HEATHEN OBSERVANCES.

139

says

To similar customs Strabo may have referred when he -“It is reported that the Celtiberians, and their neighbours to the north, sacrifice to a nameless god every full moon at night before their doors, the whole family passing the night in dancing and festival." The Sixth Council of Constantinople, in A.D. 680, interdicted the lighting of fires to the new moon, and leaping through these fires. There was a subsequent inhibition in A.D. 742 against sacrilegious fires. Of the origin of such ceremonies we are not left in doubt; they are described as ancient and pagan observances.1

The following quotation is from Kenrick's Phoenicia :— "Astoreth, or Astarte, whom the Greeks sometimes identify with Juno, sometimes with Venus, appears physically to represent the moon. Her relation to Baal (Baalsamen, the sun) was expressed by the feminine form Baalith. She was the chief local deity of Sidon.""

In the chapter on the "Religion of Early Britons" are noticed the remains, in one of the Western Isles, of a ruined temple of Annait, a deity whose worship seems to have been connected with that of the moon.3

1 Sir H. Ellis's notes to "Summer Solstice" in Brand's Popular Antiquities.

3

2 Kenrick's Phoenicia, pp. 298-301. Among the forbidden points of heathenism enumerated in the laws of

Cnut the worship of the sun is mentioned; but in that case the king may more particularly have referred to his subjects of Scandinavian descent.Thorpe's Ancient Laws of England, vol. i. p. 379.

CHAPTER VI.

WORSHIP OF SPIRITS, ATMOSPHERIC AND TERRESTRIAL: ETHEREAL FIRE-SPIRIT OF THE WATERS: THE WATER KELPIE, ETC.-— SPIRIT OF THE EARTH-ELVES AND IMPS.

Objects of Worship common to Phoenicians, Hindus, and Celts-The Sun and the Elements-Atmospheric and Terrestrial Phenomena-Spirit of Ethereal Fire-Legend of Lochawe-Cailleach Vear-Crones of the Island of Gigha and Druidesses of Sena-Spirit of the Waters-The Water Kelpie-Extraordinary Superstition at St. Vigeans-Sunken-kirk-Spirit of the Earth-St. Oran and St. Columba-The Goodman's Croft-The Field-Deities and Deities of Britain.

U'

NDER the head of " Phoenician Influence on Britons" is

noticed a similarity in the religion of the Phoenicians and the heathenism of Britain; and in comparing "Customs and Superstitions of Central Asia with those of Western Europe" is remarked the conformity of certain early objects of worship in these remote regions. In the chapters headed "Baal and Astarte-the Sun and Moon" are detailed some particulars regarding the planetary worship of our heathen ancestors; and to these are now to be added their adoration, whether it were the offspring of fear or reverence, of portentous phenomena, and other objects, atmospheric and terrestrial,—in this particular also resembling the ancient Hindus of the Vedas, and the earliest inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon.

HEATHEN INVOCATIONS AND OMENS.

141

In the middle of the fifth century, about A.D. 462, it is stated by the early Irish annalists that King Laoghaire, having violated the oath he had sworn-viz., by the sun, the wind, and the elements-was the next year slain in battle. Having outraged these powers by which he had sworn is the cause assigned for the king's death by all the monastic annalists,' even to a period so late as the seventeenth century.

1

In the Fedh Fiadha, the Lorica or Hymn of St. Patrick, which was believed to protect those who recited it from evils, bodily and spiritual, there is, along with the prayer for protection against "women, smiths, and druids," the invocation of the power of the sky, the sun, fire, lightning, wind. The Lorica of St. Columba enables us to distinguish some methods of divination and heathen omens in use at King Diarmait's Court at Tara in the sixth century. The saint maintains that his fate did not depend "on the voice of birds, nor on the roots of a knotted tree, nor on the noise of the clapping of hands, nor lots, nor sneezing, nor a boy, nor chance, nor women;" and continues, "Christ is my Druid." 3

Spirit of Ethereal Fire.

The exemplifications of the power of the female deity Cailleach Vear occupied in the end of last century—possibly still occupy-a conspicuous place among the marvellous

1 Dr. Todd's St. Patrick, p. 437.

2 "This proves," says Dr. Todd, "that notwithstanding the undoubted piety and fervent Christian faith of

the author, he had not yet fully shaken off all pagan prejudices.

3 Dr. Todd's St. Patrick, p. 122; Dr. Reeves's Adamnan's Life of St. Columba, p. 74.

legends of the Western Highlands of Scotland. Her residence was believed to be on the highest mountains; and a great stone, in a remarkable and elevated position on the high hills which separate Strathlachlan from Glendaruel, still preserves the name of Cailleach Vear or Vera. To her is attributed, among other wonders, the formation of Locheck in Cowal, and Lochaw in Lorn, the waters of which now cover what tradition affirms to have been extensive valleys and fertile plains.1

66

The submerging of these lands, and the formation of the beautiful expanse of Lochaw, is, in the English translation of Gaelic poetry, attributed to the neglect of the aged Bera, daughter of Griannan." According to this version Bera had charge of the mysterious fountain on the summit of the lofty Ben Cruachan, and omitted her duty of closing the fountain with a stone of magical power before the last rays of the sun should leave the mountain peak. The fate of the plains. below depended on the due performance of this ceremony. One evening, overcome by fatigue, Bera fell asleep before sunset, and only awoke on the third day to see that the race and the lands of which she had been guardian were overwhelmed by waters from the fountain that ought to have been sealed with the fated stone.

The Rev. Mr. Stewart says "the allegory of Cailleach Vear

1 Old Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. iv. pp. 559-60.

2 Old Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 560.

There may possibly be a connection between the ancient Hindu

deities that control the elements and those to whom were assigned similar powers by the Gaels. Indra and Vrita of the Hindus, in aërial conflict, produce effects like those attributed to the Gaelic Vear or Bera; thus

ETHEREAL FIRE.

6

143

can be easily traced: Beir is the Gaelic for a thunderbolt, in the oblique cases pronounced Veir, as Bein or Ben Veir, a high mountain in Appin, signifies the mountain of thunder; and he adds, "everything said of Cailleach Vear literally applies to the effects of lightning." This appears the more certain when we consider that in Gaelic Veither or Beither1 is the thunderbolt, another word for which is Tein adhair, ethereal fire." In the translation of Ossian we need not doubt that "the aged Bera, daughter of Griannan," is the Cailleach Vear or Bear of Mr. Stewart; for in Gaelic Cailleach is an old woman, and Griannan the sunny mountain peak.

Another well, called Tobar-Rath-Bhuathaig, to which were attributed virtues somewhat similar to those of the fountain on Ben-Cruachan, exists in the island of Gigha in the Hebrides, and even in the very end of the last century had not entirely lost the fame which it had probably acquired in periods of remote antiquity. It was believed that, by performing certain

"Indra strikes the earth-shaking Vritra with his rain-causing hundredspiked Vagra thunderbolt" (SamaVeda of Stevenson, p. 251). The close connection of the Sanscrit and Gaelic words for planetary bodies and atmospheric phenomena has now been fully proved by philologists. The representatives of these heavenly bodies and phenomena may also have had a common origin.

1 It is remarkable that in Gaelic Beither not only signifies the thunderbolt, but also a dragon, a serpent. Tein Athair, lightning, ethereal fire, is also a synonym of Beither. The serpent seems to be, and to have been,