Fishes, Flowers, and Fire as Elements and Deities in the Phallic Faiths and Worship Part 4

The Chaldeans had a high veneration for fire, which they accounted a divinity; and in the province of Babylon there was a city consecrated to this usage, which was called the city of Ur, or of Fire.

The Persians also adored G.o.d under the image or representation of fire, because it is fire that gives motion to everything in nature. They had temples which they called "Pyraea," fire temples set apart solely for the preservation of the sacred fire. They are said to have in that empire fires still subsisting which have burnt many thousand years.

The wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.ddess Vesta and of fire, was brought into Italy by aeneas and the other Trojans who landed there; but the Phrygians themselves had received it from the eastern nations. Fire was held in religious veneration among the Gauls; and similar sentiments and practices have prevailed in several countries of America.

The Hebrews kept up the holy fire in the temple. This holy fire descended from heaven, first upon the altar in the tabernacle at the consecration of Aaron and his sons to the priesthood, and afterwards it descended anew on the altar in the temple of Solomon, at the consecration of that temple.

And there it was constantly maintained by the priest day and night, without suffering it ever to go out; and with this all the sacrifices were offered that required fire. This fire, according to some of the Jewish writers, was extinguished in the days of Mana.s.seh; but the more general opinion among them is, that it continued till the destruction of the temple by the Chaldeans; after that it was never more restored; but instead of it, they had only common fire in the second temple.

The part played by fire in the life of a Hindoo is a remarkable one, and shews the immense extent to which this form of wors.h.i.+p has prevailed and still prevails in some countries. In the man's earliest days--in his childhood--at the ceremony called the invest.i.ture of the thread, fire is kindled from the droppings of the sacred cow, sprinkled with holy water and blessed. Then are brought to it various offerings of grain, b.u.t.ter, &c., by the wors.h.i.+ppers who are supplicating blessings, the officiating priest all the while reading pa.s.sages from the sacred books. The child's father and mother pray to Agni (Fire) that its past sins may be forgiven, having been done in ignorance; then they declare him to be of an age to know good and evil--he is between seven and nine. The sacred thread is then, after being duly washed and held over the fire, placed around the child's neck, const.i.tuting him a Brahm Achari--one sworn to practise the laws and behests of Brahm or Almighty G.o.d. Dubois, in Murs des Indes, says--"A pious father will then say privately to his child, 'Remember, my son, there is but one G.o.d, the Sovereign Master and Principle of all things, and every Brahman is bound to wors.h.i.+p him in secret.'"

A fortnight afterwards, a kind of confirmation ceremony takes place, again before the fire, in which the parents promise that they will see that he gets married and leads a good life.

Marriage is the princ.i.p.al feature in a Hindoo's life, and this, as most people know, takes place very early and is attended with many important ceremonies.

Here, again, fire is conspicuous as an object of wors.h.i.+p, the ceremony before it--the G.o.d Agni--being the last and most serious of all. With clothes tied together, bride and bridegroom parade round about the deity casting to him their offerings which now "symbolise," says Forlong, "the sacrifice of all their virgin modesty to the G.o.d, as the emblem of s.e.xual fire." The final oath of mutual love and faith is then taken in an address to the fire, and the pair, who are mere boy and girl, are duly married.

A little further on when the period arrives for cohabitation, the fourth ceremony is then gone through, fire again being adored and sacrifice offered.

In the final scene, when death has taken possession of the body, fire is again called into requisition; it is carried before the corpse by the nearest relatives, and ultimately reduces the inanimate form to its original dust and ashes.

Forlong says--"Fire enters into every duty of a Hindoo's life. Before partaking of his morning meal he utters incantations to Agni, offers to him portions of that meal; and in like manner, before he wears a new cloth or garment, he must take some threads or parts of it and offer these to the same deity."

"It is from the rubbing together of the wood of trees, notably of the three Banian figs--Peepal, Bar, and Gooler, the favourite woods for Phallic images, that holy fire is drawn from heaven, and before all these species do women crave their desires from G.o.d."

"Cave and fire rites are not yet extirpated from Jerusalem, nor, indeed, from any nation of the earth. Christians still rush for sacred fire to the holy cave at the birth of Sol, and men and women strive, in secret nooks, to pa.s.s naked through holy fire."

"Syrians, as well as all other nations, connected the Serpent with Fire.

Thus the Jews had their fire altars, on which the holy flame must be ever burning and never go out; and they carried about a serpent on a pole as their healer. So also the writer of the Acts of the Apostles speaks of the Christian Holy Ghost as having serpent-like 'cloven tongues of fire,'

which the margin of orthodox Bibles very properly connects with Isaiah's Seraphim."

Forlong says:--"I began my study of British ruins about eight years ago (from 1882), during a two-year-furlough, attracted to it at first by my friend the late Sir James Simpson--President of the Society of Antiquaries, Edinburgh--at that time writing and debating much on these matters; and I came then to the same conclusion as I hold to-day; viz.: that the ruins of Armorika, those of Stonehenge, Abury, and various others, known popularly as 'Druid Circles,' are, or originally were, Phallo-Pythic--Solar shrines, or places where all the first five elemental faiths more or less flourished; the first (Tree) very little, and the last (Sun) very abundantly; and if so, then we see the cause why European writers so pugnaciously hold out, some for Sun, some for Fire; one that they are mere places for sacrifices or burial, or for a.s.sembly of rulers, clans, &c.; whilst a few outlying writers hint that the large stones are Lingams, or mere groups of such stones as that of Kerloaz--the Newton stone, &c. Colonel Forbes Leslie, in his 'Ancient Races of Scotland,' has very nearly told us the truth, his long residence and travels in Asia having enabled him almost to pierce the cloud, though he seems at first not to have fully appreciated the ever very close connection between Sun, Fire, Serpent and Lingam faiths, which I believe he does now."

"The European mind having once lost the old ideas of what these words meant, and from having still such objects as Sun, Fire, and Serpent before them, is always thinking of these visible objects, which I might almost say a true Sivaite never recognises _per se_; for in fire the true Phallic wors.h.i.+pper sees no flame, and in the sun no far-out resplendent orb as we know, standing apart, as it were, in s.p.a.ce, and to which we all gravitate; he sees simply a source of fertility, without which the Serpent has no power or pa.s.sion, and in whose absence the animal and vegetable world must cease to exist. The fire here, then, is not that which the real Sivaite sees or cooks by, but Hot or _Holy Fire_, or the 'Holy Spirit,' or the fire of pa.s.sion, which to a certain small extent, and in certain symbolic forms and positions, he recognises in flame, as when raised on a tower, coming out of an obelisk, or rising in a column or pillar over an ark, or smouldering in the secret adytum; for the first impresses him with the Arkite, the second with the Phallic and Arkite, and the third with the purely feminine idea; in all, he merely sees representative male and female energies which are excited and fructified by the Sun, Apollo, or the Sun-Serpent, as in his old coin, where fertility fed by fire feeds the sh.e.l.l. In a column, be it wood, stone, or fire, he sees the Sun-stone, such as the Mudros of Phnicia, the Mindir of Ireland, and obelisk of Egypt; and in the cist, sh.e.l.l, or Akros, the womb, Yoni, or sun-box; in all, the column or Palas, and its Caput-oline."

"Leaping or walking through the fire, so frequently mentioned in Jewish writings in connection with Molek, is still quite common in the less civilised parts of India, being usually done in fulfilment of a vow for blessings desired, or believed to have been conferred by the deity upon the Nazarite or Vower. I have known of it being gone through for recovery from a severe illness, and for success in an expedition or project which the Nazarite had much at heart."

Some say fire should be trod because Drupadi, the mythical wife of the Pandoos, did this, after defilement through the touch of Kichaka, and because Sita proved her purity by fire. Where the British Government can prevent this rite, flowers are thrown into the fire-pit, which seems as if the fire were looked upon as a female energy. Fire-treading is commonly accomplished by digging a deepish narrow pit, and filling it with firewood, and then when the flames are scorching hot, leaping over it; usually the rite begins by first walking closely round the fire, slowly at first, then faster and faster, with occasional leaps into and out of it in the wildest excitement. Mr. Stokes, of the Madras Civil Service, thus describes the rite as it came officially to notice in April, 1873.

In a level place before the village deity, who was Drupadi Ama (Mother D.), a fire-pit, in size 27 by 7-1/2 feet by 9 inches deep, was excavated east and west, and the G.o.ddess set up at the west end. Six Babool or Acacia trees (this being a fiercely burning wood) were cut and thrown in; thirteen persons trod this fire, and one died from the effects. They followed each other, some with tabors, others ringing a bell, and each, after pa.s.sing through the fire, went into a pit filled with water, called the "milk pit." All merely wore a waist cloth, and had their bodies daubed over with sandal. The one who died, fell into the fire, and had to be pulled out. The fire was lit at noon, and "walking it" took place at two p.m., when it had become very bright and hot. The Poojore, or priest of the temple, said it was his duty to walk annually through the fire, and that he had done so for seven or eight years. It was the mother of the dead man who had vowed that if her son recovered from an attack of jaundice she would tread the fire, but the old woman being blind, her son fulfilled the vow. Some said that the dead man himself had vowed thus to the G.o.ddess Drupadi: "Mother, if I recover, I shall tread on your fire."

Death is rarely the result of this practice, but Mr. Stokes adds that a few years ago, a mother and her infant died from the effects.

"On the 29th of June, men, and even babes, had to be pa.s.sed through the fire. 'On this night,' says Dr. Moresin, 'did the Highlanders run about on the mountains and high grounds with lighted torches, like the Cicilian women of old, in search of Proserpine,' and Scotch farmers then used to go round their corn-fields with blazing torches, as was the custom at the Cerealia. The ancient Roman Kalendar states, among other matter, that fires are made on the 23rd; 'Boys dress in girls' clothes; waters are swum in during the night. Water is fetched in vessels and hung up for purposes of divination; fern is esteemed by the vulgar because of the seed...; girls gather thistles, and place a hundred crosses by the same;' for has not the thistle a cap like the lotus, and is it not a trefoil?

"In the 'Englishwoman in Russia,' p. 223, a writer says that 'on midsummer eve a custom still (1855) exists in Russia, among the lower cla.s.ses, that could only be derived from a very remote antiquity, and is perhaps a remnant of the wors.h.i.+p of Baal. A party of peasant women and girls a.s.semble in some retired unfrequented spot, and light a large fire, over which they leap in succession. If by chance one of the other s.e.x should be found near the place, or should have seen them in the act of performing the rite, it is at the imminent hazard of his life, for the women would not scruple to sacrifice him for his temerity.' The writer was a.s.sured that such instances had often been known. Thus this 'Fire-dance' is a very serious matter, and one which under the circ.u.mstances, we can learn very little about: from its secret practice here by women it is clearly connected with Agni, the Procreator or Fertiliser. Our ancestors were inveterate fire-wors.h.i.+ppers, especially at the four great solar festivals.

They thought no cattle safe unless pa.s.sed through the May Day and Midsummer Beltine fires, and no person would suffer a fire within their parish which had not been then kindled afresh from the Tin-Egin, or sacred fire produced by friction."

The Medes were undoubtedly wors.h.i.+ppers of Fire, "as the most subtle, ethereal, incomprehensible, and powerful agent. They were averse to all temples or personification of the material things, or of Ormazd. Like our Pa.r.s.ee fellow-subjects, they never allowed their hearth-fires to be extinguished, nor would they even blow out any ordinary fire or candle; in the Magian days, he who did so forfeited his life."

"We still see the remains--some very perfect--of the lone Fire-towers, which Greeks called _Puraitheia_, amidst the lofty hills of Armenia, Azerbijan, Koordistan and Looristan, some of which were Dakmas, or 'Towers of Silence,' having gratings for roofs, through which the bones fell when the body was destroyed. The Fire-G.o.d was called _At-Ar_."

The Sabines were, perhaps, more nearly related to our ancestors than is generally thought; at least we may believe so from the Sabine and Gaelic languages having more affinity even than the Welsh and Irish, and from other evidence. Dr. Leatham, in his work on _Descriptive Ethnology_, says that 'much of the blood of the Romans was Keltic, and so is much of the Latin language,' and a study of the movements of ancient peoples will show how this is so. Like the Skyths, these old Sabines were devoted to all the wors.h.i.+p of Sivaites, and particularly of Mars' symbol, the Quiris or Spear, after which we still call their greatest fete Quirinalia, and their Mount Zion, the Quirinal. The wors.h.i.+p of the _Quiris_ has not yet ceased in high Asia, nor, I believe, in America. It was prominent on the summits of all the Skythian bonfire piles and mounds at which these Aryan fathers wors.h.i.+pped, and is connected with most rites. We also see it on numerous sculpturings which have been unearthed from the ruins of the Skuti, or Kelts of Ireland and Scotland--much to the perplexity of local antiquaries. Hue, in his 'Travels in Tartary,' gives us these Phalli as existing all over the immense extent of country he traversed, including Northern China, Mongolia, Thibet. Spears are, however, too valuable to be left sticking in 'these _Obos_,' as he calls them, and therefore 'dried branches of trees' are subst.i.tuted in very good imitation of spears.

"We have abundant proof that Fire was never neglected by ancient Christians, either on tomb or altar. In a letter from Rome, we find that in front of the Cubiculum, or square tomb of Cornelius the martyr, is a short pillar supporting an ever-burning lamp of oil; and when this custom of never-dying flame--alike common to all faiths--was revived in the third century A.C., we read that the Popes used to send to kings and queens a few drops of the oil from this lamp of the tomb of Cornelius. (See Cor.--Ill. Lon. News, 3-72.) Nor need we be astonished at this, seeing that Vesta's shrine still flourished and received Papal attention, and that in every corner of the world Fire-faith existed. To this day none may neglect the rites of this faith in Syria--cradle of the G.o.d, as the poor Turkish Bey of Antioch and his son found to their cost, when, after the earthquake of April 3rd, 1872, they and their officers kindly, reverently and wisely buried the Christian dead, but without the fire-symbols and bell-ringing (which they failed to understand), thereby greatly offending a powerful sect of Antioch, called the Dusars, who, still clearly wors.h.i.+pping Baal and Astaroth, rose upon the poor Turks and smote them hip and thigh."

"In the county of Kildare, Ireland, 'everlasting fire' was preserved by 'holy virgins--called _Ingheaw Andagha_, or _daughters of fire_,' down to the time of the Reformation. These were often the first ladies of the land, and never other than those of gentle birth."

"No blessing can be asked or granted from the altar of any Catholic Church until the candles are lighted. If a woman when pregnant desires to be blessed by the Christian Church, she is instructed 'to wait on her knees, at the door of the church, with a lighted taper in her hand,' nor can any cross be blessed until three tapers are lighted by the 'man of G.o.d,' had placed at its base. See Picart II., 117, where he gives some graphic plates of Christian Phallo-solar-fire rites.

"In Goodwin's _Civil and Ecclesiastical Rites_, under the head of _Feasts of the Expiation_, which we have reason to believe was at one time a period of human sacrifice, we have the great Winter-Christmas Saturnalia, or Juvenalia Festival of Lights and Fires described, when not only the temples of Jews and Christians, but every house had to be carefully lighted. Jews taught that the lights must be held in the left hand, and the holder must 'walk between two commandments,' which seems to denote the climatic or solar turn of the year. This old writer tells us that it was 'woman's peculiar province to light their lamps;' and that 'there are certain prayers appropriated to this festival, and among the rest _one in praise of G.o.d, who hath ordained the lighting up of lamps upon Solemn Days_.' Here we see a close resemblance between the faith of the Jew and the Islami, whose wives are enjoined personally to see to the lighting of the household lamps on Venus' Eve. Jerusalem, we know, acknowledges the G.o.d of Agni to the present hour, by annually giving out that holy Fire descends from heaven at a stated season into the dark Adyta of the Sacred Shrine; all old fires must be extinguished at this the season of Sol's renewed vigour, so when the priest emerges from the adytum with the new fire in his hand (and Christian priests have often done this, if they do not do so still), crowds of every hue and creed rush towards him, light their tapers, and bear away the new fire to their homes."

Referring to the Temple of Vesta mentioned by Davies, Forlong says--"Now, what was this Temple of Vesta? In its rites and surroundings, its duties social and political, it was one with the temples still existing in Asia devoted to Phallic and Fire-wors.h.i.+p combined, or perhaps I should say a temple to Phallic wors.h.i.+p only, but the cult in the dawn of brighter faiths was somewhat hid away by the priests in the darkest recesses of their temples, and not well-known by many of the wors.h.i.+ppers, and scarcely at all by European writers even of the middle ages. Any student of Delphic lore and of Eastern travel, however, will recognise at once in Delphi's Oracle and Vesta's Temple, 'The Old Faith' and its priestess wors.h.i.+ppers, although the writer in Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities does not appear to do so. He describes Vesta's as merely a Fire-temple, and says that there were six Vestales or Virgin Priestesses to watch the eternal Fire which blazed everlastingly on the altar of the G.o.ddess. On the Pope has descended the name of their superior as 'Pontifex Maximus.' If by any negligence or misfortune the Fire went out, the Pontifex Maximus scourged the erring vestal virgin, for had not she--a woman--permitted the procreative energy of the G.o.d to forsake mankind?"

"Dr. George Petrie, who in 1845 still combatted, but without force, the pre-Christian idea of Irish Towers, acknowledges signs of a very strong and all-prevailing Fire Wors.h.i.+p in Ireland. This he sees in Bel or Bil-tene--'the goodly fire,' in which Bel, the sun in Ireland, as of old in Babylon, was the great purifier. The Druids, he says, used to wors.h.i.+p in presence of two fires, and make cattle walk between them to keep off evil. Even in Dublin we have still May-fires, and those of St. John's Eve; and an old ma.n.u.script of Trinity College tells us that 'Bel was the name of an idol at whose festival (Bel-tine) a couple of all cattle were exhibited as in his possession,' which I conclude means--fixed by his rays. The name of this feast in Scotland was Egin-Tin, in which we can recognise Agin, Ag, or Agni-fire, and the fire-G.o.d of all Asia. In the island of Skye--says Dr. Martin, quoted by Petrie, page x.x.xviii.--the Tin Egin was a forced fire or fire of necessity which cured the plague and murrain amongst cattle. All the fires in the parish were extinguished, and eighty-one married men (a multiple of the mystic number nine) being thought the necessary number for effecting this design took two great planks of wood, and nine of them were employed by turns, who, by their repeated efforts, rubbed one of the planks against the other until the heat thereof produced fire, and from this forced fire each family is supplied with new fire.

"This is the true 'fire which falls from heaven,' and it must still be so produced at the temples of all fire-wors.h.i.+pping races, and at the hearths of the Guebre or Pa.r.s.ees, as it was in this remote Isle of Skye.

"I must now make a few general observations upon the marked Phallo-Fire Wors.h.i.+p of the Greeks and Romans, too commonly called 'Fire and Ancestor Wors.h.i.+p,' it not being perceived that the ancestor came to be honoured and wors.h.i.+pped only as the _Generator_, and so also the Serpent, as his symbol.

"The 'Signs' or Nishans of the generating parents, that is the Lares and Penates, were placed in the family niches close to the holy flame--that 'hot air,' 'holy spirit,' or 'breath'--the active force of the Hebrew BRA, and the Egyptian P'ta--the engenderer of the heavens and earth, before which ignorant and superst.i.tious races prayed and prostrated themselves, just as they do to-day before very similar symbols.

"The Greeks and Romans watched over their fires as do our Pa.r.s.ees or Zoroastrians. The males of the family had to see that the holy flame never went out, but in the absence of the head, and practically at all times, this sacred duty devolved on the matron of the house. Every evening the sacred fire was carefully covered with ashes so that it might not go out by oversight, but quietly smoulder on; and in the early morning the ashes were removed, when it was brightened up and wors.h.i.+pped. In March or early spring it was allowed to die out, but not before the New Year's Fire had been kindled from Sol's rays and placed in the sanctuary. No unclean object was allowed to come near Agni; none durst even warm themselves near him; nor could any blameworthy action take place in his presence. He was only approached for adoration or prayer; not as fire, which he was not, but as _s.e.xual flame_ or _life_. Prayers were offered to him similar to those Christians use; and with most he held just such a mediatorial office as Christ does. The Almighty was addressed through him, and he was asked for health, happiness wisdom and foresight; guidance in prosperity and comfort in adversity, long life, off-spring, and all manly and womanly qualifications. His followers were taught that it was the most heinous sin to approach him with unclean hearts or hands, and were encouraged to come to him at all times for repentance and sanctification.

"Before leaving the house, prayer had to be made to the sacred fire; and on returning, the father must do so even before embracing his wife and children. Thus Agamemnon acted, we are told, on his return from Troy.

Sacrifices, libations, wine, oil and victims were regularly offered to the Fire, and as the G.o.d brightened up under the oils, all exulted and fell down before him. They believed that he ate and drank, and with more reason than the Jew said this of his Jehovah and El-Shadai. Above all, it was necessary to offer food and wine to him; to ask a blessing before every meal, and return thanks when it was over. From Ovid and Horace we see it was thought pious and proper to sup in presence of the sacred flame, and to make oblations to it. There was no difference between Romans, Greeks, and Hindoos in these respects, except that Soma wine in India took the place of the grape of cooler lands. All alike besought Agni by fervent prayers for increase of flocks and families, for happy lives and serene old age, for wisdom and pardon of sin. We see the great antiquity of this faith in the well-known fact, that even when the early Greeks were sacrificing to Zeus and Athene at Olympia, they always first invoked Agni, precisely as had been ordered in the Vedas some 2,000 years B.C., and probably as he had been invoked many thousands of years before the art of writing was known."

CHAPTER VI.

_Fire-wors.h.i.+p in the States of the Mediterranean--Special Sacredness of the public City-fire of Greece and Rome--The sacred Fire of Tlachtga--Ceylon Fire-wors.h.i.+p--The Pa.r.s.ees--Persian Monuments--Impiety of Cambyses--Cingalese Terms, Sanscrit, Welsh, &c.--The Yule-log-- Fire-wors.h.i.+p in England--The Fire of Beltane--Druidical Fires--May-day Fires--November Fires in Ireland--Between Two Fires--Scotland--The Summer Solstice and Fire Ceremonies--Wors.h.i.+p of Baal in Ireland--St.

John's Day--Bonfires--Decree of Council of Constantinople._

"All the states of the Mediterranean and Persia had, like India, baptismal forms connected with Fire. With the Greeks and Romans the baptismal ceremony took place between the ninth and twelfth days of birth, and generally commenced by women seizing the infant and running round, or das.h.i.+ng through the fire with it. So also at marriages, fire was the active and 'covenant G.o.d.' No account was taken of a bride's faith; to marry was to embrace the husband's religion, to be to him _in filiae loco_, and to break entirely with her own family; nay, marriage was for long entered into with a show of violence, as if to demonstrate the separation.

It certainly reminds one of early times when men thus obtained their wives. The princ.i.p.al part of the marriage ceremony was to bring the bride before her husband's hearth, anoint her with holy water, and make her touch the sacred fire; after which she broke bread or ate a cake with him.

Fire was also the G.o.d who witnessed the separation of husband and wife, which, if there were offspring, was a rare and difficult act; but if the couple were childless, divorce was an easy matter."

"No stranger dared appear before the city-fire either in Greece or Rome, indeed the _mere look_ of a person foreign to the wors.h.i.+p would profane a sacred act, and disturb the auspices. The very name of strangers was _hostis_, or enemy to the G.o.ds. When the Roman Pontiff had to sacrifice out-of-doors, he veiled his face so that the chance sight of strangers might be thus atoned for to the G.o.ds, who were supposed to dislike foreigners so much, that the most laborious ceremonies were undertaken if any of these pa.s.sed near, not to say handled any holy object. Every sacred fire had to be re-lit if a stranger entered a temple; and so in India, every sacred place must be carefully purified if a foreigner (ruler and highly respected though he may be) pa.s.s too close to a Hindoo shrine. I have seen Government servants under me, and Sepoys, who meant no disrespect, throw away the whole of a day's food, and dig up the little fire-places they had prepared before cooking and eating, because, by accident or oversight, my shadow had pa.s.sed over it; though sometimes, if there were no onlookers, this extreme measure was not carried out, partly out of regard for me."

Dr. Keating, in his "History of Ireland," speaks of the royal seat of Tlachtga, where the Fire Tlachtga was ordained to be kindled. He says:--"The use of this sacred fire was to summon the Priests, the Augurs, and Druids of Ireland to repair thither and a.s.semble upon the Eve of All Saints, in order to consume the sacrifices that were offered to their Pagan G.o.ds; and it was established under the penalty of a great fine, that no other fire should be kindled upon that night throughout the kingdom; so that the fire that was to be used in the country, was to be derived from this holy fire; for which privilege the people were to pay a _Scraball_, which amounts to threepence every year as an acknowledgment to the King of Munster, because the palace of Tlachtga, where this fire burned, was the proportion taken from the province of Munster, and added to the country of Meath.

"The second royal palace that was erected was in the proportion taken from the province of Conacht, and here was a general convocation a.s.sembled of all the inhabitants of the kingdom that were able to appear, which was called the Convocation of Visneach, and kept upon the first day of May, where they offered sacrifices to the princ.i.p.al deity in the island, whom they adored under the name of Beul. Upon this occasion they were used to kindle two fires in every territory in the kingdom, in honour of this pagan G.o.d. It was a solemn ceremony at this time to drive a number of cattle of every kind between these fires; this was conceived to be an antidote and a preservation against the murrain, or any other pestilential distemper among cattle for the year following; and from these fires that were made in wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.d Beul, the day upon which the Christian festival of St. Philip and St. James is observed, is called in the Irish language Beul-tinne. The derivation of the word is thus: La in Irish signifies a day, Beul is the name of the pagan deity, and Teinne is the same with fire in the English, which words, when they are p.r.o.nounced together, sound La Beultinne."

Leslie in his "Early Races of Scotland," says: "From Dondera Head in Ceylon to the Himalaya Mountains, and from the borders of China to the extremities of Western Europe and its islands, we find clear evidence of the former prevalence of the earliest form of false wors.h.i.+p, viz., the adoration of light, the sun, and 'the whole host of heaven.' In the Rajpoot state of Marwar, in its capital Udayayoor, 'The City of the Rising Sun!' the precedence of Surya, the sun G.o.d, is still maintained. The sacred standard of the country bears his image, and the Raja, claiming to be his descendant, appears as his representative."

"In a complicated form the Pa.r.s.ees of British India still retain that wors.h.i.+p of light, symbolised in the sun and fire, for which they became exiles when their faith was proscribed in the land of their ancestors."

Leslie quotes various authors and travellers who had personally witnessed the remains of many of these altars. "Chardin," he says, "in his travels in Media in the end of the seventeenth century describes circles of large stones that must have been brought a distance of six leagues to the place where he observed them. The tradition regarding these circles was, that councils were there held, each member of the a.s.sembly being seated on a separate stone."[23]