*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 Cæsar, 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 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 Cæsar 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,(30) the builders of dolmens, cromlechs, and chambered tumuli, of
which more than three 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 Mycenæ, 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*
[Dolmen at Proleek, Ireland]
Dolmen at Proleek, Ireland
_(After Borlase)_
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 with the dolmen) is properly a circular arrangement of
standing stones, often with a dolmen in their midst. It is believed that
most 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*
[Prehistoric Tumulus at New Grange]
Prehistoric Tumulus at New Grange
Photograph by R. Welch, Belfast
The language originally spoken by this people can only be conjectured by
the traces of it left in that of their conquerors, the Celts.(31) But a
map of the distribution or their monuments irresistibly suggests the idea
that their builders were of North African origin; that they were not at
first accustomed to traverse the sea for any great distance; that they
migrated westwards 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.(32) 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 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,(33) 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.
*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 Galatæ of the Greeks and the Galli and Belgæ 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 pœne 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 100 B.C.,and about two hundred years earlier
Hecatæus 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).(34) 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.
[Stone Alignments at Kermaris, Carnac]
Stone Alignments at Kermaris, Carnac
Arthur G. Bell
There were three peoples, said Cæsar, inhabiting Gaul when his conquest
began; “they differ from each other in language, in customs, and in laws.”
These people he named respectively the Belgæ, the Celtæ, and the Aquitani.
He locates them roughly, the Belgæ in the north and east, the Celtæ in the
middle, and the Aquitani in the west and south. The Belgæ are the Galatæ
of Bertrand, the Celtæ 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 Cæsar 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 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 daylight 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.”
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 doubtless, 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.(35) 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
phenomenon, 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.(36)
All the authorities agree in this. 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(37) and
other monuments, as I have said in a former book. In fact, it was not
until the year 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, for 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 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.(38) 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,(39) 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 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 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.
[Stones from Brittany sculptured with Footprints, Axes, “Finger-markings,”
&c.]
Stones from Brittany sculptured with Footprints, Axes, “Finger-markings,”
&c.
_(Sergi)_
*Holed Stones*
[Dolmen at Trie, France]
Dolmen at Trie, France
_(After Gailhabaud)_
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 with child-bearing, &c. Here we are
doubtless to interpret the emblem as a symbol of sex.
[Dolmens in the Deccan, India]
Dolmens in the Deccan, India
_(After Meadows-Taylor)_
*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.(40) No superstition has proved more enduring. In
A.D. 452 we find the Synod of Arles 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(41)
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, 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.
[Stone-worship at Locronan, Brittany]
Stone-worship at Locronan, Brittany
*Cup-and-Ring Markings*
[Cup-and-ring Markings from Scotland]
Cup-and-ring Markings from Scotland
(_After Sir J. Simpson_)
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 India, where
they are called _mahadéos_.(42) 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.
[Varieties of Cup-and-ring Markings]
Varieties of Cup-and-ring Markings
*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,(43) 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.(44) It appears from the
outside like a large mound, or knoll, now overgrown with bushes. It
measures about 280 feet across, 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 be 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 not traces of any burial now remains.
*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, 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 walls anyhow
and anywhere.(45) 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.(46) 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.
[Entrance to Tumulus at New Grange]
Entrance to Tumulus at New Grange
Photograph by R. Welch, Belfast
*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. It is
noticeable that just above it is a small circle, forming, apparently, part
of the design. Another example occurs at Dowth.
[Solar Ship (with Sail?) from New Grange, Ireland]
Solar Ship (with Sail?) from New Grange, Ireland
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,(47) 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(48) 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 identifiy 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.
In the days of the megalithic folk a sepulchral monument, the very focus
of religious ideas, would hardly have 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?
[Solar Ship from Loc mariaker, Brittany]
Solar Ship from Loc mariaker, Brittany
(_After Ferguson_)
[Solar Ship from Hallande, Sweden]
Solar Ship from Hallande, Sweden
(_After Montelius_)
*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 very common occurrence in the
sepulchral art of Egypt. It is connected with the worship of Rā, 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, Rā, is sometimes
represented by a disk, sometimes 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 Rā
pouring down upon the boat and its occupants. Now, in one of the Swedish
rock-carvings of ships at Backa, Bohuslän, 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
[Egyptian Solar Bark, XXII Dynasty]
Egyptian Solar Bark, XXII Dynasty
(_British Museum_)
[Egyptian Solar Bark, with god Khnemu and attendant deities]
Egyptian Solar Bark, with god Khnemu and attendant deities
(_British Museum_)
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
souls, and sometimes the figure of a single corpse on a bier. The
megalithic carvings also sometimes show the solar emblem and sometimes
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 foregoing
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
Cæsar downwards, has been associated with Celtic Druidism, and this
doctrine was distinctively Egyptian.
[Egyptian Bark, with figure of Rā holding an Ankh, enclosed in Solar Disk.
XIX Dynasty]
Egyptian Bark, with figure of Rā holding an _Ankh_, enclosed in Solar
Disk. XIX Dynasty
(_British Museum_)
*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.”(49) 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(50) 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.
*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,(51) it is found sculptured on dolmens in
Brittany,(52) and it occurs in rock-carvings in Scandinavia.(53) In
Ireland it passes for the footprints of St. Patrick or St. Columba.
Strangest of all, it is found unmistakably in Mexico.(54) Tyler, in his
“Primitive Culture” (ii. p. 197) 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 Two Feet Symbol]
The Two Feet Symbol
*The *_Ankh_* on Megalithic Carvings*
There is very strong evidence of the connexion of the Megalithic People
with North Africa. Thus, as 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.(55) 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.”(56)
[The Ankh]
The _Ankh_
*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.(57)
*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 Europe the most beautiful and most popular of all its religious
symbols, that of the divine mother and child(58). 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 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:
“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.”(59)
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.(60) 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.(61)
*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 Cæsar: “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 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.(62) 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.(63) Caesar affirms this
distinctly, and declares 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.(64) 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 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,”(65)
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_. Cæsar 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
splendid palaces, are but their ministers, and the servants of their
thought.”(66)
*Cæsar on the Druidic Culture*
The religious, philosophic, and scientific culture superintended by the
Druids is spoken of by Cæsar 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 Cæsar 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
otherwise 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!”(67)
*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.(68) Manetho, indeed, the
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, Æsus, Teutates, and Taranus(69); and it is noteworthy that in
these names we seem to be in presence of a true Celtic, _i.e._, Aryan,
tradition. Thus Æsus 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, Æsun to the Umbrians, Asa (Divine Being) to the
Scandinavians. Teutates comes from a Celtic root meaning “valiant”,
“warlike”, and indicates 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(70). Apollo was regarded as the
deity of medicine and healing, Minerva was the initiator of arts and
crafts, Jupiter governed the sky, and Mars presided over war. Cæsar 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 Cæsar, 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 Cæsar, they began their reckoning of the twenty-four hours of the day
with the oncoming of night.(71) The name of this deity is not given.
D’Arbois de Jubainville considers that, together with Æsus, 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.
*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 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, Æsus, 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,(72) 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.
*The Celts of To-day*
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 place.
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 thereafter 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 the problem of the ethical,
social, and intellectual development of the people constituting what is
called the “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.(73) Modern investigators have traced their footprints
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 or 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 which have moulded it, we shall
now 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.