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myths and legends of the celtic race
Chapter 2
Ireland and the Celtic Religion
WE have said that the Irish among the Celtic peoples possess the
unique interest of having carried into the light of modern
historical research many of the features of a native Celtic
civilisation. There is, however, one thing which they did not carry
across the gulf which divides us from the ancient world - and this
was their religion.
It was not merely that they changed it ; they left it behind them
so entirely that all record of it is lost. St. Patrick, himself a
Celt, who apostolised Ireland during the fifth century, has left us
an autobiographical narrative of his mission, a document of intense
interest, and the earliest extant record of British Christianity;
but in it he tells us nothing of the doctrines he came to supplant.
We learn far more of Celtic religious beliefs from Julius Caesar,
who approached them from quite another side. The copious legendary
literature which took its present form in Ireland between the
seventh and the twelfth centuries, though often manifestly going
back to pre-Christian sources, shows us, beyond a belief in magic
and a devotion to certain ceremonial or chivalric observances,
practically nothing resembling a religious or even an ethical
system. We know that certain chiefs and bards offered a long
resistance to the new faith, and that this resistance came to the
arbitrament of battle at Moyrath in the sixth century, but no echo
of any intellectual controversy, no matching of one doctrine against
another, such as we find, for instance, in the records of the
controversy of Celsus with Origen, has reached us from this period
of change and strife. The literature of ancient Ireland, as we
[51]
shall see, embodied many ancient myths; and traces appear in it
of beings who must, at one time, have been gods or elemental powers;
but all has been emptied of religious significance and turned to
romance and beauty. Yet not only was there, as Caesar tells us, a
very well developed religious system among the Gauls, but we learn
on the same authority that the British Islands were the
authoritative centre of this system ; they were, so to speak, the
Rome of the Celtic religion.
What this religion was like we have now to consider, as an
introduction to the myths and tales which more or less remotely
sprang from it.
The Popular Religion of the Celts
But first we must point out that the Celtic religion was by no
means a simple affair, and cannot be summed up as what we call
"Druidism." Beside the official religion there was a body of popular
superstitions and observances which came from a deeper and older
source than Druidism, and was destined long to outlive it-indeed, it
is far from dead even yet.
The Megalithic People
The religions of primitive peoples mostly centre on, or take
their rise from, rites and practices connected with the burial of
the dead. The earliest people inhabiting Celtic territory in the
West of Europe of whom we have any distinct knowledge are a race
without name or known history, but by their sepulchral monuments, of
which so many still exist, we can learn a great deal about them.
They were the so-called Megalithic People, [from Greek megas, great
and lithos, a stone] the builders of dolmens, cromlechs, and
chambered tumuli, of which more than three
[52]
thousand have been counted in France alone. Dolmens are found
from Scandinavia southwards, all down the western lands of Europe to
the Straits of Gibraltar, and round by the Mediterranean coast of
Spain. They occur in some of the western islands of the
Mediterranean, and are found in Greece, where, in Mycenae, an
ancient dolmen yet stands beside the magnificent burial-chamber of
the Atreidae. Roughly, if we draw a line from the mouth of the Rhone
northward to Varanger Fiord, one may say that, except for a few
Mediterranean examples, all the dolmens in Europe lie to the west of
that line. To the east none are found till we come into Asia. But
they cross the Straits of Gibraltar, and are found all along the
North African littoral, and thence eastwards through Arabia, India,
and as far as Japan.
Dolmens, Cromlechs, and Tumuli
A dolmen, it may be here explained, is a kind of chamber composed
of upright unhewn stones, and roofed generally with a single huge
stone. They are usually wedge-shaped in plan, and traces of a porch
or vestibule can often be noticed. The primary intention of the
dolmen was to represent a house or dwelling-place for the dead. A
cromlech (often confused in popular language the dolmen) is properly
a circular arrangement of standing stones, often with a dolmen in
their midst.
It is believed that most
[53]
if not all of the now exposed dolmens were originally covered
with a great mound of earth or of smaller stones. Sometimes, as in
the illustration we give from Carnac, in Brittany, great avenues or
alignments are formed of single upright Stones, and these, no doubt,
had some purpose connected with the ritual of worship carried on in
the locality. The later megalithic monuments, as at Stonehenge, may
be of dressed stone, but in all cases their rudeness of
construction, the absence of any sculpturing (except for patterns or
symbols incised on the surface), the evident aim at creating a
powerful impression by the brute strength of huge monolithic masses,
as well as certain subsidiary features in their design which shall
be described later on, give these megalithic monuments a curious
family likeness and mark them out from the chambered tombs of the
early Greeks, of the Egyptians, and of other more advanced races.
The dolmens proper gave place in the end to great chambered mounds
or tumuli, as at New Grange, which we also reckon as belonging to
the Megalithic People. They are a natural development of the dolmen.
The early dolmen-builders were in the Neolithic stage of culture,
their weapons were of polished stone. But in the tumuli not only
Stone, but also bronze, and even iron, instruments are found-at
first evidently importations, but afterwards of local
manufacture.
Origin of the Megalithic People
The language originally spoken by this people can only be
conjectured by the traces of it left in that of their conquerors,
the Celts.[see p.78] But a map of the distribution of their
monuments irresistibly suggests the idea that their builders were of
North African origin; that they were not at first accustomed to
traverse the
[54]
sea for any great distance; that they migrated west wards along
North Africa, crossed into Europe where the Mediterranean at
Gibraltar narrows to a strait of a few miles in width, and thence
spread over the western regions of Europe, including the British
Islands, while on the eastward they penetrated by Arabia into Asia.
It must, however, be borne in mind that while originally, no doubt,
a distinct race, the Megalithic People came in the end to represent,
not a race, but a culture. The human remains found in these
sepulchres, with their wide divergence in the shape of the skull,
&c., clearly prove this. [See Borlase's "Dolmens of Ireland,"
pp. 605, 606, for a discussion of this question.] These and other
relics testify to the dolmen-builders in general as representing a
superior and well-developed type, acquainted with agriculture,
pasturage, and to some extent with seafaring. The monuments
themselves, which are often of imposing size and imply much thought
and organised effort in their construction, show unquestionably the
existence, at this period, of a priesthood charged with the care of
funeral rites and capable of controlling large bodies of men. Their
dead were, as a rule, not burned, but buried whole - the greater
monuments marking, no doubt, the sepulchres of important personages,
while the common people were buried in tombs of which no traces now
exist.
The Celts of the Plains
De Jubainville, in his account of the early history of the Celts,
takes account of two main groups only-the Celts and the Megalithic
People. But A. Bertrand, in his very valuable work '"La Religion des
Gaulois," distinguishes two elements among the Celts themselves.
There are, besides the Megalithic People, the two groups
[55]
of lowland Celts and mountain Celts. The lowland Celts, according
to his view, started from the Danube and entered Gaul probably about
1200 B.C. They were the founders of the lake-dwellings in
Switzerland, in the Danube valley, and in Ireland. They knew the use
of metals, and worked in gold, in tin, in bronze) and towards the
end of their period in iron. Unlike the Megalithic People, they
spoke a Celtic tongue, [Professor Ridgeway (see Report of the Brit.
Assoc. for 1908) has contended that the Megalithic People spoke an
Aryan language; otherwise he thinks more traces of its influence
must have survived in the Celtic which supplanted it. The weight of
authority, as well as such direct evidence as we possess, seems to
be against his view.] though Bertrand seems to doubt their genuine
racial affinity with the true Celts. They were perhaps Celticised
rather than actually Celtic. They were not warlike; a quiet folk of
herdsmen, tillers, and artificers. They did not bury, but burned
their dead. At a great settlement of theirs, Golasecca, in Cisalpine
Gaul, 6000 interments were found. In each case the body had been
burned; there was not a single burial without previous burning.
This people entered Gaul not (according to Bertrand), for the
most part, as conquerors, but by gradual infiltration, occupying
vacant spaces wherever they found them along the valleys and plains.
They came by the passes of the Alps, and their starting-point was
the country of the Upper Danube, which Herodotus says "rises among
the Celts." They blended peacefully with the Megalithic People among
whom they settled, and did not evolve any of those advanced
political institutions which are only nursed in war, but probably
they contributed powerfully to the development of the Druidical
system of religion and to the bardic poetry
[56]
The Celts of the Mountains
Finally, we have a third group, the true Celtic group, which
followed closely on the track of the second. It was at the beginning
of the sixth century that it first made its appearance on the left
bank of the Rhine. While Bertrand calls the second group Celtic,
these he styles Galatic, and identifies them with the Galatae of the
Greeks and the Galli and Belgae of the Romans.
The second group, as we have said, were Celts of the plains. The
third were Celts of the mountains. The earliest home in which we
know them was the ranges of the Balkans and Carpathians. Their
organisation was that of a military aristocracy - they lorded it
over the subject populations on whom they lived by tribute or
pillage. They are the warlike Celts of ancient history - the sackers
of Rome and Delphi, the mercenary warriors who fought for pay and
for the love of warfare in the ranks of Carthage and afterwards of
Rome. Agriculture and industry were despised by them, their women
tilled the ground, and under their rule the common population became
reduced almost to servitude; "plebs poene servorum habetur loco," as
Caesar tells us. Ireland alone escaped in some degree from the
oppression of this military aristocracy, and from the sharp dividing
line which it drew between the classes, yet even there a reflexion
of the state of things in Gaul is found, even there we find free and
unfree tribes and oppressive and dishonouring exactions on the part
of the ruling order.
Yet, if this ruling race had some of the vices of untamed
strength, they had also many noble and humane qualities. They were
dauntlessly brave, fantastically chivalrous, keenly sensitive to the
appeal of poetry, of music, and of speculative thought. Posidonius
found the bardic institution flourishing among them about
[57]
100 B.C. and about two hundred years earlier Hecateus of Abdera
describes the elaborate musical services held by the Celts in a
Western island-probably Great Britain-in honour of their god Apollo
(Lugh). [See Holder, "Altceltischer Sprachschatz" sub voce
"Hyperboreoi"] Aryan of the Aryans, they had in them the making of a
great and progressive nation; but the Druidic system - not on the
side of its philosophy and science, but on that of its
ecclesiastico-political organisation - was their bane, and their
submission to it was their fatal weakness.
The culture of these mountain Celts differed markedly from that
of the lowlanders. Their age was the age of iron, not of bronze;
their dead were not burned (which they considered a disgrace) but
buried.
The territories occupied by them in force were Switzerland,
Burgundy, the Palatinate, and Northern France; parts of Britain to
the west, and Illyria and Galatia to the east, but smaller groups of
them must have penetrated far and wide through all Celtic territory,
and taken up a ruling position wherever they went.
There were three peoples, said Caesar, inhabiting Gaul when his
conquest began; "they differ from each other in language, in
customs, and in laws." These people he named respectively the
Belgae, the Celtae and the Aquitani. He locates them roughly, the
Belgae in the north and east, the Celtae in the middle, and the
Aquitani in the west and south. The BeIgae are the Galatae of
Bertrand, the Celtae are the Celts, and the Aquitani are the
Megalithic People. They had, of course, all been more or less
brought under Celtic influences, and the differences of language
which Caesar noticed need not have been great; still it is
noteworthy, and quite in accordance with Bertrand's views, that
Strabo speaks of the Aquitani as differing markedly from the rest of
the inhabitants, and as
[58]
resembling the Iberians. The language of the other Gaulish
peoples, he expressly adds, were merely dialects of the same
tongue.
The Religion of Magic
This triple division is reflected more or less in all the Celtic
countries, and must always be borne in mind when we speak of Celtic
ideas and Celtic religion, and try to estimate the contribution of
the Celtic peoples to European culture. The mythical literature and
the art of the Celt have probably sprung mainly from the section
represented by the Lowland Celts of Bertrand. But this literature of
song and saga was produced by a bardic class for the pleasure and
instruction of a proud, chivalrous, and warlike aristocracy, and
would thus inevitably be moulded by the ideas of this aristocracy.
But it would also have been coloured by the profound influence of
the religious beliefs and observances entertained by the Megalithic
People - beliefs which are only now fading slowly away in the
spreading day-light of science. These beliefs may be summed up in
the one term Magic. The nature of this religion of magic must now be
briefly discussed, for it was a potent element in the formation of
the body of myths and legends with which we have afterwards to deal.
And, as Professor Bury remarked in his Inaugural Lecture at
Cambridge, in 1903 :
"For the purpose of prosecuting that most difficult of all
inquiries, the ethnical problem, the part played by race in the
development of peoples and the effects of race-blendings, it must be
remembered that the Celtic world commands one of the chief portals
of ingress into that mysterious pre-Aryan foreworld, from which it
may well be that we modern Europeans have inherited far more than we
dream."
[59]
The ultimate root of the word Magic is unknown, but proximately
it is derived from the Magi, or priests of Chaldea and Media in
pre-Aryan and pre-Semitic times, who were the great exponents of
this system of thought, so strangely mingled of superstition,
philosophy, and scientific observation. The fundamental conception
of magic is that of the spiritual vitality of all nature. This
spiritual vitality was not, as in polytheism, conceived as separated
from nature in distinct divine personalities. It was implicit and
immanent in nature; obscure, undefined, invested with all the
awfulness of a power whose limits and nature are enveloped in
impenetrable mystery. In its remote origin it was doubt-less, as
many facts appear to show, associated with the cult of the dead, for
death was looked upon as the resumption into nature, and as the
investment with vague and uncontrollable powers, of a spiritual
force formerly embodied in the concrete, limited, manageable, and
therefore less awful form of a living human personality. Yet these
powers were not altogether uncontrollable. The desire for control,
as well as the suggestion of the means for achieving it, probably
arose from the first rude practices of the art of healing. Medicine
of some sort was one of the earliest necessities of man. And the
power of certain natural substances, mineral or vegetable, to
produce bodily and mental effects often of a most startling
character would naturally be taken as signal evidence of what we may
call the "magical" conception of the universe.[Thus the Greek
pharmakon = medicine, poison, or charm; and I am informed
that the Central African word for magic or charm is mankwala
which also means medicine.] The first magicians were those who
attained a special knowledge of healing or poisonous herbs; but
"virtue" of some sort being attributed to every natural object and
phenmenon,
[60]
a kind of magical science, partly the child of true research,
partly of poetic imagination, partly of priestcraft, would in time
spring up, would be codified into rites and formulas, attached to
special places and objects, and represented by symbols. The whole
subject has been treated by Pliny in a remarkable passage which
deserves quotation at length
Pliny on the Religion of Magic
"Magic is one of the few things which it is important to
discuss at some length, were it only because, being the most
delusive of all the arts, it has everywhere and at all times been
most powerfully credited. Nor need it surprise us that it has
obtained so vast an influence, for it has united in itself the three
arts which have wielded the most powerful sway over the spirit of
man. Springing in the first instance from Medicine - a fact which no
one can doubt-and under cover of a solicitude for our health, it has
glided into the mind, and taken the form of another medicine, more
holy and more profound. In the second place, bearing the most
seductive and flattering promises, it has enlisted the motive of
Religion, the subject on which, even at this day, mankind is most in
the dark. To crown all it has had recourse to the art of Astrology;
and every man is eager to know the future and convinced that this
knowledge is most certainly to be obtained from the heavens. Thus,
holding the minds of men enchained in this triple bond, it has
extended its sway over many nations, and the Kings of Kings obey it
in the East.
"In the East, doubtless, it was invented - in Persia and by
Zoroaster. [If Pliny meant that it was here first codified
and organised he may be right, but the conceptions on which magic
rest are practically universal, and of immemorial antquity.] All the
authorities agree in this.
[61]
But has there not been more than one Zoroaster? …
I have noticed that in ancient times, and indeed almost always,
one finds men seeking in this science the climax of literary glory -
at least Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, and Plato crossed the
seas, exiles, in truth, rather than travellers, to instruct
themselves in this. Returning to their native land, they vaunted the
claims of magic and maintained its secret doctrine … In the Latin
nations there are early traces of it, as, for instance, in our Laws
of the Twelve Tables'[Adopted 451 B.C. Livy entitles them "the
fountain of all public and private right" They stood in the Forum
till the third century A.D., but have now perished, except for
fragments preserved in various commentaries] and other monuments, as
I have said in a former book. In fact, it was not until the yeay 657
after the foundation of Rome, under the consulate of Cornelius
Lentulus Crassus, that it was forbidden by a senatus
consultum to sacrifice human beings; a fact which proves that
up to this date these horrible sacrifices were made. The Gauls have
been captivated by it, and that even down to our own times, or it
was the Emperor Tiberius who suppressed the Druids and all the herd
of prophets and medicine-men. But what is the use of launching
prohibitions against an art which has thus traversed the ocean and
penetrated even to the confines of Nature?" (Hist. Nat.
xxx.)
Pliny adds that the first person whom he can ascertain to have
written on this subject was Osthanes, who accompanied Xerxes in his
war against the Greeks, and who propagated the "germs of his
monstrous art" wherever he went in Europe.
Magic was not - so Pliny believed - indigenous either in Greece
or in Italy, but was so much at home in Britain and conducted with
such elaborate ritual that
[62]
Pliny says it would almost seem as if it was they who had taught
it to the Persians, not the Persians to them.
Traces of Magic in Megalithic Monuments
The imposing relics of their cult which the Megalithic People
have left us are full of indications of their religion. Take, for
instance, the remarkable tumulus of Mané-er-H'oeck, in Brittany.
This monument was explored in 1864 by M. René Galles, who describes
it as absolutely intact-the surface of the earth unbroken, and
everything as the builders left it. [See "Revue Archéologique," t.
xii., 1865, "Fouilles de René Galles."]
At the entrance to the rectangular chamber was a sculptured slab,
on which was graven a mysterious sign, perhaps the totem of a chief.
Immediately on entering the chamber was found a beautiful pendant in
green jasper about the size of an egg. On the floor in the centre of
the chamber was a most singular arrangement, consisting of a large
ring of jadite, slightly oval in shape, with a magnificent axe-head,
also of jadite, its point resting on the ring. The axe was a
well-known symbol of power or godhead, and is frequently found in
rock-carvings of the Bronze Age, as well as in Egyptian hieroglyphs,
Minoan carvings, &c. At a little distance from these there lay
two large pendants of jasper, then an axe-head in white jade, [Jade
is not found in the native state in Europe, nor nearer than China.]
then another jasper pendant. All these objects were ranged with
evident intention en suite, forming a straight line which
coincided exactly with one of the diagonals of the chamber, running
from north-west to south-east. In one of the corners of the chamber
were found 101 axe-heads in jade, jadite, and
[63]
fibrolite. There were no traces of bones or cinders, no funerary
urn ; the structure was a cenotaph. "Are we not here," asks
Bertrand, "in presence of some ceremony relating to the practices of
magic?"
Chiromancy at Gavr'inis
In connexion with the great sepulchral monument of Gavr'inis a
very curious observation was made by
M. Albert Maitre, an inspector of the Musée des Antiquités
Nationales. There were found here-as commonly in other megalithic
monuments in Ireland and Scotland - a number of stones sculptured
with a singular and characteristic design in waving and concentric
lines. Now if the curious lines traced upon the human hand at the
roots and tips of the fingers be examined under a lens, it will be
found that they bear an exact resemblance to these designs of
megalithic sculpture. One seems almost like a cast of the other.
These lines on the human hand are so distinct and peculiar that, as
is well known, they have been adopted as a method of identification
of criminals. Can this resemblance be
[64]
the result of chance ? Nothing like these peculiar assemblages of
sculptured lines has ever been found except in connexion with these
monuments. Have we not here a reference to chiromancy - a magical
art much practised in ancient and even in modern times? The hand as
a symbol of power was a well-known magical emblem, and has entered
largely even into Christian symbolism - note, for instance, the
great hand sculptured on the under side of one of the arms of the
Cross of Muiredach at Monasterboice.
Holed Stones
Another singular and as yet unexplained feature which appears in
many of these monuments, from Western Europe to India, is the
presence of a small hole bored through one of the stones composing
the chamber.
Was it an aperture intended for the spirit of the dead ? or for
offerings to them ? or the channel through which revelations from
the spirit-world were supposed to come to a priest or magician ? or
did it partake of all these characters?
Holed stones, not forming part of a dolmen, are, of course, among
the commonest relics of the ancient cult, and are still venerated
and used in practices connected
[65]
with child-bearing, &c. Here we are doubtless to interpret
the emblem as a symbol of sex.
Stone-Worship
Besides the heavenly bodies, we find that rivers, trees,
mountains, and stones were all objects of veneration among this
primitive people. Stone-worship was particularly common, and is not
so easily explained as the worship directed toward objects
possessing movement and vitality. Possibly an explanation of the
veneration attaching to great and isolated masses of unhewn stone
may be found in their resemblance to the artificial dolmens and
cromlechs. [Small stones, crystals, and gems were, however, also
venerated. The celebrated Black Stone of Pergamos was the subject of
an embassy from Rome to that city in the time of the Second Punic
War, the Sibylline Rooks having predicted victory to its possessors.
It was brought to Rome with great rejoicings in the year 205. It is
stated to have been about the site of a man's fist, and was probably
a meteorite. Compare the myth in Hesiod which relates how Kronos
devoured a stone in the belief that it was his offspring, Zeus It
was then possible to mistake a stone for a god.] No superstition has
proved more enduring. In A.D. 452 we find the Synod of Aries
denouncing those who "venerate trees and wells and stones," and the
denunciation was repeated by Charlemagne, and by numerous Synods and
Councils down to recent times. Yet a drawing, here reproduced, which
was lately made on the spot by Mr. Arthur Bell, shows this very act
of worship still in full force in Brittany, and shows the symbols
and the sacerdotal organisation of Christianity actually pressed
into the service of this immemorial paganism. According to Mr. Bell,
the clergy take part in these performances with much reluctance; but
are compelled to do so by the force of local opinion. Holy wells,
the water of which is supposed to cure diseases, are still very
common in Ireland,
[66]
and the cult of the waters of Lourdes may, in spite of its
adoption by the Church, be mentioned as a notable case in point on
the Continent.
Cup-and-Ring Markings
Another singular emblem, upon the meaning of which no light has
yet been thrown, occurs frequently in connexion with megalithic
monuments.
The accompanying illustrations show examples of it. Cup-shaped
hollows are made in the surface of the stone, these are often
surrounded with concentric rings, and from the cup one or more
radial lines are drawn to a point outside the circumference of the
rings. Occasionally a system of cups are joined by these lines, but
more frequently they end a little way outside the widest of the
rings. These strange markings are found in Great Britain and
Ireland, in Brittany, and at various places in
[67]
India, where they are called mahadeos. [See Sir J.
Simpson', "Archaic Sculpturings" 1867] I have also found a curious
example - for such it appears to be - in Dupaix' "Monuments of New
Spain." It is reproduced in Lord Kingsborough's "Antiquities of
Mexico," vol. iv. On the circular top of a cylindrical stone, known
as the "Triumphal Stone," is carved a central cup, with nine
concentric circles round it, and a duct or channel cut straight from
the cup through all the circles to the rim. Except that the design
here is richly decorated and accurately drawn, it closely resembles
a typical European cup-and-ring marking. That these markings mean
something, and that, wherever they are found, they mean the same
thing, can hardly be doubted, but what that meaning is remains yet a
puzzle to antiquarians. The guess may perhaps be hazarded that they
are diagrams or plans of a megalithic sepulchre. The central hollow
represents the actual burial-place. The circles are the standing
Stones, fosses, and ramparts which often surrounded it; and the line
or duct drawn from the centre outwards represents the subterranean
approach to the sepulchre. The apparent "avenue" intention of the
duct is clearly brought out in the varieties given below, which I
take from Simpson.
As the sepulchre was also a holy place or shrine, the occurrence
of a representation of it among other carvings of a sacred character
is natural enough ; it would seem symbolically to indicate that the
place was holy ground. How far this suggestion might apply to the
Mexican example I am unable to say.
[68]
The Tumulus at New Grange
One of the most important and richly sculptured of European
megalithic monuments is the great chambered tumulus of New Grange,
on the northern bank of the Boyne, in Ireland. This tumulus, and the
others which occur in its neighbourhood, appear in ancient Irish
mythical literature in two different characters, the union of which
is significant. They are regarded on the one hand as the
dwelling-places of the Sidhe (pronounced Shee), or Fairy
Folk, who represent, probably, the deities of the ancient Irish, and
they are also, traditionally, the burial-places of the Celtic High
Kings of. pagan Ireland. The story of the burial of King Cormac, who
was supposed to have heard of the Christian faith long before it was
actually preached in Ireland by St. Patrick and who ordered that he
should not be buried at the royal cemetery by the Boyne, on account
of its pagan associations, points to the view that this place was
the centre of a pagan cult involving more than merely the interment
of royal personages in its precincts. Unfortunately these monuments
are not intact; they were opened and plundered by the Danes in the
ninth century, [The fact is recorded in the "Annals of the Four
Masters" under the date 861 and in the "Annals of Ulster" under 862]
but enough evidence remains to show that they were sepulchral in
their origin, and were also associated with the cult of a primitive
religion. The most important of them, the tumulus of New Grange, has
been thoroughly explored and described by Mr. George Coffey, keeper
of the collection of Celtic antiquities in the National Museum,
Dublin.[See "Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy," vol. xxx. Pt.
i, 1892, and "New Grange," by G. Coffey, 1912] It appears from the
outside like a large mound, or knoll, now over-grown with bushes. It
measures about 280 feet across,
[69]
at its greatest diameter, and is about 44 feet in height. Outside
it there runs a wide circle of standing stones originally, it would
seem, thirty-five in number. Inside this circle is a ditch and
rampart, and on top of this rampart was laid a circular curb of
great stones 8 to 10 feet long, laid on edge, and confining what has
proved to he a huge mound of loose stones, now overgrown, as we have
said, with grass and bushes. It is in the interior of this mound
that the interest of the monument lies. Towards the end of the
seventeenth century some workmen who were getting road-material from
the mound came across the entrance to a passage which led into the
interior, and was marked by the fact that the boundary stone below
it is richly carved with spirals and lozenges. This entrance faces
exactly south-east. The passage is formed of upright slabs of unhewn
stone roofed with similar slabs, and varies from nearly 5 feet to 7
feet 10 inches in height ; it is about 3 feet wide, and runs for 62
feet straight into the heart of the mound. Here it ends in a
cruciform chamber, 20 feet high, the roof, a kind of dome, being
formed of large flat stones, overlapping inwards till they almost
meet at the top, where a large flat stone covers all. In each of the
three recesses of the cruciform chamber there stands a large stone
basin, or rude sarcophagus, but no traces of any burial now
remain.
Symbolic Carvings at New Grange
The stones are all raw and undressed, and were selected for their
purpose from the river-bed and elsewhere close by. On their flat
surfaces, obtained by splitting slabs from the original quarries,
are found the carvings which form the unique interest of this
strange monument. Except for the large stone with spiral carvings
and one other at the entrance to the mound,
[70]
the intention of these Sculptures does not appear to have been
decorative, except in a very rude and primitive sense. There is no
attempt to cover a given surface with a system of ornament
appropriate to its size and shape. The designs are, as it were,
scribbled upon the waals anyhow and anywhere. [It must be observed,
however, that the decoration was, certainly in some, and perhaps in
all cases, carried out before the stones were placed in position.
This is also the case at Gavr'inis.] Among them everywhere the
spiral is prominent. The resemblance of some of these carvings to
the supposed finger-markings of the stones at Gavr'inis is very
remarkable. Triple and double spiral are also found, as well as
lozenges and zigzags. A singular carving representing what looks
like a palm-branch or fern-leaf is found in the west recess. The
drawing of this object is naturalistic, and it is hard to interpret
it, as Mr. Coffey is inclined to do, as merely a piece of so-called
"herring~bone" pattern. [He has modified this view in his latest
work, "New Grange," 1912] A similar palm-leaf design, but with the
ribs arranged at right angles to the central axis, is found in the
neighbouring tumulus of Dowth, at Loughcrew, and in combination with
a solar emblem, the swastika, on a small altar in the Pyrenees,
figured by Bertrand.
The Ship Symbol at New Grange
Another remarkable and, as far as Ireland goes, unusual figure is
found sculptured in the west recess at New Grange. It has been
interpreted by various critics as a mason's mark, a piece of
Phoenician writing, a group of numerals, and finally (and no doubt
correctly) by Mr. George Coffey as a rude representation of a ship
with men on board and uplifted sail. lt is noticeable that just
above it is a small circle, forming, apparently, part of the design.
Another example occurs at Dowth.
[71]
The significance of this marking, as we shall see, is possibly
very great.
It has been discovered that on certain stones in the tumulus of
Locmariaker, in Brittany, ["Proc. Royal Irish Acad.," vol. viii.
1863, p. 400, and G. Coffey, op. cit. p. 30] there occur a
number of very similar figures) one of them showing the circle in
much the same relative position as at New Grange. The axe, an
Egyptian hieroglyph for godhead and a well-known magical emblem, is
also represented on this stone. Again, in a brochure by Dr. Oscar
Montelius on the rock-sculptures of Sweden ["Les Sculptures de
Rochers de la Suède," read at the Prehistoric Congress, Stockholm,
1874; and see G. Coffey, op. cit. p. 60] we find a
reproduction (also given in Du Chaillu's " Viking Age") of a rude
rock-carving showing a number of ships with men on board, and the
circle quartered by a cross-unmistakably a solar emblem-just above
one of them.
That these ships (which, like the Irish example) are often so
summarily represented as to be mere symbols which no one could
identify as a ship were the clue not given by other and more
elaborate representations) were drawn so frequently in conjunction
with the solar disk merely for amusement or for a purely decorative
object seems to me most improbable.
[72]
In the days of the megalithic folk sepulchral monument, the very
focus of religious ideas, would hardly nave been covered with idle
and meaningless scrawls. "Man," as Sir J. Simpson has well said,
"has ever conjoined together things sacred and things sepulchral."
Nor do these scrawls, in the majority of instances, show any
glimmering of a decorative intention.
But if they had a symbolic intention, what is it that they
symbolise ?
We have here come, I believe, into a higher order of Ideas than
that of magic. The suggestion I have to make may seem a daring one ;
yet, as we shall see, it is quite in line with the results of
certain other investigations as to the origin and character of the
megalithic culture.
If accepted, it will certainly give much greater definiteness to
our views of the relations of the Megalithic People with North
Africa, as well as of the true origin of Druidism and of the
doctrines associated with that system. I think it may be taken as
established that the frequent conjunction of the ship with the solar
disk on rock-sculptures in Sweden, Ireland, and Brittany cannot be
fortuitous. No one, for instance, looking at the example from
Hallande given above, can doubt that the two objects are
intentionally combined in one design.
The Ship Symbol in Egypt
Now this symbol of the ship, with or without the actual portrayal
of the solar emblem, is of very ancient and
[73]
very common occurrence in the sepulchral art of Egypt. It is
connected with the worship of Ra which came in fully 4000 years B.C.
Its meaning as an Egyptian symbol is well known. The ship was called
the Boat of the Sun. It was the vessel in which the Sun-god
performed his journeys; in particular, the journey which he made
nightly to the shores of the Other-world, bearing with him in his
bark the souls of the beatified dead.
The Sun-god, Ra, is sometimes represented by a disk, some-times
by other emblems, hovering above the vessel or contained within it.
Any one who will look over the painted or sculptured sarcophagi in
the British Museum will find a host of examples. Sometimes he will
find representations of the life-giving rays of Ra pouring down upon
the boat and its occupants. Now, in one of the Swedish rock-carvings
of ships at Backa, Bohuslan, given by Montelius, a ship crowded with
figures is shown beneath a disk with three descending rays, and
again another ship with a two-rayed sun above it. It may be added
that in the tumulus of Dowth, which is close to that of New Grange
and is entirely of the same character and period, rayed figures and
quartered circles, obviously solar emblems, occur abundantly, as
also at Loughcrew and other places in Ireland, and one other ship
figure has been identified at Dowth.
[74]
In Egypt the solar boat is sometimes represented as containing
the solar emblem alone, sometimes it contains the figure of a god
with attendant deities, sometimes it contains a crowd of passengers
representing human soul; and sometimes the figure of a single corpse
on a bier.
The megalithic carvings also sometimes show the solar emblem and
some-times not; the boats are sometimes filled with figures and are
sometimes empty. When a symbol has once been accepted and
understood, any conventional or summary representation of it is
sufficient. I take it that the complete form of the megalithic
symbol is that of a boat with figures in it and with the solar
emblem overhead. These figures, assuming the fore-going
interpretation of the design to be correct, must clearly be taken
for representations of the dead on their way to the Other-world.
They cannot be deities, for representations of the divine powers
under human aspect were quite unknown to the Megalithic People, even
after the coming of the Celts - they first occur in Gaul under Roman
influence. But if these figures represent the dead, then we have
clearly before us the origin of the so-called "Celtic" doctrine of
immortality. The carvings in question are pre-Celtic. They are found
where no Celts ever penetrated. Yet they point to the existence of
just that Other-world doctrine which, from the time of Caesar
[75]
downwards, has been associated with Celtic Druidism, and this
doctrine was distinctively Egyptian.
The "Navetas"
In connexion with this subject I may draw attention to the theory
of Mr. W. C. Borlase that the typical design of an Irish dolmen was
intended to represent a ship. In Minorca there are analogous
structures, there popularly called navetas (ships), so
distinct is the resemblance. But, he adds, "long before the caves
and navetas of Minorca were known to me I had formed the
opinion that what I have so frequently spoken of as the
'wedge-shape' observable so universally in the ground-plans of
dolmens was due to an original conception of a ship. From sepulchral
tumuli in Scandinavia we know actual vessels have on several
occasions been disinterred. In cemeteries of the Iron Age, in the
same country, as well as on the more southern Baltic coasts, the
ship was a recognised form of sepulchral enclosure."["Dolmens of
Ireland," pp. 701-704] If Mr. Borlase's view is correct, we have
here a very strong corroboration of the symbolic intention which I
attribute to the solar ship-carvings of the Megalithic People.
The Ship Symbol in Babylonia
The ship symbol, it may be remarked, can be traced to about 4000
B.C. in Babylonia, where every deity had his own special ship (that
of the god Sin was called the Ship of Light, his image being carried
in procession on a litter formed like a ship. This is thought by
Jastrow ["The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria"] to have originated
at a time when the sacred cities of Babylonia were situated on the
Persian Gulf, and when religious processions were often carried out
by water.
[76]
The Symbol of the Feet
Yet there is reason to think that some of these symbols were
earlier than any known mythology, and were, so to say, mythologised
differently by different peoples, who got hold of them from this now
unknown source. A remarkable instance is that of the symbol of the
Two Feet. In Egypt the Feet of Osiris formed one of the portions
into which his body was cut up. In the well-known myth.
They were a symbol of possession or of visitation. "I have come
upon earth," says the "Book of the Dead" (ch. xvii.), "and with my
two feet have taken possession. I am Tmu." Now this symbol of the
feet or footprint is very widespread. It is found in India, as the
print of the foot of Buddha, [A good example from Amaravati (after
Fergusson) is given by Bertrand, "Rel. des G.," p. 389.] it is found
sculptured on dolmens in Brittany, [Sergi, "The Mediterranean Race,"
p.313.] and it occurs in rock-carvings in Scandinavia. [At
Lökeberget, Bohuslän; see Montelius, op. cit.] In Ireland it
passes for the footprints of St. Patrick or St. Columba. Strangest
of all, it is found unmistakably in Mexico. [See Lord Kingsborough's
"Antiquities of Mexico," passim, and the Humboldt fragment of
Mexican painting (reproduced in Churchward's "Signs and Symbols of
Primordial Man',).] Tyler, in his "Primitive Culture" (ii. p. '97)
refers to "the Aztec ceremony at the Second Festival of the Sun God,
Tezcatlipoca, when they sprinkled maize flour before his sanctuary,
and his high priest watched till he beheld the divine footprints,
and then shouted to announce, 'Our Great God is come.' "
The Ankh on Megalithic Carvings
There is very strong evidence of the connexion of the Megalithic
People with North Africa. Thus, as
[77]
Sergi points out, many signs (probably numerical) found on ivory
tablets in the cemetery at Naqada discovered by Flinders Petrie are
to be met with on European dolmens.
Several later Egyptian hieroglyphic signs, including the famous
Ankh, or crux ansata, the symbol of vitality or
resurrection, are also found in megalithic carvings. [See Sergi,
op. cit. p.190, for the Ankh on a French doImen.] From
these correspondences Letourneau drew the conclusion "that the
builders of our megalithic monuments came from the South, and were
related to the races of North Africa." ["Bulletin de Ia Soc.
d'Anthropologie," Paris, April 1893.]
Evidence from Language
Approaching the subject from the linguistic side, Rhys and
Brynmor Jones find that the African origin - at least proximately -
of the primitive population of Great Britain and Ireland is strongly
suggested. It is here shown that the Celtic languages preserve in
their syntax the Hamitic, and especially the Egyptian type. ["The
Welsh People," pp. 616-664, where the subject is fully discussed in
an appendix by Professor J. Morris Jones. "The pre-Aryan idioms
which still live in Welsh and Irish were derived from a language
allied to Egyptian and the Berber tongues."]
Egyptian and "Celtic" Ideas of Immortality
The facts at present known do not, I think, justify us in framing
any theory as to the actual historical relation of the
dolmen-builders of Western Europe with the people who created the
wonderful religion and civilisation of ancient Egypt. But when we
consider all the lines of evidence that converge in this direction
it seems clear that there was such a relation. Egypt was the classic
land of religious symbolism. It gave to
[78]
Europe the most beautiful and most popular of all its religious
symbols, that of the divine mother and child. [Flinders Petrie,
"Egypt and Israel," pp.137, 899.] I believe that it also gave to the
primitive inhabitants of Western Europe the profound symbol of the
voyaging spirits guided to the world of the dead by by the God of
Light.
The religion of Egypt, above that of any people whose ideas we
know to have been developed in times so ancient, centred on the
doctrine of a future life. The palatial and stupendous tombs, the
elaborate ritual, the imposing mythology, the immense exaltation of
the priestly caste, all these features of Egyptian culture were
intimately connected with their doctrine of the immortality of the
soul.
To the Egyptian the disembodied soul was no shadowy simulacrum,
as the classical nations believed-the future life was a mere
prolongation of the present; the just man, when he had won his place
in it, found himself among his relatives, his friends, his
workpeople, with tasks and enjoyments very much like those of earth.
The doom of the wicked was annihilation; he fell a victim to the
invisible monster called the Eater of the Dead.
Now when the classical nations first began to take an interest in
the ideas of the Celts the thing that principally struck them was
the Celtic belief in immortality, which the Gauls said was "handed
down by the Druids." The classical nations believed in immortality;
but what a picture does Homer, the Bible of the Greeks, give of the
lost, degraded, dehumanised creatures which represented the departed
souls of men ! Take, as one example, the description of the spirits
of the suitors slain by Odysseus as Hermes conducts them to the
Underworld :
[79]
"Now were summoned the souls of the dead by Cyllenian Hermes
…
Touched by the wand they awoke, and obeyed him and followed
him, squealing,
Even as bats in the dark, mysterious depths of a
cavern
Squeal as they flutter around, should one from the cluster
be fallen
Where from the rock suspended they hung, all clinging
together;
So did the souls flock squealing behind him, as Hermes
the Helper
Guided them down to the gloom through dank and
mouldering pathways."
[I quote from Mr. H. B. Cotterill's
beautiful hexameter version.]
The classical writers felt rightly that the Celtic idea of
immortality was something altogether different from this. It was
both loftier and more realistic; it implied a true persistence of
the living man, as he was at present, in all his human relations.
They noted with surprise that the Celt would lend money on a
promissory note for repayment in the next world. [Valerius Maximus
(about A.D. 30] ) and other classical writers mention this practice]
That is an absolutely Egyptian conception. And this very analogy
occurred to Diodorus in writing of the Celtic idea of immortality -
it was like nothing that he knew of out of Egypt. [Book V].
The Doctrine of Transmigration
Many ancient writers assert that the Celtic idea of immortality
embodied the Oriental conception of the transmigration of souls, and
to account for this the hypothesis was invented that they had
learned the doctrine from Pythagoras, who represented it in
classical antiquity. Thus Caesar : "The principal point of their
[the Druids'] teaching is that the soul does not perish, and that
after death it passes from one body into another." And Diodorus:
"Among them the doctrine of Pythagoras prevails, according to which
the souls of men are immortal, and after a fixed term recommence
[80]
to live, taking upon themselves a new body." Now traces of this
doctrine certainly do appear in Irish legend. Thus the Irish
chieftain, Mongan, who is an historical personage, and whose death
is recorded about A.D. 625, is said to have made a wager as to the
place of death of a king named Fothad, slain in a battle with the
mythical hero Finn mac Cumhal in the third century. He proves his
case by summoning to his aid a revenant from the Other-world,
Keelta, who was the actual slayer of Fothad, and who describes
correctly where the tomb is to be found and what were its contents.
He begins his tale by saying to Mongan, "We were with thee," and
then, turning to the assembly, he continues: "We were with Finn,
coming from Alba. . . ." "Hush," says Mongan, "it is wrong of thee
to reveal a secret." The secret is, of course, that Mongan was a
reincarnation of Finn. [De Jubainville, " Irish Mythological Cycle,"
p. 191 sqq.] But the evidence on the whole shows that the
Celts did not hold this doctrine at all in the same way as
Pythagoras and the Orientals did. Transmigration was not, with them,
part of the order of things. It might happen, but in general
it did not; the new body assumed by the dead clothed them in
another, not in this world, and so far as we can learn from any
ancient authority, there does not appear to have been any idea of
moral retribution connected with this form of the future life. It
was not so much an article of faith as an idea which haunted the
imagination, and which, as Mongan's caution indicates, ought not to
be brought into clear light.
However it may have been conceived, it is certain that the belief
in immortality was the basis of Celtic Druidism. [The etymology of
the word "Druid " is no longer an unsolved problem. It had been
suggested that the latter part of the word might be connected with
the Aryan root VID, which appears in "Wisdom"' in the Latin
videre, &c., Thurneysen has now shown that this root in
combination with the intensiye particle dru would yield the
word dru-vids, represented in Gaelic by draoi, a
Druid, just as another intensive, su, with vids yields
the Gaelic saoi, a sage.] Caesar affirms this distinctly, and
declares
[81]
the doctrine to have been fostered by the Druids rather for the
promotion of courage than for purely religious reasons. An intense
Other-world faith, such as that held by the Celts, is certainly one
of the mightiest of agencies in the hands of a priesthood who hold
the keys of that world. Now Druidism existed in the British Islands,
in Gaul, and, in fact, so far as we know, wherever there was a
Celtic race amid a population of dolmen-builders. There were Celts
in Cisalpine Gaul, but there were no dolmens there, and there were
no Druids. [See Rice Holmes, "Caesar's Conquest," p. 15, and
pp.532-536.
Rhys, it may he observed, believes that Druidism was the religion
of the aboriginal inhabitants of Western Europe "from the Baltic to
Gibraltar" ("Celtic Britain," p. 73). But we only know of it
where Celts and dolmen-builders combined. Caesar remarks of the
Germans that they had no Druids and cared little about sacrificial
ceremonies.] What is quite clear is that when the Celts got to
Western Europe they found there a people with a powerful priesthood,
a ritual, and imposing religious monuments ;a people steeped in
magic and mysticism and the cult of the Underworld. The inferences,
as I read the facts, seem to be that Druidism in its essential
features was imposed upon the imaginative and sensitive nature of
the Celt - the Celt with his "extraordinary aptitude" for picking up
ideas - by the earlier population of Western Europe, the Megalithic
People, while, as held by these, it stands in some historical
relation, which I am not able to pursue in further detail, with the
religious culture of ancient Egypt. Much obscurity still broods over
the question, and perhaps will always do so, but if these
[82]
suggestions have anything in them, then the Megalithic
People have been brought a step or two out of the atmosphere of
uncanny mystery which has surrounded them, and they are shown to
have played a very important part in the religious development of
Western Europe, and in preparing that part of the world for the
rapid extension of the special type of Christianity which took place
in it. Bertrand, in his most interesting chapter on L'Irlande
Celtique," ["Rel. des Gaulois," lecon xx.] points out that very soon
after the conversion of Ireland to Christianity, we find the country
covered with monasteries, whose complete organisation seems to
indicate that they were really Druidic colleges transformed en
masse. Caesar has told us what these colleges were like in Gaul.
They were very numerous. In spite of the severe study and discipline
involved, crowds flocked into them for the sake of the power wielded
by the Druidic order, and the civil immunities which its members of
all grades enjoyed. Arts and sciences were studied there, and
thousands of verses enshrining the teachings of Druidism were
committed to memory. All this is very like what we know of Irish
Druidism. Such an organisation would pass into Christianity of the
type established in Ireland with very little difficulty. The belief
in magical rites would survive-early Irish Christianity, as its
copious hagiography plainly shows, was as steeped in magical ideas
as ever was Druidic paganism. The belief in immortality would
remain, as before, the cardinal doctrine of religion. Above all the
supremacy of the sacerdotal order over the temporal power would
remain unimpaired; it would still be true, as Dion Chrysostom said
of the Druids, that "it is they who command, and kings on thrones of
gold, dwelling in
[83]
splendid palaces, are but their ministers, and the servants of
their thought." [Quoted by Bertrand, op. cit. p. 279]
Caesar on the Druidic Culture
The religious, philosophic, and scientific culture superintended
by the Druids is spoken of by Caesar with much respect. "They
discuss and impart to the youth," he writes, "many things respecting
the stars and their motions, respecting the extent of the universe
and of our earth, respecting the nature of things, respecting the
power and the majesty of the immortal gods" (bk. vi. 14). We would
give much to know some particulars of the teaching here described.
But the Druids, though well acquainted with letters, strictly
forbade the committal of their doctrines to writing; an extremely
sagacious provision, for not only did they thus surround their
teaching with that atmosphere of mystery which exercises so potent a
spell over the human mind, but they ensured that it could never be
effectively controverted.
Human Sacrifices in Gaul
In strange discord, however, with the lofty words of Caesar
stands the abominable practice of human sacrifice whose prevalence
he noted among the Celts. Prisoners and criminals, or if these
failed even innocent victims, probably children, were encased,
numbers at a time, in huge frames of wickerwork, and there burned
alive to win the favour of the gods. The practice of human sacrifice
is, of course, not specially Druidic - it is found in all parts both
of the Old and of the New World at a certain stage of culture, and
was doubtless a survival from the time of the Megalithic People. The
fact that it should have continued in Celtic lands after an
other-wise
[84]
fairly high state of civilisation and religious culture had been
attained can be paralleled from Mexico and Carthage, and in both
cases is due, no doubt, to the uncontrolled dominance of a priestly
caste.
Human Sacrifices in Ireland
Bertrand endeavours to dissociate the Druids from these
practices, of which he says strangely there is "no trace" in
Ireland, although there, as elsewhere in Celtica, Druidism was
all-powerful. There is little doubt, however, that in Ireland also
human sacrifices at one time prevailed. In a very ancient tract, the
"Dinnsenchus," preserved in the " Book of Leinster," it is stated
that on Moyslaught, "the Plain of Adoration," there stood a great
gold idol, Crom Cruach (the Bloody Crescent). To it the Gaels used
to sacrifice children when praying for fair weather and fertility -
" it was milk and corn they asked from it in exchange for their
children - how great was their horror and their moaning !" ["The
Irish Mythological Cycle," by d'Arbois de Jubainville, p. 61. The"
Dinnsenchus" in question is an early Christian document. No trace of
a being like Crom Cruach has been found as yet in the pagan
literature of Ireland, nor in the writing: of St. Patrick, and I
think it is quite probable that even in the time of St. Patrick
human sacrifices had become only a memory.]
And in Egypt
In Egypt, where the national character was markedly easy-going,
pleasure-loving, and little capable of fanatical exaltation, we find
no record of any such cruel rites in the monumental inscriptions and
paintings, copious as is the information which they give us on all
features of the national life and religion. [A representation of
human sacrifice has, however, lately been discovered in a Temple of
the Sun in the ancient Ethiopian capital, Meroe.] Manetho, indeed,
the
[85]
Egyptian historian who wrote in the third century B.C., tells us
that human sacrifices were abolished by Amasis I. so late as the
beginning of the XVIII Dynasty - about 1600 B.C. But the complete
silence of the other records shows us that even if we are to believe
Manetho, the practice must in historic times have been very rare,
and must have been looked on with repugnance.
The Names of Celtic Deities
What were the names and the attributes of the Celtic deities?
Here we are very much in the dark. The Megalithic People did not
imagine their deities under concrete personal form. Stones, rivers,
wells, trees, and other natural objects were to them the adequate
symbols, or were half symbols, half actual embodiments, of the
supernatural forces which they venerated. But the imaginative mind
of the Aryan Celt was not content with this. The existence of
personal gods with distinct titles and attributes is reported to us
by Caesar, who equates them with various figures in the Roman
pantheon - Mercury, Apollo, Mars, and so forth. Lucan mentions a
triad of deities, Aesus, Teutates, and Taranus ; ["You (Celts) who
by cruel blood outpoured think to appease the pitiless Teutates, the
horrid Aesus with his barbarous altars, and Taranus whose worship is
no gentler than that of the Scythian Diana," to whom captives were
offered up. (Lucan, "Pharsalia," i. 444) An altar dedicated to Aesua
has been discovered in Paris.] and it is noteworthy that in these
names we seem to be in presence of a true Celtic, i.e.,
Aryan, tradition Thus Aesus is derived by Belloguet from the
Aryan root as, meaning "to be," which furnished the name of
Asura-masda (l'Esprit Sage) to the Persians, Aesun to the
Umbrians, Asa (Divine Being) to the Scandinavians. Teutates comes
from a Celtic root meaning " valiant," .' warlike," and
indicates
[86]
a deity equivalent to Mars. Taranus (?Thor), according to de
Jubainville, is a god of the Lightning (taran in Welsh,
Cornish, and Breton is the word for "thunderbolt"). Votive
inscriptions to these gods have been found in Gaul and Britain.
Other inscriptions and sculptures bear testimony to the existence in
Gaul of a host of minor and local deities who are mostly mere names,
or not even names, to us now. In the form in which we have them
these conceptions bear clear traces of Roman influence. The
sculptures are rude copies of the Roman style of religious art. But
we meet among them figures of much wilder and stranger aspect-gods
with triple faces, gods with branching antlers on their brows,
ram-headed serpents, and other now unintelligible symbols of the
older faith. Very notable is the frequent occurrence of the
cross-legged "Buddha" attitude so prevalent in the religious art of
the East and of Mexico, and also the tendency, so well known in
Egypt, to group the gods in triads.
Caesar on the Celtic Deities
Caesar, who tries to fit the Gallic religion into the framework
of Roman mythology - which was exactly what the Gauls themselves did
after the conquest - says they held Mercury to be the chief of the
gods, and looked upon him as the inventor of all the arts, as the
presiding deity of commerce, and as the guardian of roads and guide
of travellers. One may conjecture that he was particularly, to the
Gauls as to the Romans the guide of the dead, of travellers to the
Other-world, Many bronze statues to Mercury, of Gaulish origin.
still remain, the name being adopted by the Gauls, as many
place-names still testify. [Mont Mercure, Mercoeur; Mercoirey,
Montmartre Apollo was regarded
[87]
as the deity of medicine and healing, Minerva was the initiator
of arts and crafts, Jupiter governed the sky, and Mars presided over
war. Caesar is here, no doubt, classifying under five types and by
Roman names a large number of Gallic divinities.
The God of the Underworld
According to Caesar, a most notable deity of the Gauls was (in
Roman nomenclature) Dis, or Pluto, the god of the Underworld
inhabited by the dead. From him all the Gauls claimed to be
descended, and on this account, says Caesar, they began their
reckoning of the twenty-four hours of the day with the oncoming of
night. [To this day in many parts of France the peasantry use terms
like annuity, o'né, anneue, &c., all meaning "to-night,"
for aujourd hui (Bertrand, "Rel. des G.," p. 356] The name of
this deity is not given. D'Arbois de Jubainville considers that,
together with Aesus, Teutates, Taranus, and, in Irish mythology,
Balor and the Fomorians, he represents the powers of darkness,
death, and evil, and Celtic mythology is thus interpreted as a
variant of the universal solar myth, embodying~ the conception of
the eternal conflict between Day and Night.
The God of Light
The God of Light appears in Gaul and in Ireland as Lugh, or
Lugus, who has left his traces in many place-names such as
Lug-dunum (Leyden), Lyons, &c. Lugh appears in Irish
legend with distinctly solar attributes. When he meets his army
before the great conflict with the Fomorians, they feel, says the
saga, as if they beheld the rising of the sun. Yet he is also, as we
shall see, a god of the Underworld, belonging on the side of his
mother Ethlinn, daughter of Balor, to the Powers of Darkness.
[88]
The Celtic Conception of Death
The fact is that the Celtic conception of the realm of death
differed altogether from that of the Greeks and Romans, and, as I
have already pointed out, resembled that of Egyptian religion. The
Other-world was not a place of gloom and suffering, but of light and
liberation. The Sun was as much the god of that world as he was or
this. Evil, pain, and gloom there were, no doubt, and no doubt these
principles were embodied by the Irish Celts in their myths of Balor
and the Fomorians, of which we shall hear anon; but that they were
particularly associated with the idea of death is, I think, a false
supposition founded on misleading analogies drawn from the ideas of
the classical nations. Here the Celts followed North African or
Asiatic conceptions rather than those of the Aryans of Europe. It is
only by realising that the Celts as we know them in history, from
the break-up of the Mid- European Celtic empire Onwards) formed a
singular blend of Aryan with non-Aryan characteristics, that we
shall arrive at a true understanding of their contribution to
European history and their influence in European culture.
The Five Factors in Ancient Celtic Culture
To sum up the conclusions indicated: we can, I think, distinguish
five distinct factors in the religious and intellectual culture of
Celtic lands as we find them prior to the influx of classical or of
Christian influences. First, we have before us a mass of popular
superstitions and of magical observances, including human sacrifice.
These varied more or less from place to place, centring as they did
largely on local features which were regarded as embodiments or
vehicles of divine or of diabolic power. Secondly, there was
certainly in existence a
[89]
thoughtful and philosophic creed) having as its central object of
worship the Sun, as an emblem of divine power and constancy, and as
its central doctrine the immortality of the soul. Thirdly, there was
a worship of personified deities, Aesus, Teutates, Lugh, and others,
conceived as representing natural forces, or as guardians of social
laws. Fourthly, the Romans were deeply impressed with the existence
among the Druids of a body of teaching of a quasi-scientific nature
about natural phenomena and the constitution of the universe, of the
details of which we unfortunately know practically nothing. Lastly,
we have to note the prevalence of a sacerdotal organisation, which
administered the whole system of religious and of secular learning
and literature, [The fili, or professional poets it must be
remembered, were a branch of thc Druidic order.] which carefully
confined this learning to a privileged caste, and which, by virtue
of its intellectual supremacy and of the atmosphere of religious awe
with which it was surrounded, became the sovran power, social,
political, and religious, in every Celtic country. I have spoken of
these elements as distinct, and we can) indeed, distinguish them in
thought, but in practice they were inextricably intertwined, and the
Druidic organisation pervaded and ordered all. Can we now, it may be
asked, distinguish among them what is of Celtic and what of
pre-Celtic and probably non-Aryan origin? This is a more difficult
task; yet, looking at all the analogies and probabilities, I think
we shall not be far wrong in assigning to the Megalithic People the
special doctrines, the ritual, and the sacerdotal organisation of
Druidism, and to the Celtic element the personified deities, with
the zest for learning and for speculation; while the popular
superstitions were merely the local form assumed by conceptions as
widespread as the human race.
[90]
The Celts of Today
In view of the undeniably mixed character of the populations
called "Celtic" at the present day, it is often urged that this
designation has no real relation to any ethnological fact. The Celts
who fought with Caesar in Gaul and with the English in Ireland are,
it is said, no more-they have perished on a thousand battlefields
from Alesia to the Boyne, and an older racial stratum has come to
the surface in their race. The true Celts, according to this view,
are only to be found in the tall, ruddy Highlanders of Perthshire
and North-west Scotland, and in a few families of the old ruling
race still surviving in Ireland and in Wales. In all this I think it
must be admitted that there is a large measure of truth. Yet it must
not be forgotten that the descendants of the Megalithic People at
the present day are, on the physical side, deeply impregnated with
Celtic blood, and on the spiritual with Celtic traditions and
ideals. Nor, again, in discussing these questions of race-character
and its origin must it ever be assumed that the character of a
people can be analysed as one analyses a chemical compound, fixing
once for all its constituent parts and determining its future
behaviour and destiny. Race-character, potent and enduring though it
be, is not a dead thing, cast in an iron mould, and there-after
incapable of change and growth. It is part of the living forces of
the world; it is plastic and vital; it has hidden potencies which a
variety of causes, such as a felicitous cross with a different, but
not too different, stock, or in another sphere-the adoption of a new
religious or social ideal, may at any time unlock and bring into
action.
Of one thing I personally feel convinced-that tho problem of the
ethical, social, and intellectual development of the people
constituting what is called the
[91]
"Celtic Fringe" in Europe ought to be worked for on Celtic lines;
by the maintenance of the Celtic tradition, Celtic literature,
Celtic speech - the encouragement, in short, of all those Celtic
affinities of which this mixed race is now the sole conscious
inheritor and guardian. To these it will respond, by these it can be
deeply moved; nor has the harvest ever failed those who with courage
and faith have driven their plough into this rich field. On the
other hand, if this work is to be done with success it must be done
in no pedantic, narrow, intolerant spirit; there must be no clinging
to the outward forms of the past simply because the Celtic spirit
once found utterance in them. Let it be remembered that in the early
Middle Ages Celts from Ireland were the most notable explorers, the
most notable pioneers of religion, science, and speculative thought
in Europe. [For instance, Pelagius in the fifth century ; Columba,
Columbanus, and St. Gall in the sixth; Fridolin, named Viator,
"the Trayeller," and Fursa in the seventh ; Virgilius (Feargal)
of Salzburg, who had to answer at Rome for teaching the sphericity
of the earth, in the eighth; Dicuil, "the Geographer;" and Johannes
Scotus Erigena - the master mind of his epoch - in the ninth.]
Modern investigators have traced their foot-prints of light over
half the heathen continent, and the schools of Ireland were thronged
with foreign pupils who could get learning nowhere else. The Celtic
spirit was then playing its true part in the world-drama, and a
greater it has never played. The legacy of these men should be
cherished indeed, but not as a museum curiosity; nothing could be
more opposed to their free, bold, adventurous spirit than to let
that legacy petrify in the hands of those who claim the heirship of
their name and fame.
The Mythical Literature
After the sketch contained in this and the foregoing chapter of
the early history of the Celts, and of the forces
[92]
which have moulded it, we shall flow turn to give an account of
the mythical and legendary literature in which their spirit most
truly lives and shines. We shall not here concern ourselves with any
literature which is not Celtic. With all that other peoples have
made - as in the Arthurian legends - of myths and tales originally
Celtic, we have here nothing to do. No one can now tell how much is
Celtic in them and how much is not. And in matters of this kind it
is generally the final recasting that is of real importance and
value. Whatever we give, then, we give without addition or
reshaping. Stories, of course, have often to be summarised, but
there shall be nothing in them that did not come direct from the
Celtic mind, and that does not exist to-day in some variety, Gaelic
or Cymric, of the Celtic tongue.
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THE CELTS