CHAPTER V.

SOLAR AND PLANETARY WORSHIP IN BRITAIN AND CALEDONIA. THE SUN, BAAL, BEL'-General Worship of Light-Solar and Planetary Worship-Sacrifice of the Cock-Philological affinities-Baal and Bel in various Eastern Languages, as well as in the Celtic Dialects-Great heathen Festival of Yeul-Its Ceremonies-Passing Children through the Fire, or exposing them on the House-tops-People and Cattle passing through the Fire-Ordeal by Fire and Water-Pre-eminence of the East -Illustrated by the great rock-cut Temple of Karli-Buddhist Services, Practices, and Ceremonies-Position of Temples originally referred to the Worship of Light and the Sun-Bel-Tein, Fire of Bel-Bel-Tein day— Beltein Ceremonies-Offerings to Inferior Deities-Fastern Even a Celtic Festival, also a Phoenician-Game of Ball-Soule-Other CeremoniesCarn Fires-Hallowe'en a Celtic Festival-Ceremonies practised then, and Fires lighted-Tin-Egin-Midsummer Eve a Celtic Festival— Peculiar Ceremonies-Flannan Isles-Deasoil Processions.-ASTARTE, ASHTORETH, THE MOON-Worship of the Moon-Superstitious Rites not yet extinct-Homage to "the Queen of Heaven" in various forms.

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ROM Dondera-head in Ceylon to the Himalaya Moun

tains, and from the borders of China to the extremities of Western Europe and its islands, we find clear evidence of the former prevalence of the earliest form of false worship, viz., the adoration of light, the sun, and "the whole host of heaven." In the Rajpoot state of Marwar, in its capital 1 Baal, Bel, Belus, Belenus. In in Rajasthan I remarked a beautiful Celtic, Beal, Beil, Beul (Gaelic Dic- representation of the sun-god in his tionary); Abellion (Smith's Mytho- car, drawn by seven horses. logical Dictionary). sculpture was in alto-relievo.

2 In a ruined and deserted marble temple near the base of Mount Aboo

2

The

Asa took from the cities of Judah the sun images (2d Chron. xiv. 5),

BALI, PLANETARY WORSHIP.

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Udayapoor, "the City of the Rising Sun," the precedence of Surya, the sun god, is still maintained. The sacred standard of the country bears his image, and the Raja, claiming to be his descendant, appears as his representative.1

2

In a complicated form the Parsees of British India still retain that worship of light, symbolised in the sun and fire, for which they became exiles when their fire-altars were overthrown and their faith was proscribed in the land of their ancestors. More than twenty centuries have passed since the religion of Gautama Buddha was generally and enthusiastically received and firmly established in Ceylon, where it has ever since, with short interruptions, remained the religion of the state and the people. It then superseded, although it has never been able to eradicate, the Bali, planetary worship, which co-existed with the Naga or snake worship in that country. There also, besides a veneration for ancestors, the aborigines believed in invisible powers and controlling spirits of limited influence and local celebrity. Fountains and streams-trees and forests-rocks and mountains-had their genii, and various forms of pestilence were attributed to the malignant influence of demons. From notices in ancient authors,3 Roman inscriptions, and remaining super

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but the idolatry remained. Chariots and horses given by the kings of Judah to the sun were removed and destroyed by Josiah (2 Kings xxiii. 1-11). For the continuance of this idolatry see Jeremiah viii. 1-2.

1 Tod's Annals of Rajasthan. 2 Remains of these temples, similar to Cyclopean remains in Britain, are

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1

stitions, it would appear that the heathen inhabitants of Britain worshipped an equally numerous and nearly identical accumulation of objects.

Ceylon having escaped Brahmanical usurpation and Mohammedan conquest, may account for the primitive false worship being there found in general estimation; for although openly disowned, it is secretly practised, not only by persons who are Buddhists, but by many who profess themselves Christians. Buddhism, as already observed, has been the religion of the Cingalese for upwards of two thousand years; and from the numerous relics of Gautama brought to Ceylon it is considered a holy land by his followers. Christianity, in various forms, has been long introduced into the island, and numbers those who have received the initiary sacrament by hundreds of thousands; yet it is remarkable that neither the Buddhist priest nor the Christian pastor has succeeded in eradicating from the minds of their professed adherents a belief in the efficacy of the Bali rites. Forbidden to the followers of Gautama Buddha, and opposed to Christianity, the tenacity with which it has maintained its hold on the minds of the Cingalese is, however remarkable, not without a parallel, as similar superstitions continued to exist in Britain despite of edicts, civil and ecclesiastical, and of penalties more severe than any tolerated by the religion of Buddha." The policy of new reli

1 In the article on "Customs and Superstitions" these are more fully explained.

2 Witchcraft is heathenism, yet its tricks were practised by early Christian saints. It was not punished with death

2

until the fourteenth century, when the ecclesiastical tribunals classed it as heresy, and obtained power of judgment in such cases. After that, acts blazoned by ecclesiastics as miracles when practised by themselves, were

SACRIFICE OF COCKS.

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gions that excluded preceding objects of worship from their schemes has usually been to denounce former deities as demons. By so doing, the new religion having admitted the entity, has perpetuated a belief in the continued existence of these beings, and given them a duration commensurate with the system by which they were superseded.

Bali is the word used in Ceylon to express the adoration of the heavenly bodies, and the propitiatory offerings and sacrifices that form part of the ceremonies in that worship. The victim sacrificed is generally a cock. In Sale's Introduction to the Koran1 he states that the idolatry of the Arabs, as Sabians, previous to Mohammed, chiefly consisted in worshipping the fixed stars and planets; also that at their various places of pilgrimage the Arabs sacrificed a cock. Cocks were the objects which witches in Great Britain were generally accused of sacrificing;"

found heathenish and heretical when attributed to ignorant and unprivileged laymen; and against them the halter and the fagot were decreed by beings who professed themselves Christians, and were acknowledged as the teachers of Christianity.

1 Sale's Koran, p. 11.

2 See trial of Dame Alice Kyteler in 1324, who was accused before her enemy the Bishop of Ossory of sacrificing nine red cocks at cross-roads near Kilkenny (published by Camden Society in 1843).

See also the trials of Christian Sadleir and Christian Livingstone in Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, vol. ii. p. 25, etc.

"In Scotland burying a live cock is described as a remedy for insanity"

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(Sir J. Graham Dalyell's Darker Superstitions of Scotland, p. 190). The same remedy has, even in late years, been resorted to for epileptic fits both in the north of Scotland and in Cornwall. Pennant, in his Tour in Wales, vol. ii. p. 15, mentions the sacrifice of a cock, along with the procession of an epileptic patient three times round a consecrated well at Llandegla, in Denbighshire. The patient had also to wash and leave an offering in the well. The bird to be sacrificed was not only carried thrice round the well, but thrice round the neighbouring church. In it the patient had to pass the night under the communion-table, with his head resting on the Bible, and to depart in the morning, leaving an offering of sixpence.

and it may be here well to repeat that the cock was especially sacred to Helios, the sun.

2

Baliya' is the Cingalese name of images of clay, made for the occasion, and generally destroyed at the conclusion of the incantations in Bali ceremonies. The image is supposed to represent the controlling planet of the individual for whom the rites are prepared, and which, from their nature, are directed by the astrologer to whom the votary has confided his horo

scope.

Cæsar refers to the Druids of Gaul and Britain as teaching many things concerning the motion. of the heavenly bodies. Pomponius Mela says the Druids professed to know the motions of the heavens and the stars and the intentions of the immortal gods; and Pliny mentions how intensely addicted these priests were to magical arts of the same nature as those practised by the Persians. Thus we have a concurrence of direct testimony to the planetary worship and divination which afterwards in Britain successively bore the names of sorcery, heresy, witchcraft, and superstition.

Since the modern discoveries in comparative philology have been made generally available, I feel no doubt that an attempt to identify expressions in planetary worship that are common to the language of Ceylon and to the Celtic

1 Baliya seems to be very similar to the Teraphim.

2 It would appear that the earliest images of the Roman gods were formed of wood or earthenware, and that the statue erected to Jupiter in the Capitol by Tarquinius Priscus was of clay. -

Pliny, Natural History, b. xxxiv. c. 16, and b. xxxv. c. 45.

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By Professors Wilson and Eastwick's translation of Bopp's Comparative Grammar, and Pritchard and Latham's Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations.