It is a remarkable fact that, in ancient Ireland, we find distinct traces
of a state, founded on the same crystallized artificial system that has
been found at the basis of the most ancient civilizations of the world.
“There is really no authentic history of Ireland before the introduction
of Christianity into the country, but there are some genuine traditions
which appear based upon truth, because they accord with and explain the
peculiar customs which were found to prevail in the island at the time of
the English invasion. These traditions declare, that the original Celtic
inhabitants were subdued by an Asiatic colony, or at least by the
descendants of some Eastern people at a very remote period; they aver that
the conquerors were as inferior to the original inhabitants in numbers as
they were superior in military discipline and the arts of social life;
they describe the conquest as a work of time and trouble and assert that,
after its completion, an hereditary monarchy and hereditary aristocracy
were for the first time established in Ireland....”
“At some unknown period Ireland was divided into five kingdoms, Ulster,
Leinster, Connaught, Munster and Meath ... the latter being the property
of the paramount sovereign ...” (W. C. Taylor, History of Ireland, 1837).
John O’Neil cites “the very oldest Irish books, according to which two
brothers, the leaders of the Milesian colonization, divided Ireland into
Northern and Southern kingdom.” Elsewhere he relates how a prince of the
north had been united in marriage to the princess of the south and that
“the mythical Niall-Navi-giallach of the nine treasures had had a Northern
king for father and a Southern princess for mother.” Besides this
subdivision which strikingly recalls the ancient Egyptian, O’Neil brings
out the remarkable fact that definite positions in relation to each other
and the cardinal points were assigned to the five Irish kings and tells us
that “we have a fuller and later division when, in the central hall, the
miodh-chuarta of Tara, the king of Erinn sat in the centre, with his face
to the East, the king of Ulster being at his North, the king of Munster at
his South, while the king of Leinster sat opposite to him and the king of
Connaught behind him” (_op. cit._ I, 463).
I refer the reader to his extremely interesting comparison (I, p. 369) of
ancient Ireland being “an Irish instance of a Chinese ‘Middle Kingdom,’ ”
and to the data given in connection with the great hall of Tara, which was
called Meath or Mid-court, Miodchuarta (pronounced Micôrta), and the
Northern hill of Miodhchaoinn (or Midkena), guarded by Miodhchaoinn and
his three sons, the guardians of the hill being thus four in all. O’Neil
also refers to “the great idol or castrum of Kilair ... which was
surrounded by twelve smaller ones and was called the stone and umbilicus
of Hibernia and, as if placed in the midst and middle of the land, ‘medio
et meditullio’....” “Meath itself, where this Kilair navel stood, was
anciently the central one of the five divisions of Ireland and is called
Media by Giraldus Cambrensis, ... and connected with the words
medi-tullium and medi-tullus.” The legend states that “the castrum of
Kilair and the stones around it were transported by Merlin to Stonehenge
and ‘set up in the same order.’ ”(130) “At Mag Slecht was the chief idol
of Ireland, called Cenn Craich (Mound-chief) covered with gold and silver,
and twelve other idols about it, covered with brass” (O’Neil, p. 273).
“The five Irish kingdoms were again subdivided into several principalities
inhabited by distinct ‘septs,’ each ruled by its own carfinny or
chieftain. The obedience of these local rulers or toparchs to the
provincial sovereign was regulated, like his to the general monarch, by
the powers that he possessed for enforcing authority.... The succession to
every degree of sovereignty was regulated by the law of tanistry, which
limited heredity right to the family but not to the individual.... Each
district was deemed the common property of the entire sept; but the
distribution of the several shares was entrusted to the toparch.... The
lower orders were divided into freemen and hetages, or as they were called
by the Normans, villanis. The former had the privilege of choosing their
tribe; the latter were bound to the soil and transferred with it in any
grant or deed of sale.”
Ruined groups of buildings, consisting of seven sanctuaries or churches,
situated around a round, high tower, usually with four windows near the
top, opening to the cardinal points, exist in various parts of Ireland,
the Seven Churches in County Wicklow being the most famous example. The
cosmical character of the round towers has been set forth by John O’Neil,
to whose work I refer the reader. According to my views the groups testify
to the establishment, at one time, of several septarchies in Ireland, the
geographical centres of which, as in Assyria and elsewhere, were marked in
this case by the cosmical round tower, figuring the axis or spindle,
around which each sept built its council house, for religious and
political assemblies.(131) In connection with such it is interesting to
read what Cæsar says of the priests and judges of Gaul, which was
organized into seven provinces, as late as at the time of Constantine:
“These Druids held a meeting at a certain time of the year in a
consecrated place in the country of the Carnutes [modern Chartres] which
country is considered to be in the centre of all Gaul.” It is well known
that anterior to the Roman Conquest there existed in Britain a
long-established, seven-fold state, governed by seven kings, compared by
John Speed (1630) to seven crowned pillars.
The kingdom of Mercia included the counties in the centre of the kingdom
and is said to have been founded by Crida or Creoda. The central and chief
ruler of Britain was styled Bretwalda. It is well known that Stonehenge,
which is associated in folk-lore with the number seven, is situated in the
heart of the plain region of England and is supposed to have been the seat
of central religion and government.(132)
It is moreover acknowledged by Knight that the ancient Britons were a
people who evidently had some great principle of association in their
religion as in their industry. The familiar fact, that at one period the
ancient Kent, Cantium, was governed by four kings, also styled “the four
princes of Cantii,” furnishes an indication that quadruplicate division
was also known to the ancient Britons.
A few instructive facts concerning Welsh Druidism may be appropriately
cited here.
Morien has pointed out that the Druidic Celi Ced corresponds to Amen-Ra,
the Egyptian Hidden Sun. According to Welsh system the universe was born
of Celi-Ced, a dual power, Celi being the masculine and Ced the feminine
principle. Ceridwen is termed the Welsh Isis, and her name translated as
“the producing woman.” Celi is invariably represented as _hidden_, the
three Hus representing him in manifestation.
“The three Hus are: Hu cylch y Cengant=the Hu of the circle of infinitude;
Hu cylch y Sidydd=the Hu of the circle of the zodiac and Hu yn Nghnawd=Hu
incarnate. The latter was incarnate in the Arch Druid. He, standing in the
middle of the Gorsedd circle, where the triple life lines met, implied by
his action that the three emanations which had their root in the dual
Ced-Celi, focussed themselves in him. He stood facing the east where the
sun rises” (_cf._ the ceremonial position assumed by the king of Erin in
council and that of the Roman augur on drawing his templum). “The name for
the physical sun was Huan, translated as ‘the abode of divinity.’ ” “The
Druidic bards of N. Wales worshipped Beli.”(133)
In Welsh legend a god named Peredur Paladye Hir (of the long spear or pal)
is associated with his brother, both sons of Eliffer, one of the _thirteen
princes of the north_. Peredur is one of seven brothers; there were seven
profound mysteries of Druidism, _i. e._ seven divisions of the
reverberations of the Word, emanating from Ced, and the seven Tattaras or
seven rays.