The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries Part 58

[187] Bergier, _Dict. de Theol._ (Paris, 1848), ii. 541-2, &c.

[188] W. Stokes, _Tripart.i.te 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 pa.s.sage, and for having pointed out its probable significance in relation to druidical practices.

[190] Ad.a.m.nan, _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, _Tripart.i.te Life_, pp. clx.x.x, 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. G.o.descard, _Vies des Saints_ (Paris, 1835), xiii. 254-66.

[196] _De Incarnatione Verbi_ (ed. Ben.), i. 88; cf. G.o.descard, op.

cit., xiii. 254-66.

[197] G.o.descard, _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, _Tripart.i.te 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} _pa.s.sim_.

[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 ma.n.u.scripts, 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 flouris.h.i.+ng 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 G.o.ddess 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 Ma.s.s and p.r.o.nouncing benediction 'on the rath in which Finn Mac c.u.mall (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 ma.n.u.scripts.

[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 Ma.n.u.script 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.