of the bend.
Inside this inner circle or horse-shoe are ten or
eleven stones, more or less in situ ; they are of
igneous rock, such as is not to be found nearer than
Cornwall or even Ireland. The highest is over 7
feet, but the others are generally smaller. They
Seem to go in pairs about 3 feet apart, and may have
formed the supports of trilithons. Between the
outer circle and the great trilithons there are the
remains of another circle of stone, some 5 feet high,
and if it was complete—which is doubtful, it would
consist of over forty stones, of which only some six-
teen remain. Within the inner horse-shoe there is a
stone in a recumbent position, called the “Altar ”
stone, but whether its proper place was here or else-
where we cannot now say. Excavations inside the
Stonehenge circles have led to no satisfactory con-
clusion, because they were instituted too long ago,
first in I620 ; and, though bones and armour are
mentioned, we cannot say whether the bones were
human or the armour of iron. Fragments of Roman
and British pottery have been found in it; but the
best antiquaries are of opinion that the circles belong
to the Bronze Age, and to a late period even in it.
Bronze Age barrows Surround it, belonging, as is
shown by the chippings of the igneous stone of the
THE “DRUID '' CIRCLES. I97
inmost circle, to the same age as the megalithic
monument itself. But there are also barrows of
older tribes around and near it. “There are indi-
cations,” says Mr. Elton, “that the people of the
Bronze Age were the actual constructors of the tem-
ple on a site which had previously been selected
as a burial-ground for the chieftains of the Neolithic
tribes.”
The only other stone circles I shall allude to, are
those of Palestine and Arabia, and of these I shall
speak only of those of the desert of Sinai and of
the land of Moab. The explorations of the Ordnance
Survey in 1869 have made the antiquities of the Sinai
region perfectly known to us. Besides the ordinary
bee-hive house of the Scotch type, there are also circles
“nearly identical in character with those which in
England and Scotland are commonly called Druidical
Circles.” They consist, as a rule, of a single outer
ring of large Standing Stones, from 3 to 4% feet high,
and placed in Contact with one another ; in some
cases there is an inner concentric ring. The outer
ring varies in size from IO to 50 feet in diameter.
In the centre of each circle a cist about 4 feet long
by 2% feet wide and deep is found, with its sides
composed of four large stones, and the top covered
over with a heavy slab, which is generally level
with the surface. The corpse was placed in this
cist on its left side with the knees bent up to the
chin. Over the cist is placed a small cairn, enclosed
by a ring of standing stones of Smaller size than those
I98 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
in the outer circles. “None of the cists,” says
Major Palmer, “opened by the Sinai expedition
contained anything in addition to the skeleton,
except in one instance, when some marine shells
and worked flints were found,” though other ex-
plorers found a lance and arrow-heads of flint in
another. In only one case were these circles found
associated with the bee-hive houses, and Opinions
differ as to whether the same race built them both,
though they are all agreed that these remains are
pre-historic—built by a people antecedent to the
Jews, and the rest of the Semites, and long anterior
to the Exodus. In regard to the Land of Moab,
Canon Tristram says: “In Moab are three classes
of primaeval monuments: Stone-circles, dolmens,
and cairns, each in great abundance in three different
parts of the country, but never side by side. The
cairns exclusively range in the east, on the Spurs of
the Arabian desert ; the stone circles, South of
Callirrhoe ; and the dolmens, north of that valley.
The fact would seem to indicate three neighbouring
tribes, co-existent in the pre-historic period, each
with distinct funeral or religious customs. Of
course, the modern Arab attributes all these dolmens
to the Jinns.”
What, then, is the origin and history of these stone
circles 2 We may apply to history, to etymology,
and to tradition in vain. The historians of the
ancient world took practically no notice of them.
Caesar may have stood among the pillared stones of
THE “DRUID '' CIRCLES. I99
Carnac, watching the fight between his fleet and that
of the Veneti, but, as these monuments did not inter-
fere with his martial or political designs, he, as is his
wont, makes no reference to them. Diodorus
Siculus, quoting from older sources, makes a wild
reference to “an island over against Celtica (Gaul),
not less in size than Sicily, lying under the Polar
Bear, and inhabited by the Hpyerboreans, so-called
because they lie beyond the blasts of the north wind
• Wherefore the worship of Apollo
takes precedence of all others, and from the daily
and Continuous singing of his praises, the people
are, as it were, his priests. There exists in the island
a magnificent grove (temenos) of Apollo, and a re-
markable temple of round (dome) shape, adorned
with many votive offerings.” This very unsatis-
factory passage was greedily seized upon by those
that favoured the “Druidic ’’ origin of the stone
circles, but it may be doubted if the island referred
to was Britain at all—for Diodorus knew Britain
perfectly well, and would have likely told us so, if
this Hyperborean island was the same as Britain.
And again, no people is more mythical than these
Hyperboreans or dwellers beyond the North wind.
The temple, too, was not merely round ; it was
also dome-shaped, like the Gaulish and British
houses. How far does this agree with Stonehenge 2
It is useless to build or prop any theory on Such a
passage as this. In the 5th century, and on to the
IIth century, we meet with constant edicts of church
2OO CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
Councils against worship and sacrifice upon stones—
even the stones themselves were objects of worship.
In 452, the Council of Arles decreed that “if, in any
diocese, any infidel lighted torches or worshipped
trees, fountains, or stones, he should be guilty of
sacrilege.” Stones, trees, and fountains form the
continual burden of these edicts. This worship
of Stones and sacrifices upon them we need not
connect with stone circles, for there is no detail given
as to the character of the worship or the monuments
worshipped, or at which worship took place. It is
very probable, however, that the stones referred to
were those on the graves and around the mounds
of the dead. Ancestor worship was strong among
Celt and Teuton, and we know from old Norse
literature that the family tumulus or howe was not
merely a place of worship, but also a place of Council.
In the Land-nama-bok, we read that at One place
“there was a harrow ( high place') made there,
and sacrifices began to be performed there, for they
believed that they died into these hills.” The use
of these howes, as places of meeting, and in villages
as places of festive resort, whereon the May-pole
tree might flourish, will also explain why the stone
circles were used, at least on two historic Occasions,
in Scotland as places of Solemn meeting. In I349
the Earl of Ross and the Bishop of Aberdeen met
at the standing stones of Rayne, and in I380, Alex-
ander, “Wolf of Badenoch,” summoned to meet him
at Rait, near Kingussie, the Bishop of Moray, who
Fº:-ºº-ºº: ºfflº :=:
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: º:
šš:::::::::::: -
Bº:: ºº::
ຠ:sº Fº 3:
§ É
º
Fº º: E.F -
Sºº-ºººººººº-ºº-ºº: gº -
š :::::::::::::::::::::
šº
*-
º *** * s: º –=#3==º:
# *. =====
É:
*:-
2-2+2
* * *
º _2 ***
…:
: 2:2:4 -:’
&
Sº º
º, º §
§ ºº:
§§º
§§ º
ſº & §
| §
ſ
zºğ
ñº:
'ſº º 35 § § 2:º
ſº rº º £1 *...*.
º g d º §: § º §2.
{}
{Zº
w yº
\}'. %
&
§
7
*
wº
e e
*
sº
*.*









































THE “DRUID '' CIRCLES. 2OI
protested against the proceedings, “standing outside
the circle.” A remarkable reference to stone idols
occurs in a very old Irish manuscript as an incident
in the life of St. Patrick. When the Saint came to
Magh Slécht, the plain of adoration, there he found
Cenn or Crom Cruaich, the chief idol of Ireland,
covered with gold and silver, and twelve other idols
covered with brass. Patrick aimed at it with his
Crozier, which caused it to “bow ’’ to one side, and
the mark of the crozier was still to be seen on it when
the pious Middle Age scribe was writing, and the
earth also swallowed up the twelve idols as far as
their head, and there they were as a proof of the
miracle some six centuries later. This story may be
merely a mythical explanation of a circle of stones,
existent at Magh Slécht. The building of Stone-
henge is doubtless referred to by Geoffrey of Mon-
mouth, who says that Merlin transferred the stones
from Ireland and set up the circles in England as a
monument over “the consuls and princes whom the
wicked Hengist had treacherously slain,” as Scotch
legend represents the Cummings to have slain the
Mackintoshes or Shaws at the feast. Stonehenge
attracted attention after the revival of learning
set in with the Reformation. King James I. in-
terested himself in its origin and history, and got
plans made of it by his architect, Inigo Jones. Jones
ascribed it to the Romans, and immediately another
set it down as of Danish origin. Aubrey and
Stukeley afterwards started the theory that it was a
O
* {{..., ex-r
with all the Scholarship he could command, and not
merely claimed Stonehenge and such like structures
as Druidic, but all pre-historic cairns, dolmens,
as well as circles and single stones were made places
of Druidic worship. And from that time till a
generation or two ago the Druidic theory held almost
unquestioned sway.
The foregoing account is all that history can say
of the rude stone monuments of Europe; Roman
and Greek history know them not—we except the
Cyclopean tombs of Mycenae and their mythic his-
tory; and even the references in early Christian
times are too vague to be of any satisfactory use ;
and should we grant the stone monuments mentioned
to be the rude stone circles, we could not be sure that
the Celts and Teutons of the 5th to the IIth cen-
turies were using them for their primitive purpose.
In Asiatic history, these monuments fare no better.
Old Jewish history refers several times to altars of
rude stones and to stone monuments set up for re-
membrance of events, and for witness of compact ;
but, when closely examined, these accounts refer to
little more than a second-hand use of the pre-Jewish
monuments, or give merely a popular explanation
of the cairns and monuments of some long ante-
cedent race. . . .
Popular tradition and the examination, or
etymology of the names applied to these rude stone
monuments yield even worse results than historical
THE “ DRUID '' CIRCLEs. sº
investigation. One thing is to be noted ; popular
tradition knows nothing of the Druids in connection
with these circles. The nearest approach to the
Druidic theory is where in one case the popular
myth regards the stones as men transformed by the
magic of the Druids. In fact, there is no rational
tradition in regard to them. They belong to a period
to which the oldest tradition or history of the present
race cannot reach. For the accounts given of them
are mythical, and the names given to them are either
of the same mythic type, or are mere general terms,
signifying Cairns, stone monuments, or stone heaps.
For example, the famous circles of Stanton Drew
are said to have been a bridal party turned into
stone ; a circle in Cornwall, which is called Dance
Maine, or the dance of stones, is said to represent a
party of maidens transformed into stone for dancing
on the Sabbath day. We may learn from Giraldus
that Stonehenge, or the “hanging stones,” was
known once as the Giants' Dance. In Brittany
the avenues of Carnac are regarded as petrified
battalions, and detached menhirs are their com-
manders, who were so transformed for offering
violence to St. Cornily. These French groups of
stones are variously attributed to the “unknown”
gods; the fairies and the devil get the best share of
them, though extinct popular deities, like Gargantua,
Rabelais' hero, may be met with. We meet with
“Grottoes of the Feys,” “Stones of the Feys,”
“Devil's Chair,” “Devil's Quoits,” “Staff of Gar-
204 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
gantua,” and “Gargantua's Quoit.” The covered
alleys or continuous cromlechs of Drenthe, in Hol-
land, are known as “Giants' Beds ''-Hunebeds.
In Ireland, the cromlechs or dolmens are known as
the “Beds of Diarmat and Granua,” or simple
“Granua's Beds"—the beds which this pair of lovers
made use of in their flight over Ireland when pursued
by Fionn. And it is here interesting to note, as so
far confirmatory of this worthy myth, that the
Arab shepherds of the present day recline on these
pre-historic dolmens and watch their sheep On the
plains. The tumuli are, of course, fairy mounds;
the Gaelic name is sithean, a word derived from Sith,
“fairy,” allied to the Norse word Seithr, “magic
charm.” Single stones are variously accounted for ;
sometimes we meet with names indicative of worship,
“Clach aoraidh "→worship stone, and “Clach
sleuchda "-genuflection stone. But, as often as not,
the names have merely a reference to stones or stone
monuments ; as, for instance, already mentioned in
the case of Strathspey. The term clachan, as applied
to church in Scotch Gaelic, has been adduced as
proving that the churches are the descendants
of the stone circles where Druid worship was held ;
but it has first to be proved that the stone circles
are themselves known as the “clachans.” The word
in Irish signifies hamlet, causeway, or grave-yard,
but it is also applied in an archaeological sense to the
stone-built cells ascribed to the old Christian anchor-
ites, and its Scotch Gaelic meaning of church is

/*N
ºrs,
THE “DRUID '' CIRCLES. t \ 205 \
perhaps thence derived. How little it helps the
“Druid.” theory is easy to see.
If history and tradition avail us not, let us see
whether any such rude stone monuments are set up
or used nowadays. If they are built and used by
any savage or barbarous tribe now, then it is more
than likely that the pre-historic builders of our stone
circles used them for similar purposes. Now we
do find that stone circles, if not built now, are at
least used now, and that rude stone monuments are
still being erected in India. With its 250 millions
of inhabitants, India is an epitome of the world ;
it contains every state of man and every stage of
belief—the oldest and the newest, Aryan and non-
Aryan. It presents us with nearly every form of
religion ; ancestor-worship, demon-worship, poly-
theism, Buddhism, Mohammetanism, and Christian-
ity. It is among the non-Aryan tribes of the high-
lands of India that we must look for the most ancient
forms of worship. In the Dekkan we find rude stone
circles set up and still in use. Their use is for pur-
poses of worship; sacrifices are offeredatthestones, and
the inner faces of the stones are daubed with patches
of red paint to denote blood, whereby they are conse-
crated to the deities. The victims sacrificed are red
cocks, and sometimes goats; the blood of the sacri-
fice is consecrated to the deity invoked, but the flesh
is used by the votary himself. It would appear
that the number of stones in the circle had some refer-
ence to the number of families or individuals wor-
...”
2O6 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
Shipping there, and each stone appears to be the
image or “fetish ’’ of the particular deity worshipped.
These deities are, therefore, all local and special,
and as the Brahmins are opposed to the cult they ban
it by every means in their power. These Dekkan
rude stone monuments are not necessarily circular;
the stones may be arranged in lines or even irregu-
larly, so that we cannot deduce much argument
from the mere circular form of some of these monu-
ments. We only note their religious purpose. And,
again, in the hills of ASSam we find rude stone monu-
ments still set up, and probably their use bears more
On Our present inquiry than the circles of Dekkan.
Among the Khasias, a barbaric tribe there, the wor-
ship of deceased ancestors prevails. They burn
their dead and raise to their honour menhirs of stone
either singly or in groups, but they do not arrange
them in circles. The number of stones must be odd–
3, 5, 7, but also Io, if made into two fives. The
worship, too, is of a very practical kind. If a Khasian
gets into trouble or sickness, he prays to some
deceased ancestor or relative, promising to erect a
stone in his honour if he helps him—a promise which
he faithfully performs, if the departed appears to
have helped him. In regard to these Indian rude
stone monuments and their bearing on European
pre-historic ones, Mr. Tylor says: “It appears
that the Khasias of north-east India have gone on
to modern times setting up such rude pillars as
memorials of the dead, So that it may be reasonably
THE “DRUID '' CIRCLES. 207
guessed that those of Brittany, for instance, had the
same purpose. Another kind of rude stone structures
well-known in Europe are the cromlechs (?) or stone
circles formed of upright stones in a ring, Such as
Stanton Drew, not far from Bristol. There is proof
that the stone circles have often to do with burials,
for they may surround a burial mound or have a
dolmen in the middle. But considering how tombs
are apt to be temples where the ghost of the buried
chief or prophet is worshipped, it is likely that such
stone circles should also serve as temples, as in the
case of South India at the present time, where cocks
are actually sacrificed to the village deity, who is
represented by the large stone in the centre of a
cromlech (stone circle).” Such is Mr. Tylor's theory
in regard to these structures, and that is the view of
them which I shall endeavour to maintain and prove
in this paper, while at the same time I shall further
endeavour to make clear what races probably did
build them and what races certainly did not.
Having now considered the character of the stone
circles, their geographical distribution, their history
as it presents itself in ancient authors and docu-
ments, their popular names and their mythic history
in modern times, and having, lastly, discovered that
rude stone monuments, and even stone circles are set
up, and still used in India, and that their use there
is in connection with religious rites, while, in Khasia,
they were connected further with burial to a certain
extent, let us briefly review the theories of the
- *.
º ‘t,
* *…, * |
t
43'
(209 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
learned in regard to their purpose and use. And,
first, there comes the Druidic theory, started in the
~) 17th century and still held by antiquaries of repute—
men like Colonel Forbes-Leslie, who have done really
admirable work. The Druids were the priests of the
Celts in Gaul and Britain. They formed, if Caesar
may be trusted, a very powerful caste, matched only
by the nobility; they monopolised the power of
judges, Soothsayers, medicine-men, priests, edu-
cationists, and poets. Besides the Ordinary poly-
theism which they shared with Greece and Rome,
the Druids believed in the transmigration of souls
and theorised on the universe—its size and laws,
and on the power and majesty of the gods. Their
position in Caesar's Gaul looks like an anticipation
of the Middle Age ecclesiastics. We just know
enough of these Druids to wish that we knew much
more, but not enough to build much of a
superstructure of religion and philosophy upon.
Nevertheless, the meagre details that are left us so
fired the imagination of some modern writers that
a system of “Druidism” was attributed to the
Celts, which in religious experience and philosophic
breadth could rival any in the modern world, and far
surpass any religion of antiquity. The Druids
officiated not merely in temples but in groves:
this we gather from the classical authors. Groves
are retired spots, wood-surrounded, where no stones
were necessary at all ; but what of the temples P
Now the Greek and Roman writers do not describe
=#
GROUN DPLAN
<eze = 32 fee.<& 2, &h.
PARA L E L L TO S//>E OF THIS PAG 6
SEC 7/O/V Al GNG O IA ME 7°E A2
C. $.
H}
~).2 S. f
f º SS ** É T----
#3 º &º % º z- tºº D £º == * * * * f** *** -
#####3& >ggº: ºffs § § 33;Sºs;
*-5 sº § *> § sº ºśº 3 § sº,3's
º #º M \, ', ºfſſº"fºrgº * , S:
C-3 -- ºt. ...H. §º ſºjº 㺠9 ºw,
* ---,” . gº ºf e :- g ''t, -l L. 93
tº e
* * * * . - - g •' v4 ºr
* - / "
* * N /*% 422
We W orv PRO LoſucAT1ory of yard E. DuAra e r s R on s.s., wº
&\l
**
C/RCLE AND TRV ſyCATE D CAIRN WEAR CRA1///SA, AVIE MoRE,


THE “DRUID '' CIRCLES. 209
any Celtic or Druidic temple, as far as I know ;
the inference from this might be that the Celtic
temples were like the Roman temples, or more
probably like the Celtic houses—“great houses,”
as Strabo says, “dome-shaped, constructed of
planks and wicker, with a heavy thatched roof.”
The houses were wooden, except in the Gaulish
towns, and so would the temples be in rural districts
and in Britain, which was in a more primitive state
than Gaul in respect to towns. The Druidic argu-
ment may be put in this form—We are not told
what kind of temples the Celts and their Druids had ;
therefore, the Druids worshipped in the stone circles.
Or the matter may be put in this way—We know
but little of the Druids, and we know nothing of
the circles; therefore, the Druids worshipped in the
stone circles. But why should they worship in
stone circles P. Well, the answer is this, as given
by the Druidic theorists: It is the solar circle—
these circles have a solar reference ; the sun was
worshipped in them. Others think these avenues
and circles are signs of a worship of Snakes and
dragons, and the whole system of Baal-worship
and such like was transplanted from Phenicia and
Egypt into Gaul, and more especially into Britain.
Besides the fact that the Druidic argument proceeds
on vicious logical premises, I will later on prove that
Celtic priests could have nothing to do with the
building of rude stone circles. And if we look abroad
at the circles of India, Algeria, and Arabia, did the
2IO CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
the Druids also build them 2 The Sinai circles, we
saw, were extremely like the Scotch circles; were
there Celtic Druids in Sinai to erect them 2 The
theory that the circles were temples of Druidic wor-
ship fails therefore on two grounds: first, there is no
evidence for it that can stand the test of Scientific
or logical investigation; secondly, there is much posi-
tive evidence against it—the state of culture of the
the Celts and the common connection of the circles
with sepulture, for example.
The theory that finds most favour at the present
day is that which connects the circles with the burial
of the dead. The circles surrounded places of
sepulture. We saw that the circles of Sinai were
undoubtedly in connection with sepulture, and in
regard to the circles in the British Islands, Mr. Fer-
gusson says: “Out of 200 circles which are found
in these islands, at least one-half, on being dug out,
have yielded sepulchral deposits. One-half are still
untouched by the excavator, and the remainder,
which have not yielded their secret, are mostly
the larger circles.” He thinks it cannot be denied
that circles up to IOO feet diameter are sepulchral,
and if so, why should not the rest above that limit
be so also 2 Mr. Fergusson's estimate of the number
of circles in the British Isles is far short of the truth;
there are over 200 circles in Scotland alone. This
greatly weakens his argument on the proportion
of Sepulchral and non-Sepulchral circles. Besides,
it cannot be said that circles unaccompanied by any
THE “DRUID '' CIRCLES. 2II
mound, cairns, or dolmens have often yielded
sepulchral remains. Yet with all these deductions,
there is a good deal of truth in the statement that
circles are connected with burial deposits, although
the proportion of actually found deposits is by no
means one-half nor anyways near it. Now, Sup-
posing that we grant that these circles have always
or nearly always surrounded burial deposits, there
comes the question, still unanswered, what is the
object of a circle of stones set at intervals round a
burial. Why should the circular form have been
adopted 2 And these questions the burial theory
cannot answer without further assumption, and it is
in regard to these assumptions that the best theorists
differ.
Mr. Fergusson's answer to these questions is, of
all the defenders of the “burial ’’ theory, the most
satisfactory. His opinion as to the architectural
development of the mound enclosing a body, into a
mound enclosing a cist, then into a mound enclosing
a chamber and having an outer circle of closely-set
stones to keep it together, has already been explained.
The bare foundations of such a chambered mound.
would give two circles of stones, closely set together.
It is further probable that the megalithic foundation
was first laid down ; it appears, indeed, to have
been the custom in Homeric times first to mark out
the site of the tomb in somewhat of a circular or oval
form and then place stones round the outline ; and,
if that were so, may it not have dawned upon the
2I2 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
builders, so Mr. Fergusson suggests, what a pity it
was to hide away such handsome structures under a
mound of earth or cairn of stones? Added to this
may be taken the circumstance that Some unfinished
mounds must have existed, which would still further
suggest the idea of leaving the mere foundation of
stones bare without any mound superimposed. Mr
Fergusson amply proves, in opposition to those
theorists who hold that all these structures, especially
dolmens, were once covered by mounds which the
progress of agriculture and building removed, that
such could not have been the case with most of
them. An examination of our Inverness-shire
circles would show that many of them, such as
Druid Temple, were never anything but three
concentric circles, and never had a trace of mound
or cairn. Callernish is a standing disproof of this
theory, that circles and avenues are merely dis-
mantled chambered cairns; they may have been
uncompleted cairns, that is, cairns whose foundations
were laid, but they certainly were never covered
by stone or earth. Mr. Wakeman, the eminent
Irish archaeologist, points out that not only were
dolmens and circles built bare—without super-
structure—but that, instead of the progress of time
and cultivation denuding them, they have actually
in many cases been covered with moss to a depth
which, from the well-known rate of growth of peat,
makes them at least some four thousand years old.
Mr. Wakeman also says: “From the stone cist
THE “DRUID '' CIRCLES. 2I3
composed of four flag-stones set on edge and covered
by a fifth, to the spacious chambers found within
gigantic cairns like those of New Grange and Dowth,
through all peculiarities of size and structural Com-
plication, we have for foundation simply the Cromleac
(dolmen) idea.” On Mr. Fergusson's development
theory we can account for two concentric circles
of closely set Stones ; the megalithic foundation was
made to do duty for the mound ; we can also,
by this theory, account for their circular shape,
for a mound must be circular, and so must the bee-
hive chambers be also ; but, with all this granted,
how are we to account for the outer circle, which is
built round the tumulus or cairn, and at a distance
from it 2 Clearly, the theory of architectural
development fails here, and Mr. Fergusson manfully
admits that it does. He suggests, with caution,
a possible resemblance in origin between them and
the rails of the Indian Buddhists—these rails being
Composed of rows of tall stone pillars set at intervals
around the Buddhist dagoba. But as he says of
these Buddhist rails : “It is difficult to see what
these stone pillars or posts were originally intended
for,” and suggests that it was for the hanging of
garlands, he does not help us much to an explanation
by this analogy. His other suggestion that these
stones, set at intervals, formed part of the outer
earthen rampart that surrounded the mounds at
first, and afterwards were retained on the disuse of
the vallum of earth, does not look so very happy
2I4 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
as the rest of his development theory, though it may
fit in with the evolution of the inner circles from
chambered mounds. - -
In refutation of any theory that would maintain
that between these stones might have been built
any earthen or wooden barrier, of which the stones
would form the leading supports, we may adduce
the fact that in the Inverness-shire circles the stones
on the south are very tall, while those on the north
side are very small, so small at times as to render
such a use altogether impracticable. On all theories
in regard to the use of stone circles in connection
with burials, Canon Greenwell, in his epoch-making
book on “ British Barrows,” says: “It has been
suggested by some that the enclosing circles were
merely made to support the mound at its base.
It is only necessary to remark, in refutation of this
surmise, that the circle is often within the mound, is
sometimes a trench, and is, as before mentioned,
nearly always incomplete. Others have, and with
more reason, supposed them to be marks of taboo,
a fence to preserve the habitation of the dead from
desecration, but the fact that so many are within,
and must always have been concealed, by the barrow,
appears to me to be inconsistent with this explana-
tion. I think it more probable, if the notion of a
fence is to be entertained, that they were intended to
prevent the exit of the spirit of those buried within,
rather than to guard against disturbance from with-
out. A dread of injury by the spirits of the dead
THE “DRUID '' CIRCLES. 2I5
has been very commonly felt by many Savage and
semi-civilised peoples; nor, indeed, is such fear
unknown in our own times, and even amongst
ourselves; and it may well be that, by means of
this symbolic figure, it was thought this danger
might be averted, and the dead kept safe within the
tomb.” And we may add to the testimony of
Canon Greenwell, that of Mr. Llewellyn Jewitt.
In his work on “Grave-mounds,” he distinguishes
between the smaller circles which surround, or at
one time surrounded grave-mounds, and the larger
circles, which were probably, he thinks, for totally
different purposes from the grave-mounds.
Another theory as to the purpose of these stone
structures has attained some prominence lately.
It is maintained that these circles are the foundations
of the houses of the ancient inhabitants, and that the
chambered cairns, like those of Clava, formed one
class of dwelling-houses, while the outer circle may
have been a wall of defence. But the houses built
on these circles were, according to this theory, as a
rule, brochs. Now, there are many remains of these
brochs in Scotland, some of them fairly entire. Their
construction is somewhat complex. The broch
consists of a hollow circular tower, about 60 feet
in diameter, and 50 feet high ; its wall may be about
I5 feet thick; and about 8 feet from the ground
the wall is divided by a space of 2 to 3 feet into an
outer and inner shell, and this space is divided
vertically into a series of galleries by slabs run across
2I6 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
all round the tower. Access is obtained by a single
outside door into the interior, and thence by stairs
up into the galleries. There may be a series of
ground chambers in the wall at its base. Miss
Maclagan, in her book on “Hill Forts,” maintains
that Stonehenge is practically the base of a broch ;
the two outer circles form the foundation of the
outer wall, while the two inner circles form the base
of the inner wall—the great trilithons were merely
doorposts and lintels. The theory is ingenious;
the brochs, if stripped to their megalithic found-
ations, would present an outer and inner ring, while
the chambers at the base, if we assume these carried
all round, would give two intermediate circles. But
where is the stone material gone to in nearly every
case ? It must be assumed here again, as in the
“burial '' theory, that the material has been all
removed, or, that only megalithic foundations were
laid, and the work left incomplete. Then there are
several practical objections; these megalithic pillars
are unsuited for foundation stones as they stand,
and there is no trace of the outer circles having ever
been anything else than they are now ; nor is it easy
to see what practical use they could be put to in
building or fencing. Burial deposits have been
found in the chambered cairns, and within the circles,
and this does not accord with their having been
dwelling-houses. Miss Maclagan, however, has the
usual argument in such cases—argumentum ad
ignorantiam. The burials “belonged probably to
tº & 5.2 -f- -
e e &2,
6% @
* ºv. J & .* * ,
of 1d 1 NAL Plan R&sroRE o er wall r , R E AND OTHE R 3.
S TO/w E HENCE,

THE “DRUID '' CIRCLES. 217
a comparatively recent date, and not to the original
purpose of the structure.” This has often
undoubtedly happened, and we may quote one in-
teresting case in the Sinai Desert—“In a great many
cases,” says Major Palmer, “the stone houses (of
bee-hive form) have been converted into tombs by
Some later race, who, for this purpose, closed the
doorways and removed the roof-stones, laying the
Corpses at full length on flat stones inside, heads to the
west, and then covering them with earth and finally
with stones, until the interior was filled up.” And it
may be further pointed out that probably the sepul-
chral chamber is but an imitation of the habitations
of the living at the time. The chambered cairns
at Clava may well have been copies of the dwellings
of that day, but the badness of the masonry of the
interior of the chamber forbids us thinking that they
could have been used for the tear and wear of every-
day life as dwelling-houses. “There certainly is a
great resemblance,” says Canon Greenwell, “be-
tween some of these receptacles for the dead,
especially in Scandinavia, and the places of abode of
the Eskimo and other Arctic residents.”
Let us now consider a negative argument : What
races in early Europe could not have been the
builders ? Linguistic science has quite clarified
our views as to the main features of European eth-
nology. We can prove from the languages of Europe
the racial connection of the European nations as
far as language is concerned, and that means a good
P
2I8 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
deal more, for community of origin as regards lan-
guage is followed by the same in regard to religion
and institutions—political and social. A common
language will not, of course, prove that nations
are all descended from the same racial stock, for a
superior race may impose upon a weaker or less
civilised one its own language with Consequent
religion and customs. Language, therefore, is a
test more of culture than of racial descent. Some
four thousand years ago, more or less, a race now
called the Aryan began in Separate bands to impose
upon the previous inhabitants its rule and its lan-
guage, and the consequence has been that at the
present time Europe is possessed by Aryan-speaking
peoples, with the exception of unimportant remnants
like the Basques and Finns, or late intruders like the
Turks. The nations that existed before the Aryan
supremacy were doubtless amalgamated, and their
influence must be felt in national and tribal differ-
ences of physique, in the vocabulary and idiom of
the present Aryan languages, and in the religious
beliefs and the customs of the present races. May
not also the monuments of their hands, built for
their habitation, their religion, or their dead, still
exist among us? We shall see. The Aryan race
had attained a certain high stage of culture. The
state was founded on a patriarchal basis, and there
were kings, and the family was the unit and starting
point of the Organisation ; monogamy was the rule ;
agriculture was known ; they had towns and roads;
THE “DRUID '' CIRCLES. 2I9
metals were used, including the precious ones, and
the more useful, such as copper, tin, and bronze,
and, in over-running Europe, they had iron ; their
religion was polytheistic—the worship of the higher
objects of nature under anthropomorphic form, 2.
with a strong admixture of ancestor-worship and
other lower forms. Of the Aryan races, the Celts
made their appearance in the West first, at the
dawn of history occupying Northern Italy, the
Upper Danube, Switzerland, France and the Low
Countries, most of Spain, and all Britain and Ireland.
The state of culture of the Celts we can discover
by their Aryan descent to a great extent, but as
they became modified through disseverance from the
rest, and through mingling with the pre-Celtic
peoples, we require to study every scrap of historical
reference we get, and also the inscriptions and other
monuments that remain to us of their ancient life ;
while we have also to study their language, their
customs, their oldest literary efforts, and their
mythic tales, legends, and histories. The study of
all these, steadied by a reference to the customs
and developments of races nearly akin, like those
of Rome and Greece, enables us to read the “weather-
worn ‘’ history of the Celts, and to know their state
of Culture. Caesar and the other classical writers
did not perceive their kinship with the Celts; unless
when for political reasons the Senate might call
the AEdui “brothers and kinsmen,” yet in their
descriptions they take some four-fifths of the facts
22O CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
of their life, their habits, and their institutions,
for granted as being much the same as existed in
Italy and in Rome. Only the oddities, differences,
and signs, of “barbarianism " were noted ; the
points of coincidence were passed over as nothing
to be wondered at, though these were generally the
most wonderful facts of all. The Celtic race was
in Caesar's time in about as high a state of civili-
sation as the Romans were about the time of the
Punic war a century and a half previous. They
possessed a language of equal, perhaps Superior,
power to that of Rome; they had political systems
of the Grecian type before the supremacy of Athens;
and they must have had an enormous Oral, and,
possibly, written literature. In Gaul they built
towns of the Roman type, with stone houses, temples,
and such like ; but rural Gaul and Britain contented
themselves with wooden houses and wooden forti-
fications—stockaded clearings or strong hill positions.
They seem to have done little in stone buildings.
They built temples; but they were temples and not
stone circles, which are not mentioned at all. Their
temples could not have been much different in Con-
struction from those of the Greeks and Italians,
otherwise mention would be made of the fact. The
temples were of wood, like the houses, and, like the
Northumbrian temple of Coifi, which was built like
a house. The Greek writers use two words in their
description of Celtic places of worship : these are
temple and grove (temenos), or consecrated allotment.
THE “DRUID '' CIRCLEs. 22I
The Celts buried their dead like the other Aryan
nations; they burnt the bodies, like the Greeks of
Homeric times, and built the tumulus over the ashes,
though it is just as likely that the common people
buried by inhumation as in Greece and Rome. The
tumuli, also, were erected only over chiefs and great
men, as among the pre-historic and contemporary
tribes. The Homeric burial existed, according to
Roman and Greek writers, in Gaul. Homer repre-
Sents Achilles as placing the fat of many sheep and
oxen, whose carcases were heaped round the pyre,
about the body of Patroclus, from head to foot. He
set vessels with honey and oil slanting towards the
bier, and then threw horses, pet dogs, and captive
Trojans, after slaying them, on the pile, to be burnt
along with the body of his friend. Celtic burial
tumuli are not easy to identify. Burials of the pre-
Roman and pre-Christian period of Celtic occu-
pation are very few indeed, and in archaeological
works are continually confused as “Anglo-Saxon,”
being, indeed, of a similar type. Like their houses
and temples, they were of no lasting character. One
thing is clear : they had no rude stone circles around
them.
The Celts made use of iron ever since they appear
in history. It is not likely on a priori grounds that
they would build rude stone circles for worship
or even for burial, nor can it be understood from
their religious beliefs what use they could make
of circles of rude stone. The Druids again were
222 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
merely the Celtic priests—a priesthood of more than
ordinary influence and power, but their doctrines
contained little else than was believed in then by
other Aryan races in Europe or Asia. It is sheer
improbability that they could have worshipped
in stone circles.
If the Celts did not build these rude stone monu-
ments, then Some race previous to them, and in a
more barbaric state of culture, must have been the
builders. Various facts go to show that there existed
previous to the Celts another people or rather other
peoples. Professor Rhys has proved from the
evidence of language and mythology that there was
a previous race; while Mr. Elton, founding on a
study of customs and on the researches of archaeolo-
gists, has still further proved the fact. Following
Canon Greenwell and Dr Thurnam, and extending
the significance of their conclusions, Mr. Elton
is able to prove that two races at least existed
previous to the Celtic race. There was, first, the
small, dark-skinned, long-headed race of the Neolithic
and later cave age, whom Mr. Elton calls Iberians,
whose descendants survived in Siluria of Wales,
in Ireland, and in Aquitania, and who spoke a lan-
guage probably like the Basque. They were the
builders of the Oval barrows. The second race was
tall, rough-featured, strong-limbed, round-headed,
and fair-haired, and Mr. Elton calls them Finnish
or Ugrian. They appear to have been in their
Bronze Age, whereas the Iberians were in their
THE “DRUID '' CIRCLES. 223
Stone Age. The Finnish race may have had an
alphabet, if we can attribute to them the numerous
unreadableinScriptions--rock-carvings and sketchings
of the Bronze Age—which appear in Ireland, Scot-
land, and Scandinavia. They appear to have
subdued the previous race. They built the round
barrows, and we have every reason to believe that
they were also the builders of the rude stone circles,
their crowning effort being the temple (?) of Stone-
henge. We have besides their burial customs,
glimpses possibly of their Social condition. Caesar
and other writers continually and persistently refer
to races in Britain who had community of wives,
and there can be no question that there was some
foundation for the rumour. Nor can we have much
doubt that the nation referred to was this Finnish
one, for it is quite certain that it was not a Celtic
or Aryan nation, among whom monogamy was the
strict rule. The Pictish custom of succession through
the female also establishes among them low ideas
of marriage, quite consonant with community of
wives ; and from this we must conclude that the
Picts were strongly intermixed with, if not altogether,
a non-Aryan race. The nakedness and blue paint
of historians is another feature which, as knowledge
of the races of Britain advanced, the classical writers
learned to locate among the inhabitants of Northern
Scotland. -
The long barrows were built by a race anterior
to this Finnish race; the Finnish race built the round
/...)
224/ CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
p
...”
barrows, chambered cairns, and rude stone circles.
They were probably also the builders of the brochs.
The theory that brochs are of Norse origin arises
from ethnological confusion ; for the Norse were
Aryans possessing iron implements, and builders,
like the Germans and Celts, of wooden and not of
stone buildings. The Picts were Finnish. Mr.
Joseph Anderson says that stone circles attain their
principal development in Pictland proper, and are
most abundant in the district between the Moray
Firth and the Firth of Tay. “Those of the Scottish
circles that have been examined,” he says, “ have
yielded interments of the Bronze Age.” This better
development of the circles in Pictland goes to prove
that the circle builders lasted longer in Pictland
than anywhere else, and, in fact, that the builders
were the ancestors of the historic Picts, and possibly
the historic Picts themselves. Mr. Fergusson, from
quite another standpoint, suggests that Clava is the
burial place of the royal family of Brude Mac
Maelchon, the king whom Columba visited on the
banks of the Ness. The suggestion is not at all
a bad One.
We shall now draw the threads of our argument
together. In our process of elimination we dis-
covered that the Aryan races built no stone circles;
the Celts, therefore, and their Druids, had nothing
to do with them ; they are pre-Celtic as well as pre-
historic ; the circles are so often connected with
burial that we may take it for granted that they all
& %&ſº
"tº . Wºº
|4
º
*~~2,
VIEW IN KHASS la Hl LL S
IN THE DEKKAN, wear Andes E
RUDE STONE MONUMENTS OF INDIA


THE “DRUID '' CIRCLES. 225
originally had to do with burial ; but we found, also,
that in modern times, circles and stones were Con-
nected with worship, more especially the worship
of ancestors. Everything points to their having
been places of burial; they surround dolmens and
barrows, or even when alone yield at times burial
deposits; but their peculiar character, coupled with
the fact of modern and ancient worship of and at
stones, must make us pause ere we set burial down
as their sole purpose. Would Savage or barbaric
man, out of mere reverence for the dead, raise such
monuments to their memory P. It remains to con-
sider what kind of worship could be held at places
of sepulture, and why stone circles should be used.
In the matter of worship, the old theories as to the
sun and serpent worship may be dismissed as out of
place in connection with burial, for the worship of
the sun as the giver of light and heat has never
had connection with death ; Apollo must not be
contaminated with death. The evident reference
many of the circles have to the Sun's course, as for
instance that in this district the heaviest stones
are to the south, or that the entrance may have a
Southerly aspect, only proves that the light and heat
of the sun were regarded as necessary for the dead
as well. That the existence of Solar worship would
add to and emphasise the “Sunward ” tendency—
the sun reference of the circles—is freely allowed,
but nothing more can be legitimately deduced from
such a fact. As for Serpent worship, it is plain that
226 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
the advocates of that theory did not quite grasp
the full significance of the serpent cultus and its
connection with phallic worship. The only worship
appropriate at the grave is that of deceased ancestors.
A study of the beliefs and customs of savage and
barbaric races makes it abundantly clear that this
is about the earliest shape in which religion mani-
fests itself. We must inquire what the anthropolo-
gist has to say in regard to people in this state of
culture. Reverence for the dead and belief in the
existence of the Deity are glibly asserted by theorists
as existent among every race, but that is a delusion.
Reverence and belief in the sense understood by a
civilised and educated person there are none, for
Savage belief is eminently practical and unsenti-
mental. To project the highest feelings and opinions
of civilised man—and these local, too—into the
early state of man, is to overlook the long perspective
of time with its evolution of ever higher feelings
and beliefs. The lowest phase of belief has been
named by Mr. Tylor, “animism ; ” it consists in
believing that what is presented to us in our dreams
and otherhallucinations has a real objective existence.
Savage man makes little or no difference between
his dreaming and waking state. He sees the “sha-
dows" of the dead in his sleep, and believes in their
objective reality. But not merely the dead have
shadows or spirits; the living, too, have a spirit
duplicate of self. The reflection in water proves
this no less than the presentiment of the living
THE “DRUID '' CIRCLES. 227
man in dreams. Hence it is that the Savage dislikes
the photographer. Animals and material objects,
of course, have souls, on the same grounds, for the
dead hero appears in dreams with ghost of hatchet,
sword, and spear. “The Zulu will say that at death
a man's shadow departs and becomes an ancestral
ghost, and the widow will relate how her husband
has come to her in her sleep, and threatened to kill
her for not taking care of his children; or the son
will describe how his father's ghost stood before
him in a dream, and the souls of the two, the living
and the dead, went off together to visit some far-off
kraal of their people.” The funeral sacrifices of
historic nations, of early Greeks, Romans, and Celts,
show how barbaric religion includes the souls of
men, animals, and material objects; for what was
useful to the dead when alive was burnt or buried
along with them—chariots, arms, horses, dogs,
and even wives and slaves were sacrificed in one
mighty holocaust. The religious creed in which
“animism '' embodies itself is, of course, the worship
of the dead, especially the worship of ancestors.
Worship and reverence, here, have a different sense
from our ideas of them. The dead are worshipped
for protection, and repaid with reverence, not merely
in feeling, but also in practical gifts and sacrifices
at their tombs. It may quite as often happen
that their wrath is deprecated. From the mere
family ancestor, the worship may rise to that of great
chiefs and kings that are departed, and from that it
228 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
may rise to a conception of a Supreme father—
“The old old one * of the Zulus, as they work
back from ancestor to ancestor, thus arriving at an
idea of a creator, akin to the conception of the
“Ancient of Days.” One's own ancestor may be
good to one ; other people's ancestors may be the
reverse. Hence these last have to be propitiated ;
evil spirits are worshipped to avoid their wrath.
Thus the ghost of a British officer was not long ago
worshipped in India as a god, and on his altar his
demon-worshipping votaries placed what they
thought would please and appease him, for it had
pleased him in this life, namely, offerings of cheroots
and brandy In fact, all the ills that life is heir to
are among some races attributed to evil spirits,
while the good is the work of the beneficent spirits;
and among such tribes it is through the medicine-
man, with his exorcisms, there is the only means of
escape. Let it be noted that ancestral ghosts may
not merely exist in proper human form, but they
often assume animal forms, and what is more, they
may even take up their abode in material objects—
trees, stones, or anything. Hence arises “fetish ’’
worship—the worship of “stocks and stones.”
And it is also easy to see that we may, on the other
hand, rise from ancestor worship, through this
transmigration idea, to the height of polytheism,
with its gods of Sun, moon, and sky.
This reverence of the savage for the dead is there-
fore connected with his regard for himself. His
THE “DRUID '' CIRCLES. 229
religion, as usually happens in higher phases of
culture, is selfish. The dead are therefore cared
for and their abodes become places of worship.
Various ways are adopted for disposal and worship
of the dead. The hut they lived in may be left as a
dwelling for them ; the body may be buried in a
canoe or coffin ; a strong tomb may be built over
it or its ashes, and this tomb may be a chamber
with access to it to enable the votaries to bring
offerings. Great labour was bestowed on these
burial mounds of earth and stone. Nor have we yet
ceased from this display, though we now have
different methods and far different feelings in our
burial rites. Yet there are survivals of ancient
forms. “In the Highlands of Scotland,” says Mr.
Tylor, “the memory of the old custom [raising of
mounds and cairns] is so strong that the mourners,
as they may not build the cairn over the grave in
the churchyard, will sometimes set up a little one
where the funeral procession halts on the way.”
Our memorial stones over the graves are but the
descendants of the old menhirs ; nor are dolmen
forms absent in the stone box structures often placed
Over graves. In the Churchyard of Rothiemurchus,
On the grave of Shaw Cor-fhiaclach, the hero of the
North Inch at Perth, there used to be a row of small
pillared Stones set round all the sides of the tomb-
Stone. Circles of stone other than such far-off
imitations as this we do not use now.
Burial and worship in early society go hand in
230 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
hand, and we, therefore, conclude that these stone
circles were used for both burial and worship, but
more especially for worship, since mere reverential
memorials were, at that stage of culture, an impossi-
bility. Nevertheless there yet remains one part
of our inquiry to which an answer has not been
given. Why should the stones be set up at intervals,
and in a circle 2 For all that our inquiry has proved
is that the dead were worshipped at their graves,
it does not necessarily answer the more particular
question of a peculiar form of grave or burial en-
closure. The circular form and the pillared stones
set at intervals remain, after every elimination,
the only difficulty of the enquiry. Mr. Fergusson
developed the idea of the circle from the circular
mound, but he could not account for the stones
being set at intervals, and not close together. Canon
Greenwell suggested, as we saw, that their use was to
“fence ’’ in the ghost of the departed. It is a
superstition in the Highlands yet that evil spirits
can be kept off by drawing a circle round oneself.
Another suggestion made is that the number of
stones may have had something to do with the
number of worshippers, as is said to be the case in
the Dekkan. It was also the custom at the Hallow-
e'en fires for everyone to place a stone in a ring
round the fire as they were leaving, and, if by next
morning, anything happened to any of the stones,
the person who placed it there was fated to meet
death or ill during the year. The Arabs still set up
THE “DRUID '' CIRCLES. f 23íº
~~~
stones of witness, whenever they first catch sight of
certain holy places. The stones in the circle may
have been “witness" stones, or else stones at
which sacrifice was made. Yet the regularity of
their number, generally ten or a dozen, forbids
much hopeful speculation in these lines. Another
theory connects the burial circle with phallic worship;
the circle itself would answer to the yoni symbol
and the menhirs upon it to the linga. The principles
of life and of death would thus be worshipped to-
gether, which is not an uncommon circumstance.
The cup-markings so often met with on burial
monuments lend additional weight to this view.
To sum up. Our negative conclusions are, that
neither the Celts nor their Druids built these stone
circles, nor were they for Sun or fire worship, and
they were not the foundation either of dwellings
or of dismantled mounds. Our positive results are,
that the stone circles were built by pre-historic
races—in this country, probably by the Picts;
that they are connected with burial, though built
independent of mounds and other forms of tomb ;
that they are also connected with ancestor worship,
and that the whole difficulty resolves itself into the
question of why they are of circular form and why
the stones are set at intervals.
CELTIC BURIAL.
Fºrst published by Eneas Mackay, 1917.
First published in Transactions of the Inverness Scientific Society
and Field Club, Volume III. 1833.
CELTIC BURIAL.
IN ordinary works on archaeology the term
“Celtic * signifies the pre-Roman period, or, in
Ireland and Northern Scotland, the pre-Christian
period. Jewitt, who is typical of nearly all the
other archaeologists, considers the Celtic period to
be co-extensive with the Stone and Bronze Ages:
the Iron Age is always Roman or Saxon. “The
Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon '' is a work by Mr.
Wright, and its title accurately represents his views
as to the ethnology of our country, which he and
most others regard as composed of only those three
races. The Celts are usually regarded as aboriginal,
and the Romans and Teutons are successive invaders.
It matters not that this “Celtic ’’ period contains
the divers elements of the Stone Age, old and new,
and of the Bronze Age ; nor do some archaeologists
seem to understand that the barrows of those ages
contain proofs that two, if not more, races are in-
cluded in their Celtic race. “Celtic ’’ burial is,
with holders of such theories, as varied as the ages
and epochs of pre-historic times, and the only thing
that can be predicated of it is that, when the bodies
are unburnt, they are in a Cramped posture, and
there are no iron accompaniments. Pagan burial,
in this country, if accompanied by iron, is non-
236 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
Celtic—so the ordinary archaeologists say. Pagan
burial with iron accompaniments, is Teutonic.
It is against this use of the term “Celtic ’’ that
I wish to protest. It is a wrong use of it—wrong
on historical and scientific grounds. The Celts
are a people perfectly well known historically;
we meet with them in ancient history from 500 B.C.
downwards, and we have them still in modern times.
Ancient writers describe their manners and customs
with fair fulness of detail, and modern science has
proved that their language belongs to the same type
and is descended of the same stock as those of
Greece, Rome, and Germany. A study of their
manners and customs, as the ancients relate them,
and as the old Irish literature reveals them, presents
the same leading features of political and social
organisation, the same kind of religion and of myth-
ology, and the same kind of judicial system as were
prevalent in early times in Rome and Greece.
Celtic institutions are co-extensive with the use of
the Celtic language, for language and culture follow
each other. A Celtic language implies a Celtic
culture, or stage of civilisation. A people speaking
a Celtic language need not necessarily be of Celtic
race or descent, but they must have Celtic insti-
tutions and culture. A Celtic race may have con-
quered another race, and may have imposed their
own language and customs upon them. Neverthe-
less, it must be admitted that customs and institu-
tions, just as words and idioms of another race,
CELTIC Bl] RIAL. 237
may persist in the amalgamated race; indeed,
when one Aryan race conquers another, the struggle
is often long and doubtful as to which language
and institutions will prevail, for both are there of
a similar class. The Aryans, in contact with any
other races outside the Semitic, always prevail,
their language and culture being vastly superior.
Philological science has proved that the Celts
belong to the Indo-European family of speech.
This Indo-European or Aryan race lived together
over 3000 B.C. somewhere in Middle or Eastern
Europe, and nearly all the languages of Europe
and the leading languages of India, past and present,
including that of Persia, are descended from this
ancient Aryan tongue. Descended groups situated
near one another are more intimately related ; thus
Latin and Celtic are more allied to each other than
either of them is to any other European language,
ancient or modern. Now, words represent things,
actions, institutions, and if we find the same word
for the same idea in Greek, Latin, and Celtic, we
are certain that thing, action, or institution existed
among them when they lived together. In this
way we have a tolerably clear idea of the state of
civilisation among the Italo-Celtic race; and, when
European history begins with Greece and Rome,
the glimpses we get of Celtic history, language, and
customs, indicate what might be expected a priori
from a consideration of the kindred institutions
and languages of Rome and Greece. Ancient Gaul
238 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
presents to our view the same political features as
Greece of Herodotus' time, or earlier; the manners
and customs of Gaul remind the Greek historians
of the life in Homer's time; and certainly the
Gaulish burial customs are described by Caesar in
language that makes an admirable summary of
Homer's description of the burial of Patroclus and
Hector. Greek burial in the Homeric ages was as
follows:–A pyre of wood was constructed, and on
the top of it the body was laid. Sheep and oxen
were slain, their fat was placed about and upon the
body, and their carcases were heaped around it.
Jars of honey and oil were placed on the pile. Horses,
favourite dogs, and captives were slain and cast
on the pyre, and the whole set on fire. A wail
was raised, and the dead addressed by name. When
the fire burned low, it was finally extinguished with
wine, the bones were collected—“ the whitened
bones,” as the poet says—and placed in an urn of
gold. Then they dug a grave, and raised over it
a mound. Homer also speaks of “the pillar-stone
that standeth on the barrow of a dead man or of a
woman.” In historic times, in Greece and Republi-
can Rome, the burning of the dead was the exception,
not the rule—inhumation of the body at full length
being the ordinary method of disposal of the dead;
but in Imperial Rome the custom revived, and
became the rule, while inhumation, at least of the
better classes, was the exception. Christianity,
however, finally stopped the burning of the dead.
CELTIC BURIAL. 239
The old mounds had also developed into the elegance
of built tombs, vaults, and monuments with in-
scriptions and other accessories of civilisation.
Among the Celts of Gaul in Caesar's time, however,
the Homeric age of burial was still prevalent ; all
the classic writers of that and the succeeding century
testify to the burning of the bodies among the Gauls,
but they are silent as to the character of the tombs.
“Their funerals,” Caesar says, “are magnificent
and costly, considering their civilisation ; and all
that they think was dear to them when alive they
put in the fire, even animals; and shortly before
this generation the slaves and dependants that they
were considered to have loved were burned along
with them in the regular performance of funeral
rites.” Diodorus, Caesar's contemporary, says:—
“For among them the opinion of Pythagoras pre-
vails, that the souls of men are immortal, and in
the course of a fixed number of years they live again,
the soul entering another body. Accordingly, at
the burial of the dead, some cast letters addressed
to their departed relatives upon the funeral pile,
under the belief that the dead will read them.”
Mela (first century, A.D.) confirms this fully —
“They burn and bury along with the dead whatever
is of use to them when alive ; business accounts
and payment of debt were passed on to the next
world, and there were some who, of their own free
will, cast themselves on the funeral piles of their
relatives, expecting to live along with them.”
240 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
Their vivid belief in a future existence is ridiculed
by Valerius Maximus, a writer practically contem-
porary with Mela :—“Money loans are given, to
be repaid in the next world, because they hold
men's Souls to be immortal. I would call them fools
did these trousered philosophers not have the same
belief as lay under the cloak of Pythagoras.” The
scientific deduction which we can make from the
similarity of language and general institutions
among Greeks, Romans, and Celts, that Celtic
burial customs were identical with those of early
Greece and Rome, is amply proved from these
classical quotations; but we can also bring the light
of archaeology to bear on the matter. Gaulish
tombs, which are tumuli with a kernel of stone
present ornaments and utensils of bronze and iron,
skeletons of men and animals, or cinerary urns,
just such as we might expect from a priori reasoning
and from the classical references. The Celts of
Britain were in a more Homeric age than those of
Gaul; they used war chariots, armour, and equip-
ments, and conducted war operations in a manner
similar to the Homeric heroes. That the Irish
were in a similar style of culture we know from their
oldest writings. We have rich remains of old Irish
myth and legend. The age of Cuchulinn, which is
placed by the Irish historians at the beginning of
our era, reproduces in a striking and original manner
the main features of the Homeric age. The war
chariots, the feasts with their chief share and place
CELTIC BURIAL. 241
for the champion, the warrior life and occupations,
the chivalrous and non-chivalrous ideas, are all
mostly the same as in Homer's time. The only
thing we miss is the “well-greaved ” forms of the
Achaeans of Homer ; for the ancient Irish did not,
as far as their literature shows, wear either mail
armour or helmets. In this they were like several
Celtic tribes who invaded Italy, and fought against
the Romans in a semi-nude condition. Hence we
cannot but conclude that the Celtic races, wherever
they appear, be they Gauls, Britons, or ancient
Gaels, present the same general manners and cus-
toms. We may safely conclude that their burial
customs were also similar to one another and to those
of early Greece and Rome. We may infer that,
as in Greece and Rome, inhumation existed in early
historic times, that is in heroic times ; indeed,
inhumation was probably the most common, and
undoubtedly was the usual form among the common
people. Kings and chiefs were buried magnificently
in tumuli and cairns; but the common people
buried in cemeteries, if they lived in villages, and
did not burn the body. Proof for this view may
be got in the fact that in the old Irish literature
there is not a word about cremation. Cremation
could not have extensively existed among the
ancient Irish, or else their literature would present
the fact. We know that the early Church had,
in Some places on the continent, a desperate struggle
against the burning of the bodies. If Christianity
242 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
had such a struggle in Ireland, record of it has been
carefully—too carefully to be true—weeded out of
Irish literature.
Here, again, we have another difference between
the ancient Irish and the heroes of the Homeric
time ; the Irish did not burn their dead. Yet we
meet with a custom mentioned by Homer; he
speaks of the pillar-stone on the cairn of a dead man
or woman. So the Irish continually refer to build-
ing the tomb, setting up the pillar-stone, and, what
Homer does not mention, inscribing on it the name.
Before considering the literary evidence in regard
to old Gaelic-burial, let us consider how archaeology
tallies with the conclusions we arrive at in regard
to Celtic burial from linguistic Science and from
ancient literary documents. The Celts entered
Britain some centuries B.C., and were then in their
Iron Age. Is there any archaeological trace of this
earliest Iron Age 2 It must be pre-Roman and pre-
Teutonic ; So we argue on Scientific grounds, in-
dependently of archaeology. As a rule, archaeolo-
gists refuse to believe in a Celtic Iron Age before
the Romans; it is contrary to their prejudices,
and every effort is made to explain any remains
that may belong to it as either Roman or Saxon.
Besides, burial remains of the Celtic Iron Age are
not often met with. Dr. Joseph Anderson says in
regard to Scotland, and doubtless truly —“The
general phenomena of the burials of the Celtic
Paganism of the Iron Age in Scotland are not dis-
CELTIC BURIAL. 243
closed by any recorded observations known to me.
If they exist, they exist either as phenomena of
unrecognised character, or as phenomena which are
still unobserved.” In England matters are not
quite so bad as this. Celtic burials of the Iron
Age have been found, but unless a war-chariot was
along with the burial, any Iron Age burial of non-
Roman character was at once put down as Anglo-
Saxon. In Yorkshire, Mr. Stillingfleet in 1816-17
opened some Celtic barrows ; a man was found
buried with the remains of a chariot, and placed
in the grave at full length. Several other burials
similarly positioned were found by him. He found
two burials with chariots in them, remains of horse
trappings; one barrow seemed to have held the
horses and chariot complete. It seems, however,
that only parts of the chariots—the wheels—and
parts of the trappings were laid in the grave.
Chariot wheels have been found four or five times.
Remains of pigs were also found, and we know that
the Gaulish Celts were great pig rearers; indeed
the boar was the national emblem. Ten years
ago another barrow was opened at Arras, in York-
shire, where the skeleton of a woman was found
laid at full length, with two chariot wheels, some
horse trappings, more especially the bridle-bit, and
other objects, such as a mirror made of iron. Other
Celtic burials have been found, but the ordinary
archaeologist classifies them, despite of the Celtic
ornaments, whose parallels can only be found in
244 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
Ireland, as Anglo-Saxon. Canon Greenwell men-
tions several, and each time his predecessors, “no
doubt by an oversight,” as he charitably remarks,
make them Anglo-Saxon. One at Borlaston, in
Staffordshire, is in some respects typical of the
rest ; it is described by Jewitt as Anglo-Saxon, yet
the ornamentation he could only parallel from the
collection of the Royal Irish Academy. The grave
was seven feet long by two wide, cut in the solid
sandstone rock fifteen inches deep. A deeper hollow
had been excavated for the head, where the remains
of the helmet were found ; the Sword was extended
by the right side, and in the left was a knife. “The
skeleton,” as Mr. Jewitt remarks, “ had, as is so
frequently the case in Anglo-Saxon interments,
entirely disappeared.” The body, in Celtic and
Saxon burials both, was placed at full length on its
back in a scooped-out grave; it was in full dress,
with the sword extended at the side, often with other
weapons. Both the Celts and Teutons practised
cremation at the same time as inhumation ; indeed,
the burial customs of Celt, Roman, and Teuton,
when in the same stage of culture, were exactly
alike. It is no wonder that archaeologists have been
led astray when they stick to mere archaeology.
We may pass, in the last place, to the burial
customs of the ancient Irish, as recorded in their
literature. There is a rich literary reference to
burial, but previous to this literature we have the
inscriptions of early Celtic and Christian times.
CELTIC BURIAL. 245
The Gaulish inscriptions show that a cairn was
raised over the grave, and on this cairn a pillar-
stone. One inscription in Gaulish may be given,
the bilingual of Todi :-“Ategnati Druticni carnitu
artvass Coisis Druticnos,” for which the Latin may
be given thus—“Ategnati Druti filio lapides (Sepul-
crales) congessit Coisis Druti filius.” The Welsh
inscription at Penmachno is of quite a similar kind;
it is in very barbarous Latin —“Carausius hic
jacit in hoc congeries lapidum ”—“Carausius lies
here in this cairn of stones.” The book of Armagh,
Iooo years old, records that St. Patrick, “sepelivit
illum aurigam Totum calvum, id est, totmael et
congregavit lapides erga sepulturam.” In Adam-
nan's life of Columba we read that Artbranan, the
old chief, who was brought to the Saint when in
Skye, “believed and was baptised, and when the
baptism was administered to him he died on the
same spot, according to the prediction of the Saint ;
and his companions buried him there, raising a heap
of stones over his grave.” Whitley Stokes, one of
the greatest Celtic scholars now living, remarks—
“I have not met with anything in Celtic literature
showing that the Celts practised cremation. But
the number of sepulchral urns which have been
found in France, Britain, and Ireland proves that
they, like the Greeks, either burned or buried the
human body. They had biers, but I cannot find
that they used coffins. Their carni or cairns (cognate
with Greek kranaos P) seem to have been invariably
246 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
composed of stones, and thus differed from the
Greek tumboi, Latin tumuli, which might be made
either of stones or earth.”
Three features of burial constantly occur in the
Irish records: these are the grave or fert, which
was dug out ; a mound or cairn—duma or lecht—
was raised above the grave ; and a pillar-stone,
coirthe, or stone, lia, placed in or upon the mound
or cairn. Finally, an inscription was cut again
on this pillar-stone or lia. Similarly the Stélé stood
upon the tumbos in Homeric and Greek times gener-
ally. Keating, an Irish historian and antiquary
of the I7th century, places this form of burial as
his first. He says:—“They used to make a fert
in the earth corresponding in length and breadth
with the corpse; they then deposited the corpse
therein, with the soles of the feet turned to the east,
and the crown of the head to the west; and put a
carn of stones over it, which was called a lecht.”
The orientation of the body, with Sunward face, is
Christian, though Pagan in its ultimate origin. A
quotation or two from the MSS. will further elucidate
the point. A MS. of the I2th century, called the
Book of Leinster, tells us—relating events a dozen
centuries earlier –“A grave was dug for Ferb,
and her stone was raised, and an inscription in Ogam
was written, and a mound (duma) was made around
the stone.” Here the pillar-stone was set on the
grave, and partially covered with the mound.
Traces of the old Pagan custom of burying arms
CELTIC BURIAL. 247
and valuables, and even slaves along with the dead,
peep out here and there in the elder records. The
oldest Irish MS., called the Book of the Dun Cow,
dated about IIoo, tells, in recording events shortly
before Christ, that Eochaid, King of Ireland, left
“Ailill at Fremain of Teffia to die. . . . and he
left Etain with Ailill, in order that she might have
his tuigmaine or honours made—that is, to dig his
fert, to make his guba (the lamentation, or keening),
and to slay his quadrupeds.” The quadrupeds were
doubtless favourite animals, or, possibly, victims
in honour of his manes. A scene from the third
century may be quoted, occurring in a MS. of the
fourteenth century —“We, the Fiann,” said Cailte,
“both high and low, great and Small, king and knight,
raised a loud shout of lamentation for the brave and
valiant champions. And a mound was dug for
each of them, and they were put into them, and his
own arms along with each. Their tombstones were
raised over their graves, and their Ogam names were
written then.” The burial of Fothaid Airgthech
in the third century is thus described in the MS.
of IIOO :—“There is a chest of stone about him
in the earth. There are his two rings of silver, and
his two bunne do-at (bracelets), and his torque of
silver on his coffin, and there is a pillar-stone at his
cairn, and an Ogam is on the end of the pillar-stone,
which is in the earth, and what is on it is ‘Eochaidh
Airgtheach here, who was killed by Cailte in battle,
on the side of Finn.’”
248 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
Human victims are recorded in one instance as
being sacrificed. King Fiachra, in the fourth cen-
tury, returned from Munster with fifty hostages,
but he died of his wounds by the way, and “his
grave was made, and his mound was raised, and his
clutche cainie (games and dirges) were instituted, and
his Ogam name was written, and the hostages,
which had been brought from the south, were buried
alive round Fiachra’s grave.” Though laying the
body on its back at full length was the ordinary rule,
it was departed from in special cases. We know
that in Christian times Charlemagne, like his Pagan
predecessor, was buried seated on his throne. St.
Patrick's unbelieving contemporary, King Loegaire,
is recorded in the Book of Armagh to have said:—
“My father, Niall, did not allow me to believe, but
that I should be buried on the heights of Tara like
men standing up in war.” And the annotator
adds :—“Because the heathen are wont to be placed
armed in their tombs, with their weapons at hand,
face to face, until the day erdathe, as the magi have
it—that is the day of the judgment of the Lord.”
As a consequence we read in the Dun Cow MS. that
the “body of King Loegaire was interred with his
armour on the south-east, and outside the royal
rath of Loegaire, at Tara, and his face to the south,
against Leinster, as battling against them, for when
living they were his foes.” Burial of arms, as in
the foregoing case, is mentioned very often ; an
old “Druidic ’’ poem celebrates the fall of Mog-
CELTIC BURIAL. 249
Neid, King of Munster in the second century of our
era; it says—
' The grave of Mog-Neid is on Magh Tualaing,
With his lance at his shoulder,
With his club, so rapid in action,
With his helmet, with his sword.”
King Dathi, in the fifth century, was buried—
according to his wish—with his red javelin in his
hand in the grave, and his grave facing the Ulster-
men, and his face turned towards them. And so
long as his face was towards the Ulstermen they
were defeated, and it was not until they turned
Dathi's face mouth downward that they could
conquer his people. We thus infer that warriors,
at least great warriors, were buried with their faces
to their foes, and sometimes standing straight up.
In Welsh mythology the head of King Bran was
buried facing France, and prophecy Said that so
long as it was there and facing So, no invasion could
be successful. But Arthur, in his self-confidence,
exhumed the head of Bran, feeling capable of de-
fending his country without Such aid. But, alas !
his successors failed, and the Britons lost their
kingdom.
The heroic tales and ballads of the Scottish Gael,
though taken down from oral recitation since Mac-
pherson's time, yet contain valuable and authentic
references to ancient customs. In the story of the
death of the demi-god Cuchulinn, his foster-father,
Conall, is represented as having Sworn that whosoever
250 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
told him of Cuchulinn's death should that instant
be slain. Cuchulinn's charioteer, who knew of this,
tells the fact of his master’s death in a roundabout
way. “Well, Loegaire,” says Conall, “how is
my dear friend Cuchullinn 2 ” “He is well,” said
Loegaire. “He is at present after making for
himself a new house.” “What house has he made 2
Would not his ancestral house do for him 2 ” “It
is a house in the new fashion.” “What is the new
fashion that he has discovered 2 ” “O, it is only
a little house. When he lays him down straight
on his back on the floor, and he stretches his legs,
his soles touch the one end and his head the other
end of the house, and the point of his nose touches
the rooftree.” “That is the same,” said Conall,
“as if you said that Cuchulinn is dead.” “I have
not told of Cuchulinn's death ; I call you as witness
to that.” “Quite right, my lad, etc.” Another
version just lately recovered in the Isles adds a very
graphic touch : “Cuchulinn has a new house, with
his head reaching the spars and the big sword on
his breast.” The “Lay of the Heads,” which ends
the story of Cuchulinn's death, purports to be a
dialogue between Emer, Cuchulinn's wife, and Conall,
when the latter tells the names of the heroes he has
slain in revenge for the Cu or Hound, that is Cuchu-
linn. Finally Emer says:—
“ Conall it is time for us
Cuchulinn in the earth to lay ;
Let us finish the digging of his grave—
His narrow hard bed of stone.
CELTIC BURIAL. 25I
“And, Conall, I shall go into the grave,
For weak is my strength as I am ;
Place my mouth 'gainst mouth of Cu,
For meet it is I should with him go.”
A similar request to that of Emer's—the laying her
in the grave beside her love, and mouth to mouth—
is made by three other heroines of Gaelic tragic
story. Deirdre requests to be laid beside Naois,
while the three hounds and the three shields of the
three heroic brothers are also to be put in the grave,
and their three swords above them. Similarly
Grainne wishes to be buried with Diarmid, while
Dargo's wife expressed her love for her husband
when the connected story of his death was brought
to her, the effects of which killed her, in these words—
“Chi mi 'n Seobhag, chi mi 'n cil
Leis an d’roinn mortin an t-sealg,
'So na b'ionmhuinn leis an triuir,
Càirear sinn 'san ilir le Dearg.”
I see the hawk, I see the hound,
With which my love performed the chase,
And as the three to him were bound,
Let us in earth with Dearg have place.
The conclusion to which we come is that the Celts,
when they practised inhumation, as they universally
did in the British Isles immediately before Christian-
ity was introduced, buried their dead at full length,
generally placing Some weapons by or upon the body,
and not rarely killing favourite animals and burying
them along with their master. The grave was called
in old Gaelic a fert, and it was dug; then a mound
252 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
was raised over it, and after the introduction of
Ogam writing, a pillar-stone was placed in or on
the mound with the person's name in Ogams. There
is no mention of any coffin, but the “Lay of the
Heads '' evidently points to the body being at
times boxed in with stones. One thing appears
to be certain : the small box graves, three feet by
two, made of flagstones, where the body is cramped
up—knees to chin, and lying on its side as a rule,
are not “Celtic * graves at all. They do not suit
the literary references to burial among the Gael,
nor do they correspond with the finds in Celtic
tumuli in France and Britain. These burials must
therefore be attributed to the earlier race or races
which the Celts found in these islands when they
first came here from mid Europe.
ERRATA.
Page 19, line 4, for Appollo read Apollo.
line 13, for paricide read parricide.
Page 24, line 29, for a’s read as.
line 30, for rêidh read réidh.
Page 25, line 2, for a’s read as.
Page 42, line 18, for Diancet read Diancecht.
Page 65, line 3, after mition insert ara.
Page 68, line 3, with.
line 5, for Bagniati read Baginati.
line 16, for Matris read Matres.
Page 71, line II, for vetrified read vitrified.
Page 74, line I, for Varelius read Valerius.
line 29, after 65 add A.D.
Page 78, line 19, for Amminaws read Ammianus.
Page 92, line 21, and page 93, line 2, for Greidwal read Greidawl.
Page Io'7, line 26, and passim for Firbolgs read Firbolg.
Page II 3, line 28, for Danaans read Danann.
Page II.4, line I4, etc., for Fir-Domnans read Fir-Domnan.
Page II6, line 29, for Ferubolg read Firbolg.
Page 12o, line 8, for al read all.
Page 135, line 29, for felebilis read flebilis.
Page 138, line 20, for Pywll read Pwyll.
Page I56, lines, 5, II, and page 291, line 6, for Cruaich read
Cruach.
Page 160, line 20, for Leogaire read Loegaire.
Page 177, line I, for Boromh read Boroimhe.
NOTES.
Page 53. Here and on page 93 MacBain implies that the Gael
of Cornwall, Devon and Wales, known to have oc-
cupied those districts in the latter part of the Roman
occupation of Britain, were the direct representatives
of the early Gaelic wave of conquest which he men-
tions on page 53. His mature view is to be found
on page 383 of his edition of Skene's Highlanders.
“No Gael ever set his foot on British soil save from
a vessel that had put out from Ireland.”
Pages 150, 209. “No description of any Celtic temple is vouch-
Safed us.” Gregory of Turin gives the following
description of the temple of Vassocaletis, a name of
Mercurius Dumias, the god of the Arverni: “But
Chrocus, king of the Arverni, came and set on fire,
and utterly overturned that temple which they call
in Gaulish, Vassogalate. It was built and stablished
in a wonderful manner. Its wall was double ; on
the inside it was formed of small stones, but on the
outside it was formed of square stones hewn. The
wall had a thickness of thirty feet. Within the
temple was adorned with marble and mosaic work.
The floor was laid with marble and the roof was
covered with lead.” f
Page 159. “Eighty-one married men,” i.e., nine nines.
Page 164. Beltane : MacBain’s mature view is given in his
Dictionary as follows:—bealltuinn, May day, Ir.
béalteine, E. Ir, beltene, belltaine *belote(p)nia (Stokes)
“bright fire,” where belo is allied to Eng. bale (“bale-
fire "), Ag. S. bael, Lith. ballas, white. The Gaulish
god-names Belenos and Belisama are also hence, and
Shakespeare's Cym-beline. Two needfires were
lighted on Beltane among the Gael, between which
they drove their cattle for purification and luck;
hence the proverb: “Eadar da theine Bhealltuinn,”
between two Beltane fires.
Page 169, line 6: for another possible view v. Dictionary s. v.
samhuinn.
Page 225. “Apollo must not be contaminated with death.”
Yet consider the plague sent by Apollo in Iliad I.
Jamieson & Munro Ltd., Printers, Stirling,
$

- "...º.º.º. *
º:-lºſs.sº
a af. Raſoºdºs”
- - - - - - - - - -
e º 'º
:
:
:
:
:
:
ſº Iº
------> º
e s - - eae ºr e =
- * * * * * *
, , s - e. e.
º
B
º
:
wº
º
;
a º º
ºf...? -
º * * * : * * *
ſº ſº
.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.sº
e?...º.º. a e º tº
º a w w “ ºw • * * * º & º
****.*.*.*. º
- ". º • * * : * ~ *, *, *. º t cº-º-º-º:
C * - º º * - - - - - - -
[*.*,5 . . . . . . . . . ;
tº * tº C
C & 9 & .
& a tº
• *.*.*. ‘. .
'..º.º. *.*.*.
* * * s
*...* f
*.*.*.*.*.*.*.
s • * * C a
º
. . s > * > . * * * * * * :
-, **ſa's "Rºº". ".
s e º 'º º º 'º e “
• * * * * * * * * * * * *
sº
§
3.
& W º
* * * *
* -- rs t = t =
§
º
i
:
:
-- a
© º º
º, afº 1.
& “º ſº C * *
*.*.*.*.*.* tºº
* * * * * * * *
.
º
ºf .8
§
. * : * * *
Rºº.º.º.º.
- • * ~ Wºº &
"...ºsºeº-
s º º 'º wº
* c + c <
e = * : *- : * * * ****
: "….'.... • *.*
*_º_* < *.*
#
º
*...*
º --- • * a c e º º
*Hºº-ºººº......
Q — "º º e º s 8 * * * * * * * *
& Cº. ºº e º i º • * * * * * * * * * *
...?. º º ‘. . . . . .”.8
º
i sº
* * :
sº º
* * * * * * * * * * *
*.*.*.*.*.*.* *
e º sº * * * * * * * * * * *
e sº e s sº *, *
ſº
& & ºw º -
º - C - a º w
*...*.*.*.*.*.*.* : *, *.*.* C.
* * * * * * * * * G * * * * * * * * * - * * * * * * * * is ſº * * º
Tº e º sº * G - º, & s º C - ******". ºf ."."
º
:
º
fºr.:
* * * * * *
º:-...?
a
*...*.*, º
;
* * * : *
º e-º-º:
3 * * * * * *
* * *
i
E.
. . .
* * * * * * * *
* - es -- is a
e º sº-º-º-º-º:
:
º
:
ºº
.
|
i
i