The Counterweight Handbook Helen Pluckrose

download

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-counterweight-handbook-helen-
pluckrose-57966100

Explore and download more ebooks at ebookbell.com

Here are some recommended products that we believe you will be
interested in. You can click the link to download.

The Union Haggadah Home Service For The Passover Central Conference Of
American Rabbis Rabbis

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-union-haggadah-home-service-for-the-
passover-central-conference-of-american-rabbis-rabbis-33546358

The Roman Republic Of Letters Scholarship Philosophy And Politics In

The Age Of Cicero And Caesar Catherine Volk

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-roman-republic-of-letters-
scholarship-philosophy-and-politics-in-the-age-of-cicero-and-caesar-
catherine-volk-44860132

The Ninth Month James Patterson

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-ninth-month-james-patterson-44862442

The History Written On The Classical Greek Body Robin Osborne

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-history-written-on-the-classical-
greek-body-robin-osborne-44863234
How To Tell If Your Cat Is Plotting To Kill You The Oatmeal Matthew
Inman

https://ebookbell.com/product/how-to-tell-if-your-cat-is-plotting-to-
kill-you-the-oatmeal-matthew-inman-44863758

My Dog The Paradox A Lovable Discourse About Mans Best Friend The
Oatmeal

https://ebookbell.com/product/my-dog-the-paradox-a-lovable-discourse-
about-mans-best-friend-the-oatmeal-44863950

The Book Of Primal Signs The High Magic Of Symbols 2nd Edition Nigel
Pennick

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-book-of-primal-signs-the-high-magic-
of-symbols-2nd-edition-nigel-pennick-44863972

The True History Of Tea Victor H Mair Erling Hoh

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-true-history-of-tea-victor-h-mair-
erling-hoh-44864088

The Body Keeps The Score Brain Mind And Body In The Healing Of Trauma
Bessel Van Der Kolk

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-body-keeps-the-score-brain-mind-and-
body-in-the-healing-of-trauma-bessel-van-der-kolk-44864110
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
about the year 1150, we read: "[Ernin, son of] Duach,[2] son of the
king of Connacht, an ollav and a prophet and a professor in history
and a professor in wisdom; it was he that collected the genealogies
and histories of the men of Erin into one, and that is the Cin Droma-
sneachta." Now there were only two Duachs according to our
annals, one of these was great-grandson of Niall of the Nine
Hostages, and of course a pagan, who died in 379; the other, who
was an ancestor of the O'Flaherties, died one hundred and twenty
years later. It was Duach the pagan, whose second son was Ernin;
the other had only one son, whose name was Senach. If O'Curry has
read the half-effaced word correctly, then the book may have been,
as Keating says it was, written before St. Patrick's coming, and it
contained, as the various references to it show, a repertoire of
genealogies collected by the son of a man who died in 379; this
man, too, being great-grandson of that Niall of the Nine Hostages in
whose son so large a number of the Eremonian genealogies
converge.[3]
There are many considerations which lead me to believe that Irish
genealogical books were kept from the earliest introduction of the
art of writing, and kept with greater accuracy, perhaps, than any
other records of the past whatsoever. The chiefest of these is the
well-known fact that, under the tribal system, no one possessed
lawfully any portion of the soil inhabited by his tribe if he were not
of the same race with his chief. Consequently even those of lowest
rank in the tribe traced and recorded their pedigree with as much
care as did the highest, for "it was from his own genealogy each
man of the tribe, poor as well as rich, held the charter of his civil
state, his right of property in the cantred in which he was born."[4]
All these genealogies were entered in the local books of each tribe
and were preserved in the verses of the hereditary poets. There was
no incentive to action among the early Irish so stimulative as a
remembrance of their pedigree. It was the same among the Welsh,
and probably among all tribes of Celtic blood. We find the witty but
unscrupulous Giraldus, in the twelfth century, saying of his Welsh
countrymen that every one of them, even of the common people,
observes the genealogy of his race, and not only knows by heart his
grandfathers and great-grandfathers, but knows all his ancestors up
to the sixth or seventh generation,[5] or even still further, and
promptly repeats his genealogy as Rhys, son of Griffith, son of Rhys,
son of Teudor, etc.[6]
The poet, Cuan O'Lochain, who died in the year 1024, gives a long
account of the Saltair of Tara now lost, the compilation of which he
ascribes to Cormac mac Art, who came to the throne in 227,[7] and
in which he says the synchronisms and chronology of all the kings
were written. The Book of Ballymote too quotes from an ancient
book, now lost, called the Book of the Uachongbhail, to the effect
that "the synchronisms and genealogies and succession of their
kings and monarchs, their battles, their contests, and their
antiquities from the world's beginning down to that time were
written in it, and this is the Saltair of Tara, which is the origin and
fountain of the historians of Erin from that period down to this time."
This may not be convincing proof that Cormac mac Art wrote the
Saltair, but it is convincing proof that what were counted as the very
earliest books were filled with genealogies.
The subject of tribal genealogy upon which the whole social fabric
depended was far too important to be left without a check in the
hands of tribal historians, however well-intentioned. And this check
was afforded by the great convention or Féis, which took place
triennially at Tara,[8] whither the historians had to bring their books
that under the scrutiny of the jealous eyes of rivals they might be
purged of whatever could not be substantiated, "and neither law nor
usage nor historic record was ever held as genuine until it had
received such approval, and nothing that disagreed with the Roll of
Tara could be respected as truth."[9]
"It was," says Duald Mac Firbis[10]—himself the author of probably
the greatest book of genealogies ever written, speaking about the
chief tribal historians of Ireland, "obligatory on every one of them
who followed it to purify the profession"; and he adds very
significantly, "Along with these [historians] the judges of Banba
[Ireland] used to be in like manner preserving the history, for a man
could not be a judge without being a historian, and he is not a
historian who is not a judge in the BRETHADH NIMHEDH,[11] that is
the last book in the study of the Shanachies and of the judges
themselves."
The poets and historians "were obliged to be free from theft, and
killing, and satirising, and adultery, and everything that would be a
reproach to their learning." Mac Firbis, who was the last working
historian of a great professional family, puts the matter nobly and
well.

"Any Shanachie," he says, "whether an ollav or the next in rank,

or belonging to the order at all, who did not preserve these
rules, lost half his income and his dignity according to law, and
was subject to heavy penalties besides, so that it is not to be
supposed that there is in the world a person who would not
prefer to tell the truth, if he had no other reason than the fear
of God and the loss of his dignity and his income: and it is not
becoming to charge partiality upon these elected historians [of
the nation]. However, if unworthy people did write falsehood,
and attributed it to a historian, it might become a reproach to
the order of historians if they were not on their guard, and did
not look to see whether it was out of their prime books of
authority that those writers obtained their knowledge. And that
is what should be done by every one, both by the lay scholar
and the professional historian—everything of which they have a
suspicion, to look for it, and if they do not find it confirmed in
good books, to note down its doubtfulness,[12] along with it, as
I myself do to certain races hereafter in this book, and it is thus
that the historians are freed from the errors of others, should
these errors be attributed to them, which God forbid."
I consider it next to impossible for any Gaelic pedigree to have been
materially tampered with from the introduction of the art of writing,
because tribal jealousies alone would have prevented it, and
because each stem of the four races was connected at some point
with every other stem, the whole clan system being inextricably
intertwined, and it was necessary for all the various tribal
genealogies to agree, in order that each branch, sub-branch, and
family might fit, each in its own place.
I have little doubt that the genealogy of O'Neill, for instance, which
traces him back to the father of Niall of the Nine Hostages who came
to the throne in 356 is substantially correct. Niall, it must be
remembered, was father of Laoghaire [Leary], who was king when
St. Patrick arrived, by which time, if not before, the art of writing
was known in Ireland. À fortiori, then, we may trust the pedigrees of
the O'Donnells and the rest who join that stem a little later on.
If this be acknowledged we may make a cautious step or two
backwards. No one, so far as I know, has much hesitation in
acknowledging the historic character of that King Laoghaire whom
St. Patrick confronted, nor of his father Niall of the Nine Hostages.
But if we go so far, it wants very little to bring us in among the
Fenians themselves, and the scenes connected with them and with
Conn of the Hundred Battles; for Niall's great-grandfather was that
Fiachaidh who was slain by the Three Collas—those who burnt
Emania and destroyed the Red Branch—and his father is Cairbré of
the Liffey, who overthrew the Fenians, and his father again is the
great Cormac son of Art, son of Conn of the Hundred Battles who
divided the kingdom with Owen Mór. But it is from the three
grandsons of this Owen Mór the Eberians come, and from their half-
brother come the Ithians, so that up to this point I think Irish
genealogies may be in the main accepted. Even the O'Kavanaghs
and their other correlations, who do not join the stem of Eremon till
between 500 or 600 years before Christ, yet pass through Enna
Cennsalach, king of Leinster, a perfectly historical character
mentioned several times in the Book of Armagh,[13] who slew the
father of Niall of the Nine Hostages; and I believe that, however we
may account for the strange fact that these septs join the Eremonian
stem so many hundreds of years before the O'Neills and the others,
that up to this point their genealogy too may be trusted.
If this is the case, and if it is true that every Gael belonging to the
Free Clans of Ireland could trace his pedigree with accuracy back to
the fourth, third, or even second century, it affords a strong support
to Irish history, and in my opinion considerably heightens the
credibility of our early annals, and renders the probability that Finn
mac Cool and the Red Branch heroes were real flesh and blood,
enormously greater than before. It will also put us on our guard
against quite accepting such sweeping generalisations as those of
Skene, when he says that the entire legendary history of Ireland
prior to the establishment of Christianity in the fifth century partakes
largely of a purely artificial character. We must not forget that while
no Irish genealogy is traced to the De Danann tribes, who were
undoubtedly gods, yet the ancestor of the Dalcassians—Cormac Cas,
Oilioll Olum's son—is said to have married Ossian's daughter.

[1] See Haliday's "Keating," p. 215.

[2] See p. 15 of O'Curry's MS. Materials. There was some doubt in his mind about
the words in brackets, but as the sheets of his book were passing through the
press he took out the MS. for another look on a particularly bright day, the result
of which left him no doubt that he had read the name correctly.
[3] For a typical citation of this book see p. 28 of O'Donovan's "Genealogy of the
Corca Laidh," in the "Miscellany of the Celtic Society."
[4] See "Celtic Miscellany," p. 144, O'Donovan's tract on Corca Laidh.
[5] "Generositatem vero et generis nobilitatem præ rebus omnibus magis
appetunt. Unde et generosa conjugia plus longe capiunt quam sumptuosa vel
opima. Genealogiam quoque generis sui etiam de populo quilibet observat, et non
solum, avos, atavos, sed usque ad sextam vel septimam et ultra procul
generationem, memoriter et prompte genus enarrat in hunc modum Resus filius
Griffini filii Resi filii Theodori, filii Aeneæ, filii Hoeli filii Cadelli filii Roderici magni et
sic deinceps.
"Genus itaque super omnia diligunt, et damna sanguinis atque dedecoris
ulciscuntur. Vindicis enim animi sunt et iræ cruentæ nec solum novas et recentes
injurias verum etiam veteres et antiquas velut instanter vindicare parati"
("Cambriæ Descriptio," Cap. XVII.).
[6] O'Donovan says—I forget where—that he had tested in every part of Ireland
how far the popular memory could carry back its ancestors, and found that it did
not reach beyond the seventh generation.
[7] According to the "Four Masters"; in 213, according to Keating.
[8] But see O'Donovan's introduction to "The Book of Rights," where he adduces
some reasons for believing that it may have been a septennial not a triennial
convocation.
[9] See Keating's History under the reign of Tuathal Teachtmhar.
[10] In the seventeenth century. His book on genealogies would, O'Curry
computed, fill 1,300 pages of the size of O'Donovan's "Four Masters."
[11] This was a very ancient law book, which is quoted at least a dozen times in
Cormac's Glossary, made in the ninth or tenth century.
[12] Thus quaintly expressed in the original, for which see O'Curry's MS. Materials,
p. 576: "muna ffaghuid dearbhtha iar ndeghleabhraibh é, a chuntabhairt fén do
chur re a chois."
[13] See pp. 102, 113 of Father Hogan's "Documenta de S. Patricio ex Libro
Armachano," where he is called Endae. He persecuted Cuthbad's three sons,
"fosocart endae cennsalach fubîthin creitme riacâch," but Patrick is said to have
baptized his son, "Luid iarsuidiu cucrimthan maccnêndi ceinnselich et ipse creditit."

CHAPTER VIII

CONFUSION BETWEEN GODS AND MEN

Of that part of every Irish pedigree which runs back from the first
century to Milesius nothing can be laid down with certainty, nor
indeed can there be any absolute certainty in affirming that Irish
pedigrees from the eleventh to the third century are reliable—we
have only an amount of cumulative evidence from which we may
draw such a deduction with considerable confidence. The mere fact
that these pedigrees are traced back a thousand years further
through Irish kings and heroes, and end in a son of Milesius, need
not in the least affect—as in popular estimation it too often does—
the credibility of the last seventeen hundred years, which stands
upon its own merits.
On the contrary, such a continuation is just what we should expect.
In the Irish genealogies the sons of Milesius occupy the place that in
other early genealogies is held by the gods. And the sons of Milesius
were possibly the tutelary gods of the Gael. We have seen how one
of them was so, at least in folk belief, and was addressed in semi-
seriousness as still living and reigning even in the last century.
All the Germanic races looked upon themselves as descended from
gods. The Saxon, Anglian, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish kings
were traced back either to Woden or to some of his companions or
sons.[1] It was the same with the Greeks, to whom the Celts bear so
close a similitude. Their Herakleids, Asklepiads, Æakids, Neleids, and
Daedalids, are a close counterpart to our Eremonians, Eberians,
Ithians, and Irians, and in each case all the importance was attached
to the primitive eponymous hero or god from whom they sprang.
Without him the whole pedigree became uninteresting, unfinished,
headless. These beliefs exercised full power even upon the ablest
and most cultured Greeks. Aristotle and Hippocratês, for instance,
considered themselves descended from Asklêpius, Thucidydes from
Æakus, and Socrates from Daedalus; just as O'Neill and O'Donnell
did from Eremon, O'Brien from Eber, and Magennis from Ir. It was to
the divine or heroic fountain heads of the race, not so much as to
the long and mostly barren list of names which led up to it, that the
real importance was attached. It is not in Ireland alone that we see
mythology condensing into a dated genealogy. The same thing has
happened in Persian history, and the history of Denmark by Saxo
Grammaticus affords many such instances. In Greece the Neleid
family of Pylus traced their origin to Neptune, the Lacedæmonian
kings traced theirs to Cadmus and Danaüs, and Hekatæus of Miletus
was the fifteenth descendant of a god.
Again we meet with in Teutonic and Hellenic mythology the same
difficulty that meets us in our own—that of distinguishing gods from
heroes and heroes from men. The legends of the Dagda and of
Angus of the Boyne and the Tuatha De Danann, of Tighearnmas and
the Fomorians, of Lugh the Long-handed and the children of
Tuireann—all evidently mythologic—were treated in the same
manner, recited by the same tongues, and regarded with the same
unwavering belief, as the history of Conor mac Nessa and Déirdre, of
Cuchulain and Mève, or that of Conn of the Hundred Battles, Owen
Mór, Finn mac Cool, and the Fenians. The early Greek, in the same
way, treated the stories of Apollo and Artemis, of Arês and
Aphroditê, just as he did those of Diomede and Helen, Meleager and
Althæa, Achilles, or the voyage of the Argo. All were in a primitive
and uncritical age received with the same unsuspicious credulity, and
there was no hard-and-fast line drawn between gods and men. Just
as the Mórrígan, the war-goddess, has her eye dashed out by
Cuchulain, so do we find in Homer gods wounded by heroes. Thus,
too, Apollo is condemned to serve Admetus, and Hercules is sold as
a slave to Omphalê. Herodotus himself confesses that he is unable
to determine whether a certain Thracian god Zalmoxis, was a god or
a man,[2] and he finds the same difficulty regarding Dionysus and
Pan; while Plutarch refuses to determine whether Janus was a god
or a king;[3] and Herakleitus the philosopher, confronted by the
same difficulty, made the admirable mot that men were "mortal
gods," gods were "immortal men."[4]
In our literature, although the fact does not always appear distinctly,
the Dagda, Angus Óg, Lugh the Long-handed, Ogma, and their
fellows are the equivalents of the immortal gods, while certainly
Cuchulain and Conor and probably Curigh Mac Daire, Conall
Cearnach, and the other famous Red Branch chiefs, whatever they
may have been in reality, are the equivalent of the Homeric heroes,
that is to say, believed to have been epigoni of the gods, and
therefore greater than ordinary human beings; while just as in Greek
story there are the cycles of the war round Thebes, the voyage of
the Argo the fate of Œdipus, etc., so we have in Irish numerous
smaller groups of epic stories—now unfortunately mostly lost or
preserved in digests—which, leaving out the Cuchulain and Fenian
cycles, centre round such minor characters as Macha, who founded
Emania, Leary Lore, Labhraidh [Lowry] the Mariner, and others.
That the Irish gods die in both saga and annals like so many human
beings, in no wise militates against the supposition of their godhead.
Even the Greek did not always consider his gods as eternal. A study
of comparative mythology teaches that gods are in their original
essence magnified men, and subject to all men's changes and
chances. They are begotten and born like men. They eat, sleep, feel
sickness, sorrow, pain, like men. "Like men," says Grimm, "they
speak a language, feel passions, transact affairs, are clothed and
armed, possess dwellings and utensils." Being man-like in these
things, they are also man-like in their deaths. They are only on a
greater scale than we. "This appears to me," says Grimm,[5] "a
fundamental feature in the faith of the heathen, that they allowed to
their gods not an unlimited and unconditional duration, but only a
term of life far exceeding that of man." As their shape is like the
shape of man only vaster, so are their lives like the lives of men only
indefinitely longer. "With our ancestors [the Teutons]," said Grimm,
"the thought of the gods being immortal retires into the background.
The Edda never calls them 'eylifir' or 'ôdauðligir,' and their death is
spoken of without disguise." So is it with us also. The Dagda dies,
slain in the battle of North Moytura; the three "gods of the De
Danann" die at the instigation of Lugh; and the great Lugh himself,
from whom Lugdunum, now Lyons, takes its name, and to whom
early Celtic inscriptions are found, shares the same fate. Manannán
is slain, so is Ogma, and so are many more. And yet though
recorded as slain they do not wholly disappear. Manannán came
back to Bran riding in his chariot across the Ocean,[6] and Lugh
makes his frequent appearances amongst the living.

[1] These genealogies were in later times, like the Irish ones, extended to Noah.
[2] Herod, iv. 94-96.
[3] Numa, ch. xix.
[4] "θεοὶ θνητοὶ," "ἄνθρωποι ἀθάνατοι." It is most curious to find this so academic
question dragged into the hard light of day and subjected to the scrutiny of so
prosaic a person as the Roman tax-collector. Under the Roman Empire all lands in
Greece belonging to the immortal gods were exempted from tribute, and the
Roman tax-collector refused to recognise as immortal gods any deities who had
once been men. The confusion arising from such questions offered an admirable
target to Lucian for his keenest shafts of ridicule.
[5] "Deutsche Mythologie," article on the Condition of the Gods.
[6] "Voyage of Bran mac Febail," Nutt and Kuno Meyer, vol. i. p. 16.

CHAPTER IX

DRUIDISM

Although Irish literature is full of allusions to the druids it is

extremely difficult to know with any exactness what they were. They
are mentioned from the earliest times. The pre-Milesian races, the
Nemedians and Fomorians, had their druids, who worked mutual
spells against each other. The Tuatha De Danann had innumerable
druids amongst them, who used magic. The invading Milesians had
three druids with them in their ships, Amergin the poet and two
others. In fact, druids are mentioned in connection with all early
Irish fiction and history, from the first colonising of Ireland down to
the time of the saints. It seems very doubtful, however, whether
there existed in Ireland as definitely established an order of druids
as in Britain and on the Continent.[1] They are frequently mentioned
in Irish literature as ambassadors, spokesmen, teachers, and tutors.
Kings were sometimes druids, so were poets. It is a word which
seems to me to have been, perhaps from the first, used with great
laxity and great latitude. The druids, so far as we can ascertain, do
not seem to be connected with any positive rites or worship; still less
do they appear to have been a regular priesthood, and there is not a
shadow of evidence to connect them with any special worship as
that of the sun or of fire. In the oldest saga-cycle the druid appears
as a man of the highest rank and related to kings. King Conor's
father was according to some—probably the oldest—accounts a
druid; so was Finn mac Cool's grandfather.
Before the coming of St. Patrick there certainly existed images, or, as
they are called by the ancient authorities, "idols" in Ireland, at which
or to which sacrifice used to be offered, probably with a view to
propitiating the earth-gods, possibly the Tuatha De Danann, and
securing good harvests and abundant kine. From sacrificial rites
spring, almost of necessity, a sacrificial caste, and this caste—the
druids—had arrived at a high state of organisation in Gaul and
Britain when observed by Cæsar, and did not hesitate to sacrifice
whole hecatombs of human beings. "They think," said Cæsar, "that
unless a man's life is rendered up for a man's life, the will of the
immortal God cannot be satisfied, and they have sacrifices of this
kind as a national institution."
There appears nothing, however, that I am aware of, to connect the
druids in Ireland with human sacrifice, although such sacrifice
appears to have been offered. The druids, however, appear to have
had private idols of their own. We find a very minute account in the
tenth-century glossary of King Cormac as to how a poet performed
incantations with his idols. The word "poet" is here apparently
equivalent to druid, as the word "druid" like the Latin vates is
frequently a synonym for "poet." Here is how the glossary explains
the incantation called Imbas Forosnai:—

"This," says the ancient lexicographer, "describes to the poet

whatsoever thing he wishes to discover,[2] and this is the
manner in which it is performed. The poet chews a bit of the
raw red flesh of a pig, a dog, or a cat, and then retires with it to
his own bed behind the door,[3] where he pronounces an
oration over it and offers it to his idol gods. He then invokes the
 idols, and if he has not received the illumination before the next
day, he pronounces incantations upon his two palms and takes
his idol gods unto him [into his bed] in order that he may not be
interrupted in his sleep. He then places his two hands upon his
two cheeks and falls asleep. He is then watched so that he be
not stirred nor interrupted by any one until everything that he
seeks be revealed to him at the end of a nomad,[4] or two or
three, or as long as he continues at his offering, and hence it is
that this ceremony is called Imbas, that is, the two hands upon
him crosswise, that is, a hand over and a hand hither upon his
cheeks. And St. Patrick prohibited this ceremony, because it is a
species of Teinm Laeghdha,[5] that is, he declared that any one
who performed it should have no place in heaven or on earth."

These were apparently the private images of the druid himself which
are spoken of, but there certainly existed public idols in pagan
Ireland before the evangelisation of the island. St. Patrick himself, in
his "Confession," asserts that before his coming the Irish worshipped
idols—idola et immunda—and we have preserved to us more than
one account of the great gold-covered image which was set up in
Moy Slaught[6] [i.e., the Plain of Adoration], believed to be in the
present county of Cavan. It stood there surrounded by twelve lesser
idols ornamented with brass, and may possibly have been regarded
as a sun-god ruling over the twelve seasons. It was called the Crom
Cruach or Cenn Cruach,[7] and certain Irish tribes considered it their
special tutelary deity. The Dinnseanchas, or explanation of the name
of Moy Slaught, calls it "the King Idol of Erin," "and around him were
twelve idols made of stones, but he was of gold. Until Patrick's
advent he was the god of every folk that colonised Ireland. To him
they used to offer the firstlings of every issue and the chief scions of
every clan;" and the ancient poem in the Book of Leinster declares
that it was "a high idol with many fights, which was named the
Cromm Cruaich."[8]
The poem tells us that "the brave Gaels used to worship it, and
would never ask from it satisfaction as to their portion of the hard
world without paying it tribute."
"He was their God,[9]
The withered Cromm with many mists,
The people whom he shook over every harbour,
The everlasting kingdom they shall not have.

To him without glory

Would they kill their piteous wailing offspring,
With much wailing and peril
To pour their blood around Cromm Cruaich.

Milk and corn

They would ask from him speedily
In return for one-third of their healthy issue,
Great was the horror and scare of him.

To him
Noble Gaels would prostrate themselves,
From the worship of him, with many manslaughters
The Plain is called Moy Sleacht.

* * * * *

In their ranks (stood)

Four times three stone idols
To bitterly beguile the hosts,
The figure of Cromm was made of gold.

Since the rule

Of Heremon,[10] the noble man of grace,
There was worshipping of stones
Until the coming of good Patrick of Macha [Ardmagh]."
There is not the slightest reason to distrust this evidence as far as
the existence of Crom Cruach goes.

"This particular tradition," says Mr. Nutt, "like the majority of

those contained in it [the Dinnseanchas] must be of pre-
Christian origin. It would have been quite impossible for a
Christian monk to have invented such a story, and we may
accept it as a perfectly genuine bit of information respecting the
ritual side of insular Celtic religion."[11]

St. Patrick overthrew this idol, according both to the poem in the
Book of Leinster and the early lives of the saint. The life says that
when St. Patrick cursed Crom the ground opened and swallowed up
the twelve lesser idols as far as their heads, which, as Rhys acutely
observes, shows that when the early Irish lives of the saint were
written the pagan sanctuary had so fallen into decay, that only the
heads of the lesser idols remained above ground, while he thinks
that it was at this time from its bent attitude and decayed
appearance the idol was called Crom, "the Stooper."[12] There is,
however, no apparent or recorded connection between this idol and
the druids, nor do the druids appear to have fulfilled the functions of
a public priesthood in Ireland, and the Introduction to the Seanchas
Mór, or ancient Book of the Brehon Laws, distinctly says that, "until
Patrick came only three classes of persons were permitted to speak
in public in Erin, a chronicler to relate events and to tell stories, a
poet to eulogise and to satirise, and a Brehon to pass sentence from
precedents and commentaries," thus noticeably omitting all mention
of the druids as a public body.
The idol Crom with his twelve subordinates may very well have
represented the sun, upon whom both season and crops and
consequently the life both of man and beast depend. The gods to
whom the early Irish seem to have sacrificed, were no doubt, as I
think Mr. Nutt has shown, agricultural powers, the lords of life and
growth, and with these the sun, who is at the root of all growth, was
intimately connected, "the object of that worship was to promote
increase, the theory of worship was—life for life."[13] That the Irish
swore by the sun and the moon and the elements is certain; the
oath is quoted in many places,[14] and St. Patrick appears to allude
to sun-worship in that passage of his "Confession," where he says,
"that sun which we see rising daily at His bidding for our sake, it will
never reign, and its splendour will not last for ever, but those who
adore it will perish miserably for all eternity:" this is also borne out
by the passage in Cormac's Glossary of the images the pagans used
to adore, "as, for instance, the form or figure of the sun on the
altar."[15]
Another phase of the druidic character seems to have been that he
was looked upon as an intermediary between man and the invisible
powers. In the story which tells us how Midir the De Danann, carries
off the king's wife, we are informed that the druid's counsel is
sought as to how to recover her, which he at last is enabled to do
"through his keys of science and Ogam," after a year's searching.
The druids are represented as carrying wands of yew, but there is
nothing in Irish literature, so far as I am aware of, about their
connection with the oak, from the Greek for which, δρῦς,[16] they
are popularly supposed to derive their name. They used to be
consulted as soothsayers upon the probable success of expeditions,
as by Cormac mac Art, when he was thinking about extorting a
double tribute from Munster,[17] and by Dáthi, the last pagan king of
Ireland, when setting out upon his expedition abroad; they took
auguries by birds, they could cause magic showers and fires, they
observed stars and clouds, they told lucky days,[18] they had ordeals
of their own,[19] but, above all, they appear to have been tutors or
teachers.
Another druidic practice which is mentioned in Cormac's Glossary is
more fully treated of by Keating, in his account of the great pagan
convention at Uisneach, a hill in Meath, "where the men of Ireland
were wont to exchange their goods and their wares and other
jewels." This convention was held in the month of May,
 "And at it they were wont to make a sacrifice to the arch-god,
whom they adored, whose name was Bél. It was likewise their
usage to light two fires to Bél in every district in Ireland at this
season, and to drive a pair of each herd of cattle that the
district contained between these two fires, as a preservative, to
guard them against all the diseases of that year. It is from that
fire thus made that the day on which the noble feast of the
apostles Peter and James is held has been called Bealtaine [in
Scotch Beltane], i.e., Bél's fire."

Cormac, however, says nothing about a god named Bél—who,

indeed, is only once mentioned elsewhere, so far as I know[20]—but
explains the name as if it were Bil-tene, "goodly fire," from the fires
which the druids made on that day through which to drive the cattle.
[21]

Post-Christian accounts of the druids as a whole, and or individual

druids differ widely. The notes on St. Patrick, in the Book of Armagh,
present them in the worst possible light as wicked wizards and
augurs and people of incantations,[22] and the Latin lives of the
Saints nearly always call them "magi." Yet they are admitted to have
been able to prophecy. King Laoghaire's [Leary's] druids prophesied
to him three years before the arrival of Patrick that "adze-heads
would come over a furious sea,"
"Their mantles hole-headed,
Their staves crook-headed,
Their tables in the east of their houses."[23]
In the lives of the early saints we find some of them on fair terms
with the druids. Columcille's first teacher was a druid, whom his
mother consulted about him. It is true that in the Lismore text he is
called not a druid but a fáidh, i.e., vates or prophet, but this only
confirms the close connection between druid, prophet, and teacher,
for his proceedings are distinctly druidical, the account runs: "Now
when the time for reading came to him the cleric went to a certain
prophet who abode in the land to ask him when the boy ought to
begin. When the prophet had scanned the sky, he said 'Write an
alphabet for him now.' The alphabet was written on a cake, and
Columcille consumed the cake in this wise, half to the east of a
water, and half to the west of a water. Said the prophet through
grace of prophecy, 'So shall this child's territory be, half to the east
of the sea, and half to the west of the sea.'"[24] Columcille himself is
said to have composed a poem beginning, "My Druid is the son of
God." Another druid prophesies of St. Brigit before she was born,[25]
and other instances connecting the early saints with druids are to be
found in their lives, which at least show that there existed a
sufficient number of persons in early Christian Ireland who did not
consider the druids wholly bad, but believed that they could
prophecy, at least in the interests of the saints.
From what we have said, it is evident that there were always druids
in Ireland, and that they were personages of great importance. But
it is not clear that they were an organised body like the druids of
Gaul,[26] or like the Bardic body in later times in Ireland, nor is it
clear what their exact functions were, but they seem to have been
teachers above everything else. It is clear, too, that the ancient Irish
—at least in some cases—possessed and worshipped images. That
they sacrificed to them, and even offered up human beings, is by no
means so certain, the evidence for this resting upon the single
passage in the Dinnseanchas, and the poem (in a modern style of
metre) in the Book of Leinster, which we have just given, and which
though it is evidence for the existence of the idol Crom Cruach,
known to us already from other sources, may possibly have had the
trait of human sacrifice added as a heightening touch by a Christian
chronicler familiar with the accounts of Moloch and Ashtarôth. The
complete silence which, outside of these passages,[27] exists in all
Irish literature as to a proceeding so terrifying to the popular
imagination, seems to me a proof that if human sacrifice was ever
resorted to at all, it had fallen into abeyance before the landing of
the Christian missionaries.
[1] Cæsar's words are worth repeating. He says that there were two sorts of men
in Gaul both numerous and honoured—the knights and the Druids, "equites et
druides," because the people counted for nothing and took the initiative in
nothing. As for the Druids, he says: "Rebus divinis intersunt, sacrificia publica et
privata procurant, religiones interpretantur ... nam fere de omnibus controversiis
publicis privatisque constituunt, et si quod est admissum facinus, si cœdes facta, si
de hereditate, de finibus controversia est iidem decernunt præmia, pœnasque
constituunt." All this seems very like the duties of the Irish Druids, but not what
follows: "si qui, aut privatus aut populus eorum decreto non stetit, sacrificiis
interdicunt. Hæc pœna apud eos est gravissima." Nor do the Irish appear to have
had the over-Druid whom Cæsar talks of. (See "De Bello Gallico," book vi. chaps.
13, 14).
[2] "Cach raet bid maith lasin filid agus bud adla(i)c dó do fhaillsiugad."
[3] Thus O'Curry ("Miscellany of the Celtic Society," vol. ii. p. 208); but Stokes
translates, "he puts it then on the flagstone behind the door." See the original in
Cormac's Glossary under "Himbas." I have not O'Donovan's translation by me.
[4] O'Curry translates this by "day." It is at present curiously used, I suppose by a
kind of confusion with the English "moment," in the sense of a minute or other
short measure of time. At least I have often heard it so used.
[5] Another species of incantation mentioned in the glossary.
[6] In Irish Magh Sleacht.
[7] In O'Donovan's fragmentary manuscript catalogue of the Irish MSS., in Trinity
College, Dublin, he writes apropos of the life of St. Maedhog or Mogue, contained
in H. 2, 6: "I searched the two Brefneys for the situation of Moy Sleacht on which
stood the chief pagan Irish idol Crom Cruach, but have failed, being misled by
Lanigan, who had been misled by Seward, who had been blinded by the impostor
Beauford, who placed this plain in the county of Leitrim. It can, however, be
proved from this life of St. Mogue that Magh Sleacht was that level part of the
Barony of Tullaghan (in the county of Cavan) in which the island of Inis Breaghwee
(now Mogue's Island), the church of Templeport, and the little village of
Ballymagauran are situated." I have been told that O'Donovan afterwards found
reason to doubt the correctness of this identification.
[8] M. de Jubainville connects the name with cru (Latin, cruor), "blood,"
translating Cenn Cruach by tête sanglante and Crom Cruach by Courbe sanglante,
or Croissant ensanglanté; but Rhys connects it with Cruach, "a reek" or "mound,"
as in Croagh-Patrick, St. Patrick's Reek. Cenn Cruach is evidently the same name
as the Roman station Penno-Crucium, in the present county of Stafford, the Irish
"c" being as usual the equivalent of the British "p." This would make it appear that
Cromm was no local idol. Rhys thinks it got its name Crom Cruach, "the stooped
one of the mound," from its bent attitude in the days of its decadence.
[9] Observe the exquisite and complicated metre of this in the original, a proof, I
think, that the lines are not very ancient. It has been edited from the Book of
Leinster, Book of Ballymote, Book of Lecan, and Rennes MS., at vol. i. p. 301 of Mr.
Nutt's "Voyage of Bran," by Dr. Kuno Meyer—
"Ba hé a nDia
In Cromm Crín co n-immud cia
In lucht ro Craith ós each Cúan
In flaithius Búan nochos Bia."
[10] I.e., Eremon or Erimon, Son of Milesius, see above, p. 59.
[11] The details of this idol, and, above all, the connection in which it stands to
the mythic culture-king Tighearnmas, could not, as Mr. Nutt well remarks, have
been invented by a Christian monk; but nothing is more likely, it appears to me,
than that such a one, familiar with the idol rites of Judæa from the Old Testament,
may have added the embellishing trait of the sacrifice of "the firstlings of every
issue."
[12] Sir Samuel Ferguson's admirable poem upon the death of Cormac refers to
the priests of the idol, but there is no recorded evidence of any such priesthood—
"Crom Cruach and his sub-gods twelve,
Saith Cormac, are but carven treene.
The axe that made them haft or helve,
Had worthier of your worship been.
But he who made the tree to grow,
And hid in earth the iron stone,
And made the man with mind to know
The axe's use is God alone.
Anon to priests of Crom were brought—
Where girded in their service dread,
They ministered in red Moy Slaught—
Word of the words King Cormac said.
They loosed their curse against the king,
They cursed him in his flesh and bones,
And daily in their mystic ring
They turned the maledictive stones."
D'Arcy McGee also refers to Crom Cruach in terms almost equally poetic, but
equally unauthorised:—
"Their ocean-god was Manannán Mac Lir,
Whose angry lips
In their white foam full often would inter
 Whole fleets of ships.
Crom was their day-god and their thunderer,
Made morning and eclipse;
Bride was their queen of song, and unto her
They prayed with fire-touched lips!"
[13] Nutt's "Voyage of Bran," vol. ii. p. 250.
[14] The elements are recorded as having slain King Laoghaire because he broke
the oath he had made by them. In the Lament for Patrick Sarsfield as late as the
seventeenth century, the unknown poet cries:
"Go mbeannaigh' an ghealach gheal's an ghrian duit,
O thug tu an lá as láimh Righ 'Liam leat."
I.e., May the white Moon and the Sun bless you, since thou hast taken the Day
out of the hand of King William.
And a little later we find the harper Carolan swearing "by the light of the sun."
"Molann gach aon an té bhíos cráibhtheach cóir,
Agus molann gach aon an té bhíos páirteach leó,
Dar solas na gréine sé mo rádh go deó
Go molfad gan spéis gan bhréig an t-áth mar geóbhad."
[15] See above, ch. V, note 18.
[16] The genitive of drai, the modern draoi (dhree) is druad, from whence no
doubt the Latin druidis. It was Pliny who first derived the name from δρῦς. The
word with a somewhat altered meaning was in use till recently. The wise men from
the East are called druids (draoithe) in O'Donnell's translation of the New
Testament. The modern word for enchantment (draoidheacht) is literally
"druidism," but an enchanter is usually draoidheadóir, a derivation from draoi.
[17] See above, ch. III, note 14.
[18] Cathbad, Conor mac Nessa's Druid, foretold that any one who took arms—the
Irish equivalent for knighthood—upon a certain day, would become famous for
ever, but would enjoy only a brief life. It was Cuchulain who assumed arms upon
that day.
[19] O'Curry quotes a druidic ordeal from the MS. marked H. 3. 17 in Trinity
College, Dublin. A woman to clear her character has to rub her tongue to a red-
hot adze of bronze, which had been heated in a fire of blackthorn or rowan-tree.
[20] "Revue Celt.," vol. ii. p. 443. Is Bel to be equated with what Rhys calls in one
place "the chthonian divinity Beli the Great," of the Britons, and in another "Beli
the Great, the god of death and darkness"? (See "Hibbert Lectures," pp. 168 and
274.)
[21] The Christian priests, apparently unable to abolish these cattle ceremonies,
took the harm out of them by transferring them to St. John's Eve, the 24th of
June, where they are still observed in most districts of Ireland, and large fires built
with bones in them, and occasionally cattle are driven through them or people
leap over them. The cattle were probably driven through the fire as a kind of
substitute for their sacrifice, and the bones burnt in the fire are probably a
substitute for the bones of the cattle that should have been offered up. Hence the
fires are called "teine cnámh" (bone-fire) in Irish, and bōne-fire (not bŏnfire) in
English.
[22] St. Patrick is there stated to have found around the king "scivos et magos et
auruspices, incantatores et omnis malæ artis inventores."
[23] This means tonsured men, with cowls, with pastoral staves, with altars in the
east end of the churches. The ancient Irish rann is very curious:—-
"Ticcat Tailcinn
Tar muir meirceann,
A mbruit toillceann.
A crainn croimceann.
A miasa n-airrter tige
Friscerat uile amen."
[24] I.e., one half in Ireland, the other in Scotland, alluding to his work at Iona
and among the Picts.
[25] Stokes, "Lives of the Saints, from the Book of Lismore," p. 183.
[26] Who were, according to Ammianus Marcellinus, quoting the Greek historian,
Timagenes, "sodaliciis adstricti consortiis."
[27] There is one other instance of human sacrifice mentioned in the Book of
Ballymote, but this is recorded in connection with funeral games, and appears to
have been an isolated piece of barbarity performed "that it might be a reproach to
the Momonians for ever, and that it might be a trophy over them." Fiachra, a
brother of Niall of the Nine Hostages, in the fourth century, carried off fifty
hostages from Munster, and dying of his wounds, the hostages were buried alive
with him, round his grave: "ro hadnaicead na geill tucadh a neass ocus siad beo
im fheart Fiachra comba hail for Mumain do gres, ocus comba comrama forra." For
another allusion to "human sacrifice" see O'Curry's "Manners and Customs," vol. i.
p. dcxli and cccxxxiii. The "Dinnseanchas," quoted from above, is a topographical
work explaining the origin of Irish place-names, and attributed to Amergin mac
Amhalgaidh, poet to King Diarmuid mac Cearbaill, who lived in the sixth century.
"There seems no reason," says Dr. Atkinson, in his preface to the facsimile Book of
Leinster, "for disputing his claims to be regarded as the original compiler of a work
of a similar character—the original nucleus is not now determinable." The oldest
copy is the Book of Leinster and treats of nearly two hundred places and contains
eighty-eight poems. The copy in the Book of Ballymote contains one hundred and
thirty-nine, and that in the Book of Lecan even more. The total number of all the
poems contained in the different copies is close on one hundred and seventy. The
copy in the Bodleian Library was published by Whitley Stokes in "Folk-lore,"
December, 1892, and that in the Advocates Library, in Edinburgh, in "Folk-lore,"
December, 1893. The prose tales, from a copy at Rennes, he published in the
"Revue Celtique," vols. xv. and xvi. An edition of the oldest copy in the Book of
Leinster is still a desideratum. The whole work is full of interesting pagan allusions,
but the different copies, in the case of many names, vary greatly and even
contradict each other.

CHAPTER X

THE IRISH ELYSIUM AND BELIEF IN REBIRTH

Cæsar, writing some fifty years before Christ about the Gauls and
their Druids, tells his countrymen that one of the prime articles
which they taught was that men's souls do not die—non interire
animas—"but passed over after death from one into another," and
their opinion is, adds Cæsar, that this doctrine "greatly tends to the
arousing of valour, all fear of death being despised."[1] A few years
later Diodorus Siculus wrote that one of their doctrines was "that the
souls of men are undying, and that after finishing their term of
existence they pass into another body," adding that at burials of the
dead some actually cast letters addressed to their departed relatives
upon the funeral pile, under the belief that the dead would read
them in the next world. Timagenes, a Greek who wrote a history of
Gaul now lost, Strabo, Valerius Maximus, Pomponius Mela, and
Lucan[2] in his "Pharsalia," all have passages upon this vivid belief of
the Gauls that the soul lived again. This doctrine must also have
been current in Britain, where the Druidic teaching was, to use
Cæsar's phrase, "discovered, and thence brought into Gaul," and it
would have been curious indeed if Ireland did not share in it.
There is, moreover, abundant evidence to show that the doctrine of
metempsychosis was perfectly familiar to the pagan Irish, as may be
seen in the stories of the births of Cuchulain, Etain, the Two
Swineherds, Conall Cearnach, Tuan Mac Cairill, and Aedh Sláne.[3]
But there is not, in our existing literature, any evidence that the
belief was ever elevated into a philosophical doctrine of general
acceptance, applicable to every one, still less that there was ever
any ethical stress laid upon the belief in rebirth. It is only the
mythological element in the belief in metempsychosis which has
come down to us, and from which we ascertain that the pagan Irish
believed that supernatural beings could become clothed in flesh and
blood, could enter into women and be born again, could take
different shapes and pass through different stages of existence, as
fowls, animals, or men. What the actual doctrinal form of the familiar
idea was, or how far it influenced the popular mind, we have no
means of knowing. But as Mr. Nutt well remarks, "early Irish religion
must have possessed some ritual, and what in default of an apter
term must be styled philosophical as well as mythological elements.
Practically the latter alone have come down to us, and that in a
romantic rather than in a strictly mythical form. Could we judge
Greek religion aright if fragments of Apollodorus or the
'Metamorphoses' were all that survived of the literature it inspired?"
[4] The most that can be said upon the subject, then, is that the
doctrine of rebirth was actually taught with a deliberate ethical
purpose—that of making men brave, since on being slain in this life
they passed into a new one—amongst the Celts of Gaul, that it must
have been familiar to the Britons between whose Druids and those
of Gaul so close a resemblance subsisted, and that the idea of
rebirth which forms part of half-a-dozen existing Irish sagas, was
perfectly familiar to the Irish Gael, although we have no evidence
that it was connected with any ritual or taught as a deliberate
doctrine.
In reconstructing from our existing literature the beliefs and religion
of our ancestors, we can only do so incompletely, and with difficulty,
from passages in the oldest sagas and other antique fragments,
mostly of pagan origin, from allusions in very early poems, from
scanty notices in the annals, and from the lives of early saints. The
relatively rapid conversion of the island to Christianity in the fifth
century, and the enthusiasm with which the new religion was
received, militated against any full transmission of pagan belief or
custom. We cannot now tell whether all the ancient Irish were
imbued with the same religious beliefs, or whether these varied—as
they probably did—from tribe to tribe. Probably all the Celtic races,
even in their most backward state, believed—so far as they had any
persuasion on the subject at all—in the immortality of the soul.
Where the souls of the dead went to, when they were not
reincarnated, is not so clear. They certainly believed in a happy
Other-World, peopled by a happy race, whither people were
sometimes carried whilst still alive, and to gain which they either
traversed the sea to the north-west, or else entered one of the Sidh
[Shee] mounds, or else again dived beneath the water.[5] In all
cases, however, whatever the mode of access, the result is much the
same. A beautiful country is discovered where a happy race free
from care, sickness, and death, spend the smiling hours in simple,
sensuous pleasures.
There is a graphic description of this Elysium in the "Voyage of
Bran," a poem evidently pagan,[6] and embodying purely pagan
conceptions. A mysterious female, an emissary from the lovely land,
appears in Bran's household one day, when the doors were closed
and the house full of chiefs and princes, and no one knew whence
she came, and she chanted to them twenty-eight quatrains
describing the delights of the pleasant country.
"There is a distant isle
Around which sea-horses glisten,
A fair course against the white-swelling surge,
Four feet uphold it.[7]

Feet of white bronze under it,

Glittering through beautiful ages.
Lovely land throughout the world's age
On which the many blossoms drop.

An ancient tree there is with blossoms

On which birds call to the Hours.
'Tis in harmony, it is their wont
To call together every Hour.

* * * * *
Unknown is wailing or treachery
In the familiar cultivated land,
There is nothing rough or harsh,
But sweet music striking on the ear.

Without grief, without sorrow, without death,

Without any sickness, without debility,
That is the sign of Emain,
Uncommon, an equal marvel.

A beauty of a wondrous land

Whose aspects are lovely,
Whose view is a fair country,
Incomparable in its haze.

* * * * *

The sea washes the wave against the land,

Hair of crystal drops from its mane.

Wealth, treasures of every hue,

Are in the gentle land, a beauty of freshness,
Listening to sweet music,
Drinking the best of wine.

Golden chariots on the sea plain

Rising with the tide to the sun,
Chariots of silver in the plain of sports
And of unblemished bronze.

* * * * *
 At sunrise there will come
A fair man illumining level lands,
He rides upon the fair sea-washed plain,
He stirs the ocean till it is blood.

* * * * *

Then they row to the conspicuous stone

From which arise a hundred strains.

It sings a strain unto the host

Through long ages, it is not sad,
Its music swells with choruses of hundreds.
They look for neither decay nor death.

There will come happiness with health

To the land against which laughter peals.
Into Imchiuin [the very calm place] at every season,
Will come everlasting joy.

It is a day of lasting weather

That showers [down] silver on the land,
A pure-white cliff in the verge of the sea
Which from the sun receives its heat."
Manannán, the Irish Neptune, driving in a chariot across the sea,
which to him was a flowery plain, meets Bran thereafter, and chants
to him twenty-eight more verses about the lovely land of Moy Mell,
"the Pleasant Plain," which the unknown lady had described, and
they are couched in the same strain.
"Though [but] one rider is seen
In Moy Mell of many powers,
There are many steeds on its surface
Although thou seest them not.
 * * * * *

A beautiful game, most delightful

They play [sitting] at the luxurious wine,
Men and gentle women under a bush
Without sin, without crime.

* * * * *

A wood with blossom and fruit,

On which is the vine's veritable fragrance;
A wood without decay, without defect,
On which are leaves of golden hue."
Then, prophesying of the death of Mongan, he sang—
"He will drink a drink from Loch Ló,
While he looks at the stream of blood;
The white hosts will take him under a wheel of clouds,
To the gathering where there is no sorrow."
I know of few things in literature comparable to this lovely
description, at once so mystic and so sensuous, of the joys of the
other world. To my mind it breathes the very essence of Celtic
glamour, and is shot through and through with the Celtic love of
form, beauty, landscape, company, and the society of woman. How
exquisite the idea of being transported from this world to an isle
around which sea-horses glisten, where from trees covered with
blossoms the birds call in harmony to the Hours, a land whose haze
is incomparable! What a touch! Where hair of crystal drops from the
mane of the wave as it washes against the land; where the chariots
of silver and of bronze assemble on the plain of sports, in the
country against which laughter peals, and the day of lasting weather
showers silver on the land. And then to play sitting at the luxurious
wine—
 "Men and gentle women under a bush
Without sin, without crime!"
I verily believe there is no Gael alive even now who would not in his
heart of hearts let drift by him the Elysiums of Virgil, Dante, and
Milton to grasp at the Moy Mell of the unknown Irish pagan.
In another perhaps equally ancient story, that of the elopement of
Connla, son of Conn of the Hundred Battles,[8] with a lady who is a
denizen of this mysterious land, we find the unknown visitor giving
nearly the same account of it as that given to Bran.
"Whence hast thou come, O Lady?" said the Druid.
"I have come," said she, "from the lands of the living in which there
is neither death, nor sin, nor strife;[9] we enjoy perpetual feasts
without anxiety, and benevolence without contention. A large Sidh
[Shee, "fairy-mound"] is where we dwell, so that it is hence we are
called the Sidh [Shee] people."
The Druids appear, as I have already remarked, to have acted as
intermediaries between the inhabitants of the other world and of
this, and in the story of Connla one of them chants against the lady
so that her voice was not heard, and he drives her away through his
incantation. She comes back, however, at the end of a month, and
again summons the prince.
"'Tis no lofty seat," she chanted, "upon which sits Connla amid
short-lived mortals awaiting fearful death; the ever-living ones invite
thee to be the ruler over the men of Tethra."
Conn of the Hundred Battles, who had overheard her speech, cried,
"Call me the Druid; I see her tongue has been allowed her to-day
[again]."
But she invisible to all save the prince replied to him—
"O Conn of the Hundred Battles, druidism is not loved, for little has it
progressed to honour on the great Righteous Strand, with its
numerous, wondrous, various families."
After that she again invites the prince to follow her, saying—
"There is another land which it were well to seek.
I see the bright sun is descending, though far off we shall reach it
ere night.
'Tis the land that cheers the mind of every one that turns to me.
There is no race in it save only women and maidens."
The prince is overcome with longing. He leaps into her well-
balanced, gleaming boat of pearl. Those who were left behind upon
the strand "saw them dimly, as far as the sight of their eyes could
reach. They sailed the sea away from them, and from that day to
this have not been seen, and it is unknown where they went to."
In the fine story of Cuchulain's sick-bed,[10] in which though the
language of the text is not so ancient, the conceptions are equally
pagan, the deserted wife of Manannán, the Irish Neptune, falls in
love with the human warrior, and invites him to the other-world to
herself, through the medium of an ambassadress. Cuchulain sends
his charioteer Laeg along with this mysterious ambassadress, that he
may bring him word again, to what kind of land he is invited. Laeg,
when he returns, repeats a glowing account of its beauty, which
coincides closely with those given by the ladies who summoned Bran
and Connla.
"There are at the western door,
In the place where the sun goes down,
A stud of steeds of the best of breeds
Of the grey and the golden brown.

There wave by the eastern door

Three crystal-crimson trees,
Whence the warbling bird all day is heard
On the wings of the perfumed breeze.

And before the central door

Is another, of gifts untold.
All silvern-bright in the warm sunlight,
 Its branches gleam like gold."[11]

* * * * *

In the saga of the Wooing of Etain we meet with what is

substantially the same description. She is the wife of one of the
Tuatha De Danann, is reborn as a mortal, and weds the king of
Ireland. Her former husband, Midir, still loves her, follows her, and
tries to win her back. She is unwilling, and he chants to her this
description of the land to which he would lure her.
"Come back to me, lady, to love and to shine
In the land that was thine in the long-ago,
Where of primrose hue is the golden hair
And the limbs are as fair as the wreathèd snow.

To the lakes of delight that no storm may curl,

Where the teeth are as pearl, the eyes as sloes,
Which alight, whenever they choose to seek,
On the bloom of a cheek where the foxglove glows.

Each brake is alive with the flowers of spring,

Whence the merles sing in their shy retreat;
Though sweet be the meadows of Innisfail,
Our beautiful vale is far more sweet.

Though pleasant the mead be of Innisfail,

More pleasant the ale of that land of mine,
A land of beauty, a land of truth,
Where youth shall never grow old or pine.

Fair rivers brighten the vale divine,—

There are choicest of wine and of mead therein.
And heroes handsome and women fair
Are in dalliance there without stain or sin.
 From thence we see, though we be not seen,
We know what has been and shall be again,
And the cloud that was raised by the first man's fall,
Has concealed us all from the eyes of men.

Then come with me, lady, to joys untold,

And a circlet of gold on thy head shall be,
Banquets of milk and of wine most rare,
Thou shalt share, O lady, and share with me."[12]
The casual Christian allusion in the penultimate verse need not lead
us astray, nor does it detract from the essentially pagan character of
the rest, for throughout almost the whole of Irish literature the more
distinctly or ferociously pagan any piece is, the more certain it is to
have a Christian allusion added at the end as a make-weight. There
is great ingenuity displayed in thus turning the pagan legend into a
Christian homily by the addition of two lines suggesting that if men
were not sinful, this beautiful pagan world and the beautiful forms
that inhabited it would be visible to the human ken. This was
sufficient to disarm any hostility to the legend on the part of the
Church.
From what we have said it is evident that the ancient Irish pagans
believed in the possibility of rebirth, and founded many of their
mythical sagas on the doctrine of metempsychosis, and that they
had a highly ornate and fully-developed belief in a happy other-world
or Elysium, to which living beings were sometimes carried off
without going through the forms of death. But it is impossible to say
whether rebirth with life in another world, for those whom the gods
favoured, was taught as a doctrine or had any ethical significance
attached to it by the druids of Ireland, as it most undoubtedly had
by their cousins the druids of Gaul.

[1] "De Bello Gallico," vi. 14.

Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world,
offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth.
That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of
books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to
self-development guides and children's books.

More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge

connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an
elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can
quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally,
our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time
and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and

personal growth every day!

ebookbell.com