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Title: The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries
Author: Evans-Wentz, W. Y. (Walter Yeeling), 1878-1965
Language: English
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[Illustration: _From Photograph by the Author_
THE MYSTIC CENTRE OF THE CELTIC WORLD
CARNAC IN A. D. 1909
LOOKING TOWARD THE SUNRISE, FROM WITHIN THE CROMLECH,
_LES ALIGNEMENTS DU MÉNEC_]
THE FAIRY-FAITH IN
CELTIC COUNTRIES
BY W. Y. EVANS WENTZ
M.A. STANFORD UNIVERSITY CALIFORNIA U.S.A.
DOCTEUR-ÈS-LETTRES UNIVERSITY OF RENNES BRITTANY
B.SC. JESUS COLLEGE OXON.
HENRY FROWDE
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON, NEW YORK, TORONTO AND MELBOURNE
1911
OXFORD: HORACE HART
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
THIS BOOK DEPENDS CHIEFLY UPON THE ORAL AND WRITTEN TESTIMONY
SO FREELY CONTRIBUTED BY ITS MANY CELTIC AUTHORS,--
THE PEASANT AND THE SCHOLAR, THE PRIEST AND THE SCIENTIST,
THE POET AND THE BUSINESS MAN, THE SEER AND THE NON-SEER,--
AND IN HONOUR OF THEM I DEDICATE IT TO
TWO OF THEIR BRETHREN IN IRELAND:
A. E.,
WHOSE UNWAVERING LOYALTY TO THE FAIRY-FAITH
HAS INSPIRED MUCH THAT I HAVE HEREIN WRITTEN,
WHOSE FRIENDLY GUIDANCE IN MY STUDY OF IRISH MYSTICISM
I MOST GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGE;
AND
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS,
WHO BROUGHT TO ME AT MY OWN ALMA MATER IN CALIFORNIA
THE FIRST MESSAGE FROM FAIRYLAND,
AND WHO AFTERWARDS IN HIS OWN COUNTRY
LED ME THROUGH THE HAUNTS OF FAIRY KINGS AND QUEENS.
OXFORD
_November_ 1911.
'It remains for ever true that the proper study of mankind is man; and
even early man is not beneath contempt, especially when he proves to
have had within him the makings of a great race, with its highest
notions of duty and right, and all else that is noblest in the human
soul.'
The Right Hon. SIR JOHN RHŶS.
CONTENTS
PAGES
PREFACE xi-xiii
INTRODUCTION xv-xxviii
SECTION I
THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH
CHAPTER I
ENVIRONMENT 1-16
Psychical Interpretation--The Mysticism of Erin and
Armorica--In Ireland--In Scotland--In the Isle of Man--In
Wales--In Cornwall--In Brittany.
CHAPTER II
THE TAKING OF EVIDENCE 17-225
Method of Presentation--The Logical Verdict--Trustworthiness
of Legends--The Fairy-Faith held by the highly educated Celt
as well as by the Celtic Peasant--The Evidence is complete
and adequate--Its Analysis--The Fairy Tribes dealt with--
Witnesses and their Testimony: from Ireland, with
Introduction by Dr. Douglas Hyde; from Scotland, with
Introduction by Dr. Alexander Carmichael; from the Isle of
Man, with Introduction by Miss Sophia Morrison; from Wales,
with Introduction by the Right Hon. Sir John Rhŷs; from
Cornwall, with Introduction by Mr. Henry Jenner; and from
Brittany, with Introduction by Professor Anatole Le Braz.
CHAPTER III
AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF THE EVIDENCE 226-82
The Celtic Fairy-Faith as Part of a World-wide Animism--
Shaping Influence of Social Psychology--Smallness of Elvish
Spirits and Fairies, according to Ethnology, Animism, and
Occult Sciences--The Changeling, Belief and its Explanation
according to the Kidnap, Human-Sacrifice, Soul-Wandering,
and Demon-Possession Theory--Ancient and Modern Magic and
Witchcraft shown to be based on definite psychological
laws--Exorcisms--Taboos, of Name, Food, Iron, Place--Taboos
among Ancient Celts--Food-Sacrifice--Legend of the Dead--
Conclusion: the Background of the Modern Belief in Fairies
is Animistic.
SECTION II
THE RECORDED FAIRY-FAITH
CHAPTER IV
THE PEOPLE OF THE GODDESS DANA OR THE _SIDHE_ 283-307
The Goddess Dana and the Modern Cult of St. Brigit--The
Tuatha De Danann or _Sidhe_ conquered by the Sons of Mil--
But Irish Seers still see the _Sidhe_--Old Irish Manuscripts
faithfully represent the Tuatha De Danann--The _Sidhe_ as a
Spirit Race--_Sidhe_ Palaces--The 'Taking' of Mortals--Hill
Visions of _Sidhe_ Women--_Sidhe_ Minstrels and Musicians--
Social Organization and Warfare among the _Sidhe_--The
_Sidhe_ War-Goddesses, the _Badb_--The _Sidhe_ at the Battle
of Clontarf, A. D. 1014--Conclusion.
CHAPTER V
BRYTHONIC DIVINITIES AND THE BRYTHONIC FAIRY-FAITH 308-31
The God Arthur and the Hero Arthur--Sevenfold Evidence to
show Arthur as an Incarnate Fairy King--Lancelot the
Foster-son of a Fairy Woman--Galahad, the Offspring of
Lancelot and the Fairy Woman Elayne--Arthur as a Fairy King
in _Kulhwch and Olwen_--Gwynn ab Nudd--Arthur like Dagda,
and like Osiris--Brythonic Fairy Romances: their Evolution
and Antiquity--Arthur in Nennius, Geoffrey, Wace, and in
Layamon--Cambrensis' Otherworld Tale--Norman-French writers
of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries--_Romans d'Aventure_
and _Romans Bretons_--Origins of the 'Matter of Britain'--
Fairy Romance Episodes in Welsh Literature--Brythonic
Origins.
CHAPTER VI
THE CELTIC OTHERWORLD 332-57
General Ideas of the Otherworld; its Location; its
Subjectivity; its Names; its Extent; Tethra one of its
kings--The Silver Branch and the Golden Bough; and
Initiations--The Otherworld the Heaven-World of all
Religions--Voyage of Bran--Cormac in the Land of Promise--
Magic Wands--Cuchulainn's Sick-Bed--Ossian's Return from
Fairyland--Lanval's going to Avalon--Voyage of Mael-Duin--
Voyage of Teigue--Adventures of Art--Cuchulainn's and
Arthur's Otherworld Quests--Literary Evolution of idea of
Happy Otherworld.
CHAPTER VII
THE CELTIC DOCTRINE OF RE-BIRTH 358-96
Re-birth and Otherworld--As a Christian Doctrine--General
Historical Survey--According to the Barddas MSS.; according
to Ancient and Modern Authorities--Re-incarnation of the
Tuatha De Danann--King Mongan's Re-birth--Etain's Birth--
Dermot's Pre-existence--Tuan's Re-birth--Re-birth among
Brythons--Arthur as a Re-incarnate Hero--Non-Celtic
Parallels--Re-birth among Modern Celts: in Ireland; in
Scotland; in the Isle of Man; in Wales; in Cornwall; in
Brittany--Origin and Evolution of Celtic Re-birth Doctrine.
SECTION III
THE CULT OF GODS, SPIRITS, FAIRIES, AND THE DEAD
CHAPTER VIII
THE TESTIMONY OF ARCHAEOLOGY 397-426
Inadequacy of Pygmy Theory--According to the Theories
concerning Divine Images and Fetishes, Gods, Daemons, and
Ancestral Spirits haunt Megaliths--Megaliths are religious
and funereal, as shown chiefly by _Cenn Cruaich_,
Stonehenge, Guernsey menhirs, Monuments in Brittany, by the
Circular Fairy-Dance as an Ancient Initiatory Sun-Dance, by
Breton Earthworks, Archaeological Excavations generally, and
by present-day Worship at Indian Dolmens--New Grange and
Celtic Mysteries: Evidence of manuscripts; Evidence of
Tradition--The Aengus Cult--New Grange compared with Great
Pyramid: both have Astronomical Arrangement and same
Internal Plan--Why they open to the Sunrise--Initiations in
both--Great Pyramid as Model for Celtic Tumuli--Gavrinis and
New Grange as Spirit Temples.
CHAPTER IX
THE TESTIMONY OF PAGANISM 427-41
Edicts against Pagan Cults--Cult of Sacred Waters and its
Absorption by Christianity--Celtic Water Divinities--Druidic
Influence on Fairy-Faith--Cult of Sacred Trees--Cult of
Fairies, Spirits, and the Dead--Feasts of the Dead--
Conclusion.
CHAPTER X
THE TESTIMONY OF CHRISTIANITY 442-55
Lough Derg a Sacred Lake originally--Purgatorial Rites as
Christianized Survivals of Ancient Celtic Rites--Purgatory
as Fairyland--Purgatorial Rites parallel to Pagan Initiation
Ceremonies--The Death and Resurrection Rite--Breton Pardons
compared--Relation to Aengus Cult and Celtic Cave-Temples--
Origin of Purgatorial Doctrine pre-Christian--Celtic and
Roman Feasts of dead shaped Christian ones--Fundamental
Unity of Mythologies, Religions, and the Fairy-Faith.
SECTION IV
MODERN SCIENCE AND THE FAIRY-FAITH; AND CONCLUSIONS
CHAPTER XI
SCIENCE AND FAIRIES 456-91
Method of Examination: Exoteric and Esoteric aspects--The
X-quantity--Scientific attitudes toward the Animistic
Hypothesis: Materialistic Theory; Pathological Theory;
Delusion and Imposture Theory; Problems of Consciousness:
Dreams; Supernormal Lapse of Time--Psychical Research and
Fairies: Myers's researches--Present Position of Psychical
Research--Psychical Research and Anthropology in Relation to
the Fairy-Faith, according to a special contribution from
Mr. Andrew Lang--Final Testing of the X-quantity--Conclusion:
the Celtic Belief in Fairies and in Fairyland is scientific.
CHAPTER XII
THE CELTIC DOCTRINE OF RE-BIRTH AND OTHERWORLD
SCIENTIFICALLY EXAMINED 492-515
The Extension of the Terms Fairy and Fairyland--The Real
Man as an Invisible Force acting through a Body-Conductor--
A Psychical Organ essential for Memory--Pre-existence a
Scientific Necessity--The Vitalistic View of Evolution--Old
Theory of Heredity disproved--Embryology supports Re-birth
Doctrine--Psycho-physical Evolution--Memory of previous
Existences in Subconsciousness--Examples--Dream Psychology
furnishes clearest Illustrations--No Post-existence without
Pre-existence--Resurrection as Re-birth--The Circle of
Life--The Mystical Corollary--Conclusion: the Celtic
Doctrine of Re-birth and Otherworld is essentially
scientific.
INDEX 516-24
PREFACE
During the years 1907-9 this study first took shape, being then based
mainly on literary sources; and during the latter year it was
successfully presented to the Faculty of Letters of the University of
Rennes, Brittany, for the Degree of _Docteur-ès-Lettres_. Since then I
have re-investigated the whole problem of the Celtic belief in Fairies,
and have collected very much fresh material. Two years ago the scope of
my original research was limited to the four chief Celtic countries, but
now it includes all of the Celtic countries.
In the present study, which has profited greatly by criticisms of the
first passed by scholars in Britain and in France, the original literary
point of view is combined with the broader point of view of
anthropology. This study, the final and more comprehensive form of my
views about the 'Fairy-Faith', would never have been possible had I not
enjoyed during many months the kindly advice and constant encouragement
of Mr. R. R. Marett, Reader in Social Anthropology in the University of
Oxford, and Fellow of Exeter College.
During May 1910 the substance of this essay in its pan-Celtic form was
submitted to the Board of the Faculty of Natural Science of Oxford
University for the Research Degree of Bachelor of Science, which was
duly granted. But the present work contains considerable material not
contained in the essay presented to the Oxford examiners, the Right Hon.
Sir John Rhŷs and Mr. Andrew Lang; and, therefore, I alone assume
entire responsibility for all its possible shortcomings, and in
particular for some of its more speculative theories, which to some
minds may appear to be in conflict with orthodox views, whether of the
theologian or of the man of science. These theories, however venturesome
they may appear, are put forth in almost every case with the full
approval of some reliable, scholarly Celt; and as such they are chiefly
intended to make the exposition of the belief in fairies as completely
and as truly Celtic as possible, without much regard for non-Celtic
opinion, whether this be in harmony with Celtic opinion or not.
As the new manuscript of the 'Fairy-Faith' lies before me revised and
finished, I realize even more fully than I did two years ago with
respect to the original study, how little right I have to call it mine.
Those to whom the credit for it really belongs are my many kind friends
and helpers in Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall, and
Brittany, and many others who are not Celts, in the three great
nations--happily so intimately united now by unbreakable bonds of
goodwill and international brotherhood--Britain, France, and the United
States of America; for without the aid of all these Celtic and
non-Celtic friends the work could never have been accomplished. They
have given me their best and rarest thoughts as so many golden threads;
I have only furnished the mental loom, and woven these golden threads
together in my own way according to what I take to be the psychological
pattern of the Fairy-Faith.
I am under a special obligation to the following six distinguished
Celtic scholars who have contributed, for my second chapter, the six
introductions to the fairy-lore collected by me in their respective
countries:--Dr. Douglas Hyde (Ireland); Dr. Alexander Carmichael
(Scotland); Miss Sophia Morrison (Isle of Man); the Right Hon. Sir John
Rhŷs (Wales); Mr. Henry Jenner (Cornwall); Professor Anatole Le Braz
(Brittany).
I am also greatly indebted to the Rev. J. Estlin Carpenter, Principal of
Manchester College, for having aided me with the parts of this book
touching Christian theology; to Mr. R. I. Best, M.R.I.A., Assistant
Librarian, National Library, Dublin, for having aided me with the parts
devoted to Irish mythology and literature; and to Mr. William McDougall,
Wilde Reader in Mental Philosophy in the University of Oxford, for a
similar service with respect to Section IV, entitled 'Science and
Fairies'. And to these and to all the other scholars whose names appear
in this preface, my heartiest thanks are due for the assistance which
they have so kindly rendered in reading different parts of the
_Fairy-Faith_ when in proof.
With the deep spirit of reverence which a student feels towards his
preceptors, I acknowledge a still greater debt to those among my friends
and helpers who have been my Celtic guides and teachers. Here in Oxford
University I have run up a long account with the Right Hon. Sir John
Rhŷs, the Professor of Celtic, who has introduced me to the study of
Modern Irish, and of Arthurian romance and mythology, and has guided me
both during the year 1907-8 and ever since in Celtic folk-lore
generally. To Mr. Andrew Lang, I am likewise a debtor, more especially
in view of the important suggestions which he has given me during the
past two years with respect to anthropology and to psychical research.
In my relation to the Faculty of Letters of the University of Rennes, I
shall always remember the friendly individual assistance offered to me
there during the year 1908-9 by Professor Joseph Loth, then Dean in that
University, but now of the College of France, in Paris, particularly
with respect to Brythonic mythology, philology, and archaeology; by
Professor Georges Dottin, particularly with respect to Gaelic matters;
and by Professor Anatole Le Braz, whose continual good wishes towards my
work have been a constant source of inspiration since our first meeting
during March 1908, especially in my investigation of _La Légende de la
Mort_, and of the related traditions and living folk-beliefs in
Brittany--Brittany with its haunted ground of Carnac, home of the
ancient Brythonic Mysteries.
W. Y. E. W.
JESUS COLLEGE, OXFORD.
_All Saints' Day_, 1911.
'There, neither turmoil nor silence....
'Though fair the sight of Erin's plains, hardly will they seem so after
you have known the Great Plain....
'A wonder of a land the land of which I speak; no youth there grows to
old age....
'We behold and are not beheld.'--The God Midir, in _Tochmarc Etaine_.
INTRODUCTION
'I have told what I have seen, what I have thought, and what I have
learned by inquiry.'--HERODOTUS.
I. THE RELIGIOUS NATURE OF THE FAIRY-FAITH
There is probably no other place in Celtic lands more congenial, or more
inspiring for the writing down of one's deeper intuitions about the
Fairy-Faith, than Carnac, under the shadow of the pagan tumulus and
mount of the sacred fire, now dedicated by triumphant Christianity to
the Archangel Michael. The very name of Carnac is significant;[1] and in
two continents, Africa and Europe--to follow the certain evidence of
archaeology alone[2]--there seem to have been no greater centres for
ancient religion than Karnak in Egypt and Carnac in Brittany. On the
banks of the Nile the Children of Isis and Osiris erected temples as
perfect as human art can make them; on the shores of the Morbihan the
mighty men who were, as it seems, the teachers of our own Celtic
forefathers, erected temples of unhewn stone. The wonderful temples in
Yucatan, the temple-caves of prehistoric India, Stonehenge in England,
the Parthenon, the Acropolis, St. Peter's at Rome, Westminster Abbey, or
Notre-Dame, and the Pyramids and temples of Egypt, equally with the
Alignements of Carnac, each in their own way record more or less
perfectly man's attempt to express materially what he feels spiritually.
Perfected art can beautify and make more attractive to the eye and mind,
but it cannot enhance in any degree the innate spiritual ideals which
men in all ages have held; and thus it is that we read amid the rough
stone menhirs and dolmens in Brittany, as amid the polished granite
monoliths and magnificent temples in Egypt, the same silent message from
the past to the present, from the dead to the living. This message, we
think, is fundamentally important in understanding the Celtic
Fairy-Faith; for in our opinion the belief in fairies has the same
origin as all religions and mythologies.
And there seems never to have been an uncivilized tribe, a race, or
nation of civilized men who have not had some form of belief in an
unseen world, peopled by unseen beings. In religions, mythologies, and
the Fairy-Faith, too, we behold the attempts which have been made by
different peoples in different ages to explain in terms of human
experience this unseen world, its inhabitants, its laws, and man's
relation to it. The Ancients called its inhabitants gods, genii,
daemons, and shades; Christianity knows them as angels, saints, demons,
and souls of the dead; to uncivilized tribes they are gods, demons, and
spirits of ancestors; and the Celts think of them as gods, and as
fairies of many kinds.
II. THE INTERPRETATION OF THE FAIRY-FAITH
By the Celtic Fairy-Faith we mean that specialized form of belief in a
spiritual realm inhabited by spiritual beings which has existed from
prehistoric times until now in Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Wales,
Cornwall, Brittany, or other parts of the ancient empire of the Celts.
In studying this belief, we are concerned directly with living Celtic
folk-traditions, and with past Celtic folk-traditions as recorded in
literature. And if fairies actually exist as invisible beings or
intelligences, and our investigations lead us to the tentative
hypothesis that they do, they are natural and not supernatural, for
nothing which exists can be supernatural; and, therefore, it is our duty
to examine the Celtic Fairy Races just as we examine any fact in the
visible realm wherein we now live, whether it be a fact of chemistry,
of physics, or of biology. However, as we proceed to make such an
examination, we shall have to remember constantly that there is a new
set of ideas to work with, entirely different from what we find in
natural sciences, and often no adequate vocabulary based on common human
experiences. An American who has travelled in Asia and an Englishman who
has travelled in Australia may meet in Paris and exchange travelling
experiences with mutual understanding, because both of them have
experienced travel; and they will have an adequate vocabulary to
describe each experience, because most men have also experienced travel.
But a saint who has known the spiritual condition called ecstasy cannot
explain ecstasy to a man who has never known it, and if he should try to
do so would discover at once that no modern language is suitable for the
purpose. His experience is rare and not universal, and men have
developed no complete vocabulary to describe experiences not common to
the majority of mankind, and this is especially true of psychical
experiences. It is the same in dealing with fairies, as these are
hypothetically conceived, for only a few men and women can assert that
they have seen fairies, and hence there is no adequate vocabulary to
describe fairies. Among the Ancients, who dealt so largely with
psychical sciences, there seems to have been a common language which
could be used to explain the invisible world and its inhabitants; but we
of this age have not yet developed such a language. Consequently, men
who deny human immortality, as well as men with religious faith who have
not through personal psychical experiences transformed that faith into a
fact, nowadays when they happen to read what Plato, Iamblichus, or any
of the Neo-Platonists have written, or even what moderns have written in
attempting to explain psychic facts, call it all mysticism. And to the
great majority of Europeans and Americans, mysticism is a most
convenient noun, applicable to anything which may seem reasonable yet
wholly untranslatable in terms of their own individual experience; and
mysticism usually means something quite the reverse of scientific
simply because we have by usage unwisely limited the meaning of the word
_science_ to a knowledge of things material and visible, whereas it
really means a knowing or a knowledge of everything which exists. We
have tried to deal with the rare psychical experiences of Irish, Scotch,
Manx, Welsh, or Breton seers, and psychics generally, in the clearest
language possible; but if now and then we are charged with being
mystical, this is our defence.
III. THE METHOD OF STUDYING THE FAIRY-FAITH
In this study, which is first of all a folk-lore study, we pursue
principally an anthropo-psychological method of interpreting the Celtic
belief in fairies, though we do not hesitate now and then to call in the
aid of philology; and we make good use of the evidence offered by
mythologies, religions, metaphysics, and physical sciences. Folk-lore, a
century ago was considered beneath the serious consideration of
scholars; but there has come about a complete reversal of scholarly
opinion, for now it is seen that the beliefs of the people, their
legends, and their songs are the source of nearly all literatures, and
that their institutions and customs are the origin of those of modern
times. And, to-day, to the new science of folk-lore,--which, as Mr.
Andrew Lang says, must be taken to include psychical research or
psychical sciences,--archaeology, anthropology, and comparative
mythology and religion are indispensable. Thus folk-lore offers the
scientific means of studying man in the sense meant by the poet who
declared that the proper study of mankind is man.
IV. DIVISIONS OF THE STUDY
This study is divided into four sections or parts. The first one deals
with the living Fairy-Faith among the Celts themselves; the second, with
the recorded and ancient Fairy-Faith as we find it in Celtic literature
and mythology; the third, with the Fairy-Faith in its religious aspects;
and in the fourth section an attempt has been made to suggest how the
theories of our newest science, psychical research, explain the belief
in fairies.
I have set forth in the first section in detail and as clearly as
possible the testimony communicated to me by living Celts who either
believe in fairies, or else say that they have seen fairies; and
throughout other sections I have preferred to draw as much as possible
of the material from men and women rather than from books. Books too
often are written out of other books, and too seldom from the life of
man; and in a scientific study of the Fairy-Faith, such as we have
undertaken, the Celt himself is by far the best, in fact the only
authority. For us it is much less important to know what scholars think
of fairies than to know what the Celtic people think of fairies. This is
especially true in considering the Fairy-Faith as it exists now.
V. THE COLLECTING OF MATERIAL
In June, 1908, after a year's preparatory work in things Celtic under
the direction of the Oxford Professor of Celtic, Sir John Rhŷs, I
began to travel in Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and Brittany, and to
collect material there at first hand from the people who have shaped and
who still keep alive the Fairy-Faith; and during the year 1909-10 fresh
folk-lore expeditions were made into Brittany, Ireland, and Wales, and
then, finally, the study of the Fairy-Faith was made pan-Celtic by
similar expeditions throughout the Isle of Man, and into Cornwall. Many
of the most remote parts of these lands were visited; and often there
was no other plan to adopt, or any method better, or more natural, than
to walk day after day from one straw-thatched cottage to another, living
on the simple wholesome food of the peasants. Sometimes there was the
picturesque mountain-road to climb, sometimes the route lay through
marshy peat-lands, or across a rolling grass-covered country; and with
each change of landscape came some new thought and some new impression
of the Celtic life, or perhaps some new description of a fairy.
This immersion in the most striking natural and social environment of
the Celtic race, gave me an insight into the mind, the religion, the
mysticism, and the very heart of the Celt himself, such as no mere study
in libraries ever could do. I tried to see the world as he does; I
participated in his innermost thoughts about the great problem of life
and death, with which he of all peoples is most deeply concerned; and
thus he revealed to me the source of his highest ideals and
inspirations. I daily felt the deep and innate seriousness of his
ancestral nature; and, living as he lives, I tried in all ways to be
like him. I was particularly qualified for such an undertaking: partly
Celtic myself by blood and perhaps largely so by temperament, I found it
easy to sympathize with the Celt and with his environments. Further,
being by birth an American, I was in many places privileged to enter
where an Englishman, or a non-Celt of Europe would not be; and my
education under the free ideals of a new-world democracy always made it
possible for me to view economic, political, religious, and racial
questions in Celtic lands apart from the European point of view, and
without the European prejudices which are so numerous and so greatly to
be regretted. But without any doubt, during my sojourn, extending over
three years, among the Celts, these various environments shaped my
thoughts about fairies and Fairyland--as they ought to have done if
truth is ever to be reached by research.
These experiences of mine lead me to believe that the natural aspects of
Celtic countries, much more than those of most non-Celtic countries,
impress man and awaken in him some unfamiliar part of himself--call it
the Subconscious Self, the Subliminal Self, the Ego, or what you
will--which gives him an unusual power to know and to feel invisible, or
psychical, influences. What is there, for example, in London, or Paris,
or Berlin, or New York to awaken the intuitive power of man, that
subconsciousness deep-hidden in him, equal to the solitude of those
magical environments of Nature which the Celts enjoy and love?
In my travels, when the weather was too wild to venture out by day, or
when the more favourable hours of the night had arrived, with fires and
candles lit, or even during a road-side chat amid the day's journey,
there was gathered together little by little, from one country and
another, the mass of testimony which chapter ii contains. And with all
this my opinions began to take shape; for when I set out from Oxford in
June, I had no certain or clear ideas as to what fairies are, nor why
there should be belief in them. In less than a year afterwards I found
myself committed to the Psychological Theory, which I am herein setting
forth.
VI. THEORIES OF THE FAIRY-FAITH
We make continual reference throughout our study to this Psychological
Theory of the Nature and Origin of the Celtic Fairy-Faith, and it is one
of our purposes to demonstrate that this is the root theory which
includes or absorbs the four theories already advanced to account for
the belief in fairies. To guide the reader in his own conclusions, we
shall here briefly outline these four theories.
The first of them may be called the Naturalistic Theory, which is, that
in ancient and in modern times man's belief in gods, spirits, or fairies
has been the direct result of his attempts to explain or to rationalize
natural phenomena. Of this theory we accept as true that the belief in
fairies often anthropomorphically reflects the natural environment as
well as the social condition of the people who hold the belief. For
example, amid the beautiful low-lying green hills and gentle dells of
Connemara (Ireland), the 'good people' are just as beautiful, just as
gentle, and just as happy as their environment; while amid the
dark-rising mountains and in the mysterious cloud-shadowed lakes of the
Scotch Highlands there are fiercer kinds of fairies and terrible
water-kelpies, and in the Western Hebrides there is the much-dreaded
'spirit-host' moving through the air at night.
The Naturalistic Theory shows accurately enough that natural phenomena
and environment have given direction to the anthropomorphosing of gods,
spirits, or fairies, but after explaining this external aspect of the
Fairy-Faith it cannot logically go any further. Or if illogically it
does attempt to explain the belief in gods, spirits, or fairies as due
entirely to material causes, it becomes, in our opinion, like the
psychology of fifty years ago, obsolete; for now the new psychology or
psychical research has been forced to admit--if only as a working
hypothesis--the possibility of invisible intelligences or entities able
to influence man and nature. We seem even to be approaching a scientific
proof of the doctrines of such ancient philosophical scientists as
Pythagoras and Plato,--that all external nature, animated throughout and
controlled in its phenomena by daemons acting by the will of gods, is to
men nothing more than the visible effects of an unseen world of causes.
In the internal aspects of the Fairy-Faith the fundamental fact seems
clearly to be that there must have been in the minds of prehistoric men,
as there is now in the minds of modern men, a germ idea of a fairy for
environment to act upon and shape. Without an object to act upon,
environment can accomplish nothing. This is evident. The Naturalistic
Theory examines only the environment and its effects, and forgets
altogether the germ idea of a fairy to be acted upon; but the
Psychological Theory remembers and attempts to explain the germ idea of
a fairy and the effect of nature upon it.
The second theory may be called the Pygmy Theory, which Mr. David
MacRitchie, who is definitely committed to it, has so clearly set forth
in his well-known work, entitled _The Testimony of Tradition_. This
theory is that the whole fairy-belief has grown up out of a folk-memory
of an actual Pygmy race. This race is supposed to have been a very
early, prehistoric, probably Mongolian race, which inhabited the British
Islands and many parts of Continental Europe. When the Celtic nations
appeared, these pygmies were driven into mountain fastnesses and into
the most inaccessible places, where a few of them may have survived
until comparatively historical times.
Over against the champions of the Pygmy Theory may be set two of its
opponents, Dr. Bertram C. A. Windle and Mr. Andrew Lang.[3] Dr. Windle,
in his Introduction to Tyson's _Philological Essay concerning the
Pygmies of the Ancients_, makes these six most destructive criticisms or
points against the theory: (1) So far as our present knowledge teaches
us, there never was a really Pygmy race inhabiting the northern parts of
Scotland; (2) the mounds with which the tales of little people are
associated have not, in many cases, been habitations, but were natural
or sepulchral in their nature; (3) little people are not by any means
associated entirely with mounds; (4) the association of giants and
dwarfs in traditions confuses the theory; (5) there are fairies where no
pygmies ever were, as, for example, in North America; (6) even Eskimos
and Lapps have fairy beliefs, and could not have been the original
fairies of more modern fairy-lore. Altogether, as we think our study
will show, the evidence of the Fairy-Faith itself gives only a slender
and superficial support to the Pygmy Theory. We maintain that the
theory, so far as it is provable, and this is evidently not very far, is
only one strand, contributed by ethnology and social psychology, in the
complex fabric of the Fairy-Faith, and is, as such, woven round a
psychical central pattern--the fundamental pattern of the Fairy-Faith.
Therefore, from our point of view, the Pygmy Theory is altogether
inadequate, because it overlooks or misinterprets the most essential and
prominent elements in the belief which the Celtic peoples hold
concerning fairies and Fairyland.
The Druid Theory to account for fairies is less widespread. It is that
the folk-memory of the Druids and their magical practices is alone
responsible for the Fairy-Faith. The first suggestion of this theory
seems to have been made by the Rev. Dr. Cririe, in his _Scottish
Scenery_, published in 1803.[4] Three years later, the Rev. Dr. Graham
published an identical hypothesis in his _Sketches Descriptive of
Picturesque Scenery on the Southern Confines of Perthshire_. Mr.
MacRitchie suggests, with all reason, that the two writers probably had
discussed together the theory, and hence both put it forth. Alfred
Maury, in _Les Fées du Moyen-Age_, published in 1843 at Paris, appears
to have made liberal use of Patrick Graham's suggestions in propounding
his theory that the _fées_ or fairy women of the Middle Ages are due to
a folk-memory of Druidesses. Maury seems to have forgotten that
throughout pagan Britain and Ireland, both much more important for the
study of fairies than Celtic Europe during the Middle Ages, Druids
rather than Druidesses had the chief influence on the people, and that
yet, despite this fact, Irish and Welsh mythology is full of stories
about fairy women coming from the Otherworld; nor is there any proof, or
even good ground for argument, that the Irish fairy women are a
folk-memory of Druidesses, for if there ever were Druidesses in Ireland
they played a subordinate and very insignificant rôle. As in the case of
the Pygmy Theory, we maintain that the Druid Theory, also, is
inadequate. It discovers a real anthropomorphic influence at work on the
outward aspects of the Fairy-Faith, and illogically takes that to be the
origin of the Fairy-Faith.
The fourth theory, the Mythological Theory, is of very great importance.
It is that fairies are the diminished figures of the old pagan
divinities of the early Celts; and many modern authorities on Celtic
mythology and folk-lore hold it. To us the theory is acceptable so far
as it goes. But it is not adequate in itself nor is it the root theory,
because a belief in gods and goddesses must in turn be explained; and in
making this explanation we arrive at the Psychological Theory, which
this study--perhaps the first one of its kind--attempts to set forth.
VII. THE IMPORTANCE OF STUDYING THE FAIRY-FAITH
I have made a very careful personal investigation of the surviving
Celtic Fairy-Faith by living for many months with and among the people
who preserve it; I have compared fairy phenomena and the phenomena said
to be caused by gods, genii, daemons, or spirits of different kinds and
recorded in the writings of ancient, mediaeval, and modern metaphysical
philosophers, Christian and pagan saints, mystics, and seers, and now
more or less clearly substantiated by from thirty to forty years of
experimentation in psychical sciences by eminent scientists of our own
times, such as Sir William Crookes and Sir Oliver Lodge in England, and
M. Camille Flammarion in France. As a result, I am convinced of the very
great value of a serious study of the Fairy-Faith. The Fairy-Faith as
the folk-religion of the Celts ought, like all religions, to be studied
sympathetically as well as scientifically. To those who take a
materialistic view of life, and consequently deny the existence of
spirits or invisible intelligences such as fairies are said to be, we
should say as my honoured American teacher in psychology, the late Dr.
William James, of Harvard, used to say in his lectures at Stanford
University, 'Materialism considered as a system of philosophy never tries
to explain the _Why_ of things.' But in our study of the Fairy-Faith we
shall attempt to deal with this _Why_ of things; and, then, perhaps the
value of studying fairies and Fairyland will be more apparent, even to
materialists.
The great majority of men in cities are apt to pride themselves on their
own exemption from 'superstition', and to smile pityingly at the poor
countrymen and countrywomen who believe in fairies. But when they do so
they forget that, with all their own admirable progress in material
invention, with all the far-reaching data of their acquired science,
with all the vast extent of their commercial and economic conquests,
they themselves have ceased to be natural. Wherever under modern
conditions great multitudes of men and women are herded together there
is bound to be an unhealthy psychical atmosphere never found in the
country--an atmosphere which inevitably tends to develop in the average
man who is not psychically strong enough to resist it, lower at the
expense of higher forces or qualities, and thus to inhibit any normal
attempts of the Subliminal Self (a well-accredited psychological entity)
to manifest itself in consciousness. In this connexion it is highly
significant to note that, as far as can be determined, almost all
professed materialists of the uncritical type, and even most of those
who are thinking and philosophizing sceptics about the existence of a
supersensuous realm or state of conscious being, are or have been
city-dwellers--usually so by birth and breeding. And even where we find
materialists of either type dwelling in the country, we generally find
them so completely under the hypnotic sway of city influences and mould
of thought in matters of education and culture, and in matters touching
religion, that they have lost all sympathetic and responsive contact
with Nature, because unconsciously they have thus permitted
conventionality and unnaturalness to insulate them from it. The Celtic
peasant, who may be their tenant or neighbour, is--if still uncorrupted
by them--in direct contrast unconventional and natural. He is normally
always responsive to psychical influences--as much so as an Australian
Arunta or an American Red Man, who also, like him, are fortunate enough
to have escaped being corrupted by what we egotistically, to distinguish
ourselves from them, call 'civilization'. If our Celtic peasant has
psychical experiences, or if he sees an apparition which he calls one of
the 'good people', that is to say a fairy, it is useless to try to
persuade him that he is under a delusion: unlike his
materialistically-minded lord, he would not attempt nor even desire to
make himself believe that what he has seen he has not seen. Not only has
he the will to believe, but he has the right to believe; because his
belief is not a matter of being educated and reasoning logically, nor a
matter of faith and theology--it is a fact of his own individual
experiences, as he will tell you. Such peasant seers have frequently
argued with me to the effect that 'One does not have to be educated in
order to see fairies'.
Unlike the natural mind of the uncorrupted Celt, Arunta, or American Red
Man, which is ever open to unusual psychical impressions, the mind of
the business man in our great cities tends to be obsessed with business
affairs both during his waking and during his dream states, the
politician's with politics similarly, the society-leader's with society;
and the unwholesome excitement felt by day in the city is apt to be
heightened at night through a satisfying of the feeling which it
morbidly creates for relaxation and change of stimuli. In the slums,
humanity is divorced from Nature under even worse conditions, and
becomes wholly decadent. But in slum and in palace alike there is
continually a feverish nerve-tension induced by unrest and worry; there
is impure and smoke-impregnated air, a lack of sunshine, a substitution
of artificial objects for natural objects, and in place of solitude the
eternal din of traffic. Instead of Nature, men in cities (and
paradoxically some conventionalized men in the country) have
'civilization'--and 'culture'.
Are city-dwellers like these, Nature's unnatural children, who grind out
their lives in an unceasing struggle for wealth and power, social
position, and even for bread, fit to judge Nature's natural children who
believe in fairies? Are they right in not believing in an invisible
world which they cannot conceive, which, if it exists, they--even though
they be scientists--are through environment and temperament alike
incapable of knowing? Or is the country-dwelling, the sometimes
'unpractical' and 'unsuccessful', the dreaming, and 'uncivilized'
peasant right? These questions ought to arouse in the minds of
anthropologists very serious reflection, world-wide in its scope.
At all events, and equally for the unbeliever and for the believer, the
study of the Fairy-Faith is of vast importance historically,
philosophically, religiously, and scientifically. In it lie the germs of
much of our European religions and philosophies, customs, and
institutions. And it is one of the chief keys to unlock the mysteries of
Celtic mythology. We believe that a greater age is coming soon, when all
the ancient mythologies will be carefully studied and interpreted, and
when the mythology of the Celts will be held in very high esteem. But
already an age has come when things purely Celtic have begun to be
studied; and the close observer can see the awakening genius of the
modern Celt manifesting itself in the realm of scholarship, of
literature, and even of art--throughout Continental Europe, especially
France and Germany, throughout Great Britain and Ireland, and throughout
the new Celtic world of America, as far west as San Francisco on the
great calm ocean of the future facing Japan and China. In truth the
Celtic empire is greater than it ever was before Caesar destroyed its
political unity; and its citizens have not forgotten the ancient faith
of their ancestors in a world invisible.
W. Y. E. W.
SECTION I
THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH
CHAPTER I
ENVIRONMENT
'In the Beauty of the World lies the ultimate redemption of our
mortality. When we shall become at one with nature in a sense
profounder even than the poetic imaginings of most of us, we shall
understand what now we fail to discern.'--FIONA MACLEOD.
Psychical interpretation--The mysticism of Erin and Armorica--In
Ireland--In Scotland--In the Isle of Man--In Wales--In Cornwall--In
Brittany.
As a preliminary to our study it is important, as we shall see later, to
give some attention to the influences and purely natural environment
under which the Fairy-Faith has grown up. And in doing so it will be
apparent to what extent there is truth in the Naturalistic Theory;
though from the first our interpretation of Environment is fundamentally
psychical. In this first chapter, then, in so far as they can be
recorded, we shall record a few impressions, which will, in a way, serve
as introductory to the more definite and detailed consideration of the
Fairy-Faith itself.
Ireland and Brittany, the two extremes of the modern Celtic world, are
for us the most important points from which to take our initial
bearings. Both washed by the waters of the Ocean of Atlantis, the one an
island, the other a peninsula, they have best preserved their old racial
life in its simplicity and beauty, with its high ideals, its mystical
traditions, and its strong spirituality. And, curious though the
statement may appear to some, this preservation of older manners and
traditions does not seem to be due so much to geographical isolation as
to subtle forces so strange and mysterious that to know them they must
be felt; and their nature can only be suggested, for it cannot be
described. Over Erin and Armorica, as over Egypt, there hovers a halo
of romance, of strangeness, of mysticism real and positive; and, if we
mistake not the language of others, these phrases of ours but echo
opinions common to many Celts native of the two countries--they who have
the first right to testify; and not only are there poets and seers among
them, but men of the practical world as well, and men of high rank in
scholarship, in literature, in art, and even in science.
IN IRELAND
If anyone would know Ireland and test these influences--influences which
have been so fundamental in giving to the Fairy-Faith of the past
something more than mere beauty of romance and attractive form, and
something which even to-day, as in the heroic ages, is ever-living and
ever-present in the centres where men of the second-sight say that they
see fairies in that strange state of subjectivity which the peasant
calls Fairyland--let him stand on the Hill of Tara silently and alone at
sunset, in the noonday, in the mist of a dark day. Let him likewise
silently and alone follow the course of the Boyne. Let him enter the
silence of New Grange and of Dowth. Let him muse over the hieroglyphics
of Lough Crew. Let him feel the mystic beauty of Killarney, the
peacefulness of Glendalough, of Monasterboise, of Clonmacnois, and the
isolation of Aranmore. Let him dare to enter the rings of fairies, to
tempt the 'good folk' at their _raths_ and _forts_. Let him rest on the
ancient cairn above the mountain-palace of Finvara and look out across
the battlefields of Moytura. Let him wander amid the fairy dells of
gentle Connemara. Let him behold the Irish Sea from the Heights of
Howth, as Fionn Mac Cumhail used to do. Let him listen to the
ocean-winds amid Dun Aengus. Let him view the stronghold of Cuchulainn
and the Red Branch Knights. Let him linger beside that mysterious lake
which lies embosomed between two prehistoric cairns on the summit of
enchanted Slieve Gullion, where yet dwells invisible the mountain's
Guardian, a fairy woman. Let him then try to interpret the mysticism of
an ancient Irish myth, in order to understand why men have been told
that in the plain beneath this magic mountain of Ireland mighty warfare
was once waged on account of a Bull, by the hosts of Queen Meave against
those of Cuchulainn the hero of Ulster. Let him be lost in the mists on
the top of Ben Bulbin. Let him know the haunts of fairy kings and queens
in Roscommon. Let him follow in the footsteps of Patrick and Bridgit and
Columba. When there are dark days and stormy nights, let him sit beside
a blazing fire of fragrant peat in a peasant's straw-thatched cottage
listening to tales of Ireland's golden age--tales of gods, of heroes, of
ghosts, and of fairy-folk. If he will do these things, he will know
Ireland, and why its people believe in fairies.
As yet, little has been said concerning the effects of clouds, of
natural scenery, of weird and sudden transformations in earth and sky
and air, which play their part in shaping the complete Fairy-Faith of
the Irish; but what we are about to say concerning Scotland will suggest
the same things for Ireland, because the nature of the landscape and the
atmospheric changes are much the same in the two countries, both inland
and on their rock-bound and storm-swept shores.
IN SCOTLAND
In the moorlands between Trossachs and Aberfoyle, a region made famous
by Scott's _Rob Roy_, I have seen atmospheric changes so sudden and so
contrasted as to appear marvellous. What shifting of vapours and clouds,
what flashes of bright sun-gleams, then twilight at midday! Across the
landscape, shadows of black dense fog-banks rush like shadows of flocks
of great birds which darken all the earth. Palpitating fog-banks wrap
themselves around the mountain-tops and then come down like living
things to move across the valleys, sometimes only a few yards above the
traveller's head. And in that country live terrible water-kelpies. When
black clouds discharge their watery burden it is in wind-driven vertical
water-sheets through which the world appears as through an ice-filmed
window-pane. Perhaps in a single day there may be the bluest of heavens
and the clearest air, the densest clouds and the darkest shadows, the
calm of the morning and the wind of the tempest. At night in Aberfoyle
after such a day, I witnessed a clear sunset and a fair evening sky; in
the morning when I arose, the lowlands along the river were inundated
and a thousand cascades, large and small, were leaping down the
mountain-highlands, and rain was falling in heavy masses. Within an hour
afterwards, as I travelled on towards Stirling, the rain and wind
ceased, and there settled down over all the land cloud-masses so
inky-black that they seemed like the fancies of some horrible dream.
Then like massed armies they began to move to their mountain-strongholds,
and stood there; while from the east came perfect weather and a flood of
brilliant sunshine.
And in the Highlands from Stirling to Inverness what magic, what
changing colours and shadows there were on the age-worn treeless hills,
and in the valleys with their clear, pure streams receiving tribute from
unnumbered little rills and springs, some dropping water drop by drop as
though it were fairy-distilled; and everywhere the heather giving to the
mountain-landscape a hue of rich purplish-brown, and to the air an odour
of aromatic fragrance.
On to the north-west beyond Inverness there is the same kind of a
treeless highland country; and then after a few hours of travel one
looks out across the water from Kyle and beholds Skye, where Cuchulainn
is by some believed to have passed his young manhood learning feats of
arms from fairy women,--Skye, dark, mountainous, majestic, with its
waterfalls turning to white spray as they tumble from cliff to cliff
into the sound, from out the clouds that hide their mountain-summit
sources.
In the Outer Hebrides, as in the Aranmore Islands off West Ireland,
influences are at work on the Celtic imagination quite different from
those in Skye and its neighbouring islands. Mountainous billows which
have travelled from afar out of the mysterious watery waste find their
first impediment on the west of these isolated Hebridean isles, and they
fling themselves like mad things in full fury against the wild rocky
islets fringing the coast. White spray flashes in unearthly forms over
the highest cliff, and the unrestrained hurricane whirls it far inland.
Ocean's eternally murmuring sounds set up a responsive vibration in the
soul of the peasant, as he in solitude drives home his flocks amid the
weird gloaming at the end of a December day; and, later, when he sits
brooding in his humble cottage at night, in the fitful flickering of a
peat fire, he has a mystic consciousness that deep down in his being
there is a more divine music compared with which that of external nature
is but a symbol and an echo; and, as he stirs the glowing peat-embers,
phantoms from an irretrievable past seem to be sitting with him on the
edge of the half-circle of dying light. Maybe there are skin-clad
huntsmen of the sea and land, with spears and knives of bone and flint
and shaggy sleeping dogs, or fearless sea-rovers resting wearily on
shields of brilliant bronze, or maybe Celtic warriors fierce and bold;
and then he understands that his past and his present are one.
Commonly there is the thickest day-darkness when the driving storms come
in from the Atlantic, or when dense fog covers sea and land; and, again,
there are melancholy sea-winds moaning across from shore to shore,
bending the bushes of the purple heather. At other times there is a
sparkle of the brightest sunshine on the ocean waves, a fierceness
foreign to the more peaceful Highlands; and then again a dead silence
prevails at sunrise and at sunset if one be on the mountains, or, if on
the shore, no sound is heard save the rhythmical beat of the waves, and
now and then the hoarse cry of a sea-bird. All these contrasted
conditions may be seen in one day, or each may endure for a day; and the
dark days last nearly all the winter. And then it is, during the long
winter, that the crofters and fisher-folk congregate night after night
in a different neighbour's house to tell about fairies and ghosts, and
to repeat all those old legends so dear to the heart of the Celt.
Perhaps every one present has heard the same story or legend a hundred
times, yet it is always listened to and told as though it were the
latest bulletin of some great world-stirring event. Over those little
islands, so far away to the north, out on the edge of the world, in
winter-time darkness settles down at four o'clock or even earlier; and
the islanders hurry through with their dinner of fish and oat-bread so
as not to miss hearing the first story. When the company has gathered
from far and near, pipes are re-filled and lit and the peat is heaped
up, for the story-telling is not likely to end before midnight. 'The
house is roomy and clean, if homely, with its bright peat fire in the
middle of the floor. There are many present--men and women, boys and
girls. All the women are seated, and most of the men. Girls are crouched
between the knees of fathers or brothers or friends, while boys are
perched wherever--boy-like--they can climb. The houseman is twisting
twigs of heather into ropes to hold down thatch, a neighbour crofter is
twining quicken root into cords to tie cows, while another is plaiting
bent grass into baskets to hold meal. The housewife is spinning, a
daughter is carding, another daughter is teazing, while a third
daughter, supposed to be working, is away in the background conversing
in low whispers with the son of a neighbouring crofter. Neighbour wives
and neighbour daughters are knitting, sewing, or embroidering.'[5] Then
when the bad weather for fishing has been fully discussed by the men,
and the latest gossip by the women, and the foolish talk of the youths
and maidens in the corners is finished, the one who occupies the chair
of honour in the midst of the _ceilidh_[6] looks around to be sure that
everybody is comfortable and ready; and, as his first story begins, even
the babes by instinct cease their noise and crying, and young and old
bend forward eagerly to hear every word. It does not matter if some of
the boys and girls do topple over asleep, or even some of the older folk
as the hour gets late; the tales meet no interruption in their even,
unbroken flow. And here we have the most Celtic and the most natural
environments which the Fairy-Faith enjoys in Scotland.
There are still the Southern Highlands in the country around Oban, and
the islands near them; and of all these isles none is so picturesque in
history as the one Columba loved so well. Though Iona enjoys less of the
wildness of the Hebrides furthest west, it has their storm-winds and
fogs and dark days, and their strangeness of isolation. On it, as
Adamnan tells us, the holy man fought with black demons who came to
invade his monastery, and saw angelic hosts; and when the angels took
his soul at midnight in that little chapel by the sea-shore there was a
mystic light which illuminated all the altar like the brightest
sunshine. But nowadays, where the saint saw demons and angels the
Islanders see ghosts and 'good people', and when one of these islanders
is taken in death it is not by angels--it is by fairies.
IN THE ISLE OF MAN
In the midst of the Irish Sea, almost equidistant from Ireland,
Scotland, and Wales, and concentrating in itself the psychical and
magnetic influences from these three Celtic lands, and from Celto-Saxon
England too, lies the beautiful kingdom of the great Tuatha De Danann
god, Manannan Mac Lir, or, as his loyal Manx subjects prefer to call
him, Mannanan-Beg-Mac-y-Leir. In no other land of the Celt does Nature
show so many moods and contrasts, such perfect repose at one time and at
another time the mightiness of its unloosed powers, when the baffled sea
throws itself angrily against a high rock-bound coast, as wild and
almost as weather-worn as the western coasts of Ireland and the
Hebrides.
But it is Nature's calmer moods which have greater effect upon the Manx
people: on the summit of his ancient stronghold, South Barrule Mountain,
the god Manannan yet dwells invisible to mortal eyes, and whenever on a
warm day he throws off his magic mist-blanket with which he is wont to
cover the whole island, the golden gorse or purple heather blossoms
become musical with the hum of bees, and sway gently on breezes made
balmy by the tropical warmth of an ocean stream flowing from the far
distant Mexican shores of a New World. Then in many a moist and
sweet-smelling glen, pure and verdant, land-birds in rejoicing bands add
to the harmony of sound, as they gather on the newly-ploughed field or
dip themselves in the clear water of the tinkling brook; and from the
cliffs and rocky islets on the coast comes the echo of the multitudinous
chorus of sea-birds. At sunset, on such a day, as evening calmness
settles down, weird mountain shadows begin to move across the
dimly-lighted glens; and when darkness has fallen, there is a mystic
stillness, broken only by the ceaseless throbbing of the sea-waves, the
flow of brooks, and the voices of the night.
In the moorland solitudes, even by day, there sometimes broods a deeper
silence, which is yet more potent and full of meaning for the peasant,
as under its spell he beholds the peaceful vision, happy and sunlit, of
sea and land, of gentle mountains falling away in land-waves into
well-tilled plains and fertile valleys; and he comes to feel
instinctively the old Druidic Fires relit within his heart, and perhaps
unconsciously he worships there in Nature's Temple. The natural beauty
without awakens the divine beauty within, and for a second of time he,
out of his subconsciousness, is conscious that in Nature there are
beings and inaudible voices which have no existence for the flippant
pleasure-seeking crowds who come and go. To the multitude, his ancestral
beliefs are foolishness, his fairies but the creatures of a fervid
Celtic imagination which readily responds to unusual phenomena and
environments. They will not believe with him that all beauty and harmony
in the world are but symbolic, and that behind these stand unseen
sustaining forces and powers which are conscious and eternal; and though
by instinct they willingly personify Nature they do not know the secret
of why they do so: for them the outer is reality, the inner
non-existent.
From the Age of Stone to the civilized era of to-day, the Isle of Man
has been, in succession, the home of every known race and people who
have flourished in Western Europe; and though subject, in turn, to the
Irish Gael and to the Welsh Brython, to Northmen and to Danes, to Scots
and to English, and the scene of sweeping transformations in religion,
as pagan cults succeeded one another, to give way to the teaching of St.
Patrick and his disciples St. German and St. Maughold, and this finally
to the Protestant form of Christianity, the island alone of Celtic lands
has been strangely empowered to maintain in almost primitive purity its
ancient constitution and freedom, and though geographically at the very
centre of the United Kingdom, is not a part of it. The archaeologist may
still read in mysterious symbols of stone and earth, as they lie strewn
over the island's surface, the history of this age-long panoramic
procession of human evolution; while through these same symbols the Manx
seer reads a deeper meaning; and sometimes in the superhuman realm of
radiant light, to which since long ago they have oft come and oft
returned, he meets face to face the gods and heroes whose early tombs
stand solitary on the wind-swept mountain-top and moorland, or hidden
away in the embrace of wild flowers and verdure amid valleys; and in the
darker mid-world he sees innumerable ghosts of many of these races which
have perished.
IN WALES
Less can be said of Wales than of Ireland, or of Scotland as a whole. It
has, it is true, its own peculiar psychic atmosphere, different, no
doubt, because its people are Brythonic Celts rather than Gaelic Celts.
But Wales, with conditions more modernized than is the case in Ireland
or in the Western Hebrides of Scotland, does not now exhibit in a
vigorous or flourishing state those Celtic influences which, when they
were active, did so much to create the precious Romances of Arthur and
his Brotherhood, and to lay the foundations for the Welsh belief in the
_Tylwyth Teg_, a fairy race still surviving in a few favoured
localities.
Wales, like all Celtic countries, is a land of long sea-coasts, though
there seems to be, save in the mountains of the north, less of mist and
darkness and cloud effects than in Ireland and Scotland. In the south,
perhaps the most curious influences are to be felt at St. David's Head,
and in St. David's itself--once the goal for thousands of pilgrims from
many countries of mediaeval Europe, and, probably, in pagan times the
seat of an oracle. And a place of like character is the peninsula of
Gower, south of Swansea. Caerphilly Castle, where the Green Lady reigns
now amid its ruined acres, is a strange place; and so is the hill near
Carmarthen, where Merlin is asleep in a cave with the fairy-woman
Vivian. But in none of these places to-day is there a strong living
faith in fairies as there is, for example, in West Ireland. The one
region where I found a real Celtic atmosphere--and it is a region where
everybody speaks Welsh--is a mountainous country rarely visited by
travellers, save archaeologists, a few miles from Newport; and its
centre is the Pentre Evan Cromlech, the finest cromlech in Wales if not
in Britain. By this prehistoric monument and in the country round the
old Nevern Church, three miles away, there is an active belief in the
'fair-folk', in ghosts, in death-warnings, in death-candles and
phantom-funerals, and in witchcraft and black magic. Thence on to
Newcastle-Emlyn and its valley, where many of the Mabinogion stories
took form, or at least from where they drew rich material in the way of
folk-lore,[7] are environments purely Welsh and as yet little disturbed
by the commercial materialism of the age.
There remain now to be mentioned three other places in Wales to me very
impressive psychically. These are: ancient Harlech, so famous in
recorded Welsh fairy-romance--Harlech with its strange stone-circles,
and old castle from which the Snowdon Range is seen to loom majestically
and clear, and with its sun-kissed bay; Mount Snowdon, with its memories
of Arthur and Welsh heroes; and sacred Anglesey or Mona, strewn with
tumuli, and dolmens, and pillar-stones--Mona, where the Druids made
their last stand against the Roman eagles--and its little island called
Holyhead, facing Ireland.
However, when all is said, modern Wales is poorer in its fairy
atmosphere than modern Ireland or modern Brittany. Certainly there is a
good deal of this fairy atmosphere yet, though it has become less vital
than the similar fairy atmosphere in the great centres of Erin and
Armorica. But the purely social environment under which the Fairy-Faith
of Wales survives is a potent force which promises to preserve
underneath the surface of Welsh national life, where the commercialism
of the age has compelled it to retire in a state of temporary latency,
the ancestral idealism of the ancient Brythonic race. In Wales, as in
Lower Brittany and in parts of Ireland and the Hebrides, one may still
hear in common daily use a language which has been continuously spoken
since unknown centuries before the rise of the Roman empire. And the
strong hold which the Druidic _Eisteddfod_ (an annual national congress
of bards and literati) continues to have upon the Welsh people, in spite
of their commercialism, is, again, a sign that their hearts remain
uncorrupted, that when the more favourable hour strikes they will sweep
aside the deadening influences which now hold them in spiritual bondage,
and become, as they were in the past, true children of Arthur.
IN CORNWALL
Strikingly like Brittany in physical aspects, Southern and Western
Cornwall is a land of the sea, of rolling plains and moorlands rather
than of high hills and mountains, a land of golden-yellow furze-bloom,
where noisy crowds of black crows and white sea-gulls mingle together
over the freshly-turned or new-sown fields, and where in the spring-time
the call of the cuckoo is heard with the song of the skylark. Like the
Isle of Man, from the earliest ages Cornwall has been a meeting-place
and a battle-ground for contending races. The primitive dark Iberian
peoples gave way before Aryan-Celtic invaders, and these to Roman and
then to Germanic invaders.
Nature has been kind to the whole of Cornwall, but chiefly upon the
peninsula whose ancient capital is Penzance (which possibly means 'the
Holy Headland'), and upon the land immediately eastward and northward of
it, she has bestowed her rarest gifts. Holding this territory embosomed
in the pure waters of Ocean, and breathing over it the pure air of the
Atlantic in spring and in summer calm, when the warm vapours from the
Gulf Stream sweep over it freely, and make it a land of flowers and of
singing-birds, Nature preserves eternally its beauty and its sanctity.
There are there ruined British villages whose builders are long
forgotten, strange prehistoric circular sun-temples like fortresses
crowning the hill-tops, mysterious underground passage-ways, and crosses
probably pre-Christian. Everywhere are the records of the mighty past of
this thrice-holy Druid land of sunset. There are weird legends of the
lost kingdom of Fair Lyonesse, which seers sometimes see beneath the
clear salt waves, with all its ancient towns and flowery fields; legends
of Phoenicians and Oriental merchants who came for tin; legends of gods
and of giants, of pixies and of fairies, of King Arthur in his castle at
Tintagel, of angels and of saints, of witches and of wizards.
On _Dinsul_, 'Hill dedicated to the Sun,' pagan priests and priestesses
kept kindled the Eternal Fire, and daily watched eastward for the rising
of the God of Light and Life, to greet his coming with paeans of
thanksgiving and praise. Then after the sixth century the new religion
had come proclaiming a more mystic Light of the World in the Son of God,
and to the pious half-pagan monks who succeeded the Druids the Archangel
St. Michael appeared in vision on the Sacred Mount.[8] And before St.
Augustine came to Britain the Celts of Cornwall had already combined in
their own mystical way the spiritual message of primitive Christianity
with the pure nature-worship of their ancestors; and their land was
then, as it most likely had been in pagan days, a centre of pilgrimages
for their Celtic kinsmen from Ireland, from Wales, from England, and
from Brittany. When in later times new theological doctrines were
superimposed on this mysticism of Celtic Christianity, the Sacred Fires
were buried in ashes, and the Light and Beauty of the pagan world
obscured with sackcloth.
But there in that most southern and western corner of the Isle of
Britain, the Sacred Fires themselves still burn on the divine hill-tops,
though smothered in the hearts of its children. The Cornishman's vision
is no longer clear. He looks upon cromlech and dolmen, upon ancient
caves of initiation, and upon the graves of his prehistoric ancestors,
and vaguely feels, but does not know, why his land is so holy, is so
permeated by an indefinable magic; for he has lost his ancestral mystic
touch with the unseen--he is 'educated' and 'civilized'. The hand of the
conqueror has fallen more heavily upon the people of Cornwall than upon
any other Celtic people, and now for a time, but let us hope happily
only for this dark period of transition, they sleep--until Arthur comes
to break the spell and set them free.
IN BRITTANY
As was pointed out at the beginning of this chapter, Ireland and
Brittany are to be regarded as the two poles of the modern Celtic world,
but it is believed by Celtic mystics that they are much more than this,
that they are two of its psychic centres, with Tara and Carnac as two
respective points of focus from which the Celtic influence of each
country radiates.[9] With such a psychical point of view, it makes no
difference at all whether one scholar argues Carnac to be Celtic and
another pre-Celtic, for if pre-Celtic, as it most likely is, it has
certainly been bequeathed to the people who were and are Celtic, and its
influence has been an unbroken thing from times altogether beyond the
horizon of history. According to this theory (and in following it we
are merely trying to put on record unique material transmitted to us by
the most learned of contemporary Celtic mystics and seers) there seem to
be certain favoured places on the earth where its magnetic and even more
subtle forces are most powerful and most easily felt by persons
susceptible to such things; and Carnac appears to be one of the greatest
of such places in Europe, and for this reason, as has been thought, was
probably selected by its ancient priest-builders as the great centre for
religious practices, for the celebration of pagan mysteries, for tribal
assemblies, for astronomical observations, and very likely for
establishing schools in which to educate neophytes for the priesthood.
Tara, with its tributary Boyne valley, is a similar place in Ireland, so
selected and so used, as, in our study of the cult of fairies and the
cult of the dead, manuscript evidence will later indicate. And thus to
such psychical and magnetic, or, according perhaps to others, religious
or traditional influences as focus themselves at Tara and Carnac, though
in other parts of the two countries as well, may be due in a great, even
in an essential measure, the vigorous and ever-living Fairy-Faith of
Ireland, and the innate and ever-conscious belief of the Breton people
in the Legend of the Dead and in a world invisible. For fairies and
souls of the dead, though, strictly speaking, not confused, are believed
to be beings of the subjective world existing to-day, and influencing
mortals, as they have always existed and influenced them according to
ancient and modern traditions, and as they appear now in the eyes even
of science through the work of a few pioneer scientists in psychical
research. And it seems probable that subjective beings of this kind,
granting their existence, were made use of by the ancient Druids, and
even by Patrick when the old and new religions met to do battle on the
Hill of Tara. The control of Tara, as a psychical centre, meant the
psychical control of all Ireland. To-day on the Hill of Tara the statue
of St. Patrick dwarfs the Liath Stone beside it; at Carnac the Christian
Cross overshadows dolmens and menhirs.
A learned priest of the Roman Church told me, when I met him in Galway,
that in his opinion those places in Ireland where ancient sacrifices
were performed to pagan or Druid gods are still, unless they have been
regularly exorcized, under the control of demons (daemons). And what the
Druids were at Tara and throughout Erin and most probably at Carnac as
well, the priests were in Egypt, and the pythonesses in Greece. That is
to say, Druids, Egyptian priests, priestesses in charge of Greek
oracles, are said to have foretold the future, interpreted omens, worked
all miracles and wonders of magic by the aid of daemons, who were
regarded as an order of invisible beings, intermediary between gods and
men, and as sometimes including the shades from Hades.
I should say as before, if he who knowing Ireland, the Land of Faerie,
would know in the same manner Brittany, the Land of the Dead, let him
silently and alone walk many times--in sun, in wind, in storm, in thick
mist--through the long, broad avenues of stone of the Alignements at
Carnac. Let him watch from among them the course of the sun from east to
west. Let him stand on St. Michael's Mount on the day of the winter
solstice, or on the day of the summer solstice. Let him enter the
silence of its ancient underground chamber, so dark and so mysterious.
Let him sit for hours musing amid cromlechs and dolmens, and beside
menhirs, and at holy wells. Let him marvel at the mightiest of menhirs
now broken and prostrate at Locmariaquer, and then let him ponder over
the subterranean places near it. Let him try to read the symbolic
inscriptions on the rocks in Gavrinis. Let him stand on the Île de Sein
at sunrise and at sunset. Let him penetrate the solitudes of the Forest
of Brocéliande, and walk through the Val-Sans-Retour (Vale-Without-Return).
And then let him wander in footpaths with the Breton peasant through
fields where good dames sit on the sunny side of a bush or wall,
knitting stockings, where there are long hedges of furze, golden-yellow
with bloom--even in January--and listen to stories about _corrigans_,
and about the dead who mingle here with the living. Let him enter the
peasant's cottage when there is fog over the land and the sea-winds are
blowing across the shifting sand-dunes, and hear what he can tell him.
Let him, even as he enjoys the picturesque customs and dress of the
Breton folk and looks on at their joyous _ronde_ (perhaps the relic of a
long-forgotten sun-dance), observe the depth of their nature, their
almost ever-present sense of the seriousness of human life and effort,
their beautiful characters as their mystic land has shaped them without
the artificiality of books and schools, their dreaminess as they look
out across the ocean, their often perfect physique and fine profiles and
rosy cheeks, and yet withal their brooding innate melancholy. And let
him know that there is with them always an overshadowing consciousness
of an invisible world, not in some distant realm of space, but here and
now, blending itself with this world; its inhabitants, their dead
ancestors and friends, mingling with them daily, and awaiting the hour
when the _Ankou_ (a King of the Dead) shall call each to join their
invisible company.
SECTION I
THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH
CHAPTER II
THE TAKING OF EVIDENCE
'During all these centuries the Celt has kept in his heart some
affinity with the mighty beings ruling in the Unseen, once so
evident to the heroic races who preceded him. His legends and faery
tales have connected his soul with the inner lives of air and water
and earth, and they in turn have kept his heart sweet with hidden
influence.'--A. E.
Method of presentation--The logical verdict--Trustworthiness of
legends--The Fairy-Faith held by the highly educated Celt as well
as by the Celtic peasant--The evidence is complete and
adequate--Its analysis--The Fairy-Tribes dealt with--Witnesses and
their testimony: from Ireland, with introduction by Dr. Douglas
Hyde; from Scotland, with introduction by Dr. Alexander Carmichael;
from the Isle of Man, with introduction by Miss Sophia Morrison;
from Wales, with introduction by the Right Hon. Sir John Rhŷs;
from Cornwall, with introduction by Mr. Henry Jenner; and from
Brittany, with introduction by Professor Anatole Le Braz.
I. GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Various possible plans have presented themselves for setting forth the
living Fairy-Faith as I have found it during my travels in the six
Celtic countries among the people who hold it. To take a bit here and a
bit there from a miscellaneous group of psychological experiences, fairy
legends and stories which are linked together almost inseparably in the
mind of the one who tells them, does not seem at all satisfactory, nor
even just, in trying to arrive at a correct result. Classification under
various headings, such, for example, as Fairy Abductions, Changelings,
or Appearances of Fairies, seems equally unsatisfactory; for as soon as
the details of folk-lore such as I am presenting are isolated from one
another--even though brought together in related groups--they must be
rudely torn out of their true and natural environment, and divorced from
the psychological atmosphere amidst which they were first presented by
the narrator. The same objection applies to any plan of dividing the
evidence into (1) that which is purely legendary; (2) that which is
second-hand or third-hand evidence from people who claim to have seen
fairies, or to have been in Fairyland or under fairy influences; and (3)
that which is first-hand evidence from actual percipients: these three
classes of evidence are so self-evident that every reader will be able
to distinguish each class for himself as it occurs, and a mechanical
classification by us is unnecessary. So no plan seems so good as the
plan I have adopted of permitting all witnesses to give their own
testimony in their own way and in its native setting, and then of
classifying and weighing such testimony according to the methods of
comparative religion and the anthropological sciences.
In most cases, as examination will show, the evidence is so clear that
little or no comment is necessary. Most of the evidence also points so
much in one direction that the only verdict which seems reasonable is
that the Fairy-Faith belongs to a doctrine of souls; that is to say,
that Fairyland is a state or condition, realm or place, very much like,
if not the same as, that wherein civilized and uncivilized men alike
place the souls of the dead, in company with other invisible beings such
as gods, daemons, and all sorts of good and bad spirits. Not only do
both educated and uneducated Celtic seers so conceive Fairyland, but
they go much further, and say that Fairyland actually exists as an
invisible world within which the visible world is immersed like an
island in an unexplored ocean, and that it is peopled by more species of
living beings than this world, because incomparably more vast and varied
in its possibilities.
We should be prepared in hearing the evidence to meet with some
contradictions and a good deal of confusion, for many of the people who
believe in such a strange world as we have just described, and who think
they sometimes have entered it or have seen some of its inhabitants,
have often had no training at all in schools or colleges. But when we
hear legendary tales which have never been recorded save in the minds
of unnumbered generations of men, we ought not on that account to
undervalue them; for often they are better authorities and more
trustworthy than many an ancient and carefully inscribed manuscript in
the British Museum; and they are probably far older than the oldest book
in the world. Let us, then, for a time, forget that there are such
things as libraries and universities, and betake ourselves to the Celtic
peasant for instruction, living close to nature as he lives, and
thinking the things which he thinks.
But the peasant will not be our only teacher, for we shall also hear
much of first importance from city folk of the highest intellectual
training. It has become, perhaps always has been in modern times, a
widespread opinion, even among some scholars, that the belief in fairies
is the property solely of simple, uneducated country-folk, and that
people who have had 'a touch of education and a little common sense
knocked into their heads', to use the ordinary language, 'wouldn't be
caught believing in such nonsense.' This same class of critics used to
make similar remarks about people who said there were ghosts, until the
truth of another 'stupid superstition' was discovered by psychical
research. So in this chapter we hope to correct this erroneous opinion
about the Fairy-Faith, an opinion chiefly entertained by scholars and
others who know not the first real fact about fairies, because they have
never lived amongst the people who believe in fairies, but derive all
their information from books and hearsay. In due order the proper sort
of witnesses will substantiate this position, but before coming to their
testimony we may now say that there are men and women in Dublin, in
other parts of Ireland, in Scotland, in the Isle of Man, and in
Brythonic lands too, whom all the world knows as educated leaders in
their respective fields of activity, who not only declare their belief
that fairies were, but that fairies are; and some of these men and women
say that they have the power to see fairies as real spiritual beings.
In the evidence about to be presented there has been no selecting in
favour of any one theory; it is presented as discovered. The only
liberty taken with some of the evidence has been to put it into better
grammatical form, and sometimes to recast an ambiguous statement when I,
as collector, had in my own mind no doubt as to its meaning.
Translations have been made as literal as possible; though sometimes it
has been found better to offer the meaning rather than what in English
would be an obscure colloquialism or idiomatic expression. The method
pursued in seeking the evidence has been to penetrate as deeply and in
as natural a way as possible the thoughts of the people who believe in
fairies and like beings, by living among them and observing their
customs and ways of thought, and recording what seemed relevant to the
subject under investigation--chance expressions, and legends told under
various ordinary conditions--rather than to collect long legends or
literary fairy-stories. For these last the reader is referred to the
many excellent works on Celtic folk-lore. We have sought to bring
together, as perhaps has not been done before, the philosophy of the
belief in fairies, rather than the mere fairy-lore itself, though the
two cannot be separated. In giving the evidence concerning fairies, we
sometimes give evidence which, though akin to it and thus worthy of
record, is not strictly fairy-lore. All that we have omitted from the
materials in the form first taken down are stories and accounts of
things not sufficiently related to the world of Faerie to be of value
here.
In no case has testimony been admitted from a person who was known to be
unreliable, nor even from a person who was thought to be unreliable.
Accordingly, the evidence we are to examine ought to be considered good
evidence so far as it goes; and since it represents almost all known
elements of the Fairy-Faith and contains almost all the essential
elements upon which the advocates of the Naturalistic Theory, of the
Pygmy Theory, of the Druid Theory, of the Mythological Theory, as well
as of our own Psychological Theory, must base their arguments, we
consider it very adequate evidence. Nearly every witness is a Celt who
has been made acquainted with the belief in fairies through direct
contact with people who believe in them, or through having heard
fairy-traditions among his own kindred, or through personal
psychological experiences. And it is exceedingly fortunate for us that
an unusually large proportion of these Celtic witnesses are actual
percipients and natural seers, because the eliminations from the
Fairy-Faith to be brought about in chapter iii by means of an
anthropological analysis of evidence will be so extensive that,
scientifically and strictly speaking, there will remain as a residual or
unknown quantity, upon which our final conclusion must depend, solely
the testimony of reliable seer-witnesses. That is to say, no method of
anthropological dissection of the evidence can force aside consideration
of the ultimate truth which may or may not reside in the testimony of
sane and thoroughly reliable seer-witnesses.
Old and young, educated and uneducated, peasant and city-bred, testify
to the actual existence of the Celtic Fairy-Faith; and the evidence from
Roman Catholics stands beside that from Protestants, the evidence of
priests supports that of scholars and scientists, peasant seers have
testified to the same kind of visions as highly educated seers; and what
poets have said agrees with what is told by business men, engineers, and
lawyers. But the best of witnesses, like ourselves, are only human, and
subject to the shortcomings of the ordinary man, and therefore no claim
can be made in any case to infallibility of evidence: all the world over
men interpret visions pragmatically and sociologically, or hold beliefs
in accord with their own personal experiences; and are for ever
unconsciously immersed in a sea of psychological influences which
sometimes may be explainable through the methods of sociological
inquiry, sometimes may be supernormal in origin and nature, and hence to
be explained most adequately, if at all, through psychical research. Our
study is a study of human nature itself, and, moreover, often of human
nature in its most subtle aspects, which are called psychical; and the
most difficult problem of all is for human nature to interpret and
understand its own ultimate essence and psychological instincts. Our
whole aim is to discover what reasonableness may or may not stand behind
a belief so vast, so ancient, so common (contrary to popular non-Celtic
opinion) to all classes of Celts, and so fundamental a shaping force in
European history, religion, and social institutions.
When we state our conviction that the Fairy-Faith is common to all
classes of Celts, we do not state that it is common to all Celts. The
materialization of the age has affected the Fairy-Faith as it has
affected all religious beliefs the world over. This has been pointed out
by Dr. Hyde, by Dr. Carmichael, and by Mr. Jenner in their respective
introductions for Ireland, Scotland, and Cornwall. Nevertheless, the
Fairy-Faith as the folk-religion of the Celtic peoples is still able to
count its adherents by hundreds of thousands. Even in many cases where
Christian theology has been partially or wholly discarded by educated
Celts, in the country or in the city, as being to them in too many
details out of harmony with accepted scientific truths, the belief in
fairies has been jealously retained, and will, so it would seem, be
retained in the future.
We are now prepared to hear about the _Daoine Maithe_, the 'Good
People', as the Irish call their _Sidhe_ race; about the 'People of
Peace', the 'Still-Folk' or the 'Silent Moving Folk', as the Scotch call
their _Sìth_ who live in green knolls and in the mountain fastnesses of
the Highlands; about various Manx fairies; about the _Tylwyth Teg_, the
'Fair-Family' or 'Fair-Folk', as the Welsh people call their fairies;
about Cornish Pixies; and about _Fées_ (fairies), _Corrigans_, and the
Phantoms of the Dead in Brittany. And along with these, for they are
very much akin, let us hear about ghosts--sometimes about ghosts who
discover hidden treasure, as in our story of the _Golden Image_--about
goblins, about various sorts of death-warnings generally coming from
apparitions of the dead, or from banshees, about death-candles and
phantom-funerals, about leprechauns, about hosts of the air, and all
kinds of elementals and spirits--in short, about all the orders of
beings who mingle together in that invisible realm called Fairyland.
II. IN IRELAND
Introduction by DOUGLAS HYDE, LL.D., D. Litt., M.R.I.A. (_An
Craoibhín Aoibhinn_), President of the Gaelic League; author of _A
Literary History of Ireland_, &c.
Whatever may be thought of the conclusions drawn by Mr. Wentz from his
explorations into the Irish spirit-world, there can be no doubt as to
the accuracy of the data from which he draws them. I have myself been
for nearly a quarter of a century collecting, off and on, the folk-lore
of Western Ireland, not indeed in the shape in which Mr. Wentz has
collected it, but rather with an eye (partly for linguistic and literary
purposes) to its songs, sayings, ballads, proverbs, and _sgéalta_, which
last are generally the equivalent of the German Märchen, but sometimes
have a touch of the saga nature about them. In making a collection of
these things I have naturally come across a very large amount of
folk-belief conversationally expressed, with regard to the 'good people'
and other supernatural manifestations, so that I can bear witness to the
fidelity with which Mr. Wentz has done his work on Irish soil, for to a
great number of the beliefs which he records I have myself heard
parallels, sometimes I have heard near variants of the stories,
sometimes the identical stories. So we may, I think, unhesitatingly
accept his subject-matter, whatever, as I said, be the conclusions we
may deduce from them.
The folk-tale (_sean-sgéal_) or Märchen, which I have spent so much time
in collecting, must not be confounded with the folk-belief which forms
the basis of Mr. Wentz's studies. The _sgéal_ or story is something much
more intricate, complicated, and thought-out than the belief. One can
quite easily distinguish between the two. One (the belief) is short,
conversational, chiefly relating to real people, and contains no great
sequence of incidents, while the other (the folk-tale) is long,
complicated, more or less conventional, and above all has its interest
grouped around a single central figure, that of the hero or heroine. I
may make this plainer by an example. Let us go into a cottage on the
mountain-side, as Mr. Wentz and I have done so often, and ask the old
man of the house if he ever heard of such things as fairies, and he will
tell you that 'there is fairies in it surely. Didn't his own father see
the "forth"[10] beyond full of them, and he passing by of a moonlight
night and a little piper among them, and he playing music that mortal
man never heard the like?' or he'll tell you that 'he himself wouldn't
say agin fairies for it's often he heard their music at the old bush
behind the house'. Ask what the fairies are like, and he will tell
you--well, pretty much what Mr. Wentz tells us. From this and the like
accounts we form our ideas of fairies and fairy music, of ghosts,
mermaids, _púcas_, and so on, but there is no sequence of incidents, no
hero, no heroine, no story.
Again, ask the old man if he knows e'er a _sean-sgéal_ (story or
Märchen), and he will ask you at once, 'Did you ever hear the Speckled
Bull; did you ever hear the Well at the end of the world; did you ever
hear the Tailor and the Three Beasts; did you ever hear the Hornless
Cow?' Ask him to relate one of these, and if you get him in the right
vein, which may be perhaps one time in ten, or if you induce the right
vein, which you may do perhaps nine times out of ten, you will find him
begin with a certain gravity and solemnity at the very beginning, thus,
'There was once, in old times and in old times it was, a king in
Ireland'; or perhaps 'a man who married a second wife'; or perhaps 'a
widow woman with only one son': and the tale proceeds to recount the
life and adventures of the heroes or heroines, whose biographies told in
Irish in a sort of stereotyped form may take from ten minutes to half an
hour to get through. Some stories would burn out a dip candle in the
telling, or even last the whole night. But these stories have little or
nothing to say to the questions raised in this book.
The problem we have to deal with is a startling one, as thus put before
us by Mr. Wentz. Are these beings of the spirit world real beings,
having a veritable existence of their own, in a world of their own, or
are they only the creation of the imagination of his informants, and
the tradition of bygone centuries? The newspaper, the 'National' School,
and the _Zeitgeist_ have answered to their own entire satisfaction that
these things are imagination pure and simple. Yet this off-hand
condemnation does not always carry with it a perfect conviction. We do
not doubt the existence of tree-martins or kingfishers, although nine
hundred and ninety-nine people out of every thousand pass their entire
lives without being vouchsafed a glimpse of them in their live state;
and may it not be the same with the creatures of the spirit world, may
not they also exist, though to only one in a thousand it be vouchsafed
to behold them? The spirit creatures cannot be stuffed and put into
museums, like rare animals and birds, whose existence we might doubt of
if we had not seen them there; yet they may exist just as such animals
and birds do, though we cannot see them. I, at least, have often been
tempted to think so. But the following considerations, partly drawn from
comparative folk-lore, have made me hesitate about definitely accepting
any theory.
In the first place, then, viewing the Irish spirit-world as a whole, we
find that it contains, even on Mr. Wentz's showing, quite a number of
different orders of beings, of varying shapes, appearances, size, and
functions. Are we to believe that all those beings equally exist, and,
on the principle that there can be no smoke without a fire, are we to
hold that there would be no popular conception of the banshee, the
leprechaun, or the _Maighdean-mhara_ (sea-maiden, mermaid), and
consequently no tales told about them, if such beings did not exist, and
from time to time allow themselves to be seen like the wood-martin and
the kingfisher? This question is, moreover, further complicated by the
belief in the appearance of things that are or appear to be inanimate
objects, not living beings, such as the deaf coach or the phantom ship
in full sail, the appearance of which Mr. Yeats has immortalized in one
of his earliest and finest poems.
Again, although the _bean-sidhe_ (banshee), leprechaun, _púca_, and the
like are the most commonly known and usually seen creatures of the
spirit world, yet great quantities of other appearances are believed to
have been also sporadically met with. I very well remember sitting one
night some four or five years ago in an hotel in Indianapolis, U.S.A.,
and talking to four Irishmen, one or two of them very wealthy, and all
prosperous citizens of the United States. The talk happened to turn upon
spirits--the only time during my entire American experiences in which
such a thing happened--and each man of the four had a story of his own
to tell, in which he was a convinced believer, of ghostly manifestations
seen by him in Ireland. Two of these manifestations were of beings that
would fall into no known category; a monstrous rabbit as big as an ass,
which plunged into the sea (rabbits can swim), and a white heifer which
ascended to heaven, were two of them. I myself, when a boy of ten or
eleven, was perfectly convinced that on a fine early dewy morning in
summer when people were still in bed, I saw a strange horse run round a
seven-acre field of ours and change into a woman, who ran even swifter
than the horse, and after a couple of courses round the field
disappeared into our haggard. I am sure, whatever I may believe to-day,
no earthly persuasion would, at the time, have convinced me that I did
not see this. Yet I never saw it again, and never heard of any one else
seeing the same.
My object in mentioning these things is to show that if we concede the
real objective existence of, let us say, the apparently
well-authenticated banshee (_Bean-sidhe_, 'woman-fairy'), where are we
to stop? for any number of beings, more or less well authenticated, come
crowding on her heels, so many indeed that they would point to a far
more extensive world of different shapes than is usually suspected, not
to speak of inanimate objects like the coach and the ship. Of course
there is nothing inherently impossible in all these shapes existing any
more than in one of them existing, but they all seem to me to rest upon
the same kind of testimony, stronger in the case of some, less strong in
the case of others, and it is as well to point out this clearly.
My own experience is that beliefs in the _Sidhe_ (pronounced Shee)
folk, and in other denizens of the invisible world is, in many places,
rapidly dying. In reading folk-lore collections like those of Mr. Wentz
and others, one is naturally inclined to exaggerate the extent and depth
of these traditions. They certainly still exist, and can be found if you
go to search for them; but they often exist almost as it were by
sufferance, only in spots, and are ceasing to be any longer a power.
Near my home in a western county (County Roscommon) rises gently a
slope, which, owing to the flatness of the surrounding regions, almost
becomes a hill, and is a conspicuous object for many miles upon every
side. The old people called it in Irish _Mullach na Sidhe_. This name is
now practically lost, and it is called Fairymount. So extinct have the
traditions of the _Sidhe_-folk, who lived within the hill, become, that
a high ecclesiastic recently driving by asked his driver was there an
Irish name for the hill, and what was it, and his driver did not know.
There took place a few years ago a much talked of bog-slide in the
neighbouring townland of Cloon-Sheever (_Sidhbhair_ or _Siabhra_), 'the
Meadow of the Fairies,' and many newspaper correspondents came to view
it. One of the natives told a sympathetic newspaper reporter, 'Sure we
always knew it was going to move, that's why the place is named
Cloon-Sheever, the bog was always in a "shiver"!' I have never been able
to hear of any legends attached to what must have at one time been held
to be the head-quarters of the _Sidhe_ for a score of miles round it.
Of all the beings in the Irish mythological world the _Sidhe_ are,
however, apparently the oldest and the most distinctive. Beside them in
literature and general renown all other beings sink into insignificance.
A belief in them formerly dominated the whole of Irish life. The _Sidhe_
or Tuatha De Danann were a people like ourselves who inhabited the
hills--not as a rule the highest and most salient eminences, but I think
more usually the pleasant undulating slopes or gentle hill-sides--and
who lived there a life of their own, marrying or giving in marriage,
banqueting or making war, and leading there just as real a life as is
our own. All Irish literature, particularly perhaps the 'Colloquy of
the Ancients' (_Agallamh na Senórach_) abounds with reference to them.
To inquire how the Irish originally came by their belief in these
beings, the _Sidhe_ or Tuatha De Danann, is to raise a question which
cannot be answered, any more than one can answer the question, Where did
the Romans obtain their belief in Bacchus and the fauns, or the Greeks
their own belief in the beings of Olympus?
But granting such belief to have been indigenous to the Irish, as it
certainly seems to have been, then the tall, handsome fairies of Ben
Bulbin and the Sligo district, about whom Mr. Wentz tells us so much
interesting matter, might be accounted for as being a continuation of
the tradition of the ancient Gaels, or _a piece of heredity inherent in
the folk-imagination_. I mean, in other words, that the tradition about
these handsome dwellers within the hill-sides having been handed down
for ages, and having been perhaps exceptionally well preserved in those
districts, people saw just what they had always been told existed, or,
if I may so put it, they saw what they expected to see.
Fin Bheara, the King of the Connacht Fairies in Cnoc Meadha (or
Castlehacket) in the County Galway, his Queen Nuala, and all the
beautiful forms seen by Mr. Wentz's seer-witness (pp. 60 ff.), all the
banshees and all the human figures, white women, and so forth, who are
seen in raths and moats and on hill-sides, are the direct descendants,
so to speak, of the Tuatha De Danann or the _Sidhe_. Of this, I think,
there can be no doubt whatever.
But then how are we to account for the little red-dressed men and women
and the leprechauns? Yet, are they any more wonderful than the pygmies
of classic tradition? Is not the Mermaid to be found in Greece, and is
not the Lorelei as Germanic as the Kelpy is Caledonian. If we grant that
all these are creatures of primitive folk-belief, then how they come to
be so ceases to be a Celtic problem, it becomes a world problem. But
granted, as I say, that they were all creatures of primitive
folk-belief, then their occasional appearances, or the belief in such,
may be accounted for in exactly the same way as I have suggested to be
possible in the case of the Ben Bulbin fairies.
As for the belief in ghosts or _revenants_ (in Irish _tais_ or
_taidhbhse_), it seems to me that this may possibly rest to some extent
upon a different footing altogether. Here we are not confronted by a
different order of beings of different shapes and attributes from our
own, but only with the appearances, amongst the living, of men who were
believed or known to be dead or far away from the scene of their
appearances. Even those who may be most sceptical about the _Sidhe_-folk
and the leprechauns are likely to be convinced (on the mere evidence)
that the existence of 'astral bodies' or 'doubles', or whatever we may
call them, and the appearances of people, especially in the hour of
their death, to other people who were perhaps hundreds of miles away at
the time, is amply proven. Yet whatever may have been the case
originally when man was young, I do not think that this had in later
times any more direct bearing upon the belief in the _Sidhe_, the
leprechauns, the mermaid, and similar beings than upon the belief in the
Greek Pantheon, the naiads, the dryads, or the fauns; all of which
beliefs, probably arising originally from an animistic source, must have
differentiated themselves at a very early period. Of course every real
apparition, every 'ghost' apparition, tends now, and must have tended at
all times, to strengthen every spirit belief. For do not ghost
apparitions belong, in a way, to the same realm as all the others we
have spoken of, that is, to a realm equally outside our normal
experience?
Another very interesting point, and one hitherto generally overlooked,
is this, that different parts of the Irish soil cherish different bodies
of supernatural beings. The North of Ireland believes in beings unknown
in the South, and North-East Leinster has spirits unknown to the West.
Some places seem to be almost given up to special beliefs. Any outsider,
for instance, who may have read that powerful and grisly book, _La
Légende de la Mort_, by M. Anatole Le Braz, in two large volumes, all
about the awful appearances of _Ankou_ (Death), who simply dominates the
folk-lore of Brittany, will probably be very much astonished to know
that, though I have been collecting Irish folk-lore all my life, I have
never met Death figuring as a personality in more than two or three
tales, and these mostly of a trivial or humorous description, though the
Deaf Coach (_Cóiste Bodhar_), the belief in which is pretty general,
does seem a kind of parallel to the creaking cart in which _Ankou_
rides.
I would suggest, then, that the restriction of certain forms of spirits,
if I may so call them, to certain localities, may be due to race
intermixture. I would imagine that where the people of a primitive tribe
settled down most strongly, they also most strongly preserved the memory
of those supernatural beings who were peculiarly their own. The
_Sidhe_-folk appear to be pre-eminently and distinctively Milesian, but
the _geancanach_ (name of some little spirit in Meath and portion of
Ulster) may have been believed in by a race entirely different from that
which believed in the _clúracaun_ (a Munster sprite). Some of these
beliefs may be Aryan, but many are probably pre-Celtic.
Is it not strange that while the names and exploits of the great
semi-mythological heroes of the various Saga cycles of Ireland,
Cuchulainn, Conor mac Nessa, Finn, Osgar, Oisin, and the rest, are at
present the inheritance of all Ireland, and are known in every part of
it, there should still be, as I have said, supernatural beings believed
in which are unknown outside of their own districts, and of which the
rest of Ireland has never heard? If the inhabitants of the limited
districts in which these are seen still think they see them, my
suggestion is that the earlier race handed down an account of the
primitive beings believed in by their own tribe, and later generations,
if they saw anything, saw just what they were told existed.
Whilst far from questioning the actual existence of certain spiritual
forms and apparitions, I venture to throw out these considerations for
what they may be worth, and I desire again to thank Mr. Wentz for all
the valuable data he has collected for throwing light upon so
interesting a question.
RATRA, FRENCHPARK,
COUNTY ROSCOMMON, IRELAND,
_September_ 1910.
THE FAIRY FOLK OF TARA
On the ancient Hill of Tara, from whose heights the High Kings once
ruled all Ireland, from where the sacred fires in pagan days announced
the annual resurrection of the sun, the Easter Tide, where the magic of
Patrick prevailed over the magic of the Druids, and where the hosts of
the Tuatha De Danann were wont to appear at the great Feast of _Samain_,
to-day the fairy-folk of modern times hold undisputed sovereignty. And
from no point better than Tara, which thus was once the magical and
political centre of the Sacred Island, could we begin our study of the
Irish Fairy-Faith. Though the Hill has lain unploughed and deserted
since the curses of Christian priests fell upon it, on the calm air of
summer evenings, at the twilight hour, wondrous music still sounds over
its slopes, and at night long, weird processions of silent spirits march
round its grass-grown _raths_ and _forts_.[11] It is only men who fear
the curse of the Christians; the fairy-folk regard it not.
The Rev. Father Peter Kenney, of Kilmessan, had directed me to John
Graham, an old man over seventy years of age, who has lived near Tara
most of his life; and after I had found John, and he had led me from
_rath_ to _rath_ and then right through the length of the site where
once stood the banquet hall of kings and heroes and Druids, as he
earnestly described the past glories of Tara to which these ancient
monuments bear silent testimony, we sat down in the thick sweet grass on
the Sacred Hill and began talking of the olden times in Ireland, and
then of the 'good people':--
_The 'Good People's' Music._--'As sure as you are sitting down I heard
the pipes there in that wood (pointing to a wood on the north-west
slope of the Hill, and west of the banquet hall). I heard the music
another time on a hot summer evening at the Rath of Ringlestown, in a
field where all the grass had been burned off; and I often heard it in
the wood of Tara. Whenever the _good people_ play, you hear their music
all through the field as plain as can be; and it is the grandest kind of
music. It may last half the night, but once day comes, it ends.'
_Who the 'Good People' are._--I now asked John what sort of a race the
'good people' are, and where they came from, and this is his
reply:--'People killed and murdered in war stay on earth till their time
is up, and they are among the _good people_. The souls on this earth are
as thick as the grass (running his walking-stick through a thick clump),
and you can't see them; and evil spirits are just as thick, too, and
people don't know it. Because there are so many spirits knocking (going)
about they must appear to some people. The old folk saw the _good
people_ here on the Hill a hundred times, and they'd always be talking
about them. The _good people_ can see everything, and you dare not
meddle with them. They live in _raths_, and their houses are in them.
The opinion always was that they are a race of spirits, for they can go
into different forms, and can appear big as well as little.'
EVIDENCE FROM KILMESSAN, NEAR TARA
John Boylin, born in County Meath about sixty years ago, will be our
witness from Kilmessan, a village about two miles from Tara; and he,
being one of the men of the vicinity best informed about its folk-lore,
is able to offer testimony of very great value:--
_The Fairy Tribes._--'There is said to be a whole tribe of little red
men living in Glen Odder, between Ringlestown and Tara; and on long
evenings in June they have been heard. There are other breeds or castes
of fairies; and it seems to me, when I recall our ancient traditions,
that some of these fairies are of the Fir Bolgs, some of the Tuatha De
Danann, and some of the Milesians. All of them have been seen
serenading round the western slope of Tara, dressed in ancient Irish
costumes. Unlike the little red men, these fairy races are warlike and
given to making invasions. Long processions of them have been seen going
round the King's Chair (an earthwork on which the Kings of Tara are said
to have been crowned); and they then would appear like soldiers of
ancient Ireland in review.'
_The Fairy Procession._--'We were told as children, that, as soon as
night fell, the fairies from Rath Ringlestown would form in a
procession, across Tara road, pass round certain bushes which have not
been disturbed for ages, and join the _gangkena_ (?) or host of
industrious folk, the red fairies. We were afraid, and our nurses always
brought us home before the advent of the fairy procession. One of the
passes used by this procession happened to be between two mud-wall
houses; and it is said that a man went out of one of these houses at the
wrong time, for when found he was dead: the fairies had _taken_ him
because he interfered with their procession.'[12]
_Death through Cutting Fairy-Bushes._--'A man named Caffney cut as fuel
to boil his pot of potatoes some of these undisturbed bushes round which
the fairies pass. When he put the wood under the pot, though it spat
fire, and fire-sparkles would come out of it, it would not burn. The man
pined away gradually. In six months after cutting the fairy-bushes, he
was dead. Just before he died, he told his experiences with the wood to
his brother, and his brother told me.'
_The Fairies are the Dead._--'According to the local belief, fairies are
the spirits of the departed. Tradition says that Hugh O'Neil in the
sixteenth century, after his march to the south, encamped his army on
the _Rath_ or _Fort_ of Ringlestown, to be assisted by the spirits of
the mighty dead who dwelt within this _rath_. And it is believed that
Gerald Fitzgerald has been seen coming out of the Hill of Mollyellen,
down in County Louth, leading his horse and dressed in the old Irish
costume, with breastplate, spear, and war outfit.'
_Fairy Possession._--'Rose Carroll was possessed by a fairy-spirit. It
is known that her father held communion with evil spirits, and it
appears that they often assisted him. The Carrolls' house was built at
the end of a fairy _fort_, and part of it was scooped out of this
_fort_. Rose grew so peculiar that her folks locked her up. After two
years she was able to shake off the fairy possession by being taken to
Father Robinson's sisters, and then to an old witch-woman in Drogheda.'
IN THE VALLEY OF THE BOYNE
In walking along the River Boyne, from Slane to Knowth and New Grange, I
stopped at the cottage of Owen Morgan, at Ross-na-Righ, or 'the Wood of
the Kings', though the ancient wood has long since disappeared; and as
we sat looking out over the sunlit beauty of Ireland's classic river,
and in full view of the first of the famous _moats_, this is what Owen
Morgan told me:--
_How the Shoemaker's Daughter became the Queen of Tara._--'In olden
times there lived a shoemaker and his wife up there near Moat Knowth,
and their first child was taken by the queen of the fairies who lived
inside the moat, and a little leprechaun left in its place. The same
exchange was made when the second child was born. At the birth of the
third child the fairy queen came again and ordered one of her three
servants to take the child; but the child could not be moved because of
a great beam of iron, too heavy to lift, which lay across the baby's
breast. The second servant and then the third failed like the first, and
the queen herself could not move the child. The mother being short of
pins had used a needle to fasten the child's clothes, and that was what
appeared to the fairies as a beam of iron, for there was virtue in steel
in those days.
'So the fairy queen decided to bestow gifts upon the child; and advised
each of the three servants to give, in turn, a different gift. The first
one said, "May she be the grandest lady in the world"; the second one
said, "May she be the greatest singer in the world"; and the third one
said, "May she be the best mantle-maker in the world." Then the fairy
queen said, "Your gifts are all very good, but I will give a gift of my
own better than any of them: the first time she happens to go out of the
house let her come back into it under the form of a rat." The mother
heard all that the fairy women said, and so she never permitted her
daughter to leave the house.
'When the girl reached the age of eighteen, it happened that the young
prince of Tara, in riding by on a hunt, heard her singing, and so
entranced was he with the music that he stopped to listen; and, the song
ended, he entered the house, and upon seeing the wonderful beauty of the
singer asked her to marry him. The mother said that could not be, and
taking the daughter out of the house for the first time brought her back
into it in an apron under the form of a rat, that the prince might
understand the refusal.
'This enchantment, however, did not change the prince's love for the
beautiful singer; and he explained how there was a day mentioned with
his father, the king, for all the great ladies of Ireland to assemble in
the Halls of Tara, and that the grandest lady and the greatest singer
and the best mantle-maker would be chosen as his wife. When he added
that each lady must come in a chariot, the rat spoke to him and said
that he must send to her home, on the day named, four piebald cats and a
pack of cards, and that she would make her appearance, provided that at
the time her chariot came to the Halls of Tara no one save the prince
should be allowed near it; and, she finally said to the prince, "Until
the day mentioned with your father, you must carry me as a rat in your
pocket."
'But before the great day arrived, the rat had made everything known to
one of the fairy women, and so when the four piebald cats and the pack
of cards reached the girl's home, the fairies at once turned the cats
into the four most splendid horses in the world, and the pack of cards
into the most wonderful chariot in the world; and, as the chariot was
setting out from the Moat for Tara, the fairy queen clapped her hands
and laughed, and the enchantment over the girl was broken, so that she
became, as before, the prettiest lady in the world, and she sitting in
the chariot.
'When the prince saw the wonderful chariot coming, he knew whose it was,
and went out alone to meet it; but he could not believe his eyes on
seeing the lady inside. And then she told him about the witches and
fairies, and explained everything.
'Hundreds of ladies had come to the Halls of Tara from all Ireland, and
every one as grand as could be. The contest began with the singing, and
ended with the mantle-making, and the young girl was the last to appear;
but to the amazement of all the company the king had to give in (admit)
that the strange woman was the grandest lady, the greatest singer, and
the best mantle-maker in Ireland; and when the old king died she became
the Queen of Tara.'
After this ancient legend, which Owen Morgan heard from the old folks
when he was a boy, he told me many anecdotes about the 'good people' of
the Boyne, who are little men usually dressed in red.
_The 'Good People' at New Grange._--Between Knowth and New Grange I met
Maggie Timmons carrying a pail of butter-milk to her calves; and when we
stopped on the road to talk, I asked her, in due time, if any of the
'good people' ever appeared in the region, or about New Grange, which we
could see in the field, and she replied, in reference to New Grange:--'I
am sure the neighbours used to see the _good people_ come out of it at
night and in the morning. The _good people_ inherited the _fort_.'
Then I asked her what the 'good people' are, and she said:--'When they
disappear they go like fog; they must be something like spirits, or how
could they disappear in that way? I knew of people,' she added, 'who
would milk in the fields about here and spill milk on the ground for the
_good people_; and pots of potatoes would be put out for the _good
people_ at night.' (See chap. viii for additional New Grange folk-lore.)
THE TESTIMONY OF AN IRISH PRIEST
We now pass directly to West Ireland, in many ways our most important
field, and where of all places in the Celtic world the Fairy-Faith is
vigorously alive; and it seems very fitting to offer the first
opportunity to testify in behalf of that district to a scholarly priest
of the Roman Church, for what he tells us is almost wholly the result of
his own memories and experiences as an Irish boy in Connemara,
supplemented in a valuable way by his wider and more mature knowledge of
the fairy-belief as he sees it now among his own parishioners:--
_Knock Ma Fairies._--'Knock Ma, which you see over there, is said to
contain excavated passages and a palace where the fairies live, and with
them the people they have _taken_. And from the inside of the hill there
is believed to be an entrance to an underground world. It is a common
opinion that after consumptives die they are there with the fairies in
good health. The wasted body is not taken into the hill, for it is
usually regarded as not the body of the deceased but rather as that of a
changeling, the general belief being that the real body and the soul are
carried off together, and those of an old person from Fairyland
substituted. The old person left soon declines and dies.'
_Safeguards against Fairies._--'It was proper when having finished
milking a cow to put one's thumb in the pail of milk, and with the wet
thumb to make the sign of the cross on the thigh of the cow on the side
milked, to be safe against fairies. And I have seen them when churning
put a live coal about an inch square under the churn, because it was an
old custom connected with fairies.'
_Milk and Butter for Fairies._--'Whatever milk falls on the ground in
milking a cow is taken by the fairies, for fairies need a little milk.
Also, after churning, the knife which is run through the butter in
drying it must not be scraped clean, for what sticks to it belongs to
the fairies. Out of three pounds of butter, for example, an ounce or two
would be left for the fairies. I have seen this several times.'
_Crossing a Stream, and Fairies._--'When out on a dark night, if pursued
by fairies or ghosts one is considered quite safe if one can get over
some stream. I remember coming home on a dark night with a boy companion
and hearing a noise, and then after we had run to a stream and crossed
it feeling quite safe.'
_Fairy Preserves._--'A heap of stones in a field should not be
disturbed, though needed for building--especially if they are part of an
ancient tumulus. The fairies are said to live inside the pile, and to
move the stones would be most unfortunate. If a house happens to be
built on a fairy preserve, or in a fairy track, the occupants will have
no luck. Everything will go wrong. Their animals will die, their
children fall sick, and no end of trouble will come on them. When the
house happens to have been built in a fairy track, the doors on the
front and back, or the windows if they are in the line of the track,
cannot be kept closed at night, for the fairies must march through. Near
Ballinrobe there is an old _fort_ which is still the preserve of the
fairies, and the land round it. The soil is very fine, and yet no one
would dare to till it. Some time ago in laying out a new road the
engineers determined to run it through the _fort_, but the people rose
almost in rebellion, and the course had to be changed. The farmers
wouldn't cut down a tree or bush growing on the hill or preserve for
anything.'
_Fairy Control over Crops._--'Fairies are believed to control crops and
their ripening. A field of turnips may promise well, and its owner will
count on so many tons to the acre, but if when the crop is gathered it
is found to be far short of the estimate, the explanation is that the
fairies have extracted so much substance from it. The same thing is the
case with corn.'
_November Eve and Fairies._--'On November Eve it is not right to gather
or eat blackberries or sloes, nor after that time as long as they last.
On November Eve the fairies pass over all such things and make them
unfit to eat. If one dares to eat them afterwards one will have serious
illness. We firmly believed this as boys, and I laugh now when I think
how we used to gorge ourselves with berries on the last day of October,
and then for weeks after pass by bushes full of the most luscious fruit,
and with mouths watering for it couldn't eat it.'
_Fairies as Flies._--'There is an old abbey on the river, in County
Mayo, and people say the fairies had a great battle near it, and that
the slaughter was tremendous. At the time, the fairies appeared as
swarms of flies coming from every direction to that spot. Some came from
Knock Ma, and some from South Ireland, the opinion being that fairies
can assume any form they like. The battle lasted a day and a night, and
when it was over one could have filled baskets with the dead flies which
floated down the river.'
_Those who Return from Faerie._--'Persons in a short trance-state of two
or three days' duration are said to be away with the fairies enjoying a
festival. The festival may be very material in its nature, or it may be
purely spiritual. Sometimes one may thus go to Faerie for an hour or
two; or one may remain there for seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years.
The mind of a person coming out of Fairyland is usually a blank as to
what has been seen and done there. Another idea is that the person knows
well enough all about Fairyland, but is prevented from communicating the
knowledge. A certain woman of whom I knew said she had forgotten all
about her experiences in Faerie, but a friend who heard her objected,
and said she did remember, and wouldn't tell. A man may remain awake at
night to watch one who has been to Fairyland to see if that one holds
communication with the fairies. Others say in such a case that the
fairies know you are on the alert, and will not be discovered.'
THE TESTIMONY OF A GALWAY PIPER
_Fairies=Sidheóga._--According to our next witness, Steven Ruan, a piper
of Galway, with whom I have often talked, there is one class of fairies
'who are nobody else than the spirits of men and women who once lived
on earth'; and the banshee is a dead friend, relative, or ancestor who
appears to give a warning. 'The fairies', he says, 'never care about old
folks. They only _take_ babies, and young men and young women. If a
young wife dies, she is said to have been _taken_ by _them_, and ever
afterwards to live in Fairyland. The same things are said about a young
man or a child who dies. Fairyland is a place of delights, where music,
and singing, and dancing, and feasting are continually enjoyed; and its
inhabitants are all about us, as numerous as the blades of grass.'
_A Fairy Dog._--In the course of another conversation, Steven pointed to
a rocky knoll in a field not far from his home, and said:--'I saw a dog
with a white ring around his neck by that hill there, and the oldest men
round Galway have seen him, too, for he has been here for one hundred
years or more. He is a dog of the _good people_, and only appears at
certain hours of the night.'
_An Old Piper in Fairyland._--And before we had done talking, the
subject of fairy-music came up, and the following little story coming
from one of the last of the old Irish pipers himself, about a brother
piper, is of more than ordinary value:--'There used to be an old piper
called Flannery who lived in Oranmore, County Galway. I imagine he was
one of the old generation. And one time the _good people_ took him to
Fairyland to learn his profession. He studied music with them for a long
time, and when he returned he was as great a piper as any in Ireland.
But he died young, for the _good people_ wanted him to play for them.'
THE TESTIMONY OF 'OLD PATSY' OF ARANMORE
Our next witness is an old man, familiarly called 'Old Patsy', who is a
native of the Island of Aranmore, off the coast from Galway, and he
lives on the island amid a little group of straw-thatched fishermen's
homes called Oak Quarter. As 'Old Patsy' stood beside a rude stone cross
near Oak Quarter, in one of those curious places on Aranmore, where each
passing funeral stops long enough to erect a little memorial pile of
stones on the smooth rocky surface of the roadside enclosure, he told me
many anecdotes about the mysteries of his native island.
_Aranmore Fairies._--Twenty years or so ago round the _Bedd_ of Dermot
and Grania, just above us on the hill, there were seen many fairies,
'crowds of them,' said 'Old Patsy', and a single deer. They began to
chase the deer, and followed it right over the island. At another time
similar little people chased a horse. 'The rocks were full of them, and
they were small fellows.'
_A Fairy Beating--in a Dream._--'In the South Island,' he continued, 'as
night was coming on, a man was giving his cow water at a well, and, as
he looked on the other side of a wall, he saw many strange people
playing hurley. When they noticed him looking at them, one came up and
struck the cow a hard blow, and turning on the man cut his face and body
very badly. The man might not have been so badly off, but he returned to
the well after the first encounter and got five times as bad a beating;
and when he reached home he couldn't speak at all, until the cock crew.
Then he told about his adventures, and slept a little. When he woke up
in the daylight he was none the worse for his beating, for the fairies
had rubbed something on his face.' Patsy says he knew the man, who if
still alive is now in America, where he went several years ago.
_Where Fairies Live._--When I asked Patsy where the fairies live, he
turned half around, and pointing in the direction of Dun Aengus, which
was in full view on the sharp sky-line of Aranmore, said that there, in
a large tumulus on the hill-side below it, they had one of their
favourite abodes. But, he added, 'The rocks are full of them, and they
are small fellows.' Just across the road from where we were standing, in
a spot near Oak Quarter, another place was pointed out where the fairies
are often seen dancing. The name of it is _Moneen an Damhsa_, 'the
Little Bog of the Dance.' Other sorts of fairies live in the sea; and
some of them who live on Aranmore (probably in conjunction with those in
the sea) go out over the water and cause storms and wind.
THE TESTIMONY OF A ROMAN CATHOLIC THEOLOGIAN
The following evidence, by the Rev. Father ----, came out during a
discussion concerning spirits and fairies as regarded by Roman Catholic
theology, which he and I enjoyed when we met as fellow travellers in
Galway Town:--
_Of Magic and Place-spirits._--'Magic, according to Catholic theology,
is nothing else than the solicitation of spiritual powers to help us. If
evil spirits are evoked by certain irrational practices it is unholy
magic, and this is altogether forbidden by our Church. All charms,
spells, divination, necromancy, or geomancy are unholy magic. Holy magic
is practised by carrying the Cross in Christ. Now evil magic has been
practised here in Ireland: butter has been _taken_ so that none came
from the churning; cows have been made to die of maladies; and fields
made unproductive. A cow was bought from an old woman in Connemara, and
no butter was ever had from the cow until exorcism with holy water was
performed. This is reported to me as a fact.' And in another relation
the Rev. Father ---- said what for us is highly significant:--'My
private opinion is that in certain places here in Ireland where pagan
sacrifices were practised, evil spirits through receiving homage gained
control, and still hold control, unless driven out by exorcisms.'
THE TESTIMONY OF THE TOWN CLERK OF TUAM
To the town clerk of Tuam, Mr. John Glynn, who since his boyhood has
taken a keen interest in the traditions of his native county, I am
indebted for the following valuable summary of the fairy creed in that
part of North Galway where Finvara rules:--
_Fairies of the Tuam Country._--'The whole of Knock Ma (_Cnoc
Meadha_[13]), which probably means Hill of the Plain, is said to be the
palace of Finvara, king of the Connaught fairies. There are a good many
legends about Finvara, but very few about Queen Meave in this region.'
_Famine of 1846-7 caused by Fairies._--'During 1846-7 the potato crop in
Ireland was a failure, and very much suffering resulted. At the time,
the country people in these parts attributed the famine to disturbed
conditions in the fairy world. Old Thady Steed once told me about the
conditions then prevailing, "Sure, we couldn't be any other way; and I
saw the _good people_ and hundreds besides me saw them fighting in the
sky over Knock Ma and on towards Galway." And I heard others say they
saw the fighting also.'
_Fairyland; and the Seeress._--'Fairies are said to be immortal, and the
fairy world is always described as an immaterial place, though I do not
think it is the same as the world of the dead. Sick persons, however,
are often said to be with the fairies, and when cured, to have come
back. A woman who died here about thirty years ago was commonly believed
to have been with the fairies during her seven years' sickness when she
was a maiden. She married after coming back, and had children; and she
was always able to see the _good people_ and to talk with them, for she
had the second-sight. And it is said that she used to travel with the
fairies at night. After her marriage she lived in Tuam, and though her
people were six or seven miles out from Tuam in the country, she could
always tell all that was taking place with them there, and she at her
own home at the time.'
_Fairies on May Day._--'On May Day the _good people_ can steal butter if
the chance is given them. If a person enters a house then, and churning
is going on, he must take a hand in it, or else there will be no butter.
And if fire is given away on May Day nothing will go right for the whole
year.'
_The Three Fairy Drops._--'Even yet certain things are due the fairies;
for example, two years ago, in the Court Room here in Tuam, a woman was
on trial for watering milk, and to the surprise of us all who were
conducting the proceedings, and, it can be added, to the great amusement
of the onlookers, she swore that she had only added "the three fairy
drops".'
_Food of Fairies._--'Food, after it has been put out at night for the
fairies, is not allowed to be eaten afterwards by man or beast, not even
by pigs. Such food is said to have no real substance left in it, and to
let anything eat it wouldn't be thought of. The underlying idea seems to
be that the fairies extract the spiritual essence from food offered to
them, leaving behind the grosser elements.'
_Fairy Warfare._--'When the fairy tribes under the various kings and
queens have a battle, one side manages to have a living man among them,
and he by knocking the fairies about turns the battle in case the side
he is on is losing. It is always usual for the Munster fairy king to
challenge Finvara, the Connaught fairy king.'
COUNTY SLIGO, AND THE TESTIMONY OF A PEASANT SEER[14]
The Ben Bulbin country in County Sligo is one of those rare places in
Ireland where fairies are thought to be visible, and our first witness
from there claims to be able to see the fairies or 'gentry' and to talk
with them. This mortal so favoured lives in the same townland where his
fathers have lived during four hundred years, directly beneath the
shadows of Ben Bulbin, on whose sides Dermot is said to have been killed
while hunting the wild-boar. And this famous old mountain, honeycombed
with curious grottoes ages ago when the sea beat against its
perpendicular flanks, is the very place where the 'gentry' have their
chief abode. Even on its broad level summit, for it is a high square
tableland like a mighty cube of rock set down upon the earth by some
antediluvian god, there are treacherous holes, wherein more than one
hunter may have been lost for ever, penetrating to unknown depths; and
by listening one can hear the tides from the ocean three or four miles
away surging in and out through ancient subterranean channels, connected
with these holes. In the neighbouring mountains there are long caverns
which no man has dared to penetrate to the end, and even dogs, it is
said, have been put in them never to emerge, or else to come out miles
away.
One day when the heavy white fog-banks hung over Ben Bulbin and its
neighbours, and there was a weird almost-twilight at midday over the
purple heather bog-lands at their base, and the rain was falling, I sat
with my friend before a comfortable fire of fragrant turf in his cottage
and heard about the 'gentry':--
_Encounters with the 'Gentry'._--'When I was a young man I often used to
go out in the mountains over there (pointing out of the window in their
direction) to fish for trout, or to hunt; and it was in January on a
cold, dry day while carrying my gun that I and a friend with me, as we
were walking around Ben Bulbin, saw one of the _gentry_ for the first
time. I knew who it was, for I had heard the _gentry_ described ever
since I could remember; and this one was dressed in blue with a
head-dress adorned with what seemed to be frills.[15] When he came up to
us, he said to me in a sweet and silvery voice, "The seldomer you come
to this mountain the better. A young lady here wants to take you away."
Then he told us not to fire off our guns, because the _gentry_ dislike
being disturbed by the noise. And he seemed to be like a soldier of the
_gentry_ on guard. As we were leaving the mountains, he told us not to
look back, and we didn't. Another time I was alone trout-fishing in
nearly the same region when I heard a voice say, "It is ---- barefooted
and fishing." Then there came a whistle like music and a noise like the
beating of a drum, and soon one of the _gentry_ came and talked with me
for half an hour. He said, "Your mother will die in eleven months, and
do not let her die unanointed." And she did die within eleven months. As
he was going away he warned me, "You must be in the house before sunset.
Do not delay! Do not delay! They can do nothing to you until I get back
in the castle." As I found out afterwards, he was going to _take_ me,
but hesitated because he did not want to leave my mother alone. After
these warnings I was always afraid to go to the mountains, but lately I
have been told I could go if I took a friend with me.'
_'Gentry' Protection._--'The _gentry_ have always befriended and
protected me. I was drowned twice but for them. Once I was going to
Durnish Island, a mile off the coast. The channel is very deep, and at
the time there was a rough sea, with the tide running out, and I was
almost lost. I shrieked and shouted, and finally got safe to the
mainland. The day I talked with one of the _gentry_ at the foot of the
mountain when he was for _taking_ me, he mentioned this, and said they
were the ones who saved me from drowning then.'
_'Gentry' Stations._--'Especially in Ireland, the _gentry_ live inside
the mountains in beautiful castles; and there are a good many branches
of them in other countries. Like armies, they have various stations and
move from one to another. Some live in the Wicklow Mountains near
Dublin.'
_'Gentry' Control Over Human Affairs._--'The _gentry_ take a great
interest in the affairs of men, and they always stand for justice and
right. Any side they favour in our wars, that side wins. They favoured
the Boers, and the Boers did get their rights. They told me they
favoured the Japanese and not the Russians, because the Russians are
tyrants. Sometimes they fight among themselves. One of them once said,
"I'd fight for a friend, or I'd fight for Ireland."'
_The 'Gentry' Described._--In response to my wish, this description of
the 'gentry' was given:--'The folk are the grandest I have ever seen.
They are far superior to us, and that is why they are called the
_gentry_. They are not a working class, but a military-aristocratic
class, tall and noble-appearing. They are a distinct race between our
own and that of spirits, as they have told me. Their qualifications are
tremendous. "We could cut off half the human race, but would not," they
said, "for we are expecting salvation." And I knew a man three or four
years ago whom they struck down with paralysis. Their sight is so
penetrating that I think they could see through the earth. They have a
silvery voice, quick and sweet. The music they play is most beautiful.
They _take_ the whole body and soul of young and intellectual people who
are interesting, transmuting the body to a body like their own. I asked
them once if they ever died, and they said, "No; we are always kept
young." Once they take you and you taste food in their palace you cannot
come back. You are changed to one of them, and live with them for ever.
They are able to appear in different forms. One once appeared to me, and
seemed only four feet high, and stoutly built. He said, "I am bigger
than I appear to you now. We can make the old young, the big small, the
small big." One of their women told all the secrets of my family. She
said that my brother in Australia would travel much and suffer
hardships, all of which came true; and foretold that my nephew, then
about two years old, would become a great clergyman in America, and that
is what he is now. Besides the _gentry_, who are a distinct class, there
are bad spirits and ghosts, which are nothing like them. My mother once
saw a leprechaun beside a bush hammering. He disappeared before she
could get to him, but he also was unlike one of the _gentry_.'[16]
EVIDENCE FROM GRANGE
Our next witness, who lives about three miles from our last witness, is
Hugh Currid, the oldest man in Grange; and so old is he that now he does
little more than sit in the chimney-corner smoking, and, as he looks at
the red glow of the peat, dreaming of the olden times. Hugh knows
English very imperfectly, and so what he narrated was in the ancient
Gaelic which his fathers spoke. When Father Hines took me to Hugh's
cottage, Hugh was in his usual silent pose before the fire. At first he
rather resented having his thoughts disturbed, but in a few minutes he
was as talkative as could be, for there is nothing like the mention of
Ireland to get him started. The Father left us then; and with the help
of Hugh's sister as an interpreter I took down what he said:--
_The Flax-Seller's Return from Faerie._--'An old woman near Lough More,
where Father Patrick was drowned,[17] who used to make her living by
selling flax at the market, was _taken_ by the _gentry_, and often came
back afterwards to her three children to comb their hair. One time she
told a neighbour that the money she saved from her dealings in flax
would be found near a big rock on the lake-shore, which she indicated,
and that she wanted the three children to have it.'
_A Wife Recovered from the 'Gentry'._--'A man's young wife died in
confinement while he was absent on some business at Ballingshaun, and
one of the _gentry_ came to him and said she had been _taken._ The
husband hurried home, and that night he sat with the body of his wife
all alone. He left the door open a little, and it wasn't long before his
wife's spirit came in and went to the cradle where her child was
sleeping. As she did so, the husband threw at her a charm of hen's dung
which he had ready, and this held her until he could call the
neighbours. And while they were coming, she went back into her body, and
lived a long time afterwards. The body was stiff and cold when the
husband arrived home, though it hadn't been washed or dressed.'
A TAILOR'S TESTIMONY
Our next witness is Patrick Waters, by trade a tailor, living in
Cloontipruckilish, a cross-road hamlet less than two miles from Hugh
Currid's home. His first story is a parallel to one told about the
minister of Aberfoyle who was _taken_ by the 'good people' (pp. 89
ff.):--
_The Lost Bride._--'A girl in this region died on her wedding-night
while dancing. Soon after her death she appeared to her husband, and
said to him, "I'm not dead at all, but I am put from you now for a time.
It may be a long time, or a short time, I cannot tell. I am not badly
off. If you want to get me back you must stand at the gap near the house
and catch me as I go by, for I live near there, and see you, and you do
not see me." He was anxious enough to get her back, and didn't waste any
time in getting to the gap. When he came to the place, a party of
strangers were just coming out, and his wife soon appeared as plain as
could be, but he couldn't stir a hand or foot to save her. Then there
was a scream and she was gone. The man firmly believed this, and would
not marry again.'
_The Invisible Island._--'There is an enchanted island which is an
invisible island between Innishmurray and the mainland opposite. It is
only seen once in seven years. I saw it myself, and so did four or five
others with me. A boatman from Sligo named Carr took two strange men
with him towards Innishmurray, and they disappeared at the spot where
the island is, and he thought they had fallen overboard and been
drowned. Carr saw one of the same men in Connelly (County Donegal), some
six months or so after, and with great surprise said to him, "Will you
tell me the wonders of the world? Is it you I saw drowned near
Innishmurray?" "Yes," he said; and then asked, "Do you see me?" "Yes,"
answered Carr. "But," said the man again, "you do not see me with both
eyes?" Then Carr closed one eye to be sure, and found that he saw him
with one eye only. And he told the man which one it was. At this
information the fairy man blew on Carr's face, and Carr never saw him
again.'
_A Dream._--'My father dreamt he saw two armies coming in from the sea,
walking on the water. Reaching the strand, they lined up and commenced a
battle, and my father was in great terror. The fighting was long and
bloody, and when it was over every fighter vanished, the wounded and
dead as well as the survivors. The next morning an old woman who had the
reputation of talking with the fairies came in the house to my father,
who, though greatly disturbed over the dream, had told us nothing of it,
and asked him, "Have you anything to tell? I couldn't but laugh at you,"
she added, and before my father could reply, continued, "Well, Jimmy,
you won't tell the news, so I will." And then she began to tell about
the battle. "Ketty!" exclaimed my father at this, "can it be true? And
who were the men beside me?" When Ketty told him, they turned out to be
some of his dead friends. She received her information from a drowned
man whom she met on the spot where the _gentry_ armies had come ashore;
and, in the place where they fought, the sand was all burnt red, as from
fire.'
As the narrator reflected on this dream story, he remarked about dreams
generally:--'The reason our dreams appear different from what they are
is because while in them we can't touch the body and transform it.
People believe themselves to be with the dead in dreams.'
During September 1909, when I had several fresh interviews with Patrick
Waters, I verified all of his 1908 testimony such as it appears above;
and among unimportant anecdotes I have omitted from the matter taken
down in 1908 one anecdote about our seer-witness from County Sligo,
because it proved to be capable of opposite interpretations. Patrick
Waters, however, like many of his neighbours, thoroughly supports Hugh
Currid's opinion that our seer-witness 'surely sees something, and it
must be the _gentry_'; and of Hugh Currid himself, Patrick Waters said,
'Hugh Currid did surely see the _gentry_; he saw them passing this way
like a blast of wind.' Patrick's fresh testimony now follows, the story
about Father Patrick and Father Dominick coming first:--
_Father Patrick and Father Dominick._--'Father Patrick Noan while
bathing in the harbour at Carns (about three miles north-west of Grange)
was drowned. His body was soon brought ashore, and his brother, Father
Dominick Noan, was sent for. When Father Dominick arrived, one of the
men who had collected around the body said to him, "Why don't you do
something for your brother Patrick?" "Why don't somebody ask me?" he
replied, "for I must be asked in the name of God." So Jimmy McGowan went
on his knees and asked for the honour of God that Father Dominick should
bring Father Patrick back to life; and, at this, Father Dominick took
out his breviary and began to read. After a time he whistled, and began
to read again. He whistled a second time, and returned to the reading.
Upon his whistling the third time, Father Patrick's spirit appeared in
the doorway.
'"Where were you when I whistled the first time?" Father Dominick asked.
"I was at a hurling match with the _gentry_ on Mulloughmore strand."
"And where were you at the second whistle?" "I was coming over Corrick
Fadda; and when you whistled the third time I was here at the door."
Father Patrick's spirit had gone back into the body, and Father Patrick
lived round here as a priest for a long time afterwards.
'There was no such thing as artificial respiration known hereabouts when
this happened some fifty or sixty years ago. I heard this story, which I
know is true, from many persons who saw Father Dominick restore his
brother to life.'
_A Druid Enchantment._--After this strange psychical narrative, there
followed the most weird legend I have heard in Celtic lands about Druids
and magic. One afternoon Patrick Waters pointed out to me the field,
near the sea-coast opposite Innishmurray, in which the ancient menhir
containing the 'enchantment' used to stand; and, at another time, he
said that a bronze wand covered with curious marks (or else interlaced
designs) was found not far from the ruined dolmen and _allée couverte_
on the farm of Patrick Bruan, about two miles southward. This last
statement, like the story itself, I have been unable to verify in any
way.
'In times before Christ there were Druids here who enchanted one another
with Druid rods made of brass, and metamorphosed one another into stone
and lumps of oak. The question is, Where are the spirits of these Druids
now? Their spirits are wafted through the air, and the man or beast they
meet is smitten, while their own bodies are still under enchantment. I
had such a Druid enchantment in my hand; it wasn't stone, nor marble,
nor flint, and had human shape. It was found in the centre of a big rock
on Innis-na-Gore; and round this rock light used to appear at night. The
man who owned the stone decided to blast it up, and he found at its
centre the enchantment--just like a man, with head and legs and
arms.[18] Father Healy took the enchantment away, when he was here on a
visit, and said that it was a Druid enchanted, and that to get out of
the rock was one part of the releasement, and that there would be a
second and complete releasement of the Druid.'
_The Fairy Tribes Classified._--Finally I asked Patrick to classify, as
far as he could, all the fairy tribes he had ever heard about, and he
said:--'The leprechaun is a red-capped fellow who stays round pure
springs, generally shoemaking for the rest of the fairy tribes. The
lunantishees are the tribes that guard the blackthorn trees or sloes;
they let you cut no stick on the eleventh of November (the original
November Day), or on the eleventh of May (the original May Day). If at
such a time you cut a blackthorn, some misfortune will come to you.
Pookas are black-featured fellows mounted on good horses; and are
horse-dealers. They visit racecourses, but usually are invisible. The
_gentry_ are the most noble tribe of all; and they are a big race who
came from the planets--according to my idea; they usually appear white.
The _Daoine Maithe_ (though there is some doubt, the same or almost the
same as the _gentry_) were next to Heaven at the Fall, but did not fall;
they are a people expecting salvation.'
BRIDGET O'CONNER'S TESTIMONY
Our next witness is Bridget O'Conner, a near neighbour to Patrick
Waters, in Cloontipruckilish. When I approached her neat little cottage
she was cutting sweet-pea blossoms with a pair of scissors, and as I
stopped to tell her how pretty a garden she had, she searched out the
finest white bloom she could find and gave it to me. After we had talked
a little while about America and Ireland, she said I must come in and
rest a few minutes, and so I did; and it was not long before we were
talking about fairies:--
_The Irish Legend of the Dead._--'Old Peggy Gillin, dead these thirty
years, who lived a mile beyond Grange, used to cure people with a secret
herb shown to her by her brother, dead of a fairy-stroke. He was drowned
and _taken_ by the fairies, in the big drowning here during the herring
season. She would pull the herb herself and prepare it by mixing spring
water with it. Peggy could always talk with her dead relatives and
friends, and continually with her brother, and she would tell everybody
that they were with the fairies. Her daughter, Mary Short, who inherited
some of her mother's power, died here about three or four years ago.
'I remember, too, about Mary Leonard and her daughter, Nancy Waters.
Both of them are dead now. The daughter was the first to die, as it
happened, and in child-birth. When she was gone, her mother used to wail
and cry in an awful manner; and one day the daughter appeared to her in
the garden, and said, "The more you wail for me, the more I am in
torment. Pray for me, but do not wail."'
_A Midwife Story._--'A country nurse was requested by a strange man on
horseback to go with him to exercise her profession; and she went with
him to a castle she didn't know. When the baby was born, every woman in
the place where the event happened put her finger in a basin of water
and rubbed her eyes, and so the nurse put her finger in and rubbed it on
one of her eyes. She went home and thought no more about it. But one day
she was at the fair in Grange and saw some of the same women who were in
the castle when the baby was born; though, as she noticed, she only
could see them with the one eye she had wet with the water from the
basin. The nurse spoke to the women, and they wanted to know how she
recognized them; and she, in reply, said it was with the one eye, and
asked, "How is the baby?" "Well," said one of the fairy women; "and what
eye do you see us with?" "With the left eye," answered the nurse. Then
the fairy woman blew her breath against the nurse's left eye, and said,
"You'll never see me again." And the nurse was always blind in the left
eye after that.'
THE SPIRIT WORLD AT CARNS
The Carns or Mount Temple country, about three miles from Grange, County
Sligo, has already been mentioned by witnesses as a 'gentry' haunt, and
so now we shall hear what one of its oldest and most intelligent native
inhabitants says of it. John McCann had been referred to, by Patrick
Waters, as one who knows much about the 'gentry' at first hand, and we
can be sure that what he offers us is thoroughly reliable evidence. For
many years, John McCann, born in 1830, by profession a carpenter and
boat-builder, has been official mail-carrier to Innishmurray; and he
knows quite as much about the strange little island and the mainland
opposite it as any man living. His neat little cottage is on the shore
of the bay opposite the beautiful fairy-haunted Darnish Island; and, as
we sat within it beside a brilliant peat fire, and surrounded by all the
family, this is what was told me:--
_A 'Gentry' Medium._--'Ketty Rourk (or Queenan) could tell all that
would happen--funerals, weddings, and so forth. Sure some spirits were
coming to her. She said they were the _gentry_; that the _gentry_ are
everywhere; and that my drowned uncles and grandfather and other dead
are among them. A drowned man named Pat Nicholson was her adviser. He
used to live just a mile from here; and she knew him before he was
drowned.'
Here we have, clearly enough, a case of 'mediumship', or of
communication with the dead, as in modern Spiritualism. And the
following story, which like this last has numerous Irish parallels,
illustrates an ancient and world-wide animistic belief, that in
sickness--as in dreams--the soul goes out of the body as at death, and
meets the dead in their own fairy world.
_The Clairvoyance of Mike Farrell._--'Mike Farrell, too, could tell all
about the _gentry_, as he lay sick a long time. And he told about Father
Brannan's youth, and even the house in Roscommon in which the Father was
born; and Father Brannan never said anything more against Mike after
that. Mike surely saw the _gentry_; and he was with them during his
illness for twelve months. He said they live in _forts_ and at Alt Darby
("the Big Rock"). After he got well, he went to America, at the time of
the famine.'
_The 'Gentry' Army._--'The _gentry_ were believed to live up on this
hill (Hill of the Brocket Stones, _Cluach-a-brac_), and from it they
would come out like an army and march along the road to the strand. Very
few persons could see them. They were thought to be like living people,
but in different dress. They seemed like soldiers, yet it was known they
were not living beings such as we are.'
_The Seership of Dan Quinn._--'On Connor's Island (about two miles
southward from Carns by the mainland) my uncle, Dan Quinn, often used to
see big crowds of the _gentry_ come into his house and play music and
dance. The house would be full of them, but they caused him no fear.
Once on such an occasion, one of them came up to him as he lay in bed,
and giving him a green leaf told him to put it in his mouth. When he did
this, instantly he could not see the _gentry_, but could still hear
their music. Uncle Dan always believed he recognized in some of the
_gentry_ his drowned friends. Only when he was alone would the _gentry_
visit him. He was a silent old man, and so never talked much; but I know
that this story is as true as can be, and that the _gentry_ always took
an interest in him.'
UNDER THE SHADOW OF BEN BULBIN AND BEN WASKIN
I was driving along the Ben Bulbin road, on the ocean side, with Michael
Oates, who was on his way from his mountain-side home to the lowlands to
cut hay; and as we looked up at the ancient mountain, so mysterious and
silent in the shadows and fog of a calm early morning of summer, he told
me about its invisible inhabitants:--
_The 'Gentry' Huntsmen._--'I knew a man who saw the _gentry_ hunting on
the other side of the mountain. He saw hounds and horsemen cross the
road and jump the hedge in front of him, and it was one o'clock at
night. The next day he passed the place again, and looked for the tracks
of the huntsmen, but saw not a trace of tracks at all.'
_The 'Taking' of the Turf-Cutter._--After I had heard about two boys who
were drowned opposite Innishmurray, and who afterwards appeared as
apparitions, for the _gentry_ had them, this curious story was
related:--'A man was cutting turf out on the side of Ben Bulbin when a
strange man came to him and said, "You have cut enough turf for to-day.
You had better stop and go home." The turf-cutter looked around in
surprise, and in two seconds the strange man had disappeared; but he
decided to go home. And as soon as he was home, such a feeling came over
him that he could not tell whether he was alive or dead. Then he took to
his bed and never rose again.'
_Hearing the 'Gentry' Music._--At this Michael said to his companion in
the cart with us, William Barber, 'You tell how you heard the music';
and this followed:--'One dark night, about one o'clock, myself and
another young man were passing along the road up there round Ben Bulbin,
when we heard the finest kind of music. All sorts of music seemed to be
playing. We could see nothing at all, though we thought we heard voices
like children's. It was the music of the _gentry_ we heard.'
My next friend to testify is Pat Ruddy, eighty years old, one of the
most intelligent and prosperous farmers living beside Ben Bulbin. He
greeted me in the true Irish way, but before we could come to talk about
fairies his good wife induced me to enter another room where she had
secretly prepared a great feast spread out on a fresh white cloth, while
Pat and myself had been exchanging opinions about America and Ireland.
When I returned to the kitchen the whole family were assembled round the
blazing turf fire, and Pat was soon talking about the 'gentry':--
_Seeing the 'Gentry' Army._--'Old people used to say the _gentry_ were
in the mountains; that is certain, but I never could be quite sure of it
myself. One night, however, near midnight, I did have a sight: I set out
from Bantrillick to come home, and near Ben Bulbin there was the
greatest army you ever saw, five or six thousand of them in armour
shining in the moonlight. A strange man rose out of the hedge and
stopped me, for a minute, in the middle of the road. He looked into my
face, and then let me go.'
_An Ossianic Fragment._--'A man went away with the _good people_ (or
_gentry_), and returned to find the townland all in ruins. As he came
back riding on a horse of the _good people_, he saw some men in a quarry
trying to move a big stone. He helped them with it, but his saddle-girth
broke, and he fell to the ground. The horse ran away, and he was left
there, an old man'[19] (cf. pp. 346-7).
A SCHOOLMASTER'S TESTIMONY
A schoolmaster, who is a native of the Ben Bulbin country, offers this
testimony:--'There is implicit belief here in the _gentry_, especially
among the old people. They consider them the spirits of their departed
relations and friends, who visit them in joy and in sorrow. On the death
of a member of a family, they believe the spirits of their near
relatives are present; they do not see them, but feel their presence.
They even have a strong belief that the spirits show them the future in
dreams; and say that cases of affliction are always foreshown in a
dream.
'The belief in changelings is not now generally prevalent; but in olden
times a mother used to place a pair of iron tongs over the cradle before
leaving the child alone, in order that the fairies should not change the
child for a weakly one of their own. It was another custom to take a
wisp of straw, and, lighting one end of it, make a fiery sign of the
cross over a cradle before a babe could be placed in it.'
WITH THE IRISH MYSTICS IN THE _SIDHE_ WORLD
Let us now turn to the Rosses Point country, which, as we have already
said, is one of the very famous places for seeing the 'gentry', or, as
educated Irish seers who make pilgrimages thither call them, the
_Sidhe_. I have been told by more than one such seer that there on the
hills and Greenlands (a great stretch of open country, treeless and
grass-grown), and on the strand at Lower Rosses Point--called Wren Point
by the country-folk--these beings can be seen and their wonderful music
heard; and a well-known Irish artist has shown me many drawings, and
paintings in oil, of these _Sidhe_ people as he has often beheld them at
those places and elsewhere in Ireland. They are described as a race of
majestic appearance and marvellous beauty, in form human, yet in nature
divine. The highest order of them seems to be a race of beings evolved
to a superhuman plane of existence, such as the ancients called gods;
and with this opinion, strange as it may seem in this age, all the
educated Irish seers with whom I have been privileged to talk agree,
though they go further, and say that these highest _Sidhe_ races still
inhabiting Ireland are the ever-young, immortal divine race known to the
ancient men of Erin as the Tuatha De Danann.
Of all European lands I venture to say that Ireland is the most
mystical, and, in the eyes of true Irishmen, as much the Magic Island of
Gods and Initiates now as it was when the Sacred Fires flashed from its
purple, heather-covered mountain-tops and mysterious round towers, and
the Greater Mysteries drew to its hallowed shrines neophytes from the
West as well as from the East, from India and Egypt as well as from
Atlantis;[20] and Erin's mystic-seeing sons still watch and wait for the
relighting of the Fires and the restoration of the old Druidic
Mysteries. Herein I but imperfectly echo the mystic message Ireland's
seers gave me, a pilgrim to their Sacred Isle. And until this mystic
message is interpreted, men cannot discover the secret of Gaelic myth
and song in olden or in modern times, they cannot drink at the
ever-flowing fountain of Gaelic genius, the perennial source of
inspiration which lies behind the new revival of literature and art in
Ireland, nor understand the seeming reality of the fairy races.
AN IRISH MYSTIC'S TESTIMONY
Through the kindness of an Irish mystic, who is a seer, I am enabled to
present here, in the form of a dialogue, very rare and very important
evidence, which will serve to illustrate and to confirm what has just
been said above about the mysticism of Ireland. To anthropologists this
evidence may be of more than ordinary value when they know that it
comes from one who is not only a cultured seer but who is also a man
conspicuously successful in the practical life of a great city:--
_Visions._--
Q.--Are all visions which you have had of the same character?
A.--'I have always made a distinction between pictures seen in the
memory of nature and visions of actual beings now existing in the inner
world. We can make the same distinction in our world: I may close my
eyes and see you as a vivid picture in memory, or I may look at you with
my physical eyes and see your actual image. In seeing these beings of
which I speak, the physical eyes may be open or closed: mystical beings
in their own world and nature are never seen with the physical eyes.'
_Otherworlds._--
Q.--By the inner world do you mean the Celtic Otherworld?
A.--'Yes; though there are many Otherworlds. The _Tír-na-nog_ of the
ancient Irish, in which the races of the _Sidhe_ exist, may be described
as a radiant archetype of this world, though this definition does not at
all express its psychic nature. In _Tír-na-nog_ one sees nothing save
harmony and beautiful forms. There are other worlds in which we can see
horrible shapes.'
_Classification of the 'Sidhe'._--
Q.--Do you in any way classify the _Sidhe_ races to which you refer?
A.--'The beings whom I call the _Sidhe_, I divide, as I have seen them,
into two great classes: those which are shining, and those which are
opalescent and seem lit up by a light within themselves. The shining
beings appear to be lower in the hierarchies; the opalescent beings are
more rarely seen, and appear to hold the positions of great chiefs or
princes among the tribes of Dana.'
_Conditions of Seership._--
Q.--Under what state or condition and where have you seen such beings?
A.--'I have seen them most frequently after being away from a city or
town for a few days. The whole west coast of Ireland from Donegal to
Kerry seems charged with a magical power, and I find it easiest to see
while I am there. I have always found it comparatively easy to see
visions while at ancient monuments like New Grange and Dowth, because I
think such places are naturally charged with psychical forces, and were
for that reason made use of long ago as sacred places. I usually find it
possible to throw myself into the mood of seeing; but sometimes visions
have forced themselves upon me.'
_The Shining Beings._--
Q.--Can you describe the shining beings?
A.--'It is very difficult to give any intelligible description of them.
The first time I saw them with great vividness I was lying on a
hill-side alone in the west of Ireland, in County Sligo: I had been
listening to music in the air, and to what seemed to be the sound of
bells, and was trying to understand these aerial clashings in which wind
seemed to break upon wind in an ever-changing musical silvery sound.
Then the space before me grew luminous, and I began to see one beautiful
being after another.'
_The Opalescent Beings._--
Q.--Can you describe one of the opalescent beings?
A.--'The first of these I saw I remember very clearly, and the manner of
its appearance: there was at first a dazzle of light, and then I saw
that this came from the heart of a tall figure with a body apparently
shaped out of half-transparent or opalescent air, and throughout the
body ran a radiant, electrical fire, to which the heart seemed the
centre. Around the head of this being and through its waving luminous
hair, which was blown all about the body like living strands of gold,
there appeared flaming wing-like auras. From the being itself light
seemed to stream outwards in every direction; and the effect left on me
after the vision was one of extraordinary lightness, joyousness, or
ecstasy.
'At about this same period of my life I saw many of these great beings,
and I then thought that I had visions of Aengus, Manannan, Lug, and
other famous kings or princes among the Tuatha De Danann; but since then
I have seen so many beings of a similar character that I now no longer
would attribute to any one of them personal identity with particular
beings of legend; though I believe that they correspond in a general way
to the Tuatha De Danann or ancient Irish gods.'
_Stature of the 'Sidhe'._--
Q.--You speak of the opalescent beings as great beings; what stature do
you assign to them, and to the shining beings?
A.--'The opalescent beings seem to be about fourteen feet in stature,
though I do not know why I attribute to them such definite height, since
I had nothing to compare them with; but I have always considered them as
much taller than our race. The shining beings seem to be about our own
stature or just a little taller. Peasant and other Irish seers do not
usually speak of the _Sidhe_ as being little, but as being tall: an old
schoolmaster in the West of Ireland described them to me from his own
visions as tall beautiful people, and he used some Gaelic words, which I
took as meaning that they were shining with every colour.'
_The worlds of the 'Sidhe.'_--
Q.--Do the two orders of _Sidhe_ beings inhabit the same world?
A.--'The shining beings belong to the mid-world; while the opalescent
beings belong to the heaven-world. There are three great worlds which we
can see while we are still in the body: the earth-world, mid-world, and
heaven-world.'
_Nature of the 'Sidhe.'_--
Q.--Do you consider the life and state of these _Sidhe_ beings superior
to the life and state of men?
A.--'I could never decide. One can say that they themselves are
certainly more beautiful than men are, and that their worlds seem more
beautiful than our world.
'Among the shining orders there does not seem to be any individualized
life: thus if one of them raises his hands all raise their hands, and if
one drinks from a fire-fountain all do; they seem to move and to have
their real existence in a being higher than themselves, to which they
are a kind of body. Theirs is, I think, a collective life, so
unindividualized and so calm that I might have more varied thoughts in
five hours than they would have in five years; and yet one feels an
extraordinary purity and exaltation about their life. Beauty of form
with them has never been broken up by the passions which arise in the
developed egotism of human beings. A hive of bees has been described as
a single organism with disconnected cells; and some of these tribes of
shining beings seem to be little more than one being manifesting itself
in many beautiful forms. I speak this with reference to the shining
beings only: I think that among the opalescent or _Sidhe_ beings, in the
heaven-world, there is an even closer spiritual unity, but also a
greater individuality.'
_Influence of the 'Sidhe' on Men._--
Q.--Do you consider any of these _Sidhe_ beings inimical to humanity?
A.--'Certain kinds of the shining beings, whom I call wood beings, have
never affected me with any evil influences I could recognize. But the
water beings, also of the shining tribes, I always dread, because I felt
whenever I came into contact with them a great drowsiness of mind and, I
often thought, an actual drawing away of vitality.'
_Water Beings Described._--
Q.--Can you describe one of these water beings?
A.--'In the world under the waters--under a lake in the West of Ireland
in this case--I saw a blue and orange coloured king seated on a throne;
and there seemed to be some fountain of mystical fire rising from under
his throne, and he breathed this fire into himself as though it were his
life. As I looked, I saw groups of pale beings, almost grey in colour,
coming down one side of the throne by the fire-fountain. They placed
their head and lips near the heart of the elemental king, and, then, as
they touched him, they shot upwards, plumed and radiant, and passed on
the other side, as though they had received a new life from this chief
of their world.'
_Wood Beings Described._--
Q.--Can you describe one of the wood beings?
A.--'The wood beings I have seen most often are of a shining silvery
colour with a tinge of blue or pale violet, and with dark
purple-coloured hair.'
_Reproduction and Immortality of the 'Sidhe'._--
Q.--Do you consider the races of the _Sidhe_ able to reproduce their
kind; and are they immortal?
A.--'The higher kinds seem capable of breathing forth beings out of
themselves, but I do not understand how they do so. I have seen some of
them who contain elemental beings within themselves, and these they
could send out and receive back within themselves again.
'The immortality ascribed to them by the ancient Irish is only a
relative immortality, their space of life being much greater than ours.
In time, however, I believe that they grow old and then pass into new
bodies just as men do, but whether by birth or by the growth of a new
body I cannot say, since I have no certain knowledge about this.'
_Sex among the 'Sidhe'._--
Q.--Does sexual differentiation seem to prevail among the Sidhe races?
A.--'I have seen forms both male and female, and forms which did not
suggest sex at all.'
_'Sidhe' and Human Life._--
Q.--(1) Is it possible, as the ancient Irish thought, that certain of
the higher _Sidhe_ beings have entered or could enter our plane of life
by submitting to human birth? (2) On the other hand, do you consider it
possible for men in trance or at death to enter the _Sidhe_ world?
A.--(1) 'I cannot say.' (2) 'Yes; both in trance and after death. I
think any one who thought much of the _Sidhe_ during his life and who
saw them frequently and brooded on them would likely go to their world
after death.'
_Social Organization of the 'Sidhe'._--
Q.--You refer to chieftain-like or prince-like beings, and to a king
among water beings; is there therefore definite social organization
among the various _Sidhe_ orders and races, and if so, what is its
nature?
A.--'I cannot say about a definite social organization. I have seen
beings who seemed to command others, and who were held in reverence.
This implies an organization, but whether it is instinctive like that of
a hive of bees, or consciously organized like human society, I cannot
say.'
_Lower 'Sidhe' as Nature Elementals._--
Q.--You speak of the water-being king as an elemental king; do you
suggest thereby a resemblance between lower _Sidhe_ orders and what
mediaeval mystics called elementals?
A.--'The lower orders of the _Sidhe_ are, I think, the nature elementals
of the mediaeval mystics.'
_Nourishment of the Higher 'Sidhe'._--
Q.--The water beings as you have described them seem to be nourished and
kept alive by something akin to electrical fluids; do the higher orders
of the _Sidhe_ seem to be similarly nourished?
A.--'They seemed to me to draw their life out of the Soul of the World.'
_Collective Visions of 'Sidhe' Beings._--
Q.--Have you had visions of the various _Sidhe_ beings in company with
other persons?
A.--'I have had such visions on several occasions.'
And this statement has been confirmed to me by three participants in
such collective visions, who separately at different times have seen in
company with our witness the same vision at the same moment. On another
occasion, on the Greenlands at Rosses Point, County Sligo, the same
_Sidhe_ being was seen by our present witness and a friend with him,
also possessing the faculty of seership, at a time when the two
percipients were some little distance apart, and they hurried to each
other to describe the being, not knowing that the explanation was
mutually unnecessary. I have talked with both percipients so much, and
know them so intimately that I am fully able to state that as
percipients they fulfil all necessary pathological conditions required
by psychologists in order to make their evidence acceptable.
PARALLEL EVIDENCE AS TO THE _SIDHE_ RACES
In general, the rare evidence above recorded from the Irish seer could
be paralleled by similar evidence from at least two other reliable Irish
people, with whom also I have been privileged to discuss the
Fairy-Faith. One is a member of the Royal Irish Academy, the other is
the wife of a well-known Irish historian; and both of them testify to
having likewise had collective visions of _Sidhe_ beings in Ireland.
This is what Mr. William B. Yeats wrote to me, while this study was in
progress, concerning the Celtic Fairy Kingdom:--'I am certain that it
exists, and will some day be studied as it was studied by Kirk.'[21]
INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE FROM THE _SIDHE_ WORLD
One of the most remarkable discoveries of our Celtic researches has been
that the native population of the Rosses Point country, or, as we have
called it, the _Sidhe_ world, in most essentials, and, what is most
important, by independent folk-testimony, substantiate the opinions and
statements of the educated Irish mystics to whom we have just referred,
as follows:--
_John Conway's Vision of the 'Gentry'._--In Upper Rosses Point, Mrs. J.
Conway told me this about the 'gentry':--'John Conway, my husband, who
was a pilot by profession, in watching for in-coming ships used to go
up on the high hill among the Fairy Hills; and there he often saw the
_gentry_ going down the hill to the strand. One night in particular he
recognized them as men and women of the _gentry_; and they were as big
as any living people. It was late at night about forty years ago.'
_Ghosts and Fairies._--When first I introduced myself to Owen Conway, in
his bachelor quarters, a cosy cottage at Upper Rosses Point, he said
that Mr. W. B. Yeats and other men famous in Irish literature had
visited him to hear about the fairies, and that though he knew very
little about the fairies he nevertheless always likes to talk of them.
Then Owen began to tell me about a man's ghost which both he and Bran
Reggan had seen at different times on the road to Sligo, then about a
woman's ghost which he and other people had often seen near where we
were, and then about the exorcizing of a haunted house in Sligo some
sixty years ago by Father McGowan, who as a result died soon afterwards,
apparently having been killed by the exorcized spirits. Finally, I heard
from him the following anecdotes about the fairies:--
_A Stone Wall overthrown by 'Fairy' Agency._--'Nothing is more certain
than that there are fairies. The old folks always thought them the
fallen angels. At the back of this house the fairies had their pass. My
neighbour started to build a cow-shed, and one wall abutting on the pass
was thrown down twice, and nothing but the fairies ever did it. The
third time the wall was built it stood.'
_Fairies passing through Stone Walls._--'Where MacEwen's house stands
was a noted fairy place. Men in building the house saw fairies on horses
coming across the spot, and the stone walls did not stop them at all.'
_Seeing the 'Gentry'._--'A cousin of mine, who was a pilot, once went to
the watch-house up there on the Point to take his brother's place; and
he saw ladies coming towards him as he crossed the Greenlands. At first
he thought they were coming from a dance, but there was no dance going
then, and, if there had been, no human beings dressed like them and
moving as they were could have come from any part of the globe, and in
so great a party, at that hour of the night. Then when they passed him
and he saw how beautiful they were, he knew them for the _gentry_
women.'
'Michael Reddy (our next witness) saw the _gentry_ down on the
Greenlands in regimentals like an army, and in daylight. He was a young
man at the time, and had been sent out to see if any cattle were
astray.'
And this is what Michael Reddy, of Rosses Point, now a sailor on the
ship _Tartar_, sailing from Sligo to neighbouring ports on the Irish
coast, asserts in confirmation of Owen Conway's statement about him:--'I
saw the _gentry_ on the strand (at Lower Rosses Point) about forty years
ago. It was afternoon. I first saw one of them like an officer pointing
at me what seemed a sword; and when I got on the Greenlands I saw a
great company of _gentry_, like soldiers, in red, laughing and shouting.
Their leader was a big man, and they were ordinary human size. As a
result [of this vision] I took to my bed and lay there for weeks. Upon
another occasion, late at night, I was with my mother milking cows, and
we heard the _gentry_ all round us talking, but could not see them.'
_Going to the 'Gentry' through Death, Dreams, or Trance._--John
O'Conway, one of the most reliable citizens of Upper Rosses Point,
offers the following testimony concerning the 'gentry':--'In olden times
the _gentry_ were very numerous about _forts_ and here on the
Greenlands, but rarely seen. They appeared to be the same as any living
men. When people died it was said the _gentry_ took them, for they would
afterwards appear among the _gentry_.'
'We had a ploughman of good habits who came in one day too late for his
morning's work, and he in excuse very seriously said, "May be if you had
travelled all night as much as I have you wouldn't talk. I was away with
the _gentry_, and save for a lady I couldn't have been back now. I saw a
long hall full of many people. Some of them I knew and some I did not
know. The lady saved me by telling me to eat no food there, however
enticing it might be."'
'A young man at Drumcliffe was _taken_ [in a trance state], and was with
the _Daoine Maithe_ some time, and then got back. Another man, whom I
knew well, was haunted by the _gentry_ for a long time, and he often
went off with _them_' (apparently in a dream or trance state).
_'Sidhe' Music._--The story which now follows substantiates the
testimony of cultured Irish seers that at Lower Rosses Point the music
of the _Sidhe_ can be heard:--'Three women were gathering shell-fish, in
the month of March, on the lowest point of the strand (Lower Rosses or
Wren Point) when they heard the most beautiful music. They set to work
to dance with it, and danced themselves sick. They then thanked the
invisible musician and went home.'
THE TESTIMONY OF A COLLEGE PROFESSOR
Our next witness is the Rev. Father ----, a professor in a Catholic
college in West Ireland, and most of his statements are based on events
which happened among his own acquaintances and relatives, and his
deductions are the result of careful investigation:--
_Apparitions from Fairyland._--'Some twenty to thirty years ago, on the
borders of County Roscommon near County Sligo, according to the firm
belief of one of my own relatives, a sister of his was _taken_ by the
fairies on her wedding-night, and she appeared to her mother afterwards
as an apparition. She seemed to want to speak, but her mother, who was
in bed at the time, was thoroughly frightened, and turned her face to
the wall. The mother is convinced that she saw this apparition of her
daughter, and my relative thinks she might have saved her.
'This same relative who gives it as his opinion that his sister was
_taken_ by the fairies, at a different time saw the apparition of
another relative of mine who also, according to similar belief, had been
_taken_ by the fairies when only five years old. The child-apparition
appeared beside its living sister one day while the sister was going
from the yard into the house, and it followed her in. It is said the
child was _taken_ because she was such a good girl.'
_Nature of the Belief in Fairies._--'As children we were always afraid
of fairies, and were taught to say "God bless _them_! God bless _them_!"
whenever we heard them mentioned.
'In our family we always made it a point to have clean water in the
house at night for the fairies.
'If anything like dirty water was thrown out of doors after dark it was
necessary to say "_Hugga, hugga salach!_" as a warning to the fairies
not to get their clothes wet.
'Untasted food, like milk, used to be left on the table at night for the
fairies. If you were eating and food fell from you, it was not right to
take it back, for the fairies wanted it. Many families are very serious
about this even now. The luckiest thing to do in such cases is to pick
up the food and eat just a speck of it and then throw the rest away to
the fairies.
'Ghosts and apparitions are commonly said to live in isolated
thorn-bushes, or thorn-trees. Many lonely bushes of this kind have their
ghosts. For example, there is Fanny's Bush, Sally's Bush, and another I
know of in County Sligo near Boyle.'
_Personal Opinions._--'The fairies of any one race are the people of the
preceding race--the Fomors for the Fir Bolgs, the Fir Bolgs for the
Dananns, and the Dananns for us. The old races died. Where did they go?
They became spirits--and fairies. Second-sight gave our race power to
see the inner world. When Christianity came to Ireland the people had no
_definite_ heaven. Before, their ideas about the other world were vague.
But the older ideas of a spirit world remained side by side with the
Christian ones, and being preserved in a subconscious way gave rise to
the fairy world.'
EVIDENCE FROM COUNTY ROSCOMMON
Our next place for investigation will be the ancient province of the
great fairy-queen Meave, who made herself famous by leading against
Cuchulainn the united armies of four of the five provinces of Ireland,
and all on account of a bull which she coveted. And there could be no
better part of it to visit than Roscommon, which Dr. Douglas Hyde has
made popular in Irish folk-lore.
_Dr. Hyde and the Leprechaun._--One day while I was privileged to be at
Ratra, Dr. Hyde invited me to walk with him in the country. After we had
visited an old _fort_ which belongs to the 'good people', and had
noticed some other of their haunts in that part of Queen Meave's realm,
we entered a straw-thatched cottage on the roadside and found the good
house-wife and her fine-looking daughter both at home. In response to
Dr. Hyde's inquiries, the mother stated that one day, in her girlhood,
near a hedge from which she was gathering wild berries, she saw a
leprechaun in a hole under a stone:--'He wasn't much larger than a doll,
and he was most perfectly formed, with a little mouth and eyes.' Nothing
was told about the little fellow having a money-bag, although the woman
said people told her afterwards that she would have been rich if she had
only had sense enough to catch him when she had so good a chance.[22]
_The Death Coach._--The next tale the mother told was about the death
coach which used to pass by the very house we were in. Every night until
after her daughter was born she used to rise up on her elbow in bed to
listen to the death coach passing by. It passed about midnight, and she
could hear the rushing, the tramping of the horses, and most beautiful
singing, just like fairy music, but she could not understand the words.
Once or twice she was brave enough to open the door and look out as the
coach passed, but she could never see a thing, though there was the
noise and singing. One time a man had to wait on the roadside to let the
fairy horses go by, and he could hear their passing very clearly, and
couldn't see one of them.
When we got home, Dr. Hyde told me that the fairies of the region are
rarely seen. The people usually say that they hear or feel them only.
_The 'Good People' and Mr. Gilleran._--After the mother had testified,
the daughter, who is quite of the younger generation, gave her own
opinion. She said that the 'good people' live in the _forts_ and often
take men and women or youths who pass by the _forts_ after sunset; that
Mr. Gilleran, who died not long ago, once saw certain dead friends and
recognized among them those who were believed to have been _taken_ and
those who died naturally, and that he saw them again when he was on his
death-bed.
We have here, as in so many other accounts, a clear connexion between
the realm of the dead and Fairyland.
THE TESTIMONY OF A LOUGH DERG SEER
Neil Colton, seventy-three years old, who lives in Tamlach Townland, on
the shores of Lough Derg, County Donegal, has a local reputation for
having seen the 'gentle folk', and so I called upon him. As we sat round
his blazing turf fire, and in the midst of his family of three sturdy
boys--for he married late in life--this is what he related:--
_A Girl Recovered from Faerie._--'One day, just before sunset in
midsummer, and I a boy then, my brother and cousin and myself were
gathering bilberries (whortleberries) up by the rocks at the back of
here, when all at once we heard music. We hurried round the rocks, and
there we were within a few hundred feet of six or eight of the _gentle
folk_, and they dancing. When they saw us, a little woman dressed all in
red came running out from them towards us, and she struck my cousin
across the face with what seemed to be a green rush. We ran for home as
hard as we could, and when my cousin reached the house she fell dead.
Father saddled a horse and went for Father Ryan. When Father Ryan
arrived, he put a stole about his neck and began praying over my cousin
and reading psalms and striking her with the stole; and in that way
brought her back. He said if she had not caught hold of my brother, she
would have been _taken_ for ever.'
_The 'Gentle Folk'._--'The _gentle folk_ are not earthly people; they
are a people with a nature of their own. Even in the water there are men
and women of the same character. Others have caves in the rocks, and in
them rooms and apartments. These races were terribly plentiful a hundred
years ago, and they'll come back again. My father lived two miles from
here, where there were plenty of the _gentle folk_. In olden times they
used to take young folks and keep them and draw all the life out of
their bodies. Nobody could ever tell their nature exactly.'
EVIDENCE FROM COUNTY FERMANAGH
From James Summerville, eighty-eight years old, who lives in the country
near Irvinestown, I heard much about the 'wee people' and about
banshees, and then the following remarkable story concerning the 'good
people':--
_Travelling Clairvoyance through 'Fairy' Agency._--'From near Ederney,
County Fermanagh, about seventy years ago, a man whom I knew well was
taken to America on Hallow Eve Night; and _they_ (the _good people_)
made him look down a chimney to see his own daughter cooking at a
kitchen fire. Then _they_ took him to another place in America, where he
saw a friend he knew. The next morning he was at his own home here in
Ireland.
'This man wrote a letter to his daughter to know if she was at the place
and at the work on Hallow Eve Night, and she wrote back that she was. He
was sure that it was the _good people_ who had taken him to America and
back in one night.'
EVIDENCE FROM COUNTY ANTRIM
At the request of Major R. G. Berry, M.R.I.A., of Richill Castle,
Armagh, Mr. H. Higginson, of Glenavy, County Antrim, collected all the
material he could find concerning the fairy-tradition in his part of
County Antrim, and sent to me the results, from which I have selected
the very interesting, and, in some respects, unique tales which
follow:--
_The Fairies and the Weaver._--'Ned Judge, of Sophys Bridge, was a
weaver. Every night after he went to bed the weaving started of itself,
and when he arose in the morning he would find the dressing which had
been made ready for weaving so broken and entangled that it took him
hours to put it right. Yet with all this drawback he got no poorer,
because the fairies left him plenty of household necessaries, and
whenever he sold a web [of cloth] he always received treble the amount
bargained for.'
_Meeting Two Regiments of 'Them'._--'William Megarry, of Ballinderry, as
his daughter who is married to James Megarry, J.P., told me, was one
night going to Crumlin on horseback for a doctor, when after passing
through Glenavy he met just opposite the Vicarage two regiments of
_them_ (the fairies) coming along the road towards Glenavy. One regiment
was dressed in red and one in blue or green uniform. _They_ were playing
music, but when they opened out to let him pass through the middle of
_them_ the music ceased until he had passed by.'
IN CUCHULAINN'S COUNTRY: A CIVIL ENGINEER'S TESTIMONY
In the heroic days of pagan Ireland, as tradition tells, the ancient
earthworks, now called the Navan Rings, just outside Armagh, were the
stronghold of Cuchulainn and the Red Branch Knights; and, later, under
Patrick, Armagh itself, one of the old mystic centres of Erin, became
the ecclesiastical capital of the Gaels. And from this romantic country,
one of its best informed native sons, a graduate civil engineer of
Dublin University, offers the following important evidence:--
_The Fairies are the Dead._--'When I was a youngster near Armagh, I was
kept good by being told that the fairies could take bad boys away. The
sane belief about the fairies, however, is different, as I discovered
when I grew up. The old people in County Armagh seriously believe that
the fairies are the spirits of the dead; and they say that if you have
many friends deceased you have many friendly fairies, or if you have
many enemies deceased you have many fairies looking out to do you harm.'
_Food-Offerings to Place-Fairies._--'It was very usual formerly, and the
practice is not yet given up, to place a bed, some other furniture, and
plenty of food in a newly-constructed dwelling the night before the time
fixed for moving into it; and if the food is not consumed, and the
crumbs swept up by the door in the morning, the house cannot safely be
occupied. I know of two houses now that have never been occupied,
because the fairies did not show their willingness and goodwill by
taking food so offered to them.'
ON THE SLOPES OF SLIEVE GULLION
In climbing to the summit of Cuchulainn's mountain, which overlooks
parts of the territory made famous by the 'Cattle Raid of Cooley', I met
John O'Hare, sixty-eight years old, of Longfield Townland, leading his
horse to pasture, and I stopped to talk with him about the 'good
people'.
'The _good people_ in this mountain,' he said, 'are the people who have
died and been _taken_; the mountain is enchanted.'
_The 'Fairy' Overflowing of the Meal-Chest._--'An old woman came to the
wife of Steven Callaghan and told her not to let Steven cut a certain
hedge. "It is where we shelter at night," the old woman added; and Mrs.
Callaghan recognized the old woman as one who had been _taken_ in
confinement. A few nights later the same old woman appeared to Mrs.
Callaghan and asked for charity; and she was offered some meal, which
she did not take. Then she asked for lodgings, but did not stop. When
Mrs. Callaghan saw the meal-chest next morning it was overflowing with
meal: it was the old woman's gift for the hedge.'
THE TESTIMONY OF TWO DROMINTEE PERCIPIENTS
After my friend, the Rev. Father L. Donnellan, C.C., of Dromintee,
County Armagh, had introduced me to Alice Cunningham, of his parish, and
she had told much about the 'gentle folk', she emphatically declared
that they do exist--and this in the presence of Father Donnellan--because
she has often seen them on Carrickbroad Mountain, near where she lives.
And she then reported as follows concerning enchanted Slieve Gullion:--
_The 'Sidhe' Guardian of Slieve Gullion._--'The top of Slieve Gullion is
a very _gentle_ place. A fairy has her house there by the lake, but she
is invisible. She interferes with nobody. I hear of no _gentler_ places
about here than Carrickbroad and Slieve Gullion.'
Father Donnellan and I called next upon Thomas McCrink and his wife at
Carrifamayan, because Mrs. McCrink claims to have seen some of the 'good
people', and this is her testimony:--
_Nature of the 'Good People'._--'I've heard and felt the _good people_
coming on the wind; and I once saw them down in the middle field on my
father's place playing football. They are still on earth. Among them are
the spirits of our ancestors; and these rejoice whenever good fortune
comes our way, for I saw them before my mother won her land [after a
long legal contest] in the field rejoicing.
'Some of the _good people_ I have thought were fallen angels, though
these may be dead people whose time is not up. We are only like shadows
in this world: my mother died in England, and she came to me in the
spirit. I saw her plainly. I ran to catch her, but my hands ran through
her form as if it were mere mist. Then there was a crack, and she was
gone.' And, finally, after a moment, our percipient said:--'The fairies
once passed down this lane here on a Christmas morning; and I took them
to be suffering souls out of Purgatory, going to mass.'
THE TESTIMONY OF A DROMINTEE SEERESS
Father Donnellan, the following day, took me to talk with almost the
oldest woman in his parish, Mrs. Biddy Grant, eighty-six years old, of
Upper Toughal, beside Slieve Gullion. Mrs. Grant is a fine specimen of
an Irishwoman, with white hair, clear complexion, and an expression of
great natural intelligence, though now somewhat feeble from age. Her
mind is yet clear, however; and her testimony is substantiated by this
statement from her own daughter, who lives with her:--'My mother has the
power of seeing things. It is a fact with her that spirits exist. She
has seen much, even in her old age; and what she is always telling me
scares me half to death.'
The following is Mrs. Grant's direct testimony given at her own home, on
September 20, 1909, in answer to our question if she knew anything about
the 'good people':--
_Seeing the 'Good People' as the Dead._--'I saw _them_ once as plain as
can be--big, little, old, and young. I was in bed at the time, and a boy
whom I had reared since he was born was lying ill beside me. Two of
_them_ came and looked at him; then came in three of _them_. One of
_them_ seemed to have something like a book, and he put his hand to the
boy's mouth; then he went away, while others appeared, opening the back
window to make an avenue through the house; and through this avenue came
great crowds. At this I shook the boy, and said to him, "Do you see
anything?" "No," he said; but as I made him look a second time he said,
"I do." After that he got well.
'These _good people_ were the spirits of our dead friends, but I could
not recognize them. I have often seen them that way while in my bed.
Many women are among them. I once touched a boy of theirs, and he was
just like feathers in my hand; there was no substance in him, and I knew
he wasn't a living being. I don't know where they live; I've heard they
live in the _Carrige_ (rocks). Many a time I've heard of their _taking_
people or leading them astray. They can't live far away when they come
to me in such a rush. They are as big as we are. I think these fairy
people are all through this country and in the mountains.'
_An Apparition of a 'Sidhe' Woman?_--'At a wake I went out of doors at
midnight and saw a woman running up and down the field with a strange
light in her hand. I called out my daughter, but she saw nothing, though
all the time the woman dressed in white was in the field, shaking the
light and running back and forth as fast as you could wink. I thought
the woman might be the spirit of Nancy Frink, but I was not sure.' (Cf.
pp. 60 ff., 83, 155, 215.)
EVIDENCE FROM LOUGH GUR, COUNTY LIMERICK
One of the most interesting parts of Ireland for the archaeologist and
for the folk-lorist alike is the territory immediately surrounding Lough
Gur, County Limerick. Shut in for the most part from the outer world by
a circle of low-lying hills on whose summits fairy goddesses yet dwell
invisibly, this region, famous for its numerous and well-preserved
cromlechs, dolmens, menhirs, and tumuli, and for the rare
folk-traditions current among its peasantry, has long been popularly
regarded as a sort of Otherworld preserve haunted by fairy beings, who
dwell both in its waters and on its land.
There seems to be no reasonable doubt that in pre-Christian times the
Lough Gur country was a very sacred spot, a mystic centre for
pilgrimages and for the celebration of Celtic religious rites, including
those of initiation. The Lough is still enchanted, but once in seven
years the spell passes off it, and it then appears like dry land to any
one that is fortunate enough to behold it. At such a time of
disenchantment a Tree is seen growing up through the lake-bottom--a Tree
like the strange World-Tree of Scandinavian myth. The Tree is covered
with a Green Cloth, and under it sits the lake's guardian, a woman
knitting.[23] The peasantry about Lough Gur still believe that beneath
its waters there is one of the chief entrances in Ireland to
_Tír-na-nog_, the 'Land of Youth', the Fairy Realm. And when a child is
stolen by the Munster fairies, 'Lough Gur is conjectured to be the place
of its unearthly transmutation from the human to the fairy state.'[23]
To my friend, Count John de Salis, of Balliol College, I am indebted for
the following legendary material, collected by him on the fairy-haunted
Lough Gur estate, his ancestral home, and annotated by the Rev. J. F.
Lynch, one of the best-informed antiquarians living in that part of
South Ireland:--
_The Fairy Goddesses, Aine and Fennel (or Finnen)._--'There are two
hills near Lough Gur upon whose summits sacrifices and sacred rites used
to be celebrated according to living tradition. One, about three miles
south-west of the lake, is called Knock Aine, Aine or Ane being the name
of an ancient Irish goddess, derived from _an_, "bright." The other, the
highest hill on the lake-shores, is called Knock Fennel or Hill of the
Goddess Fennel, from _Finnen_ or _Finnine_ or _Fininne_, a form of
_fin_, "white." The peasantry of the region call Aine one of the Good
People;[24] and they say that Fennel (apparently her sister goddess or
a variant of herself) lived on the top of Knock Fennel' (termed Finnen
in a State Paper dated 1200).
_The Fairy Boat-Race._--'Different old peasants have told me that on
clear calm moonlight nights in summer, fairy boats appear racing across
Lough Gur. The boats come from the eastern side of the lake, and when
they have arrived at Garrod Island, where the Desmond Castle lies in
ruins, they vanish behind Knock Adoon. There are four of these phantom
boats, and in each there are two men rowing and a woman steering. No
sound is heard, though the seer can see the weird silvery splash of the
oars and the churning of the water at the bows of the boats as they
shoot along. It is evident that they are racing, because one boat gets
ahead of the others, and all the rowers can be seen straining at the
oars. Boats and occupants seem to be transparent, and you cannot see
exactly what their nature is. One old peasant told me that it is the
shining brightness of the clothes on the phantom rowers and on the women
who steer which makes them visible.
'Another man, who is about forty years of age, and as far as I know of
good habits, assures me that he also has seen this fairy boat-race, and
that it can still be seen at the proper season.'
_The Bean-Tighe._[25]--'The _Bean-tighe_, the fairy housekeeper of the
enchanted submerged castle of the Earl of Desmond, is supposed to appear
sitting on an ancient earthen monument shaped like a great chair and
hence called _Suidheachan_, the "Housekeeper's Little Seat," on Knock
Adoon (Hill of the Fort), which juts out into the Lough. The
_Bean-tighe_, as I have heard an old peasant tell the tale, was once
asleep on her Seat, when the _Buachailleen_[26] or "Little Herd Boy"
stole her golden comb. When the _Bean-tighe_ awoke and saw what had
happened, she cast a curse upon the cattle of the _Buachailleen_, and
soon all of them were dead, and then the "Little Herd Boy" himself died,
but before his death he ordered the golden comb to be cast into the
Lough.'[27]
_Lough Gur Fairies in General._--'The peasantry in the Lough Gur region
commonly speak of the _Good People_ or of the _Kind People_ or of the
_Little People_, their names for the fairies. The leprechaun indicates
the place where hidden treasure is to be found. If the person to whom he
reveals such a secret makes it known to a second person, the first
person dies, or else no money is found: in some cases the money is
changed into ivy leaves or into furze blossoms.
'I am convinced that some of the older peasants still believe in
fairies. I used to go out on the lake occasionally on moonlight nights,
and an old woman supposed to be a "wise woman" (a seeress), hearing
about my doing this, told me that under no circumstances should I
continue the practice, for fear of "Them People" (the fairies). One
evening in particular I was warned by her not to venture on the lake.
She solemnly asserted that the "Powers of Darkness" were then abroad,
and that it would be misfortune for me to be in their path.[28]
'Under ordinary circumstances, as a very close observer of the Lough Gur
peasantry informs me, the old people will pray to the Saints, but if by
any chance such prayers remain unanswered they then invoke other powers,
the fairies, the goddesses Aine and Fennel, or other pagan deities, whom
they seem to remember in a vague subconscious manner through tradition.'
TESTIMONY FROM A COUNTY KERRY SEER
To another of my fellow students in Oxford, a native Irishman of County
Kerry, I am indebted for the following evidence:--
_A Collective Vision of Spiritual Beings._--'Some few weeks before
Christmas, 1910, at midnight on a very dark night, I and another young
man (who like myself was then about twenty-three years of age) were on
horseback on our way home from Limerick. When near Listowel, we noticed
a light about half a mile ahead. At first it seemed to be no more than a
light in some house; but as we came nearer to it and it was passing out
of our direct line of vision we saw that it was moving up and down, to
and fro, diminishing to a spark, then expanding into a yellow luminous
flame. Before we came to Listowel we noticed two lights, about one
hundred yards to our right, resembling the light seen first. Suddenly
each of these lights expanded into the same sort of yellow luminous
flame, about six feet high by four feet broad. In the midst of each
flame we saw a radiant being having human form. Presently the lights
moved toward one another and made contact, whereupon the two beings in
them were seen to be walking side by side. The beings' bodies were
formed of a pure dazzling radiance, white like the radiance of the sun,
and much brighter than the yellow light or aura surrounding them. So
dazzling was the radiance, like a halo, round their heads that we could
not distinguish the countenances of the beings; we could only
distinguish the general shape of their bodies; though their heads were
very clearly outlined because this halo-like radiance, which was the
brightest light about them, seemed to radiate from or rest upon the head
of each being. As we travelled on, a house intervened between us and the
lights, and we saw no more of them. It was the first time we had ever
seen such phenomena, and in our hurry to get home we were not wise
enough to stop and make further examination. But ever since that night I
have frequently seen, both in Ireland and in England, similar lights
with spiritual beings in them.' (Cf. pp. 60 ff., 77, 133, 155, 215,
483.)
_Reality of the Spiritual World._--'Like my companion, who saw all that
I saw of the first three lights, I formerly had always been a sceptic as
to the existence of spirits; now I know that there is a spiritual world.
My brother, a physician, had been equally sceptical until he saw, near
our home at Listowel, similar lights containing spiritual beings and was
obliged to admit the genuineness of the phenomena.
'In whatever country we may be, I believe that we are for ever immersed
in the spiritual world; but most of us cannot perceive it on account of
the unrefined nature of our physical bodies. Through meditation and
psychical training one can come to see the spiritual world and its
beings. We pass into the spirit realm at death and come back into the
human world at birth; and we continue to reincarnate until we have
overcome all earthly desires and mortal appetites. Then the higher life
is open to our consciousness and we cease to be human; we become divine
beings.' (Recorded in Oxford, England, August 12, 1911.)
III. IN SCOTLAND
Introduction by ALEXANDER CARMICHAEL, Hon. LL.D. of the University of
Edinburgh; author of _Carmina Gadelica_.
The belief in fairies was once common throughout Scotland--Highland and
Lowland. It is now much less prevalent even in the Highlands and
Islands, where such beliefs linger longer than they do in the Lowlands.
But it still lives among the old people, and is privately entertained
here and there even among younger people; and some who hold the belief
declare that they themselves have seen fairies.
Various theories have been advanced as to the origin of fairies and as
to the belief in them. The most concrete form in which the belief has
been urged has been by the Rev. Robert Kirk, minister of Aberfoyle, in
Perthshire.[29] Another theory of the origin of fairies I took down in
the island of Miunghlaidh (Minglay); and, though I have given it in
_Carmina Gadelica_, it is sufficiently interesting to be quoted here.
During October 1871, Roderick Macneill, known as 'Ruaraidh mac Dhomhuil,'
then ninety-two years of age, told it in Gaelic to the late J. F.
Campbell of Islay and the writer, when they were storm-stayed in the
precipitous island of Miunghlaidh, Barra:--
'The Proud Angel fomented a rebellion among the angels of heaven, where
he had been a leading light. He declared that he would go and found a
kingdom for himself. When going out at the door of heaven the Proud
Angel brought prickly lightning and biting lightning out of the doorstep
with his heels. Many angels followed him--so many that at last the Son
called out, "Father! Father! the city is being emptied!" whereupon the
Father ordered that the gates of heaven and the gates of hell should be
closed. This was instantly done. And those who were in were in, and
those who were out were out; while the hosts who had left heaven and had
not reached hell flew into the holes of the earth, like the stormy
petrels. These are the Fairy Folk--ever since doomed to live under the
ground, and only allowed to emerge where and when the King permits. They
are never allowed abroad on Thursday, that being Columba's Day; nor on
Friday, that being the Son's Day; nor on Saturday, that being Mary's
Day; nor on Sunday, that being the Lord's Day.
God be between me and every fairy,
Every ill wish and every druidry;
To-day is Thursday on sea and land,
I trust in the King that they do not hear me.
On certain nights when their _bruthain_ (bowers) are open and their
lamps are lit, and the song and the dance are moving merrily, the
fairies may be heard singing lightheartedly:--
Not of the seed of Adam are we,
Nor is Abraham our father;
But of the seed of the Proud Angel,
Driven forth from Heaven.'
The fairies entered largely into the lives and into the folk-lore of the
Highland people, and the following examples of things named after the
fairies indicate the manner in which the fairies dominated the minds of
the people of Gaeldom:--_teine sith_, 'fairy fire' (_ignis fatuus_);
_breaca sith_, 'fairy marks,' livid spots appearing on the faces of the
dead or dying; _marcachd shith_, 'fairy riding,' paralysis of the spine
in animals, alleged to be brought on by the fairy mouse riding across
the backs of animals while they are lying down; _piob shith_, 'fairy
pipe' or 'elfin pipe', generally found in ancient underground houses;
_miaran na mna sithe_, 'the thimble of the fairy woman,' the fox-glove;
_lion na mna sithe_, 'lint of the fairy woman,' fairy flax, said to be
beneficial in certain illnesses; and _curachan na mna sithe_, 'coracle
of the fairy woman,' the shell of the blue valilla. In place-names
_sith_, 'fairy,' is common. Glenshee, in Perthshire, is said to have
been full of fairies, but the screech of the steam-whistle frightened
them underground. There is scarcely a district of the Highlands without
its fairy knoll, generally the greenest hillock in the place. 'The black
chanter of Clan Chattan' is said to have been given to a famous
Macpherson piper by a fairy woman who loved him; and the Mackays have a
flag said to have been given to a Mackay by a fairy sweetheart. The
well-known fairy flag of Dunvegan is said to have been given to a
Macleod of Macleod by a fairy woman; and the Macrimmons of Bororaig,
pipers to the Macleods of Macleod, had a chanter called '_Sionnsair
airgid na mna sithe_', 'the silver chanter of the fairy woman.' A family
in North Uist is known as _Dubh-sith_, 'Black fairy,' from a tradition
that the family had been familiar with the fairies in their secret
flights and nightly migrations.
Donald Macalastair, seventy-nine years of age, crofter, Druim-a-ghinnir,
Arran, told me, in the year 1895, the following story in Gaelic:--'The
fairies were dwelling in the knoll, and they had a near neighbour who
used to visit them in their home. The man used to observe the ways of
the fairies and to do as they did. The fairies took a journey upon them
to go to Ireland, and the man took upon him to go with them. Every
single fairy of them caught a ragwort and went astride it, and they were
pell-mell, every knee of them across the Irish Ocean in an instant, and
across the Irish Ocean was the man after them, astride a ragwort like
one of themselves. A little wee tiny fairy shouted and asked were they
all ready, and all the others replied that they were, and the little
fairy called out:--
My king at my head,
Going across in my haste,
On the crests of the waves,
To Ireland.
"Follow me," said the king of the fairies, and away they went across the
Irish Ocean, every mother's son of them astride his ragwort. Macuga
(Cook) did not know on earth how he would return to his native land, but
he leapt upon the ragwort as he saw the fairies do, and he called as he
heard them call, and in an instant he was back in Arran. But he had got
enough of the fairies on this trip itself, and he never went with them
again.'
The fairies were wont to take away infants and their mothers, and many
precautions were taken to safeguard them till purification and baptism
took place, when the fairy power became ineffective. Placing iron about
the bed, burning leather in the room, giving mother and child the milk
of a cow which had eaten of the _mothan_, pearl-wort (_Pinguicula
vulgaris_), a plant of virtue, and similar means were taken to ensure
their safety. If the watching-women neglected these precautions, the
mother or child or both were spirited away to the fairy bower. Many
stories are current on this subject.
Sometimes the fairies helped human beings with their work, coming in at
night to finish the spinning or the house-work, or to thresh the
farmer's corn or fan his grain. On such occasions they must not be
molested nor interfered with, even in gratitude. If presented with a
garment they will go away and work no more. This method of getting rid
of them is often resorted to, as it is not easy always to find work for
them to do.
_Bean chaol a chot uaine 's na gruaige buidhe_, 'the slender woman of
the green kirtle and of the yellow hair,' is wise of head and deft of
hand. She can convert the white water of the rill into rich red wine and
the threads of the spiders into a tartan plaid. From the stalk of the
fairy reed she can bring the music of the lull of the peace and of the
repose, however active the brain and lithe the limb; and she can rouse
to mirth and merriment, and to the dance, men and women, however
dolorous their condition. From the bower could be heard the pipe and the
song and the voice of laughter as the fairies 'sett' and reeled in the
mazes of the dance. Sometimes a man hearing the merry music and seeing
the wonderful light within would be tempted to go in and join them, but
woe to him if he omitted to leave a piece of iron at the door of the
bower on entering, for the cunning fairies would close the door and the
man would find no egress. There he would dance for years--but to him the
years were as one day--while his wife and family mourned him as dead.
The flint arrow-heads so much prized by antiquarians are called in the
Highlands _Saighead sith_, fairy arrows. They are said to have been
thrown by the fairies at the sons and daughters of men. The writer
possesses one which was thrown at his own maid-servant one night when
she went to the peatstack for peats. She was aware of something whizzing
through the silent air, passing through her hair, grazing her ear and
falling at her feet. Stooping in the bright moonlight the girl picked up
a fairy arrow!
'But faith is dead--such things do not happen now,' said a courteous
informant. If not quite dead it is almost dead, hastened by the
shifting of population, the establishment of means of communication, the
influx of tourists, and the scorn of the more materialistic of the
incomers and of the people themselves.
EDINBURGH,
_October_ 1910.
ABERFOYLE, THE COUNTRY OF ROBERT KIRK
My first hunt for fairies in Scotland began at Aberfoyle, where the
Highlands and the Lowlands meet, and in the very place where Robert
Kirk, the minister of Aberfoyle, was _taken_ by them, in the year 1692.
The minister spent a large part of his time studying the ways of the
'good people', and he must have been able to see them, for he was a
seventh son. Mrs. J. MacGregor, who keeps the key to the old churchyard
where there is a tomb to Kirk, though many say there is nothing in it
but a coffin filled with stones, told me that Kirk was taken into the
Fairy Knoll, which she pointed to just across a little valley in front
of us, and is there yet, for the hill is full of caverns, and in them
the 'good people' have their homes. And she added that Kirk appeared to
a relative of his after he was _taken_, and said that he was in the
power of the 'good people', and couldn't get away. 'But,' says he, 'I
can be set free if you will have my cousin do what I tell him when I
appear again at the christening of my child in the parsonage.' According
to Mr. Andrew Lang, who reports the same tradition in more detail in his
admirable Introduction to _The Secret Commonwealth_, the cousin was
Grahame of Duchray, and the thing he was to do was to throw a dagger
over Kirk's head. Grahame was at hand at the christening of the
posthumous child, but was so astonished to see Kirk appear as Kirk said
he would, that he did not throw the dagger, and so Kirk became a
perpetual prisoner of the 'good people'.
After having visited Kirk's tomb, I called on the Rev. William M.
Taylor, the present successor of Kirk, and, as we sat together in the
very room where Kirk must have written his _Secret Commonwealth_, he
told me that tradition reports Kirk as having been _taken_ by the
fairies while he was walking on their hill, which is but a short way
from the parsonage. 'At the time of his disappearance, people said he
was _taken_ because the fairies were displeased with him for prying into
their secrets. At all events, it seems likely that Kirk was taken ill
very suddenly with something like apoplexy while on the Fairy Knoll, and
died there. I have searched the presbytery books, and find no record of
how Kirk's death really took place; but of course there is not the least
doubt of his body being in the grave.' So thus, according to Mr. Taylor,
we are to conclude that if the fairies carried off anything, it must
have been the spirit or soul of Kirk. I talked with others round
Aberfoyle about Kirk, and some would have it that his body and soul were
both _taken_, and that what was buried was no corpse at all. Mrs.
Margaret MacGregor, one of the few Gaelic speakers of the old school
left in Aberfoyle, holds another opinion, for she said to me, 'Nothing
could be surer than that the _good people_ took Kirk's spirit only.'
In the Aberfoyle country, the Fairy-Faith, save for the stories about
Kirk, which will probably persist for a long time yet, is rapidly
passing. In fact it is almost forgotten now. Up to thirty years ago, as
Mr. Taylor explained, before the railway reached Aberfoyle, belief in
fairies was much more common. Nowadays, he says, there is no real
fairy-lore among the peasants; fifty to sixty years ago there was. And
in his opinion, 'the fairy people of three hundred years ago in Scotland
were a distinct race by themselves. They had never been human beings.
The belief in them was a survival of paganism, and not at all an
outgrowth of Christian belief in angelic hosts.'
A SCOTCH MINISTER'S TESTIMONY
A Protestant minister of Scotland will be our next witness. He is a
native of Ross-shire, though he draws many of his stories from the
Western Hebrides, where his calling has placed him. Because he speaks
from personal knowledge of the living Fairy-Faith as it was in his
boyhood and is now, and chiefly because he has had the rare privilege
of conscious contact with the fairy world, his testimony is of the
highest value.
_Reality of Fairies._--'When I was a boy I was a firm believer in
fairies; and now as a Christian minister I believe in the possibility
and also the reality of these spiritual orders, but I wish only to know
those orders which belong to the realm of grace. It is very certain that
they exist. I have been in a state of ecstasy, and have seen spiritual
beings which form these orders.[30]
'I believe in the actuality of evil spirits; but people in the Highlands
having put aside paganism, evil spirits are not seen now.'
This explanation was offered of how fairies may exist and yet be
invisible:--'Our Saviour became invisible though in the body; and, as
the Scriptures suggest, I suppose we are obliged to concede a similar
power of invisibility to spirits as well, good and evil ones alike.'
_Precautions against Fairies._--'I remember how an old woman pulled me
out of a fairy ring to save me from being _taken_.
'If a mother takes some bindweed and places it burnt at the ends over
her babe's cradle, the fairies have no power over the child. The
bindweed is a common roadside convolvulus.
'As a boy, I saw two old women passing a babe over red-hot coals, and
then drop some of the cinders in a cup of water and give the water to
the babe to drink, in order to cure it of a fairy stroke.'
_Fairy Fights on Halloween._--'It is a common belief now that on
Halloween the fairies, or the fairy hosts, have fights. Lichens on
rocks after there has been a frost get yellowish-red, and then when they
thaw and the moisture spreads out from them the rocks are a bright red;
and this bright red is said to be the blood of the fairies after one of
their battles.'
_Fairies and the Hump-back._--The following story by the present witness
is curious, for it is the same story of a hump-back which is so
widespread. The fact that in Scotland the hump is removed or added by
fairies as it is in Ireland, in Cornwall by pixies, and in Brittany by
_corrigans_, goes far to prove the essential identity of these three
orders of beings. The story comes from one of the remote Western
Hebrides, Benbecula:--'A man who was a hump-back once met the fairies
dancing, and danced with their queen; and he sang with them, "Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday," so well that they took off his hump, and he
returned home a straight-bodied man. Then a tailor went past the same
place, and was also admitted by the fairies to their dance. He caught
the fairy queen by the waist, and she resented his familiarity. And in
singing he added "Thursday" to their song and spoilt it. To pay the
tailor for his rudeness and ill manners, the dancers took up the hump
they had just removed from the first man and clapped it on his back, and
the conceited fellow went home a hump-back.'
_Libations to Fairies._--'An elder in my church knew a woman who was
accustomed, in milking her cows, to offer libations to the fairies.[31]
The woman was later converted to Christ and gave up the practice, and as
a result one of her cows was _taken_ by the fairies. Then she revived
the practice.
'The fairy queen who watches over cows is called _Gruagach_ in the
Islands, and she is often seen. In pouring libations to her and her
fairies various kinds of stones, usually with hollows in them, are
used.[32]
'In Lewis libations are poured to the goddess [or god] of the sea,
called _Shoney_,[33] in order to bring in seaweed. Until modern times in
Iona similar libations were poured to a god corresponding to Neptune.'
IN THE HIGHLANDS
I had the pleasure as well as the great privilege of setting out from
Inverness on a bright crisp September morning in company with Dr.
Alexander Carmichael, the well-known folk-lorist of Scotland, to study
the Fairy-Faith as it exists now in the Highlands round Tomatin, a small
country village about twenty miles distant. We departed by an early
train; and soon reaching the Tomatin country began our search--Dr.
Carmichael for evidence regarding rare and curious Scotch beliefs
connected with folk-magic, such as blood-stopping at a distance and
removing motes in the eye at a distance, and I for Highland ghosts and
fairies.
Our first experience was with an old man whom we met on the road between
the railway station and the post office, who could speak only Gaelic.
Dr. Carmichael talked with him awhile, and then asked him about fairies,
and he said there were some living in a cave some way off, but as the
distance was rather too far we decided not to call on them. Then we went
on to see the postmaster, Mr. John MacDougall, and he told us that in
his boyhood the country-folk round Tomatin believed thoroughly in
fairies. He said they thought of them as a race of spirits capable of
making themselves visible to mortals, as living in underground places,
as _taking_ fine healthy babes and leaving changelings in their place.
These changelings would waste away and die in a short time after being
left. So firmly did the old people believe in fairies then that they
would ridicule a person for not believing. And now quite the reverse
state has come about.[34]
THE TESTIMONY OF JOHN DUNBAR OF INVEREEN
We talked with other Highlanders in the country round Tomatin, and heard
only echoes, mostly fragmentary, of what their forefathers used to
believe about fairies. But at Invereen we discovered John Dunbar, a
Highlander, who really knows the Fairy-Faith and is not ashamed to
explain it. Speaking partly from experience and partly from what he has
heard his parents relate concerning the 'good people', he said:--
_The Sheep and the Fairy-Hunting._--'I believe people saw fairies, but I
think one reason no one sees them now is because every place in this
parish where they used to appear has been put into sheep, and deer, and
grouse, and shooting. According to tradition, Coig na Fearn is the place
where the last fairy was seen in this country. Before the big sheep
came, the fairies are supposed to have had a premonition that their
domains were to be violated by them. A story is told of a fight between
the sheep and fairies, or else of the fairies hunting the sheep:--James
MacQueen, who could traffic with the fairies, whom he regarded as ghosts
or spirits, one night on his old place, which now is in sheep, was lying
down all alone and heard a small and big barking of dogs, and a small
and big bleating of sheep, though no sheep were there then. It was the
fairy-hunting he heard. "I put an axe under my head and I had no fear
therefore," he always repeated when telling the story. I believe the man
saw and heard something. And MacQueen used to aid the fairies, and on
that account, as he was in the habit of saying, he always found more
meal in his chest than he thought he had.'
_Fairies._--'My grandmother believed firmly in fairies, and I have heard
her tell a good many stories about them. They were a small people
dressed in green, and had dwellings underground in dry spots. Fairies
were often heard in the hills over there (pointing), and I believe
something was there. They were awful for music, and used to be heard
very often playing the bagpipes. A woman wouldn't go out in the dark
after giving birth to a child before the child was christened, so as not
to give the fairies power over her or the child. And I have heard people
say that if fairies were refused milk and meat they would _take_ a horse
or a cow; and that if well treated they would repay all gifts.'
_Time in Fairyland._--'People would be twenty years in Fairyland and it
wouldn't seem more than a night. A bridegroom who was _taken_ on his
wedding-day was in Fairyland for many generations, and, coming back,
thought it was next morning. He asked where all the wedding-guests were,
and found only one old woman who remembered the wedding.'
_Highland Legend of the Dead._--As I have found to be the case in all
Celtic countries equally, fairy stories nearly always, in accordance
with the law of psychology known as 'the association of ideas', give
place to or are blended with legends of the dead. This is an important
factor for the Psychological Theory. And what follows proves the same
ideas to be present to the mind of Mr. Dunbar:--'Some people after death
are seen in their old haunts; no mistake about it. A bailiff had false
corn and meal measures, and so after he died he came back to his
daughter and told her he could have no peace until the measures were
burned. She complied with her father's wish, and his spirit was never
seen again. I have known also of phantom funerals of people who died
soon afterwards being seen on the road at night.'
TO THE WESTERN HEBRIDES
From Inverness I began my journey to the Western Hebrides. While I
waited for the steamer to take me from Kyle to the Isle of Skye, an old
man with whom I talked on the docks said this about Neill Mackintosh, of
Black Island:--'You can't argue with the old man that he hasn't seen
fairies. He can tell you all about them.'
EVIDENCE FROM THE ISLE OF SKYE
Miss Frances Tolmie, who was born at Uignish, Isle of Skye, and has
lived many years in the isle in close touch with some of its oldest
folk, contributes, from Edinburgh, the evidence which follows. The first
two tales were told in the parish of Minginish a number of years ago by
Mary Macdonald, a goat-herd, and have their setting in the region of the
Koolian[35] range of mountains on the west side of Skye.
_The Fatal Peat Ember._--'An aged nurse who had fallen fast asleep as
she sat by the fire, was holding on her knees a newly-born babe. The
mother, who lay in bed gazing dreamily, was astonished to see three
strange little women enter the dwelling. They approached the unconscious
child, and she who seemed to be their leader was on the point of lifting
it off the nurse's lap, when the third exclaimed:--"Oh! let us leave
this one with her as we have already taken so many!" "So be it," replied
the senior of the party in a tone of displeasure, "but when that peat
now burning on the hearth shall be consumed, her life will surely come
to an end." Then the three little figures passed out. The good wife,
recognizing them to be fairies, sprang from her bed and poured over the
fire all the water she could find, and extinguished the half-burnt
ember. This she wrapped carefully in a piece of cloth and deposited at
the very bottom of a large chest, which afterwards she always kept
locked.
'Years passed, and the babe grew into a beautiful young woman. In the
course of time she was betrothed; and, according to custom, not
appearing in public at church on the Sunday preceding the day appointed
for her marriage, remained at home alone. To amuse herself, she began to
search the contents of all the keeping-places in the house, and came at
last to the chest containing the peat ember. In her haste, the good
mother had that day forgotten the key of the chest, which was now in the
lock. At the bottom of the chest the girl found a curious packet
containing nothing but a morsel of peat, and this apparently useless
thing she tossed away into the fire. When the peat was well kindled the
young girl began to feel very ill, and when her mother returned was
dying. The open chest and the blazing peat explained the cause of the
calamity. The fairy's prediction was fulfilled.'
_Results of Refusing Fairy Hospitality._--'Two women were walking toward
the Point when one of them, hearing churning going on under a hillock,
expressed aloud a wish for some butter-milk. No sooner had she spoken
than a very small figure of a woman came out with a bowlful and offered
it to her, but the thirsty woman, ignorant of fairy customs and the
penalty attending their infringement, declined the kind offer of
refreshment, and immediately found herself a prisoner in the hillock.
She was led to an apartment containing a chest full of meal and a great
bag of wool, and was told by the fairy that when she had eaten all the
meal and spun all the wool she would be free to return to her home. The
prisoner at once set herself to eating and spinning assiduously, but
without apparent result, and despairing of completing the task consulted
an old man of very sad countenance who had long been a captive in the
hillock. He willingly gave her his advice, which was to wet her left eye
with saliva each morning before she settled down to her task. She
followed this advice, and gradually the wool and the meal were
exhausted. Then the fairy granted her freedom, but in doing so cursed
the old man, and said that she had it in her power to keep him in the
hillock for ever.'
_The Fairies' 'Waulking' (Fulling)._--'At Ebost, in Bracadale, an old
woman was living in a little hut, with no companion save a wise cat. As
we talked, she expressed her wonder that no fairies are ever seen or
heard nowadays. She could remember hearing her father tell how he, when
a herd-boy, had heard the fairies singing a "waulking" song in
Dun-Osdale, an ancient and ruined round tower in the parish of
Dùirinish, and not far from Heléval _mhor_ (great) and Heléval _bheag_
(less)--two hills occasionally alluded to as "Macleod's Tables". The
youth was lying on the grass-grown summit of the ruin, and heard them
distinctly. As if with exultation, one voice took the verse and then the
whole company joined in the following chorus: "_Ho! fir-e! fair-e,
foirm! Ho! Fair-eag-an an clò!_ (Ho! well done! Grand! Ho! bravo the web
[of homespun]!)"'
_Crodh Chailean._--'This tale was related by Mr. Neil Macleod, the bard
of Skye:--"Colin was a gentleman of Clan Campbell in Perthshire, who was
married to a beautiful maiden whom the fairies carried off on her
marriage-day, and on whom they cast a spell which rendered her invisible
for a day and a year. She came regularly every day to milk the cows of
her sorrowing husband, and sang sweetly to them while she milked, but he
never once had the pleasure of beholding her, though he could hear
perfectly what she sang. At the expiry of the year she was, to his great
joy, restored to him."'[36]
_Fairy Legend of the Macleod Family._--'There is a legend told of the
Macleod family:--Soon after the heir of the Macleods was born, a
beautiful woman in wonderful raiment, who was a fairy woman or banshee
(there were joyous as well as mourning banshees) appeared at the castle,
and went directly to the babe's cradle. She took up the babe and chanted
over it a series of verses, and each verse had its own melody. The
verses foretold the future manhood of the young child, and acted as a
protective charm over its life. Then she put the babe back into its
cradle, and, going out, disappeared across the moorlands.
'For many generations it was a custom in the Macleod family that whoever
was the nurse of the heir must sing those verses as the fairy woman had
sung them. After a time the song was forgotten, but at a later period it
was partially recovered, and to-day it is one of the proud folk-lore
heritages of the Macleod family.'[37]
_Origin and Nature of the Fairy-Faith._--Finally, with respect to the
origin and nature of the Scotch Fairy-Faith, Miss Tolmie states:--'As a
child I was not permitted to hear about fairies. At twenty I was seeking
and trying to understand the beliefs of my fathers in the light of
modern ideas. I was very determined not to lose the past.
'The fairy-lore originated in a cultured class in very ancient times.
The peasants inherited it; they did not invent it. With the loss of
Gaelic in our times came the loss of folk-ideals. The classical and
English influences combined had a killing effect; so that the
instinctive religious feeling which used to be among our people when
they kept alive the fairy-traditions is dead. We have
intellectually-constructed creeds and doctrines which take its place.
'We always thought of fairies as mysterious little beings living in
hills. They were capricious and irritable, but not wicked. They could do
a good turn as well as a bad one. They were not aerial, but had bodies
which they could make invisible; and they could make human bodies
invisible in the same way. Besides their hollow knolls and mounds there
seemed to be a subterranean world in which they also lived, where things
are like what they are in this world.'
THE ISLE OF BARRA,[38] WESTERN HEBRIDES
We pass from Cuchulainn's beautiful island to what is now the most
Celtic part of Scotland--the Western Hebrides, where the ancient life is
lived yet, and where the people have more than a faith in spirits and
fairies. And no one of the Western Hebrides, perhaps excepting the tiny
island of Erisgey, has changed less during the last five hundred years
than Barra.
Our Barra guide and interpreter, Michael Buchanan, a native and a
life-long resident of Barra, is seventy years old, yet as strong and
active as a city man at fifty. He knows intimately every old man on the
island, and as he was able to draw them out on the subject of the 'good
people' as no stranger could do, I was quite willing, as well as obliged
on account of the Scotch Gaelic, to let him act on my behalf in all my
collecting on Barra. Mr. Buchanan is the author of a little book called
_The MacNeils of Barra Genealogy_, published in the year 1902. He was
the official interpreter before the Commission of Inquiry which was
appointed by the British Parliament in 1883 to search into the
oppression of landlordism in the Highlands and Islands, and he acted in
the same capacity before the Crofters' Commission and the Deer-Forest
Commission. We therefore feel perfectly safe in allowing him to present,
before our jury trying the Fairy-Faith, the evidence of the
Gaelic-speaking witnesses from Barra.
JOHN MACNEIL'S TESTIMONY
We met the first of the Barra witnesses on the top of a rocky hill,
where the road from Castlebay passes. He was carrying on his back a sack
of sand heavy enough for a college athlete, and he an old man between
seventy and eighty years of age. Michael Buchanan has known John MacNeil
all his life, for they were boys together on the island; and there is
not much difference between them in age, our interpreter being the
younger. Then the three of us sat down on a grassy knoll, all the world
like a fairy knoll, though it was not; and when pipes were lit and the
weather had been discussed, there was introduced the subject of the
'good people'--all in Gaelic, for our witness now about to testify knows
no English--and what John MacNeil said is thus interpreted by Michael
Buchanan:--
_A Fairy's Visit._--'Yes, I have' (in answer to a question if he had
heard of people being _taken_ by the 'good people' or fairies). 'A fairy
woman visited the house of a young wife here in Barra, and the young
wife had her baby on her breast at the time. The first words uttered by
the fairy woman were, "Heavy is your child;" and the wife answered,
"Light is everybody who lives the longest." "Were it not that you have
answered my question," said the fairy woman, "and understood my meaning,
you should have been less your child." And then the fairy woman
departed.'
_Fairy-Singing._--'My mother, and two other women well known here in
Barra, went to a hill one day to look after their sheep, and, a thick
fog coming on, they had to rest awhile. They then sat down upon a knoll
and began to sing a _walking_ (cloth-working) song, as follows:--"It is
early to-day that I have risen;" and, as they sang, a fairy woman in the
rocks responded to their song with one of her own.'
_Nature of Fairies._--Then the question was asked if fairies were men or
spirits, and this is the reply:--'I never saw any myself, and so cannot
tell, but they must be spirits from all that the old people tell about
them, or else how could they appear and disappear so suddenly? The old
people said they didn't know if fairies were flesh and blood, or
spirits. They saw them as men of more diminutive stature than our race.
I heard my father say that fairies used to come and speak to natural
people, and then vanish while one was looking at them. Fairy women used
to go into houses and talk and then vanish. The general belief was that
the fairies were spirits who could make themselves seen or not seen at
will. And when they _took_ people they _took_ body and soul together.'
THE TESTIMONY OF JOHN CAMPBELL, NINETY-FOUR YEARS OLD
Our next witness from Barra is John Campbell, who is ninety-four years
old, yet clear-headed. He was born on Barra at Sgalary, and lives near
there now at Breuvaig. We were on our way to call at his home, when we
met him coming on the road, with a cane in each hand and a small sack
hanging from one of them. Michael saluted him as an old acquaintance,
and then we all sat down on a big boulder in the warm sunshine beside
the road to talk. The first thing John wanted was tobacco, and when this
was supplied we gradually led from one subject to another until he was
talking about fairies. And this is what he said about them:--
_The Fairy and the Fountain._--'I had a companion by the name of James
Galbraith, who was drowned about forty years ago, and one time he was
crossing from the west side of the island to the east side, to the
township called Sgalary, and feeling thirsty took a drink out of a
spring well on the mountain-side. After he had taken a drink, he looked
about him and saw a woman clad in green, and imagined that no woman
would be clad in such a colour except a fairy woman. He went on his way,
and when he hadn't gone far, looked back, and, as he looked, saw the
woman vanish out of his sight. He afterwards reported the incident at
his father's house in Sgalary, and his father said he also had seen a
woman clad in clothes of green at the same place some nights before.'
_A Step-son Pitied by the Fairies._--'I heard my father say that a
neighbour of his father, that is of my grandfather, was married twice,
and had three children from the first marriage, and when married for the
second time, a son and daughter. His second wife did not seem to be kind
enough to the children of the first wife, neglecting their food and
clothing and keeping them constantly at hard work in the fields and at
herding.
'One morning when the man and his second wife were returning from mass
they passed the pasture where their cows were grazing and heard the
enjoyable _skirrels_ of the bagpipes. The father said, "What may this
be?" and going off the road found the eldest son of the first wife
playing the bagpipes to his heart's pleasure; and asked him earnestly,
"How did you come to play the bagpipes so suddenly, or where did you get
this splendid pair of bagpipes?" The boy replied, "An old man came to me
while I was in the action of roasting pots in a pit-fire and said, 'Your
step-mother is bad to you and in ill-will towards you.' I told the old
man I was sensible that that was the case, and then he said to me, 'If I
give you a trade will you be inclined to follow it?' I said yes, and the
old man then continued, 'How would you like to be a piper by trade?' 'I
would gladly become a piper,' says I, 'but what am I to do without the
bagpipes and the tunes to play?' 'I'll supply the bagpipes,' he said,
'and as long as you have them you'll never want for the most delightful
tunes.'" The male descendants of the boy in question were all famous
pipers thereafter, and the last of them was a piper to the late Cluny
MacPherson of Cluny.'
_Nature of Fairies._--At this point, Michael turned the trend of John's
thoughts to the nature of fairies, with the following result:--'The
general belief of the people here during my father's lifetime was that
the fairies were more of the nature of spirits than of men made of flesh
and blood, but that they so appeared to the naked eye that no difference
could be marked in their forms from that of any human being, except that
they were more diminutive. I have heard my father say it was the case
that fairy women used to take away children from their cradles and leave
different children in their places, and that these children who were
left would turn out to be old men.
'At Barra Head, a fairy woman used to come to a man's window almost
every night as though looking to see if the family was home. The man
grew suspicious, and decided the fairy woman was watching her chance to
steal his wife, so he proposed a plan. It was then and still is the
custom after thatching a house to rope it across with heather-spun
ropes, and, at the time, the man was busy spinning some of them; and he
told his wife to take his place that night to spin the heather-rope, and
said he would take her spinning-wheel. They were thus placed when the
fairy woman made the usual look in at the window, and she seeing that
her intention was understood, said to the man, "You are yourself at the
spinning-wheel and your wife is spinning the heather-rope."
'I have heard it said that the fairies live in knolls on a higher level
than that of the ground in general, and that fairy songs are heard from
the faces of high rocks. The fairies of the air (the fairy or spirit
hosts) are different from those in the rocks. A man whom I've seen,
Roderick MacNeil, was lifted by the hosts and left three miles from
where he was taken up. The hosts went at about midnight. A man awake at
midnight is in danger. Cows and horses are sometimes shot in place of
men' (and why, will be explained by later witnesses).
_Father MacDonald's Opinions._--We then asked about the late Rev. Donald
MacDonald, who had the reputation of knowing all about fairies and
spirits when he lived here in these islands, and John said:--'I have
heard my wife say that she questioned Father MacDonald, who was then a
parish priest here in Barra, and for whom she was a housekeeper, if it
was possible that such beings or spirits as fairies were in existence.
He said "Yes", and that they were those who left Heaven after the fallen
angels; and that those going out after the fallen angels had gone out
were so numerous and kept going so long that St. Michael notified Christ
that the throne was fast emptying, and when Christ saw the state of
affairs he ordered the doors of Heaven to be closed at once, saying as
he gave the order, "Who is out is out and who is in is in." And the
fairies are as numerous now as ever they were before the beginning of
the world.' (Cf. pp. 47, 53, 67, 76, 85, 109, 113, 116, 129, 154, 205,
212.)
Here we left John, and he, continuing on his way up the mountain road in
an opposite direction from us and round a turn, disappeared almost as a
fairy might.
AN AGED PIPER'S TESTIMONY
We introduce now as a witness Donald McKinnon, ninety-six years old, a
piper by profession; and not only is he the oldest man on Barra, but
also the oldest man among all our witnesses. He was born on the Island
of South Uist, one of the Western Hebrides north of Barra, and came to
Barra in 1836, where he has lived ever since. In spite of being four
years less than a hundred in age, he greeted us very heartily, and as he
did not wish us to sit inside, for his chimney happened not to be
drawing very well, and was filling the straw-thatched cottage with peat
smoke, we sat down outside on the grass and began talking; and as we
came to fairies this is what he said:--
_Nature of Fairies._--'I believe that fairies exist as a tribe of
spirits, and appear to us in the form of men and women. People who saw
fairies can yet describe them as they appeared dressed in green. No
doubt there are fairies in other countries as well as here.
'In my experience there was always a good deal of difference between the
fairies and the hosts. The fairies were supposed to be living without
material food, whereas the hosts were supposed to be living upon their
own booty. Generally, the hosts were evil and the fairies good, though I
have heard that the fairies used to _take_ cattle and leave their old
men rolled up in the hides. One night an old witch was heard to say to
the fairies outside the fold, "We cannot get anything to-night." The old
men who were left behind in the hides of the animals _taken_, usually
disappeared very suddenly. I saw two men who used to be lifted by the
hosts. They would be carried from South Uist as far south as Barra Head,
and as far north as Harris. Sometimes when these men were ordered by the
hosts to kill men on the road they would kill instead either a horse or
a cow; for in that way, so long as an animal was killed, the injunction
of the hosts was fulfilled.' To illustrate at this point the idea of
fairies, Donald repeated the same legend told by our former witness,
John Campbell, about the emptying of Heaven and the doors being closed
to keep the remainder of its population in. Then he told the following
story about fairies:--
_The Fairy-Belt._--'I heard of an apprentice to carpentry who was
working with his master at the building of a boat, a little distance
from his house, and near the sea. He went to work one morning and forgot
a certain tool which he needed in the boat-building. He returned to his
carpenter-shed to get it, and found the shed filled with fairy men and
women. On seeing him they ran away so greatly confused that one of the
women forgot her gird (belt), and he picked it up. In a little while she
came back for the gird, and asked him to give it her, but he refused to
do so. Thereupon she promised him that he should be made master of his
trade wherever his lot should fall without serving further
apprenticeship. On that condition he gave her the gird; and rising early
next morning he went to the yard where the boat was a-building and put
in two planks so perfectly that when the master arrived and saw them, he
said to him, "Are you aware of anybody being in the building-yard last
night, for I see by the work done that I am more likely to be an
apprentice than the person who put in those two planks, whoever he is.
Was it you that did it?" The reply was in the affirmative, and the
apprentice told his master the circumstances under which he gained the
rapid mastership of his trade.'
ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS
It was nearing sunset now, and a long mountain-climb was ahead of us,
and one more visit that evening, before we should begin our return to
Castlebay, and so after this story we said a hearty good-bye to Donald,
with regret at leaving him. When we reached the mountain-side, one of
the rarest of Barra's sights greeted us. To the north and south in the
golden glow of a September twilight we saw the long line of the Outer
Hebrides like the rocky backbone of some submerged continent. The scene
and colours on the land and ocean and in the sky seemed more like some
magic vision, reflected from Faerie by the 'good people' for our
delight, than a thing of our own world. Never was air clearer or sea
calmer, nor could there be air sweeter than that in the mystic
mountain-stillness holding the perfume of millions of tiny blossoms of
purple and white heather; and as the last honey-bees were leaving the
beautiful blossoms their humming came to our ears like low, strange
music from Fairyland.
MARIAN MACLEAN OF BARRA, AND HER TESTIMONY
Our next witness to testify is a direct descendant of the ancient
MacNeils of Barra. Her name now is Marian MacLean; and she lives in the
mountainous centre of Barra at Upper Borve. She is many years younger
than the men who have testified, and one of the most industrious women
on the island. It was already dark and past dinner-time when we entered
her cottage, and so, as we sat down before a blazing peat-fire, she at
once offered us some hot milk and biscuits, which we were only too glad
to accept. And, as we ate, we talked first about our hard climb in the
darkness across the mountains, and through the thick heather-bushes, and
then about the big rock which has a key-hole in it, for it contains a
secret entrance to a fairy palace. We had examined it in the twilight as
we came through the mountain pass which it guards, and my guide Michael
had assured me that more than one islander, crossing at the hour we
were, had seen some of the fairies near it. We waited in front of the
big rock in hopes one might appear for our benefit, but, in spite of our
strong belief that there are fairies there, not a single one would come
out. Perhaps they came and we couldn't see them; who knows?
_Fairies and Fairy Hosts ('Sluagh')._[39]--'O yes,' Marian said, as she
heard Michael and myself talking over our hot milk, 'there are fairies
there, for I was told that the Pass was a notable fairy haunt.' Then I
said through Michael, 'Can you tell us something about what these
fairies are?' And from that time, save for a few interruptions natural
in conversation, we listened and Marian talked, and told stories as
follows:--
'Generally, the fairies are to be seen after or about sunset, and walk
on the ground as we do, whereas the hosts travel in the air above places
inhabited by people. The hosts used to go after the fall of night, and
more particularly about midnight. You'd hear them going in fine weather
against a wind like a covey of birds. And they were in the habit of
lifting men in South Uist, for the hosts need men to help in shooting
their javelins from their bows against women in the action of milking
cows, or against any person working at night in a house over which they
pass. And I have heard of good sensible men whom the hosts took,
shooting a horse or cow in place of the person ordered to be shot.
'There was a man who had only one cow and one daughter. The daughter was
milking the cow at night when the hosts were passing, and that human
being whom the hosts had lifted with them was her father's neighbour.
And this neighbour was ordered by the hosts to shoot the daughter as she
was milking, but, knowing the father and daughter, he shot the cow
instead. The next morning he went where the father was and said to him,
"You are missing the cow." "Yes," said the father, "I am." And the man
who had shot the cow said, "Are you not glad your cow and not your
daughter was _taken_? For I was ordered to shoot your daughter and I
shot your cow, in order to show blood on my arrow." "I am very glad of
what you have done if that was the case," the father replied. "It was
the case," the neighbour said.
'My father and grandfather knew a man who was carried by the hosts from
South Uist here to Barra. I understand when the hosts take away earthly
men they require another man to help them. But the hosts must be
spirits. My opinion is that they are both spirits of the dead and other
spirits not the dead. A child was taken by the hosts and returned after
one night and one day, and found at the back of the house with the palms
of its hands in the holes in the wall, and with no life in its body. It
was dead in the spirit. It is believed that when people are dropped from
a great height by the hosts they are killed by the fall. As to fairies,
my firm opinion is that they are spirits who appear in the shape of
human beings.'
The question was now asked whether the fairies were anything like the
dead, and Marian hesitated about answering. She thought they were like
the dead, but not to be identified with them. The fallen-angel idea
concerning fairies was an obstacle she could not pass, for she said,
'When the fallen angels were cast out of Heaven God commanded them
thus:--"You will go to take up your abodes in crevices, under the earth,
in mounds, or soil, or rocks." And according to this command they have
been condemned to inhabit the places named for a certain period of time,
and when it is expired before the consummation of the world, they will
be seen as numerous as ever.'
Now we heard two good stories, the first about fairy women spinning for
a mortal, the second about a wonderful changeling who was a magic
musician:--
_Fairy-Women Spinners._--'I have heard my father, Alexander MacNeil, who
was well known to Mr. [Alexander] Carmichael and to Mr. J. F. Campbell
of Islay, say that his father knew a woman in the neighbourhood who was
in a hurry to have her stock of wool spun and made into cloth, and one
night this woman secretly wished to have some women to help her. So the
following morning there appeared at her house six or seven fairy women
in long green robes, all alike chanting, "A wool-card, and a
spinning-wheel." And when they were supplied with the instruments they
were so very desirous to get, they all set to work, and by midday of
that morning the cloth was going through the process of the hand-loom.
But they were not satisfied with finishing the work the woman had set
before them, but asked for new employment. The woman had no more
spinning or weaving to be done, and began to wonder how she was to get
the women out of the house. So she went into her neighbour's house and
informed him of her position in regard to the fairy women. The old man
asked what they were saying. "They are earnestly petitioning for some
work to do, and I have no more to give them," the woman replied. "Go you
in," he said to her, "and tell them to spin the sand, and if then they
do not move from your house, go out again and yell in at the door that
Dun Borve is in fire!" The first plan had no effect, but immediately on
hearing the cry, "Dun Borve is in fire!" the fairy women disappeared
invisibly. And as they went, the woman heard the melancholy wail, "Dun
Borve is in fire! Dun Borve is in fire! And what will become of our
hammers and anvil?"--for there was a smithy in the fairy-dwelling.'
_The Tailor and the Changeling._--'There was a young wife of a young man
who lived in the township of Allasdale, and the pair had just had their
first child. One day the mother left her baby in its cradle to go out
and do some shearing, and when she returned the child was crying in a
most unusual fashion. She fed him as usual on porridge and milk, but he
wasn't satisfied with what seemed to her enough for any one of his age,
yet every suspicion escaped her attention. As it happened, at the time
there was a web of home-made cloth in the house waiting for the tailor.
The tailor came and began to work up the cloth. As the woman was going
out to her customary shearing operation, she warned the tailor if he
heard the child continually crying not to pay much attention to it,
adding she would attend to it when she came home, for she feared the
child would delay him in his work.
'All went well till about noon, when the tailor observed the child
rising up on its elbow and stretching its hand to a sort of shelf above
the cradle and taking down from it a yellow chanter [of a bagpipe]. And
then the child began to play. Immediately after the child began to play
the chanter, the house filled with young fairy women all clad in long
green robes, who began to dance, and the tailor had to dance with them.
About two o'clock that same afternoon the women disappeared unknown to
the tailor, and the chanter disappeared from the hands of the child also
unknown to the tailor; and the child was in the cradle crying as usual.
'The wife came home to make the dinner, and observed that the tailor was
not so far advanced with his work as he ought to be in that space of
time. However, when the fairy women disappeared, the child had enjoined
upon the tailor never to tell what he had seen. The tailor promised to
be faithful to the child's injunctions, and so he said nothing to the
mother.
'The second day the wife left for her occupation as usual, and told the
tailor to be more attentive to his work than the day before. A second
time at the same hour of the day the child in the cradle, appearing more
like an old man than a child, took the chanter and began to play. The
same fairy women filled the house again, and repeated their dance, and
the tailor had to join them.
'Naturally the tailor was as far behind with his work the second day as
the first day, and it was very noticeable to the woman of the house when
she returned. She thereupon requested him to tell her what the matter
might be. Then he said to her, "I urge upon you after going to bed
to-night not to fondle that child, because he is not your child, nor is
he a child: he is an old fairy man. And to-morrow, at dead tide, go down
to the shore and wrap him in your plaid and put him upon a rock and
begin to pick that shell-fish which is called limpet, and for your life
do not leave the shore until such a time as the tide will flow so high
that you will scarcely be able to wade in to the main shore." The woman
complied with the tailor's advice, and when she had waded to the main
shore and stood there looking at the child on the rock, it cried to her,
"You had a great need to do what you have done. Otherwise you'd have
seen another ending of your turn; but blessing be to you and curses on
your adviser." When the wife arrived home her own natural child was in
the cradle.'
THE TESTIMONY OF MURDOCH MACLEAN
The husband of Marian MacLean had entered while the last stories were
being told, and when they were ended the spirit was on him, and wishing
to give his testimony he began:--
_Lachlann's Fairy Mistress._--'My grandmother, Catherine MacInnis, used
to tell about a man named Lachlann, whom she knew, being in love with a
fairy woman. The fairy woman made it a point to see Lachlann every
night, and he being worn out with her began to fear her. Things got so
bad at last that he decided to go to America to escape the fairy woman.
As soon as the plan was fixed, and he was about to emigrate, women who
were milking at sunset out in the meadows heard very audibly the fairy
woman singing this song:--
What will the brown-haired woman do
When Lachlann is on the billows?
'Lachlann emigrated to Cape Breton, landing in Nova Scotia; and in his
first letter home to his friends he stated that the same fairy woman was
haunting him there in America.'[40]
_Abduction of a Bridegroom._--'I have heard it from old people that a
couple, newly married, were on their way to the home of the bride's
father, and for some unknown reason the groom fell behind the
procession, and seeing a fairy-dwelling open along the road was taken
into it. No one could ever find the least trace of where he went, and
all hope of seeing him again was given up. The man remained with the
fairies so long that when he returned two generations had disappeared
during the lapse of time. The township in which his bride's house used
to be was depopulated and in ruins for upwards of twenty years, but to
him the time had seemed only a few hours; and he was just as fresh and
youthful as when he went in the fairy-dwelling.'
_Nature of Fairies._--Previous to his story-telling Murdoch had heard us
discussing the nature and powers of fairies, and at the end of this
account he volunteered, without our asking for it, an opinion of his
own:--'This (the story just told by him) leads me to believe that the
spirit and body [of a mortal] are somehow mystically combined by fairy
enchantment, for the fairies had a mighty power of enchanting natural
people, and could transform the physical body in some way. It cannot be
but that the fairies are spirits. According to my thinking and belief
they cannot be anything but spirits. My firm belief, however, is that
they are not the spirits of dead men, but are the fallen angels.'
Then his wife Marian had one more story to add, and she at once, when
she could, began:--
_The Messenger and the Fairies._--'Yes, I have heard the following
incident took place here on the Island of Barra about one hundred years
ago:--A young woman taken ill suddenly sent a messenger in all haste to
the doctor for medicine. On his return, the day being hot and there
being five miles to walk, he sat down at the foot of a knoll and fell
asleep; and was awakened by hearing a song to the following air: "Ho,
ho, ho, hi, ho, ho. Ill it becomes a messenger on an important message
to sleep on the ground in the open air."'
And with this, for the hour was late and dark, and we were several miles
from Castlebay, we bade our good friends adieu, and began to hunt for a
road out of the little mountain valley where Murdoch and Marian guard
their cows and sheep. And all the way to the hotel Michael and I
discussed the nature of fairies. Just before midnight we saw the welcome
lights in Castlebay across the heather-covered hills, and we both
entered the hotel to talk. There was a blazing fire ready for us and
something to eat. Before I took my final leave of my friend and guide, I
asked him to dictate for me his private opinions about fairies, what
they are and how they appear to men, and he was glad to meet my request.
Here is what he said about the famous folk-lorist, the late Mr. J. F.
Campbell, with whom he often worked in Barra, and for himself:--
MICHAEL BUCHANAN'S DEPOSITION CONCERNING FAIRIES
'I was with the late Mr. J. F. Campbell during his first and second tour
of the Island of Barra in search of legendary lore strictly connected
with fairies, and I know from daily conversing with him about fairies
that he held them to be spirits appearing to the naked eye of the
spectator as any of the present or former generations of men and women,
except that they were smaller in stature. And I know equally that he,
holding them to be spirits, thought they could appear or disappear at
will. My own firm belief is that the fairies were or are only spirits
which were or are seen in the shape of human beings, but smaller as
regards stature. I also firmly believe in the existence of fairies as
such; and accept the modern and ancient traditions respecting the ways
and customs of various fairy tribes, such as John Mackinnon, the old
piper, and John Campbell, and the MacLeans told us. And I therefore have
no hesitation in agreeing with the views held by the late Mr. J. F.
Campbell regarding fairies.'
THE RECITERS' LAMENT, AND THEIR STORY
The following material, so truly Celtic in its word-colour and in the
profound note of sadness and lamentation dominating it, may very
appropriately conclude our examination of the Fairy-Faith of Scotland,
by giving us some insight into the mind of the Scotch peasants of two
generations ago, and into the then prevailing happy social environment
under which their belief in fairies flourished. For our special use Dr.
Alexander Carmichael has rendered it out of the original Gaelic, as this
was taken down by him in various versions in the Western Hebrides. One
version was recited by Ann Macneill, of Barra, in the year 1865, another
by Angus Macleod, of Harris, in 1877. In relation to their belief in
fairies the anti-clerical bias of the reciters is worth noting as a
curious phenomenon:--
'That is as I heard when a hairy little fellow upon the knee of my
mother. My mother was full of stories and songs of music and chanting.
My two ears never heard musical fingers more preferable for me to hear
than the chanting of my mother. If there were quarrels among children,
as there were, and as there will be, my beloved mother would set us to
dance there and then. She herself or one of the other crofter women of
the townland would sing to us the mouth-music. We would dance there till
we were seven times tired. A stream of sweat would be falling from us
before we stopped--hairful little lassies and stumpy little fellows.
These are scattered to-day! scattered to-day over the wide world! The
people of those times were full of music and dancing stories and
traditions. The clerics have extinguished these. May ill befall them!
And what have the clerics put in their place? Beliefs about creeds, and
disputations about denominations and churches! May lateness be their
lot! It is they who have put the cross round the heads and the
entanglements round the feet of the people. The people of the Gaeldom of
to-day are anear perishing for lack of the famous feats of their
fathers. The black clerics have suppressed every noble custom among the
people of the Gaeldom--precious customs that will never return, no never
again return.' (Now follows what the Reciters heard upon the knee of
their mother):--
'"I have never seen a man fairy nor a woman fairy, but my mother saw a
troop of them. She herself and the other maidens of the townland were
once out upon the summer _sheiling_ (grazing). They were milking the
cows, in the evening gloaming, when they observed a flock of fairies
reeling and setting upon the green plain in front of the knoll. And, oh
King! but it was they the fairies themselves that had the right to the
dancing, and not the children of men! Bell-helmets of blue silk covered
their heads, and garments of green satin covered their bodies, and
sandals of yellow membrane covered their feet. Their heavy brown hair
was streaming down their waist, and its lustre was of the fair golden
sun of summer. Their skin was as white as the swan of the wave, and
their voice was as melodious as the mavis of the wood, and they
themselves were as beauteous of feature and as lithe of form as a
picture, while their step was as light and stately and their minds as
sportive as the little red hind of the hill. The damsel children of the
_sheiling_-fold never saw sight but them, no never sight but them, never
aught so beautiful.
'"There is not a wave of prosperity upon the fairies of the knoll, no,
not a wave. There is no growth nor increase, no death nor withering upon
the fairies. Seed unfortunate they! They went away from the Paradise
with the One of the Great Pride. When the Father commanded the doors
closed down and up, the intermediate fairies had no alternative but to
leap into the holes of the earth, where they are, and where they will
be."
'This is what I heard upon the knee of my beloved mother. Blessings be
with her ever evermore!'
IV. IN THE ISLE OF MAN
Introduction by SOPHIA MORRISON, Hon. Secretary of the Manx
Language Society.
The Manx hierarchy of fairy beings people hills and glens, caves and
rivers, mounds and roads; and their name is legion. Apparently there is
not a place in the island but has its fairy legend. Sir Walter Scott
said that the 'Isle of Man, beyond all other places in Britain, was a
peculiar depository of the fairy-traditions, which, on the Island being
conquered by the Norse, became in all probability chequered with those
of Scandinavia, from a source peculiar and more direct than that by
which they reached Scotland and Ireland'.
A good Manxman, however, does not speak of fairies--the word _ferish_, a
corruption of the English, did not exist in the island one hundred and
fifty years ago. He talks of 'The Little People' (_Mooinjer veggey_),
or, in a more familiar mood, of 'Themselves', and of 'Little Boys'
(_Guillyn veggey_), or 'Little Fellas'. In contradistinction to mortals
he calls them 'Middle World Men', for they are believed to dwell in a
world of their own, being neither good enough for Heaven nor bad enough
for Hell.
At the present moment almost all the older Manx peasants hold to this
belief in fairies quite firmly, but with a certain dread of them; and,
to my knowledge, two old ladies of the better class yet leave out cakes
and water for the fairies every night. The following story, illustrative
of the belief, was told to me by Bill Clarke:--
'Once while I was fishing from a ledge of rocks that runs out into the
sea at Lag-ny-Keilley, a dense grey mist began to approach the land, and
I thought I had best make for home while the footpath above the rocks
was visible. When getting my things together I heard what sounded like a
lot of children coming out of school. I lifted my head, and behold ye,
there was a fleet of fairy boats each side of the rock. Their
riding-lights were shining like little stars, and I heard one of the
_Little Fellas_ shout, "_Hraaghyn boght as earish broigh, skeddan dy
liooar ec yn mooinjer seihll shoh, cha nel veg ain_" (Poor times and
dirty weather, and herring enough at the people of this world, nothing
at us). Then they dropped off and went agate o' the flitters.'
'Willy-the-Fairy,' as he is called, who lives at Rhenass, says he often
hears the fairies singing and playing up the Glen o' nights. I have
heard him sing airs which he said he had thus learned from the _Little
People_.[41]
Again, there is a belief that at Keeill Moirrey (Mary's Church), near
Glen Meay, a little old woman in a red cloak is sometimes seen coming
over the mountain towards the _keeill_, ringing a bell, just about the
hour when church service begins. Keeill Moirrey is one of the early
little Celtic cells, probably of the sixth century, of which nothing
remains but the foundations.
And the following prayer, surviving to our own epoch, is most
interesting. It shows, in fact, pure paganism; and we may judge from it
that the ancient Manx people regarded Manannan, the great Tuatha De
Danann god, in his true nature, as a spiritual being, a Lord of the Sea,
and as belonging to the complex fairy hierarchy. This prayer was given
to me by a Manxwoman nearly one hundred years old, who is still living.
She said it had been used by her grandfather, and that her father prayed
the same prayer--substituting St. Patrick's name for Manannan's:--
_Manannan beg mac y Leirr, fer vannee yn Ellan,
Bannee shin as nyn maatey, mie goll magh
As cheet stiagh ny share lesh bio as marroo "sy vaatey"._
(Little Manannan son of Leirr, who blest our Island,
Bless us and our boat, well going out
And better coming in with living and dead [fish] in the boat).
* * * * *
It seems to me that no one of the various theories so far advanced
accounts in itself for the Fairy-Faith. There is always a missing
factor, an unknown quantity which has yet to be discovered. No doubt the
Pygmy Theory explains a good deal. In some countries a tradition has
been handed down of the times when there were races of diminutive men in
existence--beings so small that their tiny hands could have used the
flint arrow-heads and scrapers which are like toys to us. No such
tradition exists at the present day in the Isle of Man, but one might
have filtered down from the far-off ages and become innate in the
folk-memory, and now, unknown to the Manx peasant, may possibly suggest
to his mind the troops of _Little People_ in the shadowy glen or on the
lonely mountain-side. Again, the rustling of the leaves or the sough of
the wind may be heard by the peasant as strange and mysterious voices,
or the trembling shadow of a bush may appear to him as an unearthly
being. Natural facts, explainable by modern science, may easily remain
dark mysteries to those who live quiet lives close to Nature, far from
sophisticated towns, and whose few years of schooling have left the
depths of their being undisturbed, only, as it were, ruffling the
shallows.
But this is not enough. Even let it be granted that nine out of every
ten cases of experiences with fairies can be analysed and explained
away--there remains the tenth. In this tenth case one is obliged to
admit that there is something at work which we do not understand, some
force in play which, as yet, we know not. In spite of ourselves we feel
'There's Powers that's in'. These Powers are not necessarily what the
superstitious call 'supernatural'. We realize now that there is nothing
supernatural--that what used to be so called is simply something that we
do not understand at present. Our forefathers would have thought the
telephone, the X-rays, and wireless telegraphy things 'supernatural'. It
is more than possible that our descendants may make discoveries equally
marvellous in the realms both of mind and matter, and that many things,
which nowadays seem to the materialistically-minded the creations of
credulous fancy, may in the future be understood and recognized as part
of the one great scheme of things.
Some persons are certainly more susceptible than others to these unknown
forces. Most people know reliable instances of telepathy and
presentiment amongst their acquaintances. It seems not at all contrary
to reason that both matter and mind, in knowledge of which we have not
gone so very far after all, may exist in forms as yet entirely unknown
to us. After all, beings with bodies and personalities different from
our own may well inhabit the unseen world around us: the Fairy Hound,
white as driven snow, may show himself at times among his mundane
companions; _Fenodyree_ may do the farm-work for those whom he favours;
the _Little People_ may sing and dance o' nights in Colby Glen. Let us
not say it is 'impossible'.
PEEL, ISLE OF MAN,
_September_ 1910.
ON THE SLOPES OF SOUTH BARRULE
I was introduced to the ways and nature of Manx fairies in what is
probably the most fairy-haunted part of the isle--the southern slopes of
South Barrule, the mountain on whose summit Manannan is said to have had
his stronghold, and whence he worked his magic, hiding the kingdom in
dense fog whenever he beheld in the distance the coming of an enemy's
ship or fleet. And from a representative of the older generation, Mrs.
Samuel Leece, who lives at Ballamodda, a pleasant village under the
shadow of South Barrule, I heard the first story:--
_Baby and Table Moved by Fairies._--'I have been told of _their_ (the
fairies') taking babies, though I can't be sure it is true. But this did
happen to my own mother in this parish of Kirk Patrick about eighty
years since: She was in bed with her baby, but wide awake, when she felt
the baby pulled off her arm and heard the rush of _them_. Then she
mentioned the Almighty's name, and, as _they_ were hurrying away, a
little table alongside the bed went round about the floor twenty times.
Nobody was in the room with my mother, and she always allowed it was the
_little fellows_.'
MANX TALES IN A SNOW-BOUND FARM-HOUSE
When our interesting conversation was over, Mrs. Leece directed me to
her son's farm-house, where her husband, Mr. Samuel Leece, then happened
to be; and going there through the snow-drifts, I found him with his son
and the family within. The day was just the right sort to stir Manx
memories, and it was not long before the best of stories about the
'little people' were being told in the most natural way, and to the
great delight of the children. The grandfather, who is eighty-six years
of age, sat by the open fire smoking; and he prepared the way for the
stories (three of which we record) by telling about a ghost seen by
himself and his father, and by the announcement that 'the fairies are
thought to be spirits'.
_Under 'Fairy' Control._--'About fifty years ago,' said Mr. T. Leece,
the son, 'Paul Taggart, my wife's uncle, a tailor by trade, had for an
apprentice, Humphrey Keggan, a young man eighteen or nineteen years of
age; and it often happened that while the two of them would be returning
home at nightfall, the apprentice would suddenly disappear from the side
of the tailor, and even in the midst of a conversation, as soon as they
had crossed the burn in the field down there (indicating an adjoining
field). And Taggart could not see nor hear Humphrey go. The next morning
Humphrey would come back, but so worn out that he could not work, and he
always declared that _little men_ had come to him in crowds, and used
him as a horse, and that with them he had travelled all night across
fields and over hedges.' The wife of the narrator substantiated this
strange psychological story by adding:--'This is true, because I know my
Uncle Paul too well to doubt what he says.' And she then related the two
following stories:--
_Heifer Killed by Fairy Woman's Touch._--'Aunt Jane was coming down the
road on the other side of South Barrule when she saw a strange woman'
(who Mr. T. Leece suggested was a witch) 'appear in the middle of the
gorse and walk right over the gorse and heather in a place where no
person could walk. Then she observed the woman go up to a heifer and put
her hand on it; and within a few days that heifer was dead.'
_The Fairy Dog._--'This used to happen about one hundred years ago, as
my mother has told me:--Where my grandfather John Watterson was reared,
just over near Kerroo Kiel (Narrow Quarter), all the family were
sometimes sitting in the house of a cold winter night, and my great
grandmother and her daughters at their wheels spinning, when a little
white dog would suddenly appear in the room. Then every one there would
have to drop their work and prepare for _the company_ to come in: they
would put down a fire and leave fresh water for _them_, and hurry off
upstairs to bed. They could hear _them_ come, but could never see them,
only the dog. The dog was a fairy dog, and a sure sign of their coming.'
TESTIMONY OF A HERB-DOCTOR AND SEER
At Ballasalla I was fortunate enough to meet one of the most interesting
of its older inhabitants, John Davies, a Celtic medicine-man, who can
cure most obstinate maladies in men or animals with secret herbs, and
who knows very much about witchcraft and the charms against it. 'Witches
are as common as ducks walking barefooted,' he said, using the duck
simile, which is a popular Manx one; and he cited two particular
instances from his own experience. But for us it is more important to
know that John Davies is also an able seer. The son of a weaver, he was
born in County Down, Ireland, seventy-eight years ago; but in earliest
boyhood he came with his people to the Isle of Man, and grew up in the
country near Ramsay, and so thoroughly has he identified himself with
the island and its lore, and even with its ancient language, that for
our purposes he may well be considered a Manxman. His testimony about
Manx fairies is as follows:--
_Actual Fairies Described._--'I am only a poor ignorant man; when I was
married I couldn't say the word "matrimony" in the right way. But one
does not have to be educated to see fairies, and I have seen them many a
time. I have seen them with the naked eye as numerous as I have seen
scholars coming out of Ballasalla school; and I have been seeing them
since I was eighteen to twenty years of age. The last one I saw was in
Kirk Michael. Before education came into the island more people could
see the fairies; now very few people can see them. But _they_ (the
fairies) are as thick on the Isle of Man as ever _they_ were. _They_
throng the air, and darken Heaven, and rule this lower world. It is only
twenty-one miles from this world up to the first heaven.[42] There are
as many kinds of fairies as populations in our world. I have seen some
who were about two and a half feet high; and some who were as big as we
are. I think very many such fairies as these last are the lost souls of
the people who died before the Flood. At the Flood all the world was
drowned; but the Spirit which God breathed into Adam will never be
drowned, or burned, and it is as much in the sea as on the land. Others
of the fairies are evil spirits: our Saviour drove a legion of devils
into a herd of swine; the swine were choked, but not the devils. You
can't drown devils; it is spirits they are, and just like a shadow on
the wall.' I here asked about the personal aspects of most fairies of
human size, and my friend said:--'_They_ appear to me in the same dress
as in the days when they lived here on earth; the spirit itself is only
what God blew into Adam as the breath of life.'
It seems to me that, on the whole, John Davies has had genuine visions,
but that whatever he may have seen has been very much coloured in
interpretation by his devout knowledge of the Christian Bible, and by
his social environment, as is self-evident.
TESTIMONY OF A BALLASALLA MANXWOMAN
A well-informed Manxwoman, of Ballasalla, who lives in the ancient stone
house wherein she was born, and in which before her lived her
grandparents, offers this testimony:--
_Concerning Fairies._--'I've heard a good deal of talk about fairies,
but never believed in them myself; the old people thought them the
ghosts of the dead or some such things. They were like people who had
gone before (that is, dead). If there came a strange sudden knock or
noises, or if a tree took a sudden shaking when there was no wind,
people used to make out it was caused by the fairies. On the 11th of
May[43] we used to gather mountain-ash (_Cuirn_) with red berries on it,
and make crosses out of its sprigs, and put them over the doors, so that
the fairies would not come in. My father always saw that this was done;
he said we could have no luck during the year if we forgot to do it.'
TESTIMONY GIVEN IN A JOINER'S SHOP
George Gelling, of Ballasalla, a joiner, has a local reputation for
knowing much about the fairies, and so I called on him at his workshop.
This is what he told me:--
_Seeing the Fairies._--'I was making a coffin here in the shop, and,
after tea, my apprentice was late returning; he was out by the hedge
just over there looking at a crowd of _little people_ kicking and
dancing. One of them came up and asked him what he was looking at; and
this made him run back to the shop. When he described what he had seen,
I told him they were nothing but fairies.'
_Hearing Fairy Music._--'Up by the abbey on two different occasions I
have heard the fairies. They were playing tunes not of this world, and
on each occasion I listened for nearly an hour.'
_Mickleby and the Fairy Woman._--'A man named Mickleby was coming from
Derbyhaven at night, when by a certain stream he met two ladies. He
saluted them, and then walked along with them to Ballahick Farm. There
he saw a house lit up, and they took him into it to a dance. As he
danced, he happened to wipe away his sweat with a part of the dress of
one of the two strange women who was his partner. After this adventure,
whenever Mickleby was lying abed at night, the woman with whom he danced
would appear standing beside his bed. And the only way to drive her away
was to throw over her head and Mickleby a linen sheet which had never
been bleached.'
_Nature of Fairies._--'The fairies are spirits. I think they are in this
country yet: A man below here forgot his cow, and at a late hour went to
look for her, and saw that crowds of fairies like little boys were with
him. [St.] Paul said that spirits are thick in the air, if only we could
see them; and we call spirits fairies. I think the old people here in
the island thought of fairies in the same way.'
_The Fairies' Revenge._--William Oates now happened to come into the
workshop, and being as much interested in the subject under discussion
as ourselves, offered various stories, of which the following is a
type:--'A man named Watterson, who used often to see the fairies in his
house at Colby playing in the moonlight, on one occasion heard them
coming just as he was going to bed. So he went out to the spring to get
fresh water for them; and coming into the house put the can down on the
floor, saying, "Now, little beggars, drink away." And at that (an insult
to the fairies) the water was suddenly thrown upon him.'
A VICAR'S TESTIMONY
When I called on the Rev. J. M. Spicer, vicar of Malew parish, at his
home near Castletown, he told me this very curious story:--
_The Taking of Mrs. K----._--'The belief in fairies is quite a living
thing here yet. For example, old Mrs. K----, about a year ago, told me
that on one occasion, when her daughter had been in Castletown during
the day, she went out to the road at nightfall to see if her daughter
was yet in sight, whereupon a whole crowd of fairies suddenly
surrounded her, and began taking her off toward South Barrule Mountain;
and, she added, "I couldn't get away from _them_ until I had called my
son."'
A CANON'S TESTIMONY
I am greatly indebted to the Rev. Canon Kewley, of Arbory, for the
valuable testimony which follows, and especially for his kindness in
allowing me to record what is one of the clearest examples of a
collective hallucination I have heard about as occurring in the
fairy-haunted regions of Celtic countries:--
_A Collective Hallucination._--'A good many things can be explained as
natural phenomena, but there are some things which I think cannot be.
For example, my sister and myself and our coachman, and apparently the
horse, saw the same phenomenon at the same moment: one evening we were
driving along an avenue in this parish when the avenue seemed to be
blocked by a great crowd of people, like a funeral procession; and the
crowd was so dense that we could not see through it. The throng was
about thirty to forty yards away. When we approached, it melted away,
and no person was anywhere in sight.'
_The Manx Fairy-Faith._--'Among the old people of this parish there is
still a belief in fairies. About eighteen years ago, I buried a man, a
staunch Methodist, who said he once saw the road full of fairies in the
form of little black pigs, and that when he addressed them, "In the name
of God what are ye?" they immediately vanished. He was certain they were
the fairies. Other old people speak of the fairies as the _little folk_.
The tradition is that the fairies once inhabited this island, but were
banished for evil-doing. The elder-tree, in Manx _tramman_, is supposed
to be inhabited by fairies. Through accident, one night a woman ran into
such a tree, and was immediately stricken with a terrible swelling which
her neighbours declared came from disturbing the fairies in the tree.
This was on the borders of Arbory parish.'
The Canon favours the hypothesis that in much of the folk-belief
concerning fairies and Fairyland there is present an instinct, as seen
among all peoples, for communion with the other world, and that this
instinct shows itself in another form in the Christian doctrine of the
Communion of Saints.
FAIRY TALES ON CHRISTMAS DAY
The next morning, Christmas morning, I called at the picturesque
roadside home of Mrs. Dinah Moore a Manxwoman living near Glen Meay; and
she contributed the best single collection of Manx folk-legends I
discovered on the island. The day was bright and frosty, and much snow
still remained in the shaded nooks and hollows, so that a seat before
the cheerful fire in Mrs. Moore's cottage was very comfortable; and with
most work suspended for the ancient day of festivities in honour of the
Sun, re-born after its death at the hands of the Powers of Darkness, all
conditions were favourable for hearing about fairies, and this may
explain why such important results were obtained.
_Fairy Deceit._--'I heard of a man and wife who had no children. One
night the man was out on horseback and heard a little baby crying beside
the road. He got off his horse to get the baby, and, taking it home,
went to give it to his wife, and it was only a block of wood. And then
the old fairies were outside yelling at the man: "_Eash un oie, s'cheap
t'ou mollit!_" (Age one night, how easily thou art deceived!).'
_A Midwife's Strange Experience._--'A strange man took a nurse to a
place where a baby boy was born. After the birth, the man set out on a
table two cakes, one of them broken and the other one whole, and said to
the nurse: "Eat, eat; but don't eat of the cake which is broken nor of
the cake which is whole." And the nurse said: "What in the name of the
Lord am I going to eat?" At that all the fairies in the house
disappeared; and the nurse was left out on a mountain-side alone.'
_A Fairy-Baking._--'At night the fairies came into a house in Glen
Rushen to bake. The family had put no water out for them; and a
beggar-man who had been left lodging on the sofa downstairs heard the
fairies say, "We have no water, so we'll take blood out of the toe of
the servant who forgot our water." And from the girl's blood they mixed
their dough. Then they baked their cakes, ate most of them, and poked
pieces up under the thatched roof. The next day the servant-girl fell
ill, and was ill until the old beggar-man returned to the house and
cured her with a bit of the cake which he took from under the thatch.'
_A Changeling Musician._--'A family at Dalby had a poor idiot baby, and
when it was twenty years old it still sat by the fire just like a child.
A tailor came to the house to work on a day when all the folks were out
cutting corn, and the idiot was left with him. The tailor began to
whistle as he sat on the table sewing, and the little idiot sitting by
the fire said to him: "If you'll not tell anybody when they come in,
I'll dance that tune for you." So the little fellow began to dance, and
he could step it out splendidly. Then he said to the tailor: "If you'll
not tell anybody when they come in, I'll play the fiddle for you." And
the tailor and the idiot spent a very enjoyable afternoon together. But
before the family came in from the fields, the poor idiot, as usual, was
sitting in a chair by the fire, a big baby who couldn't hardly talk.
When the mother came in she happened to say to the tailor, "You've a
fine chap here," referring to the idiot. "Yes, indeed," said the tailor,
"we've had a very fine afternoon together; but I think we had better
make a good fire and put him on it." "Oh!" cried the mother, "the poor
child could never even walk." "Ah, but he can dance and play the fiddle,
too," replied the tailor. And the fire was made; but when the idiot saw
that they were for putting him on it he pulled from his pocket a ball,
and this ball went rolling on ahead of him, and he, going after it, was
never seen again.' After this strange story was finished I asked Mrs.
Moore where she had heard it, and she said:--'I have heard this story
ever since I was a girl. I knew the house and family, and so did my
mother. The family's name was Cubbon.'
_The Fenodyree's (or 'Phynnodderee's') Disgust._--'During snowy weather,
like this, the Fenodyree would gather in the sheep at night; and during
the harvest season would do the threshing when all the family were abed.
One time, however, just over here at Gordon Farm, the farmer saw him,
and he was naked; and so the farmer put out a new suit of clothes for
him. The Fenodyree came at night, and looking at the clothes with great
disgust at the idea of wearing such things, said:--
_Bayrn_ da'n chione, doogh da'n chione,
Cooat da'n dreeym, doogh da'n dreeym,
Breechyn da'n toin, doogh da'n toin,
Agh my she lhiat Gordon mooar,
Cha nee lhiat Glion reagh Rushen.
(Cap for the head, alas! poor head,
Coat for the back, alas! poor back,
Breeches for the breech, alas! poor breech,
But if big Gordon [farm] is thine,
Thine is not the merry Glen of Rushen.)[44]
And off he went to Glen Rushen for good.'
TESTIMONY FROM THE KEEPER OF PEEL CASTLE
From Mrs. Moore's house I walked on to Peel, where I was fortunate in
meeting, in his own home, Mr. William Cashen, the well-known keeper of
the famous old Peel Castle, within whose yet solid battlements stands
the one true round tower outside of Ireland. I heard first of all about
the fairy dog--the _Moddey Doo_ (Manx for Black Dog)--which haunts the
castle; and then Mr. Cashen related to me the following anecdotes and
tales about Manx fairies:--
_Prayer against the Fairies._--'My father's and grandfather's idea was
that the fairies tumbled out of the battlements of Heaven, falling
earthward for three days and three nights as thick as hail; and that one
third of them fell into the sea, one third on the land, and one third
remained in the air, in which places they will remain till the Day of
Judgement. The old Manx people always believed that this fall of the
fairies was due to the first sin, pride; and here is their prayer
against the fairies:--"_Jee saue mee voish cloan ny moyrn_" (God
preserve me from the children of pride [or ambition]).'
_A Man's Two Wives._--'A Ballaleece woman was captured by the fairies;
and, soon afterwards, her husband took a new wife, thinking the first
one gone for ever. But not long after the marriage, one night the first
wife appeared to her former husband and said to him, and the second wife
overheard her: "You'll sweep the barn clean, and mind there is not one
straw left on the floor. Then stand by the door, and at a certain hour a
company of people on horseback will ride in, and you lay hold of that
bridle of the horse I am on, and don't let it go." He followed the
directions carefully, but was unable to hold the horse: the second wife
had put some straw on the barn floor under a bushel.'
_Sounds of Infinity._--'On Dalby Mountain, this side of
Cronk-yn-Irree-Laa the old Manx people used to put their ears to the
earth to hear the Sounds of Infinity (_Sheean-ny-Feaynid_), which were
sounds like murmurs. They thought these sounds came from beings in
space; for in their belief all space is filled with invisible
beings.'[45]
TO THE MEMORY OF A MANX SCHOLAR
Since the following testimony was written down, its author, the late Mr.
John Nelson, of Ramsey, has passed out of our realm of life into the
realm invisible. He was one of the few Manxmen who knew the Manx
language really well, and the ancient traditions which it has preserved
both orally and in books. In his kindly manner and with fervent loyalty
toward all things Celtic, he gave me leave, during December 1909, to
publish for the first time the interesting matter which follows; and,
with reverence, we here place it on record to his memory:--
_A Blinding by Fairies._--'My grandfather, William Nelson, was coming
home from the herring fishing late at night, on the road near Jurby,
when he saw in a pea-field, across a hedge, a great crowd of _little
fellows_ in red coats dancing and making music. And as he looked, an old
woman from among them came up to him and spat in his eyes, saying:
"You'll never see us again"; and I am told that he was blind afterwards
till the day of his death. He was certainly blind for fourteen years
before his death, for I often had to lead him around; but, of course, I
am unable to say of my own knowledge that he became blind immediately
after his strange experience, or if not until later in life; but as a
young man he certainly had good sight, and it was believed that the
fairies destroyed it.'
_The Fairy Tune._--'William Cain, of Glen Helen (formerly Rhenass), was
going home in the evening across the mountains near Brook's Park, when
he heard music down below in a glen, and saw there a great glass house
like a palace, all lit up. He stopped to listen, and when he had the new
tune he went home to practise it on his fiddle; and recently he played
the same fairy tune at Miss Sophia Morrison's Manx entertainment in
Peel.'
_Manannan the Magician._--Mr. Nelson told a story about a _Buggane_ or
_Fenodyree_, such as we already have, and explained the _Glashtin_ as a
water-bull, supposed to be a goblin half cow and half horse, and then
offered this tradition about Manannan:--'It is said that Manannan was a
great magician, and that he used to place on the sea pea-shells, held
open with sticks and with sticks for masts standing up in them, and then
so magnify them that enemies beheld them as a strong fleet, and would
not approach the island. Another tradition is that Manannan on his three
legs (the Manx coat of arms) could travel from one end to the other of
his isle with wonderful swiftness, moving like a wheel.'[46]
TESTIMONY OF A FARMER AND FISHERMAN
From the north of the island I returned to Peel, where I had arranged to
meet new witnesses, and the first one of these is James Caugherty, a
farmer and fisherman, born in Kirk Patrick fifty-eight years ago, who
testified (in part) as follows:--
_Churn Worked by Fairies._--'Close by Glen Cam (Winding Glen), when I
was a boy, our family often used to hear the empty churn working in the
churn-house, when no person was near it, and they would say, "Oh, it's
the _little fellows_."'
_A Remarkable Changeling Story._--'Forty to fifty years ago, between St.
John's and Foxdale, a boy, with whom I often played, came to our house
at nightfall to borrow some candles, and while he was on his way home
across the hills he suddenly saw a little boy and a little woman coming
after him. If he ran, they ran, and all the time they gained on him.
Upon reaching home he was speechless, his hands were altered (turned
awry), and his feet also, and his fingernails had grown long in a
minute. He remained that way a week. My father went to the boy's mother
and told her it wasn't Robby at all that she saw; and when my father was
for taking the tongs and burning the boy with a piece of glowing turf
[as a changeling test], the boy screamed awfully. Then my father
persuaded the mother to send a messenger to a doctor in the north near
Ramsey "doing charms", to see if she couldn't get Robby back. As the
messenger was returning, the mother stepped out of the house to relieve
him, and when she went into the house again her own Robby was there. As
soon as Robby came to himself all right, he said a little woman and a
little boy had followed him, and that just as he got home he was
conscious of being taken away by them, but he didn't know where they
came from nor where they took him. He was unable to tell more than this.
Robby is alive yet, so far as I know; he is Robert Christian, of
Douglas.'
EVIDENCE FROM A MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF KEYS
Mr. T. C. Kermode, of Peel, member of the House of Keys, the Lower House
of the Manx Parliament, very kindly dictated for my use the following
statement concerning fairies which he himself has seen:--
_Reality of Fairies._--'There is much belief here in the island that
there actually are fairies; and I consider such belief based on an
actual fact in nature, because of my own strange experience. About forty
years ago, one October night, I and another young man were going to a
kind of Manx harvest-home at Cronk-a-Voddy. On the Glen Helen road, just
at the Beary Farm, as we walked along talking, my friend happened to
look across the river (a small brook), and said: "Oh look, there are the
fairies. Did you ever see them?" I looked across the river and saw a
circle of supernatural light, which I have now come to regard as the
"astral light" or the light of Nature, as it is called by mystics, and
in which spirits become visible. The spot where the light appeared was a
flat space surrounded on the sides away from the river by banks formed
by low hills; and into this space and the circle of light, from the
surrounding sides apparently, I saw come in twos and threes a great
crowd of little beings smaller than Tom Thumb and his wife. All of them,
who appeared like soldiers, were dressed in red. They moved back and
forth amid the circle of light, as they formed into order like troops
drilling. I advised getting nearer to them, but my friend said, "No, I'm
going to the party." Then after we had looked at them a few minutes my
friend struck the roadside wall with a stick and shouted, and we lost
the vision and the light vanished.'
_The Manx Fairy-Faith._--'I have much evidence from old Manx people, who
are entirely reliable and God-fearing, that they have seen the fairies
hunting with hounds and horses, and on the sea in ships, and under other
conditions, and that they have heard their music. They consider the
fairies a complete nation or world in themselves, distinct from our
world, but having habits and instincts like ours. Social organization
among them is said to be similar to that among men, and they have their
soldiers and commanders. Where the fairies actually exist the old people
cannot tell, but they certainly believe that they can be seen here on
earth.'
TESTIMONY FROM A PAST PROVINCIAL GRAND MASTER
Mr. J. H. Kelly, Past Provincial Grand Master of the Isle of Man
District of Oddfellows, a resident of Douglas, offers the following
account of a curious psychical experience of his own, and attributes it
to fairies:--
_A Strange Experience with Fairies._--'Twelve to thirteen years ago, on
a clear moonlight night, about twelve o'clock, I left Laxey; and when
about five miles from Douglas, at Ballagawne School, I heard talking,
and was suddenly conscious of being in the midst of an invisible throng.
As this strange feeling came over me, I saw coming up the road four
figures as real to look upon as human beings, and of medium size, though
I am certain they were not human. When these four, who seemed to be
connected with the invisible throng, came out of the Garwick road into
the main road, I passed into a by-road leading down to a very peaceful
glen called Garwick Glen; and I still had the same feeling that
invisible beings were with me, and this continued for a mile. There was
no fear or emotion or excitement, but perfect calm on my part. I
followed the by-road; and when I began to mount a hill there was a
sudden and strange quietness, and a sense of isolation came over me, as
though the joy and peace of my life had departed with the invisible
throng. From different personal experiences like this one, I am firmly
of the opinion and belief that the fairies exist. One cannot say that
they are wholly physical or wholly spiritual, but the impression left
upon my mind is that they are an absolutely real order of beings not
human.'
Invoking Little Manannan, son of Leirr, to give us safe passage
across his watery domain, we now go southward to the nearest
Brythonic country, the Land of Arthur, WALES.
V. IN WALES
Introduction by The Right Hon. SIR JOHN RHŶS, M.A., D.Litt.,
F.B.A., Hon. LL.D. of the University of Edinburgh; Professor of
Celtic in the University of Oxford; Principal of Jesus College;
author of _Celtic Folklore, Welsh and Manx_, &c.
The folk-lore of Wales in as far as it concerns the Fairies consists of
a very few typical tales, such as:--
(1) The Fairy Dance and the usual entrapping of a youth, who dances with
the Little People for a long time, while he supposes it only a few
minutes, and who if not rescued is taken by them.
(2) There are other ways in which recruits may be led into Fairyland and
induced to marry fairy maidens, and any one so led away is practically
lost to his kith and kin, for even if he be allowed to visit them, the
visit is mostly cut short in one way or another.
(3) A man catches a fairy woman and marries her. She proves to be an
excellent housewife, but usually she has had put into the
marriage-contract certain conditions which, if broken, inevitably
release her from the union, and when so released she hurries away
instantly, never to return, unless it be now and then to visit her
children. One of the conditions, especially in North Wales, is that the
husband should never touch her with iron. But in the story of the Lady
of Llyn y Fan Fach, in Carmarthenshire, the condition is that he must
not strike the wife without a cause three times, the striking being
interpreted to include any slight tapping, say, on the shoulder. This
story is one of the most remarkable on record in Wales, and it recalls
the famous tale of Undine, published in German many years ago by De La
Motte Fouqué. It is not known where he found it, or whether the people
among whom it was current were pure Germans or of Celtic extraction.
(4) The Fairies were fond of stealing nice healthy babies and of leaving
in their place their own sallow offspring. The stories of how the right
child might be recovered take numerous forms; and some of these stories
suggest how weak and sickly children became the objects of systematic
cruelty at the hands of even their own parents. The changeling was
usually an old man, and many were the efforts made to get him to betray
his identity.
(5) There is a widespread story of the fairy husband procuring for his
wife the attendance of a human midwife. The latter was given a certain
ointment to apply to the baby's eyes when she dressed it. She was not to
touch either of her own eyes with it, but owing to an unfailing accident
she does, and with the eye so touched she is enabled to see the fairies
in their proper shape and form. This has consequences: The fairy husband
pays the midwife well, and discharges her. She goes to a fair or market
one day and observes her old master stealing goods from a stall, and
makes herself known to him. He asks her with which eye she sees him. She
tells him, and the eye to which he objects he instantly blinds.
(6) Many are the stories about the fairies coming into houses at night
to wash and dress their children after everybody is gone to bed. A
servant-maid who knows her business leaves a vessel full of water for
them, and takes care that the house is neat and tidy, and she then
probably finds in the morning some fairy gift left her, whereas if the
house be untidy and the water dirty, they will pinch her in her sleep,
and leave her black and blue.
(7) The fairies were not strong in their household arrangements, so it
was not at all unusual for them to come to the farm-houses to borrow
what was wanting to them.
In the neighbourhood of Snowdon the fairies were believed to live
beneath the lakes, from which they sometimes came forth, especially on
misty days, and children used to be warned not to stray away from their
homes in that sort of weather, lest they should be kidnapped by them.
These fairies were not Christians, and they were great thieves. They
were fond of bright colours. They were sharp of hearing, and no word
that reached the wind would escape them. If a fairy's proper name was
discovered, the fairy to whom it belonged felt baffled.[47]
Some characteristics of the fairies seem to argue an ancient race, while
other characteristics betray their origin in the workshop of the
imagination; but generally speaking, the fairies are heterogeneous,
consisting partly of the divinities of glens and forests and mountains,
and partly of an early race of men more or less caricatured and equipped
by fable with impossible attributes.[48]
JESUS COLLEGE, OXFORD,
_October_ 1910.
Our field of research in the Land of Arthur includes all the coast
counties save Cardiganshire, from Anglesey on the north to
Glamorganshire on the south. At the very beginning of our investigation
of the belief in the _Tylwyth Teg_, or 'Fair Folk' in the Isle of
Anglesey or Mona, the ancient stronghold of the Druids, we shall see
clearly that the testimony offered by thoroughly reliable and prominent
native witnesses is surprisingly uniform, and essentially animistic in
its nature; and in passing southward to the end of Wales we shall find
the Welsh Fairy-Faith with this same uniformity and exhibiting the same
animistic background everywhere we go.
TESTIMONY OF AN ANGLESEY BARD
Mr. John Louis Jones, of Gaerwen, Anglesey, a native bard who has taken
prizes in various Eisteddfods, testifies as follows:--
_Tylwyth Teg's Visits._--'When I was a boy here on the island, the
_Tylwyth Teg_ were described as a race of little beings no larger than
children six or seven years old, who visited farm-houses at night after
all the family were abed. No matter how securely closed a house might
be, the _Tylwyth Teg_ had no trouble to get in. I remember how the old
folk used to make the house comfortable and put fresh coals on the fire,
saying, "Perhaps the _Tylwyth Teg_ will come to-night." Then the
_Tylwyth Teg_, when they did come, would look round the room and say,
"What a clean beautiful place this is!" And all the while the old folk
in bed were listening. Before departing from such a clean house the
_Tylwyth Teg_ always left a valuable present for the family.'
_Fairy Wife and Iron Taboo._--'A young man once caught one of the
_Tylwyth Teg_ women, and she agreed to live with him on condition that
he should never touch her with iron. One day she went to a field with
him to catch a horse, but in catching the horse he threw the bridle in
such a way that the bit touched the _Tylwyth Teg_ woman, and all at once
she was gone. As this story indicates, the _Tylwyth Teg_ could make
themselves invisible. I think they could be seen by some people and not
by other people. The old folk thought them a kind of spirit race from a
spirit world.'
EVIDENCE FROM CENTRAL ANGLESEY
Owing to the very kindly assistance of Mr. E. H. Thomas, of Llangefni,
who introduced me to the oldest inhabitants of his town, in their own
homes and elsewhere, and then acted as interpreter whenever Welsh alone
was spoken, I gleaned very clear evidence from that part of Central
Anglesey. Seven witnesses, two of whom were women, ranging in age from
seventy-two to eighty-nine years, were thus interviewed, and each of
them stated that in their childhood the belief in the _Tylwyth Teg_ as a
non-human race of good little people--by one witness compared to singing
angels--was general. Mr. John Jones, the oldest of the seven, among much
else, said in Welsh:--'I believe personally that the _Tylwyth Teg_ are
still existing; but people can't see them. I have heard of two or three
persons being together and one only having been able to see the _Tylwyth
Teg_.'
TESTIMONY FROM TWO ANGLESEY CENTENARIANS
Perhaps nowhere else in Celtic lands could there be found as witnesses
two sisters equal in age to Miss Mary Owen and Mrs. Betsy Thomas, in
their hundred and third and hundredth year respectively (in 1909). They
live a quiet life on their mountain-side farm overlooking the sea, in
the beautiful country near Pentraeth, quite away from the rush and noise
of the great world of commercial activity; and they speak only the
tongue which their prehistoric Kimric ancestors spoke before Roman, or
Saxon, or Norman came to Britain. Mr. W. Jones, of Plas Tinon, their
neighbour, who knows English and Welsh well, acted as interpreter. The
elder sister testified first:--
_'Tylwyth Teg's' Nature._--'There were many of the _Tylwyth Teg_ on the
Llwydiarth Mountain above here, and round the Llwydiarth Lake where they
used to dance; and whenever the prices at the Llangefni market were to
be high they would chatter very much at night. They appeared only after
dark; and all the good they ever did was singing and dancing. Ann
Jones, whom I knew very well, used often to see the _Tylwyth Teg_
dancing and singing, but if she then went up to them they would
disappear. She told me they are an invisible people, and very small.
Many others besides Ann Jones have seen the _Tylwyth Teg_ in these
mountains, and have heard their music and song. The ordinary opinion was
that the _Tylwyth Teg_ are a race of spirits. I believe in them as an
invisible race of good little people.'
_Fairy Midwife and Magic Oil._--'The _Tylwyth Teg_ had a kind of magic
oil, and I remember this story about it:--A farmer went to Llangefni to
fetch a woman to nurse his wife about to become a mother, and he found
one of the _Tylwyth Teg_, who came with him on the back of his horse.
Arrived at the farm-house, the fairy woman looked at the wife, and
giving the farmer some oil told him to wash the baby in it as soon as it
was born. Then the fairy woman disappeared. The farmer followed the
advice, and what did he do in washing the baby but get some oil on one
of his own eyes. Suddenly he could see the _Tylwyth Teg_, for the oil
had given him the second-sight. Some time later the farmer was in
Llangefni again, and saw the same fairy woman who had given him the oil.
"How is your wife getting on?" she asked him. "She is getting on very
well," he replied. Then the fairy woman added, "Tell me with which eye
you see me best." "With this one," he said, pointing to the eye he had
rubbed with the oil. And the fairy woman put her stick in that eye, and
the farmer never saw with it again.'[49]
_Seeing 'Tylwyth Teg'._--The younger sister's testimony is as
follows:--'I saw one of the _Tylwyth Teg_ about sixty years ago, near
the Tynymyndd Farm, as I was passing by at night. He was like a little
man. When I approached him he disappeared suddenly. I have heard about
the dancing and singing of the _Tylwyth Teg_, but never have heard the
music myself. The old people said the _Tylwyth Teg_ could appear and
disappear when they liked; and I think as the old people did, that they
are some sort of spirits.'
TESTIMONY FROM AN ANGLESEY SEERESS
At Pentraeth, Mr. Gwilyn Jones said to me:--'It always was and still is
the opinion that the _Tylwyth Teg_ are a race of spirits. Some people
think them small in size, but the one my mother saw was ordinary human
size.' At this, I immediately asked Mr. Jones if his mother was still
living, and he replying that she was, gave me her address in Llanfair.
So I went directly to interview Mr. Jones's mother, Mrs. Catherine
Jones, and this is the story about the one of the _Tylwyth Teg_ she
saw:--
_'Tylwyth Teg' Apparition._--'I was coming home at about half-past ten
at night from Cemaes, on the path to Simdda Wen, where I was in service,
when there appeared just before me a very pretty young lady of ordinary
size. I had no fear, and when I came up to her put out my hand to touch
her, but my hand and arm went right through her form. I could not
understand this, and so tried to touch her repeatedly with the same
result; there was no solid substance in the body, yet it remained beside
me, and was as beautiful a young lady as I ever saw. When I reached the
door of the house where I was to stop, she was still with me. Then I
said "Good night" to her. No response being made, I asked, "Why do you
not speak?" And at this she disappeared. Nothing happened afterwards,
and I always put this beautiful young lady down as one of the _Tylwyth
Teg_. There was much talk about my experience when I reported it, and
the neighbours, like myself, thought I had seen one of the _Tylwyth
Teg_. I was about twenty-four years old at the time of this
incident.'[50]
TESTIMONY FROM A PROFESSOR OF WELSH
Just before crossing the Menai Straits I had the good fortune to meet,
at his home in Llanfair, Mr. J. Morris Jones, M.A. (Oxon.), Professor of
Welsh in the University College at Bangor, and he, speaking of the
fairy-belief in Anglesey as he remembers it from boyhood days, said:--
_'Tylwyth Teg.'_--'In most of the tales I heard repeated when I was a
boy, I am quite certain the implication was that the _Tylwyth Teg_ were
a kind of spirit race having human characteristics, who could at will
suddenly appear and suddenly disappear. They were generally supposed to
live underground, and to come forth on moonlight nights, dressed in
gaudy colours (chiefly in red), to dance in circles in grassy fields. I
cannot remember having heard changeling stories here in the Island: I
think the _Tylwyth Teg_ were generally looked upon as kind and
good-natured, though revengeful if not well treated. And they were
believed to have plenty of money at their command, which they could
bestow on people whom they liked.'
EVIDENCE FROM NORTH CARNARVONSHIRE
Upon leaving Anglesey I undertook some investigation of the Welsh
fairy-belief in the country between Bangor and Carnarvon. From the
oldest Welsh people of Treborth I heard the same sort of folk-lore as
we have recorded from Anglesey, except that prominence was given to a
flourishing belief in _Bwganod_, goblins or bogies. But from Mr. T. T.
Davis Evans, of Port Dinorwic, I heard the following very unusual story
based on facts, as he recalled it first hand:--
_Jones's Vision._--'William Jones, who some sixty years ago declared he
had seen the _Tylwyth Teg_ in the Aberglaslyn Pass near Beddgelert, was
publicly questioned about them in Bethel Chapel by Mr. Griffiths, the
minister; and he explained before the congregation that the Lord had
given him a special vision which enabled him to see the _Tylwyth Teg_,
and that, therefore, he had seen them time after time as little men
playing along the river in the Pass. The minister induced Jones to
repeat the story many times, because it seemed to please the
congregation very much; and the folks present looked upon Jones's vision
as a most wonderful thing.'
EVIDENCE FROM SOUTH CARNARVONSHIRE
To Mr. E. D. Rowlands, head master of the schools at Afonwen, I am
indebted for a summary of the fairy-belief in South Carnarvonshire:--
_'Tylwyth Teg.'_--'According to the belief in South Carnarvonshire, the
_Tylwyth Teg_ were a small, very pretty people always dressed in white,
and much given to dancing and singing in rings where grass grew. As a
rule, they were visible only at night; though in the day-time, if a
mother while hay-making was so unwise as to leave her babe alone in the
field, the _Tylwyth Teg_ might take it and leave in its place a
hunchback, or some deformed object like a child. At night, the _Tylwyth
Teg_ would entice travellers to join their dance and then play all sorts
of tricks on them.'[51]
_Fairy Cows and Fairy Lake-Women._--'Some of the _Tylwyth Teg_ lived in
caves; others of them lived in lake-bottoms. There is a lake called Llyn
y Morwynion, or "Lake of the Maidens", near Festiniog, where, as the
story goes, a farmer one morning found in his field a number of very
fine cows such as he had never seen before. Not knowing where they came
from, he kept them a long time, when, as it happened, he committed some
dishonest act and, as a result, women of the _Tylwyth Teg_ made their
appearance in the pasture and, calling the cows by name, led the whole
herd into the lake, and with them disappeared beneath its waters. The
old people never could explain the nature of the _Tylwyth Teg_, but they
always regarded them as a very mysterious race, and, according to this
story of the cattle, as a supernatural race.'
EVIDENCE FROM MERIONETHSHIRE
Mr. Louis Foster Edwards, of Harlech, recalling the memories of many
years ago, offers the following evidence:--
_Scythe-Blades and Fairies._--'In an old inn on the other side of
Harlech there was to be an entertainment, and, as usual on such
occasions, the dancing would not cease until morning. I noticed, before
the guests had all arrived, that the landlady was putting scythe-blades
edge upwards up into the large chimney, and, wondering why it was, asked
her. She told me that the fairies might come before the entertainment
was over, and that if the blades were turned edge upwards it would
prevent the fairies from troubling the party, for they would be unable
to pass the blades without being cut.'
_'Tylwyth Teg' and their World._--'There was an idea that the _Tylwyth
Teg_ lived by plundering at night. It was thought, too, that if anything
went wrong with cows or horses the _Tylwyth Teg_ were to blame. As a
race, the _Tylwyth Teg_ were described as having the power of
invisibility; and it was believed they could disappear like a spirit
while one happened to be observing them. The world in which they lived
was a world quite unlike ours, and mortals taken to it by them were
changed in nature. The way a mortal might be taken by the _Tylwyth Teg_
was by being attracted into their dance. If they thus took you away, it
would be according to our time for twelve months, though to you the time
would seem no more than a night.'
FAIRY TRIBES IN MONTGOMERYSHIRE
From Mr. D. Davies-Williams, who outlined for me the Montgomeryshire
belief in the _Tylwyth Teg_ as he has known it intimately, I learned
that this is essentially the same as elsewhere in North and Central
Wales. He summed up the matter by saying:--
_Belief in Tylwyth Teg._--'It was the opinion that the _Tylwyth Teg_
were a real race of invisible or spiritual beings living in an invisible
world of their own. The belief in the _Tylwyth Teg_ was quite general
fifty or sixty years ago, and as sincere as any religious belief is
now.'
Our next witness is the Rev. Josiah Jones, minister of the
Congregational Church of Machynlleth; and, after a lifetime's experience
in Montgomeryshire, he gives this testimony:--
_A Deacon's Vision._--'A deacon in my church, John Evans, declared that
he had seen the _Tylwyth Teg_ dancing in the day-time, within two miles
from here, and he pointed out the very spot where they appeared. This
was some twenty years ago. I think, however, that he saw only certain
reflections and shadows, because it was a hot and brilliant day.'
_Folk-Beliefs in General._--'As I recall the belief, the old people
considered the _Tylwyth Teg_ as living beings halfway between something
material and spiritual, who were rarely seen. When I was a boy there was
very much said, too, about corpse-candles and phantom funerals, and
especially about the _Bwganod_, plural of _Bwgan_, meaning a sprite,
ghost, hobgoblin, or spectre. The _Bwganod_ were supposed to appear at
dusk, in various forms, animal and human; and grown-up people as well as
children had great fear of them.'
_A Minister's Opinion._--'Ultimately there is a substance of truth in
the fairy-belief, but it is wrongly accounted for in the folk-lore: I
once asked Samuel Roberts, of Llanbrynmair, who was quite a noted Welsh
scholar, what he thought of the _Tylwyth Teg_, of hobgoblins, spirits,
and so forth; and he said that he believed such things existed, and that
God allowed them to appear in times of great ignorance to convince
people of the existence of an invisible world.'
IN CARDIGANSHIRE; AND A FOLK-LORIST'S TESTIMONY
No one of our witnesses from Central Wales is more intimately acquainted
with the living folk-beliefs than Mr. J. Ceredig Davies, of Llanilar, a
village about six miles from Aberystwyth; for Mr. Davies has spent many
years in collecting folk-lore in Central and South Wales. He has
interviewed the oldest and most intelligent of the old people, and while
I write this he has in the press a work entitled _The Folk-Lore of Mid
and West Wales_. Mr. Davies very kindly gave me the following outline of
the most prominent traits in the Welsh fairy-belief according to his own
investigations:--
_'Tylwyth Teg.'_--'The _Tylwyth Teg_ were considered a very small
people, fond of dancing, especially on moonlight nights. They often came
to houses after the family were abed; and if milk was left for them,
they would leave money in return; but if not treated kindly they were
revengeful. The changeling idea was common: the mother coming home would
find an ugly changeling in the cradle. Sometimes the mother would
consult the _Dynion Hysbys_, or "Wise Men" as to how to get her babe
back. As a rule, treating the fairy babe roughly and then throwing it
into a river would cause the fairy who made the change to appear and
restore the real child in return for the changeling.'
_'Tylwyth Teg' Marriage Contracts._--'Occasionally a young man would see
the _Tylwyth Teg_ dancing, and, being drawn into the dance, would be
taken by them and married to one of their women. There is usually some
condition in the marriage contract which becomes broken, and, as a
result, the fairy wife disappears--usually into a lake. The marriage
contract specifies either that the husband must never touch his fairy
wife with iron, or else never beat or strike her three times. Sometimes
when fairy wives thus disappear, they take with them into the lake their
fairy cattle and all their household property.'
_'Tylwyth Teg' Habitations._--'The _Tylwyth Teg_ were generally looked
upon as an immortal race. In Cardiganshire they lived underground; in
Carmarthenshire in lakes; and in Pembrokeshire along the sea-coast on
enchanted islands amid the Irish Sea. I have heard of sailors upon
seeing such islands trying to reach them; but when approached, the
islands always disappeared. From a certain spot in Pembrokeshire, it is
said that by standing on a turf taken from the yard of St. David's
Cathedral, one may see the enchanted islands.'[52]
_'Tylwyth Teg' as Spirits of Druids._--'By many of the old people the
_Tylwyth Teg_ were classed with spirits. They were not looked upon as
mortal at all. Many of the Welsh looked upon the _Tylwyth Teg_ or
fairies as the spirits of Druids dead before the time of Christ, who
being too good to be cast into Hell were allowed to wander freely about
on earth.'
TESTIMONY FROM A WELSHMAN NINETY-FOUR YEARS OLD
At Pontrhydfendigaid, a village about two miles from the railway-station
called Strata Florida, I had the good fortune to meet Mr. John Jones,
ninety-four years old, yet of strong physique, and able to write his
name without eye-glasses. Both Mr. J. H. Davies, Registrar of the
University College of Aberystwyth, and Mr. J. Ceredig Davies, the
eminent folk-lorist of Llanilar, referred me to Mr. John Jones as one of
the most remarkable of living Welshmen who could tell about the olden
times from first-hand knowledge. Mr. John Jones speaks very little
English, and Mr. John Rees, of the Council School, acted as our
interpreter. This is the testimony:--
_Pygmy-sized 'Tylwyth Teg'._--'I was born and bred where there was
tradition that the _Tylwyth Teg_ lived in holes in the hills, and that
none of these _Tylwyth Teg_ was taller than three to four feet. It was a
common idea that many of the _Tylwyth Teg_, forming in a ring, would
dance and sing out on the mountain-sides, or on the plain, and that if
children should meet with them at such a time they would lose their way
and never get out of the ring. If the _Tylwyth Teg_ fancied any
particular child they would always keep that child, taking off its
clothes and putting them on one of their own children, which was then
left in its place. They took only boys, never girls.'
_Human-sized 'Tylwyth Teg'._--'A special sort of _Tylwyth Teg_ used to
come out of lakes and dance, and their fine looks enticed young men to
follow them back into the lakes, and there marry one of them. If the
husband wished to leave the lake he had to go without his fairy wife.
This sort of _Tylwyth Teg_ were as big as ordinary people; and they were
often seen riding out of the lakes and back again on horses.'
_'Tylwyth Teg' as Spirits of Prehistoric Race._--'My grandfather told me
that he was once in a certain field and heard singing in the air, and
thought it spirits singing. Soon afterwards he and his brother in
digging dikes in that field dug into a big hole, which they entered and
followed to the end. There they found a place full of human bones and
urns, and naturally decided on account of the singing that the bones and
urns were of the _Tylwyth Teg_.'[53]
_A Boy's Visit to the 'Tylwyth Teg's' King._--'About eighty years ago,
at Tynylone, my grandfather told me this story: "A boy ten years old was
often whipped and cruelly treated by his schoolmaster because he could
not say his lessons very well. So one day he ran away from school and
went to a river-side, where some little folk came to him and asked why
he was crying. He told them the master had punished him; and on hearing
this they said, 'Oh! if you will stay with us it will not be necessary
for you to go to school. We will keep you as long as you like.' Then
they took him under the water and over the water into a cave
underground, which opened into a great palace where the _Tylwyth Teg_
were playing games with golden balls, in rings like those in which they
dance and sing. The boy had been taken to the king's family, and he
began to play with the king's sons. After he had been there in the
palace in the full enjoyment of all its pleasures he wished very much to
return to his mother and show her the golden ball which the _Tylwyth
Teg_ gave him. And so he took the ball in his pocket and hurried through
the cave the way he had come; but at the end of it and by the river two
of the _Tylwyth Teg_ met him, and taking the ball away from him they
pushed him into the water, and through the water he found his way home.
He told his mother how he had been away for a fortnight, as he thought,
but she told him it had been for two years. Though the boy often tried
to find the way back to the _Tylwyth Teg_ he never could. Finally, he
went back to school, and became a most wonderful scholar and
parson."'[54]
IN MERLIN'S COUNTRY; AND A VICAR'S TESTIMONY
The Rev. T. M. Morgan, vicar of Newchurch parish, two miles from
Carmarthen, has made a very careful study of the folk-traditions in his
own parish and in other regions of Carmarthenshire, and is able to
offer us evidence of the highest value, as follows:--[55]
_'Tylwyth Teg' Power over Children._--'The _Tylwyth Teg_ were thought to
be able to take children. "You mind, or the _Tylwyth Teg_ will take you
away," parents would say to keep their children in the house after dark.
It was an opinion, too, that the _Tylwyth Teg_ could transform good
children into kings and queens, and bad children into wicked spirits,
after such children had been _taken_--perhaps in death. The _Tylwyth
Teg_ were believed to live in some invisible world to which children on
dying might go to be rewarded or punished, according to their behaviour
on this earth. Even in this life the _Tylwyth Teg_ had power over
children for good or evil. The belief, as these ideas show, was that the
_Tylwyth Teg_ were spirits.'
_'Tylwyth Teg' as Evil Spirits._--A few days after my return to Oxford,
the Rev. T. M. Morgan, through his son, Mr. Basil I. Morgan, of Jesus
College, placed in my hands additional folk-lore evidence from his own
parish, as follows:--'After Mr. Wentz visited me on Thursday, September
30, 1909, I went to see Mr. Shem Morgan, the occupier of Cwmcastellfach
farm, an old man about seventy years old. He told me that in his
childhood days a great dread of the fairies occupied the heart of every
child. They were considered to be evil spirits who visited our world at
night, and dangerous to come in contact with; there were no good spirits
among them. He related to me three narratives touching the fairies':--
_'Tylwyth Teg's' Path._--The first narrative illustrates that the
_Tylwyth Teg_ have paths (precisely like those reserved for the Irish
_good people_ or for the Breton dead), and that it is death to a mortal
while walking in one of these paths to meet the _Tylwyth Teg_.
_'Tylwyth Teg' Divination._--The second narrative I quote:--'A farmer of
this neighbourhood having lost his cattle, went to consult _y dyn
hysbys_ (a diviner), in Cardiganshire, who was friendly with the
fairies. Whenever the fairies visited the diviner they foretold future
events, secrets, and the whereabouts of lost property. After the farmer
reached the diviner's house the diviner showed him the fairies, and then
when the diviner had consulted them he told the farmer to go home as
soon as he could and that he would find the cattle in such and such a
place. The farmer did as he was directed, and found the cattle in the
very place where the _dyn hysbys_ told him they would be.' And the third
narrative asserts that a man in the parish of Trelech who was
fraudulently excluded by means of a false will from inheriting the
estate of his deceased father, discovered the defrauder and recovered
the estate, solely through having followed the advice given by the
_Tylwyth Teg_, when (again as in the above account) they were called up
as spirits by a _dyn hysbys_, a Mr. Harries, of Cwrt y Cadno, a place
near Aberystwyth.[56]
TESTIMONY FROM A JUSTICE OF THE PEACE
Mr. David Williams, J.P., who is a member of the Cymmrodorion Society of
Carmarthen, and who has sat on the judicial bench for ten years, offers
us the very valuable evidence which follows:--
_'Tylwyth Teg' and their King and Queen._--'The general idea, as I
remember it, was that the _Tylwyth Teg_ were only visitors to this
world, and had no terrestrial habitations. They were as small in stature
as dwarfs, and always appeared in white. Often at night they danced in
rings amid green fields. Most of them were females, though they had a
king; and, as their name suggests, they were very beautiful in
appearance. The king of the _Tylwyth Teg_ was called _Gwydion ab Don_,
_Gwyd_ referring to a temperament in man's nature. His residence was
among the stars, and called _Caer Gwydion_. His queen was _Gwenhidw_. I
have heard my mother call the small fleece-like clouds which appear in
fine weather the _Sheep of Gwenhidw_.'[57]
_'Tylwyth Teg' as Aerial Beings._--Mr. Williams's testimony continues,
and leads us directly to the Psychological or Psychical Theory:--'As
aerial beings the _Tylwyth Teg_ could fly and move about in the air at
will. They were a special order of creation. I never heard that they
grew old; and whether they multiplied or not I cannot tell. In character
they were almost always good.'
_Ghosts and Apparitions._--Our conversation finally drifted towards
ghosts and apparitions, as usual, and to Druids. In the chapter dealing
with Re-birth (pp. 390-1) we shall record what Mr. Williams said about
Druids, and here what he said about ghosts and apparitions:--'Sixty
years ago there was hardly an individual who did not believe in
apparitions; and in olden times Welsh families would collect round the
fire at night and each in turn give a story about the _Tylwyth Teg_ and
ghosts.'
_Conferring Vision of a Phantom Funeral._--'There used to be an old man
at Newchurch named David Davis (who lived about 1780-1840), of Abernant,
noted for seeing phantom funerals. One appeared to him once when he was
with a friend. "Do you see it? Do you see it?" the old man excitedly
asked. "No," said his friend. Then the old man placed his foot on his
friend's foot, and said, "Do you see it now?" And the friend replied
that he did.'[58]
_Magic and Witchcraft._--Finally, we shall hear from Mr. Williams about
Welsh magic and witchcraft, which cannot scientifically be divorced from
the belief in fairies and apparitions:--'There used to be much
witchcraft in this country; and it was fully believed that some men, if
advanced scholars, had the power to injure or to bewitch their
neighbours by magic. The more advanced the scholar the better he could
carry on his craft.'
ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE FROM CARMARTHENSHIRE
My friend, and fellow student at Jesus College, Mr. Percival V. Davies,
of Carmarthen, contributes, as supplementary to what has been recorded
above, the following evidence, from his great-aunt, Mrs. Spurrell, also
of Carmarthen, a native Welshwoman who has seen a _canwyll gorff_
(corpse-candle):--
_Bendith y Mamau._--'In the Carmarthenshire country, fairies (_Tylwyth
Teg_) are often called _Bendith y Mamau_, the "Mothers' Blessing."'
_How Ten Children Became Fairies._--'Our Lord, in the days when He
walked the earth, chanced one day to approach a cottage in which lived a
woman with twenty children. Feeling ashamed of the size of her family,
she hid half of them from the sight of her divine visitor. On His
departure she sought for the hidden children in vain; they had become
fairies and had disappeared.'
IN PEMBROKESHIRE; AT THE PENTRE EVAN CROMLECH
Our Pembrokeshire witness is a maiden Welshwoman, sixty years old, who
speaks no English, but a university graduate, her nephew, will act as
our interpreter. She was born and has lived all her life within sight
of the famous Pentre Evan Cromlech, in the home of her ancestors, which
is so ancient that after six centuries of its known existence further
record of it is lost. In spite of her sixty years, our witness is as
active as many a city woman of forty or forty-five. Since her girlhood
she has heard curious legends and stories, and, with a more than
ordinary interest in the lore of her native country, has treasured them
all in her clear and well-trained memory. The first night, while this
well-stored memory of hers gave forth some of its treasures, we sat in
her own home, I and my friend, her nephew, on one side in a
chimney-seat, and she and her niece on the other side in another,
exposed to the cheerful glow and warmth of the fire. When we had
finished that first night it was two o'clock, and there had been no
interruption to the even flow of marvels and pretty legends. A second
night we spent likewise. What follows now is the result, so far as we
are concerned with it:--
_Fairies and Spirits._--'Spirits and fairies exist all round us,
invisible. Fairies have no solid bodily substance. Their forms are of
matter like ghostly bodies, and on this account they cannot be caught.
In the twilight they are often seen, and on moonlight nights in summer.
Only certain people can see fairies, and such people hold communication
with them and have dealings with them, but it is difficult to get them
to talk about fairies. I think the spirits about us are the fallen
angels, for when old Doctor Harris died his books on witchcraft had to
be burned in order to free the place where he lived from evil spirits.
The fairies, too, are sometimes called the fallen angels. They will do
good to those who befriend them, and harm to others. I think there must
be an intermediate state between life on earth and heavenly life, and it
may be in this that spirits and fairies live. There are two distinct
types of spirits: one is good and the other is bad. I have heard of
people going to the fairies and finding that years passed as days, but I
do not believe in changelings, though there are stories enough about
them. That there are fairies and other spirits like them, both good and
bad, I firmly believe. My mother used to tell about seeing the
"fair-folk" dancing in the fields near Cardigan; and other people have
seen them round the cromlech up there on the hill (the Pentre Evan
Cromlech). They appeared as little children in clothes like soldiers'
clothes, and with red caps, according to some accounts.'
_Death-Candles Described._--'I have seen more than one death-candle. I
saw one death-candle right here in this room where we are sitting and
talking.' I was told by the nephew and niece of our present witness that
this particular death-candle took an untrodden course from the house
across the fields to the grave-yard, and that when the death of one of
the family occurred soon afterwards, their aunt insisted that the corpse
should be carried by exactly the same route; so the road was abandoned
and the funeral went through the ploughed fields. Here is the
description of the death-candle as the aunt gave it in response to our
request:--'The death-candle appears like a patch of bright light; and no
matter how dark the room or place is, everything in it is as clear as
day. The candle is not a flame, but a luminous mass, lightish blue in
colour, which dances as though borne by an invisible agency, and
sometimes it rolls over and over. If you go up to the light it is
nothing, for it is a spirit. Near here a light as big as a pot was seen,
and rays shot out from it in all directions. The man you saw here in the
house to-day, one night as he was going along the road near Nevern, saw
the death-light of old Dr. Harris, and says it was lightish green.'
_Gors Goch Fairies._--Now we began to hear more about fairies:--'One
night there came a strange rapping at the door of the ancient manor on
the Gors Goch farm over in Cardiganshire, and the father of the family
asked what was wanted. Thin, silvery voices said they wanted a warm
place in which to dress their children and to tidy them up. The door
opened then, and in came a dozen or more little beings, who at once set
themselves to hunting for a basin and water, and to cleaning themselves.
At daybreak they departed, leaving a pretty gift in return for the
kindness. In this same house at another time, whether by the same party
of little beings or by another could not be told, a healthy child of the
family was _changed_ because he was unbaptized, and a frightful-looking
child left in his place. The mother finally died of grief, and the other
children died because of the loss of their mother, and the father was
left alone. Then some time after this, the same little folks who came
the first time returned to clean up, and when they departed, in place of
their former gifts of silver, left a gift of gold. It was not long
before the father became heir to a rich farm in North Wales, and going
to live on it became a magician, for the little people, still
befriending him, revealed themselves in their true nature and taught him
all their secrets.'
_Levi Salmon's Control of Spirits._--'Levi Salmon, who lived about
thirty years ago, between here and Newport, was a magician, and could
call up good and bad spirits; but was afraid to call up the bad ones
unless another person was with him, for it was a dangerous and terrible
ordeal. After consulting certain books which he had, he would draw a
circle on the floor, and in a little while spirits like bulls and
serpents and other animals would appear in it, and all sorts of spirits
would speak. It was not safe to go near them; and to control them Levi
held a whip in his hand. He would never let them cross the circle. And
when he wanted them to go away he always had to throw something to the
chief spirit.'
_The Haunted Manor and the Golden Image._--I offer now, in my own
language, the following remarkable story:--The ancient manor-house on
the Trewern Farm (less than a mile from the Pentre Evan Cromlech) had
been haunted as long as anybody could remember. Strange noises were
often heard in it, dishes would dance about of their own accord, and
sometimes a lady dressed in silk appeared. Many attempts were made to
lay the ghosts, but none succeeded. Finally things got so bad that
nobody wanted to live there. About eighty years ago the sole occupants
of the haunted house were Mr. ---- and his two servants. At the time, it
was well known in the neighbourhood that all at once Mr. ---- became
very wealthy, and his servants seemed able to buy whatever they wanted.
Everybody wondered, but no one could tell where the money came from; for
at first he was a poor man, and he couldn't have made much off the farm.
The secret only leaked out through one of the servants after Mr. ----
was dead. The servant declared to certain friends that one of the
ghosts, or, as he thought, the Devil, appeared to Mr. ---- and told him
there was an image of great value walled up in the room over the main
entrance to the manor. A search was made, and, sure enough, a large
image of solid gold was found in the very place indicated, built into a
recess in the wall. Mr. ---- bound the servants to secrecy, and began to
turn the image into money. He would cut off small pieces of the image,
one at a time, and take them to London and sell them. In this way he
sold the whole image, and nobody was the wiser. After the image was
found and disposed of, ghosts were no longer seen in the house, nor were
unusual noises heard in it at night. The one thing which beyond all
doubt is true is that when Mr. ---- died he left his son an estate worth
about £50,000 (an amount probably greatly in excess of the true one);
and people have always wondered ever since where it came from, if not in
part from the golden image.[59]
Hundreds of parallel stories in which, instead of ghosts, fairies and
demons are said to have revealed hidden treasure could be cited.
IN THE GOWER PENINSULA, GLAMORGANSHIRE
Our investigations in Glamorganshire cover the most interesting part,
the peninsula of Gower, where there are peculiar folk-lore conditions,
due to its present population being by ancestry English and Flemish as
well as Cornish and Welsh. Despite this race admixture, Brythonic
beliefs have generally survived in Gower even among the non-Celts; and
because of the Cornish element there are pixies, as shown by the
following story related to me in Swansea by Mr. ----, a well-known
mining engineer:--
_Pixies._--'At Newton, near the Mumbles (in Gower), an old woman, some
twenty years ago, assured me that she had seen the pixies. Her father's
grey mare was standing in the trap before the house ready to take some
produce to the Swansea market, and when the time for departure arrived
the pixies had come, but no one save the old woman could see them. She
described them to me as like tiny men dancing on the mare's back and
climbing up along the mare's mane. She thought the pixies some kind of
spirits who made their appearance in early morning; and all mishaps to
cows she attributed to them.'
TESTIMONY FROM AN ARCHAEOLOGIST
The Rev. John David Davis, rector of Llanmadoc and Cheriton parishes,
and a member of the Cambrian Archaeological Society, has passed many
years in studying the antiquities and folk-lore of Gower, being the
author of various antiquarian works; and he is without doubt the oldest
and best living authority to aid us. The Rector very willingly offers
this testimony:--
_Pixies and 'Verry Volk'._--'In this part of Gower, the name _Tylwyth
Teg_ is never used to describe fairies; _Verry Volk_ is used instead.
Some sixty years ago, as I can remember, there was belief in such
fairies here in Gower, but now there is almost none. Belief in
apparitions still exists to some extent. One may also hear of a person
being pixy-led; the pixies may cause a traveller to lose his way at
night if he crosses a field where they happen to be. To take your coat
off and turn it inside out will break the pixy spell.[60] The _Verry
Volk_ were always little people dressed in scarlet and green; and they
generally showed themselves dancing on moonlight nights. I never heard
of their making changelings, though they had the power of doing good or
evil acts, and it was a very risky thing to offend them. By nature they
were benevolent.'
_A 'Verry Volk' Feast._--'I heard the following story many years
ago:--The tenant on the Eynonsford Farm here in Gower had a dream one
night, and in it thought he heard soft sweet music and the patter of
dancing feet. Waking up, he beheld his cow-shed, which opened off his
bedroom, filled with a multitude of little beings, about one foot high,
swarming all over his fat ox, and they were preparing to slaughter the
ox. He was so surprised that he could not move. In a short time the
_Verry Volk_ had killed, dressed, and eaten the animal. The feast being
over, they collected the hide and bones, except one very small leg-bone
which they could not find, placed them in position, then stretched the
hide over them; and, as the farmer looked, the ox appeared as sound and
fat as ever, but when he let it out to pasture in the morning he
observed that it had a slight lameness in the leg lacking the missing
bone.'[61]
FAIRIES AMONG GOWER ENGLISH FOLK
The population of the Llanmadoc region of Gower are generally English by
ancestry and speech; and not until reaching Llanmorlais, beyond
Llanridian, did I find anything like an original Celtic and
Welsh-speaking people, and these may have come into that part within
comparatively recent times; and yet, as the above place-names tend to
prove, in early days all these regions must have been Welsh. It may be
argued, however, that this English-speaking population may be more
Celtic than Saxon, even though emigrants from England. In any case, we
can see with interest how this so-called English population now echo
Brythonic beliefs which they appear to have adopted in Gower, possibly
sympathetically through race kinship; and the following testimony
offered by Miss Sarah Jenkins, postmistress of Llanmadoc, will enable us
to do so:--
_Dancing with Fairies._--'A man, whose Christian name was William, was
enticed by the fairy folk to enter their dance, as he was on his way to
the Swansea market in the early morning. They kept him dancing some
time, and then said to him before they let him go, "Will dance well; the
last going to market and the first that shall sell." And though he
arrived at the market very late, he was the first to sell anything.'
_Fairy Money._--'An old woman, whom I knew, used to find money left by
the fairies every time they visited her house. For a long time she
observed their request, and told no one about the money; but at last she
told, and so never found money afterwards.'
_Nature of Fairies._--'The fairies (_verry volk_) were believed to have
plenty of music and dancing. Sometimes they appeared dressed in bright
red. They could appear and disappear suddenly, and no one could tell how
or where.'
CONCLUSION
Much more might easily be said about Welsh goblins, about Welsh fairies
who live in caves, or about Welsh fairy women who come out of lakes and
rivers, or who are the presiding spirits of sacred wells and
fountains,[62] but these will have some consideration later, in Section
III. For the purposes of the present inquiry enough evidence has been
offered to show the fundamental character of Brythonic fairy-folk as we
have found them. And we can very appropriately close this inquiry by
allowing our Welsh-speaking witness from the Pentre Evan country,
Pembrokeshire, to tell us one of the prettiest and most interesting
fairy-tales in all Wales. The name of Taliessin appearing in it leads us
to suspect that it may be the remnant of an ancient bardic tale which
has been handed down orally for centuries. It will serve to illustrate
the marked difference between the short conversational stories of the
living Fairy-Faith and the longer, more polished ones of the traditional
Fairy-Faith; and we shall see in it how a literary effect is gained at
the expense of the real character of the fairies themselves, for it
transforms them into mortals:--
_Einion and Olwen._--'My mother told the story as she used to sit by the
fire in the twilight knitting stockings:--"One day when it was cloudy
and misty, a shepherd boy going to the mountains lost his way and walked
about for hours. At last he came to a hollow place surrounded by rushes
where he saw a number of round rings. He recognized the place as one he
had often heard of as dangerous for shepherds, because of the rings. He
tried to get away from there, but he could not. Then an old, merry,
blue-eyed man appeared. The boy, thinking to find his way home, followed
the old man, and the old man said to him, 'Do not speak a word till I
tell you.' In a little while they came to a _menhir_ (long stone). The
old man tapped it three times, and then lifted it up. A narrow path with
steps descending was revealed, and from it emerged a bluish-white light.
'Follow me,' said the old man, 'no harm will come to you.' The boy did
so, and it was not long before he saw a fine, wooded, fertile country
with a beautiful palace, and rivers and mountains. He reached the palace
and was enchanted by the singing of birds. Music of all sorts was in
the palace, but he saw no people. At meals dishes came and disappeared
of their own accord. He could hear voices all about him, but saw no
person except the old man--who said that now he could speak. When he
tried to speak he found that he could not move his tongue. Soon an old
lady with smiles came to him leading three beautiful maidens, and when
the maidens saw the shepherd boy they smiled and spoke, but he could not
reply. Then one of the girls kissed him; and all at once he began to
converse freely and most wittily. In the full enjoyment of the
marvellous country he lived with the maidens in the palace a day and a
year, not thinking it more than a day, for there was no reckoning of
time in that land. When the day and the year were up, a longing to see
his old acquaintances came on him; and thanking the old man for his
kindness, he asked if he could return home. The old man said to him,
'Wait a little while'; and so he waited. The maiden who had kissed him
was unwilling to have him go; but when he promised her to return, she
sent him off loaded with riches.
'"At home not one of his people or old friends knew him. Everybody
believed that he had been killed by another shepherd. And this shepherd
had been accused of the murder and had fled to America.
'"On the first day of the new moon the boy remembered his promise, and
returned to the other country; and there was great rejoicing in the
beautiful palace when he arrived. Einion, for that was the boy's name,
and Olwen, for that was the girl's name, now wanted to marry; but they
had to go about it quietly and half secretly, for the _fair-folk_
dislike ceremony and noise. When the marriage was over, Einion wished to
go back with Olwen to the upper world. So two snow-white ponies were
given them, and they were allowed to depart.
'"They reached the upper world safely; and, being possessed of unlimited
wealth, lived most handsomely on a great estate which came into their
possession. A son was born to them, and he was called Taliessin. People
soon began to ask for Olwen's pedigree, and as none was given it was
taken for granted that she was one of the _fair-folk_. 'Yes, indeed,'
said Einion, 'there is no doubt that she is one of the _fair-folk_,
there is no doubt that she is one of the very _fair-folk_, for she has
two sisters as pretty as she is, and if you saw them all together you
would admit that the name is a suitable one.' And this is the origin of
the term _fair-folk_ (_Tylwyth Teg_)."'
From Wales we go to the nearest Brythonic country, Cornwall, to study
the fairy-folk there.
VI. IN CORNWALL
Introduction by HENRY JENNER, Member of the Gorsedd of the Bards of
Brittany; Fellow and Local Secretary for Cornwall of the Society of
Antiquaries; author of _A Handbook of the Cornish Language_, &c.
In Cornwall the legends of giants, of saints, or of Arthur and his
knights, the observances and superstitions connected with the
prehistoric stone monuments, holy wells, mines, and the like, the
stories of submerged or buried cities, and the fragments of what would
seem to be pre-Christian faiths, have no doubt occasional points of
contact with Cornish fairy legends, but they do not help to explain the
fairies very much. Yet certain it is that not only in Cornwall and other
Celtic lands, but throughout most of the world, a belief in fairies
exists or has existed, and so widespread a belief must have a reason for
it, though not necessarily a good one. That which with unconscious
humour men generally call 'education' has in these days caused those
lower classes, to whom the deposit of this faith was entrusted, to be
ashamed of it, and to despise and endeavour to forget it. And so now in
Cornwall, as elsewhere at that earlier outbreak of Philistinism, the
Reformation,
From haunted spring and grassy ring
Troop goblin, elf and fairy,
And the kelpie must flit from the black bog-pit,
And the brownie must not tarry.
But, in spite of Protestantism, school-boards, and education committees,
'pisky-pows' are still placed on the ridge-tiles of West Cornish
cottages, to propitiate the piskies and give them a dancing-place, lest
they should turn the milk sour, and St. Just and Morvah folk are still
'pisky-led' on the Gump (_an Ûn Gumpas_, the Level Down, between Chûn
Castle and Carn Kenidjack), and more rarely St. Columb and Roche folk on
Goss Moor. It will not do to say that it is only another form of
'whisky-led'. That is an evidently modern explanation, invented since
the substitution of strange Scottish and Irish drinks for the good
'Nantes' and wholesome 'Plymouth' of old time, and it does not fit in
with the phenomena. It was only last winter, in a cottage not a hundred
yards from where I am writing, that milk was set at night for piskies,
who had been knocking on walls and generally making nuisances of
themselves. Apparently the piskies only drank the 'astral' part of the
milk (whatever that may be) and then the neighbouring cats drank what
was left, and it disagreed with them. I cannot vouch for the truth of
the part about the piskies and the 'astral' milk--I give it as it was
told to me by the occupant of the cottage, who was not unacquainted with
'occult' terminology--but I do know that the milk was consumed, and that
the cats, one of which was my own, were with one accord unwell all over
the place. But for the present purpose it does not matter whether these
things really happened or not. The point is that people thought they
happened.
Robert Hunt, in his _Popular Romances of the West of England_, divided
the fairies of Cornish folk-lore into five classes: (1) the Small
People; (2) the Spriggans; (3) the Piskies; (4) the Buccas, Bockles, or
Knockers; (5) the Brownies. This is an incorrect classification. The
_Pobel Vean_ or Small People, the Spriggans, and the Piskies are not
really distinguishable from one another. Bucca, who properly is but one,
is a deity not a fairy, and it is said that at Newlyn, the great seat of
his worship, offerings of fish are still left on the beach for him. His
name is the Welsh _pwca_, which is probably 'Puck', though Shakespeare's
Puck was just a pisky, and it may be connected with the general
Slavonic word _Bog_, God; so that if, as some say, _buccaboo_ is really
meant for _Bucca-du_, Black Bucca, this may be an equivalent of
_Czernobog_, the Black God, who was the Ahriman of Slavonic dualism, and
_Bucca-widn_ (White Bucca), which is rarer, though the expression does
come into a St. Levan story, may be the corresponding _Bielobog_.
_Bockle_, which personally I have never heard used, suggests the
Scottish _bogle_, and both may be diminutives of _bucca_, _bog_,
_bogie_, or _bug_, the last in the sense in which one English version
translates the _timor nocturnus_ of Psalm XC. 5, not in that of _cimex
lectularius_. But _bockle_ and _brownie_ are probably both foreign
importations borrowed from books, though a 'brownie' _eo nomine_ has
been reported from Sennen within the last twenty years.
The Knockers or Knackers are mine-spirits, quite unconnected with Bucca
or bogles. The story, as I have always heard it, is that they are the
spirits of Jews who were sent by the Romans to work in the tin mines,
some say for being concerned in the Crucifixion of our Lord, which
sounds improbable. They are benevolent spirits, and warn miners of
danger.
But the only true Cornish fairy is the Pisky, of the race which is the
_Pobel Vean_ or Little People, and the Spriggan is only one of his
aspects. The Pisky would seem to be the 'Brownie' of the Lowland Scot,
the _Duine Sith_ of the Highlander, and, if we may judge from an
interesting note in Scott's _The Pirate_, the 'Peght' of the Orkneys. If
_Daoine Sith_ really means 'The Folk of the Mounds' (barrows), not 'The
People of Peace', it is possible that there is something in the theory
that Brownie, _Duine Sith_, and 'Peght', which is Pict, are only in
their origin ways of expressing the little dark-complexioned aboriginal
folk who were supposed to inhabit the barrows, cromlechs, and _allées
couvertes_, and whose cunning, their only effective weapon against the
mere strength of the Aryan invader, earned them a reputation for magical
powers. Now _Pisky_ or _Pisgy_ is really _Pixy_. Though as a patriotic
Cornishman I ought not to admit it, I cannot deny, especially as it
suits my argument better, that the Devon form is the correct one. But
after all there has been always a strong Cornish element in Devon, even
since the time when Athelstan drove the Britons out of Exeter and set
the Tamar for their boundary, and I think the original word is really
Cornish. The transposition of consonants, especially when _s_ is one of
them, is not uncommon in modern Cornish English. _Hosged_ for
_hogshead_, and _haps_ for _hasp_ are well-known instances. If we take
the root of _Pixy_, _Pix_, and divide the double letter _x_ into its
component parts, we get _Piks_ or _Pics_, and if we remember that a
final _s_ or _z_ in Cornish almost always represents a _t_ or _d_ of
Welsh and Breton (cf. _tas_ for _tad_, _nans_ for _nant_, _bos_ for
_bod_), we may not unreasonably, though without absolute certainty,
conjecture that _Pixy_ is _Picty_ in a Cornish form.[63]
Without begging any question concerning the origin, ethnology, or
homogeneity of those who are called 'Picts' in history, from the times
of Ammianus Marcellinus and Claudian until Kenneth MacAlpine united the
Pictish kingdom with the Scottish, we can nevertheless accept the fact
that the name 'Pict' has been popularly applied to some pre-Celtic race
or races, to whom certain ancient structures, such as 'vitrified forts'
and 'Picts' houses' have been attributed. In Cornwall there are
instances of prehistoric structures being called 'Piskies' Halls' (there
is an _allée couverte_ so called at Bosahan in Constantine), and
'Piskies' Crows' (_Crow_ or _Craw_, Breton _Krao_, is a shed or hovel;
'pegs' craw' is still used for 'pig-sty'); and there are three genuine
examples of what would in Scotland be called 'Picts' Houses' just
outside St. Ives in the direction of Zennor, though only modern
antiquaries have applied that name to them. In the district in which
they are, the fringe of coast from St. Ives round by Zennor, Morvah,
Pendeen, and St. Just nearly to Sennen, are found to this day a strange
and separate people of Mongol type, like the Bigaudens of Pont l'Abbé
and Penmarc'h in the Breton Cornouailles, one of those 'fragments of
forgotten peoples' of the 'sunset bound of Lyonesse' of whom Tennyson
tells. They are a little 'stuggy' dark folk, and until comparatively
modern times were recognized as different from their Celtic neighbours,
and were commonly believed to be largely wizards and witches. One of Mr.
Wentz's informants seems to attribute to Zennor a particularly virulent
brand of pisky, and Zennor is the most primitive part of that district.
Possibly the more completely unmixed ancestors of this race were 'more
so' than the present representatives; but, be this as it may, if _Pixy_
is really _Picty_, it would seem that, like the inhabitants of the
extreme north of the British Isles, the south-western Britons eventually
applied the fairly general popular name of the mysterious, half dreaded,
half despised aboriginal to a race of preternatural beings in whose
existence they believed, and, with the name, transferred some of the
qualities, attributes, and legends, thus producing a mixed mental
conception now known as 'pisky' or 'pixy'.
There seems to have been always and everywhere (or nearly so) a belief
in a race, neither divine nor human, but very like to human beings, who
existed on a 'plane' different from that of humans, though occupying the
same space. This has been called the 'astral' or the 'fourth-dimensional'
plane. Why 'astral'? why 'fourth-dimensional'? why 'plane'? are
questions the answers to which do not matter, and I do not attempt to
defend the terms, but you must call it something. This is the belief to
which Scott refers in the introduction to _The Monastery_, as the
'beautiful but almost forgotten theory of astral spirits or creatures of
the elements, surpassing human beings in knowledge and power, but
inferior to them as being subject, after a certain space of years, to a
death which is to them annihilation'. The subdivisions and elaborations
of the subject by Paracelsus, the Rosicrucians, and the modern
theosophists are no doubt amplifications of that popular belief, which,
though rather undefined, resembles the theory of these mystics in its
main outlines, and was probably what suggested it to them.
These beings are held to be normally imperceptible to human senses, but
conditions may arise in which the 'astral plane' of the elementals and
that part of the 'physical plane' in which, if one may so express it,
some human being happens to be, may be in such a relation to one another
that these and other spirits may be seen and heard. Some such condition
is perhaps described in the story of Balaam the soothsayer, in that
incident when 'the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw, and
behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about
Elisha', and possibly also in the mysterious 'sound of a going in the
tops of the mulberry trees' which David heard; but no doubt in these
cases it was angels and not elementals. It may also be allowable to
suggest, without irreverence, that the Gospel stories of the
Transfiguration and Ascension are connected with the same idea, though
the latter is expressed in the form of the geocentric theory of the
universe.
The Cornish pisky stories are largely made up of instances of contact
between the two 'planes', sometimes accidental, sometimes deliberately
induced by incantations or magic eye-salve, yet with these stories are
often mingled incidents that are not preternatural at all. How, when,
and why this belief arose, I do not pretend even to conjecture; but
there it is, and though of course the holders of it do not talk about
'planes', that is very much the notion which they appear to have.
I do not think that the piskies were ever definitely held to be the
spirits of the dead, and while a certain confusion has arisen, as some
of Mr. Wentz's informants show, I think it belongs to the confused
eschatology of modern Protestants. To a pre-Reformation Cornishman, or
indeed to any other Catholic, the idea was unthinkable. 'Justorum animae
in manu Dei sunt, et non tanget illos tormentum malitiae: visi sunt
oculis insipientium mori: illi autem sunt in pace,' and the
transmigration of the souls of the faithful departed into another order
of beings, not disembodied because never embodied, was to them
impossible. Such a notion is on a par with the quaint but very usual
hope of the modern 'Evangelical' Christian, so beautifully expressed in
one of Hans Andersen's stories, that his departed friends are promoted
to be 'angels'. There may be, perhaps, an idea, as there certainly is in
the Breton Death-Faith, that the spirits of the faithful dead are all
round us, and are not rapt away into a _distant_ Paradise or Purgatory.
This may be of pre-Christian origin, but does not contradict any article
of the Christian faith. The warnings, apparitions, and hauntings, the
'calling of the dead' at sea, and other details of Cornish
Death-Legends, seem to point to a conception of a 'plane' of the dead,
similar to but not necessarily identical with that of the elementals.
Under some quite undefined conditions contact may occur with the
'physical plane', whence the alleged incidents; but this Cornish
Death-Faith, though sometimes, as commonly in Brittany, presenting
similar phenomena, has in itself nothing to do with piskies, and as for
the unfaithful departed, their destination was also well understood, and
it was not Fairyland. There are possible connecting links in the not
very common idea that piskies are the souls of unbaptized children, and
in the more common notion that the _Pobel Vean_ are, not the disembodied
spirits, but the living souls and bodies of the old Pagans, who,
refusing Christianity, are miraculously preserved alive, but are
condemned to decrease in size until they vanish altogether. Some
authorities hold that it is the race and not the individual which
dwindles from generation to generation.
This last idea, as well as the name 'pixy', gives some probability to
the conclusion that, as applied to Cornwall, Mr. MacRitchie's theory
represents a part of the truth, and that on to an already existing
belief in elementals have been grafted exaggerated traditions of a dark
pre-Celtic people. These were not necessarily pygmies, but smaller than
Celts, and may have survived for a long time in forests and hill
countries, sometimes friendly to the taller race, whence come the
stories of piskies working for farmers, sometimes hostile, which may
account for the legends of changelings and other mischievous tricks.
This is how it appears to one who knows his Cornwall in all its aspects
fairly well, but does not profess to be an expert in folk-lore.
BOSPOWES, HAYLE, CORNWALL,
_July_ 1910.
Our investigation of the Fairy-Faith in Cornwall covers the region
between Falmouth and the Land's End, which is now the most Celtic; and
the Tintagel country on the north coast. It is generally believed that
ancient Cornish legends, like the Cornish language, are things of the
past only, but I am now no longer of that opinion. Undoubtedly Cornwall
is the most anglicized of all Celtic lands we are studying, and its
folk-lore is therefore far from being as virile as the Irish folk-lore;
nevertheless, through its people, racially mixed though they are, there
still flows the blood and the inspiration of a prehistoric native
ancestry, and among the oldest Cornish men and women of many an isolated
village, or farm, there yet remains some belief in fairies and pixies.
Moreover, throughout all of Old Cornwall there is a very living faith in
the Legend of the Dead; and that this Cornish Legend of the Dead, with
its peculiar Brythonic character, should be parallel as it is to the
Breton Legend of the Dead, has heretofore, so far as I am aware, not
been pointed out. I am giving, however, only a very few of the Cornish
death-legends collected, because in essence most of them are alike.
A CORNISH HISTORIAN'S TESTIMONY
I was privileged to make my first call in rural Cornwall at the pretty
country home of Miss Susan E. Gay, of Crill, about three miles from
Falmouth; and Miss Gay, who has written a well-known history of Falmouth
(_Old Falmouth_, London, 1903), very willingly accorded me an interview
on the subject of my inquiry, and finally dictated for my use the
following matter:--
_Pixies as 'Astral Plane' Beings._--'The pixies and fairies are little
beings in the human form existing on the 'astral plane', who may be in
the process of evolution; and, as such, I believe people have seen them.
The 'astral plane' is not known to us now because our psychic faculty of
perception has faded out by non-use, and this condition has been brought
about by an almost exclusive development of the physical brain; but it
is likely that the psychic faculty will develop again in its turn.'
_Psychical Interpretation of Folk-Lore._--'It is my point of view that
there is a basis of truth in the folk-lore. With its remnants of occult
learning, magic, charms, and the like, folk-lore seems to be the remains
of forgotten psychical facts, rather than history, as it is often
called.'
PEASANT EVIDENCE FROM THE CRILL COUNTRY
Miss Gay kindly gave me the names of certain peasants in the Crill
region, and from one of them, Mrs. Harriett Christopher, I gleaned the
following material:--
_A Pisky Changeling._--'A woman who lived near Breage Church had a fine
girl baby, and she thought the piskies came and took it and put a
withered child in its place. The withered child lived to be twenty years
old, and was no larger when it died than when the piskies brought it. It
was fretful and peevish and frightfully shrivelled. The parents believed
that the piskies often used to come and look over a certain wall by the
house to see the child. And I heard my grandmother say that the family
once put the child out of doors at night to see if the piskies would
take it back again.'
_Nature of Piskies._--'The piskies are said to be very small. You could
never see them by day. I used to hear my grandmother, who has been dead
fifty years, say that the piskies used to hold a fair in the fields near
Breage, and that people saw them there dancing. I also remember her
saying that it was customary to set out food for the piskies at night.
My grandmother's great belief was in piskies and in spirits; and she
considered piskies spirits. She used to tell so many stories about
spirits [of the dead] coming back and such things that I would be afraid
to go to bed.'
EVIDENCE FROM CONSTANTINE
Our witnesses from the ancient and picturesque village of Constantine
are John Wilmet, seventy-eight years old, and his good wife, two most
excellent and well-preserved types of the passing generation of true
Cornish stock. John began by telling me the following tale about an
_allée couverte_--a tale which in one version or another is apt to be
told of most Cornish megaliths:--
_A Pisky-House._--'William Murphy, who married my sister, once went to
the pisky-house at Bosahan with a surveyor, and the two of them heard
such unearthly noises in it that they came running home in great
excitement, saying they had heard the piskies.'
_The Pisky Thrasher._--'On a farm near here, a pisky used to come at
night to thrash the farmer's corn. The farmer in payment once put down a
new suit for him. When the pisky came and saw it, he put it on, and
said:--
Pisky fine and pisky gay,
Pisky now will fly away.
And they say he never returned.'
_Nature of Piskies._--'I always understood the piskies to be little
people. A great deal was said about ghosts in this place. Whether or not
piskies are the same as ghosts I cannot tell, but I fancy the old folks
thought they were.'
_Exorcism._--'A farmer who lived two miles from here, near the Gweek
River, called Parson Jago to his house to have him quiet the ghosts or
spirits regularly haunting it, for Parson Jago could always put such
things to rest. The clergyman went to the farmer's house, and with his
whip formed a circle on the floor and then commanded the spirit, which
made its appearance on the table, to come down into the circle. While on
the table the spirit had been visible to all the family, but as soon as
it got into the ring it disappeared; and the house was never haunted
afterwards.'
AT ST. MICHAEL'S MOUNT, MARAZION
Our next place for an investigation of the surviving Cornish Fairy-Faith
is Marazion, the very ancient British town opposite the isle called St.
Michael's Mount. (From Constantine I walked through the country to this
point, talking with as many old people as possible, but none of them
knew very much about ancient Cornish beliefs.) It is believed, though
the matter is very doubtful, that Marazion was the chief mart for the
tin trade of Celtic Britain, and that the Mount--sacred to the Sun and
to the Pagan Mysteries long before Caesar crossed the Channel from
Gaul--sheltered the brilliantly-coloured sailing-ships of the
Phoenicians.[64] In such a romantic town, where Oriental merchants and
Celtic pilgrims probably once mingled together, one might expect some
survival of olden beliefs and customs.
_Piskies._--To Mr. Thomas G. Jago, of Marazion, with a memory extending
backwards more than seventy years, he being eighty years old, I am
indebted for this statement about the pisky creed in that locality:--'I
imagine that one hundred and fifty years ago the belief in piskies and
spirits was general. In my boyhood days, piskies were often called "the
mites" (little people): they were regarded as little spirits. The word
_piskies_ is the old Cornish brogue for pixies. In certain grass fields,
mushrooms growing in a circle might be seen of a morning, and the old
folks pointing to the mushrooms would say to the children, "Oh, the
piskies have been dancing there last night."'
Two more of the oldest natives of Marazion, among others with whom I
talked, are William Rowe, eighty-two years old, and his married sister
seventy-eight years old. About the piskies Mr. Rowe said this:--'People
would go out at night and lose their way and then declare that they had
been pisky-led. I think they meant by this that they fell under some
spiritual influence--that some spirit led them astray. The piskies were
said to be small, and they were thought of as spirits.'[65] Mr. Rowe's
sister added:--'If we as children did anything wrong, the old folks
would say to us, "The piskies will carry you away if you do that
again."'
_Witch-Doctors._--I heard the following witch-story from a lawyer, a
native of the district, who lives in the country just beyond
Marazion:--'Jimmy Thomas, of Wendron parish, who died within the last
twenty-five years, was the last witch-doctor I know about in West
Cornwall. He was supposed to have great power over evil spirits. His
immediate predecessor was a woman, called the "Witch of Wendron", and
she did a big business. My father once visited her in company with a
friend whose father had lost some horses. This was about seventy to
eighty years ago. The witch when consulted on this occasion turned her
back to my father's companion, and began talking to herself in Cornish.
Then she gave him some herbs. His father used the herbs, and no more
horses died: the herbs were supposed to have driven all evil spirits out
of the stable.'
IN PENZANCE: AN ARCHITECT'S TESTIMONY
Penzance from earliest times has undoubtedly been, as it is now, the
capital of the Land's End district, the Sacred Land of Britain. And in
Penzance I had the good fortune to meet those among its leading citizens
who still cherish and keep alive the poetry and the mystic lore of Old
Cornwall; and to no one of them am I more indebted than to Mr. Henry
Maddern, F.I.A.S. Mr. Maddern tells me that he was initiated into the
mysteries of the Cornish folk-lore of this region when a boy in Newlyn,
where he was born, by his old nurse Betty Grancan, a native Zennor
woman, of stock probably the most primitive and pure in the British
Islands. At his home in Penzance, Mr. Maddern dictated to me the very
valuable evidence which follows:--
_Two Kinds of Pixies._--'In this region there are two kinds of pixies,
one purely a land-dwelling pixy and the other a pixy which dwells on the
sea-strand between high and low water mark.[66] The land-dwelling pixy
was usually thought to be full of mischievous fun, but it did no harm.
There was a very prevalent belief, when I was a boy, that this
sea-strand pixy, called _Bucca_,[67] had to be propitiated by a _cast_
(three) of fish, to ensure the fishermen having a good _shot_ (catch) of
fish. The land pixy was supposed to be able to render its devotees
invisible, if they only anointed their eyes with a certain green salve
made of secret herbs gathered from Kerris-moor.[68] In the invisible
condition thus induced, people were able to join the pixy revels, during
which, according to the old tradition, time slipped away very, very
rapidly, though people returned from the pixies no older than when they
went with them.'
_The Nurse and the Ointment._--'I used to hear about a Zennor girl who
came to Newlyn as nurse to the child of a gentleman living at
Zimmerman-Cot. The gentleman warned her never to touch a box of ointment
which he guarded in a special room, nor even to enter that room; but one
day in his absence she entered the room and took some of the ointment.
Suspecting the qualities of the ointment, she put it on her eyes with
the wish that she might see where her master was. She immediately found
herself in the higher part of the orchard amongst the pixies, where they
were having much _junketing_ (festivity and dancing); and there saw the
gentleman whose child she had nursed. For a time she managed to evade
him, but before the _junketing_ was at an end he discovered her and
requested her to go home; and then, to her intense astonishment, she
learned that she had been away twenty years, though she was unchanged.
The gentleman scolded her for having touched the ointment, paid her
wages in full, and sent her back to her people. She always had the one
regret, that she had not gone into the forbidden room at first.'
_The Tolcarne Troll._--'The fairy of the Newlyn Tolcarne[69] was in some
ways like the Puck of the English Midlands. But this fairy, or troll,
was supposed to date back to the time of the Phoenicians. He was
described as a little old pleasant-faced man dressed in a tight-fitting
leathern jerkin, with a hood on his head, who lived invisible in the
rock. Whenever he chose to do so he could make himself visible. When I
was a boy it was said that he spent his time voyaging from here to Tyre
on the galleys which carried the tin; and, also, that he assisted in the
building of Solomon's Temple. Sometimes he was called "the Wandering
One", or "Odin the Wanderer". My old nurse, Betty Grancan, used to say
that you could call up the troll at the Tolcarne if while there you held
in your hand three dried leaves, one of the ash, one of the oak, and one
of the thorn, and pronounced an incantation or charm. Betty would never
tell me the words of the charm, because she said I was too much of a
sceptic. The words of such a Cornish charm had to pass from one believer
to another, through a woman to a man, and from a man to a woman, and
thus alternately.'[70]
_Nature of Pixies._--'Pixies were often supposed to be the souls of the
prehistoric dwellers of this country. As such, pixies were supposed to
be getting smaller and smaller, until finally they are to vanish
entirely. The country pixies inhabiting the highlands from above Newlyn
on to St. Just were considered a wicked sort. Their great ambition was
to change their own offspring for human children; and the true child
could only be got back by laying a four-leaf clover on the changeling. A
_winickey_ child--one which was weak, frail, and peevish--was of the
nature of a changeling. Miner pixies, called "knockers", would accept a
portion of a miner's _croust_ (lunch) on good faith, and by knocking
lead him to a rich mother-lode, or warn him by knocking if there was
danger ahead or a cavern full of water; but if the miner begrudged them
the _croust_, he would be left to his own resources to find the lode,
and, moreover, the "knockers" would do all they could to lead him away
from a good lode. These mine pixies, too, were supposed to be spirits,
sometimes spirits of the miners of ancient times.'[71]
_Fairies and Pixies._--'In general appearance the fairies were much the
same as pixies. They were small men and women, much smaller than dwarfs.
The men were swarthy in complexion, and the women had a clear complexion
of a peach-like bloom. None ever appeared to be more than
five-and-twenty to thirty years old. I have heard my nurse say that she
could see scores of them whenever she picked a four-leaf clover and put
it in the wisp of straw which she carried on her head as a cushion for
the bucket of milk. Her theory was that the richness of the milk was
what attracted them. Pixies, like fairies, very much enjoyed milk, and
people of miserly nature used to put salt around a cow to keep the
pixies away; and then the pixies would lead such mean people astray the
very first opportunity that came. According to some country-people, the
pixies have been seen in the day-time, but usually they are only seen at
night.'
A CORNISH EDITOR'S OPINION
Mr. Herbert Thomas, editor of four Cornish papers, _The Cornishman_,
_The Cornish Telegraph_, _Post_, and _Evening Times_, and a true Celt
himself, has been deeply interested in the folk-lore of Cornwall, and
has made excellent use of it in his poetry and other literary
productions; so that his personal opinions, which follow, as to the
probable origin of the fairy-belief, are for our study a very important
contribution:--
_Animistic Origin of Belief in Pixies._--'I should say that the modern
belief in pixies, or in fairies, arose from a very ancient Celtic or
pre-Celtic belief in spirits. Just as among some savage tribes there is
belief in gods and totems, here there was belief in little spirits good
and bad, who were able to help or to hinder man. Belief in the
supernatural, in my opinion, is the root of it all.'
A CORNISH FOLK-LORIST'S TESTIMONY
In Penzance I had the privilege of also meeting Miss M. A. Courtney, the
well-known folk-lorist, who quite agrees with me in believing that there
is in Cornwall a widespread Legend of the Dead; and she cited a few
special instances in illustration, as follows:--
_Cornish Legend of the Dead._--'Here amongst the fishermen and sailors
there is a belief that the dead in the sea will be heard calling if a
drowning is about to occur. I know of a woman who went to a clergyman to
have him exorcize her of the spirit of her dead sister, which she said
appeared in the form of a bee. And I have heard of miners believing that
white moths are spirits.'[72]
EVIDENCE FROM NEWLYN
In Newlyn, Mrs. Jane Tregurtha gave the following important testimony:--
_The 'Little Folk'._--'The old people thoroughly believed in the _little
folk_, and that they gambolled all over the moors on moonlight nights.
Some pixies would rain down blessings and others curses; and to remove
the curses people would go to the wells blessed by the saints. Whenever
anything went wrong in the kitchen at night the pixies were blamed.
After the 31st of October [or after Halloween] the blackberries are not
fit to eat, for the pixies have then been over them' (cf. the parallel
Irish belief, p. 38).
_Fairy Guardian of the Men-an-Tol._[73]--'At the Men-an-Tol there is
supposed to be a guardian fairy or pixy who can make miraculous cures.
And my mother knew of an actual case in which a changeling was put
through the stone in order to get the real child back. It seems that
evil pixies changed children, and that the pixy at the Men-an-Tol being
good, could, in opposition, undo their work.'
_Exorcism._--'A spirit was put to rest on the Green here in Newlyn. The
parson prayed and fasted, and then commanded the spirit to _teeme_ (dip
dry) the sea with a limpet shell containing no bottom; and the spirit is
supposed to be still busy at this task.'
_Piskies as Apparitions._--When I talked with her in her neat cottage at
Newlyn, Miss Mary Ann Chirgwin (who was born on St. Michael's Mount in
1825) told me this:--'The old people used to say the piskies were
apparitions of the dead come back in the form of little people, but I
can't remember anything more than this about them.'
AN ARTIST'S TESTIMONY
One of the members of the Newlyn Art School was able to offer a few of
his own impressions concerning the pixies of Devonshire, where he has
frequently made sketches of pixies from descriptions given to him by
peasants:--
_Devonshire Pixies._--'Throughout all the west of Devonshire, anywhere
near the moorlands, the country people are much given to belief in
pixies and ghosts. I think they expect to see them about the twilight
hour; though I have not found anybody who has actually seen a pixy--the
belief now is largely based on hearsay.'
TESTIMONY FROM THE HISTORIAN OF MOUSEHOLE
To Mr. Richard Harry, the historian of Mousehole, I am indebted for
these remarks about the nature and present state of the belief in pixies
as he observes it in that region:--
_The Pixy Belief._--'The piskies, thought of as little people who appear
on moonlight nights, are still somewhat believed in here. If interfered
with too much they are said to exhibit almost fiendish powers. In a
certain sense they are considered spiritual, but in another sense they
are much materialized in the conceptions of the people. Generally
speaking, the belief in them has almost died out within the last fifty
years.'
A SEAMAN'S TESTIMONY
'Uncle Billy Pender,' as our present witness is familiarly called, is
one of the oldest natives of Mousehole, being eighty-five years old; and
most of his life has been passed on the ocean, as a fisherman, seaman,
and pilot. After having told me the usual things about piskies, fairies,
spirits, ghosts, and the devil, Uncle Billy Pender was very soon talking
about the dead:--
_Cornish Legend of the Dead._--'I was up in bed, and I suppose asleep,
and I dreamt that the boy James came to my bedside and woke me up by
saying, "How many lights does Death put up?" And in the dream there
appeared such light as I never saw in my life; and when I woke up
another light like it was in the room. Within three months afterwards we
buried two grand-daughters out of this house. This was four years ago.'
When this strange tale was finished, Uncle Billy Pender's daughter, who
had been listening, added:--'For three mornings, one after another,
there was a robin at our cellar door before the deaths, and my husband
said he didn't like that.'
Then Uncle Billy told this weird Breton-like tale:--'"Granny" told about
a boat named _Blücher_, going from Newlyn to Bristol with six thousand
mackerel, which put in at Arbor Cove, close to Padstow, on account of
bad weather. The boat dragged her anchors and was lost. "Granny"
afterwards declared that he saw the crew going up over the Newlyn Slip;
and the whole of Newlyn and Mousehole believed him.'
TESTIMONY BY TWO LAND'S END FARMERS
In the Sennen country, within a mile of the end of Britain, I talked
with two farmers who knew something about piskies. The first one,
Charles Hutchen, of Trevescan, told me this legend:--
_A St. Just Pisky._--'Near St. Just, on Christmas Day, a pisky carried
away in his cloak a boy, but the boy got home. Then the pisky took him a
second time, and again the boy got home. Each time the boy was away for
only an hour' (probably in a dream or trance state).
_Seeing the Pisky-Dance._--Frank Ellis, seventy-eight years old, of the
same village of Trevescan, then gave the following evidence:--'Up on
Sea-View Green there are two rings where the piskies used to dance and
play music on a moonlight night. I've heard that they would come there
from the moors. _Little people_ they are called. If you keep quiet when
they are dancing you'll see them, but if you make any noise they'll
disappear.' Frank Ellis's wife, who is a very aged woman, was in the
house listening to the conversation, and added at this point:--'My
grandmother, Nancy Maddern, was down on Sea-View Green by moonlight and
saw the piskies dancing, and passed near them. She said they were like
little children, and had red cloaks.'
TESTIMONY FROM A SENNEN COVE FISHERMAN
John Gilbert Guy, seventy-eight years old, a retired fisherman of Sennen
Cove, offers very valuable testimony, as follows:--
_'Small People'._--'Many say they have seen the _small people_ here by
the hundreds. In Ireland they call the _small people_ the fairies. My
mother believes there were such things, and so did the old folks in
these parts. My grandmother used to put down a good furze fire for
_them_ on stormy nights, because, as she said, "_They_ are a sort of
people wandering about the world with no home or habitation, and ought
to be given a little comfort." The most fear of _them_ was that they
might come at night and change a baby for one that was no good. My
mother said that Joan Nicholas believed the fairies had changed her
baby, because it was very small and cross-tempered. Up on the hill
you'll see a round ring with grass greener than anywhere else, and that
is where the _small people_ used to dance.'
_Danger of Seeing the 'Little People'._--'I heard that a woman set out
water to wash her baby in, and that before she had used the water the
_small people_ came and washed their babies in it. She didn't know about
this, and so in washing her baby got some of the water in her eyes, and
then all at once she could see crowds of _little people_ about her. One
of them came to her and asked if she was able to see their crowd, and
when she said "Yes," the _little people_ wanted to take her eyes out,
and she had to clear away from them as fast as she could.'
TESTIMONY FROM A CORNISH MINER
William Shepherd, a retired miner of Pendeen, near St. Just, where he
has passed all his life, offers us from his own experiences under the
earth the evidence which follows:--
_Mine Piskies._--'There are mine-piskies which are not the "knockers".
I've heard old men in the mines say that they have seen them, and they
call them the _small people_. It appears that they don't like company,
for they are always seen singly. The "knockers" are spirits, too, as one
might say. They are said to bring bad luck, while the _small people_ may
bring good luck.'
TESTIMONY FROM KING ARTHUR'S COUNTRY
Leaving the Land's End district and South Cornwall, we now pass
northward to King Arthur's country. Our chief researches there are to be
made outside the beaten track of tourists as far as possible, in the
country between Camelford and Tintagel. At Delabole, the centre of this
district, we find our first witness, Henry Spragg, a retired
slate-quarryman, seventy years old. Mr. Spragg has had excellent
opportunities of hearing any folk-lore that might have been living
during his lifetime; and what he offers first is about King Arthur:--
_King Arthur._--'We always thought of King Arthur as a great warrior.
And many a time I've heard old people say that he used to appear in this
country in the form of a nath.'[74] This was all that could be told of
King Arthur; and the conversation finally was directed toward piskies,
with the following results:--
_Piskies._--'A man named Bottrell, who lived near St. Teath, was
pisky-led at West Down, and when he turned his pockets inside out he
heard the piskies going away laughing.[75] Often my grandmother used to
say when I got home after dark, "You had better mind, or the piskies
will carry you away." And I can remember hearing the old people say that
the piskies are the spirits of dead-born children.' From pixies the
conversation drifted to the spirit-hounds 'often heard at night near
certain haunted downs in St. Teath parish', and then, finally, to
ordinary Cornish legends about the dead.
Our next witnesses from Delabole are John Male, eighty-two years old,
one of the very oldest men in King Arthur's country, and his wife; and
all of Mr. Male's ancestors as far back as he can trace them have lived
in the same parish.
_Piskies in General._--Mr. Male remarked:--'I have heard a good deal
about the piskies, but I can't remember any of the old women's tales. I
have heard, too, of people saying that they had seen the piskies. It was
thought that when the piskies have misled you they show themselves
jumping about in front of you; they are a race of little people who live
out in the fields.' Mrs. Male had now joined us at the open fire, and
added:--'Piskies always come at night, and in marshy ground there are
round places called pisky beds where they play. When I was little, my
mother and grandmother would be sitting round the fire of an evening
telling fireside stories, and I can remember hearing about a pisky of
this part who stole a new coat, and how the family heard him talking to
himself about it, and then finally say:--
Pisky fine and pisky gay,
Pisky's got a bright new coat,
Pisky now will run away.
And I can just remember one bit of another story: A pisky looked into a
house and said:--
All alone, fair maid?
No, here am I with a dog and cat,
And apples to eat and nuts to crack.'
_Tintagel Folk-Beliefs._--A retired rural policeman of the Tintagel
country, where he was born and reared, and now keeper of the Passmore
Edwards Art Gallery at Newlyn, offered this testimony from
Tintagel:--'In Tintagel I used to sit round the fire at night and hear
old women tell so much about piskies and ghosts that I was then afraid
to go out of doors after darkness had fallen. They religiously believed
in such things, and when I expressed my doubts I was driven away as a
rude boy. They thought if you went to a certain place at a certain hour
of the night that you could there see the piskies as little spirits. It
was held that the piskies could lead you astray and play tricks on you,
but that they never did you any serious injury.' Of the Arthurian
folk-legend at Tintagel he said:--'The spirit of King Arthur is supposed
to be in the Cornish chough--a beautiful black bird with red legs and
red beak.'
We now leave Great Britain and cross the English Channel to Little
Britain, the third of the Brythonic countries.
VII. IN BRITTANY
Introduction by ANATOLE LE BRAZ, Professor of French Literature,
University of Rennes, Brittany; author of _La Légende de la Mort, Au
Pays des Pardons_, &c.
MON CHER MONSIEUR WENTZ,
Il me souvient que, lors de votre soutenance de thèse devant la Faculté
des Lettres de l'Université de Rennes, un de mes collègues, mon ami, le
professeur Dottin, vous demanda:
'Vous croyez, dites-vous, à l'existence des fées? En avez-vous vu?'
Vous répondîtes, avec autant de phlegme que de sincérité:
'Non. J'ai tout fait pour en voir, et je n'en ai jamais vu. Mais il y a
beaucoup de choses que vous n'avez pas vues, monsieur le professeur, et
dont vous ne songeriez cependant pas à nier l'existence. Ainsi fais-je à
l'égard des fées.'
Je suis comme vous, mon cher monsieur Wentz: je n'ai jamais vu de fées.
J'ai bien une amie très chère que nous avons baptisée de ce nom, mais,
malgré tous ses beaux dons magiques, elle n'est qu'une humble mortelle.
En revanche, j'ai vécu, tout enfant, parmi des personnes qui avaient
avec les fées véritables un commerce quasi journalier.
C'était dans une petite bourgade de Basse-Bretagne, peuplée de paysans à
moitié marins, et de marins à moitié paysans. Il y avait, non loin du
village, une ancienne gentilhommière que ses propriétaires avaient
depuis longtemps abandonnée pour on ne savait au juste quel motif. On
continuait de l'appeler le 'château' de Lanascol, quoiqu'elle ne fût
plus guère qu'une ruine. Il est vrai que les avenues par lesquelles on y
accédait avaient conservé leur aspect seigneurial, avec leurs quadruples
rangées de vieux hêtres dont les vastes frondaisons se miraient dans de
magnifiques étangs. Les gens d'alentour se risquaient peu, le soir, dans
ces avenues. Elles passaient pour être, à partir du coucher du soleil,
le lieu de promenade favori d'une 'dame' que l'on désignait sous le nom
de _Groac'h Lanascol_,--la 'Feé de Lanascol'.
Beaucoup disaient l'avoir rencontrée, et la dépeignaient sous les
couleurs, du reste, les plus diverses. Ceux-ci faisaient d'elle une
vieille femme, marchant toute courbée, les deux mains appuyées sur un
tronçon de béquille avec lequel, de temps en temps, elle remuait, à
l'automne, les feuilles mortes. Les feuilles mortes qu'elle retournait
ainsi devenaient soudain brillantes comme de l'or et s'entrechoquaient
avec un bruit clair de métal. Selon d'autres, c'était une jeune
princesse, merveilleusement parée, sur les pas de qui s'empressaient
d'étranges petits hommes noirs et silencieux. Elle s'avançait d'une
majestueuse allure de reine. Parfois elle s'arrêtait devant un arbre, et
l'arbre aussitôt s'inclinait comme pour recevoir ses ordres. Ou bien,
elle jetait un regard sur l'eau d'un étang, et l'étang frissonnait
jusqu'en ses profondeurs, comme agité d'un mouvement de crainte sous la
puissance de son regard.
On racontait sur elle cette curieuse histoire:--
Les propriétaires de Lanascol ayant voulu se défaire d'un domaine qu'ils
n'habitaient plus, le manoir et les terres qui en dépendaient furent mis
en adjudication chez un notaire de Plouaret. Au jour fixé pour les
enchères nombre d'acheteurs accoururent. Les prix étaient déjà montés
très haut, et le domaine allait être adjugé, quand, à un dernier appel
du crieur, une voix féminine, très douce et très impérieuse tout
ensemble, s'éleva et dit:
'Mille francs de plus!'
Il y eut grande rumeur dans la salle. Tout le monde chercha des yeux la
personne qui avait lancé cette surenchère, et qui ne pouvait être qu'une
femme. Mais il ne se trouva pas une seule femme dans l'assistance. Le
notaire demanda:
'Qui a parlé?'
De nouveau, la même voix se fit entendre.
'Groac'h Lanascol!' répondit-elle.
Ce fut une débandade générale. Depuis lors, il ne s'était jamais
présenté d'acquéreur, et voilà pourquoi, répétait-on couramment,
Lanascol était toujours à vendre.
Si je vous ai entretenu à plaisir de la Fée de Lanascol, mon cher
monsieur Wentz, c'est qu'elle est la première qui ait fait impression
sur moi, dans mon enfance. Combien d'autres n'en ai-je pas connu, par la
suite, à travers les récits de mes compatriotes des grèves, des champs
ou des bois! La Bretagne est restée un royaume de féerie. On n'y peut
voyager l'espace d'une lieue sans côtoyer la demeure de quelque fée mâle
ou femelle. Ces jours derniers, comme j'accomplissais un pèlerinage
d'automne à l'hallucinante forêt de Paimpont, toute hantée encore des
grands souvenirs de la légende celtique, je croisai, sous les opulents
ombrages du Pas-du-Houx, une ramasseuse de bois mort, avec qui je ne
manquai pas, vous pensez bien, de lier conversation. Un des premiers
noms que je prononçai fut naturellement celui de Viviane.
'Viviane!' se récria la vieille pauvresse. 'Ah! bénie soit-elle, la
bonne Dame! car elle est aussi bonne que belle.... Sans sa protection,
mon homme, qui travaille dans les coupes, serait tombé, comme un loup,
sous les fusils des gardes....' Et elle se mit à me conter comme quoi
son mari, un tantinet braconnier comme tous les bûcherons de ces
parages, s'étant porté, une nuit, à l'affût du chevreuil, dans les
environs de la Butte-aux-Plaintes, avait été surpris en flagrant délit
par une tournée de gardes. Il voulut fuir: les gardes tirèrent. Une
balle l'atteignit à la cuisse: il tomba, et il s'apprêtait à se faire
tuer sur place, plutôt que de se rendre, lorsque, entre ses agresseurs
et lui, s'interposa subitement une espèce de brouillard très dense qui
voila tout,--le sol, les arbres, les gardes et le blessé lui-même. Et il
entendit une voix sortie du brouillard, une voix légère comme un bruit
de feuilles, murmurer à son oreille: 'Sauve-toi, mon fils: l'esprit de
Viviane veillera sur toi jusqu'à ce que tu aies rampé hors de la forêt.'
'Telles furent les propres paroles de la fée,' conclut la ramasseuse de
bois mort.
Et, dévotement, elle se signa, car la religieuse Bretagne--vous le
savez--vénère les fées à l'égal des saintes.
* * * * *
J'ignore s'il faut rattacher les lutins au monde des fées, mais, ce qui
est sûr, c'est que cette charmante et malicieuse engeance a toujours
pullulé dans notre pays. Je me suis laissé dire qu'autrefois chaque
maison avait le sien. C'était quelque chose comme le petit dieu pénate.
Tantôt visible, tantôt invisible, il présidait à tous les actes de la
vie domestique. Mieux encore: il y participait, et de la façon la plus
efficace. A l'intérieur du logis, il aidait les servantes, soufflait le
feu dans l'âtre, surveillait la cuisson de la nourriture pour les hommes
ou pour les bêtes, apaisait les cris de l'enfant couché dans le bas de
l'armoire, empêchait les vers de se mettre dans les pièces de lard
suspendues aux solives. Il avait pareillement dans son lot le
gouvernement des étables et des écuries: grâce à lui, les vaches
donnaient un lait abondant en beurre, et les chevaux avaient la croupe
ronde, le poil luisant. Il était, en un mot, le bon génie de la famille,
mais c'était à la condition que chacun eût pour lui les égards auxquels
il avait droit. Si peu qu'on lui manquât, sa bonté se changeait en
malice et il n'était point de mauvais tours dont il ne fût capable
envers les gens qui l'avaient offensé, comme de renverser le contenu des
marmites sur le foyer, d'embrouiller la laine autour des quenouilles, de
rendre infumable le tabac des pipes, d'emmêler inextricablement les
crins des chevaux, de dessécher le pis des vaches ou de faire peler le
dos des brebis. Aussi s'efforçait-on de ne le point mécontenter. On
respectait soigneusement toutes ses habitudes, toutes ses manies. C'est
ainsi que, chez mes parents, notre vieille bonne Filie n'enlevait jamais
le trépied du feu sans avoir la précaution de l'asperger d'eau pour le
refroidir, avant de le ranger au coin de l'âtre. Si vous lui demandiez
pourquoi ce rite, elle vous répondait:
'Pour que le lutin ne s'y brûle pas, si, tout à l'heure, il s'asseyait
dessus.'
* * * * *
Il appartient encore, je suppose, à la catégorie des hommes-fées, ce
_Bugul-Noz_, ce mystérieux 'Berger de la nuit' dont les Bretons des
campagnes voient se dresser, au crépuscule, la haute et troublante
silhouette, si, d'aventure, il leur arrive de rentrer tard du labour. On
n'a jamais pu me renseigner exactement sur le genre de troupeau qu'il
faisait paître, ni sur ce que présageait sa rencontre. Le plus souvent,
on la redoute. Mais, comme l'observait avec raison une de mes
conteuses, Lise Bellec, s'il est préférable d'éviter le _Bugul-Noz_, il
ne s'ensuit pas, pour cela, que ce soit un méchant Esprit. D'après elle,
il remplirait plutôt une fonction salutaire, en signifiant aux humains,
par sa venue, que la nuit n'est pas faite pour s'attarder aux champs ou
sur les chemins, mais pour s'enfermer derrière les portes closes et pour
dormir. Ce berger des ombres serait donc, somme toute, une manière de
bon pasteur. C'est pour assurer notre repos et notre sécurité, c'est
pour nous soustraire aux excès du travail et aux embûches de la nuit
qu'il nous force, brebis imprudentes, à regagner promptement le bercail.
Sans doute est-ce un rôle tutélaire à peu près semblable qui, dans la
croyance populaire, est dévolu à un autre homme-fée, plus spécialement
affecté au rivage de la mer, comme l'indique son nom de _Yann-An-Ôd_. Il
n'y a pas, sur tout le littoral maritime de la Bretagne ou, comme on
dit, dans tout l'_armor_, une seule région ou l'existence de ce 'Jean
des Grèves' ne soit tenue pour un fait certain, dûment constaté,
indéniable. On lui prête des formes variables et des aspects différents.
C'est tantôt un géant, tantôt un nain. Il porte tantôt un 'suroit' de
toile huilée, tantôt un large chapeau de feutre noir. Parfois, il
s'appuie sur une rame et fait penser au personnage énigmatique, armé du
même attribut, qu'Ulysse doit suivre, dans l'_Odyssée_. Mais, toujours,
c'est un héros marin dont la mission est de parcourir les plages, en
poussant par intervalles de longs cris stridents, propres à effrayer les
pêcheurs qui se seraient laissé surprendre dehors par les ténèbres de la
nuit. Il ne fait de mal qu'à ceux qui récalcitrent; encore ne les
frappe-t-il que dans leur intérêt, pour les contraindre à se mettre à
l'abri. Il est, avant tout, un 'avertisseur'. Ses cris ne rappellent pas
seulement au logis les gens attardés sur les grèves; ils signalent aussi
le dangereux voisinage de la côte aux marins qui sont en mer et, par là,
suppléent à l'insuffisance du mugissement des sirènes ou de la lumière
des phares.
Remarquons, à ce propos, qu'on relève un trait analogue dans la légende
des vieux saints armoricains, pour la plupart émigrés d'Irlande. Un de
leurs exercices coutumiers consistait à déambuler de nuit le long des
côtes où ils avaient établi leurs oratoires, en agitant des clochettes
de fer battu dont les tintements étaient destinés, comme les cris de
_Yann-An-Ôd_, à prévenir les navigateurs que la terre était proche.
Je suis persuadé que le culte des saints, qui est la première et la plus
fervente des dévotions bretonnes, conserve bien des traits d'une
religion plus ancienne où la croyance aux fées jouait le principal
rôle. Et il en va de même, j'en suis convaincu, pour ces mythes
funéraires que j'ai recueillis sous le titre de _La Légende de la Mort_
chez les Bretons armoricains. A vrai dire, dans la conception bretonne,
les morts ne sont pas morts; ils vivent d'une vie mystérieuse en marge
de la vie réelle, mais leur monde reste, en définitive, tout mêlé au
nôtre et, sitôt que la nuit tombe, sitôt que les vivants proprement dits
s'abandonnent à la mort momentanée du sommeil, les soi-disant morts
redeviennent les habitants de la terre qu'ils n'ont jamais quittée. Ils
reprennent leur place à leur foyer d'autrefois, ils vaquent à leurs
anciens travaux, ils s'intéressent au logis, aux champs, à la barque;
ils se comportent, en un mot, comme ce peuple des hommes et des
femmes-fées qui formait jadis une espèce d'humanité plus fine et plus
délicate au milieu de la véritable humanité.
* * * * *
J'aurais encore, mon cher monsieur Wentz, bien d'autres types à évoquer,
dans cet intermonde de la féerie bretonne qui, chez mes compatriotes, ne
se confond ni avec ce monde-ci, ni avec l'autre, mais participe à la
fois de tous les deux, par un singulier mélange de naturel et de
surnaturel. Je n'ai voulu, en ces lignes rapides, que montrer la
richesse de la matière à laquelle vous avez, avec tant de conscience et
de ferveur, appliqué votre effort. Et maintenant, que les fées vous
soient douces, mon cher ami! Elles ne seront que justes en favorisant de
toute leur tendresse le jeune et brillant écrivain qui vient de
restaurer leur culte en rénovant leur gloire.
RENNES,
ce 1{er} _novembre_ 1910.
My dear Mr. Wentz,
I recollect that, at the time of your examination on your thesis
before the Faculty of Letters of the University of Rennes, one of my
colleagues, my friend Professor Dottin, put to you this question:--
'You believe, you assert, in the existence of fairies? Have you seen
any?'
You answered, with equal coolness and candour:
'No. I have made every effort to do so, and I have never seen any.
But there are many things which you, sir, have not seen, and of
which, nevertheless, you would not think of denying the existence.
That is my attitude toward fairies.'
I am like you, my dear Mr. Wentz: I have never seen fairies. It is
true that I have a very dear lady friend whom we have christened by
that name [fairy], but, in spite of all her fair supernatural gifts,
she is only a humble mortal. On the other hand, I lived, when a mere
child, among people who had almost daily intercourse with real
fairies.
That was in a little township in Lower Brittany, inhabited by
peasants who were half sailors, and by sailors who were half
peasants. There was, not far from the village, an ancient
manor-house long abandoned by its owners, for what reason was not
known exactly. It continued to be called the 'Château' of Lanascol,
though it was hardly more than a ruin. It is true that the avenues
by which one approached it had retained their feudal aspect, with
their fourfold rows of ancient beeches whose huge masses of foliage
were reflected in splendid pools. The people of the neighbourhood
seldom ventured into these avenues in the evening. They were
supposed to be, from sunset onwards, the favourite walking-ground of
a 'lady' who went by the name of _Groac'h Lanascol_, the 'Fairy of
Lanascol'.
Many claimed to have met her, and described her in colours which
were, however, the most varied. Some represented her as an old woman
who walked all bent, her two hands leaning on a stump of a crutch
with which, in autumn, from time to time she stirred the dead
leaves. The dead leaves which she thus stirred became suddenly
shining like gold, and clinked against one another with the clear
sound of metal. According to others, it was a young princess,
marvellously adorned, after whom there hurried curious little black
silent men. She advanced with a majestic and queenly bearing.
Sometimes she stopped in front of a tree, and the tree at once bent
down as if to receive her commands. Or again, she would cast a look
on the water of a pool, and the pool trembled to its very depths, as
though stirred by an access of fear beneath the potency of her look.
The following strange story was told about her:--
The owners of Lanascol having desired to get rid of an estate which
they no longer occupied, the manor and lands attached to it were put
up to auction by a notary of Plouaret. On the day fixed for the
bidding a number of purchasers presented themselves. The price had
already reached a large sum, and the estate was on the point of
being knocked down, when, on a last appeal from the auctioneer, a
female voice, very gentle and at the same time very imperious, was
raised and said:
'A thousand francs more!'
A great commotion arose in the hall. Every one's eyes sought for the
person who had made this advance, and who could only be a woman. But
there was not a single woman among those present. The notary asked:
'Who spoke?'
Again the same voice made itself heard.
'The Fairy of Lanascol!' it replied.
A general break-up followed. From that time forward no purchaser has
ever appeared, and, as the current report ran, that was the reason
why Lanascol continued to be for sale.
I have designedly quoted to you the story of the Fairy of Lanascol,
my dear Mr. Wentz, because she was the first to make an impression
on me in my childhood. How many others have I come to know later on
in the course of narratives from those who lived with me on the
sandy beaches, in the fields or the woods! Brittany has always been
a kingdom of Faerie. One cannot there travel even a league without
brushing past the dwelling of some male or female fairy. Quite
lately, in the course of an autumn pilgrimage to the hallucinatory
forest of Paimpont (or Brocéliande), still haunted throughout by the
great memories of Celtic legend, I encountered beneath the thick
foliage of the Pas-du-Houx, a woman gathering faggots, with whom I
did not fail, as you may well imagine, to enter into conversation.
One of the first names I uttered was naturally that of Vivian.
'Vivian!' cried out the poor old woman. 'Ah! a blessing on her, the
good Lady! for she is as good as she is beautiful.... Without her
protection my good man, who works at woodcutting, would have fallen,
like a wolf, beneath the keepers' guns....' And she began to narrate
to me 'as how' her husband, something of a poacher like all the
woodcutters of these districts, had one night gone to watch for a
roebuck in the neighbourhood of the Butte-aux-Plaintes, and had been
caught red-handed by a party of keepers. He sought to fly: the
keepers fired. A bullet hit him in the thigh: he fell, and was
making ready to let himself be killed on the spot, rather than
surrender, when there suddenly interposed between him and his
assailants a kind of very thick mist which covered everything--the
ground, the trees, the keepers, and the wounded man himself. And he
heard a voice coming out of the mist, a voice gentle like the
rustling of leaves, and murmuring in his ear: 'Save thyself, my son:
the spirit of Vivian will watch over thee till thou hast crawled out
of the forest.'
'Such were the actual words of the fairy,' concluded the
faggot-gatherer. And she crossed herself devoutly, for pious
Brittany, as you know, reveres fairies as much as saints.
* * * * *
I do not know if _lutins_ (mischievous spirits) should be included
in the fairy world, but what is certain is that this charming and
roguish tribe has always abounded in our country. I have been told
that formerly every house had its own. It (the _lutin_) was
something like the little Roman household god. Now visible, now
invisible, it presided over all the acts of domestic life. Nay more;
it shared in them, and in the most effective manner. Inside the
house it helped the servants, blew up the fire on the hearth,
supervised the cooking of the food for men or beasts, quieted the
crying of the babe lying in the bottom of the cupboard, and
prevented worms from settling in the pieces of bacon hanging from
the beams. Similarly there fell within its sphere the management of
the byres and stables: thanks to it the cows gave milk abounding in
butter, and the horses had round croups and shining coats. It was,
in a word, the good genius of the house, but conditionally on every
one paying to it the respect to which it had the right. If
neglected, ever so little, its kindness changed into spite, and
there was no unkind trick of which it was not capable towards people
who had offended it, such as upsetting the contents of the pots on
the hearth, entangling wool round distaffs, making tobacco
unsmokeable, mixing a horse's mane in inextricable confusion, drying
up the udders of cows, or stripping the backs of sheep. Therefore
care was taken not to annoy it. Careful attention was paid to all
its habits and humours. Thus, in my parents' house, our old maid
Filie never lifted the trivet from the fire without taking the
precaution of sprinkling it with water to cool it, before putting it
away at the corner of the hearth. If you asked her the reason for
this ceremony, she would reply to you:
'To prevent the _lutin_ burning himself there, if, presently, he sat
on it.'
* * * * *
Further, I suppose there should be included in the class of male
fairies that _Bugul-Noz_, that mysterious Night Shepherd, whose tall
and alarming outline the rural Bretons see rising in the twilight,
if, by chance, they happen to return late from field-work. I have
never been able to obtain exact information about the kind of herd
which he fed, nor about what was foreboded by the meeting with him.
Most often such a meeting is dreaded. Yet, as one of my female
informants, Lise Bellec, reasonably pointed out, if it is preferable
to avoid the _Bugul-Noz_ it does not from that follow that he is a
harmful spirit. According to her, he would rather fulfil a
beneficial office, in warning human beings, by his coming, that
night is not made for lingering in the fields or on the roads, but
for shutting oneself in behind closed doors and going to sleep. This
shepherd of the shades would then be, take it altogether, a kind of
good shepherd. It is to ensure our rest and safety, to withdraw us
from excesses of toil and the snares of night, that he compels us,
thoughtless sheep, to return quickly to the fold.
No doubt it is an almost similar protecting office which, in popular
belief, has fallen to another male fairy, more particularly attached
to the seashore, as his name, _Yann-An-Ôd_, indicates. There is not,
along all the coast of Brittany or, as it is called, in all the
_Armor_, a single district where the existence of this 'John of the
Dunes' is not looked on as a real fact, fully proved and undeniable.
Changing forms and different aspects are attributed to him.
Sometimes he is a giant, sometimes a dwarf. Sometimes he wears a
seaman's hat of oiled cloth, sometimes a broad black felt hat. At
times he leans on an oar and recalls the enigmatic personage,
possessed of the same attribute, whom Ulysses has to follow, in the
_Odyssey_. But he is always a marine hero whose office it is to
traverse the shores, uttering at intervals long piercing cries,
calculated to frighten away fishermen who may have allowed
themselves to be surprised outside by the darkness of night. He only
hurts those who resist; and even then would only strike them in
their own interest, to force them to seek shelter. He is, before
all, one who warns. His cries not only call back home people out
late on the sands; they also inform sailors at sea of the dangerous
proximity of the shore, and, thereby, make up for the insufficiency
of the hooting of sirens or of the light of lighthouses.
We may remark, in this connexion, that a parallel feature is
observed in the legend of the old Armorican saints, who were mostly
emigrants from Ireland. One of their usual exercises consisted in
parading throughout the night the coasts where they had set up their
oratories, shaking little bells of wrought iron, the ringing of
which, like the cries of _Yann-An-Ôd_, was intended to warn voyagers
that land was near.
I am persuaded that the worship of saints, which is the first and
most fervent of Breton religious observances, preserves many of the
features of a more ancient religion in which a belief in fairies
held the chief place. The same, I feel sure, applies to those
death-myths which I have collected under the name of the Legend of
the Dead among the Armorican Bretons. In truth, in the Breton mind,
the dead are not dead; they live a mysterious life on the edge of
real life, but their world remains fully mingled with ours, and as
soon as night falls, as soon as the living, properly so called, give
themselves up to the temporary sleep of death, the so-called dead
again become the inhabitants of the earth which they have never
left. They resume their place at their former hearth, devote
themselves to their old work, take an interest in the home, the
fields, the boat; they behave, in a word, like the race of male and
female fairies which once formed a more refined and delicate species
of humanity in the midst of ordinary humanity.
* * * * *
I might, my dear Mr. Wentz, evoke many other types from this
intermediate world of Breton Faerie, which, in my countrymen's mind,
is not identical with this world nor with the other, but shares at
once in both, through a curious mixture of the natural and
supernatural. I have only intended in these hasty lines to show the
wealth of material to which you have with so much conscientiousness
and ardour devoted your efforts. And now may the fairies be
propitious to you, my dear friend! They will do nothing but justice
in favouring with all their goodwill the young and brilliant writer
who has but now revived their cult by renewing their glory.
RENNES,
_November_ 1, 1910.
BRETON FAIRIES OR _FÉES_
In Lower Brittany, which is the genuinely Celtic part of Armorica,
instead of finding a widespread folk-belief in fairies of the kind
existing in Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, we find a widespread
folk-belief in the existence of the dead, and to a less extent in that
of the _corrigan_ tribes. For our Psychological Theory this is very
significant. It seems to indicate that among the Bretons--who are one of
the most conservative Celtic peoples--the Fairy-Faith finds its chief
expression in a belief that men live after death in an invisible world,
just as in Ireland the dead and fairies live in Fairyland. This opinion
was first suggested to me by Professor Anatole Le Braz, author of _La
Légende de la Mort_, and by Professor Georges Dottin, both of the
University of Rennes. But before evidence to sustain and to illustrate
this opinion is offered, it will be well to consider the less important
Breton _fées_ or beings like them, and then _corrigans_ and _nains_
(dwarfs).
_The 'Grac'hed Coz'._--F. M. Luzel, who collected so many of the popular
stories in Brittany, found that what few _fées_ or fairies there are
almost always appear in folk-lore as little old women, or as the Breton
story-teller usually calls them, _Grac'hed coz_. I have selected and
abridged the following legendary tale from his works to illustrate the
nature of these Breton fairy-folk:--
In ancient times, as we read in _La Princesse Blondine_, a rich nobleman
had three sons; the oldest was called Cado, the second, Méliau, and the
youngest, Yvon. One day, as they were together in a forest with their
bows and arrows, they met a little old woman whom they had never seen
before, and she was carrying on her head a jar of water. 'Are you able,
lads,' Cado asked his two brothers, 'to break with an arrow the jar of
the little old woman without touching her?' 'We do not wish to try it,'
they said, fearing to injure the good woman. 'All right, I'll do it
then, watch me.' And Cado took his bow and let fly an arrow. The arrow
went straight to its mark and split the jar without touching the little
old woman; but the water wet her to the skin, and, in anger, she said to
the skilful archer: 'You have failed, Cado, and I will be revenged on
you for this. From now until you have found the Princess Blondine all
the members of your body will tremble as leaves on a tree tremble when
the north wind blows.' And instantly Cado was seized by a trembling
malady in all his body. The three brothers returned home and told their
father what had happened; and the father, turning to Cado, said: 'Alas,
my unfortunate son, you have failed. It is now necessary for you to
travel until you find the Princess Blondine, as the _fée_ said, for that
little old woman was a _fée_, and no doctor in the world can cure the
malady she has put upon you.'[76]
_'Fées' of Lower Brittany._--Throughout the Morbihan and Finistère, I
found that stories about _fées_ are much less common than about
_corrigans_, and in some localities extremely rare; but the ones I have
been fortunate enough to collect are much the same in character as those
gathered in the Côtes-du-Nord by Luzel, and elsewhere by other
collectors. Those I here record were told to me at Carnac during the
summer of 1909; the first one by M. Yvonne Daniel, a native of the Île
de Croix (off the coast north-west of Carnac); and the others by M.
Goulven Le Scour.[77]
'The little Île de Croix was especially famous for its old _fées_; and
the following legend is still believed by its oldest inhabitants:--"An
aged man who had suffered long from leprosy was certain to die within a
short time, when a woman bent double with age entered his house. She
asked from what malady he suffered, and on being informed began to say
prayers. Then she breathed upon the sores of the leper, and almost
suddenly disappeared: the _fée_ had cured him."'
'It is certain that about fifty years ago the people in Finistère still
believed in _fées_. It was thought that the _fées_ were spirits who came
to predict some unexpected event in the family. They came especially to
console orphans who had very unkind step-mothers. In their youth, Tanguy
du Chatel and his sister Eudes were protected by a _fée_ against the
misfortune which pursued them; the history of Brittany says so. In Léon
it is said that the _fées_ served to guide unfortunate people, consoling
them with the promise of a happy and victorious future. In the
Cornouailles, on the contrary, it is said that the _fées_ were very
evilly disposed, that they were demons.
'My grandmother, Marie Le Bras, had related to me that one evening an
old _fée_ arrived in my village, Kerouledic (Finistère), and asked for
hospitality. It was about the year 1830. The _fée_ was received; and
before going to bed she predicted that the little daughter whom the
mother was dressing in night-clothes would be found dead in the cradle
the next day. This prediction was only laughed at; but in the morning
the little one was dead in her cradle, her eyes raised toward Heaven.
The _fée_, who had slept in the stable, was gone.'
In these last three accounts, by M. Le Scour, we observe three quite
different ideas concerning the Breton fairies or _fées_: in Finistère
and in Léon the _fées_ are regarded as good protecting spirits, almost
like ancestral spirits, which originally they may have been; in the
Cornouailles they are evil spirits; while in the third account, about
the old _fée_--and in the legend of the leper cured by a _fée_--the
_fées_ are rationalized, as in Luzel's tale quoted above, into
sorceresses or _Grac'hed Coz_.
_Children Changed by 'Fées'._--M. Goulven Le Scour, at my request, wrote
down in French the following account of actual changelings in
Finistère:--'I remember very well that there was a woman of the village
of Kergoff, in Plouneventer, who was called ----,[78] the mother of a
family. When she had her first child, a very strong and very pretty boy,
she noticed one morning that he had been changed during the night; there
was no longer the fine baby she had put to bed in the evening; there
was, instead, an infant hideous to look at, greatly deformed,
hunchbacked, and crooked, and of a black colour. The poor woman knew
that a _fée_ had entered the house during the night and had changed her
child.
'This changed infant still lives, and to-day he is about seventy years
old. He has all the possible vices; and he has tried many times to kill
his mother. He is a veritable demon; he often predicts the future, and
has a habit of running abroad during the night. They call him the
"Little _Corrigan_", and everybody flees from him. Being poor and infirm
now, he has been obliged to beg, and people give him alms because they
have great fear of him. His nick-name is Olier.
'This woman had a second, then a third child, both of whom were seen by
everybody to have been born with no infirmity; and, in turn, each of
these two was stolen by a _fée_ and replaced by a little hunchback. The
second child was a most beautiful daughter. She was _taken_ during the
night and replaced by a little girl babe, so deformed that it resembled
a ball. If her brother Olier was bad, she was even worse; she was the
terror of the village, and they called her Anniac. The third child met
the same luck, but was not so bad as the first and second.
'The poor mother, greatly worried at seeing what had happened, related
her troubles to another woman. This woman said to her, "If you have
another child, place with it in the cradle a little sprig of box-wood
which has been blessed (by a priest), and the _fée_ will no longer have
the power of stealing your children." And when a fourth child was born
to the unfortunate woman it was not stolen, for she placed in the cradle
a sprig of box-wood which had been blessed on Palm Sunday (_Dimanche des
Rameaux_).[79]
'The first three children I knew very well, and they were certainly
hunchbacked: it is pretended in the country that the _fées_ who come at
night to make changelings always leave in exchange hunchbacked infants.
It is equally pretended that a mother who has had her child so changed
need do nothing more than leave the little hunchback out of doors crying
during entire hours, and that the _fée_ hearing it will come and put the
true child in its place. Unfortunately, Yvonna ---- did not know what
she should have done in order to have her own children again.'
_Transformation Power of 'Fées'._--At Kerallan, near Carnac, this is
what Madame Louise Le Rouzic said about the transformation power of
_fées_:--'It is said that the _fées_ of the region when insulted
sometimes changed men into beasts or into stones.'[80]
_Other Breton Fairies._--Besides the various types of _fées_ already
described, we find in Luzel's collected stories a few other types of
fairy-like beings: in _Les Compagnons_ (The Companions),[81] the _fée_
is a magpie in a forest near Rennes--just as in other Celtic lands,
fairies likewise often appear as birds (see our study, pp. 302 ff.); in
_La Princesse de l'Étoile Brillante_ (The Princess of the Brilliant
Star),[81] a princess under the form of a duck plays the part of a fairy
(cf. how fairy women took the form of water-fowls in the tale entitled
the _Sick Bed of Cuchulainn_ (see our study, p. 345); in _Pipi Menou et
les Femmes Volantes_ (Pipi Menou and the Flying Women),[81] there are
fairy women as swan-maidens; and then there are yet to be mentioned _Les
Morgans de l'île d'Ouessant_ (The _Morgans_ of the Isle of Ushant), who
live under the sea in rare palaces where mortals whom they love and
marry are able to exist with them. In some legends of the _Morgans_,
like one recorded by Luzel, the men and women of this water-fairy race,
or the _Morgans_ and _Morganezed_, seem like anthropomorphosed survivals
of ancient sea-divinities, such, for example, as the sea-god called
_Shony_, to whom the people of Lewis, Western Hebrides, still pour
libations that he may send in sea-weed, and the sea-god to whom
anciently the people of Iona poured libations.[82]
_The 'Morgan'._--To M. J. Cuillandre (Glanmor), President of the
_Fédération des Étudiants Bretons_, I am indebted for the following
weird legend of the _Morgan_, as it is told among the Breton fisher-folk
on the Île Molène, Finistère:--'Following a legend which I have
collected on the Île Molène, the _Morgan_ is a fairy eternally young, a
virgin seductress whose passion, never satisfied, drives her to despair.
Her place of abode is beneath the sea; there she possesses marvellous
palaces where gold and diamonds glimmer. Accompanied by other fairies,
of whom she is in some respects the queen, she rises to the surface of
the waters in the splendour of her unveiled beauty. By day she slumbers
amid the coolness of grottoes, and woe to him who troubles her sleep. By
night she lets herself be lulled by the waves in the neighbourhood of
the rocks. The sea-foam crystallizes at her touch into precious stones,
of whiteness as dazzling as that of her body. By moonlight she moans as
she combs her fair hair with a comb of fine gold, and she sings in a
harmonious voice a plaintive melody whose charm is irresistible. The
sailor who listens to it feels himself drawn toward her, without power
to break the charm which drags him onward to his destruction; the bark
is broken upon the reefs: the man is in the sea, and the _Morgan_ utters
a cry of joy. But the arms of the fairy clasp only a corpse; for at her
touch men die, and it is this which causes the despair of the amorous
and inviolate _Morgan_. She being pagan, it suffices to have been
touched by her in order to suffer the saddest fate which can be reserved
to a Christian. The unfortunate one whom she had clasped is condemned to
wander for ever in the trough of the waters, his eyes wide open, the
mark of baptism effaced from his forehead. Never will his poor remains
know the sweetness of reposing in holy ground, never will he have a tomb
where his kindred might come to pray and to weep.'
_Origin of the 'Morgan'._--The following legendary origin is attributed
to the _Morgan_ by M. Goulven Le Scour, our Carnac witness:--'Following
the old people and the Breton legends, the _Morgan_ (_Mari Morgan_ in
Breton) was Dahut, the daughter of King Gradlon, who was ruler of the
city of Is. Legend records that when Dahut had entered at night the
bedchamber of her father and had cut from around his neck the cord which
held the key of the sea-dike flood-gates, and had given this key to the
Black Prince, under whose evil love she had fallen, and who, according
to belief, was no other than the Devil, St. Guenolé soon afterwards
began to cry aloud, "Great King, arise! The flood-gates are open, and
the sea is no longer restrained!"[83] Suddenly the old King Gradlon
arose, and, leaping on his horse, was fleeing from the city with St.
Guenolé, when he encountered his own daughter amid the waves. She
piteously begged aid of her father, and he took her up behind him on the
horse; but St. Guenolé, seeing that the waters were gaining on them,
said to the king, "Throw into the sea the demon you have behind you, and
we shall be saved!" Thereupon Gradlon flung his daughter into the abyss,
and he and St. Guenolé were saved. Since that time, the fishermen
declare that they have seen, in times of rough sea and clear moonlight,
Dahut, daughter of King Gradlon, sitting on the rocks combing her fair
hair and singing, in the place where her father flung her. And to-day
there is recognized under the Breton name _Marie Morgan_, the daughter
who sings amid the sea.'
_Breton Fairyland Legends._--In a legend concerning Mona and the king of
the _Morgans_, much like the Christabel story of English poets, we have
a picture of a fairyland not under ground, but under sea; and this
legend of Mona and her _Morgan_ lover is one of the most beautiful of
all the fairy-tales of Brittany.[84] Another one of Luzel's legends,
concerning a maiden who married a dead man, shows us Fairyland as a
world of the dead. It is a very strange legend, and one directly bearing
on the Psychological Theory; for this dead man, who is a dead priest,
has a palace in a realm of enchantment, and to enter his country one
must have a white fairy-wand with which to strike 'in the form of a
cross' two blows upon the rock concealing the entrance.[84] M. Paul
Sébillot records from Upper Brittany a tradition that beneath the
sea-waves there one can see a subterranean world containing fields and
villages and beautiful castles; and it is so pleasant a world that
mortals going there find years no longer than days.[85]
_Fairies of Upper Brittany._[86]--Principally in Upper Brittany, M.
Sébillot found rich folk-lore concerning _fées_, though some of his
material is drawn from peasants and fishermen who are not so purely
Celtic as those in Lower Brittany; and he very concisely summarizes the
various names there given to the fairy-folk as follows:--'They are
generally called _Fées_ (Fairies), sometimes _Fêtes_ (Fates), a name
nearer than _fées_ to the Latin _Fata_; _Fête_ (fem.) and _Fête_ (mas.)
are both used, and from _Fête_ is probably derived _Faito_ or _Faitaud_,
which is the name borne by the fathers, the husbands, or the children of
the _fées_ (Saint-Cast). Near Saint-Briac (Ille-et-Vilaine) they are
sometimes called _Fions_; this term, which is applied to both sexes,
seems also to designate the mischievous _lutins_ (sprites). Round the
Mené, in the cantons of Collinée and of Moncontour, they are called
_Margot la Fée_, or _ma Commère_ (my Godmother) _Margot_, or even the
_Bonne Femme_ (Good Woman) _Margot_. On the coast they are often enough
called by the name of _Bonnes Dames_ (Good Ladies), or of _nos Bonnes
Mères les Fées_ (our Good Mothers the Fairies); usually they are spoken
of with a certain respect.'[87] As the same authority suggests, probably
the most characteristic _Fées_ in Upper Brittany are the _Fées des
Houles_ (Fairies of the Billows); and traditions say that they lived in
natural caverns or grottoes in the sea-cliffs. They form a distinct
class of sea-fairies unknown elsewhere in France or Europe.[88] M.
Sébillot regards them as sea-divinities greatly rationalized. Associated
with them are the _fions_, a race of dwarfs having swords no bigger than
pins.[88] A pretty legend about magic buckwheat cakes, which in
different forms is widespread throughout all Brittany, is told of these
little cave-dwelling fairies:--
Like the larger _fées_ the _fions_ kept cattle; and one day a black cow
belonging to the _fions_ of Pont-aux-Hommes-Nées ate the buckwheat in
the field of a woman of that neighbourhood. The woman went to the
_fions_ to complain, and in reply to her a voice said: 'Hold your
tongue; you will be paid for your buckwheat!' Thereupon the _fions_ gave
the woman a cupful of buckwheat, and promised her that it would never
diminish so long as none should be given away. That year buckwheat was
very scarce, but no matter how many buckwheat cakes the woman and her
family ate there was never diminution in the amount of the fairy
buckwheat. At last, however, the unfortunate hour came. A rag-gatherer
arrived and asked for food. Thoughtlessly the woman gave him one of her
buckwheat cakes, and suddenly, as though by magic, all the rest of the
buckwheat disappeared for ever.
Along the Rance the inhabitants tell about _fées_ who appear during
storms. These storm-fairies are dressed in the colours of the rainbow,
and pass along following a most beautiful _fée_ who is mounted in a boat
made from a nautilus of the southern seas. And the boat is drawn by two
sea-crabs. In no other place in Brittany are similar _fées_ said to
exist.[89] In Upper Brittany, as in Lower Brittany, the _fées_ generally
had their abodes in tumuli, in dolmens, in forests, in waste lands where
there are great rocks, or about menhirs; and many other kinds of spirits
lived in the sea and troubled sailors and fisher-folk. Like all
fairy-folk of Celtic countries, those of Upper Brittany were given to
stealing children. Thus at Dinard not long ago there was a woman more
than thirty years old who was no bigger than a girl of ten, and it was
said she was a fairy changeling.[90] In Lower Brittany the _taking_ of
children was often attributed to dwarfs rather than to _fées_, though
the method of making the changeling speak is the same as in Upper
Brittany, namely, to place in such a manner before an open fire a number
of eggshells filled with water that they appear to the changeling--who
is placed where he can well observe all the proceedings--like so many
small pots of cooking food; whereupon, being greatly astonished at the
unusual sight, he forgets himself and speaks for the first time, thus
betraying his demon nature.
The following midwife story, as told by J. M. Comault, of Gouray, in
1881, is quite a parallel to the one we have recorded (on p. 54) as
coming from Grange, Ireland:--A midwife who delivered a _Margot la fée_
carelessly allowed some of the fairy ointment to get on one of her own
eyes. The eye at once became clairvoyant, so that she beheld the _fées_
in their true nature. And, quite like a midwife in a similar story about
the _fées des houles_, this midwife happened to see a _fée_ in the act
of stealing, and spoke to her. Thereupon the _fée_ asked the midwife
with which eye she beheld her, and when the midwife indicated which one
it was, the _fée_ pulled it out.[91]
Generally, like their relatives in insular Celtdom, the fairies of Upper
Brittany could assume various forms, and could even transform the human
body; and they were given to playing tricks on mortals, and always to
taking revenge on them if ill-treated. In most ways they were like other
races of fairies, Celtic and non-Celtic, though very much
anthropomorphosed in their nature by the peasant and mariner.
As a rule, the _fées_ of Upper Brittany are described in legend as young
and very beautiful. Some, however, appear to be centuries old, with
teeth as long as a human hand, and with backs covered with seaweeds, and
mussels, or other marine growths, as an indication of their great
age.[92] At Saint-Cast they are said to be dressed (like the _corrigans_
at Carnac, see p. 208) in _toile_, a kind of heavy linen cloth.[92]
On the sea-coast of Upper Brittany the popular opinion is that the
_fées_ are a fallen race condemned to an earthly exile for a certain
period. In the region of the Mené, canton of Collinée, the old folk say
that, after the angels revolted, those left in paradise were divided
into two parts: those who fought on the side of God and those who
remained neutral. These last, already half-fallen, were sent to the
earth for a time, and became the _fées_.[92]
The general belief in the interior of Brittany is that the _fées_ once
existed, but that they disappeared as their country was changed by
modern conditions. In the region of the Mené and of Ercé
(Ille-et-Vilaine) it is said that for more than a century there have
been no _fées_; and on the sea-coast, where it is still firmly believed
that the _fées_ used to live in the billows or amid certain grottoes in
the cliffs against which the billows broke, the opinion is that they
disappeared at the beginning of the last century. The oldest Bretons say
that their parents or grandparents often spoke about having seen _fées_,
but very rarely do they say that they themselves have seen _fées_. M.
Sébillot found only two who had. One was an old needle-woman of
Saint-Cast, who had such fear of _fées_ that if she was on her way to do
some sewing in the country, and it was night, she always took a long
circuitous route to avoid passing near a field known as the _Couvent des
Fées_. The other was Marie Chéhu, a woman eighty-eight years old.[93]
THE _CORRIGAN_ RACE[94]
It is the _corrigan_ race, however, which, more than _fées_ or fairies,
forms a large part of the invisible inhabitants of Brittany; and this
race of _corrigans_ and _nains_ (dwarfs) may be made to include many
kinds of _lutins_, or as they are often called by the peasant, _follets_
or _esprits follets_ (playful elves). Though the peasants both in Upper
and in Lower Brittany may have no strong faith in _fées_, most of them
say that _corrigans_, or _nains_, and mischievous house-haunting spirits
still exist. But in a few localities, as M. Sébillot discovered, there
is an opinion that the _lutins_ departed with the _fées_, and with them
will return in this century, because during each century with an odd
number like 1900, the fairy tribes of all kinds are said to be visible
or to reappear among men, and to become invisible or to disappear during
each century with an even number like 1800. So this is the visible
century.
_Corrigans_ and _follets_ only show themselves at night, or in the
twilight. No one knows where they pass the day-time. Some _lutins_ or
_follets_, after the manner of Scotch kelpies, live solitary lives in
lakes or ponds (whereas _corrigans_ are socially united in groups or
families), and amuse themselves by playing tricks on travellers passing
by after dark. Souvestre records a story showing how the _lutins_ can
assume any animal form, but that their natural form is that of a little
man dressed in green; and that the _corrigans_ have declared war on them
for being too friendly to men.[95] From what follows about _lutins_, by
M. Goulven Le Scour, they show affinity with Pucks and such
shape-shifting hobgoblins as are found in Wales:--'The _lutins_ were
little dwarfs who generally appeared at cross-roads to attack belated
travellers. And it is related in Breton legends that these _lutins_
sometimes transformed themselves into black horses or into goats; and
whoever then had the misfortune to encounter them sometimes found his
life in danger, and was always seized with great terror.' But generally,
what the Breton peasant tells about _corrigans_ he is apt to tell at
another time about _lutins_. And both tribes of beings, so far as they
can be distinguished, are the same as the elfish peoples--pixies in
Cornwall, Robin Good-fellows in England, goblins in Wales, or brownies
in Scotland. Both _corrigans_ and _lutins_ are supposed to guard hidden
treasure; some trouble horses at night; some, like their English
cousins, may help in the house-work after all the family are asleep;
some cause nightmare; some carry a torch like a Welsh death-candle; some
trouble men and women like obsessing spirits; and nearly all of them are
mischievous. In an article in the _Revue des Traditions Populaires_ (v.
101), M. Sébillot has classified more than fifty names given to _lutins_
and _corrigans_ in Lower Brittany, according to the form under which
these spirits appear, their peculiar traits, dwelling-places, and the
country they inhabit.
Like the fairies in Britain and Ireland, the _corrigans_ and the Cornish
pixies find their favourite amusement in the circular dance. When the
moon is clear and bright they gather for their frolic near menhirs, and
dolmens, and tumuli, and at cross-roads, or even in the open country;
and they never miss an opportunity of enticing a mortal passing by to
join them. If he happens to be a good-natured man and enters their sport
heartily, they treat him quite as a companion, and may even do him some
good turn; but if he is not agreeable they will make him dance until he
falls down exhausted, and should he commit some act thoroughly
displeasing to them he will meet their certain revenge. According to a
story reported from Lorient (Morbihan)[96] it is taboo for the
_corrigans_ to make a complete enumeration of the days of the week:--
_The 'Corrigan' Taboo._--'At night, the _corrigans_ dance, singing,
"Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday"; they are prohibited from
completing the enumeration of the days of the week. A _corrigan_ having
had the misfortune to permit himself to be tempted to add "Saturday",
immediately became hunchbacked. His comrades, stupefied and distressed,
attempted in vain to knock in his hump with blows of their fists.'
_'Corrigans' at Carnac._--How the tradition of the dancing _corrigans_
and their weekday song still lives, appears from the following accounts
which I found at and near Carnac, the first account having been given
during January 1909 by Madame Marie Ezanno, of Carnac, then sixty-six
years old:--'The _corrigans_ are little dwarfs who formerly, by
moonlight, used to dance in a circle on the prairies. They sang a song
the couplet of which was not understood, but only the refrain,
translated in Breton: "_Di Lun_ (Monday), _Di Merh_ (Tuesday), _Di
Merhier_ (Wednesday)."
'They whistled in order to assemble. Where they danced mushrooms grew;
and it was necessary to maintain silence so as not to interrupt them in
their dance. They were often very brutal towards a man who fell under
their power, and if they had a grudge against him they would make him
submit to the greatest tortures. The peasants believed strongly in the
_corrigans_, because they thus saw them and heard them. The _corrigans_
dressed in very coarse white linen cloth. They were mischievous spirits
(_esprits follets_), who lived under dolmens.'
One morning, M. Lemort and myself called upon Madame Louise Le Rouzic in
her neat home at Kerallan, a little group of thatched cottages about a
mile from Carnac. As we entered, Madame Le Rouzic herself was sitting on
a long wooden bench by the window knitting, and her daughter was
watching the savoury-smelling dinner as it boiled in great iron pots
hanging from chains over a brilliant fire on the hearth. Large gleaming
brass basins were ranged on a shelf above the broad open chimney-place
wherein the fire burned, and massive bedsteads carved after the Breton
style stood on the stone floor. When many things had been talked about,
our conversation turned to _corrigans_, and then the good woman of the
house told us these tales:--
_'Corrigans' at Church._--'In former times a young girl having taken the
keys of the church (presumably at Carnac) and having entered it, found
the _corrigans_ about to dance; and the _corrigans_ were singing,
"_Lundi, Mardi_" (Monday, Tuesday). On seeing the young girl, they
stopped, surrounded her, and invited her to dance with them. She
accepted, and, in singing, added to their song "_Mercredi_" (Wednesday).
In amazement, the _corrigans_ cried joyfully, "She has added something
to our song; what shall we give her as recompense?" And they gave her a
bracelet. A friend of hers meeting her, asked where the fine bracelet
came from; and the young girl told what had happened. The second girl
hurried to the church, and found the _corrigans_ still dancing the
_rond_. She joined their dance, and, in singing, added "_Jeudi_"
(Thursday) to their song; but that broke the cadence; and the
_corrigans_ in fury, instead of recompensing her wished to punish her.
"What shall we do to her?" one of them cried. "Let the day be as night
to her!" the others replied. And by day, wherever she went, she saw only
the night.'
_The 'Corrigans'' Sabbath._--'Where my grandfather lived,' continued
Madame Le Rouzic, 'there was a young girl who went to the sabbath of the
_corrigans_; and when she returned and was asked where she had been,
said, "I have travelled over water, wood, and hedges." And she related
all she had seen and heard. Then one night, afterwards, the _corrigans_
came into the house, beat her, and dragged her from bed. Upon hearing
the uproar, my grandfather arose and found the girl lying flat on the
stone floor. "Never question me again," she said to him, "or they will
kill me."'[97]
_'Corrigans' as Fairies._--Some Breton legends give _corrigans_ the
chief characteristics of fairies in Celtic Britain and Ireland; and
Villemarqué in his _Barzaz Breiz_ (pp. 25-30) makes the Breton word
_corrigan_ synonymous with _fée_ or fairy, thus:--'_Le Seigneur Nann et
la Fée (Aotrou Nann hag ar Corrigan)_.' In this legend the _corrigan_
seems clearly enough to be a water-fairy: 'The _Korrigan_ was seated at
the edge of her fountain, and she was combing her long fair hair.' But
unlike most water-fairies, the _Fée_ lives in a grotto, which, according
to Villemarqué, is one of those ancient monuments called in Breton
_dolmen_, or _ti ar corrigan_; in French, _Table de pierres_, or _Grotte
aux Fées_--like the famous one near Rennes. The fountain where the _Fée_
was seated seems to be one of those sacred fountains, which, as
Villemarqué says, are often found near a _Grotte aux Fées_, and called
_Fontaine de la Fée_, or in Breton, _Feunteun ar corrigan_. In another
of Villemarqué's legends, _L'Enfant Supposé_, after the egg-shell test
has been used and the little _corrigan_-changeling is replaced by the
real child, the latter as though all the while it had been in an
unconscious trance-state--which has a curious bearing on our
Psychological Theory--stretches forth its arms and awakening exclaims,
'Ah! mother, what a long time I have been asleep.'[98] And in _Les
Nains_ we see the little _Duz_ or dwarfs inhabiting a cave and guarding
treasures.[98]
In his introduction to the _Barzaz Breiz_, Villemarqué describes _les
korrigan_, whom he equates with _les fées_, as very similar to ordinary
fairies. They can foretell the future, they know the art of war--quite
like the Irish 'gentry' or Tuatha De Danann--they can assume any animal
form, and are able to travel from one end of the world to another in the
twinkling of an eye. They love feasting and music--like all Celtic
fairy-folk; and dance in a circle holding hands, but at the least noise
disappear. Their favourite haunts are near fountains and dolmens. They
are little beings not more than two feet high, and beautifully
proportioned, with bodies as aerial and transparent as those of wasps.
And like all fairy, or elvish races, and like the Breton _Morgans_ or
water-spirits, they are given to stealing the children of mortals.
Professor J. Loth has called my attention to an unpublished Breton
legend of his collection, in which there are fairy-like beings
comparable to these described by Villemarqué; and he tells me, too, that
throughout Brittany one finds to-day the counterpart of the Welsh
_Tylwyth Teg_ or 'Fair Family', and that both in Wales and Brittany the
_Tylwyth Teg_ are popularly described as little women, or maidens, like
fairies no larger than children.
_Fairies and Dwarfs._--Where Villemarqué draws a clear distinction is
between these _korrigan_ and _fées_ on the one hand, and the _nains_ or
dwarfs on the other. These last are what we have found associated or
identified with _corrigans_ in the Morbihan. Villemarqué describes the
_nains_ as a hideous race of beings with dark or even black hairy
bodies, with voices like old men, and with little sparkling black eyes.
They are fond of playing tricks on mortals who fall into their power;
and are given to singing in a circular dance the weekday song. Very
often _corrigans_ regarded as _nains_, equally with all kinds of
_lutins_, are believed to be evil spirits or demons condemned to live
here on earth in a penitential state for an indefinite time; and
sometimes they seem not much different from what Irish Celts, when
talking of fairies, call fallen angels. _Le Nain de Kerhuiton_,
translated from Breton by Professor J. Loth, in part illustrates
this:--Upon seeing water boiling in a number of egg-shells ranged before
an open fire, a _polpegan_-changeling is so greatly astonished that he
unwittingly speaks for the first time, and says, 'Here I am almost one
hundred years old, and never such a thing have I yet seen!' 'Ah! son of
Satan!' then cries out the mother, as she comes from her place of hiding
and beats the _polpegan_--who thus by means of the egg-shell test has
been tricked into revealing his demon nature.[99] In a parallel story,
reported by Villemarqué in his _Barzaz Breiz_ (p. 33 n.), a
_nain_-changeling is equally astonished to see a similar row of
egg-shells boiling before an open fire like so many pots of food, and
gives himself away through the following remark:--'I have seen the acorn
before the oak; I have seen the egg before the white chicken: I have
never seen the equal to this.'
_Nature of the 'Corrigans'._--As to the general ideas about the
_corrigans_, M. Le Scour says:--'Formerly the _corrigans_ were the
terror of the country-folk, especially in Finistère, in the Morbihan,
and throughout the Côtes-du-Nord. They were believed to be souls in pain
condemned to wander at night in waste lands and marshes. Sometimes they
were seen as dwarfs; and often they were not seen at all, but were heard
in houses making an infernal noise. Unlike the _lavandières de nuits_
(phantom washerwomen of the night), they were heard only in summer,
never in winter.'
THE BRETON LEGEND OF THE DEAD
We come now to the Breton Legend of the Dead, common generally to all
parts of Armorica, though probably even more widespread in Lower
Brittany than in Upper Brittany; and this we call the Armorican
Fairy-Faith. Even where the peasants have no faith in _fées_ or fairies,
and where their faith in _corrigans_ is weak or almost gone, there is a
strong conviction among them that the souls of the dead can show
themselves to the living, a vigorous belief in apparitions,
phantom-funerals, and various death-warnings. As Professor Anatole Le
Braz has so well said in his introduction to _La Légende de la Mort_,
'the whole conscience of these people is fundamentally directed toward
that which concerns death. And the ideas which they form of it, in spite
of the strong Christian imprint which they have received, do not seem
much different from those which we have pointed out among their pagan
ancestors. For them, as for the primitive Celts, death is less a change
of condition than a journey, a departure for another world.' And thus it
seems that this most popular of the Breton folk-beliefs is genuinely
Celtic and extremely ancient. As Renan has said, the Celtic people are
'a race mysterious, having knowledge of the future and the secret of
death'.[100] And whereas in Ireland unusual happenings or strange
accidents and death are attributed to fairy interference, in Brittany
they are attributed to the influence of the dead.
The Breton Celt makes no distinction between the living and the dead.
All alike inhabit this world, the one being visible, the other
invisible. Though seers can at all times behold the dead, on November
Eve (_La Toussaint_) and on Christmas Eve they are most numerous and
most easily seen; and no peasant would think of questioning their
existence. In Ireland and Scotland the country-folk fear to speak of
fairies save through an euphemism, and the Bretons speak of the dead
indirectly, and even then with fear and trembling.
The following legend, which I found at Carnac, will serve to illustrate
both the profundity of the belief in the power of the dead over the
living in Lower Brittany, and how deeply the people can be stirred by
the predictions of one who can see the dead; and the legend is quite
typical of those so common in Armorica:--
_Foretelling Deaths._--'Formerly there was a woman whom spirits
impelled to rise from her bed, it made no difference at what hour of the
night, in order to behold funerals in the future. She predicted who
should die, who should carry the corpse, who the cross, and who should
follow the _cortège_. Her predictions frightened every one, and made her
such a terror to the country that the mayor had threatened to take legal
proceedings against her if she continued her practice; but she was
compelled to tell the things which the spirits showed her. It is about
ten years since this woman died in the hospital at Auray.'
_Testimony of a Breton Seeress._--There lives in the little hamlet of
Kerlois, less than a mile from Carnac, a Breton seeress, a woman who
since eight years of age has been privileged to behold the world
invisible and its inhabitants, quite like the woman who died at Auray.
She is Madame Eugénie Le Port, now forty-two years old, and what she
tells of things seen in this invisible world which surrounds her, might
easily be taken for Irish legends about fairies. Knowing very little
French, because she is thoroughly Breton, Madame Le Port described her
visions in her own native tongue, and her eldest daughter acted as
interpreter. I had known the good woman since the previous winter, and
so we were able to converse familiarly; and as I sat in her own little
cottage, in company with her husband and daughters, and with M. Lemort,
who acted as recording secretary, this is what she said in her clear
earnest manner in answer to my questions:--
'We believe that the spirits of our ancestors surround us and live with
us. One day on a road from Carnac I encountered a woman of Kergoellec
who had been dead eight days. I asked her to move to one side so that I
could pass, and she vanished. This was eleven o'clock in the morning. I
saw her at another time in the Marsh of Breno; I spoke, but she did not
reply. On the route from Plouharnel (near Carnac) I saw in the day-time
the funeral of a woman who did not die until fifteen days afterwards. I
recognized perfectly all the people who took part in it; but the person
with me saw nothing. Another time, near three o'clock in the afternoon,
and eight days before her death, I saw upon the same route the funeral
of a woman who was drowned. And I have seen a phantom horse going to the
sabbath, and as if forced along against its will, for it reared and
pawed the earth. When Pierre Rouzic of Kerlois died, I saw a light of
all colours between heaven and earth, the very night of his death. I
have seen a woman asleep whose spirit must have been free, for I saw it
hovering outside her body. She was not awakened [at the time] for fear
that the spirit would not find its body again.' In answer to my question
as to how long these various visions usually lasted, Madame Le Port
said:--'They lasted about a quarter of an hour, or less, and all of them
disappeared instantaneously.' As Madame Le Port now seemed unable to
recall more of her visions, I finally asked her what she thought about
_corrigans_, and she replied:--'I believe they exist as some special
kind of spirits, though I have never seen any.'
_Proof that the Dead Exist._--This is what M. Jean Couton, an old
Breton, told me at Carnac:--'I am only an old peasant, without
instruction, without any education, but let me tell you what I think
concerning the dead. Following my own idea, I believe that after death
the soul always exists and travels among us. I repeat to you that I have
belief that the dead are seen; I am now going to prove this to you in
the following story:--
'One winter evening I was returning home from a funeral. I had as
companion a kinswoman of the man just buried. We took the train and soon
alighted in the station of Plouharnel. We still had three kilometres to
go before reaching home, and as it was winter, and at that epoch there
was no stage-coach, we were obliged to travel afoot. As we were going
along, suddenly there appeared to my companion her dead relative whom we
had buried that day. She asked me if I saw anything, and since I replied
to her negatively she said to me, "Touch me, and you will see without
doubt." I touched her, and I saw the same as she did, the person just
dead, whom I clearly recognized.'[101]
_Phantom Washerwomen._--Concerning a very popular Breton belief in
phantom washerwomen (_les lavandières de nuits_; or in Breton, _cannered
noz_), M. Goulven Le Scour offers the following summary:--'The
_lavandières de nuits_ were heard less often than the _corrigans_, but
were much more feared. It was usually towards midnight that they were
heard beating their linen in front of different washing-places, always
some way from the villages. According to the old folk of the past
generation, when the phantom washerwomen would ask a certain passer-by
to help them to wring sheets, he could not refuse, under pain of being
stopped and wrung like a sheet himself. And it was necessary for those
who aided in wringing the sheets to turn in the same direction as the
washerwomen; for if by misfortune the assistant turned in an opposite
direction, he had his arms wrung in an instant. It is believed that
these phantom washerwomen are women condemned to wash their mortuary
sheets during whole centuries; but that when they find some mortal to
wring in an opposite direction, they are delivered.'[102]
_Breton Animistic Beliefs._--M. Z. Le Rouzic, a Breton Celt who has
spent most of his life studying the archaeology and folk-lore of the
Morbihan, and who is at present Keeper of the Miln Museum at Carnac,
summarizes for us the state of popular beliefs as he finds them existing
in the Carnac country now:--'There are few traditions concerning the
_fées_ in the region of Carnac; but the belief in spirits, good and
bad--which seems to me to be the same as the belief in _fées_--is
general and profound, as well as the belief in the incarnation of
spirits. And I am convinced that these beliefs are the reminiscences of
ancient Celtic beliefs held by the Druids and conserved by
Christianity.'
In Finistère, as purely Breton as the Morbihan, I found the Legend of
the Dead just as widespread, and the belief in spirits and the
apparitional return of the dead quite as profound; but nothing worth
recording concerning fairies. The stories which follow were told to me
by M. Pierre Vichon, a pure Breton Celt, born at Lescoff, near the
Pointe du Raz, Finistère, in 1842. Peter is a genuine old 'sea-dog',
having made the tour of the globe, and yet he has not lost the innate
faith of his ancient ancestors in a world invisible; for though he says
he cannot believe all that the people in his part of Finistère tell
about spirits and ghosts, he must have a belief that the dead as spirits
exist and influence the living, because of his own personal
experience--one of the most remarkable of its kind. Peter speaks Breton,
French, and English fluently, and since he had an opportunity for the
first time in seventeen months of using English, he told me the stories
in my own native language:--
_Pierre Vichon's Strange Experience._--'Some forty years ago a strange
thing happened in my life. A relative of mine had taken service in the
Austrian army, for by profession he was a soldier, though at first he
had begun to study for the priesthood. During the progress of the war I
had no news from him; and, then one day while I was on the deck of a
Norwegian ship just off Dover (England), my fellow sailors heard a noise
as though of a gun being discharged, and the whirr of a shot. At the
same moment I fell down on the deck as though mortally wounded, and lay
in an unconscious state for two hours. When the news came, it was
ascertained that at the very moment I fell and the gun-report was heard,
my relative in Austria had been shot in the head and fell down dead. And
he had been seen to throw his hands up to his head to grasp it just as I
did.'
_An Apparition of the Dead._--'I had another relative who died in a
hospital near Christiania, Norway; and on the day he died a sister of
mine, then a little girl, saw his spirit appear here in Lescoff, and she
easily recognized it; but none of her girl companions with her at the
time saw the spirit. After a few days we had the news of the death, and
the time of it and the time of my sister's seeing the spirit coincided
exactly.'
In all the peninsula of which the famous and dangerous Pointe du Raz is
the terminus, similar stories are current. And among the fisher-folk
with whom I lived on the strange and historic Île de Sein, the Legend of
the Dead is even more common.
_The Dead and Fairies Compared._--Without setting down here in detail
numerous other death-legends which we have collected, we may now note
how much the same are the powers and nature of the dead and spirits in
Brittany, and the power and nature of the fairy races in Celtic Britain
and Ireland. Thus the Breton dead strike down the living just as fairies
are said to do; the _Ankou_,[103] who is a king of the dead, and his
subjects, like a fairy king and fairies, have their own particular paths
or roads over which they travel in great sacred processions;[104] and
exactly as fairies, the hosts of the dead are in possession of the earth
on November Eve, and the living are expected to prepare a feast and
entertainment for them of curded-milk, hot pancakes, and cider, served
on the family table covered with a fresh white table-cloth, and to
supply music. The Breton dead come to enjoy this hospitality of their
friends; and as they take their places at the table the stools are heard
to move, and sometimes the plates; and the musicians who help to
entertain them think that at times they feel the cold breath of the
invisible visitors. Concerning this same feast of the dead (_La
Toussaint_) Villemarqué in his _Barzaz Breiz_ (p. 507) records that in
many parts of Brittany libations of milk are poured over or near
ancestral tombs--just as in Ireland and Scotland libations of milk are
poured to fairies. And the people of Armorica at other times than
November Eve remember the dead very appropriately, as in Ireland the
Irish remember fairies. The Breton peasant thinks of the dead as
frequently as the Irishman thinks of fairies. One day while I was
walking toward Carnac there was told to me in the most ordinary manner a
story about a dead man who used to be seen going along the very road I
was on. He quite often went to the church in Carnac seeking prayers for
his soul. And almost every man or woman one meets in rural Lower
Brittany can tell many similar stories. If a mortal should happen to
meet one of the dead in Brittany and be induced to eat food which the
dead sometimes offer, he will never be able to return among the
living,[105] for the effect would be the same as eating fairy-food. Like
ghosts and fairies in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, in Brittany the dead
guard hidden treasure. It is after sunset that the dead have most power
to strike down the living,[105] and to _take_ them just as fairies do. A
natural phenomenon, a malady, a death, or a tempest may be the work of a
spirit in Brittany,[105] and in Ireland the work of a fairy. The Breton
dead, like the Scotch fairies described in Kirk's _Secret Commonwealth_,
are capable of making themselves visible or invisible to mortals, at
will.[105] Their bodies--for they have bodies--are material,[105] being
composed of matter in a state unknown to us; and the bodies of daemons
as described by the Ancients are made of congealed air. The dead in
Brittany have forms more slender and smaller in stature than those of
the living;[105] and herein we find one of the factors which supporters
of the Pygmy Theory would emphasize, but it is thoroughly psychical. Old
Breton farmers after death return to their farms, as though come from
Fairyland; and sometimes they even take a turn at the ploughing.[105] As
in Ireland, so in Brittany, the day belongs to the living, and the
night, when a mortal is safer indoors than out, to spirits and the
dead.[105] The Bretons take great care not to counterfeit the dead nor
to speak slightingly of them,[106] for, like fairies, they know all that
is done by mortals, and can hear all that is said about them, and can
take revenge. Just as in the case of all fairies and goblins, the dead
disappear at first cock-crow.[107] The world of the dead, like the land
of Faerie or the Otherworld, may be underground, in the air, in a hill
or mountain like a fairy palace, under a river or sea, and even on an
island out amid the ocean.[107] As other Celts do against evil spirits
and fairies, the Breton peasants use magic against evil souls of the
dead,[108] and the priests use exorcisms. The Breton realm of the dead
equally with the Irish Fairyland is an invisible world peopled by other
kinds of spirits besides disembodied mortals and fairies.[109] The dead
haunt houses just as Robin Good-fellows and brownies, or pixies and
goblins, generally do. The dead are fond of frequenting cross-roads, and
so are all sorts of fairies. In Brittany one must always guard against
the evil dead, in Cornwall against pixies, in other Celtic lands against
different kinds of fairies. In Ireland and Scotland there is the
banshee, in Wales the death-candle, in Brittany the _Ankou_ or king of
the dead, to foretell a death. And as the banshee wails before the
ancestral mansion, so the _Ankou_ sounds its doleful cry before the door
of the one it calls.[109] There seems not to be a family in the Carnac
region of the Morbihan without some tradition of a warning coming before
the death of one of its members. In Ireland only certain families have a
banshee, but in Brittany all families. Professor Le Braz has devoted a
large part of his work on _La Légende de la Mort_ to these Breton
death-warnings or _intersignes_. They may be shades of the dead under
many aspects--ghostly hands, or ghosts of inanimate objects. They may
come by the fall of objects without known cause; by a magpie resting on
a roof--just as in Ireland; by the crowing of cocks, and the howling of
dogs at night. They may be death-candles or torches, dreams, peculiar
bodily sensations, images in water, phantom funerals, and death-chariots
or death-coaches as in Wales.
The Bretons may be said to have a Death-Faith, whereas the other Celts
have a Fairy-Faith, and both are a real folk-religion innate in the
Celtic nature, and thus quite as influential as Christianity. Should
Christianity in some way suddenly be swept away from the Celt he would
still be religious, for it is his nature to be so. And as Professor Le
Braz has suggested to me, Carnac with its strange monuments of an
unknown people and time, and wrapped in its air of mystery and silence,
is a veritable Land of the Dead. I, too, have felt that there are
strange, vague, indefinable influences at work at Carnac at all times of
the day and night, very similar to those which I have felt in the most
fairy-haunted regions of Ireland. We might say that all of Brittany is a
Land of the Dead, and ancient Carnac its Centre, just as Ireland is
Fairyland, with its Centre at ancient Tara.
CONCLUSION
We can very appropriately conclude our inquiry about Brittany with a
very beautiful description of a _Veillée_ in Lower Brittany, written
down in French for our special use by the Breton poet, M. Le Scour, of
Carnac, and here translated. M. Le Scour draws the whole picture from
life, and from his own intimate experience. It will serve to give us
some insight into the natural literary ability of the Breton Celts, to
illustrate their love of tales dealing with the marvellous and the
supernormal, and is especially valuable for showing the social
environment amidst which the Fairy-Faith of Lower Brittany lives and
flourishes, isolated from foreign interference:--
_A 'Veillée'[110] in Lower Brittany._--'The wind was blowing from the
east, and in the intermittent moonlight the roof of the thatched cottage
already gleamed with a thin covering of snow which had fallen since
sunset. Each comer reached on the run the comfortable bakehouse, wherein
Alain Corre was at work kneading his batch of barley bread; and the
father Le Scour was never the last to arrive, because he liked to get
the best seat in front of the bake-oven.
'Victor had promised us for that night a pretty story which no person
had ever heard before. I was not more than fourteen years old then, but
like all the neighbours I hurried to get a place in order to hear
Victor. My mother was already there, making her distaff whirr between
her two fingers as she sat in the light of a rosin candle, and my
brother Yvon was finishing a wooden butter-spoon. Every few minutes I
and my little cousin went out to see if it was still snowing, and if
Victor had arrived.
'At last Victor entered, and everybody applauded, the young girls
lengthening out their distaffs to do him reverence. Then when silence
was restored, after some of the older men had several times shouted out,
"Let us commence; hold your tongues," Victor began his story as
follows:--
'"Formerly, in the village of Kastel-Laer, Plouneventer (Finistère),
there were two neighbours; the one was Paol al Ludu and the other Yon
Rustik. Paol al Ludu was a good-for-nothing sort of fellow; he gained
his living easily, by cheating everybody and by robbing his neighbours;
and being always well dressed he was much envied by his poorer
acquaintances. Yon Rustik, on the contrary, was a poor, infirm, and
honest man, always seeking to do good, but not being able to work, had
to beg.
'"One evening our two men were disputing. Paol al Ludu treated Yon
shamefully, telling him that it would be absurd to think an old lame man
such as he was could ever get to Paris; 'But I,' added Paol, 'am going
to see the capital and amuse myself like a rich _bourgeois_.' At this,
Yon offered to bet with Paol that in spite of infirmities he would also
go to Paris; and being an honest man he placed his trust in God. The
wager was mutually agreed to, and our two men set out for Paris by
different routes.
'"Paol al Ludu, who had no infirmities, arrived at Paris within three
weeks. He followed the career of a thief, and deceived everybody; and as
he was well dressed, people had confidence in him. The poor Yon Rustik,
on the contrary, did not travel rapidly. He was obliged to beg his way,
and being meanly dressed was compelled to sleep outdoors when he could
not find a stable. At the end of a month he arrived in a big forest in
the region of Versailles, and having no other shelter for the night
chose a great oak tree which was hollowed by the centuries and lined
with fungi within. In front of this ancient oak there was a fountain
which must have been miraculous, for it flowed from east to west, and
Yon had closely observed it.
'"Towards midnight Yon was awakened by a terrible uproar; there were a
hundred _corrigans_ dancing round the fountain. He overheard one of them
say to the others: 'I have news to report to you; I have cast an evil
spell upon the daughter of the King, and no mortal will ever be able to
cure her, and yet in order to cure her nothing more would be needed than
a drop of water from this fountain.' The _corrigan_ who thus spoke was
upon two sticks[111] (crippled), and commanded all the others. The
beggar having understood the conversation, awaited impatiently the
departure of the _corrigans_. When they were gone, he took a little
water from the fountain in a bottle, and hurried on to Paris, where he
arrived one fine morning.
'"In the house where Yon stopped to eat his crust of dry bread he heard
it reported that the daughter of the King was very ill, and that the
wisest doctors in France had been sent for. Three days later, Yon Rustik
presented himself at the palace, and asked audience with the King, but
as he was so shabbily dressed the attendants did not wish to let him
enter. When he strongly insisted, they finally prevailed upon the King
to receive him; and then Yon told the King that he had come to cure the
princess. Thereupon the King caused Yon to be fittingly dressed and
presented before the sick-bed; and Yon drew forth his bottle of water,
and, at his request, the princess drank it to the last drop. Suddenly
she began to laugh with joy, and throwing her arms about the neck of the
beggar thanked him: she was radically cured. At once the King gave
orders that his golden coach of state be made ready; and placing the
princess and the beggar on one seat, made a tour throughout all the most
beautiful streets of Paris. Never before were such crowds seen in Paris,
for the proclamation had gone forth that the one who had made the
miraculous cure was a beggar.
'"Paol al Ludu, who was still in Paris, pressed forward to see the royal
coach pass, and when he saw who sat next to the princess he was beside
himself with rage. But before the day was over he discovered Yon in the
great hotel of the city, and asked him how it was that he had been able
to effect the cure; and Yon replied to his old rival that it was with
the water of a miraculous fountain, and relating everything which had
passed, explained to him in what place the hollow oak and the fountain
were to be found.
'"Paol did not wait even that night, but set off at once to find the
miraculous fountain. When he finally found it the hour was almost
midnight, and so he hid himself in the hollow of the oak, hoping to
overhear some mysterious revelation. Midnight had hardly come when a
frightful uproar commenced: this time the crippled _corrigan_ chief was
swearing like a demon, and he cried to the others, 'The daughter of the
King has been cured by a beggar! He must have overheard us by hiding in
the hollow of that d----d old oak. Quick! let fire be put in it, for it
has brought us misfortune.'
'"In less than a minute, the trunk of the oak was in flames; and there
were heard the cries of anguish of Paol al Ludu and the gnashing of his
teeth, as he fought against death. Thus the evil and dishonest man ended
his life, while Yon Rustik received a pension of twenty thousand
francs, and was able to live happy for many years, and to give alms to
the poor."'
Here M. Le Scour ends his narrative, leaving the reader to imagine the
enthusiastic applause and fond embraces bestowed upon Victor for this
most marvellous story, by the happy gathering of country-folk in that
cosy warm bakehouse in Lower Brittany, while without the cold east wind
of winter was whirling into every nook and corner the falling flakes of
snow.
* * * * *
The evidence from Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall, and
Brittany, which the living Celtic Fairy-Faith offers, has now been
heard; and, as was stated at the beginning of the inquiry, apparently
most of it can only be interpreted as belonging to a world-wide doctrine
of souls. But before this decision can be arrived at safely, all the
evidence should be carefully estimated according to anthropological and
psychological methods; and this we shall proceed to do in the following
chapter, before passing to Section II of our study.
SECTION I
THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH
CHAPTER III
AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF THE EVIDENCE
Anthropology is concerned with man and what is in man--_humani
nihil a se alienum putat_.--ANDREW LANG.
The Celtic Fairy-Faith as part of a World-wide Animism--Shaping
Influence of Social Psychology--Smallness of Elvish Spirits and
Fairies, according to Ethnology, Animism, and Occult Sciences--The
Changeling Belief and its explanation according to the Kidnap,
Human-Sacrifice, Soul-Wandering, and Demon-Possession
Theory--Ancient and Modern Magic and Witchcraft shown to be based
on definite psychological laws--Exorcisms--Taboos, of Name, Food,
Iron, Place--Taboos among Ancient Celts--Food-Sacrifice--Legend of
the Dead--Conclusion: The background of the modern belief in
Fairies is animistic.
THE CELTIC FAIRY-FAITH AS PART OF A WORLD-WIDE ANIMISM
The modern belief in fairies, with which until now we have been
specifically concerned, is Celtic only in so far as it reflects Celtic
traditions and customs, Celtic myth and religion, and Celtic social and
environmental conditions. Otherwise, as will be shown throughout this
and succeeding chapters, it is in essence a part of a world-wide
animism, which forms the background of all religions in whatever stage
of culture religions exist or to which they have attained by evolution,
from the barbarism of the Congo black man to the civilization of the
Archbishop of Canterbury; and as far back as we can go into human
origins there is some corresponding belief in a fairy or spirit realm,
as there is to-day among contemporary civilized and uncivilized races of
all countries. We may therefore very profitably begin our examination
of the living Fairy-Faith of the Celts by comparing it with a few
examples, taken almost at random, from the animistic beliefs current
among non-Celtic peoples.
To the Arunta tribes of Central Australia, furthest removed in space
from the Celts and hence least likely to have been influenced by them,
let us go first, in order to examine their doctrine of ancestral
_Alcheringa_ beings and of the _Iruntarinia_, which offers an almost
complete parallel to the Celtic belief in fairies. These _Alcheringa_
beings and _Iruntarinia_--to ignore the secondary differences between
the two--are a spirit race inhabiting an invisible or fairy world. Only
certain persons, medicine-men and seers, can see them; and these
describe them as thin and shadowy, and, like the Irish _Sidhe_, as
always youthful in appearance. Precisely like their Celtic counterparts
in general, these Australian spirits are believed to haunt inanimate
objects such as stones and trees; or to frequent totem centres, as in
Ireland demons (daemons) are believed to frequent certain places known
to have been anciently dedicated to the religious rites of the
pre-Christian Celts; and, quite after the manner of the Breton dead and
of most fairies, they are said to control human affairs and natural
phenomena. All the Arunta invariably regard themselves as incarnations
or reincarnations of these ancestral spirit-beings; and, in accordance
with evidence to be set forth in our seventh chapter, ancient and modern
Celts have likewise regarded themselves as incarnations or
reincarnations of ancestors and of fairy beings. Also the Arunta think
of the _Alcheringa_ beings exactly as Celts think of fairies: as real
invisible entities who must be propitiated if men wish to secure their
goodwill; and as beneficent and protecting beings when not offended, who
may attach themselves to individuals as guardian spirits.[112]
Among the Melanesian peoples there is an equally firm faith in spiritual
beings, which they call _Vui_ and _Wui_, and these beings have very
many of the chief attributes of the _Alcheringa_ beings.[113]
In Africa, the _Amatongo_, or _Abapansi_ of Amazulu belief, have
essentially the same motives for action toward men and women, and
exhibit the same powers, as the Scotch and Irish peasants assign to the
'good people'. They _take_ the living through death; and people so
_taken_ appear afterwards as apparitions, having become _Amatongo_.[114]
In the New World, we find in the North American Red Men a race as much
given as the Celts are to a belief in various spirits like fairies. They
believe that there are spirits in lakes, in rivers and in waterfalls, in
rocks and trees, in the earth and in the air; and that these beings
produce storms, droughts, good and bad harvests, abundance and scarcity
of game, disease, and the varying fortunes of men. Mr. Leland, who has
carefully studied these American beliefs, says that the _Un à
games-suk_, or little spirits inhabiting rocks and streams, play a much
more influential part in the social and religious life of the North
American Red Men than elves or fairies ever did among the Aryans.[115]
In Asia there is the well-known and elaborate animistic creed of the
Chinese and of the Japanese, to be in part illustrated in subsequent
sections. In popular Indian belief, as found in the Panjab, there is no
essential difference between various orders of beings endowed with
immortality, such as ghosts and spirits on the one hand, and gods,
demi-gods, and warriors on the other; for whether in bodies in this
world or out of bodies in the invisible world, they equally live and
act--quite as fairies do.[116] Throughout the Malay Peninsula, belief in
many orders of good and bad spirits, in demon-possession, in exorcism,
and in the power of black magicians is very common.[117] But in the
_Phi_ races of Siam we discover what is probably the most important and
complete parallel to the Celtic Fairy-Faith existing in Asia.
According to the Siamese folk-belief, all the stars and various planets,
as well as the ethereal spaces, are the dwelling-places of the
_Thévadas_, gods and goddesses of the old pre-Buddhist mythology, who
correspond pretty closely to the Tuatha De Danann of Irish mythology;
and this world itself is peopled by legions of minor deities called
_Phi_, who include all the various orders of good and bad spirits
continually influencing mankind. Some of these _Phi_ live in forests, in
trees, in open spaces; and watercourses are full of them. Others inhabit
mountains and high places. A particular order who haunt the sacred trees
surrounding the Buddhist temples are known as _Phi nang mai_; and since
_nang_ is the word for female, and _mai_ for tree, they are comparable
to tree-dwelling fairies, or Greek wood-nymphs. Still another order
called _Chao phum phi_ (gods of the earth) are like house-frequenting
brownies, fairies, and pixies, or like certain orders of _corrigans_ who
haunt barns, stables, and dwellings; and in many curious details these
_Chao phum phi_ correspond to the Penates of ancient Rome. Not only is
the worship of this order of _Phi_ widespread in Siam, but to every
other order of _Phi_ altars are erected and propitiatory offerings made
by all classes of the Siamese people.[118]
Before passing westwards to Europe, in completion of our rapid folk-lore
tour of the world, we may observe that the Persians, even those who are
well educated, have a firm belief in _jinns_ and _afreets_, different
orders of good and bad spirits with all the chief characteristics of
fairies.[119] And modern Arabs and Egyptians and Egyptian Turks hold
similar animistic beliefs.[120]
In Europe, the Greek peasant as firmly believes in nymphs or nereids as
the Celtic peasant believes in fairies; and nymphs, nereids, and fairies
alike are often the survivals of an ancient mythology. Mr. J. C. Lawson,
who has very carefully investigated the folk-lore of modern Greece,
says: 'The nereids are conceived as women half-divine yet not immortal,
always young, always beautiful, capricious at best, and at their worst
cruel. Their presence is suspected everywhere. I myself had a nereid
pointed out to me by my guide, and there certainly was the semblance of
a female figure draped in white, and tall beyond human stature, flitting
in the dusk between the gnarled and twisted boles of an old olive-yard.
What the apparition was, I had no leisure to investigate; for my guide
with many signs of the cross and muttered invocations of the Virgin
urged my mule to perilous haste along the rough mountain path.' Like
Celtic fairies, these Greek nereids have their queens; they dance all
night, disappearing at cock-crow; they can cast spells on animals or
maladies on men and women; they can shift their shape; they _take_
children in death and make changelings; and they fall in love with young
men.[121]
Among the Roumain peoples the widespread belief in the _Iele_ shows in
other ways equally marked parallels with the Fairy-Faith of the Celts.
These _Iele_ wait at cross-roads and near dwellings, or at village
fountains or in fields and woods, where they can best cast on men and
women various maladies. Sometimes they fall in love with beautiful young
men and women, and have on such occasions even been controlled by their
mortal lovers. They are extremely fond of music and dancing, and many a
shepherd with his pipes has been favoured by them, though they have
their own music and songs too. The Albanian peoples have evil fairies,
no taller than children twelve years old, called in Modern Greek
τα εξωτικα, 'those without,' who correspond to the _Iele_. Young people
who have been enticed to enter their round dance afterwards waste away
and die, apparently becoming one of 'those without'. These Albanian
spirits, like the 'good people' and the Breton dead, have their own
particular paths and retreats, and whoever violates these is struck and
falls ill.[122] These parallels from Roumain lands are probably due to
the close Aryan relationship between the Roumains, the Greeks, and the
Celts. The _Iele_ seem nothing more than the nymphs and nereids of
classical antiquity transformed under Christian influence into beings
who contradict their original good character, as in Celtic lands the
fairy-folk have likewise come to be fallen angels and evil spirits.
There is an even closer relationship between the Italian and Celtic
fairies. For example, among the Etruscan-Roman people there are now
flourishing animistic beliefs almost identical in all details with the
Fairy-Faith of the Celts.[123] In a very valuable study on the Neo-Latin
Fay, Mr. H. C. Coote writes:--'Who were the Fays--the _fate_ of later
Italy, the _fées_ of mediaeval France? For it is perfectly clear that
the _fatua_, _fata_, and _fée_ are all one and the same word.' And he
proceeds to show that the race of immortal damsels whom the old natives
of Italy called _Fatuae_ gave origin to all the family of _fées_ as
these appear in Latin countries, and that the Italians recognized in the
Greek nymphs their own _Fatuae_.[124]
It is quite evident that we have here discovered in Italy, as we
discovered in Greece and Roumain lands, fairies very Celtic in
character; and should further examination be made of modern European
folk-lore yet other similar fairies would be found, such, for example,
as the elves of Germany and of Scandinavia, or as the _servans_ of the
Swiss peasant. And in all cases, whether the beliefs examined be Celtic
or non-Celtic, Aryan or non-Aryan, from Australia, Polynesia, Africa,
America, Asia, or Europe, they are in essence animistically the same, as
later sections in this chapter will make clear. But while the
parallelism of these beliefs is indicated it is, of course, not meant
for a moment that in all of the cases or in any one of the cases the
specific differences are not considerable. The ground of comparison
consists simply in those generic characteristics which these
fairy-faiths, as they may be called, invariably display--characteristics
which we have good precedent for summing up in the single adjective
animistic.
SHAPING INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
For the term animism we have to thank Dr. E. B. Tylor, whose _Primitive
Culture_, in which the animistic theory is developed, may almost be said
to mark the beginning of scientific anthropology. In this work, however,
there is a decided tendency (which indeed displays itself in most of the
leading anthropological works, as, for example, in those by Dr. Frazer)
to regard men, or at any rate primitive men, as having a mind absolutely
homogeneous, and therefore as thinking, feeling, and acting in the same
way under all conditions alike. But a decided change is beginning to
manifest itself in the interpretation of the customs and beliefs of the
ruder races. It is assumed as a working principle that each ethnic group
has or tends to have an individuality of its own, and, moreover, that
the members of such a group think, feel, and act primarily as the
representatives, so to speak, of that ethnic individuality in which they
live, move, and have their being. That is to say, a social as contrasted
with an individual psychology must, it is held, pronounce both the first
and last word regarding all matters of mythology, religion, and art in
its numerous forms. The reason is that these are social products, and as
such are to be understood only in the light of the laws governing the
workings of the collective mind of any particular ethnic group. Such a
method is, for instance, employed in Mr. William McDougall's _Social
Psychology_, in Mr. R. R. Marett's _Threshold of Religion_, and in many
anthropological articles to be found in _L'Année Sociologique_.
If, therefore, we hold by this new and fruitful method of social
psychology we must be prepared to treat the Fairy-Faith of the Celtic
peoples also in and for itself, as expressive of an individuality more
or less unique. It might, indeed, be objected that these peoples are not
a single social group, but rather a number of such groups, and this is,
in a way, true. Nevertheless their folk-lore displays such remarkable
homogeneity, from whatever quarter of the Celtic world it be derived,
that it seems the soundest method to treat them as one people for all
the purposes of the student of sociology, mythology, and religion.
Granting, then, such a unity in the beliefs of the pan-Celtic race, we
are finally obliged to distinguish as it were two aspects thereof.
On the one hand there is shown, even in the mere handful of non-Celtic
parallels, which for reasons of space we have been content to cite, as
well as in their Celtic equivalents, a generic element common to all
peoples living under primitive conditions of society. It is emphatically
a social element, but at the same time one which any primitive society
is bound to display. On the other hand, in a second aspect, the Celtic
beliefs show of themselves a character which is wholly Celtic: in the
Fairy-Faith, which is generically animistic, we find reflected all sorts
of specific characteristics of the Celtic peoples--their patriotism,
their peculiar type of imagination, their costumes, amusements,
household life, and social and religious customs generally. With this
fact in mind, we may proceed to examine certain of the more specialized
aspects of the Fairy-Faith, as manifested both among Celts and
elsewhere.
THE SMALLNESS OF ELVISH SPIRITS AND FAIRIES
_Ethnological or Pygmy Theory_
In any anthropological estimate of the Fairy-Faith, the pygmy stature so
commonly attributed to various orders of Celtic and of non-Celtic
fairies should be considered. Various scholarly champions of the Pygmy
Theory have attempted to explain this smallness of fairies by means of
the hypothesis that the belief in such fairies is due _wholly_ to a
folk-memory of small-statured pre-Celtic races;[125] and they add that
these races, having dwelt in caverns like the prehistoric Cave Men, and
in underground houses like those of Lapps or Eskimos, gave rise to the
belief in a fairy world existing in caverns and under hills or
mountains. When analysed, our evidence shows that in the majority of
cases witnesses have regarded fairies either as non-human nature-spirits
or else as spirits of the dead; that in a comparatively limited number
of cases they have regarded them as the souls of prehistoric races; and
that occasionally they have regarded the belief in them as due to a
folk-memory of such races. It follows, then, from such an analysis of
evidence, that the Pygmy Theory probably does explain some ethnological
elements which have come to be almost inseparably interwoven with the
essentially animistic fabric of the primitive Fairy-Faith. But though
the theory may so account for such ethnological elements, it disregards
the animism that has made such interweaving possible; and, on the whole,
we are inclined to accept Mr. Jenner's view of the theory (see p. 169).
Since the Pygmy Theory thus fails entirely to provide a basis for what
is by far the most important part of the Fairy-Faith, a more adequate
theory is required.
_Animistic Theory_
The testimony of Celtic literature goes to show that leprechauns and
similar dwarfish beings are not due to a folk-memory of a real pygmy
race, that they are spirits like elves, and that the folk-memory of a
Lappish-like people (who may have been Picts) evidently was confused
with them, so as to result in their being anthropomorphosed. Thus, in
_Fionn's Ransom_, there is reference to an under-sized apparently
Lappish-like man, who may be a Pict; and as Campbell, who records the
ancient tale, has observed, there are many similar traditional Highland
tales about little men or even about true dwarfs who are good
bowmen;[126] but it is very certain that such tales have often blended
with other tales, in which supernatural figures like fairies play a
rôle; and, apparently, the former kind of tales are much more historical
and modern in their origin, while the latter are more mythological and
extremely archaic. This blending of the natural or ethnological and the
supernatural--in quite the same manner as in the modern Fairy-Faith--is
clearly seen in another of Campbell's collected tales, _The Lad with the
Skin Coverings_,[127] which in essence is an otherworld tale: 'a little
thickset man in a russet coat,' who is a magician, but who otherwise
seems to be a genuine Lapp dressed in furs, is introduced into a story
where real fairy-like beings play the chief parts. Again, in Irish
literature, we read of a _loch luchra_ or 'lake of the pygmies'.[128]
Light is thrown upon this reference by what is recorded about the
leprechauns and Fergus:--While asleep on the seashore one day, Fergus
was about to be carried off by the _luchorpáin_; 'whereat he awoke and
caught three of them, to wit, one in each of his two hands, and one on
his breast. "Life for life" (i. e. protection), say they. "Let my three
wishes (i. e. choices) be given," says Fergus. "Thou shalt have," says
the dwarf, "save that which is impossible for us." Fergus requested of
him knowledge of passing under loughs and linns and seas. "Thou shalt
have," says the dwarf, "save one which I forbid to thee: thou shalt not
go under Lough Rudraide [which] is in thine own country." Thereafter the
_luchuirp_ (little bodies) put herbs into his ears, and he used to go
with them under seas. Others say the dwarf gave his cloak to him, and
that Fergus used to put it on his head and thus go under seas.'[129] In
an etymological comment on this passage, Sir John Rhŷs says:--'The
words _luchuirp_ and _luchorpáin_ [Anglo-Irish leprechaun] appear to
mean literally "small bodies", and the word here rendered _dwarf_ is in
the Irish _abac_, the etymological equivalent of the Welsh _avanc_, the
name by which certain water inhabitants of a mythic nature went in
Welsh....'[130]
Besides what we find in the recorded Fairy-Faith, there are very many
parallel traditions, both Celtic and non-Celtic, about various classes
of spirits, like leprechauns or other small elvish beings, which Dr.
Tylor has called nature-spirits;[131] and apparently all of these can
best be accounted for by means of the animistic hypothesis. For example,
in North America (as in Celtic lands) there is no proof of there ever
having been an actual dwarf race, but Lewis and Clark, in their _Travels
to the Source of the Missouri River_, found among the Sioux a tradition
that a hill near the Whitestone River, which the Red Men called the
'Mountain of Little People' or 'Little Spirits', was inhabited by pygmy
demons in human form, about eighteen inches tall, armed with sharp
arrows, and ever on the alert to kill mortals who should dare to invade
their domain. So afraid were all the tribes of Red Men who lived near
the mountain of these little spirits that no one of them could be
induced to visit it.[132] And we may compare this American
spirit-haunted hill with similar natural hills in Scotland said to be
fairy knolls: one near the turning of a road from Reay Wick to Safester,
Isle of Unst;[133] one the well-known fairy-haunted Tomnahurich, near
Inverness;[133] and a third, the hill at Aberfoyle on which the 'people
of peace' took the Rev. Robert Kirk when he profaned it by walking on
it; or we may equate the American hill with the fairy-haunted Slieve
Gullion and Ben Bulbin in Ireland.
The Iroquois had a belief that they could summon dwarfs, who were
similar nature-spirits, by knocking on a certain large stone.[134]
Likewise the Polong, a Malay familiar spirit, is 'an exceedingly
diminutive female figure or mannikin'.[135] East Indian nature-spirits,
too, are pygmies in stature.[136] In Polynesia, entirely independent of
the common legends about wild races of pygmy stature, are myths about
the spirits called _wui_ or _vui_, who correspond to European dwarfs and
trolls. These little spirits seem to occupy the same position toward the
Melanesian gods or culture heroes, Qat of the Banks Islands and Tagaro
of the New Hebrides, as daemons toward Greek gods, or as good angels
toward the Christian Trinity, or as fairy tribes toward the Brythonic
Arthur and toward the Gaelic hero Cuchulainn.[137] Similarly in Hindu
mythology pygmies hold an important place, being sculptured on most
temples in company with the gods; e. g. Siva is accompanied by a
bodyguard of dwarfs, and one of them, the three-legged Bhringi, is a
good dancer[138]--like all _corrigans_, pixies, and most fairies.
Beyond the borders of Celtic lands--in Southern Asia with its islands,
in Melanesia with New Guinea, and in Central Africa--pygmy races,
generally called Negritos, exist at the present day; but they themselves
have a fairy-faith, just as their normal-sized primitive neighbours
have, and it would hardly be reasonable to argue that either of the two
fairy-faiths is due to a folk-memory of small-statured peoples. Ancient
and thoroughly reliable manuscript records testify to the existence of
pygmies in China during the twenty-third century B. C.;[139] yet no one
has ever tried to explain the well-known animistic beliefs of modern
Chinamen in ghosts, demons, and in little nature-spirits like fairies,
by saying that these are a folk-memory of this ancient pygmy race. In
Yezo and the Kurile Islands of Japan still survive a few of the hairy
Ainu, a Caucasian-like, under-sized race; and their immediate
predecessors, whom they exterminated, were a Negrito race, who,
according to some traditions, were two to three feet in stature, and,
according to other traditions, only one inch in stature.[140] Both pygmy
races, the surviving and the exterminated race, seem independently to
have evolved a belief in ghosts and spirits, so that here again it need
not be argued that the present pre-Buddhist animism of the Japanese is
due to a folk-memory of either Ainus or Negritos.
Further examination of the animistic hypothesis designed to explain the
smallness of elvish spirits leads away from mere mythology into
psychology, and sets us the task of finding out if, after all, primitive
ideas about the disembodied human soul may not have originated or at
least have helped to shape the Celtic folk conception of fairies as
small-statured beings. Mr. A. E. Crawley, in his _Idea of the Soul_ (pp.
200-1, 206), shows by carefully selected evidence from ancient and
modern psychologies that 'first among the attributes of the soul in its
primary form may be placed its size', and that 'in the majority of cases
it is a miniature replica of the person, described often as a mannikin,
or homunculus, of a few inches in height'. Sometimes the soul is
described as only about three inches in stature. Dr. Frazer shows,
likewise, that by practically all contemporary primitive peoples the
soul is commonly regarded as a dwarf.[141]
The same opinions regarding the human soul prevailed among ancient
peoples highly civilized, i. e. the Egyptians and Greeks, and may have
thence directly influenced Celtic tradition. Thus, in bas-relief on the
Egyptian temple of _Dêr el Bahri_, Queen Hatshepsû Rāmaka is making
offerings of perfume to the gods, while just behind her stands her _Ka_
(soul) as a pygmy so little that the crown of its head is just on a
level with her waist.[142] The _Ka_ is usually represented as about half
the size of an ordinary man. In the _Book of the Dead_, the _Ba_, which
like the _Ka_ is one of the many separable parts of the soul, is
represented as a very little man with wings and bird-like body.
On Greek vases the human soul is depicted as a pygmy issuing from the
body through the mouth; and this conception existed among Romans and
Teutons.[143] Like their predecessors the Egyptians, the Greeks also
often represented the soul as a small winged human figure, and Romans,
in turn, imagined the soul as a pygmy with butterfly wings. These ideas
reappear in mediaeval reliefs and pictures wherein the soul is shown as
a child or little naked man going out of the dying person's mouth;[144]
and, according to Cædmon, who was educated by Celtic teachers, angels
are small and beautiful[145]--quite like good fairies.
_Alchemical and Mystical Theory_
In the positive doctrines of mediaeval alchemists and mystics, e. g.
Paracelsus and the Rosicrucians, as well as their modern followers, the
ancient metaphysical ideas of Egypt, Greece, and Rome find a new
expression; and these doctrines raise the final problem--if there are
any scientific grounds for believing in such pygmy nature-spirits as
these remarkable thinkers of the Middle Ages claim to have studied as
beings actually existing in nature. To some extent this interesting
problem will be examined in our chapter entitled _Science and Fairies_;
here we shall simply outline the metaphysical theory, adding the
testimony of some of its living advocates to explain the smallness of
elvish spirits and fairies.
These mediaeval metaphysicians, inheritors of pre-Platonic, Platonic,
and neo-Platonic teachings, purposely obscured their doctrines under a
covering of alchemical terms, so as to safeguard themselves against
persecution, open discussion of occultism not being safe during the
Middle Ages, as it was among the ancients and happily is now again in
our own generation. But they were quite scientific in their methods, for
they divided all invisible beings into four distinct classes: the
Angels, who in character and function are parallel to the gods of the
ancients, and equal to the Tuatha De Danann of the Irish, are the
highest; below them are the Devils or Demons, who correspond to the
fallen angels of Christianity; the third class includes all Elementals,
sub-human Nature-Spirits, who are generally regarded as having pygmy
stature, like the Greek daemons; and the fourth division comprises the
Souls of the Dead, and the shades or ghosts of the dead.
For us, the third class, which includes spirits of pygmy-like form, is
the most important in this present discussion. All its members are of
four kinds, according as they inhabit one of the four chief elements of
nature.[146] Those inhabiting the earth are called Gnomes. They are
definitely of pygmy stature, and friendly to man, and in fairy-lore
ordinarily correspond to mine-haunting fairies or goblins, to pixies,
_corrigans_, leprechauns, and to such elves as live in rocks, caverns,
or earth--an important consideration entirely overlooked by champions of
the Pygmy Theory. Those inhabiting the air are called Sylphs. These
Sylphs, commonly described as little spirits like pygmies in form,
correspond to most of the fairies who are not of the Tuatha De Danann or
'gentry' type, and who as a race are beautiful and graceful. They are
quite like the fairies in Shakespeare's _Midsummer-Night's Dream_; and
especially like the aerials in _The Tempest_, which, according to Mr.
Morton Luce, a commentator on the drama, seem to have been shaped by
Shakespeare from his knowledge of Rosicrucian occultism, in which such
spirits hold an important place. Those inhabiting the water are called
Undines, and correspond exactly to the fairies who live in sacred
fountains, lakes, or rivers. And the fourth kind, those inhabiting the
fire, are called Salamanders, and seldom appear in the Celtic
Fairy-Faith: they are supreme in the elementary hierarchies. All these
Elementals, who procreate after the manner of men, are said to have
bodies of an elastic half-material essence, which is sufficiently
ethereal not to be visible to the physical sight, and probably
comparable to matter in the form of invisible gases. Mr. W. B. Yeats has
given this explanation:--'Many poets, and all mystic and occult writers,
in all ages and countries, have declared that behind the visible are
chains on chains of conscious beings, who are not of heaven but of the
earth, who have no inherent form, but change according to their whim, or
the mind that sees them. You cannot lift your hand without influencing
and being influenced by hordes. The visible world is merely their skin.
In dreams we go amongst them, and play with them, and combat with them.
They are, perhaps, human souls in the crucible--these creatures of
whim.'[147] And bringing this into relation with ordinary fairies, he
says:--'Do not think the fairies are always little. Everything is
capricious about them, even their size. They seem to take what size or
shape pleases them.'[147] In _The Celtic Twilight_ Mr. Yeats makes the
statement that the 'fairies in Ireland are sometimes as big as we are,
sometimes bigger, and sometimes, as I have been told, about three feet
high.'[148]
Mrs. X, a cultured Irishwoman now living in County Dublin, who as a
percipient fulfils all the exacting requirements which psychologists and
pathologists would demand, tells me that very frequently she has had
visions of fairy beings in Ireland, and her own classification and
description of these fairy beings, chiefly according to their stature,
are as follows:--'Among the usually invisible races which I have seen in
Ireland, I distinguish five classes. (1) There are the Gnomes, who are
earth-spirits, and who seem to be a sorrowful race. I once saw some of
them distinctly on the side of Ben Bulbin. They had rather round heads
and dark thick-set bodies, and in stature were about two and one-half
feet. (2) The Leprechauns are different, being full of mischief, though
they, too, are small. I followed a leprechaun from the town of Wicklow
out to the _Carraig Sidhe_, "Rock of the Fairies," a distance of half a
mile or more, where he disappeared. He had a very merry face, and
beckoned to me with his finger. (3) A third class are the Little People,
who, unlike the Gnomes and Leprechauns, are quite good-looking; and they
are very small. (4) The Good People are tall beautiful beings, as tall
as ourselves, to judge by those I saw at the _rath_ in Rosses Point.
They direct the magnetic currents of the earth. (5) The Gods are really
the Tuatha De Danann, and they are much taller than our race. There may
be many other classes of invisible beings which I do not know.'
(Recorded on October 16, 1910.)
And independently of the Celtic peoples there is available very much
testimony of the most reliable character from modern disciples of the
mediaeval occultists, e. g. the Rosicrucians, and the Theosophists, that
there exist in nature invisible spiritual beings of pygmy stature and of
various forms and characters, comparable in all respects to the little
people of Celtic folk-lore. How all this is parallel to the Celtic
Fairy-Faith is perfectly evident, and no comment of ours is
necessary.[149]
This point of view, presented by mediaeval and modern occult sciences
and confirmed by Celtic and non-Celtic percipients, when considered in
relation to its non-Celtic sources and then at once contrasted with
ancient and modern Celtic beliefs of the same character which constitute
it--to be seen in the above Gaelic and Brythonic manuscript and other
evidence, and in Cædmon's theory that angels are small beings--plunges
us into the very complex and extremely difficult problem how far fairies
as pygmy spirits may be purely Celtic, and how far they may reflect
beliefs not Celtic. The problem, however, is far too complicated to be
discussed here; and one may briefly say that there seems to have been a
time in the evolution of animism when the ancient Celts of Britain, of
Ireland, and of Continental Europe too, held, in common with the ancient
Greeks, Romans, and Teutons, an original Aryan doctrine. This doctrine,
after these four stocks separated in possession of it, began to evolve
its four specialized aspects which we now can study; and in the Irish
Universities of the early Christian centuries, when Ireland was the
centre of European learning, the classical and Celtic aspects of it met
for the first time since their prehistoric divorcement. There, as is
clearly seen later among the mediaeval alchemists and occultists, a new
influence--from Christian theology--was superadded to the ancient
animistic beliefs of Europe as they had evolved up to that time.
_Conclusion_
The ethnological argument, after allowing for all its shortcomings,
suggests that small-statured races like Lapps and Eskimos (though not
necessarily true pygmy races, of whose existence in Europe there is no
proof available) did once inhabit lands where there are Celts, and that
a Celtic folk-memory of these could conceivably have originated a belief
in certain kinds of fairies, and thus have been a shaping influence in
the animistic traditions about other fairies. The animistic argument
shows that pygmies described in Celtic literature and in Celtic and
non-Celtic mythologies are nearly always to be thought of as non-human
spirits; and that there is now and was in past ages a world-wide belief
that the human soul is in stature a pygmy. The philosophical argument of
alchemists and mystics, in a way, draws to itself the animistic
argument, and sets up the hypothesis that the smallness of elves and
fairies is due to their own nature, because they actually exist as
invisible tribes of non-human beings of pygmy size and form.
THE CHANGELING BELIEF
The smallness of fairies, which has just been considered, and the belief
in changelings are the two most prominent characteristics of the
Fairy-Faith, according to our evidence in chapter ii; and we are now to
consider the second. The prevalent and apparently the only important
theories which are current to explain this belief in changelings may be
designated as the Kidnap Theory and the Human-Sacrifice Theory. These we
shall proceed to estimate, after which there will be introduced newer
and seemingly more adequate theories.
_Kidnap Theory_
Some writers have argued that the changeling belief merely reflects a
time when the aboriginal pre-Celtic peoples held in subjection by the
Celts, and forced to live in mountain caverns and in secret retreats
underground, occasionally kidnapped the children of their conquerors,
and that such kidnapped children sometimes escaped and told to their
Celtic kinsmen highly romantic tales about having been in an underground
fairy-world with fairies. Frequently this argument has taken a slightly
different form: that instead of unfriendly pre-Celtic peoples it was
magic-working Druids who--either through their own choice or else,
having been driven to bay by the spread of Christianity, through force
of circumstances--dwelt in secret in chambered mounds or souterrains, or
in dense forests, and then stole young people for recruits, sometimes
permitting them, years afterwards, when too old to be of further use, to
return home under an inviolable vow of secrecy.[150] And Mr. David
MacRitchie in supporting his own Pygmy Theory has made interesting
modern elaborations of these two slightly different theories concerning
changelings.[151]
As already pointed out, there are definite ethnological elements blended
in the other parts of the complex Fairy-Faith; and so in this part of
it, the changeling belief, there are conceivably more of such elements
which lend some support to the Kidnap Theory. In itself, however, as we
hope to show conclusively, the Theory, failing to grasp the essential
and underlying character of this belief, does not adequately explain it.
_Human-Sacrifice Theory_
Alfred Nutt advanced a theory, which anticipated one part of our own,
that 'the changeling story is found to be connected with the antique
conception of life and sacrifice'. And he wrote:--'It is at least
possible that the sickly and ailing would be rejected when the time came
for each family to supply its quota of victims, and this might easily
translate itself in the folk-memory into the statement that the fairies
had carried off the healthy' (alone acceptable as sacrifice) 'and left
in exchange the sickly.'[152] Though our evidence will not permit us to
accept the theory (why it will not will be clear as we proceed) that
some such sacrificial customs among the ancient Celts entirely account
for the changeling story, yet we consider it highly probable that the
theory helps to explain particular aspects of the complex tradition, and
that the underlying philosophy of sacrifice extended in an animistic
way, as we shall try to extend it, probably offers more complete
explanation.
Thus, the Mexicans believed that the souls of all sacrificed children
went to live with the god Tlaloc in his heaven-world.[153] Among the
Greeks, a sacrificed victim appears to have been sent as a messenger,
bearing a message repeated to him before death to some god.[154] On the
funeral pile of Patroclus were laid Trojan captives, together with
horses and hounds, a practice corresponding to that of American Red Men;
the idea being that the sacrificed Trojans and the horses and hounds as
well, were thus sent to serve the slain warriors in the otherworld.
Among ourselves in Europe and in America it is not uncommon to read in
the daily newspaper about a suicide as resulting from the belief that
death alone can bring union with a deceased sweetheart or loved one.
These examples, and very many parallel ones to be found the world over,
seem to furnish the key to the theory of sacrifice: namely, that by
extinguishing life in this world it is transmitted to the world of the
gods, spirits, and the dead.
Both Sir John Rhŷs and D'Arbois de Jubainville have shown that the
Irish were wont to sacrifice the first-born of children and of
flocks.[155] O'Curry points out a clear case of human sacrifice at an
ancient Irish funeral[156]:--'Fiachra then brought fifty hostages with
him from Munster'; and, when he died, 'the hostages which he brought
from the south were buried alive around the _Fert_ (burial mound) of
Fiachra.' More commonly the ancient Celts seem to have made sacrifices
to appease place-spirits before the erection of a new building, by
sending to them through death the soul of a youth (see p. 436).
It is in such animistic beliefs as these, which underlie sacrifice, that
we find a partial solution of the problem of changeling belief. But the
sacrifice theory is also inadequate; for, though changelings may in some
cases in ancient times have conceivably been the sickly children
discarded by priests as unfit for sending to the gods or fairies, how
can we explain actual changelings to be met with to-day in all Celtic
lands? Some other hypothesis is evidently necessary.
_Soul-Wandering Theory_
Comparative study shows that non-Celtic changeling beliefs parallel to
those of the Celts exist almost everywhere, that they centre round the
primitive idea that the human soul can be abstracted from the body by
disembodied spirits and by magicians, and that they do not depend upon
the sacrifice theory, though animistically closely related to it. For
example, according to the Lepers' Islanders, ghosts steal men--as
fairies do--'to add them to their company; and if a man has left
children when he died, one of whom sickens afterwards, it is said that
the dead father takes it.'[157] In Banks Island, Polynesia, the ghost of
a woman who has died in childbirth is greatly dreaded: as long as her
child is on earth she cannot proceed to Panoi, the otherworld; and the
relatives take her child to another house, 'because they know that the
mother will come back to take its soul.'[158] When a Motlav child
sneezes, the mother will cry, 'Let him come back into the world! let him
remain.' Under similar circumstances in Mota, the cry is, 'Live; roll
back to us!' 'The notion is that a ghost is drawing a child's soul
away.' If the child falls ill the attempt has succeeded, and a wizard
throws himself into a trance and goes to the ghost-world to bring the
child's soul back.[159] In the islands of Kei and Kisar a belief
prevails that the spirits of the dead can take to themselves the souls
of the living who go near the graves.[160] Sometimes a Polynesian mother
insists on being buried with her dead child; or a surviving wife with
her dead husband, so that there will be no separation.[161] These last
practices help to illustrate the Celtic theory behind the belief that
fairies can abduct adults.
Throughout Melanesia sickness is generally attributed to the soul's
absence from the body, and this state of disembodiment is believed to be
due to some ghost's or spirit's interference,[162] just as among Celts
sickness is often thought to be due to fairies having taken the soul to
Fairyland. An old Irish piper who came up to Lady Gregory's home at
Coole Park told us that a certain relative of his, a woman, had lain in
a semi-conscious state of illness for months, and that when she
recovered full consciousness she declared she had been with the 'good
people'.
Folk-beliefs like all the above, which more adequately explain the
changeling idea than the Human-Sacrifice Theory, are world-wide, being
at once Celtic and non-Celtic.[163]
_Demon-Possession Theory_
There has been among many peoples, primitive and civilized, a
complementary belief to the one that evil spirits or ghosts may steal a
soul and so cause in the vacated body illness if the abduction is
temporary, and death if it is permanent: namely, a belief that demons,
who sometimes may be souls of the dead, can possess a human body while
the soul is out of it during sleep, or else can expel the soul and
occupy its place.[164] When complete possession of this character takes
place there is--as in 'mediumship'--a change of personality, and the
manner, thoughts, actions, language, and the whole nature of the
possessed person are radically changed. Sometimes a foreign tongue, of
which the subject is ignorant, is fluently spoken. When the possession
is an evil one, as Dr. Nevius has observed in China, where the phenomena
are common, the change of character is in the direction of immorality,
frequently in strong contrast with the character of the subject under
normal conditions, and is often accompanied by paroxysms and contortions
of the body, as I have often been solemnly assured by Celts is the case
in a changeling. (See M. Le Scour's account on page 198, of three
changelings that he saw in one family in Finistère; and compare what is
said about fairy changelings in Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Wales,
and Cornwall.)
A conception like that among the Chinese, of how an evil spirit may
dispossess the soul inhabiting a child's or adult's body, seems to be
the basis and original conception behind the fairy-changeling belief in
all Celtic and other countries. When a child has been changed by
fairies, and an old fairy left in its place, the child has been,
according to this theory, dispossessed of its body by an evil fairy,
which a Chinaman calls a demon, while the leaving behind of the old
fairy accounts for the changed personality and changed facial expression
of the demon-possessed infant. The Chinese demon enters into and takes
complete possession of the child's body while the child's soul is out of
it during sleep--and all fairies make changelings when a babe is asleep
in its cradle at night, or during the day when it is left alone for a
short time. The Chinese child-soul is then unable to return into its
body until some kind of magical ceremony or exorcism expels the
possessing demon; and through precisely similar methods, often aided by
Christian priests, Celts cure changelings made by fairies, pixies, and
_corrigans_. In the following account, therefore, apparently lies the
root explanation of the puzzling beliefs concerning fairy changelings so
commonly met with in the Celtic Fairy-Faith:--'To avert the calamity of
nursing a demon, dried banana-skin is burnt to ashes, which are then
mixed with water. Into this the mother dips her finger and paints a
cross upon the sleeping babe's forehead. In a short time the demon soul
returns--for the soul wanders from the body during sleep and is
free--but, failing to recognize the body thus disguised, flies off. The
true soul, which has been waiting for an opportunity, now approaches the
dormant body, and, if the mark has been washed off in time, takes
possession of it; but if not, it, like the demon, failing to recognize
the body, departs, and the child dies in its sleep.'[165]
In relation to this Demon-Possession Theory, the writer has had the
opportunity of observing carefully some living changelings among the
Celts, and is convinced that in many such cases there is an undoubted
belief expressed by the parents and friends that fairy-possession has
taken place. This belief often translates itself naturally into the
folk-theory that the body of the child has also been changed, when
examination proves only a change of personality as recognized by
psychologists; or, in a distinct type of changelings, those who exhibit
great precocity in childhood combined with an old and wizened
countenance, there is neither a changed personality nor
demon-possession, but simply some abnormal physical or mental condition,
in the nature of cretinism, atrophy, marasmus, or arrested development.
One of the most striking examples of a changeling exists at
Plouharnel-Carnac, Brittany, where there is now living a dwarf Breton
whom I have photographed and talked with, and who may possibly combine
in himself both the abnormal psychical and the abnormal pathological
conditions. He is no taller than a normal child ten years old, but being
over thirty years old he is thick-set, though not deformed. All the
peasants who know him call him 'the Little _Corrigan_', and his own
mother declares that he is not the child she gave birth to. He once said
to me with a kind of pathetic protest, 'Did M. ---- tell you that I am a
demon?'
_Conclusion_
The Kidnap Theory, resting entirely upon the ethnological and social or
psychological elements which we have elsewhere pointed out as existing
in the superficial aspects of the essentially animistic Fairy-Faith as a
whole, is accordingly limited in its explanation of this specialized
part of the Fairy-Faith, the changeling belief, to these same elements
which may exist in the changeling belief. And, on the showing of
anthropology, the other theories undoubtedly offer a more adequate
explanation.
By means of sacrifice, according to its underlying philosophy, man is
able to transmit souls from this world to the world where dwell the gods
and fairy-folk both good and evil. Thus, had Abraham sacrificed Isaac,
the soul of Isaac would have been taken to heaven by Jehovah as fairies
take souls to Fairyland through death. But the difference is that in
human sacrifice men do voluntarily and for specific religious ends what
various kinds of fairies or spirits would do without human intervention
and often maliciously, as our review of ancient and modern theories of
sacrifice has shown. Gods and fairies are spiritual beings; hence only
the spiritual part of man can be delivered over to them.
Melanesians and other peoples whose changeling beliefs have now been
examined, regard all illness and death as the result of spirit
interference; while Celts regard strange maladies in children and in
adults as the result of fairy interference. And to no Celt is death in
early life a natural thing: if it comes to a child or to a beautiful
youth in any way whatsoever, the fairies have taken what they coveted.
In all mythologies gods have always enjoyed the companionship of
beautiful maidens, and goddesses the love of heroic youths; and they
have often taken them to their world as the Tuatha De Danann took the
great heroes of the ancient Celts to the Otherworld or Avalon, and as
they still in the character of modern fairies abduct brides and young
mothers, and bridegrooms or other attractive young men whom they wish to
have with them in Fairyland (see our chapters iv-vi).
Where sacrifice or death has not brought about such complete transfer or
abduction of the soul to the fairy world, there is only a temporary
absence from human society; and, meanwhile, the vacated body is under a
fairy spell and lies ill, or unconscious if there is a trance state. If
the body is an infant's, a fairy may possess it, as in the Chinese
theory of demon-possession. In such cases the Celts often think that the
living body is that of another child once _taken_ but since grown too
old for Fairyland; though the rational explanation frequently is purely
pathological. Looked at philosophically, a fairy exchange of this kind
is fair and evenly balanced, and there has been no true robbery. And in
this aspect of the changeling creed--an aspect of it purely
Celtic--there seems to be still another influence apart from human
sacrifice, soul-abductions, demon or fairy-possession, and disease;
namely, a greatly corrupted folk-memory of an ancient re-birth doctrine:
the living are taken to the dead or the fairies and then sent back
again, after the manner of Socrates' argument that the living come from
the dead and the dead from the living (cf. our chapter vii). In all such
exchanges, the economy of Nature demands that the balance between the
two worlds be maintained: hence there arose the theories of human
sacrifice, of soul abduction, of demon or fairy-possession; and in all
these collectively is to be found the complete psychological explanation
of the fairy-changeling and fairy-abduction beliefs among ancient and
modern Celts as these show themselves in the Fairy-Faith. All remaining
classes of changelings, which fall outside the scope of this clearly
defined psychological theory, are to be explained pathologically.
MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT
The evidence from each Celtic country shows very clearly that magic and
witchcraft are inseparably blended in the Fairy-Faith, and that human
beings, i. e. 'charmers,' _dynion hysbys_, and other magicians, and
sorceresses, are often enabled through the aid of fairies to perform the
same magical acts as fairies; or, again, like Christian priests who use
exorcisms, they are able, acting independently, to counteract fairy
power, thereby preventing changelings or curing them, saving churnings,
healing man or beast of 'fairy-strokes', and, in short, nullifying all
undesirable influences emanating from the fairy world. A correct
interpretation of these magical elements so prominent in the Fairy-Faith
is of fundamental importance, because if made it will set us on one of
the main psychical highways which traverse the vast territory of our
anthropological inquiry. Let us, then, undertake such an interpretation,
first setting up, as we must, some sort of working hypothesis as to what
magic is, witchcraft being assumed to be a part of magic.
_Theories of Modern Anthropologists_
We may define magic, as understood by ancients and moderns, civilized or
non-civilized, apart from conjuring, which is mere jugglery and
deception of the senses, as the art of controlling for particular ends
various kinds of invisible forces, often, and, as we hold, generally
thought of as intelligent spirits. This is somewhat opposed to Mr.
Marett's point of view, which emphasizes 'pre-animistic influences',
i. e. 'powers to which the animistic form is very vaguely attributed if
at all.' And, in dealing with the anthropological aspects of
spell-casting in magical operations, Mr. Marett conceives such a magical
act to be in relation to the magician 'generically, a projection of
imperative will, and specifically one that moves on a supernormal
plane', and the victim's position towards this invisible projected force
to be 'a position compatible with _rapport_'.[166] He also thinks it
probable that the essence of the magician's supernormal power lies in
what Melanesians call _mana_.[166] In our opinion _mana_ may be equated
with what William James, writing of his attitude toward psychical
phenomena, called a universally diffused 'soul-stuff' leaking through,
so to speak, and expressing itself in the human individual.[167] On this
view, Mr. Marett's theory would amount to saying that magicians are able
to produce magical effects because they are able to control this
'soul-stuff'; and our evidence would regard all spirits and fairies as
portions of such universally diffused _mana_, 'soul-stuff', or, as
Fechner might call it, the 'Soul of the World'. Moreover, in essence,
such an idea of magic coincides, when carefully examined, with what
ancient thinkers like Plato, Iamblichus, the Neo-Platonists generally,
and mediaeval magicians like Paracelsus and Eliphas Levi, called magic;
and agrees with ancient Celtic magic--judging from what Roman historians
have recorded concerning it, and from Celtic manuscripts themselves.
Other modern anthropologists have set up far less satisfactory
definitions of magic. According to Dr. Frazer, for example, magic
assumes, as natural science does, that 'one event follows another
necessarily and invariably without the intervention of any spiritual or
personal agency'.[168] Such a theory is not supported by the facts of
anthropology; and does not even apply to those specialized and often
superficial kinds of magic classed under it by Dr. Frazer as
'sympathetic and imitative magic', i. e. that through which like produces
like, or part produces whole. To our mind, sympathetic and imitative
magic (to leave out of account many fallacious and irrational
ritualistic practices, which Dr. Frazer includes under these loose
terms), _when genuine_, in their varied aspects are directly dependent
upon hypnotic states, upon telepathy, mind-reading, mental suggestion,
association of ideas, and similar processes; in short, are due to the
operation of mind on mind and will on will, and, moreover, are
recognized by primitive races to have this fundamental character. Or,
according to the Fairy-Faith, they are caused by a fairy or disembodied
spirit acting upon an embodied one, a man or woman; and not, as Dr.
Frazer holds, through 'mistaken applications of one or other of two
great fundamental laws of thought, namely, the association of ideas by
similarity and the association of ideas by contiguity in space or
time'.[169]
The mechanical causation theory of magic, as thus set forth in _The
Golden Bough_, does not imply _mana_ or will-power, as Mr. Marett's more
adequate theory does in part: Dr. Frazer wishes us to regard animistic
religious practices as distinct from magic.[170] Nevertheless, in direct
opposition to Dr. Frazer's view, the weight of the evidence from the
past and from the present, which we are about to offer, is decidedly
favourable to our regarding magic and religion as complementary to one
another and, for all ordinary purposes of the anthropologist, as in
principle the same. The testimony touching magicians in all ages, Celtic
magic and witchcraft as well, besides that resulting from modern
psychical research, tends to establish an almost exclusively animistic
hypothesis to account for fairy magical phenomena and like phenomena
among human beings; and with these phenomena we are solely concerned.
_Among the Ancients_[171]
Among the more cultured Greeks and Romans--and the same can be said of
most great nations of antiquity--it was an unquestioned belief that
innumerable gods, placed in hierarchies, form part of an unbroken
spiritual chain at the lowest end of which stands man, and at the
highest the incomprehensible Supreme Deity. These gods, having their
abodes throughout the Universe, act as the agents of the Unknown God,
directing the operation of His cosmic laws and animating every star and
planet. Inferior to these gods, and to man also, the ancients believed
there to be innumerable hosts of invisible beings, called by them
daemons, who, acting as the servants of the gods, control, and thus in a
secondary sense create, all the minor phenomena of inanimate and animate
nature, such as tempests, atmospheric disturbances generally, the
failure of crops or their abundance, maladies and their cure, good and
evil passions in men, wars and peace, and all the blessings and curses
which affect the purely human life.
Man, being of the god-race and thus superior to these lower, servile
entities, could, like the gods, control them if adept in the magical
sciences; for ancient Magic, about which so much has been written and
about which so little has been understood by most people in ancient,
mediaeval, and modern times, is according to the wisest ancients nothing
more than the controlling of daemons, shades, and all sorts of secondary
spirits or elementals by men specially trained for that purpose.
Sufficient records are extant to make it evident that the fundamental
training of Egyptian, Indian, Assyrian, Greek, Roman, and Druid priests
was in the magical or occult sciences. Pliny, in his _Natural History_,
says:--'And to-day Britain practises the art [of magic] with religious
awe and with so many ceremonies that it might seem to have made the art
known to the Persians.'[172] Herein, then, is direct evidence that the
Celtic Fairy-Faith, considered in its true psychic nature, has been
immediately shaped by the ancient Celtic religion; and, as our witness
from the Isle of Skye so clearly set forth, that it originated among a
cultured class of the Celts more than among the peasants. And, in
accordance with this evidence, Professor Georges Dottin, who has made a
special study of the historical records concerning Druidism,
writes:--'The Druids of Ireland appear to us above all as magicians and
prophets. They foretell the future, they interpret the secret will of
the _fées_ (fairies), they cast lots.'[173] Thus, in spite of the
popular and Christian reshaping which the belief in fairies has had to
endure, its origin is easily enough discerned even in its modern form,
covered over though this is with accretions foreign to its primal
character.
Magic was the supreme science because it raised its adepts out of the
ordinary levels of humanity to a close relationship with the gods and
creative powers. Nor was it a science to be had for the asking, 'for
many were the wand-bearers and few the chosen.' Roman writers tell us
that neophytes for the druidic priesthood often spent twenty years in
severe study and training before being deemed fit to be called Druids.
We need not, however, in this study enter into an exposition of the
ordeals and trials of candidates seeking magical training, or else
initiation into the Mysteries. There were always two schools to which
they could apply, directly opposed in their government and policy--the
school of white magic and the school of black magic; the former being a
school in which magical powers were used in religious rites and always
for good ends, the latter a school in which all magical powers were used
for wholly selfish and evil ends. In both schools the preliminary
training was the same; that is to say, the first thing taught to the
neophyte was self-control. When he proved himself absolutely his own
master, when his teachers were certain that he could not be dominated by
another will or by any outside or psychic influence, then for the first
time he was permitted to exercise his own iron will in controlling
daemons, ghosts, and all the elemental hosts of the air--either as a
white magician or as a black magician.[174]
The magical sciences taught (an idea which still holds its ground, as
one can discover in modern India) that by formulas of invocation, by
chants, by magic sounds, by music, these invisible beings can be made to
obey the will of the magician even as they obey the will of the gods.
The calling up of the dead and talking with them is called necromancy;
the foretelling through spiritual agency and otherwise of coming events
or things hidden, like the outcome of a battle, is called divination;
the employment of charms against children so as to prevent their growing
is known as fascination; to cause any ill fortune or death to fall upon
another person by magic is sorcery; to excite the sexual passions of man
or woman, magical mixtures called philtres are used. Almost all these
definitions apply to the practices of black magic. But the great schools
known as the Mysteries were of white magic, in so far as they practised
the art; and such men as Pythagoras, Plato, and Aeschylus, who are
supposed to have been initiated into them, always held them in the
highest reverence, though prohibited from directly communicating
anything of their esoteric teachings concerning the origin and destiny
of man, the nature of the gods, and the constitution of the universe and
its laws.
In Plato's _Banquet_ the power or function of the daemonic element in
nature is explained. Socrates asks of the prophetess Diotima what is the
power of the daemonic element (personified as Love for the purposes of
the argument), and she replies:--'He interprets between gods and men,
conveying and taking across to the gods the prayers and sacrifices of
men, and to men the commands and replies of the gods; he is the mediator
who spans the chasm which divides them, and therefore in him all is
bound together, and through him the arts of the prophets and priests,
their sacrifices and mysteries and charms, and all prophecy and
incantation find their way. For God mingles not with man; but through
the daemonic element (or Love) all the intercourse and converse of God
with man, whether awake or asleep, is carried on. The wisdom which
understands this is spiritual.'[175]
_Among the Ancient Celts_
If we turn now directly to Celtic magic in ancient times, we discover
that the testimony of Pliny is curiously confirmed by Celtic
manuscripts, chiefly Irish ones, and that then, as now, witchcraft and
fairy powers over men and women are indistinguishable in their general
character. Thus, in the _Echtra Condla_, 'the Adventures of Connla,' the
fairy woman says of Druidism and magic:--'Druidism is not loved, little
has it progressed to honour on the Great Strand. When his law shall come
it will scatter the charms of Druids _from journeying on the lips of
black, lying demons_'--so characterized by the Christian
transcribers.[176] In _How Fionn Found his Missing Men_, an ancient tale
preserved by oral tradition until recorded by Campbell, it is said that
'Fionn then went out with Bran (his fairy dog). There were millions of
people (apparitions) out before him, called up by some sleight of
hand'.[177] In the _Leabhar na h-Uidre_, or 'Book of the Dun Cow' (p. 43
a), compiled from older manuscripts about A. D. 1100, there is a clear
example of Irish fetishism based on belief in the power of demons:--'...
for their swords used to turn against them (the Ulstermen) when they made
a false trophy. Reasonable [was] this; for demons used to speak to them
from their arms, so that hence their arms were safeguards.'[178]
Shape-shifting quite after the fairy fashion is very frequently met
with in old Celtic literature. Thus, in the Rennes _Dinnshenchas_ there
is this passage showing that spirits or fairies were regarded as
necessary for the employment of magic:--'Folks were envious of them
(Faifne the poet and his sister Aige): so they loosed elves at them who
transformed Aige into a fawn' (the form assumed by the fairy mother of
Oisin, see p. 299 n.), 'and sent her on a circuit all round Ireland, and
the fians of Meilge son of Cobthach, king of Ireland, killed her.'[179]
A fact which ought to be noted in this connexion is that kings or great
heroes, rather than ordinary men and women, are very commonly described
as being able to shift their own shape, or that of other people; e. g.
'Mongan took on himself the shape of Tibraide, and gave Mac an Daimh the
shape of the cleric, with a large tonsure on his head.'[180] And when
this fact is coupled with another, namely the ancient belief that such
kings and great heroes were incarnations and reincarnations of the
Tuatha De Danann, who form the supreme fairy hierarchy, we realize that,
having such an origin, they were simply exercising in human bodies
powers which their divine race exercise over men from the fairy world
(see our chapter iv).
In Brythonic literature and mythology, magic and witchcraft with the
same animistic character play as great or even a greater rôle than in
Gaelic literature and mythology. This is especially true with respect to
the Arthurian Legend, and to the _Mabinogion_, some of which tales are
regarded by scholars as versions of Irish ones. Sir John Rhŷs and
Professor J. Loth, who have been the chief translators of the
_Mabinogion_, consider their chief literary machinery to be magic (see
our chapter v).
So far it ought to be clear that Celtic magic contains much animism in
its composition, and that these few illustrations of it, selected from
numerous illustrations in the ancient Fairy-Faith, confirm Pliny's
independent testimony that in his age the Britons seemed capable of
instructing even the Persians themselves in the magical arts.
_European and American Witchcraft_
In a general way, the history of witchcraft in Europe and in the
American colonies is supplementary to what has already been said, seeing
that it is an offshoot of mediaeval magic, which in turn is an offshoot
of ancient magic. Witchcraft in the West, in probably a majority of
cases, is a mere fabric of absurd superstitions and practices--as it is
shown to be by the evidence brought out in so many of the horrible legal
and ecclesiastical processes conducted against helpless and eccentric
old people, and other men and women, including the young, often for the
sake of private revenge, and generally on no better foundation than
hearsay and false accusations. In the remaining instances it undoubtedly
arose, as ancient witchcraft (black magic) seems to have arisen, through
the infiltration of occult knowledge into uneducated and often
criminally inclined minds, so that what had formerly been secretly
guarded among the learned, and generally used for legitimate ends,
degenerated in the hands of the unfit into black magic. In our own age,
a parallel development, which adequately illustrates our subject of
inquiry, has taken place in the United States: fragments of magical lore
bequeathed by Mesmer and his immediate predecessors, the alchemists,
were practically and honestly applied to the practice of magnetic
healing and healing through mental suggestion by a small group of
practitioners in Massachusetts, and then with much ingenuity and real
genius were applied by Mary Baker Eddy to the interpretation of
miraculous healing by Jesus Christ. Hence arose a new religion called
Christian Science. But this religious movement did not stop at mental
healing: according to published reports, during the years 1908-9 the
leader of the New York First Church of Christ, Scientist, was deposed,
and, with certain of her close associates, was charged with having
projected daily against the late Mrs. Eddy's adjutant a current of
'malicious animal magnetism' from New York to Boston, in order to bring
about his death. The process is said to have been for the deposed
leader and her friends to sit together in a darkened room with their
eyes closed. 'Then one of them would say: "You all know Mr. ----. You
all know that his place is in the darkness whence he came. If his place
is six feet under ground, that is where he should be." Then all present
would concentrate their minds on the one thought--Mr. ---- and six feet
under ground.' And this practice is supposed to have been kept up for
days. Mrs. ----, who gives this testimony, is a friend of the victim,
and she asserts that these evil thought-waves slowly but surely began
his effacement, and that had the black magicians down in New York not
been discovered in time, Mr. ---- could not have withstood the
forces.[181] Perhaps so enlightened a country as the United States may
in time see history repeat itself, and add a new chapter to witchcraft;
for the true witches were not the kind who are popularly supposed to
ride on broomsticks and to keep a house full of black cats, and the
sooner this is recognized the better.
According to this aspect of Christian Science, 'malicious animal
magnetism' (or black magic), an embodied spirit, i. e. a man or woman,
possesses and can employ the same magical powers as a disembodied
spirit--or, as the Celts would say, the same magical powers as a
fairy--casting spells, and producing disease and death in the victim.
And this view coincides with ordinary witchcraft theories; for witches
have been variously defined as embodied spirits who have ability to act
in conjunction with disembodied spirits through the employment of
various occult forces, e. g. forces comparable to Mesmer's odic forces,
to the Melanesian _mana_, or to the 'soul-stuff' postulated by William
James, or, as Celts think, to forces focused in fairies themselves. So,
also, according to Mr. Marett's view, there is a state of _rapport_
between the victim and the magician or witch; and where such a state of
_rapport_ exists there is some _mana_-like force passing between the two
poles of the magical circuit, whether it be only unconscious mental or
electrical force emanating from the operator, or an extraneous force
brought under control and concentrated in some such conscious unit as we
designate by the term 'spirit', 'devil', or 'fairy'.
In conformity with this psychical or animistic view of witchcraft, in
the Capital Code of Connecticut (A. D. 1642) a witch is defined as one
who 'hath or consorteth with a familiar spirit'.[182] European codes, as
illustrated by the sixth chapter of Lord Coke's _Third Institute_, have
parallels to this definition:--'A witch is a person which hath
conference with the devil; to consult with him to do some act.'[182] And
upon these theories, not upon the broomstick and black-cat conception,
were based the trials for witchcraft during the seventeenth century.
The Bible, then so frequently the last court of appeal in such matters,
was found to sustain such theories about witches in the classical
example of the Witch of Endor and Saul; and the idea of witchcraft in
Europe and America came to be based--as it probably always had been in
pagan times--on the theory that living persons could control or be
controlled by disembodied spirits for evil ends. Hence all black
magicians, and what are now known as 'spirit mediums', were made liable
by law to the death penalty.[183]
In mediaeval Europe the great difficulty always was, as is shown in the
trials of Jeanne d'Arc, to decide whether the invisible agent in magical
processes, such as was imputed to the accused, was an angel or a demon.
If an angel, then the accused was a saint, and might become a candidate
for canonization; but if a demon, the accused was a witch, and liable to
a death-sentence. The wisest old doctors of the University of Paris, who
sat in judgement (or were consulted) in one of Jeanne's trials, could
not fully decide this knotty problem, nor, apparently, the learned
churchmen who also tried her; but evidently they all agreed that it was
better to waive the question. And, finally, an innocent peasant girl who
had heard Divine Voices, and who had thereby miraculously saved her king
and her country, was burned at the stake, under the joint direction of
English civil and ecclesiastical authorities, and, if not technically,
at least practically, with the full approval of the corresponding French
authorities, at Rouen, France, May 30, A. D. 1431.[184] In April, A. D.
1909, almost five centuries afterwards, it has been decided with tardy
justice that Jeanne's Voices were those of angels and not of demons, and
she has been made a saint.
How the case of Jeanne d'Arc bears directly upon the Fairy-Faith is
self-evident: One of the first questions asked by Jeanne's inquisitors
was 'if she had any knowledge of those who went to the Sabbath with the
fairies? or if she had not assisted at the assemblies held at the fountain
of the fairies, near Domremy, around which dance malignant spirits?' And
another question exactly as recorded was this:--'_Interroguée s'elle
croiet point au devant de aujourduy, que les fées feussent maulvais
esperis: respond qu'elle n'en sçavoit rien._'[185]
_Conclusion_
Finally, we may say that what medicine-men are to American Indians, to
Polynesians, Australians, Africans, Eskimos, and many other contemporary
races, or what the mightier magicians of modern India are to their
people, the 'fairy-doctors' and 'charmers' of Ireland, Scotland, and Man
are to the Gaels, and the '_Dynion Hysbys_' or 'Wise Men' of Wales, the
witches of Cornwall, and the seers, sorceresses, and exorcists of
Brittany are to the Brythons. These Gaelic and Brythonic magicians and
witches, and 'fairy mediums', almost invariably claim to derive their
power from their ability to see and to communicate with fairies,
spirits, and the dead; and they generally say that they are enabled
through such spiritual agencies to reveal the past, to foretell the
future, to locate lost property, to cast spells upon human beings and
upon animals, to remove such spells, to cure fairy strokes and
changelings, to perform exorcisms, and to bring people back from
Fairyland.
We arrive at the following conclusion:--If, as eminent psychical
researchers now postulate (and as many of them believe), there are
active and intelligent disembodied beings able to act psychically upon
embodied men in much the same way that embodied men are known ordinarily
to act psychically upon one another, then there is every logical and
common-sense reason for extending this psychical hypothesis so as to
include the ancient, mediaeval, and modern theory of magic and
witchcraft, namely, that what embodied men and women can do in magical
ways, as for example in hypnotism, disembodied men and women can do.
Further, if fairies, in accord with reliable testimony from educated and
critical percipients, hypothetically exist (whatever their nature may
be), they may be possessed of magical powers of the same sort, and so
can cast spells upon or possess living human beings as Celts believe and
assert. And this hypothesis coincides in most essentials with the one we
used as a basis for this discussion, that, in accordance with the
Melanesian doctrine of control of ghosts and spirits with their inherent
_mana_, magical acts are possible.[186] This in turn applied to the
Celts amounts to a hypothetical confirmation of the ancient druidical
doctrine that through control of fairies or demons (daemons) Druids or
magicians could control the weather and natural phenomena connected with
vegetable and animal processes, could cast spells, could divine the
future, could execute all magical acts.
EXORCISMS
According to the testimony of anthropology, exorcism as a religious
practice has always flourished wherever animistic beliefs have furnished
it with the necessary environment; and not only has exorcism been a
fundamental part of religious practices in past ages, but it is so at
the present day. Among Christians, Celtic and non-Celtic, among
followers of all the great historical religions, and especially among
East Indians, Chinese, American Red Men, Polynesians, and most Africans,
the expelling of demons from men and women, from animals, from inanimate
objects, and from places, is sanctioned by well-established rituals.
Exorcism as applied to the human race is thus defined in the
_Dictionnaire de Théologie_ (Roman Catholic) by L'Abbé
Bergier:--'_Exorcism_--conjuration, prayer to God, and command given to
the demon to depart from the body of persons possessed.' The same
authority thus logically defends its practice by the Church:--'Far from
condemning the opinion of the Jews, who attributed to the demon certain
maladies, that divine Master confirmed it.'[187] And whenever exorcism
of this character has been or is now generally practised, the
professional exorcist appears as a personage just as necessary to
society as the modern doctor, since nearly all diseases were and to some
extent are still, both among Christians and non-Christians, very often
thought to be the result of demon-possession.
When we come to the dawn of the Christian period in Ireland and in
Scotland, we see Patrick and Columba, the first and greatest of the
Gaelic missionaries, very extensively practising exorcism; and there is
every reason to believe (though the data available on this point are
somewhat unsatisfactory) that their wide practice of exorcism was quite
as much a Christian adaptation of pre-Christian Celtic exorcism, such as
the Druids practised, as it was a continuation of New Testament
tradition. We may now present certain of the data which tend to verify
this supposition, and by means of them we shall be led to realize how
fundamentally such an animistic practice as exorcism must have shaped
the Fairy-Faith of the Celts, both before and after the coming of
Christianity.
'Once upon a time,' so the tale runs about Patrick, 'his foster-mother
went to milk the cow. He also went with her to drink a draught of new
milk. Then the cow goes mad in the byre and killed five other kine: a
demon, namely, entered her. There was great sadness on his
foster-mother, and she told him to bring the kine back to life. Then he
brought the kine to life, so that they were whole, and he cured the mad
one. So God's name and Patrick's were magnified thereby.'[188] On
another occasion, when demons came to Ireland in the form of black
birds, quite after the manner of the Irish belief that fairies assume
the form of crows (see pp. 302-5), the Celtic ire of Patrick was so
aroused in trying to exorcize them out of the country that he threw his
bell at them with such violence that it was cracked, and then he
wept:--'Now at the end of those forty days and forty nights' [of
Patrick's long fast on the summit of Cruachan Aigle or Croagh Patrick,
Ireland's Holy Mountain] 'the mountain was filled with black birds, so
that he knew not heaven or earth. He sang maledictive psalms at them.
They left him not because of this. Then his anger grew against them. He
strikes his bell at them, so that the men of Ireland heard its voice,
and he flung it at them, so that a gap broke out of it, and that [bell]
is "Brigit's Gapling". Then Patrick weeps till his face and his chasuble
in front of him were wet. No demon came to the land of Erin after that
till the end of seven years and seven months and seven days and seven
nights. Then the angel went to console Patrick and cleansed the
chasuble, and brought white birds round the Rick, and they used to sing
sweet melodies for him.'[188] In Adamnan's _Life of S. Columba_ it is
said that 'according to custom', which in all probability was
established in pagan times by the Druids and then maintained by their
Christian descendants, it was usual to exorcize even a milk vessel
before milking, and the milk in it afterwards.[189] Thus Adamnan tells
us that one day a youth, Columban by name, when he had finished milking,
went to the door of St. Columba's cell carrying the pail full of new
milk that, _according to custom_, the saint might exorcize it. When the
holy man had made the sign of the cross in the air, the air 'was greatly
agitated, and the bar of the lid, driven through its two holes, was shot
away to some distance; the lid fell to the ground, and most of the milk
was spilled on the soil.' Then the saint chided the youth,
saying:--'Thou hast done carelessly in thy work to-day; for thou hast
not cast out the demon that was lurking in the bottom of the empty pail,
by tracing on it, before pouring in the milk, the sign of the Lord's
cross; and now not enduring, thou seest, the virtue of the sign, he has
quickly fled away in terror, while at the same time the whole of the
vessel has been violently shaken, and the milk spilled. Bring then the
pail nearer to me, that I may bless it.' When the half-empty pail was
blessed, in the same moment it was refilled with milk. At another time,
the saint, to destroy the practice of sorcery, commanded Silnan, a
peasant sorcerer, to draw a vessel full of milk from a bull; and by his
diabolical art Silnan drew the milk. Then Columba took it and
said:--'Now it shall be proved that this, which is supposed to be true
milk, is not so, but is blood deprived of its colour by the fraud of
demons to deceive men; and straightway the milky colour was turned into
its own proper quality, that is, into blood.' And it is added that 'The
bull also, which for the space of one hour was at death's door, wasting
and worn by a horrible emaciation, in being sprinkled with water blessed
by the Saint, was cured with wonderful rapidity.'[190]
And to-day, as in the times of Patrick and Columba, exorcism is
practised in Ireland and in the Western Hebrides of Scotland by the
clergy of the Roman Church against fairies, demons, or evil spirits,
when a person is possessed by them--that is to say, 'fairy-struck,' or
when they have entered into some house or place; and on the Scotch
mainland individual Protestants have been known to practise it. A
haunted house at Balechan, Perthshire, in which certain members of the
Psychical Research Society had taken up summer quarters to
'investigate', was exorcized by the late Archbishop of Edinburgh,
assisted by a priest from the Outer Isles.[191]
Among the nine orders of the Irish ecclesiastical organization of
Patrick's time, one was composed of exorcists.[192] The official
ceremony for the ordination of an exorcist in the Latin Church was
established by the Fourth Council of Carthage, and is indicated in
nearly all the ancient rituals. It consists in the bishop giving to the
candidate the book of exorcisms and saying as he does so:--'Receive and
understand this book, and have the power of laying hands upon demoniacs,
whether they be baptized, or whether they be catechumens.'[193] By a
decree of the Church Council of Orange, making men possessed of a demon
ineligible to enter the priesthood, it would seem that the number of
demoniacs must have been very great.[193] As to the efficacy of
exorcisms, the church Fathers during the first four centuries, when the
Platonic philosophy was most influential in Christianity, are
agreed.[193]
In estimating the shaping influences, designated by us as fundamental,
which undoubtedly were exerted upon the Fairy-Faith through the practice
of exorcism, it is necessary to realize that this animistic practice
holds a very important position in the Christian religion which for
centuries the Celtic peoples have professed. One of the two chief
sacraments of Christianity, that of Baptism, is preceded by a definitely
recognized exorcism, as shown in the Roman Ritual, where we can best
study it. In the Exhortation preceding the rite the infant is called a
slave of the demon, and by baptism is to be set free. The salt which is
placed in the mouth of the infant by the priest during the ceremony has
first been exorcized by special rites. Then there follows before the
entrance to the baptismal font a regular exorcism pronounced over the
child: the priest taking some of his own saliva on the thumb of his
right hand, touches the child's ears and nostrils, and commands the
demon to depart out of the child. After this part of the ceremony is
finished, the priest makes on the child's forehead a sign of the cross
with holy oil. Finally, in due order, comes the actual baptism.[194] And
even after baptismal rites have expelled all possessing demons,
precautions are necessary against a repossession: St. Augustine has said
that exorcisms of precaution ought to be performed over every Christian
daily; and it appears that faithful Roman Catholics who each day employ
holy water in making the sign of the cross, and all Protestants who pray
'lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil', are employing
such exorcisms:[195] St. Gregory of Nazianzus writes, 'Arm yourself with
the sign of the cross which the demons fear, and before which they take
their flight'[196]; and by the same sign, said St. Athanasius, 'All the
illusions of the demon are dissipated and all his snares
destroyed.'[197] An eminent Catholic theologian asserts that saints who,
since the time of Jesus Christ, have been endowed with the power of
working miracles, have always made use of the sign of the cross in
driving out demons, in curing maladies, and in raising the dead. In the
_Instruction sur le Rituel_,[198] it is said that water which has been
blessed is particularly designed to be used against demons; in the
_Apostolic Constitutions_, formulated near the end of the fourth
century, holy water is designated as a means of purification from sin
and of putting the demon to flight.[199] And nowadays when the priest
passes through his congregation casting over them holy water, it is as
an exorcism of precaution; or when as in France each mourner at a grave
casts holy water over the corpse, it is undoubtedly--whether done
consciously as such or not--to protect the soul of the deceased from
demons who are held to have as great power over the dead as over the
living. Other forms of exorcism, too, are employed. For example, in the
_Lebar Brecc_, it is said of the Holy Scripture that 'By it the snares
of devils and vices are expelled from every faithful one in the
Church'.[200] And from all this direct testimony it seems to be clear
that many of the chief practices of Christians are exorcisms, so that,
like the religion of Zoroaster, the religion founded by Jesus has come
to rest, at least in part, upon the basic recognition of an eternal
warfare between good and bad spirits for the control of Man.
The curing of diseases through Christian exorcism is by no means rare
now, and it was common a few centuries ago. Thus in the eighteenth
century, beginning with 1752 and till his death, Gassner, a Roman priest
of Closterle, diocese of Coire, Switzerland, devoted his life to curing
people of possessions, declaring that one third of all maladies are so
caused, and fixed his head-quarters at Elwangen, and later at Ratisbon.
His fame spread over many countries of Europe, and he is said to have
made ten thousand cures solely by exorcism.[201] And not only are human
ills overcome by exorcism, but also the maladies of beasts: at Carnac,
on September 13, there continues to be celebrated an annual fête in
honour of St. Cornely, the patron saint of the country and the saint who
(as his name seems to suggest) presides over domestic _horned_ animals;
and if there is a cow, or even a sheep suffering from some ailment which
will not yield to medicine, its owner leads it to the church door
beneath the saint's statue, and the priest blesses it, and, as he does
so, casts over it the exorcizing holy water. The Church Ritual
designates two forms of Benediction for such animals, one form for those
who are ordinarily diseased, and another for those suffering from some
contagious malady. In each ceremony there comes first the sprinkling of
the animal with holy water as it stands before the priest at the church
door; and then there follows in Latin a direct invocation to God to
bless the animal, 'to extinguish in it all diabolical powers,' to defend
its life, and to restore it to health.[202]
In 1868, according to Dr. Evans, an old cow-house in North Wales was
torn down, and in its walls was found a tin box containing an exorcist's
formula. The box and its enclosed manuscript had been hidden there some
years previously to ward off all evil spirits and witchcraft, for
evidently the cattle had been dying of some strange malady which no
doctors could cure. Because of its unique nature, and as an illustration
of what Welsh exorcisms must have been like, we quote the contents of
the manuscripts both as to spelling and punctuation as checked by Sir
John Rhŷs with the original, except the undecipherable symbols which
come after the archangels' names:--
'✠ Lignum sanctae crusis defendat me a malis presentibus
preateritus & futuris; interioribus & exterioribus ✠ ✠
Daniel Evans ✠ ✠ Omnes spiritus laudet Dominum: Mosen
habent & prophetas. Exergat Deus & disipenture inimiciessus
✠ · ✠ O Lord Jesus Christ I beseech thee to preserve
me Daniel Evans; and all that I possess from the power
of all evil men, women; spirits, or wizards, or hardness of
heart, and this I will trust thou will do by the same power
as thou didst cause the blind to see the lame to walk and
they that were possesed with unclean spirits to be in their
own minds Amen Amen ✠ ✠ ✠ ✠ pater pater pater Noster
Noster Noster aia aia aia Jesus ✠ Christus ✠ Messyas ✠
Emmanuel ✠ Soter ✠ Sabaoth ✠ Elohim ✠ on ✠ Adonay
✠ Tetragrammaton ✠ Ag : : ✠ Panthon ✠ ... reaton
✠ Agios ✠ Jasper ✠ Melchor ✠ Balthasar Amen ✠ ✠ ✠
* ♃ * ♀ * ☿ △ ♄ △ ♃ △ ☾ . ☉ * ♃ * ☾ ✠ ✠ And by
the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and His Hevenly Angels
being our Redeemer and Saviour from
Gabriel [_symbols_] all witchcraft and from assaults of the
Michail [_symbols_] Devil Amen ✠ O Lord Jesus Christ
I beseech thee to preserve me and all that I possess from
the power of all evil men; women; spirits; or wizards
past, present, or to come inward and outward Amen ✠ ✠.'[203]
From India Mr. W. Crooke reports similar exorcisms and charms to cure
and to protect cattle.[204] Thus there is employed in Northern India the
_Ajaypâl jantra_, i. e. 'the charm of the Invincible Protector,' one of
Vishnu's titles, in his character as the earth-god Bhûmiya--in Scotland
it would be the charm of the Invincible Fairy who presides over the
flocks and to whom libations are poured--in order to exorcize diseased
cattle or else to prevent cattle from becoming diseased. This _Ajaypâl
jantra_ is a rope of twisted straw, in which chips of wood are inserted.
'In the centre of the rope is suspended an earthen platter, inside which
an incantation is inscribed with charcoal, and beside it is hung a bag
containing seven kinds of grain.' The rope is stretched between two
poles at the entrance of a village, and under it the cattle pass to and
fro from pasture. The following is the incantation found on one of the
earthen saucers:--'O Lord of the Earth on which this cattle-pen stands,
protect the cattle from death and disease! I know of none, save thee,
who can deliver them.' In the Morbihan, Lower Brittany, we seem to see
the same folk-custom, somewhat changed to be sure; for on St. John's
Day, the christianized pagan sun-festival in honour of the summer
solstice, in which fairies and spirits play so prominent a part in all
Celtic countries, just outside a country village a great fire is lit in
the centre of the main road and covered over with green branches, in
order to produce plenty of smoke, and then on either side of this fire
and through the exorcizing smoke are made to pass all the domestic
animals in the district as a protection against disease and evil
spirits, to secure their fruitful increase, and, in the case of cows,
abundant milk supply. Mr. Milne, while making excavations in the Carnac
country, discovered the image of a small bronze cow, now in the Carnac
Museum, and this would seem to indicate that before Christian times
there was in the Morbihan a cult of cattle, preserved even until now,
no doubt, in the Christian fête of St. Cornely, just as in St. Cornely's
Fountain there is preserved a pagan holy well.
It ought now to be clear that both pre-Christian and Christian exorcisms
among Celts have shaped the Fairy-Faith in a very fundamental manner.
And anthropologically the whole subject of exorcism falls in line with
the Psychological Theory of the nature and origin of the belief in
fairies in Celtic countries.
TABOOS
We find that taboos, or prohibitions of a religious and social
character, are as common in the living Fairy-Faith as exorcisms. The
chief one is the taboo against naming the fairies, which inevitably
results in the use of euphemisms, such as 'good people', 'gentry',
'people of peace', _Tylwyth Teg_ ('Fair Folk'), or _bonnes dames_ ('good
ladies'). A like sort of taboo, with its accompanying use of euphemisms,
existed among the Ancients, e. g. among the Egyptians and Babylonians,
and early Celts as well, in a highly developed form; and it exists now
among the native peoples of Australia, Polynesia, Central Africa,
America, in Indian systems of Yoga, among modern Greeks, and, in fact,
almost everywhere where there are vestiges of a primitive culture.[205]
And almost always such a taboo is bound up with animistic and magical
elements, which seem to form its background, just as it is in our own
evidence.
To discuss name taboo in all its aspects would lead us more deeply into
magic and comparative folk-lore than we have yet gone, and such
discussion is unnecessary here. We may therefore briefly state that the
root of the matter would seem to be that the name and the dread power
named are so closely associated in the very concrete thought of the
primitive culture that the one virtually is the other: just as one
inevitably calls up the other for the modern thinker, so it is that, in
the world of objective fact, for the primitive philosopher the one is
equivalent to the other. The primitive man, in short, has projected his
subjective associations into reality. As regards euphemisms, the process
of development possibly is that first you employ any substitute name,
and that secondly you go on to employ such a substitute name as will at
the same time be conciliatory. In the latter case, a certain
anthropomorphosing of the power behind the taboo would seem to be
involved.[206]
Next in prominence comes the food taboo; and to this, also, there are
non-Celtic parallels all the world over, now and in ancient times. We
may take notice of three very striking modern parallels:--A woman
visited her dead brother in Panoi, the Polynesian Otherworld, and 'he
cautioned her to eat nothing there, and she returned'.[207] A Red Man,
Ahak-tah, after an apparent death of two days' duration, revived, and
declared that he had been to a beautiful land of tall trees and
singing-birds, where he met the spirits of his forefathers and uncle.
While there, he felt hunger, and seeing in a bark dish some wild rice,
wished to eat of it, but his uncle would allow him none. In telling
about this psychical adventure, Ahak-tah said:--'Had I eaten of the food
of spirits, I never should have returned to earth.'[208] Also a New
Zealand woman visited the Otherworld in a trance, and her dead father
whom she met there ordered her to eat no food in that land, so that she
could return to this world to take care of her child.[209]
All such parallels, like their equivalents in Celtic belief, seem to
rest on this psychological and physiological conception in the
folk-mind. Human food is what keeps life going in a human body; fairy
food is what keeps life going in a fairy body; and since what a man eats
makes him what he is physically, so eating the food of Fairyland or of
the land of the dead will make the eater partake of the bodily nature
of the beings it nourishes. Hence when a man or woman has once entered
into such relation or communion with the Otherworld of the dead, or of
fairies, by eating their food, his or her physical body[210] by a subtle
transformation adjusts itself to the new kind of nourishment, and
becomes spiritual like a spirit's or fairy's body, so that the eater
cannot re-enter the world of the living. A study of food taboos confirms
this conclusion.[211]
A third prominent taboo, the iron taboo, has been explained by exponents
of the Pygmy Theory as pointing to a prehistoric race in Celtic lands
who did not know iron familiarly, and hence venerated it so that in time
it came to be religiously regarded as very efficacious against spirits
and fairies. Undoubtedly there may be much reason in this explanation,
which gives some ethnological support to the Pygmy Theory. Apparently,
however, it is only a partial explanation of iron taboo in general,
because, in many cases, iron in ancient religious rites certainly had
magical properties attributed to it, which to us are quite unexplainable
from this ethnological point of view;[212] and in Melanesia and in
Africa, where iron is venerated now, the same explanation through
ethnology seems far-fetched. But at present there seem to be no
available data to explain adequately this iron taboo, though we have
strong reasons for thinking that the philosophy underlying it is based
on mystical conceptions of virtues attributed--reasonably or
unreasonably--to various metals and precious stones, and that a careful
examination of alchemical sciences would probably arrive at an
explanation wholly psychological.
Besides many other miscellaneous taboos noticeable in the evidence,
there is a place taboo which is prominent. Thus, if an Irishman cuts a
thorn tree growing on a spot sacred to the fairies, or if he violates a
fairy preserve of any sort, such as a fairy path, or by accident
interferes with a fairy procession, illness and possibly death will come
to his cattle or even to himself. In the same way, in Melanesia,
violations of sacred spots bring like penalties: 'A man planted in the
bush near Olevuga some coco-nut and almond trees, and not long after
died,' the place being a spirit preserve;[213] and a man in the Lepers'
Island lost his senses, because, as the natives believed, he had
unwittingly trodden on ground sacred to Tagaro, and 'the ghost of the
man who lately sacrificed there was angry with him'.[213] In this case
the wizards were called in and cured the man by exorcisms,[213] as
Irishmen, or their cows, are cured by the exorcisms of 'fairy-doctors'
when 'fairy-struck' for some similar violation. The animistic background
of place taboos in the Fairy-Faith is in these cases apparent.
_Among Ancient Celts_
In the evidence soon to be examined from the recorded Fairy-Faith, we
shall find taboos of various kinds often more prominent than in the
living Fairy-Faith.[214] So essential are they to the character of much
of the literary and mythological matter with which we shall have to deal
in the following chapters, that at this point some suggestions ought to
be made concerning their correct anthropological interpretation.
Almost every ancient Irish taboo is connected with a king or with a
great hero like Cuchulainn; and, in Ireland especially, all such kings
and heroes were considered of divine origin, and as direct incarnations,
or reincarnations of the Tuatha De Danann, the true Fairies, originally
inhabitants of the Otherworld. (See our chapter vii.) As Dr. Frazer
points out to have been the case among non-Celts, with whom the same
theory of incarnated divinities has prevailed, royal taboos are to
isolate the king from all sources of danger, especially from all magic
and witchcraft, and they act in many cases 'so to say, as electrical
insulators' to preserve him or heroes who are equally divine.[215]
The early Celts recognized an intimate relationship between man and
nature: unperceived by man, unseen forces--not dissimilar to what
Melanesians call _Mana_--(looked on as animate and intelligent and
frequently individual entities) guided every act of human life. It was
the special duty of Druids to act as intermediaries between the world of
men and the world of the Tuatha De Danann; and, as old Irish literature
indicates clearly, it was through the exercise of powers of divination
on the part of Druids that these declared what was taboo or what was
unfavourable, and also what it was favourable for the divine king or
hero to perform. As long as man kept himself in harmony with this unseen
fairy-world in the background of nature, all was well; but as soon as a
taboo was broken, disharmony in the relationship--which was focused in a
king or hero--was set up; and when, as in the case of Cuchulainn, many
taboos were violated, death was inevitable and not even the Tuatha De
Danann could intercede.
Breaking of a royal or hero taboo not only affects the violator, but his
subjects or followers as well: in some cases the king seems to suffer
vicariously for his people. Almost every great Gaelic hero--a god or
Great Fairy Being incarnate--is overshadowed with an impending fate,
which only the strictest observance of taboo can avoid.[216]
Irish taboo, and inferentially all Celtic taboo, dates back to an
unknown pagan antiquity. It is imposed at or before birth, or again
during life, usually at some critical period, and when broken brings
disaster and death to the breaker. Its whole background appears to rest
on a supernatural relationship between divine men and the Otherworld of
the Tuatha De Danann; and it is very certain that this ancient
relationship survives in the living Fairy-Faith as one between ordinary
men and the fairy-world. Therefore, almost all taboos surviving among
Celts ought to be interpreted psychologically or even psychically, and
not as ordinary social regulations.
FOOD-SACRIFICE
Food-sacrifice plays a very important rôle in the modern Fairy-Faith,
being still practised, as our evidence shows, in each one of the Celtic
countries. Without any doubt it is a survival from pagan times, when, as
we shall observe later (in chapter iv. 291, and elsewhere), propitiatory
offerings were regularly made to the Tuatha De Danann as gods of the
earth, and, apparently, to other orders of spiritual beings. The
anthropological significance of such food-sacrifice is unmistakable.
With the same propitiatory ends in view as modern Celts now have in
offering food to fairies, ancient peoples, e. g. the Greeks and Romans,
maintained a state ritual of sacrifices to the gods, genii, daemons, and
to the dead. And such sacrifices, so essential a part of most ancient
religions, were based on the belief, as stated by Porphyry in his
_Treatise Concerning Abstinence_, that all the various orders of gods,
genii or daemons, enjoy as nourishment the odour of burnt offerings. And
like the Fairy-Folk, the daemons of the air live not on the gross
substance of food, but on its finer invisible essences, conveyed to them
most easily on the altar-fire.[217] Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, and other
leading Greeks, as well as the Romans of a like metaphysical school,
unite in declaring the fundamental importance to the welfare of the
State of regular sacrifices to the gods and to the daemons who control
all natural phenomena, since they caused, if not neglected, abundant
harvests and national prosperity. For unto the gods is due by right a
part of all things which they give to man for his happiness.
The relation which the worship of ancestors held to that of the gods
above, who are the Olympian Gods, the great Gods, and to the Gods below,
who are the Gods of the Dead, and also to the daemons, and heroes or
divine ancestors, is thus set forth by Plato in his _Laws_:--'In the
first place, we affirm that next after the Olympian Gods, and the Gods
of the State, honour should be given to the Gods below.... Next to these
Gods, a wise man will do service to the daemons or spirits, and then to
the heroes, and after them will follow the sacred places of private and
ancestral Gods, having their ritual according to law. Next comes the
honour of living parents.'[218]
It is evident from this direct testimony that the same sort of
philosophy underlies food-sacrifice among the Celts and other peoples as
we discovered underlying human-sacrifice, in our study of the Changeling
Belief; and that the Tuatha De Danann in their true mythological nature,
and fairies, their modern counterpart, correspond in all essentials to
Greek and Roman gods, genii, and daemons, and are often confused with
the dead.
THE CELTIC LEGEND OF THE DEAD
The animistic character of the Celtic Legend of the Dead is apparent;
and the striking likenesses constantly appearing in our evidence between
the ordinary apparitional fairies and the ghosts of the dead show that
there is often no essential and sometimes no distinguishable difference
between these two orders of beings, nor between the world of the dead
and fairyland. We reserve for our chapter on _Science and Fairies_ the
scientific consideration of the psychology of this relationship, and of
the probability that fairies as souls of the dead and as ghosts of the
dead actually exist and influence the living.
GENERAL CONCLUSION
The chief anthropological problems connected with the modern
Fairy-Faith, as our evidence presents it, have now been examined, at
sufficient length, we trust, to explain their essential significance;
and problems, to some extent parallel, connected with the ancient
Fairy-Faith have likewise been examined. There remain, however, very
many minor anthropological problems not yet touched upon; but several of
the most important of these, e. g. various cults of gods, spirits,
fairies, and the dead, and folk-festivals thereto related (see Section
III); the circular fairy-dance (see pp. 405-6); or the fairy world as
the Otherworld (see chap. vi), or as Purgatory (see chap. x), will
receive consideration in following chapters, and so will certain very
definite psychological problems connected with dreams, and trance-like
states, with supernormal lapse of time, and with seership. We may now
sum up the results so far attained.
Whether we examine the Fairy-Faith as a whole or whether we examine
specialized parts of it like those relating to the smallness of fairies,
to changelings, to witchcraft and magic, to exorcisms, to taboos, and to
food-sacrifice, in all cases comparative folk-lore shows that the
beliefs composing it find their parallels the world over, and that
fairy-like beings are objects of belief now not only in Celtic
countries, but in Central Australia, throughout Polynesia, in Africa,
among American Red Men, in Asia generally, in Southern, Western, and
Northern Europe, and, in fact, wherever civilized and primitive men hold
religious beliefs. From a rationalist point of view anthropologists
would be inclined to regard the bulk of this widespread belief in
spiritual beings as being purely mythical, but for us to do so and stop
there would lead to no satisfactory solution: the origin of myth itself
needs to be explained, and one of the chief objects of our study
throughout the remainder of this book is to make an attempt at such an
explanation, especially of Celtic myth.
Again, if we examine all fairy-like beings from a certain superficial
point of view, or even from the mythological point of view, it is easy
to discern that they are universally credited with precisely the same
characters, attributes, actions, or powers as the particular peoples
possess who have faith in them; and then the further fact emerges that
this anthropomorphosing is due directly to the more immediate social
environment: we see merely an anthropomorphically coloured picture of
the whole of an age-long social evolution of the tribe, race, or nation
who have fostered the particular aspect of this one world-wide
folk-religion. But if we look still deeper, we discover as background to
the myths and the social psychology a profound animism. This animism
appears in its own environment in the shading away of the different
fairy-like beings into spirits and ghosts of the departed. Going deeper
yet, we find that such animistic beliefs as concern themselves
exclusively with the realm of the dead are in many cases apparently so
well founded on definite provable psychical experiences on the part of
living men and women that the aid of science itself must be called in to
explain them, and this will be done in our chapter entitled _Science and
Fairies_.
So far it ought to be clear that already our evidence points to a very
respectable residue in the experiences of percipients, which cannot be
explained away--as can the larger mass of the evidence--as due to
ethnological, anthropomorphic, naturalistic, or sociological influences
on the Celtic mind; and for the present this must be designated as the
_x_ or unknown quantity in the Fairy-Faith. In chapter xi this _x_
quantity, augmented by whatever else is to be elicited from further
evidence, will be specifically discussed.
These points of view derived from our anthropological examination of the
chief parts of the evidence presented by the living Fairy-Faith will be
kept constantly before us as we proceed further; and what has been
demonstrated anthropologically in this chapter will serve to interpret
what is to follow until chapter xi is reached. With this tentative
position we pass to Section II of this study, and shall there begin to
examine, as we have just done with their modern Fairy-Faith, the ancient
Fairy-Faith of the Celts.
SECTION II
THE RECORDED FAIRY-FAITH
CHAPTER IV
THE PEOPLE OF THE GODDESS DANA (_TUATHA DÉ DANANN_) OR THE _SIDHE_
(PRONOUNCED _SHEE_)[219]
'So firm was the hold which the ethnic gods of Ireland had taken
upon the imagination and spiritual sensibilities of our ancestors
that even the monks and christianized bards never thought of
denying them. They doubtless forbade the people to worship them,
but to root out the belief in their existence was so impossible
that they could not even dispossess their own minds of the
conviction that the gods were real supernatural beings.'--STANDISH
O'GRADY.
The Goddess Dana and the modern cult of St. Brigit--The Tuatha De
Danann or _Sidhe_ conquered by the Sons of Mil--But Irish seers
still see the _Sidhe_--Old Irish MSS. faithfully represent the
Tuatha De Danann--The _Sidhe_ as a spirit race--_Sidhe_
palaces--The 'Taking' of mortals--Hill visions of _Sidhe_
women--_Sidhe_ minstrels and musicians--Social organization and
warfare among the _Sidhe_--The _Sidhe_ war-goddesses, the
_Badb_--The _Sidhe_ at the Battle of Clontarf, A. D.
1014--Conclusion.
The People of the Goddess Dana, or, according to D'Arbois de
Jubainville, the People of the god whose mother was called Dana,[220]
are the Tuatha De Danann of the ancient mythology of Ireland. The
Goddess Dana, called in the genitive Danand, in middle Irish times was
named Brigit.[220] And this goddess Brigit of the pagan Celts has been
supplanted by the Christian St. Brigit[220]; and, in exactly the same
way as the pagan cult once bestowed on the spirits in wells and
fountains has been transferred to Christian saints, to whom the wells
and fountains have been re-dedicated, so to St. Brigit as a national
saint has been transferred the pagan cult rendered to her predecessor.
Thus even yet, as in the case of the minor divinities of their sacred
fountains, the Irish people through their veneration for the good St.
Brigit, render homage to the divine mother of the People who bear her
name Dana,--who are the ever-living invisible Fairy-People of modern
Ireland. For when the Sons of Mil, the ancestors of the Irish people,
came to Ireland they found the Tuatha De Danann in full possession of
the country. The Tuatha De Danann then retired before the invaders,
without, however, giving up their sacred Island. Assuming invisibility,
with the power of at any time reappearing in a human-like form before
the children of the Sons of Mil, the People of the Goddess Dana became
and are the Fairy-Folk, the _Sidhe_ of Irish mythology and romance.[221]
Therefore it is that to-day Ireland contains two races,--a race visible
which we call Celts, and a race invisible which we call Fairies. Between
these two races there is constant intercourse even now; for Irish seers
say that they can behold the majestic, beautiful _Sidhe_, and according
to them the _Sidhe_ are a race quite distinct from our own, just as
living and possibly more powerful. These _Sidhe_ (who are the 'gentry'
of the Ben Bulbin country and have kindred elsewhere in Ireland,
Scotland, and probably in most other countries as well, such as the
invisible races of the Yosemite Valley) have been described more or less
accurately by our peasant seer-witnesses from County Sligo and from
North and East Ireland. But there are other and probably more reliable
seers in Ireland, men of greater education and greater psychical
experience, who know and describe the _Sidhe_ races as they really are,
and who even sketch their likenesses. And to such seer Celts as these,
Death is a passport to the world of the _Sidhe_, a world where there is
eternal youth and never-ending joy, as we shall learn when we study it
as the Celtic Otherworld.
The recorded mythology and literature of ancient Ireland have, very
faithfully for the most part, preserved to us clear pictures of the
Tuatha De Danann; so that disregarding some Christian influence in the
texts of certain manuscripts, much rationalization, and a good deal of
poetical colouring and romantic imagination in the pictures, we can
easily describe the People of the Goddess Dana as they appeared in pagan
days, when they were more frequently seen by mortals than now. Perhaps
the Irish folk of the olden times were even more clairvoyant and
spiritual-minded than the Irish folk of to-day. So by drawing upon these
written records let us try to understand what sort of beings the _Sidhe_
were and are.
NATURE OF THE _SIDHE_
In the _Book of Leinster_[222] the poem of _Eochaid_ records that the
Tuatha De Danann, the conquerors of the Fir-Bolgs, were hosts of
_siabra_; and _siabra_ is an Old Irish word meaning fairies, sprites, or
ghosts. The word fairies is appropriate if restricted to mean fairies
like the modern 'gentry'; but the word _ghosts_ is inappropriate,
because our evidence shows that the only relation the _Sidhe_ or real
Fairies hold to ghosts is a superficial one, the _Sidhe_ and ghosts
being alike only in respect to invisibility. In the two chief Irish
MSS., the _Book of the Dun Cow_ and the _Book of Leinster_, the Tuatha
De Danann are described as 'gods and not-gods'; and Sir John Rhŷs
considers this an ancient formula comparable with the Sanskrit _deva_
and _adeva_, but not with 'poets (_dée_) and husbandmen (_an dée_)' as
the author of _Cóir Anmann_ learnedly guessed.[223] It is also said, in
the _Book of the Dun Cow_, that wise men do not know the origin of the
Tuatha De Danann, but that 'it seems likely to them that they came from
heaven, on account of their intelligence and for the excellence of their
knowledge'.[224] The hold of the Tuatha De Danann on the Irish mind and
spirit was so strong that even Christian transcribers of texts could not
deny their existence as a non-human race of intelligent beings
inhabiting Ireland, even though they frequently misrepresented them by
placing them on the level of evil demons,[225] as the ending of the
story of the _Sick-Bed of Cuchulainn_ illustrates:--'So that this was a
vision to Cuchulainn of being stricken by the people of the _Sid_: for
the demoniac power was great before the faith; and such was its
greatness that the demons used to fight bodily against mortals, and they
used to show them delights and secrets of how they would be in
immortality. It was thus they used to be believed in. So it is to such
phantoms the ignorant apply the names of _Side_ and _Aes Side_.'[226] A
passage in the _Silva Gadelica_ (ii. 202-3) not only tends to confirm
this last statement, but it also shows that the Irish people made a
clear distinction between the god-race and our own:--In _The Colloquy
with the Ancients_, as St. Patrick and Caeilte are talking with one
another, 'a lone woman robed in mantle of green, a smock of soft silk
being next her skin, and on her forehead a glittering plate of yellow
gold,' came to them; and when Patrick asked from whence she came, she
replied: 'Out of _uaimh Chruachna_, or "the cave of Cruachan".' Caeilte
then asked: 'Woman, my soul, who art thou?' 'I am _Scothniamh_ or
"Flower-lustre", daughter of the Daghda's son Bodhb derg.' Caeilte
proceeded: 'And what started thee hither?' 'To require of thee my
marriage-gift, because once upon a time thou promisedst me such.' And as
they parleyed Patrick broke in with: 'It is a wonder to us how we see
you two: the girl young and invested with all comeliness; but thou
Caeilte, a withered ancient, bent in the back and dingily grown grey.'
'Which is no wonder at all,' said Caeilte, 'for no people of one
generation or of one time are we: _she is of the Tuatha Dé Danann, who
are unfading and whose duration is perennial; I am of the sons of
Milesius, that are perishable and fade away_.' The exact distinction is
between Caeilte, a withered old ancient--in most ways to be regarded as
a ghost called up that Patrick may question him about the past history
of Ireland--and a fairy-woman who is one of the _Sidhe_ or Tuatha De
Danann.[227]
In two of the more ancient Irish texts, the _Echtra Nerai_[228] or
'Expedition of Nera', a preliminary tale in the introduction to the
_Táin bó Cuailnge_ or 'Theft of the Cattle of Cuailnge'; and a passage
from the _Togail Bruidne dâ Derga_, or 'Destruction of Da Derga's
Hostel',[229] there seems no reasonable doubt whatever about the Tuatha
De Danann or _Sidhe_ being a race like what we call spirits. The first
text describes how Ailill and Medb in their palace of Cruachan
celebrated the feast of _Samain_ (November Eve, a feast of the dead even
in pre-Christian times). Two culprits had been executed on the day
before, and their bodies, according to the ancient Irish custom, were
left hanging from a tree until the night of _Samain_ should have passed;
for on that night it was dangerous to touch the bodies of the dead while
demons and the people of the _Sidhe_ were at large throughout all
Ireland, and mortals found near dead bodies at such a time were in great
danger of being _taken_ by these spirit hosts of the Tuatha De Danann.
And so on this very night, when thick darkness had settled down, Ailill
desired to test the courage of his warriors, and offered his own
gold-hilted sword to any young man who would go out and tie a coil of
twisted twigs around the leg of one of the bodies suspended from the
tree. After many had made the attempt and failed, because unable to
brave the legions of demons and fairies, Nera alone succeeded; but his
success cost him dear, for he finally fell under the power both of the
dead man, round whose legs he had tied the coil, and of an elfin host:
with the dead man's body on his back, Nera was obliged to go to a
strange house that the thirst of the dead man might be assuaged therein;
and the dead man in drinking scattered 'the last sip from his lips at
the faces of the people that were in the house, so that they all died'.
Nera carried back the body; and on returning to Cruachan he saw the
fairy hosts going into the cave, 'for the fairy-mounds of Erinn are
always opened about Halloween.' Nera followed after them until he came
to their king in a palace of the Tuatha De Danann, seemingly in the
cavern or elsewhere underground; where he remained and was married to
one of the fairy women. She it was who revealed to Nera the secret
hiding-place, in a mysterious well, of the king's golden crown, and then
betrayed her whole people by reporting to Nera the plan they had for
attacking Ailill's court on the Halloween to come. Moreover, Nera was
permitted by his fairy wife to depart from the _síd_; and he in taking
leave of her asked: 'How will it be believed of me that I have gone into
the _síd_?' 'Take fruits of summer with thee,' said the woman. 'Then he
took wild garlic with him and primrose and golden fern.' And on the
following November Eve when the _síd_ of Cruachan was again open, 'the
men of Connaught and the black hosts of exile' under Ailill and Medb
plundered it, taking away from it the crown of Briun out of the well.
But 'Nera was left with his people in the _síd_, and has not come out
until now, nor will he come till Doom.'
All of this matter is definitely enough in line with the living
Fairy-Faith: there is the same belief expressed as now about November
Eve being the time of all times when ghosts, demons, spirits, and
fairies are free, and when fairies _take_ mortals and marry them to
fairy women; also the beliefs that fairies are living in secret places
in hills, in caverns, or under ground--palaces full of treasure and open
only on November Eve. In so far as the real fairies, the _Sidhe_, are
concerned, they appear as the rulers of the Feast of the Dead or
_Samain_, as the controllers of all spirits who are then at large; and,
allowing for some poetical imagination and much social psychology and
anthropomorphism, elements as common in this as in most literary
descriptions concerning the Tuatha De Danann, they are faithfully enough
presented.
The second text describes how King Conaire, in riding along a road
toward Tara, saw in front of him three strange horsemen, three men of
the _Sidhe_:--'Three red frocks had they, and three red mantles: three
red steeds they bestrode, and three red heads of hair were on them. Red
were they all, both body and hair and raiment, both steeds and men.'
'Who is it that fares before us?' asked Conaire. 'It was a taboo of mine
for those Three to go before me--the three Reds to the house of Red. Who
will follow them and tell them to come towards me in my track?' 'I will
follow them,' says Lé fri flaith, Conaire's son. 'He goes after them,
lashing his horse, and overtook them not. There was the length of a
spearcast between them: but they did not gain upon him and he did not
gain upon them.' All attempts to come up with the red horsemen failed.
But at last, before they disappeared, one of the Three said to the
king's son riding so furiously behind them, 'Lo, my son, great the news.
Weary are the steeds we ride. We ride the steeds of Donn Tetscorach (?)
from the elfmounds. Though we are alive we are dead. Great are the
signs: destruction of life: sating of ravens: feeding of crows, strife
of slaughter: wetting of sword-edge, shields with broken bosses in hours
after sundown. Lo, my son!' Then they disappear. When Conaire and his
followers heard the message, fear fell upon them, and the king said:
'All my taboos have seized me to-night, since those Three [Reds] [are
the] banished folks (?).' In this passage we behold three horsemen of the
_Sidhe_ banished from their elfmound because guilty of falsehood.
Visible for a time, they precede the king and so violate one of his
taboos; and then delivering their fearful prophecy they vanish. These
three of the Tuatha De Danann, majestic and powerful and weird in their
mystic red, are like the warriors of the 'gentry' seen by contemporary
seers in West Ireland. Though dead, that is in an invisible world like
the dead, yet they are living. It seems that in all three of the textual
examples already cited, the scribe has emphasized a different element in
the unique nature of the Tuatha De Danann. In the _Colloquy_ it is their
eternal youth and beauty, in the _Echtra Nerai_ it is their supremacy
over ghosts and demons on _Samain_ and their power to steal mortals away
at such a time, and in this last their respect for honesty. And in each
case their portrayal corresponds to that of the 'gentry' and _Sidhe_ by
modern Irishmen; so that the old Fairy-Faith and the new combine to
prove the People of the God whose mother was Dana to have been and to be
a race of beings who are like mortals, but not mortals, who to the
objective world are as though dead, yet to the subjective world are
fully living and conscious.
O'Curry says:--'The term (_sídh_, pron. _shee_), as far as we know it,
is always applied in old writings to the palaces, courts, halls, or
residences of those beings which in ancient Gaedhelic mythology held the
place which ghosts, phantoms, and fairies hold in the superstitions of
the present day.'[230] In modern Irish tradition, 'the People of the
_Sidhe_,' or simply the _Sidhe_, refer to the beings themselves rather
than to their places of habitation. Partly perhaps on account of this
popular opinion that the _Sidhe_ are a subterranean race, they are
sometimes described as gods of the earth or _dei terreni_, as in the
_Book of Armagh_; and since it was believed that they, like the modern
fairies, control the ripening of crops and the milk-giving of cows, the
ancient Irish rendered to them regular worship and sacrifice, just as
the Irish of to-day do by setting out food at night for the fairy-folk
to eat.
Thus after their conquest, these _Sidhe_ or Tuatha De Danann in
retaliation, and perhaps to show their power as agricultural gods,
destroyed the wheat and milk of their conquerors, the Sons of Mil, as
fairies to-day can do; and the Sons of Mil were constrained to make a
treaty with their supreme king, Dagda, who, in _Cóir Anmann_ (§ 150), is
himself called an earth-god. Then when the treaty was made the Sons of
Mil were once more able to gather wheat in their fields and to drink the
milk of their cows;[231] and we can suppose that ever since that time
their descendants, who are the people of Ireland, remembering that
treaty, have continued to reverence the People of the Goddess Dana by
pouring libations of milk to them and by making them offerings of the
fruits of the earth.
THE PALACES OF THE _SIDHE_
The marvellous palaces to which the Tuatha De Danann retired when
conquered by the race of Mil were hidden in the depths of the earth, in
hills, or under ridges more or less elevated.[232] At the time of their
conquest, Dagda their high king made a distribution of all such palaces
in his kingdom. He gave one _síd_ to Lug, son of Ethne, another to Ogme;
and for himself retained two--one called _Brug na Boinne_, or Castle of
the Boyne, because it was situated on or near the River Boyne near Tara,
and the other called _Síd_ or _Brug Maic ind Oc_, which means Enchanted
Palace or Castle of the Son of the Young. And this Mac ind Oc was
Dagda's own son by the queen Boann, according to some accounts, so that
as the name (Son of the Young) signifies, Dagda and Boann, both
immortals, both Tuatha De Danann, were necessarily always young, never
knowing the touch of disease, or decay, or old age. Not until
Christianity gained its psychic triumph at Tara, through the magic of
Patrick prevailing against the magic of the Druids--who seem to have
stood at that time as mediators between the People of the Goddess Dana
and the pagan Irish--did the Tuatha De Danann lose their immortal
youthfulness in the eyes of mortals and become subject to death. In the
most ancient manuscripts of Ireland the pre-Christian doctrine of the
immortality of the divine race 'persisted intact and without
restraint';[233] but in the _Senchus na relec_ or 'History of the
Cemeteries', from the _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_, and in the _Lebar gabala_
or 'Book of the Conquests', from the _Book of Leinster_, it was
completely changed by the Christian scribes.[233]
When Dagda thus distributed the underground palaces, Mac ind Oc, or as
he was otherwise called Oengus, was absent and hence forgotten. So when
he returned, naturally he complained to his father, and the _Brug na
Boinne_, the king's own residence, was ceded to him for a night and a
day, but Oengus maintained that it was for ever. This palace was a most
marvellous one: it contained three trees which always bore fruit, a
vessel full of excellent drink, and two pigs--one alive and the other
nicely cooked ready to eat at any time; and in this palace no one ever
died.[234] In the _Colloquy_, Caeilte tells of a mountain containing a
fairy palace which no man save Finn and six companions, Caeilte being
one of these, ever entered. The Fenians, while hunting, were led thither
by a fairy woman who had changed her shape to that of a fawn in order to
allure them; and the night being wild and snowy they were glad to take
shelter therein. Beautiful damsels and their lovers were the inhabitants
of the palace; in it there was music and abundance of food and drink;
and on its floor stood a chair of crystal.[235] In another fairy palace,
the enchanted cave of Keshcorran, Conaran, son of Imidel, a chief of the
Tuatha De Danann, had sway; 'and so soon as he perceived that the
hounds' cry now sounded deviously, he bade his three daughters (that
were full of sorcery) to go and take vengeance on Finn for his
hunting'[236]--just as nowadays the 'good people' take vengeance on one
of our race if a fairy domain is violated. Frequently the fairy palace
is under a lake, as in the christianized story of the _Disappearance of
Caenchomrac_:--Once when 'the cleric chanted his psalms, he saw [come]
towards him a tall man that emerged out of the loch: from the bottom of
the water that is to say.' This tall man informed the cleric that he
came from an under-water monastery, and explained 'that there should be
subaqueous inhabiting by men is with God no harder than that they should
dwell in any other place'.[237] In all these ancient literary accounts
of the _Sidhe_-palaces we easily recognize the same sort of palaces as
those described to-day by Gaelic peasants as the habitations of the
'gentry', or 'good people', or 'people of peace.' Such habitations are
in mountain caverns like those of Ben Bulbin or Knock Ma, or in fairy
hills or knolls like the Fairy-Hill at Aberfoyle on which Robert Kirk is
believed to have been _taken_, or beneath lakes. This brings us directly
to the way in which the _Sidhe_ or Tuatha De Danann of the olden times
_took_ fine-looking young men and maidens.
HOW THE _SIDHE_ 'TOOK' MORTALS
Perhaps one of the earliest and most famous literary accounts of such a
_taking_ is that concerning Aedh, son of Eochaid Lethderg son of the
King of Leinster, who is represented as contemporary with Patrick.[238]
While Aedh was enjoying a game of hurley with his boy companions near
the _sídh_ of Liamhain Softsmock, two of the _sídh_-women, who loved the
young prince, very suddenly appeared, and as suddenly took him away with
them into a fairy palace and kept him there three years. It happened,
however, that he escaped at the end of that time, and, knowing the
magical powers of Patrick, went to where the holy man was, and thus
explained himself:--'Against the youths my opponents I (i. e. my side)
took seven goals; but at the last one that I took, here come up to me
two women clad in green mantles: two daughters of _Bodhb derg mac an
Daghda_, and their names _Slad_ and _Mumain_. Either of them took me by
a hand, and they led me off to a garish _brugh_; whereby for now three
years my people mourn after me, the _sídh_-folk caring for me ever
since, and until last night I got a chance opening to escape from the
_brugh_, when to the number of fifty lads we emerged out of the _sídh_
and forth upon the green. Then it was that I considered the magnitude of
that strait in which they of the _sídh_ had had me, and away from the
_brugh_ I came running to seek thee, holy Patrick.' 'That,' said the
saint, 'shall be to thee a safeguard, so that neither their power nor
their dominion shall any more prevail against thee.' And so when Patrick
had thus made Aedh proof against the power of the fairy-folk, he kept
him with him under the disguise of a travelling minstrel until, arriving
in Leinster, he restored him to his father the king and to his
inheritance: Aedh enters the palace in his minstrel disguise; and in the
presence of the royal assembly Patrick commands him: 'Doff now once for
all thy dark capacious hood, and well mayest thou wear thy father's
spear!' When the lad removed his hood, and none there but recognized
him, great was the surprise. He seemed like one come back from the
dead, for long had his heirless father and people mourned for him. 'By
our word,' exclaimed the assembly in their joyous excitement, 'it is a
good cleric's gift!' And the king said: 'Holy Patrick, seeing that till
this day thou hast nourished him and nurtured, let not the Tuatha De
Danann's power any more prevail against the lad.' And Patrick answered:
'That death which the King of Heaven and Earth hath ordained is the one
that he will have.' This ancient legend shows clearly that the Tuatha De
Danann, or _Sidhe_, in the time when the scribe wrote the _Colloquy_
were thought of in the same way as now, as able to _take_ beautiful
mortals whom they loved, and able to confer upon them fairy immortality
which prevented 'that death which the King of Heaven and Earth hath
ordained'.
Mortals, did they will it, could live in the world of the _Sidhe_ for
ever, and we shall see this more fully in our study of the Otherworld.
But here it will be interesting to learn that, unlike Aedh, whom some
perhaps would call a foolish youth, Laeghaire, also a prince, for he was
the son of the king of Connaught, entered a _dún_ of the _Sidhe_, taking
fifty other warriors with him; and he and his followers found life in
Fairyland so pleasant that they all decided to enjoy it eternally.
Accordingly, when they had been there a year, they planned to return to
Connaught in order to bid the king and his people a final farewell. They
announced their plan, and Fiachna of the _Sidhe_ told them how to
accomplish it safely:--'If ye would come back take with you horses, but
by no means dismount from off them'; 'So it was done: they went their
way and came upon a general assembly in which Connaught, as at the year
expired, mourned for the aforesaid warrior-band, whom now all at once
they perceived above them (i. e. on higher ground). Connaught sprang to
meet them, but Laeghaire cried: "Approach us not [to touch us]: 'tis to
bid you farewell that we are here!" "Leave me not!" Crimthann, his
father, said: "Connaught's royal power be thine; their silver and their
gold, their horses with their bridles, and their noble women be at thy
discretion, only leave me not!" But Laeghaire turned from them and so
entered again into the _sídh_, where with Fiachna he exercises joint
kingly rule; nor is he as yet come out of it.'[239]
HILL VISIONS OF _SIDHE_ WOMEN
There are many recorded traditions which represent certain hills as
mystical places whereon men are favoured with visions of fairy women.
Thus, one day King Muirchertach came forth to hunt on the border of the
Brugh (near Stackallan Bridge, County Meath), and his companions left
him alone on his hunting-mound. 'He had not been there long when he saw
a solitary damsel beautifully formed, fair-haired, bright-skinned, with
a green mantle about her sitting near him on the turfen mound; and it
seemed to him that of womankind he had never beheld her equal in beauty
and refinement.'[240] In the Mabinogion of _Pwyll, Prince of Dyvet_,
which seems to be only a Brythonic treatment of an original Gaelic tale,
Pwyll seating himself on a mound where any mortal sitting might see a
prodigy, saw a fairy woman ride past on a white horse, and she clad in a
garment of shining gold. Though he tried to have his servitor on the
swiftest horse capture her, 'There was some magic about the lady that
kept her always the same distance ahead, though she appeared to be
riding slowly.' When on the second day Pwyll returned to the mound the
fairy woman came riding by as before, and the servitor again gave
unsuccessful chase. Pwyll saw her in the same manner on the third day.
He thereupon gave chase himself, and when he exclaimed to her, 'For the
sake of the man whom you love, wait for me!' she stopped; and by mutual
arrangement the two agreed to meet and to marry at the end of a
year.[241]
THE MINSTRELS OR MUSICIANS OF THE _SIDHE_
Not only did the fairy-folk of more ancient times enjoy wonderful
palaces full of beauty and riches, and a life of eternal youth, but they
also had, even as now, minstrelsy and rare music--music to which that of
our own world could not be compared at all; for even Patrick himself
said that it would equal the very music of heaven if it were not for 'a
twang of the fairy spell that infests it'.[242] And this is how it was
that Patrick heard the fairy music:--As he was travelling through
Ireland he once sat down on a grassy knoll, as he often did in the good
old Irish way, with Ulidia's king and nobles and Caeilte also: 'Nor were
they long there before they saw draw near them a _scológ_ or
"non-warrior" that wore a fair green mantle having in it a fibula of
silver; a shirt of yellow silk next his skin, over and outside that
again a tunic of soft satin, and with a _timpán_ (a sort of harp) of the
best slung on his back. "Whence comest thou, _scológ_?" asked the king.
"Out of the _sídh_ of the Daghda's son Bodhb Derg, out of Ireland's
southern part." "What moved thee out of the south, and who art thou
thyself?" "I am Cascorach, son of Cainchinn that is _ollave_ to the
Tuatha De Danann, and am myself the makings of an _ollave_ (i. e. an
aspirant to the grade). What started me was the design to acquire
knowledge, and information, and lore for recital, and the Fianna's
mighty deeds of valour, from Caeilte son of Ronan." Then he took his
_timpán_ and made for them music and minstrelsy, so that he sent them
slumbering off to sleep.' And Cascorach's music was pleasing to Patrick,
who said of it: 'Good indeed it were, but for a twang of the fairy spell
that infests it; barring which nothing could more nearly than it
resemble Heaven's harmony.'[243] And that very night which followed the
day on which the _ollave_ to the Tuatha De Danann came to them was the
Eve of _Samain_. There was also another of these fairy _timpán_-players
called 'the wondrous elfin man', 'Aillén mac Midhna of the Tuatha De
Danann, that out of _sídh_ Finnachaidh to the northward used to come to
Tara: the manner of his coming being with a musical _timpán_ in his
hand, the which whenever any heard he would at once sleep. Then, all
being lulled thus, out of his mouth Aillén would emit a blast of fire.
It was on the solemn _Samain_-Day (November Day) he came in every year,
played his _timpán_, and to the fairy music that he made all hands would
fall asleep. With his breath he used to blow up the flame and so, during
a three-and-twenty years' spell, yearly burnt up Tara with all her
gear.' And it is said that Finn, finally overcoming the magic of Aillén,
slew him.[243]
Perhaps in the first musician, Cascorach, though he is described as the
son of a Tuatha De Danann minstrel, we behold a mortal like one of the
many Irish pipers and musicians who used to go, or even go yet, to the
fairy-folk to be educated in the musical profession, and then come back
as the most marvellous players that ever were in Ireland; though if
Cascorach were once a mortal it seems that he has been quite transformed
in bodily nature so as to be really one of the Tuatha De Danann himself.
But Aillén mac Midhna is undoubtedly one of the mighty 'gentry' who
could--as we heard from County Sligo--destroy half the human race if
they wished. Aillén visits Tara, the old psychic centre both for
Ireland's high-kings and its Druids. He comes as it were against the
conquerors of his race, who in their neglectfulness no longer render due
worship and sacrifice on the Feast of _Samain_ to the Tuatha De Danann,
the gods of the dead, at that time supreme; and then it is that he works
his magic against the royal palaces of the kings and Druids on the
ancient Hill. And to overcome the magic of Aillén and slay him, that is,
make it impossible for him to repeat his annual visits to Tara, it
required the might of the great hero Finn, who himself was related to
the same _Sidhe_ race, for by a woman of the Tuatha De Danann he had his
famous son Ossian (Oisin).[244]
In _Gilla dé_, who is Manannan mac Lir, the greatest magician of the
Tuatha De Danann, disguised as a being who can disappear in the
twinkling of an eye whenever he wishes, and reappear unexpectedly as a
'kern that wore garb of yellow stripes', we meet with another fairy
musician. And to him O'Donnell says:--'By Heaven's grace again, since
first I heard the fame of them that within the hills and under the earth
beneath us make the fairy music, ... music sweeter than thy strains I
have never heard; thou art in sooth a most melodious rogue!'[245] And
again it is said of him:--'Then the _gilla decair_ taking a harp played
music so sweet ... and the king after a momentary glance at his own
musicians never knew which way he went from him.'[246]
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND WARFARE AMONG THE _SIDHE_
So far, we have seen only the happy side of the life of the
_Sidhe_-folk--their palaces and pleasures and music; but there was a
more human (or anthropomorphic) side to their nature in which they wage
war on one another, and have their matrimonial troubles even as we
moderns. And we turn now to examine this other side of their life, to
behold the _Sidhe_ as a warlike race; and as we do so let us remember
that the 'gentry' in the Ben Bulbin country and in all Ireland, and the
people of Finvara in Knock Ma, and also the invisible races of
California, are likewise described as given to war and mighty feats of
arms.
The invisible Irish races have always had a very distinct social
organization, so distinct in fact that Ireland can be divided according
to its fairy kings and fairy queens and their territories even now;[247]
and no doubt we see in this how the ancient Irish anthropomorphically
projected into an animistic belief their own social conditions and
racial characteristics. And this social organization and territorial
division ought to be understood before we discuss the social troubles
and consequent wars of the _Sidhe_-folk. For example in Munster Bodb was
king and his enchanted palace was called the _Síd_ of the Men of
Femen;[248] and we already know about the over-king Dagda and his Boyne
palace near Tara. In more modern times, especially in popular
fairy-traditions, Eevil or Eevinn (_Aoibhill_ or _Aoibhinn_) of the
_Craig Liath_ or Grey Rock is a queen of the Munster fairies;[249] and
Finvara is king of the Connaught fairies (see p. 42). There are also the
Irish fairy-queens Cleeona (_Cliodhna_, or in an earlier form _Clidna_
[cf. p. 356]) and Aine (see p. 79 above).
We are now prepared to see the Tuatha De Danann in their domestic
troubles and wars; and the following story is as interesting as any, for
in it Dagda himself is the chief actor. Once when his own son Oengus
fell sick of a love malady, King Dagda, who ruled all the _Sidhe_-folk
in Ireland, joined forces with Ailill and Medb in order to compel Ethal
Anbual to deliver up his beautiful daughter Caer whom Oengus loved. When
Ethal Anbual's palace had been stormed and Ethal Anbual reduced to
submission, he declared he had no power over his daughter Caer, for on
the first of November each year, he said, she changed to a swan, or from
a swan to a maiden again. 'The first of November next,' he added, 'my
daughter will be under the form of a swan, near the Loch bel Draccon.
Marvellous birds will be seen there: my daughter will be surrounded by a
hundred and fifty other swans.' When the November Day arrived, Oengus
went to the lake, and, seeing the swans and recognizing Caer, plunged
into the water and instantly became a swan with her. While under the
form of swans, Oengus and Caer went together to the Boyne palace of the
king Dagda, his father, and remained there; and their singing was so
sweet that all who heard it slept three days and three nights.[250] In
this story, new elements in the nature of the _Sidhe_ appear, though
like modern ones: the _Sidhe_ are able to assume other forms than their
own, are subject to enchantments like mortals; and when under the form
of swans are in some perhaps superficial aspects like the swan-maidens
in stories which are world-wide, and their swan-song has the same
sweetness and magical effect as in other countries.[251]
In the Rennes _Dinnshenchas_ there is a tale about a war among the 'men
of the Elfmounds' over 'two lovable maidens who dwelt in the elfmound',
and when they delivered the battle 'they all shaped themselves into the
shapes of deer'.[252] Midir's sons under Donn mac Midir, in rebellion
against the Daghda's son Bodh Derg, fled away to an obscure _sídh_,
where in yearly battle they met the hosts of the other Tuatha De Danann
under Bodh Derg; and it was into this _sídh_ or fairy palace on the very
eve before the annual contest that Finn and his six companions were
enticed by the fairy woman in the form of a fawn, to secure their
aid.[253] And in another tale, Laeghaire, son of the king of Connaught,
with fifty warriors, plunged into a lake to the fairy world beneath it,
in order to assist the fairy man, who came thence to them, to recover
his wife stolen by a rival.[253]
THE _SIDHE_ AS WAR-GODDESSES OR THE _BADB_
It is in the form of birds that certain of the Tuatha De Danann appear
as war-goddesses and directors of battle,[254]--and we learn from one of
our witnesses (p. 46) that the 'gentry' or modern _Sidhe_-folk take
sides even now in a great war, like that between Japan and Russia. It is
in their relation to the hero Cuchulainn that one can best study the
People of the Goddess Dana in their rôle as controllers of human war. In
the greatest of the Irish epics, the _Taín Bó Cuailnge_, where
Cuchulainn is under their influence, these war-goddesses are called
_Badb_[255] (or _Bodb_) which here seems to be a collective term for
_Neman_, _Macha_, and _Morrigu_ (or _Morrigan_)[256]--each of whom
exercises a particular supernatural power. _Neman_ appears as the
confounder of armies, so that friendly bands, bereft of their senses by
her, slaughter one another; _Macha_ is a fury that riots and revels
among the slain; while _Morrigu_, the greatest of the three, by her
presence infuses superhuman valour into Cuchulainn, nerves him for the
cast, and guides the course of his unerring spear. And the Tuatha De
Danann in infusing this valour into the great hero show themselves--as
we already know them to be on _Samain_ Eve--the rulers of all sorts of
demons of the air and awful spirits:--In the _Book of Leinster_ (fol.
57, B 2) it is recorded that 'the satyrs, and sprites, and maniacs of
the valleys, and demons of the air, shouted about him, for the Tuatha De
Danann were wont to impart their valour to him, in order that he might
be more feared, more dreaded, more terrible, in every battle and
battle-field, in every combat and conflict, into which he went.'
The Battles of Moytura seem in most ways to be nothing more than the
traditional record of a long warfare to determine the future spiritual
control of Ireland, carried on between two diametrically opposed orders
of invisible beings, the Tuatha De Danann representing the gods of light
and good and the Fomorians representing the gods of darkness and evil.
It is said that after the second of these battles 'The _Morrigu_,
daughter of Ernmas (the Irish war-goddess), proceeded to proclaim that
battle and the mighty victory which had taken place, to the royal
heights of Ireland and to its fairy host and its chief waters and its
river-mouths'.[257] For good had prevailed over evil, and it was settled
that all Ireland should for ever afterwards be a sacred country ruled
over by the People of the Goddess Dana and the Sons of Mil jointly. So
that here we see the Tuatha De Danann with their war-goddess fighting
their own battles in which human beings play no part.
It is interesting to observe that this Irish war-goddess, the _bodb_ or
_badb_, considered of old to be one of the Tuatha De Danann, has
survived to our own day in the fairy-lore of the chief Celtic countries.
In Ireland the survival is best seen in the popular and still almost
general belief among the peasantry that the fairies often exercise their
magical powers under the form of royston-crows; and for this reason
these birds are always greatly dreaded and avoided. The resting of one
of them on a peasant's cottage may signify many things, but often it
means the death of one of the family or some great misfortune, the bird
in such a case playing the part of a _bean-sidhe_ (banshee). And this
folk-belief finds its echo in the recorded tales of Wales, Scotland, and
Brittany. In the _Mabinogi_, 'Dream of Rhonabwy,' Owain, prince of
Rheged and a contemporary of Arthur, has a wonderful crow which always
secures him victory in battle by the aid of three hundred other crows
under its leadership. In Campbell's _Popular Tales of the West
Highlands_ the fairies very often exercise their power in the form of
the common hoody crow; and in Brittany there is a folk-tale entitled
'_Les Compagnons_'[258] in which the chief actor is a fairy under the
form of a magpie who lives in a royal forest just outside Rennes.[259]
W. M. Hennessy has shown that the word _bodb_ or _badb_, aspirated
_bodhbh_ or _badhbh_ (pronounced _bov_ or _bav_), originally signified
rage, fury, or violence, and ultimately implied a witch, fairy, or
goddess; and that as the memory of this Irish goddess of war survives in
folk-lore, her emblem is the well-known scald-crow, or royston-crow.[260]
By referring to Peter O'Connell's _Irish Dictionary_ we are able to
confirm this popular belief which identifies the battle-fairies with
the royston-crow, and to discover that there is a definite relationship
or even identification between the _Badb_ and the _Bean-sidhe_ or
banshee, as there is in modern Irish folk-lore between the royston-crow
and the fairy who announces a death. _Badb-catha_ is made to equal
'Fionog, a royston-crow, a squall crow'; _Badb_ is defined as a
'_bean-sidhe_, a female fairy, phantom, or spectre, supposed to be
attached to certain families, and to appear sometimes in the form of
squall-crows, or royston-crows'; and the _Badb_ in the three-fold aspect
is thus explained: '_Macha_, i. e. a royston-crow; _Morrighain_, i. e.
the great fairy; _Neamhan_, i. e. _Badb catha nó feannóg; a badb catha_,
or royston-crow.' Similar explanations are given by other glossarists,
and thus the evidence of etymological scholarship as well as that of
folk-lore support the Psychological Theory.
THE _SIDHE_ IN THE BATTLE OF CLONTARF, A. D. 1014
The People of the Goddess Dana played an important part in human warfare
even so late as the Battle of Clontarf, fought near Dublin, April 23,
1014; and at that time fairy women and phantom-hosts were to the Irish
unquestionable existences, as real as ordinary men and women. It is
recorded in the manuscript story of the battle, of which numerous copies
exist, that the fairy woman Aoibheall[261] came to Dunlang O'Hartigan
before the battle and begged him not to fight, promising him life and
happiness for two hundred years if he would put off fighting for a
single day; but the patriotic Irishman expressed his decision to fight
for Ireland, and then the fairy woman foretold how he and his friend
Murrough, and Brian and Conaing and all the nobles of Erin and even his
own son Turlough, were fated to fall in the conflict.
On the eve of the battle, Dunlang comes to his friend Murrough directly
from the fairy woman; and Murrough upon seeing him reproaches him for
his absence in these words:--'Great must be the love and attachment of
some woman for thee which has induced thee to abandon me.' 'Alas O
King,' answered Dunlang, 'the delight which I have abandoned for thee is
greater, if thou didst but know it, namely, life without death, without
cold, without thirst, without hunger, without decay, beyond any delight
of the delights of the earth to me, until the judgement, and heaven
after the judgement; and if I had not pledged my word to thee I would
not have come here; and, moreover, it is fated for me to die on the day
that thou shalt die.' When Murrough has heard this terrible message, the
prophecy of his own death in the battle, despondency seizes him; and
then it is that he declares that he for Ireland like Dunlang for honour
has also sacrificed the opportunity of entering and living in that
wonderful Land of Eternal Youth:--'Often was I offered in hills, and in
fairy mansions, this world (the fairy world) and these gifts, but I
never abandoned for one night my country nor mine inheritance for
them.'[262]
And thus is described the meeting of the two armies at Clontarf, and the
demons of the air and the phantoms, and all the hosts of the invisible
world who were assembled to scatter confusion and to revel in the
bloodshed, and how above them in supremacy rose the _Badb_:--'It will be
one of the wonders of the day of judgement to relate the description of
this tremendous onset. There arose a wild, impetuous, precipitate, mad,
inexorable, furious, dark, lacerating, merciless, combative, contentious
_badb_, which was shrieking and fluttering over their heads. And there
arose also the satyrs, and sprites, and the maniacs of the valleys, and
the witches, and goblins, and owls, and destroying demons of the air and
firmament, and the demoniac phantom host; and they were inciting and
sustaining valour and battle with them.'[263] It is said of Murrough
(_Murchadh_) as he entered the thick of the fight and prepared to assail
the foreign invaders, the Danes, when they had repulsed the Dal-Cais,
that 'he was seized with a boiling terrible anger, an excessive
elevation and greatness of spirit and mind. A bird of valour and
championship rose in him, and fluttered over his head and on his
breath'.[264]
CONCLUSION
The recorded or manuscript Fairy-Faith of the Gaels corresponds in all
essentials with the living Gaelic Fairy-Faith: the Tuatha De Danann or
_Sidhe_, the 'Gentry', the 'Good People', and the 'People of Peace' are
described as a race of invisible divine beings eternally young and
unfading. They inhabit fairy palaces, enjoy rare feasts and love-making,
and have their own music and minstrelsy. They are essentially majestic
in their nature; they wage war in their own invisible realm against
other of its inhabitants like the ancient Fomorians; they frequently
direct human warfare or nerve the arm of a great hero like Cuchulainn;
and demons of the air, spirit hosts, and awful unseen creatures obey
them. Mythologically they are gods of light and good, able to control
natural phenomena so as to make harvests come forth abundantly or not at
all. But they are not such mythological beings as we read about in
scholarly dissertations on mythology, dissertations so learned in their
curious and unreasonable and often unintelligible hypotheses about the
workings of the mind among primitive men. The way in which social
psychology has deeply affected all such animistic beliefs was pointed
out above in chapter iii. In chapter xi, entitled _Science and Fairies_,
our position with respect to the essential nature of the fairy races
will be made clear.
SECTION II
THE RECORDED FAIRY-FAITH
CHAPTER V
BRYTHONIC DIVINITIES AND THE BRYTHONIC FAIRY-FAITH[265]
'On the one hand we have the man Arthur, whose position we have
tried to define, and on the other a greater Arthur, a more colossal
figure, of which we have, so to speak, but a _torso_ rescued from
the wreck of the Celtic pantheon.'--The Right Hon. Sir JOHN
RHŶS.
The god Arthur and the hero Arthur--Sevenfold evidence to show
Arthur as an incarnate fairy king--Lancelot the foster-son of a
fairy woman--Galahad the offspring of Lancelot and the fairy woman
Elayne--Arthur as a fairy king in _Kulhwch and Olwen_--Gwynn ab
Nudd--Arthur like Dagda, and like Osiris--Brythonic fairy-romances:
their evolution and antiquity--Arthur in Nennius, Geoffrey, Wace,
and in Layamon--Cambrensis' Otherworld tale--Norman-French writers
of twelfth and thirteenth centuries--_Romans d'Aventure_ and
_Romans Bretons_--Origins of the 'Matter of Britain'--Fairy-romance
episodes in Welsh literature--Brythonic origins.
ARTHUR AND ARTHURIAN MYTHOLOGY
As we have just considered the Gaelic Divinities in their character as
the Fairy-Folk of popular Gaelic tradition, so now we proceed to
consider the Brythonic Divinities in the same way, beginning with the
greatest of them all, Arthur. Even a superficial acquaintance with the
Arthurian Legend shows how impossible it is to place upon it any one
interpretation to the exclusion of other interpretations, for in one
aspect Arthur is a Brythonic divinity and in another a sixth-century
Brythonic chieftain. But the explanation of this double aspect seems
easy enough when we regard the historical Arthur as a great hero, who,
exactly as in so many parallel cases of national hero-worship,
came--within a comparatively short time--to be enshrined in the
imagination of the patriotic Brythons with all the attributes anciently
belonging to a great Celtic god called Arthur.[266] The hero and the god
were first confused, and then identified,[267] and hence arose that
wonderful body of romance which we call Arthurian, and which has become
the glory of English literature.
Arthur in the character of a culture hero,[268] with god-like powers to
instruct mortals in wisdom, and, also, as a being in some way related to
the sun--as a sun-god perhaps--can well be considered the human-divine
institutor of the mystic brotherhood known as the Round Table. We ought,
probably, to consider Arthur, like Cuchulainn, as a god incarnate in a
human body for the purpose of educating the race of men; and thus, while
living as a man, related definitely and, apparently, consciously to the
invisible gods or fairy-folk. Among the Aztecs and Peruvians in the New
World, there was a widespread belief that great heroes who had once been
men have now their celestial abode in the sun, and from time to time
reincarnate to become teachers of their less developed brethren of our
own race; and a belief of the same character existed among the Egyptians
and other peoples of the Old World, including the Celts. It will be
further shown, in our study of the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth, that
anciently among the Gaels and Brythons such heroes as Cuchulainn and
Arthur were also considered reincarnate sun-divinities. As a being
related to the sun, as a sun-god, Arthur is like Osiris, the Great
Being, who with his brotherhood of great heroes and god-companions
enters daily the underworld or Hades to battle against the demons and
forces of evil,[269] even as the Tuatha De Danann battled against the
Fomors. And the most important things in the traditions of the great
Brythonic hero connect him directly with this strange world of
subjectivity. First of all, his own father, Uthr Bendragon,[270] was a
king of Hades, so that Arthur himself, being his child, is a direct
descendant of this Otherworld. Second, the Arthurian Legend traces the
origin of the Round Table back to Arthur's father, Hades being 'the
realm whence all culture was fabled to have been derived'.[271] Third,
the name of Arthur's wife, Gwenhwyvar, resolves itself into White
Phantom or White Apparition, in harmony with Arthur's line of descent
from the region of phantoms and apparitions and fairy-folk.
Thus:--_Gwenhwyvar_ or _Gwenhwyfar_ equals _Gwen_ or _Gwenn_, a
Brythonic word meaning white, and _hwyvar_, a word not found in the
Brythonic dialects, but undoubtedly cognate with the Irish word
_siabhradh_, a fairy, equal to _siabhra_, _siabrae_, _siabur_, a fairy,
or ghost, the Welsh and the Irish word going back to the form
_*seibaro_.[272] Hence the name of Arthur's wife means the _white ghost_
or _white phantom_, quite in keeping with the nature of the Tuatha De
Danann and that of the fairy-folk of Wales or _Tylwyth Teg_--the 'Fair
Family'.
Fourth, as a link in the chain of evidence connecting Arthur with the
invisible world where the Fairy-People live, his own sister is called
_Morgan le Fay_ in the romances,[273] and is thus definitely one of the
fairy women who, according to tradition, are inhabitants of the Celtic
Otherworld sometimes known as Avalon. Fifth, in the Welsh Triads,[274]
Llacheu, the son of Arthur and Gwenhwyvar, is credited with clairvoyant
vision, like the fairy-folk, so that he understands the secret nature of
all solid and material things; and 'the story of his death as given in
the second part of the Welsh version of the Grail, makes him hardly
human at all.'[275] Sixth, the name of Melwas, the abductor of Arthur's
wife, is shown by Sir John Rhŷs to mean a prince-youth or a princely
youth, and the same authority considers it probable that, as such,
Melwas or Maelwas was a being endowed with eternal youth,--even as
Midir, the King of the Tuatha De Danann, who though a thousand years old
appeared handsome and youthful. So it seems that the abduction of
Gwenhwyfar was really a fairy abduction, such as we read about in the
domestic troubles of the Irish fairy-folk, on a level with the abduction
of Etain by her Otherworld husband Midir.[276] And in keeping with this
superhuman character of the abductor of the White Phantom or Fairy,
Chrétien de Troyes, in his metrical romance _Le Conte de la Charrette_,
describes the realm of which Melwas was lord as a place whence no
traveller returns.[277] As further proof that the realm of Melwas was
meant by Chrétien to be the subjective world, where the god-like Tuatha
De Danann, the _Tylwyth Teg_, and the shades of the dead equally exist,
it is said that access to it was by two narrow bridges; 'one called _li
Ponz Evages_ or the Water Bridge, because it was a narrow passage a foot
and a half wide and as much in height, with water above and below it as
well as on both sides'; the other _li Ponz de l'Espée_ or the Sword
Bridge, because it consisted of the edge of a sword two lances in
length.[278] The first bridge, considered less perilous than the other,
was chosen by Gauvain (Gwalchmei), when with Lancelot he was seeking to
rescue Gwenhwyfar; but he failed to cross it. Lancelot with great
trouble crossed the second. In many mythologies and in world-wide
folk-tales there is a narrow bridge or bridges leading to the realm of
the dead. Even Mohammed in the _Koran_ declares it necessary to cross a
bridge as thin as a hair, if one would enter Paradise. And in living
folk-lore in Celtic countries, as we found among the Irish peasantry,
the crossing of a bridge or stream of water when pursued by fairies or
phantoms is a guarantee of protection. There is always the mystic water
between the realm of the living and the realm of subjectivity.[279] In
ancient Egypt there was always the last voyage begun on the sacred Nile;
and in all classical literature Pluto's realm is entered by crossing a
dark, deep river,--the river of forgetfulness between physical
consciousness and spiritual consciousness. Burns has expressed this
belief in its popular form in his _Tam O'Shanter_. And in our Arthurian
parallel there is a clear enough relation between the beings inhabiting
the invisible realm and the Brythonic heroes and gods. How striking,
too, as Gaston Paris has pointed out, is the similarity between Melwas'
capturing Gwenhwyvar as she was in the woods a-maying, and the rape of
Proserpine by Pluto, the god of Hades, while she was collecting flowers
in the fields.[280]
A curious matter in connexion with this episode of Gwenhwyvar's
abduction should claim our attention. Malory relates[281] that when
Queen Guenever advised her knights of the Table Round that on the morrow
(May Day, when fairies have special powers) she would go on maying, she
warned them all to be well-horsed and _dressed in green_. This was the
colour that nearly all the fairy-folk of Britain and Ireland wear. It
symbolizes, as many ancient mystical writings declare, eternal youth,
and resurrection or re-birth, as in nature during the springtime, when
all vegetation after its death-sleep of winter springs into new
life.[282] In the _Myvyrian Archaiology_,[283] Arthur when he has
reached the realm of Melwas speaks with Gwenhwyvar,[284] he being on a
black horse and she on a green one:--'Green is my steed of the tint of
the leaves.' Arthur's black horse--black perhaps signifying the dead to
whose realm he has gone--being proof against all water, may have been,
therefore, proof against the inhabitants of the world of shades and
against fairies:--
Black is my steed and brave beneath me,
No water will make him fear,
And no man will make him swerve.
The fairy colour, in different works and among different authors
differing both in time and country, continues to attach itself to the
abduction episode. Thus, in the fourteenth century the poet D. ab Gwilym
alludes to Melwas himself as having a cloak of green:--'The sleep of
Melwas beneath (or in) the green cloak.' Sir John Rhŷs, who makes
this translation, observes that another reading still of _y glas glog_
resolves it into a green bower to which Melwas took Gwenhwyvar.[285] In
any case, the reference is significant, and goes far, in combination
with the other references, to represent the White Phantom or Fairy and
her lover Melwas as beings of a race like the Irish _Sidhe_ or People of
the Goddess Dana. And though by no means exhausting all examples tending
to prove this point, we pass on to the seventh and most important of our
links in the sequence of evidence, the carrying of Arthur to Avalon in a
fairy ship by fairy women.
From the first, Arthur was under superhuman guidance and protection.
Merlin the magician, born of a spirit or daemon, claimed Arthur before
birth and became his teacher afterwards. From the mysterious Lady of the
Lake, Arthur received his magic sword _Excalibur_,[286] and to her
returned it, through Sir Bedivere. During all his time on earth the
'lady of the lake that was always friendly to King Arthur'[287] watched
over him; and once when she saw him in great danger, like the Irish
_Morrigu_ who presided over the career of Cuchulainn, she sought to save
him, and with the help of Sir Tristram succeeded.[287] The passing of
Arthur to Avalon or Faerie seems to be a return to his own native realm
of subjectivity. His own sister was with him in the ship, for she was of
the invisible country too.[288] And another of his companions on his
voyage from the visible to the invisible was his life-guardian Nimue,
the lady of the lake. Merlin could not be of the company, for he was
already in Faerie with the Fay Vivian. Behold the passing of Arthur as
Malory describes it:--'... thus was he led away in a ship wherein were
three queens; that one was King Arthur's sister, Queen Morgan le Fay;
the other was the Queen of Northgalis; the third was the Queen of the
Waste Lands. Also there was Nimue, the chief lady of the lake, that had
wedded Pelleas the good knight; and this lady had done much for King
Arthur, for she would never suffer Sir Pelleas to be in no place where
he should be in danger of his life.'[289] Concerning the great Arthur's
return from Avalon we shall speak in the chapter dealing with Re-birth.
And we pass now from Arthur and his Brotherhood of gods and fairy-folk
to Lancelot and his son Galahad--the two chief knights in the Arthurian
Romance.
According to one of the earliest accounts we have of Lancelot, the
German poem by Ulrich von Zatzikhoven, as analysed by Gaston Paris, he
was the son of King Pant and Queen Clarine of Genewis.[290] In
consequence of the hatred of their subjects the royal pair were forced
to flee when Lancelot was only a year old. During the flight, the king,
mortally wounded, died; and just as the queen was about to be taken
captive, a fairy rising in a cloud of mist carried away the infant
Lancelot from where his parents had placed him under a tree. The fairy
took him to her abode on an island in the midst of the sea, from whence
she derived her title of Lady of the Lake, and he, as her adopted son,
the name of _Lancelot du Lac_; and her island-world was called the Land
of Maidens. Having lived in that world of Faerie so long, it was only
natural that Lancelot should have grown up more like one of its
fair-folk than like a mortal. No doubt it was on account of his
half-supernatural nature that he fell in love with the White Phantom,
Gwenhwyvar, the wife of the king who had power to enter Hades and return
again to the land of the living. Who better than Lancelot could have
rescued Arthur's queen? No one else in the court was so well fitted for
the task. And it was he who was able to cross one of the magic bridges
into the realm of Melwas, the Otherworld, while Gauvain (in the English
form, Gawayne) failed.
Malory's narrative records how Lancelot, while suffering from the malady
of madness caused by Gwenhwyvar's jealous expulsion of Elayne his
fairy-sweetheart,--quite a parallel case to that of Cuchulainn when his
wife Emer expelled his fairy-mistress Fand,--fought against a wild boar
and was terribly wounded, and how afterwards he was nursed by his own
Elayne in Fairyland, and healed and restored to his right mind by the
Sangreal. Then Sir Ector and Sir Perceval found him there in the Joyous
Isle enjoying the companionship of Elayne, where he had been many years,
and from that world of Faerie induced him to return to Arthur's court.
And, finally, comes the most important element of all to show how
closely related Lancelot is with the fairy world and its people, and how
inseparable from that invisible realm another of the fundamental
elements in the life of Arthur is--the Quest of the Holy Grail, and the
story of Galahad, who of all the knights was pure and good enough to
behold the Sacred Vessel, and who was the offspring of the foster-son of
the Lady of the Lake and the fairy woman Elayne.[291]
In the strange old Welsh tale of _Kulhwch and Olwen_ we find Arthur and
his knights even more closely identified with the fairy realm than in
Malory and the Norman-French writers; and this is important, because the
ancient tale is, as scholars think, probably much freer from foreign
influences and re-working than the better-known romances of Arthur, and
therefore more in accord with genuine Celtic beliefs and folk-lore, as
we shall quickly see. The court of King Arthur to which the youth
Kulhwch goes seeking aid in his enterprise seems in some ways--though
the parallel is not complete enough to be emphasized--to be a more
artistic, because literary, picture of that fairy court which the Celtic
peasant locates under mountains, in caverns, in hills, and in knolls, a
court quite comparable to that of the Irish _Sidhe_-folk or Tuatha De
Danann. Arthur is represented in the midst of a brilliant life where, as
in the fairy palaces, there is much feasting; and Kulhwch being invited
to the feasting says, 'I came not here to consume meat and drink.'
And behold what sort of personages from that court Kulhwch has pledged
to him, so that by their supernatural assistance he may obtain Olwen,
herself perhaps a fairy held under fairy enchantment[292]: the sons of
Gwawrddur Kyrvach, whom Arthur had power to call from the confines of
hell; Morvran the son of Tegid, who, because of his ugliness, was
thought to be a demon; Sandde Bryd Angel, who was so beautiful that
mortals thought him a ministering angel; Henbedestyr, with whom no one
could keep pace 'either on horseback, or on foot', and who therefore
seems to be a spirit of the air; Henwas Adeinawg, with whom 'no
four-footed beast could run the distance of an acre, much less go beyond
it'; Sgilti Yscawndroed, who must have been another spirit or fairy, for
'when he intended to go on a message for his Lord (Arthur, who is like a
Tuatha De Danann king), he never sought to find a path, but knowing
whither he was to go, if his way lay through a wood he went along the
tops of the trees', and 'during his whole life, a blade of reed-grass
bent not beneath his feet, much less did one ever break, so lightly did
he tread'; Gwallgoyc, who 'when he came to a town, though there were
three hundred houses in it, if he wanted anything, he would not let
sleep come to the eyes of any whilst he remained there'; Osla
Gyllellvawr, who bore a short broad dagger, and 'when Arthur and his
hosts came before a torrent, they would seek for a narrow place where
they might pass the water, and would lay the sheathed dagger across the
torrent, and it would form a bridge sufficient for the armies of the
three Islands of Britain, and of the three islands adjacent, with their
spoil.' It seems very evident that this is the magic bridge, so often
typified by a sword or dagger, which connects the world invisible with
our own, and over which all shades and spirits pass freely to and fro.
In this case we think Arthur is very clearly a ruler of the spirit
realm, for, like the great Tuatha De Danann king Dagda, he can command
its fairy-like inhabitants, and his army is an army of spirits or
fairies. The unknown author of _Kulhwch_, like Spenser in modern times
in his _Faerie Queene_, seems to have made the Island of Britain the
realm of Faerie--the Celtic Otherworld--and Arthur its king. But let us
take a look at more of the men pledged to Kulhwch from among Arthur's
followers: Clust the son of Clustveinad, who possessed clairaudient
faculties of so extraordinary a kind that 'though he were buried seven
cubits beneath the earth, he would hear the ant fifty miles off rise
from her nest in the morning'; and the wonderful Kai, who could live
nine days and nine nights under water, for his breath lasted this long,
and he could exist the same length of time without sleep. 'A wound from
Kai's sword no physician could heal.' And at will he was as tall as the
highest tree in the forest. 'And he had another peculiarity: so great
was the heat of his nature, that, when it rained hardest, whatever he
carried remained dry for a handbreadth above and a handbreadth below his
hand; and when his companions were coldest, it was to them as fuel with
which to light their fire.'
Yet besides all these strange knights, Arthur commanded a being who is
without any reasonable doubt a god or ruler of the subjective
realm--'Gwynn ab Nudd, whom God has placed over the brood of devils in
Annwn, lest they should destroy the present race. He will never be
spared thence.' Whatever each one of us may think of this wonderful
assembly of warriors and heroes who recognized in Arthur their chief,
they are certainly not beings of the ordinary type,--in fact they seem
not of this world, but of that hidden land to which we all shall one day
journey.[293] But to avoid too much conjecture and to speak with a
degree of scientific exactness as to how Arthur and these companions of
his are to be considered, let us undertake a brief investigation into
the mythological character and nature of the chief one of them next to
the great hero--Gwynn ab Nudd. Professor J. Loth has said that 'nothing
shows better the evolution of mythological personages than the history
of Gwynn';[294] and in Irish we have the equivalent form of Nudd in the
name Nuada--famous for having had a hand of silver; and Nuada of the
Silver Hand was a king of the Tuatha De Danann. The same authority thus
describes Gwynn, the son of Nudd:--'Gwynn, like his father Nudd, is an
ancient god of the Britons and of the Gaels. Christian priests have made
of him a demon. The people persisted in regarding him as a powerful and
rich king, the sovereign of supernatural beings.'[295] And referring to
Gwynn, Professor Loth in his early edition of _Kulhwch_ says:--'Our
author has had an original idea: he has left him in hell, to which place
Christianity had made him descend, but for a motive which does him the
greatest honour: God has given him the strength of demons to control
them and to prevent them from destroying the present race of men: he is
indispensable down there.'[295] Lady Guest calls Gwynn the King of
Faerie,[296] the ruler of the _Tylwyth Teg_ or 'Family of Beauty', who
are always joyful and well-disposed toward mortals; and also the ruler
of the Elves (Welsh _Ellyllon_), a goblin race who take special delight
in misleading travellers and in playing mischievous tricks on men. It is
even said that Gwynn himself is given to indulging in the same
mischievous amusements as his elvish subjects.
The evidence now set forth seems to suggest clearly and even definitely
that Arthur in his true nature is a god of the subjective world, a ruler
of ghosts, demons, and demon rulers, and fairies; that the people of his
court are more like the Irish _Sidhe_-folk than like mortals; and that
as a great king he is comparable to Dagda the over-king of all the
Tuatha De Danann. Arthur and Osiris, two culture heroes and sun-gods, as
we suggested at first, are strikingly parallel. Osiris came from the
Otherworld to this one, became the first Divine Ruler and Culture Hero
of Egypt, and then returned to the Otherworld, where he is now a king.
Arthur's father was a ruler in the Otherworld, and Arthur evidently came
from there to be the Supreme Champion of the Brythons, and then returned
to that realm whence he took his origin, a realm which poets called
Avalon. The passing of Arthur seems mystically to represent the sunset
over the Western Ocean: Arthur disappears beneath the horizon into the
Lower World which is also the Halls of Osiris, wherein Osiris journeys
between sunset and sunrise, between death and re-birth. Merlin found the
infant Arthur floating on the waves: the sun rising across the waters is
this birth of Arthur, the birth of Osiris. In the chapter on Re-birth,
evidence will be offered to show that as a culture hero Arthur is to be
regarded as a sun-god incarnate in a human body to teach the Brythons
arts and sciences and hidden things--even as Prometheus and Zeus are
said to have come to earth to teach the Greeks; and that as a
sixth-century warrior, Arthur, in accordance with the Celtic Doctrine of
Re-birth, is an ancient Brythonic hero reincarnate.
THE LITERARY EVOLUTION AND THE ANTIQUITY OF THE BRYTHONIC FAIRY-ROMANCES
After the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, the ancient fairy-romances
of the Brythons began to exercise their remarkable literary influence as
we see it now in the evolution of the Arthurian Legend. And in this
evolution of the Arthurian Legend we find the proof of the antiquity of
the Brythonic Fairy-Faith, just as we find in the old Irish manuscripts
the proof of the antiquity of the Gaelic Fairy-Faith.
Long before 1066, Gildas gives the first recorded germs of the Arthurian
story in his _De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae_, though they are
hardly distinguishable as such. His failure to mention the name of
Arthur, though treating of the whole period when Arthur is supposed to
have lived, he himself being contemporary with the period, raises the
very difficult question which we have already mentioned, Did the mighty
Brythonic hero ever have an actual historical existence? Almost three
hundred years later--a period sufficiently removed from Gildas to have
made Arthur the supreme champion of the falling Brythons, granting that
he did exist during the sixth century as a Brythonic chieftain--in the
_Historia Britonum_, completed about the year 800, and attributed to
Nennius, Arthur, for the first time in a known manuscript, is mentioned
as a character of British history.[297] All that can be definitely said
of the narrative of Nennius 'is that it represents more or less
inconsistent British traditions of uncertain age'.[297] That it is not
always historical, many scholars are agreed. Dr. R. H. Fletcher says,
'There is always the possibility that Arthur never existed at all, and
that even Nennius's comparatively modest eulogy has no firmer foundation
than the persistent stories of ancient Celtic myth or the patriotic
figments of the ardent Celtic imagination.'[298] Sir John Rhŷs also
propounds a similar view.[299] Thus, for example, Nennius states that
Arthur in one battle slew single handed more than nine hundred men; and,
again, that the number of Arthur's always-successful battles was twelve,
as though Arthur were the sun or a sun-god, and his battles the twelve
months of the solar year.[298]
Between Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth there is an intermediate stage
in the development of the Arthurian Legend, during which the character
of Arthur tends to become more romantic; but for our purpose this period
is of slight importance. Thereafter, by means of Geoffrey's famous
_Historia Regum Britanniae_, written about 1136, the Arthurian Legend
gained popularity throughout Western Europe. In this work Arthur ceases
to be purely historical, and appears as a great king enveloped in the
mythical atmosphere of a Celtic hero, and with him Merlin and Lear are
for the first time definitely enshrined in the literature of
Britain.[300] Arthur's career is completely sketched in the _Historia_,
from birth to his mysterious departure for the Isle of Avalon after the
last fight with Modred, when fairy women take him to cure him of his
wounds (Book XI, 1-2). Geoffrey, thus the father of the Arthurian Legend
in English and European literature, was undoubtedly a Welshman who
probably had natural opportunities of knowing the true character of
Arthur from genuine Brythonic sources, though we know little about his
life. His _Historia_, as the researches of scholars have shown, was the
sum total in his time of all Arthurian history and myth, whether written
or orally transmitted, which he could collect; just as Malory's _Le
Morte d'Arthur_ was a compendium of Arthurian material in the time of
Edward IV.
There followed many imitations and translations of the _Historia_. The
most important of these appeared in 1155, _Le Roman de Brut_ or 'The
Story of Brutus', by the Norman poet Wace. The _Brut_, though
fundamentally a rimed version of the _Historia_, is much more than a
mere translation: Wace has improved on it; and he gives a convincing
impression that he had access to Celtic Arthurian stories not drawn upon
by Geoffrey, for he gives new touches about Gawain, mentions the
Britons' expectation of Arthur's return from Faerie, and the institution
of the Round Table.[301]
Somewhere about the year 1200, Layamon, a simple-hearted Saxon priest,
wrote another _Brut_, based upon the metrical one by Wace; and in the
literature of England, Layamon's work is the most valuable single
production between the Conquest and Chaucer. The life of Layamon is very
obscure, but it seems reasonably certain that for a long time he lived
on the Welsh marches in North Worcestershire, in the midst of living
Brythonic traditions, which he used at first hand; and, as a result, we
find in his _Brut_ legends not recorded in Geoffrey, or Wace, or in any
earlier or contemporary literature. For our purposes the most
interesting of many interesting additions made by Layamon are the
curious passages about the fairy elves at Arthur's birth, and about the
way in which Arthur was taken by them to their queen Argante in Avalon
to be cured of his wounds:--'The time came that was chosen, then was
Arthur born. So soon as he came on earth elves took him; they enchanted
the child into magic most strong; they gave him might to be the best of
all knights; they gave him another thing, that he should be a rich king;
they gave him the third, that he should live long; they gave to him the
prince virtues most good, so that he was most generous of all men alive.
This the elves gave him, and thus the child thrived.'[302]
In the last fatal battle Modred is slain and Arthur is grievously
wounded. As Arthur lies wounded, Constantine, Cador's son, the earl of
Cornwall, and a relative of Arthur, comes to him. Arthur greets him with
these words:--'"Constantine, thou art welcome; thou wert Cador's son. I
give thee here my kingdom.... And I will fare to Avalun, to the fairest
of all maidens, to Argante the queen, and elf most fair, and she shall
make my wounds all sound; make me all whole with healing draughts. And
afterwards I will come [again] to my kingdom, and dwell with the Britons
with mickle joy." Even with the words, there approached from the sea
that was, a short boat, floating with the waves; and two women therein,
wondrously formed; and they took Arthur anon, and bare him quickly, and
laid him softly down, and forth gan depart. Then it was accomplished
that Merlin whilom said, that mickle care (sorrow) should be of Arthur's
departure. The Britons believe that he is alive, and dwelleth in Avalun
with the fairest of all elves; and the Britons even yet expect when
Arthur shall return.'[303]
During this same period, Giraldus Cambrensis (1147-1223) in his
_Itinerarium Cambriae_ (Book I, c. 8) collected a popular Otherworld
tale. It is about a priest named Elidorus, who when a boy in Gower, the
western district of Glamorganshire, had free passage between this world
of ours and an underground country inhabited by a race of little people
who spoke a language like Greek. This tends to prove that the
Fairy-Faith was then flourishing among the people of Wales.
It was chiefly during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that the
Arthurian Legend as a thing of literature began to take definite shape.
The old romances of the Brythons were cultivated and revised, and
written down by men and women of literary genius. Chrétien de Troyes,
who recorded a large number of legendary stories in verse, Marie de
France, famous for her _Lais_, Thomas, the author of the chief version
of the _Tristan_ legend,[304] Béroul, who recorded a less important
version of this legend,[305] and Robert de Boron, who did much to
develop the legend of the Holy Grail, were among the greatest workers in
the French Celtic Revival of this time.
Professor Brown has shown that 'almost every incident in Chrétien's
_Iwain_ was suggested by an ancient Celtic tale, dealing with the
familiar theme of a journey to win a fairy mistress in the
Otherworld.'[306] The fay whom Iwain marries is called Laudine; and,
like one of the fairies who live in sacred waters, she has her favourite
fountain which the knight guards, as though he were the Black Knight in
the old Welsh tale of _The Lady of the Fountain_. Both Gaston Paris and
Alfred Nutt have also recognized the tale of _Iwain_ as a fairy
romance.[307] Professor Loth observes that, 'It is not impossible that
Chrétien had known, among fairy legends, Armorican legends, concerning
the fairies of waters, whose rôle is identical with that of the Welsh
_Tylwyth Teg_.'[308]
In _Lanval_, one of the _Lais_[309] by Marie de France, written during
the twelfth century, probably while its author was living in England, we
have direct proof that there was then flourishing in Brittany--well
known to Marie de France, who was French by birth and training--a
popular belief in fairy women who lived in the Otherworld, and who could
_take_ mortals on whom their love fell. It is probable that the older
lay, to which Marie de France refers in the beginning of her _Lanval_,
may have been the anonymous one of _Graelent_, sometimes improperly
attributed to her. Zimmer and Foerster place the origin of _Graelent_ in
Brittany[310]; and the similarity of the heroes in the two poems seems
to be due to a very ancient Brythonic Fairy-Faith. Dr. Schofield sees in
_Graelent_ an older form of the more polished _Lanval_; and remarks that
the chief difference in the two _lais_ is found in the way the hero
meets the fairy women. In the case of Lanval, when he leaves the court,
he goes to rest beside a river where two beautiful maidens come to him;
Graelent is alone in the woods when he sees a hind whiter than snow, and
following it comes to a place where fairy damsels are bathing in a
fountain. There seems to be no doubt that in both poems the maidens and
damsels are fairies quite like the Tuatha De Danann, with power to cast
their spell over beautiful young men whom they wish to have for
husbands. In _Guingemor_, another of the old Breton lays, ascribed by
Gaston Paris to Marie de France, we find again fairy-romance episodes
similar to those in _Lanval_ and _Graelent_.[311] The _Lais_ of Marie de
France had many imitators in England. Chaucer, too, has made it clear
that he knew a good deal about the old Breton _lais_ and their subjects
or 'matter', for in the _Prologue to the Frankeleyn's Tale_ he writes:--
Thise olde gentil Britons in hir dayes
Of diverse aventures maden layes,
Rymeyed in hir firste Briton tonge.
We may now briefly examine, in a general way, some of the most
noteworthy of the more obscure, but for us important Old French
fairy-romances of a kindred Brythonic or Arthurian character, called
_Romans d'Aventure_ and _Romans Bretons_, wherein _fées_ appear or are
mentioned: i. e. _Le Bel Inconnu_, _Blancadin_, _Brun de la Montaigne_,
_Claris et Laris_, _Dolopathos_, _Escanor_, _Floriant et Florete_,
_Partonopeus_, _La Vengeance Raguidel_, _Joufrois_, and _Amada et
Ydoine_.[312] In these romances, fairies commonly appear as most
beautiful supernormal women who love mortal heroes. They are seen
chiefly at night, frequenting forests and fountains, and like all
fairies disappear at or before cock-crow. They are skilled in magic and
astrology; like the Greek Fates, some of them spin and weave and have
great influence over the lives of mankind. They are represented as
relatively immortal, so long is their span of life compared to ours;
but, ultimately, they seem to be subject to a change such as we call
death. This indeed is never specifically mentioned, only implied by the
statements that they enjoy childhood and then womanhood, being thus
created and not eternal beings. Some are very prominent figures, like
_Morgain la Fée_, Arthur's sister. In most cases they are beneficent,
and frequently act as guardian spirits for their special hero, just as
the Lake Lady for Arthur and the _Morrigu_ for Cuchulainn. So strong is
the faith in these _fées_ that a man meeting unusual success is often
described as _féed_--that is endowed with fairy power or under fairy
protection, as Perceval's adversary, the Knight of the Dragon,
states.[313] In _Joufrois_, too, the power of the fairies, or else the
special protection of God, is considered the cause of success in
arms.[314] In _Brun de la Montaigne_, _Morgain la Fée_ is represented as
the cousin of Arthur; and Butor, the father of Brun, mentions several
localities in different lands, which, like the Forest of Brocéliande in
Brittany, the chief theatre of this romance, are fairy haunts; and he
names them as being under the dominion of Arthur, who is described as a
great fairy king.[315]
Such fairy romances as the above (and they are but a few examples
selected from among a vast number) often localized in Brittany, raise
the perplexing and far-reaching problem concerning the origin of the
'Matter of Britain'. The most reasonable position to take with respect
to this problem would seem to be that Celtic traditions flourished
wherever there were Gaels and Brythons, that there was much interchange
of these traditions between one Celtic country and another--especially
between Wales and Ireland and across the channel between Brittany and
South England, including Cornwall and Wales, both before and after the
Christian era. Further, the Arthurian fairy-romances, based upon such
interchanged Celtic traditions, grew up with a Brythonic background,
chiefly after the Norman Conquest, both in Armorica and in Britain, and
became in the later Middle Ages one of the chief glories of English and
of European literature.
In concluding this slight examination of Brythonic fairy-romances, we
may very briefly suggest by means of a few selected examples what
fairies are like in the _Mabinogion_ stories and in the _Four Ancient
Books of Wales_. _Kulhwch and Olwen_, the chief literary treasure-house
of ancient magical and mystical Otherworld and fairy traditions of the
Brythons, which we have already considered in relation to Arthur,
'appears to be built upon Arthurian and other legends of native
growth.'[316] Unmistakable Welsh parallels to the Irish fairy-belief
appear in the _Mabinogi of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed_, where the two chief
incidents are Pwyll's journey to the Otherworld after he and Arawn its
ruler have exchanged shapes and kingdoms for a year, and the marriage of
Pwyll to a fairy damsel; in the _Mabinogi_ of _Manawyddan_, which
contains much magic and shape-shifting, and the description of a fairy
castle belonging to Llwyd; and in the _Mabinogi_ of _Branwen, the
Daughter of Llyr_, where there is the episode of the seven-year feast at
Harlech over the Head of Bran, during which the Birds of Rhiannon's
realm sing so sweetly that time passes abnormally fast. The
subject-matter of the four true _Mabinogion_ (composed before the
eleventh century) is, as Sir John Rhŷs has pointed out, the fortunes
of three clans of superhuman beings comparable to the Irish Tuatha De
Danann: (1) the Children of Llyr, (2) the Children of Don, (3) and the
Family of Pwyll.[317] Herein, then, the ancient Gaelic and Brythonic
Fairy-Faiths coincide, and show the unity of the Celtic race which
evolved them.
In the _Four Ancient Books of Wales_, which are poetical compositions,
whereas the _Mabinogion_ tales are prose with extremely little verse,
there are certain interesting passages to illustrate the ancient
Fairy-Faith of the Brythons from some of its purest sources. The first
selected example comes from the _Black Book of Caermarthen_. It is a
poem, sometimes called the _Avallenau_, from among the poems relating to
the Battle of Arderydd; and it represents _Myrddin_ or Merlin, the
famous magician of Arthur, quite at the mercy of sprites. The passage is
an interesting one as showing that in the region where Merlin is
supposed to be under the enchantment of the fairy woman Vivian he was
regarded as no longer able to exercise his wonted control over spirits
like fairies. As in ancient non-Celtic belief, where the loss of
chastity in a magician, that is to say in one able to command certain
orders of invisible beings, always leads to his falling under their
lawless power, so was it with Merlin when overcome by Vivian. And this
is Merlin's lamentation:--
Ten years and forty, as the toy of lawless ones,
Have I been wandering in gloom among sprites.
After wealth in abundance and entertaining minstrels,
I have been [here so long that] it is useless for gloom and sprites to
lead me astray.[318]
In a dialogue between Myrddin and his sister Gwenddydd, contained in the
_Red Book of Hergest I_,[319] there is a curious reference to ghosts of
the mountain who, just like fairies that live in the mountains, steal
away men's reason when they _strike_ them,--in death which may appear
natural, in sickness, or in accident. And after his death--after he has
been _taken_ by these ghosts of the mountain--Myrddin returns as a ghost
and speaks from the grave a prophecy which 'the ghost of the mountain in
Aber Carav'[320] told him. Not only do these passages prove the Celtic
belief in ghosts like fairies to have existed anciently in Wales; but
they show also that the recorded Fairy-Faith of the Brythons, like that
of the Gaels of Ireland and Scotland, directly attests and confirms our
Psychological Theory. Like a record from the official proceedings of the
Psychical Research Society itself, they form one of the strongest proofs
that fairies, ghosts, and shades were confused, all alike, in the mind
of the Welsh poet, mingling together in that realm where mortals see
with a new vision, and exist with a body invisible to us.
Our study of the literary evolution of the Brythonic fairy-romances
shows that as early as about the year 800 Arthurian traditions were
known, though possibly Arthur himself never had historical existence. By
about 1136, when Geoffrey's famous _Historia_ appeared, these traditions
were already highly developed in Britain, and Arthur had become a great
Brythonic hero enveloped in a halo of romance and myth, and, as an
Otherworld being, was definitely related to Avalon and its fairy
inhabitants. This new literary material of Celtic origin opened up to
Europe by Geoffrey rapidly began to influence profoundly the form of
continental as well as English poetry and prose, chiefly through the
writers of the Norman-French period of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. In itself it was in no wise essentially different from what
we find as fairy romances in the old Irish manuscripts written during
the same and earlier periods. Welsh literature, however it may be
related to Irish, shows a common origin with it. The four true
_Mabinogion_ as stories are earlier than 1100; _Kulhwch and Olwen_ in
its present form most probably dates from the latter half of the twelfth
century; the _Four Ancient Books of Wales_ date from the twelfth to the
fifteenth centuries as manuscripts. In both ancient and modern times
there was much interchange of material between Irish Gaels and Brythons;
and Brittany as well as Britain and Ireland undoubtedly contributed to
the evolution of the complex fairy romances which formed the germ of the
Arthurian Legend.
When we stop to consider how long it may have taken the Brythonic
Fairy-Faith, as well as that of the Gaels, to become so widespread and
popular among the Celtic peoples that it could take such definite shape
as it now shows in all the oldest manuscripts in different languages, we
can easily wander backward into periods of enlightenment and
civilization beyond the horizon of our little fragments of recorded
history. Who can tell how many ages ago the Fairy-Faith began its first
evolution, or who can say that there was ever a Celt who did not believe
in, or know about fairies?
SECTION II
THE RECORDED FAIRY-FAITH
CHAPTER VI
THE CELTIC OTHERWORLD[321]
'In Ireland this world and the world we go to after death are not
far apart.'--W. B. YEATS.
'Many go to the Tir-na-nog in sleep, and some are said to have
remained there, and only a vacant form is left behind without the
light in the eyes which marks the presence of a soul.'--A. E.
General ideas of the Otherworld: its location; its subjectivity;
its names; its extent; Tethra one of its kings--The Silver Branch
and the Golden Bough; and Initiations--The Otherworld the
Heaven-World of all religions--Voyage of Bran--Cormac in the Land
of Promise--Magic Wands--Cuchulainn's Sick-Bed--Ossian's return
from Fairyland--Lanval's going to Avalon--Voyage of
Mael-Duin--Voyage of Teigue--Adventures of Art--Cuchulainn's and
Arthur's Otherworld Quests--Literary Evolution of idea of Happy
Otherworld.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The Heaven-World of the ancient Celts, unlike that of the Christians,
was not situated in some distant, unknown region of planetary space, but
here on our own earth. As it was necessarily a subjective world, poets
could only describe it in terms more or less vague; and its exact
geographical location, accordingly, differed widely in the minds of
scribes from century to century. Sometimes, as is usual to-day in
fairy-lore, it was a subterranean world entered through caverns, or
hills, or mountains, and inhabited by many races and orders of invisible
beings, such as demons, shades, fairies, or even gods. And the
underground world of the _Sidhe_-folk, which cannot be separated from
it, was divided into districts or kingdoms under different fairy kings
and queens, just as the upper world of mortals. We already know how the
Tuatha De Danann or _Sidhe_-folk, after their defeat by the Sons of Mil
at the Battle of Tailte, retired to this underground world and took
possession of its palaces beneath the green hills and vales of Ireland;
and how from there, as gods of the harvest, they still continued to
exercise authority over their conquerors, or marshalled their own
invisible spirit-hosts in fairy warfare, and sometimes interfered in the
wars of men.
More frequently, in the old Irish manuscripts, the Celtic Otherworld was
located in the midst of the Western Ocean, as though it were the
'double' of the lost Atlantis;[322] and Manannan Mac Lir, the Son of the
Sea--perhaps himself the 'double' of an ancient Atlantean king--was one
of the divine rulers of its fairy inhabitants, and his palace, for he
was one of the Tuatha De Danann, was there rather than in Ireland; and
when he travelled between the two countries it was in a magic chariot
drawn by horses who moved over the sea-waves as on land. And fairy women
came from that mid-Atlantic world in magic boats like spirit boats, to
charm away such mortal men as in their love they chose, or else to take
great Arthur wounded unto death. And in that island world there was
neither death nor pain nor scandal, nought save immortal and unfading
youth, and endless joy and feasting.
Even yet at rare intervals, like a phantom, Hy Brasil appears far out on
the Atlantic. No later than the summer of 1908 it is said to have been
seen from West Ireland, just as that strange invisible island near
Innishmurray, inhabited by the invisible 'gentry', is seen--once in
seven years. And too many men of intelligence testify to having seen Hy
Brasil at the same moment, when they have been together, or separated,
as during the summer of 1908, for it to be explained away as an ordinary
illusion of the senses. Nor can it be due to a mirage such as we know,
because neither its shape nor position seems to conform to any known
island or land mass. The Celtic Otherworld is like that hidden realm of
subjectivity lying just beyond the horizon of mortal existence, which we
cannot behold when we would, save with the mystic vision of the Irish
seer. Thus in the legend of Bran's friends, who sat over dinner at
Harlech with the Head of Bran for seven years, three curious birds acted
as musicians, the Three Birds of Rhiannon, which were said to sing the
dead back to life and the living into death;--but the birds were not in
Harlech, they were out over the sea in the atmosphere of Rhiannon's
realm in the bosom of Cardigan Bay.[323] And though we might say of that
Otherworld, as we learn from these Three Birds of Rhiannon, and as
Socrates would say, that its inhabitants are come from the living and
the living in our world from the dead there, yet, as has already been
set forth in chapter iv, we ought not to think of the _Sidhe_-folk, nor
of such great heroes and gods as Arthur and Cuchulainn and Finn, who are
also of its invisible company, as in any sense half-conscious shades;
for they are always represented as being in the full enjoyment of an
existence and consciousness greater than our own.
In Irish manuscripts, the Otherworld beyond the Ocean bears many names.
It is _Tír-na-nog_, 'The Land of Youth'; _Tír-Innambéo_, 'The Land of
the Living'; _Tír Tairngire_, 'The Land of Promise'; _Tír N-aill_, 'The
Other Land (or World)'; _Mag Már_, 'The Great Plain'; and also _Mag
Mell_, 'The Plain Agreeable (or Happy).'
But this western Otherworld, if it is what we believe it to be--a
poetical picture of the great subjective world--cannot be the realm of
any one race of invisible beings to the exclusion of another. In it all
alike--gods, Tuatha De Danann, fairies, demons, shades, and every sort
of disembodied spirits--find their appropriate abode; for though it
seems to surround and interpenetrate this planet even as the X-rays
interpenetrate matter, it can have no other limits than those of the
Universe itself. And that it is not an exclusive realm is certain from
what our old Irish manuscripts record concerning the Fomorian
races.[324] These, when they met defeat on the battle-field of Moytura
at the hands of the Tuatha De Danann, retired altogether from Ireland,
their overthrow being final, and returned to their own invisible
country--a mysterious land beyond the Ocean, where the dead find a new
existence, and where their god-king Tethra ruled, as he formerly ruled
in this world. And the fairy women of Tethra's kingdom, even like those
who came from the Tuatha De Danann of Erin, or those of Manannan's
ocean-world, enticed mortals to go with them to be heroes under their
king, and to behold there the assemblies of ancestors. It was one of
them who came to Connla, son of Conn, supreme king of Ireland; and this
was her message to him:--'The immortals invite you. You are going to be
one of the heroes of the people of Tethra. You will always be seen
there, in the assemblies of your ancestors, in the midst of those who
know and love you.' And with the fairy spell upon him the young prince
entered the glass boat of the fairy woman, and his father the king, in
great tribulation and wonder, beheld them disappear across the waters
never to return.[324]
THE SILVER BRANCH[325] AND THE GOLDEN BOUGH
To enter the Otherworld before the appointed hour marked by death, a
passport was often necessary, and this was usually a silver branch of
the sacred apple-tree bearing blossoms, or fruit, which the queen of the
Land of the Ever-Living and Ever-Young gives to those mortals whom she
wishes for as companions; though sometimes, as we shall see, it was a
single apple without its branch. The queen's gifts serve not only as
passports, but also as food and drink for mortals who go with her. Often
the apple-branch produces music so soothing that mortals who hear it
forget all troubles and even cease to grieve for those whom the fairy
women _take_. For us there are no episodes more important than those in
the ancient epics concerning these apple-tree talismans, because in them
we find a certain key which unlocks the secret of that world from which
such talismans are brought, and proves it to be the same sort of a place
as the Otherworld of the Greeks and Romans. Let us then use the key and
make a few comparisons between the Silver Branch of the Celts and the
Golden Bough of the Ancients, expecting the two symbols naturally to
differ in their functions, though not fundamentally.
It is evident at the outset that the Golden Bough was as much the
property of the queen of that underworld called Hades as the Silver
Branch was the gift of the Celtic fairy queen, and like the Silver Bough
it seems to have been the symbolic bond between that world and this,
offered as a tribute to Proserpine by all initiates, who made the mystic
voyage in full human consciousness. And, as we suspect, there may be
even in the ancient Celtic legends of mortals who make that strange
voyage to the Western Otherworld and return to this world again, an echo
of initiatory rites--perhaps druidic--similar to those of Proserpine as
shown in the journey of Aeneas, which, as Virgil records it, is
undoubtedly a poetical rendering of an actual psychic experience of a
great initiate.
In Virgil's classic poem the Sibyl commanded the plucking of the sacred
bough to be carried by Aeneas when he entered the underworld; for
without such a bough plucked near the entrance to Avernus from the
wondrous tree sacred to Infernal Juno (i. e. Proserpine) none could
enter Pluto's realm.[326] And when Charon refused to ferry Aeneas across
the Stygian lake until the Sibyl-woman drew forth the Golden Bough from
her bosom, where she had hidden it, it becomes clearly enough a passport
to Hades, just as the Silver Branch borne by the fairy woman is a
passport to _Tír N-aill_; and the Sibyl-woman who guided Aeneas to the
Greek and Roman Otherworld takes the place of the fairy woman who leads
mortals like Bran to the Celtic Otherworld.[327]
THE OTHERWORLD IDEA LITERALLY INTERPRETED
With this parallel between the Otherworld of the Celts and that of the
Ancients seemingly established, we may leave poetical images and seek a
literal interpretation for the animistic idea about those realms. The
Rites of Proserpine as conducted in the Mysteries of Antiquity furnish
us with the means; and in what Servius has written we have the material
ready.[328] Taking the letter Y, which Pythagoras said is like life with
its dividing ways of good and evil, as the mystic symbol of the branch
which all initiates like Aeneas offered to Proserpine in the subjective
world while there out of the physical body, he says of the initiatory
rites:--'He (the poet) could not join the Rites of Proserpine without
having the branch to hold up. And by "_going to the shades_" _he_ (the
poet) _means celebrating the Rites of Proserpine_.'[328] This passage is
certainly capable of but one meaning; and we may perhaps assume that
the invisible realm of the Ancients, which is called Hades, is like the
Celtic Otherworld located in the Western Ocean, and is also like, or has
its mythological counterpart in, the Elysian Fields to the West,
reserved by the Greeks and Romans for their gods and heroes, and in the
Happy Otherworld of Scandinavian, Iranian, and Indian mythologies. It
must then follow that all these realms--though placed in different
localities by various nations, epochs, traditions, scribes, and poets
(even as the under-ground world of the Tuatha De Danann in Ireland
differs from that ruled over by one of their own race, Manannan the Son
of the Sea)--are simply various ways which different Aryan peoples have
had of looking at that one great invisible realm of which we have just
spoken, and which forms the Heavenworld of every religion, Aryan and
non-Aryan, known to man. And if this conclusion is accepted, and it
seems that it must be, merely on the evidence of the literary or
recorded Celtic Fairy-Faith, our Psychological Theory stands proven.
The Rites of Proserpine had many counterparts. Thus, to pass on to
another parallel, in the Mysteries of Eleusis the disappearance of the
Maiden into the under-world, into Hades, the land of the dead, was
continually re-enacted in a sacred drama, and it no doubt was one of the
principal rites attending initiation. In our study of the Celtic
Doctrine of Re-birth, we shall return to this subject of Celtic
Initiation.
THE VOYAGE OF BRAN, SON OF FEBAL
We are well prepared now to enjoy the best known voyages which men,
heroes, and god-men, are said to have made to Avalon, or the Land of the
Living, through the invitation of a fairy woman or else of the god
Manannan himself; and probably the most famous is that of the _Voyage of
Bran, Son of Febal_, as so admirably translated from the original old
Irish saga by Dr. Kuno Meyer.[329] Perhaps in all Celtic literature no
poem surpasses this in natural and simple beauty.
One day Bran heard strange music behind him as he was alone in the
neighbourhood of his stronghold; and as he listened, so sweet was the
sound that it lulled him to sleep. When he awoke, there lay beside him a
branch of silver so white with blossoms that it was not easy to
distinguish the blossoms from the branch. Bran took up the branch and
carried it to the royal house, and, when the hosts were assembled
therein, they saw a woman in strange raiment standing on the floor.
Whence she came and how, no one could tell. And as they all beheld her,
she sang fifty quatrains to Bran:--
A branch of the apple-tree from Emain
I bring, like those one knows;
Twigs of white silver are on it,
Crystal brows with blossoms.
There is a distant isle,
Around which sea-horses glisten:
A fair course against the white-swelling surge,--
Four feet uphold it.
* * * * *
When the song was finished, 'the woman went from them while they knew
not whither she went. And she took her branch with her. The branch
sprang from Bran's hand into the hand of the woman, nor was there
strength in Bran's hand to hold the branch.' The next day, with the
fairy spell upon him, Bran begins the voyage towards the setting sun. On
the ocean he meets Manannan riding in his magic chariot over the
sea-waves; and the king tells Bran that he is returning to Ireland after
long ages. Parting from the Son of the Sea, Bran goes on, and the first
island he and his companions reach is the 'Island of Joy', where one of
the party is set ashore; the second isle is the 'Land of Women', where
the queen draws Bran and his followers to her realm with a magic clew,
and then entertains them for what seems no more than a year, though 'it
chanced to be many years'. After a while, home-sickness seizes the
adventurers and they come to a unanimous decision to return to Ireland;
but they depart under a taboo not to set foot on earth, or at least not
till holy water has been sprinkled on them. In their coracle they arrive
before a gathering at Srub Brain, probably in West Kerry, and Bran (who
may now possibly be regarded as an apparition temporarily returned from
the Otherworld to bid his people farewell) announces himself, and this
reply is made to him:--'We do not know such a one, though the Voyage of
Bran is in our ancient stories.' Then one of Bran's party, in his
eagerness to land, broke the taboo; he 'leaps from them out of the
coracle. As soon as he touched the earth of Ireland, forthwith he was a
heap of ashes, as though he had been in the earth for many hundred
years.... Thereupon, to the people of the gathering, Bran told all his
wanderings from the beginning until that time. And he wrote these
quatrains in Ogam, and then bade them farewell. And from that hour his
wanderings are not known.'
CORMAC'S ADVENTURE IN THE LAND OF PROMISE[330]
In _Cormac's Adventure in the Land of Promise_, there is again a magic
silver branch with three golden apples on it:--'One day, at dawn in
May-time, Cormac, grandson of Conn, was alone on Múr Tea in Tara. He saw
coming towards him a sedate(?), grey-headed warrior.... A branch of
silver with three golden apples on his shoulder. Delight and amusement
to the full was it to listen to the music of that branch, for men sore
wounded, or women in child-bed, or folk in sickness, would fall asleep
at the melody when that branch was shaken.' And the warrior tells Cormac
that he has come from a land where only truth is known, where there is
'neither age nor decay nor gloom nor sadness nor envy nor jealousy nor
hatred nor haughtiness'. On his promising the unknown warrior any three
boons that he shall ask, Cormac is given the magic branch. The
grey-headed warrior disappears suddenly; 'and Cormac knew not whither
he had gone.'
'Cormac turned into the palace. The household marvelled at the branch.
Cormac shook it at them, and cast them into slumber from that hour to
the same time on the following day. At the end of a year the warrior
comes into his meeting and asked of Cormac the consideration for his
branch. "It shall be given," says Cormac. "I will take [thy daughter]
Ailbe to-day," says the warrior. So he took the girl with him. The women
of Tara utter three loud cries after the daughter of the king of Erin.
But Cormac shook the branch at them, so that he banished grief from them
all and cast them into sleep. That day month comes the warrior and takes
with him Carpre Lifechair (the son of Cormac). Weeping and sorrow ceased
not in Tara after the boy, and on that night no one therein ate or
slept, and they were in grief and in exceeding gloom. But Cormac shook
the branch at them, and they parted from [their] sorrow. The same
warrior comes again. "What askest thou to-day?" says Cormac. "Thy wife,"
saith he, "even Ethne the Longsided, daughter of Dunlang king of
Leinster." Then he takes away the woman with him.' Thereupon Cormac
follows the messenger, and all his people go with him. But 'a great mist
was brought upon them in the midst of the plain of the wall. Cormac
found himself on a great plain alone'. It is the 'Land of Promise'.
Palaces of bronze, and houses of white silver thatched with white birds'
wings are there. 'Then he sees in the garth a shining fountain, with
five streams flowing out of it, and the hosts in turn a-drinking its
water. Nine hazels of Buan grow over the well. The purple hazels drop
their nuts into the fountain, and the five salmon which are in the
fountain sever them, and send their husks floating down the streams. Now
the sound of the falling of those streams is more melodious than any
music that [men] sing.'[331]
Cormac having entered the fairy palace at the fountain beholds 'the
loveliest of the world's women'. After she has been magically bathed, he
bathes, and this, apparently, is symbolical of his purification in the
Otherworld. Finally, at a feast, the warrior-messenger sings Cormac to
sleep; and when Cormac awakes he sees beside him his wife and children,
who had preceded him thither to the Land of Promise. The
warrior-messenger who _took_ them all is none other than the great god
Manannan Mac Lir of the Tuatha De Danann.
There in the Otherworld, Cormac gains a magic cup of gold richly and
wondrously wrought, which would break into three pieces if 'three words
of falsehood be spoken under it', and the magic silver branch; and
Manannan, as the god-initiator, says to Ireland's high king:--'Take thy
family then, and take the Cup that thou mayest have it for discerning
between truth and falsehood. And thou shalt have the Branch for music
and delight. And on the day that thou shalt die they all will be taken
from thee. I am Manannan, son of Ler, king of the Land of Promise; _and
to see the Land of Promise was the reason I brought [thee] hither...._
The fountain which thou sawest, with the five streams out of it, is the
Fountain of Knowledge, and the streams are the five senses through which
knowledge is obtained (?). And no one will have knowledge who drinketh
not a draught out of the fountain itself and out of the streams. The
folk of many arts are those who drink of them both.'
'Now on the morrow morning, when Cormac arose, he found himself on the
green of Tara, with his wife and his son and daughter, and having his
Branch and his Cup. Now that was afterwards [called] "Cormac's Cup", and
it used to distinguish between truth and falsehood with the Gael.
Howbeit, as had been promised him [by Manannan], it remained not after
Cormac's death.'[332]
This beautiful tale evidently echoes in an extremely poetical and
symbolical manner a very ancient Celtic initiation of a king and his
family into the mystic cult of the mighty god Manannan, Son of the Sea.
They enter the Otherworld in a trance state, and on waking are in Erin
again, spiritually enriched. The Cup of Truth is probably the symbol of
having gained knowledge of the Mystery of Life and Death, and the
Branch, that of the Peace and Joy which comes to all who are truly
Initiated; for to have passed from the realm of mortal existence to the
Realm of the Dead, of the Fairy-Folk, of the Gods, and back again, with
full human consciousness all the while, was equivalent to having gained
the Philosopher's Stone, the Elixir of Life, the Cup of Truth, and to
having bathed in the Fountain of Eternal Youth which confers triumph
over Death and unending happiness. Thus we may have here a Celtic
poetical parallel to the initiatory journey of Aeneas to the Land of the
Dead or Hades.
THE MAGIC WAND OF GODS, FAIRIES, AND DRUIDS
Manannan of the Tuatha De Danann, as a god-messenger from the invisible
realm bearing the apple-branch of silver, is in externals, though not in
other ways, like Hermes, the god-messenger from the realm of the gods
bearing his wand of two intertwined serpents.[333] In modern fairy-lore
this divine branch or wand is the magic wand of fairies; or where
messengers like old men guide mortals to an underworld it is a staff or
cane with which they strike the rock hiding the secret entrance.
The Irish Druids made their wands of divination from the yew-tree; and,
like the ancient priests of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, are believed to
have controlled spirits, fairies, daemons, elementals, and ghosts while
making such divinations. It will help us to understand how closely the
ancient symbols have affected our own life and age--though we have
forgotten their relation with the Otherworld--by offering a few
examples, beginning with the ancient Irish bards who were associated
with the Druids. A wand in the form of a symbolic branch, like a little
spike or crescent with gently tinkling bells upon it, was borne by them;
and in the piece called _Mesca Ulad_ or 'Inebriety of the
Ultonians'[334] it is said of the chief bard of Ulster, Sencha, that in
the midst of a bloody fray he 'waved the peaceful branch of Sencha, and
all the men of Ulster were silent, quiet'. In _Agallamh an dá Shuadh_ or
the 'Dialogue of the two Sages',[335] the mystic symbol used by gods,
fairies, magicians, and by all initiates who know the mystery of life
and death, is thus described as a Druid symbol:--'Neidhe' (a young bard
who aspired to succeed his father as chief poet of Ulster), 'made his
journey with a silver branch over him. The _Anradhs_, or poets of the
second order, carried a silver branch, but the _Ollamhs_, or chief
poets, carried a branch of gold; all other poets bore a branch of
bronze.'[336] Modern and ancient parallels are world-wide, among the
most civilized as among the least civilized peoples, and in civil or
religious life among ourselves. Thus, it was with a magic rod that Moses
struck the rock and pure water gushed forth, and he raised the same rod
and the Red Sea opened; kings hold their sceptres no less than Neptune
his trident; popes and bishops have their croziers; in the Roman Church
there are little wand-like objects used to perform benedictions; high
civil officials have their mace of office; and all the world over there
are the wands of magicians and of medicine-men.
THE SICK-BED OF CUCHULAINN
We turn now to the story of the _Sick-Bed of Cuchulainn_.[337] And this
is how the great hero of Ulster was fairy-struck. Manannan Mac Lir,
tiring of his wife Fand, had deserted her, and so she, wishing to marry
Cuchulainn, went to Ireland with her sister Liban. Taking the form of
two birds bound together by a chain of red gold, Fand and Liban rested
on a lake in Ulster where Cuchulainn should see them as he was hunting.
To capture the two birds, Cuchulainn cast a javelin at them, but they
escaped, though injured. Disappointed at a failure like this, which for
him was most unusual, Cuchulainn went away to a menhir where he sat down
and fell asleep. Then he saw two women, one in a green and one in a
crimson cloak; and the woman in green coming up to him laughed and
struck him with a whip-like object. The woman in crimson did likewise,
and alternately the two women kept striking him till they left him
almost dead. And straightway the mighty hero of the Red Branch Knights
took to his bed with a strange malady, which no Druid or doctor in all
Ireland could cure.
Till the end of a year Cuchulainn lay on his sick-bed at Emain-Macha
without speaking to any one. Then--the day before _Samain_ (November
Eve)--there came to him an unknown messenger who sang to him a wonderful
song, promising to cure him of his malady if he would only accept the
invitation of the daughters of Aed Abrat to visit them in the
Otherworld. When the song was ended, the messenger departed, 'and they
knew not whence he came nor whither he went.' Thereupon Cuchulainn went
to the place where the malady had been put on him, and there appeared to
him again the woman in the green cloak. She let it be known to
Cuchulainn that she was Liban, and that she was longing for him to go
with her to the Plain of Delight to fight against Labraid's enemies.
And she promised Cuchulainn as a reward that he would get Fand to wife.
But Cuchulainn would not accept the invitation without knowing to what
country he was called. So he sent his charioteer Laeg to bring back from
there a report. Laeg went with the fairy woman in a boat of bronze, and
returned; and when Cuchulainn heard from him the wonderful glories of
that Otherworld of the _Sidhe_ he willingly set out for it.
After Cuchulainn had overthrown Labraid's enemies and had been in the
Otherworld a month with the fairy woman Fand, he returned to Ireland
alone; though afterwards in a place agreed upon, Fand joined him. Emer,
the wife of Cuchulainn, was overcome with jealousy and schemed to kill
Fand, so that Fand returned to her husband the god Manannan and he
received her back again. When she was gone Cuchulainn could not be
consoled; but Emer obtained from the Druids a magic drink for
Cuchulainn, which made him forget all about the Otherworld and the fairy
woman Fand. And another drink the Druids gave to Emer so that she forgot
all her jealousy; and then Manannan Mac Lir himself came and shook his
mantle between Cuchulainn and Fand to prevent the two ever meeting
again. And thus it was that the _Sidhe_-women failed to steal away the
great Cuchulainn. The magic of the Druids and the power of the Tuatha De
Danann king triumphed; and the Champion of Ulster did not go to the
Otherworld until he met a natural death in that last great fight.[338]
OSSIAN'S RETURN FROM FAIRYLAND[339]
Ossian too, like Cuchulainn, was enticed into Fairyland by a fairy
woman:--She carries him away on a white horse, across the Western Ocean;
and as they are moving over the sea-waves they behold a fair maid on a
brown horse, and she holding in her right hand a golden apple. After the
hero had married his fairy abductress and lived in the Otherworld for
three hundred years, an overpowering desire to return to Ireland and
join again in the councils of his dearly beloved Fenian Brotherhood took
possession of him, and he set out on the same white horse on which he
travelled thence with the fairy princess, for such was his wife. And
she, as he went, thrice warned him not to lay his 'foot on level
ground', and he heard from her the startling announcement that the
Fenians were all gone and Ireland quite changed.
Safe in Ireland, Ossian seeks the Brotherhood, and though he goes from
one place to another where his old companions were wont to meet, not one
of them can he find. And how changed is all the land! He realizes at
last how long he must have been away. The words of his fairy wife are
too sadly true.
While Ossian wanders disconsolately over Ireland, he comes to a
multitude of men trying to move an enormous slab of marble, under which
some other men are lying. 'Ossian's assistance is asked, and he
generously gives it. But in leaning over his horse, to take up the stone
with one hand, the girth breaks, and he falls. Straightway the white
horse fled away on his way home, and Ossian became aged, decrepit, and
blind.'[340]
THE GOING OF LANVAL TO AVALON
The fairy romances which were recorded during the mediaeval period in
continental Europe report a surprisingly large number of heroes who,
like Cuchulainn and Ossian, fell under the power of fairy women or
_fées_, and followed one of them to the Apple-Land or Avalon. Besides
Arthur, they include Sir Lancelot, Sir Gawayne, Ogier, Guingemor and
Lanval (see pp. 325-6). The story of Lanval is told by Marie de France
in one of her _Lais_, and is so famous a one that we shall briefly
outline it:--
Lanval was a mediaeval knight who lived during the time of King Arthur
in Brittany. He was young and very beautiful, so that one of the fairy
damsels fell in love with him; and in the true Irish fashion--himself
and his fairy sweetheart mounted on the same fairy horse--the two went
riding off to Fairyland:--
On the horse behind her
With full rush Lanval jumped.
With her he goes away into Avalon,
According to what the Briton tells us,
Into an isle, which is very beautiful.[341]
THE VOYAGE OF TEIGUE, SON OF CIAN
There is another type of _imram_ in which through adventure rather than
through invitation from one of the fairy beings, men enter the
Otherworld; as illustrated by the _Voyage of Mael-Duin_,[342] and by the
still more beautiful _Voyage of Teigue, Son of Cian_. This last old
Irish story summarizes many of the Otherworld elements we have so far
considered, and (though it shows Christian influences) gives us a very
clear picture of the Land of Youth amid the Western Ocean--a land such
as Ponce De Leon and so many brave navigators sought in America:--
Teigue, son of Cian, and heir to the kingship of West Munster, with his
followers set out from Ireland to recover his wife and brethren who had
been stolen by Cathmann and his band of sea-rovers from Fresen, a land
near Spain. It was the time of the spring tide, when the sea was rough,
and storms coming on the voyagers they lost their way. After about nine
weeks they came to a land fairer than any land they had ever beheld--it
was the Happy Otherworld. In it were many 'red-laden apple-trees, with
leafy oaks too in it, and hazels yellow with nuts in their clusters';
and 'a wide smooth plain clad in flowering clover all bedewed with
honey'. In the midst of this plain Teigue and his companions descried
three hills, and on each of them an impregnable place of strength. At
the first stronghold, which had a rampart of white marble, Teigue was
welcomed by 'a white-bodied lady, fairest of the whole world's women';
and she told him that the stronghold is the abode 'of Ireland's kings:
from Heremon son of Milesius to Conn of the Hundred Battles, who was the
last to pass into it'. Teigue with his people moved on till they gained
the middle _dún_, the _dún_ with a rampart of gold. There also 'they
found a queen of gracious form, and she draped in vesture of a golden
fabric', who tells them that they are in the Earth's fourth paradise.
At the third _dún_, the _dún_ with a silver rampart, Teigue and his
party met Connla, the son of Conn of the Hundred Battles. 'In his hand
he held a fragrant apple having the hue of gold; a third part of it he
would eat, and still, for all he consumed, never a whit would it be
diminished.' And at his side sat a young woman of many charms, who spake
thus to Teigue:--'I had bestowed on him (i. e. felt for him) true
affection's love, and therefore wrought to have him come to me in this
land; where our delight, both of us, is to continue in looking at and in
perpetual contemplation of one another: above and beyond which we pass
not, to commit impurity or fleshly sin whatsoever.' Both Connla and his
friend were clad in vestments of green--like the fairy-folk; and their
step was so light that hardly did the beautiful clover-heads bend
beneath it. And the apple 'it was that supported the pair of them and,
when once they had partaken of it, nor age nor dimness could affect
them'. When Teigue asked who occupied the _dún_ with the silver rampart
the maiden with Connla made this reply:--'In that one there is not any
one. For behoof of the righteous kings that after acceptance of the
Faith shall rule Ireland it is that yonder _dún_ stands ready; and we
are they who, until such those virtuous princes shall enter into it,
keep the same: in the which, Teigue my soul, thou too shalt have an
appointed place.' 'Obliquely across the most capacious palace Teigue
looked away' (as he was observing the beauty of the yet uninhabited
_dún_), 'and marked a thickly furnished wide-spreading apple-tree that
bare blossoms and ripe fruit both. "What is that apple-tree beyond?" he
asked [of the maiden], and she made answer:--"That apple-tree's fruit it
is that for meat shall serve the congregation which is to be in this
mansion, _and a single apple of the same it was that brought (coaxed
away) Connla to me_."'
Then the party rested, and there came towards them a whole array of
feminine beauty, among which was a lovely damsel of refined form who
foretold to Teigue the manner and time of his death, and as a token she
gave him 'a fair cup of emerald hue, in which are inherent many virtues:
for [among other things] though it were but water poured into it,
incontinently it would be wine'. And this was her farewell message to
Teigue:--'From that (the cup), let not thine hand part; but have it for
a token: when it shall escape from thee, then in a short time after
shalt thou die; and where thou shalt meet thy death is in the glen that
is on Boyne's side: there the earth shall grow into a great hill, and
the name that it shall bear will be _croidhe eisse_; there too (when
thou shalt first have been wounded by a roving wild hart, after which
Allmarachs will slay thee) I will bury thy body; but thy soul shall come
with me hither, where till the Judgement's Day thou shalt assume a body
light and ethereal.'
As the party led by Teigue were going down to the seashore to depart,
the girl who had been escorting them asked 'how long they had been in
the country'. 'In our estimation,' they replied, 'we are in it but one
single day.' She, however, said: 'For an entire twelvemonth ye are in
it; during which time ye have had neither meat nor drink, nor, how long
soever ye should be here, would cold or thirst or hunger assail you.'
And when Teigue and his party had entered their _currach_ they looked
astern, but 'they saw not the land from which they came, for
incontinently an obscuring magic veil was drawn over it'.[343]
THE ADVENTURES OF ART, SON OF CONN
This interesting _imram_ combines, in a way, the type of tale wherein a
fairy woman comes from the Otherworld to our world--though in this tale
she is banished from there--and the type of tale wherein the Otherworld
is found through adventure:--
Bécuma Cneisgel, a woman of the Tuatha De Danann, because of a
transgression she had committed in the Otherworld with Gaidiar,
Manannan's son, was banished thence. She came to Conn, high king of
Ireland, and she bound him to do her will; and her judgement was that
Art, the son of Conn, should not come to Tara until a year was past.
During the year, Conn and Bécuma were together in Tara, 'and there was
neither corn nor milk in Ireland during that time.' The Tuatha De Danann
sent this dreadful famine; for they, as agricultural gods, thus showed
their displeasure at the unholy life of Ireland's high king with the
evil woman whom they had banished. The Druids of all Ireland being
called together, declared that to appease the Tuatha De Danann 'the son
of a sinless couple should be brought to Ireland and slain before Tara,
and his blood mingled with the soil of Tara' (cf. p. 436). It was Conn
himself who set out for the Otherworld and found there the sinless boy,
the son of the queen of that world, and he brought him back to Tara. A
strange event saves the youth:--'Just then they (the assembly of people
and Druids, with Conn, Art, and Finn) heard the lowing of a cow, and a
woman wailing continually behind it. And they saw the cow and the woman
making for the assembly.' The woman had come from the Otherworld to save
Segda; and the cow was accepted as a sacrifice in place of Segda, owing
to the wonders it disclosed; for its two bags when opened contained two
birds--one with one leg and one with twelve legs, and 'the one-legged
bird prevailed over the bird with twelve legs'. Then rising up and
calling Conn aside, the woman declared to him that until he put aside
the evil woman Bécuma 'a third of its corn, and its milk, and its mast'
should be lacking to Ireland. 'And she took leave of them then and went
off with her son, even Segda. And jewels and treasures were offered to
them, but they refused them.'
In the second part of this complex tale, Bécuma and Art are together
playing a game. Art finally loses, because the men of the _sidh_ (like
invisible spirits) began to steal the pieces with which he and the woman
play; and, as a result, Bécuma put on him this taboo:--'Thou shalt not
eat food in Ireland until thou bring with thee Delbchaem, the daughter
of Morgan.' 'Where is she?' asked Art. 'In an isle amid the sea, and
that is all the information that thou wilt get.' 'And he put forth the
coracle, and travelled the sea from one isle to another until he came to
a fair, strange island,' the Otherworld. The blooming women of that land
entertain the prince of Ireland during six weeks, and instruct him in
all the dangers he must face and the conquests he must make.
Having successfully met all the ordeals, Art secures Delbchaem, daughter
of Morgan the king of the 'Land of Wonders', and returns to Ireland.
'She had a green cloak of one hue about her, with a gold pin in it over
her breast, and long, fair, very golden hair. She had dark-black
eye-brows, and flashing grey eyes in her head, and a snowy-white body.'
And upon seeing the chaste and noble Delbchaem with Art, Bécuma, the
banished woman of the Tuatha De Danann, lamenting, departs from Tara for
ever.[344]
OTHERWORLD QUESTS OF CUCHULAINN AND OF ARTHUR
There is yet the distinct class of tales about journeys to a fairy world
which is a Hades world beneath the earth, or in some land of death,
rather than amid the waves of the Western Ocean. Thus there is a curious
poem in the _Book of the Dun Cow_ describing an expedition led by
Cuchulainn to the stronghold of Scáth in the land of Scáth, or, as the
name means, land of Shades, where the hero gains the king's
cauldron.[345] And the poem suggests why so few who invaded that Hades
world ever returned--perhaps why, mystically speaking, so few men could
escape either through initiation or re-birth the natural confusion and
forgetfulness arising out of death.
In the _Book of Taliessin_ a weird poem, _Preiddeu Annwfn_, or the
'Spoils of Annwn', describes, in language not always clear, how the
Brythonic Arthur made a similar journey to the Welsh Hades world named
Annwn, where he, like Cuchulainn in Scáth, gained possession of a magic
cauldron--a pagan Celtic type of the Holy Grail--which furnishes
inexhaustible food though 'it will not boil the food of a coward'. But
in stanzas iii and iv of _Preiddeu Annwfn_, Annwn, or Uffern as it is
otherwise called, is not an underground realm, but some world to be
reached like the Gaelic Land of Promise by sea. Annwn is also called
Caer Sidi, which in another poem of the _Book of Taliessin_ (No. XIV) is
thought of as an island of immortal youth amid 'the streams of the
ocean' where there is a food-giving fountain.[346]
LITERARY EVOLUTION OF THE HAPPY OTHERWORLD IDEA
We have now noticed two chief classes of Otherworld legends. In one
there is the beautiful and peaceful _Tír Innambéo_ or 'Land of the
Living' under Manannan's rule across the seas, and its fairy inhabitants
are principally women who lure away noble men and youths through love
for them; in the other there is a Hades world--often confused with the
former--in which great heroes go on some mysterious quest. Sometimes
this Hades world is inseparable from the underground palaces or world of
the Tuatha De Danann. Again, it may be an underlake fairy-realm like
that entered by Laeghaire and his fifty companions (see p. 302); or, as
in _Gilla Decair_,[347] of late composition, it is an under-well land
wherein Dermot has adventures. And, in a similar tale, Murough, on the
invitation of a mysterious stranger who comes out of a lake and then
disappears 'like the mist of a winter fog or the whiff of a March wind',
dives beneath the lake's waters, and is escorted to the palace of King
Under-Wave, wherein he sees the stranger as the water-king himself
sitting on a golden throne (cf. pp. 63-4). In continual feasting there
Murough passes a day and a year, thinking the time only a few days.[348]
As a rule the Hades world, or underground and under-wave world, is
unlike Manannan's peaceful ocean realm, being often described as a place
of much strife; and mortals are usually induced to enter it to aid in
settling the troubles of its fairy inhabitants.
All the numerous variations of Otherworld tales now extant in Celtic
literature show a common pre-Christian origin, though almost all of them
have been coloured by Christian ideas about heaven, hell, and purgatory.
From the earliest tales of the over-sea Otherworld type, like those of
Bran, Maelduin, and Connla, all of which may go back to the early eighth
century as compositions, the christianizing influence is already clearly
begun; and in the _Voyage of Snedgus and of Mac Riagla_, of the late
ninth century, this influence predominates.[349] Purely Christian texts
of about the same period or later describe the Christian heaven as
though it were the pagan Otherworld. Some of these, like the Latin
version of the tale of _St. Brandan's Voyage_, greatly influenced
European literature, and probably contributed to the discovery of the
New World.[349]
The combination of Christian and pagan Celtic ideas is well shown in the
_Voyage of the Húi Corra_[350]:--'Thereafter a wondrous island was
shown to them. A psalm-singing venerable old man, with fair, builded
churches and beautiful bright altars. Beautiful green grass therein. A
dew of honey on its grass. Little ever-lovely bees and fair,
purple-headed birds a-chanting music therein, so that [merely] to listen
to them was enough of delight.' But in another passage the Christian
scribe describes Otherworld birds as souls, some of them in hell:--'"Of
the land of Erin am I," quoth the bird, "and I am the soul of a woman,
and I am a monkess unto thee," she saith to the elder.... "Come ye to
another place," saith the bird, "to hearken to yon birds. The birds that
ye see are the souls that come on Sunday out of hell."' Still other
islands are definitely made into Christian hells full of fire, wherein
wailing and shrieking men are being mangled by the beaks and talons of
birds.
But sometimes, like the legends about the Tuatha De Danann, the legends
about the Otherworld were taken literally and most seriously by some
early Irish-Christian saints. Professor J. Loth records a very
interesting episode, how St. Malo and his teacher Brandan actually set
out on an ocean voyage to find the Heaven-world of the pagan
Celts:--'Saint Malo, when a youth, embarks with his teacher Brandan in a
boat, in search of that mysterious country; after some days, the waves
drive him back rebuffed and discouraged upon the seashore. An angel
opens his eyes: the land of eternal peace and of eternal youth is that
which Christianity promises to its elect.'[351]
Not only was the Celtic Otherworld gradually changed into a Christian
Heaven, or Hell, from the eighth century onward, but its divine
inhabitants soon came to suffer the rationalization commonly applied to
their race; and the transcribers began to set them down as actual
personages of Irish history. As we have already observed, the Tuatha De
Danann were shorn of their immortality, and were given in exchange all
the passions and shortcomings of men, and made subject to disease and
death. This perhaps was a natural anthropomorphic process such as is
met with in all mythologies. Celtic myth and mysticism, wherein may yet
be read the deepest secrets of life and death, supplied names and
legends to fill out a christianized scheme of Irish chronology, which
was made to begin some six thousand years ago with Adam.
A few of the pagan legends, however, met very fair treatment at the
hands of poetical and patriotic Christian transcribers. Thus in
_Adamnan's Vision_,[352] though the Celtic Otherworld has become 'the
Land of the Saints', its primal character is clearly discernible: to
reach it a sea voyage is necessary; and it is a land where there is no
pride, falsehood, envy, disease or death, 'wherein is delight of every
goodness.' In it there are singing birds, and for sustenance while there
the voyagers need only to hear its music and 'sate themselves with the
odour which is in the Land'.
Again, in the _Book of Leinster_, and in later MSS., there is a
_dinnshenchas_ of almost primal pagan purity. It alludes to _Clidna's
Wave_, that of Tuag Inbir:--To Tuag, daughter of Conall, Manannan the
sea-god sent a messenger, a Druid of the Tuatha De Danann in the shape
of a woman. The Druid chanted a sleep spell over the girl, and while he
left her on the seashore to look for a boat in which to embark for the
'Land of Everliving Women', a wave of the flood tide came and drowned
her. But the Oxford version of the same tale doubts whether the maiden
was drowned, for it suggests, 'Or maybe it (the wave) was Manannan
himself that was carrying her off.'[353] Thus the scribe understood that
to go to Manannan's world literally meant entering a sleep or trance
state, or, what is equivalent in the case of the maiden whom Manannan
summoned, the passage through death from the physical body. And still,
to-day, the Irish peasant believes that the 'good people' take to their
invisible world all young men or maidens who meet death; or that one
under a fairy spell may go to their world for a short time, and come
back to our world again.
We have frequently emphasized how truly the modern Celtic peasant in
certain non-commercialized localities has kept to the faith of his pagan
ancestors, while the learned Christian scribes have often departed
widely from it. The story of the voyage of Fionn to the Otherworld,[354]
which Campbell found living among Scotch peasants as late as the last
century, adds a striking proof of this assertion. So does Michael
Comyn's peasant version of Ossian in the 'Land of Youth' (as outlined
above, p. 346), which, though dating from about 1749, has all the
natural character of the best ancient tales, like those about Bran and
Cormac. We are inclined, therefore, to attach a value even higher than
we have already done to the testimony of the living Fairy-Faith which
confirms in so many parallel ways, as has been shown, the Fairy-Faith of
the remote past. Mr. W. B. Yeats, the Irish poet, adequately sums up
this matter by saying, 'But the Irish peasant believes that the utmost
he can dream was once or still is a reality by his own door. He will
point to some mountain and tell you that some famous hero or beauty
lived and sorrowed there, or he will tell you that Tir-na-nog, the
Country of the Young, the old Celtic paradise--the Land of the Living
Heart, as it used to be called--is all about him.'[355]
At the end of his long and careful study of the Celtic Otherworld,
Alfred Nutt arrived at the tentative conclusion which coincides with our
own, that 'The vision of a Happy Otherworld found in Irish mythic
romances of the eighth and following centuries is substantially
pre-Christian', that its closest analogues are in Hellenic myth, and
that with these 'it forms the most archaic Aryan presentation of the
divine and happy land we possess'.[356]
SECTION II
THE RECORDED FAIRY-FAITH
CHAPTER VII
THE CELTIC DOCTRINE OF RE-BIRTH[357]
'It seems as if Ossian's was a premature return. To-day he might
find comrades come back from Tir-na-nog for the uplifting of their
race. Perhaps to many a young spirit standing up among us Cailte
might speak as to Mongan, saying: "I was with thee, with
Finn."'--A. E.
Re-birth and Otherworld--As a Christian doctrine--General
historical survey--According to the Barddas MSS.; according to
ancient and modern authorities--Reincarnation of the Tuatha De
Danann--King Mongan's re-birth--Etain's birth--Dermot's
pre-existence--Tuan's re-birth--Re-birth among Brythons--Arthur as
a reincarnate hero--Non-Celtic parallels--Re-birth among modern
Celts: in Ireland; in Scotland; in the Isle of Man; in Wales; in
Cornwall; in Brittany--Origin and evolution of Celtic Re-birth
Doctrine.
RELATION WITH THE OTHERWORLD
However much the conception of the Otherworld among the ancient Greeks
may have differed from that among the Celts, it was to both peoples
alike inseparably connected with their belief in re-birth. Alfred Nutt,
who studied this intimate relation more carefully perhaps than any other
Celtic folk-lorist, has said of it:--'In Greek mythology as in Irish,
the conception of re-birth proves to be a dominant factor of the same
religious system in which Elysium is likewise an essential feature.'
Death, as many initiates have proclaimed in their mystical writings, is
but a going to that Otherworld from this world, and Birth a coming back
again;[358] and Buddha announced it as his mission to teach men the way
to be delivered out of this eternal Circle of Existence.
HISTORICAL SURVEY OF THE RE-BIRTH DOCTRINE
Among ourselves the doctrine may seem a strange one, though among the
great nations of antiquity--the Egyptians, Indians, Greeks, and
Celts--it was taught in the Mysteries and Priest-Schools, and formed the
corner-stone of the most important philosophical systems like those of
Buddha, Pythagoras, Plato, the Neo-Platonists, and the Druids. The
Alexandrian Jews, also, were familiar with the doctrine, as implied in
the _Wisdom of Solomon_ (viii. 19, 20), and in the writings of Philo. It
was one of the teachings in the Schools of Alexandria, and thus directly
shaped the thoughts of some of the early Church Fathers--for example,
Tertullian of Carthage (circa A. D. 160-240), and Origen of Alexandria
(circa A. D. 185-254). It is of considerable historical importance for
us at this point to consider at some length if Christians in the first
centuries held or were greatly influenced by the re-birth doctrine,
because, as we shall presently observe, the probable influence of
Christian on pagan Celtic beliefs may have been at a certain period very
deep and even the most important reshaping influence.
As an examination of Origen's _De Principiis_ proves, Origen himself
believed in the doctrine.[359] But the theologians who created the Greek
canons of the Fifth Council disagreed with Origen's views, and
condemned Origen for believing, among other things called by them
heresies, that Jesus Christ will be reincarnated and suffer on earth a
second time to save the daemons,[360] an order of spiritual beings
regarded by some ancient philosophers as destined to evolve into human
souls. Tertullian, contemporary with Origen, in his _De Anima_ considers
whether or not the doctrine of re-birth can be regarded as Christian in
view of the declaration by Jesus Christ that John the Baptist was Elias
(or Elijah), the old Jewish prophet, come again:--'And if ye are willing
to receive it (or him), this (John the Baptist) is Elijah, which is to
come. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.'[361] Tertullian
concludes, and modern Christian theologians frequently echo him (upon
comparing Malachi iv. 5), that all the New Testament writers mean to
convey is that John the Baptist possessed or acted in 'the spirit and
power' of Elias, but was not actually a reincarnation of Elias, since he
did not possess 'the soul and body' of Elias.[362] Had Tertullian been a
mystic and not merely a theologian with a personal bias against the
mystery teachings, which bias he shows throughout his _De Anima_, it is
quite evident that he would have been on this doctrinal matter in
agreement with Origen, who was both a mystic and a theologian,[363] and,
then, probably with such an agreement of these two eminent Church
Fathers on record before the time when Christian councils met to
determine canonical and orthodox beliefs, the doctrine of re-birth would
never have been expurgated from Christianity.[364]
In the _Pistis Sophia_,[365] an ancient Gnostic-Christian work, which
contains what are alleged to be some of Jesus Christ's esoteric
teachings to his disciples, it is clearly stated (contrary to
Tertullian's argument, but in accord with what we may assume Origen's
view would have been) that John the Baptist was the reincarnation of
Elias.[366] The same work further expounds the doctrine of re-birth as
a teaching of Jesus Christ which applies not to particular personages
only, like Elias, but as a universal law governing the lives of all
mankind.[367]
As our discussion has made evident, during the first centuries the
re-birth doctrine was undoubtedly well known to Alexandrian Christians.
Among other early Christian theologians and philosophers who held some
form of a re-birth doctrine, were Synesius, Bishop of Ptolemais (circa
375-414), Boethius, a Roman (circa 475-525), and Psellus, a native of
Andros (second half of ninth century). In addition to the many
Gnostic-Christian sects, the Manichaeans, who comprised more than
seventy sects connected with the primitive Church, also promulgated the
re-birth doctrine.[368] Along with the condemnation of the Gnostics and
Manichaeans as heretical, the doctrine of re-birth was likewise
condemned by various ecclesiastical bodies and councils. This was the
declaration by the Council of Constantinople in 553:--'Whosoever shall
support the mythical doctrine of the pre-existence of the Soul, and the
consequent wonderful opinion of its return, let him be anathema.' And
so, after centuries of controversy, the ancient doctrine ceased to be
regarded as Christian.[369] It is very likely, however, as will be
shown in due order, that a few of the early Celtic missionaries, always
famous for their Celtic independence even in questions touching
Christian theology and government, did not feel themselves bound by the
decisions of continental Church Councils with respect to this particular
doctrine.
During the mediaeval period in Europe, the re-birth doctrine continued
to live on in secret among many of the alchemists and mystical
philosophers, and among such Druids as survived religious persecution;
and it has come down from that period to this through Orders like the
Rosicrucian Order--an Order which seems to have had an unbroken
existence from the Middle Ages or earlier--and likewise through the
unbroken traditions of modern Druidism. In our own times there is what
may be called a renaissance of the ancient doctrine in Europe and
America--especially in England, Germany, France, and the United
States--through various philosophical or religious societies; some of
them founding their teachings and literature on the ancient and
mediaeval mystical philosophers, while others stand as the
representatives in the West of the mystical schools of modern India,
which, like modern Druidism, claim to have existed from what we call
prehistoric times.[370] To-day in the Roman Church eminent theologians
have called the doctrine of Purgatory the Christian counterpart of the
philosophical doctrine of re-birth;[371] and the real significance of
this opinion will appear in our later study of St. Patrick's Purgatory
which, as we hold, is connected more or less definitely with the
pagan-Irish doctrines of the underworld of the _Sidhe_-folk and spirits,
as well as shades of the dead, and with the Celtic-Druidic Doctrine of
Reincarnation.
Scientifically speaking, as shown in the Welsh Triads of Bardism, the
ancient Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth represented for the priestly and
bardic initiates an exposition of the complete cycle of human evolution;
that is to say, it included what we now call Darwinism--which explains
only the purely physical evolution of the body which man inhabits as an
inheritance from the brute kingdom--and also besides Darwinism, a
comprehensive theory of man's own evolution as a spiritual being both
apart from and in a physical body, on his road to the perfection which
comes from knowing completely the earth-plane of existence. And in time,
judging from the rapid advance of the present age, our own science
through psychical research may work back to the old mystery teachings
and declare them scientific. (See chap. xii.)
ACCORDING TO THE BARDDAS MSS.
With this preliminary survey of the subject we may now proceed to show
how in the Celtic scheme of evolution the Otherworld with all its gods,
fairies, and invisible beings, and this world with all its visible
beings, form the two poles of life or conscious existence. Let us begin
with purely philosophical conceptions, going first to the Welsh
_Barddas_,[372] where it is said 'There are three circles of existence:
the circle of Ceugant (the circle of Infinity), where there is neither
animate nor inanimate save God, and God only can traverse it; the circle
of Abred (the circle of Re-birth), where the dead is stronger than the
living, and where every principal existence is derived from the dead,
and man has traversed it; and the circle of Gwynvyd (the circle of the
white, i. e. the circle of Perfection), where the living is stronger
than the dead, and where every principal existence is derived from the
living and life, that is, from God, and man shall traverse it; nor will
man attain to perfect knowledge, until he shall have fully traversed the
circle of Gwynvyd, for no absolute knowledge can be obtained but by the
experience of the senses, from having borne and suffered every condition
and incident'.[373] ... 'The three stabilities of knowledge: to have
traversed every state of life; to remember every state and its
incidents; and to be able to traverse every state, as one would wish,
for the sake of experience and judgement; and this will be obtained in
the circle of Gwynvyd.'[374]
Thus _Barddas_ expounds the complete Bardic scheme of evolution as one
in which the monad or soul, as a knowledge of physical existence is
gradually unfolded to it, passes through every phase of material
embodiment before it enters the human kingdom, where, for the first time
exercising freewill in a physical body, it becomes responsible for all
its acts. The Bardic doctrine as otherwise stated is 'that the soul
commenced its course in the lowest water-animalcule, and passed at death
to other bodies of a superior order, successively, and in regular
gradation, until it entered that of man. Humanity is a state of liberty,
where man can attach himself to either good or evil, as he
pleases'.[375] Once in the human kingdom the soul begins a second period
of growth altogether different from that preceding--a period of growth
toward divinity; and with this, in our study, we are chiefly concerned.
It seems clear that the circle of Gwynvyd finds its parallel in the
Nirvana of Buddhism, being, like it, a state of absolute knowledge and
felicity in which man becomes a divine being, a veritable god.[376] We
see in all this the intimate relation which there was thought to be
between what we call the state of life and the state of death, between
the world of men and the world of gods, fairies, demons, spirits, and
shades. Our next step must be to show, first, what some other
authorities have had to say about this relation, and then, second, and
fundamentally, that gods or fairy-folk like the _Sidhe_ or Tuatha De
Danann could come to this world not only as we have been seeing them
come as fairy women, fairy men, and gods, at will visible or invisible
to mortals, but also through submitting to human birth.
ACCORDING TO ANCIENT AND MODERN AUTHORITIES
First, therefore, for opinions; and we may go to the ancients and then
to the moderns. Here are a few from Julius Caesar:--'In particular they
(the Druids) wish to inculcate this idea, that souls do not die, but
pass from one body to another.'[377] 'The Gauls declare that they have
all sprung from their father Dis (or Pluto), and this they say was
delivered to them by the Druids.'[377] And the testimony of Caesar is
confirmed by Diodorus Siculus,[378] and by Pomponius Mela.[379] Lucan,
in the _Pharsalia_,[380] addressing the Druids on their doctrine of
re-birth says:--'If you know what you sing, death is the centre of a
long life.' And again in the same passage he observes:--'Happy the folk
upon whom the Bear looks down, happy in this error, whom of fears the
greatest moves not, the dread of death. Hence their warrior's heart
hurls them against the steel, hence their ready welcome of death, and
the thought that it were a coward's part to grudge a life sure of its
return.'[381] Dr. Douglas Hyde, in his _Literary History of Ireland_ (p.
95), speaking for the Irish people, says of the re-birth doctrine:--'...
the idea of re-birth which forms part of half a dozen existing Irish
sagas, was perfectly familiar to the Irish Gael....' According to
another modern Celtic authority, D'Arbois de Jubainville, two chief
Celtic doctrines or beliefs were the return of the ghosts of the dead
and the re-birth of the same individuality in a new human body here on
this planet.[382]
REINCARNATION OF THE TUATHA DE DANANN
We proceed now directly to show that there was also a belief, probably
widespread, among the ancient Irish that divine personages, national
heroes who are members of the Tuatha De Danann or _Sidhe_ race, and
great men, can be reincarnated, that is to say, can descend to this
plane of existence and be as mortals more than once. This aspect of the
Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth has been clearly set forth by the
publications of such eminent Celtic folk-lorists as Alfred Nutt and Miss
Eleanor Hull. Miss Hull, in her study of _Old Irish Tabus, or
Gesa_,[383] referring to the Cuchulainn Cycle of Irish literature and
mythology, writes thus:--'There is no doubt that all the chief
personages of this cycle were regarded as the direct descendants, or it
would be more correct to say, as avatars or reincarnations of the early
gods. Not only are their pedigrees traced up to the Tuatha Dé Danann,
but there are indications in the birth-stories of nearly all the
principal personages that they are looked upon simply as divine beings
reborn on the human plane of life. These indications are mysterious,
and most of the tales which deal with them show signs of having been
altered, perhaps intentionally, by the Christian transcribers. The
doctrine of re-birth was naturally not one acceptable to them.... The
goddess Etain becomes the mortal wife of a king of Ireland....
Conchobhar, moreover, is spoken of as a terrestrial god;[384] and
Dechtire, his sister, and the mother of Cúchulainn, is called a
goddess.[385] In the case of Cúchulainn himself, it is distinctly noted
that he is the avatar of Lugh lamhfada (long-hand), the sun-deity[386]
of the earliest cycle. Lugh appears to Dechtire, the mother of
Cúchulainn, and tells her that he himself is her little child, i. e.
that the child is a reincarnation of himself; and Cúchulainn, when
inquired of as to his birth, points proudly to his descent from Lugh.
When, too, it is proposed to find a wife for the hero, the reason
assigned is, that they knew "that his re-birth would be of himself" (i.
e. that only from himself could another such as he have origin).'[387]
We have in this last a clue to the popular Irish belief regarding the
re-birth of beings of a god-like nature. D'Arbois de Jubainville has
shown,[388] also, that the grandfather of Cuchulainn, son of Sualtaim,
was from the country of the _Sidhe_, and so was Ethné Ingubé, the sister
of Sualtaim. And Dechtire, the mother of Cuchulainn, was the daughter of
the Druid Cathba and the brother of King Conchobhar. Thus the ancestry
of the great hero of the Red Branch Knights of Ulster is both royal and
divine. And Conall Cernach, Cuchulainn's comrade and avenger, apparently
from a tale in the _Cóir Anmann_ (Fitness of Names), composed probably
during the twelfth century, was also a reincarnated Tuatha De Danann
hero.[389]
Practically all the extant manuscripts dealing with the ancient
literature and mythology of the Gaels were written by Christian scribes
or else copied by them from older manuscripts, so that, as Miss Hull
points out, what few Irish re-birth stories have come down to us--and
they are probably but remnants of an extensive re-birth literature like
that of India--have been more or less altered. Yet to these scholarly
scribes of the early monastic schools, who kept alive the sacred fire of
learning while their own country was being plundered by foreign invaders
and the rest of mediaeval Europe plunged in warfare, the world owes a
debt of gratitude; for to their efforts alone, in spite of a reshaping
of matter naturally to be expected, is due almost everything recorded on
parchments concerning pagan Ireland.
THE RE-BIRTH STORY CONCERNING KING MONGAN
We have preserved to us a remarkable re-birth story in which the
characters are known to be historical.[390] It concerns a quarrel
between the king of Ulster, Mongan, son of Fiachna--who, according to
the _Annals of Ireland by the Four Masters_ (i. 245), was killed in A.
D. 620 by Arthur, son of Bicor--and Forgoll, the poet of Mongan.[391]
The dispute between them was as to the place of the death of Fothad
Airgdech, a king of Ireland who was killed by Cailte, one of the
warriors of Find, in a battle whose date is fixed by the _Four Masters_
in A. D. 285.[392] Forgoll pretended that Fothad had been killed at
Duffry, in Leinster, and Mongan asserted that it was on the river Larne
(anciently Ollarba) in County Antrim. Enraged at being contradicted,
even though it were by the king, Forgoll threatened Mongan with terrible
incantations; and it was agreed that unless Mongan proved his assertion
within three days, his queen should pass under the control of Forgoll.
Mongan, however, had spoken truly and with certain secret knowledge, and
felt sure of winning.
When the third day was almost expired and Forgoll had presented himself
ready to claim the wager, there was heard coming in the distance the one
whom Mongan awaited. It was Cailte himself, come from the Otherworld to
bear testimony to the truthfulness of the king and to confound the
audacious presumptions of the poet Forgoll. It was evening when he
reached the palace. The king Mongan was seated on his throne, and the
queen at his right full of fear about the outcome, and in front stood
the poet Forgoll claiming the wager. No one knew the strange warrior as
he entered the court, save the king.
Cailte, when fully informed of the quarrel and the wager, quickly
announced so that all heard him distinctly, 'The poet has lied!' 'You
will regret those words,' replied the poet. 'What you say does not well
become you,' responded Cailte in turn, 'for I will prove what I say.'
And straightway Cailte revealed this strange secret: that he had been
one of the companions in arms under the great warrior Find, who was also
his teacher, and that Mongan, the king before whom he spoke, was the
reincarnation of Find:--
'We were with thee,' said Cailte, addressing the king. 'We were with
Find.' 'Know, however,' replied Mongan, 'that you do wrong in revealing
a secret.' But the warrior continued: 'We were therefore with Find. We
came from Scotland. We encountered Fothad Airgdech near here, on the
shores of the Ollarba. We gave him furious battle. I cast my spear at
him in such a manner that it passed through his body, and the iron
point, detaching itself from the staff, became fixed in the earth on the
other side of Fothad. Behold here [in my hand] the shaft of that spear.
There will be found the bare rock from the top of which I let fly my
weapon. There will be found a little further to the east the iron point
sunken in the earth. There will be found again a little further, always
to the east, the tomb of Fothad Airgdech. A coffin of stone covers his
body; his two bracelets of silver, his two arm-rings, and his
neck-torque of silver are in the coffin. Above the tomb rises a
pillar-stone, and on the upper extremity of that stone which is planted
in the earth one may read an inscription in ogam: _Here reposes Fothad
Airgdech; he was fighting against Find when Cailte slew him_.'
And to the consternation of Forgoll, what this warrior who came from the
Otherworld declared was true, for there were found the place indicated
by him, the rock, the spear-head, the pillar-stone, the inscription, the
coffin of stone, the body in it, and the jewellery. Thus Mongan gained
the wager; and the secret of his life which he alone had known was
revealed--he was Find re-born[393]; and Cailte, his old pupil and
warrior-companion, had come from the land of the dead to aid
him[393]:--'It was Cailte, Find's foster-son, that had come to them.
Mongan, however, was Find, though he would not let it be told.'[393] But
not only was Mongan an Irish king, he was also a god, the son of the
Tuatha De Danann Manannan Mac Lir: 'this Mongan is a son of Manannan Mac
Lir, though he is called Mongan, son of Fiachna.'[394] And so it is that
long after their conquest the People of the Goddess Dana ruled their
conquerors, for they took upon themselves human bodies, being born as
the children of the kings of Mil's Sons.
There are other episodes which show very clearly the relationship
between Mongan incarnated in a human body and his divine father
Manannan. Thus, 'When Mongan was three nights old, Manannan came for him
and took him with him to bring up in the Land of Promise, and vowed
that he would not let him back into Ireland before he were twelve years
of age.' And after Mongan has become Ulster's high king, Manannan comes
to him to rouse him out of human slothfulness to a consciousness of his
divine nature and mission, and of the need of action: Mongan and his
wife were frittering away their time playing a game, when they beheld a
dark black-tufted little cleric standing at the door-post, who
said:--'"This inactivity in which thou art, O Mongan, is not an
inactivity becoming a king of Ulster, not to go to avenge thy father on
Fiachna the Black, son of Deman, though Dubh-Lacha may think it wrong to
tell thee so...." Mongan seized the kingship of Ulster, and the little
cleric who had done the reason was Manannan the great and mighty.'[395]
In the ancient tale of the _Voyage of Bran_--probably composed in its
present form during the eighth, possibly the seventh, century A.
D.--there is another version of the Mongan Re-birth Story, which, being
later in origin and composition than the _Voyage_ itself, was
undoubtedly clumsily inserted into the manuscript, as scholars
think.[396] Therein, Mongan as the offspring of Manannan by the woman of
Line-mag--quite after the theory of the Christian Incarnation--is
described as 'a fair man in a body of white clay'. This and what follows
in the introductory quatrain show how early Celtic doctrines correspond
to or else were originated by those of the Christians. And the
transcriber seeing the parallels, glossed and altered the text which he
copied by introducing Christian phraseology so as to fit it in with his
own idea--altogether improbable--that the references are to the coming
of Jesus Christ. The references are to Manannan and to the woman of
Line-mag, who by him was to be the mother of Mongan--as Mary the wife of
Joseph was the mother of Jesus Christ by God the Father:--
A noble salvation will come
From the King who has created us,
A white law will come over seas,
Besides being God, He will be man.
This shape, he on whom thou lookest,
Will come to thy parts;
'Tis mine to journey to her house,
To the woman in Line-mag.
For it is Moninnan, the son of Ler,
From the chariot in the shape of a man,
* * * * *
He will delight the company of every fairy-knoll,
He will be the darling of every goodly land,
He will make known secrets--a course of wisdom--
In the world, without being feared.
To him is attributed the power of shape-shifting, which is not
transmigration into animal forms, but a magical power exercised by him
in a human body.
He will be throughout long ages
An hundred years in fair kingship
* * * *
Moninnan, the son of Ler
Will be his father, his tutor.
At his death
The white host (the angels or fairies) will take him under a wheel
(chariot) of clouds
To the gathering where there is no sorrow.[397]
THE BIRTH OF ETAIN OF THE TUATHA DE DANANN[398]
Another clear example of one of the Tuatha De Danann being born as a
mortal is recorded in the famous saga of the _Wooing of Etain_. Three
fragments of this story exist in the _Book of the Dun Cow_. The first
tells how Etain Echraide, daughter of Ailill and wife of Midir (a great
king among the _Sidhe_ people) was driven out of Fairyland by the
jealousy of her husband's other wife, and how after being wafted about
on the winds of this world she fell invisibly into the drinking-cup of
the wife of Etar of Inber Cichmaine, who was an Ulster chieftain. The
chieftain's wife swallowed her; and, in due time, gave birth to a
girl:--'It was one thousand and twelve years from the first begetting
of Etain by Ailill to the last begetting by Etar.' Etain, retaining her
own name, grew up thence as an Irish princess.[399]
One day an unknown man of very stately aspect suddenly appeared to Etain
the princess; and as suddenly disappeared, after he had sung to her a
wonderful song designed to arouse in her the subconscious memories of
her past existence among the _Sidhe_:--
So is Etain here to-day....
Among little children is her lot....
It is she was gulped in the drink
By Etar's wife in a heavy draught.
The scribe ends this part of the story by letting it be known that Midir
has struck off the head of his other wife, Fuamnach, the cause of all
Etain's trouble.
The second section of the tale introduces Etain as queen of Eochaid
Airem, high king of Ireland, and the most curious and important part of
it shows how she was loved by Ailill Aenguba. Ailill, so far as blood
kinship went, was the brother of Eochaid, though apparently either an
incarnation of Midir or else possessed by him: Etain acceded to his
love, but he was under a strange love-weakness; and on two occasions
when he attempted to advance his desires an overpowering sleep fell on
him, and each time Etain met a man in Ailill's shape--as though it were
his 'double'--bemoaning his weakness. On a third occasion she asked who
the man was, and he declared himself to be Midir, and besought her to
return with him to the Otherworld. But her worldly or human memory
clouded her subconscious memory, and she did not recognize Midir, yet
promised to go with him on gaining Eochaid's permission. After this
event, curiously enough, Ailill was healed of his strange love-malady.
In the third part of the story, Midir and Eochaid are playing games.
Midir loses the first two and with them great riches, but winning the
third claims the right to place his arms about Etain and kiss her.
Eochaid asked a month's delay. The last day of the month had passed. It
was night. Eochaid in his palace at Tara awaited the coming of his
rival, Midir; and though all the doors of the palace had been firmly
closed for the occasion, and armed soldiers surrounded the queen, Midir
like a spirit suddenly stood in the centre of the court and claimed the
wager. Then, grasping and kissing Etain, he mounted in the air with her
and very quickly passed out through the opening of the great chimney. In
consternation, King Eochaid and his warriors hurried without the palace;
and there, on looking up, they saw two white swans flying over Tara,
bound together by a golden chain.[400]
THE PRE-EXISTENCE OF DERMOT
With a difficult task before him, Dermot--as was the case with
Mongan--is reminded of his pre-existence as a hero in the Otherworld
with Manannan Mac Lir and Angus Oge:--'Now spoke Fergus Truelips, Finn's
ollave, and said: "Cowardly and punily thou shrinkest, Dermot; for with
most potent Manannan, son of Lir, thou studiedst and wast brought up, in
the Land of Promise and in the bay-indented coasts; with Angus Oge, too,
the Daghda's son, wast most accurately taught; and it is not just that
now thou lackest even a moderate portion of their skill and daring, such
as might serve to convey Finn and his party up this rock or bastion." At
these words Dermot's face grew red; he laid hold on Manannan's magic
staves that he had, and, as once again he redly blushed, by dint of
skill in martial feats he with a leap rose on his javelin's shafts and
so gained his two soles' breadth of the solid glebe that overhung the
water's edge.'[401]
RE-BIRTH OF TUAN
Tuan, as the son of Starn, lived one hundred years as the brother of
Partholon, the first man to reach Ireland; and then, after two hundred
and twenty years, was re-born as the son of Cairell. This story in its
oldest form is preserved in the _Book of the Dun Cow_, and seems to have
been composed during the late ninth or early tenth century.[402]
RE-BIRTH AMONG THE BRYTHONS
Such then are the re-birth stories of the Gaels. Among the Brythons the
same ancient doctrine prevailed, though we have fewer clear records of
it. Of the Brythonic Re-birth Doctrine as philosophically expounded in
_Barddas_, mention has already been made.
In the ancient Welsh story about Taliessin, Gwion after many
transformations, magical in their nature, is re-born as that great poet
of Wales, his mother being a goddess, Caridwen, who dwells beneath the
waters of Lake Tegid. In its present mystical form this tale cannot be
traced further than the end of the sixteenth century, though the
transformation incidents are presupposed in the _Book of Taliessin_, a
thirteenth-century manuscript.[403] Besides being the re-birth of Gwion,
Taliessin may be regarded as a bardic initiate high in degree, who is
possessed of all magical and druidical powers.[403] He made a voyage to
the Otherworld, Caer Sidi; and this seems to indicate some close
connexion between ancient rites of initiation and his occult knowledge
of all things.[404] Like the Irish re-birth and Otherworld tales, it
also suggests the relation between the world of death or Faerie and the
world of human embodiment.
From his harrying of Hades, the Brythonic Gwydion secured the Head of
Hades' Cauldron of Regeneration or Re-birth; and when corpses of slain
warriors are thrown into it they arise next day as excellent as ever,
except that they are unable to speak; which circumstance may be equal to
saying that the ordinary uninitiated man when re-born is unable to speak
of his previous incarnation, because he has no memory of it. This
Cauldron of Re-birth, like so many objects mentioned in the ancient
bardic literature, is evidently a mystic symbol: it suggests the same
correspondences, as propounded in the modern _Barddas_, between the dead
and the living, between death and re-birth; and Gwydion having been a
great culture hero of Wales probably promulgated a doctrine of re-birth,
and hence is described as being able to resuscitate the dead.[405]
KING ARTHUR AS A REINCARNATED HERO
Judging from substantial evidence set forth above in chapter V, the most
famous of all Welsh heroes, Arthur, equally with Cuchulainn his Irish
counterpart, can safely be considered both as a god apart from the human
plane of existence, and thus like the Tuatha De Danann or Fairy-Folk,
and also like a great national hero and king (such as Mongan was)
incarnated in a physical body. The taking of Arthur to Avalon by his
life-guardian, the Lady of the Lake, and by his own sister, and by two
other fairy women who live in that Otherworld of Sacred Apple-Groves, is
sufficient in itself, we believe, to prove him of a descent more divine
than that of ordinary men. And the belief in his return from that
Otherworld--a return so confidently looked for by the Brythonic
peoples--seems to be a belief (whether recognized as such or not) that
the Great Hero will be reincarnated as a Messiah destined to set them
free. In Avalon, Arthur lives now, and 'It is from there that the
Britons of England and of France have for a long time awaited his
coming'.[406] And Malory expressing the sentiment in his age
writes[407]:--'Yet some men say in many parts of England that King
Arthur is not dead, but had by the will of our Lord Jesu into another
place; and men say that he shall come again, and he shall win the holy
cross. I will not say it shall be so, but rather I will say, here in
this world he changed his life.' If we consider Arthur's passing and
expected return, as many do, in a purely mythological aspect, we must
think of him for the time as a sun-god, and yet even then cannot escape
altogether from the re-birth idea; for, as a study of ancient Egyptian
mythology shows, there is still the same set of relations.[408] There
are the sun-symbols always made use of to set forth the doctrine of
re-birth, be it Egyptian, Indian, Mexican, or Celtic:--the death of a
mortal like the passing of Arthur is represented by the sun-set on the
horizon between the visible world here and the invisible world beyond
the Western Ocean, and the re-birth is the sunrise of a new day.
NON-CELTIC PARALLELS
As a non-Celtic parallel to what has preceded concerning the Otherworld
of the Celts and their Doctrine of Re-birth, we offer the second of the
_Stories of the High-priests of Memphis_, as published by Mr. F. L.
Griffith from ancient manuscripts.[409] It is a history of Si-Osiri (the
son of Osiris), whose father was Setme Khamuas. This wonderful divine
son when still a child took his human father on a journey to see Amenti,
the Otherworld of the Dead; and when twelve years of age he was wiser
than the wisest of the scribes and unequalled in magic. At this period
in his life there arrived in Egypt an Ethiopian magician who came with
the object of humbling the kingdom; but Si-Osiri read what was in the
unopened letter of the stranger, and knew that its bearer was the
reincarnation of 'Hor the son of the Negress', the most formidable of
the three Ethiopian magicians who fifteen hundred years before had waged
war with the magicians of Egypt. At that time the Egyptian Hor, the son
of Pa-neshe, had defeated the great magician of Ethiopia in the final
struggle between White and Black Magic which took place in the presence
of the Pharaoh.[410] And 'Hor the son of the Negress' had agreed not to
return to Egypt again for fifteen hundred years. But now the time was
elapsed, and, unmasking the character of the messenger, Si-Osiri
destroyed him with magical fire. After this, Si-Osiri revealed himself
as the reincarnation of Hor the son of Pa-neshe, and declared that
Osiris had permitted him to return to earth to destroy the powerful
hereditary enemy of Egypt. When the revelation was made, Si-Osiri
'passed away as a shade', going back again, even as the Celtic Arthur,
into the realm invisible from which he came.
As in ancient Ireland, where many kings or great heroes were regarded as
direct incarnations or reincarnations of gods or divine beings from the
Otherworld, so in Egypt the Pharaohs were thought to be gods in human
bodies, sent by Osiris to rule the Children of the Sun.[411] In Mexico
and Peru there was a similar belief.[412] In the Indian _Mahâbhârata_,
Râma and Krishna are at once gods and men.[413] The celebrated
philosophical poem known as the _Bhagavadgîtâ_ also asserts Krishna's
descent from the gods; and the same view is again enforced and extended
in the _Hari-vansa_ and especially in the _Bhâgavata Purâna_.[413] The
Indian _Laws of Manu_ say that 'even an infant king must not be despised
from an idea that he is a mere mortal; for he is a great deity in human
form'.[414] In ancient Greece it was a common opinion that Zeus was
reincarnated from age to age in the great national heroes. 'Alexander
the Great was regarded not merely as the son of Zeus, but as Zeus
himself.' And other great Greeks were regarded as gods while living on
earth, like Lycurgus the Spartan law-giver, who after his death was
worshipped as one of the divine ones.[415]
Among the great philosophers, the ancient doctrine of re-birth was a
personal conviction: Buddha related very many of his previous
reincarnations, according to the _Gâtakamâlâ_; Pythagoras is said to
have gone to the temple of Here and recognized there an ancient shield
which he had carried in a previous life when he was Euphorbus, a Homeric
hero.[416] From what Plato, in his _Meno_, quoted from an old poet, it
seems very probable that there may be some sort of relationship between
legends mentioning the Rites of Proserpine, like the legend of Aeneas in
Virgil, and certain of the Irish Otherworld and Re-birth legends among
the Gaels, as we have already suggested:--'For from whomsoever
Persephone hath accepted the atonement of ancient woe, their souls she
sendeth up once more to the upper sun in the ninth year. From these grow
up glorious kings and men of swift strength, and men surpassing in
poetical skill; and for all future time they are called holy heroes
among men.' Among modern philosophers and poets in Europe and America
the same ideas find their echo: Wordsworth in his _Ode to Immortality_
definitely inculcates pre-existence; Emerson in his _Threnody_, and
Tennyson in his _De Profundis_, seem committed to the re-birth doctrine,
and Walt Whitman in his _Leaves of Grass_ without doubt accepted it as
true. Certain German philosophers, too, appear to hold views in harmony
with what is also the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth, e. g. Schopenhauer, in
_The World as Will and Idea_, J. G. Fichte, in _The Destiny of Man_, and
Herder, in _Dialogues on Metempsychosis_. The Emperor of Japan is still
the Divine Child of the Sun, the head of the _Order of the Rising Sun_,
and is always regarded by his subjects as the incarnation of a great
being. The Great Lama of Thibet is believed to reincarnate immediately
after death.[417] William II of Germany seems to echo, perhaps
unconsciously, the same doctrine when he claims to be ruling by divine
right.[418]
That the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth is a direct and complete
confirmation of the Psychological Theory of the nature and origin of the
belief in fairies is self-evident. Could it be shown to be
scientifically plausible in itself, as well-educated Celts consider it
to be--and much evidence to be derived from a study of states of
consciousness, e. g. dreams, somnambulism, trance, crystal-gazing,
changed personality, subconsciousness, and so forth, indicates that it
might be shown to be so--it would effectively prove the theory. Fairies
would then be beings of the Otherworld who can enter the human plane of
life by submitting to the natural process of birth in a physical body,
and would correspond to the _Alcheringa_ ancestors of the Arunta. In
chapter xii following, such a proof of the theory is attempted.
RE-BIRTH AMONG MODERN CELTS
One of the chief objects of this chapter is to show that the Re-birth
Doctrine of the Celts, like most beliefs bound up with the Fairy-Faith,
still survives; thus further proving that Celtic tradition is an
unbroken thing from times prehistoric until to-day. We shall therefore
proceed to bring forward the following original material, collected by
ourselves, as evidence on this point:--
_In Ireland_
In Ireland I found two districts where the Re-birth Doctrine has not
been wholly forgotten. The first one is in the country round Knock Ma,
near Tuam. After Mrs. ---- had told me about fairies, I led up to the
subject of re-birth, and the most valuable of all my Irish finds
concerning the belief was the result. For this woman of Belclare told me
that it was believed by many of the old people, when she was a girl
living a few miles west of Knock Ma, that they had lived on this earth
before as men and women; but, she added, 'You could hardly get them to
talk about their belief. It was a sort of secret which they who held it
discussed freely only among themselves.' They believed, too, that
disease and misfortune in old age come as a penalty for sins committed
in a former life.[419] This expiatory or purgatorial aspect of the
Re-birth Doctrine seems to have been more widespread than the doctrine
in its bare outlines; for the Belclare woman in speaking of it was able
to recall from memories of forty-five or fifty years ago what was then a
popular story about a disease-worn man and an eel-fisherman:--
The diseased man as he watches the eel-fisherman taking up his baskets,
contrasts his own wretched physical condition with the vigour and good
health of the latter, and attributes the misfortune which is upon
himself to bad actions in a life prior to the one he is then living. And
here is the unhappy man's lamentation:--
Fliuch, fuar atâ mo leabaidh;
Atâ fearthâinn agus geur-ghaoith;
Atâim ag îoc na h-uaille,
A's tusa ag faire do chliaibhîn.
(Wet, cold is my bed;
There is rain and sharp wind;
I am paying for pride,
And you watching your [eel-]basket.)
The teller of the story insisted on giving me these verses in Irish, for
she said they have much less meaning in English, and I took them down;
and to verify them and the story in which they find a place, I went to
the cottage a second time. There is no doubt, therefore, that the legend
is a genuine echo of the religion of pre-Christian Ireland, in which
reincarnation appears to have been clearly inculcated and was probably
the common belief.
I once asked Steven Ruan, the Galway piper, if he had ever heard of such
a thing as people being born more than once here on this earth, seeing
that I was seeking for traces of the old Irish Doctrine of Re-birth. The
answer he gave me was this:--'I have often heard it said that people
born and dead come into this world again. I have heard the old people
say that we have lived on this earth before; and I have often met old
men and women who believed they had lived before. The idea passed from
one old person to another, and was a common belief, though you do not
hear much about it now.'
A highly educated Irishman now living in California tells me of his own
knowledge that there was a popular and sincere belief among many of the
Irish people throughout Ireland that Charles Parnell, their great
champion in modern times, was the reincarnation of one of the old Gaelic
heroes. This shows how the ancient doctrine is still practically
applied. There is also an opinion held by certain very prominent
Irishmen now living in Ireland, with whom I have been privileged to
discuss the re-birth doctrine, that both Patrick and Columba are
likewise to be regarded as ancient Gaelic heroes, who were reincarnated
to work for the uplifting of the Gael.[420]
A legend concerning Lough Gur, County Limerick, indicates that the
sleeping-hero type of tale is a curious aspect of an ancient re-birth
doctrine. In such tales, heroes and their warrior companions are held
under enchantment, awaiting the mystic hour to strike for them to issue
forth and free their native land from the rule of the Saxon. Usually
they are so held within a mysterious cavern, as is the case of Arthur
and his men, according to differently localized Welsh stories; or they
are in the depths of magic hills and mountains like most Irish heroes.
The heroes under enchantment with their companions are to be considered
as resident in the Otherworld, and their return to human action as a
return to the human plane of life. The Lough Gur legend is about Garret
Fitzgerald, the Earl of Desmond, who rebelled against Queen Elizabeth.
Modern folk-tradition regards him as the guardian deity of the Lough,
and as dwelling in an enchanted palace situated beneath its waters. As
Count John de Salis, whose ancestral home is the Lough Gur estate,
assures me, the peasants of the region declare themselves convinced that
the earl once in seven years appears riding across the lake surface on a
phantom white horse shod with shoes of silver; and they believe that
when the horse's silver shoes are worn out the enchantment will end.
Then, like Arthur when his stay in Avalon ends, Garret Fitzgerald will
return to the world of human life again to lead the Irish hosts to
victory.[421]
_In Scotland_
Dr. Alexander Carmichael, author of _Carmina Gadelica_, who as a
folk-lorist has examined modern peasant beliefs throughout the Highlands
and Islands more thoroughly than any other living Scotsman, informs me
that apparently there was at one time in the Highlands a definite belief
in the ancient Celtic Re-birth Doctrine, because he has found traces of
it there, though these traces were only in the vaguest and barest
outline.
_In the Isle of Man_
Mr. William Cashen, keeper of Peel Castle, reported as follows with
respect to a re-birth doctrine in the Isle of Man:--'Here in the Island
among old Manx people I have heard it said, but only in a joking way,
that we will come back to this earth again after some thousands of
years. The idea wasn't very popular nor often discussed, and there is no
belief in it now to my knowledge. It seems to have come down from the
Druids.'
This is Mr. William Oates' testimony, given at Ballasalla:--'Some held a
belief in the coming back (re-birth) of spirits. I can't explain it. A
certain Manxman I knew used to talk about the transmigration of spirits;
but I shall not give his name, since many of his family still live here
on the Island.'
Mr. Thomas Kelley, of Glen Meay, had no clear idea about the ancient
Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth, though he said:--'My grandfather had a
notion that he would be back here again at the Resurrection to claim his
land.' This undoubtedly shows how the Christian doctrine of the
Resurrection and the Celtic one of Re-birth may have blended, both being
based on the common idea of a physical post-existence.
_In Wales_
In the Pentre Evan country where I discovered such rich folk-lore, I
found my chief witness from there not unfamiliar with the ancient Celtic
belief in Re-birth. One day I asked her if she had ever heard the old
folk say that they had lived before on this earth as men and women.
Somewhat surprised at the question, for to answer it would reveal
half-secret thoughts of which, as it proved, not even her own nephew or
niece had knowledge, she hesitated a moment, and, then, looking at me
intently, said with great earnestness, 'Yes; and I often believe myself
that I have lived before.' And because of the unusual question, which
seemed to reveal on my part familiarity with the belief, she added, 'And
I think you must be of the same opinion as to yourself.' She explained
then that the belief was a rare one now, and held by only a few of the
oldest of her old acquaintances in that region, and they seldom talk
about it to their children for fear of being laughed at.
Mr. J. Ceredig Davies, the well-known folk-lorist of Llanilar, near
Aberystwyth, speaking of the Welsh Re-birth Doctrine, said he remembers,
while in Patagonia, having discussed Druidism with a friend there, the
late John Jones, originally of Bala, North Wales, and hearing him
remark, 'Indeed, I have a half-belief that I have been in this world
before.'
Mr. Jones, our witness from Pontrhydfendigaid, offers testimony of the
highest value concerning Druidism and the doctrine of re-birth in
Central Wales, as follows:--'Taliessin believed in re-birth, and he was
the first to interpret the Druidic laws. He believed that from age to
age he had been in many human bodies. He believed that he possessed the
same soul as Enoch and Eli, that he had been a judge sitting on the case
of Jesus Christ--"I was a judge at the Crucifixion," he is reported as
saying--and that he had been a prisoner in bonds at the Court of
Cynfelyn, not far from Aberystwyth, for a year and a day. Two hundred
years ago, belief in re-birth was common. Many still held it when I was
a boy. And even yet here in this region some people are imbued with the
ancient faith of the Druids, and firmly believe that the spirit migrates
from one body to another. It is said, too, that a pregnant woman is able
to determine what kind of a child she will give birth to.'[422]
Mr. Jones's use of the phrase 'migrate from one body to another' led us
to suspect that it might refer to transmigration, i. e. re-birth into
animal bodies, which Dr. Tylor in _Primitive Culture_{4} (ii. 6-11, 17,
&c.) shows is a distorted or corrupted interpretation of what he calls
the reasonable and straightforward doctrine of re-birth into human
bodies only. But when we questioned Mr. Jones further about the matter
he said:--'The belief I refer to is re-birth into human bodies. I have
heard of witches being able to change their own body into the body of an
animal or demon, but I never heard of men transmigrating into the bodies
of animals. Some people have said that the Druids taught transmigration
of this sort, but I do not think they did--though Welsh poets seem to
have made use of such a doctrine for the sake of poetry.'
In order to gain evidence concerning the Re-birth Doctrine as concrete
as possible from so important a witness as Mr. Jones, we asked him
further if he could recall the names of one or two of his old
acquaintances who believed in it; and he said:--'One old character named
Thomas Williams, a dyer by trade, nearly believed in it, and Shôn Evan
Rolant firmly believed in it. Rolant was the owner of Old Abbey Farm on
the Cross-Wood Estate, and originally was a well-to-do and respectable
farmer, but in consequence of mortgages on the estate he lost his
property. After being dispossessed and badly treated, he used to recite
the one hundred and ninth Psalm, to bring curses upon those who worked
against him in the dispossession process; and it was thought that he
succeeded in bringing curses upon them.'
The Rev. T. M. Morgan, Vicar of Newchurch parish, near Carmarthen, who
has already offered valuable evidence concerning the _Tylwyth Teg_ (see
pp. 149-51), contributes additional material about the Doctrine of
Re-birth in South Wales:--'My father said there used to be expressed in
Cardiganshire before his time, a belief in re-birth. This was in accord
with Druidism, namely, that all human beings formerly existed on the
moon, the world of middle light, and the queen of heaven; that those who
there lived a righteous life were thence born on the sun, and thence
onward to the highest heaven; and that those whose moon life had been
unrighteous were born on this earth of suffering and sin. Through
right-living on earth souls are able to return to the moon, and then
evolve to the sun and highest heaven; or, through wrong living on earth,
souls are born in the third condition, which is one of utter darkness
and of still greater suffering and sin than our world offers. But even
from this lowest condition souls can work upwards to the highest glory
if they strive successfully against evil. The Goddess of Heaven or
Mother of all human beings was known as _Brenhines-y-nef_. I am unable
to tell if she is the moon itself or lived in the moon. On the other
hand, the sun was considered the father of all human beings. According
to the old belief, every new moon brings the souls who were unfit to be
born on the sun, to deposit them here on our earth. Sometimes there are
more souls seeking embodiment on earth than there are infant bodies to
contain them. Hence souls fight among themselves to occupy a body.
Occasionally one soul tries to drive out from a body the soul already in
possession of it, in order to possess it for itself. In consequence of
such struggling of soul against soul, men in this world manifest madness
and tear themselves. Whenever such a condition showed itself, the person
exhibiting it was called a _Lloerig_ or "one who is moon-torn"--_Lloer_
meaning moon, and _rhigo_ to notch or tear; and in the English word
_lunatic_, meaning "moon-struck", we have a similar idea.'[423]
Mr. David Williams, J.P., of Carmarthen, who has already told us much
about Welsh fairies (see pp. 151-3), offers equally valuable information
about the 'Three Circles of Existence' and the Druidic scheme of
soul-evolution, as follows:--'According to the Druids, there are three
Circles through which souls must pass. The first is _Cylch y Ceugant_,
the second _Cylch Abred_, the third _Cylch y Gwynfyd_. The name of each
circle refers to a special kind of spiritual training, and if in
reaching the second circle you do not gain its perfection by completing
all its provisions [probably in due order and time], you must begin
again in Circle One; but if you reach the perfection of Circle Two you
go on to Circle Three. In Circle One, which is unlocated, the soul has
no condition of bodily existence as in Circle Two. The second Circle
appears to be a state something like the one we are in now--a mixture of
good and evil. The third Circle is a state of perfection and
blessedness. In it the soul's environments correspond to all its wishes
and desires, and there is contact with God.' At this point I asked if
there was loss of individuality in Circle Three, and Mr. Williams
replied:--'No, there is not loss of individuality.' Hence, as we
suggest, _Cylch y Gwynfyd_ is the Druidic parallel to the Nirvana of
Indian metaphysics--being like it, a state of perfect and unlimited
self-consciousness which man never knows in earth-life. And, finally,
Mr. Williams said in relation to re-birth:--'About the years 1780-1820
there lived an old bard in Glamorganshire who was actually a Druid,
though he professed to be a Christian as well, and he believed fully in
re-birth. His common name was Edward Williams (Iolo Morganwg); and he
[with Owen Jones and William O. Pughe] edited the famous _Archaiology of
Wales_.'
_In Cornwall_
Mr. Henry Maddern, F.I.A.S., our very important witness from Penzance,
testifies as follows concerning a re-birth doctrine in Cornwall:--'Belief
in reincarnation was very common among the old Cornish peoples. For
example, it was believed when an incantation had been pronounced in the
proper way at the Newlyn Tolcarne, that the Troll who inhabited it could
embody the person who called him up in any state in which that person
had existed during a former age. You had only to name the age or period,
and you could live your past life therein over again. My nurse, Betty
Grancan, and an old miner named William Edwards, both believed in
re-birth, and told me about it. I have heard them relate stories to one
another to the effect that a person can go back into the memory of past
lives. They said that the sex always remains the same from life to
life. I have never heard of any belief in transmigration of humans into
animals, but in human re-birth only.'[424]
_In Brittany_
In chapter ii, p. 216, M. Z. Le Rouzic, keeper of the Miln Museum at
Carnac, says that there is now among his Breton countrymen round Carnac
a general and profound belief that spirits incarnate as men and women;
and he has told me that this belief exists also in other regions of the
Morbihan. And I myself found there in this Carnac country of which M. Le
Rouzic speaks, that the doctrine of the reincarnation of ancestors,
which, as he agrees, is the same thing as the incarnation of spirits, is
quite common, though as a rule only talked about among the Bretons
themselves.
M. Le Rouzic restated the belief as he knows it round Carnac, as
follows:--'It is incontestable that the belief in the reincarnation of
spirits is general in our country; and it is believed that the spirits
embodied now are the spirits of the people of former times.'
After Louis Guézel, of the village of St. Columban, a mile from Carnac,
had related to me certain legends of the dead, I asked him if he had
ever heard that the dead may be born again as men and women here on this
earth. Contrary to my expectations, the question caused no surprise
whatever; and I was at once given the impression that the ancient Celtic
Doctrine of Re-birth is a thoroughly familiar one to him and to many
Bretons about the Carnac district. As we conversed about the doctrine,
he said emphatically, '_C'est la vérité_' (It is the truth); and in
illustration told the following anecdotes:--'A woman in a cemetery one
evening saw the spirits of many dead children begging of her life, and
reincarnation. A son of my son resembles my grandfather, especially in
his mental traits and general character, and the family believe that
this son is my grandfather reincarnated.' (Recorded at St. Columban,
Brittany, August 1909.)
Professor Anatole Le Braz, in a letter-preface to _Carnac, Légendes,
Traditions, Coutumes et Contes du Pays_ (Nantes, 1909), by M. Z. Le
Rouzic, makes this poetical reference to his friend, its author, and
thereby admirably echoes the ancient Breton Doctrine of Re-birth:--'You,
your eyes, your ears are elsewhere: you are a seer and a hearer of the
lower regions; you perceive the floating images and you discern the
hollow sounds of the people of the manes; you live, literally, among
them. What am I saying? Under the form and appearance of a man of
to-day, you are in reality one of them, ascended to the day and
reincarnated.' Again, speaking of the Alignements of Menec, Professor Le
Braz adds concerning his friend:--'You have been one of the
priest-builders who worked at its erection; you have officiated among
its myriads of columns, presided amid the pomp of great funerals in its
cyclopean caverns, sprinkled its sepulchral mounds, shaped like tents,
with the blood of oxen and of heifers now dear to St. Cornely. And this
also you confess to me yourself: these unfathomable epochs remain for
you actual and present.'
ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF THE CELTIC DOCTRINE OF RE-BIRTH
In considering briefly what non-Celtic doctrines could conceivably have
shaped the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth, two chief streams of influence
are open to examination. One stream has its source in re-birth doctrines
like those set forth by Orphic, Pythagorean, Platonic, and similar
orientally-derived philosophies; while the other arises out of primitive
Christianity, wherein, as literary and historical evidence suggests,
re-birth may have been an equally important doctrine; or, at all events,
there was a decided tendency, later condemned as heretical, to
synthesize the Alexandrian philosophy and the Jewish (which to some
extent influenced the Alexandrian) with early Church doctrines. This
tendency is clearly shown by Origen, and by Clemens Alexandrinus,
another eminent Father.
We have a better check on the second stream than on the first, because
Christianity has a later and more definite origin than any of the
orientally-derived philosophies. Some of the Druids, chiefly of Scotland
and Wales, who are known to have held the re-birth doctrine before
conversion, and probably after conversion, as was the case with a modern
Druid, an editor of the _Archaiology of Wales_ (see p. 391, above),
accepted the New Faith as a purer form of Druidism and Jesus Christ as
the Greatest of Druids. This ready and full acceptance would most likely
not have been possible had their cardinal re-birth doctrine been thereby
condemned. It would seem, therefore, that a primitive Christian re-birth
doctrine may have been openly held by certain of the early Celtic
missionaries. These latter, during the centuries when Ireland was the
university for all Europe, had good opportunities for knowing much about
the earliest traditions of Christianity, and they, with their own
half-pagan instincts, would have given approval to such a doctrine
without consulting Rome, just as Church Fathers like Tertullian
condemned it on their own personal authority and Origen believed it.
Further, if we hold in mind that the doctrine of the Incarnation even
now inculcates that the Son pre-existed and united Himself with a human
soul in the act of conception, and that it may originally and by some
Irish saints have been thought of as applying to all mankind in a more
humble and less divine way, we seem to see in the Mongan re-birth story,
which Christian transcribers have glossed, evidently with such ideas in
mind, a proof that on this doctrinal point Christian and Celtic beliefs
coalesced.[425] But the Christian beliefs did not originate the Celtic,
for scholars have shown that the germ of the Mongan re-birth story, as
well as that of the Cuchulainn re-birth episode, is pre-Christian, and
that the Etain birth-story dates from a time when Irish myth and history
were entirely free from Christian influence.[426] The same original
pagan character is shown in the re-birth episodes existing in Brythonic
literature.[427] And, finally, from the testimony of several ancient
authorities, e. g. Julius Caesar, Diodorus Siculus, Pomponius Mela, and
Lucan, who wrote, respectively, about 50 B. C., 40 B. C., A. D. 44, and
A. D. 60 to 65, that the Celts already held the re-birth doctrine, it is
certain that any possible influence from the Christian stream instead of
originating the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth could merely have modified
it.
The question remaining, Would the classical or oriental doctrines of
re-birth have originated or fundamentally shaped the Celtic re-birth
doctrine? is a very difficult one. At present it cannot be answered with
certainty either negatively or positively. We may suppose, however, as
we did in the case of the parallel Christian re-birth doctrine, a
possible contact and amalgamation, brought about in various ways, e. g.
through Oriental merchants like the Phoenicians, and travellers who
visited Britain in pre-Christian times, but chiefly through the
continental Celts, who had direct knowledge of Greek and Roman culture,
meeting their insular brethren beyond the Channel and Irish Sea. All
such ancient contacts push the problem further and further back in time;
and our easiest and safest course is to state--as we may of the similar
problem of the origin of the Celtic Otherworld belief--that available
facts of comparative religion, philosophy, and myth, indicate clearly a
prehistoric epoch when there was a common ancestral stock for the
Mediterranean and pan-Celtic cultures. This may have had its beginnings
in the Danube country, or in North Europe, as many authorities in
ethnology now hold, or, as others are beginning to hold, in the lost
Atlantis--the most probable home of the dark pre-Celtic peoples of
Ireland, Isle of Man, Scotland, Britain, Southern and Western Europe,
and North Africa, who with the Aryans are the joint ancestors of the
modern Celts. Both branches of this common Celtic ancestral stock held
the re-birth doctrine. And at least from their Aryan ancestors it seems
to have been inherited by the Celts of history. To attempt a
hypothetical proof that this race or that race, Egyptian, Phoenician,
Greek, or Celtic, as the case may be, is alone the originator of this or
any other particular belief is as useless and as absurd as to attempt
proof that the Gael has no racial affinity with the Brython. One of the
greatest services now being performed by scientific inquiry into human
problems is the demonstration of the unreasonableness of assuming
artificial social barriers separating race from race, religion from
religion, and institution from institution, and the declaration that the
unity and the brotherhood of man is a fact inherent in man's own nature,
and not a sentimental ideal. But there is specialization and
differentiation everywhere in nature; and while Celtic traditions and
beliefs are not fundamentally unlike those found in every age, race, and
cultural stage, the treatment of this common stock of prehistoric lore
and mystical religion is in some respects unique, and hence Celtic.
Beyond this statement we cannot go.
SECTION III
THE CULT OF GODS, SPIRITS, FAIRIES, AND THE DEAD
CHAPTER VIII
THE TESTIMONY OF ARCHAEOLOGY[428]
'As he spoke, he paused before a great mound grown over with trees,
and around it silver clear in the moonlight were immense stones
piled, the remains of an original circle, and there was a dark,
low, narrow entrance leading therein. "This was my palace. In days
past many a one plucked here the purple flower of magic and the
fruit of the tree of life...." And even as he spoke, a light began
to glow and to pervade the cave, and to obliterate the stone walls
and the antique hieroglyphics engraven thereon, and to melt the
earthen floor into itself like a fiery sun suddenly uprisen within
the world, and there was everywhere a wandering ecstasy of sound:
light and sound were one; light had a voice, and the music hung
glittering in the air.... "I am Aengus; men call me the Young. I am
the sunlight in the heart, the moonlight in the mind; I am the
light at the end of every dream, the voice for ever calling to come
away; I am desire beyond joy or tears. Come with me, come with me:
I will make you immortal; for my palace opens into the Gardens of
the Sun, and there are the fire-fountains which quench the heart's
desire in rapture."'--A. E.
Inadequacy of Pygmy Theory--According to the theories concerning
divine images and fetishes, gods, daemons, and ancestral spirits
haunt megaliths--Megaliths are religious and funereal, as shown
chiefly by _Cenn Cruaich_, Stonehenge, Guernsey menhirs, monuments
in Brittany, by the circular fairy dance as an ancient initiatory
sun-dance, by Breton earthworks, archaeological excavations
generally, and by present-day worship at Indian dolmens--New Grange
and Celtic Mysteries: evidence of manuscripts; evidence of
tradition--The Aengus Cult--New Grange compared with Great Pyramid:
both have astronomical arrangement and same internal plan--Why they
open to the sunrise--Initiations in both--Great Pyramid as model
for Celtic tumuli--Gavrinis and New Grange as spirit-temples.
In this chapter we propose to deal with the popular belief among Celtic
peoples that tumuli, dolmens, menhirs, and in fact most megalithic
monuments, prehistoric or historic, are either the abodes or else the
favourite haunts of various orders of fairies--of pixies in Cornwall, of
_corrigans_ in Brittany, of little spirits like pygmies, of spirits like
mortals in stature, of goblins, of demons, and of ghosts. Interesting
attempts have been made to explain this folk-belief by means of the
Pygmy Theory of Fairies; and this folk-belief appears to be almost the
chief one upon which the theory depends.[429] As was pointed out in the
Introduction (p. xxiii), possibly one of the many threads interwoven
into the complex fabric of the Fairy-Faith round an original psychical
pattern may have been bequeathed by a folk-memory of some unknown,
perhaps pygmy, races, who may have inhabited underground places like
those in certain tumuli. But even though the Pygmy Theory were
altogether accepted by us the problem we are to consider would still be
an unsolved one; for how explain by the Pygmy Theory why the folk-memory
should always run in psychical channels, and not alone in Celtic lands,
but throughout Europe, and even in Australia, America, Africa, and
India.
Archaeological researches have now made it clear that many of the great
tumuli covering dolmens or subterranean chambers, like that of Mont St.
Michel (at Carnac) for example, were religious and funereal in their
purposes from the first; and therefore the Pygmy Theory is far from a
satisfactory or adequate explanation. To us the inquiry is similar to an
investigation into the reasons why ghosts should haunt a house, whereas
the supporters of the Pygmy Theory forget the ghosts and tell all about
the people who may or who may never have lived in the haunted house, and
who built it. The megaliths, in the plain language of the folk-belief,
are haunted by fairies, pixies, _corrigans_, ghosts, and various sorts
of invisible beings. Like the Psychical Research Society, we believe
there may be, or actually are, invisible beings like ghosts, and so
propose to conduct our investigations from that point of view.[430]
MENHIRS, DOLMENS, CROMLECHS, AND TUMULI
To begin with, we shall concern ourselves with menhirs, dolmens,
cromlechs, and certain kinds of tumuli--such as are found at Carnac,
round which _corrigans_ hold their nightly revels, and where ghost-like
forms are sometimes seen in the moonlight, or even when there is no
moon. M. Paul Sébillot in _Le Folk-lore de France_[431] has very
adequately described the numerous folk-traditions and customs connected
with all such monuments, and it remains for us to deal especially with
the psychical aspects of these traditions and customs.
The learned Canon Mahé in his _Essai sur les antiquités du département
du Morbihan_ (p. 258), a work of rare merit, published at Vannes in
1825, holds that not only were the majestic Alignements of Carnac used
as temples for religious rites, but that the stones themselves of which
the Alignements are formed were venerated as the abodes of gods.[432]
And quoting Porphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus, Hermes, and others, he shows
that the ancients believed that gods and daemons, attracted by sacrifice
and worship to stone images and other inanimate objects, overshadowed
them or even took up their abode in them. This position of Canon Mahé is
confirmed by a comparative study of Celtic and non-Celtic traditions
respecting the theory of what has been erroneously called
'idol-worship'. All evidence goes to show that idols so called, are
simply images used as media for the manifestation of ghosts, spirits,
and gods: the ancients, like contemporary primitive races, do not seem
ever to have actually worshipped such images, but simply to have
supplicated by prayer and sacrifice the indwelling deity.[433] The
ancient Egyptians, for example, conceived the _Ka_ or personality as a
thing separable from the person or body, and hence 'the statue of a
human being represented and embodied a human _Ka_'. Likewise a statue of
a god was the dwelling-place of a divine _Ka_, attracted to it by
certain mystical formulae at the time of dedication.[434] Though there
might be many statues of the same god no two were alike; each was
animated by an independent 'double' which the rites of consecration had
elicited from the god. These statues, being thus animated by a 'double',
manifested their will--as Greek and Roman statues are reported to have
done--either by speaking, or by rhythmic movements. The divine virtue
residing in the images of the gods was thought to be a sort of fluid,
analogous to what we call the magnetic fluid, the aura, &c. It could be
transmitted by the imposition of hands and by magic passes, on the nape
of the neck or along the dorsal spine of a patient;[435] and no doubt
extraordinary curative properties were attributed to it.
Dr. Tylor has brought together examples from all parts of the globe of
so-called fetishism, which is veneration paid to natural living objects
such as trees, fish, animals, as well as to inanimate objects of almost
every conceivable description, including stones, because of the spirit
believed to be inherent or resident in the particular object; and he
shows that idols originally were fetishes, which in time came to be
shaped according to the form of the spirit or god supposed to possess
them.[436] Mr. R. R. Marett, the originator of the pre-animistic theory,
believes that originally fetishes were regarded as gods themselves, and
that gradually they came to be regarded as the dwellings of gods.[437]
Certain well-defined Celtic traditions entirely fit in with this
theory:--e. g. Canon Mahé writes, 'In accordance with this strange
theory they (the Celts) could believe that rocks, set in motion by
spirits which animated them, sometimes went to drink at rivers, as is
said of the Peulvan at Noyal-Pontivy' (Morbihan);[438] and I have found
a parallel belief at Rollright, Oxfordshire, England, where it is said
of the King Stone, an ancient menhir, and, according to some
folk-traditions, a human being transformed, that it goes down the hill
on Christmas Eve to drink at the river. In the famous menhir or
pillar-stone on Tara to this day, we have another curious example like
the moving statues in Egypt and the Celtic stones which move; for in the
_Book of Lismore_ the wonderful properties of the _Lia Fáil_, the 'Stone
of Destiny', are enumerated, and it is said that ever when Ireland's
monarch stepped upon it the stone would cry out under him, but that if
any other person stepped upon it, there was only silence.[439]
In the _Tripartite Life of St. Patrick_ it is said that Ireland's chief
idol was at Mag Slecht, and by name 'Cenn Cruaich, covered with gold and
silver, and twelve other idols[440] [were] about it, covered with
brass'. When Patrick tried to place his crosier on the top of Cenn
Cruaich, the idol 'bowed westward to turn on its right side, for its
face was from the South, to wit, Tara.... And the earth swallowed the
twelve other images as far as their heads, and they are thus in sign of
the miracle, and he cursed the demon, and banished him to hell'.[441]
Sir John Rhŷs points out that _Cenn Cruaich_ means 'Head or Chief of
the Mound', and that the story of its inclined position suggests to us
an ancient and gradually falling menhir planted on the summit of a
tumulus or hill surrounded by twelve lesser pillar stones, all
thirteen--itself a sacred number--regarded as the abodes of gods or else
as gods themselves; and these gods are referred to as the demon
exorcized from the place by Patrick. The central menhir or Cenn Cruaich
probably represents the Solar God, and the twelve menhirs surrounding
this probably represent the twelve months of the year.[442] In the
_Colloquy_ it is said that Patrick went his way 'to sow faith and piety,
to banish devils and wizards out of Ireland; to raise up saints and
righteous, to erect crosses, station-stones, and altars; also to
overthrow idols and goblin images, and the whole art of sorcery'.[443]
Welsh tradition says that St. David split the capstone of the Maen Ketti
Cromlech (dolmen)[444] in Gower, in order to prove to the people that
there was nothing divine in it.[445]
According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Merlin constructed Stonehenge by
magically transporting from Ireland the 'Choir of the Giants',
apparently an ancient Irish circle of stones.[446] The rational
explanation of this myth seems to be that the stones of Stonehenge, not
belonging to the native rocks of South England, as geologists well know,
were probably transported from some distant part of Britain and set up
on Salisbury Plain, because of some magical properties supposed to have
been possessed by them; and most likely 'the stones were regarded as
divine or as seats of divine power'.[447] And further (thereby admitting
the sacred purpose of the group), Sir John Rhŷs sees no objection to
identifying Stonehenge with the famous temple of Apollo in the island of
the Hyperboreans, referred to in the journal of Pytheas' travels.[448]
According to Sir John Rhŷs's interpretation of this journal, 'the
kings of the city containing the temple and the overseers of the latter
were the Boreads, who took up the government in succession, according to
their tribes. The citizens gave themselves up to music, harping and
chanting in honour of the Sun-god, who was every nineteenth year wont
himself to appear about the time of the vernal equinox, and to go on
harping and dancing in the sky until the rising of the Pleiades.'[448]
Two menhirs, roughly hewn to simulate the human form, are yet to be
found in Guernsey, Channel Islands, and formerly there was a similar
menhir in the Breton village of Baud, Morbihan. One of the Guernsey
figures was dug up in 1878 under the chancel of the Câtel Church, and
then placed in the churchyard, so that in this instance it seems highly
probable that the Christian Church was built on the site of a sacred
pagan shrine where a cult of stones once existed. The second stone
figure (a female), now standing as a gate-post in the churchyard of St.
Martin's parish, seems also to mark a spot where a pre-Christian
sanctuary was christianized. The country-people of the district, up to
the middle of the last century, considered it lucky to make floral and
even food offerings to this stone; but in 1860 the churchwarden to
destroy its sanctity had it broken in two, though now it has been
restored.[449] A like stone image was the famous 'Vénus de Quinipilly',
near Baud, Morbihan. At its base was a stone trough, wherein until late
into the seventeenth century the sick were cured by contact with the
image, and young men and maidens were wont to bathe to secure love and
long life.[449]
Canon Mahé recorded in 1825 that the folk-belief located ghosts and
spirits of the dead round megalithic monuments, more especially those
known to have been used for tombs, because the Celts thought them
haunted by ancestral spirits;[450] and what was true in 1825 is true
now, for there is still in Brittany the association of ancestral
spirits, _corrigans_, and other spirit-like tribes with tumuli, dolmens,
menhirs, and cromlechs, and, as we have shown in chapter ii, a very
living faith in the _Légende de la Mort_. In describing some curious
dolmens and cromlechs (stone circles) on the summit of a mountain called
the _Clech_ or _Mané er kloch_, 'Mountain of the bell,' at Mendon,
Arrondissement de Lorient, Morbihan, the same author gives it as his
opinion, based on folk-traditions, that the cromlechs, like others in
Brittany, were places in which the ancient Bretons practised necromancy
and invoked the spirits of their ancestors, to whom they attributed
great power. He then records a very valuable and interesting tradition
concerning these monuments, which seems to indicate clearly a close
relationship between the _Poulpiquets_ (another name for _corrigans_),
thought of as spirits by the peasants, and the magical rites conducted
in the circles to invoke spirits or daemons:--'The people call the
stones which are found there the rocks of the _Hoséguéannets_ or
_Guerrionets_ (who are the same as the _Poulpiquets_); and they declare
that at fixed seasons they are in the habit of coming there to celebrate
their mysteries, which would prove that the race of these dwarfs is not
yet extinct, as I believed.'[451]
When we hear how _corrigans_ dance the national Breton _ronde_ or
_ridée_, at or in such cromlechs (themselves, like the dance, circular
in form), which with other ancient stone monuments and earthworks are
still believed to be the favourite haunts of these and kindred
spirit-tribes, we seem to see, in the light of what Canon Mahé records,
a psychical folk-memory about a goblin race who are now thought of as
frequenting the very places where anciently such spirits are said to
have been invoked by pagan priests for the purposes of divination.
Further, it appears that at these sacred centres, as the quoted
tradition indicates, in prehistoric times Brythonic initiations took
place, like those still flourishing among a few surviving American
Indian tribes (who also dance the circular initiation dance), and among
other primitive peoples, as we shall more adequately show in the chapter
on St. Patrick's Purgatory. The Breton dance is, therefore, most likely
the memorial of an ancient initiation dance, religious in character,
and, probably, in honour of the sun, being circular in the same way that
cromlechs dedicated to a sun-cult are circular. Stonehenge, the most
highly developed type of the cromlech, was undoubtedly a sun-temple; and
the dance anciently held in it, as described by Pytheas, in honour of
the god Apollo, was no doubt circular like the Breton national dance,
and, presumably, initiatory.[452] Through a natural anthropomorphic
process, this circular initiation dance has come to be attributed to
_corrigans_ in Brittany, to pixies in Cornwall and in England, and to
fairies in these and other Celtic countries. The idea of fairy tribes in
such a special relation may result from a folk-memory of the actual
initiators who, as masked men, represented spirits; and, if this be a
plausible view, then fairies may be compared to the initiators of
contemporary initiation ceremonies among primitive peoples and,
following Dr. Gilbert Murray's theory, to the Greek satyrs also.[453]
A circular dance like the Breton one still survives among the peasantry
in the Channel Islands, at least in Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark, being
celebrated at weddings, but the revolution is now around a person
instead of a stone, and to this person obeisance is paid. This tends to
confirm our opinion that the dance is the survival of an ancient
sun-dance, the central figure being typical of the sun deity himself, or
Apollo; and if we design this dance thus ☉, we have the astronomical
emblem still used in all our calendars to represent the sun, one which in
itself preserves a vast mass of forgotten lore. Formerly in Guernsey, the
sites of principal dolmens (or cromlechs) and pillar-stones were visited
in sacred procession, and round certain of them the whole body of pilgrims
'solemnly revolved three times from east to west'--as the sun moves.[454]
Again, according to Canon Mahé,[455] the bases and lower parts of the
sides of four singular barrows at Coët-bihan blend in such a way as to
form an enclosed court, and one of the barrows has been pierced as
though for a passage-way into this court. And he holds that it is more
than probable that these ancient earthworks when first they were raised,
and others like them in various Celtic lands, witnessed many mystic and
religious rites and sacred tribal assemblies. The supposition that the
Coët-bihan earthworks were originally dedicated to pagan religious
usages is very much strengthened by the fact that in very early times a
Christian chapel was erected near them.[456] Mont St. Michel at Carnac
is another example of a pagan tumulus dedicated to a Christian saint;
and, as Sir John Rhŷs says, the Archangel Michael appears in more
places than one in Celtic lands as the supplanter of the dark
powers.[457] Not only were tumuli thus transferred by re-dedication from
pagan gods to Christian saints, but dolmens and menhirs as well. Thus,
for example, at Plouharnel-Carnac (Morbihan) there is a menhir
surmounted by a Christian cross, just as at Dol (Ille-et-Vilaine) a
wooden crucifix surmounts the great menhir, and at Carnac there is a
dolmen likewise christianized by a stone cross-mounted on the
table-stone. Again, M. J. Déchelette in his _Manuel d'Archéologie
Préhistorique, Celtique et Gallo-Romaine_ (p. 380) describes a dolmen at
Plouaret (Côtes-du-Nord) converted into a chapel dedicated to the Seven
Saints, and another dolmen at Saint-Germain-de-Confolens (Charente)
likewise transformed into a place of worship. Miss Edith F. Carey thus
explains the dolmens in the Channel Islands:--'All our old traditions
prove our dolmens to have been the general rendezvous of our insular
sorcerers. In sixteenth and seventeenth century manuscripts I have found
these dolmens described as "altars of the gods of the sea".... One of
our ancient dolmens retains its ancient name of De Hus, and a
fifteenth-century "Perchage" of Fief de Léree tells us that a now
destroyed dolmen on our western coast was dedicated to the same god, for
Heus or Hesus was the War-God of ancient Gaul.'[458] The same writer
describes excavations made at De Hus by Mr. Lukis, and that he found in
a side chamber there two kneeling skeletons, one facing the north, the
other the south. He considered them to have been of young persons
probably interred alive as a funeral or propitiatory sacrifice to some
tribal chief, or else to a presiding deity of the dolmen. Beside a tomb
of the early bronze age at the bottom of a large tumulus near
Mammarlöf, in Skåne, Dr. Oscar Montelius, the famous archaeologist of
Sweden, discovered a circular stone altar on which reposed charcoal and
the remains of a burnt animal offering, which undoubtedly was made to
the dead.[459] Schliemann made a parallel discovery in an ancient tomb
at Mycenae, Greece.[460] Curiously, in India to-day the Dravidian
tribes, a pygmy-like aboriginal race, worship at the ancient dolmens in
their forests and mountains, whether as at tombs and hence to ancestral
spirits or to gods is not always clear; but the latter form of worship
is probably more common, since Mr. Walhouse once observed one of their
medicine-men performing a propitiatory service to the agricultural or
earth deities. The medicine-man passed the night in solitude sitting 'on
the capstone of a dolmen with heels and hams drawn together and chin on
knee'--evidently thus to await the advent of the Sun-god.[461]
All the above illustrations, mostly Celtic ones, tend to prove that
menhirs, certain tumuli and earthworks, cromlechs, and dolmens were
originally connected with religious usages, chiefly with a cult of gods
and fairy-like beings, and, though less commonly, with the dead. We pass
now to a special consideration of chambered tumuli, to show that the
same apparently holds true of them.
NEW GRANGE AND CELTIC MYSTERIES
Though, as Professor J. Loth and other eminent archaeologists hold, all
tumuli containing chambers, and all _allées couvertes_ of dolmens,
should be considered as designedly funereal in their purposes,
nevertheless certain of the greater ones, like New Grange and Gavrinis
may also properly be considered as places for rendering worship or even
sacrifice to the dead, and, perhaps, as places for religious pilgrimages
and sacred rites. This, too, seems to be the opinion of M. J. Déchelette
in his work on Celtic and Gallo-Roman archaeology, as he traces from the
earliest prehistoric times in Europe the evolution of the cult of the
dead according to the evidence furnished by the ancient megalithic
monuments.[462]
To begin with, let us take as a type for our study the most famous of
all so-called Celtic tumuli, that of New Grange, on the River Boyne in
Ireland.[463] In Irish literature New Grange is constantly associated
with the Tuatha De Danann as one of their palaces, as our fourth chapter
points out. Throughout our second section generally, the testimony
indicates that the essential nature of these fairy-folk is subjective or
spiritual. These two facts at the outset are very important and
fundamental, because we expect to show even more clearly than we have
just done in the case of menhirs, dolmens, cromlechs, and smaller
tumuli, that the folk-belief under consideration is at bottom a
psychical one, which has grown up out of a folk-memory of the time when,
as has just been said, Celtic or pre-Celtic tumuli were used for
interments, and probably certain ones among them as places for the
celebration of pagan mysteries.
Mr. George Coffey, the eminent archaeologist in charge of the
archaeological collections of the Royal Irish Academy, quotes from
ancient Irish records in the _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_ and other manuscripts
to show that the early traditions refer to the Boyne country as the
burial-place of the kings of Tara, and that sometimes they seem to
associate _Brugh-na-Boyne_ with the tumuli on the Boyne,[464] but, no
exact identification being possible, it cannot be said with certainty
whether any one of the three great Boyne tumuli is meant. Even though it
could be shown conclusively that some mighty hero or king had actually
been entombed in New Grange, as is likely, in the earth behind the
chamber, under the chamber's floor, or even within the chamber, still,
as we have already pointed out, most of the great Irish heroes and kings
were in popular belief literally gods incarnate, and, therefore (as
commonly among all ancient peoples, civilized and non-civilized, who
held the same doctrine), the tomb of such a divine personage came to be
regarded as the actual dwelling of the once incarnate god, even though
his bones were long turned to dust. The _Book of Ballymote_ strengthens
this suggestion: in one of its ancient Irish poems, by MacNia, son of
Oenna, preceded by this mystical dedication, 'Ye Poets of Bregia, of
truth, not false,' the wonders of the Palace of the Boyne, the Hall of
the great god Daghda, supreme king and oracle of the Tuatha de Danann,
are thus celebrated:--
Behold the _Sidh_ before your eyes,
It is manifest to you that it is a king's mansion,
Which was built by the firm Daghda;
It was a wonder, a court, an admirable hill.[465]
It seems clear enough, from the old Irish manuscripts referred to by Mr.
Coffey,[466] that the Boyne country near Tara was the sacred and
religious centre of ancient Ireland, and was used by the Irish in very
much the same way as Memphis and other places on the sacred Nile were
used by the ancient Egyptians, both as a royal cemetery and as a place
for the celebration of pagan mysteries. It is known that most of the
Mysteries of Antiquity were psychic in their nature, having to do with
the neophyte's entrance into Hades or the invisible world while out of
the physical body, or else with direct communication with gods, spirits,
and shades of the dead, while in the physical body; and such mysteries
were performed in darkened chambers from which all light was excluded.
These chambers were often carved out of solid rock, as can be seen in
the Rock Temples of India; and when mountain caves or natural caverns
were not available, artificial ones were used (see chapter x).
The places, like Tara and Memphis, where the great men and kings of the
nations of antiquity were entombed, being the most sacred, were very
often, on that account, also the places dedicated to the most
magnificent temples and to the Mysteries, or among less advanced nations
to the worship of the dead. On every side of sacred Stonehenge,
Salisbury Plain is dotted with the burial mounds of unknown heroes and
chieftains of ancient Britain; while in modern times, even though the
Mysteries are long forgotten, Westminster Abbey, at the centre of the
planet's capital, has, in turn, become the hallowed Hall of the Mighty
Dead for the vast British Empire. In view of all these facts, after a
careful examination of the famous New Grange tumulus itself, and a study
of the references to it in old Irish literature, we are firmly of the
opinion that one cannot be far wrong in describing it as a spirit-temple
in which were celebrated ancient Celtic or pre-Celtic Mysteries at the
time when neophytes, including those of royal blood, were initiated; and
as such it is directly related to a cult of the Tuatha De Danann or
Fairy-Folk, of spirits, and of the dead. Nor are we alone in this
opinion. Mr. Coffey himself, we believe, is inclined to favour it; and
Mr. W. C. Borlase, author of _The Dolmens of Ireland_, who is quite
committed to it, says that it is not necessary, as some do, to consider
New Grange as an ancient abode of mortal men, for 'the spirits of the
dead, the fairies, the _Sidhe_, might have had their _brugh_, or
palace, as well'.[467] And he points out that in the old Irish
manuscripts we have proof that it was supposed to be thus used. This
proof is found in the _Agallamh na Senórach_ or 'Colloquy with the
Ancients' by St. Patrick, from the _Book of Lismore_, a
fifteenth-century manuscript copied from older manuscripts and now
translated by Standish H. O'Grady:--The three sons of the King of
Ireland, by name Ruidhe, Fiacha, and Eochaid, leaving their nurse's and
guardian's house, went to _fert na ndruadh_, i. e. 'grave of the
wizards', north-west of Tara, to ask of their father a country, a
domain; but he refused their request, and then they formed a project to
gain lands and riches by fasting on the _tuatha dé Danann_ at the
_brugh_ upon the Boyne: '"Lands therefore I will not bestow on you, but
win lands for yourself." Thereupon they with the ready rising of one man
rose and took their way to the green of the _brugh_ upon the Boyne
where, none other being in their company, they sat them down. Ruidhe
said: "What is your plan to-night?" His brothers rejoined: "Our project
is to fast on the _tuatha dé Danann_, aiming thus to win from them good
fortune in the shape of a country, of a domain, of lands, and to have
vast riches." Nor had they been long there when they marked a
cheery-looking young man of a pacific demeanour that came towards them.
He salutes the king of Ireland's sons; they answer him after the same
manner. "Young man, whence art thou? whence comest thou?" "Out of yonder
_brugh_ chequered with the many lights hard by you here." "What name
wearest thou?" "I am the Daghda's son Bodhb Derg; and to the _tuatha dé
Danann_ it was revealed that ye would come to fast here to-night, for
lands and for great fortune."' Then with Bodhb Derg, the three sons of
Ireland's king entered into the _brugh_, and the _tuatha dé Danann_ went
into council, and Midhir Yellow-mane son of the Daghda who presided
said: 'Those yonder accommodate now with three wives, since from wives
it is that either fortune or misfortune is derived.' And from their
marriages with the three daughters of Midhir they derived all their
wishes--territories and wealth in the greatest abundance. 'For three
days with their nights they abode in the _sídh_.' 'Angus told them to
carry away out of _fidh omna_, i. e. "Oakwood," three apple-trees: one in
full bloom, another shedding the blossom, and another covered with ripe
fruit. Then they repaired to the _dún_, where they abode for three times
fifty years, and until those kings disappeared; for in virtue of
marriage alliance they returned again to the _tuatha dé Danann_, and
from that time forth have remained there.'[468]
Mr. Borlase, commenting on this passage, suggests its importance in
proving to us that during the Middle Ages there existed a tradition,
thus committed to writing from older manuscripts or from oral sources,
regarding 'the nature of the rites performed in pagan times at those
places, which were held sacred to the heathen mysteries'.[469] The
passage evidently describes a cult of royal or famous ancestral spirits
identified with the god-race of Tuatha De Danann, who, as we know, being
reborn as mortals, ruled Ireland. These ancestral spirits were to be
approached by a pilgrimage made to their abode, the spirit-haunted
tumulus, and a residence in it of three days and three nights during
which period there was to be an unbroken fast. Sacrifices were doubtless
offered to the gods, or spirit-ancestors; and while they were 'fasted
upon', they were expected to appear and grant the pilgrim's prayer and
to speak with him. All this indicates that the existence of invisible
beings was taken for granted, probably through the knowledge gained by
initiation.
The _Echtra Nerai_ or the 'Adventures of Nera' (see this study, p. 287),
contains a description like the one above, of how a mortal named Nera
went into the _Sidhe_-palace at Cruachan; and it is said that he went
not only into the cave (_uamh_) but into the _síd_ of the cave. The term
_uamh_ or cave, according to Mr. Borlase, indicates the whole of the
interior vaulted chamber, while the _síd_ of that vaulted chamber or
_uamh_ is intended to refer to 'the _sanctum sanctorum_, or
_penetralia_ of the spirit-temple, upon entering into which the mortal
came face to face with the royal occupants, and there doubtless he lay
fasting, or offering his sacrifices, at the periods prescribed'.[470]
The word _brugh_ refers simply to the appearance of a tumulus, or
souterrain beneath a fort or rath, and means, therefore, mansion or
dwelling-place.[471] And Mr. Borlase adds:--'I feel but little doubt
that in the inner chamber at New Grange, with its three recesses and its
basin, we have this _síd of the cave_, and the place where the pilgrims
fasted--a situation and a practice precisely similar to those which,
under Christian auspices, were continued at such places as the Leaba
Mologa in Cork, the original Patrick's Purgatory in Lough Derg, and
elsewhere. The practice of lying in stone troughs was a feature of the
Christian pilgrimages in Ireland. Sometimes such troughs had served the
previous purpose of stone coffins. It is just possible that the shallow
basins in the cells at Lough Crew, New Grange, and Dowth may, like the
stone beds or troughs of the saints,[472] have been occupied by the
pilgrims engaged in their devotions. If so, however, they must have sat
in them in Eastern fashion.'[471]
Again, in the popular tale called _The Pursuit of Diarmuid and
Grainnè_,[473] Aengus, the son of the Dagda, one of the Tuatha De
Danann, is called Aengus-an-Bhrogha, and connected with the
_Brugh-na-Boinne_. In the tale Finn says, 'Let us leave this tulach, for
fear that Aengus-an-Bhrogha and the Tuatha-De-Danann might catch us; and
though we have no part in the slaying of Diarmuid, he would none the
more readily believe us.' Aengus is evidently an invisible being with
great power over mortals. This is clear in what follows: he transports
Diarmuid's body to the _Brugh-na-Boinne_, saying, 'Since I cannot
restore him to life, I will send a soul into him, so that he may talk to
me each day.' Thus, as the presiding deity of the _brugh_, Aengus the
Tuatha De Danann could reanimate dead bodies 'and cause them to speak
to devotees, we may suppose oracularly.'[474] In the _Bruighion
Chaorthainn_ or 'Fort of the Rowan Tree', a Fenian tale, a poet put Finn
under taboo to understand these verses:--
I saw a house in the country
Out of which no hostages are given to a king,
Fire burns it not, harrying spoils it not.
And Finn made reply:--'I understand that verse, for that is the Brugh of
the Boyne that you have seen (perhaps, as we suggest, during an
initiation), namely, the house of Aengus Og of the Brugh, and it cannot
be burned or harried as long as Aengus (a god) shall live.' As Mr.
Borlase observes, to say that 'no hostages are given to a king' out of
the _Brugh_ is probably another way of saying that the dead pay no
taxes, or that being a holy place, the _Brugh_ was exempt.[475] This
last evidence is from oral tradition, and rather late in being placed on
record; but it is not on that account less trustworthy, and may be much
more so than the older manuscripts. Until quite modern times the
folk-lore of the Boyne country still echoed similar traditions about
unknown mystic rites, following what O'Donovan has recorded; for he has
said that Aenghus-an-Bhrogha was considered the presiding fairy of the
Boyne till quite within recent times, and that his name was still
familiar to the old inhabitants of Meath who were then fast forgetting
their traditions with the Irish language.[476] And this tradition brings
us to consider what was apparently an Aengus Cult among the ancient
Celtic peoples.
THE AENGUS CULT
Euhemeristic tradition came to represent the Great God Dagda and his
sons as buried in a tumulus, probably New Grange, and then called it, as
I found it called to-day, a fairy mound, a name given also to Gavrinis,
its Breton parallel. The older and clearer tradition relates how Aengus
gained possession of the _Brugh_ of the Boyne, and says nothing about
it as a cemetery, but rather describes it as 'an admirable place, more
accurately speaking, as an admirable land, a term which betrays the
usual identification of the fairy mound with the nether world to which
it formed the entrance'.[477] The myth placing Dagda at the head of the
departed makes him 'a Goidelic Cronus ruling over an Elysium with which
a sepulchral mound was associated'.[477] The displacement of Dagda by
his son makes 'Mac Oc (Aengus), who should have been the youthful Zeus
of the Goidelic world, rejoicing in the translucent expanse of the
heavens as his crystal bower', a king of the dead.[477]
In Dun Aengus, the strange cyclopean circular structure, and hence most
likely sun-temple, on Aranmore, we have another example of the
localization of the Aengus myth. This fact leads us to believe, after
due archaeological examination, that amid the stronghold of Dun Aengus,
with its tiers of amphitheatre-like seats and the native rock at its
centre, apparently squared to form a platform or stage, were anciently
celebrated pagan mysteries comparable to those of the Greeks and less
cultured peoples, and initiations into an Aengus Cult such as seems to
have once flourished at New Grange. At Dun Aengus, however, the mystic
assemblies and rites, conducted in such a sun-temple, so secure and so
strongly fortified against intrusion, no doubt represented a somewhat
different mystical school, and probably one very much older than at New
Grange. In the same manner, each of the other circular but less
important cyclopean structures on Aranmore and elsewhere in west Ireland
may have been structures for closely related sun-cults. To our mind, and
we have carefully and at leisure examined most of these cyclopean
structures on Aranmore, it seems altogether fanciful to consider them as
having been _originally_ and _primarily_ intended as places of
refuge--_dúns_ or forts. Yet, because the ancient Celts never separated
civil and religious functions, such probable sun-temples could have been
as frequently used for non-religious tribal assemblies as for
initiation ceremonies; and nothing makes it impossible for them to have
been in times of need also places for refuge against enemies. We are led
to this view with respect to Dun Aengus in particular, because the
Aengus of Aranmore is known as Aengus, son of Umór, and is associated
with the mystic people called the Fir Bolg; and, yet, as Sir John
Rhŷs thinks, this Aengus, son of Umór, and Aengus, son of Dagda, are
two aspects of a single god, a Celtic Zeus.[478] O'Curry's statements
about Dun Aengus seem to confirm all this; and there seems to have been
a tale, now lost, about the 'Destruction of _Dún Oengusa_' (in modern
Irish _Dún Aonghuis_), the Fortress of Aengus.[478]
This sun-cult, represented in Ireland by the Aengus Cult, can be traced
further: Sir John Rhŷs regards Stonehenge--a sun-temple also circular
like the Irish _dúns_ and Breton cromlechs--as a temple to the Celtic
Zeus, in Irish mythology typified by Aengus, and in Welsh by
Merlin:--'What sort of a temple could have been more appropriate for the
primary god of light and of the luminous heavens than a spacious,
open-air enclosure of a circular form like Stonehenge?'[479] In Welsh
myth, Math ab Mathonwy, called also 'Math the Ancient', was the greatest
magician of ancient Wales, and his relation as teacher to Gwydion ab
Dôn, the great Welsh Culture Hero, leads Sir John Rhŷs to consider
him the Brythonic Zeus, though Merlin shares with him in this
distinction;[480] and since the Gaelic counterpart of Math is Aengus, a
close study of Math might finally show a cult in his honour in Wales as
we have found in Ireland an Aengus Cult.[481] We may, therefore, with
more or less exactness, equate the Aengus Cult as we see it in Irish
myth connected chiefly with Dun Aengus and New Grange, with the unknown
cult practised at Stonehenge, and this in turn with other Brythonic or
pre-Brythonic sun-cults and initiations practised at Carnac, the great
Celtic Jerusalem in Brittany, and at Gavrinis. All this will be more
clearly seen after we have set forth what seems a definite and most
striking parallel to New Grange, both as a monument erected by man and,
as we maintain, as a place for religious mysteries--the greatest
structure ever raised by human effort, the Great Pyramid.
NEW GRANGE AND THE GREAT PYRAMID COMPARED
Caliph Al Mamoun in A. D. 820, by a forced passage, was the first in
modern times to enter the Great Pyramid, and he found nowhere a mummy or
any indications that the structure had ever been used as a tomb for the
dead. The King's Chamber, so named by us moderns, proved to be a keen
disappointment for its first violator, for in it there was neither gold
nor silver nor anything at all worth carrying away. The magnificent
chamber contained nothing save an empty stone chest without a lid.
Archaeologists in Egypt and archaeologists in Ireland face the same
unsolved problem, namely, the purpose of the empty stone chest without
inscriptions and quite unlike a mummy tomb, and of the stone basin in
New Grange.[482] Certain Egyptologists have supposed that some royal
personage must have been buried in the curious granite coffer, though
there can be only their supposition to support them, for they have
absolutely no proof that such is true, while there is strong
circumstantial evidence to show that such is not true. Sir Gardner
Wilkinson in his well-known publications has already suggested that the
stone chest as well as the Great Pyramid itself were never intended to
hold a corpse; and it is generally admitted by Egyptologists that no
sarcophagus intended for a mummy has ever been found so high up in the
body of a pyramid as this empty stone chest, except in the Second
Pyramid. Incontestable evidence in support of the highly probable theory
that the Great Pyramid was not intended for an actual tomb can be drawn
from two important facts:--(1) 'the coffer has certain remarkable cubic
proportions which show a care and design beyond what could be expected
in any burial-coffer'--according to the high authority of Dr. Flinders
Petrie; (2) the chamber containing the coffer and the upper passage-ways
have ventilating channels not known in any other Pyramid, so that
apparently there must have been need of frequent entrance into the
chamber by living men, as would be the case if used, as we hold, for
initiation ceremonies.[483]
It is well known that very many of the megalithic monuments of the New
Grange type scattered over Europe, especially from the Carnac centre of
Brittany to the Tara-Boyne centre of Ireland, have one thing in common,
an astronomical arrangement like the Great Pyramid, and an entrance
facing one of the points of the solstices, usually either the winter
solstice, which is common, or the summer solstice.[484] The puzzle has
always been to discover the exact arrangement of the Great Pyramid by
locating its main entrance. A Californian, Mr. Louis P. McCarty, in his
recent (1907) work entitled _The Great Pyramid Jeezeh_, suggests with
the most logical and reasonable arguments that the builders of the
Pyramid have placed its main entrance in an undiscovered passage-way
beneath the Great Sphinx, now half-buried in the shifting desert sands.
If it can be shown that the Sphinx is the real portal, and many things
tend to indicate that it is, the Great Pyramid is built on the same
plan as New Grange, that is to say, it opens to the south-east, and like
New Grange contains a narrow passage-way leading to a central chamber.
South-easterly from the centre of the Pyramid lies the Sphinx, 5,380
feet away, a distance equal to 'just five times the distance of the
"diagonal socket length" of the Great Pyramid from the centre of the
Subterranean Chamber, under the Pyramid, to the supposed entrance under
the Sphinx'[485]--a distance quite in keeping with the mighty
proportions of the wonderful structure. And what is important, several
eminent archaeologists have worked out the same conclusion, and have
been seeking to connect the two monuments by making excavations in the
Queen's Chamber, where it is supposed there exists a tunnel to the
Sphinx. In all this we should bear in mind that the present entrance to
the Pyramid is the forced one made by the treasure-seeking Caliph.
This very probable astronomical parallelism between the great Egyptian
monument and the Irish one would establish their common religious, or,
in a mystic sense, their funereal significance. In the preceding chapter
we have set forth what symbolical relation the sun, its rising and
setting, and its death at the winter equinox, were anciently supposed to
hold to the doctrines of human death and re-birth. Jubainville,
regarding the sun among the Celts in its symbolical relation to death,
wrote, 'In Celtic belief, the dead go to live beyond the Ocean, to the
south-west, there where the sun sets during the greater part of the
year.'[486] This, too, as M. Maspero shows, was an Egyptian belief;[487]
while, as equally among the Celts, the east, especially the south-east,
where, after the winter solstice, the sun seems to be re-born or to rise
out of the underworld of Hades into which it goes when it dies, is
symbolical of the reverse--Life, Resurrection, and Re-birth. In this
last Celtic-Egyptian belief, we maintain, may be found the reason why
the chief megalithic monuments (dolmens, tumuli, and alignements), in
Celtic countries and elsewhere, have their directions east and west, and
why those like New Grange and Gavrinis open to the sunrise.
Greek temples also opened to the sunrise, and on the divine image within
fell the first rays of the beautiful god Apollo.[488] In the great
Peruvian sun-temple at Cuzco, a splendid disk of pure gold faced the
east, and, reflecting the first rays of the rising sun, illuminated the
whole sanctuary.[489] The cave-temple of the Florida Red Men opened
eastward, and within its entrance on festival days stood the priest at
dawn watching for the first ray of the sun, as a sign to begin the chant
and offering.[490] The East Indian performs the ablution at dawn in the
sacred Ganges, and stands facing the east meditating, as Brahma appears
in all the wondrous glory of a tropical sunrise.[491] And in the same
Aryan land there is an opposite worship: the dreaded Thugs, worshippers
of devils and of Kali the death-goddess, in their most diabolical rites
face the west and the sunset, symbols of death.[492] How Christianity
was shaped by paganism is nowhere clearer than in the orientation of
great cathedral churches (almost without exception in England), for all
of the more famous ones have their altars eastward; and Roman Catholics
in prayer in their church services, and Anglicans in repeating the
Creed, turn to the east, as the Hindu does. St. Augustine says:--'When
we stand at prayer, we turn to the east, where the heaven arises, not as
though God were only there, and had forsaken all other parts of the
world, but to admonish our mind to turn to a more excellent nature, that
is, to the Lord.'[493] Though the Jews came to be utterly opposed to
sun-worship in their later history, they were sun-worshippers at first,
as their temples opening eastward testify. This was the vision of
Ezekiel:--'And, behold, at the door of the temple of Jehovah, between
the porch and the Altar, were about five and twenty men, with their
backs toward the temple of Jehovah, and their faces toward the east, and
they worshipped the sun toward the east.'[494]
All this illustrates the once world-wide religion of our race; and shows
that sun-cults and sun-symbols are derived from a universal doctrine
regarding the two states of existence--the one in Hades or the invisible
lower world where the Sun-god goes at night, and the other in what we
call the visible realm which the Sun-god visits daily.[495] The relation
between life and death--symbolically figured in this fundamental
conception forming the background of every sun-cult--is the foundation
of all ancient mysteries. Thus we should expect the correspondences
which we believe do exist between New Grange and the Great Pyramid. Both
alike, in our opinion, were the greatest places in the respective
countries for the celebration of the Mysteries. High up in the body of
the Great Pyramid, after he had performed the long underground journey,
typical of the journey of Osiris or the Sun to the Otherworld or the
World of the Dead, we may suppose (knowing what we do of the Ancient
Mysteries and their shadows in modern Masonic initiations[496]) that the
royal or priestly neophyte laid himself in that strange stone coffin
without a lid, for a certain period of time--probably for three days and
three nights. Then, the initiation being complete, he arose from the
mystic death to a real resurrection, a true child of Osiris. In New
Grange we may suppose that the royal or priestly neophyte, while he
'fasted on the Tuatha De Danann for three days with their nights', sat
in that strange stone basin after the manner of the Orient.[497]
The Great Pyramid seems to be the most ancient of the Egyptian pyramids,
and undoubtedly was the model for all the smaller ones, which 'always
betray profound ignorance of their noble model's chiefest internal
features, as well as of all its niceties of angle and cosmic harmonies
of linear measurement'.[498] Dr. Flinders Petrie says:--'The Great
Pyramid at Gizeh (of Khufu, fourth dynasty) unquestionably takes the
lead, in accuracy and in beauty of work, as well as in size. Not only is
the fine work of it in the pavement, casing, King's and Queen's chambers
quite unexcelled; but the general character of the core masonry is
better than that of any other pyramid in its solidity and
regularity.'[499] And of the stone coffers he says:--'Taking most of its
dimensions at their maximum, they agree closely with the same theory as
that which is applicable to the chambers; for when squared they are all
even multiples of a square fifth of a cubit.... There is no other theory
applicable to every lineal dimension of the coffer; but having found the
π proportion in the form of the Pyramid, and in the King's Chamber, there
is some ground for supposing that it was intended also in the coffer, on
just one-fifth the scale of the chamber.'[499] And here is apparent the
important fact we wish to emphasize; the Great Pyramid does not seem to
have been intended primarily, if at all, for the entombment of dead
bodies or mummies while 'the numerous quasi-copies' were 'for sepulchral
purposes'[500] without doubt. There appears to have been at first a
clear understanding of the esoteric usage of the Great Pyramid as a
place for the mystic burial of Initiates, and then in the course of
national decadence the exoteric interpretation of this usage, the
interpretation now popular with Egyptologists, led to the erection of
smaller pyramids for purposes of actual burial. And may we not see in
such pyramid-like tumuli as those of Mont St. Michel, Gavrinis, and New
Grange copies of these smaller funeral pyramids;[501] or, if not direct
copies, at least the result of a similar religious decadence from the
unknown centuries since the Great Pyramid was erected by the Divine
Kings of prehistoric Egypt as a silent witness for all ages that Great
Men, Initiates, have understood Universal Law, and have solved the
greatest of all human problems, the problem of Life and Death?
GAVRINIS AND NEW GRANGE COMPARED
In conclusion, and in support of the arguments already advanced, I offer
a few observations of my own, made at Gavrinis itself, the most famous
tumulus in Continental Europe. After a very careful examination of the
interior and exterior of the tumulus, an examination extending over more
than twelve hours, I am convinced that its curious rock-carvings and
those in New Grange are by the same race of people, whoever that race
may have been; and that there is sufficient evidence in its construction
to show that, like New Grange, it was quite as religious as funereal in
its nature and use. The facts which bear out this view are the
following. First, there are three strange cavities cut into the body of
the stone on the south side of the inner chamber, communicating
interiorly with one another, and large enough to admit human hands; if
used as places in which to offer sacrifice to the dead or fairies, small
objects could have been placed in them. In the oldest extant authentic
records of them which I have found it is said of their probable
purpose:--'Some people look on them as a double noose intended to
strangle the [animal] victims which the priest sacrificed; for others
they are two rings behind which the hands of the betrothed met each
other to be married.'[502] Their purpose is certainly difficult enough
to decipher, perhaps is undecipherable; but one thing about them is
certain, namely, that a close examination round their exterior edges and
within them also shows the rock-surface worn smooth as though by ages
of handling and touching; and it is incontestable that this wearing of
the rock-surface by human hands could not have taken place had the inner
chamber been sealed up and used solely as a tomb. We suggest here, as
Sir James Fergusson in his _Rude Stone Monuments_ (p. 366) has
suggested, that the inner chamber of Gavrinis was probably a place for
the celebration of religious rites: he advances the opinion that the
strange cavities were used to contain holy oil or holy water. There is
this second curious fact connected with the tumulus of Gavrinis. On
entering it--and it opens like New Grange to the sunrise, being oriented
43° 60" to the south-east[503]--one finds placed across the floor of the
narrow passage-way as slightly inclined steps rising to the inner
chamber three or four stones. Two of them, now very prominent, form
veritable stumbling-blocks, and the one at the threshold of the inner
chamber is carved quite like the lintel stone above the entrance at New
Grange.[504] From what we know of ancient mystic cults, there was a
darkened chamber approached by a narrow passage-way so low that the
neophyte must stoop in traversing it to show symbolically his humility;
and as symbolic of his progress to the Chamber of Death, the _Sanctum
Sanctorum_ of the spirit-temple, there were steps, often purposely
placed as stumbling-blocks. The Great Pyramid, evidently, conforms to
this mystical plan; and strikes one, therefore, all the more forcibly as
the most remarkable structure for initiatory ceremonies ever constructed
on our planet. Thus, Dr. Flinders Petrie says:--'But we are met then by
an extraordinary idea, that all access to the King's chamber after its
completion must have been by climbing over the plug-blocks, as they lay
in the gallery, or by walking up the ramps on either side of them. Yet,
as the blocks cannot physically have been lying in any other place
before they were let down we are shut up to this view.'[505] And as
Egyptian tombs represented the mansions of the dead,[506] just so Celtic
or pre-Celtic spirit-temples and place for initiations were always
connected with the Underworld of the Dead; and save for such symbolical
arrangements as we see in Gavrinis, and New Grange also, they were
undistinguishable from tombs used for interments only.
It seems to us most reasonable to suppose that if, as the old Irish
manuscripts show, there were spirit-temples or places for pagan funeral
rites, or rites of initiation, in Ireland, constructed like other tumuli
which were used only as tombs for the dead (because the ancient cult was
one of ancestor worship and worship of gods like the Tuatha De Danann,
and spirits), then there must have been others in Brittany also, where
we find the same system of rock-inscriptions. Further, in view of all
the definite provable relations between Gavrinis and New Grange, we are
strongly inclined to regard them both as having the same origin and
purpose, Gavrinis being for Armorica what New Grange was for Ireland,
the royal or principal spirit-temple.
SECTION III
THE CULT OF GODS, SPIRITS, FAIRIES, AND THE DEAD
CHAPTER IX
THE TESTIMONY OF PAGANISM
'The cult of forests, of fountains, and of stones is to be
explained by that primitive naturalism which all the Church
Councils held in Brittany united to proscribe.'--ERNEST RENAN.
Edicts against pagan cults--Cult of Sacred Waters and its
absorption by Christianity--Celtic Water Divinities--Druidic
influence on Fairy-Faith--Cult of Sacred Trees--Cult of Fairies,
Spirits, and the Dead--Feasts of the Dead--Conclusion.
The evidence of paganism in support of our Psychological Theory
concerning the Fairy-Faith is so vast that we cannot do more than point
to portions of it--especially such portions as are most Celtic in their
nature. Perhaps most of us will think first of all about the ancient
cults rendered to fountains, rivers, lakes, trees, and, as we have seen
(pp. 399 ff.), to stones. There can be no reasonable doubt that these
cults were very flourishing when Christianity came to Europe, for kings,
popes, and church councils issued edict after edict condemning
them.[507] The second Council of Arles, held about 452, issued the
following canon:--'If in the territory of a bishop, infidels light
torches, or venerate trees, fountains, or stones, and he neglects to
abolish this usage, he must know that he is guilty of sacrilege. If the
director of the act itself, on being admonished, refuses to correct it,
he is to be excluded from communion.'[507] The Council of Tours, in 567,
thus expressed itself:--'We implore the pastors to expel from the Church
all those whom they may see performing before certain stones things
which have no relation with the ceremonies of the Church, and also
those who observe the customs of the Gentiles.'[508] King Canute in
England and Charlemagne in Europe conducted a most vigorous campaign
against all these pagan worships. This is Charlemagne's edict:--'With
respect to trees, stones, and fountains, where certain foolish people
light torches or practise other superstitions, we earnestly ordain that
that most evil custom detestable to God, wherever it be found, should be
removed and destroyed.'[509]
The result of these edicts was a curious one. It was too much to expect
the eradication of the old cults after their age-long existence, and so
one by one they were absorbed by the new religion. In a sacred tree or
grove, over a holy well or fountain, on the shore of a lake or river,
there was placed an image of the Virgin or of some saint, and
unconsciously the transformation was made, as the simple-hearted
country-folk beheld in the brilliant images new and more glorious
dwelling-places for the spirits they and their fathers had so long
venerated.
THE CULT OF SACRED WATERS
In Brittany, perhaps better than in other Celtic countries to-day, one
can readily discern this evolution from paganism to Christianity. Thus,
for example, in the Morbihan there is the fountain of St. Anne d'Auray,
round which centres Brittany's most important Pardon; a fountain near
Vannes is dedicated to St. Peter; at Carnac there is the far-famed
fountain of St. Cornely with its niche containing an image of Carnac's
patron saint, and not far from it, on the roadside leading to Carnac
Plage, an enclosed well dedicated to the Holy Virgin; and, less than a
mile away, the beautiful fountain of St. Columba. Near Ploermel, Canton
of Ploermel (Morbihan), there is the fountain of Recourrance or St.
Laurent, in which sailors perform divinations to know the future state
of the weather by casting on its waters a morsel of bread. If the bread
floats, it is a sure sign of fair weather, but if it sinks, of weather
so bad that no one should take risks by going out in the fishing-boats.
In some wells, pins are dropped by lovers. If the pins float, the
water-spirits show favourable auspices, but if the pins sink, the maiden
is unhappy, and will hesitate in accepting the proposal of marriage.
Long after their conversion, the inhabitants of Concoret (Arrondissement
de Ploermel, Morbihan) paid divine honours to the fountain of Baranton
in the druidical forest of Brocéliande, so famous in the Breton legends
of Arthur and Merlin:--'For a long time the inhabitants of Concoret ...
in place of addressing themselves to God or to his Saints in their
maladies, sought the remedy in the fountain of Baranton, either by
praying to it, after the manner of the Gauls, or by drinking of its
waters.'[510] In the month of August 1835, when there was an unusual
drought in the land, all the inhabitants of Concoret formed in a great
procession with banners and crucifix at their head, and with chants and
ringing of church bells marched to this same fountain of Baranton and
prayed for rain.[511] This curious bit of history was also reported to
me in July 1909 by a peasant who lives near the fountain, and who heard
it from his parents; and he added that the foot of the crucifix was
planted in the water to aid the rain-making. We have here an interesting
combination of paganism and Christianity.
Gregory of Tours says that the country-folk of Gévaudan rendered divine
honours to a certain lake, and as offerings cast on its waters linen,
wool, cheese, bees'-wax, bread, and other things;[512] and Mahé adds
that gold was sometimes offered,[512] quite after the manner of the
ancient Peruvians, who cast gold and silver of great value into the
waters of sacred Lake Titicaca, high up in the Andes. To absorb into
Christianity the worship paid to the lake near Gévaudan, the bishop
ordered a church to be built on its shore, and to the people he
said:--'My children, there is nothing divine in this lake: defile not
your souls by these vain ceremonies; but recognize rather the true
God.'[513] The offerings to the lake-spirits then ceased, and were made
instead on the altar of the church. As Canon Mahé so consistently sets
forth, other similar means were used to absorb the pagan cults of sacred
waters:--'Other pastors employed a similar device to absorb the cult of
fountains into Christianity; they consecrated them to God under the
invocation of certain saints; giving the saints' names to them and
placing in them the saints' images, so that the weak and simple-hearted
Christians who might come to them, struck by these names and by these
images, should grow accustomed to addressing their prayers to God and to
his saints, in place of honouring the fountains themselves, as they had
been accustomed to do. This is the reason why there are seen in the
stonework of so many fountains, niches and little statues of saints who
have given their names to these springs.'[514]
Procopius reports that the Franks, even after having accepted
Christianity, remained attached to their ancient cults, sacrificing to
the River Po women and children of the Goths, and casting the bodies
into its waters to the spirits of the waters.[514] Well-worship in the
Isle of Man, not yet quite extinct, was no doubt once very general. As
A. W. Moore has shown, the sacred wells in the Isle of Man were visited
and offerings made to them to secure immunity from witches and fairies,
to cure maladies, to raise a wind, and for various kinds of
divination.[515] And no doubt the offerings of rags on bushes over
sacred wells, and the casting of pins, coins, buttons, pebbles, and
other small objects into their waters, a common practice yet in Ireland
and Wales, as in non-Celtic countries, are to be referred to as
survivals of a time when regular sacrifices were offered in divination,
or in seeking cures from maladies, and equally from obsessing demons who
were thought to cause the maladies. In the prologue to Chrétien's _Conte
du Graal_ there is an account, seemingly very ancient, of how dishonour
to the divinities of wells and springs brought destruction on the rich
land of Logres. The damsels who abode in these watery places fed
travellers with nourishing food until King Amangons wronged one of them
by carrying off her golden cup. His men followed his evil example, so
that the springs dried up, the grass withered, and the land became
waste.[516]
According to Mr. Borlase, 'it was by passing under the waters of a well
that the _Sidh_, that is, the abode of the spirits called _Sidhe_, in
the tumulus or natural hill, as the case might be, was reached.'[517]
And it is evident from this that the well-spirits were even identified
in Ireland with the Tuatha De Danann or Fairy-Folk. I am reminded of a
walk I was privileged to take with Mr. William B. Yeats on Lady
Gregory's estate at Coole Park, near Gort (County Galway); for Mr. Yeats
led me to the haunts of the water-spirits of the region, along a strange
river which flows underground for some distance and then comes out to
the light again in its weird course, and to a dark, deep pool hidden in
the forest. According to tradition, the river is the abode of
water-fairies; and in the shaded forest-pool, whose depth is very great,
live a spirit-race like the Greek nymphs. More than one mortal while
looking into this pool has felt a sudden and powerful impulse to plunge
in, for the fairies were then casting their magic spell over him that
they might take him to live in their under-water palace for ever.
One of the most beautiful passages in _The Tripartite Life of Patrick_
describes the holy man at the holy well called Cliabach:--'Thereafter
Patrick went at sunrise to the well, namely Cliabach on the sides of
Cruachan. The clerics sat down by the well. Two daughters of Loegaire
son of Niall went early to the well to wash their hands, as was a custom
of theirs, namely, Ethne the Fair, and Fedelm the Ruddy. The maidens
found beside the well the assembly of the clerics in white garments,
with their books before them. And they wondered at the shape of the
clerics, and thought that they were men of the elves or apparitions.
They asked tidings of Patrick: "Whence are ye, and whence have ye come?
Are ye of the elves or of the gods?" And Patrick said to them: "It were
better for you to believe in God than to inquire about our race." Said
the girl who was elder: "Who is your god? and where is he? Is he in
heaven, or in earth, or under earth, or on earth? Is he in seas or in
streams, or in mountains or in glens? Hath he sons and daughters? Is
there gold and silver, is there abundance of every good thing in his
kingdom? Tell us about him, how he is seen, how he is loved, how he is
found? if he is in youth, or if he is in age? if he is ever-living; if
he is beautiful? if many have fostered his son? if his daughters are
dear and beautiful to the men of the world?"'[518]
And in another place it is recorded that 'Patrick went to the well of
Findmag. Slán is its name. They told Patrick that the heathen honoured
the well as if it were a god.'[519] And of the same well it is said,
'that the magi, i. e. wizards or Druids, used to reverence the well Slán
and "offer gifts to it as if it were a god."'[519] As Whitley Stokes
pointed out, this is the only passage connecting the Druids with
well-worship; and it is very important, because it establishes the
relation between the Druids as magicians and their control of spirits
like fairies.[519] As shown here, and as seems evident in Columba's
relation with Druids and exorcism in Adamnan's _Life of St.
Columba_,[520] the early Celtic peoples undoubtedly drew many of their
fairy-traditions from a memory of druidic rites of divination. Perhaps
the most beautiful description of a holy well and a description
illustrative of such divination is that of Ireland's most mystical well,
Connla's Well:--'Sinend, daughter of Lodan Lucharglan, son of Ler, out
of Tír Tairngire ("Land of Promise, Fairyland"), went to Connla's Well
which is under sea, to behold it. That is a well at which are the hazels
and inspirations (?) of wisdom, that is, the hazels of the science of
poetry, and in the same hour their fruit, and their blossom and their
foliage break forth, and these fall on the well in the same shower,
which raises on the water a royal surge of purple. Then the [sacred]
salmon chew the fruit, and the juice of the nuts is apparent on their
purple bellies. And seven streams of wisdom spring forth and turn there
again.'[521]
To these cults of sacred waters numerous non-Celtic parallels could
easily be offered, but they seem unnecessary with Celtic evidence so
clear. And this evidence which is already set forth shows that the
origin of worship paid to sacred wells, fountains, lakes, or rivers, is
to be found in the religious practices of the Celts before they became
christianized. They believed that certain orders of spirits, often
called fairies, and to be identified with them, inhabited, or as was the
case with Sinend, who came from the Otherworld, visited these places,
and must be appeased or approached through sacrifice by mortals seeking
their favours. Canon Mahé puts the matter thus:--'The Celts recognized a
supreme God, the principle of all things; but they rendered religious
worship to the genii or secondary deities who, according to them, united
themselves to different objects in nature and made them divine by such
union. Among the objects were rivers, the sea, lakes and
fountains.'[522]
THE CULT OF SACRED TREES
The things said of sacred waters can also be said of sacred trees among
the Celts; and, in the case of sacred trees, more may be added about the
Druids and their relation to the Fairy-Faith, for it is well known that
the Druids held the oak and its mistletoe in great religious veneration,
and it is generally thought that most of the famous Druid schools were
in the midst of sacred oak-groves or forests. Pliny has recorded that
'the Druids, for so they call their magicians, have nothing which they
hold more sacred than the mistletoe[523] and the tree on which it
grows, provided only it be an oak (_robur_). But apart from that, they
select groves of oak, and they perform no sacred rite without leaves
from that tree, so that the Druids may be regarded as even deriving from
it their name interpreted as Greek'[524] (a disputed point among modern
philologists). Likewise of the Druids, Maximus Tyrius states that the
image of their chief god, considered by him to correspond to Zeus, was a
lofty oak tree;[525] and Strabo says that the principal place of
assembly for the Galatians, a Celtic people of Asia Minor, was the
Sacred Oak-grove.[526]
Just as the cult of fountains was absorbed by Christianity, so was the
cult of trees. Concerning this, Canon Mahé writes:--'One sees sometimes,
in the country and in gardens, trees wherein, by trimming and bending
together the branches, have been formed niches of verdure, in which have
been placed crosses or images of certain saints. This usage is not
confined to the Morbihan. Our Lady of the Oak, in Anjou, and Our Lady of
the Oak, near Orthe, in Maine, are places famous for pilgrimage. In this
last province, says a historian, "One sees at various cross-roads the
most beautiful rustic oaks decorated with figures of saints. There are
seen there, in five or six villages, chapels of oaks, with whole trunks
of that tree enshrined in the wall, beside the altar. Such among others
is that famous chapel of Our Lady of the Oak, near the forge of Orthe,
whose celebrity attracts daily, from five to six leagues about, a very
great gathering of people."'[527]
Saint Martin, according to Canon Mahé, tried to destroy a sacred
pine-tree in the diocese of Tours by telling the people there was
nothing divine in it. The people agreed to let it be cut down on
condition that the saint should receive its great trunk on his head as
it fell; and the tree was not cut down.[527] Saint Germain caused a
great scandal at Auxerre by hanging from the limbs of a sacred tree the
heads of wild animals which he had killed while hunting.[527] Saint
Gregory the Great wrote to Brunehaut exhorting him to abolish among his
subjects the offering of animals' heads to certain trees.[528]
In Ireland fairy trees are common yet; though throughout Celtdom sacred
trees, naturally of short duration, are almost forgotten. In Brittany,
the Forest of Brocéliande still enjoys something of the old veneration,
but more out of sentiment than by actual worship. A curious survival of
an ancient Celtic tree-cult exists in Carmarthen, Wales, where there is
still carefully preserved and held upright in a firm casing of cement
the decaying trunk of an old oak-tree called Merlin's Oak; and local
prophecy declares on Merlin's authority that when the tree falls
Carmarthen will fall with it. Perhaps through an unconscious desire on
the part of some patriotic citizens of averting the calamity by inducing
the tree-spirit to transfer its abode, or else by otherwise hoodwinking
the tree-spirit into forgetting that Merlin's Oak is dead, a vigorous
and now flourishing young oak has been planted so directly beside it
that its foliage embraces it. And in many parts of modern England, the
Jack-in-the-Green, a man entirely hidden in a covering of green foliage
who dances through the streets on May Day, may be another example of a
very ancient tree (or else agricultural) cult of Celtic origin.
THE CULT OF FAIRIES, SPIRITS, AND THE DEAD
There was also, as we already know, more or less of direct worship
offered to fairies like the Tuatha De Danann; and sacrifice was made to
them even as now, when the Irish or Scotch peasant pours a libation of
milk to the 'good people' or to the fairy queen who presides over the
flocks. In _Fiacc's Hymn_[529] it is said, 'On Ireland's folk lay
darkness: the tribes worshipped elves: They believed not the true
godhead of the true Trinity.' And there is a reliable legend concerning
Columbkille which shows that this old cult of elves was not forgotten
among the early Irish Christians, though they changed the original good
reputation of these invisible beings to one of evil. It is said that
Columbkille's first attempts to erect a church or monastery on Iona were
rendered vain by the influence of some evil spirit or else of demons;
for as fast as a wall was raised it fell down. Then it was revealed to
the saint that the walls could not stand until a human victim should be
buried alive under the foundations. And the lot fell on Oran,
Columbkille's companion, who accordingly became a sacrifice to appease
the evil spirit, fairies, or demons of the place where the building was
to be raised.[530]
As an illustration of what the ancient practice of such sacrifice to
place-spirits, or to gods, must have been like in Wales, we offer the
following curious legend concerning the conception of Myrddin (Merlin),
as told by our witness from Pontrhydfendigaid, Mr. John Jones (see p.
147):--'When building the Castle of Gwrtheyrn, near Carmarthen, as much
as was built by day fell down at night. So a council of the _Dynion
Hysbys_ or "Wise Men" was called, and they decided that the blood of a
fatherless boy had to be used in mixing the mortar if the wall was to
stand. Search was thereupon made for a fatherless boy (cf. p. 351), and
throughout all the kingdom no such boy could be found. But one day two
boys were quarrelling, and one of them in defying the other wanted to
know what a fatherless boy like him had to say to him. An officer of the
king, overhearing the quarrel, seized the boy thus tauntingly addressed
as the one so long looked for. The circumstances were made known to the
king, and the boy was taken to him. "Who is your father?" asked the
king. "My mother never told me," the boy replied. Then the boy's mother
was sent for, and the king asked her who the father of the boy was, and
she replied: "I do not know; for I have never known a man. Yet, one
night, it seemed to me that a man noble and majestic in appearance slept
with me, and I awoke to find that I had been in a dream. But when I grew
pregnant afterwards, and this wonderful boy whom you now see was
delivered, I considered that a divine being or an angel had visited me
in that dream, and therefore I called his child Myrddin the Magician,
for such I believe my son to be." When the mother had thus spoken, the
king announced to the court and wise men, "Here is the fatherless boy.
Take his blood and use it in mixing the mortar. The walling will not
hold without it." At this, Myrddin taunted the king and wise men, and
said they were no better than a pack of idiots. "The reason the walling
falls down," Myrddin went on to say, "is because you have tried to raise
it on a rock which covers two large sea-serpents. Whenever the wall is
raised over them its weight presses on their backs and makes them
uneasy. Then during the night they upheave their backs to relieve
themselves of the pressure, and thus shake the walling to a fall."' The
story ends here, but presumably Merlin's statements were found to be
true; and Merlin was not sacrificed, for, as we know, he became the
great magician of Arthur's court.
There are two hills in the Highlands of Aberdeenshire where travellers
had to propitiate the banshee by placing barley-meal cakes near a well
on each hill; and if the traveller neglected the offering, death or some
dire calamity was sure to follow.[531] It is quite certain that the
banshee is almost always thought of as the spirit of a dead ancestor
presiding over a family, though here it appears more like the tutelary
deity of the hills. But sacrifice being thus made, according to the
folk-belief, to a banshee, shows, like so many other examples where
there is a confusion between divinities or fairies and the souls of the
dead, that ancestral worship must be held to play a very important part
in the complex Fairy-Faith as a whole. A few non-Celtic parallels
determine this at once. Thus, exactly as to fairies here, milk is
offered to the souls of saints in the Panjab, India, as a means of
propitiating them.[532] M. A. Lefèvre shows that the Roman Lares, so
frequently compared to house-haunting fairies, are in reality quite like
the Gaelic banshee; that originally they were nothing more than the
unattached souls of the dead, akin to Manes; that time and custom made
distinctions between them; that in the common language Lares and Manes
had synonymous dwellings; and that, finally, the idea of death was
little by little divorced from the worship of the Lares, so that they
became guardians of the family and protectors of life.[533] On all the
tombs of their dead the Romans inscribed these names: _Manes_, _inferi_,
_silentes_,[534] the last of which, meaning _the silent ones_, is
equivalent to the term 'People of Peace' given to the fairy-folk of
Scotland.[535] Nor were the Roman Lares always thought of as inhabiting
dwellings. Many were supposed to live in the fields, in the streets of
cities, at cross-roads, quite like certain orders of fairies and demons;
and in each place these ancestral spirits had their chapels and received
offerings of fruit, flowers, and of foliage. If neglected they became
spiteful, and were then known as Lemures.
All these examples tend to show what the reviewer of Curtin's _Tales of
the Fairies and of the Ghost World_ states, that 'The attributes of a
ghost--that is to say, the spirit of a dead man--are indistinguishable
from those of a fairy. And it is well known how world-wide is the
worship of the dead and the offering of food to them, among uncivilized
tribes like those of Africa, Australia, and America, as well as among
such great nations as China, Corea, India, and Japan; and in ancient
times it was universal among the masses of the people in Egypt, Greece,
and Rome.
CELTIC AND NON-CELTIC FEASTS OF THE DEAD
_Samain_, as we already know, was the great Celtic feast of the dead
when offerings or sacrifice of various kinds were made to ancestral
spirits, and to the Tuatha De Danann and the spirit-hosts under their
control; and _Beltene_, or the first of May, was another day anciently
dedicated to fêtes in honour of the dead and fairies. Chapter ii has
shown us how November Eve, the modern _Samain_, and like it, All Saints
Eve or _La Toussaint_, are regarded among the Celtic peoples now; and
the history of _La Toussaint_ seems to indicate that Christianity, as in
the case of the cult of trees and fountains, absorbed certain Celtic
cults of the dead which centred around the pagan _Samain_ feast of the
dead, and even adopted the date of _Samain_ (see p. 453).
Among the ancient Egyptians, so much like the ancient Celts in their
innate spirituality and clear conceptions of the invisible world, we
find a parallel feast which fell on the seventeenth _Athyr_ of the year.
This day was directly dependent upon the progress of the sun; and, as we
have throughout emphasized, the ancient symbolism connected with the
yearly movements of the Great God of Light and Life cannot be divorced
from the ancient doctrines of life and death. To the pre-Christian
Celts, the First of November, or the Festival of _Samain_, which marked
the end of summer and the commencement of winter, was symbolical of
death.[536] _Samain_ thus corresponds with the Egyptian fête of the
dead, for the seventeenth _Athyr_ of the year marks the day on which
Sîtou (the god of darkness) killed in the midst of a banquet his brother
Osiris (the god of light, the sun), and which was therefore thought of
as the season when the old sun was dying of his wounds. It was a time
when the power of good was on the decline, so that all nature, turning
against man, was abandoned to the divinities of darkness, the
inhabitants of the Realms of the Dead. On this anniversary of the death
of Osiris, an Egyptian would undertake no new enterprise: should he go
down to the Nile, a crocodile would attack him as the crocodile sent by
Sîtou had attacked Osiris, and even as the Darkness was attacking the
Light to devour it;[537] should he set out on a journey, he would part
from his home and family never to return. His only course was to remain
locked in his house, and there await in fear and inaction the passing of
the night, until Osiris, returning from death, and reborn to a new
existence, should rise triumphant over the forces of Darkness and
Evil.[538] It is clear that this last part of the Egyptian belief is
quite like the Celtic conception of _Samain_ as we have seen Ailill and
Medb celebrating that festival in their palace at Cruachan.
There is a great resemblance between the christianized Feast of
_Samain_, when the dead return to visit their friends and to be
entertained, for example as in Brittany, and the beautiful festivals
formerly held in the Sînto temples of Japan. Thus at Nikko thousands of
lanterns were lighted, 'each one representing the spirit of an
ancestor,' and there was masquerading and revelry for the entertainment
of the visiting spirits.[539] It shows how much religions are alike.
Each year the Roman peoples dedicated two days (February 21-2) to the
honouring of the Dead. On the first day, called the _Feralia_, all
Romans were supposed to remain within their own homes. The sanctuaries
of all the gods were closed and all ceremony suspended. The only
sacrifices made at such a time were to the dead, and to the gods of the
dead in the underworld; and all manes were appeased by food-offerings of
meats and cakes. The second day was called _Cara Cognatio_ and was a
time of family reunions and feasting. Of it Ovid has said (_Fasti_, ii.
619), 'After the visit to the tombs and to the ancestors who are no
longer [among us], it is pleasant to turn towards the living; after the
loss of so many, it is pleasant to behold those who remain of our blood
and to reckon up the generations of our descendants.' And the Greeks
also had their feasts for the dead.[540]
CONCLUSION
The fact of ancient Celtic cults of stones, waters, trees, and fairies
still existing under cover of Christianity directly sustains the
Psychological Theory; and the persistence of the ancient Celtic cult of
the dead, as illustrated in the survival of _Samain_ in its modern
forms, and perhaps best seen now among the Bretons, goes far to sustain
the opinion of Ernest Renan, who declared in his admirable _Essais_ that
of all peoples the Celts, as the Romans also recorded, have most precise
ideas about death. Thus it is that the Celts at this moment are the most
spiritually conscious of western nations. To think of them as
materialists is impossible. Since the time of Patrick and Columba the
Gaels have been the missionaries of Europe; and, as Caesar asserts, the
Druids were the ancient teachers of the Gauls, no less than of all
Britain. And the mysteries of life and death are the key-note of all
things really Celtic, even of the great literature of Arthur,
Cuchulainn, and Finn, now stirring the intellectual world.
SECTION III
THE CULT OF GODS, SPIRITS, FAIRIES, AND THE DEAD
CHAPTER X
THE TESTIMONY OF CHRISTIANITY
'The Purgatory of St. Patrick became the framework of another
series of tales, embodying the Celtic ideas concerning the other
life and its different states. Perhaps the profoundest instinct of
the Celtic peoples is their desire to penetrate the unknown. With
the sea before them, they wish to know what is to be found beyond
it; they dream of the Promised Land. In the face of the unknown
that lies beyond the tomb, they dream of that great journey which
the pen of Dante has celebrated.'--ERNEST RENAN.
Lough Derg a sacred lake originally--Purgatorial rites as
christianized survivals of ancient Celtic rites--Purgatory as
Fairyland--Purgatorial rites parallel to pagan initiation
ceremonies--The Death and Resurrection Rite--Breton Pardons
compared--Relation to Aengus Cult and Celtic cave-temples--Origin
of Purgatorial doctrine pre-Christian--Celtic and Roman feasts of
dead shaped Christian ones--Fundamental unity of Mythologies,
Religions, and the Fairy-Faith.
The best evidence offered by Christianity with direct bearing on the
Fairy-Faith comes from what may be designated survivals of transformed
paganism within the Church itself. Various pagan cults, which also came
to be more or less christianized, have been considered under Paganism;
and in this chapter we propose to examine the famous Purgatory of St.
Patrick and the Christian rites in honour of the dead.
ST. PATRICK'S PURGATORY
In the south of County Donegal, in Ireland, amid treeless mountains and
moorlands, lies Lough Derg or the Red Lake, containing an island which
has long been famous throughout Christendom as the site of St. Patrick's
Purgatory. Even to-day more than in the Middle Ages it is the goal of
thousands of pious pilgrims who repair thither to be purified of the
accumulated sins of a lifetime. In this age of commercialism the picture
is an interesting and a happy one, no matter what the changing voices of
the many may have to say about it.
The following weird legends, which during the autumn of 1909 I found
surviving among the Lough Derg peasantry, explain how the lough received
its present name, and seem to indicate that long before Patrick's time
the lough was already considered a strange and mysterious place,
apparently an Otherworld preserve. The first legend, based on two
complementary versions, one from James Ryan, of Tamlach Townland, who is
seventy-five years old, the other from Arthur Monaghan, a younger man,
who lives about three miles from James Ryan, is as follows:--'In his
flight from County Armagh, Finn Mac Coul took his mother on his
shoulder, holding her by the legs, but so rapidly did he travel that on
reaching the shores of the lake nothing remained of his mother save the
two legs, and these he threw down there. Some time later, the Fenians,
while searching for Finn, passed the same spot on the lake-shore, and
Cinen Moul(?), who was of their number, upon seeing the shin-bones of
Finn's mother and a worm in one, said: "If that worm could get water
enough it would come to something great." "I'll give it water enough,"
said another of the followers, and at that he flung it into the lake
(later called Finn Mac Coul's lake).[541] Immediately the worm turned
into an enormous water-monster. This water-monster it was that St.
Patrick had to fight and kill; and, as the struggle went on, the lake
ran red with the blood of the water-monster, and so the lake came to be
called Loch Derg (Red Lake).' The second legend, composed of
folk-opinions, was related by Patrick Monaghan, the caretaker of the
Purgatory, as he was rowing me to Saints' Island--the site of the
original purgatorial cave; and this legend is even more important for
us than the preceding one:--'I have always been hearing it said that
into this lough St. Patrick drove all the serpents from Ireland, and
that with them he had here his final battle, gaining complete victory.
The old men and women in this neighbourhood used to believe that Lough
Derg was the last stronghold of the Druids in Ireland; and from what I
have heard them say, I think the old legend means that this is where St.
Patrick ended his fight with the Druids, and that the serpents represent
the Druids or paganism.'
These and similar legends, together with what we know about the
purgatorial rites, lead us to believe that in pre-Christian times Finn
Mac Coul's Lake, later called Lough Derg, was venerated as sacred, and
that the cave which then undoubtedly existed on Saints' Island was used
as a centre for the celebration of pagan mysteries similar in character
to those supposed to have been celebrated in New Grange. Evidently, in
the ordeals and ceremonies of the modern Christian Purgatory of St.
Patrick, we see the survivals of such pagan initiatory rites. Just as
the cults of stones, trees, fountains, lakes, and waters were absorbed
by the new religion, so, it would seem, were all cults rendered in
prehistoric times to Finn Mac Coul's Lake and within the island cave.
Though the present location of the Purgatory is not the original place
of the old Celtic cults, there having been a transfer from Saints'
Island to Station Island, the present place of pilgrimage, where instead
of the cave there is the 'Prison Chapel', the practices, though
naturally much modified and corrupted, retain their primitive outlines.
Patrick in his time ordered the observance of the following ceremonies
by all penitents before their entrance into the original cave on Saints'
Island;[542] and for a long time they were strictly carried out:--'The
visitor must first go to the bishop of the diocese, declare to him that
he came of his own free will, and request of him permission to make the
pilgrimage. The bishop warned him against venturing any further in his
design, and represented to him the perils of his undertaking; but if the
pilgrim still remained steadfast in his purpose, he gave him a
recommendatory letter to the prior of the island. The prior again tried
to dissuade him from his design by the same arguments that had been
previously urged by the bishop. If, however, the pilgrim still remained
steadfast, he was taken into the church to spend there fifteen days in
fasting and praying. After this the mass was celebrated, the holy
communion administered to him and holy water sprinkled over him, and he
was led in procession with reading of litanies to the entrance of the
purgatory, where a third attempt was made to dissuade him from entering.
If he still persisted, the prior allowed him to enter the cave, after he
had received the benediction of the priests, and, in entering, he
commended himself to their prayers, and made the sign of the cross on
his forehead with his own hand. The prior then made fast the door, and
opened it not again till the next morning, when, if the penitent were
there, he was taken out and led with great joy to the church, and, after
fifteen days' watching and praying, was dismissed. If he was not found
when the door was opened, it was understood that he had perished in his
pilgrimage through purgatory; the door was closed again, and he was
never afterwards mentioned'.
An enormous mass of literary and historical material was recorded during
the mediaeval period, in various European vernaculars and in Latin,
concerning St. Patrick's Purgatory; and all of it testifies to the
widespread influence of the rites which already then as now attracted
thousands of pilgrims from all parts of Christendom. In the poem of
_Owayne Miles_,[543] which forms part of this material, we find a
poetical description of the purgatorial initiatory rites quite
comparable to Virgil's account of Aeneas on his initiatory journey to
Hades. The poem records how Sir Owain was locked in the cave, and how,
after a short time, he began to penetrate its depths. He had but little
light, and this by degrees disappeared, leaving him in total darkness.
Then a strange twilight appeared. He went on to a hall and there met
fifteen men clad in white and with heads shaven after the manner of
ecclesiastics. One of them told Owain what things he would have to
suffer in his pilgrimage, how unclean spirits would attack him, and by
what means he could withstand them. Then the fifteen men left the knight
alone, and soon all sorts of demons and ghosts and spirits surrounded
him, and he was led on from one torture and trial to another by
different companies of fiends. (In the original Latin legend there were
four fields of punishment.) Finally Owain came to a magic bridge which
appeared safe and wide, but when he reached the middle of it all the
fiends and demons and unclean spirits raised so horrible a yell that he
almost fell into the chasm below. He, however, reached the other shore,
and the power of the devils ceased. Before him was a celestial city, and
the perfumed air which was wafted from it was so ravishing that he
forgot all his pains and sorrows. A procession came to Owain and,
welcoming him, led him into the paradise where Adam and Eve dwelt before
they had eaten the apple. Food was offered to the knight, and when he
had eaten of it he had no desire to return to earth, but he was told
that it was necessary to live out his natural life in the world and to
leave his flesh and bones behind him before beginning the heavenly
existence. So he began his return journey to the cave's entrance by a
short and pleasant way. He again passed the fifteen men clad in white,
who revealed what things the future had in store for him; and reaching
the door safely, waited there till morning. Then he was taken out,
congratulated, and invited to remain with the priests for fifteen
days.[544]
Here we have clearly enough many of the essential features of the
underworld: there is the mystic bridge which when crossed guarantees the
traveller against evil spirits, just as in Ireland a peasant believes
himself safe when fairies are pursuing him if he can only cross a bridge
or stream. The celestial city is both like the Christian Heaven and the
_Sidhe_ world. The eating of angel food by Owain has an effect quite
like that of eating food in Fairyland; but Owain, by Christian
influence, is sent back on earth to die 'that death which the King of
Heaven and Earth hath ordained,' as Patrick said of the prince whom he
saved from the _Sidhe_-folk.[545]
A curious story, in which King Arthur himself is made to visit St.
Patrick's Purgatory, published during the sixteenth century by a learned
Frenchman, Stephanus Forcatulus, shows how real a relation there is
between Purgatory and the Greek or Roman Hades. Arthur, it is said,
leaving the light behind him, descended into the cave by a rough and
steep road. 'For they say that this cave is an entrance to the shades,
or at least to purgatory, where poor sinners may get their offences
washed out, and return again rejoicing to the light of day.' But
Forcatulus adds that 'I have learnt from certain serious commentaries of
Merlin, that Gawain, his master of horse, called Arthur back, and
dissuaded him from examining further the horrid cave in which was heard
the sound of falling water which emitted a sulphureous smell, and of
voices lamenting as it were for the loss of their bodies'.[546]
PURGATORIAL AND INITIATORY RITES
Judging from the above data and from the great mass of similar data
available, the religious rites connected with St. Patrick's Purgatory
are to be anthropologically interpreted in the light of what is known
about ancient and modern initiatory ceremonies, similarly conducted. As
has already been stated, the original Purgatory which was in a cave on
Saints' Island is to-day typified by 'Prison Chapel' on Station Island;
and in this 'Prison Chapel', as formerly in the cave, pilgrims, after
having fasted and performed the necessary preparatory penances, are
required to pass the night. Among the Greeks, neophytes seeking
initiation, after similar preparation, entered the cave-shrine recently
discovered at Eleusis, the site of the Great Mysteries, and therein, in
the _sanctum sanctorum_, entered into communion with the god and goddess
of the lower world;[547] whereas in the original Purgatory Sir Owain and
Arthur are described as having come into contact with the Hades-world
and its beings. In the state cult at Acharaca, Greece, there was another
cavern-temple in which initiations were conducted.[547] The oracle of
Zeus Trophonius was situated in a subterranean chamber, into which,
after various preparatory rites, including the invocation of Agamedes,
neophytes descended to receive in a very mysterious manner the divine
revelations which were afterwards interpreted for them. So awe-inspiring
were the descent into the cave and the sights therein seen that it was
popularly believed that no one who visited the cave ever smiled again;
and persons of grave and serious aspect were proverbially said to have
been in the cave of Trophonius.[548]
The worship of Mithras, the Persian god of created light and all earthly
wisdom, who in time became identified with the sun, was conducted in
natural and artificial caves found in every part of the Roman Empire
where his cult flourished until superseded by Christianity; and in these
caves very elaborate initiations of seven degrees were carried out. The
cave itself signified the lower world, into which during the ordeals of
initiation the neophyte was supposed to enter while out of the physical
body, that the soul might be purged by many trials.[549] In Mexico the
cavern of Chalchatongo led to the plains of paradise, evidently through
initiations; and Mictlan, a subterranean temple, similarly led to the
Aztec land of the dead.[550]
Among the most widespread and characteristic features of contemporary
primitive races we find highly developed mysteries (puberty
institutions) of the same essential character as these ancient
mysteries. They are to uncivilized youth what the Greek Mysteries were
to Greek youth, and what colleges and universities are to the youth of
Europe and America, though perhaps more successful than these last as
places of moral and religious instruction. These mysteries vary from
tribe to tribe, though in almost all of them there is what corresponds
to the Death Rite in Freemasonry; that is to say, there is either a
symbolical presentation of death in a sacred drama--as there was among
the Greeks in their complete initiatory rites--or a state of actual
trance imposed upon each neophyte by the priestly initiators. The
_sanctum sanctorum_ of these primitive mysteries is sometimes in a
natural or artificial cavern (as was the rule with respect to the
Ancient Mysteries and St. Patrick's Purgatory on Saints' Island);
sometimes in a structure specially prepared to exclude the light; or
else the neophytes are symbolically or literally buried in an
underground place to be resurrected greatly purified and
strengthened.[551] And the mystic purification at the sea-shore and
spiritual re-birth sought in the cave at Eleusis by the highly cultured
Athenians and their fellow Greeks, or among other cultured and
uncultured ancient and modern peoples through some corresponding
initiation ceremony, find their parallel in the purification and
spiritual re-birth still sought in the Christian Purgatory, now 'Prison
Chapel', and in the lake waters, amid the solitude of sacred Lough Derg,
Ireland, by thousands of earnest pilgrims from all parts of the
world.[552]
There is a correspondence between this conclusion and what was said
about the initiatory aspects of the Aengus Cult; and should we try to
connect the Purgatory with some particular sun-cult of a character
parallel to that of the Aengus Cult we should probably have to name Lug,
the great Irish sun-god, because of the significant fact that the
purgatorial rites on Station Island come to an end on the Festival of
the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, the 15th of August, a date which
apparently coincides sufficiently to represent, as it probably does, the
ancient August Lugnasadh, the 1st of August, a day sacred to the sun-god
Lug, as the name indicates.[553]
If we are to class together the original Purgatory, New Grange,
Gavrinis, and other Celtic underground places, as centres of the highest
religious practices in the past, we should expect to discover that many
similar structures or natural caverns existed in pagan Ireland, as
indeed we find they did. Thus in different Irish manuscripts various
caves are mentioned,[554] and most of them, so far as they can be
localized, are traditionally places of supernatural marvels, and often
(as in the case of the last one enumerated, the Cave of Cruachan) are
directly related to the under-world.[555] Another of these caves is
described as being under a church, which circumstance suggests that the
church was dedicated over an underground place originally sacred to
pagan worship, and, as we may safely assume, to pagan mysteries.
The curious custom among early Irish Christians, of retiring for a time
to a cave, seems to show the lasting into historical times of the pagan
cave-ritual now surviving at Lough Derg only. The custom seems to have
been common among the saints of Britain and of Scotland;[556] and in
Stokes's _Tripartite Life of Patrick_ (p. 242) there is a very
significant reference to it. In the _Mabinogion_ story of _Kulhwch and
Olwen_ there seems to be another traditional echo of the times when
caves were used for religious rites or worship, in the author's
reference to the cave of the witch Orddu as being 'on the confines of
Hell'. A cave was thus popularly supposed to lead to Hades or an
underworld of fairies, demons, and spirits; again just as in St.
Patrick's Purgatory. Purely Celtic instances of this kind might be
greatly multiplied.
PAGAN ORIGIN OF PURGATORIAL DOCTRINE
The metrical romance of _Orfeo and Herodys_ in Ritson's _Collection of
Metrical Romances_[557] illustrates how in Britain (and Britain--even
England--is more Celtic than Saxon) the Grecian Hell or Hades was looked
on as identical with the Celtic Fairyland. This is quite unusual; and
for us is highly significant. It shows that in Britain, at the time the
romance was written, there was no essential difference between the
underworld of fairies and the underworld of shades. Pluto's realm and
the realm where fairy kings and fairy queens held high revelry were the
same. The difference is this: Hades was an Egyptian and in turn a Greek
conception, while Fairyland was a Celtic conception; they differ as the
imagination at work on a philosophical doctrine differs among the three
peoples, and not otherwise. And, as Wright has shown, the origin of
Purgatory in the Roman Church is very obscure. As to the location of
Purgatory, Roman theology confesses it has nothing certain to say.[558]
The natural conclusion, as we suggested in our study of Re-birth, would
seem to be that the Irish doctrine of the Otherworld in all its aspects,
but especially as the underground world of the _Sidhe_ or fairy-folk,
was combined with the pagan Graeco-Roman doctrine of Hades in St.
Patrick's Purgatory, and hence gave rise to the modern Christian
doctrine of Purgatory.
CHRISTIAN RITES IN HONOUR OF THE DEPARTED
We may now readily pass from an examination of world-wide rites
concerned with death and re-birth, which are based on an ancient
sun-cult, to an examination of their shadows in the theology of
Christianity, where they are commonly known as the rites in honour of
the departed. It seems to be clear at the outset that the Christian
Fête in Commemoration of the Dead, according to its history, is an
adaptation from paganism; and with so many Irish ecclesiastics, or else
their disciples, educated in the Celtic monasteries of Britain and
Ireland, having influence in the Church during the early centuries,
there is a strong probability that the Feast of _Samain_ had something
to do with shaping the modern feast, as we have suggested in the
preceding chapter; for both feasts originally fell on the first of
November. Roman Catholic writers record that it was St. Odilon, Abbot of
Cluny, who instituted in 998 in all his congregations the Fête in
Commemoration of the Dead, and fixed its anniversary on the first of
November; and that this fête was quickly adopted by all the churches of
the East.[559] To-day in the Roman Church both the first and second of
November are holy days devoted to those who have passed out of this
life. The first day, the Fête of All the Saints (_La Toussaint_), is
said to have originated thus: the Roman Pantheon--Pantheon meaning the
residence of all the gods--was dedicated to Jupiter the Avenger, and
when Christianity triumphed the pagan images were overthrown, and there
was thereupon originally established, in place of the cult of all the
gods, the Fête of all the Saints.[560] Why _La Toussaint_ should have
become a feast of the dead would be difficult to say unless we admit the
ancient Celtic feast of the dead as having amalgamated with it. This we
believe is what took place; for if the Fête in Commemoration of the Dead
was, as some authorities hold, established by St. Odilon to fall on the
first of November, in direct accord with _Samain_ or Halloween, then at
some later period it was displaced by _La Toussaint_, for now it is
celebrated on the second of November.
Likewise prayers and masses for the dead, which annually receive
emphasis on the first two days of November, seem to have had their
origin in pre-Christian cults. According to Mosheim, in his _Histoire
ecclésiastique_,[561] the usage of celebrating the Sacrament at the
tombs of martyrs and at funerals was introduced during the fourth
century; and from this usage the masses for the saints and for the dead
originated in the eighth century. Prior to the fourth century we find
the newly converted Christians in all parts of Celtic Europe, and in
many countries non-Celtic, still rendering a cult to ancestral spirits,
making food offerings at the tombs of heroes, and strictly observing the
very ancient November feast, or its equivalent, in honour of the dead
and fairies. Then, very gradually, in the course of four centuries, the
character of the Christian cults and feasts of the saints and of the
dead seems to have been determined. The following citation will serve to
illustrate the nature of Irish Christian rites in honour of the
dead:--In the _Lebar Brecc_[562] we read: 'There is nothing which one
does on behalf of the soul of him who has died that doth not help it,
both prayer on knees, and abstinence, and singing requiems, and frequent
blessings. Sons are bound to do penance for their deceased parents. A
full year, now, was Maedóc of Ferns, with his whole community, on water
and bread, after loosing from hell the soul of Brandub son of Echaid.'
According to St. Augustine, the souls of the dead are solaced by the
piety of their living friends when this expresses itself through
sacrifice made by the Church;[563] St. Ephrem commanded his friends not
to forget him after death, but to give proofs of their charity in
offering for the repose of his soul alms, prayers, and sacrifices,
especially on the thirtieth day;[563] Constantine the Great wished to be
interred under the Church of the Apostles in order that his soul might
be benefited by the prayers offered to the saints, by the mystic
sacrifice, and by the holy communion.[563] Such prayers and sacrifices
for the dead were offered by the Church sometimes during thirty and even
forty days, those offered on the third, the seventh, and the thirtieth
days being the most solemn.[564] The history of the venerable Bede, the
letters of St. Boniface, and of St. Lul prove that even in the ancient
Anglican church prayers were offered up for the souls of the dead;[565]
and a council of bishops held at Canterbury in 816 ordered that
immediately after the death of a bishop there shall be made for him
prayers and alms.[565] At Oxford, in 1437, All Souls College was
founded, chiefly as a place in which to offer prayers on behalf of the
souls of all those who were killed in the French wars of the fifteenth
century.
CONCLUSION
As seems to be evident from this and the two preceding chapters, all
these fêtes, rites, or observances of Christianity have a relation more
or less direct to paganism, and thus to ancient Celtic cults and
sacrifice offered to the dead, to spirits, and to the Tuatha De Danann
or Fairies. And the same set of ideas which operated among the Celts to
create their Fairy-Mythology--ideas arising out of a belief in or
knowledge of the one universal Realm of Spirit and its various orders of
invisible inhabitants--gave the Egyptians, the Indians, the Greeks, the
Romans, the Teutons, the Mexicans, the Peruvians, and all nations their
respective mythologies and religions; and we moderns are literally 'the
heirs of all the ages'.
SECTION IV
MODERN SCIENCE AND THE FAIRY FAITH; AND CONCLUSIONS[566]
CHAPTER XI
SCIENCE AND FAIRIES
'Puzzling and weird occurrences have been vouched for among all
nations and in every age. It is possible to relegate a good many
asserted occurrences to the domain of superstition, but it is not
possible thus to eliminate all.'--SIR OLIVER LODGE.
Method of Examination: Exoteric and Esoteric Aspects--The
X-quantity--Scientific Attitudes toward the Animistic Hypothesis:
Materialistic Theory; Pathological Theory; Delusion and Imposture
Theory--Problems of Consciousness: Dreams; Supernormal Lapse of
Time--Psychical Research and Fairies: Myers's Researches--Present
Position of Psychical Research--Psychical Research and Anthropology
in relation to Fairy-Faith, according to a special contribution
from Mr. Andrew Lang--Final Testing of the X-quantity--Conclusion:
the Celtic belief in Fairies and in Fairyland is scientific.
METHOD OF EXAMINATION
The promise made in the Introduction to examine the Why of the belief in
fairies must now be fulfilled by calling in the aid of modern science.
To adduce parallels when studying a religion or a mythology is worth
doing, in order to show the fundamental bond which unites all systems of
belief in things called spiritual; but it is more important to try to
understand why there should be such parallels and such a unifying
principle behind them. Perhaps there has been too much of a tendency
among students of folk-lore, and of anthropology as a whole, to be
content to do no more than to discover that the Eskimos in Greenland
hold a belief in spirits parallel to a belief in spirits held in Central
Africa, or that the Greek Pantheon (and possibly the Celtic one as well)
consists of goddesses which are apparently pre-Aryan and of gods which
are apparently Aryan. We, too, have drawn many parallels between the
Celtic Fairy-Faith and the various fairy-faiths throughout the world;
but now we should attempt to find out why there are animistic beliefs at
all.
This chapter, then, will confine itself to a scientific examination of
the more popular or, as it may be called, the exoteric aspect of the
Fairy-Faith, which has come to us directly from the masses of the Celtic
peoples. The following chapter, which is corollary to the present one,
will deal especially with the mystical aspect or, as this may be called
by contrast, the esoteric aspect of the same belief, which, in turn, has
come to us from learned mystics and seers, who form, in proportion, but
a very small minority of the modern Celts. Each of these complementary
aspects of the Celtic religion undoubtedly has its origin in the
remotest antiquity. This is probably more readily seen with respect to
the former than to the latter. The latter has been esoteric always, and
in our opinion shows an unbroken tradition (if only a very incomplete
one) from druidic times; and it depends less upon written records,
because the Druids had none, than upon oral transmission from age to
age. Both aspects of the Fairy-Faith have in modern times absorbed many
ideas from non-Celtic systems of religion and mystical thought. As Mr.
Jenner has suggested in his Introduction for Cornwall, and as certain
details in chapter ii clearly indicate, systems of modern theosophy have
had a marked influence in this respect; but it is impossible for us
to-day to say what parts of the Fairy-Faith are purely Celtic and what
are not so, because comparative studies prove that mysticism is
fundamentally the same in all ages and among all peoples. It is
psychologically true, also, that there must always exist some sort of
affinity between two sets of thought in order for them to coalesce.
Hence, if modern mysticism (derived from Oriental or other sources) has,
as we believe, affected Celtic mysticism as handed down from the dim
druidic ages, it is merely because the two occupy a common psychical
territory. We must therefore be content to examine scientifically the
Fairy-Faith as it now presents itself.
The analysis of evidence in chapter iii indicates clearly that there is
in the exoteric part of the modern Celtic belief in fairies considerable
degeneration from what must have been in pagan times a widespread and
highly developed animistic creed. In the esoteric part of it there will
be observed, instead of such degeneracy, a surprisingly elaborate system
of the most subtle speculation, which parallels that of East Indian
systems of metaphysics. If the belief be looked at in this comprehensive
manner, it seems to be clear that to some extent at least, as has been
pointed out already (pp. 99, 257), the Fairy-Faith in its purest form
originated amongst the most highly educated and scientific Celts of
ancient times rather than among their unlearned fellows. The two aspects
of the belief form an harmonious whole as they will be presented in this
Section IV. Chapter xi depends mostly upon the evidence set forth in
chapter ii. Chapter xii depends mostly upon the evidence set forth in
chapter vii.
In chapter iii we examined anthropologically the modern; and (both there
and in parts of chapters following) the historical and ancient belief in
fairies in Celtic countries, and found it to be in essence animistic.
Folk-imagination, social psychology, anthropomorphism generally,
adequately explained by far the greater mass of the evidence presented;
but the animistic background of the belief in question presented
problems which the strictly anthropological sciences are unable to
solve. The point has now been reached when these problems must be
presented to physiology and to psychology for solution. If they can be
completely solved by purely rational and physical data, then the
Fairy-Faith as a whole will have to be cast aside as worthless in the
eyes of science.
In our generation, however, such a casting aside is not to be the fate
of the folk-religion of the Celts: the following phenomena recorded in
chapter ii and elsewhere throughout our study, and designated as the x-
or unknown quantity of the Fairy-Faith, cannot at the present time be
satisfactorily explained by science: (1) Collective hallucinations and
veridical hallucinations; (2) objects moving without contact; (3) raps
and noises called 'supernatural'; (4) telepathy; (5) seership and
visions; (6) dream and trance states manifesting supernormal knowledge;
(7) 'mediumship' or 'spirit-possession'. Independently of our own Celtic
data in their support, the first class of phenomena are supported by an
enormous mass of good data scientifically collected; the second and
third class are less well supported; telepathy is almost generally
accepted as now being established; the last three classes are
hypothetically accepted by many authorities in pathology, psychology,
and psychical research.
SCIENTIFIC ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE ANIMISTIC HYPOTHESIS
Assertions similar to ours, that phenomena like these are incapable of
being explained away by any known laws of orthodox science, have helped
to bring about a marked division in the ranks of scientific workers. On
one hand there are those scientists who deny the existence of anything
not capable of being mathematically tested, weighed, dissected, or
otherwise analysed in laboratories; on the other hand, there are their
colleagues who, often in spite of previous bias toward materialism, have
arrived at a personal conviction that an animistic view of man is more
in harmony with their scientific experience than any other. Both schools
include men eminent in all branches of biological sciences.
Midway between these contending schools are the psycho-physicists who
maintain that man is a twofold being composed of a psychical and
physical part. Some of them are inclined to favour animism, others are
unwilling to regard the psychical part of man as separable from the
physical part. So the world of science is divided.
Under such chaotic conditions of science it is our right to accept one
view or another, or to reject all views and use scientific data
independently. There can be no final court of appeal in matters where
opinion is thus divided, save the experience of coming generations. We
are therefore content to state our own position and leave it to the
future for rejection or acceptance, as the case may be. To attempt a
critical examination of the thousand and one theories occupying the
modern arena of scientific controversy about the essential nature of man
is altogether beyond the scope of this work. We must, nevertheless,
blaze a rough footpath through the jungle of scientific theories, and,
at the outset, put on record our opposition to that school of scientific
workers who deny to man a supersensuous constitution. Their theory, if
carried out to its logical conclusion, is now essentially no different
from Feuerbach's theory at a time when science was far less developed
than it is to-day. He held that 'the object of sense, or the sensuous,
alone is really true, and therefore truth, reality, and the sensible are
one'.[567] To say that we know reality through sensual perception is an
error, as all schools of scientists must nowadays admit. Nature is for
ever illuding the senses; she masquerades in disguise until science
tears away her mask. We must always adjust the senses to the world
itself: where there are only vibrations in ether, man sees light; and in
atmospheric vibrations he hears sound. We only know things through the
way in which our senses react upon them. We sum up the world-problem by
saying: 'consciousness does not exhaust its object, the world.'[567]
Perceptibility and reality thus not being coincident, man and the
universe remain an unsolved problem, despite the noisy shoutings of the
materialist in his hermetically sealed and light-excluding case called
sensual perceptions. Science admits that all her explanations of the
universe are mere products of human understanding and perceptions by the
physical senses: the universe of science is wholly a universe of
phenomena, and behind phenomena, as no scientist would dare deny, there
must be the noumena, the ultimate causes of all things, as to which
science as yet offers no comprehensive hypothesis, much less an answer.
To consider the materialistic hypothesis as adequate to account for the
residuum or x-quantity of the Fairy-Faith would not even be reasonable,
and, incontestably, would not be scientific.
When scientists holding to the non-animistic view of life are driven
from their now for the most part abandoned fortress built by German
scientists of the last century, of whom Feuerbach was a type, they, in
opposing the animists, occupy a more modernly equipped fortress called
the Pathological Theory. This theory is that 'mediumship', telepathy,
hallucinations, or the voluntary and involuntary exercise of any
so-called 'psychical' faculties on the part of men and women, with the
resulting phenomena, can be explained as due to abnormal and
hence--according to its point of view--diseased states of the human
organism, or to some derangement of bodily functions, leading to
delusions resembling those of insanity, which by a sort of hypnosis
telepathically induced may even affect researchers and lead them into
erroneous conclusions. All scientists are in agreement with the
Pathological Theory in so far as it rejects as unworthy of serious
consideration all apparitions and abnormal phenomena save those observed
by sane and healthy percipients under ordinary conditions. And,
accordingly, whenever there can be shown in our percipients a diseased
mental or psychical state, we must eliminate their testimony without
argument. But since we have endeavoured to present no testimony from
Celtic percipients who are not physically and psychically normal, the
Pathological Theory at best can affect the x-quantity merely
hypothetically.
The following admission in regard to visual and auditory hallucinations
is here worth noting as coming from so thorough an exponent of
materialistic psychology as M. Théodule Ribot:--'There must exist
anatomical and physiological causes which would solve the problem, but
unfortunately they are hidden from us.' Of these hidden causes, which
he thinks create all psychical states of mind or consciousness called by
him 'disease of personality', M. Ribot says:--'Our ignorance of the
causes stops us short. The psychologist is here like the physician who
has to deal with a disease in which he can make out only the symptoms.
What physiological influences are they which thus alter the general tone
of the organism, consequently of the coenaesthesis, consequently too of
the memory? Is it some condition of the vascular system? Or some
inhibitory action, some arrest of function? We cannot say.'[568] And
after six years of most careful experimentation, M. Charles Richet,
Professor of Physiology in the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, reached
this conclusion:--'There exists in certain persons at certain moments a
faculty of acquiring knowledge which has no _rapport_ with our normal
faculties of that kind.'[569] We seem to have here the last words of
science touching the Pathological Theory.
When driven from their pathological stronghold, and they maintain that
they have not been driven from it, the non-animists always find a safe
way to cover their retreat by setting up the charge that all psychical
phenomena are fraudulent or else due to delusion on the part of
observers. In reply, psychical researchers readily admit that there is a
large percentage of mere trickery, delusion, and imposture in observed
'spirit' phenomena; some of which is deliberate on the part of the
'medium' and some of which is apparently not consciously induced.
Nevertheless, such investigators are not at all willing to say that
there is nothing more than this. The Delusion and Imposture Theory will
account for a very respectable proportion of these phenomena, but not
for all of them, and theoretically we shall admit its application to the
parallel phenomena attributed to fairies; though it must be acknowledged
that 'fairy' phenomena are for the most part spontaneously exhibited
rather than as in 'Spiritualism' set up through holding _séances_.
Further, there are comparatively few 'charmers' or 'wise men'--the fairy
'mediums' among the Celts--who ever make money out of their ability to
deal with the 'good people', or _Tylwyth Teg_; whence the margin of
encouragement for fraudulent production of 'fairy' phenomena is
extremely limited when compared with 'Spiritualism'.
After twenty-five years of experimentation, more or less continuous,
with 'mediums', during which every conceivable test for the detection of
fraud on their part was applied, William James put his conclusions on
record in these words:--'When imposture has been checked off as far as
possible, when chance coincidence has been allowed for, when
opportunities for normal knowledge on the part of the subject have been
noted, and skill in "fishing" and following clues unwittingly furnished
by the voice or face of bystanders have been counted in, those who have
the fullest acquaintance with the phenomena admit that in good mediums
_there is a residuum of knowledge displayed_ [italics are James's own]
that can only be called supernormal: the medium taps some source of
information not open to ordinary people.'[570] Mr. Andrew Lang, one of
the bravest of psychical researchers in England, not only would agree
with William James in this, but, having carefully examined the Delusion
and Imposture Theory from the more commanding point of view of an
anthropologist, would go further and include classical spiritualistic
phenomena as well as those existing among contemporary uncultured races.
He says:--'Meanwhile, the extraordinary similarity of savage and
classical spiritualistic rites, with the corresponding similarity of
alleged modern phenomena, raises problems which it is more easy to state
than to solve. For example, such occurrences as "rappings", as the
movement of untouched objects, as the lights of the _séance_ room, are
all easily feigned. But that ignorant modern knaves should feign
precisely the same raps, lights, and movements as the most remote and
unsophisticated barbarians, and as the educated Platonists of the
fourth century after Christ, and that many of the other phenomena should
be identical in each case, is certainly noteworthy.'[571] Evidently,
then, there is a large proportion of psychical and 'fairy' phenomena
which remain unexplained even after the Delusion and Imposture Theory
has been applied to such phenomena, and in all such cases we must look
further for a scientific explanation.
PROBLEMS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Our chief investigations will at first be directed more especially to
the problems common both to psychology and to psychical research,
namely, dream and trance states, hallucinations, and possessions, in
order to show what bearings, if any, they have in the eyes of science
upon parallel phenomena said to be due to fairies, and set forth in
chapter ii and anthropologically examined in chapter iii.
_Dreams_
The popular opinion that dreams are nonsense is quite overthrown by
definite psychological facts. When during sleep our sensory organs are
exposed to external irritants the impressions physically produced are
transmitted to the brain by the nervous system and react in dreams as
they would in the waking state, except that the reactions in the two
states of consciousness--the dream state and the waking state--differ in
proportion as the two states differ; but in both the Ego is the real
percipient.[572] Such stimuli as arise from after-theatre dinners,
wine-parties, and so forth, produce a well-known type of dreams; and the
same stimuli at the same period of time would produce an equal effect,
though an altered one, to suit the altered psycho-physical conditions,
if the waking state were active rather than the dream state, just as
would all dreams which arise from pathological disturbances in disease,
or abnormal physiological functions. This is evident from dreams of a
morbid and sensual type, which directly affect the physical organism and
its functions as parallel waking-states would. In all such dreams of the
lower order, animal and purely physical tendencies, which are directly
due to the state of the body, act very freely: an imperfectly balanced,
temporarily deranged, or diseased organism must correspondingly respond
to its driving forces. And it is clear from comparative study of
phenomena that these lower kinds of dream states express only the lower
or animal consciousness, which in most individuals is the predominant or
only consciousness even in the waking life; and not the higher
consciousness of the Ego or subconsciousness which may be expressed in
somnambulism, for 'in somnambulism there awakes an inner, second
Ego',[573] which is the Subliminal Self of Myers. Dr. G. F. Stout urges
against Myers's theory of the Subliminal Self that 'the usual
incoherence of dreams is an objection to regarding them as
manifestations of a stream of thought equal or superior in systematic
complexity and continuity to that of the waking self',[574] which
objection Myers also observed. But if we regard all dreams which are of
the lower order as being due to the imperfect response of the body to
its driving forces because of various bad physical conditions in the
body, and recognize that these driving forces depend ultimately on the
subconsciousness, the difficulty seems to be met by observing that under
such conditions there is no real mergence of the normal consciousness
into the subconsciousness. Hence ordinary dreams are within the ordinary
spectrum of consciousness; but extra-ordinary dreams pass beyond the
ordinary spectrum into the truly supernormal state of consciousness.
As all this indicates, dreams are of many classes: those of the lowest
type, which we have explained as due to bad physiological conditions in
the animal-man; those which are readily explainable as distorted
reflections of waking actions, often based on some stray thought or
suggestion of the day and then comparable to post-hypnotic suggestions.
Other dreams are demonstrably entirely outside the range of ordinary
mental or physical disturbances, actions, reflections, or suggestions of
the waking life, and seem thus 'to have a wider purview, and to indicate
that the record of external events which is kept within us is far fuller
than we know'.[575] In some dreams there is reasoning as well as memory,
and mathematicians have been known to solve problems in sleep: an
American inventor known to the writer's mother asserted that he had
dreamt out the details of a certain ice-manufacturing process which
proved successful when tested; through self-suggestion set up in the
waking state, R. L. Stevenson, upon entering the dream state, secured
details for his imaginary romances.[576] Dr. Stout himself, in
criticizing Myers's 'Subliminal Self', admits that 'in some very rare
instances, a man has achieved, while dreaming, intellectual performances
equalling or perhaps surpassing the best of which he was capable in
waking life';[577] and there are many authentic cases of dream
experiences which cannot possibly be explained as revivals of facts
fallen out of the range of the ordinary memory or consciousness. We seem
to be led to some hypothesis like this: in dreaming there is mental
activity which in the waking state is either functionless or else below
the psycho-physical threshold of sensibility; because much that is
subconscious in the non-dream state is in the dream state fully
conscious. And we probably do not remember one quarter of our dreams:
they belong to a mainly different order of consciousness.
Professor Freud's view of dreams coincides pretty generally with this
view. He holds that the subconsciousness is the storehouse out of which
dream contents are drawn and acted upon by the dream mind. Very much
distortion of the subconscious material takes place in the process, due
to what he calls the 'endopsychic censor'. In the waking state this
censor is always on the alert to keep out of consciousness all
subconscious processes or deposits, but in sleep the censor is less
alert, and allows some subconscious content to escape over into the
ordinary consciousness. The result is a dream distorted out of all
recognition of its origin. Such a dream seems to occupy a position
midway between what we have classed as the lowest or animal-mind dream
and the highest or subliminal dream. It possibly shows an harmonious
psycho-physical condition of the dream life, whereas the lowest type of
dream shows the preponderance of the physical or animal, and the highest
type of dream shows the preponderance of the psychical elements in man.
Further, it may be designated as the normal dream, and the other two
types respectively as the physically abnormal and the psychically
abnormal.
Professor Freud detects other marked processes in the dream state, all
of which help to illustrate the part of the Fairy-Faith dependent upon
dreaming experiences. (1) There is condensation of details frequently in
a proportion so great as one for ten and one for twenty; (2)
displacement of details, or 'a transvaluation of all values'; (3) much
dramatization; (4) regression, a retrograde movement of abstract mental
processes toward their primary conceptions; and (5) secondary
elaboration, an attempt to rationalize all dream-material.[578] Also,
Professor Freud discovered from his analysis of thousands of dreams that
the subconsciousness makes use of a sort of symbolism:--'This symbolism
in part varies with the individual, but in part is of a typical nature,
and seems to be identical with the symbolism which we suppose to lie
behind our myths and legends. It is not impossible that these latter
creations of the people may find their explanation from the study of
dreams.'[579] Such processes, taken as a whole, show that man possesses
a twofold consciousness, the ordinary consciousness and the
subconsciousness. And we have every reason to believe that subconscious
activities go on continually, in waking and in sleeping.
By experiments on his own perfectly healthy children, Wienholt proved
that there are natural forces existing whose stimulations are never
perceived in waking life: he made passes over the face and neck of his
son with an iron key at the distance of half an inch without touching
him, whereupon the boy began to rub those parts and manifested
uneasiness. Wienholt likewise experimented on his other children with
lead, zinc, gold, and other metals, and in most cases the children
'averted the parts so treated, rubbed them, or drew the clothes over
them'.[580] Therefore, in sleep the consciousness perceives objects
without physical contact; and this not inconceivably might suggest,
inversely, that in sleep the human consciousness can affect objects
without physical contact, as it is said fairies and the dead can, and in
the way psychical researchers know that objects can be affected.
We have on record an account of a most remarkable dream quite the same
in character as dreams wherein certain Celts believe they have met the
dead or fairies. Professor Hilprecht had a broken Assyrian cylinder in
cuneiform which he could not decipher; but in a dream an Assyrian priest
in ancient garb appeared to him and deciphered the inscription. Of this
dream Myers observed:--'We seem to have reached the utmost intensity of
sleep faculty within the limits of our ordinary spectrum.'[581]
We may sum up the results of our examination of dreams by saying that
scientific analysis of the dream life _in its higher ranges_ proves that
our Ego is not wholly embraced in self-consciousness, that the Ego
exceeds the self-consciousness. Instead of a continuity of
consciousness which constitutes self-consciousness we have parallel
states of consciousness for the one subject, the Ego. Our study of the
Celtic theory of re-birth, in the following chapter, will further
explain this subtle aspect of the dream psychology.
When such a conclusion is applied to the Fairy-Faith, the various
dream-like or trance-like states during which ancient and contemporary
Celts testify to having been in Fairyland are seen to be scientifically
plausible. In this aspect then, Fairyland, stripped of all its literary
and imaginative glamour and of its social psychology, in the eyes of
science resolves itself into a reality, because it is one of the states
of consciousness co-ordinate with the ordinary consciousness. This
statement will be confirmed by a brief examination of what is called
'supernatural lapse of time', and which is invariably connected with
Fairyland.
_'Supernatural' Lapse of Time_
It has already been made clear that in the dream or somnambulic state
there are invariably modifications of time and space relations; and
these give rise to what has been termed the 'supernatural lapse of
time'. Two conditions are possible: either a few minutes of waking-state
time equal long periods in the non-waking state; or else, as is usually
the case in the Fairy-Faith, the reverse is true.
The first condition, which we shall examine first, occasionally appears
in the Fairy-Faith through such a statement as this:--'Sometimes one may
thus go to Faerie for an hour or two' (p. 39). Similarly, as physicians
well know, patients under narcotics will experience events extending
over long periods of time within a few minutes of normal time. De
Quincey, the famous opium-eater, records dreams of ten to sixty years'
supernatural duration, and some quite beyond all limits of the waking
experience. Fechner records a case of a woman who was nearly drowned and
then resuscitated after two minutes of unconsciousness, and who in that
time lived over again all her past life.[582] Another even more
remarkable case than this last concerns Admiral Beaufort, who, having
fallen into the water, was unconscious also for two minutes, and yet he
says that not only during that short space of time did he travel over
every incident of his life with the details of 'every minute and
collateral feature', but that there crowded into his imagination 'many
trifling events which had long been forgotten'.[583]
We shall now present examples to illustrate the second condition. Höhne
was in an unbroken magnetic sleep from the first of January to the tenth
of May, and when he came out of it he was overcome with surprise to see
that spring had arrived, he having lain down--as he believed--only the
day before.[584] Had Höhne been an Irishman, he might very reasonably
have explained the situation by saying that he had been with the fairies
for what seemed only a night. The Seeress of Prevorst, in a similar
sleep, passed through a period of six years and five months, and then
awoke as from a one-night sleep with no memory of what she did during
that time; but some time afterwards memory of the period came to her so
completely that she recalled all its details.[585] Old people, and some
young people too, among the Celts, who go to Fairyland for varying
periods of time, sometimes extending over weeks (as in a case I knew in
West Ireland), have just such dreams or trance-states as this. Another
example follows:--Chardel, in fleeing from the Revolution, took ship
from Brittany and was obliged to induce somnambulism on his wife in
order to overcome her horror of the sea. When the couple landed in
America and Chardel awakened his wife, she had no recollection whatever
of the Atlantic voyage, and believed herself still in Brittany.[586]
Both Helmholtz and Fechner show[587] that the functions of the nervous
system are associated with a definite time-measure, so it follows that
consciousness in an organic body like man's depends upon the nervous
system; but, as these examples and similar ones in the Fairy-Faith
show, certain conscious states exist independently of the human nerves,
and they therefore set up a strong presumption that complete
consciousness can exist independently of the physical nerve-apparatus.
And in proceeding to submit this presumption of a supersensuous
consciousness to the further test of science we shall at the same time
be testing the statements made by wholly reliable seer-witnesses, like
the Irish mystic and seer (p. 65), that not only can men and women enter
Fairyland during trance-states for a brief period, but that at death
they can enter it for an unlimited period. Further, what is for our
study the most important of all statements will likewise be tested,
namely, that in Fairyland there are conscious non-human entities like
the _Sidhe_ races.
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND FAIRIES
Our present task, then, is to extend the examination beyond incarnate
consciousness into the realm of the new psychology or physical research,
where, as a working hypothesis, it is assumed that there is discarnate
consciousness, which by the Celtic peoples is believed to exist and to
exhibit itself in various individual aspects as fairies.
As to what science demands as proof of the survival of human
consciousness after death, there has been no clear consensus of opinion.
To prove merely the existence of 'ghosts' would not do; it is necessary
to show by a series of proofs (1) that discarnate intelligences exist,
(2) that they possess complete and persistent personal energy wholly
within themselves, (3) that they are the actual unit of consciousness
and memory known to have manifested itself on this plane of existence
through particular incarnate personalities now deceased. Various
psychical researchers assert that they have already reached these proofs
and are convinced, often in spite of their initial scientific attitude
of antagonism toward all psychic phenomena, of the survival of the human
consciousness after the death of the human body; and we shall proceed to
present the testimony of some of them.
In chapter vii, concerning _Phantasms of the Dead_, forming part of
Frederick W. H. Myers's _Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily
Death_, and in the two chapters which follow, on _Motor Automatism_, and
on _Trance, Possession, and Ecstasy_, all the necessary proofs above
noted have been adduced; and the author was thereby one of the very
first psychical researchers to have recorded before the world his
conversion from the non-animistic hypothesis to the ancient belief that
Man is immortal; for he admits his conviction that the human
consciousness does incontestably survive the decay of the physical body.
Types of some of these well-attested and proved cases offered as
evidence by Myers may be briefly summarized as follows:--Repeated
apparitions indicating intimate acquaintance with some post-mortem fact
like the place of burial; single apparitions with knowledge of the
affairs of surviving friends, or of the impending death of a survivor,
or of spirits of persons dead after the apparition's decease; cases
where professed spirits manifest knowledge of their earth-life, as of
some secret compact made with survivors; cases of apparitional
appearances near a corpse or a grave; occasional cases of the appearance
of the dead to several persons collectively.[588] Under motor
automatism, some of the most striking phenomena tending toward proof are
cases where automatic writing has announced a death unknown to the
persons present; knowledge communicated in a _séance_, not known to any
person present, but afterwards proved to have been possessed by the
deceased; automatic writing by a child in language unknown to her.
In chapter ix trance or possession is defined by Myers, in the same list
of proofs, as 'a development of Motor Automatism resulting at last in a
substitution of personality'; and this harmonizes with the theory of the
control of a living organism by discarnate spirits, and is supported by
an overwhelming mass of scientific experiment. Telepathy suggests the
possibility of communication between the living and the living and
between the living and the dead, and, we may add, between the dead and
the dead--as in Fairyland--without the consideration of space or time as
known in the lower ranges of mental action; and that the communication
does not depend upon vibrations from a material brain-mass. Telepathy in
these first two aspects has been likewise accepted as a scientific fact
by workers in psychical research like Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver
Lodge, William James, and by many others. All such phenomena as these,
now being so carefully investigated and weighed by men thoroughly
trained in science, are, so to speak, the protoplasmic background of all
religions, philosophies, or systems of mystical thought yet evolved on
this planet; and in all essentials they confirm the x-quantity presented
in the evidence of the Fairy-Faith.
Dr. G. F. Stout, an able representative of the school of non-converts to
the theories in psychology propounded by Myers and by psychical
research, states his position thus:--'But, at least, my doubt is not
dogmatic denial, and I agree with Mr. Myers that there is no sufficient
reason for being peculiarly sceptical concerning communications from
departed spirits. I also agree with him that the alleged cases of such
communication cannot be with any approach to probability explained away
as mere instances of telepathy.'[589] In addition, Dr. Stout says:--'The
conception which has been really useful to him is that of telepathy.
Given that communication takes place between individual minds unmediated
by ordinary physical conditions, we may regard intercourse with departed
spirits as a special case of the same kind of process. And clairvoyance,
precognition, &c., may perhaps be referred to telepathic communication
either with departed spirits or with other intelligences superior to the
human.'[589] In this last phrase, 'intelligences superior to the human',
Dr. Stout assumes our own position, that hypothetically there is good
reason for thinking that discarnate non-human intelligences--such as the
Irish call the _Sidhe_--may exist and communicate with, or influence in
some unknown way, the living, as during 'mediumship' and in 'seership'.
Mr. Andrew Lang points out, in his reply to Dr. Stout's criticism, that
the only legitimate scientific resource for overthrowing Myers's
position, since the evidence is 'mathematically incapable of explanation
by chance coincidence', is to say that several people are deliberate
forgers and liars. And he adds:--'To myself (but only to myself and a
small circle) the evidence is irrefragable, from our lifetime knowledge
of the percipient.'[590] But the animistic position does not by any
means depend upon the evidence presented by Myers, no matter how
incontestably reliable it is. We have only to examine the voluminous
publications of the _Society for Psychical Research_ (London) to realize
this, and especially the _Report on the Census of Hallucinations of
Modern Spiritualism_, by Professor Sidgwick's Committee (_P. S. P. R._,
London).
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND ANTHROPOLOGY IN RELATION TO THE FAIRY-FAITH
_According to a special contribution from Mr. Andrew Lang._
Mr. Andrew Lang, who has done a special service to science by showing
that psychical research is inseparably related to anthropology, has
favoured us with a statement of his own position toward this
relationship and has made it directly applicable to the Fairy-Faith. In
a general way, but not in some important details (as indicated in our
annotations) we agree with Mr. Lang's position, which he states as
follows:--
Mr. Evans Wentz has asked me to define my position towards
psychical research in relation to anthropology. I have done so in
my book, _The Making of Religion_. The alleged abnormal or
supernormal occurrences which psychical research examines are, for
the most part, 'universally human,' and, whether they happen or do
not happen, whether they are the results of malobservation, or of
fraud, or are merely mythical, as _human_ they cannot be wisely
neglected by anthropology.
The fairy-folk, under many names, in many tongues, are everywhere
objects of human belief, in Central Australia, in New Zealand, in
the isles of the Pacific, as in the British Isles, Lowland or
Highland, Celtic in the main, or English in the main, I conceive
the various beings, fairies, brownies, _Iruntarinia_, _Djinns_, or
what you will, _to be purely mythical_. I am incapable of believing
that they are actual entities, who carry off men and women; steal
and hide objects (especially as the _Iruntarinia_ do); love or
hate, persecute or kiss human beings; practise music, vocal and
instrumental; and in short 'play the pliskies' with which they are
universally credited by the identical workings of the human fancy.
They tend to shade away, on one side, into the denizens of the
House of Hades--phantasms of the dead. The belief in such phantasms
may be partially based on experience, whether hallucinatory or
otherwise and inexplicably produced.[591]
As far as psychical research studies report of these phantasms it
approaches the realm of 'the Fairy Queen Proserpine'. As far as
such research examines the historical or contemporary stories of
the _Poltergeist_, it touches on fairies: because the Irish, for
example, attribute to the agency of fairies the modern
_Poltergeist_ phenomena, whether these, in each case, be fraudulent
or, up to now, be unexplained.
There are not more than two or three alleged visions of the
traditional fairies in the annals of psychical research; and I have
met with but few sane and educated persons who profess to have seen
phantoms at all resembling the traditional fairy; while phantasms
supposed to be of the dead, the dying, and the absent are
frequently reported. On the whole, psychical research has very
little concern with the fairy-belief in its typical forms, and if
the researcher did find modern cases of fairy visions alleged by
sane and educated percipients, he would be apt to explain them by
suggestion acting on the subconscious self.[592]
1 MARLOES ROAD, LONDON, W.
_September_ 26, 1910.
Concerning phantasms of the dead into which, as above pointed out, the
fairy-folk tend to shade away, Mr. Lang has elsewhere said:--'On the
whole, if the evidence is worth anything, there are real objective
ghosts, and there are also telepathic hallucinations: so that the
scientific attitude is to believe in both, if in either.'[593] And he
shows that while anthropologists have explained all animistic beliefs as
the results of primitive men's philosophizing 'on life, death, sleep,
dreams, trances, shadows, the phenomena of epilepsy, and the illusions
of starvation', 'normal phenomena, psychological and psychical, might
suggest most of the animistic beliefs.'[593] In _The Making of
Religion_, Mr. Lang has expanded this anthropological argument so as to
make it even more fully embrace psychical research.
If we apply the brilliant results of Mr. Lang's investigations to our
own, it is apparent that the background of the Fairy-Faith, like that of
all religions, is animistic, as we have argued in chapter iii; that it
must have grown up in ancient times into its traditional form out of a
pre-Celtic followed by a pre-Christian Celtic religion; these latter
due, in turn, to actual psychical experiences, such as hallucinations,
visions of different sorts, clairvoyance, 'mediumship', and magical
knowledge on the part of Druid priests and, probably, to some extent, on
the part of the common people as well; and, finally, that the living
Fairy-Faith depends not so much upon ancient traditions, oral and
recorded, as upon recent and contemporary psychical experiences, vouched
for by many 'seers' and other percipients among our witnesses, and now
placed on record by us in chapter ii and elsewhere throughout this
study.
THE PRESENT POSITION OF PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
Sir William Crookes, the well-known English authority in physical
science, was almost the first scientist to become seriously interested
in psychics, and in Part III of _Notes of an Enquiry into the Phenomena
called Spiritual, during the Years 1870-1873_ (London), boldly
affirms:--'It will be seen that the facts are of the most astounding
character, and seem utterly irreconcilable with all known theories of
modern science. Having satisfied myself of their _truth_, it would be
moral cowardice to withhold my testimony because my previous
publications were ridiculed by critics and others.' And this conclusion
reached forty years ago has not been reversed, but has been confirmed by
one after another of learned scientists on both sides of the Atlantic.
In 1908, Sir Oliver Lodge, Principal of the University of Birmingham,
and at present one of the best known of scientists concerned with the
study of spiritual phenomena, stated his position thus:--'On the whole,
I am of those who, though they would like to see further and still
stronger and more continued proofs, are of opinion that a good case has
been made out, and that as the best working hypothesis at the present
time it is legitimate to grant that lucid moments of intercourse with
deceased persons may in the best cases supervene.... The boundary
between the two states--the known and the unknown--is still substantial,
but it is wearing thin in places; and like excavators engaged in boring
a tunnel from opposite ends, amid the roar of water and other noises, we
are beginning to hear now and again the strokes of the pickaxes of our
comrades on the other side.'[594] In 1909, Sir Oliver Lodge published
_The Survival of Man_, in which, after a careful exposition, covering
over three hundred pages, of the definite results of much scientific
experimentation by the best scientists of Europe and America, in such
psychical phenomena as Telepathy or Thought Transference, Telepathy and
Clairvoyance, Automatism and Lucidity, the following tentative
conclusion is reached:--'The first thing we learn, perhaps the only
thing we clearly learn in the first instance, is _continuity_. There is
no such sudden break in the conditions of existence as may have been
anticipated; and no break at all in the continuous and conscious
identity of genuine character and personality.'[594] And his personal
conviction is that 'Intelligent co-operation between other than
embodied human minds than our own ... has become possible'.[595]
William James, who was one of the chief psychical researchers in the
United States, published his conclusions in October 1909; and of
psychical phenomena he wrote:--'As to there being such real natural
types of phenomena ignored by orthodox science, I am not baffled at all,
for I am fully convinced of it.' Of 'mediumship', he postulated the very
interesting theory of a universally diffused 'soul-stuff', which
elsewhere (p. 254) we have referred to as the scientific equivalent to
the Polynesian _Mana_: 'My own dramatic sense tends instinctively to
picture the situation as an interaction between slumbering faculties in
the automatist's mind and a cosmic environment of _other consciousness_
of some sort which is able to work upon them. If there were in the
universe a lot of diffuse soul-stuff, unable of itself to get into
consistent personal form, or to take permanent possession of an
organism, yet always craving to do so, it might get its head into the
air, parasitically, so to speak, by profiting by weak spots in the
armour of human minds, and slipping in and stirring up there the
sleeping tendencies to personate.' Expanding this theory into a
'pan-psychic' view of the universe and assuming a 'mother-sea' of
consciousness, a bank upon which we all draw, James asked these
questions about it, which educated Celtic seers ask themselves about the
_Sidhe_ or Fairy-World and its also collective consciousness or life:
'What is its own structure? What is its inner topography?... What are
the conditions of individuation or insulation in this mother-sea? To
what tracts, to what active systems functioning separately in it, do
personalities correspond? Are individual "spirits" constituted there?
How numerous, and of how many hierarchic orders may these then be? How
permanent? How transient? And how confluent with one another may they
become?'[596] We should ask the reader to compare this scientific
attitude with the almost identical attitude taken up with respect to the
_Sidhe_ Races and the constitution of their world and life by the Irish
mystic and seer (pp. 60 ff.).
M. Camille Flammarion, the well-known French astronomer, is another of
the pioneer psychical researchers; and in his psychic studies, entitled,
as translated in an English edition, _The Unknown_, recently announced
these definite conclusions:--'(1) _The soul exists as a real entity
independent of the body._ (2) _It is endowed with faculties still
unknown to science._ (3) _It is able to act at a distance, without the
intervention of the senses._' And in his _Mysterious Psychic Forces_
(Boston, 1907, pp. 452-3), he says:--'The conclusions of the present
work concord with those of the former (_The Unknown_).... I may sum up
the whole matter with the single statement that there exists in nature,
in myriad activity, a _psychic element_ the essential nature of which is
still hidden from us.'
THE FINAL TESTING OF THE X-QUANTITY
This chapter can now be brought to its logical conclusion by directly
applying the results so far attained to our still vigorous x-quantity or
residuum gathered out of the Fairy-Faith. We have, although hurriedly,
blazed a rough pathway through the necessary parts of the jungle of
scientific theories, and have arrived at a very considerable clearing
made by the pioneers, the psychical researchers. We seem, in fact, to
have arrived at a point in our long investigations where we can
postulate scientifically, on the showing of the data of psychical
research, the existence of such invisible intelligences as gods, genii,
daemons, all kinds of true fairies, and disembodied men. It is not
necessary to produce here, in addition to what already has been set
forth, the very voluminous detailed evidence of psychical research as to
the existence of such intelligences. The general statement may be made
that there are hundreds of carefully proven cases of phenomena or
apparitions precisely like many of those which the Celtic peoples
attribute to fairies.[597]
Various explanations or theories are offered by our men of science as to
what these invisible intelligences are, for none of our scientists would
say that the dead alone are responsible, even in a majority of cases,
for the observed phenomena and apparitions, but rather such beings as we
call daemons, fairies, and elementals. M. Camille Flammarion says:--'The
greater part of the phenomena observed--noises, movement of tables,
confusions, disturbances, raps, replies to questions asked--are really
childish, puerile, vulgar, often ridiculous, and rather resemble the
pranks of mischievous boys than serious bona-fide actions. It is
impossible not to notice this. Why should the souls of the dead amuse
themselves in this way? The supposition seems almost absurd.'[598] There
could be no better description of the pranks which house-haunting
fairies like brownies and Robin Goodfellows and elementals enjoy than
this; and to suppose that the dead perform such mischievous and playful
acts is, in truth, absurd. M. Flammarion also says:--'Two inescapable
hypotheses present themselves. Either it is we who produce these
phenomena' (and this is not reasonable) 'or it is spirits. But mark this
well: these spirits are not necessarily the souls of the dead; for other
kinds of spiritual beings may exist, and space may be full of them
without our ever knowing anything about it, except under unusual
circumstances. _Do we not find in the different ancient literatures,
demons, angels, gnomes, goblins, sprites, spectres, elementals, &c.?
Perhaps these legends are not without some foundation in fact._'[598]
On 'the phenomena of percussive and allied sound'--such as fairies and
the dead are said to produce--Sir William Crookes made this
report:--'The intelligence governing the phenomena is sometimes
manifestly below that of the medium. It is frequently in direct
opposition to the wishes of the medium.... The intelligence is
sometimes of such a character as to lead to the belief that it does not
emanate from any person present.'[599] In the case of the 'medium' Mr.
Home, Sir William Crookes used mechanical tests and proved to his own
satisfaction that physical objects moved without Mr. Home or any other
person being in contact with them,[600] in the way that fairies are
believed to move objects. These phenomena parallel remarkable ancient
and modern examples of the same nature: e. g. in the affair at
Cideville, France, brought before a magistrate, there is sworn evidence
by reputable witnesses that pillows and coverlets floated away from a
bed in which two children were asleep, and that furniture in the house
moved without contact.[601] Mrs. Margaret Quinn, originally of
Mullingar, but now of Howth, gave this remarkable testimony:--'When I
was a little girl, I lived with my mother in West Meath, near Mullingar.
A _fort_ was at the back of our house, and mother used to hear music
playing round our house all night, and she has seen _them_ (the _good
people_). It often happened there at home that we would have clothes out
on the line and they would float off like a balloon at a time when there
would not be a bit of wind and in daylight. My mother would come out and
say, "God bless _them_ (the _good people_). _They_ will bring them
back." And then the clothes would slowly come floating back to the
line.' And in our chapter ii there is other testimony concerning objects
moved without contact with human beings, either through the agency of
fairies or of the dead. After due investigation of such and various
other phenomena, Sir William Crookes, among other theories to explain
them, gives this theory:--'_The actions of a separate order of beings,
living on this earth, but invisible and immaterial to us. Able, however,
occasionally to manifest their presence. Known in almost all countries
and ages as demons (not necessarily bad), gnomes, fairies, kobolds,
elves, goblins, Puck, &c._'[602] Here we seem to have what ought to be,
by this stage of our study, proof of the Psychological Theory of the
nature and origin of the Fairy-Faith.
Let us now draw a few of the direct parallels thus suggested. Consider
first how a fairy is said to appear, how it is described, and how it
vanishes, and then compare the facts stated in the following case of a
phantom reported by Sir William Crookes[603]:--'In the dusk of the
evening' (just the time when fairies are most easily seen) 'during a
_séance_ with Mr. Home at my house, the curtains of a window about eight
feet from Mr. Home were seen to move. A dark, shadowy, semi-transparent
form, like that of a man, was then seen by all present standing near the
window, waving the curtain with his hand. As we looked, the form faded
away and the curtain ceased to move.' The following--Mr. Home as in the
former case being the 'medium'--is a still more striking instance:--'A
phantom form came from a corner of the room, took an accordion in its
hand, and then glided about the room playing the instrument. The form
was visible to all present for many minutes, Mr. Home also being seen at
the same time. On its coming rather close to a lady who was sitting
apart from the rest of the company, she gave a slight cry, upon which it
vanished.' Compare the following types of observed phenomena by the same
authority with what our Welsh witness from the Pentre Evan country said
about death-candles (p. 155):--'I have seen a luminous cloud floating
upwards to a picture.' Or, 'I have more than once had a solid
self-luminous body placed in my hand by a hand which did not belong to
any person in the room. In the light I have seen a luminous cloud hover
over a heliotrope on a side-table, break a sprig off, and carry the
sprig to a lady; and on some occasions I have seen a similar luminous
cloud visibly condense to the form of a hand and carry small objects
about.' Similar lights, parallel to the death lights or death tokens
observed by Celtic percipients in Wales and in Brittany, and to what in
Ireland are called the 'lights' of the 'good people' or 'gentry'--all of
which phenomena are traceable to no material causes as yet
discovered--are reported by Iamblichus and others of his school.[604]
And such lights are among phenomena best attested by modern psychical
researchers. Supernormally produced music, said to have been produced by
daemons, which is parallel to that called by several of our own
percipients 'fairy' music, was also known to the Neo-Platonists;[604]
and in the scientific investigations to which Mr. Home was subjected,
musical sounds were heard which could not be attributed to any known
agency. In haunted houses, as psychical research discovers, the rustling
of dresses, movements of objects, and sounds, often occur spontaneously
without and with the occurrence of apparitions;[604] and these phenomena
are parallel to certain ones which we have had cited by Celtic
percipients as due to fairies. Mr. Lang, too, has set forth clearly the
probability of real 'haunts' or spirits possessing particular
places--just as fairies are said to possess particular localities or
buildings in Celtic lands.
_The Report on the Census of Hallucination_ by Professor Sidgwick's
Committee has furnished data sufficiently good to convince many
scientists that phantoms (comparable in a way with Irish banshees and
the Breton _Ankou_) do appear to the living directly before a death as
though announcing it.[605] According to other equally reliable data,
sometimes a phantasmal voice--like certain 'fairy' voices--has given
news of a death.[606] Myers and others have studied and recorded many
cases of the dead appearing, as the Celtic dead appear when they have
been _taken_ to Fairyland.[606]
In _Phantasms of the Living_, by Gurney, Myers, and Podmore, the
explanation of apparitions which are coincident with a death as being
generated by a telepathic influence exerted upon the percipient by the
dying friend, suggests the most rational interpretation of certain
parallel kinds of apparitions, of the dead or of fairies, who, as in
these last examples, appear dressed in garments. It is that all such
apparitional appearances, coincident with a death or not, are equally
due to a telepathic force exerted by an agency independent of the
percipient. This outside force acts as a stimulus upon the nervous
apparatus of the person to whom it is thus transmitted, and causes him
to project out of some part of his own consciousness (which part may
have passed over into the subconsciousness) a visualized image already
impressed there. The image has natural affinity or correspondence with
the outside stimulus which arouses it.
Such an hypothesis curiously agrees in part with the one put forth by
our seer-witness, the Irish mystic (p. 60 ff.). He would probably agree
as to the visualization process in most types of ordinary apparitions.
In addition, he holds that Nature herself has a memory: there is some
indefinable psychic element in the earth's atmosphere upon which all
human and physical actions or phenomena are photographed or impressed.
These records in Nature's mind correspond to mental impressions in us.
Under certain inexplicable conditions, normal persons who are not seers
may observe Nature's mental records like pictures cast upon a
screen--often like moving pictures. Seers can always see them if they
wish; and uncritical seers frequently mistake these phantom records or
pictures existing on the psychical envelope of the planet for actual
events now occurring, and for actual beings--fairies of various kinds
and the dead. A recent book entitled _An Adventure_, by Elizabeth
Morison and Frances Lamont (pseudonyms), adequately illustrates what we
mean by such phantom pictures. During the year 1901 these two cultured
ladies saw at _le petit Trianon_ of Marie Antoinette records in the mind
of Nature of past historical events dating from about 1789. Of this
there seems not to be the slightest doubt. The fairy boat-race on Lough
Gur, as described by Count John de Salis (p. 80), and the procession
seen on Tara Hill of fairies 'like soldiers of ancient Ireland in
review' (p. 33), probably illustrate the same kind of phenomena (cf. pp.
55-7, 68, 74, 123, 126, &c.).
But in visions by natural seers, following again the theory of our Irish
seer-witness, there is present not only an outside force (as seems to be
the case when ordinary apparitions are seen) but also a veridical being
with a form and life of its own in a world of its own. Such a real
entity is as distinct from a picture in the memory of Nature as a living
person is distinct from the mental picture which his friend holds and
projects as a visualized image when responding to a telepathic stimulus
sent by him. The natural seer, not being obliged to see with his normal
sense of vision, need not use the normal method (namely, visualization)
of responding to the outside telepathic stimulus, and so does not see
the ordinary apparitional ghost or fairy. He exercises 'second-sight' or
ecstatic vision, and while so doing is in the same plane of
consciousness and under the same conditions of perception as the
intelligence which projects upon him the stimulus inducing automatically
such 'second-sight' or ecstatic vision. Therefore, if the intelligence
has a form and nature of its own, the seer and not the non-seer will
perceive them in their own world while his consciousness is temporarily
functioning there and out of the normal plane of mental action. In other
words, in the normal plane the non-seer reacts normally upon the same
stimulus upon which the seer reacts abnormally. The former percipient
sees a non-real apparition, a visualized image out of his own
experience; the latter claims to see a real being. The real being exists
normally under conditions which are abnormal to the non-seer, but which
to the seer become normal. The visualization of the non-seer is a
makeshift, a psycho-physical reaction to a purely psychical stimulus.
It is mathematically possible to conceive fourth-dimensional beings, and
if they exist it would be impossible in a third-dimensional plane to see
them as they really are. Hence the ordinary apparition is non-real as a
form, whereas the beings, which wholly sane and reliable seers claim to
see when exercising seership of the highest kind, may be as real to
themselves and to the seers as human beings are to us here in this
third-dimensional world when we exercise normal vision.
Concerning actual demon-possession, which among spiritualists and
psychical researchers would be called spirit phenomena through
'mediums', and which, as we have elsewhere pointed out (pp. 249 ff.),
offers the most rational explanation for the changeling belief and
related Celtic beliefs about fairies, Dr. J. L. Nevius, in his _Demon
Possession_, offers very important scientific data relating to China.
Dr. F. F. Ellinwood, who like that authority studied strange psychical
phenomena in the interior districts of the Shantung Province (China) for
many years, says in an introductory note to that work:--'Antecedently to
any knowledge of the New Testament' (so full of cases of
demon-possession) 'the people of North China believed fully in the
possession of the minds and bodies of men by evil spirits.... It has
always been understood that the personality of the evil spirit usurped,
or for the time being supplanted, that of the unwilling victim, and
acted through his organs and faculties. Physical suffering and sometimes
violent paroxysms attended the presence and active influence of the
spirit.' In the face of so many cases of such phenomena observed in
China by the same authorities, Dr. Ellinwood adds, as Dr. Nevius's
conclusion, that 'no theory has been advanced which so well accords with
the facts as the simple and unquestioning conclusion so universally held
by the Christians of Shantung, viz. that evil spirits do in many
instances possess or control the mind and will of human beings'.
Hypnotism shows how one strong and magnetic human will can control the
mind and will of its subject; the scientific results attained by the
Society for Psychical Research in its study of spiritualism show a
disembodied will or intelligence controlling and using the body of a
living human being; and Dr. Nevius writes:--'Now may not
demon-possession be only a different, a more advanced form of
hypnotism?' Criminal records of Europe and America show many examples of
condemned criminals who confessed in all sincerity that some invisible
or outside influence led them against their better judgement to commit
crime; and very often in such examples the past lives of the condemned
are so good as to set up a strong probability in favour of their belief
in possession. And altogether in accord with the evidence of modern
mediumship, as well as that of mediumship among the ancients, Dr. Nevius
says of Chinese demon-possession:--'When normal consciousness is
restored after one of these attacks, the subject is entirely ignorant of
everything which has passed during that state. The most striking
characteristic of those cases is that the subject evidences another
personality, and the normal personality for the time being is partially
or wholly dormant. The new personality presents traits of character
utterly different from those which really belong to the subject in his
normal state, and this change of character is, with rare exceptions, in
the direction of moral obliquity and impurity. Many persons while
"demon-possessed" give evidence of knowledge which cannot be accounted
for in ordinary ways.... They sometimes converse in foreign languages of
which in their normal states they are entirely ignorant. There are often
heard, in connexion with "demon possessions", rappings and noises in
places where no physical cause for them can be found; and tables,
chairs, crockery, and the like are moved about without, so far as can be
discerned, any application of physical force, exactly as we are told is
the case among spiritualists.'[607]
CONCLUSION
Our investigations (and far more exhaustive ones than ours touching
similar psychical phenomena) show, when applied to the residuum or
x-quantity, these chief results: (1) The Materialistic and the Delusion
and Imposture Theories can be dismissed as not affecting it. (2)
Authorities do not agree in their opinions as to the pathological and
psychological processes with which we are directly concerned; they are
quite uncertain how to explain the human brain in all its more subtle
functions, or the sympathetic nervous system and nervous states
generally, in relation especially to human consciousness under various
abnormal but not diseased conditions of the organism; and they do not
propose any conclusions as final, but only as very weakly tentative,
though some of these are in favour of a psycho-physical view of man in
which there is a close approach to the present more advanced position of
psychical research. (3) Psychical research has furnished proof
sufficient to convince such first-class scientists as Sir William
Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, William James, M. Camille Flammarion, and
others, that states of consciousness exist in nature outside of, though
probably connected with, the consciousness of incarnate human beings,
and that these intelligences can produce effects on matter and on the
psychical constitution of man; and some of these scientists consider
certain of such intelligences to be discarnate men and women. (4)
Scientific proof has been adduced that there are genuine
hallucinations--like those relating to fairies--of human-like forms,
seen by single percipients, or collectively; and such collective
hallucinations are incapable of being explained away, which is equally
true of apparitions seen by a single percipient to move physical
objects. (5) Many of the foremost psychical researchers, including those
named above, accept 'mediumship' or spirit-possession as the best
working hypothesis to explain automatism. (6) In the accepted theory of
telepathy we have support for assuming that, like hypnosis, it is a
psychical process, and can be carried on either by two embodied spirits
or human beings, or by a disembodied spirit and one still incarnate.
Myers's theories, including that of the Subliminal Self, embody all the
preceding ones and agree in details with them. (7) The results taken
together harmonize with those attained in our study of psychical
phenomena attributed by the Celtic peoples to fairies; and, if they be
accepted, older psychological and pathological theories must be
thoroughly revised in many cases, or else cast aside as worthless.
Finally, since we have demonstrated that the background of the
Fairy-Faith, and hence the residuum or x-quantity of it, is like the
background of all religious and mystical beliefs, being animistic, and
like them has grown up in ancient times out of definite psychical
phenomena identical in character with those now studied by science, and
is kept alive by an unbroken succession of 'seers' and percipients, we
have a clear right to set up under scientific authority these tentative
conclusions: (1) Fairyland exists as a supernormal state of
consciousness into which men and women may enter temporarily in dreams,
trances, or in various ecstatic conditions; or for an indefinite period
at death. (2) Fairies exist, because in all essentials they appear to be
the same as the intelligent forces now recognized by psychical
researchers, be they thus collective units of consciousness like what
William James has called 'soul-stuff', or more individual units, like
veridical apparitions. (3) Our examination of living children said to
have been changed by fairies shows (see pp. 250-1) (_a_) that many
changelings are so called merely because of some bodily deformity or
because of some abnormal mental or pathological characteristics capable
of an ordinary rational explanation, (_b_) but that other changelings
who exhibit a change of personality, such as is recognized by
psychologists, are in many cases best explained on the Demon-Possession
Theory, which is a well-established scientific hypothesis.
Therefore, since the residuum or x-quantity of the Fairy-Faith, the
folk-religion of the Celtic peoples, cannot be explained away by any
known scientific laws, it must for the present stand, and the
Psychological Theory of the Nature and Origin of the Belief in Fairies
in Celtic Countries is to be considered as hypothetically established in
the eyes of Science. Hence we must cease to look upon the term _fairy_
as being always a synonym for something fanciful, non-real, absurd. We
must also cease to think of the Fairy-Faith as being no more than a
fabric of groundless beliefs. In short, the ordinary non-Celtic mind
must readjust itself to a new set of phenomena which through ignorance
on its part it has been content to disregard, and to treat with ridicule
and contempt as so much outworn 'superstition'.
SECTION IV
MODERN SCIENCE AND THE FAIRY-FAITH; AND CONCLUSIONS
CHAPTER XII
THE CELTIC DOCTRINE OF RE-BIRTH AND OTHERWORLD SCIENTIFICALLY EXAMINED
'If all things which partook of life were to die, and after they
were dead remained in the form of death, and did not come to life
again, all would at last die, and nothing would be alive--what
other result could there be?'--SOCRATES, as reported by Plato.
'The soul, if immortal, existed before our birth. What is
incorruptible must be ungenerable.'--HUME.
'If there be no reasons to suppose that we have existed before that
period at which our existence apparently commences, then there are
no grounds for supposing that we shall continue to exist after our
existence has apparently ceased.'--SHELLEY.
The extension of the terms Fairy and Fairyland--The real man as an
invisible force acting through a body-conductor--A psychical organ
essential for memory--Pre-existence a scientific necessity--The
vitalistic view of evolution--Old theory of heredity
disproved--Embryology supports re-birth doctrine--Psycho-physical
evolution--Memory of previous existences in
subconsciousness--Examples--Dream psychology furnishes clearest
illustrations--No post-existence without
pre-existence--Resurrection as re-birth--The Circle of Life--The
mystical corollary--Conclusion: the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth and
Otherworld is essentially scientific.
In the esoteric Fairy-Faith, the terms Fairy and Fairyland attain their
broadest meaning. To the Celtic mystic, the universe is divisible into
two interpenetrating parts or aspects: the visible in which we are now,
and the invisible which is Fairyland or the Otherworld; and a fairy is
an intelligent being, either embodied as a member of the human race or
else resident in the Otherworld. The latter class includes many distinct
hierarchies and lower orders. Some, like the highest of the Tuatha De
Danann, who are the same in character as the gods of the Greeks and
Hindoos, are superhuman; others are the souls of the dead; while many
are subhuman and have never been embodied in gross physical bodies.
These last include daemons (incorrectly regarded by Christian and other
theologies as being in all cases evil, and called demons); and other
like spirits, such as those which Dr. Tylor, in _Primitive Culture_, has
designated nature spirits (leprechauns, pixies, knockers, _corrigans_,
_lutins_, _little folk_, elves generally, and their counterparts in all
non-Celtic Fairy-Faiths), which are the elementals of mediaeval mystics.
In the preceding chapter chiefly the lower species of fairies were under
consideration, but now the higher orders (including human souls embodied
and disembodied), in their relation toward one another, are to be
considered independently. It becomes necessary, then, to present here a
view of life and death not yet scientifically orthodox.
The Celt in all ages of his long history, like the ancient Greek
thinkers with whom his ancestors were contemporary, has always been
inclined, unlike modern scientists, to seek an explanation for the
phenomena of evolutionary life by postulating a noumenal world of causes
as the background of the phenomenal world of effects. To-day, the rapid
march of scientific pioneers, chiefly those in psychical research, is
bringing our own cold and exact science very close to that indefinable
boundary which separates the two worlds; and for that reason alone a
presentation of the Celtic theory of the causes operating to produce
death and birth will be, at least by way of suggestion, of some value.
Facts of common everyday knowledge are apt to lose their significance
through too great familiarity. A fact of this character is that when
each child is born it must awaken into life. Often it is not known
whether the newly-born babe is dead or alive until it stretches forth
its arms and breathes or cries. And this phenomenon of our first
awakening and entry upon the visible plane of life and conscious action
seems to corroborate what the early Celt who thoughtfully observed it
held to be true, and what the Celt of to-day holds to be true: that the
material substance composing the body of man is merely a means of
expression for life, a conductor for an unknown force which exhibits
volition and individual consciousness; just as material substance in a
condition called inanimate is a conductor for another unknown force
called electricity, which does not exhibit any volition or
consciousness. Destroy the human body, and there is no manifestation of
its life force; destroy a wire, and there is no manifestation of
electric light: the human body seems to be merely incidental in the
history of the individual consciousness, as a wire is incidental to
electric light.
But is this consciousness of man which we call life simply a phenomenon
of matter non-existent without a physical means of expression, or does
it--like electricity after the wire is destroyed--continue to exist in
an unmanifested state when the human body is cold and motionless in
death? And in the case of a child born dead has this consciousness found
some organic imperfection in the newly-constructed infant body which
made its manifestation impossible? A few thoughts to aid in answering
these questions will probably suggest themselves if we briefly consider
the great difference between a human body in life and a human body in
death. In life, there is the highly organized, delicately adjusted,
perfectly balanced human body responding to the will of an invisible
power; and it is admitted by all schools of philosophers, moralists, and
scientists that this invisible power--whatever it may be--is the real
man.
This invisible power, beginning its manifestation through a microscopic
bit of germ-plasm, gradually builds for itself a more and more complex
physical habitation, until, after the short space of nine months, it
claims membership among the ranks of men. During the many years of its
sojourn on our planet, it renews its habitation many times. Every atom
it began with in childhood is discarded and replaced by a new one long
before the age of manhood is reached, and yet upon reaching manhood the
invisible power remembers what it did in a child's frame. This indicates
that memory or consciousness as a psychical process does not depend
essentially upon a material brain nor upon a certain grouping of
ever-changing brain-substance; for if it did, apparently it would slowly
and imperceptibly undergo change as completely as the whole physical
body and brain. This physiological process furnishes sufficient data to
allow us to postulate that there is a psychical organ of memory behind
the physical sense-consciousness, and that such an organ in itself is,
at least during a human-life period, unchanging in its composition.
Without such an organ, the process of memory when more fully analysed
(in a way we cannot here attempt) is inexplicable.[608]
The simplest hypothesis is to conceive that organ as the one connected
with the subconsciousness or super-sense-consciousness, by means of
which the invisible power or rememberer is able to remember and to
impress its memory upon the temporary and continually unstable physical
brain. In the process of memory there must be first of all a thing to be
remembered; second, a record of that thing to be remembered; and third,
something to remember that thing. The thing remembered is the result of
a conscious experience, the record of it the result of its impress at
the time it was experienced, but the rememberer is neither.
That invisible power, which we have called the real man, animates the
body, it places food in it as fuel to produce animal heat, animal
vitality and force, and tries to keep it in good working order as long
as possible. If the body is imperfect at birth or becomes so later, that
invisible power is forced to act through it imperfectly; if the brain is
diseased, there is insanity, if undeveloped, idiocy; and when the body
ceases to respond either perfectly or imperfectly, the invisible power
must surrender it entirely, and there is what we call death.
Now what is this invisible power or force which has entirely vanished,
leaving the physical body and brain cold and motionless? Let us see if
there is an answer. Chemical analysis proves that the visible parts of
the body of man are merely transformed gases; but in a complete analysis
of a living body such as man's there are certain elements to be
considered which are always invisible.[609] Thus at death there is
instantly a cessation of all bodily consciousness--of all willing,
thinking, movement. The power which has made the body conscious, and
which cannot be compared to any known form of matter, is entirely gone.
But there is left in the body a moment after its departure everything
which we know to be material--the animal heat, the animal magnetism, the
animal vitality. When these are gone, the body is cold and stiff, and in
no essential way unlike any other mass of inert matter. If heat be
applied to the body, or magnetism, or vital forces, there is nothing in
it to retain them any more than there would be in a stone. The real man
is gone. Then the body begins to disintegrate. The law of the
conservation of energy and the indestructibility of matter makes it
certain that in the process of death nothing has been lost, certainly
nothing material. The animal heat has gone off somewhere in the
atmosphere or in some other matter; the animal magnetism and vitality
are momentarily lost sight of, but soon they will be attached to other
organic beings such as plants or animals to begin a new cycle of
embodiment. The physical constituents of the body will go to their
appropriate places, into the air as gases, into the water as fluids,
into the earth as salts and minerals, and in a short time may form the
parts of a flower, or fruit, or animal. But where or what is the
willing, the thinking, the remembering, the directing force which once
controlled all these and held them together in unity? Ultra-violet rays
are invisible, but they show their existence through their chemical
action; similarly a soul or Ego may exist invisibly and show its
existence through the vital and physical unity manifested by a living
human being. As we have already seen in the preceding chapter, there are
a number of the first men of science who feel that when all the data of
the latest scientific discoveries in the realm of psychology and of
psychical research are impartially examined there is no escape from some
such hypothesis as the ancient hypothesis of a soul.
If we accept the soul hypothesis, as it seems we must, and regard a soul
as an indestructible unit of invisible power possessing consciousness
and volition, and normally able to exist independently of a human body,
then it becomes a logical and a scientific necessity to postulate its
pre-existence, because as such a unit it is indestructible, in
accordance with the law of the conservation of energy and
indestructibility of matter. We speak here not of the ordinary soul or
human personal consciousness, but of that Ego which Celtic mystics
conceive as the permanent principle (though probably itself relative to
some still higher power) behind the personality--which, in turn, they
believe is a temporary combination wholly dependent upon the Ego.
Accordingly, it is scientifically possible for such a soul as a
homogeneous unit of force or conscious energy to pass from one mass of
matter or physical body to another without disintegration, diminution,
or loss of its own identity. It is scientifically certain, also, from
experiments performed to test the power of resistance to decomposition
exhibited by the force which we call life in an organic body, that such
a force is capable of outwearing many physical embodiments.[610] Recent
demonstrations tend to show that the heredity hypothesis cannot be held
to account fully for such widely varied character or soul individuality
as may be exhibited by members of one family. We must therefore account
for mental, moral, and certainly psychical inequalities among our race
by some other hypothesis; and no hypothesis is more scientific, more in
line with known physiological and psychical processes, or more in accord
with the law of evolution, than that of re-birth.
The theory of the mechanical transmission of acquired characteristics
in a purely physical manner through the germ-plasm is no longer tenable
when all the data of physiology and psychology are admitted. A
vitalistic view of evolution is rapidly developing in the scientific
world, and the weight of evidence is decidedly in favour of regarding
all evolutionary processes, reaching from the lowest to the highest
organisms, as illustrating a gradual unfolding in the sensuous world of
a pre-existing psychical power through an ever-increasing complexity of
specialized structures, this complexity being brought about by natural
selection. Such a view is also strongly supported if not confirmed by
the general scientific belief that spontaneous generation of life is and
always has been impossible on our planet or on any planet: there must
have been life before its physical manifestation or its physical
evolution began.
We may regard this psychical power as like a vast reservoir of
consciousness ever trying to force itself through matter, the walls of
the reservoir. Through the microscopic body of an amoeba there has
percolated a very minute drop from the reservoir. As evolution advances,
the walls of the reservoir become more and more porous, and little by
little the drop increases to a tiny rivulet. Through the higher animals,
the tiny rivulet flows as a brook. Through man as he is, the brook flows
as a deep and broad river. Throughout the completely evolved man of the
far distant future, the deep and broad river will have overflowed all
its banks, it will have inundated and completely overwhelmed the
animal-human nature of the individual through whom it flows, as the
whole volume of the vast reservoir pours itself out. The ordinary
consciousness of man will then have been transmuted into the
subconsciousness, of which it had always been a pale reflection. In
other words, if the theory of the mechanical transmission of acquired
characteristics has failed, as seems to be the case, then we must assume
that there is, as the bearer of all gains made from generation to
generation, some sort of psychical or vitalistic principle. This, making
use of the germ-plasm merely as a physical basis for its manifestation,
begins to build up a body suited to its further evolutionary needs.
The brilliant discoveries of Dr. Jacques Loeb and of M. Yves Delage have
demolished absolutely the old idea that each organ and each tissue
contained in embryo in the normal egg-germ must develop in a particular
and co-ordinate way into a normal organism and after the parental type:
it is possible to make a head grow where there ought to be feet; and at
Zürich, Standfuss, solely through changing the temperature of his
laboratory, was able to obtain from the same species of butterfly forms
which were tropical and forms which were arctic.[611] All this helps to
establish the hypothesis, which amounts to certainty, that the
conformation of a physical body, or even the kind of species to be born,
is directly determined by physical environment and not by heredity, and
that the chief factor to consider in organisms is the life animating the
body. Physical environment affects only the physical organism; it does
not affect the invisible and unknown life-principle resident within the
physical organism.
The process of fertilization is a physical process. As such it is simply
initiatory to embryonic evolution which also is physical. Once the
proper physical conditions are set up by the parents, life pursues its
marvellous progress in the womb of the human mother, from the
amoeba-like initial embryo to man. That is to say, parents set in motion
the laws governing the reproduction of physical bodies. They create such
conditions as enable the invisible life-force to begin its physical
manifestation.[612] In the two fused germs from the parents resides the
physical inheritance of the offspring, to be outwardly shaped by
environment; but the physical inheritance is a thing distinct from the
psychical part of the living being, just as much as the dead human body
is a thing apart from the life which has left it. Though the old
heredity theory is overthrown by late discoveries, the question as to
what life is in human bodies under all possible environmental conditions
remains unsolved; and so do the questions why there should be sports in
nature, which among man are called geniuses, and why every human being
has a distinct and highly developed individual character, essentially
unlike that of his immediate ancestors.
Embryology proves conclusively that the human embryo retraces in its
growth the evolution of lower life-forms. At first consisting of two
single cells fused into one, it is like the amoeba. By cell-division it
grows and progresses step by step through each lower realm of being
until it comes to be a water-creature with gills; and science teaches
that all organic life on this planet once dwelt in the seas. It grows
progressively out of the water-world stage of organic life into the
world of air-breathing creatures. Nature at last achieves her highest
product, and a human being is born out of the Womb of Time. The initial
microscopic bit of germ-plasm is endowed with power of motion, thought,
and human consciousness, with dominion over all the lower kingdoms
through which by right of ancient conquests it passed in the brief
period of nine months. On every side the problem of life is full of
poetry and wonder; it is the greatest mystery.
Not only can we thus study the age-long evolution of the physical man,
but we have recently acquired sufficient scientific data to lay
foundations for a study of the evolution of the psychical man. Thus, for
example, instincts seem to be nothing more than habits which through
unknown periods of time have become so ingrained in the constitution of
man, and of all animals, that now they have become second nature and
usually are exercised without the need of reasoning processes. The
influence from innate sensuous experiences rises into consciousness as
the life of every normal child and youth unfolds itself; and these
experiences in their full expansion, when the age of maturity has been
reached, constitute in their unity what we call character, which, in one
sense, may be defined as the sum total of instincts of every kind. From
such a point of view, the psychical or invisible power in man is merely
a bundle of acquired habits which make use of the bodily organism in
order to express themselves--in the same way, as we have pointed out,
that electrical forces manifest their presence through a conductor. If
these habits be good, we call their possessor a good man; if evil, we
call him an evil man.
The theory of Charles Darwin suggests that all evolutionary progress is
directed to the acquirement of newer and ever higher instincts. And if
this process be the true one, that is to say, if all instincts, which in
their finer distinctions mark off species from species in all animal
kingdoms, be as Darwin thought--and as is to-day more clearly
evident--the result of a long and gradual evolution through experience
in a sensuous realm of existence, then it would seem to follow that
there must be some kind of a monad (probably a non-sensuous one) to
which such acquired instincts can attach themselves. Such a monad, too,
must have been a percipient and hence a recorder of such
ever-accumulating experiences throughout an inconceivably long chain of
lives, and it of itself must, while so perceiving and recording, not be
subject to the transitoriness of the sensuous realm wherein it gathers
together these instincts, which in their unified expression form its
personality or human character.
In harmony with the vitalistic view of evolution, which implies a
pre-existent psychical power continually striving to express itself
completely through matter, yet normally able to exist independently of a
physical means of expression, we should regard such high mental
processes as judgement, reasoning, analysis and synthesis, and spatial
perception, along with memory, as resultants of very great experience in
a sensuous world, on which in our present psycho-physical constitution
such processes appear to have direct bearing. In other words, for man to
be able to exercise such high mental processes there is need to
postulate incalculable ages of specialization in the nervous apparatus,
and in psycho-physical adjustment, of a kind which has thus enabled the
psychical power to express itself to such a supreme degree in the realm
of mind and matter. The same vitalistic argument is applicable to the
lower mental processes and to the instinctual powers in man, because we
cannot at any time, in viewing the complete evolution of man as a
twofold being composed of a physical and a psychical part, force aside
Fechner's conviction that the problem is a psycho-physical one. A study
of sexual instincts in children seems to confirm this.[613]
Such a psychical and vitalistic hypothesis is, as we have seen, strongly
supported by embryology; and embryology proves conclusively the need of
long ages of physical evolution for the development of each tissue and
highly specialized organ in the human body. Certain French and German
and other scientists of the vitalistic school have demonstrated
physiologically the need of a pre-existent power as the unifying
principle which attracts and compels material atoms to group themselves
into the pattern of the human body[614]--or, as we may add, of any
organic body. Psychical researchers at the outset of their science seem
apparently to have demonstrated psychologically the post-existence of
the personal consciousness-unity; and it is very likely when further
progress has been made in psychics that there will arise a logical need
to postulate, in addition to the personal consciousness-unity, a
hypothetical pre-existent soul-monad as the unifying principle which
attracts and compels psychical atoms of experience (if such an
expression may be used) to group themselves into the personal
consciousness-unity which appears to survive the death of the gross
physical body--for a long or short time, as future research may
show.[615] Such a soul-monad, to follow the view held by Celtic mystics,
led by acquired instincts which were transmitted to it through the
personality (held by the Celtic esoteric doctrine to be a temporary
combination), apparently weaves out of matter the body-unit adapted to
its further evolution, in a way analogous to that in which a silkworm is
led by acquired instincts to weave a cocoon. This body-unit is twofold:
(1) the visible body derived from the visible elements of matter; and
(2) the invisible or ghost-body derived from the invisible or ethereal
elements of matter.
Strictly speaking, for the Celtic mystic this soul-monad is something
upon which the personal consciousness depends for its psychical unity in
precisely the same way as the physical body depends upon the personal
consciousness for its physical unity. The Celtic mystic holds that just
as the body-unity falls back again into its primal elements of matter,
so the personal consciousness-unity (apparently able to survive in the
ghost-body for a long period after its separation from the grosser
physical envelope or human body) also in due time is discarded by the
soul-monad or individuality, and then falls back into its primal
psychical constituents. In other words, the Celtic Esoteric Doctrine of
Re-birth correctly interpreted does not conceive personal immortality,
but it conceives a greater kind of immortality--the immortality of the
unknown principle which gives unity to each temporary personality it
makes use of, and which we prefer to designate as the individuality, the
impersonator. And this individuality is the bearer of all evolutionary
gains made in each temporary personality through which it reflects
itself: it is the permanent evolving principle.
Perhaps an analogy drawn from nature will make the Celtic position
clearer: we may say that the personality occupies a position between the
human body and the soul-monad, just as the moon occupies a position
between the earth and the sun. Personal consciousness is to the human
body what the moonlight is to the earth, merely a pale reflection from a
third thing, the soul-monad or individuality, which is the ultimate
source of both sets of unities, the material or body-unity in its
twofold aspect and the psychical or personal consciousness-unity. Each
personality is temporary, while the individuality, like the sun in
relation to the earth and moon, is capable of at least a relative
immortality: the sun's light, as science holds, existed before there was
any moon to reflect it on to the earth, and may continue to exist when
both the moon and earth are disintegrated. The essential nature of the
sun's energy or life remains unknown to science; so does the essential
nature of the energy or life manifesting itself as the individuality.
Though all such analogies are more or less weak, this one adequately
fits in with the theories concerning the Celtic Esoteric Doctrine of
Re-birth which the most learned of contemporary Celts, chiefly mystics,
have favoured us with; and it is our rare privilege to put these
theories on record for whatever they may be worth. The best hypothesis
is always the one which best explains all available data, and, to our
mind, when very minutely examined, in a way which (chiefly for reasons
of space) cannot be attempted here, this Celtic hypothesis concerning
the nature and destiny of man is the best hitherto adduced.[616]
Objectors to the Re-birth Doctrine as held by the Celts and other
peoples anciently and now, naturally ask why, if we have lived before
here on earth in physical bodies, we do not remember it. But the
shallowness and unscientific nature of this question is at once apparent
to psychologists who know that there exists in man a subconscious mind
which in the great mass of people is almost totally dormant. 'The
subconscious self,' wrote William James, 'is nowadays a well-accredited
psychological entity.... Apart from all religious considerations, there
is actually and literally more life in our total soul than we are at any
time aware of.' And he added:--'It thus is "scientific" to interpret all
otherwise unaccountable invasive alternations of consciousness as
results of the tension of subliminal memories reaching a bursting
point.'[617] Intuition, which all men have experienced, would seem to be
the result of a momentary contact by the physical brain with its
psychical counterpart--the subconscious self, the individuality as
distinguished from the personality.
Certain observed psychological processes in ordinary men and women, who
never really know that they have a subconsciousness or Transcendental
Self, prove that it exists even for them, and any part of man which
exists and functions of itself can be developed so as to be consciously
perceived. This is incontestable. Let us point out a few of these
observed and recorded psychological processes. There may be an unsolved
problem in the mind, or inability to recall a certain name or fact, and
then a sudden, unexpected intuitional solving of the problem and an
instantaneous recollecting of the desired facts, at a time when the
ordinary mind may be entirely absorbed in altogether foreign thoughts.
Again, many persons through accident or disease have lost their memory
to such an extent as to require complete re-education, and then in time,
gradually or instantaneously, as the case may be, have completely
recovered it.[618] And we noticed in our study of supernatural lapse of
time (p. 469) that at the moment of accidental loss of consciousness, as
in drowning for example, all forgotten details of life are
instantaneously reproduced in a complete panorama. These psychological
processes support what we have said above with respect to a psychical
organ being behind the sense-consciousness, and seem thus to prove that
the subconscious mind is the place for recording permanently all
experiences.[619] Under hypnosis, a subject may be requested to perform
a certain act, let us say 11,999 minutes after the moment of making the
request. When the hypnotic condition is removed, the subject has no
personal consciousness of the suggestion, but, as different experiments
have proved conclusively, he invariably performs the act exactly at the
expiration of the 11,999 minutes without knowing why he does so. This
proves that there is a subconsciousness in man which can take full
cognizance of such a suggestion, which can keep count of the passing of
time and then cause the unconscious personality to act in response to
its will.[620] Again, in extreme old age people who have come to have an
imperfect memory or none at all in their normal consciousness, under
abnormal conditions (which seemingly are due to a temporary influx of a
latent psychical power into the physical body and brain, or else to an
awakening of a dormant force within the physical body and brain
themselves) often regain, for a time, complete and clear memory of their
childhood. This proves that the memory is somewhere still perfect, and
that it does not reside in the consciousness of the age-exhausted
physical brain and memory. Albert Moll, in his treatise on hypnotism,
says that events in the normal life which have dropped out of memory can
be remembered in hypnosis:--'An English officer in Africa was hypnotized
by Hansen, and suddenly began to speak a strange language. This turned
out to be Welsh, which he had learnt as a child, but had
forgotten.'[621] And even memory of acts done in hypnotic somnambulism
can be awakened in the normal state.[622] Furthermore, through
psycho-analysis, as Professor Freud has shown, forgotten dreams and
dreams which were never complete in the ordinary consciousness can be
recovered in their entirety out of the subconsciousness.[623] How many
of us can recall without some mental stimulus certain acts performed ten
years ago? A good deal of our present life is no longer vivid, much of
it is forgotten, and in old age many of the memories of youth and of
mature life will be subconscious. If this brain, whose total existence
is comprised between birth and death, cannot remember in a normal way
all its own experiences, how could it be expected to know anything at
all of hypothetical past lives where there were various physical brains
long ago disintegrated--unless the hypothetically ever-existing
transcendental individuality, whose consciousness is the
subconsciousness, be made by some unusual psychical stimuli to transmit
its memory of the past lives to each new brain it creates? In other
words, to have memory of pre-existent conditions there must be
continuity of association with present conditions. If such continuity
exists, it exists in the subconsciousness. And if it exists therein,
then in order to recall in the present personal or ordinary
consciousness, which began at birth, memory of an anterior state of
consciousness, it would be necessary to hold impressed upon the present
physical brain and body a clear and unremittent consciousness of the
subconsciousness. In relation to our personal consciousness, apparently
our greatest powers lie in the subconsciousness which is sleeping and in
embryo, awaiting to be born into the consciousness of this world through
the slow process of evolutionary gestation. In the case of a Buddha, who
on good historical authority is said to have been able to recall all
past existences from the lowest to the highest, this evolutionary
process seems to have reached completion.[624]
Under ordinary conditions, individuals have been known to see a place
which they have never seen before, or to do a thing which they have
never done before in this life nor in any conscious dream-state, and yet
feel that they have seen the place before and done the thing before. M.
Th. Ribot, in his _Diseases of Memory_ (chapter iv), has brought
together many cases of this kind. Some are undoubtedly explicable as
forgotten experiences of the present life. Others, to our mind, strongly
support the theory of pre-existent experiences preserved in memory in
the subconsciousness.
Under chloroform, or other anaesthetics, patients often recover for the
time being forgotten facts of experience, and sometimes appear to make
momentary contact with their subconsciousness and to exhibit therein
another personality. In certain well-defined types of double
personality, which are not the kind due to demon-possession nor to
spirit-possession as in 'mediumship', there are two memories, 'each
complete and absolutely independent of the other.'[625] And in similar
cases, where the subject exhibits alternately numerous personalities, we
see the individuality, that is to say the subconscious man, exhibiting,
as a dramatist might, various characters or personalities of probable
past existences according as each is most active at the moment.
Similarly, crystal-gazing sometimes seems not only to revive lost
memories of this life, but also to call up subconscious memories of some
unknown state of consciousness which may be from a previous life.[626]
M. Ribot has made it clear from his careful study of numerous cases of
amnesia (loss of memory) that 'recollections return in an inverse order
to that in which they disappear'. For example, a celebrated Russian
astronomer lost all memory save that of his childhood, and in recovering
it there appeared first the recollections of youth, then those of middle
age, then the experiences of later years, and, finally, the most recent
events. Many even more marked examples of the law of regression in
amnesia are given by M. Ribot. We conclude from them that all strange
and apparently long-forgotten facts of experience arising in
consciousness out of the subconsciousness, as in the different cases
which have been cited above, would necessarily be those which have been
the longest lost to memory; and hence if they cannot be attached to this
present life then they can only be derived from a former life, because
every primary detail of memory must always originate from an experience
at some past period of time. M. Ribot himself, in his conclusion to
_The Diseases of Memory_, makes this significant observation with
respect to the law of regression in amnesia:--'This law of regression
provides us with an explanation for extraordinary revivification of
certain recollections when the mind turns backward to conditions of
existence that had apparently disappeared for ever.'
In dreams there is a great wealth of latent memory; sometimes memory of
the present waking life, but often not capable, apparently, of being
attached to it, nor explicable as due to the soul wandering from the
body during sleep: the hypothesis of re-birth seems to be the only
adequate one here. Certain dreams suggest that man possesses innate
memories extending backwards to prehistoric times (cf. p. 5 above). This
fits in with Professor Freud's theory in his _Die Traumdeutung_, that
'the dream is nothing else than the concealed fulfilment of a repressed
wish.' Some dreams are 'in the form of frightful, cruel, horrible
scenes, which seem frightful to us, but in a certain depth of the
unconscious satisfy wishes which, in the "prehistoric" ages of our own
mental development, were actually recognized as desires.'[627] This also
supports our vitalistic view of the evolution of human instincts. Again,
in somnambulism there is a much more exalted memory, and clear cases are
on record of facts being then consciously present which cannot be
accounted for save through the same hypothesis.[628]
If we keep in mind the psychology of the dream state, we shall probably
get the clearest intellectual theory as to why, if pre-existence be
true, we do not remember various previous states of existence. In our
present state of consciousness we may enter a dream state, in that dream
state by dreaming we enter a second dream state, and theoretically,
though not by common experience, there may be no limit to superimposed
dream states, each one in itself a state of consciousness distinct from
the waking consciousness. Accordingly, if, as Wordsworth put it, 'our
birth is but a sleep and a forgetting' of another state of
consciousness, and death the abrupt ending of that sleep of dreams and a
waking up, or if the direct opposite be true, and death is the entrance
to a sleep and dream state of consciousness, it becomes very clear how
difficult it would be for us here now either to recall what we may have
dreamt or have actually done in another state of conscious existence
corresponding to our present one. The subtle thinkers of modern India,
who completely accept the doctrine of re-birth as a universal law, have
summed up this abstruse aspect of the dream psychology as follows:--'The
first or spiritual state was ecstasy; from ecstasy it (the Ego) forgot
itself into deep sleep; from deep sleep it awoke out of unconsciousness,
but still within itself, into the internal world of dreams; from
dreaming it passed finally into the thoroughly waking state, and the
outer world of sense.'[629] But our own psychologists are not yet far
enough advanced to accept this; much more work in psychical research
must first be done before it will be possible for them to announce to
the West that pre-existence is a necessary condition for post-existence
which they now hypothetically accept. If for the present our standpoint
be that of our own psychologists, we may then think of the human
consciousness as a spectrum whose central parts alone are visible to us.
Beyond at either end lies an unseen and to us unknown region, awaiting
its explorer from the West. 'Each one of us is in reality an abiding
psychical entity far more extensive than he knows--an individuality
which can never express itself completely through any corporeal
manifestation. The Self manifests through the organism; but there is
always some part of the Self unmanifested; and always, as it seems, some
power of organic expression in abeyance or reserve.'[630] William James
stated the position thus:--'The B. region' (another name for the region
of subconsciousness), 'then, is obviously the larger part of each of us,
for it is the abode of everything that is latent, and the reservoir of
everything that passes unrecorded and unobserved.'[631]
Men of science see no way of accepting the doctrine of the resurrection
of the physical body as at present interpreted by Christian theology;
but the late Professor Th. Henri Martin, Dean of the Faculty of Letters
of the University of Rennes, has suggested in his _La Vie future_ that
the doctrine may be the exoteric interpretation of a long-forgotten
esoteric truth; namely, that the soul may be resurrected in a new
physical body, and this is scientifically possible.[632]
The ancient scientists called Life a Circle. In the upper half of this
Circle, or here on the visible plane, we know that in the physiological
history of man and of all living things there is first the embryonic or
prenatal state, then birth; and as life, like a sun, rises in its
new-born power toward the zenith, there is childhood, youth, and
maturity; and then, as it passes the zenith on its way to the horizon,
there is decline, old age, and, finally, death; and as a scientific
possibility we have in the lower half of the Circle, in Hades or the
Otherworld of the Celts and of all peoples, corresponding processes
between death and a hypothetical but logically necessary re-birth.[633]
The logical corollary to the re-birth doctrine, and an integral part of
the Celtic esoteric theory of evolution, is that there have been human
races like the present human race who in past aeons of time have evolved
completely out of the human plane of conscious existence into the divine
plane of conscious existence. Hence the gods are beings which once were
men, and the actual race of men will in time become gods. Man now stands
related to the divine and invisible world in precisely the same manner
that the brute stands related to the human race. To the gods, man is a
being in a lower kingdom of evolution. According to the complete Celtic
belief, the gods can and do enter the human world for the specific
purposes of teaching men how to advance most rapidly toward the higher
kingdom. In other words, all the Great Teachers, e. g. Jesus, Buddha,
Zoroaster, and many others, in different ages and among various races,
whose teachings are extant, are, according to a belief yet held by
educated and mystical Celts, divine beings who in inconceivably past
ages were men but who are now gods, able at will to incarnate into our
world, in order to emphasize the need which exists in nature, by virtue
of the working of evolutionary laws (to which they themselves are still
subject), for man to look forward, and so strive to reach divinity
rather than to look backward in evolution and thereby fall into mere
animalism. The stating of this mystical corollary makes the exposition
of the Fairy-Faith complete, at least in outline.
As shown by the Barddas MSS. in our chapter vii, the Celtic Doctrine of
Re-birth is the scientific extension of Darwin's law as corrected,[634]
that alone through traversing the Circle of Life man reaches that
destined perfection which natural analogies, life's processes as
exhibited by living things, and evolution, suggest, and from which at
present man is so far removed. There seems to emerge this postulate: the
world is the object of normal consciousness, the Ego or Soul-Monad the
object of subconsciousness; and the subconsciousness cannot be realized
in the world until through the normal consciousness of man the Ego is
able to function completely, and so endow man with full
self-consciousness in matter, which endowment seems to be the goal of
all planetary evolution.
We conclude that the Otherworld of the Celts and their Doctrine of
Re-birth accord thoroughly in their essentials with modern science; and,
accordingly, with other essential elements in the complete Celtic
Fairy-Faith which we have in the preceding chapter found to be equally
scientific, establish our Psychological Theory of the Nature and Origin
of that Fairy-Faith upon a logical and solid foundation; and we now
submit this study to the judgement of our readers. With more complete
evidence in the future, both from folk-lore and from science, there will
be, we trust, a better vindication of the Theory, and perhaps finally
there will come about its transformation into what it but seems to us to
be now--a Fact.
Some beliefs which a century ago were regarded as absurdities are now
regarded as fundamentally scientific. In the same way, what in this
generation is heretical alike to the Christian theologian and to the man
of science may in coming generations be accepted as orthodox.
INDEX
_Adamnan's Vision_, 356.
Aeneas, Journey of, 336-7, 343, 382, 445.
Aengus, 62, 292, 301, 376, 397, 413-4.
---- Cult of, 415 ff., 450.
---- Dun, 2, 41, 416-8.
_Agallamh_, 28, 283 n., 286, 290, 292, 295, 402, 412.
---- _an dá Shuadh_, 344.
Ailill, 288-9, 301, 374-5, 440.
Aine, 79, 80 n., 83, 301.
Alchemists, 240, 244, 261, 276, 296 n.
Alignements, xv, 199 n., 393, 399, 419 ff.:
_see_ Archaeology.
All Saints (_La Toussaint_), 439, 453:
_see_ _Samain_, and November Day.
Angel, 7, 12, 85, 238, 240-1, 263-4, 267, 272, 374:
_see_ Fallen Angels, and St. Michael.
Angels and Science, 481.
Anglesey, 10, 138-9, 141-2.
Animism, 55, 226 ff., 282, 457 ff.:
_see_ Dead, and Death.
---- Pre-, 253, 401.
---- Science and, 459 ff.
_Ankou_, 16, 29, 218, 220.
---- Science and, 484.
_Annwn_, 319, 353.
Anthropology, 226-82.
Antrim, 73, 371.
Apollo, 403, 405-6, 421.
Apparitions, Science and, 480, 484 ff.
Aranmore, 2, 4, 40, 416.
Archaeology, xv, 2, 9, 10, 12-5, 31, 52, 78, 81, 118-9, 137 n., 148,
154, 157 n., 163, 165 ff., 172, 179, 210, 221, 234 n., 393,
397-426, 450 n.
Armagh, 74-5, 443.
---- _Book of_, 283 n., 291.
_Art, Voyage of_, 351-2.
Arthur, 9, 10, 12-3, 82 n., 163, 183, 238, 304, 308 ff., 333-4, 353,
381, 429, 437, 441, 447:
_see_ Re-birth.
Arthur, Bird, as, 183, 185.
Arthurian Legend, 9, 260, 308 ff.:
_see_ Arthur.
Astral Body, 29.
---- Light, 133.
---- Milk, 164.
---- Plane, 167, 171.
---- Spirits, 167, 171.
Avalon, 252, 311, 314-5, 321-4, 330, 347-8, 379, 386.
Bacchus, 28, 80 n.
_Badb_, 302-7, 309 n.
_Ballymote, Book of_, 340 n., 410.
Banshee, 25-6, 81, 99, 220, 304-5, 437-8.
---- Science and, 484.
Baranton, Fountain of, 429.
Bard, 11, 98, 138, 163, 283, 317 n., 365-6, 378.
---- Irish, 344.
_Barddas_, 365-7, 378-9, 515.
Barra, 85, 100 ff.
_Beltene_ (Baaltine), 100 n., 439:
_see_ May Day.
Ben Bulbin, 3, 44, 56, 58, 237, 242, 284, 293, 300.
Béroul, 325.
Boron, Robt. de, 325.
Boyne, 2, 34, 292, 410, 412, 415.
Bran, 259, 334.
---- _Voyage of_, 329, 338-40, 373.
Brocéliande, 15, 188, 327, 435.
Brownie, 164-5, 207, 220, 229.
_Bucca_, 164, 175:
_see_ Puck.
Cædmon, 240, 243.
Cambrensis, Giraldus, 149 n., 324.
Cardigan, 146, 155, 334, 389.
Ca(e)ridwen, 157 n., 378.
Carmarthen, 147, 149 ff., 390.
---- _Black Book of_, 329.
---- Fall of, 435.
Carnac, xiii, 199 n., 271, 398-9, 407, 418-9, 428.
---- Etymology of, xv.
---- Mystic Centre, as, 13-5, 221.
Carnarvon, 143-4.
_Ceilidh_, Description of, 6.
Changelings, 34, 78, 87, 91, 96, 98, 101, 104, 110, 128, 132, 136-7,
143, 146, 148, 150, 154, 156, 170-1, 177, 179, 182, 198, 204,
210-2, 230, 265, 280-1:
_see_ Charms, Fairy.
---- Anthropology and, 244-53.
---- Explanation of, 491.
---- Science and, 487.
Channel Islands, 403, 406-7.
Charms, 42, 49, 171, 176, 258-9:
_see_ Exorcism.
---- Fairy, against, 37-8, 49, 58, 87, 91, 95, 97, 112, 124-5, 132,
146, 177, 179, 199, 204, 210, 212, 250, 253, 265, 268, 314.
---- Witchcraft, against, 122.
Chaucer, 326.
Chrétien, 311, 325, 430.
Christabel, 202.
Christian Science and Witchcraft, 261-2.
Christianity, Esoteric, 360 n., 361-2.
---- Fairies and, xvi, 42, 70, 91, 115, 152 n., 153, 168-9, 201, 216,
245, 253, 257, 259, 266-74, 268, 284-5, 293, 296 n., 320, 349-50,
354-7, 370, 373, 407, 410 n., 427 ff., 434 ff., 439, 441, 444 ff.,
452 ff.:
_see_ Changelings, Cult, Exorcism, Fairy-Faith, and Purgatory.
Clairvoyance, 55, 73, 140 n., 175, 182, 205, 285, 311:
_see_ Second-sight, Seers, and Vision.
---- Science and, 473, 478.
Clontarf, 305 ff.
_Cóir Anmann_, 286, 291, 369.
_Colloquy_: _see_ _Agallamh_.
Connaught, 42, 289, 295, 300.
Connemara, xxi, 2.
Connla, 259, 335, 349-50.
Coracle (_currach_), 350, 352.
_Cormac's Voyage_, 340-3.
_Corrigan_, 15, 92, 159 n., 195, 198, 206 ff., 215, 223-4, 229, 238,
241, 250-1, 398, 404-6, 493.
---- Etymology of, 206 n.
Cromlech: _see_ Archaeology.
---- Etymology of, 402 n.
Cruachan, 286, 288-9, 431, 440, 451.
Crystal-gazing, 510.
Cuchulainn, 2, 3-4, 70, 74-5, 96 n., 238, 277-8, 302-3, 307, 309, 316,
334, 353, 441:
_see_ Re-birth.
---- _Sick-Bed of_, 286, 345-6.
---- Sun-god, as, 310.
Cult, 100 n., 163, 281, 442:
_see_ Arthur, Cuchulainn, _Sidhe_, and Tuatha De Danann.
---- Agricultural, 80 n., 279, 291, 351, 408, 435.
---- Cattle, of, 199 n., 273.
---- Dead, of, 281, 299, 408-9 ff., 436 ff.;
Christian, 452-5.
---- Fairies, of, 190, 436 ff.
---- Gods, of, 118, 164, 175 n., 200, 239, 246, 279, 281, 283, 291, 299,
342, 399 ff., 407 ff., 433 ff., 440, 448.
---- Saints, of, 83, 190, 193, 284.
---- Spirits, of, 124 n., 164, 175, 227, 229, 281, 284, 411 ff., 428-9,
436 ff.
---- Stones, of, 399 ff., 427-8:
_see_ Archaeology.
---- Sun, of, 12, 100 n., 127, 132 n., 173, 176 n., 179 n., 309, 321,
369, 380, 389-90, 402-3, 405-6, 408, 416 ff., 450-1;
Christianity and, 452 ff.;
Significance of, 420 ff., 439.
---- Trees, of, 176, 229, 427-8, 433 ff.
---- Waters, of, 78, 163, 179, 223-4, 284, 427 ff., 450 n.
Culture Hero, 238, 309, 320-1, 380-2, 417.
_Da Derga's Hostel_, 287.
Daemons (Demons), 7, 15, 158, 197, 202, 204, 212, 237-8, 241, 249-52,
256-9, 263-71, 279-80, 286, 287 n., 288, 303, 306, 310, 314, 360,
430, 436, 446.
---- Nature of, 493.
---- Science and, 480-1, 483.
Dagda, 286, 291-2, 294, 298, 300-1, 318, 320, 410, 416.
_Daoine Maithe_, 53, 69.
Dead, Legend of, 280.
---- Breton, 14, 29, 169, 194-5, 212 ff., 392, 404.
---- Cornish, 169-70, 178, 180-1, 183.
---- Irish, 33, 48, 53, 55, 68, 71-2, 74-7.
---- Scotch, 95.
---- Welsh, 142 n., 152.
Death-candle (or Corpse-candle), 10, 145, 153, 155, 207, 220-1.
Death-coach, 71, 221.
Death-warning, 10, 169, 180, 213, 220, 304-5.
Demon-Possession, 228:
_see_ Exorcism and Possession.
---- Science and, 487 ff.
---- Theory of, 249 ff.
Dermot, 41, 44, 57 n., 354.
---- Pre-existence of, 376.
Devil, 123, 157, 180, 201, 241, 263, 271, 319, 446.
---- Worship, 258 n., 421.
Devonshire Pixies, 179.
Diana, as Moon-Goddess, 80 n.
_Dinnshenchas_, 78 n., 81 n., 260, 301.
Divination, 150, 176 n., 258, 264, 278, 343, 405, 428, 432.
Dolmen: _see_ Archaeology.
---- Etymology of, 402 n.
Donegal, 61, 72, 442.
Dowth, 2, 61.
Dream, 41, 50, 55, 58, 68, 159, 180-1, 281.
---- Fairyland and, 490.
---- Re-birth and, 383, 511 ff.
---- Science and, 459, 464 ff., 508, 511 ff.
Druids, 10, 12, 14, 31, 52, 82 n., 85, 138, 147, 152, 157 n., 216,
256-7, 259, 265-7, 278, 292, 299, 345-6, 351, 356, 441, 444, 457:
_see_ Exorcism, Magic, and Magicians.
Druids, Irish, 343.
---- Magic and, 489 n.
---- Oak and, 433 ff.
---- Re-birth and, 359, 364, 367, 369, 378 n., 387-91, 394.
---- Well-worship and, 432.
_Dun Cow, Book of_: _see_ _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_.
Dwarfs, 81 n., 192, 195, 203-4, 206 ff., 235, 237-8, 405:
_see_ Pygmy.
_Dynion Hysbys_, 146, 151, 253, 264, 436:
_see_ Magicians.
_Echtra Nerai_, 287, 290, 413.
Ecstasy, 61, 91, 512.
---- Fairyland and, 490.
---- Science and, 472, 486.
Ego, Existence of, 496.
---- Idea of, 497.
---- Nature of, 504 n., 515.
_Eisteddfod_, 11, 405 n.
Elementals, 65, 167, 241-2, 256-7.
---- Science and, 481.
_Ellyllon_ (Elves) and Fairies, 233 ff., 432, 493.
---- Science and, 483.
---- Worship of, 436.
Elysian Fields, 338, 358, 416.
Enchantment, 35-6, 52, 113:
_see_ Magic.
---- Fairy, 35, 75, 78, 113, 199, 301, 386.
Environment, xvii, xx, xxii, 1 ff., 107, 115, 123, 173, 209, 221, 226,
282.
---- Science and, 499.
Erisgey, 91 n., 100.
Etain, 369.
---- Birth of, 374-6, 395.
Exorcism, 228, 253, 265-74, 277, 281:
_see_ Changelings, and Magic.
---- Baptism, as, 269-70.
---- Dead, of, 178.
---- defined, 266.
---- Spirits, of, 42, 67, 123, 125, 172, 179, 250, 287 n., 402.
---- Welsh, 272.
Exorcists, 264, 269:
_see_ Magicians.
Faerie Queen, 318.
Fairy: _see_ Apparitions, Angel, Astral Spirits, Banshee, Brownie,
_Bucca_, Changelings, _Corrigan_, Cult, Dead, Death, Devil,
Dwarfs, Elementals, _Ellyllon_ (_Elves_), Fates, _Fées_,
_Fenodyree_, Fir Bolgs, Fomors, Ghost, Gnomes, Goblin, Goddesses,
_Grac'hed coz_, Kelpy, Lapps, Lares, Lemures, Leprechaun,
_Lutins_, Manes, Mermaid, _Morgan_, Nereids, Penates, Phantom,
Pict, Pixies, Proserpine, Puck, Salamanders, Satyrs,
Shape-shifting, _Siabra_, _Sidhe_, Soul, Spirits, Succubi,
Swan-Maidens, Sylph, Troll, Tuatha De Danann, Undines, Vivian,
White Lady, Witch.
Fairy Abduction of animals, 93 n., 95, 106, 109.
---- Abduction of People, 7, 33, 37, 40, 45-8, 51, 53, 56, 68-9, 72, 75,
82 n., 89, 98, 101-2, 104, 109, 113, 120-1, 125, 130, 135, 145,
166 n., 174, 181, 219, 245, 248, 251-2, 289-90, 294 ff., 316, 326,
342, 347, 353, 356, 431:
_see_ Changeling, Otherworld, and Re-birth.
---- Army, 33, 50, 55, 57, 68, 74, 133.
---- Arrow, 88, 119.
---- Astrology, 327.
---- Baking, 127.
---- Bathing, 136, 155, 182, 326, 342.
---- Beating, 41, 72.
---- Belt, 106.
---- Birds, 200, 220, 267, 302-7, 329, 334, 345, 355, 376:
_see_ _Badb_.
---- Blinding, 54, 131, 136, 140, 182, 205, 209.
---- Boat-Race, 80.
---- Borrowing, 136.
---- Bush: _see_ Fairy Tree, and Cult of Trees.
---- Cattle, 143, 147, 203.
---- Churning and, 43, 97, 132, 253.
---- Cock-crow and, 220, 327.
---- Colour, Green, 10, 103, 106, 110-1, 207, 294, 298, 312-4, 345, 349,
352;
Red, 32, 72, 131, 133, 142, 152-60, 181, 289-90, 345.
---- Crops and, 38, 43, 291:
_see_ Cult of Agriculture.
---- Curse, 82, 97, 178, 376 n.
---- Dance, 41, 56, 72, 86, 88, 92, 111, 116, 124-5, 131, 135, 139,
142-3, 146, 148, 155, 159-60, 171, 173, 175, 181-2, 207-9, 211;
explanation of, 281;
origin of, 405-6.
---- Deceit, 127.
---- Description of, 46, 60, 68, 77, 116, 122, 133, 141, 177, 187, 200,
205, 211, 242-3, 297, 349-50, 352:
_see_ Fairy Dress.
---- Dog, 40, 120, 122, 129, 134, 259.
---- Dress, 45, 55, 67, 74, 95, 103, 116, 123, 131, 133, 143, 155, 160,
181, 192, 204-5, 208, 289, 294, 297-8, 339, 345, 349-50, 352.
---- Drops, 44.
---- Dwelling, 32, 37, 41, 46, 73, 76-8, 86-8, 93, 95, 97, 99 n., 104,
108, 110, 112-3, 126, 131, 136, 142, 144, 147-9, 151, 172, 188,
200, 203-4, 206, 209, 211, 220, 235, 289, 294, 306, 316-7, 327,
416:
_see_ Otherworld.
---- Festivals, 39.
---- Fights, 43, 91.
---- Flies, 39.
---- Food, 44, 47, 68, 219, 275, 279, 292-3, 349, 353, 356, 447:
_see_ Sacrifice, Food.
---- Fort (Dún), 2, 24, 31-2, 36, 38, 55, 72, 349-50, 413:
_see_ Fairy Dwelling.
---- Fountain and, 101, 210, 223, 264, 341-3, 353:
_see_ Cult of Waters.
---- Fulling, 98.
---- Games, 41, 51, 76, 149.
---- Guardian, 46, 76, 78, 179, 189-90, 192-3, 197, 207, 211, 219, 273,
327, 415, 438.
---- Herb, 53, 87, 175.
---- Hill (Knoll, and Mound), 79-80, 89, 97, 220, 237, 243, 288, 290,
293, 296, 299, 301, 306, 349, 374, 431, 437.
---- Hosts (_Sluagh_), xxi, 91, 104, 106, 108.
---- Hunchback and, 92, 143, 198-9, 208.
---- Hunting, 41, 56, 94, 134.
---- Iron and, 34, 87-8, 95, 98 n., 124 n., 138, 144, 147:
_see_ Taboo, Iron.
---- Island, 49, 147, 220, 316, 334, 339:
_see_ Avalon, and Otherworld.
---- Kings and Queens, 28, 34, 44, 63, 92, 149-51, 200, 202, 218, 292,
300-1, 336, 354.
---- Mr. Lang and, 475.
---- Love, 112.
---- Mid-wife (or Nurse) and, 54, 127, 136, 140, 175, 205.
---- Mine and, 165, 182, 241.
---- Money (Riches, &c.), 71, 82, 142, 146, 156, 158, 160, 162, 200,
289, 297.
---- Music, 24, 31, 40, 47, 56-7, 61, 69, 71-2, 74, 81 n., 86, 95, 103,
111, 118, 124, 131, 141, 159, 162, 181, 211, 297 ff., 336, 339,
340-2, 355-6, 482;
Mr. Lang and, 475;
Science and, 484.
---- Names, 22, 30, 52, 72, 82, 117, 153, 164, 182, 203, 207, 231, 274,
293, 307;
objects and, 86.
---- Natural Phenomena and, xxii, 41, 92, 204, 219, 227, 256, 265, 279,
307:
_see_ Fairy, Crops; and Sacrifice, Food.
---- Nature of, 24, 32, 36, 41, 46, 63 ff., 73, 76-7, 80, 94, 99, 102,
104-5, 109, 113-4, 117, 120, 123, 125-6, 133-4, 137-9, 142, 143
n., 144-5, 147-8, 150, 152, 171-3, 176-7, 180, 182, 207, 211, 218
ff., 235 ff., 243, 254, 279, 307, 327, 409, 496.
---- Path (or Pass), 33, 38, 67, 77, 150, 218, 231, 277.
---- Pig, as, 126.
---- Power, 47, 67, 72, 82, 88, 95, 113, 121, 150, 183, 219, 253, 262,
265.
---- Prayer, 118, 129.
---- Preserves, 38, 78, 277, 293.
---- Procession, 33, 57, 67, 74, 79 n., 80 n., 126, 134, 218, 277, 288.
---- Prophet, 47, 94, 139, 160, 197, 211, 290, 302 n., 305.
---- Reality of, 490, 492 ff.
---- Revenge, 92, 95, 97, 125, 142, 146, 177, 180, 191, 196, 199, 205,
208-10, 220, 293:
_see_ Fairy, Hunchback.
---- Ring, 2, 91, 142-3, 148-9, 151, 161, 181-2, 184, 208.
---- Science and, 240, 281-2, 307, 456-515.
---- Smallness of, 32, 41, 47, 72, 99, 102, 104, 123, 125, 133, 140,
143, 146, 148, 151, 155, 159, 171, 173, 176-7, 179-81, 184, 207,
211, 219, 233-44, 281.
---- Song, 40, 71, 86, 92, 98-9, 101, 104, 112, 114, 118, 139, 143, 148,
201-2, 208-9, 301, 339, 342, 345, 375.
---- Spell (and Stroke), 53, 91, 126, 136, 159, 164, 173, 218, 219,
230-1, 252-3, 265, 268, 286, 297, 326, 330, 345, 356, 431:
_see_ Exorcism; Fairy, Hunchback; Magic; and Magicians.
---- Spinning, 88, 110.
---- Stations, 46.
---- Stature, 47, 62, 67-8, 77, 96, 114, 123, 141, 148, 233 ff., 242:
_see_ Fairy, Smallness of.
---- Tree (or Bush), 33, 70, 78, 126, 277, 292, 435:
_see_ Cult of Trees.
---- Tribes, 32, 52.
---- Tricks, 127, 143, 177, 183-4, 191, 205, 207, 211, 320.
---- Visits, 122, 136, 138, 146, 155, 160:
_see_ Otherworld.
---- Voice (or Talking), 47, 68, 134, 139, 155, 162, 187-9, 203;
Science and, 485.
---- Wand: _see_ Wands.
---- War, 44, 46, 50, 207, 211:
_see_ _Sidhe_.
---- Water, and, 38, 270, 311-2, 318, 446:
_see_ Cult of Waters.
---- Weaving, 74.
---- Whistle, 46, 208.
---- Wife, 135, 138, 146, 148, 162, 200, 289, 297, 318 n., 325, 328,
346-7, 412.
---- Woman, xxiv, 2, 4, 54, 76-8, 99, 103-4, 110-1, 121, 135, 138, 143,
186, 189, 200-2, 286-7, 293, 296-7, 305, 311, 314, 326, 333, 335,
337-9, 342, 345-7, 351-2:
_see_ _Sidhe_ and Tuatha De Danann.
Fairy-Faith, African, 228, 281.
---- Albanian, 230.
---- American, 228, 237, 246, 281.
---- Animism of, 282, 458, 477.
---- Antiquity of, 99, 163, 178, 194, 213, 216, 221, 231, 244, 256, 266,
269, 278, 307, 321, 325, 331, 354, 357, 395, 408, 427, 432, 439,
441, 457, 477.
---- Arabian, 229.
---- Australian, 227, 281.
---- Breton, 185, 225.
---- Chinese, 228, 250.
---- Collecting Evidence of, xix.
---- Comparative, 226 ff., 281, 307, 457, 475.
---- Cornish, 163-85.
---- Degeneration of, 458.
---- Egyptian, 229.
---- Esoteric, 457-8, 492 ff.
---- Etruscan, 231.
---- Exoteric, 457-8.
---- German, 231.
---- Greek, 230, 246.
---- Importance of Studying, xxv, 22.
---- Indian, 228, 238.
---- Interpretation of, xvi, 18, 25, 28-30, 59, 171, 225, 277, 281, 383,
471, 489, 515.
---- Irish, 23-84.
---- Italian, 231.
---- Japanese, 228, 440.
---- Malay, 228, 238.
---- Manx, 117-35.
---- Melanesian, 227, 265, 277.
---- Metaphysics of, 458.
---- Methods of studying, xviii.
---- Mexican, 246.
---- Nature of, 18, 70, 90, 94, 105, 109, 117-8, 126, 133, 145-6, 225,
233, 235-6, 256, 281, 296 n., 307, 433, 438, 458, 477.
---- Origin of, xvi, 18, 70, 90, 99, 137, 168, 178, 226, 244-5, 257,
398, 432-3, 452, 455, 457-8, 477.
---- Persian, 229.
---- Philosophy of, 18-20.
---- Polynesian, 238, 248, 281.
---- Psychical Phenomena and, 459:
_see_ Science and Fairies.
---- Religion and, xvi, 22, 70, 78, 83, 90, 99, 100 n., 118, 123, 125,
152 n., 163, 168, 194, 221, 245, 256-7, 266, 269, 271, 274, 296
n., 344, 354, 364, 388, 404, 406-8, 421, 427 ff., 439, 441, 442
ff., 450 n., 452 ff., 457-8, 477:
_see_ Cult, and Christianity.
---- Roumain, 230.
---- Scandinavian, 231.
---- Science and, 119, 456 ff.
---- Scotch, 84-116.
---- Siamese, 229.
---- State of, in Brittany, 205;
in Cornwall, 170, 180;
in Highlands, 84, 88, 90, 91, 94, 99.
---- Swiss, 231.
---- Theology and, 42, 91, 99, 127, 146, 168, 244, 360-3, 365 n., 369,
370, 373, 493.
---- Theories of, xxi, 20, 84, 118;
Delusion and Imposture, 462-4, 489;
Druid, xxiii;
Materialistic, xxv, 461, 489;
Mythological, xxiv;
Naturalistic, xxi, 1, 8, 152 n.;
Pathological, 461-2, 489;
Psychical, 1, 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, 61, 171, 265, 405, 409, 477, 489 ff.;
Psychological, xxii, 20, 95, 202, 211, 253, 274, 305, 330, 338, 383,
427, 441, 515;
Psycho-Physical, 459-60, 489;
Pygmy, xxii, 119, 148 n., 169, 219, 234-5, 241, 245, 276, 398.
---- Turkish, 229.
---- Unity of, 233, 329, 331, 357, 396.
---- Welsh, 135-63.
---- X-quantity of, 282;
Outlined, 459;
Testing of, 480 ff., 490-1.
Fairyland: _see_ Avalon, Hades, Otherworld, and Purgatory.
---- Dead and, 40, 43, 56, 68-9, 72, 123, 194-5, 202, 214, 217, 219-20,
251, 280, 350, 490:
_see_ Dead, Legend of, and under Death.
---- Going to, 40, 43, 55, 65, 68-9, 148, 154, 161, 175, 248, 251-2,
295, 299, 302, 306, 348, 413, 469 ff., 490:
_see_ Abduction of People, under Fairy; and Changelings.
---- Nature of, 18, 39, 43, 60 ff., 70, 84, 120, 123, 137 n., 144, 149
n., 150-1, 154, 167, 171, 194-5, 202, 219, 281, 296 n., 310, 312,
317, 335, 350, 383, 416, 452, 493:
_see_ Otherworld.
---- Origin of belief in, 235, 245, 281, 452.
---- Reality of, 18, 84, 154, 469, 490, 493, 515.
---- Return from, 39, 48-9, 51, 98, 130, 149, 162, 252, 265, 295, 296
n., 299, 316, 347:
_see_ Changelings.
---- Science and, 490.
---- Time in, 88, 95, 113, 135, 145, 149, 154, 162, 175-6, 296 n., 329,
339, 350, 354, 469 ff., 473.
Fallen Angels as Fairies, 67, 76, 85, 105-6, 109, 113, 116, 129, 154,
205, 212, 231, 241.
Fand, 316, 345-6.
Fascination, 258.
Fasting, 179, 267, 412-4, 422, 445, 447 n.
Fate, Irish Idea of, 278.
Fates, 203, 231, 327.
Feast of Dead, 218, 288-9, 299, 439 ff., 452 ff.:
_see_ Dead, Legend of; and November Day.
_Fées_, xxiv, 195 ff., 216, 231, 257, 327, 347.
Fennel, 79, 83.
_Fenodyree_, 120, 129, 131.
Fermanagh, 73.
Fetishism, 259, 401, 402 n.
_Fiacc's Hymn_, 436.
Fianna, 287 n., 293, 298, 347, 443.
Find, Re-birth of, 370-4.
Finvara, 2, 28, 42, 44, 300.
Fionn (or Finn), 2, 58 n., 259, 287 n., 292, 298-9, 302, 334, 376,
414-5, 441, 443.
Fir Bolgs, 32, 70, 285, 417.
Fomors, 70, 303, 307, 310, 335.
Food-Sacrifice: _see_ Sacrifice.
_Fountain, Lady of_, 325.
---- Cult of: _see_ Cult.
Fourth Dimension, 167.
---- Science and, 487.
Freemasonry, 313 n., 422, 449.
Galahad, 315-6, 317 n.
Galway, 39, 42.
Gauvain, 312, 316, 348, 447.
Gavrinis, 15, 409 ff., 415, 418, 423-4 ff., 451.
'Gentry': _see_ Fairy Names.
Geoffrey, 308 n., 322-3, 330, 403.
Ghost, 3, 7, 10, 26, 29, 47, 67, 70, 118, 121, 124, 145, 152, 156, 172,
180, 184, 191-2, 217, 219-20, 228, 238, 247-9, 257, 265, 277, 280,
282, 285, 289, 291, 330, 368, 398-9, 446:
_see_ Dead, and Death.
---- Fairy and, 438.
---- Science and, 19, 477.
Giant, xxiii, 163, 192.
Gildas, 321.
Glamorgan, 158.
_Glashtin_, 131.
Gnomes, 241-3.
---- Science and, 481, 483.
Gnosticism, 361-2.
Goblin, 143, 145, 207, 220, 241, 306.
Goddess, 78-9, 83, 229, 369, 378, 390, 457.
Goddess Dana, 283-307.
---- Mother, 283, 284 n., 290, 390.
Gods: _see_ Cult.
---- Science and, 480.
'Good People': _see_ Fairy Names.
Gospel Stories and Fairy-Faith, 168.
Gower, 10, 158 ff.
_Grac'hed coz_, 195 ff.
Graelent, 326.
Grail, Holy, 311, 316, 325, 353.
---- Holy, Cup, as, 342, 350.
Grania, 41, 57 n.
_Gruagach_, 92.
_Guingemor_, 326, 348.
Gwenhwyvar, 152 n., 310-4, 316.
Gwion, Re-birth of, 378.
Gwydion, 151-2 n., 379, 417.
Gwynn Ab Nudd, 152 n., 319-20.
Hades, 296 n., 310, 312, 336-8, 352-3, 411, 445.
---- Origin of belief in, 452.
---- Purgatory, as, 447.
---- Science and, 514.
---- Sun-cult and, 422.
Halloween, 38, 91, 93 n., 179:
_see_ November Day, and _Samain_.
Hallucinations: _see_ Apparitions.
---- Science and, 459, 461, 464, 490.
Harlech, 10, 144, 334.
Hebrides, 4, 7, 9, 90, 100 ff.
_Hergest, Red Book of_, 308 n., 330.
Highlands, 5, 7, 93 ff.
_Húi Corra, Voyage of_, 354.
Hy Brasil, 334.
Hypnotism, 255, 265, 466, 488, 507-8.
Iamblichus, 254, 257 n., 400, 484.
Immortality, Non-personal, 503 ff., 509 n.
Incantation, 176, 259:
_see_ Charms.
Initiates, 59, 313 n., 336-7, 358, 378, 423-4.
Initiations, 13, 78, 157 n., 179 n., 257, 313 n., 336-8, 342, 353,
378-9, 405-6, 411-2, 415-6, 419, 422, 425, 444 ff., 447 ff.
Initiations, Celtic, 342-3, 409 ff.
---- Nature of, 447 n.
Innishmurray, 49, 54, 334.
Inverness, 4, 93.
_Iolo MS._, 308 n.
Iona, 7, 93, 436.
Jack-in-the-Green, 435.
Jeanne d'Arc, 263-4.
Jews, Re-birth and, 359.
---- Sun-cult, and, 421.
Karnak and Carnac, xv.
Kelpy, xxi, 3, 28, 207.
Kerry, 61, 83, 340.
Kirk, Robt., 66, 85, 89, 91 n., 237, 279 n., 293.
Knowth, 34.
_Kulhwch and Olwen_, 317-20, 328, 451.
---- Date of, 331.
Lake, Lady of, 78, 79 n., 314-7, 327, 379.
Lancelot, 312, 315-6, 348.
Land's End, 181.
Lanval, 325, 326.
_Lanval's Voyage_, 347-8.
Lapps, xxiii, 234 n.-5, 244.
Lares, 438.
Layamon, 308 n., 323.
Leaba Mologa, 414.
_Leabhar na h-Uidhre_ (_Book of the Dun Cow_), 259, 285, 292, 353, 374,
377, 409.
---- Age of, 283 n.
Lear, 7, 118, 135, 322:
_see_ Manannan.
_Lebar Brecc_, 271, 313 n., 454.
_Lebar Gabala_, 292.
_Lecan, Y. B. of_, Age of, 283 n.
Leinster, 294, 371.
---- _Book of_, 285, 292, 303, 356;
age of, 283 n.
Lemures, 438.
Leprechaun, 25, 28, 47, 52, 71, 82, 235-6, 241, 243, 493.
---- Etymology of, 236.
_Lia Fáil_, 14, 401.
Libations to Fairies, 36, 92-3, 200, 218, 273, 291.
Lights, 7, 61, 77, 83, 133, 145, 155, 180, 207, 215.
---- Science and, 463, 483-4.
Limerick, 78, 386.
_Lismore, Book of_, 401, 412;
age of, 283 n.
Lough Derg, 72, 442 ff.
Lough Gur, 78, 386.
Lug, 62, 292, 369, 450.
_Lugnasadh_, 451.
_Lutins_, 159 n., 190-1, 206 ff., 493.
Lyonesse, 12, 167.
_Mabinogion_, 10, 260, 297, 304, 317, 328-9, 451.
---- Age of, 308 n., 331.
---- Editions of, 308 n.
_Mael-Duin's Voyage_, 348.
Magic, 10, 93, 120, 131, 153, 156, 168, 171, 204, 245, 250, 253-65, 281,
292, 299, 324, 328, 339, 346, 380-1:
_see_ Charms, Divination, Magicians, Necromancy, Fairy Spell, Witches,
and Witchcraft.
---- Ancient, 255-60.
---- Celtic, 256-7, 259-60.
---- Fairy, 42, 199, 203, 265, 327.
---- Frazer, Dr., and, 254-5.
---- Indian, 258, 489 n.
---- Religion and, 42, 255, 287 n., 292, 381, 404-5:
_see_ Exorcism, and Taboo.
---- Roman Church and, 42, 237 n.
---- Study of, 257, 489 n.
---- Taboo and, 274 ff.
---- Theories of, 253.
Magicians, 131, 156, 227-8, 247, 253-5, 257, 262-5, 268, 299, 329, 344,
380-1, 417, 433, 437, 489 n.:
_see_ Manannan, and Merlin.
Magnetism, Animal, 262.
Malory, 308 n., 312, 315, 323, 380.
_Mana_, 254-5, 262, 265, 278, 479.
Manannan, 7, 62, 80 n., 118, 120, 131-2 n., 135, 299, 333, 335, 339,
342-3, 345-6, 356, 372-4, 376.
---- Hermes, like, 343 n.
Manes, 438, 441.
Marazion, 173.
Märchen, 23.
Marie de France, 308 n., 325-6, 348.
Math, 417.
_Matter of Britain_, 328, 331.
May Day, 312, 435.
---- Fairies and, 43, 53, 100 n., 124.
Meath, 297, 415.
Meave (_Medb_), 3, 43, 70, 288-9, 301, 440.
Megaliths, Alignement of, 419 ff.:
_see_ Archaeology.
Melwas, 311, 313-4, 316.
Menhir: _see_ Archaeology.
Merionethshire, 144.
Merlin, 10, 149, 314-5, 321-2, 329-30, 403, 417, 429, 435-7, 447.
Mermaid, 25, 28.
_Mesca Ulad_, 344.
Midir, 302, 311, 374-6, 413.
Mil, 284, 291:
_see_ Milesians.
Milesians, 32, 287, 303, 349, 372, 377 n.
Mithras, 448.
Modred, 322, 324.
Mongan, 260.
---- Re-birth of, 370 ff., 394-5.
Montgomeryshire, 145.
Morbihan, xv, 199 n., 273, 399, 401, 403-4, 428.
_Morgan_, 200-1, 352.
---- _le Fay_, 311, 315, 327.
_Morrigu_, 302-3, 305, 315:
_see_ _Badb_.
Moytura, 2, 303, 335.
Munster, 300, 348.
Mysteries, xiii, 14, 59, 173, 257-9, 313 n., 337-8, 343, 359, 365, 377
n., 405 ff., 409 ff.
---- Celtic, 409 ff., 444 ff.
---- Nature of, 411, 422, 448 ff.
---- Puberty, 449 ff.
Mysticism, xvii, 1, 2, 5, 8, 9, 13-4, 58-9, 78, 313, 341 n., 356, 360
n., 364, 377 n.
---- Comparative, 457-8.
Mythology, Interpretation of Irish, 307.
---- Origin of, 281, 455.
Necromancy, 151 n., 258, 404, 489 n.
Nennius, 308 n., 322.
Nereids, 230-1.
New Grange, 2, 36, 61, 409 ff., 451.
Newlyn, 178 ff.
Nirvana, Meaning of, 366, 391.
November Day (or Eve), Origin of, 439, 453.
---- Fairies and, 38, 53, 73, 91, 93 n., 100 n., 179, 213, 218, 288-9,
301:
_see_ _Samain_.
Nuada, 319.
Nymphs, 229-31.
Obsession: _see_ Possession.
Occultism, Discussion of, 240.
Ogam, 340, 372.
Ogier, 348.
Oracles, 10, 15, 410, 448.
Osiris, xv, 309 n., 310, 320-1, 381, 422, 439-40.
Ossian (Oisin), 57, 260, 299.
_Ossian's Voyage_, 346-7, 357.
Otherworld, 60, 62, 78, 123, 194, 220, 246-7, 252, 277-8, 281, 295, 311,
316, 318, 321, 371-3, 443.
---- Atlantis and, 33 n., 59.
---- Classical, 336-7.
---- Description of, 332-8, 340-3, 349 ff.
---- Egyptian, 380-1, 422.
---- Evolution of idea of, 333 n., 353-7.
---- Heaven, as, 354-5, 446.
---- Hell, as, 355.
---- Interpreted, 70, 285, 337-8, 356, 492.
---- Location of, 332-4.
---- Names of, 334-5.
---- Nature of, 332-8, 340-3, 356-7.
---- New Zealand, 275.
---- Passport to, 336-7.
---- Polynesian, 275.
---- Purgatory, as, 281, 354, 364:
_see_ Purgatory.
---- Re-birth and, 334, 365:
_see_ Re-birth.
---- Science and, 514-5.
---- Virgil on, 336-7, 382, 445.
---- Voyages, 328, 335, 338-57, 378-80.
Paimpont, 188:
_see_ Brocéliande.
Pantheism, Celtic, 377 n.
Paracelsus, 167, 240, 254.
Pardon, Breton, 428, 450 n.
Peel, 129, 132, 387.
Pembrokeshire, 147, 153, 161.
Penates, 190, 229.
Penzance, 12, 174 ff., 391.
'People of Peace,' Origin of name, 438 n.:
_see_ Fairy Names.
Phallicism, 402 n.
Phantom: _see_ Apparition, Dead, Death, Fairy, Ghost, and Science and
Fairies.
---- Coach, 25.
---- Funeral, 10, 126, 145, 152, 213-5, 221.
---- Horse, 79 n., 215.
---- Ship, 25.
---- Washerwomen, 212, 216.
Philtres, 258.
Phoenicians, 12, 173, 176, 395-6.
Pict, 165-6, 234 n.-5.
Pin-Wells, 430.
Pixies, 158-9, 164 ff., 207, 220, 229, 238, 241, 250, 398, 406, 493.
---- Etymology of, 165.
Pliny on Druids, 256, 259, 260, 433.
Pluto, 312, 337, 367, 452.
_Poltergeist_ Phenomena, 67, 74, 88, 120, 124-5, 132, 156, 162, 164,
218, 220, 488.
---- Fairies and, 475-6, 482, 484.
---- Science and, 459, 463, 481, 490.
Possession, 34, 69, 112, 207, 265, 268 ff., 375:
_see_ Demon-Possession, and Exorcism.
---- Science and, 472.
Proserpine, 312, 336-8, 382, 450 n., 475.
Psychical Research, 14, 255, 265, 365, 459, 461 ff., 471 ff., 493, 497,
502 ff.
---- Society, 268, 330, 398, 447 n., 488.
Psychic Centres, 14, 74, 221, 299, 410-1:
_see_ Mysteries.
Psychological Theory: _see_ Fairy-Faith, Theories of.
Psychology, Social, 232, 251, 282, 289, 307, 458, 469, 475 n., 476 n.
Puck (_Puca_), 25, 53, 164, 207.
---- Science and, 483.
Purgatory, 169, 364, 405, 414, 442 ff.
---- Fairies and, 76.
---- Origin of doctrine of, 452.
Pygmy, xxii-xxiii, 28, 234 n., 236-9, 245, 398:
_see_ Fairy-Faith, Theories of, Pygmy.
Pyramid, xv.
---- Celtic tumuli and, 418 ff.
---- Purpose of, 423 ff.
Rag-Bushes, 430.
Rappings and Science, 459, 463, 475 n., 481, 488.
Re-birth, 5, 9, 64, 84, 227, 252, 313 n., 353, 358-96.
---- Arthur and, 310, 315, 321, 323-4, 379-81, 386, 509 n.
---- Australian, 227.
---- _Barddas MSS._ on, 365-7, 378, 515.
---- Brython, 216, 378-80, 392-3.
---- Buddha and, 359, 382, 509, 514.
---- Christian, 359-63, 387, 391, 393-5, 513.
---- Classical Writers on, 367, 395.
---- Darwinism and, 365, 501, 515.
---- Dermot's, 376.
---- Emerson and, 382.
---- Esoteric Doctrine of, 377 n., 503-4, 513 n., 514.
---- Fichte and, 382.
---- Gnostics and, 361-2.
---- Greek, 382.
---- Herder and, 382.
---- Historical Survey of, 359-65.
---- Dr. Hyde on, 368.
---- Japanese, 383.
---- Jewish, 359, 384 n.
---- Jubainville on, 368.
---- Lama and, 383.
---- Manichaean, 362.
---- Modern, 364.
---- Modern Celtic, 383-93;
non-Celtic, 364, 380-3.
---- Mongan's, 370.
---- Origen on, 359-61, 394.
---- Origin and Evolution of Doctrine, 393-6.
---- Otherworld and, 338, 358, 452.
---- Parnell's, 385.
---- Philo and, 359.
---- Purgatory and, 364, 384, 452.
---- Roman Church and, 364.
---- Rosicrucians and, 364.
---- Schopenhauer and, 382.
---- Science and, 469, 492-513.
---- Sex in, 375 n., 391.
---- Spiritual, 449.
---- Sun and, 310, 321, 380, 420.
---- Tennyson and, 382.
---- Tertullian on, 359-61, 394.
---- Tuan's, 377.
---- Tuatha De Danann, of, 367-76.
---- Whitman and, 382.
---- William II and, 383.
---- Wordsworth and, 382.
Religions, Origin of, 226, 455.
Robin Good-fellow, 207, 220.
---- Science and, 481.
Roman Catholic Theology and Fairies, 42, 168, 270, 364, 452.
_Romans Bretons_, 326-8.
Roscommon, 3, 27, 69, 70.
Rosicrucians, 167, 240-1, 243, 364.
Rosses Point, 58, 66, 243.
Ross-shire, 90.
Round Table, 309-10, 312, 323.
Round Tower, 59, 98, 129.
Sabbath, 215, 264.
---- _Corrigan_, 209-10 n.
Sacrifice, 258-9, 413, 429-30, 434 n., 436 ff., 455.
---- Animal, 424, 435.
---- Food, 281, 404, 408, 437-8, 441, 454;
Anthropology and, 279-80;
Fairy, to, 36-7, 44, 70, 75, 117, 164, 171, 175, 218, 279-80, 291,
437:
_see_ Libations.
---- Human, 246-7, 251-2, 280, 351, 407, 430, 436.
Sagas, 30, 368, 374.
Saints, Communion of, 127.
Salamanders, 242.
Salmon, Sacred, 341 n., 433.
_Samain_, 31, 288-90, 298-9, 345, 439-40, 453:
_see_ November Day.
Satyrs, 303, 306, 406.
Science and Fairies, 456-515.
Second-sight, 43, 91 n., 140:
_see_ Clairvoyance.
---- Science and, 486.
Seers and Seeresses, xviii, 2, 3, 18, 43-4, 55, 60 ff., 72, 76, 80,
82-3, 91, 94, 96, 122, 124, 141, 152, 155, 158, 177, 182, 206,
213-4, 217, 227, 242, 264, 284-5, 290, 334, 392-3, 457, 459, 470,
477.
Sein, Île de, 15, 218.
_Senchus na relec_, 292.
Serpents, 343.
---- St. Patrick and, 444.
_Sgéalta_, 23.
Shakespeare, 164, 241.
Shape-shifting, 34-5, 47, 79 n., 81 n., 192, 205, 207, 211, 230, 259,
293, 301-2, 328, 345, 356, 374, 389.
_Shoney_, 93, 200.
_Siabra_ (Ghosts), 285, 310.
_Sidh_, Definition of, 291.
_Sidhe_, 27-8, 58-66, 77, 86, 113, 227, 283-307, 314, 334, 352, 431:
_see_ Tuatha De Danann.
---- Abductions by, 294-6.
---- Clontarf, at, 305-7.
---- Minstrels and Musicians, 69, 297-300.
---- Nature of, 62-4, 285-91, 307.
---- Palaces, 291-3, 300-2, 431.
---- Science and, 473, 479.
---- Society and Warfare, 60, 63, 65, 291, 300-7, 335.
---- Visions of, 60 ff., 296-7.
---- War-Goddesses, 302.
---- World, 60, 62-5, 295.
Skye, 4, 96, 98, 257.
Slieve Gullion, 2, 75-6, 237.
Sligo, 44, 54, 285, 299.
_Sluagh_, 108:
_see_ Fairy Hosts.
_Snedgus, Voyage of_, 354.
Snowdon, 10, 136-7 n.
Sociology of Celts, 233.
Sorcery, 258, 402.
Soul, Bee, as, 178.
---- Bird, as, 183, 185, 240, 304 n., 355.
---- Existence of, 496-7.
---- Fairy, as, 147, 169, 176, 179, 183, 235, 493:
_see_ Dead.
---- Idea of, 178, 215, 239-41, 244, 247-52, 304 n., 355, 360, 390.
---- Moth, as, 178, 240, 304 n.
---- Seen Disembodied, 215.
---- Science and, 480.
---- World, of, 65, 254.
Spenser, 318.
Sphynx, 419-20.
Spirits, Nature, 237-8, 240-4, 493.
Spiritualism, 55, 151 n., 249, 263, 459 ff.
St. Anne, 428, 450 n.
_St. Brandan's Voyage_, 354.
St. Brigit, 3, 284.
St. Columba, 3, 7, 85, 266-8, 441, 428.
---- Human sacrifice and, 436.
---- Re-birth and, 385.
St. Cornely, 199 n., 271, 274, 393, 428.
St. David, 402.
St. David's, 10, 147.
St. Guenolé, 201.
St. John's Day, 80 n., 273.
_St. Malo's Voyage_, 355.
St. Michael, 12, 407.
St. Michael's Mount, xv, 12, 15, 173, 398, 407, 423.
Stonehenge, xv, 403, 405, 411, 417-8.
Story-telling, 3, 5-7, 23-4, 115, 121, 149, 152, 154, 161, 184, 221.
St. Patrick, 3, 9, 14, 74, 118, 266-8, 286-7, 292, 294, 297-8, 431-2,
441 ff.
---- Re-birth and, 385.
---- Serpents and, 444.
_St. Patrick's Tripartite Life_, 402, 431, 451.
Succubi, 113 n.
Sun-dance and Fairy-dance, 405-6.
Swan-maidens, 200, 301.
Sylph, 241.
Taboo, 79 n., 130, 136, 161, 175, 204, 281, 340, 347, 415.
---- Anthropology and, 274-9.
---- Celtic, 277-9, 289-90, 295-6 n., 340, 347, 352, 368, 415.
---- Food, 47, 68, 127, 219, 275-6, 352.
---- Iron, 34, 87-8, 95, 124 n., 135, 138, 144, 147, 276.
---- Name, 70, 92, 208-10, 213, 274-5.
---- Place, 33, 35, 82, 150, 231, 237, 248, 277, 293.
_Táin_, 287, 302.
Taliessin, 161-2, 337 n., 388.
---- _Book of_, 353, 378.
---- Re-birth of, 378.
Tara, 2, 13-5, 31-2, 35, 221, 289, 292, 298-9, 340 ff., 351-2, 376, 381
n., 401-2, 410, 419.
_Teigue's Voyage_, 348-51.
Telepathy, 120, 217, 255.
---- Science and, 459, 472-3, 477-8, 490.
Tethra, 335.
Theology: _see_ Fairy-Faith, and Christianity and Fairies.
Theosophy, 167, 243, 457.
Thomas's _Tristan_, 325.
Tintagel, 12, 183-4.
_Togail_, 287.
Totem, 178, 227, 299 n., 304 n.
Trance, 65, 68-9, 181, 210, 248, 275, 281, 343, 356, 383, 472.
---- Fairyland and, 469 ff., 490.
---- Science and, 459.
Transmigration, 377 n., 387-9, 392:
_see_ Re-birth.
Tree, Sacred: _see_ Cult.
_Triads_, 311, 313 n., 365.
Trinity, The, 238, 436.
_Tristan_, 325.
Troll, 176, 238, 391.
Tuam, 42, 384.
_Tuan's Re-birth_, 377.
Tuatha De Danann, 28, 31-2, 59, 62, 70, 211, 229, 241, 243, 252, 260,
277-80, 283-307:
_see_ _Sidhe_, and Re-birth of.
---- Cult of, 412 ff.
---- Nature of, 285 ff., 296 n., 310, 313 n.-4, 335, 351, 355, 376, 379,
411, 492.
---- Welsh parallels to, 329.
_Tylwyth Teg_: _see_ Fairy, Names.
---- Breton parallel to, 211.
---- Origin of, 163.
Ulster, 3, 344-5, 370, 373, 374.
Undine, Tale of, 135.
Undines, 241.
Uthr Bendragon, 310.
_Viellée_, 6 n., 221.
Virgin, Holy, the, 394 n., 428, 451.
Vision, 60-2, 65-7, 80, 83, 91, 117, 122, 124-6, 133-4, 139, 140-1, 143,
145, 152, 155, 158, 182, 214-5, 230, 242, 286, 296, 334, 356:
_see_ Clairvoyance, and Seers.
---- Conferring of, 77, 152, 215.
---- Explanation of, 485 ff.
---- Science and, 459, 476.
Vitalism, 493 ff.
Vivian, 10, 189, 315, 329.
Wace, 308 n., 323.
_Wales, Archaiology of_, 394.
---- _Four Ancient Books of_, 308 n., 328-31;
age of, 331.
Wands, 52, 202, 343-4.
White Lady, 28, 82 n., 152 n., 310.
Witch, 34, 36, 121-2, 124 n., 174, 248, 264, 272, 304, 306, 389, 430.
---- Definition of, 263.
Witchcraft, 10, 12, 34, 36, 122, 153-4, 159 n., 167, 248, 253-65, 272,
281.
---- Theory of, 263.
Footnotes:
[1] Quite appropriately it means _place of cairns_ or _tumuli_--those
prehistoric monuments religious and funereal in their purposes. _Carnac_
seems to be a Gallo-Roman form. According to Professor J. Loth, the
Breton (Celtic) forms would be: old Celtic, _Carnāco-s_; old Breton
(ninth-eleventh century), _Carnoc_; Middle Breton (eleventh-sixteenth
century), _Carneuc_; Modern Breton, _Carnec_.
[2] For we cannot offer any proof of what at first sight appears like a
philological relation or identity between _Carnac_ and _Karnak_.
[3] Andrew Lang, Kirk's _Secret Commonwealth_ (London, 1893), p. xviii;
and _History of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1900-07).
[4] Cf. David MacRitchie's published criticisms of our Psychological
Theory in _The Celtic Review_ (January 1910), entitled _Druids and
Mound-Dwellers_; also his first part of these criticisms, ib. (October
1909), entitled _A New Solution of the Fairy Problem_.
[5] Alexander Carmichael, _Carmina Gadelica_ (Edinburgh, 1900), i, p.
xix.
[6] The _ceilidh_ of the Western Hebrides corresponds to the _veillée_
of Lower Brittany (see pp. 221 ff.), and to similar story-telling
festivals which formerly flourished among all the Celtic peoples. 'The
_ceilidh_ is a literary entertainment where stories and tales, poems,
and ballads, are rehearsed and recited, and songs are sung, conundrums
are put, proverbs are quoted, and many other literary matters are
related and discussed.'--Alexander Carmichael, _Carmina Gadelica_, i, p.
xviii.
[7] I am indebted for this information to the late Mr. Davies, the
competent scholar and antiquarian of Newcastle-Emlyn, where for many
years he has been vicar.
[8] In the Gnosis, St. Michael symbolizes the sun, and thus very
appropriately at St. Michael's Mount, Cornwall, at Mont St. Michel,
Carnac, and also at Mont St. Michel on the coast of Normandy, replaced
the Great God of Light and Life, held in supreme honour among the
ancient Celts.
[9] In this connexion we may think of the North and South Magnetic Poles
of the earth as centres of definite yet invisible forces which can be
detected, and to some extent measured scientifically.
[10] Anglo-Irish for _rath_, a circular earthen fort.
[11] Throughout Ireland there are many ancient, often prehistoric,
earthworks or tumuli, which are popularly called _forts_, _raths_, or
_dúns_, and in folk-belief these are considered fairy hills or the
abodes of various orders of fairies. In this belief we see at work a
definite anthropomorphism which attributes dwellings here on earth to an
invisible spirit-race, as though this race were actually the spirits of
the ancient Irish who built the _forts_. As we proceed, we shall see how
important and varied a part these earthworks play in the Irish
Fairy-Faith (cf. chapter viii, on Archaeology).
[12] An Irish mystic, and seer of great power, with whom I have often
discussed the Fairy-Faith in its details, regards 'fairy paths' or
'fairy passes' as actual magnetic arteries, so to speak, through which
circulates the earth's magnetism.
[13] 'Irish scholars differ as to the signification of _Meadha_. Some
say that it is the genitive case of _Meadh_, the name of some ancient
chieftain who was buried in the hill. _Knock Magh_ is the spelling often
used by writers who hold that the name means "Hill of the Plain".'--JOHN
GLYNN.
[14] On September 8, 1909, about a year after this testimony was given,
Mr. ----, our seer-witness, at his own home near Grange, told to me
again the same essential facts concerning his psychical experiences as
during my first interview with him, and even repeated word for word the
expressions the 'gentry' used in communicating with him. Therefore I
feel that he is thoroughly sincere in his beliefs and descriptions,
whatever various readers may think of them. As his neighbours said to me
about him--and I interviewed a good many of them--'Some give in to him
and some do not'; but they always spoke of him with respect, though a
few naturally consider him eccentric. At the time of our second meeting
(which gave me a chance to revise the evidence as first taken down) Mr.
---- made this additional statement:--'The _gentry_ do not tell all their
secrets, and I do not understand many things about them, nor can I be
sure that everything I tell concerning them is exact.'
[15] A learned and more careful Irish seer thinks this head-dress should
really be described as an aura.
[16] I have been told by a friend in California, who is a student of
psychical sciences, that there exist in certain parts of that state,
notably in the Yosemite Valley, as the Red Men seem to have known,
according to their traditions, invisible races exactly comparable to the
'gentry' of this Ben Bulbin country such as our seer-witness describes
them and as other seers in Ireland have described them, and quite like
the 'people of peace' as described by Kirk, the seventh son, in his
_Secret Commonwealth_ (see this study, p. 85 n.). These California races
are said to exist now, as the Irish and Scotch invisible races are said
to exist now, by seers who can behold them; and, like the latter races,
are described as a distinct order of beings who have never been in
physical embodiments. If we follow the traditions of the Red Men, the
Yosemite invisible tribes are probably but a few of many such tribes
scattered throughout the North American continent; and equally with
their Celtic relatives they are described as a warlike race with more
than human powers over physical nature, and as able to subject or
destroy men.
[17] This refers to a tale told by Hugh Currid, in August, 1908, about
Father Patrick and Father Dominick, which is here omitted because
re-investigation during my second visit to Grange, in September, 1909,
showed the tale to have been incorrectly reported. The same story,
however, based upon facts, according to several reliable witnesses, was
more accurately told by Patrick Waters at the time of my
re-investigation, and appears on page 51.
[18] It happened that I had in my pocket a fossil, picked out of the
neighbouring sea-cliff rocks, which are very rich in fossils. I showed
this to Pat to ascertain if what he had had in his hand looked anything
like it, and he at once said 'No'.
[19] After this Ossianic fragment, which has been handed down orally, I
asked Pat if he had ever heard the old people talk about Dermot and
Grania, and he replied:--'To be sure I have. Dermot and Grania used to
live in these parts. Dermot stole Finn MacCoul's sister, and had to flee
away. He took with him a bag of sand and a bunch of heather; and when he
was in the mountains he would put the bag of sand under his head at
night, and then tell everybody he met that he had slept on the sand (the
sea-shore); and when on the sand he would use the bunch of heather for a
pillow, and say he had slept on the heather (the mountains). And so
nobody ever caught him at all.'
[20] As to probable proof that there was an Atlantis, see p. 333 n.
[21] This refers to Robert Kirk, minister of Aberfoyle, who wrote _The
Secret Commonwealth_ (see this study, p. 85 n.).
[22] In going from East Ireland to Galway, during the summer of 1908, I
passed through the country near Mullingar, where there was then great
excitement over a leprechaun which had been appearing to school-children
and to many of the country-folk. I talked with some of the people as I
walked through part of County Meath about this leprechaun, and most of
them were certain that there could be such a creature showing itself;
and I noticed, too, that they were all quite anxious to have a chance at
the money-bag, if they could only see the little fellow with it. I told
one good-natured old Irishman at Ballywillan--where I stopped over
night--as we sat round his peat fire and pot of boiling potatoes, that
the leprechaun was reported as captured by the police in Mullingar. 'Now
that couldn't be, at all,' he said instantly, 'for everybody knows the
leprechaun is a spirit and can't be caught by any blessed policeman,
though it is likely one might get his gold if they got him cornered so
he had no chance to run away. But the minute you wink or take your eyes
off the little devil, sure enough he is gone.'
[23] Cf. David Fitzgerald, _Popular Tales of Ireland_, in _Rev. Celt._,
iv. 185-92; and _All the Year Round_, New Series, iii. 'This woman
guardian of the lake is called Toice Bhrean, "untidy" or "lazy wench".
According to a local legend, she is said to have been originally the
guardian of the sacred well, from which, owing to her neglect, Lough Gur
issued; and in this rôle she corresponds to Liban, daughter of Eochaidh
Finn, the guardian of the sacred well from which issued Lough Neagh,
according to the _Dinnshenchas_ and the tale of Eochaidh
MacMairido.'--J. F. LYNCH.
[24] It was on the bank of the little river Camóg, which flows near
Lough Gur, that the Earl of Desmond one day saw Aine as she sat there
combing her hair. Overcome with love for the fairy-goddess, he gained
control over her through seizing her cloak, and made her his wife. From
this union was born the enchanted son Geróid Iarla, even as Galahad was
born to Lancelot by the Lady of the Lake. When Geróid had grown into
young manhood, in order to surpass a woman he leaped right into a bottle
and right out again, and this happened in the midst of a banquet in his
father's castle. His father, the earl, had been put under taboo by Aine
never to show surprise at anything her magician son might do, but now
the taboo was forgotten, and hence broken, amid so unusual a
performance; and immediately Geróid left the feasting and went to the
lake. As soon as its water touched him he assumed the form of a goose,
and he went swimming over the surface of the Lough, and disappeared on
Garrod Island.
According to one legend, Aine, like the Breton _Morgan_, may sometimes
be seen combing her hair, only half her body appearing above the lake.
And in times of calmness and clear water, according to another legend,
one may behold beneath Aine's lake the lost enchanted castle of her son
Geróid, close to Garrod Island--so named from Geróid or 'Gerald'.
Geróid lives there in the under-lake world to this day, awaiting the
time of his normal return to the world of men (see our chapter on
re-birth, p. 386). But once in every seven years, on clear moonlight
nights, he emerges temporarily, when the Lough Gur peasantry see him as
a phantom mounted on a phantom white horse, leading a phantom or fairy
cavalcade across the lake and land. A well-attested case of such an
apparitional appearance of the earl has been recorded by Miss Anne
Baily, the percipient having been Teigue O'Neill, an old blacksmith whom
she knew (see _All the Year Round_, New Series, iii. 495-6, London,
1870). And Moll Riall, a young woman also known to Miss Baily, saw the
phantom earl by himself, under very weird circumstances, by day, as she
stood at the margin of the lake washing clothes (ib., p. 496).
Some say that Aine's true dwelling-place is in her hill; upon which on
every St. John's Night the peasantry used to gather from all the
immediate neighbourhood to view the moon (for Aine seems to have been a
moon goddess, like Diana), and then with torches (_cliars_) made of
bunches of straw and hay tied on poles used to march in procession from
the hill and afterwards run through cultivated fields and amongst the
cattle. The underlying purpose of this latter ceremony probably was--as
is the case in the Isle of Man and in Brittany (see pp. 124 n., 273),
where corresponding fire-ceremonies surviving from an ancient
agricultural cult are still celebrated--to exorcise the land from all
evil spirits and witches in order that there may be good harvests and
rich increase of flocks. Sometimes on such occasions the goddess herself
has been seen leading the sacred procession (cf. the Bacchus cult among
the ancient Greeks, who believed that the god himself led his
worshippers in their sacred torch-light procession at night, he being
like Aine in this respect, more or less connected with fertility in
nature). One night some girls staying on the hill late were made to look
through a magic ring by Aine, and lo the hill was crowded with the folk
of the fairy goddess who before had been invisible. The peasants always
said that Aine is 'the best-hearted woman that ever lived' (cf. David
Fitzgerald, _Popular Tales of Ireland_, in _Rev. Celt._, iv. 185-92).
In _Silva Gadelica_ (ii. 347-8), Aine is a daughter of Eogabal, a king
of the Tuatha De Danann, and her abode is within the _sidh_, named on
her account '_Aine cliach_, now Cnoc Aine, or Knockany'. In another
passage we read that Manannan took Aine as his wife (ib., ii. 197). Also
see in _Silva Gadelica_, ii, pp. 225, 576.
[25] 'In some local tales the _Bean-tighe_, or _Bean a'tighe_ is termed
_Bean-sidhe_ (Banshee), and _Bean Chaointe_, or "wailing woman", and is
identified with Aine. In an elegy by Ferriter on one of the Fitzgeralds,
we read:--
Aine from her closely hid nest did awake,
The woman of wailing from Gur's voicy lake.
'Thomas O'Connellan, the great minstrel bard, some of whose compositions
are given by Hardiman, died at Lough Gur Castle about 1700, and was
buried at New Church beside the lake. It is locally believed that Aine
stood on a rock of Knock Adoon and "keened" O'Connellan whilst the
funeral procession was passing from the castle to the place of
burial.'--J. F. LYNCH.
A Banshee was traditionally attached to the Baily family of Lough Gur;
and one night at dead of night, when Miss Kitty Baily was dying of
consumption, her two sisters, Miss Anne Baily and Miss Susan Baily, who
were sitting in the death chamber, 'heard such sweet and melancholy
music as they had never heard before. It seemed to them like distant
cathedral music.... The music was not in the house.... It seemed to come
through the windows of the old castle, high in the air.' But when Miss
Anne, who went downstairs with a lighted candle to investigate the weird
phenomenon, had approached the ruined castle she thought the music came
from above the house; 'and thus perplexed, and at last frightened, she
returned.' Both sisters are on record as having distinctly heard the
fairy music, and for a long time (_All the Year Round_, New Series, iii.
496-7; London, 1870).
[26] 'The _Buachailleen_ is most likely one of the many forms assumed by
the shape-shifting Fer Fi, the Lough Gur Dwarf, who at Tara, according
to the _Dinnshenchas_ of Tuag Inbir (see _Folk-Lore_, iii; and A. Nutt,
_Voyage of Bran_, i. 195 ff.), took the shape of a woman; and we may
trace the tales of Geróid Iarla to Fer Fi, who, and not Geróid, is
believed by the oldest of the Lough Gur peasantry to be the owner of the
lake. Fer Fi is the son of Eogabal of Sídh Eogabail, and hence brother
to Aine. He is also foster-son of Manannan Mac Lir, and a Druid of the
Tuatha De Danann (cf. _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 225; also _Dinnshenchas_ of
Tuag Inbir). At Lough Gur various tales are told by the peasants
concerning the Dwarf, and he is still stated by them to be the brother
of Aine. For the sake of experiment I once spoke very disrespectfully of
the Dwarf to John Punch, an old man, and he said to me in a frightened
whisper: "Whisht! he'll hear you." Edward Fitzgerald and other old men
were very much afraid of the Dwarf.'--J. F. LYNCH.
[27] 'Compare the tale of Excalibur, the Sword of King Arthur, which
King Arthur before his death ordered Sir Bedivere to cast into the lake
whence it had come.'--J. F. LYNCH.
[28] 'It is commonly believed by young and old at Lough Gur that a human
being is drowned in the Lake once every seven years, and that it is the
_Bean Fhionn_, or "White Lady" who thus _takes_ the person.'--J. F.
LYNCH.
[29] It was the belief of the Rev. Robert Kirk, as expressed by him in
his _Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns, and Fairies_, that the fairy
tribes are a distinct order of created beings possessing human-like
intelligence and supernormal powers, who live and move about in this
world invisible to all save men and women of the second-sight (see this
study, pp. 89, 91 n.).
[30] The Rev. Robert Kirk, in his _Secret Commonwealth_, defines the
second-sight, which enabled him to see the 'good people', as 'a rapture,
transport, and sort of death'. He and our present witness came into the
world with this abnormal faculty; but there is the remarkable case to
record of the late Father Allen Macdonald, who during a residence of
twenty years on the tiny and isolated Isle of Erisgey, Western Hebrides,
acquired the second-sight, and was able some years before he died there
(in 1905) to exercise it as freely as though he had been a natural-born
seer.
[31] In his note to _Le Chant des Trépassés_ (_Barzaz Breiz_, p. 507),
Villemarqué reports that in some localities in Lower Brittany on All
Saints Night libations of milk are poured over the tombs of the dead.
This is proof that the nature of fairies in Scotland and of the dead in
Brittany is thought to be the same.
[32] 'In many parts of the Highlands, where the same deity is known, the
stone into which women poured the libation of milk is called _Leac na
Gruagaich_, "Flag-stone of the Gruagach." If the libation was omitted in
the evening, the best cow in the fold would be found dead in the
morning.'--ALEXANDER CARMICHAEL.
[33] Dr. George Henderson, in _The Norse Influence on Celtic Scotland_
(Glasgow, 1901), p. 101, says:--'_Shony_ was a sea-god in Lewis, where
ale was sacrificed to him at Hallowtide. After coming to the church of
St. Mulvay at night a man was sent to wade into the sea, saying: "Shony,
I give you this cup of ale hoping that you will be so kind as to give us
plenty of sea-ware for enriching our ground the ensuing year." As _ō_
from Norse would become _o_, and _fn_ becomes _nn_, one thinks of
_Sjöfn_, one of the goddesses in the Edda. In any case the word is
Norse.' It seems, therefore, that the Celtic stock in Lewis have adopted
the name _Shony_ or _Shoney_, and possibly also the god it designates,
through contact with Norsemen; but, at all events, they have assimilated
him to their own fairy pantheon, as we can see in their celebrating
special libations to him on the ancient Celtic feast of the dead and
fairies, Halloween.
[34] This, as Dr. Carmichael told me, I believe very justly represents
the present state of folk-lore in many parts of the Highlands. There
are, it is true, old men and women here and there who know much about
fairies, but they, fearing the ridicule of a younger and 'educated'
generation, are generally unwilling to admit any belief in fairies.
[35] The following note by Miss Tolmie is of great interest and value,
especially when one bears in mind Cuchulainn's traditional relation with
Skye (see p. 4):--'The Koolian range should never be written
_Cu-chullin_. The name is written here with a K, to ensure its being
correctly uttered and written. It is probably a Norse word; but, as yet,
a satisfactory explanation of its origin and meaning has not been
published. In Gaelic the range is always alluded to (in the masculine
singular) as the Koolian.'
[36] Dr. Alexander Carmichael found that the scene of this widespread
tale is variously laid, in Argyll, in Perth, in Inverness, and in other
counties of the Highlands. From his own collection of folk-songs he
contributes the following verses to illustrate the song (existing in
numerous versions), which the maiden while invisible used to sing to the
cows of Colin:--
_Crodh Chailean! crodh Chailean!
Crodh Chailean mo ghaoil,
Crodh Chailean mo chridhe,
Air lighe cheare fraoish._
(Cows of Colin! cows of Colin!
Cows of Colin of my love,
Cows of Colin of my heart,
In colour of the heather-hen.)
In one of Dr. Carmichael's versions, 'Colin's wife and her infant child
had been lifted away by the fairies to a fairy bower in the glen between
the hills.' There she was kept nursing the babes which the fairies had
stolen, until 'upon Hallow Eve, when all the bowers were open', Colin by
placing a steel tinder above the lintel of the door to the fairy bower
was enabled to enter the bower and in safety lead forth his wife and
child.
[37] In this beautiful fairy legend we recognize the fairy woman as one
of the Tuatha De Danann-like fairies--one of the women of the _Sidhe_,
as Irish seers call them.
[38] It is interesting to know that the present inhabitants of Barra, or
at least most of them, are the descendants of Irish colonists who
belonged to the clan Eoichidh of County Cork, and who emigrated from
there to Barra in A. D. 917. They brought with them their old customs and
beliefs, and in their isolation their children have kept these things
alive in almost their primitive Celtic purity. For example, besides
their belief in fairies, May Day, Baaltine, and November Eve are still
rigorously observed in the pagan way, and so is Easter--for it, too,
before being claimed by Christianity, was a sun festival. And how
beautiful it is in this age to see the youths and maidens and some of
the elders of these simple-hearted Christian fisher-folk climb to the
rocky heights of their little island-home on Easter morn to salute the
sun as it rises out of the mountains to the east, and to hear them say
that the sun dances with joy that morning because the Christ is risen.
In a similar way they salute the new moon, making as they do so the sign
of the cross. Finn Barr is said to have been a County Cork man of great
sanctity; and he probably came to Barra with the colony, for he is the
patron saint of the island, and hence its name. (To my friend, Mr.
Michael Buchanan, of Barra, I am indebted for this history and these
traditions of his native isle.)
[39] '_Sluagh_, "hosts," the spirit-world. The "hosts" are the spirits
of mortals who have died.... According to one informant, the spirits fly
about in great clouds, up and down the face of the world like the
starlings, and come back to the scenes of their earthly transgressions.
No soul of them is without the clouds of earth, dimming the brightness
of the works of God, nor can any win heaven till satisfaction is made
for the sins of earth.'--ALEXANDER CARMICHAEL, _Carmina Gadelica_, ii.
330.
[40] This curious tale suggests that certain of the fairy women who
entice mortals to their love in modern times are much the same, if not
the same, as the _succubi_ of Middle-Age mystics. But it is not intended
by this observation to confuse the higher orders of the _Sidhe_ and all
the fairy folk like the fays who come from Avalon with _succubi_; though
_succubi_ and fairy women in general were often confused and improperly
identified the one with the other. It need not be urged in this example
of a 'fairy woman' that we have to do not with a being of flesh and
blood, whatever various readers may think of her.
[41] '"Willy-the-Fairy," otherwise known as William Cain, is the
musician referred to by the late Mr. John Nelson (p. 131). The latter's
statement that William Cain played one of these fairy tunes at one of
our Manx entertainments in Peel is perfectly correct.'--SOPHIA MORRISON.
[42] This is the Mid-world of Irish seers, who would be inclined to
follow the Manx custom and call the fairies 'the People of the Middle
World'.
[43] 'May 11 == in Manx _Oie Voaldyn_, "May-day Eve." On this evening the
fairies were supposed to be peculiarly active. To propitiate them and to
ward off the influence of evil spirits, and witches, who were also
active at this time, green leaves or boughs and _sumark_ or primrose
flowers were strewn on the threshold, and branches of the _cuirn_ or
mountain ash made into small crosses without the aid of a knife, which
was on no account to be used (steel or iron in any form being taboo to
fairies and spirits), and stuck over the doors of the dwelling-houses
and cow-houses. Cows were further protected from the same influences by
having the _Bollan-feaill-Eoin_ (John's feast wort) placed in their
stalls. This was also one of the occasions on which no one would give
fire away, and on which fires were and are still lit on the hills to
drive away the fairies.'--SOPHIA MORRISON.
[44] I am wholly indebted to Miss Morrison for these Manx verses and
their translation, which I have substituted for Mrs. Moore's English
rendering. Miss Morrison, after my return to Oxford, saw Mrs. Moore and
took them down from her, a task I was not well fitted to do when the
tale was told.
[45] It has been suggested, and no doubt correctly, that these murmuring
sounds heard on Dalby Mountain are due to the action of sea-waves, close
at hand, washing over shifting masses of pebbles on the rock-bound
shore. Though this be the true explanation of the phenomenon itself, it
only proves the attribution of cause to be wrong, and not the underlying
animistic conception of spiritual beings.
[46] In this mythological role, Manannan is apparently a sun god or else
the sun itself; and the Manx coat of arms, which is connected with him,
being a sun symbol, suggests to us now ages long prior to history, when
the Isle of Man was a Sacred Isle dedicated to the cult of the Supreme
God of Light and Life, and when all who dwelt thereon were regarded as
the Children of the Sun.
[47] Sir John Rhŷs tells me that this Snowdon fairy-lore was
contributed by the late Lady Rhŷs, who as a girl lived in the
neighbourhood of Snowdon and heard very much from the old people there,
most of whom believed in the fairies; and she herself then used to be
warned, in the manner mentioned, against being carried away into the
under-lake Fairyland.
[48] Cf. _Celtic Folklore, Welsh and Manx_, pp. 683-4 n., where Sir John
Rhŷs says of his friend, Professor A. C. Haddon:--'I find also that
he, among others, has anticipated me in my theory as to the origins of
the fairies: witness the following extract from the syllabus of a
lecture delivered by him at Cardiff in 1894 on _Fairy Tales_:--"What are
the fairies?--Legendary origin of the fairies. It is evident from fairy
literature that there is a mixture of the possible and the impossible,
of fact and fancy. Part of fairydom refers to (1) spirits that never
were embodied: other fairies are (2) spirits of environment, nature or
local spirits, and household or domestic spirits; (3) spirits of the
organic world, spirits of plants, and spirits of animals; (4) spirits of
men, or ghosts; and (5) witches and wizards, or men possessed with other
spirits. All these, and possibly other elements, enter into the fanciful
aspects of Fairyland, but there is a large residuum of real occurrences;
these point to a clash of races, and we may regard many of these fairy
sagas as stories told by men of the Iron Age of events which happened to
men of the Bronze Age in their conflicts with men of the Neolithic Age,
and possibly these, too, handed on traditions of the Paleolithic Age."'
[49] This is the one tale I have found in North Wales about a midwife
and fairies--a type of tale common to West Ireland, Isle of Man,
Cornwall, and Brittany, but in a reverse version, the midwife there
being (as she is sometimes in Welsh versions) one of the human race
called in by fairies. If evidence of the oneness of the Celtic mind were
needed we should find it here (cf. pp. 50, 54, 127, 175, 182, 205).
There are in this type of fairy-tale, as the advocates of the Pygmy
Theory may well hold, certain elements most likely traceable to a
folk-memory of some early race, or special class of some early race, who
knew the secrets of midwifery and the use of medicines when such
knowledge was considered magical. But in each example of this midwife
story there is the germ idea--no matter what other ideas cluster round
it--that fairies, like spirits, are only to be seen by an extra-human
vision, or, as psychical researchers might say, by clairvoyance.
[50] After this remarkable story, Mrs. Jones told me about another very
rare psychical experience of her own, which is here recorded because it
illustrates the working of the psychological law of the association of
ideas:--'My husband, Price Jones, was drowned some forty years ago,
within four miles of Arms Head, near Bangor, on Friday at midday; and
that night at about one o'clock he appeared to me in our bedroom and
laid his head on my breast. I tried to ask him where he came from, but
before I could get my breath he was gone. I believed at the time that he
was out at sea perfectly safe and well. But next day, Saturday, at about
noon, a message came announcing his death. I was as fully awake as one
can be when I thus saw the spirit of my husband. He returned to me a
second time about six months later.' Had this happened in West Ireland,
it is almost certain that public opinion would have declared that Price
Jones had been _taken_ by the 'gentry' or 'good people'.
[51] Here we find the _Tylwyth Teg_ showing quite the same
characteristics as Welsh elves in general, as Cornish pixies, and as
Breton _corrigans_, or _lutins_; that is, given to dancing at night, to
stealing children, and to deceiving travellers.
[52] This folk-belief partially sustains the view put forth in our
chapter on Environment, that St. David's during pagan times was already
a sacred spot and perhaps then the seat of a druidic oracle.
[53] Here we have an example of the _Tylwyth Teg_ being identified with
a prehistoric race, quite in accordance with the argument of the Pygmy
Theory. We have, however, as the essential idea, that the _Tylwyth Teg_
heard singing were the spirits of this prehistoric race. Thus our
contention that ancestral spirits play a leading part in the
fairy-belief is sustained, and the Pygmy Theory appears quite at its
true relative value--as able to explain one subordinate ethnological
strand in the complex fabric of the belief.
[54] This story is much like the one recorded by Giraldus Cambrensis
about a boy going to Fairyland and returning to his mother (see this
study, p. 324). The possibility that it may be an independent version of
the folk-tale told to Cambrensis which has continued to live on among
the people makes it highly interesting.
Mr. Jones gives further evidence on the re-birth doctrine in Wales (pp.
388-9), and concerning Merlin and sacrifice to appease place-spirits
(pp. 436-7).
[55] As a result of his researches, the Rev. T. M. Morgan has just
published a new work, entitled _The History and Antiquities of the
Parish of Newchurch_ (Carmarthen, 1910).
[56] In these last two anecdotes, as in modern 'Spiritualism', we
observe a popular practice of necromancy or the calling up of spirits,
so-called 'materialization' of spirits, and spirit communication through
a human 'medium', who is the _dyn hysbys_, as well as divination, the
revealing of things hidden and the foretelling of future events. This is
direct evidence that Welsh fairies or the _Tylwyth Teg_ were formerly
the same to Welshmen as spirits are to Spiritualists now. We seem,
therefore, to have proof of our Psychological Theory (see chap. xi).
[57] Here we have a combination of many distinct elements and
influences. As among mortals, so among the _Tylwyth Teg_ there is a
king; and this conception may have arisen directly from anthropomorphic
influences on the ancient Brythonic religion, or it may have come
directly from druidic teachings. The locating of _Gwydion ab Don_, like
a god, in a heaven-world, rather than like his counterpart, _Gwynn ab
Nudd_, in a hades-world, is probably due to a peculiar admixture of
Druidism and Christianity: at first, both gods were probably druidic or
pagan, and the same, but _Gwynn ab Nudd_ became a demon or evil god
under Christian influences, while _Gwydion ab Don_ seems to have
curiously retained his original good reputation in spite of Christianity
(cf. p. 320). The name _Gwenhidw_ reminds us at once of Arthur's queen
_Gwenhwyvar_ or 'White Apparition'; and the sheep of _Gwenhidw_ can
properly be explained by the Naturalistic Theory. It seems, however,
that analogy was imaginatively suggested between the Queen _Gwenhidw_ as
resembling the Welsh White Lady or a ghost-like being, and her sheep,
the clouds, also of a necessarily ghost-like character. All this is an
admirable illustration of the great complexity of the Fairy-Faith.
[58] The parallel between this Welsh method of conferring vision and the
Breton method is very striking (cf. p. 215).
[59] This is the substance of the story as it was told to me by a
gentleman who lives within sight of the farm where the image is said to
have been found. And one day he took me to the house and showed me the
room and the place in the wall where the find was made. The old manor is
one of the solidest and most picturesque of its kind in Wales, and, in
spite of its extreme age, well preserved. He, being as a native Welshman
of the locality well acquainted with its archaeology, thinks it safe to
place an age of six to eight hundred years on the manor. What is
interesting about this matter of age arises from the query, Was the
image one of the Virgin or of some Christian saint, or was it a Druid
idol? Both opinions are current in the neighbourhood, but there is a
good deal in favour of the second. The region, the little valley on
whose side stands the Pentre Evan Cromlech, the finest in Britain, is
believed to have been a favourite place with the ancient Druids; and in
the oak groves which still exist there tradition says there was once a
flourishing pagan school for neophytes, and that the cromlech instead of
being a place for interments or for sacrifices was in those days
completely enclosed, forming like other cromlechs a darkened chamber in
which novices when initiated were placed for a certain number of
days--the interior being called the 'Womb or Court of Ceridwen'.
[60] The same remedy is prescribed in Brittany when mischievous _lutins_
or _corrigans_ lead a traveller astray, in Ireland when the _good
people_ lead a traveller astray; and at Rollright, Oxfordshire, England,
an old woman told me that it is efficacious against being led astray
through witchcraft. Obviously the fairy and witch spell are alike.
[61] The same sort of a story as this is told in Lower Brittany, where
the _corrigans_ or _lutins_ slaughter a farmer's fat cow or ox and
invite the farmer to partake of the feast it provides. If he does so
with good grace and humour, he finds his cow or ox perfectly whole in
the morning, but if he refuses to join the feast or joins it
unwillingly, in the morning he is likely to find his cow or ox actually
dead and eaten.
[62] See Sir John Rhŷs, _Celtic Folk-Lore: Welsh and Manx_ (Oxford,
1901), _passim_.
[63] The _New English Dictionary_, s.v. _Pixy_, gives rather vaguely a
Swedish dialect word, _pysg_, a small fairy. It also mentions _pix_ as a
Devon imprecation, 'a pix take him.' I suspect the last is only an
_umlaut_ form of a common Shakespearean imprecation. If not, it is
interesting, and reminds one of the fate of Margery Dawe, 'Piskies came
and carr'd her away.'
[64] 'Some say that the Phoenicians never came to Cornwall at all, and
that their Ictis was Vectis (the Isle of Wight) or even Thanet.'--HENRY
JENNER.
[65] 'This is, I think, the usual Cornish belief.'--HENRY JENNER.
[66] 'About Porth Curnow and the Logan Rock there are little spots of
earth in the face of the granite cliffs where sea-daisies (thrift) and
other wild flowers grow. These are referred to the sea pisky, and are
known as "piskies' gardens."'--HENRY JENNER.
[67] I was told by another Cornishman that, in a spirit of municipal
rivalry and fun, the Penzance people like to taunt the people of Newlyn
(now almost a suburb of Penzance) by calling them _Buccas_, and that the
Newlyn townsmen very much resent being so designated. Thus what no doubt
was originally an ancient cult to some local sea-divinity called
_Bucca_, has survived as folk-humour. (See Mr. Jenner's Introduction, p.
164.)
[68] 'Another version, which is more usual, is that the pisky anointed
the person's eyes and so rendered itself visible.'--HENRY JENNER.
[69] This is a natural outcropping of greenstone on a commanding hill
just above the vicarage in Newlyn, and concerning it many weird legends
survive. In pre-Christian times it was probably one of the Cornish
sacred spots for the celebration of ancient rites--probably in honour of
the Sun--and for divination.
[70] For more about the Tolcarne Troll see chapter on Celtic Re-birth p.
391.
[71] Mr. John B. Cornish, solicitor, of Penzance, told me that when he
once suggested to an old miner who fully believed in the 'knockers',
that the noises they were supposed to make were due to material causes,
the old miner became quite annoyed, and said, 'Well, I guess I have ears
to hear.'
[72] For the Cornish folk-lore already published by Miss M. A. Courtney,
the reader is referred to her work, _Cornish Feasts and Folk-Lore_
(Penzance, 1890).
[73] A curious holed stone standing between two low menhirs on the moors
beyond the Lanyon Dolmen, near Madron; but in Borlase's time (cf. his
_Antiquities of Cornwall_, ed. 1769, p. 177) the three stones were not
as now in a direct line. The Men-an-Tol has aroused much speculation
among archaeologists as to its probable use or meaning. No doubt it was
astronomical and religious in its significance; and it may have been a
calendar stone with which ancient priests took sun observations (cf. Sir
Norman Lockyer, _Stonehenge and Other Stone Monuments_); or it may have
been otherwise related to a sun cult, or to some pagan initiatory rites.
[74] I asked what a nath is, and Mr. Spragg explained:--'A nath is a
bird with a beak like that of a parrot, and with black and grey
feathers. The naths live on sea-islands in holes like rabbits, and
before they start to fly they first run.' The nath, as Mr. Henry Jenner
informs me, is the same as the puffin (_Fratercula arctica_), called
also in Cornwall a 'sea parrot'.
[75] Sometimes it is necessary to turn your coat inside out. A Zennor
man said that to do the same thing with your socks or stockings is as
good. In Ireland this strange psychological state of going astray comes
from walking over a fairy domain, over a confusing-sod, or getting into
a fairy pass.
[76] Cf. F. M. Luzel, _Contes populaires de Basse-Bretagne_ (Paris,
1887), i. 177-97; following the account of Ann Drann, a servant at
Coat-Fual, Plouguernevel (Côtes-du-Nord), November 1855.
[77] My Breton friend, M. Goulven Le Scour, was born November 20, 1851,
at Kerouledic in Plouneventer, Finistère. He is an antiquarian, a poet,
and, as we shall see, a folk-lorist of no mean ability. In 1902, at the
_Congrès d'Auray_ of Breton poets and singers, he won two prizes for
poetry, and, in 1901, a prize at the _Congrès de Quimperlé_ or _Concours
de Recueils poétiques_.
[78] This story concerns persons still living, and, at M. Le Scour's
suggestion, I have omitted their names.
[79] By a Carnac family I was afterwards given a sprig of such blessed
box-wood, and was assured that its exorcizing power is still recognized
by all old Breton families, most of whom seem to possess branches of it.
[80] This idea seems related to the one in the popular Morbihan legend
of how St. Cornely, the patron saint of the country and the saint who
presides over the Alignements and domestic horned animals, changed into
upright stones the pagan forces opposing him when he arrived near
Carnac; and these stones are now the famous Alignements of Carnac.
[81] Luzel, op. cit., iii. 226-311; i. 128-218; ii. 349-54.
[82] Ib., ii. 269; cf. our study, p. 93.
[83] According to the annotations to a legend recorded by Villemarqué,
in his _Barzaz Breiz_, pp. 39-44, and entitled the _Submersion de la
Ville d'Is_, St. Guenolé was traditionally the founder of the first
monastery raised in Armorica; and Dahut the princess stole the key from
her sleeping father in order fittingly to crown a banquet and midnight
debaucheries which were being held in honour of her lover, the Black
Prince.
[84] Luzel, op. cit., ii. 257-68; i. 3-13.
[85] P. Sébillot, _Traditions et superstitions de la Haute-Bretagne_
(Paris, 1882), i. 100.
[86] General references: Sébillot, ib.; and his _Folk-Lore de France_
(Paris, 1905).
[87] Sébillot, _Traditions et superstitions de la Haute-Bretagne_, i.
73-4.
[88] Ib., i. 102, 103-4.
[89] Sébillot, _Traditions et superstitions de la Haute-Bretagne_, i.
83.
[90] Ib., i. 90-1.
[91] Cf. ib., i. 109.
[92] Cf. ib., i. 74-5, &c.
[93] Cf. Sébillot, _Traditions et superstitions de la Haute-Bretagne_,
i. 74-5, &c.
[94] In Lower Brittany the _corrigan_ tribes collectively are commonly
called _Corrikêt_, masculine plural of _Corrik_, diminutive of _Corr_,
meaning 'Dwarf'; or _Corriganed_, feminine plural of _Corrigan_, meaning
'Little Dwarf'. Many other forms are in use. (Cf. R. F. Le Men, _Trad.
et supers. de la Basse-Bretagne_, in _Rev. Celt._, i. 226-7.)
[95] Cf. _Foyer breton_, i. 199.
[96] By 'E. R.', in _Mélusine_ (Paris), i. 114.
[97] This account about _corrigans_, more rational than any preceding
it, may possibly refer to a dream or trance-like state of mind on the
part of the young girl; and if it does, we can then compare the presence
of a mortal at this _corrigan_ sabbath, or even at the ordinary witches'
sabbath, to the presence of a mortal in Fairyland. And according to
popular Breton belief, as reliable peasants assure me, during dreams,
trance, or ecstasy, the soul is supposed to depart from the body and
actually see spirits of all kinds in another world, and to be then under
their influence. While many details in the more conventional _corrigan_
stories appear to reflect a folk-memory of religious dances and songs,
and racial, social, and traditional usages of the ancient Bretons, the
animistic background of them could conceivably have originated from
psychical experiences such as this girl is supposed to have had.
[98] Villemarqué, _Barzaz Breiz_ (Paris, 1867), pp. 33, 35.
[99] J. Loth, in _Annales de Bretagne_ (Rennes), x. 78-81.
[100] E. Renan, _Essais de morale et de critique_ (Paris, 1859), p. 451.
[101] In Ireland it is commonly held that a seer beholding a fairy can
make a non-seer see it also by coming into bodily _rapport_ with the
non-seer (cf. p. 152).
[102] It is sometimes believed that phantom washerwomen are undergoing
penance for having wilfully brought on an abortion by their work, or
else for having strangled their babe.
[103] Every parish in the uncorrupted parts of Brittany has its own
_Ankou_, who is the last man to die in the parish during the year. Each
King of the Dead, therefore, never holds office for more than twelve
months, since during that period he is certain to have a successor.
Sometimes the _Ankou_ is Death itself personified. In the Morbihan, the
_Ankou_ occasionally may be seen as an apparition entering a house where
a death is about to occur; though more commonly he is never seen, his
knocking only is heard, which is the rule in Finistère. In Welsh
mythology, Gwynn ab Nudd, king of the world of the dead, is represented
as playing a rôle parallel to that of the Breton _Ankou_, when he goes
forth with his fierce hades-hounds hunting the souls of the dying. (Cf.
Rhŷs, _Arth. Leg._, p. 155.)
[104] Cf. A. Le Braz, _La Légende de la Mort_; Introduction by L.
Marillier (Paris, 1893), pp. 31, 40.
[105] Cf. Le Braz, _La Légende de la Mort_; Introduction by Marillier,
pp. 47, 46, 7-8, 40, 45, 46.
[106] Cf. Le Braz, _La Légende de la Mort_; Introduction by Marillier,
p. 43.
[107] Ib.; Notes by G. Dottin (Paris, 1902), p. 44.
[108] Ib.; Introduction by Marillier, pp. 19, 23, 68.
[109] Cf. ib.; Introduction by Marillier, pp. 53 ff., 68.
[110] A Breton night's entertainment held in a peasant's cottage,
stable, or other warm outhouse. In parts of the Morbihan and of
Finistère where the old Celtic life has escaped modern influences,
almost every winter night the Breton Celts, like their cousins in very
isolated parts of West Ireland and in the Western Hebrides, find their
chief enjoyment in story-telling festivals, some of which I have been
privileged to attend.
[111] The word in the MS. is _boiteux_, and in relation to a devil or
demon this seems to be the proper rendering.
[112] B. Spencer and F. T. Gillen, _Nat. Tribes of Cent. Aust._ (London,
1899), chapters xi, xv.
[113] R. H. Codrington, _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._ x. 261; _The Melanesians_
(Oxford, 1891), pp. 123, 151, &c.; also cf. F. W. Christian, _The
Caroline Islands_ (London, 1899), pp. 281 ff., &c.
[114] H. Callaway, _The Religious System of the Amazulu_ (London, 1868),
pp. 226-7.
[115] C. G. Leland, _Memoirs_ (London, 1893), i. 34.
[116] R. C. Temple, _Legends of the Panjab_, in _Folk-Lore_, x. 395.
[117] W. W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_ (London, 1900), _passim_.
[118] Hardouin, _Traditions et superstitions siamoises_, in _Rev. Trad.
Pop._, v. 257-67.
[119] Ella G. Sykes, _Persian Folklore_, in _Folk-Lore_, xii. 263.
[120] I am directly indebted for this information to a friend who is a
member of Lincoln College, Oxford, Mr. Mohammed Said Loutfy, of Barkein,
Lower Egypt. Mr. Loutfy has come into frequent and very intimate contact
with these animistic beliefs in his country, and he tells me that they
are common to all classes of almost all races in modern Egypt. The
common Egyptian spellings are _afreet_, in the singular, and _afaareet_
in the plural, for spiritual beings, who are usually described by
percipients as of pygmy stature, but as being able to assume various
sizes and shapes. The _djinns_, on the contrary, are described as tall
spiritual beings possessing great power.
[121] J. C. Lawson, _Modern Greek Folk-Lore_ (Cambridge, 1910), pp.
131-7, 139-46, 163.
[122] L. Sainéan, _Les Fées méchantes d'après les croyances du peuple
roumain_, in _Mélusine_, x. 217-26, 243-54.
[123] Cf. C. G. Leland, _Etruscan Roman Remains in Pop. Trad._ (London,
1892), pp. 162, 165, 223, &c.
[124] H. C. Coote, _The Neo-Latin Fay_, in _Folk-Lore Record_, ii. 1-18.
[125] We cannot here attempt to present, even in outline, all the
complex ethnological arguments for and against the existence in
prehistoric times of European pygmy races. Attention ought, however, to
be called to the remarkable finds recently made in the _Grotte des
Enfants_, at Mentone, France. A certain number of well-preserved
skeletons of probably the earliest men who dwelt on the present land
surface of Europe, which were found there, suggest that different racial
stocks, possibly in succession, have preceded the Aryan stock. The first
race, as indicated by two small negroid-looking skeletons of a woman,
1,580 mm. (62·21 inches), and of a boy 1,540 mm. (60·63 inches) in
height, found in the lowest part of the _Grotte_, was probably
Ethiopian. The succeeding race was probably Mongolian, judging from
other remains found in another part of the same _Grotte_, and especially
from the Chancelade skeleton with its distinctly Eskimo appearance, only
1,500 mm. (59·06 inches) high, discovered near Perigneux, France. The
race succeeding this one was possibly the one out of which our own Aryan
race evolved. In relation to the Pygmy Theory these recent finds are of
the utmost significance. They confirm Dr. Windle's earlier conclusion,
that, contrary to the argument advanced to support the Pygmy Theory, the
neolithic races of Central Europe were not true pygmies--a people whose
average stature does not exceed four feet nine inches (cf. B. C. A.
Windle, _Tyson's Pygmies of the Ancients_, London, 1894, Introduction).
And, furthermore, these finds show, as far as any available ethnological
data can, that there are no good reasons for believing that European
and, therefore, Celtic lands were once dominated by pygmies even in
epochs so remote that we can only calculate them in tens of thousands of
years. Nevertheless, it is very highly probable that a folk-memory of
Lappish, Pictish, or other small but not true pygmy races, has
superficially coloured the modern fairy traditions of Northern Scotland,
of the Western Hebrides (where what may prove to have been Lapps' or
Picts' houses undoubtedly remain), of Northern Ireland, of the Isle of
Man, and slightly, if indeed at all, the fairy traditions of other parts
of the Celtic world (cf. David MacRitchie, _The Testimony of Tradition_,
London, 1890; and his criticism of our own Psychological Theory, in the
_Celtic Review_, October 1909 and January 1910, entitled respectively,
_A New Solution of the Fairy Problem_, and _Druids and Mound-Dwellers_).
Again, the very small flint implements frequently found in Celtic lands
and elsewhere have perhaps very reasonably been attributed to a
long-forgotten pygmy race; though we must bear in mind in this connexion
that it would be very unwise to conclude definitely that no race save a
small-statured race could have made and used such implements: American
Red Men were, when discovered by Europeans, and still are, making and
using the tiniest of arrow-heads, precisely the same in size and design
as those found in Celtic lands and attributed to pygmies. The use of
small flint implements for special purposes, e. g. arrows for shooting
small game like birds, for spearing fish, and for use in warfare as
poisoned arrows, seems to have been common to most primitive peoples of
normal stature. Contemporary pygmy races, far removed from Celtic lands,
are also using them, and no doubt their prehistoric ancestors used them
likewise.
[126] J. G. Campbell, _The Fians_ (London, 1891), p. 239. An Irish dwarf
is minutely described in _Silva Gadelica_ (ii. 116), O'Grady's
translation. Again, in Malory's _Morte D'Arthur_ (B. XII. cc. i-ii) a
dwarf is mentioned.
[127] Campbell, _The Fians_, p. 265.
[128] S. H. O'Grady, _Silva Gadelica_ (London, 1892), ii. 199.
[129] Commentary on the _Senchas Már_, i. 70-1, Stokes's translation, in
_Rev. Celt._, i. 256-7.
[130] Sir John Rhŷs, _Hibbert Lectures_ (London, 1888), p. 592.
Dwarfs supernatural in character also appear in the _Mabinogion_, and
one of them is an attendant on King Arthur. In Béroul's _Tristan_,
Frocin, a dwarf, is skilled in astrology and magic, and in the version
by Thomas we find a similar reference.
[131] Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} i. 385.
[132] Cf. Windle, op. cit., Intro., p. 57.
[133] Hunt, _Anthrop. Mems._, ii. 294; cf. Windle, op. cit., Intro., p.
57.
[134] Smith, _Myths of the Iroquois_, in _Amer. Bur. Eth._, ii. 65.
[135] Skeat, _Malay Magic_, p. 329.
[136] Monier-Williams, _Brāhminism and Hindūism_ (London, 1887),
p. 236.
[137] Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 152.
[138] _Dwarfs in the East_, in _Folk-Lore_, iv. 401-2.
[139] Lacouperie, _Babylonian and Oriental Record_, v; cf. Windle, op.
cit., Intro., pp. 21-2.
[140] A. H. S. Landor, _Alone with the Hairy Ainu_ (London, 1893), p.
251; also Windle, op. cit., Intro., pp. 22-4.
[141] J. G. Frazer, _Golden Bough_{2} (London, 1900), i. 248 ff.
[142] Cf. A. Wiedemann, _Ancient Egyptian Doctrine Immortality_ (London,
1895), p. 12.
[143] Cf. A. E. Crawley, _Idea of the Soul_ (London, 1909), p. 186.
[144] Examples are in Orcagna's fresco of 'The Triumph of Death', in the
Campo Santo of Pisa (cf. A. Wiedemann, _Anc. Egy. Doct. Immort._, p. 34
ff.); and over the porch of the Cathedral Church of St. Trophimus, at
Arles.
[145] Cf. Crawley, op. cit., p. 187.
[146] General references: Eliphas Levi, _Dogme et Rituel de la Haute
Magie_ (Paris); Paracelsus; A. E. Waite, _The Occult Sciences_ (London,
1891).
[147] W. B. Yeats, _Irish Fairy and Folk-Tales_ (London), p. 2.
[148] W. B. Yeats, _The Celtic Twilight_ (London, 1902), p. 92 n.
[149] In this connexion should be read Mr. Jenner's Introduction, pp.
167 ff.
[150] Cf. Cririe, _Scottish Scenery_ (London, 1803), pp. 347-8; P.
Graham, _Sketches Descriptive of Picturesque Scenery on the Southern
Confines of Perthshire_ (Edinburgh, 1812), pp. 248-50, 253; Mahé, _Essai
sur les Antiquités du Départ. du Morbihan_ (Vannes, 1825); Maury, _Les
Fées du Moyen-Age_ (Paris, 1843).
[151] David MacRitchie, _Druids and Mound Dwellers_, in _Celtic Review_
(January 1910); and his _Testimony of Tradition_.
[152] K. Meyer and A. Nutt, _Voyage of Bran_ (London, 1895-7), ii 231-2.
[153] Cf. Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 61.
[154] Lawson, _Modern Greek Folklore_, pp. 356, 359.
[155] Rhŷs, _Hib. Lect._, p. 201; Jubainville, _Cyc. Myth. Irl._, pp.
106-8.
[156] E. O'Curry, _Manners and Customs_ (Dublin, 1873), I. cccxx; from
_Book of Ballymote_, fol. 145, b. b.
[157] Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 286.
[158] Ib., p. 275.
[159] Ib., pp. 226, 208-9.
[160] Crawley, _Idea of the Soul_, p. 114.
[161] Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 289.
[162] Ib., p. 194.
[163] Cf. Crawley, _Idea of the Soul_, chap. iv.
[164] For a thorough and scientific discussion of this matter, see J. L.
Nevius, _Demon Possession_ (London, 1897).
[165] N. G. Mitchell-Innes, _Birth, Marriage, and Death Rites of the
Chinese_, in _Folk-Lore Journ._, v. 225. Very curiously, the pagan
Chinese mother uses the sign of the cross against the demon as Celtic
mothers use it against fairies; and no exorcism by Catholic or
Protestant to cure a fairy changeling or to drive out possessing demons
is ever performed without this world-wide and pre-Christian sign of the
cross (see pp. 270-1).
[166] R. R. Marett, _The Threshold of Religion_ (London, 1909), p. 58,
&c.; p. 67.
[167] W. James, _Confidences of a 'Psychical Researcher'_, in _American
Magazine_ (October 1909).
[168] Frazer, _The Golden Bough_{3} (London, 1911), i. 220.
[169] Frazer, _The Golden Bough_,{3} i. 221-2.
[170] Ib., chap. iv.
[171] See Apuleius, _De Deo Socratis_; Cicero, _De Natura Deorum_ (lib.
i); Iamblichus, _De Mysteriis Aegypt., Chaldaeor., Assyrior._; Plato,
_Timaeus_, _Symposium, Politicus, Republic_, ii. iii. x; Plutarch, _De
Defectu Oraculorum, The Daemon of Socrates, Isis and Osiris_; Proclus,
_Commmentarius in Platonis Alcibiadem_.
[172] Pliny, _Natural History_, xxx. 14.
[173] Cf. G. Dottin, _La Religion des Celtes_ (Paris, 1904), p. 44.
[174] The neo-Platonists generally, including Porphyry, Julian,
Iamblichus, and Maximus, being persuaded of man's power to call up and
control spirits, called white magic _theurgy_, or the invoking of good
spirits, and the reverse _goêty_, or the calling up and controlling of
evil spirits for criminal purposes. Cf. F. Lélut, _Du Démon de Socrate_
(Paris, 1836).
If white magic be correlated with religion as religion is popularly
conceived, namely the cult of supernatural powers friendly to man, and
black magic be correlated with magic as magic tends to be popularly
conceived, namely witchcraft and devil-worship, we have a satisfactory
historical and logical basis for making a distinction between religion
and magic; religion (including white magic) is a social good, magic
(black magic) is a social evil. Such a distinction as Dr. Frazer makes
is untenable within the field of true magic.
[175] Cf. B. Jowett, _Dialogues of Plato_ (Oxford, 1892), i. 573.
[176] Cf. Meyer and Nutt, _Voyage of Bran_ (London, 1895-7), i. 146.
[177] Campbell, _The Fians_, p. 195.
[178] Cf. Stokes's trans. in _Rev. Celt._, i. 261.
[179] Cf. Stokes's trans. in _Rev. Celt._, xv. 307.
[180] From the _Conception of Mongán_, cf. Meyer, _Voyage of Bran_, i.
77.
[181] Quoted and summarized from _Projectors of 'Malicious Animal
Magnetism'_, in _Literary Digest_, xxxix. No. 17, pp. 676-7 (New York
and London, October 23, 1909).
[182] Cf. Nevius, _Demon Possession_, pp. 300-1.
[183] For a fuller discussion of the history of witchcraft see _The
Superstitions of Witchcraft_, by Howard Williams, London, 1865.
[184] Cf. J. Quicherat, _Procès_ (Paris, 1845), _passim_.
[185] Ib., i. 178.
[186] Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 127, 200, 202-3 ff.
[187] Bergier, _Dict. de Théol._ (Paris, 1848), ii. 541-2, &c.
[188] W. Stokes, _Tripartite Life_ (London, 1887), pp. 13, 115.
[189] I am personally indebted to Dr. W. J. Watson, of Edinburgh, for
having directed my attention to this curious passage, and for having
pointed out its probable significance in relation to druidical
practices.
[190] Adamnan, _Life of S. Columba_, B. II, cc. xvi, xvii.
[191] For this fact I am personally indebted to Mrs. W. J. Watson, of
Edinburgh.
[192] Stokes, _Tripartite Life_, pp. clxxx, 303, 305; from _Book of
Armagh_, fo. 9, A 2, and fo. 9, B 2.
[193] Bergier, _Dict. de Théol._, ii. 545, 431, 233.
[194] See _Instruction sur le Rituel_, par l'Évêque de Toulon, iii.
1-16. 'In the Greek rite (of baptism), the priest breathes thrice on the
catechumen's mouth, forehead, and breast, praying that every unclean
spirit may be expelled.'--W. Bright, _Canons of First Four General
Councils_ (Oxford, 1892), p. 122.
[195] Cf. Godescard, _Vies des Saints_ (Paris, 1835), xiii. 254-66.
[196] _De Incarnatione Verbi_ (ed. Ben.), i. 88; cf. Godescard, op.
cit., xiii. 254-66.
[197] Godescard, _Vies des Saints_, xiii. 263-4.
[198] Par Joly de Choin, Évêque de Toulon, i. 639.
[199] Bergier, _Dict. de Théol._, ii. 335.
[200] Stokes, _Tripartite Life_, Intro., p. 162.
[201] J. E. Mirville, _Des Esprits_ (Paris, 1853), i. 475.
[202] _Instructions sur le Rituel_, par Joly de Choin, iii. 276-7.
[203] G. Evans, _Exorcism in Wales_, in _Folk-Lore_, iii. 274-7.
[204] W. Crooke, in _Folk-Lore_, xiii. 189-90.
[205] For ancient usages see F. Lenormant, _Chaldean Magic_ (London,
1877), pp. 103-4; Iamblichus and other Neo-Platonists; and for modern
usages see Marett, _Threshold of Religion_, chap. iii.
[206] Cf. Marett, _Is Taboo a Negative Magic?_ in _The Threshold of
Religion_, pp. 85-114.
[207] Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 277.
[208] Eastman, _Dacotah_, p. 177; cf. Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 52 n.
[209] Shortland, _Trad. of New Zeal._, p. 150; cf. Tylor, op. cit., ii.
51-2.
[210] Precisely like Celtic peasants, primitive peoples often fail to
take into account the fact that the physical body is in reality left
behind upon entering the trance state of consciousness known to them as
the world of the departed and of fairies, because there they seem still
to have a body, the ghost body, which to their minds, in such a state,
is undistinguishable from the physical body. Therefore they ordinarily
believe that the body and soul both are taken.
[211] Frazer, _Golden Bough_,{2} _passim_.
[212] Cf. ib., i. 344 ff., 348; iii. 390.
[213] Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 177, 218-9.
[214] Cf. Eleanor Hull, _Old Irish Tabus or Geasa_, in _Folk-Lore_, xii.
41 ff.
[215] Cf. Frazer, _Golden Bough_,{2} i. 233 ff., 343.
[216] Cf. E. J. Gwynn, _On the Idea of Fate in Irish Literature_, in
_Journ. Ivernian Society_ (Cork), April 1910.
[217] Cf. our evidence, pp. 38, 44; also Kirk's _Secret Commonwealth_
(c. i), where it is said of the 'good people' or fairies that their
bodies are so 'plyable thorough the Subtilty of the Spirits that agitate
them, that they can make them appear or disappear att Pleasure. Some
have Bodies or Vehicles so spungious, thin, and delecat, that they are
fed by only sucking into some fine spirituous Liquors, that pierce lyke
pure Air and Oyl'.
[218] _Laws_, iv; cf. Jowett, _Dialogues of Plato_, v. 282-90.
[219] Chief general references: _Le Cycle Mythologique Irlandais_
(Paris, 1884) and _L'Épopée celtique en Irlande_ (Paris, 1892)--both by
H. D'Arbois de Jubainville. Chief sources: The _Book of Armagh_, a
collection of ecclesiastical MSS. probably written at Armagh, and
finished in A. D. 807 by the learned scribe Ferdomnach of Armagh; the
_Leabhar na h-Uidhre_ or 'Book of the Dun Cow', the most ancient of the
great collections of MSS. containing the old Irish romances, compiled
about A. D. 1100 in the monastery of Clonmacnoise; the _Book of
Leinster_, a twelfth-century MS. compiled by Finn Mac Gorman, Bishop of
Kildare; the _Yellow Book of Lecan_ (fifteenth century); and the _Book
of Lismore_, an old Irish MS. found in 1814 by workmen while making
repairs in the castle of Lismore, and thought to be of the fifteenth
century. The _Book of Lismore_ contains the _Agallamh na senórach_ or
'Colloquy of the Ancients', which has been edited by S. H. O'Grady in
his _Silva Gadelica_ (London, 1892), and by Whitley Stokes, _Ir. Texte_,
iv. 1. For additional texts and editions of texts see Notes by R. I.
Best to his translations of _Le Cycle Mythologique Irlandais_ (Dublin,
1903).
[220] Cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, pp. 144-5.
[221] Cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, pp. 266-7. From the way they are
described in many of the old Irish manuscripts, we may possibly regard
the Tuatha De Danann as reflecting to some extent the characteristics of
an early human population in Ireland. In other words, on an already
flourishing belief in spiritual beings, known as the _Sidhe_, was
superimposed, through anthropomorphism, an Irish folk-memory about a
conquered pre-Celtic race of men who claimed descent from a mother
goddess called Dana.
[222] Page 10, col. 2, ll. 6-8; cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, p. 143.
[223] Rhŷs, _Hib. Lect._, p. 581 n.; and _Cóir Anmann_, in _Ir.
Texte_, III, ii. 355.
[224] Kuno Meyer's trans. in _Voy. of Bran_, ii. 300.
[225] Cf. Standish O'Grady, _Early Bardic Literature_ (London, 1879),
pp. 65-6.
[226] L. U.; cf. A. Nutt, _Voy. of Bran_, i. 157-8.
[227] Before Caeilte appears, Patrick is chanting Mass and pronouncing
benediction 'on the rath in which Finn Mac Cumall (the slain leader of
the Fianna) has been: the rath of Drumderg'. This chanting and
benediction act magically as a means of calling up the ghosts of the
other Fianna, for, as the text continues, thereupon 'the clerics saw
Caeilte and his band draw near them; and fear fell on them before the
tall men with their huge wolf-dogs that accompanied them, _for they were
not people of one epoch or of one time with the clergy_. Then Heaven's
distinguished one, that pillar of dignity and angel on earth, Calpurn's
son Patrick, apostle of the Gael, rose and took the aspergillum to
sprinkle holy water on the great men; floating over whom until that day
there had been [and were now] a thousand legions of demons. Into the
hills and "skalps", into the outer borders of the region and of the
country, the demons forthwith departed in all directions; after which
the enormous men sat down' (_Silva Gadelica_, ii. 103). Here,
undoubtedly, we observe a literary method of rationalizing the ghosts of
the Fianna; and their sudden and mysterious coming and personal aspects
can be compared with the sudden and mysterious coming and personal
aspects of the Tuatha De Danann as recorded in certain Irish
manuscripts.
[228] Kuno Meyer's trans. in _Rev. Celt._, x. 214-27. This tale is
probably as old as the ninth or tenth century, so far as its present
form is concerned, though representing very ancient traditions (Nutt,
_Voy. of Bran_, i. 209).
[229] Stokes's trans. in _Rev. Celt._, xxii. 36-40. This text is one of
the earliest with references to fairy beings, and may go back to the
eighth or ninth century as a literary composition, though it too
represents much older traditions.
[230] E. O'Curry, _Lectures on Manuscript Materials_ (Dublin, 1861), p.
504.
[231] In the _Book of Leinster_, pp. 245-6; cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._,
p. 269.
[232] Cf. _Mesca Ulad_, Hennessy's ed., in _Todd Lectures_, Ser. 1
(Dublin, 1889), p. 2.
[233] Cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, pp. 273-6.
[234] Cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, pp. 273-6.
[235] Cf. _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 222-3.
[236] Ib., ii. 343-7.
[237] Ib., ii. 94-6.
[238] _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 204-20.
[239] _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 290-1. In many old texts mortals are not
forcibly _taken_; but go to the fairy world through love for a fairy
woman; or else to accomplish there some mission.
No doubt the most curious elements in this text are those which
represent the prince and his warrior companions, fresh come from
Fairyland, as in some mysterious way so changed that they must neither
dismount from their horses and thus come in contact with the earth, nor
allow any mortal to touch them; for to his father the king who came
forward in joy to embrace him after having mourned him as dead,
Laeghaire cried, 'Approach us not to touch us!' Some unknown magical
bodily transmutation seems to have come about from their sojourn among
the Tuatha De Danann, who are eternally young and unfading--a
transmutation apparently quite the same as that which the 'gentry' are
said to bring about now when one of our race is taken to live with them.
And in all fairy stories no mortal ever returns from Fairyland a day
older than on entering it, no matter how many years may have elapsed.
The idea reminds us of the dreams of mediaeval alchemists who thought
there exists, if one could only discover it, some magic potion which
will so transmute every atom of the human body that death can never
affect it. Probably the Christian scribe in writing down these strange
words had in mind what Jesus said to Mary Magdalene when she beheld him
after the Resurrection:--'Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended unto
the Father.' The parallel would be a striking and exact one in any case,
for it is recorded that Jesus after he had arisen from the dead--had
come out of Hades or the invisible realm of subjectivity which, too, is
Fairyland--appeared to some and not to others--some being able to
recognize him and others not; and concerning the nature of Jesus's body
at the Ascension not all theologians are agreed. Some believe it to have
been a physical body so purified and transmuted as to be like, or the
same as, a spiritual body, and thus capable of invisibility and of
entrance into the Realm of Spirit. The Scotch minister and seer used
this same parallel in describing the nature and power of fairies and
spirits (p. 91); hence it would seem to follow, if we admit the
influence in the Irish text to be Christian, that early, like modern
Christians, have, in accordance with Christianity, described the nature
of the _Sidhe_ so as to correspond with what we know it to be in the
Fairy-Faith itself, both anciently and at the present day.
[240] _Death of Muirchertach_, Stokes's trans., in _Rev. Celt._, xxiii.
397.
[241] Cf. J. Loth, _Les Mabinogion_ (Paris, 1889), i. 38-52.
[242] _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 187-92.
[243] _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 142-4.
[244] Campbell, _The Fians_, pp. 79-80. In _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 522, it
is stated that the mother of Ossian bore him whilst in the shape of a
doe. The mother of Ossian in animal shape may be an example of an
ancient Celtic totemistic survival.
[245] _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 311-24.
[246] _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 311-24.
[247] For an enumeration of the Tuatha De Danann chieftains and their
respective territories see _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 225.
[248] Cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, p. 285.
[249] I am personally indebted for these names to Dr. Douglas Hyde.
[250] Cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, pp. 284-9; cf. _Rev. Celt._, iii. 347.
[251] Cf. E. S. Hartland, _Science of Fairy Tales_ (London, 1891), cc.
x-xi.
[252] Stokes's trans. in _Rev. Celt._, xvi. 274-5.
[253] _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 222 ff.; ii. 290. In another version of the
second tale, referred to above (on page 295), Laeghaire and his fifty
companions enter the fairy world through a _dún_.
[254] Sometimes, as in _Da Choca's Hostel_ (_Rev. Celt._, xxi. 157,
315), the _Badb_ appears as a weird woman uttering prophecies. In this
case the _Badb_ watches over Cormac as his doom comes. She is described
as standing on one foot, and with one eye closed (apparently in a bird's
posture), as she chanted to Cormac this prophecy:--'I wash the harness
of a king who will perish.'
[255] Synonymous names are _Badb-catha_, _Fea_, _Ana_. Cf. _Rev. Celt._,
i. 35-7.
[256] Cf. Hennessy, _Ancient Irish Goddess of War_, in _Rev. Celt._, i.
32-55.
[257] Stokes, _Second Battle of Moytura_, in _Rev. Celt._, xii. 109-11.
[258] Luzel, _Contes populaires de Basse Bretagne_, iii. 296-311.
[259] The Celtic examples recall non-Celtic ones: the raven was sacred
among the ancient Scandinavians and Germans, being looked upon as the
emblem of Odin; in ancient Egypt and Rome commonly, and to a less extent
in ancient Greece, gods often declared their will through birds or even
took the form of birds; in Christian scriptures the Spirit of God or the
Holy Ghost descended upon Jesus at his baptism in the semblance of a
dove; and it is almost a world-wide custom to symbolize the human soul
under the form of a bird or butterfly. Possibly such beliefs as these
are relics of a totemistic creed which in times long previous to history
was as definitely held by the ancestors of the nations of antiquity,
including the ancient Celts, as any totemistic creed to be found now
among native Australians or North American Red Men. At all events, in
the story of a bird ancestry of Conaire we seem to have a perfectly
clear example of a Celtic totemistic survival--even though Dr. Frazer
may not admit it as such (cf. _Rev. Celt._, xxii. 20, 24; xii. 242-3).
[260] Hennessy, _The Ancient Irish Goddess of War_, in _Rev. Celt._, i.
32-57.
[261] _Aoibheall_, who came to tell Brian Borumha of his death at
Clontarf, was the family banshee of the royal house of Munster. Cf. J. H.
Todd, _War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill_ (London, 1867), p. 201.
[262] Hyde, _Literary History of Ireland_, p. 440.
[263] Cf. Hennessy, in _Rev. Celt._, i. 39-40. In place of _badb_, Dr.
Hyde (_Lit. Hist. Irl._, p. 440) uses the word _vulture_.
[264] Hennessy, in _Rev. Celt._, i. 52.
[265] Chief general reference: Sir John Rhŷs, _Arthurian Legend_
(Oxford, 1891). Chief sources: Nennius, _Historia Britonum_ (circa 800);
Geoffrey of Monmouth, _Historia Regum Britanniae_ (circa 1136); Wace,
_Le Roman de Brut_ (circa 1155); Layamon's _Brut_ (circa 1200); Marie de
France, _Lais_ (twelfth-thirteenth century); _The Four Ancient Books of
Wales_ (twelfth-fifteenth century), edited by W. F. Skene; _The
Mabinogion_ (based on the _Red Book of Hergest_, a fourteenth-century
manuscript), edited by Lady Charlotte Guest, Sir John Rhŷs and J. G.
Evans, and Professor J. Loth; Malory, _Le Morte D'Arthur_ (1470); _The
Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales_, collected out of ancient manuscripts
(Denbigh, 1870); _Iolo Manuscripts_, a selection of ancient Welsh
manuscripts (Llandovery, 1848).
[266] In a Welsh poem of the twelfth century (see W. F. Skene, _Four
Ancient Books_, Edinburgh, 1868, ii. 37, 38) wherein the war feats of
Prince Geraint are described, his men, who lived and fought a long time
after the period assigned to Arthur, are called the men of Arthur; and,
as Sir John Rhŷs thinks, this is good evidence that the genuine
Arthur was a mythical figure, one might almost be permitted to say a
god, who overshadows and directs his warrior votaries, but who, never
descending into the battle, is in this respect comparable with the Irish
war-goddess the _Badb_ (cf. Rhŷs, _Celtic Britain_, London, 1904, p.
236).
[267] Cf. Rhŷs, _Arth. Leg._, chap. 1.
[268] Cf. Rhŷs, _Arth. Leg._, pp. 24, 48. Sir John Rhŷs sees good
reasons for regarding Arthur as a culture hero, because of Arthur's
traditional relation with agriculture, which most culture heroes, like
Osiris, have taught their people (ib., pp. 41-3).
[269] Cf. G. Maspero, _Contes populaires de l'Égypte Ancienne_{3}
(Paris, 1906), Intro., p. 57.
[270] Sommer's Malory's _Morte D'Arthur_, iii. 1.
[271] Rhŷs, _Arth. Leg._, p. 9.
[272] I am indebted to Professor J. Loth for help with this etymology.
[273] Cf. Rhŷs, _Arth. Leg._, p. 22.
[274] i. 10; ii. 21{b}; iii. 70; cf. Rhŷs, _Arth. Leg._, p. 60.
[275] See Williams' _Seint Greal_, pp. 278, 304, 341, 617, 634, 658,
671; Rhŷs, _Arth. Leg._, p. 61.
[276] Cf. Rhŷs, _Arth. Leg._, pp. 51, 35; and see our study, pp.
374-6.
[277] _Chevalier de la Charrette_ (ed. by Tarbé), p. 22; _Romania_, xii.
467, 515; cf. Rhŷs, _Arth. Leg._, p. 54.
[278] _Romania_, xii. 467-8, 473-4; cf. Rhŷs, _Arth. Leg._, p. 55.
[279] Cf. Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 93-4.
[280] _Romania_, xii. 508; cf. Rhŷs, _Arth. Leg._, p. 54.
[281] Book XIX, c. i.
[282] In the _Lebar Brecc_ there is a tract describing eight Eucharistic
Colours and their mystical or hidden meaning; and green is so described
that we recognize in its Celtic-Christian symbolism the same essential
significance as in the writings of both pagan and non-Celtic Christian
mystics, thus:--'This is what the Green denotes, when he (the priest)
looks at it: that his heart and his mind be filled with great faintness
and exceeding sorrow: for what is understood by it is his burial at the
end of life under mould of earth; for green is the original colour of
every earth, and therefore the colour of the robe of Offering is likened
unto green' (Stokes, _Tripartite Life_, Intro., p. 189). During the
ceremonies of initiation into the Ancient Mysteries, it is supposed that
the neophyte left the physical body in a trance state, and in full
consciousness, which he retained afterwards, entered the subjective
world and beheld all its wonders and inhabitants; and that coming out of
that world he was clothed in a robe of sacred green to symbolize his own
spiritual resurrection and re-birth into real life--for he had
penetrated the Mystery of Death and was now an initiate. Even yet there
seems to be an echo of the ancient Egyptian Mysteries in the Festival of
Al-Khidr celebrated in the middle of the wheat harvest in Lower Egypt.
Al-Khidr is a holy personage who, according to the belief of the people,
was the Vizier of Dhu'l-Karnen, a contemporary of Abraham, and who,
never having died, is still living and will continue to live until the
Day of Judgement. And he is always represented 'clad in green garments,
whence probably the name' he bears. Green is thus associated with a hero
or god who is immortal and unchanging, like the Tuatha De Danann and
fairy races (see Sir Norman Lockyer's _Stonehenge and Other Stone
Monuments_, London, 1909, p. 29). In modern Masonry, which preserves
many of the ancient mystic rites, and to some extent those of initiation
as anciently performed, green is the symbol of life, immutable nature,
of truth, and victory. In the evergreen the Master Mason finds the
emblem of hope and immortality. And the masonic authority who gives this
information suggests that in all the Ancient Mysteries this symbolism
was carried out--green symbolizing the birth of the world and the moral
creation or resurrection of the initiate (_General History, Cyclopedia,
and Dictionary of Freemasonry_, by Robert Macoy, 33{o}, New York, 1869).
[283] _Myv. Arch._, i. 175. The text itself in this work is said to be
copied from the _Green Book_--now unknown. Cf. Rhŷs, _Arth. Leg._ p.
56 n.
[284] In this text, the Gwenhwyvar who is in the power of Melwas is
referred to as Arthur's second wife Gwenhwyvar, for according to the
Welsh Triads (i. 59; ii. 16; iii. 109) there are three wives of Arthur
all named Gwenhwyvar. As Sir John Rhŷs observes, no poet has ever
availed himself of all three, for the evident reason that they would
have spoilt his plot (_Arth. Leg._, p. 35).
[285] D. ab Gwilym's Poetry (London, 1789), poem cxi, line 44. Cf.
Rhŷs, _Arth. Leg._, p. 66.
[286] Malory, Book I, c. xxv. One account of Arthur's sword _Caledvwlch_
or _Caleburn_ describes it as having been made in the Isle of Avalon
(Lady Ch. Guest's _Mabinogion_, ii. 322 n.; also _Myv. Arch._, ii. 306).
[287] Malory, Book IX, c. xv; Sir John Rhŷs takes the Lady of the
Lake who sends Arthur the sword and the one who aids him afterwards
(though, apparently by error, two characters in Malory) as different
aspects of the one lake-lady _Morgen_ (_Arth. Leg._, p. 348).
[288] Merlin explained to Arthur that King Loth's wife was Arthur's own
sister (Sommer's _Malory_, i. 64-5); and King Loth is one of the rulers
of the Otherworld.
[289] Book XXI, c. vi.
[290] This poem, according to Gaston Paris, was translated during the
late twelfth century from a French original now lost (_Romania_, x.
471). Cf. Rhŷs, _Arth. Leg._, p. 127.
[291] Malory, Book XII, cc. iii-x; Rhŷs, _Arth. Leg._, pp. 145, 164.
Galahad, however, does not belong to the more ancient Arthurian romances
at all, so far as scholars can determine; and, therefore, too much
emphasis ought not to be placed on this episode in connexion with the
character of Arthur.
[292] We should like to direct the reader's attention to the interesting
similarity shown between this old story of _Kulhwch and Olwen_ and the
fairy legend which we found living in South Wales, and now recorded by
us on page 161, under the title of _Einion and Olwen_. As we have there
suggested, the legend seems to be the remnant of a very ancient bardic
tale preserved in the oral traditions of the people; and the prevalence
of such bardic traditions in a part of Wales where some of the
_Mabinogion_ stories either took shape, or from where they drew
folk-lore material, would make it probable that there may even be some
close relationship between the Olwen of the story and the Olwen of our
folk-tale. If it could be shown that there is, we should be able at once
to regard both Olwens as 'Fair-Folk' or of the _Tylwyth Teg_, and the
quest of Kulhwch as really a journey to the Otherworld to gain a fairy
wife.
[293] We may even have in the story of _Kulhwch and Olwen_ a symbolical
or mystical account of ancient Brythonic rites of initiation, which have
also directly to do with the spiritual world and its invisible
inhabitants.
[294] Cf. J. Loth, _Les Mabinogion_ (Paris, 1889), p. 252 n.
[295] Cf. J. Loth, _Le Mabinogi de Kulhwch et Olwen_ (Saint-Brieuc,
1888), Intro., p. 7.
[296] Lady Ch. Guest's _Mabinogion_ (London, 1849), ii. 323 n.
[297] Cf. R. H. Fletcher, _Arthurian Material in the Chronicles_, in
_Harv. Stud. and Notes in Phil. and Lit._, x. 20-1.
[298] Fletcher, ib., x. 29; 26.
[299] Rhŷs, _Arth. Leg._, p. 7; and Rhŷs, _The Welsh People_{3}
(London, 1902), p. 105.
[300] Cf. Fletcher, op. cit., x. 43-115; from ed. by San-Marte (A.
Schulz), _Gottfried's von Monmouth Hist. Reg. Brit._ (Halle, 1854), Eng.
trans. by A. Thompson, _The British History_, &c. (1718).
[301] Cf. Fletcher, op. cit., pp. 117-44.
[302] Sir Frederic Madden, _Layamon's Brut_ (London, 1847), ii. 384.
Here the Germanic elves are by Layamon made the same in character and
nature as Brythonic elves or fairies.
[303] Madden, _Layamon's Brut_, ii. 144.
[304] J. Bédier's ed., _Société des anciens textes français_ (Paris,
1902).
[305] E. Muret's ed., _Société des anciens textes français_ (Paris,
1903).
[306] A. C. L. Brown, _The Knight and the Lion_; also, by same author,
_Iwain_, in _Harv. Stud. and Notes in Phil. and Lit._, vii. 146, &c.
[307] _Celtic Mag._, xii. 555; _Romania_ (1888); cf. Brown, ib.
[308] J. Loth, _Les Romans arthuriens_, in _Rev. Celt._, xiii. 497.
[309] _Bibliotheca Normannica_, iii, _Die Lais der Marie de France_, pp.
86-112.
[310] Cf. W. H. Schofield, _The Lays of Graelent and Lanval, and the
Story of Wayland_, in Pub. Mod. Lang. Ass. of America, xv. 176.
[311] Cf. Schofield, _The Lay of Guingamor_, in _Harv. Stud. and Notes
in Phil. and Lit._, v. 221-2.
[312] For editions, and fuller details of the fairy elements, see De La
Warr B. Easter, _A Study of the Magic Elements in the_ ROMANS D'AVENTURE
_and the_ ROMANS BRETONS (Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, 1906). See
also Lucy A. Paton, _Studies in the Fairy Mythology of the Arthurian
Romance_, Radcliffe College Monograph XIII (New York, 1903).
[313] Perc., vi. 235; cf. Easter's Dissertation, p. 42 n.
[314] _Joufrois_, 3179 ff.; ed. Hofmann und Muncker (Halle, 1880); cf.
Easter's Diss., pp. 40-2 n.
[315] _Brun_, 562 ff., 3237, 3251, 3396, 3599 ff.; ed. Paul Meyer
(Paris, 1875); cf. ib., pp. 42 n., 44 n.
[316] E. Anwyl, _The Four Branches of the Mabinogi_, in _Zeit. für Celt.
Phil._ (London, Paris, 1897), i. 278.
[317] Cf. Nutt, _Voy. of Bran_, ii. 19, 21.
[318] _Black Book of Caermarthen_, xvii, stanza 7, ll. 5-8. This book
dates from 1154 to 1189 as a manuscript; cf. Skene, _Four Anc. Books_,
i. 3, 372.
[319] Stanzas 19-20. This book took shape as a manuscript from the
fourteenth to fifteenth century, according to Skene. Cf. Skene, _Four
Anc. Books_, i. 3, 464.
[320] See _A Fugitive Poem of Myrddin in his Grave. Red Book of
Hergest_, ii. Skene, ib., i. 478-81, stanza 27.
[321] Chief general references: H. D'Arbois de Jubainville, _L'Épopée
celtique en Irlande_, _Le Cycle Mythologique Irlandais_; Kuno Meyer and
Alfred Nutt, _The Happy Otherworld and the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth_.
Chief sources: the _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_ (A. D. 1100); the _Book of
Leinster_ (twelfth century); the _Lais_ of Marie de France (twelfth to
thirteenth century); the _White Book of Rhyderch_, Hengwrt Coll.
(thirteenth to fourteenth century); the _Yellow Book of Lecan_
(fifteenth century); the _Book of Lismore_ (fifteenth century); the
_Book of Fermoy_ (fifteenth century); the _Four Ancient Books of Wales_
(twelfth to fifteenth century).
[322] One of the commonest legends among all Celtic peoples is about
some lost city like the Breton Is, or some lost land or island (cf.
Rhŷs, _Arth. Leg._, c. xv, and _Celtic Folk-Lore_, c. vii); and we
can be quite sure that if, as some scientists now begin to think (cf.
Batella, _Pruebas geológicas de la existencia de la Atlántida_, in
_Congreso internacional de Americanistas_, iv., Madrid, 1882; also
Meyers, _Grosses Konversations-Lexikon_, ii. 44, Leipzig und Wien, 1903)
Atlantis once existed, its disappearance must have left from a
prehistoric epoch a deep impress on folk-memory. But the Otherworld idea
being in essence animistic is not to be regarded, save from a
superficial point of view, as conceivably having had its origin in a
lost Atlantis. The real evolutionary process, granting the disappearance
of this island continent, would seem rather to have been one of
localizing and anthropomorphosing very primitive Aryan and pre-Aryan
beliefs about a heaven-world, such as have been current among almost all
races of mankind in all stages of culture, throughout the two Americas
and Polynesia as well as throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa. (Cf.
Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 62, 48, &c.)
[323] _White Book of Rhyderch_, folio 291{a}; cf. Rhŷs, _Arth. Leg._,
pp. 268-9.
[324] From _Echtra Condla_, in the _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_. Cf. _Le Cycle
Myth. Irl._, pp. 192-3.
[325] Cf. Eleanor Hull, _The Silver Bough in Irish Legend_, in
_Folk-Lore_, xii.
[326] Cf. Eleanor Hull, op. cit., p. 431.
[327] Classical parallels to the Celtic Otherworld journeys exist in the
descent of Dionysus to bring back Semele, of Orpheus to recover his
beloved Eurydike, of Herakles at the command of his master Eurystheus to
fetch up the three-headed Kerberos--as mentioned first in Homer's
_Iliad_ (cf. Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 48); and chiefly in the voyage
of Odysseus across the deep-flowing Ocean to the land of the departed
(Homer, _Odyss._ xi).
[328] Servius, _ad Aen._, vi. 136 ff.
[329] _Voy. of Bran_, i, pp. 2 ff. The tale is based on seven
manuscripts ranging in age from the _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_ of about A. D.
1100 to six others belonging to the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth
centuries (cf. ib., p. xvi).
[330] This tale exists in several manuscripts of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries; i. e. _Book of Ballymote_, and _Yellow Book of
Lecan_, as edited and translated by Stokes, in _Irische Texte_, III. i.
183-229; cf. _Voy. of Bran_, i. 190 ff.; cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, pp.
326-33.
[331] The fountain is a sacred fountain containing the sacred salmon;
and the nine hazels are the sacred hazels of inspiration and poetry.
These passages are among the most mystical in Irish literature. Cf. pp.
432-3.
[332] Cf. Stokes's trans. in _Irische Texte_ (Leipzig, 1891), III. i.
211-16.
[333] The Greeks saw in Hermes the symbol of the Logos. Like Manannan,
he conducted the souls of men to the Otherworld of the gods, and then
brought them back to the human world. Hermes 'holds a rod in his hands,
beautiful, golden, wherewith he spellbinds the eyes of men whomsoever he
would, and wakes them again from sleep'--in initiations; while Manannan
and the fairy beings lure mortals to the fairy world through sleep
produced by the music of the Silver Branch.--Hippolytus on the Naasenes
(from the Hebrew _Nachash_, meaning a 'Serpent'), a Gnostic school; cf.
G. R. S. Mead, _Fragments of a Faith Forgotten_, pp. 198, 201. Or again,
'the Caduceus, or Rod of Mercury (Hermes), and the Thyrsus in the Greek
Mysteries, which conducted the soul from life to death, and from death
to life, figured forth the serpentine power in man, and the path whereby
it would carry the "man" aloft to the height, if he would but cause the
"Waters of the Jordan" to "flow upwards".'--G. R. S. Mead. ib., p. 185.
[334] Cf. Hennessy's ed. in _Todd Lectures_, ser. I. i. 9.
[335] Among the early ecclesiastical manuscripts of the so-called
_Prophecies_. See E. O'Curry, _Lectures_, p. 383.
[336] Cf. Eleanor Hull, op. cit., pp. 439-40.
[337] Now in three versions based on the _L. U._ MS. Our version is
collated from O'Curry's translation in _Atlantis_, i. 362-92, ii.
98-124, as revised by Kuno Meyer, _Voy. of Bran_, i. 152 ff.; and from
Jubainville's translation in _L'Ép. celt. en Irl._, pp. 170-216.
[338] As Alfred Nutt pointed out, 'There is no parallel to the position
or to the sentiments of Fand in the post-classic literature of Western
Europe until we come to Guinevere and Isolt, Ninian and Orgueilleuse'
(_Voy. of Bran_, i. 156 n.).
[339] See poem _Tir na nog_ (Land of Youth), by Michael Comyn, composed
or collected about the year 1749. Ed. by Bryan O'Looney, in _Trans.
Ossianic Soc._, iv. 234-70.
[340] Laeghaire, who also came back from Fairyland on a fairy horse, and
fifty warriors with him each likewise mounted, to say good-bye for ever
to the king and people of Connaught, were warned as they set out for
this world not to dismount if they wished to return to their fairy
wives. The warning was strictly observed, and thus they were able to go
back to the _Sidhe_-world (see p. 295).
[341] Cf. _Bibliotheca Normannica_, iii, _Die Lais der Marie de France_,
pp. 86-112.
[342] Cf. Stokes's trans., in _Rev. Celt._, ix. 453-95, x. 50-95. Most
of the tale comes from the _L. U._ MS.; cf. _L'Ép. celt. en Irl._, pp.
449-500.
[343] _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 385-401. The MS. text, _Echira Thaidg mheic
Chéin_, or 'The Adventure of Cian's son Teigue', is found in the _Book
of Lismore_.
[344] Summarized and quoted from translation by R. I. Best, in _Ériu_,
iii. 150-73. The text is found in the _Book of Fermoy_ (pp. 139-45), a
fifteenth-century codex in the Royal Irish Academy.
[345] Folios 113-15, trans. O'Beirne Crow, _Journ. Kilkenny Archae.
Soc._ (1870-1), pp. 371-448; cf. Rhŷs, _Hib. Lect._, pp. 260-1.
[346] Cf. Skene, _Four Ancient Books of Wales_, i. 264-6, 276, &c.
[347] Cf. _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 301 ff., from Additional MS. 34119,
dating from 1765, in British Museum.
[348] _Giolla an Fhiugha_, or 'The Lad of the Ferrule', trans. by
Douglas Hyde, in _Irish Texts Society_, London, 1899.
[349] Cf. Meyer and Nutt, _Voy. of Bran_, i. 147, 228, 230, 235; 161.
[350] The bulk of the text comes from the _Book of Fermoy_. Cf. Stokes's
trans. in _Rev. Celt._, xiv. 59, 49, 53, &c.
[351] J. Loth, _L'Émigration bretonne en Armorique_ (Paris, 1883), pp.
139-40.
[352] Ed. and trans. by W. Stokes, Calcutta, 1866. This _Vision_ has
been erroneously ascribed to the celebrated Abbot of Iona, who died in
703; but Professor Zimmer has regarded it as a ninth-century
composition; cf. _Voy. of Bran_, i. 219 ff.
[353] Cf. _Voy. of Bran_, i. 195 ff.
[354] See J. G. Campbell, _The Fians_, pp. 260-7.
[355] _The Literary Movement in Ireland_, in _Ideals in Ireland_, ed. by
Lady Gregory (London, 1901), p. 95.
[356] Cf. _Voy. of Bran_, i. 331.
[357] General reference: _Essay upon the Irish Vision of the happy
Otherworld and the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth_, by Alfred Nutt in Kuno
Meyer's _Voyage of Bran_. Chief sources: _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_; _Book of
Leinster_; _Four Ancient Books of Wales_; _Mabinogion_; _Silva
Gadelica_; _Barddas_, a collection of Welsh manuscripts made about 1560;
and the _Annals of the Four Masters_, compiled in the first half of the
seventeenth century.
[358] Cf. Plato, _Republic_, x; _Phaedo_; _Phaedrus_, &c.; Iamblichus,
_Concerning the Mysteries of Egypt, Chaldaea, Assyria_; Plutarch,
_Mysteries of Isis (De Iside et Osiride)_.
[359] He says:--'I, for my part, suspect that the spirit was implanted
in them (rational creatures, men) from without' _(De Principiis_, Book
I, c. vii. 4);... 'the cause of each one's actions is a pre-existing
one; and then every one, according to his deserts, is made by God either
a vessel unto honour or dishonour' (ib., Book III, c. i. 20). 'Whence we
are of opinion that, seeing the soul, as we have frequently said, is
immortal and eternal, it is possible that, in the many and endless
periods of duration in the immeasurable and different worlds, it may
descend from the highest good to the lowest evil, or be restored from
the lowest evil to the highest good' (ib., Book III, c. i, 21);...
'every one has the reason in himself, why he has been placed in this or
that rank in life' (ib., Book III, c. v, 4).
[360] Cf. Bergier, _Origène_, in _Dict. de Théologie_, v. 69.
[361] _Holy Bible_, Revised Version, St. Matt. xi. 14-15; cf. St. Matt.
xvii. 10-13, St. Mark ix. 13, St. Luke vii. 27, St. John i. 21.
[362] Tertullian's conclusion is as follows:--'These substances ("soul
and body") are, in fact, the natural property of each individual; whilst
"the spirit and power" (cf. Mal. iv. 5) are bestowed as external gifts
by the grace of God, and so may be transferred to another person
according to the purpose and will of the Almighty, as was anciently the
case with respect to the spirit of Moses' (cf. Num. xii. 2).--_De Anima_
c. xxxv; cf. trans, in _Ante-Nicene Christian Library_ (Edinburgh,
1870), xv. 496-7.
[363] Origen says:--'But that there should be certain doctrines not made
known to the multitude, which are [revealed] after the exoteric ones
have been taught, is not a peculiarity of Christianity alone, but also
of philosophic systems, in which certain truths are exoteric and others
esoteric' (_Origen against Celsus_, Book I, c. vii).
[364] How Tertullian almost literally accepted the re-birth doctrine is
shown in his _Apology_, chapter xlviii, concerning the resurrection of
the body. It is the corrupted form of the doctrine, viz. transmigration
of human souls into animal bodies, which he therein, as well as in his
_De Anima_ and elsewhere, chiefly and logically combats, as Origen also
combated it. He first shows why a human soul must return into a human
body in accordance with natural analogy, every creature being after its
own kind always; and then, because the purpose of the Resurrection is
the judgement, that the soul must return into its own body. And he
concludes:--'It is surely more worthy of belief that a man will be
restored from a man, any given person from any given person, but still a
man; so that the same kind of soul may be reinstated in the same mode of
existence, even if not into the same outward form' (_The Apology of
Tertullian for the Christians_; cf. trans. by T. H. Bindley, Oxford,
1890, pp. 137-9).
[365] British Museum MS. Add. 5114, vellum--a Coptic manuscript in the
dialect of Upper Egypt. Its undetermined date is placed by Woide at
latest about the end of the fourth century. It was evidently copied by
one scribe from an older manuscript, the original probably having been
the _Apocalypse of Sophia_, by Valentius, the learned Gnostic who lived
in Egypt for thirty years during the second century. See the translation
of the Schwartze's parallel Latin version of _Pistis Sophia_ and its
introduction, both by G. R. S. Mead (London, 1896).
[366] The chief passages are as follows, Jesus being the
speaker:--'Moreover, in the region of the soul of the rulers, destined
to receive it, I found the soul of the prophet Elias, in the aeons of
the sphere, and I took him, and receiving his soul also, I brought it to
the virgin of light, and she gave it to her receivers; they brought it
to the sphere of the rulers, and cast it into the womb of Elizabeth.
Wherefore the power of the little Iaô, who is in the midst, and the soul
of Elias the prophet, are united with the body of John the Baptist. For
this cause have ye been in doubt aforetime, when I said unto you, "John
said, I am not the Christ"; and ye said unto me, "It is written in the
Scripture, that when the Christ shall come, Elias will come before him,
and prepare his way." And I, when ye had said this unto me, replied unto
you, "Elias verily is come, and hath prepared all things, according as
it is written; and they have done unto him whatsoever they would." And
when I perceived that ye did not understand that I had spoken concerning
the soul of Elias united with John the Baptist, I answered you openly
and face to face with the words, "If ye will receive it, John the
Baptist is Elias who, I said, was for to come"' (_Pistis Sophia_, Book
I, 12-13, Mead's translation).
[367] 'The Saviour answered and said unto his disciples:--"Preach ye
unto the whole world, saying unto men, 'Strive together that ye may
receive the mysteries of light in this time of stress, and enter into
the kingdom of light. Put not off from day to day, and from cycle to
cycle, in the belief that ye will succeed in obtaining the mysteries
when ye return to the world in another cycle'"' (_Pistis Sophia_, Book
II, 317, Mead's translation).
[368] Cf. Bergier, _Manichéisme_, in _Dict. de Théol._, iv. 211-13.
[369] The _Refutation of Irenaeus_, until quite recently, has been the
chief source of much of our knowledge concerning Gnosticism. It was
written during the second century at Lyons, by Irenaeus, a bishop of
Gaul, far from any direct contact with the still flourishing Gnosticism.
But now with the discovery of genuine manuscripts of Gnostic works: (1)
the _Askew Codex_, vellum, British Museum, London, containing the
_Pistis Sophia_ (see above, p. 361 n.) and extracts from the _Books of
the Saviour_; (2) the _Bruce Codex_ (two MSS.), papyrus, Bodleian
Library, Oxford, containing the fragmentary _Book of the Great Logos_,
an unknown treatise, and fragments; and (3) the _Akhmīm Codex_
(discovered in 1896), papyrus, Egyptian Museum, Berlin, containing _The
Gospel of Mary_ (or _Apocryphon of John_), _The Wisdom of Jesus Christ_,
and _The Acts of Peter_, we are able to check from original sources the
Fathers in many of their writings and canons concerning Gnostic
'heresies'; and find that Irenaeus, the last refuge of Christian
haeresiologists, has so condensed and paraphrased his sources that we
cannot depend upon him at all for a consistent exposition of Gnostic
doctrines, which with more or less prejudice he is trying to refute. It
is true that the age of these manuscripts has not been satisfactorily
determined; in fact most of them have not yet been carefully studied.
Very probably, however, as appears to be the case with the _Pistis
Sophia_, they have been copied from manuscripts which were contemporary
with or earlier than the time of Irenaeus, and hence may be regarded as
good authority in determining Gnostic teachings. (Cf. all of above note
with G. R. S. Mead, _Fragments of a Faith Forgotten_, London, 1900, pp.
147, 151-3.)
Many unprejudiced scholars are now unwilling to admit the rulings of the
Church Councils which determined what was orthodox and what heretical
doctrines among the Gnostic-Christians, because many of their dogmatic
decisions were based upon the unscholarly _Refutation of Irenaeus_ and
upon other equally unreliable evidence. The data which have accumulated
in the hands of scholars about early Christian thought and Gnosticism
are now much more complete and trustworthy than the similar data were
upon which the Council of Constantinople in 553 based its decision with
respect to the doctrine of re-birth; and the truth coming to be
recognized seems to be that the Gnostics rather than the Church Fathers,
who adopted from them what doctrines they liked, condemning those they
did not like, should henceforth be regarded as the first Christian
theologians, and mystics. If this view of the very difficult and complex
matter be accepted, then modern Christianity itself ought to be allowed
to resume what thus appears to have been its original position--so long
obscured by the well-meaning, but, nevertheless, ill-advised
ecclesiastical councils--as the synthesizer of pagan religions and
philosophies. Some such view has been accepted by many eminent Christian
theologians since Origen: i. e. the Cambridge Platonist, Henry More,
openly advocated the re-birth doctrine in the seventeenth century; and
in later times it has been preached from Christian pulpits by such men
as Henry Ward Beecher and Phillips Brooks.
[370] See A. Bertrand, _La Religion des Gaulois, les Druides et le
Druidisme_ (Paris, 1897); H. Jennings, _The Rosicrucians_ (London,
1887); the Work of Paracelsus; H. Cornelius Agrippa, _De Occulta
Philosophia_ (Paris, 1567); H. P. Blavatsky's _Isis Unveiled_, and the
_Secret Doctrine_ (London, 1888); and _Hermetic Works_, by Anna
Kingsford and E. Maitland (London, 1885).
[371] Cf. Bergier, _Purgatoire_, in _Dict. de Théol._, v. 409. A Celt, a
professed faithful and fervent adherent of the Church of Rome, whom I
met in the Morbihan where he now lives, told me that he believes
thoroughly in the doctrine of re-birth, and that it is according to his
opinion the proper and logical interpretation of the doctrine of
Purgatory; and he added that there are priests in his Church who have
told him that their personal interpretation of the purgatorial doctrine
is the same. Thus some Roman Catholics do not deny the re-birth
doctrine. And such conversations as this with Catholic Celts in Ireland
and Brittany lead me to believe that to a larger extent than has been
suspected the old Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth may have been one of the
chief foundations for the modern Roman Catholic Doctrine of Purgatory,
whose origin is not clearly indicated in any theological works. For us
this probability is important as well as interesting, and especially so
when we remember the profound influence which the Celtic St. Patrick's
Purgatory certainly exerted on the Church during the Middle Ages when
the doctrine of Purgatory was taking definite shape (see our chapter x).
[372] _Barddas_ (Llandovery, 1862) is 'a collection (by Iolo Morganwg, a
Bard) of original documents, illustrative of the theology, wisdom, and
usage of the Bardo-Druidic System of the Isle of Britain'. The original
manuscripts are said to have been in the possession of Llywelyn Sion, a
Bard of Glamorgan, about 1560. _Barddas_ shows considerable Christian
influence, yet in its essential teachings is sufficiently distinct.
Though of late composition, _Barddas_ seems to represent the traditional
bardic doctrines as they had been handed down orally for an unknown
period of time, it having been forbidden in earlier times to commit such
doctrines to writing. We are well aware also of the adverse criticisms
passed upon these documents; but since no one questions their Celtic
origin--whether it be ancient or more modern--we are content to use
them.
[373] _Barddas_, i, 189-91.
[374] _Barddas_, i, 177.
[375] Preface to _Barddas_, xlii.
[376] One of the greatest errors formerly made by European Sanskrit
scholars and published broadcast throughout the West, so that now it is
popularly accepted there as true, is that Nirvana, the goal of Indian
philosophy and religion, means annihilation. It does mean annihilation
(evolutionary transmutation of lower into higher), but only of all those
forces or elements which constitute man as an animal. The error arose
from interpreting exoterically instead of esoterically, and was a
natural result of that system of western scholarship which sees and
often cares only to examine external aspects. Native Indian scholars who
have advised us in this difficult problem prefer to translate _Nirvana_
as 'Self-realization', i. e. a state of supernormal consciousness (to be
acquired through the evolution of the individual), as much superior to
the normal human consciousness as the normal human consciousness is
superior to the consciousness existing in the brute kingdom.
[377] _De Bel. Gal._, lib. vi. 14. 5; vi. 18. 1.
[378] Book V, 31. 4.
[379] _De Situ Orbis_, iii. c. 2: 'One point alone of the Druids'
teaching has become generally known among the common people (in order
that they should be braver in war), that souls are eternal and there is
a second life among the shades.'
[380] i. 449-62.
[381] Lucan, i. 457-8; i. 458-62.
[382] Cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, pp. 345, 347 ff.
[383] _Folk-Lore_, xii. 64, &c.; also cf. Eleanor Hull, _The Cuchullin
Saga in Irish Literature_ (London, 1898), Intro., p. 23, &c.
[384] What is probably the oldest form of a tale concerning Conchobhar's
birth makes Conchobhar 'the son of a god who incarnated himself in the
same way as did Lug and Etain' (cf. _Voy. of Bran_, ii. 73).
[385] See _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_, 101{b}; and _Book of Leinster_,
123{b}:--'_Cúchulainn mc dea dechtiri_.'
[386] We have already mentioned the belief that gods having their abode
in the sun could leave it to assume bodies here on earth and become
culture heroes and great teachers (see p. 309).
[387] From _Wooing of Emer_ in _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_; cf. _Voy. of
Bran_, ii. 97.
[388] _L'Épopée celt. en Irl._, p. 11.
[389] Cf. _Voy. of Bran_, ii. p. 74 ff.
[390] In the _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_, 133{a}-134{b}; cf. _Le Cycle Myth.
Irl._, pp. 336-43; cf. _Voy. of Bran_, i. 49-52; cf. O'Curry, _Manners
and Customs_, iii. 175.
[391] Cf. Stokes's ed. _Annals of Tigernach, Third Frag._ in _Rev.
Celt._ xvii. 178. In the piece called _Tucait baile Mongâin_ in the
_Leabhar na h-Uidhre_, p. 134, col. 2, 'Mongan is seen living with his
wife the year of the death of Ciaran mac int Shair, and of Tuathal
Mael-Garb, that is to say in 544,' following the _Chronicum Scotorum_,
Hennessy's ed., pp. 48-9. As D'Arbois de Jubainville adds, the Irish
chronicles of this epoch are only approximate in their dates. Thus,
while the _Four Masters_ (i. 243) makes the death of Mongan A. D. 620,
the _Annals of Ulster_ makes it A. D. 625, the _Chronicum Scotorum_ A.
D. 625, the _Annals of Clonmacnoise_, A. D. 624, and _Egerton MS._ 1782
A. D. 615 (cf. _Voy. of Bran_, i. 137-9).
[392] J. O'Donovan, _Annals of Ireland by the Four Masters_ (Dublin,
1856), i. 121.
[393] Cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, pp. 336-43; O'Curry, _Manners and
Customs_ iii. 175; _L. U._, 133{a}-134{b}; and _Voy. of Bran_, i. 52.
[394] _Voy. of Bran_, i. 44-5; from _The Conception of Mongan_.
[395] Meyer's version, _Voy. of Bran_, i. 73-4.
[396] Cf. _Voy. of Bran_, i. 137.
[397] _Voy. of Bran_, i. 22-8, quatrains 48-59, &c.
[398] In _L. U._; cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, pp. 311-22; and _Voy. of
Bran_, ii. 47-53.
[399] In the Irish conception of re-birth there is no change of sex: Lug
is re-born as a boy, in Cuchulainn; Finn as Mongan; Etain as a girl. But
it seems that Etain as a mortal had no consciousness of her previous
divine existence, while Cuchulainn and Mongan knew their non-human
origin and pre-existence.
[400] Some time after this, according to one part of the tale, Eochaid
stormed Midir's fairy palace--for the purpose localized in Ireland--and
won Etain back, but the fairies cast a curse on his race for this, and
Conaire, his grandson, fell a victim to it. Such a recovering of Etain
by Eochaid may vaguely suggest a re-birth of Etain, through the power
exerted by Eochaid, who, being a king, is to be regarded in his
non-human nature as one of the Tuatha De Danann himself, like Midir his
rival.
[401] Cf. _The Gilla decair_, in _Silva Gadelica_, pp. 300-3.
[402] Cf. _Voy. of Bran_, ii. 76 ff. The Christian scribe's version
fills up the space between Tuan's death and re-birth by making him pass
eighty years as a stag, twenty as a wild boar, one hundred as an eagle,
and twenty as a salmon (ib., p. 79). In this particular example, the
uninitiated scribe (evidently having failed to grasp an important aspect
of the re-birth doctrine as this was esoterically explained in the
Mysteries, namely, that between death and re-birth, while the conscious
Ego is resident in the Otherworld, the physical atoms of the discarded
human body may transmigrate through various plant and animal bodies)
appears to set forth as Celtic an erroneous doctrine of the
transmigration of the conscious Ego itself (see p. 513 n.). In other
texts, for example in the song which Amairgen (considered the Gaelic
equivalent or even original of the Brythonic Taliessin) sang as he, with
the conquering Sons of Mil, set foot on Ireland, there are similar
transformations, attributed to certain heroes like Taliessin (see the
_Mabinogion_) and Tuan mac Cairill during their disembodied states after
death and until re-birth. But these transformations seem to echo
poetically, and often rationally, a very mystical Celtic pantheism, in
which Man, regarded as having evolved upwards through all forms and
conditions of existence, is at one with all creation:--
I am the wind which blows o'er the sea;
I am the wave of the deep;
I am the bull of seven battles;
I am the eagle on the rock;
I am a tear of the sun;
I am the fairest of plants;
I am a boar for courage;
I am a salmon in the water;
I am a lake in the plain;
I am the world of knowledge;
I am the head of the battle-dealing spear;
I am the god who fashions fire in the head;
Who spreads light in the gathering on the mountain?
Who foretells the ages of the moon?
Who teaches the spot where the sun rests?
And Amairgen also says:--'I am,' [Taliessin] 'I have been' (_Book of
Invasions_; cf. _Voy. of Bran_, ii. 91-2; cf. Rhŷs, _Hib. Lect._, p.
549; cf. Skene, _Four Ancient Books_, i. 276 ff.).
In later times, especially among non-bardic poets, there has been a
similar tendency to misinterpret this primitive mystical Celtic
pantheism into the corrupt form of the re-birth doctrine, namely
transmigration of the human soul into animal bodies. Dr. Douglas Hyde
has sent to me the following evidence:--'I have a poem, consisting of
nearly one hundred stanzas, about a pig who ate an Irish manuscript, and
who by eating it recovered human speech for twenty-four hours and gave
his master an account of his previous embodiments. He had been a
right-hand man of Cromwell, a weaver in France, a subject of the Grand
Signor, &c. The poem might be about one hundred or one hundred and fifty
years old.' It is probable that the poet who composed this poem intended
to add a touch of modern Irish humour by making use of the pig. We
should, nevertheless, bear in mind that the pig (or, as is more commonly
the rule, the wild boar) holds a very curious and prominent position in
the ancient mythology of Ireland, and of Wales as well. It was regarded
as a magical animal (cf. p. 451 n.); and, apparently, was also a Druid
symbol, whose meaning we have lost. Possibly the poet may have been
aware of this. If so, he does not necessarily imply transmigration of
the human soul into animal bodies; but is merely employing symbolism.
[403] See _Taliessin_ in the _Mabinogion_, and the _Book of Taliessin_
in Skene's _Four Ancient Books_, i. 523 ff.; cf. Nutt, _Voy. of Bran_,
ii. 84, and Rhŷs, _Hib. Lect._, pp. 548, 551.
[404] Cf. Rhŷs, _Hib. Lect._, pp. 548-50.
[405] Cf. Rhŷs, _Hib. Lect._, p. 259; and _Arth. Leg._, p. 252.
[406] Loth, _Les Mabinogion, Kulhwch et Olwen_, p. 187 n.
[407] _Le Morte D'Arthur_, Book XXI, c. vii.
[408] See works on Egyptian mythology and religion, by Maspero; also
Lenormant, _Chaldean Magic_, p. 84, &c.
[409] F. L. Griffith, _Stories of the High-priests of Memphis_ (Oxford,
1900), c. iii. The text of this story is written on the back of two
Greek documents, bearing the date of the seventh year of the Emperor
Claudius (A. D. 46-7), not before published.
[410] It is interesting to compare with this episode the episodes of how
the magic of St. Patrick prevailed over the magic of the Druids when the
old and the new religions met in warfare on the Hill of Tara, in the
presence of the high king of Ireland and his court.
[411] E. A. Wallis Budge, _The Gods of the Egyptians_ (London, 1904),
p. 3.
[412] Prescott, _Conquest of Mexico and Conquest of Peru_.
[413] W. Crooke, _The Legends of Krishna_, in _Folk-Lore_, xi. 2-3 ff.
[414] _Laws of Manu_, vii. 8, trans, by G. Bühler.
[415] A. B. Cook, _European Sky-God_, in _Folk-Lore_, xv. 301-4.
[416] Cf. Lucian, _Somn._, 17, &c. See Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 13;
also Tertullian, _De Anima_, c. xxviii, where Pythagoras is described as
having previously been Aethalides, and Euphorbus, and the fisherman
Pyrrhus.
[417] Cf. Huc, _Souvenirs d'un voyage dans la Tartarie et le Thibet_, i.
279 ff.
[418] The doctrine of kingly rule by divine right was substituted after
the conversion of the Roman Empire for the very ancient belief that the
emperor was a god incarnate (not necessarily reincarnate); and the same
christianized aspect of a pre-Christian doctrine stands behind the
English kingship at the present day.
[419] A curious parallel to this Irish doctrine that through re-birth
one suffers for the sins committed in a previous earth-life is found in
the Christian scriptures, where in asking Jesus about a man born blind,
'Rabbi, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he should be born
blind?' the disciple exhibits what must have been a popular Jewish
belief in re-birth quite like the Celtic one. See St. John ix. 1-2.
Though the Rabbis admitted the possibility of ante-natal sin in thought,
this passage seems to point unmistakably to a Jewish re-birth doctrine.
[420] It is interesting to note in connexion with these two
complementary ideas what has been written by Mr. Standish O'Grady
concerning strange phenomena witnessed at the time of Charles Parnell's
funeral:--'While his followers were committing Charles Parnell's remains
to the earth, the sky was bright with strange lights and flames. Only a
coincidence possibly; and yet persons not superstitious have maintained
that there is some mysterious sympathy between the human soul and the
elements.... Those strange flames recalled to my memory what is told of
similar phenomena said to have been witnessed when tidings of the death
of the great Christian Saint, Columba, overran the north-west of Europe,
as perhaps truer than I had imagined.'--_Ireland: Her Story_, pp.
211-12.
[421] Cf. M. Lenihan, _Limerick; its History and Antiquities_ (Dublin,
1866), p. 725.
[422] I take this to mean, somewhat as in the similar case of Dechtire,
the mother of Cuchulainn (see p. 369, above), that the kind of soul or
character which will be reincarnated in the child is determined by the
psychic prenatal conditions which a mother consciously or unconsciously
may set up. If this interpretation, as it seems to be, is correct, we
have in this Welsh belief a surprising comprehension of scientific laws
on the part of the ancient Welsh Druids--from whom the doctrine
comes--which equals, and surpasses in its subtlety, the latest
discoveries of our own psychological embryology, criminology, and
so-called laws of heredity.
[423] The reader is referred to the Rev. T. M. Morgan's latest
publication, _The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Newchurch,
Carmarthenshire_ (Carmarthen, 1910), pp. 155-6.
[424] I found, however, that the original re-birth doctrine has been
either misinterpreted or else corrupted--after Dr. Tylor's theory--into
transmigration into animal bodies among certain Cornish miners in the
St. Just region.
[425] The primitive character of the Incarnation doctrine is clear:
Origen, in refuting a Jewish accusation against Christians, apparently
the natural outgrowth of deep-seated hatred and religious prejudice on
the part of the Jews, that Jesus Christ was born through the adultery of
the Virgin with a certain soldier named Panthera, argues 'that every
soul, for certain mysterious reasons (I speak now according to the
opinions of Pythagoras, and Plato, and Empedocles, whom Celsus
frequently names), is introduced into a body, and introduced according
to its deserts and former actions'. And, according to Origen's argument,
to assign to Jesus Christ a birth more disgraceful than any other is
absurd, because 'He who sends souls down into the bodies of men' would
not have thus 'degraded Him who was to dare such mighty acts, and to
teach so many men, and to reform so many from the mass of wickedness in
the world'. And Origen adds:--'It is probable, therefore, that this soul
also which conferred more benefit by its residence in the flesh than
that of many men (to avoid prejudice, I do not say "all"), stood in need
of a body not only superior to others, but invested with all excellence'
(_Origen against Celsus_, Book I, c. xxxii).
It is interesting to compare with Origen's theology the following
passage from the _Pistis Sophia_, wherein Jesus in the alleged esoteric
discourse to his disciples refers to the pre-existence of their
souls:--'I took them from the hands of the twelve saviours of the
treasure of light, according to the command of the first mystery. These
powers, therefore, I cast into the wombs of your mothers, when I came
into the world, and they are those which are in your bodies this day'
(_Pistis Sophia_, i. II, Mead's translation).
[426] Cf. Nutt, _Voy. of Bran_, ii. 27 ff., 45 ff., 54 ff., 98-102.
[427] Cf. ib., p. 105.
[428] In this chapter, largely the result of my own special research and
observations in Celtic archaeology, I wish to acknowledge the very
valuable suggestions offered to me by Professor J. Loth, both in his
lectures and personally.
[429] See David MacRitchie, _Fians, Fairies, and Picts_; also his
_Testimony of Tradition_.
[430] Myers, in the _Survival of the Human Personality_ (ii. 55-6),
shows that 'the departed spirit, long after death, seems pre-occupied
with the spot where his bones are laid'. Among contemporary uncultured
races there exists a theory parallel to this one arrived at through
careful scientific research, namely, that ghosts haunt graves and
monuments connected with the dead: according to the Australian Arunta
the 'double' hovers near its body until the body is reduced to dust, the
spirit or soul of the deceased having separated from this 'double' or
ghost at the time of death or soon afterwards (Spenser and Gillen, _Nat.
Tribes of Cent. Aust._).
[431] See _Les Grottes_, t. i; _Les Menhirs, Les Dolmens, Les Tumulus_,
and _Cultes et observances mégalithiques_, t. iv.
[432] On April 17, 1909, at Carnac, in a natural fissure in the body of
the finest menhir at the head of the Alignement of Kermario, I found
quite by chance, while making a very careful examination of the
geological structure of the menhir, a Roman Catholic coin (or medal) of
St. Peter. The place in the menhir where this coin was discovered is on
the south side about fifteen inches above the surface of the ground. The
menhir is very tall and smoothly rounded, and there is no possible way
for the coin to have fallen into the fissure by accident. Nor is there
any probability that the coin was placed there without a serious
purpose; and it is an object such as only an adult would possess. An
examination of the link remaining on the coin, which no doubt formerly
connected it with a necklace or string of prayer-beads, shows that it
has been purposely opened so as to free it at the time it was deposited
in the stone. Had the coin been accidentally torn away from a chain or
string of prayer-beads the link would have presented a different sort of
opening. But it would be altogether unreasonable to suppose that by any
sort of chance the coin could have reached the place where I found it. I
showed the coin to M. Z. Le Rouzic, of the Carnac Museum, and he
considers it, as I do, as evidence or proof of a cult rendered to stones
here in Brittany. The coin must have been secretly placed in the menhir
by some pious peasant as a direct _ex voto_ for some favour received or
demanded. The coin is somewhat discoloured, and has probably been some
years in the stone, though it cannot be very old. And the offering of a
coin to the spirit residing in a menhir is parallel to throwing coins,
pins, or other objects into sacred fountains, which, as we know, is an
undisputed practice.
[433] Cf. A. C. Kruijt, _Het Animisme in den Indischen Archipel_; quoted
in Crawley's _Idea of the Soul_, p. 133.
[434] Cf. Weidemann, _Ancient Egyptian Doct. Immortality_, p. 21.
[435] Cf. Mahé, _Essai_.
[436] Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 143 ff., 169, 172.
[437] Marett, _The Threshold of Religion_, c. i.
[438] Mahé, _Essai_, p. 230.
[439] A famous controversy exists as to whether the Coronation Stone now
in Westminster Abbey is the _Lia Fáil_, or whether the pillar-stone
still at Tara is the _Lia Fáil_. See article by E. S. Hartland in
_Folk-Lore_, xiv. 28-60.
[440] These 'idols' probably were not true images, but simply unshaped
stone pillars planted on end in the earth; and ought, therefore, more
properly to be designated fetishes.
[441] Stokes, in _Rev. Celt._, i. 260; Rhŷs, _Hib. Lect._, pp. 200-1.
[442] Very much first-class evidence suggests that the menhir was
regarded by the primitive Celts both as an abode of a god or as a seat
of divine power, and as a phallic symbol (cf. Jubainville, _Le culte des
menhirs dans le monde celtique_, in _Rev. Celt._, xxvii. 313). As a
phallic symbol, the menhir must have been inseparably related to a
Celtic sun-cult; because among all ancient peoples where phallic worship
has prevailed, the sun has been venerated as the supreme masculine force
in external nature from which all life proceeds, while the phallus has
been venerated as the corresponding force in human nature.
[443] _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 137.
[444] Professor J. Loth says:--'_Étymologiquement, le mot est composé
de_ CROM, _courbe, arque, formant creux, convexe, et de_ LLECH, _pierre
plate_' (_Rev. Celt._, xv. 223, _Dolmen_, _Leach-Derch_, _Peulvan_,
_Menhir_, _Cromlech_). In Cornwall, Wales, and Ireland, instead of the
peculiarly Breton word _dolmen_ (composed of _dol_ [for _tol == tavl_],
meaning _table_, and of _men_ [Middle Breton _maen_], meaning _stone_)
the word _cromlech_ is used. _Cromlech_ is the Welsh equivalent for the
Breton _dolmen_, but Breton archaeologists use _cromlech_ to describe a
circle formed by menhirs.
[445] Rhŷs, _Hib. Lect._, pp. 193-4.
[446] Ib., p. 192; from Sans-Marte's edition, pp. 108-9, 361.
[447] Ib., p. 193.
[448] Ib., pp. 194-5; cf. _Bibliotheca_ of Diodorus Siculus, ii. c. 47.
[449] Edith F. Carey, _Channel Island Folklore_ (Guernsey, 1909).
[450] Mahé, _Essai_, p. 198.
[451] Mahé, _Essai_, pp. 287-9.
[452] The place for holding a _gorsedd_ for modern Welsh initiations,
under the authority of which the Eisteddfod is conducted, must also be
within a circle of stones, 'face to face with the sun and the eye of
light, as there is no power to hold a _gorsedd_ under cover or at night,
but only where and as long as the sun is visible in the heavens'
(Rhŷs, _Hib. Lect._, pp. 208-9; from _Iolo_ MSS., p. 50).
[453] Recently before the Oxford Anthropological Society, Dr. Murray
argued that the satyrs of Greek drama may originally have been masked
initiators in Greek initiations. (Cf. _The Oxford Magazine_, February 3,
1910, p. 173.)
[454] Edith F. Carey, op. cit.
[455] Mahé, _Essai_, pp. 126-9.
[456] Mahé, _Essai_, pp. 126-9.
[457] Rhŷs, _Arth. Leg._, p. 339.
[458] Edith F. Carey, op. cit.
[459] Montelius' _Les Temps préhistoriques en Suède_, par S. Reinach, p.
126. (Paris, 1895).
[460] H. Schliemann, _Mycenae_ (London, 1878), p. 213.
[461] Walhouse, in _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, vii. 21. These Dravidians
are slightly taller than the pure Negritos, their probable ancestors;
and Indian tradition considers them to be the builders of the Indian
dolmens, just as Celtic tradition considers fairies and _corrigans_
(often described as dark or even black-skinned dwarfs) to be the
builders of dolmens and megaliths among the Celts. Apparently, in such
folk-traditions, which correctly or incorrectly regard fairies,
_corrigans_, or Dravidians as the builders of ancient stone monuments,
there has been preserved a folk-memory of early races of men who may
have been Negritos (pygmy blacks). These races, through a natural
anthropomorphic process, came to be identified with the spirits of the
dead and with other spiritual beings to whom the monuments were
dedicated and at which they were worshipped. Here, again, the Pygmy
Theory is seen at its true relative value: it is subordinate to the
fundamental animism of the Fairy-Faith.
[462] J. Déchelette, _Manuel d'Archéologie préhistorique_ (Paris, 1908),
i. 468, 302, 308, 311, 576, 610, &c.
[463] This famous chambered tumulus 'measures nearly 700 feet in
circumference, or about 225 feet in diameter, and between 40 and 50 feet
in height' (G. Coffey, in _Rl. Ir. Acad. Trans._ [Dublin, 1892], xxx.
68).
[464] G. Coffey, in _Rl. Ir. Acad. Trans._, xxx. 73-92.
[465] Fol. 190 b; trans. O'Curry, _Lectures_, p. 505.
[466] Mr. Coffey quotes from the _Senchus-na-Relec_, in _L. U._, this
significant passage:--'The nobles of the Tuatha De Danann were used to
bury at Brugh (i. e. the Dagda with his three sons; also Lugaidh, and Oe,
and Ollam, and Ogma, and Etan the Poetess, and Corpre, the son of Etan)'
(G. Coffey, op. cit., xxx. 77). The manuscript, however, being late and
directly under Christian influence, echoes but imperfectly very ancient
Celtic tradition: the immortal god-race are therein rationalized by the
transcribers, and made subject to death.
[467] W. C. Borlase, _Dolmens of Ireland_ (London, 1897), ii. 346 n.
[468] As translated in the _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 109-11.
[469] Borlase, op. cit., ii. 346-7 n.
[470] Borlase, op. cit., ii. 346-7 n.
[471] Ib., ii. 347 n.
[472] A good example of a saint's stone bed can be seen now at
Glendalough, the stone bed of St. Kevin, high above a rocky shore of the
lake.
[473] Coffey, op. cit., xxx. 73-4, from R. I. A. MS., by Michael
O'Longan, dated 1810, p. 10, and translated by Douglas Hyde.
[474] Coffey, op. cit., xxv. 73-4, from R. I. A. MS. by Michael
O'Longan, dated 1810, p. 10, and trans. by Douglas Hyde.
[475] Borlase, op. cit., ii. 347 n.
[476] O'Donovan, _Four Masters_, i. 22 n.
[477] Rhŷs, _Hib. Lect._, pp. 148-50.
[478] Cf. O'Curry, _Manners and Customs_, ii. 122; iii. 5, 74, 122;
Rhŷs, _Hib. Lect._, pp. 150, 150 n.; Jubainville, _Essai d'un
Catalogue_, p. 244.
[479] Rhŷs, _Hib. Lect._, p. 194.
[480] Math ab Mathonwy's Irish counterpart is Math mac Umóir, the
magician (_Book of Leinster_, f. 9{b}; cf. Rhŷs, _Trans. Third Inter.
Cong. Hist. Religions_, Oxford, 1908, ii. 211).
[481] Rhŷs, ib., pp. 225-6; cf. R. B. _Mabinogion_, p. 60; _Triads_,
i. 32, ii. 20, iii. 90. A fortified hill-top now known as Pen y Gaer, or
'Hill of the Fortress', on the western side of the Conway, on a mountain
within sight of the railway station of Tal y Cafn, Carnarvonshire, is
regarded by Sir John Rhŷs as the site of a long-forgotten cult of
Math the Ancient. (Rhŷs, ib., p. 225).
[482] This stone basin, now in the centre of the inner chamber, seems
originally to have stood in the east recess, the largest and most richly
inscribed. It is 4 feet long, 3 feet 6 inches across, and 1 foot thick.
(Coffey, op. cit., xxx. 14, 21).
[483] Cf. W. M. Flinders Petrie, _The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh_
(London, 1883), p. 201.
[484] All of the chief megaliths of this type, together with the chief
alignements, which I have personally inspected--with the aid of a
compass--in Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall, and
Brittany, are definitely aligned east and west. It cannot be said,
however, that _all_ megalithic monuments throughout Celtic countries
show definite orientation (see Déchelette's _Manuel d'Archéologie_).
[485] L. P. McCarty, _The Great Pyramid Jeezeh_ (San Francisco, 1907),
p. 402.
[486] Jubainville, _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, p. 28.
[487] Maspero, _Les Contes populaires de l'Égypte Ancienne_,{3} p. 74 n.
[488] Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 426.
[489] W. H. Prescott, _Conquest of Peru_, i, c. 3.
[490] Rochefort, _Iles Antilles_, p. 365; cf. Tylor, _P. C._,{4} ii. 424.
[491] Colebrooke, _Essays_, vols. i, iv, v; cf. Tylor, _P. C._,{4} 425.
[492] _Illus. Hist. and Pract. of Thugs_ (London, 1837), p. 46; cf.
Tylor, _P. C._,{4} ii. 425.
[493] Augustin, _de Serm. Dom. in Monte_, ii. 5; cf. Tylor, _P. C._,{4}
ii. 427-8.
[494] Ezek. viii. 16. The popular opinion that Christians face the east
in prayer, or have altars eastward because Jerusalem is eastward, does
not fit in with facts.
[495] Cf. Lenormant, _Chaldean Magic_, p. 88; also Tylor, _Prim.
Cult._,{4} ii. 48-9.
[496] Though not a Mason, the writer draws his knowledge from Masons of
the highest rank, and from published works by Masons like Mr. Carty's
_The Great Pyramid Jeezeh_.
[497] Cf. Borlase, _Dolmens of Ireland_, ii. 347 n.
[498] C. Piazzi Smyth, _Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid_ (London,
1890).
[499] Flinders Petrie, _The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh_, pp. 169,
222.
[500] C. Piazzi Smyth, op. cit.
[501] In 1770, when New Grange apparently was not covered with a growth
of trees as now, Governor Pownall visited it and described it as like a
pyramid in general outline: 'The pyramid in its present state' is 'but a
ruin of what it was' (Coffey, op. cit., xxx. 13).
[502] Le Dr. G. de C., _Locmariaquer et Gavr'inis_ (Vannes, 1876), p.
18.
[503] According to Le Dr. G. de C., op. cit., p. 18.
[504] Mr. Coffey says of similar details in Irish tumuli:--'In the
construction of such chambers it is usual to find a sort of sill or low
stone placed across the entrance into the main chamber, and at the
openings into the smaller chambers or recesses; such stones also occur
laid at intervals across the bottom of the passages. This forms a marked
feature in the construction at Dowth, and in the cairns on the Loughcrew
Hills, but is wholly absent at New Grange' (op. cit., xxx. 15). New
Grange, however, has suffered more or less from vandalism, and
originally may have contained similar stone sills.
[505] Flinders Petrie, _The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh_, p. 216.
[506] Maspero, op. cit., p. 69 n., &c. The world-wide anthropomorphic
tendency to construct tombs for the gods and for the dead after the plan
of earthly dwellings is as evident in the excavations at Mycenae as in
ancient Egypt and in Celtic lands.
[507] Cf. Bruns, _Canones apostolorum et conciliorum saeculorum_, ii.
133.
[508] Cf. F. Maassen, _Concilia aevi merovingici_, p. 133.
[509] Cf. Boretius, _Capitularia regum Francorum_, i. 59; for each of
the above references cf. Jubainville, _Le culte des menhirs dans le
monde celtique_, in _Rev. Celt._, xxvii. 317.
[510] Cf. Mahé, _Essai_, p. 427.
[511] See Villemarqué _sur Bretagne_.
[512] Cf. Mahé, _Essai_, p. 326; quoted from _De Glor. Conf._, c. 2.
[513] Cf. Mahé, _Essai_, p. 326; quoted from _De Glor. Conf._, c. 2.
[514] Cf. Mahé, _Essai_, p. 326; quoted from _Goth._, lib. ii.
[515] A. W. Moore, in _Folk-Lore_, v. 212-29.
[516] Cf. Rhŷs, _Arthurian Legend_, p. 247.
[517] Borlase, _Dolmens of Ireland_, iii. 729.
[518] Stokes, _Tripartite Life of Patrick_, pp. 99-101.
[519] Ib., text, pp. 123, 323, and Intro., p. 159.
[520] Book II, 69-70; see our study, p. 267.
[521] Rennes _Dinnshenchas_, Stokes's trans. in _Rev. Celt._, xv. 457.
[522] Cf. Mahé, _Essai_, p. 323.
[523] The Celts may have viewed the mistletoe on the sacred oak as the
seat of the tree's life, because in the winter sleep of the leafless oak
the mistletoe still maintains its own foliage and fruit, and like the
heart of a sleeper continues pulsing with vitality. The mistletoe thus
being regarded as the heart-centre of the divine spirit in the oak-tree
was cut with a golden sickle by the arch-druid clad in pure white robes,
amid great religious solemnity, and became a vicarious sacrifice or
atonement for the worshippers of the tree god. (Cf. Frazer, _G. B._,{2}
iii. 447 ff.)
[524] Pliny, _Nat. Hist._, xvi. 95; cf. Rhŷs, _Hib. Lect._, p. 218.
[525] _Dissert._, viii; cf. Rhŷs, ib., p. 219.
[526] Meineke's ed., xii. 5, 1; cf. Rhŷs, ib., p. 219. The oak-tree
is pre-eminently the holy tree of Europe. Not only Celts, but Slavs,
worshipped amid its groves. To the Germans it was their chief god; the
ancient Italians honoured it above all other trees; the original image
of Jupiter on the Capitol at Rome seems to have been a natural oak-tree.
So at Dodona, Zeus was worshipped as immanent in a sacred oak. Cf.
Frazer, _G. B._,{2} iii. 346 ff.
[527] Cf. Mahé, _Essai_, pp. 333-4; quotation from _Hist. du Maine_, i.
17.
[528] Cf. Mahé, _Essai_, p. 334; quoted from _Lib._ VII, _indict._ i,
_epist._ 5.
[529] Stokes, _Tripartite Life_, p. 409.
[530] Cf. Wood-Martin, _Traces of the Older Faiths in Ireland_, i. 305.
[531] W. Gregor, _Notes on Beltene Cakes_, in _Folk-Lore_, vi. 5.
[532] Temple, _Legends of the Panjab_, in _Folk-Lore_, x. 406.
[533] Lefèvre, _Le Culte des Morts chez les Latins_, in _Rev. Trad.
Pop._, ix. 195-209.
[534] See _Folk-Lore_, vi. 192.
[535] The term 'People of Peace' seems, however, to have originated from
confounding _sid_, 'fairy abode,' and _síd_, 'peace.'
[536] Cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, p. 102.
[537] The crocodile as the mystic symbol of Sîtou provides one key to
unlock the mysteries of what eminent Egyptologists have erroneously
called animal worship, erroneously because they have interpreted
literally what can only be interpreted symbolically. The crocodile is
called the 'son of Sîtou' in the _Papyrus magique_, Harris, pl. vi, ll.
8-9 (cf. Maspero, _Les Contes populaires de l'Égypte Ancienne_,[539]
Intro., p. 56); and as the waters seem to swallow the sun as it sinks
below the horizon, so the crocodile, as Sîtou representing the waters,
swallows the Children of Osiris, as the Egyptians called themselves. On
the other hand, Osiris is typified by the white bull, in many nations
the sun emblem, white being the emblem of purity and light, while the
powers of the bull represent the masculinity of the sun, which
impregnates all nature, always thought of as feminine, with life germs.
[538] Cf. Maspero, op. cit., Intro., p. 49.
[539] Cf. Borlase, _Dolmens of Ireland_, iii. 854.
[540] Cf. Lefèvre, _Rev. Trad. Pop._, ix. 195-209.
[541] J. G. Campbell collected in Scotland two versions of a parallel
episode, but concerning Loch Lurgan. In both versions the flight begins
by Fionn's foster-mother carrying Fionn, and in both, when she is tired,
Fionn carries her and runs so fast that when the loch is reached only
her shanks are left. These he throws out on the loch, and hence its name
Loch Lurgan, 'Lake of the Shanks.' (_The Fians_, pp. 18-19).
[542] During the seventeenth century, the English government, acting
through its Dublin representatives, ordered this original Cave or
Purgatory to be demolished; and with the temporary suppression of the
ceremonies which resulted and the consequent abandonment of the island,
the Cave, which may have been filled up, has been lost.
[543] Thomas Wright, _St. Patrick's Purgatory_ (London, 1844), pp. 67-8.
[544] Wright, op. cit., p. 69.
[545] In the face of all the legends told of pilgrims who have been in
Patrick's Purgatory, it seems that either through religious frenzy like
that produced in Protestant revivals, or else through some strange
influence due to the cave itself after the preliminary disciplines, some
of the pilgrims have had most unusual psychic experiences. Those who
have experienced fasting and a rigorous life for a prescribed period
affirm that there results a changed condition, physical, mental, and
spiritual, so that it is very probable that the Christian pilgrims to
the Purgatory, like the pagan pilgrims who 'fasted on' the Tuatha De
Danann in New Grange, were in good condition to receive impressions of a
psychical nature such as the Society for Psychical Research is beginning
to believe are by no means rare to people susceptible to them. Neophytes
seeking initiation among the ancients had to undergo even more rigorous
preparations than these; for they were expected while entranced to leave
their physical bodies and in reality enter the purgatorial state, as we
shall presently have occasion to point out.
[546] Wright, _St. Patrick's Purgatory_, pp. 62 ff.
[547] L. R. Farnell, _Cults of the Greek States_ (Oxford, 1907), iii.
126-98, &c.
[548] Cf. Athenaeus, 614 A; Aristoph., _Nubes_, 508; and Harper's _Dict.
Class. Lit. and Antiq._, p. 1615.
[549] Cf. O. Seyffert, _Dict. Class. Antiquities_, trans. (London,
1895), _Mithras_.
[550] Brasseur, _Mexique_, iii. 20, &c.; Tylor, _P. C._,{4} ii. 45.
[551] Cf. Hutton Webster, _Primitive Secret Societies_ (New York, 1908),
p. 38, and _passim_.
[552] In the ancient Greek world the annual celebration of the Mysteries
drew great concourses of people from all regions round the
Mediterranean; to the modern Breton world the chief religious Pardons
are annual events of such supreme importance that, after preparing
plenty of food for the pilgrimage, the whole family of a pious peasant
of Lower Brittany will desert farm and work dressed in their beautiful
and best costumes for one of these Pardons, the most picturesque, the
most inspiring, and the highest folk-festivals still preserved by the
Roman Church; while to Roman Catholics in all countries a pilgrimage to
Lough Derg is the sacred event of a lifetime.
In the Breton Pardons, as in the purgatorial rites, we seem to see the
survivals of very ancient Celtic Mysteries strikingly like the Mysteries
of Eleusis. The greatest of the Pardons, the Pardon of St. Anne d'Auray,
will serve as a basis for comparison; and while in some respects it has
had a recent and definitely historical origin (or revival), this origin
seems on the evidence of archaeology to have been a restoration, an
expansion, and chiefly a Christianization of prehistoric rites then
already partly fallen into decay. Such rites remained latent in the
folk-memory, and were originally celebrated in honour of the sacred
fountain, and probably also of Isis and the child, whose terra-cotta
image was ploughed up in a neighbouring field by the famous peasant
Nicolas, and naturally regarded by him and all who saw it as of St. Anne
and the Holy Child. Thus, in the Pardon of St. Anne d'Auray, which
extends over three days, there is a torch-light procession at night
under ecclesiastical sanction; as in the Ceres Mysteries, wherein the
neophytes with torches kindled sought all night long for Proserpine.
There are purification rites, not especially under ecclesiastical
sanction, at the holy fountain now dedicated to St. Anne, like the
purification rites of the Eleusinian worshippers at the sea-shore and
their visit to a holy well. There are mystery plays, recently
instituted, as in Greek initiation ceremonies; sacred processions, led
by priests, bearing the image of St. Anne and other images, comparable
to Greek sacred processions in which the god Iacchos was borne on the
way to Eleusis. The all-night services in the dimly-lighted church of
St. Anne, with the special masses in honour of the Christian saints and
for the dead, are parallel to the midnight ceremonies of the Greeks in
their caves of initiation and to the libations to the gods and to the
spirits of the departed at Greek initiations. Finally, in the Greek
mysteries there seems to have been some sort of expository sermon or
exhortation to the assembled neophytes quite comparable to the special
appeal made to the faithful Catholics assembled in the magnificent
church of St. Anne d'Auray by the bishops and high ecclesiastics of
Brittany. (For these Classical parallels compare Farnell, _Cults of the
Greek States_, iii, _passim_.)
[553] Cf. Rhŷs, _Hib. Lect._, p. 411, &c.
[554] O'Curry, _Lectures_, pp. 586-7.
[555] There is this very significant legend on record about the Cave of
Cruachan:--'Magh Mucrime, now, pigs of magic came out of the cave of
Cruachain, and that is Ireland's gate of Hell.' And 'Out of it, also,
came the Red Birds that withered up everything in Erin that their breath
would touch, till the Ulstermen slew them with their slings.' (_B. of
Leinster_, p. 288a; Stokes's trans., in _Rev. Celt._, xiii. 449; cf.
_Silva Gadelica_, ii. 353.)
[556] Forbes, _Lives of S. Ninian and S. Kentigern_ (Edinburgh, 1874),
pp. 285, 345.
[557] Cf. Wright, _St. Patrick's Purgatory_, pp. 81-2.
[558] Cf. Godescard, _Vies des Saints_, xi. 24; also Bergier, _Dict. de
Théol._, v. 405.
[559] Cf. Godescard, _Vies des Saints_, xi. 32. But there is some
disagreement in this matter of dates: Petrus Damianus, _Vita S.
Odilonis_, in the Bollandist _Acta Sanctorum_, January 1, records a
legend of how the Abbot Odilon decreed that November 2, the day after
All Saints' Day, should be set apart for services for the departed (cf.
Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 37 n.).
[560] Cf. Godescard, _Vies des Saints_, xi. 1 n.
[561] Part II, sec. 4; c. 4, par. 8; cf. Bergier, _Dict. de Théol._, iv.
322.
[562] P. 11{a}, l. 19; in Stokes's _Tripartite Life_, Intro., p. 194.
[563] _Enchiridion_, chap. cx; _Testament of St. Ephrem_ (ed. Vatican),
ii. 230, 236; Euseb., _de Vita Constant._, liv. iv, c. lx. 556, c. lxx.
562; cf. Godescard, _Vies des Saints_, xi. 30-1.
[564] St. Ambroise, _de Obitu Theodosii_, ii. 1197; cf. Godescard, _Vies
des Saints_, xi. 31 n.
[565] Cf. Godescard, _Vies des Saints_, xi. 31-2.
[566] I am indebted to Mr. William McDougall, M.A., Wilde Reader in
Mental Philosophy in the University of Oxford, for having read through
and criticized the first draft of this section; and while he is in no
way responsible for the views set forth herein, nevertheless his
suggestions for the improvement of their scientific framework have been
of very great value. I must also express my obligation to him for having
suggested through his Oxford lectures a good share of the important
material interwoven into chapter xii touching the vitalistic view of
evolution.
[567] Cf. C. Du Prel, _Philosophy of Mysticism_ (London, 1889), i. 7,
11.
[568] T. Ribot, _The Diseases of Personality_; cf. J. L. Nevius, _Demon
Possession_ (London, 1897), pp. 234-5.
[569] _Proc. S. P. R._ (London), v. 167; cf. A. Lang, _Making of
Religion_, p. 64.
[570] W. James, _Confidences of a 'Psychical Researcher'_, in _American
Magazine_ (October 1909).
[571] A. Lang, _Cock Lane and Common Sense_ (London, 1896), p. 35.
[572] According to Professor Freud, the well-known neurologist of
Vienna, external stimuli are not admitted to the dream-consciousness in
the same manner that they would be admitted to the waking-consciousness,
but they are disguised and altered in particular ways (cf. S. Freud,
_Die Traumdeutung_, 2nd ed., Vienna, 1909; and S. Ferenczi, _The
Psychological Analysis of Dreams_, in _Amer. Journ. Psych._, April 1910,
No. 2, xxi. 318, &c.).
[573] Du Prel, op. cit., i. 135.
[574] G. F. Stout, _Mr. F. W. Myers on 'Human Personality and its
Survival of Bodily Death'_, in _Hibbert Journal_, ii, No. 1 (London,
October 1903), p. 56.
[575] F. W. H. Myers, _Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily
Death_ (London, 1903), i. 131.
[576] R. L. Stevenson, _Across the Plains_, chapter on Dreams.
[577] Stout, op. cit., p. 54.
[578] Freud, op. cit.; Ferenczi, op. cit.; E. Jones, _Freud's Theory of
Dreams_, in _Amer. Journ. Psych._, April 1910, No. 2, xxi. 283-308.
[579] Freud, _The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis_, in _Amer.
Journ. Psych._, April 1910, No. 2, xxi. 203.
[580] Du Prel, op. cit., i. 33.
[581] Myers, op. cit., i. 134.
[582] Fechner, _Zentralblatt für Anthropologie_, p. 774; cf. Du Prel,
op. cit., i. 92.
[583] Haddock, _Somnolism and Psychism_, p. 213; cf. Du Prel, op. cit.,
i. 93.
[584] Perty, _Mystische Erscheinungen_, i. 305; cf. Du Prel, op. cit.,
ii. 63.
[585] Kerner, _Seherin v. Prevorst_, p. 196; cf. Du Prel, op. cit., ii.
65.
[586] Chardel, _Essai de Psychologie_, p. 344; cf. Du Prel, op. cit.,
ii. 64.
[587] Cf. Du Prel, op. cit., i. 88-9.
[588] Myers, op. cit., chapter vi.
[589] Stout, op. cit., pp. 64, 61-2.
[590] Lang, _Mr. Myers's Theory of 'The Subliminal Self'_, in _Hibbert
Journal_, ii, No. 3 (April 1904), p. 530.
[591] The peculiar and often unique characteristics of the fairy-folk of
any given fairy-faith, as we have pointed out in chapter iii (pp. 233,
282), are to be regarded as being merely anthropomorphically coloured
reflections of the social life or environment of the particular ethnic
group who hold the particular fairy-faith; and, as Mr. Lang here
suggests, when they are stripped of these superficial characteristics,
which are due to such social psychology, they become ghosts of the dead
or other spiritual beings.
Our own researches lead us to the conviction that behind the purely
mythical aspect of these fairy-faiths there exists a substantial
substratum of real phenomena not yet satisfactorily explained by
science; that such phenomena have been in the past and are at the
present time the chief source of the belief in fairies, that they are
the foundation underlying all fairy mythologies. We need only refer to
the following phenomena observed among Celtic and other peoples, and
attributed by them to 'fairy' or 'spirit' agency: (1) music which
competent percipients believe to be of non-human origin, and hence by
the Celts called 'fairy' music, whether this be vocal or instrumental in
sound; (2) the movement of objects without known cause; (3) rappings and
other noises called 'supernatural' (cf. pp. 81 n., 481-4, 488; also pp.
47, 57, 61, 67, 71, 72, 74, 88, 94, 98, 101, 120, 124, 125, 131, 132,
134, 139, 148, 156, 172, 181, 187, 213, 218, 220, &c.).
[592] It is our hope that this book will help to lessen the marked
deficiency of recorded testimony concerning 'fairy' beings and 'fairy'
phenomena observed by reliable percipients. We have endeavoured to
demonstrate that genuine 'fairy' phenomena and genuine 'spirit'
phenomena are in most cases identical. Hence we believe that if 'spirit'
phenomena are worthy of the attention of science, equally so are 'fairy'
phenomena. The fairy-belief _in its typical_ or _conventional aspects_
(apart from the animism which we discovered at the base of the belief)
is, as was pointed out in our anthropological examination of the
evidence (pp. 281-2), due to a very complex social psychology. In this
chapter we have eliminated all social psychology, as not being the
essential factor in the Fairy-Faith. Therefore, from our point of view,
Mr. Lang's implied explanation of the typical fairy-visions, that they
are due to 'suggestion acting on the subconscious self', does not apply
to the rarer kind of fairy visions which form part of our x-quantity
(see pp. 60-6, 83-4, &c.). If it does, then it also applies to all
non-Celtic visions of spirits, in ancient and in modern times; and the
animistic hypothesis now accepted by most psychical researchers, namely,
that discarnate intelligences exist independent of the percipient, must
be set aside in favour of the non-animistic hypothesis. If, on the other
hand, it be admitted that 'fairy' phenomena are, as we maintain,
essentially the same as 'spirit' phenomena, then the belief in fairies
ceases to be purely mythical, and 'fairy' visions by a Celtic seer who
is physically and psychically sound do not seem to arise from that
seer's suggestion acting on his own subconsciousness; but certain types
of 'fairy' visions undoubtedly do arise from suggestion, _coming from a
'fairy' or other intelligence_, acting on the conscious or subconscious
content of the percipient's mind (cf. pp. 484-7).
[593] Lang, _Cock Lane and Common Sense_, pp. 208, 35.
[594] Sir Oliver Lodge, _Psychical Research_, in _Harper's Mag._, August
1908 (New York and London).
[595] Sir Oliver Lodge, _The Survival of Man_ (London, 1909), p. 339.
[596] James, op. cit., pp. 587-9.
[597] Readers are referred to such authoritative works as the _Phantasms
of the Living_ (London, 1886), by Gurney, Myers, and Podmore; to the
_Report on the Census of Hallucinations of Modern Spiritualism_, by
Professor Sidgwick's Committee; to the _Naturalisation of the
Supernatural_ (New York and London, 1908), by F. Podmore; to the
_Survival of the Human Personality_, by F. W. H. Myers; and other like
works, all of which originate from the _Proceedings of the Society for
Psychical Research_ (London).
[598] C. Flammarion, _Mysterious Psychic Forces_, pp. 441, 431.
[599] Sir Wm. Crookes, _Notes of an Enquiry into Phenomena called
Spiritual, during the years 1870-73_ (London), Part III, p. 87.
[600] See _Quart. Journ. Science_ (July 1871).
[601] Cf. Lang, _Cock Lane and Common Sense_, p. 281; and for other
cases of objects moved without contact see ib., pp. 50, 52, 53, 58, 122
ff. See also F. Podmore's article on _Poltergeists_, in _Proceedings S.
P. R._, xii. 45-115; and his _Naturalisation of the Supernatural_,
chapter vii.
[602] Sir Wm. Crookes, op. cit., Part III, p. 100.
[603] Ib., p. 94.
[604] Lang, _Cock Lane and Common Sense_, pp. 60, 81, 139, &c.
[605] Using as a basis the data of Professor Sidgwick's Committee and
the results earlier obtained by Gurney, Myers, and Podmore (see
_Phantasms of the Living_), Mr. William McDougall shows concisely the
probability of an apparition appearing within twelve hours of the death
of the individual whom it represents. He says:--'... of all recognized
apparitions of living persons, only one in 19,000 may be expected to be
a death-coincidence of this sort. But the census shows that of 1,300
recognized apparitions of living persons 30 are death-coincidences, and
that is equivalent to 440 in 19,000. Hence, of recognized
hallucinations, those coincident with death are 440 times more numerous
than we should expect, if no causal relation obtained.' And Mr.
McDougall concludes: '... since good evidence of telepathic
communication has been experimentally obtained, the least improbable
explanation of these death-apparitions is that the dying person exerts
upon his distant friend some telepathic influence which generates an
hallucinatory perception of himself' (_Hallucinations_, in _Ency.
Brit._, 11th ed., xii. 863).
[606] Myers, op. cit., ii. 65, 45 ff., 49 ff., &c.
[607] Nevius, _Demon Possession_, Introduction, pp. iv, vii; pp. 240-2,
144-5. In accordance with all such phenomena, psychical researchers have
logically called spirits manifesting themselves through the body of a
living person possessing spirits. And as in the case of Chinese
demon-possession, the phenomena of mediumship often result in the moral
derangement, insanity, or even suicide on the part of 'mediums' who so
unwisely exhibit it without special preparation or no preparation at
all, and too often in complete ignorance of a possible gradual
undermining of their psychic life, will-power, and even physical health.
All of this seems to offer direct and certain evidence to sustain
Christians and non-Christians in their condemnation of all forms of
necromancy or calling up of spirits. The following statement will make
our position towards mediumship of the most common kind clear:
In Druidism, for one example, disciples for training in magical sciences
are said to have spent twenty years in severe study and special
psychical training before deemed fit to be called Druids and thus to
control daemons, ghosts, or all invisible entities capable of possessing
living men and women. And even now in India and elsewhere there is
reported to be still the same ancient course of severe disciplinary
training for candidates seeking magical powers. But in modern
Spiritualism conditions are altogether different in most cases, and
'mediums' instead of controlling with an iron will, as a magician does,
spirits which become manifest in _séances_, surrender entirely their
will-power and whole personality to them.
[608] Cf. Sigmund Freud, _The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis_,
in _Amer. Journ. Psych._, xxi, No. 2 (April 1910).
[609] The fact that all matter is capable of assuming a gaseous or
invisible state furnishes good scientific reasons for postulating the
actual existence of intelligent beings possessed of an invisible yet
physical body. There may well be on and about our planet many distinct
invisible organic life-forms undiscovered by zoologists. To deny such a
possibility would be unscientific.
[610] Cf. _Communication adressée au D{r} J. Dupré_, p. 382 of an essay
on _La Métempsycose basée sur les Principes de la Biologie et du
Magnétisme physiologique_, in _Le Hasard_ (Paris, 1909), by P. C. Revel.
Cases of regeneration among the aged are known, and these show how the
subliminal life-forces try to renew the physical body when it is worn
out (cf. Revel, ib., p. 372).
[611] Cf. Revel, op. cit., p. 295 ff.
[612] If scientists discover, as they probably will in time, what they
call the secret of life, they will not have discovered the secret of
life at all. What they will have discovered will be the physical
conditions under which life manifests itself. In other words, science
will most likely soon be able to set up artificially in a laboratory
such physical conditions as exist in nature naturally, and by means of
which life is able to manifest itself through matter. Life will still be
as great a mystery as it is to-day; though short-sighted materialists
are certain to announce to an eager world that the final problem of the
universe has been solved and that life is merely the resultant of a
subtle chemical compound.
[613] Professor Freud, after long and careful study, arrived at the
following conclusion:--'The child has his sexual impulse and activities
from the beginning, he brings them with him into the world, and from
these the so-called normal sexuality of adults emerges by a significant
development through manifold stages.' And Dr. Sanford Bell, in an
earlier writing entitled _A Preliminary Study of the Emotions of Love
between the Sexes_ (see _Amer. Journ. Psych._, 1902), came to a similar
conclusion (cf. Freud, op. cit., pp. 207-8).
[614] Cf. Hans Driesch, _The Science and Philosophy of the Organism_
(London, 1908); and Henri Bergson, _L'Évolution créatrice_ (Paris,
1908).
[615] This Celtic view of non-personal immortality completely fits in
with all the voluminous data of psychical research: after forty years of
scientific research into psychics there are no proofs yet adduced that
the human personality as a self-sufficient unit of consciousness
survives indefinitely the death of its body. Granted that it does
survive as a ghost for an undetermined period, generally to be counted
in years, during which time it seems to be gradually fading out or
disintegrating, there is no reliable evidence anywhere to show that a
personality _as such_ has manifested through a 'medium' or otherwise
after an interval of one thousand years, or even of five hundred years.
We have, in fact, no knowledge of the survival of a human personality
one hundred years after, and probably there are no good examples of such
a survival twenty-five years after the death of the body. Such an
eminent psychical researcher as William James recognized this drift of
the data of psychics, and when he died he held the conviction that there
is no personal immortality (see p. 505 n. following).
[616] Though not inclined toward the vitalistic view of human evolution,
M. Th. Ribot very closely approaches the Celtic view of the Ego (or
individuality) as being the principle which gives unity to different
personalities, but he does not have in mind personalities in the sense
implied by the Celtic Esoteric Doctrine of Re-birth:--'The Ego
subjectively considered consists of a sum of conscious states'
(comparable to personalities).... 'In brief, the Ego may be considered
in two ways: either in its actual form, and then it is the sum of
existing conscious states; or, in its continuity with the past, and then
it is formed by the memory according to the process outlined above. It
would seem, according to this view, that the identity of the Ego
depended entirely upon the memory. But such a conception is only
partial. Beneath the unstable compound phenomenon in all its protean
phases of growth, degeneration, and reproduction, there is a something
that remains: and this something is the undefined consciousness, the
product of all the vital processes, constituting bodily perception and
what is expressed in one word--the _cœnæsthesis_.' (_The Diseases of
Memory_, pp. 107-8).
William James, the greatest psychologist of our epoch, after a long and
faithful life consecrated to the search after a true understanding of
human consciousness, finally arrived at substantially the same
conviction as Fechner did, that there is no personal immortality, but
that the personality 'is but a temporary and partial separation and
circumscription of a part of a larger whole, into which it is reabsorbed
at death' (W. McDougall, _In Memory of William James_, in _Proc. S. P.
R._, Part LXII, vol. xxv, p. 28). He thus virtually accepted the
mystic's view that the personality after the death of the body is
absorbed into a higher power, which, to our mind, is comparable with the
Ego conceived as the unifying principle behind personalities. In one of
his last writings, James explained his belief in such a manner as to
make it coincide at certain points with the view held by modern Celtic
mystics which has been presented above; the difference being that,
unlike these mystics, James was not prepared to say (though he raised
the question) whether or not behind the 'mother-sea' of consciousness
there is, as Fechner believed, a hierarchy of consciousnesses
(themselves subordinate to still higher consciousnesses, and comparable
with so many Egos or Individualities) which send out emanations as
temporary human personalities. The organic psychical forms (if we may
use such an expression) of such temporary human personalities would have
to be regarded from James's point of view as being built up out of the
psychical elements constituting the 'mother-sea' of consciousness, just
as the human body is built up out of the physical elements in the realm
of matter:--'Out of my experience, such as it is (and it is limited
enough) one fixed conclusion dogmatically emerges, and that is this,
that we with our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the
forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their
leaves, and Conanicut and Newport hear each other's foghorns. But the
trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the
islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom. Just so there is
a continuum of cosmic consciousness, against which our individuality'
(used as synonymous with personality and not in our distinct sense)
'builds but accidental fences, and into which our several minds plunge
as into a mother-sea or reservoir. Our "normal" consciousness' (the
personality as we distinguish it from the Ego or individuality) 'is
circumscribed for adaptation to our external earthly environment, but
the fence is weak in spots, and fitful influences from beyond break in,
showing the otherwise unverifiable common connexion. Not only psychic
research, but metaphysical philosophy and speculative biology are led in
their own ways to look with favour on some such "pan-psychic" view of
the universe as this.' (W. James, _The Confidences of a Psychical
Researcher_, in _The American Magazine_, October 1909). Again, James
wrote:--'The drift of all the evidence we have seems to me to sweep us
very strongly towards the belief in some form of superhuman life with
which we may, unknown to ourselves, be co-conscious.' (_A Pluralistic
Universe_, New York, 1909, p. 309.)
[617] W. James, _Varieties of Religious Experience_ (London, 1902), pp.
511, 236 n.
[618] M. Th. Ribot, in _Diseases of Memory_ (London, 1882), pp. 82-98
ff., gives numerous examples of such loss and recovery of memory.
[619] Cf. Freud, op. cit., pp. 192, 204-5, &c.
[620] Cf. A. Moll, _Hypnotism_ (London, 1890), pp. 141 ff., 126.
[621] Cf. A. Moll, _Hypnotism_ (London, 1890), pp. 141 ff., 126.
[622] Cf. Freud, op. cit., p. 192.
[623] Freud, _Die Traumdeutung_, 2nd ed. (Vienna, 1906); cf. S.
Ferenczi, _The Psychological Analysis of Dreams_, in _Amer. Journ.
Psych._ (April 1910), xxi, No. 2, p. 326.
[624] A similar state of high development is to be assumed for a great
Celtic hero like Arthur, who were he to be re-born would (as is said to
have been the case with King Mongan, the reincarnation of Finn) bring
with him memory of his past: unlike the consciousness of the normal man,
the consciousness of one of the Divine Ones is normally the
subconsciousness, the consciousness of the individuality; and not the
personal consciousness, which, like the personality, is non-permanent
_in itself_. This further illustrates the Celtic theory of non-personal
immortality.
[625] Ribot, op. cit., p. 100 ff.
[626] Cf. Lang, _Cock Lane and Common Sense_, pp. 217 ff. _Blackwood's
Magazine_, cxxix (January 1881), contains a remarkable account of a
child who remembered previous lives. Lord Lindsay, in his _Letters_ (ed.
of 1847, p. 351), refers to a feeling when he beheld the river Kadisha
descending from Lebanon, of having in a previous life seen the same
scene. Dickens in his _Pictures from Italy_ testifies to a parallel
experience. E. D. Walker, in his interesting work on _Reincarnation_
(pp. 42-5) has brought together many other well-attested cases of people
who likewise have thought they could remember fragments of a former
state of conscious existence. In his diary, under date of February 17,
1828, Sir Walter Scott wrote as follows:--'I cannot, I am sure, tell if
it is worth marking down, that yesterday, at dinner-time, I was
strangely haunted by what I would call the sense of pre-existence, viz.
a confused idea that nothing that passed was said for the first time.'
Lockhart, _Life of Scott_ (first ed.), vii. 114. Bulwer Lytton in
_Godolphin_ (chapter xv), and Edgar Allen Poe in _Eureka_, record
similar experiences. Mr. H. Fielding Hall, in _The Soul of a People_{4}
(London, 1902), pp. 290-308, reports several very remarkable cases of
responsible natives of Burma who stated that they could recall former
lives passed by them as men and women. Mr. Hall has carefully
investigated these cases, and gives us the impression that they are
worthy of scientific consideration.
[627] Cf. Ferenczi, op. cit., p. 316, &c. Professor Freud's theory of
dreams supports entirely, but does not imply our hypothesis that some
(and probably many) abnormal dreams of a rare kind, whether good or bad
in tendency, may be due to the latent content of subconsciousness, out
of which they undoubtedly arise, having been collected and carried over
from a previous state of consciousness parallel to our present one. In
respect to our present life Professor Freud holds, as a result of
psycho-analysis of thousands of dream subjects, that the latent content
of every dream in the adult is directly dependent upon mental processes
which frequently reach back to the earliest childhood; and he gives
detailed cases in illustration. In other words, there is always a latent
dream-material behind the conscious dream-content, and probably a part
of it was innate in the child at birth, and hence, according to our
view, was pre-existent. (Cf. Ernest Jones, _Freud's Theory of Dreams_,
in _Amer. Journ. Psych._, April 1910, xxi, No. 2, pp. 301 ff.)
[628] Cf. Du Prel, _Philosophy of Mysticism_, ii. 25 ff., 34 ff.
[629] _The Dream of Ravan_, in _Dublin Univ. Mag._, xliii. 468.
[630] Myers, in _Proc. S. P. R._, vii. 305.
[631] James, _Varieties of Religious Experience_, p. 483.
[632] The esoteric teaching in many of the mystic schools of antiquity
was that the atoms of each human body transmigrate through all lower
forms of life during the long period supposed to intervene between death
and re-birth of the individuality. This doctrine seems to be one of the
main sources of the corruption which crept into the ancient re-birth
doctrines and transformed many of them into doctrines of transmigration
of the human soul into animal and plant bodies; and some unscrupulous
priesthoods openly taught such corrupted doctrines as a means of making
the ignorant populace submissive to ecclesiastical rule, the theological
theory expounded by such priesthoods being that the evil-doer, but not
the keeper of the letter of the canonical law, is condemned to expiate
his sins through birth in brute bodies. The pure form of the mystic
doctrine was that after the lapse of the long period of disembodiment
the individuality reconstructs its human body anew by drawing to itself
the identical atoms which constituted its previous human body--these
atoms, and not the individuality, having transmigrated through all the
lower kingdoms. Such an esoteric doctrine probably lies behind the
exoteric Egyptian teaching that the human soul after the death of its
body passes through all plant and animal bodies during a period of three
thousand years, after which it returns to human embodiment. Some
scholars have held that the exoteric interpretation of this theory and
its consequent literal interpretation as a transmigration doctrine led
the Egyptians to mummify the bodies of their dead. Cf. Lucretius, _De
Rerum Natura_, Book III, ll. 843-61; and Herodotus, Book II, on Egypt.
[633] Cf. Dr. L. S. Fugairon's _La Survivance de l'âme, ou la Mort et la
Renaissance chez les êtres vivants; études de physiologie et
d'embryologie philosophiques_ (Paris, 1907); cf. Revel, _Le Hasard_, p.
457.
[634] Darwin never considered or attempted to suggest what it is that of
itself really evolves, for it cannot be the physical body which only
_grows_ from immaturity to maturity and then dissolves. Darwin thus
overlooked the essential factor in his whole doctrine; while the Druids
and other ancients, wiser than we have been willing to admit, seem not
only to have anticipated Darwin by thousands of years, but also to have
quite surpassed him in setting up their doctrine of re-birth, which
explains both the physical and psychical evolution of man.
Transcriber's Notes:
Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.
Superscripted letters are indicated by {superscript}.
Some quotes are opened with marks but are not closed. Obvious errors
have been silently closed while those requiring interpretation have
been left open.
Other punctuation has been corrected without note.
The following misprints have been corrected:
"Fortelling" standardized to "foretelling" (page 213)
"Rhys" standardized to "Rhŷs" (page 322)
"fom" corrected to "from" (footnote 342)
"Name" corrected to "Names" (Index)
Other than the corrections listed above, inconsistencies in spelling and
hyphenation have been retained from the original.
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