The following curious passage in the Liber Lecanus,* like the British poem Hanes Taliesin, or mythological history of Radiant Front, the chief Druid, seems to point out the form of initiation into the mysteries of Irish Druidism. "Tuan Mac Caril, born of the wife of Muiredac Mundung, asserted the postdiluvian invasion of Eirin, for he lived, in Kæsar's time, in the form of a man, then for 300 years in the form of a deer, (alluding, as any one would see by examining Davies's British Mythology, to the timidity of the aspirant,) after, for 200 years, in the shape of a boar, (a symbol of the Arkite goddess,) then 300 years in the similitude of a bird, (another symbol of the Lunar-arkite divinity,) and lastly, 100 years in the shape of a salmon, which being caught, was presented to the queen of Eirin, (that is, received into the sanctuary of the Lunar-arkite goddess,) when she, upon eating it, immediately conceived and brought forth Tuan Mac Cairil, who related the truth of Kæsar's expedition to Erin." The salmon above mentioned refers to the greater mysteries performed in the water, whence a point of land at the mouth of the Suir, in Waterford harbour, is called Phait-leac, the stone of the Paitici, used as a landing-stone. Vallancey conjectures that it might have been the remains of a temple to the sea gods, and he calls Kæsar the grandson of Noah. At any rate, we can do no otherwise than regard this as a mythological tale, and Mac. Cairil, by his pedigree and adventures, appears to have every claim of relationship with the Arkite mysteries. The pagan Irish priests were called Draoi and Druad, and, like other Celtic nations, they elected an Ard-druad, or presiding Druid, who acted as metropolitan over the rest in their several subordinate stations, and who decided all controversies in religion without appeal. As the deity was named Crom, so the officiating priest was called Cromthear, who wore a crystal called Leug, or Leice, for the purpose of divination. The Irish Druids pretended to draw down fire from heaven by means of a crystal termed Liath Meisicith, the magical stone of speculation; and this fire they called Logh Aesar, the essence of, or spiritual fire, and the presence of God. This fire might have been communicated by a preparation of cobalt ground up with oil, which will lie an hour or more in that unctuous state, and then burst into an amazing blaze. They seem, as well as the British Druids, to have been partial to particular plants, and among the number of these is the Muil, penny-grass, or Venus's navel-wort. The god who presided over trees was called Soma. Ireland was anciently remarkable for divination; and the Hibernian Druids make nice distinctions between the soothsayer, augur, sorcerer, and enchanter, according to the various arts * Printed in the Appendix to Lluyd's Archæologia. they were supposed to possess. The priestesses were termed Sain, and their office was seanam, to bless, or to defend from enchantments, from the word sean, a charm. But Sain is also a swarm of bees; thus were these Druidesses, like the Seon of Britain, termed bees, and, like the British Tylwyth Têg and Gwyllion monasighe, woman fairies, and credulously supposed by the common people at this day to be so affected to certain families, that they are heard to sing mournful lamentations about their houses by night, whenever any of the family labours under sickness that is to end in death.* The Hibernian Druids teaching the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, named the body culn and colna; from cul, revolution, case, or receptacle; and ana, or anal, life, breath, or spirit. Synonymous to this was cuirp, the circle, or case of Pei life.+ They resembled their fellows in Britain in most things, but differed materially in one respect, and that was their committing their arcana to writing; and the characters in which they were written were termed Ogum, mystic. The powers of these characters are lost, and therefore any attempt to decipher them would be fruitless. No less than twenty Ogum alphabets are extant, all differing from each other; but the most simple is probably the most ancient, and this consists of a horizontal or perpendicular line, and strokes made to meet it, on both sides, at different angles. Some of these are still extant on rude stones, others in MSS., one of which was in the form of a dart; and O'Molloy, in his Irish Grammar, mentions two more. The Druidic rites were performed in consecrated groves of the dair, oak tree, and from thence the groves were called Dairai. Within these was the Magh-sleacht, plain of adoration, where stood the representation of the great god, Crom. The temple, like the British Caer Sidi, was termed Sidhe, being composed of stones, each of which represented a sign of the zodiac, and as Crom-Cruach, the great god, or the sun, was in the centre, so these were regarded as subordinate and subservient deities to him, and therefore intercessory; on which account, in modern Irish, the term Sidhe signifies spirits. The Irish early Christian. writers positively assert that the Hibernian Druids permitted no worship of graven images; and this is corroborated by the circumstance of none having ever been found in the bogs among the various relics of Druidism which have been discovered. They describe the temples of worship as consisting of two unhewn stones capped with gold and silver, to represent the sun and moon, surrounded by twelve others, to represent the angels presiding over the seasons, or by nineteen, to express the lunar cycle, or by twenty-eight, to express the solar cycle; and say that this + Collect. de Reb. Hib., vol. iii. * O'Brien's Dict. Hib. was the only species of idolatry to be found. This temple was also called Cil, a place of retreat, or devotion, afterwards, like the British Llan, applied to Christian churches, though many places in Ireland and Wales are called Cil where no traces of a Christian church are to be found, which shows their Druidic origin. The holy Scriptures seem to distinguish the worshippers of Baal in the groves as having no graven images: "Manasseh did after the abomination of the heathen whom the Lord cast out. He built up again the places, he reared up altars for Baal and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, aud served them; he built altars in the house of the Lord, he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord, and he made his son pass through the fire, and observed times, and used enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards, and he set a graven image of the grove that he made in the house."* Again, "And the king (Josiah) commanded to bring forth out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven, and he burnt them. And he put down the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the high places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, to the moon, and to the planets (the twelve signs), and to all the host of heaven."+ The temple was also called Ti-mor, the great circle, which, besides its astronomical reference, had allusion to the supreme God, as tosach gan tosach, without beginning without end. The sanctuary, which by the British Druids was called Ketti, by those of Ireland was termed Crom-leach, the stone of Crom, the great god, and in this the fires in honour of Saman, the sun, called also Beil-teinne, were kept burning, attended by vestal virgins. The Gal-ti-mor, fire of the great circle, was evidently of this kind; and the sacred fires in honour of Beal, or the sun, were also lighted on rocks and mountains on the vernal equinox, (the present 1st of May,) the summer solstice, (answering to the 1st of August,) and the eve of the 1st of November.§ Some mountains, by their names, are traditionary evidences of this, as Calain, the altar of the sun, a mountain in the county of Clare, where an altar still exists, called Altoir na graine, the altar of the sun, and where there is also an Ogum inscription. Sometimes they were lighted on Carns, or heaps of stones, and then these were called Cairn-nod, or Carns of the sun. The mysteries * 2 Kings, xxi. 1. + Ibid. xxiii. 5. Ty in Welsh is a house, and the British houses were all circular. § Beauford's Ancient Topography of Ireland. And also Flashgo, or temples of Vesta. Here was performed a species of divination, called the Ob, in order to consult the manes of he dead relative to future events. Ibid. were also performed in sacred caves, and these were called Mammoii, the sanctuary of the great mother, that is, the Arkite goddess, the Ceridwen of the Britons. But Colonel Vallancey conjectures, that the subterraneous buildings in Ireland, which are evidently of Druidical workmanship, were representations of these caves; and he particularly mentions that at New Grange, near Drogheda, as such. As no other country than Ireland contains a monument of this kind, a detailed account of it in this place may not be regarded as irrelevant to our subject. New Grange barrow is a circular tumulus, covering about two acres of ground, the altitude of which is about seventy feet. On the top of it formerly stood a huge columnar stone, which represented the Lingam of the Hindoos, the Phallus of the Greeks, and the Bedwen of the Britons, and its base was encircled with a number of enormous unhewn stones set upright, of which only ten now remain,† each of which may probably weigh from eight to twelve tons. About forty feet within the circumference of the base of this tumulus the mouth of a gallery was discovered, beginning from the s.s.E. and running in a direct line sixty-one feet four inches to the N.N.W., where it opens into an octangular chamber with three recesses. This gallery is composed of stones placed upright, with others laid on their tops: at the mouth it is three feet wide, and two feet high: at thirteen feet from the mouth it is only two feet two inches wide. Through this part it can only be passed by the person going on his hands and knees, scarcely raising himself on them; after this he may stand upright and walk at once to the sanctuary. This is an octangular building, with a dome of eight sides, which, at the height of fifteen or sixteen feet, become only six, by those on the north and south running to a point. The east side coming to a point next, it is reduced to five sides; and then the west one becoming extinct, it ends and closes with four sides not tied with a keystone, but capped with a flat flagstone of three feet ten inches, by three feet five inches. The sides of the octagon sanctuary are thus formed: The aperture which serves as entrance, and the three niches, make four sides, while the four imposts make the others. the sanctuary is about six or seven feet high, with a dome of twenty feet in height, and may be considered as a circle of seventeen or eighteen feet. The recesses are square, of different sizes; the northern one has a floor of one stone, six feet eight inches long, by four feet eleven inches wide; but the side ones have merely the natural earth at bottom. The two side recesses had in them each a rock basin, about four feet nine inches, by three The labour and expense of searching into the contents of Silbury hill and other large barrows, which might seem to promise the highest gratification, have prevented their being opened. This phallus acted as a gnomon probably to the circle. NO. XIV. M feet four. On some of the stones of this building where Ogum characters.* We have here a sanctuary for the celebration of the mysteries of the Helio-arkite goddess. Under the dome the celebrated cauldron was warmed by the fire which was attended by the nine damsels. In the two recesses were the vessels into which the contents were poured after the sprinkling and tasting had been performed, from which they were emptied into the earth. In the northern recess, which was the largest, the wine and wort were given to the attendant aspirants, and, in short, all the mysteries of Ceridwen were here performed. † As the Helio-arkite and Lunar-arkite festivals were proclaimed to the people a week or more before the appearance of the moon, it was necessary to calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, and for this purpose the Druids ascended high hills to make observations, and some of these hills are called the hill of the moon to this day. The monument at New Grange seems to have been constructed with a view of combining in one place of worship the circular temple, the consecrated cave, the hill of observation, and the sanctuary within the temple. As in Britain, so in Ireland, before the Crom-leach was the stone of sacrifice; and such are also to be found in many of the circular temples. The sacrifice was called Graine, from Grian, the sun; and many places in Ireland retain this word as part of their appellations, having originally been places of sacrifice. The ceremony of sacrificing to Saman is thus described in an ancient Ms. entitled Dun-seancas, the topography of Ireland, under the word Magh-sleacht. "Magh-sleacht, so called from an idol of the Irish, named Crom Cruaith, a stone capped with gold, about which stood twelve other rough stones. Every people that conquered Ireland, that is, every colony established in Ireland, worshipped this deity, till the arrival of Patrick. They sacrificed the first-born of every species to this deity, and Tighernmas Mac Follaigh, king of Ireland, commanded sacrifices to this deity on the day of Saman, and that both men and women should worship him prostrate on the ground, till they drew blood from their noses, foreheads, knees, and elbows. Many died from the severity of this worship, and hence it was called Magh-sleacht, the worship of the great god." The Irish history informs us that, for this decree, Tighernmas was punished by a signal and severe judgment from heaven: he, with multitudes of his deluded people, performing this ceremony to Crom-Cruach A more particular account, with plates, may be seen in the Archæologia, vol. ii., p. 236; and plates of another artificial cave are in the sixth volume of the Collectanea de Rebus Hibern. See the authorities in Davies's Mythology of the Druids. |