REBIRTH AND TRANSMIGRATION.
In Irish sagas, rebirth is asserted only of divinities or heroes, and,
probably because this belief was obnoxious to Christian scribes, while
some MSS. tell of it in the case of certain heroic personages, in others
these same heroes are said to have been born naturally. There is no
textual evidence that it was attributed to ordinary mortals, and it is
possible that, if classical observers did not misunderstand the Celtic
doctrine of the future life, their references to rebirth may be based on
mythical tales regarding gods or heroes. We shall study these tales as
they are found in Irish texts.
In the mythological cycle, as has been seen, Etain, in insect form, fell
into a cup of wine. She was swallowed by Etar, and in due time was
reborn as a child, who was eventually married by Eochaid Airem, but
recognized and carried off by her divine spouse Mider. Etain, however,
had quite forgotten her former existence as a goddess.[1193]
In one version of Cúchulainn's birth story Dechtire and her women fly
away as birds, but are discovered at last by her brother Conchobar in a
strange house, where Dechtire gives birth to a child, of whom the god
Lug is apparently the father. In another version the birds are not
Dechtire and her women, for she accompanies Conchobar as his charioteer.
They arrive at the house, the mistress of which gives birth to a child,
which Dechtire brings up. It dies, and on her return from the burial
Dechtire swallows a small animal when drinking. Lug appears to her by
night, and tells her that he was the child, and that now she was with
child by him (i.e. he was the animal swallowed by her). When he was born
he would be called Setanta, who was later named Cúchulainn. Cúchulainn,
in this version, is thus a rebirth of Lug, as well as his father.[1194]
In the _Tale of the Two Swineherds_, Friuch and Rucht are herds of the
gods Ochall and Bodb. They quarrel, and their fighting in various animal
shapes is fully described. Finally they become two worms, which are
swallowed by two cows; these then give birth to the Whitehorn and to the
Black Bull of Cuailgne, the animals which were the cause of the _Táin._
The swineherds were probably themselves gods in the older versions of
this tale.[1195]
Other stories relate the rebirth of heroes. Conchobar is variously said
to be son of Nessa by her husband Cathbad, or by her lover Fachtna. But
in the latter version an incident is found which points to a third
account. Nessa brings Cathbad a draught from a river, but in it are two
worms which he forces her to swallow. She gives birth to a son, in each
of whose hands is a worm, and he is called Conchobar, after the name of
the river into which he fell soon after his birth. The incident closes
with the words, "It was from these worms that she became pregnant, say
some."[1196] Possibly the divinity of the river had taken the form of
the worms and was reborn as Conchobar. We may compare the story of the
birth of Conall Cernach. His mother was childless, until a Druid sang
spells over a well in which she bathed, and drank of its waters. With
the draught she swallowed a worm, "and the worm was in the hand of the
boy as he lay in his mother's womb; and he pierced the hand and consumed
it."[1197]
The personality of Fionn is also connected with the rebirth idea. In one
story, Mongan, a seventh-century king, had a dispute with his poet
regarding the death of the hero Fothad. The Fian Caoilte returns from
the dead to prove Mongan right, and he says, "We were with thee, with
Fionn." Mongan bids him be silent, because he did not wish his identity
with Fionn to be made known. "Mongan, however, was Fionn, though he
would not let it be told."[1198] In another story Mongan is son of
Manannan, who had prophesied of this event. Manannan appeared to the
wife of Fiachna when he was fighting the Saxons, and told her that
unless she yielded herself to him her husband would be slain. On hearing
this she agreed, and next day the god appeared fighting with Fiachna's
forces and routed the slain. "So that this Mongan is a son of Manannan
mac Lir, though he is called Mongan son of Fiachna."[1199] In a third
version Manannan makes the bargain with Fiachna, and in his form sleeps
with the woman. Simultaneously with Mongan's birth, Fiachna's attendant
had a son who became Mongan's servant, and a warrior's wife bears a
daughter who became his wife. Manannan took Mongan to the Land of
Promise and kept him there until he was sixteen.[1200] Many magical
powers and the faculty of shape-shifting are attributed to Mongan, and
in some stories he is brought into connection with the _síd_.[1201]
Probably a myth told how he went to Elysium instead of dying, for he
comes from "the Land of Living Heart" to speak with S. Columba, who took
him to see heaven. But he would not satisfy the saints' curiosity
regarding Elysium, and suddenly vanished, probably returning
there.[1202]
This twofold account of Mongan's birth is curious. Perhaps the idea that
he was a rebirth of Fionn may have been suggested by the fact that his
father was called Fiachna Finn, while it is probable that some old myth
of a son of Manannan's called Mongan was attached to the personality of
the historic Mongan.
About the era of Mongan, King Diarmaid had two wives, one of whom was
barren. S. Finnen gave her holy water to drink, and she brought forth a
lamb; then, after a second draught, a trout, and finally, after a third,
Aed Slane, who became high king of Ireland in 594. This is a
Christianised version of the story of Conall Cernach's birth.[1203]
In Welsh mythology the story of Taliesin affords an example of rebirth.
After the transformation combat of the goddess Cerridwen and Gwion,
resembling that of the swine-herds, Gwion becomes a grain of wheat,
which Cerridwen in the form of a hen swallows, with the result that he
is reborn of her as Taliesin.[1204]
Most of these stories no longer exist in their primitive form, and
various ideas are found in them--conception by magical means, divine
descent through the _amour_ of a divinity and a mortal, and rebirth.
As to the first, the help of magician or priest is often invoked in
savage society and even in European folk-custom in case of barrenness.
Prayers, charms, potions, or food are the means used to induce
conception, but perhaps at one time these were thought to cause it of
themselves. In many tales the swallowing of a seed, fruit, insect, etc.,
results in the birth of a hero or heroine, and it is probable that these
stories embody actual belief in such a possibility. If the stories of
Conall Cernach and Aed Slane are not attenuated instances of rebirth,
say, of the divinity of a well, they are examples of this belief. The
gift of fruitfulness is bestowed by Druid and saint, but in the story of
Conall it is rather the swallowing of the worm than the Druid's
incantation that causes conception, and is the real _motif_ of the tale.
Where the rebirth of a divinity occurs as the result of the swallowing
of a small animal, it is evident that the god has first taken this form.
The Celt, believing in conception by swallowing some object, and in
shape-shifting, combined his information, and so produced a third idea,
that a god could take the form of a small animal, which, when swallowed,
became his rebirth.[1205] If, as the visits of barren women to dolmens
and megalithic monuments suggest, the Celts believed in the possibility
of the spirit of a dead man entering a woman and being born of her or at
least aiding conception,--a belief held by other races,[1206]--this may
have given rise to myths regarding the rebirth of gods by human mothers.
At all events this latter Celtic belief is paralleled by the American
Indian myths, e.g. of the Thlinkeet god Yehl who transformed himself now
into a pebble, now into a blade of grass, and, being thus swallowed by
women, was reborn.
In the stories of Etain and of Lud, reborn as Setanta, this idea of
divine transformation and rebirth occurs. A similar idea may underlie
the tale of Fionn and Mongan. As to the tales of Gwion and the
Swineherds, the latter the servants of gods, and perhaps themselves
regarded once as divinities, who in their rebirth as bulls are certainly
divine animals, they present some features which require further
consideration. The previous transformations in both cases belong to the
Transformation Combat formula of many _Märchen_, and obviously were not
part of the original form of the myths. In all such _Märchen_ the
antagonists are males, hence the rebirth incident could not form part of
them. In the Welsh tale of Gwion and in the corresponding Taliesin poem,
the ingenious fusion of the _Märchen_ formula with an existing myth of
rebirth must have taken place at an early date.[1207] This is also true
of _The Two Swineherds_, but in this case, since the myth told how two
gods took the form of worms and were reborn of cows, the formula had to
be altered. Both remain alive at the end of the combat, contrary to the
usual formula, because both were males and both were reborn. The fusion
is skilful, because the reborn personages preserve a remembrance of
their former transformations,[1208] just as Mongan knows of his former
existence as Fionn. In other cases there is no such remembrance. Etain
had forgotten her former existence, and Cúchulainn does not appear to
know that he is a rebirth of Lug.
The relation of Lug to Cúchulainn deserves further inquiry. While the
god is reborn he is also existing as Lug, just as having been swallowed
as a worm by Dechtire, he appears in his divine form and tells her he
will be born of her. In the _Táin_ he appears fighting for Cúchulainn,
whom he there calls his son. There are thus two aspects of the hero's
relationship to Lug; in one he is a rebirth of the god, in the other he
is his son, as indeed he seems to represent himself in _The Wooing of
Emer_, and as he is called by Laborcham just before his death.[1209] In
one of the birth-stories he is clearly Lug's son by Dechtire. But both
versions may simply be different aspects of one belief, namely, that a
god could be reborn as a mortal and yet continue his divine existence,
because all birth is a kind of rebirth. The men of Ulster sought a wife
for Cúchulainn, "knowing that his rebirth would be of himself," i.e. his
son would be himself even while he continued to exist as his father.
Examples of such a belief occur elsewhere, e.g. in the _Laws_ of Manu,
where the husband is said to be reborn of his wife, and in ancient
Egypt, where the gods were called "self-begotten," because each was
father to the son who was his true image or himself. Likeness implied
identity, in primitive belief. Thus the belief in mortal descent from
the gods among the Celts may have involved the theory of a divine
avatar. The god became father of a mortal by a woman, and part of
himself passed over to the child, who was thus the god himself.
Conchobar was also a rebirth of a god, but he was named from the river
whence his mother had drawn water containing the worms which she
swallowed. This may point to a lost version in which he was the son of a
river-god by Nessa. This was quite in accordance with Celtic belief, as
is shown by such names as Dubrogenos, from _dubron_, "water," and
_genos_, "born of"; Divogenos, Divogena, "son or daughter of a god,"
possibly a river-god, since _deivos_ is a frequent river name; and
Rhenogenus, "son of the Rhine."[1210] The persons who first bore these
names were believed to have been begotten by divinities. Mongan's
descent from Manannan, god of the sea, is made perfectly clear, and the
Welsh name Morgen = _Morigenos_, "son of the sea," probably points to a
similar tale now lost. Other Celtic names are frequently pregnant with
meaning, and tell of a once-existing rich mythology of divine _amours_
with mortals. They show descent from deities--Camulogenus (son of
Camulos), Esugenos (son of Esus), Boduogenus (son of Bodva); or from
tree-spirits--Dergen (son of the oak), Vernogenus (son of the alder); or
from divine animals--Arthgen (son of the bear), Urogenus (son of the
urus).[1211] What was once an epithet describing divine filiation became
later a personal name. So in Greece names like Apollogenes, Diogenes,
and Hermogenes, had once been epithets of heroes born of Apollo, Zeus,
and Hermes.
Thus it was a vital Celtic belief that divinities might unite with
mortals and beget children. Heroes enticed away to Elysium enjoyed the
love of its goddesses--Cúchulainn that of Fand; Connla, Bran, and Oisin
that of unnamed divinities. So, too, the goddess Morrigan offered
herself to Cúchulainn. The Christian Celts of the fifth century retained
this belief, though in a somewhat altered form. S. Augustine and others
describe the shaggy demons called _dusii_ by the Gauls, who sought the
couches of women in order to gratify their desires.[1212] The _dusii_
are akin to the _incubi_ and _fauni_, and do not appear to represent the
higher gods reduced to the form of demons by Christianity, but rather a
species of lesser divinities, once the object of popular devotion.
These beliefs are also connected with the Celtic notions of
transformation and transmigration--the one signifying the assuming of
another shape for a time, the other the passing over of the soul or the
personality into another body, perhaps one actually existing, but more
usually by actual rebirth. As has been seen, this power of
transformation was claimed by the Druids and by other persons, or
attributed to them, and they were not likely to minimise their powers,
and would probably boast of them on all occasions. Such boasts are put
into the mouths of the Irish Amairgen and the Welsh Taliesin. As the
Milesians were approaching Ireland, Amairgen sang verses which were
perhaps part of a ritual chant:
"I am the wind which blows over the sea,
I am the wave of the ocean,
I am the bull of seven battles,
I am the eagle on the rock...
I am a boar for courage,
I am a salmon in the water, etc."[1213]
Professor Rh[^y]s points out that some of these verses need not mean
actual transformation, but mere likeness, through "a primitive formation
of predicate without the aid of a particle corresponding to such a word
as 'like.'"[1214] Enough, however, remains to show the claim of the
magician. Taliesin, in many poems, makes similar claims, and says, "I
have been in a multitude of shapes before I assumed a consistent
form"--that of a sword, a tear, a star, an eagle, etc. Then he was
created, without father or mother.[1215] Similar pretensions are common
to the medicine-man everywhere. But from another point of view they may
be mere poetic extravagances such as are common in Celtic poetry.[1216]
Thus Cúchulainn says: "I was a hound strong for combat ... their little
champion ... the casket of every secret for the maidens," or, in another
place, "I am the bark buffeted from wave to wave ... the ship after the
losing of its rudder ... the little apple on the top of the tree that
little thought of its falling."[1217] These are metaphoric descriptions
of a comparatively simple kind. The full-blown bombast appears in the
_Colloquy of the Two Sages_, where Nede and Fercertne exhaust language
in describing themselves to each other.[1218] Other Welsh bards besides
Taliesin make similar boasts to his, and Dr. Skene thinks that their
claims "may have been mere bombast."[1219] Still some current belief in
shape-shifting, or even in rebirth, underlies some of these boastings
and gives point to them. Amairgen's "I am" this or that, suggests the
inherent power of transformation; Taliesin's "I have been," the actual
transformations. Such assertions do not involve "the powerful
pantheistic doctrine which is at once the glory and error of Irish
philosophy," as M. D'Arbois claims,[1220] else are savage medicine-men,
boastful of their shape-shifting powers, philosophic pantheists. The
poems are merely highly developed forms of primitive beliefs in
shape-shifting, such as are found among all savages and barbaric folk,
but expressed in the boastful language in which the Celt delighted.
How were the successive shape-shiftings effected? To answer this we
shall first look at the story of Tuan Mac Caraill, who survived from the
days of Partholan to those of S. Finnen. He was a decrepit man at the
coming of Nemed, and one night, having lain down to sleep, he awoke as a
stag, and lived in this form to old age. In the same way he became a
boar, a hawk, and a salmon, which was caught and eaten by Cairell's
wife, of whom he was born as Tuan, with a perfect recollection of his
different forms.[1221]
This story, the invention of a ninth or tenth century Christian scribe
to account for the current knowledge of the many invasions of
Ireland,[1222] must have been based on pagan myths of a similar kind,
involving successive transformations and a final rebirth. Such a myth
may have been told of Taliesin, recounting his transformations and his
final rebirth, the former being replaced at a later time by the episode
of the Transformation Combat, involving no great lapse of time. Such a
series of successive shapes--of every beast, a dragon, a wolf, a stag, a
salmon, a seal, a swan--were ascribed to Mongan and foretold by
Manannan, and Mongan refers to some of them in his colloquy with S.
Columba--"when I was a deer ... a salmon ... a seal ... a roving wolf
... a man."[1223] Perhaps the complete story was that of a fabulous hero
in human form, who assumed different shapes, and was finally reborn. But
the transformation of an old man, or an old animal, into new youthful
and vigorous forms might be regarded as a kind of transmigration--an
extension of the transformation idea, but involving no metempsychosis,
no passing of the soul into another body by rebirth. Actual
transmigration or rebirth occurs only at the end of the series, and, as
in the case of Etain, Lug, etc., the pre-existent person is born of a
woman after being swallowed by her. Possibly the transformation belief
has reacted on the other, and obscured a belief in actual metempsychosis
as a result of the soul of an ancestor passing into a woman and being
reborn as her next child. Add to this that the soul is often thought of
as a tiny animal, and we see how a _point d'appui_ for the more
materialistic belief was afforded. The insect or worms of the rebirth
stories may have been once forms of the soul. It is easy also to see
how, a theory of conception by swallowing various objects being already
in existence, it might be thought possible that eating a salmon--a
transformed man--would cause his rebirth from the eater.
The Celts may have had no consistent belief on this subject, the general
idea of the future life being of a different kind. Or perhaps the
various beliefs in transformation, transmigration, rebirth, and
conception by unusual means, are too inextricably mingled to be
separated. The nucleus of the tales seems to be the possibility of
rebirth, and the belief that the soul was still clad in a bodily form
after death and was itself a material thing. But otherwise some of them
are not distinctively Celtic, and have been influenced by old _Märchen_
formulæ of successive changes adopted by or forced upon some person, who
is finally reborn. This formulæ is already old in the fourteenth century
B.C. Egyptian story of the _Two Brothers_.
Such Celtic stories as these may have been known to classical authors,
and have influenced their statements regarding eschatology. Yet it can
hardly be said that the tales themselves bear witness to a general
transmigration doctrine current among the Celts, since the stories
concern divine or heroic personages. Still the belief may have had a
certain currency among them, based on primitive theories of soul life.
Evidence that it existed side by side with the more general doctrines of
the future life may be found in old or existing folk-belief. In some
cases the dead have an animal form, as in the _Voyage of Maelduin_,
where birds on an island are said to be souls, or in the legend of S.
Maelsuthain, whose pupils appear to him after death as birds.[1224] The
bird form of the soul after death is still a current belief in the
Hebrides. Butterflies in Ireland, and moths in Cornwall, and in France
bats or butterflies, are believed to be souls of the dead.[1225] King
Arthur is thought by Cornishmen to have died and to have been changed
into the form of a raven, and in mediæval Wales souls of the wicked
appear as ravens, in Brittany as black dogs, petrels, or hares, or serve
their term of penitence as cows or bulls, or remain as crows till the
day of judgment.[1226] Unbaptized infants become birds; drowned sailors
appear as beasts or birds; and the souls of girls deceived by lovers
haunt them as hares.[1227]
These show that the idea of transmigration may not have been foreign to
the Celtic mind, and it may have arisen from the idea that men assumed
their totem animal's shape at death. Some tales of shape-shifting are
probably due to totemism, and it is to be noted that in Kerry peasants
will not eat hares because they contain the souls of their
grandmothers.[1228] On the other hand, some of these survivals may mean
no more than that the soul itself has already an animal form, in which
it would naturally be seen after death. In Celtic folk-belief the soul
is seen leaving the body in sleep as a bee, butterfly, gnat, mouse, or
mannikin.[1229] Such a belief is found among most savage races, and
might easily be mistaken for transmigration, or also assist the
formation of the idea of transmigration. Though the folk-survivals show
that transmigration was not necessarily alleged of all the dead, it may
have been a sufficiently vital belief to colour the mythology, as we see
from the existing tales, adulterated though these may have been.
The general belief has its roots in primitive ideas regarding life and
its propagation--ideas which some hold to be un-Celtic and un-Aryan. But
Aryans were "primitive" at some period of their history, and it would be
curious if, while still in a barbarous condition, they had forgotten
their old beliefs. In any case, if they adopted similar beliefs from
non-Aryan people, this points to no great superiority on their part.
Such beliefs originated the idea of rebirth and transmigration.[1230]
Nevertheless this was not a characteristically Celtic eschatological
belief; that we find in the theory that the dead lived on in the body or
assumed a body in another region, probably underground.
FOOTNOTES:
[1193] For textual details see Zimmer, _Zeit. für Vergl. Sprach._
xxviii. 585 f. The tale is obviously archaic. For a translation see
Leahy, i. 8 f.
[1194] _IT_ i. 134 f.; D'Arbois, v. 22. There is a suggestion in one of
the versions of another story, in which Setanta is child of Conchobar
and his sister Dechtire.
[1195] _IT_ iii. 245; _RC_ xv. 465; Nutt-Meyer, ii. 69.
[1196] Stowe MS. 992, _RC_ vi. 174; _IT_ ii. 210; D'Arbois, v. 3f.
[1197] _IT_ iii. 393. Cf. the story of the wife of Cormac, who was
barren till her mother gave her pottage. Then she had a daughter (_RC_
xxii. 18).
[1198] Nutt-Meyer, i. 45 f., text and translation.
[1199] Ibid. 42 f.
[1200] Ibid. 58. The simultaneous birth formula occurs in many
_Märchen_, though that of the future wife is not common.
[1201] Nutt-Meyer, i. 52, 57, 85, 87.
[1202] _ZCP_ ii. 316 f. Here Mongan comes directly from Elysium, as does
Oisin before meeting S. Patrick.
[1203] _IT_ iii. 345; O'Grady, ii. 88. Cf. Rees, 331.
[1204] Guest, iii. 356 f.; see p. 116, _supra_.
[1205] In some of the tales the small animal still exists independently
after the birth, but this is probably not their primitive form.
[1206] See my _Religion: Its Origin and Forms_, 76-77.
[1207] Skene, i. 532. After relating various shapes in which he has
been, the poet adds that he has been a grain which a hen received, and
that he rested in her womb as a child. The reference in this early poem
from a fourteenth century MS. shows that the fusion of the _Märchen_
formula with a myth of rebirth was already well known. See also Guest,
iii. 362, for verses in which the transformations during the combat are
exaggerated.
[1208] Skene, i. 276, 532.
[1209] Miss Hull, 67; D'Arbois, v. 331.
[1210] For various forms of _geno_-, see Holder, i. 2002; Stokes, _US_
110.
[1211] For all these names see Holder, _s.v._
[1212] S. Aug. _de Civ. Dei_, xv. 23; Isidore, _Orat._ viii. 2. 103.
_Dusios_ may be connected with Lithuanian _dvaese_, "spirit," and
perhaps with [Greek: Thehos] (Holder, _s.v._). D'Arbois sees in the
_dusii_ water-spirits, and compares river-names like Dhuys, Duseva,
Dusius (vi. 182; _RC_ xix. 251). The word may be connected with Irish
_duis_, glossed "noble" (Stokes, _TIG_ 76). The Bretons still believe in
fairies called _duz_, and our word _dizzy_ may be connected with
_dusios_, and would then have once signified the madness following on
the _amour_, like Greek [Greek: nympholeptos], or "the inconvenience of
their succubi," described by Kirk in his _Secret Commonwealth of the
Elves_.
[1213] _LL_ 12_b_; _TOS_ v. 234.
[1214] Rh[^y]s, _HL_ 549.
[1215] Skene, i. 276, 309, etc.
[1216] Sigerson, _Bards of the Gael_, 379.
[1217] Miss Hull, 288; Hyde, _Lit. Hist. of Ireland_, 300.
[1218] _RC_ xxvi. 21.
[1219] Skene, ii. 506.
[1220] D'Arbois, ii. 246, where he also derives Erigena's pantheism from
Celtic beliefs, such as he supposes to be exemplified by these poems.
[1221] _LU_ 15_a_; D'Arbois, ii. 47 f.; Nutt-Meyer, ii. 294 f.
[1222] Another method of accounting for this knowledge was to imagine a
long-lived personage like Fintan who survived for 5000 years. D'Arbois,
ii. ch. 4. Here there was no transformation or rebirth.
[1223] Nutt-Meyer, i. 24; _ZCP_ ii. 316.
[1224] O'Curry, _MS. Mat._ 78.
[1225] Wood-Martin, _Pagan Ireland_, 140; _Choice Notes_, 61; Monnier,
143; Maury, 272.
[1226] _Choice Notes_, 69; Rees, 92; Le Braz{2}, ii. 82, 86, 307; _Rev.
des Trad. Pop._ xii. 394.
[1227] Le Braz{2}, ii. 80; _Folk-lore Jour._ v. 189.
[1228] _Folk-Lore_, iv. 352.
[1229] Carmichael, _Carm. Gadel._ ii. 334; Rh[^y]s, _CFL_ 602; Le
Braz{2}, i. 179, 191, 200.
[1230] Mr. Nutt, _Voyage of Bran_, derived the origin of the rebirth
conception from orgiastic cults.