The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries Part 59

[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 trans.m.u.tation seems to have come about from their sojourn among the Tuatha De Danann, who are eternally young and unfading--a trans.m.u.tation 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 trans.m.u.te 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 trans.m.u.ted 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 G.o.ddess 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 Ba.s.se 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, G.o.ds often declared their will through birds or even took the form of birds; in Christian scriptures the Spirit of G.o.d 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 b.u.t.terfly. 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 G.o.ddess 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 ma.n.u.script), 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 ma.n.u.scripts (Denbigh, 1870); _Iolo Ma.n.u.scripts_, a selection of ancient Welsh ma.n.u.scripts (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 a.s.signed 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 G.o.d, who overshadows and directs his warrior votaries, but who, never descending into the battle, is in this respect comparable with the Irish war-G.o.ddess 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.