Pagan Ireland.

by Eleanor Hull

The Druids and Their Teachings.

Authorities : -As before, with " The Voyage of Bran," by Kuno Meyer and Alfred Nutt : " Cormac's Glossary," edited by Dr. Whitley Stokes, and Old Romances.

Druidical Rites.

IT would seem that both the File and the Druid were " supposed to have a knowledge of future events, and both sought this foreknowledge by means of incantaions, and in dreams seen after certain magical rites had been performed. On all sorts of occasions it was customary to resort to the soothsayers to find out whether the time for taking a matter in hand was propitious or not. On beginning a battle, or going a journey, or setting out on a raid, the magician or druid was consulted. There was a great belief in lucky and unlucky days and moments : for instance, the kings of Ulster would not begin a battle until sunrise, because they thought that to fight without the sun, even if it were sufficiently light, was unlucky. When St. Patrick came to Erin, he is said to have examined into all these magical rites. Some he abolished, because they were performed in connection with offerings to idols; but others, which were not harmful, he allowed to continue.

But in one homily, or sermon, belonging to Christian times, it is said that the Irish had "gone back to all their old sins except the worship of idols;" and certainly we find them consulting Druids and using magical arts far into Christian times. The Druids, besides being magicians and soothsayers, were medicine men, who cured diseases by their knowledge of herbs and plants. They do not seem to have been sacrificing priests in Ireland, as we know that they were in Britain and Gaul; yet we find that it was the Druids who opposed St. Patrick more stoutly than any others. They would seem to have been teachers of the pagan beliefs, for it is recorded of Cormac mac Airt, who is said to have become a Christian long before St. Patrick came to Ireland, that he had abandoned the teaching of the Druids, for which they took their revenge by making him choke himself with a salmon-bone. We know a great deal more about the teaching of the Druids in Britain and Gaul than we do about their teaching in Ireland, and they would seem to have had, a much more elaborate system of belief and a more precise ritual in these countries than was practised by the Druids of Ireland.

Pagan Beliefs.

Our chief difficulty in determining precisely the nature of the beliefs of the early Irish in the days of paganism arises from the want of knowledge as to how much of what is written down in the tales was really held as part of their belief, and how much was a sort of legend to them, as it is to us. For if in future ages, when our race is dead and gone, some new race were by accident to find our books of fairytales, they might think that we believed that people could be turned into animals, and that animals talked like human beings, and many other things that we only set down as myths.

So when we read in the old Irish romances that some of the heroes were first gods, and were born again as men and women, or that the gods had human children, or that some who belonged to the race of the gods were transformed into insects or animals, or that human beings could go away into the unseen world of the gods, and return again to earth, it is not easy to tell whether they really believed these things, or whether they looked upon them just as fairytales, as we now do. Most of the stories of this kind are connected with the old inhabitants of whom we spoke, and especially with the Tuatha De Danann, who were always supposed to possess magical powers, and were never supposed to die. They were thought to reappear as human beings, or to be reborn in the form of men and women or of animals and even insects; and they were always supposed to be interested in the affairs of men and to take part in them. Later on, in Christian times, they \vere thought of as invisible hosts, selves visible to men; but I think that they looked on most of these legends simply as myths, which they only half-believed, but which were too beautiful to lose. At all events, I do not think that we can build on these stories any exact knowledge of the pagan beliefs. We only know from them that they thought such things possible to imagine.

One thing that is certain is that they worshipped the " elements : the earth, the sun, and the wind, and when they wanted to make a very solemn oath, it was by these things that they swore; they believed that to break such an oath was to call down the vengeance of these elements upon themselves. A king named Laegaire (Laery) once pledged himself by the elements that he would never again impose a tax upon the men of Leinster; he broke his oath, and it was believed that the elements put him to death in revenge : that " the earth swallowed him, the sun scorched him, and the wind (which I suppose here means his breath) passed away from him." The people seem also to have believed in gods specially attached to and watching over their own tribes, for we often hear of them taking an oath " by the gods of their tribe and people."

How long and how much they worshipped idols it is also difficult to know, but it is certain that they did so in the time of St. Patrick, for we read of him destroying the idols and making the people give them up. They also seem at that time to have made sacrifices to idols, for these he also put a stop to. He is especially said to have destroyed the great idol called the Cromm Cruach, which stood on a plain called Magh Slecht or the Plain of Adoration, in Co. Cavan. It had twelve lesser idols (probably pillar stones) round it, and all of them were broken down by St. Patrick. The chief worship of this idol seems to have taken place at the pagan festival of Samhain (Sowan), which was afterwards turned by the Christian teachers into Hallowe'en. The High-King of Ireland and multitudes of people used to assemble to worship the idol, and it would seem that human sacrifices were offered to it. An old poem describes the worship of this idol. Here is part of it :

He was their god, The withered Cromm with many mists, To him without glory,
They would kill iheir piteous wretched offspring, With much wailing and peril, To pour their blood around Cromm Cruach.
Milk and corn,
They would ask from him speedily,

In return for one-third of their healthy issue.

Great was the horror and the fear of him.

To him,

Noble Gaels would prostrate themselves ,

" Dinnsenchus of Magh Slecht," Voyage of Tran, Kuno

This terrible golden idol, who demanded the sacrifice of a third of the healthy, well born children, seems to have been a god who watched over agricultural operations, for it was corn and milk that was asked from him. Perhaps this " Bent One of the Mound," as his name suggests, represented winter, withered and " with many mists " around his head.

It is said that the people beat their palms and pounded their bodies before him, and one of the Kings of Ireland was mysteriously stricken with death when worshipping before him. There also seem to have been human sacrifices offered at the Fair of Taillte, for we read that St. Patrick forbade the burning of the firstborn. If such horrible rites were practised, it was well indeed that Christianity came early to Ireland.

It is most probable that the curious games still played in Ireland at Hallowe'en are a relic of pagan customs practised at Samhain. They are not known out of Ireland.

There is no proof at all that the pagan Irish believed in a life after death. Nor did they much care for the above examples are the only instances as yet found of the offering of human sacrifice in Ireland. It is quite possible that they are inventions of the Christian scnbe who wrote the account. This is the opinion of Dr. P. W. Joyce in his recently published " Social History of Ancient Ireland," Vol. I., chap. ix., 5.

Christian heaven about which St. Patrick preached. They thought it very sad and grave and quiet, not suited to fierce warriors, and there are remaining a large number of poems, called Ossianic Poems, in which Oisin, the son of Finn, who was a poet, is represented as arguing with St. Patrick about his teaching. He says that the combats, and feasts, and hunting to which the Fianna were accustomed were far finer things than fasting and prayers and psalm-singing, and that the wide hospitality of Finn was better than the rigorous life of a Christian monk. No doubt these poems really express the feeling of many of the people to whom the missionaries taught a new way of life, and a new ideal.

There is one beautiful idea that many of their stories tell of about which we must say a word, though I think it was rather a lovely legend to them than an actual belief. They thought that some favored mortals could go away into a fairy land of palaces and music, of beautiful men and women, and could afterwards come back again to earth and go on with their natural life. This land was called Tir na n-Og or the Land of Youth, because no one there ever grew old; or sometimes Magh Mell, the Plain of Pleasures, because it was so sweet and rich. It lay far away across the western sea, in the setting of the sun, or sometimes it was thought of as under the lakes, or in the home of the Sea-god, Manannan mac Lir. Sometimes passengers went thither by boat, sometimes on a magic steed whose feet never touched the earth.

Generally they were tempted away by a lovely maiden, who held out to them an apple-branch, and it was impossible to refuse to go, for the mortal grew sick and weak, and lost his care for the things of life in his longing for the unseen world. In that land there was neither age, nor sickness, nor any grief or pain, and all things were fair and lovely, and all were young and full of happiness and songs and love; a single apple would suffice for food for a hundred years, and it tasted of every delicious flavour that the heart of man could conceive; and there was ale and mead in abundance. There apple-trees bloomed and sweet birds sang, and there was music all day long, and men took no note of time, for they grew never old or weary.

Connla of the Golden Hair went there, and Teigue, son of Cian, for the lovely maiden beckoned to them; and Cuchulain, to speak with Fand, Manannan's Queen. And Oisin went, and he stayed three hundred years, and they seemed to him but as one day; and when he came back to earth again, his old companions, the chieftains of the Fianna, were dead and gone, and their raths and their forts covered with green grass and brambles. The memory of them had disappeared from among men, and another race, feebler and weaker, who knew not the names of Finn, and Oisin and Oscur, was in their place. Oisin told his tale to Patrick, and then he died, an old man, worn and feeble, of over three hundred years of age.