Celtic Mythology. John Arnott MacCulloch
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of saints.
Several references suggest that the gods punished the taking of things dedicated to themselves, and therefore tabu to men. Caesar says that this was a criminal action punished by torture and death,15 and Irish myth also discloses the disastrous results of breach of tabu. The awe of the priest of the grove is paralleled by incidents of Celtic history. After the battle of Allia in 390 b. c, where the Celts saw divine aid in the flight of the Romans and stood awestruck before it, they were afraid of the night.16 After the battle of Delphi (279 b. c.) "madness from a god" fell on them at night, and they attacked each other, no longer recognizing each other's speech.17 Another fear based on a myth is referred to in Classical sources, that of the future cataclysm. The Celts did not dread earthquakes or high tides, which, indeed, they attacked with weapons; but they feared the fall of the sky and the day when fire and water must prevail. An Irish vow perhaps refers to this: something would be done if the sky with its showers of stars did not fall or the earth burst or the sea submerge the world. Any untoward event might be construed as the coming of this catastrophe or analogous to it. How, then, was the sky meanwhile supported.^ Perhaps on mountain-peaks like that near the source of the Rhone, which the native population called "the column of the sun," and which was so lofty that it hid the northern sun from the southern folk.18 Gaidoz says that "the belief that the earth rests on columns is the sole débris of ancient cosmogony of which we know in Irish legends, but we have only the reflexion of it in a hymn and gloss of the Liber Hymnorum. In vaunting the pre-eminence of two saints who were like great gods of old Christian Ireland, Ultán says of Brigit that she was 'half of the colonnade of the kingdom (of the world) with Patrick the eminent.' The gloss is more explicit—'as there are two pillars in the world, so are Brigit and Patrick in Ireland.'"19 In some of the romantic Irish voyages islands are seen resting on pillars, and an echo of these myths is found in the Breton tradition that the church at Kernitou stands on four columns, resting on a congealed sea which will submerge the structure when it becomes liquid.20
Divine help is often referred to in Irish myths, and a parallel instance occurs in Justin's allusion to the guidance of the Segovesi by birds to the Danubian regions which they conquered.21 Such myths are depicted on coins, on which a horse appears led by a bird, which sometimes whispers in its ear. Heroes were also inspired by birds to found towns. Birds were objects of worship and divination with the Celts, and divinities transformed themselves into the shape of birds, or birds formed their symbols.
The birth of heroes from a god and a human mother occurs in Irish myth. One Classical parallel to this is found in the account of the origin of the northern Gauls given by Diodorus. They were descended from Hercules and the beautiful giant daughter of the King of Celtica, and hence they were taller and handsomer than other peoples.22 This is perhaps the Greek version of a native myth, which is echoed in the Irish tale of the gigantic daughter of the king of Maidens' Land and her love for Fionn.23 Again, when Diodorus speaks of Hercules assembling his followers, advancing into Celtica, improving the laws, and founding a city called Alesia, honoured ever since by the Celts as the centre of their kingdom, he is probably giving a native myth in terms of Greek mythology.24 Some native god or hero was concerned, and his story fitted that of Hercules, who became popular with the Celts.
The Celts had beliefs resembling those of the Greeks and Romans about incubi. Demons called dusii sought the couches of women out of lust, a belief reported by sub-Classical authors. The Classical evidence for Celtic belief in divine descent is also furnished by the form of several proper names which have been recorded, while lineage from a river or river-god is associated with the Belgic Viridomar.25
A legend reported by Pliny concerns some natural product, perhaps a fossil echinus, in explanation of the origin of which this myth was current, or to it an existing serpent-myth had been attached. Numerous serpents collected on a day in summer and, intertwining, formed a ball with the foam from their bodies, after which their united hissings threw it into the air. According to the Druids, he who would obtain it must catch it on a mantle before it touched the ground and must escape hastily, putting running water between himself and the pursuing serpents. The ball was used magically.26
Classical observers cite vaguely some myths about the otherworld and they admired profoundly the Celtic belief in immortality, which, if Lucan's words are correct, was that of the soul animating a new body there. Diodorus also affirms this, though he compares it with the Pythagorean doctrine of transmigration;27 yet in the same passage he shows that the dead passed to another world and were not reborn on earth. Irish mythology tells us nothing about the world of the dead, though it has much to say of a gods' land or Elysium, to which the living were sometimes invited by immortals. This Elysium was in distant islands, in the hollow hills, or under the waters. Plutarch, on the authority of Demetrius, who may have been a Roman functionary in Britain, reports that round Britain are many desert islands, named after gods and heroes. Demetrius himself visited one island lying nearest these, inhabited by a people whom the Britons regarded as sacred, and while he was there, a storm arose with fiery bolts falling. This the people explained as the passing away of one of the mighty, for when a
PLATE III Gaulish Coins
1. Coin of the Senones, showing on one side two animals opposed, and on the reverse a boar and a wolf (?) opposed (cf. Plates II, 11, XXIV).
2. Gaulish coin, with man-headed horse and bird, and, below, a bull ensign (cf. Plates II, 3–5, 9, IX, B, XIX, I, 6, XX, B, XXI).
3. Coin of the Remi, showing squatting divinity with a torque in the right hand (cf. Plates VIII, IX, XXV), and on the reverse a boar and S-symbol or snake.
4. Armorican coin, with horse and bird.
5. Coin of the Carnutes, with bull and bird.
6. Gaulish coin from Greek model, with boar.
7. Gaulish coin of the Senones, with animals opposed.
great soul died, the atmosphere was affected and pestilences were caused. Demetrius does not say whither the soul went, either to the islands or elsewhere, but islands named after gods and heroes suggest the Irish divine Elysium, and this is confirmed by what Demetrius adds, and by what Plutarch reports in another work. On one of the islands Kronos is imprisoned, and Briareos keeps guard over him,28 along with many deities (δαίμονας) who are his attendants and servants. What Celtic divinities or heroes lurk under these names is unknown, but the myth resembles traditions of Arthur in Avalon (Elysium), or of Fionn or Arthur sleeping in a hollow hill, waiting to start up at the hour of their country's need. Elsewhere Plutarch speaks of an island in which the barbarians say that Kronos is imprisoned by Jupiter in a cavern. There Kronos sleeps, fed by birds with ambrosia, while his son lies beside him as if guarding him. The surrounding sea, clogged with earth, appears to be solid, and people go to the island, where they spend thirteen years waiting on the god. Many remain, because there is no toil or trouble there, and devote their time to sacrificing, singing hymns, or studying legends and philosophy. The climate is exquisite, and the island is steeped in fragrance. Sometimes the god opposes their departure by appearing to them along with those who minister to him, and these divine ministrants themselves prophesy or tell things which have been revealed to them as dreams of Saturn when they visit his cave. Plutarch's alleged informant had waited on the god and studied astrology and geometry, and before going to another island he carried with him golden cups.29 In this latter story the supposed studies and ritual of the Druids are mingled with some distorted tradition of Elysium, and the reference to cups of gold carried from the island perhaps points to the myth of things useful to man brought from the land of the gods.30
The sixth century Byzantine historian Procopius has a curious story about the island of "Brittia," which was divided by a wall from north to south. West of the wall none could live, so foul was the air, so many the vipers and evil beasts; but in its inhabited part dwelt Angles, Frisians, and Britons. The island lay between Britannia and Thule. Thule is probably Scandinavia; Britannia, which is, strictly speaking, Britain, is confused with the region lying between Brittany and