Another characteristic, to which I would fain attract the reader’s regard,
is the circumstance of their being erected in the vicinity of _water_. At
Glendalough, what a magnificent lake salutes the Tower? In Devenish and at
Killmalloch, is not the same the case? In other parts of the country,
also, we find them similarly located. And even where nature has not been
so lavish of her _inland seas_, yet is water, of some shape, always to be
seen contiguous to our towers.
What use, it will be asked, do I mean to make of this argument? or how
seek support from the accidental propinquity of this element? Remember my
remark upon the article, before, in connection with the Egyptian Pyramids.
Captain Mignan, besides, tells us that a tradition, handed down from time
immemorial, says that “near the foot of the ruin of El Mujellebah,” which
he takes to be that of the Tower of Babel, “is a _well_, invisible to
mortals”; and, as all Eastern heathenism, whence ours was deduced, partook
in some degree of the same usages and properties, I think it very probable
the correspondence will apply in this as well as in other peculiarities;
and the rather as from symptoms of vaults, which have already appeared,
and the hollow sounds, or echoes, which invariably accompany, the
proposition does not come unwarranted, however singly put forth or
without something like argument to recommend its trial.
We know that in Hieropolis, or the “Holy city,” in _Syria_, where a
Temple, with a _Tower_, was erected to _Astarte_, there stood adjacent a
_lake_, where _sacred fishes_ were preserved, in the midst of which was a
stone altar, which was _said_, and really _appeared_, to float; whither
numbers of persons used to swim every day to perform their devotions.
Under this temple they showed the cleft where it was said the waters
drained off after Deucalion’s flood, and this tradition brought on the
extraordinary ceremony now about to be narrated, something similar to
which our ancestors must formerly have practised _here_.
“I have,” says Lucian,[196] “myself seen this chasm, and it is a very
small one, under the temple. Whether it was formerly larger and since
lessened I cannot tell, but that which I have seen is small. In
commemoration of this history they act in this manner: twice in every year
water is brought from the sea to the temple, and not by the priests only,
_but by all Syria_ and Arabia. Many come from the Euphrates to the sea,
and all carry water, which they first pour out in the temple, and
afterwards it sinks into the chasm, which though small, receives a
prodigious quantity of water, and when they do so, they say, Deucalion
instituted the ceremony as a memorial of the calamity above named, and of
his deliverance from it.”
Twice a year a man went up to the top of the Priap, and there remained
seven days. His mode of getting up was thus:--He surrounded _it_ and
_himself_ with a chain, and ascended by the help of that and certain
pegs, which, stuck out of its sides for the purpose, lifting the chain up
after him at each resting interval--a method of ascent which will be
readily understood by those who have seen men climb up the palm trees of
Egypt and Arabia. Having reached the summit he let down the chain, and by
means thereof drew up all the necessaries in the way of food, and withal
prepared himself a seat, or rather nest on his aërial tabernacle.
[Illustration:
View him now mounted on his sacred tower,
He looks around with conscious sense of power.]
On these occasions crowds used to come with offerings, and the custom was
for each to declare his name to the priests; upon which one below cried it
out to him on the top, who thereupon muttered a prayer, which, in order to
arrest the attention of the congregation, and enliven their devotion, he
_all the while_ accompanied by striking a bell.
One way of their sacrificing was as shocking as it would be otherwise
ridiculous. They crowned victims with garlands, then drove them out of the
temple-court, on one side whereof was an abrupt steep, where falling they
thereby perished. Nay, some tied up their very children in sacks, and then
shoved them down, reproaching them as wild beasts, miserably to perish.
This whole proceeding, only under a mythological garb, was in direct
harmony with the directions given and the practice pursued by God’s own
people. The man ascending to the top of the tower had a parallel in that
declaration of the Lord recorded in Ex. xxiv. 1, 2, 3, viz.: “And he said
unto Moses, come up unto the Lord, thou, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and
seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship ye afar off. And Moses alone
shall come near the Lord; but they shall not come nigh, neither shall the
people go up with him. And Moses came and told the people all the words of
the Lord, and all the judgments; and all the people answered with one
voice, and said, ‘All the words which the Lord hath said, will we
do.’”[197]
His staying there seven days corresponded with Lev. viii. 33, 34, 35: “And
ye shall not go out of the door of the tabernacle of the congregation in
seven days, until the days of your consecration be at an end: for seven
days shall ye consecrate you. As he hath done this day, so the Lord hath
commanded to do, to make an atonement for you. Therefore shall ye abide
at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation day and night seven
days, and keep the charge of the Lord, that ye die not; for so I am
commanded.” And again, Ezek. xliii. 25: “Seven days shalt thou prepare
every day a goat for a sin-offering: they shall also prepare a young
bullock and a ram out of the flock, without blemish. Seven days shall they
purge the altar, and purify it; and they shall consecrate themselves.”
The enrolment of their names was also sanctioned by Divine command, as Ex.
xxviii. 29: “And Aaron shall bear the names of the children of Israel in
the breastplate of judgment upon his heart, when he goeth in unto the holy
place, for a memorial before the Lord continually.” Whilst the ringing of
the bell is particularly enforced by a triple repetition, Ex. xxviii. 33,
34: “And beneath upon the hem of it thou shalt make _pomegranates_ of
blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, round about the hem thereof; and
_bells_ of gold between them round about. A golden _bell_ and a
_pomegranate_, a golden _bell_ and a _pomegranate_, upon the hem of the
robe round about.”
This last-cited text is of the most inconceivable advantage in the
development of the subject which we thus pursue. The most superficial must
have noticed how that, in the tracing of this analogy between the
ceremonies of the Gentiles and the Hebrews, I have studiously guarded
against its appearing an imitation, on the part of the former, from the
ritual of the latter. The priority in point of date will certainly appear
on the Gentile side. Meanwhile, ere other links of conformity crowd upon
our path, it will be well to take heed to the frequency of the word
_pomegranate_, as occurring in the Scriptures. It has already appeared
that one of the names of the _Syrian goddess_, in whose honour the
Hieropolitan Priaps were erected, was _Rimmon_. This epithet you have had
before expounded as expressive of that _fruit_; and as we see that, both
in the Jewish and the pagan formulæ, it occupied so prominent a
position,[198] it must occasion you no surprise if, by and by, I discover
it amongst the mouldings[199] of our consecrated and venerable Round
Towers.
As to their devotions at the lake, and the propinquity of the lake itself
to the temple, it is in direct similitude to the “molten sea,” mentioned 1
Kings vii. 23, 24, 25, 26, “the brim whereof was wrought like the brim of
a _cup, with flowers_ of lilies,” etc.;--while the cruel and shocking
sacrifice with which the whole terminated, was the exact respondent of the
Mosaical scapegoat.[200]
Let it not be wondered at, therefore, if on the summit of one of our Round
Towers are to be found the traces of the apparatus for a bell. For
independently of what Walsh and others inform us of, viz. that the
Irish--enjoying tranquillity and repose after the expulsion of the Ostmen,
and so recalling their attention to the cultivation of Christianity after
their release from that scourge--converted those structures of exploded
paganism to the only obvious use to which they could then be made
subservient, namely, that of _belfries_, for the summoning together of the
people to public worship, some remnants of which it is but natural may yet
remain--independently, I say, of this, have I not here shown that _bells_
entered essentially into the code of the pagan ceremonial, from whence it
is more than probable, nay, a downright certainty, that the first
Christian ecclesiastics adopted the use, as the Mohammedans, in their
minarets, did so likewise.[201]
The instance to which I have referred in an early part of this volume, of
astonishment created in the English minds, on their first beholding one of
those implements, was that of Gildas, who, having finished his education
at Armagh, and returned to Britain about the year 508, was engaged by
Cadoc, abbot of the church of Mancarban, to superintend the studies of his
pupils during his absence for a twelvemonth. Having done so most
successfully, and without accepting of any remuneration for his labour, we
find, in an ancient life of Cadoc, in the Tinmouth MS., Lambeth observes
that “Cadoc, returning to his monastery, found Gildas a noble scholar,
with a very beautiful _little bell_, which he brought with him from
Ireland.”
Those bells, then, we may be sure, appertained exclusively to the service
of the Round Towers.[202] Having none of these in England, of course they
had no bells, and hence the surprise manifested on the above occasion. In
Ireland, too, they must have been, now, comparatively obsolete.[203] And
hence we find, according to Primate Usher, that their (restored) use was
not general in the _churches_ here before the latter end of the seventh
century; while another writer assures us that it was not until the ninth
century that large ones were invented for the purpose of suspension.[204]
The shape of the Irish _pagan_ bells was precisely the same as of those
in the present day. They were called crotals, or bell-cymbals. Oblong
_square_ ones, some of bell-metal, some of iron, from twelve inches to
eighteen inches high, with a handle to sound them by, have been also dug
up in our various bogs. Of these the museum of the Dublin Society
possesses one; another is preserved by the Moira family. The writer of
this article not having seen either of these relics, is rather diffident
in the conjecture which he is now about to express; but from the account
received of that in the possession of the house of Moira, he feels
strongly disposed to identify its origin with the worship of the
above-mentioned deity, Astarte. Lucian expressly tells us that under the
veil of this goddess was really meant the _moon_; and that “the host of
heaven,”--including sun, moon, and stars, and typifying the fulgor of that
Omniscient germ whence they all had emanated,--constituted the object of
the ancient Irish adoration, no one, I believe, can longer question. Now,
in Hall’s _Tour through Ireland_, 1813, I see this bell described as
having “a hole in one of its sides like a quarterly moon”; and not knowing
whether this is the effect of accident or corrosion, or a symbolical
property in its original shape, I trust I shall not be deemed fanciful if
I ascribe it as a reference to that planet in whose vain solemnities it
had been primarily exercised.
Whether this exposition prove eccentrical or otherwise, and, by
inspection, it can be readily ascertained, I cannot presume to determine;
nor indeed does it value much.[205] With one thing, however, I am
gratified, that in Archer’s _Travels in Upper India_, published, as before
observed, within the last few weeks, I find that distinguished soldier and
shrewd observer, delineate a piece of architecture similar in all
particulars to this Syrian Priap--the allusion to which has recalled me to
ring this second chime upon the bells--and as the notice is of value, I
shall give it in his express words: “A curious structure,” says he, “is at
the bottom of the hill (Dutteah). It consists of five _conical pillars_,
with green painted tops, in a line from east to west; the two larger ones
in the centre: the _pillars_ have _tiles stuck in them resembling steps_.
We could not learn what was its meaning or use. The village is wholly
_Jain_, and is named Serrowlee.”
It is not difficult to understand why no information could be obtained,
from the _present_ inhabitants, as to the object of those edifices. Their
remote _antiquity_ is a sufficient reply. But I flatter myself that the
reader, who has accompanied me from the outset of this antiquarian voyage,
can now supply the defect, and explain that _they were a series of Round
Towers_, or _Phalli, erected by the aboriginal Buddhists_, of whom the
_Jaina_ are only the wretched remains; and that those “tiles” which are
“stuck in them, resembling steps,” _were for the purpose of ascending by
the aid of a hoop_, such as we have shown at Hieropolis. The projecting
stones in _our_ Priaps, or the cavities that appear after their removal,
are thus also accounted for.