(3) Sacramental eating of an animal.—The custom of "hunting the wren," found over the whole Celtic area, is connected with animal worship and may be totemistic in origin. In spite of its small size, the wren was known as the king of birds, and in the Isle of Man it was hunted and killed on Christmas or S. Stephen's day. The bird was carried in procession from door to door, to the accompaniment of a chant, and was then solemnly buried, dirges being sung. In some cases a feather was left at each house and carefully treasured, and there are traces of a custom of boiling and eating the bird.[751] In Ireland, the hunt and procession were followed by a feast, the materials of which were collected from house to house, and a similar usage obtained in France, where the youth who killed the bird was called "king."[752] In most of these districts it was considered unlucky or dangerous to kill the bird at any other time, yet it might be ceremonially killed once a year, the dead animal conferred luck, and was solemnly eaten or buried with signs of mourning. Similar customs with animals which are actually worshipped are found elsewhere,[753] and they lend support to the idea that the Celts regarded the wren as a divine animal, or perhaps a totem animal, that it was necessary to slay it ritually, and to carry it round the houses of the community to obtain its divine influence, to eat it sacramentally or to bury it. Probably like customs were followed in the case of other animals,[754] and these may have given rise to such stories as that of the eating of MacDatho's wonderful boar, as well as to myths which regarded certain animals, e.g. the swine, as the immortal food of the gods. Other examples of ritual survivals of such sacramental eating have already been noted, and it is not improbable that the eating of a sacred pastoral animal occurred at Samhain.

(4) Exogamy.—Exogamy and the counting of descent through the mother are closely connected with totemism, and some traces of both are found among the Celts. Among the Picts, who were, perhaps, a Celtic group of the Brythonic stock, these customs survived in the royal house. The kingship passed to a brother of the king by the same mother, or to a sister's son, while the king's father was never king and was frequently a "foreigner." Similar rules of succession prevailed in early Aryan royal houses—Greek and Roman,—and may, as Dr. Stokes thought, have existed at Tara in Ireland, while in a Fian tale of Oisin he marries the daughter of the king of Tir na n-Og, and succeeds him as king partly for that reason, and partly because he had beaten him in the annual race for the kingship.[755] Such an athletic contest for the kingship was known in early Greece, and this tale may support the theory of the Celtic priest-kingship, the holder of the office retaining it as long as he was not defeated or slain. Traces of succession through a sister's son are found in the Mabinogion, and Livy describes how the mythic Celtic king Ambicatus sent not his own but his sister's sons to found new kingdoms.[756] Irish and Welsh divine and heroic groups are named after the mother, not the father—the children of Danu and of Don, and the men of Domnu. Anu is mother of the gods, Buanann of heroes. The eponymous ancestor of the Scots is a woman, Scota, and the earliest colonisers of Ireland are women, not men. In the sagas gods and heroes have frequently a matronymic, and the father's name is omitted—Lug mac Ethnend, Conchobar mac Nessa, Indech, son of De Domnann, Corpre, son of Etain, and others. Perhaps parallel to this is the custom of calling men after their wives—e.g. the son of Fergus is Fer Tlachtga, Tlachtga's husband.[757] In the sagas, females (goddesses and heroines) have a high place accorded to them, and frequently choose their own lovers or husbands—customs suggestive of the matriarchate. Thus what was once a general practice was later confined to the royal house or told of divine or heroic personages. Possibly certain cases of incest may really be exaggerated accounts of misunderstood unions once permissible by totemic law. Caesar speaks of British polyandry, brothers, sons, and fathers sharing a wife in common.[758] Strabo speaks of Irish unions with mothers and sisters, perhaps referring not to actual practice but to reports of saga tales of incest.[759] Dio Cassius speaks of community of wives among the Caledonians and Meatae, and Jerome says much the same of the Scoti and Atecotti.[760] These notices, with the exception of Caesar's, are vague, yet they refer to marriage customs different from those known to their reporters. In Irish sagas incest legends circle round the descendants of Etain—fathers unite with daughters, a son with his mother, a woman has a son by her three brothers (just as Ecne was son of Brian, Iuchar, and Iucharba), and is also mother of Crimthan by that son.[761] Brother and sister unions occur both in Irish and Welsh story.[762]

In these cases incest with a mother cannot be explained by totemic usage, but the cases may be distorted reminiscences of what might occur under totemism, namely, a son taking the wives of his father other than his own mother, when those were of a different totem from his own. Under totemism, brothers and sisters by different mothers having different totems, might possibly unite, and such unions are found in many mythologies. Later, when totemism passed away, the unions, regarded with horror, would be supposed to take place between children by the same mother. According to totem law, a father might unite with his daughter, since she was of her mother's totem, but in practice this was frowned upon. Polygamy also may co-exist with totemism, and of course involves the counting of descent through the mother as a rule. If, as is suggested by the "debility" of the Ultonians, and by other evidence, the couvade was a Celtic institution, this would also point to the existence of the matriarchate with the Celts. To explain all this as pre-Aryan, or to say that the classical notices refer to non-Aryan tribes and that the evidence in the Irish sagas only shows that the Celts had been influenced by the customs of aboriginal tribes among whom they lived,[763] is to neglect the fact that the customs are closely bound up with Celtic life, while it leaves unexplained the influence of such customs upon a people whose own customs, according to this theory, were so totally different. The evidence, taken as a whole, points to the existence of totemism among the early Celts, or, at all events, of the elements which elsewhere compose it.

* * * * *

Celtic animal worship dates back to the primitive hunting and pastoral period, when men worshipped the animals which they hunted or reared. They may have apologised to the animal hunted and slain—a form of worship, or, where animals were not hunted or were reared and worshipped, one of them may have been slain annually and eaten to obtain its divine power. Care was taken to preserve certain sacred animals which were not hunted, and this led to domestication, the abstinence of earlier generations leading to an increased food supply at a later time, when domesticated animals were freely slain. But the earlier sacramental slaying of such animals survived in the religious aspect of their slaughter at the beginning of winter.[764] The cult of animals was also connected with totemic usage, though at a later stage this cult was replaced by that of anthropomorphic divinities, with the older divine animals as their symbols, sacrificial victims, and the like. This evolution now led to the removal of restrictions upon slaying and eating the animals. On the other hand, the more primitive animal cults may have remained here and there. Animal cults were, perhaps, largely confined to men. With the rise of agriculture mainly as an art in the hands of women, and the consequent cult of the Earth-mother, of fertility and corn-spirits probably regarded as female, the sacramental eating of the divine animal may have led to the slaying and eating of a human or animal victim supposed to embody such a spirit. Later the two cults were bound to coalesce, and the divine animal and the animal embodiment of the vegetation spirit would not be differentiated. On the other hand, when men began to take part in women's fertility cults, the fact that such spirits were female or were perhaps coming to be regarded as goddesses, may have led men to envisage certain of the anthropomorphic animal divinities as goddesses, since some of these, e.g. Epona and Damona, are female. But with the increasing participation of men in agriculture, the spirits or goddesses of fertility would tend to become male, or the consorts or mothers of gods of fertility, though the earlier aspect was never lost sight of, witness the Corn-Mother. The evolution of divine priest-kings would cause them to take the place of the earlier priestesses of these cults, one of whom may have been the divine victim. Yet in local survivals certain cults were still confined to women, and still had their priestesses.[765]

FOOTNOTES:

[696] Reinach, BF 66, 244. The bull and three cranes may be a rebus on the name of the bull, Tarvos Trikarenos, "the three-headed," or perhaps Trikeras, "three-horned."

[697] Plutarch, Marius, 23; Caesar, vii. 65; D'Arbois, Les Celtes, 49.

[698] Holder, s.v. Tarba, Tarouanna, Tarvisium, etc.; D'Arbois, Les Druides, 155; S. Greg. In Glor. Conf. 48.

[699] CIL xiii. 6017; RC xxv. 47; Holder, ii. 528.

[700] Leahy, ii. 105 f.; Curtin, MFI 264, 318; Joyce, PN i. 174; Rees, 453. Cf. Ailred, Life of S. Ninian, c. 8.

[701] Jocelyn, Vita S. Kentig. c. 24; Rees, 293, 323.

[702] Tacitus, Germ. xlv.; Blanchet, i. 162, 165; Reinach, BF 255 f., CMR i. 168; Bertrand, Arch. Celt. 419.

[703] Pennant, Tour in Scotland, 268; Reinach, RC xxii. 158, CMR i. 67.

[704] Pausan, vii. 17, 18; Johnson, Journey, 136.

[705] Joyce, SH ii. 127; IT i. 99, 256 (Bricriu's feast and the tale of Macdatho's swine).

[706] Strabo, iv. 4. 3, says these swine attacked strangers. Varro, de Re Rustica, ii. 4, admires their vast size. Cf. Polyb. ii. 4.

[707] The hunt is first mentioned in Nennius, c. 79, and then appears as a full-blown folk-tale in Kulhwych, Loth, i. 185 f. Here the boar is a transformed prince.

[708] I have already suggested, p. 106, supra, that the places where Gwydion halted with the swine of Elysium were sites of a swine-cult.

[709] RC xiii. 451. Cf. also TOS vi. "The Enchanted Pigs of Oengus," and Campbell, LF 53.

[710] L'Anthropologie, vi. 584; Greenwell, British Barrows, 274, 283, 454; Arch. Rev. ii. 120.

[711] Rev. Arch. 1897, 313.

[712] Reinach, "Zagreus le serpent cornu," Rev. Arch. xxxv. 210.

[713] Reinach, BF 185; Bertrand, 316.

[714] "Cuchulainn's Sick-bed," D'Arbois, v. 202.

[715] See Reinach, CMR i. 57.

[716] CIL xiii. 5160, xii. 2199. Rhŷs, however, derives Artaios from ar, "ploughed land," and equates the god with Mercurius Cultor.

[717] CIL xii. 1556-1558; D'Arbois, RC x. 165.

[718] For all these place and personal names, see Holder and D'Arbois, op. cit. Les Celtes, 47 f., Les Druides, 157 f.

[719] See p. 32, supra; Reinach, CMR i. 72, Rev. Arch. ii. 123.

[720] O'Grady, ii. 123.

[721] Epona is fully discussed by Reinach in his Epona, 1895, and in articles (illustrated) in Rev. Arch. vols. 26, 33, 35, 40, etc. See also ii. [1898], 190.

[722] Reinach suggests that this may explain why Vercingetorix, in view of siege by the Romans, sent away his horses. They were too sacred to be eaten. Caesar, vii. 71; Reinach, RC xxvii. 1 f.

[723] Juvenal, viii. 154; Apul. Metam. iii. 27; Min. Felix, Octav. xxvii. 7.

[724] For the inscriptions, see Holder, s.v. "Epona."

[725] CIL iii. 7904.

[726] CIL xiii. 3071; Reinach, BF 253, CMR i. 64, Repert. de la Stat. ii. 745; Holder, ii. 651-652.

[727] Granger, Worship of the Romans, 113; Kennedy, 135.

[728] Grimm, Teut. Myth. 49, 619, 657, 661-664.

[729] Frazer, Golden Bough{2}, ii. 281, 315.

[730] Caesar, v. 21, 27. Possibly the Dea Bibracte of the Aeduans was a beaver goddess.

[731] O'Curry, MC ii. 207; Elton, 298.

[732] Girald. Cambr. Top. Hib. ii. 19, RC ii. 202; Folk-Lore, v. 310; IT iii. 376.

[733] O'Grady, ii. 286, 538; Campbell, The Fians, 78; Thiers, Traite des Superstitions, ii. 86.

[734] Lady Guest, ii. 409 f.

[735] Blanchet, i. 166, 295, 326, 390.

[736] See p. 209, supra.

[737] Diod. Sic. v. 30; IT iii. 385; RC xxvi. 139; Rhŷs, HL 593.

[738] Man. Hist. Brit. p. x.

[739] Herodian, iii. 14, 8; Duald MacFirbis in Irish Nennius, p. vii; Caesar, v. 10; ZCP iii. 331.

[740] See Reinach, "Les Carnassiers androphages dans l'art gallo-romain," CMR i. 279.

[741] See Holder, s.v.

[742] Rhŷs, CB{4} 267.

[743] Caesar, v. 12.

[744] Dio Cassius, lxii. 2.

[745] See a valuable paper by N.W. Thomas, "Survivance du Culte des Animaux dans le Pays de Galles," in Rev. de l'Hist. des Religions, xxxviii. 295 f., and a similar paper by Gomme, Arch. Rev. 1889, 217 f. Both writers seem to regard these cults as pre-Celtic.

[746] Gomme, Ethnol. in Folklore, 30, Village Community, 113.

[747] Dio Cass. lxxii. 21; Logan, Scottish Gael, ii. 12.

[748] Joyce, SH ii. 529; Martin, 71.

[749] RC xxii. 20, 24, 390-1.

[750] IT iii. 385.

[751] Waldron, Isle of Man, 49; Train, Account of the Isle of Man, ii. 124.

[752] Vallancey, Coll. de Reb. Hib. iv. No. 13; Clement, Fetes, 466. For English customs, see Henderson, Folklore of the Northern Counties, 125.

[753] Frazer, Golden Bough{2}, ii. 380, 441, 446.

[754] For other Welsh instances of the danger of killing certain birds, see Thomas, op. cit. xxxviii. 306.

[755] Frazer, Kingship, 261; Stokes, RC xvi. 418; Larminie, Myths and Folk-tales, 327.

[756] See Rhŷs, Welsh People, 44; Livy, v. 34.

[757] Cf. IT iii. 407, 409.

[758] Caesar, v. 14.

[759] Strabo, iv. 5. 4.

[760] Dio Cass. lxxvi. 12; Jerome, Adv. Jovin. ii. 7. Giraldus has much to say of incest in Wales, probably actual breaches of moral law among a barbarous people (Descr. Wales, ii. 6).

[761] RC xii. 235, 238, xv. 291, xvi. 149; LL 23a, 124b. In various Irish texts a child is said to have three fathers—probably a reminiscence of polyandry. See p. 74, supra, and RC xxiii. 333.

[762] IT i. 136; Loth, i. 134 f.; Rhŷs, HL 308.

[763] Zimmer, "Matriarchy among the Picts," in Henderson, Leabhar nan Gleann.

[764] See p. 259, infra.

[765] See p. 274, infra.



CHAPTER XV.

COSMOGONY.

Whether the early Celts regarded Heaven and Earth as husband and wife is uncertain. Such a conception is world-wide, and myth frequently explains in different ways the reason of the separation of the two. Among the Polynesians the children of heaven and earth—the winds, forests, and seas personified—angry at being crushed between their parents in darkness, rose up and separated them. This is in effect the Greek myth of Uranus, or Heaven, and Gaea, or Earth, divorced by their son Kronos, just as in Hindu myth Dyaus, or Sky, and Prithivi, or Earth, were separated by Indra. Uranus in Greece gave place to Zeus, and, in India, Dyaus became subordinate to Indra. Thus the primitive Heaven personified recedes, and his place is taken by a more individualised god. But generally Mother Earth remains a constant quantity. Earth was nearer man and was more unchanging than the inconstant sky, while as the producer of the fruits of the earth, she was regarded as the source of all things, and frequently remained as an important divinity when a crowd of other divinities became prominent. This is especially true of agricultural peoples, who propitiate Earth with sacrifice, worship her with orgiastic rites, or assist her processes by magic. With advancing civilisation such a goddess is still remembered as the friend of man, and, as in the Eleusinia, is represented sorrowing and rejoicing like man himself. Or where a higher religion ousts the older one, the ritual is still retained among the folk, though its meaning may be forgotten.

The Celts may thus have possessed the Heaven and Earth myth, but all trace of it has perished. There are, however, remnants of myths showing how the sky is supported by trees, a mountain, or by pillars. A high mountain near the sources of the Rhone was called "the column of the sun," and was so lofty as to hide the sun from the people of the south.[766] It may have been regarded as supporting the sky, while the sun moved round it. In an old Irish hymn and its gloss, Brigit and Patrick are compared to the two pillars of the world, probably alluding to some old myth of sky or earth resting on pillars.[767] Traces of this also exist in folk-belief, as in the accounts of islands resting on four pillars, or as in the legend of the church of Kernitou which rests on four pillars on a congealed sea and which will be submerged when the sea liquefies—a combination of the cosmogonic myth with that of a great inundation.[768] In some mythologies a bridge or ladder connects heaven and earth. There may be a survival of some such myth in an Irish poem which speaks of the drochet bethad, or "bridge of life," or in the drochaid na flaitheanas, or "bridge of heaven," of Hebridean folk-lore.[769]

Those gods who were connected with the sky may have been held to dwell there or on the mountain supporting it. Others, like the Celtic Dispater, dwelt underground. Some were connected with mounds and hills, or were supposed to have taken up their abode in them. Others, again, dwelt in a distant region, the Celtic Elysium, which, once the Celts reached the sea, became a far-off island. Those divinities worshipped in groves were believed to dwell there and to manifest themselves at midday or midnight, while such objects of nature as rivers, wells, and trees were held to be the abode of gods or spirits. Thus it is doubtful whether the Celts ever thought of their gods as dwelling in one Olympus. The Tuatha De Danann are said to have come from heaven, but this may be the mere assertion of some scribe who knew not what to make of this group of beings.

In Celtic belief men were not so much created by gods as descended from them. "All the Gauls assert that they are descended from Dispater, and this, they say, has been handed down to them by the Druids."[770] Dispater was a Celtic underworld god of fertility, and the statement probably presupposes a myth, like that found among many primitive peoples, telling how men once lived underground and thence came to the surface of the earth. But it also points to their descent from the god of the underworld. Thither the dead returned to him who was ancestor of the living as well as lord of the dead.[771] On the other hand, if the earth had originally been thought of as a female, she as Earth-mother would be ancestress of men. But her place in the myth would easily be taken by the Earth or Under-earth god, perhaps regarded as her son or her consort. In other cases, clans, families, or individuals often traced their descent to gods or divine animals or plants. Classical writers occasionally speak of the origin of branches of the Celtic race from eponymous founders, perhaps from their knowledge of existing Celtic myths.[772] Ammianus Marcellinus also reports a Druidic tradition to the effect that some Gauls were indigenous, some had come from distant islands, and others from beyond the Rhine.[773] But this is not so much a myth of origins, as an explanation of the presence of different peoples in Gaul—the aborigines, the Celtae, and the Belgic Gauls. M. D'Arbois assumes that "distant islands" means the Celtic Elysium, which he regards as the land of the dead,[774] but the phrase is probably no more than a distorted reminiscence of the far-off lands whence early groups of Celts had reached Gaul.

Of the creation of the world no complete myth has survived, though from a gloss to the Senchus Mor we learn that the Druids, like the Brāhmans, boasted that they had made sun, moon, earth, and sea—a boast in keeping with their supposed powers over the elements.[775] Certain folk-beliefs, regarding the origin of different parts of nature, bear a close resemblance to primitive cosmogonic myths, and they may be taken as disjecta membra of similar myths held by the Celts and perhaps taught by the Druids. Thus sea, rivers, or springs arose from the micturition of a giant, fairy, or saint, or from their sweat or blood. Islands are rocks cast by giants, and mountains are the material thrown up by them as they were working on the earth. Wells sprang up from the blood of a martyr or from the touch of a saint's or a fairy's staff.[776] The sea originated from a magic cask given by God to a woman. The spigot, when opened, could not be closed again, and the cask never ceased running until the waters covered the earth—a tale with savage parallels.[777] In all these cases, giant, saint, or fairy has doubtless taken the place of a god, since the stories have a very primitive facies. The giant is frequently Gargantua, probably himself once a divinity. Other references in Irish texts point to the common cosmogonic myth of the earth having gradually assumed its present form. Thus many new lakes and plains are said to have been formed in Ireland during the time of Partholan and Nemed, the plains being apparently built up out of existing materials.[778] In some cases the formation of a lake was the result of digging the grave of some personage after whom the lake was then named.[779] Here we come upon the familiar idea of the danger of encroaching on the domain of a deity, e.g. that of the Earth-god, by digging the earth, with the consequent punishment by a flood. The same conception is found in Celtic stories of a lake or river formed from the overflowing of a sacred well through human carelessness or curiosity, which led to the anger of the divinity of the well.[780] Or, again, a town or castle is submerged on account of the wickedness of its inhabitants, the waters being produced by the curse of God or a saint (replacing a pagan god) and forming a lake.[781] These may be regarded as forms of a Celtic deluge-myth, which in one case, that of the Welsh story of the ship of Nevyd, which saved Dwyvan and Dwyfach and a pair of all kinds of animals when Lake Llion overflowed, has apparently borrowed from the Biblical story.[782] In other cases lakes are formed from the tears of a god, e.g. Manannan, whose tears at the death of his son formed three lochs in Erin.[783] Apollonius reports that the waters of Eridanus originated from the tears of Apollo when driven from heaven by his father.[784] This story, which he says is Celtic, has been clothed by him in a Greek form, and the god in question may have been Belenos, equated with Apollo. Sometimes the formation of streams was ascribed to great hail-storms—an evident mythic rendering of the damage done by actual spates, while the Irish myths of "illimitable sea-bursts," of which three particular instances are often mentioned, were doubtless the result of the experience of tidal waves.

Although no complete account of the end of all things, like that of the Scandinavian Ragnarok, has survived, scattered hints tell of its former existence. Strabo says that the Druids taught that "fire and water must one day prevail"—an evident belief in some final cataclysm.[785] This is also hinted at in the words of certain Gauls to Alexander, telling him that what they feared most of all was the fall of the heavens upon their heads.[786] In other words, they feared what would be the signal of the end of all things. On Irish ground the words of Conchobar may refer to this. He announced that he would rescue the captives and spoil taken by Medb, unless the heavens fell, and the earth burst open, and the sea engulphed all things.[787] Such a myth mingled with Christian beliefs may underlie the prophecy of Badb after Mag-tured regarding the evils to come and the end of the world, and that of Fercertne in the Colloquy of the Two Sages.[788] Both have a curious resemblance to the Sybil's prophecy of doom in the Voluspa. If the gods themselves were involved in such a catastrophe, it would not be surprising, since in some aspects their immortality depended on their eating and drinking immortal food and drink.[789]

FOOTNOTES:

[766] Avienus, Ora Maritima, 644 f.

[767] IT i. 25; Gaidoz, ZCP i. 27.

[768] Annales de Bretagne, x. 414.

[769] IT i. 50, cf. 184; Folk-Lore, vi. 170.

[770] Caesar, vi. 18.

[771] See p. 341, infra.

[772] Diod. Sic. v. 24; Appian, Illyrica, 2.

[773] Amm. Marcel, xv. 9.

[774] D'Arbois, ii. 262, xii. 220.

[775] Antient Laws of Ireland, i. 23. In one MS. Adam is said to have been created thus—his body of earth, his blood of the sea, his face of the sun, his breath of the wind, etc. This is also found in a Frisian tale (Vigfusson-Powell, Corpus Poet. Bor. i. 479), and both stories present an inversion of well-known myths about the creation of the universe from the members of a giant.

[776] Sebillot, i. 213 f., ii. 6, 7, 72, 97, 176, 327-328. Cf. RC xv. 482, xvi. 152.

[777] Sebillot, ii. 6.

[778] LL 56; Keating, 117, 123.

[779] RC xv. 429, xvi. 277.

[780] See p. 191, supra.

[781] Sebillot, ii. 41 f., 391, 397; see p. 372, infra.

[782] Triads in Loth, ii. 280, 299; Rhŷs, HL 583, 663.

[783] RC xvi. 50, 146.

[784] Apoll. iv. 609 f.

[785] Strabo, iv. 4. 4.

[786] Arrian, Anab. i. 4. 7; Strabo, vii. 3. 8. Cf. Jullian, 85.

[787] LL 94; Miss Hull, 205.

[788] RC xii. 111, xxvi. 33.

[789] A possible survival of a world-serpent myth may be found in "Da Derga's Hostel" (RC xxii. 54), where we hear of Leviathan that surrounds the globe and strikes with his tail to overwhelm the world. But this may be a reflection of Norse myths of the Midgard serpent, sometimes equated with Leviathan.



CHAPTER XVI.

SACRIFICE, PRAYER, AND DIVINATION.

The Semites are often considered the worst offenders in the matter of human sacrifice, but in this, according to classical evidence, they were closely rivalled by the Celts of Gaul. They offered human victims on the principle of a life for a life, or to propitiate the gods, or in order to divine the future from the entrails of the victim. We shall examine the Celtic custom of human sacrifice from these points of view first.

Caesar says that those afflicted with disease or engaged in battle or danger offer human victims or vow to do so, because unless man's life be given for man's life, the divinity of the gods cannot be appeased.[790] The theory appears to have been that the gods sent disease or ills when they desired a human life, but that any life would do; hence one in danger might escape by offering another in his stead. In some cases the victims may have been offered to disease demons or diseases personified, such as Celtic imagination still believes in,[791] rather than to gods, or, again, they may have been offered to native gods of healing. Coming danger could also be averted on the same principle, and though the victims were usually slaves, in times of great peril wives and children were sacrificed.[792] After a defeat, which showed that the gods were still implacable, the wounded and feeble were slain, or a great leader would offer himself.[793] Or in such a case the Celts would turn their weapons against themselves, making of suicide a kind of sacrifice, hoping to bring victory to the survivors.[794]

The idea of the victim being offered on the principle of a life for a life is illustrated by a custom at Marseilles in time of pestilence. One of the poorer classes offered himself to be kept at the public expense for some time. He was then led in procession, clad in sacred boughs, and solemnly cursed, and prayer was made that on him might fall the evils of the community. Then he was cast headlong down. Here the victim stood for the lives of the city and was a kind of scape-victim, like those at the Thargelia.[795]

Human victims were also offered by way of thanksgiving after victory, and vows were often made before a battle, promising these as well as part of the spoil. For this reason the Celts would never ransom their captives, but offered them in sacrifice, animals captured being immolated along with them.[796] The method of sacrifice was slaughter by sword or spear, hanging, impaling, dismembering, and drowning. Some gods were propitiated by one particular mode of sacrifice—Taranis by burning, Teutates by suffocation, Esus (perhaps a tree-god) by hanging on a tree. Drowning meant devoting the victim to water-divinities.[797]

Other propitiatory sacrifices took place at intervals, and had a general or tribal character, the victims being criminals or slaves or even members of the tribe. The sacrificial pile had the rude outline of a human form, the limbs of osier, enclosing human as well as some animal victims, who perished by fire. Diodorus says that the victims were malefactors who had been kept in prison for five years, and that some of them were impaled.[798] This need not mean that the holocausts were quinquennial, for they may have been offered yearly, at Midsummer, to judge by the ritual of modern survivals.[799] The victims perished in that element by which the sun-god chiefly manifested himself, and by the sacrifice his powers were augmented, and thus growth and fertility were promoted. These holocausts were probably extensions of an earlier slaying of a victim representing the spirit of vegetation, though their value in aiding fertility would be still in evidence. This is suggested by Strabo's words that the greater the number of murders the greater would be the fertility of the land, probably meaning that there would then be more criminals as sacrificial victims.[800] Varro also speaks of human sacrifice to a god equated with Saturn, offered because of all seeds the human race is the best, i.e. human victims are most productive of fertility.[801] Thus, looked at in one way, the later rite was a propitiatory sacrifice, in another it was an act of magico-religious ritual springing from the old rite of the divine victim. But from both points of view the intention was the same—the promotion of fertility in field and fold.

Divination with the bodies of human victims is attested by Tacitus, who says that "the Druids consult the gods in the palpitating entrails of men," and by Strabo, who describes the striking down of the victim by the sword and the predicting of the future from his convulsive movements.[802] To this we shall return.

Human sacrifice in Gaul was put down by the Romans, who were amazed at its extent, Suetonius summing up the whole religion in a phrase—druidarum religionem dirae immanitatis.[803] By the year 40 A.D. it had ceased, though victims were offered symbolically, the Druids pretending to strike them and drawing a little blood from them.[804] Only the pressure of a higher civilisation forced the so-called philosophic Druids to abandon their revolting customs. Among the Celts of Britain human sacrifice still prevailed in 77 A.D.[805] Dio Cassius describes the refinements of cruelty practised on female victims (prisoners of war) in honour of the goddess Andrasta—their breasts cut off and placed over their mouths, and a stake driven through their bodies, which were then hung in the sacred grove.[806] Tacitus speaks of the altars in Mona (Anglesey) laved with human blood. As to the Irish Celts, patriotic writers have refused to believe them guilty of such practices,[807] but there is no a priori reason which need set them apart from other races on the same level of civilisation in this custom. The Irish texts no doubt exaggerate the number of the victims, but they certainly attest the existence of the practice. From the Dindsenchas, which describes many archaic usages, we learn that "the firstlings of every issue and the chief scions of every clan" were offered to Cromm Cruaich—a sacrifice of the first-born,—and that at one festival the prostrations of the worshippers were so violent that three-fourths of them perished, not improbably an exaggerated memory of orgiastic rites.[808] Dr. Joyce thinks that these notices are as incredible as the mythic tales in the Dindsenchas. Yet the tales were doubtless quite credible to the pagan Irish, and the ritual notices are certainly founded on fact. Dr. Joyce admits the existence of foundation sacrifices in Ireland, and it is difficult to understand why human victims may not have been offered on other occasions also.

The purpose of the sacrifice, namely, fertility, is indicated in the poetical version of the cult of Cromm—

"Milk and corn They would ask from him speedily, In return for one-third of their healthy issue."[809]

The Nemedian sacrifice to the Fomorians is said to have been two-thirds of their children and of the year's supply of corn and milk[810]—an obvious misunderstanding, the victims really being offered to obtain corn and milk. The numbers are exaggerated,[811] but there can be no doubt as to the nature of the sacrifice—the offering of an agricultural folk to the divinities who helped or retarded growth. Possibly part of the flesh of the victims, at one time identified with the god, was buried in the fields or mixed with the seed-corn, in order to promote fertility. The blood was sprinkled on the image of the god. Such practices were as obnoxious to Christian missionaries as they had been to the Roman Government, and we learn that S. Patrick preached against "the slaying of yoke oxen and milch cows and the burning of the first-born progeny" at the Fair of Taillte.[812] As has been seen, the Irish version of the Perseus and Andromeda story, in which the victim is offered not to a dragon, but to the Fomorians, may have received this form from actual ritual in which human victims were sacrificed to the Fomorians.[813] In a Japanese version of the same story the maiden is offered to the sea-gods. Another tale suggests the offering of human victims to remove blight. In this case the land suffers from blight because the adulteress Becuma, married to the king of Erin, has pretended to be a virgin. The Druids announced that the remedy was to slay the son of an undefiled couple and sprinkle the doorposts and the land with his blood. Such a youth was found, but at his mother's request a two-bellied cow, in which two birds were found, was offered in his stead.[814] In another instance in the Dindsenchas, hostages, including the son of a captive prince, are offered to remove plagues—an equivalent to the custom of the Gauls.[815]

Human sacrifices were also offered when the foundation of a new building was laid. Such sacrifices are universal, and are offered to propitiate the Earth spirits or to provide a ghostly guardian for the building. A Celtic legend attaches such a sacrifice to the founding of the monastery at Iona. S. Oran agrees to adopt S. Columba's advice "to go under the clay of this island to hallow it," and as a reward he goes straight to heaven.[816] The legend is a semi-Christian form of the memory of an old pagan custom, and it is attached to Oran probably because he was the first to be buried in the island. In another version, nothing is said of the sacrifice. The two saints are disputing about the other world, and Oran agrees to go for three days into the grave to settle the point at issue. At the end of that time the grave is opened, and the triumphant Oran announces that heaven and hell are not such as they are alleged to be. Shocked at his latitudinarian sentiments, Columba ordered earth to be piled over him, lest he cause a scandal to the faith, and Oran was accordingly buried alive.[817] In a Welsh instance, Vortigern's castle cannot be built, for the stones disappear as soon as they are laid. Wise men, probably Druids, order the sacrifice of a child born without a father, and the sprinkling of the site with his blood.[818] "Groaning hostages" were placed under a fort in Ireland, and the foundation of the palace of Emain Macha was also laid with a human victim.[819] Many similar legends are connected with buildings all over the Celtic area, and prove the popularity of the pagan custom. The sacrifice of human victims on the funeral pile will be discussed in a later chapter.

Of all these varieties of human sacrifice, those offered for fertility, probably at Beltane or Midsummer, were the most important. Their propitiatory nature is of later origin, and their real intention was to strengthen the divinity by whom the processes of growth were directed. Still earlier, one victim represented the divinity, slain that his life might be revived in vigour. The earth was sprinkled with his blood and fed with his flesh in order to fertilise it, and possibly the worshippers partook sacramentally of the flesh. Propitiatory holocausts of human victims had taken the place of the slain representative of a god, but their value in promoting fertility was not forgotten. The sacramental aspect of the rite is perhaps to be found in Pliny's words regarding "the slaying of a human being as a most religious act and eating the flesh as a wholesome remedy" among the Britons.[820] This may merely refer to "medicinal cannibalism," such as still survives in Italy, but the passage rather suggests sacramental cannibalism, the eating of part of a divine victim, such as existed in Mexico and elsewhere. Other acts of cannibalism are referred to by classical writers. Diodorus says the Irish ate their enemies, and Pausanias describes the eating the flesh and drinking the blood of children among the Galatian Celts. Drinking out of a skull the blood of slain (sacrificial) enemies is mentioned by Ammianus and Livy, and Solinus describes the Irish custom of bathing the face in the blood of the slain and drinking it.[821] In some of these cases the intention may simply have been to obtain the dead enemy's strength, but where a sacrificial victim was concerned, the intention probably went further than this. The blood of dead relatives was also drunk in order to obtain their virtues, or to be brought into closer rapport with them.[822] This is analogous to the custom of blood brotherhood, which also existed among the Celts and continued as a survival in the Western Isles until a late date.[823]

One group of Celtic human sacrifices was thus connected with primitive agricultural ritual, but the warlike energies of the Celts extended the practice. Victims were easily obtained, and offered to the gods of war. Yet even these sacrifices preserved some trace of the older rite, in which the victim represented a divinity or spirit.

Head-hunting, described in classical writings and in Irish texts, had also a sacrificial aspect. The heads of enemies were hung at the saddle-bow or fixed on spears, as the conquerors returned home with songs of victory.[824] This gruesome picture often recurs in the texts. Thus, after the death of Cuchulainn, Conall Cernach returned to Emer with the heads of his slayers strung on a withy. He placed each on a stake and told Emer the name of the owner. A Celtic oppidum or a king's palace must have been as gruesome as a Dayak or Solomon Island village. Everywhere were stakes crowned with heads, and the walls of houses were adorned with them. Poseidonius tells how he sickened at such a sight, but gradually became more accustomed to it.[825] A room in the palace was sometimes a store for such heads, or they were preserved in cedar-wood oil or in coffers. They were proudly shown to strangers as a record of conquest, but they could not be sold for their weight in gold.[826] After a battle a pile of heads was made and the number of the slain was counted, and at annual festivals warriors produced the tongues of enemies as a record of their prowess.[827]

These customs had a religious aspect. In cutting off a head the Celt saluted the gods, and the head was offered to them or to ancestral spirits, and sometimes kept in grove or temple.[828] The name given to the heads of the slain in Ireland, the "mast of Macha," shows that they were dedicated to her, just as skulls found under an altar had been devoted to the Celtic Mars.[829] Probably, as among Dayaks, American Indians, and others, possession of a head was a guarantee that the ghost of its owner would be subservient to its Celtic possessor, either in this world or in the next, since they are sometimes found buried in graves along with the dead.[830] Or, suspended in temples, they became an actual and symbolical offering of the life of their owners, if, as is probable, the life or soul was thought to be in the head. Hence, too, the custom of drinking from the skull of the slain had the intention of transferring his powers directly to the drinker.[831] Milk drunk from the skull of Conall Cernach restored to enfeebled warriors their pristine strength,[832] and a folk-survival in the Highlands—that of drinking from the skull of a suicide (here taking the place of the slain enemy) in order to restore health—shows the same idea at work. All these practices had thus one end, that of the transference of spirit force—to the gods, to the victor who suspended the head from his house, and to all who drank from the skull. Represented in bas-relief on houses or carved on dagger-handles, the head may still have been thought to possess talismanic properties, giving power to house or weapon. Possibly this cult of human heads may have given rise to the idea of a divine head like those figured on Gaulish images, or described, e.g., in the story of Bran. His head preserved the land from invasion, until Arthur disinterred it,[833] the story being based on the belief that heads or bodies of great warriors still had a powerful influence.[834] The representation of the head of a god, like his whole image, would be thought to possess the same preservative power.

A possible survival of the sacrifice of the aged may be found in a Breton custom of applying a heavy club to the head of old persons to lighten their death agonies, the clubs having been formerly used to kill them. They are kept in chapels, and are regarded with awe.[835]

Animal victims were also frequently offered. The Galatian Celts made a yearly sacrifice to their Artemis of a sheep, goat, or calf, purchased with money laid by for each animal caught in the chase. Their dogs were feasted and crowned with flowers.[836] Further details of this ritual are unfortunately lacking. Animals captured in war were sacrificed to the war-gods by the Gauls, or to a river-god, as when the horses of the defeated host were thrown into the Rhine by the Gaulish conquerors of Mallius.[837] We have seen that the white oxen sacrificed at the mistletoe ritual may once have been representatives of the vegetation-spirit, which also animated the oak and the mistletoe. Among the insular Celts animal sacrifices are scarcely mentioned in the texts, probably through suppression by later scribes, but the lives of Irish saints contain a few notices of the custom, e.g. that of S. Patrick, which describes the gathering of princes, chiefs, and Druids at Tara to sacrifice victims to idols.[838] In Ireland the peasantry still kill a sheep or heifer for S. Martin on his festival, and ill-luck is thought to follow the non-observance of the rite.[839] Similar sacrifices on saints' days in Scotland and Wales occurred in Christian times.[840] An excellent instance is that of the sacrifice of bulls at Gairloch for the cure of lunatics on S. Maelrubha's day (August 25th). Libations of milk were also poured out on the hills, ruined chapels were perambulated, wells and stones worshipped, and divination practised. These rites, occurring in the seventeenth century, were condemned by the Presbytery of Dingwall, but with little effect, and some of them still survive.[841] In all these cases the saint has succeeded to the ritual of an earlier god. Mr. Cook surmises that S. Maelrubha was the successor of a divine king connected with an oak and sacred well, the god or spirit of which was incarnate in him. These divine kings may at one time have been slain, or a bull, similarly incarnating the god or spirit, may have been killed as a surrogate. This slaying was at a later time regarded as a sacrifice and connected with the cure of madness.[842] The rite would thus be on a parallel with the slaying of the oxen at the mistletoe gathering, as already interpreted. Eilean Maree (Maelrubha), where the tree and well still exist, was once known as Eilean mo righ ("the island of my king"), or Eilean a Mhor Righ ("of the great king"), the king having been worshipped as a god. This piece of corroborative evidence was given by the oldest inhabitant to Sir Arthur Mitchell.[843] The people also spoke of the god Mourie.

Other survivals of animal sacrifice are found in cases of cattle-plague, as in Morayshire sixty years ago, in Wales, Devon, and the Isle of Man. The victim was burned and its ashes sprinkled on the herd, or it was thrown into the sea or over a precipice.[844] Perhaps it was both a propitiatory sacrifice and a scape-animal, carrying away the disease, though the rite may be connected with the former slaying of a divine animal whose death benefited all the cattle of the district. In the Hebrides the spirits of earth and air were propitiated every quarter by throwing outside the door a cock, hen, duck, or cat, which was supposed to be seized by them. If the rite was neglected, misfortune was sure to follow. The animal carried away evils from the house, and was also a propitiatory sacrifice.

The blood of victims was sprinkled on altars, images, and trees, or, as among the Boii, it was placed in a skull adorned with gold.[845] Other libations are known mainly from folk-survivals. Thus Breton fishermen salute reefs and jutting promontories, say prayers, and pour a glass of wine or throw a biscuit or an old garment into the sea.[846] In the Hebrides a curious rite was performed on Maundy Thursday. After midnight a man walked into the sea, and poured ale or gruel on the waters, at the same time singing:

"O God of the sea, Put weed in the drawing wave, To enrich the ground, To shower on us food."

Those on shore took up the strain in chorus.[847] Thus the rite was described by one who took part in it a century ago, but Martin, writing in the seventeenth century, gives other details. The cup of ale was offered with the words, "Shony, I give you this cup of ale, hoping that you will be so kind as to send plenty of seaweed for enriching our ground for the ensuing year." All then went in silence to the church and remained there for a time, after which they indulged in an orgy out-of-doors. This orgiastic rite may once have included the intercourse of the sexes—a powerful charm for fertility. "Shony" was some old sea-god, and another divinity of the sea, Brianniul, was sometimes invoked for the same purpose.[848] Until recently milk was poured on "Gruagach stones" in the Hebrides, as an offering to the Gruagach, a brownie who watched over herds, and who had taken the place of a god.[849]

PRAYER.

Prayer accompanied most rites, and probably consisted of traditional formulae, on the exact recital of which depended their value. The Druids invoked a god during the mistletoe rite, and at a Galatian sacrifice, offered to bring birds to destroy grasshoppers, prayer was made to the birds themselves.[850] In Mona, at the Roman invasion, the Druids raised their arms and uttered prayers for deliverance, at the same time cursing the invaders, and Boudicca invoked the protection of the goddess Andrasta in a similar manner.[851] Chants were sung by the "priestesses" of Sena to raise storms, and they were also sung by warriors both before and after a battle, to the accompaniment of a measured dance and the clashing of arms.[852] These warrior chants were composed by bards, and probably included invocations of the war-gods and the recital of famous deeds. They may also have been of the nature of spells ensuring the help of the gods, like the war-cries uttered by a whole army to the sound of trumpets.[853] These consisted of the name of a god, of a tribe or clan, or of some well-known phrase. As the recital of a divine name is often supposed to force the god to help, these cries had thus a magical aspect, while they also struck terror into the foe.[854] Warriors also advanced dancing to the fray, and they are depicted on coins dancing on horseback or before a sword, which was worshipped by the Celts.[855] The Celtiberian festival at the full moon consisted entirely of dancing. The dance is a primitive method of expressing religious emotion, and where it imitates certain actions, it is intended by magical influence to crown the actions themselves with success. It is thus a kind of acted prayer with magical results.

DIVINATION.

A special class of diviners existed among the Celts, but the Druids practised divination, as did also the unofficial layman. Classical writers speak of the Celts as of all nations the most devoted to, and the most experienced in, the science of divination. Divination with a human victim is described by Diodorus. Libations were poured over him, and he was then slain, auguries being drawn from the method of his fall, the movements of his limbs, and the flowing of his blood. Divination with the entrails was used in Galatia, Gaul, and Britain.[856] Beasts and birds also provided omens. The course taken by a hare let loose gave an omen of success to the Britons, and in Ireland divination was used with a sacrificial animal.[857] Among birds the crow was pre-eminent, and two crows are represented speaking into the ears of a man on a bas-relief at Compiegne. The Celts believed that the crow had shown where towns should be founded, or had furnished a remedy against poison, and it was also an arbiter of disputes.[858] Artemidorus describes how, at a certain place, there were two crows. Persons having a dispute set out two heaps of sweetmeats, one for each disputant. The birds swooped down upon them, eating one and dispersing the other. He whose heap had been scattered won the case.[859] Birds were believed to have guided the migrating Celts, and their flight furnished auguries, because, as Deiotaurus gravely said, birds never lie. Divination by the voices of birds was used by the Irish Druids.[860]

Omens were drawn from the direction of the smoke and flames of sacred fires and from the condition of the clouds.[861] Wands of yew were carried by Druids—"the wand of Druidism" of many folk-tales—and were used perhaps as divining-rods. Ogams were also engraved on rods of yews, and from these Druids divined hidden things. By this means the Druid Dalan discovered where Etain had been hidden by the god Mider. The method used may have been that of drawing one of the rods by lot and then divining from the marks upon it. A similar method was used to discover the route to be taken by invaders, the result being supposed to depend on divine interposition.[862] The knowledge of astronomy ascribed by Caesar to the Druids was probably of a simple kind, and much mixed with astrology, and though it furnished the data for computing a simple calendar, its use was largely magical.[863] Irish diviners forecast the time to build a house by the stars, and the date at which S. Columba's education should begin, was similarly discovered.[864]

The Imbas Forosnai, "illumination between the hands," was used by the File to discover hidden things. He chewed a piece of raw flesh and placed it as an offering to the images of the gods whom he desired to help him. If enlightenment did not come by the next day, he pronounced incantations on his palms, which he then placed on his cheeks before falling asleep. The revelation followed in a dream, or sometimes after awaking.[865] Perhaps the animal whose flesh was eaten was a sacred one. Another method was that of the Teinm Laegha. The File made a verse and repeated it over some person or thing regarding which he sought information, or he placed his staff on the person's body and so obtained what he sought. The rite was also preceded by sacrifice; hence S. Patrick prohibited both it and the Imbas Forosnai.[866] Another incantation, the Cetnad, was sung through the fist to discover the track of stolen cattle or of the thief. If this did not bring enlightenment, the File went to sleep and obtained the knowledge through a dream.[867] Another Cetnad for obtaining information regarding length of life was addressed to the seven daughters of the sea. Perhaps the incantation was repeated mechanically until the seer fell into a kind of trance. Divination by dreams was also used by the continental Celts.[868]

Other methods resemble "trance-utterance." "A great obnubilation was conjured up for the bard so that he slept a heavy sleep, and things magic-begotten were shewn to him to enunciate," apparently in his sleep. This was called "illumination by rhymes," and a similar method was used in Wales. When consulted, the seer roared violently until he was beside himself, and out of his ravings the desired information was gathered. When aroused from this ecstatic condition, he had no remembrance of what he had uttered. Giraldus reports this, and thinks, with the modern spiritualist, that the utterance was caused by spirits.[869] The resemblance to modern trance-utterance and to similar methods used by savages is remarkable, and psychological science sees in it the promptings of the subliminal self in sleep.

The taghairm of the Highlanders was a survival from pagan times. The seer was usually bound in a cow's hide—the animal, it may be conjectured, having been sacrificed in earlier times. He was left in a desolate place, and while he slept spirits were supposed to inspire his dreams.[870] Clothing in the skin of a sacrificial animal, by which the person thus clothed is brought into contact with it and hence with the divinity to which it is offered, or with the divine animal itself where the victim is so regarded, is a widespread custom. Hence, in this Celtic usage, contact with divinity through the hide would be expected to produce enlightenment. For a like reason the Irish sacrificed a sheep for the recovery of the sick, and clothed the patient in its skin.[871] Binding the limbs of the seer is also a widespread custom, perhaps to restrain his convulsions or to concentrate the psychic force.

Both among the continental and Irish Celts those who sought hidden knowledge slept on graves, hoping to be inspired by the spirits of the dead.[872] Legend told how, the full version of the Tain having been lost, Murgan the File sang an incantation over the grave of Fergus mac Roig. A cloud hid him for three days, and during that time the dead man appeared and recited the saga to him.

In Ireland and the Highlands, divination by looking into the shoulder-blade of a sheep was used to discover future events or things happening at a distance, a survival from pagan times.[873] The scholiast on Lucan describes the Druidic method of chewing acorns and then prophesying, just as, in Ireland, eating nuts from the sacred hazels round Connla's well gave inspiration.[874] The "priestesses" of Sena and the "Druidesses" of the third century had the gift of prophecy, and it was also ascribed freely to the Filid, the Druids, and to Christian saints. Druids are said to have prophesied the coming of S. Patrick, and similar prophecies are put in the mouths of Fionn and others, just as Montezuma's priests foretold the coming of the Spaniards.[875] The word used for such prophecies—baile, means "ecstasy," and it suggests that the prophet worked himself into a frenzy and then fell into a trance, in which he uttered his forecast. Prophecies were also made at the birth of a child, describing its future career.[876] Careful attention was given to the utterances of Druidic prophets, e.g. Medb's warriors postponed their expedition for fifteen days, because the Druids told them they would not succeed if they set out sooner.[877]

Mythical personages or divinities are said in the Irish texts to have stood on one leg, with one arm extended, and one eye closed, when uttering prophecies or incantations, and this was doubtless an attitude used by the seer.[878] A similar method is known elsewhere, and it may have been intended to produce greater force. From this attitude may have originated myths of beings with one arm, one leg, and one eye, like some Fomorians or the Fachan whose weird picture Campbell of Islay drew from verbal descriptions.[879]

Early Celtic saints occasionally describe lapses into heathenism in Ireland, not characterised by "idolatry," but by wizardry, dealing in charms, and fidlanna, perhaps a kind of divination with pieces of wood.[880] But it is much more likely that these had never really been abandoned. They belong to the primitive element of religion and magic which people cling to long after they have given up "idolatry."

FOOTNOTES:

[790] Caesar, vi. 16.

[791] Rhŷs, CB{4} 68.

[792] Justin, xxvi. 2; Pomp. Mela, iii. 2.

[793] Diod. Sic. xxii. 9.

[794] See Jullian, 53.

[795] Servius on AEneid, iii. 57.

[796] Caesar, vi. 16; Livy, xxxviii. 47; Diod. Sic. v. 32, xxxi. 13; Athenaeus, iv. 51; Dio Cass., lxii. 7.

[797] Diod. Sic, xxxiv. 13; Strabo, iv. 4; Orosius, v. 16; Schol. on Lucan, Usener's ed. 32.

[798] Caesar, vi. 16; Strabo, iv. 4; Diod. Sic. v. 32; Livy, xxxviii. 47.

[799] Mannhardt, Baumkultus, 529 f.

[800] Strabo, ibid. 4. 4.

[801] S. Aug. de Civ. Dei, vii. 19.

[802] Tac. Ann. xiv. 30; Strabo, iv. 4. 4.

[803] Suet. Claud. 25.

[804] Pomp. Mela, iii. 2. 18.

[805] Pliny, HN xxx. 4. 13.

[806] Dio. Cass. lxii. 6.

[807] O'Curry, MC ii. 222; Joyce, SH i. ch. 9.

[808] RC xvi. 35.

[809] LL 213b.

[810] See p. 52, supra.

[811] See, however, accounts of reckless child sacrifices in Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i. 252, and Westermarck, Moral Ideas, i. 397.

[812] O'Curry, MC Intro, dcxli.

[813] LU 126a. A folk-version is given by Larminie, West Irish Folk-Tales, 139.

[814] Book of Fermoy, 89a.

[815] O'Curry, MC Intro. dcxl, ii. 222.

[816] Adamnan, Vita S. Col. Reeve's ed. 288.

[817] Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica, ii. 317.

[818] Nennius, Hist. Brit. 40.

[819] Stokes, TIG xli.; O'Curry, MC ii. 9.

[820] Pliny, HN xxx. 1. The feeding of Ethni, daughter of Crimthann, on human flesh that she might sooner attain maturity may be an instance of "medicinal cannibalism" (IT iii. 363). The eating of parents among the Irish, described by Strabo (iv. 5), was an example of "honorific cannibalism." See my article "Cannibalism" in Hastings' Encycl. of Rel. and Ethics, iii, 194.

[821] Diod. Sic. vi. 12; Paus. x. 22. 3; Amm. Marc. xxvii. 4; Livy, xxiii. 24; Solin. xxii. 3.

[822] This custom continued in Ireland until Spenser's time.

[823] Leahy, i. 158; Giraldus, Top. Hib. iii. 22; Martin, 109.

[824] Sil. Ital. iv. 213; Diod. Sic. xiv. 115; Livy, x. 26; Strabo, iv. 4. 5; Miss Hull, 92.

[825] Diod. Sic. v. 29; Strabo, iv. 4. 5.

[826] D'Arbois, v. 11; Diod. Sic. v. 29; Strabo, loc. cit.

[827] Annals of the Four Masters, 864; IT i. 205.

[828] Sil. Ital. iv. 215, v. 652; Lucan, Phar. i. 447; Livy, xxiii. 24.

[829] See p. 71, supra; CIL xii. 1077. A dim memory of head-taking survived in the seventeenth century in Eigg, where headless skeletons were found, of which the islanders said that an enemy had cut off their heads (Martin, 277).

[830] Belloguet, Ethnol. Gaul. iii. 100.

[831] Sil. Ital. xiii. 482; Livy, xxiii. 24; Florus, i. 39.

[832] ZCP i. 106.

[833] Loth, i. 90 f., ii. 218-219. Sometimes the weapons of a great warrior had the same effect. The bows of Gwerthevyr were hidden in different parts of Prydein and preserved the land from Saxon invasion, until Gwrtheyrn, for love of a woman, dug them up (Loth, ii. 218-219).

[834] See p. 338, infra. In Ireland, the brain of an enemy was taken from the head, mixed with lime, and made into a ball. This was allowed to harden, and was then placed in the tribal armoury as a trophy.

[835] L'Anthropologie, xii. 206, 711. Cf. the English tradition of the "Holy Mawle," said to have been used for the same purpose. Thorns, Anecdotes and Traditions, 84.

[836] Arrian, Cyneg. xxxiii.

[837] Caesar, vi. 17; Orosius, v. 16. 6.

[838] D'Arbois, i. 155.

[839] Curtin, Tales of the Fairies, 72; Folk-Lore, vii. 178-179.

[840] Mitchell, Past in the Present, 275.

[841] Mitchell, op. cit. 271 f.

[842] Cook, Folk-Lore, xvii. 332.

[843] Mitchell, loc. cit. 147. The corruption of "Maelrubha" to "Maree" may have been aided by confusing the name with mo or mhor righ.

[844] Mitchell, loc. cit.; Moore, 92, 145; Rhŷs, CFL i. 305; Worth, Hist. of Devonshire, 339; Dalyell, passim.

[845] Livy, xxiii. 24.

[846] Sebillot, ii. 166-167; L'Anthrop. xv. 729.

[847] Carmichael, Carm. Gad. i. 163.

[848] Martin, 28. A scribe called "Sonid," which might be the equivalent of "Shony," is mentioned in the Stowe missal (Folk-Lore, 1895).

[849] Campbell, Superstitions, 184 f; Waifs and Strays of Celtic Trad. ii. 455.

[850] Aelian, xvii. 19.

[851] Tacitus, Ann. xiv. 30; Dio Cass. lxii. 6.

[852] Appian, Celtica, 8; Livy, xxi. 28, xxxviii. 17, x. 26.

[853] Livy, v. 38, vii. 23; Polybius, ii. 29. Cf. Watteville, Le cri de guerre chez les differents peuples, Paris, 1889.

[854] Livy, v. 38.

[855] Appian, vi. 53; Muret et Chabouillet, Catalogue des monnaies gauloises, 6033 f., 6941 f.

[856] Diod. v. 31; Justin, xxvi. 2, 4; Cicero, de Div. ii. 36, 76; Tac. Ann. xiv. 30; Strabo, iii. 3. 6.

[857] Dio Cass. lxii. 6.

[858] Reinach, Catal. Sommaire, 31; Pseudo-Plutarch, de Fluviis, vi. 4; Mirab. Auscult. 86.

[859] Strabo, iv. 4. 6.

[860] Justin, xxiv, 4; Cicero, de Div. i. 15. 26. (Cf. the two magic crows which announced the coming of Cuchulainn to the other world (D'Arbois, v. 203); Irish Nennius, 145; O'Curry, MC ii. 224; cf. for a Welsh instance, Skene, i. 433.)

[861] Joyce, SH i. 229; O'Curry, MC ii. 224, MS Mat. 284.

[862] IT i. 129; Livy, v. 34; Loth, RC xvi. 314. The Irish for consulting a lot is crann-chur, "the act of casting wood."

[863] Caesar, vi. 14.

[864] O'Curry, MC ii. 46, 224; Stokes, Three Irish Homilies, 103.

[865] Cormac, 94. Fionn's divination by chewing his thumb is called Imbas Forosnai (RC xxv. 347).

[866] Antient Laws of Ireland, i. 45.

[867] Hyde, Lit. Hist. of Ireland, 241.

[868] Justin, xliii. 5.

[869] O'Grady, ii. 362; Giraldus, Descr. Camb. i. 11.

[870] Pennant, Tour in Scotland, i. 311; Martin, 111.

[871] Richardson, Folly of Pilgrimages, 70.

[872] Tertullian, de Anima, 57; Coll. de Reb. Hib. iii. 334.

[873] Campbell, Superstitions, 263; Curtin, Tales, 84.

[874] Lucan, ed. Usener, 33.

[875] See examples in O'Curry, MS Mat. 383 f.

[876] Miss Hull, 19, 20, 23.

[877] LU 55.

[878] RC xii. 98, xxi. 156, xxii. 61.

[879] RC xv. 432; Annals of the Four Masters, A.M. 2530; Campbell, WHT iv. 298.

[880] See "Adamnan's Second Vision." RC xii. 441.



CHAPTER XVII.

TABU.

The Irish geis, pl. geasa, which may be rendered by Tabu, had two senses. It meant something which must not be done for fear of disastrous consequences, and also an obligation to do something commanded by another.

As a tabu the geis had a large place in Irish life, and was probably known to other branches of the Celts.[881] It followed the general course of tabu wherever found. Sometimes it was imposed before birth, or it was hereditary, or connected with totemism. Legends, however, often arose giving a different explanation to geasa, long after the customs in which they originated had been forgotten. It was one of Diarmaid's geasa not to hunt the boar of Ben Gulban, and this was probably totemic in origin. But legend told how his father killed a child, the corpse being changed into a boar by the child's father, who said its span of life would be the same as Diarmaid's, and that he would be slain by it. Oengus put geasa on Diarmaid not to hunt it, but at Fionn's desire he broke these, and was killed.[882] Other geasa—those of Cuchulainn not to eat dog's flesh, and of Conaire never to chase birds—also point to totemism.

In some cases geasa were based on ideas of right and wrong, honour or dishonour, or were intended to cause avoidance of unlucky days. Others are unintelligible to us. The largest number of geasa concerned kings and chiefs, and are described, along with their corresponding privileges, in the Book of Rights. Some of the geasa of the king of Connaught were not to go to an assembly of women at Leaghair, not to sit in autumn on the sepulchral mound of the wife of Maine, not to go in a grey-speckled garment on a grey-speckled horse to the heath of Cruachan, and the like.[883] The meaning of these is obscure, but other examples are more obvious and show that all alike corresponded to the tabus applying to kings in primitive societies, who are often magicians, priests, or even divine representatives. On them the welfare of the tribe and the making of rain or sunshine, and the processes of growth depend. They must therefore be careful of their actions, and hence they are hedged about with tabus which, however unmeaning, have a direct connection with their powers. Out of such conceptions the Irish kingly geasa arose. Their observance made the earth fruitful, produced abundance and prosperity, and kept both the king and his land from misfortune. In later times these were supposed to be dependent on the "goodness" or the reverse of the king, but this was a departure from the older idea, which is clearly stated in the Book of Rights.[884] The kings were divinities on whom depended fruitfulness and plenty, and who must therefore submit to obey their geasa. Some of their prerogatives seem also to be connected with this state of things. Thus they might eat of certain foods or go to certain places on particular days.[885] In primitive societies kings and priests often prohibit ordinary mortals from eating things which they desire for themselves by making them tabu, and in other cases the fruits of the earth can only be eaten after king or priest has partaken of them ceremonially. This may have been the case in Ireland. The privilege relating to places may have meant that these were sacred and only to be entered by the king at certain times and in his sacred capacity.

As a reflection from this state of things, the heroes of the sagas, Cuchulainn and Fionn, had numerous geasa applicable to themselves, some of them religious, some magical, others based on primitive ideas of honour, others perhaps the invention of the narrators.[886]

Geasa, whether in the sense of tabus or of obligations, could be imposed by any one, and must be obeyed, for disobedience produced disastrous effects. Probably the obligation was framed as an incantation or spell, and the power of the spell being fully believed in, obedience would follow as a matter of course.[887] Examples of such geasa are numerous in Irish literature. Cuchulainn's father-in-law put geasa on him that he should know no rest until he found out the cause of the exile of the sons of Doel. And Grainne put geasa on Diarmaid that he should elope with her, and this he did, though the act was repugnant to him.

Among savages the punishment which is supposed to follow tabu-breaking is often produced through auto-suggestion when a tabu has been unconsciously infringed and this has afterwards been discovered. Fear produces the result which is feared. The result is believed, however, to be the working of divine vengeance. In the case of Irish geasa, destruction and death usually followed their infringement, as in the case of Diarmaid and Cuchulainn. But the best instance is found in the tale of The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel, in which the sid-folk avenge themselves for Eochaid's action by causing the destruction of his descendant Conaire, who is forced to break his geasa. These are first minutely detailed; then it is shown how, almost in spite of himself, Conaire was led on to break them, and how, in the sequel, his tragic death occurred.[888] Viewed in this light as the working of divine vengeance to a remote descendant of the offender by forcing him to break his tabus, the story is one of the most terrible in the whole range of Irish literature.

FOOTNOTES:

[881] The religious interdictions mentioned by Caesar (vi. 13) may be regarded as tabus, while the spoils of war placed in a consecrated place (vi. 18), and certain animals among the Britons (v. 12), were clearly under tabu.

[882] Joyce, OCR 332 f.

[883] Book of Rights, ed. O'Donovan, 5.

[884] Book of Rights, 7.

[885] Ibid. 3 f.

[886] LL 107; O'Grady, ii. 175.

[887] In Highland tales geasa is translated "spells."

[888] RC xxii. 27 f. The story of Da Choca's Hostel has for its subject the destruction of Cormac through breaking his geasa (RC xxi. 149 f.).



CHAPTER XVIII.

FESTIVALS.

The Celtic year was not at first regulated by the solstices and equinoxes, but by some method connected with agriculture or with the seasons. Later, the year was a lunar one, and there is some evidence of attempts at synchronising solar and lunar time. But time was mainly measured by the moon, while in all calculations night preceded day.[889] Thus oidhche Samhain was the night preceding Samhain (November 1st), not the following night. The usage survives in our "sennight" and "fortnight." In early times the year had two, possibly three divisions, marking periods in pastoral or agricultural life, but it was afterwards divided into four periods, while the year began with the winter division, opening at Samhain. A twofold, subdivided into a fourfold division is found in Irish texts,[890] and may be tabulated as follows:—

1st quarter, Geimredh, beginning with the A. Geimredh festival of Samhain, November 1st. (winter half) 2nd quarter, Earrach, beginning February 1st (sometimes called Oimelc).

3rd quarter, Samradh, beginning with the B. Samhradh festival of Beltane, May 1st (called also (summer half) Cet-soman or Cet-samain, 1st day of Samono-s; cf. Welsh Cyntefyn).

4th quarter, Foghamhar, beginning with the festival of Lugnasadh, August 1st (sometimes called Brontroghain).

These divisions began with festivals, and clear traces of three of them occur over the whole Celtic area, but the fourth has now been merged in S. Brigit's day. Beltane and Samhain marked the beginning of the two great divisions, and were perhaps at first movable festivals, according as the signs of summer or winter appeared earlier or later. With the adoption of the Roman calendar some of the festivals were displaced, e.g. in Gaul, where the Calends of January took the place of Samhain, the ritual being also transferred.

None of the four festivals is connected with the times of equinox and solstice. This points to the fact that originally the Celtic year was independent of these. But Midsummer day was also observed not only by the Celts, but by most European folk, the ritual resembling that of Beltane. It has been held, and an old tradition in Ireland gives some support to the theory, that under Christian influences the old pagan feast of Beltane was merged in that of S. John Baptist on Midsummer day.[891] But, though there are Christian elements in the Midsummer ritual, denoting a desire to bring it under Church influence, the pagan elements in folk-custom are strongly marked, and the festival is deeply rooted in an earlier paganism all over Europe. Without much acquaintance with astronomy, men must have noted the period of the sun's longest course from early times, and it would probably be observed ritually. The festivals of Beltane and Midsummer may have arisen independently, and entered into competition with each other. Or Beltane may have been an early pastoral festival marking the beginning of summer when the herds went out to pasture, and Midsummer a more purely agricultural festival. And since their ritual aspect and purpose as seen in folk-custom are similar, they may eventually have borrowed each from the other. Or they may be later separate fixed dates of an earlier movable summer festival. For our purpose we may here consider them as twin halves of such a festival. Where Midsummer was already observed, the influence of the Roman calendar would confirm that observance. The festivals of the Christian year also affected the older observances. Some of the ritual was transferred to saints' days within the range of the pagan festival days, thus the Samhain ritual is found observed on S. Martin's day. In other cases, holy days took the place of the old festivals—All Saints' and All Souls' that of Samhain, S. Brigit's day that of February 1st, S. John Baptist's day that of Midsummer, Lammas that of Lugnasad, and some attempt was made to hallow, if not to oust, the older ritual.

The Celtic festivals being primarily connected with agricultural and pastoral life, we find in their ritual survivals traces not only of a religious but of a magical view of things, of acts designed to assist the powers of life and growth. The proof of this will be found in a detailed examination of the surviving customs connected with them.

SAMHAIN.

Samhain,[892] beginning the Celtic year, was an important social and religious occasion. The powers of blight were beginning their ascendancy, yet the future triumph of the powers of growth was not forgotten. Probably Samhain had gathered up into itself other feasts occurring earlier or later. Thus it bears traces of being a harvest festival, the ritual of the earlier harvest feast being transferred to the winter feast, as the Celts found themselves in lands where harvest is not gathered before late autumn. The harvest rites may, however, have been associated with threshing rather than ingathering. Samhain also contains in its ritual some of the old pastoral cults, while as a New Year feast its ritual is in great part that of all festivals of beginnings.

New fire was brought into each house at Samhain from the sacred bonfire,[893] itself probably kindled from the need-fire by the friction of pieces of wood. This preserved its purity, the purity necessary to a festival of beginnings.[894] The putting away of the old fires was probably connected with various rites for the expulsion of evils, which usually occur among many peoples at the New Year festival. By that process of dislocation which scattered the Samhain ritual over a wider period and gave some of it to Christmas, the kindling of the Yule log may have been originally connected with this festival.

Divination and forecasting the fate of the inquirer for the coming year also took place. Sometimes these were connected with the bonfire, stones placed in it showing by their appearance the fortune or misfortune awaiting their owners.[895] Others, like those described by Burns in his "Hallowe'en," were unconnected with the bonfire and were of an erotic nature.[896]

The slaughter of animals for winter consumption which took place at Samhain, or, as now, at Martinmas, though connected with economic reasons, had a distinctly religious aspect, as it had among the Teutons. In recent times in Ireland one of the animals was offered to S. Martin, who may have taken the place of a god, and ill-luck followed the non-observance of the custom.[897] The slaughter was followed by general feasting. This later slaughter may be traced back to the pastoral stage, in which the animals were regarded as divine, and one was slain annually and eaten sacramentally. Or, if the slaughter was more general, the animals would be propitiated. But when the animals ceased to be worshipped, the slaughter would certainly be more general, though still preserving traces of its original character. The pastoral sacrament may also have been connected with the slaying and eating of an animal representing the corn-spirit at harvest time. In one legend S. Martin is associated with the animal slain at Martinmas, and is said to have been cut up and eaten in the form of an ox,[898] as if a former divine animal had become an anthropomorphic divinity, the latter being merged in the personality of a Christian saint.

Other rites, connected with the Calends of January as a result of dislocation, point also in this direction. In Gaul and Germany riotous processions took place with men dressed in the heads and skins of animals.[899] This rite is said by Tille to have been introduced from Italy, but it is more likely to have been a native custom.[900] As the people ate the flesh of the slain animals sacramentally, so they clothed themselves in the skins to promote further contact with their divinity. Perambulating the township sunwise dressed in the skin of a cow took place until recently in the Hebrides at New Year, in order to keep off misfortune, a piece of the hide being burned and the smoke inhaled by each person and animal in the township.[901] Similar customs have been found in other Celtic districts, and these animal disguises can hardly be separated from the sacramental slaughter at Samhain.[902]

Evils having been or being about to be cast off in the New Year ritual, a few more added to the number can make little difference. Hence among primitive peoples New Year is often characterised by orgiastic rites. These took place at the Calends in Gaul, and were denounced by councils and preachers.[903] In Ireland the merriment at Samhain is often mentioned in the texts,[904] and similar orgiastic rites lurk behind the Hallowe'en customs in Scotland and in the licence still permitted to youths in the quietest townships of the West Highlands at Samhain eve.

Samhain, as has been seen, was also a festival of the dead, whose ghosts were fed at this time.[905]

As the powers of growth were in danger and in eclipse in winter, men thought it necessary to assist them. As a magical aid the Samhain bonfire was chief, and it is still lit in the Highlands. Brands were carried round, and from it the new fire was lit in each house. In North Wales people jumped through the fire, and when it was extinct, rushed away to escape the "black sow" who would take the hindmost.[906] The bonfire represented the sun, and was intended to strengthen it. But representing the sun, it had all the sun's force, hence those who jumped through it were strengthened and purified. The Welsh reference to the hindmost and to the black sow may point to a former human sacrifice, perhaps of any one who stumbled in jumping through the fire. Keating speaks of a Druidic sacrifice in the bonfire, whether of man or beast is not specified.[907] Probably the victim, like the scapegoat, was laden with the accumulated evils of the year, as in similar New Year customs elsewhere. Later belief regarded the sacrifice, if sacrifice there was, as offered to the powers of evil—the black sow, unless this animal is a reminiscence of the corn-spirit in its harmful aspect. Earlier powers, whether of growth or of blight, came to be associated with Samhain as demoniac beings—the "malignant bird flocks" which blighted crops and killed animals, the samhanach which steals children, and Mongfind the banshee, to whom "women and the rabble" make petitions on Samhain eve.[908] Witches, evil-intentioned fairies, and the dead were particularly active then.

Though the sacrificial victim had come to be regarded as an offering to the powers of blight, he may once have represented a divinity of growth or, in earlier times, the corn-spirit. Such a victim was slain at harvest, and harvest is often late in northern Celtic regions, while the slaying was sometimes connected not with the harvest field, but with the later threshing. This would bring it near the Samhain festival. The slaying of the corn-spirit was derived from the earlier slaying of a tree or vegetation-spirit embodied in a tree and also in a human or animal victim. The corn-spirit was embodied in the last sheaf cut as well as in an animal or human being.[909] This human victim may have been regarded as a king, since in late popular custom a mock king is chosen at winter festivals.[910] In other cases the effigy of a saint is hung up and carried round the different houses, part of the dress being left at each. The saint has probably succeeded to the traditional ritual of the divine victim.[911] The primitive period in which the corn-spirit was regarded as female, with a woman as her human representative, is also recalled in folk-custom. The last sheaf is called the Maiden or the Mother, while, as in Northamptonshire, girls choose a queen on S. Catharine's day, November 26th, and in some Christmas pageants "Yule's wife," as well as Yule, is present, corresponding to the May queen of the summer festival.[912] Men also masqueraded as women at the Calends. The dates of these survivals may be explained by that dislocation of the Samhain festival already pointed out. This view of the Samhain human sacrifices is supported by the Irish offerings to the Fomorians—gods of growth, later regarded as gods of blight, and to Cromm Cruaich, in both cases at Samhain.[913] With the evolution of religious thought, the slain victim came to be regarded as an offering to evil powers.

This aspect of Samhain, as a festival to promote and assist festivity, is further seen in the belief in the increased activity of fairies at that time. In Ireland, fairies are connected with the Tuatha De Danann, the divinities of growth, and in many folk-tales they are associated with agricultural processes. The use of evergreens at Christmas is perhaps also connected with the carrying of them round the fields in older times, as an evidence that the life of nature was not extinct.[914]

Samhain may thus be regarded as, in origin, an old pastoral and agricultural festival, which in time came to be looked upon as affording assistance to the powers of growth in their conflict with the powers of blight. Perhaps some myth describing this combat may lurk behind the story of the battle of Mag-tured fought on Samhain between the Tuatha De Danann and the Fomorians. While the powers of blight are triumphant in winter, the Tuatha Dea are represented as the victors, though they suffer loss and death. Perhaps this enshrines the belief in the continual triumph of life and growth over blight and decay, or it may arise from the fact that Samhain was both a time of rejoicing for the ingathered harvest, and of wailing for the coming supremacy of winter and the reign of the powers of blight.

BELTANE.

In Cormac's Glossary and other texts, "Beltane" is derived from bel-tene, "a goodly fire," or from bel-dine, because newly-born (dine) cattle were offered to Bel, an idol-god.[915] The latter is followed by those who believe in a Celtic Belus, connected with Baal. No such god is known, however, and the god Belenos is in no way connected with the Semitic divinity. M. D'Arbois assumes an unknown god of death, Beltene (from beltu, "to die"), whose festival Beltane was.[916] But Beltane was a festival of life, of the sun shining in his strength. Dr. Stokes gives a more acceptable explanation of the word. Its primitive form was belo-te[p]nia, from belo-s, "clear," "shining," the root of the names Belenos and Belisama, and te[p]nos, "fire." Thus the word would mean something like "bright fire," perhaps the sun or the bonfire, or both.[917]

The folk-survivals of the Beltane and Midsummer festivals show that both were intended to promote fertility.

One of the chief ritual acts at Beltane was the kindling of bonfires, often on hills. The house-fires in the district were often extinguished, the bonfire being lit by friction from a rotating wheel—the German "need-fire."[918] The fire kept off disease and evil, hence cattle were driven through it, or, according to Cormac, between two fires lit by Druids, in order to keep them in health during the year.[919] Sometimes the fire was lit beneath a sacred tree, or a pole covered with greenery was surrounded by the fuel, or a tree was burned in the fire.[920] These trees survive in the Maypole of later custom, and they represented the vegetation-spirit, to whom also the worshippers assimilated themselves by dressing in leaves. They danced sunwise round the fire or ran through the fields with blazing branches or wisps of straw, imitating the course of the sun, and thus benefiting the fields.[921] For the same reason the tree itself was probably borne through the fields. Houses were decked with boughs and thus protected by the spirit of vegetation.[922]

An animal representing the spirit of vegetation may have been slain. In late survivals of Beltane at Dublin, a horse's skull and bones were thrown into the fire,[923] the attenuated form of an earlier sacrifice or slaying of a divine victim, by whom strength was transferred to all the animals which passed through the fire. In some cases a human victim may have been slain. This is suggested by customs surviving in Perthshire in the eighteenth century, when a cake was broken up and distributed, and the person who received a certain blackened portion was called the "Beltane carline" or "devoted." A pretence was made of throwing him into the fire, or he had to leap three times through it, and during the festival he was spoken of as "dead."[924] Martin says that malefactors were burned in the fire,[925] and though he cites no authority, this agrees with the Celtic use of criminals as victims. Perhaps the victim was at one time a human representative of the vegetation-spirit.

Beltane cakes or bannocks, perhaps made of the grain of the sacred last sheaf from the previous harvest, and therefore sacramental in character, were also used in different ways in folk-survivals. They were rolled down a slope—a magical imitative act, symbolising and aiding the course of the sun. The cake had also a divinatory character. If it broke on reaching the foot of the slope this indicated the approaching death of its owner. In another custom in Perthshire, part of a cake was thrown over the shoulder with the words, "This I give to thee, preserve thou my horses; this to thee, preserve thou my sheep; this to thee, O fox, preserve thou my lambs; this to thee, O hooded crow; this to thee, O eagle." Here there is an appeal to beneficial and noxious powers, whether this was the original intention of the rite.[926] But if the cakes were made of the last sheaf, they were probably at one time eaten sacramentally, their sacrificial use emerging later.

The bonfire was a sun-charm, representing and assisting the sun. Rain-charms were also used at Beltane. Sacred wells were visited and the ceremony performed with their waters, these perhaps being sprinkled over the tree or the fields to promote a copious rainfall for the benefit of vegetation. The use of such rites at Beltane and at other festivals may have given rise to the belief that wells were especially efficacious then for purposes of healing. The custom of rolling in the grass to benefit by May dew was probably connected with magical rites in which moisture played an important part.[927]

The idea that the powers of growth had successfully combated those of blight may have been ritually represented. This is suggested by the mimic combats of Summer and Winter at this time, to which reference has already been made. Again, the May king and queen represent earlier personages who were regarded as embodying the spirits of vegetation and fertility at this festival, and whose marriage or union magically assisted growth and fertility, as in numerous examples of this ritual marriage elsewhere.[928] It may be assumed that a considerable amount of sexual licence also took place with the same magical purpose. Sacred marriage and festival orgy were an appeal to the forces of nature to complete their beneficial work, as well as a magical aid to them in that work. Analogy leads to the supposition that the king of the May was originally a priest-king, the incarnation of the spirit of vegetation. He or his surrogate was slain, while his bodily force was unabated, in order that it might be passed on undiminished to his successor. But the persistent place given to the May queen rather than to the king suggests the earlier prominence of women and of female spirits of fertility or of a great Mother-goddess in such rites. It is also significant that in the Perthshire ritual the man chosen was still called the Beltane carlane or cailleach ("old woman"). And if, as Professor Pearson maintains, witch orgies are survivals of old sex-festivals, then the popular belief in the activity of witches on Beltane eve, also shows that the festival had once been mainly one in which women took part. Such orgies often took place on hills which had been the sites of a cult in former times.[929]