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diff --git a/34853.txt b/34853.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..43c0997 --- /dev/null +++ b/34853.txt @@ -0,0 +1,22782 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, by W. Y. Evans Wentz + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries + +Author: W. Y. Evans Wentz + +Release Date: January 5, 2011 [EBook #34853] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAIRY-FAITH IN CELTIC COUNTRIES *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: _From Photograph by the Author_ + + THE MYSTIC CENTRE OF THE CELTIC WORLD + CARNAC IN A. D. 1909 + LOOKING TOWARD THE SUNRISE, FROM WITHIN THE CROMLECH, + _LES ALIGNEMENTS DU MENEC_] + + + + + THE FAIRY-FAITH IN + CELTIC COUNTRIES + + + BY W. Y. EVANS WENTZ + + M.A. STANFORD UNIVERSITY CALIFORNIA U.S.A. + DOCTEUR-ES-LETTRES UNIVERSITY OF RENNES BRITTANY + B.SC. JESUS COLLEGE OXON. + + + HENRY FROWDE + OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS + LONDON, NEW YORK, TORONTO AND MELBOURNE + 1911 + + + + + OXFORD: HORACE HART + PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY + + + + + THIS BOOK DEPENDS CHIEFLY UPON THE ORAL AND WRITTEN TESTIMONY + SO FREELY CONTRIBUTED BY ITS MANY CELTIC AUTHORS,-- + THE PEASANT AND THE SCHOLAR, THE PRIEST AND THE SCIENTIST, + THE POET AND THE BUSINESS MAN, THE SEER AND THE NON-SEER,-- + AND IN HONOUR OF THEM I DEDICATE IT TO + TWO OF THEIR BRETHREN IN IRELAND: + + A. E., + WHOSE UNWAVERING LOYALTY TO THE FAIRY-FAITH + HAS INSPIRED MUCH THAT I HAVE HEREIN WRITTEN, + WHOSE FRIENDLY GUIDANCE IN MY STUDY OF IRISH MYSTICISM + I MOST GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGE; + + AND + + WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS, + WHO BROUGHT TO ME AT MY OWN ALMA MATER IN CALIFORNIA + THE FIRST MESSAGE FROM FAIRYLAND, + AND WHO AFTERWARDS IN HIS OWN COUNTRY + LED ME THROUGH THE HAUNTS OF FAIRY KINGS AND QUEENS. + + OXFORD + _November_ 1911. + + + + +'It remains for ever true that the proper study of mankind is man; and +even early man is not beneath contempt, especially when he proves to +have had within him the makings of a great race, with its highest +notions of duty and right, and all else that is noblest in the human +soul.' + +The Right Hon. SIR JOHN RHYS. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGES + + PREFACE xi-xiii + + INTRODUCTION xv-xxviii + + + SECTION I + + THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH + + CHAPTER I + + ENVIRONMENT 1-16 + + Psychical Interpretation--The Mysticism of Erin and + Armorica--In Ireland--In Scotland--In the Isle of Man--In + Wales--In Cornwall--In Brittany. + + CHAPTER II + + THE TAKING OF EVIDENCE 17-225 + + Method of Presentation--The Logical Verdict--Trustworthiness + of Legends--The Fairy-Faith held by the highly educated Celt + as well as by the Celtic Peasant--The Evidence is complete + and adequate--Its Analysis--The Fairy Tribes dealt with-- + Witnesses and their Testimony: from Ireland, with + Introduction by Dr. Douglas Hyde; from Scotland, with + Introduction by Dr. Alexander Carmichael; from the Isle of + Man, with Introduction by Miss Sophia Morrison; from Wales, + with Introduction by the Right Hon. Sir John Rhys; from + Cornwall, with Introduction by Mr. Henry Jenner; and from + Brittany, with Introduction by Professor Anatole Le Braz. + + CHAPTER III + + AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF THE EVIDENCE 226-82 + + The Celtic Fairy-Faith as Part of a World-wide Animism-- + Shaping Influence of Social Psychology--Smallness of Elvish + Spirits and Fairies, according to Ethnology, Animism, and + Occult Sciences--The Changeling, Belief and its Explanation + according to the Kidnap, Human-Sacrifice, Soul-Wandering, + and Demon-Possession Theory--Ancient and Modern Magic and + Witchcraft shown to be based on definite psychological + laws--Exorcisms--Taboos, of Name, Food, Iron, Place--Taboos + among Ancient Celts--Food-Sacrifice--Legend of the Dead-- + Conclusion: the Background of the Modern Belief in Fairies + is Animistic. + + + SECTION II + + THE RECORDED FAIRY-FAITH + + CHAPTER IV + + THE PEOPLE OF THE GODDESS DANA OR THE _SIDHE_ 283-307 + + The Goddess Dana and the Modern Cult of St. Brigit--The + Tuatha De Danann or _Sidhe_ conquered by the Sons of Mil-- + But Irish Seers still see the _Sidhe_--Old Irish Manuscripts + faithfully represent the Tuatha De Danann--The _Sidhe_ as a + Spirit Race--_Sidhe_ Palaces--The 'Taking' of Mortals--Hill + Visions of _Sidhe_ Women--_Sidhe_ Minstrels and Musicians-- + Social Organization and Warfare among the _Sidhe_--The + _Sidhe_ War-Goddesses, the _Badb_--The _Sidhe_ at the Battle + of Clontarf, A. D. 1014--Conclusion. + + CHAPTER V + + BRYTHONIC DIVINITIES AND THE BRYTHONIC FAIRY-FAITH 308-31 + + The God Arthur and the Hero Arthur--Sevenfold Evidence to + show Arthur as an Incarnate Fairy King--Lancelot the + Foster-son of a Fairy Woman--Galahad, the Offspring of + Lancelot and the Fairy Woman Elayne--Arthur as a Fairy King + in _Kulhwch and Olwen_--Gwynn ab Nudd--Arthur like Dagda, + and like Osiris--Brythonic Fairy Romances: their Evolution + and Antiquity--Arthur in Nennius, Geoffrey, Wace, and in + Layamon--Cambrensis' Otherworld Tale--Norman-French writers + of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries--_Romans d'Aventure_ + and _Romans Bretons_--Origins of the 'Matter of Britain'-- + Fairy Romance Episodes in Welsh Literature--Brythonic + Origins. + + CHAPTER VI + + THE CELTIC OTHERWORLD 332-57 + + General Ideas of the Otherworld; its Location; its + Subjectivity; its Names; its Extent; Tethra one of its + kings--The Silver Branch and the Golden Bough; and + Initiations--The Otherworld the Heaven-World of all + Religions--Voyage of Bran--Cormac in the Land of Promise-- + Magic Wands--Cuchulainn's Sick-Bed--Ossian's Return from + Fairyland--Lanval's going to Avalon--Voyage of Mael-Duin-- + Voyage of Teigue--Adventures of Art--Cuchulainn's and + Arthur's Otherworld Quests--Literary Evolution of idea of + Happy Otherworld. + + CHAPTER VII + + THE CELTIC DOCTRINE OF RE-BIRTH 358-96 + + Re-birth and Otherworld--As a Christian Doctrine--General + Historical Survey--According to the Barddas MSS.; according + to Ancient and Modern Authorities--Re-incarnation of the + Tuatha De Danann--King Mongan's Re-birth--Etain's Birth-- + Dermot's Pre-existence--Tuan's Re-birth--Re-birth among + Brythons--Arthur as a Re-incarnate Hero--Non-Celtic + Parallels--Re-birth among Modern Celts: in Ireland; in + Scotland; in the Isle of Man; in Wales; in Cornwall; in + Brittany--Origin and Evolution of Celtic Re-birth Doctrine. + + + SECTION III + + THE CULT OF GODS, SPIRITS, FAIRIES, AND THE DEAD + + CHAPTER VIII + + THE TESTIMONY OF ARCHAEOLOGY 397-426 + + Inadequacy of Pygmy Theory--According to the Theories + concerning Divine Images and Fetishes, Gods, Daemons, and + Ancestral Spirits haunt Megaliths--Megaliths are religious + and funereal, as shown chiefly by _Cenn Cruaich_, + Stonehenge, Guernsey menhirs, Monuments in Brittany, by the + Circular Fairy-Dance as an Ancient Initiatory Sun-Dance, by + Breton Earthworks, Archaeological Excavations generally, and + by present-day Worship at Indian Dolmens--New Grange and + Celtic Mysteries: Evidence of manuscripts; Evidence of + Tradition--The Aengus Cult--New Grange compared with Great + Pyramid: both have Astronomical Arrangement and same + Internal Plan--Why they open to the Sunrise--Initiations in + both--Great Pyramid as Model for Celtic Tumuli--Gavrinis and + New Grange as Spirit Temples. + + CHAPTER IX + + THE TESTIMONY OF PAGANISM 427-41 + + Edicts against Pagan Cults--Cult of Sacred Waters and its + Absorption by Christianity--Celtic Water Divinities--Druidic + Influence on Fairy-Faith--Cult of Sacred Trees--Cult of + Fairies, Spirits, and the Dead--Feasts of the Dead-- + Conclusion. + + CHAPTER X + + THE TESTIMONY OF CHRISTIANITY 442-55 + + Lough Derg a Sacred Lake originally--Purgatorial Rites as + Christianized Survivals of Ancient Celtic Rites--Purgatory + as Fairyland--Purgatorial Rites parallel to Pagan Initiation + Ceremonies--The Death and Resurrection Rite--Breton Pardons + compared--Relation to Aengus Cult and Celtic Cave-Temples-- + Origin of Purgatorial Doctrine pre-Christian--Celtic and + Roman Feasts of dead shaped Christian ones--Fundamental + Unity of Mythologies, Religions, and the Fairy-Faith. + + + SECTION IV + + MODERN SCIENCE AND THE FAIRY-FAITH; AND CONCLUSIONS + + CHAPTER XI + + SCIENCE AND FAIRIES 456-91 + + Method of Examination: Exoteric and Esoteric aspects--The + X-quantity--Scientific attitudes toward the Animistic + Hypothesis: Materialistic Theory; Pathological Theory; + Delusion and Imposture Theory; Problems of Consciousness: + Dreams; Supernormal Lapse of Time--Psychical Research and + Fairies: Myers's researches--Present Position of Psychical + Research--Psychical Research and Anthropology in Relation to + the Fairy-Faith, according to a special contribution from + Mr. Andrew Lang--Final Testing of the X-quantity--Conclusion: + the Celtic Belief in Fairies and in Fairyland is scientific. + + CHAPTER XII + + THE CELTIC DOCTRINE OF RE-BIRTH AND OTHERWORLD + SCIENTIFICALLY EXAMINED 492-515 + + The Extension of the Terms Fairy and Fairyland--The Real + Man as an Invisible Force acting through a Body-Conductor-- + A Psychical Organ essential for Memory--Pre-existence a + Scientific Necessity--The Vitalistic View of Evolution--Old + Theory of Heredity disproved--Embryology supports Re-birth + Doctrine--Psycho-physical Evolution--Memory of previous + Existences in Subconsciousness--Examples--Dream Psychology + furnishes clearest Illustrations--No Post-existence without + Pre-existence--Resurrection as Re-birth--The Circle of + Life--The Mystical Corollary--Conclusion: the Celtic + Doctrine of Re-birth and Otherworld is essentially + scientific. + + + INDEX 516-24 + + + + +PREFACE + + +During the years 1907-9 this study first took shape, being then based +mainly on literary sources; and during the latter year it was +successfully presented to the Faculty of Letters of the University of +Rennes, Brittany, for the Degree of _Docteur-es-Lettres_. Since then I +have re-investigated the whole problem of the Celtic belief in Fairies, +and have collected very much fresh material. Two years ago the scope of +my original research was limited to the four chief Celtic countries, but +now it includes all of the Celtic countries. + +In the present study, which has profited greatly by criticisms of the +first passed by scholars in Britain and in France, the original literary +point of view is combined with the broader point of view of +anthropology. This study, the final and more comprehensive form of my +views about the 'Fairy-Faith', would never have been possible had I not +enjoyed during many months the kindly advice and constant encouragement +of Mr. R. R. Marett, Reader in Social Anthropology in the University of +Oxford, and Fellow of Exeter College. + +During May 1910 the substance of this essay in its pan-Celtic form was +submitted to the Board of the Faculty of Natural Science of Oxford +University for the Research Degree of Bachelor of Science, which was +duly granted. But the present work contains considerable material not +contained in the essay presented to the Oxford examiners, the Right Hon. +Sir John Rhys and Mr. Andrew Lang; and, therefore, I alone assume +entire responsibility for all its possible shortcomings, and in +particular for some of its more speculative theories, which to some +minds may appear to be in conflict with orthodox views, whether of the +theologian or of the man of science. These theories, however venturesome +they may appear, are put forth in almost every case with the full +approval of some reliable, scholarly Celt; and as such they are chiefly +intended to make the exposition of the belief in fairies as completely +and as truly Celtic as possible, without much regard for non-Celtic +opinion, whether this be in harmony with Celtic opinion or not. + +As the new manuscript of the 'Fairy-Faith' lies before me revised and +finished, I realize even more fully than I did two years ago with +respect to the original study, how little right I have to call it mine. +Those to whom the credit for it really belongs are my many kind friends +and helpers in Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall, and +Brittany, and many others who are not Celts, in the three great +nations--happily so intimately united now by unbreakable bonds of +goodwill and international brotherhood--Britain, France, and the United +States of America; for without the aid of all these Celtic and +non-Celtic friends the work could never have been accomplished. They +have given me their best and rarest thoughts as so many golden threads; +I have only furnished the mental loom, and woven these golden threads +together in my own way according to what I take to be the psychological +pattern of the Fairy-Faith. + +I am under a special obligation to the following six distinguished +Celtic scholars who have contributed, for my second chapter, the six +introductions to the fairy-lore collected by me in their respective +countries:--Dr. Douglas Hyde (Ireland); Dr. Alexander Carmichael +(Scotland); Miss Sophia Morrison (Isle of Man); the Right Hon. Sir John +Rhys (Wales); Mr. Henry Jenner (Cornwall); Professor Anatole Le Braz +(Brittany). + +I am also greatly indebted to the Rev. J. Estlin Carpenter, Principal of +Manchester College, for having aided me with the parts of this book +touching Christian theology; to Mr. R. I. Best, M.R.I.A., Assistant +Librarian, National Library, Dublin, for having aided me with the parts +devoted to Irish mythology and literature; and to Mr. William McDougall, +Wilde Reader in Mental Philosophy in the University of Oxford, for a +similar service with respect to Section IV, entitled 'Science and +Fairies'. And to these and to all the other scholars whose names appear +in this preface, my heartiest thanks are due for the assistance which +they have so kindly rendered in reading different parts of the +_Fairy-Faith_ when in proof. + +With the deep spirit of reverence which a student feels towards his +preceptors, I acknowledge a still greater debt to those among my friends +and helpers who have been my Celtic guides and teachers. Here in Oxford +University I have run up a long account with the Right Hon. Sir John +Rhys, the Professor of Celtic, who has introduced me to the study of +Modern Irish, and of Arthurian romance and mythology, and has guided me +both during the year 1907-8 and ever since in Celtic folk-lore +generally. To Mr. Andrew Lang, I am likewise a debtor, more especially +in view of the important suggestions which he has given me during the +past two years with respect to anthropology and to psychical research. +In my relation to the Faculty of Letters of the University of Rennes, I +shall always remember the friendly individual assistance offered to me +there during the year 1908-9 by Professor Joseph Loth, then Dean in that +University, but now of the College of France, in Paris, particularly +with respect to Brythonic mythology, philology, and archaeology; by +Professor Georges Dottin, particularly with respect to Gaelic matters; +and by Professor Anatole Le Braz, whose continual good wishes towards my +work have been a constant source of inspiration since our first meeting +during March 1908, especially in my investigation of _La Legende de la +Mort_, and of the related traditions and living folk-beliefs in +Brittany--Brittany with its haunted ground of Carnac, home of the +ancient Brythonic Mysteries. + +W. Y. E. W. + + JESUS COLLEGE, OXFORD. + _All Saints' Day_, 1911. + + + + +'There, neither turmoil nor silence.... + +'Though fair the sight of Erin's plains, hardly will they seem so after +you have known the Great Plain.... + +'A wonder of a land the land of which I speak; no youth there grows to +old age.... + +'We behold and are not beheld.'--The God Midir, in _Tochmarc Etaine_. + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + 'I have told what I have seen, what I have thought, and what I have + learned by inquiry.'--HERODOTUS. + + +I. THE RELIGIOUS NATURE OF THE FAIRY-FAITH + +There is probably no other place in Celtic lands more congenial, or more +inspiring for the writing down of one's deeper intuitions about the +Fairy-Faith, than Carnac, under the shadow of the pagan tumulus and +mount of the sacred fire, now dedicated by triumphant Christianity to +the Archangel Michael. The very name of Carnac is significant;[1] and in +two continents, Africa and Europe--to follow the certain evidence of +archaeology alone[2]--there seem to have been no greater centres for +ancient religion than Karnak in Egypt and Carnac in Brittany. On the +banks of the Nile the Children of Isis and Osiris erected temples as +perfect as human art can make them; on the shores of the Morbihan the +mighty men who were, as it seems, the teachers of our own Celtic +forefathers, erected temples of unhewn stone. The wonderful temples in +Yucatan, the temple-caves of prehistoric India, Stonehenge in England, +the Parthenon, the Acropolis, St. Peter's at Rome, Westminster Abbey, or +Notre-Dame, and the Pyramids and temples of Egypt, equally with the +Alignements of Carnac, each in their own way record more or less +perfectly man's attempt to express materially what he feels spiritually. +Perfected art can beautify and make more attractive to the eye and mind, +but it cannot enhance in any degree the innate spiritual ideals which +men in all ages have held; and thus it is that we read amid the rough +stone menhirs and dolmens in Brittany, as amid the polished granite +monoliths and magnificent temples in Egypt, the same silent message from +the past to the present, from the dead to the living. This message, we +think, is fundamentally important in understanding the Celtic +Fairy-Faith; for in our opinion the belief in fairies has the same +origin as all religions and mythologies. + +And there seems never to have been an uncivilized tribe, a race, or +nation of civilized men who have not had some form of belief in an +unseen world, peopled by unseen beings. In religions, mythologies, and +the Fairy-Faith, too, we behold the attempts which have been made by +different peoples in different ages to explain in terms of human +experience this unseen world, its inhabitants, its laws, and man's +relation to it. The Ancients called its inhabitants gods, genii, +daemons, and shades; Christianity knows them as angels, saints, demons, +and souls of the dead; to uncivilized tribes they are gods, demons, and +spirits of ancestors; and the Celts think of them as gods, and as +fairies of many kinds. + + +II. THE INTERPRETATION OF THE FAIRY-FAITH + +By the Celtic Fairy-Faith we mean that specialized form of belief in a +spiritual realm inhabited by spiritual beings which has existed from +prehistoric times until now in Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Wales, +Cornwall, Brittany, or other parts of the ancient empire of the Celts. +In studying this belief, we are concerned directly with living Celtic +folk-traditions, and with past Celtic folk-traditions as recorded in +literature. And if fairies actually exist as invisible beings or +intelligences, and our investigations lead us to the tentative +hypothesis that they do, they are natural and not supernatural, for +nothing which exists can be supernatural; and, therefore, it is our duty +to examine the Celtic Fairy Races just as we examine any fact in the +visible realm wherein we now live, whether it be a fact of chemistry, +of physics, or of biology. However, as we proceed to make such an +examination, we shall have to remember constantly that there is a new +set of ideas to work with, entirely different from what we find in +natural sciences, and often no adequate vocabulary based on common human +experiences. An American who has travelled in Asia and an Englishman who +has travelled in Australia may meet in Paris and exchange travelling +experiences with mutual understanding, because both of them have +experienced travel; and they will have an adequate vocabulary to +describe each experience, because most men have also experienced travel. +But a saint who has known the spiritual condition called ecstasy cannot +explain ecstasy to a man who has never known it, and if he should try to +do so would discover at once that no modern language is suitable for the +purpose. His experience is rare and not universal, and men have +developed no complete vocabulary to describe experiences not common to +the majority of mankind, and this is especially true of psychical +experiences. It is the same in dealing with fairies, as these are +hypothetically conceived, for only a few men and women can assert that +they have seen fairies, and hence there is no adequate vocabulary to +describe fairies. Among the Ancients, who dealt so largely with +psychical sciences, there seems to have been a common language which +could be used to explain the invisible world and its inhabitants; but we +of this age have not yet developed such a language. Consequently, men +who deny human immortality, as well as men with religious faith who have +not through personal psychical experiences transformed that faith into a +fact, nowadays when they happen to read what Plato, Iamblichus, or any +of the Neo-Platonists have written, or even what moderns have written in +attempting to explain psychic facts, call it all mysticism. And to the +great majority of Europeans and Americans, mysticism is a most +convenient noun, applicable to anything which may seem reasonable yet +wholly untranslatable in terms of their own individual experience; and +mysticism usually means something quite the reverse of scientific +simply because we have by usage unwisely limited the meaning of the word +_science_ to a knowledge of things material and visible, whereas it +really means a knowing or a knowledge of everything which exists. We +have tried to deal with the rare psychical experiences of Irish, Scotch, +Manx, Welsh, or Breton seers, and psychics generally, in the clearest +language possible; but if now and then we are charged with being +mystical, this is our defence. + + +III. THE METHOD OF STUDYING THE FAIRY-FAITH + +In this study, which is first of all a folk-lore study, we pursue +principally an anthropo-psychological method of interpreting the Celtic +belief in fairies, though we do not hesitate now and then to call in the +aid of philology; and we make good use of the evidence offered by +mythologies, religions, metaphysics, and physical sciences. Folk-lore, a +century ago was considered beneath the serious consideration of +scholars; but there has come about a complete reversal of scholarly +opinion, for now it is seen that the beliefs of the people, their +legends, and their songs are the source of nearly all literatures, and +that their institutions and customs are the origin of those of modern +times. And, to-day, to the new science of folk-lore,--which, as Mr. +Andrew Lang says, must be taken to include psychical research or +psychical sciences,--archaeology, anthropology, and comparative +mythology and religion are indispensable. Thus folk-lore offers the +scientific means of studying man in the sense meant by the poet who +declared that the proper study of mankind is man. + + +IV. DIVISIONS OF THE STUDY + +This study is divided into four sections or parts. The first one deals +with the living Fairy-Faith among the Celts themselves; the second, with +the recorded and ancient Fairy-Faith as we find it in Celtic literature +and mythology; the third, with the Fairy-Faith in its religious aspects; +and in the fourth section an attempt has been made to suggest how the +theories of our newest science, psychical research, explain the belief +in fairies. + +I have set forth in the first section in detail and as clearly as +possible the testimony communicated to me by living Celts who either +believe in fairies, or else say that they have seen fairies; and +throughout other sections I have preferred to draw as much as possible +of the material from men and women rather than from books. Books too +often are written out of other books, and too seldom from the life of +man; and in a scientific study of the Fairy-Faith, such as we have +undertaken, the Celt himself is by far the best, in fact the only +authority. For us it is much less important to know what scholars think +of fairies than to know what the Celtic people think of fairies. This is +especially true in considering the Fairy-Faith as it exists now. + + +V. THE COLLECTING OF MATERIAL + +In June, 1908, after a year's preparatory work in things Celtic under +the direction of the Oxford Professor of Celtic, Sir John Rhys, I +began to travel in Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and Brittany, and to +collect material there at first hand from the people who have shaped and +who still keep alive the Fairy-Faith; and during the year 1909-10 fresh +folk-lore expeditions were made into Brittany, Ireland, and Wales, and +then, finally, the study of the Fairy-Faith was made pan-Celtic by +similar expeditions throughout the Isle of Man, and into Cornwall. Many +of the most remote parts of these lands were visited; and often there +was no other plan to adopt, or any method better, or more natural, than +to walk day after day from one straw-thatched cottage to another, living +on the simple wholesome food of the peasants. Sometimes there was the +picturesque mountain-road to climb, sometimes the route lay through +marshy peat-lands, or across a rolling grass-covered country; and with +each change of landscape came some new thought and some new impression +of the Celtic life, or perhaps some new description of a fairy. + +This immersion in the most striking natural and social environment of +the Celtic race, gave me an insight into the mind, the religion, the +mysticism, and the very heart of the Celt himself, such as no mere study +in libraries ever could do. I tried to see the world as he does; I +participated in his innermost thoughts about the great problem of life +and death, with which he of all peoples is most deeply concerned; and +thus he revealed to me the source of his highest ideals and +inspirations. I daily felt the deep and innate seriousness of his +ancestral nature; and, living as he lives, I tried in all ways to be +like him. I was particularly qualified for such an undertaking: partly +Celtic myself by blood and perhaps largely so by temperament, I found it +easy to sympathize with the Celt and with his environments. Further, +being by birth an American, I was in many places privileged to enter +where an Englishman, or a non-Celt of Europe would not be; and my +education under the free ideals of a new-world democracy always made it +possible for me to view economic, political, religious, and racial +questions in Celtic lands apart from the European point of view, and +without the European prejudices which are so numerous and so greatly to +be regretted. But without any doubt, during my sojourn, extending over +three years, among the Celts, these various environments shaped my +thoughts about fairies and Fairyland--as they ought to have done if +truth is ever to be reached by research. + +These experiences of mine lead me to believe that the natural aspects of +Celtic countries, much more than those of most non-Celtic countries, +impress man and awaken in him some unfamiliar part of himself--call it +the Subconscious Self, the Subliminal Self, the Ego, or what you +will--which gives him an unusual power to know and to feel invisible, or +psychical, influences. What is there, for example, in London, or Paris, +or Berlin, or New York to awaken the intuitive power of man, that +subconsciousness deep-hidden in him, equal to the solitude of those +magical environments of Nature which the Celts enjoy and love? + +In my travels, when the weather was too wild to venture out by day, or +when the more favourable hours of the night had arrived, with fires and +candles lit, or even during a road-side chat amid the day's journey, +there was gathered together little by little, from one country and +another, the mass of testimony which chapter ii contains. And with all +this my opinions began to take shape; for when I set out from Oxford in +June, I had no certain or clear ideas as to what fairies are, nor why +there should be belief in them. In less than a year afterwards I found +myself committed to the Psychological Theory, which I am herein setting +forth. + + +VI. THEORIES OF THE FAIRY-FAITH + +We make continual reference throughout our study to this Psychological +Theory of the Nature and Origin of the Celtic Fairy-Faith, and it is one +of our purposes to demonstrate that this is the root theory which +includes or absorbs the four theories already advanced to account for +the belief in fairies. To guide the reader in his own conclusions, we +shall here briefly outline these four theories. + +The first of them may be called the Naturalistic Theory, which is, that +in ancient and in modern times man's belief in gods, spirits, or fairies +has been the direct result of his attempts to explain or to rationalize +natural phenomena. Of this theory we accept as true that the belief in +fairies often anthropomorphically reflects the natural environment as +well as the social condition of the people who hold the belief. For +example, amid the beautiful low-lying green hills and gentle dells of +Connemara (Ireland), the 'good people' are just as beautiful, just as +gentle, and just as happy as their environment; while amid the +dark-rising mountains and in the mysterious cloud-shadowed lakes of the +Scotch Highlands there are fiercer kinds of fairies and terrible +water-kelpies, and in the Western Hebrides there is the much-dreaded +'spirit-host' moving through the air at night. + +The Naturalistic Theory shows accurately enough that natural phenomena +and environment have given direction to the anthropomorphosing of gods, +spirits, or fairies, but after explaining this external aspect of the +Fairy-Faith it cannot logically go any further. Or if illogically it +does attempt to explain the belief in gods, spirits, or fairies as due +entirely to material causes, it becomes, in our opinion, like the +psychology of fifty years ago, obsolete; for now the new psychology or +psychical research has been forced to admit--if only as a working +hypothesis--the possibility of invisible intelligences or entities able +to influence man and nature. We seem even to be approaching a scientific +proof of the doctrines of such ancient philosophical scientists as +Pythagoras and Plato,--that all external nature, animated throughout and +controlled in its phenomena by daemons acting by the will of gods, is to +men nothing more than the visible effects of an unseen world of causes. + +In the internal aspects of the Fairy-Faith the fundamental fact seems +clearly to be that there must have been in the minds of prehistoric men, +as there is now in the minds of modern men, a germ idea of a fairy for +environment to act upon and shape. Without an object to act upon, +environment can accomplish nothing. This is evident. The Naturalistic +Theory examines only the environment and its effects, and forgets +altogether the germ idea of a fairy to be acted upon; but the +Psychological Theory remembers and attempts to explain the germ idea of +a fairy and the effect of nature upon it. + +The second theory may be called the Pygmy Theory, which Mr. David +MacRitchie, who is definitely committed to it, has so clearly set forth +in his well-known work, entitled _The Testimony of Tradition_. This +theory is that the whole fairy-belief has grown up out of a folk-memory +of an actual Pygmy race. This race is supposed to have been a very +early, prehistoric, probably Mongolian race, which inhabited the British +Islands and many parts of Continental Europe. When the Celtic nations +appeared, these pygmies were driven into mountain fastnesses and into +the most inaccessible places, where a few of them may have survived +until comparatively historical times. + +Over against the champions of the Pygmy Theory may be set two of its +opponents, Dr. Bertram C. A. Windle and Mr. Andrew Lang.[3] Dr. Windle, +in his Introduction to Tyson's _Philological Essay concerning the +Pygmies of the Ancients_, makes these six most destructive criticisms or +points against the theory: (1) So far as our present knowledge teaches +us, there never was a really Pygmy race inhabiting the northern parts of +Scotland; (2) the mounds with which the tales of little people are +associated have not, in many cases, been habitations, but were natural +or sepulchral in their nature; (3) little people are not by any means +associated entirely with mounds; (4) the association of giants and +dwarfs in traditions confuses the theory; (5) there are fairies where no +pygmies ever were, as, for example, in North America; (6) even Eskimos +and Lapps have fairy beliefs, and could not have been the original +fairies of more modern fairy-lore. Altogether, as we think our study +will show, the evidence of the Fairy-Faith itself gives only a slender +and superficial support to the Pygmy Theory. We maintain that the +theory, so far as it is provable, and this is evidently not very far, is +only one strand, contributed by ethnology and social psychology, in the +complex fabric of the Fairy-Faith, and is, as such, woven round a +psychical central pattern--the fundamental pattern of the Fairy-Faith. +Therefore, from our point of view, the Pygmy Theory is altogether +inadequate, because it overlooks or misinterprets the most essential and +prominent elements in the belief which the Celtic peoples hold +concerning fairies and Fairyland. + +The Druid Theory to account for fairies is less widespread. It is that +the folk-memory of the Druids and their magical practices is alone +responsible for the Fairy-Faith. The first suggestion of this theory +seems to have been made by the Rev. Dr. Cririe, in his _Scottish +Scenery_, published in 1803.[4] Three years later, the Rev. Dr. Graham +published an identical hypothesis in his _Sketches Descriptive of +Picturesque Scenery on the Southern Confines of Perthshire_. Mr. +MacRitchie suggests, with all reason, that the two writers probably had +discussed together the theory, and hence both put it forth. Alfred +Maury, in _Les Fees du Moyen-Age_, published in 1843 at Paris, appears +to have made liberal use of Patrick Graham's suggestions in propounding +his theory that the _fees_ or fairy women of the Middle Ages are due to +a folk-memory of Druidesses. Maury seems to have forgotten that +throughout pagan Britain and Ireland, both much more important for the +study of fairies than Celtic Europe during the Middle Ages, Druids +rather than Druidesses had the chief influence on the people, and that +yet, despite this fact, Irish and Welsh mythology is full of stories +about fairy women coming from the Otherworld; nor is there any proof, or +even good ground for argument, that the Irish fairy women are a +folk-memory of Druidesses, for if there ever were Druidesses in Ireland +they played a subordinate and very insignificant role. As in the case of +the Pygmy Theory, we maintain that the Druid Theory, also, is +inadequate. It discovers a real anthropomorphic influence at work on the +outward aspects of the Fairy-Faith, and illogically takes that to be the +origin of the Fairy-Faith. + +The fourth theory, the Mythological Theory, is of very great importance. +It is that fairies are the diminished figures of the old pagan +divinities of the early Celts; and many modern authorities on Celtic +mythology and folk-lore hold it. To us the theory is acceptable so far +as it goes. But it is not adequate in itself nor is it the root theory, +because a belief in gods and goddesses must in turn be explained; and in +making this explanation we arrive at the Psychological Theory, which +this study--perhaps the first one of its kind--attempts to set forth. + + +VII. THE IMPORTANCE OF STUDYING THE FAIRY-FAITH + +I have made a very careful personal investigation of the surviving +Celtic Fairy-Faith by living for many months with and among the people +who preserve it; I have compared fairy phenomena and the phenomena said +to be caused by gods, genii, daemons, or spirits of different kinds and +recorded in the writings of ancient, mediaeval, and modern metaphysical +philosophers, Christian and pagan saints, mystics, and seers, and now +more or less clearly substantiated by from thirty to forty years of +experimentation in psychical sciences by eminent scientists of our own +times, such as Sir William Crookes and Sir Oliver Lodge in England, and +M. Camille Flammarion in France. As a result, I am convinced of the very +great value of a serious study of the Fairy-Faith. The Fairy-Faith as +the folk-religion of the Celts ought, like all religions, to be studied +sympathetically as well as scientifically. To those who take a +materialistic view of life, and consequently deny the existence of +spirits or invisible intelligences such as fairies are said to be, we +should say as my honoured American teacher in psychology, the late Dr. +William James, of Harvard, used to say in his lectures at Stanford +University, 'Materialism considered as a system of philosophy never tries +to explain the _Why_ of things.' But in our study of the Fairy-Faith we +shall attempt to deal with this _Why_ of things; and, then, perhaps the +value of studying fairies and Fairyland will be more apparent, even to +materialists. + +The great majority of men in cities are apt to pride themselves on their +own exemption from 'superstition', and to smile pityingly at the poor +countrymen and countrywomen who believe in fairies. But when they do so +they forget that, with all their own admirable progress in material +invention, with all the far-reaching data of their acquired science, +with all the vast extent of their commercial and economic conquests, +they themselves have ceased to be natural. Wherever under modern +conditions great multitudes of men and women are herded together there +is bound to be an unhealthy psychical atmosphere never found in the +country--an atmosphere which inevitably tends to develop in the average +man who is not psychically strong enough to resist it, lower at the +expense of higher forces or qualities, and thus to inhibit any normal +attempts of the Subliminal Self (a well-accredited psychological entity) +to manifest itself in consciousness. In this connexion it is highly +significant to note that, as far as can be determined, almost all +professed materialists of the uncritical type, and even most of those +who are thinking and philosophizing sceptics about the existence of a +supersensuous realm or state of conscious being, are or have been +city-dwellers--usually so by birth and breeding. And even where we find +materialists of either type dwelling in the country, we generally find +them so completely under the hypnotic sway of city influences and mould +of thought in matters of education and culture, and in matters touching +religion, that they have lost all sympathetic and responsive contact +with Nature, because unconsciously they have thus permitted +conventionality and unnaturalness to insulate them from it. The Celtic +peasant, who may be their tenant or neighbour, is--if still uncorrupted +by them--in direct contrast unconventional and natural. He is normally +always responsive to psychical influences--as much so as an Australian +Arunta or an American Red Man, who also, like him, are fortunate enough +to have escaped being corrupted by what we egotistically, to distinguish +ourselves from them, call 'civilization'. If our Celtic peasant has +psychical experiences, or if he sees an apparition which he calls one of +the 'good people', that is to say a fairy, it is useless to try to +persuade him that he is under a delusion: unlike his +materialistically-minded lord, he would not attempt nor even desire to +make himself believe that what he has seen he has not seen. Not only has +he the will to believe, but he has the right to believe; because his +belief is not a matter of being educated and reasoning logically, nor a +matter of faith and theology--it is a fact of his own individual +experiences, as he will tell you. Such peasant seers have frequently +argued with me to the effect that 'One does not have to be educated in +order to see fairies'. + +Unlike the natural mind of the uncorrupted Celt, Arunta, or American Red +Man, which is ever open to unusual psychical impressions, the mind of +the business man in our great cities tends to be obsessed with business +affairs both during his waking and during his dream states, the +politician's with politics similarly, the society-leader's with society; +and the unwholesome excitement felt by day in the city is apt to be +heightened at night through a satisfying of the feeling which it +morbidly creates for relaxation and change of stimuli. In the slums, +humanity is divorced from Nature under even worse conditions, and +becomes wholly decadent. But in slum and in palace alike there is +continually a feverish nerve-tension induced by unrest and worry; there +is impure and smoke-impregnated air, a lack of sunshine, a substitution +of artificial objects for natural objects, and in place of solitude the +eternal din of traffic. Instead of Nature, men in cities (and +paradoxically some conventionalized men in the country) have +'civilization'--and 'culture'. + +Are city-dwellers like these, Nature's unnatural children, who grind out +their lives in an unceasing struggle for wealth and power, social +position, and even for bread, fit to judge Nature's natural children who +believe in fairies? Are they right in not believing in an invisible +world which they cannot conceive, which, if it exists, they--even though +they be scientists--are through environment and temperament alike +incapable of knowing? Or is the country-dwelling, the sometimes +'unpractical' and 'unsuccessful', the dreaming, and 'uncivilized' +peasant right? These questions ought to arouse in the minds of +anthropologists very serious reflection, world-wide in its scope. + +At all events, and equally for the unbeliever and for the believer, the +study of the Fairy-Faith is of vast importance historically, +philosophically, religiously, and scientifically. In it lie the germs of +much of our European religions and philosophies, customs, and +institutions. And it is one of the chief keys to unlock the mysteries of +Celtic mythology. We believe that a greater age is coming soon, when all +the ancient mythologies will be carefully studied and interpreted, and +when the mythology of the Celts will be held in very high esteem. But +already an age has come when things purely Celtic have begun to be +studied; and the close observer can see the awakening genius of the +modern Celt manifesting itself in the realm of scholarship, of +literature, and even of art--throughout Continental Europe, especially +France and Germany, throughout Great Britain and Ireland, and throughout +the new Celtic world of America, as far west as San Francisco on the +great calm ocean of the future facing Japan and China. In truth the +Celtic empire is greater than it ever was before Caesar destroyed its +political unity; and its citizens have not forgotten the ancient faith +of their ancestors in a world invisible. + +W. Y. E. W. + + + + +SECTION I + +THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH + + + + +CHAPTER I + +ENVIRONMENT + + 'In the Beauty of the World lies the ultimate redemption of our + mortality. When we shall become at one with nature in a sense + profounder even than the poetic imaginings of most of us, we shall + understand what now we fail to discern.'--FIONA MACLEOD. + + Psychical interpretation--The mysticism of Erin and Armorica--In + Ireland--In Scotland--In the Isle of Man--In Wales--In Cornwall--In + Brittany. + + +As a preliminary to our study it is important, as we shall see later, to +give some attention to the influences and purely natural environment +under which the Fairy-Faith has grown up. And in doing so it will be +apparent to what extent there is truth in the Naturalistic Theory; +though from the first our interpretation of Environment is fundamentally +psychical. In this first chapter, then, in so far as they can be +recorded, we shall record a few impressions, which will, in a way, serve +as introductory to the more definite and detailed consideration of the +Fairy-Faith itself. + +Ireland and Brittany, the two extremes of the modern Celtic world, are +for us the most important points from which to take our initial +bearings. Both washed by the waters of the Ocean of Atlantis, the one an +island, the other a peninsula, they have best preserved their old racial +life in its simplicity and beauty, with its high ideals, its mystical +traditions, and its strong spirituality. And, curious though the +statement may appear to some, this preservation of older manners and +traditions does not seem to be due so much to geographical isolation as +to subtle forces so strange and mysterious that to know them they must +be felt; and their nature can only be suggested, for it cannot be +described. Over Erin and Armorica, as over Egypt, there hovers a halo +of romance, of strangeness, of mysticism real and positive; and, if we +mistake not the language of others, these phrases of ours but echo +opinions common to many Celts native of the two countries--they who have +the first right to testify; and not only are there poets and seers among +them, but men of the practical world as well, and men of high rank in +scholarship, in literature, in art, and even in science. + + +IN IRELAND + +If anyone would know Ireland and test these influences--influences which +have been so fundamental in giving to the Fairy-Faith of the past +something more than mere beauty of romance and attractive form, and +something which even to-day, as in the heroic ages, is ever-living and +ever-present in the centres where men of the second-sight say that they +see fairies in that strange state of subjectivity which the peasant +calls Fairyland--let him stand on the Hill of Tara silently and alone at +sunset, in the noonday, in the mist of a dark day. Let him likewise +silently and alone follow the course of the Boyne. Let him enter the +silence of New Grange and of Dowth. Let him muse over the hieroglyphics +of Lough Crew. Let him feel the mystic beauty of Killarney, the +peacefulness of Glendalough, of Monasterboise, of Clonmacnois, and the +isolation of Aranmore. Let him dare to enter the rings of fairies, to +tempt the 'good folk' at their _raths_ and _forts_. Let him rest on the +ancient cairn above the mountain-palace of Finvara and look out across +the battlefields of Moytura. Let him wander amid the fairy dells of +gentle Connemara. Let him behold the Irish Sea from the Heights of +Howth, as Fionn Mac Cumhail used to do. Let him listen to the +ocean-winds amid Dun Aengus. Let him view the stronghold of Cuchulainn +and the Red Branch Knights. Let him linger beside that mysterious lake +which lies embosomed between two prehistoric cairns on the summit of +enchanted Slieve Gullion, where yet dwells invisible the mountain's +Guardian, a fairy woman. Let him then try to interpret the mysticism of +an ancient Irish myth, in order to understand why men have been told +that in the plain beneath this magic mountain of Ireland mighty warfare +was once waged on account of a Bull, by the hosts of Queen Meave against +those of Cuchulainn the hero of Ulster. Let him be lost in the mists on +the top of Ben Bulbin. Let him know the haunts of fairy kings and queens +in Roscommon. Let him follow in the footsteps of Patrick and Bridgit and +Columba. When there are dark days and stormy nights, let him sit beside +a blazing fire of fragrant peat in a peasant's straw-thatched cottage +listening to tales of Ireland's golden age--tales of gods, of heroes, of +ghosts, and of fairy-folk. If he will do these things, he will know +Ireland, and why its people believe in fairies. + +As yet, little has been said concerning the effects of clouds, of +natural scenery, of weird and sudden transformations in earth and sky +and air, which play their part in shaping the complete Fairy-Faith of +the Irish; but what we are about to say concerning Scotland will suggest +the same things for Ireland, because the nature of the landscape and the +atmospheric changes are much the same in the two countries, both inland +and on their rock-bound and storm-swept shores. + + +IN SCOTLAND + +In the moorlands between Trossachs and Aberfoyle, a region made famous +by Scott's _Rob Roy_, I have seen atmospheric changes so sudden and so +contrasted as to appear marvellous. What shifting of vapours and clouds, +what flashes of bright sun-gleams, then twilight at midday! Across the +landscape, shadows of black dense fog-banks rush like shadows of flocks +of great birds which darken all the earth. Palpitating fog-banks wrap +themselves around the mountain-tops and then come down like living +things to move across the valleys, sometimes only a few yards above the +traveller's head. And in that country live terrible water-kelpies. When +black clouds discharge their watery burden it is in wind-driven vertical +water-sheets through which the world appears as through an ice-filmed +window-pane. Perhaps in a single day there may be the bluest of heavens +and the clearest air, the densest clouds and the darkest shadows, the +calm of the morning and the wind of the tempest. At night in Aberfoyle +after such a day, I witnessed a clear sunset and a fair evening sky; in +the morning when I arose, the lowlands along the river were inundated +and a thousand cascades, large and small, were leaping down the +mountain-highlands, and rain was falling in heavy masses. Within an hour +afterwards, as I travelled on towards Stirling, the rain and wind +ceased, and there settled down over all the land cloud-masses so +inky-black that they seemed like the fancies of some horrible dream. +Then like massed armies they began to move to their mountain-strongholds, +and stood there; while from the east came perfect weather and a flood of +brilliant sunshine. + +And in the Highlands from Stirling to Inverness what magic, what +changing colours and shadows there were on the age-worn treeless hills, +and in the valleys with their clear, pure streams receiving tribute from +unnumbered little rills and springs, some dropping water drop by drop as +though it were fairy-distilled; and everywhere the heather giving to the +mountain-landscape a hue of rich purplish-brown, and to the air an odour +of aromatic fragrance. + +On to the north-west beyond Inverness there is the same kind of a +treeless highland country; and then after a few hours of travel one +looks out across the water from Kyle and beholds Skye, where Cuchulainn +is by some believed to have passed his young manhood learning feats of +arms from fairy women,--Skye, dark, mountainous, majestic, with its +waterfalls turning to white spray as they tumble from cliff to cliff +into the sound, from out the clouds that hide their mountain-summit +sources. + +In the Outer Hebrides, as in the Aranmore Islands off West Ireland, +influences are at work on the Celtic imagination quite different from +those in Skye and its neighbouring islands. Mountainous billows which +have travelled from afar out of the mysterious watery waste find their +first impediment on the west of these isolated Hebridean isles, and they +fling themselves like mad things in full fury against the wild rocky +islets fringing the coast. White spray flashes in unearthly forms over +the highest cliff, and the unrestrained hurricane whirls it far inland. +Ocean's eternally murmuring sounds set up a responsive vibration in the +soul of the peasant, as he in solitude drives home his flocks amid the +weird gloaming at the end of a December day; and, later, when he sits +brooding in his humble cottage at night, in the fitful flickering of a +peat fire, he has a mystic consciousness that deep down in his being +there is a more divine music compared with which that of external nature +is but a symbol and an echo; and, as he stirs the glowing peat-embers, +phantoms from an irretrievable past seem to be sitting with him on the +edge of the half-circle of dying light. Maybe there are skin-clad +huntsmen of the sea and land, with spears and knives of bone and flint +and shaggy sleeping dogs, or fearless sea-rovers resting wearily on +shields of brilliant bronze, or maybe Celtic warriors fierce and bold; +and then he understands that his past and his present are one. + +Commonly there is the thickest day-darkness when the driving storms come +in from the Atlantic, or when dense fog covers sea and land; and, again, +there are melancholy sea-winds moaning across from shore to shore, +bending the bushes of the purple heather. At other times there is a +sparkle of the brightest sunshine on the ocean waves, a fierceness +foreign to the more peaceful Highlands; and then again a dead silence +prevails at sunrise and at sunset if one be on the mountains, or, if on +the shore, no sound is heard save the rhythmical beat of the waves, and +now and then the hoarse cry of a sea-bird. All these contrasted +conditions may be seen in one day, or each may endure for a day; and the +dark days last nearly all the winter. And then it is, during the long +winter, that the crofters and fisher-folk congregate night after night +in a different neighbour's house to tell about fairies and ghosts, and +to repeat all those old legends so dear to the heart of the Celt. +Perhaps every one present has heard the same story or legend a hundred +times, yet it is always listened to and told as though it were the +latest bulletin of some great world-stirring event. Over those little +islands, so far away to the north, out on the edge of the world, in +winter-time darkness settles down at four o'clock or even earlier; and +the islanders hurry through with their dinner of fish and oat-bread so +as not to miss hearing the first story. When the company has gathered +from far and near, pipes are re-filled and lit and the peat is heaped +up, for the story-telling is not likely to end before midnight. 'The +house is roomy and clean, if homely, with its bright peat fire in the +middle of the floor. There are many present--men and women, boys and +girls. All the women are seated, and most of the men. Girls are crouched +between the knees of fathers or brothers or friends, while boys are +perched wherever--boy-like--they can climb. The houseman is twisting +twigs of heather into ropes to hold down thatch, a neighbour crofter is +twining quicken root into cords to tie cows, while another is plaiting +bent grass into baskets to hold meal. The housewife is spinning, a +daughter is carding, another daughter is teazing, while a third +daughter, supposed to be working, is away in the background conversing +in low whispers with the son of a neighbouring crofter. Neighbour wives +and neighbour daughters are knitting, sewing, or embroidering.'[5] Then +when the bad weather for fishing has been fully discussed by the men, +and the latest gossip by the women, and the foolish talk of the youths +and maidens in the corners is finished, the one who occupies the chair +of honour in the midst of the _ceilidh_[6] looks around to be sure that +everybody is comfortable and ready; and, as his first story begins, even +the babes by instinct cease their noise and crying, and young and old +bend forward eagerly to hear every word. It does not matter if some of +the boys and girls do topple over asleep, or even some of the older folk +as the hour gets late; the tales meet no interruption in their even, +unbroken flow. And here we have the most Celtic and the most natural +environments which the Fairy-Faith enjoys in Scotland. + +There are still the Southern Highlands in the country around Oban, and +the islands near them; and of all these isles none is so picturesque in +history as the one Columba loved so well. Though Iona enjoys less of the +wildness of the Hebrides furthest west, it has their storm-winds and +fogs and dark days, and their strangeness of isolation. On it, as +Adamnan tells us, the holy man fought with black demons who came to +invade his monastery, and saw angelic hosts; and when the angels took +his soul at midnight in that little chapel by the sea-shore there was a +mystic light which illuminated all the altar like the brightest +sunshine. But nowadays, where the saint saw demons and angels the +Islanders see ghosts and 'good people', and when one of these islanders +is taken in death it is not by angels--it is by fairies. + + +IN THE ISLE OF MAN + +In the midst of the Irish Sea, almost equidistant from Ireland, +Scotland, and Wales, and concentrating in itself the psychical and +magnetic influences from these three Celtic lands, and from Celto-Saxon +England too, lies the beautiful kingdom of the great Tuatha De Danann +god, Manannan Mac Lir, or, as his loyal Manx subjects prefer to call +him, Mannanan-Beg-Mac-y-Leir. In no other land of the Celt does Nature +show so many moods and contrasts, such perfect repose at one time and at +another time the mightiness of its unloosed powers, when the baffled sea +throws itself angrily against a high rock-bound coast, as wild and +almost as weather-worn as the western coasts of Ireland and the +Hebrides. + +But it is Nature's calmer moods which have greater effect upon the Manx +people: on the summit of his ancient stronghold, South Barrule Mountain, +the god Manannan yet dwells invisible to mortal eyes, and whenever on a +warm day he throws off his magic mist-blanket with which he is wont to +cover the whole island, the golden gorse or purple heather blossoms +become musical with the hum of bees, and sway gently on breezes made +balmy by the tropical warmth of an ocean stream flowing from the far +distant Mexican shores of a New World. Then in many a moist and +sweet-smelling glen, pure and verdant, land-birds in rejoicing bands add +to the harmony of sound, as they gather on the newly-ploughed field or +dip themselves in the clear water of the tinkling brook; and from the +cliffs and rocky islets on the coast comes the echo of the multitudinous +chorus of sea-birds. At sunset, on such a day, as evening calmness +settles down, weird mountain shadows begin to move across the +dimly-lighted glens; and when darkness has fallen, there is a mystic +stillness, broken only by the ceaseless throbbing of the sea-waves, the +flow of brooks, and the voices of the night. + +In the moorland solitudes, even by day, there sometimes broods a deeper +silence, which is yet more potent and full of meaning for the peasant, +as under its spell he beholds the peaceful vision, happy and sunlit, of +sea and land, of gentle mountains falling away in land-waves into +well-tilled plains and fertile valleys; and he comes to feel +instinctively the old Druidic Fires relit within his heart, and perhaps +unconsciously he worships there in Nature's Temple. The natural beauty +without awakens the divine beauty within, and for a second of time he, +out of his subconsciousness, is conscious that in Nature there are +beings and inaudible voices which have no existence for the flippant +pleasure-seeking crowds who come and go. To the multitude, his ancestral +beliefs are foolishness, his fairies but the creatures of a fervid +Celtic imagination which readily responds to unusual phenomena and +environments. They will not believe with him that all beauty and harmony +in the world are but symbolic, and that behind these stand unseen +sustaining forces and powers which are conscious and eternal; and though +by instinct they willingly personify Nature they do not know the secret +of why they do so: for them the outer is reality, the inner +non-existent. + +From the Age of Stone to the civilized era of to-day, the Isle of Man +has been, in succession, the home of every known race and people who +have flourished in Western Europe; and though subject, in turn, to the +Irish Gael and to the Welsh Brython, to Northmen and to Danes, to Scots +and to English, and the scene of sweeping transformations in religion, +as pagan cults succeeded one another, to give way to the teaching of St. +Patrick and his disciples St. German and St. Maughold, and this finally +to the Protestant form of Christianity, the island alone of Celtic lands +has been strangely empowered to maintain in almost primitive purity its +ancient constitution and freedom, and though geographically at the very +centre of the United Kingdom, is not a part of it. The archaeologist may +still read in mysterious symbols of stone and earth, as they lie strewn +over the island's surface, the history of this age-long panoramic +procession of human evolution; while through these same symbols the Manx +seer reads a deeper meaning; and sometimes in the superhuman realm of +radiant light, to which since long ago they have oft come and oft +returned, he meets face to face the gods and heroes whose early tombs +stand solitary on the wind-swept mountain-top and moorland, or hidden +away in the embrace of wild flowers and verdure amid valleys; and in the +darker mid-world he sees innumerable ghosts of many of these races which +have perished. + + +IN WALES + +Less can be said of Wales than of Ireland, or of Scotland as a whole. It +has, it is true, its own peculiar psychic atmosphere, different, no +doubt, because its people are Brythonic Celts rather than Gaelic Celts. +But Wales, with conditions more modernized than is the case in Ireland +or in the Western Hebrides of Scotland, does not now exhibit in a +vigorous or flourishing state those Celtic influences which, when they +were active, did so much to create the precious Romances of Arthur and +his Brotherhood, and to lay the foundations for the Welsh belief in the +_Tylwyth Teg_, a fairy race still surviving in a few favoured +localities. + +Wales, like all Celtic countries, is a land of long sea-coasts, though +there seems to be, save in the mountains of the north, less of mist and +darkness and cloud effects than in Ireland and Scotland. In the south, +perhaps the most curious influences are to be felt at St. David's Head, +and in St. David's itself--once the goal for thousands of pilgrims from +many countries of mediaeval Europe, and, probably, in pagan times the +seat of an oracle. And a place of like character is the peninsula of +Gower, south of Swansea. Caerphilly Castle, where the Green Lady reigns +now amid its ruined acres, is a strange place; and so is the hill near +Carmarthen, where Merlin is asleep in a cave with the fairy-woman +Vivian. But in none of these places to-day is there a strong living +faith in fairies as there is, for example, in West Ireland. The one +region where I found a real Celtic atmosphere--and it is a region where +everybody speaks Welsh--is a mountainous country rarely visited by +travellers, save archaeologists, a few miles from Newport; and its +centre is the Pentre Evan Cromlech, the finest cromlech in Wales if not +in Britain. By this prehistoric monument and in the country round the +old Nevern Church, three miles away, there is an active belief in the +'fair-folk', in ghosts, in death-warnings, in death-candles and +phantom-funerals, and in witchcraft and black magic. Thence on to +Newcastle-Emlyn and its valley, where many of the Mabinogion stories +took form, or at least from where they drew rich material in the way of +folk-lore,[7] are environments purely Welsh and as yet little disturbed +by the commercial materialism of the age. + +There remain now to be mentioned three other places in Wales to me very +impressive psychically. These are: ancient Harlech, so famous in +recorded Welsh fairy-romance--Harlech with its strange stone-circles, +and old castle from which the Snowdon Range is seen to loom majestically +and clear, and with its sun-kissed bay; Mount Snowdon, with its memories +of Arthur and Welsh heroes; and sacred Anglesey or Mona, strewn with +tumuli, and dolmens, and pillar-stones--Mona, where the Druids made +their last stand against the Roman eagles--and its little island called +Holyhead, facing Ireland. + +However, when all is said, modern Wales is poorer in its fairy +atmosphere than modern Ireland or modern Brittany. Certainly there is a +good deal of this fairy atmosphere yet, though it has become less vital +than the similar fairy atmosphere in the great centres of Erin and +Armorica. But the purely social environment under which the Fairy-Faith +of Wales survives is a potent force which promises to preserve +underneath the surface of Welsh national life, where the commercialism +of the age has compelled it to retire in a state of temporary latency, +the ancestral idealism of the ancient Brythonic race. In Wales, as in +Lower Brittany and in parts of Ireland and the Hebrides, one may still +hear in common daily use a language which has been continuously spoken +since unknown centuries before the rise of the Roman empire. And the +strong hold which the Druidic _Eisteddfod_ (an annual national congress +of bards and literati) continues to have upon the Welsh people, in spite +of their commercialism, is, again, a sign that their hearts remain +uncorrupted, that when the more favourable hour strikes they will sweep +aside the deadening influences which now hold them in spiritual bondage, +and become, as they were in the past, true children of Arthur. + + +IN CORNWALL + +Strikingly like Brittany in physical aspects, Southern and Western +Cornwall is a land of the sea, of rolling plains and moorlands rather +than of high hills and mountains, a land of golden-yellow furze-bloom, +where noisy crowds of black crows and white sea-gulls mingle together +over the freshly-turned or new-sown fields, and where in the spring-time +the call of the cuckoo is heard with the song of the skylark. Like the +Isle of Man, from the earliest ages Cornwall has been a meeting-place +and a battle-ground for contending races. The primitive dark Iberian +peoples gave way before Aryan-Celtic invaders, and these to Roman and +then to Germanic invaders. + +Nature has been kind to the whole of Cornwall, but chiefly upon the +peninsula whose ancient capital is Penzance (which possibly means 'the +Holy Headland'), and upon the land immediately eastward and northward of +it, she has bestowed her rarest gifts. Holding this territory embosomed +in the pure waters of Ocean, and breathing over it the pure air of the +Atlantic in spring and in summer calm, when the warm vapours from the +Gulf Stream sweep over it freely, and make it a land of flowers and of +singing-birds, Nature preserves eternally its beauty and its sanctity. +There are there ruined British villages whose builders are long +forgotten, strange prehistoric circular sun-temples like fortresses +crowning the hill-tops, mysterious underground passage-ways, and crosses +probably pre-Christian. Everywhere are the records of the mighty past of +this thrice-holy Druid land of sunset. There are weird legends of the +lost kingdom of Fair Lyonesse, which seers sometimes see beneath the +clear salt waves, with all its ancient towns and flowery fields; legends +of Phoenicians and Oriental merchants who came for tin; legends of gods +and of giants, of pixies and of fairies, of King Arthur in his castle at +Tintagel, of angels and of saints, of witches and of wizards. + +On _Dinsul_, 'Hill dedicated to the Sun,' pagan priests and priestesses +kept kindled the Eternal Fire, and daily watched eastward for the rising +of the God of Light and Life, to greet his coming with paeans of +thanksgiving and praise. Then after the sixth century the new religion +had come proclaiming a more mystic Light of the World in the Son of God, +and to the pious half-pagan monks who succeeded the Druids the Archangel +St. Michael appeared in vision on the Sacred Mount.[8] And before St. +Augustine came to Britain the Celts of Cornwall had already combined in +their own mystical way the spiritual message of primitive Christianity +with the pure nature-worship of their ancestors; and their land was +then, as it most likely had been in pagan days, a centre of pilgrimages +for their Celtic kinsmen from Ireland, from Wales, from England, and +from Brittany. When in later times new theological doctrines were +superimposed on this mysticism of Celtic Christianity, the Sacred Fires +were buried in ashes, and the Light and Beauty of the pagan world +obscured with sackcloth. + +But there in that most southern and western corner of the Isle of +Britain, the Sacred Fires themselves still burn on the divine hill-tops, +though smothered in the hearts of its children. The Cornishman's vision +is no longer clear. He looks upon cromlech and dolmen, upon ancient +caves of initiation, and upon the graves of his prehistoric ancestors, +and vaguely feels, but does not know, why his land is so holy, is so +permeated by an indefinable magic; for he has lost his ancestral mystic +touch with the unseen--he is 'educated' and 'civilized'. The hand of the +conqueror has fallen more heavily upon the people of Cornwall than upon +any other Celtic people, and now for a time, but let us hope happily +only for this dark period of transition, they sleep--until Arthur comes +to break the spell and set them free. + + +IN BRITTANY + +As was pointed out at the beginning of this chapter, Ireland and +Brittany are to be regarded as the two poles of the modern Celtic world, +but it is believed by Celtic mystics that they are much more than this, +that they are two of its psychic centres, with Tara and Carnac as two +respective points of focus from which the Celtic influence of each +country radiates.[9] With such a psychical point of view, it makes no +difference at all whether one scholar argues Carnac to be Celtic and +another pre-Celtic, for if pre-Celtic, as it most likely is, it has +certainly been bequeathed to the people who were and are Celtic, and its +influence has been an unbroken thing from times altogether beyond the +horizon of history. According to this theory (and in following it we +are merely trying to put on record unique material transmitted to us by +the most learned of contemporary Celtic mystics and seers) there seem to +be certain favoured places on the earth where its magnetic and even more +subtle forces are most powerful and most easily felt by persons +susceptible to such things; and Carnac appears to be one of the greatest +of such places in Europe, and for this reason, as has been thought, was +probably selected by its ancient priest-builders as the great centre for +religious practices, for the celebration of pagan mysteries, for tribal +assemblies, for astronomical observations, and very likely for +establishing schools in which to educate neophytes for the priesthood. +Tara, with its tributary Boyne valley, is a similar place in Ireland, so +selected and so used, as, in our study of the cult of fairies and the +cult of the dead, manuscript evidence will later indicate. And thus to +such psychical and magnetic, or, according perhaps to others, religious +or traditional influences as focus themselves at Tara and Carnac, though +in other parts of the two countries as well, may be due in a great, even +in an essential measure, the vigorous and ever-living Fairy-Faith of +Ireland, and the innate and ever-conscious belief of the Breton people +in the Legend of the Dead and in a world invisible. For fairies and +souls of the dead, though, strictly speaking, not confused, are believed +to be beings of the subjective world existing to-day, and influencing +mortals, as they have always existed and influenced them according to +ancient and modern traditions, and as they appear now in the eyes even +of science through the work of a few pioneer scientists in psychical +research. And it seems probable that subjective beings of this kind, +granting their existence, were made use of by the ancient Druids, and +even by Patrick when the old and new religions met to do battle on the +Hill of Tara. The control of Tara, as a psychical centre, meant the +psychical control of all Ireland. To-day on the Hill of Tara the statue +of St. Patrick dwarfs the Liath Stone beside it; at Carnac the Christian +Cross overshadows dolmens and menhirs. + +A learned priest of the Roman Church told me, when I met him in Galway, +that in his opinion those places in Ireland where ancient sacrifices +were performed to pagan or Druid gods are still, unless they have been +regularly exorcized, under the control of demons (daemons). And what the +Druids were at Tara and throughout Erin and most probably at Carnac as +well, the priests were in Egypt, and the pythonesses in Greece. That is +to say, Druids, Egyptian priests, priestesses in charge of Greek +oracles, are said to have foretold the future, interpreted omens, worked +all miracles and wonders of magic by the aid of daemons, who were +regarded as an order of invisible beings, intermediary between gods and +men, and as sometimes including the shades from Hades. + +I should say as before, if he who knowing Ireland, the Land of Faerie, +would know in the same manner Brittany, the Land of the Dead, let him +silently and alone walk many times--in sun, in wind, in storm, in thick +mist--through the long, broad avenues of stone of the Alignements at +Carnac. Let him watch from among them the course of the sun from east to +west. Let him stand on St. Michael's Mount on the day of the winter +solstice, or on the day of the summer solstice. Let him enter the +silence of its ancient underground chamber, so dark and so mysterious. +Let him sit for hours musing amid cromlechs and dolmens, and beside +menhirs, and at holy wells. Let him marvel at the mightiest of menhirs +now broken and prostrate at Locmariaquer, and then let him ponder over +the subterranean places near it. Let him try to read the symbolic +inscriptions on the rocks in Gavrinis. Let him stand on the Ile de Sein +at sunrise and at sunset. Let him penetrate the solitudes of the Forest +of Broceliande, and walk through the Val-Sans-Retour (Vale-Without-Return). +And then let him wander in footpaths with the Breton peasant through +fields where good dames sit on the sunny side of a bush or wall, +knitting stockings, where there are long hedges of furze, golden-yellow +with bloom--even in January--and listen to stories about _corrigans_, +and about the dead who mingle here with the living. Let him enter the +peasant's cottage when there is fog over the land and the sea-winds are +blowing across the shifting sand-dunes, and hear what he can tell him. +Let him, even as he enjoys the picturesque customs and dress of the +Breton folk and looks on at their joyous _ronde_ (perhaps the relic of a +long-forgotten sun-dance), observe the depth of their nature, their +almost ever-present sense of the seriousness of human life and effort, +their beautiful characters as their mystic land has shaped them without +the artificiality of books and schools, their dreaminess as they look +out across the ocean, their often perfect physique and fine profiles and +rosy cheeks, and yet withal their brooding innate melancholy. And let +him know that there is with them always an overshadowing consciousness +of an invisible world, not in some distant realm of space, but here and +now, blending itself with this world; its inhabitants, their dead +ancestors and friends, mingling with them daily, and awaiting the hour +when the _Ankou_ (a King of the Dead) shall call each to join their +invisible company. + + + + +SECTION I + +THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE TAKING OF EVIDENCE + + 'During all these centuries the Celt has kept in his heart some + affinity with the mighty beings ruling in the Unseen, once so + evident to the heroic races who preceded him. His legends and faery + tales have connected his soul with the inner lives of air and water + and earth, and they in turn have kept his heart sweet with hidden + influence.'--A. E. + + Method of presentation--The logical verdict--Trustworthiness of + legends--The Fairy-Faith held by the highly educated Celt as well + as by the Celtic peasant--The evidence is complete and + adequate--Its analysis--The Fairy-Tribes dealt with--Witnesses and + their testimony: from Ireland, with introduction by Dr. Douglas + Hyde; from Scotland, with introduction by Dr. Alexander Carmichael; + from the Isle of Man, with introduction by Miss Sophia Morrison; + from Wales, with introduction by the Right Hon. Sir John Rhys; + from Cornwall, with introduction by Mr. Henry Jenner; and from + Brittany, with introduction by Professor Anatole Le Braz. + + +I. GENERAL INTRODUCTION + +Various possible plans have presented themselves for setting forth the +living Fairy-Faith as I have found it during my travels in the six +Celtic countries among the people who hold it. To take a bit here and a +bit there from a miscellaneous group of psychological experiences, fairy +legends and stories which are linked together almost inseparably in the +mind of the one who tells them, does not seem at all satisfactory, nor +even just, in trying to arrive at a correct result. Classification under +various headings, such, for example, as Fairy Abductions, Changelings, +or Appearances of Fairies, seems equally unsatisfactory; for as soon as +the details of folk-lore such as I am presenting are isolated from one +another--even though brought together in related groups--they must be +rudely torn out of their true and natural environment, and divorced from +the psychological atmosphere amidst which they were first presented by +the narrator. The same objection applies to any plan of dividing the +evidence into (1) that which is purely legendary; (2) that which is +second-hand or third-hand evidence from people who claim to have seen +fairies, or to have been in Fairyland or under fairy influences; and (3) +that which is first-hand evidence from actual percipients: these three +classes of evidence are so self-evident that every reader will be able +to distinguish each class for himself as it occurs, and a mechanical +classification by us is unnecessary. So no plan seems so good as the +plan I have adopted of permitting all witnesses to give their own +testimony in their own way and in its native setting, and then of +classifying and weighing such testimony according to the methods of +comparative religion and the anthropological sciences. + +In most cases, as examination will show, the evidence is so clear that +little or no comment is necessary. Most of the evidence also points so +much in one direction that the only verdict which seems reasonable is +that the Fairy-Faith belongs to a doctrine of souls; that is to say, +that Fairyland is a state or condition, realm or place, very much like, +if not the same as, that wherein civilized and uncivilized men alike +place the souls of the dead, in company with other invisible beings such +as gods, daemons, and all sorts of good and bad spirits. Not only do +both educated and uneducated Celtic seers so conceive Fairyland, but +they go much further, and say that Fairyland actually exists as an +invisible world within which the visible world is immersed like an +island in an unexplored ocean, and that it is peopled by more species of +living beings than this world, because incomparably more vast and varied +in its possibilities. + +We should be prepared in hearing the evidence to meet with some +contradictions and a good deal of confusion, for many of the people who +believe in such a strange world as we have just described, and who think +they sometimes have entered it or have seen some of its inhabitants, +have often had no training at all in schools or colleges. But when we +hear legendary tales which have never been recorded save in the minds +of unnumbered generations of men, we ought not on that account to +undervalue them; for often they are better authorities and more +trustworthy than many an ancient and carefully inscribed manuscript in +the British Museum; and they are probably far older than the oldest book +in the world. Let us, then, for a time, forget that there are such +things as libraries and universities, and betake ourselves to the Celtic +peasant for instruction, living close to nature as he lives, and +thinking the things which he thinks. + +But the peasant will not be our only teacher, for we shall also hear +much of first importance from city folk of the highest intellectual +training. It has become, perhaps always has been in modern times, a +widespread opinion, even among some scholars, that the belief in fairies +is the property solely of simple, uneducated country-folk, and that +people who have had 'a touch of education and a little common sense +knocked into their heads', to use the ordinary language, 'wouldn't be +caught believing in such nonsense.' This same class of critics used to +make similar remarks about people who said there were ghosts, until the +truth of another 'stupid superstition' was discovered by psychical +research. So in this chapter we hope to correct this erroneous opinion +about the Fairy-Faith, an opinion chiefly entertained by scholars and +others who know not the first real fact about fairies, because they have +never lived amongst the people who believe in fairies, but derive all +their information from books and hearsay. In due order the proper sort +of witnesses will substantiate this position, but before coming to their +testimony we may now say that there are men and women in Dublin, in +other parts of Ireland, in Scotland, in the Isle of Man, and in +Brythonic lands too, whom all the world knows as educated leaders in +their respective fields of activity, who not only declare their belief +that fairies were, but that fairies are; and some of these men and women +say that they have the power to see fairies as real spiritual beings. + +In the evidence about to be presented there has been no selecting in +favour of any one theory; it is presented as discovered. The only +liberty taken with some of the evidence has been to put it into better +grammatical form, and sometimes to recast an ambiguous statement when I, +as collector, had in my own mind no doubt as to its meaning. +Translations have been made as literal as possible; though sometimes it +has been found better to offer the meaning rather than what in English +would be an obscure colloquialism or idiomatic expression. The method +pursued in seeking the evidence has been to penetrate as deeply and in +as natural a way as possible the thoughts of the people who believe in +fairies and like beings, by living among them and observing their +customs and ways of thought, and recording what seemed relevant to the +subject under investigation--chance expressions, and legends told under +various ordinary conditions--rather than to collect long legends or +literary fairy-stories. For these last the reader is referred to the +many excellent works on Celtic folk-lore. We have sought to bring +together, as perhaps has not been done before, the philosophy of the +belief in fairies, rather than the mere fairy-lore itself, though the +two cannot be separated. In giving the evidence concerning fairies, we +sometimes give evidence which, though akin to it and thus worthy of +record, is not strictly fairy-lore. All that we have omitted from the +materials in the form first taken down are stories and accounts of +things not sufficiently related to the world of Faerie to be of value +here. + +In no case has testimony been admitted from a person who was known to be +unreliable, nor even from a person who was thought to be unreliable. +Accordingly, the evidence we are to examine ought to be considered good +evidence so far as it goes; and since it represents almost all known +elements of the Fairy-Faith and contains almost all the essential +elements upon which the advocates of the Naturalistic Theory, of the +Pygmy Theory, of the Druid Theory, of the Mythological Theory, as well +as of our own Psychological Theory, must base their arguments, we +consider it very adequate evidence. Nearly every witness is a Celt who +has been made acquainted with the belief in fairies through direct +contact with people who believe in them, or through having heard +fairy-traditions among his own kindred, or through personal +psychological experiences. And it is exceedingly fortunate for us that +an unusually large proportion of these Celtic witnesses are actual +percipients and natural seers, because the eliminations from the +Fairy-Faith to be brought about in chapter iii by means of an +anthropological analysis of evidence will be so extensive that, +scientifically and strictly speaking, there will remain as a residual or +unknown quantity, upon which our final conclusion must depend, solely +the testimony of reliable seer-witnesses. That is to say, no method of +anthropological dissection of the evidence can force aside consideration +of the ultimate truth which may or may not reside in the testimony of +sane and thoroughly reliable seer-witnesses. + +Old and young, educated and uneducated, peasant and city-bred, testify +to the actual existence of the Celtic Fairy-Faith; and the evidence from +Roman Catholics stands beside that from Protestants, the evidence of +priests supports that of scholars and scientists, peasant seers have +testified to the same kind of visions as highly educated seers; and what +poets have said agrees with what is told by business men, engineers, and +lawyers. But the best of witnesses, like ourselves, are only human, and +subject to the shortcomings of the ordinary man, and therefore no claim +can be made in any case to infallibility of evidence: all the world over +men interpret visions pragmatically and sociologically, or hold beliefs +in accord with their own personal experiences; and are for ever +unconsciously immersed in a sea of psychological influences which +sometimes may be explainable through the methods of sociological +inquiry, sometimes may be supernormal in origin and nature, and hence to +be explained most adequately, if at all, through psychical research. Our +study is a study of human nature itself, and, moreover, often of human +nature in its most subtle aspects, which are called psychical; and the +most difficult problem of all is for human nature to interpret and +understand its own ultimate essence and psychological instincts. Our +whole aim is to discover what reasonableness may or may not stand behind +a belief so vast, so ancient, so common (contrary to popular non-Celtic +opinion) to all classes of Celts, and so fundamental a shaping force in +European history, religion, and social institutions. + +When we state our conviction that the Fairy-Faith is common to all +classes of Celts, we do not state that it is common to all Celts. The +materialization of the age has affected the Fairy-Faith as it has +affected all religious beliefs the world over. This has been pointed out +by Dr. Hyde, by Dr. Carmichael, and by Mr. Jenner in their respective +introductions for Ireland, Scotland, and Cornwall. Nevertheless, the +Fairy-Faith as the folk-religion of the Celtic peoples is still able to +count its adherents by hundreds of thousands. Even in many cases where +Christian theology has been partially or wholly discarded by educated +Celts, in the country or in the city, as being to them in too many +details out of harmony with accepted scientific truths, the belief in +fairies has been jealously retained, and will, so it would seem, be +retained in the future. + +We are now prepared to hear about the _Daoine Maithe_, the 'Good +People', as the Irish call their _Sidhe_ race; about the 'People of +Peace', the 'Still-Folk' or the 'Silent Moving Folk', as the Scotch call +their _Sith_ who live in green knolls and in the mountain fastnesses of +the Highlands; about various Manx fairies; about the _Tylwyth Teg_, the +'Fair-Family' or 'Fair-Folk', as the Welsh people call their fairies; +about Cornish Pixies; and about _Fees_ (fairies), _Corrigans_, and the +Phantoms of the Dead in Brittany. And along with these, for they are +very much akin, let us hear about ghosts--sometimes about ghosts who +discover hidden treasure, as in our story of the _Golden Image_--about +goblins, about various sorts of death-warnings generally coming from +apparitions of the dead, or from banshees, about death-candles and +phantom-funerals, about leprechauns, about hosts of the air, and all +kinds of elementals and spirits--in short, about all the orders of +beings who mingle together in that invisible realm called Fairyland. + + +II. IN IRELAND + + Introduction by DOUGLAS HYDE, LL.D., D. Litt., M.R.I.A. (_An + Craoibhin Aoibhinn_), President of the Gaelic League; author of _A + Literary History of Ireland_, &c. + +Whatever may be thought of the conclusions drawn by Mr. Wentz from his +explorations into the Irish spirit-world, there can be no doubt as to +the accuracy of the data from which he draws them. I have myself been +for nearly a quarter of a century collecting, off and on, the folk-lore +of Western Ireland, not indeed in the shape in which Mr. Wentz has +collected it, but rather with an eye (partly for linguistic and literary +purposes) to its songs, sayings, ballads, proverbs, and _sgealta_, which +last are generally the equivalent of the German Maerchen, but sometimes +have a touch of the saga nature about them. In making a collection of +these things I have naturally come across a very large amount of +folk-belief conversationally expressed, with regard to the 'good people' +and other supernatural manifestations, so that I can bear witness to the +fidelity with which Mr. Wentz has done his work on Irish soil, for to a +great number of the beliefs which he records I have myself heard +parallels, sometimes I have heard near variants of the stories, +sometimes the identical stories. So we may, I think, unhesitatingly +accept his subject-matter, whatever, as I said, be the conclusions we +may deduce from them. + +The folk-tale (_sean-sgeal_) or Maerchen, which I have spent so much time +in collecting, must not be confounded with the folk-belief which forms +the basis of Mr. Wentz's studies. The _sgeal_ or story is something much +more intricate, complicated, and thought-out than the belief. One can +quite easily distinguish between the two. One (the belief) is short, +conversational, chiefly relating to real people, and contains no great +sequence of incidents, while the other (the folk-tale) is long, +complicated, more or less conventional, and above all has its interest +grouped around a single central figure, that of the hero or heroine. I +may make this plainer by an example. Let us go into a cottage on the +mountain-side, as Mr. Wentz and I have done so often, and ask the old +man of the house if he ever heard of such things as fairies, and he will +tell you that 'there is fairies in it surely. Didn't his own father see +the "forth"[10] beyond full of them, and he passing by of a moonlight +night and a little piper among them, and he playing music that mortal +man never heard the like?' or he'll tell you that 'he himself wouldn't +say agin fairies for it's often he heard their music at the old bush +behind the house'. Ask what the fairies are like, and he will tell +you--well, pretty much what Mr. Wentz tells us. From this and the like +accounts we form our ideas of fairies and fairy music, of ghosts, +mermaids, _pucas_, and so on, but there is no sequence of incidents, no +hero, no heroine, no story. + +Again, ask the old man if he knows e'er a _sean-sgeal_ (story or +Maerchen), and he will ask you at once, 'Did you ever hear the Speckled +Bull; did you ever hear the Well at the end of the world; did you ever +hear the Tailor and the Three Beasts; did you ever hear the Hornless +Cow?' Ask him to relate one of these, and if you get him in the right +vein, which may be perhaps one time in ten, or if you induce the right +vein, which you may do perhaps nine times out of ten, you will find him +begin with a certain gravity and solemnity at the very beginning, thus, +'There was once, in old times and in old times it was, a king in +Ireland'; or perhaps 'a man who married a second wife'; or perhaps 'a +widow woman with only one son': and the tale proceeds to recount the +life and adventures of the heroes or heroines, whose biographies told in +Irish in a sort of stereotyped form may take from ten minutes to half an +hour to get through. Some stories would burn out a dip candle in the +telling, or even last the whole night. But these stories have little or +nothing to say to the questions raised in this book. + +The problem we have to deal with is a startling one, as thus put before +us by Mr. Wentz. Are these beings of the spirit world real beings, +having a veritable existence of their own, in a world of their own, or +are they only the creation of the imagination of his informants, and +the tradition of bygone centuries? The newspaper, the 'National' School, +and the _Zeitgeist_ have answered to their own entire satisfaction that +these things are imagination pure and simple. Yet this off-hand +condemnation does not always carry with it a perfect conviction. We do +not doubt the existence of tree-martins or kingfishers, although nine +hundred and ninety-nine people out of every thousand pass their entire +lives without being vouchsafed a glimpse of them in their live state; +and may it not be the same with the creatures of the spirit world, may +not they also exist, though to only one in a thousand it be vouchsafed +to behold them? The spirit creatures cannot be stuffed and put into +museums, like rare animals and birds, whose existence we might doubt of +if we had not seen them there; yet they may exist just as such animals +and birds do, though we cannot see them. I, at least, have often been +tempted to think so. But the following considerations, partly drawn from +comparative folk-lore, have made me hesitate about definitely accepting +any theory. + +In the first place, then, viewing the Irish spirit-world as a whole, we +find that it contains, even on Mr. Wentz's showing, quite a number of +different orders of beings, of varying shapes, appearances, size, and +functions. Are we to believe that all those beings equally exist, and, +on the principle that there can be no smoke without a fire, are we to +hold that there would be no popular conception of the banshee, the +leprechaun, or the _Maighdean-mhara_ (sea-maiden, mermaid), and +consequently no tales told about them, if such beings did not exist, and +from time to time allow themselves to be seen like the wood-martin and +the kingfisher? This question is, moreover, further complicated by the +belief in the appearance of things that are or appear to be inanimate +objects, not living beings, such as the deaf coach or the phantom ship +in full sail, the appearance of which Mr. Yeats has immortalized in one +of his earliest and finest poems. + +Again, although the _bean-sidhe_ (banshee), leprechaun, _puca_, and the +like are the most commonly known and usually seen creatures of the +spirit world, yet great quantities of other appearances are believed to +have been also sporadically met with. I very well remember sitting one +night some four or five years ago in an hotel in Indianapolis, U.S.A., +and talking to four Irishmen, one or two of them very wealthy, and all +prosperous citizens of the United States. The talk happened to turn upon +spirits--the only time during my entire American experiences in which +such a thing happened--and each man of the four had a story of his own +to tell, in which he was a convinced believer, of ghostly manifestations +seen by him in Ireland. Two of these manifestations were of beings that +would fall into no known category; a monstrous rabbit as big as an ass, +which plunged into the sea (rabbits can swim), and a white heifer which +ascended to heaven, were two of them. I myself, when a boy of ten or +eleven, was perfectly convinced that on a fine early dewy morning in +summer when people were still in bed, I saw a strange horse run round a +seven-acre field of ours and change into a woman, who ran even swifter +than the horse, and after a couple of courses round the field +disappeared into our haggard. I am sure, whatever I may believe to-day, +no earthly persuasion would, at the time, have convinced me that I did +not see this. Yet I never saw it again, and never heard of any one else +seeing the same. + +My object in mentioning these things is to show that if we concede the +real objective existence of, let us say, the apparently +well-authenticated banshee (_Bean-sidhe_, 'woman-fairy'), where are we +to stop? for any number of beings, more or less well authenticated, come +crowding on her heels, so many indeed that they would point to a far +more extensive world of different shapes than is usually suspected, not +to speak of inanimate objects like the coach and the ship. Of course +there is nothing inherently impossible in all these shapes existing any +more than in one of them existing, but they all seem to me to rest upon +the same kind of testimony, stronger in the case of some, less strong in +the case of others, and it is as well to point out this clearly. + +My own experience is that beliefs in the _Sidhe_ (pronounced Shee) +folk, and in other denizens of the invisible world is, in many places, +rapidly dying. In reading folk-lore collections like those of Mr. Wentz +and others, one is naturally inclined to exaggerate the extent and depth +of these traditions. They certainly still exist, and can be found if you +go to search for them; but they often exist almost as it were by +sufferance, only in spots, and are ceasing to be any longer a power. +Near my home in a western county (County Roscommon) rises gently a +slope, which, owing to the flatness of the surrounding regions, almost +becomes a hill, and is a conspicuous object for many miles upon every +side. The old people called it in Irish _Mullach na Sidhe_. This name is +now practically lost, and it is called Fairymount. So extinct have the +traditions of the _Sidhe_-folk, who lived within the hill, become, that +a high ecclesiastic recently driving by asked his driver was there an +Irish name for the hill, and what was it, and his driver did not know. +There took place a few years ago a much talked of bog-slide in the +neighbouring townland of Cloon-Sheever (_Sidhbhair_ or _Siabhra_), 'the +Meadow of the Fairies,' and many newspaper correspondents came to view +it. One of the natives told a sympathetic newspaper reporter, 'Sure we +always knew it was going to move, that's why the place is named +Cloon-Sheever, the bog was always in a "shiver"!' I have never been able +to hear of any legends attached to what must have at one time been held +to be the head-quarters of the _Sidhe_ for a score of miles round it. + +Of all the beings in the Irish mythological world the _Sidhe_ are, +however, apparently the oldest and the most distinctive. Beside them in +literature and general renown all other beings sink into insignificance. +A belief in them formerly dominated the whole of Irish life. The _Sidhe_ +or Tuatha De Danann were a people like ourselves who inhabited the +hills--not as a rule the highest and most salient eminences, but I think +more usually the pleasant undulating slopes or gentle hill-sides--and +who lived there a life of their own, marrying or giving in marriage, +banqueting or making war, and leading there just as real a life as is +our own. All Irish literature, particularly perhaps the 'Colloquy of +the Ancients' (_Agallamh na Senorach_) abounds with reference to them. +To inquire how the Irish originally came by their belief in these +beings, the _Sidhe_ or Tuatha De Danann, is to raise a question which +cannot be answered, any more than one can answer the question, Where did +the Romans obtain their belief in Bacchus and the fauns, or the Greeks +their own belief in the beings of Olympus? + +But granting such belief to have been indigenous to the Irish, as it +certainly seems to have been, then the tall, handsome fairies of Ben +Bulbin and the Sligo district, about whom Mr. Wentz tells us so much +interesting matter, might be accounted for as being a continuation of +the tradition of the ancient Gaels, or _a piece of heredity inherent in +the folk-imagination_. I mean, in other words, that the tradition about +these handsome dwellers within the hill-sides having been handed down +for ages, and having been perhaps exceptionally well preserved in those +districts, people saw just what they had always been told existed, or, +if I may so put it, they saw what they expected to see. + +Fin Bheara, the King of the Connacht Fairies in Cnoc Meadha (or +Castlehacket) in the County Galway, his Queen Nuala, and all the +beautiful forms seen by Mr. Wentz's seer-witness (pp. 60 ff.), all the +banshees and all the human figures, white women, and so forth, who are +seen in raths and moats and on hill-sides, are the direct descendants, +so to speak, of the Tuatha De Danann or the _Sidhe_. Of this, I think, +there can be no doubt whatever. + +But then how are we to account for the little red-dressed men and women +and the leprechauns? Yet, are they any more wonderful than the pygmies +of classic tradition? Is not the Mermaid to be found in Greece, and is +not the Lorelei as Germanic as the Kelpy is Caledonian. If we grant that +all these are creatures of primitive folk-belief, then how they come to +be so ceases to be a Celtic problem, it becomes a world problem. But +granted, as I say, that they were all creatures of primitive +folk-belief, then their occasional appearances, or the belief in such, +may be accounted for in exactly the same way as I have suggested to be +possible in the case of the Ben Bulbin fairies. + +As for the belief in ghosts or _revenants_ (in Irish _tais_ or +_taidhbhse_), it seems to me that this may possibly rest to some extent +upon a different footing altogether. Here we are not confronted by a +different order of beings of different shapes and attributes from our +own, but only with the appearances, amongst the living, of men who were +believed or known to be dead or far away from the scene of their +appearances. Even those who may be most sceptical about the _Sidhe_-folk +and the leprechauns are likely to be convinced (on the mere evidence) +that the existence of 'astral bodies' or 'doubles', or whatever we may +call them, and the appearances of people, especially in the hour of +their death, to other people who were perhaps hundreds of miles away at +the time, is amply proven. Yet whatever may have been the case +originally when man was young, I do not think that this had in later +times any more direct bearing upon the belief in the _Sidhe_, the +leprechauns, the mermaid, and similar beings than upon the belief in the +Greek Pantheon, the naiads, the dryads, or the fauns; all of which +beliefs, probably arising originally from an animistic source, must have +differentiated themselves at a very early period. Of course every real +apparition, every 'ghost' apparition, tends now, and must have tended at +all times, to strengthen every spirit belief. For do not ghost +apparitions belong, in a way, to the same realm as all the others we +have spoken of, that is, to a realm equally outside our normal +experience? + +Another very interesting point, and one hitherto generally overlooked, +is this, that different parts of the Irish soil cherish different bodies +of supernatural beings. The North of Ireland believes in beings unknown +in the South, and North-East Leinster has spirits unknown to the West. +Some places seem to be almost given up to special beliefs. Any outsider, +for instance, who may have read that powerful and grisly book, _La +Legende de la Mort_, by M. Anatole Le Braz, in two large volumes, all +about the awful appearances of _Ankou_ (Death), who simply dominates the +folk-lore of Brittany, will probably be very much astonished to know +that, though I have been collecting Irish folk-lore all my life, I have +never met Death figuring as a personality in more than two or three +tales, and these mostly of a trivial or humorous description, though the +Deaf Coach (_Coiste Bodhar_), the belief in which is pretty general, +does seem a kind of parallel to the creaking cart in which _Ankou_ +rides. + +I would suggest, then, that the restriction of certain forms of spirits, +if I may so call them, to certain localities, may be due to race +intermixture. I would imagine that where the people of a primitive tribe +settled down most strongly, they also most strongly preserved the memory +of those supernatural beings who were peculiarly their own. The +_Sidhe_-folk appear to be pre-eminently and distinctively Milesian, but +the _geancanach_ (name of some little spirit in Meath and portion of +Ulster) may have been believed in by a race entirely different from that +which believed in the _cluracaun_ (a Munster sprite). Some of these +beliefs may be Aryan, but many are probably pre-Celtic. + +Is it not strange that while the names and exploits of the great +semi-mythological heroes of the various Saga cycles of Ireland, +Cuchulainn, Conor mac Nessa, Finn, Osgar, Oisin, and the rest, are at +present the inheritance of all Ireland, and are known in every part of +it, there should still be, as I have said, supernatural beings believed +in which are unknown outside of their own districts, and of which the +rest of Ireland has never heard? If the inhabitants of the limited +districts in which these are seen still think they see them, my +suggestion is that the earlier race handed down an account of the +primitive beings believed in by their own tribe, and later generations, +if they saw anything, saw just what they were told existed. + +Whilst far from questioning the actual existence of certain spiritual +forms and apparitions, I venture to throw out these considerations for +what they may be worth, and I desire again to thank Mr. Wentz for all +the valuable data he has collected for throwing light upon so +interesting a question. + + RATRA, FRENCHPARK, + COUNTY ROSCOMMON, IRELAND, + _September_ 1910. + + +THE FAIRY FOLK OF TARA + +On the ancient Hill of Tara, from whose heights the High Kings once +ruled all Ireland, from where the sacred fires in pagan days announced +the annual resurrection of the sun, the Easter Tide, where the magic of +Patrick prevailed over the magic of the Druids, and where the hosts of +the Tuatha De Danann were wont to appear at the great Feast of _Samain_, +to-day the fairy-folk of modern times hold undisputed sovereignty. And +from no point better than Tara, which thus was once the magical and +political centre of the Sacred Island, could we begin our study of the +Irish Fairy-Faith. Though the Hill has lain unploughed and deserted +since the curses of Christian priests fell upon it, on the calm air of +summer evenings, at the twilight hour, wondrous music still sounds over +its slopes, and at night long, weird processions of silent spirits march +round its grass-grown _raths_ and _forts_.[11] It is only men who fear +the curse of the Christians; the fairy-folk regard it not. + +The Rev. Father Peter Kenney, of Kilmessan, had directed me to John +Graham, an old man over seventy years of age, who has lived near Tara +most of his life; and after I had found John, and he had led me from +_rath_ to _rath_ and then right through the length of the site where +once stood the banquet hall of kings and heroes and Druids, as he +earnestly described the past glories of Tara to which these ancient +monuments bear silent testimony, we sat down in the thick sweet grass on +the Sacred Hill and began talking of the olden times in Ireland, and +then of the 'good people':-- + +_The 'Good People's' Music._--'As sure as you are sitting down I heard +the pipes there in that wood (pointing to a wood on the north-west +slope of the Hill, and west of the banquet hall). I heard the music +another time on a hot summer evening at the Rath of Ringlestown, in a +field where all the grass had been burned off; and I often heard it in +the wood of Tara. Whenever the _good people_ play, you hear their music +all through the field as plain as can be; and it is the grandest kind of +music. It may last half the night, but once day comes, it ends.' + +_Who the 'Good People' are._--I now asked John what sort of a race the +'good people' are, and where they came from, and this is his +reply:--'People killed and murdered in war stay on earth till their time +is up, and they are among the _good people_. The souls on this earth are +as thick as the grass (running his walking-stick through a thick clump), +and you can't see them; and evil spirits are just as thick, too, and +people don't know it. Because there are so many spirits knocking (going) +about they must appear to some people. The old folk saw the _good +people_ here on the Hill a hundred times, and they'd always be talking +about them. The _good people_ can see everything, and you dare not +meddle with them. They live in _raths_, and their houses are in them. +The opinion always was that they are a race of spirits, for they can go +into different forms, and can appear big as well as little.' + + +EVIDENCE FROM KILMESSAN, NEAR TARA + +John Boylin, born in County Meath about sixty years ago, will be our +witness from Kilmessan, a village about two miles from Tara; and he, +being one of the men of the vicinity best informed about its folk-lore, +is able to offer testimony of very great value:-- + +_The Fairy Tribes._--'There is said to be a whole tribe of little red +men living in Glen Odder, between Ringlestown and Tara; and on long +evenings in June they have been heard. There are other breeds or castes +of fairies; and it seems to me, when I recall our ancient traditions, +that some of these fairies are of the Fir Bolgs, some of the Tuatha De +Danann, and some of the Milesians. All of them have been seen +serenading round the western slope of Tara, dressed in ancient Irish +costumes. Unlike the little red men, these fairy races are warlike and +given to making invasions. Long processions of them have been seen going +round the King's Chair (an earthwork on which the Kings of Tara are said +to have been crowned); and they then would appear like soldiers of +ancient Ireland in review.' + +_The Fairy Procession._--'We were told as children, that, as soon as +night fell, the fairies from Rath Ringlestown would form in a +procession, across Tara road, pass round certain bushes which have not +been disturbed for ages, and join the _gangkena_ (?) or host of +industrious folk, the red fairies. We were afraid, and our nurses always +brought us home before the advent of the fairy procession. One of the +passes used by this procession happened to be between two mud-wall +houses; and it is said that a man went out of one of these houses at the +wrong time, for when found he was dead: the fairies had _taken_ him +because he interfered with their procession.'[12] + +_Death through Cutting Fairy-Bushes._--'A man named Caffney cut as fuel +to boil his pot of potatoes some of these undisturbed bushes round which +the fairies pass. When he put the wood under the pot, though it spat +fire, and fire-sparkles would come out of it, it would not burn. The man +pined away gradually. In six months after cutting the fairy-bushes, he +was dead. Just before he died, he told his experiences with the wood to +his brother, and his brother told me.' + +_The Fairies are the Dead._--'According to the local belief, fairies are +the spirits of the departed. Tradition says that Hugh O'Neil in the +sixteenth century, after his march to the south, encamped his army on +the _Rath_ or _Fort_ of Ringlestown, to be assisted by the spirits of +the mighty dead who dwelt within this _rath_. And it is believed that +Gerald Fitzgerald has been seen coming out of the Hill of Mollyellen, +down in County Louth, leading his horse and dressed in the old Irish +costume, with breastplate, spear, and war outfit.' + +_Fairy Possession._--'Rose Carroll was possessed by a fairy-spirit. It +is known that her father held communion with evil spirits, and it +appears that they often assisted him. The Carrolls' house was built at +the end of a fairy _fort_, and part of it was scooped out of this +_fort_. Rose grew so peculiar that her folks locked her up. After two +years she was able to shake off the fairy possession by being taken to +Father Robinson's sisters, and then to an old witch-woman in Drogheda.' + + +IN THE VALLEY OF THE BOYNE + +In walking along the River Boyne, from Slane to Knowth and New Grange, I +stopped at the cottage of Owen Morgan, at Ross-na-Righ, or 'the Wood of +the Kings', though the ancient wood has long since disappeared; and as +we sat looking out over the sunlit beauty of Ireland's classic river, +and in full view of the first of the famous _moats_, this is what Owen +Morgan told me:-- + +_How the Shoemaker's Daughter became the Queen of Tara._--'In olden +times there lived a shoemaker and his wife up there near Moat Knowth, +and their first child was taken by the queen of the fairies who lived +inside the moat, and a little leprechaun left in its place. The same +exchange was made when the second child was born. At the birth of the +third child the fairy queen came again and ordered one of her three +servants to take the child; but the child could not be moved because of +a great beam of iron, too heavy to lift, which lay across the baby's +breast. The second servant and then the third failed like the first, and +the queen herself could not move the child. The mother being short of +pins had used a needle to fasten the child's clothes, and that was what +appeared to the fairies as a beam of iron, for there was virtue in steel +in those days. + +'So the fairy queen decided to bestow gifts upon the child; and advised +each of the three servants to give, in turn, a different gift. The first +one said, "May she be the grandest lady in the world"; the second one +said, "May she be the greatest singer in the world"; and the third one +said, "May she be the best mantle-maker in the world." Then the fairy +queen said, "Your gifts are all very good, but I will give a gift of my +own better than any of them: the first time she happens to go out of the +house let her come back into it under the form of a rat." The mother +heard all that the fairy women said, and so she never permitted her +daughter to leave the house. + +'When the girl reached the age of eighteen, it happened that the young +prince of Tara, in riding by on a hunt, heard her singing, and so +entranced was he with the music that he stopped to listen; and, the song +ended, he entered the house, and upon seeing the wonderful beauty of the +singer asked her to marry him. The mother said that could not be, and +taking the daughter out of the house for the first time brought her back +into it in an apron under the form of a rat, that the prince might +understand the refusal. + +'This enchantment, however, did not change the prince's love for the +beautiful singer; and he explained how there was a day mentioned with +his father, the king, for all the great ladies of Ireland to assemble in +the Halls of Tara, and that the grandest lady and the greatest singer +and the best mantle-maker would be chosen as his wife. When he added +that each lady must come in a chariot, the rat spoke to him and said +that he must send to her home, on the day named, four piebald cats and a +pack of cards, and that she would make her appearance, provided that at +the time her chariot came to the Halls of Tara no one save the prince +should be allowed near it; and, she finally said to the prince, "Until +the day mentioned with your father, you must carry me as a rat in your +pocket." + +'But before the great day arrived, the rat had made everything known to +one of the fairy women, and so when the four piebald cats and the pack +of cards reached the girl's home, the fairies at once turned the cats +into the four most splendid horses in the world, and the pack of cards +into the most wonderful chariot in the world; and, as the chariot was +setting out from the Moat for Tara, the fairy queen clapped her hands +and laughed, and the enchantment over the girl was broken, so that she +became, as before, the prettiest lady in the world, and she sitting in +the chariot. + +'When the prince saw the wonderful chariot coming, he knew whose it was, +and went out alone to meet it; but he could not believe his eyes on +seeing the lady inside. And then she told him about the witches and +fairies, and explained everything. + +'Hundreds of ladies had come to the Halls of Tara from all Ireland, and +every one as grand as could be. The contest began with the singing, and +ended with the mantle-making, and the young girl was the last to appear; +but to the amazement of all the company the king had to give in (admit) +that the strange woman was the grandest lady, the greatest singer, and +the best mantle-maker in Ireland; and when the old king died she became +the Queen of Tara.' + +After this ancient legend, which Owen Morgan heard from the old folks +when he was a boy, he told me many anecdotes about the 'good people' of +the Boyne, who are little men usually dressed in red. + +_The 'Good People' at New Grange._--Between Knowth and New Grange I met +Maggie Timmons carrying a pail of butter-milk to her calves; and when we +stopped on the road to talk, I asked her, in due time, if any of the +'good people' ever appeared in the region, or about New Grange, which we +could see in the field, and she replied, in reference to New Grange:--'I +am sure the neighbours used to see the _good people_ come out of it at +night and in the morning. The _good people_ inherited the _fort_.' + +Then I asked her what the 'good people' are, and she said:--'When they +disappear they go like fog; they must be something like spirits, or how +could they disappear in that way? I knew of people,' she added, 'who +would milk in the fields about here and spill milk on the ground for the +_good people_; and pots of potatoes would be put out for the _good +people_ at night.' (See chap. viii for additional New Grange folk-lore.) + + +THE TESTIMONY OF AN IRISH PRIEST + +We now pass directly to West Ireland, in many ways our most important +field, and where of all places in the Celtic world the Fairy-Faith is +vigorously alive; and it seems very fitting to offer the first +opportunity to testify in behalf of that district to a scholarly priest +of the Roman Church, for what he tells us is almost wholly the result of +his own memories and experiences as an Irish boy in Connemara, +supplemented in a valuable way by his wider and more mature knowledge of +the fairy-belief as he sees it now among his own parishioners:-- + +_Knock Ma Fairies._--'Knock Ma, which you see over there, is said to +contain excavated passages and a palace where the fairies live, and with +them the people they have _taken_. And from the inside of the hill there +is believed to be an entrance to an underground world. It is a common +opinion that after consumptives die they are there with the fairies in +good health. The wasted body is not taken into the hill, for it is +usually regarded as not the body of the deceased but rather as that of a +changeling, the general belief being that the real body and the soul are +carried off together, and those of an old person from Fairyland +substituted. The old person left soon declines and dies.' + +_Safeguards against Fairies._--'It was proper when having finished +milking a cow to put one's thumb in the pail of milk, and with the wet +thumb to make the sign of the cross on the thigh of the cow on the side +milked, to be safe against fairies. And I have seen them when churning +put a live coal about an inch square under the churn, because it was an +old custom connected with fairies.' + +_Milk and Butter for Fairies._--'Whatever milk falls on the ground in +milking a cow is taken by the fairies, for fairies need a little milk. +Also, after churning, the knife which is run through the butter in +drying it must not be scraped clean, for what sticks to it belongs to +the fairies. Out of three pounds of butter, for example, an ounce or two +would be left for the fairies. I have seen this several times.' + +_Crossing a Stream, and Fairies._--'When out on a dark night, if pursued +by fairies or ghosts one is considered quite safe if one can get over +some stream. I remember coming home on a dark night with a boy companion +and hearing a noise, and then after we had run to a stream and crossed +it feeling quite safe.' + +_Fairy Preserves._--'A heap of stones in a field should not be +disturbed, though needed for building--especially if they are part of an +ancient tumulus. The fairies are said to live inside the pile, and to +move the stones would be most unfortunate. If a house happens to be +built on a fairy preserve, or in a fairy track, the occupants will have +no luck. Everything will go wrong. Their animals will die, their +children fall sick, and no end of trouble will come on them. When the +house happens to have been built in a fairy track, the doors on the +front and back, or the windows if they are in the line of the track, +cannot be kept closed at night, for the fairies must march through. Near +Ballinrobe there is an old _fort_ which is still the preserve of the +fairies, and the land round it. The soil is very fine, and yet no one +would dare to till it. Some time ago in laying out a new road the +engineers determined to run it through the _fort_, but the people rose +almost in rebellion, and the course had to be changed. The farmers +wouldn't cut down a tree or bush growing on the hill or preserve for +anything.' + +_Fairy Control over Crops._--'Fairies are believed to control crops and +their ripening. A field of turnips may promise well, and its owner will +count on so many tons to the acre, but if when the crop is gathered it +is found to be far short of the estimate, the explanation is that the +fairies have extracted so much substance from it. The same thing is the +case with corn.' + +_November Eve and Fairies._--'On November Eve it is not right to gather +or eat blackberries or sloes, nor after that time as long as they last. +On November Eve the fairies pass over all such things and make them +unfit to eat. If one dares to eat them afterwards one will have serious +illness. We firmly believed this as boys, and I laugh now when I think +how we used to gorge ourselves with berries on the last day of October, +and then for weeks after pass by bushes full of the most luscious fruit, +and with mouths watering for it couldn't eat it.' + +_Fairies as Flies._--'There is an old abbey on the river, in County +Mayo, and people say the fairies had a great battle near it, and that +the slaughter was tremendous. At the time, the fairies appeared as +swarms of flies coming from every direction to that spot. Some came from +Knock Ma, and some from South Ireland, the opinion being that fairies +can assume any form they like. The battle lasted a day and a night, and +when it was over one could have filled baskets with the dead flies which +floated down the river.' + +_Those who Return from Faerie._--'Persons in a short trance-state of two +or three days' duration are said to be away with the fairies enjoying a +festival. The festival may be very material in its nature, or it may be +purely spiritual. Sometimes one may thus go to Faerie for an hour or +two; or one may remain there for seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years. +The mind of a person coming out of Fairyland is usually a blank as to +what has been seen and done there. Another idea is that the person knows +well enough all about Fairyland, but is prevented from communicating the +knowledge. A certain woman of whom I knew said she had forgotten all +about her experiences in Faerie, but a friend who heard her objected, +and said she did remember, and wouldn't tell. A man may remain awake at +night to watch one who has been to Fairyland to see if that one holds +communication with the fairies. Others say in such a case that the +fairies know you are on the alert, and will not be discovered.' + + +THE TESTIMONY OF A GALWAY PIPER + +_Fairies=Sidheoga._--According to our next witness, Steven Ruan, a piper +of Galway, with whom I have often talked, there is one class of fairies +'who are nobody else than the spirits of men and women who once lived +on earth'; and the banshee is a dead friend, relative, or ancestor who +appears to give a warning. 'The fairies', he says, 'never care about old +folks. They only _take_ babies, and young men and young women. If a +young wife dies, she is said to have been _taken_ by _them_, and ever +afterwards to live in Fairyland. The same things are said about a young +man or a child who dies. Fairyland is a place of delights, where music, +and singing, and dancing, and feasting are continually enjoyed; and its +inhabitants are all about us, as numerous as the blades of grass.' + +_A Fairy Dog._--In the course of another conversation, Steven pointed to +a rocky knoll in a field not far from his home, and said:--'I saw a dog +with a white ring around his neck by that hill there, and the oldest men +round Galway have seen him, too, for he has been here for one hundred +years or more. He is a dog of the _good people_, and only appears at +certain hours of the night.' + +_An Old Piper in Fairyland._--And before we had done talking, the +subject of fairy-music came up, and the following little story coming +from one of the last of the old Irish pipers himself, about a brother +piper, is of more than ordinary value:--'There used to be an old piper +called Flannery who lived in Oranmore, County Galway. I imagine he was +one of the old generation. And one time the _good people_ took him to +Fairyland to learn his profession. He studied music with them for a long +time, and when he returned he was as great a piper as any in Ireland. +But he died young, for the _good people_ wanted him to play for them.' + + +THE TESTIMONY OF 'OLD PATSY' OF ARANMORE + +Our next witness is an old man, familiarly called 'Old Patsy', who is a +native of the Island of Aranmore, off the coast from Galway, and he +lives on the island amid a little group of straw-thatched fishermen's +homes called Oak Quarter. As 'Old Patsy' stood beside a rude stone cross +near Oak Quarter, in one of those curious places on Aranmore, where each +passing funeral stops long enough to erect a little memorial pile of +stones on the smooth rocky surface of the roadside enclosure, he told me +many anecdotes about the mysteries of his native island. + +_Aranmore Fairies._--Twenty years or so ago round the _Bedd_ of Dermot +and Grania, just above us on the hill, there were seen many fairies, +'crowds of them,' said 'Old Patsy', and a single deer. They began to +chase the deer, and followed it right over the island. At another time +similar little people chased a horse. 'The rocks were full of them, and +they were small fellows.' + +_A Fairy Beating--in a Dream._--'In the South Island,' he continued, 'as +night was coming on, a man was giving his cow water at a well, and, as +he looked on the other side of a wall, he saw many strange people +playing hurley. When they noticed him looking at them, one came up and +struck the cow a hard blow, and turning on the man cut his face and body +very badly. The man might not have been so badly off, but he returned to +the well after the first encounter and got five times as bad a beating; +and when he reached home he couldn't speak at all, until the cock crew. +Then he told about his adventures, and slept a little. When he woke up +in the daylight he was none the worse for his beating, for the fairies +had rubbed something on his face.' Patsy says he knew the man, who if +still alive is now in America, where he went several years ago. + +_Where Fairies Live._--When I asked Patsy where the fairies live, he +turned half around, and pointing in the direction of Dun Aengus, which +was in full view on the sharp sky-line of Aranmore, said that there, in +a large tumulus on the hill-side below it, they had one of their +favourite abodes. But, he added, 'The rocks are full of them, and they +are small fellows.' Just across the road from where we were standing, in +a spot near Oak Quarter, another place was pointed out where the fairies +are often seen dancing. The name of it is _Moneen an Damhsa_, 'the +Little Bog of the Dance.' Other sorts of fairies live in the sea; and +some of them who live on Aranmore (probably in conjunction with those in +the sea) go out over the water and cause storms and wind. + + +THE TESTIMONY OF A ROMAN CATHOLIC THEOLOGIAN + +The following evidence, by the Rev. Father ----, came out during a +discussion concerning spirits and fairies as regarded by Roman Catholic +theology, which he and I enjoyed when we met as fellow travellers in +Galway Town:-- + +_Of Magic and Place-spirits._--'Magic, according to Catholic theology, +is nothing else than the solicitation of spiritual powers to help us. If +evil spirits are evoked by certain irrational practices it is unholy +magic, and this is altogether forbidden by our Church. All charms, +spells, divination, necromancy, or geomancy are unholy magic. Holy magic +is practised by carrying the Cross in Christ. Now evil magic has been +practised here in Ireland: butter has been _taken_ so that none came +from the churning; cows have been made to die of maladies; and fields +made unproductive. A cow was bought from an old woman in Connemara, and +no butter was ever had from the cow until exorcism with holy water was +performed. This is reported to me as a fact.' And in another relation +the Rev. Father ---- said what for us is highly significant:--'My +private opinion is that in certain places here in Ireland where pagan +sacrifices were practised, evil spirits through receiving homage gained +control, and still hold control, unless driven out by exorcisms.' + + +THE TESTIMONY OF THE TOWN CLERK OF TUAM + +To the town clerk of Tuam, Mr. John Glynn, who since his boyhood has +taken a keen interest in the traditions of his native county, I am +indebted for the following valuable summary of the fairy creed in that +part of North Galway where Finvara rules:-- + +_Fairies of the Tuam Country._--'The whole of Knock Ma (_Cnoc +Meadha_[13]), which probably means Hill of the Plain, is said to be the +palace of Finvara, king of the Connaught fairies. There are a good many +legends about Finvara, but very few about Queen Meave in this region.' + +_Famine of 1846-7 caused by Fairies._--'During 1846-7 the potato crop in +Ireland was a failure, and very much suffering resulted. At the time, +the country people in these parts attributed the famine to disturbed +conditions in the fairy world. Old Thady Steed once told me about the +conditions then prevailing, "Sure, we couldn't be any other way; and I +saw the _good people_ and hundreds besides me saw them fighting in the +sky over Knock Ma and on towards Galway." And I heard others say they +saw the fighting also.' + +_Fairyland; and the Seeress._--'Fairies are said to be immortal, and the +fairy world is always described as an immaterial place, though I do not +think it is the same as the world of the dead. Sick persons, however, +are often said to be with the fairies, and when cured, to have come +back. A woman who died here about thirty years ago was commonly believed +to have been with the fairies during her seven years' sickness when she +was a maiden. She married after coming back, and had children; and she +was always able to see the _good people_ and to talk with them, for she +had the second-sight. And it is said that she used to travel with the +fairies at night. After her marriage she lived in Tuam, and though her +people were six or seven miles out from Tuam in the country, she could +always tell all that was taking place with them there, and she at her +own home at the time.' + +_Fairies on May Day._--'On May Day the _good people_ can steal butter if +the chance is given them. If a person enters a house then, and churning +is going on, he must take a hand in it, or else there will be no butter. +And if fire is given away on May Day nothing will go right for the whole +year.' + +_The Three Fairy Drops._--'Even yet certain things are due the fairies; +for example, two years ago, in the Court Room here in Tuam, a woman was +on trial for watering milk, and to the surprise of us all who were +conducting the proceedings, and, it can be added, to the great amusement +of the onlookers, she swore that she had only added "the three fairy +drops".' + +_Food of Fairies._--'Food, after it has been put out at night for the +fairies, is not allowed to be eaten afterwards by man or beast, not even +by pigs. Such food is said to have no real substance left in it, and to +let anything eat it wouldn't be thought of. The underlying idea seems to +be that the fairies extract the spiritual essence from food offered to +them, leaving behind the grosser elements.' + +_Fairy Warfare._--'When the fairy tribes under the various kings and +queens have a battle, one side manages to have a living man among them, +and he by knocking the fairies about turns the battle in case the side +he is on is losing. It is always usual for the Munster fairy king to +challenge Finvara, the Connaught fairy king.' + + +COUNTY SLIGO, AND THE TESTIMONY OF A PEASANT SEER[14] + +The Ben Bulbin country in County Sligo is one of those rare places in +Ireland where fairies are thought to be visible, and our first witness +from there claims to be able to see the fairies or 'gentry' and to talk +with them. This mortal so favoured lives in the same townland where his +fathers have lived during four hundred years, directly beneath the +shadows of Ben Bulbin, on whose sides Dermot is said to have been killed +while hunting the wild-boar. And this famous old mountain, honeycombed +with curious grottoes ages ago when the sea beat against its +perpendicular flanks, is the very place where the 'gentry' have their +chief abode. Even on its broad level summit, for it is a high square +tableland like a mighty cube of rock set down upon the earth by some +antediluvian god, there are treacherous holes, wherein more than one +hunter may have been lost for ever, penetrating to unknown depths; and +by listening one can hear the tides from the ocean three or four miles +away surging in and out through ancient subterranean channels, connected +with these holes. In the neighbouring mountains there are long caverns +which no man has dared to penetrate to the end, and even dogs, it is +said, have been put in them never to emerge, or else to come out miles +away. + +One day when the heavy white fog-banks hung over Ben Bulbin and its +neighbours, and there was a weird almost-twilight at midday over the +purple heather bog-lands at their base, and the rain was falling, I sat +with my friend before a comfortable fire of fragrant turf in his cottage +and heard about the 'gentry':-- + +_Encounters with the 'Gentry'._--'When I was a young man I often used to +go out in the mountains over there (pointing out of the window in their +direction) to fish for trout, or to hunt; and it was in January on a +cold, dry day while carrying my gun that I and a friend with me, as we +were walking around Ben Bulbin, saw one of the _gentry_ for the first +time. I knew who it was, for I had heard the _gentry_ described ever +since I could remember; and this one was dressed in blue with a +head-dress adorned with what seemed to be frills.[15] When he came up to +us, he said to me in a sweet and silvery voice, "The seldomer you come +to this mountain the better. A young lady here wants to take you away." +Then he told us not to fire off our guns, because the _gentry_ dislike +being disturbed by the noise. And he seemed to be like a soldier of the +_gentry_ on guard. As we were leaving the mountains, he told us not to +look back, and we didn't. Another time I was alone trout-fishing in +nearly the same region when I heard a voice say, "It is ---- barefooted +and fishing." Then there came a whistle like music and a noise like the +beating of a drum, and soon one of the _gentry_ came and talked with me +for half an hour. He said, "Your mother will die in eleven months, and +do not let her die unanointed." And she did die within eleven months. As +he was going away he warned me, "You must be in the house before sunset. +Do not delay! Do not delay! They can do nothing to you until I get back +in the castle." As I found out afterwards, he was going to _take_ me, +but hesitated because he did not want to leave my mother alone. After +these warnings I was always afraid to go to the mountains, but lately I +have been told I could go if I took a friend with me.' + +_'Gentry' Protection._--'The _gentry_ have always befriended and +protected me. I was drowned twice but for them. Once I was going to +Durnish Island, a mile off the coast. The channel is very deep, and at +the time there was a rough sea, with the tide running out, and I was +almost lost. I shrieked and shouted, and finally got safe to the +mainland. The day I talked with one of the _gentry_ at the foot of the +mountain when he was for _taking_ me, he mentioned this, and said they +were the ones who saved me from drowning then.' + +_'Gentry' Stations._--'Especially in Ireland, the _gentry_ live inside +the mountains in beautiful castles; and there are a good many branches +of them in other countries. Like armies, they have various stations and +move from one to another. Some live in the Wicklow Mountains near +Dublin.' + +_'Gentry' Control Over Human Affairs._--'The _gentry_ take a great +interest in the affairs of men, and they always stand for justice and +right. Any side they favour in our wars, that side wins. They favoured +the Boers, and the Boers did get their rights. They told me they +favoured the Japanese and not the Russians, because the Russians are +tyrants. Sometimes they fight among themselves. One of them once said, +"I'd fight for a friend, or I'd fight for Ireland."' + +_The 'Gentry' Described._--In response to my wish, this description of +the 'gentry' was given:--'The folk are the grandest I have ever seen. +They are far superior to us, and that is why they are called the +_gentry_. They are not a working class, but a military-aristocratic +class, tall and noble-appearing. They are a distinct race between our +own and that of spirits, as they have told me. Their qualifications are +tremendous. "We could cut off half the human race, but would not," they +said, "for we are expecting salvation." And I knew a man three or four +years ago whom they struck down with paralysis. Their sight is so +penetrating that I think they could see through the earth. They have a +silvery voice, quick and sweet. The music they play is most beautiful. +They _take_ the whole body and soul of young and intellectual people who +are interesting, transmuting the body to a body like their own. I asked +them once if they ever died, and they said, "No; we are always kept +young." Once they take you and you taste food in their palace you cannot +come back. You are changed to one of them, and live with them for ever. +They are able to appear in different forms. One once appeared to me, and +seemed only four feet high, and stoutly built. He said, "I am bigger +than I appear to you now. We can make the old young, the big small, the +small big." One of their women told all the secrets of my family. She +said that my brother in Australia would travel much and suffer +hardships, all of which came true; and foretold that my nephew, then +about two years old, would become a great clergyman in America, and that +is what he is now. Besides the _gentry_, who are a distinct class, there +are bad spirits and ghosts, which are nothing like them. My mother once +saw a leprechaun beside a bush hammering. He disappeared before she +could get to him, but he also was unlike one of the _gentry_.'[16] + + +EVIDENCE FROM GRANGE + +Our next witness, who lives about three miles from our last witness, is +Hugh Currid, the oldest man in Grange; and so old is he that now he does +little more than sit in the chimney-corner smoking, and, as he looks at +the red glow of the peat, dreaming of the olden times. Hugh knows +English very imperfectly, and so what he narrated was in the ancient +Gaelic which his fathers spoke. When Father Hines took me to Hugh's +cottage, Hugh was in his usual silent pose before the fire. At first he +rather resented having his thoughts disturbed, but in a few minutes he +was as talkative as could be, for there is nothing like the mention of +Ireland to get him started. The Father left us then; and with the help +of Hugh's sister as an interpreter I took down what he said:-- + +_The Flax-Seller's Return from Faerie._--'An old woman near Lough More, +where Father Patrick was drowned,[17] who used to make her living by +selling flax at the market, was _taken_ by the _gentry_, and often came +back afterwards to her three children to comb their hair. One time she +told a neighbour that the money she saved from her dealings in flax +would be found near a big rock on the lake-shore, which she indicated, +and that she wanted the three children to have it.' + +_A Wife Recovered from the 'Gentry'._--'A man's young wife died in +confinement while he was absent on some business at Ballingshaun, and +one of the _gentry_ came to him and said she had been _taken._ The +husband hurried home, and that night he sat with the body of his wife +all alone. He left the door open a little, and it wasn't long before his +wife's spirit came in and went to the cradle where her child was +sleeping. As she did so, the husband threw at her a charm of hen's dung +which he had ready, and this held her until he could call the +neighbours. And while they were coming, she went back into her body, and +lived a long time afterwards. The body was stiff and cold when the +husband arrived home, though it hadn't been washed or dressed.' + + +A TAILOR'S TESTIMONY + +Our next witness is Patrick Waters, by trade a tailor, living in +Cloontipruckilish, a cross-road hamlet less than two miles from Hugh +Currid's home. His first story is a parallel to one told about the +minister of Aberfoyle who was _taken_ by the 'good people' (pp. 89 +ff.):-- + +_The Lost Bride._--'A girl in this region died on her wedding-night +while dancing. Soon after her death she appeared to her husband, and +said to him, "I'm not dead at all, but I am put from you now for a time. +It may be a long time, or a short time, I cannot tell. I am not badly +off. If you want to get me back you must stand at the gap near the house +and catch me as I go by, for I live near there, and see you, and you do +not see me." He was anxious enough to get her back, and didn't waste any +time in getting to the gap. When he came to the place, a party of +strangers were just coming out, and his wife soon appeared as plain as +could be, but he couldn't stir a hand or foot to save her. Then there +was a scream and she was gone. The man firmly believed this, and would +not marry again.' + +_The Invisible Island._--'There is an enchanted island which is an +invisible island between Innishmurray and the mainland opposite. It is +only seen once in seven years. I saw it myself, and so did four or five +others with me. A boatman from Sligo named Carr took two strange men +with him towards Innishmurray, and they disappeared at the spot where +the island is, and he thought they had fallen overboard and been +drowned. Carr saw one of the same men in Connelly (County Donegal), some +six months or so after, and with great surprise said to him, "Will you +tell me the wonders of the world? Is it you I saw drowned near +Innishmurray?" "Yes," he said; and then asked, "Do you see me?" "Yes," +answered Carr. "But," said the man again, "you do not see me with both +eyes?" Then Carr closed one eye to be sure, and found that he saw him +with one eye only. And he told the man which one it was. At this +information the fairy man blew on Carr's face, and Carr never saw him +again.' + +_A Dream._--'My father dreamt he saw two armies coming in from the sea, +walking on the water. Reaching the strand, they lined up and commenced a +battle, and my father was in great terror. The fighting was long and +bloody, and when it was over every fighter vanished, the wounded and +dead as well as the survivors. The next morning an old woman who had the +reputation of talking with the fairies came in the house to my father, +who, though greatly disturbed over the dream, had told us nothing of it, +and asked him, "Have you anything to tell? I couldn't but laugh at you," +she added, and before my father could reply, continued, "Well, Jimmy, +you won't tell the news, so I will." And then she began to tell about +the battle. "Ketty!" exclaimed my father at this, "can it be true? And +who were the men beside me?" When Ketty told him, they turned out to be +some of his dead friends. She received her information from a drowned +man whom she met on the spot where the _gentry_ armies had come ashore; +and, in the place where they fought, the sand was all burnt red, as from +fire.' + +As the narrator reflected on this dream story, he remarked about dreams +generally:--'The reason our dreams appear different from what they are +is because while in them we can't touch the body and transform it. +People believe themselves to be with the dead in dreams.' + +During September 1909, when I had several fresh interviews with Patrick +Waters, I verified all of his 1908 testimony such as it appears above; +and among unimportant anecdotes I have omitted from the matter taken +down in 1908 one anecdote about our seer-witness from County Sligo, +because it proved to be capable of opposite interpretations. Patrick +Waters, however, like many of his neighbours, thoroughly supports Hugh +Currid's opinion that our seer-witness 'surely sees something, and it +must be the _gentry_'; and of Hugh Currid himself, Patrick Waters said, +'Hugh Currid did surely see the _gentry_; he saw them passing this way +like a blast of wind.' Patrick's fresh testimony now follows, the story +about Father Patrick and Father Dominick coming first:-- + +_Father Patrick and Father Dominick._--'Father Patrick Noan while +bathing in the harbour at Carns (about three miles north-west of Grange) +was drowned. His body was soon brought ashore, and his brother, Father +Dominick Noan, was sent for. When Father Dominick arrived, one of the +men who had collected around the body said to him, "Why don't you do +something for your brother Patrick?" "Why don't somebody ask me?" he +replied, "for I must be asked in the name of God." So Jimmy McGowan went +on his knees and asked for the honour of God that Father Dominick should +bring Father Patrick back to life; and, at this, Father Dominick took +out his breviary and began to read. After a time he whistled, and began +to read again. He whistled a second time, and returned to the reading. +Upon his whistling the third time, Father Patrick's spirit appeared in +the doorway. + +'"Where were you when I whistled the first time?" Father Dominick asked. +"I was at a hurling match with the _gentry_ on Mulloughmore strand." +"And where were you at the second whistle?" "I was coming over Corrick +Fadda; and when you whistled the third time I was here at the door." +Father Patrick's spirit had gone back into the body, and Father Patrick +lived round here as a priest for a long time afterwards. + +'There was no such thing as artificial respiration known hereabouts when +this happened some fifty or sixty years ago. I heard this story, which I +know is true, from many persons who saw Father Dominick restore his +brother to life.' + +_A Druid Enchantment._--After this strange psychical narrative, there +followed the most weird legend I have heard in Celtic lands about Druids +and magic. One afternoon Patrick Waters pointed out to me the field, +near the sea-coast opposite Innishmurray, in which the ancient menhir +containing the 'enchantment' used to stand; and, at another time, he +said that a bronze wand covered with curious marks (or else interlaced +designs) was found not far from the ruined dolmen and _allee couverte_ +on the farm of Patrick Bruan, about two miles southward. This last +statement, like the story itself, I have been unable to verify in any +way. + +'In times before Christ there were Druids here who enchanted one another +with Druid rods made of brass, and metamorphosed one another into stone +and lumps of oak. The question is, Where are the spirits of these Druids +now? Their spirits are wafted through the air, and the man or beast they +meet is smitten, while their own bodies are still under enchantment. I +had such a Druid enchantment in my hand; it wasn't stone, nor marble, +nor flint, and had human shape. It was found in the centre of a big rock +on Innis-na-Gore; and round this rock light used to appear at night. The +man who owned the stone decided to blast it up, and he found at its +centre the enchantment--just like a man, with head and legs and +arms.[18] Father Healy took the enchantment away, when he was here on a +visit, and said that it was a Druid enchanted, and that to get out of +the rock was one part of the releasement, and that there would be a +second and complete releasement of the Druid.' + +_The Fairy Tribes Classified._--Finally I asked Patrick to classify, as +far as he could, all the fairy tribes he had ever heard about, and he +said:--'The leprechaun is a red-capped fellow who stays round pure +springs, generally shoemaking for the rest of the fairy tribes. The +lunantishees are the tribes that guard the blackthorn trees or sloes; +they let you cut no stick on the eleventh of November (the original +November Day), or on the eleventh of May (the original May Day). If at +such a time you cut a blackthorn, some misfortune will come to you. +Pookas are black-featured fellows mounted on good horses; and are +horse-dealers. They visit racecourses, but usually are invisible. The +_gentry_ are the most noble tribe of all; and they are a big race who +came from the planets--according to my idea; they usually appear white. +The _Daoine Maithe_ (though there is some doubt, the same or almost the +same as the _gentry_) were next to Heaven at the Fall, but did not fall; +they are a people expecting salvation.' + + +BRIDGET O'CONNER'S TESTIMONY + +Our next witness is Bridget O'Conner, a near neighbour to Patrick +Waters, in Cloontipruckilish. When I approached her neat little cottage +she was cutting sweet-pea blossoms with a pair of scissors, and as I +stopped to tell her how pretty a garden she had, she searched out the +finest white bloom she could find and gave it to me. After we had talked +a little while about America and Ireland, she said I must come in and +rest a few minutes, and so I did; and it was not long before we were +talking about fairies:-- + +_The Irish Legend of the Dead._--'Old Peggy Gillin, dead these thirty +years, who lived a mile beyond Grange, used to cure people with a secret +herb shown to her by her brother, dead of a fairy-stroke. He was drowned +and _taken_ by the fairies, in the big drowning here during the herring +season. She would pull the herb herself and prepare it by mixing spring +water with it. Peggy could always talk with her dead relatives and +friends, and continually with her brother, and she would tell everybody +that they were with the fairies. Her daughter, Mary Short, who inherited +some of her mother's power, died here about three or four years ago. + +'I remember, too, about Mary Leonard and her daughter, Nancy Waters. +Both of them are dead now. The daughter was the first to die, as it +happened, and in child-birth. When she was gone, her mother used to wail +and cry in an awful manner; and one day the daughter appeared to her in +the garden, and said, "The more you wail for me, the more I am in +torment. Pray for me, but do not wail."' + +_A Midwife Story._--'A country nurse was requested by a strange man on +horseback to go with him to exercise her profession; and she went with +him to a castle she didn't know. When the baby was born, every woman in +the place where the event happened put her finger in a basin of water +and rubbed her eyes, and so the nurse put her finger in and rubbed it on +one of her eyes. She went home and thought no more about it. But one day +she was at the fair in Grange and saw some of the same women who were in +the castle when the baby was born; though, as she noticed, she only +could see them with the one eye she had wet with the water from the +basin. The nurse spoke to the women, and they wanted to know how she +recognized them; and she, in reply, said it was with the one eye, and +asked, "How is the baby?" "Well," said one of the fairy women; "and what +eye do you see us with?" "With the left eye," answered the nurse. Then +the fairy woman blew her breath against the nurse's left eye, and said, +"You'll never see me again." And the nurse was always blind in the left +eye after that.' + + +THE SPIRIT WORLD AT CARNS + +The Carns or Mount Temple country, about three miles from Grange, County +Sligo, has already been mentioned by witnesses as a 'gentry' haunt, and +so now we shall hear what one of its oldest and most intelligent native +inhabitants says of it. John McCann had been referred to, by Patrick +Waters, as one who knows much about the 'gentry' at first hand, and we +can be sure that what he offers us is thoroughly reliable evidence. For +many years, John McCann, born in 1830, by profession a carpenter and +boat-builder, has been official mail-carrier to Innishmurray; and he +knows quite as much about the strange little island and the mainland +opposite it as any man living. His neat little cottage is on the shore +of the bay opposite the beautiful fairy-haunted Darnish Island; and, as +we sat within it beside a brilliant peat fire, and surrounded by all the +family, this is what was told me:-- + +_A 'Gentry' Medium._--'Ketty Rourk (or Queenan) could tell all that +would happen--funerals, weddings, and so forth. Sure some spirits were +coming to her. She said they were the _gentry_; that the _gentry_ are +everywhere; and that my drowned uncles and grandfather and other dead +are among them. A drowned man named Pat Nicholson was her adviser. He +used to live just a mile from here; and she knew him before he was +drowned.' + +Here we have, clearly enough, a case of 'mediumship', or of +communication with the dead, as in modern Spiritualism. And the +following story, which like this last has numerous Irish parallels, +illustrates an ancient and world-wide animistic belief, that in +sickness--as in dreams--the soul goes out of the body as at death, and +meets the dead in their own fairy world. + +_The Clairvoyance of Mike Farrell._--'Mike Farrell, too, could tell all +about the _gentry_, as he lay sick a long time. And he told about Father +Brannan's youth, and even the house in Roscommon in which the Father was +born; and Father Brannan never said anything more against Mike after +that. Mike surely saw the _gentry_; and he was with them during his +illness for twelve months. He said they live in _forts_ and at Alt Darby +("the Big Rock"). After he got well, he went to America, at the time of +the famine.' + +_The 'Gentry' Army._--'The _gentry_ were believed to live up on this +hill (Hill of the Brocket Stones, _Cluach-a-brac_), and from it they +would come out like an army and march along the road to the strand. Very +few persons could see them. They were thought to be like living people, +but in different dress. They seemed like soldiers, yet it was known they +were not living beings such as we are.' + +_The Seership of Dan Quinn._--'On Connor's Island (about two miles +southward from Carns by the mainland) my uncle, Dan Quinn, often used to +see big crowds of the _gentry_ come into his house and play music and +dance. The house would be full of them, but they caused him no fear. +Once on such an occasion, one of them came up to him as he lay in bed, +and giving him a green leaf told him to put it in his mouth. When he did +this, instantly he could not see the _gentry_, but could still hear +their music. Uncle Dan always believed he recognized in some of the +_gentry_ his drowned friends. Only when he was alone would the _gentry_ +visit him. He was a silent old man, and so never talked much; but I know +that this story is as true as can be, and that the _gentry_ always took +an interest in him.' + + +UNDER THE SHADOW OF BEN BULBIN AND BEN WASKIN + +I was driving along the Ben Bulbin road, on the ocean side, with Michael +Oates, who was on his way from his mountain-side home to the lowlands to +cut hay; and as we looked up at the ancient mountain, so mysterious and +silent in the shadows and fog of a calm early morning of summer, he told +me about its invisible inhabitants:-- + +_The 'Gentry' Huntsmen._--'I knew a man who saw the _gentry_ hunting on +the other side of the mountain. He saw hounds and horsemen cross the +road and jump the hedge in front of him, and it was one o'clock at +night. The next day he passed the place again, and looked for the tracks +of the huntsmen, but saw not a trace of tracks at all.' + +_The 'Taking' of the Turf-Cutter._--After I had heard about two boys who +were drowned opposite Innishmurray, and who afterwards appeared as +apparitions, for the _gentry_ had them, this curious story was +related:--'A man was cutting turf out on the side of Ben Bulbin when a +strange man came to him and said, "You have cut enough turf for to-day. +You had better stop and go home." The turf-cutter looked around in +surprise, and in two seconds the strange man had disappeared; but he +decided to go home. And as soon as he was home, such a feeling came over +him that he could not tell whether he was alive or dead. Then he took to +his bed and never rose again.' + +_Hearing the 'Gentry' Music._--At this Michael said to his companion in +the cart with us, William Barber, 'You tell how you heard the music'; +and this followed:--'One dark night, about one o'clock, myself and +another young man were passing along the road up there round Ben Bulbin, +when we heard the finest kind of music. All sorts of music seemed to be +playing. We could see nothing at all, though we thought we heard voices +like children's. It was the music of the _gentry_ we heard.' + +My next friend to testify is Pat Ruddy, eighty years old, one of the +most intelligent and prosperous farmers living beside Ben Bulbin. He +greeted me in the true Irish way, but before we could come to talk about +fairies his good wife induced me to enter another room where she had +secretly prepared a great feast spread out on a fresh white cloth, while +Pat and myself had been exchanging opinions about America and Ireland. +When I returned to the kitchen the whole family were assembled round the +blazing turf fire, and Pat was soon talking about the 'gentry':-- + +_Seeing the 'Gentry' Army._--'Old people used to say the _gentry_ were +in the mountains; that is certain, but I never could be quite sure of it +myself. One night, however, near midnight, I did have a sight: I set out +from Bantrillick to come home, and near Ben Bulbin there was the +greatest army you ever saw, five or six thousand of them in armour +shining in the moonlight. A strange man rose out of the hedge and +stopped me, for a minute, in the middle of the road. He looked into my +face, and then let me go.' + +_An Ossianic Fragment._--'A man went away with the _good people_ (or +_gentry_), and returned to find the townland all in ruins. As he came +back riding on a horse of the _good people_, he saw some men in a quarry +trying to move a big stone. He helped them with it, but his saddle-girth +broke, and he fell to the ground. The horse ran away, and he was left +there, an old man'[19] (cf. pp. 346-7). + + +A SCHOOLMASTER'S TESTIMONY + +A schoolmaster, who is a native of the Ben Bulbin country, offers this +testimony:--'There is implicit belief here in the _gentry_, especially +among the old people. They consider them the spirits of their departed +relations and friends, who visit them in joy and in sorrow. On the death +of a member of a family, they believe the spirits of their near +relatives are present; they do not see them, but feel their presence. +They even have a strong belief that the spirits show them the future in +dreams; and say that cases of affliction are always foreshown in a +dream. + +'The belief in changelings is not now generally prevalent; but in olden +times a mother used to place a pair of iron tongs over the cradle before +leaving the child alone, in order that the fairies should not change the +child for a weakly one of their own. It was another custom to take a +wisp of straw, and, lighting one end of it, make a fiery sign of the +cross over a cradle before a babe could be placed in it.' + + +WITH THE IRISH MYSTICS IN THE _SIDHE_ WORLD + +Let us now turn to the Rosses Point country, which, as we have already +said, is one of the very famous places for seeing the 'gentry', or, as +educated Irish seers who make pilgrimages thither call them, the +_Sidhe_. I have been told by more than one such seer that there on the +hills and Greenlands (a great stretch of open country, treeless and +grass-grown), and on the strand at Lower Rosses Point--called Wren Point +by the country-folk--these beings can be seen and their wonderful music +heard; and a well-known Irish artist has shown me many drawings, and +paintings in oil, of these _Sidhe_ people as he has often beheld them at +those places and elsewhere in Ireland. They are described as a race of +majestic appearance and marvellous beauty, in form human, yet in nature +divine. The highest order of them seems to be a race of beings evolved +to a superhuman plane of existence, such as the ancients called gods; +and with this opinion, strange as it may seem in this age, all the +educated Irish seers with whom I have been privileged to talk agree, +though they go further, and say that these highest _Sidhe_ races still +inhabiting Ireland are the ever-young, immortal divine race known to the +ancient men of Erin as the Tuatha De Danann. + +Of all European lands I venture to say that Ireland is the most +mystical, and, in the eyes of true Irishmen, as much the Magic Island of +Gods and Initiates now as it was when the Sacred Fires flashed from its +purple, heather-covered mountain-tops and mysterious round towers, and +the Greater Mysteries drew to its hallowed shrines neophytes from the +West as well as from the East, from India and Egypt as well as from +Atlantis;[20] and Erin's mystic-seeing sons still watch and wait for the +relighting of the Fires and the restoration of the old Druidic +Mysteries. Herein I but imperfectly echo the mystic message Ireland's +seers gave me, a pilgrim to their Sacred Isle. And until this mystic +message is interpreted, men cannot discover the secret of Gaelic myth +and song in olden or in modern times, they cannot drink at the +ever-flowing fountain of Gaelic genius, the perennial source of +inspiration which lies behind the new revival of literature and art in +Ireland, nor understand the seeming reality of the fairy races. + + +AN IRISH MYSTIC'S TESTIMONY + +Through the kindness of an Irish mystic, who is a seer, I am enabled to +present here, in the form of a dialogue, very rare and very important +evidence, which will serve to illustrate and to confirm what has just +been said above about the mysticism of Ireland. To anthropologists this +evidence may be of more than ordinary value when they know that it +comes from one who is not only a cultured seer but who is also a man +conspicuously successful in the practical life of a great city:-- + +_Visions._-- + +Q.--Are all visions which you have had of the same character? + +A.--'I have always made a distinction between pictures seen in the +memory of nature and visions of actual beings now existing in the inner +world. We can make the same distinction in our world: I may close my +eyes and see you as a vivid picture in memory, or I may look at you with +my physical eyes and see your actual image. In seeing these beings of +which I speak, the physical eyes may be open or closed: mystical beings +in their own world and nature are never seen with the physical eyes.' + +_Otherworlds._-- + +Q.--By the inner world do you mean the Celtic Otherworld? + +A.--'Yes; though there are many Otherworlds. The _Tir-na-nog_ of the +ancient Irish, in which the races of the _Sidhe_ exist, may be described +as a radiant archetype of this world, though this definition does not at +all express its psychic nature. In _Tir-na-nog_ one sees nothing save +harmony and beautiful forms. There are other worlds in which we can see +horrible shapes.' + +_Classification of the 'Sidhe'._-- + +Q.--Do you in any way classify the _Sidhe_ races to which you refer? + +A.--'The beings whom I call the _Sidhe_, I divide, as I have seen them, +into two great classes: those which are shining, and those which are +opalescent and seem lit up by a light within themselves. The shining +beings appear to be lower in the hierarchies; the opalescent beings are +more rarely seen, and appear to hold the positions of great chiefs or +princes among the tribes of Dana.' + +_Conditions of Seership._-- + +Q.--Under what state or condition and where have you seen such beings? + +A.--'I have seen them most frequently after being away from a city or +town for a few days. The whole west coast of Ireland from Donegal to +Kerry seems charged with a magical power, and I find it easiest to see +while I am there. I have always found it comparatively easy to see +visions while at ancient monuments like New Grange and Dowth, because I +think such places are naturally charged with psychical forces, and were +for that reason made use of long ago as sacred places. I usually find it +possible to throw myself into the mood of seeing; but sometimes visions +have forced themselves upon me.' + +_The Shining Beings._-- + +Q.--Can you describe the shining beings? + +A.--'It is very difficult to give any intelligible description of them. +The first time I saw them with great vividness I was lying on a +hill-side alone in the west of Ireland, in County Sligo: I had been +listening to music in the air, and to what seemed to be the sound of +bells, and was trying to understand these aerial clashings in which wind +seemed to break upon wind in an ever-changing musical silvery sound. +Then the space before me grew luminous, and I began to see one beautiful +being after another.' + +_The Opalescent Beings._-- + +Q.--Can you describe one of the opalescent beings? + +A.--'The first of these I saw I remember very clearly, and the manner of +its appearance: there was at first a dazzle of light, and then I saw +that this came from the heart of a tall figure with a body apparently +shaped out of half-transparent or opalescent air, and throughout the +body ran a radiant, electrical fire, to which the heart seemed the +centre. Around the head of this being and through its waving luminous +hair, which was blown all about the body like living strands of gold, +there appeared flaming wing-like auras. From the being itself light +seemed to stream outwards in every direction; and the effect left on me +after the vision was one of extraordinary lightness, joyousness, or +ecstasy. + +'At about this same period of my life I saw many of these great beings, +and I then thought that I had visions of Aengus, Manannan, Lug, and +other famous kings or princes among the Tuatha De Danann; but since then +I have seen so many beings of a similar character that I now no longer +would attribute to any one of them personal identity with particular +beings of legend; though I believe that they correspond in a general way +to the Tuatha De Danann or ancient Irish gods.' + +_Stature of the 'Sidhe'._-- + +Q.--You speak of the opalescent beings as great beings; what stature do +you assign to them, and to the shining beings? + +A.--'The opalescent beings seem to be about fourteen feet in stature, +though I do not know why I attribute to them such definite height, since +I had nothing to compare them with; but I have always considered them as +much taller than our race. The shining beings seem to be about our own +stature or just a little taller. Peasant and other Irish seers do not +usually speak of the _Sidhe_ as being little, but as being tall: an old +schoolmaster in the West of Ireland described them to me from his own +visions as tall beautiful people, and he used some Gaelic words, which I +took as meaning that they were shining with every colour.' + +_The worlds of the 'Sidhe.'_-- + +Q.--Do the two orders of _Sidhe_ beings inhabit the same world? + +A.--'The shining beings belong to the mid-world; while the opalescent +beings belong to the heaven-world. There are three great worlds which we +can see while we are still in the body: the earth-world, mid-world, and +heaven-world.' + +_Nature of the 'Sidhe.'_-- + +Q.--Do you consider the life and state of these _Sidhe_ beings superior +to the life and state of men? + +A.--'I could never decide. One can say that they themselves are +certainly more beautiful than men are, and that their worlds seem more +beautiful than our world. + +'Among the shining orders there does not seem to be any individualized +life: thus if one of them raises his hands all raise their hands, and if +one drinks from a fire-fountain all do; they seem to move and to have +their real existence in a being higher than themselves, to which they +are a kind of body. Theirs is, I think, a collective life, so +unindividualized and so calm that I might have more varied thoughts in +five hours than they would have in five years; and yet one feels an +extraordinary purity and exaltation about their life. Beauty of form +with them has never been broken up by the passions which arise in the +developed egotism of human beings. A hive of bees has been described as +a single organism with disconnected cells; and some of these tribes of +shining beings seem to be little more than one being manifesting itself +in many beautiful forms. I speak this with reference to the shining +beings only: I think that among the opalescent or _Sidhe_ beings, in the +heaven-world, there is an even closer spiritual unity, but also a +greater individuality.' + +_Influence of the 'Sidhe' on Men._-- + +Q.--Do you consider any of these _Sidhe_ beings inimical to humanity? + +A.--'Certain kinds of the shining beings, whom I call wood beings, have +never affected me with any evil influences I could recognize. But the +water beings, also of the shining tribes, I always dread, because I felt +whenever I came into contact with them a great drowsiness of mind and, I +often thought, an actual drawing away of vitality.' + +_Water Beings Described._-- + +Q.--Can you describe one of these water beings? + +A.--'In the world under the waters--under a lake in the West of Ireland +in this case--I saw a blue and orange coloured king seated on a throne; +and there seemed to be some fountain of mystical fire rising from under +his throne, and he breathed this fire into himself as though it were his +life. As I looked, I saw groups of pale beings, almost grey in colour, +coming down one side of the throne by the fire-fountain. They placed +their head and lips near the heart of the elemental king, and, then, as +they touched him, they shot upwards, plumed and radiant, and passed on +the other side, as though they had received a new life from this chief +of their world.' + +_Wood Beings Described._-- + +Q.--Can you describe one of the wood beings? + +A.--'The wood beings I have seen most often are of a shining silvery +colour with a tinge of blue or pale violet, and with dark +purple-coloured hair.' + +_Reproduction and Immortality of the 'Sidhe'._-- + +Q.--Do you consider the races of the _Sidhe_ able to reproduce their +kind; and are they immortal? + +A.--'The higher kinds seem capable of breathing forth beings out of +themselves, but I do not understand how they do so. I have seen some of +them who contain elemental beings within themselves, and these they +could send out and receive back within themselves again. + +'The immortality ascribed to them by the ancient Irish is only a +relative immortality, their space of life being much greater than ours. +In time, however, I believe that they grow old and then pass into new +bodies just as men do, but whether by birth or by the growth of a new +body I cannot say, since I have no certain knowledge about this.' + +_Sex among the 'Sidhe'._-- + +Q.--Does sexual differentiation seem to prevail among the Sidhe races? + +A.--'I have seen forms both male and female, and forms which did not +suggest sex at all.' + +_'Sidhe' and Human Life._-- + +Q.--(1) Is it possible, as the ancient Irish thought, that certain of +the higher _Sidhe_ beings have entered or could enter our plane of life +by submitting to human birth? (2) On the other hand, do you consider it +possible for men in trance or at death to enter the _Sidhe_ world? + +A.--(1) 'I cannot say.' (2) 'Yes; both in trance and after death. I +think any one who thought much of the _Sidhe_ during his life and who +saw them frequently and brooded on them would likely go to their world +after death.' + +_Social Organization of the 'Sidhe'._-- + +Q.--You refer to chieftain-like or prince-like beings, and to a king +among water beings; is there therefore definite social organization +among the various _Sidhe_ orders and races, and if so, what is its +nature? + +A.--'I cannot say about a definite social organization. I have seen +beings who seemed to command others, and who were held in reverence. +This implies an organization, but whether it is instinctive like that of +a hive of bees, or consciously organized like human society, I cannot +say.' + +_Lower 'Sidhe' as Nature Elementals._-- + +Q.--You speak of the water-being king as an elemental king; do you +suggest thereby a resemblance between lower _Sidhe_ orders and what +mediaeval mystics called elementals? + +A.--'The lower orders of the _Sidhe_ are, I think, the nature elementals +of the mediaeval mystics.' + +_Nourishment of the Higher 'Sidhe'._-- + +Q.--The water beings as you have described them seem to be nourished and +kept alive by something akin to electrical fluids; do the higher orders +of the _Sidhe_ seem to be similarly nourished? + +A.--'They seemed to me to draw their life out of the Soul of the World.' + +_Collective Visions of 'Sidhe' Beings._-- + +Q.--Have you had visions of the various _Sidhe_ beings in company with +other persons? + +A.--'I have had such visions on several occasions.' + +And this statement has been confirmed to me by three participants in +such collective visions, who separately at different times have seen in +company with our witness the same vision at the same moment. On another +occasion, on the Greenlands at Rosses Point, County Sligo, the same +_Sidhe_ being was seen by our present witness and a friend with him, +also possessing the faculty of seership, at a time when the two +percipients were some little distance apart, and they hurried to each +other to describe the being, not knowing that the explanation was +mutually unnecessary. I have talked with both percipients so much, and +know them so intimately that I am fully able to state that as +percipients they fulfil all necessary pathological conditions required +by psychologists in order to make their evidence acceptable. + + +PARALLEL EVIDENCE AS TO THE _SIDHE_ RACES + +In general, the rare evidence above recorded from the Irish seer could +be paralleled by similar evidence from at least two other reliable Irish +people, with whom also I have been privileged to discuss the +Fairy-Faith. One is a member of the Royal Irish Academy, the other is +the wife of a well-known Irish historian; and both of them testify to +having likewise had collective visions of _Sidhe_ beings in Ireland. + +This is what Mr. William B. Yeats wrote to me, while this study was in +progress, concerning the Celtic Fairy Kingdom:--'I am certain that it +exists, and will some day be studied as it was studied by Kirk.'[21] + + +INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE FROM THE _SIDHE_ WORLD + +One of the most remarkable discoveries of our Celtic researches has been +that the native population of the Rosses Point country, or, as we have +called it, the _Sidhe_ world, in most essentials, and, what is most +important, by independent folk-testimony, substantiate the opinions and +statements of the educated Irish mystics to whom we have just referred, +as follows:-- + +_John Conway's Vision of the 'Gentry'._--In Upper Rosses Point, Mrs. J. +Conway told me this about the 'gentry':--'John Conway, my husband, who +was a pilot by profession, in watching for in-coming ships used to go +up on the high hill among the Fairy Hills; and there he often saw the +_gentry_ going down the hill to the strand. One night in particular he +recognized them as men and women of the _gentry_; and they were as big +as any living people. It was late at night about forty years ago.' + +_Ghosts and Fairies._--When first I introduced myself to Owen Conway, in +his bachelor quarters, a cosy cottage at Upper Rosses Point, he said +that Mr. W. B. Yeats and other men famous in Irish literature had +visited him to hear about the fairies, and that though he knew very +little about the fairies he nevertheless always likes to talk of them. +Then Owen began to tell me about a man's ghost which both he and Bran +Reggan had seen at different times on the road to Sligo, then about a +woman's ghost which he and other people had often seen near where we +were, and then about the exorcizing of a haunted house in Sligo some +sixty years ago by Father McGowan, who as a result died soon afterwards, +apparently having been killed by the exorcized spirits. Finally, I heard +from him the following anecdotes about the fairies:-- + +_A Stone Wall overthrown by 'Fairy' Agency._--'Nothing is more certain +than that there are fairies. The old folks always thought them the +fallen angels. At the back of this house the fairies had their pass. My +neighbour started to build a cow-shed, and one wall abutting on the pass +was thrown down twice, and nothing but the fairies ever did it. The +third time the wall was built it stood.' + +_Fairies passing through Stone Walls._--'Where MacEwen's house stands +was a noted fairy place. Men in building the house saw fairies on horses +coming across the spot, and the stone walls did not stop them at all.' + +_Seeing the 'Gentry'._--'A cousin of mine, who was a pilot, once went to +the watch-house up there on the Point to take his brother's place; and +he saw ladies coming towards him as he crossed the Greenlands. At first +he thought they were coming from a dance, but there was no dance going +then, and, if there had been, no human beings dressed like them and +moving as they were could have come from any part of the globe, and in +so great a party, at that hour of the night. Then when they passed him +and he saw how beautiful they were, he knew them for the _gentry_ +women.' + +'Michael Reddy (our next witness) saw the _gentry_ down on the +Greenlands in regimentals like an army, and in daylight. He was a young +man at the time, and had been sent out to see if any cattle were +astray.' + +And this is what Michael Reddy, of Rosses Point, now a sailor on the +ship _Tartar_, sailing from Sligo to neighbouring ports on the Irish +coast, asserts in confirmation of Owen Conway's statement about him:--'I +saw the _gentry_ on the strand (at Lower Rosses Point) about forty years +ago. It was afternoon. I first saw one of them like an officer pointing +at me what seemed a sword; and when I got on the Greenlands I saw a +great company of _gentry_, like soldiers, in red, laughing and shouting. +Their leader was a big man, and they were ordinary human size. As a +result [of this vision] I took to my bed and lay there for weeks. Upon +another occasion, late at night, I was with my mother milking cows, and +we heard the _gentry_ all round us talking, but could not see them.' + +_Going to the 'Gentry' through Death, Dreams, or Trance._--John +O'Conway, one of the most reliable citizens of Upper Rosses Point, +offers the following testimony concerning the 'gentry':--'In olden times +the _gentry_ were very numerous about _forts_ and here on the +Greenlands, but rarely seen. They appeared to be the same as any living +men. When people died it was said the _gentry_ took them, for they would +afterwards appear among the _gentry_.' + +'We had a ploughman of good habits who came in one day too late for his +morning's work, and he in excuse very seriously said, "May be if you had +travelled all night as much as I have you wouldn't talk. I was away with +the _gentry_, and save for a lady I couldn't have been back now. I saw a +long hall full of many people. Some of them I knew and some I did not +know. The lady saved me by telling me to eat no food there, however +enticing it might be."' + +'A young man at Drumcliffe was _taken_ [in a trance state], and was with +the _Daoine Maithe_ some time, and then got back. Another man, whom I +knew well, was haunted by the _gentry_ for a long time, and he often +went off with _them_' (apparently in a dream or trance state). + +_'Sidhe' Music._--The story which now follows substantiates the +testimony of cultured Irish seers that at Lower Rosses Point the music +of the _Sidhe_ can be heard:--'Three women were gathering shell-fish, in +the month of March, on the lowest point of the strand (Lower Rosses or +Wren Point) when they heard the most beautiful music. They set to work +to dance with it, and danced themselves sick. They then thanked the +invisible musician and went home.' + + +THE TESTIMONY OF A COLLEGE PROFESSOR + +Our next witness is the Rev. Father ----, a professor in a Catholic +college in West Ireland, and most of his statements are based on events +which happened among his own acquaintances and relatives, and his +deductions are the result of careful investigation:-- + +_Apparitions from Fairyland._--'Some twenty to thirty years ago, on the +borders of County Roscommon near County Sligo, according to the firm +belief of one of my own relatives, a sister of his was _taken_ by the +fairies on her wedding-night, and she appeared to her mother afterwards +as an apparition. She seemed to want to speak, but her mother, who was +in bed at the time, was thoroughly frightened, and turned her face to +the wall. The mother is convinced that she saw this apparition of her +daughter, and my relative thinks she might have saved her. + +'This same relative who gives it as his opinion that his sister was +_taken_ by the fairies, at a different time saw the apparition of +another relative of mine who also, according to similar belief, had been +_taken_ by the fairies when only five years old. The child-apparition +appeared beside its living sister one day while the sister was going +from the yard into the house, and it followed her in. It is said the +child was _taken_ because she was such a good girl.' + +_Nature of the Belief in Fairies._--'As children we were always afraid +of fairies, and were taught to say "God bless _them_! God bless _them_!" +whenever we heard them mentioned. + +'In our family we always made it a point to have clean water in the +house at night for the fairies. + +'If anything like dirty water was thrown out of doors after dark it was +necessary to say "_Hugga, hugga salach!_" as a warning to the fairies +not to get their clothes wet. + +'Untasted food, like milk, used to be left on the table at night for the +fairies. If you were eating and food fell from you, it was not right to +take it back, for the fairies wanted it. Many families are very serious +about this even now. The luckiest thing to do in such cases is to pick +up the food and eat just a speck of it and then throw the rest away to +the fairies. + +'Ghosts and apparitions are commonly said to live in isolated +thorn-bushes, or thorn-trees. Many lonely bushes of this kind have their +ghosts. For example, there is Fanny's Bush, Sally's Bush, and another I +know of in County Sligo near Boyle.' + +_Personal Opinions._--'The fairies of any one race are the people of the +preceding race--the Fomors for the Fir Bolgs, the Fir Bolgs for the +Dananns, and the Dananns for us. The old races died. Where did they go? +They became spirits--and fairies. Second-sight gave our race power to +see the inner world. When Christianity came to Ireland the people had no +_definite_ heaven. Before, their ideas about the other world were vague. +But the older ideas of a spirit world remained side by side with the +Christian ones, and being preserved in a subconscious way gave rise to +the fairy world.' + + +EVIDENCE FROM COUNTY ROSCOMMON + +Our next place for investigation will be the ancient province of the +great fairy-queen Meave, who made herself famous by leading against +Cuchulainn the united armies of four of the five provinces of Ireland, +and all on account of a bull which she coveted. And there could be no +better part of it to visit than Roscommon, which Dr. Douglas Hyde has +made popular in Irish folk-lore. + +_Dr. Hyde and the Leprechaun._--One day while I was privileged to be at +Ratra, Dr. Hyde invited me to walk with him in the country. After we had +visited an old _fort_ which belongs to the 'good people', and had +noticed some other of their haunts in that part of Queen Meave's realm, +we entered a straw-thatched cottage on the roadside and found the good +house-wife and her fine-looking daughter both at home. In response to +Dr. Hyde's inquiries, the mother stated that one day, in her girlhood, +near a hedge from which she was gathering wild berries, she saw a +leprechaun in a hole under a stone:--'He wasn't much larger than a doll, +and he was most perfectly formed, with a little mouth and eyes.' Nothing +was told about the little fellow having a money-bag, although the woman +said people told her afterwards that she would have been rich if she had +only had sense enough to catch him when she had so good a chance.[22] + +_The Death Coach._--The next tale the mother told was about the death +coach which used to pass by the very house we were in. Every night until +after her daughter was born she used to rise up on her elbow in bed to +listen to the death coach passing by. It passed about midnight, and she +could hear the rushing, the tramping of the horses, and most beautiful +singing, just like fairy music, but she could not understand the words. +Once or twice she was brave enough to open the door and look out as the +coach passed, but she could never see a thing, though there was the +noise and singing. One time a man had to wait on the roadside to let the +fairy horses go by, and he could hear their passing very clearly, and +couldn't see one of them. + +When we got home, Dr. Hyde told me that the fairies of the region are +rarely seen. The people usually say that they hear or feel them only. + +_The 'Good People' and Mr. Gilleran._--After the mother had testified, +the daughter, who is quite of the younger generation, gave her own +opinion. She said that the 'good people' live in the _forts_ and often +take men and women or youths who pass by the _forts_ after sunset; that +Mr. Gilleran, who died not long ago, once saw certain dead friends and +recognized among them those who were believed to have been _taken_ and +those who died naturally, and that he saw them again when he was on his +death-bed. + +We have here, as in so many other accounts, a clear connexion between +the realm of the dead and Fairyland. + + +THE TESTIMONY OF A LOUGH DERG SEER + +Neil Colton, seventy-three years old, who lives in Tamlach Townland, on +the shores of Lough Derg, County Donegal, has a local reputation for +having seen the 'gentle folk', and so I called upon him. As we sat round +his blazing turf fire, and in the midst of his family of three sturdy +boys--for he married late in life--this is what he related:-- + +_A Girl Recovered from Faerie._--'One day, just before sunset in +midsummer, and I a boy then, my brother and cousin and myself were +gathering bilberries (whortleberries) up by the rocks at the back of +here, when all at once we heard music. We hurried round the rocks, and +there we were within a few hundred feet of six or eight of the _gentle +folk_, and they dancing. When they saw us, a little woman dressed all in +red came running out from them towards us, and she struck my cousin +across the face with what seemed to be a green rush. We ran for home as +hard as we could, and when my cousin reached the house she fell dead. +Father saddled a horse and went for Father Ryan. When Father Ryan +arrived, he put a stole about his neck and began praying over my cousin +and reading psalms and striking her with the stole; and in that way +brought her back. He said if she had not caught hold of my brother, she +would have been _taken_ for ever.' + +_The 'Gentle Folk'._--'The _gentle folk_ are not earthly people; they +are a people with a nature of their own. Even in the water there are men +and women of the same character. Others have caves in the rocks, and in +them rooms and apartments. These races were terribly plentiful a hundred +years ago, and they'll come back again. My father lived two miles from +here, where there were plenty of the _gentle folk_. In olden times they +used to take young folks and keep them and draw all the life out of +their bodies. Nobody could ever tell their nature exactly.' + + +EVIDENCE FROM COUNTY FERMANAGH + +From James Summerville, eighty-eight years old, who lives in the country +near Irvinestown, I heard much about the 'wee people' and about +banshees, and then the following remarkable story concerning the 'good +people':-- + +_Travelling Clairvoyance through 'Fairy' Agency._--'From near Ederney, +County Fermanagh, about seventy years ago, a man whom I knew well was +taken to America on Hallow Eve Night; and _they_ (the _good people_) +made him look down a chimney to see his own daughter cooking at a +kitchen fire. Then _they_ took him to another place in America, where he +saw a friend he knew. The next morning he was at his own home here in +Ireland. + +'This man wrote a letter to his daughter to know if she was at the place +and at the work on Hallow Eve Night, and she wrote back that she was. He +was sure that it was the _good people_ who had taken him to America and +back in one night.' + + +EVIDENCE FROM COUNTY ANTRIM + +At the request of Major R. G. Berry, M.R.I.A., of Richill Castle, +Armagh, Mr. H. Higginson, of Glenavy, County Antrim, collected all the +material he could find concerning the fairy-tradition in his part of +County Antrim, and sent to me the results, from which I have selected +the very interesting, and, in some respects, unique tales which +follow:-- + +_The Fairies and the Weaver._--'Ned Judge, of Sophys Bridge, was a +weaver. Every night after he went to bed the weaving started of itself, +and when he arose in the morning he would find the dressing which had +been made ready for weaving so broken and entangled that it took him +hours to put it right. Yet with all this drawback he got no poorer, +because the fairies left him plenty of household necessaries, and +whenever he sold a web [of cloth] he always received treble the amount +bargained for.' + +_Meeting Two Regiments of 'Them'._--'William Megarry, of Ballinderry, as +his daughter who is married to James Megarry, J.P., told me, was one +night going to Crumlin on horseback for a doctor, when after passing +through Glenavy he met just opposite the Vicarage two regiments of +_them_ (the fairies) coming along the road towards Glenavy. One regiment +was dressed in red and one in blue or green uniform. _They_ were playing +music, but when they opened out to let him pass through the middle of +_them_ the music ceased until he had passed by.' + + +IN CUCHULAINN'S COUNTRY: A CIVIL ENGINEER'S TESTIMONY + +In the heroic days of pagan Ireland, as tradition tells, the ancient +earthworks, now called the Navan Rings, just outside Armagh, were the +stronghold of Cuchulainn and the Red Branch Knights; and, later, under +Patrick, Armagh itself, one of the old mystic centres of Erin, became +the ecclesiastical capital of the Gaels. And from this romantic country, +one of its best informed native sons, a graduate civil engineer of +Dublin University, offers the following important evidence:-- + +_The Fairies are the Dead._--'When I was a youngster near Armagh, I was +kept good by being told that the fairies could take bad boys away. The +sane belief about the fairies, however, is different, as I discovered +when I grew up. The old people in County Armagh seriously believe that +the fairies are the spirits of the dead; and they say that if you have +many friends deceased you have many friendly fairies, or if you have +many enemies deceased you have many fairies looking out to do you harm.' + +_Food-Offerings to Place-Fairies._--'It was very usual formerly, and the +practice is not yet given up, to place a bed, some other furniture, and +plenty of food in a newly-constructed dwelling the night before the time +fixed for moving into it; and if the food is not consumed, and the +crumbs swept up by the door in the morning, the house cannot safely be +occupied. I know of two houses now that have never been occupied, +because the fairies did not show their willingness and goodwill by +taking food so offered to them.' + + +ON THE SLOPES OF SLIEVE GULLION + +In climbing to the summit of Cuchulainn's mountain, which overlooks +parts of the territory made famous by the 'Cattle Raid of Cooley', I met +John O'Hare, sixty-eight years old, of Longfield Townland, leading his +horse to pasture, and I stopped to talk with him about the 'good +people'. + +'The _good people_ in this mountain,' he said, 'are the people who have +died and been _taken_; the mountain is enchanted.' + +_The 'Fairy' Overflowing of the Meal-Chest._--'An old woman came to the +wife of Steven Callaghan and told her not to let Steven cut a certain +hedge. "It is where we shelter at night," the old woman added; and Mrs. +Callaghan recognized the old woman as one who had been _taken_ in +confinement. A few nights later the same old woman appeared to Mrs. +Callaghan and asked for charity; and she was offered some meal, which +she did not take. Then she asked for lodgings, but did not stop. When +Mrs. Callaghan saw the meal-chest next morning it was overflowing with +meal: it was the old woman's gift for the hedge.' + + +THE TESTIMONY OF TWO DROMINTEE PERCIPIENTS + +After my friend, the Rev. Father L. Donnellan, C.C., of Dromintee, +County Armagh, had introduced me to Alice Cunningham, of his parish, and +she had told much about the 'gentle folk', she emphatically declared +that they do exist--and this in the presence of Father Donnellan--because +she has often seen them on Carrickbroad Mountain, near where she lives. +And she then reported as follows concerning enchanted Slieve Gullion:-- + +_The 'Sidhe' Guardian of Slieve Gullion._--'The top of Slieve Gullion is +a very _gentle_ place. A fairy has her house there by the lake, but she +is invisible. She interferes with nobody. I hear of no _gentler_ places +about here than Carrickbroad and Slieve Gullion.' + +Father Donnellan and I called next upon Thomas McCrink and his wife at +Carrifamayan, because Mrs. McCrink claims to have seen some of the 'good +people', and this is her testimony:-- + +_Nature of the 'Good People'._--'I've heard and felt the _good people_ +coming on the wind; and I once saw them down in the middle field on my +father's place playing football. They are still on earth. Among them are +the spirits of our ancestors; and these rejoice whenever good fortune +comes our way, for I saw them before my mother won her land [after a +long legal contest] in the field rejoicing. + +'Some of the _good people_ I have thought were fallen angels, though +these may be dead people whose time is not up. We are only like shadows +in this world: my mother died in England, and she came to me in the +spirit. I saw her plainly. I ran to catch her, but my hands ran through +her form as if it were mere mist. Then there was a crack, and she was +gone.' And, finally, after a moment, our percipient said:--'The fairies +once passed down this lane here on a Christmas morning; and I took them +to be suffering souls out of Purgatory, going to mass.' + + +THE TESTIMONY OF A DROMINTEE SEERESS + +Father Donnellan, the following day, took me to talk with almost the +oldest woman in his parish, Mrs. Biddy Grant, eighty-six years old, of +Upper Toughal, beside Slieve Gullion. Mrs. Grant is a fine specimen of +an Irishwoman, with white hair, clear complexion, and an expression of +great natural intelligence, though now somewhat feeble from age. Her +mind is yet clear, however; and her testimony is substantiated by this +statement from her own daughter, who lives with her:--'My mother has the +power of seeing things. It is a fact with her that spirits exist. She +has seen much, even in her old age; and what she is always telling me +scares me half to death.' + +The following is Mrs. Grant's direct testimony given at her own home, on +September 20, 1909, in answer to our question if she knew anything about +the 'good people':-- + +_Seeing the 'Good People' as the Dead._--'I saw _them_ once as plain as +can be--big, little, old, and young. I was in bed at the time, and a boy +whom I had reared since he was born was lying ill beside me. Two of +_them_ came and looked at him; then came in three of _them_. One of +_them_ seemed to have something like a book, and he put his hand to the +boy's mouth; then he went away, while others appeared, opening the back +window to make an avenue through the house; and through this avenue came +great crowds. At this I shook the boy, and said to him, "Do you see +anything?" "No," he said; but as I made him look a second time he said, +"I do." After that he got well. + +'These _good people_ were the spirits of our dead friends, but I could +not recognize them. I have often seen them that way while in my bed. +Many women are among them. I once touched a boy of theirs, and he was +just like feathers in my hand; there was no substance in him, and I knew +he wasn't a living being. I don't know where they live; I've heard they +live in the _Carrige_ (rocks). Many a time I've heard of their _taking_ +people or leading them astray. They can't live far away when they come +to me in such a rush. They are as big as we are. I think these fairy +people are all through this country and in the mountains.' + +_An Apparition of a 'Sidhe' Woman?_--'At a wake I went out of doors at +midnight and saw a woman running up and down the field with a strange +light in her hand. I called out my daughter, but she saw nothing, though +all the time the woman dressed in white was in the field, shaking the +light and running back and forth as fast as you could wink. I thought +the woman might be the spirit of Nancy Frink, but I was not sure.' (Cf. +pp. 60 ff., 83, 155, 215.) + + +EVIDENCE FROM LOUGH GUR, COUNTY LIMERICK + +One of the most interesting parts of Ireland for the archaeologist and +for the folk-lorist alike is the territory immediately surrounding Lough +Gur, County Limerick. Shut in for the most part from the outer world by +a circle of low-lying hills on whose summits fairy goddesses yet dwell +invisibly, this region, famous for its numerous and well-preserved +cromlechs, dolmens, menhirs, and tumuli, and for the rare +folk-traditions current among its peasantry, has long been popularly +regarded as a sort of Otherworld preserve haunted by fairy beings, who +dwell both in its waters and on its land. + +There seems to be no reasonable doubt that in pre-Christian times the +Lough Gur country was a very sacred spot, a mystic centre for +pilgrimages and for the celebration of Celtic religious rites, including +those of initiation. The Lough is still enchanted, but once in seven +years the spell passes off it, and it then appears like dry land to any +one that is fortunate enough to behold it. At such a time of +disenchantment a Tree is seen growing up through the lake-bottom--a Tree +like the strange World-Tree of Scandinavian myth. The Tree is covered +with a Green Cloth, and under it sits the lake's guardian, a woman +knitting.[23] The peasantry about Lough Gur still believe that beneath +its waters there is one of the chief entrances in Ireland to +_Tir-na-nog_, the 'Land of Youth', the Fairy Realm. And when a child is +stolen by the Munster fairies, 'Lough Gur is conjectured to be the place +of its unearthly transmutation from the human to the fairy state.'[23] + +To my friend, Count John de Salis, of Balliol College, I am indebted for +the following legendary material, collected by him on the fairy-haunted +Lough Gur estate, his ancestral home, and annotated by the Rev. J. F. +Lynch, one of the best-informed antiquarians living in that part of +South Ireland:-- + +_The Fairy Goddesses, Aine and Fennel (or Finnen)._--'There are two +hills near Lough Gur upon whose summits sacrifices and sacred rites used +to be celebrated according to living tradition. One, about three miles +south-west of the lake, is called Knock Aine, Aine or Ane being the name +of an ancient Irish goddess, derived from _an_, "bright." The other, the +highest hill on the lake-shores, is called Knock Fennel or Hill of the +Goddess Fennel, from _Finnen_ or _Finnine_ or _Fininne_, a form of +_fin_, "white." The peasantry of the region call Aine one of the Good +People;[24] and they say that Fennel (apparently her sister goddess or +a variant of herself) lived on the top of Knock Fennel' (termed Finnen +in a State Paper dated 1200). + +_The Fairy Boat-Race._--'Different old peasants have told me that on +clear calm moonlight nights in summer, fairy boats appear racing across +Lough Gur. The boats come from the eastern side of the lake, and when +they have arrived at Garrod Island, where the Desmond Castle lies in +ruins, they vanish behind Knock Adoon. There are four of these phantom +boats, and in each there are two men rowing and a woman steering. No +sound is heard, though the seer can see the weird silvery splash of the +oars and the churning of the water at the bows of the boats as they +shoot along. It is evident that they are racing, because one boat gets +ahead of the others, and all the rowers can be seen straining at the +oars. Boats and occupants seem to be transparent, and you cannot see +exactly what their nature is. One old peasant told me that it is the +shining brightness of the clothes on the phantom rowers and on the women +who steer which makes them visible. + +'Another man, who is about forty years of age, and as far as I know of +good habits, assures me that he also has seen this fairy boat-race, and +that it can still be seen at the proper season.' + +_The Bean-Tighe._[25]--'The _Bean-tighe_, the fairy housekeeper of the +enchanted submerged castle of the Earl of Desmond, is supposed to appear +sitting on an ancient earthen monument shaped like a great chair and +hence called _Suidheachan_, the "Housekeeper's Little Seat," on Knock +Adoon (Hill of the Fort), which juts out into the Lough. The +_Bean-tighe_, as I have heard an old peasant tell the tale, was once +asleep on her Seat, when the _Buachailleen_[26] or "Little Herd Boy" +stole her golden comb. When the _Bean-tighe_ awoke and saw what had +happened, she cast a curse upon the cattle of the _Buachailleen_, and +soon all of them were dead, and then the "Little Herd Boy" himself died, +but before his death he ordered the golden comb to be cast into the +Lough.'[27] + +_Lough Gur Fairies in General._--'The peasantry in the Lough Gur region +commonly speak of the _Good People_ or of the _Kind People_ or of the +_Little People_, their names for the fairies. The leprechaun indicates +the place where hidden treasure is to be found. If the person to whom he +reveals such a secret makes it known to a second person, the first +person dies, or else no money is found: in some cases the money is +changed into ivy leaves or into furze blossoms. + +'I am convinced that some of the older peasants still believe in +fairies. I used to go out on the lake occasionally on moonlight nights, +and an old woman supposed to be a "wise woman" (a seeress), hearing +about my doing this, told me that under no circumstances should I +continue the practice, for fear of "Them People" (the fairies). One +evening in particular I was warned by her not to venture on the lake. +She solemnly asserted that the "Powers of Darkness" were then abroad, +and that it would be misfortune for me to be in their path.[28] + +'Under ordinary circumstances, as a very close observer of the Lough Gur +peasantry informs me, the old people will pray to the Saints, but if by +any chance such prayers remain unanswered they then invoke other powers, +the fairies, the goddesses Aine and Fennel, or other pagan deities, whom +they seem to remember in a vague subconscious manner through tradition.' + + +TESTIMONY FROM A COUNTY KERRY SEER + +To another of my fellow students in Oxford, a native Irishman of County +Kerry, I am indebted for the following evidence:-- + +_A Collective Vision of Spiritual Beings._--'Some few weeks before +Christmas, 1910, at midnight on a very dark night, I and another young +man (who like myself was then about twenty-three years of age) were on +horseback on our way home from Limerick. When near Listowel, we noticed +a light about half a mile ahead. At first it seemed to be no more than a +light in some house; but as we came nearer to it and it was passing out +of our direct line of vision we saw that it was moving up and down, to +and fro, diminishing to a spark, then expanding into a yellow luminous +flame. Before we came to Listowel we noticed two lights, about one +hundred yards to our right, resembling the light seen first. Suddenly +each of these lights expanded into the same sort of yellow luminous +flame, about six feet high by four feet broad. In the midst of each +flame we saw a radiant being having human form. Presently the lights +moved toward one another and made contact, whereupon the two beings in +them were seen to be walking side by side. The beings' bodies were +formed of a pure dazzling radiance, white like the radiance of the sun, +and much brighter than the yellow light or aura surrounding them. So +dazzling was the radiance, like a halo, round their heads that we could +not distinguish the countenances of the beings; we could only +distinguish the general shape of their bodies; though their heads were +very clearly outlined because this halo-like radiance, which was the +brightest light about them, seemed to radiate from or rest upon the head +of each being. As we travelled on, a house intervened between us and the +lights, and we saw no more of them. It was the first time we had ever +seen such phenomena, and in our hurry to get home we were not wise +enough to stop and make further examination. But ever since that night I +have frequently seen, both in Ireland and in England, similar lights +with spiritual beings in them.' (Cf. pp. 60 ff., 77, 133, 155, 215, +483.) + +_Reality of the Spiritual World._--'Like my companion, who saw all that +I saw of the first three lights, I formerly had always been a sceptic as +to the existence of spirits; now I know that there is a spiritual world. +My brother, a physician, had been equally sceptical until he saw, near +our home at Listowel, similar lights containing spiritual beings and was +obliged to admit the genuineness of the phenomena. + +'In whatever country we may be, I believe that we are for ever immersed +in the spiritual world; but most of us cannot perceive it on account of +the unrefined nature of our physical bodies. Through meditation and +psychical training one can come to see the spiritual world and its +beings. We pass into the spirit realm at death and come back into the +human world at birth; and we continue to reincarnate until we have +overcome all earthly desires and mortal appetites. Then the higher life +is open to our consciousness and we cease to be human; we become divine +beings.' (Recorded in Oxford, England, August 12, 1911.) + + +III. IN SCOTLAND + + Introduction by ALEXANDER CARMICHAEL, Hon. LL.D. of the University of + Edinburgh; author of _Carmina Gadelica_. + +The belief in fairies was once common throughout Scotland--Highland and +Lowland. It is now much less prevalent even in the Highlands and +Islands, where such beliefs linger longer than they do in the Lowlands. +But it still lives among the old people, and is privately entertained +here and there even among younger people; and some who hold the belief +declare that they themselves have seen fairies. + +Various theories have been advanced as to the origin of fairies and as +to the belief in them. The most concrete form in which the belief has +been urged has been by the Rev. Robert Kirk, minister of Aberfoyle, in +Perthshire.[29] Another theory of the origin of fairies I took down in +the island of Miunghlaidh (Minglay); and, though I have given it in +_Carmina Gadelica_, it is sufficiently interesting to be quoted here. +During October 1871, Roderick Macneill, known as 'Ruaraidh mac Dhomhuil,' +then ninety-two years of age, told it in Gaelic to the late J. F. +Campbell of Islay and the writer, when they were storm-stayed in the +precipitous island of Miunghlaidh, Barra:-- + +'The Proud Angel fomented a rebellion among the angels of heaven, where +he had been a leading light. He declared that he would go and found a +kingdom for himself. When going out at the door of heaven the Proud +Angel brought prickly lightning and biting lightning out of the doorstep +with his heels. Many angels followed him--so many that at last the Son +called out, "Father! Father! the city is being emptied!" whereupon the +Father ordered that the gates of heaven and the gates of hell should be +closed. This was instantly done. And those who were in were in, and +those who were out were out; while the hosts who had left heaven and had +not reached hell flew into the holes of the earth, like the stormy +petrels. These are the Fairy Folk--ever since doomed to live under the +ground, and only allowed to emerge where and when the King permits. They +are never allowed abroad on Thursday, that being Columba's Day; nor on +Friday, that being the Son's Day; nor on Saturday, that being Mary's +Day; nor on Sunday, that being the Lord's Day. + + God be between me and every fairy, + Every ill wish and every druidry; + To-day is Thursday on sea and land, + I trust in the King that they do not hear me. + +On certain nights when their _bruthain_ (bowers) are open and their +lamps are lit, and the song and the dance are moving merrily, the +fairies may be heard singing lightheartedly:-- + + Not of the seed of Adam are we, + Nor is Abraham our father; + But of the seed of the Proud Angel, + Driven forth from Heaven.' + +The fairies entered largely into the lives and into the folk-lore of the +Highland people, and the following examples of things named after the +fairies indicate the manner in which the fairies dominated the minds of +the people of Gaeldom:--_teine sith_, 'fairy fire' (_ignis fatuus_); +_breaca sith_, 'fairy marks,' livid spots appearing on the faces of the +dead or dying; _marcachd shith_, 'fairy riding,' paralysis of the spine +in animals, alleged to be brought on by the fairy mouse riding across +the backs of animals while they are lying down; _piob shith_, 'fairy +pipe' or 'elfin pipe', generally found in ancient underground houses; +_miaran na mna sithe_, 'the thimble of the fairy woman,' the fox-glove; +_lion na mna sithe_, 'lint of the fairy woman,' fairy flax, said to be +beneficial in certain illnesses; and _curachan na mna sithe_, 'coracle +of the fairy woman,' the shell of the blue valilla. In place-names +_sith_, 'fairy,' is common. Glenshee, in Perthshire, is said to have +been full of fairies, but the screech of the steam-whistle frightened +them underground. There is scarcely a district of the Highlands without +its fairy knoll, generally the greenest hillock in the place. 'The black +chanter of Clan Chattan' is said to have been given to a famous +Macpherson piper by a fairy woman who loved him; and the Mackays have a +flag said to have been given to a Mackay by a fairy sweetheart. The +well-known fairy flag of Dunvegan is said to have been given to a +Macleod of Macleod by a fairy woman; and the Macrimmons of Bororaig, +pipers to the Macleods of Macleod, had a chanter called '_Sionnsair +airgid na mna sithe_', 'the silver chanter of the fairy woman.' A family +in North Uist is known as _Dubh-sith_, 'Black fairy,' from a tradition +that the family had been familiar with the fairies in their secret +flights and nightly migrations. + +Donald Macalastair, seventy-nine years of age, crofter, Druim-a-ghinnir, +Arran, told me, in the year 1895, the following story in Gaelic:--'The +fairies were dwelling in the knoll, and they had a near neighbour who +used to visit them in their home. The man used to observe the ways of +the fairies and to do as they did. The fairies took a journey upon them +to go to Ireland, and the man took upon him to go with them. Every +single fairy of them caught a ragwort and went astride it, and they were +pell-mell, every knee of them across the Irish Ocean in an instant, and +across the Irish Ocean was the man after them, astride a ragwort like +one of themselves. A little wee tiny fairy shouted and asked were they +all ready, and all the others replied that they were, and the little +fairy called out:-- + + My king at my head, + Going across in my haste, + On the crests of the waves, + To Ireland. + +"Follow me," said the king of the fairies, and away they went across the +Irish Ocean, every mother's son of them astride his ragwort. Macuga +(Cook) did not know on earth how he would return to his native land, but +he leapt upon the ragwort as he saw the fairies do, and he called as he +heard them call, and in an instant he was back in Arran. But he had got +enough of the fairies on this trip itself, and he never went with them +again.' + +The fairies were wont to take away infants and their mothers, and many +precautions were taken to safeguard them till purification and baptism +took place, when the fairy power became ineffective. Placing iron about +the bed, burning leather in the room, giving mother and child the milk +of a cow which had eaten of the _mothan_, pearl-wort (_Pinguicula +vulgaris_), a plant of virtue, and similar means were taken to ensure +their safety. If the watching-women neglected these precautions, the +mother or child or both were spirited away to the fairy bower. Many +stories are current on this subject. + +Sometimes the fairies helped human beings with their work, coming in at +night to finish the spinning or the house-work, or to thresh the +farmer's corn or fan his grain. On such occasions they must not be +molested nor interfered with, even in gratitude. If presented with a +garment they will go away and work no more. This method of getting rid +of them is often resorted to, as it is not easy always to find work for +them to do. + +_Bean chaol a chot uaine 's na gruaige buidhe_, 'the slender woman of +the green kirtle and of the yellow hair,' is wise of head and deft of +hand. She can convert the white water of the rill into rich red wine and +the threads of the spiders into a tartan plaid. From the stalk of the +fairy reed she can bring the music of the lull of the peace and of the +repose, however active the brain and lithe the limb; and she can rouse +to mirth and merriment, and to the dance, men and women, however +dolorous their condition. From the bower could be heard the pipe and the +song and the voice of laughter as the fairies 'sett' and reeled in the +mazes of the dance. Sometimes a man hearing the merry music and seeing +the wonderful light within would be tempted to go in and join them, but +woe to him if he omitted to leave a piece of iron at the door of the +bower on entering, for the cunning fairies would close the door and the +man would find no egress. There he would dance for years--but to him the +years were as one day--while his wife and family mourned him as dead. + +The flint arrow-heads so much prized by antiquarians are called in the +Highlands _Saighead sith_, fairy arrows. They are said to have been +thrown by the fairies at the sons and daughters of men. The writer +possesses one which was thrown at his own maid-servant one night when +she went to the peatstack for peats. She was aware of something whizzing +through the silent air, passing through her hair, grazing her ear and +falling at her feet. Stooping in the bright moonlight the girl picked up +a fairy arrow! + +'But faith is dead--such things do not happen now,' said a courteous +informant. If not quite dead it is almost dead, hastened by the +shifting of population, the establishment of means of communication, the +influx of tourists, and the scorn of the more materialistic of the +incomers and of the people themselves. + + EDINBURGH, + _October_ 1910. + + +ABERFOYLE, THE COUNTRY OF ROBERT KIRK + +My first hunt for fairies in Scotland began at Aberfoyle, where the +Highlands and the Lowlands meet, and in the very place where Robert +Kirk, the minister of Aberfoyle, was _taken_ by them, in the year 1692. +The minister spent a large part of his time studying the ways of the +'good people', and he must have been able to see them, for he was a +seventh son. Mrs. J. MacGregor, who keeps the key to the old churchyard +where there is a tomb to Kirk, though many say there is nothing in it +but a coffin filled with stones, told me that Kirk was taken into the +Fairy Knoll, which she pointed to just across a little valley in front +of us, and is there yet, for the hill is full of caverns, and in them +the 'good people' have their homes. And she added that Kirk appeared to +a relative of his after he was _taken_, and said that he was in the +power of the 'good people', and couldn't get away. 'But,' says he, 'I +can be set free if you will have my cousin do what I tell him when I +appear again at the christening of my child in the parsonage.' According +to Mr. Andrew Lang, who reports the same tradition in more detail in his +admirable Introduction to _The Secret Commonwealth_, the cousin was +Grahame of Duchray, and the thing he was to do was to throw a dagger +over Kirk's head. Grahame was at hand at the christening of the +posthumous child, but was so astonished to see Kirk appear as Kirk said +he would, that he did not throw the dagger, and so Kirk became a +perpetual prisoner of the 'good people'. + +After having visited Kirk's tomb, I called on the Rev. William M. +Taylor, the present successor of Kirk, and, as we sat together in the +very room where Kirk must have written his _Secret Commonwealth_, he +told me that tradition reports Kirk as having been _taken_ by the +fairies while he was walking on their hill, which is but a short way +from the parsonage. 'At the time of his disappearance, people said he +was _taken_ because the fairies were displeased with him for prying into +their secrets. At all events, it seems likely that Kirk was taken ill +very suddenly with something like apoplexy while on the Fairy Knoll, and +died there. I have searched the presbytery books, and find no record of +how Kirk's death really took place; but of course there is not the least +doubt of his body being in the grave.' So thus, according to Mr. Taylor, +we are to conclude that if the fairies carried off anything, it must +have been the spirit or soul of Kirk. I talked with others round +Aberfoyle about Kirk, and some would have it that his body and soul were +both _taken_, and that what was buried was no corpse at all. Mrs. +Margaret MacGregor, one of the few Gaelic speakers of the old school +left in Aberfoyle, holds another opinion, for she said to me, 'Nothing +could be surer than that the _good people_ took Kirk's spirit only.' + +In the Aberfoyle country, the Fairy-Faith, save for the stories about +Kirk, which will probably persist for a long time yet, is rapidly +passing. In fact it is almost forgotten now. Up to thirty years ago, as +Mr. Taylor explained, before the railway reached Aberfoyle, belief in +fairies was much more common. Nowadays, he says, there is no real +fairy-lore among the peasants; fifty to sixty years ago there was. And +in his opinion, 'the fairy people of three hundred years ago in Scotland +were a distinct race by themselves. They had never been human beings. +The belief in them was a survival of paganism, and not at all an +outgrowth of Christian belief in angelic hosts.' + + +A SCOTCH MINISTER'S TESTIMONY + +A Protestant minister of Scotland will be our next witness. He is a +native of Ross-shire, though he draws many of his stories from the +Western Hebrides, where his calling has placed him. Because he speaks +from personal knowledge of the living Fairy-Faith as it was in his +boyhood and is now, and chiefly because he has had the rare privilege +of conscious contact with the fairy world, his testimony is of the +highest value. + +_Reality of Fairies._--'When I was a boy I was a firm believer in +fairies; and now as a Christian minister I believe in the possibility +and also the reality of these spiritual orders, but I wish only to know +those orders which belong to the realm of grace. It is very certain that +they exist. I have been in a state of ecstasy, and have seen spiritual +beings which form these orders.[30] + +'I believe in the actuality of evil spirits; but people in the Highlands +having put aside paganism, evil spirits are not seen now.' + +This explanation was offered of how fairies may exist and yet be +invisible:--'Our Saviour became invisible though in the body; and, as +the Scriptures suggest, I suppose we are obliged to concede a similar +power of invisibility to spirits as well, good and evil ones alike.' + +_Precautions against Fairies._--'I remember how an old woman pulled me +out of a fairy ring to save me from being _taken_. + +'If a mother takes some bindweed and places it burnt at the ends over +her babe's cradle, the fairies have no power over the child. The +bindweed is a common roadside convolvulus. + +'As a boy, I saw two old women passing a babe over red-hot coals, and +then drop some of the cinders in a cup of water and give the water to +the babe to drink, in order to cure it of a fairy stroke.' + +_Fairy Fights on Halloween._--'It is a common belief now that on +Halloween the fairies, or the fairy hosts, have fights. Lichens on +rocks after there has been a frost get yellowish-red, and then when they +thaw and the moisture spreads out from them the rocks are a bright red; +and this bright red is said to be the blood of the fairies after one of +their battles.' + +_Fairies and the Hump-back._--The following story by the present witness +is curious, for it is the same story of a hump-back which is so +widespread. The fact that in Scotland the hump is removed or added by +fairies as it is in Ireland, in Cornwall by pixies, and in Brittany by +_corrigans_, goes far to prove the essential identity of these three +orders of beings. The story comes from one of the remote Western +Hebrides, Benbecula:--'A man who was a hump-back once met the fairies +dancing, and danced with their queen; and he sang with them, "Monday, +Tuesday, Wednesday," so well that they took off his hump, and he +returned home a straight-bodied man. Then a tailor went past the same +place, and was also admitted by the fairies to their dance. He caught +the fairy queen by the waist, and she resented his familiarity. And in +singing he added "Thursday" to their song and spoilt it. To pay the +tailor for his rudeness and ill manners, the dancers took up the hump +they had just removed from the first man and clapped it on his back, and +the conceited fellow went home a hump-back.' + +_Libations to Fairies._--'An elder in my church knew a woman who was +accustomed, in milking her cows, to offer libations to the fairies.[31] +The woman was later converted to Christ and gave up the practice, and as +a result one of her cows was _taken_ by the fairies. Then she revived +the practice. + +'The fairy queen who watches over cows is called _Gruagach_ in the +Islands, and she is often seen. In pouring libations to her and her +fairies various kinds of stones, usually with hollows in them, are +used.[32] + +'In Lewis libations are poured to the goddess [or god] of the sea, +called _Shoney_,[33] in order to bring in seaweed. Until modern times in +Iona similar libations were poured to a god corresponding to Neptune.' + + +IN THE HIGHLANDS + +I had the pleasure as well as the great privilege of setting out from +Inverness on a bright crisp September morning in company with Dr. +Alexander Carmichael, the well-known folk-lorist of Scotland, to study +the Fairy-Faith as it exists now in the Highlands round Tomatin, a small +country village about twenty miles distant. We departed by an early +train; and soon reaching the Tomatin country began our search--Dr. +Carmichael for evidence regarding rare and curious Scotch beliefs +connected with folk-magic, such as blood-stopping at a distance and +removing motes in the eye at a distance, and I for Highland ghosts and +fairies. + +Our first experience was with an old man whom we met on the road between +the railway station and the post office, who could speak only Gaelic. +Dr. Carmichael talked with him awhile, and then asked him about fairies, +and he said there were some living in a cave some way off, but as the +distance was rather too far we decided not to call on them. Then we went +on to see the postmaster, Mr. John MacDougall, and he told us that in +his boyhood the country-folk round Tomatin believed thoroughly in +fairies. He said they thought of them as a race of spirits capable of +making themselves visible to mortals, as living in underground places, +as _taking_ fine healthy babes and leaving changelings in their place. +These changelings would waste away and die in a short time after being +left. So firmly did the old people believe in fairies then that they +would ridicule a person for not believing. And now quite the reverse +state has come about.[34] + + +THE TESTIMONY OF JOHN DUNBAR OF INVEREEN + +We talked with other Highlanders in the country round Tomatin, and heard +only echoes, mostly fragmentary, of what their forefathers used to +believe about fairies. But at Invereen we discovered John Dunbar, a +Highlander, who really knows the Fairy-Faith and is not ashamed to +explain it. Speaking partly from experience and partly from what he has +heard his parents relate concerning the 'good people', he said:-- + +_The Sheep and the Fairy-Hunting._--'I believe people saw fairies, but I +think one reason no one sees them now is because every place in this +parish where they used to appear has been put into sheep, and deer, and +grouse, and shooting. According to tradition, Coig na Fearn is the place +where the last fairy was seen in this country. Before the big sheep +came, the fairies are supposed to have had a premonition that their +domains were to be violated by them. A story is told of a fight between +the sheep and fairies, or else of the fairies hunting the sheep:--James +MacQueen, who could traffic with the fairies, whom he regarded as ghosts +or spirits, one night on his old place, which now is in sheep, was lying +down all alone and heard a small and big barking of dogs, and a small +and big bleating of sheep, though no sheep were there then. It was the +fairy-hunting he heard. "I put an axe under my head and I had no fear +therefore," he always repeated when telling the story. I believe the man +saw and heard something. And MacQueen used to aid the fairies, and on +that account, as he was in the habit of saying, he always found more +meal in his chest than he thought he had.' + +_Fairies._--'My grandmother believed firmly in fairies, and I have heard +her tell a good many stories about them. They were a small people +dressed in green, and had dwellings underground in dry spots. Fairies +were often heard in the hills over there (pointing), and I believe +something was there. They were awful for music, and used to be heard +very often playing the bagpipes. A woman wouldn't go out in the dark +after giving birth to a child before the child was christened, so as not +to give the fairies power over her or the child. And I have heard people +say that if fairies were refused milk and meat they would _take_ a horse +or a cow; and that if well treated they would repay all gifts.' + +_Time in Fairyland._--'People would be twenty years in Fairyland and it +wouldn't seem more than a night. A bridegroom who was _taken_ on his +wedding-day was in Fairyland for many generations, and, coming back, +thought it was next morning. He asked where all the wedding-guests were, +and found only one old woman who remembered the wedding.' + +_Highland Legend of the Dead._--As I have found to be the case in all +Celtic countries equally, fairy stories nearly always, in accordance +with the law of psychology known as 'the association of ideas', give +place to or are blended with legends of the dead. This is an important +factor for the Psychological Theory. And what follows proves the same +ideas to be present to the mind of Mr. Dunbar:--'Some people after death +are seen in their old haunts; no mistake about it. A bailiff had false +corn and meal measures, and so after he died he came back to his +daughter and told her he could have no peace until the measures were +burned. She complied with her father's wish, and his spirit was never +seen again. I have known also of phantom funerals of people who died +soon afterwards being seen on the road at night.' + + +TO THE WESTERN HEBRIDES + +From Inverness I began my journey to the Western Hebrides. While I +waited for the steamer to take me from Kyle to the Isle of Skye, an old +man with whom I talked on the docks said this about Neill Mackintosh, of +Black Island:--'You can't argue with the old man that he hasn't seen +fairies. He can tell you all about them.' + + +EVIDENCE FROM THE ISLE OF SKYE + +Miss Frances Tolmie, who was born at Uignish, Isle of Skye, and has +lived many years in the isle in close touch with some of its oldest +folk, contributes, from Edinburgh, the evidence which follows. The first +two tales were told in the parish of Minginish a number of years ago by +Mary Macdonald, a goat-herd, and have their setting in the region of the +Koolian[35] range of mountains on the west side of Skye. + +_The Fatal Peat Ember._--'An aged nurse who had fallen fast asleep as +she sat by the fire, was holding on her knees a newly-born babe. The +mother, who lay in bed gazing dreamily, was astonished to see three +strange little women enter the dwelling. They approached the unconscious +child, and she who seemed to be their leader was on the point of lifting +it off the nurse's lap, when the third exclaimed:--"Oh! let us leave +this one with her as we have already taken so many!" "So be it," replied +the senior of the party in a tone of displeasure, "but when that peat +now burning on the hearth shall be consumed, her life will surely come +to an end." Then the three little figures passed out. The good wife, +recognizing them to be fairies, sprang from her bed and poured over the +fire all the water she could find, and extinguished the half-burnt +ember. This she wrapped carefully in a piece of cloth and deposited at +the very bottom of a large chest, which afterwards she always kept +locked. + +'Years passed, and the babe grew into a beautiful young woman. In the +course of time she was betrothed; and, according to custom, not +appearing in public at church on the Sunday preceding the day appointed +for her marriage, remained at home alone. To amuse herself, she began to +search the contents of all the keeping-places in the house, and came at +last to the chest containing the peat ember. In her haste, the good +mother had that day forgotten the key of the chest, which was now in the +lock. At the bottom of the chest the girl found a curious packet +containing nothing but a morsel of peat, and this apparently useless +thing she tossed away into the fire. When the peat was well kindled the +young girl began to feel very ill, and when her mother returned was +dying. The open chest and the blazing peat explained the cause of the +calamity. The fairy's prediction was fulfilled.' + +_Results of Refusing Fairy Hospitality._--'Two women were walking toward +the Point when one of them, hearing churning going on under a hillock, +expressed aloud a wish for some butter-milk. No sooner had she spoken +than a very small figure of a woman came out with a bowlful and offered +it to her, but the thirsty woman, ignorant of fairy customs and the +penalty attending their infringement, declined the kind offer of +refreshment, and immediately found herself a prisoner in the hillock. +She was led to an apartment containing a chest full of meal and a great +bag of wool, and was told by the fairy that when she had eaten all the +meal and spun all the wool she would be free to return to her home. The +prisoner at once set herself to eating and spinning assiduously, but +without apparent result, and despairing of completing the task consulted +an old man of very sad countenance who had long been a captive in the +hillock. He willingly gave her his advice, which was to wet her left eye +with saliva each morning before she settled down to her task. She +followed this advice, and gradually the wool and the meal were +exhausted. Then the fairy granted her freedom, but in doing so cursed +the old man, and said that she had it in her power to keep him in the +hillock for ever.' + +_The Fairies' 'Waulking' (Fulling)._--'At Ebost, in Bracadale, an old +woman was living in a little hut, with no companion save a wise cat. As +we talked, she expressed her wonder that no fairies are ever seen or +heard nowadays. She could remember hearing her father tell how he, when +a herd-boy, had heard the fairies singing a "waulking" song in +Dun-Osdale, an ancient and ruined round tower in the parish of +Duirinish, and not far from Heleval _mhor_ (great) and Heleval _bheag_ +(less)--two hills occasionally alluded to as "Macleod's Tables". The +youth was lying on the grass-grown summit of the ruin, and heard them +distinctly. As if with exultation, one voice took the verse and then the +whole company joined in the following chorus: "_Ho! fir-e! fair-e, +foirm! Ho! Fair-eag-an an clo!_ (Ho! well done! Grand! Ho! bravo the web +[of homespun]!)"' + +_Crodh Chailean._--'This tale was related by Mr. Neil Macleod, the bard +of Skye:--"Colin was a gentleman of Clan Campbell in Perthshire, who was +married to a beautiful maiden whom the fairies carried off on her +marriage-day, and on whom they cast a spell which rendered her invisible +for a day and a year. She came regularly every day to milk the cows of +her sorrowing husband, and sang sweetly to them while she milked, but he +never once had the pleasure of beholding her, though he could hear +perfectly what she sang. At the expiry of the year she was, to his great +joy, restored to him."'[36] + +_Fairy Legend of the Macleod Family._--'There is a legend told of the +Macleod family:--Soon after the heir of the Macleods was born, a +beautiful woman in wonderful raiment, who was a fairy woman or banshee +(there were joyous as well as mourning banshees) appeared at the castle, +and went directly to the babe's cradle. She took up the babe and chanted +over it a series of verses, and each verse had its own melody. The +verses foretold the future manhood of the young child, and acted as a +protective charm over its life. Then she put the babe back into its +cradle, and, going out, disappeared across the moorlands. + +'For many generations it was a custom in the Macleod family that whoever +was the nurse of the heir must sing those verses as the fairy woman had +sung them. After a time the song was forgotten, but at a later period it +was partially recovered, and to-day it is one of the proud folk-lore +heritages of the Macleod family.'[37] + +_Origin and Nature of the Fairy-Faith._--Finally, with respect to the +origin and nature of the Scotch Fairy-Faith, Miss Tolmie states:--'As a +child I was not permitted to hear about fairies. At twenty I was seeking +and trying to understand the beliefs of my fathers in the light of +modern ideas. I was very determined not to lose the past. + +'The fairy-lore originated in a cultured class in very ancient times. +The peasants inherited it; they did not invent it. With the loss of +Gaelic in our times came the loss of folk-ideals. The classical and +English influences combined had a killing effect; so that the +instinctive religious feeling which used to be among our people when +they kept alive the fairy-traditions is dead. We have +intellectually-constructed creeds and doctrines which take its place. + +'We always thought of fairies as mysterious little beings living in +hills. They were capricious and irritable, but not wicked. They could do +a good turn as well as a bad one. They were not aerial, but had bodies +which they could make invisible; and they could make human bodies +invisible in the same way. Besides their hollow knolls and mounds there +seemed to be a subterranean world in which they also lived, where things +are like what they are in this world.' + + +THE ISLE OF BARRA,[38] WESTERN HEBRIDES + +We pass from Cuchulainn's beautiful island to what is now the most +Celtic part of Scotland--the Western Hebrides, where the ancient life is +lived yet, and where the people have more than a faith in spirits and +fairies. And no one of the Western Hebrides, perhaps excepting the tiny +island of Erisgey, has changed less during the last five hundred years +than Barra. + +Our Barra guide and interpreter, Michael Buchanan, a native and a +life-long resident of Barra, is seventy years old, yet as strong and +active as a city man at fifty. He knows intimately every old man on the +island, and as he was able to draw them out on the subject of the 'good +people' as no stranger could do, I was quite willing, as well as obliged +on account of the Scotch Gaelic, to let him act on my behalf in all my +collecting on Barra. Mr. Buchanan is the author of a little book called +_The MacNeils of Barra Genealogy_, published in the year 1902. He was +the official interpreter before the Commission of Inquiry which was +appointed by the British Parliament in 1883 to search into the +oppression of landlordism in the Highlands and Islands, and he acted in +the same capacity before the Crofters' Commission and the Deer-Forest +Commission. We therefore feel perfectly safe in allowing him to present, +before our jury trying the Fairy-Faith, the evidence of the +Gaelic-speaking witnesses from Barra. + + +JOHN MACNEIL'S TESTIMONY + +We met the first of the Barra witnesses on the top of a rocky hill, +where the road from Castlebay passes. He was carrying on his back a sack +of sand heavy enough for a college athlete, and he an old man between +seventy and eighty years of age. Michael Buchanan has known John MacNeil +all his life, for they were boys together on the island; and there is +not much difference between them in age, our interpreter being the +younger. Then the three of us sat down on a grassy knoll, all the world +like a fairy knoll, though it was not; and when pipes were lit and the +weather had been discussed, there was introduced the subject of the +'good people'--all in Gaelic, for our witness now about to testify knows +no English--and what John MacNeil said is thus interpreted by Michael +Buchanan:-- + +_A Fairy's Visit._--'Yes, I have' (in answer to a question if he had +heard of people being _taken_ by the 'good people' or fairies). 'A fairy +woman visited the house of a young wife here in Barra, and the young +wife had her baby on her breast at the time. The first words uttered by +the fairy woman were, "Heavy is your child;" and the wife answered, +"Light is everybody who lives the longest." "Were it not that you have +answered my question," said the fairy woman, "and understood my meaning, +you should have been less your child." And then the fairy woman +departed.' + +_Fairy-Singing._--'My mother, and two other women well known here in +Barra, went to a hill one day to look after their sheep, and, a thick +fog coming on, they had to rest awhile. They then sat down upon a knoll +and began to sing a _walking_ (cloth-working) song, as follows:--"It is +early to-day that I have risen;" and, as they sang, a fairy woman in the +rocks responded to their song with one of her own.' + +_Nature of Fairies._--Then the question was asked if fairies were men or +spirits, and this is the reply:--'I never saw any myself, and so cannot +tell, but they must be spirits from all that the old people tell about +them, or else how could they appear and disappear so suddenly? The old +people said they didn't know if fairies were flesh and blood, or +spirits. They saw them as men of more diminutive stature than our race. +I heard my father say that fairies used to come and speak to natural +people, and then vanish while one was looking at them. Fairy women used +to go into houses and talk and then vanish. The general belief was that +the fairies were spirits who could make themselves seen or not seen at +will. And when they _took_ people they _took_ body and soul together.' + + +THE TESTIMONY OF JOHN CAMPBELL, NINETY-FOUR YEARS OLD + +Our next witness from Barra is John Campbell, who is ninety-four years +old, yet clear-headed. He was born on Barra at Sgalary, and lives near +there now at Breuvaig. We were on our way to call at his home, when we +met him coming on the road, with a cane in each hand and a small sack +hanging from one of them. Michael saluted him as an old acquaintance, +and then we all sat down on a big boulder in the warm sunshine beside +the road to talk. The first thing John wanted was tobacco, and when this +was supplied we gradually led from one subject to another until he was +talking about fairies. And this is what he said about them:-- + +_The Fairy and the Fountain._--'I had a companion by the name of James +Galbraith, who was drowned about forty years ago, and one time he was +crossing from the west side of the island to the east side, to the +township called Sgalary, and feeling thirsty took a drink out of a +spring well on the mountain-side. After he had taken a drink, he looked +about him and saw a woman clad in green, and imagined that no woman +would be clad in such a colour except a fairy woman. He went on his way, +and when he hadn't gone far, looked back, and, as he looked, saw the +woman vanish out of his sight. He afterwards reported the incident at +his father's house in Sgalary, and his father said he also had seen a +woman clad in clothes of green at the same place some nights before.' + +_A Step-son Pitied by the Fairies._--'I heard my father say that a +neighbour of his father, that is of my grandfather, was married twice, +and had three children from the first marriage, and when married for the +second time, a son and daughter. His second wife did not seem to be kind +enough to the children of the first wife, neglecting their food and +clothing and keeping them constantly at hard work in the fields and at +herding. + +'One morning when the man and his second wife were returning from mass +they passed the pasture where their cows were grazing and heard the +enjoyable _skirrels_ of the bagpipes. The father said, "What may this +be?" and going off the road found the eldest son of the first wife +playing the bagpipes to his heart's pleasure; and asked him earnestly, +"How did you come to play the bagpipes so suddenly, or where did you get +this splendid pair of bagpipes?" The boy replied, "An old man came to me +while I was in the action of roasting pots in a pit-fire and said, 'Your +step-mother is bad to you and in ill-will towards you.' I told the old +man I was sensible that that was the case, and then he said to me, 'If I +give you a trade will you be inclined to follow it?' I said yes, and the +old man then continued, 'How would you like to be a piper by trade?' 'I +would gladly become a piper,' says I, 'but what am I to do without the +bagpipes and the tunes to play?' 'I'll supply the bagpipes,' he said, +'and as long as you have them you'll never want for the most delightful +tunes.'" The male descendants of the boy in question were all famous +pipers thereafter, and the last of them was a piper to the late Cluny +MacPherson of Cluny.' + +_Nature of Fairies._--At this point, Michael turned the trend of John's +thoughts to the nature of fairies, with the following result:--'The +general belief of the people here during my father's lifetime was that +the fairies were more of the nature of spirits than of men made of flesh +and blood, but that they so appeared to the naked eye that no difference +could be marked in their forms from that of any human being, except that +they were more diminutive. I have heard my father say it was the case +that fairy women used to take away children from their cradles and leave +different children in their places, and that these children who were +left would turn out to be old men. + +'At Barra Head, a fairy woman used to come to a man's window almost +every night as though looking to see if the family was home. The man +grew suspicious, and decided the fairy woman was watching her chance to +steal his wife, so he proposed a plan. It was then and still is the +custom after thatching a house to rope it across with heather-spun +ropes, and, at the time, the man was busy spinning some of them; and he +told his wife to take his place that night to spin the heather-rope, and +said he would take her spinning-wheel. They were thus placed when the +fairy woman made the usual look in at the window, and she seeing that +her intention was understood, said to the man, "You are yourself at the +spinning-wheel and your wife is spinning the heather-rope." + +'I have heard it said that the fairies live in knolls on a higher level +than that of the ground in general, and that fairy songs are heard from +the faces of high rocks. The fairies of the air (the fairy or spirit +hosts) are different from those in the rocks. A man whom I've seen, +Roderick MacNeil, was lifted by the hosts and left three miles from +where he was taken up. The hosts went at about midnight. A man awake at +midnight is in danger. Cows and horses are sometimes shot in place of +men' (and why, will be explained by later witnesses). + +_Father MacDonald's Opinions._--We then asked about the late Rev. Donald +MacDonald, who had the reputation of knowing all about fairies and +spirits when he lived here in these islands, and John said:--'I have +heard my wife say that she questioned Father MacDonald, who was then a +parish priest here in Barra, and for whom she was a housekeeper, if it +was possible that such beings or spirits as fairies were in existence. +He said "Yes", and that they were those who left Heaven after the fallen +angels; and that those going out after the fallen angels had gone out +were so numerous and kept going so long that St. Michael notified Christ +that the throne was fast emptying, and when Christ saw the state of +affairs he ordered the doors of Heaven to be closed at once, saying as +he gave the order, "Who is out is out and who is in is in." And the +fairies are as numerous now as ever they were before the beginning of +the world.' (Cf. pp. 47, 53, 67, 76, 85, 109, 113, 116, 129, 154, 205, +212.) + +Here we left John, and he, continuing on his way up the mountain road in +an opposite direction from us and round a turn, disappeared almost as a +fairy might. + + +AN AGED PIPER'S TESTIMONY + +We introduce now as a witness Donald McKinnon, ninety-six years old, a +piper by profession; and not only is he the oldest man on Barra, but +also the oldest man among all our witnesses. He was born on the Island +of South Uist, one of the Western Hebrides north of Barra, and came to +Barra in 1836, where he has lived ever since. In spite of being four +years less than a hundred in age, he greeted us very heartily, and as he +did not wish us to sit inside, for his chimney happened not to be +drawing very well, and was filling the straw-thatched cottage with peat +smoke, we sat down outside on the grass and began talking; and as we +came to fairies this is what he said:-- + +_Nature of Fairies._--'I believe that fairies exist as a tribe of +spirits, and appear to us in the form of men and women. People who saw +fairies can yet describe them as they appeared dressed in green. No +doubt there are fairies in other countries as well as here. + +'In my experience there was always a good deal of difference between the +fairies and the hosts. The fairies were supposed to be living without +material food, whereas the hosts were supposed to be living upon their +own booty. Generally, the hosts were evil and the fairies good, though I +have heard that the fairies used to _take_ cattle and leave their old +men rolled up in the hides. One night an old witch was heard to say to +the fairies outside the fold, "We cannot get anything to-night." The old +men who were left behind in the hides of the animals _taken_, usually +disappeared very suddenly. I saw two men who used to be lifted by the +hosts. They would be carried from South Uist as far south as Barra Head, +and as far north as Harris. Sometimes when these men were ordered by the +hosts to kill men on the road they would kill instead either a horse or +a cow; for in that way, so long as an animal was killed, the injunction +of the hosts was fulfilled.' To illustrate at this point the idea of +fairies, Donald repeated the same legend told by our former witness, +John Campbell, about the emptying of Heaven and the doors being closed +to keep the remainder of its population in. Then he told the following +story about fairies:-- + +_The Fairy-Belt._--'I heard of an apprentice to carpentry who was +working with his master at the building of a boat, a little distance +from his house, and near the sea. He went to work one morning and forgot +a certain tool which he needed in the boat-building. He returned to his +carpenter-shed to get it, and found the shed filled with fairy men and +women. On seeing him they ran away so greatly confused that one of the +women forgot her gird (belt), and he picked it up. In a little while she +came back for the gird, and asked him to give it her, but he refused to +do so. Thereupon she promised him that he should be made master of his +trade wherever his lot should fall without serving further +apprenticeship. On that condition he gave her the gird; and rising early +next morning he went to the yard where the boat was a-building and put +in two planks so perfectly that when the master arrived and saw them, he +said to him, "Are you aware of anybody being in the building-yard last +night, for I see by the work done that I am more likely to be an +apprentice than the person who put in those two planks, whoever he is. +Was it you that did it?" The reply was in the affirmative, and the +apprentice told his master the circumstances under which he gained the +rapid mastership of his trade.' + + +ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS + +It was nearing sunset now, and a long mountain-climb was ahead of us, +and one more visit that evening, before we should begin our return to +Castlebay, and so after this story we said a hearty good-bye to Donald, +with regret at leaving him. When we reached the mountain-side, one of +the rarest of Barra's sights greeted us. To the north and south in the +golden glow of a September twilight we saw the long line of the Outer +Hebrides like the rocky backbone of some submerged continent. The scene +and colours on the land and ocean and in the sky seemed more like some +magic vision, reflected from Faerie by the 'good people' for our +delight, than a thing of our own world. Never was air clearer or sea +calmer, nor could there be air sweeter than that in the mystic +mountain-stillness holding the perfume of millions of tiny blossoms of +purple and white heather; and as the last honey-bees were leaving the +beautiful blossoms their humming came to our ears like low, strange +music from Fairyland. + + +MARIAN MACLEAN OF BARRA, AND HER TESTIMONY + +Our next witness to testify is a direct descendant of the ancient +MacNeils of Barra. Her name now is Marian MacLean; and she lives in the +mountainous centre of Barra at Upper Borve. She is many years younger +than the men who have testified, and one of the most industrious women +on the island. It was already dark and past dinner-time when we entered +her cottage, and so, as we sat down before a blazing peat-fire, she at +once offered us some hot milk and biscuits, which we were only too glad +to accept. And, as we ate, we talked first about our hard climb in the +darkness across the mountains, and through the thick heather-bushes, and +then about the big rock which has a key-hole in it, for it contains a +secret entrance to a fairy palace. We had examined it in the twilight as +we came through the mountain pass which it guards, and my guide Michael +had assured me that more than one islander, crossing at the hour we +were, had seen some of the fairies near it. We waited in front of the +big rock in hopes one might appear for our benefit, but, in spite of our +strong belief that there are fairies there, not a single one would come +out. Perhaps they came and we couldn't see them; who knows? + +_Fairies and Fairy Hosts ('Sluagh')._[39]--'O yes,' Marian said, as she +heard Michael and myself talking over our hot milk, 'there are fairies +there, for I was told that the Pass was a notable fairy haunt.' Then I +said through Michael, 'Can you tell us something about what these +fairies are?' And from that time, save for a few interruptions natural +in conversation, we listened and Marian talked, and told stories as +follows:-- + +'Generally, the fairies are to be seen after or about sunset, and walk +on the ground as we do, whereas the hosts travel in the air above places +inhabited by people. The hosts used to go after the fall of night, and +more particularly about midnight. You'd hear them going in fine weather +against a wind like a covey of birds. And they were in the habit of +lifting men in South Uist, for the hosts need men to help in shooting +their javelins from their bows against women in the action of milking +cows, or against any person working at night in a house over which they +pass. And I have heard of good sensible men whom the hosts took, +shooting a horse or cow in place of the person ordered to be shot. + +'There was a man who had only one cow and one daughter. The daughter was +milking the cow at night when the hosts were passing, and that human +being whom the hosts had lifted with them was her father's neighbour. +And this neighbour was ordered by the hosts to shoot the daughter as she +was milking, but, knowing the father and daughter, he shot the cow +instead. The next morning he went where the father was and said to him, +"You are missing the cow." "Yes," said the father, "I am." And the man +who had shot the cow said, "Are you not glad your cow and not your +daughter was _taken_? For I was ordered to shoot your daughter and I +shot your cow, in order to show blood on my arrow." "I am very glad of +what you have done if that was the case," the father replied. "It was +the case," the neighbour said. + +'My father and grandfather knew a man who was carried by the hosts from +South Uist here to Barra. I understand when the hosts take away earthly +men they require another man to help them. But the hosts must be +spirits. My opinion is that they are both spirits of the dead and other +spirits not the dead. A child was taken by the hosts and returned after +one night and one day, and found at the back of the house with the palms +of its hands in the holes in the wall, and with no life in its body. It +was dead in the spirit. It is believed that when people are dropped from +a great height by the hosts they are killed by the fall. As to fairies, +my firm opinion is that they are spirits who appear in the shape of +human beings.' + +The question was now asked whether the fairies were anything like the +dead, and Marian hesitated about answering. She thought they were like +the dead, but not to be identified with them. The fallen-angel idea +concerning fairies was an obstacle she could not pass, for she said, +'When the fallen angels were cast out of Heaven God commanded them +thus:--"You will go to take up your abodes in crevices, under the earth, +in mounds, or soil, or rocks." And according to this command they have +been condemned to inhabit the places named for a certain period of time, +and when it is expired before the consummation of the world, they will +be seen as numerous as ever.' + +Now we heard two good stories, the first about fairy women spinning for +a mortal, the second about a wonderful changeling who was a magic +musician:-- + +_Fairy-Women Spinners._--'I have heard my father, Alexander MacNeil, who +was well known to Mr. [Alexander] Carmichael and to Mr. J. F. Campbell +of Islay, say that his father knew a woman in the neighbourhood who was +in a hurry to have her stock of wool spun and made into cloth, and one +night this woman secretly wished to have some women to help her. So the +following morning there appeared at her house six or seven fairy women +in long green robes, all alike chanting, "A wool-card, and a +spinning-wheel." And when they were supplied with the instruments they +were so very desirous to get, they all set to work, and by midday of +that morning the cloth was going through the process of the hand-loom. +But they were not satisfied with finishing the work the woman had set +before them, but asked for new employment. The woman had no more +spinning or weaving to be done, and began to wonder how she was to get +the women out of the house. So she went into her neighbour's house and +informed him of her position in regard to the fairy women. The old man +asked what they were saying. "They are earnestly petitioning for some +work to do, and I have no more to give them," the woman replied. "Go you +in," he said to her, "and tell them to spin the sand, and if then they +do not move from your house, go out again and yell in at the door that +Dun Borve is in fire!" The first plan had no effect, but immediately on +hearing the cry, "Dun Borve is in fire!" the fairy women disappeared +invisibly. And as they went, the woman heard the melancholy wail, "Dun +Borve is in fire! Dun Borve is in fire! And what will become of our +hammers and anvil?"--for there was a smithy in the fairy-dwelling.' + +_The Tailor and the Changeling._--'There was a young wife of a young man +who lived in the township of Allasdale, and the pair had just had their +first child. One day the mother left her baby in its cradle to go out +and do some shearing, and when she returned the child was crying in a +most unusual fashion. She fed him as usual on porridge and milk, but he +wasn't satisfied with what seemed to her enough for any one of his age, +yet every suspicion escaped her attention. As it happened, at the time +there was a web of home-made cloth in the house waiting for the tailor. +The tailor came and began to work up the cloth. As the woman was going +out to her customary shearing operation, she warned the tailor if he +heard the child continually crying not to pay much attention to it, +adding she would attend to it when she came home, for she feared the +child would delay him in his work. + +'All went well till about noon, when the tailor observed the child +rising up on its elbow and stretching its hand to a sort of shelf above +the cradle and taking down from it a yellow chanter [of a bagpipe]. And +then the child began to play. Immediately after the child began to play +the chanter, the house filled with young fairy women all clad in long +green robes, who began to dance, and the tailor had to dance with them. +About two o'clock that same afternoon the women disappeared unknown to +the tailor, and the chanter disappeared from the hands of the child also +unknown to the tailor; and the child was in the cradle crying as usual. + +'The wife came home to make the dinner, and observed that the tailor was +not so far advanced with his work as he ought to be in that space of +time. However, when the fairy women disappeared, the child had enjoined +upon the tailor never to tell what he had seen. The tailor promised to +be faithful to the child's injunctions, and so he said nothing to the +mother. + +'The second day the wife left for her occupation as usual, and told the +tailor to be more attentive to his work than the day before. A second +time at the same hour of the day the child in the cradle, appearing more +like an old man than a child, took the chanter and began to play. The +same fairy women filled the house again, and repeated their dance, and +the tailor had to join them. + +'Naturally the tailor was as far behind with his work the second day as +the first day, and it was very noticeable to the woman of the house when +she returned. She thereupon requested him to tell her what the matter +might be. Then he said to her, "I urge upon you after going to bed +to-night not to fondle that child, because he is not your child, nor is +he a child: he is an old fairy man. And to-morrow, at dead tide, go down +to the shore and wrap him in your plaid and put him upon a rock and +begin to pick that shell-fish which is called limpet, and for your life +do not leave the shore until such a time as the tide will flow so high +that you will scarcely be able to wade in to the main shore." The woman +complied with the tailor's advice, and when she had waded to the main +shore and stood there looking at the child on the rock, it cried to her, +"You had a great need to do what you have done. Otherwise you'd have +seen another ending of your turn; but blessing be to you and curses on +your adviser." When the wife arrived home her own natural child was in +the cradle.' + + +THE TESTIMONY OF MURDOCH MACLEAN + +The husband of Marian MacLean had entered while the last stories were +being told, and when they were ended the spirit was on him, and wishing +to give his testimony he began:-- + +_Lachlann's Fairy Mistress._--'My grandmother, Catherine MacInnis, used +to tell about a man named Lachlann, whom she knew, being in love with a +fairy woman. The fairy woman made it a point to see Lachlann every +night, and he being worn out with her began to fear her. Things got so +bad at last that he decided to go to America to escape the fairy woman. +As soon as the plan was fixed, and he was about to emigrate, women who +were milking at sunset out in the meadows heard very audibly the fairy +woman singing this song:-- + + What will the brown-haired woman do + When Lachlann is on the billows? + +'Lachlann emigrated to Cape Breton, landing in Nova Scotia; and in his +first letter home to his friends he stated that the same fairy woman was +haunting him there in America.'[40] + +_Abduction of a Bridegroom._--'I have heard it from old people that a +couple, newly married, were on their way to the home of the bride's +father, and for some unknown reason the groom fell behind the +procession, and seeing a fairy-dwelling open along the road was taken +into it. No one could ever find the least trace of where he went, and +all hope of seeing him again was given up. The man remained with the +fairies so long that when he returned two generations had disappeared +during the lapse of time. The township in which his bride's house used +to be was depopulated and in ruins for upwards of twenty years, but to +him the time had seemed only a few hours; and he was just as fresh and +youthful as when he went in the fairy-dwelling.' + +_Nature of Fairies._--Previous to his story-telling Murdoch had heard us +discussing the nature and powers of fairies, and at the end of this +account he volunteered, without our asking for it, an opinion of his +own:--'This (the story just told by him) leads me to believe that the +spirit and body [of a mortal] are somehow mystically combined by fairy +enchantment, for the fairies had a mighty power of enchanting natural +people, and could transform the physical body in some way. It cannot be +but that the fairies are spirits. According to my thinking and belief +they cannot be anything but spirits. My firm belief, however, is that +they are not the spirits of dead men, but are the fallen angels.' + +Then his wife Marian had one more story to add, and she at once, when +she could, began:-- + +_The Messenger and the Fairies._--'Yes, I have heard the following +incident took place here on the Island of Barra about one hundred years +ago:--A young woman taken ill suddenly sent a messenger in all haste to +the doctor for medicine. On his return, the day being hot and there +being five miles to walk, he sat down at the foot of a knoll and fell +asleep; and was awakened by hearing a song to the following air: "Ho, +ho, ho, hi, ho, ho. Ill it becomes a messenger on an important message +to sleep on the ground in the open air."' + +And with this, for the hour was late and dark, and we were several miles +from Castlebay, we bade our good friends adieu, and began to hunt for a +road out of the little mountain valley where Murdoch and Marian guard +their cows and sheep. And all the way to the hotel Michael and I +discussed the nature of fairies. Just before midnight we saw the welcome +lights in Castlebay across the heather-covered hills, and we both +entered the hotel to talk. There was a blazing fire ready for us and +something to eat. Before I took my final leave of my friend and guide, I +asked him to dictate for me his private opinions about fairies, what +they are and how they appear to men, and he was glad to meet my request. +Here is what he said about the famous folk-lorist, the late Mr. J. F. +Campbell, with whom he often worked in Barra, and for himself:-- + + +MICHAEL BUCHANAN'S DEPOSITION CONCERNING FAIRIES + +'I was with the late Mr. J. F. Campbell during his first and second tour +of the Island of Barra in search of legendary lore strictly connected +with fairies, and I know from daily conversing with him about fairies +that he held them to be spirits appearing to the naked eye of the +spectator as any of the present or former generations of men and women, +except that they were smaller in stature. And I know equally that he, +holding them to be spirits, thought they could appear or disappear at +will. My own firm belief is that the fairies were or are only spirits +which were or are seen in the shape of human beings, but smaller as +regards stature. I also firmly believe in the existence of fairies as +such; and accept the modern and ancient traditions respecting the ways +and customs of various fairy tribes, such as John Mackinnon, the old +piper, and John Campbell, and the MacLeans told us. And I therefore have +no hesitation in agreeing with the views held by the late Mr. J. F. +Campbell regarding fairies.' + + +THE RECITERS' LAMENT, AND THEIR STORY + +The following material, so truly Celtic in its word-colour and in the +profound note of sadness and lamentation dominating it, may very +appropriately conclude our examination of the Fairy-Faith of Scotland, +by giving us some insight into the mind of the Scotch peasants of two +generations ago, and into the then prevailing happy social environment +under which their belief in fairies flourished. For our special use Dr. +Alexander Carmichael has rendered it out of the original Gaelic, as this +was taken down by him in various versions in the Western Hebrides. One +version was recited by Ann Macneill, of Barra, in the year 1865, another +by Angus Macleod, of Harris, in 1877. In relation to their belief in +fairies the anti-clerical bias of the reciters is worth noting as a +curious phenomenon:-- + +'That is as I heard when a hairy little fellow upon the knee of my +mother. My mother was full of stories and songs of music and chanting. +My two ears never heard musical fingers more preferable for me to hear +than the chanting of my mother. If there were quarrels among children, +as there were, and as there will be, my beloved mother would set us to +dance there and then. She herself or one of the other crofter women of +the townland would sing to us the mouth-music. We would dance there till +we were seven times tired. A stream of sweat would be falling from us +before we stopped--hairful little lassies and stumpy little fellows. +These are scattered to-day! scattered to-day over the wide world! The +people of those times were full of music and dancing stories and +traditions. The clerics have extinguished these. May ill befall them! +And what have the clerics put in their place? Beliefs about creeds, and +disputations about denominations and churches! May lateness be their +lot! It is they who have put the cross round the heads and the +entanglements round the feet of the people. The people of the Gaeldom of +to-day are anear perishing for lack of the famous feats of their +fathers. The black clerics have suppressed every noble custom among the +people of the Gaeldom--precious customs that will never return, no never +again return.' (Now follows what the Reciters heard upon the knee of +their mother):-- + +'"I have never seen a man fairy nor a woman fairy, but my mother saw a +troop of them. She herself and the other maidens of the townland were +once out upon the summer _sheiling_ (grazing). They were milking the +cows, in the evening gloaming, when they observed a flock of fairies +reeling and setting upon the green plain in front of the knoll. And, oh +King! but it was they the fairies themselves that had the right to the +dancing, and not the children of men! Bell-helmets of blue silk covered +their heads, and garments of green satin covered their bodies, and +sandals of yellow membrane covered their feet. Their heavy brown hair +was streaming down their waist, and its lustre was of the fair golden +sun of summer. Their skin was as white as the swan of the wave, and +their voice was as melodious as the mavis of the wood, and they +themselves were as beauteous of feature and as lithe of form as a +picture, while their step was as light and stately and their minds as +sportive as the little red hind of the hill. The damsel children of the +_sheiling_-fold never saw sight but them, no never sight but them, never +aught so beautiful. + +'"There is not a wave of prosperity upon the fairies of the knoll, no, +not a wave. There is no growth nor increase, no death nor withering upon +the fairies. Seed unfortunate they! They went away from the Paradise +with the One of the Great Pride. When the Father commanded the doors +closed down and up, the intermediate fairies had no alternative but to +leap into the holes of the earth, where they are, and where they will +be." + +'This is what I heard upon the knee of my beloved mother. Blessings be +with her ever evermore!' + + +IV. IN THE ISLE OF MAN + + Introduction by SOPHIA MORRISON, Hon. Secretary of the Manx + Language Society. + +The Manx hierarchy of fairy beings people hills and glens, caves and +rivers, mounds and roads; and their name is legion. Apparently there is +not a place in the island but has its fairy legend. Sir Walter Scott +said that the 'Isle of Man, beyond all other places in Britain, was a +peculiar depository of the fairy-traditions, which, on the Island being +conquered by the Norse, became in all probability chequered with those +of Scandinavia, from a source peculiar and more direct than that by +which they reached Scotland and Ireland'. + +A good Manxman, however, does not speak of fairies--the word _ferish_, a +corruption of the English, did not exist in the island one hundred and +fifty years ago. He talks of 'The Little People' (_Mooinjer veggey_), +or, in a more familiar mood, of 'Themselves', and of 'Little Boys' +(_Guillyn veggey_), or 'Little Fellas'. In contradistinction to mortals +he calls them 'Middle World Men', for they are believed to dwell in a +world of their own, being neither good enough for Heaven nor bad enough +for Hell. + +At the present moment almost all the older Manx peasants hold to this +belief in fairies quite firmly, but with a certain dread of them; and, +to my knowledge, two old ladies of the better class yet leave out cakes +and water for the fairies every night. The following story, illustrative +of the belief, was told to me by Bill Clarke:-- + +'Once while I was fishing from a ledge of rocks that runs out into the +sea at Lag-ny-Keilley, a dense grey mist began to approach the land, and +I thought I had best make for home while the footpath above the rocks +was visible. When getting my things together I heard what sounded like a +lot of children coming out of school. I lifted my head, and behold ye, +there was a fleet of fairy boats each side of the rock. Their +riding-lights were shining like little stars, and I heard one of the +_Little Fellas_ shout, "_Hraaghyn boght as earish broigh, skeddan dy +liooar ec yn mooinjer seihll shoh, cha nel veg ain_" (Poor times and +dirty weather, and herring enough at the people of this world, nothing +at us). Then they dropped off and went agate o' the flitters.' + +'Willy-the-Fairy,' as he is called, who lives at Rhenass, says he often +hears the fairies singing and playing up the Glen o' nights. I have +heard him sing airs which he said he had thus learned from the _Little +People_.[41] + +Again, there is a belief that at Keeill Moirrey (Mary's Church), near +Glen Meay, a little old woman in a red cloak is sometimes seen coming +over the mountain towards the _keeill_, ringing a bell, just about the +hour when church service begins. Keeill Moirrey is one of the early +little Celtic cells, probably of the sixth century, of which nothing +remains but the foundations. + +And the following prayer, surviving to our own epoch, is most +interesting. It shows, in fact, pure paganism; and we may judge from it +that the ancient Manx people regarded Manannan, the great Tuatha De +Danann god, in his true nature, as a spiritual being, a Lord of the Sea, +and as belonging to the complex fairy hierarchy. This prayer was given +to me by a Manxwoman nearly one hundred years old, who is still living. +She said it had been used by her grandfather, and that her father prayed +the same prayer--substituting St. Patrick's name for Manannan's:-- + + _Manannan beg mac y Leirr, fer vannee yn Ellan, + Bannee shin as nyn maatey, mie goll magh + As cheet stiagh ny share lesh bio as marroo "sy vaatey"._ + + (Little Manannan son of Leirr, who blest our Island, + Bless us and our boat, well going out + And better coming in with living and dead [fish] in the boat). + + * * * * * + +It seems to me that no one of the various theories so far advanced +accounts in itself for the Fairy-Faith. There is always a missing +factor, an unknown quantity which has yet to be discovered. No doubt the +Pygmy Theory explains a good deal. In some countries a tradition has +been handed down of the times when there were races of diminutive men in +existence--beings so small that their tiny hands could have used the +flint arrow-heads and scrapers which are like toys to us. No such +tradition exists at the present day in the Isle of Man, but one might +have filtered down from the far-off ages and become innate in the +folk-memory, and now, unknown to the Manx peasant, may possibly suggest +to his mind the troops of _Little People_ in the shadowy glen or on the +lonely mountain-side. Again, the rustling of the leaves or the sough of +the wind may be heard by the peasant as strange and mysterious voices, +or the trembling shadow of a bush may appear to him as an unearthly +being. Natural facts, explainable by modern science, may easily remain +dark mysteries to those who live quiet lives close to Nature, far from +sophisticated towns, and whose few years of schooling have left the +depths of their being undisturbed, only, as it were, ruffling the +shallows. + +But this is not enough. Even let it be granted that nine out of every +ten cases of experiences with fairies can be analysed and explained +away--there remains the tenth. In this tenth case one is obliged to +admit that there is something at work which we do not understand, some +force in play which, as yet, we know not. In spite of ourselves we feel +'There's Powers that's in'. These Powers are not necessarily what the +superstitious call 'supernatural'. We realize now that there is nothing +supernatural--that what used to be so called is simply something that we +do not understand at present. Our forefathers would have thought the +telephone, the X-rays, and wireless telegraphy things 'supernatural'. It +is more than possible that our descendants may make discoveries equally +marvellous in the realms both of mind and matter, and that many things, +which nowadays seem to the materialistically-minded the creations of +credulous fancy, may in the future be understood and recognized as part +of the one great scheme of things. + +Some persons are certainly more susceptible than others to these unknown +forces. Most people know reliable instances of telepathy and +presentiment amongst their acquaintances. It seems not at all contrary +to reason that both matter and mind, in knowledge of which we have not +gone so very far after all, may exist in forms as yet entirely unknown +to us. After all, beings with bodies and personalities different from +our own may well inhabit the unseen world around us: the Fairy Hound, +white as driven snow, may show himself at times among his mundane +companions; _Fenodyree_ may do the farm-work for those whom he favours; +the _Little People_ may sing and dance o' nights in Colby Glen. Let us +not say it is 'impossible'. + + PEEL, ISLE OF MAN, + _September_ 1910. + + +ON THE SLOPES OF SOUTH BARRULE + +I was introduced to the ways and nature of Manx fairies in what is +probably the most fairy-haunted part of the isle--the southern slopes of +South Barrule, the mountain on whose summit Manannan is said to have had +his stronghold, and whence he worked his magic, hiding the kingdom in +dense fog whenever he beheld in the distance the coming of an enemy's +ship or fleet. And from a representative of the older generation, Mrs. +Samuel Leece, who lives at Ballamodda, a pleasant village under the +shadow of South Barrule, I heard the first story:-- + +_Baby and Table Moved by Fairies._--'I have been told of _their_ (the +fairies') taking babies, though I can't be sure it is true. But this did +happen to my own mother in this parish of Kirk Patrick about eighty +years since: She was in bed with her baby, but wide awake, when she felt +the baby pulled off her arm and heard the rush of _them_. Then she +mentioned the Almighty's name, and, as _they_ were hurrying away, a +little table alongside the bed went round about the floor twenty times. +Nobody was in the room with my mother, and she always allowed it was the +_little fellows_.' + + +MANX TALES IN A SNOW-BOUND FARM-HOUSE + +When our interesting conversation was over, Mrs. Leece directed me to +her son's farm-house, where her husband, Mr. Samuel Leece, then happened +to be; and going there through the snow-drifts, I found him with his son +and the family within. The day was just the right sort to stir Manx +memories, and it was not long before the best of stories about the +'little people' were being told in the most natural way, and to the +great delight of the children. The grandfather, who is eighty-six years +of age, sat by the open fire smoking; and he prepared the way for the +stories (three of which we record) by telling about a ghost seen by +himself and his father, and by the announcement that 'the fairies are +thought to be spirits'. + +_Under 'Fairy' Control._--'About fifty years ago,' said Mr. T. Leece, +the son, 'Paul Taggart, my wife's uncle, a tailor by trade, had for an +apprentice, Humphrey Keggan, a young man eighteen or nineteen years of +age; and it often happened that while the two of them would be returning +home at nightfall, the apprentice would suddenly disappear from the side +of the tailor, and even in the midst of a conversation, as soon as they +had crossed the burn in the field down there (indicating an adjoining +field). And Taggart could not see nor hear Humphrey go. The next morning +Humphrey would come back, but so worn out that he could not work, and he +always declared that _little men_ had come to him in crowds, and used +him as a horse, and that with them he had travelled all night across +fields and over hedges.' The wife of the narrator substantiated this +strange psychological story by adding:--'This is true, because I know my +Uncle Paul too well to doubt what he says.' And she then related the two +following stories:-- + +_Heifer Killed by Fairy Woman's Touch._--'Aunt Jane was coming down the +road on the other side of South Barrule when she saw a strange woman' +(who Mr. T. Leece suggested was a witch) 'appear in the middle of the +gorse and walk right over the gorse and heather in a place where no +person could walk. Then she observed the woman go up to a heifer and put +her hand on it; and within a few days that heifer was dead.' + +_The Fairy Dog._--'This used to happen about one hundred years ago, as +my mother has told me:--Where my grandfather John Watterson was reared, +just over near Kerroo Kiel (Narrow Quarter), all the family were +sometimes sitting in the house of a cold winter night, and my great +grandmother and her daughters at their wheels spinning, when a little +white dog would suddenly appear in the room. Then every one there would +have to drop their work and prepare for _the company_ to come in: they +would put down a fire and leave fresh water for _them_, and hurry off +upstairs to bed. They could hear _them_ come, but could never see them, +only the dog. The dog was a fairy dog, and a sure sign of their coming.' + + +TESTIMONY OF A HERB-DOCTOR AND SEER + +At Ballasalla I was fortunate enough to meet one of the most interesting +of its older inhabitants, John Davies, a Celtic medicine-man, who can +cure most obstinate maladies in men or animals with secret herbs, and +who knows very much about witchcraft and the charms against it. 'Witches +are as common as ducks walking barefooted,' he said, using the duck +simile, which is a popular Manx one; and he cited two particular +instances from his own experience. But for us it is more important to +know that John Davies is also an able seer. The son of a weaver, he was +born in County Down, Ireland, seventy-eight years ago; but in earliest +boyhood he came with his people to the Isle of Man, and grew up in the +country near Ramsay, and so thoroughly has he identified himself with +the island and its lore, and even with its ancient language, that for +our purposes he may well be considered a Manxman. His testimony about +Manx fairies is as follows:-- + +_Actual Fairies Described._--'I am only a poor ignorant man; when I was +married I couldn't say the word "matrimony" in the right way. But one +does not have to be educated to see fairies, and I have seen them many a +time. I have seen them with the naked eye as numerous as I have seen +scholars coming out of Ballasalla school; and I have been seeing them +since I was eighteen to twenty years of age. The last one I saw was in +Kirk Michael. Before education came into the island more people could +see the fairies; now very few people can see them. But _they_ (the +fairies) are as thick on the Isle of Man as ever _they_ were. _They_ +throng the air, and darken Heaven, and rule this lower world. It is only +twenty-one miles from this world up to the first heaven.[42] There are +as many kinds of fairies as populations in our world. I have seen some +who were about two and a half feet high; and some who were as big as we +are. I think very many such fairies as these last are the lost souls of +the people who died before the Flood. At the Flood all the world was +drowned; but the Spirit which God breathed into Adam will never be +drowned, or burned, and it is as much in the sea as on the land. Others +of the fairies are evil spirits: our Saviour drove a legion of devils +into a herd of swine; the swine were choked, but not the devils. You +can't drown devils; it is spirits they are, and just like a shadow on +the wall.' I here asked about the personal aspects of most fairies of +human size, and my friend said:--'_They_ appear to me in the same dress +as in the days when they lived here on earth; the spirit itself is only +what God blew into Adam as the breath of life.' + +It seems to me that, on the whole, John Davies has had genuine visions, +but that whatever he may have seen has been very much coloured in +interpretation by his devout knowledge of the Christian Bible, and by +his social environment, as is self-evident. + + +TESTIMONY OF A BALLASALLA MANXWOMAN + +A well-informed Manxwoman, of Ballasalla, who lives in the ancient stone +house wherein she was born, and in which before her lived her +grandparents, offers this testimony:-- + +_Concerning Fairies._--'I've heard a good deal of talk about fairies, +but never believed in them myself; the old people thought them the +ghosts of the dead or some such things. They were like people who had +gone before (that is, dead). If there came a strange sudden knock or +noises, or if a tree took a sudden shaking when there was no wind, +people used to make out it was caused by the fairies. On the 11th of +May[43] we used to gather mountain-ash (_Cuirn_) with red berries on it, +and make crosses out of its sprigs, and put them over the doors, so that +the fairies would not come in. My father always saw that this was done; +he said we could have no luck during the year if we forgot to do it.' + + +TESTIMONY GIVEN IN A JOINER'S SHOP + +George Gelling, of Ballasalla, a joiner, has a local reputation for +knowing much about the fairies, and so I called on him at his workshop. +This is what he told me:-- + +_Seeing the Fairies._--'I was making a coffin here in the shop, and, +after tea, my apprentice was late returning; he was out by the hedge +just over there looking at a crowd of _little people_ kicking and +dancing. One of them came up and asked him what he was looking at; and +this made him run back to the shop. When he described what he had seen, +I told him they were nothing but fairies.' + +_Hearing Fairy Music._--'Up by the abbey on two different occasions I +have heard the fairies. They were playing tunes not of this world, and +on each occasion I listened for nearly an hour.' + +_Mickleby and the Fairy Woman._--'A man named Mickleby was coming from +Derbyhaven at night, when by a certain stream he met two ladies. He +saluted them, and then walked along with them to Ballahick Farm. There +he saw a house lit up, and they took him into it to a dance. As he +danced, he happened to wipe away his sweat with a part of the dress of +one of the two strange women who was his partner. After this adventure, +whenever Mickleby was lying abed at night, the woman with whom he danced +would appear standing beside his bed. And the only way to drive her away +was to throw over her head and Mickleby a linen sheet which had never +been bleached.' + +_Nature of Fairies._--'The fairies are spirits. I think they are in this +country yet: A man below here forgot his cow, and at a late hour went to +look for her, and saw that crowds of fairies like little boys were with +him. [St.] Paul said that spirits are thick in the air, if only we could +see them; and we call spirits fairies. I think the old people here in +the island thought of fairies in the same way.' + +_The Fairies' Revenge._--William Oates now happened to come into the +workshop, and being as much interested in the subject under discussion +as ourselves, offered various stories, of which the following is a +type:--'A man named Watterson, who used often to see the fairies in his +house at Colby playing in the moonlight, on one occasion heard them +coming just as he was going to bed. So he went out to the spring to get +fresh water for them; and coming into the house put the can down on the +floor, saying, "Now, little beggars, drink away." And at that (an insult +to the fairies) the water was suddenly thrown upon him.' + + +A VICAR'S TESTIMONY + +When I called on the Rev. J. M. Spicer, vicar of Malew parish, at his +home near Castletown, he told me this very curious story:-- + +_The Taking of Mrs. K----._--'The belief in fairies is quite a living +thing here yet. For example, old Mrs. K----, about a year ago, told me +that on one occasion, when her daughter had been in Castletown during +the day, she went out to the road at nightfall to see if her daughter +was yet in sight, whereupon a whole crowd of fairies suddenly +surrounded her, and began taking her off toward South Barrule Mountain; +and, she added, "I couldn't get away from _them_ until I had called my +son."' + + +A CANON'S TESTIMONY + +I am greatly indebted to the Rev. Canon Kewley, of Arbory, for the +valuable testimony which follows, and especially for his kindness in +allowing me to record what is one of the clearest examples of a +collective hallucination I have heard about as occurring in the +fairy-haunted regions of Celtic countries:-- + +_A Collective Hallucination._--'A good many things can be explained as +natural phenomena, but there are some things which I think cannot be. +For example, my sister and myself and our coachman, and apparently the +horse, saw the same phenomenon at the same moment: one evening we were +driving along an avenue in this parish when the avenue seemed to be +blocked by a great crowd of people, like a funeral procession; and the +crowd was so dense that we could not see through it. The throng was +about thirty to forty yards away. When we approached, it melted away, +and no person was anywhere in sight.' + +_The Manx Fairy-Faith._--'Among the old people of this parish there is +still a belief in fairies. About eighteen years ago, I buried a man, a +staunch Methodist, who said he once saw the road full of fairies in the +form of little black pigs, and that when he addressed them, "In the name +of God what are ye?" they immediately vanished. He was certain they were +the fairies. Other old people speak of the fairies as the _little folk_. +The tradition is that the fairies once inhabited this island, but were +banished for evil-doing. The elder-tree, in Manx _tramman_, is supposed +to be inhabited by fairies. Through accident, one night a woman ran into +such a tree, and was immediately stricken with a terrible swelling which +her neighbours declared came from disturbing the fairies in the tree. +This was on the borders of Arbory parish.' + +The Canon favours the hypothesis that in much of the folk-belief +concerning fairies and Fairyland there is present an instinct, as seen +among all peoples, for communion with the other world, and that this +instinct shows itself in another form in the Christian doctrine of the +Communion of Saints. + + +FAIRY TALES ON CHRISTMAS DAY + +The next morning, Christmas morning, I called at the picturesque +roadside home of Mrs. Dinah Moore a Manxwoman living near Glen Meay; and +she contributed the best single collection of Manx folk-legends I +discovered on the island. The day was bright and frosty, and much snow +still remained in the shaded nooks and hollows, so that a seat before +the cheerful fire in Mrs. Moore's cottage was very comfortable; and with +most work suspended for the ancient day of festivities in honour of the +Sun, re-born after its death at the hands of the Powers of Darkness, all +conditions were favourable for hearing about fairies, and this may +explain why such important results were obtained. + +_Fairy Deceit._--'I heard of a man and wife who had no children. One +night the man was out on horseback and heard a little baby crying beside +the road. He got off his horse to get the baby, and, taking it home, +went to give it to his wife, and it was only a block of wood. And then +the old fairies were outside yelling at the man: "_Eash un oie, s'cheap +t'ou mollit!_" (Age one night, how easily thou art deceived!).' + +_A Midwife's Strange Experience._--'A strange man took a nurse to a +place where a baby boy was born. After the birth, the man set out on a +table two cakes, one of them broken and the other one whole, and said to +the nurse: "Eat, eat; but don't eat of the cake which is broken nor of +the cake which is whole." And the nurse said: "What in the name of the +Lord am I going to eat?" At that all the fairies in the house +disappeared; and the nurse was left out on a mountain-side alone.' + +_A Fairy-Baking._--'At night the fairies came into a house in Glen +Rushen to bake. The family had put no water out for them; and a +beggar-man who had been left lodging on the sofa downstairs heard the +fairies say, "We have no water, so we'll take blood out of the toe of +the servant who forgot our water." And from the girl's blood they mixed +their dough. Then they baked their cakes, ate most of them, and poked +pieces up under the thatched roof. The next day the servant-girl fell +ill, and was ill until the old beggar-man returned to the house and +cured her with a bit of the cake which he took from under the thatch.' + +_A Changeling Musician._--'A family at Dalby had a poor idiot baby, and +when it was twenty years old it still sat by the fire just like a child. +A tailor came to the house to work on a day when all the folks were out +cutting corn, and the idiot was left with him. The tailor began to +whistle as he sat on the table sewing, and the little idiot sitting by +the fire said to him: "If you'll not tell anybody when they come in, +I'll dance that tune for you." So the little fellow began to dance, and +he could step it out splendidly. Then he said to the tailor: "If you'll +not tell anybody when they come in, I'll play the fiddle for you." And +the tailor and the idiot spent a very enjoyable afternoon together. But +before the family came in from the fields, the poor idiot, as usual, was +sitting in a chair by the fire, a big baby who couldn't hardly talk. +When the mother came in she happened to say to the tailor, "You've a +fine chap here," referring to the idiot. "Yes, indeed," said the tailor, +"we've had a very fine afternoon together; but I think we had better +make a good fire and put him on it." "Oh!" cried the mother, "the poor +child could never even walk." "Ah, but he can dance and play the fiddle, +too," replied the tailor. And the fire was made; but when the idiot saw +that they were for putting him on it he pulled from his pocket a ball, +and this ball went rolling on ahead of him, and he, going after it, was +never seen again.' After this strange story was finished I asked Mrs. +Moore where she had heard it, and she said:--'I have heard this story +ever since I was a girl. I knew the house and family, and so did my +mother. The family's name was Cubbon.' + +_The Fenodyree's (or 'Phynnodderee's') Disgust._--'During snowy weather, +like this, the Fenodyree would gather in the sheep at night; and during +the harvest season would do the threshing when all the family were abed. +One time, however, just over here at Gordon Farm, the farmer saw him, +and he was naked; and so the farmer put out a new suit of clothes for +him. The Fenodyree came at night, and looking at the clothes with great +disgust at the idea of wearing such things, said:-- + + _Bayrn_ da'n chione, doogh da'n chione, + Cooat da'n dreeym, doogh da'n dreeym, + Breechyn da'n toin, doogh da'n toin, + Agh my she lhiat Gordon mooar, + Cha nee lhiat Glion reagh Rushen. + + (Cap for the head, alas! poor head, + Coat for the back, alas! poor back, + Breeches for the breech, alas! poor breech, + But if big Gordon [farm] is thine, + Thine is not the merry Glen of Rushen.)[44] + +And off he went to Glen Rushen for good.' + + +TESTIMONY FROM THE KEEPER OF PEEL CASTLE + +From Mrs. Moore's house I walked on to Peel, where I was fortunate in +meeting, in his own home, Mr. William Cashen, the well-known keeper of +the famous old Peel Castle, within whose yet solid battlements stands +the one true round tower outside of Ireland. I heard first of all about +the fairy dog--the _Moddey Doo_ (Manx for Black Dog)--which haunts the +castle; and then Mr. Cashen related to me the following anecdotes and +tales about Manx fairies:-- + +_Prayer against the Fairies._--'My father's and grandfather's idea was +that the fairies tumbled out of the battlements of Heaven, falling +earthward for three days and three nights as thick as hail; and that one +third of them fell into the sea, one third on the land, and one third +remained in the air, in which places they will remain till the Day of +Judgement. The old Manx people always believed that this fall of the +fairies was due to the first sin, pride; and here is their prayer +against the fairies:--"_Jee saue mee voish cloan ny moyrn_" (God +preserve me from the children of pride [or ambition]).' + +_A Man's Two Wives._--'A Ballaleece woman was captured by the fairies; +and, soon afterwards, her husband took a new wife, thinking the first +one gone for ever. But not long after the marriage, one night the first +wife appeared to her former husband and said to him, and the second wife +overheard her: "You'll sweep the barn clean, and mind there is not one +straw left on the floor. Then stand by the door, and at a certain hour a +company of people on horseback will ride in, and you lay hold of that +bridle of the horse I am on, and don't let it go." He followed the +directions carefully, but was unable to hold the horse: the second wife +had put some straw on the barn floor under a bushel.' + +_Sounds of Infinity._--'On Dalby Mountain, this side of +Cronk-yn-Irree-Laa the old Manx people used to put their ears to the +earth to hear the Sounds of Infinity (_Sheean-ny-Feaynid_), which were +sounds like murmurs. They thought these sounds came from beings in +space; for in their belief all space is filled with invisible +beings.'[45] + + +TO THE MEMORY OF A MANX SCHOLAR + +Since the following testimony was written down, its author, the late Mr. +John Nelson, of Ramsey, has passed out of our realm of life into the +realm invisible. He was one of the few Manxmen who knew the Manx +language really well, and the ancient traditions which it has preserved +both orally and in books. In his kindly manner and with fervent loyalty +toward all things Celtic, he gave me leave, during December 1909, to +publish for the first time the interesting matter which follows; and, +with reverence, we here place it on record to his memory:-- + +_A Blinding by Fairies._--'My grandfather, William Nelson, was coming +home from the herring fishing late at night, on the road near Jurby, +when he saw in a pea-field, across a hedge, a great crowd of _little +fellows_ in red coats dancing and making music. And as he looked, an old +woman from among them came up to him and spat in his eyes, saying: +"You'll never see us again"; and I am told that he was blind afterwards +till the day of his death. He was certainly blind for fourteen years +before his death, for I often had to lead him around; but, of course, I +am unable to say of my own knowledge that he became blind immediately +after his strange experience, or if not until later in life; but as a +young man he certainly had good sight, and it was believed that the +fairies destroyed it.' + +_The Fairy Tune._--'William Cain, of Glen Helen (formerly Rhenass), was +going home in the evening across the mountains near Brook's Park, when +he heard music down below in a glen, and saw there a great glass house +like a palace, all lit up. He stopped to listen, and when he had the new +tune he went home to practise it on his fiddle; and recently he played +the same fairy tune at Miss Sophia Morrison's Manx entertainment in +Peel.' + +_Manannan the Magician._--Mr. Nelson told a story about a _Buggane_ or +_Fenodyree_, such as we already have, and explained the _Glashtin_ as a +water-bull, supposed to be a goblin half cow and half horse, and then +offered this tradition about Manannan:--'It is said that Manannan was a +great magician, and that he used to place on the sea pea-shells, held +open with sticks and with sticks for masts standing up in them, and then +so magnify them that enemies beheld them as a strong fleet, and would +not approach the island. Another tradition is that Manannan on his three +legs (the Manx coat of arms) could travel from one end to the other of +his isle with wonderful swiftness, moving like a wheel.'[46] + + +TESTIMONY OF A FARMER AND FISHERMAN + +From the north of the island I returned to Peel, where I had arranged to +meet new witnesses, and the first one of these is James Caugherty, a +farmer and fisherman, born in Kirk Patrick fifty-eight years ago, who +testified (in part) as follows:-- + +_Churn Worked by Fairies._--'Close by Glen Cam (Winding Glen), when I +was a boy, our family often used to hear the empty churn working in the +churn-house, when no person was near it, and they would say, "Oh, it's +the _little fellows_."' + +_A Remarkable Changeling Story._--'Forty to fifty years ago, between St. +John's and Foxdale, a boy, with whom I often played, came to our house +at nightfall to borrow some candles, and while he was on his way home +across the hills he suddenly saw a little boy and a little woman coming +after him. If he ran, they ran, and all the time they gained on him. +Upon reaching home he was speechless, his hands were altered (turned +awry), and his feet also, and his fingernails had grown long in a +minute. He remained that way a week. My father went to the boy's mother +and told her it wasn't Robby at all that she saw; and when my father was +for taking the tongs and burning the boy with a piece of glowing turf +[as a changeling test], the boy screamed awfully. Then my father +persuaded the mother to send a messenger to a doctor in the north near +Ramsey "doing charms", to see if she couldn't get Robby back. As the +messenger was returning, the mother stepped out of the house to relieve +him, and when she went into the house again her own Robby was there. As +soon as Robby came to himself all right, he said a little woman and a +little boy had followed him, and that just as he got home he was +conscious of being taken away by them, but he didn't know where they +came from nor where they took him. He was unable to tell more than this. +Robby is alive yet, so far as I know; he is Robert Christian, of +Douglas.' + + +EVIDENCE FROM A MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF KEYS + +Mr. T. C. Kermode, of Peel, member of the House of Keys, the Lower House +of the Manx Parliament, very kindly dictated for my use the following +statement concerning fairies which he himself has seen:-- + +_Reality of Fairies._--'There is much belief here in the island that +there actually are fairies; and I consider such belief based on an +actual fact in nature, because of my own strange experience. About forty +years ago, one October night, I and another young man were going to a +kind of Manx harvest-home at Cronk-a-Voddy. On the Glen Helen road, just +at the Beary Farm, as we walked along talking, my friend happened to +look across the river (a small brook), and said: "Oh look, there are the +fairies. Did you ever see them?" I looked across the river and saw a +circle of supernatural light, which I have now come to regard as the +"astral light" or the light of Nature, as it is called by mystics, and +in which spirits become visible. The spot where the light appeared was a +flat space surrounded on the sides away from the river by banks formed +by low hills; and into this space and the circle of light, from the +surrounding sides apparently, I saw come in twos and threes a great +crowd of little beings smaller than Tom Thumb and his wife. All of them, +who appeared like soldiers, were dressed in red. They moved back and +forth amid the circle of light, as they formed into order like troops +drilling. I advised getting nearer to them, but my friend said, "No, I'm +going to the party." Then after we had looked at them a few minutes my +friend struck the roadside wall with a stick and shouted, and we lost +the vision and the light vanished.' + +_The Manx Fairy-Faith._--'I have much evidence from old Manx people, who +are entirely reliable and God-fearing, that they have seen the fairies +hunting with hounds and horses, and on the sea in ships, and under other +conditions, and that they have heard their music. They consider the +fairies a complete nation or world in themselves, distinct from our +world, but having habits and instincts like ours. Social organization +among them is said to be similar to that among men, and they have their +soldiers and commanders. Where the fairies actually exist the old people +cannot tell, but they certainly believe that they can be seen here on +earth.' + + +TESTIMONY FROM A PAST PROVINCIAL GRAND MASTER + +Mr. J. H. Kelly, Past Provincial Grand Master of the Isle of Man +District of Oddfellows, a resident of Douglas, offers the following +account of a curious psychical experience of his own, and attributes it +to fairies:-- + +_A Strange Experience with Fairies._--'Twelve to thirteen years ago, on +a clear moonlight night, about twelve o'clock, I left Laxey; and when +about five miles from Douglas, at Ballagawne School, I heard talking, +and was suddenly conscious of being in the midst of an invisible throng. +As this strange feeling came over me, I saw coming up the road four +figures as real to look upon as human beings, and of medium size, though +I am certain they were not human. When these four, who seemed to be +connected with the invisible throng, came out of the Garwick road into +the main road, I passed into a by-road leading down to a very peaceful +glen called Garwick Glen; and I still had the same feeling that +invisible beings were with me, and this continued for a mile. There was +no fear or emotion or excitement, but perfect calm on my part. I +followed the by-road; and when I began to mount a hill there was a +sudden and strange quietness, and a sense of isolation came over me, as +though the joy and peace of my life had departed with the invisible +throng. From different personal experiences like this one, I am firmly +of the opinion and belief that the fairies exist. One cannot say that +they are wholly physical or wholly spiritual, but the impression left +upon my mind is that they are an absolutely real order of beings not +human.' + + Invoking Little Manannan, son of Leirr, to give us safe passage + across his watery domain, we now go southward to the nearest + Brythonic country, the Land of Arthur, WALES. + + +V. IN WALES + + Introduction by The Right Hon. SIR JOHN RHYS, M.A., D.Litt., + F.B.A., Hon. LL.D. of the University of Edinburgh; Professor of + Celtic in the University of Oxford; Principal of Jesus College; + author of _Celtic Folklore, Welsh and Manx_, &c. + +The folk-lore of Wales in as far as it concerns the Fairies consists of +a very few typical tales, such as:-- + +(1) The Fairy Dance and the usual entrapping of a youth, who dances with +the Little People for a long time, while he supposes it only a few +minutes, and who if not rescued is taken by them. + +(2) There are other ways in which recruits may be led into Fairyland and +induced to marry fairy maidens, and any one so led away is practically +lost to his kith and kin, for even if he be allowed to visit them, the +visit is mostly cut short in one way or another. + +(3) A man catches a fairy woman and marries her. She proves to be an +excellent housewife, but usually she has had put into the +marriage-contract certain conditions which, if broken, inevitably +release her from the union, and when so released she hurries away +instantly, never to return, unless it be now and then to visit her +children. One of the conditions, especially in North Wales, is that the +husband should never touch her with iron. But in the story of the Lady +of Llyn y Fan Fach, in Carmarthenshire, the condition is that he must +not strike the wife without a cause three times, the striking being +interpreted to include any slight tapping, say, on the shoulder. This +story is one of the most remarkable on record in Wales, and it recalls +the famous tale of Undine, published in German many years ago by De La +Motte Fouque. It is not known where he found it, or whether the people +among whom it was current were pure Germans or of Celtic extraction. + +(4) The Fairies were fond of stealing nice healthy babies and of leaving +in their place their own sallow offspring. The stories of how the right +child might be recovered take numerous forms; and some of these stories +suggest how weak and sickly children became the objects of systematic +cruelty at the hands of even their own parents. The changeling was +usually an old man, and many were the efforts made to get him to betray +his identity. + +(5) There is a widespread story of the fairy husband procuring for his +wife the attendance of a human midwife. The latter was given a certain +ointment to apply to the baby's eyes when she dressed it. She was not to +touch either of her own eyes with it, but owing to an unfailing accident +she does, and with the eye so touched she is enabled to see the fairies +in their proper shape and form. This has consequences: The fairy husband +pays the midwife well, and discharges her. She goes to a fair or market +one day and observes her old master stealing goods from a stall, and +makes herself known to him. He asks her with which eye she sees him. She +tells him, and the eye to which he objects he instantly blinds. + +(6) Many are the stories about the fairies coming into houses at night +to wash and dress their children after everybody is gone to bed. A +servant-maid who knows her business leaves a vessel full of water for +them, and takes care that the house is neat and tidy, and she then +probably finds in the morning some fairy gift left her, whereas if the +house be untidy and the water dirty, they will pinch her in her sleep, +and leave her black and blue. + +(7) The fairies were not strong in their household arrangements, so it +was not at all unusual for them to come to the farm-houses to borrow +what was wanting to them. + +In the neighbourhood of Snowdon the fairies were believed to live +beneath the lakes, from which they sometimes came forth, especially on +misty days, and children used to be warned not to stray away from their +homes in that sort of weather, lest they should be kidnapped by them. +These fairies were not Christians, and they were great thieves. They +were fond of bright colours. They were sharp of hearing, and no word +that reached the wind would escape them. If a fairy's proper name was +discovered, the fairy to whom it belonged felt baffled.[47] + +Some characteristics of the fairies seem to argue an ancient race, while +other characteristics betray their origin in the workshop of the +imagination; but generally speaking, the fairies are heterogeneous, +consisting partly of the divinities of glens and forests and mountains, +and partly of an early race of men more or less caricatured and equipped +by fable with impossible attributes.[48] + + JESUS COLLEGE, OXFORD, + _October_ 1910. + + +Our field of research in the Land of Arthur includes all the coast +counties save Cardiganshire, from Anglesey on the north to +Glamorganshire on the south. At the very beginning of our investigation +of the belief in the _Tylwyth Teg_, or 'Fair Folk' in the Isle of +Anglesey or Mona, the ancient stronghold of the Druids, we shall see +clearly that the testimony offered by thoroughly reliable and prominent +native witnesses is surprisingly uniform, and essentially animistic in +its nature; and in passing southward to the end of Wales we shall find +the Welsh Fairy-Faith with this same uniformity and exhibiting the same +animistic background everywhere we go. + + +TESTIMONY OF AN ANGLESEY BARD + +Mr. John Louis Jones, of Gaerwen, Anglesey, a native bard who has taken +prizes in various Eisteddfods, testifies as follows:-- + +_Tylwyth Teg's Visits._--'When I was a boy here on the island, the +_Tylwyth Teg_ were described as a race of little beings no larger than +children six or seven years old, who visited farm-houses at night after +all the family were abed. No matter how securely closed a house might +be, the _Tylwyth Teg_ had no trouble to get in. I remember how the old +folk used to make the house comfortable and put fresh coals on the fire, +saying, "Perhaps the _Tylwyth Teg_ will come to-night." Then the +_Tylwyth Teg_, when they did come, would look round the room and say, +"What a clean beautiful place this is!" And all the while the old folk +in bed were listening. Before departing from such a clean house the +_Tylwyth Teg_ always left a valuable present for the family.' + +_Fairy Wife and Iron Taboo._--'A young man once caught one of the +_Tylwyth Teg_ women, and she agreed to live with him on condition that +he should never touch her with iron. One day she went to a field with +him to catch a horse, but in catching the horse he threw the bridle in +such a way that the bit touched the _Tylwyth Teg_ woman, and all at once +she was gone. As this story indicates, the _Tylwyth Teg_ could make +themselves invisible. I think they could be seen by some people and not +by other people. The old folk thought them a kind of spirit race from a +spirit world.' + + +EVIDENCE FROM CENTRAL ANGLESEY + +Owing to the very kindly assistance of Mr. E. H. Thomas, of Llangefni, +who introduced me to the oldest inhabitants of his town, in their own +homes and elsewhere, and then acted as interpreter whenever Welsh alone +was spoken, I gleaned very clear evidence from that part of Central +Anglesey. Seven witnesses, two of whom were women, ranging in age from +seventy-two to eighty-nine years, were thus interviewed, and each of +them stated that in their childhood the belief in the _Tylwyth Teg_ as a +non-human race of good little people--by one witness compared to singing +angels--was general. Mr. John Jones, the oldest of the seven, among much +else, said in Welsh:--'I believe personally that the _Tylwyth Teg_ are +still existing; but people can't see them. I have heard of two or three +persons being together and one only having been able to see the _Tylwyth +Teg_.' + + +TESTIMONY FROM TWO ANGLESEY CENTENARIANS + +Perhaps nowhere else in Celtic lands could there be found as witnesses +two sisters equal in age to Miss Mary Owen and Mrs. Betsy Thomas, in +their hundred and third and hundredth year respectively (in 1909). They +live a quiet life on their mountain-side farm overlooking the sea, in +the beautiful country near Pentraeth, quite away from the rush and noise +of the great world of commercial activity; and they speak only the +tongue which their prehistoric Kimric ancestors spoke before Roman, or +Saxon, or Norman came to Britain. Mr. W. Jones, of Plas Tinon, their +neighbour, who knows English and Welsh well, acted as interpreter. The +elder sister testified first:-- + +_'Tylwyth Teg's' Nature._--'There were many of the _Tylwyth Teg_ on the +Llwydiarth Mountain above here, and round the Llwydiarth Lake where they +used to dance; and whenever the prices at the Llangefni market were to +be high they would chatter very much at night. They appeared only after +dark; and all the good they ever did was singing and dancing. Ann +Jones, whom I knew very well, used often to see the _Tylwyth Teg_ +dancing and singing, but if she then went up to them they would +disappear. She told me they are an invisible people, and very small. +Many others besides Ann Jones have seen the _Tylwyth Teg_ in these +mountains, and have heard their music and song. The ordinary opinion was +that the _Tylwyth Teg_ are a race of spirits. I believe in them as an +invisible race of good little people.' + +_Fairy Midwife and Magic Oil._--'The _Tylwyth Teg_ had a kind of magic +oil, and I remember this story about it:--A farmer went to Llangefni to +fetch a woman to nurse his wife about to become a mother, and he found +one of the _Tylwyth Teg_, who came with him on the back of his horse. +Arrived at the farm-house, the fairy woman looked at the wife, and +giving the farmer some oil told him to wash the baby in it as soon as it +was born. Then the fairy woman disappeared. The farmer followed the +advice, and what did he do in washing the baby but get some oil on one +of his own eyes. Suddenly he could see the _Tylwyth Teg_, for the oil +had given him the second-sight. Some time later the farmer was in +Llangefni again, and saw the same fairy woman who had given him the oil. +"How is your wife getting on?" she asked him. "She is getting on very +well," he replied. Then the fairy woman added, "Tell me with which eye +you see me best." "With this one," he said, pointing to the eye he had +rubbed with the oil. And the fairy woman put her stick in that eye, and +the farmer never saw with it again.'[49] + +_Seeing 'Tylwyth Teg'._--The younger sister's testimony is as +follows:--'I saw one of the _Tylwyth Teg_ about sixty years ago, near +the Tynymyndd Farm, as I was passing by at night. He was like a little +man. When I approached him he disappeared suddenly. I have heard about +the dancing and singing of the _Tylwyth Teg_, but never have heard the +music myself. The old people said the _Tylwyth Teg_ could appear and +disappear when they liked; and I think as the old people did, that they +are some sort of spirits.' + + +TESTIMONY FROM AN ANGLESEY SEERESS + +At Pentraeth, Mr. Gwilyn Jones said to me:--'It always was and still is +the opinion that the _Tylwyth Teg_ are a race of spirits. Some people +think them small in size, but the one my mother saw was ordinary human +size.' At this, I immediately asked Mr. Jones if his mother was still +living, and he replying that she was, gave me her address in Llanfair. +So I went directly to interview Mr. Jones's mother, Mrs. Catherine +Jones, and this is the story about the one of the _Tylwyth Teg_ she +saw:-- + +_'Tylwyth Teg' Apparition._--'I was coming home at about half-past ten +at night from Cemaes, on the path to Simdda Wen, where I was in service, +when there appeared just before me a very pretty young lady of ordinary +size. I had no fear, and when I came up to her put out my hand to touch +her, but my hand and arm went right through her form. I could not +understand this, and so tried to touch her repeatedly with the same +result; there was no solid substance in the body, yet it remained beside +me, and was as beautiful a young lady as I ever saw. When I reached the +door of the house where I was to stop, she was still with me. Then I +said "Good night" to her. No response being made, I asked, "Why do you +not speak?" And at this she disappeared. Nothing happened afterwards, +and I always put this beautiful young lady down as one of the _Tylwyth +Teg_. There was much talk about my experience when I reported it, and +the neighbours, like myself, thought I had seen one of the _Tylwyth +Teg_. I was about twenty-four years old at the time of this +incident.'[50] + + +TESTIMONY FROM A PROFESSOR OF WELSH + +Just before crossing the Menai Straits I had the good fortune to meet, +at his home in Llanfair, Mr. J. Morris Jones, M.A. (Oxon.), Professor of +Welsh in the University College at Bangor, and he, speaking of the +fairy-belief in Anglesey as he remembers it from boyhood days, said:-- + +_'Tylwyth Teg.'_--'In most of the tales I heard repeated when I was a +boy, I am quite certain the implication was that the _Tylwyth Teg_ were +a kind of spirit race having human characteristics, who could at will +suddenly appear and suddenly disappear. They were generally supposed to +live underground, and to come forth on moonlight nights, dressed in +gaudy colours (chiefly in red), to dance in circles in grassy fields. I +cannot remember having heard changeling stories here in the Island: I +think the _Tylwyth Teg_ were generally looked upon as kind and +good-natured, though revengeful if not well treated. And they were +believed to have plenty of money at their command, which they could +bestow on people whom they liked.' + + +EVIDENCE FROM NORTH CARNARVONSHIRE + +Upon leaving Anglesey I undertook some investigation of the Welsh +fairy-belief in the country between Bangor and Carnarvon. From the +oldest Welsh people of Treborth I heard the same sort of folk-lore as +we have recorded from Anglesey, except that prominence was given to a +flourishing belief in _Bwganod_, goblins or bogies. But from Mr. T. T. +Davis Evans, of Port Dinorwic, I heard the following very unusual story +based on facts, as he recalled it first hand:-- + +_Jones's Vision._--'William Jones, who some sixty years ago declared he +had seen the _Tylwyth Teg_ in the Aberglaslyn Pass near Beddgelert, was +publicly questioned about them in Bethel Chapel by Mr. Griffiths, the +minister; and he explained before the congregation that the Lord had +given him a special vision which enabled him to see the _Tylwyth Teg_, +and that, therefore, he had seen them time after time as little men +playing along the river in the Pass. The minister induced Jones to +repeat the story many times, because it seemed to please the +congregation very much; and the folks present looked upon Jones's vision +as a most wonderful thing.' + + +EVIDENCE FROM SOUTH CARNARVONSHIRE + +To Mr. E. D. Rowlands, head master of the schools at Afonwen, I am +indebted for a summary of the fairy-belief in South Carnarvonshire:-- + +_'Tylwyth Teg.'_--'According to the belief in South Carnarvonshire, the +_Tylwyth Teg_ were a small, very pretty people always dressed in white, +and much given to dancing and singing in rings where grass grew. As a +rule, they were visible only at night; though in the day-time, if a +mother while hay-making was so unwise as to leave her babe alone in the +field, the _Tylwyth Teg_ might take it and leave in its place a +hunchback, or some deformed object like a child. At night, the _Tylwyth +Teg_ would entice travellers to join their dance and then play all sorts +of tricks on them.'[51] + +_Fairy Cows and Fairy Lake-Women._--'Some of the _Tylwyth Teg_ lived in +caves; others of them lived in lake-bottoms. There is a lake called Llyn +y Morwynion, or "Lake of the Maidens", near Festiniog, where, as the +story goes, a farmer one morning found in his field a number of very +fine cows such as he had never seen before. Not knowing where they came +from, he kept them a long time, when, as it happened, he committed some +dishonest act and, as a result, women of the _Tylwyth Teg_ made their +appearance in the pasture and, calling the cows by name, led the whole +herd into the lake, and with them disappeared beneath its waters. The +old people never could explain the nature of the _Tylwyth Teg_, but they +always regarded them as a very mysterious race, and, according to this +story of the cattle, as a supernatural race.' + + +EVIDENCE FROM MERIONETHSHIRE + +Mr. Louis Foster Edwards, of Harlech, recalling the memories of many +years ago, offers the following evidence:-- + +_Scythe-Blades and Fairies._--'In an old inn on the other side of +Harlech there was to be an entertainment, and, as usual on such +occasions, the dancing would not cease until morning. I noticed, before +the guests had all arrived, that the landlady was putting scythe-blades +edge upwards up into the large chimney, and, wondering why it was, asked +her. She told me that the fairies might come before the entertainment +was over, and that if the blades were turned edge upwards it would +prevent the fairies from troubling the party, for they would be unable +to pass the blades without being cut.' + +_'Tylwyth Teg' and their World._--'There was an idea that the _Tylwyth +Teg_ lived by plundering at night. It was thought, too, that if anything +went wrong with cows or horses the _Tylwyth Teg_ were to blame. As a +race, the _Tylwyth Teg_ were described as having the power of +invisibility; and it was believed they could disappear like a spirit +while one happened to be observing them. The world in which they lived +was a world quite unlike ours, and mortals taken to it by them were +changed in nature. The way a mortal might be taken by the _Tylwyth Teg_ +was by being attracted into their dance. If they thus took you away, it +would be according to our time for twelve months, though to you the time +would seem no more than a night.' + + +FAIRY TRIBES IN MONTGOMERYSHIRE + +From Mr. D. Davies-Williams, who outlined for me the Montgomeryshire +belief in the _Tylwyth Teg_ as he has known it intimately, I learned +that this is essentially the same as elsewhere in North and Central +Wales. He summed up the matter by saying:-- + +_Belief in Tylwyth Teg._--'It was the opinion that the _Tylwyth Teg_ +were a real race of invisible or spiritual beings living in an invisible +world of their own. The belief in the _Tylwyth Teg_ was quite general +fifty or sixty years ago, and as sincere as any religious belief is +now.' + +Our next witness is the Rev. Josiah Jones, minister of the +Congregational Church of Machynlleth; and, after a lifetime's experience +in Montgomeryshire, he gives this testimony:-- + +_A Deacon's Vision._--'A deacon in my church, John Evans, declared that +he had seen the _Tylwyth Teg_ dancing in the day-time, within two miles +from here, and he pointed out the very spot where they appeared. This +was some twenty years ago. I think, however, that he saw only certain +reflections and shadows, because it was a hot and brilliant day.' + +_Folk-Beliefs in General._--'As I recall the belief, the old people +considered the _Tylwyth Teg_ as living beings halfway between something +material and spiritual, who were rarely seen. When I was a boy there was +very much said, too, about corpse-candles and phantom funerals, and +especially about the _Bwganod_, plural of _Bwgan_, meaning a sprite, +ghost, hobgoblin, or spectre. The _Bwganod_ were supposed to appear at +dusk, in various forms, animal and human; and grown-up people as well as +children had great fear of them.' + +_A Minister's Opinion._--'Ultimately there is a substance of truth in +the fairy-belief, but it is wrongly accounted for in the folk-lore: I +once asked Samuel Roberts, of Llanbrynmair, who was quite a noted Welsh +scholar, what he thought of the _Tylwyth Teg_, of hobgoblins, spirits, +and so forth; and he said that he believed such things existed, and that +God allowed them to appear in times of great ignorance to convince +people of the existence of an invisible world.' + + +IN CARDIGANSHIRE; AND A FOLK-LORIST'S TESTIMONY + +No one of our witnesses from Central Wales is more intimately acquainted +with the living folk-beliefs than Mr. J. Ceredig Davies, of Llanilar, a +village about six miles from Aberystwyth; for Mr. Davies has spent many +years in collecting folk-lore in Central and South Wales. He has +interviewed the oldest and most intelligent of the old people, and while +I write this he has in the press a work entitled _The Folk-Lore of Mid +and West Wales_. Mr. Davies very kindly gave me the following outline of +the most prominent traits in the Welsh fairy-belief according to his own +investigations:-- + +_'Tylwyth Teg_.'--'The _Tylwyth Teg_ were considered a very small +people, fond of dancing, especially on moonlight nights. They often came +to houses after the family were abed; and if milk was left for them, +they would leave money in return; but if not treated kindly they were +revengeful. The changeling idea was common: the mother coming home would +find an ugly changeling in the cradle. Sometimes the mother would +consult the _Dynion Hysbys_, or "Wise Men" as to how to get her babe +back. As a rule, treating the fairy babe roughly and then throwing it +into a river would cause the fairy who made the change to appear and +restore the real child in return for the changeling.' + +_'Tylwyth Teg' Marriage Contracts._--'Occasionally a young man would see +the _Tylwyth Teg_ dancing, and, being drawn into the dance, would be +taken by them and married to one of their women. There is usually some +condition in the marriage contract which becomes broken, and, as a +result, the fairy wife disappears--usually into a lake. The marriage +contract specifies either that the husband must never touch his fairy +wife with iron, or else never beat or strike her three times. Sometimes +when fairy wives thus disappear, they take with them into the lake their +fairy cattle and all their household property.' + +_'Tylwyth Teg' Habitations._--'The _Tylwyth Teg_ were generally looked +upon as an immortal race. In Cardiganshire they lived underground; in +Carmarthenshire in lakes; and in Pembrokeshire along the sea-coast on +enchanted islands amid the Irish Sea. I have heard of sailors upon +seeing such islands trying to reach them; but when approached, the +islands always disappeared. From a certain spot in Pembrokeshire, it is +said that by standing on a turf taken from the yard of St. David's +Cathedral, one may see the enchanted islands.'[52] + +_'Tylwyth Teg' as Spirits of Druids._--'By many of the old people the +_Tylwyth Teg_ were classed with spirits. They were not looked upon as +mortal at all. Many of the Welsh looked upon the _Tylwyth Teg_ or +fairies as the spirits of Druids dead before the time of Christ, who +being too good to be cast into Hell were allowed to wander freely about +on earth.' + + +TESTIMONY FROM A WELSHMAN NINETY-FOUR YEARS OLD + +At Pontrhydfendigaid, a village about two miles from the railway-station +called Strata Florida, I had the good fortune to meet Mr. John Jones, +ninety-four years old, yet of strong physique, and able to write his +name without eye-glasses. Both Mr. J. H. Davies, Registrar of the +University College of Aberystwyth, and Mr. J. Ceredig Davies, the +eminent folk-lorist of Llanilar, referred me to Mr. John Jones as one of +the most remarkable of living Welshmen who could tell about the olden +times from first-hand knowledge. Mr. John Jones speaks very little +English, and Mr. John Rees, of the Council School, acted as our +interpreter. This is the testimony:-- + +_Pygmy-sized 'Tylwyth Teg'._--'I was born and bred where there was +tradition that the _Tylwyth Teg_ lived in holes in the hills, and that +none of these _Tylwyth Teg_ was taller than three to four feet. It was a +common idea that many of the _Tylwyth Teg_, forming in a ring, would +dance and sing out on the mountain-sides, or on the plain, and that if +children should meet with them at such a time they would lose their way +and never get out of the ring. If the _Tylwyth Teg_ fancied any +particular child they would always keep that child, taking off its +clothes and putting them on one of their own children, which was then +left in its place. They took only boys, never girls.' + +_Human-sized 'Tylwyth Teg'._--'A special sort of _Tylwyth Teg_ used to +come out of lakes and dance, and their fine looks enticed young men to +follow them back into the lakes, and there marry one of them. If the +husband wished to leave the lake he had to go without his fairy wife. +This sort of _Tylwyth Teg_ were as big as ordinary people; and they were +often seen riding out of the lakes and back again on horses.' + +_'Tylwyth Teg' as Spirits of Prehistoric Race._--'My grandfather told me +that he was once in a certain field and heard singing in the air, and +thought it spirits singing. Soon afterwards he and his brother in +digging dikes in that field dug into a big hole, which they entered and +followed to the end. There they found a place full of human bones and +urns, and naturally decided on account of the singing that the bones and +urns were of the _Tylwyth Teg_.'[53] + +_A Boy's Visit to the 'Tylwyth Teg's' King._--'About eighty years ago, +at Tynylone, my grandfather told me this story: "A boy ten years old was +often whipped and cruelly treated by his schoolmaster because he could +not say his lessons very well. So one day he ran away from school and +went to a river-side, where some little folk came to him and asked why +he was crying. He told them the master had punished him; and on hearing +this they said, 'Oh! if you will stay with us it will not be necessary +for you to go to school. We will keep you as long as you like.' Then +they took him under the water and over the water into a cave +underground, which opened into a great palace where the _Tylwyth Teg_ +were playing games with golden balls, in rings like those in which they +dance and sing. The boy had been taken to the king's family, and he +began to play with the king's sons. After he had been there in the +palace in the full enjoyment of all its pleasures he wished very much to +return to his mother and show her the golden ball which the _Tylwyth +Teg_ gave him. And so he took the ball in his pocket and hurried through +the cave the way he had come; but at the end of it and by the river two +of the _Tylwyth Teg_ met him, and taking the ball away from him they +pushed him into the water, and through the water he found his way home. +He told his mother how he had been away for a fortnight, as he thought, +but she told him it had been for two years. Though the boy often tried +to find the way back to the _Tylwyth Teg_ he never could. Finally, he +went back to school, and became a most wonderful scholar and +parson."'[54] + + +IN MERLIN'S COUNTRY; AND A VICAR'S TESTIMONY + +The Rev. T. M. Morgan, vicar of Newchurch parish, two miles from +Carmarthen, has made a very careful study of the folk-traditions in his +own parish and in other regions of Carmarthenshire, and is able to +offer us evidence of the highest value, as follows:--[55] + +_'Tylwyth Teg' Power over Children._--'The _Tylwyth Teg_ were thought to +be able to take children. "You mind, or the _Tylwyth Teg_ will take you +away," parents would say to keep their children in the house after dark. +It was an opinion, too, that the _Tylwyth Teg_ could transform good +children into kings and queens, and bad children into wicked spirits, +after such children had been _taken_--perhaps in death. The _Tylwyth +Teg_ were believed to live in some invisible world to which children on +dying might go to be rewarded or punished, according to their behaviour +on this earth. Even in this life the _Tylwyth Teg_ had power over +children for good or evil. The belief, as these ideas show, was that the +_Tylwyth Teg_ were spirits.' + +_'Tylwyth Teg' as Evil Spirits._--A few days after my return to Oxford, +the Rev. T. M. Morgan, through his son, Mr. Basil I. Morgan, of Jesus +College, placed in my hands additional folk-lore evidence from his own +parish, as follows:--'After Mr. Wentz visited me on Thursday, September +30, 1909, I went to see Mr. Shem Morgan, the occupier of Cwmcastellfach +farm, an old man about seventy years old. He told me that in his +childhood days a great dread of the fairies occupied the heart of every +child. They were considered to be evil spirits who visited our world at +night, and dangerous to come in contact with; there were no good spirits +among them. He related to me three narratives touching the fairies':-- + +_'Tylwyth Teg's' Path._--The first narrative illustrates that the +_Tylwyth Teg_ have paths (precisely like those reserved for the Irish +_good people_ or for the Breton dead), and that it is death to a mortal +while walking in one of these paths to meet the _Tylwyth Teg_. + +_'Tylwyth Teg' Divination._--The second narrative I quote:--'A farmer of +this neighbourhood having lost his cattle, went to consult _y dyn +hysbys_ (a diviner), in Cardiganshire, who was friendly with the +fairies. Whenever the fairies visited the diviner they foretold future +events, secrets, and the whereabouts of lost property. After the farmer +reached the diviner's house the diviner showed him the fairies, and then +when the diviner had consulted them he told the farmer to go home as +soon as he could and that he would find the cattle in such and such a +place. The farmer did as he was directed, and found the cattle in the +very place where the _dyn hysbys_ told him they would be.' And the third +narrative asserts that a man in the parish of Trelech who was +fraudulently excluded by means of a false will from inheriting the +estate of his deceased father, discovered the defrauder and recovered +the estate, solely through having followed the advice given by the +_Tylwyth Teg_, when (again as in the above account) they were called up +as spirits by a _dyn hysbys_, a Mr. Harries, of Cwrt y Cadno, a place +near Aberystwyth.[56] + + +TESTIMONY FROM A JUSTICE OF THE PEACE + +Mr. David Williams, J.P., who is a member of the Cymmrodorion Society of +Carmarthen, and who has sat on the judicial bench for ten years, offers +us the very valuable evidence which follows:-- + +_'Tylwyth Teg' and their King and Queen._--'The general idea, as I +remember it, was that the _Tylwyth Teg_ were only visitors to this +world, and had no terrestrial habitations. They were as small in stature +as dwarfs, and always appeared in white. Often at night they danced in +rings amid green fields. Most of them were females, though they had a +king; and, as their name suggests, they were very beautiful in +appearance. The king of the _Tylwyth Teg_ was called _Gwydion ab Don_, +_Gwyd_ referring to a temperament in man's nature. His residence was +among the stars, and called _Caer Gwydion_. His queen was _Gwenhidw_. I +have heard my mother call the small fleece-like clouds which appear in +fine weather the _Sheep of Gwenhidw_.'[57] + +_'Tylwyth Teg' as Aerial Beings._--Mr. Williams's testimony continues, +and leads us directly to the Psychological or Psychical Theory:--'As +aerial beings the _Tylwyth Teg_ could fly and move about in the air at +will. They were a special order of creation. I never heard that they +grew old; and whether they multiplied or not I cannot tell. In character +they were almost always good.' + +_Ghosts and Apparitions._--Our conversation finally drifted towards +ghosts and apparitions, as usual, and to Druids. In the chapter dealing +with Re-birth (pp. 390-1) we shall record what Mr. Williams said about +Druids, and here what he said about ghosts and apparitions:--'Sixty +years ago there was hardly an individual who did not believe in +apparitions; and in olden times Welsh families would collect round the +fire at night and each in turn give a story about the _Tylwyth Teg_ and +ghosts.' + +_Conferring Vision of a Phantom Funeral._--'There used to be an old man +at Newchurch named David Davis (who lived about 1780-1840), of Abernant, +noted for seeing phantom funerals. One appeared to him once when he was +with a friend. "Do you see it? Do you see it?" the old man excitedly +asked. "No," said his friend. Then the old man placed his foot on his +friend's foot, and said, "Do you see it now?" And the friend replied +that he did.'[58] + +_Magic and Witchcraft._--Finally, we shall hear from Mr. Williams about +Welsh magic and witchcraft, which cannot scientifically be divorced from +the belief in fairies and apparitions:--'There used to be much +witchcraft in this country; and it was fully believed that some men, if +advanced scholars, had the power to injure or to bewitch their +neighbours by magic. The more advanced the scholar the better he could +carry on his craft.' + + +ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE FROM CARMARTHENSHIRE + +My friend, and fellow student at Jesus College, Mr. Percival V. Davies, +of Carmarthen, contributes, as supplementary to what has been recorded +above, the following evidence, from his great-aunt, Mrs. Spurrell, also +of Carmarthen, a native Welshwoman who has seen a _canwyll gorff_ +(corpse-candle):-- + +_Bendith y Mamau._--'In the Carmarthenshire country, fairies (_Tylwyth +Teg_) are often called _Bendith y Mamau_, the "Mothers' Blessing."' + +_How Ten Children Became Fairies._--'Our Lord, in the days when He +walked the earth, chanced one day to approach a cottage in which lived a +woman with twenty children. Feeling ashamed of the size of her family, +she hid half of them from the sight of her divine visitor. On His +departure she sought for the hidden children in vain; they had become +fairies and had disappeared.' + + +IN PEMBROKESHIRE; AT THE PENTRE EVAN CROMLECH + +Our Pembrokeshire witness is a maiden Welshwoman, sixty years old, who +speaks no English, but a university graduate, her nephew, will act as +our interpreter. She was born and has lived all her life within sight +of the famous Pentre Evan Cromlech, in the home of her ancestors, which +is so ancient that after six centuries of its known existence further +record of it is lost. In spite of her sixty years, our witness is as +active as many a city woman of forty or forty-five. Since her girlhood +she has heard curious legends and stories, and, with a more than +ordinary interest in the lore of her native country, has treasured them +all in her clear and well-trained memory. The first night, while this +well-stored memory of hers gave forth some of its treasures, we sat in +her own home, I and my friend, her nephew, on one side in a +chimney-seat, and she and her niece on the other side in another, +exposed to the cheerful glow and warmth of the fire. When we had +finished that first night it was two o'clock, and there had been no +interruption to the even flow of marvels and pretty legends. A second +night we spent likewise. What follows now is the result, so far as we +are concerned with it:-- + +_Fairies and Spirits._--'Spirits and fairies exist all round us, +invisible. Fairies have no solid bodily substance. Their forms are of +matter like ghostly bodies, and on this account they cannot be caught. +In the twilight they are often seen, and on moonlight nights in summer. +Only certain people can see fairies, and such people hold communication +with them and have dealings with them, but it is difficult to get them +to talk about fairies. I think the spirits about us are the fallen +angels, for when old Doctor Harris died his books on witchcraft had to +be burned in order to free the place where he lived from evil spirits. +The fairies, too, are sometimes called the fallen angels. They will do +good to those who befriend them, and harm to others. I think there must +be an intermediate state between life on earth and heavenly life, and it +may be in this that spirits and fairies live. There are two distinct +types of spirits: one is good and the other is bad. I have heard of +people going to the fairies and finding that years passed as days, but I +do not believe in changelings, though there are stories enough about +them. That there are fairies and other spirits like them, both good and +bad, I firmly believe. My mother used to tell about seeing the +"fair-folk" dancing in the fields near Cardigan; and other people have +seen them round the cromlech up there on the hill (the Pentre Evan +Cromlech). They appeared as little children in clothes like soldiers' +clothes, and with red caps, according to some accounts.' + +_Death-Candles Described._--'I have seen more than one death-candle. I +saw one death-candle right here in this room where we are sitting and +talking.' I was told by the nephew and niece of our present witness that +this particular death-candle took an untrodden course from the house +across the fields to the grave-yard, and that when the death of one of +the family occurred soon afterwards, their aunt insisted that the corpse +should be carried by exactly the same route; so the road was abandoned +and the funeral went through the ploughed fields. Here is the +description of the death-candle as the aunt gave it in response to our +request:--'The death-candle appears like a patch of bright light; and no +matter how dark the room or place is, everything in it is as clear as +day. The candle is not a flame, but a luminous mass, lightish blue in +colour, which dances as though borne by an invisible agency, and +sometimes it rolls over and over. If you go up to the light it is +nothing, for it is a spirit. Near here a light as big as a pot was seen, +and rays shot out from it in all directions. The man you saw here in the +house to-day, one night as he was going along the road near Nevern, saw +the death-light of old Dr. Harris, and says it was lightish green.' + +_Gors Goch Fairies._--Now we began to hear more about fairies:--'One +night there came a strange rapping at the door of the ancient manor on +the Gors Goch farm over in Cardiganshire, and the father of the family +asked what was wanted. Thin, silvery voices said they wanted a warm +place in which to dress their children and to tidy them up. The door +opened then, and in came a dozen or more little beings, who at once set +themselves to hunting for a basin and water, and to cleaning themselves. +At daybreak they departed, leaving a pretty gift in return for the +kindness. In this same house at another time, whether by the same party +of little beings or by another could not be told, a healthy child of the +family was _changed_ because he was unbaptized, and a frightful-looking +child left in his place. The mother finally died of grief, and the other +children died because of the loss of their mother, and the father was +left alone. Then some time after this, the same little folks who came +the first time returned to clean up, and when they departed, in place of +their former gifts of silver, left a gift of gold. It was not long +before the father became heir to a rich farm in North Wales, and going +to live on it became a magician, for the little people, still +befriending him, revealed themselves in their true nature and taught him +all their secrets.' + +_Levi Salmon's Control of Spirits._--'Levi Salmon, who lived about +thirty years ago, between here and Newport, was a magician, and could +call up good and bad spirits; but was afraid to call up the bad ones +unless another person was with him, for it was a dangerous and terrible +ordeal. After consulting certain books which he had, he would draw a +circle on the floor, and in a little while spirits like bulls and +serpents and other animals would appear in it, and all sorts of spirits +would speak. It was not safe to go near them; and to control them Levi +held a whip in his hand. He would never let them cross the circle. And +when he wanted them to go away he always had to throw something to the +chief spirit.' + +_The Haunted Manor and the Golden Image._--I offer now, in my own +language, the following remarkable story:--The ancient manor-house on +the Trewern Farm (less than a mile from the Pentre Evan Cromlech) had +been haunted as long as anybody could remember. Strange noises were +often heard in it, dishes would dance about of their own accord, and +sometimes a lady dressed in silk appeared. Many attempts were made to +lay the ghosts, but none succeeded. Finally things got so bad that +nobody wanted to live there. About eighty years ago the sole occupants +of the haunted house were Mr. ---- and his two servants. At the time, it +was well known in the neighbourhood that all at once Mr. ---- became +very wealthy, and his servants seemed able to buy whatever they wanted. +Everybody wondered, but no one could tell where the money came from; for +at first he was a poor man, and he couldn't have made much off the farm. +The secret only leaked out through one of the servants after Mr. ---- +was dead. The servant declared to certain friends that one of the +ghosts, or, as he thought, the Devil, appeared to Mr. ---- and told him +there was an image of great value walled up in the room over the main +entrance to the manor. A search was made, and, sure enough, a large +image of solid gold was found in the very place indicated, built into a +recess in the wall. Mr. ---- bound the servants to secrecy, and began to +turn the image into money. He would cut off small pieces of the image, +one at a time, and take them to London and sell them. In this way he +sold the whole image, and nobody was the wiser. After the image was +found and disposed of, ghosts were no longer seen in the house, nor were +unusual noises heard in it at night. The one thing which beyond all +doubt is true is that when Mr. ---- died he left his son an estate worth +about L50,000 (an amount probably greatly in excess of the true one); +and people have always wondered ever since where it came from, if not in +part from the golden image.[59] + +Hundreds of parallel stories in which, instead of ghosts, fairies and +demons are said to have revealed hidden treasure could be cited. + + +IN THE GOWER PENINSULA, GLAMORGANSHIRE + +Our investigations in Glamorganshire cover the most interesting part, +the peninsula of Gower, where there are peculiar folk-lore conditions, +due to its present population being by ancestry English and Flemish as +well as Cornish and Welsh. Despite this race admixture, Brythonic +beliefs have generally survived in Gower even among the non-Celts; and +because of the Cornish element there are pixies, as shown by the +following story related to me in Swansea by Mr. ----, a well-known +mining engineer:-- + +_Pixies._--'At Newton, near the Mumbles (in Gower), an old woman, some +twenty years ago, assured me that she had seen the pixies. Her father's +grey mare was standing in the trap before the house ready to take some +produce to the Swansea market, and when the time for departure arrived +the pixies had come, but no one save the old woman could see them. She +described them to me as like tiny men dancing on the mare's back and +climbing up along the mare's mane. She thought the pixies some kind of +spirits who made their appearance in early morning; and all mishaps to +cows she attributed to them.' + + +TESTIMONY FROM AN ARCHAEOLOGIST + +The Rev. John David Davis, rector of Llanmadoc and Cheriton parishes, +and a member of the Cambrian Archaeological Society, has passed many +years in studying the antiquities and folk-lore of Gower, being the +author of various antiquarian works; and he is without doubt the oldest +and best living authority to aid us. The Rector very willingly offers +this testimony:-- + +_Pixies and 'Verry Volk'._--'In this part of Gower, the name _Tylwyth +Teg_ is never used to describe fairies; _Verry Volk_ is used instead. +Some sixty years ago, as I can remember, there was belief in such +fairies here in Gower, but now there is almost none. Belief in +apparitions still exists to some extent. One may also hear of a person +being pixy-led; the pixies may cause a traveller to lose his way at +night if he crosses a field where they happen to be. To take your coat +off and turn it inside out will break the pixy spell.[60] The _Verry +Volk_ were always little people dressed in scarlet and green; and they +generally showed themselves dancing on moonlight nights. I never heard +of their making changelings, though they had the power of doing good or +evil acts, and it was a very risky thing to offend them. By nature they +were benevolent.' + +_A 'Verry Volk' Feast._--'I heard the following story many years +ago:--The tenant on the Eynonsford Farm here in Gower had a dream one +night, and in it thought he heard soft sweet music and the patter of +dancing feet. Waking up, he beheld his cow-shed, which opened off his +bedroom, filled with a multitude of little beings, about one foot high, +swarming all over his fat ox, and they were preparing to slaughter the +ox. He was so surprised that he could not move. In a short time the +_Verry Volk_ had killed, dressed, and eaten the animal. The feast being +over, they collected the hide and bones, except one very small leg-bone +which they could not find, placed them in position, then stretched the +hide over them; and, as the farmer looked, the ox appeared as sound and +fat as ever, but when he let it out to pasture in the morning he +observed that it had a slight lameness in the leg lacking the missing +bone.'[61] + + +FAIRIES AMONG GOWER ENGLISH FOLK + +The population of the Llanmadoc region of Gower are generally English by +ancestry and speech; and not until reaching Llanmorlais, beyond +Llanridian, did I find anything like an original Celtic and +Welsh-speaking people, and these may have come into that part within +comparatively recent times; and yet, as the above place-names tend to +prove, in early days all these regions must have been Welsh. It may be +argued, however, that this English-speaking population may be more +Celtic than Saxon, even though emigrants from England. In any case, we +can see with interest how this so-called English population now echo +Brythonic beliefs which they appear to have adopted in Gower, possibly +sympathetically through race kinship; and the following testimony +offered by Miss Sarah Jenkins, postmistress of Llanmadoc, will enable us +to do so:-- + +_Dancing with Fairies._--'A man, whose Christian name was William, was +enticed by the fairy folk to enter their dance, as he was on his way to +the Swansea market in the early morning. They kept him dancing some +time, and then said to him before they let him go, "Will dance well; the +last going to market and the first that shall sell." And though he +arrived at the market very late, he was the first to sell anything.' + +_Fairy Money._--'An old woman, whom I knew, used to find money left by +the fairies every time they visited her house. For a long time she +observed their request, and told no one about the money; but at last she +told, and so never found money afterwards.' + +_Nature of Fairies._--'The fairies (_verry volk_) were believed to have +plenty of music and dancing. Sometimes they appeared dressed in bright +red. They could appear and disappear suddenly, and no one could tell how +or where.' + + +CONCLUSION + +Much more might easily be said about Welsh goblins, about Welsh fairies +who live in caves, or about Welsh fairy women who come out of lakes and +rivers, or who are the presiding spirits of sacred wells and +fountains,[62] but these will have some consideration later, in Section +III. For the purposes of the present inquiry enough evidence has been +offered to show the fundamental character of Brythonic fairy-folk as we +have found them. And we can very appropriately close this inquiry by +allowing our Welsh-speaking witness from the Pentre Evan country, +Pembrokeshire, to tell us one of the prettiest and most interesting +fairy-tales in all Wales. The name of Taliessin appearing in it leads us +to suspect that it may be the remnant of an ancient bardic tale which +has been handed down orally for centuries. It will serve to illustrate +the marked difference between the short conversational stories of the +living Fairy-Faith and the longer, more polished ones of the traditional +Fairy-Faith; and we shall see in it how a literary effect is gained at +the expense of the real character of the fairies themselves, for it +transforms them into mortals:-- + +_Einion and Olwen._--'My mother told the story as she used to sit by the +fire in the twilight knitting stockings:--"One day when it was cloudy +and misty, a shepherd boy going to the mountains lost his way and walked +about for hours. At last he came to a hollow place surrounded by rushes +where he saw a number of round rings. He recognized the place as one he +had often heard of as dangerous for shepherds, because of the rings. He +tried to get away from there, but he could not. Then an old, merry, +blue-eyed man appeared. The boy, thinking to find his way home, followed +the old man, and the old man said to him, 'Do not speak a word till I +tell you.' In a little while they came to a _menhir_ (long stone). The +old man tapped it three times, and then lifted it up. A narrow path with +steps descending was revealed, and from it emerged a bluish-white light. +'Follow me,' said the old man, 'no harm will come to you.' The boy did +so, and it was not long before he saw a fine, wooded, fertile country +with a beautiful palace, and rivers and mountains. He reached the palace +and was enchanted by the singing of birds. Music of all sorts was in +the palace, but he saw no people. At meals dishes came and disappeared +of their own accord. He could hear voices all about him, but saw no +person except the old man--who said that now he could speak. When he +tried to speak he found that he could not move his tongue. Soon an old +lady with smiles came to him leading three beautiful maidens, and when +the maidens saw the shepherd boy they smiled and spoke, but he could not +reply. Then one of the girls kissed him; and all at once he began to +converse freely and most wittily. In the full enjoyment of the +marvellous country he lived with the maidens in the palace a day and a +year, not thinking it more than a day, for there was no reckoning of +time in that land. When the day and the year were up, a longing to see +his old acquaintances came on him; and thanking the old man for his +kindness, he asked if he could return home. The old man said to him, +'Wait a little while'; and so he waited. The maiden who had kissed him +was unwilling to have him go; but when he promised her to return, she +sent him off loaded with riches. + +'"At home not one of his people or old friends knew him. Everybody +believed that he had been killed by another shepherd. And this shepherd +had been accused of the murder and had fled to America. + +'"On the first day of the new moon the boy remembered his promise, and +returned to the other country; and there was great rejoicing in the +beautiful palace when he arrived. Einion, for that was the boy's name, +and Olwen, for that was the girl's name, now wanted to marry; but they +had to go about it quietly and half secretly, for the _fair-folk_ +dislike ceremony and noise. When the marriage was over, Einion wished to +go back with Olwen to the upper world. So two snow-white ponies were +given them, and they were allowed to depart. + +'"They reached the upper world safely; and, being possessed of unlimited +wealth, lived most handsomely on a great estate which came into their +possession. A son was born to them, and he was called Taliessin. People +soon began to ask for Olwen's pedigree, and as none was given it was +taken for granted that she was one of the _fair-folk_. 'Yes, indeed,' +said Einion, 'there is no doubt that she is one of the _fair-folk_, +there is no doubt that she is one of the very _fair-folk_, for she has +two sisters as pretty as she is, and if you saw them all together you +would admit that the name is a suitable one.' And this is the origin of +the term _fair-folk_ (_Tylwyth Teg_)."' + +From Wales we go to the nearest Brythonic country, Cornwall, to study +the fairy-folk there. + + +VI. IN CORNWALL + + Introduction by HENRY JENNER, Member of the Gorsedd of the Bards of + Brittany; Fellow and Local Secretary for Cornwall of the Society of + Antiquaries; author of _A Handbook of the Cornish Language_, &c. + +In Cornwall the legends of giants, of saints, or of Arthur and his +knights, the observances and superstitions connected with the +prehistoric stone monuments, holy wells, mines, and the like, the +stories of submerged or buried cities, and the fragments of what would +seem to be pre-Christian faiths, have no doubt occasional points of +contact with Cornish fairy legends, but they do not help to explain the +fairies very much. Yet certain it is that not only in Cornwall and other +Celtic lands, but throughout most of the world, a belief in fairies +exists or has existed, and so widespread a belief must have a reason for +it, though not necessarily a good one. That which with unconscious +humour men generally call 'education' has in these days caused those +lower classes, to whom the deposit of this faith was entrusted, to be +ashamed of it, and to despise and endeavour to forget it. And so now in +Cornwall, as elsewhere at that earlier outbreak of Philistinism, the +Reformation, + + From haunted spring and grassy ring + Troop goblin, elf and fairy, + And the kelpie must flit from the black bog-pit, + And the brownie must not tarry. + +But, in spite of Protestantism, school-boards, and education committees, +'pisky-pows' are still placed on the ridge-tiles of West Cornish +cottages, to propitiate the piskies and give them a dancing-place, lest +they should turn the milk sour, and St. Just and Morvah folk are still +'pisky-led' on the Gump (_an Un Gumpas_, the Level Down, between Chun +Castle and Carn Kenidjack), and more rarely St. Columb and Roche folk on +Goss Moor. It will not do to say that it is only another form of +'whisky-led'. That is an evidently modern explanation, invented since +the substitution of strange Scottish and Irish drinks for the good +'Nantes' and wholesome 'Plymouth' of old time, and it does not fit in +with the phenomena. It was only last winter, in a cottage not a hundred +yards from where I am writing, that milk was set at night for piskies, +who had been knocking on walls and generally making nuisances of +themselves. Apparently the piskies only drank the 'astral' part of the +milk (whatever that may be) and then the neighbouring cats drank what +was left, and it disagreed with them. I cannot vouch for the truth of +the part about the piskies and the 'astral' milk--I give it as it was +told to me by the occupant of the cottage, who was not unacquainted with +'occult' terminology--but I do know that the milk was consumed, and that +the cats, one of which was my own, were with one accord unwell all over +the place. But for the present purpose it does not matter whether these +things really happened or not. The point is that people thought they +happened. + +Robert Hunt, in his _Popular Romances of the West of England_, divided +the fairies of Cornish folk-lore into five classes: (1) the Small +People; (2) the Spriggans; (3) the Piskies; (4) the Buccas, Bockles, or +Knockers; (5) the Brownies. This is an incorrect classification. The +_Pobel Vean_ or Small People, the Spriggans, and the Piskies are not +really distinguishable from one another. Bucca, who properly is but one, +is a deity not a fairy, and it is said that at Newlyn, the great seat of +his worship, offerings of fish are still left on the beach for him. His +name is the Welsh _pwca_, which is probably 'Puck', though Shakespeare's +Puck was just a pisky, and it may be connected with the general +Slavonic word _Bog_, God; so that if, as some say, _buccaboo_ is really +meant for _Bucca-du_, Black Bucca, this may be an equivalent of +_Czernobog_, the Black God, who was the Ahriman of Slavonic dualism, and +_Bucca-widn_ (White Bucca), which is rarer, though the expression does +come into a St. Levan story, may be the corresponding _Bielobog_. +_Bockle_, which personally I have never heard used, suggests the +Scottish _bogle_, and both may be diminutives of _bucca_, _bog_, +_bogie_, or _bug_, the last in the sense in which one English version +translates the _timor nocturnus_ of Psalm XC. 5, not in that of _cimex +lectularius_. But _bockle_ and _brownie_ are probably both foreign +importations borrowed from books, though a 'brownie' _eo nomine_ has +been reported from Sennen within the last twenty years. + +The Knockers or Knackers are mine-spirits, quite unconnected with Bucca +or bogles. The story, as I have always heard it, is that they are the +spirits of Jews who were sent by the Romans to work in the tin mines, +some say for being concerned in the Crucifixion of our Lord, which +sounds improbable. They are benevolent spirits, and warn miners of +danger. + +But the only true Cornish fairy is the Pisky, of the race which is the +_Pobel Vean_ or Little People, and the Spriggan is only one of his +aspects. The Pisky would seem to be the 'Brownie' of the Lowland Scot, +the _Duine Sith_ of the Highlander, and, if we may judge from an +interesting note in Scott's _The Pirate_, the 'Peght' of the Orkneys. If +_Daoine Sith_ really means 'The Folk of the Mounds' (barrows), not 'The +People of Peace', it is possible that there is something in the theory +that Brownie, _Duine Sith_, and 'Peght', which is Pict, are only in +their origin ways of expressing the little dark-complexioned aboriginal +folk who were supposed to inhabit the barrows, cromlechs, and _allees +couvertes_, and whose cunning, their only effective weapon against the +mere strength of the Aryan invader, earned them a reputation for magical +powers. Now _Pisky_ or _Pisgy_ is really _Pixy_. Though as a patriotic +Cornishman I ought not to admit it, I cannot deny, especially as it +suits my argument better, that the Devon form is the correct one. But +after all there has been always a strong Cornish element in Devon, even +since the time when Athelstan drove the Britons out of Exeter and set +the Tamar for their boundary, and I think the original word is really +Cornish. The transposition of consonants, especially when _s_ is one of +them, is not uncommon in modern Cornish English. _Hosged_ for +_hogshead_, and _haps_ for _hasp_ are well-known instances. If we take +the root of _Pixy_, _Pix_, and divide the double letter _x_ into its +component parts, we get _Piks_ or _Pics_, and if we remember that a +final _s_ or _z_ in Cornish almost always represents a _t_ or _d_ of +Welsh and Breton (cf. _tas_ for _tad_, _nans_ for _nant_, _bos_ for +_bod_), we may not unreasonably, though without absolute certainty, +conjecture that _Pixy_ is _Picty_ in a Cornish form.[63] + +Without begging any question concerning the origin, ethnology, or +homogeneity of those who are called 'Picts' in history, from the times +of Ammianus Marcellinus and Claudian until Kenneth MacAlpine united the +Pictish kingdom with the Scottish, we can nevertheless accept the fact +that the name 'Pict' has been popularly applied to some pre-Celtic race +or races, to whom certain ancient structures, such as 'vitrified forts' +and 'Picts' houses' have been attributed. In Cornwall there are +instances of prehistoric structures being called 'Piskies' Halls' (there +is an _allee couverte_ so called at Bosahan in Constantine), and +'Piskies' Crows' (_Crow_ or _Craw_, Breton _Krao_, is a shed or hovel; +'pegs' craw' is still used for 'pig-sty'); and there are three genuine +examples of what would in Scotland be called 'Picts' Houses' just +outside St. Ives in the direction of Zennor, though only modern +antiquaries have applied that name to them. In the district in which +they are, the fringe of coast from St. Ives round by Zennor, Morvah, +Pendeen, and St. Just nearly to Sennen, are found to this day a strange +and separate people of Mongol type, like the Bigaudens of Pont l'Abbe +and Penmarc'h in the Breton Cornouailles, one of those 'fragments of +forgotten peoples' of the 'sunset bound of Lyonesse' of whom Tennyson +tells. They are a little 'stuggy' dark folk, and until comparatively +modern times were recognized as different from their Celtic neighbours, +and were commonly believed to be largely wizards and witches. One of Mr. +Wentz's informants seems to attribute to Zennor a particularly virulent +brand of pisky, and Zennor is the most primitive part of that district. +Possibly the more completely unmixed ancestors of this race were 'more +so' than the present representatives; but, be this as it may, if _Pixy_ +is really _Picty_, it would seem that, like the inhabitants of the +extreme north of the British Isles, the south-western Britons eventually +applied the fairly general popular name of the mysterious, half dreaded, +half despised aboriginal to a race of preternatural beings in whose +existence they believed, and, with the name, transferred some of the +qualities, attributes, and legends, thus producing a mixed mental +conception now known as 'pisky' or 'pixy'. + +There seems to have been always and everywhere (or nearly so) a belief +in a race, neither divine nor human, but very like to human beings, who +existed on a 'plane' different from that of humans, though occupying the +same space. This has been called the 'astral' or the 'fourth-dimensional' +plane. Why 'astral'? why 'fourth-dimensional'? why 'plane'? are +questions the answers to which do not matter, and I do not attempt to +defend the terms, but you must call it something. This is the belief to +which Scott refers in the introduction to _The Monastery_, as the +'beautiful but almost forgotten theory of astral spirits or creatures of +the elements, surpassing human beings in knowledge and power, but +inferior to them as being subject, after a certain space of years, to a +death which is to them annihilation'. The subdivisions and elaborations +of the subject by Paracelsus, the Rosicrucians, and the modern +theosophists are no doubt amplifications of that popular belief, which, +though rather undefined, resembles the theory of these mystics in its +main outlines, and was probably what suggested it to them. + +These beings are held to be normally imperceptible to human senses, but +conditions may arise in which the 'astral plane' of the elementals and +that part of the 'physical plane' in which, if one may so express it, +some human being happens to be, may be in such a relation to one another +that these and other spirits may be seen and heard. Some such condition +is perhaps described in the story of Balaam the soothsayer, in that +incident when 'the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw, and +behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about +Elisha', and possibly also in the mysterious 'sound of a going in the +tops of the mulberry trees' which David heard; but no doubt in these +cases it was angels and not elementals. It may also be allowable to +suggest, without irreverence, that the Gospel stories of the +Transfiguration and Ascension are connected with the same idea, though +the latter is expressed in the form of the geocentric theory of the +universe. + +The Cornish pisky stories are largely made up of instances of contact +between the two 'planes', sometimes accidental, sometimes deliberately +induced by incantations or magic eye-salve, yet with these stories are +often mingled incidents that are not preternatural at all. How, when, +and why this belief arose, I do not pretend even to conjecture; but +there it is, and though of course the holders of it do not talk about +'planes', that is very much the notion which they appear to have. + +I do not think that the piskies were ever definitely held to be the +spirits of the dead, and while a certain confusion has arisen, as some +of Mr. Wentz's informants show, I think it belongs to the confused +eschatology of modern Protestants. To a pre-Reformation Cornishman, or +indeed to any other Catholic, the idea was unthinkable. 'Justorum animae +in manu Dei sunt, et non tanget illos tormentum malitiae: visi sunt +oculis insipientium mori: illi autem sunt in pace,' and the +transmigration of the souls of the faithful departed into another order +of beings, not disembodied because never embodied, was to them +impossible. Such a notion is on a par with the quaint but very usual +hope of the modern 'Evangelical' Christian, so beautifully expressed in +one of Hans Andersen's stories, that his departed friends are promoted +to be 'angels'. There may be, perhaps, an idea, as there certainly is in +the Breton Death-Faith, that the spirits of the faithful dead are all +round us, and are not rapt away into a _distant_ Paradise or Purgatory. +This may be of pre-Christian origin, but does not contradict any article +of the Christian faith. The warnings, apparitions, and hauntings, the +'calling of the dead' at sea, and other details of Cornish +Death-Legends, seem to point to a conception of a 'plane' of the dead, +similar to but not necessarily identical with that of the elementals. +Under some quite undefined conditions contact may occur with the +'physical plane', whence the alleged incidents; but this Cornish +Death-Faith, though sometimes, as commonly in Brittany, presenting +similar phenomena, has in itself nothing to do with piskies, and as for +the unfaithful departed, their destination was also well understood, and +it was not Fairyland. There are possible connecting links in the not +very common idea that piskies are the souls of unbaptized children, and +in the more common notion that the _Pobel Vean_ are, not the disembodied +spirits, but the living souls and bodies of the old Pagans, who, +refusing Christianity, are miraculously preserved alive, but are +condemned to decrease in size until they vanish altogether. Some +authorities hold that it is the race and not the individual which +dwindles from generation to generation. + +This last idea, as well as the name 'pixy', gives some probability to +the conclusion that, as applied to Cornwall, Mr. MacRitchie's theory +represents a part of the truth, and that on to an already existing +belief in elementals have been grafted exaggerated traditions of a dark +pre-Celtic people. These were not necessarily pygmies, but smaller than +Celts, and may have survived for a long time in forests and hill +countries, sometimes friendly to the taller race, whence come the +stories of piskies working for farmers, sometimes hostile, which may +account for the legends of changelings and other mischievous tricks. +This is how it appears to one who knows his Cornwall in all its aspects +fairly well, but does not profess to be an expert in folk-lore. + + BOSPOWES, HAYLE, CORNWALL, + _July_ 1910. + + +Our investigation of the Fairy-Faith in Cornwall covers the region +between Falmouth and the Land's End, which is now the most Celtic; and +the Tintagel country on the north coast. It is generally believed that +ancient Cornish legends, like the Cornish language, are things of the +past only, but I am now no longer of that opinion. Undoubtedly Cornwall +is the most anglicized of all Celtic lands we are studying, and its +folk-lore is therefore far from being as virile as the Irish folk-lore; +nevertheless, through its people, racially mixed though they are, there +still flows the blood and the inspiration of a prehistoric native +ancestry, and among the oldest Cornish men and women of many an isolated +village, or farm, there yet remains some belief in fairies and pixies. +Moreover, throughout all of Old Cornwall there is a very living faith in +the Legend of the Dead; and that this Cornish Legend of the Dead, with +its peculiar Brythonic character, should be parallel as it is to the +Breton Legend of the Dead, has heretofore, so far as I am aware, not +been pointed out. I am giving, however, only a very few of the Cornish +death-legends collected, because in essence most of them are alike. + + +A CORNISH HISTORIAN'S TESTIMONY + +I was privileged to make my first call in rural Cornwall at the pretty +country home of Miss Susan E. Gay, of Crill, about three miles from +Falmouth; and Miss Gay, who has written a well-known history of Falmouth +(_Old Falmouth_, London, 1903), very willingly accorded me an interview +on the subject of my inquiry, and finally dictated for my use the +following matter:-- + +_Pixies as 'Astral Plane' Beings._--'The pixies and fairies are little +beings in the human form existing on the 'astral plane', who may be in +the process of evolution; and, as such, I believe people have seen them. +The 'astral plane' is not known to us now because our psychic faculty of +perception has faded out by non-use, and this condition has been brought +about by an almost exclusive development of the physical brain; but it +is likely that the psychic faculty will develop again in its turn.' + +_Psychical Interpretation of Folk-Lore._--'It is my point of view that +there is a basis of truth in the folk-lore. With its remnants of occult +learning, magic, charms, and the like, folk-lore seems to be the remains +of forgotten psychical facts, rather than history, as it is often +called.' + + +PEASANT EVIDENCE FROM THE CRILL COUNTRY + +Miss Gay kindly gave me the names of certain peasants in the Crill +region, and from one of them, Mrs. Harriett Christopher, I gleaned the +following material:-- + +_A Pisky Changeling._--'A woman who lived near Breage Church had a fine +girl baby, and she thought the piskies came and took it and put a +withered child in its place. The withered child lived to be twenty years +old, and was no larger when it died than when the piskies brought it. It +was fretful and peevish and frightfully shrivelled. The parents believed +that the piskies often used to come and look over a certain wall by the +house to see the child. And I heard my grandmother say that the family +once put the child out of doors at night to see if the piskies would +take it back again.' + +_Nature of Piskies._--'The piskies are said to be very small. You could +never see them by day. I used to hear my grandmother, who has been dead +fifty years, say that the piskies used to hold a fair in the fields near +Breage, and that people saw them there dancing. I also remember her +saying that it was customary to set out food for the piskies at night. +My grandmother's great belief was in piskies and in spirits; and she +considered piskies spirits. She used to tell so many stories about +spirits [of the dead] coming back and such things that I would be afraid +to go to bed.' + + +EVIDENCE FROM CONSTANTINE + +Our witnesses from the ancient and picturesque village of Constantine +are John Wilmet, seventy-eight years old, and his good wife, two most +excellent and well-preserved types of the passing generation of true +Cornish stock. John began by telling me the following tale about an +_allee couverte_--a tale which in one version or another is apt to be +told of most Cornish megaliths:-- + +_A Pisky-House._--'William Murphy, who married my sister, once went to +the pisky-house at Bosahan with a surveyor, and the two of them heard +such unearthly noises in it that they came running home in great +excitement, saying they had heard the piskies.' + +_The Pisky Thrasher._--'On a farm near here, a pisky used to come at +night to thrash the farmer's corn. The farmer in payment once put down a +new suit for him. When the pisky came and saw it, he put it on, and +said:-- + + Pisky fine and pisky gay, + Pisky now will fly away. + +And they say he never returned.' + +_Nature of Piskies._--'I always understood the piskies to be little +people. A great deal was said about ghosts in this place. Whether or not +piskies are the same as ghosts I cannot tell, but I fancy the old folks +thought they were.' + +_Exorcism._--'A farmer who lived two miles from here, near the Gweek +River, called Parson Jago to his house to have him quiet the ghosts or +spirits regularly haunting it, for Parson Jago could always put such +things to rest. The clergyman went to the farmer's house, and with his +whip formed a circle on the floor and then commanded the spirit, which +made its appearance on the table, to come down into the circle. While on +the table the spirit had been visible to all the family, but as soon as +it got into the ring it disappeared; and the house was never haunted +afterwards.' + + +AT ST. MICHAEL'S MOUNT, MARAZION + +Our next place for an investigation of the surviving Cornish Fairy-Faith +is Marazion, the very ancient British town opposite the isle called St. +Michael's Mount. (From Constantine I walked through the country to this +point, talking with as many old people as possible, but none of them +knew very much about ancient Cornish beliefs.) It is believed, though +the matter is very doubtful, that Marazion was the chief mart for the +tin trade of Celtic Britain, and that the Mount--sacred to the Sun and +to the Pagan Mysteries long before Caesar crossed the Channel from +Gaul--sheltered the brilliantly-coloured sailing-ships of the +Phoenicians.[64] In such a romantic town, where Oriental merchants and +Celtic pilgrims probably once mingled together, one might expect some +survival of olden beliefs and customs. + +_Piskies._--To Mr. Thomas G. Jago, of Marazion, with a memory extending +backwards more than seventy years, he being eighty years old, I am +indebted for this statement about the pisky creed in that locality:--'I +imagine that one hundred and fifty years ago the belief in piskies and +spirits was general. In my boyhood days, piskies were often called "the +mites" (little people): they were regarded as little spirits. The word +_piskies_ is the old Cornish brogue for pixies. In certain grass fields, +mushrooms growing in a circle might be seen of a morning, and the old +folks pointing to the mushrooms would say to the children, "Oh, the +piskies have been dancing there last night."' + +Two more of the oldest natives of Marazion, among others with whom I +talked, are William Rowe, eighty-two years old, and his married sister +seventy-eight years old. About the piskies Mr. Rowe said this:--'People +would go out at night and lose their way and then declare that they had +been pisky-led. I think they meant by this that they fell under some +spiritual influence--that some spirit led them astray. The piskies were +said to be small, and they were thought of as spirits.'[65] Mr. Rowe's +sister added:--'If we as children did anything wrong, the old folks +would say to us, "The piskies will carry you away if you do that +again."' + +_Witch-Doctors._--I heard the following witch-story from a lawyer, a +native of the district, who lives in the country just beyond +Marazion:--'Jimmy Thomas, of Wendron parish, who died within the last +twenty-five years, was the last witch-doctor I know about in West +Cornwall. He was supposed to have great power over evil spirits. His +immediate predecessor was a woman, called the "Witch of Wendron", and +she did a big business. My father once visited her in company with a +friend whose father had lost some horses. This was about seventy to +eighty years ago. The witch when consulted on this occasion turned her +back to my father's companion, and began talking to herself in Cornish. +Then she gave him some herbs. His father used the herbs, and no more +horses died: the herbs were supposed to have driven all evil spirits out +of the stable.' + + +IN PENZANCE: AN ARCHITECT'S TESTIMONY + +Penzance from earliest times has undoubtedly been, as it is now, the +capital of the Land's End district, the Sacred Land of Britain. And in +Penzance I had the good fortune to meet those among its leading citizens +who still cherish and keep alive the poetry and the mystic lore of Old +Cornwall; and to no one of them am I more indebted than to Mr. Henry +Maddern, F.I.A.S. Mr. Maddern tells me that he was initiated into the +mysteries of the Cornish folk-lore of this region when a boy in Newlyn, +where he was born, by his old nurse Betty Grancan, a native Zennor +woman, of stock probably the most primitive and pure in the British +Islands. At his home in Penzance, Mr. Maddern dictated to me the very +valuable evidence which follows:-- + +_Two Kinds of Pixies._--'In this region there are two kinds of pixies, +one purely a land-dwelling pixy and the other a pixy which dwells on the +sea-strand between high and low water mark.[66] The land-dwelling pixy +was usually thought to be full of mischievous fun, but it did no harm. +There was a very prevalent belief, when I was a boy, that this +sea-strand pixy, called _Bucca_,[67] had to be propitiated by a _cast_ +(three) of fish, to ensure the fishermen having a good _shot_ (catch) of +fish. The land pixy was supposed to be able to render its devotees +invisible, if they only anointed their eyes with a certain green salve +made of secret herbs gathered from Kerris-moor.[68] In the invisible +condition thus induced, people were able to join the pixy revels, during +which, according to the old tradition, time slipped away very, very +rapidly, though people returned from the pixies no older than when they +went with them.' + +_The Nurse and the Ointment._--'I used to hear about a Zennor girl who +came to Newlyn as nurse to the child of a gentleman living at +Zimmerman-Cot. The gentleman warned her never to touch a box of ointment +which he guarded in a special room, nor even to enter that room; but one +day in his absence she entered the room and took some of the ointment. +Suspecting the qualities of the ointment, she put it on her eyes with +the wish that she might see where her master was. She immediately found +herself in the higher part of the orchard amongst the pixies, where they +were having much _junketing_ (festivity and dancing); and there saw the +gentleman whose child she had nursed. For a time she managed to evade +him, but before the _junketing_ was at an end he discovered her and +requested her to go home; and then, to her intense astonishment, she +learned that she had been away twenty years, though she was unchanged. +The gentleman scolded her for having touched the ointment, paid her +wages in full, and sent her back to her people. She always had the one +regret, that she had not gone into the forbidden room at first.' + +_The Tolcarne Troll._--'The fairy of the Newlyn Tolcarne[69] was in some +ways like the Puck of the English Midlands. But this fairy, or troll, +was supposed to date back to the time of the Phoenicians. He was +described as a little old pleasant-faced man dressed in a tight-fitting +leathern jerkin, with a hood on his head, who lived invisible in the +rock. Whenever he chose to do so he could make himself visible. When I +was a boy it was said that he spent his time voyaging from here to Tyre +on the galleys which carried the tin; and, also, that he assisted in the +building of Solomon's Temple. Sometimes he was called "the Wandering +One", or "Odin the Wanderer". My old nurse, Betty Grancan, used to say +that you could call up the troll at the Tolcarne if while there you held +in your hand three dried leaves, one of the ash, one of the oak, and one +of the thorn, and pronounced an incantation or charm. Betty would never +tell me the words of the charm, because she said I was too much of a +sceptic. The words of such a Cornish charm had to pass from one believer +to another, through a woman to a man, and from a man to a woman, and +thus alternately.'[70] + +_Nature of Pixies._--'Pixies were often supposed to be the souls of the +prehistoric dwellers of this country. As such, pixies were supposed to +be getting smaller and smaller, until finally they are to vanish +entirely. The country pixies inhabiting the highlands from above Newlyn +on to St. Just were considered a wicked sort. Their great ambition was +to change their own offspring for human children; and the true child +could only be got back by laying a four-leaf clover on the changeling. A +_winickey_ child--one which was weak, frail, and peevish--was of the +nature of a changeling. Miner pixies, called "knockers", would accept a +portion of a miner's _croust_ (lunch) on good faith, and by knocking +lead him to a rich mother-lode, or warn him by knocking if there was +danger ahead or a cavern full of water; but if the miner begrudged them +the _croust_, he would be left to his own resources to find the lode, +and, moreover, the "knockers" would do all they could to lead him away +from a good lode. These mine pixies, too, were supposed to be spirits, +sometimes spirits of the miners of ancient times.'[71] + +_Fairies and Pixies._--'In general appearance the fairies were much the +same as pixies. They were small men and women, much smaller than dwarfs. +The men were swarthy in complexion, and the women had a clear complexion +of a peach-like bloom. None ever appeared to be more than +five-and-twenty to thirty years old. I have heard my nurse say that she +could see scores of them whenever she picked a four-leaf clover and put +it in the wisp of straw which she carried on her head as a cushion for +the bucket of milk. Her theory was that the richness of the milk was +what attracted them. Pixies, like fairies, very much enjoyed milk, and +people of miserly nature used to put salt around a cow to keep the +pixies away; and then the pixies would lead such mean people astray the +very first opportunity that came. According to some country-people, the +pixies have been seen in the day-time, but usually they are only seen at +night.' + + +A CORNISH EDITOR'S OPINION + +Mr. Herbert Thomas, editor of four Cornish papers, _The Cornishman_, +_The Cornish Telegraph_, _Post_, and _Evening Times_, and a true Celt +himself, has been deeply interested in the folk-lore of Cornwall, and +has made excellent use of it in his poetry and other literary +productions; so that his personal opinions, which follow, as to the +probable origin of the fairy-belief, are for our study a very important +contribution:-- + +_Animistic Origin of Belief in Pixies._--'I should say that the modern +belief in pixies, or in fairies, arose from a very ancient Celtic or +pre-Celtic belief in spirits. Just as among some savage tribes there is +belief in gods and totems, here there was belief in little spirits good +and bad, who were able to help or to hinder man. Belief in the +supernatural, in my opinion, is the root of it all.' + + +A CORNISH FOLK-LORIST'S TESTIMONY + +In Penzance I had the privilege of also meeting Miss M. A. Courtney, the +well-known folk-lorist, who quite agrees with me in believing that there +is in Cornwall a widespread Legend of the Dead; and she cited a few +special instances in illustration, as follows:-- + +_Cornish Legend of the Dead._--'Here amongst the fishermen and sailors +there is a belief that the dead in the sea will be heard calling if a +drowning is about to occur. I know of a woman who went to a clergyman to +have him exorcize her of the spirit of her dead sister, which she said +appeared in the form of a bee. And I have heard of miners believing that +white moths are spirits.'[72] + + +EVIDENCE FROM NEWLYN + +In Newlyn, Mrs. Jane Tregurtha gave the following important testimony:-- + +_The 'Little Folk'._--'The old people thoroughly believed in the _little +folk_, and that they gambolled all over the moors on moonlight nights. +Some pixies would rain down blessings and others curses; and to remove +the curses people would go to the wells blessed by the saints. Whenever +anything went wrong in the kitchen at night the pixies were blamed. +After the 31st of October [or after Halloween] the blackberries are not +fit to eat, for the pixies have then been over them' (cf. the parallel +Irish belief, p. 38). + +_Fairy Guardian of the Men-an-Tol._[73]--'At the Men-an-Tol there is +supposed to be a guardian fairy or pixy who can make miraculous cures. +And my mother knew of an actual case in which a changeling was put +through the stone in order to get the real child back. It seems that +evil pixies changed children, and that the pixy at the Men-an-Tol being +good, could, in opposition, undo their work.' + +_Exorcism._--'A spirit was put to rest on the Green here in Newlyn. The +parson prayed and fasted, and then commanded the spirit to _teeme_ (dip +dry) the sea with a limpet shell containing no bottom; and the spirit is +supposed to be still busy at this task.' + +_Piskies as Apparitions._--When I talked with her in her neat cottage at +Newlyn, Miss Mary Ann Chirgwin (who was born on St. Michael's Mount in +1825) told me this:--'The old people used to say the piskies were +apparitions of the dead come back in the form of little people, but I +can't remember anything more than this about them.' + + +AN ARTIST'S TESTIMONY + +One of the members of the Newlyn Art School was able to offer a few of +his own impressions concerning the pixies of Devonshire, where he has +frequently made sketches of pixies from descriptions given to him by +peasants:-- + +_Devonshire Pixies._--'Throughout all the west of Devonshire, anywhere +near the moorlands, the country people are much given to belief in +pixies and ghosts. I think they expect to see them about the twilight +hour; though I have not found anybody who has actually seen a pixy--the +belief now is largely based on hearsay.' + + +TESTIMONY FROM THE HISTORIAN OF MOUSEHOLE + +To Mr. Richard Harry, the historian of Mousehole, I am indebted for +these remarks about the nature and present state of the belief in pixies +as he observes it in that region:-- + +_The Pixy Belief._--'The piskies, thought of as little people who appear +on moonlight nights, are still somewhat believed in here. If interfered +with too much they are said to exhibit almost fiendish powers. In a +certain sense they are considered spiritual, but in another sense they +are much materialized in the conceptions of the people. Generally +speaking, the belief in them has almost died out within the last fifty +years.' + + +A SEAMAN'S TESTIMONY + +'Uncle Billy Pender,' as our present witness is familiarly called, is +one of the oldest natives of Mousehole, being eighty-five years old; and +most of his life has been passed on the ocean, as a fisherman, seaman, +and pilot. After having told me the usual things about piskies, fairies, +spirits, ghosts, and the devil, Uncle Billy Pender was very soon talking +about the dead:-- + +_Cornish Legend of the Dead._--'I was up in bed, and I suppose asleep, +and I dreamt that the boy James came to my bedside and woke me up by +saying, "How many lights does Death put up?" And in the dream there +appeared such light as I never saw in my life; and when I woke up +another light like it was in the room. Within three months afterwards we +buried two grand-daughters out of this house. This was four years ago.' +When this strange tale was finished, Uncle Billy Pender's daughter, who +had been listening, added:--'For three mornings, one after another, +there was a robin at our cellar door before the deaths, and my husband +said he didn't like that.' + +Then Uncle Billy told this weird Breton-like tale:--'"Granny" told about +a boat named _Bluecher_, going from Newlyn to Bristol with six thousand +mackerel, which put in at Arbor Cove, close to Padstow, on account of +bad weather. The boat dragged her anchors and was lost. "Granny" +afterwards declared that he saw the crew going up over the Newlyn Slip; +and the whole of Newlyn and Mousehole believed him.' + + +TESTIMONY BY TWO LAND'S END FARMERS + +In the Sennen country, within a mile of the end of Britain, I talked +with two farmers who knew something about piskies. The first one, +Charles Hutchen, of Trevescan, told me this legend:-- + +_A St. Just Pisky._--'Near St. Just, on Christmas Day, a pisky carried +away in his cloak a boy, but the boy got home. Then the pisky took him a +second time, and again the boy got home. Each time the boy was away for +only an hour' (probably in a dream or trance state). + +_Seeing the Pisky-Dance._--Frank Ellis, seventy-eight years old, of the +same village of Trevescan, then gave the following evidence:--'Up on +Sea-View Green there are two rings where the piskies used to dance and +play music on a moonlight night. I've heard that they would come there +from the moors. _Little people_ they are called. If you keep quiet when +they are dancing you'll see them, but if you make any noise they'll +disappear.' Frank Ellis's wife, who is a very aged woman, was in the +house listening to the conversation, and added at this point:--'My +grandmother, Nancy Maddern, was down on Sea-View Green by moonlight and +saw the piskies dancing, and passed near them. She said they were like +little children, and had red cloaks.' + + +TESTIMONY FROM A SENNEN COVE FISHERMAN + +John Gilbert Guy, seventy-eight years old, a retired fisherman of Sennen +Cove, offers very valuable testimony, as follows:-- + +_'Small People'._--'Many say they have seen the _small people_ here by +the hundreds. In Ireland they call the _small people_ the fairies. My +mother believes there were such things, and so did the old folks in +these parts. My grandmother used to put down a good furze fire for +_them_ on stormy nights, because, as she said, "_They_ are a sort of +people wandering about the world with no home or habitation, and ought +to be given a little comfort." The most fear of _them_ was that they +might come at night and change a baby for one that was no good. My +mother said that Joan Nicholas believed the fairies had changed her +baby, because it was very small and cross-tempered. Up on the hill +you'll see a round ring with grass greener than anywhere else, and that +is where the _small people_ used to dance.' + +_Danger of Seeing the 'Little People'._--'I heard that a woman set out +water to wash her baby in, and that before she had used the water the +_small people_ came and washed their babies in it. She didn't know about +this, and so in washing her baby got some of the water in her eyes, and +then all at once she could see crowds of _little people_ about her. One +of them came to her and asked if she was able to see their crowd, and +when she said "Yes," the _little people_ wanted to take her eyes out, +and she had to clear away from them as fast as she could.' + + +TESTIMONY FROM A CORNISH MINER + +William Shepherd, a retired miner of Pendeen, near St. Just, where he +has passed all his life, offers us from his own experiences under the +earth the evidence which follows:-- + +_Mine Piskies._--'There are mine-piskies which are not the "knockers". +I've heard old men in the mines say that they have seen them, and they +call them the _small people_. It appears that they don't like company, +for they are always seen singly. The "knockers" are spirits, too, as one +might say. They are said to bring bad luck, while the _small people_ may +bring good luck.' + + +TESTIMONY FROM KING ARTHUR'S COUNTRY + +Leaving the Land's End district and South Cornwall, we now pass +northward to King Arthur's country. Our chief researches there are to be +made outside the beaten track of tourists as far as possible, in the +country between Camelford and Tintagel. At Delabole, the centre of this +district, we find our first witness, Henry Spragg, a retired +slate-quarryman, seventy years old. Mr. Spragg has had excellent +opportunities of hearing any folk-lore that might have been living +during his lifetime; and what he offers first is about King Arthur:-- + +_King Arthur._--'We always thought of King Arthur as a great warrior. +And many a time I've heard old people say that he used to appear in this +country in the form of a nath.'[74] This was all that could be told of +King Arthur; and the conversation finally was directed toward piskies, +with the following results:-- + +_Piskies._--'A man named Bottrell, who lived near St. Teath, was +pisky-led at West Down, and when he turned his pockets inside out he +heard the piskies going away laughing.[75] Often my grandmother used to +say when I got home after dark, "You had better mind, or the piskies +will carry you away." And I can remember hearing the old people say that +the piskies are the spirits of dead-born children.' From pixies the +conversation drifted to the spirit-hounds 'often heard at night near +certain haunted downs in St. Teath parish', and then, finally, to +ordinary Cornish legends about the dead. + +Our next witnesses from Delabole are John Male, eighty-two years old, +one of the very oldest men in King Arthur's country, and his wife; and +all of Mr. Male's ancestors as far back as he can trace them have lived +in the same parish. + +_Piskies in General._--Mr. Male remarked:--'I have heard a good deal +about the piskies, but I can't remember any of the old women's tales. I +have heard, too, of people saying that they had seen the piskies. It was +thought that when the piskies have misled you they show themselves +jumping about in front of you; they are a race of little people who live +out in the fields.' Mrs. Male had now joined us at the open fire, and +added:--'Piskies always come at night, and in marshy ground there are +round places called pisky beds where they play. When I was little, my +mother and grandmother would be sitting round the fire of an evening +telling fireside stories, and I can remember hearing about a pisky of +this part who stole a new coat, and how the family heard him talking to +himself about it, and then finally say:-- + + Pisky fine and pisky gay, + Pisky's got a bright new coat, + Pisky now will run away. + +And I can just remember one bit of another story: A pisky looked into a +house and said:-- + + All alone, fair maid? + No, here am I with a dog and cat, + And apples to eat and nuts to crack.' + +_Tintagel Folk-Beliefs._--A retired rural policeman of the Tintagel +country, where he was born and reared, and now keeper of the Passmore +Edwards Art Gallery at Newlyn, offered this testimony from +Tintagel:--'In Tintagel I used to sit round the fire at night and hear +old women tell so much about piskies and ghosts that I was then afraid +to go out of doors after darkness had fallen. They religiously believed +in such things, and when I expressed my doubts I was driven away as a +rude boy. They thought if you went to a certain place at a certain hour +of the night that you could there see the piskies as little spirits. It +was held that the piskies could lead you astray and play tricks on you, +but that they never did you any serious injury.' Of the Arthurian +folk-legend at Tintagel he said:--'The spirit of King Arthur is supposed +to be in the Cornish chough--a beautiful black bird with red legs and +red beak.' + +We now leave Great Britain and cross the English Channel to Little +Britain, the third of the Brythonic countries. + + +VII. IN BRITTANY + + Introduction by ANATOLE LE BRAZ, Professor of French Literature, + University of Rennes, Brittany; author of _La Legende de la Mort, Au + Pays des Pardons_, &c. + +MON CHER MONSIEUR WENTZ, + +Il me souvient que, lors de votre soutenance de these devant la Faculte +des Lettres de l'Universite de Rennes, un de mes collegues, mon ami, le +professeur Dottin, vous demanda: + +'Vous croyez, dites-vous, a l'existence des fees? En avez-vous vu?' + +Vous repondites, avec autant de phlegme que de sincerite: + +'Non. J'ai tout fait pour en voir, et je n'en ai jamais vu. Mais il y a +beaucoup de choses que vous n'avez pas vues, monsieur le professeur, et +dont vous ne songeriez cependant pas a nier l'existence. Ainsi fais-je a +l'egard des fees.' + +Je suis comme vous, mon cher monsieur Wentz: je n'ai jamais vu de fees. +J'ai bien une amie tres chere que nous avons baptisee de ce nom, mais, +malgre tous ses beaux dons magiques, elle n'est qu'une humble mortelle. +En revanche, j'ai vecu, tout enfant, parmi des personnes qui avaient +avec les fees veritables un commerce quasi journalier. + +C'etait dans une petite bourgade de Basse-Bretagne, peuplee de paysans a +moitie marins, et de marins a moitie paysans. Il y avait, non loin du +village, une ancienne gentilhommiere que ses proprietaires avaient +depuis longtemps abandonnee pour on ne savait au juste quel motif. On +continuait de l'appeler le 'chateau' de Lanascol, quoiqu'elle ne fut +plus guere qu'une ruine. Il est vrai que les avenues par lesquelles on y +accedait avaient conserve leur aspect seigneurial, avec leurs quadruples +rangees de vieux hetres dont les vastes frondaisons se miraient dans de +magnifiques etangs. Les gens d'alentour se risquaient peu, le soir, dans +ces avenues. Elles passaient pour etre, a partir du coucher du soleil, +le lieu de promenade favori d'une 'dame' que l'on designait sous le nom +de _Groac'h Lanascol_,--la 'Fee de Lanascol'. + +Beaucoup disaient l'avoir rencontree, et la depeignaient sous les +couleurs, du reste, les plus diverses. Ceux-ci faisaient d'elle une +vieille femme, marchant toute courbee, les deux mains appuyees sur un +troncon de bequille avec lequel, de temps en temps, elle remuait, a +l'automne, les feuilles mortes. Les feuilles mortes qu'elle retournait +ainsi devenaient soudain brillantes comme de l'or et s'entrechoquaient +avec un bruit clair de metal. Selon d'autres, c'etait une jeune +princesse, merveilleusement paree, sur les pas de qui s'empressaient +d'etranges petits hommes noirs et silencieux. Elle s'avancait d'une +majestueuse allure de reine. Parfois elle s'arretait devant un arbre, et +l'arbre aussitot s'inclinait comme pour recevoir ses ordres. Ou bien, +elle jetait un regard sur l'eau d'un etang, et l'etang frissonnait +jusqu'en ses profondeurs, comme agite d'un mouvement de crainte sous la +puissance de son regard. + +On racontait sur elle cette curieuse histoire:-- + +Les proprietaires de Lanascol ayant voulu se defaire d'un domaine qu'ils +n'habitaient plus, le manoir et les terres qui en dependaient furent mis +en adjudication chez un notaire de Plouaret. Au jour fixe pour les +encheres nombre d'acheteurs accoururent. Les prix etaient deja montes +tres haut, et le domaine allait etre adjuge, quand, a un dernier appel +du crieur, une voix feminine, tres douce et tres imperieuse tout +ensemble, s'eleva et dit: + +'Mille francs de plus!' + +Il y eut grande rumeur dans la salle. Tout le monde chercha des yeux la +personne qui avait lance cette surenchere, et qui ne pouvait etre qu'une +femme. Mais il ne se trouva pas une seule femme dans l'assistance. Le +notaire demanda: + +'Qui a parle?' + +De nouveau, la meme voix se fit entendre. + +'Groac'h Lanascol!' repondit-elle. + +Ce fut une debandade generale. Depuis lors, il ne s'etait jamais +presente d'acquereur, et voila pourquoi, repetait-on couramment, +Lanascol etait toujours a vendre. + +Si je vous ai entretenu a plaisir de la Fee de Lanascol, mon cher +monsieur Wentz, c'est qu'elle est la premiere qui ait fait impression +sur moi, dans mon enfance. Combien d'autres n'en ai-je pas connu, par la +suite, a travers les recits de mes compatriotes des greves, des champs +ou des bois! La Bretagne est restee un royaume de feerie. On n'y peut +voyager l'espace d'une lieue sans cotoyer la demeure de quelque fee male +ou femelle. Ces jours derniers, comme j'accomplissais un pelerinage +d'automne a l'hallucinante foret de Paimpont, toute hantee encore des +grands souvenirs de la legende celtique, je croisai, sous les opulents +ombrages du Pas-du-Houx, une ramasseuse de bois mort, avec qui je ne +manquai pas, vous pensez bien, de lier conversation. Un des premiers +noms que je prononcai fut naturellement celui de Viviane. + +'Viviane!' se recria la vieille pauvresse. 'Ah! benie soit-elle, la +bonne Dame! car elle est aussi bonne que belle.... Sans sa protection, +mon homme, qui travaille dans les coupes, serait tombe, comme un loup, +sous les fusils des gardes....' Et elle se mit a me conter comme quoi +son mari, un tantinet braconnier comme tous les bucherons de ces +parages, s'etant porte, une nuit, a l'affut du chevreuil, dans les +environs de la Butte-aux-Plaintes, avait ete surpris en flagrant delit +par une tournee de gardes. Il voulut fuir: les gardes tirerent. Une +balle l'atteignit a la cuisse: il tomba, et il s'appretait a se faire +tuer sur place, plutot que de se rendre, lorsque, entre ses agresseurs +et lui, s'interposa subitement une espece de brouillard tres dense qui +voila tout,--le sol, les arbres, les gardes et le blesse lui-meme. Et il +entendit une voix sortie du brouillard, une voix legere comme un bruit +de feuilles, murmurer a son oreille: 'Sauve-toi, mon fils: l'esprit de +Viviane veillera sur toi jusqu'a ce que tu aies rampe hors de la foret.' + +'Telles furent les propres paroles de la fee,' conclut la ramasseuse de +bois mort. + +Et, devotement, elle se signa, car la religieuse Bretagne--vous le +savez--venere les fees a l'egal des saintes. + + * * * * * + +J'ignore s'il faut rattacher les lutins au monde des fees, mais, ce qui +est sur, c'est que cette charmante et malicieuse engeance a toujours +pullule dans notre pays. Je me suis laisse dire qu'autrefois chaque +maison avait le sien. C'etait quelque chose comme le petit dieu penate. +Tantot visible, tantot invisible, il presidait a tous les actes de la +vie domestique. Mieux encore: il y participait, et de la facon la plus +efficace. A l'interieur du logis, il aidait les servantes, soufflait le +feu dans l'atre, surveillait la cuisson de la nourriture pour les hommes +ou pour les betes, apaisait les cris de l'enfant couche dans le bas de +l'armoire, empechait les vers de se mettre dans les pieces de lard +suspendues aux solives. Il avait pareillement dans son lot le +gouvernement des etables et des ecuries: grace a lui, les vaches +donnaient un lait abondant en beurre, et les chevaux avaient la croupe +ronde, le poil luisant. Il etait, en un mot, le bon genie de la famille, +mais c'etait a la condition que chacun eut pour lui les egards auxquels +il avait droit. Si peu qu'on lui manquat, sa bonte se changeait en +malice et il n'etait point de mauvais tours dont il ne fut capable +envers les gens qui l'avaient offense, comme de renverser le contenu des +marmites sur le foyer, d'embrouiller la laine autour des quenouilles, de +rendre infumable le tabac des pipes, d'emmeler inextricablement les +crins des chevaux, de dessecher le pis des vaches ou de faire peler le +dos des brebis. Aussi s'efforcait-on de ne le point mecontenter. On +respectait soigneusement toutes ses habitudes, toutes ses manies. C'est +ainsi que, chez mes parents, notre vieille bonne Filie n'enlevait jamais +le trepied du feu sans avoir la precaution de l'asperger d'eau pour le +refroidir, avant de le ranger au coin de l'atre. Si vous lui demandiez +pourquoi ce rite, elle vous repondait: + +'Pour que le lutin ne s'y brule pas, si, tout a l'heure, il s'asseyait +dessus.' + + * * * * * + +Il appartient encore, je suppose, a la categorie des hommes-fees, ce +_Bugul-Noz_, ce mysterieux 'Berger de la nuit' dont les Bretons des +campagnes voient se dresser, au crepuscule, la haute et troublante +silhouette, si, d'aventure, il leur arrive de rentrer tard du labour. On +n'a jamais pu me renseigner exactement sur le genre de troupeau qu'il +faisait paitre, ni sur ce que presageait sa rencontre. Le plus souvent, +on la redoute. Mais, comme l'observait avec raison une de mes +conteuses, Lise Bellec, s'il est preferable d'eviter le _Bugul-Noz_, il +ne s'ensuit pas, pour cela, que ce soit un mechant Esprit. D'apres elle, +il remplirait plutot une fonction salutaire, en signifiant aux humains, +par sa venue, que la nuit n'est pas faite pour s'attarder aux champs ou +sur les chemins, mais pour s'enfermer derriere les portes closes et pour +dormir. Ce berger des ombres serait donc, somme toute, une maniere de +bon pasteur. C'est pour assurer notre repos et notre securite, c'est +pour nous soustraire aux exces du travail et aux embuches de la nuit +qu'il nous force, brebis imprudentes, a regagner promptement le bercail. + +Sans doute est-ce un role tutelaire a peu pres semblable qui, dans la +croyance populaire, est devolu a un autre homme-fee, plus specialement +affecte au rivage de la mer, comme l'indique son nom de _Yann-An-Od_. Il +n'y a pas, sur tout le littoral maritime de la Bretagne ou, comme on +dit, dans tout l'_armor_, une seule region ou l'existence de ce 'Jean +des Greves' ne soit tenue pour un fait certain, dument constate, +indeniable. On lui prete des formes variables et des aspects differents. +C'est tantot un geant, tantot un nain. Il porte tantot un 'suroit' de +toile huilee, tantot un large chapeau de feutre noir. Parfois, il +s'appuie sur une rame et fait penser au personnage enigmatique, arme du +meme attribut, qu'Ulysse doit suivre, dans l'_Odyssee_. Mais, toujours, +c'est un heros marin dont la mission est de parcourir les plages, en +poussant par intervalles de longs cris stridents, propres a effrayer les +pecheurs qui se seraient laisse surprendre dehors par les tenebres de la +nuit. Il ne fait de mal qu'a ceux qui recalcitrent; encore ne les +frappe-t-il que dans leur interet, pour les contraindre a se mettre a +l'abri. Il est, avant tout, un 'avertisseur'. Ses cris ne rappellent pas +seulement au logis les gens attardes sur les greves; ils signalent aussi +le dangereux voisinage de la cote aux marins qui sont en mer et, par la, +suppleent a l'insuffisance du mugissement des sirenes ou de la lumiere +des phares. + +Remarquons, a ce propos, qu'on releve un trait analogue dans la legende +des vieux saints armoricains, pour la plupart emigres d'Irlande. Un de +leurs exercices coutumiers consistait a deambuler de nuit le long des +cotes ou ils avaient etabli leurs oratoires, en agitant des clochettes +de fer battu dont les tintements etaient destines, comme les cris de +_Yann-An-Od_, a prevenir les navigateurs que la terre etait proche. + +Je suis persuade que le culte des saints, qui est la premiere et la plus +fervente des devotions bretonnes, conserve bien des traits d'une +religion plus ancienne ou la croyance aux fees jouait le principal +role. Et il en va de meme, j'en suis convaincu, pour ces mythes +funeraires que j'ai recueillis sous le titre de _La Legende de la Mort_ +chez les Bretons armoricains. A vrai dire, dans la conception bretonne, +les morts ne sont pas morts; ils vivent d'une vie mysterieuse en marge +de la vie reelle, mais leur monde reste, en definitive, tout mele au +notre et, sitot que la nuit tombe, sitot que les vivants proprement dits +s'abandonnent a la mort momentanee du sommeil, les soi-disant morts +redeviennent les habitants de la terre qu'ils n'ont jamais quittee. Ils +reprennent leur place a leur foyer d'autrefois, ils vaquent a leurs +anciens travaux, ils s'interessent au logis, aux champs, a la barque; +ils se comportent, en un mot, comme ce peuple des hommes et des +femmes-fees qui formait jadis une espece d'humanite plus fine et plus +delicate au milieu de la veritable humanite. + + * * * * * + +J'aurais encore, mon cher monsieur Wentz, bien d'autres types a evoquer, +dans cet intermonde de la feerie bretonne qui, chez mes compatriotes, ne +se confond ni avec ce monde-ci, ni avec l'autre, mais participe a la +fois de tous les deux, par un singulier melange de naturel et de +surnaturel. Je n'ai voulu, en ces lignes rapides, que montrer la +richesse de la matiere a laquelle vous avez, avec tant de conscience et +de ferveur, applique votre effort. Et maintenant, que les fees vous +soient douces, mon cher ami! Elles ne seront que justes en favorisant de +toute leur tendresse le jeune et brillant ecrivain qui vient de +restaurer leur culte en renovant leur gloire. + + RENNES, + ce 1{er} _novembre_ 1910. + + + My dear Mr. Wentz, + + I recollect that, at the time of your examination on your thesis + before the Faculty of Letters of the University of Rennes, one of my + colleagues, my friend Professor Dottin, put to you this question:-- + + 'You believe, you assert, in the existence of fairies? Have you seen + any?' + + You answered, with equal coolness and candour: + + 'No. I have made every effort to do so, and I have never seen any. + But there are many things which you, sir, have not seen, and of + which, nevertheless, you would not think of denying the existence. + That is my attitude toward fairies.' + + I am like you, my dear Mr. Wentz: I have never seen fairies. It is + true that I have a very dear lady friend whom we have christened by + that name [fairy], but, in spite of all her fair supernatural gifts, + she is only a humble mortal. On the other hand, I lived, when a mere + child, among people who had almost daily intercourse with real + fairies. + + That was in a little township in Lower Brittany, inhabited by + peasants who were half sailors, and by sailors who were half + peasants. There was, not far from the village, an ancient + manor-house long abandoned by its owners, for what reason was not + known exactly. It continued to be called the 'Chateau' of Lanascol, + though it was hardly more than a ruin. It is true that the avenues + by which one approached it had retained their feudal aspect, with + their fourfold rows of ancient beeches whose huge masses of foliage + were reflected in splendid pools. The people of the neighbourhood + seldom ventured into these avenues in the evening. They were + supposed to be, from sunset onwards, the favourite walking-ground of + a 'lady' who went by the name of _Groac'h Lanascol_, the 'Fairy of + Lanascol'. + + Many claimed to have met her, and described her in colours which + were, however, the most varied. Some represented her as an old woman + who walked all bent, her two hands leaning on a stump of a crutch + with which, in autumn, from time to time she stirred the dead + leaves. The dead leaves which she thus stirred became suddenly + shining like gold, and clinked against one another with the clear + sound of metal. According to others, it was a young princess, + marvellously adorned, after whom there hurried curious little black + silent men. She advanced with a majestic and queenly bearing. + Sometimes she stopped in front of a tree, and the tree at once bent + down as if to receive her commands. Or again, she would cast a look + on the water of a pool, and the pool trembled to its very depths, as + though stirred by an access of fear beneath the potency of her look. + + The following strange story was told about her:-- + + The owners of Lanascol having desired to get rid of an estate which + they no longer occupied, the manor and lands attached to it were put + up to auction by a notary of Plouaret. On the day fixed for the + bidding a number of purchasers presented themselves. The price had + already reached a large sum, and the estate was on the point of + being knocked down, when, on a last appeal from the auctioneer, a + female voice, very gentle and at the same time very imperious, was + raised and said: + + 'A thousand francs more!' + + A great commotion arose in the hall. Every one's eyes sought for the + person who had made this advance, and who could only be a woman. But + there was not a single woman among those present. The notary asked: + + 'Who spoke?' + + Again the same voice made itself heard. + + 'The Fairy of Lanascol!' it replied. + + A general break-up followed. From that time forward no purchaser has + ever appeared, and, as the current report ran, that was the reason + why Lanascol continued to be for sale. + + I have designedly quoted to you the story of the Fairy of Lanascol, + my dear Mr. Wentz, because she was the first to make an impression + on me in my childhood. How many others have I come to know later on + in the course of narratives from those who lived with me on the + sandy beaches, in the fields or the woods! Brittany has always been + a kingdom of Faerie. One cannot there travel even a league without + brushing past the dwelling of some male or female fairy. Quite + lately, in the course of an autumn pilgrimage to the hallucinatory + forest of Paimpont (or Broceliande), still haunted throughout by the + great memories of Celtic legend, I encountered beneath the thick + foliage of the Pas-du-Houx, a woman gathering faggots, with whom I + did not fail, as you may well imagine, to enter into conversation. + One of the first names I uttered was naturally that of Vivian. + + 'Vivian!' cried out the poor old woman. 'Ah! a blessing on her, the + good Lady! for she is as good as she is beautiful.... Without her + protection my good man, who works at woodcutting, would have fallen, + like a wolf, beneath the keepers' guns....' And she began to narrate + to me 'as how' her husband, something of a poacher like all the + woodcutters of these districts, had one night gone to watch for a + roebuck in the neighbourhood of the Butte-aux-Plaintes, and had been + caught red-handed by a party of keepers. He sought to fly: the + keepers fired. A bullet hit him in the thigh: he fell, and was + making ready to let himself be killed on the spot, rather than + surrender, when there suddenly interposed between him and his + assailants a kind of very thick mist which covered everything--the + ground, the trees, the keepers, and the wounded man himself. And he + heard a voice coming out of the mist, a voice gentle like the + rustling of leaves, and murmuring in his ear: 'Save thyself, my son: + the spirit of Vivian will watch over thee till thou hast crawled out + of the forest.' + + 'Such were the actual words of the fairy,' concluded the + faggot-gatherer. And she crossed herself devoutly, for pious + Brittany, as you know, reveres fairies as much as saints. + + * * * * * + + I do not know if _lutins_ (mischievous spirits) should be included + in the fairy world, but what is certain is that this charming and + roguish tribe has always abounded in our country. I have been told + that formerly every house had its own. It (the _lutin_) was + something like the little Roman household god. Now visible, now + invisible, it presided over all the acts of domestic life. Nay more; + it shared in them, and in the most effective manner. Inside the + house it helped the servants, blew up the fire on the hearth, + supervised the cooking of the food for men or beasts, quieted the + crying of the babe lying in the bottom of the cupboard, and + prevented worms from settling in the pieces of bacon hanging from + the beams. Similarly there fell within its sphere the management of + the byres and stables: thanks to it the cows gave milk abounding in + butter, and the horses had round croups and shining coats. It was, + in a word, the good genius of the house, but conditionally on every + one paying to it the respect to which it had the right. If + neglected, ever so little, its kindness changed into spite, and + there was no unkind trick of which it was not capable towards people + who had offended it, such as upsetting the contents of the pots on + the hearth, entangling wool round distaffs, making tobacco + unsmokeable, mixing a horse's mane in inextricable confusion, drying + up the udders of cows, or stripping the backs of sheep. Therefore + care was taken not to annoy it. Careful attention was paid to all + its habits and humours. Thus, in my parents' house, our old maid + Filie never lifted the trivet from the fire without taking the + precaution of sprinkling it with water to cool it, before putting it + away at the corner of the hearth. If you asked her the reason for + this ceremony, she would reply to you: + + 'To prevent the _lutin_ burning himself there, if, presently, he sat + on it.' + + * * * * * + + Further, I suppose there should be included in the class of male + fairies that _Bugul-Noz_, that mysterious Night Shepherd, whose tall + and alarming outline the rural Bretons see rising in the twilight, + if, by chance, they happen to return late from field-work. I have + never been able to obtain exact information about the kind of herd + which he fed, nor about what was foreboded by the meeting with him. + Most often such a meeting is dreaded. Yet, as one of my female + informants, Lise Bellec, reasonably pointed out, if it is preferable + to avoid the _Bugul-Noz_ it does not from that follow that he is a + harmful spirit. According to her, he would rather fulfil a + beneficial office, in warning human beings, by his coming, that + night is not made for lingering in the fields or on the roads, but + for shutting oneself in behind closed doors and going to sleep. This + shepherd of the shades would then be, take it altogether, a kind of + good shepherd. It is to ensure our rest and safety, to withdraw us + from excesses of toil and the snares of night, that he compels us, + thoughtless sheep, to return quickly to the fold. + + No doubt it is an almost similar protecting office which, in popular + belief, has fallen to another male fairy, more particularly attached + to the seashore, as his name, _Yann-An-Od_, indicates. There is not, + along all the coast of Brittany or, as it is called, in all the + _Armor_, a single district where the existence of this 'John of the + Dunes' is not looked on as a real fact, fully proved and undeniable. + Changing forms and different aspects are attributed to him. + Sometimes he is a giant, sometimes a dwarf. Sometimes he wears a + seaman's hat of oiled cloth, sometimes a broad black felt hat. At + times he leans on an oar and recalls the enigmatic personage, + possessed of the same attribute, whom Ulysses has to follow, in the + _Odyssey_. But he is always a marine hero whose office it is to + traverse the shores, uttering at intervals long piercing cries, + calculated to frighten away fishermen who may have allowed + themselves to be surprised outside by the darkness of night. He only + hurts those who resist; and even then would only strike them in + their own interest, to force them to seek shelter. He is, before + all, one who warns. His cries not only call back home people out + late on the sands; they also inform sailors at sea of the dangerous + proximity of the shore, and, thereby, make up for the insufficiency + of the hooting of sirens or of the light of lighthouses. + + We may remark, in this connexion, that a parallel feature is + observed in the legend of the old Armorican saints, who were mostly + emigrants from Ireland. One of their usual exercises consisted in + parading throughout the night the coasts where they had set up their + oratories, shaking little bells of wrought iron, the ringing of + which, like the cries of _Yann-An-Od_, was intended to warn voyagers + that land was near. + + I am persuaded that the worship of saints, which is the first and + most fervent of Breton religious observances, preserves many of the + features of a more ancient religion in which a belief in fairies + held the chief place. The same, I feel sure, applies to those + death-myths which I have collected under the name of the Legend of + the Dead among the Armorican Bretons. In truth, in the Breton mind, + the dead are not dead; they live a mysterious life on the edge of + real life, but their world remains fully mingled with ours, and as + soon as night falls, as soon as the living, properly so called, give + themselves up to the temporary sleep of death, the so-called dead + again become the inhabitants of the earth which they have never + left. They resume their place at their former hearth, devote + themselves to their old work, take an interest in the home, the + fields, the boat; they behave, in a word, like the race of male and + female fairies which once formed a more refined and delicate species + of humanity in the midst of ordinary humanity. + + * * * * * + + I might, my dear Mr. Wentz, evoke many other types from this + intermediate world of Breton Faerie, which, in my countrymen's mind, + is not identical with this world nor with the other, but shares at + once in both, through a curious mixture of the natural and + supernatural. I have only intended in these hasty lines to show the + wealth of material to which you have with so much conscientiousness + and ardour devoted your efforts. And now may the fairies be + propitious to you, my dear friend! They will do nothing but justice + in favouring with all their goodwill the young and brilliant writer + who has but now revived their cult by renewing their glory. + + RENNES, + _November_ 1, 1910. + + +BRETON FAIRIES OR _FEES_ + +In Lower Brittany, which is the genuinely Celtic part of Armorica, +instead of finding a widespread folk-belief in fairies of the kind +existing in Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, we find a widespread +folk-belief in the existence of the dead, and to a less extent in that +of the _corrigan_ tribes. For our Psychological Theory this is very +significant. It seems to indicate that among the Bretons--who are one of +the most conservative Celtic peoples--the Fairy-Faith finds its chief +expression in a belief that men live after death in an invisible world, +just as in Ireland the dead and fairies live in Fairyland. This opinion +was first suggested to me by Professor Anatole Le Braz, author of _La +Legende de la Mort_, and by Professor Georges Dottin, both of the +University of Rennes. But before evidence to sustain and to illustrate +this opinion is offered, it will be well to consider the less important +Breton _fees_ or beings like them, and then _corrigans_ and _nains_ +(dwarfs). + +_The 'Grac'hed Coz'._--F. M. Luzel, who collected so many of the popular +stories in Brittany, found that what few _fees_ or fairies there are +almost always appear in folk-lore as little old women, or as the Breton +story-teller usually calls them, _Grac'hed coz_. I have selected and +abridged the following legendary tale from his works to illustrate the +nature of these Breton fairy-folk:-- + +In ancient times, as we read in _La Princesse Blondine_, a rich nobleman +had three sons; the oldest was called Cado, the second, Meliau, and the +youngest, Yvon. One day, as they were together in a forest with their +bows and arrows, they met a little old woman whom they had never seen +before, and she was carrying on her head a jar of water. 'Are you able, +lads,' Cado asked his two brothers, 'to break with an arrow the jar of +the little old woman without touching her?' 'We do not wish to try it,' +they said, fearing to injure the good woman. 'All right, I'll do it +then, watch me.' And Cado took his bow and let fly an arrow. The arrow +went straight to its mark and split the jar without touching the little +old woman; but the water wet her to the skin, and, in anger, she said to +the skilful archer: 'You have failed, Cado, and I will be revenged on +you for this. From now until you have found the Princess Blondine all +the members of your body will tremble as leaves on a tree tremble when +the north wind blows.' And instantly Cado was seized by a trembling +malady in all his body. The three brothers returned home and told their +father what had happened; and the father, turning to Cado, said: 'Alas, +my unfortunate son, you have failed. It is now necessary for you to +travel until you find the Princess Blondine, as the _fee_ said, for that +little old woman was a _fee_, and no doctor in the world can cure the +malady she has put upon you.'[76] + +_'Fees' of Lower Brittany._--Throughout the Morbihan and Finistere, I +found that stories about _fees_ are much less common than about +_corrigans_, and in some localities extremely rare; but the ones I have +been fortunate enough to collect are much the same in character as those +gathered in the Cotes-du-Nord by Luzel, and elsewhere by other +collectors. Those I here record were told to me at Carnac during the +summer of 1909; the first one by M. Yvonne Daniel, a native of the Ile +de Croix (off the coast north-west of Carnac); and the others by M. +Goulven Le Scour.[77] + +'The little Ile de Croix was especially famous for its old _fees_; and +the following legend is still believed by its oldest inhabitants:--"An +aged man who had suffered long from leprosy was certain to die within a +short time, when a woman bent double with age entered his house. She +asked from what malady he suffered, and on being informed began to say +prayers. Then she breathed upon the sores of the leper, and almost +suddenly disappeared: the _fee_ had cured him."' + +'It is certain that about fifty years ago the people in Finistere still +believed in _fees_. It was thought that the _fees_ were spirits who came +to predict some unexpected event in the family. They came especially to +console orphans who had very unkind step-mothers. In their youth, Tanguy +du Chatel and his sister Eudes were protected by a _fee_ against the +misfortune which pursued them; the history of Brittany says so. In Leon +it is said that the _fees_ served to guide unfortunate people, consoling +them with the promise of a happy and victorious future. In the +Cornouailles, on the contrary, it is said that the _fees_ were very +evilly disposed, that they were demons. + +'My grandmother, Marie Le Bras, had related to me that one evening an +old _fee_ arrived in my village, Kerouledic (Finistere), and asked for +hospitality. It was about the year 1830. The _fee_ was received; and +before going to bed she predicted that the little daughter whom the +mother was dressing in night-clothes would be found dead in the cradle +the next day. This prediction was only laughed at; but in the morning +the little one was dead in her cradle, her eyes raised toward Heaven. +The _fee_, who had slept in the stable, was gone.' + +In these last three accounts, by M. Le Scour, we observe three quite +different ideas concerning the Breton fairies or _fees_: in Finistere +and in Leon the _fees_ are regarded as good protecting spirits, almost +like ancestral spirits, which originally they may have been; in the +Cornouailles they are evil spirits; while in the third account, about +the old _fee_--and in the legend of the leper cured by a _fee_--the +_fees_ are rationalized, as in Luzel's tale quoted above, into +sorceresses or _Grac'hed Coz_. + +_Children Changed by 'Fees'._--M. Goulven Le Scour, at my request, wrote +down in French the following account of actual changelings in +Finistere:--'I remember very well that there was a woman of the village +of Kergoff, in Plouneventer, who was called ----,[78] the mother of a +family. When she had her first child, a very strong and very pretty boy, +she noticed one morning that he had been changed during the night; there +was no longer the fine baby she had put to bed in the evening; there +was, instead, an infant hideous to look at, greatly deformed, +hunchbacked, and crooked, and of a black colour. The poor woman knew +that a _fee_ had entered the house during the night and had changed her +child. + +'This changed infant still lives, and to-day he is about seventy years +old. He has all the possible vices; and he has tried many times to kill +his mother. He is a veritable demon; he often predicts the future, and +has a habit of running abroad during the night. They call him the +"Little _Corrigan_", and everybody flees from him. Being poor and infirm +now, he has been obliged to beg, and people give him alms because they +have great fear of him. His nick-name is Olier. + +'This woman had a second, then a third child, both of whom were seen by +everybody to have been born with no infirmity; and, in turn, each of +these two was stolen by a _fee_ and replaced by a little hunchback. The +second child was a most beautiful daughter. She was _taken_ during the +night and replaced by a little girl babe, so deformed that it resembled +a ball. If her brother Olier was bad, she was even worse; she was the +terror of the village, and they called her Anniac. The third child met +the same luck, but was not so bad as the first and second. + +'The poor mother, greatly worried at seeing what had happened, related +her troubles to another woman. This woman said to her, "If you have +another child, place with it in the cradle a little sprig of box-wood +which has been blessed (by a priest), and the _fee_ will no longer have +the power of stealing your children." And when a fourth child was born +to the unfortunate woman it was not stolen, for she placed in the cradle +a sprig of box-wood which had been blessed on Palm Sunday (_Dimanche des +Rameaux_).[79] + +'The first three children I knew very well, and they were certainly +hunchbacked: it is pretended in the country that the _fees_ who come at +night to make changelings always leave in exchange hunchbacked infants. +It is equally pretended that a mother who has had her child so changed +need do nothing more than leave the little hunchback out of doors crying +during entire hours, and that the _fee_ hearing it will come and put the +true child in its place. Unfortunately, Yvonna ---- did not know what +she should have done in order to have her own children again.' + +_Transformation Power of 'Fees'._--At Kerallan, near Carnac, this is +what Madame Louise Le Rouzic said about the transformation power of +_fees_:--'It is said that the _fees_ of the region when insulted +sometimes changed men into beasts or into stones.'[80] + +_Other Breton Fairies._--Besides the various types of _fees_ already +described, we find in Luzel's collected stories a few other types of +fairy-like beings: in _Les Compagnons_ (The Companions),[81] the _fee_ +is a magpie in a forest near Rennes--just as in other Celtic lands, +fairies likewise often appear as birds (see our study, pp. 302 ff.); in +_La Princesse de l'Etoile Brillante_ (The Princess of the Brilliant +Star),[81] a princess under the form of a duck plays the part of a fairy +(cf. how fairy women took the form of water-fowls in the tale entitled +the _Sick Bed of Cuchulainn_ (see our study, p. 345); in _Pipi Menou et +les Femmes Volantes_ (Pipi Menou and the Flying Women),[81] there are +fairy women as swan-maidens; and then there are yet to be mentioned _Les +Morgans de l'ile d'Ouessant_ (The _Morgans_ of the Isle of Ushant), who +live under the sea in rare palaces where mortals whom they love and +marry are able to exist with them. In some legends of the _Morgans_, +like one recorded by Luzel, the men and women of this water-fairy race, +or the _Morgans_ and _Morganezed_, seem like anthropomorphosed survivals +of ancient sea-divinities, such, for example, as the sea-god called +_Shony_, to whom the people of Lewis, Western Hebrides, still pour +libations that he may send in sea-weed, and the sea-god to whom +anciently the people of Iona poured libations.[82] + +_The 'Morgan'._--To M. J. Cuillandre (Glanmor), President of the +_Federation des Etudiants Bretons_, I am indebted for the following +weird legend of the _Morgan_, as it is told among the Breton fisher-folk +on the Ile Molene, Finistere:--'Following a legend which I have +collected on the Ile Molene, the _Morgan_ is a fairy eternally young, a +virgin seductress whose passion, never satisfied, drives her to despair. +Her place of abode is beneath the sea; there she possesses marvellous +palaces where gold and diamonds glimmer. Accompanied by other fairies, +of whom she is in some respects the queen, she rises to the surface of +the waters in the splendour of her unveiled beauty. By day she slumbers +amid the coolness of grottoes, and woe to him who troubles her sleep. By +night she lets herself be lulled by the waves in the neighbourhood of +the rocks. The sea-foam crystallizes at her touch into precious stones, +of whiteness as dazzling as that of her body. By moonlight she moans as +she combs her fair hair with a comb of fine gold, and she sings in a +harmonious voice a plaintive melody whose charm is irresistible. The +sailor who listens to it feels himself drawn toward her, without power +to break the charm which drags him onward to his destruction; the bark +is broken upon the reefs: the man is in the sea, and the _Morgan_ utters +a cry of joy. But the arms of the fairy clasp only a corpse; for at her +touch men die, and it is this which causes the despair of the amorous +and inviolate _Morgan_. She being pagan, it suffices to have been +touched by her in order to suffer the saddest fate which can be reserved +to a Christian. The unfortunate one whom she had clasped is condemned to +wander for ever in the trough of the waters, his eyes wide open, the +mark of baptism effaced from his forehead. Never will his poor remains +know the sweetness of reposing in holy ground, never will he have a tomb +where his kindred might come to pray and to weep.' + +_Origin of the 'Morgan'._--The following legendary origin is attributed +to the _Morgan_ by M. Goulven Le Scour, our Carnac witness:--'Following +the old people and the Breton legends, the _Morgan_ (_Mari Morgan_ in +Breton) was Dahut, the daughter of King Gradlon, who was ruler of the +city of Is. Legend records that when Dahut had entered at night the +bedchamber of her father and had cut from around his neck the cord which +held the key of the sea-dike flood-gates, and had given this key to the +Black Prince, under whose evil love she had fallen, and who, according +to belief, was no other than the Devil, St. Guenole soon afterwards +began to cry aloud, "Great King, arise! The flood-gates are open, and +the sea is no longer restrained!"[83] Suddenly the old King Gradlon +arose, and, leaping on his horse, was fleeing from the city with St. +Guenole, when he encountered his own daughter amid the waves. She +piteously begged aid of her father, and he took her up behind him on the +horse; but St. Guenole, seeing that the waters were gaining on them, +said to the king, "Throw into the sea the demon you have behind you, and +we shall be saved!" Thereupon Gradlon flung his daughter into the abyss, +and he and St. Guenole were saved. Since that time, the fishermen +declare that they have seen, in times of rough sea and clear moonlight, +Dahut, daughter of King Gradlon, sitting on the rocks combing her fair +hair and singing, in the place where her father flung her. And to-day +there is recognized under the Breton name _Marie Morgan_, the daughter +who sings amid the sea.' + +_Breton Fairyland Legends._--In a legend concerning Mona and the king of +the _Morgans_, much like the Christabel story of English poets, we have +a picture of a fairyland not under ground, but under sea; and this +legend of Mona and her _Morgan_ lover is one of the most beautiful of +all the fairy-tales of Brittany.[84] Another one of Luzel's legends, +concerning a maiden who married a dead man, shows us Fairyland as a +world of the dead. It is a very strange legend, and one directly bearing +on the Psychological Theory; for this dead man, who is a dead priest, +has a palace in a realm of enchantment, and to enter his country one +must have a white fairy-wand with which to strike 'in the form of a +cross' two blows upon the rock concealing the entrance.[84] M. Paul +Sebillot records from Upper Brittany a tradition that beneath the +sea-waves there one can see a subterranean world containing fields and +villages and beautiful castles; and it is so pleasant a world that +mortals going there find years no longer than days.[85] + +_Fairies of Upper Brittany._[86]--Principally in Upper Brittany, M. +Sebillot found rich folk-lore concerning _fees_, though some of his +material is drawn from peasants and fishermen who are not so purely +Celtic as those in Lower Brittany; and he very concisely summarizes the +various names there given to the fairy-folk as follows:--'They are +generally called _Fees_ (Fairies), sometimes _Fetes_ (Fates), a name +nearer than _fees_ to the Latin _Fata_; _Fete_ (fem.) and _Fete_ (mas.) +are both used, and from _Fete_ is probably derived _Faito_ or _Faitaud_, +which is the name borne by the fathers, the husbands, or the children of +the _fees_ (Saint-Cast). Near Saint-Briac (Ille-et-Vilaine) they are +sometimes called _Fions_; this term, which is applied to both sexes, +seems also to designate the mischievous _lutins_ (sprites). Round the +Mene, in the cantons of Collinee and of Moncontour, they are called +_Margot la Fee_, or _ma Commere_ (my Godmother) _Margot_, or even the +_Bonne Femme_ (Good Woman) _Margot_. On the coast they are often enough +called by the name of _Bonnes Dames_ (Good Ladies), or of _nos Bonnes +Meres les Fees_ (our Good Mothers the Fairies); usually they are spoken +of with a certain respect.'[87] As the same authority suggests, probably +the most characteristic _Fees_ in Upper Brittany are the _Fees des +Houles_ (Fairies of the Billows); and traditions say that they lived in +natural caverns or grottoes in the sea-cliffs. They form a distinct +class of sea-fairies unknown elsewhere in France or Europe.[88] M. +Sebillot regards them as sea-divinities greatly rationalized. Associated +with them are the _fions_, a race of dwarfs having swords no bigger than +pins.[88] A pretty legend about magic buckwheat cakes, which in +different forms is widespread throughout all Brittany, is told of these +little cave-dwelling fairies:-- + +Like the larger _fees_ the _fions_ kept cattle; and one day a black cow +belonging to the _fions_ of Pont-aux-Hommes-Nees ate the buckwheat in +the field of a woman of that neighbourhood. The woman went to the +_fions_ to complain, and in reply to her a voice said: 'Hold your +tongue; you will be paid for your buckwheat!' Thereupon the _fions_ gave +the woman a cupful of buckwheat, and promised her that it would never +diminish so long as none should be given away. That year buckwheat was +very scarce, but no matter how many buckwheat cakes the woman and her +family ate there was never diminution in the amount of the fairy +buckwheat. At last, however, the unfortunate hour came. A rag-gatherer +arrived and asked for food. Thoughtlessly the woman gave him one of her +buckwheat cakes, and suddenly, as though by magic, all the rest of the +buckwheat disappeared for ever. + +Along the Rance the inhabitants tell about _fees_ who appear during +storms. These storm-fairies are dressed in the colours of the rainbow, +and pass along following a most beautiful _fee_ who is mounted in a boat +made from a nautilus of the southern seas. And the boat is drawn by two +sea-crabs. In no other place in Brittany are similar _fees_ said to +exist.[89] In Upper Brittany, as in Lower Brittany, the _fees_ generally +had their abodes in tumuli, in dolmens, in forests, in waste lands where +there are great rocks, or about menhirs; and many other kinds of spirits +lived in the sea and troubled sailors and fisher-folk. Like all +fairy-folk of Celtic countries, those of Upper Brittany were given to +stealing children. Thus at Dinard not long ago there was a woman more +than thirty years old who was no bigger than a girl of ten, and it was +said she was a fairy changeling.[90] In Lower Brittany the _taking_ of +children was often attributed to dwarfs rather than to _fees_, though +the method of making the changeling speak is the same as in Upper +Brittany, namely, to place in such a manner before an open fire a number +of eggshells filled with water that they appear to the changeling--who +is placed where he can well observe all the proceedings--like so many +small pots of cooking food; whereupon, being greatly astonished at the +unusual sight, he forgets himself and speaks for the first time, thus +betraying his demon nature. + +The following midwife story, as told by J. M. Comault, of Gouray, in +1881, is quite a parallel to the one we have recorded (on p. 54) as +coming from Grange, Ireland:--A midwife who delivered a _Margot la fee_ +carelessly allowed some of the fairy ointment to get on one of her own +eyes. The eye at once became clairvoyant, so that she beheld the _fees_ +in their true nature. And, quite like a midwife in a similar story about +the _fees des houles_, this midwife happened to see a _fee_ in the act +of stealing, and spoke to her. Thereupon the _fee_ asked the midwife +with which eye she beheld her, and when the midwife indicated which one +it was, the _fee_ pulled it out.[91] + +Generally, like their relatives in insular Celtdom, the fairies of Upper +Brittany could assume various forms, and could even transform the human +body; and they were given to playing tricks on mortals, and always to +taking revenge on them if ill-treated. In most ways they were like other +races of fairies, Celtic and non-Celtic, though very much +anthropomorphosed in their nature by the peasant and mariner. + +As a rule, the _fees_ of Upper Brittany are described in legend as young +and very beautiful. Some, however, appear to be centuries old, with +teeth as long as a human hand, and with backs covered with seaweeds, and +mussels, or other marine growths, as an indication of their great +age.[92] At Saint-Cast they are said to be dressed (like the _corrigans_ +at Carnac, see p. 208) in _toile_, a kind of heavy linen cloth.[92] + +On the sea-coast of Upper Brittany the popular opinion is that the +_fees_ are a fallen race condemned to an earthly exile for a certain +period. In the region of the Mene, canton of Collinee, the old folk say +that, after the angels revolted, those left in paradise were divided +into two parts: those who fought on the side of God and those who +remained neutral. These last, already half-fallen, were sent to the +earth for a time, and became the _fees_.[92] + +The general belief in the interior of Brittany is that the _fees_ once +existed, but that they disappeared as their country was changed by +modern conditions. In the region of the Mene and of Erce +(Ille-et-Vilaine) it is said that for more than a century there have +been no _fees_; and on the sea-coast, where it is still firmly believed +that the _fees_ used to live in the billows or amid certain grottoes in +the cliffs against which the billows broke, the opinion is that they +disappeared at the beginning of the last century. The oldest Bretons say +that their parents or grandparents often spoke about having seen _fees_, +but very rarely do they say that they themselves have seen _fees_. M. +Sebillot found only two who had. One was an old needle-woman of +Saint-Cast, who had such fear of _fees_ that if she was on her way to do +some sewing in the country, and it was night, she always took a long +circuitous route to avoid passing near a field known as the _Couvent des +Fees_. The other was Marie Chehu, a woman eighty-eight years old.[93] + + +THE _CORRIGAN_ RACE[94] + +It is the _corrigan_ race, however, which, more than _fees_ or fairies, +forms a large part of the invisible inhabitants of Brittany; and this +race of _corrigans_ and _nains_ (dwarfs) may be made to include many +kinds of _lutins_, or as they are often called by the peasant, _follets_ +or _esprits follets_ (playful elves). Though the peasants both in Upper +and in Lower Brittany may have no strong faith in _fees_, most of them +say that _corrigans_, or _nains_, and mischievous house-haunting spirits +still exist. But in a few localities, as M. Sebillot discovered, there +is an opinion that the _lutins_ departed with the _fees_, and with them +will return in this century, because during each century with an odd +number like 1900, the fairy tribes of all kinds are said to be visible +or to reappear among men, and to become invisible or to disappear during +each century with an even number like 1800. So this is the visible +century. + +_Corrigans_ and _follets_ only show themselves at night, or in the +twilight. No one knows where they pass the day-time. Some _lutins_ or +_follets_, after the manner of Scotch kelpies, live solitary lives in +lakes or ponds (whereas _corrigans_ are socially united in groups or +families), and amuse themselves by playing tricks on travellers passing +by after dark. Souvestre records a story showing how the _lutins_ can +assume any animal form, but that their natural form is that of a little +man dressed in green; and that the _corrigans_ have declared war on them +for being too friendly to men.[95] From what follows about _lutins_, by +M. Goulven Le Scour, they show affinity with Pucks and such +shape-shifting hobgoblins as are found in Wales:--'The _lutins_ were +little dwarfs who generally appeared at cross-roads to attack belated +travellers. And it is related in Breton legends that these _lutins_ +sometimes transformed themselves into black horses or into goats; and +whoever then had the misfortune to encounter them sometimes found his +life in danger, and was always seized with great terror.' But generally, +what the Breton peasant tells about _corrigans_ he is apt to tell at +another time about _lutins_. And both tribes of beings, so far as they +can be distinguished, are the same as the elfish peoples--pixies in +Cornwall, Robin Good-fellows in England, goblins in Wales, or brownies +in Scotland. Both _corrigans_ and _lutins_ are supposed to guard hidden +treasure; some trouble horses at night; some, like their English +cousins, may help in the house-work after all the family are asleep; +some cause nightmare; some carry a torch like a Welsh death-candle; some +trouble men and women like obsessing spirits; and nearly all of them are +mischievous. In an article in the _Revue des Traditions Populaires_ (v. +101), M. Sebillot has classified more than fifty names given to _lutins_ +and _corrigans_ in Lower Brittany, according to the form under which +these spirits appear, their peculiar traits, dwelling-places, and the +country they inhabit. + +Like the fairies in Britain and Ireland, the _corrigans_ and the Cornish +pixies find their favourite amusement in the circular dance. When the +moon is clear and bright they gather for their frolic near menhirs, and +dolmens, and tumuli, and at cross-roads, or even in the open country; +and they never miss an opportunity of enticing a mortal passing by to +join them. If he happens to be a good-natured man and enters their sport +heartily, they treat him quite as a companion, and may even do him some +good turn; but if he is not agreeable they will make him dance until he +falls down exhausted, and should he commit some act thoroughly +displeasing to them he will meet their certain revenge. According to a +story reported from Lorient (Morbihan)[96] it is taboo for the +_corrigans_ to make a complete enumeration of the days of the week:-- + +_The 'Corrigan' Taboo._--'At night, the _corrigans_ dance, singing, +"Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday"; they are prohibited from +completing the enumeration of the days of the week. A _corrigan_ having +had the misfortune to permit himself to be tempted to add "Saturday", +immediately became hunchbacked. His comrades, stupefied and distressed, +attempted in vain to knock in his hump with blows of their fists.' + +_'Corrigans' at Carnac._--How the tradition of the dancing _corrigans_ +and their weekday song still lives, appears from the following accounts +which I found at and near Carnac, the first account having been given +during January 1909 by Madame Marie Ezanno, of Carnac, then sixty-six +years old:--'The _corrigans_ are little dwarfs who formerly, by +moonlight, used to dance in a circle on the prairies. They sang a song +the couplet of which was not understood, but only the refrain, +translated in Breton: "_Di Lun_ (Monday), _Di Merh_ (Tuesday), _Di +Merhier_ (Wednesday)." + +'They whistled in order to assemble. Where they danced mushrooms grew; +and it was necessary to maintain silence so as not to interrupt them in +their dance. They were often very brutal towards a man who fell under +their power, and if they had a grudge against him they would make him +submit to the greatest tortures. The peasants believed strongly in the +_corrigans_, because they thus saw them and heard them. The _corrigans_ +dressed in very coarse white linen cloth. They were mischievous spirits +(_esprits follets_), who lived under dolmens.' + +One morning, M. Lemort and myself called upon Madame Louise Le Rouzic in +her neat home at Kerallan, a little group of thatched cottages about a +mile from Carnac. As we entered, Madame Le Rouzic herself was sitting on +a long wooden bench by the window knitting, and her daughter was +watching the savoury-smelling dinner as it boiled in great iron pots +hanging from chains over a brilliant fire on the hearth. Large gleaming +brass basins were ranged on a shelf above the broad open chimney-place +wherein the fire burned, and massive bedsteads carved after the Breton +style stood on the stone floor. When many things had been talked about, +our conversation turned to _corrigans_, and then the good woman of the +house told us these tales:-- + +_'Corrigans' at Church._--'In former times a young girl having taken the +keys of the church (presumably at Carnac) and having entered it, found +the _corrigans_ about to dance; and the _corrigans_ were singing, +"_Lundi, Mardi_" (Monday, Tuesday). On seeing the young girl, they +stopped, surrounded her, and invited her to dance with them. She +accepted, and, in singing, added to their song "_Mercredi_" (Wednesday). +In amazement, the _corrigans_ cried joyfully, "She has added something +to our song; what shall we give her as recompense?" And they gave her a +bracelet. A friend of hers meeting her, asked where the fine bracelet +came from; and the young girl told what had happened. The second girl +hurried to the church, and found the _corrigans_ still dancing the +_rond_. She joined their dance, and, in singing, added "_Jeudi_" +(Thursday) to their song; but that broke the cadence; and the +_corrigans_ in fury, instead of recompensing her wished to punish her. +"What shall we do to her?" one of them cried. "Let the day be as night +to her!" the others replied. And by day, wherever she went, she saw only +the night.' + +_The 'Corrigans'' Sabbath._--'Where my grandfather lived,' continued +Madame Le Rouzic, 'there was a young girl who went to the sabbath of the +_corrigans_; and when she returned and was asked where she had been, +said, "I have travelled over water, wood, and hedges." And she related +all she had seen and heard. Then one night, afterwards, the _corrigans_ +came into the house, beat her, and dragged her from bed. Upon hearing +the uproar, my grandfather arose and found the girl lying flat on the +stone floor. "Never question me again," she said to him, "or they will +kill me."'[97] + +_'Corrigans' as Fairies._--Some Breton legends give _corrigans_ the +chief characteristics of fairies in Celtic Britain and Ireland; and +Villemarque in his _Barzaz Breiz_ (pp. 25-30) makes the Breton word +_corrigan_ synonymous with _fee_ or fairy, thus:--'_Le Seigneur Nann et +la Fee (Aotrou Nann hag ar Corrigan)_.' In this legend the _corrigan_ +seems clearly enough to be a water-fairy: 'The _Korrigan_ was seated at +the edge of her fountain, and she was combing her long fair hair.' But +unlike most water-fairies, the _Fee_ lives in a grotto, which, according +to Villemarque, is one of those ancient monuments called in Breton +_dolmen_, or _ti ar corrigan_; in French, _Table de pierres_, or _Grotte +aux Fees_--like the famous one near Rennes. The fountain where the _Fee_ +was seated seems to be one of those sacred fountains, which, as +Villemarque says, are often found near a _Grotte aux Fees_, and called +_Fontaine de la Fee_, or in Breton, _Feunteun ar corrigan_. In another +of Villemarque's legends, _L'Enfant Suppose_, after the egg-shell test +has been used and the little _corrigan_-changeling is replaced by the +real child, the latter as though all the while it had been in an +unconscious trance-state--which has a curious bearing on our +Psychological Theory--stretches forth its arms and awakening exclaims, +'Ah! mother, what a long time I have been asleep.'[98] And in _Les +Nains_ we see the little _Duz_ or dwarfs inhabiting a cave and guarding +treasures.[98] + +In his introduction to the _Barzaz Breiz_, Villemarque describes _les +korrigan_, whom he equates with _les fees_, as very similar to ordinary +fairies. They can foretell the future, they know the art of war--quite +like the Irish 'gentry' or Tuatha De Danann--they can assume any animal +form, and are able to travel from one end of the world to another in the +twinkling of an eye. They love feasting and music--like all Celtic +fairy-folk; and dance in a circle holding hands, but at the least noise +disappear. Their favourite haunts are near fountains and dolmens. They +are little beings not more than two feet high, and beautifully +proportioned, with bodies as aerial and transparent as those of wasps. +And like all fairy, or elvish races, and like the Breton _Morgans_ or +water-spirits, they are given to stealing the children of mortals. +Professor J. Loth has called my attention to an unpublished Breton +legend of his collection, in which there are fairy-like beings +comparable to these described by Villemarque; and he tells me, too, that +throughout Brittany one finds to-day the counterpart of the Welsh +_Tylwyth Teg_ or 'Fair Family', and that both in Wales and Brittany the +_Tylwyth Teg_ are popularly described as little women, or maidens, like +fairies no larger than children. + +_Fairies and Dwarfs._--Where Villemarque draws a clear distinction is +between these _korrigan_ and _fees_ on the one hand, and the _nains_ or +dwarfs on the other. These last are what we have found associated or +identified with _corrigans_ in the Morbihan. Villemarque describes the +_nains_ as a hideous race of beings with dark or even black hairy +bodies, with voices like old men, and with little sparkling black eyes. +They are fond of playing tricks on mortals who fall into their power; +and are given to singing in a circular dance the weekday song. Very +often _corrigans_ regarded as _nains_, equally with all kinds of +_lutins_, are believed to be evil spirits or demons condemned to live +here on earth in a penitential state for an indefinite time; and +sometimes they seem not much different from what Irish Celts, when +talking of fairies, call fallen angels. _Le Nain de Kerhuiton_, +translated from Breton by Professor J. Loth, in part illustrates +this:--Upon seeing water boiling in a number of egg-shells ranged before +an open fire, a _polpegan_-changeling is so greatly astonished that he +unwittingly speaks for the first time, and says, 'Here I am almost one +hundred years old, and never such a thing have I yet seen!' 'Ah! son of +Satan!' then cries out the mother, as she comes from her place of hiding +and beats the _polpegan_--who thus by means of the egg-shell test has +been tricked into revealing his demon nature.[99] In a parallel story, +reported by Villemarque in his _Barzaz Breiz_ (p. 33 n.), a +_nain_-changeling is equally astonished to see a similar row of +egg-shells boiling before an open fire like so many pots of food, and +gives himself away through the following remark:--'I have seen the acorn +before the oak; I have seen the egg before the white chicken: I have +never seen the equal to this.' + +_Nature of the 'Corrigans'._--As to the general ideas about the +_corrigans_, M. Le Scour says:--'Formerly the _corrigans_ were the +terror of the country-folk, especially in Finistere, in the Morbihan, +and throughout the Cotes-du-Nord. They were believed to be souls in pain +condemned to wander at night in waste lands and marshes. Sometimes they +were seen as dwarfs; and often they were not seen at all, but were heard +in houses making an infernal noise. Unlike the _lavandieres de nuits_ +(phantom washerwomen of the night), they were heard only in summer, +never in winter.' + + +THE BRETON LEGEND OF THE DEAD + +We come now to the Breton Legend of the Dead, common generally to all +parts of Armorica, though probably even more widespread in Lower +Brittany than in Upper Brittany; and this we call the Armorican +Fairy-Faith. Even where the peasants have no faith in _fees_ or fairies, +and where their faith in _corrigans_ is weak or almost gone, there is a +strong conviction among them that the souls of the dead can show +themselves to the living, a vigorous belief in apparitions, +phantom-funerals, and various death-warnings. As Professor Anatole Le +Braz has so well said in his introduction to _La Legende de la Mort_, +'the whole conscience of these people is fundamentally directed toward +that which concerns death. And the ideas which they form of it, in spite +of the strong Christian imprint which they have received, do not seem +much different from those which we have pointed out among their pagan +ancestors. For them, as for the primitive Celts, death is less a change +of condition than a journey, a departure for another world.' And thus it +seems that this most popular of the Breton folk-beliefs is genuinely +Celtic and extremely ancient. As Renan has said, the Celtic people are +'a race mysterious, having knowledge of the future and the secret of +death'.[100] And whereas in Ireland unusual happenings or strange +accidents and death are attributed to fairy interference, in Brittany +they are attributed to the influence of the dead. + +The Breton Celt makes no distinction between the living and the dead. +All alike inhabit this world, the one being visible, the other +invisible. Though seers can at all times behold the dead, on November +Eve (_La Toussaint_) and on Christmas Eve they are most numerous and +most easily seen; and no peasant would think of questioning their +existence. In Ireland and Scotland the country-folk fear to speak of +fairies save through an euphemism, and the Bretons speak of the dead +indirectly, and even then with fear and trembling. + +The following legend, which I found at Carnac, will serve to illustrate +both the profundity of the belief in the power of the dead over the +living in Lower Brittany, and how deeply the people can be stirred by +the predictions of one who can see the dead; and the legend is quite +typical of those so common in Armorica:-- + +_Foretelling Deaths._--'Formerly there was a woman whom spirits +impelled to rise from her bed, it made no difference at what hour of the +night, in order to behold funerals in the future. She predicted who +should die, who should carry the corpse, who the cross, and who should +follow the _cortege_. Her predictions frightened every one, and made her +such a terror to the country that the mayor had threatened to take legal +proceedings against her if she continued her practice; but she was +compelled to tell the things which the spirits showed her. It is about +ten years since this woman died in the hospital at Auray.' + +_Testimony of a Breton Seeress._--There lives in the little hamlet of +Kerlois, less than a mile from Carnac, a Breton seeress, a woman who +since eight years of age has been privileged to behold the world +invisible and its inhabitants, quite like the woman who died at Auray. +She is Madame Eugenie Le Port, now forty-two years old, and what she +tells of things seen in this invisible world which surrounds her, might +easily be taken for Irish legends about fairies. Knowing very little +French, because she is thoroughly Breton, Madame Le Port described her +visions in her own native tongue, and her eldest daughter acted as +interpreter. I had known the good woman since the previous winter, and +so we were able to converse familiarly; and as I sat in her own little +cottage, in company with her husband and daughters, and with M. Lemort, +who acted as recording secretary, this is what she said in her clear +earnest manner in answer to my questions:-- + +'We believe that the spirits of our ancestors surround us and live with +us. One day on a road from Carnac I encountered a woman of Kergoellec +who had been dead eight days. I asked her to move to one side so that I +could pass, and she vanished. This was eleven o'clock in the morning. I +saw her at another time in the Marsh of Breno; I spoke, but she did not +reply. On the route from Plouharnel (near Carnac) I saw in the day-time +the funeral of a woman who did not die until fifteen days afterwards. I +recognized perfectly all the people who took part in it; but the person +with me saw nothing. Another time, near three o'clock in the afternoon, +and eight days before her death, I saw upon the same route the funeral +of a woman who was drowned. And I have seen a phantom horse going to the +sabbath, and as if forced along against its will, for it reared and +pawed the earth. When Pierre Rouzic of Kerlois died, I saw a light of +all colours between heaven and earth, the very night of his death. I +have seen a woman asleep whose spirit must have been free, for I saw it +hovering outside her body. She was not awakened [at the time] for fear +that the spirit would not find its body again.' In answer to my question +as to how long these various visions usually lasted, Madame Le Port +said:--'They lasted about a quarter of an hour, or less, and all of them +disappeared instantaneously.' As Madame Le Port now seemed unable to +recall more of her visions, I finally asked her what she thought about +_corrigans_, and she replied:--'I believe they exist as some special +kind of spirits, though I have never seen any.' + +_Proof that the Dead Exist._--This is what M. Jean Couton, an old +Breton, told me at Carnac:--'I am only an old peasant, without +instruction, without any education, but let me tell you what I think +concerning the dead. Following my own idea, I believe that after death +the soul always exists and travels among us. I repeat to you that I have +belief that the dead are seen; I am now going to prove this to you in +the following story:-- + +'One winter evening I was returning home from a funeral. I had as +companion a kinswoman of the man just buried. We took the train and soon +alighted in the station of Plouharnel. We still had three kilometres to +go before reaching home, and as it was winter, and at that epoch there +was no stage-coach, we were obliged to travel afoot. As we were going +along, suddenly there appeared to my companion her dead relative whom we +had buried that day. She asked me if I saw anything, and since I replied +to her negatively she said to me, "Touch me, and you will see without +doubt." I touched her, and I saw the same as she did, the person just +dead, whom I clearly recognized.'[101] + +_Phantom Washerwomen._--Concerning a very popular Breton belief in +phantom washerwomen (_les lavandieres de nuits_; or in Breton, _cannered +noz_), M. Goulven Le Scour offers the following summary:--'The +_lavandieres de nuits_ were heard less often than the _corrigans_, but +were much more feared. It was usually towards midnight that they were +heard beating their linen in front of different washing-places, always +some way from the villages. According to the old folk of the past +generation, when the phantom washerwomen would ask a certain passer-by +to help them to wring sheets, he could not refuse, under pain of being +stopped and wrung like a sheet himself. And it was necessary for those +who aided in wringing the sheets to turn in the same direction as the +washerwomen; for if by misfortune the assistant turned in an opposite +direction, he had his arms wrung in an instant. It is believed that +these phantom washerwomen are women condemned to wash their mortuary +sheets during whole centuries; but that when they find some mortal to +wring in an opposite direction, they are delivered.'[102] + +_Breton Animistic Beliefs._--M. Z. Le Rouzic, a Breton Celt who has +spent most of his life studying the archaeology and folk-lore of the +Morbihan, and who is at present Keeper of the Miln Museum at Carnac, +summarizes for us the state of popular beliefs as he finds them existing +in the Carnac country now:--'There are few traditions concerning the +_fees_ in the region of Carnac; but the belief in spirits, good and +bad--which seems to me to be the same as the belief in _fees_--is +general and profound, as well as the belief in the incarnation of +spirits. And I am convinced that these beliefs are the reminiscences of +ancient Celtic beliefs held by the Druids and conserved by +Christianity.' + +In Finistere, as purely Breton as the Morbihan, I found the Legend of +the Dead just as widespread, and the belief in spirits and the +apparitional return of the dead quite as profound; but nothing worth +recording concerning fairies. The stories which follow were told to me +by M. Pierre Vichon, a pure Breton Celt, born at Lescoff, near the +Pointe du Raz, Finistere, in 1842. Peter is a genuine old 'sea-dog', +having made the tour of the globe, and yet he has not lost the innate +faith of his ancient ancestors in a world invisible; for though he says +he cannot believe all that the people in his part of Finistere tell +about spirits and ghosts, he must have a belief that the dead as spirits +exist and influence the living, because of his own personal +experience--one of the most remarkable of its kind. Peter speaks Breton, +French, and English fluently, and since he had an opportunity for the +first time in seventeen months of using English, he told me the stories +in my own native language:-- + +_Pierre Vichon's Strange Experience._--'Some forty years ago a strange +thing happened in my life. A relative of mine had taken service in the +Austrian army, for by profession he was a soldier, though at first he +had begun to study for the priesthood. During the progress of the war I +had no news from him; and, then one day while I was on the deck of a +Norwegian ship just off Dover (England), my fellow sailors heard a noise +as though of a gun being discharged, and the whirr of a shot. At the +same moment I fell down on the deck as though mortally wounded, and lay +in an unconscious state for two hours. When the news came, it was +ascertained that at the very moment I fell and the gun-report was heard, +my relative in Austria had been shot in the head and fell down dead. And +he had been seen to throw his hands up to his head to grasp it just as I +did.' + +_An Apparition of the Dead._--'I had another relative who died in a +hospital near Christiania, Norway; and on the day he died a sister of +mine, then a little girl, saw his spirit appear here in Lescoff, and she +easily recognized it; but none of her girl companions with her at the +time saw the spirit. After a few days we had the news of the death, and +the time of it and the time of my sister's seeing the spirit coincided +exactly.' + +In all the peninsula of which the famous and dangerous Pointe du Raz is +the terminus, similar stories are current. And among the fisher-folk +with whom I lived on the strange and historic Ile de Sein, the Legend of +the Dead is even more common. + +_The Dead and Fairies Compared._--Without setting down here in detail +numerous other death-legends which we have collected, we may now note +how much the same are the powers and nature of the dead and spirits in +Brittany, and the power and nature of the fairy races in Celtic Britain +and Ireland. Thus the Breton dead strike down the living just as fairies +are said to do; the _Ankou_,[103] who is a king of the dead, and his +subjects, like a fairy king and fairies, have their own particular paths +or roads over which they travel in great sacred processions;[104] and +exactly as fairies, the hosts of the dead are in possession of the earth +on November Eve, and the living are expected to prepare a feast and +entertainment for them of curded-milk, hot pancakes, and cider, served +on the family table covered with a fresh white table-cloth, and to +supply music. The Breton dead come to enjoy this hospitality of their +friends; and as they take their places at the table the stools are heard +to move, and sometimes the plates; and the musicians who help to +entertain them think that at times they feel the cold breath of the +invisible visitors. Concerning this same feast of the dead (_La +Toussaint_) Villemarque in his _Barzaz Breiz_ (p. 507) records that in +many parts of Brittany libations of milk are poured over or near +ancestral tombs--just as in Ireland and Scotland libations of milk are +poured to fairies. And the people of Armorica at other times than +November Eve remember the dead very appropriately, as in Ireland the +Irish remember fairies. The Breton peasant thinks of the dead as +frequently as the Irishman thinks of fairies. One day while I was +walking toward Carnac there was told to me in the most ordinary manner a +story about a dead man who used to be seen going along the very road I +was on. He quite often went to the church in Carnac seeking prayers for +his soul. And almost every man or woman one meets in rural Lower +Brittany can tell many similar stories. If a mortal should happen to +meet one of the dead in Brittany and be induced to eat food which the +dead sometimes offer, he will never be able to return among the +living,[105] for the effect would be the same as eating fairy-food. Like +ghosts and fairies in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, in Brittany the dead +guard hidden treasure. It is after sunset that the dead have most power +to strike down the living,[105] and to _take_ them just as fairies do. A +natural phenomenon, a malady, a death, or a tempest may be the work of a +spirit in Brittany,[105] and in Ireland the work of a fairy. The Breton +dead, like the Scotch fairies described in Kirk's _Secret Commonwealth_, +are capable of making themselves visible or invisible to mortals, at +will.[105] Their bodies--for they have bodies--are material,[105] being +composed of matter in a state unknown to us; and the bodies of daemons +as described by the Ancients are made of congealed air. The dead in +Brittany have forms more slender and smaller in stature than those of +the living;[105] and herein we find one of the factors which supporters +of the Pygmy Theory would emphasize, but it is thoroughly psychical. Old +Breton farmers after death return to their farms, as though come from +Fairyland; and sometimes they even take a turn at the ploughing.[105] As +in Ireland, so in Brittany, the day belongs to the living, and the +night, when a mortal is safer indoors than out, to spirits and the +dead.[105] The Bretons take great care not to counterfeit the dead nor +to speak slightingly of them,[106] for, like fairies, they know all that +is done by mortals, and can hear all that is said about them, and can +take revenge. Just as in the case of all fairies and goblins, the dead +disappear at first cock-crow.[107] The world of the dead, like the land +of Faerie or the Otherworld, may be underground, in the air, in a hill +or mountain like a fairy palace, under a river or sea, and even on an +island out amid the ocean.[107] As other Celts do against evil spirits +and fairies, the Breton peasants use magic against evil souls of the +dead,[108] and the priests use exorcisms. The Breton realm of the dead +equally with the Irish Fairyland is an invisible world peopled by other +kinds of spirits besides disembodied mortals and fairies.[109] The dead +haunt houses just as Robin Good-fellows and brownies, or pixies and +goblins, generally do. The dead are fond of frequenting cross-roads, and +so are all sorts of fairies. In Brittany one must always guard against +the evil dead, in Cornwall against pixies, in other Celtic lands against +different kinds of fairies. In Ireland and Scotland there is the +banshee, in Wales the death-candle, in Brittany the _Ankou_ or king of +the dead, to foretell a death. And as the banshee wails before the +ancestral mansion, so the _Ankou_ sounds its doleful cry before the door +of the one it calls.[109] There seems not to be a family in the Carnac +region of the Morbihan without some tradition of a warning coming before +the death of one of its members. In Ireland only certain families have a +banshee, but in Brittany all families. Professor Le Braz has devoted a +large part of his work on _La Legende de la Mort_ to these Breton +death-warnings or _intersignes_. They may be shades of the dead under +many aspects--ghostly hands, or ghosts of inanimate objects. They may +come by the fall of objects without known cause; by a magpie resting on +a roof--just as in Ireland; by the crowing of cocks, and the howling of +dogs at night. They may be death-candles or torches, dreams, peculiar +bodily sensations, images in water, phantom funerals, and death-chariots +or death-coaches as in Wales. + +The Bretons may be said to have a Death-Faith, whereas the other Celts +have a Fairy-Faith, and both are a real folk-religion innate in the +Celtic nature, and thus quite as influential as Christianity. Should +Christianity in some way suddenly be swept away from the Celt he would +still be religious, for it is his nature to be so. And as Professor Le +Braz has suggested to me, Carnac with its strange monuments of an +unknown people and time, and wrapped in its air of mystery and silence, +is a veritable Land of the Dead. I, too, have felt that there are +strange, vague, indefinable influences at work at Carnac at all times of +the day and night, very similar to those which I have felt in the most +fairy-haunted regions of Ireland. We might say that all of Brittany is a +Land of the Dead, and ancient Carnac its Centre, just as Ireland is +Fairyland, with its Centre at ancient Tara. + + +CONCLUSION + +We can very appropriately conclude our inquiry about Brittany with a +very beautiful description of a _Veillee_ in Lower Brittany, written +down in French for our special use by the Breton poet, M. Le Scour, of +Carnac, and here translated. M. Le Scour draws the whole picture from +life, and from his own intimate experience. It will serve to give us +some insight into the natural literary ability of the Breton Celts, to +illustrate their love of tales dealing with the marvellous and the +supernormal, and is especially valuable for showing the social +environment amidst which the Fairy-Faith of Lower Brittany lives and +flourishes, isolated from foreign interference:-- + +_A 'Veillee'[110] in Lower Brittany._--'The wind was blowing from the +east, and in the intermittent moonlight the roof of the thatched cottage +already gleamed with a thin covering of snow which had fallen since +sunset. Each comer reached on the run the comfortable bakehouse, wherein +Alain Corre was at work kneading his batch of barley bread; and the +father Le Scour was never the last to arrive, because he liked to get +the best seat in front of the bake-oven. + +'Victor had promised us for that night a pretty story which no person +had ever heard before. I was not more than fourteen years old then, but +like all the neighbours I hurried to get a place in order to hear +Victor. My mother was already there, making her distaff whirr between +her two fingers as she sat in the light of a rosin candle, and my +brother Yvon was finishing a wooden butter-spoon. Every few minutes I +and my little cousin went out to see if it was still snowing, and if +Victor had arrived. + +'At last Victor entered, and everybody applauded, the young girls +lengthening out their distaffs to do him reverence. Then when silence +was restored, after some of the older men had several times shouted out, +"Let us commence; hold your tongues," Victor began his story as +follows:-- + +'"Formerly, in the village of Kastel-Laer, Plouneventer (Finistere), +there were two neighbours; the one was Paol al Ludu and the other Yon +Rustik. Paol al Ludu was a good-for-nothing sort of fellow; he gained +his living easily, by cheating everybody and by robbing his neighbours; +and being always well dressed he was much envied by his poorer +acquaintances. Yon Rustik, on the contrary, was a poor, infirm, and +honest man, always seeking to do good, but not being able to work, had +to beg. + +'"One evening our two men were disputing. Paol al Ludu treated Yon +shamefully, telling him that it would be absurd to think an old lame man +such as he was could ever get to Paris; 'But I,' added Paol, 'am going +to see the capital and amuse myself like a rich _bourgeois_.' At this, +Yon offered to bet with Paol that in spite of infirmities he would also +go to Paris; and being an honest man he placed his trust in God. The +wager was mutually agreed to, and our two men set out for Paris by +different routes. + +'"Paol al Ludu, who had no infirmities, arrived at Paris within three +weeks. He followed the career of a thief, and deceived everybody; and as +he was well dressed, people had confidence in him. The poor Yon Rustik, +on the contrary, did not travel rapidly. He was obliged to beg his way, +and being meanly dressed was compelled to sleep outdoors when he could +not find a stable. At the end of a month he arrived in a big forest in +the region of Versailles, and having no other shelter for the night +chose a great oak tree which was hollowed by the centuries and lined +with fungi within. In front of this ancient oak there was a fountain +which must have been miraculous, for it flowed from east to west, and +Yon had closely observed it. + +'"Towards midnight Yon was awakened by a terrible uproar; there were a +hundred _corrigans_ dancing round the fountain. He overheard one of them +say to the others: 'I have news to report to you; I have cast an evil +spell upon the daughter of the King, and no mortal will ever be able to +cure her, and yet in order to cure her nothing more would be needed than +a drop of water from this fountain.' The _corrigan_ who thus spoke was +upon two sticks[111] (crippled), and commanded all the others. The +beggar having understood the conversation, awaited impatiently the +departure of the _corrigans_. When they were gone, he took a little +water from the fountain in a bottle, and hurried on to Paris, where he +arrived one fine morning. + +'"In the house where Yon stopped to eat his crust of dry bread he heard +it reported that the daughter of the King was very ill, and that the +wisest doctors in France had been sent for. Three days later, Yon Rustik +presented himself at the palace, and asked audience with the King, but +as he was so shabbily dressed the attendants did not wish to let him +enter. When he strongly insisted, they finally prevailed upon the King +to receive him; and then Yon told the King that he had come to cure the +princess. Thereupon the King caused Yon to be fittingly dressed and +presented before the sick-bed; and Yon drew forth his bottle of water, +and, at his request, the princess drank it to the last drop. Suddenly +she began to laugh with joy, and throwing her arms about the neck of the +beggar thanked him: she was radically cured. At once the King gave +orders that his golden coach of state be made ready; and placing the +princess and the beggar on one seat, made a tour throughout all the most +beautiful streets of Paris. Never before were such crowds seen in Paris, +for the proclamation had gone forth that the one who had made the +miraculous cure was a beggar. + +'"Paol al Ludu, who was still in Paris, pressed forward to see the royal +coach pass, and when he saw who sat next to the princess he was beside +himself with rage. But before the day was over he discovered Yon in the +great hotel of the city, and asked him how it was that he had been able +to effect the cure; and Yon replied to his old rival that it was with +the water of a miraculous fountain, and relating everything which had +passed, explained to him in what place the hollow oak and the fountain +were to be found. + +'"Paol did not wait even that night, but set off at once to find the +miraculous fountain. When he finally found it the hour was almost +midnight, and so he hid himself in the hollow of the oak, hoping to +overhear some mysterious revelation. Midnight had hardly come when a +frightful uproar commenced: this time the crippled _corrigan_ chief was +swearing like a demon, and he cried to the others, 'The daughter of the +King has been cured by a beggar! He must have overheard us by hiding in +the hollow of that d----d old oak. Quick! let fire be put in it, for it +has brought us misfortune.' + +'"In less than a minute, the trunk of the oak was in flames; and there +were heard the cries of anguish of Paol al Ludu and the gnashing of his +teeth, as he fought against death. Thus the evil and dishonest man ended +his life, while Yon Rustik received a pension of twenty thousand +francs, and was able to live happy for many years, and to give alms to +the poor."' + +Here M. Le Scour ends his narrative, leaving the reader to imagine the +enthusiastic applause and fond embraces bestowed upon Victor for this +most marvellous story, by the happy gathering of country-folk in that +cosy warm bakehouse in Lower Brittany, while without the cold east wind +of winter was whirling into every nook and corner the falling flakes of +snow. + + * * * * * + +The evidence from Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall, and +Brittany, which the living Celtic Fairy-Faith offers, has now been +heard; and, as was stated at the beginning of the inquiry, apparently +most of it can only be interpreted as belonging to a world-wide doctrine +of souls. But before this decision can be arrived at safely, all the +evidence should be carefully estimated according to anthropological and +psychological methods; and this we shall proceed to do in the following +chapter, before passing to Section II of our study. + + + + +SECTION I + +THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH + + + + +CHAPTER III + +AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF THE EVIDENCE + + Anthropology is concerned with man and what is in man--_humani + nihil a se alienum putat_.--ANDREW LANG. + + The Celtic Fairy-Faith as part of a World-wide Animism--Shaping + Influence of Social Psychology--Smallness of Elvish Spirits and + Fairies, according to Ethnology, Animism, and Occult Sciences--The + Changeling Belief and its explanation according to the Kidnap, + Human-Sacrifice, Soul-Wandering, and Demon-Possession + Theory--Ancient and Modern Magic and Witchcraft shown to be based + on definite psychological laws--Exorcisms--Taboos, of Name, Food, + Iron, Place--Taboos among Ancient Celts--Food-Sacrifice--Legend of + the Dead--Conclusion: The background of the modern belief in + Fairies is animistic. + + +THE CELTIC FAIRY-FAITH AS PART OF A WORLD-WIDE ANIMISM + +The modern belief in fairies, with which until now we have been +specifically concerned, is Celtic only in so far as it reflects Celtic +traditions and customs, Celtic myth and religion, and Celtic social and +environmental conditions. Otherwise, as will be shown throughout this +and succeeding chapters, it is in essence a part of a world-wide +animism, which forms the background of all religions in whatever stage +of culture religions exist or to which they have attained by evolution, +from the barbarism of the Congo black man to the civilization of the +Archbishop of Canterbury; and as far back as we can go into human +origins there is some corresponding belief in a fairy or spirit realm, +as there is to-day among contemporary civilized and uncivilized races of +all countries. We may therefore very profitably begin our examination +of the living Fairy-Faith of the Celts by comparing it with a few +examples, taken almost at random, from the animistic beliefs current +among non-Celtic peoples. + +To the Arunta tribes of Central Australia, furthest removed in space +from the Celts and hence least likely to have been influenced by them, +let us go first, in order to examine their doctrine of ancestral +_Alcheringa_ beings and of the _Iruntarinia_, which offers an almost +complete parallel to the Celtic belief in fairies. These _Alcheringa_ +beings and _Iruntarinia_--to ignore the secondary differences between +the two--are a spirit race inhabiting an invisible or fairy world. Only +certain persons, medicine-men and seers, can see them; and these +describe them as thin and shadowy, and, like the Irish _Sidhe_, as +always youthful in appearance. Precisely like their Celtic counterparts +in general, these Australian spirits are believed to haunt inanimate +objects such as stones and trees; or to frequent totem centres, as in +Ireland demons (daemons) are believed to frequent certain places known +to have been anciently dedicated to the religious rites of the +pre-Christian Celts; and, quite after the manner of the Breton dead and +of most fairies, they are said to control human affairs and natural +phenomena. All the Arunta invariably regard themselves as incarnations +or reincarnations of these ancestral spirit-beings; and, in accordance +with evidence to be set forth in our seventh chapter, ancient and modern +Celts have likewise regarded themselves as incarnations or +reincarnations of ancestors and of fairy beings. Also the Arunta think +of the _Alcheringa_ beings exactly as Celts think of fairies: as real +invisible entities who must be propitiated if men wish to secure their +goodwill; and as beneficent and protecting beings when not offended, who +may attach themselves to individuals as guardian spirits.[112] + +Among the Melanesian peoples there is an equally firm faith in spiritual +beings, which they call _Vui_ and _Wui_, and these beings have very +many of the chief attributes of the _Alcheringa_ beings.[113] + +In Africa, the _Amatongo_, or _Abapansi_ of Amazulu belief, have +essentially the same motives for action toward men and women, and +exhibit the same powers, as the Scotch and Irish peasants assign to the +'good people'. They _take_ the living through death; and people so +_taken_ appear afterwards as apparitions, having become _Amatongo_.[114] + +In the New World, we find in the North American Red Men a race as much +given as the Celts are to a belief in various spirits like fairies. They +believe that there are spirits in lakes, in rivers and in waterfalls, in +rocks and trees, in the earth and in the air; and that these beings +produce storms, droughts, good and bad harvests, abundance and scarcity +of game, disease, and the varying fortunes of men. Mr. Leland, who has +carefully studied these American beliefs, says that the _Un a +games-suk_, or little spirits inhabiting rocks and streams, play a much +more influential part in the social and religious life of the North +American Red Men than elves or fairies ever did among the Aryans.[115] + +In Asia there is the well-known and elaborate animistic creed of the +Chinese and of the Japanese, to be in part illustrated in subsequent +sections. In popular Indian belief, as found in the Panjab, there is no +essential difference between various orders of beings endowed with +immortality, such as ghosts and spirits on the one hand, and gods, +demi-gods, and warriors on the other; for whether in bodies in this +world or out of bodies in the invisible world, they equally live and +act--quite as fairies do.[116] Throughout the Malay Peninsula, belief in +many orders of good and bad spirits, in demon-possession, in exorcism, +and in the power of black magicians is very common.[117] But in the +_Phi_ races of Siam we discover what is probably the most important and +complete parallel to the Celtic Fairy-Faith existing in Asia. + +According to the Siamese folk-belief, all the stars and various planets, +as well as the ethereal spaces, are the dwelling-places of the +_Thevadas_, gods and goddesses of the old pre-Buddhist mythology, who +correspond pretty closely to the Tuatha De Danann of Irish mythology; +and this world itself is peopled by legions of minor deities called +_Phi_, who include all the various orders of good and bad spirits +continually influencing mankind. Some of these _Phi_ live in forests, in +trees, in open spaces; and watercourses are full of them. Others inhabit +mountains and high places. A particular order who haunt the sacred trees +surrounding the Buddhist temples are known as _Phi nang mai_; and since +_nang_ is the word for female, and _mai_ for tree, they are comparable +to tree-dwelling fairies, or Greek wood-nymphs. Still another order +called _Chao phum phi_ (gods of the earth) are like house-frequenting +brownies, fairies, and pixies, or like certain orders of _corrigans_ who +haunt barns, stables, and dwellings; and in many curious details these +_Chao phum phi_ correspond to the Penates of ancient Rome. Not only is +the worship of this order of _Phi_ widespread in Siam, but to every +other order of _Phi_ altars are erected and propitiatory offerings made +by all classes of the Siamese people.[118] + +Before passing westwards to Europe, in completion of our rapid folk-lore +tour of the world, we may observe that the Persians, even those who are +well educated, have a firm belief in _jinns_ and _afreets_, different +orders of good and bad spirits with all the chief characteristics of +fairies.[119] And modern Arabs and Egyptians and Egyptian Turks hold +similar animistic beliefs.[120] + +In Europe, the Greek peasant as firmly believes in nymphs or nereids as +the Celtic peasant believes in fairies; and nymphs, nereids, and fairies +alike are often the survivals of an ancient mythology. Mr. J. C. Lawson, +who has very carefully investigated the folk-lore of modern Greece, +says: 'The nereids are conceived as women half-divine yet not immortal, +always young, always beautiful, capricious at best, and at their worst +cruel. Their presence is suspected everywhere. I myself had a nereid +pointed out to me by my guide, and there certainly was the semblance of +a female figure draped in white, and tall beyond human stature, flitting +in the dusk between the gnarled and twisted boles of an old olive-yard. +What the apparition was, I had no leisure to investigate; for my guide +with many signs of the cross and muttered invocations of the Virgin +urged my mule to perilous haste along the rough mountain path.' Like +Celtic fairies, these Greek nereids have their queens; they dance all +night, disappearing at cock-crow; they can cast spells on animals or +maladies on men and women; they can shift their shape; they _take_ +children in death and make changelings; and they fall in love with young +men.[121] + +Among the Roumain peoples the widespread belief in the _Iele_ shows in +other ways equally marked parallels with the Fairy-Faith of the Celts. +These _Iele_ wait at cross-roads and near dwellings, or at village +fountains or in fields and woods, where they can best cast on men and +women various maladies. Sometimes they fall in love with beautiful young +men and women, and have on such occasions even been controlled by their +mortal lovers. They are extremely fond of music and dancing, and many a +shepherd with his pipes has been favoured by them, though they have +their own music and songs too. The Albanian peoples have evil fairies, +no taller than children twelve years old, called in Modern Greek [Greek: +ta exotika], 'those without,' who correspond to the _Iele_. Young +people who have been enticed to enter their round dance afterwards waste +away and die, apparently becoming one of 'those without'. These Albanian +spirits, like the 'good people' and the Breton dead, have their own +particular paths and retreats, and whoever violates these is struck and +falls ill.[122] These parallels from Roumain lands are probably due to +the close Aryan relationship between the Roumains, the Greeks, and the +Celts. The _Iele_ seem nothing more than the nymphs and nereids of +classical antiquity transformed under Christian influence into beings +who contradict their original good character, as in Celtic lands the +fairy-folk have likewise come to be fallen angels and evil spirits. + +There is an even closer relationship between the Italian and Celtic +fairies. For example, among the Etruscan-Roman people there are now +flourishing animistic beliefs almost identical in all details with the +Fairy-Faith of the Celts.[123] In a very valuable study on the Neo-Latin +Fay, Mr. H. C. Coote writes:--'Who were the Fays--the _fate_ of later +Italy, the _fees_ of mediaeval France? For it is perfectly clear that +the _fatua_, _fata_, and _fee_ are all one and the same word.' And he +proceeds to show that the race of immortal damsels whom the old natives +of Italy called _Fatuae_ gave origin to all the family of _fees_ as +these appear in Latin countries, and that the Italians recognized in the +Greek nymphs their own _Fatuae_.[124] + +It is quite evident that we have here discovered in Italy, as we +discovered in Greece and Roumain lands, fairies very Celtic in +character; and should further examination be made of modern European +folk-lore yet other similar fairies would be found, such, for example, +as the elves of Germany and of Scandinavia, or as the _servans_ of the +Swiss peasant. And in all cases, whether the beliefs examined be Celtic +or non-Celtic, Aryan or non-Aryan, from Australia, Polynesia, Africa, +America, Asia, or Europe, they are in essence animistically the same, as +later sections in this chapter will make clear. But while the +parallelism of these beliefs is indicated it is, of course, not meant +for a moment that in all of the cases or in any one of the cases the +specific differences are not considerable. The ground of comparison +consists simply in those generic characteristics which these +fairy-faiths, as they may be called, invariably display--characteristics +which we have good precedent for summing up in the single adjective +animistic. + + +SHAPING INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY + +For the term animism we have to thank Dr. E. B. Tylor, whose _Primitive +Culture_, in which the animistic theory is developed, may almost be said +to mark the beginning of scientific anthropology. In this work, however, +there is a decided tendency (which indeed displays itself in most of the +leading anthropological works, as, for example, in those by Dr. Frazer) +to regard men, or at any rate primitive men, as having a mind absolutely +homogeneous, and therefore as thinking, feeling, and acting in the same +way under all conditions alike. But a decided change is beginning to +manifest itself in the interpretation of the customs and beliefs of the +ruder races. It is assumed as a working principle that each ethnic group +has or tends to have an individuality of its own, and, moreover, that +the members of such a group think, feel, and act primarily as the +representatives, so to speak, of that ethnic individuality in which they +live, move, and have their being. That is to say, a social as contrasted +with an individual psychology must, it is held, pronounce both the first +and last word regarding all matters of mythology, religion, and art in +its numerous forms. The reason is that these are social products, and as +such are to be understood only in the light of the laws governing the +workings of the collective mind of any particular ethnic group. Such a +method is, for instance, employed in Mr. William McDougall's _Social +Psychology_, in Mr. R. R. Marett's _Threshold of Religion_, and in many +anthropological articles to be found in _L'Annee Sociologique_. + +If, therefore, we hold by this new and fruitful method of social +psychology we must be prepared to treat the Fairy-Faith of the Celtic +peoples also in and for itself, as expressive of an individuality more +or less unique. It might, indeed, be objected that these peoples are not +a single social group, but rather a number of such groups, and this is, +in a way, true. Nevertheless their folk-lore displays such remarkable +homogeneity, from whatever quarter of the Celtic world it be derived, +that it seems the soundest method to treat them as one people for all +the purposes of the student of sociology, mythology, and religion. +Granting, then, such a unity in the beliefs of the pan-Celtic race, we +are finally obliged to distinguish as it were two aspects thereof. + +On the one hand there is shown, even in the mere handful of non-Celtic +parallels, which for reasons of space we have been content to cite, as +well as in their Celtic equivalents, a generic element common to all +peoples living under primitive conditions of society. It is emphatically +a social element, but at the same time one which any primitive society +is bound to display. On the other hand, in a second aspect, the Celtic +beliefs show of themselves a character which is wholly Celtic: in the +Fairy-Faith, which is generically animistic, we find reflected all sorts +of specific characteristics of the Celtic peoples--their patriotism, +their peculiar type of imagination, their costumes, amusements, +household life, and social and religious customs generally. With this +fact in mind, we may proceed to examine certain of the more specialized +aspects of the Fairy-Faith, as manifested both among Celts and +elsewhere. + + +THE SMALLNESS OF ELVISH SPIRITS AND FAIRIES + +_Ethnological or Pygmy Theory_ + +In any anthropological estimate of the Fairy-Faith, the pygmy stature so +commonly attributed to various orders of Celtic and of non-Celtic +fairies should be considered. Various scholarly champions of the Pygmy +Theory have attempted to explain this smallness of fairies by means of +the hypothesis that the belief in such fairies is due _wholly_ to a +folk-memory of small-statured pre-Celtic races;[125] and they add that +these races, having dwelt in caverns like the prehistoric Cave Men, and +in underground houses like those of Lapps or Eskimos, gave rise to the +belief in a fairy world existing in caverns and under hills or +mountains. When analysed, our evidence shows that in the majority of +cases witnesses have regarded fairies either as non-human nature-spirits +or else as spirits of the dead; that in a comparatively limited number +of cases they have regarded them as the souls of prehistoric races; and +that occasionally they have regarded the belief in them as due to a +folk-memory of such races. It follows, then, from such an analysis of +evidence, that the Pygmy Theory probably does explain some ethnological +elements which have come to be almost inseparably interwoven with the +essentially animistic fabric of the primitive Fairy-Faith. But though +the theory may so account for such ethnological elements, it disregards +the animism that has made such interweaving possible; and, on the whole, +we are inclined to accept Mr. Jenner's view of the theory (see p. 169). +Since the Pygmy Theory thus fails entirely to provide a basis for what +is by far the most important part of the Fairy-Faith, a more adequate +theory is required. + +_Animistic Theory_ + +The testimony of Celtic literature goes to show that leprechauns and +similar dwarfish beings are not due to a folk-memory of a real pygmy +race, that they are spirits like elves, and that the folk-memory of a +Lappish-like people (who may have been Picts) evidently was confused +with them, so as to result in their being anthropomorphosed. Thus, in +_Fionn's Ransom_, there is reference to an under-sized apparently +Lappish-like man, who may be a Pict; and as Campbell, who records the +ancient tale, has observed, there are many similar traditional Highland +tales about little men or even about true dwarfs who are good +bowmen;[126] but it is very certain that such tales have often blended +with other tales, in which supernatural figures like fairies play a +role; and, apparently, the former kind of tales are much more historical +and modern in their origin, while the latter are more mythological and +extremely archaic. This blending of the natural or ethnological and the +supernatural--in quite the same manner as in the modern Fairy-Faith--is +clearly seen in another of Campbell's collected tales, _The Lad with the +Skin Coverings_,[127] which in essence is an otherworld tale: 'a little +thickset man in a russet coat,' who is a magician, but who otherwise +seems to be a genuine Lapp dressed in furs, is introduced into a story +where real fairy-like beings play the chief parts. Again, in Irish +literature, we read of a _loch luchra_ or 'lake of the pygmies'.[128] +Light is thrown upon this reference by what is recorded about the +leprechauns and Fergus:--While asleep on the seashore one day, Fergus +was about to be carried off by the _luchorpain_; 'whereat he awoke and +caught three of them, to wit, one in each of his two hands, and one on +his breast. "Life for life" (i. e. protection), say they. "Let my three +wishes (i. e. choices) be given," says Fergus. "Thou shalt have," says +the dwarf, "save that which is impossible for us." Fergus requested of +him knowledge of passing under loughs and linns and seas. "Thou shalt +have," says the dwarf, "save one which I forbid to thee: thou shalt not +go under Lough Rudraide [which] is in thine own country." Thereafter the +_luchuirp_ (little bodies) put herbs into his ears, and he used to go +with them under seas. Others say the dwarf gave his cloak to him, and +that Fergus used to put it on his head and thus go under seas.'[129] In +an etymological comment on this passage, Sir John Rhys says:--'The +words _luchuirp_ and _luchorpain_ [Anglo-Irish leprechaun] appear to +mean literally "small bodies", and the word here rendered _dwarf_ is in +the Irish _abac_, the etymological equivalent of the Welsh _avanc_, the +name by which certain water inhabitants of a mythic nature went in +Welsh....'[130] + +Besides what we find in the recorded Fairy-Faith, there are very many +parallel traditions, both Celtic and non-Celtic, about various classes +of spirits, like leprechauns or other small elvish beings, which Dr. +Tylor has called nature-spirits;[131] and apparently all of these can +best be accounted for by means of the animistic hypothesis. For example, +in North America (as in Celtic lands) there is no proof of there ever +having been an actual dwarf race, but Lewis and Clark, in their _Travels +to the Source of the Missouri River_, found among the Sioux a tradition +that a hill near the Whitestone River, which the Red Men called the +'Mountain of Little People' or 'Little Spirits', was inhabited by pygmy +demons in human form, about eighteen inches tall, armed with sharp +arrows, and ever on the alert to kill mortals who should dare to invade +their domain. So afraid were all the tribes of Red Men who lived near +the mountain of these little spirits that no one of them could be +induced to visit it.[132] And we may compare this American +spirit-haunted hill with similar natural hills in Scotland said to be +fairy knolls: one near the turning of a road from Reay Wick to Safester, +Isle of Unst;[133] one the well-known fairy-haunted Tomnahurich, near +Inverness;[133] and a third, the hill at Aberfoyle on which the 'people +of peace' took the Rev. Robert Kirk when he profaned it by walking on +it; or we may equate the American hill with the fairy-haunted Slieve +Gullion and Ben Bulbin in Ireland. + +The Iroquois had a belief that they could summon dwarfs, who were +similar nature-spirits, by knocking on a certain large stone.[134] +Likewise the Polong, a Malay familiar spirit, is 'an exceedingly +diminutive female figure or mannikin'.[135] East Indian nature-spirits, +too, are pygmies in stature.[136] In Polynesia, entirely independent of +the common legends about wild races of pygmy stature, are myths about +the spirits called _wui_ or _vui_, who correspond to European dwarfs and +trolls. These little spirits seem to occupy the same position toward the +Melanesian gods or culture heroes, Qat of the Banks Islands and Tagaro +of the New Hebrides, as daemons toward Greek gods, or as good angels +toward the Christian Trinity, or as fairy tribes toward the Brythonic +Arthur and toward the Gaelic hero Cuchulainn.[137] Similarly in Hindu +mythology pygmies hold an important place, being sculptured on most +temples in company with the gods; e. g. Siva is accompanied by a +bodyguard of dwarfs, and one of them, the three-legged Bhringi, is a +good dancer[138]--like all _corrigans_, pixies, and most fairies. + +Beyond the borders of Celtic lands--in Southern Asia with its islands, +in Melanesia with New Guinea, and in Central Africa--pygmy races, +generally called Negritos, exist at the present day; but they themselves +have a fairy-faith, just as their normal-sized primitive neighbours +have, and it would hardly be reasonable to argue that either of the two +fairy-faiths is due to a folk-memory of small-statured peoples. Ancient +and thoroughly reliable manuscript records testify to the existence of +pygmies in China during the twenty-third century B. C.;[139] yet no one +has ever tried to explain the well-known animistic beliefs of modern +Chinamen in ghosts, demons, and in little nature-spirits like fairies, +by saying that these are a folk-memory of this ancient pygmy race. In +Yezo and the Kurile Islands of Japan still survive a few of the hairy +Ainu, a Caucasian-like, under-sized race; and their immediate +predecessors, whom they exterminated, were a Negrito race, who, +according to some traditions, were two to three feet in stature, and, +according to other traditions, only one inch in stature.[140] Both pygmy +races, the surviving and the exterminated race, seem independently to +have evolved a belief in ghosts and spirits, so that here again it need +not be argued that the present pre-Buddhist animism of the Japanese is +due to a folk-memory of either Ainus or Negritos. + +Further examination of the animistic hypothesis designed to explain the +smallness of elvish spirits leads away from mere mythology into +psychology, and sets us the task of finding out if, after all, primitive +ideas about the disembodied human soul may not have originated or at +least have helped to shape the Celtic folk conception of fairies as +small-statured beings. Mr. A. E. Crawley, in his _Idea of the Soul_ (pp. +200-1, 206), shows by carefully selected evidence from ancient and +modern psychologies that 'first among the attributes of the soul in its +primary form may be placed its size', and that 'in the majority of cases +it is a miniature replica of the person, described often as a mannikin, +or homunculus, of a few inches in height'. Sometimes the soul is +described as only about three inches in stature. Dr. Frazer shows, +likewise, that by practically all contemporary primitive peoples the +soul is commonly regarded as a dwarf.[141] + +The same opinions regarding the human soul prevailed among ancient +peoples highly civilized, i. e. the Egyptians and Greeks, and may have +thence directly influenced Celtic tradition. Thus, in bas-relief on the +Egyptian temple of _Der el Bahri_, Queen Hatshepsu Ramaka is making +offerings of perfume to the gods, while just behind her stands her _Ka_ +(soul) as a pygmy so little that the crown of its head is just on a +level with her waist.[142] The _Ka_ is usually represented as about half +the size of an ordinary man. In the _Book of the Dead_, the _Ba_, which +like the _Ka_ is one of the many separable parts of the soul, is +represented as a very little man with wings and bird-like body. + +On Greek vases the human soul is depicted as a pygmy issuing from the +body through the mouth; and this conception existed among Romans and +Teutons.[143] Like their predecessors the Egyptians, the Greeks also +often represented the soul as a small winged human figure, and Romans, +in turn, imagined the soul as a pygmy with butterfly wings. These ideas +reappear in mediaeval reliefs and pictures wherein the soul is shown as +a child or little naked man going out of the dying person's mouth;[144] +and, according to Caedmon, who was educated by Celtic teachers, angels +are small and beautiful[145]--quite like good fairies. + +_Alchemical and Mystical Theory_ + +In the positive doctrines of mediaeval alchemists and mystics, e. g. +Paracelsus and the Rosicrucians, as well as their modern followers, the +ancient metaphysical ideas of Egypt, Greece, and Rome find a new +expression; and these doctrines raise the final problem--if there are +any scientific grounds for believing in such pygmy nature-spirits as +these remarkable thinkers of the Middle Ages claim to have studied as +beings actually existing in nature. To some extent this interesting +problem will be examined in our chapter entitled _Science and Fairies_; +here we shall simply outline the metaphysical theory, adding the +testimony of some of its living advocates to explain the smallness of +elvish spirits and fairies. + +These mediaeval metaphysicians, inheritors of pre-Platonic, Platonic, +and neo-Platonic teachings, purposely obscured their doctrines under a +covering of alchemical terms, so as to safeguard themselves against +persecution, open discussion of occultism not being safe during the +Middle Ages, as it was among the ancients and happily is now again in +our own generation. But they were quite scientific in their methods, for +they divided all invisible beings into four distinct classes: the +Angels, who in character and function are parallel to the gods of the +ancients, and equal to the Tuatha De Danann of the Irish, are the +highest; below them are the Devils or Demons, who correspond to the +fallen angels of Christianity; the third class includes all Elementals, +sub-human Nature-Spirits, who are generally regarded as having pygmy +stature, like the Greek daemons; and the fourth division comprises the +Souls of the Dead, and the shades or ghosts of the dead. + +For us, the third class, which includes spirits of pygmy-like form, is +the most important in this present discussion. All its members are of +four kinds, according as they inhabit one of the four chief elements of +nature.[146] Those inhabiting the earth are called Gnomes. They are +definitely of pygmy stature, and friendly to man, and in fairy-lore +ordinarily correspond to mine-haunting fairies or goblins, to pixies, +_corrigans_, leprechauns, and to such elves as live in rocks, caverns, +or earth--an important consideration entirely overlooked by champions of +the Pygmy Theory. Those inhabiting the air are called Sylphs. These +Sylphs, commonly described as little spirits like pygmies in form, +correspond to most of the fairies who are not of the Tuatha De Danann or +'gentry' type, and who as a race are beautiful and graceful. They are +quite like the fairies in Shakespeare's _Midsummer-Night's Dream_; and +especially like the aerials in _The Tempest_, which, according to Mr. +Morton Luce, a commentator on the drama, seem to have been shaped by +Shakespeare from his knowledge of Rosicrucian occultism, in which such +spirits hold an important place. Those inhabiting the water are called +Undines, and correspond exactly to the fairies who live in sacred +fountains, lakes, or rivers. And the fourth kind, those inhabiting the +fire, are called Salamanders, and seldom appear in the Celtic +Fairy-Faith: they are supreme in the elementary hierarchies. All these +Elementals, who procreate after the manner of men, are said to have +bodies of an elastic half-material essence, which is sufficiently +ethereal not to be visible to the physical sight, and probably +comparable to matter in the form of invisible gases. Mr. W. B. Yeats has +given this explanation:--'Many poets, and all mystic and occult writers, +in all ages and countries, have declared that behind the visible are +chains on chains of conscious beings, who are not of heaven but of the +earth, who have no inherent form, but change according to their whim, or +the mind that sees them. You cannot lift your hand without influencing +and being influenced by hordes. The visible world is merely their skin. +In dreams we go amongst them, and play with them, and combat with them. +They are, perhaps, human souls in the crucible--these creatures of +whim.'[147] And bringing this into relation with ordinary fairies, he +says:--'Do not think the fairies are always little. Everything is +capricious about them, even their size. They seem to take what size or +shape pleases them.'[147] In _The Celtic Twilight_ Mr. Yeats makes the +statement that the 'fairies in Ireland are sometimes as big as we are, +sometimes bigger, and sometimes, as I have been told, about three feet +high.'[148] + +Mrs. X, a cultured Irishwoman now living in County Dublin, who as a +percipient fulfils all the exacting requirements which psychologists and +pathologists would demand, tells me that very frequently she has had +visions of fairy beings in Ireland, and her own classification and +description of these fairy beings, chiefly according to their stature, +are as follows:--'Among the usually invisible races which I have seen in +Ireland, I distinguish five classes. (1) There are the Gnomes, who are +earth-spirits, and who seem to be a sorrowful race. I once saw some of +them distinctly on the side of Ben Bulbin. They had rather round heads +and dark thick-set bodies, and in stature were about two and one-half +feet. (2) The Leprechauns are different, being full of mischief, though +they, too, are small. I followed a leprechaun from the town of Wicklow +out to the _Carraig Sidhe_, "Rock of the Fairies," a distance of half a +mile or more, where he disappeared. He had a very merry face, and +beckoned to me with his finger. (3) A third class are the Little People, +who, unlike the Gnomes and Leprechauns, are quite good-looking; and they +are very small. (4) The Good People are tall beautiful beings, as tall +as ourselves, to judge by those I saw at the _rath_ in Rosses Point. +They direct the magnetic currents of the earth. (5) The Gods are really +the Tuatha De Danann, and they are much taller than our race. There may +be many other classes of invisible beings which I do not know.' +(Recorded on October 16, 1910.) + +And independently of the Celtic peoples there is available very much +testimony of the most reliable character from modern disciples of the +mediaeval occultists, e. g. the Rosicrucians, and the Theosophists, that +there exist in nature invisible spiritual beings of pygmy stature and of +various forms and characters, comparable in all respects to the little +people of Celtic folk-lore. How all this is parallel to the Celtic +Fairy-Faith is perfectly evident, and no comment of ours is +necessary.[149] + +This point of view, presented by mediaeval and modern occult sciences +and confirmed by Celtic and non-Celtic percipients, when considered in +relation to its non-Celtic sources and then at once contrasted with +ancient and modern Celtic beliefs of the same character which constitute +it--to be seen in the above Gaelic and Brythonic manuscript and other +evidence, and in Caedmon's theory that angels are small beings--plunges +us into the very complex and extremely difficult problem how far fairies +as pygmy spirits may be purely Celtic, and how far they may reflect +beliefs not Celtic. The problem, however, is far too complicated to be +discussed here; and one may briefly say that there seems to have been a +time in the evolution of animism when the ancient Celts of Britain, of +Ireland, and of Continental Europe too, held, in common with the ancient +Greeks, Romans, and Teutons, an original Aryan doctrine. This doctrine, +after these four stocks separated in possession of it, began to evolve +its four specialized aspects which we now can study; and in the Irish +Universities of the early Christian centuries, when Ireland was the +centre of European learning, the classical and Celtic aspects of it met +for the first time since their prehistoric divorcement. There, as is +clearly seen later among the mediaeval alchemists and occultists, a new +influence--from Christian theology--was superadded to the ancient +animistic beliefs of Europe as they had evolved up to that time. + +_Conclusion_ + +The ethnological argument, after allowing for all its shortcomings, +suggests that small-statured races like Lapps and Eskimos (though not +necessarily true pygmy races, of whose existence in Europe there is no +proof available) did once inhabit lands where there are Celts, and that +a Celtic folk-memory of these could conceivably have originated a belief +in certain kinds of fairies, and thus have been a shaping influence in +the animistic traditions about other fairies. The animistic argument +shows that pygmies described in Celtic literature and in Celtic and +non-Celtic mythologies are nearly always to be thought of as non-human +spirits; and that there is now and was in past ages a world-wide belief +that the human soul is in stature a pygmy. The philosophical argument of +alchemists and mystics, in a way, draws to itself the animistic +argument, and sets up the hypothesis that the smallness of elves and +fairies is due to their own nature, because they actually exist as +invisible tribes of non-human beings of pygmy size and form. + + +THE CHANGELING BELIEF + +The smallness of fairies, which has just been considered, and the belief +in changelings are the two most prominent characteristics of the +Fairy-Faith, according to our evidence in chapter ii; and we are now to +consider the second. The prevalent and apparently the only important +theories which are current to explain this belief in changelings may be +designated as the Kidnap Theory and the Human-Sacrifice Theory. These we +shall proceed to estimate, after which there will be introduced newer +and seemingly more adequate theories. + +_Kidnap Theory_ + +Some writers have argued that the changeling belief merely reflects a +time when the aboriginal pre-Celtic peoples held in subjection by the +Celts, and forced to live in mountain caverns and in secret retreats +underground, occasionally kidnapped the children of their conquerors, +and that such kidnapped children sometimes escaped and told to their +Celtic kinsmen highly romantic tales about having been in an underground +fairy-world with fairies. Frequently this argument has taken a slightly +different form: that instead of unfriendly pre-Celtic peoples it was +magic-working Druids who--either through their own choice or else, +having been driven to bay by the spread of Christianity, through force +of circumstances--dwelt in secret in chambered mounds or souterrains, or +in dense forests, and then stole young people for recruits, sometimes +permitting them, years afterwards, when too old to be of further use, to +return home under an inviolable vow of secrecy.[150] And Mr. David +MacRitchie in supporting his own Pygmy Theory has made interesting +modern elaborations of these two slightly different theories concerning +changelings.[151] + +As already pointed out, there are definite ethnological elements blended +in the other parts of the complex Fairy-Faith; and so in this part of +it, the changeling belief, there are conceivably more of such elements +which lend some support to the Kidnap Theory. In itself, however, as we +hope to show conclusively, the Theory, failing to grasp the essential +and underlying character of this belief, does not adequately explain it. + +_Human-Sacrifice Theory_ + +Alfred Nutt advanced a theory, which anticipated one part of our own, +that 'the changeling story is found to be connected with the antique +conception of life and sacrifice'. And he wrote:--'It is at least +possible that the sickly and ailing would be rejected when the time came +for each family to supply its quota of victims, and this might easily +translate itself in the folk-memory into the statement that the fairies +had carried off the healthy' (alone acceptable as sacrifice) 'and left +in exchange the sickly.'[152] Though our evidence will not permit us to +accept the theory (why it will not will be clear as we proceed) that +some such sacrificial customs among the ancient Celts entirely account +for the changeling story, yet we consider it highly probable that the +theory helps to explain particular aspects of the complex tradition, and +that the underlying philosophy of sacrifice extended in an animistic +way, as we shall try to extend it, probably offers more complete +explanation. + +Thus, the Mexicans believed that the souls of all sacrificed children +went to live with the god Tlaloc in his heaven-world.[153] Among the +Greeks, a sacrificed victim appears to have been sent as a messenger, +bearing a message repeated to him before death to some god.[154] On the +funeral pile of Patroclus were laid Trojan captives, together with +horses and hounds, a practice corresponding to that of American Red Men; +the idea being that the sacrificed Trojans and the horses and hounds as +well, were thus sent to serve the slain warriors in the otherworld. +Among ourselves in Europe and in America it is not uncommon to read in +the daily newspaper about a suicide as resulting from the belief that +death alone can bring union with a deceased sweetheart or loved one. +These examples, and very many parallel ones to be found the world over, +seem to furnish the key to the theory of sacrifice: namely, that by +extinguishing life in this world it is transmitted to the world of the +gods, spirits, and the dead. + +Both Sir John Rhys and D'Arbois de Jubainville have shown that the +Irish were wont to sacrifice the first-born of children and of +flocks.[155] O'Curry points out a clear case of human sacrifice at an +ancient Irish funeral[156]:--'Fiachra then brought fifty hostages with +him from Munster'; and, when he died, 'the hostages which he brought +from the south were buried alive around the _Fert_ (burial mound) of +Fiachra.' More commonly the ancient Celts seem to have made sacrifices +to appease place-spirits before the erection of a new building, by +sending to them through death the soul of a youth (see p. 436). + +It is in such animistic beliefs as these, which underlie sacrifice, that +we find a partial solution of the problem of changeling belief. But the +sacrifice theory is also inadequate; for, though changelings may in some +cases in ancient times have conceivably been the sickly children +discarded by priests as unfit for sending to the gods or fairies, how +can we explain actual changelings to be met with to-day in all Celtic +lands? Some other hypothesis is evidently necessary. + +_Soul-Wandering Theory_ + +Comparative study shows that non-Celtic changeling beliefs parallel to +those of the Celts exist almost everywhere, that they centre round the +primitive idea that the human soul can be abstracted from the body by +disembodied spirits and by magicians, and that they do not depend upon +the sacrifice theory, though animistically closely related to it. For +example, according to the Lepers' Islanders, ghosts steal men--as +fairies do--'to add them to their company; and if a man has left +children when he died, one of whom sickens afterwards, it is said that +the dead father takes it.'[157] In Banks Island, Polynesia, the ghost of +a woman who has died in childbirth is greatly dreaded: as long as her +child is on earth she cannot proceed to Panoi, the otherworld; and the +relatives take her child to another house, 'because they know that the +mother will come back to take its soul.'[158] When a Motlav child +sneezes, the mother will cry, 'Let him come back into the world! let him +remain.' Under similar circumstances in Mota, the cry is, 'Live; roll +back to us!' 'The notion is that a ghost is drawing a child's soul +away.' If the child falls ill the attempt has succeeded, and a wizard +throws himself into a trance and goes to the ghost-world to bring the +child's soul back.[159] In the islands of Kei and Kisar a belief +prevails that the spirits of the dead can take to themselves the souls +of the living who go near the graves.[160] Sometimes a Polynesian mother +insists on being buried with her dead child; or a surviving wife with +her dead husband, so that there will be no separation.[161] These last +practices help to illustrate the Celtic theory behind the belief that +fairies can abduct adults. + +Throughout Melanesia sickness is generally attributed to the soul's +absence from the body, and this state of disembodiment is believed to be +due to some ghost's or spirit's interference,[162] just as among Celts +sickness is often thought to be due to fairies having taken the soul to +Fairyland. An old Irish piper who came up to Lady Gregory's home at +Coole Park told us that a certain relative of his, a woman, had lain in +a semi-conscious state of illness for months, and that when she +recovered full consciousness she declared she had been with the 'good +people'. + +Folk-beliefs like all the above, which more adequately explain the +changeling idea than the Human-Sacrifice Theory, are world-wide, being +at once Celtic and non-Celtic.[163] + +_Demon-Possession Theory_ + +There has been among many peoples, primitive and civilized, a +complementary belief to the one that evil spirits or ghosts may steal a +soul and so cause in the vacated body illness if the abduction is +temporary, and death if it is permanent: namely, a belief that demons, +who sometimes may be souls of the dead, can possess a human body while +the soul is out of it during sleep, or else can expel the soul and +occupy its place.[164] When complete possession of this character takes +place there is--as in 'mediumship'--a change of personality, and the +manner, thoughts, actions, language, and the whole nature of the +possessed person are radically changed. Sometimes a foreign tongue, of +which the subject is ignorant, is fluently spoken. When the possession +is an evil one, as Dr. Nevius has observed in China, where the phenomena +are common, the change of character is in the direction of immorality, +frequently in strong contrast with the character of the subject under +normal conditions, and is often accompanied by paroxysms and contortions +of the body, as I have often been solemnly assured by Celts is the case +in a changeling. (See M. Le Scour's account on page 198, of three +changelings that he saw in one family in Finistere; and compare what is +said about fairy changelings in Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Wales, +and Cornwall.) + +A conception like that among the Chinese, of how an evil spirit may +dispossess the soul inhabiting a child's or adult's body, seems to be +the basis and original conception behind the fairy-changeling belief in +all Celtic and other countries. When a child has been changed by +fairies, and an old fairy left in its place, the child has been, +according to this theory, dispossessed of its body by an evil fairy, +which a Chinaman calls a demon, while the leaving behind of the old +fairy accounts for the changed personality and changed facial expression +of the demon-possessed infant. The Chinese demon enters into and takes +complete possession of the child's body while the child's soul is out of +it during sleep--and all fairies make changelings when a babe is asleep +in its cradle at night, or during the day when it is left alone for a +short time. The Chinese child-soul is then unable to return into its +body until some kind of magical ceremony or exorcism expels the +possessing demon; and through precisely similar methods, often aided by +Christian priests, Celts cure changelings made by fairies, pixies, and +_corrigans_. In the following account, therefore, apparently lies the +root explanation of the puzzling beliefs concerning fairy changelings so +commonly met with in the Celtic Fairy-Faith:--'To avert the calamity of +nursing a demon, dried banana-skin is burnt to ashes, which are then +mixed with water. Into this the mother dips her finger and paints a +cross upon the sleeping babe's forehead. In a short time the demon soul +returns--for the soul wanders from the body during sleep and is +free--but, failing to recognize the body thus disguised, flies off. The +true soul, which has been waiting for an opportunity, now approaches the +dormant body, and, if the mark has been washed off in time, takes +possession of it; but if not, it, like the demon, failing to recognize +the body, departs, and the child dies in its sleep.'[165] + +In relation to this Demon-Possession Theory, the writer has had the +opportunity of observing carefully some living changelings among the +Celts, and is convinced that in many such cases there is an undoubted +belief expressed by the parents and friends that fairy-possession has +taken place. This belief often translates itself naturally into the +folk-theory that the body of the child has also been changed, when +examination proves only a change of personality as recognized by +psychologists; or, in a distinct type of changelings, those who exhibit +great precocity in childhood combined with an old and wizened +countenance, there is neither a changed personality nor +demon-possession, but simply some abnormal physical or mental condition, +in the nature of cretinism, atrophy, marasmus, or arrested development. +One of the most striking examples of a changeling exists at +Plouharnel-Carnac, Brittany, where there is now living a dwarf Breton +whom I have photographed and talked with, and who may possibly combine +in himself both the abnormal psychical and the abnormal pathological +conditions. He is no taller than a normal child ten years old, but being +over thirty years old he is thick-set, though not deformed. All the +peasants who know him call him 'the Little _Corrigan_', and his own +mother declares that he is not the child she gave birth to. He once said +to me with a kind of pathetic protest, 'Did M. ---- tell you that I am a +demon?' + +_Conclusion_ + +The Kidnap Theory, resting entirely upon the ethnological and social or +psychological elements which we have elsewhere pointed out as existing +in the superficial aspects of the essentially animistic Fairy-Faith as a +whole, is accordingly limited in its explanation of this specialized +part of the Fairy-Faith, the changeling belief, to these same elements +which may exist in the changeling belief. And, on the showing of +anthropology, the other theories undoubtedly offer a more adequate +explanation. + +By means of sacrifice, according to its underlying philosophy, man is +able to transmit souls from this world to the world where dwell the gods +and fairy-folk both good and evil. Thus, had Abraham sacrificed Isaac, +the soul of Isaac would have been taken to heaven by Jehovah as fairies +take souls to Fairyland through death. But the difference is that in +human sacrifice men do voluntarily and for specific religious ends what +various kinds of fairies or spirits would do without human intervention +and often maliciously, as our review of ancient and modern theories of +sacrifice has shown. Gods and fairies are spiritual beings; hence only +the spiritual part of man can be delivered over to them. + +Melanesians and other peoples whose changeling beliefs have now been +examined, regard all illness and death as the result of spirit +interference; while Celts regard strange maladies in children and in +adults as the result of fairy interference. And to no Celt is death in +early life a natural thing: if it comes to a child or to a beautiful +youth in any way whatsoever, the fairies have taken what they coveted. +In all mythologies gods have always enjoyed the companionship of +beautiful maidens, and goddesses the love of heroic youths; and they +have often taken them to their world as the Tuatha De Danann took the +great heroes of the ancient Celts to the Otherworld or Avalon, and as +they still in the character of modern fairies abduct brides and young +mothers, and bridegrooms or other attractive young men whom they wish to +have with them in Fairyland (see our chapters iv-vi). + +Where sacrifice or death has not brought about such complete transfer or +abduction of the soul to the fairy world, there is only a temporary +absence from human society; and, meanwhile, the vacated body is under a +fairy spell and lies ill, or unconscious if there is a trance state. If +the body is an infant's, a fairy may possess it, as in the Chinese +theory of demon-possession. In such cases the Celts often think that the +living body is that of another child once _taken_ but since grown too +old for Fairyland; though the rational explanation frequently is purely +pathological. Looked at philosophically, a fairy exchange of this kind +is fair and evenly balanced, and there has been no true robbery. And in +this aspect of the changeling creed--an aspect of it purely +Celtic--there seems to be still another influence apart from human +sacrifice, soul-abductions, demon or fairy-possession, and disease; +namely, a greatly corrupted folk-memory of an ancient re-birth doctrine: +the living are taken to the dead or the fairies and then sent back +again, after the manner of Socrates' argument that the living come from +the dead and the dead from the living (cf. our chapter vii). In all such +exchanges, the economy of Nature demands that the balance between the +two worlds be maintained: hence there arose the theories of human +sacrifice, of soul abduction, of demon or fairy-possession; and in all +these collectively is to be found the complete psychological explanation +of the fairy-changeling and fairy-abduction beliefs among ancient and +modern Celts as these show themselves in the Fairy-Faith. All remaining +classes of changelings, which fall outside the scope of this clearly +defined psychological theory, are to be explained pathologically. + + +MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT + +The evidence from each Celtic country shows very clearly that magic and +witchcraft are inseparably blended in the Fairy-Faith, and that human +beings, i. e. 'charmers,' _dynion hysbys_, and other magicians, and +sorceresses, are often enabled through the aid of fairies to perform the +same magical acts as fairies; or, again, like Christian priests who use +exorcisms, they are able, acting independently, to counteract fairy +power, thereby preventing changelings or curing them, saving churnings, +healing man or beast of 'fairy-strokes', and, in short, nullifying all +undesirable influences emanating from the fairy world. A correct +interpretation of these magical elements so prominent in the Fairy-Faith +is of fundamental importance, because if made it will set us on one of +the main psychical highways which traverse the vast territory of our +anthropological inquiry. Let us, then, undertake such an interpretation, +first setting up, as we must, some sort of working hypothesis as to what +magic is, witchcraft being assumed to be a part of magic. + +_Theories of Modern Anthropologists_ + +We may define magic, as understood by ancients and moderns, civilized or +non-civilized, apart from conjuring, which is mere jugglery and +deception of the senses, as the art of controlling for particular ends +various kinds of invisible forces, often, and, as we hold, generally +thought of as intelligent spirits. This is somewhat opposed to Mr. +Marett's point of view, which emphasizes 'pre-animistic influences', +i. e. 'powers to which the animistic form is very vaguely attributed if +at all.' And, in dealing with the anthropological aspects of +spell-casting in magical operations, Mr. Marett conceives such a magical +act to be in relation to the magician 'generically, a projection of +imperative will, and specifically one that moves on a supernormal +plane', and the victim's position towards this invisible projected force +to be 'a position compatible with _rapport_'.[166] He also thinks it +probable that the essence of the magician's supernormal power lies in +what Melanesians call _mana_.[166] In our opinion _mana_ may be equated +with what William James, writing of his attitude toward psychical +phenomena, called a universally diffused 'soul-stuff' leaking through, +so to speak, and expressing itself in the human individual.[167] On this +view, Mr. Marett's theory would amount to saying that magicians are able +to produce magical effects because they are able to control this +'soul-stuff'; and our evidence would regard all spirits and fairies as +portions of such universally diffused _mana_, 'soul-stuff', or, as +Fechner might call it, the 'Soul of the World'. Moreover, in essence, +such an idea of magic coincides, when carefully examined, with what +ancient thinkers like Plato, Iamblichus, the Neo-Platonists generally, +and mediaeval magicians like Paracelsus and Eliphas Levi, called magic; +and agrees with ancient Celtic magic--judging from what Roman historians +have recorded concerning it, and from Celtic manuscripts themselves. + +Other modern anthropologists have set up far less satisfactory +definitions of magic. According to Dr. Frazer, for example, magic +assumes, as natural science does, that 'one event follows another +necessarily and invariably without the intervention of any spiritual or +personal agency'.[168] Such a theory is not supported by the facts of +anthropology; and does not even apply to those specialized and often +superficial kinds of magic classed under it by Dr. Frazer as +'sympathetic and imitative magic', i. e. that through which like produces +like, or part produces whole. To our mind, sympathetic and imitative +magic (to leave out of account many fallacious and irrational +ritualistic practices, which Dr. Frazer includes under these loose +terms), _when genuine_, in their varied aspects are directly dependent +upon hypnotic states, upon telepathy, mind-reading, mental suggestion, +association of ideas, and similar processes; in short, are due to the +operation of mind on mind and will on will, and, moreover, are +recognized by primitive races to have this fundamental character. Or, +according to the Fairy-Faith, they are caused by a fairy or disembodied +spirit acting upon an embodied one, a man or woman; and not, as Dr. +Frazer holds, through 'mistaken applications of one or other of two +great fundamental laws of thought, namely, the association of ideas by +similarity and the association of ideas by contiguity in space or +time'.[169] + +The mechanical causation theory of magic, as thus set forth in _The +Golden Bough_, does not imply _mana_ or will-power, as Mr. Marett's more +adequate theory does in part: Dr. Frazer wishes us to regard animistic +religious practices as distinct from magic.[170] Nevertheless, in direct +opposition to Dr. Frazer's view, the weight of the evidence from the +past and from the present, which we are about to offer, is decidedly +favourable to our regarding magic and religion as complementary to one +another and, for all ordinary purposes of the anthropologist, as in +principle the same. The testimony touching magicians in all ages, Celtic +magic and witchcraft as well, besides that resulting from modern +psychical research, tends to establish an almost exclusively animistic +hypothesis to account for fairy magical phenomena and like phenomena +among human beings; and with these phenomena we are solely concerned. + +_Among the Ancients_[171] + +Among the more cultured Greeks and Romans--and the same can be said of +most great nations of antiquity--it was an unquestioned belief that +innumerable gods, placed in hierarchies, form part of an unbroken +spiritual chain at the lowest end of which stands man, and at the +highest the incomprehensible Supreme Deity. These gods, having their +abodes throughout the Universe, act as the agents of the Unknown God, +directing the operation of His cosmic laws and animating every star and +planet. Inferior to these gods, and to man also, the ancients believed +there to be innumerable hosts of invisible beings, called by them +daemons, who, acting as the servants of the gods, control, and thus in a +secondary sense create, all the minor phenomena of inanimate and animate +nature, such as tempests, atmospheric disturbances generally, the +failure of crops or their abundance, maladies and their cure, good and +evil passions in men, wars and peace, and all the blessings and curses +which affect the purely human life. + +Man, being of the god-race and thus superior to these lower, servile +entities, could, like the gods, control them if adept in the magical +sciences; for ancient Magic, about which so much has been written and +about which so little has been understood by most people in ancient, +mediaeval, and modern times, is according to the wisest ancients nothing +more than the controlling of daemons, shades, and all sorts of secondary +spirits or elementals by men specially trained for that purpose. +Sufficient records are extant to make it evident that the fundamental +training of Egyptian, Indian, Assyrian, Greek, Roman, and Druid priests +was in the magical or occult sciences. Pliny, in his _Natural History_, +says:--'And to-day Britain practises the art [of magic] with religious +awe and with so many ceremonies that it might seem to have made the art +known to the Persians.'[172] Herein, then, is direct evidence that the +Celtic Fairy-Faith, considered in its true psychic nature, has been +immediately shaped by the ancient Celtic religion; and, as our witness +from the Isle of Skye so clearly set forth, that it originated among a +cultured class of the Celts more than among the peasants. And, in +accordance with this evidence, Professor Georges Dottin, who has made a +special study of the historical records concerning Druidism, +writes:--'The Druids of Ireland appear to us above all as magicians and +prophets. They foretell the future, they interpret the secret will of +the _fees_ (fairies), they cast lots.'[173] Thus, in spite of the +popular and Christian reshaping which the belief in fairies has had to +endure, its origin is easily enough discerned even in its modern form, +covered over though this is with accretions foreign to its primal +character. + +Magic was the supreme science because it raised its adepts out of the +ordinary levels of humanity to a close relationship with the gods and +creative powers. Nor was it a science to be had for the asking, 'for +many were the wand-bearers and few the chosen.' Roman writers tell us +that neophytes for the druidic priesthood often spent twenty years in +severe study and training before being deemed fit to be called Druids. +We need not, however, in this study enter into an exposition of the +ordeals and trials of candidates seeking magical training, or else +initiation into the Mysteries. There were always two schools to which +they could apply, directly opposed in their government and policy--the +school of white magic and the school of black magic; the former being a +school in which magical powers were used in religious rites and always +for good ends, the latter a school in which all magical powers were used +for wholly selfish and evil ends. In both schools the preliminary +training was the same; that is to say, the first thing taught to the +neophyte was self-control. When he proved himself absolutely his own +master, when his teachers were certain that he could not be dominated by +another will or by any outside or psychic influence, then for the first +time he was permitted to exercise his own iron will in controlling +daemons, ghosts, and all the elemental hosts of the air--either as a +white magician or as a black magician.[174] + +The magical sciences taught (an idea which still holds its ground, as +one can discover in modern India) that by formulas of invocation, by +chants, by magic sounds, by music, these invisible beings can be made to +obey the will of the magician even as they obey the will of the gods. +The calling up of the dead and talking with them is called necromancy; +the foretelling through spiritual agency and otherwise of coming events +or things hidden, like the outcome of a battle, is called divination; +the employment of charms against children so as to prevent their growing +is known as fascination; to cause any ill fortune or death to fall upon +another person by magic is sorcery; to excite the sexual passions of man +or woman, magical mixtures called philtres are used. Almost all these +definitions apply to the practices of black magic. But the great schools +known as the Mysteries were of white magic, in so far as they practised +the art; and such men as Pythagoras, Plato, and Aeschylus, who are +supposed to have been initiated into them, always held them in the +highest reverence, though prohibited from directly communicating +anything of their esoteric teachings concerning the origin and destiny +of man, the nature of the gods, and the constitution of the universe and +its laws. + +In Plato's _Banquet_ the power or function of the daemonic element in +nature is explained. Socrates asks of the prophetess Diotima what is the +power of the daemonic element (personified as Love for the purposes of +the argument), and she replies:--'He interprets between gods and men, +conveying and taking across to the gods the prayers and sacrifices of +men, and to men the commands and replies of the gods; he is the mediator +who spans the chasm which divides them, and therefore in him all is +bound together, and through him the arts of the prophets and priests, +their sacrifices and mysteries and charms, and all prophecy and +incantation find their way. For God mingles not with man; but through +the daemonic element (or Love) all the intercourse and converse of God +with man, whether awake or asleep, is carried on. The wisdom which +understands this is spiritual.'[175] + +_Among the Ancient Celts_ + +If we turn now directly to Celtic magic in ancient times, we discover +that the testimony of Pliny is curiously confirmed by Celtic +manuscripts, chiefly Irish ones, and that then, as now, witchcraft and +fairy powers over men and women are indistinguishable in their general +character. Thus, in the _Echtra Condla_, 'the Adventures of Connla,' the +fairy woman says of Druidism and magic:--'Druidism is not loved, little +has it progressed to honour on the Great Strand. When his law shall come +it will scatter the charms of Druids _from journeying on the lips of +black, lying demons_'--so characterized by the Christian +transcribers.[176] In _How Fionn Found his Missing Men_, an ancient tale +preserved by oral tradition until recorded by Campbell, it is said that +'Fionn then went out with Bran (his fairy dog). There were millions of +people (apparitions) out before him, called up by some sleight of +hand'.[177] In the _Leabhar na h-Uidre_, or 'Book of the Dun Cow' (p. 43 +a), compiled from older manuscripts about A. D. 1100, there is a clear +example of Irish fetishism based on belief in the power of demons:--'... +for their swords used to turn against them (the Ulstermen) when they made +a false trophy. Reasonable [was] this; for demons used to speak to them +from their arms, so that hence their arms were safeguards.'[178] + +Shape-shifting quite after the fairy fashion is very frequently met +with in old Celtic literature. Thus, in the Rennes _Dinnshenchas_ there +is this passage showing that spirits or fairies were regarded as +necessary for the employment of magic:--'Folks were envious of them +(Faifne the poet and his sister Aige): so they loosed elves at them who +transformed Aige into a fawn' (the form assumed by the fairy mother of +Oisin, see p. 299 n.), 'and sent her on a circuit all round Ireland, and +the fians of Meilge son of Cobthach, king of Ireland, killed her.'[179] +A fact which ought to be noted in this connexion is that kings or great +heroes, rather than ordinary men and women, are very commonly described +as being able to shift their own shape, or that of other people; e. g. +'Mongan took on himself the shape of Tibraide, and gave Mac an Daimh the +shape of the cleric, with a large tonsure on his head.'[180] And when +this fact is coupled with another, namely the ancient belief that such +kings and great heroes were incarnations and reincarnations of the +Tuatha De Danann, who form the supreme fairy hierarchy, we realize that, +having such an origin, they were simply exercising in human bodies +powers which their divine race exercise over men from the fairy world +(see our chapter iv). + +In Brythonic literature and mythology, magic and witchcraft with the +same animistic character play as great or even a greater role than in +Gaelic literature and mythology. This is especially true with respect to +the Arthurian Legend, and to the _Mabinogion_, some of which tales are +regarded by scholars as versions of Irish ones. Sir John Rhys and +Professor J. Loth, who have been the chief translators of the +_Mabinogion_, consider their chief literary machinery to be magic (see +our chapter v). + +So far it ought to be clear that Celtic magic contains much animism in +its composition, and that these few illustrations of it, selected from +numerous illustrations in the ancient Fairy-Faith, confirm Pliny's +independent testimony that in his age the Britons seemed capable of +instructing even the Persians themselves in the magical arts. + +_European and American Witchcraft_ + +In a general way, the history of witchcraft in Europe and in the +American colonies is supplementary to what has already been said, seeing +that it is an offshoot of mediaeval magic, which in turn is an offshoot +of ancient magic. Witchcraft in the West, in probably a majority of +cases, is a mere fabric of absurd superstitions and practices--as it is +shown to be by the evidence brought out in so many of the horrible legal +and ecclesiastical processes conducted against helpless and eccentric +old people, and other men and women, including the young, often for the +sake of private revenge, and generally on no better foundation than +hearsay and false accusations. In the remaining instances it undoubtedly +arose, as ancient witchcraft (black magic) seems to have arisen, through +the infiltration of occult knowledge into uneducated and often +criminally inclined minds, so that what had formerly been secretly +guarded among the learned, and generally used for legitimate ends, +degenerated in the hands of the unfit into black magic. In our own age, +a parallel development, which adequately illustrates our subject of +inquiry, has taken place in the United States: fragments of magical lore +bequeathed by Mesmer and his immediate predecessors, the alchemists, +were practically and honestly applied to the practice of magnetic +healing and healing through mental suggestion by a small group of +practitioners in Massachusetts, and then with much ingenuity and real +genius were applied by Mary Baker Eddy to the interpretation of +miraculous healing by Jesus Christ. Hence arose a new religion called +Christian Science. But this religious movement did not stop at mental +healing: according to published reports, during the years 1908-9 the +leader of the New York First Church of Christ, Scientist, was deposed, +and, with certain of her close associates, was charged with having +projected daily against the late Mrs. Eddy's adjutant a current of +'malicious animal magnetism' from New York to Boston, in order to bring +about his death. The process is said to have been for the deposed +leader and her friends to sit together in a darkened room with their +eyes closed. 'Then one of them would say: "You all know Mr. ----. You +all know that his place is in the darkness whence he came. If his place +is six feet under ground, that is where he should be." Then all present +would concentrate their minds on the one thought--Mr. ---- and six feet +under ground.' And this practice is supposed to have been kept up for +days. Mrs. ----, who gives this testimony, is a friend of the victim, +and she asserts that these evil thought-waves slowly but surely began +his effacement, and that had the black magicians down in New York not +been discovered in time, Mr. ---- could not have withstood the +forces.[181] Perhaps so enlightened a country as the United States may +in time see history repeat itself, and add a new chapter to witchcraft; +for the true witches were not the kind who are popularly supposed to +ride on broomsticks and to keep a house full of black cats, and the +sooner this is recognized the better. + +According to this aspect of Christian Science, 'malicious animal +magnetism' (or black magic), an embodied spirit, i. e. a man or woman, +possesses and can employ the same magical powers as a disembodied +spirit--or, as the Celts would say, the same magical powers as a +fairy--casting spells, and producing disease and death in the victim. +And this view coincides with ordinary witchcraft theories; for witches +have been variously defined as embodied spirits who have ability to act +in conjunction with disembodied spirits through the employment of +various occult forces, e. g. forces comparable to Mesmer's odic forces, +to the Melanesian _mana_, or to the 'soul-stuff' postulated by William +James, or, as Celts think, to forces focused in fairies themselves. So, +also, according to Mr. Marett's view, there is a state of _rapport_ +between the victim and the magician or witch; and where such a state of +_rapport_ exists there is some _mana_-like force passing between the two +poles of the magical circuit, whether it be only unconscious mental or +electrical force emanating from the operator, or an extraneous force +brought under control and concentrated in some such conscious unit as we +designate by the term 'spirit', 'devil', or 'fairy'. + +In conformity with this psychical or animistic view of witchcraft, in +the Capital Code of Connecticut (A. D. 1642) a witch is defined as one +who 'hath or consorteth with a familiar spirit'.[182] European codes, as +illustrated by the sixth chapter of Lord Coke's _Third Institute_, have +parallels to this definition:--'A witch is a person which hath +conference with the devil; to consult with him to do some act.'[182] And +upon these theories, not upon the broomstick and black-cat conception, +were based the trials for witchcraft during the seventeenth century. + +The Bible, then so frequently the last court of appeal in such matters, +was found to sustain such theories about witches in the classical +example of the Witch of Endor and Saul; and the idea of witchcraft in +Europe and America came to be based--as it probably always had been in +pagan times--on the theory that living persons could control or be +controlled by disembodied spirits for evil ends. Hence all black +magicians, and what are now known as 'spirit mediums', were made liable +by law to the death penalty.[183] + +In mediaeval Europe the great difficulty always was, as is shown in the +trials of Jeanne d'Arc, to decide whether the invisible agent in magical +processes, such as was imputed to the accused, was an angel or a demon. +If an angel, then the accused was a saint, and might become a candidate +for canonization; but if a demon, the accused was a witch, and liable to +a death-sentence. The wisest old doctors of the University of Paris, who +sat in judgement (or were consulted) in one of Jeanne's trials, could +not fully decide this knotty problem, nor, apparently, the learned +churchmen who also tried her; but evidently they all agreed that it was +better to waive the question. And, finally, an innocent peasant girl who +had heard Divine Voices, and who had thereby miraculously saved her king +and her country, was burned at the stake, under the joint direction of +English civil and ecclesiastical authorities, and, if not technically, +at least practically, with the full approval of the corresponding French +authorities, at Rouen, France, May 30, A. D. 1431.[184] In April, A. D. +1909, almost five centuries afterwards, it has been decided with tardy +justice that Jeanne's Voices were those of angels and not of demons, and +she has been made a saint. + +How the case of Jeanne d'Arc bears directly upon the Fairy-Faith is +self-evident: One of the first questions asked by Jeanne's inquisitors +was 'if she had any knowledge of those who went to the Sabbath with the +fairies? or if she had not assisted at the assemblies held at the +fountain of the fairies, near Domremy, around which dance malignant +spirits?' And another question exactly as recorded was this:--'_Interroguee +s'elle croiet point au devant de aujourduy, que les fees feussent maulvais +esperis: respond qu'elle n'en scavoit rien._'[185] + +_Conclusion_ + +Finally, we may say that what medicine-men are to American Indians, to +Polynesians, Australians, Africans, Eskimos, and many other contemporary +races, or what the mightier magicians of modern India are to their +people, the 'fairy-doctors' and 'charmers' of Ireland, Scotland, and Man +are to the Gaels, and the '_Dynion Hysbys_' or 'Wise Men' of Wales, the +witches of Cornwall, and the seers, sorceresses, and exorcists of +Brittany are to the Brythons. These Gaelic and Brythonic magicians and +witches, and 'fairy mediums', almost invariably claim to derive their +power from their ability to see and to communicate with fairies, +spirits, and the dead; and they generally say that they are enabled +through such spiritual agencies to reveal the past, to foretell the +future, to locate lost property, to cast spells upon human beings and +upon animals, to remove such spells, to cure fairy strokes and +changelings, to perform exorcisms, and to bring people back from +Fairyland. + +We arrive at the following conclusion:--If, as eminent psychical +researchers now postulate (and as many of them believe), there are +active and intelligent disembodied beings able to act psychically upon +embodied men in much the same way that embodied men are known ordinarily +to act psychically upon one another, then there is every logical and +common-sense reason for extending this psychical hypothesis so as to +include the ancient, mediaeval, and modern theory of magic and +witchcraft, namely, that what embodied men and women can do in magical +ways, as for example in hypnotism, disembodied men and women can do. +Further, if fairies, in accord with reliable testimony from educated and +critical percipients, hypothetically exist (whatever their nature may +be), they may be possessed of magical powers of the same sort, and so +can cast spells upon or possess living human beings as Celts believe and +assert. And this hypothesis coincides in most essentials with the one we +used as a basis for this discussion, that, in accordance with the +Melanesian doctrine of control of ghosts and spirits with their inherent +_mana_, magical acts are possible.[186] This in turn applied to the +Celts amounts to a hypothetical confirmation of the ancient druidical +doctrine that through control of fairies or demons (daemons) Druids or +magicians could control the weather and natural phenomena connected with +vegetable and animal processes, could cast spells, could divine the +future, could execute all magical acts. + + +EXORCISMS + +According to the testimony of anthropology, exorcism as a religious +practice has always flourished wherever animistic beliefs have furnished +it with the necessary environment; and not only has exorcism been a +fundamental part of religious practices in past ages, but it is so at +the present day. Among Christians, Celtic and non-Celtic, among +followers of all the great historical religions, and especially among +East Indians, Chinese, American Red Men, Polynesians, and most Africans, +the expelling of demons from men and women, from animals, from inanimate +objects, and from places, is sanctioned by well-established rituals. +Exorcism as applied to the human race is thus defined in the +_Dictionnaire de Theologie_ (Roman Catholic) by L'Abbe +Bergier:--'_Exorcism_--conjuration, prayer to God, and command given to +the demon to depart from the body of persons possessed.' The same +authority thus logically defends its practice by the Church:--'Far from +condemning the opinion of the Jews, who attributed to the demon certain +maladies, that divine Master confirmed it.'[187] And whenever exorcism +of this character has been or is now generally practised, the +professional exorcist appears as a personage just as necessary to +society as the modern doctor, since nearly all diseases were and to some +extent are still, both among Christians and non-Christians, very often +thought to be the result of demon-possession. + +When we come to the dawn of the Christian period in Ireland and in +Scotland, we see Patrick and Columba, the first and greatest of the +Gaelic missionaries, very extensively practising exorcism; and there is +every reason to believe (though the data available on this point are +somewhat unsatisfactory) that their wide practice of exorcism was quite +as much a Christian adaptation of pre-Christian Celtic exorcism, such as +the Druids practised, as it was a continuation of New Testament +tradition. We may now present certain of the data which tend to verify +this supposition, and by means of them we shall be led to realize how +fundamentally such an animistic practice as exorcism must have shaped +the Fairy-Faith of the Celts, both before and after the coming of +Christianity. + +'Once upon a time,' so the tale runs about Patrick, 'his foster-mother +went to milk the cow. He also went with her to drink a draught of new +milk. Then the cow goes mad in the byre and killed five other kine: a +demon, namely, entered her. There was great sadness on his +foster-mother, and she told him to bring the kine back to life. Then he +brought the kine to life, so that they were whole, and he cured the mad +one. So God's name and Patrick's were magnified thereby.'[188] On +another occasion, when demons came to Ireland in the form of black +birds, quite after the manner of the Irish belief that fairies assume +the form of crows (see pp. 302-5), the Celtic ire of Patrick was so +aroused in trying to exorcize them out of the country that he threw his +bell at them with such violence that it was cracked, and then he +wept:--'Now at the end of those forty days and forty nights' [of +Patrick's long fast on the summit of Cruachan Aigle or Croagh Patrick, +Ireland's Holy Mountain] 'the mountain was filled with black birds, so +that he knew not heaven or earth. He sang maledictive psalms at them. +They left him not because of this. Then his anger grew against them. He +strikes his bell at them, so that the men of Ireland heard its voice, +and he flung it at them, so that a gap broke out of it, and that [bell] +is "Brigit's Gapling". Then Patrick weeps till his face and his chasuble +in front of him were wet. No demon came to the land of Erin after that +till the end of seven years and seven months and seven days and seven +nights. Then the angel went to console Patrick and cleansed the +chasuble, and brought white birds round the Rick, and they used to sing +sweet melodies for him.'[188] In Adamnan's _Life of S. Columba_ it is +said that 'according to custom', which in all probability was +established in pagan times by the Druids and then maintained by their +Christian descendants, it was usual to exorcize even a milk vessel +before milking, and the milk in it afterwards.[189] Thus Adamnan tells +us that one day a youth, Columban by name, when he had finished milking, +went to the door of St. Columba's cell carrying the pail full of new +milk that, _according to custom_, the saint might exorcize it. When the +holy man had made the sign of the cross in the air, the air 'was greatly +agitated, and the bar of the lid, driven through its two holes, was shot +away to some distance; the lid fell to the ground, and most of the milk +was spilled on the soil.' Then the saint chided the youth, +saying:--'Thou hast done carelessly in thy work to-day; for thou hast +not cast out the demon that was lurking in the bottom of the empty pail, +by tracing on it, before pouring in the milk, the sign of the Lord's +cross; and now not enduring, thou seest, the virtue of the sign, he has +quickly fled away in terror, while at the same time the whole of the +vessel has been violently shaken, and the milk spilled. Bring then the +pail nearer to me, that I may bless it.' When the half-empty pail was +blessed, in the same moment it was refilled with milk. At another time, +the saint, to destroy the practice of sorcery, commanded Silnan, a +peasant sorcerer, to draw a vessel full of milk from a bull; and by his +diabolical art Silnan drew the milk. Then Columba took it and +said:--'Now it shall be proved that this, which is supposed to be true +milk, is not so, but is blood deprived of its colour by the fraud of +demons to deceive men; and straightway the milky colour was turned into +its own proper quality, that is, into blood.' And it is added that 'The +bull also, which for the space of one hour was at death's door, wasting +and worn by a horrible emaciation, in being sprinkled with water blessed +by the Saint, was cured with wonderful rapidity.'[190] + +And to-day, as in the times of Patrick and Columba, exorcism is +practised in Ireland and in the Western Hebrides of Scotland by the +clergy of the Roman Church against fairies, demons, or evil spirits, +when a person is possessed by them--that is to say, 'fairy-struck,' or +when they have entered into some house or place; and on the Scotch +mainland individual Protestants have been known to practise it. A +haunted house at Balechan, Perthshire, in which certain members of the +Psychical Research Society had taken up summer quarters to +'investigate', was exorcized by the late Archbishop of Edinburgh, +assisted by a priest from the Outer Isles.[191] + +Among the nine orders of the Irish ecclesiastical organization of +Patrick's time, one was composed of exorcists.[192] The official +ceremony for the ordination of an exorcist in the Latin Church was +established by the Fourth Council of Carthage, and is indicated in +nearly all the ancient rituals. It consists in the bishop giving to the +candidate the book of exorcisms and saying as he does so:--'Receive and +understand this book, and have the power of laying hands upon demoniacs, +whether they be baptized, or whether they be catechumens.'[193] By a +decree of the Church Council of Orange, making men possessed of a demon +ineligible to enter the priesthood, it would seem that the number of +demoniacs must have been very great.[193] As to the efficacy of +exorcisms, the church Fathers during the first four centuries, when the +Platonic philosophy was most influential in Christianity, are +agreed.[193] + +In estimating the shaping influences, designated by us as fundamental, +which undoubtedly were exerted upon the Fairy-Faith through the practice +of exorcism, it is necessary to realize that this animistic practice +holds a very important position in the Christian religion which for +centuries the Celtic peoples have professed. One of the two chief +sacraments of Christianity, that of Baptism, is preceded by a definitely +recognized exorcism, as shown in the Roman Ritual, where we can best +study it. In the Exhortation preceding the rite the infant is called a +slave of the demon, and by baptism is to be set free. The salt which is +placed in the mouth of the infant by the priest during the ceremony has +first been exorcized by special rites. Then there follows before the +entrance to the baptismal font a regular exorcism pronounced over the +child: the priest taking some of his own saliva on the thumb of his +right hand, touches the child's ears and nostrils, and commands the +demon to depart out of the child. After this part of the ceremony is +finished, the priest makes on the child's forehead a sign of the cross +with holy oil. Finally, in due order, comes the actual baptism.[194] And +even after baptismal rites have expelled all possessing demons, +precautions are necessary against a repossession: St. Augustine has said +that exorcisms of precaution ought to be performed over every Christian +daily; and it appears that faithful Roman Catholics who each day employ +holy water in making the sign of the cross, and all Protestants who pray +'lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil', are employing +such exorcisms:[195] St. Gregory of Nazianzus writes, 'Arm yourself with +the sign of the cross which the demons fear, and before which they take +their flight'[196]; and by the same sign, said St. Athanasius, 'All the +illusions of the demon are dissipated and all his snares +destroyed.'[197] An eminent Catholic theologian asserts that saints who, +since the time of Jesus Christ, have been endowed with the power of +working miracles, have always made use of the sign of the cross in +driving out demons, in curing maladies, and in raising the dead. In the +_Instruction sur le Rituel_,[198] it is said that water which has been +blessed is particularly designed to be used against demons; in the +_Apostolic Constitutions_, formulated near the end of the fourth +century, holy water is designated as a means of purification from sin +and of putting the demon to flight.[199] And nowadays when the priest +passes through his congregation casting over them holy water, it is as +an exorcism of precaution; or when as in France each mourner at a grave +casts holy water over the corpse, it is undoubtedly--whether done +consciously as such or not--to protect the soul of the deceased from +demons who are held to have as great power over the dead as over the +living. Other forms of exorcism, too, are employed. For example, in the +_Lebar Brecc_, it is said of the Holy Scripture that 'By it the snares +of devils and vices are expelled from every faithful one in the +Church'.[200] And from all this direct testimony it seems to be clear +that many of the chief practices of Christians are exorcisms, so that, +like the religion of Zoroaster, the religion founded by Jesus has come +to rest, at least in part, upon the basic recognition of an eternal +warfare between good and bad spirits for the control of Man. + +The curing of diseases through Christian exorcism is by no means rare +now, and it was common a few centuries ago. Thus in the eighteenth +century, beginning with 1752 and till his death, Gassner, a Roman priest +of Closterle, diocese of Coire, Switzerland, devoted his life to curing +people of possessions, declaring that one third of all maladies are so +caused, and fixed his head-quarters at Elwangen, and later at Ratisbon. +His fame spread over many countries of Europe, and he is said to have +made ten thousand cures solely by exorcism.[201] And not only are human +ills overcome by exorcism, but also the maladies of beasts: at Carnac, +on September 13, there continues to be celebrated an annual fete in +honour of St. Cornely, the patron saint of the country and the saint who +(as his name seems to suggest) presides over domestic _horned_ animals; +and if there is a cow, or even a sheep suffering from some ailment which +will not yield to medicine, its owner leads it to the church door +beneath the saint's statue, and the priest blesses it, and, as he does +so, casts over it the exorcizing holy water. The Church Ritual +designates two forms of Benediction for such animals, one form for those +who are ordinarily diseased, and another for those suffering from some +contagious malady. In each ceremony there comes first the sprinkling of +the animal with holy water as it stands before the priest at the church +door; and then there follows in Latin a direct invocation to God to +bless the animal, 'to extinguish in it all diabolical powers,' to defend +its life, and to restore it to health.[202] + +In 1868, according to Dr. Evans, an old cow-house in North Wales was +torn down, and in its walls was found a tin box containing an exorcist's +formula. The box and its enclosed manuscript had been hidden there some +years previously to ward off all evil spirits and witchcraft, for +evidently the cattle had been dying of some strange malady which no +doctors could cure. Because of its unique nature, and as an illustration +of what Welsh exorcisms must have been like, we quote the contents of +the manuscripts both as to spelling and punctuation as checked by Sir +John Rhys with the original, except the undecipherable symbols which +come after the archangels' names:-- + + '[C] Lignum sanctae crusis defendat me a malis presentibus + preateritus & futuris; interioribus & exterioribus [C] [C] + Daniel Evans [C] [C] Omnes spiritus laudet Dominum: Mosen + habent & prophetas. Exergat Deus & disipenture inimiciessus + [C] . [C] O Lord Jesus Christ I beseech thee to preserve + me Daniel Evans; and all that I possess from the power + of all evil men, women; spirits, or wizards, or hardness of + heart, and this I will trust thou will do by the same power + as thou didst cause the blind to see the lame to walk and + they that were possesed with unclean spirits to be in their + own minds Amen Amen [C] [C] [C] [C] pater pater pater Noster + Noster Noster aia aia aia Jesus [C] Christus [C] Messyas [C] + Emmanuel [C] Soter [C] Sabaoth [C] Elohim [C] on [C] Adonay + [C] Tetragrammaton [C] Ag : : [C] Panthon [C] ... reaton + [C] Agios [C] Jasper [C] Melchor [C] Balthasar Amen [C][C][C] + [*][J][*][V][*][M][T][S][T][J][T][Mo].[O][*][J][*][Mo][C][C] And by + the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and His Hevenly Angels + being our Redeemer and Saviour from + Gabriel [_symbols_] all witchcraft and from assaults of the + Michail [_symbols_] Devil Amen [C] O Lord Jesus Christ + I beseech thee to preserve me and all that I possess from + the power of all evil men; women; spirits; or wizards + past, present, or to come inward and outward Amen [C] [C].'[203] + +From India Mr. W. Crooke reports similar exorcisms and charms to cure +and to protect cattle.[204] Thus there is employed in Northern India the +_Ajaypal jantra_, i. e. 'the charm of the Invincible Protector,' one of +Vishnu's titles, in his character as the earth-god Bhumiya--in Scotland +it would be the charm of the Invincible Fairy who presides over the +flocks and to whom libations are poured--in order to exorcize diseased +cattle or else to prevent cattle from becoming diseased. This _Ajaypal +jantra_ is a rope of twisted straw, in which chips of wood are inserted. +'In the centre of the rope is suspended an earthen platter, inside which +an incantation is inscribed with charcoal, and beside it is hung a bag +containing seven kinds of grain.' The rope is stretched between two +poles at the entrance of a village, and under it the cattle pass to and +fro from pasture. The following is the incantation found on one of the +earthen saucers:--'O Lord of the Earth on which this cattle-pen stands, +protect the cattle from death and disease! I know of none, save thee, +who can deliver them.' In the Morbihan, Lower Brittany, we seem to see +the same folk-custom, somewhat changed to be sure; for on St. John's +Day, the christianized pagan sun-festival in honour of the summer +solstice, in which fairies and spirits play so prominent a part in all +Celtic countries, just outside a country village a great fire is lit in +the centre of the main road and covered over with green branches, in +order to produce plenty of smoke, and then on either side of this fire +and through the exorcizing smoke are made to pass all the domestic +animals in the district as a protection against disease and evil +spirits, to secure their fruitful increase, and, in the case of cows, +abundant milk supply. Mr. Milne, while making excavations in the Carnac +country, discovered the image of a small bronze cow, now in the Carnac +Museum, and this would seem to indicate that before Christian times +there was in the Morbihan a cult of cattle, preserved even until now, +no doubt, in the Christian fete of St. Cornely, just as in St. Cornely's +Fountain there is preserved a pagan holy well. + +It ought now to be clear that both pre-Christian and Christian exorcisms +among Celts have shaped the Fairy-Faith in a very fundamental manner. +And anthropologically the whole subject of exorcism falls in line with +the Psychological Theory of the nature and origin of the belief in +fairies in Celtic countries. + + +TABOOS + +We find that taboos, or prohibitions of a religious and social +character, are as common in the living Fairy-Faith as exorcisms. The +chief one is the taboo against naming the fairies, which inevitably +results in the use of euphemisms, such as 'good people', 'gentry', +'people of peace', _Tylwyth Teg_ ('Fair Folk'), or _bonnes dames_ ('good +ladies'). A like sort of taboo, with its accompanying use of euphemisms, +existed among the Ancients, e. g. among the Egyptians and Babylonians, +and early Celts as well, in a highly developed form; and it exists now +among the native peoples of Australia, Polynesia, Central Africa, +America, in Indian systems of Yoga, among modern Greeks, and, in fact, +almost everywhere where there are vestiges of a primitive culture.[205] +And almost always such a taboo is bound up with animistic and magical +elements, which seem to form its background, just as it is in our own +evidence. + +To discuss name taboo in all its aspects would lead us more deeply into +magic and comparative folk-lore than we have yet gone, and such +discussion is unnecessary here. We may therefore briefly state that the +root of the matter would seem to be that the name and the dread power +named are so closely associated in the very concrete thought of the +primitive culture that the one virtually is the other: just as one +inevitably calls up the other for the modern thinker, so it is that, in +the world of objective fact, for the primitive philosopher the one is +equivalent to the other. The primitive man, in short, has projected his +subjective associations into reality. As regards euphemisms, the process +of development possibly is that first you employ any substitute name, +and that secondly you go on to employ such a substitute name as will at +the same time be conciliatory. In the latter case, a certain +anthropomorphosing of the power behind the taboo would seem to be +involved.[206] + +Next in prominence comes the food taboo; and to this, also, there are +non-Celtic parallels all the world over, now and in ancient times. We +may take notice of three very striking modern parallels:--A woman +visited her dead brother in Panoi, the Polynesian Otherworld, and 'he +cautioned her to eat nothing there, and she returned'.[207] A Red Man, +Ahak-tah, after an apparent death of two days' duration, revived, and +declared that he had been to a beautiful land of tall trees and +singing-birds, where he met the spirits of his forefathers and uncle. +While there, he felt hunger, and seeing in a bark dish some wild rice, +wished to eat of it, but his uncle would allow him none. In telling +about this psychical adventure, Ahak-tah said:--'Had I eaten of the food +of spirits, I never should have returned to earth.'[208] Also a New +Zealand woman visited the Otherworld in a trance, and her dead father +whom she met there ordered her to eat no food in that land, so that she +could return to this world to take care of her child.[209] + +All such parallels, like their equivalents in Celtic belief, seem to +rest on this psychological and physiological conception in the +folk-mind. Human food is what keeps life going in a human body; fairy +food is what keeps life going in a fairy body; and since what a man eats +makes him what he is physically, so eating the food of Fairyland or of +the land of the dead will make the eater partake of the bodily nature +of the beings it nourishes. Hence when a man or woman has once entered +into such relation or communion with the Otherworld of the dead, or of +fairies, by eating their food, his or her physical body[210] by a subtle +transformation adjusts itself to the new kind of nourishment, and +becomes spiritual like a spirit's or fairy's body, so that the eater +cannot re-enter the world of the living. A study of food taboos confirms +this conclusion.[211] + +A third prominent taboo, the iron taboo, has been explained by exponents +of the Pygmy Theory as pointing to a prehistoric race in Celtic lands +who did not know iron familiarly, and hence venerated it so that in time +it came to be religiously regarded as very efficacious against spirits +and fairies. Undoubtedly there may be much reason in this explanation, +which gives some ethnological support to the Pygmy Theory. Apparently, +however, it is only a partial explanation of iron taboo in general, +because, in many cases, iron in ancient religious rites certainly had +magical properties attributed to it, which to us are quite unexplainable +from this ethnological point of view;[212] and in Melanesia and in +Africa, where iron is venerated now, the same explanation through +ethnology seems far-fetched. But at present there seem to be no +available data to explain adequately this iron taboo, though we have +strong reasons for thinking that the philosophy underlying it is based +on mystical conceptions of virtues attributed--reasonably or +unreasonably--to various metals and precious stones, and that a careful +examination of alchemical sciences would probably arrive at an +explanation wholly psychological. + +Besides many other miscellaneous taboos noticeable in the evidence, +there is a place taboo which is prominent. Thus, if an Irishman cuts a +thorn tree growing on a spot sacred to the fairies, or if he violates a +fairy preserve of any sort, such as a fairy path, or by accident +interferes with a fairy procession, illness and possibly death will come +to his cattle or even to himself. In the same way, in Melanesia, +violations of sacred spots bring like penalties: 'A man planted in the +bush near Olevuga some coco-nut and almond trees, and not long after +died,' the place being a spirit preserve;[213] and a man in the Lepers' +Island lost his senses, because, as the natives believed, he had +unwittingly trodden on ground sacred to Tagaro, and 'the ghost of the +man who lately sacrificed there was angry with him'.[213] In this case +the wizards were called in and cured the man by exorcisms,[213] as +Irishmen, or their cows, are cured by the exorcisms of 'fairy-doctors' +when 'fairy-struck' for some similar violation. The animistic background +of place taboos in the Fairy-Faith is in these cases apparent. + +_Among Ancient Celts_ + +In the evidence soon to be examined from the recorded Fairy-Faith, we +shall find taboos of various kinds often more prominent than in the +living Fairy-Faith.[214] So essential are they to the character of much +of the literary and mythological matter with which we shall have to deal +in the following chapters, that at this point some suggestions ought to +be made concerning their correct anthropological interpretation. + +Almost every ancient Irish taboo is connected with a king or with a +great hero like Cuchulainn; and, in Ireland especially, all such kings +and heroes were considered of divine origin, and as direct incarnations, +or reincarnations of the Tuatha De Danann, the true Fairies, originally +inhabitants of the Otherworld. (See our chapter vii.) As Dr. Frazer +points out to have been the case among non-Celts, with whom the same +theory of incarnated divinities has prevailed, royal taboos are to +isolate the king from all sources of danger, especially from all magic +and witchcraft, and they act in many cases 'so to say, as electrical +insulators' to preserve him or heroes who are equally divine.[215] + +The early Celts recognized an intimate relationship between man and +nature: unperceived by man, unseen forces--not dissimilar to what +Melanesians call _Mana_--(looked on as animate and intelligent and +frequently individual entities) guided every act of human life. It was +the special duty of Druids to act as intermediaries between the world of +men and the world of the Tuatha De Danann; and, as old Irish literature +indicates clearly, it was through the exercise of powers of divination +on the part of Druids that these declared what was taboo or what was +unfavourable, and also what it was favourable for the divine king or +hero to perform. As long as man kept himself in harmony with this unseen +fairy-world in the background of nature, all was well; but as soon as a +taboo was broken, disharmony in the relationship--which was focused in a +king or hero--was set up; and when, as in the case of Cuchulainn, many +taboos were violated, death was inevitable and not even the Tuatha De +Danann could intercede. + +Breaking of a royal or hero taboo not only affects the violator, but his +subjects or followers as well: in some cases the king seems to suffer +vicariously for his people. Almost every great Gaelic hero--a god or +Great Fairy Being incarnate--is overshadowed with an impending fate, +which only the strictest observance of taboo can avoid.[216] + +Irish taboo, and inferentially all Celtic taboo, dates back to an +unknown pagan antiquity. It is imposed at or before birth, or again +during life, usually at some critical period, and when broken brings +disaster and death to the breaker. Its whole background appears to rest +on a supernatural relationship between divine men and the Otherworld of +the Tuatha De Danann; and it is very certain that this ancient +relationship survives in the living Fairy-Faith as one between ordinary +men and the fairy-world. Therefore, almost all taboos surviving among +Celts ought to be interpreted psychologically or even psychically, and +not as ordinary social regulations. + + +FOOD-SACRIFICE + +Food-sacrifice plays a very important role in the modern Fairy-Faith, +being still practised, as our evidence shows, in each one of the Celtic +countries. Without any doubt it is a survival from pagan times, when, as +we shall observe later (in chapter iv. 291, and elsewhere), propitiatory +offerings were regularly made to the Tuatha De Danann as gods of the +earth, and, apparently, to other orders of spiritual beings. The +anthropological significance of such food-sacrifice is unmistakable. + +With the same propitiatory ends in view as modern Celts now have in +offering food to fairies, ancient peoples, e. g. the Greeks and Romans, +maintained a state ritual of sacrifices to the gods, genii, daemons, and +to the dead. And such sacrifices, so essential a part of most ancient +religions, were based on the belief, as stated by Porphyry in his +_Treatise Concerning Abstinence_, that all the various orders of gods, +genii or daemons, enjoy as nourishment the odour of burnt offerings. And +like the Fairy-Folk, the daemons of the air live not on the gross +substance of food, but on its finer invisible essences, conveyed to them +most easily on the altar-fire.[217] Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, and other +leading Greeks, as well as the Romans of a like metaphysical school, +unite in declaring the fundamental importance to the welfare of the +State of regular sacrifices to the gods and to the daemons who control +all natural phenomena, since they caused, if not neglected, abundant +harvests and national prosperity. For unto the gods is due by right a +part of all things which they give to man for his happiness. + +The relation which the worship of ancestors held to that of the gods +above, who are the Olympian Gods, the great Gods, and to the Gods below, +who are the Gods of the Dead, and also to the daemons, and heroes or +divine ancestors, is thus set forth by Plato in his _Laws_:--'In the +first place, we affirm that next after the Olympian Gods, and the Gods +of the State, honour should be given to the Gods below.... Next to these +Gods, a wise man will do service to the daemons or spirits, and then to +the heroes, and after them will follow the sacred places of private and +ancestral Gods, having their ritual according to law. Next comes the +honour of living parents.'[218] + +It is evident from this direct testimony that the same sort of +philosophy underlies food-sacrifice among the Celts and other peoples as +we discovered underlying human-sacrifice, in our study of the Changeling +Belief; and that the Tuatha De Danann in their true mythological nature, +and fairies, their modern counterpart, correspond in all essentials to +Greek and Roman gods, genii, and daemons, and are often confused with +the dead. + + +THE CELTIC LEGEND OF THE DEAD + +The animistic character of the Celtic Legend of the Dead is apparent; +and the striking likenesses constantly appearing in our evidence between +the ordinary apparitional fairies and the ghosts of the dead show that +there is often no essential and sometimes no distinguishable difference +between these two orders of beings, nor between the world of the dead +and fairyland. We reserve for our chapter on _Science and Fairies_ the +scientific consideration of the psychology of this relationship, and of +the probability that fairies as souls of the dead and as ghosts of the +dead actually exist and influence the living. + + +GENERAL CONCLUSION + +The chief anthropological problems connected with the modern +Fairy-Faith, as our evidence presents it, have now been examined, at +sufficient length, we trust, to explain their essential significance; +and problems, to some extent parallel, connected with the ancient +Fairy-Faith have likewise been examined. There remain, however, very +many minor anthropological problems not yet touched upon; but several of +the most important of these, e. g. various cults of gods, spirits, +fairies, and the dead, and folk-festivals thereto related (see Section +III); the circular fairy-dance (see pp. 405-6); or the fairy world as +the Otherworld (see chap. vi), or as Purgatory (see chap. x), will +receive consideration in following chapters, and so will certain very +definite psychological problems connected with dreams, and trance-like +states, with supernormal lapse of time, and with seership. We may now +sum up the results so far attained. + +Whether we examine the Fairy-Faith as a whole or whether we examine +specialized parts of it like those relating to the smallness of fairies, +to changelings, to witchcraft and magic, to exorcisms, to taboos, and to +food-sacrifice, in all cases comparative folk-lore shows that the +beliefs composing it find their parallels the world over, and that +fairy-like beings are objects of belief now not only in Celtic +countries, but in Central Australia, throughout Polynesia, in Africa, +among American Red Men, in Asia generally, in Southern, Western, and +Northern Europe, and, in fact, wherever civilized and primitive men hold +religious beliefs. From a rationalist point of view anthropologists +would be inclined to regard the bulk of this widespread belief in +spiritual beings as being purely mythical, but for us to do so and stop +there would lead to no satisfactory solution: the origin of myth itself +needs to be explained, and one of the chief objects of our study +throughout the remainder of this book is to make an attempt at such an +explanation, especially of Celtic myth. + +Again, if we examine all fairy-like beings from a certain superficial +point of view, or even from the mythological point of view, it is easy +to discern that they are universally credited with precisely the same +characters, attributes, actions, or powers as the particular peoples +possess who have faith in them; and then the further fact emerges that +this anthropomorphosing is due directly to the more immediate social +environment: we see merely an anthropomorphically coloured picture of +the whole of an age-long social evolution of the tribe, race, or nation +who have fostered the particular aspect of this one world-wide +folk-religion. But if we look still deeper, we discover as background to +the myths and the social psychology a profound animism. This animism +appears in its own environment in the shading away of the different +fairy-like beings into spirits and ghosts of the departed. Going deeper +yet, we find that such animistic beliefs as concern themselves +exclusively with the realm of the dead are in many cases apparently so +well founded on definite provable psychical experiences on the part of +living men and women that the aid of science itself must be called in to +explain them, and this will be done in our chapter entitled _Science and +Fairies_. + +So far it ought to be clear that already our evidence points to a very +respectable residue in the experiences of percipients, which cannot be +explained away--as can the larger mass of the evidence--as due to +ethnological, anthropomorphic, naturalistic, or sociological influences +on the Celtic mind; and for the present this must be designated as the +_x_ or unknown quantity in the Fairy-Faith. In chapter xi this _x_ +quantity, augmented by whatever else is to be elicited from further +evidence, will be specifically discussed. + +These points of view derived from our anthropological examination of the +chief parts of the evidence presented by the living Fairy-Faith will be +kept constantly before us as we proceed further; and what has been +demonstrated anthropologically in this chapter will serve to interpret +what is to follow until chapter xi is reached. With this tentative +position we pass to Section II of this study, and shall there begin to +examine, as we have just done with their modern Fairy-Faith, the ancient +Fairy-Faith of the Celts. + + + + +SECTION II + +THE RECORDED FAIRY-FAITH + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE PEOPLE OF THE GODDESS DANA (_TUATHA DE DANANN_) OR THE _SIDHE_ +(PRONOUNCED _SHEE_)[219] + + 'So firm was the hold which the ethnic gods of Ireland had taken + upon the imagination and spiritual sensibilities of our ancestors + that even the monks and christianized bards never thought of + denying them. They doubtless forbade the people to worship them, + but to root out the belief in their existence was so impossible + that they could not even dispossess their own minds of the + conviction that the gods were real supernatural beings.'--STANDISH + O'GRADY. + + The Goddess Dana and the modern cult of St. Brigit--The Tuatha De + Danann or _Sidhe_ conquered by the Sons of Mil--But Irish seers + still see the _Sidhe_--Old Irish MSS. faithfully represent the + Tuatha De Danann--The _Sidhe_ as a spirit race--_Sidhe_ + palaces--The 'Taking' of mortals--Hill visions of _Sidhe_ + women--_Sidhe_ minstrels and musicians--Social organization and + warfare among the _Sidhe_--The _Sidhe_ war-goddesses, the + _Badb_--The _Sidhe_ at the Battle of Clontarf, A. D. + 1014--Conclusion. + + +The People of the Goddess Dana, or, according to D'Arbois de +Jubainville, the People of the god whose mother was called Dana,[220] +are the Tuatha De Danann of the ancient mythology of Ireland. The +Goddess Dana, called in the genitive Danand, in middle Irish times was +named Brigit.[220] And this goddess Brigit of the pagan Celts has been +supplanted by the Christian St. Brigit[220]; and, in exactly the same +way as the pagan cult once bestowed on the spirits in wells and +fountains has been transferred to Christian saints, to whom the wells +and fountains have been re-dedicated, so to St. Brigit as a national +saint has been transferred the pagan cult rendered to her predecessor. +Thus even yet, as in the case of the minor divinities of their sacred +fountains, the Irish people through their veneration for the good St. +Brigit, render homage to the divine mother of the People who bear her +name Dana,--who are the ever-living invisible Fairy-People of modern +Ireland. For when the Sons of Mil, the ancestors of the Irish people, +came to Ireland they found the Tuatha De Danann in full possession of +the country. The Tuatha De Danann then retired before the invaders, +without, however, giving up their sacred Island. Assuming invisibility, +with the power of at any time reappearing in a human-like form before +the children of the Sons of Mil, the People of the Goddess Dana became +and are the Fairy-Folk, the _Sidhe_ of Irish mythology and romance.[221] +Therefore it is that to-day Ireland contains two races,--a race visible +which we call Celts, and a race invisible which we call Fairies. Between +these two races there is constant intercourse even now; for Irish seers +say that they can behold the majestic, beautiful _Sidhe_, and according +to them the _Sidhe_ are a race quite distinct from our own, just as +living and possibly more powerful. These _Sidhe_ (who are the 'gentry' +of the Ben Bulbin country and have kindred elsewhere in Ireland, +Scotland, and probably in most other countries as well, such as the +invisible races of the Yosemite Valley) have been described more or less +accurately by our peasant seer-witnesses from County Sligo and from +North and East Ireland. But there are other and probably more reliable +seers in Ireland, men of greater education and greater psychical +experience, who know and describe the _Sidhe_ races as they really are, +and who even sketch their likenesses. And to such seer Celts as these, +Death is a passport to the world of the _Sidhe_, a world where there is +eternal youth and never-ending joy, as we shall learn when we study it +as the Celtic Otherworld. + +The recorded mythology and literature of ancient Ireland have, very +faithfully for the most part, preserved to us clear pictures of the +Tuatha De Danann; so that disregarding some Christian influence in the +texts of certain manuscripts, much rationalization, and a good deal of +poetical colouring and romantic imagination in the pictures, we can +easily describe the People of the Goddess Dana as they appeared in pagan +days, when they were more frequently seen by mortals than now. Perhaps +the Irish folk of the olden times were even more clairvoyant and +spiritual-minded than the Irish folk of to-day. So by drawing upon these +written records let us try to understand what sort of beings the _Sidhe_ +were and are. + + +NATURE OF THE _SIDHE_ + +In the _Book of Leinster_[222] the poem of _Eochaid_ records that the +Tuatha De Danann, the conquerors of the Fir-Bolgs, were hosts of +_siabra_; and _siabra_ is an Old Irish word meaning fairies, sprites, or +ghosts. The word fairies is appropriate if restricted to mean fairies +like the modern 'gentry'; but the word _ghosts_ is inappropriate, +because our evidence shows that the only relation the _Sidhe_ or real +Fairies hold to ghosts is a superficial one, the _Sidhe_ and ghosts +being alike only in respect to invisibility. In the two chief Irish +MSS., the _Book of the Dun Cow_ and the _Book of Leinster_, the Tuatha +De Danann are described as 'gods and not-gods'; and Sir John Rhys +considers this an ancient formula comparable with the Sanskrit _deva_ +and _adeva_, but not with 'poets (_dee_) and husbandmen (_an dee_)' as +the author of _Coir Anmann_ learnedly guessed.[223] It is also said, in +the _Book of the Dun Cow_, that wise men do not know the origin of the +Tuatha De Danann, but that 'it seems likely to them that they came from +heaven, on account of their intelligence and for the excellence of their +knowledge'.[224] The hold of the Tuatha De Danann on the Irish mind and +spirit was so strong that even Christian transcribers of texts could not +deny their existence as a non-human race of intelligent beings +inhabiting Ireland, even though they frequently misrepresented them by +placing them on the level of evil demons,[225] as the ending of the +story of the _Sick-Bed of Cuchulainn_ illustrates:--'So that this was a +vision to Cuchulainn of being stricken by the people of the _Sid_: for +the demoniac power was great before the faith; and such was its +greatness that the demons used to fight bodily against mortals, and they +used to show them delights and secrets of how they would be in +immortality. It was thus they used to be believed in. So it is to such +phantoms the ignorant apply the names of _Side_ and _Aes Side_.'[226] A +passage in the _Silva Gadelica_ (ii. 202-3) not only tends to confirm +this last statement, but it also shows that the Irish people made a +clear distinction between the god-race and our own:--In _The Colloquy +with the Ancients_, as St. Patrick and Caeilte are talking with one +another, 'a lone woman robed in mantle of green, a smock of soft silk +being next her skin, and on her forehead a glittering plate of yellow +gold,' came to them; and when Patrick asked from whence she came, she +replied: 'Out of _uaimh Chruachna_, or "the cave of Cruachan".' Caeilte +then asked: 'Woman, my soul, who art thou?' 'I am _Scothniamh_ or +"Flower-lustre", daughter of the Daghda's son Bodhb derg.' Caeilte +proceeded: 'And what started thee hither?' 'To require of thee my +marriage-gift, because once upon a time thou promisedst me such.' And as +they parleyed Patrick broke in with: 'It is a wonder to us how we see +you two: the girl young and invested with all comeliness; but thou +Caeilte, a withered ancient, bent in the back and dingily grown grey.' +'Which is no wonder at all,' said Caeilte, 'for no people of one +generation or of one time are we: _she is of the Tuatha De Danann, who +are unfading and whose duration is perennial; I am of the sons of +Milesius, that are perishable and fade away_.' The exact distinction is +between Caeilte, a withered old ancient--in most ways to be regarded as +a ghost called up that Patrick may question him about the past history +of Ireland--and a fairy-woman who is one of the _Sidhe_ or Tuatha De +Danann.[227] + +In two of the more ancient Irish texts, the _Echtra Nerai_[228] or +'Expedition of Nera', a preliminary tale in the introduction to the +_Tain bo Cuailnge_ or 'Theft of the Cattle of Cuailnge'; and a passage +from the _Togail Bruidne da Derga_, or 'Destruction of Da Derga's +Hostel',[229] there seems no reasonable doubt whatever about the Tuatha +De Danann or _Sidhe_ being a race like what we call spirits. The first +text describes how Ailill and Medb in their palace of Cruachan +celebrated the feast of _Samain_ (November Eve, a feast of the dead even +in pre-Christian times). Two culprits had been executed on the day +before, and their bodies, according to the ancient Irish custom, were +left hanging from a tree until the night of _Samain_ should have passed; +for on that night it was dangerous to touch the bodies of the dead while +demons and the people of the _Sidhe_ were at large throughout all +Ireland, and mortals found near dead bodies at such a time were in great +danger of being _taken_ by these spirit hosts of the Tuatha De Danann. +And so on this very night, when thick darkness had settled down, Ailill +desired to test the courage of his warriors, and offered his own +gold-hilted sword to any young man who would go out and tie a coil of +twisted twigs around the leg of one of the bodies suspended from the +tree. After many had made the attempt and failed, because unable to +brave the legions of demons and fairies, Nera alone succeeded; but his +success cost him dear, for he finally fell under the power both of the +dead man, round whose legs he had tied the coil, and of an elfin host: +with the dead man's body on his back, Nera was obliged to go to a +strange house that the thirst of the dead man might be assuaged therein; +and the dead man in drinking scattered 'the last sip from his lips at +the faces of the people that were in the house, so that they all died'. +Nera carried back the body; and on returning to Cruachan he saw the +fairy hosts going into the cave, 'for the fairy-mounds of Erinn are +always opened about Halloween.' Nera followed after them until he came +to their king in a palace of the Tuatha De Danann, seemingly in the +cavern or elsewhere underground; where he remained and was married to +one of the fairy women. She it was who revealed to Nera the secret +hiding-place, in a mysterious well, of the king's golden crown, and then +betrayed her whole people by reporting to Nera the plan they had for +attacking Ailill's court on the Halloween to come. Moreover, Nera was +permitted by his fairy wife to depart from the _sid_; and he in taking +leave of her asked: 'How will it be believed of me that I have gone into +the _sid_?' 'Take fruits of summer with thee,' said the woman. 'Then he +took wild garlic with him and primrose and golden fern.' And on the +following November Eve when the _sid_ of Cruachan was again open, 'the +men of Connaught and the black hosts of exile' under Ailill and Medb +plundered it, taking away from it the crown of Briun out of the well. +But 'Nera was left with his people in the _sid_, and has not come out +until now, nor will he come till Doom.' + +All of this matter is definitely enough in line with the living +Fairy-Faith: there is the same belief expressed as now about November +Eve being the time of all times when ghosts, demons, spirits, and +fairies are free, and when fairies _take_ mortals and marry them to +fairy women; also the beliefs that fairies are living in secret places +in hills, in caverns, or under ground--palaces full of treasure and open +only on November Eve. In so far as the real fairies, the _Sidhe_, are +concerned, they appear as the rulers of the Feast of the Dead or +_Samain_, as the controllers of all spirits who are then at large; and, +allowing for some poetical imagination and much social psychology and +anthropomorphism, elements as common in this as in most literary +descriptions concerning the Tuatha De Danann, they are faithfully enough +presented. + +The second text describes how King Conaire, in riding along a road +toward Tara, saw in front of him three strange horsemen, three men of +the _Sidhe_:--'Three red frocks had they, and three red mantles: three +red steeds they bestrode, and three red heads of hair were on them. Red +were they all, both body and hair and raiment, both steeds and men.' +'Who is it that fares before us?' asked Conaire. 'It was a taboo of mine +for those Three to go before me--the three Reds to the house of Red. Who +will follow them and tell them to come towards me in my track?' 'I will +follow them,' says Le fri flaith, Conaire's son. 'He goes after them, +lashing his horse, and overtook them not. There was the length of a +spearcast between them: but they did not gain upon him and he did not +gain upon them.' All attempts to come up with the red horsemen failed. +But at last, before they disappeared, one of the Three said to the +king's son riding so furiously behind them, 'Lo, my son, great the news. +Weary are the steeds we ride. We ride the steeds of Donn Tetscorach (?) +from the elfmounds. Though we are alive we are dead. Great are the +signs: destruction of life: sating of ravens: feeding of crows, strife +of slaughter: wetting of sword-edge, shields with broken bosses in hours +after sundown. Lo, my son!' Then they disappear. When Conaire and his +followers heard the message, fear fell upon them, and the king said: +'All my taboos have seized me to-night, since those Three [Reds] [are +the] banished folks (?).' In this passage we behold three horsemen of the +_Sidhe_ banished from their elfmound because guilty of falsehood. +Visible for a time, they precede the king and so violate one of his +taboos; and then delivering their fearful prophecy they vanish. These +three of the Tuatha De Danann, majestic and powerful and weird in their +mystic red, are like the warriors of the 'gentry' seen by contemporary +seers in West Ireland. Though dead, that is in an invisible world like +the dead, yet they are living. It seems that in all three of the textual +examples already cited, the scribe has emphasized a different element in +the unique nature of the Tuatha De Danann. In the _Colloquy_ it is their +eternal youth and beauty, in the _Echtra Nerai_ it is their supremacy +over ghosts and demons on _Samain_ and their power to steal mortals away +at such a time, and in this last their respect for honesty. And in each +case their portrayal corresponds to that of the 'gentry' and _Sidhe_ by +modern Irishmen; so that the old Fairy-Faith and the new combine to +prove the People of the God whose mother was Dana to have been and to be +a race of beings who are like mortals, but not mortals, who to the +objective world are as though dead, yet to the subjective world are +fully living and conscious. + +O'Curry says:--'The term (_sidh_, pron. _shee_), as far as we know it, +is always applied in old writings to the palaces, courts, halls, or +residences of those beings which in ancient Gaedhelic mythology held the +place which ghosts, phantoms, and fairies hold in the superstitions of +the present day.'[230] In modern Irish tradition, 'the People of the +_Sidhe_,' or simply the _Sidhe_, refer to the beings themselves rather +than to their places of habitation. Partly perhaps on account of this +popular opinion that the _Sidhe_ are a subterranean race, they are +sometimes described as gods of the earth or _dei terreni_, as in the +_Book of Armagh_; and since it was believed that they, like the modern +fairies, control the ripening of crops and the milk-giving of cows, the +ancient Irish rendered to them regular worship and sacrifice, just as +the Irish of to-day do by setting out food at night for the fairy-folk +to eat. + +Thus after their conquest, these _Sidhe_ or Tuatha De Danann in +retaliation, and perhaps to show their power as agricultural gods, +destroyed the wheat and milk of their conquerors, the Sons of Mil, as +fairies to-day can do; and the Sons of Mil were constrained to make a +treaty with their supreme king, Dagda, who, in _Coir Anmann_ (Sec. 150), +is himself called an earth-god. Then when the treaty was made the Sons of +Mil were once more able to gather wheat in their fields and to drink the +milk of their cows;[231] and we can suppose that ever since that time +their descendants, who are the people of Ireland, remembering that +treaty, have continued to reverence the People of the Goddess Dana by +pouring libations of milk to them and by making them offerings of the +fruits of the earth. + + +THE PALACES OF THE _SIDHE_ + +The marvellous palaces to which the Tuatha De Danann retired when +conquered by the race of Mil were hidden in the depths of the earth, in +hills, or under ridges more or less elevated.[232] At the time of their +conquest, Dagda their high king made a distribution of all such palaces +in his kingdom. He gave one _sid_ to Lug, son of Ethne, another to Ogme; +and for himself retained two--one called _Brug na Boinne_, or Castle of +the Boyne, because it was situated on or near the River Boyne near Tara, +and the other called _Sid_ or _Brug Maic ind Oc_, which means Enchanted +Palace or Castle of the Son of the Young. And this Mac ind Oc was +Dagda's own son by the queen Boann, according to some accounts, so that +as the name (Son of the Young) signifies, Dagda and Boann, both +immortals, both Tuatha De Danann, were necessarily always young, never +knowing the touch of disease, or decay, or old age. Not until +Christianity gained its psychic triumph at Tara, through the magic of +Patrick prevailing against the magic of the Druids--who seem to have +stood at that time as mediators between the People of the Goddess Dana +and the pagan Irish--did the Tuatha De Danann lose their immortal +youthfulness in the eyes of mortals and become subject to death. In the +most ancient manuscripts of Ireland the pre-Christian doctrine of the +immortality of the divine race 'persisted intact and without +restraint';[233] but in the _Senchus na relec_ or 'History of the +Cemeteries', from the _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_, and in the _Lebar gabala_ +or 'Book of the Conquests', from the _Book of Leinster_, it was +completely changed by the Christian scribes.[233] + +When Dagda thus distributed the underground palaces, Mac ind Oc, or as +he was otherwise called Oengus, was absent and hence forgotten. So when +he returned, naturally he complained to his father, and the _Brug na +Boinne_, the king's own residence, was ceded to him for a night and a +day, but Oengus maintained that it was for ever. This palace was a most +marvellous one: it contained three trees which always bore fruit, a +vessel full of excellent drink, and two pigs--one alive and the other +nicely cooked ready to eat at any time; and in this palace no one ever +died.[234] In the _Colloquy_, Caeilte tells of a mountain containing a +fairy palace which no man save Finn and six companions, Caeilte being +one of these, ever entered. The Fenians, while hunting, were led thither +by a fairy woman who had changed her shape to that of a fawn in order to +allure them; and the night being wild and snowy they were glad to take +shelter therein. Beautiful damsels and their lovers were the inhabitants +of the palace; in it there was music and abundance of food and drink; +and on its floor stood a chair of crystal.[235] In another fairy palace, +the enchanted cave of Keshcorran, Conaran, son of Imidel, a chief of the +Tuatha De Danann, had sway; 'and so soon as he perceived that the +hounds' cry now sounded deviously, he bade his three daughters (that +were full of sorcery) to go and take vengeance on Finn for his +hunting'[236]--just as nowadays the 'good people' take vengeance on one +of our race if a fairy domain is violated. Frequently the fairy palace +is under a lake, as in the christianized story of the _Disappearance of +Caenchomrac_:--Once when 'the cleric chanted his psalms, he saw [come] +towards him a tall man that emerged out of the loch: from the bottom of +the water that is to say.' This tall man informed the cleric that he +came from an under-water monastery, and explained 'that there should be +subaqueous inhabiting by men is with God no harder than that they should +dwell in any other place'.[237] In all these ancient literary accounts +of the _Sidhe_-palaces we easily recognize the same sort of palaces as +those described to-day by Gaelic peasants as the habitations of the +'gentry', or 'good people', or 'people of peace.' Such habitations are +in mountain caverns like those of Ben Bulbin or Knock Ma, or in fairy +hills or knolls like the Fairy-Hill at Aberfoyle on which Robert Kirk is +believed to have been _taken_, or beneath lakes. This brings us directly +to the way in which the _Sidhe_ or Tuatha De Danann of the olden times +_took_ fine-looking young men and maidens. + + +HOW THE _SIDHE_ 'TOOK' MORTALS + +Perhaps one of the earliest and most famous literary accounts of such a +_taking_ is that concerning Aedh, son of Eochaid Lethderg son of the +King of Leinster, who is represented as contemporary with Patrick.[238] +While Aedh was enjoying a game of hurley with his boy companions near +the _sidh_ of Liamhain Softsmock, two of the _sidh_-women, who loved the +young prince, very suddenly appeared, and as suddenly took him away with +them into a fairy palace and kept him there three years. It happened, +however, that he escaped at the end of that time, and, knowing the +magical powers of Patrick, went to where the holy man was, and thus +explained himself:--'Against the youths my opponents I (i. e. my side) +took seven goals; but at the last one that I took, here come up to me +two women clad in green mantles: two daughters of _Bodhb derg mac an +Daghda_, and their names _Slad_ and _Mumain_. Either of them took me by +a hand, and they led me off to a garish _brugh_; whereby for now three +years my people mourn after me, the _sidh_-folk caring for me ever +since, and until last night I got a chance opening to escape from the +_brugh_, when to the number of fifty lads we emerged out of the _sidh_ +and forth upon the green. Then it was that I considered the magnitude of +that strait in which they of the _sidh_ had had me, and away from the +_brugh_ I came running to seek thee, holy Patrick.' 'That,' said the +saint, 'shall be to thee a safeguard, so that neither their power nor +their dominion shall any more prevail against thee.' And so when Patrick +had thus made Aedh proof against the power of the fairy-folk, he kept +him with him under the disguise of a travelling minstrel until, arriving +in Leinster, he restored him to his father the king and to his +inheritance: Aedh enters the palace in his minstrel disguise; and in the +presence of the royal assembly Patrick commands him: 'Doff now once for +all thy dark capacious hood, and well mayest thou wear thy father's +spear!' When the lad removed his hood, and none there but recognized +him, great was the surprise. He seemed like one come back from the +dead, for long had his heirless father and people mourned for him. 'By +our word,' exclaimed the assembly in their joyous excitement, 'it is a +good cleric's gift!' And the king said: 'Holy Patrick, seeing that till +this day thou hast nourished him and nurtured, let not the Tuatha De +Danann's power any more prevail against the lad.' And Patrick answered: +'That death which the King of Heaven and Earth hath ordained is the one +that he will have.' This ancient legend shows clearly that the Tuatha De +Danann, or _Sidhe_, in the time when the scribe wrote the _Colloquy_ +were thought of in the same way as now, as able to _take_ beautiful +mortals whom they loved, and able to confer upon them fairy immortality +which prevented 'that death which the King of Heaven and Earth hath +ordained'. + +Mortals, did they will it, could live in the world of the _Sidhe_ for +ever, and we shall see this more fully in our study of the Otherworld. +But here it will be interesting to learn that, unlike Aedh, whom some +perhaps would call a foolish youth, Laeghaire, also a prince, for he was +the son of the king of Connaught, entered a _dun_ of the _Sidhe_, taking +fifty other warriors with him; and he and his followers found life in +Fairyland so pleasant that they all decided to enjoy it eternally. +Accordingly, when they had been there a year, they planned to return to +Connaught in order to bid the king and his people a final farewell. They +announced their plan, and Fiachna of the _Sidhe_ told them how to +accomplish it safely:--'If ye would come back take with you horses, but +by no means dismount from off them'; 'So it was done: they went their +way and came upon a general assembly in which Connaught, as at the year +expired, mourned for the aforesaid warrior-band, whom now all at once +they perceived above them (i. e. on higher ground). Connaught sprang to +meet them, but Laeghaire cried: "Approach us not [to touch us]: 'tis to +bid you farewell that we are here!" "Leave me not!" Crimthann, his +father, said: "Connaught's royal power be thine; their silver and their +gold, their horses with their bridles, and their noble women be at thy +discretion, only leave me not!" But Laeghaire turned from them and so +entered again into the _sidh_, where with Fiachna he exercises joint +kingly rule; nor is he as yet come out of it.'[239] + + +HILL VISIONS OF _SIDHE_ WOMEN + +There are many recorded traditions which represent certain hills as +mystical places whereon men are favoured with visions of fairy women. +Thus, one day King Muirchertach came forth to hunt on the border of the +Brugh (near Stackallan Bridge, County Meath), and his companions left +him alone on his hunting-mound. 'He had not been there long when he saw +a solitary damsel beautifully formed, fair-haired, bright-skinned, with +a green mantle about her sitting near him on the turfen mound; and it +seemed to him that of womankind he had never beheld her equal in beauty +and refinement.'[240] In the Mabinogion of _Pwyll, Prince of Dyvet_, +which seems to be only a Brythonic treatment of an original Gaelic tale, +Pwyll seating himself on a mound where any mortal sitting might see a +prodigy, saw a fairy woman ride past on a white horse, and she clad in a +garment of shining gold. Though he tried to have his servitor on the +swiftest horse capture her, 'There was some magic about the lady that +kept her always the same distance ahead, though she appeared to be +riding slowly.' When on the second day Pwyll returned to the mound the +fairy woman came riding by as before, and the servitor again gave +unsuccessful chase. Pwyll saw her in the same manner on the third day. +He thereupon gave chase himself, and when he exclaimed to her, 'For the +sake of the man whom you love, wait for me!' she stopped; and by mutual +arrangement the two agreed to meet and to marry at the end of a +year.[241] + + +THE MINSTRELS OR MUSICIANS OF THE _SIDHE_ + +Not only did the fairy-folk of more ancient times enjoy wonderful +palaces full of beauty and riches, and a life of eternal youth, but they +also had, even as now, minstrelsy and rare music--music to which that of +our own world could not be compared at all; for even Patrick himself +said that it would equal the very music of heaven if it were not for 'a +twang of the fairy spell that infests it'.[242] And this is how it was +that Patrick heard the fairy music:--As he was travelling through +Ireland he once sat down on a grassy knoll, as he often did in the good +old Irish way, with Ulidia's king and nobles and Caeilte also: 'Nor were +they long there before they saw draw near them a _scolog_ or +"non-warrior" that wore a fair green mantle having in it a fibula of +silver; a shirt of yellow silk next his skin, over and outside that +again a tunic of soft satin, and with a _timpan_ (a sort of harp) of the +best slung on his back. "Whence comest thou, _scolog_?" asked the king. +"Out of the _sidh_ of the Daghda's son Bodhb Derg, out of Ireland's +southern part." "What moved thee out of the south, and who art thou +thyself?" "I am Cascorach, son of Cainchinn that is _ollave_ to the +Tuatha De Danann, and am myself the makings of an _ollave_ (i. e. an +aspirant to the grade). What started me was the design to acquire +knowledge, and information, and lore for recital, and the Fianna's +mighty deeds of valour, from Caeilte son of Ronan." Then he took his +_timpan_ and made for them music and minstrelsy, so that he sent them +slumbering off to sleep.' And Cascorach's music was pleasing to Patrick, +who said of it: 'Good indeed it were, but for a twang of the fairy spell +that infests it; barring which nothing could more nearly than it +resemble Heaven's harmony.'[243] And that very night which followed the +day on which the _ollave_ to the Tuatha De Danann came to them was the +Eve of _Samain_. There was also another of these fairy _timpan_-players +called 'the wondrous elfin man', 'Aillen mac Midhna of the Tuatha De +Danann, that out of _sidh_ Finnachaidh to the northward used to come to +Tara: the manner of his coming being with a musical _timpan_ in his +hand, the which whenever any heard he would at once sleep. Then, all +being lulled thus, out of his mouth Aillen would emit a blast of fire. +It was on the solemn _Samain_-Day (November Day) he came in every year, +played his _timpan_, and to the fairy music that he made all hands would +fall asleep. With his breath he used to blow up the flame and so, during +a three-and-twenty years' spell, yearly burnt up Tara with all her +gear.' And it is said that Finn, finally overcoming the magic of Aillen, +slew him.[243] + +Perhaps in the first musician, Cascorach, though he is described as the +son of a Tuatha De Danann minstrel, we behold a mortal like one of the +many Irish pipers and musicians who used to go, or even go yet, to the +fairy-folk to be educated in the musical profession, and then come back +as the most marvellous players that ever were in Ireland; though if +Cascorach were once a mortal it seems that he has been quite transformed +in bodily nature so as to be really one of the Tuatha De Danann himself. +But Aillen mac Midhna is undoubtedly one of the mighty 'gentry' who +could--as we heard from County Sligo--destroy half the human race if +they wished. Aillen visits Tara, the old psychic centre both for +Ireland's high-kings and its Druids. He comes as it were against the +conquerors of his race, who in their neglectfulness no longer render due +worship and sacrifice on the Feast of _Samain_ to the Tuatha De Danann, +the gods of the dead, at that time supreme; and then it is that he works +his magic against the royal palaces of the kings and Druids on the +ancient Hill. And to overcome the magic of Aillen and slay him, that is, +make it impossible for him to repeat his annual visits to Tara, it +required the might of the great hero Finn, who himself was related to +the same _Sidhe_ race, for by a woman of the Tuatha De Danann he had his +famous son Ossian (Oisin).[244] + +In _Gilla de_, who is Manannan mac Lir, the greatest magician of the +Tuatha De Danann, disguised as a being who can disappear in the +twinkling of an eye whenever he wishes, and reappear unexpectedly as a +'kern that wore garb of yellow stripes', we meet with another fairy +musician. And to him O'Donnell says:--'By Heaven's grace again, since +first I heard the fame of them that within the hills and under the earth +beneath us make the fairy music, ... music sweeter than thy strains I +have never heard; thou art in sooth a most melodious rogue!'[245] And +again it is said of him:--'Then the _gilla decair_ taking a harp played +music so sweet ... and the king after a momentary glance at his own +musicians never knew which way he went from him.'[246] + + +SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND WARFARE AMONG THE _SIDHE_ + +So far, we have seen only the happy side of the life of the +_Sidhe_-folk--their palaces and pleasures and music; but there was a +more human (or anthropomorphic) side to their nature in which they wage +war on one another, and have their matrimonial troubles even as we +moderns. And we turn now to examine this other side of their life, to +behold the _Sidhe_ as a warlike race; and as we do so let us remember +that the 'gentry' in the Ben Bulbin country and in all Ireland, and the +people of Finvara in Knock Ma, and also the invisible races of +California, are likewise described as given to war and mighty feats of +arms. + +The invisible Irish races have always had a very distinct social +organization, so distinct in fact that Ireland can be divided according +to its fairy kings and fairy queens and their territories even now;[247] +and no doubt we see in this how the ancient Irish anthropomorphically +projected into an animistic belief their own social conditions and +racial characteristics. And this social organization and territorial +division ought to be understood before we discuss the social troubles +and consequent wars of the _Sidhe_-folk. For example in Munster Bodb was +king and his enchanted palace was called the _Sid_ of the Men of +Femen;[248] and we already know about the over-king Dagda and his Boyne +palace near Tara. In more modern times, especially in popular +fairy-traditions, Eevil or Eevinn (_Aoibhill_ or _Aoibhinn_) of the +_Craig Liath_ or Grey Rock is a queen of the Munster fairies;[249] and +Finvara is king of the Connaught fairies (see p. 42). There are also the +Irish fairy-queens Cleeona (_Cliodhna_, or in an earlier form _Clidna_ +[cf. p. 356]) and Aine (see p. 79 above). + +We are now prepared to see the Tuatha De Danann in their domestic +troubles and wars; and the following story is as interesting as any, for +in it Dagda himself is the chief actor. Once when his own son Oengus +fell sick of a love malady, King Dagda, who ruled all the _Sidhe_-folk +in Ireland, joined forces with Ailill and Medb in order to compel Ethal +Anbual to deliver up his beautiful daughter Caer whom Oengus loved. When +Ethal Anbual's palace had been stormed and Ethal Anbual reduced to +submission, he declared he had no power over his daughter Caer, for on +the first of November each year, he said, she changed to a swan, or from +a swan to a maiden again. 'The first of November next,' he added, 'my +daughter will be under the form of a swan, near the Loch bel Draccon. +Marvellous birds will be seen there: my daughter will be surrounded by a +hundred and fifty other swans.' When the November Day arrived, Oengus +went to the lake, and, seeing the swans and recognizing Caer, plunged +into the water and instantly became a swan with her. While under the +form of swans, Oengus and Caer went together to the Boyne palace of the +king Dagda, his father, and remained there; and their singing was so +sweet that all who heard it slept three days and three nights.[250] In +this story, new elements in the nature of the _Sidhe_ appear, though +like modern ones: the _Sidhe_ are able to assume other forms than their +own, are subject to enchantments like mortals; and when under the form +of swans are in some perhaps superficial aspects like the swan-maidens +in stories which are world-wide, and their swan-song has the same +sweetness and magical effect as in other countries.[251] + +In the Rennes _Dinnshenchas_ there is a tale about a war among the 'men +of the Elfmounds' over 'two lovable maidens who dwelt in the elfmound', +and when they delivered the battle 'they all shaped themselves into the +shapes of deer'.[252] Midir's sons under Donn mac Midir, in rebellion +against the Daghda's son Bodh Derg, fled away to an obscure _sidh_, +where in yearly battle they met the hosts of the other Tuatha De Danann +under Bodh Derg; and it was into this _sidh_ or fairy palace on the very +eve before the annual contest that Finn and his six companions were +enticed by the fairy woman in the form of a fawn, to secure their +aid.[253] And in another tale, Laeghaire, son of the king of Connaught, +with fifty warriors, plunged into a lake to the fairy world beneath it, +in order to assist the fairy man, who came thence to them, to recover +his wife stolen by a rival.[253] + + +THE _SIDHE_ AS WAR-GODDESSES OR THE _BADB_ + +It is in the form of birds that certain of the Tuatha De Danann appear +as war-goddesses and directors of battle,[254]--and we learn from one of +our witnesses (p. 46) that the 'gentry' or modern _Sidhe_-folk take +sides even now in a great war, like that between Japan and Russia. It is +in their relation to the hero Cuchulainn that one can best study the +People of the Goddess Dana in their role as controllers of human war. In +the greatest of the Irish epics, the _Tain Bo Cuailnge_, where +Cuchulainn is under their influence, these war-goddesses are called +_Badb_[255] (or _Bodb_) which here seems to be a collective term for +_Neman_, _Macha_, and _Morrigu_ (or _Morrigan_)[256]--each of whom +exercises a particular supernatural power. _Neman_ appears as the +confounder of armies, so that friendly bands, bereft of their senses by +her, slaughter one another; _Macha_ is a fury that riots and revels +among the slain; while _Morrigu_, the greatest of the three, by her +presence infuses superhuman valour into Cuchulainn, nerves him for the +cast, and guides the course of his unerring spear. And the Tuatha De +Danann in infusing this valour into the great hero show themselves--as +we already know them to be on _Samain_ Eve--the rulers of all sorts of +demons of the air and awful spirits:--In the _Book of Leinster_ (fol. +57, B 2) it is recorded that 'the satyrs, and sprites, and maniacs of +the valleys, and demons of the air, shouted about him, for the Tuatha De +Danann were wont to impart their valour to him, in order that he might +be more feared, more dreaded, more terrible, in every battle and +battle-field, in every combat and conflict, into which he went.' + +The Battles of Moytura seem in most ways to be nothing more than the +traditional record of a long warfare to determine the future spiritual +control of Ireland, carried on between two diametrically opposed orders +of invisible beings, the Tuatha De Danann representing the gods of light +and good and the Fomorians representing the gods of darkness and evil. +It is said that after the second of these battles 'The _Morrigu_, +daughter of Ernmas (the Irish war-goddess), proceeded to proclaim that +battle and the mighty victory which had taken place, to the royal +heights of Ireland and to its fairy host and its chief waters and its +river-mouths'.[257] For good had prevailed over evil, and it was settled +that all Ireland should for ever afterwards be a sacred country ruled +over by the People of the Goddess Dana and the Sons of Mil jointly. So +that here we see the Tuatha De Danann with their war-goddess fighting +their own battles in which human beings play no part. + +It is interesting to observe that this Irish war-goddess, the _bodb_ or +_badb_, considered of old to be one of the Tuatha De Danann, has +survived to our own day in the fairy-lore of the chief Celtic countries. +In Ireland the survival is best seen in the popular and still almost +general belief among the peasantry that the fairies often exercise their +magical powers under the form of royston-crows; and for this reason +these birds are always greatly dreaded and avoided. The resting of one +of them on a peasant's cottage may signify many things, but often it +means the death of one of the family or some great misfortune, the bird +in such a case playing the part of a _bean-sidhe_ (banshee). And this +folk-belief finds its echo in the recorded tales of Wales, Scotland, and +Brittany. In the _Mabinogi_, 'Dream of Rhonabwy,' Owain, prince of +Rheged and a contemporary of Arthur, has a wonderful crow which always +secures him victory in battle by the aid of three hundred other crows +under its leadership. In Campbell's _Popular Tales of the West +Highlands_ the fairies very often exercise their power in the form of +the common hoody crow; and in Brittany there is a folk-tale entitled +'_Les Compagnons_'[258] in which the chief actor is a fairy under the +form of a magpie who lives in a royal forest just outside Rennes.[259] + +W. M. Hennessy has shown that the word _bodb_ or _badb_, aspirated +_bodhbh_ or _badhbh_ (pronounced _bov_ or _bav_), originally signified +rage, fury, or violence, and ultimately implied a witch, fairy, or +goddess; and that as the memory of this Irish goddess of war survives in +folk-lore, her emblem is the well-known scald-crow, or royston-crow.[260] +By referring to Peter O'Connell's _Irish Dictionary_ we are able to +confirm this popular belief which identifies the battle-fairies with the +royston-crow, and to discover that there is a definite relationship or +even identification between the _Badb_ and the _Bean-sidhe_ or banshee, as +there is in modern Irish folk-lore between the royston-crow and the fairy +who announces a death. _Badb-catha_ is made to equal 'Fionog, a +royston-crow, a squall crow'; _Badb_ is defined as a '_bean-sidhe_, a +female fairy, phantom, or spectre, supposed to be attached to certain +families, and to appear sometimes in the form of squall-crows, or +royston-crows'; and the _Badb_ in the three-fold aspect is thus explained: +'_Macha_, i. e. a royston-crow; _Morrighain_, i. e. the great fairy; +_Neamhan_, i. e. _Badb catha no feannog; a badb catha_, or royston-crow.' +Similar explanations are given by other glossarists, and thus the evidence +of etymological scholarship as well as that of folk-lore support the +Psychological Theory. + + +THE _SIDHE_ IN THE BATTLE OF CLONTARF, A. D. 1014 + +The People of the Goddess Dana played an important part in human warfare +even so late as the Battle of Clontarf, fought near Dublin, April 23, +1014; and at that time fairy women and phantom-hosts were to the Irish +unquestionable existences, as real as ordinary men and women. It is +recorded in the manuscript story of the battle, of which numerous copies +exist, that the fairy woman Aoibheall[261] came to Dunlang O'Hartigan +before the battle and begged him not to fight, promising him life and +happiness for two hundred years if he would put off fighting for a +single day; but the patriotic Irishman expressed his decision to fight +for Ireland, and then the fairy woman foretold how he and his friend +Murrough, and Brian and Conaing and all the nobles of Erin and even his +own son Turlough, were fated to fall in the conflict. + +On the eve of the battle, Dunlang comes to his friend Murrough directly +from the fairy woman; and Murrough upon seeing him reproaches him for +his absence in these words:--'Great must be the love and attachment of +some woman for thee which has induced thee to abandon me.' 'Alas O +King,' answered Dunlang, 'the delight which I have abandoned for thee is +greater, if thou didst but know it, namely, life without death, without +cold, without thirst, without hunger, without decay, beyond any delight +of the delights of the earth to me, until the judgement, and heaven +after the judgement; and if I had not pledged my word to thee I would +not have come here; and, moreover, it is fated for me to die on the day +that thou shalt die.' When Murrough has heard this terrible message, the +prophecy of his own death in the battle, despondency seizes him; and +then it is that he declares that he for Ireland like Dunlang for honour +has also sacrificed the opportunity of entering and living in that +wonderful Land of Eternal Youth:--'Often was I offered in hills, and in +fairy mansions, this world (the fairy world) and these gifts, but I +never abandoned for one night my country nor mine inheritance for +them.'[262] + +And thus is described the meeting of the two armies at Clontarf, and the +demons of the air and the phantoms, and all the hosts of the invisible +world who were assembled to scatter confusion and to revel in the +bloodshed, and how above them in supremacy rose the _Badb_:--'It will be +one of the wonders of the day of judgement to relate the description of +this tremendous onset. There arose a wild, impetuous, precipitate, mad, +inexorable, furious, dark, lacerating, merciless, combative, contentious +_badb_, which was shrieking and fluttering over their heads. And there +arose also the satyrs, and sprites, and the maniacs of the valleys, and +the witches, and goblins, and owls, and destroying demons of the air and +firmament, and the demoniac phantom host; and they were inciting and +sustaining valour and battle with them.'[263] It is said of Murrough +(_Murchadh_) as he entered the thick of the fight and prepared to assail +the foreign invaders, the Danes, when they had repulsed the Dal-Cais, +that 'he was seized with a boiling terrible anger, an excessive +elevation and greatness of spirit and mind. A bird of valour and +championship rose in him, and fluttered over his head and on his +breath'.[264] + + +CONCLUSION + +The recorded or manuscript Fairy-Faith of the Gaels corresponds in all +essentials with the living Gaelic Fairy-Faith: the Tuatha De Danann or +_Sidhe_, the 'Gentry', the 'Good People', and the 'People of Peace' are +described as a race of invisible divine beings eternally young and +unfading. They inhabit fairy palaces, enjoy rare feasts and love-making, +and have their own music and minstrelsy. They are essentially majestic +in their nature; they wage war in their own invisible realm against +other of its inhabitants like the ancient Fomorians; they frequently +direct human warfare or nerve the arm of a great hero like Cuchulainn; +and demons of the air, spirit hosts, and awful unseen creatures obey +them. Mythologically they are gods of light and good, able to control +natural phenomena so as to make harvests come forth abundantly or not at +all. But they are not such mythological beings as we read about in +scholarly dissertations on mythology, dissertations so learned in their +curious and unreasonable and often unintelligible hypotheses about the +workings of the mind among primitive men. The way in which social +psychology has deeply affected all such animistic beliefs was pointed +out above in chapter iii. In chapter xi, entitled _Science and Fairies_, +our position with respect to the essential nature of the fairy races +will be made clear. + + + + +SECTION II + +THE RECORDED FAIRY-FAITH + + + + +CHAPTER V + +BRYTHONIC DIVINITIES AND THE BRYTHONIC FAIRY-FAITH[265] + + 'On the one hand we have the man Arthur, whose position we have + tried to define, and on the other a greater Arthur, a more colossal + figure, of which we have, so to speak, but a _torso_ rescued from + the wreck of the Celtic pantheon.'--The Right Hon. Sir JOHN + RHYS. + + The god Arthur and the hero Arthur--Sevenfold evidence to show + Arthur as an incarnate fairy king--Lancelot the foster-son of a + fairy woman--Galahad the offspring of Lancelot and the fairy woman + Elayne--Arthur as a fairy king in _Kulhwch and Olwen_--Gwynn ab + Nudd--Arthur like Dagda, and like Osiris--Brythonic fairy-romances: + their evolution and antiquity--Arthur in Nennius, Geoffrey, Wace, + and in Layamon--Cambrensis' Otherworld tale--Norman-French writers + of twelfth and thirteenth centuries--_Romans d'Aventure_ and + _Romans Bretons_--Origins of the 'Matter of Britain'--Fairy-romance + episodes in Welsh literature--Brythonic origins. + + +ARTHUR AND ARTHURIAN MYTHOLOGY + +As we have just considered the Gaelic Divinities in their character as +the Fairy-Folk of popular Gaelic tradition, so now we proceed to +consider the Brythonic Divinities in the same way, beginning with the +greatest of them all, Arthur. Even a superficial acquaintance with the +Arthurian Legend shows how impossible it is to place upon it any one +interpretation to the exclusion of other interpretations, for in one +aspect Arthur is a Brythonic divinity and in another a sixth-century +Brythonic chieftain. But the explanation of this double aspect seems +easy enough when we regard the historical Arthur as a great hero, who, +exactly as in so many parallel cases of national hero-worship, +came--within a comparatively short time--to be enshrined in the +imagination of the patriotic Brythons with all the attributes anciently +belonging to a great Celtic god called Arthur.[266] The hero and the god +were first confused, and then identified,[267] and hence arose that +wonderful body of romance which we call Arthurian, and which has become +the glory of English literature. + +Arthur in the character of a culture hero,[268] with god-like powers to +instruct mortals in wisdom, and, also, as a being in some way related to +the sun--as a sun-god perhaps--can well be considered the human-divine +institutor of the mystic brotherhood known as the Round Table. We ought, +probably, to consider Arthur, like Cuchulainn, as a god incarnate in a +human body for the purpose of educating the race of men; and thus, while +living as a man, related definitely and, apparently, consciously to the +invisible gods or fairy-folk. Among the Aztecs and Peruvians in the New +World, there was a widespread belief that great heroes who had once been +men have now their celestial abode in the sun, and from time to time +reincarnate to become teachers of their less developed brethren of our +own race; and a belief of the same character existed among the Egyptians +and other peoples of the Old World, including the Celts. It will be +further shown, in our study of the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth, that +anciently among the Gaels and Brythons such heroes as Cuchulainn and +Arthur were also considered reincarnate sun-divinities. As a being +related to the sun, as a sun-god, Arthur is like Osiris, the Great +Being, who with his brotherhood of great heroes and god-companions +enters daily the underworld or Hades to battle against the demons and +forces of evil,[269] even as the Tuatha De Danann battled against the +Fomors. And the most important things in the traditions of the great +Brythonic hero connect him directly with this strange world of +subjectivity. First of all, his own father, Uthr Bendragon,[270] was a +king of Hades, so that Arthur himself, being his child, is a direct +descendant of this Otherworld. Second, the Arthurian Legend traces the +origin of the Round Table back to Arthur's father, Hades being 'the +realm whence all culture was fabled to have been derived'.[271] Third, +the name of Arthur's wife, Gwenhwyvar, resolves itself into White +Phantom or White Apparition, in harmony with Arthur's line of descent +from the region of phantoms and apparitions and fairy-folk. +Thus:--_Gwenhwyvar_ or _Gwenhwyfar_ equals _Gwen_ or _Gwenn_, a +Brythonic word meaning white, and _hwyvar_, a word not found in the +Brythonic dialects, but undoubtedly cognate with the Irish word +_siabhradh_, a fairy, equal to _siabhra_, _siabrae_, _siabur_, a fairy, +or ghost, the Welsh and the Irish word going back to the form +_*seibaro_.[272] Hence the name of Arthur's wife means the _white ghost_ +or _white phantom_, quite in keeping with the nature of the Tuatha De +Danann and that of the fairy-folk of Wales or _Tylwyth Teg_--the 'Fair +Family'. + +Fourth, as a link in the chain of evidence connecting Arthur with the +invisible world where the Fairy-People live, his own sister is called +_Morgan le Fay_ in the romances,[273] and is thus definitely one of the +fairy women who, according to tradition, are inhabitants of the Celtic +Otherworld sometimes known as Avalon. Fifth, in the Welsh Triads,[274] +Llacheu, the son of Arthur and Gwenhwyvar, is credited with clairvoyant +vision, like the fairy-folk, so that he understands the secret nature of +all solid and material things; and 'the story of his death as given in +the second part of the Welsh version of the Grail, makes him hardly +human at all.'[275] Sixth, the name of Melwas, the abductor of Arthur's +wife, is shown by Sir John Rhys to mean a prince-youth or a princely +youth, and the same authority considers it probable that, as such, +Melwas or Maelwas was a being endowed with eternal youth,--even as +Midir, the King of the Tuatha De Danann, who though a thousand years old +appeared handsome and youthful. So it seems that the abduction of +Gwenhwyfar was really a fairy abduction, such as we read about in the +domestic troubles of the Irish fairy-folk, on a level with the abduction +of Etain by her Otherworld husband Midir.[276] And in keeping with this +superhuman character of the abductor of the White Phantom or Fairy, +Chretien de Troyes, in his metrical romance _Le Conte de la Charrette_, +describes the realm of which Melwas was lord as a place whence no +traveller returns.[277] As further proof that the realm of Melwas was +meant by Chretien to be the subjective world, where the god-like Tuatha +De Danann, the _Tylwyth Teg_, and the shades of the dead equally exist, +it is said that access to it was by two narrow bridges; 'one called _li +Ponz Evages_ or the Water Bridge, because it was a narrow passage a foot +and a half wide and as much in height, with water above and below it as +well as on both sides'; the other _li Ponz de l'Espee_ or the Sword +Bridge, because it consisted of the edge of a sword two lances in +length.[278] The first bridge, considered less perilous than the other, +was chosen by Gauvain (Gwalchmei), when with Lancelot he was seeking to +rescue Gwenhwyfar; but he failed to cross it. Lancelot with great +trouble crossed the second. In many mythologies and in world-wide +folk-tales there is a narrow bridge or bridges leading to the realm of +the dead. Even Mohammed in the _Koran_ declares it necessary to cross a +bridge as thin as a hair, if one would enter Paradise. And in living +folk-lore in Celtic countries, as we found among the Irish peasantry, +the crossing of a bridge or stream of water when pursued by fairies or +phantoms is a guarantee of protection. There is always the mystic water +between the realm of the living and the realm of subjectivity.[279] In +ancient Egypt there was always the last voyage begun on the sacred Nile; +and in all classical literature Pluto's realm is entered by crossing a +dark, deep river,--the river of forgetfulness between physical +consciousness and spiritual consciousness. Burns has expressed this +belief in its popular form in his _Tam O'Shanter_. And in our Arthurian +parallel there is a clear enough relation between the beings inhabiting +the invisible realm and the Brythonic heroes and gods. How striking, +too, as Gaston Paris has pointed out, is the similarity between Melwas' +capturing Gwenhwyvar as she was in the woods a-maying, and the rape of +Proserpine by Pluto, the god of Hades, while she was collecting flowers +in the fields.[280] + +A curious matter in connexion with this episode of Gwenhwyvar's +abduction should claim our attention. Malory relates[281] that when +Queen Guenever advised her knights of the Table Round that on the morrow +(May Day, when fairies have special powers) she would go on maying, she +warned them all to be well-horsed and _dressed in green_. This was the +colour that nearly all the fairy-folk of Britain and Ireland wear. It +symbolizes, as many ancient mystical writings declare, eternal youth, +and resurrection or re-birth, as in nature during the springtime, when +all vegetation after its death-sleep of winter springs into new +life.[282] In the _Myvyrian Archaiology_,[283] Arthur when he has +reached the realm of Melwas speaks with Gwenhwyvar,[284] he being on a +black horse and she on a green one:--'Green is my steed of the tint of +the leaves.' Arthur's black horse--black perhaps signifying the dead to +whose realm he has gone--being proof against all water, may have been, +therefore, proof against the inhabitants of the world of shades and +against fairies:-- + + Black is my steed and brave beneath me, + No water will make him fear, + And no man will make him swerve. + +The fairy colour, in different works and among different authors +differing both in time and country, continues to attach itself to the +abduction episode. Thus, in the fourteenth century the poet D. ab Gwilym +alludes to Melwas himself as having a cloak of green:--'The sleep of +Melwas beneath (or in) the green cloak.' Sir John Rhys, who makes +this translation, observes that another reading still of _y glas glog_ +resolves it into a green bower to which Melwas took Gwenhwyvar.[285] In +any case, the reference is significant, and goes far, in combination +with the other references, to represent the White Phantom or Fairy and +her lover Melwas as beings of a race like the Irish _Sidhe_ or People of +the Goddess Dana. And though by no means exhausting all examples tending +to prove this point, we pass on to the seventh and most important of our +links in the sequence of evidence, the carrying of Arthur to Avalon in a +fairy ship by fairy women. + +From the first, Arthur was under superhuman guidance and protection. +Merlin the magician, born of a spirit or daemon, claimed Arthur before +birth and became his teacher afterwards. From the mysterious Lady of the +Lake, Arthur received his magic sword _Excalibur_,[286] and to her +returned it, through Sir Bedivere. During all his time on earth the +'lady of the lake that was always friendly to King Arthur'[287] watched +over him; and once when she saw him in great danger, like the Irish +_Morrigu_ who presided over the career of Cuchulainn, she sought to save +him, and with the help of Sir Tristram succeeded.[287] The passing of +Arthur to Avalon or Faerie seems to be a return to his own native realm +of subjectivity. His own sister was with him in the ship, for she was of +the invisible country too.[288] And another of his companions on his +voyage from the visible to the invisible was his life-guardian Nimue, +the lady of the lake. Merlin could not be of the company, for he was +already in Faerie with the Fay Vivian. Behold the passing of Arthur as +Malory describes it:--'... thus was he led away in a ship wherein were +three queens; that one was King Arthur's sister, Queen Morgan le Fay; +the other was the Queen of Northgalis; the third was the Queen of the +Waste Lands. Also there was Nimue, the chief lady of the lake, that had +wedded Pelleas the good knight; and this lady had done much for King +Arthur, for she would never suffer Sir Pelleas to be in no place where +he should be in danger of his life.'[289] Concerning the great Arthur's +return from Avalon we shall speak in the chapter dealing with Re-birth. +And we pass now from Arthur and his Brotherhood of gods and fairy-folk +to Lancelot and his son Galahad--the two chief knights in the Arthurian +Romance. + +According to one of the earliest accounts we have of Lancelot, the +German poem by Ulrich von Zatzikhoven, as analysed by Gaston Paris, he +was the son of King Pant and Queen Clarine of Genewis.[290] In +consequence of the hatred of their subjects the royal pair were forced +to flee when Lancelot was only a year old. During the flight, the king, +mortally wounded, died; and just as the queen was about to be taken +captive, a fairy rising in a cloud of mist carried away the infant +Lancelot from where his parents had placed him under a tree. The fairy +took him to her abode on an island in the midst of the sea, from whence +she derived her title of Lady of the Lake, and he, as her adopted son, +the name of _Lancelot du Lac_; and her island-world was called the Land +of Maidens. Having lived in that world of Faerie so long, it was only +natural that Lancelot should have grown up more like one of its +fair-folk than like a mortal. No doubt it was on account of his +half-supernatural nature that he fell in love with the White Phantom, +Gwenhwyvar, the wife of the king who had power to enter Hades and return +again to the land of the living. Who better than Lancelot could have +rescued Arthur's queen? No one else in the court was so well fitted for +the task. And it was he who was able to cross one of the magic bridges +into the realm of Melwas, the Otherworld, while Gauvain (in the English +form, Gawayne) failed. + +Malory's narrative records how Lancelot, while suffering from the malady +of madness caused by Gwenhwyvar's jealous expulsion of Elayne his +fairy-sweetheart,--quite a parallel case to that of Cuchulainn when his +wife Emer expelled his fairy-mistress Fand,--fought against a wild boar +and was terribly wounded, and how afterwards he was nursed by his own +Elayne in Fairyland, and healed and restored to his right mind by the +Sangreal. Then Sir Ector and Sir Perceval found him there in the Joyous +Isle enjoying the companionship of Elayne, where he had been many years, +and from that world of Faerie induced him to return to Arthur's court. +And, finally, comes the most important element of all to show how +closely related Lancelot is with the fairy world and its people, and how +inseparable from that invisible realm another of the fundamental +elements in the life of Arthur is--the Quest of the Holy Grail, and the +story of Galahad, who of all the knights was pure and good enough to +behold the Sacred Vessel, and who was the offspring of the foster-son of +the Lady of the Lake and the fairy woman Elayne.[291] + +In the strange old Welsh tale of _Kulhwch and Olwen_ we find Arthur and +his knights even more closely identified with the fairy realm than in +Malory and the Norman-French writers; and this is important, because the +ancient tale is, as scholars think, probably much freer from foreign +influences and re-working than the better-known romances of Arthur, and +therefore more in accord with genuine Celtic beliefs and folk-lore, as +we shall quickly see. The court of King Arthur to which the youth +Kulhwch goes seeking aid in his enterprise seems in some ways--though +the parallel is not complete enough to be emphasized--to be a more +artistic, because literary, picture of that fairy court which the Celtic +peasant locates under mountains, in caverns, in hills, and in knolls, a +court quite comparable to that of the Irish _Sidhe_-folk or Tuatha De +Danann. Arthur is represented in the midst of a brilliant life where, as +in the fairy palaces, there is much feasting; and Kulhwch being invited +to the feasting says, 'I came not here to consume meat and drink.' + +And behold what sort of personages from that court Kulhwch has pledged +to him, so that by their supernatural assistance he may obtain Olwen, +herself perhaps a fairy held under fairy enchantment[292]: the sons of +Gwawrddur Kyrvach, whom Arthur had power to call from the confines of +hell; Morvran the son of Tegid, who, because of his ugliness, was +thought to be a demon; Sandde Bryd Angel, who was so beautiful that +mortals thought him a ministering angel; Henbedestyr, with whom no one +could keep pace 'either on horseback, or on foot', and who therefore +seems to be a spirit of the air; Henwas Adeinawg, with whom 'no +four-footed beast could run the distance of an acre, much less go beyond +it'; Sgilti Yscawndroed, who must have been another spirit or fairy, for +'when he intended to go on a message for his Lord (Arthur, who is like a +Tuatha De Danann king), he never sought to find a path, but knowing +whither he was to go, if his way lay through a wood he went along the +tops of the trees', and 'during his whole life, a blade of reed-grass +bent not beneath his feet, much less did one ever break, so lightly did +he tread'; Gwallgoyc, who 'when he came to a town, though there were +three hundred houses in it, if he wanted anything, he would not let +sleep come to the eyes of any whilst he remained there'; Osla +Gyllellvawr, who bore a short broad dagger, and 'when Arthur and his +hosts came before a torrent, they would seek for a narrow place where +they might pass the water, and would lay the sheathed dagger across the +torrent, and it would form a bridge sufficient for the armies of the +three Islands of Britain, and of the three islands adjacent, with their +spoil.' It seems very evident that this is the magic bridge, so often +typified by a sword or dagger, which connects the world invisible with +our own, and over which all shades and spirits pass freely to and fro. +In this case we think Arthur is very clearly a ruler of the spirit +realm, for, like the great Tuatha De Danann king Dagda, he can command +its fairy-like inhabitants, and his army is an army of spirits or +fairies. The unknown author of _Kulhwch_, like Spenser in modern times +in his _Faerie Queene_, seems to have made the Island of Britain the +realm of Faerie--the Celtic Otherworld--and Arthur its king. But let us +take a look at more of the men pledged to Kulhwch from among Arthur's +followers: Clust the son of Clustveinad, who possessed clairaudient +faculties of so extraordinary a kind that 'though he were buried seven +cubits beneath the earth, he would hear the ant fifty miles off rise +from her nest in the morning'; and the wonderful Kai, who could live +nine days and nine nights under water, for his breath lasted this long, +and he could exist the same length of time without sleep. 'A wound from +Kai's sword no physician could heal.' And at will he was as tall as the +highest tree in the forest. 'And he had another peculiarity: so great +was the heat of his nature, that, when it rained hardest, whatever he +carried remained dry for a handbreadth above and a handbreadth below his +hand; and when his companions were coldest, it was to them as fuel with +which to light their fire.' + +Yet besides all these strange knights, Arthur commanded a being who is +without any reasonable doubt a god or ruler of the subjective +realm--'Gwynn ab Nudd, whom God has placed over the brood of devils in +Annwn, lest they should destroy the present race. He will never be +spared thence.' Whatever each one of us may think of this wonderful +assembly of warriors and heroes who recognized in Arthur their chief, +they are certainly not beings of the ordinary type,--in fact they seem +not of this world, but of that hidden land to which we all shall one day +journey.[293] But to avoid too much conjecture and to speak with a +degree of scientific exactness as to how Arthur and these companions of +his are to be considered, let us undertake a brief investigation into +the mythological character and nature of the chief one of them next to +the great hero--Gwynn ab Nudd. Professor J. Loth has said that 'nothing +shows better the evolution of mythological personages than the history +of Gwynn';[294] and in Irish we have the equivalent form of Nudd in the +name Nuada--famous for having had a hand of silver; and Nuada of the +Silver Hand was a king of the Tuatha De Danann. The same authority thus +describes Gwynn, the son of Nudd:--'Gwynn, like his father Nudd, is an +ancient god of the Britons and of the Gaels. Christian priests have made +of him a demon. The people persisted in regarding him as a powerful and +rich king, the sovereign of supernatural beings.'[295] And referring to +Gwynn, Professor Loth in his early edition of _Kulhwch_ says:--'Our +author has had an original idea: he has left him in hell, to which place +Christianity had made him descend, but for a motive which does him the +greatest honour: God has given him the strength of demons to control +them and to prevent them from destroying the present race of men: he is +indispensable down there.'[295] Lady Guest calls Gwynn the King of +Faerie,[296] the ruler of the _Tylwyth Teg_ or 'Family of Beauty', who +are always joyful and well-disposed toward mortals; and also the ruler +of the Elves (Welsh _Ellyllon_), a goblin race who take special delight +in misleading travellers and in playing mischievous tricks on men. It is +even said that Gwynn himself is given to indulging in the same +mischievous amusements as his elvish subjects. + +The evidence now set forth seems to suggest clearly and even definitely +that Arthur in his true nature is a god of the subjective world, a ruler +of ghosts, demons, and demon rulers, and fairies; that the people of his +court are more like the Irish _Sidhe_-folk than like mortals; and that +as a great king he is comparable to Dagda the over-king of all the +Tuatha De Danann. Arthur and Osiris, two culture heroes and sun-gods, as +we suggested at first, are strikingly parallel. Osiris came from the +Otherworld to this one, became the first Divine Ruler and Culture Hero +of Egypt, and then returned to the Otherworld, where he is now a king. +Arthur's father was a ruler in the Otherworld, and Arthur evidently came +from there to be the Supreme Champion of the Brythons, and then returned +to that realm whence he took his origin, a realm which poets called +Avalon. The passing of Arthur seems mystically to represent the sunset +over the Western Ocean: Arthur disappears beneath the horizon into the +Lower World which is also the Halls of Osiris, wherein Osiris journeys +between sunset and sunrise, between death and re-birth. Merlin found the +infant Arthur floating on the waves: the sun rising across the waters is +this birth of Arthur, the birth of Osiris. In the chapter on Re-birth, +evidence will be offered to show that as a culture hero Arthur is to be +regarded as a sun-god incarnate in a human body to teach the Brythons +arts and sciences and hidden things--even as Prometheus and Zeus are +said to have come to earth to teach the Greeks; and that as a +sixth-century warrior, Arthur, in accordance with the Celtic Doctrine of +Re-birth, is an ancient Brythonic hero reincarnate. + + +THE LITERARY EVOLUTION AND THE ANTIQUITY OF THE BRYTHONIC FAIRY-ROMANCES + +After the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, the ancient fairy-romances +of the Brythons began to exercise their remarkable literary influence as +we see it now in the evolution of the Arthurian Legend. And in this +evolution of the Arthurian Legend we find the proof of the antiquity of +the Brythonic Fairy-Faith, just as we find in the old Irish manuscripts +the proof of the antiquity of the Gaelic Fairy-Faith. + +Long before 1066, Gildas gives the first recorded germs of the Arthurian +story in his _De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae_, though they are +hardly distinguishable as such. His failure to mention the name of +Arthur, though treating of the whole period when Arthur is supposed to +have lived, he himself being contemporary with the period, raises the +very difficult question which we have already mentioned, Did the mighty +Brythonic hero ever have an actual historical existence? Almost three +hundred years later--a period sufficiently removed from Gildas to have +made Arthur the supreme champion of the falling Brythons, granting that +he did exist during the sixth century as a Brythonic chieftain--in the +_Historia Britonum_, completed about the year 800, and attributed to +Nennius, Arthur, for the first time in a known manuscript, is mentioned +as a character of British history.[297] All that can be definitely said +of the narrative of Nennius 'is that it represents more or less +inconsistent British traditions of uncertain age'.[297] That it is not +always historical, many scholars are agreed. Dr. R. H. Fletcher says, +'There is always the possibility that Arthur never existed at all, and +that even Nennius's comparatively modest eulogy has no firmer foundation +than the persistent stories of ancient Celtic myth or the patriotic +figments of the ardent Celtic imagination.'[298] Sir John Rhys also +propounds a similar view.[299] Thus, for example, Nennius states that +Arthur in one battle slew single handed more than nine hundred men; and, +again, that the number of Arthur's always-successful battles was twelve, +as though Arthur were the sun or a sun-god, and his battles the twelve +months of the solar year.[298] + +Between Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth there is an intermediate stage +in the development of the Arthurian Legend, during which the character +of Arthur tends to become more romantic; but for our purpose this period +is of slight importance. Thereafter, by means of Geoffrey's famous +_Historia Regum Britanniae_, written about 1136, the Arthurian Legend +gained popularity throughout Western Europe. In this work Arthur ceases +to be purely historical, and appears as a great king enveloped in the +mythical atmosphere of a Celtic hero, and with him Merlin and Lear are +for the first time definitely enshrined in the literature of +Britain.[300] Arthur's career is completely sketched in the _Historia_, +from birth to his mysterious departure for the Isle of Avalon after the +last fight with Modred, when fairy women take him to cure him of his +wounds (Book XI, 1-2). Geoffrey, thus the father of the Arthurian Legend +in English and European literature, was undoubtedly a Welshman who +probably had natural opportunities of knowing the true character of +Arthur from genuine Brythonic sources, though we know little about his +life. His _Historia_, as the researches of scholars have shown, was the +sum total in his time of all Arthurian history and myth, whether written +or orally transmitted, which he could collect; just as Malory's _Le +Morte d'Arthur_ was a compendium of Arthurian material in the time of +Edward IV. + +There followed many imitations and translations of the _Historia_. The +most important of these appeared in 1155, _Le Roman de Brut_ or 'The +Story of Brutus', by the Norman poet Wace. The _Brut_, though +fundamentally a rimed version of the _Historia_, is much more than a +mere translation: Wace has improved on it; and he gives a convincing +impression that he had access to Celtic Arthurian stories not drawn upon +by Geoffrey, for he gives new touches about Gawain, mentions the +Britons' expectation of Arthur's return from Faerie, and the institution +of the Round Table.[301] + +Somewhere about the year 1200, Layamon, a simple-hearted Saxon priest, +wrote another _Brut_, based upon the metrical one by Wace; and in the +literature of England, Layamon's work is the most valuable single +production between the Conquest and Chaucer. The life of Layamon is very +obscure, but it seems reasonably certain that for a long time he lived +on the Welsh marches in North Worcestershire, in the midst of living +Brythonic traditions, which he used at first hand; and, as a result, we +find in his _Brut_ legends not recorded in Geoffrey, or Wace, or in any +earlier or contemporary literature. For our purposes the most +interesting of many interesting additions made by Layamon are the +curious passages about the fairy elves at Arthur's birth, and about the +way in which Arthur was taken by them to their queen Argante in Avalon +to be cured of his wounds:--'The time came that was chosen, then was +Arthur born. So soon as he came on earth elves took him; they enchanted +the child into magic most strong; they gave him might to be the best of +all knights; they gave him another thing, that he should be a rich king; +they gave him the third, that he should live long; they gave to him the +prince virtues most good, so that he was most generous of all men alive. +This the elves gave him, and thus the child thrived.'[302] + +In the last fatal battle Modred is slain and Arthur is grievously +wounded. As Arthur lies wounded, Constantine, Cador's son, the earl of +Cornwall, and a relative of Arthur, comes to him. Arthur greets him with +these words:--'"Constantine, thou art welcome; thou wert Cador's son. I +give thee here my kingdom.... And I will fare to Avalun, to the fairest +of all maidens, to Argante the queen, and elf most fair, and she shall +make my wounds all sound; make me all whole with healing draughts. And +afterwards I will come [again] to my kingdom, and dwell with the Britons +with mickle joy." Even with the words, there approached from the sea +that was, a short boat, floating with the waves; and two women therein, +wondrously formed; and they took Arthur anon, and bare him quickly, and +laid him softly down, and forth gan depart. Then it was accomplished +that Merlin whilom said, that mickle care (sorrow) should be of Arthur's +departure. The Britons believe that he is alive, and dwelleth in Avalun +with the fairest of all elves; and the Britons even yet expect when +Arthur shall return.'[303] + +During this same period, Giraldus Cambrensis (1147-1223) in his +_Itinerarium Cambriae_ (Book I, c. 8) collected a popular Otherworld +tale. It is about a priest named Elidorus, who when a boy in Gower, the +western district of Glamorganshire, had free passage between this world +of ours and an underground country inhabited by a race of little people +who spoke a language like Greek. This tends to prove that the +Fairy-Faith was then flourishing among the people of Wales. + +It was chiefly during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that the +Arthurian Legend as a thing of literature began to take definite shape. +The old romances of the Brythons were cultivated and revised, and +written down by men and women of literary genius. Chretien de Troyes, +who recorded a large number of legendary stories in verse, Marie de +France, famous for her _Lais_, Thomas, the author of the chief version +of the _Tristan_ legend,[304] Beroul, who recorded a less important +version of this legend,[305] and Robert de Boron, who did much to +develop the legend of the Holy Grail, were among the greatest workers in +the French Celtic Revival of this time. + +Professor Brown has shown that 'almost every incident in Chretien's +_Iwain_ was suggested by an ancient Celtic tale, dealing with the +familiar theme of a journey to win a fairy mistress in the +Otherworld.'[306] The fay whom Iwain marries is called Laudine; and, +like one of the fairies who live in sacred waters, she has her favourite +fountain which the knight guards, as though he were the Black Knight in +the old Welsh tale of _The Lady of the Fountain_. Both Gaston Paris and +Alfred Nutt have also recognized the tale of _Iwain_ as a fairy +romance.[307] Professor Loth observes that, 'It is not impossible that +Chretien had known, among fairy legends, Armorican legends, concerning +the fairies of waters, whose role is identical with that of the Welsh +_Tylwyth Teg_.'[308] + +In _Lanval_, one of the _Lais_[309] by Marie de France, written during +the twelfth century, probably while its author was living in England, we +have direct proof that there was then flourishing in Brittany--well +known to Marie de France, who was French by birth and training--a +popular belief in fairy women who lived in the Otherworld, and who could +_take_ mortals on whom their love fell. It is probable that the older +lay, to which Marie de France refers in the beginning of her _Lanval_, +may have been the anonymous one of _Graelent_, sometimes improperly +attributed to her. Zimmer and Foerster place the origin of _Graelent_ in +Brittany[310]; and the similarity of the heroes in the two poems seems +to be due to a very ancient Brythonic Fairy-Faith. Dr. Schofield sees in +_Graelent_ an older form of the more polished _Lanval_; and remarks that +the chief difference in the two _lais_ is found in the way the hero +meets the fairy women. In the case of Lanval, when he leaves the court, +he goes to rest beside a river where two beautiful maidens come to him; +Graelent is alone in the woods when he sees a hind whiter than snow, and +following it comes to a place where fairy damsels are bathing in a +fountain. There seems to be no doubt that in both poems the maidens and +damsels are fairies quite like the Tuatha De Danann, with power to cast +their spell over beautiful young men whom they wish to have for +husbands. In _Guingemor_, another of the old Breton lays, ascribed by +Gaston Paris to Marie de France, we find again fairy-romance episodes +similar to those in _Lanval_ and _Graelent_.[311] The _Lais_ of Marie de +France had many imitators in England. Chaucer, too, has made it clear +that he knew a good deal about the old Breton _lais_ and their subjects +or 'matter', for in the _Prologue to the Frankeleyn's Tale_ he writes:-- + + Thise olde gentil Britons in hir dayes + Of diverse aventures maden layes, + Rymeyed in hir firste Briton tonge. + +We may now briefly examine, in a general way, some of the most +noteworthy of the more obscure, but for us important Old French +fairy-romances of a kindred Brythonic or Arthurian character, called +_Romans d'Aventure_ and _Romans Bretons_, wherein _fees_ appear or are +mentioned: i. e. _Le Bel Inconnu_, _Blancadin_, _Brun de la Montaigne_, +_Claris et Laris_, _Dolopathos_, _Escanor_, _Floriant et Florete_, +_Partonopeus_, _La Vengeance Raguidel_, _Joufrois_, and _Amada et +Ydoine_.[312] In these romances, fairies commonly appear as most +beautiful supernormal women who love mortal heroes. They are seen +chiefly at night, frequenting forests and fountains, and like all +fairies disappear at or before cock-crow. They are skilled in magic and +astrology; like the Greek Fates, some of them spin and weave and have +great influence over the lives of mankind. They are represented as +relatively immortal, so long is their span of life compared to ours; +but, ultimately, they seem to be subject to a change such as we call +death. This indeed is never specifically mentioned, only implied by the +statements that they enjoy childhood and then womanhood, being thus +created and not eternal beings. Some are very prominent figures, like +_Morgain la Fee_, Arthur's sister. In most cases they are beneficent, +and frequently act as guardian spirits for their special hero, just as +the Lake Lady for Arthur and the _Morrigu_ for Cuchulainn. So strong is +the faith in these _fees_ that a man meeting unusual success is often +described as _feed_--that is endowed with fairy power or under fairy +protection, as Perceval's adversary, the Knight of the Dragon, +states.[313] In _Joufrois_, too, the power of the fairies, or else the +special protection of God, is considered the cause of success in +arms.[314] In _Brun de la Montaigne_, _Morgain la Fee_ is represented as +the cousin of Arthur; and Butor, the father of Brun, mentions several +localities in different lands, which, like the Forest of Broceliande in +Brittany, the chief theatre of this romance, are fairy haunts; and he +names them as being under the dominion of Arthur, who is described as a +great fairy king.[315] + +Such fairy romances as the above (and they are but a few examples +selected from among a vast number) often localized in Brittany, raise +the perplexing and far-reaching problem concerning the origin of the +'Matter of Britain'. The most reasonable position to take with respect +to this problem would seem to be that Celtic traditions flourished +wherever there were Gaels and Brythons, that there was much interchange +of these traditions between one Celtic country and another--especially +between Wales and Ireland and across the channel between Brittany and +South England, including Cornwall and Wales, both before and after the +Christian era. Further, the Arthurian fairy-romances, based upon such +interchanged Celtic traditions, grew up with a Brythonic background, +chiefly after the Norman Conquest, both in Armorica and in Britain, and +became in the later Middle Ages one of the chief glories of English and +of European literature. + +In concluding this slight examination of Brythonic fairy-romances, we +may very briefly suggest by means of a few selected examples what +fairies are like in the _Mabinogion_ stories and in the _Four Ancient +Books of Wales_. _Kulhwch and Olwen_, the chief literary treasure-house +of ancient magical and mystical Otherworld and fairy traditions of the +Brythons, which we have already considered in relation to Arthur, +'appears to be built upon Arthurian and other legends of native +growth.'[316] Unmistakable Welsh parallels to the Irish fairy-belief +appear in the _Mabinogi of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed_, where the two chief +incidents are Pwyll's journey to the Otherworld after he and Arawn its +ruler have exchanged shapes and kingdoms for a year, and the marriage of +Pwyll to a fairy damsel; in the _Mabinogi_ of _Manawyddan_, which +contains much magic and shape-shifting, and the description of a fairy +castle belonging to Llwyd; and in the _Mabinogi_ of _Branwen, the +Daughter of Llyr_, where there is the episode of the seven-year feast at +Harlech over the Head of Bran, during which the Birds of Rhiannon's +realm sing so sweetly that time passes abnormally fast. The +subject-matter of the four true _Mabinogion_ (composed before the +eleventh century) is, as Sir John Rhys has pointed out, the fortunes +of three clans of superhuman beings comparable to the Irish Tuatha De +Danann: (1) the Children of Llyr, (2) the Children of Don, (3) and the +Family of Pwyll.[317] Herein, then, the ancient Gaelic and Brythonic +Fairy-Faiths coincide, and show the unity of the Celtic race which +evolved them. + +In the _Four Ancient Books of Wales_, which are poetical compositions, +whereas the _Mabinogion_ tales are prose with extremely little verse, +there are certain interesting passages to illustrate the ancient +Fairy-Faith of the Brythons from some of its purest sources. The first +selected example comes from the _Black Book of Caermarthen_. It is a +poem, sometimes called the _Avallenau_, from among the poems relating to +the Battle of Arderydd; and it represents _Myrddin_ or Merlin, the +famous magician of Arthur, quite at the mercy of sprites. The passage is +an interesting one as showing that in the region where Merlin is +supposed to be under the enchantment of the fairy woman Vivian he was +regarded as no longer able to exercise his wonted control over spirits +like fairies. As in ancient non-Celtic belief, where the loss of +chastity in a magician, that is to say in one able to command certain +orders of invisible beings, always leads to his falling under their +lawless power, so was it with Merlin when overcome by Vivian. And this +is Merlin's lamentation:-- + + Ten years and forty, as the toy of lawless ones, + Have I been wandering in gloom among sprites. + After wealth in abundance and entertaining minstrels, + I have been [here so long that] it is useless for gloom and sprites to + lead me astray.[318] + +In a dialogue between Myrddin and his sister Gwenddydd, contained in the +_Red Book of Hergest I_,[319] there is a curious reference to ghosts of +the mountain who, just like fairies that live in the mountains, steal +away men's reason when they _strike_ them,--in death which may appear +natural, in sickness, or in accident. And after his death--after he has +been _taken_ by these ghosts of the mountain--Myrddin returns as a ghost +and speaks from the grave a prophecy which 'the ghost of the mountain in +Aber Carav'[320] told him. Not only do these passages prove the Celtic +belief in ghosts like fairies to have existed anciently in Wales; but +they show also that the recorded Fairy-Faith of the Brythons, like that +of the Gaels of Ireland and Scotland, directly attests and confirms our +Psychological Theory. Like a record from the official proceedings of the +Psychical Research Society itself, they form one of the strongest proofs +that fairies, ghosts, and shades were confused, all alike, in the mind +of the Welsh poet, mingling together in that realm where mortals see +with a new vision, and exist with a body invisible to us. + +Our study of the literary evolution of the Brythonic fairy-romances +shows that as early as about the year 800 Arthurian traditions were +known, though possibly Arthur himself never had historical existence. By +about 1136, when Geoffrey's famous _Historia_ appeared, these traditions +were already highly developed in Britain, and Arthur had become a great +Brythonic hero enveloped in a halo of romance and myth, and, as an +Otherworld being, was definitely related to Avalon and its fairy +inhabitants. This new literary material of Celtic origin opened up to +Europe by Geoffrey rapidly began to influence profoundly the form of +continental as well as English poetry and prose, chiefly through the +writers of the Norman-French period of the twelfth and thirteenth +centuries. In itself it was in no wise essentially different from what +we find as fairy romances in the old Irish manuscripts written during +the same and earlier periods. Welsh literature, however it may be +related to Irish, shows a common origin with it. The four true +_Mabinogion_ as stories are earlier than 1100; _Kulhwch and Olwen_ in +its present form most probably dates from the latter half of the twelfth +century; the _Four Ancient Books of Wales_ date from the twelfth to the +fifteenth centuries as manuscripts. In both ancient and modern times +there was much interchange of material between Irish Gaels and Brythons; +and Brittany as well as Britain and Ireland undoubtedly contributed to +the evolution of the complex fairy romances which formed the germ of the +Arthurian Legend. + +When we stop to consider how long it may have taken the Brythonic +Fairy-Faith, as well as that of the Gaels, to become so widespread and +popular among the Celtic peoples that it could take such definite shape +as it now shows in all the oldest manuscripts in different languages, we +can easily wander backward into periods of enlightenment and +civilization beyond the horizon of our little fragments of recorded +history. Who can tell how many ages ago the Fairy-Faith began its first +evolution, or who can say that there was ever a Celt who did not believe +in, or know about fairies? + + + + +SECTION II + +THE RECORDED FAIRY-FAITH + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE CELTIC OTHERWORLD[321] + + 'In Ireland this world and the world we go to after death are not + far apart.'--W. B. YEATS. + + 'Many go to the Tir-na-nog in sleep, and some are said to have + remained there, and only a vacant form is left behind without the + light in the eyes which marks the presence of a soul.'--A. E. + + General ideas of the Otherworld: its location; its subjectivity; + its names; its extent; Tethra one of its kings--The Silver Branch + and the Golden Bough; and Initiations--The Otherworld the + Heaven-World of all religions--Voyage of Bran--Cormac in the Land + of Promise--Magic Wands--Cuchulainn's Sick-Bed--Ossian's return + from Fairyland--Lanval's going to Avalon--Voyage of + Mael-Duin--Voyage of Teigue--Adventures of Art--Cuchulainn's and + Arthur's Otherworld Quests--Literary Evolution of idea of Happy + Otherworld. + + +GENERAL DESCRIPTION + +The Heaven-World of the ancient Celts, unlike that of the Christians, +was not situated in some distant, unknown region of planetary space, but +here on our own earth. As it was necessarily a subjective world, poets +could only describe it in terms more or less vague; and its exact +geographical location, accordingly, differed widely in the minds of +scribes from century to century. Sometimes, as is usual to-day in +fairy-lore, it was a subterranean world entered through caverns, or +hills, or mountains, and inhabited by many races and orders of invisible +beings, such as demons, shades, fairies, or even gods. And the +underground world of the _Sidhe_-folk, which cannot be separated from +it, was divided into districts or kingdoms under different fairy kings +and queens, just as the upper world of mortals. We already know how the +Tuatha De Danann or _Sidhe_-folk, after their defeat by the Sons of Mil +at the Battle of Tailte, retired to this underground world and took +possession of its palaces beneath the green hills and vales of Ireland; +and how from there, as gods of the harvest, they still continued to +exercise authority over their conquerors, or marshalled their own +invisible spirit-hosts in fairy warfare, and sometimes interfered in the +wars of men. + +More frequently, in the old Irish manuscripts, the Celtic Otherworld was +located in the midst of the Western Ocean, as though it were the +'double' of the lost Atlantis;[322] and Manannan Mac Lir, the Son of the +Sea--perhaps himself the 'double' of an ancient Atlantean king--was one +of the divine rulers of its fairy inhabitants, and his palace, for he +was one of the Tuatha De Danann, was there rather than in Ireland; and +when he travelled between the two countries it was in a magic chariot +drawn by horses who moved over the sea-waves as on land. And fairy women +came from that mid-Atlantic world in magic boats like spirit boats, to +charm away such mortal men as in their love they chose, or else to take +great Arthur wounded unto death. And in that island world there was +neither death nor pain nor scandal, nought save immortal and unfading +youth, and endless joy and feasting. + +Even yet at rare intervals, like a phantom, Hy Brasil appears far out on +the Atlantic. No later than the summer of 1908 it is said to have been +seen from West Ireland, just as that strange invisible island near +Innishmurray, inhabited by the invisible 'gentry', is seen--once in +seven years. And too many men of intelligence testify to having seen Hy +Brasil at the same moment, when they have been together, or separated, +as during the summer of 1908, for it to be explained away as an ordinary +illusion of the senses. Nor can it be due to a mirage such as we know, +because neither its shape nor position seems to conform to any known +island or land mass. The Celtic Otherworld is like that hidden realm of +subjectivity lying just beyond the horizon of mortal existence, which we +cannot behold when we would, save with the mystic vision of the Irish +seer. Thus in the legend of Bran's friends, who sat over dinner at +Harlech with the Head of Bran for seven years, three curious birds acted +as musicians, the Three Birds of Rhiannon, which were said to sing the +dead back to life and the living into death;--but the birds were not in +Harlech, they were out over the sea in the atmosphere of Rhiannon's +realm in the bosom of Cardigan Bay.[323] And though we might say of that +Otherworld, as we learn from these Three Birds of Rhiannon, and as +Socrates would say, that its inhabitants are come from the living and +the living in our world from the dead there, yet, as has already been +set forth in chapter iv, we ought not to think of the _Sidhe_-folk, nor +of such great heroes and gods as Arthur and Cuchulainn and Finn, who are +also of its invisible company, as in any sense half-conscious shades; +for they are always represented as being in the full enjoyment of an +existence and consciousness greater than our own. + +In Irish manuscripts, the Otherworld beyond the Ocean bears many names. +It is _Tir-na-nog_, 'The Land of Youth'; _Tir-Innambeo_, 'The Land of +the Living'; _Tir Tairngire_, 'The Land of Promise'; _Tir N-aill_, 'The +Other Land (or World)'; _Mag Mar_, 'The Great Plain'; and also _Mag +Mell_, 'The Plain Agreeable (or Happy).' + +But this western Otherworld, if it is what we believe it to be--a +poetical picture of the great subjective world--cannot be the realm of +any one race of invisible beings to the exclusion of another. In it all +alike--gods, Tuatha De Danann, fairies, demons, shades, and every sort +of disembodied spirits--find their appropriate abode; for though it +seems to surround and interpenetrate this planet even as the X-rays +interpenetrate matter, it can have no other limits than those of the +Universe itself. And that it is not an exclusive realm is certain from +what our old Irish manuscripts record concerning the Fomorian +races.[324] These, when they met defeat on the battle-field of Moytura +at the hands of the Tuatha De Danann, retired altogether from Ireland, +their overthrow being final, and returned to their own invisible +country--a mysterious land beyond the Ocean, where the dead find a new +existence, and where their god-king Tethra ruled, as he formerly ruled +in this world. And the fairy women of Tethra's kingdom, even like those +who came from the Tuatha De Danann of Erin, or those of Manannan's +ocean-world, enticed mortals to go with them to be heroes under their +king, and to behold there the assemblies of ancestors. It was one of +them who came to Connla, son of Conn, supreme king of Ireland; and this +was her message to him:--'The immortals invite you. You are going to be +one of the heroes of the people of Tethra. You will always be seen +there, in the assemblies of your ancestors, in the midst of those who +know and love you.' And with the fairy spell upon him the young prince +entered the glass boat of the fairy woman, and his father the king, in +great tribulation and wonder, beheld them disappear across the waters +never to return.[324] + + +THE SILVER BRANCH[325] AND THE GOLDEN BOUGH + +To enter the Otherworld before the appointed hour marked by death, a +passport was often necessary, and this was usually a silver branch of +the sacred apple-tree bearing blossoms, or fruit, which the queen of the +Land of the Ever-Living and Ever-Young gives to those mortals whom she +wishes for as companions; though sometimes, as we shall see, it was a +single apple without its branch. The queen's gifts serve not only as +passports, but also as food and drink for mortals who go with her. Often +the apple-branch produces music so soothing that mortals who hear it +forget all troubles and even cease to grieve for those whom the fairy +women _take_. For us there are no episodes more important than those in +the ancient epics concerning these apple-tree talismans, because in them +we find a certain key which unlocks the secret of that world from which +such talismans are brought, and proves it to be the same sort of a place +as the Otherworld of the Greeks and Romans. Let us then use the key and +make a few comparisons between the Silver Branch of the Celts and the +Golden Bough of the Ancients, expecting the two symbols naturally to +differ in their functions, though not fundamentally. + +It is evident at the outset that the Golden Bough was as much the +property of the queen of that underworld called Hades as the Silver +Branch was the gift of the Celtic fairy queen, and like the Silver Bough +it seems to have been the symbolic bond between that world and this, +offered as a tribute to Proserpine by all initiates, who made the mystic +voyage in full human consciousness. And, as we suspect, there may be +even in the ancient Celtic legends of mortals who make that strange +voyage to the Western Otherworld and return to this world again, an echo +of initiatory rites--perhaps druidic--similar to those of Proserpine as +shown in the journey of Aeneas, which, as Virgil records it, is +undoubtedly a poetical rendering of an actual psychic experience of a +great initiate. + +In Virgil's classic poem the Sibyl commanded the plucking of the sacred +bough to be carried by Aeneas when he entered the underworld; for +without such a bough plucked near the entrance to Avernus from the +wondrous tree sacred to Infernal Juno (i. e. Proserpine) none could +enter Pluto's realm.[326] And when Charon refused to ferry Aeneas across +the Stygian lake until the Sibyl-woman drew forth the Golden Bough from +her bosom, where she had hidden it, it becomes clearly enough a passport +to Hades, just as the Silver Branch borne by the fairy woman is a +passport to _Tir N-aill_; and the Sibyl-woman who guided Aeneas to the +Greek and Roman Otherworld takes the place of the fairy woman who leads +mortals like Bran to the Celtic Otherworld.[327] + + +THE OTHERWORLD IDEA LITERALLY INTERPRETED + +With this parallel between the Otherworld of the Celts and that of the +Ancients seemingly established, we may leave poetical images and seek a +literal interpretation for the animistic idea about those realms. The +Rites of Proserpine as conducted in the Mysteries of Antiquity furnish +us with the means; and in what Servius has written we have the material +ready.[328] Taking the letter Y, which Pythagoras said is like life with +its dividing ways of good and evil, as the mystic symbol of the branch +which all initiates like Aeneas offered to Proserpine in the subjective +world while there out of the physical body, he says of the initiatory +rites:--'He (the poet) could not join the Rites of Proserpine without +having the branch to hold up. And by "_going to the shades_" _he_ (the +poet) _means celebrating the Rites of Proserpine_.'[328] This passage is +certainly capable of but one meaning; and we may perhaps assume that +the invisible realm of the Ancients, which is called Hades, is like the +Celtic Otherworld located in the Western Ocean, and is also like, or has +its mythological counterpart in, the Elysian Fields to the West, +reserved by the Greeks and Romans for their gods and heroes, and in the +Happy Otherworld of Scandinavian, Iranian, and Indian mythologies. It +must then follow that all these realms--though placed in different +localities by various nations, epochs, traditions, scribes, and poets +(even as the under-ground world of the Tuatha De Danann in Ireland +differs from that ruled over by one of their own race, Manannan the Son +of the Sea)--are simply various ways which different Aryan peoples have +had of looking at that one great invisible realm of which we have just +spoken, and which forms the Heavenworld of every religion, Aryan and +non-Aryan, known to man. And if this conclusion is accepted, and it +seems that it must be, merely on the evidence of the literary or +recorded Celtic Fairy-Faith, our Psychological Theory stands proven. + +The Rites of Proserpine had many counterparts. Thus, to pass on to +another parallel, in the Mysteries of Eleusis the disappearance of the +Maiden into the under-world, into Hades, the land of the dead, was +continually re-enacted in a sacred drama, and it no doubt was one of the +principal rites attending initiation. In our study of the Celtic +Doctrine of Re-birth, we shall return to this subject of Celtic +Initiation. + + +THE VOYAGE OF BRAN, SON OF FEBAL + +We are well prepared now to enjoy the best known voyages which men, +heroes, and god-men, are said to have made to Avalon, or the Land of the +Living, through the invitation of a fairy woman or else of the god +Manannan himself; and probably the most famous is that of the _Voyage of +Bran, Son of Febal_, as so admirably translated from the original old +Irish saga by Dr. Kuno Meyer.[329] Perhaps in all Celtic literature no +poem surpasses this in natural and simple beauty. + +One day Bran heard strange music behind him as he was alone in the +neighbourhood of his stronghold; and as he listened, so sweet was the +sound that it lulled him to sleep. When he awoke, there lay beside him a +branch of silver so white with blossoms that it was not easy to +distinguish the blossoms from the branch. Bran took up the branch and +carried it to the royal house, and, when the hosts were assembled +therein, they saw a woman in strange raiment standing on the floor. +Whence she came and how, no one could tell. And as they all beheld her, +she sang fifty quatrains to Bran:-- + + A branch of the apple-tree from Emain + I bring, like those one knows; + Twigs of white silver are on it, + Crystal brows with blossoms. + + There is a distant isle, + Around which sea-horses glisten: + A fair course against the white-swelling surge,-- + Four feet uphold it. + + * * * * * + +When the song was finished, 'the woman went from them while they knew +not whither she went. And she took her branch with her. The branch +sprang from Bran's hand into the hand of the woman, nor was there +strength in Bran's hand to hold the branch.' The next day, with the +fairy spell upon him, Bran begins the voyage towards the setting sun. On +the ocean he meets Manannan riding in his magic chariot over the +sea-waves; and the king tells Bran that he is returning to Ireland after +long ages. Parting from the Son of the Sea, Bran goes on, and the first +island he and his companions reach is the 'Island of Joy', where one of +the party is set ashore; the second isle is the 'Land of Women', where +the queen draws Bran and his followers to her realm with a magic clew, +and then entertains them for what seems no more than a year, though 'it +chanced to be many years'. After a while, home-sickness seizes the +adventurers and they come to a unanimous decision to return to Ireland; +but they depart under a taboo not to set foot on earth, or at least not +till holy water has been sprinkled on them. In their coracle they arrive +before a gathering at Srub Brain, probably in West Kerry, and Bran (who +may now possibly be regarded as an apparition temporarily returned from +the Otherworld to bid his people farewell) announces himself, and this +reply is made to him:--'We do not know such a one, though the Voyage of +Bran is in our ancient stories.' Then one of Bran's party, in his +eagerness to land, broke the taboo; he 'leaps from them out of the +coracle. As soon as he touched the earth of Ireland, forthwith he was a +heap of ashes, as though he had been in the earth for many hundred +years.... Thereupon, to the people of the gathering, Bran told all his +wanderings from the beginning until that time. And he wrote these +quatrains in Ogam, and then bade them farewell. And from that hour his +wanderings are not known.' + + +CORMAC'S ADVENTURE IN THE LAND OF PROMISE[330] + +In _Cormac's Adventure in the Land of Promise_, there is again a magic +silver branch with three golden apples on it:--'One day, at dawn in +May-time, Cormac, grandson of Conn, was alone on Mur Tea in Tara. He saw +coming towards him a sedate(?), grey-headed warrior.... A branch of +silver with three golden apples on his shoulder. Delight and amusement +to the full was it to listen to the music of that branch, for men sore +wounded, or women in child-bed, or folk in sickness, would fall asleep +at the melody when that branch was shaken.' And the warrior tells Cormac +that he has come from a land where only truth is known, where there is +'neither age nor decay nor gloom nor sadness nor envy nor jealousy nor +hatred nor haughtiness'. On his promising the unknown warrior any three +boons that he shall ask, Cormac is given the magic branch. The +grey-headed warrior disappears suddenly; 'and Cormac knew not whither +he had gone.' + +'Cormac turned into the palace. The household marvelled at the branch. +Cormac shook it at them, and cast them into slumber from that hour to +the same time on the following day. At the end of a year the warrior +comes into his meeting and asked of Cormac the consideration for his +branch. "It shall be given," says Cormac. "I will take [thy daughter] +Ailbe to-day," says the warrior. So he took the girl with him. The women +of Tara utter three loud cries after the daughter of the king of Erin. +But Cormac shook the branch at them, so that he banished grief from them +all and cast them into sleep. That day month comes the warrior and takes +with him Carpre Lifechair (the son of Cormac). Weeping and sorrow ceased +not in Tara after the boy, and on that night no one therein ate or +slept, and they were in grief and in exceeding gloom. But Cormac shook +the branch at them, and they parted from [their] sorrow. The same +warrior comes again. "What askest thou to-day?" says Cormac. "Thy wife," +saith he, "even Ethne the Longsided, daughter of Dunlang king of +Leinster." Then he takes away the woman with him.' Thereupon Cormac +follows the messenger, and all his people go with him. But 'a great mist +was brought upon them in the midst of the plain of the wall. Cormac +found himself on a great plain alone'. It is the 'Land of Promise'. +Palaces of bronze, and houses of white silver thatched with white birds' +wings are there. 'Then he sees in the garth a shining fountain, with +five streams flowing out of it, and the hosts in turn a-drinking its +water. Nine hazels of Buan grow over the well. The purple hazels drop +their nuts into the fountain, and the five salmon which are in the +fountain sever them, and send their husks floating down the streams. Now +the sound of the falling of those streams is more melodious than any +music that [men] sing.'[331] + +Cormac having entered the fairy palace at the fountain beholds 'the +loveliest of the world's women'. After she has been magically bathed, he +bathes, and this, apparently, is symbolical of his purification in the +Otherworld. Finally, at a feast, the warrior-messenger sings Cormac to +sleep; and when Cormac awakes he sees beside him his wife and children, +who had preceded him thither to the Land of Promise. The +warrior-messenger who _took_ them all is none other than the great god +Manannan Mac Lir of the Tuatha De Danann. + +There in the Otherworld, Cormac gains a magic cup of gold richly and +wondrously wrought, which would break into three pieces if 'three words +of falsehood be spoken under it', and the magic silver branch; and +Manannan, as the god-initiator, says to Ireland's high king:--'Take thy +family then, and take the Cup that thou mayest have it for discerning +between truth and falsehood. And thou shalt have the Branch for music +and delight. And on the day that thou shalt die they all will be taken +from thee. I am Manannan, son of Ler, king of the Land of Promise; _and +to see the Land of Promise was the reason I brought [thee] hither...._ +The fountain which thou sawest, with the five streams out of it, is the +Fountain of Knowledge, and the streams are the five senses through which +knowledge is obtained (?). And no one will have knowledge who drinketh +not a draught out of the fountain itself and out of the streams. The +folk of many arts are those who drink of them both.' + +'Now on the morrow morning, when Cormac arose, he found himself on the +green of Tara, with his wife and his son and daughter, and having his +Branch and his Cup. Now that was afterwards [called] "Cormac's Cup", and +it used to distinguish between truth and falsehood with the Gael. +Howbeit, as had been promised him [by Manannan], it remained not after +Cormac's death.'[332] + +This beautiful tale evidently echoes in an extremely poetical and +symbolical manner a very ancient Celtic initiation of a king and his +family into the mystic cult of the mighty god Manannan, Son of the Sea. +They enter the Otherworld in a trance state, and on waking are in Erin +again, spiritually enriched. The Cup of Truth is probably the symbol of +having gained knowledge of the Mystery of Life and Death, and the +Branch, that of the Peace and Joy which comes to all who are truly +Initiated; for to have passed from the realm of mortal existence to the +Realm of the Dead, of the Fairy-Folk, of the Gods, and back again, with +full human consciousness all the while, was equivalent to having gained +the Philosopher's Stone, the Elixir of Life, the Cup of Truth, and to +having bathed in the Fountain of Eternal Youth which confers triumph +over Death and unending happiness. Thus we may have here a Celtic +poetical parallel to the initiatory journey of Aeneas to the Land of the +Dead or Hades. + + +THE MAGIC WAND OF GODS, FAIRIES, AND DRUIDS + +Manannan of the Tuatha De Danann, as a god-messenger from the invisible +realm bearing the apple-branch of silver, is in externals, though not in +other ways, like Hermes, the god-messenger from the realm of the gods +bearing his wand of two intertwined serpents.[333] In modern fairy-lore +this divine branch or wand is the magic wand of fairies; or where +messengers like old men guide mortals to an underworld it is a staff or +cane with which they strike the rock hiding the secret entrance. + +The Irish Druids made their wands of divination from the yew-tree; and, +like the ancient priests of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, are believed to +have controlled spirits, fairies, daemons, elementals, and ghosts while +making such divinations. It will help us to understand how closely the +ancient symbols have affected our own life and age--though we have +forgotten their relation with the Otherworld--by offering a few +examples, beginning with the ancient Irish bards who were associated +with the Druids. A wand in the form of a symbolic branch, like a little +spike or crescent with gently tinkling bells upon it, was borne by them; +and in the piece called _Mesca Ulad_ or 'Inebriety of the +Ultonians'[334] it is said of the chief bard of Ulster, Sencha, that in +the midst of a bloody fray he 'waved the peaceful branch of Sencha, and +all the men of Ulster were silent, quiet'. In _Agallamh an da Shuadh_ or +the 'Dialogue of the two Sages',[335] the mystic symbol used by gods, +fairies, magicians, and by all initiates who know the mystery of life +and death, is thus described as a Druid symbol:--'Neidhe' (a young bard +who aspired to succeed his father as chief poet of Ulster), 'made his +journey with a silver branch over him. The _Anradhs_, or poets of the +second order, carried a silver branch, but the _Ollamhs_, or chief +poets, carried a branch of gold; all other poets bore a branch of +bronze.'[336] Modern and ancient parallels are world-wide, among the +most civilized as among the least civilized peoples, and in civil or +religious life among ourselves. Thus, it was with a magic rod that Moses +struck the rock and pure water gushed forth, and he raised the same rod +and the Red Sea opened; kings hold their sceptres no less than Neptune +his trident; popes and bishops have their croziers; in the Roman Church +there are little wand-like objects used to perform benedictions; high +civil officials have their mace of office; and all the world over there +are the wands of magicians and of medicine-men. + + +THE SICK-BED OF CUCHULAINN + +We turn now to the story of the _Sick-Bed of Cuchulainn_.[337] And this +is how the great hero of Ulster was fairy-struck. Manannan Mac Lir, +tiring of his wife Fand, had deserted her, and so she, wishing to marry +Cuchulainn, went to Ireland with her sister Liban. Taking the form of +two birds bound together by a chain of red gold, Fand and Liban rested +on a lake in Ulster where Cuchulainn should see them as he was hunting. +To capture the two birds, Cuchulainn cast a javelin at them, but they +escaped, though injured. Disappointed at a failure like this, which for +him was most unusual, Cuchulainn went away to a menhir where he sat down +and fell asleep. Then he saw two women, one in a green and one in a +crimson cloak; and the woman in green coming up to him laughed and +struck him with a whip-like object. The woman in crimson did likewise, +and alternately the two women kept striking him till they left him +almost dead. And straightway the mighty hero of the Red Branch Knights +took to his bed with a strange malady, which no Druid or doctor in all +Ireland could cure. + +Till the end of a year Cuchulainn lay on his sick-bed at Emain-Macha +without speaking to any one. Then--the day before _Samain_ (November +Eve)--there came to him an unknown messenger who sang to him a wonderful +song, promising to cure him of his malady if he would only accept the +invitation of the daughters of Aed Abrat to visit them in the +Otherworld. When the song was ended, the messenger departed, 'and they +knew not whence he came nor whither he went.' Thereupon Cuchulainn went +to the place where the malady had been put on him, and there appeared to +him again the woman in the green cloak. She let it be known to +Cuchulainn that she was Liban, and that she was longing for him to go +with her to the Plain of Delight to fight against Labraid's enemies. +And she promised Cuchulainn as a reward that he would get Fand to wife. +But Cuchulainn would not accept the invitation without knowing to what +country he was called. So he sent his charioteer Laeg to bring back from +there a report. Laeg went with the fairy woman in a boat of bronze, and +returned; and when Cuchulainn heard from him the wonderful glories of +that Otherworld of the _Sidhe_ he willingly set out for it. + +After Cuchulainn had overthrown Labraid's enemies and had been in the +Otherworld a month with the fairy woman Fand, he returned to Ireland +alone; though afterwards in a place agreed upon, Fand joined him. Emer, +the wife of Cuchulainn, was overcome with jealousy and schemed to kill +Fand, so that Fand returned to her husband the god Manannan and he +received her back again. When she was gone Cuchulainn could not be +consoled; but Emer obtained from the Druids a magic drink for +Cuchulainn, which made him forget all about the Otherworld and the fairy +woman Fand. And another drink the Druids gave to Emer so that she forgot +all her jealousy; and then Manannan Mac Lir himself came and shook his +mantle between Cuchulainn and Fand to prevent the two ever meeting +again. And thus it was that the _Sidhe_-women failed to steal away the +great Cuchulainn. The magic of the Druids and the power of the Tuatha De +Danann king triumphed; and the Champion of Ulster did not go to the +Otherworld until he met a natural death in that last great fight.[338] + + +OSSIAN'S RETURN FROM FAIRYLAND[339] + +Ossian too, like Cuchulainn, was enticed into Fairyland by a fairy +woman:--She carries him away on a white horse, across the Western Ocean; +and as they are moving over the sea-waves they behold a fair maid on a +brown horse, and she holding in her right hand a golden apple. After the +hero had married his fairy abductress and lived in the Otherworld for +three hundred years, an overpowering desire to return to Ireland and +join again in the councils of his dearly beloved Fenian Brotherhood took +possession of him, and he set out on the same white horse on which he +travelled thence with the fairy princess, for such was his wife. And +she, as he went, thrice warned him not to lay his 'foot on level +ground', and he heard from her the startling announcement that the +Fenians were all gone and Ireland quite changed. + +Safe in Ireland, Ossian seeks the Brotherhood, and though he goes from +one place to another where his old companions were wont to meet, not one +of them can he find. And how changed is all the land! He realizes at +last how long he must have been away. The words of his fairy wife are +too sadly true. + +While Ossian wanders disconsolately over Ireland, he comes to a +multitude of men trying to move an enormous slab of marble, under which +some other men are lying. 'Ossian's assistance is asked, and he +generously gives it. But in leaning over his horse, to take up the stone +with one hand, the girth breaks, and he falls. Straightway the white +horse fled away on his way home, and Ossian became aged, decrepit, and +blind.'[340] + + +THE GOING OF LANVAL TO AVALON + +The fairy romances which were recorded during the mediaeval period in +continental Europe report a surprisingly large number of heroes who, +like Cuchulainn and Ossian, fell under the power of fairy women or +_fees_, and followed one of them to the Apple-Land or Avalon. Besides +Arthur, they include Sir Lancelot, Sir Gawayne, Ogier, Guingemor and +Lanval (see pp. 325-6). The story of Lanval is told by Marie de France +in one of her _Lais_, and is so famous a one that we shall briefly +outline it:-- + +Lanval was a mediaeval knight who lived during the time of King Arthur +in Brittany. He was young and very beautiful, so that one of the fairy +damsels fell in love with him; and in the true Irish fashion--himself +and his fairy sweetheart mounted on the same fairy horse--the two went +riding off to Fairyland:-- + + On the horse behind her + With full rush Lanval jumped. + With her he goes away into Avalon, + According to what the Briton tells us, + Into an isle, which is very beautiful.[341] + + +THE VOYAGE OF TEIGUE, SON OF CIAN + +There is another type of _imram_ in which through adventure rather than +through invitation from one of the fairy beings, men enter the +Otherworld; as illustrated by the _Voyage of Mael-Duin_,[342] and by the +still more beautiful _Voyage of Teigue, Son of Cian_. This last old +Irish story summarizes many of the Otherworld elements we have so far +considered, and (though it shows Christian influences) gives us a very +clear picture of the Land of Youth amid the Western Ocean--a land such +as Ponce De Leon and so many brave navigators sought in America:-- + +Teigue, son of Cian, and heir to the kingship of West Munster, with his +followers set out from Ireland to recover his wife and brethren who had +been stolen by Cathmann and his band of sea-rovers from Fresen, a land +near Spain. It was the time of the spring tide, when the sea was rough, +and storms coming on the voyagers they lost their way. After about nine +weeks they came to a land fairer than any land they had ever beheld--it +was the Happy Otherworld. In it were many 'red-laden apple-trees, with +leafy oaks too in it, and hazels yellow with nuts in their clusters'; +and 'a wide smooth plain clad in flowering clover all bedewed with +honey'. In the midst of this plain Teigue and his companions descried +three hills, and on each of them an impregnable place of strength. At +the first stronghold, which had a rampart of white marble, Teigue was +welcomed by 'a white-bodied lady, fairest of the whole world's women'; +and she told him that the stronghold is the abode 'of Ireland's kings: +from Heremon son of Milesius to Conn of the Hundred Battles, who was the +last to pass into it'. Teigue with his people moved on till they gained +the middle _dun_, the _dun_ with a rampart of gold. There also 'they +found a queen of gracious form, and she draped in vesture of a golden +fabric', who tells them that they are in the Earth's fourth paradise. + +At the third _dun_, the _dun_ with a silver rampart, Teigue and his +party met Connla, the son of Conn of the Hundred Battles. 'In his hand +he held a fragrant apple having the hue of gold; a third part of it he +would eat, and still, for all he consumed, never a whit would it be +diminished.' And at his side sat a young woman of many charms, who spake +thus to Teigue:--'I had bestowed on him (i. e. felt for him) true +affection's love, and therefore wrought to have him come to me in this +land; where our delight, both of us, is to continue in looking at and in +perpetual contemplation of one another: above and beyond which we pass +not, to commit impurity or fleshly sin whatsoever.' Both Connla and his +friend were clad in vestments of green--like the fairy-folk; and their +step was so light that hardly did the beautiful clover-heads bend +beneath it. And the apple 'it was that supported the pair of them and, +when once they had partaken of it, nor age nor dimness could affect +them'. When Teigue asked who occupied the _dun_ with the silver rampart +the maiden with Connla made this reply:--'In that one there is not any +one. For behoof of the righteous kings that after acceptance of the +Faith shall rule Ireland it is that yonder _dun_ stands ready; and we +are they who, until such those virtuous princes shall enter into it, +keep the same: in the which, Teigue my soul, thou too shalt have an +appointed place.' 'Obliquely across the most capacious palace Teigue +looked away' (as he was observing the beauty of the yet uninhabited +_dun_), 'and marked a thickly furnished wide-spreading apple-tree that +bare blossoms and ripe fruit both. "What is that apple-tree beyond?" he +asked [of the maiden], and she made answer:--"That apple-tree's fruit it +is that for meat shall serve the congregation which is to be in this +mansion, _and a single apple of the same it was that brought (coaxed +away) Connla to me_."' + +Then the party rested, and there came towards them a whole array of +feminine beauty, among which was a lovely damsel of refined form who +foretold to Teigue the manner and time of his death, and as a token she +gave him 'a fair cup of emerald hue, in which are inherent many virtues: +for [among other things] though it were but water poured into it, +incontinently it would be wine'. And this was her farewell message to +Teigue:--'From that (the cup), let not thine hand part; but have it for +a token: when it shall escape from thee, then in a short time after +shalt thou die; and where thou shalt meet thy death is in the glen that +is on Boyne's side: there the earth shall grow into a great hill, and +the name that it shall bear will be _croidhe eisse_; there too (when +thou shalt first have been wounded by a roving wild hart, after which +Allmarachs will slay thee) I will bury thy body; but thy soul shall come +with me hither, where till the Judgement's Day thou shalt assume a body +light and ethereal.' + +As the party led by Teigue were going down to the seashore to depart, +the girl who had been escorting them asked 'how long they had been in +the country'. 'In our estimation,' they replied, 'we are in it but one +single day.' She, however, said: 'For an entire twelvemonth ye are in +it; during which time ye have had neither meat nor drink, nor, how long +soever ye should be here, would cold or thirst or hunger assail you.' +And when Teigue and his party had entered their _currach_ they looked +astern, but 'they saw not the land from which they came, for +incontinently an obscuring magic veil was drawn over it'.[343] + + +THE ADVENTURES OF ART, SON OF CONN + +This interesting _imram_ combines, in a way, the type of tale wherein a +fairy woman comes from the Otherworld to our world--though in this tale +she is banished from there--and the type of tale wherein the Otherworld +is found through adventure:-- + +Becuma Cneisgel, a woman of the Tuatha De Danann, because of a +transgression she had committed in the Otherworld with Gaidiar, +Manannan's son, was banished thence. She came to Conn, high king of +Ireland, and she bound him to do her will; and her judgement was that +Art, the son of Conn, should not come to Tara until a year was past. +During the year, Conn and Becuma were together in Tara, 'and there was +neither corn nor milk in Ireland during that time.' The Tuatha De Danann +sent this dreadful famine; for they, as agricultural gods, thus showed +their displeasure at the unholy life of Ireland's high king with the +evil woman whom they had banished. The Druids of all Ireland being +called together, declared that to appease the Tuatha De Danann 'the son +of a sinless couple should be brought to Ireland and slain before Tara, +and his blood mingled with the soil of Tara' (cf. p. 436). It was Conn +himself who set out for the Otherworld and found there the sinless boy, +the son of the queen of that world, and he brought him back to Tara. A +strange event saves the youth:--'Just then they (the assembly of people +and Druids, with Conn, Art, and Finn) heard the lowing of a cow, and a +woman wailing continually behind it. And they saw the cow and the woman +making for the assembly.' The woman had come from the Otherworld to save +Segda; and the cow was accepted as a sacrifice in place of Segda, owing +to the wonders it disclosed; for its two bags when opened contained two +birds--one with one leg and one with twelve legs, and 'the one-legged +bird prevailed over the bird with twelve legs'. Then rising up and +calling Conn aside, the woman declared to him that until he put aside +the evil woman Becuma 'a third of its corn, and its milk, and its mast' +should be lacking to Ireland. 'And she took leave of them then and went +off with her son, even Segda. And jewels and treasures were offered to +them, but they refused them.' + +In the second part of this complex tale, Becuma and Art are together +playing a game. Art finally loses, because the men of the _sidh_ (like +invisible spirits) began to steal the pieces with which he and the woman +play; and, as a result, Becuma put on him this taboo:--'Thou shalt not +eat food in Ireland until thou bring with thee Delbchaem, the daughter +of Morgan.' 'Where is she?' asked Art. 'In an isle amid the sea, and +that is all the information that thou wilt get.' 'And he put forth the +coracle, and travelled the sea from one isle to another until he came to +a fair, strange island,' the Otherworld. The blooming women of that land +entertain the prince of Ireland during six weeks, and instruct him in +all the dangers he must face and the conquests he must make. + +Having successfully met all the ordeals, Art secures Delbchaem, daughter +of Morgan the king of the 'Land of Wonders', and returns to Ireland. +'She had a green cloak of one hue about her, with a gold pin in it over +her breast, and long, fair, very golden hair. She had dark-black +eye-brows, and flashing grey eyes in her head, and a snowy-white body.' +And upon seeing the chaste and noble Delbchaem with Art, Becuma, the +banished woman of the Tuatha De Danann, lamenting, departs from Tara for +ever.[344] + + +OTHERWORLD QUESTS OF CUCHULAINN AND OF ARTHUR + +There is yet the distinct class of tales about journeys to a fairy world +which is a Hades world beneath the earth, or in some land of death, +rather than amid the waves of the Western Ocean. Thus there is a curious +poem in the _Book of the Dun Cow_ describing an expedition led by +Cuchulainn to the stronghold of Scath in the land of Scath, or, as the +name means, land of Shades, where the hero gains the king's +cauldron.[345] And the poem suggests why so few who invaded that Hades +world ever returned--perhaps why, mystically speaking, so few men could +escape either through initiation or re-birth the natural confusion and +forgetfulness arising out of death. + +In the _Book of Taliessin_ a weird poem, _Preiddeu Annwfn_, or the +'Spoils of Annwn', describes, in language not always clear, how the +Brythonic Arthur made a similar journey to the Welsh Hades world named +Annwn, where he, like Cuchulainn in Scath, gained possession of a magic +cauldron--a pagan Celtic type of the Holy Grail--which furnishes +inexhaustible food though 'it will not boil the food of a coward'. But +in stanzas iii and iv of _Preiddeu Annwfn_, Annwn, or Uffern as it is +otherwise called, is not an underground realm, but some world to be +reached like the Gaelic Land of Promise by sea. Annwn is also called +Caer Sidi, which in another poem of the _Book of Taliessin_ (No. XIV) is +thought of as an island of immortal youth amid 'the streams of the +ocean' where there is a food-giving fountain.[346] + + +LITERARY EVOLUTION OF THE HAPPY OTHERWORLD IDEA + +We have now noticed two chief classes of Otherworld legends. In one +there is the beautiful and peaceful _Tir Innambeo_ or 'Land of the +Living' under Manannan's rule across the seas, and its fairy inhabitants +are principally women who lure away noble men and youths through love +for them; in the other there is a Hades world--often confused with the +former--in which great heroes go on some mysterious quest. Sometimes +this Hades world is inseparable from the underground palaces or world of +the Tuatha De Danann. Again, it may be an underlake fairy-realm like +that entered by Laeghaire and his fifty companions (see p. 302); or, as +in _Gilla Decair_,[347] of late composition, it is an under-well land +wherein Dermot has adventures. And, in a similar tale, Murough, on the +invitation of a mysterious stranger who comes out of a lake and then +disappears 'like the mist of a winter fog or the whiff of a March wind', +dives beneath the lake's waters, and is escorted to the palace of King +Under-Wave, wherein he sees the stranger as the water-king himself +sitting on a golden throne (cf. pp. 63-4). In continual feasting there +Murough passes a day and a year, thinking the time only a few days.[348] + +As a rule the Hades world, or underground and under-wave world, is +unlike Manannan's peaceful ocean realm, being often described as a place +of much strife; and mortals are usually induced to enter it to aid in +settling the troubles of its fairy inhabitants. + +All the numerous variations of Otherworld tales now extant in Celtic +literature show a common pre-Christian origin, though almost all of them +have been coloured by Christian ideas about heaven, hell, and purgatory. +From the earliest tales of the over-sea Otherworld type, like those of +Bran, Maelduin, and Connla, all of which may go back to the early eighth +century as compositions, the christianizing influence is already clearly +begun; and in the _Voyage of Snedgus and of Mac Riagla_, of the late +ninth century, this influence predominates.[349] Purely Christian texts +of about the same period or later describe the Christian heaven as +though it were the pagan Otherworld. Some of these, like the Latin +version of the tale of _St. Brandan's Voyage_, greatly influenced +European literature, and probably contributed to the discovery of the +New World.[349] + +The combination of Christian and pagan Celtic ideas is well shown in the +_Voyage of the Hui Corra_[350]:--'Thereafter a wondrous island was +shown to them. A psalm-singing venerable old man, with fair, builded +churches and beautiful bright altars. Beautiful green grass therein. A +dew of honey on its grass. Little ever-lovely bees and fair, +purple-headed birds a-chanting music therein, so that [merely] to listen +to them was enough of delight.' But in another passage the Christian +scribe describes Otherworld birds as souls, some of them in hell:--'"Of +the land of Erin am I," quoth the bird, "and I am the soul of a woman, +and I am a monkess unto thee," she saith to the elder.... "Come ye to +another place," saith the bird, "to hearken to yon birds. The birds that +ye see are the souls that come on Sunday out of hell."' Still other +islands are definitely made into Christian hells full of fire, wherein +wailing and shrieking men are being mangled by the beaks and talons of +birds. + +But sometimes, like the legends about the Tuatha De Danann, the legends +about the Otherworld were taken literally and most seriously by some +early Irish-Christian saints. Professor J. Loth records a very +interesting episode, how St. Malo and his teacher Brandan actually set +out on an ocean voyage to find the Heaven-world of the pagan +Celts:--'Saint Malo, when a youth, embarks with his teacher Brandan in a +boat, in search of that mysterious country; after some days, the waves +drive him back rebuffed and discouraged upon the seashore. An angel +opens his eyes: the land of eternal peace and of eternal youth is that +which Christianity promises to its elect.'[351] + +Not only was the Celtic Otherworld gradually changed into a Christian +Heaven, or Hell, from the eighth century onward, but its divine +inhabitants soon came to suffer the rationalization commonly applied to +their race; and the transcribers began to set them down as actual +personages of Irish history. As we have already observed, the Tuatha De +Danann were shorn of their immortality, and were given in exchange all +the passions and shortcomings of men, and made subject to disease and +death. This perhaps was a natural anthropomorphic process such as is +met with in all mythologies. Celtic myth and mysticism, wherein may yet +be read the deepest secrets of life and death, supplied names and +legends to fill out a christianized scheme of Irish chronology, which +was made to begin some six thousand years ago with Adam. + +A few of the pagan legends, however, met very fair treatment at the +hands of poetical and patriotic Christian transcribers. Thus in +_Adamnan's Vision_,[352] though the Celtic Otherworld has become 'the +Land of the Saints', its primal character is clearly discernible: to +reach it a sea voyage is necessary; and it is a land where there is no +pride, falsehood, envy, disease or death, 'wherein is delight of every +goodness.' In it there are singing birds, and for sustenance while there +the voyagers need only to hear its music and 'sate themselves with the +odour which is in the Land'. + +Again, in the _Book of Leinster_, and in later MSS., there is a +_dinnshenchas_ of almost primal pagan purity. It alludes to _Clidna's +Wave_, that of Tuag Inbir:--To Tuag, daughter of Conall, Manannan the +sea-god sent a messenger, a Druid of the Tuatha De Danann in the shape +of a woman. The Druid chanted a sleep spell over the girl, and while he +left her on the seashore to look for a boat in which to embark for the +'Land of Everliving Women', a wave of the flood tide came and drowned +her. But the Oxford version of the same tale doubts whether the maiden +was drowned, for it suggests, 'Or maybe it (the wave) was Manannan +himself that was carrying her off.'[353] Thus the scribe understood that +to go to Manannan's world literally meant entering a sleep or trance +state, or, what is equivalent in the case of the maiden whom Manannan +summoned, the passage through death from the physical body. And still, +to-day, the Irish peasant believes that the 'good people' take to their +invisible world all young men or maidens who meet death; or that one +under a fairy spell may go to their world for a short time, and come +back to our world again. + +We have frequently emphasized how truly the modern Celtic peasant in +certain non-commercialized localities has kept to the faith of his pagan +ancestors, while the learned Christian scribes have often departed +widely from it. The story of the voyage of Fionn to the Otherworld,[354] +which Campbell found living among Scotch peasants as late as the last +century, adds a striking proof of this assertion. So does Michael +Comyn's peasant version of Ossian in the 'Land of Youth' (as outlined +above, p. 346), which, though dating from about 1749, has all the +natural character of the best ancient tales, like those about Bran and +Cormac. We are inclined, therefore, to attach a value even higher than +we have already done to the testimony of the living Fairy-Faith which +confirms in so many parallel ways, as has been shown, the Fairy-Faith of +the remote past. Mr. W. B. Yeats, the Irish poet, adequately sums up +this matter by saying, 'But the Irish peasant believes that the utmost +he can dream was once or still is a reality by his own door. He will +point to some mountain and tell you that some famous hero or beauty +lived and sorrowed there, or he will tell you that Tir-na-nog, the +Country of the Young, the old Celtic paradise--the Land of the Living +Heart, as it used to be called--is all about him.'[355] + +At the end of his long and careful study of the Celtic Otherworld, +Alfred Nutt arrived at the tentative conclusion which coincides with our +own, that 'The vision of a Happy Otherworld found in Irish mythic +romances of the eighth and following centuries is substantially +pre-Christian', that its closest analogues are in Hellenic myth, and +that with these 'it forms the most archaic Aryan presentation of the +divine and happy land we possess'.[356] + + + + +SECTION II + +THE RECORDED FAIRY-FAITH + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE CELTIC DOCTRINE OF RE-BIRTH[357] + + 'It seems as if Ossian's was a premature return. To-day he might + find comrades come back from Tir-na-nog for the uplifting of their + race. Perhaps to many a young spirit standing up among us Cailte + might speak as to Mongan, saying: "I was with thee, with + Finn."'--A. E. + + Re-birth and Otherworld--As a Christian doctrine--General + historical survey--According to the Barddas MSS.; according to + ancient and modern authorities--Reincarnation of the Tuatha De + Danann--King Mongan's re-birth--Etain's birth--Dermot's + pre-existence--Tuan's re-birth--Re-birth among Brythons--Arthur as + a reincarnate hero--Non-Celtic parallels--Re-birth among modern + Celts: in Ireland; in Scotland; in the Isle of Man; in Wales; in + Cornwall; in Brittany--Origin and evolution of Celtic Re-birth + Doctrine. + + +RELATION WITH THE OTHERWORLD + +However much the conception of the Otherworld among the ancient Greeks +may have differed from that among the Celts, it was to both peoples +alike inseparably connected with their belief in re-birth. Alfred Nutt, +who studied this intimate relation more carefully perhaps than any other +Celtic folk-lorist, has said of it:--'In Greek mythology as in Irish, +the conception of re-birth proves to be a dominant factor of the same +religious system in which Elysium is likewise an essential feature.' +Death, as many initiates have proclaimed in their mystical writings, is +but a going to that Otherworld from this world, and Birth a coming back +again;[358] and Buddha announced it as his mission to teach men the way +to be delivered out of this eternal Circle of Existence. + + +HISTORICAL SURVEY OF THE RE-BIRTH DOCTRINE + +Among ourselves the doctrine may seem a strange one, though among the +great nations of antiquity--the Egyptians, Indians, Greeks, and +Celts--it was taught in the Mysteries and Priest-Schools, and formed the +corner-stone of the most important philosophical systems like those of +Buddha, Pythagoras, Plato, the Neo-Platonists, and the Druids. The +Alexandrian Jews, also, were familiar with the doctrine, as implied in +the _Wisdom of Solomon_ (viii. 19, 20), and in the writings of Philo. It +was one of the teachings in the Schools of Alexandria, and thus directly +shaped the thoughts of some of the early Church Fathers--for example, +Tertullian of Carthage (circa A. D. 160-240), and Origen of Alexandria +(circa A. D. 185-254). It is of considerable historical importance for +us at this point to consider at some length if Christians in the first +centuries held or were greatly influenced by the re-birth doctrine, +because, as we shall presently observe, the probable influence of +Christian on pagan Celtic beliefs may have been at a certain period very +deep and even the most important reshaping influence. + +As an examination of Origen's _De Principiis_ proves, Origen himself +believed in the doctrine.[359] But the theologians who created the Greek +canons of the Fifth Council disagreed with Origen's views, and +condemned Origen for believing, among other things called by them +heresies, that Jesus Christ will be reincarnated and suffer on earth a +second time to save the daemons,[360] an order of spiritual beings +regarded by some ancient philosophers as destined to evolve into human +souls. Tertullian, contemporary with Origen, in his _De Anima_ considers +whether or not the doctrine of re-birth can be regarded as Christian in +view of the declaration by Jesus Christ that John the Baptist was Elias +(or Elijah), the old Jewish prophet, come again:--'And if ye are willing +to receive it (or him), this (John the Baptist) is Elijah, which is to +come. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.'[361] Tertullian +concludes, and modern Christian theologians frequently echo him (upon +comparing Malachi iv. 5), that all the New Testament writers mean to +convey is that John the Baptist possessed or acted in 'the spirit and +power' of Elias, but was not actually a reincarnation of Elias, since he +did not possess 'the soul and body' of Elias.[362] Had Tertullian been a +mystic and not merely a theologian with a personal bias against the +mystery teachings, which bias he shows throughout his _De Anima_, it is +quite evident that he would have been on this doctrinal matter in +agreement with Origen, who was both a mystic and a theologian,[363] and, +then, probably with such an agreement of these two eminent Church +Fathers on record before the time when Christian councils met to +determine canonical and orthodox beliefs, the doctrine of re-birth would +never have been expurgated from Christianity.[364] + +In the _Pistis Sophia_,[365] an ancient Gnostic-Christian work, which +contains what are alleged to be some of Jesus Christ's esoteric +teachings to his disciples, it is clearly stated (contrary to +Tertullian's argument, but in accord with what we may assume Origen's +view would have been) that John the Baptist was the reincarnation of +Elias.[366] The same work further expounds the doctrine of re-birth as +a teaching of Jesus Christ which applies not to particular personages +only, like Elias, but as a universal law governing the lives of all +mankind.[367] + +As our discussion has made evident, during the first centuries the +re-birth doctrine was undoubtedly well known to Alexandrian Christians. +Among other early Christian theologians and philosophers who held some +form of a re-birth doctrine, were Synesius, Bishop of Ptolemais (circa +375-414), Boethius, a Roman (circa 475-525), and Psellus, a native of +Andros (second half of ninth century). In addition to the many +Gnostic-Christian sects, the Manichaeans, who comprised more than +seventy sects connected with the primitive Church, also promulgated the +re-birth doctrine.[368] Along with the condemnation of the Gnostics and +Manichaeans as heretical, the doctrine of re-birth was likewise +condemned by various ecclesiastical bodies and councils. This was the +declaration by the Council of Constantinople in 553:--'Whosoever shall +support the mythical doctrine of the pre-existence of the Soul, and the +consequent wonderful opinion of its return, let him be anathema.' And +so, after centuries of controversy, the ancient doctrine ceased to be +regarded as Christian.[369] It is very likely, however, as will be +shown in due order, that a few of the early Celtic missionaries, always +famous for their Celtic independence even in questions touching +Christian theology and government, did not feel themselves bound by the +decisions of continental Church Councils with respect to this particular +doctrine. + +During the mediaeval period in Europe, the re-birth doctrine continued +to live on in secret among many of the alchemists and mystical +philosophers, and among such Druids as survived religious persecution; +and it has come down from that period to this through Orders like the +Rosicrucian Order--an Order which seems to have had an unbroken +existence from the Middle Ages or earlier--and likewise through the +unbroken traditions of modern Druidism. In our own times there is what +may be called a renaissance of the ancient doctrine in Europe and +America--especially in England, Germany, France, and the United +States--through various philosophical or religious societies; some of +them founding their teachings and literature on the ancient and +mediaeval mystical philosophers, while others stand as the +representatives in the West of the mystical schools of modern India, +which, like modern Druidism, claim to have existed from what we call +prehistoric times.[370] To-day in the Roman Church eminent theologians +have called the doctrine of Purgatory the Christian counterpart of the +philosophical doctrine of re-birth;[371] and the real significance of +this opinion will appear in our later study of St. Patrick's Purgatory +which, as we hold, is connected more or less definitely with the +pagan-Irish doctrines of the underworld of the _Sidhe_-folk and spirits, +as well as shades of the dead, and with the Celtic-Druidic Doctrine of +Reincarnation. + +Scientifically speaking, as shown in the Welsh Triads of Bardism, the +ancient Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth represented for the priestly and +bardic initiates an exposition of the complete cycle of human evolution; +that is to say, it included what we now call Darwinism--which explains +only the purely physical evolution of the body which man inhabits as an +inheritance from the brute kingdom--and also besides Darwinism, a +comprehensive theory of man's own evolution as a spiritual being both +apart from and in a physical body, on his road to the perfection which +comes from knowing completely the earth-plane of existence. And in time, +judging from the rapid advance of the present age, our own science +through psychical research may work back to the old mystery teachings +and declare them scientific. (See chap. xii.) + + +ACCORDING TO THE BARDDAS MSS. + +With this preliminary survey of the subject we may now proceed to show +how in the Celtic scheme of evolution the Otherworld with all its gods, +fairies, and invisible beings, and this world with all its visible +beings, form the two poles of life or conscious existence. Let us begin +with purely philosophical conceptions, going first to the Welsh +_Barddas_,[372] where it is said 'There are three circles of existence: +the circle of Ceugant (the circle of Infinity), where there is neither +animate nor inanimate save God, and God only can traverse it; the circle +of Abred (the circle of Re-birth), where the dead is stronger than the +living, and where every principal existence is derived from the dead, +and man has traversed it; and the circle of Gwynvyd (the circle of the +white, i. e. the circle of Perfection), where the living is stronger +than the dead, and where every principal existence is derived from the +living and life, that is, from God, and man shall traverse it; nor will +man attain to perfect knowledge, until he shall have fully traversed the +circle of Gwynvyd, for no absolute knowledge can be obtained but by the +experience of the senses, from having borne and suffered every condition +and incident'.[373] ... 'The three stabilities of knowledge: to have +traversed every state of life; to remember every state and its +incidents; and to be able to traverse every state, as one would wish, +for the sake of experience and judgement; and this will be obtained in +the circle of Gwynvyd.'[374] + +Thus _Barddas_ expounds the complete Bardic scheme of evolution as one +in which the monad or soul, as a knowledge of physical existence is +gradually unfolded to it, passes through every phase of material +embodiment before it enters the human kingdom, where, for the first time +exercising freewill in a physical body, it becomes responsible for all +its acts. The Bardic doctrine as otherwise stated is 'that the soul +commenced its course in the lowest water-animalcule, and passed at death +to other bodies of a superior order, successively, and in regular +gradation, until it entered that of man. Humanity is a state of liberty, +where man can attach himself to either good or evil, as he +pleases'.[375] Once in the human kingdom the soul begins a second period +of growth altogether different from that preceding--a period of growth +toward divinity; and with this, in our study, we are chiefly concerned. +It seems clear that the circle of Gwynvyd finds its parallel in the +Nirvana of Buddhism, being, like it, a state of absolute knowledge and +felicity in which man becomes a divine being, a veritable god.[376] We +see in all this the intimate relation which there was thought to be +between what we call the state of life and the state of death, between +the world of men and the world of gods, fairies, demons, spirits, and +shades. Our next step must be to show, first, what some other +authorities have had to say about this relation, and then, second, and +fundamentally, that gods or fairy-folk like the _Sidhe_ or Tuatha De +Danann could come to this world not only as we have been seeing them +come as fairy women, fairy men, and gods, at will visible or invisible +to mortals, but also through submitting to human birth. + + +ACCORDING TO ANCIENT AND MODERN AUTHORITIES + +First, therefore, for opinions; and we may go to the ancients and then +to the moderns. Here are a few from Julius Caesar:--'In particular they +(the Druids) wish to inculcate this idea, that souls do not die, but +pass from one body to another.'[377] 'The Gauls declare that they have +all sprung from their father Dis (or Pluto), and this they say was +delivered to them by the Druids.'[377] And the testimony of Caesar is +confirmed by Diodorus Siculus,[378] and by Pomponius Mela.[379] Lucan, +in the _Pharsalia_,[380] addressing the Druids on their doctrine of +re-birth says:--'If you know what you sing, death is the centre of a +long life.' And again in the same passage he observes:--'Happy the folk +upon whom the Bear looks down, happy in this error, whom of fears the +greatest moves not, the dread of death. Hence their warrior's heart +hurls them against the steel, hence their ready welcome of death, and +the thought that it were a coward's part to grudge a life sure of its +return.'[381] Dr. Douglas Hyde, in his _Literary History of Ireland_ (p. +95), speaking for the Irish people, says of the re-birth doctrine:--'... +the idea of re-birth which forms part of half a dozen existing Irish +sagas, was perfectly familiar to the Irish Gael....' According to +another modern Celtic authority, D'Arbois de Jubainville, two chief +Celtic doctrines or beliefs were the return of the ghosts of the dead +and the re-birth of the same individuality in a new human body here on +this planet.[382] + + +REINCARNATION OF THE TUATHA DE DANANN + +We proceed now directly to show that there was also a belief, probably +widespread, among the ancient Irish that divine personages, national +heroes who are members of the Tuatha De Danann or _Sidhe_ race, and +great men, can be reincarnated, that is to say, can descend to this +plane of existence and be as mortals more than once. This aspect of the +Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth has been clearly set forth by the +publications of such eminent Celtic folk-lorists as Alfred Nutt and Miss +Eleanor Hull. Miss Hull, in her study of _Old Irish Tabus, or +Gesa_,[383] referring to the Cuchulainn Cycle of Irish literature and +mythology, writes thus:--'There is no doubt that all the chief +personages of this cycle were regarded as the direct descendants, or it +would be more correct to say, as avatars or reincarnations of the early +gods. Not only are their pedigrees traced up to the Tuatha De Danann, +but there are indications in the birth-stories of nearly all the +principal personages that they are looked upon simply as divine beings +reborn on the human plane of life. These indications are mysterious, +and most of the tales which deal with them show signs of having been +altered, perhaps intentionally, by the Christian transcribers. The +doctrine of re-birth was naturally not one acceptable to them.... The +goddess Etain becomes the mortal wife of a king of Ireland.... +Conchobhar, moreover, is spoken of as a terrestrial god;[384] and +Dechtire, his sister, and the mother of Cuchulainn, is called a +goddess.[385] In the case of Cuchulainn himself, it is distinctly noted +that he is the avatar of Lugh lamhfada (long-hand), the sun-deity[386] +of the earliest cycle. Lugh appears to Dechtire, the mother of +Cuchulainn, and tells her that he himself is her little child, i. e. +that the child is a reincarnation of himself; and Cuchulainn, when +inquired of as to his birth, points proudly to his descent from Lugh. +When, too, it is proposed to find a wife for the hero, the reason +assigned is, that they knew "that his re-birth would be of himself" (i. +e. that only from himself could another such as he have origin).'[387] +We have in this last a clue to the popular Irish belief regarding the +re-birth of beings of a god-like nature. D'Arbois de Jubainville has +shown,[388] also, that the grandfather of Cuchulainn, son of Sualtaim, +was from the country of the _Sidhe_, and so was Ethne Ingube, the sister +of Sualtaim. And Dechtire, the mother of Cuchulainn, was the daughter of +the Druid Cathba and the brother of King Conchobhar. Thus the ancestry +of the great hero of the Red Branch Knights of Ulster is both royal and +divine. And Conall Cernach, Cuchulainn's comrade and avenger, apparently +from a tale in the _Coir Anmann_ (Fitness of Names), composed probably +during the twelfth century, was also a reincarnated Tuatha De Danann +hero.[389] + +Practically all the extant manuscripts dealing with the ancient +literature and mythology of the Gaels were written by Christian scribes +or else copied by them from older manuscripts, so that, as Miss Hull +points out, what few Irish re-birth stories have come down to us--and +they are probably but remnants of an extensive re-birth literature like +that of India--have been more or less altered. Yet to these scholarly +scribes of the early monastic schools, who kept alive the sacred fire of +learning while their own country was being plundered by foreign invaders +and the rest of mediaeval Europe plunged in warfare, the world owes a +debt of gratitude; for to their efforts alone, in spite of a reshaping +of matter naturally to be expected, is due almost everything recorded on +parchments concerning pagan Ireland. + + +THE RE-BIRTH STORY CONCERNING KING MONGAN + +We have preserved to us a remarkable re-birth story in which the +characters are known to be historical.[390] It concerns a quarrel +between the king of Ulster, Mongan, son of Fiachna--who, according to +the _Annals of Ireland by the Four Masters_ (i. 245), was killed in A. +D. 620 by Arthur, son of Bicor--and Forgoll, the poet of Mongan.[391] +The dispute between them was as to the place of the death of Fothad +Airgdech, a king of Ireland who was killed by Cailte, one of the +warriors of Find, in a battle whose date is fixed by the _Four Masters_ +in A. D. 285.[392] Forgoll pretended that Fothad had been killed at +Duffry, in Leinster, and Mongan asserted that it was on the river Larne +(anciently Ollarba) in County Antrim. Enraged at being contradicted, +even though it were by the king, Forgoll threatened Mongan with terrible +incantations; and it was agreed that unless Mongan proved his assertion +within three days, his queen should pass under the control of Forgoll. +Mongan, however, had spoken truly and with certain secret knowledge, and +felt sure of winning. + +When the third day was almost expired and Forgoll had presented himself +ready to claim the wager, there was heard coming in the distance the one +whom Mongan awaited. It was Cailte himself, come from the Otherworld to +bear testimony to the truthfulness of the king and to confound the +audacious presumptions of the poet Forgoll. It was evening when he +reached the palace. The king Mongan was seated on his throne, and the +queen at his right full of fear about the outcome, and in front stood +the poet Forgoll claiming the wager. No one knew the strange warrior as +he entered the court, save the king. + +Cailte, when fully informed of the quarrel and the wager, quickly +announced so that all heard him distinctly, 'The poet has lied!' 'You +will regret those words,' replied the poet. 'What you say does not well +become you,' responded Cailte in turn, 'for I will prove what I say.' +And straightway Cailte revealed this strange secret: that he had been +one of the companions in arms under the great warrior Find, who was also +his teacher, and that Mongan, the king before whom he spoke, was the +reincarnation of Find:-- + +'We were with thee,' said Cailte, addressing the king. 'We were with +Find.' 'Know, however,' replied Mongan, 'that you do wrong in revealing +a secret.' But the warrior continued: 'We were therefore with Find. We +came from Scotland. We encountered Fothad Airgdech near here, on the +shores of the Ollarba. We gave him furious battle. I cast my spear at +him in such a manner that it passed through his body, and the iron +point, detaching itself from the staff, became fixed in the earth on the +other side of Fothad. Behold here [in my hand] the shaft of that spear. +There will be found the bare rock from the top of which I let fly my +weapon. There will be found a little further to the east the iron point +sunken in the earth. There will be found again a little further, always +to the east, the tomb of Fothad Airgdech. A coffin of stone covers his +body; his two bracelets of silver, his two arm-rings, and his +neck-torque of silver are in the coffin. Above the tomb rises a +pillar-stone, and on the upper extremity of that stone which is planted +in the earth one may read an inscription in ogam: _Here reposes Fothad +Airgdech; he was fighting against Find when Cailte slew him_.' + +And to the consternation of Forgoll, what this warrior who came from the +Otherworld declared was true, for there were found the place indicated +by him, the rock, the spear-head, the pillar-stone, the inscription, the +coffin of stone, the body in it, and the jewellery. Thus Mongan gained +the wager; and the secret of his life which he alone had known was +revealed--he was Find re-born[393]; and Cailte, his old pupil and +warrior-companion, had come from the land of the dead to aid +him[393]:--'It was Cailte, Find's foster-son, that had come to them. +Mongan, however, was Find, though he would not let it be told.'[393] But +not only was Mongan an Irish king, he was also a god, the son of the +Tuatha De Danann Manannan Mac Lir: 'this Mongan is a son of Manannan Mac +Lir, though he is called Mongan, son of Fiachna.'[394] And so it is that +long after their conquest the People of the Goddess Dana ruled their +conquerors, for they took upon themselves human bodies, being born as +the children of the kings of Mil's Sons. + +There are other episodes which show very clearly the relationship +between Mongan incarnated in a human body and his divine father +Manannan. Thus, 'When Mongan was three nights old, Manannan came for him +and took him with him to bring up in the Land of Promise, and vowed +that he would not let him back into Ireland before he were twelve years +of age.' And after Mongan has become Ulster's high king, Manannan comes +to him to rouse him out of human slothfulness to a consciousness of his +divine nature and mission, and of the need of action: Mongan and his +wife were frittering away their time playing a game, when they beheld a +dark black-tufted little cleric standing at the door-post, who +said:--'"This inactivity in which thou art, O Mongan, is not an +inactivity becoming a king of Ulster, not to go to avenge thy father on +Fiachna the Black, son of Deman, though Dubh-Lacha may think it wrong to +tell thee so...." Mongan seized the kingship of Ulster, and the little +cleric who had done the reason was Manannan the great and mighty.'[395] + +In the ancient tale of the _Voyage of Bran_--probably composed in its +present form during the eighth, possibly the seventh, century A. +D.--there is another version of the Mongan Re-birth Story, which, being +later in origin and composition than the _Voyage_ itself, was +undoubtedly clumsily inserted into the manuscript, as scholars +think.[396] Therein, Mongan as the offspring of Manannan by the woman of +Line-mag--quite after the theory of the Christian Incarnation--is +described as 'a fair man in a body of white clay'. This and what follows +in the introductory quatrain show how early Celtic doctrines correspond +to or else were originated by those of the Christians. And the +transcriber seeing the parallels, glossed and altered the text which he +copied by introducing Christian phraseology so as to fit it in with his +own idea--altogether improbable--that the references are to the coming +of Jesus Christ. The references are to Manannan and to the woman of +Line-mag, who by him was to be the mother of Mongan--as Mary the wife of +Joseph was the mother of Jesus Christ by God the Father:-- + + A noble salvation will come + From the King who has created us, + A white law will come over seas, + Besides being God, He will be man. + + This shape, he on whom thou lookest, + Will come to thy parts; + 'Tis mine to journey to her house, + To the woman in Line-mag. + + For it is Moninnan, the son of Ler, + From the chariot in the shape of a man, + + * * * * * + + He will delight the company of every fairy-knoll, + He will be the darling of every goodly land, + He will make known secrets--a course of wisdom-- + In the world, without being feared. + +To him is attributed the power of shape-shifting, which is not +transmigration into animal forms, but a magical power exercised by him +in a human body. + + He will be throughout long ages + An hundred years in fair kingship + + * * * * + + Moninnan, the son of Ler + Will be his father, his tutor. + +At his death + + The white host (the angels or fairies) will take him under a wheel + (chariot) of clouds + To the gathering where there is no sorrow.[397] + + +THE BIRTH OF ETAIN OF THE TUATHA DE DANANN[398] + +Another clear example of one of the Tuatha De Danann being born as a +mortal is recorded in the famous saga of the _Wooing of Etain_. Three +fragments of this story exist in the _Book of the Dun Cow_. The first +tells how Etain Echraide, daughter of Ailill and wife of Midir (a great +king among the _Sidhe_ people) was driven out of Fairyland by the +jealousy of her husband's other wife, and how after being wafted about +on the winds of this world she fell invisibly into the drinking-cup of +the wife of Etar of Inber Cichmaine, who was an Ulster chieftain. The +chieftain's wife swallowed her; and, in due time, gave birth to a +girl:--'It was one thousand and twelve years from the first begetting +of Etain by Ailill to the last begetting by Etar.' Etain, retaining her +own name, grew up thence as an Irish princess.[399] + +One day an unknown man of very stately aspect suddenly appeared to Etain +the princess; and as suddenly disappeared, after he had sung to her a +wonderful song designed to arouse in her the subconscious memories of +her past existence among the _Sidhe_:-- + + So is Etain here to-day.... + Among little children is her lot.... + It is she was gulped in the drink + By Etar's wife in a heavy draught. + +The scribe ends this part of the story by letting it be known that Midir +has struck off the head of his other wife, Fuamnach, the cause of all +Etain's trouble. + +The second section of the tale introduces Etain as queen of Eochaid +Airem, high king of Ireland, and the most curious and important part of +it shows how she was loved by Ailill Aenguba. Ailill, so far as blood +kinship went, was the brother of Eochaid, though apparently either an +incarnation of Midir or else possessed by him: Etain acceded to his +love, but he was under a strange love-weakness; and on two occasions +when he attempted to advance his desires an overpowering sleep fell on +him, and each time Etain met a man in Ailill's shape--as though it were +his 'double'--bemoaning his weakness. On a third occasion she asked who +the man was, and he declared himself to be Midir, and besought her to +return with him to the Otherworld. But her worldly or human memory +clouded her subconscious memory, and she did not recognize Midir, yet +promised to go with him on gaining Eochaid's permission. After this +event, curiously enough, Ailill was healed of his strange love-malady. + +In the third part of the story, Midir and Eochaid are playing games. +Midir loses the first two and with them great riches, but winning the +third claims the right to place his arms about Etain and kiss her. +Eochaid asked a month's delay. The last day of the month had passed. It +was night. Eochaid in his palace at Tara awaited the coming of his +rival, Midir; and though all the doors of the palace had been firmly +closed for the occasion, and armed soldiers surrounded the queen, Midir +like a spirit suddenly stood in the centre of the court and claimed the +wager. Then, grasping and kissing Etain, he mounted in the air with her +and very quickly passed out through the opening of the great chimney. In +consternation, King Eochaid and his warriors hurried without the palace; +and there, on looking up, they saw two white swans flying over Tara, +bound together by a golden chain.[400] + + +THE PRE-EXISTENCE OF DERMOT + +With a difficult task before him, Dermot--as was the case with +Mongan--is reminded of his pre-existence as a hero in the Otherworld +with Manannan Mac Lir and Angus Oge:--'Now spoke Fergus Truelips, Finn's +ollave, and said: "Cowardly and punily thou shrinkest, Dermot; for with +most potent Manannan, son of Lir, thou studiedst and wast brought up, in +the Land of Promise and in the bay-indented coasts; with Angus Oge, too, +the Daghda's son, wast most accurately taught; and it is not just that +now thou lackest even a moderate portion of their skill and daring, such +as might serve to convey Finn and his party up this rock or bastion." At +these words Dermot's face grew red; he laid hold on Manannan's magic +staves that he had, and, as once again he redly blushed, by dint of +skill in martial feats he with a leap rose on his javelin's shafts and +so gained his two soles' breadth of the solid glebe that overhung the +water's edge.'[401] + + +RE-BIRTH OF TUAN + +Tuan, as the son of Starn, lived one hundred years as the brother of +Partholon, the first man to reach Ireland; and then, after two hundred +and twenty years, was re-born as the son of Cairell. This story in its +oldest form is preserved in the _Book of the Dun Cow_, and seems to have +been composed during the late ninth or early tenth century.[402] + + +RE-BIRTH AMONG THE BRYTHONS + +Such then are the re-birth stories of the Gaels. Among the Brythons the +same ancient doctrine prevailed, though we have fewer clear records of +it. Of the Brythonic Re-birth Doctrine as philosophically expounded in +_Barddas_, mention has already been made. + +In the ancient Welsh story about Taliessin, Gwion after many +transformations, magical in their nature, is re-born as that great poet +of Wales, his mother being a goddess, Caridwen, who dwells beneath the +waters of Lake Tegid. In its present mystical form this tale cannot be +traced further than the end of the sixteenth century, though the +transformation incidents are presupposed in the _Book of Taliessin_, a +thirteenth-century manuscript.[403] Besides being the re-birth of Gwion, +Taliessin may be regarded as a bardic initiate high in degree, who is +possessed of all magical and druidical powers.[403] He made a voyage to +the Otherworld, Caer Sidi; and this seems to indicate some close +connexion between ancient rites of initiation and his occult knowledge +of all things.[404] Like the Irish re-birth and Otherworld tales, it +also suggests the relation between the world of death or Faerie and the +world of human embodiment. + +From his harrying of Hades, the Brythonic Gwydion secured the Head of +Hades' Cauldron of Regeneration or Re-birth; and when corpses of slain +warriors are thrown into it they arise next day as excellent as ever, +except that they are unable to speak; which circumstance may be equal to +saying that the ordinary uninitiated man when re-born is unable to speak +of his previous incarnation, because he has no memory of it. This +Cauldron of Re-birth, like so many objects mentioned in the ancient +bardic literature, is evidently a mystic symbol: it suggests the same +correspondences, as propounded in the modern _Barddas_, between the dead +and the living, between death and re-birth; and Gwydion having been a +great culture hero of Wales probably promulgated a doctrine of re-birth, +and hence is described as being able to resuscitate the dead.[405] + + +KING ARTHUR AS A REINCARNATED HERO + +Judging from substantial evidence set forth above in chapter V, the most +famous of all Welsh heroes, Arthur, equally with Cuchulainn his Irish +counterpart, can safely be considered both as a god apart from the human +plane of existence, and thus like the Tuatha De Danann or Fairy-Folk, +and also like a great national hero and king (such as Mongan was) +incarnated in a physical body. The taking of Arthur to Avalon by his +life-guardian, the Lady of the Lake, and by his own sister, and by two +other fairy women who live in that Otherworld of Sacred Apple-Groves, is +sufficient in itself, we believe, to prove him of a descent more divine +than that of ordinary men. And the belief in his return from that +Otherworld--a return so confidently looked for by the Brythonic +peoples--seems to be a belief (whether recognized as such or not) that +the Great Hero will be reincarnated as a Messiah destined to set them +free. In Avalon, Arthur lives now, and 'It is from there that the +Britons of England and of France have for a long time awaited his +coming'.[406] And Malory expressing the sentiment in his age +writes[407]:--'Yet some men say in many parts of England that King +Arthur is not dead, but had by the will of our Lord Jesu into another +place; and men say that he shall come again, and he shall win the holy +cross. I will not say it shall be so, but rather I will say, here in +this world he changed his life.' If we consider Arthur's passing and +expected return, as many do, in a purely mythological aspect, we must +think of him for the time as a sun-god, and yet even then cannot escape +altogether from the re-birth idea; for, as a study of ancient Egyptian +mythology shows, there is still the same set of relations.[408] There +are the sun-symbols always made use of to set forth the doctrine of +re-birth, be it Egyptian, Indian, Mexican, or Celtic:--the death of a +mortal like the passing of Arthur is represented by the sun-set on the +horizon between the visible world here and the invisible world beyond +the Western Ocean, and the re-birth is the sunrise of a new day. + + +NON-CELTIC PARALLELS + +As a non-Celtic parallel to what has preceded concerning the Otherworld +of the Celts and their Doctrine of Re-birth, we offer the second of the +_Stories of the High-priests of Memphis_, as published by Mr. F. L. +Griffith from ancient manuscripts.[409] It is a history of Si-Osiri (the +son of Osiris), whose father was Setme Khamuas. This wonderful divine +son when still a child took his human father on a journey to see Amenti, +the Otherworld of the Dead; and when twelve years of age he was wiser +than the wisest of the scribes and unequalled in magic. At this period +in his life there arrived in Egypt an Ethiopian magician who came with +the object of humbling the kingdom; but Si-Osiri read what was in the +unopened letter of the stranger, and knew that its bearer was the +reincarnation of 'Hor the son of the Negress', the most formidable of +the three Ethiopian magicians who fifteen hundred years before had waged +war with the magicians of Egypt. At that time the Egyptian Hor, the son +of Pa-neshe, had defeated the great magician of Ethiopia in the final +struggle between White and Black Magic which took place in the presence +of the Pharaoh.[410] And 'Hor the son of the Negress' had agreed not to +return to Egypt again for fifteen hundred years. But now the time was +elapsed, and, unmasking the character of the messenger, Si-Osiri +destroyed him with magical fire. After this, Si-Osiri revealed himself +as the reincarnation of Hor the son of Pa-neshe, and declared that +Osiris had permitted him to return to earth to destroy the powerful +hereditary enemy of Egypt. When the revelation was made, Si-Osiri +'passed away as a shade', going back again, even as the Celtic Arthur, +into the realm invisible from which he came. + +As in ancient Ireland, where many kings or great heroes were regarded as +direct incarnations or reincarnations of gods or divine beings from the +Otherworld, so in Egypt the Pharaohs were thought to be gods in human +bodies, sent by Osiris to rule the Children of the Sun.[411] In Mexico +and Peru there was a similar belief.[412] In the Indian _Mahabharata_, +Rama and Krishna are at once gods and men.[413] The celebrated +philosophical poem known as the _Bhagavadgita_ also asserts Krishna's +descent from the gods; and the same view is again enforced and extended +in the _Hari-vansa_ and especially in the _Bhagavata Purana_.[413] The +Indian _Laws of Manu_ say that 'even an infant king must not be despised +from an idea that he is a mere mortal; for he is a great deity in human +form'.[414] In ancient Greece it was a common opinion that Zeus was +reincarnated from age to age in the great national heroes. 'Alexander +the Great was regarded not merely as the son of Zeus, but as Zeus +himself.' And other great Greeks were regarded as gods while living on +earth, like Lycurgus the Spartan law-giver, who after his death was +worshipped as one of the divine ones.[415] + +Among the great philosophers, the ancient doctrine of re-birth was a +personal conviction: Buddha related very many of his previous +reincarnations, according to the _Gatakamala_; Pythagoras is said to +have gone to the temple of Here and recognized there an ancient shield +which he had carried in a previous life when he was Euphorbus, a Homeric +hero.[416] From what Plato, in his _Meno_, quoted from an old poet, it +seems very probable that there may be some sort of relationship between +legends mentioning the Rites of Proserpine, like the legend of Aeneas in +Virgil, and certain of the Irish Otherworld and Re-birth legends among +the Gaels, as we have already suggested:--'For from whomsoever +Persephone hath accepted the atonement of ancient woe, their souls she +sendeth up once more to the upper sun in the ninth year. From these grow +up glorious kings and men of swift strength, and men surpassing in +poetical skill; and for all future time they are called holy heroes +among men.' Among modern philosophers and poets in Europe and America +the same ideas find their echo: Wordsworth in his _Ode to Immortality_ +definitely inculcates pre-existence; Emerson in his _Threnody_, and +Tennyson in his _De Profundis_, seem committed to the re-birth doctrine, +and Walt Whitman in his _Leaves of Grass_ without doubt accepted it as +true. Certain German philosophers, too, appear to hold views in harmony +with what is also the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth, e. g. Schopenhauer, in +_The World as Will and Idea_, J. G. Fichte, in _The Destiny of Man_, and +Herder, in _Dialogues on Metempsychosis_. The Emperor of Japan is still +the Divine Child of the Sun, the head of the _Order of the Rising Sun_, +and is always regarded by his subjects as the incarnation of a great +being. The Great Lama of Thibet is believed to reincarnate immediately +after death.[417] William II of Germany seems to echo, perhaps +unconsciously, the same doctrine when he claims to be ruling by divine +right.[418] + +That the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth is a direct and complete +confirmation of the Psychological Theory of the nature and origin of the +belief in fairies is self-evident. Could it be shown to be +scientifically plausible in itself, as well-educated Celts consider it +to be--and much evidence to be derived from a study of states of +consciousness, e. g. dreams, somnambulism, trance, crystal-gazing, +changed personality, subconsciousness, and so forth, indicates that it +might be shown to be so--it would effectively prove the theory. Fairies +would then be beings of the Otherworld who can enter the human plane of +life by submitting to the natural process of birth in a physical body, +and would correspond to the _Alcheringa_ ancestors of the Arunta. In +chapter xii following, such a proof of the theory is attempted. + + +RE-BIRTH AMONG MODERN CELTS + +One of the chief objects of this chapter is to show that the Re-birth +Doctrine of the Celts, like most beliefs bound up with the Fairy-Faith, +still survives; thus further proving that Celtic tradition is an +unbroken thing from times prehistoric until to-day. We shall therefore +proceed to bring forward the following original material, collected by +ourselves, as evidence on this point:-- + +_In Ireland_ + +In Ireland I found two districts where the Re-birth Doctrine has not +been wholly forgotten. The first one is in the country round Knock Ma, +near Tuam. After Mrs. ---- had told me about fairies, I led up to the +subject of re-birth, and the most valuable of all my Irish finds +concerning the belief was the result. For this woman of Belclare told me +that it was believed by many of the old people, when she was a girl +living a few miles west of Knock Ma, that they had lived on this earth +before as men and women; but, she added, 'You could hardly get them to +talk about their belief. It was a sort of secret which they who held it +discussed freely only among themselves.' They believed, too, that +disease and misfortune in old age come as a penalty for sins committed +in a former life.[419] This expiatory or purgatorial aspect of the +Re-birth Doctrine seems to have been more widespread than the doctrine +in its bare outlines; for the Belclare woman in speaking of it was able +to recall from memories of forty-five or fifty years ago what was then a +popular story about a disease-worn man and an eel-fisherman:-- + +The diseased man as he watches the eel-fisherman taking up his baskets, +contrasts his own wretched physical condition with the vigour and good +health of the latter, and attributes the misfortune which is upon +himself to bad actions in a life prior to the one he is then living. And +here is the unhappy man's lamentation:-- + + Fliuch, fuar ata mo leabaidh; + Ata fearthainn agus geur-ghaoith; + Ataim ag ioc na h-uaille, + A's tusa ag faire do chliaibhin. + + (Wet, cold is my bed; + There is rain and sharp wind; + I am paying for pride, + And you watching your [eel-]basket.) + +The teller of the story insisted on giving me these verses in Irish, for +she said they have much less meaning in English, and I took them down; +and to verify them and the story in which they find a place, I went to +the cottage a second time. There is no doubt, therefore, that the legend +is a genuine echo of the religion of pre-Christian Ireland, in which +reincarnation appears to have been clearly inculcated and was probably +the common belief. + +I once asked Steven Ruan, the Galway piper, if he had ever heard of such +a thing as people being born more than once here on this earth, seeing +that I was seeking for traces of the old Irish Doctrine of Re-birth. The +answer he gave me was this:--'I have often heard it said that people +born and dead come into this world again. I have heard the old people +say that we have lived on this earth before; and I have often met old +men and women who believed they had lived before. The idea passed from +one old person to another, and was a common belief, though you do not +hear much about it now.' + +A highly educated Irishman now living in California tells me of his own +knowledge that there was a popular and sincere belief among many of the +Irish people throughout Ireland that Charles Parnell, their great +champion in modern times, was the reincarnation of one of the old Gaelic +heroes. This shows how the ancient doctrine is still practically +applied. There is also an opinion held by certain very prominent +Irishmen now living in Ireland, with whom I have been privileged to +discuss the re-birth doctrine, that both Patrick and Columba are +likewise to be regarded as ancient Gaelic heroes, who were reincarnated +to work for the uplifting of the Gael.[420] + +A legend concerning Lough Gur, County Limerick, indicates that the +sleeping-hero type of tale is a curious aspect of an ancient re-birth +doctrine. In such tales, heroes and their warrior companions are held +under enchantment, awaiting the mystic hour to strike for them to issue +forth and free their native land from the rule of the Saxon. Usually +they are so held within a mysterious cavern, as is the case of Arthur +and his men, according to differently localized Welsh stories; or they +are in the depths of magic hills and mountains like most Irish heroes. +The heroes under enchantment with their companions are to be considered +as resident in the Otherworld, and their return to human action as a +return to the human plane of life. The Lough Gur legend is about Garret +Fitzgerald, the Earl of Desmond, who rebelled against Queen Elizabeth. +Modern folk-tradition regards him as the guardian deity of the Lough, +and as dwelling in an enchanted palace situated beneath its waters. As +Count John de Salis, whose ancestral home is the Lough Gur estate, +assures me, the peasants of the region declare themselves convinced that +the earl once in seven years appears riding across the lake surface on a +phantom white horse shod with shoes of silver; and they believe that +when the horse's silver shoes are worn out the enchantment will end. +Then, like Arthur when his stay in Avalon ends, Garret Fitzgerald will +return to the world of human life again to lead the Irish hosts to +victory.[421] + +_In Scotland_ + +Dr. Alexander Carmichael, author of _Carmina Gadelica_, who as a +folk-lorist has examined modern peasant beliefs throughout the Highlands +and Islands more thoroughly than any other living Scotsman, informs me +that apparently there was at one time in the Highlands a definite belief +in the ancient Celtic Re-birth Doctrine, because he has found traces of +it there, though these traces were only in the vaguest and barest +outline. + +_In the Isle of Man_ + +Mr. William Cashen, keeper of Peel Castle, reported as follows with +respect to a re-birth doctrine in the Isle of Man:--'Here in the Island +among old Manx people I have heard it said, but only in a joking way, +that we will come back to this earth again after some thousands of +years. The idea wasn't very popular nor often discussed, and there is no +belief in it now to my knowledge. It seems to have come down from the +Druids.' + +This is Mr. William Oates' testimony, given at Ballasalla:--'Some held a +belief in the coming back (re-birth) of spirits. I can't explain it. A +certain Manxman I knew used to talk about the transmigration of spirits; +but I shall not give his name, since many of his family still live here +on the Island.' + +Mr. Thomas Kelley, of Glen Meay, had no clear idea about the ancient +Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth, though he said:--'My grandfather had a +notion that he would be back here again at the Resurrection to claim his +land.' This undoubtedly shows how the Christian doctrine of the +Resurrection and the Celtic one of Re-birth may have blended, both being +based on the common idea of a physical post-existence. + +_In Wales_ + +In the Pentre Evan country where I discovered such rich folk-lore, I +found my chief witness from there not unfamiliar with the ancient Celtic +belief in Re-birth. One day I asked her if she had ever heard the old +folk say that they had lived before on this earth as men and women. +Somewhat surprised at the question, for to answer it would reveal +half-secret thoughts of which, as it proved, not even her own nephew or +niece had knowledge, she hesitated a moment, and, then, looking at me +intently, said with great earnestness, 'Yes; and I often believe myself +that I have lived before.' And because of the unusual question, which +seemed to reveal on my part familiarity with the belief, she added, 'And +I think you must be of the same opinion as to yourself.' She explained +then that the belief was a rare one now, and held by only a few of the +oldest of her old acquaintances in that region, and they seldom talk +about it to their children for fear of being laughed at. + +Mr. J. Ceredig Davies, the well-known folk-lorist of Llanilar, near +Aberystwyth, speaking of the Welsh Re-birth Doctrine, said he remembers, +while in Patagonia, having discussed Druidism with a friend there, the +late John Jones, originally of Bala, North Wales, and hearing him +remark, 'Indeed, I have a half-belief that I have been in this world +before.' + +Mr. Jones, our witness from Pontrhydfendigaid, offers testimony of the +highest value concerning Druidism and the doctrine of re-birth in +Central Wales, as follows:--'Taliessin believed in re-birth, and he was +the first to interpret the Druidic laws. He believed that from age to +age he had been in many human bodies. He believed that he possessed the +same soul as Enoch and Eli, that he had been a judge sitting on the case +of Jesus Christ--"I was a judge at the Crucifixion," he is reported as +saying--and that he had been a prisoner in bonds at the Court of +Cynfelyn, not far from Aberystwyth, for a year and a day. Two hundred +years ago, belief in re-birth was common. Many still held it when I was +a boy. And even yet here in this region some people are imbued with the +ancient faith of the Druids, and firmly believe that the spirit migrates +from one body to another. It is said, too, that a pregnant woman is able +to determine what kind of a child she will give birth to.'[422] + +Mr. Jones's use of the phrase 'migrate from one body to another' led us +to suspect that it might refer to transmigration, i. e. re-birth into +animal bodies, which Dr. Tylor in _Primitive Culture_{4} (ii. 6-11, 17, +&c.) shows is a distorted or corrupted interpretation of what he calls +the reasonable and straightforward doctrine of re-birth into human +bodies only. But when we questioned Mr. Jones further about the matter +he said:--'The belief I refer to is re-birth into human bodies. I have +heard of witches being able to change their own body into the body of an +animal or demon, but I never heard of men transmigrating into the bodies +of animals. Some people have said that the Druids taught transmigration +of this sort, but I do not think they did--though Welsh poets seem to +have made use of such a doctrine for the sake of poetry.' + +In order to gain evidence concerning the Re-birth Doctrine as concrete +as possible from so important a witness as Mr. Jones, we asked him +further if he could recall the names of one or two of his old +acquaintances who believed in it; and he said:--'One old character named +Thomas Williams, a dyer by trade, nearly believed in it, and Shon Evan +Rolant firmly believed in it. Rolant was the owner of Old Abbey Farm on +the Cross-Wood Estate, and originally was a well-to-do and respectable +farmer, but in consequence of mortgages on the estate he lost his +property. After being dispossessed and badly treated, he used to recite +the one hundred and ninth Psalm, to bring curses upon those who worked +against him in the dispossession process; and it was thought that he +succeeded in bringing curses upon them.' + +The Rev. T. M. Morgan, Vicar of Newchurch parish, near Carmarthen, who +has already offered valuable evidence concerning the _Tylwyth Teg_ (see +pp. 149-51), contributes additional material about the Doctrine of +Re-birth in South Wales:--'My father said there used to be expressed in +Cardiganshire before his time, a belief in re-birth. This was in accord +with Druidism, namely, that all human beings formerly existed on the +moon, the world of middle light, and the queen of heaven; that those who +there lived a righteous life were thence born on the sun, and thence +onward to the highest heaven; and that those whose moon life had been +unrighteous were born on this earth of suffering and sin. Through +right-living on earth souls are able to return to the moon, and then +evolve to the sun and highest heaven; or, through wrong living on earth, +souls are born in the third condition, which is one of utter darkness +and of still greater suffering and sin than our world offers. But even +from this lowest condition souls can work upwards to the highest glory +if they strive successfully against evil. The Goddess of Heaven or +Mother of all human beings was known as _Brenhines-y-nef_. I am unable +to tell if she is the moon itself or lived in the moon. On the other +hand, the sun was considered the father of all human beings. According +to the old belief, every new moon brings the souls who were unfit to be +born on the sun, to deposit them here on our earth. Sometimes there are +more souls seeking embodiment on earth than there are infant bodies to +contain them. Hence souls fight among themselves to occupy a body. +Occasionally one soul tries to drive out from a body the soul already in +possession of it, in order to possess it for itself. In consequence of +such struggling of soul against soul, men in this world manifest madness +and tear themselves. Whenever such a condition showed itself, the person +exhibiting it was called a _Lloerig_ or "one who is moon-torn"--_Lloer_ +meaning moon, and _rhigo_ to notch or tear; and in the English word +_lunatic_, meaning "moon-struck", we have a similar idea.'[423] + +Mr. David Williams, J.P., of Carmarthen, who has already told us much +about Welsh fairies (see pp. 151-3), offers equally valuable information +about the 'Three Circles of Existence' and the Druidic scheme of +soul-evolution, as follows:--'According to the Druids, there are three +Circles through which souls must pass. The first is _Cylch y Ceugant_, +the second _Cylch Abred_, the third _Cylch y Gwynfyd_. The name of each +circle refers to a special kind of spiritual training, and if in +reaching the second circle you do not gain its perfection by completing +all its provisions [probably in due order and time], you must begin +again in Circle One; but if you reach the perfection of Circle Two you +go on to Circle Three. In Circle One, which is unlocated, the soul has +no condition of bodily existence as in Circle Two. The second Circle +appears to be a state something like the one we are in now--a mixture of +good and evil. The third Circle is a state of perfection and +blessedness. In it the soul's environments correspond to all its wishes +and desires, and there is contact with God.' At this point I asked if +there was loss of individuality in Circle Three, and Mr. Williams +replied:--'No, there is not loss of individuality.' Hence, as we +suggest, _Cylch y Gwynfyd_ is the Druidic parallel to the Nirvana of +Indian metaphysics--being like it, a state of perfect and unlimited +self-consciousness which man never knows in earth-life. And, finally, +Mr. Williams said in relation to re-birth:--'About the years 1780-1820 +there lived an old bard in Glamorganshire who was actually a Druid, +though he professed to be a Christian as well, and he believed fully in +re-birth. His common name was Edward Williams (Iolo Morganwg); and he +[with Owen Jones and William O. Pughe] edited the famous _Archaiology of +Wales_.' + +_In Cornwall_ + +Mr. Henry Maddern, F.I.A.S., our very important witness from Penzance, +testifies as follows concerning a re-birth doctrine in Cornwall:--'Belief +in reincarnation was very common among the old Cornish peoples. For +example, it was believed when an incantation had been pronounced in the +proper way at the Newlyn Tolcarne, that the Troll who inhabited it could +embody the person who called him up in any state in which that person +had existed during a former age. You had only to name the age or period, +and you could live your past life therein over again. My nurse, Betty +Grancan, and an old miner named William Edwards, both believed in +re-birth, and told me about it. I have heard them relate stories to one +another to the effect that a person can go back into the memory of past +lives. They said that the sex always remains the same from life to +life. I have never heard of any belief in transmigration of humans into +animals, but in human re-birth only.'[424] + +_In Brittany_ + +In chapter ii, p. 216, M. Z. Le Rouzic, keeper of the Miln Museum at +Carnac, says that there is now among his Breton countrymen round Carnac +a general and profound belief that spirits incarnate as men and women; +and he has told me that this belief exists also in other regions of the +Morbihan. And I myself found there in this Carnac country of which M. Le +Rouzic speaks, that the doctrine of the reincarnation of ancestors, +which, as he agrees, is the same thing as the incarnation of spirits, is +quite common, though as a rule only talked about among the Bretons +themselves. + +M. Le Rouzic restated the belief as he knows it round Carnac, as +follows:--'It is incontestable that the belief in the reincarnation of +spirits is general in our country; and it is believed that the spirits +embodied now are the spirits of the people of former times.' + +After Louis Guezel, of the village of St. Columban, a mile from Carnac, +had related to me certain legends of the dead, I asked him if he had +ever heard that the dead may be born again as men and women here on this +earth. Contrary to my expectations, the question caused no surprise +whatever; and I was at once given the impression that the ancient Celtic +Doctrine of Re-birth is a thoroughly familiar one to him and to many +Bretons about the Carnac district. As we conversed about the doctrine, +he said emphatically, '_C'est la verite_' (It is the truth); and in +illustration told the following anecdotes:--'A woman in a cemetery one +evening saw the spirits of many dead children begging of her life, and +reincarnation. A son of my son resembles my grandfather, especially in +his mental traits and general character, and the family believe that +this son is my grandfather reincarnated.' (Recorded at St. Columban, +Brittany, August 1909.) + +Professor Anatole Le Braz, in a letter-preface to _Carnac, Legendes, +Traditions, Coutumes et Contes du Pays_ (Nantes, 1909), by M. Z. Le +Rouzic, makes this poetical reference to his friend, its author, and +thereby admirably echoes the ancient Breton Doctrine of Re-birth:--'You, +your eyes, your ears are elsewhere: you are a seer and a hearer of the +lower regions; you perceive the floating images and you discern the +hollow sounds of the people of the manes; you live, literally, among +them. What am I saying? Under the form and appearance of a man of +to-day, you are in reality one of them, ascended to the day and +reincarnated.' Again, speaking of the Alignements of Menec, Professor Le +Braz adds concerning his friend:--'You have been one of the +priest-builders who worked at its erection; you have officiated among +its myriads of columns, presided amid the pomp of great funerals in its +cyclopean caverns, sprinkled its sepulchral mounds, shaped like tents, +with the blood of oxen and of heifers now dear to St. Cornely. And this +also you confess to me yourself: these unfathomable epochs remain for +you actual and present.' + + +ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF THE CELTIC DOCTRINE OF RE-BIRTH + +In considering briefly what non-Celtic doctrines could conceivably have +shaped the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth, two chief streams of influence +are open to examination. One stream has its source in re-birth doctrines +like those set forth by Orphic, Pythagorean, Platonic, and similar +orientally-derived philosophies; while the other arises out of primitive +Christianity, wherein, as literary and historical evidence suggests, +re-birth may have been an equally important doctrine; or, at all events, +there was a decided tendency, later condemned as heretical, to +synthesize the Alexandrian philosophy and the Jewish (which to some +extent influenced the Alexandrian) with early Church doctrines. This +tendency is clearly shown by Origen, and by Clemens Alexandrinus, +another eminent Father. + +We have a better check on the second stream than on the first, because +Christianity has a later and more definite origin than any of the +orientally-derived philosophies. Some of the Druids, chiefly of Scotland +and Wales, who are known to have held the re-birth doctrine before +conversion, and probably after conversion, as was the case with a modern +Druid, an editor of the _Archaiology of Wales_ (see p. 391, above), +accepted the New Faith as a purer form of Druidism and Jesus Christ as +the Greatest of Druids. This ready and full acceptance would most likely +not have been possible had their cardinal re-birth doctrine been thereby +condemned. It would seem, therefore, that a primitive Christian re-birth +doctrine may have been openly held by certain of the early Celtic +missionaries. These latter, during the centuries when Ireland was the +university for all Europe, had good opportunities for knowing much about +the earliest traditions of Christianity, and they, with their own +half-pagan instincts, would have given approval to such a doctrine +without consulting Rome, just as Church Fathers like Tertullian +condemned it on their own personal authority and Origen believed it. +Further, if we hold in mind that the doctrine of the Incarnation even +now inculcates that the Son pre-existed and united Himself with a human +soul in the act of conception, and that it may originally and by some +Irish saints have been thought of as applying to all mankind in a more +humble and less divine way, we seem to see in the Mongan re-birth story, +which Christian transcribers have glossed, evidently with such ideas in +mind, a proof that on this doctrinal point Christian and Celtic beliefs +coalesced.[425] But the Christian beliefs did not originate the Celtic, +for scholars have shown that the germ of the Mongan re-birth story, as +well as that of the Cuchulainn re-birth episode, is pre-Christian, and +that the Etain birth-story dates from a time when Irish myth and history +were entirely free from Christian influence.[426] The same original +pagan character is shown in the re-birth episodes existing in Brythonic +literature.[427] And, finally, from the testimony of several ancient +authorities, e. g. Julius Caesar, Diodorus Siculus, Pomponius Mela, and +Lucan, who wrote, respectively, about 50 B. C., 40 B. C., A. D. 44, and +A. D. 60 to 65, that the Celts already held the re-birth doctrine, it is +certain that any possible influence from the Christian stream instead of +originating the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth could merely have modified +it. + +The question remaining, Would the classical or oriental doctrines of +re-birth have originated or fundamentally shaped the Celtic re-birth +doctrine? is a very difficult one. At present it cannot be answered with +certainty either negatively or positively. We may suppose, however, as +we did in the case of the parallel Christian re-birth doctrine, a +possible contact and amalgamation, brought about in various ways, e. g. +through Oriental merchants like the Phoenicians, and travellers who +visited Britain in pre-Christian times, but chiefly through the +continental Celts, who had direct knowledge of Greek and Roman culture, +meeting their insular brethren beyond the Channel and Irish Sea. All +such ancient contacts push the problem further and further back in time; +and our easiest and safest course is to state--as we may of the similar +problem of the origin of the Celtic Otherworld belief--that available +facts of comparative religion, philosophy, and myth, indicate clearly a +prehistoric epoch when there was a common ancestral stock for the +Mediterranean and pan-Celtic cultures. This may have had its beginnings +in the Danube country, or in North Europe, as many authorities in +ethnology now hold, or, as others are beginning to hold, in the lost +Atlantis--the most probable home of the dark pre-Celtic peoples of +Ireland, Isle of Man, Scotland, Britain, Southern and Western Europe, +and North Africa, who with the Aryans are the joint ancestors of the +modern Celts. Both branches of this common Celtic ancestral stock held +the re-birth doctrine. And at least from their Aryan ancestors it seems +to have been inherited by the Celts of history. To attempt a +hypothetical proof that this race or that race, Egyptian, Phoenician, +Greek, or Celtic, as the case may be, is alone the originator of this or +any other particular belief is as useless and as absurd as to attempt +proof that the Gael has no racial affinity with the Brython. One of the +greatest services now being performed by scientific inquiry into human +problems is the demonstration of the unreasonableness of assuming +artificial social barriers separating race from race, religion from +religion, and institution from institution, and the declaration that the +unity and the brotherhood of man is a fact inherent in man's own nature, +and not a sentimental ideal. But there is specialization and +differentiation everywhere in nature; and while Celtic traditions and +beliefs are not fundamentally unlike those found in every age, race, and +cultural stage, the treatment of this common stock of prehistoric lore +and mystical religion is in some respects unique, and hence Celtic. +Beyond this statement we cannot go. + + + + +SECTION III + +THE CULT OF GODS, SPIRITS, FAIRIES, AND THE DEAD + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE TESTIMONY OF ARCHAEOLOGY[428] + + 'As he spoke, he paused before a great mound grown over with trees, + and around it silver clear in the moonlight were immense stones + piled, the remains of an original circle, and there was a dark, + low, narrow entrance leading therein. "This was my palace. In days + past many a one plucked here the purple flower of magic and the + fruit of the tree of life...." And even as he spoke, a light began + to glow and to pervade the cave, and to obliterate the stone walls + and the antique hieroglyphics engraven thereon, and to melt the + earthen floor into itself like a fiery sun suddenly uprisen within + the world, and there was everywhere a wandering ecstasy of sound: + light and sound were one; light had a voice, and the music hung + glittering in the air.... "I am Aengus; men call me the Young. I am + the sunlight in the heart, the moonlight in the mind; I am the + light at the end of every dream, the voice for ever calling to come + away; I am desire beyond joy or tears. Come with me, come with me: + I will make you immortal; for my palace opens into the Gardens of + the Sun, and there are the fire-fountains which quench the heart's + desire in rapture."'--A. E. + + Inadequacy of Pygmy Theory--According to the theories concerning + divine images and fetishes, gods, daemons, and ancestral spirits + haunt megaliths--Megaliths are religious and funereal, as shown + chiefly by _Cenn Cruaich_, Stonehenge, Guernsey menhirs, monuments + in Brittany, by the circular fairy dance as an ancient initiatory + sun-dance, by Breton earthworks, archaeological excavations + generally, and by present-day worship at Indian dolmens--New Grange + and Celtic Mysteries: evidence of manuscripts; evidence of + tradition--The Aengus Cult--New Grange compared with Great Pyramid: + both have astronomical arrangement and same internal plan--Why they + open to the sunrise--Initiations in both--Great Pyramid as model + for Celtic tumuli--Gavrinis and New Grange as spirit-temples. + + +In this chapter we propose to deal with the popular belief among Celtic +peoples that tumuli, dolmens, menhirs, and in fact most megalithic +monuments, prehistoric or historic, are either the abodes or else the +favourite haunts of various orders of fairies--of pixies in Cornwall, of +_corrigans_ in Brittany, of little spirits like pygmies, of spirits like +mortals in stature, of goblins, of demons, and of ghosts. Interesting +attempts have been made to explain this folk-belief by means of the +Pygmy Theory of Fairies; and this folk-belief appears to be almost the +chief one upon which the theory depends.[429] As was pointed out in the +Introduction (p. xxiii), possibly one of the many threads interwoven +into the complex fabric of the Fairy-Faith round an original psychical +pattern may have been bequeathed by a folk-memory of some unknown, +perhaps pygmy, races, who may have inhabited underground places like +those in certain tumuli. But even though the Pygmy Theory were +altogether accepted by us the problem we are to consider would still be +an unsolved one; for how explain by the Pygmy Theory why the folk-memory +should always run in psychical channels, and not alone in Celtic lands, +but throughout Europe, and even in Australia, America, Africa, and +India. + +Archaeological researches have now made it clear that many of the great +tumuli covering dolmens or subterranean chambers, like that of Mont St. +Michel (at Carnac) for example, were religious and funereal in their +purposes from the first; and therefore the Pygmy Theory is far from a +satisfactory or adequate explanation. To us the inquiry is similar to an +investigation into the reasons why ghosts should haunt a house, whereas +the supporters of the Pygmy Theory forget the ghosts and tell all about +the people who may or who may never have lived in the haunted house, and +who built it. The megaliths, in the plain language of the folk-belief, +are haunted by fairies, pixies, _corrigans_, ghosts, and various sorts +of invisible beings. Like the Psychical Research Society, we believe +there may be, or actually are, invisible beings like ghosts, and so +propose to conduct our investigations from that point of view.[430] + + +MENHIRS, DOLMENS, CROMLECHS, AND TUMULI + +To begin with, we shall concern ourselves with menhirs, dolmens, +cromlechs, and certain kinds of tumuli--such as are found at Carnac, +round which _corrigans_ hold their nightly revels, and where ghost-like +forms are sometimes seen in the moonlight, or even when there is no +moon. M. Paul Sebillot in _Le Folk-lore de France_[431] has very +adequately described the numerous folk-traditions and customs connected +with all such monuments, and it remains for us to deal especially with +the psychical aspects of these traditions and customs. + +The learned Canon Mahe in his _Essai sur les antiquites du departement +du Morbihan_ (p. 258), a work of rare merit, published at Vannes in +1825, holds that not only were the majestic Alignements of Carnac used +as temples for religious rites, but that the stones themselves of which +the Alignements are formed were venerated as the abodes of gods.[432] +And quoting Porphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus, Hermes, and others, he shows +that the ancients believed that gods and daemons, attracted by sacrifice +and worship to stone images and other inanimate objects, overshadowed +them or even took up their abode in them. This position of Canon Mahe is +confirmed by a comparative study of Celtic and non-Celtic traditions +respecting the theory of what has been erroneously called +'idol-worship'. All evidence goes to show that idols so called, are +simply images used as media for the manifestation of ghosts, spirits, +and gods: the ancients, like contemporary primitive races, do not seem +ever to have actually worshipped such images, but simply to have +supplicated by prayer and sacrifice the indwelling deity.[433] The +ancient Egyptians, for example, conceived the _Ka_ or personality as a +thing separable from the person or body, and hence 'the statue of a +human being represented and embodied a human _Ka_'. Likewise a statue of +a god was the dwelling-place of a divine _Ka_, attracted to it by +certain mystical formulae at the time of dedication.[434] Though there +might be many statues of the same god no two were alike; each was +animated by an independent 'double' which the rites of consecration had +elicited from the god. These statues, being thus animated by a 'double', +manifested their will--as Greek and Roman statues are reported to have +done--either by speaking, or by rhythmic movements. The divine virtue +residing in the images of the gods was thought to be a sort of fluid, +analogous to what we call the magnetic fluid, the aura, &c. It could be +transmitted by the imposition of hands and by magic passes, on the nape +of the neck or along the dorsal spine of a patient;[435] and no doubt +extraordinary curative properties were attributed to it. + +Dr. Tylor has brought together examples from all parts of the globe of +so-called fetishism, which is veneration paid to natural living objects +such as trees, fish, animals, as well as to inanimate objects of almost +every conceivable description, including stones, because of the spirit +believed to be inherent or resident in the particular object; and he +shows that idols originally were fetishes, which in time came to be +shaped according to the form of the spirit or god supposed to possess +them.[436] Mr. R. R. Marett, the originator of the pre-animistic theory, +believes that originally fetishes were regarded as gods themselves, and +that gradually they came to be regarded as the dwellings of gods.[437] +Certain well-defined Celtic traditions entirely fit in with this +theory:--e. g. Canon Mahe writes, 'In accordance with this strange +theory they (the Celts) could believe that rocks, set in motion by +spirits which animated them, sometimes went to drink at rivers, as is +said of the Peulvan at Noyal-Pontivy' (Morbihan);[438] and I have found +a parallel belief at Rollright, Oxfordshire, England, where it is said +of the King Stone, an ancient menhir, and, according to some +folk-traditions, a human being transformed, that it goes down the hill +on Christmas Eve to drink at the river. In the famous menhir or +pillar-stone on Tara to this day, we have another curious example like +the moving statues in Egypt and the Celtic stones which move; for in the +_Book of Lismore_ the wonderful properties of the _Lia Fail_, the 'Stone +of Destiny', are enumerated, and it is said that ever when Ireland's +monarch stepped upon it the stone would cry out under him, but that if +any other person stepped upon it, there was only silence.[439] + +In the _Tripartite Life of St. Patrick_ it is said that Ireland's chief +idol was at Mag Slecht, and by name 'Cenn Cruaich, covered with gold and +silver, and twelve other idols[440] [were] about it, covered with +brass'. When Patrick tried to place his crosier on the top of Cenn +Cruaich, the idol 'bowed westward to turn on its right side, for its +face was from the South, to wit, Tara.... And the earth swallowed the +twelve other images as far as their heads, and they are thus in sign of +the miracle, and he cursed the demon, and banished him to hell'.[441] +Sir John Rhys points out that _Cenn Cruaich_ means 'Head or Chief of +the Mound', and that the story of its inclined position suggests to us +an ancient and gradually falling menhir planted on the summit of a +tumulus or hill surrounded by twelve lesser pillar stones, all +thirteen--itself a sacred number--regarded as the abodes of gods or else +as gods themselves; and these gods are referred to as the demon +exorcized from the place by Patrick. The central menhir or Cenn Cruaich +probably represents the Solar God, and the twelve menhirs surrounding +this probably represent the twelve months of the year.[442] In the +_Colloquy_ it is said that Patrick went his way 'to sow faith and piety, +to banish devils and wizards out of Ireland; to raise up saints and +righteous, to erect crosses, station-stones, and altars; also to +overthrow idols and goblin images, and the whole art of sorcery'.[443] +Welsh tradition says that St. David split the capstone of the Maen Ketti +Cromlech (dolmen)[444] in Gower, in order to prove to the people that +there was nothing divine in it.[445] + +According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Merlin constructed Stonehenge by +magically transporting from Ireland the 'Choir of the Giants', +apparently an ancient Irish circle of stones.[446] The rational +explanation of this myth seems to be that the stones of Stonehenge, not +belonging to the native rocks of South England, as geologists well know, +were probably transported from some distant part of Britain and set up +on Salisbury Plain, because of some magical properties supposed to have +been possessed by them; and most likely 'the stones were regarded as +divine or as seats of divine power'.[447] And further (thereby admitting +the sacred purpose of the group), Sir John Rhys sees no objection to +identifying Stonehenge with the famous temple of Apollo in the island of +the Hyperboreans, referred to in the journal of Pytheas' travels.[448] +According to Sir John Rhys's interpretation of this journal, 'the +kings of the city containing the temple and the overseers of the latter +were the Boreads, who took up the government in succession, according to +their tribes. The citizens gave themselves up to music, harping and +chanting in honour of the Sun-god, who was every nineteenth year wont +himself to appear about the time of the vernal equinox, and to go on +harping and dancing in the sky until the rising of the Pleiades.'[448] + +Two menhirs, roughly hewn to simulate the human form, are yet to be +found in Guernsey, Channel Islands, and formerly there was a similar +menhir in the Breton village of Baud, Morbihan. One of the Guernsey +figures was dug up in 1878 under the chancel of the Catel Church, and +then placed in the churchyard, so that in this instance it seems highly +probable that the Christian Church was built on the site of a sacred +pagan shrine where a cult of stones once existed. The second stone +figure (a female), now standing as a gate-post in the churchyard of St. +Martin's parish, seems also to mark a spot where a pre-Christian +sanctuary was christianized. The country-people of the district, up to +the middle of the last century, considered it lucky to make floral and +even food offerings to this stone; but in 1860 the churchwarden to +destroy its sanctity had it broken in two, though now it has been +restored.[449] A like stone image was the famous 'Venus de Quinipilly', +near Baud, Morbihan. At its base was a stone trough, wherein until late +into the seventeenth century the sick were cured by contact with the +image, and young men and maidens were wont to bathe to secure love and +long life.[449] + +Canon Mahe recorded in 1825 that the folk-belief located ghosts and +spirits of the dead round megalithic monuments, more especially those +known to have been used for tombs, because the Celts thought them +haunted by ancestral spirits;[450] and what was true in 1825 is true +now, for there is still in Brittany the association of ancestral +spirits, _corrigans_, and other spirit-like tribes with tumuli, dolmens, +menhirs, and cromlechs, and, as we have shown in chapter ii, a very +living faith in the _Legende de la Mort_. In describing some curious +dolmens and cromlechs (stone circles) on the summit of a mountain called +the _Clech_ or _Mane er kloch_, 'Mountain of the bell,' at Mendon, +Arrondissement de Lorient, Morbihan, the same author gives it as his +opinion, based on folk-traditions, that the cromlechs, like others in +Brittany, were places in which the ancient Bretons practised necromancy +and invoked the spirits of their ancestors, to whom they attributed +great power. He then records a very valuable and interesting tradition +concerning these monuments, which seems to indicate clearly a close +relationship between the _Poulpiquets_ (another name for _corrigans_), +thought of as spirits by the peasants, and the magical rites conducted +in the circles to invoke spirits or daemons:--'The people call the +stones which are found there the rocks of the _Hosegueannets_ or +_Guerrionets_ (who are the same as the _Poulpiquets_); and they declare +that at fixed seasons they are in the habit of coming there to celebrate +their mysteries, which would prove that the race of these dwarfs is not +yet extinct, as I believed.'[451] + +When we hear how _corrigans_ dance the national Breton _ronde_ or +_ridee_, at or in such cromlechs (themselves, like the dance, circular +in form), which with other ancient stone monuments and earthworks are +still believed to be the favourite haunts of these and kindred +spirit-tribes, we seem to see, in the light of what Canon Mahe records, +a psychical folk-memory about a goblin race who are now thought of as +frequenting the very places where anciently such spirits are said to +have been invoked by pagan priests for the purposes of divination. +Further, it appears that at these sacred centres, as the quoted +tradition indicates, in prehistoric times Brythonic initiations took +place, like those still flourishing among a few surviving American +Indian tribes (who also dance the circular initiation dance), and among +other primitive peoples, as we shall more adequately show in the chapter +on St. Patrick's Purgatory. The Breton dance is, therefore, most likely +the memorial of an ancient initiation dance, religious in character, +and, probably, in honour of the sun, being circular in the same way that +cromlechs dedicated to a sun-cult are circular. Stonehenge, the most +highly developed type of the cromlech, was undoubtedly a sun-temple; and +the dance anciently held in it, as described by Pytheas, in honour of +the god Apollo, was no doubt circular like the Breton national dance, +and, presumably, initiatory.[452] Through a natural anthropomorphic +process, this circular initiation dance has come to be attributed to +_corrigans_ in Brittany, to pixies in Cornwall and in England, and to +fairies in these and other Celtic countries. The idea of fairy tribes in +such a special relation may result from a folk-memory of the actual +initiators who, as masked men, represented spirits; and, if this be a +plausible view, then fairies may be compared to the initiators of +contemporary initiation ceremonies among primitive peoples and, +following Dr. Gilbert Murray's theory, to the Greek satyrs also.[453] + +A circular dance like the Breton one still survives among the peasantry +in the Channel Islands, at least in Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark, being +celebrated at weddings, but the revolution is now around a person +instead of a stone, and to this person obeisance is paid. This tends to +confirm our opinion that the dance is the survival of an ancient +sun-dance, the central figure being typical of the sun deity himself, or +Apollo; and if we design this dance thus [Symbol: sun], we have the +astronomical emblem still used in all our calendars to represent the +sun, one which in itself preserves a vast mass of forgotten lore. +Formerly in Guernsey, the sites of principal dolmens (or cromlechs) and +pillar-stones were visited in sacred procession, and round certain of +them the whole body of pilgrims 'solemnly revolved three times from east +to west'--as the sun moves.[454] + +Again, according to Canon Mahe,[455] the bases and lower parts of the +sides of four singular barrows at Coet-bihan blend in such a way as to +form an enclosed court, and one of the barrows has been pierced as +though for a passage-way into this court. And he holds that it is more +than probable that these ancient earthworks when first they were raised, +and others like them in various Celtic lands, witnessed many mystic and +religious rites and sacred tribal assemblies. The supposition that the +Coet-bihan earthworks were originally dedicated to pagan religious +usages is very much strengthened by the fact that in very early times a +Christian chapel was erected near them.[456] Mont St. Michel at Carnac +is another example of a pagan tumulus dedicated to a Christian saint; +and, as Sir John Rhys says, the Archangel Michael appears in more +places than one in Celtic lands as the supplanter of the dark +powers.[457] Not only were tumuli thus transferred by re-dedication from +pagan gods to Christian saints, but dolmens and menhirs as well. Thus, +for example, at Plouharnel-Carnac (Morbihan) there is a menhir +surmounted by a Christian cross, just as at Dol (Ille-et-Vilaine) a +wooden crucifix surmounts the great menhir, and at Carnac there is a +dolmen likewise christianized by a stone cross-mounted on the +table-stone. Again, M. J. Dechelette in his _Manuel d'Archeologie +Prehistorique, Celtique et Gallo-Romaine_ (p. 380) describes a dolmen at +Plouaret (Cotes-du-Nord) converted into a chapel dedicated to the Seven +Saints, and another dolmen at Saint-Germain-de-Confolens (Charente) +likewise transformed into a place of worship. Miss Edith F. Carey thus +explains the dolmens in the Channel Islands:--'All our old traditions +prove our dolmens to have been the general rendezvous of our insular +sorcerers. In sixteenth and seventeenth century manuscripts I have found +these dolmens described as "altars of the gods of the sea".... One of +our ancient dolmens retains its ancient name of De Hus, and a +fifteenth-century "Perchage" of Fief de Leree tells us that a now +destroyed dolmen on our western coast was dedicated to the same god, for +Heus or Hesus was the War-God of ancient Gaul.'[458] The same writer +describes excavations made at De Hus by Mr. Lukis, and that he found in +a side chamber there two kneeling skeletons, one facing the north, the +other the south. He considered them to have been of young persons +probably interred alive as a funeral or propitiatory sacrifice to some +tribal chief, or else to a presiding deity of the dolmen. Beside a tomb +of the early bronze age at the bottom of a large tumulus near +Mammarloef, in Skane, Dr. Oscar Montelius, the famous archaeologist of +Sweden, discovered a circular stone altar on which reposed charcoal and +the remains of a burnt animal offering, which undoubtedly was made to +the dead.[459] Schliemann made a parallel discovery in an ancient tomb +at Mycenae, Greece.[460] Curiously, in India to-day the Dravidian +tribes, a pygmy-like aboriginal race, worship at the ancient dolmens in +their forests and mountains, whether as at tombs and hence to ancestral +spirits or to gods is not always clear; but the latter form of worship +is probably more common, since Mr. Walhouse once observed one of their +medicine-men performing a propitiatory service to the agricultural or +earth deities. The medicine-man passed the night in solitude sitting 'on +the capstone of a dolmen with heels and hams drawn together and chin on +knee'--evidently thus to await the advent of the Sun-god.[461] + +All the above illustrations, mostly Celtic ones, tend to prove that +menhirs, certain tumuli and earthworks, cromlechs, and dolmens were +originally connected with religious usages, chiefly with a cult of gods +and fairy-like beings, and, though less commonly, with the dead. We pass +now to a special consideration of chambered tumuli, to show that the +same apparently holds true of them. + + +NEW GRANGE AND CELTIC MYSTERIES + +Though, as Professor J. Loth and other eminent archaeologists hold, all +tumuli containing chambers, and all _allees couvertes_ of dolmens, +should be considered as designedly funereal in their purposes, +nevertheless certain of the greater ones, like New Grange and Gavrinis +may also properly be considered as places for rendering worship or even +sacrifice to the dead, and, perhaps, as places for religious pilgrimages +and sacred rites. This, too, seems to be the opinion of M. J. Dechelette +in his work on Celtic and Gallo-Roman archaeology, as he traces from the +earliest prehistoric times in Europe the evolution of the cult of the +dead according to the evidence furnished by the ancient megalithic +monuments.[462] + +To begin with, let us take as a type for our study the most famous of +all so-called Celtic tumuli, that of New Grange, on the River Boyne in +Ireland.[463] In Irish literature New Grange is constantly associated +with the Tuatha De Danann as one of their palaces, as our fourth chapter +points out. Throughout our second section generally, the testimony +indicates that the essential nature of these fairy-folk is subjective or +spiritual. These two facts at the outset are very important and +fundamental, because we expect to show even more clearly than we have +just done in the case of menhirs, dolmens, cromlechs, and smaller +tumuli, that the folk-belief under consideration is at bottom a +psychical one, which has grown up out of a folk-memory of the time when, +as has just been said, Celtic or pre-Celtic tumuli were used for +interments, and probably certain ones among them as places for the +celebration of pagan mysteries. + +Mr. George Coffey, the eminent archaeologist in charge of the +archaeological collections of the Royal Irish Academy, quotes from +ancient Irish records in the _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_ and other manuscripts +to show that the early traditions refer to the Boyne country as the +burial-place of the kings of Tara, and that sometimes they seem to +associate _Brugh-na-Boyne_ with the tumuli on the Boyne,[464] but, no +exact identification being possible, it cannot be said with certainty +whether any one of the three great Boyne tumuli is meant. Even though it +could be shown conclusively that some mighty hero or king had actually +been entombed in New Grange, as is likely, in the earth behind the +chamber, under the chamber's floor, or even within the chamber, still, +as we have already pointed out, most of the great Irish heroes and kings +were in popular belief literally gods incarnate, and, therefore (as +commonly among all ancient peoples, civilized and non-civilized, who +held the same doctrine), the tomb of such a divine personage came to be +regarded as the actual dwelling of the once incarnate god, even though +his bones were long turned to dust. The _Book of Ballymote_ strengthens +this suggestion: in one of its ancient Irish poems, by MacNia, son of +Oenna, preceded by this mystical dedication, 'Ye Poets of Bregia, of +truth, not false,' the wonders of the Palace of the Boyne, the Hall of +the great god Daghda, supreme king and oracle of the Tuatha de Danann, +are thus celebrated:-- + + Behold the _Sidh_ before your eyes, + It is manifest to you that it is a king's mansion, + Which was built by the firm Daghda; + It was a wonder, a court, an admirable hill.[465] + +It seems clear enough, from the old Irish manuscripts referred to by Mr. +Coffey,[466] that the Boyne country near Tara was the sacred and +religious centre of ancient Ireland, and was used by the Irish in very +much the same way as Memphis and other places on the sacred Nile were +used by the ancient Egyptians, both as a royal cemetery and as a place +for the celebration of pagan mysteries. It is known that most of the +Mysteries of Antiquity were psychic in their nature, having to do with +the neophyte's entrance into Hades or the invisible world while out of +the physical body, or else with direct communication with gods, spirits, +and shades of the dead, while in the physical body; and such mysteries +were performed in darkened chambers from which all light was excluded. +These chambers were often carved out of solid rock, as can be seen in +the Rock Temples of India; and when mountain caves or natural caverns +were not available, artificial ones were used (see chapter x). + +The places, like Tara and Memphis, where the great men and kings of the +nations of antiquity were entombed, being the most sacred, were very +often, on that account, also the places dedicated to the most +magnificent temples and to the Mysteries, or among less advanced nations +to the worship of the dead. On every side of sacred Stonehenge, +Salisbury Plain is dotted with the burial mounds of unknown heroes and +chieftains of ancient Britain; while in modern times, even though the +Mysteries are long forgotten, Westminster Abbey, at the centre of the +planet's capital, has, in turn, become the hallowed Hall of the Mighty +Dead for the vast British Empire. In view of all these facts, after a +careful examination of the famous New Grange tumulus itself, and a study +of the references to it in old Irish literature, we are firmly of the +opinion that one cannot be far wrong in describing it as a spirit-temple +in which were celebrated ancient Celtic or pre-Celtic Mysteries at the +time when neophytes, including those of royal blood, were initiated; and +as such it is directly related to a cult of the Tuatha De Danann or +Fairy-Folk, of spirits, and of the dead. Nor are we alone in this +opinion. Mr. Coffey himself, we believe, is inclined to favour it; and +Mr. W. C. Borlase, author of _The Dolmens of Ireland_, who is quite +committed to it, says that it is not necessary, as some do, to consider +New Grange as an ancient abode of mortal men, for 'the spirits of the +dead, the fairies, the _Sidhe_, might have had their _brugh_, or +palace, as well'.[467] And he points out that in the old Irish +manuscripts we have proof that it was supposed to be thus used. This +proof is found in the _Agallamh na Senorach_ or 'Colloquy with the +Ancients' by St. Patrick, from the _Book of Lismore_, a +fifteenth-century manuscript copied from older manuscripts and now +translated by Standish H. O'Grady:--The three sons of the King of +Ireland, by name Ruidhe, Fiacha, and Eochaid, leaving their nurse's and +guardian's house, went to _fert na ndruadh_, i. e. 'grave of the +wizards', north-west of Tara, to ask of their father a country, a +domain; but he refused their request, and then they formed a project to +gain lands and riches by fasting on the _tuatha de Danann_ at the +_brugh_ upon the Boyne: '"Lands therefore I will not bestow on you, but +win lands for yourself." Thereupon they with the ready rising of one man +rose and took their way to the green of the _brugh_ upon the Boyne +where, none other being in their company, they sat them down. Ruidhe +said: "What is your plan to-night?" His brothers rejoined: "Our project +is to fast on the _tuatha de Danann_, aiming thus to win from them good +fortune in the shape of a country, of a domain, of lands, and to have +vast riches." Nor had they been long there when they marked a +cheery-looking young man of a pacific demeanour that came towards them. +He salutes the king of Ireland's sons; they answer him after the same +manner. "Young man, whence art thou? whence comest thou?" "Out of yonder +_brugh_ chequered with the many lights hard by you here." "What name +wearest thou?" "I am the Daghda's son Bodhb Derg; and to the _tuatha de +Danann_ it was revealed that ye would come to fast here to-night, for +lands and for great fortune."' Then with Bodhb Derg, the three sons of +Ireland's king entered into the _brugh_, and the _tuatha de Danann_ went +into council, and Midhir Yellow-mane son of the Daghda who presided +said: 'Those yonder accommodate now with three wives, since from wives +it is that either fortune or misfortune is derived.' And from their +marriages with the three daughters of Midhir they derived all their +wishes--territories and wealth in the greatest abundance. 'For three +days with their nights they abode in the _sidh_.' 'Angus told them to +carry away out of _fidh omna_, i. e. "Oakwood," three apple-trees: one in +full bloom, another shedding the blossom, and another covered with ripe +fruit. Then they repaired to the _dun_, where they abode for three times +fifty years, and until those kings disappeared; for in virtue of +marriage alliance they returned again to the _tuatha de Danann_, and +from that time forth have remained there.'[468] + +Mr. Borlase, commenting on this passage, suggests its importance in +proving to us that during the Middle Ages there existed a tradition, +thus committed to writing from older manuscripts or from oral sources, +regarding 'the nature of the rites performed in pagan times at those +places, which were held sacred to the heathen mysteries'.[469] The +passage evidently describes a cult of royal or famous ancestral spirits +identified with the god-race of Tuatha De Danann, who, as we know, being +reborn as mortals, ruled Ireland. These ancestral spirits were to be +approached by a pilgrimage made to their abode, the spirit-haunted +tumulus, and a residence in it of three days and three nights during +which period there was to be an unbroken fast. Sacrifices were doubtless +offered to the gods, or spirit-ancestors; and while they were 'fasted +upon', they were expected to appear and grant the pilgrim's prayer and +to speak with him. All this indicates that the existence of invisible +beings was taken for granted, probably through the knowledge gained by +initiation. + +The _Echtra Nerai_ or the 'Adventures of Nera' (see this study, p. 287), +contains a description like the one above, of how a mortal named Nera +went into the _Sidhe_-palace at Cruachan; and it is said that he went +not only into the cave (_uamh_) but into the _sid_ of the cave. The term +_uamh_ or cave, according to Mr. Borlase, indicates the whole of the +interior vaulted chamber, while the _sid_ of that vaulted chamber or +_uamh_ is intended to refer to 'the _sanctum sanctorum_, or +_penetralia_ of the spirit-temple, upon entering into which the mortal +came face to face with the royal occupants, and there doubtless he lay +fasting, or offering his sacrifices, at the periods prescribed'.[470] +The word _brugh_ refers simply to the appearance of a tumulus, or +souterrain beneath a fort or rath, and means, therefore, mansion or +dwelling-place.[471] And Mr. Borlase adds:--'I feel but little doubt +that in the inner chamber at New Grange, with its three recesses and its +basin, we have this _sid of the cave_, and the place where the pilgrims +fasted--a situation and a practice precisely similar to those which, +under Christian auspices, were continued at such places as the Leaba +Mologa in Cork, the original Patrick's Purgatory in Lough Derg, and +elsewhere. The practice of lying in stone troughs was a feature of the +Christian pilgrimages in Ireland. Sometimes such troughs had served the +previous purpose of stone coffins. It is just possible that the shallow +basins in the cells at Lough Crew, New Grange, and Dowth may, like the +stone beds or troughs of the saints,[472] have been occupied by the +pilgrims engaged in their devotions. If so, however, they must have sat +in them in Eastern fashion.'[471] + +Again, in the popular tale called _The Pursuit of Diarmuid and +Grainne_,[473] Aengus, the son of the Dagda, one of the Tuatha De +Danann, is called Aengus-an-Bhrogha, and connected with the +_Brugh-na-Boinne_. In the tale Finn says, 'Let us leave this tulach, for +fear that Aengus-an-Bhrogha and the Tuatha-De-Danann might catch us; and +though we have no part in the slaying of Diarmuid, he would none the +more readily believe us.' Aengus is evidently an invisible being with +great power over mortals. This is clear in what follows: he transports +Diarmuid's body to the _Brugh-na-Boinne_, saying, 'Since I cannot +restore him to life, I will send a soul into him, so that he may talk to +me each day.' Thus, as the presiding deity of the _brugh_, Aengus the +Tuatha De Danann could reanimate dead bodies 'and cause them to speak +to devotees, we may suppose oracularly.'[474] In the _Bruighion +Chaorthainn_ or 'Fort of the Rowan Tree', a Fenian tale, a poet put Finn +under taboo to understand these verses:-- + + I saw a house in the country + Out of which no hostages are given to a king, + Fire burns it not, harrying spoils it not. + +And Finn made reply:--'I understand that verse, for that is the Brugh of +the Boyne that you have seen (perhaps, as we suggest, during an +initiation), namely, the house of Aengus Og of the Brugh, and it cannot +be burned or harried as long as Aengus (a god) shall live.' As Mr. +Borlase observes, to say that 'no hostages are given to a king' out of +the _Brugh_ is probably another way of saying that the dead pay no +taxes, or that being a holy place, the _Brugh_ was exempt.[475] This +last evidence is from oral tradition, and rather late in being placed on +record; but it is not on that account less trustworthy, and may be much +more so than the older manuscripts. Until quite modern times the +folk-lore of the Boyne country still echoed similar traditions about +unknown mystic rites, following what O'Donovan has recorded; for he has +said that Aenghus-an-Bhrogha was considered the presiding fairy of the +Boyne till quite within recent times, and that his name was still +familiar to the old inhabitants of Meath who were then fast forgetting +their traditions with the Irish language.[476] And this tradition brings +us to consider what was apparently an Aengus Cult among the ancient +Celtic peoples. + + +THE AENGUS CULT + +Euhemeristic tradition came to represent the Great God Dagda and his +sons as buried in a tumulus, probably New Grange, and then called it, as +I found it called to-day, a fairy mound, a name given also to Gavrinis, +its Breton parallel. The older and clearer tradition relates how Aengus +gained possession of the _Brugh_ of the Boyne, and says nothing about +it as a cemetery, but rather describes it as 'an admirable place, more +accurately speaking, as an admirable land, a term which betrays the +usual identification of the fairy mound with the nether world to which +it formed the entrance'.[477] The myth placing Dagda at the head of the +departed makes him 'a Goidelic Cronus ruling over an Elysium with which +a sepulchral mound was associated'.[477] The displacement of Dagda by +his son makes 'Mac Oc (Aengus), who should have been the youthful Zeus +of the Goidelic world, rejoicing in the translucent expanse of the +heavens as his crystal bower', a king of the dead.[477] + +In Dun Aengus, the strange cyclopean circular structure, and hence most +likely sun-temple, on Aranmore, we have another example of the +localization of the Aengus myth. This fact leads us to believe, after +due archaeological examination, that amid the stronghold of Dun Aengus, +with its tiers of amphitheatre-like seats and the native rock at its +centre, apparently squared to form a platform or stage, were anciently +celebrated pagan mysteries comparable to those of the Greeks and less +cultured peoples, and initiations into an Aengus Cult such as seems to +have once flourished at New Grange. At Dun Aengus, however, the mystic +assemblies and rites, conducted in such a sun-temple, so secure and so +strongly fortified against intrusion, no doubt represented a somewhat +different mystical school, and probably one very much older than at New +Grange. In the same manner, each of the other circular but less +important cyclopean structures on Aranmore and elsewhere in west Ireland +may have been structures for closely related sun-cults. To our mind, and +we have carefully and at leisure examined most of these cyclopean +structures on Aranmore, it seems altogether fanciful to consider them as +having been _originally_ and _primarily_ intended as places of +refuge--_duns_ or forts. Yet, because the ancient Celts never separated +civil and religious functions, such probable sun-temples could have been +as frequently used for non-religious tribal assemblies as for +initiation ceremonies; and nothing makes it impossible for them to have +been in times of need also places for refuge against enemies. We are led +to this view with respect to Dun Aengus in particular, because the +Aengus of Aranmore is known as Aengus, son of Umor, and is associated +with the mystic people called the Fir Bolg; and, yet, as Sir John +Rhys thinks, this Aengus, son of Umor, and Aengus, son of Dagda, are +two aspects of a single god, a Celtic Zeus.[478] O'Curry's statements +about Dun Aengus seem to confirm all this; and there seems to have been +a tale, now lost, about the 'Destruction of _Dun Oengusa_' (in modern +Irish _Dun Aonghuis_), the Fortress of Aengus.[478] + +This sun-cult, represented in Ireland by the Aengus Cult, can be traced +further: Sir John Rhys regards Stonehenge--a sun-temple also circular +like the Irish _duns_ and Breton cromlechs--as a temple to the Celtic +Zeus, in Irish mythology typified by Aengus, and in Welsh by +Merlin:--'What sort of a temple could have been more appropriate for the +primary god of light and of the luminous heavens than a spacious, +open-air enclosure of a circular form like Stonehenge?'[479] In Welsh +myth, Math ab Mathonwy, called also 'Math the Ancient', was the greatest +magician of ancient Wales, and his relation as teacher to Gwydion ab +Don, the great Welsh Culture Hero, leads Sir John Rhys to consider +him the Brythonic Zeus, though Merlin shares with him in this +distinction;[480] and since the Gaelic counterpart of Math is Aengus, a +close study of Math might finally show a cult in his honour in Wales as +we have found in Ireland an Aengus Cult.[481] We may, therefore, with +more or less exactness, equate the Aengus Cult as we see it in Irish +myth connected chiefly with Dun Aengus and New Grange, with the unknown +cult practised at Stonehenge, and this in turn with other Brythonic or +pre-Brythonic sun-cults and initiations practised at Carnac, the great +Celtic Jerusalem in Brittany, and at Gavrinis. All this will be more +clearly seen after we have set forth what seems a definite and most +striking parallel to New Grange, both as a monument erected by man and, +as we maintain, as a place for religious mysteries--the greatest +structure ever raised by human effort, the Great Pyramid. + + +NEW GRANGE AND THE GREAT PYRAMID COMPARED + +Caliph Al Mamoun in A. D. 820, by a forced passage, was the first in +modern times to enter the Great Pyramid, and he found nowhere a mummy or +any indications that the structure had ever been used as a tomb for the +dead. The King's Chamber, so named by us moderns, proved to be a keen +disappointment for its first violator, for in it there was neither gold +nor silver nor anything at all worth carrying away. The magnificent +chamber contained nothing save an empty stone chest without a lid. +Archaeologists in Egypt and archaeologists in Ireland face the same +unsolved problem, namely, the purpose of the empty stone chest without +inscriptions and quite unlike a mummy tomb, and of the stone basin in +New Grange.[482] Certain Egyptologists have supposed that some royal +personage must have been buried in the curious granite coffer, though +there can be only their supposition to support them, for they have +absolutely no proof that such is true, while there is strong +circumstantial evidence to show that such is not true. Sir Gardner +Wilkinson in his well-known publications has already suggested that the +stone chest as well as the Great Pyramid itself were never intended to +hold a corpse; and it is generally admitted by Egyptologists that no +sarcophagus intended for a mummy has ever been found so high up in the +body of a pyramid as this empty stone chest, except in the Second +Pyramid. Incontestable evidence in support of the highly probable theory +that the Great Pyramid was not intended for an actual tomb can be drawn +from two important facts:--(1) 'the coffer has certain remarkable cubic +proportions which show a care and design beyond what could be expected +in any burial-coffer'--according to the high authority of Dr. Flinders +Petrie; (2) the chamber containing the coffer and the upper passage-ways +have ventilating channels not known in any other Pyramid, so that +apparently there must have been need of frequent entrance into the +chamber by living men, as would be the case if used, as we hold, for +initiation ceremonies.[483] + +It is well known that very many of the megalithic monuments of the New +Grange type scattered over Europe, especially from the Carnac centre of +Brittany to the Tara-Boyne centre of Ireland, have one thing in common, +an astronomical arrangement like the Great Pyramid, and an entrance +facing one of the points of the solstices, usually either the winter +solstice, which is common, or the summer solstice.[484] The puzzle has +always been to discover the exact arrangement of the Great Pyramid by +locating its main entrance. A Californian, Mr. Louis P. McCarty, in his +recent (1907) work entitled _The Great Pyramid Jeezeh_, suggests with +the most logical and reasonable arguments that the builders of the +Pyramid have placed its main entrance in an undiscovered passage-way +beneath the Great Sphinx, now half-buried in the shifting desert sands. +If it can be shown that the Sphinx is the real portal, and many things +tend to indicate that it is, the Great Pyramid is built on the same +plan as New Grange, that is to say, it opens to the south-east, and like +New Grange contains a narrow passage-way leading to a central chamber. +South-easterly from the centre of the Pyramid lies the Sphinx, 5,380 +feet away, a distance equal to 'just five times the distance of the +"diagonal socket length" of the Great Pyramid from the centre of the +Subterranean Chamber, under the Pyramid, to the supposed entrance under +the Sphinx'[485]--a distance quite in keeping with the mighty +proportions of the wonderful structure. And what is important, several +eminent archaeologists have worked out the same conclusion, and have +been seeking to connect the two monuments by making excavations in the +Queen's Chamber, where it is supposed there exists a tunnel to the +Sphinx. In all this we should bear in mind that the present entrance to +the Pyramid is the forced one made by the treasure-seeking Caliph. + +This very probable astronomical parallelism between the great Egyptian +monument and the Irish one would establish their common religious, or, +in a mystic sense, their funereal significance. In the preceding chapter +we have set forth what symbolical relation the sun, its rising and +setting, and its death at the winter equinox, were anciently supposed to +hold to the doctrines of human death and re-birth. Jubainville, +regarding the sun among the Celts in its symbolical relation to death, +wrote, 'In Celtic belief, the dead go to live beyond the Ocean, to the +south-west, there where the sun sets during the greater part of the +year.'[486] This, too, as M. Maspero shows, was an Egyptian belief;[487] +while, as equally among the Celts, the east, especially the south-east, +where, after the winter solstice, the sun seems to be re-born or to rise +out of the underworld of Hades into which it goes when it dies, is +symbolical of the reverse--Life, Resurrection, and Re-birth. In this +last Celtic-Egyptian belief, we maintain, may be found the reason why +the chief megalithic monuments (dolmens, tumuli, and alignements), in +Celtic countries and elsewhere, have their directions east and west, and +why those like New Grange and Gavrinis open to the sunrise. + +Greek temples also opened to the sunrise, and on the divine image within +fell the first rays of the beautiful god Apollo.[488] In the great +Peruvian sun-temple at Cuzco, a splendid disk of pure gold faced the +east, and, reflecting the first rays of the rising sun, illuminated the +whole sanctuary.[489] The cave-temple of the Florida Red Men opened +eastward, and within its entrance on festival days stood the priest at +dawn watching for the first ray of the sun, as a sign to begin the chant +and offering.[490] The East Indian performs the ablution at dawn in the +sacred Ganges, and stands facing the east meditating, as Brahma appears +in all the wondrous glory of a tropical sunrise.[491] And in the same +Aryan land there is an opposite worship: the dreaded Thugs, worshippers +of devils and of Kali the death-goddess, in their most diabolical rites +face the west and the sunset, symbols of death.[492] How Christianity +was shaped by paganism is nowhere clearer than in the orientation of +great cathedral churches (almost without exception in England), for all +of the more famous ones have their altars eastward; and Roman Catholics +in prayer in their church services, and Anglicans in repeating the +Creed, turn to the east, as the Hindu does. St. Augustine says:--'When +we stand at prayer, we turn to the east, where the heaven arises, not as +though God were only there, and had forsaken all other parts of the +world, but to admonish our mind to turn to a more excellent nature, that +is, to the Lord.'[493] Though the Jews came to be utterly opposed to +sun-worship in their later history, they were sun-worshippers at first, +as their temples opening eastward testify. This was the vision of +Ezekiel:--'And, behold, at the door of the temple of Jehovah, between +the porch and the Altar, were about five and twenty men, with their +backs toward the temple of Jehovah, and their faces toward the east, and +they worshipped the sun toward the east.'[494] + +All this illustrates the once world-wide religion of our race; and shows +that sun-cults and sun-symbols are derived from a universal doctrine +regarding the two states of existence--the one in Hades or the invisible +lower world where the Sun-god goes at night, and the other in what we +call the visible realm which the Sun-god visits daily.[495] The relation +between life and death--symbolically figured in this fundamental +conception forming the background of every sun-cult--is the foundation +of all ancient mysteries. Thus we should expect the correspondences +which we believe do exist between New Grange and the Great Pyramid. Both +alike, in our opinion, were the greatest places in the respective +countries for the celebration of the Mysteries. High up in the body of +the Great Pyramid, after he had performed the long underground journey, +typical of the journey of Osiris or the Sun to the Otherworld or the +World of the Dead, we may suppose (knowing what we do of the Ancient +Mysteries and their shadows in modern Masonic initiations[496]) that the +royal or priestly neophyte laid himself in that strange stone coffin +without a lid, for a certain period of time--probably for three days and +three nights. Then, the initiation being complete, he arose from the +mystic death to a real resurrection, a true child of Osiris. In New +Grange we may suppose that the royal or priestly neophyte, while he +'fasted on the Tuatha De Danann for three days with their nights', sat +in that strange stone basin after the manner of the Orient.[497] + +The Great Pyramid seems to be the most ancient of the Egyptian pyramids, +and undoubtedly was the model for all the smaller ones, which 'always +betray profound ignorance of their noble model's chiefest internal +features, as well as of all its niceties of angle and cosmic harmonies +of linear measurement'.[498] Dr. Flinders Petrie says:--'The Great +Pyramid at Gizeh (of Khufu, fourth dynasty) unquestionably takes the +lead, in accuracy and in beauty of work, as well as in size. Not only is +the fine work of it in the pavement, casing, King's and Queen's chambers +quite unexcelled; but the general character of the core masonry is +better than that of any other pyramid in its solidity and +regularity.'[499] And of the stone coffers he says:--'Taking most of its +dimensions at their maximum, they agree closely with the same theory as +that which is applicable to the chambers; for when squared they are all +even multiples of a square fifth of a cubit.... There is no other theory +applicable to every lineal dimension of the coffer; but having found the +[Greek: pi] proportion in the form of the Pyramid, and in the King's +Chamber, there is some ground for supposing that it was intended also in +the coffer, on just one-fifth the scale of the chamber.'[499] And here +is apparent the important fact we wish to emphasize; the Great Pyramid +does not seem to have been intended primarily, if at all, for the +entombment of dead bodies or mummies while 'the numerous quasi-copies' +were 'for sepulchral purposes'[500] without doubt. There appears to have +been at first a clear understanding of the esoteric usage of the Great +Pyramid as a place for the mystic burial of Initiates, and then in the +course of national decadence the exoteric interpretation of this usage, +the interpretation now popular with Egyptologists, led to the erection +of smaller pyramids for purposes of actual burial. And may we not see in +such pyramid-like tumuli as those of Mont St. Michel, Gavrinis, and New +Grange copies of these smaller funeral pyramids;[501] or, if not direct +copies, at least the result of a similar religious decadence from the +unknown centuries since the Great Pyramid was erected by the Divine +Kings of prehistoric Egypt as a silent witness for all ages that Great +Men, Initiates, have understood Universal Law, and have solved the +greatest of all human problems, the problem of Life and Death? + + +GAVRINIS AND NEW GRANGE COMPARED + +In conclusion, and in support of the arguments already advanced, I offer +a few observations of my own, made at Gavrinis itself, the most famous +tumulus in Continental Europe. After a very careful examination of the +interior and exterior of the tumulus, an examination extending over more +than twelve hours, I am convinced that its curious rock-carvings and +those in New Grange are by the same race of people, whoever that race +may have been; and that there is sufficient evidence in its construction +to show that, like New Grange, it was quite as religious as funereal in +its nature and use. The facts which bear out this view are the +following. First, there are three strange cavities cut into the body of +the stone on the south side of the inner chamber, communicating +interiorly with one another, and large enough to admit human hands; if +used as places in which to offer sacrifice to the dead or fairies, small +objects could have been placed in them. In the oldest extant authentic +records of them which I have found it is said of their probable +purpose:--'Some people look on them as a double noose intended to +strangle the [animal] victims which the priest sacrificed; for others +they are two rings behind which the hands of the betrothed met each +other to be married.'[502] Their purpose is certainly difficult enough +to decipher, perhaps is undecipherable; but one thing about them is +certain, namely, that a close examination round their exterior edges and +within them also shows the rock-surface worn smooth as though by ages +of handling and touching; and it is incontestable that this wearing of +the rock-surface by human hands could not have taken place had the inner +chamber been sealed up and used solely as a tomb. We suggest here, as +Sir James Fergusson in his _Rude Stone Monuments_ (p. 366) has +suggested, that the inner chamber of Gavrinis was probably a place for +the celebration of religious rites: he advances the opinion that the +strange cavities were used to contain holy oil or holy water. There is +this second curious fact connected with the tumulus of Gavrinis. On +entering it--and it opens like New Grange to the sunrise, being oriented +43 deg. 60" to the south-east[503]--one finds placed across the floor of +the narrow passage-way as slightly inclined steps rising to the inner +chamber three or four stones. Two of them, now very prominent, form +veritable stumbling-blocks, and the one at the threshold of the inner +chamber is carved quite like the lintel stone above the entrance at New +Grange.[504] From what we know of ancient mystic cults, there was a +darkened chamber approached by a narrow passage-way so low that the +neophyte must stoop in traversing it to show symbolically his humility; +and as symbolic of his progress to the Chamber of Death, the _Sanctum +Sanctorum_ of the spirit-temple, there were steps, often purposely +placed as stumbling-blocks. The Great Pyramid, evidently, conforms to +this mystical plan; and strikes one, therefore, all the more forcibly as +the most remarkable structure for initiatory ceremonies ever constructed +on our planet. Thus, Dr. Flinders Petrie says:--'But we are met then by +an extraordinary idea, that all access to the King's chamber after its +completion must have been by climbing over the plug-blocks, as they lay +in the gallery, or by walking up the ramps on either side of them. Yet, +as the blocks cannot physically have been lying in any other place +before they were let down we are shut up to this view.'[505] And as +Egyptian tombs represented the mansions of the dead,[506] just so Celtic +or pre-Celtic spirit-temples and place for initiations were always +connected with the Underworld of the Dead; and save for such symbolical +arrangements as we see in Gavrinis, and New Grange also, they were +undistinguishable from tombs used for interments only. + +It seems to us most reasonable to suppose that if, as the old Irish +manuscripts show, there were spirit-temples or places for pagan funeral +rites, or rites of initiation, in Ireland, constructed like other tumuli +which were used only as tombs for the dead (because the ancient cult was +one of ancestor worship and worship of gods like the Tuatha De Danann, +and spirits), then there must have been others in Brittany also, where +we find the same system of rock-inscriptions. Further, in view of all +the definite provable relations between Gavrinis and New Grange, we are +strongly inclined to regard them both as having the same origin and +purpose, Gavrinis being for Armorica what New Grange was for Ireland, +the royal or principal spirit-temple. + + + + +SECTION III + +THE CULT OF GODS, SPIRITS, FAIRIES, AND THE DEAD + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE TESTIMONY OF PAGANISM + + 'The cult of forests, of fountains, and of stones is to be + explained by that primitive naturalism which all the Church + Councils held in Brittany united to proscribe.'--ERNEST RENAN. + + Edicts against pagan cults--Cult of Sacred Waters and its + absorption by Christianity--Celtic Water Divinities--Druidic + influence on Fairy-Faith--Cult of Sacred Trees--Cult of Fairies, + Spirits, and the Dead--Feasts of the Dead--Conclusion. + + +The evidence of paganism in support of our Psychological Theory +concerning the Fairy-Faith is so vast that we cannot do more than point +to portions of it--especially such portions as are most Celtic in their +nature. Perhaps most of us will think first of all about the ancient +cults rendered to fountains, rivers, lakes, trees, and, as we have seen +(pp. 399 ff.), to stones. There can be no reasonable doubt that these +cults were very flourishing when Christianity came to Europe, for kings, +popes, and church councils issued edict after edict condemning +them.[507] The second Council of Arles, held about 452, issued the +following canon:--'If in the territory of a bishop, infidels light +torches, or venerate trees, fountains, or stones, and he neglects to +abolish this usage, he must know that he is guilty of sacrilege. If the +director of the act itself, on being admonished, refuses to correct it, +he is to be excluded from communion.'[507] The Council of Tours, in 567, +thus expressed itself:--'We implore the pastors to expel from the Church +all those whom they may see performing before certain stones things +which have no relation with the ceremonies of the Church, and also +those who observe the customs of the Gentiles.'[508] King Canute in +England and Charlemagne in Europe conducted a most vigorous campaign +against all these pagan worships. This is Charlemagne's edict:--'With +respect to trees, stones, and fountains, where certain foolish people +light torches or practise other superstitions, we earnestly ordain that +that most evil custom detestable to God, wherever it be found, should be +removed and destroyed.'[509] + +The result of these edicts was a curious one. It was too much to expect +the eradication of the old cults after their age-long existence, and so +one by one they were absorbed by the new religion. In a sacred tree or +grove, over a holy well or fountain, on the shore of a lake or river, +there was placed an image of the Virgin or of some saint, and +unconsciously the transformation was made, as the simple-hearted +country-folk beheld in the brilliant images new and more glorious +dwelling-places for the spirits they and their fathers had so long +venerated. + + +THE CULT OF SACRED WATERS + +In Brittany, perhaps better than in other Celtic countries to-day, one +can readily discern this evolution from paganism to Christianity. Thus, +for example, in the Morbihan there is the fountain of St. Anne d'Auray, +round which centres Brittany's most important Pardon; a fountain near +Vannes is dedicated to St. Peter; at Carnac there is the far-famed +fountain of St. Cornely with its niche containing an image of Carnac's +patron saint, and not far from it, on the roadside leading to Carnac +Plage, an enclosed well dedicated to the Holy Virgin; and, less than a +mile away, the beautiful fountain of St. Columba. Near Ploermel, Canton +of Ploermel (Morbihan), there is the fountain of Recourrance or St. +Laurent, in which sailors perform divinations to know the future state +of the weather by casting on its waters a morsel of bread. If the bread +floats, it is a sure sign of fair weather, but if it sinks, of weather +so bad that no one should take risks by going out in the fishing-boats. +In some wells, pins are dropped by lovers. If the pins float, the +water-spirits show favourable auspices, but if the pins sink, the maiden +is unhappy, and will hesitate in accepting the proposal of marriage. +Long after their conversion, the inhabitants of Concoret (Arrondissement +de Ploermel, Morbihan) paid divine honours to the fountain of Baranton +in the druidical forest of Broceliande, so famous in the Breton legends +of Arthur and Merlin:--'For a long time the inhabitants of Concoret ... +in place of addressing themselves to God or to his Saints in their +maladies, sought the remedy in the fountain of Baranton, either by +praying to it, after the manner of the Gauls, or by drinking of its +waters.'[510] In the month of August 1835, when there was an unusual +drought in the land, all the inhabitants of Concoret formed in a great +procession with banners and crucifix at their head, and with chants and +ringing of church bells marched to this same fountain of Baranton and +prayed for rain.[511] This curious bit of history was also reported to +me in July 1909 by a peasant who lives near the fountain, and who heard +it from his parents; and he added that the foot of the crucifix was +planted in the water to aid the rain-making. We have here an interesting +combination of paganism and Christianity. + +Gregory of Tours says that the country-folk of Gevaudan rendered divine +honours to a certain lake, and as offerings cast on its waters linen, +wool, cheese, bees'-wax, bread, and other things;[512] and Mahe adds +that gold was sometimes offered,[512] quite after the manner of the +ancient Peruvians, who cast gold and silver of great value into the +waters of sacred Lake Titicaca, high up in the Andes. To absorb into +Christianity the worship paid to the lake near Gevaudan, the bishop +ordered a church to be built on its shore, and to the people he +said:--'My children, there is nothing divine in this lake: defile not +your souls by these vain ceremonies; but recognize rather the true +God.'[513] The offerings to the lake-spirits then ceased, and were made +instead on the altar of the church. As Canon Mahe so consistently sets +forth, other similar means were used to absorb the pagan cults of sacred +waters:--'Other pastors employed a similar device to absorb the cult of +fountains into Christianity; they consecrated them to God under the +invocation of certain saints; giving the saints' names to them and +placing in them the saints' images, so that the weak and simple-hearted +Christians who might come to them, struck by these names and by these +images, should grow accustomed to addressing their prayers to God and to +his saints, in place of honouring the fountains themselves, as they had +been accustomed to do. This is the reason why there are seen in the +stonework of so many fountains, niches and little statues of saints who +have given their names to these springs.'[514] + +Procopius reports that the Franks, even after having accepted +Christianity, remained attached to their ancient cults, sacrificing to +the River Po women and children of the Goths, and casting the bodies +into its waters to the spirits of the waters.[514] Well-worship in the +Isle of Man, not yet quite extinct, was no doubt once very general. As +A. W. Moore has shown, the sacred wells in the Isle of Man were visited +and offerings made to them to secure immunity from witches and fairies, +to cure maladies, to raise a wind, and for various kinds of +divination.[515] And no doubt the offerings of rags on bushes over +sacred wells, and the casting of pins, coins, buttons, pebbles, and +other small objects into their waters, a common practice yet in Ireland +and Wales, as in non-Celtic countries, are to be referred to as +survivals of a time when regular sacrifices were offered in divination, +or in seeking cures from maladies, and equally from obsessing demons who +were thought to cause the maladies. In the prologue to Chretien's _Conte +du Graal_ there is an account, seemingly very ancient, of how dishonour +to the divinities of wells and springs brought destruction on the rich +land of Logres. The damsels who abode in these watery places fed +travellers with nourishing food until King Amangons wronged one of them +by carrying off her golden cup. His men followed his evil example, so +that the springs dried up, the grass withered, and the land became +waste.[516] + +According to Mr. Borlase, 'it was by passing under the waters of a well +that the _Sidh_, that is, the abode of the spirits called _Sidhe_, in +the tumulus or natural hill, as the case might be, was reached.'[517] +And it is evident from this that the well-spirits were even identified +in Ireland with the Tuatha De Danann or Fairy-Folk. I am reminded of a +walk I was privileged to take with Mr. William B. Yeats on Lady +Gregory's estate at Coole Park, near Gort (County Galway); for Mr. Yeats +led me to the haunts of the water-spirits of the region, along a strange +river which flows underground for some distance and then comes out to +the light again in its weird course, and to a dark, deep pool hidden in +the forest. According to tradition, the river is the abode of +water-fairies; and in the shaded forest-pool, whose depth is very great, +live a spirit-race like the Greek nymphs. More than one mortal while +looking into this pool has felt a sudden and powerful impulse to plunge +in, for the fairies were then casting their magic spell over him that +they might take him to live in their under-water palace for ever. + +One of the most beautiful passages in _The Tripartite Life of Patrick_ +describes the holy man at the holy well called Cliabach:--'Thereafter +Patrick went at sunrise to the well, namely Cliabach on the sides of +Cruachan. The clerics sat down by the well. Two daughters of Loegaire +son of Niall went early to the well to wash their hands, as was a custom +of theirs, namely, Ethne the Fair, and Fedelm the Ruddy. The maidens +found beside the well the assembly of the clerics in white garments, +with their books before them. And they wondered at the shape of the +clerics, and thought that they were men of the elves or apparitions. +They asked tidings of Patrick: "Whence are ye, and whence have ye come? +Are ye of the elves or of the gods?" And Patrick said to them: "It were +better for you to believe in God than to inquire about our race." Said +the girl who was elder: "Who is your god? and where is he? Is he in +heaven, or in earth, or under earth, or on earth? Is he in seas or in +streams, or in mountains or in glens? Hath he sons and daughters? Is +there gold and silver, is there abundance of every good thing in his +kingdom? Tell us about him, how he is seen, how he is loved, how he is +found? if he is in youth, or if he is in age? if he is ever-living; if +he is beautiful? if many have fostered his son? if his daughters are +dear and beautiful to the men of the world?"'[518] + +And in another place it is recorded that 'Patrick went to the well of +Findmag. Slan is its name. They told Patrick that the heathen honoured +the well as if it were a god.'[519] And of the same well it is said, +'that the magi, i. e. wizards or Druids, used to reverence the well Slan +and "offer gifts to it as if it were a god."'[519] As Whitley Stokes +pointed out, this is the only passage connecting the Druids with +well-worship; and it is very important, because it establishes the +relation between the Druids as magicians and their control of spirits +like fairies.[519] As shown here, and as seems evident in Columba's +relation with Druids and exorcism in Adamnan's _Life of St. +Columba_,[520] the early Celtic peoples undoubtedly drew many of their +fairy-traditions from a memory of druidic rites of divination. Perhaps +the most beautiful description of a holy well and a description +illustrative of such divination is that of Ireland's most mystical well, +Connla's Well:--'Sinend, daughter of Lodan Lucharglan, son of Ler, out +of Tir Tairngire ("Land of Promise, Fairyland"), went to Connla's Well +which is under sea, to behold it. That is a well at which are the hazels +and inspirations (?) of wisdom, that is, the hazels of the science of +poetry, and in the same hour their fruit, and their blossom and their +foliage break forth, and these fall on the well in the same shower, +which raises on the water a royal surge of purple. Then the [sacred] +salmon chew the fruit, and the juice of the nuts is apparent on their +purple bellies. And seven streams of wisdom spring forth and turn there +again.'[521] + +To these cults of sacred waters numerous non-Celtic parallels could +easily be offered, but they seem unnecessary with Celtic evidence so +clear. And this evidence which is already set forth shows that the +origin of worship paid to sacred wells, fountains, lakes, or rivers, is +to be found in the religious practices of the Celts before they became +christianized. They believed that certain orders of spirits, often +called fairies, and to be identified with them, inhabited, or as was the +case with Sinend, who came from the Otherworld, visited these places, +and must be appeased or approached through sacrifice by mortals seeking +their favours. Canon Mahe puts the matter thus:--'The Celts recognized a +supreme God, the principle of all things; but they rendered religious +worship to the genii or secondary deities who, according to them, united +themselves to different objects in nature and made them divine by such +union. Among the objects were rivers, the sea, lakes and +fountains.'[522] + + +THE CULT OF SACRED TREES + +The things said of sacred waters can also be said of sacred trees among +the Celts; and, in the case of sacred trees, more may be added about the +Druids and their relation to the Fairy-Faith, for it is well known that +the Druids held the oak and its mistletoe in great religious veneration, +and it is generally thought that most of the famous Druid schools were +in the midst of sacred oak-groves or forests. Pliny has recorded that +'the Druids, for so they call their magicians, have nothing which they +hold more sacred than the mistletoe[523] and the tree on which it +grows, provided only it be an oak (_robur_). But apart from that, they +select groves of oak, and they perform no sacred rite without leaves +from that tree, so that the Druids may be regarded as even deriving from +it their name interpreted as Greek'[524] (a disputed point among modern +philologists). Likewise of the Druids, Maximus Tyrius states that the +image of their chief god, considered by him to correspond to Zeus, was a +lofty oak tree;[525] and Strabo says that the principal place of +assembly for the Galatians, a Celtic people of Asia Minor, was the +Sacred Oak-grove.[526] + +Just as the cult of fountains was absorbed by Christianity, so was the +cult of trees. Concerning this, Canon Mahe writes:--'One sees sometimes, +in the country and in gardens, trees wherein, by trimming and bending +together the branches, have been formed niches of verdure, in which have +been placed crosses or images of certain saints. This usage is not +confined to the Morbihan. Our Lady of the Oak, in Anjou, and Our Lady of +the Oak, near Orthe, in Maine, are places famous for pilgrimage. In this +last province, says a historian, "One sees at various cross-roads the +most beautiful rustic oaks decorated with figures of saints. There are +seen there, in five or six villages, chapels of oaks, with whole trunks +of that tree enshrined in the wall, beside the altar. Such among others +is that famous chapel of Our Lady of the Oak, near the forge of Orthe, +whose celebrity attracts daily, from five to six leagues about, a very +great gathering of people."'[527] + +Saint Martin, according to Canon Mahe, tried to destroy a sacred +pine-tree in the diocese of Tours by telling the people there was +nothing divine in it. The people agreed to let it be cut down on +condition that the saint should receive its great trunk on his head as +it fell; and the tree was not cut down.[527] Saint Germain caused a +great scandal at Auxerre by hanging from the limbs of a sacred tree the +heads of wild animals which he had killed while hunting.[527] Saint +Gregory the Great wrote to Brunehaut exhorting him to abolish among his +subjects the offering of animals' heads to certain trees.[528] + +In Ireland fairy trees are common yet; though throughout Celtdom sacred +trees, naturally of short duration, are almost forgotten. In Brittany, +the Forest of Broceliande still enjoys something of the old veneration, +but more out of sentiment than by actual worship. A curious survival of +an ancient Celtic tree-cult exists in Carmarthen, Wales, where there is +still carefully preserved and held upright in a firm casing of cement +the decaying trunk of an old oak-tree called Merlin's Oak; and local +prophecy declares on Merlin's authority that when the tree falls +Carmarthen will fall with it. Perhaps through an unconscious desire on +the part of some patriotic citizens of averting the calamity by inducing +the tree-spirit to transfer its abode, or else by otherwise hoodwinking +the tree-spirit into forgetting that Merlin's Oak is dead, a vigorous +and now flourishing young oak has been planted so directly beside it +that its foliage embraces it. And in many parts of modern England, the +Jack-in-the-Green, a man entirely hidden in a covering of green foliage +who dances through the streets on May Day, may be another example of a +very ancient tree (or else agricultural) cult of Celtic origin. + + +THE CULT OF FAIRIES, SPIRITS, AND THE DEAD + +There was also, as we already know, more or less of direct worship +offered to fairies like the Tuatha De Danann; and sacrifice was made to +them even as now, when the Irish or Scotch peasant pours a libation of +milk to the 'good people' or to the fairy queen who presides over the +flocks. In _Fiacc's Hymn_[529] it is said, 'On Ireland's folk lay +darkness: the tribes worshipped elves: They believed not the true +godhead of the true Trinity.' And there is a reliable legend concerning +Columbkille which shows that this old cult of elves was not forgotten +among the early Irish Christians, though they changed the original good +reputation of these invisible beings to one of evil. It is said that +Columbkille's first attempts to erect a church or monastery on Iona were +rendered vain by the influence of some evil spirit or else of demons; +for as fast as a wall was raised it fell down. Then it was revealed to +the saint that the walls could not stand until a human victim should be +buried alive under the foundations. And the lot fell on Oran, +Columbkille's companion, who accordingly became a sacrifice to appease +the evil spirit, fairies, or demons of the place where the building was +to be raised.[530] + +As an illustration of what the ancient practice of such sacrifice to +place-spirits, or to gods, must have been like in Wales, we offer the +following curious legend concerning the conception of Myrddin (Merlin), +as told by our witness from Pontrhydfendigaid, Mr. John Jones (see p. +147):--'When building the Castle of Gwrtheyrn, near Carmarthen, as much +as was built by day fell down at night. So a council of the _Dynion +Hysbys_ or "Wise Men" was called, and they decided that the blood of a +fatherless boy had to be used in mixing the mortar if the wall was to +stand. Search was thereupon made for a fatherless boy (cf. p. 351), and +throughout all the kingdom no such boy could be found. But one day two +boys were quarrelling, and one of them in defying the other wanted to +know what a fatherless boy like him had to say to him. An officer of the +king, overhearing the quarrel, seized the boy thus tauntingly addressed +as the one so long looked for. The circumstances were made known to the +king, and the boy was taken to him. "Who is your father?" asked the +king. "My mother never told me," the boy replied. Then the boy's mother +was sent for, and the king asked her who the father of the boy was, and +she replied: "I do not know; for I have never known a man. Yet, one +night, it seemed to me that a man noble and majestic in appearance slept +with me, and I awoke to find that I had been in a dream. But when I grew +pregnant afterwards, and this wonderful boy whom you now see was +delivered, I considered that a divine being or an angel had visited me +in that dream, and therefore I called his child Myrddin the Magician, +for such I believe my son to be." When the mother had thus spoken, the +king announced to the court and wise men, "Here is the fatherless boy. +Take his blood and use it in mixing the mortar. The walling will not +hold without it." At this, Myrddin taunted the king and wise men, and +said they were no better than a pack of idiots. "The reason the walling +falls down," Myrddin went on to say, "is because you have tried to raise +it on a rock which covers two large sea-serpents. Whenever the wall is +raised over them its weight presses on their backs and makes them +uneasy. Then during the night they upheave their backs to relieve +themselves of the pressure, and thus shake the walling to a fall."' The +story ends here, but presumably Merlin's statements were found to be +true; and Merlin was not sacrificed, for, as we know, he became the +great magician of Arthur's court. + +There are two hills in the Highlands of Aberdeenshire where travellers +had to propitiate the banshee by placing barley-meal cakes near a well +on each hill; and if the traveller neglected the offering, death or some +dire calamity was sure to follow.[531] It is quite certain that the +banshee is almost always thought of as the spirit of a dead ancestor +presiding over a family, though here it appears more like the tutelary +deity of the hills. But sacrifice being thus made, according to the +folk-belief, to a banshee, shows, like so many other examples where +there is a confusion between divinities or fairies and the souls of the +dead, that ancestral worship must be held to play a very important part +in the complex Fairy-Faith as a whole. A few non-Celtic parallels +determine this at once. Thus, exactly as to fairies here, milk is +offered to the souls of saints in the Panjab, India, as a means of +propitiating them.[532] M. A. Lefevre shows that the Roman Lares, so +frequently compared to house-haunting fairies, are in reality quite like +the Gaelic banshee; that originally they were nothing more than the +unattached souls of the dead, akin to Manes; that time and custom made +distinctions between them; that in the common language Lares and Manes +had synonymous dwellings; and that, finally, the idea of death was +little by little divorced from the worship of the Lares, so that they +became guardians of the family and protectors of life.[533] On all the +tombs of their dead the Romans inscribed these names: _Manes_, _inferi_, +_silentes_,[534] the last of which, meaning _the silent ones_, is +equivalent to the term 'People of Peace' given to the fairy-folk of +Scotland.[535] Nor were the Roman Lares always thought of as inhabiting +dwellings. Many were supposed to live in the fields, in the streets of +cities, at cross-roads, quite like certain orders of fairies and demons; +and in each place these ancestral spirits had their chapels and received +offerings of fruit, flowers, and of foliage. If neglected they became +spiteful, and were then known as Lemures. + +All these examples tend to show what the reviewer of Curtin's _Tales of +the Fairies and of the Ghost World_ states, that 'The attributes of a +ghost--that is to say, the spirit of a dead man--are indistinguishable +from those of a fairy. And it is well known how world-wide is the +worship of the dead and the offering of food to them, among uncivilized +tribes like those of Africa, Australia, and America, as well as among +such great nations as China, Corea, India, and Japan; and in ancient +times it was universal among the masses of the people in Egypt, Greece, +and Rome. + + +CELTIC AND NON-CELTIC FEASTS OF THE DEAD + +_Samain_, as we already know, was the great Celtic feast of the dead +when offerings or sacrifice of various kinds were made to ancestral +spirits, and to the Tuatha De Danann and the spirit-hosts under their +control; and _Beltene_, or the first of May, was another day anciently +dedicated to fetes in honour of the dead and fairies. Chapter ii has +shown us how November Eve, the modern _Samain_, and like it, All Saints +Eve or _La Toussaint_, are regarded among the Celtic peoples now; and +the history of _La Toussaint_ seems to indicate that Christianity, as in +the case of the cult of trees and fountains, absorbed certain Celtic +cults of the dead which centred around the pagan _Samain_ feast of the +dead, and even adopted the date of _Samain_ (see p. 453). + +Among the ancient Egyptians, so much like the ancient Celts in their +innate spirituality and clear conceptions of the invisible world, we +find a parallel feast which fell on the seventeenth _Athyr_ of the year. +This day was directly dependent upon the progress of the sun; and, as we +have throughout emphasized, the ancient symbolism connected with the +yearly movements of the Great God of Light and Life cannot be divorced +from the ancient doctrines of life and death. To the pre-Christian +Celts, the First of November, or the Festival of _Samain_, which marked +the end of summer and the commencement of winter, was symbolical of +death.[536] _Samain_ thus corresponds with the Egyptian fete of the +dead, for the seventeenth _Athyr_ of the year marks the day on which +Sitou (the god of darkness) killed in the midst of a banquet his brother +Osiris (the god of light, the sun), and which was therefore thought of +as the season when the old sun was dying of his wounds. It was a time +when the power of good was on the decline, so that all nature, turning +against man, was abandoned to the divinities of darkness, the +inhabitants of the Realms of the Dead. On this anniversary of the death +of Osiris, an Egyptian would undertake no new enterprise: should he go +down to the Nile, a crocodile would attack him as the crocodile sent by +Sitou had attacked Osiris, and even as the Darkness was attacking the +Light to devour it;[537] should he set out on a journey, he would part +from his home and family never to return. His only course was to remain +locked in his house, and there await in fear and inaction the passing of +the night, until Osiris, returning from death, and reborn to a new +existence, should rise triumphant over the forces of Darkness and +Evil.[538] It is clear that this last part of the Egyptian belief is +quite like the Celtic conception of _Samain_ as we have seen Ailill and +Medb celebrating that festival in their palace at Cruachan. + +There is a great resemblance between the christianized Feast of +_Samain_, when the dead return to visit their friends and to be +entertained, for example as in Brittany, and the beautiful festivals +formerly held in the Sinto temples of Japan. Thus at Nikko thousands of +lanterns were lighted, 'each one representing the spirit of an +ancestor,' and there was masquerading and revelry for the entertainment +of the visiting spirits.[539] It shows how much religions are alike. + +Each year the Roman peoples dedicated two days (February 21-2) to the +honouring of the Dead. On the first day, called the _Feralia_, all +Romans were supposed to remain within their own homes. The sanctuaries +of all the gods were closed and all ceremony suspended. The only +sacrifices made at such a time were to the dead, and to the gods of the +dead in the underworld; and all manes were appeased by food-offerings of +meats and cakes. The second day was called _Cara Cognatio_ and was a +time of family reunions and feasting. Of it Ovid has said (_Fasti_, ii. +619), 'After the visit to the tombs and to the ancestors who are no +longer [among us], it is pleasant to turn towards the living; after the +loss of so many, it is pleasant to behold those who remain of our blood +and to reckon up the generations of our descendants.' And the Greeks +also had their feasts for the dead.[540] + + +CONCLUSION + +The fact of ancient Celtic cults of stones, waters, trees, and fairies +still existing under cover of Christianity directly sustains the +Psychological Theory; and the persistence of the ancient Celtic cult of +the dead, as illustrated in the survival of _Samain_ in its modern +forms, and perhaps best seen now among the Bretons, goes far to sustain +the opinion of Ernest Renan, who declared in his admirable _Essais_ that +of all peoples the Celts, as the Romans also recorded, have most precise +ideas about death. Thus it is that the Celts at this moment are the most +spiritually conscious of western nations. To think of them as +materialists is impossible. Since the time of Patrick and Columba the +Gaels have been the missionaries of Europe; and, as Caesar asserts, the +Druids were the ancient teachers of the Gauls, no less than of all +Britain. And the mysteries of life and death are the key-note of all +things really Celtic, even of the great literature of Arthur, +Cuchulainn, and Finn, now stirring the intellectual world. + + + + +SECTION III + +THE CULT OF GODS, SPIRITS, FAIRIES, AND THE DEAD + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE TESTIMONY OF CHRISTIANITY + + 'The Purgatory of St. Patrick became the framework of another + series of tales, embodying the Celtic ideas concerning the other + life and its different states. Perhaps the profoundest instinct of + the Celtic peoples is their desire to penetrate the unknown. With + the sea before them, they wish to know what is to be found beyond + it; they dream of the Promised Land. In the face of the unknown + that lies beyond the tomb, they dream of that great journey which + the pen of Dante has celebrated.'--ERNEST RENAN. + + Lough Derg a sacred lake originally--Purgatorial rites as + christianized survivals of ancient Celtic rites--Purgatory as + Fairyland--Purgatorial rites parallel to pagan initiation + ceremonies--The Death and Resurrection Rite--Breton Pardons + compared--Relation to Aengus Cult and Celtic cave-temples--Origin + of Purgatorial doctrine pre-Christian--Celtic and Roman feasts of + dead shaped Christian ones--Fundamental unity of Mythologies, + Religions, and the Fairy-Faith. + + +The best evidence offered by Christianity with direct bearing on the +Fairy-Faith comes from what may be designated survivals of transformed +paganism within the Church itself. Various pagan cults, which also came +to be more or less christianized, have been considered under Paganism; +and in this chapter we propose to examine the famous Purgatory of St. +Patrick and the Christian rites in honour of the dead. + + +ST. PATRICK'S PURGATORY + +In the south of County Donegal, in Ireland, amid treeless mountains and +moorlands, lies Lough Derg or the Red Lake, containing an island which +has long been famous throughout Christendom as the site of St. Patrick's +Purgatory. Even to-day more than in the Middle Ages it is the goal of +thousands of pious pilgrims who repair thither to be purified of the +accumulated sins of a lifetime. In this age of commercialism the picture +is an interesting and a happy one, no matter what the changing voices of +the many may have to say about it. + +The following weird legends, which during the autumn of 1909 I found +surviving among the Lough Derg peasantry, explain how the lough received +its present name, and seem to indicate that long before Patrick's time +the lough was already considered a strange and mysterious place, +apparently an Otherworld preserve. The first legend, based on two +complementary versions, one from James Ryan, of Tamlach Townland, who is +seventy-five years old, the other from Arthur Monaghan, a younger man, +who lives about three miles from James Ryan, is as follows:--'In his +flight from County Armagh, Finn Mac Coul took his mother on his +shoulder, holding her by the legs, but so rapidly did he travel that on +reaching the shores of the lake nothing remained of his mother save the +two legs, and these he threw down there. Some time later, the Fenians, +while searching for Finn, passed the same spot on the lake-shore, and +Cinen Moul(?), who was of their number, upon seeing the shin-bones of +Finn's mother and a worm in one, said: "If that worm could get water +enough it would come to something great." "I'll give it water enough," +said another of the followers, and at that he flung it into the lake +(later called Finn Mac Coul's lake).[541] Immediately the worm turned +into an enormous water-monster. This water-monster it was that St. +Patrick had to fight and kill; and, as the struggle went on, the lake +ran red with the blood of the water-monster, and so the lake came to be +called Loch Derg (Red Lake).' The second legend, composed of +folk-opinions, was related by Patrick Monaghan, the caretaker of the +Purgatory, as he was rowing me to Saints' Island--the site of the +original purgatorial cave; and this legend is even more important for +us than the preceding one:--'I have always been hearing it said that +into this lough St. Patrick drove all the serpents from Ireland, and +that with them he had here his final battle, gaining complete victory. +The old men and women in this neighbourhood used to believe that Lough +Derg was the last stronghold of the Druids in Ireland; and from what I +have heard them say, I think the old legend means that this is where St. +Patrick ended his fight with the Druids, and that the serpents represent +the Druids or paganism.' + +These and similar legends, together with what we know about the +purgatorial rites, lead us to believe that in pre-Christian times Finn +Mac Coul's Lake, later called Lough Derg, was venerated as sacred, and +that the cave which then undoubtedly existed on Saints' Island was used +as a centre for the celebration of pagan mysteries similar in character +to those supposed to have been celebrated in New Grange. Evidently, in +the ordeals and ceremonies of the modern Christian Purgatory of St. +Patrick, we see the survivals of such pagan initiatory rites. Just as +the cults of stones, trees, fountains, lakes, and waters were absorbed +by the new religion, so, it would seem, were all cults rendered in +prehistoric times to Finn Mac Coul's Lake and within the island cave. +Though the present location of the Purgatory is not the original place +of the old Celtic cults, there having been a transfer from Saints' +Island to Station Island, the present place of pilgrimage, where instead +of the cave there is the 'Prison Chapel', the practices, though +naturally much modified and corrupted, retain their primitive outlines. +Patrick in his time ordered the observance of the following ceremonies +by all penitents before their entrance into the original cave on Saints' +Island;[542] and for a long time they were strictly carried out:--'The +visitor must first go to the bishop of the diocese, declare to him that +he came of his own free will, and request of him permission to make the +pilgrimage. The bishop warned him against venturing any further in his +design, and represented to him the perils of his undertaking; but if the +pilgrim still remained steadfast in his purpose, he gave him a +recommendatory letter to the prior of the island. The prior again tried +to dissuade him from his design by the same arguments that had been +previously urged by the bishop. If, however, the pilgrim still remained +steadfast, he was taken into the church to spend there fifteen days in +fasting and praying. After this the mass was celebrated, the holy +communion administered to him and holy water sprinkled over him, and he +was led in procession with reading of litanies to the entrance of the +purgatory, where a third attempt was made to dissuade him from entering. +If he still persisted, the prior allowed him to enter the cave, after he +had received the benediction of the priests, and, in entering, he +commended himself to their prayers, and made the sign of the cross on +his forehead with his own hand. The prior then made fast the door, and +opened it not again till the next morning, when, if the penitent were +there, he was taken out and led with great joy to the church, and, after +fifteen days' watching and praying, was dismissed. If he was not found +when the door was opened, it was understood that he had perished in his +pilgrimage through purgatory; the door was closed again, and he was +never afterwards mentioned'. + +An enormous mass of literary and historical material was recorded during +the mediaeval period, in various European vernaculars and in Latin, +concerning St. Patrick's Purgatory; and all of it testifies to the +widespread influence of the rites which already then as now attracted +thousands of pilgrims from all parts of Christendom. In the poem of +_Owayne Miles_,[543] which forms part of this material, we find a +poetical description of the purgatorial initiatory rites quite +comparable to Virgil's account of Aeneas on his initiatory journey to +Hades. The poem records how Sir Owain was locked in the cave, and how, +after a short time, he began to penetrate its depths. He had but little +light, and this by degrees disappeared, leaving him in total darkness. +Then a strange twilight appeared. He went on to a hall and there met +fifteen men clad in white and with heads shaven after the manner of +ecclesiastics. One of them told Owain what things he would have to +suffer in his pilgrimage, how unclean spirits would attack him, and by +what means he could withstand them. Then the fifteen men left the knight +alone, and soon all sorts of demons and ghosts and spirits surrounded +him, and he was led on from one torture and trial to another by +different companies of fiends. (In the original Latin legend there were +four fields of punishment.) Finally Owain came to a magic bridge which +appeared safe and wide, but when he reached the middle of it all the +fiends and demons and unclean spirits raised so horrible a yell that he +almost fell into the chasm below. He, however, reached the other shore, +and the power of the devils ceased. Before him was a celestial city, and +the perfumed air which was wafted from it was so ravishing that he +forgot all his pains and sorrows. A procession came to Owain and, +welcoming him, led him into the paradise where Adam and Eve dwelt before +they had eaten the apple. Food was offered to the knight, and when he +had eaten of it he had no desire to return to earth, but he was told +that it was necessary to live out his natural life in the world and to +leave his flesh and bones behind him before beginning the heavenly +existence. So he began his return journey to the cave's entrance by a +short and pleasant way. He again passed the fifteen men clad in white, +who revealed what things the future had in store for him; and reaching +the door safely, waited there till morning. Then he was taken out, +congratulated, and invited to remain with the priests for fifteen +days.[544] + +Here we have clearly enough many of the essential features of the +underworld: there is the mystic bridge which when crossed guarantees the +traveller against evil spirits, just as in Ireland a peasant believes +himself safe when fairies are pursuing him if he can only cross a bridge +or stream. The celestial city is both like the Christian Heaven and the +_Sidhe_ world. The eating of angel food by Owain has an effect quite +like that of eating food in Fairyland; but Owain, by Christian +influence, is sent back on earth to die 'that death which the King of +Heaven and Earth hath ordained,' as Patrick said of the prince whom he +saved from the _Sidhe_-folk.[545] + +A curious story, in which King Arthur himself is made to visit St. +Patrick's Purgatory, published during the sixteenth century by a learned +Frenchman, Stephanus Forcatulus, shows how real a relation there is +between Purgatory and the Greek or Roman Hades. Arthur, it is said, +leaving the light behind him, descended into the cave by a rough and +steep road. 'For they say that this cave is an entrance to the shades, +or at least to purgatory, where poor sinners may get their offences +washed out, and return again rejoicing to the light of day.' But +Forcatulus adds that 'I have learnt from certain serious commentaries of +Merlin, that Gawain, his master of horse, called Arthur back, and +dissuaded him from examining further the horrid cave in which was heard +the sound of falling water which emitted a sulphureous smell, and of +voices lamenting as it were for the loss of their bodies'.[546] + + +PURGATORIAL AND INITIATORY RITES + +Judging from the above data and from the great mass of similar data +available, the religious rites connected with St. Patrick's Purgatory +are to be anthropologically interpreted in the light of what is known +about ancient and modern initiatory ceremonies, similarly conducted. As +has already been stated, the original Purgatory which was in a cave on +Saints' Island is to-day typified by 'Prison Chapel' on Station Island; +and in this 'Prison Chapel', as formerly in the cave, pilgrims, after +having fasted and performed the necessary preparatory penances, are +required to pass the night. Among the Greeks, neophytes seeking +initiation, after similar preparation, entered the cave-shrine recently +discovered at Eleusis, the site of the Great Mysteries, and therein, in +the _sanctum sanctorum_, entered into communion with the god and goddess +of the lower world;[547] whereas in the original Purgatory Sir Owain and +Arthur are described as having come into contact with the Hades-world +and its beings. In the state cult at Acharaca, Greece, there was another +cavern-temple in which initiations were conducted.[547] The oracle of +Zeus Trophonius was situated in a subterranean chamber, into which, +after various preparatory rites, including the invocation of Agamedes, +neophytes descended to receive in a very mysterious manner the divine +revelations which were afterwards interpreted for them. So awe-inspiring +were the descent into the cave and the sights therein seen that it was +popularly believed that no one who visited the cave ever smiled again; +and persons of grave and serious aspect were proverbially said to have +been in the cave of Trophonius.[548] + +The worship of Mithras, the Persian god of created light and all earthly +wisdom, who in time became identified with the sun, was conducted in +natural and artificial caves found in every part of the Roman Empire +where his cult flourished until superseded by Christianity; and in these +caves very elaborate initiations of seven degrees were carried out. The +cave itself signified the lower world, into which during the ordeals of +initiation the neophyte was supposed to enter while out of the physical +body, that the soul might be purged by many trials.[549] In Mexico the +cavern of Chalchatongo led to the plains of paradise, evidently through +initiations; and Mictlan, a subterranean temple, similarly led to the +Aztec land of the dead.[550] + +Among the most widespread and characteristic features of contemporary +primitive races we find highly developed mysteries (puberty +institutions) of the same essential character as these ancient +mysteries. They are to uncivilized youth what the Greek Mysteries were +to Greek youth, and what colleges and universities are to the youth of +Europe and America, though perhaps more successful than these last as +places of moral and religious instruction. These mysteries vary from +tribe to tribe, though in almost all of them there is what corresponds +to the Death Rite in Freemasonry; that is to say, there is either a +symbolical presentation of death in a sacred drama--as there was among +the Greeks in their complete initiatory rites--or a state of actual +trance imposed upon each neophyte by the priestly initiators. The +_sanctum sanctorum_ of these primitive mysteries is sometimes in a +natural or artificial cavern (as was the rule with respect to the +Ancient Mysteries and St. Patrick's Purgatory on Saints' Island); +sometimes in a structure specially prepared to exclude the light; or +else the neophytes are symbolically or literally buried in an +underground place to be resurrected greatly purified and +strengthened.[551] And the mystic purification at the sea-shore and +spiritual re-birth sought in the cave at Eleusis by the highly cultured +Athenians and their fellow Greeks, or among other cultured and +uncultured ancient and modern peoples through some corresponding +initiation ceremony, find their parallel in the purification and +spiritual re-birth still sought in the Christian Purgatory, now 'Prison +Chapel', and in the lake waters, amid the solitude of sacred Lough Derg, +Ireland, by thousands of earnest pilgrims from all parts of the +world.[552] + +There is a correspondence between this conclusion and what was said +about the initiatory aspects of the Aengus Cult; and should we try to +connect the Purgatory with some particular sun-cult of a character +parallel to that of the Aengus Cult we should probably have to name Lug, +the great Irish sun-god, because of the significant fact that the +purgatorial rites on Station Island come to an end on the Festival of +the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, the 15th of August, a date which +apparently coincides sufficiently to represent, as it probably does, the +ancient August Lugnasadh, the 1st of August, a day sacred to the sun-god +Lug, as the name indicates.[553] + +If we are to class together the original Purgatory, New Grange, +Gavrinis, and other Celtic underground places, as centres of the highest +religious practices in the past, we should expect to discover that many +similar structures or natural caverns existed in pagan Ireland, as +indeed we find they did. Thus in different Irish manuscripts various +caves are mentioned,[554] and most of them, so far as they can be +localized, are traditionally places of supernatural marvels, and often +(as in the case of the last one enumerated, the Cave of Cruachan) are +directly related to the under-world.[555] Another of these caves is +described as being under a church, which circumstance suggests that the +church was dedicated over an underground place originally sacred to +pagan worship, and, as we may safely assume, to pagan mysteries. + +The curious custom among early Irish Christians, of retiring for a time +to a cave, seems to show the lasting into historical times of the pagan +cave-ritual now surviving at Lough Derg only. The custom seems to have +been common among the saints of Britain and of Scotland;[556] and in +Stokes's _Tripartite Life of Patrick_ (p. 242) there is a very +significant reference to it. In the _Mabinogion_ story of _Kulhwch and +Olwen_ there seems to be another traditional echo of the times when +caves were used for religious rites or worship, in the author's +reference to the cave of the witch Orddu as being 'on the confines of +Hell'. A cave was thus popularly supposed to lead to Hades or an +underworld of fairies, demons, and spirits; again just as in St. +Patrick's Purgatory. Purely Celtic instances of this kind might be +greatly multiplied. + + +PAGAN ORIGIN OF PURGATORIAL DOCTRINE + +The metrical romance of _Orfeo and Herodys_ in Ritson's _Collection of +Metrical Romances_[557] illustrates how in Britain (and Britain--even +England--is more Celtic than Saxon) the Grecian Hell or Hades was looked +on as identical with the Celtic Fairyland. This is quite unusual; and +for us is highly significant. It shows that in Britain, at the time the +romance was written, there was no essential difference between the +underworld of fairies and the underworld of shades. Pluto's realm and +the realm where fairy kings and fairy queens held high revelry were the +same. The difference is this: Hades was an Egyptian and in turn a Greek +conception, while Fairyland was a Celtic conception; they differ as the +imagination at work on a philosophical doctrine differs among the three +peoples, and not otherwise. And, as Wright has shown, the origin of +Purgatory in the Roman Church is very obscure. As to the location of +Purgatory, Roman theology confesses it has nothing certain to say.[558] +The natural conclusion, as we suggested in our study of Re-birth, would +seem to be that the Irish doctrine of the Otherworld in all its aspects, +but especially as the underground world of the _Sidhe_ or fairy-folk, +was combined with the pagan Graeco-Roman doctrine of Hades in St. +Patrick's Purgatory, and hence gave rise to the modern Christian +doctrine of Purgatory. + + +CHRISTIAN RITES IN HONOUR OF THE DEPARTED + +We may now readily pass from an examination of world-wide rites +concerned with death and re-birth, which are based on an ancient +sun-cult, to an examination of their shadows in the theology of +Christianity, where they are commonly known as the rites in honour of +the departed. It seems to be clear at the outset that the Christian +Fete in Commemoration of the Dead, according to its history, is an +adaptation from paganism; and with so many Irish ecclesiastics, or else +their disciples, educated in the Celtic monasteries of Britain and +Ireland, having influence in the Church during the early centuries, +there is a strong probability that the Feast of _Samain_ had something +to do with shaping the modern feast, as we have suggested in the +preceding chapter; for both feasts originally fell on the first of +November. Roman Catholic writers record that it was St. Odilon, Abbot of +Cluny, who instituted in 998 in all his congregations the Fete in +Commemoration of the Dead, and fixed its anniversary on the first of +November; and that this fete was quickly adopted by all the churches of +the East.[559] To-day in the Roman Church both the first and second of +November are holy days devoted to those who have passed out of this +life. The first day, the Fete of All the Saints (_La Toussaint_), is +said to have originated thus: the Roman Pantheon--Pantheon meaning the +residence of all the gods--was dedicated to Jupiter the Avenger, and +when Christianity triumphed the pagan images were overthrown, and there +was thereupon originally established, in place of the cult of all the +gods, the Fete of all the Saints.[560] Why _La Toussaint_ should have +become a feast of the dead would be difficult to say unless we admit the +ancient Celtic feast of the dead as having amalgamated with it. This we +believe is what took place; for if the Fete in Commemoration of the Dead +was, as some authorities hold, established by St. Odilon to fall on the +first of November, in direct accord with _Samain_ or Halloween, then at +some later period it was displaced by _La Toussaint_, for now it is +celebrated on the second of November. + +Likewise prayers and masses for the dead, which annually receive +emphasis on the first two days of November, seem to have had their +origin in pre-Christian cults. According to Mosheim, in his _Histoire +ecclesiastique_,[561] the usage of celebrating the Sacrament at the +tombs of martyrs and at funerals was introduced during the fourth +century; and from this usage the masses for the saints and for the dead +originated in the eighth century. Prior to the fourth century we find +the newly converted Christians in all parts of Celtic Europe, and in +many countries non-Celtic, still rendering a cult to ancestral spirits, +making food offerings at the tombs of heroes, and strictly observing the +very ancient November feast, or its equivalent, in honour of the dead +and fairies. Then, very gradually, in the course of four centuries, the +character of the Christian cults and feasts of the saints and of the +dead seems to have been determined. The following citation will serve to +illustrate the nature of Irish Christian rites in honour of the +dead:--In the _Lebar Brecc_[562] we read: 'There is nothing which one +does on behalf of the soul of him who has died that doth not help it, +both prayer on knees, and abstinence, and singing requiems, and frequent +blessings. Sons are bound to do penance for their deceased parents. A +full year, now, was Maedoc of Ferns, with his whole community, on water +and bread, after loosing from hell the soul of Brandub son of Echaid.' + +According to St. Augustine, the souls of the dead are solaced by the +piety of their living friends when this expresses itself through +sacrifice made by the Church;[563] St. Ephrem commanded his friends not +to forget him after death, but to give proofs of their charity in +offering for the repose of his soul alms, prayers, and sacrifices, +especially on the thirtieth day;[563] Constantine the Great wished to be +interred under the Church of the Apostles in order that his soul might +be benefited by the prayers offered to the saints, by the mystic +sacrifice, and by the holy communion.[563] Such prayers and sacrifices +for the dead were offered by the Church sometimes during thirty and even +forty days, those offered on the third, the seventh, and the thirtieth +days being the most solemn.[564] The history of the venerable Bede, the +letters of St. Boniface, and of St. Lul prove that even in the ancient +Anglican church prayers were offered up for the souls of the dead;[565] +and a council of bishops held at Canterbury in 816 ordered that +immediately after the death of a bishop there shall be made for him +prayers and alms.[565] At Oxford, in 1437, All Souls College was +founded, chiefly as a place in which to offer prayers on behalf of the +souls of all those who were killed in the French wars of the fifteenth +century. + + +CONCLUSION + +As seems to be evident from this and the two preceding chapters, all +these fetes, rites, or observances of Christianity have a relation more +or less direct to paganism, and thus to ancient Celtic cults and +sacrifice offered to the dead, to spirits, and to the Tuatha De Danann +or Fairies. And the same set of ideas which operated among the Celts to +create their Fairy-Mythology--ideas arising out of a belief in or +knowledge of the one universal Realm of Spirit and its various orders of +invisible inhabitants--gave the Egyptians, the Indians, the Greeks, the +Romans, the Teutons, the Mexicans, the Peruvians, and all nations their +respective mythologies and religions; and we moderns are literally 'the +heirs of all the ages'. + + + + +SECTION IV + +MODERN SCIENCE AND THE FAIRY FAITH; AND CONCLUSIONS[566] + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +SCIENCE AND FAIRIES + + 'Puzzling and weird occurrences have been vouched for among all + nations and in every age. It is possible to relegate a good many + asserted occurrences to the domain of superstition, but it is not + possible thus to eliminate all.'--SIR OLIVER LODGE. + + Method of Examination: Exoteric and Esoteric Aspects--The + X-quantity--Scientific Attitudes toward the Animistic Hypothesis: + Materialistic Theory; Pathological Theory; Delusion and Imposture + Theory--Problems of Consciousness: Dreams; Supernormal Lapse of + Time--Psychical Research and Fairies: Myers's Researches--Present + Position of Psychical Research--Psychical Research and Anthropology + in relation to Fairy-Faith, according to a special contribution + from Mr. Andrew Lang--Final Testing of the X-quantity--Conclusion: + the Celtic belief in Fairies and in Fairyland is scientific. + + +METHOD OF EXAMINATION + +The promise made in the Introduction to examine the Why of the belief in +fairies must now be fulfilled by calling in the aid of modern science. +To adduce parallels when studying a religion or a mythology is worth +doing, in order to show the fundamental bond which unites all systems of +belief in things called spiritual; but it is more important to try to +understand why there should be such parallels and such a unifying +principle behind them. Perhaps there has been too much of a tendency +among students of folk-lore, and of anthropology as a whole, to be +content to do no more than to discover that the Eskimos in Greenland +hold a belief in spirits parallel to a belief in spirits held in Central +Africa, or that the Greek Pantheon (and possibly the Celtic one as well) +consists of goddesses which are apparently pre-Aryan and of gods which +are apparently Aryan. We, too, have drawn many parallels between the +Celtic Fairy-Faith and the various fairy-faiths throughout the world; +but now we should attempt to find out why there are animistic beliefs at +all. + +This chapter, then, will confine itself to a scientific examination of +the more popular or, as it may be called, the exoteric aspect of the +Fairy-Faith, which has come to us directly from the masses of the Celtic +peoples. The following chapter, which is corollary to the present one, +will deal especially with the mystical aspect or, as this may be called +by contrast, the esoteric aspect of the same belief, which, in turn, has +come to us from learned mystics and seers, who form, in proportion, but +a very small minority of the modern Celts. Each of these complementary +aspects of the Celtic religion undoubtedly has its origin in the +remotest antiquity. This is probably more readily seen with respect to +the former than to the latter. The latter has been esoteric always, and +in our opinion shows an unbroken tradition (if only a very incomplete +one) from druidic times; and it depends less upon written records, +because the Druids had none, than upon oral transmission from age to +age. Both aspects of the Fairy-Faith have in modern times absorbed many +ideas from non-Celtic systems of religion and mystical thought. As Mr. +Jenner has suggested in his Introduction for Cornwall, and as certain +details in chapter ii clearly indicate, systems of modern theosophy have +had a marked influence in this respect; but it is impossible for us +to-day to say what parts of the Fairy-Faith are purely Celtic and what +are not so, because comparative studies prove that mysticism is +fundamentally the same in all ages and among all peoples. It is +psychologically true, also, that there must always exist some sort of +affinity between two sets of thought in order for them to coalesce. +Hence, if modern mysticism (derived from Oriental or other sources) has, +as we believe, affected Celtic mysticism as handed down from the dim +druidic ages, it is merely because the two occupy a common psychical +territory. We must therefore be content to examine scientifically the +Fairy-Faith as it now presents itself. + +The analysis of evidence in chapter iii indicates clearly that there is +in the exoteric part of the modern Celtic belief in fairies considerable +degeneration from what must have been in pagan times a widespread and +highly developed animistic creed. In the esoteric part of it there will +be observed, instead of such degeneracy, a surprisingly elaborate system +of the most subtle speculation, which parallels that of East Indian +systems of metaphysics. If the belief be looked at in this comprehensive +manner, it seems to be clear that to some extent at least, as has been +pointed out already (pp. 99, 257), the Fairy-Faith in its purest form +originated amongst the most highly educated and scientific Celts of +ancient times rather than among their unlearned fellows. The two aspects +of the belief form an harmonious whole as they will be presented in this +Section IV. Chapter xi depends mostly upon the evidence set forth in +chapter ii. Chapter xii depends mostly upon the evidence set forth in +chapter vii. + +In chapter iii we examined anthropologically the modern; and (both there +and in parts of chapters following) the historical and ancient belief in +fairies in Celtic countries, and found it to be in essence animistic. +Folk-imagination, social psychology, anthropomorphism generally, +adequately explained by far the greater mass of the evidence presented; +but the animistic background of the belief in question presented +problems which the strictly anthropological sciences are unable to +solve. The point has now been reached when these problems must be +presented to physiology and to psychology for solution. If they can be +completely solved by purely rational and physical data, then the +Fairy-Faith as a whole will have to be cast aside as worthless in the +eyes of science. + +In our generation, however, such a casting aside is not to be the fate +of the folk-religion of the Celts: the following phenomena recorded in +chapter ii and elsewhere throughout our study, and designated as the x- +or unknown quantity of the Fairy-Faith, cannot at the present time be +satisfactorily explained by science: (1) Collective hallucinations and +veridical hallucinations; (2) objects moving without contact; (3) raps +and noises called 'supernatural'; (4) telepathy; (5) seership and +visions; (6) dream and trance states manifesting supernormal knowledge; +(7) 'mediumship' or 'spirit-possession'. Independently of our own Celtic +data in their support, the first class of phenomena are supported by an +enormous mass of good data scientifically collected; the second and +third class are less well supported; telepathy is almost generally +accepted as now being established; the last three classes are +hypothetically accepted by many authorities in pathology, psychology, +and psychical research. + + +SCIENTIFIC ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE ANIMISTIC HYPOTHESIS + +Assertions similar to ours, that phenomena like these are incapable of +being explained away by any known laws of orthodox science, have helped +to bring about a marked division in the ranks of scientific workers. On +one hand there are those scientists who deny the existence of anything +not capable of being mathematically tested, weighed, dissected, or +otherwise analysed in laboratories; on the other hand, there are their +colleagues who, often in spite of previous bias toward materialism, have +arrived at a personal conviction that an animistic view of man is more +in harmony with their scientific experience than any other. Both schools +include men eminent in all branches of biological sciences. + +Midway between these contending schools are the psycho-physicists who +maintain that man is a twofold being composed of a psychical and +physical part. Some of them are inclined to favour animism, others are +unwilling to regard the psychical part of man as separable from the +physical part. So the world of science is divided. + +Under such chaotic conditions of science it is our right to accept one +view or another, or to reject all views and use scientific data +independently. There can be no final court of appeal in matters where +opinion is thus divided, save the experience of coming generations. We +are therefore content to state our own position and leave it to the +future for rejection or acceptance, as the case may be. To attempt a +critical examination of the thousand and one theories occupying the +modern arena of scientific controversy about the essential nature of man +is altogether beyond the scope of this work. We must, nevertheless, +blaze a rough footpath through the jungle of scientific theories, and, +at the outset, put on record our opposition to that school of scientific +workers who deny to man a supersensuous constitution. Their theory, if +carried out to its logical conclusion, is now essentially no different +from Feuerbach's theory at a time when science was far less developed +than it is to-day. He held that 'the object of sense, or the sensuous, +alone is really true, and therefore truth, reality, and the sensible are +one'.[567] To say that we know reality through sensual perception is an +error, as all schools of scientists must nowadays admit. Nature is for +ever illuding the senses; she masquerades in disguise until science +tears away her mask. We must always adjust the senses to the world +itself: where there are only vibrations in ether, man sees light; and in +atmospheric vibrations he hears sound. We only know things through the +way in which our senses react upon them. We sum up the world-problem by +saying: 'consciousness does not exhaust its object, the world.'[567] +Perceptibility and reality thus not being coincident, man and the +universe remain an unsolved problem, despite the noisy shoutings of the +materialist in his hermetically sealed and light-excluding case called +sensual perceptions. Science admits that all her explanations of the +universe are mere products of human understanding and perceptions by the +physical senses: the universe of science is wholly a universe of +phenomena, and behind phenomena, as no scientist would dare deny, there +must be the noumena, the ultimate causes of all things, as to which +science as yet offers no comprehensive hypothesis, much less an answer. +To consider the materialistic hypothesis as adequate to account for the +residuum or x-quantity of the Fairy-Faith would not even be reasonable, +and, incontestably, would not be scientific. + +When scientists holding to the non-animistic view of life are driven +from their now for the most part abandoned fortress built by German +scientists of the last century, of whom Feuerbach was a type, they, in +opposing the animists, occupy a more modernly equipped fortress called +the Pathological Theory. This theory is that 'mediumship', telepathy, +hallucinations, or the voluntary and involuntary exercise of any +so-called 'psychical' faculties on the part of men and women, with the +resulting phenomena, can be explained as due to abnormal and +hence--according to its point of view--diseased states of the human +organism, or to some derangement of bodily functions, leading to +delusions resembling those of insanity, which by a sort of hypnosis +telepathically induced may even affect researchers and lead them into +erroneous conclusions. All scientists are in agreement with the +Pathological Theory in so far as it rejects as unworthy of serious +consideration all apparitions and abnormal phenomena save those observed +by sane and healthy percipients under ordinary conditions. And, +accordingly, whenever there can be shown in our percipients a diseased +mental or psychical state, we must eliminate their testimony without +argument. But since we have endeavoured to present no testimony from +Celtic percipients who are not physically and psychically normal, the +Pathological Theory at best can affect the x-quantity merely +hypothetically. + +The following admission in regard to visual and auditory hallucinations +is here worth noting as coming from so thorough an exponent of +materialistic psychology as M. Theodule Ribot:--'There must exist +anatomical and physiological causes which would solve the problem, but +unfortunately they are hidden from us.' Of these hidden causes, which +he thinks create all psychical states of mind or consciousness called by +him 'disease of personality', M. Ribot says:--'Our ignorance of the +causes stops us short. The psychologist is here like the physician who +has to deal with a disease in which he can make out only the symptoms. +What physiological influences are they which thus alter the general tone +of the organism, consequently of the coenaesthesis, consequently too of +the memory? Is it some condition of the vascular system? Or some +inhibitory action, some arrest of function? We cannot say.'[568] And +after six years of most careful experimentation, M. Charles Richet, +Professor of Physiology in the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, reached +this conclusion:--'There exists in certain persons at certain moments a +faculty of acquiring knowledge which has no _rapport_ with our normal +faculties of that kind.'[569] We seem to have here the last words of +science touching the Pathological Theory. + +When driven from their pathological stronghold, and they maintain that +they have not been driven from it, the non-animists always find a safe +way to cover their retreat by setting up the charge that all psychical +phenomena are fraudulent or else due to delusion on the part of +observers. In reply, psychical researchers readily admit that there is a +large percentage of mere trickery, delusion, and imposture in observed +'spirit' phenomena; some of which is deliberate on the part of the +'medium' and some of which is apparently not consciously induced. +Nevertheless, such investigators are not at all willing to say that +there is nothing more than this. The Delusion and Imposture Theory will +account for a very respectable proportion of these phenomena, but not +for all of them, and theoretically we shall admit its application to the +parallel phenomena attributed to fairies; though it must be acknowledged +that 'fairy' phenomena are for the most part spontaneously exhibited +rather than as in 'Spiritualism' set up through holding _seances_. +Further, there are comparatively few 'charmers' or 'wise men'--the fairy +'mediums' among the Celts--who ever make money out of their ability to +deal with the 'good people', or _Tylwyth Teg_; whence the margin of +encouragement for fraudulent production of 'fairy' phenomena is +extremely limited when compared with 'Spiritualism'. + +After twenty-five years of experimentation, more or less continuous, +with 'mediums', during which every conceivable test for the detection of +fraud on their part was applied, William James put his conclusions on +record in these words:--'When imposture has been checked off as far as +possible, when chance coincidence has been allowed for, when +opportunities for normal knowledge on the part of the subject have been +noted, and skill in "fishing" and following clues unwittingly furnished +by the voice or face of bystanders have been counted in, those who have +the fullest acquaintance with the phenomena admit that in good mediums +_there is a residuum of knowledge displayed_ [italics are James's own] +that can only be called supernormal: the medium taps some source of +information not open to ordinary people.'[570] Mr. Andrew Lang, one of +the bravest of psychical researchers in England, not only would agree +with William James in this, but, having carefully examined the Delusion +and Imposture Theory from the more commanding point of view of an +anthropologist, would go further and include classical spiritualistic +phenomena as well as those existing among contemporary uncultured races. +He says:--'Meanwhile, the extraordinary similarity of savage and +classical spiritualistic rites, with the corresponding similarity of +alleged modern phenomena, raises problems which it is more easy to state +than to solve. For example, such occurrences as "rappings", as the +movement of untouched objects, as the lights of the _seance_ room, are +all easily feigned. But that ignorant modern knaves should feign +precisely the same raps, lights, and movements as the most remote and +unsophisticated barbarians, and as the educated Platonists of the +fourth century after Christ, and that many of the other phenomena should +be identical in each case, is certainly noteworthy.'[571] Evidently, +then, there is a large proportion of psychical and 'fairy' phenomena +which remain unexplained even after the Delusion and Imposture Theory +has been applied to such phenomena, and in all such cases we must look +further for a scientific explanation. + + +PROBLEMS OF CONSCIOUSNESS + +Our chief investigations will at first be directed more especially to +the problems common both to psychology and to psychical research, +namely, dream and trance states, hallucinations, and possessions, in +order to show what bearings, if any, they have in the eyes of science +upon parallel phenomena said to be due to fairies, and set forth in +chapter ii and anthropologically examined in chapter iii. + +_Dreams_ + +The popular opinion that dreams are nonsense is quite overthrown by +definite psychological facts. When during sleep our sensory organs are +exposed to external irritants the impressions physically produced are +transmitted to the brain by the nervous system and react in dreams as +they would in the waking state, except that the reactions in the two +states of consciousness--the dream state and the waking state--differ in +proportion as the two states differ; but in both the Ego is the real +percipient.[572] Such stimuli as arise from after-theatre dinners, +wine-parties, and so forth, produce a well-known type of dreams; and the +same stimuli at the same period of time would produce an equal effect, +though an altered one, to suit the altered psycho-physical conditions, +if the waking state were active rather than the dream state, just as +would all dreams which arise from pathological disturbances in disease, +or abnormal physiological functions. This is evident from dreams of a +morbid and sensual type, which directly affect the physical organism and +its functions as parallel waking-states would. In all such dreams of the +lower order, animal and purely physical tendencies, which are directly +due to the state of the body, act very freely: an imperfectly balanced, +temporarily deranged, or diseased organism must correspondingly respond +to its driving forces. And it is clear from comparative study of +phenomena that these lower kinds of dream states express only the lower +or animal consciousness, which in most individuals is the predominant or +only consciousness even in the waking life; and not the higher +consciousness of the Ego or subconsciousness which may be expressed in +somnambulism, for 'in somnambulism there awakes an inner, second +Ego',[573] which is the Subliminal Self of Myers. Dr. G. F. Stout urges +against Myers's theory of the Subliminal Self that 'the usual +incoherence of dreams is an objection to regarding them as +manifestations of a stream of thought equal or superior in systematic +complexity and continuity to that of the waking self',[574] which +objection Myers also observed. But if we regard all dreams which are of +the lower order as being due to the imperfect response of the body to +its driving forces because of various bad physical conditions in the +body, and recognize that these driving forces depend ultimately on the +subconsciousness, the difficulty seems to be met by observing that under +such conditions there is no real mergence of the normal consciousness +into the subconsciousness. Hence ordinary dreams are within the ordinary +spectrum of consciousness; but extra-ordinary dreams pass beyond the +ordinary spectrum into the truly supernormal state of consciousness. + +As all this indicates, dreams are of many classes: those of the lowest +type, which we have explained as due to bad physiological conditions in +the animal-man; those which are readily explainable as distorted +reflections of waking actions, often based on some stray thought or +suggestion of the day and then comparable to post-hypnotic suggestions. +Other dreams are demonstrably entirely outside the range of ordinary +mental or physical disturbances, actions, reflections, or suggestions of +the waking life, and seem thus 'to have a wider purview, and to indicate +that the record of external events which is kept within us is far fuller +than we know'.[575] In some dreams there is reasoning as well as memory, +and mathematicians have been known to solve problems in sleep: an +American inventor known to the writer's mother asserted that he had +dreamt out the details of a certain ice-manufacturing process which +proved successful when tested; through self-suggestion set up in the +waking state, R. L. Stevenson, upon entering the dream state, secured +details for his imaginary romances.[576] Dr. Stout himself, in +criticizing Myers's 'Subliminal Self', admits that 'in some very rare +instances, a man has achieved, while dreaming, intellectual performances +equalling or perhaps surpassing the best of which he was capable in +waking life';[577] and there are many authentic cases of dream +experiences which cannot possibly be explained as revivals of facts +fallen out of the range of the ordinary memory or consciousness. We seem +to be led to some hypothesis like this: in dreaming there is mental +activity which in the waking state is either functionless or else below +the psycho-physical threshold of sensibility; because much that is +subconscious in the non-dream state is in the dream state fully +conscious. And we probably do not remember one quarter of our dreams: +they belong to a mainly different order of consciousness. + +Professor Freud's view of dreams coincides pretty generally with this +view. He holds that the subconsciousness is the storehouse out of which +dream contents are drawn and acted upon by the dream mind. Very much +distortion of the subconscious material takes place in the process, due +to what he calls the 'endopsychic censor'. In the waking state this +censor is always on the alert to keep out of consciousness all +subconscious processes or deposits, but in sleep the censor is less +alert, and allows some subconscious content to escape over into the +ordinary consciousness. The result is a dream distorted out of all +recognition of its origin. Such a dream seems to occupy a position +midway between what we have classed as the lowest or animal-mind dream +and the highest or subliminal dream. It possibly shows an harmonious +psycho-physical condition of the dream life, whereas the lowest type of +dream shows the preponderance of the physical or animal, and the highest +type of dream shows the preponderance of the psychical elements in man. +Further, it may be designated as the normal dream, and the other two +types respectively as the physically abnormal and the psychically +abnormal. + +Professor Freud detects other marked processes in the dream state, all +of which help to illustrate the part of the Fairy-Faith dependent upon +dreaming experiences. (1) There is condensation of details frequently in +a proportion so great as one for ten and one for twenty; (2) +displacement of details, or 'a transvaluation of all values'; (3) much +dramatization; (4) regression, a retrograde movement of abstract mental +processes toward their primary conceptions; and (5) secondary +elaboration, an attempt to rationalize all dream-material.[578] Also, +Professor Freud discovered from his analysis of thousands of dreams that +the subconsciousness makes use of a sort of symbolism:--'This symbolism +in part varies with the individual, but in part is of a typical nature, +and seems to be identical with the symbolism which we suppose to lie +behind our myths and legends. It is not impossible that these latter +creations of the people may find their explanation from the study of +dreams.'[579] Such processes, taken as a whole, show that man possesses +a twofold consciousness, the ordinary consciousness and the +subconsciousness. And we have every reason to believe that subconscious +activities go on continually, in waking and in sleeping. + +By experiments on his own perfectly healthy children, Wienholt proved +that there are natural forces existing whose stimulations are never +perceived in waking life: he made passes over the face and neck of his +son with an iron key at the distance of half an inch without touching +him, whereupon the boy began to rub those parts and manifested +uneasiness. Wienholt likewise experimented on his other children with +lead, zinc, gold, and other metals, and in most cases the children +'averted the parts so treated, rubbed them, or drew the clothes over +them'.[580] Therefore, in sleep the consciousness perceives objects +without physical contact; and this not inconceivably might suggest, +inversely, that in sleep the human consciousness can affect objects +without physical contact, as it is said fairies and the dead can, and in +the way psychical researchers know that objects can be affected. + +We have on record an account of a most remarkable dream quite the same +in character as dreams wherein certain Celts believe they have met the +dead or fairies. Professor Hilprecht had a broken Assyrian cylinder in +cuneiform which he could not decipher; but in a dream an Assyrian priest +in ancient garb appeared to him and deciphered the inscription. Of this +dream Myers observed:--'We seem to have reached the utmost intensity of +sleep faculty within the limits of our ordinary spectrum.'[581] + +We may sum up the results of our examination of dreams by saying that +scientific analysis of the dream life _in its higher ranges_ proves that +our Ego is not wholly embraced in self-consciousness, that the Ego +exceeds the self-consciousness. Instead of a continuity of +consciousness which constitutes self-consciousness we have parallel +states of consciousness for the one subject, the Ego. Our study of the +Celtic theory of re-birth, in the following chapter, will further +explain this subtle aspect of the dream psychology. + +When such a conclusion is applied to the Fairy-Faith, the various +dream-like or trance-like states during which ancient and contemporary +Celts testify to having been in Fairyland are seen to be scientifically +plausible. In this aspect then, Fairyland, stripped of all its literary +and imaginative glamour and of its social psychology, in the eyes of +science resolves itself into a reality, because it is one of the states +of consciousness co-ordinate with the ordinary consciousness. This +statement will be confirmed by a brief examination of what is called +'supernatural lapse of time', and which is invariably connected with +Fairyland. + +_'Supernatural' Lapse of Time_ + +It has already been made clear that in the dream or somnambulic state +there are invariably modifications of time and space relations; and +these give rise to what has been termed the 'supernatural lapse of +time'. Two conditions are possible: either a few minutes of waking-state +time equal long periods in the non-waking state; or else, as is usually +the case in the Fairy-Faith, the reverse is true. + +The first condition, which we shall examine first, occasionally appears +in the Fairy-Faith through such a statement as this:--'Sometimes one may +thus go to Faerie for an hour or two' (p. 39). Similarly, as physicians +well know, patients under narcotics will experience events extending +over long periods of time within a few minutes of normal time. De +Quincey, the famous opium-eater, records dreams of ten to sixty years' +supernatural duration, and some quite beyond all limits of the waking +experience. Fechner records a case of a woman who was nearly drowned and +then resuscitated after two minutes of unconsciousness, and who in that +time lived over again all her past life.[582] Another even more +remarkable case than this last concerns Admiral Beaufort, who, having +fallen into the water, was unconscious also for two minutes, and yet he +says that not only during that short space of time did he travel over +every incident of his life with the details of 'every minute and +collateral feature', but that there crowded into his imagination 'many +trifling events which had long been forgotten'.[583] + +We shall now present examples to illustrate the second condition. Hoehne +was in an unbroken magnetic sleep from the first of January to the tenth +of May, and when he came out of it he was overcome with surprise to see +that spring had arrived, he having lain down--as he believed--only the +day before.[584] Had Hoehne been an Irishman, he might very reasonably +have explained the situation by saying that he had been with the fairies +for what seemed only a night. The Seeress of Prevorst, in a similar +sleep, passed through a period of six years and five months, and then +awoke as from a one-night sleep with no memory of what she did during +that time; but some time afterwards memory of the period came to her so +completely that she recalled all its details.[585] Old people, and some +young people too, among the Celts, who go to Fairyland for varying +periods of time, sometimes extending over weeks (as in a case I knew in +West Ireland), have just such dreams or trance-states as this. Another +example follows:--Chardel, in fleeing from the Revolution, took ship +from Brittany and was obliged to induce somnambulism on his wife in +order to overcome her horror of the sea. When the couple landed in +America and Chardel awakened his wife, she had no recollection whatever +of the Atlantic voyage, and believed herself still in Brittany.[586] + +Both Helmholtz and Fechner show[587] that the functions of the nervous +system are associated with a definite time-measure, so it follows that +consciousness in an organic body like man's depends upon the nervous +system; but, as these examples and similar ones in the Fairy-Faith +show, certain conscious states exist independently of the human nerves, +and they therefore set up a strong presumption that complete +consciousness can exist independently of the physical nerve-apparatus. +And in proceeding to submit this presumption of a supersensuous +consciousness to the further test of science we shall at the same time +be testing the statements made by wholly reliable seer-witnesses, like +the Irish mystic and seer (p. 65), that not only can men and women enter +Fairyland during trance-states for a brief period, but that at death +they can enter it for an unlimited period. Further, what is for our +study the most important of all statements will likewise be tested, +namely, that in Fairyland there are conscious non-human entities like +the _Sidhe_ races. + + +PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND FAIRIES + +Our present task, then, is to extend the examination beyond incarnate +consciousness into the realm of the new psychology or physical research, +where, as a working hypothesis, it is assumed that there is discarnate +consciousness, which by the Celtic peoples is believed to exist and to +exhibit itself in various individual aspects as fairies. + +As to what science demands as proof of the survival of human +consciousness after death, there has been no clear consensus of opinion. +To prove merely the existence of 'ghosts' would not do; it is necessary +to show by a series of proofs (1) that discarnate intelligences exist, +(2) that they possess complete and persistent personal energy wholly +within themselves, (3) that they are the actual unit of consciousness +and memory known to have manifested itself on this plane of existence +through particular incarnate personalities now deceased. Various +psychical researchers assert that they have already reached these proofs +and are convinced, often in spite of their initial scientific attitude +of antagonism toward all psychic phenomena, of the survival of the human +consciousness after the death of the human body; and we shall proceed to +present the testimony of some of them. + +In chapter vii, concerning _Phantasms of the Dead_, forming part of +Frederick W. H. Myers's _Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily +Death_, and in the two chapters which follow, on _Motor Automatism_, and +on _Trance, Possession, and Ecstasy_, all the necessary proofs above +noted have been adduced; and the author was thereby one of the very +first psychical researchers to have recorded before the world his +conversion from the non-animistic hypothesis to the ancient belief that +Man is immortal; for he admits his conviction that the human +consciousness does incontestably survive the decay of the physical body. +Types of some of these well-attested and proved cases offered as +evidence by Myers may be briefly summarized as follows:--Repeated +apparitions indicating intimate acquaintance with some post-mortem fact +like the place of burial; single apparitions with knowledge of the +affairs of surviving friends, or of the impending death of a survivor, +or of spirits of persons dead after the apparition's decease; cases +where professed spirits manifest knowledge of their earth-life, as of +some secret compact made with survivors; cases of apparitional +appearances near a corpse or a grave; occasional cases of the appearance +of the dead to several persons collectively.[588] Under motor +automatism, some of the most striking phenomena tending toward proof are +cases where automatic writing has announced a death unknown to the +persons present; knowledge communicated in a _seance_, not known to any +person present, but afterwards proved to have been possessed by the +deceased; automatic writing by a child in language unknown to her. + +In chapter ix trance or possession is defined by Myers, in the same list +of proofs, as 'a development of Motor Automatism resulting at last in a +substitution of personality'; and this harmonizes with the theory of the +control of a living organism by discarnate spirits, and is supported by +an overwhelming mass of scientific experiment. Telepathy suggests the +possibility of communication between the living and the living and +between the living and the dead, and, we may add, between the dead and +the dead--as in Fairyland--without the consideration of space or time as +known in the lower ranges of mental action; and that the communication +does not depend upon vibrations from a material brain-mass. Telepathy in +these first two aspects has been likewise accepted as a scientific fact +by workers in psychical research like Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver +Lodge, William James, and by many others. All such phenomena as these, +now being so carefully investigated and weighed by men thoroughly +trained in science, are, so to speak, the protoplasmic background of all +religions, philosophies, or systems of mystical thought yet evolved on +this planet; and in all essentials they confirm the x-quantity presented +in the evidence of the Fairy-Faith. + +Dr. G. F. Stout, an able representative of the school of non-converts to +the theories in psychology propounded by Myers and by psychical +research, states his position thus:--'But, at least, my doubt is not +dogmatic denial, and I agree with Mr. Myers that there is no sufficient +reason for being peculiarly sceptical concerning communications from +departed spirits. I also agree with him that the alleged cases of such +communication cannot be with any approach to probability explained away +as mere instances of telepathy.'[589] In addition, Dr. Stout says:--'The +conception which has been really useful to him is that of telepathy. +Given that communication takes place between individual minds unmediated +by ordinary physical conditions, we may regard intercourse with departed +spirits as a special case of the same kind of process. And clairvoyance, +precognition, &c., may perhaps be referred to telepathic communication +either with departed spirits or with other intelligences superior to the +human.'[589] In this last phrase, 'intelligences superior to the human', +Dr. Stout assumes our own position, that hypothetically there is good +reason for thinking that discarnate non-human intelligences--such as the +Irish call the _Sidhe_--may exist and communicate with, or influence in +some unknown way, the living, as during 'mediumship' and in 'seership'. + +Mr. Andrew Lang points out, in his reply to Dr. Stout's criticism, that +the only legitimate scientific resource for overthrowing Myers's +position, since the evidence is 'mathematically incapable of explanation +by chance coincidence', is to say that several people are deliberate +forgers and liars. And he adds:--'To myself (but only to myself and a +small circle) the evidence is irrefragable, from our lifetime knowledge +of the percipient.'[590] But the animistic position does not by any +means depend upon the evidence presented by Myers, no matter how +incontestably reliable it is. We have only to examine the voluminous +publications of the _Society for Psychical Research_ (London) to realize +this, and especially the _Report on the Census of Hallucinations of +Modern Spiritualism_, by Professor Sidgwick's Committee (_P. S. P. R._, +London). + + +PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND ANTHROPOLOGY IN RELATION TO THE FAIRY-FAITH + +_According to a special contribution from Mr. Andrew Lang._ + +Mr. Andrew Lang, who has done a special service to science by showing +that psychical research is inseparably related to anthropology, has +favoured us with a statement of his own position toward this +relationship and has made it directly applicable to the Fairy-Faith. In +a general way, but not in some important details (as indicated in our +annotations) we agree with Mr. Lang's position, which he states as +follows:-- + + Mr. Evans Wentz has asked me to define my position towards + psychical research in relation to anthropology. I have done so in + my book, _The Making of Religion_. The alleged abnormal or + supernormal occurrences which psychical research examines are, for + the most part, 'universally human,' and, whether they happen or do + not happen, whether they are the results of malobservation, or of + fraud, or are merely mythical, as _human_ they cannot be wisely + neglected by anthropology. + + The fairy-folk, under many names, in many tongues, are everywhere + objects of human belief, in Central Australia, in New Zealand, in + the isles of the Pacific, as in the British Isles, Lowland or + Highland, Celtic in the main, or English in the main, I conceive + the various beings, fairies, brownies, _Iruntarinia_, _Djinns_, or + what you will, _to be purely mythical_. I am incapable of believing + that they are actual entities, who carry off men and women; steal + and hide objects (especially as the _Iruntarinia_ do); love or + hate, persecute or kiss human beings; practise music, vocal and + instrumental; and in short 'play the pliskies' with which they are + universally credited by the identical workings of the human fancy. + They tend to shade away, on one side, into the denizens of the + House of Hades--phantasms of the dead. The belief in such phantasms + may be partially based on experience, whether hallucinatory or + otherwise and inexplicably produced.[591] + + As far as psychical research studies report of these phantasms it + approaches the realm of 'the Fairy Queen Proserpine'. As far as + such research examines the historical or contemporary stories of + the _Poltergeist_, it touches on fairies: because the Irish, for + example, attribute to the agency of fairies the modern + _Poltergeist_ phenomena, whether these, in each case, be fraudulent + or, up to now, be unexplained. + + There are not more than two or three alleged visions of the + traditional fairies in the annals of psychical research; and I have + met with but few sane and educated persons who profess to have seen + phantoms at all resembling the traditional fairy; while phantasms + supposed to be of the dead, the dying, and the absent are + frequently reported. On the whole, psychical research has very + little concern with the fairy-belief in its typical forms, and if + the researcher did find modern cases of fairy visions alleged by + sane and educated percipients, he would be apt to explain them by + suggestion acting on the subconscious self.[592] + + 1 MARLOES ROAD, LONDON, W. + _September_ 26, 1910. + +Concerning phantasms of the dead into which, as above pointed out, the +fairy-folk tend to shade away, Mr. Lang has elsewhere said:--'On the +whole, if the evidence is worth anything, there are real objective +ghosts, and there are also telepathic hallucinations: so that the +scientific attitude is to believe in both, if in either.'[593] And he +shows that while anthropologists have explained all animistic beliefs as +the results of primitive men's philosophizing 'on life, death, sleep, +dreams, trances, shadows, the phenomena of epilepsy, and the illusions +of starvation', 'normal phenomena, psychological and psychical, might +suggest most of the animistic beliefs.'[593] In _The Making of +Religion_, Mr. Lang has expanded this anthropological argument so as to +make it even more fully embrace psychical research. + +If we apply the brilliant results of Mr. Lang's investigations to our +own, it is apparent that the background of the Fairy-Faith, like that of +all religions, is animistic, as we have argued in chapter iii; that it +must have grown up in ancient times into its traditional form out of a +pre-Celtic followed by a pre-Christian Celtic religion; these latter +due, in turn, to actual psychical experiences, such as hallucinations, +visions of different sorts, clairvoyance, 'mediumship', and magical +knowledge on the part of Druid priests and, probably, to some extent, on +the part of the common people as well; and, finally, that the living +Fairy-Faith depends not so much upon ancient traditions, oral and +recorded, as upon recent and contemporary psychical experiences, vouched +for by many 'seers' and other percipients among our witnesses, and now +placed on record by us in chapter ii and elsewhere throughout this +study. + + +THE PRESENT POSITION OF PSYCHICAL RESEARCH + +Sir William Crookes, the well-known English authority in physical +science, was almost the first scientist to become seriously interested +in psychics, and in Part III of _Notes of an Enquiry into the Phenomena +called Spiritual, during the Years 1870-1873_ (London), boldly +affirms:--'It will be seen that the facts are of the most astounding +character, and seem utterly irreconcilable with all known theories of +modern science. Having satisfied myself of their _truth_, it would be +moral cowardice to withhold my testimony because my previous +publications were ridiculed by critics and others.' And this conclusion +reached forty years ago has not been reversed, but has been confirmed by +one after another of learned scientists on both sides of the Atlantic. + +In 1908, Sir Oliver Lodge, Principal of the University of Birmingham, +and at present one of the best known of scientists concerned with the +study of spiritual phenomena, stated his position thus:--'On the whole, +I am of those who, though they would like to see further and still +stronger and more continued proofs, are of opinion that a good case has +been made out, and that as the best working hypothesis at the present +time it is legitimate to grant that lucid moments of intercourse with +deceased persons may in the best cases supervene.... The boundary +between the two states--the known and the unknown--is still substantial, +but it is wearing thin in places; and like excavators engaged in boring +a tunnel from opposite ends, amid the roar of water and other noises, we +are beginning to hear now and again the strokes of the pickaxes of our +comrades on the other side.'[594] In 1909, Sir Oliver Lodge published +_The Survival of Man_, in which, after a careful exposition, covering +over three hundred pages, of the definite results of much scientific +experimentation by the best scientists of Europe and America, in such +psychical phenomena as Telepathy or Thought Transference, Telepathy and +Clairvoyance, Automatism and Lucidity, the following tentative +conclusion is reached:--'The first thing we learn, perhaps the only +thing we clearly learn in the first instance, is _continuity_. There is +no such sudden break in the conditions of existence as may have been +anticipated; and no break at all in the continuous and conscious +identity of genuine character and personality.'[594] And his personal +conviction is that 'Intelligent co-operation between other than +embodied human minds than our own ... has become possible'.[595] + +William James, who was one of the chief psychical researchers in the +United States, published his conclusions in October 1909; and of +psychical phenomena he wrote:--'As to there being such real natural +types of phenomena ignored by orthodox science, I am not baffled at all, +for I am fully convinced of it.' Of 'mediumship', he postulated the very +interesting theory of a universally diffused 'soul-stuff', which +elsewhere (p. 254) we have referred to as the scientific equivalent to +the Polynesian _Mana_: 'My own dramatic sense tends instinctively to +picture the situation as an interaction between slumbering faculties in +the automatist's mind and a cosmic environment of _other consciousness_ +of some sort which is able to work upon them. If there were in the +universe a lot of diffuse soul-stuff, unable of itself to get into +consistent personal form, or to take permanent possession of an +organism, yet always craving to do so, it might get its head into the +air, parasitically, so to speak, by profiting by weak spots in the +armour of human minds, and slipping in and stirring up there the +sleeping tendencies to personate.' Expanding this theory into a +'pan-psychic' view of the universe and assuming a 'mother-sea' of +consciousness, a bank upon which we all draw, James asked these +questions about it, which educated Celtic seers ask themselves about the +_Sidhe_ or Fairy-World and its also collective consciousness or life: +'What is its own structure? What is its inner topography?... What are +the conditions of individuation or insulation in this mother-sea? To +what tracts, to what active systems functioning separately in it, do +personalities correspond? Are individual "spirits" constituted there? +How numerous, and of how many hierarchic orders may these then be? How +permanent? How transient? And how confluent with one another may they +become?'[596] We should ask the reader to compare this scientific +attitude with the almost identical attitude taken up with respect to the +_Sidhe_ Races and the constitution of their world and life by the Irish +mystic and seer (pp. 60 ff.). + +M. Camille Flammarion, the well-known French astronomer, is another of +the pioneer psychical researchers; and in his psychic studies, entitled, +as translated in an English edition, _The Unknown_, recently announced +these definite conclusions:--'(1) _The soul exists as a real entity +independent of the body._ (2) _It is endowed with faculties still +unknown to science._ (3) _It is able to act at a distance, without the +intervention of the senses._' And in his _Mysterious Psychic Forces_ +(Boston, 1907, pp. 452-3), he says:--'The conclusions of the present +work concord with those of the former (_The Unknown_).... I may sum up +the whole matter with the single statement that there exists in nature, +in myriad activity, a _psychic element_ the essential nature of which is +still hidden from us.' + + +THE FINAL TESTING OF THE X-QUANTITY + +This chapter can now be brought to its logical conclusion by directly +applying the results so far attained to our still vigorous x-quantity or +residuum gathered out of the Fairy-Faith. We have, although hurriedly, +blazed a rough pathway through the necessary parts of the jungle of +scientific theories, and have arrived at a very considerable clearing +made by the pioneers, the psychical researchers. We seem, in fact, to +have arrived at a point in our long investigations where we can +postulate scientifically, on the showing of the data of psychical +research, the existence of such invisible intelligences as gods, genii, +daemons, all kinds of true fairies, and disembodied men. It is not +necessary to produce here, in addition to what already has been set +forth, the very voluminous detailed evidence of psychical research as to +the existence of such intelligences. The general statement may be made +that there are hundreds of carefully proven cases of phenomena or +apparitions precisely like many of those which the Celtic peoples +attribute to fairies.[597] + +Various explanations or theories are offered by our men of science as to +what these invisible intelligences are, for none of our scientists would +say that the dead alone are responsible, even in a majority of cases, +for the observed phenomena and apparitions, but rather such beings as we +call daemons, fairies, and elementals. M. Camille Flammarion says:--'The +greater part of the phenomena observed--noises, movement of tables, +confusions, disturbances, raps, replies to questions asked--are really +childish, puerile, vulgar, often ridiculous, and rather resemble the +pranks of mischievous boys than serious bona-fide actions. It is +impossible not to notice this. Why should the souls of the dead amuse +themselves in this way? The supposition seems almost absurd.'[598] There +could be no better description of the pranks which house-haunting +fairies like brownies and Robin Goodfellows and elementals enjoy than +this; and to suppose that the dead perform such mischievous and playful +acts is, in truth, absurd. M. Flammarion also says:--'Two inescapable +hypotheses present themselves. Either it is we who produce these +phenomena' (and this is not reasonable) 'or it is spirits. But mark this +well: these spirits are not necessarily the souls of the dead; for other +kinds of spiritual beings may exist, and space may be full of them +without our ever knowing anything about it, except under unusual +circumstances. _Do we not find in the different ancient literatures, +demons, angels, gnomes, goblins, sprites, spectres, elementals, &c.? +Perhaps these legends are not without some foundation in fact._'[598] + +On 'the phenomena of percussive and allied sound'--such as fairies and +the dead are said to produce--Sir William Crookes made this +report:--'The intelligence governing the phenomena is sometimes +manifestly below that of the medium. It is frequently in direct +opposition to the wishes of the medium.... The intelligence is +sometimes of such a character as to lead to the belief that it does not +emanate from any person present.'[599] In the case of the 'medium' Mr. +Home, Sir William Crookes used mechanical tests and proved to his own +satisfaction that physical objects moved without Mr. Home or any other +person being in contact with them,[600] in the way that fairies are +believed to move objects. These phenomena parallel remarkable ancient +and modern examples of the same nature: e. g. in the affair at +Cideville, France, brought before a magistrate, there is sworn evidence +by reputable witnesses that pillows and coverlets floated away from a +bed in which two children were asleep, and that furniture in the house +moved without contact.[601] Mrs. Margaret Quinn, originally of +Mullingar, but now of Howth, gave this remarkable testimony:--'When I +was a little girl, I lived with my mother in West Meath, near Mullingar. +A _fort_ was at the back of our house, and mother used to hear music +playing round our house all night, and she has seen _them_ (the _good +people_). It often happened there at home that we would have clothes out +on the line and they would float off like a balloon at a time when there +would not be a bit of wind and in daylight. My mother would come out and +say, "God bless _them_ (the _good people_). _They_ will bring them +back." And then the clothes would slowly come floating back to the +line.' And in our chapter ii there is other testimony concerning objects +moved without contact with human beings, either through the agency of +fairies or of the dead. After due investigation of such and various +other phenomena, Sir William Crookes, among other theories to explain +them, gives this theory:--'_The actions of a separate order of beings, +living on this earth, but invisible and immaterial to us. Able, however, +occasionally to manifest their presence. Known in almost all countries +and ages as demons (not necessarily bad), gnomes, fairies, kobolds, +elves, goblins, Puck, &c._'[602] Here we seem to have what ought to be, +by this stage of our study, proof of the Psychological Theory of the +nature and origin of the Fairy-Faith. + +Let us now draw a few of the direct parallels thus suggested. Consider +first how a fairy is said to appear, how it is described, and how it +vanishes, and then compare the facts stated in the following case of a +phantom reported by Sir William Crookes[603]:--'In the dusk of the +evening' (just the time when fairies are most easily seen) 'during a +_seance_ with Mr. Home at my house, the curtains of a window about eight +feet from Mr. Home were seen to move. A dark, shadowy, semi-transparent +form, like that of a man, was then seen by all present standing near the +window, waving the curtain with his hand. As we looked, the form faded +away and the curtain ceased to move.' The following--Mr. Home as in the +former case being the 'medium'--is a still more striking instance:--'A +phantom form came from a corner of the room, took an accordion in its +hand, and then glided about the room playing the instrument. The form +was visible to all present for many minutes, Mr. Home also being seen at +the same time. On its coming rather close to a lady who was sitting +apart from the rest of the company, she gave a slight cry, upon which it +vanished.' Compare the following types of observed phenomena by the same +authority with what our Welsh witness from the Pentre Evan country said +about death-candles (p. 155):--'I have seen a luminous cloud floating +upwards to a picture.' Or, 'I have more than once had a solid +self-luminous body placed in my hand by a hand which did not belong to +any person in the room. In the light I have seen a luminous cloud hover +over a heliotrope on a side-table, break a sprig off, and carry the +sprig to a lady; and on some occasions I have seen a similar luminous +cloud visibly condense to the form of a hand and carry small objects +about.' Similar lights, parallel to the death lights or death tokens +observed by Celtic percipients in Wales and in Brittany, and to what in +Ireland are called the 'lights' of the 'good people' or 'gentry'--all of +which phenomena are traceable to no material causes as yet +discovered--are reported by Iamblichus and others of his school.[604] +And such lights are among phenomena best attested by modern psychical +researchers. Supernormally produced music, said to have been produced by +daemons, which is parallel to that called by several of our own +percipients 'fairy' music, was also known to the Neo-Platonists;[604] +and in the scientific investigations to which Mr. Home was subjected, +musical sounds were heard which could not be attributed to any known +agency. In haunted houses, as psychical research discovers, the rustling +of dresses, movements of objects, and sounds, often occur spontaneously +without and with the occurrence of apparitions;[604] and these phenomena +are parallel to certain ones which we have had cited by Celtic +percipients as due to fairies. Mr. Lang, too, has set forth clearly the +probability of real 'haunts' or spirits possessing particular +places--just as fairies are said to possess particular localities or +buildings in Celtic lands. + +_The Report on the Census of Hallucination_ by Professor Sidgwick's +Committee has furnished data sufficiently good to convince many +scientists that phantoms (comparable in a way with Irish banshees and +the Breton _Ankou_) do appear to the living directly before a death as +though announcing it.[605] According to other equally reliable data, +sometimes a phantasmal voice--like certain 'fairy' voices--has given +news of a death.[606] Myers and others have studied and recorded many +cases of the dead appearing, as the Celtic dead appear when they have +been _taken_ to Fairyland.[606] + +In _Phantasms of the Living_, by Gurney, Myers, and Podmore, the +explanation of apparitions which are coincident with a death as being +generated by a telepathic influence exerted upon the percipient by the +dying friend, suggests the most rational interpretation of certain +parallel kinds of apparitions, of the dead or of fairies, who, as in +these last examples, appear dressed in garments. It is that all such +apparitional appearances, coincident with a death or not, are equally +due to a telepathic force exerted by an agency independent of the +percipient. This outside force acts as a stimulus upon the nervous +apparatus of the person to whom it is thus transmitted, and causes him +to project out of some part of his own consciousness (which part may +have passed over into the subconsciousness) a visualized image already +impressed there. The image has natural affinity or correspondence with +the outside stimulus which arouses it. + +Such an hypothesis curiously agrees in part with the one put forth by +our seer-witness, the Irish mystic (p. 60 ff.). He would probably agree +as to the visualization process in most types of ordinary apparitions. +In addition, he holds that Nature herself has a memory: there is some +indefinable psychic element in the earth's atmosphere upon which all +human and physical actions or phenomena are photographed or impressed. +These records in Nature's mind correspond to mental impressions in us. +Under certain inexplicable conditions, normal persons who are not seers +may observe Nature's mental records like pictures cast upon a +screen--often like moving pictures. Seers can always see them if they +wish; and uncritical seers frequently mistake these phantom records or +pictures existing on the psychical envelope of the planet for actual +events now occurring, and for actual beings--fairies of various kinds +and the dead. A recent book entitled _An Adventure_, by Elizabeth +Morison and Frances Lamont (pseudonyms), adequately illustrates what we +mean by such phantom pictures. During the year 1901 these two cultured +ladies saw at _le petit Trianon_ of Marie Antoinette records in the mind +of Nature of past historical events dating from about 1789. Of this +there seems not to be the slightest doubt. The fairy boat-race on Lough +Gur, as described by Count John de Salis (p. 80), and the procession +seen on Tara Hill of fairies 'like soldiers of ancient Ireland in +review' (p. 33), probably illustrate the same kind of phenomena (cf. pp. +55-7, 68, 74, 123, 126, &c.). + +But in visions by natural seers, following again the theory of our Irish +seer-witness, there is present not only an outside force (as seems to be +the case when ordinary apparitions are seen) but also a veridical being +with a form and life of its own in a world of its own. Such a real +entity is as distinct from a picture in the memory of Nature as a living +person is distinct from the mental picture which his friend holds and +projects as a visualized image when responding to a telepathic stimulus +sent by him. The natural seer, not being obliged to see with his normal +sense of vision, need not use the normal method (namely, visualization) +of responding to the outside telepathic stimulus, and so does not see +the ordinary apparitional ghost or fairy. He exercises 'second-sight' or +ecstatic vision, and while so doing is in the same plane of +consciousness and under the same conditions of perception as the +intelligence which projects upon him the stimulus inducing automatically +such 'second-sight' or ecstatic vision. Therefore, if the intelligence +has a form and nature of its own, the seer and not the non-seer will +perceive them in their own world while his consciousness is temporarily +functioning there and out of the normal plane of mental action. In other +words, in the normal plane the non-seer reacts normally upon the same +stimulus upon which the seer reacts abnormally. The former percipient +sees a non-real apparition, a visualized image out of his own +experience; the latter claims to see a real being. The real being exists +normally under conditions which are abnormal to the non-seer, but which +to the seer become normal. The visualization of the non-seer is a +makeshift, a psycho-physical reaction to a purely psychical stimulus. + +It is mathematically possible to conceive fourth-dimensional beings, and +if they exist it would be impossible in a third-dimensional plane to see +them as they really are. Hence the ordinary apparition is non-real as a +form, whereas the beings, which wholly sane and reliable seers claim to +see when exercising seership of the highest kind, may be as real to +themselves and to the seers as human beings are to us here in this +third-dimensional world when we exercise normal vision. + +Concerning actual demon-possession, which among spiritualists and +psychical researchers would be called spirit phenomena through +'mediums', and which, as we have elsewhere pointed out (pp. 249 ff.), +offers the most rational explanation for the changeling belief and +related Celtic beliefs about fairies, Dr. J. L. Nevius, in his _Demon +Possession_, offers very important scientific data relating to China. +Dr. F. F. Ellinwood, who like that authority studied strange psychical +phenomena in the interior districts of the Shantung Province (China) for +many years, says in an introductory note to that work:--'Antecedently to +any knowledge of the New Testament' (so full of cases of +demon-possession) 'the people of North China believed fully in the +possession of the minds and bodies of men by evil spirits.... It has +always been understood that the personality of the evil spirit usurped, +or for the time being supplanted, that of the unwilling victim, and +acted through his organs and faculties. Physical suffering and sometimes +violent paroxysms attended the presence and active influence of the +spirit.' In the face of so many cases of such phenomena observed in +China by the same authorities, Dr. Ellinwood adds, as Dr. Nevius's +conclusion, that 'no theory has been advanced which so well accords with +the facts as the simple and unquestioning conclusion so universally held +by the Christians of Shantung, viz. that evil spirits do in many +instances possess or control the mind and will of human beings'. +Hypnotism shows how one strong and magnetic human will can control the +mind and will of its subject; the scientific results attained by the +Society for Psychical Research in its study of spiritualism show a +disembodied will or intelligence controlling and using the body of a +living human being; and Dr. Nevius writes:--'Now may not +demon-possession be only a different, a more advanced form of +hypnotism?' Criminal records of Europe and America show many examples of +condemned criminals who confessed in all sincerity that some invisible +or outside influence led them against their better judgement to commit +crime; and very often in such examples the past lives of the condemned +are so good as to set up a strong probability in favour of their belief +in possession. And altogether in accord with the evidence of modern +mediumship, as well as that of mediumship among the ancients, Dr. Nevius +says of Chinese demon-possession:--'When normal consciousness is +restored after one of these attacks, the subject is entirely ignorant of +everything which has passed during that state. The most striking +characteristic of those cases is that the subject evidences another +personality, and the normal personality for the time being is partially +or wholly dormant. The new personality presents traits of character +utterly different from those which really belong to the subject in his +normal state, and this change of character is, with rare exceptions, in +the direction of moral obliquity and impurity. Many persons while +"demon-possessed" give evidence of knowledge which cannot be accounted +for in ordinary ways.... They sometimes converse in foreign languages of +which in their normal states they are entirely ignorant. There are often +heard, in connexion with "demon possessions", rappings and noises in +places where no physical cause for them can be found; and tables, +chairs, crockery, and the like are moved about without, so far as can be +discerned, any application of physical force, exactly as we are told is +the case among spiritualists.'[607] + + +CONCLUSION + +Our investigations (and far more exhaustive ones than ours touching +similar psychical phenomena) show, when applied to the residuum or +x-quantity, these chief results: (1) The Materialistic and the Delusion +and Imposture Theories can be dismissed as not affecting it. (2) +Authorities do not agree in their opinions as to the pathological and +psychological processes with which we are directly concerned; they are +quite uncertain how to explain the human brain in all its more subtle +functions, or the sympathetic nervous system and nervous states +generally, in relation especially to human consciousness under various +abnormal but not diseased conditions of the organism; and they do not +propose any conclusions as final, but only as very weakly tentative, +though some of these are in favour of a psycho-physical view of man in +which there is a close approach to the present more advanced position of +psychical research. (3) Psychical research has furnished proof +sufficient to convince such first-class scientists as Sir William +Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, William James, M. Camille Flammarion, and +others, that states of consciousness exist in nature outside of, though +probably connected with, the consciousness of incarnate human beings, +and that these intelligences can produce effects on matter and on the +psychical constitution of man; and some of these scientists consider +certain of such intelligences to be discarnate men and women. (4) +Scientific proof has been adduced that there are genuine +hallucinations--like those relating to fairies--of human-like forms, +seen by single percipients, or collectively; and such collective +hallucinations are incapable of being explained away, which is equally +true of apparitions seen by a single percipient to move physical +objects. (5) Many of the foremost psychical researchers, including those +named above, accept 'mediumship' or spirit-possession as the best +working hypothesis to explain automatism. (6) In the accepted theory of +telepathy we have support for assuming that, like hypnosis, it is a +psychical process, and can be carried on either by two embodied spirits +or human beings, or by a disembodied spirit and one still incarnate. +Myers's theories, including that of the Subliminal Self, embody all the +preceding ones and agree in details with them. (7) The results taken +together harmonize with those attained in our study of psychical +phenomena attributed by the Celtic peoples to fairies; and, if they be +accepted, older psychological and pathological theories must be +thoroughly revised in many cases, or else cast aside as worthless. +Finally, since we have demonstrated that the background of the +Fairy-Faith, and hence the residuum or x-quantity of it, is like the +background of all religious and mystical beliefs, being animistic, and +like them has grown up in ancient times out of definite psychical +phenomena identical in character with those now studied by science, and +is kept alive by an unbroken succession of 'seers' and percipients, we +have a clear right to set up under scientific authority these tentative +conclusions: (1) Fairyland exists as a supernormal state of +consciousness into which men and women may enter temporarily in dreams, +trances, or in various ecstatic conditions; or for an indefinite period +at death. (2) Fairies exist, because in all essentials they appear to be +the same as the intelligent forces now recognized by psychical +researchers, be they thus collective units of consciousness like what +William James has called 'soul-stuff', or more individual units, like +veridical apparitions. (3) Our examination of living children said to +have been changed by fairies shows (see pp. 250-1) (_a_) that many +changelings are so called merely because of some bodily deformity or +because of some abnormal mental or pathological characteristics capable +of an ordinary rational explanation, (_b_) but that other changelings +who exhibit a change of personality, such as is recognized by +psychologists, are in many cases best explained on the Demon-Possession +Theory, which is a well-established scientific hypothesis. + +Therefore, since the residuum or x-quantity of the Fairy-Faith, the +folk-religion of the Celtic peoples, cannot be explained away by any +known scientific laws, it must for the present stand, and the +Psychological Theory of the Nature and Origin of the Belief in Fairies +in Celtic Countries is to be considered as hypothetically established in +the eyes of Science. Hence we must cease to look upon the term _fairy_ +as being always a synonym for something fanciful, non-real, absurd. We +must also cease to think of the Fairy-Faith as being no more than a +fabric of groundless beliefs. In short, the ordinary non-Celtic mind +must readjust itself to a new set of phenomena which through ignorance +on its part it has been content to disregard, and to treat with ridicule +and contempt as so much outworn 'superstition'. + + + + +SECTION IV + +MODERN SCIENCE AND THE FAIRY-FAITH; AND CONCLUSIONS + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE CELTIC DOCTRINE OF RE-BIRTH AND OTHERWORLD SCIENTIFICALLY EXAMINED + + 'If all things which partook of life were to die, and after they + were dead remained in the form of death, and did not come to life + again, all would at last die, and nothing would be alive--what + other result could there be?'--SOCRATES, as reported by Plato. + + 'The soul, if immortal, existed before our birth. What is + incorruptible must be ungenerable.'--HUME. + + 'If there be no reasons to suppose that we have existed before that + period at which our existence apparently commences, then there are + no grounds for supposing that we shall continue to exist after our + existence has apparently ceased.'--SHELLEY. + + The extension of the terms Fairy and Fairyland--The real man as an + invisible force acting through a body-conductor--A psychical organ + essential for memory--Pre-existence a scientific necessity--The + vitalistic view of evolution--Old theory of heredity + disproved--Embryology supports re-birth doctrine--Psycho-physical + evolution--Memory of previous existences in + subconsciousness--Examples--Dream psychology furnishes clearest + illustrations--No post-existence without + pre-existence--Resurrection as re-birth--The Circle of Life--The + mystical corollary--Conclusion: the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth and + Otherworld is essentially scientific. + + +In the esoteric Fairy-Faith, the terms Fairy and Fairyland attain their +broadest meaning. To the Celtic mystic, the universe is divisible into +two interpenetrating parts or aspects: the visible in which we are now, +and the invisible which is Fairyland or the Otherworld; and a fairy is +an intelligent being, either embodied as a member of the human race or +else resident in the Otherworld. The latter class includes many distinct +hierarchies and lower orders. Some, like the highest of the Tuatha De +Danann, who are the same in character as the gods of the Greeks and +Hindoos, are superhuman; others are the souls of the dead; while many +are subhuman and have never been embodied in gross physical bodies. +These last include daemons (incorrectly regarded by Christian and other +theologies as being in all cases evil, and called demons); and other +like spirits, such as those which Dr. Tylor, in _Primitive Culture_, has +designated nature spirits (leprechauns, pixies, knockers, _corrigans_, +_lutins_, _little folk_, elves generally, and their counterparts in all +non-Celtic Fairy-Faiths), which are the elementals of mediaeval mystics. + +In the preceding chapter chiefly the lower species of fairies were under +consideration, but now the higher orders (including human souls embodied +and disembodied), in their relation toward one another, are to be +considered independently. It becomes necessary, then, to present here a +view of life and death not yet scientifically orthodox. + +The Celt in all ages of his long history, like the ancient Greek +thinkers with whom his ancestors were contemporary, has always been +inclined, unlike modern scientists, to seek an explanation for the +phenomena of evolutionary life by postulating a noumenal world of causes +as the background of the phenomenal world of effects. To-day, the rapid +march of scientific pioneers, chiefly those in psychical research, is +bringing our own cold and exact science very close to that indefinable +boundary which separates the two worlds; and for that reason alone a +presentation of the Celtic theory of the causes operating to produce +death and birth will be, at least by way of suggestion, of some value. + +Facts of common everyday knowledge are apt to lose their significance +through too great familiarity. A fact of this character is that when +each child is born it must awaken into life. Often it is not known +whether the newly-born babe is dead or alive until it stretches forth +its arms and breathes or cries. And this phenomenon of our first +awakening and entry upon the visible plane of life and conscious action +seems to corroborate what the early Celt who thoughtfully observed it +held to be true, and what the Celt of to-day holds to be true: that the +material substance composing the body of man is merely a means of +expression for life, a conductor for an unknown force which exhibits +volition and individual consciousness; just as material substance in a +condition called inanimate is a conductor for another unknown force +called electricity, which does not exhibit any volition or +consciousness. Destroy the human body, and there is no manifestation of +its life force; destroy a wire, and there is no manifestation of +electric light: the human body seems to be merely incidental in the +history of the individual consciousness, as a wire is incidental to +electric light. + +But is this consciousness of man which we call life simply a phenomenon +of matter non-existent without a physical means of expression, or does +it--like electricity after the wire is destroyed--continue to exist in +an unmanifested state when the human body is cold and motionless in +death? And in the case of a child born dead has this consciousness found +some organic imperfection in the newly-constructed infant body which +made its manifestation impossible? A few thoughts to aid in answering +these questions will probably suggest themselves if we briefly consider +the great difference between a human body in life and a human body in +death. In life, there is the highly organized, delicately adjusted, +perfectly balanced human body responding to the will of an invisible +power; and it is admitted by all schools of philosophers, moralists, and +scientists that this invisible power--whatever it may be--is the real +man. + +This invisible power, beginning its manifestation through a microscopic +bit of germ-plasm, gradually builds for itself a more and more complex +physical habitation, until, after the short space of nine months, it +claims membership among the ranks of men. During the many years of its +sojourn on our planet, it renews its habitation many times. Every atom +it began with in childhood is discarded and replaced by a new one long +before the age of manhood is reached, and yet upon reaching manhood the +invisible power remembers what it did in a child's frame. This indicates +that memory or consciousness as a psychical process does not depend +essentially upon a material brain nor upon a certain grouping of +ever-changing brain-substance; for if it did, apparently it would slowly +and imperceptibly undergo change as completely as the whole physical +body and brain. This physiological process furnishes sufficient data to +allow us to postulate that there is a psychical organ of memory behind +the physical sense-consciousness, and that such an organ in itself is, +at least during a human-life period, unchanging in its composition. +Without such an organ, the process of memory when more fully analysed +(in a way we cannot here attempt) is inexplicable.[608] + +The simplest hypothesis is to conceive that organ as the one connected +with the subconsciousness or super-sense-consciousness, by means of +which the invisible power or rememberer is able to remember and to +impress its memory upon the temporary and continually unstable physical +brain. In the process of memory there must be first of all a thing to be +remembered; second, a record of that thing to be remembered; and third, +something to remember that thing. The thing remembered is the result of +a conscious experience, the record of it the result of its impress at +the time it was experienced, but the rememberer is neither. + +That invisible power, which we have called the real man, animates the +body, it places food in it as fuel to produce animal heat, animal +vitality and force, and tries to keep it in good working order as long +as possible. If the body is imperfect at birth or becomes so later, that +invisible power is forced to act through it imperfectly; if the brain is +diseased, there is insanity, if undeveloped, idiocy; and when the body +ceases to respond either perfectly or imperfectly, the invisible power +must surrender it entirely, and there is what we call death. + +Now what is this invisible power or force which has entirely vanished, +leaving the physical body and brain cold and motionless? Let us see if +there is an answer. Chemical analysis proves that the visible parts of +the body of man are merely transformed gases; but in a complete analysis +of a living body such as man's there are certain elements to be +considered which are always invisible.[609] Thus at death there is +instantly a cessation of all bodily consciousness--of all willing, +thinking, movement. The power which has made the body conscious, and +which cannot be compared to any known form of matter, is entirely gone. +But there is left in the body a moment after its departure everything +which we know to be material--the animal heat, the animal magnetism, the +animal vitality. When these are gone, the body is cold and stiff, and in +no essential way unlike any other mass of inert matter. If heat be +applied to the body, or magnetism, or vital forces, there is nothing in +it to retain them any more than there would be in a stone. The real man +is gone. Then the body begins to disintegrate. The law of the +conservation of energy and the indestructibility of matter makes it +certain that in the process of death nothing has been lost, certainly +nothing material. The animal heat has gone off somewhere in the +atmosphere or in some other matter; the animal magnetism and vitality +are momentarily lost sight of, but soon they will be attached to other +organic beings such as plants or animals to begin a new cycle of +embodiment. The physical constituents of the body will go to their +appropriate places, into the air as gases, into the water as fluids, +into the earth as salts and minerals, and in a short time may form the +parts of a flower, or fruit, or animal. But where or what is the +willing, the thinking, the remembering, the directing force which once +controlled all these and held them together in unity? Ultra-violet rays +are invisible, but they show their existence through their chemical +action; similarly a soul or Ego may exist invisibly and show its +existence through the vital and physical unity manifested by a living +human being. As we have already seen in the preceding chapter, there are +a number of the first men of science who feel that when all the data of +the latest scientific discoveries in the realm of psychology and of +psychical research are impartially examined there is no escape from some +such hypothesis as the ancient hypothesis of a soul. + +If we accept the soul hypothesis, as it seems we must, and regard a soul +as an indestructible unit of invisible power possessing consciousness +and volition, and normally able to exist independently of a human body, +then it becomes a logical and a scientific necessity to postulate its +pre-existence, because as such a unit it is indestructible, in +accordance with the law of the conservation of energy and +indestructibility of matter. We speak here not of the ordinary soul or +human personal consciousness, but of that Ego which Celtic mystics +conceive as the permanent principle (though probably itself relative to +some still higher power) behind the personality--which, in turn, they +believe is a temporary combination wholly dependent upon the Ego. +Accordingly, it is scientifically possible for such a soul as a +homogeneous unit of force or conscious energy to pass from one mass of +matter or physical body to another without disintegration, diminution, +or loss of its own identity. It is scientifically certain, also, from +experiments performed to test the power of resistance to decomposition +exhibited by the force which we call life in an organic body, that such +a force is capable of outwearing many physical embodiments.[610] Recent +demonstrations tend to show that the heredity hypothesis cannot be held +to account fully for such widely varied character or soul individuality +as may be exhibited by members of one family. We must therefore account +for mental, moral, and certainly psychical inequalities among our race +by some other hypothesis; and no hypothesis is more scientific, more in +line with known physiological and psychical processes, or more in accord +with the law of evolution, than that of re-birth. + +The theory of the mechanical transmission of acquired characteristics +in a purely physical manner through the germ-plasm is no longer tenable +when all the data of physiology and psychology are admitted. A +vitalistic view of evolution is rapidly developing in the scientific +world, and the weight of evidence is decidedly in favour of regarding +all evolutionary processes, reaching from the lowest to the highest +organisms, as illustrating a gradual unfolding in the sensuous world of +a pre-existing psychical power through an ever-increasing complexity of +specialized structures, this complexity being brought about by natural +selection. Such a view is also strongly supported if not confirmed by +the general scientific belief that spontaneous generation of life is and +always has been impossible on our planet or on any planet: there must +have been life before its physical manifestation or its physical +evolution began. + +We may regard this psychical power as like a vast reservoir of +consciousness ever trying to force itself through matter, the walls of +the reservoir. Through the microscopic body of an amoeba there has +percolated a very minute drop from the reservoir. As evolution advances, +the walls of the reservoir become more and more porous, and little by +little the drop increases to a tiny rivulet. Through the higher animals, +the tiny rivulet flows as a brook. Through man as he is, the brook flows +as a deep and broad river. Throughout the completely evolved man of the +far distant future, the deep and broad river will have overflowed all +its banks, it will have inundated and completely overwhelmed the +animal-human nature of the individual through whom it flows, as the +whole volume of the vast reservoir pours itself out. The ordinary +consciousness of man will then have been transmuted into the +subconsciousness, of which it had always been a pale reflection. In +other words, if the theory of the mechanical transmission of acquired +characteristics has failed, as seems to be the case, then we must assume +that there is, as the bearer of all gains made from generation to +generation, some sort of psychical or vitalistic principle. This, making +use of the germ-plasm merely as a physical basis for its manifestation, +begins to build up a body suited to its further evolutionary needs. + +The brilliant discoveries of Dr. Jacques Loeb and of M. Yves Delage have +demolished absolutely the old idea that each organ and each tissue +contained in embryo in the normal egg-germ must develop in a particular +and co-ordinate way into a normal organism and after the parental type: +it is possible to make a head grow where there ought to be feet; and at +Zuerich, Standfuss, solely through changing the temperature of his +laboratory, was able to obtain from the same species of butterfly forms +which were tropical and forms which were arctic.[611] All this helps to +establish the hypothesis, which amounts to certainty, that the +conformation of a physical body, or even the kind of species to be born, +is directly determined by physical environment and not by heredity, and +that the chief factor to consider in organisms is the life animating the +body. Physical environment affects only the physical organism; it does +not affect the invisible and unknown life-principle resident within the +physical organism. + +The process of fertilization is a physical process. As such it is simply +initiatory to embryonic evolution which also is physical. Once the +proper physical conditions are set up by the parents, life pursues its +marvellous progress in the womb of the human mother, from the +amoeba-like initial embryo to man. That is to say, parents set in motion +the laws governing the reproduction of physical bodies. They create such +conditions as enable the invisible life-force to begin its physical +manifestation.[612] In the two fused germs from the parents resides the +physical inheritance of the offspring, to be outwardly shaped by +environment; but the physical inheritance is a thing distinct from the +psychical part of the living being, just as much as the dead human body +is a thing apart from the life which has left it. Though the old +heredity theory is overthrown by late discoveries, the question as to +what life is in human bodies under all possible environmental conditions +remains unsolved; and so do the questions why there should be sports in +nature, which among man are called geniuses, and why every human being +has a distinct and highly developed individual character, essentially +unlike that of his immediate ancestors. + +Embryology proves conclusively that the human embryo retraces in its +growth the evolution of lower life-forms. At first consisting of two +single cells fused into one, it is like the amoeba. By cell-division it +grows and progresses step by step through each lower realm of being +until it comes to be a water-creature with gills; and science teaches +that all organic life on this planet once dwelt in the seas. It grows +progressively out of the water-world stage of organic life into the +world of air-breathing creatures. Nature at last achieves her highest +product, and a human being is born out of the Womb of Time. The initial +microscopic bit of germ-plasm is endowed with power of motion, thought, +and human consciousness, with dominion over all the lower kingdoms +through which by right of ancient conquests it passed in the brief +period of nine months. On every side the problem of life is full of +poetry and wonder; it is the greatest mystery. + +Not only can we thus study the age-long evolution of the physical man, +but we have recently acquired sufficient scientific data to lay +foundations for a study of the evolution of the psychical man. Thus, for +example, instincts seem to be nothing more than habits which through +unknown periods of time have become so ingrained in the constitution of +man, and of all animals, that now they have become second nature and +usually are exercised without the need of reasoning processes. The +influence from innate sensuous experiences rises into consciousness as +the life of every normal child and youth unfolds itself; and these +experiences in their full expansion, when the age of maturity has been +reached, constitute in their unity what we call character, which, in one +sense, may be defined as the sum total of instincts of every kind. From +such a point of view, the psychical or invisible power in man is merely +a bundle of acquired habits which make use of the bodily organism in +order to express themselves--in the same way, as we have pointed out, +that electrical forces manifest their presence through a conductor. If +these habits be good, we call their possessor a good man; if evil, we +call him an evil man. + +The theory of Charles Darwin suggests that all evolutionary progress is +directed to the acquirement of newer and ever higher instincts. And if +this process be the true one, that is to say, if all instincts, which in +their finer distinctions mark off species from species in all animal +kingdoms, be as Darwin thought--and as is to-day more clearly +evident--the result of a long and gradual evolution through experience +in a sensuous realm of existence, then it would seem to follow that +there must be some kind of a monad (probably a non-sensuous one) to +which such acquired instincts can attach themselves. Such a monad, too, +must have been a percipient and hence a recorder of such +ever-accumulating experiences throughout an inconceivably long chain of +lives, and it of itself must, while so perceiving and recording, not be +subject to the transitoriness of the sensuous realm wherein it gathers +together these instincts, which in their unified expression form its +personality or human character. + +In harmony with the vitalistic view of evolution, which implies a +pre-existent psychical power continually striving to express itself +completely through matter, yet normally able to exist independently of a +physical means of expression, we should regard such high mental +processes as judgement, reasoning, analysis and synthesis, and spatial +perception, along with memory, as resultants of very great experience in +a sensuous world, on which in our present psycho-physical constitution +such processes appear to have direct bearing. In other words, for man to +be able to exercise such high mental processes there is need to +postulate incalculable ages of specialization in the nervous apparatus, +and in psycho-physical adjustment, of a kind which has thus enabled the +psychical power to express itself to such a supreme degree in the realm +of mind and matter. The same vitalistic argument is applicable to the +lower mental processes and to the instinctual powers in man, because we +cannot at any time, in viewing the complete evolution of man as a +twofold being composed of a physical and a psychical part, force aside +Fechner's conviction that the problem is a psycho-physical one. A study +of sexual instincts in children seems to confirm this.[613] + +Such a psychical and vitalistic hypothesis is, as we have seen, strongly +supported by embryology; and embryology proves conclusively the need of +long ages of physical evolution for the development of each tissue and +highly specialized organ in the human body. Certain French and German +and other scientists of the vitalistic school have demonstrated +physiologically the need of a pre-existent power as the unifying +principle which attracts and compels material atoms to group themselves +into the pattern of the human body[614]--or, as we may add, of any +organic body. Psychical researchers at the outset of their science seem +apparently to have demonstrated psychologically the post-existence of +the personal consciousness-unity; and it is very likely when further +progress has been made in psychics that there will arise a logical need +to postulate, in addition to the personal consciousness-unity, a +hypothetical pre-existent soul-monad as the unifying principle which +attracts and compels psychical atoms of experience (if such an +expression may be used) to group themselves into the personal +consciousness-unity which appears to survive the death of the gross +physical body--for a long or short time, as future research may +show.[615] Such a soul-monad, to follow the view held by Celtic mystics, +led by acquired instincts which were transmitted to it through the +personality (held by the Celtic esoteric doctrine to be a temporary +combination), apparently weaves out of matter the body-unit adapted to +its further evolution, in a way analogous to that in which a silkworm is +led by acquired instincts to weave a cocoon. This body-unit is twofold: +(1) the visible body derived from the visible elements of matter; and +(2) the invisible or ghost-body derived from the invisible or ethereal +elements of matter. + +Strictly speaking, for the Celtic mystic this soul-monad is something +upon which the personal consciousness depends for its psychical unity in +precisely the same way as the physical body depends upon the personal +consciousness for its physical unity. The Celtic mystic holds that just +as the body-unity falls back again into its primal elements of matter, +so the personal consciousness-unity (apparently able to survive in the +ghost-body for a long period after its separation from the grosser +physical envelope or human body) also in due time is discarded by the +soul-monad or individuality, and then falls back into its primal +psychical constituents. In other words, the Celtic Esoteric Doctrine of +Re-birth correctly interpreted does not conceive personal immortality, +but it conceives a greater kind of immortality--the immortality of the +unknown principle which gives unity to each temporary personality it +makes use of, and which we prefer to designate as the individuality, the +impersonator. And this individuality is the bearer of all evolutionary +gains made in each temporary personality through which it reflects +itself: it is the permanent evolving principle. + +Perhaps an analogy drawn from nature will make the Celtic position +clearer: we may say that the personality occupies a position between the +human body and the soul-monad, just as the moon occupies a position +between the earth and the sun. Personal consciousness is to the human +body what the moonlight is to the earth, merely a pale reflection from a +third thing, the soul-monad or individuality, which is the ultimate +source of both sets of unities, the material or body-unity in its +twofold aspect and the psychical or personal consciousness-unity. Each +personality is temporary, while the individuality, like the sun in +relation to the earth and moon, is capable of at least a relative +immortality: the sun's light, as science holds, existed before there was +any moon to reflect it on to the earth, and may continue to exist when +both the moon and earth are disintegrated. The essential nature of the +sun's energy or life remains unknown to science; so does the essential +nature of the energy or life manifesting itself as the individuality. +Though all such analogies are more or less weak, this one adequately +fits in with the theories concerning the Celtic Esoteric Doctrine of +Re-birth which the most learned of contemporary Celts, chiefly mystics, +have favoured us with; and it is our rare privilege to put these +theories on record for whatever they may be worth. The best hypothesis +is always the one which best explains all available data, and, to our +mind, when very minutely examined, in a way which (chiefly for reasons +of space) cannot be attempted here, this Celtic hypothesis concerning +the nature and destiny of man is the best hitherto adduced.[616] + +Objectors to the Re-birth Doctrine as held by the Celts and other +peoples anciently and now, naturally ask why, if we have lived before +here on earth in physical bodies, we do not remember it. But the +shallowness and unscientific nature of this question is at once apparent +to psychologists who know that there exists in man a subconscious mind +which in the great mass of people is almost totally dormant. 'The +subconscious self,' wrote William James, 'is nowadays a well-accredited +psychological entity.... Apart from all religious considerations, there +is actually and literally more life in our total soul than we are at any +time aware of.' And he added:--'It thus is "scientific" to interpret all +otherwise unaccountable invasive alternations of consciousness as +results of the tension of subliminal memories reaching a bursting +point.'[617] Intuition, which all men have experienced, would seem to be +the result of a momentary contact by the physical brain with its +psychical counterpart--the subconscious self, the individuality as +distinguished from the personality. + +Certain observed psychological processes in ordinary men and women, who +never really know that they have a subconsciousness or Transcendental +Self, prove that it exists even for them, and any part of man which +exists and functions of itself can be developed so as to be consciously +perceived. This is incontestable. Let us point out a few of these +observed and recorded psychological processes. There may be an unsolved +problem in the mind, or inability to recall a certain name or fact, and +then a sudden, unexpected intuitional solving of the problem and an +instantaneous recollecting of the desired facts, at a time when the +ordinary mind may be entirely absorbed in altogether foreign thoughts. +Again, many persons through accident or disease have lost their memory +to such an extent as to require complete re-education, and then in time, +gradually or instantaneously, as the case may be, have completely +recovered it.[618] And we noticed in our study of supernatural lapse of +time (p. 469) that at the moment of accidental loss of consciousness, as +in drowning for example, all forgotten details of life are +instantaneously reproduced in a complete panorama. These psychological +processes support what we have said above with respect to a psychical +organ being behind the sense-consciousness, and seem thus to prove that +the subconscious mind is the place for recording permanently all +experiences.[619] Under hypnosis, a subject may be requested to perform +a certain act, let us say 11,999 minutes after the moment of making the +request. When the hypnotic condition is removed, the subject has no +personal consciousness of the suggestion, but, as different experiments +have proved conclusively, he invariably performs the act exactly at the +expiration of the 11,999 minutes without knowing why he does so. This +proves that there is a subconsciousness in man which can take full +cognizance of such a suggestion, which can keep count of the passing of +time and then cause the unconscious personality to act in response to +its will.[620] Again, in extreme old age people who have come to have an +imperfect memory or none at all in their normal consciousness, under +abnormal conditions (which seemingly are due to a temporary influx of a +latent psychical power into the physical body and brain, or else to an +awakening of a dormant force within the physical body and brain +themselves) often regain, for a time, complete and clear memory of their +childhood. This proves that the memory is somewhere still perfect, and +that it does not reside in the consciousness of the age-exhausted +physical brain and memory. Albert Moll, in his treatise on hypnotism, +says that events in the normal life which have dropped out of memory can +be remembered in hypnosis:--'An English officer in Africa was hypnotized +by Hansen, and suddenly began to speak a strange language. This turned +out to be Welsh, which he had learnt as a child, but had +forgotten.'[621] And even memory of acts done in hypnotic somnambulism +can be awakened in the normal state.[622] Furthermore, through +psycho-analysis, as Professor Freud has shown, forgotten dreams and +dreams which were never complete in the ordinary consciousness can be +recovered in their entirety out of the subconsciousness.[623] How many +of us can recall without some mental stimulus certain acts performed ten +years ago? A good deal of our present life is no longer vivid, much of +it is forgotten, and in old age many of the memories of youth and of +mature life will be subconscious. If this brain, whose total existence +is comprised between birth and death, cannot remember in a normal way +all its own experiences, how could it be expected to know anything at +all of hypothetical past lives where there were various physical brains +long ago disintegrated--unless the hypothetically ever-existing +transcendental individuality, whose consciousness is the +subconsciousness, be made by some unusual psychical stimuli to transmit +its memory of the past lives to each new brain it creates? In other +words, to have memory of pre-existent conditions there must be +continuity of association with present conditions. If such continuity +exists, it exists in the subconsciousness. And if it exists therein, +then in order to recall in the present personal or ordinary +consciousness, which began at birth, memory of an anterior state of +consciousness, it would be necessary to hold impressed upon the present +physical brain and body a clear and unremittent consciousness of the +subconsciousness. In relation to our personal consciousness, apparently +our greatest powers lie in the subconsciousness which is sleeping and in +embryo, awaiting to be born into the consciousness of this world through +the slow process of evolutionary gestation. In the case of a Buddha, who +on good historical authority is said to have been able to recall all +past existences from the lowest to the highest, this evolutionary +process seems to have reached completion.[624] + +Under ordinary conditions, individuals have been known to see a place +which they have never seen before, or to do a thing which they have +never done before in this life nor in any conscious dream-state, and yet +feel that they have seen the place before and done the thing before. M. +Th. Ribot, in his _Diseases of Memory_ (chapter iv), has brought +together many cases of this kind. Some are undoubtedly explicable as +forgotten experiences of the present life. Others, to our mind, strongly +support the theory of pre-existent experiences preserved in memory in +the subconsciousness. + +Under chloroform, or other anaesthetics, patients often recover for the +time being forgotten facts of experience, and sometimes appear to make +momentary contact with their subconsciousness and to exhibit therein +another personality. In certain well-defined types of double +personality, which are not the kind due to demon-possession nor to +spirit-possession as in 'mediumship', there are two memories, 'each +complete and absolutely independent of the other.'[625] And in similar +cases, where the subject exhibits alternately numerous personalities, we +see the individuality, that is to say the subconscious man, exhibiting, +as a dramatist might, various characters or personalities of probable +past existences according as each is most active at the moment. +Similarly, crystal-gazing sometimes seems not only to revive lost +memories of this life, but also to call up subconscious memories of some +unknown state of consciousness which may be from a previous life.[626] + +M. Ribot has made it clear from his careful study of numerous cases of +amnesia (loss of memory) that 'recollections return in an inverse order +to that in which they disappear'. For example, a celebrated Russian +astronomer lost all memory save that of his childhood, and in recovering +it there appeared first the recollections of youth, then those of middle +age, then the experiences of later years, and, finally, the most recent +events. Many even more marked examples of the law of regression in +amnesia are given by M. Ribot. We conclude from them that all strange +and apparently long-forgotten facts of experience arising in +consciousness out of the subconsciousness, as in the different cases +which have been cited above, would necessarily be those which have been +the longest lost to memory; and hence if they cannot be attached to this +present life then they can only be derived from a former life, because +every primary detail of memory must always originate from an experience +at some past period of time. M. Ribot himself, in his conclusion to +_The Diseases of Memory_, makes this significant observation with +respect to the law of regression in amnesia:--'This law of regression +provides us with an explanation for extraordinary revivification of +certain recollections when the mind turns backward to conditions of +existence that had apparently disappeared for ever.' + +In dreams there is a great wealth of latent memory; sometimes memory of +the present waking life, but often not capable, apparently, of being +attached to it, nor explicable as due to the soul wandering from the +body during sleep: the hypothesis of re-birth seems to be the only +adequate one here. Certain dreams suggest that man possesses innate +memories extending backwards to prehistoric times (cf. p. 5 above). This +fits in with Professor Freud's theory in his _Die Traumdeutung_, that +'the dream is nothing else than the concealed fulfilment of a repressed +wish.' Some dreams are 'in the form of frightful, cruel, horrible +scenes, which seem frightful to us, but in a certain depth of the +unconscious satisfy wishes which, in the "prehistoric" ages of our own +mental development, were actually recognized as desires.'[627] This also +supports our vitalistic view of the evolution of human instincts. Again, +in somnambulism there is a much more exalted memory, and clear cases are +on record of facts being then consciously present which cannot be +accounted for save through the same hypothesis.[628] + +If we keep in mind the psychology of the dream state, we shall probably +get the clearest intellectual theory as to why, if pre-existence be +true, we do not remember various previous states of existence. In our +present state of consciousness we may enter a dream state, in that dream +state by dreaming we enter a second dream state, and theoretically, +though not by common experience, there may be no limit to superimposed +dream states, each one in itself a state of consciousness distinct from +the waking consciousness. Accordingly, if, as Wordsworth put it, 'our +birth is but a sleep and a forgetting' of another state of +consciousness, and death the abrupt ending of that sleep of dreams and a +waking up, or if the direct opposite be true, and death is the entrance +to a sleep and dream state of consciousness, it becomes very clear how +difficult it would be for us here now either to recall what we may have +dreamt or have actually done in another state of conscious existence +corresponding to our present one. The subtle thinkers of modern India, +who completely accept the doctrine of re-birth as a universal law, have +summed up this abstruse aspect of the dream psychology as follows:--'The +first or spiritual state was ecstasy; from ecstasy it (the Ego) forgot +itself into deep sleep; from deep sleep it awoke out of unconsciousness, +but still within itself, into the internal world of dreams; from +dreaming it passed finally into the thoroughly waking state, and the +outer world of sense.'[629] But our own psychologists are not yet far +enough advanced to accept this; much more work in psychical research +must first be done before it will be possible for them to announce to +the West that pre-existence is a necessary condition for post-existence +which they now hypothetically accept. If for the present our standpoint +be that of our own psychologists, we may then think of the human +consciousness as a spectrum whose central parts alone are visible to us. +Beyond at either end lies an unseen and to us unknown region, awaiting +its explorer from the West. 'Each one of us is in reality an abiding +psychical entity far more extensive than he knows--an individuality +which can never express itself completely through any corporeal +manifestation. The Self manifests through the organism; but there is +always some part of the Self unmanifested; and always, as it seems, some +power of organic expression in abeyance or reserve.'[630] William James +stated the position thus:--'The B. region' (another name for the region +of subconsciousness), 'then, is obviously the larger part of each of us, +for it is the abode of everything that is latent, and the reservoir of +everything that passes unrecorded and unobserved.'[631] + +Men of science see no way of accepting the doctrine of the resurrection +of the physical body as at present interpreted by Christian theology; +but the late Professor Th. Henri Martin, Dean of the Faculty of Letters +of the University of Rennes, has suggested in his _La Vie future_ that +the doctrine may be the exoteric interpretation of a long-forgotten +esoteric truth; namely, that the soul may be resurrected in a new +physical body, and this is scientifically possible.[632] + +The ancient scientists called Life a Circle. In the upper half of this +Circle, or here on the visible plane, we know that in the physiological +history of man and of all living things there is first the embryonic or +prenatal state, then birth; and as life, like a sun, rises in its +new-born power toward the zenith, there is childhood, youth, and +maturity; and then, as it passes the zenith on its way to the horizon, +there is decline, old age, and, finally, death; and as a scientific +possibility we have in the lower half of the Circle, in Hades or the +Otherworld of the Celts and of all peoples, corresponding processes +between death and a hypothetical but logically necessary re-birth.[633] + +The logical corollary to the re-birth doctrine, and an integral part of +the Celtic esoteric theory of evolution, is that there have been human +races like the present human race who in past aeons of time have evolved +completely out of the human plane of conscious existence into the divine +plane of conscious existence. Hence the gods are beings which once were +men, and the actual race of men will in time become gods. Man now stands +related to the divine and invisible world in precisely the same manner +that the brute stands related to the human race. To the gods, man is a +being in a lower kingdom of evolution. According to the complete Celtic +belief, the gods can and do enter the human world for the specific +purposes of teaching men how to advance most rapidly toward the higher +kingdom. In other words, all the Great Teachers, e. g. Jesus, Buddha, +Zoroaster, and many others, in different ages and among various races, +whose teachings are extant, are, according to a belief yet held by +educated and mystical Celts, divine beings who in inconceivably past +ages were men but who are now gods, able at will to incarnate into our +world, in order to emphasize the need which exists in nature, by virtue +of the working of evolutionary laws (to which they themselves are still +subject), for man to look forward, and so strive to reach divinity +rather than to look backward in evolution and thereby fall into mere +animalism. The stating of this mystical corollary makes the exposition +of the Fairy-Faith complete, at least in outline. + +As shown by the Barddas MSS. in our chapter vii, the Celtic Doctrine of +Re-birth is the scientific extension of Darwin's law as corrected,[634] +that alone through traversing the Circle of Life man reaches that +destined perfection which natural analogies, life's processes as +exhibited by living things, and evolution, suggest, and from which at +present man is so far removed. There seems to emerge this postulate: the +world is the object of normal consciousness, the Ego or Soul-Monad the +object of subconsciousness; and the subconsciousness cannot be realized +in the world until through the normal consciousness of man the Ego is +able to function completely, and so endow man with full +self-consciousness in matter, which endowment seems to be the goal of +all planetary evolution. + +We conclude that the Otherworld of the Celts and their Doctrine of +Re-birth accord thoroughly in their essentials with modern science; and, +accordingly, with other essential elements in the complete Celtic +Fairy-Faith which we have in the preceding chapter found to be equally +scientific, establish our Psychological Theory of the Nature and Origin +of that Fairy-Faith upon a logical and solid foundation; and we now +submit this study to the judgement of our readers. With more complete +evidence in the future, both from folk-lore and from science, there will +be, we trust, a better vindication of the Theory, and perhaps finally +there will come about its transformation into what it but seems to us to +be now--a Fact. + +Some beliefs which a century ago were regarded as absurdities are now +regarded as fundamentally scientific. In the same way, what in this +generation is heretical alike to the Christian theologian and to the man +of science may in coming generations be accepted as orthodox. + + + + + +INDEX + + + _Adamnan's Vision_, 356. + + Aeneas, Journey of, 336-7, 343, 382, 445. + + Aengus, 62, 292, 301, 376, 397, 413-4. + + ---- Cult of, 415 ff., 450. + + ---- Dun, 2, 41, 416-8. + + _Agallamh_, 28, 283 n., 286, 290, 292, 295, 402, 412. + + ---- _an da Shuadh_, 344. + + Ailill, 288-9, 301, 374-5, 440. + + Aine, 79, 80 n., 83, 301. + + Alchemists, 240, 244, 261, 276, 296 n. + + Alignements, xv, 199 n., 393, 399, 419 ff.: + _see_ Archaeology. + + All Saints (_La Toussaint_), 439, 453: + _see_ _Samain_, and November Day. + + Angel, 7, 12, 85, 238, 240-1, 263-4, 267, 272, 374: + _see_ Fallen Angels, and St. Michael. + + Angels and Science, 481. + + Anglesey, 10, 138-9, 141-2. + + Animism, 55, 226 ff., 282, 457 ff.: + _see_ Dead, and Death. + + ---- Pre-, 253, 401. + + ---- Science and, 459 ff. + + _Ankou_, 16, 29, 218, 220. + + ---- Science and, 484. + + _Annwn_, 319, 353. + + Anthropology, 226-82. + + Antrim, 73, 371. + + Apollo, 403, 405-6, 421. + + Apparitions, Science and, 480, 484 ff. + + Aranmore, 2, 4, 40, 416. + + Archaeology, xv, 2, 9, 10, 12-5, 31, 52, 78, 81, 118-9, 137 n., 148, + 154, 157 n., 163, 165 ff., 172, 179, 210, 221, 234 n., 393, + 397-426, 450 n. + + Armagh, 74-5, 443. + + ---- _Book of_, 283 n., 291. + + _Art, Voyage of_, 351-2. + + Arthur, 9, 10, 12-3, 82 n., 163, 183, 238, 304, 308 ff., 333-4, 353, + 381, 429, 437, 441, 447: + _see_ Re-birth. + + Arthur, Bird, as, 183, 185. + + Arthurian Legend, 9, 260, 308 ff.: + _see_ Arthur. + + Astral Body, 29. + + ---- Light, 133. + + ---- Milk, 164. + + ---- Plane, 167, 171. + + ---- Spirits, 167, 171. + + Avalon, 252, 311, 314-5, 321-4, 330, 347-8, 379, 386. + + + Bacchus, 28, 80 n. + + _Badb_, 302-7, 309 n. + + _Ballymote, Book of_, 340 n., 410. + + Banshee, 25-6, 81, 99, 220, 304-5, 437-8. + + ---- Science and, 484. + + Baranton, Fountain of, 429. + + Bard, 11, 98, 138, 163, 283, 317 n., 365-6, 378. + + ---- Irish, 344. + + _Barddas_, 365-7, 378-9, 515. + + Barra, 85, 100 ff. + + _Beltene_ (Baaltine), 100 n., 439: + _see_ May Day. + + Ben Bulbin, 3, 44, 56, 58, 237, 242, 284, 293, 300. + + Beroul, 325. + + Boron, Robt. de, 325. + + Boyne, 2, 34, 292, 410, 412, 415. + + Bran, 259, 334. + + ---- _Voyage of_, 329, 338-40, 373. + + Broceliande, 15, 188, 327, 435. + + Brownie, 164-5, 207, 220, 229. + + _Bucca_, 164, 175: + _see_ Puck. + + + Caedmon, 240, 243. + + Cambrensis, Giraldus, 149 n., 324. + + Cardigan, 146, 155, 334, 389. + + Ca(e)ridwen, 157 n., 378. + + Carmarthen, 147, 149 ff., 390. + + ---- _Black Book of_, 329. + + ---- Fall of, 435. + + Carnac, xiii, 199 n., 271, 398-9, 407, 418-9, 428. + + ---- Etymology of, xv. + + ---- Mystic Centre, as, 13-5, 221. + + Carnarvon, 143-4. + + _Ceilidh_, Description of, 6. + + Changelings, 34, 78, 87, 91, 96, 98, 101, 104, 110, 128, 132, 136-7, + 143, 146, 148, 150, 154, 156, 170-1, 177, 179, 182, 198, 204, + 210-2, 230, 265, 280-1: + _see_ Charms, Fairy. + + ---- Anthropology and, 244-53. + + ---- Explanation of, 491. + + ---- Science and, 487. + + Channel Islands, 403, 406-7. + + Charms, 42, 49, 171, 176, 258-9: + _see_ Exorcism. + + ---- Fairy, against, 37-8, 49, 58, 87, 91, 95, 97, 112, 124-5, 132, + 146, 177, 179, 199, 204, 210, 212, 250, 253, 265, 268, 314. + + ---- Witchcraft, against, 122. + + Chaucer, 326. + + Chretien, 311, 325, 430. + + Christabel, 202. + + Christian Science and Witchcraft, 261-2. + + Christianity, Esoteric, 360 n., 361-2. + + ---- Fairies and, xvi, 42, 70, 91, 115, 152 n., 153, 168-9, 201, 216, + 245, 253, 257, 259, 266-74, 268, 284-5, 293, 296 n., 320, 349-50, + 354-7, 370, 373, 407, 410 n., 427 ff., 434 ff., 439, 441, 444 ff., + 452 ff.: + _see_ Changelings, Cult, Exorcism, Fairy-Faith, and Purgatory. + + Clairvoyance, 55, 73, 140 n., 175, 182, 205, 285, 311: + _see_ Second-sight, Seers, and Vision. + + ---- Science and, 473, 478. + + Clontarf, 305 ff. + + _Coir Anmann_, 286, 291, 369. + + _Colloquy_: _see_ _Agallamh_. + + Connaught, 42, 289, 295, 300. + + Connemara, xxi, 2. + + Connla, 259, 335, 349-50. + + Coracle (_currach_), 350, 352. + + _Cormac's Voyage_, 340-3. + + _Corrigan_, 15, 92, 159 n., 195, 198, 206 ff., 215, 223-4, 229, 238, + 241, 250-1, 398, 404-6, 493. + + ---- Etymology of, 206 n. + + Cromlech: _see_ Archaeology. + + ---- Etymology of, 402 n. + + Cruachan, 286, 288-9, 431, 440, 451. + + Crystal-gazing, 510. + + Cuchulainn, 2, 3-4, 70, 74-5, 96 n., 238, 277-8, 302-3, 307, 309, 316, + 334, 353, 441: + _see_ Re-birth. + + ---- _Sick-Bed of_, 286, 345-6. + + ---- Sun-god, as, 310. + + Cult, 100 n., 163, 281, 442: + _see_ Arthur, Cuchulainn, _Sidhe_, and Tuatha De Danann. + + ---- Agricultural, 80 n., 279, 291, 351, 408, 435. + + ---- Cattle, of, 199 n., 273. + + ---- Dead, of, 281, 299, 408-9 ff., 436 ff.; + Christian, 452-5. + + ---- Fairies, of, 190, 436 ff. + + ---- Gods, of, 118, 164, 175 n., 200, 239, 246, 279, 281, 283, 291, 299, + 342, 399 ff., 407 ff., 433 ff., 440, 448. + + ---- Saints, of, 83, 190, 193, 284. + + ---- Spirits, of, 124 n., 164, 175, 227, 229, 281, 284, 411 ff., 428-9, + 436 ff. + + ---- Stones, of, 399 ff., 427-8: + _see_ Archaeology. + + ---- Sun, of, 12, 100 n., 127, 132 n., 173, 176 n., 179 n., 309, 321, + 369, 380, 389-90, 402-3, 405-6, 408, 416 ff., 450-1; + Christianity and, 452 ff.; + Significance of, 420 ff., 439. + + ---- Trees, of, 176, 229, 427-8, 433 ff. + + ---- Waters, of, 78, 163, 179, 223-4, 284, 427 ff., 450 n. + + Culture Hero, 238, 309, 320-1, 380-2, 417. + + + _Da Derga's Hostel_, 287. + + Daemons (Demons), 7, 15, 158, 197, 202, 204, 212, 237-8, 241, 249-52, + 256-9, 263-71, 279-80, 286, 287 n., 288, 303, 306, 310, 314, 360, + 430, 436, 446. + + ---- Nature of, 493. + + ---- Science and, 480-1, 483. + + Dagda, 286, 291-2, 294, 298, 300-1, 318, 320, 410, 416. + + _Daoine Maithe_, 53, 69. + + Dead, Legend of, 280. + + ---- Breton, 14, 29, 169, 194-5, 212 ff., 392, 404. + + ---- Cornish, 169-70, 178, 180-1, 183. + + ---- Irish, 33, 48, 53, 55, 68, 71-2, 74-7. + + ---- Scotch, 95. + + ---- Welsh, 142 n., 152. + + Death-candle (or Corpse-candle), 10, 145, 153, 155, 207, 220-1. + + Death-coach, 71, 221. + + Death-warning, 10, 169, 180, 213, 220, 304-5. + + Demon-Possession, 228: + _see_ Exorcism and Possession. + + ---- Science and, 487 ff. + + ---- Theory of, 249 ff. + + Dermot, 41, 44, 57 n., 354. + + ---- Pre-existence of, 376. + + Devil, 123, 157, 180, 201, 241, 263, 271, 319, 446. + + ---- Worship, 258 n., 421. + + Devonshire Pixies, 179. + + Diana, as Moon-Goddess, 80 n. + + _Dinnshenchas_, 78 n., 81 n., 260, 301. + + Divination, 150, 176 n., 258, 264, 278, 343, 405, 428, 432. + + Dolmen: _see_ Archaeology. + + ---- Etymology of, 402 n. + + Donegal, 61, 72, 442. + + Dowth, 2, 61. + + Dream, 41, 50, 55, 58, 68, 159, 180-1, 281. + + ---- Fairyland and, 490. + + ---- Re-birth and, 383, 511 ff. + + ---- Science and, 459, 464 ff., 508, 511 ff. + + Druids, 10, 12, 14, 31, 52, 82 n., 85, 138, 147, 152, 157 n., 216, + 256-7, 259, 265-7, 278, 292, 299, 345-6, 351, 356, 441, 444, 457: + _see_ Exorcism, Magic, and Magicians. + + Druids, Irish, 343. + + ---- Magic and, 489 n. + + ---- Oak and, 433 ff. + + ---- Re-birth and, 359, 364, 367, 369, 378 n., 387-91, 394. + + ---- Well-worship and, 432. + + _Dun Cow, Book of_: _see_ _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_. + + Dwarfs, 81 n., 192, 195, 203-4, 206 ff., 235, 237-8, 405: + _see_ Pygmy. + + _Dynion Hysbys_, 146, 151, 253, 264, 436: + _see_ Magicians. + + + _Echtra Nerai_, 287, 290, 413. + + Ecstasy, 61, 91, 512. + + ---- Fairyland and, 490. + + ---- Science and, 472, 486. + + Ego, Existence of, 496. + + ---- Idea of, 497. + + ---- Nature of, 504 n., 515. + + _Eisteddfod_, 11, 405 n. + + Elementals, 65, 167, 241-2, 256-7. + + ---- Science and, 481. + + _Ellyllon_ (Elves) and Fairies, 233 ff., 432, 493. + + ---- Science and, 483. + + ---- Worship of, 436. + + Elysian Fields, 338, 358, 416. + + Enchantment, 35-6, 52, 113: + _see_ Magic. + + ---- Fairy, 35, 75, 78, 113, 199, 301, 386. + + Environment, xvii, xx, xxii, 1 ff., 107, 115, 123, 173, 209, 221, 226, + 282. + + ---- Science and, 499. + + Erisgey, 91 n., 100. + + Etain, 369. + + ---- Birth of, 374-6, 395. + + Exorcism, 228, 253, 265-74, 277, 281: + _see_ Changelings, and Magic. + + ---- Baptism, as, 269-70. + + ---- Dead, of, 178. + + ---- defined, 266. + + ---- Spirits, of, 42, 67, 123, 125, 172, 179, 250, 287 n., 402. + + ---- Welsh, 272. + + Exorcists, 264, 269: + _see_ Magicians. + + + Faerie Queen, 318. + + Fairy: _see_ Apparitions, Angel, Astral Spirits, Banshee, Brownie, + _Bucca_, Changelings, _Corrigan_, Cult, Dead, Death, Devil, + Dwarfs, Elementals, _Ellyllon_ (_Elves_), Fates, _Fees_, + _Fenodyree_, Fir Bolgs, Fomors, Ghost, Gnomes, Goblin, Goddesses, + _Grac'hed coz_, Kelpy, Lapps, Lares, Lemures, Leprechaun, + _Lutins_, Manes, Mermaid, _Morgan_, Nereids, Penates, Phantom, + Pict, Pixies, Proserpine, Puck, Salamanders, Satyrs, + Shape-shifting, _Siabra_, _Sidhe_, Soul, Spirits, Succubi, + Swan-Maidens, Sylph, Troll, Tuatha De Danann, Undines, Vivian, + White Lady, Witch. + + Fairy Abduction of animals, 93 n., 95, 106, 109. + + ---- Abduction of People, 7, 33, 37, 40, 45-8, 51, 53, 56, 68-9, 72, 75, + 82 n., 89, 98, 101-2, 104, 109, 113, 120-1, 125, 130, 135, 145, + 166 n., 174, 181, 219, 245, 248, 251-2, 289-90, 294 ff., 316, 326, + 342, 347, 353, 356, 431: + _see_ Changeling, Otherworld, and Re-birth. + + ---- Army, 33, 50, 55, 57, 68, 74, 133. + + ---- Arrow, 88, 119. + + ---- Astrology, 327. + + ---- Baking, 127. + + ---- Bathing, 136, 155, 182, 326, 342. + + ---- Beating, 41, 72. + + ---- Belt, 106. + + ---- Birds, 200, 220, 267, 302-7, 329, 334, 345, 355, 376: + _see_ _Badb_. + + ---- Blinding, 54, 131, 136, 140, 182, 205, 209. + + ---- Boat-Race, 80. + + ---- Borrowing, 136. + + ---- Bush: _see_ Fairy Tree, and Cult of Trees. + + ---- Cattle, 143, 147, 203. + + ---- Churning and, 43, 97, 132, 253. + + ---- Cock-crow and, 220, 327. + + ---- Colour, Green, 10, 103, 106, 110-1, 207, 294, 298, 312-4, 345, 349, + 352; + Red, 32, 72, 131, 133, 142, 152-60, 181, 289-90, 345. + + ---- Crops and, 38, 43, 291: + _see_ Cult of Agriculture. + + ---- Curse, 82, 97, 178, 376 n. + + ---- Dance, 41, 56, 72, 86, 88, 92, 111, 116, 124-5, 131, 135, 139, + 142-3, 146, 148, 155, 159-60, 171, 173, 175, 181-2, 207-9, 211; + explanation of, 281; + origin of, 405-6. + + ---- Deceit, 127. + + ---- Description of, 46, 60, 68, 77, 116, 122, 133, 141, 177, 187, 200, + 205, 211, 242-3, 297, 349-50, 352: + _see_ Fairy Dress. + + ---- Dog, 40, 120, 122, 129, 134, 259. + + ---- Dress, 45, 55, 67, 74, 95, 103, 116, 123, 131, 133, 143, 155, 160, + 181, 192, 204-5, 208, 289, 294, 297-8, 339, 345, 349-50, 352. + + ---- Drops, 44. + + ---- Dwelling, 32, 37, 41, 46, 73, 76-8, 86-8, 93, 95, 97, 99 n., 104, + 108, 110, 112-3, 126, 131, 136, 142, 144, 147-9, 151, 172, 188, + 200, 203-4, 206, 209, 211, 220, 235, 289, 294, 306, 316-7, 327, + 416: + _see_ Otherworld. + + ---- Festivals, 39. + + ---- Fights, 43, 91. + + ---- Flies, 39. + + ---- Food, 44, 47, 68, 219, 275, 279, 292-3, 349, 353, 356, 447: + _see_ Sacrifice, Food. + + ---- Fort (Dun), 2, 24, 31-2, 36, 38, 55, 72, 349-50, 413: + _see_ Fairy Dwelling. + + ---- Fountain and, 101, 210, 223, 264, 341-3, 353: + _see_ Cult of Waters. + + ---- Fulling, 98. + + ---- Games, 41, 51, 76, 149. + + ---- Guardian, 46, 76, 78, 179, 189-90, 192-3, 197, 207, 211, 219, 273, + 327, 415, 438. + + ---- Herb, 53, 87, 175. + + ---- Hill (Knoll, and Mound), 79-80, 89, 97, 220, 237, 243, 288, 290, + 293, 296, 299, 301, 306, 349, 374, 431, 437. + + ---- Hosts (_Sluagh_), xxi, 91, 104, 106, 108. + + ---- Hunchback and, 92, 143, 198-9, 208. + + ---- Hunting, 41, 56, 94, 134. + + ---- Iron and, 34, 87-8, 95, 98 n., 124 n., 138, 144, 147: + _see_ Taboo, Iron. + + ---- Island, 49, 147, 220, 316, 334, 339: + _see_ Avalon, and Otherworld. + + ---- Kings and Queens, 28, 34, 44, 63, 92, 149-51, 200, 202, 218, 292, + 300-1, 336, 354. + + ---- Mr. Lang and, 475. + + ---- Love, 112. + + ---- Mid-wife (or Nurse) and, 54, 127, 136, 140, 175, 205. + + ---- Mine and, 165, 182, 241. + + ---- Money (Riches, &c.), 71, 82, 142, 146, 156, 158, 160, 162, 200, + 289, 297. + + ---- Music, 24, 31, 40, 47, 56-7, 61, 69, 71-2, 74, 81 n., 86, 95, 103, + 111, 118, 124, 131, 141, 159, 162, 181, 211, 297 ff., 336, 339, + 340-2, 355-6, 482; + Mr. Lang and, 475; + Science and, 484. + + ---- Names, 22, 30, 52, 72, 82, 117, 153, 164, 182, 203, 207, 231, 274, + 293, 307; + objects and, 86. + + ---- Natural Phenomena and, xxii, 41, 92, 204, 219, 227, 256, 265, 279, + 307: + _see_ Fairy, Crops; and Sacrifice, Food. + + ---- Nature of, 24, 32, 36, 41, 46, 63 ff., 73, 76-7, 80, 94, 99, 102, + 104-5, 109, 113-4, 117, 120, 123, 125-6, 133-4, 137-9, 142, 143 + n., 144-5, 147-8, 150, 152, 171-3, 176-7, 180, 182, 207, 211, 218 + ff., 235 ff., 243, 254, 279, 307, 327, 409, 496. + + ---- Path (or Pass), 33, 38, 67, 77, 150, 218, 231, 277. + + ---- Pig, as, 126. + + ---- Power, 47, 67, 72, 82, 88, 95, 113, 121, 150, 183, 219, 253, 262, + 265. + + ---- Prayer, 118, 129. + + ---- Preserves, 38, 78, 277, 293. + + ---- Procession, 33, 57, 67, 74, 79 n., 80 n., 126, 134, 218, 277, 288. + + ---- Prophet, 47, 94, 139, 160, 197, 211, 290, 302 n., 305. + + ---- Reality of, 490, 492 ff. + + ---- Revenge, 92, 95, 97, 125, 142, 146, 177, 180, 191, 196, 199, 205, + 208-10, 220, 293: + _see_ Fairy, Hunchback. + + ---- Ring, 2, 91, 142-3, 148-9, 151, 161, 181-2, 184, 208. + + ---- Science and, 240, 281-2, 307, 456-515. + + ---- Smallness of, 32, 41, 47, 72, 99, 102, 104, 123, 125, 133, 140, + 143, 146, 148, 151, 155, 159, 171, 173, 176-7, 179-81, 184, 207, + 211, 219, 233-44, 281. + + ---- Song, 40, 71, 86, 92, 98-9, 101, 104, 112, 114, 118, 139, 143, 148, + 201-2, 208-9, 301, 339, 342, 345, 375. + + ---- Spell (and Stroke), 53, 91, 126, 136, 159, 164, 173, 218, 219, + 230-1, 252-3, 265, 268, 286, 297, 326, 330, 345, 356, 431: + _see_ Exorcism; Fairy, Hunchback; Magic; and Magicians. + + ---- Spinning, 88, 110. + + ---- Stations, 46. + + ---- Stature, 47, 62, 67-8, 77, 96, 114, 123, 141, 148, 233 ff., 242: + _see_ Fairy, Smallness of. + + ---- Tree (or Bush), 33, 70, 78, 126, 277, 292, 435: + _see_ Cult of Trees. + + ---- Tribes, 32, 52. + + ---- Tricks, 127, 143, 177, 183-4, 191, 205, 207, 211, 320. + + ---- Visits, 122, 136, 138, 146, 155, 160: + _see_ Otherworld. + + ---- Voice (or Talking), 47, 68, 134, 139, 155, 162, 187-9, 203; + Science and, 485. + + ---- Wand: _see_ Wands. + + ---- War, 44, 46, 50, 207, 211: + _see_ _Sidhe_. + + ---- Water, and, 38, 270, 311-2, 318, 446: + _see_ Cult of Waters. + + ---- Weaving, 74. + + ---- Whistle, 46, 208. + + ---- Wife, 135, 138, 146, 148, 162, 200, 289, 297, 318 n., 325, 328, + 346-7, 412. + + ---- Woman, xxiv, 2, 4, 54, 76-8, 99, 103-4, 110-1, 121, 135, 138, 143, + 186, 189, 200-2, 286-7, 293, 296-7, 305, 311, 314, 326, 333, 335, + 337-9, 342, 345-7, 351-2: + _see_ _Sidhe_ and Tuatha De Danann. + + Fairy-Faith, African, 228, 281. + + ---- Albanian, 230. + + ---- American, 228, 237, 246, 281. + + ---- Animism of, 282, 458, 477. + + ---- Antiquity of, 99, 163, 178, 194, 213, 216, 221, 231, 244, 256, 266, + 269, 278, 307, 321, 325, 331, 354, 357, 395, 408, 427, 432, 439, + 441, 457, 477. + + ---- Arabian, 229. + + ---- Australian, 227, 281. + + ---- Breton, 185, 225. + + ---- Chinese, 228, 250. + + ---- Collecting Evidence of, xix. + + ---- Comparative, 226 ff., 281, 307, 457, 475. + + ---- Cornish, 163-85. + + ---- Degeneration of, 458. + + ---- Egyptian, 229. + + ---- Esoteric, 457-8, 492 ff. + + ---- Etruscan, 231. + + ---- Exoteric, 457-8. + + ---- German, 231. + + ---- Greek, 230, 246. + + ---- Importance of Studying, xxv, 22. + + ---- Indian, 228, 238. + + ---- Interpretation of, xvi, 18, 25, 28-30, 59, 171, 225, 277, 281, 383, + 471, 489, 515. + + ---- Irish, 23-84. + + ---- Italian, 231. + + ---- Japanese, 228, 440. + + ---- Malay, 228, 238. + + ---- Manx, 117-35. + + ---- Melanesian, 227, 265, 277. + + ---- Metaphysics of, 458. + + ---- Methods of studying, xviii. + + ---- Mexican, 246. + + ---- Nature of, 18, 70, 90, 94, 105, 109, 117-8, 126, 133, 145-6, 225, + 233, 235-6, 256, 281, 296 n., 307, 433, 438, 458, 477. + + ---- Origin of, xvi, 18, 70, 90, 99, 137, 168, 178, 226, 244-5, 257, + 398, 432-3, 452, 455, 457-8, 477. + + ---- Persian, 229. + + ---- Philosophy of, 18-20. + + ---- Polynesian, 238, 248, 281. + + ---- Psychical Phenomena and, 459: + _see_ Science and Fairies. + + ---- Religion and, xvi, 22, 70, 78, 83, 90, 99, 100 n., 118, 123, 125, + 152 n., 163, 168, 194, 221, 245, 256-7, 266, 269, 271, 274, 296 + n., 344, 354, 364, 388, 404, 406-8, 421, 427 ff., 439, 441, 442 + ff., 450 n., 452 ff., 457-8, 477: + _see_ Cult, and Christianity. + + ---- Roumain, 230. + + ---- Scandinavian, 231. + + ---- Science and, 119, 456 ff. + + ---- Scotch, 84-116. + + ---- Siamese, 229. + + ---- State of, in Brittany, 205; + in Cornwall, 170, 180; + in Highlands, 84, 88, 90, 91, 94, 99. + + ---- Swiss, 231. + + ---- Theology and, 42, 91, 99, 127, 146, 168, 244, 360-3, 365 n., 369, + 370, 373, 493. + + ---- Theories of, xxi, 20, 84, 118; + Delusion and Imposture, 462-4, 489; + Druid, xxiii; + Materialistic, xxv, 461, 489; + Mythological, xxiv; + Naturalistic, xxi, 1, 8, 152 n.; + Pathological, 461-2, 489; + Psychical, 1, 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, 61, 171, 265, 405, 409, 477, 489 ff.; + Psychological, xxii, 20, 95, 202, 211, 253, 274, 305, 330, 338, 383, + 427, 441, 515; + Psycho-Physical, 459-60, 489; + Pygmy, xxii, 119, 148 n., 169, 219, 234-5, 241, 245, 276, 398. + + ---- Turkish, 229. + + ---- Unity of, 233, 329, 331, 357, 396. + + ---- Welsh, 135-63. + + ---- X-quantity of, 282; + Outlined, 459; + Testing of, 480 ff., 490-1. + + Fairyland: _see_ Avalon, Hades, Otherworld, and Purgatory. + + ---- Dead and, 40, 43, 56, 68-9, 72, 123, 194-5, 202, 214, 217, 219-20, + 251, 280, 350, 490: + _see_ Dead, Legend of, and under Death. + + ---- Going to, 40, 43, 55, 65, 68-9, 148, 154, 161, 175, 248, 251-2, + 295, 299, 302, 306, 348, 413, 469 ff., 490: + _see_ Abduction of People, under Fairy; and Changelings. + + ---- Nature of, 18, 39, 43, 60 ff., 70, 84, 120, 123, 137 n., 144, 149 + n., 150-1, 154, 167, 171, 194-5, 202, 219, 281, 296 n., 310, 312, + 317, 335, 350, 383, 416, 452, 493: + _see_ Otherworld. + + ---- Origin of belief in, 235, 245, 281, 452. + + ---- Reality of, 18, 84, 154, 469, 490, 493, 515. + + ---- Return from, 39, 48-9, 51, 98, 130, 149, 162, 252, 265, 295, 296 + n., 299, 316, 347: + _see_ Changelings. + + ---- Science and, 490. + + ---- Time in, 88, 95, 113, 135, 145, 149, 154, 162, 175-6, 296 n., 329, + 339, 350, 354, 469 ff., 473. + + Fallen Angels as Fairies, 67, 76, 85, 105-6, 109, 113, 116, 129, 154, + 205, 212, 231, 241. + + Fand, 316, 345-6. + + Fascination, 258. + + Fasting, 179, 267, 412-4, 422, 445, 447 n. + + Fate, Irish Idea of, 278. + + Fates, 203, 231, 327. + + Feast of Dead, 218, 288-9, 299, 439 ff., 452 ff.: + _see_ Dead, Legend of; and November Day. + + _Fees_, xxiv, 195 ff., 216, 231, 257, 327, 347. + + Fennel, 79, 83. + + _Fenodyree_, 120, 129, 131. + + Fermanagh, 73. + + Fetishism, 259, 401, 402 n. + + _Fiacc's Hymn_, 436. + + Fianna, 287 n., 293, 298, 347, 443. + + Find, Re-birth of, 370-4. + + Finvara, 2, 28, 42, 44, 300. + + Fionn (or Finn), 2, 58 n., 259, 287 n., 292, 298-9, 302, 334, 376, + 414-5, 441, 443. + + Fir Bolgs, 32, 70, 285, 417. + + Fomors, 70, 303, 307, 310, 335. + + Food-Sacrifice: _see_ Sacrifice. + + _Fountain, Lady of_, 325. + + ---- Cult of: _see_ Cult. + + Fourth Dimension, 167. + + ---- Science and, 487. + + Freemasonry, 313 n., 422, 449. + + + Galahad, 315-6, 317 n. + + Galway, 39, 42. + + Gauvain, 312, 316, 348, 447. + + Gavrinis, 15, 409 ff., 415, 418, 423-4 ff., 451. + + 'Gentry': _see_ Fairy Names. + + Geoffrey, 308 n., 322-3, 330, 403. + + Ghost, 3, 7, 10, 26, 29, 47, 67, 70, 118, 121, 124, 145, 152, 156, 172, + 180, 184, 191-2, 217, 219-20, 228, 238, 247-9, 257, 265, 277, 280, + 282, 285, 289, 291, 330, 368, 398-9, 446: + _see_ Dead, and Death. + + ---- Fairy and, 438. + + ---- Science and, 19, 477. + + Giant, xxiii, 163, 192. + + Gildas, 321. + + Glamorgan, 158. + + _Glashtin_, 131. + + Gnomes, 241-3. + + ---- Science and, 481, 483. + + Gnosticism, 361-2. + + Goblin, 143, 145, 207, 220, 241, 306. + + Goddess, 78-9, 83, 229, 369, 378, 390, 457. + + Goddess Dana, 283-307. + + ---- Mother, 283, 284 n., 290, 390. + + Gods: _see_ Cult. + + ---- Science and, 480. + + 'Good People': _see_ Fairy Names. + + Gospel Stories and Fairy-Faith, 168. + + Gower, 10, 158 ff. + + _Grac'hed coz_, 195 ff. + + Graelent, 326. + + Grail, Holy, 311, 316, 325, 353. + + ---- Holy, Cup, as, 342, 350. + + Grania, 41, 57 n. + + _Gruagach_, 92. + + _Guingemor_, 326, 348. + + Gwenhwyvar, 152 n., 310-4, 316. + + Gwion, Re-birth of, 378. + + Gwydion, 151-2 n., 379, 417. + + Gwynn Ab Nudd, 152 n., 319-20. + + + Hades, 296 n., 310, 312, 336-8, 352-3, 411, 445. + + ---- Origin of belief in, 452. + + ---- Purgatory, as, 447. + + ---- Science and, 514. + + ---- Sun-cult and, 422. + + Halloween, 38, 91, 93 n., 179: + _see_ November Day, and _Samain_. + + Hallucinations: _see_ Apparitions. + + ---- Science and, 459, 461, 464, 490. + + Harlech, 10, 144, 334. + + Hebrides, 4, 7, 9, 90, 100 ff. + + _Hergest, Red Book of_, 308 n., 330. + + Highlands, 5, 7, 93 ff. + + _Hui Corra, Voyage of_, 354. + + Hy Brasil, 334. + + Hypnotism, 255, 265, 466, 488, 507-8. + + + Iamblichus, 254, 257 n., 400, 484. + + Immortality, Non-personal, 503 ff., 509 n. + + Incantation, 176, 259: + _see_ Charms. + + Initiates, 59, 313 n., 336-7, 358, 378, 423-4. + + Initiations, 13, 78, 157 n., 179 n., 257, 313 n., 336-8, 342, 353, + 378-9, 405-6, 411-2, 415-6, 419, 422, 425, 444 ff., 447 ff. + + Initiations, Celtic, 342-3, 409 ff. + + ---- Nature of, 447 n. + + Innishmurray, 49, 54, 334. + + Inverness, 4, 93. + + _Iolo MS._, 308 n. + + Iona, 7, 93, 436. + + + Jack-in-the-Green, 435. + + Jeanne d'Arc, 263-4. + + Jews, Re-birth and, 359. + + ---- Sun-cult, and, 421. + + + Karnak and Carnac, xv. + + Kelpy, xxi, 3, 28, 207. + + Kerry, 61, 83, 340. + + Kirk, Robt., 66, 85, 89, 91 n., 237, 279 n., 293. + + Knowth, 34. + + _Kulhwch and Olwen_, 317-20, 328, 451. + + ---- Date of, 331. + + + Lake, Lady of, 78, 79 n., 314-7, 327, 379. + + Lancelot, 312, 315-6, 348. + + Land's End, 181. + + Lanval, 325, 326. + + _Lanval's Voyage_, 347-8. + + Lapps, xxiii, 234 n.-5, 244. + + Lares, 438. + + Layamon, 308 n., 323. + + Leaba Mologa, 414. + + _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_ (_Book of the Dun Cow_), 259, 285, 292, 353, 374, + 377, 409. + + ---- Age of, 283 n. + + Lear, 7, 118, 135, 322: + _see_ Manannan. + + _Lebar Brecc_, 271, 313 n., 454. + + _Lebar Gabala_, 292. + + _Lecan, Y. B. of_, Age of, 283 n. + + Leinster, 294, 371. + + ---- _Book of_, 285, 292, 303, 356; + age of, 283 n. + + Lemures, 438. + + Leprechaun, 25, 28, 47, 52, 71, 82, 235-6, 241, 243, 493. + + ---- Etymology of, 236. + + _Lia Fail_, 14, 401. + + Libations to Fairies, 36, 92-3, 200, 218, 273, 291. + + Lights, 7, 61, 77, 83, 133, 145, 155, 180, 207, 215. + + ---- Science and, 463, 483-4. + + Limerick, 78, 386. + + _Lismore, Book of_, 401, 412; + age of, 283 n. + + Lough Derg, 72, 442 ff. + + Lough Gur, 78, 386. + + Lug, 62, 292, 369, 450. + + _Lugnasadh_, 451. + + _Lutins_, 159 n., 190-1, 206 ff., 493. + + Lyonesse, 12, 167. + + + _Mabinogion_, 10, 260, 297, 304, 317, 328-9, 451. + + ---- Age of, 308 n., 331. + + ---- Editions of, 308 n. + + _Mael-Duin's Voyage_, 348. + + Magic, 10, 93, 120, 131, 153, 156, 168, 171, 204, 245, 250, 253-65, 281, + 292, 299, 324, 328, 339, 346, 380-1: + _see_ Charms, Divination, Magicians, Necromancy, Fairy Spell, Witches, + and Witchcraft. + + ---- Ancient, 255-60. + + ---- Celtic, 256-7, 259-60. + + ---- Fairy, 42, 199, 203, 265, 327. + + ---- Frazer, Dr., and, 254-5. + + ---- Indian, 258, 489 n. + + ---- Religion and, 42, 255, 287 n., 292, 381, 404-5: + _see_ Exorcism, and Taboo. + + ---- Roman Church and, 42, 237 n. + + ---- Study of, 257, 489 n. + + ---- Taboo and, 274 ff. + + ---- Theories of, 253. + + Magicians, 131, 156, 227-8, 247, 253-5, 257, 262-5, 268, 299, 329, 344, + 380-1, 417, 433, 437, 489 n.: + _see_ Manannan, and Merlin. + + Magnetism, Animal, 262. + + Malory, 308 n., 312, 315, 323, 380. + + _Mana_, 254-5, 262, 265, 278, 479. + + Manannan, 7, 62, 80 n., 118, 120, 131-2 n., 135, 299, 333, 335, 339, + 342-3, 345-6, 356, 372-4, 376. + + ---- Hermes, like, 343 n. + + Manes, 438, 441. + + Marazion, 173. + + Maerchen, 23. + + Marie de France, 308 n., 325-6, 348. + + Math, 417. + + _Matter of Britain_, 328, 331. + + May Day, 312, 435. + + ---- Fairies and, 43, 53, 100 n., 124. + + Meath, 297, 415. + + Meave (_Medb_), 3, 43, 70, 288-9, 301, 440. + + Megaliths, Alignement of, 419 ff.: + _see_ Archaeology. + + Melwas, 311, 313-4, 316. + + Menhir: _see_ Archaeology. + + Merionethshire, 144. + + Merlin, 10, 149, 314-5, 321-2, 329-30, 403, 417, 429, 435-7, 447. + + Mermaid, 25, 28. + + _Mesca Ulad_, 344. + + Midir, 302, 311, 374-6, 413. + + Mil, 284, 291: + _see_ Milesians. + + Milesians, 32, 287, 303, 349, 372, 377 n. + + Mithras, 448. + + Modred, 322, 324. + + Mongan, 260. + + ---- Re-birth of, 370 ff., 394-5. + + Montgomeryshire, 145. + + Morbihan, xv, 199 n., 273, 399, 401, 403-4, 428. + + _Morgan_, 200-1, 352. + + ---- _le Fay_, 311, 315, 327. + + _Morrigu_, 302-3, 305, 315: + _see_ _Badb_. + + Moytura, 2, 303, 335. + + Munster, 300, 348. + + Mysteries, xiii, 14, 59, 173, 257-9, 313 n., 337-8, 343, 359, 365, 377 + n., 405 ff., 409 ff. + + ---- Celtic, 409 ff., 444 ff. + + ---- Nature of, 411, 422, 448 ff. + + ---- Puberty, 449 ff. + + Mysticism, xvii, 1, 2, 5, 8, 9, 13-4, 58-9, 78, 313, 341 n., 356, 360 + n., 364, 377 n. + + ---- Comparative, 457-8. + + Mythology, Interpretation of Irish, 307. + + ---- Origin of, 281, 455. + + + Necromancy, 151 n., 258, 404, 489 n. + + Nennius, 308 n., 322. + + Nereids, 230-1. + + New Grange, 2, 36, 61, 409 ff., 451. + + Newlyn, 178 ff. + + Nirvana, Meaning of, 366, 391. + + November Day (or Eve), Origin of, 439, 453. + + ---- Fairies and, 38, 53, 73, 91, 93 n., 100 n., 179, 213, 218, 288-9, + 301: + _see_ _Samain_. + + Nuada, 319. + + Nymphs, 229-31. + + + Obsession: _see_ Possession. + + Occultism, Discussion of, 240. + + Ogam, 340, 372. + + Ogier, 348. + + Oracles, 10, 15, 410, 448. + + Osiris, xv, 309 n., 310, 320-1, 381, 422, 439-40. + + Ossian (Oisin), 57, 260, 299. + + _Ossian's Voyage_, 346-7, 357. + + Otherworld, 60, 62, 78, 123, 194, 220, 246-7, 252, 277-8, 281, 295, 311, + 316, 318, 321, 371-3, 443. + + ---- Atlantis and, 33 n., 59. + + ---- Classical, 336-7. + + ---- Description of, 332-8, 340-3, 349 ff. + + ---- Egyptian, 380-1, 422. + + ---- Evolution of idea of, 333 n., 353-7. + + ---- Heaven, as, 354-5, 446. + + ---- Hell, as, 355. + + ---- Interpreted, 70, 285, 337-8, 356, 492. + + ---- Location of, 332-4. + + ---- Names of, 334-5. + + ---- Nature of, 332-8, 340-3, 356-7. + + ---- New Zealand, 275. + + ---- Passport to, 336-7. + + ---- Polynesian, 275. + + ---- Purgatory, as, 281, 354, 364: + _see_ Purgatory. + + ---- Re-birth and, 334, 365: + _see_ Re-birth. + + ---- Science and, 514-5. + + ---- Virgil on, 336-7, 382, 445. + + ---- Voyages, 328, 335, 338-57, 378-80. + + + Paimpont, 188: + _see_ Broceliande. + + Pantheism, Celtic, 377 n. + + Paracelsus, 167, 240, 254. + + Pardon, Breton, 428, 450 n. + + Peel, 129, 132, 387. + + Pembrokeshire, 147, 153, 161. + + Penates, 190, 229. + + Penzance, 12, 174 ff., 391. + + 'People of Peace,' Origin of name, 438 n.: + _see_ Fairy Names. + + Phallicism, 402 n. + + Phantom: _see_ Apparition, Dead, Death, Fairy, Ghost, and Science and + Fairies. + + ---- Coach, 25. + + ---- Funeral, 10, 126, 145, 152, 213-5, 221. + + ---- Horse, 79 n., 215. + + ---- Ship, 25. + + ---- Washerwomen, 212, 216. + + Philtres, 258. + + Phoenicians, 12, 173, 176, 395-6. + + Pict, 165-6, 234 n.-5. + + Pin-Wells, 430. + + Pixies, 158-9, 164 ff., 207, 220, 229, 238, 241, 250, 398, 406, 493. + + ---- Etymology of, 165. + + Pliny on Druids, 256, 259, 260, 433. + + Pluto, 312, 337, 367, 452. + + _Poltergeist_ Phenomena, 67, 74, 88, 120, 124-5, 132, 156, 162, 164, + 218, 220, 488. + + ---- Fairies and, 475-6, 482, 484. + + ---- Science and, 459, 463, 481, 490. + + Possession, 34, 69, 112, 207, 265, 268 ff., 375: + _see_ Demon-Possession, and Exorcism. + + ---- Science and, 472. + + Proserpine, 312, 336-8, 382, 450 n., 475. + + Psychical Research, 14, 255, 265, 365, 459, 461 ff., 471 ff., 493, 497, + 502 ff. + + ---- Society, 268, 330, 398, 447 n., 488. + + Psychic Centres, 14, 74, 221, 299, 410-1: + _see_ Mysteries. + + Psychological Theory: _see_ Fairy-Faith, Theories of. + + Psychology, Social, 232, 251, 282, 289, 307, 458, 469, 475 n., 476 n. + + Puck (_Puca_), 25, 53, 164, 207. + + ---- Science and, 483. + + Purgatory, 169, 364, 405, 414, 442 ff. + + ---- Fairies and, 76. + + ---- Origin of doctrine of, 452. + + Pygmy, xxii-xxiii, 28, 234 n., 236-9, 245, 398: + _see_ Fairy-Faith, Theories of, Pygmy. + + Pyramid, xv. + + ---- Celtic tumuli and, 418 ff. + + ---- Purpose of, 423 ff. + + + Rag-Bushes, 430. + + Rappings and Science, 459, 463, 475 n., 481, 488. + + Re-birth, 5, 9, 64, 84, 227, 252, 313 n., 353, 358-96. + + ---- Arthur and, 310, 315, 321, 323-4, 379-81, 386, 509 n. + + ---- Australian, 227. + + ---- _Barddas MSS._ on, 365-7, 378, 515. + + ---- Brython, 216, 378-80, 392-3. + + ---- Buddha and, 359, 382, 509, 514. + + ---- Christian, 359-63, 387, 391, 393-5, 513. + + ---- Classical Writers on, 367, 395. + + ---- Darwinism and, 365, 501, 515. + + ---- Dermot's, 376. + + ---- Emerson and, 382. + + ---- Esoteric Doctrine of, 377 n., 503-4, 513 n., 514. + + ---- Fichte and, 382. + + ---- Gnostics and, 361-2. + + ---- Greek, 382. + + ---- Herder and, 382. + + ---- Historical Survey of, 359-65. + + ---- Dr. Hyde on, 368. + + ---- Japanese, 383. + + ---- Jewish, 359, 384 n. + + ---- Jubainville on, 368. + + ---- Lama and, 383. + + ---- Manichaean, 362. + + ---- Modern, 364. + + ---- Modern Celtic, 383-93; + non-Celtic, 364, 380-3. + + ---- Mongan's, 370. + + ---- Origen on, 359-61, 394. + + ---- Origin and Evolution of Doctrine, 393-6. + + ---- Otherworld and, 338, 358, 452. + + ---- Parnell's, 385. + + ---- Philo and, 359. + + ---- Purgatory and, 364, 384, 452. + + ---- Roman Church and, 364. + + ---- Rosicrucians and, 364. + + ---- Schopenhauer and, 382. + + ---- Science and, 469, 492-513. + + ---- Sex in, 375 n., 391. + + ---- Spiritual, 449. + + ---- Sun and, 310, 321, 380, 420. + + ---- Tennyson and, 382. + + ---- Tertullian on, 359-61, 394. + + ---- Tuan's, 377. + + ---- Tuatha De Danann, of, 367-76. + + ---- Whitman and, 382. + + ---- William II and, 383. + + ---- Wordsworth and, 382. + + Religions, Origin of, 226, 455. + + Robin Good-fellow, 207, 220. + + ---- Science and, 481. + + Roman Catholic Theology and Fairies, 42, 168, 270, 364, 452. + + _Romans Bretons_, 326-8. + + Roscommon, 3, 27, 69, 70. + + Rosicrucians, 167, 240-1, 243, 364. + + Rosses Point, 58, 66, 243. + + Ross-shire, 90. + + Round Table, 309-10, 312, 323. + + Round Tower, 59, 98, 129. + + + Sabbath, 215, 264. + + ---- _Corrigan_, 209-10 n. + + Sacrifice, 258-9, 413, 429-30, 434 n., 436 ff., 455. + + ---- Animal, 424, 435. + + ---- Food, 281, 404, 408, 437-8, 441, 454; + Anthropology and, 279-80; + Fairy, to, 36-7, 44, 70, 75, 117, 164, 171, 175, 218, 279-80, 291, + 437: + _see_ Libations. + + ---- Human, 246-7, 251-2, 280, 351, 407, 430, 436. + + Sagas, 30, 368, 374. + + Saints, Communion of, 127. + + Salamanders, 242. + + Salmon, Sacred, 341 n., 433. + + _Samain_, 31, 288-90, 298-9, 345, 439-40, 453: + _see_ November Day. + + Satyrs, 303, 306, 406. + + Science and Fairies, 456-515. + + Second-sight, 43, 91 n., 140: + _see_ Clairvoyance. + + ---- Science and, 486. + + Seers and Seeresses, xviii, 2, 3, 18, 43-4, 55, 60 ff., 72, 76, 80, + 82-3, 91, 94, 96, 122, 124, 141, 152, 155, 158, 177, 182, 206, + 213-4, 217, 227, 242, 264, 284-5, 290, 334, 392-3, 457, 459, 470, + 477. + + Sein, Ile de, 15, 218. + + _Senchus na relec_, 292. + + Serpents, 343. + + ---- St. Patrick and, 444. + + _Sgealta_, 23. + + Shakespeare, 164, 241. + + Shape-shifting, 34-5, 47, 79 n., 81 n., 192, 205, 207, 211, 230, 259, + 293, 301-2, 328, 345, 356, 374, 389. + + _Shoney_, 93, 200. + + _Siabra_ (Ghosts), 285, 310. + + _Sidh_, Definition of, 291. + + _Sidhe_, 27-8, 58-66, 77, 86, 113, 227, 283-307, 314, 334, 352, 431: + _see_ Tuatha De Danann. + + ---- Abductions by, 294-6. + + ---- Clontarf, at, 305-7. + + ---- Minstrels and Musicians, 69, 297-300. + + ---- Nature of, 62-4, 285-91, 307. + + ---- Palaces, 291-3, 300-2, 431. + + ---- Science and, 473, 479. + + ---- Society and Warfare, 60, 63, 65, 291, 300-7, 335. + + ---- Visions of, 60 ff., 296-7. + + ---- War-Goddesses, 302. + + ---- World, 60, 62-5, 295. + + Skye, 4, 96, 98, 257. + + Slieve Gullion, 2, 75-6, 237. + + Sligo, 44, 54, 285, 299. + + _Sluagh_, 108: + _see_ Fairy Hosts. + + _Snedgus, Voyage of_, 354. + + Snowdon, 10, 136-7 n. + + Sociology of Celts, 233. + + Sorcery, 258, 402. + + Soul, Bee, as, 178. + + ---- Bird, as, 183, 185, 240, 304 n., 355. + + ---- Existence of, 496-7. + + ---- Fairy, as, 147, 169, 176, 179, 183, 235, 493: + _see_ Dead. + + ---- Idea of, 178, 215, 239-41, 244, 247-52, 304 n., 355, 360, 390. + + ---- Moth, as, 178, 240, 304 n. + + ---- Seen Disembodied, 215. + + ---- Science and, 480. + + ---- World, of, 65, 254. + + Spenser, 318. + + Sphynx, 419-20. + + Spirits, Nature, 237-8, 240-4, 493. + + Spiritualism, 55, 151 n., 249, 263, 459 ff. + + St. Anne, 428, 450 n. + + _St. Brandan's Voyage_, 354. + + St. Brigit, 3, 284. + + St. Columba, 3, 7, 85, 266-8, 441, 428. + + ---- Human sacrifice and, 436. + + ---- Re-birth and, 385. + + St. Cornely, 199 n., 271, 274, 393, 428. + + St. David, 402. + + St. David's, 10, 147. + + St. Guenole, 201. + + St. John's Day, 80 n., 273. + + _St. Malo's Voyage_, 355. + + St. Michael, 12, 407. + + St. Michael's Mount, xv, 12, 15, 173, 398, 407, 423. + + Stonehenge, xv, 403, 405, 411, 417-8. + + Story-telling, 3, 5-7, 23-4, 115, 121, 149, 152, 154, 161, 184, 221. + + St. Patrick, 3, 9, 14, 74, 118, 266-8, 286-7, 292, 294, 297-8, 431-2, + 441 ff. + + ---- Re-birth and, 385. + + ---- Serpents and, 444. + + _St. Patrick's Tripartite Life_, 402, 431, 451. + + Succubi, 113 n. + + Sun-dance and Fairy-dance, 405-6. + + Swan-maidens, 200, 301. + + Sylph, 241. + + + Taboo, 79 n., 130, 136, 161, 175, 204, 281, 340, 347, 415. + + ---- Anthropology and, 274-9. + + ---- Celtic, 277-9, 289-90, 295-6 n., 340, 347, 352, 368, 415. + + ---- Food, 47, 68, 127, 219, 275-6, 352. + + ---- Iron, 34, 87-8, 95, 124 n., 135, 138, 144, 147, 276. + + ---- Name, 70, 92, 208-10, 213, 274-5. + + ---- Place, 33, 35, 82, 150, 231, 237, 248, 277, 293. + + _Tain_, 287, 302. + + Taliessin, 161-2, 337 n., 388. + + ---- _Book of_, 353, 378. + + ---- Re-birth of, 378. + + Tara, 2, 13-5, 31-2, 35, 221, 289, 292, 298-9, 340 ff., 351-2, 376, 381 + n., 401-2, 410, 419. + + _Teigue's Voyage_, 348-51. + + Telepathy, 120, 217, 255. + + ---- Science and, 459, 472-3, 477-8, 490. + + Tethra, 335. + + Theology: _see_ Fairy-Faith, and Christianity and Fairies. + + Theosophy, 167, 243, 457. + + Thomas's _Tristan_, 325. + + Tintagel, 12, 183-4. + + _Togail_, 287. + + Totem, 178, 227, 299 n., 304 n. + + Trance, 65, 68-9, 181, 210, 248, 275, 281, 343, 356, 383, 472. + + ---- Fairyland and, 469 ff., 490. + + ---- Science and, 459. + + Transmigration, 377 n., 387-9, 392: + _see_ Re-birth. + + Tree, Sacred: _see_ Cult. + + _Triads_, 311, 313 n., 365. + + Trinity, The, 238, 436. + + _Tristan_, 325. + + Troll, 176, 238, 391. + + Tuam, 42, 384. + + _Tuan's Re-birth_, 377. + + Tuatha De Danann, 28, 31-2, 59, 62, 70, 211, 229, 241, 243, 252, 260, + 277-80, 283-307: + _see_ _Sidhe_, and Re-birth of. + + ---- Cult of, 412 ff. + + ---- Nature of, 285 ff., 296 n., 310, 313 n.-4, 335, 351, 355, 376, 379, + 411, 492. + + ---- Welsh parallels to, 329. + + _Tylwyth Teg_: _see_ Fairy, Names. + + ---- Breton parallel to, 211. + + ---- Origin of, 163. + + + Ulster, 3, 344-5, 370, 373, 374. + + Undine, Tale of, 135. + + Undines, 241. + + Uthr Bendragon, 310. + + + _Viellee_, 6 n., 221. + + Virgin, Holy, the, 394 n., 428, 451. + + Vision, 60-2, 65-7, 80, 83, 91, 117, 122, 124-6, 133-4, 139, 140-1, 143, + 145, 152, 155, 158, 182, 214-5, 230, 242, 286, 296, 334, 356: + _see_ Clairvoyance, and Seers. + + ---- Conferring of, 77, 152, 215. + + ---- Explanation of, 485 ff. + + ---- Science and, 459, 476. + + Vitalism, 493 ff. + + Vivian, 10, 189, 315, 329. + + + Wace, 308 n., 323. + + _Wales, Archaiology of_, 394. + + ---- _Four Ancient Books of_, 308 n., 328-31; + age of, 331. + + Wands, 52, 202, 343-4. + + White Lady, 28, 82 n., 152 n., 310. + + Witch, 34, 36, 121-2, 124 n., 174, 248, 264, 272, 304, 306, 389, 430. + + ---- Definition of, 263. + + Witchcraft, 10, 12, 34, 36, 122, 153-4, 159 n., 167, 248, 253-65, 272, + 281. + + ---- Theory of, 263. + + + + +Footnotes: + +[1] Quite appropriately it means _place of cairns_ or _tumuli_--those +prehistoric monuments religious and funereal in their purposes. _Carnac_ +seems to be a Gallo-Roman form. According to Professor J. Loth, the +Breton (Celtic) forms would be: old Celtic, _Carnaco-s_; old Breton +(ninth-eleventh century), _Carnoc_; Middle Breton (eleventh-sixteenth +century), _Carneuc_; Modern Breton, _Carnec_. + +[2] For we cannot offer any proof of what at first sight appears like a +philological relation or identity between _Carnac_ and _Karnak_. + +[3] Andrew Lang, Kirk's _Secret Commonwealth_ (London, 1893), p. xviii; +and _History of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1900-07). + +[4] Cf. David MacRitchie's published criticisms of our Psychological +Theory in _The Celtic Review_ (January 1910), entitled _Druids and +Mound-Dwellers_; also his first part of these criticisms, ib. (October +1909), entitled _A New Solution of the Fairy Problem_. + +[5] Alexander Carmichael, _Carmina Gadelica_ (Edinburgh, 1900), i, p. +xix. + +[6] The _ceilidh_ of the Western Hebrides corresponds to the _veillee_ +of Lower Brittany (see pp. 221 ff.), and to similar story-telling +festivals which formerly flourished among all the Celtic peoples. 'The +_ceilidh_ is a literary entertainment where stories and tales, poems, +and ballads, are rehearsed and recited, and songs are sung, conundrums +are put, proverbs are quoted, and many other literary matters are +related and discussed.'--Alexander Carmichael, _Carmina Gadelica_, i, p. +xviii. + +[7] I am indebted for this information to the late Mr. Davies, the +competent scholar and antiquarian of Newcastle-Emlyn, where for many +years he has been vicar. + +[8] In the Gnosis, St. Michael symbolizes the sun, and thus very +appropriately at St. Michael's Mount, Cornwall, at Mont St. Michel, +Carnac, and also at Mont St. Michel on the coast of Normandy, replaced +the Great God of Light and Life, held in supreme honour among the +ancient Celts. + +[9] In this connexion we may think of the North and South Magnetic Poles +of the earth as centres of definite yet invisible forces which can be +detected, and to some extent measured scientifically. + +[10] Anglo-Irish for _rath_, a circular earthen fort. + +[11] Throughout Ireland there are many ancient, often prehistoric, +earthworks or tumuli, which are popularly called _forts_, _raths_, or +_duns_, and in folk-belief these are considered fairy hills or the +abodes of various orders of fairies. In this belief we see at work a +definite anthropomorphism which attributes dwellings here on earth to an +invisible spirit-race, as though this race were actually the spirits of +the ancient Irish who built the _forts_. As we proceed, we shall see how +important and varied a part these earthworks play in the Irish +Fairy-Faith (cf. chapter viii, on Archaeology). + +[12] An Irish mystic, and seer of great power, with whom I have often +discussed the Fairy-Faith in its details, regards 'fairy paths' or +'fairy passes' as actual magnetic arteries, so to speak, through which +circulates the earth's magnetism. + +[13] 'Irish scholars differ as to the signification of _Meadha_. Some +say that it is the genitive case of _Meadh_, the name of some ancient +chieftain who was buried in the hill. _Knock Magh_ is the spelling often +used by writers who hold that the name means "Hill of the Plain".'--JOHN +GLYNN. + +[14] On September 8, 1909, about a year after this testimony was given, +Mr. ----, our seer-witness, at his own home near Grange, told to me +again the same essential facts concerning his psychical experiences as +during my first interview with him, and even repeated word for word the +expressions the 'gentry' used in communicating with him. Therefore I +feel that he is thoroughly sincere in his beliefs and descriptions, +whatever various readers may think of them. As his neighbours said to me +about him--and I interviewed a good many of them--'Some give in to him +and some do not'; but they always spoke of him with respect, though a +few naturally consider him eccentric. At the time of our second meeting +(which gave me a chance to revise the evidence as first taken down) Mr. +---- made this additional statement:--'The _gentry_ do not tell all their +secrets, and I do not understand many things about them, nor can I be +sure that everything I tell concerning them is exact.' + +[15] A learned and more careful Irish seer thinks this head-dress should +really be described as an aura. + +[16] I have been told by a friend in California, who is a student of +psychical sciences, that there exist in certain parts of that state, +notably in the Yosemite Valley, as the Red Men seem to have known, +according to their traditions, invisible races exactly comparable to the +'gentry' of this Ben Bulbin country such as our seer-witness describes +them and as other seers in Ireland have described them, and quite like +the 'people of peace' as described by Kirk, the seventh son, in his +_Secret Commonwealth_ (see this study, p. 85 n.). These California races +are said to exist now, as the Irish and Scotch invisible races are said +to exist now, by seers who can behold them; and, like the latter races, +are described as a distinct order of beings who have never been in +physical embodiments. If we follow the traditions of the Red Men, the +Yosemite invisible tribes are probably but a few of many such tribes +scattered throughout the North American continent; and equally with +their Celtic relatives they are described as a warlike race with more +than human powers over physical nature, and as able to subject or +destroy men. + +[17] This refers to a tale told by Hugh Currid, in August, 1908, about +Father Patrick and Father Dominick, which is here omitted because +re-investigation during my second visit to Grange, in September, 1909, +showed the tale to have been incorrectly reported. The same story, +however, based upon facts, according to several reliable witnesses, was +more accurately told by Patrick Waters at the time of my +re-investigation, and appears on page 51. + +[18] It happened that I had in my pocket a fossil, picked out of the +neighbouring sea-cliff rocks, which are very rich in fossils. I showed +this to Pat to ascertain if what he had had in his hand looked anything +like it, and he at once said 'No'. + +[19] After this Ossianic fragment, which has been handed down orally, I +asked Pat if he had ever heard the old people talk about Dermot and +Grania, and he replied:--'To be sure I have. Dermot and Grania used to +live in these parts. Dermot stole Finn MacCoul's sister, and had to flee +away. He took with him a bag of sand and a bunch of heather; and when he +was in the mountains he would put the bag of sand under his head at +night, and then tell everybody he met that he had slept on the sand (the +sea-shore); and when on the sand he would use the bunch of heather for a +pillow, and say he had slept on the heather (the mountains). And so +nobody ever caught him at all.' + +[20] As to probable proof that there was an Atlantis, see p. 333 n. + +[21] This refers to Robert Kirk, minister of Aberfoyle, who wrote _The +Secret Commonwealth_ (see this study, p. 85 n.). + +[22] In going from East Ireland to Galway, during the summer of 1908, I +passed through the country near Mullingar, where there was then great +excitement over a leprechaun which had been appearing to school-children +and to many of the country-folk. I talked with some of the people as I +walked through part of County Meath about this leprechaun, and most of +them were certain that there could be such a creature showing itself; +and I noticed, too, that they were all quite anxious to have a chance at +the money-bag, if they could only see the little fellow with it. I told +one good-natured old Irishman at Ballywillan--where I stopped over +night--as we sat round his peat fire and pot of boiling potatoes, that +the leprechaun was reported as captured by the police in Mullingar. 'Now +that couldn't be, at all,' he said instantly, 'for everybody knows the +leprechaun is a spirit and can't be caught by any blessed policeman, +though it is likely one might get his gold if they got him cornered so +he had no chance to run away. But the minute you wink or take your eyes +off the little devil, sure enough he is gone.' + +[23] Cf. David Fitzgerald, _Popular Tales of Ireland_, in _Rev. Celt._, +iv. 185-92; and _All the Year Round_, New Series, iii. 'This woman +guardian of the lake is called Toice Bhrean, "untidy" or "lazy wench". +According to a local legend, she is said to have been originally the +guardian of the sacred well, from which, owing to her neglect, Lough Gur +issued; and in this role she corresponds to Liban, daughter of Eochaidh +Finn, the guardian of the sacred well from which issued Lough Neagh, +according to the _Dinnshenchas_ and the tale of Eochaidh +MacMairido.'--J. F. LYNCH. + +[24] It was on the bank of the little river Camog, which flows near +Lough Gur, that the Earl of Desmond one day saw Aine as she sat there +combing her hair. Overcome with love for the fairy-goddess, he gained +control over her through seizing her cloak, and made her his wife. From +this union was born the enchanted son Geroid Iarla, even as Galahad was +born to Lancelot by the Lady of the Lake. When Geroid had grown into +young manhood, in order to surpass a woman he leaped right into a bottle +and right out again, and this happened in the midst of a banquet in his +father's castle. His father, the earl, had been put under taboo by Aine +never to show surprise at anything her magician son might do, but now +the taboo was forgotten, and hence broken, amid so unusual a +performance; and immediately Geroid left the feasting and went to the +lake. As soon as its water touched him he assumed the form of a goose, +and he went swimming over the surface of the Lough, and disappeared on +Garrod Island. + +According to one legend, Aine, like the Breton _Morgan_, may sometimes +be seen combing her hair, only half her body appearing above the lake. +And in times of calmness and clear water, according to another legend, +one may behold beneath Aine's lake the lost enchanted castle of her son +Geroid, close to Garrod Island--so named from Geroid or 'Gerald'. + +Geroid lives there in the under-lake world to this day, awaiting the +time of his normal return to the world of men (see our chapter on +re-birth, p. 386). But once in every seven years, on clear moonlight +nights, he emerges temporarily, when the Lough Gur peasantry see him as +a phantom mounted on a phantom white horse, leading a phantom or fairy +cavalcade across the lake and land. A well-attested case of such an +apparitional appearance of the earl has been recorded by Miss Anne +Baily, the percipient having been Teigue O'Neill, an old blacksmith whom +she knew (see _All the Year Round_, New Series, iii. 495-6, London, +1870). And Moll Riall, a young woman also known to Miss Baily, saw the +phantom earl by himself, under very weird circumstances, by day, as she +stood at the margin of the lake washing clothes (ib., p. 496). + +Some say that Aine's true dwelling-place is in her hill; upon which on +every St. John's Night the peasantry used to gather from all the +immediate neighbourhood to view the moon (for Aine seems to have been a +moon goddess, like Diana), and then with torches (_cliars_) made of +bunches of straw and hay tied on poles used to march in procession from +the hill and afterwards run through cultivated fields and amongst the +cattle. The underlying purpose of this latter ceremony probably was--as +is the case in the Isle of Man and in Brittany (see pp. 124 n., 273), +where corresponding fire-ceremonies surviving from an ancient +agricultural cult are still celebrated--to exorcise the land from all +evil spirits and witches in order that there may be good harvests and +rich increase of flocks. Sometimes on such occasions the goddess herself +has been seen leading the sacred procession (cf. the Bacchus cult among +the ancient Greeks, who believed that the god himself led his +worshippers in their sacred torch-light procession at night, he being +like Aine in this respect, more or less connected with fertility in +nature). One night some girls staying on the hill late were made to look +through a magic ring by Aine, and lo the hill was crowded with the folk +of the fairy goddess who before had been invisible. The peasants always +said that Aine is 'the best-hearted woman that ever lived' (cf. David +Fitzgerald, _Popular Tales of Ireland_, in _Rev. Celt._, iv. 185-92). + +In _Silva Gadelica_ (ii. 347-8), Aine is a daughter of Eogabal, a king +of the Tuatha De Danann, and her abode is within the _sidh_, named on +her account '_Aine cliach_, now Cnoc Aine, or Knockany'. In another +passage we read that Manannan took Aine as his wife (ib., ii. 197). Also +see in _Silva Gadelica_, ii, pp. 225, 576. + +[25] 'In some local tales the _Bean-tighe_, or _Bean a'tighe_ is termed +_Bean-sidhe_ (Banshee), and _Bean Chaointe_, or "wailing woman", and is +identified with Aine. In an elegy by Ferriter on one of the Fitzgeralds, +we read:-- + + Aine from her closely hid nest did awake, + The woman of wailing from Gur's voicy lake. + +'Thomas O'Connellan, the great minstrel bard, some of whose compositions +are given by Hardiman, died at Lough Gur Castle about 1700, and was +buried at New Church beside the lake. It is locally believed that Aine +stood on a rock of Knock Adoon and "keened" O'Connellan whilst the +funeral procession was passing from the castle to the place of +burial.'--J. F. LYNCH. + +A Banshee was traditionally attached to the Baily family of Lough Gur; +and one night at dead of night, when Miss Kitty Baily was dying of +consumption, her two sisters, Miss Anne Baily and Miss Susan Baily, who +were sitting in the death chamber, 'heard such sweet and melancholy +music as they had never heard before. It seemed to them like distant +cathedral music.... The music was not in the house.... It seemed to come +through the windows of the old castle, high in the air.' But when Miss +Anne, who went downstairs with a lighted candle to investigate the weird +phenomenon, had approached the ruined castle she thought the music came +from above the house; 'and thus perplexed, and at last frightened, she +returned.' Both sisters are on record as having distinctly heard the +fairy music, and for a long time (_All the Year Round_, New Series, iii. +496-7; London, 1870). + +[26] 'The _Buachailleen_ is most likely one of the many forms assumed by +the shape-shifting Fer Fi, the Lough Gur Dwarf, who at Tara, according +to the _Dinnshenchas_ of Tuag Inbir (see _Folk-Lore_, iii; and A. Nutt, +_Voyage of Bran_, i. 195 ff.), took the shape of a woman; and we may +trace the tales of Geroid Iarla to Fer Fi, who, and not Geroid, is +believed by the oldest of the Lough Gur peasantry to be the owner of the +lake. Fer Fi is the son of Eogabal of Sidh Eogabail, and hence brother +to Aine. He is also foster-son of Manannan Mac Lir, and a Druid of the +Tuatha De Danann (cf. _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 225; also _Dinnshenchas_ of +Tuag Inbir). At Lough Gur various tales are told by the peasants +concerning the Dwarf, and he is still stated by them to be the brother +of Aine. For the sake of experiment I once spoke very disrespectfully of +the Dwarf to John Punch, an old man, and he said to me in a frightened +whisper: "Whisht! he'll hear you." Edward Fitzgerald and other old men +were very much afraid of the Dwarf.'--J. F. LYNCH. + +[27] 'Compare the tale of Excalibur, the Sword of King Arthur, which +King Arthur before his death ordered Sir Bedivere to cast into the lake +whence it had come.'--J. F. LYNCH. + +[28] 'It is commonly believed by young and old at Lough Gur that a human +being is drowned in the Lake once every seven years, and that it is the +_Bean Fhionn_, or "White Lady" who thus _takes_ the person.'--J. F. +LYNCH. + +[29] It was the belief of the Rev. Robert Kirk, as expressed by him in +his _Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns, and Fairies_, that the fairy +tribes are a distinct order of created beings possessing human-like +intelligence and supernormal powers, who live and move about in this +world invisible to all save men and women of the second-sight (see this +study, pp. 89, 91 n.). + +[30] The Rev. Robert Kirk, in his _Secret Commonwealth_, defines the +second-sight, which enabled him to see the 'good people', as 'a rapture, +transport, and sort of death'. He and our present witness came into the +world with this abnormal faculty; but there is the remarkable case to +record of the late Father Allen Macdonald, who during a residence of +twenty years on the tiny and isolated Isle of Erisgey, Western Hebrides, +acquired the second-sight, and was able some years before he died there +(in 1905) to exercise it as freely as though he had been a natural-born +seer. + +[31] In his note to _Le Chant des Trepasses_ (_Barzaz Breiz_, p. 507), +Villemarque reports that in some localities in Lower Brittany on All +Saints Night libations of milk are poured over the tombs of the dead. +This is proof that the nature of fairies in Scotland and of the dead in +Brittany is thought to be the same. + +[32] 'In many parts of the Highlands, where the same deity is known, the +stone into which women poured the libation of milk is called _Leac na +Gruagaich_, "Flag-stone of the Gruagach." If the libation was omitted in +the evening, the best cow in the fold would be found dead in the +morning.'--ALEXANDER CARMICHAEL. + +[33] Dr. George Henderson, in _The Norse Influence on Celtic Scotland_ +(Glasgow, 1901), p. 101, says:--'_Shony_ was a sea-god in Lewis, where +ale was sacrificed to him at Hallowtide. After coming to the church of +St. Mulvay at night a man was sent to wade into the sea, saying: "Shony, +I give you this cup of ale hoping that you will be so kind as to give us +plenty of sea-ware for enriching our ground the ensuing year." As _o_ +from Norse would become _o_, and _fn_ becomes _nn_, one thinks of +_Sjoefn_, one of the goddesses in the Edda. In any case the word is +Norse.' It seems, therefore, that the Celtic stock in Lewis have adopted +the name _Shony_ or _Shoney_, and possibly also the god it designates, +through contact with Norsemen; but, at all events, they have assimilated +him to their own fairy pantheon, as we can see in their celebrating +special libations to him on the ancient Celtic feast of the dead and +fairies, Halloween. + +[34] This, as Dr. Carmichael told me, I believe very justly represents +the present state of folk-lore in many parts of the Highlands. There +are, it is true, old men and women here and there who know much about +fairies, but they, fearing the ridicule of a younger and 'educated' +generation, are generally unwilling to admit any belief in fairies. + +[35] The following note by Miss Tolmie is of great interest and value, +especially when one bears in mind Cuchulainn's traditional relation with +Skye (see p. 4):--'The Koolian range should never be written +_Cu-chullin_. The name is written here with a K, to ensure its being +correctly uttered and written. It is probably a Norse word; but, as yet, +a satisfactory explanation of its origin and meaning has not been +published. In Gaelic the range is always alluded to (in the masculine +singular) as the Koolian.' + +[36] Dr. Alexander Carmichael found that the scene of this widespread +tale is variously laid, in Argyll, in Perth, in Inverness, and in other +counties of the Highlands. From his own collection of folk-songs he +contributes the following verses to illustrate the song (existing in +numerous versions), which the maiden while invisible used to sing to the +cows of Colin:-- + + _Crodh Chailean! crodh Chailean! + Crodh Chailean mo ghaoil, + Crodh Chailean mo chridhe, + Air lighe cheare fraoish._ + + (Cows of Colin! cows of Colin! + Cows of Colin of my love, + Cows of Colin of my heart, + In colour of the heather-hen.) + +In one of Dr. Carmichael's versions, 'Colin's wife and her infant child +had been lifted away by the fairies to a fairy bower in the glen between +the hills.' There she was kept nursing the babes which the fairies had +stolen, until 'upon Hallow Eve, when all the bowers were open', Colin by +placing a steel tinder above the lintel of the door to the fairy bower +was enabled to enter the bower and in safety lead forth his wife and +child. + +[37] In this beautiful fairy legend we recognize the fairy woman as one +of the Tuatha De Danann-like fairies--one of the women of the _Sidhe_, +as Irish seers call them. + +[38] It is interesting to know that the present inhabitants of Barra, or +at least most of them, are the descendants of Irish colonists who +belonged to the clan Eoichidh of County Cork, and who emigrated from +there to Barra in A. D. 917. They brought with them their old customs and +beliefs, and in their isolation their children have kept these things +alive in almost their primitive Celtic purity. For example, besides +their belief in fairies, May Day, Baaltine, and November Eve are still +rigorously observed in the pagan way, and so is Easter--for it, too, +before being claimed by Christianity, was a sun festival. And how +beautiful it is in this age to see the youths and maidens and some of +the elders of these simple-hearted Christian fisher-folk climb to the +rocky heights of their little island-home on Easter morn to salute the +sun as it rises out of the mountains to the east, and to hear them say +that the sun dances with joy that morning because the Christ is risen. +In a similar way they salute the new moon, making as they do so the sign +of the cross. Finn Barr is said to have been a County Cork man of great +sanctity; and he probably came to Barra with the colony, for he is the +patron saint of the island, and hence its name. (To my friend, Mr. +Michael Buchanan, of Barra, I am indebted for this history and these +traditions of his native isle.) + +[39] '_Sluagh_, "hosts," the spirit-world. The "hosts" are the spirits +of mortals who have died.... According to one informant, the spirits fly +about in great clouds, up and down the face of the world like the +starlings, and come back to the scenes of their earthly transgressions. +No soul of them is without the clouds of earth, dimming the brightness +of the works of God, nor can any win heaven till satisfaction is made +for the sins of earth.'--ALEXANDER CARMICHAEL, _Carmina Gadelica_, ii. +330. + +[40] This curious tale suggests that certain of the fairy women who +entice mortals to their love in modern times are much the same, if not +the same, as the _succubi_ of Middle-Age mystics. But it is not intended +by this observation to confuse the higher orders of the _Sidhe_ and all +the fairy folk like the fays who come from Avalon with _succubi_; though +_succubi_ and fairy women in general were often confused and improperly +identified the one with the other. It need not be urged in this example +of a 'fairy woman' that we have to do not with a being of flesh and +blood, whatever various readers may think of her. + +[41] '"Willy-the-Fairy," otherwise known as William Cain, is the +musician referred to by the late Mr. John Nelson (p. 131). The latter's +statement that William Cain played one of these fairy tunes at one of +our Manx entertainments in Peel is perfectly correct.'--SOPHIA MORRISON. + +[42] This is the Mid-world of Irish seers, who would be inclined to +follow the Manx custom and call the fairies 'the People of the Middle +World'. + +[43] 'May 11 == in Manx _Oie Voaldyn_, "May-day Eve." On this evening the +fairies were supposed to be peculiarly active. To propitiate them and to +ward off the influence of evil spirits, and witches, who were also +active at this time, green leaves or boughs and _sumark_ or primrose +flowers were strewn on the threshold, and branches of the _cuirn_ or +mountain ash made into small crosses without the aid of a knife, which +was on no account to be used (steel or iron in any form being taboo to +fairies and spirits), and stuck over the doors of the dwelling-houses +and cow-houses. Cows were further protected from the same influences by +having the _Bollan-feaill-Eoin_ (John's feast wort) placed in their +stalls. This was also one of the occasions on which no one would give +fire away, and on which fires were and are still lit on the hills to +drive away the fairies.'--SOPHIA MORRISON. + +[44] I am wholly indebted to Miss Morrison for these Manx verses and +their translation, which I have substituted for Mrs. Moore's English +rendering. Miss Morrison, after my return to Oxford, saw Mrs. Moore and +took them down from her, a task I was not well fitted to do when the +tale was told. + +[45] It has been suggested, and no doubt correctly, that these murmuring +sounds heard on Dalby Mountain are due to the action of sea-waves, close +at hand, washing over shifting masses of pebbles on the rock-bound +shore. Though this be the true explanation of the phenomenon itself, it +only proves the attribution of cause to be wrong, and not the underlying +animistic conception of spiritual beings. + +[46] In this mythological role, Manannan is apparently a sun god or else +the sun itself; and the Manx coat of arms, which is connected with him, +being a sun symbol, suggests to us now ages long prior to history, when +the Isle of Man was a Sacred Isle dedicated to the cult of the Supreme +God of Light and Life, and when all who dwelt thereon were regarded as +the Children of the Sun. + +[47] Sir John Rhys tells me that this Snowdon fairy-lore was +contributed by the late Lady Rhys, who as a girl lived in the +neighbourhood of Snowdon and heard very much from the old people there, +most of whom believed in the fairies; and she herself then used to be +warned, in the manner mentioned, against being carried away into the +under-lake Fairyland. + +[48] Cf. _Celtic Folklore, Welsh and Manx_, pp. 683-4 n., where Sir John +Rhys says of his friend, Professor A. C. Haddon:--'I find also that +he, among others, has anticipated me in my theory as to the origins of +the fairies: witness the following extract from the syllabus of a +lecture delivered by him at Cardiff in 1894 on _Fairy Tales_:--"What are +the fairies?--Legendary origin of the fairies. It is evident from fairy +literature that there is a mixture of the possible and the impossible, +of fact and fancy. Part of fairydom refers to (1) spirits that never +were embodied: other fairies are (2) spirits of environment, nature or +local spirits, and household or domestic spirits; (3) spirits of the +organic world, spirits of plants, and spirits of animals; (4) spirits of +men, or ghosts; and (5) witches and wizards, or men possessed with other +spirits. All these, and possibly other elements, enter into the fanciful +aspects of Fairyland, but there is a large residuum of real occurrences; +these point to a clash of races, and we may regard many of these fairy +sagas as stories told by men of the Iron Age of events which happened to +men of the Bronze Age in their conflicts with men of the Neolithic Age, +and possibly these, too, handed on traditions of the Paleolithic Age."' + +[49] This is the one tale I have found in North Wales about a midwife +and fairies--a type of tale common to West Ireland, Isle of Man, +Cornwall, and Brittany, but in a reverse version, the midwife there +being (as she is sometimes in Welsh versions) one of the human race +called in by fairies. If evidence of the oneness of the Celtic mind were +needed we should find it here (cf. pp. 50, 54, 127, 175, 182, 205). +There are in this type of fairy-tale, as the advocates of the Pygmy +Theory may well hold, certain elements most likely traceable to a +folk-memory of some early race, or special class of some early race, who +knew the secrets of midwifery and the use of medicines when such +knowledge was considered magical. But in each example of this midwife +story there is the germ idea--no matter what other ideas cluster round +it--that fairies, like spirits, are only to be seen by an extra-human +vision, or, as psychical researchers might say, by clairvoyance. + +[50] After this remarkable story, Mrs. Jones told me about another very +rare psychical experience of her own, which is here recorded because it +illustrates the working of the psychological law of the association of +ideas:--'My husband, Price Jones, was drowned some forty years ago, +within four miles of Arms Head, near Bangor, on Friday at midday; and +that night at about one o'clock he appeared to me in our bedroom and +laid his head on my breast. I tried to ask him where he came from, but +before I could get my breath he was gone. I believed at the time that he +was out at sea perfectly safe and well. But next day, Saturday, at about +noon, a message came announcing his death. I was as fully awake as one +can be when I thus saw the spirit of my husband. He returned to me a +second time about six months later.' Had this happened in West Ireland, +it is almost certain that public opinion would have declared that Price +Jones had been _taken_ by the 'gentry' or 'good people'. + +[51] Here we find the _Tylwyth Teg_ showing quite the same +characteristics as Welsh elves in general, as Cornish pixies, and as +Breton _corrigans_, or _lutins_; that is, given to dancing at night, to +stealing children, and to deceiving travellers. + +[52] This folk-belief partially sustains the view put forth in our +chapter on Environment, that St. David's during pagan times was already +a sacred spot and perhaps then the seat of a druidic oracle. + +[53] Here we have an example of the _Tylwyth Teg_ being identified with +a prehistoric race, quite in accordance with the argument of the Pygmy +Theory. We have, however, as the essential idea, that the _Tylwyth Teg_ +heard singing were the spirits of this prehistoric race. Thus our +contention that ancestral spirits play a leading part in the +fairy-belief is sustained, and the Pygmy Theory appears quite at its +true relative value--as able to explain one subordinate ethnological +strand in the complex fabric of the belief. + +[54] This story is much like the one recorded by Giraldus Cambrensis +about a boy going to Fairyland and returning to his mother (see this +study, p. 324). The possibility that it may be an independent version of +the folk-tale told to Cambrensis which has continued to live on among +the people makes it highly interesting. + +Mr. Jones gives further evidence on the re-birth doctrine in Wales (pp. +388-9), and concerning Merlin and sacrifice to appease place-spirits +(pp. 436-7). + +[55] As a result of his researches, the Rev. T. M. Morgan has just +published a new work, entitled _The History and Antiquities of the +Parish of Newchurch_ (Carmarthen, 1910). + +[56] In these last two anecdotes, as in modern 'Spiritualism', we +observe a popular practice of necromancy or the calling up of spirits, +so-called 'materialization' of spirits, and spirit communication through +a human 'medium', who is the _dyn hysbys_, as well as divination, the +revealing of things hidden and the foretelling of future events. This is +direct evidence that Welsh fairies or the _Tylwyth Teg_ were formerly +the same to Welshmen as spirits are to Spiritualists now. We seem, +therefore, to have proof of our Psychological Theory (see chap. xi). + +[57] Here we have a combination of many distinct elements and +influences. As among mortals, so among the _Tylwyth Teg_ there is a +king; and this conception may have arisen directly from anthropomorphic +influences on the ancient Brythonic religion, or it may have come +directly from druidic teachings. The locating of _Gwydion ab Don_, like +a god, in a heaven-world, rather than like his counterpart, _Gwynn ab +Nudd_, in a hades-world, is probably due to a peculiar admixture of +Druidism and Christianity: at first, both gods were probably druidic or +pagan, and the same, but _Gwynn ab Nudd_ became a demon or evil god +under Christian influences, while _Gwydion ab Don_ seems to have +curiously retained his original good reputation in spite of Christianity +(cf. p. 320). The name _Gwenhidw_ reminds us at once of Arthur's queen +_Gwenhwyvar_ or 'White Apparition'; and the sheep of _Gwenhidw_ can +properly be explained by the Naturalistic Theory. It seems, however, +that analogy was imaginatively suggested between the Queen _Gwenhidw_ as +resembling the Welsh White Lady or a ghost-like being, and her sheep, +the clouds, also of a necessarily ghost-like character. All this is an +admirable illustration of the great complexity of the Fairy-Faith. + +[58] The parallel between this Welsh method of conferring vision and the +Breton method is very striking (cf. p. 215). + +[59] This is the substance of the story as it was told to me by a +gentleman who lives within sight of the farm where the image is said to +have been found. And one day he took me to the house and showed me the +room and the place in the wall where the find was made. The old manor is +one of the solidest and most picturesque of its kind in Wales, and, in +spite of its extreme age, well preserved. He, being as a native Welshman +of the locality well acquainted with its archaeology, thinks it safe to +place an age of six to eight hundred years on the manor. What is +interesting about this matter of age arises from the query, Was the +image one of the Virgin or of some Christian saint, or was it a Druid +idol? Both opinions are current in the neighbourhood, but there is a +good deal in favour of the second. The region, the little valley on +whose side stands the Pentre Evan Cromlech, the finest in Britain, is +believed to have been a favourite place with the ancient Druids; and in +the oak groves which still exist there tradition says there was once a +flourishing pagan school for neophytes, and that the cromlech instead of +being a place for interments or for sacrifices was in those days +completely enclosed, forming like other cromlechs a darkened chamber in +which novices when initiated were placed for a certain number of +days--the interior being called the 'Womb or Court of Ceridwen'. + +[60] The same remedy is prescribed in Brittany when mischievous _lutins_ +or _corrigans_ lead a traveller astray, in Ireland when the _good +people_ lead a traveller astray; and at Rollright, Oxfordshire, England, +an old woman told me that it is efficacious against being led astray +through witchcraft. Obviously the fairy and witch spell are alike. + +[61] The same sort of a story as this is told in Lower Brittany, where +the _corrigans_ or _lutins_ slaughter a farmer's fat cow or ox and +invite the farmer to partake of the feast it provides. If he does so +with good grace and humour, he finds his cow or ox perfectly whole in +the morning, but if he refuses to join the feast or joins it +unwillingly, in the morning he is likely to find his cow or ox actually +dead and eaten. + +[62] See Sir John Rhys, _Celtic Folk-Lore: Welsh and Manx_ (Oxford, +1901), _passim_. + +[63] The _New English Dictionary_, s.v. _Pixy_, gives rather vaguely a +Swedish dialect word, _pysg_, a small fairy. It also mentions _pix_ as a +Devon imprecation, 'a pix take him.' I suspect the last is only an +_umlaut_ form of a common Shakespearean imprecation. If not, it is +interesting, and reminds one of the fate of Margery Dawe, 'Piskies came +and carr'd her away.' + +[64] 'Some say that the Phoenicians never came to Cornwall at all, and +that their Ictis was Vectis (the Isle of Wight) or even Thanet.'--HENRY +JENNER. + +[65] 'This is, I think, the usual Cornish belief.'--HENRY JENNER. + +[66] 'About Porth Curnow and the Logan Rock there are little spots of +earth in the face of the granite cliffs where sea-daisies (thrift) and +other wild flowers grow. These are referred to the sea pisky, and are +known as "piskies' gardens."'--HENRY JENNER. + +[67] I was told by another Cornishman that, in a spirit of municipal +rivalry and fun, the Penzance people like to taunt the people of Newlyn +(now almost a suburb of Penzance) by calling them _Buccas_, and that the +Newlyn townsmen very much resent being so designated. Thus what no doubt +was originally an ancient cult to some local sea-divinity called +_Bucca_, has survived as folk-humour. (See Mr. Jenner's Introduction, p. +164.) + +[68] 'Another version, which is more usual, is that the pisky anointed +the person's eyes and so rendered itself visible.'--HENRY JENNER. + +[69] This is a natural outcropping of greenstone on a commanding hill +just above the vicarage in Newlyn, and concerning it many weird legends +survive. In pre-Christian times it was probably one of the Cornish +sacred spots for the celebration of ancient rites--probably in honour of +the Sun--and for divination. + +[70] For more about the Tolcarne Troll see chapter on Celtic Re-birth p. +391. + +[71] Mr. John B. Cornish, solicitor, of Penzance, told me that when he +once suggested to an old miner who fully believed in the 'knockers', +that the noises they were supposed to make were due to material causes, +the old miner became quite annoyed, and said, 'Well, I guess I have ears +to hear.' + +[72] For the Cornish folk-lore already published by Miss M. A. Courtney, +the reader is referred to her work, _Cornish Feasts and Folk-Lore_ +(Penzance, 1890). + +[73] A curious holed stone standing between two low menhirs on the moors +beyond the Lanyon Dolmen, near Madron; but in Borlase's time (cf. his +_Antiquities of Cornwall_, ed. 1769, p. 177) the three stones were not +as now in a direct line. The Men-an-Tol has aroused much speculation +among archaeologists as to its probable use or meaning. No doubt it was +astronomical and religious in its significance; and it may have been a +calendar stone with which ancient priests took sun observations (cf. Sir +Norman Lockyer, _Stonehenge and Other Stone Monuments_); or it may have +been otherwise related to a sun cult, or to some pagan initiatory rites. + +[74] I asked what a nath is, and Mr. Spragg explained:--'A nath is a +bird with a beak like that of a parrot, and with black and grey +feathers. The naths live on sea-islands in holes like rabbits, and +before they start to fly they first run.' The nath, as Mr. Henry Jenner +informs me, is the same as the puffin (_Fratercula arctica_), called +also in Cornwall a 'sea parrot'. + +[75] Sometimes it is necessary to turn your coat inside out. A Zennor +man said that to do the same thing with your socks or stockings is as +good. In Ireland this strange psychological state of going astray comes +from walking over a fairy domain, over a confusing-sod, or getting into +a fairy pass. + +[76] Cf. F. M. Luzel, _Contes populaires de Basse-Bretagne_ (Paris, +1887), i. 177-97; following the account of Ann Drann, a servant at +Coat-Fual, Plouguernevel (Cotes-du-Nord), November 1855. + +[77] My Breton friend, M. Goulven Le Scour, was born November 20, 1851, +at Kerouledic in Plouneventer, Finistere. He is an antiquarian, a poet, +and, as we shall see, a folk-lorist of no mean ability. In 1902, at the +_Congres d'Auray_ of Breton poets and singers, he won two prizes for +poetry, and, in 1901, a prize at the _Congres de Quimperle_ or _Concours +de Recueils poetiques_. + +[78] This story concerns persons still living, and, at M. Le Scour's +suggestion, I have omitted their names. + +[79] By a Carnac family I was afterwards given a sprig of such blessed +box-wood, and was assured that its exorcizing power is still recognized +by all old Breton families, most of whom seem to possess branches of it. + +[80] This idea seems related to the one in the popular Morbihan legend +of how St. Cornely, the patron saint of the country and the saint who +presides over the Alignements and domestic horned animals, changed into +upright stones the pagan forces opposing him when he arrived near +Carnac; and these stones are now the famous Alignements of Carnac. + +[81] Luzel, op. cit., iii. 226-311; i. 128-218; ii. 349-54. + +[82] Ib., ii. 269; cf. our study, p. 93. + +[83] According to the annotations to a legend recorded by Villemarque, +in his _Barzaz Breiz_, pp. 39-44, and entitled the _Submersion de la +Ville d'Is_, St. Guenole was traditionally the founder of the first +monastery raised in Armorica; and Dahut the princess stole the key from +her sleeping father in order fittingly to crown a banquet and midnight +debaucheries which were being held in honour of her lover, the Black +Prince. + +[84] Luzel, op. cit., ii. 257-68; i. 3-13. + +[85] P. Sebillot, _Traditions et superstitions de la Haute-Bretagne_ +(Paris, 1882), i. 100. + +[86] General references: Sebillot, ib.; and his _Folk-Lore de France_ +(Paris, 1905). + +[87] Sebillot, _Traditions et superstitions de la Haute-Bretagne_, i. +73-4. + +[88] Ib., i. 102, 103-4. + +[89] Sebillot, _Traditions et superstitions de la Haute-Bretagne_, i. +83. + +[90] Ib., i. 90-1. + +[91] Cf. ib., i. 109. + +[92] Cf. ib., i. 74-5, &c. + +[93] Cf. Sebillot, _Traditions et superstitions de la Haute-Bretagne_, +i. 74-5, &c. + +[94] In Lower Brittany the _corrigan_ tribes collectively are commonly +called _Corriket_, masculine plural of _Corrik_, diminutive of _Corr_, +meaning 'Dwarf'; or _Corriganed_, feminine plural of _Corrigan_, meaning +'Little Dwarf'. Many other forms are in use. (Cf. R. F. Le Men, _Trad. +et supers. de la Basse-Bretagne_, in _Rev. Celt._, i. 226-7.) + +[95] Cf. _Foyer breton_, i. 199. + +[96] By 'E. R.', in _Melusine_ (Paris), i. 114. + +[97] This account about _corrigans_, more rational than any preceding +it, may possibly refer to a dream or trance-like state of mind on the +part of the young girl; and if it does, we can then compare the presence +of a mortal at this _corrigan_ sabbath, or even at the ordinary witches' +sabbath, to the presence of a mortal in Fairyland. And according to +popular Breton belief, as reliable peasants assure me, during dreams, +trance, or ecstasy, the soul is supposed to depart from the body and +actually see spirits of all kinds in another world, and to be then under +their influence. While many details in the more conventional _corrigan_ +stories appear to reflect a folk-memory of religious dances and songs, +and racial, social, and traditional usages of the ancient Bretons, the +animistic background of them could conceivably have originated from +psychical experiences such as this girl is supposed to have had. + +[98] Villemarque, _Barzaz Breiz_ (Paris, 1867), pp. 33, 35. + +[99] J. Loth, in _Annales de Bretagne_ (Rennes), x. 78-81. + +[100] E. Renan, _Essais de morale et de critique_ (Paris, 1859), p. 451. + +[101] In Ireland it is commonly held that a seer beholding a fairy can +make a non-seer see it also by coming into bodily _rapport_ with the +non-seer (cf. p. 152). + +[102] It is sometimes believed that phantom washerwomen are undergoing +penance for having wilfully brought on an abortion by their work, or +else for having strangled their babe. + +[103] Every parish in the uncorrupted parts of Brittany has its own +_Ankou_, who is the last man to die in the parish during the year. Each +King of the Dead, therefore, never holds office for more than twelve +months, since during that period he is certain to have a successor. +Sometimes the _Ankou_ is Death itself personified. In the Morbihan, the +_Ankou_ occasionally may be seen as an apparition entering a house where +a death is about to occur; though more commonly he is never seen, his +knocking only is heard, which is the rule in Finistere. In Welsh +mythology, Gwynn ab Nudd, king of the world of the dead, is represented +as playing a role parallel to that of the Breton _Ankou_, when he goes +forth with his fierce hades-hounds hunting the souls of the dying. (Cf. +Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, p. 155.) + +[104] Cf. A. Le Braz, _La Legende de la Mort_; Introduction by L. +Marillier (Paris, 1893), pp. 31, 40. + +[105] Cf. Le Braz, _La Legende de la Mort_; Introduction by Marillier, +pp. 47, 46, 7-8, 40, 45, 46. + +[106] Cf. Le Braz, _La Legende de la Mort_; Introduction by Marillier, +p. 43. + +[107] Ib.; Notes by G. Dottin (Paris, 1902), p. 44. + +[108] Ib.; Introduction by Marillier, pp. 19, 23, 68. + +[109] Cf. ib.; Introduction by Marillier, pp. 53 ff., 68. + +[110] A Breton night's entertainment held in a peasant's cottage, +stable, or other warm outhouse. In parts of the Morbihan and of +Finistere where the old Celtic life has escaped modern influences, +almost every winter night the Breton Celts, like their cousins in very +isolated parts of West Ireland and in the Western Hebrides, find their +chief enjoyment in story-telling festivals, some of which I have been +privileged to attend. + +[111] The word in the MS. is _boiteux_, and in relation to a devil or +demon this seems to be the proper rendering. + +[112] B. Spencer and F. T. Gillen, _Nat. Tribes of Cent. Aust._ (London, +1899), chapters xi, xv. + +[113] R. H. Codrington, _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._ x. 261; _The Melanesians_ +(Oxford, 1891), pp. 123, 151, &c.; also cf. F. W. Christian, _The +Caroline Islands_ (London, 1899), pp. 281 ff., &c. + +[114] H. Callaway, _The Religious System of the Amazulu_ (London, 1868), +pp. 226-7. + +[115] C. G. Leland, _Memoirs_ (London, 1893), i. 34. + +[116] R. C. Temple, _Legends of the Panjab_, in _Folk-Lore_, x. 395. + +[117] W. W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_ (London, 1900), _passim_. + +[118] Hardouin, _Traditions et superstitions siamoises_, in _Rev. Trad. +Pop._, v. 257-67. + +[119] Ella G. Sykes, _Persian Folklore_, in _Folk-Lore_, xii. 263. + +[120] I am directly indebted for this information to a friend who is a +member of Lincoln College, Oxford, Mr. Mohammed Said Loutfy, of Barkein, +Lower Egypt. Mr. Loutfy has come into frequent and very intimate contact +with these animistic beliefs in his country, and he tells me that they +are common to all classes of almost all races in modern Egypt. The +common Egyptian spellings are _afreet_, in the singular, and _afaareet_ +in the plural, for spiritual beings, who are usually described by +percipients as of pygmy stature, but as being able to assume various +sizes and shapes. The _djinns_, on the contrary, are described as tall +spiritual beings possessing great power. + +[121] J. C. Lawson, _Modern Greek Folk-Lore_ (Cambridge, 1910), pp. +131-7, 139-46, 163. + +[122] L. Sainean, _Les Fees mechantes d'apres les croyances du peuple +roumain_, in _Melusine_, x. 217-26, 243-54. + +[123] Cf. C. G. Leland, _Etruscan Roman Remains in Pop. Trad._ (London, +1892), pp. 162, 165, 223, &c. + +[124] H. C. Coote, _The Neo-Latin Fay_, in _Folk-Lore Record_, ii. 1-18. + +[125] We cannot here attempt to present, even in outline, all the +complex ethnological arguments for and against the existence in +prehistoric times of European pygmy races. Attention ought, however, to +be called to the remarkable finds recently made in the _Grotte des +Enfants_, at Mentone, France. A certain number of well-preserved +skeletons of probably the earliest men who dwelt on the present land +surface of Europe, which were found there, suggest that different racial +stocks, possibly in succession, have preceded the Aryan stock. The first +race, as indicated by two small negroid-looking skeletons of a woman, +1,580 mm. (62.21 inches), and of a boy 1,540 mm. (60.63 inches) in +height, found in the lowest part of the _Grotte_, was probably +Ethiopian. The succeeding race was probably Mongolian, judging from +other remains found in another part of the same _Grotte_, and especially +from the Chancelade skeleton with its distinctly Eskimo appearance, only +1,500 mm. (59.06 inches) high, discovered near Perigneux, France. The +race succeeding this one was possibly the one out of which our own Aryan +race evolved. In relation to the Pygmy Theory these recent finds are of +the utmost significance. They confirm Dr. Windle's earlier conclusion, +that, contrary to the argument advanced to support the Pygmy Theory, the +neolithic races of Central Europe were not true pygmies--a people whose +average stature does not exceed four feet nine inches (cf. B. C. A. +Windle, _Tyson's Pygmies of the Ancients_, London, 1894, Introduction). +And, furthermore, these finds show, as far as any available ethnological +data can, that there are no good reasons for believing that European +and, therefore, Celtic lands were once dominated by pygmies even in +epochs so remote that we can only calculate them in tens of thousands of +years. Nevertheless, it is very highly probable that a folk-memory of +Lappish, Pictish, or other small but not true pygmy races, has +superficially coloured the modern fairy traditions of Northern Scotland, +of the Western Hebrides (where what may prove to have been Lapps' or +Picts' houses undoubtedly remain), of Northern Ireland, of the Isle of +Man, and slightly, if indeed at all, the fairy traditions of other parts +of the Celtic world (cf. David MacRitchie, _The Testimony of Tradition_, +London, 1890; and his criticism of our own Psychological Theory, in the +_Celtic Review_, October 1909 and January 1910, entitled respectively, +_A New Solution of the Fairy Problem_, and _Druids and Mound-Dwellers_). + +Again, the very small flint implements frequently found in Celtic lands +and elsewhere have perhaps very reasonably been attributed to a +long-forgotten pygmy race; though we must bear in mind in this connexion +that it would be very unwise to conclude definitely that no race save a +small-statured race could have made and used such implements: American +Red Men were, when discovered by Europeans, and still are, making and +using the tiniest of arrow-heads, precisely the same in size and design +as those found in Celtic lands and attributed to pygmies. The use of +small flint implements for special purposes, e. g. arrows for shooting +small game like birds, for spearing fish, and for use in warfare as +poisoned arrows, seems to have been common to most primitive peoples of +normal stature. Contemporary pygmy races, far removed from Celtic lands, +are also using them, and no doubt their prehistoric ancestors used them +likewise. + +[126] J. G. Campbell, _The Fians_ (London, 1891), p. 239. An Irish dwarf +is minutely described in _Silva Gadelica_ (ii. 116), O'Grady's +translation. Again, in Malory's _Morte D'Arthur_ (B. XII. cc. i-ii) a +dwarf is mentioned. + +[127] Campbell, _The Fians_, p. 265. + +[128] S. H. O'Grady, _Silva Gadelica_ (London, 1892), ii. 199. + +[129] Commentary on the _Senchas Mar_, i. 70-1, Stokes's translation, in +_Rev. Celt._, i. 256-7. + +[130] Sir John Rhys, _Hibbert Lectures_ (London, 1888), p. 592. +Dwarfs supernatural in character also appear in the _Mabinogion_, and +one of them is an attendant on King Arthur. In Beroul's _Tristan_, +Frocin, a dwarf, is skilled in astrology and magic, and in the version +by Thomas we find a similar reference. + +[131] Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} i. 385. + +[132] Cf. Windle, op. cit., Intro., p. 57. + +[133] Hunt, _Anthrop. Mems._, ii. 294; cf. Windle, op. cit., Intro., p. +57. + +[134] Smith, _Myths of the Iroquois_, in _Amer. Bur. Eth._, ii. 65. + +[135] Skeat, _Malay Magic_, p. 329. + +[136] Monier-Williams, _Brahminism and Hinduism_ (London, 1887), +p. 236. + +[137] Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 152. + +[138] _Dwarfs in the East_, in _Folk-Lore_, iv. 401-2. + +[139] Lacouperie, _Babylonian and Oriental Record_, v; cf. Windle, op. +cit., Intro., pp. 21-2. + +[140] A. H. S. Landor, _Alone with the Hairy Ainu_ (London, 1893), p. +251; also Windle, op. cit., Intro., pp. 22-4. + +[141] J. G. Frazer, _Golden Bough_{2} (London, 1900), i. 248 ff. + +[142] Cf. A. Wiedemann, _Ancient Egyptian Doctrine Immortality_ (London, +1895), p. 12. + +[143] Cf. A. E. Crawley, _Idea of the Soul_ (London, 1909), p. 186. + +[144] Examples are in Orcagna's fresco of 'The Triumph of Death', in the +Campo Santo of Pisa (cf. A. Wiedemann, _Anc. Egy. Doct. Immort._, p. 34 +ff.); and over the porch of the Cathedral Church of St. Trophimus, at +Arles. + +[145] Cf. Crawley, op. cit., p. 187. + +[146] General references: Eliphas Levi, _Dogme et Rituel de la Haute +Magie_ (Paris); Paracelsus; A. E. Waite, _The Occult Sciences_ (London, +1891). + +[147] W. B. Yeats, _Irish Fairy and Folk-Tales_ (London), p. 2. + +[148] W. B. Yeats, _The Celtic Twilight_ (London, 1902), p. 92 n. + +[149] In this connexion should be read Mr. Jenner's Introduction, pp. +167 ff. + +[150] Cf. Cririe, _Scottish Scenery_ (London, 1803), pp. 347-8; P. +Graham, _Sketches Descriptive of Picturesque Scenery on the Southern +Confines of Perthshire_ (Edinburgh, 1812), pp. 248-50, 253; Mahe, _Essai +sur les Antiquites du Depart. du Morbihan_ (Vannes, 1825); Maury, _Les +Fees du Moyen-Age_ (Paris, 1843). + +[151] David MacRitchie, _Druids and Mound Dwellers_, in _Celtic Review_ +(January 1910); and his _Testimony of Tradition_. + +[152] K. Meyer and A. Nutt, _Voyage of Bran_ (London, 1895-7), ii 231-2. + +[153] Cf. Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 61. + +[154] Lawson, _Modern Greek Folklore_, pp. 356, 359. + +[155] Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, p. 201; Jubainville, _Cyc. Myth. Irl._, pp. +106-8. + +[156] E. O'Curry, _Manners and Customs_ (Dublin, 1873), I. cccxx; from +_Book of Ballymote_, fol. 145, b. b. + +[157] Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 286. + +[158] Ib., p. 275. + +[159] Ib., pp. 226, 208-9. + +[160] Crawley, _Idea of the Soul_, p. 114. + +[161] Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 289. + +[162] Ib., p. 194. + +[163] Cf. Crawley, _Idea of the Soul_, chap. iv. + +[164] For a thorough and scientific discussion of this matter, see J. L. +Nevius, _Demon Possession_ (London, 1897). + +[165] N. G. Mitchell-Innes, _Birth, Marriage, and Death Rites of the +Chinese_, in _Folk-Lore Journ._, v. 225. Very curiously, the pagan +Chinese mother uses the sign of the cross against the demon as Celtic +mothers use it against fairies; and no exorcism by Catholic or +Protestant to cure a fairy changeling or to drive out possessing demons +is ever performed without this world-wide and pre-Christian sign of the +cross (see pp. 270-1). + +[166] R. R. Marett, _The Threshold of Religion_ (London, 1909), p. 58, +&c.; p. 67. + +[167] W. James, _Confidences of a 'Psychical Researcher'_, in _American +Magazine_ (October 1909). + +[168] Frazer, _The Golden Bough_{3} (London, 1911), i. 220. + +[169] Frazer, _The Golden Bough_,{3} i. 221-2. + +[170] Ib., chap. iv. + +[171] See Apuleius, _De Deo Socratis_; Cicero, _De Natura Deorum_ (lib. +i); Iamblichus, _De Mysteriis Aegypt., Chaldaeor., Assyrior._; Plato, +_Timaeus, Symposium, Politicus, Republic_, ii. iii. x; Plutarch, _De +Defectu Oraculorum, The Daemon of Socrates, Isis and Osiris_; Proclus, +_Commmentarius in Platonis Alcibiadem_. + +[172] Pliny, _Natural History_, xxx. 14. + +[173] Cf. G. Dottin, _La Religion des Celtes_ (Paris, 1904), p. 44. + +[174] The neo-Platonists generally, including Porphyry, Julian, +Iamblichus, and Maximus, being persuaded of man's power to call up and +control spirits, called white magic _theurgy_, or the invoking of good +spirits, and the reverse _goety_, or the calling up and controlling of +evil spirits for criminal purposes. Cf. F. Lelut, _Du Demon de Socrate_ +(Paris, 1836). + +If white magic be correlated with religion as religion is popularly +conceived, namely the cult of supernatural powers friendly to man, and +black magic be correlated with magic as magic tends to be popularly +conceived, namely witchcraft and devil-worship, we have a satisfactory +historical and logical basis for making a distinction between religion +and magic; religion (including white magic) is a social good, magic +(black magic) is a social evil. Such a distinction as Dr. Frazer makes +is untenable within the field of true magic. + +[175] Cf. B. Jowett, _Dialogues of Plato_ (Oxford, 1892), i. 573. + +[176] Cf. Meyer and Nutt, _Voyage of Bran_ (London, 1895-7), i. 146. + +[177] Campbell, _The Fians_, p. 195. + +[178] Cf. Stokes's trans. in _Rev. Celt._, i. 261. + +[179] Cf. Stokes's trans. in _Rev. Celt._, xv. 307. + +[180] From the _Conception of Mongan_, cf. Meyer, _Voyage of Bran_, i. +77. + +[181] Quoted and summarized from _Projectors of 'Malicious Animal +Magnetism'_, in _Literary Digest_, xxxix. No. 17, pp. 676-7 (New York +and London, October 23, 1909). + +[182] Cf. Nevius, _Demon Possession_, pp. 300-1. + +[183] For a fuller discussion of the history of witchcraft see _The +Superstitions of Witchcraft_, by Howard Williams, London, 1865. + +[184] Cf. J. Quicherat, _Proces_ (Paris, 1845), _passim_. + +[185] Ib., i. 178. + +[186] Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 127, 200, 202-3 ff. + +[187] Bergier, _Dict. de Theol._ (Paris, 1848), ii. 541-2, &c. + +[188] W. Stokes, _Tripartite Life_ (London, 1887), pp. 13, 115. + +[189] I am personally indebted to Dr. W. J. Watson, of Edinburgh, for +having directed my attention to this curious passage, and for having +pointed out its probable significance in relation to druidical +practices. + +[190] Adamnan, _Life of S. Columba_, B. II, cc. xvi, xvii. + +[191] For this fact I am personally indebted to Mrs. W. J. Watson, of +Edinburgh. + +[192] Stokes, _Tripartite Life_, pp. clxxx, 303, 305; from _Book of +Armagh_, fo. 9, A 2, and fo. 9, B 2. + +[193] Bergier, _Dict. de Theol._, ii. 545, 431, 233. + +[194] See _Instruction sur le Rituel_, par l'Eveque de Toulon, iii. +1-16. 'In the Greek rite (of baptism), the priest breathes thrice on the +catechumen's mouth, forehead, and breast, praying that every unclean +spirit may be expelled.'--W. Bright, _Canons of First Four General +Councils_ (Oxford, 1892), p. 122. + +[195] Cf. Godescard, _Vies des Saints_ (Paris, 1835), xiii. 254-66. + +[196] _De Incarnatione Verbi_ (ed. Ben.), i. 88; cf. Godescard, op. +cit., xiii. 254-66. + +[197] Godescard, _Vies des Saints_, xiii. 263-4. + +[198] Par Joly de Choin, Eveque de Toulon, i. 639. + +[199] Bergier, _Dict. de Theol._, ii. 335. + +[200] Stokes, _Tripartite Life_, Intro., p. 162. + +[201] J. E. Mirville, _Des Esprits_ (Paris, 1853), i. 475. + +[202] _Instructions sur le Rituel_, par Joly de Choin, iii. 276-7. + +[203] G. Evans, _Exorcism in Wales_, in _Folk-Lore_, iii. 274-7. + +[204] W. Crooke, in _Folk-Lore_, xiii. 189-90. + +[205] For ancient usages see F. Lenormant, _Chaldean Magic_ (London, +1877), pp. 103-4; Iamblichus and other Neo-Platonists; and for modern +usages see Marett, _Threshold of Religion_, chap. iii. + +[206] Cf. Marett, _Is Taboo a Negative Magic?_ in _The Threshold of +Religion_, pp. 85-114. + +[207] Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 277. + +[208] Eastman, _Dacotah_, p. 177; cf. Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 52 n. + +[209] Shortland, _Trad. of New Zeal._, p. 150; cf. Tylor, op. cit., ii. +51-2. + +[210] Precisely like Celtic peasants, primitive peoples often fail to +take into account the fact that the physical body is in reality left +behind upon entering the trance state of consciousness known to them as +the world of the departed and of fairies, because there they seem still +to have a body, the ghost body, which to their minds, in such a state, +is undistinguishable from the physical body. Therefore they ordinarily +believe that the body and soul both are taken. + +[211] Frazer, _Golden Bough_,{2} _passim_. + +[212] Cf. ib., i. 344 ff., 348; iii. 390. + +[213] Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 177, 218-9. + +[214] Cf. Eleanor Hull, _Old Irish Tabus or Geasa_, in _Folk-Lore_, xii. +41 ff. + +[215] Cf. Frazer, _Golden Bough_,{2} i. 233 ff., 343. + +[216] Cf. E. J. Gwynn, _On the Idea of Fate in Irish Literature_, in +_Journ. Ivernian Society_ (Cork), April 1910. + +[217] Cf. our evidence, pp. 38, 44; also Kirk's _Secret Commonwealth_ +(c. i), where it is said of the 'good people' or fairies that their +bodies are so 'plyable thorough the Subtilty of the Spirits that agitate +them, that they can make them appear or disappear att Pleasure. Some +have Bodies or Vehicles so spungious, thin, and delecat, that they are +fed by only sucking into some fine spirituous Liquors, that pierce lyke +pure Air and Oyl'. + +[218] _Laws_, iv; cf. Jowett, _Dialogues of Plato_, v. 282-90. + +[219] Chief general references: _Le Cycle Mythologique Irlandais_ +(Paris, 1884) and _L'Epopee celtique en Irlande_ (Paris, 1892)--both by +H. D'Arbois de Jubainville. Chief sources: The _Book of Armagh_, a +collection of ecclesiastical MSS. probably written at Armagh, and +finished in A. D. 807 by the learned scribe Ferdomnach of Armagh; the +_Leabhar na h-Uidhre_ or 'Book of the Dun Cow', the most ancient of the +great collections of MSS. containing the old Irish romances, compiled +about A. D. 1100 in the monastery of Clonmacnoise; the _Book of +Leinster_, a twelfth-century MS. compiled by Finn Mac Gorman, Bishop of +Kildare; the _Yellow Book of Lecan_ (fifteenth century); and the _Book +of Lismore_, an old Irish MS. found in 1814 by workmen while making +repairs in the castle of Lismore, and thought to be of the fifteenth +century. The _Book of Lismore_ contains the _Agallamh na senorach_ or +'Colloquy of the Ancients', which has been edited by S. H. O'Grady in +his _Silva Gadelica_ (London, 1892), and by Whitley Stokes, _Ir. Texte_, +iv. 1. For additional texts and editions of texts see Notes by R. I. +Best to his translations of _Le Cycle Mythologique Irlandais_ (Dublin, +1903). + +[220] Cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, pp. 144-5. + +[221] Cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, pp. 266-7. From the way they are +described in many of the old Irish manuscripts, we may possibly regard +the Tuatha De Danann as reflecting to some extent the characteristics of +an early human population in Ireland. In other words, on an already +flourishing belief in spiritual beings, known as the _Sidhe_, was +superimposed, through anthropomorphism, an Irish folk-memory about a +conquered pre-Celtic race of men who claimed descent from a mother +goddess called Dana. + +[222] Page 10, col. 2, ll. 6-8; cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, p. 143. + +[223] Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, p. 581 n.; and _Coir Anmann_, in _Ir. +Texte_, III, ii. 355. + +[224] Kuno Meyer's trans. in _Voy. of Bran_, ii. 300. + +[225] Cf. Standish O'Grady, _Early Bardic Literature_ (London, 1879), +pp. 65-6. + +[226] L. U.; cf. A. Nutt, _Voy. of Bran_, i. 157-8. + +[227] Before Caeilte appears, Patrick is chanting Mass and pronouncing +benediction 'on the rath in which Finn Mac Cumall (the slain leader of +the Fianna) has been: the rath of Drumderg'. This chanting and +benediction act magically as a means of calling up the ghosts of the +other Fianna, for, as the text continues, thereupon 'the clerics saw +Caeilte and his band draw near them; and fear fell on them before the +tall men with their huge wolf-dogs that accompanied them, _for they were +not people of one epoch or of one time with the clergy_. Then Heaven's +distinguished one, that pillar of dignity and angel on earth, Calpurn's +son Patrick, apostle of the Gael, rose and took the aspergillum to +sprinkle holy water on the great men; floating over whom until that day +there had been [and were now] a thousand legions of demons. Into the +hills and "skalps", into the outer borders of the region and of the +country, the demons forthwith departed in all directions; after which +the enormous men sat down' (_Silva Gadelica_, ii. 103). Here, +undoubtedly, we observe a literary method of rationalizing the ghosts of +the Fianna; and their sudden and mysterious coming and personal aspects +can be compared with the sudden and mysterious coming and personal +aspects of the Tuatha De Danann as recorded in certain Irish +manuscripts. + +[228] Kuno Meyer's trans. in _Rev. Celt._, x. 214-27. This tale is +probably as old as the ninth or tenth century, so far as its present +form is concerned, though representing very ancient traditions (Nutt, +_Voy. of Bran_, i. 209). + +[229] Stokes's trans. in _Rev. Celt._, xxii. 36-40. This text is one of +the earliest with references to fairy beings, and may go back to the +eighth or ninth century as a literary composition, though it too +represents much older traditions. + +[230] E. O'Curry, _Lectures on Manuscript Materials_ (Dublin, 1861), p. +504. + +[231] In the _Book of Leinster_, pp. 245-6; cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, +p. 269. + +[232] Cf. _Mesca Ulad_, Hennessy's ed., in _Todd Lectures_, Ser. 1 +(Dublin, 1889), p. 2. + +[233] Cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, pp. 273-6. + +[234] Cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, pp. 273-6. + +[235] Cf. _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 222-3. + +[236] Ib., ii. 343-7. + +[237] Ib., ii. 94-6. + +[238] _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 204-20. + +[239] _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 290-1. In many old texts mortals are not +forcibly _taken_; but go to the fairy world through love for a fairy +woman; or else to accomplish there some mission. + +No doubt the most curious elements in this text are those which +represent the prince and his warrior companions, fresh come from +Fairyland, as in some mysterious way so changed that they must neither +dismount from their horses and thus come in contact with the earth, nor +allow any mortal to touch them; for to his father the king who came +forward in joy to embrace him after having mourned him as dead, +Laeghaire cried, 'Approach us not to touch us!' Some unknown magical +bodily transmutation seems to have come about from their sojourn among +the Tuatha De Danann, who are eternally young and unfading--a +transmutation apparently quite the same as that which the 'gentry' are +said to bring about now when one of our race is taken to live with them. +And in all fairy stories no mortal ever returns from Fairyland a day +older than on entering it, no matter how many years may have elapsed. +The idea reminds us of the dreams of mediaeval alchemists who thought +there exists, if one could only discover it, some magic potion which +will so transmute every atom of the human body that death can never +affect it. Probably the Christian scribe in writing down these strange +words had in mind what Jesus said to Mary Magdalene when she beheld him +after the Resurrection:--'Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended unto +the Father.' The parallel would be a striking and exact one in any case, +for it is recorded that Jesus after he had arisen from the dead--had +come out of Hades or the invisible realm of subjectivity which, too, is +Fairyland--appeared to some and not to others--some being able to +recognize him and others not; and concerning the nature of Jesus's body +at the Ascension not all theologians are agreed. Some believe it to have +been a physical body so purified and transmuted as to be like, or the +same as, a spiritual body, and thus capable of invisibility and of +entrance into the Realm of Spirit. The Scotch minister and seer used +this same parallel in describing the nature and power of fairies and +spirits (p. 91); hence it would seem to follow, if we admit the +influence in the Irish text to be Christian, that early, like modern +Christians, have, in accordance with Christianity, described the nature +of the _Sidhe_ so as to correspond with what we know it to be in the +Fairy-Faith itself, both anciently and at the present day. + +[240] _Death of Muirchertach_, Stokes's trans., in _Rev. Celt._, xxiii. +397. + +[241] Cf. J. Loth, _Les Mabinogion_ (Paris, 1889), i. 38-52. + +[242] _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 187-92. + +[243] _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 142-4. + +[244] Campbell, _The Fians_, pp. 79-80. In _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 522, it +is stated that the mother of Ossian bore him whilst in the shape of a +doe. The mother of Ossian in animal shape may be an example of an +ancient Celtic totemistic survival. + +[245] _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 311-24. + +[246] _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 311-24. + +[247] For an enumeration of the Tuatha De Danann chieftains and their +respective territories see _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 225. + +[248] Cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, p. 285. + +[249] I am personally indebted for these names to Dr. Douglas Hyde. + +[250] Cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, pp. 284-9; cf. _Rev. Celt._, iii. 347. + +[251] Cf. E. S. Hartland, _Science of Fairy Tales_ (London, 1891), cc. +x-xi. + +[252] Stokes's trans. in _Rev. Celt._, xvi. 274-5. + +[253] _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 222 ff.; ii. 290. In another version of the +second tale, referred to above (on page 295), Laeghaire and his fifty +companions enter the fairy world through a _dun_. + +[254] Sometimes, as in _Da Choca's Hostel_ (_Rev. Celt._, xxi. 157, +315), the _Badb_ appears as a weird woman uttering prophecies. In this +case the _Badb_ watches over Cormac as his doom comes. She is described +as standing on one foot, and with one eye closed (apparently in a bird's +posture), as she chanted to Cormac this prophecy:--'I wash the harness +of a king who will perish.' + +[255] Synonymous names are _Badb-catha_, _Fea_, _Ana_. Cf. _Rev. Celt._, +i. 35-7. + +[256] Cf. Hennessy, _Ancient Irish Goddess of War_, in _Rev. Celt._, i. +32-55. + +[257] Stokes, _Second Battle of Moytura_, in _Rev. Celt._, xii. 109-11. + +[258] Luzel, _Contes populaires de Basse Bretagne_, iii. 296-311. + +[259] The Celtic examples recall non-Celtic ones: the raven was sacred +among the ancient Scandinavians and Germans, being looked upon as the +emblem of Odin; in ancient Egypt and Rome commonly, and to a less extent +in ancient Greece, gods often declared their will through birds or even +took the form of birds; in Christian scriptures the Spirit of God or the +Holy Ghost descended upon Jesus at his baptism in the semblance of a +dove; and it is almost a world-wide custom to symbolize the human soul +under the form of a bird or butterfly. Possibly such beliefs as these +are relics of a totemistic creed which in times long previous to history +was as definitely held by the ancestors of the nations of antiquity, +including the ancient Celts, as any totemistic creed to be found now +among native Australians or North American Red Men. At all events, in +the story of a bird ancestry of Conaire we seem to have a perfectly +clear example of a Celtic totemistic survival--even though Dr. Frazer +may not admit it as such (cf. _Rev. Celt._, xxii. 20, 24; xii. 242-3). + +[260] Hennessy, _The Ancient Irish Goddess of War_, in _Rev. Celt._, i. +32-57. + +[261] _Aoibheall_, who came to tell Brian Borumha of his death at +Clontarf, was the family banshee of the royal house of Munster. Cf. J. H. +Todd, _War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill_ (London, 1867), p. 201. + +[262] Hyde, _Literary History of Ireland_, p. 440. + +[263] Cf. Hennessy, in _Rev. Celt._, i. 39-40. In place of _badb_, Dr. +Hyde (_Lit. Hist. Irl._, p. 440) uses the word _vulture_. + +[264] Hennessy, in _Rev. Celt._, i. 52. + +[265] Chief general reference: Sir John Rhys, _Arthurian Legend_ +(Oxford, 1891). Chief sources: Nennius, _Historia Britonum_ (circa 800); +Geoffrey of Monmouth, _Historia Regum Britanniae_ (circa 1136); Wace, +_Le Roman de Brut_ (circa 1155); Layamon's _Brut_ (circa 1200); Marie de +France, _Lais_ (twelfth-thirteenth century); _The Four Ancient Books of +Wales_ (twelfth-fifteenth century), edited by W. F. Skene; _The +Mabinogion_ (based on the _Red Book of Hergest_, a fourteenth-century +manuscript), edited by Lady Charlotte Guest, Sir John Rhys and J. G. +Evans, and Professor J. Loth; Malory, _Le Morte D'Arthur_ (1470); _The +Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales_, collected out of ancient manuscripts +(Denbigh, 1870); _Iolo Manuscripts_, a selection of ancient Welsh +manuscripts (Llandovery, 1848). + +[266] In a Welsh poem of the twelfth century (see W. F. Skene, _Four +Ancient Books_, Edinburgh, 1868, ii. 37, 38) wherein the war feats of +Prince Geraint are described, his men, who lived and fought a long time +after the period assigned to Arthur, are called the men of Arthur; and, +as Sir John Rhys thinks, this is good evidence that the genuine +Arthur was a mythical figure, one might almost be permitted to say a +god, who overshadows and directs his warrior votaries, but who, never +descending into the battle, is in this respect comparable with the Irish +war-goddess the _Badb_ (cf. Rhys, _Celtic Britain_, London, 1904, p. +236). + +[267] Cf. Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, chap. 1. + +[268] Cf. Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, pp. 24, 48. Sir John Rhys sees good +reasons for regarding Arthur as a culture hero, because of Arthur's +traditional relation with agriculture, which most culture heroes, like +Osiris, have taught their people (ib., pp. 41-3). + +[269] Cf. G. Maspero, _Contes populaires de l'Egypte Ancienne_{3} +(Paris, 1906), Intro., p. 57. + +[270] Sommer's Malory's _Morte D'Arthur_, iii. 1. + +[271] Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, p. 9. + +[272] I am indebted to Professor J. Loth for help with this etymology. + +[273] Cf. Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, p. 22. + +[274] i. 10; ii. 21{b}; iii. 70; cf. Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, p. 60. + +[275] See Williams' _Seint Greal_, pp. 278, 304, 341, 617, 634, 658, +671; Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, p. 61. + +[276] Cf. Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, pp. 51, 35; and see our study, pp. +374-6. + +[277] _Chevalier de la Charrette_ (ed. by Tarbe), p. 22; _Romania_, xii. +467, 515; cf. Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, p. 54. + +[278] _Romania_, xii. 467-8, 473-4; cf. Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, p. 55. + +[279] Cf. Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 93-4. + +[280] _Romania_, xii. 508; cf. Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, p. 54. + +[281] Book XIX, c. i. + +[282] In the _Lebar Brecc_ there is a tract describing eight Eucharistic +Colours and their mystical or hidden meaning; and green is so described +that we recognize in its Celtic-Christian symbolism the same essential +significance as in the writings of both pagan and non-Celtic Christian +mystics, thus:--'This is what the Green denotes, when he (the priest) +looks at it: that his heart and his mind be filled with great faintness +and exceeding sorrow: for what is understood by it is his burial at the +end of life under mould of earth; for green is the original colour of +every earth, and therefore the colour of the robe of Offering is likened +unto green' (Stokes, _Tripartite Life_, Intro., p. 189). During the +ceremonies of initiation into the Ancient Mysteries, it is supposed that +the neophyte left the physical body in a trance state, and in full +consciousness, which he retained afterwards, entered the subjective +world and beheld all its wonders and inhabitants; and that coming out of +that world he was clothed in a robe of sacred green to symbolize his own +spiritual resurrection and re-birth into real life--for he had +penetrated the Mystery of Death and was now an initiate. Even yet there +seems to be an echo of the ancient Egyptian Mysteries in the Festival of +Al-Khidr celebrated in the middle of the wheat harvest in Lower Egypt. +Al-Khidr is a holy personage who, according to the belief of the people, +was the Vizier of Dhu'l-Karnen, a contemporary of Abraham, and who, +never having died, is still living and will continue to live until the +Day of Judgement. And he is always represented 'clad in green garments, +whence probably the name' he bears. Green is thus associated with a hero +or god who is immortal and unchanging, like the Tuatha De Danann and +fairy races (see Sir Norman Lockyer's _Stonehenge and Other Stone +Monuments_, London, 1909, p. 29). In modern Masonry, which preserves +many of the ancient mystic rites, and to some extent those of initiation +as anciently performed, green is the symbol of life, immutable nature, +of truth, and victory. In the evergreen the Master Mason finds the +emblem of hope and immortality. And the masonic authority who gives this +information suggests that in all the Ancient Mysteries this symbolism +was carried out--green symbolizing the birth of the world and the moral +creation or resurrection of the initiate (_General History, Cyclopedia, +and Dictionary of Freemasonry_, by Robert Macoy, 33{o}, New York, 1869). + +[283] _Myv. Arch._, i. 175. The text itself in this work is said to be +copied from the _Green Book_--now unknown. Cf. Rhys, _Arth. Leg._ p. +56 n. + +[284] In this text, the Gwenhwyvar who is in the power of Melwas is +referred to as Arthur's second wife Gwenhwyvar, for according to the +Welsh Triads (i. 59; ii. 16; iii. 109) there are three wives of Arthur +all named Gwenhwyvar. As Sir John Rhys observes, no poet has ever +availed himself of all three, for the evident reason that they would +have spoilt his plot (_Arth. Leg._, p. 35). + +[285] D. ab Gwilym's Poetry (London, 1789), poem cxi, line 44. Cf. +Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, p. 66. + +[286] Malory, Book I, c. xxv. One account of Arthur's sword _Caledvwlch_ +or _Caleburn_ describes it as having been made in the Isle of Avalon +(Lady Ch. Guest's _Mabinogion_, ii. 322 n.; also _Myv. Arch._, ii. 306). + +[287] Malory, Book IX, c. xv; Sir John Rhys takes the Lady of the +Lake who sends Arthur the sword and the one who aids him afterwards +(though, apparently by error, two characters in Malory) as different +aspects of the one lake-lady _Morgen_ (_Arth. Leg._, p. 348). + +[288] Merlin explained to Arthur that King Loth's wife was Arthur's own +sister (Sommer's _Malory_, i. 64-5); and King Loth is one of the rulers +of the Otherworld. + +[289] Book XXI, c. vi. + +[290] This poem, according to Gaston Paris, was translated during the +late twelfth century from a French original now lost (_Romania_, x. +471). Cf. Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, p. 127. + +[291] Malory, Book XII, cc. iii-x; Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, pp. 145, 164. +Galahad, however, does not belong to the more ancient Arthurian romances +at all, so far as scholars can determine; and, therefore, too much +emphasis ought not to be placed on this episode in connexion with the +character of Arthur. + +[292] We should like to direct the reader's attention to the interesting +similarity shown between this old story of _Kulhwch and Olwen_ and the +fairy legend which we found living in South Wales, and now recorded by +us on page 161, under the title of _Einion and Olwen_. As we have there +suggested, the legend seems to be the remnant of a very ancient bardic +tale preserved in the oral traditions of the people; and the prevalence +of such bardic traditions in a part of Wales where some of the +_Mabinogion_ stories either took shape, or from where they drew +folk-lore material, would make it probable that there may even be some +close relationship between the Olwen of the story and the Olwen of our +folk-tale. If it could be shown that there is, we should be able at once +to regard both Olwens as 'Fair-Folk' or of the _Tylwyth Teg_, and the +quest of Kulhwch as really a journey to the Otherworld to gain a fairy +wife. + +[293] We may even have in the story of _Kulhwch and Olwen_ a symbolical +or mystical account of ancient Brythonic rites of initiation, which have +also directly to do with the spiritual world and its invisible +inhabitants. + +[294] Cf. J. Loth, _Les Mabinogion_ (Paris, 1889), p. 252 n. + +[295] Cf. J. Loth, _Le Mabinogi de Kulhwch et Olwen_ (Saint-Brieuc, +1888), Intro., p. 7. + +[296] Lady Ch. Guest's _Mabinogion_ (London, 1849), ii. 323 n. + +[297] Cf. R. H. Fletcher, _Arthurian Material in the Chronicles_, in +_Harv. Stud. and Notes in Phil. and Lit._, x. 20-1. + +[298] Fletcher, ib., x. 29; 26. + +[299] Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, p. 7; and Rhys, _The Welsh People_{3} +(London, 1902), p. 105. + +[300] Cf. Fletcher, op. cit., x. 43-115; from ed. by San-Marte (A. +Schulz), _Gottfried's von Monmouth Hist. Reg. Brit._ (Halle, 1854), Eng. +trans. by A. Thompson, _The British History_, &c. (1718). + +[301] Cf. Fletcher, op. cit., pp. 117-44. + +[302] Sir Frederic Madden, _Layamon's Brut_ (London, 1847), ii. 384. +Here the Germanic elves are by Layamon made the same in character and +nature as Brythonic elves or fairies. + +[303] Madden, _Layamon's Brut_, ii. 144. + +[304] J. Bedier's ed., _Societe des anciens textes francais_ (Paris, +1902). + +[305] E. Muret's ed., _Societe des anciens textes francais_ (Paris, +1903). + +[306] A. C. L. Brown, _The Knight and the Lion_; also, by same author, +_Iwain_, in _Harv. Stud. and Notes in Phil. and Lit._, vii. 146, &c. + +[307] _Celtic Mag._, xii. 555; _Romania_ (1888); cf. Brown, ib. + +[308] J. Loth, _Les Romans arthuriens_, in _Rev. Celt._, xiii. 497. + +[309] _Bibliotheca Normannica_, iii, _Die Lais der Marie de France_, pp. +86-112. + +[310] Cf. W. H. Schofield, _The Lays of Graelent and Lanval, and the +Story of Wayland_, in Pub. Mod. Lang. Ass. of America, xv. 176. + +[311] Cf. Schofield, _The Lay of Guingamor_, in _Harv. Stud. and Notes +in Phil. and Lit._, v. 221-2. + +[312] For editions, and fuller details of the fairy elements, see De La +Warr B. Easter, _A Study of the Magic Elements in the_ ROMANS D'AVENTURE +_and the_ ROMANS BRETONS (Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, 1906). See +also Lucy A. Paton, _Studies in the Fairy Mythology of the Arthurian +Romance_, Radcliffe College Monograph XIII (New York, 1903). + +[313] Perc., vi. 235; cf. Easter's Dissertation, p. 42 n. + +[314] _Joufrois_, 3179 ff.; ed. Hofmann und Muncker (Halle, 1880); cf. +Easter's Diss., pp. 40-2 n. + +[315] _Brun_, 562 ff., 3237, 3251, 3396, 3599 ff.; ed. Paul Meyer +(Paris, 1875); cf. ib., pp. 42 n., 44 n. + +[316] E. Anwyl, _The Four Branches of the Mabinogi_, in _Zeit. fuer Celt. +Phil._ (London, Paris, 1897), i. 278. + +[317] Cf. Nutt, _Voy. of Bran_, ii. 19, 21. + +[318] _Black Book of Caermarthen_, xvii, stanza 7, ll. 5-8. This book +dates from 1154 to 1189 as a manuscript; cf. Skene, _Four Anc. Books_, +i. 3, 372. + +[319] Stanzas 19-20. This book took shape as a manuscript from the +fourteenth to fifteenth century, according to Skene. Cf. Skene, _Four +Anc. Books_, i. 3, 464. + +[320] See _A Fugitive Poem of Myrddin in his Grave. Red Book of +Hergest_, ii. Skene, ib., i. 478-81, stanza 27. + +[321] Chief general references: H. D'Arbois de Jubainville, _L'Epopee +celtique en Irlande_, _Le Cycle Mythologique Irlandais_; Kuno Meyer and +Alfred Nutt, _The Happy Otherworld and the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth_. +Chief sources: the _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_ (A. D. 1100); the _Book of +Leinster_ (twelfth century); the _Lais_ of Marie de France (twelfth to +thirteenth century); the _White Book of Rhyderch_, Hengwrt Coll. +(thirteenth to fourteenth century); the _Yellow Book of Lecan_ +(fifteenth century); the _Book of Lismore_ (fifteenth century); the +_Book of Fermoy_ (fifteenth century); the _Four Ancient Books of Wales_ +(twelfth to fifteenth century). + +[322] One of the commonest legends among all Celtic peoples is about +some lost city like the Breton Is, or some lost land or island (cf. +Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, c. xv, and _Celtic Folk-Lore_, c. vii); and we +can be quite sure that if, as some scientists now begin to think (cf. +Batella, _Pruebas geologicas de la existencia de la Atlantida_, in +_Congreso internacional de Americanistas_, iv., Madrid, 1882; also +Meyers, _Grosses Konversations-Lexikon_, ii. 44, Leipzig und Wien, 1903) +Atlantis once existed, its disappearance must have left from a +prehistoric epoch a deep impress on folk-memory. But the Otherworld idea +being in essence animistic is not to be regarded, save from a +superficial point of view, as conceivably having had its origin in a +lost Atlantis. The real evolutionary process, granting the disappearance +of this island continent, would seem rather to have been one of +localizing and anthropomorphosing very primitive Aryan and pre-Aryan +beliefs about a heaven-world, such as have been current among almost all +races of mankind in all stages of culture, throughout the two Americas +and Polynesia as well as throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa. (Cf. +Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 62, 48, &c.) + +[323] _White Book of Rhyderch_, folio 291{a}; cf. Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, +pp. 268-9. + +[324] From _Echtra Condla_, in the _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_. Cf. _Le Cycle +Myth. Irl._, pp. 192-3. + +[325] Cf. Eleanor Hull, _The Silver Bough in Irish Legend_, in +_Folk-Lore_, xii. + +[326] Cf. Eleanor Hull, op. cit., p. 431. + +[327] Classical parallels to the Celtic Otherworld journeys exist in the +descent of Dionysus to bring back Semele, of Orpheus to recover his +beloved Eurydike, of Herakles at the command of his master Eurystheus to +fetch up the three-headed Kerberos--as mentioned first in Homer's +_Iliad_ (cf. Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 48); and chiefly in the voyage +of Odysseus across the deep-flowing Ocean to the land of the departed +(Homer, _Odyss._ xi). + +[328] Servius, _ad Aen._, vi. 136 ff. + +[329] _Voy. of Bran_, i, pp. 2 ff. The tale is based on seven +manuscripts ranging in age from the _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_ of about A. D. +1100 to six others belonging to the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth +centuries (cf. ib., p. xvi). + +[330] This tale exists in several manuscripts of the fourteenth and +fifteenth centuries; i. e. _Book of Ballymote_, and _Yellow Book of +Lecan_, as edited and translated by Stokes, in _Irische Texte_, III. i. +183-229; cf. _Voy. of Bran_, i. 190 ff.; cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, pp. +326-33. + +[331] The fountain is a sacred fountain containing the sacred salmon; +and the nine hazels are the sacred hazels of inspiration and poetry. +These passages are among the most mystical in Irish literature. Cf. pp. +432-3. + +[332] Cf. Stokes's trans. in _Irische Texte_ (Leipzig, 1891), III. i. +211-16. + +[333] The Greeks saw in Hermes the symbol of the Logos. Like Manannan, +he conducted the souls of men to the Otherworld of the gods, and then +brought them back to the human world. Hermes 'holds a rod in his hands, +beautiful, golden, wherewith he spellbinds the eyes of men whomsoever he +would, and wakes them again from sleep'--in initiations; while Manannan +and the fairy beings lure mortals to the fairy world through sleep +produced by the music of the Silver Branch.--Hippolytus on the Naasenes +(from the Hebrew _Nachash_, meaning a 'Serpent'), a Gnostic school; cf. +G. R. S. Mead, _Fragments of a Faith Forgotten_, pp. 198, 201. Or again, +'the Caduceus, or Rod of Mercury (Hermes), and the Thyrsus in the Greek +Mysteries, which conducted the soul from life to death, and from death +to life, figured forth the serpentine power in man, and the path whereby +it would carry the "man" aloft to the height, if he would but cause the +"Waters of the Jordan" to "flow upwards".'--G. R. S. Mead. ib., p. 185. + +[334] Cf. Hennessy's ed. in _Todd Lectures_, ser. I. i. 9. + +[335] Among the early ecclesiastical manuscripts of the so-called +_Prophecies_. See E. O'Curry, _Lectures_, p. 383. + +[336] Cf. Eleanor Hull, op. cit., pp. 439-40. + +[337] Now in three versions based on the _L. U._ MS. Our version is +collated from O'Curry's translation in _Atlantis_, i. 362-92, ii. +98-124, as revised by Kuno Meyer, _Voy. of Bran_, i. 152 ff.; and from +Jubainville's translation in _L'Ep. celt. en Irl._, pp. 170-216. + +[338] As Alfred Nutt pointed out, 'There is no parallel to the position +or to the sentiments of Fand in the post-classic literature of Western +Europe until we come to Guinevere and Isolt, Ninian and Orgueilleuse' +(_Voy. of Bran_, i. 156 n.). + +[339] See poem _Tir na nog_ (Land of Youth), by Michael Comyn, composed +or collected about the year 1749. Ed. by Bryan O'Looney, in _Trans. +Ossianic Soc._, iv. 234-70. + +[340] Laeghaire, who also came back from Fairyland on a fairy horse, and +fifty warriors with him each likewise mounted, to say good-bye for ever +to the king and people of Connaught, were warned as they set out for +this world not to dismount if they wished to return to their fairy +wives. The warning was strictly observed, and thus they were able to go +back to the _Sidhe_-world (see p. 295). + +[341] Cf. _Bibliotheca Normannica_, iii, _Die Lais der Marie de France_, +pp. 86-112. + +[342] Cf. Stokes's trans., in _Rev. Celt._, ix. 453-95, x. 50-95. Most +of the tale comes from the _L. U._ MS.; cf. _L'Ep. celt. en Irl._, pp. +449-500. + +[343] _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 385-401. The MS. text, _Echira Thaidg mheic +Chein_, or 'The Adventure of Cian's son Teigue', is found in the _Book +of Lismore_. + +[344] Summarized and quoted from translation by R. I. Best, in _Eriu_, +iii. 150-73. The text is found in the _Book of Fermoy_ (pp. 139-45), a +fifteenth-century codex in the Royal Irish Academy. + +[345] Folios 113-15, trans. O'Beirne Crow, _Journ. Kilkenny Archae. +Soc._ (1870-1), pp. 371-448; cf. Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, pp. 260-1. + +[346] Cf. Skene, _Four Ancient Books of Wales_, i. 264-6, 276, &c. + +[347] Cf. _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 301 ff., from Additional MS. 34119, +dating from 1765, in British Museum. + +[348] _Giolla an Fhiugha_, or 'The Lad of the Ferrule', trans. by +Douglas Hyde, in _Irish Texts Society_, London, 1899. + +[349] Cf. Meyer and Nutt, _Voy. of Bran_, i. 147, 228, 230, 235; 161. + +[350] The bulk of the text comes from the _Book of Fermoy_. Cf. Stokes's +trans. in _Rev. Celt._, xiv. 59, 49, 53, &c. + +[351] J. Loth, _L'Emigration bretonne en Armorique_ (Paris, 1883), pp. +139-40. + +[352] Ed. and trans. by W. Stokes, Calcutta, 1866. This _Vision_ has +been erroneously ascribed to the celebrated Abbot of Iona, who died in +703; but Professor Zimmer has regarded it as a ninth-century +composition; cf. _Voy. of Bran_, i. 219 ff. + +[353] Cf. _Voy. of Bran_, i. 195 ff. + +[354] See J. G. Campbell, _The Fians_, pp. 260-7. + +[355] _The Literary Movement in Ireland_, in _Ideals in Ireland_, ed. by +Lady Gregory (London, 1901), p. 95. + +[356] Cf. _Voy. of Bran_, i. 331. + +[357] General reference: _Essay upon the Irish Vision of the happy +Otherworld and the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth_, by Alfred Nutt in Kuno +Meyer's _Voyage of Bran_. Chief sources: _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_; _Book of +Leinster_; _Four Ancient Books of Wales_; _Mabinogion_; _Silva +Gadelica_; _Barddas_, a collection of Welsh manuscripts made about 1560; +and the _Annals of the Four Masters_, compiled in the first half of the +seventeenth century. + +[358] Cf. Plato, _Republic_, x; _Phaedo_; _Phaedrus_, &c.; Iamblichus, +_Concerning the Mysteries of Egypt, Chaldaea, Assyria_; Plutarch, +_Mysteries of Isis (De Iside et Osiride)_. + +[359] He says:--'I, for my part, suspect that the spirit was implanted +in them (rational creatures, men) from without' _(De Principiis_, Book +I, c. vii. 4);... 'the cause of each one's actions is a pre-existing +one; and then every one, according to his deserts, is made by God either +a vessel unto honour or dishonour' (ib., Book III, c. i. 20). 'Whence we +are of opinion that, seeing the soul, as we have frequently said, is +immortal and eternal, it is possible that, in the many and endless +periods of duration in the immeasurable and different worlds, it may +descend from the highest good to the lowest evil, or be restored from +the lowest evil to the highest good' (ib., Book III, c. i, 21);... +'every one has the reason in himself, why he has been placed in this or +that rank in life' (ib., Book III, c. v, 4). + +[360] Cf. Bergier, _Origene_, in _Dict. de Theologie_, v. 69. + +[361] _Holy Bible_, Revised Version, St. Matt. xi. 14-15; cf. St. Matt. +xvii. 10-13, St. Mark ix. 13, St. Luke vii. 27, St. John i. 21. + +[362] Tertullian's conclusion is as follows:--'These substances ("soul +and body") are, in fact, the natural property of each individual; whilst +"the spirit and power" (cf. Mal. iv. 5) are bestowed as external gifts +by the grace of God, and so may be transferred to another person +according to the purpose and will of the Almighty, as was anciently the +case with respect to the spirit of Moses' (cf. Num. xii. 2).--_De Anima_ +c. xxxv; cf. trans, in _Ante-Nicene Christian Library_ (Edinburgh, +1870), xv. 496-7. + +[363] Origen says:--'But that there should be certain doctrines not made +known to the multitude, which are [revealed] after the exoteric ones +have been taught, is not a peculiarity of Christianity alone, but also +of philosophic systems, in which certain truths are exoteric and others +esoteric' (_Origen against Celsus_, Book I, c. vii). + +[364] How Tertullian almost literally accepted the re-birth doctrine is +shown in his _Apology_, chapter xlviii, concerning the resurrection of +the body. It is the corrupted form of the doctrine, viz. transmigration +of human souls into animal bodies, which he therein, as well as in his +_De Anima_ and elsewhere, chiefly and logically combats, as Origen also +combated it. He first shows why a human soul must return into a human +body in accordance with natural analogy, every creature being after its +own kind always; and then, because the purpose of the Resurrection is +the judgement, that the soul must return into its own body. And he +concludes:--'It is surely more worthy of belief that a man will be +restored from a man, any given person from any given person, but still a +man; so that the same kind of soul may be reinstated in the same mode of +existence, even if not into the same outward form' (_The Apology of +Tertullian for the Christians_; cf. trans. by T. H. Bindley, Oxford, +1890, pp. 137-9). + +[365] British Museum MS. Add. 5114, vellum--a Coptic manuscript in the +dialect of Upper Egypt. Its undetermined date is placed by Woide at +latest about the end of the fourth century. It was evidently copied by +one scribe from an older manuscript, the original probably having been +the _Apocalypse of Sophia_, by Valentius, the learned Gnostic who lived +in Egypt for thirty years during the second century. See the translation +of the Schwartze's parallel Latin version of _Pistis Sophia_ and its +introduction, both by G. R. S. Mead (London, 1896). + +[366] The chief passages are as follows, Jesus being the +speaker:--'Moreover, in the region of the soul of the rulers, destined +to receive it, I found the soul of the prophet Elias, in the aeons of +the sphere, and I took him, and receiving his soul also, I brought it to +the virgin of light, and she gave it to her receivers; they brought it +to the sphere of the rulers, and cast it into the womb of Elizabeth. +Wherefore the power of the little Iao, who is in the midst, and the soul +of Elias the prophet, are united with the body of John the Baptist. For +this cause have ye been in doubt aforetime, when I said unto you, "John +said, I am not the Christ"; and ye said unto me, "It is written in the +Scripture, that when the Christ shall come, Elias will come before him, +and prepare his way." And I, when ye had said this unto me, replied unto +you, "Elias verily is come, and hath prepared all things, according as +it is written; and they have done unto him whatsoever they would." And +when I perceived that ye did not understand that I had spoken concerning +the soul of Elias united with John the Baptist, I answered you openly +and face to face with the words, "If ye will receive it, John the +Baptist is Elias who, I said, was for to come"' (_Pistis Sophia_, Book +I, 12-13, Mead's translation). + +[367] 'The Saviour answered and said unto his disciples:--"Preach ye +unto the whole world, saying unto men, 'Strive together that ye may +receive the mysteries of light in this time of stress, and enter into +the kingdom of light. Put not off from day to day, and from cycle to +cycle, in the belief that ye will succeed in obtaining the mysteries +when ye return to the world in another cycle'"' (_Pistis Sophia_, Book +II, 317, Mead's translation). + +[368] Cf. Bergier, _Manicheisme_, in _Dict. de Theol._, iv. 211-13. + +[369] The _Refutation of Irenaeus_, until quite recently, has been the +chief source of much of our knowledge concerning Gnosticism. It was +written during the second century at Lyons, by Irenaeus, a bishop of +Gaul, far from any direct contact with the still flourishing Gnosticism. +But now with the discovery of genuine manuscripts of Gnostic works: (1) +the _Askew Codex_, vellum, British Museum, London, containing the +_Pistis Sophia_ (see above, p. 361 n.) and extracts from the _Books of +the Saviour_; (2) the _Bruce Codex_ (two MSS.), papyrus, Bodleian +Library, Oxford, containing the fragmentary _Book of the Great Logos_, +an unknown treatise, and fragments; and (3) the _Akhmim Codex_ +(discovered in 1896), papyrus, Egyptian Museum, Berlin, containing _The +Gospel of Mary_ (or _Apocryphon of John_), _The Wisdom of Jesus Christ_, +and _The Acts of Peter_, we are able to check from original sources the +Fathers in many of their writings and canons concerning Gnostic +'heresies'; and find that Irenaeus, the last refuge of Christian +haeresiologists, has so condensed and paraphrased his sources that we +cannot depend upon him at all for a consistent exposition of Gnostic +doctrines, which with more or less prejudice he is trying to refute. It +is true that the age of these manuscripts has not been satisfactorily +determined; in fact most of them have not yet been carefully studied. +Very probably, however, as appears to be the case with the _Pistis +Sophia_, they have been copied from manuscripts which were contemporary +with or earlier than the time of Irenaeus, and hence may be regarded as +good authority in determining Gnostic teachings. (Cf. all of above note +with G. R. S. Mead, _Fragments of a Faith Forgotten_, London, 1900, pp. +147, 151-3.) + +Many unprejudiced scholars are now unwilling to admit the rulings of the +Church Councils which determined what was orthodox and what heretical +doctrines among the Gnostic-Christians, because many of their dogmatic +decisions were based upon the unscholarly _Refutation of Irenaeus_ and +upon other equally unreliable evidence. The data which have accumulated +in the hands of scholars about early Christian thought and Gnosticism +are now much more complete and trustworthy than the similar data were +upon which the Council of Constantinople in 553 based its decision with +respect to the doctrine of re-birth; and the truth coming to be +recognized seems to be that the Gnostics rather than the Church Fathers, +who adopted from them what doctrines they liked, condemning those they +did not like, should henceforth be regarded as the first Christian +theologians, and mystics. If this view of the very difficult and complex +matter be accepted, then modern Christianity itself ought to be allowed +to resume what thus appears to have been its original position--so long +obscured by the well-meaning, but, nevertheless, ill-advised +ecclesiastical councils--as the synthesizer of pagan religions and +philosophies. Some such view has been accepted by many eminent Christian +theologians since Origen: i. e. the Cambridge Platonist, Henry More, +openly advocated the re-birth doctrine in the seventeenth century; and +in later times it has been preached from Christian pulpits by such men +as Henry Ward Beecher and Phillips Brooks. + +[370] See A. Bertrand, _La Religion des Gaulois, les Druides et le +Druidisme_ (Paris, 1897); H. Jennings, _The Rosicrucians_ (London, +1887); the Work of Paracelsus; H. Cornelius Agrippa, _De Occulta +Philosophia_ (Paris, 1567); H. P. Blavatsky's _Isis Unveiled_, and the +_Secret Doctrine_ (London, 1888); and _Hermetic Works_, by Anna +Kingsford and E. Maitland (London, 1885). + +[371] Cf. Bergier, _Purgatoire_, in _Dict. de Theol._, v. 409. A Celt, a +professed faithful and fervent adherent of the Church of Rome, whom I +met in the Morbihan where he now lives, told me that he believes +thoroughly in the doctrine of re-birth, and that it is according to his +opinion the proper and logical interpretation of the doctrine of +Purgatory; and he added that there are priests in his Church who have +told him that their personal interpretation of the purgatorial doctrine +is the same. Thus some Roman Catholics do not deny the re-birth +doctrine. And such conversations as this with Catholic Celts in Ireland +and Brittany lead me to believe that to a larger extent than has been +suspected the old Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth may have been one of the +chief foundations for the modern Roman Catholic Doctrine of Purgatory, +whose origin is not clearly indicated in any theological works. For us +this probability is important as well as interesting, and especially so +when we remember the profound influence which the Celtic St. Patrick's +Purgatory certainly exerted on the Church during the Middle Ages when +the doctrine of Purgatory was taking definite shape (see our chapter x). + +[372] _Barddas_ (Llandovery, 1862) is 'a collection (by Iolo Morganwg, a +Bard) of original documents, illustrative of the theology, wisdom, and +usage of the Bardo-Druidic System of the Isle of Britain'. The original +manuscripts are said to have been in the possession of Llywelyn Sion, a +Bard of Glamorgan, about 1560. _Barddas_ shows considerable Christian +influence, yet in its essential teachings is sufficiently distinct. +Though of late composition, _Barddas_ seems to represent the traditional +bardic doctrines as they had been handed down orally for an unknown +period of time, it having been forbidden in earlier times to commit such +doctrines to writing. We are well aware also of the adverse criticisms +passed upon these documents; but since no one questions their Celtic +origin--whether it be ancient or more modern--we are content to use +them. + +[373] _Barddas_, i, 189-91. + +[374] _Barddas_, i, 177. + +[375] Preface to _Barddas_, xlii. + +[376] One of the greatest errors formerly made by European Sanskrit +scholars and published broadcast throughout the West, so that now it is +popularly accepted there as true, is that Nirvana, the goal of Indian +philosophy and religion, means annihilation. It does mean annihilation +(evolutionary transmutation of lower into higher), but only of all those +forces or elements which constitute man as an animal. The error arose +from interpreting exoterically instead of esoterically, and was a +natural result of that system of western scholarship which sees and +often cares only to examine external aspects. Native Indian scholars who +have advised us in this difficult problem prefer to translate _Nirvana_ +as 'Self-realization', i. e. a state of supernormal consciousness (to be +acquired through the evolution of the individual), as much superior to +the normal human consciousness as the normal human consciousness is +superior to the consciousness existing in the brute kingdom. + +[377] _De Bel. Gal._, lib. vi. 14. 5; vi. 18. 1. + +[378] Book V, 31. 4. + +[379] _De Situ Orbis_, iii. c. 2: 'One point alone of the Druids' +teaching has become generally known among the common people (in order +that they should be braver in war), that souls are eternal and there is +a second life among the shades.' + +[380] i. 449-62. + +[381] Lucan, i. 457-8; i. 458-62. + +[382] Cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, pp. 345, 347 ff. + +[383] _Folk-Lore_, xii. 64, &c.; also cf. Eleanor Hull, _The Cuchullin +Saga in Irish Literature_ (London, 1898), Intro., p. 23, &c. + +[384] What is probably the oldest form of a tale concerning Conchobhar's +birth makes Conchobhar 'the son of a god who incarnated himself in the +same way as did Lug and Etain' (cf. _Voy. of Bran_, ii. 73). + +[385] See _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_, 101{b}; and _Book of Leinster_, +123{b}:--'_Cuchulainn mc dea dechtiri_.' + +[386] We have already mentioned the belief that gods having their abode +in the sun could leave it to assume bodies here on earth and become +culture heroes and great teachers (see p. 309). + +[387] From _Wooing of Emer_ in _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_; cf. _Voy. of +Bran_, ii. 97. + +[388] _L'Epopee celt. en Irl._, p. 11. + +[389] Cf. _Voy. of Bran_, ii. p. 74 ff. + +[390] In the _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_, 133{a}-134{b}; cf. _Le Cycle Myth. +Irl._, pp. 336-43; cf. _Voy. of Bran_, i. 49-52; cf. O'Curry, _Manners +and Customs_, iii. 175. + +[391] Cf. Stokes's ed. _Annals of Tigernach, Third Frag._ in _Rev. +Celt._ xvii. 178. In the piece called _Tucait baile Mongain_ in the +_Leabhar na h-Uidhre_, p. 134, col. 2, 'Mongan is seen living with his +wife the year of the death of Ciaran mac int Shair, and of Tuathal +Mael-Garb, that is to say in 544,' following the _Chronicum Scotorum_, +Hennessy's ed., pp. 48-9. As D'Arbois de Jubainville adds, the Irish +chronicles of this epoch are only approximate in their dates. Thus, +while the _Four Masters_ (i. 243) makes the death of Mongan A. D. 620, +the _Annals of Ulster_ makes it A. D. 625, the _Chronicum Scotorum_ A. +D. 625, the _Annals of Clonmacnoise_, A. D. 624, and _Egerton MS._ 1782 +A. D. 615 (cf. _Voy. of Bran_, i. 137-9). + +[392] J. O'Donovan, _Annals of Ireland by the Four Masters_ (Dublin, +1856), i. 121. + +[393] Cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, pp. 336-43; O'Curry, _Manners and +Customs_ iii. 175; _L. U._, 133{a}-134{b}; and _Voy. of Bran_, i. 52. + +[394] _Voy. of Bran_, i. 44-5; from _The Conception of Mongan_. + +[395] Meyer's version, _Voy. of Bran_, i. 73-4. + +[396] Cf. _Voy. of Bran_, i. 137. + +[397] _Voy. of Bran_, i. 22-8, quatrains 48-59, &c. + +[398] In _L. U._; cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, pp. 311-22; and _Voy. of +Bran_, ii. 47-53. + +[399] In the Irish conception of re-birth there is no change of sex: Lug +is re-born as a boy, in Cuchulainn; Finn as Mongan; Etain as a girl. But +it seems that Etain as a mortal had no consciousness of her previous +divine existence, while Cuchulainn and Mongan knew their non-human +origin and pre-existence. + +[400] Some time after this, according to one part of the tale, Eochaid +stormed Midir's fairy palace--for the purpose localized in Ireland--and +won Etain back, but the fairies cast a curse on his race for this, and +Conaire, his grandson, fell a victim to it. Such a recovering of Etain +by Eochaid may vaguely suggest a re-birth of Etain, through the power +exerted by Eochaid, who, being a king, is to be regarded in his +non-human nature as one of the Tuatha De Danann himself, like Midir his +rival. + +[401] Cf. _The Gilla decair_, in _Silva Gadelica_, pp. 300-3. + +[402] Cf. _Voy. of Bran_, ii. 76 ff. The Christian scribe's version +fills up the space between Tuan's death and re-birth by making him pass +eighty years as a stag, twenty as a wild boar, one hundred as an eagle, +and twenty as a salmon (ib., p. 79). In this particular example, the +uninitiated scribe (evidently having failed to grasp an important aspect +of the re-birth doctrine as this was esoterically explained in the +Mysteries, namely, that between death and re-birth, while the conscious +Ego is resident in the Otherworld, the physical atoms of the discarded +human body may transmigrate through various plant and animal bodies) +appears to set forth as Celtic an erroneous doctrine of the +transmigration of the conscious Ego itself (see p. 513 n.). In other +texts, for example in the song which Amairgen (considered the Gaelic +equivalent or even original of the Brythonic Taliessin) sang as he, with +the conquering Sons of Mil, set foot on Ireland, there are similar +transformations, attributed to certain heroes like Taliessin (see the +_Mabinogion_) and Tuan mac Cairill during their disembodied states after +death and until re-birth. But these transformations seem to echo +poetically, and often rationally, a very mystical Celtic pantheism, in +which Man, regarded as having evolved upwards through all forms and +conditions of existence, is at one with all creation:-- + + I am the wind which blows o'er the sea; + I am the wave of the deep; + I am the bull of seven battles; + I am the eagle on the rock; + I am a tear of the sun; + I am the fairest of plants; + I am a boar for courage; + I am a salmon in the water; + I am a lake in the plain; + I am the world of knowledge; + I am the head of the battle-dealing spear; + I am the god who fashions fire in the head; + Who spreads light in the gathering on the mountain? + Who foretells the ages of the moon? + Who teaches the spot where the sun rests? + +And Amairgen also says:--'I am,' [Taliessin] 'I have been' (_Book of +Invasions_; cf. _Voy. of Bran_, ii. 91-2; cf. Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, p. +549; cf. Skene, _Four Ancient Books_, i. 276 ff.). + +In later times, especially among non-bardic poets, there has been a +similar tendency to misinterpret this primitive mystical Celtic +pantheism into the corrupt form of the re-birth doctrine, namely +transmigration of the human soul into animal bodies. Dr. Douglas Hyde +has sent to me the following evidence:--'I have a poem, consisting of +nearly one hundred stanzas, about a pig who ate an Irish manuscript, and +who by eating it recovered human speech for twenty-four hours and gave +his master an account of his previous embodiments. He had been a +right-hand man of Cromwell, a weaver in France, a subject of the Grand +Signor, &c. The poem might be about one hundred or one hundred and fifty +years old.' It is probable that the poet who composed this poem intended +to add a touch of modern Irish humour by making use of the pig. We +should, nevertheless, bear in mind that the pig (or, as is more commonly +the rule, the wild boar) holds a very curious and prominent position in +the ancient mythology of Ireland, and of Wales as well. It was regarded +as a magical animal (cf. p. 451 n.); and, apparently, was also a Druid +symbol, whose meaning we have lost. Possibly the poet may have been +aware of this. If so, he does not necessarily imply transmigration of +the human soul into animal bodies; but is merely employing symbolism. + +[403] See _Taliessin_ in the _Mabinogion_, and the _Book of Taliessin_ +in Skene's _Four Ancient Books_, i. 523 ff.; cf. Nutt, _Voy. of Bran_, +ii. 84, and Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, pp. 548, 551. + +[404] Cf. Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, pp. 548-50. + +[405] Cf. Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, p. 259; and _Arth. Leg._, p. 252. + +[406] Loth, _Les Mabinogion, Kulhwch et Olwen_, p. 187 n. + +[407] _Le Morte D'Arthur_, Book XXI, c. vii. + +[408] See works on Egyptian mythology and religion, by Maspero; also +Lenormant, _Chaldean Magic_, p. 84, &c. + +[409] F. L. Griffith, _Stories of the High-priests of Memphis_ (Oxford, +1900), c. iii. The text of this story is written on the back of two +Greek documents, bearing the date of the seventh year of the Emperor +Claudius (A. D. 46-7), not before published. + +[410] It is interesting to compare with this episode the episodes of how +the magic of St. Patrick prevailed over the magic of the Druids when the +old and the new religions met in warfare on the Hill of Tara, in the +presence of the high king of Ireland and his court. + +[411] E. A. Wallis Budge, _The Gods of the Egyptians_ (London, 1904), +p. 3. + +[412] Prescott, _Conquest of Mexico and Conquest of Peru_. + +[413] W. Crooke, _The Legends of Krishna_, in _Folk-Lore_, xi. 2-3 ff. + +[414] _Laws of Manu_, vii. 8, trans, by G. Buehler. + +[415] A. B. Cook, _European Sky-God_, in _Folk-Lore_, xv. 301-4. + +[416] Cf. Lucian, _Somn._, 17, &c. See Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 13; +also Tertullian, _De Anima_, c. xxviii, where Pythagoras is described as +having previously been Aethalides, and Euphorbus, and the fisherman +Pyrrhus. + +[417] Cf. Huc, _Souvenirs d'un voyage dans la Tartarie et le Thibet_, i. +279 ff. + +[418] The doctrine of kingly rule by divine right was substituted after +the conversion of the Roman Empire for the very ancient belief that the +emperor was a god incarnate (not necessarily reincarnate); and the same +christianized aspect of a pre-Christian doctrine stands behind the +English kingship at the present day. + +[419] A curious parallel to this Irish doctrine that through re-birth +one suffers for the sins committed in a previous earth-life is found in +the Christian scriptures, where in asking Jesus about a man born blind, +'Rabbi, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he should be born +blind?' the disciple exhibits what must have been a popular Jewish +belief in re-birth quite like the Celtic one. See St. John ix. 1-2. +Though the Rabbis admitted the possibility of ante-natal sin in thought, +this passage seems to point unmistakably to a Jewish re-birth doctrine. + +[420] It is interesting to note in connexion with these two +complementary ideas what has been written by Mr. Standish O'Grady +concerning strange phenomena witnessed at the time of Charles Parnell's +funeral:--'While his followers were committing Charles Parnell's remains +to the earth, the sky was bright with strange lights and flames. Only a +coincidence possibly; and yet persons not superstitious have maintained +that there is some mysterious sympathy between the human soul and the +elements.... Those strange flames recalled to my memory what is told of +similar phenomena said to have been witnessed when tidings of the death +of the great Christian Saint, Columba, overran the north-west of Europe, +as perhaps truer than I had imagined.'--_Ireland: Her Story_, pp. +211-12. + +[421] Cf. M. Lenihan, _Limerick; its History and Antiquities_ (Dublin, +1866), p. 725. + +[422] I take this to mean, somewhat as in the similar case of Dechtire, +the mother of Cuchulainn (see p. 369, above), that the kind of soul or +character which will be reincarnated in the child is determined by the +psychic prenatal conditions which a mother consciously or unconsciously +may set up. If this interpretation, as it seems to be, is correct, we +have in this Welsh belief a surprising comprehension of scientific laws +on the part of the ancient Welsh Druids--from whom the doctrine +comes--which equals, and surpasses in its subtlety, the latest +discoveries of our own psychological embryology, criminology, and +so-called laws of heredity. + +[423] The reader is referred to the Rev. T. M. Morgan's latest +publication, _The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Newchurch, +Carmarthenshire_ (Carmarthen, 1910), pp. 155-6. + +[424] I found, however, that the original re-birth doctrine has been +either misinterpreted or else corrupted--after Dr. Tylor's theory--into +transmigration into animal bodies among certain Cornish miners in the +St. Just region. + +[425] The primitive character of the Incarnation doctrine is clear: +Origen, in refuting a Jewish accusation against Christians, apparently +the natural outgrowth of deep-seated hatred and religious prejudice on +the part of the Jews, that Jesus Christ was born through the adultery of +the Virgin with a certain soldier named Panthera, argues 'that every +soul, for certain mysterious reasons (I speak now according to the +opinions of Pythagoras, and Plato, and Empedocles, whom Celsus +frequently names), is introduced into a body, and introduced according +to its deserts and former actions'. And, according to Origen's argument, +to assign to Jesus Christ a birth more disgraceful than any other is +absurd, because 'He who sends souls down into the bodies of men' would +not have thus 'degraded Him who was to dare such mighty acts, and to +teach so many men, and to reform so many from the mass of wickedness in +the world'. And Origen adds:--'It is probable, therefore, that this soul +also which conferred more benefit by its residence in the flesh than +that of many men (to avoid prejudice, I do not say "all"), stood in need +of a body not only superior to others, but invested with all excellence' +(_Origen against Celsus_, Book I, c. xxxii). + +It is interesting to compare with Origen's theology the following +passage from the _Pistis Sophia_, wherein Jesus in the alleged esoteric +discourse to his disciples refers to the pre-existence of their +souls:--'I took them from the hands of the twelve saviours of the +treasure of light, according to the command of the first mystery. These +powers, therefore, I cast into the wombs of your mothers, when I came +into the world, and they are those which are in your bodies this day' +(_Pistis Sophia_, i. II, Mead's translation). + +[426] Cf. Nutt, _Voy. of Bran_, ii. 27 ff., 45 ff., 54 ff., 98-102. + +[427] Cf. ib., p. 105. + +[428] In this chapter, largely the result of my own special research and +observations in Celtic archaeology, I wish to acknowledge the very +valuable suggestions offered to me by Professor J. Loth, both in his +lectures and personally. + +[429] See David MacRitchie, _Fians, Fairies, and Picts_; also his +_Testimony of Tradition_. + +[430] Myers, in the _Survival of the Human Personality_ (ii. 55-6), +shows that 'the departed spirit, long after death, seems pre-occupied +with the spot where his bones are laid'. Among contemporary uncultured +races there exists a theory parallel to this one arrived at through +careful scientific research, namely, that ghosts haunt graves and +monuments connected with the dead: according to the Australian Arunta +the 'double' hovers near its body until the body is reduced to dust, the +spirit or soul of the deceased having separated from this 'double' or +ghost at the time of death or soon afterwards (Spenser and Gillen, _Nat. +Tribes of Cent. Aust._). + +[431] See _Les Grottes_, t. i; _Les Menhirs, Les Dolmens, Les Tumulus_, +and _Cultes et observances megalithiques_, t. iv. + +[432] On April 17, 1909, at Carnac, in a natural fissure in the body of +the finest menhir at the head of the Alignement of Kermario, I found +quite by chance, while making a very careful examination of the +geological structure of the menhir, a Roman Catholic coin (or medal) of +St. Peter. The place in the menhir where this coin was discovered is on +the south side about fifteen inches above the surface of the ground. The +menhir is very tall and smoothly rounded, and there is no possible way +for the coin to have fallen into the fissure by accident. Nor is there +any probability that the coin was placed there without a serious +purpose; and it is an object such as only an adult would possess. An +examination of the link remaining on the coin, which no doubt formerly +connected it with a necklace or string of prayer-beads, shows that it +has been purposely opened so as to free it at the time it was deposited +in the stone. Had the coin been accidentally torn away from a chain or +string of prayer-beads the link would have presented a different sort of +opening. But it would be altogether unreasonable to suppose that by any +sort of chance the coin could have reached the place where I found it. I +showed the coin to M. Z. Le Rouzic, of the Carnac Museum, and he +considers it, as I do, as evidence or proof of a cult rendered to stones +here in Brittany. The coin must have been secretly placed in the menhir +by some pious peasant as a direct _ex voto_ for some favour received or +demanded. The coin is somewhat discoloured, and has probably been some +years in the stone, though it cannot be very old. And the offering of a +coin to the spirit residing in a menhir is parallel to throwing coins, +pins, or other objects into sacred fountains, which, as we know, is an +undisputed practice. + +[433] Cf. A. C. Kruijt, _Het Animisme in den Indischen Archipel_; quoted +in Crawley's _Idea of the Soul_, p. 133. + +[434] Cf. Weidemann, _Ancient Egyptian Doct. Immortality_, p. 21. + +[435] Cf. Mahe, _Essai_. + +[436] Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 143 ff., 169, 172. + +[437] Marett, _The Threshold of Religion_, c. i. + +[438] Mahe, _Essai_, p. 230. + +[439] A famous controversy exists as to whether the Coronation Stone now +in Westminster Abbey is the _Lia Fail_, or whether the pillar-stone +still at Tara is the _Lia Fail_. See article by E. S. Hartland in +_Folk-Lore_, xiv. 28-60. + +[440] These 'idols' probably were not true images, but simply unshaped +stone pillars planted on end in the earth; and ought, therefore, more +properly to be designated fetishes. + +[441] Stokes, in _Rev. Celt._, i. 260; Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, pp. 200-1. + +[442] Very much first-class evidence suggests that the menhir was +regarded by the primitive Celts both as an abode of a god or as a seat +of divine power, and as a phallic symbol (cf. Jubainville, _Le culte des +menhirs dans le monde celtique_, in _Rev. Celt._, xxvii. 313). As a +phallic symbol, the menhir must have been inseparably related to a +Celtic sun-cult; because among all ancient peoples where phallic worship +has prevailed, the sun has been venerated as the supreme masculine force +in external nature from which all life proceeds, while the phallus has +been venerated as the corresponding force in human nature. + +[443] _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 137. + +[444] Professor J. Loth says:--'_Etymologiquement, le mot est compose +de_ CROM, _courbe, arque, formant creux, convexe, et de_ LLECH, _pierre +plate_' (_Rev. Celt._, xv. 223, _Dolmen_, _Leach-Derch_, _Peulvan_, +_Menhir_, _Cromlech_). In Cornwall, Wales, and Ireland, instead of the +peculiarly Breton word _dolmen_ (composed of _dol_ [for _tol == tavl_], +meaning _table_, and of _men_ [Middle Breton _maen_], meaning _stone_) +the word _cromlech_ is used. _Cromlech_ is the Welsh equivalent for the +Breton _dolmen_, but Breton archaeologists use _cromlech_ to describe a +circle formed by menhirs. + +[445] Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, pp. 193-4. + +[446] Ib., p. 192; from Sans-Marte's edition, pp. 108-9, 361. + +[447] Ib., p. 193. + +[448] Ib., pp. 194-5; cf. _Bibliotheca_ of Diodorus Siculus, ii. c. 47. + +[449] Edith F. Carey, _Channel Island Folklore_ (Guernsey, 1909). + +[450] Mahe, _Essai_, p. 198. + +[451] Mahe, _Essai_, pp. 287-9. + +[452] The place for holding a _gorsedd_ for modern Welsh initiations, +under the authority of which the Eisteddfod is conducted, must also be +within a circle of stones, 'face to face with the sun and the eye of +light, as there is no power to hold a _gorsedd_ under cover or at night, +but only where and as long as the sun is visible in the heavens' +(Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, pp. 208-9; from _Iolo_ MSS., p. 50). + +[453] Recently before the Oxford Anthropological Society, Dr. Murray +argued that the satyrs of Greek drama may originally have been masked +initiators in Greek initiations. (Cf. _The Oxford Magazine_, February 3, +1910, p. 173.) + +[454] Edith F. Carey, op. cit. + +[455] Mahe, _Essai_, pp. 126-9. + +[456] Mahe, _Essai_, pp. 126-9. + +[457] Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, p. 339. + +[458] Edith F. Carey, op. cit. + +[459] Montelius' _Les Temps prehistoriques en Suede_, par S. Reinach, p. +126. (Paris, 1895). + +[460] H. Schliemann, _Mycenae_ (London, 1878), p. 213. + +[461] Walhouse, in _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, vii. 21. These Dravidians +are slightly taller than the pure Negritos, their probable ancestors; +and Indian tradition considers them to be the builders of the Indian +dolmens, just as Celtic tradition considers fairies and _corrigans_ +(often described as dark or even black-skinned dwarfs) to be the +builders of dolmens and megaliths among the Celts. Apparently, in such +folk-traditions, which correctly or incorrectly regard fairies, +_corrigans_, or Dravidians as the builders of ancient stone monuments, +there has been preserved a folk-memory of early races of men who may +have been Negritos (pygmy blacks). These races, through a natural +anthropomorphic process, came to be identified with the spirits of the +dead and with other spiritual beings to whom the monuments were +dedicated and at which they were worshipped. Here, again, the Pygmy +Theory is seen at its true relative value: it is subordinate to the +fundamental animism of the Fairy-Faith. + +[462] J. Dechelette, _Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique_ (Paris, 1908), +i. 468, 302, 308, 311, 576, 610, &c. + +[463] This famous chambered tumulus 'measures nearly 700 feet in +circumference, or about 225 feet in diameter, and between 40 and 50 feet +in height' (G. Coffey, in _Rl. Ir. Acad. Trans._ [Dublin, 1892], xxx. +68). + +[464] G. Coffey, in _Rl. Ir. Acad. Trans._, xxx. 73-92. + +[465] Fol. 190 b; trans. O'Curry, _Lectures_, p. 505. + +[466] Mr. Coffey quotes from the _Senchus-na-Relec_, in _L. U._, this +significant passage:--'The nobles of the Tuatha De Danann were used to +bury at Brugh (i. e. the Dagda with his three sons; also Lugaidh, and Oe, +and Ollam, and Ogma, and Etan the Poetess, and Corpre, the son of Etan)' +(G. Coffey, op. cit., xxx. 77). The manuscript, however, being late and +directly under Christian influence, echoes but imperfectly very ancient +Celtic tradition: the immortal god-race are therein rationalized by the +transcribers, and made subject to death. + +[467] W. C. Borlase, _Dolmens of Ireland_ (London, 1897), ii. 346 n. + +[468] As translated in the _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 109-11. + +[469] Borlase, op. cit., ii. 346-7 n. + +[470] Borlase, op. cit., ii. 346-7 n. + +[471] Ib., ii. 347 n. + +[472] A good example of a saint's stone bed can be seen now at +Glendalough, the stone bed of St. Kevin, high above a rocky shore of the +lake. + +[473] Coffey, op. cit., xxx. 73-4, from R. I. A. MS., by Michael +O'Longan, dated 1810, p. 10, and translated by Douglas Hyde. + +[474] Coffey, op. cit., xxv. 73-4, from R. I. A. MS. by Michael +O'Longan, dated 1810, p. 10, and trans. by Douglas Hyde. + +[475] Borlase, op. cit., ii. 347 n. + +[476] O'Donovan, _Four Masters_, i. 22 n. + +[477] Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, pp. 148-50. + +[478] Cf. O'Curry, _Manners and Customs_, ii. 122; iii. 5, 74, 122; +Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, pp. 150, 150 n.; Jubainville, _Essai d'un +Catalogue_, p. 244. + +[479] Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, p. 194. + +[480] Math ab Mathonwy's Irish counterpart is Math mac Umoir, the +magician (_Book of Leinster_, f. 9{b}; cf. Rhys, _Trans. Third Inter. +Cong. Hist. Religions_, Oxford, 1908, ii. 211). + +[481] Rhys, ib., pp. 225-6; cf. R. B. _Mabinogion_, p. 60; _Triads_, +i. 32, ii. 20, iii. 90. A fortified hill-top now known as Pen y Gaer, or +'Hill of the Fortress', on the western side of the Conway, on a mountain +within sight of the railway station of Tal y Cafn, Carnarvonshire, is +regarded by Sir John Rhys as the site of a long-forgotten cult of +Math the Ancient. (Rhys, ib., p. 225). + +[482] This stone basin, now in the centre of the inner chamber, seems +originally to have stood in the east recess, the largest and most richly +inscribed. It is 4 feet long, 3 feet 6 inches across, and 1 foot thick. +(Coffey, op. cit., xxx. 14, 21). + +[483] Cf. W. M. Flinders Petrie, _The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh_ +(London, 1883), p. 201. + +[484] All of the chief megaliths of this type, together with the chief +alignements, which I have personally inspected--with the aid of a +compass--in Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall, and +Brittany, are definitely aligned east and west. It cannot be said, +however, that _all_ megalithic monuments throughout Celtic countries +show definite orientation (see Dechelette's _Manuel d'Archeologie_). + +[485] L. P. McCarty, _The Great Pyramid Jeezeh_ (San Francisco, 1907), +p. 402. + +[486] Jubainville, _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, p. 28. + +[487] Maspero, _Les Contes populaires de l'Egypte Ancienne_,{3} p. 74 n. + +[488] Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 426. + +[489] W. H. Prescott, _Conquest of Peru_, i, c. 3. + +[490] Rochefort, _Iles Antilles_, p. 365; cf. Tylor, _P. C._,{4} ii. 424. + +[491] Colebrooke, _Essays_, vols. i, iv, v; cf. Tylor, _P. C._,{4} 425. + +[492] _Illus. Hist. and Pract. of Thugs_ (London, 1837), p. 46; cf. +Tylor, _P. C._,{4} ii. 425. + +[493] Augustin, _de Serm. Dom. in Monte_, ii. 5; cf. Tylor, _P. C._,{4} +ii. 427-8. + +[494] Ezek. viii. 16. The popular opinion that Christians face the east +in prayer, or have altars eastward because Jerusalem is eastward, does +not fit in with facts. + +[495] Cf. Lenormant, _Chaldean Magic_, p. 88; also Tylor, _Prim. +Cult._,{4} ii. 48-9. + +[496] Though not a Mason, the writer draws his knowledge from Masons of +the highest rank, and from published works by Masons like Mr. Carty's +_The Great Pyramid Jeezeh_. + +[497] Cf. Borlase, _Dolmens of Ireland_, ii. 347 n. + +[498] C. Piazzi Smyth, _Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid_ (London, +1890). + +[499] Flinders Petrie, _The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh_, pp. 169, +222. + +[500] C. Piazzi Smyth, op. cit. + +[501] In 1770, when New Grange apparently was not covered with a growth +of trees as now, Governor Pownall visited it and described it as like a +pyramid in general outline: 'The pyramid in its present state' is 'but a +ruin of what it was' (Coffey, op. cit., xxx. 13). + +[502] Le Dr. G. de C., _Locmariaquer et Gavr'inis_ (Vannes, 1876), p. +18. + +[503] According to Le Dr. G. de C., op. cit., p. 18. + +[504] Mr. Coffey says of similar details in Irish tumuli:--'In the +construction of such chambers it is usual to find a sort of sill or low +stone placed across the entrance into the main chamber, and at the +openings into the smaller chambers or recesses; such stones also occur +laid at intervals across the bottom of the passages. This forms a marked +feature in the construction at Dowth, and in the cairns on the Loughcrew +Hills, but is wholly absent at New Grange' (op. cit., xxx. 15). New +Grange, however, has suffered more or less from vandalism, and +originally may have contained similar stone sills. + +[505] Flinders Petrie, _The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh_, p. 216. + +[506] Maspero, op. cit., p. 69 n., &c. The world-wide anthropomorphic +tendency to construct tombs for the gods and for the dead after the plan +of earthly dwellings is as evident in the excavations at Mycenae as in +ancient Egypt and in Celtic lands. + +[507] Cf. Bruns, _Canones apostolorum et conciliorum saeculorum_, ii. +133. + +[508] Cf. F. Maassen, _Concilia aevi merovingici_, p. 133. + +[509] Cf. Boretius, _Capitularia regum Francorum_, i. 59; for each of +the above references cf. Jubainville, _Le culte des menhirs dans le +monde celtique_, in _Rev. Celt._, xxvii. 317. + +[510] Cf. Mahe, _Essai_, p. 427. + +[511] See Villemarque _sur Bretagne_. + +[512] Cf. Mahe, _Essai_, p. 326; quoted from _De Glor. Conf._, c. 2. + +[513] Cf. Mahe, _Essai_, p. 326; quoted from _De Glor. Conf._, c. 2. + +[514] Cf. Mahe, _Essai_, p. 326; quoted from _Goth._, lib. ii. + +[515] A. W. Moore, in _Folk-Lore_, v. 212-29. + +[516] Cf. Rhys, _Arthurian Legend_, p. 247. + +[517] Borlase, _Dolmens of Ireland_, iii. 729. + +[518] Stokes, _Tripartite Life of Patrick_, pp. 99-101. + +[519] Ib., text, pp. 123, 323, and Intro., p. 159. + +[520] Book II, 69-70; see our study, p. 267. + +[521] Rennes _Dinnshenchas_, Stokes's trans. in _Rev. Celt._, xv. 457. + +[522] Cf. Mahe, _Essai_, p. 323. + +[523] The Celts may have viewed the mistletoe on the sacred oak as the +seat of the tree's life, because in the winter sleep of the leafless oak +the mistletoe still maintains its own foliage and fruit, and like the +heart of a sleeper continues pulsing with vitality. The mistletoe thus +being regarded as the heart-centre of the divine spirit in the oak-tree +was cut with a golden sickle by the arch-druid clad in pure white robes, +amid great religious solemnity, and became a vicarious sacrifice or +atonement for the worshippers of the tree god. (Cf. Frazer, _G. B._,{2} +iii. 447 ff.) + +[524] Pliny, _Nat. Hist._, xvi. 95; cf. Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, p. 218. + +[525] _Dissert._, viii; cf. Rhys, ib., p. 219. + +[526] Meineke's ed., xii. 5, 1; cf. Rhys, ib., p. 219. The oak-tree +is pre-eminently the holy tree of Europe. Not only Celts, but Slavs, +worshipped amid its groves. To the Germans it was their chief god; the +ancient Italians honoured it above all other trees; the original image +of Jupiter on the Capitol at Rome seems to have been a natural oak-tree. +So at Dodona, Zeus was worshipped as immanent in a sacred oak. Cf. +Frazer, _G. B._,{2} iii. 346 ff. + +[527] Cf. Mahe, _Essai_, pp. 333-4; quotation from _Hist. du Maine_, i. +17. + +[528] Cf. Mahe, _Essai_, p. 334; quoted from _Lib._ VII, _indict._ i, +_epist._ 5. + +[529] Stokes, _Tripartite Life_, p. 409. + +[530] Cf. Wood-Martin, _Traces of the Older Faiths in Ireland_, i. 305. + +[531] W. Gregor, _Notes on Beltene Cakes_, in _Folk-Lore_, vi. 5. + +[532] Temple, _Legends of the Panjab_, in _Folk-Lore_, x. 406. + +[533] Lefevre, _Le Culte des Morts chez les Latins_, in _Rev. Trad. +Pop._, ix. 195-209. + +[534] See _Folk-Lore_, vi. 192. + +[535] The term 'People of Peace' seems, however, to have originated from +confounding _sid_, 'fairy abode,' and _sid_, 'peace.' + +[536] Cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, p. 102. + +[537] The crocodile as the mystic symbol of Sitou provides one key to +unlock the mysteries of what eminent Egyptologists have erroneously +called animal worship, erroneously because they have interpreted +literally what can only be interpreted symbolically. The crocodile is +called the 'son of Sitou' in the _Papyrus magique_, Harris, pl. vi, ll. +8-9 (cf. Maspero, _Les Contes populaires de l'Egypte Ancienne_,[539] +Intro., p. 56); and as the waters seem to swallow the sun as it sinks +below the horizon, so the crocodile, as Sitou representing the waters, +swallows the Children of Osiris, as the Egyptians called themselves. On +the other hand, Osiris is typified by the white bull, in many nations +the sun emblem, white being the emblem of purity and light, while the +powers of the bull represent the masculinity of the sun, which +impregnates all nature, always thought of as feminine, with life germs. + +[538] Cf. Maspero, op. cit., Intro., p. 49. + +[539] Cf. Borlase, _Dolmens of Ireland_, iii. 854. + +[540] Cf. Lefevre, _Rev. Trad. Pop._, ix. 195-209. + +[541] J. G. Campbell collected in Scotland two versions of a parallel +episode, but concerning Loch Lurgan. In both versions the flight begins +by Fionn's foster-mother carrying Fionn, and in both, when she is tired, +Fionn carries her and runs so fast that when the loch is reached only +her shanks are left. These he throws out on the loch, and hence its name +Loch Lurgan, 'Lake of the Shanks.' (_The Fians_, pp. 18-19). + +[542] During the seventeenth century, the English government, acting +through its Dublin representatives, ordered this original Cave or +Purgatory to be demolished; and with the temporary suppression of the +ceremonies which resulted and the consequent abandonment of the island, +the Cave, which may have been filled up, has been lost. + +[543] Thomas Wright, _St. Patrick's Purgatory_ (London, 1844), pp. 67-8. + +[544] Wright, op. cit., p. 69. + +[545] In the face of all the legends told of pilgrims who have been in +Patrick's Purgatory, it seems that either through religious frenzy like +that produced in Protestant revivals, or else through some strange +influence due to the cave itself after the preliminary disciplines, some +of the pilgrims have had most unusual psychic experiences. Those who +have experienced fasting and a rigorous life for a prescribed period +affirm that there results a changed condition, physical, mental, and +spiritual, so that it is very probable that the Christian pilgrims to +the Purgatory, like the pagan pilgrims who 'fasted on' the Tuatha De +Danann in New Grange, were in good condition to receive impressions of a +psychical nature such as the Society for Psychical Research is beginning +to believe are by no means rare to people susceptible to them. Neophytes +seeking initiation among the ancients had to undergo even more rigorous +preparations than these; for they were expected while entranced to leave +their physical bodies and in reality enter the purgatorial state, as we +shall presently have occasion to point out. + +[546] Wright, _St. Patrick's Purgatory_, pp. 62 ff. + +[547] L. R. Farnell, _Cults of the Greek States_ (Oxford, 1907), iii. +126-98, &c. + +[548] Cf. Athenaeus, 614 A; Aristoph., _Nubes_, 508; and Harper's _Dict. +Class. Lit. and Antiq._, p. 1615. + +[549] Cf. O. Seyffert, _Dict. Class. Antiquities_, trans. (London, +1895), _Mithras_. + +[550] Brasseur, _Mexique_, iii. 20, &c.; Tylor, _P. C._,{4} ii. 45. + +[551] Cf. Hutton Webster, _Primitive Secret Societies_ (New York, 1908), +p. 38, and _passim_. + +[552] In the ancient Greek world the annual celebration of the Mysteries +drew great concourses of people from all regions round the +Mediterranean; to the modern Breton world the chief religious Pardons +are annual events of such supreme importance that, after preparing +plenty of food for the pilgrimage, the whole family of a pious peasant +of Lower Brittany will desert farm and work dressed in their beautiful +and best costumes for one of these Pardons, the most picturesque, the +most inspiring, and the highest folk-festivals still preserved by the +Roman Church; while to Roman Catholics in all countries a pilgrimage to +Lough Derg is the sacred event of a lifetime. + +In the Breton Pardons, as in the purgatorial rites, we seem to see the +survivals of very ancient Celtic Mysteries strikingly like the Mysteries +of Eleusis. The greatest of the Pardons, the Pardon of St. Anne d'Auray, +will serve as a basis for comparison; and while in some respects it has +had a recent and definitely historical origin (or revival), this origin +seems on the evidence of archaeology to have been a restoration, an +expansion, and chiefly a Christianization of prehistoric rites then +already partly fallen into decay. Such rites remained latent in the +folk-memory, and were originally celebrated in honour of the sacred +fountain, and probably also of Isis and the child, whose terra-cotta +image was ploughed up in a neighbouring field by the famous peasant +Nicolas, and naturally regarded by him and all who saw it as of St. Anne +and the Holy Child. Thus, in the Pardon of St. Anne d'Auray, which +extends over three days, there is a torch-light procession at night +under ecclesiastical sanction; as in the Ceres Mysteries, wherein the +neophytes with torches kindled sought all night long for Proserpine. +There are purification rites, not especially under ecclesiastical +sanction, at the holy fountain now dedicated to St. Anne, like the +purification rites of the Eleusinian worshippers at the sea-shore and +their visit to a holy well. There are mystery plays, recently +instituted, as in Greek initiation ceremonies; sacred processions, led +by priests, bearing the image of St. Anne and other images, comparable +to Greek sacred processions in which the god Iacchos was borne on the +way to Eleusis. The all-night services in the dimly-lighted church of +St. Anne, with the special masses in honour of the Christian saints and +for the dead, are parallel to the midnight ceremonies of the Greeks in +their caves of initiation and to the libations to the gods and to the +spirits of the departed at Greek initiations. Finally, in the Greek +mysteries there seems to have been some sort of expository sermon or +exhortation to the assembled neophytes quite comparable to the special +appeal made to the faithful Catholics assembled in the magnificent +church of St. Anne d'Auray by the bishops and high ecclesiastics of +Brittany. (For these Classical parallels compare Farnell, _Cults of the +Greek States_, iii, _passim_.) + +[553] Cf. Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, p. 411, &c. + +[554] O'Curry, _Lectures_, pp. 586-7. + +[555] There is this very significant legend on record about the Cave of +Cruachan:--'Magh Mucrime, now, pigs of magic came out of the cave of +Cruachain, and that is Ireland's gate of Hell.' And 'Out of it, also, +came the Red Birds that withered up everything in Erin that their breath +would touch, till the Ulstermen slew them with their slings.' (_B. of +Leinster_, p. 288a; Stokes's trans., in _Rev. Celt._, xiii. 449; cf. +_Silva Gadelica_, ii. 353.) + +[556] Forbes, _Lives of S. Ninian and S. Kentigern_ (Edinburgh, 1874), +pp. 285, 345. + +[557] Cf. Wright, _St. Patrick's Purgatory_, pp. 81-2. + +[558] Cf. Godescard, _Vies des Saints_, xi. 24; also Bergier, _Dict. de +Theol._, v. 405. + +[559] Cf. Godescard, _Vies des Saints_, xi. 32. But there is some +disagreement in this matter of dates: Petrus Damianus, _Vita S. +Odilonis_, in the Bollandist _Acta Sanctorum_, January 1, records a +legend of how the Abbot Odilon decreed that November 2, the day after +All Saints' Day, should be set apart for services for the departed (cf. +Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 37 n.). + +[560] Cf. Godescard, _Vies des Saints_, xi. 1 n. + +[561] Part II, sec. 4; c. 4, par. 8; cf. Bergier, _Dict. de Theol._, iv. +322. + +[562] P. 11{a}, l. 19; in Stokes's _Tripartite Life_, Intro., p. 194. + +[563] _Enchiridion_, chap. cx; _Testament of St. Ephrem_ (ed. Vatican), +ii. 230, 236; Euseb., _de Vita Constant._, liv. iv, c. lx. 556, c. lxx. +562; cf. Godescard, _Vies des Saints_, xi. 30-1. + +[564] St. Ambroise, _de Obitu Theodosii_, ii. 1197; cf. Godescard, _Vies +des Saints_, xi. 31 n. + +[565] Cf. Godescard, _Vies des Saints_, xi. 31-2. + +[566] I am indebted to Mr. William McDougall, M.A., Wilde Reader in +Mental Philosophy in the University of Oxford, for having read through +and criticized the first draft of this section; and while he is in no +way responsible for the views set forth herein, nevertheless his +suggestions for the improvement of their scientific framework have been +of very great value. I must also express my obligation to him for having +suggested through his Oxford lectures a good share of the important +material interwoven into chapter xii touching the vitalistic view of +evolution. + +[567] Cf. C. Du Prel, _Philosophy of Mysticism_ (London, 1889), i. 7, +11. + +[568] T. Ribot, _The Diseases of Personality_; cf. J. L. Nevius, _Demon +Possession_ (London, 1897), pp. 234-5. + +[569] _Proc. S. P. R._ (London), v. 167; cf. A. Lang, _Making of +Religion_, p. 64. + +[570] W. James, _Confidences of a 'Psychical Researcher'_, in _American +Magazine_ (October 1909). + +[571] A. Lang, _Cock Lane and Common Sense_ (London, 1896), p. 35. + +[572] According to Professor Freud, the well-known neurologist of +Vienna, external stimuli are not admitted to the dream-consciousness in +the same manner that they would be admitted to the waking-consciousness, +but they are disguised and altered in particular ways (cf. S. Freud, +_Die Traumdeutung_, 2nd ed., Vienna, 1909; and S. Ferenczi, _The +Psychological Analysis of Dreams_, in _Amer. Journ. Psych._, April 1910, +No. 2, xxi. 318, &c.). + +[573] Du Prel, op. cit., i. 135. + +[574] G. F. Stout, _Mr. F. W. Myers on 'Human Personality and its +Survival of Bodily Death'_, in _Hibbert Journal_, ii, No. 1 (London, +October 1903), p. 56. + +[575] F. W. H. Myers, _Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily +Death_ (London, 1903), i. 131. + +[576] R. L. Stevenson, _Across the Plains_, chapter on Dreams. + +[577] Stout, op. cit., p. 54. + +[578] Freud, op. cit.; Ferenczi, op. cit.; E. Jones, _Freud's Theory of +Dreams_, in _Amer. Journ. Psych._, April 1910, No. 2, xxi. 283-308. + +[579] Freud, _The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis_, in _Amer. +Journ. Psych._, April 1910, No. 2, xxi. 203. + +[580] Du Prel, op. cit., i. 33. + +[581] Myers, op. cit., i. 134. + +[582] Fechner, _Zentralblatt fuer Anthropologie_, p. 774; cf. Du Prel, +op. cit., i. 92. + +[583] Haddock, _Somnolism and Psychism_, p. 213; cf. Du Prel, op. cit., +i. 93. + +[584] Perty, _Mystische Erscheinungen_, i. 305; cf. Du Prel, op. cit., +ii. 63. + +[585] Kerner, _Seherin v. Prevorst_, p. 196; cf. Du Prel, op. cit., ii. +65. + +[586] Chardel, _Essai de Psychologie_, p. 344; cf. Du Prel, op. cit., +ii. 64. + +[587] Cf. Du Prel, op. cit., i. 88-9. + +[588] Myers, op. cit., chapter vi. + +[589] Stout, op. cit., pp. 64, 61-2. + +[590] Lang, _Mr. Myers's Theory of 'The Subliminal Self'_, in _Hibbert +Journal_, ii, No. 3 (April 1904), p. 530. + +[591] The peculiar and often unique characteristics of the fairy-folk of +any given fairy-faith, as we have pointed out in chapter iii (pp. 233, +282), are to be regarded as being merely anthropomorphically coloured +reflections of the social life or environment of the particular ethnic +group who hold the particular fairy-faith; and, as Mr. Lang here +suggests, when they are stripped of these superficial characteristics, +which are due to such social psychology, they become ghosts of the dead +or other spiritual beings. + +Our own researches lead us to the conviction that behind the purely +mythical aspect of these fairy-faiths there exists a substantial +substratum of real phenomena not yet satisfactorily explained by +science; that such phenomena have been in the past and are at the +present time the chief source of the belief in fairies, that they are +the foundation underlying all fairy mythologies. We need only refer to +the following phenomena observed among Celtic and other peoples, and +attributed by them to 'fairy' or 'spirit' agency: (1) music which +competent percipients believe to be of non-human origin, and hence by +the Celts called 'fairy' music, whether this be vocal or instrumental in +sound; (2) the movement of objects without known cause; (3) rappings and +other noises called 'supernatural' (cf. pp. 81 n., 481-4, 488; also pp. +47, 57, 61, 67, 71, 72, 74, 88, 94, 98, 101, 120, 124, 125, 131, 132, +134, 139, 148, 156, 172, 181, 187, 213, 218, 220, &c.). + +[592] It is our hope that this book will help to lessen the marked +deficiency of recorded testimony concerning 'fairy' beings and 'fairy' +phenomena observed by reliable percipients. We have endeavoured to +demonstrate that genuine 'fairy' phenomena and genuine 'spirit' +phenomena are in most cases identical. Hence we believe that if 'spirit' +phenomena are worthy of the attention of science, equally so are 'fairy' +phenomena. The fairy-belief _in its typical_ or _conventional aspects_ +(apart from the animism which we discovered at the base of the belief) +is, as was pointed out in our anthropological examination of the +evidence (pp. 281-2), due to a very complex social psychology. In this +chapter we have eliminated all social psychology, as not being the +essential factor in the Fairy-Faith. Therefore, from our point of view, +Mr. Lang's implied explanation of the typical fairy-visions, that they +are due to 'suggestion acting on the subconscious self', does not apply +to the rarer kind of fairy visions which form part of our x-quantity +(see pp. 60-6, 83-4, &c.). If it does, then it also applies to all +non-Celtic visions of spirits, in ancient and in modern times; and the +animistic hypothesis now accepted by most psychical researchers, namely, +that discarnate intelligences exist independent of the percipient, must +be set aside in favour of the non-animistic hypothesis. If, on the other +hand, it be admitted that 'fairy' phenomena are, as we maintain, +essentially the same as 'spirit' phenomena, then the belief in fairies +ceases to be purely mythical, and 'fairy' visions by a Celtic seer who +is physically and psychically sound do not seem to arise from that +seer's suggestion acting on his own subconsciousness; but certain types +of 'fairy' visions undoubtedly do arise from suggestion, _coming from a +'fairy' or other intelligence_, acting on the conscious or subconscious +content of the percipient's mind (cf. pp. 484-7). + +[593] Lang, _Cock Lane and Common Sense_, pp. 208, 35. + +[594] Sir Oliver Lodge, _Psychical Research_, in _Harper's Mag._, August +1908 (New York and London). + +[595] Sir Oliver Lodge, _The Survival of Man_ (London, 1909), p. 339. + +[596] James, op. cit., pp. 587-9. + +[597] Readers are referred to such authoritative works as the _Phantasms +of the Living_ (London, 1886), by Gurney, Myers, and Podmore; to the +_Report on the Census of Hallucinations of Modern Spiritualism_, by +Professor Sidgwick's Committee; to the _Naturalisation of the +Supernatural_ (New York and London, 1908), by F. Podmore; to the +_Survival of the Human Personality_, by F. W. H. Myers; and other like +works, all of which originate from the _Proceedings of the Society for +Psychical Research_ (London). + +[598] C. Flammarion, _Mysterious Psychic Forces_, pp. 441, 431. + +[599] Sir Wm. Crookes, _Notes of an Enquiry into Phenomena called +Spiritual, during the years 1870-73_ (London), Part III, p. 87. + +[600] See _Quart. Journ. Science_ (July 1871). + +[601] Cf. Lang, _Cock Lane and Common Sense_, p. 281; and for other +cases of objects moved without contact see ib., pp. 50, 52, 53, 58, 122 +ff. See also F. Podmore's article on _Poltergeists_, in _Proceedings S. +P. R._, xii. 45-115; and his _Naturalisation of the Supernatural_, +chapter vii. + +[602] Sir Wm. Crookes, op. cit., Part III, p. 100. + +[603] Ib., p. 94. + +[604] Lang, _Cock Lane and Common Sense_, pp. 60, 81, 139, &c. + +[605] Using as a basis the data of Professor Sidgwick's Committee and +the results earlier obtained by Gurney, Myers, and Podmore (see +_Phantasms of the Living_), Mr. William McDougall shows concisely the +probability of an apparition appearing within twelve hours of the death +of the individual whom it represents. He says:--'... of all recognized +apparitions of living persons, only one in 19,000 may be expected to be +a death-coincidence of this sort. But the census shows that of 1,300 +recognized apparitions of living persons 30 are death-coincidences, and +that is equivalent to 440 in 19,000. Hence, of recognized +hallucinations, those coincident with death are 440 times more numerous +than we should expect, if no causal relation obtained.' And Mr. +McDougall concludes: '... since good evidence of telepathic +communication has been experimentally obtained, the least improbable +explanation of these death-apparitions is that the dying person exerts +upon his distant friend some telepathic influence which generates an +hallucinatory perception of himself' (_Hallucinations_, in _Ency. +Brit._, 11th ed., xii. 863). + +[606] Myers, op. cit., ii. 65, 45 ff., 49 ff., &c. + +[607] Nevius, _Demon Possession_, Introduction, pp. iv, vii; pp. 240-2, +144-5. In accordance with all such phenomena, psychical researchers have +logically called spirits manifesting themselves through the body of a +living person possessing spirits. And as in the case of Chinese +demon-possession, the phenomena of mediumship often result in the moral +derangement, insanity, or even suicide on the part of 'mediums' who so +unwisely exhibit it without special preparation or no preparation at +all, and too often in complete ignorance of a possible gradual +undermining of their psychic life, will-power, and even physical health. +All of this seems to offer direct and certain evidence to sustain +Christians and non-Christians in their condemnation of all forms of +necromancy or calling up of spirits. The following statement will make +our position towards mediumship of the most common kind clear: + +In Druidism, for one example, disciples for training in magical sciences +are said to have spent twenty years in severe study and special +psychical training before deemed fit to be called Druids and thus to +control daemons, ghosts, or all invisible entities capable of possessing +living men and women. And even now in India and elsewhere there is +reported to be still the same ancient course of severe disciplinary +training for candidates seeking magical powers. But in modern +Spiritualism conditions are altogether different in most cases, and +'mediums' instead of controlling with an iron will, as a magician does, +spirits which become manifest in _seances_, surrender entirely their +will-power and whole personality to them. + +[608] Cf. Sigmund Freud, _The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis_, +in _Amer. Journ. Psych._, xxi, No. 2 (April 1910). + +[609] The fact that all matter is capable of assuming a gaseous or +invisible state furnishes good scientific reasons for postulating the +actual existence of intelligent beings possessed of an invisible yet +physical body. There may well be on and about our planet many distinct +invisible organic life-forms undiscovered by zoologists. To deny such a +possibility would be unscientific. + +[610] Cf. _Communication adressee au D{r} J. Dupre_, p. 382 of an essay +on _La Metempsycose basee sur les Principes de la Biologie et du +Magnetisme physiologique_, in _Le Hasard_ (Paris, 1909), by P. C. Revel. +Cases of regeneration among the aged are known, and these show how the +subliminal life-forces try to renew the physical body when it is worn +out (cf. Revel, ib., p. 372). + +[611] Cf. Revel, op. cit., p. 295 ff. + +[612] If scientists discover, as they probably will in time, what they +call the secret of life, they will not have discovered the secret of +life at all. What they will have discovered will be the physical +conditions under which life manifests itself. In other words, science +will most likely soon be able to set up artificially in a laboratory +such physical conditions as exist in nature naturally, and by means of +which life is able to manifest itself through matter. Life will still be +as great a mystery as it is to-day; though short-sighted materialists +are certain to announce to an eager world that the final problem of the +universe has been solved and that life is merely the resultant of a +subtle chemical compound. + +[613] Professor Freud, after long and careful study, arrived at the +following conclusion:--'The child has his sexual impulse and activities +from the beginning, he brings them with him into the world, and from +these the so-called normal sexuality of adults emerges by a significant +development through manifold stages.' And Dr. Sanford Bell, in an +earlier writing entitled _A Preliminary Study of the Emotions of Love +between the Sexes_ (see _Amer. Journ. Psych._, 1902), came to a similar +conclusion (cf. Freud, op. cit., pp. 207-8). + +[614] Cf. Hans Driesch, _The Science and Philosophy of the Organism_ +(London, 1908); and Henri Bergson, _L'Evolution creatrice_ (Paris, +1908). + +[615] This Celtic view of non-personal immortality completely fits in +with all the voluminous data of psychical research: after forty years of +scientific research into psychics there are no proofs yet adduced that +the human personality as a self-sufficient unit of consciousness +survives indefinitely the death of its body. Granted that it does +survive as a ghost for an undetermined period, generally to be counted +in years, during which time it seems to be gradually fading out or +disintegrating, there is no reliable evidence anywhere to show that a +personality _as such_ has manifested through a 'medium' or otherwise +after an interval of one thousand years, or even of five hundred years. +We have, in fact, no knowledge of the survival of a human personality +one hundred years after, and probably there are no good examples of such +a survival twenty-five years after the death of the body. Such an +eminent psychical researcher as William James recognized this drift of +the data of psychics, and when he died he held the conviction that there +is no personal immortality (see p. 505 n. following). + +[616] Though not inclined toward the vitalistic view of human evolution, +M. Th. Ribot very closely approaches the Celtic view of the Ego (or +individuality) as being the principle which gives unity to different +personalities, but he does not have in mind personalities in the sense +implied by the Celtic Esoteric Doctrine of Re-birth:--'The Ego +subjectively considered consists of a sum of conscious states' +(comparable to personalities).... 'In brief, the Ego may be considered +in two ways: either in its actual form, and then it is the sum of +existing conscious states; or, in its continuity with the past, and then +it is formed by the memory according to the process outlined above. It +would seem, according to this view, that the identity of the Ego +depended entirely upon the memory. But such a conception is only +partial. Beneath the unstable compound phenomenon in all its protean +phases of growth, degeneration, and reproduction, there is a something +that remains: and this something is the undefined consciousness, the +product of all the vital processes, constituting bodily perception and +what is expressed in one word--the _coenaesthesis_.' (_The Diseases of +Memory_, pp. 107-8). + +William James, the greatest psychologist of our epoch, after a long and +faithful life consecrated to the search after a true understanding of +human consciousness, finally arrived at substantially the same +conviction as Fechner did, that there is no personal immortality, but +that the personality 'is but a temporary and partial separation and +circumscription of a part of a larger whole, into which it is reabsorbed +at death' (W. McDougall, _In Memory of William James_, in _Proc. S. P. +R._, Part LXII, vol. xxv, p. 28). He thus virtually accepted the +mystic's view that the personality after the death of the body is +absorbed into a higher power, which, to our mind, is comparable with the +Ego conceived as the unifying principle behind personalities. In one of +his last writings, James explained his belief in such a manner as to +make it coincide at certain points with the view held by modern Celtic +mystics which has been presented above; the difference being that, +unlike these mystics, James was not prepared to say (though he raised +the question) whether or not behind the 'mother-sea' of consciousness +there is, as Fechner believed, a hierarchy of consciousnesses +(themselves subordinate to still higher consciousnesses, and comparable +with so many Egos or Individualities) which send out emanations as +temporary human personalities. The organic psychical forms (if we may +use such an expression) of such temporary human personalities would have +to be regarded from James's point of view as being built up out of the +psychical elements constituting the 'mother-sea' of consciousness, just +as the human body is built up out of the physical elements in the realm +of matter:--'Out of my experience, such as it is (and it is limited +enough) one fixed conclusion dogmatically emerges, and that is this, +that we with our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the +forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their +leaves, and Conanicut and Newport hear each other's foghorns. But the +trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the +islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom. Just so there is +a continuum of cosmic consciousness, against which our individuality' +(used as synonymous with personality and not in our distinct sense) +'builds but accidental fences, and into which our several minds plunge +as into a mother-sea or reservoir. Our "normal" consciousness' (the +personality as we distinguish it from the Ego or individuality) 'is +circumscribed for adaptation to our external earthly environment, but +the fence is weak in spots, and fitful influences from beyond break in, +showing the otherwise unverifiable common connexion. Not only psychic +research, but metaphysical philosophy and speculative biology are led in +their own ways to look with favour on some such "pan-psychic" view of +the universe as this.' (W. James, _The Confidences of a Psychical +Researcher_, in _The American Magazine_, October 1909). Again, James +wrote:--'The drift of all the evidence we have seems to me to sweep us +very strongly towards the belief in some form of superhuman life with +which we may, unknown to ourselves, be co-conscious.' (_A Pluralistic +Universe_, New York, 1909, p. 309.) + +[617] W. James, _Varieties of Religious Experience_ (London, 1902), pp. +511, 236 n. + +[618] M. Th. Ribot, in _Diseases of Memory_ (London, 1882), pp. 82-98 +ff., gives numerous examples of such loss and recovery of memory. + +[619] Cf. Freud, op. cit., pp. 192, 204-5, &c. + +[620] Cf. A. Moll, _Hypnotism_ (London, 1890), pp. 141 ff., 126. + +[621] Cf. A. Moll, _Hypnotism_ (London, 1890), pp. 141 ff., 126. + +[622] Cf. Freud, op. cit., p. 192. + +[623] Freud, _Die Traumdeutung_, 2nd ed. (Vienna, 1906); cf. S. +Ferenczi, _The Psychological Analysis of Dreams_, in _Amer. Journ. +Psych._ (April 1910), xxi, No. 2, p. 326. + +[624] A similar state of high development is to be assumed for a great +Celtic hero like Arthur, who were he to be re-born would (as is said to +have been the case with King Mongan, the reincarnation of Finn) bring +with him memory of his past: unlike the consciousness of the normal man, +the consciousness of one of the Divine Ones is normally the +subconsciousness, the consciousness of the individuality; and not the +personal consciousness, which, like the personality, is non-permanent +_in itself_. This further illustrates the Celtic theory of non-personal +immortality. + +[625] Ribot, op. cit., p. 100 ff. + +[626] Cf. Lang, _Cock Lane and Common Sense_, pp. 217 ff. _Blackwood's +Magazine_, cxxix (January 1881), contains a remarkable account of a +child who remembered previous lives. Lord Lindsay, in his _Letters_ (ed. +of 1847, p. 351), refers to a feeling when he beheld the river Kadisha +descending from Lebanon, of having in a previous life seen the same +scene. Dickens in his _Pictures from Italy_ testifies to a parallel +experience. E. D. Walker, in his interesting work on _Reincarnation_ +(pp. 42-5) has brought together many other well-attested cases of people +who likewise have thought they could remember fragments of a former +state of conscious existence. In his diary, under date of February 17, +1828, Sir Walter Scott wrote as follows:--'I cannot, I am sure, tell if +it is worth marking down, that yesterday, at dinner-time, I was +strangely haunted by what I would call the sense of pre-existence, viz. +a confused idea that nothing that passed was said for the first time.' +Lockhart, _Life of Scott_ (first ed.), vii. 114. Bulwer Lytton in +_Godolphin_ (chapter xv), and Edgar Allen Poe in _Eureka_, record +similar experiences. Mr. H. Fielding Hall, in _The Soul of a People_{4} +(London, 1902), pp. 290-308, reports several very remarkable cases of +responsible natives of Burma who stated that they could recall former +lives passed by them as men and women. Mr. Hall has carefully +investigated these cases, and gives us the impression that they are +worthy of scientific consideration. + +[627] Cf. Ferenczi, op. cit., p. 316, &c. Professor Freud's theory of +dreams supports entirely, but does not imply our hypothesis that some +(and probably many) abnormal dreams of a rare kind, whether good or bad +in tendency, may be due to the latent content of subconsciousness, out +of which they undoubtedly arise, having been collected and carried over +from a previous state of consciousness parallel to our present one. In +respect to our present life Professor Freud holds, as a result of +psycho-analysis of thousands of dream subjects, that the latent content +of every dream in the adult is directly dependent upon mental processes +which frequently reach back to the earliest childhood; and he gives +detailed cases in illustration. In other words, there is always a latent +dream-material behind the conscious dream-content, and probably a part +of it was innate in the child at birth, and hence, according to our +view, was pre-existent. (Cf. Ernest Jones, _Freud's Theory of Dreams_, +in _Amer. Journ. Psych._, April 1910, xxi, No. 2, pp. 301 ff.) + +[628] Cf. Du Prel, _Philosophy of Mysticism_, ii. 25 ff., 34 ff. + +[629] _The Dream of Ravan_, in _Dublin Univ. Mag._, xliii. 468. + +[630] Myers, in _Proc. S. P. R._, vii. 305. + +[631] James, _Varieties of Religious Experience_, p. 483. + +[632] The esoteric teaching in many of the mystic schools of antiquity +was that the atoms of each human body transmigrate through all lower +forms of life during the long period supposed to intervene between death +and re-birth of the individuality. This doctrine seems to be one of the +main sources of the corruption which crept into the ancient re-birth +doctrines and transformed many of them into doctrines of transmigration +of the human soul into animal and plant bodies; and some unscrupulous +priesthoods openly taught such corrupted doctrines as a means of making +the ignorant populace submissive to ecclesiastical rule, the theological +theory expounded by such priesthoods being that the evil-doer, but not +the keeper of the letter of the canonical law, is condemned to expiate +his sins through birth in brute bodies. The pure form of the mystic +doctrine was that after the lapse of the long period of disembodiment +the individuality reconstructs its human body anew by drawing to itself +the identical atoms which constituted its previous human body--these +atoms, and not the individuality, having transmigrated through all the +lower kingdoms. Such an esoteric doctrine probably lies behind the +exoteric Egyptian teaching that the human soul after the death of its +body passes through all plant and animal bodies during a period of three +thousand years, after which it returns to human embodiment. Some +scholars have held that the exoteric interpretation of this theory and +its consequent literal interpretation as a transmigration doctrine led +the Egyptians to mummify the bodies of their dead. Cf. Lucretius, _De +Rerum Natura_, Book III, ll. 843-61; and Herodotus, Book II, on Egypt. + +[633] Cf. Dr. L. S. Fugairon's _La Survivance de l'ame, ou la Mort et la +Renaissance chez les etres vivants; etudes de physiologie et +d'embryologie philosophiques_ (Paris, 1907); cf. Revel, _Le Hasard_, p. +457. + +[634] Darwin never considered or attempted to suggest what it is that of +itself really evolves, for it cannot be the physical body which only +_grows_ from immaturity to maturity and then dissolves. Darwin thus +overlooked the essential factor in his whole doctrine; while the Druids +and other ancients, wiser than we have been willing to admit, seem not +only to have anticipated Darwin by thousands of years, but also to have +quite surpassed him in setting up their doctrine of re-birth, which +explains both the physical and psychical evolution of man. + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. + +Superscripted letters are indicated by {superscript}. + +The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these +letters have been replaced with transliterations. + +Some quotes are opened with marks but are not closed. Obvious errors +have been silently closed while those requiring interpretation have +been left open. + +Other punctuation has been corrected without note. + +The following misprints have been corrected: + "Fortelling" standardized to "foretelling" (page 213) + "fom" corrected to "from" (footnote 342) + "Name" corrected to "Names" (Index) + +Other than the corrections listed above, inconsistencies in spelling and +hyphenation have been retained from the original. + +The following symbols were substituted for images on pages 272 and 273: + Maltese cross = [C] + Triangle = [T] + Jupiter = [J] + Mercury = [M] + Venus = [V] + Saturn = [S] + Moon = [Mo] + Sun = [O] + Large Asterisk [*] + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, by +W. Y. 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