Ireland, from its remote position and immunity from Roman conquest,
remained longer in the possession of the Druidic mysteries than any
other nation of Europe. Besides, the early missionaries adopted no
intolerant measures against the ancient creed; no persecutions are
recorded. The sacred trees were not cut down, nor the sacrificial
stones destroyed; but the holy wells and the antique monuments were
sanctified by association with a saint’s name and history, and from
being objects of pagan idolatry became shrines of prayer and centres of
holy worship, where enlightened men preached the new gospel of light,
purity, and love to an awe-struck, wondering multitude.
To this tolerant policy, as Mr. Windell, the learned antiquary,
remarks, may be attributed the strong endurance of Druidic
superstitions and usages in Ireland. Much also is due to the peculiar
and truly Oriental tenacity with which the Irish at all times have
clung to the customs and traditions of their forefathers. The belief in
a fairy race ever present amongst them and around them, is one of these
ineffaceable superstitions which the people still hold with a faith as
fervent as those of the first Aryan tribes who wandered westward from
the mystic East, where all creeds, symbols, and myths had their origin.
Many other broken fragments of the early ritual of the world can also
still be traced in the popular superstitions and usages of the people.
The sun and moon with the mysterious powers of nature were the first
gods of humanity. Astarte, Ashtaroth, and Isis were all the same
moon-goddess under different names, and all were represented by the
symbol of the horned cow. The Egyptians typified the sun and moon,
Osiris and Isis, as the ox and the cow; and these symbols were still
used at the Irish wake ceremonial until very recently: for the Druids
also worshipped the sun and moon and the winds, and venerated trees,
fountains, rivers, and pillar stones, like their Persian ancestry. But
the Irish considered the east wind demoniacal, the Druidic wind of
accursed power. They called it “The Red Wind,” “A wind that blasts the
trees and withers men is that Red Wind,” according to a bard.
The Hindus had their triad of Brahmȃ, Vishnu, and Siva, representing
the sun at morning, noon, and evening; so the Irish Druids had their
triad of Baal, Budh, and Grian, and they called the May festival _Lá
Budha na Baal tinne_ (the day of Buddha of the Baal fires). Chrishna
was another Hindu name for the sun, and the Irish had Crias, a name for
the sun likewise.
The Hindus had their cattle, or cow festival in spring, when they
walked round the animals with great ceremony, always going westward,
while they flung garlands on their horns. So in Ireland there was also
a procession, when the cows were decorated with vervain and the rowan,
and were sprinkled with the _Sgaith-an-Tobar_ (the purity of the well),
that is, the first water drawn from a sacred well after midnight on
May Eve. This was considered an effective antidote to witchcraft, and
whoever succeeded in being first at the well, cast into it a tuft of
grass, called _Cuisheag grass_, to show that the _Sgaith-an-Tobar_ had
been abstracted. So also the Hindus esteem the _Cusha grass_ as sacred,
and cast it into their wells for a like purpose. The ceremonial of
wreathing the horns of the cows was in honour of the moon, the wife
of the Sun-god, whose emblem, as we know, all through the East, as in
Ireland, was the horned cow.
Many and strange, indeed, are the analogies between the practices of
the Egyptians, Hindus, Persians, and the Irish; and the legend may,
after all, have some truth in it which brings the first Colonists of
Ireland from Egypt, and makes the first Queen of Erin a daughter of
Pharaoh. The ancient war-cry of the Irish clans was _Pharrah!_ a word
that has no significance in the Irish language, but which is supposed
by some antiquarians to be the same as _Phi-Ra_, the sun—the regal
title of the Egyptian kings, by which they were invoked by the warriors
as they rushed into battle.
The ancient funeral ceremonies of Egypt can be still seen and studied
at the wake of an Irish peasant; especially in that singular symbol,
when a man and a woman appeared, one bearing the head of an ox, the
other that of a cow at the funeral games; a custom which has now lost
all its meaning, but which originally, no doubt, represented Isis and
Osiris waiting to receive the soul of the dead.
The Persians held that fire and water were the most sacred of all
things and so did the Irish; hence their reverence for the waters
of purification at the holy wells. And as the heathen passed their
children and cattle through the fire to Moloch, so the Irish performed
the same rite at the Baal festival, when the young men leaped through
the flames, and the cattle were driven through the hot embers. Fire was
held to be the visible symbol of the invisible God, endowed with mystic
cleansing powers, and the ascending flame was thought to be a divine
spirit dwelling in the substance ignited. For this reason the Irish
made a circle of fire round their children and their cattle to guard
them from evil, holding the belief that no evil spirit could pass this
special emblem of divinity.
But even in matters less divine there was a similarity between the
Persian and Irish usages. The Persian Magi made a considerable revenue
from the sacred fire; for each devotee paid a silver coin for the ember
carried away from the holy temple, to light the home fire on the day
of the Sun-festival. And fire was also a source of wealth to the Druid
priests; each person being obliged to buy it from them on the great day
of Baal. Therefore it was a sin to give away fire on that day; and the
habit of borrowing it to light the home fire was denounced as fatal and
unlucky. The true reason being that to borrow the sacred element was
to injure the priestly revenue. Yet this ancient ordinance is still
religiously observed in Ireland; and even to this day no peasant would
venture to give away fire or milk on May Day, for fear of the worst
consequences to the giver; while any one who came to borrow a lighted
brand would be looked on as an emissary of Satan.
The sacred fire of Tara (_Tamhair-na-Righ_, Tara of the Kings) was only
lit every three years, and then with great ceremony. The sun’s rays
were concentrated by means of a brazen lens, on some pieces of dried
wood, and from this alone were all the sacred fires in Ireland kindled
in the holy places.
At the present time, if a peasant has to light a fire in the house on
May morning, which does not often happen, as the custom is to keep the
fire burning all night, a lighted sod taken from the priest’s house is
esteemed of great virtue and sacredness, just as in old time a lighted
brand from the altar of Baal was used to light the domestic fire.
The sacred fire was also obtained from the friction of wood, or the
striking of stones; and it was supposed that the spirits of fire dwelt
in these objects, and when the priest invoked them to appear, they
brought good luck to the household for the coming year; but if invoked
by other hands on that special day their influence was malific.
The migration of races can be clearly traced by their superstitions.
The oldest seem to have come from Persia and Egypt; while mutilated,
though still authentic portions of the old-world ritual can still be
found all along the Mediterranean, marking the westward progress of the
primitive nations, till the last wave found a resting-place on our own
far-distant shores, washed by the waters of the Atlantic.
Assyria was the teacher of Egypt; Egypt of Greece; and Greece of
Europe; and little seems to have been lost during the progress of sixty
centuries. The old myths still remain at the base of all thought and
all creeds; broken fragments of the primal faith; shadowy traditions of
some great human life that once was real and actual, or of some great
event that changed the destiny of nations, and the echo of which still
vibrates through the legends, the songs, the poetry, and the usages of
every people on the face of the earth.
Persia, Egypt, India, the Teuton, and the Celt, have all the
same primal ideas in their mythology, and the same instincts of
superstition; and the signs to which past ages have given a mystic
meaning still come to us laden with a fateful significance, even in
this advanced era of culture and the triumph of reason.
We still cannot help believing that prophecies come in the night,
for the mystical and prophetic nature of dreams is confirmed by the
personal experience of almost every human being; and few are found
brave enough, even amongst the educated classes, lightly to break
through a traditional usage on which all the ages have set the seal of
good or ill luck.
Superstition, or the belief in unseen, mysterious, spiritual
influences, is an instinct of human nature. A vague, shadowy, formless
belief, certainly, yet ineradicable. We feel that our dual humanity,
the material as well as the psychical, holds some strange and mystic
relation with an unseen spiritual world, though we cannot define the
limits, nor bring it under a law.
Before the written word existed, the people strove to express their
creed and history in symbols. Divine nations, like the Greeks, made the
symbols beautiful, and these the uncultured tribes may afterwards have
distorted into grotesque and rude imitations; but the same idea can
be traced through all forms by which humanity has tried to represent
history, nature, and God.
And the old Pagan customs of the early world seem to have an enduring
vitality, and to have become fixed, even in the usages of the
enlightened nineteenth century. The Persian Magi and the Druid priest
exacted a tribute of the firstlings of the flock as a burnt-offering
to the Sun-god on the day of his festival; so in modern times, we
sacrifice a lamb at Easter and an ox at Christmas, retaining the
pagan rite while we honour the Christian legend. The Christmas-tree
is still lighted to guide the Sun-god back to life; and the spotted
cake, anciently made in his honour, of corn and fruit, still finds its
place on our tables, as the plum pudding of civilization, even as its
primitive prototype was laid on the sacred altars of the Persians as an
offering of gratitude to the Lord of Light and Life.
The widespread range of the same traditional customs and superstitions
amongst all peoples and through every age is a most interesting study,
as showing the primitive unity of the human race and the subsequent
divergence of the nations, even as recorded in the Biblical narrative;
but it would be endless to follow the lines of affinity that run
through all the creeds, legends, usages and superstitions of the world.
Thus the Algonquil Indians, according to Mr. Leland, held the ash-tree
and the elm as sacred and mystical, because these trees were made
human. Of the ash was made man, of the elm, woman.
So in the Edda, we read of the mighty ash-tree whose summit reaches
to heaven, and whose roots go down to hell. Two fountains sprang from
beneath it—one the knowledge of all that is; the other of all that
shall be. And out of the wood man was created.
The Irish also hold the ash-tree as all-powerful against witchcraft;
therefore branches of it were wreathed rounds the horns of the cattle,
and round the child’s cradle to keep off evil influence; while in all
their weird tales of the fairy dances with the dead, the mortals drawn
into their company are infallibly safe if they get possession of a
branch of the ash-tree, and hold it safely till out of reach of the
evil spell.
The alder is another of the mystical trees of Ireland, held sacred, as
in Persia, on account of its possessing strange mysterious properties
and powers to avert evil; and the hawthorn likewise was sacred to the
Irish fairies, therefore a libation of milk was poured over the roots
on May Day, as the Hindus poured milk on the earth round the sacred
tree as an offering to the manes of the dead.
In the Transylvanian legends and superstitions, of which Madame Gerard
has recently given an interesting record, many will be found identical
with the Irish; such as these—Friday is the most unlucky day of all
the week; evil spirits are strongest between sunset and midnight; it
is ill-luck to have your path crossed by a hare; on entering a strange
house sit down a moment, or a death will happen; spitting is at all
times most efficacious against the influence of the devil; an infant’s
nails should be bitten, not cut; never rock an empty cradle; the robin
and the swallow bring luck; never kill a spider; the crow and a black
hen are ominous of evil. The dead are only in a trance; they hear
everything but can make no sign. The Irish also believe that the dead
are allowed at certain times to visit their living kindred. A whirlwind
denotes that a devil is dancing with a witch; so the Irish believe that
the fairies are rushing by in the whirlwind intent on carrying off some
mortal victim to the fairy mansions; and the only help is to fling
clay at the passing wind, when the fairies will be obliged to drop the
mortal child, or the beautiful young girl they have abducted.
But the Roumanians are a mixed race—Greek, Slav, Teuton, Gypsey—and
many of their superstitions are dark and gloomy, especially those
relating to vampires, wolves, and terrible demons, evil spirits, and
fearful witches. The Irish legends rarely deal with anything terrible
or revolting. They circle, in general, round the mythus of the fairy, a
bright and beautiful creation, only living for pleasure, music, and the
dance, and rarely malignant or ill-natured, except when their dancing
grounds are interfered with, or when they are not treated with proper
generous consideration in the matter of wine.
The strange dance practised at Midsummer in Ireland round the Baal
fires can clearly be traced from the East to Erin; and in its origin
was evidently a religious symbol and rite. The Greeks practised it from
the most ancient times. It was called the Pyrrhic dance—from _pur_
fire—and simulated the windings of a serpent.
The _Syrtos_, the great national dance of the Ægean Islands, so well
described by Mr. Bent in his interesting book on the Cyclades, also
resembles the winding of a serpent. The dancers hold hands and circle
round in tortuous curves precisely as in Ireland, where the line of
dancers with joined hands, always moving from east to west, extends
sometimes for a mile in length. It was probably a mystic dance symbolic
of the path of the sun, though the esoteric meaning has now been
entirely lost; part of the primal range of ideas out of which man first
formed a religion and ritual of worship.
Many other practices and superstitions of the Greek islanders strongly
resemble the Irish. The Nereids of the Ægean play the part of the Irish
fairies, and are as capricious though often more malignant. If a child
grows wan and weak the Nereids have struck it; and it is laid naked for
a night on the altar steps to test the truth of the suspicion. If the
poor child dies under the trial, then it certainly was bewitched by the
evil spirits, and the parents are well content to be rid of the unholy
thing.
The funeral wail over the dead also closely resembles the Irish, when
the hired mourning women sit round the corpse, tear their hair, beat
their breast and rock to and fro, intoning in a monotone chant the
praises of the deceased, the cries at times rising to a scream, in a
frenzy of grief and despair.
The islanders likewise use many charms and incantations like the Irish,
while the old women amongst them display wonderful knowledge of the
mystic nature and power of herbs, and are most expert in the cure of
disease. It is indeed remarkable that, amongst all primitive tribes and
nations, women have always shown the highest skill in the treatment of
disease, and have been rightly accounted the best doctors, and the most
learned in mystic medicinal lore.
The Marquis of Lorne, in his graphic and instructive “Canadian
Pictures,” speaks of the wonderful skill of the Indian women, and the
remarkable cures effected by the squaws through their knowledge of
the varied properties of herbs. The Indians also have a sweating bath
for the sick, such as was used by the ancient Irish. A bath is made
by stones covered over with branches; hot water is then poured on the
stones, and the patient crouches over the heated vapour evolved until
a violent perspiration is produced, which carries off the disease,
or the pains in the members, without fail. The sweating bath of the
Irish was made quite on the same principles, and is the most effective
cure known for pains in the bones and feverish disorders. It is still
used in the Western Islands. “The Sweating House,” as it is called, is
made of rough stones with a narrow entrance, through which the patient
creeps on all-fours; when inside, however, he can stand up. A peat fire
is kindled, and divesting himself of all clothing, he undergoes the
process of sweating in a profuse perspiration as he lies on the stone
floor. The place is heated like a baker’s oven, but there is sufficient
ventilation kept up by means of chinks and apertures through the stone
work of the walls.
The cures effected by this process are marvellous. As the people say of
it themselves, “Any disease that has a hold on the bones can’t stand
before it no time at all, at all.”