PRIMITIVE NATURE WORSHIP.
In early thought everything was a person, in the loose meaning then
possessed by personality, and many such "persons" were worshipped--
earth, sun, moon, sea, wind, etc. This led later to more complete
personification, and the sun or earth divinity or spirit was more or
less separated from the sun or earth themselves. Some Celtic divinities
were thus evolved, but there still continued a veneration of the objects
of nature in themselves, as well as a cult of nature spirits or
secondary divinities who peopled every part of nature. "Nor will I call
out upon the mountains, fountains, or hills, or upon the rivers, which
are now subservient to the use of man, but once were an abomination and
destruction to them, and to which the blind people paid divine honours,"
cries Gildas.[556] This was the true cult of the folk, the "blind
people," even when the greater gods were organised, and it has survived
with modifications in out-of-the-way places, in spite of the coming of
Christianity.
S. Kentigern rebuked the Cambrians for worshipping the elements, which
God made for man's use.[557] The question of the daughters of Loegaire
also throws much light on Celtic nature worship. "Has your god sons or
daughters?... Have many fostered his sons? Are his daughters dear and
beautiful to men? Is he in heaven or on earth, in the sea, in the
rivers, in the mountains, in the valleys?"[558] The words suggest a
belief in divine beings filling heaven, earth, sea, air, hills, glens,
lochs, and rivers, and following human customs. A naïve faith, full of
beauty and poetry, even if it had its dark and grim aspects! These
powers or personalities had been invoked from time immemorial, but the
invocations were soon stereotyped into definite formulas. Such a formula
is put into the mouth of Amairgen, the poet of the Milesians, when they
were about to invade Erin, and it may have been a magical invocation of
the powers of nature at the beginning of an undertaking or in times of
danger:
"I invoke the land of Ireland!
Shining, shining sea!
Fertile, fertile mountain!
Wooded vale!
Abundant river, abundant in waters!
Fish abounding lake!
Fish abounding sea!
Fertile earth!
Irruption of fish! Fish there!
Bird under wave! Great fish!
Crab hole! Irruption of fish!
Fish abounding sea!"[559]
A similar formula was spoken after the destruction of Da Derga's Hostel
by MacCecht on his finding water. He bathed in it and sang--
"Cold fountain! Surface of strand ...
Sea of lake, water of Gara, stream of river;
High spring well; cold fountain!"[560]
The goddess Morrigan, after the defeat of the Fomorians, invokes the
powers of nature and proclaims the victory to "the royal mountains of
Ireland, to its chief waters, and its river mouths."[561] It was also
customary to take oaths by the elements--heaven, earth, sun, fire, moon,
sea, land, day, night, etc., and these punished the breaker of the
oath.[562] Even the gods exacted such an oath of each other. Bres swore
by sun, moon, sea, and land, to fulfil the engagement imposed on him by
Lug.[563] The formulæ survived into Christian times, and the faithful
were forbidden to call the sun and moon gods or to swear by them, while
in Breton folk-custom at the present day oaths by sun, moon, or earth,
followed by punishment of the oath-breaker by the moon, are still in
use.[564] These oaths had originated in a time when the elements
themselves were thought to be divine, and similar adjurations were used
by Greeks and Scandinavians.
While the greater objects of nature were worshipped for themselves
alone, the Celts also peopled the earth with spirits, benevolent or
malevolent, of rocks, hills, dales, forests, lakes, and streams,[565]
and while greater divinities of growth had been evolved, they still
believed in lesser spirits of vegetation, of the corn, and of fertility,
connected, however, with these gods. Some of these still survive as
fairies seen in meadows, woodlands, or streams, or as demoniac beings
haunting lonely places. And even now, in French folk-belief, sun, moon,
winds, etc., are regarded as actual personages. Sun and moon are husband
and wife; the winds have wives; they are addressed by personal names and
reverenced.[566] Some spirits may already have had a demoniac aspect in
pagan times. The Tuatha Déa conjured up _meisi_, "spectral bodies that
rise from the ground," against the Milesians, and at their service were
malignant sprites--_urtrochta_, and "forms, spectres, and great queens"
called _guidemain_ (false demons). The Druids also sent forth
mischievous spirits called _siabra_. In the _Táin_ there are references
to _bocânachs_, _banânaichs_, and _geniti-glinni_, "goblins, eldritch
beings, and glen-folk."[567] These are twice called Tuatha Dé Danann,
and this suggests that they were nature-spirits akin to the greater
gods.[568] The _geniti-glinni_ would be spirits haunting glen and
valley. They are friendly to Cúchulainn in the _Táin_, but in the _Feast
of Bricriu_ he and other heroes fight and destroy them.[569] In modern
Irish belief they are demons of the air, perhaps fallen angels.[570]
Much of this is probably pre-Celtic as well as Celtic, but it held its
ground because it was dear to the Celts themselves. They upheld the
aboriginal cults resembling those which, in the lands whence they came,
had been native and local with themselves. Such cults are as old as the
world, and when Christianity expelled the worship of the greater gods,
younger in growth, the ancient nature worship, dowered with immortal
youth,
"bowed low before the blast
In patient deep disdain,"
to rise again in vigour. Preachers, councils, and laws inveighed against
it. The old rites continued to be practised, or survived under a
Christian dress and colouring. They are found in Breton villages, in
Highland glens, in Welsh and Cornish valleys, in Irish townships, and
only the spread of school-board education, with its materialism and
uninviting common sense, is forcing them at last to yield.
The denunciations of these cults throw some light upon them. Offerings
at trees, stones, fountains, and cross-roads, the lighting of fires or
candles there, and vows or incantations addressed to them, are
forbidden, as is also the worship of trees, groves, stones, rivers, and
wells. The sun and moon are not to be called lords. Wizardry, and
divination, and the leapings and dancings, songs and choruses of the
pagans, i.e. their orgiastic cults, are not to be practised.
Tempest-raisers are not to ply their diabolical craft.[571] These
denunciations, of course, were not without their effect, and legend told
how the spirits of nature were heard bewailing the power of the
Christian saints, their mournful cries echoing in wooded hollows,
secluded valleys, and shores of lake and river.[572] Their power, though
limited, was not annihilated, but the secrecy in which the old cults
often continued to be practised gave them a darker colour. They were
identified with the works of the devil, and the spirits of paganism with
dark and grisly demons.[573] This culminated in the mediæval witch
persecutions, for witchcraft was in part the old paganism in a new
guise. Yet even that did not annihilate superstition, which still lives
and flourishes among the folk, though the actual worship of
nature-spirits has now disappeared.
* * * * *
Perhaps the most important object in nature to the early Celts as to
most primitive folk was the moon. The phases of the moon were apparent
before men observed the solstices and equinoxes, and they formed an easy
method of measuring time. The Celtic year was at first lunar--Pliny
speaks of the Celtic method of counting the beginning of months and
years by the moon--and night was supposed to precede day.[574] The
festivals of growth began, not at sunrise, but on the previous evening
with the rising of the moon, and the name _La Lunade_ is still given to
the Midsummer festival in parts of France.[575] At Vallon de la Suille a
wood on the slope where the festival is held is called _Bois de la
Lune_; and in Ireland, where the festival begins on the previous
evening, in the district where an ascent of Cnoc Aine is made, the
position of the moon must be observed. A similar combination of sun and
moon cults is found in an inscription at Lausanne--_To the genius of the
sun and moon._[576]
Possibly sun festivals took the place of those of the moon. Traces of
the connection of the moon with agriculture occur in different regions,
the connection being established through the primitive law of
sympathetic magic. The moon waxes and wanes, therefore it must affect
all processes of growth or decay. Dr. Frazer has cited many instances of
this belief, and has shown that the moon had a priority to the sun in
worship, e.g. in Egypt and Babylon.[577] Sowing is done with a waxing
moon, so that, through sympathy, there may be a large increase. But
harvesting, cutting timber, etc., should be done with a waning moon,
because moisture being caused by a waxing moon, it was necessary to
avoid cutting such things as would spoil by moisture at that time.
Similar beliefs are found among the Celts. Mistletoe and other magical
plants were culled with a waxing moon, probably because their power
would thus be greater. Dr. Johnson noted the fact that the Highlanders
sowed their seed with a waxing moon, in the expectation of a better
harvest. For similar occult reasons, it is thought in Brittany that
conception during a waxing moon produces a male child, during a waning
moon a female, while _accouchements_ at the latter time are dangerous.
Sheep and cows should be killed at the new moon, else their flesh will
shrink, but peats should be cut in the last quarter, otherwise they will
remain moist and give out "a power of smoke."[578]
These ideas take us back to a time when it was held that the moon was
not merely the measurer of time, but had powerful effects on the
processes of growth and decay. Artemis and Diana, moon-goddesses, had
power over all growing things, and as some Celtic goddesses were equated
with Diana, they may have been connected with the moon, more especially
as Gallo-Roman images of Diana have the head adorned with a crescent
moon. In some cases festivals of the moon remained intact, as among the
Celtiberians and other peoples to the north of them, who at the time of
full moon celebrated the festival of a nameless god, dancing all night
before the doors of their houses.[579] The nameless god may have been
the moon, worshipped at the time of her intensest light. Moonlight
dances round a great stone, with singing, on the first day of the year,
occurred in the Highlands in the eighteenth century.[580] Other
survivals of cult are seen in the practices of bowing or baring the head
at new moon, or addressing it with words of adoration or supplication.
In Ireland, Camden found the custom at new moon of saying the Lord's
Prayer with the addition of the words, "Leave us whole and sound as Thou
hast found us." Similar customs exist in Brittany, where girls pray to
the moon to grant them dreams of their future husbands.[581] Like other
races, the Celts thought that eclipses were caused by a monster
attacking the moon, while it could be driven off with cries and shouts.
In 218 B.C. the Celtic allies of Attalus were frightened by an eclipse,
and much later Christian legislation forbade the people to assemble at
an eclipse and shout, _Vince, Luna!_[582] Such a practice was observed
in Ireland in the seventeenth century. At an earlier time, Irish poets
addressed sun and moon as divinities, and they were represented on
altars even in Christian times.[583]
While the Celts believed in sea-gods--Manannan, Morgen, Dylan--the sea
itself was still personified and regarded as divine. It was thought to
be a hostile being, and high tides were met by Celtic warriors, who
advanced against them with sword and spear, often perishing in the
rushing waters rather than retreat. The ancients regarded this as
bravado. M. Jullian sees in it a sacrifice by voluntary suicide; M.
D'Arbois, a tranquil waiting for death and the introduction to another
life.[584] But the passages give the sense of an actual attack on the
waves--living things which men might terrify, and perhaps with this was
combined the belief that no one could die during a rising tide.
Similarly French fishermen threaten to cut a fog in two with a knife,
while the legend of S. Lunaire tells how he threw a knife at a fog, thus
causing its disappearance.[585] Fighting the waves is also referred to
in Irish texts. Thus Tuirbe Trágmar would "hurl a cast of his axe in the
face of the flood-tide, so that he forbade the sea, which then would not
come over the axe." Cúchulainn, in one of his fits of anger, fought the
waves for seven days, and Fionn fought and conquered the Muireartach, a
personification of the wild western sea.[586] On the French coast
fishermen throw harpoons at certain harmful waves called the Three Witch
Waves, thus drawing their blood and causing them to subside.[587] In
some cases human victims may have been offered to the rising waters,
since certain tales speak of a child set floating on the waves, and
this, repeated every seven years, kept them in their place.[588]
The sea had also its beneficent aspects. The shore was "a place of
revelation of science," and the sea sympathised with human griefs. At
the Battle of Ventry "the sea chattered, telling the losses, and the
waves raised a heavy, woeful great moan in wailing them."[589] In other
cases in Ireland, by a spell put on the waves, or by the intuitive
knowledge of the listener, it was revealed that they were wailing for a
death or describing some distant event.[590] In the beautiful song sung
by the wife of Cael, "the wave wails against the shore for his death,"
and in Welsh myth the waves bewailed the death of Dylan, "son of the
wave," and were eager to avenge it. The noise of the waves rushing into
the vale of Conwy were his dying groans.[591] In Ireland the roaring of
the sea was thought to be prophetic of a king's death or the coming of
important news; and there, too, certain great waves were celebrated in
story--Clidna's, Tuaithe's, and Rudhraidhe's.[592] Nine waves, or the
ninth wave, partly because of the sacred nature of the number nine,
partly because of the beneficent character of the waves, had a great
importance. They formed a barrier against invasion, danger, or
pestilence, or they had a healing effect.[593]
The wind was also regarded as a living being whose power was to be
dreaded. It punished King Loegaire for breaking his oath. But it was
also personified as a god Vintius, equated with Pollux and worshipped by
Celtic sailors, or with Mars, the war-god who, in his destructive
aspect, was perhaps regarded as the nearest analogue to a god of stormy
winds.[594] Druids and Celtic priestesses claimed the power of
controlling the winds, as did wizards and witches in later days. This
they did, according to Christian writers, by the aid of demons, perhaps
the old divinities of the air. Bishop Agobard describes how the
_tempestarii_ raised tempests which destroyed the fruits of the earth,
and drew "aerial ships" from Magonia, whither the ships carried these
fruits.[595] Magonia may be the upper air ruled over by a sky god
Magounos or Mogounos, equated with Apollo.[596] The winds may have been
his servants, ruled also by earthly magicians. Like Yahweh, as conceived
by Hebrew poets, he "bringeth the winds out of his treasures," and
"maketh lightnings with rain."
FOOTNOTES:
[556] Gildas ii. 4.
[557] Jocelyn, _Vila Kentig._ c. xxxii.
[558] _Trip. Life_, 315.
[559] _LL_ 12_b_. The translation is from D'Arbois, ii. 250 f; cf.
O'Curry, _MC_ ii. 190.
[560] _RC_ xxii. 400.
[561] _RC_ xii. 109.
[562] Petrie, _Tara_, 34; _RC_ vi. 168; _LU_ 118.
[563] Joyce, _OCR_ 50.
[564] D'Achery, _Spicelegium_, v. 216; Sébillot, i. 16 f., 56, 211.
[565] Gregory of Tours, _Hist._ ii. 10, speaks of the current belief in
the divinity of waters, birds, and beasts.
[566] Sébillot, i. 9, 35, 75, 247, etc.
[567] Joyce, _SH_ ii. 273; Cormac, 87; Stokes, _TIG_ xxxiii., _RC_ xv.
307.
[568] Miss Hull, 170, 187, 193; _IT_ i. 214; Leahy, i. 126.
[569] _IT_ i. 287.
[570] Henderson, _Irish Texts_, ii. 210.
[571] _Capit. Karoli Magni_, i. 62; _Leges Luitprand._ ii. 38; Canon 23,
2nd Coun. of Arles, Hefele, _Councils_, iii. 471; D'Achery, v. 215. Some
of these attacks were made against Teutonic superstitions, but similar
superstitions existed among the Celts.
[572] See Grimm, _Teut. Myth._ ii. 498.
[573] A more tolerant note is heard, e.g., in an Irish text which says
that the spirits which appeared of old were divine ministrants not
demoniacal, while angels helped the ancients because they followed
natural truth. "Cormac's Sword," _IT_ iii. 220-221. Cf. p. 152, _supra_.
[574] Cæsar, vi. 18; Pliny xxii. 14. Pliny speaks of culling mistletoe
on the sixth day of the moon, which is to them the beginning of months
and years (_sexta luna, quae principia_, etc.). This seems to make the
sixth, not the first, day of the moon that from which the calculation
was made. But the meaning is that mistletoe was culled on the sixth day
of the moon, and that the moon was that by which months and years were
measured. _Luna_, not _sexta luna_, is in apposition with _quae_. Traces
of the method of counting by nights or by the moon survive locally in
France, and the usage is frequent in Irish and Welsh literature. See my
article "Calendar" (Celtic) in Hastings' _Encyclop. of Religion and
Ethics_, iii. 78 f.
[575] Delocke, "La Procession dite La Lunade," _RC_ ix. 425.
[576] Monnier, 174, 222; Fitzgerald, _RC_ iv. 189.
[577] Frazer, _Golden Bough_{2}, ii. 154 f.
[578] Pliny, xvi. 45; Johnson, _Journey_, 183; Ramsay, _Scotland in the
Eighteenth Century_, ii. 449; Sébillot, i. 41 f.; MacCulloch, _Misty
Isle of Skye_, 236. In Brittany it is thought that girls may conceive by
the moon's power (_RC_ iii. 452).
[579] Strabo, iii. 4. 16.
[580] Brand, _s.v._ "New Year's Day."
[581] Chambers, _Popular Rhymes_, 35; Sébillot, i. 46, 57 f.
[582] Polybius, v. 78; _Vita S. Eligii_, ii. 15.
[583] Osborne, _Advice to his Son_ (1656), 79; _RC_ xx. 419, 428.
[584] Aristotle, _Nic. Eth._ iii. 77; _Eud. Eth._ iii. 1. 25; Stobæus,
vii. 40; Ælian, xii. 22; Jullian, 54; D'Arbois, vi. 218.
[585] Sébillot, i. 119. The custom of throwing something at a "fairy
eddy," i.e. a dust storm, is well known on Celtic ground and elsewhere.
[586] _Folk-Lore,_ iv. 488; Curtin, _HTI_ 324; Campbell, _The Fians_,
158. Fian warriors attacked the sea when told it was laughing at them.
[587] _Mélusine_, ii. 200.
[588] Sébillot, ii. 170.
[589] Meyer, _Cath. Finntraga_, 40.
[590] _RC_ xvi. 9; _LB_ 32_b_, 55.
[591] Meyer, _op. cit._ 55; Skene, i. 282, 288, 543; Rh[^y]s, _HL_ 387.
[592] Meyer, 51; Joyce, _PN_ i. 195, ii. 257; _RC_ xv. 438.
[593] See p. 55, _supra_; _IT_ i. 838, iii. 207; _RC_ ii. 201, ix. 118.
[594] Holder, _s.v._ "Vintius."
[595] Agobard, i. 146.
[596] See Stokes, _RC_ vi. 267.