[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; Mahé,Essai sur les Antiquités du Départ. du Morbihan(Vannes, 1825); Maury,Les Fées du Moyen-Age(Paris, 1843).
[151]David MacRitchie,Druids and Mound Dwellers, inCeltic Review(January 1910); and hisTestimony of Tradition.
[152]K. Meyer and A. Nutt,Voyage of Bran(London, 1895-7), ii 231-2.
[153]Cf. Tylor,Prim. Cult.,4ii. 61.
[154]Lawson,Modern Greek Folklore, pp. 356, 359.
[155]Rhŷs,Hib. Lect., p. 201; Jubainville,Cyc. Myth. Irl., pp. 106-8.
[156]E. O’Curry,Manners and Customs(Dublin, 1873), I. cccxx; fromBook 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, inFolk-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’, inAmerican Magazine(October 1909).
[168]Frazer,The Golden Bough3(London, 1911), i. 220.
[169]Frazer,The Golden Bough,3i. 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 magictheurgy, or the invoking of good spirits, and the reversegoêty, or the calling up and controlling of evil spirits for criminal purposes. Cf. F. Lélut,Du Démon 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. inRev. Celt., i. 261.
[179]Cf. Stokes’s trans. inRev. Celt., xv. 307.
[180]From theConception of Mongán, cf. Meyer,Voyage of Bran, i. 77.
[181]Quoted and summarized fromProjectors of ‘Malicious Animal Magnetism’, inLiterary 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 seeThe Superstitions of Witchcraft, by Howard Williams, London, 1865.
[184]Cf. J. Quicherat,Procès(Paris, 1845),passim.
[185]Ib., i. 178.
[186]Codrington,The Melanesians, pp. 127, 200, 202-3 ff.
[187]Bergier,Dict. de Théol.(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; fromBook of Armagh, fo. 9, A 2, and fo. 9, B 2.
[193]Bergier,Dict. de Théol., ii. 545, 431, 233.
[194]SeeInstruction sur le Rituel, par l’Évêque 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, Évêque de Toulon, i. 639.
[199]Bergier,Dict. de Théol., 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, inFolk-Lore, iii. 274-7.
[204]W. Crooke, inFolk-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?inThe Threshold of Religion, pp. 85-114.
[207]Codrington,The Melanesians, p. 277.
[208]Eastman,Dacotah, p. 177; cf. Tylor,Prim. Cult.,4ii. 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,2passim.
[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, inFolk-Lore, xii. 41 ff.
[215]Cf. Frazer,Golden Bough,2i. 233 ff., 343.
[216]Cf. E. J. Gwynn,On the Idea of Fate in Irish Literature, inJourn. Ivernian Society(Cork), April 1910.
[217]Cf. our evidence, pp.38,44; also Kirk’sSecret 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) andL’Épopée celtique en Irlande(Paris, 1892)—both by H. D’Arbois de Jubainville. Chief sources: TheBook of Armagh, a collection of ecclesiastical MSS. probably written at Armagh, and finished inA. D.807 by the learned scribe Ferdomnach of Armagh; theLeabhar na h-Uidhreor ‘Book of the Dun Cow’, the most ancient of the great collections of MSS. containing the old Irish romances, compiled aboutA. D.1100 in the monastery of Clonmacnoise; theBook of Leinster, a twelfth-century MS. compiled by Finn Mac Gorman, Bishop of Kildare; theYellow Book of Lecan(fifteenth century); and theBook 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. TheBook of Lismorecontains theAgallamh na senórachor ‘Colloquy of the Ancients’, which has been edited by S. H. O’Grady in hisSilva 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 ofLe 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 theSidhe, 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]Rhŷs,Hib. Lect., p. 581 n.; andCóir Anmann, inIr. Texte, III, ii. 355.
[224]Kuno Meyer’s trans. inVoy. 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. inRev. 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. inRev. 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 theBook of Leinster, pp. 245-6; cf.Le Cycle Myth. Irl., p. 269.
[232]Cf.Mesca Ulad, Hennessy’s ed., inTodd 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 forciblytaken; 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 theSidheso 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., inRev. 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. InSilva 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 seeSilva 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. inRev. Celt., xvi. 274-5.
[253]Silva Gadelica, ii. 222 ff.; ii. 290. In another version of the second tale, referred to above (on page295), Laeghaire and his fifty companions enter the fairy world through adún.
[254]Sometimes, as inDa Choca’s Hostel(Rev. Celt., xxi. 157, 315), theBadbappears as a weird woman uttering prophecies. In this case theBadbwatches 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 areBadb-catha,Fea,Ana. Cf.Rev. Celt., i. 35-7.
[256]Cf. Hennessy,Ancient Irish Goddess of War, inRev. Celt., i. 32-55.
[257]Stokes,Second Battle of Moytura, inRev. 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, inRev. 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, inRev. Celt., i. 39-40. In place ofbadb, Dr. Hyde (Lit. Hist. Irl., p. 440) uses the wordvulture.
[264]Hennessy, inRev. Celt., i. 52.
[265]Chief general reference: Sir John Rhŷs,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’sBrut(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 theRed Book of Hergest, a fourteenth-century manuscript), edited by Lady Charlotte Guest, Sir John Rhŷs 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 Rhŷs 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 theBadb(cf. Rhŷs,Celtic Britain, London, 1904, p. 236).
[267]Cf. Rhŷs,Arth. Leg., chap. 1.
[268]Cf. Rhŷs,Arth. Leg., pp. 24, 48. Sir John Rhŷs 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’Égypte Ancienne3(Paris, 1906), Intro., p. 57.
[270]Sommer’s Malory’sMorte D’Arthur, iii. 1.
[271]Rhŷs,Arth. Leg., p. 9.
[272]I am indebted to Professor J. Loth for help with this etymology.
[273]Cf. Rhŷs,Arth. Leg., p. 22.
[274]i. 10; ii. 21b; iii. 70; cf. Rhŷs,Arth. Leg., p. 60.
[275]See Williams’Seint Greal, pp. 278, 304, 341, 617, 634, 658, 671; Rhŷs,Arth. Leg., p. 61.
[276]Cf. Rhŷs,Arth. Leg., pp. 51, 35; and see our study, pp.374-6.
[277]Chevalier de la Charrette(ed. by Tarbé), p. 22;Romania, xii. 467, 515; cf. Rhŷs,Arth. Leg., p. 54.
[278]Romania, xii. 467-8, 473-4; cf. Rhŷs,Arth. Leg., p. 55.
[279]Cf. Tylor,Prim. Cult.,4ii. 93-4.
[280]Romania, xii. 508; cf. Rhŷs,Arth. Leg., p. 54.
[281]Book XIX, c. i.
[282]In theLebar Breccthere 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’sStonehenge 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, 33o, New York, 1869).
[283]Myv. Arch., i. 175. The text itself in this work is said to be copied from theGreen Book—now unknown. Cf. Rhŷs,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 Rhŷs 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. Rhŷs,Arth. Leg., p. 66.
[286]Malory, Book I, c. xxv. One account of Arthur’s swordCaledvwlchorCaleburndescribes it as having been made in the Isle of Avalon (Lady Ch. Guest’sMabinogion, ii. 322 n.; alsoMyv. Arch., ii. 306).
[287]Malory, Book IX, c. xv; Sir John Rhŷs 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-ladyMorgen(Arth. Leg., p. 348).
[288]Merlin explained to Arthur that King Loth’s wife was Arthur’s own sister (Sommer’sMalory, 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. Rhŷs,Arth. Leg., p. 127.
[291]Malory, Book XII, cc. iii-x; Rhŷs,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 ofKulhwch and Olwenand the fairy legend which we found living in South Wales, and now recorded by us on page161, under the title ofEinion 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 theMabinogionstories 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 theTylwyth 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 ofKulhwch and Olwena 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’sMabinogion(London, 1849), ii. 323 n.
[297]Cf. R. H. Fletcher,Arthurian Material in the Chronicles, inHarv. Stud. and Notes in Phil. and Lit., x. 20-1.
[298]Fletcher, ib., x. 29; 26.
[299]Rhŷs,Arth. Leg., p. 7; and Rhŷs,The Welsh People3(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. Bédier’s ed.,Société des anciens textes français(Paris, 1902).
[305]E. Muret’s ed.,Société des anciens textes français(Paris, 1903).
[306]A. C. L. Brown,The Knight and the Lion; also, by same author,Iwain, inHarv. 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, inRev. 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, inHarv. 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 theRomans d’Aventureand theRomans 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, inZeit. für 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]SeeA 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’Épopée celtique en Irlande,Le Cycle Mythologique Irlandais; Kuno Meyer and Alfred Nutt,The Happy Otherworld and the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth. Chief sources: theLeabhar na h-Uidhre(A. D.1100); theBook of Leinster(twelfth century); theLaisof Marie de France (twelfth to thirteenth century); theWhite Book of Rhyderch, Hengwrt Coll. (thirteenth to fourteenth century); theYellow Book of Lecan(fifteenth century); theBook of Lismore(fifteenth century); theBook of Fermoy(fifteenth century); theFour 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. Rhŷs,Arth. Leg., c. xv, andCeltic Folk-Lore, c. vii); and we can be quite sure that if, as some scientists now begin to think (cf. Batella,Pruebas geológicas de la existencia de la Atlántida, inCongreso 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.,4ii. 62, 48, &c.)
[323]White Book of Rhyderch, folio 291a; cf. Rhŷs,Arth. Leg., pp. 268-9.
[324]FromEchtra Condla, in theLeabhar na h-Uidhre. Cf.Le Cycle Myth. Irl., pp. 192-3.
[325]Cf. Eleanor Hull,The Silver Bough in Irish Legend, inFolk-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’sIliad(cf. Tylor,Prim. Cult.,4ii. 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 theLeabhar na h-Uidhreof aboutA. 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, andYellow Book of Lecan, as edited and translated by Stokes, inIrische 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. inIrische 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 HebrewNachash, 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. inTodd Lectures, ser. I. i. 9.
[335]Among the early ecclesiastical manuscripts of the so-calledProphecies. See E. O’Curry,Lectures, p. 383.
[336]Cf. Eleanor Hull, op. cit., pp. 439-40.
[337]Now in three versions based on theL. U.MS. Our version is collated from O’Curry’s translation inAtlantis, i. 362-92, ii. 98-124, as revised by Kuno Meyer,Voy. of Bran, i. 152 ff.; and from Jubainville’s translation inL’Ép. 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 poemTir na nog(Land of Youth), by Michael Comyn, composed or collected about the year 1749. Ed. by Bryan O’Looney, inTrans. 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 theSidhe-world (see p.295).
[341]Cf.Bibliotheca Normannica, iii,Die Lais der Marie de France, pp. 86-112.
[342]Cf. Stokes’s trans., inRev. Celt., ix. 453-95, x. 50-95. Most of the tale comesfromtheL. U.MS.; cf.L’Ép. celt. en Irl., pp. 449-500.
[343]Silva Gadelica, ii. 385-401. The MS. text,Echira Thaidg mheic Chéin, or ‘The Adventure of Cian’s son Teigue’, is found in theBook of Lismore.
[344]Summarized and quoted from translation by R. I. Best, inÉriu, iii. 150-73. The text is found in theBook 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. Rhŷs,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, inIrish 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 theBook of Fermoy. Cf. Stokes’s trans. inRev. Celt., xiv. 59, 49, 53, &c.
[351]J. Loth,L’Émigration bretonne en Armorique(Paris, 1883), pp. 139-40.
[352]Ed. and trans. by W. Stokes, Calcutta, 1866. ThisVisionhas 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, inIdeals 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’sVoyage 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 theAnnals 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,Origène, inDict. de Théologie, 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 Animac. xxxv; cf. trans, inAnte-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 hisApology, 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 hisDe Animaand 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 theApocalypse 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 ofPistis Sophiaand 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 Iaô, 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,Manichéisme, inDict. de Théol., iv. 211-13.
[369]TheRefutation 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) theAskew Codex, vellum, British Museum, London, containing thePistis Sophia(see above, p.361 n.) and extracts from theBooks of the Saviour; (2) theBruce Codex(two MSS.), papyrus, Bodleian Library, Oxford, containing the fragmentaryBook of the Great Logos, an unknown treatise, and fragments; and (3) theAkhmīm Codex(discovered in 1896), papyrus, Egyptian Museum, Berlin, containingThe Gospel of Mary(orApocryphon of John),The Wisdom of Jesus Christ, andThe 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 thePistis 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.)